How to Grow Your Online Brand and Create Added Value in Your Business or Real Estate with Anthony F. Addonizio

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like The Product Boss. Today, we'll be breaking down how to grow your online brand and create added value in your business or real estate. To drop these value bombs, I brought Anthony F. Adonizo into EO Fire Studios. Anthony is a commercial real estate owner and developer, founder of Mo Marketplace, a marketplace for health, fitness, and beauty brands. And today, Fire Nation, we're going to talk about intuition and analytical thinking.

0:38We're going to talk about the pros and cons of using your main hustle to fund your side hustle. We're going to talk about diversifying your sales channel and some unique growth strategies and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Anthony and our sponsors. Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, hosted by Amy Porterfield, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more. Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes.

1:13A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises, and Fran Bridge Consulting has guided them. Fran Bridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country, and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. Anthony, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:54Hey, what's up, Fire Nation? It is a pleasure to be here. I've been listening to EO Fire since 2015, 2016. And I know there's been a lot of amazing entrepreneurs on here. So hopefully I can follow in their footsteps and provide some great information and advice. And John, to answer your question, I think that most people believe that once you become successful, that life just gets easier. And you just end up being a happier person because now you're successful. But there's a lot of different types of success. There's success, obviously, on the business side of it, but then there's success with relationships.

2:36But in terms of business success, that doesn't always mean that you end up being a happier person. Some people are super successful, super wealthy, and they end up just being not happy or even be miserable. They still don't feel fulfilled in their life. So I think that's a misconception to people who are really striving and out there bootstrapping and trying to make things happen. I think there's a lot of great points there in Fire Nation. That's why we're going to be talking today about adding value in a lot of areas, but specifically within business, in real estate. And we do always on Entrepreneurs on Fire, Anthony, we talk about the power of adding value to others.

3:21How can you solve problems? How can you create solutions to obstacles, to challenges, to just issues that people have on a day-to-day basis? So I want to get your perspective here. How can we add value in both business and real estate? My background is commercial real estate. And when I look at a property, I'm looking at it from the point of view is, what can I do to increase the revenue of the property? Can I change out the tenants to get some national tenants? Can I lease out some vacancies? Can you go up with the property or even potentially lease out the lower level of basement as retail? And you're trying to be creative.

4:01And I think by being creative, you can add value to the property. And essentially, you're doing your best to increase the income. And in real estate, you're trying to get a longer-term lease and national tenants. But that will add value for real estate. And you want to make sure you take care of your tenants, obviously. and you end up being a great landlord for them. And then you could create value that way with your tenants by making sure that they feel appreciated and they'll end up extending and be happy there in your spaces. From a business standpoint, in order to add value, you can make sure that you are solving the problems of your customers.

4:42So for MO Marketplace, it's a third-party marketplace for health, fitness, and beauty products that I recently launched, I'm doing my best to add value for the brands. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to make it so that brands who join onto the marketplace are able to get free traffic, backlinks. I'm trying to make it unique for them so that any content they create within their store can actually go directly to their store. So if they create a couple articles or videos, any SEO traffic they get from Google go directly to their store and help to increase their sales and the revenue. In addition to that, they can also build email marketing lists and create followers.

5:25And that's something that they can't do with other marketplaces, especially with the email list. So I'm trying to add value that way in order to give them another revenue stream. And I think if you can meet the needs of your customers, then you add value that way. And even from the consumer side with the marketplace, I'm trying to add value to the consumers where if they go onto the platform, they can search, for example, if they're trying to become a yoga instructor, they can see what other yoga instructor professionals have used for supplements in the past, what they've done for workout routines, what are they doing on a daily basis?

6:04Are they intermittent fasting? Are they vegan or what have you? So it takes all that information, consolidates it down onto one digestible page for them. And that way they can get a whole breakdown of what this professional is doing. And that's how I'm trying to create value for the customers. So I think if you answer, if you can solve the problems for your customers, then you add value for them. So it's pretty obvious to me that you've sat down and you've really thought deeply about these problems, these situations. You've really used analytical thinking. You've used your gut, your intuition, and you believe that these are important in business in general.

6:49So tell us more about how we should be utilizing our intuition, our gut, and our analytical thinking as well to thrive. Obviously, analytical thinking is important. You have to look at the data. You do need to look at market trends and KPIs and cost per customer acquisition and all those things. Those are all very important. But I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs may not want to use their intuition as much or a little bit less likely to pull the trigger on certain things because they feel that maybe the data doesn't support it. I should kind of backtrack a little bit. Back last summer, I hurt my back.

7:31I was playing a lot of like ultimate frisbee and a lot of basketball. wall. And I ended up hernating my disc. And once that happened, I was looking for other ways to kind of help myself heal faster. So I got really into meditation. And that helped me really to kind of reflect when I was meditating about my past successes and failures. And that made me think of intuition where a lot of the best deals I put together were using my intuition and not necessarily going with what the data is suggesting for particular markets. So I think that if you can go with intuition, then I think it will help you with negotiations.

8:13It can help you with partnerships, purchasing properties, purchasing businesses, whether or not you decide on a particular employee. You might be looking at a resume and believe, you know what, this looks like a great resume, but your intuition is telling you that it's really not a right fit. So I just wanted to you know, mention that I think that it's great to use your, your analytical thinking, your left side of your brain. And it's, there's obviously a place to that, but it's also important to remember, you know, your gut feeling, that intuition that you get. And I think that would, will help entrepreneurs along if they kind of, you know, use them both to balance each other out, but don't forget that you can also rely on your intuition.

8:52One thing that I definitely know about Fire Nation is they like to use their gut. They like to use their intuition, but they also have a lot of ideas, a lot of hobbies, a lot of things that excite them. So, you know, a lot of times we have our main hustle and it's going along well and it's generating revenue, but we're like, oh, we have this other idea that I want to test out because that may end up being a great idea or nothing. You know, something, some people may call that a side hustle. So let's talk about the pros and cons of those individuals that use their main hustle to fund their side hustle?

9:28Obviously, one of the biggest cons of funding your side hustle with your main job or main hustle is that you're taking up all the risk, right? You're sacrificing, you know, it could be potentially your down payment to a house or, you know, or even your family's vacation. So, it's a sacrifice. And also, you know, it could maybe take longer to put the project together. Maybe because you decided to use your own money to fund it, you don't build as much of the large team that you would have if you were to go to outside investors or to, you know, or to VCs or whatever. So those are obviously the cons.

10:08But the pros on the other side is that you retain all the equity. And, you know, you have no board members that you have to answer to. All the upside is yours. And in the future, you can always decide to raise capital. and then you still keep more equity than you would have otherwise. You can make crazy deals. If I want to say, hey, John, I'd love to get some free advertising for the next X amount of years with EO Fire. I'll give you some interest in my company for it. You can do crazy things like that. So those are the pros. I'm not advocating for everybody to do that. depends on your financial situation, your disposable income, and really what you're looking to raise and what you're looking to sacrifice.

10:52But I do think it's something to keep in mind depending on what you're looking to do. Fire Nation, I think it's really important, number one, to look at both sides of the equation. Don't just look at the pros. Don't just look at the cons because either you'll do everything or you'll do nothing. But it's good to weigh both sides of the equation and really understand, hey, is this something that at this stage of my life, at this current stage that I'm at, that I want to do, that I can do, that I should do. And then, you know, seek help, like ask for advice from others, people that you respect and potentially people who have actually done it because you can get great feedback from them about what worked, what didn't, et cetera, to help you kind of continue to weigh those pros and cons.

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14:34That's policygenius.com. Anthony, we're back and I'm going to be honest with you. We've all heard the same boring brand growth strategies in the past. Everybody just repeats each other. They see a great idea. I'm not saying they're not good ideas. They're just repeated and they get boring because we just hear them over and over and over again. So let's right now talk about some unique brand growth strategies. One strategy that comes to mind is strategic partnerships. I think that not enough brands are reaching out to other brands within their niche in order to run cross promotions, cross marketing, working with each other's social media or email lists.

15:21And I think that's something where, especially for startup brands, ones who are looking to grow and they're trying to break into a certain sector, I think that's a really great way to grow inexpensively is by creating these strategic partnerships. Another way is with affiliate marketing. Now, everybody's heard affiliate marketing, obviously, but I'm talking about incentive-based affiliate marketing. Maybe you do something where over time they get higher payouts and you create some kind of set of plan for them. Maybe there's a website or platform out there that could make or break your brand. And under a normal affiliate marketing payout, they wouldn't even think about accepting it.

16:03And maybe you create some special proposal for them where over time they get a great payout or even the possibility to buy shares or get some shares in your company. I know that sounds crazy to most entrepreneurs and people listening to this, but if you think it's going to make a huge difference for you, then put together something that really makes sense for you and it may work great for both parties. And another way and something I've done with MO Marketplace is to purchase other websites and redirect the traffic. So I purchased two other websites, absorbed the content in order to get higher demand authority and to get traffic and then just redirected it to MO Marketplace.

16:43And by doing that, you can get that demand authority in order to drive the traffic and also increase your sales. But you can do that for anything. Even if you had an Amazon store or you had a Shopify site, there are older blogs out there that are not being monetized that you could purchase and just redirect it over to wherever your store is in order to gain sales and traffic and some domain authority. Fire Nation, again, we need to think about different, unique, and special ways to do these things that other people aren't doing so that we can stand out in the marketplace, so that we can be going right when people are going left, so that we can zig when others are zagging.

17:25And speaking of that, let's talk about diversifying. We all know that we can't keep all those eggs in one basket, but I want to talk specifically about diversifying our sales channel. Why do we need to do this? And I would love some specific examples. The main reason why you need to do it is to minimize risk. Now, let's say you have an Amazon store and you could be killing on Amazon, but 90 % of your business comes from Amazon and all of a sudden they decide to change their algorithm or they change their fee structure. That could essentially kill your business overnight. Same thing if you have a Shopify site.

17:59If you're driving all this traffic to Shopify through, let's say, Google ads or Facebook ads and all of a sudden the cost of those ads change, then that's going to drastically decrease your profit margins. So by having multiple sales channels and income streams, you're minimizing risk and you're making your site better off in the future in case you ever want to sell the site. So by diversifying these sales channels, you're also increasing the value of your business. Now, obviously, MO is a great additional sales channel if you're in the health, fitness, or beauty industry. But there's a lot of other ones also out there, such as Walmart or going through TikTok or what have you.

18:46I think that every business should at least have three or four sales channels and try to spread out where that income comes from. And that way, they're protected in the future. I think this is critical. I mean, when you were talking, I was just remembering the time that we got an email one day and Amazon, just with a snap of the fingers, changed our storage fees of our journals, the Freedom Journal, the Mastery Journal, the Podcast Journal, from what it was, which was great for us with profit margin to a place where we're like, oh my God, like that literally is going to take away all of our profit margin if we keep as much inventory as we have at Amazon.

19:24So it was like a scramble because it just happened. And it wasn't like we got even any notice. And so it's one of those things where, man, you've got to be prepared for things like this to happen. When you're playing in somebody else's sandbox, Fire Nation, diversify, diversify, diversify. And speaking of cash, what if we're listening to this episode, Anthony, and we're just a little tight on cash? I mean, it happens. So how can we grow our online brand with little or no money? A great way, obviously, is through social media, which I know most of the audience has heard already. But if you're somebody who has the personality for it, then that's a really inexpensive way to grow your brand.

20:05Another way, obviously, is through crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter. And you can do your pre-sales and get some free traffic that way. And that's another way to grow your brand. And also, you could look for, as I mentioned before, blogs or even podcasts or even social media channels that people are no longer really utilizing or don't want and reach out to them and see if you can somehow take those over. You'd be surprised at how many dead blogs might be out there or even social media channels that are within your niche. And that could be an inexpensive way to help your brand. And, you know, in other ways through marketplaces.

20:47So, you know, if you let's say you had a SaaS business and you're I don't know, you're trying to help other businesses with SEO, with your platform. You can go on something like, say, Fiverr and create gigs with your virtual assistants or for yourself and offer a SEO service that ties into your SaaS business and use that as warm leads. And then as customers come through Fiverr trying to get certain jobs done, you're using your platform for it. And then you just try to do an upsell with it and you try to bring them on because they have already worked with you in the past. Another way, too, is with trade shows.

21:26And I know we're talking about online brands, but you can go to different trade shows and conferences, whether it's business to business or a business to consumer, and go around passing out your business cards. It's obviously for little money, just the cost to get into the trade show. And you can network and get your name out there. And that's something that doesn't cost a lot. So I think that's great for entrepreneurs who are out there trying to really bootstrap it and start out with little or no money. And obviously, once again, if you do have a health, fitness, or beauty brand, you can go on to MMO Marketplace and you can join for free.

22:05or you can join our premium membership, but it's upfront for the free plan. It's great for startup brands who are really looking to just get free traffic and free sales. No, I love these different ideas and concepts, whether it is in those in-person, actual, more traditional events or the more cutting edge AI opportunities and everything in the middle of Fire Nation, like you want to test, test, test. Now, Anthony, what's the one takeaway way you want to make sure our listeners get from today's conversation? Always follow your passion and don't be afraid of failing and go with your gut intuition.

22:45And, you know, whether or not your business or brand works out, you know, the fact that you tried and you put the effort in and you followed your passion is going to help your personal growth. and I'm happy to even help people if they have any questions, they can reach me through MO Marketplace through the contact us and I'm happy to help brands who are looking to start in health, fitness and beauty. Well, give us that direct call to action. Where can Fire Nation connect with you? Yeah, they can go to momarketplace.com and they can either go through the contact us link or even email me directly at anthony at momarketplace.com.

23:27And I also have a special offer for the audience. They can sign up for a premium plan and get six months free upfront. And then they could reap all the benefits of being able to build a store and get free traffics and backlinks. But yeah, so I'm excited to work with anyone from Fire Nation. Cool, and how do they get those six free months? The coupon code for it is EO Fire Rocks. So they can just put that in and they'll get it. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with AFA and JLD, so keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about today, visit EOFire.com.

24:10Type Anthony in the search bar. The show notes page will pop right up. And Anthony, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, and value with Fire Nation. And for that, we salute your brother and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Anthony for sponsoring today's episode. Fire Nation, are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free, freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast hosted by Amy Porterfield is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more.

24:55Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises and Fran Bridge Consulting has guided them. Fran Bridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson has done more placements than any other in the country and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising at FranBridgeConsulting.com.