Franklin Taggart's Blog

How do you decide what not to do? Every business owner I know has a huge list of possible ways to spend their time and focus, and they somehow choose those items from the list that are a priority. But the other things on the list matter, too.  There are things I choose not to do as a podcast host that allow my process to work the way I need it to. The choice I make to communicate with guests directly instead of trying to communicate with them through representatives is one that I've had to adopt. I get too many inquiries about guests from agents and publicists - more than I can adequately process.  I do my own producing, including editing. I've gotten pretty good at it over the years and I know what I want. It's easier to just get it done. In making this choice, I'm setting aside other things I could be doing. I enjoy doing my own marketing, too, along with course creation, content creation, and the main attraction - working with my clients.  The main way I've learn

My friend, Dre Beltrami at https://thesolopreneursociety.com is ready to release a new offer later this week. I reviewed it today, and my jaw dropped to the floor. Dre is reliably generous and knows how to put a lot of value into any package, but this will be over the top. The package that she'll be giving away could be priced at hundreds of dollars, yet she is giving it away in exchange for an email address. I wondered about the ever-changing line between what we give away and what we charge for. How can we as creators continue to put our time, talent, and energy into making valuable things for people and keep giving them away? I don't have answers here, but I do feel the concern of many who wonder how we will ever make a sustainable living if we continue to give away what we make. I'm not dissing Dre here. I think she's a genius, and I have elected myself her fan club president. And her strategy here does lead to a paying offer of her services for a day. I became awa

  Easter morning reflections... Many people are celebrating a variety of overlapping holidays this weekend. Ramadan, Passover, Easter, and a few others all coincide. Remembering family dinners at the Sims Hotel in Evanston, Wyoming. The kids' table, spiral ham, prime rib, and scalloped potatoes.  Easter required new church clothes, starchy, stiff, and too clean. The candy was all gone by noon, and the hard-boiled eggs were converted to deviled eggs in time for dinner. The desire for faith doesn't immediately lead to a place of peace and harmony. Instead, everything else I rely on - health, wealth, relationships - all removed. Then what? Listen to hear more. Thanks for being here. #Easter2022 #faithstory #gratitude

Stories about a couple of people who showed up in quiet but meaningful ways and made a memorable difference. Is there something you love to create or nurture that could be shared with other people as a gift without strings? Is there a way to show up to serve that no one else may notice, but it's a perfect spot for you to contribute? Thanks for spending your time and attention with me. #quietcallings #aplaceforall #yourgiftsmatter

A recap of some of the best business moments from the first season of Your Own Best Company, featuring: Cat Stancik https://ActionIncubator.com Full Episode: https://youtu.be/BIYdUP2ZNlw Danielle Lammon https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielleshannonagency/ Full Episode: https://youtu.be/H5oP6KYv5NI Craig Cannings https://FreelanceU.com Full Episode: https://youtu.be/mEZ9clV30os Steven Hoffman https://FoundersSpace.com Full Episode: https://youtu.be/i99WN7zTpUo Tracey Burnett https://TraceyBurnett.com Full Episode: https://youtu.be/tyfnV-V9bRQ Jason Van Orden https://JasonVanOrden.com Full Episode: https://youtu.be/uqnqBrxTjHY Dr. Jürgen Strauss https://InnovaBiz.com.au Full Episode: https://youtu.be/Qz9t7wQxzVc Brittney Murphy https://OneThingMarketing.net Full Episode: https://youtu.be/gOAlLkx3bcc Alison Proffit https://GetSoulfulSuccess.com Full Episode: https://youtu.be/NGOE2NuaCTo Adil Amarsi https://GreatestCopywriterAlive.com Full Episode: https://youtu.be/HJbw8N67p04 Sophie Zollman

If you would rather be stung by bees than give a talk or presentation, this one is for you. If you would rather wash dishes than go to networking meetings, this one is for you. If you make better connections working shoulder to shoulder with other people than through social media, this one is definitely for you. In this Coffee Break, I share one of my favorite marketing strategies - Behind the Scenes Marketing. It's easy to understand. Show up and offer to help other people's events shine. Volunteer for community organizations and events. Be on the planning team for the Rotary literacy project fundraiser. Sing in the choir at church. Bring baked beans and rice to the coven potluck. One of the most common complaints from business owners is the people they need to reach aren't accessible. No, they really are, but just not at the networking meeting. They do show up in lots of other places. Long and interesting conversations can be had when you show up in places to help and ser

Your imagination pays much closer attention to desire than to reason. It's not interested in what is reasonable or logical. It feeds on fancy. Some of the people I work with are coming out of traumatic work situations where they've stayed too long and have come away with a lot of fear about making the wrong decisions again. I have one question: How do you want to spend your time? This question gets to the heart of what's important to someone. It helps them immediately clarify what option is in line with their desires, which most often directly reflects their values. If you don't have a clear answer to this question, give yourself permission and room to explore. And you may need to do some healing before you're ready to move on. Maybe go to school or try some new skills on for size. If you need money, get a job. Don't kill your dreams with the pressure to make money. If you struggle with this question, consider scheduling a coaching session. First-time clients ta

I rarely experience creative blocks like writer's block and similar things. I'm pretty sure part of the reason why is I don't wait for inspiration. The three questions I talk about in today's Coffee Break are a simple but effective framework to help me take the first steps in my creative process.  Write these down and keep them close: Who is it for? What difference will it make? Where will it lead? If you lack ideas, start with these questions. If I'm staring at a blank page, waiting for the muse to whack me in the head, I've found that an easy way to get started is to think about a specific person. It helps if I've had recent contact with them and I know something they're going through.  Holding that person in my awareness gives me ideas and leads to the next question - what difference would I like to make for them? This helps me know what to create. And to then take the journey into the future with the last question, helps me to understand what outcome

Had the calendar cleared for a full production day with an open microphone and at least seven hours uninterrupted. The utility company had a different plan :| This is why I've always been a night owl. There are too many distractions during daylight hours. So it looks like I might be up late. Thankfully, the crew took a lunch break, giving me enough time to record this Coffee Break. I'm tired of pivoting on every level. #interrupted #disrupted #cranky

Following on yesterday's observation about getting married on the first DM, this Coffee Break encourages us all to remember that not only do our customers need to know, like, and trust us; we also need to know, like, and trust them. If your marketing is really based on relationships, it can't be all about you. I find way too many examples of marketing based on inaccurate assumptions rather than first-hand knowledge, and I'd like to change that. It takes less time to form an authentic connection with a person than it takes to recover from the pushback you get when you manipulate them. They'll remember the true connections favorably for years, but tactics without connection will be remembered unfavorably for a lot longer. And please trust your customers to be able to make their own decisions. How are you finding ways to know, like, and trust your clients? #marketing #humanconnection #h2hmarketing

I usually recommend hiring a professional designer for logo and brand design. It's worth the expense and will save you a lot of trial and error. That said, if you don't have the money to pay for a professional and you aren't getting what you want on Fiverr, Canva.com has thousands of logo design ideas and templates that will allow you to create your own. This tutorial shows you the basics of creating a simple logo with a transparent background that you can create today. I'm a big fan of the Canva Pro subscription program and recommend it to people nearly every day. #canva #logodesign #easydesigntips

So you paid for the LinkedIn strategy course that told you that you should be sending direct messages (DMs) to potential leads, and you've paid extra for the search bots, LinkedIn Sales Manager, and the one-on-one coaching session. Now you're diligently sending your copied and pasted initial contact to the people who unwittingly accepted your connection request, and the first thing you do is make an offer for a package. Get the hell off my lawn! There are so many other ways to initiate contact with a potential client that don't piss them off and don't end up with them blocking you. In this Coffee Break, I have a few suggestions. At a minimum, look at my profile before you send me a message; send a uniquely written note that shows me you've found something about me besides the fact I came up in your initial search that suggests I might be interested in what you have to sell and don't push. I'm a busy guy with systems that work. Don't assume anything until

Your Own Best Company has featured over 40 interviews since May 2021, and it's time for some reflections and some highlights. Add to that the 90 Virtual Coffee Break shows and you've got a lot to sort through. Join Franklin for some memories, some encouragement, and some gratitude as he looks back on the first year of Your Own Best Company.

Rethinking and repurposing how we package and present our skills for new opportunities is on my mind tonight. Why couldn't a trained journalist bring her interviewing skills into a role where she is interviewing customers of a business for well-articulated testimonials? What if the person who has been waiting tables for ten years repackaged his ability to remember specific people, their requests, needs, and desires and translated that ability into meeting facilitation? What if the music producer who can take apart a $5000 microphone and put it back together again in working order could learn her way around wiring homes for electricity? In yesterday's video, I was wondering about how solopreneurs and freelancers can break free of the idea that their day jobs and side hustles need to be minimal and low-wage. In today's video, I ask the following question in the sequence. What do you already know that you can get paid really well for? #careerdirection #freelancecareers #making

Canva Pro offers a bunch of amazing features not available in the free version. One that I use most frequently is the Brand Kit. This allows me to pre-select brand colors and fonts that then show up on the top of my options lists for both fonts and colors. Now I don't have to go looking for them or enter them in a search bar every time I need them, and for colors, I don't have to guess or go looking for hex codes. In this short tutorial, I show you how to create a brand kit, starting with uploading an image from which Canva can find my brand colors, and then I can add colors to the palette as well as select Heading, Subheading, and Body text fonts. #canvatutorial #branding #branddesign 

An important conversation with a friend today who's been giving his business 1000 percent and finds himself needing some steady income. This isn't an uncommon experience for solopreneurs, freelancers, and artistic creatives. Many of us find times in our lives when we need to just line up a steady income to cover our basic needs until our businesses can get to the point where they are doing that for us consistently. I don't encourage people to just take any kind of day job. It's tempting to take whatever we can get, working an hourly gig for a low wage. This can be dangerous for a business owner for several reasons. Low-wage work requires you to work more hours and takes you away from your first work priority, your own business. I know a lot of people who have done this and have not only experienced burnout, they've lacked the energy and enthusiasm that their own business requires after they've spent their best hours in the day job. I share a few thoughts and exe

It was a five-client day with a sideways wind-blown trip to the airport and back, and I'm feeling it. I even forgot to bring my coffee to this Coffee Break.  For much of my life, tiredness has been a good reason not to follow through. So has depression. So has sadness. So has every other reason.  My commitment to making one video a day has been mostly to see for myself that I can actually follow through on a commitment.  I'm making this video tonight because I said I would. If you want to check out the two Steven Pressfield books I mentioned, here are a couple of Associate links to follow to get them. They are worth reading more than once. The War of Art: https://amzn.to/36RCHVL Do the Work: https://amzn.to/3KrcwU4 I love and recommend both of these books to anyone who wants to make their creative work, their life's work. #stevenpressfield #commitment #followthrough

   Duct Tape Marketing is the first resource I recommend to new business owners who are just getting started. I've read it a dozen times and I learn new things every time through. Strategy Before Tactics!

I'm creating a course on starting a blog. No, I'm not twenty years too late. Blogs are enjoying a comeback and long form writing is gaining traction in places like Substack, Medium, and some of the old standby collections like Elephant Journal and Huffington Post.  I'm creating the course because I believe blogging is the best way to form and nurture client relationships at a very low cost. While some businesses are trying their hand at TikTok and doing very well there, I'm still a proponent of having a well-written blog as a cornerstone asset for your business website. Blogging also offers unlimited flexibility in possible formats and content combinations. I love that I can have text, images, videos, and audios all in the same place so that people can experience what I offer in the ways they like most. I also like the creative challenges of making multi-media experiences available on my website, We don't ever have to run out of new ways to deliver valuable and memo

  Marilyn Corrado RIP

  I used to feel guilty about not being productive all the time. But we're not designed for full-time productivity. There is also a cultural tsk tsk about "wasting time" that I want to challenge. As I've gotten older and faced more physical and energetic challenges, I've realized that my downtime is equally crucial to my creative process: time spent writing, speaking, making music, doing these videos, or any other activity I might label as productive. My imagination is most available and receptive when I'm not actively making something happen. I'm amazed at how easily ideas come to me when I'm otherwise idle. Those three ideas I had this morning while driving home from the airport are good examples. They would have been less likely to arrive had I spent my time productively. Today, my other realization was how I tend to see my low-energy days as useless when they're often my most productive in unexpected ways. I've started the habit of finding