Franklin Taggart's Blog

▼▼▼Watch and Listen Below▼▼▼ Communication Coach, Cindy Skalicky says, “Introverted public speakers are needed and hard to come by. I want to reach people who have an interest in presenting more but who are unsure how to go about this because it makes them nervous. It does not have to be about getting onto a stage, but often early-stage folks don't even want to share a lot about why they are great at what they do because they feel pushy. I want to help them see the value in preparing messaging for those 'elevator pitch' or 'sales pitch' moments so they can stand in their shoes with confidence and attract more clients.” Cindy is an expert in rhetorical theory - or the science of persuasion. Her passion lies in taking a message in and teasing it apart to determine its overall effectiveness and persuasiveness. She helps clients understand the power of persuasion by teaching Aristotle's hidden gem of genius, the rhetorical triangle. Cindy is originally from Chicago;

  If you're a Larimer County business owner who would like to improve your social media game, I'll be presenting on The Care and Feeding of Your Algorithm at the Marketing Mastery Half Day Bootcamp of National Small Business Week the morning of Sept. 14. Learn how to transform your social media algorithm from a monster to a lap dog. The Bootcamp will also feature LBDC Director Kat Hart presenting on Bare Minimum Digital Marketing, and Brenda Rundback of Shadow Play Films teaching Getting Comfortable in Front of and Behind the Camera. This will be a fun and insightful morning! Registration information here: https://clients.coloradosbdc.org/workshop.aspx?ekey=80410130 Hosted by Loveland Business Development Center  &  Larimer SBDC Check out the whole week's agenda here: https://larimersbdc.org/national-small-business-week/

▼▼▼Watch and Listen Bel;ow▼▼▼ It’s amazing to meet people who feel one hundred percent calm and confident on stage, but who feel timid and uncertain in smaller, unstructured settings. Johanna Walker is a speaking and storytelling coach in Boulder, Colorado. Listen to how she describes her work and the beliefs that drive it:  “I crack open opportunities for people to experience pure, raw truth, then watch them nail their presentations and watch their careers and their lives soar.  I believe everyone has a story that can make a difference in someone's life.  I believe that no matter what message you're trying to convey, you won't get anywhere till you truly connect with your audience.  I believe in the power of bringing your whole body & voice & breath & heart into the room, and speaking from there without apology, even when the idea of it scares the bejeezus out of you.  I believe when you walk right up to your fear and shake its hand, tectonic shifts happen----i

▼▼▼Watch and Listen Below!▼▼▼ Are you ready to toss out complicated overly automated tech and funnels that are expensive and time-consuming to build, never work as well as people told you they would, and honestly make you want to tear your hair out?   My guest in this episode is Cat Stancik, The Lead Boss.  She's going to share a simple and strategic approach to consistently fill your pipeline with highly qualified leads that are ready to buy, so you can hit your revenue targets predictably and spend your time the way you want. Known as the Lead Boss, Cat works with time-crunched Experts and Entrepreneurs, who want to multiply their 6 figures over and over again to scale past 7 and beyond. To download Cat's three-part training, including her one-hour-a-day lead gen strategy, social media swipe file, and close script, visit https://fullybooked.ceo !

▼▼▼Watch or listen below! ▼▼▼ The first few years of starting a business can be a thrill ride of unforeseen circumstances, surprising challenges, and your full range of emotions. For many new business owners, having a trusted guide to help you navigate these equally exhilarating and terrifying experiences is the difference between success and failure. Today’s guest is one such guide. Steve Hoffman (Captain Hoff) is the Captain & CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators. Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines. He is also a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, and author of several award-winning books. These include “ Make Elephants Fly ” (published by Hachette), “ Surviving a Startup ” (published by HarperCollins), and “ The Five Forces ” (published by BenBella). Hoffman launched Founders Space with the mission to educate and accelerate entrepreneurs. Founders Space has become one of t

 ▼▼▼Watch or listen below▼▼▼ If you’ve been paying attention over the past year, there has been an explosion of interest in using online assessments, quizzes, personality tests, and other interactive tools as marketing and sales stimulators. Ryan Levesque’s Quiz Funnel webinars drew a huge crowd of people looking to learn how to create quizzes that would get people past the door of their business and become customers. Interact, a company who offers a platform for quiz design and hosting offers dozens of easy to adapt quiz templates so even the least statistics oriented among us can create a compelling and interesting quiz experience for our social media, websites, email, and anywhere you can copy and paste an html code. I invited my friend, Dr. Joanie Connell of Flexible Work Solutions, and the Reinventing Nerds Podcast to be our resident expert on all things assessment. Her depth of experience as an organizational psychologist and consultant will help us understand a few of the best a

  To access the worksheet Diana will be using for this podshop click https://bit.ly/WrongBookWorksheet In 2008, Diana Needham left the corporate world to focus on her own dream business: helping first-time self-published authors become Amazon bestselling authorities in their field. She’s guided hundreds of clients to their personal victories while doing what she loves most: helping people grow, prosper and make a greater impact.   Along the way, Diana became a certified business coach and earned multiple other coaching certifications. For six years, she served as an Action Coach for Pamela Bruner’s Impact X program to help entrepreneurs rocket their online business. And she’s self-published her own two bestsellers: The Authority Mindset and 17 Legal Ways to Double Your Income.   MOST IMPORTANTLY, Diana has helped nearly 80 authors attain Amazon bestseller status and hundreds more achieve top rankings. AND leverage their book beyond launch to profitably grow their business, reach

Video and Audio below ↓↓↓ Marketing and selling can both be intimidating activities to new business owners, but they are the lifeblood of your business. Alison Proffit is a Soulful Sales & Profitability Success Coach, helping small businesses approach their sales and pricing strategies from the heart instead of just the head. She’ll work with you on mindset, clarifying offers, up-leveling prices, and how to confidently sell through the art of connection with the support of customized scripting work and role-playing sales conversations. Selling becomes less stressful and abundantly more fun when working with Proffit Coach! Alison attempted to start her own coaching business 4 times. The key word there was "attempted". Each of these attempts failed. Primarily because of a lack of knowledge of what it meant to be a good salesperson. Having worked in the HR field for 15 years and receiving coaching certification, the business ideas were good ones, and the services that she of

As we go through changes large and small in life, sometimes we’re surprised at our emotional swings, elevated anxiety, clouded thinking, and higher stress. In this episode, leadership consultant and executive coach Cheryl Benedict shares insights from her many years of guiding individuals and organizations through all kinds of transitions. She is the author of the award-winning book, The Wisdom of Transition, and the founder of MORF Consulting.  Learn more about Cheryl and her book at https://TheWisdomOfTransition.com   Your Own Best Company podcast and community is hosted by Franklin Taggart. If you are a one-person creative business owner or are thinking of becoming one, you are invited to join our Facebook group at https://bit.ly/YourOwnBestCompanyFB   Thanks for listening, subscribing, and reviewing!

4 in 10 adults say that public speaking is their greatest terror. And the Association of American Colleges and Universities listed public speaking as the most in-demand job skill that employers need but can’t find in job candidates. Those of us who are self-employed aren’t exactly off the hook either. Strong speaking skills are a necessity for many of us as we work to represent our businesses and attract new clients to our services. Communication skills are fundamental to our success and those who invest in building theirs are ahead of the game. Meridith Grundei helps good speakers become great speakers. As a speaking coach and trainer she’s worked with every kind of individual and organization; from the woman executive who needs to deliver a high-impact report to her board of directors, to small nonprofit agencies, to teams within the most well-known Fortune 500 companies. Meridith brings her decades of storytelling, stage performance, professional directing, and education to help vis

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the importance of including more intentional and personalized ways to recognize and appreciate clients’ business. This was triggered by the surprise of winning an award from the local SBDC offices where I offer consulting. My thinking has also been influenced by the book, Giftology, by John Ruhlin who goes to great lengths to learn about the passionate interests of his clients and then sending gifts that are significantly more personalized that the SWAG that is so often given as a way to promote businesses.   I share a couple of examples of people I know who show their customer appreciation in meaningful ways. Renee Shaw’s realty group offers frequent family friendly and cultural events, and they include everyone on their client list. Jose Guerrero and his wife deliver freshly made tamales during the holiday season to customers he serves in his cleaning business.   Thanks for watching! I invite you to subscribe, follow, or send a message to

  Hello and welcome to FranklinTaggart.com! In 2020 I've been going through a significant career transition in addition to my first pandemic. For those who don't know, I've mostly retired from the music profession including stepping down from my music leadership role at Unity of Fort Collins and not actively booking solo performances. I've had a growing desire over the past few years to have only one job, and many of you know that coaching and consulting have been a big part of my expression of gifts and talents for a long time. I'm ready to make that my full-time career. With that there will be several visible changes including a new, upgraded website, new programs for one-person creative businesses, along with a vibrant membership community. I'm so excited by all that will be coming soon and I can't wait to share these exciting developments with you. For the time being I won't be posting much here or on my other community channels except one. I would

Episode 2 in my series on easy online business opportunities: Start an Online Print On Demand Merchandise Shop. I started my shop on CafePress over ten years ago when my music career was interrupted by illness and severe tendinitis. It was an easy way to generate income by licensing my merchandise designs to be printed on a large variety of day to day items - from t-shirts to baby clothes to underwear to shot glasses and hundreds more. This video will introduce you to how POD works, six of the many hosting platforms available now, step-by-step directions on getting started, and some helpful advice from my experience. This is an opportunity that anyone can take advantage of! Here is a great book on getting started quickly in POD online shops. (Amazon Associates link)

  I've hosted the Artist 2 Artist concert series for over seven years now. The idea for this series happened when I participated in the former Arts Incubator of the Rockies Evolve program. It wasn't the project I ended up doing for the program, but after the program ended it was the project that actually survived. For the first several years the series was held in various galleries, cafes and creative spaces around Northern Colorado. Despite my best efforts the series never quite achieved the goal I had set for it of expanding the audience for both art and music by presenting both in a setting and manner where each enhanced the other. The few people who did attend really got it. We had some great experiences but I was starting to think that it had run its course. In 2018 that all changed when Elizabeth Morisette from Museum of Art Fort Collins reached out and asked me if I would consider hosting the series at the museum. While I was skeptical that it would be successful I still

I'm working on a series of short videos on making money online. I've been asked by a lot of people during the stay at home period about how they can find alternate ways to generate income. Making and Selling Digital Info Products is the first of these videos. Digital product sales is one of the easiest online businesses to start. You may already have digital files on your computer that would be valuable to others. Each of us has expertise in some area of life that we can learn how to package and share with people who are willing to pay for it. If you can demonstrate, tell, describe, teach, present, or translate your knowledge into a digital format, you can make money. In this video you'll learn how to choose a topic, create a product, set up a delivery channel, and market and sell your first digital product. Watch and see how easy it can be.

One of the most asked questions from clients the past two weeks has been "How do I start teaching courses online?" Since we're all trying to figure out how we can move our businesses to online venues, Nick Armstrong of WTF Marketing and Fort Collins Startup Week is producing a series of webinars to help people get started in the online realm. Yesterday I sat down and had an hour long conversation with Nick about getting started with online teaching. There is a PDF download that goes with this webinar that you can download here . This webinar covers questions like: Equipment Choosing Course Topics Production Planning Choosing a Course Platform Pricing Your Course Simple Marketing Strategy You can watch the Online Teaching webinar below. To see the other webinars in the series please check out the Fort Collins Startup Week video page . Finally, if you are interested in getting started with online teaching but you are confused about getting started, ple

On this episode of the Reset with Franklin Taggart my guest is a fantastic coach, consultant and speaker, Amanda Fewell. Her story takes us from early career highlights working with Rachael Jayne Groover’s Art of Feminine Presence program, up to her current passion which is helping people to become more effective and confident presenters in her Powerful Presentations programs. Stops along the way include founding and facilitating a business networking group for small business owners who had a spiritual motivation and focus in their work, and taking some time away from career to become a parent when she and her husband adopted a ten year old daughter. I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as I did! More information about Amanda can be found at AmandaFewell.com If you are in Northern Colorado, there will be a program of presentations from participants in Amanda’s most recent She Speaks! program on February 8, 2020 at Unity of Fort Collins, 1401 W. Vine Dr. Tickets are avai

In this final episode of The Reset for 2019 we’re treated to a conversation with Jeannie Zandi. Jeannie is a teacher, author, and speaker who leads people to fully embrace their humanness with all of its twists, turns, triumphs and tragedies. She teaches internationally in both live and online settings, and she offers courses through her online school. In this conversation we talk about spirituality, gender, the subtle art of living as a techy-feelie, and a large menu of upcoming events that Jeannie will be hosting. Thanks for listening this year, and I’ll look forward to bringing more your way in 2020! Jeannie Zandi Online Website: http://jeanniezandi.com Online School https://school.jeanniezandi.com Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/WorkofJeannieZandi/ Friends of Jeannie Zandi Private Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/426777171176917/

What if you could earn a living by being true to yourself? Ariana Friedlander started Rosabella Consulting with that very question in mind. Not long after she started, she realized that she didn’t really know how to run a business and she began an in-depth, on-the-job study of the subject of entrepreneurship that continues today. Ariana works with individuals and organizations as a consultant and trainer in areas like leadership, conversational intelligence, and personal growth and development. Also in this episode we’ll hear how Ariana uses journaling as a central part of her life and work, bringing the value and insight of personal reflection into her daily process of centering, clearing her mind, and engaging her creativity. She is the author of The Misfit Entrepreneur’s Guide to Building a Business Your Way, and she will be releasing an extensive course on journaling in the near future. For more information, visit http://rosabellaconsulting.com

Franklin Taggart, 2019 Ordinary Extraordinary People Awards I am honored to be one of the six awardees for the Ordinary Extraordinary People Awards for 2019. Created by Ann Baron of Northern Colorado Community, these awards recognize people who contribute their time and energy to making our community a better place. It's an honor to be included among some amazing people. Thanks to Monique Renee for the nomination and for all who voted! L to R, Brad Hoopes, Franklin Taggart, Ann Baron, Mary Elizabeth Lenahan, Carrie Thompson, and Kristen Watts. 2019 Ordinary Extraordinary People Awardees.

I'd like to invite all creative professionals in Northern Colorado to what I hope will be the first of many happy hour gatherings. There is no other agenda for this event but to spend time socializing with each other. No sales pitches, no presentations, no obligatory business card exchanges...just having some fun in each other's company. You'll have the chance to meet the proprietor of the Backyard Tap, Zedrick Brooks. He's created a lovely indoor/outdoor gathering place right in the heart of Loveland. He's interested in making it available for special events like parties, club meetings, classes, paint n' sip events and any other kind of gathering you might want to host. There will be drink specials and a food truck, and we'll have time to make the rounds to sit and chat while enjoying a beautiful space on a hopefully beautiful almost Fall evening. Please let me know you'll make it, and invite anyone you think might enjoy such a soiree. RSVP Her