The Academy - Your source for business growth.

Today's customer is extremely powerful. They're armed with knowledge from technology, social media, review sites, and access to reams of information and data. They have very high expectations too that are combined with low trust in businesses in general. Their willingness to put up with errors and poor service is at an all-time low. Competition is high these days as well. Increased competition in many markets has forced businesses to be more accountable to their customers. Companies that do not provide good customer service are likely to lose customers to competitors who do. An unhappy customer is not only a lost opportunity, but they can work against you and the growth of your company in countless different ways. In the past, many companies considered customers an output of their sales and marketing. You spent money on ads to convince the customer to choose your product or service. You closed the sale through pressure, scare tactics, and propaganda that ultimately created a sale on the books. The company drove the narrative in the past and it was relatively easy for them to influence the customer's thoughts and feelings, as well as the general reputation of the company in the marketplace. But, in our modern world today, it's the customer and more specifically the customer's voice that defines a company's reputation, not the other way around. It seems obvious, but you MUST put your customers first these days. This will result in long-term, sustainable growth. Many companies think they're doing great with customer service. But the fact is, so many companies are still operating from an old, outdated playbook. They're putting their internal processes and profit over their customer's needs and wants. I know this sounds very "touchy-feely". Many businesses are just trying to keep up with customer needs. This is why the old playbook is appealing and even why many businesses think that they're doing a good job. But stick with me and I'll help to provide you with some ways to move beyond the old playbook and service your customers better with a more conversational, contextual, human, and helpful approach to service that will result in not only happy customers but the growth of the company over time. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking again about Instagram. We're diving into part 2 of our series that's designed to help you with the foundational best practices that will help you rise above the competition on the platform. As a marketer and business owner during the day and an artist in my free time, I've mentioned previously that I'm extremely interested in this platform. Instagram is a simple concept on the surface... people posting visually entertaining content. It's obviously a perfect platform for artists to showcase their work. But it can be a highly effective platform for any business to utilize photos, graphics, and especially videos to showcase so many aspects of what you do, who you are, and what you stand for. Techniques and best practices are always changing with Instagram so I won't be going too deep into any technical advice. But I'm hoping that the information that I'll provide today will be foundational and stand the test of time - at least for the near future. If you haven't heard part 1 in this series, head over there now to get started on the right foot. Ready to hear more? Let’s jump into it! About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about Instagram. As a marketer and business owner during the day and an artist in my free time, I'm extremely interested in this platform. Instagram is a simple concept on the surface... people posting visual content. But, success with Instagram goes far deeper than just posting images. Our goal with this podcast is to provide advice that's evergreen and stands the test of time. Things are always changing with Instagram so I won't be getting too deep into the weeds. But I'm hoping that the information that I'll provide today will be foundational and stand the test of time - at least for the near future. I hope many of these tips will not only apply to Instagram but social media in general as well. Ready to hear more? Let’s jump into it! About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about success and happiness in business, work, and in life. As busy working professionals and business owners we all struggle with balance. By that, I mean that we're trying to build and run and grow successful companies, all while working to find happiness and fulfillment along the way. I haven't got it all figured out. I struggle every day to achieve balance. I'll probably be working to improve for the rest of my life. So with this thought to guide us, let me share some high-level concepts that have been helpful for me. I hope these ideas will help you to pursue success as a business leader, while also finding a little more happiness in your work, and ultimately in all aspects of your life. Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about success and happiness in business, work, and in life. As busy working professionals and business owners we all struggle with balance. By that, I mean that we're trying to build and run and grow successful companies, all while working to find happiness and fulfillment along the way. I haven't got it all figured out. I struggle every day to achieve balance. I'll probably be working to improve for the rest of my life. So with this thought to guide us, let me share some high-level concepts that have been helpful for me. I hope these ideas will help you to pursue success as a business leader, while also finding a little more happiness in your work, and ultimately in all aspects of your life. At our company, Sanctuary, the concept of being happy is deeply rooted. We have a simple saying "We Are Sanctuary" which means a lot to us. We strive to be a Sanctuary for all our clients which means that we work hard to make our clients happy and successful. But this statement is also focused inward on our team. By saying "We Are Sanctuary" we strive to create an environment for our team where we can be happy and successful as well. This takes many forms, from working to provide the obvious pay and benefits and the flexibility that everyone needs, to giving our team the support, training, autonomy, and trust that talented professionals crave. Are we always successful? Absolutely not. But as owners in this company, my partner Kelly and I are always seeking out small ways to live up to this statement - We Are Sanctuary. At the end of the day, as business owners, it's not our responsibility to ensure that everyone is happy. That's a bit of an impossible goal. But, as I'll touch on today, we can do a lot and we can always strive to do better. We can learn from our mistakes, then take the next step forward. Becoming "a Sanctuary" isn't something that we'll really ever arrive at. The work of "becoming" is really all we can focus on as we take the next step and the next. Beyond the tangible things that we can do for our clients and our team, we're always seeking to identify and live our top-level, guiding principles and beliefs. Many of these things reveal themselves in our stated values and our trusted best practices that we've adopted. But we've identified even another, deeper layer -- or maybe it's really the top layer -- that guides us as leaders, guides our team as they work, and guides our company and clients to success along the way. In short, we've sought to explore and articulate WHY we do what we do as a company. And when it comes down to it, when you understand your WHY, it can guide you in many different, and important ways too.

Today we're going to be starting a new segment called Academy Quick Tips. We're all busy and need to continually learn. But sometimes we just don't have the time to read entire articles or listen to a 30-minute podcast episode. This series will be a solution to that problem where I'll challenge myself to give you all the information you need to learn something new in 5 minutes or less. So with that... the clock is ticketing. Let's talk about a concept that may be new to you... RevOps. RevOps is short for Revenue Operations and it can be the secret sauce that improves your customer experience, creates more revenue for your company, and ultimately scales and grows your business over time. RevOps is all about aligning the people, processes, systems, and data that control how you do business and how you generate revenue. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking again about sales. Sales grow your company. That’s the bottom line. But just pushing your salespeople to “sell more”, at all costs, is not the ideal solution. There’s more to it and in this 3rd and final episode of our series, we’ll discover why. We'll be exploring concepts around coaching, education, process development, collaboration within your team, consistency, and how to create a strong culture of learning, training, and certification within your company. Before we get started today I wanted to call out again that if you haven't heard part one or two in this series, please head over there now. You'll get a good foundation about the goals of reducing friction within your sales team and how this can truly help your company grow. Today we're going to be talking about the 3rd step in the frictionless selling framework. Going back through the previous episodes will help you to understand the first two which are enable and align. You won't be able to accomplish step 3, transform if you haven't completed the necessary work in the first two steps. So, let’s get started by quickly recapping and reinforcing an important point about selling... For many companies, exceptional service is something that happens after the sale - possibly by a customer service team. But to truly begin to sell more and ultimately grow your company, exceptional service has to start at the very first contact and lead up to the moment that someone commits and makes a purchase. Your salespeople are a critical part of the inbound sales process because they serve as a bridge between marketing and sales, and they seek to provide a seamless transition between being a prospect and being a customer. But it certainly doesn't stop there with sales, and it doesn't stop with customer service. Exceptional service must be integrated throughout all parts of your company -- from beginning to end. These efforts compound and begin to build momentum that feeds growth. These efforts ultimately attract, engage, and delight your customers and this, in turn, begins to create momentum that accelerates on its own, and results in the sales and growth that you seek. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking again about closing sales. But the advice isn’t going to be obvious or the traditional things that you’ve likely heard in the past. Sales grow your company. That’s the bottomline. But just pushing your sales people to “sell more”, at all costs, is not the ideal solution. There’s more to it and in this episode we’ll discover why as we explore the buyer's journey of your customer and the process that your sales people should go through to align themselves with their customers along the way. If you haven't heard part one in this series, please head over there now. You'll get a good foundation about the goals of reducing friction within your sales team and how this can truly help your company grow. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about closing sales. But the advice isn’t going to be obvious or the traditional things that you’ve likely heard in the past. Sales grow your company. That’s the bottom line. But just pushing your salespeople to “sell more”, at all costs, is not the ideal solution. There’s more to it. Over the next few episodes we’ll discover why. Most companies want to grow. But growth is found in more than just increasing sales. Growth is a process that requires multiple parts, processes and a discipline that ultimately enables the sales and growth that you're seeking. Real growth is rooted in relationships, and at the core, a strong element of trust with the people you're doing business with. These relationships are meaningful and most importantly, they're lasting. Strong relationships arre obviously important for your customers that you're actively doing business with. But it's equally important for your prospects that you want to do business with. There's a metaphor that's been used to explain the parts, process and discipline required for growth, and that is the flywheel. Listen and let us explain more! About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy I'd like to spend a little time talking about what inbound marketing is and why the approach is a great way to reach your target audience and ultimately grow your business. Inbound marketing is different than traditional marketing and advertising. I believe it's a better way to approach your marketing strategy and invest in the growth of your company. As a business owner, you're always working on the never-ending challenge of growing your customers and revenue. You can choose to go about this work in a number of different ways. You can go out there yourself as the business owner and network to drum up new business. You can hire and manage a team of salespeople. You can work your existing network of customers, partners, friends, and family for referrals. And you can spend money on an unlimited number of advertising opportunities and marketing tactics to fish for people who might happen to be looking for a company like yours at just the right time. There are many other ways to get the job done. And honestly, real success comes from having a successful strategy and system to get all of these tactics working together as a well-oiled machine. But today let's focus on one of the parts - your marketing plan. Many business owners simply call this advertising. But an effective marketing plan must be more than an advertising spend. Today we're going to explore how you can make that happen by discussing a concept called Inbound Marketing. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy I thought we could spend a little more time talking about yearly planning since we’re approaching the end of the year. If you don’t actually have a yearly planning session at your company, it’s understandable. It’s the end of the year, work has been building up, and you’re just trying to get things done and settled before taking a little time off for the holidays. Yearly planning is important though. It’s your opportunity to take some time and give yourself permission to stop working in the business and work on the business. In this episode, we’re going to talk specifically about running the 2nd-day agenda of your annual planning meeting with the leadership of your company. If you haven't listened to part one of this series I encourage you to head over there now. Taking the time to work on your business, instead of constantly working so deeply "in" the business can be highly valuable. Especially at the end of the year when you have an opportunity to rise above the day-to-day work and identify what went well, or what went wrong throughout the year, and then make an effort to do things that improve and move the company, and your team, beyond the status quo, come the new year. This podcast series is all about making sure that you carve out time to do these meetings. Then you need to add some structure to your meetings. High-level planning meetings without structure can lead to a lot of unproductive swirling and distractions at best. At worst you’ll just get pulled down into a completely unproductive spiral, that’s just a waste of time. To help you run great meetings, I'm going to recommend again that you check out The Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS, from the great book Traction by Gino Wickman. I’ve covered this before in a previous episode if you’d like to explore a system to run your business. But today I’d like to briefly summarize the second-day agenda for your annual planning meeting that the author recommends. Then I'll sprinkle in a little advice and specifics about what we've done and learned as a team after years of following the recommended 2-day agenda. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy I thought we could spend some time talking about yearly planning since we’re approaching the end of the year. If you don’t actually have a yearly planning session at your company, it’s understandable. It’s the end of the year, work has been building up, and you’re just trying to get things done and settled before taking a little time off for the holidays. Yearly planning is important though. It’s your opportunity to take some time and give yourself permission to stop working in the business and work on the business. In this episode, we’re going to talk specifically about planning and running a two-day annual planning meeting with the leadership of your company. This will be a two-part series since the event is run over two consecutive days. Yearly planning is something that many companies skip. I’ve been there because we all know that running a business can be all-consuming. We’re all just trying to stay ahead of the tidal wave of work and responsibilities every day. To actually stop working to work on the business for a day, let alone several days can be impossible and more than just a little stressful. But taking the time to work on the business can be highly valuable. Especially at the end of the year when you have an opportunity to identify what went well, or what went wrong throughout the year and then make an effort to do things to improve and move beyond the status quo come the new year. For those that are able to make time to work on your business, I’m going to recommend that you add some structure to your meetings. High-level planning meetings without structure can lead to a lot of unproductive swirling and distractions at best. At worst you’ll just get pulled down into a completely unproductive spiral that’s just a waste of time. To help you make the most of your valuable time, let me suggest that you check out The Entrepreneurial Operating System, or EOS, from the great book Traction by Gino Wickman. I’ve covered this before in a previous episode if you’d like to explore a system to run your business. But today I’d like to detail the specifics around the annual planning meeting that the author recommends so you can add some structure to your planning and ensure that you’re maximizing your time with your leadership team. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we're going to do another segment that's quick and direct, but hopefully helpful to those who are working hard to start, manage, market, survive and grow in the world of business. This week is a short holiday week, and because of that, I think my advice today will resonate. It's all about using your limited time wisely. Before we get started, I wanted to just say how thankful I am for everyone that's been a regular listener of our podcast. If you like what you're hearing, please subscribe and provide us with a review wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts. It really helps us to spread the word and help more people to grow their businesses. “You know when you make a copy of a copy... it's not as sharp as the original.” - Michael Keaton, from the Movie Multiplicity As I was preparing the podcast today, I was reminded of the movie Multiplicity. If you haven't seen the movie, it's silly, but a classic flick in my mind. The premise is that Doug Kinney, who's played by Michael Keaton, is just too damn busy. He can't keep up with all the demands of his crazy life, so he devises a plan to duplicate himself. He successfully makes a copy,  and this helps him immensely. But then the copy makes a copy of himself because he thinks he's too busy. The responsibilities and work just expand to fill. From there it goes south as more copies are made and they become lesser versions of the previous copies and hilarity ensues. It's a fun movie. And ever since I saw the movie for the first time, I've occasionally kidded with people that sometimes I feel like I need to duplicate myself when I get busy. I could easily use a couple duplicates of myself for work, several for my kids and home life, several for my hobbies... on and on. But, unfortunately, we can't duplicate ourselves. When it comes down to it, we have 24 hours in a day. Ideally, we need to sleep 6-8 hours of the day, which is a full 1/3 of our available time right out of the gate. That leaves us with 16 hours a day to live life, and as we all know, life happens, and that available time quickly disappears. Many of us feel that there is never enough time. We have constant pressure to be all things to all people - especially at work, especially if you're a small business owner. You are constantly stretched thin and overwhelmed by the demands as you simply try to keep things afloat every day. This pressure leaves less time for family, and for many people, there is zero time left for themselves. You end up falling into bed with the challenge of simply shutting down your busy mind so you can fall asleep and start it all over again the next day. This is what many people call the rat race. It's a never-ending cycle that can be hard to get out of, and if you're not careful, it can begin to weigh on you with serious negative effects. It can affect your important relationships at work and at home, and it can even impact your mental health. It can even keep you from being able to make good decisions at work because you're simply unable to rise above the work and stay ahead of the constant, incoming tide of demands on your time. Is there a solution? Yes, I think there is... if you're willing to consider and explore a couple simple principles.

Today on the Academy we’re starting season #2 of our podcast with a series around an important, but misunderstood and undervalued concept: positioning. If you're trying to market your business or a product, or even yourself, proper positioning is a foundational and essential task. But many people don't approach positioning properly, or at worst, they don't even understand what it is, why it's important and how to actually tackle the project in a meaningful way. In upcoming episodes, we'll be exploring positioning and working to help you understand the concept and how you can work through the process. First, In this episode let's focus on what positioning is and why taking the time to solidify your foundation can lead to great things. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about what I've learned and the advice that I have to share after successfully producing 50 podcast episodes. If you're interested in marketing and growing an existing podcast that you've been doing for a while, this episode probably isn't going to be for you. But if you need advice to just get started and take the first steps, or you need motivation and tips to keep going beyond your first few episodes, well then, this podcast is definitely going to be valuable, and right up your alley. As far as podcasts go, 50 episodes are both a small number and a huge number. It's a small number because, compared to the top podcasts that have thousands of episodes, 50 episodes is a pretty small number. But, as far as podcasts go in general, 50 episodes is a big accomplishment because, out of the estimated 2.2 million podcasts available online, only about 700,000 have published more than 3 episodes. Over a quarter only have 1 episode published which essentially amounts to a lot of abandoned podcasts. Most podcasts, even if they've been doing it for a while don't even publish on a weekly or even a semi-regular basis. So, with that said, today I wanted to look back and provide you with my thoughts about what I've learned after producing 50 episodes. I have A LOT to learn and I think we're just getting started. But I think I have some advice and thoughts to pass on that might help you if you're thinking about starting your own podcast. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be exploring the concept of trust in your organization and within your company culture. It’s blatantly obvious to say that trust is important. The alternative is simply distrust and nobody wants that. But building and sustaining trust can be difficult, even for the most well-intentioned people. It’s a complicated goal that can impact your team, your customers, your partners, suppliers, your culture, and even the growth and viability of your company. In the end, the benefits of repairing and strengthening trust are critical. A recent research study found that companies that are considered to be trustworthy outperform the S&P 500 by levels as high as 30%-50%. So, let's explore further. Once again, I took the opportunity to collaborate and was guided by the advice and experience of my friend Gwen Walsh. Gwen an accomplished corporate CIO, successful small business owner, and executive performance consultant. Gwen left corporate America and started her own company, TechEdge, where she built a career creating and implementing business and technology solutions that redefined the industry standards for both Fortune 100 corporations and entrepreneurial organizations. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about how to really grow your followers and your business using social media. I’m sure you’ll be expecting me to unload a lot of specific tactical advice around “how” to do this. But today I’m going to focus on explaining one big idea that I think overrides most others. It’s something that goes against the natural inclinations of most people when they start out on social media. But once you realize what needs to be done, it can be a real game changer. My advice comes from a man named Dale Carnegie who published a book in 1936 called How to win friends and influence people. We all know that social media can help us grow our business. But, If you're like me, you've got limited time, limited attention and limited resources. Just “posting” links to content is oftentimes all people can find the time to do, and most of the time we can’t even find the time to even do that! Many times if we post content and links, the links aren’t even to content that we’ve created because, well, it’s easy. It’s so easy to start by doing things that don’t take a lot of time to just be “active”. A common line of thinking is that it’s all about posting, as much as possible, so you’re not lost in the void right? You ultimately have to post to be seen. And when you’re seen, people will want to engage, follow and hire your business when the time comes. But I think success on social media isn’t about posting all the time. In fact, it’s actually about posting less, and this goes against what most people start out doing on social media -- me included. Success can be found by being active. But it’s about being active in the right ways if your goal is to grow. Listen to today's podcast to learn more! About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be listening in on a recent community training event that we put on at Sanctuary that was led by our Director of Strategy Lauren Zils. We know that many companies struggle with hiring and retaining employees. It can be quite a challenge these days to get the word out, to convince good people to even show up to an interview and to influence their decision to come on board, and stay. Many companies are trying to achieve these goals but they need a good strategy. They need a good “playbook” that’ll achieve all their goals. That’s where we’d like to help. Listen in today as Lauren discusses, not only how to get the word out, but what you need to be doing to convince great people to even apply. It’s more than just writing a job description and posting openings on job boards and your website. If you haven’t thought much past the basics then this presentation is for you. Sound good? Let’s jump into it! About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today I thought I'd take a different approach to the podcast and take a minor, but important detour and talk about motivation.  Today's advice will be quick and direct, but hopefully helpful to those who are working hard to start, manage, market, survive and grow in the world of business. I'm going to strip away all the production today and just get right to the point and let you get on to the challenges of the day.  I think the point of doing this is that we can talk about tactics, strategy, and best practices, we can talk to experienced professionals and successful business people, and we can be focused on the next thing, and the next thing and the next thing that we think will solve all our challenges. But sometimes we just need a little motivation to keep going. And this is what I'd like to explore today. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy I wanted to talk about how to close more sales. Sounds like a great topic right? I mean, who doesn't want more sales? But surprise, I'm not going to talk specifically about sales tactics today. What I want to talk about is how to effectively take the leads, and even the customers that you already have, and close more sales through the process of building an effective customer journey map. In the days before digital technologies like the internet, selling was a very personal process. As a business owner or sales professional, you worked face to face with potential customers in an effort to convince them to make a purchase. Today, of course, most sales processes are digital and automated. So as marketers and business owners, we are removed from the customer, and many people can tend to think of customers as robots rather than people. They are not robots, of course, and the customer journey from awareness on through to purchase and beyond, is just as important now as it ever was. Sure, it can be automated and optimized these days, but you still need to understand that journey just as clearly as you would have when using old-school, face-to-face selling tactics. Today I’d like to introduce you to the concept of customer journey mapping. This is a useful technique to help you understand how customers are going to interact with your brand and how you can help move them through the journey toward a purchase as consistently as possible. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be exploring the concept of relationship building and going deep to uncover your own, personal relationship-building type. For most people and businesses, relationships are at the heart of what makes them happy AND successful. As a business owner, I know firsthand how important relationships can be to your success and growth. As the old saying goes “It’s who you know” and it’s continually surprising to me how big things can come from your network of friends, partners, team members, and even your customers. It goes without saying that my relationships outside of business are critical to my own personal happiness. But successfully building relationships in an authentic way is critical. You can’t fake it. For many, it doesn’t come naturally, even if they have the best intentions. Many people, need to continually work on it. Even if you’re genuine, it takes skill, practice, discipline, vulnerability, confidence and honesty. For most people, these things don't always come naturally, even if you’re striving to create relationships and looking for nothing in return. So let’s take a moment to day to explore further. For this podcast, I'm going to be collaborating with, and guided by the advice and experience of my friend Gwen Walsh. Gwen an accomplished corporate CIO, successful small business owner, and executive performance consultant. Gwen left corporate America and started her own company, TechEdge, where she built a career creating and implementing business and technology solutions that redefined the industry standards for both Fortune 100 corporations and entrepreneurial organizations. With Gwen's guidance, we'll be taking in a continuous stream of valuable, actionable, real-world advice and stories from the trenches. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy I'm going to be having a wide-ranging conversation with Matt Bailey from SiteLogic. Matt is an industry-leading marketer, educator, speaker, author and entrepreneur. We'll cover everything from how he got started to where he is today and beyond. Along the way we'll explore many topics related to marketing and growing your business, we'll listen to his advice about being an author and speaker, and we'll dive deep into his thoughts around why training is important, what knowledge and skills are in demand these days, his advice about successfully working with an agency and much more. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

“I’m a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I’d like to put more in that jar. That’s where you come in.” - Adam Sandler Today on the Academy I wanted to talk about goals and purpose as it relates to starting and running a business. For many people, goals and purpose are one in the same. The goal of a business is to sell something, and that something is sold with the purpose of generating money. Period. This is the mentality of many business owners and managers. It IS extremely important to make money in business for obvious reasons. We all need money to keep our businesses going and growing. But having a singular focus on just making more money without understanding your real, core purpose is not going to be the path to your greatest successes in business or in life. It’s easy to focus on making money. It’s equally easy to overlook the importance of clearly defining the purpose of your company and the real goals it's trying to achieve. Typically when someone starts a business they're usually more worried about getting the word out about their new business, making sales that pay the bills, and just focusing on finding ways to keep their new endeavor afloat. Getting started can be the most challenging part, and it’s usually all-consuming because this is what’s required to go from nothing to something viable. Making money is a critical element. I get it. I’ve been there. I remember the early days of our business, Sanctuary, where it was just me. My purpose for starting the business didn’t go much farther than wanting to do something that I enjoyed, that provided an income for my growing family. I did everything from sales to billing, website design to marketing, and everything in between. When the printer was jammed or the network went down, I became tech support. There wasn’t much time to think at a higher level beyond just staying ahead of the tidal wave of work, issues, and never-ending challenges. But, amongst all this chaos, I want to encourage you to take a moment out to explore the bigger picture and understand how defining your purpose and goals can help drive your business forward in a meaningful way. Specifically, it’s the clarity of having these pieces in place that will help you make decisions that really impact revenue and growth. The key word here is clarity because so much of running a new business can involve managing chaos every day. My goal with this episode is to provide business leaders with the motivation and direction needed to manage the chaos. It’s important to rise above the day-to-day from time to time so you’re guided by something more than the fires that are immediately burning in front of you on a daily basis. Operating this way results in just shooting from the hip and making undisciplined decisions in the moment. You’re essentially unable to see the forest for the trees which means that your decisions will be driven by nothing more than what you see in front of you — and what you see in front of you during any given week can simply be chaos — which does not lend itself to making good decisions. Even if you’re running an established business that’s made it past the initial survival days, stopping to define your purpose and goals will help you to rise above the day-to-day work of managing what needs to be done, and make decisions and investments that keep you on track toward building something great and ultimately highly profitable.

Today on the Academy I wanted to talk about Inbound marketing. If you've never heard of inbound marketing, check out episodes  #30 and #17 for an introduction. I've heard many people say that they're confused about why inbound is different from traditional marketing. The answer is in the details and they're important. Today I'm going to discuss some of the main principles that separate inbound marketing from traditional "old school" principles and practices. A deep understanding of inbound marketing can go a long way toward helping you get great results. The more you know about the process you are using to bring in new leads (in this case, inbound marketing) the more success you will have designing systems that will lead to desirable outcomes. To help you get the most from your inbound marketing work, I’d like to take some time to break down the four core principles of this method: standardize, personalize, optimize and empathize. We’ll go through them one by one and we hope you’ll come away with an enhanced understanding of inbound methodology. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy I wanted to talk again about how to build a lasting company. I'll do this by walking you through the 12 "myths" that are described in one of my favorite business books, Built To Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. Built To Last is a classic and timeless business book in my opinion. It's a foundational guide to building a company that's going to stand above the status quo and become a visionary company that endures for generations. The concepts and insights contained in the book are baked into many of my own personal beliefs at this point and they tend to guide a lot of my opinions, best practices, and beliefs as a business owner. In part 1 of this series, we talked about the first 6 myths that are described in the book. In this episode, we'll be discussing and wrapping things up with the next 6 myths. If you haven't heard part one in this series, head over there now. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy I wanted to talk about how to build a lasting company. I'll do this by walking you through the 12 "myths" that are described in one of my favorite business books, Built To Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. Built To Last is a classic and timeless business book in my opinion. It's a foundational guide to building a company that's going to stand above the status quo and build something that'll endure for generations. The concepts and insights contained within the book Good To Great are baked into many of my own personal beliefs at this point and they tend to guide a lot of my opinions, best practices, and beliefs as a business owner. Many of you might be reading this and thinking, man, I just need to get this thing off the ground. Or, boy, I'd like to just consider my business a relatively successful business already. I don't need to worry about it lasting forever. I'm just trying to make it right now. I get it. I've been there. But I think even though you're still ramping up, you need to be aware of these foundational observations. There's no better time than now to build a great foundation that you can build upon in the future. Many times I make arguments and have strong opinions about things, and I've realized that I can connect those concepts and ideas back to things that resonated with me within this book. Every day we're making decisions, big and small, and if you can make those decisions based on data and learn from the experience of those who came before you, you're going to be much better off in the long run vs making "gut" decisions, or your own personal experience and biases. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on The Academy we’ll be talking with Cortney Ayers and Lauren Zils, two extremely experienced marketers who currently lead many of the efforts here at our digital marketing agency Sanctuary. Some of the topics that you’ll hear about today include: What does the Director of Strategy do? What is the best thing about being a strategist? What trends are we seeing right now? What are the top business pain points? How digital marketing can help with hiring. Why you need to sell yourself as a company to potential team members. How digital marketing can help showcase your company culture. What issues are companies having with hiring. Why telling your company story in your marketing is critical. What we’ve done and where we’ve had success with our clients. What industries are challenged right now? What are people looking for in a job these days? Why you always need to be thinking ahead with your strategy plans, and much more! Lauren Zils is an industry-leading digital marketer with a solid understanding of the digital marketing ecosystem and what it takes to drive results. She is a driven professional, never afraid of a challenge and always willing to tackle even the most daunting project. As a Director of Strategy, Lauren’s primary objective is to ensure clients are meeting their business growth goals, ideally increasing leads and sales that grow their business. Cortney Ayers is a digital marketing professional with a big passion for helping people meet their goals both professionally and personally. Her primary objective is to ensure that clients are meeting their business growth goals, ideally increasing leads and sales. She accomplishes this by digging in deep to understand the client and its market, coordinating with the strategy team to understand the best plan of attack, and orchestrating all the moving parts with the delivery team to achieve results. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be giving you a summary of the book Traction by Gino Wickman. This is part 3 in the series that should wrap up our summary. So if you haven't heard parts 1 and 2, head over there now to start from the top. In summary, The book outlines a blueprint called The Entrepreneurial Operating System that's designed to help you structure and run things in a way that takes your business to the next level. When I first started our company Sanctuary, I did what needed to be done to get things done. I was flying by the seat of my pants, just trying to survive. Honestly, I couldn't see the forest for the trees because I just took what came at me on a daily basis and just put my head down and worked hard to get all the work done. I did marketing and sales. I provided writing and design services. I even did the billing and accounting. I was also the computer tech and the guy who unclogged the printer when it acted up. But this is not the way to run a business. When you're just getting started, you do what has to be done. But as your business matures you should be looking to slowly elevate above things and work to provide more structure, systems, and processes. EOS, The Entrepreneurial Operating System can help you to do just that. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be giving you a summary of the book Traction by Gino Wickman. This is part 2 in the series. So if you haven't heard part 1, head over there now to start from the top. In summary, The book outlines a blueprint called The Entrepreneurial Operating System that's designed to help you structure and run your business in a way that takes your business to the next level. So let's talk about The Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and dig deeper into the 6 key business components that are at the heart of Traction. To recap, they are: Vision People Data Issues Processes Traction In part 1 of this series, we began discussing the six components and touched on #1 Vision and #2 people. Today, let's move on to #3 Data and #4 Issues. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be giving you a summary of the book Traction by Gino Wickman. The book outlines a blueprint called The Entrepreneurial Operating System that's designed to help you structure and run your business in a way that takes your business to the next level. If you're just starting out with a new company, or you've been trying to grow your business and you feel stuck, the principles and processes in EOS can help you to move forward and grow in ways that you could only imagine through trusted processes and tenants instead of just relying on working harder and blind determination. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our world-class digital marketing and website design services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be exploring the concept of reinvention. For me, this idea is closely linked to many of my personal feelings, and my company's core values. High-performing people and great companies that are focused on excellence are never happy with the status quo, they're always continually improving and growing, with the goal of working toward their long-term goals and pushing beyond what the competition is doing. To do this successfully you need to reinvent yourself on a regular basis and that's what we're going to talk about today. "Intentional reinvention” – possibly the most powerful and defining action that we can take that can, quite literally, reshape almost every aspect of our lives – how we think about things (our thoughts, beliefs, judgments and decisions),  how we feel about things (our positive and negative emotions) and how we approach our physical wellbeing (our eating, exercising, sleeping, self-care and safety habits). For today, however, we’ll laser focus on the business side –zeroing in on reinvention as it relates to growing our businesses and growing ourselves. For this podcast I'm going to be collaborating with, and guided by the advice and experience of my friend Gwen Walsh. Gwen an accomplished corporate CIO, successful small business owner and executive performance consultant. Gwen left corporate America and started her own company, TechEdge, where she built a career creating and implementing business and technology solutions that redefined the industry standards for both Fortune 100 corporations and entrepreneurial organizations. With Gwen's guidance, we'll be taking in a continuous stream of valuable, actionable, real-world advice and stories from the trenches. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about how we can work together better as a team. We'll be using Patrick Lencioni's book The 5 dysfunctions of a team as a guide along the way. How does this relate to business growth? Well, in my opinion, the success of your department or company, as a whole, comes down to having the right people who are able to work together to accomplish the company's goals. As a manager or leader it's extremely important to ensure that your team is continually working on this. It's not enough to just say that you've hired good people. Success will only come if they're able to perform at their best, together. So today let's spend some time discussing ways to do just that. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your website or digital marketing strategy and execution? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about email. No, not how to send an email to your friends and family. We all know how to do that. But as marketers and business owners, we need to use email to create and strengthen relationships with our business friends that we call customers and clients. We'll start by explaining why email marketing might not be quite as obvious as you might think and how you go about doing it. Then we'll work to share some specific, and actionable best practices that will help you immediately get started on the right foot. I believe in the power of email marketing if it’s used properly. That includes everything from creating an effective strategy to encourage and grow subscribers, to effectively delivering content that actually drives engagement and retention of our subscribers. Our company provides email marketing services and consulting that helps our clients maximize the potential of email marketing to grow their business. So in the spirt of that mission I’d like to offer up suggestions on how to get started and to improve your results. This is not a “best of” list or the final word on email marketing tactics. But it's a great list of core, best practices to jump-start your campaigns and get you headed in the right direction. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your email marketing? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about the basics of SEO, Search Engine Optimization. We'll start by explaining how it all works and then work to help you craft an actionable plan to get things rolling in the right direction. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important part of any online marketing effort. By moving up in search rankings, you can bring more visitors to your website without paying for ads — potentially growing revenue in a powerful way. Unlike paid advertising that only generates results as long as you're continually spending money, SEO is an investment that will keep bearing fruit for years to come. But how does SEO work? This is an enormous, sometimes confusing topic, but we are going to boil it down to give you a clear understanding of what SEO is, how it works, and why it’s so important when you’re talking about digital marketing and web design. There is a huge industry that's been built around being found in the search engines. The advice, tactics, best practices and the science of getting one site to show up above another in Google is vast. We definitely can't cover everything today. But later in this episode we'll do our best to get you started. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing and SEO services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be talking about one of our favorite topics, the Inbound Marketing Methodology.  Inbound is a popular methodology for today’s marketing teams, and for good reason. In this episode, we'll not only dive into the basics of how inbound can change your approach to marketing but also how you run and grow your business. Inbound turns traditional marketing and sales on its ear. Instead of pushing content and ads out into the world, and hoping to get a few bites, you can shift your focus to positioning yourself in front of people who are looking to solve a problem that they currently have. This approach is actually incredibly empowering because you've now removed the demoralizing pursuit of selling something to an audience that doesn't care or need you most of the time. You're essentially putting all your time and effort into a message, and activities that help people who need you. Outbound marketing can actually be done in an inbound way too if it’s helpful and not just trying to sell. Yes, I know, mind blown. The next time you make a sales call, don't open up with a sales pitch that's designed to convince your prospect that they have a need and to ultimately sell them right then and there. Try to identify their actual need and then work to start building trust and a relationship. You might not actually talk to them directly about buying anything for a while, and this can be incredibly empowering for both sides. The next step might actually be to confirm their email address and send them a helpful article. Or it might be to refer them to sign-up for a webinar or attend an educational event. It might just mean that you give them some actual free advice about their next steps. Then ask them how they would like you to help them move forward. This same approach can apply to traditional outbound advertising. Instead of running ads that basically say "hey, I have this product or service that you need to buy", you can run ads that talk about the problem first. Then you drive them to helpful content that solves their problem - no strings attached. You may never actually pitch them your actual product or service because you're goal at this stage is to start a relationship and build trust, not to sell. But when you've actually connected with someone that has a need in this way, and you remove the pressure of convincing them to buy right out of the gate, you've now begun to build the foundation of a relationship, and that is where inbound can ultimately be a very powerful approach to growing your business. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing and SEO services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today we’re going to be chatting with Josh Hostetler to learn how he made the jump from working in corporate finance to becoming a successful home builder. Josh, who grew up climbing job site dirt piles and honing his hammering skills on scrap lumber, now runs the company after obtaining a degree in Business from The Ohio State University.  Josh later obtained his MBA in Finance and holds a Certified Management Accountant designation. Josh is working diligently to elevate the business and plans to continue their tradition of craftsmanship and excellence. Hostetler Family Homes has been serving clients in Northeastern Ohio for 36 years. The company builds custom homes ranging in price from $150,000 to over $1 million. The business is guided by the values of integrity, hard work, honesty, and respect.  Hostetler Family Homes takes great pride in the exceptional homes they build, and they aim to create customers for life through quality craftsmanship and a lasting customer experience. We're gonna be talking about starting and scaling a business, sub-contracting tactics, marketing and growing a small business, what Josh's growth goals are, and of course, bubble guns. So, let’s jump into it! Today's episode is led by Tom Murphy who is The Director of Growth at Sanctuary. I know he enjoyed chatting with Josh, so I know you'll enjoy this wide-ranging discussion with a man that is doing great things in his community and the business world... Josh Hostetler. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing and SEO services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re presenting episode 5 of our series on SEO for local businesses. Are you in charge of marketing a business that serves a specific town, city, or local region? Would you like to be found online when local people search for what you do? Then this podcast series is for you.  Getting found online if you're a local business is extremely important. It doesn't happen automatically. Google is smart, but if you don't do all the right things, they're not going to know that you exist.  In this episode, we'll provide you with some specific information about the offsite tactics that you need to engage to rank locally online. This will be the last episode in our series around local SEO. So I wanted to take the opportunity to point you back to the four previous episodes that we created around this topic because they all build on each other. Head over there now to ensure that you’re doing all the right, foundational things when you’re getting started. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing and SEO services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re presenting episode 4 of our series on SEO for local businesses. Are you in charge of marketing a business that serves a specific town, city, or local region? Would you like to be found online when local people search for what you do? Then this podcast series is for you.  Getting found online if you're a local business is extremely important. It doesn't happen automatically. Google is smart, but if you don't do all the right things, they're not going to know that you exist.  In this episode, we'll provide you with some specific information about what you need to do on your website to rank locally online. If you haven’t heard the first episode in this series, head over there now to ensure that you’re doing all the right, foundational things when you’re getting started. All of that information will support the tactics that we're recommending here.  I also want to mention that I'm fighting a little cold today so my voice may sound like I'm trying to channel my inner-Barry White. If you don't who Barry White is, shame on you. Just do a search for "Barry White deep voice top 10" for a fun little diversion during your workday today! So let's get started with some recommendations beyond how Barry White can improve your day. Here's my advice about how you can optimize your website for local search and SEO. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing and SEO services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re presenting episode 3 of our series on SEO for local businesses. Are you in charge of marketing a business that serves a specific town, city, or local region? Would you like to be found online when local people search for what you do? Then this podcast series is for you. Getting found online if you're a local business is extremely important. It doesn't happen automatically. Google is smart, but if you don't do all the right things, they're not going to know that you exist. In this episode, we'll provide you with a little advanced guidance around what you can do to really optimize your Google Business listing. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re rolling out episode 2 of our series on SEO for local businesses. Are you in charge of marketing a business that serves a specific town, city, or local region? Would you like to be found online when local people search for what you do? Then this podcast series is for you. Sound good? Let’s jump into it! Getting found online if you're a local business is extremely important. It doesn't happen automatically. Google is smart, but if you don't do all the right things, they're not going to know that you exist. In this episode you’ll learn about a free service called Google My Business. I’ll walk you through the basics of GMB, why it’s important, how to claim and optimize your listing, and ultimately help you get the most out of this critical opportunity to promote your local business online. So what is Google My Business? GMB is a free service that helps small businesses establish a local business listing on Google. GMB (for short) allows you to optimize your listing with all the information that a customer, and Google, might need to know about your services, including contact information, your address, as well as what you do and sell. You can even add specific products, specials, links and photos that all help customers to decide if you’re going to be the best provider for their needs. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to begin a series on how businesses that provide services to a specific local region, can position themselves better online. There are specific things that you need to do to even get on the radar and many more that will help you rise above the competition. Are you thinking about starting a business that serves a specific town, city, or local region? Would you like to be found online when people search for what you do? Then this podcast series is for you. Even if you've already established your business and you haven't done a lot to increase your online visibility, there is still a lot that you can do. I'll try to guide you to the things that will make the biggest impact in this series. Getting found online if you're a local business is extremely important. It doesn't happen automatically. Google is smart, but if you don't do all the right things, they're not going to know that you exist. In this episode, you’ll learn the basics of how you can establish a solid foundation for a local SEO campaign and ensure that you're doing everything correctly. Many of the recommendations presented in this episode are geared toward totally new businesses. But if you’re marketing an established business and have the option to implement a change that helps solidify the base, then don’t hesitate. Many of these tips can make or break a successful campaign. So let's get started building your foundation. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we're going to be delivering our last episode in our series about starting something new, and great. In this episode, we're going to be talking about some important concepts that are essential to your success like perseverance, and yin and yang. Running a successful company, year after year is hard. But starting a company is where most people ultimately fail. Our company is now into its second decade of success and growth and we've learned a thing or two along the way. In the last episode, we touched on some business-specific things like the pitfalls of partnerships, and why creativity is important when you're just getting started. But most of the advice in this series could apply to creating a new product, division of your company, or even starting a new hobby or reaching a personal goal. This will be the last episode in this series. It's been fun to share some stories from our journey as a company and to pass on a little bit of advice from the trenches as inspiration. This advice can be used for almost any endeavor in life and I think today's episode will surely give you some additional inspiration that can be applied to many different areas of your life. So let's get started. Here are a few more specific tips that may help you along the way. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on The Academy we’re going to be continuing our series about starting something new, and great. This might be a new business. But it could also be a new product, division of your company, or even starting a new hobby or reaching a personal goal. Sound intriguing? Let’s jump into it! Running a successful company, year after year is hard. But starting a company is where most people ultimately fail. Our company is now into its second decade of success and growth and we've learned a thing or two along the way. As I mentioned in the last episode of this series, you need to quit talking about doing it, and get yourself some experience. Then believe in yourself. Surround yourself with people who believe in you too without compromise. And then... just never get comfortable. This advice can be used for almost any endeavor in life. But today, let's talk a little more specifically and go deeper into succeeding in business once you've actually started. Here are a few more specific tips that may help you along the way. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Running a successful company, year after year is is hard. But starting a company is where most people ultimately fail. Our company is now into its second decade of success and growth and we've learned a thing or two along the way. As I mentioned in the last episode of this series, you need to quit talking about doing it and get yourself some experience. Then believe in yourself. Surround yourself with people who believe in you too without compromise. And then... just never get comfortable. This advice can be used for almost any endeavor in life. But today, let's talk a little more specifically and go deeper into succeeding in business once you've actually started. Here are a few more specific tips that may help you along the way. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today we’re going to be chatting with Gwen Walsh. Gwen’s career includes experiences ranging from being a Vice President at KeyCorp and managing over 500 people to being a solo entrepreneur and executive performance consultant. As Vice President at KeyCorp, Gwen was focused on increasing speed to market, product quality, employee productivity, and morale, all while she was acknowledged as a high potential leader that earned numerous excellence awards. As CIO, Senior Vice President and Partner at CT Partners, she led the development & execution of the technology strategy that helped propel CT Partners to one of the top 10 executive search firms in the United States. CT Partners was the point where Gwen left corporate America and started her own company, TechEdge, where she built a career creating and implementing business and technology solutions that redefined the industry standards for both Fortune 100 corporations and entrepreneurial organizations. Her mission: to help clients stay ahead of the competition, stay in touch with customers, and stay in high demand in a rapidly changing world. Gwen is also involved with dog rescue and adoption with her husband and has a major addiction to plants and a surprising superpower. You’ll have to listen to the end to learn all about it. So, let’s jump into it! I hope you enjoy this wide-ranging discussion with a woman that you’ll surely admire as much as I do... Gwen Walsh.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be taking another short break from business growth advice, and looking back to find inspiration and advice about how to "start" something great. This might be a new business. But it could also be a new product, division of your company, or even starting a new hobby or reaching a personal goal. Running a successful company, year after year is his hard. But starting a company is where most people ultimately fail. Our company is now into its second decade of success and growth and we've learned a thing or two along the way. We're still learning on all fronts. But there is one area that we've successfully completed and that is how to start. Even for new initiatives, products, or just improvements for the better, we know how to quit talking, and to begin doing. When you're starting a business, quitting your job will likely not be your best path to success. What is more likely is that you'll start something small and then take small steps forward until you've moved from nothing to something new and viable. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, that usually begins with just making the decision to actually start. This is where most people actually fail because they say "I'll do it tomorrow, or next week." or "I need to wait for X to happen before I can do it", or for whatever reason, they say "now is just not the right time." Creating something successful starts with beginning to do something that's important to you and something that you love. Or if it's just making a change to move in a more positive direction in your life, nothing is going to happen if you don't draw a line in the sand and just step forward and start. But once you start, there are many more small steps that you need to take toward your goals. Let's talk about a few here today. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re going to be taking a short break from business growth advice, and looking back to find inspiration and advice about how to "start" something great. This might be a new business. But it could also be a new product, division of your company, or even starting a new hobby or reaching a personal goal. Running a successful company, year after year is his hard. But starting a company is where most people ultimately fail. Our company is now into its second decade of success and growth and we've learned a thing or two along the way. We're still learning on all fronts. But there is one area that we've successfully completed and that is how to start. The beginning of every business or endeavor is different. I don't claim to have the perfect roadmap. I often say that there is a little bit of magic, luck and fairy dust involved when someone actually starts a company and it becomes something that's viable. So, for that reason, I thought I'd create a podcast series where we pass on some stories and advice to people who are thinking about starting something new. The stories and advice here will likely be different than the next business owner's experiences, but these are our stories and advice and this is how we took our company from nothing to something viable. Related episodes in this series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Inbound is about building relationships by being helpful and human.  It has been said that people are inundated about 2,000 times a day on average with outbound marketing interruptions. People these days are pretty much sick and tired of being marketed to and they are not only ignoring more and more outbound tactics, but actively looking for ways to aggressively block these tactics. Everything from basic ad blockers, to laws that protect our privacy. Being an outbound marketer can occasionally return results by brute force and you will eventually find a needle in the haystack. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult, discouraging and costly. Even targeted outbound tactics such as trade shows and seminars aren’t ideal anymore because it’s now so easy, convenient and cheap to research and learn online about almost anything. Inbound marketing is all about positioning yourself where people are actively looking for what you do or sell, and doing it in such a way that you can help them as a real human beings. You are not directly selling them anything. Instead, you are trying to solve problems for people by providing information, advice, deep knowledge and education about something they’re actively interested in learning about. Inbound marketing at its core is about building relationships. You’re trying to do everything you can to build trust and not directly market or sell, and especially not annoy the person you’re talking to. These days, our job as marketers is to listen instead of yelling to get the attention of our prospective customers. We want to hear about their unique problems and needs and then slowly build trust so we can help them find solutions in our products and services. The mindset of an inbound marketer is drastically different from traditional outbound marketing. It can take a moment to switch gears from the way you’ve always thought about marketing. But once you do, you’ll find that even traditionally outbound marketing tactics can be done in an inbound way, which is mind-blowing. There’s still room for ads, emails and phone calls in the world of inbound marketing. You just need to do it in a way that’s helpful and human. Many people are introduced to inbound by way of inbound marketing. But what they don’t know is that inbound is a methodology for running your business from beginning to end. The inbound methodology applies to not only your marketing processes, but your sales processes and even your operations. Here’s the gold in all this… When you apply the inbound methodology to your entire business, your efforts begin to add momentum, value and revenue that’s created with fewer resources and less effort. Essentially you’ll be able to attract, engage and ultimately retain more customers with less effort and fewer dollars spent. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our Inbound Marketing Services here.

Today on the Academy I wanted to give all you business owners and marketers a little bit of inspiration instead of talking about specific tactics and concepts. Sometimes we all need a little spark of inspiration to keep us going and I hope today's podcast will be just that for you. “In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins–not through strength but by perseverance.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. So, this year is the 16th anniversary of the company I started in 2006. We've gone from me working in a spare bedroom in my house by myself and supporting one family, to supporting 16+ families and millions of dollars in revenue. Although I did start the company, this has been nothing short of a complete team effort. In many cases I had, and still do, have nothing to do with the success that we continue to enjoy today. My partner handles all of our financials and has brought some game changing ideas and deals to the table. (The list is really too long to talk about here.) Long time members of our team (many upwards of a decade or more) continue to dedicate their days and nights to improving and growing our company and client's businesses. There are many people who have contributed to our success and left the company because they're on their own journey to success. And there are many new friends and team members that are helping to take us to the next level as we speak. This is a success story, and one that I'm proud of. I'm proud like a parent is of their child's grades, or the home run they hit in baseball. I was responsible for getting things started, but now that child is growing and accomplishing things completely on their own and growing into something new that operates outside of my influence. It's an amazing thing to witness. Our company has a lot of values that we've documented and refer to on a daily basis. One of those values is to "quit talking and begin doing." Another is "to have boundless courage." These words are important to us, not only with the work we do on a daily basis, but because I think they're the genesis that got everything started with our company. There was a point that I stopped talking about starting my own business and had the courage to quit my job and begin a new journey on my own terms. This is what I'd like to take a moment today and talk about. This podcast is about business growth. But to grow a business you need to start one and then take it from nothing to something. Then you need to keep it going and that is the really hard part. It ultimately requires you to surround yourself with a team of talented people to succeed. But in the early days there is going to be one big thing that keeps you moving forward. Today I just want to give everyone a little encouragement as you start and continue your own journey to success in business and your careers. I think success is rooted in 3 big ideas when you're starting and moving forward on your own journey. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here.

Today on the Academy we’re discussing the concept of nurturing a sale through the buyer's journey. We'll be talking about specific tactics, as well as concepts like why your marketing and sales teams should be working closely together and aligned throughout the entire process. At least half of the leads that actually come to your company are not remotely interested, or ready to buy. They're just beginning to explore their options. A large percentage of buyers won't be ready to commit for months after they contact you for the first time. It's been said that more than a quarter won't be interested in making a decision for more than a year. Many people that contact my company aren't ready to commit, and it usually takes us a year or more to close a sale. There have been times when it's taken 2 or 3 years, or more, to close a sale. Determining why this happens exactly, is hard. It could be a million different things. The person could hate commitment. The decision maker might just be busy and unable to do the necessary work to make the decision. They might have to rally a large team of stakeholders and get alignment to commit to a decision. They might just know that they need something, but not even know exactly what it is. So for this reason, we're going to be talking about the concept of nurturing today. It would be really nice if every customer that contacted you was ready to commit after having one conversation on your first call. But this is a fantasy of galactic proportions. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on The Academy we’re going to be listening in on a wide-ranging conversation between Kelly Brown and Tom Murphy. Both Tom and Kelly have deep experience and insight into running a business, marketing, and growing businesses, and specifically, very deep knowledge about digital marketing. Kelly is the CEO of Sanctuary - A Digital Marketing Group. He has 25+ years of experience leading entrepreneurial organizations. As CEO, Kelly has had the opportunity to serve a leadership role in every functional division of the organization spanning business strategy and development, marketing, finance, human resources, customer service, fulfillment, information technology, and publishing production. He’s driven by and is constantly working with his team to help companies grow. Tom Murphy is the Director of Business Development at Sanctuary and he's a deeply experienced marketing consultant. Tom enjoys uncovering the specific needs of a company and finding unique solutions to help them grow. Tom has been successful in managing and producing strategies for hundreds of clients over the years at Sanctuary. As you listen in you’ll be learning about a wide range of topics including, but not limited to: How to define success with digital marketing. The process for putting together a marketing plan. How you select the right marketing mix. How to tell if your website is performing for you. Digital marketing advice for startup companies. and even some advice about developing, hosting and maintaining a world-class website. So let’s get to it. I think you’re really going to enjoy this wide-ranging conversation between Kelly Brown and Tom Murphy. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today on the Academy we’re talking about measuring the performance of your social media efforts. That starts with establishing why you want to be on social media in the first place, and ultimately what success means when you get there. Determining which social media metrics to measure can be confusing and a bit overwhelming, and quite honestly hard to do. For many businesses, it's hard enough to just do the work of posting and engaging on social media on a regular basis. The last thing most marketers and business owners have time for, is to actually figure out how to measure success. From tracking growth of your followers, to knowing how well your posts are driving engagement, you might be wondering which social media metrics are the most important for your small business and where you can start. We're going to start off by giving you a little bit of advice about what our company did to develop a little bit of structure for our social media and to set some goals as to why we're even going to do it in the first place. Then we'll get into more specifics about how you can measure paid and organic social media efforts. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

"Whenever somebody asks me how long search engine optimization takes, I counter by asking them, “How long does marketing take?”– AustinSEOguy.com I just think that's a great quote. So, with that quote in mind, here are some reasons why SEO takes time and requires an ongoing investment, and ultimately what you need to be doing to compete in the future. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today we’re talking about designing a new website. For many people, this means hiring an actual designer. Someone that will help them to decide how their website is going to look. They’ll go through the process and create multiple color schemes and layouts. They’ll debate about the right shade of blue, and explore all the different font styles, sizes and weights that are presented. There will be discussions about whether they need headshots and bios for everyone in the company. And there will certainly be discussions about whether the most important information on the homepage is “above the fold”. This is how it’s done. Right? Wrong. About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

I encourage you to explore the theory and science of social media on your own because it can be complex and a world of it's own. It's an understatement to say that it's always going to be changing. But to get started today, let's simplify our focus on what you could be doing as a business owner and marketer. If you need some values to strive for, you can't go wrong with the original 5 pillars of Community, Conversation, Participation, Openness and Connection as a foundation. All can be applied to the following tactics. Shownotes: Facebook.com Facebook Messenger TikTok.com Twitter.com Instagram.com LinkedIn.com Pinterest.com YouTube.com WhatsApp.com About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Email marketing is one of the best ways to promote yourself and your business, whether you have a brick-and-mortar store or a strictly online business. It is relatively simple and easy to use, and it can help you reach an unprecedented number of potential customers while staying in touch with current customers. When you're talking about inbound marketing, there are many ways that you can use email beyond just sending a company newsletter. A regular newsletter that's full of valuable information is a great start. But there are opportunities to send individual marketing emails will offers, to create multiple drip campaigns based on the customer's interest, and even create complicated automated campaigns that help work a customer down the funnel to a sale. One of my favorite email automation tactics is the simple abandoned cart email that's sent after someone has added something to their cart, but didn't finalize their order. This simple tactic is a great way to use email to close a sale and all you have to do is setup the functionality and never touch it again. It's just really surprising to me how many companies aren't even using the most simple email techniques available to them. So I wanted to spend a little bit of time here today talking about email, and to hopefully get you thinking about the opportunities. Shownotes: MailChimp.com Hubspot.com About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

For those of you that are interested in learning about basic marketing principles and strategy, I’d like to recommend The 22 Immutable laws of marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout. This is not a book review and I am not going to fully endorse this book, nor am I going to say that it’s a waste of your time. This is just a summary of some of the points that the authors cover in the book which I found to be interesting and thought provoking. Maybe you’ll gain a little nugget of information that will help you expand your marketing ideas and strategies . The premise behind this book is that in order for marketing strategies to work, they must be in tune with some quintessential force in the marketplace. Just as the laws of physics define the workings of the universe, so do successful marketing programs conform to the "22 Laws.” This book presents each law with illustrations of how it works based on actual companies and their marketing strategies. For example, the "Law of Focus" states that the most powerful concept in marketing is "owning" a word in the prospect's mind, such as Crest's owning cavities and Nordstrom's owning service. When it comes down to it, I don’t entirely agree that any of the “laws” in this book are actually immutable. This book was written several decades ago at this point, so take all of this with a grain of salt. But it’s an interested exploration and I thought it would be worthwhile to share a summary of each law. I’m sure you’ll come away from this with an important nugget or idea that you can use in the future. Shownotes: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing Al Ries on Amazon Jack Trout on Amazon More about Al Ries More about Jack Trout About Sanctuary: Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

For many local, small businesses it’s essential that you’re found when local people search for what you do. It doesn’t happen magically though. Search engines have no idea what your site is about, or where you’re at unless you tell them. If you search for a term related to your business and city and you don’t see yourself on the first page of results, then that’s a major missed opportunity. I’d like to help you change that and the concepts listed here are pretty easy to implement if you know what to do. About Chris Auman Chris Auman is a veteran digital marketer with over 25 years of experience in the trenches. As Sanctuary’s founder and Managing Partner, Chris has successfully guided online marketing efforts for companies large and small. Through his extensive and wide-ranging experience with design, development and marketing, Chris is able to come to the table and solve problems from all angles, continually delivering profitable results for our clients. Learn more about Chris Auman and connect with him here. About Sanctuary Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today we're talking about SEO friendly design again. This is part three in our series where I provide tips to help you design your site in a way that benefits your SEO instead of hurting it.  Many people don't consider "design" an  important part of SEO. But when you consider that "design" includes related topics like UX (User experience) and UI (User Interface design), you'll start to see how many of these "intangible" practices that many consider "opinion" can make or break your SEO, and either improve or erode the overall experience of your website visitors. About Chris Auman Chris Auman is a veteran digital marketer with over 25 years of experience in the trenches. As Sanctuary’s founder and Managing Partner, Chris has successfully guided online marketing efforts for companies large and small. Through his extensive and wide-ranging experience with design, development and marketing, Chris is able to come to the table and solve problems from all angles, continually delivering profitable results for our clients. Learn more about Chris Auman and connect with him here. About Sanctuary Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Today we're talking about SEO friendly design again. This is part two in our series where I provide tips to help you design your site in a way that benefits your SEO instead of hurting it.  Many people don't consider "design" an  important part of SEO. But when you consider that "design" includes related topics like UX (User experience) and UI (User Interface design), you'll start to see how many of these practices can make or break your SEO -- all while doing everything you can to improve the overall experience of your website visitors. Show Notes: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com Visit this site to learn more about how you can create your own XML sitemap. (As mentioned on the show.) SEO Friendly Design (Part 1) SEO Friendly Design (Part 3 - COMING SOON) About Chris Auman Chris Auman is a veteran digital marketer with over 25 years of experience in the trenches. As Sanctuary’s founder and Managing Partner, Chris has successfully guided online marketing efforts for companies large and small. Through his extensive and wide-ranging experience with design, development and marketing, Chris is able to come to the table and solve problems from all angles, continually delivering profitable results for our clients. Learn more about Chris Auman and connect with him here. About Sanctuary Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Many people don't consider "design" an  important part of SEO. But when you consider that "design" includes related topics like UX (User experience) and UI (User Interface design), you'll start to see how many of these practices can make or break your SEO -- all while helping to improve the overall experience of your website visitors. These are just a few of the best practices of SEO friendly design, and this is only part one in this series. Following these simple rules is easy and we'll be providing more tips in the near future. Follow the links in the show notes for additional episodes around seo friendly design. Show Notes: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com Visit this site to learn more about how you can create your own XML sitemap. (As mentioned on the show.) SEO Friendly Design (Part 2)  SEO Friendly Design (Part 3 - COMING SOON)  About Chris Auman Chris Auman is a veteran digital marketer with over 25 years of experience in the trenches. As Sanctuary’s founder and Managing Partner, Chris has successfully guided online marketing efforts for companies large and small. Through his extensive and wide-ranging experience with design, development and marketing, Chris is able to come to the table and solve problems from all angles, continually delivering profitable results for our clients. Learn more about Chris Auman and connect with him here. About Sanctuary Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Of the two major online marketing opportunities on the web, which one is the "best bet"? Many people struggle with this question and I believe the answer is, unfortunately, "it depends". Both avenues have their strong points and weaknesses and I'll do my best here to explain both. Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) can be a very effective way to get your website in front of your target audience. There is no argument here. No other medium that I can think of empowers you to zero in on your target audience. Billboards, radio, mail, newspaper all take the machine gun approach for the most part. They spray around your message and hope that something hits your target. Pay-per-click not only gets your ad immediately in front of a person who specifically searched for what you're selling, but more importantly, you only pay when that person takes action and visits your site.  SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a great way to market your website. One of the major reasons that we recommend SEO is because it's a great investment. If you put time and money into SEO it's like investing in a house. If you get rankings in the search engines, you tend to keep those rankings over time. Unfortunately, many people still do not take SEO seriously and that gives those of us who do a big leg up. Show Notes: https://ads.google.com - Visit Google to get started with PPC advertising today. Visit Sanctuary if you need help with your PPC management and maximizing your advertising ROI. Visit Sanctuary if you need help with your SEO strategy and creating all forms of professional content from articles to social media and everything in between. About Chris Auman Chris Auman is a veteran digital marketer with over 25 years of experience in the trenches. As Sanctuary’s founder and Managing Partner, Chris has successfully guided online marketing efforts for companies large and small. Through his extensive and wide-ranging experience with design, development and marketing, Chris is able to come to the table and solve problems from all angles, continually delivering profitable results for our clients. Learn more about Chris Auman and connect with him here. About Sanctuary Do you need a partner to help you with your PPC and SEO? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your digital marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our digital marketing services here. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Blogging is indeed just a tool, a mere dot… on a longer continuum. But it is a revolutionary tool, and those who just keep hacking along in the undergrowth will remain blind to the big picture until it is too late.” – Robert Scoble The blog has finally hit prime time; it’s now the engine for announcing news, providing information, expanding marketing and increasing sales for many individuals, businesses and even large corporations through their website. For most people, their blog is their public face on the web because it’s easy for anyone to publish content and because of the smooth flow of information in and out of the website. A blog is simply a great, web-based marketing and communication tool. If you’re not blogging, below are ten reasons why you should consider getting started. Show Notes: http://www.wordpress.com - Use this site if you're interested in setting up a blog today. It's free. http://www.wordpress.org - Use this link if you want to install Wordpress on your website. (Ideal) It's also free. http://www.sanctuarymg.com - Talk with Sanctuary if you need help with installation, hosting, maintenance or design of your Wordpress website. About Chris Auman Chris Auman is a veteran digital marketer with over 25 years of experience in the trenches. As Sanctuary’s founder and Managing Partner, Chris has successfully guided online marketing efforts for companies large and small. Through his extensive and wide-ranging experience with design, development and marketing, Chris is able to come to the table and solve problems from all angles, continually delivering profitable results for our clients. Learn more about Chris Auman and connect with him here. About Sanctuary and content marketing Do you need a partner to help you with your blogging? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your blogging needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our content marketing services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.

Content marketing is a core component of any digital marketing strategy. No matter what it is you are trying to promote, or what audience you are trying to target, content plays a key role in your approach. With that said, success is not guaranteed—you’ll need a smart strategy to see your efforts pay off in the long run. To help you formulate a content marketing strategy for your small business, Chris Auman will touch on five key components that you would be wise to feature. If you are able to incorporate all five of these elements into your strategy, you should be well on your way to seeing impressive results. About Chris Auman Chris Auman is a veteran digital marketer with over 25 years of experience in the trenches. As Sanctuary’s founder and Managing Partner, Chris has successfully guided online marketing efforts for companies large and small. Through his extensive and wide-ranging experience with design, development and marketing, Chris is able to come to the table and solve problems from all angles, continually delivering profitable results for our clients. Learn more about Chris Auman and connect with him here. About Sanctuary and content marketing Do you need a partner to help you with your content marketing? The Academy is a service of Sanctuary and we can help you with all your content marketing needs. We'd love to chat with you about how we can help you grow your business. Learn more about our content marketing services. Sanctuary, a digital marketing agency based in North Canton, Ohio, helps companies grow their businesses by developing and executing end-to-end marketing strategies. We believe in partnering with purpose to create and execute powerful marketing strategies accountable to measurable results. We partner with you to build custom websites and use marketing tactics such as search marketing, social media and email to drive leads and sales for your business. Our team comprises highly experienced and creative specialists in a range of digital marketing disciplines, from marketing strategy and execution, writing, visual design and development to social marketing, user experience design, analytics and more. We’ve been guiding passionate, thriving businesses like yours that serve owners, employees and communities since 2006. Learn more.