Drew McLellan is a 25-year marketing veteran who helps clients create authentic love affairs with their customers. Drew has run his own agency, the McLellan Marketing Group, for over 20 years and helps the owners of over 250 small to mid-size agencies a year learn how to take their business to the next level through his consultancy, the Agency Management Institute. Drew has appeared in the New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, Businessweek, and Fortune Small Business. The Wall Street Journal calls Drew one of 10 bloggers that every entrepreneur should read.

What you will learn from this episode:

• How the internet has disrupted buyer behavior and changed the way B2B sales are conducted today
• Why establishing yourself as an authority or expert in a particular niche can be a powerful way to boost your sales
• How being the expert of your niche opens up a larger geographical area for your sales and can allow you to charge a premium
• Why your unique point of view allows you to stand out from competitors and is what you uniquely bring to your business that your competitors lack
• What steps business owners can take to define their point of view and establish their expertise in a niche
• Why attracting “sweet spot” clients is the key to building a base of loyal clients who spend more money and offer better referrals
• Why you should start with robust, informative “cornerstone content” and how your preference between writing and talking can help determine what content to create
• How cornerstone content can be broken up into “cobblestone content” that can be shared across social media and other locations
• Why it is important to develop a relationship through your content before you try to sell to your prospective clients, and why showing authenticity is key

Resources:

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/327hSi3
• Website: https://agencymanagementinstitute.com/
• Email: drew@agencymanagementinstitute.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drewmclellan
• Twitter: @DrewMcLellan

Additional Resources:

• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/

Alana Tillim is the founder, president and driving force behind Santa Barbara Dance Arts (SBDA) and the non-profit Arts Mentorship Program in Santa Barbara California. They have been featured in Dance Studio Life Magazine as a national model of for-profit and nonprofit programs working together. Founded in 1998, SBDA has received awards for excellence in business, leadership, and community stewardship. She has reached over 100,000 artists through her work and continues to extend her reach by inviting visiting artists and world-renowned choreographers to her space.

She co-founded the Arts Mentorship Program in 2004 with Steven Lovelace, and they have awarded over $500,000 in scholarships for underserved at-risk youth. In addition, she founded the No Limits dance program that provides free dance lessons for children with special needs, and “I am Her. She is Me,” a mother-daughter empowerment workshop.

She is also a Certified Coach for More Than Just Great Dancing and a sought-after speaker, she has been recognized by Pacific Coast Business Times’ Top 40 under 40, received the ‘Inspiration Award’ for her leadership through the Thomas Fire and Debris Flow (More Than Just Great Dancing), and is an Apogee Award for her legacy in dance education in Santa Barbara County (Nebula Dance Lab).

Alana is a devoted mentor and entrepreneur and in addition to her studio and non-profit, she owns a dancewear store, and is currently working on writing her first book. She is a dedicated mother and wife, and her family is the driving motivation behind her passion to make a change through the arts.

What you will learn from this episode:

• How a chance meeting led to Alana owning her own dance studio, and why she considers herself an “accidental” business owner
• How Alana’s side job as a dance instructor turned into a successful business, and why she followed her heart and chose to leave her corporate career path
• How Alana’s business partner served as her mentor, and why their shared values were the key to their strong professional relationship
• Why Alana feels passionate about her work and her role as a powerful role model to the young people she teaches
• Why Alana’s personal growth involved learning from those around her and tempering her passion with wisdom
• Why Alana’s role as a mother served as motivation and pushed her to take a chance on herself and on her unexpected career path
• How Alana balances her time as a mother, wife, entrepreneur and business owner, and why the relationships she has with the people around her are key

Resources:

• Website: https://sbdancearts.com/
• Email: alana@sbdancearts.com
• Website: https://ampsb.org/

Tevis Trower is the founder and CEO of Balance Integration Corporation, focused on helping build corporate cultures that allow employees to thrive. Their remarkable client list includes companies like Google, Yahoo, Disney, Viacom, AOL, Soros, Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley, and more. Tevis is considered a pioneer and leader in the field of cultural transformation at work, with significant expertise in imposter syndrome, trust, innovation, emotionally sustainable leadership, and fostering an environment of resilience. She has been featured in prominent media outlets such as Forbes, Business Week, Fortune CIO, The New York Post, Yoga Journal and many more.

Early in Tevis’s business career, she recognized that there is a need for more human-focused leadership in today’s business world. Many companies say “people are their most valuable asset,” but not enough companies focus on creating powerful people-focused cultures that allow their employees to shine. Tevis believes that the key to being a stronger, more effective and empowering leader is to recognize and embrace the reality that you bring your whole self to work, both your strengths and your weaknesses.

Tevis sees imposter syndrome as a sort of “default human state” that we all experience, created by our fear of failure and our strong need for success. She believes that what pushes many high performers to succeed is not a desire to win but a drive to avoid failure and the stigma associated with it. In her work, she helps people recognize their focus on the things that create discontent rather than the things that bring them joy, and she helps them reconnect with their heart and with the things they love.

What you will learn from this episode:

• How Tevis’s upbringing taught her the value of curiosity and how she realized the importance of leadership engagement
• Why imposter syndrome is a common problem in the C-suite that often affects the people we least expect
• Why Tevis started her company in 2002, and how the needs of her clients caused the company to evolve its focus to culture and wellness
• How, after seventeen years in business, Tevis realized that something was missing from the work she and her team were doing, and what eye-opening realizations she had
• Why Tevis realized the most important contribution she could make to her team was to back up and let them work through their own realizations about what needed to change
• Why employees want their leaders to be vulnerable, human, and unpolished and want to feel a sense that their own voice is helping shape their company
• Why people are trained their whole lives to believe that they don’t have a role in shaping the culture around them and why this creates blind spots in leaders
• Why getting input from your team doesn’t mean that you are an indecisive leader and why that input can be a powerful resource for your business
• Why self-awareness at work helps you further your leadership growth and form stronger relationships with the people around you

Resources:

• Website: www.balanceintegration.com
• Twitter: @corporateyogi
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tevistrower/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/balance-integration-corporation/

Additional Resources:

• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/

Joey Vitale is an attorney and business strategist for thriving entrepreneurs. As the Founding Attorney of Indie Law, Joey works with small business owners to protect their passions and give them the legal foundation they need to thrive and make an impact. Outside of his firm, Joey provides courses, presentations, and workshops that focus on the legal issues that matter most: trademarks, business formation, copyrights, and contracts. While based in Chicago, Indie Law serves business owners all over the country.

What you will learn from this episode:

• Why Joey decided to break out on his own and began working with small businesses to help them protect their assets
• Why trademark issues are particularly thorny for many business owners, and how Joey helps his clients better understand and navigate these issues
• Why niching down and becoming the expert in his niche has been tremendously helpful in growing Joey’s business
• Why half of the 500,000 trademark applications filed last year failed, primarily due to an existing or very similar trademark in place
• Why trademarking descriptive words and phrases is becoming a major trend impacting sellers on e-commerce sites like Etsy
• How Joey and his team help business owners monitor words and phrases that appear on their goods to help protect them from others who attempt to trademark those words
• Why it is important for business owners to be proactive in protecting themselves, and what resources business owners can use to better understand trademark
• How “common law trademark” and “registered trademark” differ, and how to use the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) located at https://uspto.gov
• Why protecting yourself with trademarks proactively is far more cost-effective than trying to fix problems after the fact, and why an attorney’s assistance is invaluable
• How social media platforms are increasingly becoming protective of their names and are going after educators for using the platform name in the title of their courses

Resources:

• Website: https://indielaw.com/faq/
• Free Indie Law guide to the four biggest trademark mistakes to avoid: https://indielaw.com/freeguide-1/
• TESS Trademark Database: www.uspto.gov
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/joeycvitale/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/indielawfirm
• Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/levelupyourlegalside/?source_id=306914809658065