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When it comes to running a successful virtual business, you really can’t go at it completely alone. No, this doesn’t mean you need a bunch of employees or any of that jazz. But you are going to need some kind of help at some point. I can tell you for sure that my business increased, stress decreased, and happiness also increased when I hired my two virtual assistants, Lisa and Jaimie, last year.

Outsourcing (and letting go a bit…or a lot) is hugely important and there might not be anyone better than today’s guest, the creator of VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com Chris Ducker, to discuss it.

Chris is also the founder of Virtual Staff Finder, which we shamelessly plug at the end of the interview (really cool resource for finding virtual assistants). You can check it out via my affiliate link right here.

QUESTION: What has been your experience with VA’s? Do you work with one (or more?) If not, are you interested? Why or why not?

About Today’s Guest, Chris Ducker:

Chris is a thirty-something, 20-year sales and marketing guy, originally from the UK. However, for the last 10 years he’s lived in the Philippines, where for the last 5+ years he’s owned and operated his own Total Business Outsourcing firm, the Live2Sell Group of Companies. Chris is also a husband and father of three awesome kids!

At the beginning of 2010 Chris launched the VBL Blog as a way to track his own journey of hopefully becoming a full-time Virtual CEO by the end of the year, completely removing himself from his business on a day-to-day basis. In late December 2010, Chris achieved the goal and spent less than 6 days in the office in total – all whilst still conversing with clients, working closely with management, signing up new clients, and working on his 2011 business plan.

Now Chris’ mission is a very simple one – to help others do the same, and spread the word of the ‘Virtual Business Lifestyle’.

Connect With Chris (and tell him you saw him on RISE!):

On His Blog
On Twitter
Download His Free Ebook, Saving the Day, the Virtual Way
Check Out Virtual Staff Finder

I use RISE partner Wistia for video hosting because they rock. Check ‘em out.

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About Today’s Guest, Kim Murgatroyd:

OK, so you are an unconventional entrepreneur. Running your business your way. Dominating the world. But, what the heck are you eating? The problem, as I see it, has always been you really only have a couple of options when it comes to eating:

1. Unhealthy, which is convenient, fast and makes you feel like crap.
2. Healthy, which takes forever to make and tastes like crap.

There has to be another way. Enter today’s guest, foodpreneur Kim Murgatroyd, who has a new, really unconventional cookbook out called Holy Sh*t: Delicious Recipes To Keep You Fit (affiliate) I’ve been using the rough draft of her now finished book for almost two months in secret. Today she is here to teach us a few simple, easy meals you can make that taste amazing and will keep your energy up for world domination.

If you want a copy of the book, you can nab it in digital form (which is awesome, as you can put it in iBooks for example) right here. Kim also has a Protein Shakes & Snacks ebook which you can check out through my affiliate link right here.

Enjoy!

Connect With Kim (and tell her you saw her on RISE!):

On Her Website
On Twitter
Grab a Copy of Her Cookbook
Check Out My First Interview with Kim and Rob

I use RISE partner Wistia for video hosting because they rock. Check ‘em out.

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Yes, of course there is much more to it than that, but today’s guest Grace Helbig has a freakin’ awesome job. She hosts Daily Grace and is the in-house video blogger for My Damn Channel. I was lucky enough to hunt down Grace to give us all the inside scoop about who she is, what she is paid to do and all the work that goes into it, PLUS a few improv and “getting better on camera” tricks. Enjoy!

About Today’s Guest, Grace Helbig:

In Grace’s own words:

I’m Grace. I was born and raised in beautiful southern New Jersey. I have a mom, a dad, a step mom, a step dad, two brothers, two step brothers and I work in a button factory.

I don’t. That’s from a childhood song rhyme thing.

I went to Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey. Never heard of it? Yeah, that’s about right. Oh, man this is getting so cynical. This isn’t how I wanted this to go at all. Eeesh.

I graduated in ’07 with a BA in Contemporary Arts. Go arts! After college I was house-sitting for a bit and started vlogging as a way to document the experience. Vlogging is Video Blogging for you olds. Shortly after, Michelle and I moved to Brooklyn and I started working in the project management department of a television network. It was nice. Then I quit. To wait tables.

Oh, and to pursue comedy. Go arts!

All the while, Michelle and I kept vlogging our experiences in Brooklyn: moving, moving again, getting a dog, that dog dying, getting a new dog…

We were just like Sex in the City.

Then I got a call from MyDamnChannel. They were looking for an in-house vlogger and I was looking to stop dropping baby back ribs all over the floor of Houston’s. We tested the relationship for a couple of weeks and voila! We were in love! Mushy, dot com love! I’ve been vlogging for them as Daily Grace for almost three years and it’s been pure magic. You are my Doctor Dolittle, MyDamnChannel.

No, wait, wrong reference.

I am your Eliza Doolittle and you are my Professor Henry Higgins.

There we go.

In addition to vlogging I’ve been improvising on a house team at the Peoples Improv Theater called Borealis. We perform every Wednesday night as part of SUPER FREE WEDNESDAYS at 9pm! If you’re ever in the city you should come! It’s free, you gungan!

I’m also an actress and writer, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Connect With Grace (and tell her you saw her on RISE!):

Watch Daily Grace on YouTube
Follow Grace on Twitter
Check Out Her Personal Blog

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About Today’s Guest, Adam Baker:

In Adam’s words…

In 2008, after the birth of Milligan, Courtney and I decided to sell everything we owned, pay off our consumer debt, and spend a year traveling abroad as a family. We began sharing our journey publicly in early 2009 – forming the community you see here today at Man Vs. Debt.

We spent a year leading up to our trip selling all of our possessions (down to two backpacks) and paying down $18,000 in consumer debt. In June 2009, we left for what was to be a year in Australia, but quickly turned into more mobile travels through Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and finally back to Indiana.

In sharing our ups and downs in the areas of personal finance, consumerism, clutter, travel, minimalism, and passionate entrepreneurship – we realized that we aren’t alone in our desire to explore and grow. Fortunately, a community of like-minded people has emerged, contributed, and rallied together.

Connect With Adam (and tell him you saw him on RISE!):

On Twitter
On His Blog

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About Today’s Guests, Rob and Kim Murgatroyd:

Rob and Kim Murgatroyd are just like every other married couple with a young child…if every couple with a young child traveled around the world to interesting places such as Capri, Italy and Rio De Janeiro and wrote insider guidebooks about it. Not a bad way to make a living, eh?

Rob and Kim spend 13 weeks a year traveling the world shooting videos and writing guidebooks for their brand Jet Set Life. They stay in the coolest hotels & find the interesting hot spots that most people don’t know about (away from people with fanny packs).

In this conversation, we chat about everything from world travel to their Jet Set Life brand to what it is like working with your significant other.

Enjoy!

-David

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About Today’s Guest, Marie Forleo:

My good friend Elizabeth Marshall sent me an email introducing me to today’s guest, Marie Forleo. Here is what she said:

David – meet Marie, an engaging blogger/content creator and founder of the Rich, Happy and Hot brand. She’s not only witty, hilarious and sarcastic, but her journey as an entrepreneur is VERY interesting – one that would make for a great discussion on RISE .

Interesting. I probed and found out more. A little probing revealed that Marie is best-selling author (Make Every Man Want You: How to Be So Irresistible You’ll Barely Keep from Dating Yourself!), speaker, online-entrepreneur, Nike Athlete and Master Trainer, fitness personality, and dancer/choreographer. Marie has defied conventional wisdom and achieved phenomenal success across multiple industries. She even has a term for it: multi-passionate.

I had to nab her for an interview, and here it is. Marie is sassy, smart and a great conversationalist with a fantastic story and lots of insight. Enjoy!

-David

PS: You know we always want to give some love to our guest’s projects and cool opportunities you might be interested in. Marie, along with another former RISE guest Laura Roeder, have teamed up to create a really interesting program called Rich, Happy & Hot B-School which you can sign up for now and begins in May.

Rich, Happy & Hot B-School is an 8-week live interactive training program for women entrepreneurs who want to leverage their online presence to make more money. It looks to be a great program whether you are a beginner just getting going or you are a little more seasoned but want to ramp up your game.

You can check it out right here to see if it is a fit (affiliate).

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About Today’s Guest, Neil Patel:

Here’s a quick bio on today’s guest, Neil Patel:

Neil Patel is the co-founder of two Internet companies: Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. Through his entrepreneurial career Neil has helped large corporations such as Amazon, AOL, GM, HP and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.

Enjoy!

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About Today’s Guest, Chris Brogan:

Just to give you a snapshot of the kind of person Chris Brogan is:

In 2009, Chris made the trek to St. Louis to be filmed for my then-local TV show. The Rise To The Top didn’t have a huge audience yet. We didn’t have limos and fancy stuff (still don’t). But, Chris paid his own way and came to St. Louis because he wanted to do the show. That is the kind of guy he is (a great one and one that is helpful to many). Chris has so many things going on that it is unbelievable. Here is a rundown:

• Author: New York Times Best-Selling Author of Trust Agents (with Julien Smith) and also Social Media 101.
• Writer and Blogger: His blog ChrisBrogan.com is constantly in the #5 blogs according to Advertising Age.
• Columnist: Chris writes for Entrepreneur Magazine.
• Entrepreneur: President of Human Business Works, “Entrepreneur In Residence” at Cross Tech Ventures.
• Sought-after Speaker
• …and the list goes on (trust me, there is more).

In this interview, I pick Chris’ brain about his empire, how he makes his decisions, how he gets so many things done, how he deals with failure, why he jumps on certain opportunities, and much more.

Enjoy!

Connect With Chris (and tell him you saw him on RISE!):

Pick Up a Copy of Trust Agents and/or Social Media 101
On His Blog
On Twitter
Check Out Human Business Works
Sign Up for His Blog Topics Newsletter

This Episode Of The Rise To The Top Is Exclusively Sponsored By HubSpot:

Today’s Rise To The Top show is sponsored by HubSpot, which helps more than 4,000 small and medium sized businesses generate traffic and leads, and convert them into customers with its inbound marketing software. Discover the value of inbound marketing which is exactly the way I’ve built the audience on The Rise To The Top. Download the 2011 State of Inbound Marketing report absolutely free at bit.ly/stateofinboundmarketing.

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Today’s guest just oozes a passion for publishing. In fact, he has made an incredible career out of it – going all the way back to the days when he was a student at Baylor University a few decades ago. Fast-forward to now and Michael Hyatt is the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, an avid blogger, husband, and father to five daughters (Note: That is a lot of daughters).

I invited Michael onto The Rise To The Top for a few reasons. One was to talk about his thoughts on publishing, how it has changed and where it is going (including the role of the publisher). Secondly, to offer some advice for aspiring authors and writers. And lastly, to tell a bit of his story about how he literally rose to the top of the publishing industry.

Enjoy the interview and, as always, looking forward to your thoughts.

Connect With Michael (and tell him you saw him on RISE!):

On Twitter (Wow, does he have a following!)
On His Fantastic Blog

Links Mentioned In This Episode:

Six E-Book Trends To Watch In 2011
Michael’s Advice To First-Time Authors

This Episode Of RISE Is Ever-So-Proudly Sponsored By:

Blogging Success Summit 2011: The Web’s Largest Online Business Blogging Conference, presented by Social Media Examiner & Blog World: Fast-track your blogging success. Discover how to use blogging to attract and engage quality customers, and quickly grow your business. I will be giving a rocking session on video blogging (going to be a lot of fun – my session is on February 10th and the entire virtual event starts on February 2nd). Special link right here gets you 50% off for a limited time. Heck of a deal.

Money Map to Freedom, created by Alexis Neely: Have you ever wished you could stop making your business decisions based on money or fear and start living the life and having the business you really want without stress, worry and doubt? My friend, Alexis Neely, has put together a program called the Money Map to Freedom that sounds like it’s about money, but is actually about getting you to a place where you can stop being motivated by money and start following your heart, passion, purpose and dreams with a grounded, practical foundation. Her program begins next week (on January 18th) and she’s letting you, my people, enroll at 50% off through the end of this week only. Yes, it’s a pricey program, and it’s totally worth it. In fact,  would you invest less than a $1,000 to never have to worry how your business is going to make enough money again? Sounds like a good investment to me. The key is you HAVE to click this link to cash in on the offer.

Feedblitz: I use Feedblitz for email marketing and I love it. Why? Because it is all automated. Our subscribers receive shows and updates when, where, and how they want to receive it. And you don’t even need to click the send button. Feedblitz does it for you. You can try a 60-day FREE TRIAL on us.

Interested in sponsoring a RISE episode (or twenty)?

Did you know RISE was downloaded/listened to over 3,000,000 times in 2010? If you want to become a sponsor and get your product/service in front of our rabid community, reach out here and we shall start a convo.

Have You Seen These Episodes?

• RISE #158: How Kevin Nalty Went From Corporate Suit To YouTube Entertainer
• RISE #157: How Tucker Max Went From Being Fired To New York Times Best Selling Author
• RISE #156: From Rags To Trump: How Troy McClain Created His Own American Dream
• RISE #155: From Facebook Group To Million-Dollar-Plus Company: How Peter Shankman Built HARO
• RISE #154: A Chat With Kevin Kelly On What Technology Wants & The Power Of 1,000 Fans

Reminders & News:

There are new episodes of RISE every Tuesday and Thursday (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday feature articles, blog posts, and other videos) featuring unique entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and other interesting folks here to help you build your business. You can hear about them first and have them directly delivered to you in a few different ways:

Email:

RSS: You can subscribe via RSS right here.

iTunes: You can get RISE episodes right to your iTunes, iPhone, iPad, etc. Here’s video, and here’s audio only.

RISE is mobile friendly (sweet!) and can also be viewed right from the site on your mobile phone or iPad.

Connect With David & Hop Into The Conversation:

On Twitter

On Facebook

Book Update: It’s here! Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business is officially on sale! You can grab the first chapter for free right here, and you can buy it on Amazon or anywhere books are sold.

Click Here If You Prefer Audio Only

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it is fun to live vicariously through others. Maybe it is your favorite sports player. Or artist. Or whatever. For those that love/are captivated by world travel, it is hard not to live at least a little bit vicariously through today’s RISE guest, Gary Arndt.

Gary is a world traveler and creator of Everything Everywhere, which chronicles his journey around the world – complete with insider travel tips, amazing photography, and more. The blog is highlighted in Time Magazine’s “Top 25 Best Blogs of 2010.” Since March 2007, Gary has been traveling around the globe, having visited more than 70 countries and territories, and gaining worldly wisdom in the process.

As soon as I heard about Gary on Tim Ferriss’ website (article: 20 Things I’ve Learned From Traveling Around The World In Three Years), I knew I had to get him on the show. I was lucky to catch him as he woke up in Hawaii (especially early before the sun came up) to do this interview.

In this interview, you will learn:

• How Gary got started on his adventure.
• Why he decided to start blogging and how he got going.
• Gary’s keys to building an audience and community.
• The types of content Gary creates the most often and why.
• Gary’s thoughts on “personal publishing” and why it is going to be amazingly important.
• How Gary makes money.
• Gary’s #1 misconception about world travel.
• …and so much more.

As always, the idea behind RISE interviews is for you to pick up some inspiration, tips, and ideas of how this can apply to YOUR business. I’d love to hear your thoughts, reactions, questions, and comments.

Connect With Gary (And Tell Him You Saw Him On RISE!):

On Twitter (Gary has 100,000 plus followers and is still so awesomely approachable)
On His Website

This Episode Is EVER-So-Proudly Sponsored By:

Chapala Club: Next time you are planning a vacation, team retreat, business meeting, etc., why not go to one of the most beautiful, safe, affordable and awesome places in the world? Sid from Chapala Club wanted to make sure I let you know he would like to invite all of the RISE community, sponsors, and me (!) to come to Lake Chapala, Mexico (just 2.5 air hours from Dallas) for vacation, for a lifetime, or to put on any event or training session you dream up (and they have fiber optic hi speed Internet so you can even sneak away to do some work). Check out his website.

On The Run Mobil: Head over to On The Run’s website to sign up for the home team and get special deals on things like food and gas right to your email. It has been proven that buying gas at On The Run Mobil is 10,000% more fun because they sponsor RISE.

Shoeboxed: Business cards and receipts can be super annoying to deal with. Solution? Shoeboxed will send you a prepaid envelope, you shove them all in there, and they will digitize all of your receipts and business cards for you and give you access to them online. Sweet. Try it for free on me.

Interested in sponsoring an episode (or twenty?) in 2011?

Plugging your biz, website, book, whatever to our 100,000+ RISE community? We have pretty much the best deal ever for you (and fun)…reach out right here and we shall chat.

Did you hear? My book Smarter, Faster, Cheaper officially launched last week!

Smarter, Faster, Cheaper LAUNCH party on December 21st in at the Schlafly Tap Room in St. Louis, Missouri, presented by Social Media Club St. Louis. Attendance is free and you can RSVP right here.

Have You Seen These Episodes?

• RISE #150: How Scott Gerber Hustled To Become An Expert On Generation Y Entrepreneurship
• RISE #149: David Siteman Garland Teaches You Smarter, Faster, Cheaper Marketing Strategies
• RISE #148: How Laura Roeder Created A Business Model By Helping Small Businesses Become Rockstars
• RISE #147: How Chris Ducker Went From Chained To A Desk To Running His Company Virtually In Less Than 365 Days
• RISE #146: Marketing 3.0: Why Rackspace Hired The Most Influential Tech Blogger In The World, Robert Scoble

Reminders & News:

Subscribing: There are new episodes of RISE every Tuesday and Thursday (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday feature articles, blog posts, and other videos) featuring unique entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and other interesting folks here to help you build your business. You can hear about them first and have them directly delivered to you in a few different ways:

Email:

RSS: You can subscribe via RSS right here.

iTunes: You can get RISE episodes right to your iTunes, iPhone, iPad, etc. Here’s video, and here’s audio only.

RISE is mobile friendly (sweet!) and can also be viewed right from the site on your mobile phone or iPad.

Connect With David & Hop Into The Conversation:

On Twitter

On Facebook

Book Update: It’s here! Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business is officially on sale! You can grab a copy on Amazon or at your local bookstore.