Weekly Roundup for Sept 29

I frequently run across all sorts of cool things. Some of it is business related and some isn’t.

Each week, I post a handful of tools or great content that peaks my interested. I don’t write a full summary on these. Instead, I posts things that I find interesting and encourage you to check them out.

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What a week! I spent the better part of it at MEGA TRAINING 2014. MEGA TRAINING is the world’d number 1 event for fitness business leaders and is run by my client NPE. There we teach these entrepreneurs the systems and tools to explode their fitness businesses. My team sold all the sponsors for the event and was onsite to take care of them. What a weekend!

One of the highlights of the event was a glass walking exercise. During a presentation from my good friend Billy Beck, every attendee has the opportunity to talk across a pile of sharp broken glass. This was to help you conquer your fears and to be in present. It was a great experience. To the right is a picture of me walking across the broken glass.

For this Weekly Roundup, I wanted to share with you the company’s who sponsored this event. These company’s have solutions for Small Business Owners. I’m sure many of them can help you!

Brands for all Small Business Owners

Infusionsoft – Small Business Sales & Marketing software – It’s incredible. If you’re a small business owner, you should consider using Infusionsoft

GroSocial – Awesome Social Media tool! Get more fans and leads with branding, social promotions & contests!

Tax Alli – Small business accounting made awesome, easy and cheap!

Sixth Division – The firm that makes Infusionsoft easy.

Plus This – Do more with Infusionsoft – A must have tool for Infusionsoft users.

 

Nutrition Brands for everyone

Organo Gold – Premium healthy coffee with a healthy kick!

Tao Nutrition – A Natural Protein Powder for Men & Women that is rich in Superfoods and is Perfect for Recovery.

Brands for Fitness Entrepreneurs

Startup Active – They create the BEST websites for fitness businesses.

CHEK Institute – Exercise education and fitness products for strength and conditioning experts, rehabilitation specialists, personal trainers and fitness experts.

ZenPlanner – Custom scheduling software for your gym

Balanced Habits – A program for trainers to reach their clients goals faster & safer.

Global Bodyweight Training – The home of the Bodyweight Athlete, with videos, articles, workshops and fitness equipment to bring your fitness to

Sport & Fitness Insurance – Insurance services for gyms and personal trainers.

Weekly Roundup for Sept 29

Don't wish ... DO

STOP IT! Stop sitting around wishing your dreams come true. Stop wishing you have the body, the business, or the relationship that you want.

Too many people do this. They wish, then they wait. When it doesn’t happen, that wish and wait some more.

How stupid is that!

Instead … DO

What are you here to do?

What is your purpose?

What ever it is … DO IT

Don’t wish … Just DO!!!

So, I’ll ask you, what are you doing today?

 

Don't wish ... DO

Where do I start when looking for sponsors?

A few weeks ago, I received this question on LinkedIn …

Basically I am looking for any insight in where to start raising sponsorship dollars. I am doing this solo bike ride from SF to LA to promote Men’s Health. Before I started training about 2 months ago, was never of a bike for more then 5 miles. I am shooting to complete this 500 mile ride in 4 days.

Not being a bike rider I have found that the bike alone is fairly expensive as well as the equipment. I was curious if gaining sponsorship for this type of event is possible/probable and if so where should I start. I have about 4 months until the event so time is starting to run out.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 First off, how awesome is that! Here is someone looking to make a significant difference. I can’t imagine riding 500 miles in a month, let alone 4 days. He’s a better man than I am!

My Response:

Great work Justin!

The first thing you need to do is decide what you have to offer a potential sponsor. These are your assets. Some examples are:

• Logo on clothing you’ll wear


• Logo and description for the sponsor on your website


• Social media mentions


• Sending an email to your contact list


• Media exposure you can give to the sponsor

In other words, how will you get exposure for your sponsor. That’s what they are after. Sponsors want a way to communicate that they have something valuable to offer to your audience. How are you going to facilitate that communication?

Once you determine your assets, it’s time to start finding sponsors.

There are a TON of ways to do this. I recommend starting with your network. Find out who has a product or service that your audience can benefit from. Also, the internet is your friend here. There are many places online to find Sponsors.

For more info, download this free report.  Top 3 Resources for Getting Sponsors

If you’d like some one on one help, feel free to contact me here.

Where do I start when looking for sponsors?

7 Things I Learned in my 1st Month of Chasing a Dream Full Time

About a month ago, I resigned from a full time Vice President role to pursue my dream of building a Sponsorship and Strategic Alliance business. (I wrote about this a bit in this post)

For full disclosure … this isn’t the first time i’ve done this. In fact, this is the third time I’ve resigned from a  job to build my own business!

Time 1: I left a massive corporate to sell Real Estate with my wife. It went well … until the 2007 Real Estate bubble burst. We had 13 listings that wouldn’t sell. it was by all account an epic failure and likely the most humbling experience of my life.

Time 2: I left a small but rapidly growing business (Infusionsoft) to try my hand at consulting and later into Sponsorship. It went amazingly well! After a few years, one of my clients hired me on for a to help build their company. Now that I’ve wrapped up that project, it’s on to ….

Time 3: I was the right hand man to the CEO of the company I just completed my work with. I’m now working to rebuild my Sponsorship and Strategic Alliance business. So far so good, and I’ll keep you posted on the progress through this blog.

Anyway, I’ve taken some time to reflect on the things I’ve learned over this past month. Here are a few:

1) Start with your mission and purpose.
You need direction. Your mission and purpose will always by your guide. Why are you chasing this dream? What is it’s purpose? Where are you going? These are key points to clearly understand. All of your decisions should come through the lens of your mission and purpose.

I’ll use my mission and purpose as examples for you.

PURPOSE: My purpose is to inspire people be happy, achieve their dreams, and to live an abundant life.

MISSION: My professional mission (I have a personal mission too!) is to create a marketplace that generates $10M of partner & sponsor revenue by the end of 2017.

2) Take 100% responsibility for your life
This month, I’ve been reminded a ton about the first principle of Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles. That is to take 100% responsibility for your life! As Jack put it, “If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life.” You sure learn how this is true while building a business!

3) Having a plan helps, but expect your plan not to go the way you thought it would
You need to plan. This helps you with guidance and direction. But you also need to be adaptable. Sometimes you’ll expect life to take you down a certain path and you’ll find yourself going down a completely different one. The best advice I can offer is to have a plan, but allow like to take you through what feels right.

4) Working from home is awesome … most of the time
I work from home every day. I’m not stranger to this. I’ve done so for a good chunk of my career. It’s great for all of the reasons you’d imagine; short commute, see the family more, and flexibility. But it’s also a challenge. For example, I was interrupted in the middle of writing this post to help the 2 year who we’re in the middle of potty training.

Working from home takes a good deal of focus, determination and work ethic. If you need to be around others to be successful, then don’t try working from home!

5) Don’t do it by yourself
Perhaps like me you don’t have a partner in the ownership of the business. Yes, I have individuals who assist me, but this is my company. That being said, I’ve recognized the need for mentors, coaches and guides who can help. Don’t try to do everything yourself. Find someone who you can be accountable to to assist you.

6) It’s fun!
I don’t know what else to say other than I find that pursing your dreams is a LOT more fun than pursuing someone else’s!

7) Remember to find balance
When in business building mode, it’s easy to work all of the time. Chances are if you’re building a company you are a workaholic. Be sure to find some sort of balance. During the day, take time away from your office. Carve out time in your calendar to be with your family or do something just for fun. I find that if I have lunch with my wife or do something with her in the middle of the day, it makes me MORE productive.

Everyone I know who is building their own business working more than the standard 40 hours each week. But, a benefit is you get to choose which 40 hours in the week you’d like to work!

Question:

What’s the one thing you’ve learned about your job or your dream?

7 Things I Learned in my 1st Month of Chasing a Dream Full Time

Weekly Roundup for September 22

I frequently run across all sorts of cool things. Some of it is business related and some isn’t.

Each week, I post a handful of tools or great content that peaks my interested. I don’t write a full summary on these. Instead, I posts things that I find interesting and encourage you to check them out.

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America is going back to space! On September 16th, NASA announced that US astronauts will travel to space once more! They’ve partnered with Boeing & SpaceX to create the next generation spacecraft. Pretty cool! here’ s a link to the NASA Press release.

I also thought this image from NASA was pretty cool …

Image Credit: NASA

I‘m based in Orlando, FL. We’re about an hour from Cape Canaveral where they often launch rockets. Here’s a photo I took from my front yard of a launch in mid-July 2014.

Okay, on to some business tools & content …

Richard Branson on Luck – Speaking of space, here’s a great article form Sir. Richard Brandon on ‘luck’.

Meet Edgar: I haven’t tested this yet, but it looks solid. Edgar is a social media scheduling tool thats allows you to set times when articles will be shared multiple times in the future.

Social HP – I met these guys in Toronto in August. They have a great tools that brings your team together and puts your Facebook sharing on steroids.

Weekly Roundup for September 22

Walt Disney Quotes for Entrepreneurs

I live about 25 minutes from Disney World in Orlando, FL. We’re close enough that each night at 10pm we can hear the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom exploding in the distance.

We moved here in mid-2013 from Arizona. My 3 older kids are good negotiators (wonder where they got that from), so before they agreed to moved to Florida, I had to promise to buy them Disney Season passes. A few weeks after arriving here in Orlando, we bought the passes and used them 23 times in the first year! IT – WAS – AWESOME!

In all of the Disney theme parks, when they have a section where they are doing construction, they set up a “Dream Builders” sign to help make the area look clean and presentable despite the construction. On each of these is a Walt Disney Quote for Entrepreneurs. Okay, they don’t call them that, but that’s what I consider them to be. Over time, I’ve counted a dozen or so different signs.

One night while at downtown Disney with my 3 older kids, we took pictures of every sign we saw. There were a bunch.

Below are pictures we took. (please forgive the quality of many of the pictures. My 7 year old was snapping many of the pics)

I hope you find these as inspirational as I do. Walt Disney was truly a visionary man. He’s created an incredible legacy and these quotes I imagine give just a glimpse of who he was. I hope they help you along your journey in life!

(Oh … and notice how they’re sponsored by Stanley. See, you can with a little creativity you can find sponsors for a TON of things in your business.) If you need some ideas, download this report here.

Walt Disney Quotes for Entrepreneurs

One other thing. I encourage you to take a trip to a Disney Theme park. They are an incredible experience. If you happen to visit any of the DisneyWorld parks, let me know! I’d love to meet up with you and show you around to some of my favorite spots!

Walt Disney Quotes for Entrepreneurs

Believe Success Is Your Only Option

What is your definition of success? Do you have one? If not, it’s time to make one.

Once you do, look for the reasons why the world is plotting to make your success become a reality.

Imagine and believe that your success WILL happen and that failure won’t.

Believe success is your only option.

The woman in this picture is Chalene Johnson. She’s an american fitness celebrity and a successful entrepreneur. At one point, NO ONE WOULD HIRE HER! But she didn’t let that stop her.

Today’s she’s known for having one of the most successful fitness infomercials and is a fitness expert.

What’s your limiting belief? Give it up! Instead …

Believe Success Is Your Only Option!

If you’d like to check out an incredible interview of Chalene, check out the Lewis Howes Podcast here.

Believe Success Is Your Only Option