Jordan Harbinger is one of the most influential people in entrepreneurship today, thanks to his popular podcast The Art of Charm. His show recently hit its 10th anniversary, and Harbinger has interviewed some of the greatest minds and personalities in the startup space and more.

Starting off as a law school graduate who landed a job as a financial attorney on Wall Street, it didn't take long for Harbinger to become quickly disillusioned with the life that being a big shot attorney offered. Within a year, he left his job to work full-time the Art of Charm podcast, but not before taking with him some key lessons from his stint on Wall Street.

During that time, Harbinger learned of "the third path" to success that no one seemed to talk about. The one that wasn't about working long hours, or even being the smartest person in the room, but instead was all about networking. He found that the key to success was all about sharpening your social skills in order to develop the key relationships you need in order to succeed.

That lesson turned Harbinger's life around and opened up a whole world of possibilities that he never thought possible.

In this week's episode:

• How to develop and master the social skills you need to succeed
• The competitive advantage behind networking and building relationships
• Why podcasting changed the game and how you can harness its power
• How to become a highly influential person
• The secret to creating a successful podcast
• & much more!

The inspiring story behind Simple Green Smoothies started on a playground, with two mothers watching their kids play together.

At the time, Jen Hansard and Jadah Sellner were both first-time mothers, and they shared a desire to get back into the workforce. But they decided they were going to do it on their own terms and by following their passions.

In 2007, they officially made the jump from being playdate partners to professional collaborators when they began working together on a parenting blog. Not long after they were working on more projects together, with Simple Green Smoothies being one of them.

What initially started off as a side-hustle turned into a full-fledged business, getting some serious traction after they discovered Instagram in 2012. Through a mixture of follower challenges, influencer marketing, and a whole ton of heart, they started building a multimillion-dollar business.

Their key tactic? Focusing on community, first and foremost.

“We listen to our community, we poll them all the time asking, 'What do you want from us?' 'What do you need?' 'What’s your biggest struggle right now?'," Hansard says.

“Find ways to really nurture that tribe and get to know them, just like you would in a real romantic relationship, so that you can serve them to the best of your ability," Sellner says.

From being stay-at-home mothers working multiple jobs in order to keep their families afloat, to being the co-founders of a multimillion-dollar business with thousands of customers, the story of Simple Green Smoothies is a must-listen for any entrepreneur.

In this week's episode you will learn:

• Why it's all about building a community first
• How to reach out to influencers to help promote your product
• What social media platform you should use and how to figure out what works for you
• How to generate new leads by providing a free experience
• Why you need to focus on one core message when you're just starting out
• & so much more!

This podcast episode was brought to you by SiteGround.

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Back in 2010, Girish Mathrubootham was a pretty successful tech guy, having risen up the ranks of a company to VP of Product Management. But that didn't mean he was immune to bad customer service.

After spending months and months going back and forth with a company on an insurance claim, in the end, all that was achieved was Mathrubootham feeling helpless and frustrated. He took to a popular online forum to air his frustrations, and that was when he got his first taste of what it means to harness social power. His post went viral, with others airing their own frustrations at the same company, to the point where the president of the company stepped in to personally apologize to Mathrubootham.

He began to understand just how antiquated the systems for customer service were, and just how important social media had become in giving a voice to customers who previously had nowhere else to go. He realized that modern companies needed a help desk that not only tracked complaints through traditional channels like email and phone, but also those that came through on social media channels.

The result was Freshdesk, a company that now employs more than 950 people around the world, and has raised more than $150 million in capital from top VC firms. One more super-impressive thing about the story of Freshdesk—it started out as a tiny company based in India, and Mathrubootham had to overcome the challenge of gaining a foothold in the US.

That seven-year journey had its own share of setbacks, but Mathrubootham has managed to rise above each one that the cutthroat tech world has thrown his way, through a mixture of knowing exactly the right kind of person to hire and his own tenacity and savvy for PR.

In this week's episode you will learn:

• What it means to truly harness social power
• What to look out for when you're studying your competitors
• How to turn an attack into the best PR move you'll ever make
• The key to raising millions of dollars from the top VR firms in Silicon Valley
• Why you need to hire based on potential and not on academic credentials
• & much more!

For as long as he can remember, Tenko Nikolov has been obsessed with computers. From his very first computer at the age of 7, he fell in love with the simple green and black screen and was fascinated with all that this technology could offer.

Of course, he also got into some trouble, even accidentally hacking into a large US corporation's network with a friend at the age of 13. After a few days of fun messing with their systems and bragging to their friends, the duo eventually sent an email to the company letting them know what they did and how they did it.

The next few days were agonizing as they waited for a response, petrified that an FBI agent would be showing up to his doorstep in Bulgaria. To his surprise, however, the company reached out, thanked them for finding a security loophole and even asked them how much they'd like to be paid for finding it in the first place.

“I realized that I can actually be paid for the thing that I love to do most," Nikolov says.

Instead of asking for payment, Nikolov asked for his own server that he could play around with. After getting his first taste of entrepreneurship, he began seeing how far he could push the limits of computer technology. Looking back at it now, Nikolov pinpoints this as the exact moment that led him to develop SiteGround, a web-hosting server and provider.

But what makes SiteGround stand out from the thousands of competitors out there, is Nikolov's dedication to innovating.

In this week's episode you will learn:

• How to build a product that not only learns from its customers, but also continuously improves
• When to give up on perfection and focus instead on shipping
• How to survive as a bootstrapped company for 13 years straight
• How to read the trends and stay one step ahead of your competitors
• What it takes to go from a company that nobody's ever heard of to a major player in your industry
• & much more!

This podcast episode was brought to you by FreshBooks.

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A lot of people can recognize an opportunity, but what separates an entrepreneur from the rest of us is the ambition and courage to seize on that opportunity.

The opportunity Leila Janah recognized was enormous. Lucky for her, and the rest of us, she had the ambition to match it. Her goal? Fighting world poverty.

Ever since founding Samasource in 2008, Janah has impacted the lives of more than 30,000 people, raising thousands up from the poorest parts in India, Haiti, Uganda, and more. Janah has been internationally recognized for her work, with accolades coming from the world's most prestigious universities and publications like the New York Times, Fortune, and Entrepreneur.

The opportunity Janah saw was a simple one. There was a trend in the globalizing economy of companies looking to outsource their work, and she wanted to tap into that trend by giving people living in extreme poverty the training and skills needed to fill these jobs. With the idea that by providing people with the right skills could help them rise out of poverty, Janah managed to pioneer a unique and inspiring social enterprise.

In taking on such a massive problem, Janah has faced virtually every hurdle that can be faced in her eight-year journey as a social entrepreneur, and it looks like nothing is going to keep that bold ambition in check.

In this week's episode you'll learn:

• The business of tackling the world's largest problems
• How to find and instill passion into the people who work around you
• The strategy of divide and conquer when it comes to nonprofits
• How to keep it simple with project management and personal goals
• What you can accomplish as a social entrepreneur if you put your mind to it
• & much more!

At his very core, Matthew Kimberley is a salesman.

Whether it's something he was born with, or a trait he picked up while growing up, Kimberley understands the art of the sale. Starting at the young age of 13, Kimberley took to the street as a young street performer. Juggling his way into his first few dollars, and finding within himself that perfect combination of charm, drive, and ambition that make up the best salespeople.

Fast forward to his 20s, Kimberley had built himself an highly lucrative company earning a cool 7-figures a year, and yet, he was unhappy. He just didn't believe in what he was doing, and couldn't find the passion to keep on going. Taking a step back as a founder, he went back to what he knew best: selling.

“I realized what I liked to do is sell and teach people how to sell. So what I did was become a self-employed sales trainer, and I haven’t looked back since.”

To Kimberley, there is no other skill that is as important as knowing how to sell.

“Here’s why sales are important. When you can sell, you don’t need any other skills. When you can sell, you don’t need to be a creator. When you can sell, you don’t need to be a manager. When you can sell, you don’t need to be a writer, you don’t need to be a speaker, you don’t need to be a talker, you don’t have to have a business idea. You don’t have to be a particularly good executor. You don’t have to be good at doing anything, other than asking, persuading, convincing,” Kimberley says.

Today, Kimberley has honed his skills to the point of being one of the go-to gurus when it comes to the art of selling. He's taught hundreds of people and businesses how to not only grow, but double and even triple their profit margins by teaching them his practical system on how to sell hard, and sell fast.

In this week's episode you will learn:

• Kimberley's 16 principles of professional persuasion
• The best place to learn and hone your skills as a salesperson
• Why learning how to sell is the most important skill for an entrepreneur
• How to follow your passion while maximizing your profits
• The importance of having a mentor and where to find one
• & much more!