the entrepreneurs radio show 026 tommy walker

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S RADIO SHOW

Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs that Grow Your Business

Copyright © 2012, 2013 The Entrepreneur‟s Radio Show of 17

EPISODE #26: TOMMY WALKER

Tommy Walker

Travis: Hey, it‟s Travis Lane Jenkins, and my co host and good buddy is not with us today, Sandra

Champlain. Sandra I know you are probably listening. We miss you. We would like for you to get back

to us as soon as possible. Listen, welcome to a new episode of Diamonds In Your Own Backyard.

Today we are talking about online marketing, which is a vague term to most people, and how it relates

to your business. I think it‟s a vague term because it means so many different things. We are also going

to talk about why so many businesses have a problem finding success online, and then how to get

results online for your business faster, and lots more.

So before I introduce you to our guest, I have a favour to ask you. If you enjoy this free podcast we

create for you. Just go to iTunes and post a comment and rate the show and let us know what we‟re

doing matters to you. This would be a big help for us in reaching as many entrepreneurs as possible,

and helping them to get started or help existing business owners take it to the next level. So I‟d really

appreciate if you took the time to do that.

Now with each and every show, our objective is to give you a seat right next to us, just as if we are

seating at the table. Four of us talking on the table. So you are part of a conversation with some of the

brightest entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the world, and that is not an understatement. People

who have found success themselves and want to help you by sharing what they know. Everyone that

we‟ve talked to has found success doing what they teach. This has been for me one of my frustrations

and my journey as an entrepreneur is there‟s a large number of people teaching things that they don‟t

do in their own business, or they are giving critically important advice to you and your business and

they are not qualified to give that advice, and that drives me nuts. So, it has taken me years and lots of

money to get the access at this level to this quality of people, and now you‟re sitting right here beside

us in this conversation and taken this journey with us. Let me tell you a little bit about our guest today,

his name is Tommy Walker. Tommy specializes in Social Media Marketing, Search Engine

Optimization, Video Optimization, User experience, PPC and a lot more confusing names or confusing

acronyms SEO, PPC, SEM. Basically he is a brilliant guy. He helps businesses find success online as a

marketing strategist. So, without further ado welcome to the show Tommy.

Tommy: Thank you for having me, that‟s a wonderful introduction by the way.

Travis: Yeah, do you feel special?

Tommy: I do. I feel very special.




Travis: Alright. Tommy, one of the things, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you in the show is I

watched several of your videos and I really liked the angle that you take on things. You take a little

humour and apply it to the video so that it‟s not a boring, talking HD. I think that is the vernacular that

you use to describe it. So many people are so serious and they try to illustrate on a board and it‟s tough

to watch. So I have really enjoyed the education and the element of fun that you bring to things. How

did you get started in that direction that just takes on things?

Tommy: Sure, so for the longest time, for about 10 years I trained to be a career actor and I graduated

from the New York Conservatory for Film and Television back in 2003. So, in my blood at this point it

was really just ingrained into my system. Entertainment, being entertaining, being engaging. I was

stage actor for a long time. I did movies. I have done animation, voice over type sitcoms, and a lot of

my training when I went to school was really solidified in that. After I graduated from college though I

had come back home and ended having a job at the gas station from there landed a job into an SEO

department for the 4th largest connoisseur retail company and ended up in the marketing department

over there. I fell in love in the idea of online marketing. We started with SEO and it was link building

type stuff then. But what had occurred to me while I was there and something that I was consummate

and refining as I go through my entire career - is a lot of what we perceive on our computer screens is

not much different than the way we perceive things through the television screen. For example, we

talked to a lot of branding experts, people who talk about what‟s your brand identity, what‟s your logo,

all this type of stuff and the reality is a brand is nothing more than a living, breathing character.

Especially with things like social media taking such a huge step forward. It‟s really the next generation

of the web. Having a character behind the business is something that is very, very important. If you‟re

going to have that sort of two way dialogue and create those relationships with people that turn into the

brand evangelists. People who want to, people who are doing the constant marketing for you that‟s

what everybody is looking for when they start viewing you online.

Travis: Like word of mouth or something.

Tommy: Yeah, word of mouth. Yeah absolutely, everybody wants that word of mouth, that virtual word

of mouth, I want my customers to advertise my business for me. That‟s what we all want. Then I kind of

got into videos. After a few years of being the marketer or so, only the marketer or so, on my own blog

and my own website, I decided that I didn‟t want to do that anymore. I want to really be myself and I

was really afraid to do that too, because a big part of myself is doing the entertaining stuff, and because

the online marketing state hasn‟t seen that yet, I was really nervous of putting that out.

Travis: Hey, let me stop you there Tommy. Because you are saying a lot of great things here and I

want to savour and make sure that we are digesting them. So, number 1. You come across great on

the videos, if you don‟t know that, and it‟s enjoyable. I am not saying that just to be nice, but one of the

things that I want to get a deeper understanding before you share some of your brilliance on your




strategies in marketing, is, how did you go from acting? Is it something that you experience, a failure or

how did you make that transition?

Tommy: Sure. So after I graduated college, I have done the same thing that everybody does. I‟m going

to go home and I‟m going to make money and after I save a certain amount of money, I‟m going to start

pursuing my dreams. What ended up happening was I worked at the gas station. There was somebody

who came into the gas station, one of my customers really like my personality just as a person. Even as

a gas station guy, I need a point to be friendly, ready to be personable, or have people‟s order ready for

them. Like if certain people have a certain pack of cigarettes for example, I make sure that I had that for

them, because that‟s the only way to really enjoy that job. For 8 weeks at the gas station work is

terrible. If you think about it everybody in the world also needs gas. So my thought was if I‟m going to

see all sorts of different people come through this place I might as well be the best version of myself to

them. And one of the employees of the company I ended up working for came in he was a regular

customer, and saw me there on a regular basis and really liked my personality and thought that I would

be great for the sales position within his company. So I got in there and it turns out that I was actually

terrible at sales. I failed miserably. Like the average sales that the people were asking for or they

wanted was like 3000 dollars a week. And it was like 600 dollars those were programs in so called that

ran 600 dollars at that time. So it wasn‟t that horribly difficult to get to that point. Especially if you are

making 150 phone calls a day, with inbound leads and like the leads were warm but I just wasn‟t able to

close the deal.

Travis: Right. So you experienced failure in that level, and the reason why I am asking that is the

genesis. Because a lot of times, Tommy, when you‟re staring failure in the face it seems bigger, nastier

than worst than it really is. When actually it is normally the beginning of your transition of your true

calling or where you really need to be.

Tommy: And that is something that I‟ve really kind of learned to embrace in the past. I mean especially

last year or so by 2004 it was kind of a rough year. That is something that I‟ve really learned is that the

more you are on to doing something great, the more the universe is going to try to stop you from doing

it. Or resisting something, the universe wants you to get there but resisting is trying to hold you back

just to test your mettle and your commitment or whatever it is that you are trying to do. Actually in my

film, I have an episode on that.

Travis: 13? I believe.

Tommy: 11. No, it‟s Episode 11 where it‟s overcoming resistance and talks about that specifically. So I

was on the sales floor and they saw that I was working hard, right? We see you putting your numbers

and dials in, you‟re on the phone people quite a bit but you are not just making deals. Perhaps there

are these other department that are going to work out better for you and they ended up putting me in




the SEO department and they said, “You got 2 weeks to make your own money, if you don‟t make your

own money, then you‟re gone”.

Travis: Right.

Tommy: I started making my own money within the first week because at that point I was doing just link

building and it was easy enough to look at people‟s website and say how I am going to put this email

together in a way that it is going to standout to them and ask for a link. And basically, help build the

business that I am in. so all what I had to do that was kind of the early genesis of doing market

research and that type of stuff when my acting career came in was reading the stuff that‟s on the

person‟s website really allow me to kind of pull it apart as it is for script and do character analysis and

learn a lot about that person publishing. Now I was able to go into the email and really have a better

idea how to standout to them, without being just another person who‟s asking for a link.

Travis: Right, right. Well I think it is funny how life has a way of letting your past experiences add up to

the sum total of your future success. I had something very similar in my life to where I grew up in

construction and then I went in the sales, I learn sales and I become very good at sales. Then I went in

to customer service and then become very good at customer service. I didn‟t know it but I was acquiring

all the skill sets for my business. It wasn‟t obvious to me until I decided to go into business and I

thought, “Wait a minute I have all the skills and it sounds to me like that acting and that failure and

acting or acting not coming to fruition and the basics training of SEO and everything actually is what

shaped you to move in to your true passion and your business and your career path now, right?

Tommy: Absolutely, absolutely. I believe that I‟ve always been a big believer in it‟s an idea that is

bigger than you are than the experiences that you go through up into a certain point are developing

your readiness to be able to handle that idea. Does that make sense?

Travis: Yeah, it does.

Tommy: You got to master that idea because I think that‟s a part where a lot of people kind of miss the

boat. A lot of entrepreneurs specifically is like, “Oh I have this really a great idea for business.” But

then, maybe not necessarily know how to handle certain aspects of that and can get bogged down in

those areas and then the entire idea that just get off the entire idea which is really sad because there

are really good ideas that don‟t flourish because of that.

Travis: So what‟s the way to overcome that?

Tommy: There are two ways. One you are either patient and learn all of the different ways that are

learned in different areas of running that particular or running that business yourself. Or you really get

passionate about what is it you are really doing and find the right people and develop a team that can




get just as passionate behind that. One of the things that I found a brilliant at a Time Shares company

for example is the CEO, right? The CEO is probably one of the most inspiring, honest, business people

that I‟ve ever met. You get really, really fired up about the mission that he was on and what he was

doing. A lot of people, you talk to someone in the coming publicly like Time shares, he was like there

are people out there who are trying to get rid of these things and I want to help them. I want to help

people who are looking for discount vacations or cheaper vacations. Find a place that‟s better than just

a hotel room and really start listening about this guy talk about what it is that he is doing. You can really

buy into that mission, right?

Travis: Right.

Tommy: Even if you might not care about the product in the first place, what he is really getting at and I

think what a lot of people, with a lot of big ideas you get at is that it‟s really about helping someone fix

the problem. I think it‟s in human nature you want to be able to fix problems and if you have a certain

skill set and somebody else is really passionate about that skill set that you need it‟s much easier to get

them on board again, yes it‟s the big thing so that‟s how I go about that anyhow.

Travis: I think you have tapped into it there because you could be in a type of business that maybe

some of the elements of the business you‟re not passionate about but you can get behind the leader‟s

desire to be the best, to be excellent, to make a difference to help people. So really your widget,

whatever it may be your service, your business, whatever it may be your secondary. The excellence,

the commitment, the everything else is what becomes a driving factor, right?

Tommy: Absolutely, absolutely.

Travis: Yeah. I agree with you.

Tommy: As a business owner myself, I am not like super passionate about accounting. For example,

my goal right now is to find somebody who is, and then get them fired up of what I am doing because it

matters that like everybody needs to be on that same page otherwise you are going some, “I run my

own business too, I have a job and I am trapped by it”. One of the saddest things in the world I think is

when an entrepreneur gets really bogged down by their own ideas and they start to hate themselves for

even coming up with it in the first place.

Travis: Right.

Tommy: Becoming afraid to your own business is terrible, terrible, terrible happens.

Travis: I agree with you. Unfortunately I have had failures where I‟ve been there.

Tommy: I think we all do.




Travis: Normally, it‟s when I‟m going at it alone Tommy. Being an entrepreneur is a lonely position

anyways which I find ways spending a lot of time thinking and writing and all that other stuff. But there

are other times I have a deep desire for a connection with people that understand where the heck I am

coming from. And fortunately that what the show does now it connects me with a lot of this brilliant

people. Let‟s transition real quickly into success; I know I talked about a little bit in the introduction.

There are so many people out there that are selling business opportunities, SEO, they‟re selling all

kinds of things and they‟re the modern day versions of snake oil salesman in my opinion. I am a

positive person, I like to stay positive, I like to think positive, I like to be positive and so I try never to

harp or hover on the negative but the fact is there‟s a lot of people out there that are presenting

services and tools that are useless and I really pray on helpless business owners that need results to

stay in business, right?

Tommy: Yeah.

Travis: Part of the show is connecting fellow entrepreneurs with people that can do that. Let‟s talk

about, I know that you‟ve either wrote or talked about some of the same things going on. Tell me what

your position is with SEO in every corner and a lot of the erroneous services people are offering.

Tommy: Sure, the truth is, is that a lot of the snake oil people as you put it which I think it‟s wonderful

way to coin them. I would like to say people who like to bring the entire industry down is that they know

just enough to get in front of the people. They know how to target the super long tail keywords for

example on Google for someone like, “How do I get more people into my webinar?”

Travis: Right.

Tommy: And create this which are totally legitimate funnels for themselves, but then sell garbage

products in order to make money. The problem with that is that, no matter what industry they‟re in,

that‟s going to exist in certain industry that‟s kind of egress more than others, right? I think that the

solution to that like instead of saying like, the old all scam artist should just rot in the fire which I think

they should. But instead of taking that route I think the more important thing with what I am trying to do

with myself is mainstream some of these concepts so that the public knowledge is the baseline for

public knowledge is a little bit more accessible. Something that when I explain to people who question

me what I am trying to show, I explained it this way, for a long time we would all forward bad emails to

each other, right? Like when email started to become a main stream thing we would all forward

spammy, spammy bad things, “oh download this thing?” Then the computer would just get destroyed

and it would continue to get forwarded. But at a certain point, there were enough people who said

“Don‟t do this anymore.” “Don‟t forward me, Stop forwarding me garbage, I don‟t want forward, don‟t

forward me anything” because they are bad. Eventually the public awareness of that sort of that system

came to a point where you know how to identify a bad thing when you see it. A lot with what I do with




my show is to make that information. Online type of information landing pages and SEO tactics and all

that kind of stuff, to make that more accessible to sort of bring that public consciousness up so at least

that you see a bad opportunity or you come across a bad vendor, you can identify very quickly whether

or not they were investing any of your money timely, right? A lot of these guys will say all sorts of stuff,

a lot of them will do this “the talk over your head game” in order to make themselves sound more

impressive. The truth is they are just talking over your head so when they say fork over your money

you‟re in such a daze that you‟re like “Okay.”

Travis: Right.

Tommy: Instead of, if someone is like “Oh you‟re doing an interval on an H1 tag on your site and you

had no idea what an H1 tag is?” for example, you‟re going to be like “Oh, that‟s what I need, okay

you‟re going to do that for me? They can tell you that they‟re going to do stuff and totally legitimately do

what they say they‟re going to do, but then they are misrepresenting the service.

Travis: Yeah. Well I think a lot of people don‟t time to learn all of that stuff anyways. Now there are

some people, there are two different groups; there are some people they want to learn, there‟s other

people just want it done, and so I think connecting and building a network of trusted people that you

can connect them to, I think is one way around that. Then the people that do want to learn and grow are

probably excellent prospects to watch your show. Your show are they all 5, 6 minutes?

Tommy: Yes. The longest one we have I think is quite around 9 minutes but we also have a clip from,

20 at the end of it. So I think that‟s the longer one but yeah I think the longest story is 9 minutes.

Travis: Let‟s talk about some actionable strategies or let‟s give some advice here for the business

owner that wants to start getting some results online for their businesses as quickly as possible. What

are some of the lowest hanging fruit that you would recommend and would like to talk about?

Tommy: Hmm, low hanging fruit well that‟s kind of difficult question because I don‟t believe that there

are any real super low hanging fruit. I don‟t believe in the magic wand type system.

Travis: Right.

Travis: What I can say is that the best thing you might be able to do is to start a conversation with a

business that is similar to yours. But now we have overlapping customers. For example if I were a

farmer and I specialized in apples, right? Then I would try to look for other farms that specialize in

oranges, right? We are not looking for apple to oranges here but what we are saying here is that, I‟m

just coming out on top of my head.

Travis: Right.




Tommy: What I would say is that if you were the apple farm then I would reach out for the orange farm

through either email or in person or whatever. And say “Hey is there a way we might be able to work

together?” Usually this can be done in a form of a guest blog. We both have blogs, “Hey, can I write on

your blog and talk about how apples and oranges go well together in fruit salad” right for example. I

think it‟s a bad metaphor.

Travis: No, no, no. It works. It‟s just like finding like-minded business partners.

Tommy: Yeah, basically I mean you find a like-minded business partners and you start or beginning

that sort of relationship. This is something that I am certain to take a lot more seriously now. I am

reaching out to other online marketing websites and I am writing guest posts for them right? I‟m talking

about different concepts that are relevant that also bring a lot more value to their audience and by

proxy, hopefully, bring some of those people to the whole idea of marketing in the first place.

Travis: Right.

Tommy: By doing that what I hope to do is some of these people is then leverage not to do things like if

the post goes well and say, “Alright well this group went on really well. What if we talked about this on

a webinar? Or and if you don‟t know what a webinar is, what about an online seminar. What about an

online seminar or teleseminar or something that brings the interaction just a little bit more personal.

Text from the screen is great but you can scroll through it. People listening through this podcast right

now, all want it fast-forwarded, right, do you know what I mean? So bring it to another media format

kind of requires a little bit more attention share. Something I‟m doing a little bit more of right now is

taking some of those partnerships that I have built in the past and I‟m bringing them to a live stream

format. Where I do a Q&A interview style with 3 different people, and by doing that, that gets them

really invested, it gets my guests more invested into the project too. Which in turn they get to spend

and share with their audiences, which is what I‟m going to do once this system is in publishing. So it‟s

this big network and it‟s the best in really establishing your network, it‟s really about establishing that

network and finding people who you are going to have mutual beneficial relationships with long term.

Travis: Let‟s back up and look at your guest post blogging, you are going to, what, 30 different blogs

and guest blogging over there and write something you made free, agreed arrangement with them that

you would write some good content and post it on their site, they agreed right?

Tommy: Yup.

Travis: Then their readers read your post like “Oh, Tommy guy is pretty sharp, this is interesting.” So

they come to your site and become a follower of yours.




Tommy: Some of them. Not all of them but some of them, a good percentage to haggle, that‟s the

basic strategy. But yeah, it‟s the same idea. The more traditional way of doing that is when you watch

a television commercial for example, that‟s what Coca Cola is doing when it advertises its products in

the Burger King commercials. Or when you have the movie science it‟s the same idea. It‟s just a

multiple person thing because you are not. Most people are not huge brands; they‟re just a medium

sized brand working with another medium sized brand. So, yeah.

Travis: Well tell us, give us some numbers how is that working for you? How many days are you in to

doing it?

Tommy: I‟ve actually just got back again. I‟m sort of regaining some ground. The strategy we‟re talking

about, I executed back in November as of December off to the holidays and kind of recalibrate and

establish my strategy and this time in January, I‟m not actually doing a lot of guest posting right now,

but I am whoever jingle, whoever jingle is a terrible thing to say. Using those relationships, yeah, using

those relationships to establish a better distribution network for my work. So hard numbers, not exactly

hard numbers but what that‟s resulted in the last few days of me doing that everybody started doing

that since Monday, and every day so far since Monday I doubled the traffic to my website. That

increased my sales about 5% or 500%, so it‟s working. It‟s a sure answer.

Travis: That sounds like low hanging fruit to me. No, I don‟t want to underplay the time and effort that it

takes to think out to build those relationships with, and I know you did 30 but someone could build a

relationship with 3 or 4. So let‟s give an example, say, if I am a landscaper in a local community, and

this other guy is a real estate agent or a home improvement company. All of those people could write

for one another right?

Tommy: Absolutely, and the interesting part about that too is if the landscaper had his own blog and

the real estate had his own blog. The landscaper could talk about how good landscaping improves the

property value of his home. Whereas the real estate agent could go to the landscaper‟s blog and talk

about how to improve the property itself when you have a good landscape right? You start looking at

the different types of relationships that could be infected by all of that type stuff. 2, we are no longer

looking at just real estate, we can build an interior decorator into the mix, we could bring a finance

expert into the mix, talking about how to save up enough money for a home or how to get yourself in

the right financial path. The landscaper could talk to all these different types of people too, and just

keep finding an angle where you see it kinds of where it overlaps. In excess, what I like to do is explain

this very well verbally but it‟s drawn in Venn diagram. Its 2 circles, and on 1 side you talk about all the

different things, you break down all the different things that you can talk about. For me, that would be

things like advertising, public relations, that type of stuff. For the landscaper that would be landscaping,

the different tools that you used, grass right? He can about the different types of grass, and on the




other side he can talk about, he can break down the different types of targets. So finance, real estate,

outdoors…

Travis: Remodelling

Tommy: Remodelling. Yeah. That middle sort of section there you find the connections are between

those two, and what the different subject lines where you can really do that. Once you get into that

exercise, once you really start doing that it‟s very, very easy to come up with 30 to 40 topics right away

and it‟s just a matter of finding the right people.

Travis: Right.

Tommy: I can‟t take total credit for that, although I did bring that from one of my mentors John Moorer,

I just want to get a shout out there due credit will do. Yeah, that‟s the idea.

Travis: Now we can go deeper with that, not only, so as you sat and write this out. Because I do

something similar where I bring a group of local businesses that has the same quality mindset and

integrity and I have a list of 150 different types of service businesses. Most people would be surprised if

you didn‟t come up with a list of 150 different types of service businesses that you would find in your

local community right? Now we do the same thing but what you‟re talking here is beyond the blog

posting. You said leverage that relationship that means get to know, like and trust those people, and

then use that synergy. Use that relationship and that becomes a referral network right?

Tommy: Exactly, and even if you don‟t like them you can still know them and trust them that they are

going refer business, I‟m sorry that‟s a terrible thing to say but with a lot of that stuff because you are

building a relationship with people, you are not going to like everybody, right? You might not believe in

their total philosophy. But if you know that they operate at a certain level of integrity, that‟s where you

start to separate the business from personal feelings.

Travis: I want to qualify that. Because I think there‟s a level of like where you get together in a

barbecue with them or there is a business like right?

Tommy: Because for me, I can‟t refer anybody if I don‟t like them from a business standpoint. Now if

they are not in my type of person to get together and barbecue with I can still refer them. How about

you?

Tommy: Yeah! Absolutely, absolutely. If I know that they do a good work and they are going to be

respectful to the person I refer them to, then that is the most important thing to me.

Travis: Right, that might be a little corky.




Tommy: Yeah, worst case scenario then I‟ll manage the project. But for the most part you get a

referral in working with people that you know its okay to do business with.

Travis: Yeah, and that‟s really powerful. Let‟s take another example on that, the people that are on my

show become a referral network for me. I have a very deep relationship with my guests that have been

on my show as we go an hour deep that we are very passionate about and all of us care about helping

people in making a difference. So that in itself is another way to view a network, and I‟m going to tell

you it‟s really powerful when you have a network of people that you can rely on. So we talked earlier,

how it‟s easy for entrepreneurs to get stuck. Because you„re trying to do everything, and you‟re trying to

be everything to everyone. I can tell you that I used to handle the SEO, the PPC, the regular advertising

and everything and now those rabbit holes go so deep that it‟s just enough to blow your mind.

Tommy: Quite frankly trying to keep track of it all.

Travis: Yeah. It‟s a constant moving train. So that‟s great value by guest blogging that grows into a

referral network of people that you know like on a business level and trust, right? Is there any other

technique, we‟re getting close in time and we still have 3 questions that I did send to you, we need to

allow 10 to 15 minutes for that. Are there any other simple techniques that you feel like business

owners could use to find success online faster?

Tommy: Sure. A lot of us when we get customers, we kind of ignore the customers. There was a

brilliant commercial for a bank 2 years over. There was a bank that said “hey, free ice cream for a new

customer.” right? And what about the old customer? The old customer was like, “hey, wait a second.”

So I think a lot of businesses, before, I suggest this to a lot of people that they work with is that before

you start looking at your outreach look at your in reach, I guess, I don‟t even know what to call that. But

look at the customer first that you already have and how can you make those relationships stronger. A

lot of people, sometimes people will find that their customers are doing it, there are still customer that

have habits. But if you can start a conversation with people, what ends up happening is you can more

strengthen your relationship with people who have been with you for a long time. But then too, if you

had a bad customer, for example, someone who is not really utilizing the service but they are still

paying for it, that‟s not really a good customer because it puts you in the position of either having you

do returns and with bad customer service complaints, or things like that are down the road. If you are

able to separate that out, you can dramatically improve your relationship with your customers.

Something that I found fascinating when I was researching for my show, is that Zappos spends about

80% of their marketing dollars, or is it 80 to 85% of their marketing dollars on customer satisfaction.

They do things like, surprise the idea upgrade where just overnight shipping the next day. For me what

kind of turn me on with a company was they tend to follow up with email after a year I got a pair of

shoes. It‟s like “Hey, we just wanted to check and ask how the shoes were.” If I‟m being honest with

you guys the shoes fell apart after a few months. They were like “Oh, woah. Don‟t even worry about




returning them here‟s a credit for the amount that you spent. Go ahead and get yourself a new pair of

shoes and by the way we just upgrade you to VIP status.” I‟m like, you are going in my show. Like, I‟m

going to talk about you for a very long time.

Travis: And be a loyal customer.

Tommy: And be a loyal customer right? I haven‟t bought a new pair of shoes since then but its like, if it

comes down to shoes I‟m not going anywhere else. Because nobody treats you that well, so I think that

for the real low hanging fruit, just look internally, and talk to the people and find out what kind of

program you can put together for your existing customers and a lot of that can keep going with just a

survey from a monthly survey. Survey monthly you get to call and get together a quick survey of what

people have to say and go from there.

Travis: I call it customer reactivation. So, I have a great we miss you letter and we send it out. It

basically says, “Tommy it‟s been a while, and I have not done a good job of keeping in touch with you.

Basically I want to say we miss you, and I apologize for not following up with you. I would like to make

it up to you. Here‟s a gift card for $125. If you use it in the next 3 weeks, I‟ll triple it. Thank you very

much for being our client. It says a little more than that but it is powerful help, and how strong that

works.

Travis: Let‟s segue into the 3 questions so that we keep this thing under the proper time limit. What

book or program made an impact on you related to business that you would recommend?

Tommy: There are 2, the first one is “The Flinch” by Julian Smith it‟s free on Amazon so anybody can

get it, and the reason that made a huge impact on me was because it challenged the ideas of what it

was that I was doing in a way that was kind of in your face but also like people hold themselves back

for very silly reasons or no reason at all. It gives exercises like “Take a cold shower.” But before you

get in to the shower, notice how tense your body gets. There‟s nothing that‟s going to happen to you.

You‟re going to be cold but that‟s not going to kill you. That‟s your fight or flight response activating for

no good reason. So the idea behind the whole concept, behind the book is realizing that fight or flight

moment and then kind of roll in and take that energy and sort of re-channelling it to do the things that

you want to do instead of having them pull you back. It was because of that book that I ended up doing

my show. After reading it, I said, “I can no longer hide from doing this. I have to do it.” It was one of the

most motivational books that I‟ve ever read. Actually, if you subscribe to my email, I have an interview

with Julian about that which is halfway the interview, because it reveals a lot about of his purpose

behind creating the book.

Tommy: The program, what‟s that?

Travis: Sorry about that sorry about interrupting you there. Spell flinch. “The Flinch.”

http://amzn.to/10KxtBO




Tommy: Yeah, F-L-I-N-C-H

Travis: Okay okay, alright.

Tommy: The program that I would recommend is John Moore guest blogging program. A lot of what I

have learned about outreaching and getting in touch with other like-minded businesses owners and

being in a mission and, a lot of that stuff can just be appealing and be a good writer, and be attractive to

the right people. I learned from that program and it got me popular. That program alone got me

confident enough to put my first guest post out which was what I called pro-blogger. So that was a very

transformative program for me. Without these two things, without these two programs, or without this

program and this book my career would never be where it‟s at right now.

Travis: Wow. Interesting. I consume a lot of books and programs. I‟ve never heard either one of

those, so, thanks for that.

Tommy: Oh no problem.

Travis: What‟s your favourite tool or piece of technology that you have recently discovered if any that

you would recommend to other business owners and why?

Tommy: Sure, and I have become a big fan of both BufferApp and Social Flow for different purposes.

But what both of these tools are optimized publishers. Basically if I write an article, and it‟s about

landing pages for example, I throw it into the optimize publisher. I put it into the Social Flow. What it

would do is publish it and not just at the time all if not most of my followers in Twitter and Facebook are

online but also at a time when they are talking related to what it is I‟m putting out there. So in Buffer, I

like, they don‟t use the contextual publishing but what they do is they have as much Flickr management

system for everything. So I find that both of those tools are incredible and I highly recommend them.

The other tools that I use are on a regular basis now is the SEOMOZ Pro. That do all sorts of research

of who am I going to reach out to and then my keyword research that finds out the articles that I want to

rank for and all sorts of SEO type stuff. But I find those tools are very easy to use and records the

pages it‟s extremely comprehensive.

Travis: Tom, is that Rand Fishkin.

Tommy: Yes it is.

Travis: Yeah, I‟m about to have him on the show.

Tommy: Oh nice. He‟s very cool.

Travis: What famous quote would summarize your belief or attitude in business?

http://bufferapp.com/

http://www.socialflow.com/




Tommy: I don‟t know if it‟s famous or who said it but I did receive it on a button when I was 12 years

old from my aunt. It said “Decide what you believe in, and live it like you mean it.”

Travis: I like that. I like conviction.

Tommy: Yeah. That alone was able to really power a lot of my decisions. Because it was a matter of

my set codes it said in one of the speeches, to rush early, right? Figure out like don‟t rush that final

move before something that‟s going to be released do all your rushing ahead of time and then decide

what you are going to do is worth the time and effort, and then really go through with it. Decide what

you believe in. Is that what you believe in then live it like you mean it. It kind of allows you to take real

ownership of the thoughts and ideas and the failures and everything else that come along with being a

business owner. So if I fail, and I fail very publicly, part of the problem is that it didn‟t come close to

reaching its goals. If I were a different man I would consider that a huge public failure. But I learned a

lot from it and I decide what I was doing and I believed in what I was doing. Instead of saying this was a

huge failure. I look at what happened and this is what I learned from it and this is where I need to

improve.

Travis: Right, right.

Tommy: It allows for a much guilt-free lifestyle.

Travis: Tommy you look like you‟re a young fellow, how old are you?

Tommy: I‟m 27.

Travis: 27, wow! Well that mindset from your quote, and also from all the things that you are reading

you‟ve done are critical to your, obviously have to be critical to your success. To have found success at

such an early age, I commend you there for, you end up working a job and dream of one day doing

what it is that you do every day and so I commend you for that.

Tommy: Thank you I‟m happy to say that as of the 21st of this month I am going on my 4th year of

totally unemployed, totally self employed. Is there‟s a fine line between unemployed and self employed

Isn‟t it?

Travis: Yeah there is. You got to be careful about it. No. I‟m going to my 4th year in totally being self

employed. It‟s actually really cool I‟m living in at a house in my own halfway to the beach and it‟s a

vacation area, it‟s beautiful.

Travis: Once you make the leap, could you ever imagine going back?




Tommy: It‟s weird, the answer is yes. I mean, I could totally see myself working with the company and

the reason for that is because there are a lot of lifestyle things that happen when you‟re an

entrepreneur. I have a family. I have a 2 year old son and I have wife. I have another kid along the way.

There are a lot of lessons involved. I think working for a company that your job doesn‟t have much

stricter ending for today. Which is nice. But the other part of that is I was kind of thinking about that.

There‟s a part that really nice for me is I am able to, I‟m never afraid of not being employed. If I am to

work for a company and things just didn‟t work out after a while. I could very easily pick up my own stuff

again. That‟s a very liberating feeling, there‟s no need to be afraid.

Travis: As time goes on Tommy, you‟ll get to where you bring things into control and the schedule is

more of a choice of yours.

Tommy: Yeah. That‟s something that I really am working on right now. So it‟s nice to be able to get

there.

Travis: What‟s the best way for everybody to connect with you. I‟m going to put your links up on our

site in the show notes. So what‟s the best way to link with you?

Tommy: Sure, so my website is tommyismyname.com; my Twitter handle is “Tommy is My Name” ; my

Facebook page is “Tommy is My Name” and my YouTube channel is Tommy is a strategist.

Travis: It sounds like quite a story going on behind the scenes there. I‟ll let that one lies since we‟re

getting close on time but I‟ll plug those links in so that everybody can come to you direct and let me go

ahead and wrap up the show. I want to personally say thank you for taking the time out sharing your

wisdom and your field of specialty with our guests, and so thank you so much for being part of the

show.

Tommy: No. Thank you for having me it was a pleasure.

Travis: So listen, I want to remind you that we‟ve created an area called show notes and that‟s

basically going to be down below where you see Tommy‟s picture and his Bio. It‟s basically links to the

books that he had suggested, to the programs and all of those other stuff. So what I am going to do is

remind you to go to diyob.com that‟s short for “Diamonds in Your Own Backyard” enter your name and

we‟ll send you the 2013 business owner‟s guide. I think you ought to do that for yourself. Tommy,

there is a lot of great information it‟s „From Frustration to 70 million dollars.” It‟s a behind the scenes

look at what you need to know to grow your business to incredible levels of success. I know that you

already found success on your own but I think this will be a lot of information that you will agree with.

Maybe there is new stuff that you are not familiar with.

Tommy: That‟s very cool.




End of Interview

Travis: Yeah, so when you opt in you become a part of the Authentic Entrepreneur community, and

we‟re setting up a network of people. We talked about it earlier about setting up a network of people,

tools, and resources you can refer to grow your business. We‟re going to put up workshops and

everything. This is basically my personal and Sandra‟s personal private rolodex that we use and

recommend. Now we will have this up in a few weeks. Everything that we do is dedicated to the

shortest path to the next level of success. I have personally spent $150,000 to get to know a lot of this

people from mastermind events, and then those great people refer more incredible people like Tommy

to me. Now, you have access and able to connect with him through our network. There are a lot of

things that‟s going to be on behind the scenes after the episodes that you have access to. One other

thing we‟re ramping our interviews up to 3 episodes per week, so very soon we will be with you every 2

days bringing more great strategy to grow your business. One other thing before I close the show today

is something that I said the last time, and I think it‟s well worth mentioning several times. I want to tell

you something that you don‟t hear very often if at all as an entrepreneur is „Thank you for being a

leader.‟ Thank you for setting an incredible example of what it looks like to be brave enough to go after

your dreams. Whether you know it or not most people, in all of your ability and courage to take the risk

and overcome your fears and go after your dream. I know that there are a lot of people that wished that

they could find the courage to do the same thing. So keep pouring your heart out, and your soul into

this. I promise you it well worth it. We need as many great entrepreneurs like you and Tommy as

possible. So take care and we‟ll talk to you on the next episode.




How We Can Help You

We know that finding someone that you can trust online today is hard and that so many “so called

gurus” are self-‐appointed and have never really even done what they teach you to do. That‟s exactly

why we created the Double Your Profits Business Accelerator. This is an exclusive offer for our fans at

a fraction of its normal cost.

Here's what to expect. We'll Schedule a 'One on One' private session, where we'll take the time to dive

deep into your business and tell you what is missing, so that you can have your best year ever!

We'll do this by performing a S.W.O.T. Analysis. This tells us your Strengths, Weaknesses,

Opportunities and Threats within your business.

This will be an eye opener for YOU, for several reasons, however some of the most common reasons

are.

As the 'Business Owner' it‟s difficult to see the big picture of your own business because you‟re in the

middle of a daily management.

And you are too emotionally involved to completely impartial.

This is a common problem for EVERY business owner. It doesn‟t matter if you are a one-man army, or

an army of 150, the problem is still the same.

Travis Lane Jenkins

Business Mentor-Turn Around Specialist

Radio Host of The Entrepreneurs Radio Show

“Conversations with Self-made Millionaires and High-level Entrepreneurs That Grow Your Business"

http://www.rockstarentrepreneurnetwork.com/biz-accelerator

http://theentrepreneursradioshow.com/

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