Synopsis
Are you a Work @ Home RockStar or do you want to be one? Host Tim Melanson interviews self-employed Home Business "RockStars" to learn how they have built their businesses from the comfort of their own home.
Episodes
-
WHR 3.40 : Vinay Raman
08/11/2021 Duration: 34minSHOW NOTES Good Note : Vinay believes that his success is directly related to grit. He just won’t quit. Bad Note : Vinay spent time, money and had investors for a product that he realized the market didn’t want. It was very hard to recover from that funk. Gathering Fans : Try to create a connection with the people you meet. Ask questions and see if there are things you have in common. Assembling the Band : Be more interested in finding the people who have similar values. Allow them to feel empowered to solve problems. Learning from the Best : Getting coaches and mentors is all about getting a different perspective, it has little to do with intelligence. Someone on high ground will be able to see the storm before someone in the valley. THE STORY Vinay Raman from Raleigh, CEO of CAARMO, helps businesses and employees unlock their hidden potential, opportunities to maximize, and risks to mitigate through our Performance Intelligence software tool. He has built decision-making tools that help you
-
WHR 3.39 : Chris Pistorius
08/11/2021 Duration: 22minSHOW NOTES Good Note : After the shutdown, dental practices are back up and things are going well. Bad Note : Planning for success. If you grow too fast, you can fall behind on jobs and hurt your quality and reputation. Always be looking for people that would fit well with your company culture. Gathering Fans : Write the processes and procedures and hire people to run the business. Then spend your time growing the business. Keeping the Hat Full : Take any opportunity for publicity, get booked on podcasts, develop free content for your target market and create a buzz of activity. Learning from the Best : Found a mentor who taught him how to niche down. Currently still participating in a mastermind. THE STORY Before starting his dental marketing agency in 2009, Chris worked for online marketing giants AOL & MapQuest. He holds several online marketing certifications and is trained by Google on how dentists & other businesses can get the most out of their marketing efforts. He’s also the aut
-
WHR 3.38 : Chris Delaney
25/10/2021 Duration: 28minSHOW NOTES Good Note: With low self-esteem from a young age, Chris always found himself in dead-end low paying jobs. Even landing himself a job paying 1£ an hour. Chris had a calling in life that he always wanted to help people but didn’t know how to make income in doing so. It started by helping with youth groups and disabled people with activities which came naturally to him. Later being asked to become a forklift instructor for the company he worked for, because of the “magic whisper “ that helped anxious colleagues. Bad Note: Bad notes happen all the time. With that same forklift job, Chris had to go assess other company drivers. Along with that came writing which Chris had a hard time with being dyslexic. He managed to find a methods that helped him better understand spelling in a way that just made sense to him and enabled him to persevere. With new ways and perspectives, there is always a way. Practice makes Progress: It becomes a subconscious thing with a lot of practice. Life is like learning a
-
WHR 3.37 : Allison Scholes
18/10/2021 Duration: 37minSHOW NOTES Good Note: After getting inspiration from her favourite Marvel villain character. She wondered how can she attract more people to her business and stand out. Be your own character and create your authentic content. Have intentions and goals even if mistakes are made in the process. Bad Note: Dealing with imposter syndrome. Struggling with the decision of “ How do I approach this. ” Allison’s method is explained through the three C’s. Clarity, Content & Consistency. Practice Makes Progress: Implement and get consistent. Regroup whenever you feel stuck and reignite that passion of why you are doing it. Acknowledge when you are not feeling creative and give yourself a grace period. Practice a “ brain dump ” to know what you need to get done each week and put them in categories. Getting Fans: The three V’s for an online strategy. Variety, Video & Value. Instruments of success: Creating your own planner that is linked to your devices. Having boundaries for your work life and know when y
-
WHR 3.36 : Ibrahim Dar
11/10/2021 Duration: 40minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Ibrahim started his business and resigned from his head marketing job in high fashion the same month as the world wide lockdown. Started marketing personal development industry personalities. Releasing 25 books to have enough money to pay the salary of two full-time employees, then continued to scaled the business. Bad Note: Diverting the question from business to a childhood experience. Being chastised as a kid for everything he said wrong, one day he was picked to speak in front of his school about sustainability. A paper that was completely memorized. After only stating his name, he completely forgot what to say. After going back to class the teacher pulled him aside to congratulate him on saying his name for the first time in front of that many people. That totally re-framed the way to think about your mistakes. Getting Fans: Starting with the strategy of not going big. A deep discount for his clients that would go to the standard rate if they were to continue with his servic
-
WHR 3.35 : Michal Stawicki
04/10/2021 Duration: 28minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Michal started his entrepreneur journey in 2017 as an author and advertising books. He reached out to his first client to help the client with sales. He brought the book sales from 5 to 100 in the first month. He then realized that he could provide value and continue with his business. Bad Note: After selling one best seller after another, things seemed to be going good. The next book ended up flopping even after trying to revive the book several times. Discouraged by the lack of sales you take the lesson and carry on. Learn to write for the people that you will connect with. Do your market research in coming to that conclusion. Learning from the best: Starting in the self help sector, you quickly realize that it’s about learning from others more than making things work by yourself. Learn from a successful self publisher on Amazon. By joining groups with similar interest, things started snowballing. Connecting with people was the one thing he wished he had done sooner. Now he is
-
WHR 3.34 : Nancy Mueller
27/09/2021 Duration: 34minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Being a life sensei, everything that she was able to work through, let go of & release in life has enabled generations going forward. Whether that was through her own family or helping clients break childhood trauma & break harmful family cycles. It is able to stop creating your future from your past. Bad Note: Any failure is looking at the situation and realizing what opportunity is being given to learn. Nancy’s coaching business was a side hustle while she worked her full time corporate job. When she was going through her divorce she felt like there was nothing else to lose so she made the transition to work on her coaching business full time without a plan. Everything slowly started to happen with the manifestation of making it work. Practice makes Progress: Everyday reassuring yourself with your vision. Your story is your vision. Reminding yourself of what you’ve done and where you’re going. When you’re truly empowered and know you are here for a reason, are debating on
-
WHR 3.33 : Kinga Mnich
20/09/2021 Duration: 34minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Being a social psychologist and leadership strategist, once COVID hit the world many companies started reaching out in regards to what they could do. She was successfully at helping companies shift their entire business from working in a store to working remotely. Bad Note: At the beginning of lockdowns Kinga lost 70% of her contracts due to panic. It was the first time in her 17 years of remotely working where things dropped that much. Her over head was low and having savings helped in pushing forward. Jam Room: Having a room for yourself will make the difference. Even if you don’t have a room, designate a corner or space. This area is for work and will help your brain distinguish what the task at hand is in that spot. You carry the work for your business at all times, use different areas to your advantage. Band: 3 full-time employee and 2 consultants to help grow the business. Building relationships in real life and by having recommendations with LinkedIn profiles helped to find th
-
WHR 3.32 : Dr Vaneeta Aggarwal
13/09/2021 Duration: 31minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Prior to Covid-19 Vaneeta had started her own company specializing in higher education media in India. After Covid-19 started causing lockdowns she quickly pivoted to online webinars for students and professors from all over the world on planning their futures. Then to publish an E-Magazine and podcasts with knowledge from corporate guru’s for the students to have insight before they get to the work force. Example: isolating noise when working from home. Bad Note: Not taking a deep dive into the industry before launching. Preparing better by calculating cost and expenses would have made a difference in the business. Hire a consultant to go over a marketing budget. Jam Room: Having a multi-purpose room for other members of the family to use. A light set-up and customizable backdrop for zoom, a quiet corner to study with table and couch. Bandmates: All the bandmates had the same focus in providing higher education for students wether that was looking for the right people or the ri
-
WHR 3.31 : Maria Brito
06/09/2021 Duration: 42minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Quitting her attorney job to work in the arts. Getting a call from one of her friends with nothing but compliments that then linked her with a celebrity that opened huge doors for her. Even when you think no-one is watching, people are watching. The validation will come with the results. Bad Note: With the art industry being a Muti-billion dollar market, it is very small in terms of how everyone knows everyone. You need to protect your relationships. Stay within the rules of the community wether they are unspoken or not. The more you push yourself into a certain business the more mistakes will happen. Practice makes Progress: Never get complacent with anything, learn as much as you can. Every industry will continuously go through changes to always better the situation. Do your due diligence with any step that you take. Get informed. Getting Fans: Early adoption and original ideas. She noticed that art advisors didn’t have social media branding and jumped at the opportunity. Conce
-
WHR 3.30 : Sharita Humphrey
30/08/2021 Duration: 36minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Leaving her public service job to start her business. She wanted her own time and not to be missing out on living. She did everything possible for the change in lifestyle including implementing things her employer was already doing and maximizing her. With an emergency fund she made the transition. Bad Note: You don’t need to invest so much in every aspect of your business. With hindsight she figured that too much money was spent on her website & branding. Don’t give total power for someone to make your decisions. Use and spend your money wisely. Instruments: Social media allows you to get to get connected with multiple people but you don’t need to be on every platform. Use the appropriate social media for what message you’re trying to get across. Tag people you’re working with on instagram or say what you’re doing on twitter. Don’t simply copy and past to every platform. THE STORY Sharita M. Humphrey is a nationally-recognized, award-winning finance expert and money am
-
WHR 3.29 : Sarah Gibbons
23/08/2021 Duration: 32minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Having a career in online advertising she never felt fulfilled. With a craving to make an impact she decided to go back to grad school, with getting a masters in spiritual psychology. Finally launched her own coaching practice while simultaneously managing a sales team and raising a family. A very proud feeling. Bad Note: Membership programs have always been quite popular, but even with good content, spending money and figuring out the back end, 2 people joined. Without a community or clients she found that she was trying to take a short cut. It’s really easy to compare yourself to others even though you are in a completely different position. Build foundation. Learning from the best: The coaching business has turned into a billion dollar business. The downside is the bar is so low to get in. The people that make phenomenal coaches are the ones that walk the talk. Finding coaches that are different ages can benefit you as well as for different kinds of skills such as parts of you
-
WHR 3.28 : Eric Seropyan
16/08/2021 Duration: 31minSHOW NOTES Good Note: It’s always good to show your client the data points. After looking through their businesses using web tracking methods they can pick apart what could be needed to get more traffic. Bad Note: While working with certain clients on their online presence, Eric had ran into a situation where the client was using copyrighted material for their blogs. Turning into a real problem when working with google. Practice makes Progress: Keep doing it & testing it. Never stop educating yourself on the subject especially technology. Just look at the innovation in the past 10 years. Bandmates: Picking colleague based on referrals. When in business you take care of your clients the referrals will follow. You can also offer free audits. Getting Fans: Wether it is local or international, the campaign is different when helping a business get leads. Lock in to key words for your business and how your competitors are being found. THE STORY This Is My South Bay is a digital marketing agency lo
-
WHR 3.27 : Shopanova
09/08/2021 Duration: 34minSHOW NOTES Good Note: After going from commercial fishing to sales, Shopanova dialled in their own marketing for customers and it really took off. Creating a business that solved the problem of their first video production business. Bad Note: During the transition of jobs, there was about a year of grinding and making mistakes. Hiring someone for sales too early on ended in a way only generating enough income to pay the employee. It took learning and having other jobs to make it all work. Learning From the Best: Finding someone who already made a successful agency and learning from them. The slowest way to learn, is to learn from experience. Practice Makes Progress: Through repetition, take every hardship and mistake as motivation. When you have that lens you can start to view them as gifts to something better. Continue showing up and be patient. Getting Fans: Running their own paid add campaigns. Celebrate your clients stories to encourage them and show others. THE STORY Shopanova is the go-to
-
WHR 3.26 : Christopher Hamze
02/08/2021 Duration: 25minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Using the time during COVID to redo their entire app that hadn’t been redesigned in over 7 years. Bad Note: There have been many pivots over the years, it took realizing that the 1 type of customer that they had been revolving their business around was not best customers to look for. Redesign the old model and track your metrics. Bandmates: Working personally harder will only get you so far, you can’t be good at everything let only give it their 100% focus. Alleviate it with bandmates to spread the work accordingly. With the expense of hiring, you will make it back in the long run whether it been personally or financially. Cash Flow: Being a very conservative company, they determine what’s left over and how to allocate that. Take the time to think things through. Don’t go too crazy with your money and don’t be too stingy. Instruments: In the early days it was more about working with what you have. Later to realize there are many different types of tools to help with being more ef
-
WHR 3.25 : James Neilson-Watt
26/07/2021 Duration: 33minSHOW NOTES Good Note: Being a health care chiropractor by trade he never felt fulfilled with his own lifestyle. He said he must change something and then released his first small program to show people how to get more clients. Then immediately realized he was undervaluing himself. Bad Note: When things are not going well, try and change it with hindsight. Rather than making the solution complex. Simple businesses scale, complex business fail. Bandmates: You can go fast when you’re alone and go far when you have a team. The most important hires that James did were all personal positions such as a maid & child care to get his time focused. Getting Fans: Ask yourself what is your sales journey to get these clients. THE STORY In 2019, James launched an online program to help healthcare practice owners to fill theirpractices with their ideal clients so they can generate more revenue and impact morepeople. With eight months he grew it to 7 figures – fast forward to now without hundredsof healthcare
-
WHR 3.24 : Mike Arnold
19/07/2021 Duration: 29minSHOW NOTES Good Note: During Covid utilizing the time and all of the skills he has learned to generate more income & success. Taking on work with a medical technology company that is now ready by having time working from home. Bad Note: During his 13 years in the business there has been many bad notes whether it was work for himself or other corporations. Ultimately time gets away from you, getting caught up in doing the ‘best’ you can do. Thinking you can do everything. Constantly being away from your family and stressing about something you could have finished. Loosing money and not giving yourself time to train yourself to develop. Bandmates: At first there was no band, no delegating which took nothing but time away from him. After working for certain companies when there was a lot to do, he started utilizing people efficiently by marking down who was doing what, then work load deminished big time. Recognize what you do and what you don’t do. Practice makes Progress: Plan out your calendar week
-
WHR 3.23 : Samit Patel
12/07/2021 Duration: 33minSHOW NOTES Good Note: After graduating college Samit tried his hand at various businesses from travel to hair and beauty. Failing at all of them and being down on his luck for years, it took just one more try to help raise 1.6 million for a campaign. Afterwards the work came flooding in even before starting his agency. Bad Note: Tons and tons of mistakes. From the amount of work from different businesses and industries became the foundation for learning. After doing a deep dive he found that Lack of research for said company ( Young and naive ) Pre-launch your campaign ( Validate and prove ) Build a comunity Practice makes Progress: Consistently learning from experience is right, but with what we have now reverse engineering anything out there. You can learn lots from your competitors and understanding your competitor landscape. Getting Fans: Local networking events and making relationships within the industry. Getting reviews and testimonials will help getting traffic. Use your personal brand when
-
WHR 3.22 : Howie Zales
05/07/2021 Duration: 28minGood Note: Starting off as a camera operator for a local news station, Howies dream was to do sports TV. Calling ESPN with camera experience he was told that he didn’t have enough experience. 5 years later to the day, he called back for the job and got it. Bad Note: There is no 1 path to take. Self funding and invest in the proper equipment needed. Practice make Progress: Consistently reading and learning with intention of what other people are doing. There is always room for improvement and knowing you’ll will make the mistakes. Bandmates: Picking people that are like minded and smart at their craft. Being on time is a must. Learning from others: Having a mentor to show you the ropes. A Linkedin Coach that helped with getting leads and building a profile. Every time he has spent money on coaches they helped with guidance and getting questions answered to implement. THE STORY Howie Zales is an Emmy Award winning Camera Operator who turned his passion for television broadcasting into several entrepreneur
-
WHR 3.21 : Jessica Totillo Coster
28/06/2021 Duration: 27minSHOW NOTES Good Note: After a life event, she went all in on her business and replaced her day job income. Bad Note: Over extending herself before getting the people needed to help get to the next step and become more efficient. Understand who you hire for the task at hand. Start by getting someone specific for 1 specific job in your business.Take baby steps for building your ideal team. Attract Fans: You have to love being in the entrepreneur mindset when talking with anyone in your industry. Having your business based on referrals makes it that much easier. Show up to serve and create relationships. Cash Flow: Continue to do all your book keeping. You will know where all your money is at, don’t check out if you outsource it to someone else. Realize how much your bare minimum is and adjust from there. Break down the numbers as best as you can. Leave 6 months of operating expenses. THE STORY Jessica Totillo Coster is an eCommerce strategy expert and support for female entrepreneurs. 20+ years