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The Barefoot Executive: The Ultimate Guide for Being Your Own Boss and Achieving Financial Freedom
The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies
The Micro-Script Rules: It’s not what people hear. It’s what they repeat…

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Interview Transcript

Jack: Hey, everybody! Welcome to another edition of Online X-factor and today is really special to me because this is going to be with someone I’ve been following for a long time, Carrie Wilkerson.

Carrie, how are you doing?

Carrie: I’m doing amazing. Thanks for having me, Jack.

Jack: I got the benefit of…I’ve followed Carrie and the Barefoot Executive, a lot of you may recognize her. In fact, I have the book right here. Regardless whether you’re in business or even have the entrepreneurial calling I would highly recommend this because I will tell you it’s going to save you a lot of grief and steps. All the common things that people think they should be doing…well, Carrie will wipe it right out of your mind – the unnecessary steps. It’s really good stuff.

Then I had the good fortune of joining a mastermind that Carrie was also a part of. I’ve really learned a ton -even if you don’t realize it – from the little notes that I take from things you talk about in the mastermind and implement them. It’s really phenomenal stuff.

Regardless, local business, anybody with that entrepreneurial spirit should be following what this lady has to say because it really has been responsible for the success of a lot of folks in the online world.

I certainly appreciate you coming on with me today. We’re going to be talking about something that I’ve got to admit I really don’t know a lot about. In fact, I’m probably one of those folks that bash it just because I don’t know enough. That’s Twitter.

Carrie: Twitter!

Jack: I want you to inform me because I’ve always thought Twitter is the junk mail of the universe and that people write tweets but people don’t read tweets. I’m starting to find that not the case because I accidentally get followers and then all of a sudden I’ll get notifications that somebody has talked about me and all of a sudden stuff happens. I thought: Wait a minute. This looks kind of interesting. I was really glad that you’re going to talk about that and maybe shed some light on Twitter.

Before we get into that I want you to first give a quick let-people-know-what-you’re-up-to, how you got to be the Barefoot Executive, and what got you here/there today.

Carrie: Because I can never say ‘no’ to a handsome charming man when he asks me to be on camera with him…there’s that. (laughing)

We do have a pretty tight mastermind group. I love our group. I am really blessed to be the honorary female, the token blonde, you know, the resident mom, and little sister. So we’ll go with that, but it’s a really great group and (sidebar) that’s part of the benefit of a group mentoring program or mastermind program – the built-in partnership opportunities and the credibility you instantly have. So thanks, Jack, for having me.

I’ve been the Barefoot Executive for 5 years as far as the online world is concerned. As far as life is concerned I’ve been working at home for almost 15 years. I have been a barefoot executive – nobody knew who I was except for my kids, and they were the reason I did what I did which was walk away from a successful career (from a very diverse career) and decide that I was going to be home with them.

Now I’m not making a political statement that every mom has to be at home or every dad has to be at home, but we adopted 2 toddlers that were high needs and literally overnight their world became my world. They had so many…like 5 therapy appointments a week, multiple doctor appointments, lots of leveling to do.

That was almost 16 years ago so that’s why I did what I did. I said: There’s got to be a way for me to work from here. I’m a smart girl. I have a lot of experience. I’m driven and I need the money. What can I do from here?

But the world was very different then. The Googles was not around. The user-friendliness of the Internet was not available. It really was prehistoric days and so I went to the library.

You guys might recognize that place if you’ve been around awhile. Books, plastic card you exchange, take the books back. It really was a phenomenal model. They just never learned to monetize that very well.

I went looking for the book that did not exist on home business and that is the book I eventually wrote, The Barefoot Executive…How to obtain financial freedom and become your own boss. That’s what we did.

I owned a variety of businesses. I started and sold and had lots of successful businesses before people started saying: What are you doing? Why are you home? Why are you always around? How are you guys affording what you’re affording and have a nice house? What’s your secret?

So I decided to see if there was a need for a community online. August 27^th, 2007, with my fourth child being 10 weeks old…Let me say that again. My fourth child was 10 weeks old and I started a website online called The Barefoot Executive just to see if other people working at home felt as alone as I did, if they needed the same resources, the same recommendations, and we struck a nerve. That was a little over 5 years ago and here we are.

I’m now coaching and consulting and speaking and authoring and training other people how to tap into their skills, how to tap into available technology and tap into a marketplace and earn profit at home.

I don’t teach you how to get rich quick. I teach you how to get profitable (whether that’s quick or slow) and honor your priorities.

So that’s a little bit about what we do and that’s how you and I met. I do love when you say you’ve been following a long time because in real world years 5 years is not a very long time. In online years those are like dog years, so online years you can progress really light years in just 5 years time.

Jack: Oh, yeah, certainly. I mean, just the Internet in general you look at 5 years and that’s half Internet time almost of what people have done.

Carrie: Exactly.

Jack: That’s really the one thing that I think is great about you is (1) the stuff that you went through and the things that you had going on in your life while you built what you’ve built kind of makes people not really be able to come up with good excuses. Oh, yeah, but I have this or I….Because you lay it out there. Fourth child 10 weeks old?

Carrie: With a third business. I was still running the other multiple 6-figure business at the same time when I started the Barefoot Executive. When I first started my first business I had the 2 newly adopted children. When I started the second business I was 100 pounds heavier than I am now. I was 6 figures in debt.

My first business was good but I was not a good money manager. I hit a lot of therapy bills and a lot of things going on. My husband traveled all the time so I was kind of a single parent a lot of the time. At that point my oldest son had been diagnosed with special needs that he still deals with and will forever.

I’ve dealt with infertility. I’ve dealt with depression. It took me 11 years to get pregnant with my first birth child which was after we started the second company.

My parents have been in foreign countries for part of that (on the mission field). We were very involved with them. We’ve just been there and done that with a lot of it.

We’ve suffered computer crashes. I started my online business on Dial-up in the middle of a country town where my husband and I were both working from home. I hired him to work for me. We’re sharing one Dial-up line. (Jack, you can imagine the marital conflict of ‘I need the Internet! Let me plug in!’)

I’ve had 2 more children since then. I’ve lost family members and so many things…I don’t have a lot of tolerance or patience for people who go: Oh, but I’m busy. Oh, but I’m tired. Oh, but I’m sick.

You either want it or you don’t. You’re either willing or you’re not. You’re interested or you’re committed.

Jack: Yeah, that’s the thing. I think you should come out with a grid like a chart so people can go: Let’s see…Okay, across weight, down, debt. Nope. Not an excuse. It’s been worked through.

Carrie: The excuse qualifier. Yeah.

Jack: That’s exactly it. I know you’ve worked with a lot of small businesses and local business owners not just the online world but people that have brick and mortar businesses. Some of the stuff that you’ve done – you teach people how to roll up their sleeves and get some of this stuff done (a lot of what I do) whether they want to do it themselves, but at least be educated about it so when they hire someone to do it they understand what they’re talking about and really all the way from that to building an audience with your ‘Fill the Stadium’ and be able to do that.

I know you’ve spoken at local events that I’ve been at and you’ve been onstage in front of thousands of people all with this very consistent and powerful message.

Part of it is you use Twitter to get through a lot of that and spread that word and let others…that’s the benefit. It’s not just you spreading the word but the easy way to let others spread the word.

Right there is about the end of what I know about how Twitter really benefits so I’m going to let you take it away and let us know exactly how a business owner – local or brick and mortar or even someone who is moving from service provider to information entrepreneur- can use Twitter most effectively even if they don’t know anything about it right now.

Carrie: Okay. I can absolutely do that. The first thing I want to say is no matter what business model you’re in whether you’re in MLM or you’re a brick and mortar store or you’re an information marketer or a coach or even a corporation, business is business.

Consumers are consumers and 87% of consumers are in some form of social media right now. They may not always interact with you but they are listening and watching.

As a matter of fact, I’m more of an interactor so I tend to think people are like me; however, I have people in my town that will comment to my kids all the time about things I put on Facebook or Twitter. I’ll have to say that I didn’t even know that they were there. They never interact. They never comment with me. They’re watchers. They’re listeners.

Think about how we’ve been conditioned, Jack. We’ve been conditioned watching TV and the news. That’s a one-way channel. We’re one-way-channel conditioned; however, some of us that are adopters will engage back. The majority of people are more comfortable listening.

Social media is not about you necessarily being in the conversation but it’s about you being in the airways so people can participate in that.

The other thing I want to go back to before I launch full tilt in is that you said something very key. You said: It’s not necessarily about me sharing with the end user but it’s about enabling my audience to reshare. That is huge. That’s the big benefit of social media.

If you go to my blog it’s not necessarily about who I get my blog to; it’s about who gets my blog to their friends because that third party endorsement is so powerful.

You want on your blog, your videos, any piece of content that you share, your coupons, your specials, your offers. You want to have something people can click and share. ‘Email this to a friend. Tweet this. Pin it. Facebook it.’

You don’t have to be active on Pinterest. It’s not about where you are. It’s about where your content ends up. That’s huge. Write that down.

It’s not about where you are because I’m not on Pinterest a lot. I’m not on LinkedIn ever, but it’s about where my content ends up.

Google+ is more like the gym. We all join the health club and we kind of forget to go back. Google+ is kind of that social network, too, but yet Google+ is mandatory because of the search engine results and all the inner activity from the people that are there.

So you can’t ignore the social networks. You have to be there…at least your content has to be there.

Jack: That’s leverage.

Carrie: It’s totally leverage.

Jack: It’s not about what you say. It’s about who is talking about you.

Carrie: Exactly. A friend of ours from our mastermind recommended a great book about that called Microscripts. It’s about who is talking about your message. It’s not about me talking about it. It’s about who else is talking about it. It’s huge validity.

If anybody listening or watching has kids one of the things that gripes us as parents is they’ll come home and go: Oh, Susie said that (insert random facts here that you’ve been telling that child their whole life). You say to them: I’ve been telling you that your whole life. They go: Huh. I don’t know if you ever said that but Susie said it so it must be true. Right?

It’s the same exact thing.

I’m also going to let you off the hook, Jack. I’m going to say you don’t have to be on Twitter if you don’t want to be on Twitter. End of story.

I like to say there are some key social networks, and you need to pick a couple of social networks that are important for you. The rest of them you can just put up a profile and make sure your content is shareable.

So if you look at my blog, at the top it will say: Pin In, LinkedIn, Google+, whatever…Share it here. It doesn’t mean that I am actively engaged. It just means there’s a street or a driveway open so my content can be shared and give me that credibility.

It’s much like the learning style that I like to teach. As a former teacher and a momma of 4, not all my kids learn the same. Not all the students in my classroom learned the same.

Let me ask you a couple of questions. Jack, are you a video watcher? Do you like video?

Jack: I do, but I make long videos. I don’t watch long videos, you know?

Carrie: Right, but you like videos? I am not a video watcher. Period. End of story. I’m not a TV watcher. I’m not a movie watcher. I’m not a watcher.

I’m more of a reader. So if you put out content that’s exclusively video I will likely never consume it. You’re missing my segment of the population.

Same with audio. Same translates to the social networks. If you only use Facebook…now granted Facebook is like the second largest country in the world by population, but if you’re only using Facebook you’re missing the people who hate Facebook.

The people that love Twitter –and there are billions over there, too- you’re missing those people. Now you can see why Twitter really speaks a little more to me. It’s a little more hit and run. It’s very fast. I can go in and read it and in and out, in and out, in and out. I can tweet on my terms and be in and out.

Facebook – you get sucked in with the videos and the images and the sharing and all the interactive comments; whereas, tweets I can control that a little better.

LinkedIn – you get sucked into the groups. It’s a little more sterile environment. It’s not as social. It’s very much just content sharing.

So find the network that appeals to you. I’m never going to go to YouTube and comment on videos ever ever never. I’m just not. But my content is on YouTube because I want to make sure I’m catering to my audience that’s there. Does that make sense?

Jack: Oh, yeah.

Carrie: So Jack, you don’t have to be on Twitter if it doesn’t make sense to you. Just make sure you have a profile and make sure your content is shareable on Twitter.

Jack: So make sure the people who follow me that use Twitter have an easy way to share it on Twitter whether I do go there or not?

Carrie: Right. Whichever network we love as consumers we trust. So if I want to say: Huh. I’ve heard a lot about this Jack guy and I know he’s offering such and such programs I’m going to go check him out. The first place I’m going to go is to my favorite network.

If I go to my favorite network and I look and can’t find your profile my immediate thought is: He doesn’t exist or he dismisses us as a population. It’s not necessarily a rational thought but it is what it is.

Then the next step I’m going to do is ask my people on Twitter. Do you guys know Jack? Has anybody heard of Jack or taken a program with Jack?

The first thing they all do is what? They go look for your profile and it’s not there. They come to those same conclusions or they go: Huh. Haven’t heard of him. He’s not here. They don’t necessarily jump over to Facebook or YouTube and look. We trust the network that we trust.

So that’s why you at least need to have a profile. Now there are some people who will have a profile and they’ll say: This is just an automatic feed of content. To interact with Jack pop over to his blog. To interact with Jack go to his fan page. This is just a content share here.

So there are ways you can just pick and choose where you’re going to be involved. Now I am involved on Twitter. I love it. I love to answer questions.

I got my book deal on Twitter. True story. I got a Direct Message that said: I am Editor for Thomas Nelson. We want you to write a book. Here’s my number.

I looked them up…their profile. They were a Business Acquisition Editor for Thomas Nelson. I called them and book advance, book, and you have it right there in your hands.

Jack: Right there all self-contained on Twitter. Back and forth. Contacted you. You went and did your due diligence, quick due diligence right there on Twitter, contacted back and made it happen. That’s powerful.

Carrie: Right. I got a contract with American Express Business Forum to provide some content to them. They paid my keynote fee for me to write these articles. Because of that they had a contact at Fox News and Fox called me and said: We want to interview you on Fox.

I have a 7-minute segment on Fox News on Business because of LinkedIn content. (I’m not even on LinkedIn. My profile is on there but do you see what I’m saying?)

You can’t afford to miss those opportunities.

Jack: Yeah, it just got spread.

Carrie: It’s because of 4 key things. The first thing you have to have is…I would say pick about 5 networks – not to engage in but to be present in. So pick those 5 networks.

We’re going to stick with Twitter. Make sure you have a profile that makes sense so it’s your brand or your name and then make sure you have a photo. Do not use your logo unless you’re Coke or Nike or McDonald’s. Don’t use your logo.

Use an updated photo. Here’s kind of my rule. Keep it a photo that’s within 5 years of your current age and 10 pounds of your current weight.

Jack: Look like you look like. Yeah. (laughing)

Carrie: Nobody’s fooling anybody. Be current.

So profile and photo and then the first thing you want to do is go in and follow the key influencers in your market. So go in and follow about 100 people.

This is how involved you can be with this. You can be on the phone, texting and hitting click – follow, follow, follow. That’s all you have to do.

It sends them an email and says: So and so is following you. They can choose whether to follow back or not.

The statistics say 50-60% of people automatically follow you back when you express an interest in them.

So how do you build up the people that are following you, Jack?

Jack: Ah… so you follow them.

Carrie: You go follow first, yes. It does not have to be time intensive. You can let your VA do it or outsource it, if you want, just to get some people paying attention to the conversation.

So in my market, the self-growth market and speaker/author market, I would say I’m going to pick influencers like John Maxwell, Tom Ziglar, Brian Tracy, maybe Oprah –maybe not Oprah because she crosses over into celebrities so those are not really qualified follows. Does that make sense? (Those are just like: Aw, Ooo, Oprah.) I want people who are really…so Anthony Robbins maybe, Chet Holmes absolutely (when he was living)… those kinds of folks.

Cored more down into the online marketing industry maybe folks like Brendon Burchard, David Frey, you guys…anybody in your circle or people you see as an influence in your industry.

Follow them first and then follow some of the people they are having conversations with. So I look at your stream and I see that you’re having conversations with these 10 people. Follow. Follow. Follow. If they’re having conversations with you they’re engaged.

Do that for those 10, 15, 20 influencers and then you start conversations or sharing content.

Okay, so I have 4 C’s that I want you to write down. Four C’s about Twitter. Now I think these function cross platform to Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., but these are my 4 rules of engagement.

I use Twitter to share Content. So I’ll tweet about my blog posts. I’ll tweet about videos. I’ll tweet your content. I’ll tweet several blogs that I like or resources. I’ll say: Holy smokes! I’m so happy with Office Autopilot right now. So I’ll tweet content like that.

I’ll tweet questions as content because when I have targeted people listening and reading and paying attention then they can validate or dismiss or debate or add to things that I have in my head about my target market. I may be totally missing the point of what my market is thinking. It’s a really good way to keep your fingers on the pulse of your market.

Jack: Yeah, engage them with a question. Socratic Method…you ask a question and you get some engagement.

Carrie: Absolutely. Ask the questions.

So I use Twitter to share content and to create content. The other thing is Credibility. Wow. Carrie’s tweeting back and forth with Tom Ziglar. Tom Ziglar just tweeted about Carrie. That means she hangs out with Tom Ziglar; therefore, she must know Zig (which you know I do).

So when Tom Ziglar tweets something like: Carrie, thanks to that private conversation we just had our best month ever, thanks to you. (He tweeted that.) So I then favored it and then retweet it. What kind of credibility does that give me?

Jack: Yeah. What is the character length in Twitter? What is it?

Carrie: 140

Jack: 140 characters. You just got what people paid tens of thousands of dollars in PR 5 years ago for. Yeah, that is really remarkable.

Carrie: It’s huge. And then if you go to my blog, CarrieWilkerson.com, on the right sidebar I pull in my favorites. When I favor it or when people are raving about my book or raving about my interview or raving about that with Tom Ziglar. That streams. I have streaming testimonials on my blog.

Jack: Now that right there…because now you’re displaying this to people that have never even visited Twitter and may not even have a Twitter account but you‘re getting the benefit of showing them what people are talking to you about on there.

Carrie: Yeah, so let’s think about testimonials for your business. I have a friend that’s in the carpet cleaning business that does this really well. So when he is on a job or somebody just mentions something he’ll say: Could you tweet that or Facebook that? He knows that odds are they’re on one of those 2 networks.

What that does is give him an instant testimonial because they tag him in it and it gives their picture. We’ve all seen the infomercials or the videos or sales pages where there are testimonials and we think: Well, yeah, sure. You could have made that up and just added some random picture.

When they’re on social media you can click the picture and go through to their profile. You can validate.

Jack: Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yes. So they see it’s a real person.

Carrie: Yeah. If you really want to know how that Lexus is or what they think about that Lexus you can click through and go: Really? Tell me about your Lexus.

If somebody comes back with canned responses or they don’t respond then you can get skeptical that maybe they’re made up, but for small business owners like us this is just absolutely golden.

A couple of reasons – (1) We’re so used to social media profile interaction that seeing the blue colors and the icons just makes us feel like we’re at home with our friends. We’re there among friends. Oh, this person has a Facebook picture and a little box around them. They’re a friend. I can trust them. They wouldn’t put it on their profile if it weren’t true.

It’s absolutely golden for that reason. So credibility is huge.

The other thing with credibility is you have to use as a bigger brand or even someone who is not terribly engaged, you have to use social media as a listening tool. This hits home with me today because I have somebody who is unhappy with an answer that my assistant gave them and instead of mentioning that or coming to me with it, they started a rant on Twitter.

Now we could get upset about that or whatever, but the fact is, people are talking about your brand or your business or your product or service…the people with the power are the people listening.

So I can listen and diffuse that or address that or in this case step in and say: I’m going to back up my team in that. She gave you absolutely accurate information. That’s why she’s been with me for 5 years.

Leaving that unanswered and hanging out there let’s other people listening go: Hmmm. Maybe this is valid.

American Airlines, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A – brands that are out there listening even if they’re not actively putting out content they’re listening for customer service issues.

Here’s a really good example. Sunday I was a co-host for Blog Chat on Twitter. Now we did an hour long chat where we would just… It would make you crazy, Jack…I answered questions on Twitter.

I tweeted probably 97 times in the one hour answering questions virtually and also sharing some content on this one topic: Blogging for Business.

Somebody asked me a resource for the best email management software which you and I get asked that a lot, so I answered several that I had used for them to check out. I used their Twitter i.d.’s of the ones I knew.

Jack: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Carrie: The next day which was a business day, those brands had contacted me back and thanked me for mentioning them, and they reached out to that person that was looking for a provider to see how they could help. Two of three brands did that. I’m guessing she did not go with that third brand that was not listening to the conversation.

Jack: That right there… I think about businesses with coupons. I think about this and it hits me very clearly with mobile marketing but with Twitter when somebody gets a coupon in the mail they’re not going to say: Oh, I bet Carrie would like this. I’m going to cut this out and stick it in an envelope and send it off to her.

But think about a digital or online coupon and if your business makes it easy or simple for them to share this coupon and gives them instructions: Share this coupon on Twitter…or Facebook or anything…by just simply clicking here…

That’s why I guess mobile or virtual coupons have just an astronomical redemption rate compared to offline. You have a way for…I just tell businesses one of the best things you can do is get your current customers to come back more often, spend more money, and tell their friends, family, and even strangers about you. This is exactly what this lets you do.

Carrie: Yeah and here’s another thing. Even if we download the coupon and we don’t go use it, we still have that goodwill that that company gave us that coupon.

Let me use a really recent example. The week of my birthday I saw in my Facebook Timeline another marketing guy that’s a friend of mine said: Wow. The Red Lobster commercial is working.

I got up, walked over and downloaded the coupon on Facebook. So the TV was not singing: Come in. The TV was saying: Go get your coupon on Facebook. Go Like us on Facebook and get your coupon.

So this popped up in my newsfeed and then underneath it it told me my other friends that were talking about Red Lobster. So what did I do? I clicked and downloaded the coupon. I emailed my husband and said: Go to Facebook and download –because Red Lobster is his favorite- and we were there that week. We went to Red Lobster.

Here’s what even more powerful, Jack. We’re not really coupon users. Now he is more than I am but I went because I love their use of media to drive me to social media for direct response. I thought that was so clever I wanted to follow through on the chain.

Here’s the other thing. It didn’t just work for us. We went at 11:30 in the morning to beat the lunch rush. There were 40 people in line in front of us and by the time we left they were out the door. It wasn’t business people on their lunch break. It was the Facebook crowd. It was young families. It was your 60, 70, and 80 year old ladies that were having their hair done and stopping to use their coupon.

Here’s the other thing. We didn’t even get to use the coupon because it was so specific about what it was for. That’s not what I wanted that day. It was for a Lobster Fest or something. It was just too much food. I just couldn’t do it.

We went in and dropped 50 bucks on lunch because of a coupon that we couldn’t even use. We still weren’t upset. We still were admiring their use of direct response.

But we saw people with their little digital coupons that they had printed out in their hand. It works. Because I claimed it it popped up in my newsfeed.

Jack: Oh, yeah, and let people know.

Carrie: Carrie claimed our offer. So Twitter’s the same way. Share this coupon. Okay. Retweet, retweet, retweet. It works.

The connections are huge. You just can’t minimize it. Now this Blog Chat we go back to this Blog Chat on Sunday…Those people that were listening…When we measured the statistics for the Blog Chat using something called Hash Tracking my content, my words, me spewing whatever I’m spewing, ended up in 33.8 million Timelines.

Jack: Oh, my gosh.

Carrie: Now you made the comment that you think Twitter is junk mail of online. It may be true but why do people keep sending junk mail to your mailbox, Jack?

Jack: Yeah, because it works.

Carrie: Because it works! They can send out a thousand pieces and even if 2 people read it and respond it’s still effective for them. So 33.8 million people heard about me, some for the first time, some not for the first time.

Even if only 80% of those people read their Timeline within a week and I’m there that’s still several thousand people that I now have shared content with, I have credibility with, and I’m building connections with. What do you think about that?

Jack: Well, I think you changed my mind about Twitter. That’s what I think.

Carrie: (laughing) What’s the bottom line here?

Jack: That’s it. Okay, so let‘s get down to it. I‘m convinced, alright? And I think a lot of people watching this are convinced so let’s talk about, if you can before we wrap this up because I know we want to keep this on time because I know you have a lot of stuff to do, what is the number one thing…

First of all, what do you think is the minimum effective dose for a business that they can do right now to get started with Twitter? I know in your book you talk about chasing too many rabbits and people get overwhelmed. What’s the one thing they can do – the minimum effective dose- that they can get a return on with Twitter?

Carrie: Great question. So the minimum thing you have to do with any of your social profiles is have a good effective profile with a current photo. We talked about that.

Then on whatever content you’re sharing or even your static website you have to have Share buttons so that people can click and send it to their network.

A little saying I see around now is: It’s super sexy to share. Click here. Click on your network of choice. Super sexy to share.

We love to share. Right? Techno T-shirt style is my favorite. Oh, this restaurant is my favorite. Oh, I got my Red Lobster coupon. Oh, this new Greek yogurt beats the heck out of that John Stamos brand and he never shows up when I take a bite anyway. So keep this other one.

We love to share and it’s super sexy to share. Make it easy for people to share. So minimally you have to have profiles on those networks. You have to have a current photo and you have to have a Share button on the content that you’re putting out there. Minimum effective.

Now there are some ways you can ramp up that with minimal effort is by using a couple of apps. So I really like Bufferapp.com. It’s free. I can go in in the morning and spend 10 minutes preloading my tweets for a couple of days.

Jack: Oh. Okay, yeah.

Carrie: Still me tweeting. Still random stuff. Some content. Some connection. Whatever. It drips it out on the schedule I decide. It’s pretty easy and pretty intuitive to use and free. I use the free version.

That helps me be present without having to go get sucked in. With my personality if I go to Twitter I get a little sucked in and I start engaging in real time. It’s like a chat room. Once people know you‘re there it’s hard to leave. So it’s better for me to just throw it out there and keep on with my work.

So Bufferapp is super helpful. It will post to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I don’t advocate Facebook and LinkedIn as often of an update but you can deselect that, too, so I may have my 8:00 tweet go to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The noon may only go to Twitter. The 2 p.m. may go to LinkedIn and Facebook. See what I’m saying?

Jack: Okay, that’s definitely a great suggestion.

Carrie: So that automates it for me. The other thing I like to do is auto follow back. So I’ll use something like Social Two or Social Umph or just Google ‘free auto follow software’. Just see what’s out there. I like to auto follow back.

So if you follow me I don’t have to go into my email and go through all these requests and click, click, click. I’m going to auto follow back. Well, Carrie, that’s going to give me too much junk mail and I can’t deal with that.

I’m telling you my book contract came to me because nobody can Direct Message you unless you are following each other.

Jack: Okay, yes.

Carrie: If I had not followed back this person that I didn’t even know was in my Timeline I would not have the book contract that I have now.

Jack: Autofollow. Saves you time. You’re going to do it anyway so let it…

Carrie: You can always unfollow people that bother you. You can unfollow trolls. You can unfollow junk if you want to. I just say for time saving make sure you auto follow back and then make sure you are doing some Bufferapp with that. That is minimal. It’s a little bit of time and it’s good effectiveness in my opinion.

Jack: Yeah, but it’s something they can do right now and not get overwhelmed with it. Like you said, it’s extremely effective for the time it takes to do this.

Alright, now I know you mentioned a couple of books. We’re going to make sure and put the links, but what is the one thing that you think should be on the top of any business owner’s reading list right now?

Carrie: Business owners absolutely positively have to read The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes, my late great mentor. He was business partner with Anthony Robbins and helped create the Robbins Empire, not Anthony’s content but actually his system and the machine behind it. You can still hear Chet’s voice on voice messages and radio advertisements for Direct Response. He was really a master at what he did.

I think it’s a 14-chapter book and I read it at least twice a year and get something new from it every time. The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes.

Jack: Yeah, that’s a good one. I’ll tell you when you’re looking for that about two shelves over you’ll be able to pick up The Barefoot Executive, too. It’s right there near. When I see your book I always see The Ultimate Sales Machine like within arms reaching distance there. That’s great company there on the bookshelves for sure.

Carrie: I am super proud that he was a mentor of mine. I’m really honored.

Jack: Yeah, that’s an incredible book. We’ll definitely put that link on there as well.

Now I want to know what’s next for Carrie and how can folks find out more about you. I’ll tell you right now that the information you have and the way you present it is infectious so I know folks are going to want to know more about what you’re up to and where they can find you.

Carrie: Thank you. Forgive my emotion there. Wow, that just hit me talking about Chet. You know we just lost him this year. It’s been almost a year now. Tragic-cancer. I just hate that disease absolutely.

Authors and people that you read and people that you watch you can’t discount the effect they have on your life. You really can’t. I’m just going to throw that in there.

People can find me at CarrieWilkerson.com. You can request a free chapter of the book there. You can find it on Amazon.

Our audio book (I did read it.) It’s on Audible is also on Amazon and it’s an award winner. We won the equivalent of the Oscars for audio entertainment in the Business category. I’m super proud of that and really thrilled about that. It is me talking. If you can bear to listen to this southern drawl for about 6 hours I’ll read the book to you. That’s where you can get information on that.

You can find me on Twitter @CarrieWilkerson. My business page on Facebook is Barefoot Executive. The best way to be effective at social media is to follow people and model people that are being effective in social media. So pick your platform and do it that way.

The blog is at CarrieWilkerson.com. That’s pretty much my hub. You can also find bite-sized business tips on video at barefootexecutive.tv.

Jack: I’m going to tell you right now that I have the audio book, too, and that’s where I first listened to it on plane trips. So fantastic. In fact I’ll put a link there where they can get a free copy of the audible. If they’re not an Audible member you can sign up and go grab it. Grab it as your intro copy because it is a fantastic book and it really is. Compared to a lot of the books on Audible it’s absolutely delightful listening to you.

Carrie: Thank you.

Jack: Yeah, it is fantastic.

Carrie: Jack can vouch since he’s listened, it really is like sitting here having a conversation with me. It’s very natural and very conversational. I’m not preaching at you. We’re talking. It’s a conversational book. I think they’ll enjoy it.

Jack: Yeah, absolutely right. If you are a listener, if you like audio and audio books get the audio version of this because it really is fantastic.

So that’s fantastic. This has been really incredible. It opened my eyes to Twitter. Some of the things you talked about I haven’t even thought about like the feeds on the side of the blog on the website so people that aren’t even on Twitter…the way businesses can use it, the reporting on coupons, that social credibility.

And I think you’ve demonstrated that X-factor right there that you can use. Right here we have a first-person account of getting a book deal through Twitter. So it really is something that’s worth the time and effort. Put it in there and it’s not just about noise. It’s about creating that X-factor and becoming considered a local guru, local expert, in your industry.

I highly recommend it. Check out the links that we talked about. They’ll be right below the video on the blog.

Keep up with what Carrie is doing. Incredible stuff and we just talked about one little segment but there’s a whole wide range of things and the folks that follow you and the folks that you help…you’re truly inspirational.

I want to thank you for coming on today. I will promise you that we’ll be doing another one of these because you have so much great stuff. Thanks for coming out.

Carrie: Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it.

Jack: So folks, there you have it. Get busy. Get the minimum effective dose on Twitter and get your X-Factor going now.