Welcome to March, the month that comes in like a lion!

For every month in 2010, I’m focusing on a theme that’s critical to small business success and talking about that theme in my e-zine, No Suits Allowed!, here in my blog, and with my experts in The Experts Series. In January, we talked about planning your year and your small business. In February we focused on finding meaning and purpose and gaining authenticity, and I interviewed Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and co-author of The Go-Giver and Go-Givers Sell More in The Experts Series (if you missed that call and want the recording, you can still download it for free here).

This month my attention will turn exclusively to Branding and Positioning. As such, you’ll see articles all month long on branding and positioning your small business, throughout this blog and my No Suits Allowed! e-zine.

I’m also interviewing Jack Trout, author of over thirteen bestsellers about branding, positioning, and marketing. He’s the author of several of my official small business reference books, including Differentiate or Die and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and I consider Jack to be the father of modern branding and positioning.

When I was interviewing Bob Burg and mentioned my upcoming interview with Jack Trout, Bob said,

“Jack Trout is one of the seminal masters when it comes to positioning, branding, marketing. This is a guy who is so big and has been for so long, for you to have gotten him to appear on your call says a ton about you. And I hope everybody listening will be on that call next month. This guy is a master and just please, make the time to listen to him.”

To sign up for that call, go to The Experts Series.

I’d like to also announce the launch of my updated six-week teleseminar class, 7-Figure Branding Secrets, where I’ll take you through the exact process that I use with my one-on-one clients to create memorable brands with serious moneymaking potential. I’ll include a Q&A during every single class so I can walk you through your own branding process. More details, including dates and specifics, to come later this week!

Stay tuned!

If you’ve been reading my blog, my e-zine, following me on Facebook, or watching my Tweets, it would be impossible for you not to have noticed my new program, The Experts Series. This series is a yearlong, interview-and-integrate series. Each month, I’ll interview a top name in small business. The current lineup includes several bestselling authors, power players in marketing and PR, and heavy hitters from the real world, and all year long, we’ll be talking about ways for you to grow your small business.

So why should you join the series? Here are my top five reasons:

1. You’ll learn from the best.
   I’ve invited some of the world’s most well-known experts in small business, marketing, public relations, and branding to participate in this series. The lineup includes:
   • Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and co-author of The Go-Giver and Go-Givers Sell More
   • Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Guerilla Marketing, the best-known small business marketing book series of all time.
   • Jack Trout, author of Differentiate or Die and Positioning, among other bestsellers, and the guy I learned a ton about branding from.
   • Larry Winget, author of It’s Called Work For A Reason and You’re Broke Because You Want to Be and the guy I turn to for “get real, and get off your butt” advice.
   • David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Eyeball Wars, and Cashing In with Content, among others, and one of the guys I’ve learned the most about marketing and PR from.

   (I’ve actually got several more incredible people signed on to participate, but I agreed not to reveal their names or promote that they’re appearing in the series until we get a couple of months closer to their dates. I have to admit that it’s kind of killing me not to tell you who they are, because these are huge names, and I honestly can’t even believe they agreed to let me interview them. But you’ll see the announcements coming up as soon as I’m allowed to share them, I promise!)

2. You’ll figure out what’s missing in your business that’s keeping you from taking that next step forward.
   I don’t plan to just ask these folks what’s in their books or what they always talk about. Sure, we’ll cover that stuff, but I want to go deeper and find out what you can’t learn from their books. What are their best-kept secrets for growing your brand, getting the word out, drawing in clients, getting booked for speaking gigs, and heck, just making money? Was there one thing that they did that took their business to the next level? Was there something that “clicked” in their business? What’s the one thing they think you can do to grow your business and achieve success? I’ll be asking them more in-depth questions than you’ve heard in other interviews, to get to the heart of what these true small business masters can teach us.
3. You’ll have a chance to get up-close and personal with the top names in small business and ask them your questions.
   When I’m done grilling these experts, I’ll give you a chance to ask your own questions. You’ll be able to talk to the biggest names in small business and ask them whatever’s been burning in your mind about their books or your business. How often do you have a chance to ask someone of this caliber for a little turbo-coaching?
4. You’ll be working directly with me to integrate everything we learn during the interviews into your own business.
   The evening after every interview, I’m hosting a second call. I’ll do a brief recap of the expert call, and then I’ll take your questions. We’ll cover integrating the material we learned the day before, or you can ask me other questions about your business. Point is, I’ll be coaching you live and giving you my best business advice on the spot. This is absolutely the most affordable way to get some real, authentic business mentoring from a seasoned pro. Plus, just like any other Mastermind (I call this my “mastermind lite”), you’ll learn from the other folks on the calls. Remember, we’re all in this together. Whatever you’re going through in your business, I’ve probably been there…and you’ll discover other people who are in the same boat as you, so you can learn together.
5. Each month you’ll get closer to achieving true business mastery, and building more freedom, flexibility and purpose into your life.
   Listen…let me be candid. Just listening to the interviews and Q&A calls probably won’t change your business too much. But if you act on what you learn in the series, your business could completely transform. Just imagine if you knew what to do and how to structure your time so you really did achieve small business mastery? Can you imagine if you actually had all of the freedom and flexibility that small business ownership promises? Can you imagine what would happen if you were able to create a vision for your business and then achieve it? The best way to achieve all of that is to learn from authentic leaders who have mastered it themselves, and know how to teach what they learned. And that’s what The Expert Series is all about.

Bonus Reason: These are real experts. They’re authentic people. And they’re interested in helping you.
When I invited these folks, here’s how I describe the series: “a new teleseminar series for my subscribers and clients to help them learn and grow in areas they may miss on their own.” And you know, what really amazed me about the responses I received is how generous these people were. I mean, maybe it’s my own jaded perspective, but I never, in a million years, expected anyone as famous as some of these folks are to thank me for reaching out to them and to be enthusiastic about participating in the series. But they’ve all been so generous with their time and they’re excited to join in this series, because this is all about casting off the formality and the suits and rolling up our sleeves and getting real about small business growth today.

Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity to learn from the masters. Join The Experts Series today.

This afternoon I had a pleasant chat with none other than Jack Trout, the man, the legend. And I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming, because he agreed to do the interview for the series, and he’ll be featured in March.

I have to say that it is just weird to see e-mails in my inbox from these guys. I mean, I see their names on my bookshelf all day long — these are the guys whose books sit next to me for easy reference. So it’s fairly surreal to see my Inbox with an e-mail from Jay Conrad Levinson (telling me he’s a notoriously late sleeper, so please don’t call him too early) sitting next to an e-mail from my dad, asking if we’re coming by for Sunday dinner.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you a bit more about how this series is going to work. You can sign up to join in for a month, or you can sign up for all 11  months. I recommend that you participate in all of the months, because you’ll only get access to the calls you pay for. So, if you join in June, you won’t get access to any of the calls before June.

As a member of The Experts Series, you’ll also get access to a second call during that month, which will be a Q&A teleseminar call with me. We’ll operate the call a first-come, first-serve basis, and I’ll answer your business questions one by one and get to as many as I can during the call. It’s a great way to get access to my advice in a very affordable way.

So, make sure you sign up now for the Business in Blue Jeans: The Experts Series! There’s nothing else out there like this!