Unconventional Life – Podcast, Blog, Live Events

Author: Jules Schroeder

Ep52: How These Best Friends Started A Company With No Business Experience

Having no experience can be one of the biggest deterrents to launching a business.

In fact, 66% of millennials dream of starting their own company yet are delayed in getting started because they either think they aren’t ready or are afraid to fail.

The trouble is, you can read hundreds of books on personal development, entrepreneurial mindset, and business strategy andstill feel like you’re not prepared. If you’re not careful, “preparation” can be a merry-go-round that justifies inaction and holds you back from actually realizing your dreams.

When it comes to launching a business, there’s truly no substitute for concrete action. As Walt Disney famously said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.” Despite what you might think, you don’t actually need a ton of experience to get started.

Take it from two twenty-something best friends who launched a successful cheeky candle company over a glass of wine.

Meet Tom Jansen and Amanda Buhse, the cofounders of the Canada-based candle brand Coal and Canary. Since its birth in 2014, Coal and Canary has grown to an international sensation, starring in the Oscars’ and Grammys’ swag bags, appearing on Good Morning America, and even being endorsed by Cameron Diaz.

This week on the Unconventional Life podcast, Jansen and Buhse share how they were able to create a candle empire from what started as a simple side hobby.

Before launching Coal and Canary, Buhse and Jansen were working full-time jobs as an art director and a nurse. At the time, they never imagined their side passion for candles would one day expand to 150 stores across North America and Hong Kong.

It wasn’t until one evening sharing a glass of wine and doing some market research on candles that Jansen and Buhse discovered a gap in the market for candles that were catered to millennials.

Being millennials themselves, both Buhse and Jansen knew how to connect to this demographic. They understood the desires and qualities of the millennial consumer that motivated them to make purchases.

“The millennial wants to know who you are. They want that human connection with the producer and the product… They like things that are luxurious but don’t cost a lot of money, and they’re very aesthetically-focused. They love to have interesting and eclectic things and they’re not afraid of things that have personality,” says Jansen.

Buhse and Jansen developed their candles with the millennial in mind. They sourced their candles from the highest quality materials, priced them affordably, and marketed them beautifully with professional photos.

“It just slowly started taking off,” Buhse says. “We started posting photos on social media, one thing led to another and it grew dramatically.”

According to Jansen and Buhse, over 95% of their new customers come from Instagram. Their account features eye-catching photos with a signature color scheme and sassy captions highlighting the fun-loving nature of the two founders.

“It’s not such the traditional way of doing business. It’s definitely more fun and lighthearted, not taking yourself too seriously. The millennial consumer really appreciates that when they see your product in stores they know you,” Jansen remarks.

The defining feature of the Coal and Canary brand is undeniably its personality. Its candles feature quirky names like “That Hot Barista,” “Great Complexion and No Reception,” and “110 Calories.”

The duo claims the final ingredient to their success was an optimistic mindset and a willingness to adapt along the way. For example, when customers reported their candles were arriving broken, Buhse and Jansen reinvented their manufacturing and packaging strategy rather than giving up.

If you are one of the 66% that has been itching to start a company but you still haven’t taken the next step, take a page out of Buhse and Jansen’s story—the thriving business you desire could be much closer than you think.

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This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

December 17, 2016
Ep53: How This Founder Took His Videos Viral And Made $8M In Sales

“Gentlemen, I’m Chris,” says a charismatic founder while smoking a pipe, sitting on an ornate throne, and proudly displaying a beard torn straight out of a Vikings storybook.

Before you can blink, Chris drops an F-bomb.

This is the opening scene of the viral video ad that turned a simple beard care brand, Dollar Beard Club, into a membership program, generating over $8 million in sales in the first eight months.

Chris Stoikos, the brand’s founder, is the producer and lead actor behind the video’s uncanny success. After amassing hundreds of millions of views across a handful of videos, Stoikos has dialed down a proven formula to turn any video viral.

Stoikos shares this formula on the latest episode of Unconventional Life, “8 Million in 8 Months: The Proven Formula To Viral Videos.”

In 2016, video is the new standard for marketing, with over 93% of marketers using video in their campaigns. Video is exponentially more effective than plain text or images, shown to increase conversion by 80% and generate 1,200% more shares.

If you’re selling a product or service, the question is not whether to include video, but rather how to hit it out of the park.

Stoikos credits his success largely to the virality of his video campaigns. The videos are less a blatant advertisement than they are a comedic skit, seamlessly blending entertainment and education about the product while building a compelling case to join.

“People want to join your cause and be a part of it for a long time,” Stoikos says. “Brand loyalty is 80% of your revenue.”

With Dollar Beard Club, members are there for the long run. The brand has created a beard culture that awards highest status to the longest, most well-kept beards, motivating members to buy new grooming products each month for years on end.

The concept is genius, yet simple.

Stoikos has coined a methodology behind viral video production called “Prohven,” which uses buyer psychology to create content that triggers an unconscious emotional response in viewers, provoking them to take action.

The Prohven formula has been used by top-level entrepreneurs through Stoikos’ media company Unconscious Content, to generate massive revenue spikes as well as build lasting communities around their brands. Below, Stoikos shares the backbone of the Prohven methodology so you can create effective and compelling video content for your brand.

1. Hook them in within the first five seconds. Create a pattern interrupt that immediately jolts your viewer out of whatever they were just doing. “Show them something they’ve never seen before. Make them say ‘What did I just see? I need to see the rest of this,’” Stoikos says. Be creative and imaginative, and don’t be afraid to be over-the-top. Tactful profanity may work to your advantage, depending on your audience.

2. Villainize your competition. Drop a line or two about why you’re better than your competitors. What is it in your offer that they don’t have? Bonus points for acting it out—think Stoikosslapping a naked man shaving his face to place his brand in opposition to monthly razor clubs.

3. Open up their emotional safe. Everyone has an “emotional safe”: it contains their trust and willingness to buy from you. Show your viewers that they can trust you—take them behind the scenes of your business operations, showcasing the comradery at your company and the homestyle care that goes into packaging each product. Make them feel good about your company culture and they’ll want to be a part of it.

4. Declare why your product is the best of its kind. Use language that shatters the status quo and boldly positions your product at the top of the top. Stoikos describes his product (priced at just a dollar) as “the most legendary beard oil known to mankind.”

5. Educate and entertain simultaneously. Highlight the best features of your product in a creative and engaging way. Weave it into the broader narrative of the skit so it appears seamless and natural, rather than staged, forced, or “salesy.” Make your viewers laugh and they’ll associate your product with a positive experience, becoming more likely to make a purchase.

6. Sell them on a lifestyle. The allure behind Dollar Beard Club is the masculine lifestyle it associates with growing a beard. Bearded men are shown riding motorcycles and getting sexual attention from women, with longer beards being portrayed as more masculine. Pair your brand with a desirable lifestyle that amplifies in value over time and you’ve got an incentive to join and an even greater incentive to stay. Check out Stoikos’ instagram for great examples.

7. Create a compelling call to action. Avoid using salesy phrases like “buy now” and “we know you’ll love these products we’re selling.” Shift the focus from the product and the sale to the relationship they’ll gain when they choose your brand. “Be a man and join the dollar beard club” is the closing line of Stoikos’ famous video. Emphasize the community and lifestyle viewers will align with and saying yes will be effortless.

Enjoyed this post? Check out more of my tools to create a life by your own design.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

December 17, 2016
Ep54: How To Work From Anywhere In The World Without Quitting Your Job

Maybe you’ve ogled over newsfeed photos of your entrepreneurial friends working from their laptops overlooking the sea cliffs of Greece, the rice fields of Bali, or the mountains of Peru.

For many millennials, working remotely is the ultimate career aspiration. The problem is, it’s often just that—an aspiration. We dream of this lifestyle but think it is out of reach for us unless we were to quit our jobs.

In reality, location-independence is becoming increasingly accessible for the everyday worker. Over half of Americans arecurrently working part-time remotely, and that number is rising steadily. As business infrastructure yields to digital technology,more and more companies are willing to let employees work from outside the office.

One founder says you could just be a conversation away from making remote work a reality for you.

Meet Greg Caplan, the founder of Remote Year, a one-year program offering 75 millennials the experience of working in 12 global cities for a month each. Since its launch in 2015, Remote Year has received over 300,000 applications and $12 million in funding. Caplan says the majority of participants are actually completing the program within traditional jobs.

This week on Unconventional Life, Caplan shares how you can successfully pitch your employer on the remote working arrangement of your dreams.

Caplan’s taste for international travel developed at a young age, when, growing up, his parents opened up their home to foreigners from around the world. Caplan recalls living with children from Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the Congo, usually for years at a time.

What stuck with Caplan was a sense of community that transcended geographic borders. With Remote Year, Caplan sought to recreate this experience for a modern generation disconnected from community.

“Community is not always readily available,” Caplan says. “Sometimes it’s something you have to go out and create on your own.”

On the first day of Remote Year’s launch, Caplan was flooded with over a thousand applications. “I shared it with a couple friends over Google Chat and it started to go nuts. Over the next couple months over fifty thousand people signed up. There wasn’t even much information but we really struck a chord—people desired this experience,” he says.

A common theme amongst applicants was a desire to create workability for remote living within their current careers. People wanted to know how they could enroll their employers in a remote working agreement that allowed for travel and an open schedule.

In response, Caplan developed a strategy that began producing consistent results. Before long, Remote Year’s body consisted of more individuals in standard jobs than not.

“Remote work can be done—all that needs to happen is the way bosses and leaders think about remote work,” says Caplan.

Do you desire a remote lifestyle within your current career? Below, Caplan shares his proven strategy to pitch a remote work arrangement your employer can’t refuse.

1. Be professional. Create a formal proposal for your case. You’ll want to include a detailed plan for communication, possible issues and setbacks, and how you’ll work to mitigate them. “If you’re really structured and formal about all of the different points that you’re addressing and you present it in a professional way you’re much more likely to get by your boss or business leader,” Caplan says.

2. Identify the added value. Studies show remote workers are more productive, more collaborative, and take less sick days than their office counterparts. In addition, travel has been shown to improve creativity and innovation. With research in your favor, you can create an effective case for why you’ll become more valuable to your organization as a remote employee.

3. Meet the goals and objectives of your organization.Think holistically about how your proposal will serve your organization at all levels and across all departments. Understand what your organization’s primary objectives are and orient your case in the highest service to those needs. The more consideration you put into the entire structure of your organization, the easier it will be for your boss, and their supervisors, to say yes.

Enjoyed this post? Check out more of my tools to create a life by your own design.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

December 17, 2016
Ep55: The Shortcut To Scaling Your Business With Integrity

If you’re a business owner, you’ve probably experienced the struggles of raising capital and scaling your business.

Maybe you’ve considered selling a stake of your business equity to a larger company who can offer you the capital you need now to expand down the road. While this option is certainly alluring, it isn’t worth the trade off of sharing the rights to your business.

The last thing you want is to find yourself in a position where the values upon which you built your business are shaken by an equity holder.

If you feel like you’re caught in a bind between obtaining the resources you need to grow and preserving the integrity of your business, one man may have a solution for you.

Meet Callum Laing, a New Zealand-born serial entrepreneur, director of multiple companies, author, speaker, and a partner at Unity-Group. Laing recently developed a groundbreaking growth strategy called “agglomeration,” which allows small businesses to experience explosive growth with integrity.

This week on the Unconventional Life podcast, Laing shares how agglomeration is changing the realities of small businesses worldwide.

Laing has been an expert at circumventing the system since he was a kid. Growing up in the UK, he made a profitable side hustle selling homemade ice cream to local bars and restaurants with the help of a Ben and Jerry’s recipe book.

Laing’s entrepreneurial journey evolved into starting, building and selling half a dozen different businesses across a range of industries. He says a common thread throughout his experience was the frustration of trying to scale as a small business strapped for resources.

“The problem with the traditional earnout option [of selling equity to a large company] is you’ve poured your life and heart into building this business, you’ve brought on a team you know and love, and then some CFO in a different country tells you you have to change the salary structure or change how you treat your customers. That’s just too painful to deal with,” Laing says.

That’s why Laing decided to create a way for entrepreneurs to scale without sacrificing their values—he calls it “agglomeration.”

Agglomeration works by enabling small businesses to enlist as public entities in the stock market.

With agglomeration, you can obtain the capital you need to scale without selling any of the rights to your company’s operations. Though shareholders invest in your growth, they can never influence how you run your company. You are free to scale in alignment with the values you established from the start.

Success with agglomeration has been astounding. In just months following its launch in June 2016, the strategy has skyrocketed the profits of nineteen small businesses from $1.4M to $19M.

Is agglomeration right for your business? Below, Laing shares the 5 telltale indicators that you’re a good candidate for agglomeration.

1. You’re experienced. The business you’re currently building shouldn’t be your first go around the block. In order to withstand the pitfalls of managing a company, you should have a minimum of a few years of business experience before you consider the added responsibility of going public.

2. You’re already profitable. Laing says the ideal candidate should be generating about $500k in annual profit. This will show potential shareholders you’re a worthwhile investment with the potential to amplify in value.

3. You’ve got a powerful team. Your business should have plenty of employees to smoothly and reliably carry out operations. If you decide to utilize agglomeration, your business will likely scale at a rate that you’ll need to have the manpower to keep up with. Make sure your employees are skilled and capable, and consider hiring more to match your demand.

4. You’re growing. While growth is the aim of agglomerate funding, your current business should still be growing considerably on its own. Think of agglomeration as a multiplier that functions optimally when there is substantial growth to begin with. The higher your starting growth rate, the more successful you can expect to be with agglomeration.

5. You’ve got a vision for your company. Agglomeration is for you if you aren’t willing to compromise on what’s important to you. You have built your business with the utmost integrity and are committed to seeing it through. If you want to have full command over your business, agglomeration will enable you to remain in control while you scale.

Enjoyed this post? Check out more of my tools to create a life by your own design.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

December 16, 2016
25 Marketing Influencers To Watch In 2017

Meet the marketing influencers who are leading the pack in 2017.

From Inc. 500 Entrepreneurs to New York Times bestselling authors to social media namesakes, each of these individuals has proven that they are at the top of their game in their respective industries.

Learn how to catalyze your own influence and impact by taking a page out of their unconventional playbook:

1. Grant Cardone is popular on virtually every social media platform and has one of the most die-hard followings on the planet. On top of being one of the biggest influencers out there he’s also a 7-time bestselling author and a $500M real estate tycoon.

2. Neil Patel is a NYT bestselling author and entrepreneur who has was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama. Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics.

3. John Rampton is a serial entrepreneur, connector, and and the founder of Due.com. Rampton has hailed as No. 3 of the Top 50 Global Online Influencers and one of the Top 10 Most Influential PPC Experts in the World for 3 years running.

4. Chris Stoikos is best known for his hilarious viral videos, which generated 130M views and $10.5M in sales in the past year alone as part of his ventureDollar Beard Club. Stoikos has also appeared on NBC’s Shark Tank and generated millions in revenue for various product launches.

5. Ann Handley has been named by Forbes as the Most Influential Woman in Social Media and one of the Top 20 Women Bloggers. She is the chief content officer of MarketingProfs, and her book Everybody Writes is a WSJbestseller.

6. Branden Hampton is the king of social media, having built over 33M followers across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. He’s also the CEO of the social media marketing company One Penny Ad Agency and co-author of How to Set Up Your Business for Under $1000.

7. Brian D. Evans is an Inc 500 entrepreneur and the founder and CEO ofInfluencive, an online publication read by millions of young entrepreneurs. His company, BDE Ventures, was the 25th fastest growing advertising and marketing agency in America.

8. Nathan Allen Pirtle is a prolific social media specialist responsible for worldwide trends. He’s worked with high profile clients like Nicki Minaj, MTV, and VH1. Each month he reaches over 100M between his Twitter following and client list.

9. Mari Smith, hailed by Forbes as a Top 10 Social Media Influencer, is a leading expert in Facebook marketing, an author of two books, and a speaker who has shared the stage with Richard Branson, the Dalai Lama, and Tony Robbins.

10. Leonard Kim is a personal branding expert whose content has been read over 10 million times and he has amassed a social-media following of well over 250k people. Kim is also the managing partner of InfluenceTree.

11. Deep Patel is a serial entrepreneur, and the bestselling author of A Paperboy’s Fable. Patel has spoken in front of Fortune 500 CEOs, worked on viral Kickstarter campaigns, and consulted top-tier brands about marketing toMillennials.

12. Pat Flynn is an entrepreneur, blogger, speaker and podcaster best known for his website Smart Passive Income. SPI has one of the most dedicated podcast fan bases in the world with millions of monthly listeners.

13. Amy Vernon is an internationally renowned social media strategist, rated by Mashable as one of the top social media mavens to follow. She is also an established blogger, consultant and speaker known for her critiques of the social marketing space.

14. Jason Stone is known by almost 2M people around the world as@Millionaire_Mentor on Instagram. Stone has successfully launched multiple 6 and 7 figure Instagram platforms and is the founder of Local Door Coupons, Gentlemens Mafia and Millionaire Mentor.

15. Jon Youshaei is the founder of Every Vowel, a cartoon series with over 400k readers. Youshaei has also worked with Eric Schmidt, Adam Grant and Neil Strauss to market their bestselling books, and today is a Google marketing manager.

16. Chirag Kulkarni is the cofounder and CEO of Taco, a marketing agency that has represented companies like Dairy Queen, Infibeam, and Policy Bazaar. Kulkarni is also a speaker and contributor to Fortune andEntrepreneur.

17. Kimra Luna, a master at building personal brands and creating massive online communities. In just a few short years this 30-year-old mom of three went from being on welfare to founding a multi-million dollar brand through her product Be True Brand You.

18. Nicolas Cole is an author, speaker and entrepreneur with work published in Time, Forbes, Fortune, and Business Insider. In the past year, Cole’s writing has accumulated over 20M views.

19. Dave Kerpen is the founder and CEO of Likeable Local, a social media software company. He’s been featured on CNBC, ABC, and CBS. Kerpen is also the NYT bestselling author of Likeable Social Media.

20. John Hall is the cofounder and CEO of Influence & Co, a content marketing firm that has served the Fortune 500. Hall is also a worldwide speaker and contributor to Forbes, Inc, and HBR.

21. Pam Moore is the CEO and founder of Marketing Nutz, a full-service social media, digital marketing and experiential branding agency that serves a range of clientele from solo entrepreneurs to Fortune 50 brands.

22. Connor Blakley, though only 17 years old, is one of the country’s most successful Millennial marketing strategists. Blakley cofounded YouthLogix, named the No. 1 youth marketing blog to follow in 2016 by Inc.

23. Aaron Orendorff is the founder and CEO of iconiContent, a content strategy agency with clients like Shopify and Intuit. Orendorff is behind some of the most successful posts at niche sites like Copyblogger, Unbounce,Content Marketing Institute and Social Media Examiner.

24. Josh Steimle Josh Steimle is the CEO and founder of MWI, a digital marketing agency he started in 1999 as a college student. He also trains executives and entrepreneurs on how to become influencers and thought leaders in their space.

25. Angie Schottmuller is is an inbound marketing thought leader who specializes in using tools and content optimized for search, social media and conversion. She has lead marketing teams for brands like Home Depot and Nestlé.

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This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

December 16, 2016