Sometimes It Pays to Step Outside the Norm! Meet Al Glover!

A few months ago, I did something quite outside the norm for me.  I went to a local networking event!  And not just any networking event.  I went to Metro After Hours!  You may ask why this was unusual.  Well...because it's an event for designers, architects, and others in that field.  Not the type of people you usually associate with networking meetups.  And definitely not the first people you think of when you say home business owners.  But hey...I figured they might want a bit of help with their businesses also so off I went.  And met this month's Success Story.  He's fun.  He's talented.  He's my newest friend!  Meet Al Glover!

1. Al, tell us about yourself.

I am an Oklahoma native who has spent lots of time in Northwest Arkansas with family.  I am a father of 2, husband, and artist. I have spent a number of years outside the country, living in Canada.  While in Canada, I taught color theory at the University in Alberta.  I also competed in rodeo for years as a young man!

 

2. Tell us about your business.

Foxx York Inc. is the brainchild of myself and my husband Richard Realtor.  We wanted to create a way to express our passions...in design, in real estate, in Art and other endeavors.  We offer services across the US.

 

3. Why did you decide to become a designer?

 

I have an uncle who is an Architect, and as a child I sat at the drawing board and learned from him.  He was a great inspiration to me, coupled with my passion for textural beauty.

 

4. How do you approach the design process?

 

My first degree was psychology.  But my desire to design took over.  I have developed what I term “the psychology of design”, the process of understanding my client and assisting them in the execution of a dream.

 

5. What inspires your designs?

 

My inspiration for design comes from literally everything... that sounds broad but it’s true.  It could be the clouds in the sky or an old abandoned rusty car.  Nature is probably one of the largest influences!

 

6.  What does it take to become a designer?  Are there certain skills or character traits one needs to be successful?

 

There are a great number of skills needed to become a designer.  And training is necessary.   I feel that the best designers are born with a 6th sense.  There is an understanding of scale and composition that is hard to teach.  A designer must be able to view the world through others' eyes.  To learn to listen to the client and help them realize their vision

 

7.  What do you like most and least about being your own boss?

 

Being self employed is probably the largest responsibility that I know of.  You have to be disciplined in your time, finances, and be your own self motivator!  I like the freedom of schedule the most and learning changing technology the least.

 

8.  What has been the most difficult part of being an entrepreneur?

 

To be a great entrepreneur, you must have the courage of a lion. The  most difficult part is likely the ever evolving business world. The constant need to change the way you do business in order to remain relevant.

 

9.  This is a website for budding entrepreneurs and so I always ask for some tips from those who are “doing it”.   Do you have any resources that you have used that you would recommend?

 

I suggest that any business owner always keep an open mind to how to reach and relate to their clientele.  There is always another way!

 

10. Do you have any tips to share on promoting yourself?

 

Social media has changed the way we promote ourselves. I think picking a direction and sticking with it is key.  Don’t try to cover too many bases.

 

11. What other advice would like to share?

 

Above all, honesty is the key to success.

 

12. How can we contact you to learn more FoxxYork and your services?

 

Al Glover, Interior Designer
PO Box 7167
Springdale AR 72766

Mobile: 469-441-4941

Office: 479-200-5800

Al@FoxxYork.com

www.FoxxYork.com

Text is best!

 

13. Is there anything else you would like to share?

Thank you for this opportunity and hope to work with you further.

On the Road Again...I Can't Wait to Get On the Road Again!

I am SOOOOO looking forward to attending a few events this year!  I admit...last year was tough.  After speaking at Authority Maker Bootcamp in Las Vegas, I stayed pretty close to home.  Sometimes life just gets in the way.  If you are close to me at all then you know that my husband, my daughter, and #1 grandson were all dealing with some major health challenges.  So while I was indeed on the road, it was mostly back and forth to doctors and hospitals.  But thankfully, all three of them are doing well (your prayers and support were very much appreciated!) and so I am once again anticipating being able to actually travel.


I miss going to events.  They do so much for my business.  Yes, I know.  We have the weekly webinars, which I never miss.  And there are blogs, and books, and podcasts aplenty!  But nothing compares to the energy and opportunities you will find at a live event.


I remember my first event.  It was jvAlert hosted by Ken McArthur.  While I was working from home at the time sort of, it wasn't as an entrepreneur.  I was actually working for a site selection company and had helped Ken book the space and negotiate the contract for his event.  When he invited me to attend as his guest, I thought it would be interesting and said yes.  I'm so glad I did because that event changed EVERYTHING in my life!  


I wanted...NEEDED...to work from home.  I was dabbling in network marketing at the time.  But I knew nothing about the internet, or social media, or attraction marketing.  So to be surrounded by a room full of people who felt like I did and were actually doing it was - at the risk of sounding cliché - LIFE CHANGING!  And that's one reason everyone should go to events.  They are full of people just like you!  People who want something more for their future and aren't afraid to go after it.


I learned so much from that event.  It's where I was introduced to Twitter (my social platform of choice) and Facebook.  It's where I learned about blogging.  In fact, I created my first blog the first night of the event in my hotel room.  Events are perfect places to go and learn new skills.  I always come home full of new ideas armed with a long list of techniques and resources I can't wait to try.


And of course I got to meet THE Ken McArthur.  Of course, being in Ken's orbit was amazing enough.  But through him, I have met so many other leaders in this business.  Felicia Slattery.  Debra Jason. The Poodle Wrangler himself, Brian G. Johnson.  Carrie Wilkerson, Bob Sparkins, Larry Hochman.  The list is long.  Going to events can often provide you with the opportunity to meet the rockstars in your industry face-to-face.  They can be the start of a very beneficial relationship.  Sometimes, they can even be the start of beautiful friendships.


And did I mention the benefit of networking with these superstars?  Because through them, other relationships have blossomed.  It's how I met Heshie Segal, who introduced me to ARIIX and to Michael Butler, who published my book.  It's how I met Diane Hochman who has taught me more about building my business than anyone else.  It's where I met Andy Shepherd, who helped me to find my voice, and Joel Comm, who told me stop writing what I thought would sell and write what I know.  It's where I met Gwendolyn Crewes Weiler, who took my jumbled mess of words and turned them into a book.  P.S.  If you're looking for an editor, I highly recommend her!  But most importantly, it's where I met Amparo, and Lee, and Rick, and Leland, and Wendy, and so many others who brighten my day every day with their friendship and love.  Events are wonderful places to network and grow your circle of friends.


Events are fun!  Yes, I know they can be expensive.  Most charge for admission.  And then there is travel and hotels and food while you're on the road.  But where else can you find so much opportunity to learn and grow?  It's an investment in your business, in yourself.  And if you aren't worth investing in, what is?


I am very excited about the events coming up this year.  Maybe I'll see you at one of them!  I'll be posting which ones I'm attending on social media so if you see me and you're there, come say hi!

Host a Summit

Creating a summit is a great way to stop playing small and step into your awesomeness. If you’re not familiar with the term, an online summit is an intentional meeting of leaders to discuss important issues.

Most online summits feature several guest speakers and the content is organized around one central theme. For example, MLSP recently hosted a marketing summit and invited some of the top online marketers in the industry to participate.

Hosting a summit allows you to step up and be a voice in your niche. You can help your community connect with speakers and leaders they’ve never heard from before. But there’s a lot to do when it comes to hosting a summit. Here’s what you’ll need to keep in mind…

Start Small

You might be tempted to host a lengthy two-week summit with dozens of speakers. But don’t feel like you have to do that. Not only will a larger summit be exhausting, you may struggle to keep your audience engaged if it stretches out over weeks.

Instead, start small. Plan to have your summit last just a day or two. Once you have a few short summits under your belt, you might want to arrange for a longer one.

Choose Your Topic

Pick a topic that you know will appeal to your audience. If you’re a health and wellness blogger, then hosting a summit on marketing won’t be interesting to your community. But a summit about digital fitness is more likely to generate interest.

Curate Your Speakers

For a summit, you’ll need a group of speakers. For a one-day summit, you’ll want four to six speakers. Look around for speakers who might be a great fit for your event. You can also post your idea for a summit online and ask your friends for speaker recommendations.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to have eight hours of back-to-back speeches. Doing that doesn’t allow time for your audience to ask questions or for you to use the restroom. Just like you’d plan for some down time during a real-life conference, schedule down time during your summit, too.

Make It Awesome

Hosting a summit is a lot of work. It deserves excellence in every area and this includes the graphics and the sales page. If you struggle with graphics, outsource them to a virtual assistant who’s a whiz with PhotoShop. If you don’t enjoy writing the sales letter, find a ghostwriter who can punch up your copy for you.

You want to create an event that speakers will feel proud to be part of. You also want your affiliates to be excited about promoting it and your attendees to feel delighted by the speaker line-up.

Putting together a summit does take time so begin planning 4-6 weeks in advance. This allows you to create an amazing event that will be memorable for everyone involved.

If you’d like to know more about hosting a summit, check out Kelly McCausey’s Stretch Yourself Challenge. She invites her challengers to do daring things in their businesses like being bold on Facebook Live, starting a group coaching program, and of course, hosting a digital summit.

Jump into Communities & Stand Out

It’s easy to join Facebook groups then quietly lurk in the background for weeks or even months. While this might feel safer, it defeats the whole purpose of joining the group—getting to form relationships and build your own community.

It’s time to stop hiding out and start networking in your online groups. Here are a few easy tips to help you speak up and stand out…

Choose Communities that Fit

If you’re passionate about serving your tribe, then you have to go where they are. Pick communities where your ideal audience is likely to hang out. For example, if you are a low carb blogger, then find Keto groups and join them. You may also want to join group for health bloggers and low carb recipe creators.

If you get into a group and find it’s negative or the moderators are unkind, don’t feel like you have to stay. Quietly remove yourself from the group and move on.

Introduce Yourself

As soon as you’re approved to join a new group, take the time to introduce yourself. Share a few sentences about who you are and what you do. If you want, you can dive into why you do it but remember to stay brief.

Keep in mind that some group moderators don’t want you to post links to your website when you first join. If that’s the case, you need to respect the group rules. You’re not going to win friends by upsetting the moderators.

Add Value

This means participating in the conversations in your group and sharing what you know. For example, someone asks a question about how to install WordPress and you know the answer. Share it! 

If you don’t know the answer, you can always use Google and say, “I’ve never dealt with this problem but I did find some interesting advice over here: (link)”. This response shows you care even if you didn’t know how to help.

Voice Your Questions

Ask for advice in your groups. For example, you might say, “I’m not building my mailing list because I’ve been stuck on which list service to purchase. I’ve narrowed it down to Aweber or ConvertKit. Can you tell me which one you’d choose and why?”

Start Discussion Topics 

Don’t be afraid to share what’s going on in your life or business. Talk about a book you’re reading that’s inspiring you, a mindset shift that you experienced, or a customer interaction that made you smile.

Let people in and give them a chance to get to know you. It might feel scary (especially at first!) but as you do it, you’ll begin building an amazing community filled with caring and supportive people.

Create a Partnership

Kelly is a graphic designer who loves making beautiful images for her clients. But she wanted to create more streams of recurring income in her business so she could free up her schedule. She spent some time brainstorming with her business besties, Amber and me!

Now, I admit, graphics aren't my forte. But Amber and Kelly are both wonderful graphic designers. Plus Amber is a whiz at building websites. Together, the two women decided to create a small membership that offered done-for-you graphics each month. After a few months of heavy promotion, Kelly has been able to ease back on her client work. She feels energized by this new shift in her business and has begun looking for other people she could partner with.

And where do I fit in?  I'm one of their customers!

Starting a joint venture or partnership can be rewarding and fun. By dividing the workload in half, you’re less likely to find yourself stressed out and overwhelmed. If you’re considering trying out a partnership, here’s how to do it…

Reach Out

Don’t pick just anyone to partner with. Be intentional about who you choose. Partnering with a business owner who has a reputation for being nasty with customers or not paying her virtual assistants on time can damage your brand.

Choose someone you admire who has an excellent reputation in your community. If you don’t have anyone in mind right now, don’t rush it. It’s better to take your time and carefully consider who you’d like to work with.

Keep It Short Term

If this is your first partnership, it’s wise to treat it like a trial run. Rather than launching a huge online store with dozens of products, test out one eBook or short report. See how your community responds. 

Are you hearing good feedback from your customers? Do you enjoy working with this other business owner? Would you do the project again if you had the chance? Do you both have ideas for more projects you could tackle?

Determine What Success Looks Like

As you and your partner begin hammering out the details for your project, take the time to think through your goals. How will you know if this business venture has been successful? Will it be when you’ve made a certain amount of sales or have a set number of customers?

By getting clear on your goals, you’ll be able to tell if your project has succeeded or failed. Then even if a project misses the mark, you and your partner will have a better idea of what happened and why.

Divide the Work Load

As you begin talking about your project, it can be smart to think about what tasks each partner is responsible for. Ideally, you want to play to your strengths with this. 

If you’re great at writing content, then coming up with the sales page will probably be easy for you. If your partner is smart with technology, then she may prefer setting up the website to working on graphics.

If there are tasks that you and your partner don’t enjoy, consider bringing in a virtual assistant. Websites like Fiverr and Upwork make it easy to find a professional assistant at an affordable rate.

Partnering with another business owner can be a blast. You’ll grow your brand, discover more about what you enjoy, and maybe even make a new friend for life.

Start an Affiliate Program

If you have a side hustle that you want to turn into a full-time gig, I have a suggestion for you.  Set up a referral or affiliate program. An affiliate program lets your customers sign up and share your services with their friends using a special link. If a friend makes a purchase, the affiliate gets a small commission.

Nervous at the thought of starting your own affiliate program?  Don't be.  It's easier than you think.  And your clients or customers will love the chance to make some money promoting someone or something they believe in.  It's an awesome combination!

If you’d like to start an affiliate or referral program, you may be stuck on how to begin. Here’s what you need to do first…

Check Your Shopping Cart

If you sell digital products or use an online shopping cart to help your clients order your service, then you may already have a few options you can use. Some software companies bundle the affiliate function with your shopping cart. If this is the case for you, set up might be as simple as reaching out to your company and letting them know you’d like to turn this feature on.

However, some software companies may charge extra to add an affiliate function to your site. They may call this feature a “plugin” or “add-on”. If the affiliate fee is affordable and you already like your shopping cart, then don’t feel like you have to switch.

Some online business owners may not have a shopping cart. If that’s your situation, then two good suggestions are aMember Pro (free affiliate feature included) or WooCommerce (affiliate feature is an add-on available for purchase).

Look for Similar Offers

Once you have the tech taken care of, you’ll want to investigate other digital business owners that are selling similar products or services. Check out their affiliate programs and see how they structure their fees.

Typically, affiliates promoting a digital product want 50% of the purchase price. However, if your affiliates will be promoting your service, then set your commission rate to 10-20% of the purchase price. If you need to, raise the price of your product or service a small amount to cover the cost of your affiliate payouts.

Ask Friends to Promote

When your affiliate program is ready to use, invite a few close friends or supporters to join. Remember that many affiliates love promoting something they believe in and earning cash for that recommendation.
Announce Your Affiliate Program

Next, tell others in your circle about your new affiliate program. Put together a page with information about your referral club. Then post this link to social media—sharing it with your Facebook groups, Instagram followers, and Twitter peeps.

Keep in mind that running an affiliate program is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s OK to let it grow slowly over the course of a few months. As you see it expand, you’ll be inspired to come up with new ways to help your affiliates promote your products or services.

Take a Stand: Be Opinionated!

I have a health and wellness blog. I am passionate about sharing fitness with other busy entrepreneurs. But after several months, I am becoming discouraged. I don't seem to be getting any traction or comments on my blog. I'm not earning much from this site and I didn’t know how to change that.

So, I asked my coach for some advice. She reviewed my website then told me that I'm not opinionated enough on my blog. She said my content was bland.  BLAND!!. She said that I should try creating content that’s opinionated, even if I ruffle a few feathers along the way!

Well we all know that I'm not afraid to stir things up a bit  But I have been playing safe with this blog. My posts have been pretty factual and not too controversial.  And I certainly haven't been sharing much of my personal journey.  Time to make a change!


If you’re like me and your blog is boring and bland, try using these tips to spice it up….

Choose a Touchy Subject

You can start by choosing a touchy subject, but stay focused here. You want a topic that’s related to your business and niche. If you run a pet blog, then sharing your thoughts on the death penalty won’t be helpful. Sure you may generate more clicks than usual but your opinions aren’t likely to resonate with your audience.

However, if you pick a topic related to your blog, your community will be more engaged with your content. For example, a dating and relationships blogger might publish a post on seven reasons women should always pay for the first date.

Promote Respect

As soon as you share a post that’s controversial, expect to see disagreements. Most people will disagree with you publicly in your comments section – although a few people may prefer to contact you through your social media platforms or email.

Not everyone has to agree with you or share your exact viewpoint. But make sure these discussions don’t become destructive. If commenters begin harassing or threatening you (or your community), delete their messages.

Be Prepared

When you’re playing big and posting on topics that are important to you, ones that fire you up, make sure you don’t focus on just your passion. You want to be prepared to back up all of your statements and views with supporting material.

This makes you look smart in the eyes of your community and it shows others that you aren’t going off on a tangent. You want to present your opinion calmly and briefly so you look (and sound) professional.

I'm going to follow my coach’s advice - on all of my blogs!  So stand by for a little stronger voice than you may be used to from me.  And perhaps an entirely new take on my health and wellness blog.

Don’t hold back on your blog or website. You can share an opinion—even one that others disagree with—and still build a thriving community.