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Episode 254

Lessons Learned from 25 Years in Business

With Rich Brooks

Rich Brooks is the founder and president of flyte new media, a digital agency in Portland, Maine, that’s been in business for 25 years. He is a nationally recognized speaker on entrepreneurship, digital marketing, and social media.

Rich founded The Agents of Change, an annual conference and weekly podcast that focuses on search, social, and mobile marketing.

He is the author of The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing, a popular and well-received book that helps entrepreneurs and marketers reach more of their ideal customers online.

He appears regularly as the “tech guru” on the evening news show, 207, which airs on the NBC affiliates in Maine. He has also appeared in Inc. Magazine, The Huffington Post, FastCompany.com, CNN.com, the Social Media Examiner, and many other news sources for stories on digital marketing.

Episode highlights:

  • Why you should delegate tasks that aren’t your strengths
  • Lessons learned after 25 years in business
  • The benefits of mentorship and professional coaching
  • How writing a book can attract clients to your agency
  • The power of public speaking
  • Best advice: Luck favors the prepared.
  • Habit that contributes to success: Refusing to lose
  • Recommended tool: Snagit
  • Recommended book: Rocket Fuel by Mark Winters and Gino Wickman

Links:

Quotes:

  • “If it’s something that can be repetitive or requires a certain amount of detail, those aren’t my strengths. That was a big shift in the last few years was really trying to raise up my team to take on more responsibility, to have more autonomy, and that’s been really the success over the last three years for us, is growing that younger group of people on our team to take on more responsibility.”
  • “It was probably around year five to seven that I hired my first business coach, and so that was helpful. It got me a little bit further along. Years later, I ended up hiring a different business coach and I started getting mentored by some people in the industry, helping me organize what my company would look like.”
  • “The book will never pay for itself in terms of actual book sales, but in terms of the business that it has brought in, it is a no-brainer.”
  • “There are things that work in certain industries that will not work in others. We started tracking where all of our clients came from, big and small. When we did this, the number one driver of traffic was public speaking.”
  • “I do believe that we have an opportunity for great amazing things to happen to us every day but only if we’ve already put in the work can we take advantage of those opportunities.”

Takeaways:

  • Delegate everything that you can.
  • Mentors and business coaches can help you grow.
  • Public speaking is a great way to attract clients.

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