Part 2 of 3: 57 Actionable Insights From 57 Episodes Of The Productive Insights Podcast (2015 — A Year In Review)
Welcome to part two of the 3-part series which covers the 57 actionable insights from the 57 episodes of the Productive Insights podcast in 2015. If you haven’t listened to part one of this 3-part series, please go back and have a listen. Part one extracts the insight that I found most actionable from episodes 1 to 20.
In this episode, I’ll share some of the actionable insights from episodes 21 to 40. As always, I’ll also include links to each of the episodes (below) in the show notes so you can always go back to those episodes and listen in more detail.
If you find this information valuable or helpful, please do share it with friends via social media or email so it can reach as many people as possible. Also, please do stop by iTunes and leave a five-star review if you feel so inclined. It would mean the world to me.
021. Facebook Advertising with Keith Kranc and Ralph Burns (Part 2)
You have to be doing video ads in addition to what you’re doing. Rule of three in big Hollywood studios. Video is another modality but is a way bigger form of modality as compared to the others. Case study format videos work well.(at around the 3-minute mark)
Action step: Post up a video using Keith’s video ad winning formula which he talks about at around the 13-minute mark in the episode.
022. $50 Million and Counting …. With Ed O’Keefe
Ed believes we’re all entrepreneurs and that we have the potential to do whatever we want to do. The opportunity to become an entrepreneur is greater than it was ever been before. At around the 10:30-minute mark, he talks about the mathematical equation that it all comes down to: What’s it costing you to get a customer? What day are you profitable?
Action step: Listen to the mathematical approach that Ed talks about in terms of investing in advertising and getting payback within 90 days.
023. Content Marketing for Business Success
This tutorial talks about how to use content marketing strategy that works to increase customer leads and sales. Set yourself tight deadlines and get moving on creating content. Don’t think too much about it. Get something out there.
Action step: Create a Keynote or PowerPoint presentation around a topic that your audience will value (make it as specific and actionable as possible). Use Screenflow (for Mac) or Camtasia (for PC) and record the presentation and publish to youtube or wistia. Then repurpose the content into audio and transcribe to blog posts using rev.com.
024. Melanie Pinola (Lifehacker) on How to Setup Your Virtual Office at Home
Melanie Pinola and I talk about how to set up a virtual office at home and still be more productive.
Action step: Establish a daily routine which helps you be more productive in your home office. Put on work clothes if you have to. Do what it takes to get you into the mental state to get your A game happening.
025. How To Use the Pomodoro Technique To Become A Laser-Focused Productivity Ninja!
I think the name says it all here. Created by Francisco Cerillo, it’s about focusing on your work in 25-minute increments followed by a 5-minute break. Repeat this process for 4 pomodoros. After which, you should take a break for 15-20 minutes. Works really well when you’re trying to beat procrastination.
Action step: Decide on what you’re going to focus on for 20 minutes and then apply the Pomodoro technique! (Task selection is important.)
026. Survey Funnel Formula with Ryan Levesque – How to Ask Your Way to Profit
Ryan gives us a fantastic summary of the Six Steps of the Survey Funnel Formula, a great summary of his bestseller book ‘Ask’.
Action step: Have a listen to the podcast to get an overall understanding of the Survey Funnel Formula. If you think it’s something you want to apply to the business then buy the book.
027. Overcoming Procrastination Tutorial — Practical Tips on Maximising Your Productivity
This episode is a video tutorial which you can still access on YouTube if you head over to the show notes of this podcast episode. It gives you some very practical tips on how to overcome procrastination and dramatically increase your productivity. There’s an interesting Harvard case study that I talk about in this episode which is worth having a listen to.
Action step: The next time you feel a desire to procrastinate, explore the feelings behind that desire to procrastinate. In most cases, you will find that the feeling is fear. The next step is to focus on the bodily sensations associated with that fear. Focusing on the bodily sensations will dissipate the fear and, in most cases, you will find that the desire to procrastinate dissipates with it. This does take some practice so don’t expect it to work on your first attempt.
028. How To Use Pull Selling To Grow Your Business with Dan Dobos
In this podcast, Dan and I talk about the subtleties of selling. We focus on a “pull” selling system which is designed to attract clients to you rather than the traditional sales approach where products and services are foisted onto the customer. I really like what he says about the three levels of specificity at around the 3-minute and 40-second mark.
Action steps: Create an inventory of challenges that you come across in various customers which you can create a checklist out of. Use this when you are speaking to people and helping them.
029. What Is SEO and How To Integrate It with Your Content Marketing Strategy – with David Jenyns
David and I talk about how SEO is changing from Google’s perspective and the direction in which we think Google is headed. It is a fascinating conversation. David shares his 3P’s of Content Marketing to build business authority which is the Present, Product and Promote approach. He talks about this at around the 7-minute mark. Definitely worth listening to.
Action step: Start creating digital assets ideally in the form of video content. Create a youtube channel and start uploading videos into the youtube channel. Think about most frequently asked questions your audience is asking. Develop momentum! (And repurpose the content into audio and written content.)
030. How to Use Frameworks to Take Your Business to the Next Level – with Taki Moore
A great discussion with Taki Moore on how to develop frameworks and systems to take your business to the next level. We talk about his Nine Box approach to frameworks at around the 3-minute mark which is very useful and worth a listen.
Action step: Make a list of no more than 3 things that you need to do tomorrow, the night before! Don’t create your task list when you’re already on the battlefield.
031. Time Management Tutorial (Hint: It’s NOT About Managing Your Time)
This episode is a tutorial about managing your energy rather than managing your time. The key to managing your tasks is task selection.
Action step: Get clear on your most important task using the Pareto principle or the 80/20. Identify the 20% of your tasks which will give you 80% of your results. Make a list of no more than 3. Execute on them.
032. Dan Norris on his new book ‘Content Machine’ (Released 10th Aug 2015)
A great episode on how to create content that creates a big impact. I like what he says about the multiplier framework at around the 16-minute mark.
Action step: Avoid vanity metrics like views on an article. If people aren’t sharing your content (for example retweeting the content), then the content isn’t good enough. Which means you need to understand your audience better and create more content.
033. Olympian Jon Edwards on The 3 Secrets To High Performance – Part 1 & Part 2
Jon Edwards talks about the 3 key abilities at the 7-minute and 42-second mark – Physical Ability, Technical Ability and Tactical Ability (which is how you do it). At around the 23-minute mark, he talks about the importance of sleep. He talks about how several people wear lack of sleep like a badge of honour.
Action step: Ensure you get adequate amount of sleep (in most cases this is between 7 and 8 hours). Use sleep time app to wake you up at the top of your sleep cycle.
035. How To Use High Leverage Activities To Prioritize Your To Do List
This episode is a tutorial on how to get the most out of your day by focusing on your highest leverage activities. It talks mainly about task selection. Think 80/20 rule or Pareto principle.
Action step: Make a list of the highest leverage activities that have the biggest impact on your business. A good way to measure the impact is using profitability. Then act on the top one thing. Rinse and repeat.
036. Online Presence, Key Trends In Content Marketing And What This Means For You — With Yaro Starak
An excellent discussion with Yaro Starak on where the online world is headed. Some great insights here. Well worth a listen. At around the 25-minute mark, we talk about whether or not the big brands will start to go micro. This is a conversation about whether or not personal branding will be essential in addition to big Coca-Cola style branding. The conversation moved to geo-tagging and the disruptive changes they’re likely to bring with them.
Action step: Develop deep empathy around your audience or your customers. Get clear on how you serve the problems they face and the reason they want to solve the problem. Write about your customer, how old they are, what their world looks like, what their biggest problem is and why it’s a problem in the context of their life. (Empathy map for your customer avatar)
037. Information Overload – How To Eliminate It And Maximize Your Productivity
Information Overload is one of the biggest obstacles to productivity today. If you can move from consuming information to producing output, you’re ahead of most of your competition.
But the question is, ‘HOW do you actually deal with information overload?’.
Or more importantly, ‘How do stop this deluge of information and advertisements from distracting you from your focus?’.
Well, in this video/podcast, I share EXACTLY what you can do to deal with the information epidemic we face as a society in this information age.
Action step: Timebox your facebook activity. Set specific times when you’re going to use facebook, preferably towards the end of the day when you’re in your ‘downtime’.
038. Rand Fishkin – How To Create Great SEO Friendly Content Plus Key Trends In Search
An excellent podcast episode with one of my favorite guests, Rand Fishkin. By the way, I want to say a special thank you to Rand Fishkin for introducing me to several other guests who were featured later in the podcast.
Rand and I start off our discussion with something very interesting. We talk about Abraham Joshua Heschel’s quote “When I was young, I admired clever people and when I grew older, I admired kind people.” and about how to use kindness as a competitive advantage. I definitely think you should listen to that which happens at the very beginning of the podcast.
Some other interesting points are content marketing and why play such an important role in business. They are at around the 3-minute mark. At around the 5-minute mark, we talk about how to get your content heard in all the noise today. Rand’s take on how SEO (search engine optimization) is at around the 8-minute mark. We talk about retargeting and a whole lot more.
Key action step: When you create a piece of content, ask yourself one question: “Which 10 specific people will find this content so useful that they will want to share it?”
039. Podcasting for Entrepreneurs with John Lee Dumas
This guest needs no introduction. John Lee Dumas – the podfather himself! We talk about where John thinks podcasting is headed at around the 6- minute mark, biggest obstacles to getting started in podcasting at around the 9-minute mark and how JLD influenced Pat Flynn’s (the founder of Smart Passive Income’s) podcasting journey at around the 14-minute mark.
Action step: To get started with your own podcast, create an outline to which you want to speak to, and then record yourself speaking to that outline. Don’t involve too much technology. Get comfortable with recording yourself and speaking into a mic … And then worry about the rest.
040. Eisenhower Matrix – How To Use The 4 Quadrant Matrix For Business Success
This is a tutorial on the 4-Quadrant Prioritization System that was first created by Dwight Eisenhower, made popular by Stephen Covey. It talks about the 4 quadrants which are the: Urgent And Important, Not Urgent But Important, Urgent But Not Important, and finally, Not Urgent And Not Important quadrants in that order. You definitely need to have a listen to the podcast to get a good understanding of how the matrix looks but the key here is to use the matrix to learn to be less reactive to what is urgent but not important and focus more on things that are not urgent but important. Usually, these are the things that move your business forward.
Action step: Make a list of the tasks in your business that are really going to make a difference but don’t necessarily appear as urgent in your day-to-day work. Examples of these would be embedding systems that reduce repetitive work, spending time to find good quality staff, learning how to delegate effectively, etc.
