5 Surefire Viral Marketing Tactics to Rapidly Expand Your Reach

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Viral marketing is a powerful tool businesses can use to increase brand awareness and generate buzz around their products or services. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, viral marketing relies on social sharing and word-of-mouth to spread the message. In this article, we will explore five secrets of viral marketing that can help businesses create successful campaigns.

Emotion is key

One of the essential secrets to creating a viral marketing campaign is to evoke emotion. People are more likely to share content that makes them feel something – whether it’s happiness, anger, or surprise. For example, a heartwarming video about a dog who overcomes adversity is more likely to be shared than a dry product advertisement. By tapping into emotions, businesses can create content that resonates with their audience and increases the chances of it going viral.

Keep it simple

Another critical element of viral marketing is simplicity. Complex or confusing messages are less likely to be shared, as people often do not have the time or energy to decipher them. To create a successful viral marketing campaign, businesses should focus on creating simple and straightforward messages that are easy for people to understand and share.

Timing is everything

Timing is also an essential factor in viral marketing. Businesses should aim to release their campaigns when their target audience is most likely to be online and receptive to the message. For example, a campaign targeting college students should be released during the school year when they are more likely to use social media. Timing can also be affected by current events or trends, which can be leveraged to make a campaign more timely and relevant.

Harness the power of influencers

A powerful marketing strategy that can be implemented is influencer marketing to amplify the reach of a viral marketing campaign. Businesses can reach their audience by collaborating with influencers with a sizable following – increasing the chances of the campaign going viral. Choosing influencers who align with the brand’s values and message is important to ensure the partnership feels authentic and genuine.

Encourage sharing

Finally, businesses should make it easy for people to share their content. This can be done by including social sharing buttons on websites or creating shareable graphics or videos. Businesses can also encourage sharing by running contests or giveaways requiring participants to share the campaign with friends. By making sharing a part of the campaign, businesses can increase the chances of it going viral and reaching a wider audience.

In conclusion, viral marketing is a powerful tool that can aid companies in generating buzz about their brands, products or services. By tapping into emotions, keeping messages simple, timing campaigns effectively, harnessing the power of influencers, and encouraging sharing, businesses can create successful viral marketing initiatives that connect with their target market and get results.

3 Surefire Tips On Empowerment and How To Engage Your Employees

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With the different industries slowly opening up after being upended by the pandemic, business owners are now re-calibrating for immediate strategies to achieve their long-term organizational goals.

SKYBIZ, the business solutions arm of SKY Cable Corporation, rolls out some important tips and solutions that will help employers grow both their business and their employee’s morale in this post-lockdown era.

Encourage a favorable set-up

The remote set-up became the new standard in most businesses, employees are able to go on with their daily tasks while working in the comfort of their homes, connecting with their peers purely online. Now that a lot of industries have gone back to their pre-Covid set-up and with the hybrid work arrangement gaining popularity, business owners should allow for more flexibility for employees to get their work done either at home or in the office.

A comfortable working environment is crucial for employees’ productivity, performance, and job satisfaction. Whether you are working from home or back to the office, the physical space where work is done should be conducive for every employee to excel daily.

Engage professional and personal growth

A well-balanced life is something that both employers and employees should strive for. Businesses will continue to grow if their people also grow, hence, it’s important to make the workplace a safe place where employees can unleash their maximum potential professionally and personally.

Most companies have incorporated different activities and practices that can boost the morale of their employees. A shared activity outside the workplace like a Monday morning reflection over coffee or a Friday night sports fest will strengthen the working relationship within the company allowing employees to feel more at ease and closer with their peers.

Invest in tools that empower

With most of the work transactions and meet-ups done digitally, businesses should invest in a reliable service provider and solutions tools that will empower them to grow their business in this digital age.

SKYBIZ is extending its BizTastic BunDeals with its Biz Broadband Connect and BizFiber Connect plans that include reliable business-grade internet connection for SMEs suited for their day-to-day activities, bundled with a three-month Microsoft 365 and a voucher from ABS-CBN Dash or Grab.

5 Tips for a Safer Online Shopping Experience In 2023

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For many shoppers, the online marketplace has been one of the best features of the technological age – you get what you want without travelling to the shops and negotiating the long queues and the arduous effort of getting there. For business owners, it’s a cost-cutting strategy to get their products out without costly overheads.

However, how sure are you that you are not paying more than you think you’ve bargained for? Horror stories of buying fakes and low-standard materials have been seen on posts and other online platforms. So how do we protect ourselves from these possible threats?

It would be very hard to figure out if what you’re buying is the real thing or a triple-A imitation. So we sought out brand maven Barbs Aguirre-Miravalles, the Division General Manager for Fragrances of LUXASIA – the leading omnichannel partner for luxury beauty and lifestyle brands to reach Asia Pacific consumers for some tips to help consumers figure out what they are buying.

Find a reliable source

Most e-commerce platforms have a marketplace where in it is open to all resellers. It is difficult to spot authentic resellers from counterfeit resellers as most would put 100% authentic on their product pages. When in doubt, I recommend shopping at the retailer.com sites or brand.com sites so you can be guaranteed that the products come from the original sources.

Compare and review

It would help to read reviews, but it would still help to compare prices and product details/ specifications from the original brand websites to know what you are buying. Check the source of the products.

Beware of cheap items

Counterfeit items are sold at cheaper prices precisely because the ingredients/materials used to create this is not comparable to the authentic item. We suggest watching Netflix’s ‘Broken’ to understand the danger of counterfeit items. This is dangerous to one’s health, especially for cosmetics and ingestible. If the price is too good to be true, it probably is. You get what you pay for, so the lower money you spend equates to the quality you will receive in return.

To further help our readers, we dug deeper into precautions necessary for doing online purchases courtesy of the Australian Filipina:

Always make your purchases from a secure connection.

After clicking the link to the site, check out the prompt in the address field. It would usually read https://www, but if you read “Not Secure,” then it’s not worth your while.

Create a unique password.

If you keep on forgetting your password, get a secured password keeper like dashlane which keeps all your unique passwords that can be generated by the system or from a story of your life that no one knows about.

Be mindful of the information that you provide the sites

Identity theft is one of the most rampant crimes going around, and giving more information than you have to may just be the biggest mistake you can ever make. Standard information would be information on the payment method, shipping address, telephone number and/or email address. If the merchant asks for more, walk away.

Check the shipping details.

Some merchants charge exorbitant shipping fees that can turn a shopping bargain into an expensive mistake. Look to see if they provide tracking and insurance. Understand what carriers they use, and be particularly cautious if the item won’t be shipped within ten days.

Always remember, before you CLICK & SHOP, STOP & THINK.

Source: The Australian Filipina

Swarovski and EssilorLuxottica announce a ten-year licensing agreement

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Swarovski and EssilorLuxottica announced recently that they have signed an exclusive license agreement for the design, manufacture, and worldwide distribution of Swarovski Eyewear.

The agreement will be effective until December 31, 2028, with an automatic renewal option of an additional five years. The first collection under the agreement will be available on the market from September 2023.

This agreement combines Swarovski’s creativity and savoir-faire with the knowledge, innovation, and expertise of EssilorLuxottica.

The partnership builds on Swarovski’s luxury credentials alongside its enduring commitment to eyewear as a key fashion accessory. Swarovski Eyewear, which features designs inspired by the brand’s jewelry families, brings an additional facet to Swarovski’s customer offering, and complements its extraordinary jewelry, home décor and accessories collections.

The first collection will be developed under the leadership of Swarovski Creative Director Giovanna Engelbert and launched in time for the FW23 season.

Alexis Nasard, CEO of Swarovski, said: “We are delighted to further evolve our Swarovski Eyewear business with global leader EssilorLuxottica. This is in-line with our LUXignite strategy, and is a natural partnership for us, forged from a shared passion for beautiful design coupled with impeccable quality and savoir-faire.”

Francesco Milleri, Chairman and CEO of EssilorLuxottica said: “We are excited to embark on this journey with Swarovski, a brand known for its artful design and incredible attention to detail. We have always seen each pair of frames as a piece of art to be worn, which makes Swarovski and its story such a wonderful fit.”

About Swarovski

Swarovski is a place where magic and science meet. Swarovski unifies all parts of its organization under one spellbinding idea and brings forward a wondrous new world of crystal craftsmanship. Founded in 1895 in Austria, the company designs, manufactures and sells the world’s highest quality crystal, gemstones, Swarovski Created Diamonds and zirconia, jewelry, and accessories, as well as crystal objects and home accessories. Together with its sister companies Swarovski Optik (optical devices) and Tyrolit (abrasives), Swarovski Crystal Business forms the Swarovski Group. A responsible relationship with people and the planet has always been an integral part of Swarovski’s heritage. This manifests today in the company’s well-established sustainability agenda with youth-focused education programs and foundations to promote human empowerment and conserve natural resources to achieve positive social impact. For more information, please visit swarovski.com.

EssilorLuxottica

EssilorLuxottica is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of ophthalmic lenses, frames and sunglasses. Formed in 2018, its mission is to help people around the world to see more and be more by addressing their evolving vision needs and personal style aspirations. The Company brings together the complementary expertise of two industry pioneers, one in advanced lens technology and the other in the craftsmanship of iconic eyewear, to set new industry standards for vision care and the consumer experience around it. Influential eyewear brands including Ray-Ban and Oakley, lens technology brands including Varilux and Transitions, and world-class retail brands including Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, Salmoiraghi & Viganò and GrandVision are part of the EssilorLuxottica family. EssilorLuxottica has approximately 180,000 employees. In 2021, the Company generated consolidated pro forma revenue of Euro 21.5 billion. The EssilorLuxottica share trades on the Euronext Paris market and is included in the Euro Stoxx 50 and CAC 40 indices. Codes and symbols: ISIN: FR0000121667; Reuters: ESLX.PA; Bloomberg: EL:FP. For more information, please visit essilorluxottica.com.

This article was sourced from a media release sent by Swarovski

Editorial credit: Luca Lorenzelli / Shutterstock.com

Advertising vs Marketing: What’s the difference?

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Business owners often overlook the monumental difference between marketing and advertising. From colossal highway billboards, full-page print ads, recurrent radio ads, and primetime television airtime, there seems to be a lot more advertising than marketing strategies. While we acknowledge that both are of equal importance, a sense of balance and a strong distinction is necessary to come up with calculated strategies that will ultimately address the growth of any business.

Delineation: Advertising vs. Marketing

Advertising is a single constituent of the whole marketing plan. If marketing were to be a metaphor, it would be that big pie, and advertising is but a slice of the whole piece, together with other slices such as promotion and branding. Advertising is the clear articulation of the promises that you want to tell your customers. You advertise to create interest in your product or service. You make the customers want or need what you’re offering. Effective advertising will initiate the ultimate action plan – buying your product and generating repeat customers. It HAS to invoke a purchase or the actual consumption of your goods or your services. This will be the measure of its success.

Advertising involves ad placement in different mediums such as TV, radio, newspaper, direct mail, and the Internet. The placement, frequency, layout, and content should be concise, clear, and commercially captivating. It should make your product stand out and be memorable at the same time. With the plethora of competitors in the market, appeal is definitely imperative.

Marketing, on the other hand, is the bigger picture. Marketing is a system of strategies that are geared towards knowing your market better. It is a process where you focus on why people buy. What makes them shell out 100 dollars on lingerie and only 10 dollars on food? What kind of branding will get their attention? Will gold packaging really make them get your product when placed right next to a competitor in the supermarket? Marketing entails a closer look at your target demographics and their buying motives. Before you even advertise, you need to lay the basics of an effective ad that will capture your target market. From competitor research, sales strategies, media planning, pricing, advertising, distribution, and customer support, every detail needs attention and research to come up with a seamless marketing plan. All these factors should have a unified purpose to reach your business’s bottom line.

The Cliché Syndrome

In both advertising and marketing, you simply can’t use any more clichés and platitudes. A lot of advertisers and marketing professionals get stuck in hackneyed taglines like “We go the extra mile” or “Best in Business since 1910.” These are empty words that have become so trite that consumers are not buying them anymore. If you are in the process of making a marketing plan, be sure that you stick to concepts that will differentiate you from the rest of the people offering the same thing in the market.

Another common clichéd indication in a business is the use of seemingly important announcements with absolutely ZERO market value. For instance, a restaurant spends on advertising by displaying a big banner that says “Under New Management” or “Newly Renovated.” To the owner, this might seem like a significant feat or maybe even a big difference in customer perception. But to ordinary bystanders, this sign says nothing more than management troubles in the past. If the owner had taken the time to do market research, he would have known that people who eat in his restaurant come back because of the organic produce or the freshly squeezed juices that they don’t find in nearby food establishments.

This is the best example of poor advertising without market research because there’s definitely no market for “Conveniently Located,” “Newly Renovated,” “Wide Selection.” Not even for “Under New Management.” J

Five Ways To Protect Yourself Against Cyber Threat

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As the summer season is underway, people are increasingly taking holidays. Whether holidaymakers have chosen the beach, the countryside, the mountains, or an urban setting, one thing is certain: no one is immune to having their devices stolen or hacked while away from home. Cybersecurity experts at NordVPN provide travelers with seven tips for a cyber-secure holiday.

Back up your data

“My whole life is on my phone” — if this phrase sounds like something you would say, remember to make sure you have your phone’s contents backed up before you leave. After all, no one is safe from losing their phone or having it stolen. This also applies to the SD cards of your cameras.

Safe payment methods

Instead of your main bank card, use a separate prepaid debit card abroad. This card can be topped up with any amount you want. That way, if your card details are stolen, you won’t lose all the money you store there.

Take a portable charger with you

Don’t go out without your portable charger or a charging cable. Why not? Simply because charging stations can be a playground for cybercriminals. A USB/lightning cable can be modified by a malicious person, like in this demo made by a hacker in 2019.

Avoid public Wi-Fi

Using mobile data while traveling is always a good idea because it is encrypted. However, if you have no choice and need to use public Wi-Fi, don’t forget to use a VPN. This tool will protect you from cybercriminals, who can retrieve your personal data through a public network. They later sell the stolen data on the dark web.

Do not post your photos in real-time

Posting a picture of your plane tickets can make your social media followers jealous. But more than that, doing so puts you at risk. It’s a perfect way for cybercriminals to find out your personal data and use it later for various malicious purposes. It’s also worth remembering that posting your holiday photos while you’re still away can be dangerous and can lead to robbery in your home. Whether your account is followed by hundreds of thousands of people or just a few, stay vigilant in all circumstances.

Keep your documents secure

Many people make a photo or a copy of their ID or passport in case they lose their documents. But this is not the most secure way to deal with your documentation. Unencrypted ID or passport scans and photos that you store on your phone can get leaked. Then you run the risk of your identity documents ending up on the dark web. A recent study by NordVPN showed that the American ID card had an average price of $76.45 on the dark web. The average price for an American passport was worth $20.77.

Use unique passwords

Create new passwords before you go abroad. If you have used the same password for all your accounts and one of them gets hacked, it puts the others at risk. Don’t hesitate to use a password manager such as NordPass. It will help you create sophisticated passwords to make life difficult for hackers.

“No one is safe from hackers, who are becoming increasingly creative in stealing and selling your data. It is worth remembering that a data leak can also happen to the service providers you use (hotels or transportation companies often get hacked). So don’t hesitate to ask how they store your data or what kind of encryption and other cybersecurity tools they use before giving your data to these companies,” Daniel Markuson, a cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, recommends.

5 Effective Ways To Market Your Website In 2022

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Now that you’ve got your website up and running, the next issue on your mind will undoubtedly be how to advertise your website. Is it possible that if a website is made on the internet but is not connected anyplace, no one will ever see it?

Suppose you’re curious about how to advertise a new business website, and you’re still in the early phases of your business. In that case, you’re probably scared that the only efficient approach to increase visitors will be to spend a fortune on ads.

Fortunately, there are several ways to advertise a business site available. This piece will look at a few ways to promote your business website in 2022.

1. Search Engine Optimization

The most important bit you can do to promote your website is to use SEO or search engine optimization. If you don’t keep your website search engine friendly, you risk it becoming lost in the flow of information. There are over 2 billion websites on the internet, and more are being created every second.

There are thousands of online ways to promote a business that may help you enhance your website’s SEO, so you don’t need to pay an SEO consultant. Most SEO issues on your website may be resolved by yourself with a few basic tweaks.

There are two significant factors to consider when it comes to your website’s SEO: on-page SEO and off-page SEO.

Everything viewable on your website is referred to as on-page SEO. This includes content, pictures, videos, meta descriptions, responsive design, and even your website’s structure.

Off-page SEO refers to what goes on behind the scenes of a website. This includes things like who is linked to your site, how authoritative it is, and how engaged readers are with it.

2. Social Media

Social media is the most popular free means of marketing new websites for a good reason. Platforms with billions of users, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, make it simple to interact with other local companies and advertise your own. These all social media platforms help you with how to advertise your business website.

However, before you begin using social media, you should examine your company’s brand voice, whom you’re marketing to, and whom you’re attempting to reach. If you have enough money to spend on advertising your website, Facebook Ads are the best way to market your business on social media.

Facebook Ads include many targeting choices, making it simple to narrow down your target demographic. You may also opt to target folks who are friends of your existing followers or who follow specified other pages.

3. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a terrific strategy to promote your business and get connections to your new underused website. To demonstrate your competence, you publish a guest post for a reputable blog in your sector (or a related one). You’ll be able to route traffic from a trustworthy source back to your new website by linking back to it at least once in each guest post.

Whether you’re a new business or in marketing, you may find it tough to get a guest posting place on some websites due to circumstances beyond your control. Given that guest blogging for other publications used to be a hugely popular SEO practice, many websites either thoroughly scrutinize who guest writes for them or don’t accept entries.

The most important thing to remember with guest blogging is that it is less about SEO and more about developing connections with the publication and your audience. This is one of the best ways to promote your business website.

4. Content Marketing

Information marketing is one of the best ways to advertise your business site since it boosts your SEO while also producing content that your target audience will find beneficial. A popular fallacy is that to perform content marketing, you must blog, but this is not always the case. While blogs are the tried-and-true content marketing channel, you can also make videos, launch a podcast, or even start a newsletter centered on your work.

An important point to remember about content marketing is that the information you publish must be helpful, intriguing, or entertaining to your target audience. Doing a lot of keyword research before you start is the most significant way to ensure you’re answering people’s queries.

5. Email Marketing

If you want a tried-and-true way to promote directly to your consumers, email marketing is a terrific alternative. Establishing an email marketing campaign is simple once your business site is fully operational and many email marketing services are available for free or at a small fee.

The amazing thing about email marketing is that people don’t even have to visit your website to sign up for your email newsletter, so you can start advertising your new website before it ever goes live. Most email marketing programs let you share a signup URL with your subscribers so they may join your email list without having to visit your website.

Final Words

Now you don’t have to worry about how to advertise a new business website. Some of the methods discussed above will be more appropriate for your website than others, but they should all help you take it to the next level. Every website marketing approach we’ve covered will assist you in getting the word out about your site.

Photo by picjumbo.com

Top 3 Best Business Ideas For Every Aspiring Entrepreneur For 2022

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Being your own boss sounds just so enticing that most people leave the corporate world to start their own business. With the promise of time flexibility, an ideal effort-to-income proportion, and the chances of limitless growth, more and more individuals are venturing into the business scene and tinkering with their entrepreneurial instincts.

If you have been considering starting your own business but don’t know where to look for ideas, then this should be a good read.

Make Money from your Hobbies

There’s probably nothing more fun than making money from something that you already enjoy doing for free. Hobbies such as photography, sewing, cooking, and even gardening are a few niches that can turn into promising businesses. The key is making time to learn beyond the basics and to hang out with people who can help you improve your hobby and turn it into a moneymaking craft. If you simply like taking photos, then you may want to take extra photography workshops and become an events photographer in the long run. Occasions like birthdays, showers, and weddings happen all year round so if you take it seriously, your hobby may just land you frequent bookings for the whole year.

Craig Jenkins-Sutton, the owner of Topiarius, considered himself a green thumb and did gardening only as a hobby. He had no formal landscape training but his love for designing gardens has turned into a business with average annual revenue of $1.2 million. Megan Duck had a similar story from sewing. From her first project of sewing ornate linings for the coffins of her employer’s Halloween décor to the silk chandeliers that she made for The Mirage in Vegas, her average annual income from her sewing and rental business is now at $6 million. Both have been featured on the site Entrepreneur.com, and they continue to inspire new breeds of entrepreneurs across continents.

Turn your Network into a Pool of Talents

The 21st century has definitely changed the business landscape in terms of offshore and outsourced projects. From BPOs building operations facilities in Asian countries, to Western brands banking on offshore talents for services like accounting, design, translation, IT jobs, etc., you cannot argue that there is indeed a growing demand for a diverse and competent workforce who can get the job done without having to think of added operational expenses and employee benefits.

If you are one of the rare people who have quite a diverse network of skilled people, then this simple “advantage” can be turned into a thriving business. Third party vendors like agencies are becoming lucrative businesses because they bank on a local pool of talents those offshore providers are looking for. For instance, if you are an engineering major, you may have a lot of connections with a similar crowd. You may find it surprising that there are actually dozens of real estate companies who are looking for freelance teams who can do structural drawings and renderings on their behalf. A lot of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean students also run online to find English teachers who can teach from home. If you have friends or relatives who fit the bill, then you may want to connect them with these students. The trick is finding legitimate providers and matching them with the skills of the people who are already in your existing network. Just be sure that all terms and fees are set at the beginning to maintain a smooth and professional workflow for everybody. Remember, you want to build bridges while helping people and earning in the process. The last thing on your list is a fatal mismatch that can give your “agency” negative publicity. If your “hires” provide quality service, then referrals can come pouring in. Good output always translates to better business transactions.

A Pocketful of Passion

Most of us have passions. Genuine passion means loving something on a deeper and more profound level than just a hobby that you simply enjoy. Some develop a different passion for vintage cars and end up with an auto shop that specializes in car restoration. Your passion for instruments or the performing arts such as dancing, acting or singing can be turned into conceptualizing a small school where you can help more people share and develop the same passion as yours.

Terry Finley had an intense passion for horse racing which prompted him to buy his first horse at $5,000. With a lot of learning and advice from the pros, he has managed to build a business with 55 syndicated horses and 550 investors who also earn when their chosen horses are sold, bred, and even when they win those infamous horse races. Terry has mastered the art of the trade and decided to share his passion with the same people who loved the things that he was into. In the process, he was able to start West Point Thoroughbreds, a label that now earns around $6 million annually.

While being an entrepreneur takes a lot of technical strain in terms of cash flow, permits, and marketing strategies, newbies have to realize that they definitely need to start somewhere. They can start small, but at least take the first step and test the waters with one foot. Starting a business and building a label empire does not happen overnight but when you start to take off, you’ll realize that you’ve built a business that will be positively rewarding even after retirement age. By then, you’ll realize that those paperwork, sleepless nights, and zero months have finally become worth it.

Meet The Entrepreneur Behind The Cover Of The June 2022 Issue Of MoneyCentral Magazine: Dr. Apollo Emeka

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Dr. Apollo Emeka is a leadership and organizational coach and consultant with a vision to see everyone reach their full potential for good. If you saw Apollo as a kid, you probably wouldn’t expect he’d grow into the type of guy who’d be fortunate enough to start, grow, and run his own business. In fourth grade, he essentially stopped going to school and officially opted for the GED at 17 years old. Few would have thought he would ever earn a doctorate, join the FBI, become a Green Beret, or become a successful entrepreneur.

Apollo continuously took unconventional and sometimes counterintuitive steps to achieve success. He distilled what he learned as he reached milestone after milestone and distilled it into a system that helps others achieve seemingly impossible personal and professional feats. Apollo is the ultimate coach, consultant, and accountability partner to help high-performers stay focused on the strategies and actions they commit to.

MoneyCentral Magazine recently caught up with Apollo to discuss his journey in the industry, and here’s what went down:

Could you please tell our readers a brief background about yourself and how you became a leadership and organizational coach?

Growing up, I didn’t go to many schools and never graduated high school. Despite my unconventional start, I had ambitious hopes and dreams. I knew if I had any chance of accomplishing greatness, I’d have to do it unconventionally. By the time I was 36, I had accomplished nearly everything I had set out to do when I was 18.

I battled my way through community college, then went on to earn a BA and a doctorate from USC. I served in the FBI for six years; I became a Green Beret and did Special Forces work worldwide, built and sold a business, and started a family. My ability to accomplish so many big tasks in such a short time frame drew the attention of a friend and fellow entrepreneur, Chris, who asked me to consult on his business. That was 2016, and he was my first client. I’ve always had a passion for growth and performance improvement, but it was Chris who helped me see that I could build another business out of that passion.

Is there a particular moment that comes to mind when you realized leadership coaching was your calling?

Some leaders energize and empower teams, and other leaders create chaos and stress. Like most people, I’ve worked for both types of leaders, which made me understand the impact leadership can have on people and outcomes within organizations.

When I attended the Special Forces qualification course, I learned how transferable leadership skills are. I came out the other end of that 15-month course completely transformed. I figured if I could learn all of these skills, anybody could. I carry the philosophy into my own company and help other entrepreneurs embody the same skills.

How did you get into this line of work? What qualifies you to be a leadership and organizational coach?

Coaching is such a strange profession right now. There are coaching certifications you can earn in a matter of hours online and others that take months of study, in-person meetings, and supervised coaching sessions. But I believe that anyone can be a coach in areas where they are knowledgeable.

Every single member of a Special Forces team is a coach in their areas of expertise. My specialty was communications, so I regularly coached my teammates on radio operations. I’d also get coached by our medics on things like hemorrhage control and get coached by our engineers on the safe handling of explosives. I believe that what qualifies one to be a coach is the proven experience in impacting the desired outcomes of the person they are coaching. And that if you are a member of a team that has skills that others don’t, it is your obligation to coach them.

So, what qualifies me to be a coach? I have a track record of personal accomplishments despite daunting obstacles. I’ve built and sold a business, I’ve coached across language and cultural differences worldwide as a Green Beret, and my doctoral work focused on organizational development and leadership. Every time I help clients achieve their goals, I become a little more qualified. Being a great human is all about continuous learning and development. Coaches have an even greater obligation to continuous improvement. I never stopped learning.

What are some primary issues that you see your clients going through?

All of our clients want to shift their team culture to incorporate diverse perspectives and generate high-performance results. Their challenges range from managing change and its fear to understanding what skills and systems will drive high-performance. Even as teams become more diverse, the status quo is a powerful cultural force that prevents diverse perspectives and ideas from being leveraged to their fullest potential. As a result, innovation efforts fall flat, things feel overwhelming, calendars are packed, and organizations plunge into a reactive fire-fighting mentality. Our services are designed to help our clients overcome these challenges and achieve consistent success.

What is the most difficult part of your job?

The most difficult part of the job is also the most fun. Unlike most coaching and consulting agencies, our goal is to build capacity within the companies we work with. We’re not trying to be the smartest people in the room; instead, we aim to help our clients become stronger, better, faster versions of themselves. When clients have a growth mindset, their ability to generate high-performance results improves quickly and dramatically. On the other hand, working with some clients feels a bit like trying to coach a couch potato to run a marathon. It doesn’t do any good for us to run the marathon for them. But that’s also the fun part because everyone gets super pumped when the couch potato not only crosses the finish line but becomes a motivator and coach themselves. That’s a cultural shift!

Another big challenge is that we are committed to outcomes, not deliverables. We don’t get tunnel vision on completing a deliverable at all costs, even when we know it won’t move the needle. We stay focused on the desired outcome and constantly engage in reflection and retrospection with our clients to understand how we need to pivot our activities to get the results we all want.

What form of marketing has worked well for your business throughout the years?

I take two approaches to marketing: passive and active. Our passive efforts consist of thought leadership content. We’ve gotten a surprising amount of business from videos and blog posts that resonate with people.

My active marketing approach is hyperfocused networking. I’m not talking about going to the Chamber of Commerce meeting and swapping business cards, then having ten lunch meetings to keep in touch. I have a list of companies we want to work with, and I actively ask happy clients and close personal connections to make introductions with the pretext of working together. I’m surprised by how few people take this direct approach. It’s how we’ve generated the bulk of our business.

What is the toughest decision you had to make in the last few months?

In the last few months, we had to make the tough decision to end our work with a client once I realized our values weren’t in alignment. Our company values are courage, inclusion, authenticity, intention, and growth, and we take them very seriously. This client didn’t display the courage necessary to generate the ambitious results they said they wanted. It felt like we wanted to hit their goals more than they did. It also became painfully clear that this client was not committed to inclusion which is inconsistent with the makeup of our company and the vision of the world we seek to co-create.

We don’t expect the companies we work with to mirror our values. We look for companies with complementary values that create magical synergies to foster close working relationships and create mind-blowing results. That type of synergy is what we have with the rest of the leaders and teams we work with.

What new business would you love to start?

I’m completely obsessed with our current business, and I’ve prioritized exciting ways we’re going to grow and expand to serve more people even better.

That said, if I were starting a business today, it would probably be in the mental health space. Emotional intelligence is so important, and most people are never explicitly taught how to develop it. Couple that with the increasingly complicated nature of just being a human, and you get a massive market need and an opportunity to do some real good in the world.

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

The selection process for Special Forces is a physically, mentally, and emotionally daunting three-week event. On the first day of selection, a crusty old medic with a thick Boston accent addressed around 500 other soldiers hoping to qualify for Special Forces and me and said, “I know you’re all here because you think you want to be hard. But there’s hard smart, and there’s hard stupid. If you’re about to hurt yourself or get injured, just stop and come see me.” He paused a moment and then exclaimed, “Don’t be hard f***ing stupid!”

That quote really hit me. I hear that thick Boston accent every time I think that I might be pushing myself too hard. You can’t fight if you’re broken!

What advice would you give to a newbie Entrepreneur setting up their first business?

People tend to focus too much on admin and operations early in the business formation stage. Like, “Should it be an LLC or an S-Corp?”Or, “What kind of software should I use?” The only thing you should be thinking about early on is, “How am I going to create massive amounts of value?” It means finding a big problem you can solve for someone or a massive opportunity you can seize.

If you can create an opportunity for someone to save or gain $10 in value, you can easily charge them $1. That math works into the millions. If you can create an opportunity for someone to save or gain $10million in value, you can charge them $1million. Before you think about what you’re going to sell, identify a target market and talk to them about their challenges and hopes. Once you’re really clear on the size of the value there, you can start building your product or service to create massive value and capture a portion of that.

Meet The Entrepreneur Behind The Cover Of The May 2022 Issue Of MoneyCentral Magazine: Steven Cravotta

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Steven Cravotta is the self-taught creator and developer of the original Wordle app, a word-based puzzle app he uploaded to the Apple’s App Store when he was 18. He eventually abandoned the entire project because it averaged merely one or two downloads per day in the four years since he uploaded the app.

Fast forward to last December; after checking the app’s stats, he shockingly noticed it had 500,000 downloads in just five days! After investigating the source of the spike in downloads, he realized that thousands of people looking for the web-only game “Wordle,” created by software engineer Josh Wardle, were downloading his app by mistake.

“I was doing one-two downloads a day, and then all of a sudden, a couple of weeks ago, I checked my developer dashboard, and the graph just went vertical, and I was getting 50,000 downloads every day,” Cravotta told ABC News.

Instead of keeping all the proceeds for himself, Cravotta reached out to Wardle and offered to team up with him to impact the world positively. Cravotta decided to donate $50,000 of the app’s revenue to Boost West Oakland – an organisation that provides free tutoring and mentorship for children in Oakland, Calif.

MoneyCentral Magazine recently caught up with Steven to discuss his journey in the industry, and here’s what went down:

What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your app?

Currently, I am marketing Puff Count on TikTok. I make videos educating viewers on the dangers of smoking nicotine and then offer a solution to help them quit. You can check out my TikTok account here: www.tiktok.com/@puffcount.

What social media platforms do you usually use to increase your brand’s awareness?

TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are all platforms I utilize to increase Puff Count’s awareness. TikTok has been the most successful platform thus far.

What is your experience with paid advertising, like PPC or sponsored content campaigns? Does it work?

In my opinion, paid advertising is getting less and less effective every year. Apple’s new privacy updates have made tracking users exponentially harder, which is a great thing for privacy, but bad news for paid ad platforms.

What is your main tactic when it comes to making more people aware of your app and engaging your customers? How did your app stand out?

My main tactic is posting as much content as I can on TikTok. Creating TikToks costs me virtually nothing but my time, so my customer acquisition cost is $0. Puff Count stands out from the crowd because, unlike other quit smoking apps, it will guide you through the process of reducing your usage to make quitting more achievable.

What form of marketing has worked well for your app throughout the years?

Organic marketing has worked well for all of my mobile apps. Because the margins on mobile apps are slim, you have to get creative in the way you market.

What is the toughest decision you had to make in the last few months?

Removing the paywall from Puff Count. I want to make quitting nicotine accessible for anyone and everyone who wants to, and that requires me to make Puff Count a completely free application.

What money mistakes have you made along the way that others can learn from (or something you’d do differently)?

There are no mistakes, only lessons. I learned that your product would never be perfect; you just have to keep moving fast and listening to customer feedback.