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Choose Your Market, Change Your Life with Ryan Levesque

Release Date: 09/10/2019

The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

Andre and Tracy are in Dallas today talking with Rob Frost-Dean. Rob is part of the LOCALiQ team and is the director of SEO services. Rob works directly with clients and manages the team that helps them with their SEO campaigns. We get so many questions and find that there is so much confusion about SEO that we’re really happy to have Rob here today to help shine a light on the world of SEO. Before joining ReachLocal in 2015, Rob was the director of Professional Services at SearchDex, an SEO agency that is headquartered in Dallas. Rob has over 20 years of business experience in diverse work...

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The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

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The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

Nobody likes conflict, especially workplace conflict. That's why we are excited about today's guest Dr. Liane Davey. She is an author, motivational speaker, and organizational psychology expert. Her advice has helped some of the largest corporations in the world, but also applies to small teams. She is the author of and . In this conversation, we learn why conflict can actually be good and desirable as long as it is handled in a healthy way. Dr. Davey also shares two magic phrases that diffuse tears and anger. We also learn a three step validation process that can turn potential...

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The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

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Choose Your Market, Change Your Life with Ryan Levesque

The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

Ryan Levesque is here with us today. Just in case you don’t know Ryan, he is the Inc. 500 CEO of The ASK Method® Company, and the #1 national best-selling author of Ask, which was named by Inc. as the #1 Marketing Book of the Year. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Forbes, and Entrepreneur and over 250,000 entrepreneurs subscribe to his email newsletter offering business advice. Ryan started from humble beginnings but went on to attend an Ivy League college, have a successful corporate career in China, and give it all up to start over to build his own...

The Power of Perseverance with Kevin Tuohy Part 2

The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

Kevin Tuohy joins Andre and Tracy for part two of their interview. Kevin is the founder of where he and his team offer an unparalleled shoeshine experience for special event attractions and in-store experiences. They have locations in New York, San Francisco, and Osaka, Japan. He was also featured in the documentary . Kevin is an entrepreneur, artist, entertainer, and sobriety advocate. On last week's episode, he shared his childhood and upbringing with us in his own colorful way. He also talked about his 30 years of sobriety that began when he had a white light experience at a...

The Power of Perseverance with Kevin Tuohy Part I

The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

Kevin Tuohy is a founding partner and shoe shiner at the Shoeshine Guild. This is a company that he founded in 1996 by shining shoes at conventions and special events. He took on a partner and recruited friends to work with him. This company offers a retro experience along with a great shoe shine. The shiners are in huge demand and are also expert swing dancers in this retro industry. Kevin has a common bond with his founding crew, because they were all recovering alcoholics. In this entertaining and moving episode, Kevin talks about his upbringing in New York in the 1970s, and belonging...

Build Your Brand or Die with Jay Ferracane

The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

Designer Jay Ferracane is here today. Jay is the perfect guest for this show. He is as passionate about design as he is about business. Jay is the creative director and founder at Angry Bovine. Jay is a traditionally trained graphic designer with a diverse client and employment background. He is passionate about delivering creative works that build brands and clearly communicate client objectives. In this episode, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of having a brand no matter what size your business is. Jay feels that a brand is a promise and the logos and design are...

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The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

Journalist, author, and business owner Jeannie Ralston is here today. Jeannie is the founder of NextTribe a magazine for women who are 45 + that offers information, inspiration and a healthy dose of irreverence. Jeannie began her career as a journalist in New York and wrote for several well known publications. She then got married, moved to Texas, and started a lavender farm. Eventually, Jeannie and her husband took their two sons and moved to Mexico before traveling the world and homeschooling her sons. Jeannie wrote about these experiences and realized that her cumulative life...

A Different Kind Of Cleanse with Jenny Thompson

The Growth Lab by LOCALiQ

We have a really interesting guest on our show today. Jenny Thompson is the CEO and Founder of SafetyPIN Technologies, as well as the author of . In today’s episode, Jenny shares her business background. She talks about being promoted to manager and the mistakes she made as a young new manager. She realized she needed to improve her leadership skills and in the process became a better leader and a better business person. We have a no-holds barred conversation about what it takes to run a business and manage people. Jenny shares when cuts need to be made with products and people. She even...

More Episodes

Ryan started from humble beginnings but went on to attend an Ivy League college, have a successful corporate career in China, and give it all up to start over to build his own business. In this episode, he shares his struggles and successes and the winning framework he discovered for business success. We talk about his book Ask and his new book Choose. He shares the five marketing must haves for a viable business today, and so much more.

Show Notes:

[07:41] Ryan came from a blue-collar background. He was the first in his family to go to college. He went to an Ivy League school and studied neuroscience, East Asian studies, and Chinese.
[08:02] After graduating, he worked on Wall Street.
[08:36] Ryan then decided to live and work in China. He and his wife spent five years in China. He was opening up sales offices for AIG.
[09:02] Ryan felt unfulfilled. He had a great salary and a great corporate career. Then he woke up one day wondering is this it.
[10:02] Ryan wanted independence and freedom. It was his goal to make $10,000 a month, so he could quit his job. He then discovered, his company might go under. This was the sign he had been looking for to finally make the leap.
[11:58] If you've ever felt like you have more to give, the time to make a footprint and leave a mark is now.
[12:17] Ryan quit his job and moved into student housing with his wife.
[13:05] They had a lot of conversations about what type of business for Ryan to start. His wife showed him an idea from Etsy.
[14:49] His wife pointed out how lucrative teaching can be. They started teaching people how to make Scrabble tile jewelry.
[16:25] Ryan learned the lesson that they had stumbled upon a fad market.
[17:07] They went back to the US and his wife got a job.
[17:28] Ryan started researching evergreen hobbies. The one he stumbled upon was gardening and orchid care.
[18:59] They moved to Austin, where they live now and grew their business.
[19:16] They have done this in 23 markets and are now in their third year of being on the Inc. list of fastest growing companies.
[19:43] They went into several niche markets refining the method that he teaches. Some examples are memory improvement, water filtration, teaching how to play tennis, golf, and guitar and dog training markets.
[20:28] Every niche followed the same path where they would identify a market opportunity, ask a series of questions to understand the unmet need, and build a funnel to generate sales.
[21:01] A few years ago, they shifted their focus to teaching this methodology. They wrote the book called Ask. It became a runaway success. Ask is about figuring out what people want to buy.
[21:35] Their new book Choose. is about how to choose the right market to go into in the first place.
[21:54] Choose is about who you want to sell to. Many people make the mistake of focusing on what. You need to identify who is your who.
[25:38] When you get refined clarity about who you are serving, it makes all of the other decisions easy.
[29:04] We've been teaching this methodology for years, they are proven processes.
[30:31] If you start your business in the wrong market, you will never get to where you want to go.
[32:00] The five market must haves include being in an evergreen market, being in an enthusiast market, an urgent problem, future problems, and be in a market filled with PWMs or players with money.
[34:29] Use Google Trends to see if your Market is Evergreen.
[36:25] You want to be in an enthusiast market not a problem solution market.
[38:52] You need to find a burning urgent problem that people need to solve now.
[40:41] You are now set up to be a trusted adviser in that space and solve future problems.
[42:38] PWMs or players with money are able to buy what you are selling. You can't sell to broke people.
[43:59] The dog market is filled with PWMs where people spend a disproportionate amount of their income.
[46:32] The fear of giving up good to go after great holds so many people back. The Choose Method is designed to mitigate risk through a repeatable process.

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