TMBA Podcast Episodes
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TMBA 137 (LBP120) - How To Profit From In-Person Events With Rob Walling
Dan and Ian are both in the States and working on their next big thing - the Dynamite Circle Conference in Bangkok in October. Planning conferences is a lot of work that you never even thought of until the hotel was asking what kind of breakfast menus you would prefer during your third break on the second day. Who has a breakfast menu during their third break?! They decided to call in a pro and chat it up with Rob Walling, the founder of MicroConf (The Conference For Self-Funded Startups.)
TMBA 136 (LBP119) - Bro Pricing And The Most Important Model In Online Business
In this episode Dan & Ian tackle this frustrating issue that plagues many an information product or intangible service provider: My biggest question about business lately has been pricing. I have no idea whether or not I'm charging my customers too much, too little, etc. Head down and pencils up - this episode is full of pricing insights and strategies you need to have a successful online business, including: The Most Important Model In Online Business
TMBA 135 (LBP118) - 5 No-Time Products And Questions From The Silent Majority
Dan and Ian spent the past week working diligently to poll the LBP audience and find the deepest darkest unasked listener questions. They ended up with some great questions and requests for advice from the LBP community, many of which were from listeners they'd never heard from before. Which made Dan grin, cause he loves you silent majority folks
TMBA 134 (LBP117) - Flexing Your Hustle Muscle And Hacking A Job
Dan and Ian spent a fair amount of time (ok...they spent a session) learning Crossfit from Joe Bauer in the Philippines during the recent Tropical MBA session. After they managed to drag themselves back to the microphone, they realized there was some techniques to work out on the LBP.The thing with starting a biznass is that it isn't all rainbows and puppies. There's some heavy lifting that you have to do to get that baby off the ground, and we're not talking reps with a tropical umbrella drink. Sure, everyone wants the 4-Hour Work Week, but you gotta put in the work to make that happen.Wanna Flex Your Hustle Muscle And Hack A Job?
TMBA 133 (LBP116) - How To Choose A Profitable Niche That You Can Love on Summer Marketing Mashup
It's a special podcast here at the LBP. Dan and Ian are joined for a bonus-length episode as they host the Summer Marketing Mashup guys (Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, Jason Van Orden & Jeremy Frandsen from Internet Business Mastery, and Tim Conley from Foolish Adventure) to talk shop on niche selection. So sit back, grab your beverage of choice and a notebook (or Evernote), and check out the final installment in the Summer Marketing Mashup series.
TMBA 132 (LBP115) - The Most Expensive (But Profitable) Marketing Strategy In Your Arsenal
Marketing is a key piece of the biznass conversation. How do you choose? Some are quick and dirty, some are putting in for some long ball. How do you choose? Dan and Ian went back to their notebooks and online archives (thank you GMail!) and sorted through to find the most profitable marketing strategy they had ever implemented. Only problem? It's also their most expensive. But when you're a serious lifestyle business baller, you realize that sometimes you've gotta make the investment of resources to get the explosion of customers.
TMBA 131 (TTR17) - How We Increased Email Subscribers 257% By Making it Harder to Opt-in
How does a lazy blogger increase their email subscription rate by 257% and in the process get an automatic sales machine working for them and generating sales in their sleep? Well– you could hire John McIntyre— but for those of you who have teams or willing to do it yourself, we invited John on the show to get the details on how he did it. It’s also time for us to offer another Tropical MBA internship here at Badladz resort in Puerto Galera, Mindoro (sorry, so much for the “no more interns” thing), so it’s good timing to ask John about his experience here in the Philippines plus the business and skills he’s been building over the past year.
TMBA 130 (TTR16) - Becoming a Mini-Mogul
Today Ian and I are joining you from Puerto Galera, Philippines. We found a few minutes away from the events here at the Tropical MBA to discuss a topic that’s been on our minds lately: How do we frame up this new style of multi-national small business entrepreneurship, and what are some related business opportunities? A lot of people have been talking about this trend lately, we dug up this article to serve as the basic structure for this episode. We believe the opportunities to create services and products for people just like us– global-thinking lifestyle entrepreneurs– is massive.
TMBA 129 (LBP114) - Sometimes We Are The Champions, Sometimes We Are Awful
It’s been a really rough week for Dan and Ian. This is mostly due to the fact that they arrived in the Philippines to meet with 14 bright eyed participants of our August TMBA Session and it was a bit of a challenge. Not because of the participants. Instead they encountered a slight typhoon wreaking havoc on Manila, Batangas City & Pier, Mindoro, Puerto Galera, and Badladz Resort. In other words, they were surrounded by the storm. What should have been a fun 3-hour tour of the Philippines to get to the resort turned in to an adventure of epic proportions. But everyone arrived safe and sound, amped up on the adrenaline of their adventure, with huge grins on their faces and dates with their beds. Which is to say, in true internet meme fashion, sometimes owning a business isn’t all double rainbows and Tiger Blood. Sometimes, you are killin’ it and sometimes you are struggling to get it all done, through some pretty adverse situations and circumstances.
TMBA 128 (TTR15) - Is Starting a Personal Blog Hazardous to Your Entrepreneurial Health?
We are back with our weekend podcast with the hopes of giving you a little fuel for your projects over the next few days. Today I discuss with the CEOh-yeah and issue we’ve brought up a few times before. One of the biggest questions we get asked is: should I start a personal blog for networking purposes? I don’t think these are benign decisions and I take this question very seriously. When you are just getting started and need to find strategic levers to get as much energy channeled into your business as possible, and your decision on when and how to blog or otherwise put content onto the interwebs can have a big impact on your future.
TMBA 127 (LBP113) - 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Lifestyle Business Owners
It was a bit of a somber moment earlier this week when we learned that Dr. Stephen Covey, the author of 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, had passed away. This week, as a tribute to one of the first business theory books the guys got their hot little hands on, they are putting a bit of a spin on Covey's original 7 Habits. Since Dan & Ian have developed (or haphazardly (accidentally sometimes) created) their own vocabulary around the sites, they decided to see how some of the most popular and important principles of the LBP mindset align.
TMBA 126 (TTR14) - 5 Ways to Produce Expert Level Content (Even If You Aren't an Expert)
This week’s happy hour drink sponsor is Orangina, a beverage with a special place in the heart of @AnythingIan. Today we are going to talk about high level content strategy. First, it’s worth taking a look at Karol’s notes from reading Turning Pro. Many of you know I’m a huge War of Art fan, and I just got started with Turning Pro today based on Karol’s suggestion. “The amateur allows his worth and identity to be defined by others. The amateur craves third-party validation.” Ouch that’s harsh! In this episode we’ll explore strategies content marketers can employ to avoid the amateur trap.
TMBA 125 (LBP112) - The Importance Of Niche Flexibility And Finding The Real Reasons People Are Successful
Dan is all about the public peer pressure on Ian. Getting him to sign up for email lists. Getting him to go to NYC with him in September. Getting him to divulge his espionage trade secrets in a future episode. What else is this podcast gonna get Ian into?! This week the guys are slowly making their way to meeting up with each other in Saigon for a couple weeks before the next Tropical MBA session in the Philippines in August. As they work on getting back in the same space, they discuss the various niches and products they have pursued over the years (they edited out the 30 minutes of feisty heated discussion in circles) and how they decided to pursue them.
TMBA 124 (TTR13) - The "Never Launch Strategy" - A Profitable Approach to Information Products
This week I’m joining you from from Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi. Tiger beer (via nearby Singapore) is my unofficial sponsor. If a brand manager is reading this post, why not send me a tank top or something?! In this episode I’ll get on my soapbox and offer an alterative to the militaristic “launches” happening around the web. I’ll also share one of my favorite interviews from the recent Tropical MBA event. My new friend JP recently confirmed he’ll be quitting his job and traveling after having solidly proved his business concept over the past few months. Congrats JP!
TMBA 123 (LBP111) - South East Asia's Top 6 Business Travel Destinations
Dan and Ian have been busy hopscotching across SE Asia the past couple weeks (Bali, Philippines, China, Vietnam) and have plans to continue the journey later in July with a motorbike excursion in Cambodia. All this travel got the guys thinking about the places they go and the things they love/hate about each place. More importantly, how a location independent entrepreneur can live and work from these locations and still be straight hustlin’.
TMBA 122 (LBP110) - Tropical MBA And The Power Of Conditioning Content
Dan and Ian are jet-setting around Asia for the next month between Tropical MBA sessions, currently doing some money biznass in Hong Kong. After the first Tropical MBA was so much fun and so successful, not only did they decide to host yet another session in October 2012, but the effectiveness of the program caused them to stop and re-evaluate their online priorities. All good businesses grow and change, and Tropical MBA is doing that as well.
TMBA 121 (LBP109) - The 7 Types Of Entrepreneurs And Johnny Arbitrage
This week Dan and Ian were reminded of a great project that you have all helped us to grow in the Lifestyle Business Podcast community. To date you guys have raised over $5000 on Kiva micro-funding businesses and entrepreneurs in developing countries. That’s pretty baller. Check out our Kiva page to pay it forward cause that’s what entrepreneurs do. What else do entrepreneurs do? Well, what an entrepreneur does depends a lot on what type of entrepreneur they are.
TMBA 120 (TTR12) - Our Mindset Manifesto : Lessons From 5 Years of Running a Business
I managed to sneak away from the start-ups here at the first Tropical MBA in Puerto Galera Philippines for a few minutes in order to share some of the lessons we’ve been learning together. Today we ask the question: what mindsets are critical to developing to ensuring your business success? You might be surprised by some of the answers we’ve developed.
TMBA 119 (LBP108) - Solving The Problem Of Startups
We’re a few days in to the first Tropical MBA Startup Session here in Puerto Galera and the entire team is buzzing with excitement and motivation working with these guys. Basically Dan and Ian just wander around with huge grins on their faces helping the guys with their startups. Entrepreneurs hustle hard. Which means they need to party hard too. And last night the folks at Badladz Resort did it up right and threw a party, complete with amazing live band and Filipino delicacies like balut & fried chicken heads. Which left some folks a little fuzzy headed this morning. This Tropical MBA thing seems to work. The participants are working, learning, growing, building, and spending some time escaping all that with people who are going through the exact same thing. Talk about a cure for entrepreneurial loneliness!
TMBA 118 (LBP107) - How To Compete With Free And Not Fight Downhill
Dan and Ian are together again at the infamous Badladz Resort in Puerto Galera, Philippines. This week they are joined by special guest Tim Conley from Foolish Adventure who will be working with the first group of folks here for the TMBA Start-up Summer project. Stay tuned in the next couple weeks for updates about these guys, their projects, and our Start-up Summer. This week they got a question from Shayna at EspressoEnglish.net: I run a website that teaches English as a Second Language, and I feel like I’m competing with the zillions of pages all over the internet. I’m having trouble pricing my products for a global audience and trying to compete with all the free sites out there.