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Today on The Rise To The Top: Why did Jules Watkins’ first digital product not work out so well, and why did his second one rock? Sometimes learning from a small failure can be a big lesson in moving forward. Today Jules shares his story to help you make sure you are on the right track and avoid all kinds of mistakes. Enjoy!

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

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Today on The Rise To The Top: Ready for some awesome tips on how you can shoot amazing videos with your iPhone? Jules Watkins, who is a long time video master (worked on Biggest Loser, Pimp My Ride, etc.), is teaching us some really cool tricks on how to create amazing high-quality videos with our iPhones. From video blogging to sales videos, these tips can be put to use in all kinds of ways to help your biz.

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

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Today on The Rise To The Top: The #1 Non-Boring Business Show: Want to become a thought leader and rock star in your industry? A celebrity in your niche? Maybe speak at the top events in your industry and write cool books? All sounds dandy. But, what does it take to get there? When it comes to new media and digital media there are few more influential than today’s guest Brian Solis, author of the new book, The End of Business as Usual. Today, we dive into how he got there and how you can do the same (get ready to work your butt off!). Enjoy!

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

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

Audio Only Player:

Click here to download the audio file.

Today on The Rise To The Top: The #1 Non-Boring Business Show: Are you dominating Facebook? Do you want to dominate Facebook? (The answer is yes, by the way.) We have the master here today, Amy Porterfield, to teach us three things:

1. How to grow your fan base, without begging for fans.
2. How to create MASSIVE engagement (get people talking).
3. How to turn fans into super fans (cape not included).

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

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Today on The Rise To The Top: The #1 Show For Mediapreneurs: Srinivas Rao from BlogcastFM is hanging out with us for a discussion on sponsorships, partnerships, engaging with your audience and much more. Srini just landed a MAJOR sponsor on his show (super props) and reveals many of the juicy details and oh so much more. Enjoy!

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

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Today on The Rise To The Top: The #1 Show For Mediapreneurs: The Podcast Answer Man, Cliff Ravenscraft, is in the house for a spirited conversation (to say the least)! We have a big time discussion on whether the term “podcast” sucks, and whether it is better to create/consume AUDIO podcasts or VIDEO podcasts and much more. Feel free to hop in below in the comments.

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

Audio Only Player:

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

Audio Only Player:

Click here to download the audio file.

You might remember my evil twin Carol Roth on this episode of The Rise To The Top. Since then, Carol has continued to dominate. In fact, her book The Entrepreneur Equation (affiliate) hit the New York Times Best-Seller List and #1 overall on Amazon.

One thing (among many) Carol has done extremely well is leverage herself into the media. She pops up everywhere…all the time. In this interview, I wanted to find out for all of us how she went about it and the results. Did she put a magic spell on TV stations? Did she beg and plead? What’s the deal?

Enjoy!

About Today’s Guest, Carol Roth:

Carol Roth is a business strategist, deal maker and author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Entrepreneur Equation. Carol has worked with hundreds of companies, ranging from a single entrepreneur with an idea to Fortune 500 businesses, on all aspects of business and financial strategy. Collectively, she has helped her clients raise more than $1 billion in capital, complete $750+ million in mergers and acquisitions, secure high-profile licensing and partnership deals, brand loyalty programs and more.

Carol is known for her tough love style- she tells it like it is, but as she says, she will give you a hug afterwards. She draws upon her broad experience base to provide advice ranging from the business basics to the bold (think firing your customers) with a fresh, no-holds-barred approach. She refers to her advisory style as the “Spinach in Your Teeth®” philosophy, warning business owners to never trust anyone who won’t tell them that they have spinach stuck in their teeth.

Ms. Roth puts her vast experience with the “good, bad and ugly of business” to work on a daily basis. She has over 16 years of business advisory experience, which began at investment banking firm Montgomery Securities in San Francisco (currently Banc of America Securities), where she rapidly rose internally to become one of the youngest officers of the company by age 25. She is known for her significant knowledge base, can-do attitude, extreme efficiency, client dedication, frank opinions and “colorful” vocabulary. Her experience has encompassed a wide variety of products and services, including initial public offerings (IPOs), secondary offerings, private equity placements, private debt placements, buy-side M&A, sell-side M&A, LBOs/MBOs, recapitalizations, valuations, fairness opinions, licensing, marketing services, franchise work, start-up advisory and general strategic advisory work. She will also go out on a limb for her clients, who have asked her to do some very strange things, including filling-in as an auctioneer for a charity event auction.

Ms. Roth has truly “seen it all” from her diverse client base. Over her career she has worked with a wide variety of branded entities (her specialty is branded/consumer companies). Some of her noteworthy clients have included Integrity Toys, Applica and Pelstar/Pelouze, among many others. Ms. Roth is also a shareholder of and investor in several of her clients.

Ms. Roth holds a B.S. Degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, arguably the top business program in the world, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. She has coined a number of terms and phrases ranging from “Cirque-du-So-Lame” (something that is beyond pathetic and pitiful) to “jobbie” (a hobby disguised as a job, career or business) to “business beer goggling”. She also is known for her propietary Customer Loyalty 3.0 methodology to engaging business senders and spenders. Ms. Roth is a former Director of Travelzoo (NASD:TZOO) and currently participates in a number of social, civic and other groups. She is also well versed on popular culture and consumer trends.

Carol is also a frequent radio, television and print media contributor on the topics of business and entrepreneurship, appearing on Fox News, MSNBC, Fox Business, WGN TV Chicago, among others. Additionally, Carol’s Unsolicited Business Advice blog at CarolRoth.com was recently named as one of the Top 10 small business blogs online and she is a contributing blogger to outlets like The Huffington Post and Crain’s Chicago Business/Enterprise City.

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

On Her Website
On Twitter
If you want to find out about Carol’s new program to help you with PR, email info@CarolRoth.com with “Expert Program” in the subject.

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

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When it comes to getting things done, Peter Shankman is more machine than man. For example:

• Peter is best known for founding Help A Reporter Out (HARO), which in under a year became the de-facto standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources on deadline, offering them more than 200,000 sources around the world looking to be quoted in the media. (Check out Peter’s first appearance on The Rise To The Top discussing how he built HARO.)
• Peter has completed a full Ironman Triathlon.
• He has ADOS (Attention Decifit Oh Shiny).
• He’s a world traveler.
• He’s a skydiver.

Peter wrote this really interesting article on his blog about why you should get up earlier (and how to do it). I figured this would be a good lesson for all the hustling entrepreneurs out there. Enjoy!

About Today’s Guest, Peter Shankman:

PR Week Magazine has described Peter as “redefining the art of networking”, and Investor’s Business Daily has called him “crazy, but effective”. Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you merge the power of pure creativity with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a dose of adventure, and make it work to your advantage.

An author, entrepreneur, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about Social Media, PR, marketing, advertising, and customer service.

Peter is best known for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO) which in under a year became the de-facto standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources on deadline, offering them more than 200,000 sources around the world looking to be quoted in the media. HARO is currently the largest free source repository in the world, sending out over 1,500 queries from worldwide media each week. HARO’s tagline, “Everyone is an Expert at Something”, proves over and over again to be true, as thousands of new members join at helpareporter.com each week. In June of 2010, less than two years after Peter started HARO in his apartment, it was acquired by Vocus, Inc.

Peter is also the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a boutique Social Media, Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide.

Peter is the author of two books: Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work and Why Your Company Needs Them (Wiley and Sons 2006) and Customer Service: New Rules for a Social-Enabled World (Que/Pearson, 2010) and a frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter at conferences and tradeshows worldwide.

Peter sits on the advisory boards of several companies, including ScotteVest and Pixability, and is honored to sit on the NASA Civilian Advisory Council. He was appointed to his position by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. He’s also an angel investor, specializing mostly in very early stage tech and social media companies.

Peter is frequently quoted in major media and trade publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, The Associated Press, Reuters and USA Today.

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

On His Website
On Twitter

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

Audio Only Player:

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NOTE: Michael was cool enough to be giving away a signed copy of his book Launch to a member of the RISE community (SWEET!). Whomever promotes this interview in the most creative way (and tells us about it in the comments) will get the book shipped to them. Let the fun begin.

Michael Stelzner knows a thing or two when it comes to building a passionate audience and building a successful media business. Already on the show once before, Michael is the founder of SocialMediaExaminer.com. He created Social Media Examiner a couple years ago for around $5,000. And take a look at what has happened since:

• 50+ “A-List”, high-quality bloggers contribute high-quality articles, videos, etc. monthly.
• They have literally millions of page views and nearly 86,000 email subscribers in 19 months.
• Social Media Examiner went from an unknown to a powerhouse in just a few months.
• They are running successful online events that thousands of people pay for.
• Revenue went from $0 to over $1,000,000 in less than one year.
• Michael is having the time of his life and is excited about his business every day.

And now Michael has taken the knowledge he has accumulated by doing and put it all into his new book Launch: How To Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond The Competition.

I was lucky enough to grab Michael today to share some of the concrete strategies he used so we can all steal them and use them. Enjoy!

About Today’s Guest, Michael Stelzner:

Michael Stelzner is the founder of Social Media Examiner – a popular online magazine that helps businesses answer social media questions with useful ‘how to’ articles, in-depth case studies, expert interviews, and original research. He’s author of the new book Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition. He also authored the book Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged and the Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

As an innovative thought leader and experienced marketer, Stelzner has gained the full respect of social media leaders and business marketing experts alike. In less than 18 months, SocialMediaExaminer.com grew from infancy to boasting over 80,000 subscribers and is now the top small business blog in the world according to Technorati. He also pioneered the highly popular Social Media Success Summits, which have sold out for two years in a row – in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The principles that Stelzner teaches are the very concepts that helped him build two highly successful businesses that made him a leading expert in both industries.

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

On His Website
On Twitter
Grab a Copy of His New Book, Launch: How To Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond The Competition