Positioning yourself as the expert in your field can eliminate competition and reap endless rewards. But the task of actually becoming recognized as an expert can be somewhat daunting. Knowing what steps to take and where to focus your efforts doesn’t come easily.

Bob Sommers, host of The Recognized Expert Marketing Show, is our featured guest in this Episode of The Small Business Trends Radio. Before moving his family to Hawaii, Bob owned and operated the largest customer service training company in the country.

By positioning his company as the premier customer service training provider, he was able to generate more money in a day, than he earned in an entire year as a full time engineer.

Here’s a sampling of topics from the show:

• Do one thing only — and do it very well. Target your market down to a very small niche, become the expert at it and eliminate competition by doing so. It’s better to be a big fish in a small pond than it is to be a big fish in an endless ocean. For example, if your field is gardening, narrow it down and become the expert on azaleas.

• Take action steps — to position yourself as an expert by writing a book or creating an ebook; publishing useful articles online that contain tips and advice for readers; speaking publicly; making television and radio appearances and blogging. Writing a blog can increase your status as an expert in your field if you provide useful information, tips and actionable advice for readers. They will begin to view you as a “go to” source of information.

• If you are the expert — you will not have to say it because people will be saying it for you.

Bob has much more advice to offer from his personal experiences and explains why it is so important to choose a niche within your field to become seen as an expert. You can learn more by clicking the red and yellow player below and listening to Bob’s full interview.

Listen Now:

 How To Become A Recognized Expert [30:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Staci Wood | Comments (4) | Permalink

Intuition is a primal gut instinct, built in for survival. When your pet senses danger – it retreats and follows its gut instinct. Humans are the only living creatures that ignore those primal gut instincts. We are the only living creatures that sense danger - yet continue to move toward it.

Lynn Robinson, Author of “Trust Your Gut: How The Power of Intuition Can Grow Your Business” and Founder of LynnRobinson.com, is our featured guest in this Episode of The Small Business Trends Radio. Lynn teaches us how to recognize when intuition is attempting to communicate with us - and to learn to listen to it.

Here’s a sampling of topics from the show:

• Logic and facts — are left brain qualities and intuition is a right brain quality. Your logic speaks in one voice and your intuition speaks in another - BOTH are giving you valuable information.

• Increase your intuition by — asking yourself an open ended question and then wait for information to arrive. Practice this by writing down your question on a piece of paper and placing it in your pocket. You will find that throughout your day, images may flood your mind, hunches may reveal themselves and flashes of insight will arrive. Remember, intuition contains a “fleeting” quality - do not dismiss fleeting thoughts.

• “Freeze framing” — is a valuable tool to increase intuition. When you are feeling overwhelmed or anxious and are unable to make a decision, shift your focus from your emotions and focus on your “heart” and your breathing. This will slow down your racing mind and assist your in filtering out the information you are to receive.

German-born American physicist, Albert Einstein, once said, “The only real valuable thing is intuition.” He believed in it - and he relied on it. As does entrepreneur and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, who was quoted as saying, “Often you have to rely on intuition.”

Intuition is a valuable tool that each of us carries. If you learn to listen to it and use it to your benefit, especially when it comes to important decisions, you can begin to become more confident in yourself, reduce self-doubt and become empowered by it.

Lynn offers additional techniques to increase your intuition and begin to tap into your “inner consultant” to make wise decisions. If you’d like to learn more about the power of intuition or learn techniques to increase it, you can do so by clicking the red and yellow player below and listening to Lynn’s full interview.

Listen Now:

 If Your Intuition Is Talking, Listen! [29:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Staci Wood | Comments (11) | Permalink

This week’s Podcast Review is about the Franchise Interviews Podcast.

Description: Franchise Interviews is an up close and behind the scenes look at franchising. The unique format features a variety of topics on franchising as well as personal interviews with franchisees, franchisors and franchise experts. Franchise Interviews is hosted by Marty McDermott and Don Johnson.

Comments: This is another in great Podcasts (like ours) hosted and distributed through Blogtalk Radio. All franchising all the time, the hosts cover the gambit of topics for those interested in franchising.

The content is great, at times the audio quality is sketchy but the range of topics covered is broad and comprehensive ranging from the beginner to franchising to the multi-location master franchiser. Here is a sampling of some recent shows:

- Interviews with the Juice Stop
- Interview with 1st Inpection Services Franchise
- Solving The Puzzle Of Owning A Franchise
- LA Sunset Tan Franchise Opportunity

Learn more about franchising and different franchises in 30 minutes or less with this Podcast.

Pluses: As it should be the content is king with this Podcast. The web interface makes it easy to find the show you are interested in. Good show notes, RSS subscriptions, a well done podcast.

Minuses: Sometimes the recorded phone call audio quality is a barrier to hearing clearly.

Recommendation: If you are considering franchising, shopping for a franchise or trying to operate a better franchise then Franchise Interviews is for you.

Posted by Steve Rucinski | Comments (2) | Permalink

Small Business Trends is now on Facebook and we’d like to invite you to join our community where we encourage you to post links to news and events, upload and share your photos and videos and participate in group discussions.

It’s an open group so come join us, introduce yourself and say hello by posting on our “Wall” and use the “Post a link” feature to post a link to your site or a site you’d like to share with us.

Posted by Staci Wood | Comments (4) | Permalink

To date, we’ve had another great year here at Small Business Trends Radio, with new and knowledgeable experts every week. As a result, the site has accumulated a wealth of strategic business advice.

From time to time we like to list our most popular small business podcasts and now we would like to share them with you. So here are our top 5 most popular small business podcasts for the year to-date.

Congratulations to the small business experts listed below — they had the most requested audio podcasts for the months of January, February and March of 2008.

The Top 5 Popular Small Business Podcasts are:

How To Use Facebook To Market Your Business
Shama Hyder, Founder of After The Launch
Facebook has some benefits for small business owners that you need to know about and Shama shares them with you.

How to Start a Profitable, Long-Lived Business
Scott Shane of Case Western Reserve University
Choosing the right industry when starting a business is crucial because some have an 840 times greater chance of success.

Are You Making These 5 Local Marketing Mistakes?
Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle, Inc.
Are your local online marketing efforts failing? You might be making these 5 common mistakes.

How to Buy A Business At A Bargain
John L. Herman Jr., Founder of Hermanisms.com
Herman is recognized as an expert in the sale of financially troubled companies and he’s sharing his insider tips.

How Men Can Achieve A Fulfilling Work Life Balance
Matthew Scott, Founder of The Life’s Work Group, Inc.
Matthew shares valuable insights into the questions that men can ask themselves to make a successful work/life transition.

What’s great about podcasts is that they can be listened to over and over again and downloaded for iPod listening at your convenience as well. They’ve got a long shelf life and we hope you enjoy listening to them - while learning a thing or two in the process.

Posted by Staci Wood | Comments (3) | Permalink

Many famous entrepreneurs and business leaders have failed before hitting it big. One example is Henry J. Heinz, who went bankrupt at the age of 31, but his company went on to become a household name and still is more than a century later. We remember successes — and forget failures. And in business, one of the biggest ways to fail is to ignore your customers and your markets.

Gary G. Schoeniger, Founder and CEO, The Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative, is our featured guest in this Episode of The Small Business Trends Radio. Gary talks about how NOT to fail – by listening closely to your customers.

Here’s a sampling of topics from the show:

• Find a problem or a need — that many people have (what the market is demanding), discover a solution for it and offer it to them.

• Listen to the market — and try to find evidence to poke holes in your idea and offer it to others to critique. This may go against the grain of rational thinking, however, you will find that the idea that makes it through unscathed - is the best choice for a marketable product or service. Criticism can assist you in making beneficial changes - and you will ultimately deliver exactly what the market demanded.

• Be prepared for change — because it is essential to growth. Remaining curious, adventurous and welcoming change as a challenge ensures that you and your business remain “ahead of the curve.”

Gary, himself, is an example of success through meeting market demands. His first business was a gutter cleaning and painting business. An idea that sounds simple enough, however, by responding to basic market needs he eventually built the business into a multi-state, multimillion dollar construction management firm.

It is important to remember that people will always pay for a solution. Ignore your market, ignore the demand - and you’re sure to see failure.

If you’d like to learn more about Gary’s insights into the perils of ignoring market demands, you can do so by clicking the red and yellow player below and listening to his full interview.

Listen Now:

 The #1 Way to Fail in Business: Ignore Your Market [28:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Staci Wood | Comments (3) | Permalink

The Law of Attraction states that what you think about most, you ultimately attract. It’s possible to entice customers to come to YOU, but positive thinking is only part of the process. Attraction comes from one thing - and that’s action. Trouble is, most sales professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs don’t know what actions to take.

Jimmy Vee & Travis Miller, of Gravitational Marketing, are our featured guests in this Episode of The Small Business Trends Radio. Jimmy and Travis discuss the power of action and give you a 5 step plan to start attracting customers NOW.

Here are the first 3 tips from the show:

• Differentiate yourself — from the rest. Think in terms of sensational. This creates an intense interest and curiosity. And remember, “Same is lame!” The definition of lame is: A pathetic lack of force or effectiveness. If you are the same as everyone around you then you lack force and effectiveness.

• Carve out a tiny niche — and become an expert on it to rise to the top. For instance, instead of being an expert on dogs, be an expert on a specific breed. Better yet, be an expert on a specific breeds grooming needs and you’ll find that you have less competition which makes becoming an expert even easier.

• Add a bit of entertainment — to your marketing and you’ll capture attention. People love being entertained and tend to make buying decisions emotionally first, and logically second. Tap into that emotion because once people start enjoying themselves they become less defensive, more receptive - and more likely to buy.

Jimmy & Travis provide the remaining two tips along with five marketing myths assumed to be true and some tips on how to discover your “uniqueness” and make it work for you.

It’s true. The Law of Attraction can work for you. If you’d like to hear all of the insightful tips that Jimmy & Travis provide to begin attracting customers now, you can do so by clicking the red and yellow player below and listening to their full interview.

UPDATE 4/30/08: We are proud to announce that this episode, featuring Jimmy & Travis, was voted as one of the Top 50 on the Law of Attraction. You can see the entire list by clicking on the Top 50 icon. Congratulations Jimmy & Travis - Way to go!

Listen Now:

 Attract More Sales Using The Law Of Attraction [38:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Posted by Staci Wood | Comments (5) | Permalink