Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Brian Kiernan from Connecticut, and Brian is an idea man. He's a real student of direct response, marketing, and has a real passion for it. 

He's also a custom remodeler. That's his day job, the thing that pays the bills, so he uses that as the vehicle to explore and build his marketing knowledge. He applies it to his own business first, and is aspiring to help other remodelers, either by doing lead generation, or their marketing for them. 

We identified where Brian gets off track, and what keeps him from getting to that point, and had a really great, philosophical, strategic and tactical conversation about how to make that dream a reality.

I think there are a lot of people who, once they fall in love with marketing, realize it can be applied to their own business. But they also realize the magic it can do in other people's businesses, and they fall in love with making a business of doing marketing for other people.

On the surface it seems like a great way to do the thing you love without having to do the things you don't love, which is actually run the business. But you'll hear in the conversation how to really think about it, and what progressive plan you could put in place to do the thing you really love, and still sustain yourself through the transition.

If you’ve ever considered taking your knowledge and helping others, you're really going to enjoy this episode.

In a business where everyone is offering the same service, it’s not so much about what you say, but more about the way you say it.

Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Arnold Barzak from up in Ohio, where they have a property management company. They work with condos associations, homeowner’s associations and they take care of all of the property management needs of those units. It's a very interesting business.

We had a great conversation about how to differentiate in a world where everyone is basically offering the same thing, and nobody's happy. It’s a business where there's a lot of resistance to switching management companies, because it's a whole ordeal. So Arnold was really wondering how to breakthrough? What kind of marketing is going to get people to pay attention?

I think you're going to be interested to see where we actually took the conversation, and how much of a difference just one shift in the way you communicate can make.

One shift in a word you use to describe what it is you offer or who it is you're trying to attract can change your whole approach.

I had a lot of fun on this call and I think this is going to be the beginning of a really transformational time for Arnold.

Success sometimes comes at a cost and you may find yourself with a successful business, but days full of work you’re not excited to do or feeling trapped trading hours for dollars.

Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Bogna Wanda, an architect in the New York Area.

Bogna has a successful practice, always busy for over 30 years, and we had a really great conversation about how to transition from being a busy architect, which you could translate to any billable hours professional like, an accountant, a lawyer, a massage therapist, to becoming a business owner where you create something that can generate business, without it being all about your billable hours. Taking more of a proactive approach to the work you do, rather than passively accepting any business that comes your way.

We talked a lot about the philosophy of that transition and we really came on a great plan to actually make it happen.

I love how excited Bogna is when we start outlining a viable plan that she's excited about executing, and I excited for you to listen in and think about how you can apply the same principles to your business.

Many people talk about creating a ‘lifestyle business’ but few set out to find a business that meets that goal.

Today on the podcast we're talking with Alexander Tsymarkin from St. Petersburg in Russia.

We had a great conversation. Alex has a very simple business teaching ladies, mothers, who have children how to swim, and it's a really great story because of the way that he intentionally chose the business. How he started by going through the process from a lifestyle perspective, what would be the perfect business for him, and finding the model that met his criteria.

We had a great conversation about the choices he made, and then we came up with some really elegant, simple, repeatable ways to grow his business.

This is a really interesting episode because he really did start with his end in mind.

Welcome to the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, and wow, what a conversation we've had today! You guys are in for a treat.

Today we’re talking with Mark Flagg. Mark has a tire and auto service company in New York, and this guy is a star. I'm so amazed by his enthusiasm and just raw hustle. That's really what it is, raw hustle and grinding to get it done.

So, we had a really great conversation about, how do you get in front of people who are hoping to go their whole week without ever having to talk to you? If they have to meet you, it's a bad day.

If someone needs to get their tires done or needs to get something done on their car, nobody's looking forward to that. But when you hear Mark, you hear some of the ways he's talking and the things he's doing to embrace this idea of building a lifetime, value-based business with people, really building relationships with people, it's amazing to see what he’s been able to do so far.

We hatched a wonderful scheme for him to test. He's going to go out and test it today and report back and let us know what happens.

You're really going to enjoy this episode. We covered a lot of stuff.

Dialing in your target market is one of the first things we talk about, but having done that, there is further opportunity to be found in thinking about your customers experience, and creating custom solutions for those groups.

Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com podcast we're talking with Ben Dykstra from Seattle, and would you believe it, he is a woodworker.

I mean what are the odds that last week's episode we were talking with someone who has written the book called The Six Figure Woodworker, and then the very next episode we have someone who actually is a woodworker from Seattle.

We had a really great conversation. Ben specializes in building bunk beds and we spent an hour having one of the most creative conversations I think we've ever had on More Cheese, Less Whiskers.

We talked all about not only some ways to immediately improve the results he's getting marketing his existing bunk bed business, but some really creative ways that open up new higher end market opportunities for him within the bunk bed market. Especially taking in to consideration where he is in Seattle and his market there.

You're really going to enjoy this one. There are a lot of ideas here.

Today on the MoreCheeseLessWhisker.com podcast we're talking with Thomas Arrigo and Thomas has one of the best book titles for a lead generator, The Six Figure Woodworker.

It was the title we came up with together on a book title brainstorming call we did for our 90-Minute Books service, and today we talked about the whole process of using a book like that as the beginning of a relationship.

We spoke about selecting an audience; people who are aspiring full-time woodworkers or people who want to make more money with their woodworking, then how to build a community, and how he can lead into an academy type situation where he's able to help people set up their six figure woodworking business. We ended by talking about the end game, and the millionaire woodworker…

You can see how this is all about speaking to the right person. You just need to say the words Six Figure Woodworker and people are crystal clear on what it's about and what they will get from it.

There’s a lot in this show and we covered all the bases of the before unit including the role of a podcast and getting the context right. We had a really great conversation & you’re going to get a lot from it.

Today on the More Cheese, Less Whiskers podcast, we're talking with Paul Bowman, who lives not far from me, right here in Winter Haven. We actually kind of serendipitously met at our local Starbucks and struck up a conversation.

He runs some fitness boot camp’s here in Winter Haven. We talked about what he was doing to fill his boot camps and he laughed when I asked if he was on the ‘transformation crack’.

I wanted to help him break the habit, so we jumped on today’s call.

He's been working on some alternatives over the last few months and we got a chance today to talk about the most compelling, easiest way for him to fill out his roster. He's got space for 150 recurring members in his facility and he's at 83 right now. We talked about the fastest possible way, with the least friction to fill up those remaining 70 spots.

You're going to like the conversation and what it led to.

Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast we're talking with Jill Harrington from just outside of Williamsburg, Virginia.

Several years ago, she wrote a book called The Lupus Recovery Diet. It was very successful, and she's helped lots of people. Her passion is really spreading the word and helping people adopt a whole food, plant-based diet nutrition program.

We had a really great conversation about the target audience of people who need and want to reverse heart disease. She has a great program that can help people, so my question was, "What would you do? What's the result you can get for people?"

We had a whole conversation around it not being just about the information, but about the execution, and the implementation of that information. Then, rather than looking to reach everyone, we narrowed the focus to her local area, and you'll see how the conversation unfolded to think about a pilot project to prototype, before duplicating her programs all over the country.

You're going to enjoy this episode, especially if you have something that could be packaged as a program to get a result, delivered in a localized market.

Joining the conversation your customers are having, before they start having it with all your competitors, is a great way to ‘be there for them’, before they even know they need you…

Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers Podcast we're talking with Kirby Virden who owns a sign company that helps businesses with their outdoor signage.

We had a really great conversation, talking about the mistakes people make with their signs, what works, what doesn't, and really looking at what’s the purpose of signage. When you think about it, if you're focused on the outcome, the job of work you want that sign to do, it's a different kind of thinking than just putting your logo and your company name up there.

He has a great knowledge of the business and hatched some great plans, talking about how to find people who are thinking about getting signs, earlier in their thinking… before they ever get to the point of submitting requests for proposals from every sign company in town. How can we find those people earlier?

There’s a lot of opportunity if you head further upstream than others are fishing…

You're going to enjoy this episode.