Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Hit It and Quit It with Clarence Wooten and Susan Hull Walker

Transcript

Hit It and Quit It with Clarence Wooten and Susan Hull Walker · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  Three, two, one, zero.
• 0:04
  Ignition.
• 0:06
  Lift off.
• 0:09
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
• 0:17
  Emerson.
• 0:18
  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
• 0:26
  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
• 0:34
  Have you subscribed to the small biz chat podcast?
• 0:37
  Well, it's time.
• 0:38
  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
• 0:45
  small business.
• 0:46
  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
• 0:51
  your business forward.
• 0:53
  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Biz Chat podcast today.
• 0:59
  Need more help in your business, but you're not ready to hire a bigger team?
• 1:03
  Meet your agentic employees with cofounder.ai.
• 1:07
  Get AI powered support to tackle important business tasks, accelerate execution, and help
• 1:13
  you grow.
• 1:14
  Visit cofounder.ai and discover a smarter way to expand your team.
• 1:19
  Now what I wanna do right now is I wanna bring back my other guest, Clarence Wooten from
• 1:28
  cofounder.ai, and we are going to do what I like to call a little quick panel that I like
• 1:34
  to call hit it and quit it.
• 1:37
  And how it works is I'm gonna ask each of you the same four questions, but you only have
• 1:43
  thirty seconds to answer.
• 1:45
  Now, if someone steals the other person's answer, talk, you better come up with another
• 1:51
  one or I'm gonna give you the cowbell.
• 1:52
  I don't wanna do that.
• 1:53
  So I want you guys to be brief, but be thoughtful.
• 2:00
  Here we go.
• 2:00
  And since there's only two of you, I'll answer the questions too.
• 2:03
  So it could be the three of us.
• 2:04
  All right.
• 2:05
  So the first question, Clarence, I'm coming to you first and then you, Susan, and then I'll
• 2:10
  answer.
• 2:11
  All right.
• 2:11
  Very first question is what is your favorite podcast?
• 2:17
  Clarence, what is your favorite podcast?
• 2:21
  I have to say it is called the All In podcast has been my favorite.
• 2:26
  They've gotten a little too political, but aside from that, it's still a great podcast, I
• 2:31
  believe.
• 2:32
  All right, good stuff, good stuff.
• 2:34
  Susan, what is your favorite podcast?
• 2:37
  I try to keep beauty and inspiration in my life.
• 2:39
  So I listened to Patrick O'Toole on his Poetry Unbound.
• 2:45
  I know it's not what you expected, but that is where I go because I think we gotta have some
• 2:49
  poetry in our lives.
• 2:50
  I love it.
• 2:51
  I love it.
• 2:51
  So I have several that I like, but I really like Hidden Brain.
• 2:55
  NPR's podcast, Hidden Brain is a really, really good one.
• 2:59
  They always talk about interesting things and I get a lot from it. So it's one of
• 3:02
  So it's one of the NPR's podcasts that I love a lot.
• 3:05
  Alright.
• 3:06
  Second question.
• 3:07
  Second question.
• 3:08
  Susan, this one's gonna come to you first and then you, Clarence, and then me.
• 3:12
  What is your favorite app?
• 3:15
  What is
• 3:16
  your favorite business app that you use?
• 3:18
  Well, don't know if it's a business app.
• 3:20
  It could be, but I was going to say Audible because I've listened to so many books.
• 3:24
  I listen to books all the time.
• 3:26
  Walk a lot.
• 3:27
  I listen to books.
• 3:28
  And sometimes I need a good story.
• 3:30
  Sometimes I need some business advice.
• 3:32
  Sometimes I need just to keep up with what's going on in the world.
• 3:37
  So I use Audible a lot.
• 3:39
  I'm an Audible girl too.
• 3:40
  I love Audible too.
• 3:42
  Clarence, let me guess.
• 3:43
  What is your favorite business app?
• 3:46
  It's absolutely 100% unequivocally cofounder.ai.
• 3:51
  How did I know you were going to say that?
• 3:52
  All right, cofounder.ai.
• 3:54
  Everybody has at least got to go try this thing.
• 3:57
  It sounds pretty cool.
• 3:59
  My favorite business app, I gotta say is ChatGPT.
• 4:06
  I'm a chat girl.
• 4:08
  Like I even give chat a name.
• 4:10
  He has a name for me.
• 4:11
  It's very funny.
• 4:11
  Like he's We're really gonna change that.
• 4:15
  Oh my gosh.
• 4:16
  Okay.
• 4:17
  Okay.
• 4:18
  All right.
• 4:18
  Next question.
• 4:20
  Clarence, I'm coming to you first for this one and then you, Susan.
• 4:23
  Now, what is your favorite old school marketing trick?
• 4:30
  Favorite old school marketing trick?
• 4:33
  I don't know if it's old school, but it's probably more new school.
• 4:40
  It's to build a landing page.
• 4:42
  If I want to build a business or a product, I build a landing page as if the product already
• 4:48
  exists.
• 4:48
  I put a price tag on it.
• 4:50
  And when a person clicks buy, I just get their first name, last name and email address and
• 4:56
  then tell them they're on a wait list and then leverage that signal to know whether or not it
• 5:01
  is worth building.
• 5:04
  I think it's really important to sort of understand whether something's worth building
• 5:07
  before you go before you go try to build it.
• 5:09
  So I call that
• 5:10
  product marketing.
• 5:11
  I'm a big fan of that as well.
• 5:13
  Please survey your people before you spend a bunch of money building something that nobody
• 5:17
  wants.
• 5:17
  It's a bad idea.
• 5:18
  All right, Susan, what about you?
• 5:20
  What is your favorite old school marketing tip?
• 5:22
  Well, as we've already said, everything we do with marketing is really it's storytelling.
• 5:27
  We have great stories because we have great women that we work with.
• 5:30
  So sometimes we're really putting the mic in front of these women.
• 5:33
  And we have our mailers that we send out in our social media, but letting them speak for
• 5:40
  themselves and speak about what they're doing, telling the stories.
• 5:45
  It just doesn't get any better than that.
• 5:48
  We have a lot of rich content.
• 5:49
  So it's just getting it out there.
• 5:51
  Stories always sell, that's for sure.
• 5:54
  I would say that my favorite old school marketing tip is writing a handwritten note to
• 6:00
  someone.
• 6:01
  I think we're so email prone.
• 6:03
  I think if you send someone a note on personal stationery, that is something they are not
• 6:08
  throwing away.
• 6:09
  And so I think that there's value in that.
• 6:12
  So that is mine.
• 6:13
  All right, guys, last question.
• 6:16
  Susan, I'm coming to you first and then you Charles.
• 6:21
  What is the best business book you have ever read?
• 6:25
  Oh no.
• 6:26
  Oh, this is a hard one.
• 6:27
  Best?
• 6:28
  Business book you've ever read.
• 6:31
  Okay.
• 6:31
  I'm gonna throw you again because this is Clarence's world and I'm sure much more than
• 6:38
  mine because in as the world that I'm in now, I'm writing a book and I'm really thinking a
• 6:45
  lot about Most of my books I'm reading are about writing.
• 6:50
  But there was one that just popped into my mind by Pat Mitchell, was the head of PBS and
• 6:59
  Sundance Institute and things.
• 7:01
  She wrote Unbecoming a Dangerous Woman.
• 7:04
  Now it's not a business book, but it is about her life with some of the world's greatest
• 7:10
  leaders and what she learned about being a businesswoman in that realm and being a
• 7:18
  dangerous woman.
• 7:19
  So I'm going to say that one.
• 7:22
  All right.
• 7:22
  Good stuff.
• 7:23
  Clarence, what is your favorite business book?
• 7:26
  Mine would have to be Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?
• 7:30
  That's the title of the book.
• 7:32
  And it was written by an entrepreneur by the name of Reginald F.
• 7:35
  Lewis, who was an African American from Baltimore.
• 7:40
  And he's the only person to ever get into Harvard Law School without taking the LSAT.
• 7:46
  And he used what was called a leverage buyout to buy Beatrice Foods for about $900,000,000
• 7:55
  back in the late 80s.
• 7:57
  So that book just showed me that it is possible.
• 8:01
  You should to dream bigger.
• 8:04
  And, yeah, it was amazing in terms of what it did for my mindset.
• 8:10
  We need more entrepreneurs like Reginald Lewis.
• 8:12
  Unfortunately, he died of a brain tumor in 1995.
• 8:17
  I'm sure he would be up there with Elon Musk right now if he were still alive.
• 8:21
  I believe that, I believe that and I've read that book a long time ago, that was a great
• 8:25
  book.
• 8:26
  My favorite business book of late, because I change all the time, is actually 10X is Easier
• 8:31
  Than 2X by Dan Sullivan.
• 8:33
  This is an amazing book and this book actually changed my life and how I even thought about my
• 8:39
  own business.
• 8:41
  It's a brilliant book and the Audible version of this book is really good because he and his
• 8:46
  co founder who's much younger tell these little stories in between the chapters that are like
• 8:51
  not in the book.
• 8:51
  So the Audible is actually really good at this book.
• 8:54
  So that's it folks.
• 8:59
  Thank you both so much for being on today.
• 9:02
  Clarence Wooten, the founder of cofounder.ai, Susan Hull Walker of the iboomovement.org.
• 9:12
  Check out both of their organizations.
• 9:14
  These were excellent conversations worthwhile.
• 9:17
  And I will just leave you with this.
• 9:21
  You know, if you are someone who is struggling in your business, looking to grow, looking for
• 9:26
  some sales support, please head over to smallbizladyuniversity.com, check out what we
• 9:32
  have to offer.
• 9:33
  We are always launching new cohorts of our sales training programs, and certainly if
• 9:38
  you're interested in one on one coaching, I do that too.
• 9:42
  So you can always send us an email at support melyndahemerson dot com if you're interested in
• 9:48
  scheduling a complimentary coaching call with me.
• 9:51
  Now, we here at the Small Biz Chat podcast, we're on a mission and our mission is to end
• 9:58
  small business failure.
• 9:59
  But I will leave you with this, You never lose in business.
• 10:02
  Either you win or you learn.
• 10:05
  God bless everybody.
• 10:10
  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 10:15
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
• 10:20
  more fantastic information and interviews.
• 10:23
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 10:28
  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
• 10:31
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.