Struggling Entrepreneur

 

 89- iPod Concierge leverages a niche market as an Entrepreneur [40:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode of The Struggling Entrepreneur, we have an interview with Jessica O’Connell, who is the “iPod Concierge”–and has started a small business with that same name.

As a starting entrepreneur, Jessica explains  how she visualized a niche market for her skill set from the ecosystem brought about by the success of the Apple iPod(R) , iPhone(R) and iTunes(R). In this audio episode, you will hear how she went from her corporate day-job to becoming a part-time entrepreneur and growing her business with very few obstacles–mainly, because she was starting at a local level and leveraging a niche market that had almost no one to provide the services that she now delivers.

Jessica’s business brand and motto consists of these words:

iPod and iPhone Services

brought to by the iPod Concierge

Jessica is now venturing out to expand her role as an entrepreneur by offering services to bring the “vinyl” world of 45-rpm and 33-rpm LP records into the digital world via transfer and conversion, as well as photo images of “legacy memories” for generations of families.

As you can tell, the brand name of iPod Concierge delivers a meaning of service, quality, attention and customer satisfaction to those who want to exploit the power of their newly-acquired iPods and iPhones via iTunes.

Copyright (c) 2009, Matrix Solutions Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

iPod, iTunes and iPhone are trademarks or registered trademarks of Apple Inc. at www.apple.com.

 

 88- Leveraging all-things-twitter with www.twooting.com [30:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode of The Struggling Entrepreneur, we interview Bo Bennett and Ryan Levesque. These have their own small business with a firm called igrOOps.com.

And now they have a new venture within the firm to focus priimarily on twitter as the social media tool. This venture is centered around a web site called www.twooting.com and the podcast on iTunes is called twooting.

That’s right — with the tremendous growth that social media tools and networks have had recently, twitter seems to be the fastest growing application that is being used and consumed today.  And so this podcast series by Ryan and Bo deliver a daily dose of news, updates, interviews, latest applications for twitter– in other words, “all things twitter.”

We are sure that you will find this of interest–how a pair of Entrepreneurs–who are currently successful in their own right with their core business of igrOOps–have now created another “business within a business” by leveraging a niche market in the twittersphere and the ecosystem created by twitter within the world of social media.

Copyright (c) 2009, Matrix Solutions Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

 

 87- From corporate day-job to part-time small business owner to Full-time Entrepreneur [36:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We would like to thank you, our audience, for all the email and correspondence about this podcast series and its positive value to you.

However, we have had a lot of inquiries about the possibility of getting Entrepreneur’s story  from the show host, Fred Castaneda. That’s right–what were his struggles and obstacles, and what are his perspectives, and what are his lessons learned?

Well, in this episode of The Struggling Entrepreneur, we have an interview with Fred Castaneda, the host of this podcast series, where he answers exactly those questions.

And to lead the discussion, we are honored to have a very experienced interviewer, Jay Ehret, an entrepreneur himself from his business, The Marketing Spot. Jay was interviewed in episode 36 back in 2008 about his experiences.

But now Jay Ehret brings his professionalism from his own podcast series, Power to the Small Business, to our own episode, as he leads the discussion to get the Entrepreneur’s story from Fred–and how he went from being a corporate employee to a part-time Entrepreneur, then finally a full-time Entrepreneur.

In addition, Fred was also interviewed by the creator and editor of the blog, Austin Entrepreneur Network, which you can find at this URL:

http://angelinvestinginaustin.blogspot.com/

In this interview on the blogpost of 27 March 2009, Fred discusses the story behind the Struggling Entrepreneur Podcast, as well as his passion and dedication to Podcasting–including his leadership as the Organizer of the Austin Podcasters Group within the Meetup.com facility on the web.

Copyright (c) 2009, Matrix Solutions Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

 

 86- Mike Stelzner- whitepapers and Social Media Industry Report [37:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode of The Struggling Entrepreneur, Mike Stelzner describes his success story of becoming a profitable entrepreneur by helping businesses to write successful and persuasive whitepapers, especially after he was wrongfully terminated in his day-job within Corporate America.

His claim to fame came in the form of a book which he wrote. It is available on Amazon.com, and it has made him the leading authority figure worldwide and in the Search Engines about the topic of writing a business whitepaper.

In addition, Mike Stelzner has moved into the Social Media Marketing space. He has completed a researched whitepaper that answers the 10 most pressing questions asked by Marketers and Small Business Owners about Social Media–e.g., what it is, which tools are effective, and how to plan to incorporate social media into your business for success.  To the amazement of many Internet Marketers and pundits, he is making it available free to marketers and entrepreneurs.  It is called “Social Media Marketing Industry Report: How Marketers are using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.”

Mike has also chaired some “teleclasses” about social media, in which he discusses with industry experts and pundits the success stories of Social Media tools being used in business. What is remarkable is that Mike offers this teleclass for free in the form of both an audio mp3 file as a podcast, as well as the written transcript. It is a “gift” to the community.

Now Mike is pursuing his successful path in what he calls tthe “gold rush” at present — into Social Media. He is doing this by hosting a Social Media Success Summit in May. Although this is a paid event, it will cover the entire month of May in 2009, and it will host some of the Internet Marketing gurus about video, social networks, social bookmarking and social media tools.

To check out this event, click on the image, below.

Mike believes and recommends in giving back to the community of marketers and Entrepreneurs. His suggestion to give away some of your valuable content is proven by his free whitepaper that describes how to write a successful business whitepaper. It is called “How to Write a White Paper - A White Paper on White Papers.”

Copyright (c) 2009, Matrix Solutions Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

 

 86A- Top 10 Questions on Social Media- An Industry Report by Mike Stelzner [18:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this bonus episode of The Struggling Entrepreneur, we thank Michael Stelzner for his approval to publish this audio mp3 of his document that was launched in March, 2009. It is called  “The Social Media Marketing Report: How Marketers are Using Social Media to GrowTheir Businesses.”

 This audio narration is an abridged edition of this report–giving you the first 9 of the total 26 pages of this report.

Note: we will have an in-depth interview with Mike Stelzner in the next episode (number 86) of The Struggling Entrepreneur podcast series.

What is great about this report is that it is free to you. The author, Mike Stelzner, is giving back to the Internet Marketing Community and the Entrepreneur Community by making it available at his site for no charge.

Also, the charts and the graphs and comparisons that are delivered to you in this white paper are professional, profound, up-to-date at the time of this post, and timely for the Entrepreneur who asks the question:

What are the top 10 Questions that Marketers and Entrepreneurs are asking about Social Media Marketing and how to leverage that in your business?

The rest of the 26-page report gives the detail of the answers, as well as other questions and key points being asked–and answered.

There is also a free gift from Mike Stelzner that delivers a report (in transcript and mp3 audio file format) that describes the Social Media Success stories in business from 3 of the top experts and specialists in Social Media.

Click here to get the free gift and the white paper and mp3 file.

We encourage you to listen to the next episode of this podcast series that will provide the success story of Mike Stelzner in the world of white papers, social media and training. It will be episode # 86.

Copyright (c) 2009, Matrix Solutions Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

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