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Bigger Life Radio Episode 1: Interview With Brian Johnson (Part 1)
In this, my inaugural episode of Bigger Life Radio, I speak with Brian Johnson. Brian is the Chief Philosopher of PhilosophersNotes and one of my new favorite people. He’s a wealth of information on many subjects, including optimal living and conscious business. In this episode, which runs about 30 minutes, we talk about the following:
Marketing That Makes a Difference: Brian Johnson and PhilosophersNotes
Link to the site: http://tv.philosophersnotes.com/
Correction: In the video, I say “you get a hundred books” when you buy the PhilosophersNotes program. That’s actually not the case and not what I meant to say, so be sure to read their website for the actual details of what you get.
Are You a Perfectionist? If So, Watch This. Marketing That Makes a Difference.
Worried about failure. Don’t be.
This is a Nike commercial, and a great example of marketing that makes a difference.
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s why I succeed.”
- Michael Jordan -
How to Create Those Cool, Little Pull-Quotes on Your WordPress Blog or Website
This is a pull-quote. Follow this brief tutorial, and learn how to do it yourself. It’ll make you happy.
Pull-quotes are often used in magazines and other print publications to emphasize or draw attention to something specific within the body of an article.
I recently started using them here on Bigger Life Marketing. Besides adding emphasis, I like the way it breaks up the article and gives it some added pizzazz. A client asked me how to do this, so I thought I’d turn it into a short tutorial. It’s relatively easy to do.
Things I Wish I’d Said About Marketing: Bob Gilbreath
“I believe there has never been a better time to start a business than the present. Large companies’ advantages in mass scale are falling away as people become more interested in niche products and meaningful brands – and marketing is as simple as telling your story on a blog, tweet, or Facebook page. The future of business might look like millions of passionate owners connecting with a handful of customers by adding value through products, services, and marketing.” – Bob Gilbreath, Marketing Lessons from an Oil-Change Business
How Content Marketing Helps You Make a Difference and Make a Profit
“I believe Marketing with Meaning is less about ‘context’ – or finding the best time to get in front of a consumer’s eyeballs – and more about ‘content’ or creating something that people find valuable in itself.” – Bob Gilbreath, Marketing With Meaning
Over three years ago, when I still owned Solostream, I wrote and published a tutorial on how to install WordPress. I also did a video version of the tutorial for folks who learn better through video.
When I first published the tutorial, I did so mainly because I thought it would be a valuable resource for new WordPress users. I thought it would make it easier for them to get their WordPress site up and running with as little fuss as possible. Sure, I also hoped it would provide at least some value to Solostream in the form of backlinks and goodwill, but little did I know then just how much value it would actually provide.
Today, that one article alone attracts about 2500 visitors to the Solostream site each month, and that number is steadily increasing. Folks find the tutorial either via backlinks from other sites or – more often – through a simple Google search.
Monday Morning Masters: My Top 10 Nuggets of Web Wisdom from the Week that Was
1. Charlie Gilkey in Aligning Strategy and Compassion:
“As I see it, the point of entrepreneurship is to help people. At its core, it’s inherently compassionate, and the more I grow and see, the more it drives home to me that an entrepreneur’s ventures aren’t about her – they’re about the people she’s helping.
“At the same time, to be an entrepreneur, you have to know strategy. You have to know how to market and promote yourself. You have to learn about pricing, market trends, distribution methods, and competitive analysis. In short, you have to know what works if you want to do it for the long haul.”
2. Marie Forleo in Pre-Launch Lessons Learned: Q&A With Marie Forleo by Dave Navarro:
“My ideal clients don’t need to be sold. They know who I am from my book, videos, interviews, newsletters and social media. They just want me to tell them what’s up, why I’m doing what I’m doing, what’s included, how much it costs and basically – help them see if my program is really a good fit. Plus, I hate ‘formulas’ and ‘blueprints’ so just being straight up works way better for me.”
How Well Do You Know Yourself?
“We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other peoples’ models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open.” – Shakti Gawain
Most marketing gurus will tell you how important it is to know your market, and I completely agree. You need to have a thorough understanding of the wants, needs, desires and problems of those you serve. Without that information, how can you hope to make a difference in their life?
Further, no matter what type of product, service or information you offer, the bottom line is you are compensated in direct proportion to the amount of value you provide to your market, so you’d better know what your market finds valuable.
But here’s something the marketing gurus often overlook. It’s also important to know yourself. You may wonder why I say that, and to explain it, I’ll use myself as an example.
Monday Morning Masters: 14 Bites of Blogging Brilliance to Nourish the Blogger’s Soul
If you want to be great at something, it helps to study those who are already great it. I’ve read a lot of informative and inspiring stuff over the past week, and it only makes sense to share some of the it. May it be as inspiring and informative to you as it is to me.
I plan to make this a weekly series, so if you have some bites of brilliance you’d like to contribute, feel feel to leave a comment or hit my contact page.
Brian Clark: You Must Respect My Authority:
“Good blogging creates authority, plain and simple. Writing consistently about your area of expertise makes you an authority figure within your industry and niche. You will enjoy a definitive advantage over competitors who do not blog, and likely even over those who have been blogging for shorter time periods.”
How to Work Less & Make a Bigger Impact; Abe Lincoln Style
On November 19th, 1863, the great American president, Abraham Lincoln, stood before a group of citizens assembled in a small, southern Pennsylvania field.
With his country deeply entrenched in the brutal and bloody Civil War, Lincoln gazed out at the traumatized, war-torn faces gathered before him and delivered a brief statement composed of no more than 300 words.
Clocking in at just under three minutes in length, Lincoln’s remarks paled in comparison to the two-hour, 13,700 word oration completed just minutes before by Edward Everett, a well-known and highly regarded politician of the times.
Chances are, unless you’re a student of American history, you’ve not heard of Edward Everett before this moment. Nor do you have a clue about the content of his speech that day.
However, you’d be hard pressed to find a single American citizen who’s never heard of Abraham Lincoln or this brief, but historic speech, which he delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Despite it’s brevity, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is regarded as one of the most famous speeches in American history. His words not only helped to re-unite a nation ripped apart by civil war, but they also now serve as a cornerstone of American government and democracy.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
As for the two-hour long speech of Edward Everett, although originally intended to be the actual “Gettysburg Address,” it seems his words merely drifted away on the gentle breeze of that cool, November day. Irony aside, when you imagine the amount of work likely needed to compose and prepare for a lengthy presentation like Everett’s, the inequity is palpable.
Still, there are lessons to be learned here. How is it that one person can work for hours, days or weeks on a project and achieve little impact, while another can – seemingly – invest a fraction of the effort and produce results that change the course of history? Here’s how Abe did it.
Hi there. I'm Michael Pollock. I inspire and teach creative entrepreneurs how to use the Web to make a difference in the world, make more money and live a bigger life ... 
