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TAS 551: Behind The Scenes of TAS INNER CIRCLE (Lessons Learned)

What is going on with the TAS crew behind the scenes? What do Scott and his team have cooked up for the future of TAS? How can you get involved or benefit from the amazing projects that are coming down the line? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, you’ll hear from Scott and company as they go over their inner circle plans. Over the course of their conversation, they touch on why they created a TAS mastermind, the value of accountability, what it takes to put great ideas into action, and so much more! Don’t miss a minute of this engaging episode!

The value of accountability.

Let’s face it, accountability is not a sexy topic. The truth is, accountability has everything to do with long-term success! A lack of accountability breeds an atmosphere of poor decision making. Does that sound like a healthy business environment? No! Too often, business leaders don’t have a good place to turn even if they wanted to be held accountable. One of the many reasons why Scott and his team have developed the TAS mastermind group is to help leaders connect with peers who can hold their feet to the fire! Learn more about the mastermind and why it’s so helpful by listening to this episode of The Amazing Seller!

Simplify your process!

If you’ve been around the TAS community for very long, you know that Scott is passionate about streamlining processes and looking for ways to build momentum. What is the status of your process right now? Are things running smoothly or do you need to make some adjustments? While it may sound basic, simplifying your process can be one of the hardest things to do! Don’t confuse complexity with success. To find out how you can embrace a more simplified approach to your business, listen to this useful episode!

Helping others grow and find success.

When was the last time you had outside eyes on your business? Where do you go to get an objective and helpful perspective when you are stuck? For most business leaders, the answers to these questions are often never and nowhere. Scott and his team are doing their best to equip leaders like you to get outside of your own thought patterns and embrace new points of view. Even if you can’t be part of the select TAS mastermind, you can benefit from its innovation! Scott and his team will be rolling out tips and insights you can use that directly come from this breeding ground of ideas! Learn more about mastermind and Scott’s motivations for starting it by listening to this episode of The Amazing Seller!

Turn ideas into action!

You’ve been there, you attended a conference or you just finished listening to a great audiobook or podcast and you are filled with good ideas that end up going nowhere! Aren’t you sick of that?! On this episode of The Amazing Seller, you’ll hear from Scott and his team as they explain how they are working to get rid of this frustrating experience. From TAS events to content and podcast episodes, you’ll see more ways that you can take action with the concepts and ideas that Scott and his team put out. Hear more about their passion for solving this issue by listening to this exciting episode!

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

[0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast!

[1:15] Why Scott and his team created a TAS mastermind.

[2:30] Is your brand on PACE for growth and long term success?

[6:00] The value of accountability and learning from the success of others.

[8:30] Why do successful business leaders need to be part of a mastermind?

[12:00] Angel shares her perspective on the value of participating in a mastermind.

[17:00] Pushing others toward growth.

[22:00] How the TAS mastermind will benefit the TAS community.

[26:00] Don’t overcomplicate your processes!

[32:00] Why it’s helpful to focus on one strategy at a time.

[38:30] Putting great ideas into action.

TRANSCRIPT TAS 551

TAS 551: Behind The Scenes of TAS INNER CIRCLE (Lessons Learned)

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:02] Scott: Well, hey, hey, what’s up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast. This is episode number 551 and today I’m excited because I am sitting here with…

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…a good group of people if I don’t say so myself and we are going to be talking all about the power of masterminds but also why we decided to create our own inner circle, our TAS Inner Circle that is, and I wanted to bring on the core right here of this group, my team, and also why we decided to do it but also I wanted to kind of let you guys see the inside workings of why we decided to do this but also give you guys some valuable lessons from what we’ve learned since running our own high-level mastermind right now. So, welcome to the show, Joel Bower. We’ve got in Angel, we’ve got Chris.

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:50] Scott: How’s it going, guys?

[00:00:52] Chris: Doing great.

[00:00:52] Angel: Awesome.

[00:00:54] Joel: Fantastic.

[00:00:55] Scott: That didn’t sound that exciting. Angel…

[00:00:57] Angel: That was really… Yeah.

[00:01:01] Scott: All right. That was better.

[00:01:03] Chris: She tried to think about it.

[00:01:04] Scott: Yeah. Okay. All right. So, yeah, everybody’s excited as you can tell. All right. So, cool. What I want to do though is I wanted to dig into why we decided to do this. We’ve been talking internally a lot about this new thing we’re calling PACE which is basically how can we take what we’ve learned combined, a mastermind. For all of you that don’t know what a mastermind is, it’s like taking all of the brain power like everyone in the room and kind of collectively putting that together so you can have a smarter group, more of I guess insight as far as what everybody is pulling from, from their experiences or their own businesses or just things that they’ve learned through the years and I think it is really powerful and I belonged to a couple right now. I know, Joel, you do, Chris. We all are part of these higher-level masterminds but we, I think me personally, I found things that I wanted in one that wasn’t there.

[00:01:58] Chris: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:02:00] Scott: And I think that’s a big one for me and I get a lot of requests that people want to work one-on-one with me or Chris and they’re like, “Do you do one-on-one coaching?” and the answer has been no but the inner circle for us we wanted to limit to 10 people. We wanted it to be people at a certain level in their business, making at least $25,000 in revenue a month, and people that were in the PACE already or they are already were putting these four pillars in place. So, before we do jump into like why we decided to do this, and I want people to get some actionable stuff too from this, but I wanted to just kind of talk about PACE really quickly and remind people that Chris and I did a four-part series, actually it’s five. It’s four parts but the overview we’ll count that as one so it’s technically a five-part. But what we basically did is we broke that down into the four different pillars that really make up PACE and it’s really about building a business that will last and there’s four different components, four different pillars.

If you missed that, definitely head over to TheAmazingSeller.com/PACE and everything will be linked up there. I also did some whiteboard training there that actually take you through the PACE process as far as what it looks like, how to really look and analyze at your own business and see where PACE applies to your business, where you can sure up your foundation or where you can add more attention to your business or how you can get more connected to your market and all of that stuff. So, definitely check that out. And the other thing is if you’re interested in joining or being considered to be part of our TAS Inner Circle, all you have to do is head over to TASInnerCircle.com. You can apply and then we will be reviewing applications and then we’ll reach out to you and let you know yes or no and then we’ll kind of take you through that process. But anyway, I just said there. Where do you want to start, Joel?

[00:03:49] Joel: I want to say a little bit about PACE just because not everybody understands the frame like how do we get there? What were we thinking about? And from all of our experience, thousands of companies both from a consulting side and the information, I mean, actually that’s like tens of thousands of businesses at this point. We’re looking at which ones were stable over time, which ones were not worried about dying tomorrow, which ones were actually growing a brand that they could be proud of and excited about, and really a business that could be here ten years from now. And we started asking ourselves, well, what are the core elements of that? And that’s where PACE came to be. As I said, okay, well these areas have to be focused on. No matter where you’re at in your business, you got to keep launching products, you got to keep bringing new stuff to the table. You still got to have an audience and build that relationship and expand in. So, yeah, I just want to say that because not everybody knows that we sat down and said, “Hey, what happens when a business and a brand last over time?”

[00:04:40] Scott: Yeah. I think also like what do we get excited about? And I think we all get excited about building something that matters and something that can help an individual whether that’s spend more time with their family or just do something that they absolutely enjoy or something that they can build and feel proud of. So, for us like our little slogan is like helping you build a business that will last because that’s what it’s really about. It’s not about just finding one product and being able to throw it up and get some quick sales like that’s not what we’re looking to do, and PACE is a big part of that. And we did spend a lot of time, all of us collectively, going through this whole thing and flushing it out and coming up with PACE and I think it’s funny like we’re thinking about different ways that we can describe it and it’s kind of like, “Is your business on PACE?” I like it but we’re still playing with it.

[00:05:36] Joel: Yeah. If you love it, just write down, send these comments. You can join us on Facebook and let Scott know how great it is.

[00:05:42] Scott: Exactly. All right. I’m going to hand it over to Chris really quickly. Where should we start with this and as far as like even the inner circle, the TAS Inner Circle and stuff, like where you want to go?

[00:05:55] Chris: I know we’ve talked in the past about some of the importance of the reason that you want to have that accountability. You want to have a group of people that you can rely on and I think that’s extremely important especially in this space whether it’s the inner circle, whether you want to go try to do something even just with friends. Scott, you and I met, I mean, and we really got to know each other through another mastermind that we were involved in and I think that’s really important that we were able to create and foster that connection. But really the purpose of any of these types of things is for you to be able to be in an environment that’s safe and to be able to grow your business.

You and I did an episode recently. I think it’s 549 like two episodes ago or three episodes ago where we talked about the importance of working on the business and masterminds are really the place where you can focus on working on the business. That is the entire scope of it. You’re purely at that strategic level in a mastermind. Now, if you need to figure out the tactical side of stuff, you can get help on that. But really what you’re talking about there is here’s the thing that’s made my business successful. Here’s the thing that’s made Scott’s business successful. Here’s what made Joel’s business, Angel’s business, whoever’s business successful over the last year or five years, whatever, and when you get different people in the room, you get a lot of different perspectives and you learn a ton very, very quickly.

[00:07:11] Scott: I want to get Joel and Angel in on this because they did go through even in the applications that we’ve went through to fill our first inner circle and right now we’re at seven and the most that we’ll take in one group is 10. Currently right now depending on when you’re listening to this, it could be filled by the time you listen, still apply because we are looking to do a second group. But what I want to do because you guys really went through a lot of the applications deeply and then they got kind of turned over to us that said, “Okay. These guys are like super qualified. They meet the criteria.” The other thing is and it’s kind of tough in this business is that we wanted to make sure that people could share their products and their industry so this way here there’s no competition inside of the inner circle.

What have you found so far, Joel, then we’ll go to Angel, like what have you found so far by, number one, getting on calls with these people that are successful? These people that are in our group are successful so why would they want any more help? We’re here in San Diego doing this recording and we were here at one of our own masterminds and there’s people that are multi-seven figures and…

[00:08:20] Chris: Nine figures. Yeah.

[00:08:22] Scott: Yeah. And so, I mean, like they’re there and you’re like thinking to yourself like you would think that they wouldn’t have any of these struggles but they’re very successful but they’re there because they want to learn, they want to grow, they want to make one little adjustment that could take their business to the next level. So, I’m curious from your perspective like what you’ve taken so far even with our call that we’ve already had with the inner circle and just that little bit of communication. You’ve been on a couple of calls with people, yeah, like I just want your take on that and I think people they’ll get value from just those conversations that you’ve had.

[00:09:00] Joel: Yeah. First off, an amazing group. I was excited to jump on those calls. I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, we kind of put out the applications and we saw them. It’s one thing to see in digital and going, “This is what I’m working on. This is where I’m at in my numbers,” but to hear the real people that are just crushing in some ways. One of the things that stood out right away is their level of success of how much success they have, many of them didn’t know like they didn’t feel it I should say. They were like they’re crushing out these numbers and they’re like, “Oh, you know, I’m only hitting a million,” and you’re like, “What? Go get excited. Use that.” But everybody’s goals change. As you grow, if you’re someone who does like to grow to begin with, when you grow you don’t just go, “Okay. Well, that’s good. I got my million so I’m good. I’m done. I don’t want anything else.” There’s always that next level. There’s always that thing like, man, there’s more to it than this.

And so, that thing it stood out to me and like that’s why people are in Masterminds. They didn’t need to hear. They’ve heard every tactic. I mean they’ve already heard all things. You say, “Hey, what do you think you need work on?” They say, “Well, these 100 things,” and so what they need though is clarity. They need some focus and that helps the people to kind of figure out where they’re going to go. So, really in these masterminds you can hear someone else that tried one of the 100 ideas you said and then you can hear results, so you can decide what to do. So, that was absolutely crucial for everybody and then last one that I saw consistently no matter what level they were at, accountability is needed, not just from anybody. It’s not like, okay, someone who’s not doing anything in their life is going to call me and tell me to do this thing. It was someone they believed in, trusted, and could push them to that next level and they would go. Because you know you’ve got to grow and someone comes up to you that doesn’t do anything in life, goes, “Oh, you just got to do blah, blah, blah.” You don’t believe them. You don’t trust them.

[00:10:58] Joel: And so, mastermind’s give a place for someone that is, A, understands where you’re at so there’s that, “Hey, you get it,” so I can’t just pretend, “Oh, you’re in another industry. You’re not really doing this,” and you can hear them, and they can go, “Hey, where are you at? You said you’re going to have those numbers in this place, you’re going to hit back. Well, what happened?” And that is so huge when you get to a certain size of business because another tactic isn’t going to crush it out for you. Running new social media isn’t going to crush it for you by itself. It’s the are you going to push the things that matter most in your business and are you going to stay consistent with it?

[00:11:33] Scott: Yeah. Go ahead, Angel. I want your perspective too. A lot of people they ask you like are there any women included in your industry? And number one, yes, there’s a lot of women in this industry and there’s a lot of successful women and we have one girl currently right now in the inner circle doing phenomenal and we have a woman on our team here, Angel. So, I wanted you really from your perspective you going through the applications and even the conversations like what’s your take? I mean like what’s your take away and kind of like what’s the feeling of what we’re doing?

[00:12:14] Angel: I’m really excited about the mastermind so I’ve been watching the TAS Community for quite some time if on the background and mostly because I’m on the backend systems and the community there’s a bunch of starters and you can tell that there are people who are progressing and doing a fantastic job but they just needed a little bit more and that was what the mastermind is designed to do and I’m super excited to help those more advanced people get help and accountability and really the clarity. Because there’s a lot of material in all of our programs that help you get started but together as a team, we have a tremendous amount of knowledge that can help those businesses move forward. And so, the other thing I’m pretty excited about is as talk going through the first group of people, the first seven, there’s not a single person on that team that doesn’t want more. They want to grow. They want the accountability. They’re super excited. They’re active inside of our private group and they’re helping each other moving back and forth and I’m super excited to see what…

[00:13:25] Scott: Yeah. No, I love it and you brought up a good point like collectively. Just in this room right now like I’m not even going to give myself any of the credit right now but you could add me in there but like just the three of you have a tremendous amount of knowledge, resources, skill sets. I mean, there are things that Angel can do that I would never want to do, to be honest with you. Like you and Chris were talking yesterday about like funnel stuff and I know funnels. I could probably build one and teach myself. Don’t want to but I could. That’s why we got Angel in the house here. And Angel loves it but in the same breath, you understand it, and you and Chris were going back and forth a little bit on a certain like tweaking the funnel like just a split test type thing and it’s really interesting because I was sitting there thinking to myself like, “These guys are brilliant, they’re smart,” and I’m so proud to be a part of what we have because we definitely have our own strengths.

And I think when you then bring in people that have businesses that you can then apply it to some of these things, it sometimes just that one tweak at a time and that’s why PACE is so important because we’re not saying you got to do it all. What we’re going to do is we’re going to overlay that on the business. We’re going to put it through a filter in a sense and we’re going to see where we can apply or where we should be focusing in on each one of these pillars and then we can really dive in and that’s where that expertise comes in. I mean, Joel has got a tremendous amount of background, just even psychology alone. I mean, come on. I mean we’ve got people on the inner circle that are excited just to be like how do I get mentally clear and then like it’s just even myself like it’s really cool because I mean you’ve got years of just self-development, Tony Robbins, like I mean, you’ve went through his stuff since 20 years ago so we were able to tap into that which is pretty impressive and pretty awesome. And then Chris is just Chris is Chris.

[00:15:24] Scott: Chris has a lot of knowledge there. He’s pretty and I mean he’s a smart guy and he’s got a lot of knowledge on the backend systems but also, he’s good on camera. He can talk to people and really translate that and make it sound not as difficult and I think that’s really important to be able to do that. So, I just think surrounding yourself with good people. I think we have great people here in this room, but we’ve got really cool people in our first inner circle and I am super excited about it and I’ll admit it like I was a little nervous to do this. You guys know that. I’m like it’s a big – it’s a responsibility that we’re taking on. We’re not just saying like, “Okay. If you qualify, if you could pay this money, you’re in.” It’s more of, “Can we really help you? And can we be a partner in your business to help you grow and scale your business, so you can go and get what you want.”

The other thing was, my criteria was I want people in this group that are cool. I want people in here that I literally would sit down on the weekend and we would have a barbecue and we’d play a little cornhole. I’m in the cornhole right now guys like we’re having like all kinds of tournaments at the house so, yeah, it’s pretty exciting. We might even have to do a TAS cornhole tournament sometime on one of these inner circles. I’m thinking about doing that.

[00:16:48] Chris: If any of you guys sell cornhole, let us know. We’ll buy from Amazon.

[00:16:51] Scott: Yes. Go ahead, Chris.

[00:16:54] Chris: I think you touched on something there, Scott, that’s really important. I mean, you talked about the people that are on your team that you surround yourself with. You didn’t include yourself in that which I think is a miss and it’s one of the things that even if you had no other skills which is to say that would be a complete lie. You have the ability to push people and to make people want to be better and to do more and that is huge both in our brand in the TAS Community, in anybody’s business that you’re bolted on to. You are liquid energy in the business because you are on fire all of the time like to the point where you text me at 5 o’clock in the morning.

[00:17:33] Scott: Yeah.

[00:17:34] Chris: And if I don’t respond by 7 you’re like, “Are you dead? What’s going on?”

[00:17:36] Scott: Yeah. “Where are you?”

[00:17:38] Joel: “You’re normally up with me. What’s going on?”

[00:17:40] Scott: “I’ve got an idea here.”

[00:17:41] Chris: But the thing that’s interesting is like this e-commerce world, this entrepreneurship thing is, quite honestly, a really lonely game for most people and we talked about like you can be successful in planning the P in PACE that preparation foundation thing. You can create a business that puts you on the top 1% of the US which puts you on the 1% of the world, $250,000 a year. You’re in the top 1% of earners in the world. Just crazy to think about. You can do that on your own. But if you want to have any help in that, if you want to help grow that, if you want to do anything like that, you have to start to bring in a team of people who think differently than you, who have different experiences than you. And part of the impetus, part of the push behind creating this was we knew people needed other perspectives and the whole goal of this is not to be like someone who lords over your business and goes, “You’re doing this wrong.” It’s to give you a team of people that you have access to and realistically that’s why we’re doing it.

We’re doing it so that we can help people grow to that next level and when you jump into something like this, you have immediate access to all of those resources. You have immediate access to Joel’s brain which is a terrifying thought. But a very useful resource, but terrifying thought, and it’s something everyone should experience once for themselves, just once. And you have access to Angel. I said this in our mastermind call the other day like you guys are wondering, Okay. They drove Angel into this thing, they dragged her into the room, and they’re trying to get her perspective on stuff. But I said in the call the other day, “Angel is a quiet giant. Angel doesn’t say a lot, but she absorbs everything. Everything. Everything.” Right? Like, things you don’t know that you said she will call you on six months from now. She’s like, “Okay. Remember when you’re going to write that thing?” I’m like, “No, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” She’s like, “It was April 8.” I’m like, “Oh, okay, well now I feel like a jerk.”

[00:19:42] Chris: But when she brings something to bear, when she sees something that’s going on in your business or she sees that you have something that’s holding you back, you need to listen to her because she’s paying attention to everything that’s going on, not just the things that you say but the way that you say them and the other things that are going on in your business. She has a very analytical mind but she’s also like a really kinesthetic person and she has like a really weird combination. It’s just a unique perspective on things and she combines the analytics with the emotions and the view of everything that she has and brings that to bear. So, when she opens her mouth it’s usually worth listening to.

[00:20:18] Scott: Yeah. I would definitely listen for sure and the same thing with all of you. I mean, again…

[00:20:24] Chris: I just talk.

[00:20:24] Scott: Yeah. And so, I mean, like thinking about even like the seven that we’re working with right now there’s a lot of resources from those seven that we’ll actually learn from as well because as we apply things to their business, we’re also learning through that process. And I think that’s important to really understand that these different things that you’re doing to your business, you’re learning through those things and you’re building an asset in your business which is you. And no one can really replace that asset of you and your knowledge and your skill set and that’s one thing that we talk about even in the expansion. It’s like even in the foundation, it’s like by you creating more knowledge for yourself and that could be just having more knowledge about how to run Facebook ads. That’s a skill set. That’s an asset that you’re building.

So, yeah, so we decided to do this because we get excited about working on other people’s businesses and cool people like cool people that are doing good things that have same visions in a sense as far as they want to spend more time with their family or they just want to get out of their 9-to-5 because they’re sick of it, they’re tired of it, or they just did it because they had to. That’s really what drives us. Now, does that mean anyone listening right now if they’re not at this certain level and they wouldn’t qualify, does that mean that we’re like leaving them behind? Absolutely not. You’ve got over 500 episodes of the podcast and more to come because I am still going to be teaching you and sharing with you and hopefully getting you unstuck because I see a lot of people they’ll consume the information and are stuck.

[00:22:06] Joel: Well, I want to say something because, I mean, you’re bringing a great point. The mastermind isn’t just for the people in that room. The knowledge is going to come out of that, the lessons, the learnings. It’s going to change all of our businesses and the beautiful thing about mastermind, even the people running it are going to gain something from it and guess where that’s going? We have a TAS community to take care of. You guys are going to be hearing it. I’ll give you a tidbit right now. I’ll tell you what every single person, and when I did the first calls, what every single person said was the skill they needed in their mastermind.

[00:22:34] Scott: Uh, oh. Here we go. Wait a minute here. This is a golden nugget. We’re going to reveal it right now so golden nugget number one.

[00:22:40] Joel: If you guys are at this stage and you’re questioning if this is the next step for you, you already have a successful product, it’s already moving, you have it on Amazon, you have a single channel, everybody that’s in this mastermind said that they needed to work on building a list and communicating to that list on a regular basis to drive sales, period. If you guys are wondering if that’s a skill you need, yes, it is. Right. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen is like when we learn anything or when we reaffirm or we get to see it from multiple angles, we have the ability to come in and talk to you about your industry because we’re not just – everything that we’re teaching, everything about list building, we’re going to see it in different industry all seven different and three or four of our own and that’s going to continue to build and is going to continue to be fed back to the TAS audience. So, you guys there is so much that’s going to come out of this. Now, granted, one of the things going to happen is where is it going to happen first? Probably in the mastermind because those guys are pushing the level. They’re the ones that are breaking through, “Hey, this is my stop point before. This is my boundary of the most I’ve ever done. How do I do more?”

[00:23:41] Scott: Well, the thing is though too, I want to bring this up, and this is where I’m going to throw it over to Angel here in a minute but there are some things we just learned that we’re going to be applying in TAS and in our new brand and there is but it’s a little bit advanced. It’s a little bit advanced and it’s semi-building a list but then also doing it through Facebook in a very creative way and I’m not going to talk about it here right now because this isn’t about like how to teach you how to drive traffic using Facebook and this new thing that we learned that we’re going to be testing and trying but it’s more advanced. So, why am I going to throw an advanced thing out there that’s going to confuse the beginners then they’re going to think they have to do this in order to be successful? So, I have to be careful at what I do share because I don’t want to isolate and I don’t want – but that doesn’t mean I won’t share but it’s tough, right?

Now, our inner circle, they’re going to get it like I’m going to be sharing that and I just talked to Chris this morning about it and we’re obviously going to be testing this first and then from there we’re going to then share it with the inner circle and hopefully install it in their business and that’s where really Angel is what I want to get from her was like when you’re seeing like businesses as far as like the tech goes and maybe this isn’t really a question but I see you as like being there in the room and when we’re going through this stuff for you to be able to break down something complicated and make it where it’s understandable. So, like I mean you know what I’m talking about. So, like when you look at, well, it’s the thing that we talked about. Chris is trying to be – you guys can’t see Chris but Chris is always trying to do comedy stuff. I think in a hidden life he wanted to be a comic. He is making us laugh. You don’t see it and he’s trying to distract us.

[00:25:39] Joel: It’s really funny.

[00:25:39] Scott: It’s really funny.

[00:25:43] Chris: With my face.

[00:25:45] Scott: Yup. Yup. So, anyway, what I wanted from Angel just was for you being able to look at like what people are doing. Would you say that that’s advanced or would you say that maybe it’s just not a good understanding of what they’re doing? Like, if you were to look at someone’s Facebook Ad’s campaign, a little bit about Facebook ads, you were running ours for a while so for you to look at that, do you think that it’s just them being able to see it differently or they’re overcomplicating it? Like what’re your thoughts on that? Just tell how people sometimes overcomplicate things.

[00:26:21] Angel: Yeah. In most cases, the process can actually be very simple. What I find is there’s so many tactics here and there in this place and that place coming from all different directions that it’s easy to get the entire, the big picture a little bit skewed and thinking that you have to add all those things in, in order to get great results and that’s simply not true. A lot of times you can actually get two or three elements, really own those, and your system will skyrocket.

[00:26:52] Scott: Yeah. No, I love that. So, Chris, what did you want to say?

[00:26:54] Chris: I think that’s really important and I think this tactic because it’s really what it is that we’re talking about right now is one of those things where it doesn’t make sense for people who are starting out. It just doesn’t. It’s literally a waste of your money right now. For the people who are in the place where we are in the new brand, for people who are in the place that are in the inner circle, it actually makes a lot of sense. They have a list to potentially that we can start to target with. They have a little bit of money because it’s going to cost us more upfront to do this than it would to build a list which we can now communicate with forever. So, it’s a little more advanced in the sense that it doesn’t make sense for every business to do. Like, when we talk about the list building stuff and you guys may or may not know this but when we came up with the workshop that’s available at the TheAmazingSeller.com/BuildList, we tested a whole bunch of stuff and we said what works consistently, what can we teach, and what’s easy enough for everybody to understand.

And that’s where we came up with like the giveaway strategy and those kinds of things. But not everything that we tested was a failure. A lot of the other stuff worked well. It just doesn’t make sense for everyone to do so we’re not going to share exactly how to do that. Everybody can do this and they can get it. This specific Facebook strategy doesn’t make sense for everybody. You need to have a face to the brand and you need to have a little bit of cash flow coming in, so you can finance the front end of it. It doesn’t make sense for everybody. So, it’s more advanced in that sense. It’s not necessarily like this is a technically complicated thing. It’s not applicable to everybody and so we’re not necessarily going to share it here.

[00:28:35] Scott: Yeah.

[00:28:36] Chris: Because we don’t want you to do something that’s worthless for you.

[00:28:39] Scott: I don’t want to actually take you back in your business. You know what I mean? I think there are more important things that you could be working on than this thing but if you’re at the level where you can then, yeah. Hell yeah. Do it.

[00:28:52] Joel: I’ll talk a little bit about because I’ve seen it for so long and when you’re in your business and you start to like, “Oh, I have to make a decision here,” and you don’t know what’s going to happen on the other side of the decision, people have the propensity that stops and do nothing and I sure know enough and they start then trying to collect more and more information. More and more information isn’t always a solve. Sometimes that’s just more of a confusion. If you want it, I do something that really helps. One of the things is, something that Scott pushes, figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing so, either way, you can know after the decision you’re making is going to even have a chance of serving that and then secondly, saying what is that next step, what is the one thing, and then go obsess about that. Don’t go where, “Oh, some guy is saying this advanced strategy that made him a million dollars in 90 days.” If you’re not at that level, then it doesn’t help you. Figure out what the next step is for your business so if you have a stable list of products on Amazon, it’s been for a while, generally what people are saying is build a list. Go get that knowledge. That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate it.

You don’t have to go get obsessed about Facebook ads or start up all your social media channels tomorrow. Just pick the one thing that’s going to move you forward and that will open your business for these other things. That’ll open your business for, “Oh, now I have a cash flow. Now I can run Facebook ads. Oh man, now I’ve actually set up my business where I have a team. Now I can put more time in the social media and build a real brand here.” That is how those steps work. If you think you have to do it all at once all the time, “I have to be on LinkedIn. I have to be on Facebook. Oh, there’s this new thing. Oh, I have to be everywhere all the time.” You’re going to run out of time and your business isn’t going to go anywhere. So, get the knowledge you need, find out what it is and go get that.

[00:30:28] Scott: Yeah. That’s a great point because I think a lot of us get overwhelmed or just information overload. It’s like you think and we’re all guilty of it. It’s the shiny object syndrome. It’s like you go out there and you think that the next new thing is going to get you results and quicker. It’s always about how it’s going to get me quicker but that’s not always the case.

[00:30:50] Joel: Yeah. I want to connect that back because I didn’t point it out but that is a major thing that’s happening in the mastermind that everybody has like a million ideas and especially people who are at that level because they’ve been more exposed to it longer, they have way more ideas than they need to shape.

[00:31:05] Scott: And they have opportunity. I think opportunity is another thing. Maybe too much opportunity.

[00:31:10] Joel: Too much opportunity and so, one of the things we’re doing is saying, “Okay. Well, first what’s going to get you the most results? What’s that low hanging fruit? What’s the thing that you can do right now to get to the next step and then have enough clearance to make some decisions rather than being at the edge all the time because you’re doing too much?”

[00:31:24] Scott: Yeah. That’s a good point.

[00:31:25] Chris: Yeah. And it’s funny because that’s really one of the reasons that we built the mastermind, to begin with, right, is to give people that are at that level extra accountability. You got to have us function as like your partners, your board of directors, however you want to look at that where you say, “Here’s what I’m thinking about,” and you say, “Is that really the 80/20? Is that going to get you the most results for the least effort?” But the thing that kind of popped up in my head when we’re talking about all these things, Facebook Messenger bots, all of these different kinds of ads that we can run, video bundles and all these kinds of stuff, do you want to know the dirty secret behind all that?

[00:31:55] Scott: Please tell us.

[00:31:55] Chris: We’re saying these in air quotes. I’m not doing air quotes but I’m doing them in my head. All of these things work. It’s just a matter of how well they work for you but if we do all of them, none of them work. So, you have to focus specifically in each of our businesses on what the next thing is and you brought that up, Joel. I think that’s really key and we talked about it a lot on the podcast in the past which is just in time learning, right? Where can we point you and focus all of your energy and effort that is going to get you the biggest return on your investment? Focus on that right now both from a tactical level, from a strategic level, and from a business overall business direction level and that’s really what the accountability and having us as a part of your team inside a mastermind will help you to do.

[00:32:41] Scott: Yeah. Absolutely. I think to wrap up what I’d like to do is just let people know like how we designed this, why we designed it the way that we have. I belong to two masterminds right now that I pay a lot of money to be in and it’s been worth every penny. Well, I’m here right now at this one here and it was well over $25,000. It’s like $30,000. Now, I’ll just throw it right out there but let’s say 10 years ago, would I had been at the place in my business to do it? No. I wouldn’t have. I’m still building my business and that business might not have been the one I was going to build that I was going to need the help on it or that I was going to want to but now I was at the place where I wanted that and already my second meeting here it’s been phenomenal. This one here I was a little in question but this one here has been a little bit different. Now, there’s things I like about it and things I don’t like about it. But I belong to another one which I paid a good amount of money to and that one where I get a lot of what I do like.

This one here gives me a little bit more strategy. The other one gives me a little bit of strategy and it gives me community. So, what we’re trying to do is create a mix of both, a hybrid in a sense, something that I want, something that I would want to be a part of which I am because it’s our inner circle but that’s what it is. So, I want to be able to meet with people at least three times a year so we’re doing three in-person retreats, two days, and we’re going to be able to really break down the businesses but then also come up with what’s the next steps, what should you be working on? The other thing that I’m excited about is we’re also going to be meeting the months that we’re not meeting in-person. We’re going to get on and meet online. We’re going to meet in person face-to-face through Zoom. So, that’ll be an hour or two or whatever it’s going to take. We’re going to be on those calls with that group.

[00:34:37] Scott: Now, we’ve also decided to limit the group to only to 10, up to 10 people because we want to be able to give individual attention. We don’t want it to be, “Well, we’ll take anybody. 20 people, 30 people.” No. What we’re going to do is eventually we will be opening up a second group and maybe a third group, but right now first group, second group. That’s the way we’re doing so this way here we can also serve those people and then see if 10 is the right number and from there we will make adjustments if we have to. And the other thing is we did that I like which isn’t in the one that I’m in here in San Diego is a slack group. We created an individual slack group for just this group so this way here it’s like you’re text messaging. I just shot a video this morning in my hotel room connecting with everyone just to say, “Hey, just wanted to let you know a couple of things that I took away from this mastermind that I’m in and then also wanted to let people know that just to keep sharing stuff because there’s a lot of sharing going back and forth with how people are outsourcing, someone was talking about their launch strategy. So, what’s your favorite business books?”

It’s like just really good stuff inside of there outside of just like business, business stuff. So, it’s kind of cool. But anyway, the slack group is something that I wanted to do, and I think it’s going really well. So, those are the different components that we’re going to be doing and serving or the ways that we’re going to be serving these people, but I really look at it as we’re partners in someone else’s business.

[00:36:08] Joel: Yeah. And you brought in some interesting stuff in this entire call like so many of the things that it’s almost like we brought up, “Oh, this is happening in the group.” All of it was done by design. We actually sat in a room or not in a room. On our virtual.

[00:36:20] Scott: A virtual room.

[00:36:21] Joel: A virtual room and we said, “What do we want? What have we learned from these masterminds?” As you’re kind of mentioning these things, there’s a bunch of things. Hey, we want to make sure everyone in that room could connect to each other. So, there was a certain set of like is this a really good person? Is what they’re doing exciting to others? We make sure that they could talk openly and freely about their brand.

[00:36:41] Scott: That’s a big one.

[00:36:41] Joel: That was on design. We wanted to make sure that anybody that’s sitting in that room that the investment to be in that group would be payback for sure in that first quarter or at least clear that well more than what they invested in the first year. And that was for what we were looking at. Not that we can make them do their business, but we wanted that to be already ready in their business, so we decided, “Hey, we’re going to look at business of the particular size.” Because I mean, I can come in and someone who hasn’t launched their product at best in six months I can probably get them to launch their product successfully. I mean, so what’s the difference in that and how much can they afford to that leave them out of to be able to afford our mastermind. But someone else that’s doing $100,000 a month, well, and if we can increase that number by 30%, 40%, wow it’s easy for them to afford what it is and that’s what we’re really looking for. We don’t anyone to regret being in a mastermind.

The other thing we did is we wanted to make sure that the relationships were not just with us because not you’re coming to us the gurus. Everybody in that room has a skill or focus that they’ve created in their business that’s unique to them and we wanted the people to be able to connect and create a network for life. So, it’s all these things that we put into where when we looked around at the other masterminds, we decided and made it happen. And so, I just wanted to point that because that wasn’t an accident and it’s not going to be and we’re going to continue listening to everyone in the group and when they have something they need, we’re going to do what we can to bring it in there.

[00:38:08] Scott: Yeah. Those are some good points. All right. So, let’s wrap this up. Chris, you want to say any closing thoughts? Angel, if you have any thoughts, I can hand it over to you, Chris. You want to start?

[00:38:17] Chris: Yeah. You briefly touched on the fact that we’re doing those in-person retreats and it’s something that I think is really important for people. We’ve kind of talk about how we wanted to structure those, and you and I have been in a whole bunch of different masterminds. We’ve done a bunch of live events. Joel’s been in a bunch of masterminds. He’s done a ton of live events and one of the things that we’ve always noticed is that there’s kind of no accountability outside of that exact environment. And so, you come in like yesterday or Thursday, the last few days I guess. We’ve sat there, and you took, what, 10 pages of notes. I took five or six pages. I write very, very small.

[00:38:57] Scott: That’s true.

[00:38:58] Chris: It’s unreadable to everybody else and that’s my intention because everything I write down is gold. But the biggest problem with that and it was something that I was talking to all the people in the group yesterday is you walk away with so many ideas with so many things but then you have to either do them all immediately. You have to fly in your team and do all those things right now or you’re never going to do any of them. So, one of the things that we want to try to plug into those live events is that accountability and implementation time so that if you have a question about something at the tactical level where you’re saying, “Okay. Here’s the one big thing that I need to do the next couple of months,” if you have a question that I can help you, that Joel can help you, that Angel can help you, that Scott can help you, that anybody else in the group can help you before you leave, and you at least have started to make a progress on that thing before you go home. And that is extremely important for every business because what always happens anytime you go to any conference, you go to any event is you leave with a giant book of stuff that you never do.

[00:39:57] Scott: It’s true. Yeah.

[00:39:59] Chris: And if you can make even minuscule progress on that before you get on the plane to go home and get back to your life and your kids and your wife and your sports and your whatever before you get mauled by your dog when you walk in the front door and forget everything that you just learned, the next time you go to do anything you get that dopamine hit, that instant reward of, well, I started this. So, what happened? Okay. Now I need to finish implementation. Now I need to go back and tweak it or now in our next monthly call let’s talk about the results that I got and how can we change it or fix it or make it better?

[00:40:32] Scott: Absolutely. All right. Cool. So, Angel, you want to wrap up with anything? Any final thoughts that you had? I know this isn’t in your wheelhouse but we’re going to get you in the wheelhouse. Do you have any final thoughts as far…? I mean, I see Angel really as being like at a retreat looking over people’s shoulders and then them saying like, “I’m having trouble here,” and her being able to help them through that process.

[00:40:57] Joel: Or organizing clarifying plan. I mean, that’s what she does for us.

[00:41:01] Scott: Get on the mic on that one. What did you say, Joel?

[00:41:04] Joel: Yeah. One of the things she definitely does too is help us get to an actual plan so we’re like, “Oh, that’s great. Scott, Chris, and Joel, you have all these million ideas and then like an hour you can create like 50 new ones each,” and she’s the one that goes, “Okay, but is this real?”

[00:41:21] Chris: And it’s funny because I made a joke on the podcast in the past and Joel doesn’t think that it’s funny, but I like the analogy like I like to run headfirst through walls and you do the same in business, right?

[00:41:29] Scott: I do. Yeah.

[00:41:31] Chris: We run headfirst through walls and we go, “This is awesome!” and sometimes we run face first in the studs and sometimes we make it through the other side. And if there’s something good on the other side of that wall then Angel is the person who helps build the door behind us so that we can keep walking back and forth without hurting ourselves.

[00:41:48] Scott: Exactly. That’s 100% true. So, do you have any final thoughts? I know you’re the quiet giant in the room that Chris talked about.

[00:41:56] Chris: Quiet giant.

[00:41:57] Angel: Nice.

[00:41:59] Scott: Is there any final thoughts you want to say about the inner circle or anything?

[00:42:02] Angel: I do not.

[00:42:04] Scott: I told you. I mean, she’s just going to work on your stuff.

[00:42:09] Angel: Yeah. No, I think everyone hit on really good points. I was going to mention after Chris kind of wrap it up right at the end there that the accountability is missing in most programs, and most live events, most communities. Everyone’s over there talking but there’s nobody that comes in circles back around and says, “Hey, you said you were going to do this thing. Where are you at now? What did you learn?” And that’s what we’re designing into our inner circle which is really going to tremendously affect the progress that each person feels at the end of one year.

[00:42:47] Scott: Yeah. I mean, and I’m going to kind of highlight that because even us like we were here three months ago with a list of things that we were going to do. We’ve done them but we’ve also adjusted the course, but we’ve done more. So, we actually started something new because of the last one and we’ve already received results from it but it was implementing what we took away from the first one. Now we’re walking away with more to do but it’s building off of what we’ve already started in the first part but it’s the accountability thing. You wouldn’t want to show up at this mastermind and have your lead person or your other members and they say, “So, how’d you do? What did you do?” You go, “Nothing.” “How do you expect me to help you?” Now, most, I’m not going to say all, but most people that, number one, want this but they also invest in themselves, they’re doing it. So that’s a thing. You’re surrounding yourself with what I always call action takers.

These are hard-core action takers because they’ve already took action and built a business but now they just want to refine it or they want to get more freedom in their business and work on it versus in it like all of those things or maybe they want to expand like whatever it is, they want to grow but they’re action takers and they’re doing it and it’s not about talking about how do you set up your first Amazon account like it’s not that level. And again, we already have training for that and we have all of that, but this really is designed for people that are at that at least 25K per month minimum. Everyone that’s in our inner circle is past that but I’m just saying that’s our qualification the first one and then from there obviously your business has to be at a certain level but also, it’s got to be not competing with other people that are in the inner circle and then just a little bit of a background check as far as your why and what you’re doing, and stuff like that.

[CLOSING]

[00:44:43] Scott: So, if you’re interested, definitely head over to TASInnerCircle.com. You can apply there. Like I said, not everyone will be accepted. Not everyone will be ready for this, but you know what, when you do build your business and you’re at that point, we will most likely be here for you in the inner circle after spots open but definitely check it out TASInnerCircle.com. I’ll also link that up in the show notes, TheAmazingSeller.com/551 and, yeah, if you have any questions let us know but I’m really, really excited to be working with this first group and I’m also excited to really report back to the community and you guys can share what’s happening and just kind of allow you to grow as well. So, guys, that’s it. That’s going to wrap it up. Remember as always, I’m here for you, I believe in you, and I’m rooting for you, but you have to, you have to, come on, say it with me, say it loud, say it proud, the whole room is going to say it with me on the count of three. One, two, three. Take action!

[00:45:42] Chris: Take action!

[00:45:42] Angel: Take action!

[00:45:42] Joel: Take action!

[00:45:44] Scott: Have an awesome amazing day! And I’ll see you right back here on the next episode.

[END]

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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Morning Success Routines That Will Transform Your Life

As humans we are meant to be creators and makers.

It is in our DNA.

One of the biggest challenges though is just starting.

Beginning.

Because things get in the way as the day progresses.

These include distractions, overcoming negative emotions and other people’s demands on your time are just a few.

Some people start their morning in chaos.

Wake up late and plunge into the day.

Dash out the door.

No set routines or rituals.

That approach to life is a recipe for failure.

Successful people have morning success routines that set them up to thrive and flourish.

Why are these morning success routines important?

Willpower has been shown to be finite according to Kelly McConigal, PhD and author of “The Willpower Instinct“.

According to her research we only so much of it and and it runs out as we use it.

So starting your day and applying it to what is important can be the difference between success and failure.

But routines can also help you with the following:

Keep you moving forward despite how your feeling.

Nourish your mind and spirit.

Give your body the energy it needs to get through the day and thrive.

Builds resilience and allows you to flourish

Anchors you. You can start without thinking and not worrying about how your feeling.

Morning success routines will sustain you when tough times show up.

And we all know that they will.

So….

Here are some routines from successful people.

Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferris achieved global attention when he wrote his first book. The 4 Hour Work Week. It was one of my key inspirations to starting my blog and digital entrepreneurs journey.

His core philosophy to life is “Stoicism”. Routine for him is the discipline and ritual to overcome emotions that can ruin his day.

Here is his morning routine as outlined in Businessinsider.com

Makes his bed – It keeps you grounded. He met a Hindu priest and speaker named Dandapani who told him that a way to help bring grounding into his life was to start off his day by making his bed.

Meditates for 20 minutes – He uses a technique called Transcendental Meditation

Drinks some strong tea – His combo is pu-erh aged black tea, green tea, and turmeric and ginger shavings, he adds hot water and lets it steep for one to two minutes. Then, in his mug, he’ll add one to two tablespoons of coconut oil or Quest MCT Oil Powder for a dose of medium-chain triglycerides, which some studies have shown to be linked to promoting fat burning.

Journals for 5-10 minutes – He alternates between a 5 minute journal and a Morning pages exercise.

Has a small breakfast – He often has half a can of Amy’s black bean chili, a low fat chili that’s high in fiber and protein

Exercises for 20-90 minutes – Varies between a peloton bike and a 20 minute high intensity interval training workout.

For Tim he knows that the daily routine can change your emotions rather than letting emotions control your day.

Twalya Tharp

Twyla is a world famous choreographer. Her creations are dance.

How does she start her day?

In her book “The Creative Habit” she outlines her rituals of preparation for each work day.

This is what works for her.

She rises at 5.30 am

Dresses in her workout clothes.

Walks outside her Manhattan home and hails a taxi.

Tells the driver to go to the Pumping Iron Gym where she works out for 2 hours.

What’s the most important part of this routine for Twayla?

That ritual is the cab.

That is the trigger and the first step where she is committed to the gym habit.

She knows that the first steps are hard.

That ritual leads to the routine.

Then the rest of the day is set up for success.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs kept life simple and eliminated distractions where he could.

His morning routine as disclosed in Inc.com revealed that each day he would get up, make his bed, shower and then look at himself in the mirror and ask this question.

“If today was the was the last day of my life, would I be happy with what I’m about to do today?”

If he discovered that the answer was “no” too many days in a row he knew that something needed to change.

Brian Tracy

Brian is the author of many books and is known for being highly productive.

Here is his morning success routine.

Get’s up 2 hours before his first fixed appointment.

Exercises for the first 30 minutes. Swim, Yoga or stretching

Has a a coffee

Spends some time doing some inspirational reading.

The next hour is to to plan his day and have breakfast.

Brain is also the author of the best selling book, “Eat That Frog“, which get’s its title from that famous Mark Twain saying “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day“.

The practical essence of applying that quote to your morning routine is a habit of getting one important thing done before opening your emails.

And we all know that once you open your first email that your ability to get important things done starts sliding into oblivion.

What works for me?

Routines are your creation.

You need to find out what works for your metabolism and feeds your soul and mind.

But reflection on what works for others you gain a glimpse into the elements that you may adapt, copy or ignore.

This is not prescriptive but a journey in self discovery.

Rise at 6am but it used to be 4.30 am. But this changed due to life circumstances evolving. It will change again.

Drink a glass of water with 2 table spoons of Apple Cider Vinegar with “The Mother”.

Make a coffee and tea – Coffee to start and Lemon and Ginger Tea to follow while reading

Be grateful – I use the 5 Minute Journal app

Read an inspirational book.

Meditate for 10 minutes – Currently using the “Calm” app

Commit to spending an hour or two to creating something that feeds your soul. For me that is writing. That is where I am able to perform deep work.

Breakfast – Bircher Muesli with almond milk and berries and yoghurt

Get one priority and important task done before opening emails

Now you may have noticed that exercise is not in my morning routine. I have tried to weave it into how I start my day but it just didn’t work. But I do exercise 3-5 times a week but later in the day or after work.

The most important thing for me with exercise is to do something you love and is convenient and easy. You may be an early morning person so do it then. For me afternoon is best.

But my biggest challenge in the process?

Stopping myself opening emails before 10am.

Finding a morning success routine has been a game changer for me.

Its transformed my life.

And you may discover that it will take you from ordinary to extraordinary.

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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The Ultimate Guide To Content Aggregators (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly)

A common challenge that a digital news publisher will come across is working with content aggregators.

Today, I’m going to share two things with you: firstly, a rant about how content aggregators are impacting digital news publishing, and secondly, how to handle them.

Let’s pause for a second though to define exactly what a content aggregator is.

A content aggregator is an individual or organization that gathers web content (and/or sometimes applications) from different online sources for reuse or resale.

They come in two kinds:

Those who simply gather news from various sources for their websites.

Those who gather and distribute news for customers. This process is called content syndication.

Customers actually love content aggregators, even if digital news publishers don’t. The irony is that the whole content aggregator thing was started off by digital news publishers.

A short history of content aggregators

2015 was when the digital industry witnessed the rise of content aggregators. Because many publishers perceived syndication as a sin, they rejected aggregators and instead chose Google News, Yahoo News and AOL. Also, none of them wanted to dip into their budget, so instead created free news searches for Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Vine et al.

The audience sizes of these aggregator sites were small, but they were seen to be having the capacity to grow rapidly. Trying to accomplish the common goal of ‘being everywhere your readers are’, many publishers started relying on these aggregators completely, and unfortunately, instead of finding a better solution to reach their audience, they started giving their content to the aggregators for free.

In return, they got a huge number of views on content but not much ROI.

When it comes to revenue generation, which is a big challenge for digital publishers, the only option with content aggregators is to bet on the subscription models and nothing else. Which is definitely not a win-win situation for digital news publishers.

The impact of content aggregators on news consumption

It goes without saying that content discovery has changed significantly in the past decade, but the method of news consumption has also changed drastically. Now consumers expect a frictionless delivery and high-quality, shareable, searchable and readily-available news content in return for their interest.

A lot of consumers now prefer paying an aggregator site once a month to access a variety of news from multiple publishers. To them, it is more convenient and cost-effective to pay just once and consume maximum content throughout the month.

The only way this situation could benefit the publishers would be if the consumers were paying every time they consumed publisher’s content on an aggregator site, and they’re definitely not.

So does this mean that content aggregators should be a big ‘NO’ for your news publishing sites?

The friction between content aggregators and news publishers

Giving away your content for free and still being eaten up by the content aggregators is not a good state for any publisher to be in. This social media era is responsible for further adding to a publisher’s desire for ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ over an authentic subscriber base.

Regardless of this, a lot of publishers have become a bit lazy and are not focusing on finding new ways to reach their subscribers. They’ve kind of accepted the state of things as they are. Imagine if they partnered with others in the industry to create a socially engaging ‘network for news’ or similar to share the wealth.

Instead, a lot of them are giving away their high-value content for free on Facebook: the filter-happy, brand-unfriendly content curator and controller.

Is social media the ultimate news aggregator?

Whether it be editorial or breaking news, social media has become an easy way to source a variety of news content and quickly comment on and share it with friends and family.

Fast-loading, interactive platforms like Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News keep readers within their proprietary ecosystem, limiting the monetization possibility as well as the reader experience to pre-defined layouts. On the flip side, Google AMP represents an effort to move to much more responsive web experiences with less restrictions.

Facebook alone is already responsible for directing 27% of all traffic to most news sites (up to 70% for some), so what happens to all that traffic when a publisher’s full-content articles are hosted in the social titan’s territory? Why should readers ever visit the publisher’s’ sites again when they can get the content and conversations they want on Facebook?

These platforms are awaiting publishers with open arms. They have developed an exciting and hyper-efficient way to distribute their content – eliminating the need for publishers to have websites at all!

What about backlink tactics?

Another bit of bait these content aggregators provide to publishers is backlinks. They lure the publishers to give their content for no cost in return for a backlink.

In fact, some experts have even listed this as good SEO practice. If you’re into SEO, then you already know how enticing the word ‘backlink’ sounds. But what’s the point of having likes and backlinks if you don’t have readers genuinely enjoying your content and becoming your loyal readers?

Besides… with block ads in apps already hitting the app stores, what guarantees can these content aggregators offer publishers in terms of advertising reach? Where will the revenue come from?

When headlines and snippets from publishers become the aggregator commodity, there’s even more debate as to whether the aggregators should share revenue with publishers since they are earning money on the back of others’ clickbait.

It’s not dissimilar to the issues the music industry has faced with streaming audio products. The debate will likely continue to rage on as mobile usage grows, and while some platforms like Flipboard and Pulse are onboarding content partners, for the most part, there are very few revenue sharing opportunities available right now.

Content aggregators: Sorting the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Beyond all the negative connotations around these content aggregators, there are some advantages to working with them. To help you make your choice, let me share some of the major pros and cons.

Pros:

Some trusted aggregators add personalization to your content before distributing it. This usually helps your audience connect better with your content.

Some content aggregators are masters of content distribution and know very well how to maximize the reach of content to your potential audience.

Some content aggregators reduce the need for manual content syndication at a publisher level thus saving you a lot of time and resources.

Some content aggregator sites help you build backlinks for your site and thus improve your SEO efforts.

However, the above applies to trusted aggregators only, with ‘trust’ being the operative word here.

An example of a trustworthy one for you to check out is WikiTribune by Jimmy Wales.

Cons:

When your audience is reading content on a content aggregator site, it can result in cannibalizing the subscriber base for your website.

As a news publisher, you are left with little or no authority and authorship over the content.

When the content is not being distributed or consumed on your own website, your brand visibility starts diminishing.

In general, content aggregators promote their own brand, not yours – UNLESS your brand is well known, in which case they will promote your brand but only to promote their own brand.

The relationship between an aggregator and publisher is usually not a transparent one. You never know how many users have read or bought your content.

You lose on the opportunity to understand your consumer better as there is no direct communication between you and the consumers. This accounts for lost conversion opportunities.

As most content aggregators do not have a concrete understanding of your target audience, they often end up attracting irrelevant audience for your content yet still get a healthy cut.

The core objective for any content aggregator is mass distribution of content, and they don’t care much if the content is not personalized or constitutes fake news.Thus often ending up impacting your brand image negatively.

Let me break more bad news to you. After running extensive trials on Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News, The Guardian pulled their content from both these platforms. The Guardian was actually the first publisher to start leveraging Apple News, but it definitely isn’t the only one who has lately cooled off on these content aggregators.

According to analysis by NewsWhip, there are several publishers who are now running far fewer articles than before within that format.

The reality is that these platforms are really not helping publishers grow an audience in their own trusted environment and forge a deeper relationship with them.

Is there scope for compromise between publishers and aggregators?

Of course! However, there needs to be a plan of action and some firm ground rules to keep this relationship symbiotic ONLY.

The most important question is, who can you really trust with your content?

Is it content aggregators who will use it any way they like, curate and share it under their own rules, and offer no guarantees of placement or payment?

Is it a content publishing partner who will commit to pay you every time your content is read on their platform?

I think you already know the answer. The relationship between aggregators and publishers should be symbiotic with a fixed paid royalty every time the content is read. The two major options you see here are Free Content Aggregators and Paid Content Aggregators.

If you want to move ahead with paid aggregators then there are many pay models that you can explore for a successful collaboration. There should also be transparency and scope for an informed decision regarding the content the aggregators are distributing, i.e., the aggregator shouldn’t be allowed to choose it on their own.

They should link back to the original article, be accurate and have multiple source samples.

They should be pro in organizing content in a manner that readers can find easily.

Free news aggregator apps may be useful to a certain extent for creating brand awareness with new audiences, but revenue growth and profits usually come from:

Offering content worthy of payment

Responsive design with full cross-platform support

Multiple content presentation models that appeal to both traditional readers and digital natives

Advanced digital features designed to engage readers longer, encourage discussions with other users and raise the discoverability of high-value content

Vertical channel integration that opens doors to a massive global audience that publishers have trouble reaching on their own

If content aggregators are a central part of your distribution plan, then you should think carefully about this relationship and make no impulsive decisions just to get more views on your content.

Wrapping up

As long as there are no set rules for news content curators and digital news publishers, there will be questions around content aggregation and content sharing best practices.

However, with so many publishers losing revenue yet taking no real means to find new ways to reach audiences, it’s time to overcome the dilemma of partnering with or partnering against content aggregators.

After all, there are some merits to sorting it all out, including having a more transparent relationship with consumers.

You can definitely find a way to collaborate with one of the paid content aggregators to benefit your business objectives.

But as a general rule of thumb, choose the legitimate ones only, who respect the fine line between curating and copying. Before anything else, do not forget to take your customer’s needs and behaviors into consideration.

Guest Author: Ruchika is a part of the versatile marketing team that is working towards making iZooto a huge success. Under the marketing umbrella, one of her major responsibilities is SEO and content planning. An art lover and creative writer, Ruchika enjoys sketching in her free time and dreams of traveling around the world alone.

The post The Ultimate Guide To Content Aggregators (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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A Comprehensive Guide On Social Media Marketing For SaaS Products

One of the many challenges that you will face when trying to raise awareness, generate leads and promote your product, is the fact that you have a rather limited resource pool to work with.

SaaS products are not exactly easy to advertise on all mediums and chances are you won’t be able to do it properly on a lot of them. Because of their digital nature, displaying them in action, using their strengths, and generally making them appealing is something that does not really work on more traditional mediums like TV adverts, radio promos, or even newspaper sections.

So, as the nature of the beast intended, you will have to turn to the digital advertising mediums, the most popular of which is social media.

But in today’s world, the average user is far too jaded and far too weary in order to blindly try anything and everything he or she sees. In order to win the attention of users and attract visitors, you need to make sure that your social media marketing campaign is done correctly and ingeniously.

But how? How can you make an outstanding social media marketing campaign for your SaaS product?

1. Prepare

Before you hit the market, you will need to know what the actual users are looking for as well as what needs they have, and how your product can satisfy them.

That being said, you will want to start off by scoping your target audience and deciding what demographic the campaign will be addressing. It is very important to decide properly on a strict core demographic, with a few auxiliary demographics that are in various ways related to the core.

If you already have dedicated visitors on your website, you can use tools like Google Analytics to get a better understanding of your audience’s interests and how to target people who might also be interested in your product.

Image Source: Megalytic

Once you’ve settled on a demographic, it is time to see where that demographic usually hangs out online, what social media platforms they use the most, and where you can plan your campaign.

This way, you will know which platform you will be rolling your campaign out to and gain access to community influencers as well as the platform’s services.

2. Groom the product

This is a more aesthetically important task that needs to be taken care of before the campaign starts.

Simply put, it is all about making the product look as good as possible and as appealing as possible, without misleading the readers or making absurd and over-rated promises.

The best way to go about this is to break it down into different layers, depending on what will be used in the campaign.

For texts, like press releases, posts, blogs, you will want a writer. They are not difficult to come by, and a freelance writer will generally be rather inexpensive.

For photos and general graphics, you will want a graphic designer. These are a bit more pricey, but a good freelance graphics designer will generally be more affordable than ones contracted through services and companies.

For videos or animations, you will want to turn to a specialized service. This is because it is a lot more affordable, and a lot less time consuming than sourcing out the individuals by yourself.

Have your writer start writing drafts for promotional texts, and the graphic designer come up with visuals, that will be used throughout the campaign. Remember to highlight the positives, drown out the negatives, but refrain from sounding too commercial.

A great example here is Airbnb’s ‘Live There’ campaign where they motivated their users to not visit a place like a regular tourist would do but actually live there like a local, even if it’s just for a night.

The video received 11 million views and 56,000 likes on Facebook which means that it was a great hit for their target audience.

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On Instagram, the ‘Live There’ campaign received over 50 million impressions and nearly 5 million video views.

3. Launch the campaign

When the time is right, and you have everything that you need, you’ll need to pull the trigger and get the campaign rolling.

Start by contacting the chosen social media platform, and opting for their advertising services. Be sure to pay close attention to the options that are given to you, and that you think long and hard about which ones are the best ones for you.

This is also the time when you set the demographic and select who will be targeted by the ads themselves as well as on what devices it will be shown. A good rule of thumb is to go for both mobile and desktop platforms, increasing the number of people reached exponentially.

Whatever you do here, don’t roll out everything at once. Start using some of the texts that the writer has provided for you, and 1 maybe 2 of the graphics that your designer created for you. Keep the rest in reserve for later, so that you can mix things up and vary certain elements, thus extending the lifetime of the marketing campaign.

4. Choose a rhythm and stick with it

Something very important to note about marketing campaigns is the fact that they are always in motion. They never stick to one form for long, and there is always new posts, new concepts, new ideas and new elements thrown in every so often in order to vary things up and keep it interesting.

You will have to do the same for your campaign.

You will need to change posts, change graphics, maybe even insert a new element, like a short animation, a voice over, or a sponsorship, every now and again. This is to remind users that your product is still out there, still alive, and still great, plus you might raise more interest this way.

The main thing to remember here is the fact that you need a rhythm. Not too often, but not too rare either. As a rule of thumb, you might want to vary things up every 1-3 months, depending on the severity of the variation.

Once you’ve chosen a rhythm, stick with it. This will help you plan out your campaign further as it goes along, and give you actual time frames to work with, thus leading to better results and better advertising material used.

5. Attract external interest and influencers

Something that will prove vital to the success of your marketing campaign is the help of external interest and influencers.

Simply put, interest from outside the company and fan base that can promote your product, as well as influencers that have a large following in the field that you are advertising on.

The best thing that you can do is go through the community, see who are the most influential members, and reach out to them. More often than not you will be able to strike a deal with them which will result in more exposure and promotion for your product.

This can be done through blogs, videos, streams, as well as other forms of social media.

When we launched Setapp, the first subscription service for Mac apps, we did the same thing.

We opted to use Product Hunt because you can launch your product on the platform each time you add a major upgrade to it. Which helped us gain a bit more coverage and push our marketing campaign further.

However, in order to market our new Mac App Advisor system, we turned to our office cat, Hoover, for inspiration. We created a series of banners with pictures of Hoover giving app recommendations and ideas.

Coincidentally, our office cat shares the same name with Product Hunt’s founder, Ryan Hoover, who noticed the banners, liked them, left a nice comment and even sent a tweet about them.

This gave our product a lot of exposure and the much needed new interest that we were looking for. Soon enough more and more people were trying out our product and actively subscribing to it.

6. Keep the campaign rolling throughout the lifetime of the product

This is fairly self-explanatory, but the product itself needs to be promoted constantly throughout its lifetime. This is so that you can attract the maximum amount of interest in it, at all times.

The only times when you can consider stopping the marketing campaign is when you decide on releasing a new version or coming up with a new but related product. Even then you’re not exactly stopping the campaign itself but rather shifting it from one product to the other.

Remember to check up on it regularly, interact with the people that show interest in the product, as well as gather feedback and figure out more ways to improve.

Wrapping up

A social media marketing campaign might sound easy, but it’s not.

You will be constantly looking for ways to improve it, looking for ways to reach even more people, ways to generate more interest and ways to attract more and more sales.

As long as you plan ahead properly, prepare every single detail, go over your strategy, find the right people and keep putting in the effort, your campaign will undoubtedly succeed.

There are a lot of online marketing campaign success stories out there, and with enough work and a bit of luck, yours can be among them.

Guest author: Eugene Kalnyk is a Marketing Specialist at Setapp, the first Mac app subscription service which gives access to hand-picked apps for every job on your Mac. He loves writing about Marketing, PR, SEM, and Productivity, and help readers solve their problems. Meet him on Twitter.

The post A Comprehensive Guide On Social Media Marketing For SaaS Products appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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My July 2018 Monthly Goals Report

Mastery of all things comes from setting and attaining goals. Goals get achieved through accountability.

Every month since 2012, I write a detailed report about my progress toward the goals and resolutions I publicly stated on my blog earlier in the year. I call this my Monthly Goals Report. Since I started sharing my goals and progress in 2012, I have received such an amazing response from people all over the world. You’ve shared with me how I helped to inspire you by openly sharing my progress. And knowing you’re reading this helps me hold myself accountable to the promises I’ve made to myself.

This is my July Monthly Goals Report. It’s my hope that you can take away something to inspire you in the pursuit of your own goals.

Watch the video below:

youtube

(Click Here To Watch On YouTube)

This page contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of them, I will receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). I only ever endorse products that I have personally used and benefitted from personally. Thank you for your support!

My 2018 Goals Breakdown

I’m now going to go into each goal that I committed to for 2018 in detail and share exactly where I’m at with each. For complete context, check out the original 2018 goals and resolution video blog, and my previous Monthly Goal Reports.

FINANCIAL GOALS:

1. I will easily make $3,500,000 CAD in revenue, while working less and positively impacting millions of peoples lives by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: $3,500,000 CAD ($291,667 CAD per month) RESULT: $128,171 ($2,494,050 CAD total) PROGRESS: ON TRACK

July was a lower than average income month for me of $128k, mostly because I received a significant amount during June ($764k). However, I’m still on track to achieve my goal of $3.5M Cad and currently have about $1M CAD to go!

It might seem impressive that I generated over $128k in a single month, but it’s important to remember that I didn’t get here overnight. It’s taken me years of hard work, focused learning, and consistent effort to build multiple online businesses and income streams. Most importantly, I believe that the money people earn is just a reflection of the value we add to other people’s lives. If you focus on adding massive value and helping people, you will be rewarded. This is what I continue to focus on every day, and what I’m proudest of. With that mindset, the money takes care of itself.

This income is comprised of a number of businesses and income streams that I have, such as:

Online Book Publishing

Including Kindle Publishing, CreateSpace & Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX)

Information Products & Courses

Affiliate Marketing Mastery, K Money Mastery 2.0, 24 Hour Book, Morning Ritual Mastery, Online Business Mastery Accelerator, Life Mastery Accelerator, Full Disclosure, VA Training Program, etc…

Affiliate Marketing

Sharing other courses, products & services

Coaching, Consulting & Events

Amazon Physical Products

Software

K Optimizer

Miscellaneous Income Streams

Google Adsense, Fiverr, Udemy, etc…

Real Estate Investments

Stocks

Trading, as well as dividend income

Want to learn exactly how I make money online and became an internet millionaire? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE online training program!

2. I will easily have at least $6,000,000 CAD in investment assets (cash, stocks, bonds, ETF’s, real estate, cryptocurrencies, etc…) by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: $6,000,000 CAD RESULT: $6,012,053 CAD (approximately) PROGRESS: Goal Achieved!

Woohoo! In July, I reached my goal of having over $6,000,000 CAD in investment assets! This amount includes cash, stocks, bonds, ETF’s, real estate, P2P loans, and cryptocurrency. It does NOT include the value of my businesses, as that’s a bit more complex to determine and would require hiring an evaluator. From here, I’ll continue making smart investments and growing my investments long-term so I can reach the $10M mark (which I believe I can achieve in the next 2 years).

I recently shared my $3.5M Stock Investment Portfolio on YouTube and my blog, sharing exactly what I own and invest in. I also shared my stock portfolio when it first reached $1,000,000 a few years ago, so you can see my investing progress since. I own everything from bank stocks, to ETFs, REITs, bonds, similar instruments on the Toronto Stock Exchange. This year, I’ve begun to invest in some US companies — primarily tech stocks like Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Tesla, Shopify, and others in the tech space.

MISSION & BUSINESS GOALS:

3. I will easily host 12 Life Mastery Accelerator monthly mentoring sessions, sharing my most cutting-edge self-development strategies and help thousands of people transform their lives by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 12 (1 per month) RESULT: 7 PROGRESS: ON TRACK

In July, I hosted a training on How To Cleanse And Detox Your Body For Peak Energy inside the Life Mastery Accelerator.This is a very powerful ritual that can help you transform your life and optimize your health and physical well-being.

Life Mastery Accelerator now includes 19 incredible video trainings and more than 35+ hours of content. This is the only training program where I go DEEP into my best self-development strategies for each area of the Life Mastery Blueprint: health, mindset, emotions, relationships, money, career, lifestyle, spirituality, etc.

To learn more about the Life Mastery Accelerator, CLICK HERE.

4. I will easily host 12 Online Business Mastery Accelerator monthly mentoring sessions, sharing my most cutting-edge online marketing strategies and help thousands of people grow their online businesses by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 12 (1 per month) RESULT: 7 PROGRESS: ON TRACK

In July, I hosted a training on How To Strategically Build Your Online Business Without Being Overwhelmed Or Stressed in the Online Business Mastery Accelerator. This is an important topic to discuss because building an online business is a long-term journey, and it’s a process that you should enjoy.

The Online Business Mastery Accelerator now includes 21 informative video trainings, with 40+ hours of additional content. This program shares my most effective strategies for continuously growing my online businesses. The strategies are extremely powerful and useful for ANY online business, but I apply them specifically to Amazon FBA, Kindle Publishing, Affiliate Marketing, and Information Products.

To learn more about the Online Business Mastery Accelerator, CLICK HERE.

5. I will easily host at least 2 Online Business Mastery Mastermind events, love the process and personally help people build and grow their online business by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 2 RESULT: In progress PROGRESS: Filling up fast

In December, I’ll be hosting an event in Los Angeles. To learn more about the Online Business Mastery Mastermind, click here.

6. I will easily host a Life Mastery Transformation seminar, love the process and help people transform every area of their lives by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

I haven’t planned any dates yet of when this will be, but to get notified of future events, click here.

7. I will easily create a new self-development course or online business course that can help thousands of people change their lives by December 31, 2018

GOAL: 1 RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

I have not yet started serious work on this goal, though I’m deeply excited about it. Subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to hear about the progress.

8. I will easily hire two new A-players to join the Project Life Mastery team and will help grow Project Life Mastery by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 2 RESULT: Receiving Applicants PROGRESS: ON TRACK

I’ve started the hiring process for a Marketing Specialist to join the Project Life Mastery team. If you feel you’ll be a great candidate or know of someone that will be, pass on this link for the job application.

I’ve been using the methods taught in the books Topgrading and WHO to help me with this.

9. I will easily create a new physical product to launch and sell on Amazon, as well as my own e-commerce store using the Amazing Selling Machine by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

This goal is currently in the planning stage.

10. I will easily create and launch the new StefanJames.com website to continue to build my personal brand, by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

This goal hasn’t been planned yet.

11. I will easily publish 150+ videos on the Project Life Mastery YouTube channel, while impacting millions of lives by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 150 (12.5 per month) RESULT: 98 PROGRESS: ON TRACK

This month, I published 10 new videos on the YouTube channel, iTunes podcast and on the blog. I have continued to hone my skills in video content creation and have put a lot more focus on this part of my brand. It’s become easier now that I’ve started to build a team to handle other operations of my business, allowing me to focus on producing quality video content.

12. I will easily publish 200+ blog posts on ProjectLifeMastery.com, while impacting millions of lives by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 200 (16 ⅔ per month) RESULT: 117 PROGRESS: ON TRACK

This month, I published 15 new blog posts, which you can find right here on the Project Life Mastery website. Though I’ve focused more on developing my skills in video content creation, I always publish more blog posts and articles than videos and podcasts.

13. I will easily have at least 600,000 YouTube subscribers on the Project Life Mastery YouTube channel by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 600,000 RESULT: 539,000 (rounded) PROGRESS: ON TRACK

The Project Life Mastery YouTube channel continues to grow, gaining thousands of new subscribers each month. I credit my consistent improvement in video content creation, plus the massive value I try to offer with each video, to this success and intend to continue on this path toward even more dramatic future results.

14. I will easily reach at least 14,000,000 views (1,166,666 views per month) on the Project Life Mastery YouTube channel by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 14,000,000 views (1,166,666 monthly views) RESULT: 1,114,628 views PROGRESS: BEHIND SCHEDULE

While I’m happy that during July the channel got over 1.1M views, we’re still behind on achieving this goal. I just try to focus on what I can control, which is publishing quality content and then will let the views take care of itself.

15. I will easily reach at least 2,000,000 unique visitors (166,666 visitors per month) on ProjectLifeMastery.com by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 2,000,000 unique visitors (166,666 unique monthly visitors) RESULT: 149,427 unique sessions PROGRESS: BEHIND SCHEDULE

Traffic has been steady and improved to $149k unique sessions in July, even though we’re still behind on this. Right now we’ve been working with an SEO expert to improve some elements of the site in order to grow our organic search traffic. I’ll continue to focus on publishing quality content and better optimize our traffic strategies.

16. I will easily reach at least 1,000,000 podcast listeners (83,333 listens per month) on the Project Life Mastery podcast by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1,000,000 listens (83,333 monthly listens) RESULT: 57,200 listens (rounded) PROGRESS: BEHIND SCHEDULE

I have mixed feelings about this goal. On the one hand, I always feel grateful to reach the size of the audience that I reach — to impact so many lives is a privilege and I never forget that. On the other hand, I would like to see this number grow a little more quickly. The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement, and as we improve the quality and promotion of the podcast, I believe we will hit this goal by the end of the year.

HEALTH & FITNESS GOALS:

17. I will easily get tested to better optimize my physical, mental and emotional well-being by getting the following tests done by December 31, 2018.

WellnessFx Blood Test

Heavy Metals Test

Gut MicroBiome Test

Micronutrient Test

Food Sensitivity and Allergy Test

Hormone and Testosterone Test

DEXA Scan

Bulletproof Labs Baseline Test

QurEcology Biochemical Wellness Analysis

GOAL: 9 health tests RESULT: 6 PROGRESS: AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

So far in 2018, I’ve completed a Food Sensitivity Test, Micronutrient Test, Bulletproof Labs Baseline Test, Heavy Metals Hair Analysis, Hormone Panel Test and QurEcology Biochemical Wellness Analysis. As the results come in, I plan to do a video to share the results and what I intend to do with what they tell me.

18. I will easily complete a 30 Day Sugar Detox Challenge by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

I have not yet scheduled the month for this goal.

19. I will easily complete a 30 Day Vegan Challenge by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

I have not yet scheduled the month for this goal.

20. I will easily continue to optimize my health and well-being every month by doing one of the following by December 31, 2018:

Cryotherapy

Vitamin IV Drip Therapy

Red Light Therapy

Massage Therapy

Human Garage

Bulletproof Labs Hacks

GOAL: 12 months of treatment RESULT: 3 PROGRESS: ON TRACK

In July, I got back on track with this. In Panama, I did what is known as a “Vampire Facial”, which is basically a treatment combining microdermabrasion followed by the application of PRP (platelet-rich plasma). It’s a popular skin treatment that helps make your skin glow!

21. I will easily continue naturally detoxing mercury and lead from my body by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 12 months of consistently following the protocol. RESULT: 6 PROGRESS: Goal Achieved!

In June, I got the results back from a metals hair analysis test and it showed fairly low levels of mercury and lead – hooray! This means that what I’ve been doing has worked, which involved following the Andy Cutler Protocol, using coffee enemas, saunas, and a variety of other methods.

Last year I was diagnosed with mercury and lead toxicity, which made me decide to focus on detoxing my body of these substances. You can learn more about my Mercury detox here.

22. I will easily workout at least 5 times per week to build more lean muscle mass, strength, and endurance by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 20 workouts per month RESULT: 20 PROGRESS: ON SCHEDULE

In July, I’ve been very focused on my training and workout schedule. I’ve done MORE than 20 workouts, in some cases doing two workouts in a day. Right now I’m happy with the progress I’m making.

MIND & EMOTIONAL GOALS:

23. I will easily complete the 100 Day Challenge to help me achieve some of my biggest goals by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 100 Days RESULT: 100 Days PROGRESS: Goal Achieved!

Every year, I commit to doing the 100 Day Challenge during the early months. I find it gives me a big boost of motivation and consistency to kickstart the year. I was able to achieve this goal in March/April.

24. I will easily complete a 30-day Morning Ritual Challenge to be at my best every day by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 30 days RESULT: 30 days PROGRESS: Goal Achieved!

In July, I completed a public #30DayMorningRitualChallenge by following my principles taught inside my Morning Ritual Mastery course. I shared daily on my Instagram story what I was doing that day as part of my morning ritual. We had tons of people join in on the challenge from all over the world on social media, which was a lot of fun!

25. I will easily complete a 30 Day Meditation Challenge using my Muse and HeartMath Inner Balance by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 30 days RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

I have not begun work on this goal yet.

26. I will easily read at least 20 books to continue to master every area of my life by December 31, 2018

GOAL: 20 books (1 ⅓ books per month) RESULT: 8 books PROGRESS: AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

I’ve read 9 books so far in 2018:

The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know

Opportunity

Rewired: A Bold New Approach To Addiction & Recovery

Mastery

The Testosterone Optimization Therapy Bible: The Ultimate Guide To Living A Fully Optimized Life

The Systems Mindset: Managing The Machinery Of Your Life

Scaling Up: How A Few Companies Make It… And The Rest Don’t

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action

Naturally Triple Your Testosterone: A Guide To Hacking Your Hormones And Becoming Superhuman

27. I will easily listen to at least 30 blinks using the Blinkist app to continue to master every area of my life by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 30 blinks (2.5 blinks per month) RESULT: 15 blinks PROGRESS: ON TRACK

I’ve listened to 15 blinks so far in 2018:

15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management

Stick With It: A Scientifically Proven Process For Changing Your Life For Good

Outwitting The Devil: The Secret To Freedom And Success

The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind

Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice From The Best In The World

12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less

Finish: Give Yourself The Gift Of Done

Happiness: A Guide To Developing Life’s Most Important Skill

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End/easyazon_link]

[easyazon_link identifier=”0399564489″ locale=”US” tag=”projectlifemastery-20″]Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People/easyazon_link]

[easyazon_link identifier=”0062120999″ locale=”US” tag=”projectlifemastery-20″]Great By Choice:Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

Always Hungry? Conquer Cravings, Retrain Your Fat Cells, and Lose Weight Permanently

Comfortably Unaware: What We Choose To Eat Is Killing Us And Our Planet

Brain Maker: The Power Of Gut Microbes To Heal And Protect Your Brain-For Life

RELATIONSHIP GOALS:

28. I will easily continue my monthly Relationship Ritual with Tatiana to ensure that we’re continuing to meet each other’s needs, while growing our love and passion to further enhance our relationship by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 12 rituals RESULT: 6 rituals PROGRESS: BEHIND

Every month, Tatiana and I engage in a ritual together that allows us to ensure we have an outstanding relationship. During this ritual, we review our relationship vision, goals, and bucket list, as well as check in with each other on the 6 human needs and 5 love languages. This proactively grows our connection and communication, and we have found it keeps our relationship forever extraordinary.

29.I will easily plan a romantic experience with Tatiana at least once a month to create magic moments together that we’ll never forget by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 12 romantic experiences (1 experience per month) RESULT: 6 PROGRESS: BEHIND

Since being in Panama, Tatiana and I have enjoyed going out on the weekends for “date night” and checking out the restaurant/nightlife scene.

30. I will easily connect with each member of my family at least once a month in-person or over the phone, to continue to strengthen our relationships by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 12 RESULT: 6 PROGRESS: BEHIND

In July, I did not stay in touch with all of my family – I’m a bit behind here.

31.I will easily connect with a new friend at least once a week in-person or over the phone/Skype, to build new friendships and relationships by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 4 sessions per month RESULT: 2 PROGRESS: BEHIND

In July, I didn’t connect with a new friend every week – I’m a bit behind here.

LIFESTYLE & TRAVEL GOALS:

32. I will easily do a new fun activity every month (dancing, kickboxing, snowboarding, concerts, sporting events, etc…) and have a lot of fun by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 12 activities RESULT: 7 activities PROGRESS: ON TRACK

In July, I was able to have fun while in Panama – going out to nice restauarants, nightclubs, exploring, hiring a Spanish teacher, etc…

33. I will easily live in Los Angeles for at least 3 months by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 3 months RESULT: 1.5 months PROGRESS: ON TRACK

Tatiana and spent most of February in Los Angeles (with the exception of our jaunt to San Diego), staying in Santa Monica. We plan on going back later in the year.

34. I will easily travel throughout Europe (Greece, Italy, and Spain) for 3 months by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 amazing journey RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

This goal is planned during August.

35. I will easily travel to Orlando for the Amazing Seller Summit by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 Summit Attended RESULT: 1 Summit Attended PROGRESS: Achieved!

During April, Tatiana and I attended the Amazing Seller Summit in Orlando, Florida. During the event, I interviewed almost all of the speakers and published them on my YouTube channel.

36. I will easily attend the Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego, while connecting with other like-minded entrepreneurs and expanding my knowledge, by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 Summit Attended RESULT: 1 Summit Attended PROGRESS: Achieved!

In February, I flew some members of my team to the Traffic & Conversion Summit in San Diego. We spent a week there, learning as much as we could, but also connecting and strategizing on how we can grow Project Life Mastery. It was a lot of fun. I truly believe in investing in yourself, but also your team so that you can grow as much as possible.

37. I will easily travel to Whistler for an entrepreneur mastermind trip to connect further with friends and other like-minded entrepreneurs by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 Mastermind Trip RESULT: 1 Mastermind Trip PROGRESS: Achieved!

In March, I attended a Mastermind event with a group of entrepreneurs to further grow our businesses.

38. I will easily travel to Mexico for an Entrepreneur Mastermind snowboarding trip by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 Mastermind Trip RESULT: 1 Mastermind Trip PROGRESS: Goal Achieved!

In January, I traveled to Punta Mita, Mexico for an annual mastermind that I’m a part of with over 60 successful entrepreneurs. It was a blast – I can’t emphasize enough surrounding yourself with other like-minded, committed and successful individuals. I truly believe that who you spend time with is who you become!

SPIRITUAL & CONTRIBUTION GOALS:

39. I will easily listen to The Word Of Promise Old Testament and New Testament Audio Bible by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 complete audiobook RESULT: In progress PROGRESS: BEHIND

I’m quite a bit behind on this goal, but so far, I’ve listened to:

The Book Of Genesis

The Book of Exodus

40. I will easily raise and fund at least $10,000 to build 3+ houses with WorldHousing by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: $10,000 raised to build 3+ houses RESULT: $2903 PROGRESS: ON TRACK

So far in 2018, I was able to raise $2903 towards the goal of $10,000 to build 3 houses.

For the last three years, I’ve been involved in funding houses for families suffering from poverty with different organizations. I’ve personally been a part of funding and building 3 houses so far, in El Salvador and Nicaragua. I look forward to continuing this ritual in 2018. I have yet to decide on the location of where I want to build the houses.

41. I will easily donate $20,000+ to We.org to fund the construction of two schools in Ethiopia by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: $20,000 donated to build 2 schools RESULT: $50,000 donated to build 3 schools PROGRESS: Goal Achieved!

I’m thrilled to say that in June I donated $50,000 to We.org to build 3 schools: one in Ethiopia, Kenya and India.

Click here to learn more about a trip I did to Ethiopia for a school inauguration that I helped fund.

42. I will easily go on a volunteer trip to donate my time to help build houses or schools by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: 1 trip RESULT: n/a PROGRESS: n/a

I have not yet begun progress on this goal.

43. I will easily loan at least $5000 through Kiva to help support those in need around the world, by December 31, 2018.

GOAL: $5,000 in microloans RESULT: $833 PROGRESS: ON TRACK

In July, I loaned $833 to support those that need help around the world.

I enjoy and get deep value out of putting together this Monthly Goals Report, and I look forward to connecting with you next month. I’ve found this public commitment has pushed me to stay motivated and accountable, which helps me better stay on track towards achieving my goals. Thanks for reading!

The post My July 2018 Monthly Goals Report appeared first on Project Life Mastery.

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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Digital Marketing News: Rewarded Ads, Google’s Podcast Push, SEO’s B2B Power, & YouTube’s Ratio Refinements

Industry Group Finds Consumers Love ‘Rewarded’ Ads: Marketers, Less So A new collaborative study by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), OpenX, and MediaMath looks at view-and-reward advertising, rewarded opt-in ad types, and what they may mean for digital marketers going forward. MediaPost

youtube

Google Has A Podcast App, But Does It Have A Podcasting Strategy? Google is expected to increase the prominence of podcasts in all search results, expanding on limited tests it’s done with Android and Google Assistant SERPs. Forbes

Huge chunk of young people believe advertising does not welcome diversity New survey data examines inclusion and diversity in advertising, and how far the industry may still have to go. Campaign US

LinkedIn overhauls Campaign Manager for marketers managing high-volume accounts LinkedIn (client) will soon be rolling out a redesigned user interface allowing custom layouts for the most-used metrics, an interface-wide speed boost, and numerous other new Campaign Manager features. Marketing Land

Snapchat ‘Storytellers’ finally pairs creators with advertisers A new pilot program from Snapchat is looking to court influencers and bring together creators and brands, the latest in a series of moves aimed at bringing Snap greater mainstream adoption. TechCrunch

SEO Crucial for B2B Content Marketing Success: Survey Search, social, and websites are all ahead of e-mail for initial B2B discoveries, according to results of new study research. Chief Marketer

Apple Maps takes a step in the right direction With Apple Maps getting a substantial overhaul, can businesses afford to skip marketing on the expanding map service? Search Engine Land

For Better or Worse, YouTube Now Adapts to Multiple Aspect Ratios YouTube has changed the way it displays videos shot in formats other than the 16:9 ratio. How will the change affect marketers? Gizmodo

Google Marketing Cloud Gets a New Enriching Destination for Content and Analytics Google has unveiled Marketing Cloud, as DoubleClick, Google Analytics, partnership programs and more are now combined. MarTech Series

As Facebook user and revenue growth slows in Q2, advertisers are still on board Unphased by recent struggles, advertisers on Facebook continue to spend more than ever. Marketing Land

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at the future of digital advertising by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

The Commodore 64 Mini review — TechRadar

Can you tell a fake laugh from real? — University of California Newsroom

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

Lee Odden — Natural Language Generation: The Future of Content Management — Fit Small Business

Nicole Blake — Intern Spotlight on Nicole Blake: Who She Is, What She’s Learning, and How She Sees the Marketing Industry — TopRank Marketing

Lee Odden — Express Writers: Top 100 Content Marketers (2018 Report) — Express Writers

Lee Odden — Shane Barker: 56 Influencers Share Their Biggest Mistakes and How to Avoid Them — Shane Barker

Lee Odden — Nimble: The Do’s And Don’ts of Winning Influencer Marketing Campaigns (+Infographic) — Nimble

What are some of your top influencer marketing news items for this week?

Thanks for reading, and we hope you’ll return next week for the latest digital marketing news, and in the meantime you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news. Also, don’t miss the full video summary on our TopRank Marketing TV YouTube Channel.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

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TAS 550: Ask Scott #172 – Are There Any Private Label Products Left to Sell on Amazon FBA? Where do I Find Them?

How is your progress coming in your ecommerce business? Are you hitting your stride and looking for ways to take it up a notch or are you struggling? Wherever you are on your journey, you’ve come to the right place! It’s time for another session of Ask Scott here on The Amazing Seller! On this episode, you’ll hear from Scott as he shares why you need to check out the PACE miniseries, his thought of the week, and as always – his answer to a question submitted by a TAS follower like you! Don’t miss a minute of this engaging episode!

Get back to the basics.

Where are you struggling or stalling in life or business? Have you identified the problem area? What steps are you going to take to get back on track to accomplish your goals and your vision for success? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, Scott shares his thought of the week and how it can help you find your way back to the level of growth you’ve always wanted. According to Scott, it all comes down to getting back to the basics. Seriously, it can be that simple! Think back to what led you to progress this far and consider revisiting those same building blocks. Hear how this helpful advice has played out in Scott’s life by listening to this episode!

Don’t despair, there is still a ton opportunity out there!

Scott often gets the question if there is still an opportunity left in the ecommerce space and Private Labeling, in particular, to go out there and carve out a profitable brand. His answer is that there is still a ton of opportunities out there if you know where to look and how to build your business! Using the time-tested TAS method, sellers like you can go out there and find a market that will support not only one product but a whole suite of products! To learn more about the TAS approach that Scott and his team have developed, make sure to check out the resources section at the end of this post!

How you can use a “Touch List.”

What is a “Touch List” and how can it help you develop a great list of categories to start researching? A touch list is a list of the products and markets in your life that you interact with on a regular basis. Take a notepad and start writing out which products you use day in and day out. This will give you a great starting point when it comes to beginning your product research process. Find out more about using a touch list and what it takes to find a product and marked that will make your brand profitable by listing to this episode of The Amazing Seller!

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

[0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast!

[3:00] Why you should check out the PACE miniseries.

[4:45] Scott’s thought of the week; back to basics.

[10:00] Question: Are there any Private Label products left to sell on Amazon FBA?

[11:30] What is the “Touch List?”

[15:30] Look for a market first!

[17:00] Closing thoughts from Scott.

TRANSCRIPT TAS 550

TAS 550: Ask Scott #172 – Are There Any Private Label Products Left to Sell on Amazon FBA? Where do I Find Them?

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:02] Scott: Well, hey, hey, what’s up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast. This is episode number 550 and session number 172 of Ask Scott. This is where I…

Read full transcript…

Click Here to Download Transcript << …answer your questions here on the podcast and I do it every single week and I’m going to do it again here today so I’m so glad that you’re here. I know that you guys choose to turn this on, so I definitely want to make this worth your while and you guys know on Fridays I’m usually pretty fired up not just because it’s Friday because I feel like every day could be Friday if we want it to be. if you want to choose your own lifestyle or your own path as far as to freedom, you can do it. I do believe that. I believe we all have that choice and that opportunity and, heck, I’ve been doing it now for over 15 years and I made that decision back then when my kids were young that that’s what I wanted to do, and I think you guys can do the same if that’s what you want. Again, if that’s what you want, if that’s your why.

All right. So, before we kick off today’s episode, you guys know I’ve got a lot of things going on and I want to kind of get you guys up to speed as far as what’s been happening, but I also want to let you know what we’re going to be talking about today or the question that came in and I’m going to be answering and it’s a good one. Are there any private label products left to sell on Amazon or just online and where do I find them? So, I’m going to be addressing that. It’s actually a really good question and I’m going to give you my thoughts on that. I also answered that on YouTube and that’s where I’m going to be playing that from that YouTube response that I gave and I really kind of dig into this and give you some different ideas and also I give you my thoughts on this because I’m looking at it not just on Amazon but really the market and really like how to go out there and find these pockets that you can go ahead and still sell into and I think there’s still a lot of opportunities there. So, I’ll let you guys know a little bit more when I dig into that question but I should remind you that if you have a question that you want me to answer on an upcoming Ask Scott session, all you have to do is head over to TheAmazingSeller.com/Ask and you can do that.

[00:02:04] Scott: Just leave a question there. Please leave your first name, maybe where you’re tuning in from because I love to know where you guys are tuning in from. And the other way you can do that is just head over to the YouTube channel, TheAmazingSellerTV.com. That’s where I’m answering questions. That’s where I’m doing the Whiteboard Wednesday videos which I also should mention that now depending on when you’re listening to this, the PACE miniseries is underway and actually we just wrapped up a podcast series so if you missed that, you’re definitely going to want to check that out. And I’ll link everything up in the show notes, the show notes episode or the show notes to this episode. Man, I can’t even talk because I’m thinking faster than I’m speaking. Has that ever happened? Have you ever wanted to just get everything out but yet your mind was thinking quicker than your mouth was willing to move? Have you ever done that? Crazy, right?

So, yeah, we just wrapped up, myself and Chris Schaffer. We just finished up our PACE miniseries and if you guys are just tuning and you’re like, “Scott, what do you mean PACE?” Well, I explain it in detail, in great detail in this miniseries. So, what I would say is head over to TheAmazingSeller.Com/PACE and everything will be outlined there for you and in order so this way here, you can go through it. But in a nutshell, we’ve kind of broken down what successful businesses are doing right now in the four pillars and that breaks down PACE and PACE basically stands for preparation foundation, that is like one pillar; and then you have A poor attention; you have C for cultivation basically connecting with your audience; and then E for expansion. And we break everything down in detail and really these are the same pillars that we look at for our own businesses but also any businesses that we’re consulting with, anyone that’s in our inner circle, our high-level inner circle businesses that are doing 500,000 plus, these are what we look at because all different areas of your business have these four pillars in there.

[00:04:05] Scott: And you don’t have to do them all at once, but you do have to have them in place and then from there we can kind of dig in and we can start turning some dials and flipping some switches and stuff like that. So, definitely check out PACE. It is what we are going to be focusing on like I said with our private clients but also in our own businesses and hopefully you can learn from that miniseries and also the whiteboard videos that I’m putting out there on YouTube so definitely check that out.

So, before we jump into the question, let me kind of give you what’s swirling around in my head this week and really, in a nutshell, it is back to basics. What do I mean by that? Well, I got this idea after I was starting to get back into my fitness routine again and you guys have probably heard if you’ve been listening for any period of time I’ve been on and off, on and off, and I think we all kind of go through that. Now, I haven’t been like off the wagon where I’m like totally like getting out of shape like a lot.

Like I mean, yes, so I think we all kind of go on those spurts. We go on for like a month, two, three months, maybe six months, and then we fall off and we don’t lift or we don’t work out or we don’t exercise, whatever you’re doing, walking, whatever it is you get out of routine for whatever reason but what I want to share with you is how I went back to basics here recently and I’m starting a new program and it’s called LIIFT4. Now, I’m not an affiliate for a Beachbody but I do love their programs. My wife actually turned me onto this. She’s like, “You know, you should look into this program. It really looks like it’s aligned with you,” and I’m actually going to do it so I’m like, “Okay. Let’s go ahead and do it,” because the thing and doing right now kind of working out in the morning and I’m kind of in it but I’m kind of doing my own thing and I tend to find myself not being as motivated as I am when I’m following a program. So, what I want – this isn’t about fitness, guys. What the story is about is going back to basics. Sometimes we just have to go back to the basics.

[00:06:00] Scott: Like, where are you stuck right now? Where do you need to focus so this way here you can move forward? Where do you need to really like dig into your business or your life? I mean, again, you guys know I’m not all just about business. I’m about lifestyle. Where do you see that you need to get on track? Where do you feel like you’re not following your roadmap? Because I think we all have that roadmap. We get it. We get excited about it and then we fall off. That could be accountability. That could be just lack of excitement for wherever you’re going for. That’s why I think your why needs to be very important but there’s all of those different factors and I’ll give you an example. As you may or may not know, we’ve created a program, a training called Product Discovery Bootcamp and what that was designed for is for people that are struggling with figuring out their market, with figuring out their products, all of that to give them the roadmap also to give them something to follow so this way here they can stay on track so it’s like, “Okay. Do this. Okay. Do this. Okay. Do this.”

So, it’s the same thing with me like doing this new lift program, this LIIFT 4 it’s called by Beachbody. I show up. I do the work. I show up the next day. I do the work. I show up the next day. I do the work. And at the end of the 60 days, I’m hoping that I’m going to have results. Same thing goes for Product Discovery Bootcamp. You show up. You do the work. You show up. You do the work. And by the end of about 30 days you should have a really, really good idea of the market you’re going into, the products that you can serve to that market even a roadmap as far as what angle you could be approaching the market or let’s say for example you have a brand right now but you’re stuck in building out your product line. Same thing with Product Discovery Bootcamp that allows you to really niche down inside of your market and start exploring other options that you can expand into.

[00:07:58] Scott: But really my point is here, is when we have something to follow, for me it’s LIIFT 4 right now. For you, it might be Product Discovery Bootcamp or maybe it’s going to be a list building training, something like that. Whatever it is, a lot of times we need that to keep us on track and then we’ll get through it. So, it’s like you start one place and then by the end of the program or the thing you’re following, you want that certain result. So, just keep that in mind. If you are thinking to yourself like, “I’m just kind of feeling like I’m scattered,” first off, we got to go back and figure out where you’re feeling scattered and why and then from there what things should you be focusing on and then just get laser-focused on that thing and commit to it for like 30 days like that would be my thing. Just commit to it for 30 days and get rid of all the other distractions. So, I’ll just put a little shameless plug in here. If you are struggling with getting started as far as picking your market or even if you’re in your brand right now and you’re stuck trying to expand your market or into other markets maybe sub-niches then definitely check out Product Discovery Bootcamp.

You can get all the details by heading over to TheAmazingSeller.com/Bootcamp. All the details are there, and you’ll see exactly what we’re doing there. It’s kind of like you’re looking over my shoulder and I’m giving you action steps every single day so this way here you get through that process. So anyway, that’s what I wanted to share with you. Just stay on track, figure out what’s going to allow you to move forward and find something that you can follow whether that you’re creating your own thing. Get something on paper that you can follow, and you can show up every single day and take a small action step to move you closer to where you want to go. So, with all that being said, wow that was a mouthful. Let’s go ahead and listen to the question. You’ll hear my response and then I’ll jump back on and we’ll wrap this baby up and you can get on with your day. What do you say? Let’s do this.

[Q&A]

[00:10:01] Scott: All right. So, what I’m going to do here first is let me just go ahead and read the question that came in from Adam. So, Adam writes in and says, “Hey, Scott. Recently started listening to your podcast and they are great. I do get a lot out of the podcast. However, I seem to be suffering from the same initial challenges of finding a product. I created a touch list and exhausted through it the first week with no luck. Now I’m sifting through Jungle Scout and I feel like I’m doing something wrong not being able to identify any potential markets. It seems like everything is just already done. Do you have any tips for someone going through these struggles as to better dig down to find a potential market/brand?” Well, first off, Adam, thank you so much for the question and don’t think that you are the only one that is going through this. There’s a lot of people because I do receive a lot of questions about this. So, let me just kind of set the stage here. We are not going out there and just trying to find a product. Now, there are people that are and that’s fine and you may be able to sell that product for a little while, have a little bit of success, but then there’s nothing else behind it.

The other thing that I see a lot of people doing is just going after the product and not going after the market. So, what I want you to understand and anyone else out there that is watching this that’s struggling with this is we are not necessarily just trying to find a product or trying to find the market and then what other products the market is buying and then from there can we create a brand of three to five products minimum to serve to this market. Now, Adam mentions the touch list. If you’re not familiar with the touch list, this is something that I tell anyone that I talk about this Amazon thing or e-commerce thing is really I want you to go through and I want you to document and write down every single thing that you touch on a daily basis. I also want you to start paying attention to your hobbies or things that you’re good at or things that you always talk about.

[00:11:58] Scott: Maybe at the party, maybe people come to you because you’re the mechanic of the family or maybe you’re that person that is maybe into music and they’re always asking you questions about what instrument their kids should play, whatever. These are clues for you to, number one, see where your strengths are and then from there where you can potentially be going into a market. So, for example, if I was going into the guitar market, I am a guitar player, I’m not that great. I’m okay. Kind of self-taught. I’ve taken lessons, but I still enjoy playing it. Now, there are different things that I will need to know or there are things that I will need to have to be a good guitarist. Number one, I don’t even know how to play so there’s a ton of opportunity right there and if you’re at all good that that, well, then you can start getting people’s attention in your brand by teaching other people certain things or you can just be documenting your journey from how you started to the first six months to the year on how you’ve gotten better.

Now, that’s just one side of it that I’m looking at. The other side of it is now there are accessories that you’re buying for this market. In the guitar world, you are buying guitar straps, cases, strings, tuners, pedals, picks, stands, wall mounts, amplifiers, like all of these different things that there’s a huge potential there for you to either, one, be an affiliate through Amazon or any other third-party channel that has an affiliate program because then you can start talking about Fender amps and then you can get traffic from there. It’s a whole another discussion but you get where I’m going with this, right? Now you might want to come up with maybe a string winder. There’s a string winder for instead of just going by using your fingers, you got a winder. Maybe yours is specifically designed for certain knobs or maybe you have a cool hanger that goes on the wall for your guitar that you’ve wanted because you’ve only found them that fit two, you want to fit four.

[00:14:03] Scott: I’m just thinking out loud here. You see what I’m doing here, right? It’s not that you have to invent it. We already know there’s guitar hangers for the wall out there but what could you do to make yours different? Or what could you include around a certain item? Maybe there’s a Fender amplifier. You’re not going to sell the Fender amplifier but maybe you’re going to sell accessories that could be for the Fender amp. Maybe – I know a paddleboard. If you guys are not guitar players, you don’t know what that is, but basically, there are certain pedals that I can be playing, and I can be using my feet to play. Well, there’s these certain – it’s kind of a little ramp that your pedals would go on. Maybe you specifically design one to meet your needs and then from there you know that other people would probably want it too or maybe you look at other ones on the market or in the market that are doing well but also, you’re reading the reviews of three, two and one-star and then you’re getting ways that you can make yours better.

You see where I’m going with this? I’m not just going to Jungle Scout. I love Jungle Scout. I’m a fan of Jungle Scout. I’m a user and I’m also an affiliate for them so if you want to know more about Jungle Scout, TheAmazingSeller.com/JS and you can get a discount there as well and some other resources. But I don’t use that tool to find the product. I do use the tool to look at the data about the product that I’m thinking about. So, I use the Jeep market a lot in a lot of my workshops and that was on my touch list. It wasn’t on my touch list a year-and-a-half ago, but it was a year in. So, I started looking at the Jeep market. I started looking at accessories then I went and looked at Jungle Scout and seen what products were selling in that market. That is the process. So, products, in the beginning, will also lead us to the market and then we need to really look at the market as a whole but also see where you can make a difference in that market with products or with content that you can create.

[00:15:59] Scott: We’ve talked a lot about how to build a brand using content building maybe your own YouTube channel, maybe building your own Instagram channel, your email list, all of that stuff, we’ve talked all about that in our brand building tips series. If you haven’t caught that, I will link that up in the description here as well. You can also find it on the channel. But that’s what I would do. So, are there still products out there? Yes. If you have a brand that can push products and you are influencer eventually in your market, there’s not going to be any competition for you because people are going to buy from you.

[CLOSING]

[00:16:35] Scott: All right. So, there you have it. Are there any private label products left to sell on Amazon and where do I find them? Well, I just gave you the answer. Go ahead now and take that and use it so this way here you can find your market or even different markets inside of your own market right now. Like I said, you really need to think a little bit deeper especially when you are first starting. Find those pockets and also think about what you personally could add to your brand. All right. So, if you have a question that you want me to answer on an upcoming ask Scott session, head over to TheAmazingSeller.com/Ask and you can do it there and then the last thing I want to remind you is PACE. I want you to see if your business is on PACE to be successful and what you can do is go through that four-part miniseries and really evaluate your own brand, see where you can make adjustments or even just approved upon what you’ve already started.

And by going through those four pillars it will really open your eyes to different areas of your business that I’m sure you can go ahead and make even better. So, definitely check that out, TheAmazingSeller.com/PACE and you’ll get all of the miniseries there and all of the YouTube videos that I’ve created on the whiteboard to really illustrate that as well. All right, guys. So that’s it. That’s going to wrap up this episode. Remember, as always, I’m here for you, I believe in you, and I’m rooting for you, but you have to, you have to, come on, say it with me, say it loud, say it proud, say it today, take action! Have an awesome amazing day! And I’ll see you right back here on the next episode.

[END]

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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Why Interactive Email Is The Future Of Inbox Communication

Email: the marketing bedrock. When everything else feels like a passing trend, email has stood the test of time and shows no signs of slowing down.

Every business can reap huge benefits from email, but what happens when your audience stops engaging? What if your open rates and clicks are suffering?

With so many businesses doing email and improving their email strategies, the competition for attention is fierce. But don’t worry, there’s an easy way to reignite your customers and prospects! It’s called interactive email. If you jump on the bandwagon now you will stand out as one of the most forward thinking, customer experience focused brands out there.

What is interactive email?

Interactive content is anything that requires a viewer to actively engage and participate with the content to access the full experience, usually by tapping, swiping, or otherwise physically interacting with the piece of content. Interactive email just incorporates that premise into an email campaign.

And while email is still playing catch-up when it comes to adding interactivity. There are a few ways to give your emails an interactive edge right now. Soon though, we expect emails to be on par with other web properties. Gmail for instance, seems to already be laying the groundwork for this to happen.

Interactivity in email

GIFS have been pretty prevalent in email lately. They’ve been around for a while but are swiftly gaining popularity as more and more social media services are allowing them to be used within their platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc).

The best way to use these in an email campaign is to design your own, as Fundbox has done here. Just inserting a random GIF probably won’t make your audience sit up and take notice, and may even confuse them. Better to make sure it’s on brand and communicates your message effectively.

Video is tricky because most ESP’s (email service providers) won’t let you directly embed playable video into an email (although Gmail might soon be an exception to that). Clicking out to a video on a landing page, though, is easy and – bonus points – you can capture a bit of the action in a GIF for your email.

People are starting to get really creative in emails these days, including creating unique experiences that your audience can interact with. Creating a clickable experience that links to an interactive overlay or landing page is a great way to interject some personality into your routine emails. This also has the added bonus of feeling much more personal to your audience, which leads to people being 66% more likely to buy from you!

How and why should I use interactive email?

Interactive email has much higher open rates and click-through-rates than static email. According to Martech Advisor, “interactive email content increases the click-to-open rate by 73% and adding videos to your email content can boost click rates up to 300%.”

Additionally, in a recent survey of 1,000 consumers, they overwhelmingly chose to receive interactive emails over regular, static emails (82% to 18%!)

The easiest way to incorporate interactivity into an email is with a GIF. Even just a funny GIF, inserted appropriately for your brand, takes almost no time but has a quick and easy impact on your audience.

However, if you really want the full benefit of interactivity, interactive experiences are really the way to go! Something that is customized for your brand feels very personal and will allow your audience to really connect with your message. Interactive experiences in email aid in brand recall, which in turn aids to customer loyalty. People will always remember brands that do something new, different, and fun!

Is it really worth it?

Your audience WANTS this! They’ve actually said that they would rather get an interactive email than an old-fashioned static email campaign.

Entertaining consumers with your unique brand voice through interactivity also helps them remember you, and if you have a particularly strong campaign, can even make customers want to share your campaign.

Interactive content also generates 4-5x the page views as static content! Truly, if your emails aren’t making your audience smile, you’re probably doing it wrong (and getting a lot less traffic)! Interactivity helps with this by injecting some whimsy and delight into your email campaigns. Plus, the millennial cohort – the largest group of buyers – would rather buy from a brand that is fun, inspirational, and true to their own brand. What’s more authentic than an interactive experience that feels personal?

Not only do people buy, but they buy a lot more often. Interactive content converts nearly 3x over static content.

Real consumers had plenty to say about their email preferences, but these quotes really stuck out to us.

Not only is interactivity in email proven to work, but your customers are literally begging you for it. If you haven’t tried incorporating a GIF or an interactive experience into an email campaign, start small. Yearly birthday emails are a great place to test the waters; everyone likes getting something fun on their birthday!

Get creative and incorporate various forms of interactivity into your email marketing. Your customers will thank you!

Guest author: Cheyenne Miner is a marketing specialist at Zembula where she gets to collaborate and coordinate with a team of marketing masterminds. On the weekends, you can find her in the backcountry of the Pacific Northwest, or not, because they don’t have cell towers out there.

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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How To Find Yourself When You’re Feeling Lost In Life (7 Ways)

If you have been searching for an answer for how to find yourself, I’m here to support you through that process.

We’ve all experienced moments in our lives when nothing seems to make sense. However, it doesn’t mean that your life is over. The key is to not get stuck in an emotional rut. What would happen if you shifted your mindset around what lost means?

Feeling lost is actually a good thing. It’s a sign that you are ready for something to change. You may not know what it looks like yet, but a transformation is coming, in some shape or form.

Are you ready to learn 7 ways to find yourself when you’re feeling lost?

Watch the video below where I talk about the relationship with yourself:

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(Click here to watch on YouTube)

Are you ready to learn how you can master your life? CLICK HERE to join my Online Mastery Accelerator program!

If you want to learn how to find happiness, look inside of yourself.

Happiness is an inside job. It is the result of being present with ourselves. If we don’t have a solid understanding of who we are, then we end up searching outside of ourselves for things or people that can fill that void.

In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Dan Gilbert points out that we all have a primal brain mechanism to help us synthesize the same magnitude of happiness, no matter our experiences.

He says, “Our longings and our worries are both, to some degree largely overblown, because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose our experience.” Gilbert’s research shows us that we have the ability to appreciate most things that happen in our lives if we choose to.

There are hundreds of self-help books that are written about “how to find yourself.” However, most of us don’t know what that even looks like.

The mere phrase feels like such a daunting thing to achieve. As a result, a lot of people get frustrated and upset when they can’t find the answer. However, we forget that finding yourself looks different for everyone. As such, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to it.

Life is all about rediscovering who YOU are and what YOU want. You aren’t expected to have it all figured out, nor should you. The path to finding yourself requires that you commit to becoming a better version of yourself.

Personal growth isn’t always fun.

It’s not a linear process. There will be highs and lows. That’s just how life works. As Oswald Chambers once said, “If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.”

People become so fixated on the final outcome that they forget to enjoy the journey of becoming. As a result, when they don’t get to where they want to go, they lose faith. In order to continue leveling up our lives, it requires that we do a lot of inner work to uncover painful emotions and limiting beliefs that are holding us back in life.

If you are ready to engage in some deep soul work, you can expect to come across aspects of yourself that may be difficult to accept. However, it is during the dark times that we find our light. There is little progress that we can make in this life without a strong understanding of who we are.

Let’s explore 7 ways for how you can find yourself when you feel lost in life.

1. Feel Everything

If you feel lost, have you ever sat back and observed what that feels like in your body? Everything lost is meant to be found, but it’s our job to figure out what that looks like. One of the best ways to find yourself when you lose yourself is to feel.

Sounds easier said than done, right? The natural response is to suppress negative emotions because they don’t feel good. However, you can’t climb out of a hole and find your light if you don’t face the darkness first.

Your emotional state is your compass; it answer’s life’s most difficult questions and guides you in the direction of your dreams. If you feel lost, go inward and listen to your feelings. Your intuitive self never lies.

When you tune into what matters to you, you live in alignment with your soul’s purpose. Make the effort to know yourself more and become comfortable enough to live as that person. It is enough. You are enough.

2. Unplug

Technology has offered us many opportunities. However, it has also disconnected us from ourselves and others. If you are constantly trolling on social media and focusing on other people’s lives, you won’t be staying in your own lane, so to speak. Technology can drain our energy and send our inner critic spiraling.

Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram provide so many ways for us to compare ourselves to others. We forget that a lot of the images of so-called “perfect lives” and “happy faces” aren’t always based in reality.

A 2016 study called, “Pinterest or Thinterest” found that fitness images on Pinterest contributed to upward social comparison issues and intentions to engage in extreme weight-loss behaviors. Sources like these only take people farther away from their own happiness.

Try taking a weekend and unplugging from social media and technology. Tap into your creativity, do things that make you happy and connect with people on a deeper level. You will be surprised what a powerful impact this can have on your emotional and mental state.

3. Meditate

This is one of the most powerful tools for learning how to find yourself. One way to fall in love with your essence is to join with it through the process of meditation. As you meditate, you clear your mind and are able to cleanse yourself of worry, doubt, and fear.

In this place, we are able to connect with the purest form of self-love. In the words of Yut, “Meditation is a way to know your true self. All you need to know is within yourself, seeking it externally in the world will only take you so far. You need to look within.”

Research shows that tapping into our ability to turn our attention inward has the ability to empower and heal us. In particular, it can help soothe anxiety and increase our overall well-being.

Oftentimes, when people feel lost, it’s their mind that is telling them they’re lost. This is why it’s important to go inward and find stillness. Doing so allows you to separate fact from fiction.

When I talk about the power of meditation a lot of people tell me, “Stefan, I can’t shut my mind off.” That’s how I felt when I first tried to meditate. However, it’s not about ignoring your thoughts. Rather, it’s about being present with yourself. When thoughts come up, notice them and then let them pass.

Since I started meditating I feel more empowered, on an emotional, mental, and spiritual level. More importantly, I feel more in control of my mind. This ensures that I don’t ever feel lost because I know that I am connected to something greater than myself.

4. Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

If you are feeling lost there is a chance that you are looking for a change in life. It’s easy to lose yourself when you feel bored and uninspired. When we stay inside our zone of comfort, we disconnect with what makes us come alive inside.

I encourage you to get out of your comfort zone and do something different. How can you modify your daily routine? Is there a new activity that you’ve been wanting to do or a new skill that you want to learn? Switch it up and reinvent yourself! You may learn something about yourself that you never knew before.

Don’t be afraid to take some risks and do something that scares you. If you never try, you won’t ever know how powerful you can be. I believe that we tap into our innate potential when we take risks. Doing the thing you think you cannot do is how you figure out what you are made of.

Every opportunity that I’ve been given in life has come as a result of getting out of my comfort zone and stepping into my fear. What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

5. Embrace Alone Time

How does it feel to spend time alone with yourself? A lot of people cringe at the thought of doing this. There is a misconception that people that spend time alone are lonely. This is far from true.

Spending time alone means that you are enjoying being present with yourself. I believe that finding some quiet time for ourselves amidst the busyness of life isn’t a luxury. Rather, it’s a priority. Everything that you need is already inside of you. If you keep looking to others to fill a void, you are going to feel lost.

My morning ritual is my time to go inward and spend time alone engaging in activities that nourish my mind, body, and soul. This time of solitude allows me to reflect, recharge, and energize myself for the day ahead.

The relationship that you have with yourself is one of the most important relationships you will ever have. In the words of Paulo Coelho, “If you are never alone you cannot know yourself, and if you don’t know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.”

6. Seek Out A Passion

We all experience moments in life when we get down on ourselves or don’t have the motivation to do something. If these feelings last long enough, they can wreak havoc on our self-esteem. The best way to counteract these negative emotions is to do something that you love.

What makes you come alive inside? When do you feel the happiest? It could be as simple as going for a run or reading a book. Tapping into your passion is all about getting in touch with your authentic self. Dr. Phil McGraw reminds us that, “Your authentic self is who you are when you have no fear of judgment, or before the world starts pushing you around and telling you who you’re supposed to be.”

Once you start to engage in activities that ignite a fire in your soul, not only will you feel happier and more confident, but you will also feel more in control of your world. In this place, there is no room for fear.

7. Ask For Help

If none of the above helps, remember that you aren’t alone. There are so many people in the world who love you and that are here to help. Don’t be afraid to reach out for support, whether that’s in the form of a life coach, a mentor, a friend, or a counselor. Doing so will give you the tools that you need in order to move forward with your life in a positive direction.

Learning how to find yourself can transform every area of your life.

Sometimes we have to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves again. Don’t get down on yourself if you don’t know where you are going. Life has an interesting way of working itself out, even when it feels like we are going the wrong way.

The best thing that you can do is flow with life instead of against it. We can’t always predict what is going to happen in our lives, but we always have a choice how we are going to respond. If you feel lost; or the next time that you do; remember that dark times don’t last, but strong people do. That is what you are.

Don’t ever forget, “Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place.”

I hope my words have given you some comfort in knowing that feeling lost is a natural part of this wild and beautiful journey that we call, life.

Are you ready to learn how you can master your life? CLICK HERE to join my Online Mastery Accelerator program!

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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294: How to Start an Online Store with No Ideas and No Inventory (and still sell $300k in your first year)

Note: Click here to download Rene’s top tips for starting and running a drop shipping business from this episode.

Rene Delgado started an online drop shipping store with no ideas and no inventory and went from $0-300k in sales in his first year in business.

It was the search for an extra stream of income that led Rene Delgado to consider e-commerce; selling physical products online.

“Drop shipping” is a form of e-commerce where your suppliers ship products directly to customers on your behalf.

Your role is to drive traffic to your storefront, forward the purchase order details to your supplier when a visitor makes a purchase, collecting the retail price and buying the goods at wholesale.

Rene went through a very specific product research process and ended up starting BounceHouseStore.com, where he sells bounce houses and other products related to bounce houses.

He’s already started scaling his business on the success of his bounce house store. Rene has now outsourced the day-to-day operations of this store and started a new drop shipping store that has already turned over double what his bounce house did in its first year.

There’s no luck here. “It’s hard work,” Rene said. That and some careful planning and execution.

Tune in to hear why Rene was attracted to drop shipping, the criteria he used to find the bounce house niche, and how he generated $300k of sales in his first year in business.

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How he drives paid and organic traffic to his store.

How he’s outsourced the day-to-day running of his store and freed up time to focus on a new drop shipping store.

Rene’s #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation.

Links:

BounceHouseStore.com

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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A Quick and Easy Way to Make the Most of Your Planner

Make the most of your planner with these quick and easy strategies that are easy to implement! With these helpful planning tips, you’ll be more productive in no time! It’s no secret that I love, love love to plan! I know that if I take the time to write things down and plan out my…

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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TAS 549: (Part 4) P.A.C.E – Expansion To Grow and Scale Your Business

This is it, the final installment of the PACE method! With this final pillar, you’ll have a solid foundation that you can use to build out your brand and plan for the future. On this episode of The Amazing Seller, you’ll hear from Scott and Chris as they dive deep into the final pillar of PACE, expansion. In their conversation, the guys explain why diversification is so important, how automation can help your business, the difference between hot and cold traffic, and so much more! Don’t miss a minute of this helpful episode!

Diversify as soon as possible!

If you’ve been around the TAS community for very long, you know that Scott and Chris are passionate about helping sellers like you build a solid brand that can thrive outside of Amazon. While the guys often teach that Amazon is a great starting point, especially for sellers who don’t have a lot of resources right out of the gate, the goal is always to move from dependence to independence. The last thing you want for your brand is to wake up one day to hear that for some reason or another, you’ve been shut out of Amazon. Do what you can to start working toward diversification as soon as possible. Learn more about his important topic by listening to this episode of The Amazing Seller!

How automation can set you up for long-term success.

Did you know that there is a way to set up systems and processes that will replace your role in your business? It’s true! Gone are the days where small business owners have to wear every hat in the office. Now sellers like you can utilize a vast array of tools that will free up your time and allow you focus on big-picture steps for your business. To find out how you can get out your own way and unlock the potential your brand has for growth, make sure to listen to this episode of The Amazing Seller as Scott and Chris explain how they’ve done it!

Don’t just pick and choose, use the whole PACE method!

While it may be tempting to go through the PACE method and cherry pick which pillars you want to use and which ones you don’t, that may set you up for failure. Scott and Chris carefully went through each step identifying how they all support and build off of each other. On this episode of The Amazing Seller, you’ll hear from the guys as they finish painting the picture and reveal how each step of PACE works. Make sure you have all the tools you need for success by walking through PACE and understanding how it can apply to your business. For a more in-depth exploration of each pillar of PACE make sure to check out the links in the resources section at the end of this post!

PACE is a tool you can keep coming back to.

Are you aware that most successful businesses use the PACE method? While they may not call it PACE, this process has been compiled because of its real-world viability. In fact, looking back at his construction business with his dad, Scott can clearly see how the PACE method could have worked and allowed them to keep the business growing. Don’t assume that you’ve gone too far to utilize PACE, it’s a tool that successful leaders will keep coming back to! To learn more about PACE and how it can help your brand grow, listen to this engaging episode of The Amazing Seller!

OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

[0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast!

[4:00] Introducing the final pillar of the PACE method; Expansion.

[7:00] Why you’ve got to expand and diversify your brand.

[15:30] Automation can set your business up for long term success.

[20:30] Work on your business not in your business!

[28:00] Scott recaps the four of the five aspects of the expansion pillar.

[32:30] What is the difference between hot and cold traffic?

[34:00] How the whole PACE method works together.

[38:00] Any successful business uses the PACE method, if they know it or not!

[44:00] Scott talks about how PACE could have helped his construction business.

[51:00] Closing thoughts from Scott and Chris.

TRANSCRIPT TAS 549

TAS 549: (Part 4) P.A.C.E – Expansion To Grow and Scale Your Business

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:03] Scott: Well hey, hey what’s up everyone! Welcome back to another episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast. This is episode number 549 and in today’s episode we’re going to…

Read full transcript…

Click Here to Download Transcript <<

…continue our mini-series here on PACE and we’re going to be talking about the E in Pace today, which is expansion. How to grow and scale your business. Now, if you guys are just showing up to the party, well you got to go back and listen to the other episodes. So this way here you can be up to date with what we’re talking about here. Because this is four pillars that’s going to help you build your business. A business that will last and you guys are going to be able to adapt this to your business.

All right, so with that all being said I’m ready to rock and roll. Chris Shaffer is with me once again and today we’re recording this in a hotel room together because, well that sounded a little weird. But we’re in a hotel room together recording this because we wanted to get this last part of PACE recorded and really dive into this expansion portion, this pillar. So Chris, are you ready to rock and roll?

[00:01:06] Chris: I am. And I’m going to be honest Scott. This is where all the glory in business comes in. This is where everybody wants to be all of the time. And it’s really growing and expanding and doing all of the “fun” business things. But it’s kind of unimportant if you don’t have the other three. You have to have those other foundations in place before we can start to do any of the stuff in this expansion PACE. So I’m pumped up. I think people are going to get a lot out of it.

I know I don’t sound very excited.

[00:01:36] Scott: No. Well you are excited.

[00:01:40] Chris: But that’s just me.

[00:01:40] Scott: That’s just you. But yeah, we’re going to dive in to this and I just kind of want to recap a little bit and kind of talk about the P, the A, the C. And basically how everything really fits well together. Inside of all of these different pillars we’ve really taken what has worked for us in the past, other people that we’ve worked with in the past. You’ve got a long history working with other successful business. I have as well. I have actually built several and a lot of these things now that we’ve kind of distilled it down and broke these things down it makes a lot of sense to go through this process.

And if you look back at any successful business the preparation phase or the building a foundation like we look at the PS preparation or preparing the foundation and the foundation is really, really important because we can’t really build the roof until we get the foundation in place. It’s like building a house. I always go back to the construction theory because that’s where I came from. Right. And it makes a lot of sense. If you build something you have to have a strong foundation. And that P is very, very important. This is also something that we talk a lot about inside our inner circle.

We have our own inner circle, our own mastermind where we really dig into other people’s businesses and we’ve recently had a meeting with our inner circle members and this is exactly what we’re working on with them but also how they’ve build their businesses to be successful. I know we don’t talk about it a lot but I did want to bring that up. If anybody is interested in learning more about our inner circle you can head over to TASinnercircle.com. It is an application process but we do work with successful businesses. I get a lot of people that want to do one on one coaching. I know you do as well.

We don’t do that. We do these inner circle meetings, it’s what we do. We meet with them three times a year. Once a month. We meet online and we really work on their businesses. But I just want to throw that out there. A lot of this right there is coming from working with other successful businesses.

[00:03:42] Scott: And also the businesses that we’ve built that have been successful. And it really does come down to these four pillars. I just want to throw that out there. So again guys. If you’re interested TASinnercircle.com. Like I said, there’s a qualification process there but if your business is at that stage where it needs some help or you’re just stuck and you want to grow and scale and expand your business definitely check that out, we’d love to work with you.

So all right, let’s dive into the expansion phase. Where do you want to start with this Chris?

[00:04:12] Chris: Let’s start with diversification I think. And I think there’s five things we wanted to cover today.

[00:04:16] Scott: Yes there’s five different things.

[00:04:19] Chris: Each of these pillars has some like sub pillars if you will that we kind of need to cover. I think diversification is something we should probably dive into to start with.

[00:04:27] Scott: Yeah, it’s really big and I like to look at it as… There’s different ways you can look at it but think about like a chair. Like a chair that has one leg probably isn’t going to stand all that well. If you have four legs, well probably stands a little bit better. You have three, it will maybe stand at a certain angle but it could probably still collapse. So I like to look at a business as like you need other ways for it to support itself. Not just on one leg. A good example is someone in our inner circle. I’m not going to expose the name or anything but he has a very successful business.

But it’s built on like two products right now. Now, he’s got a ton of opportunity in this market but he’s built the business off of these two products. Doing like 200 units per day. Well, recently just had an issue with one of his products, not his fault, manufacturer problem. And well, Amazon decided to say, “Hey guess what, we’re going to shut your listing down for right now until you get this thing fixed.” Well guess what? He’s losing money every single day. Now, if he had three of four or five other products that were supporting the brand, well, then he’s not so much concerned.

He’s concerned but he’s not concerned as much as he is right now. Right now it’s like money has been turned off. And now he’s like in a panic to get everything back up and running. You don’t want to be in that situation. That’s part of what we’re going to be doing with him is helping him fix that problem and then being able to expand that product line. So diversifying is not just product dependent but it’s also channel dependent. Right, like we’re talking about like okay, so you’re only on Amazon. What if he had that product that was doing well on his own funnel? What if he was doing something to drive traffic through his email list to his blog or to his shopify or any other place that he can generate sales

He wouldn’t be 100% turned off. The revenue might have gone down but he’s not completely turned off. Right now, completely turned off.

[00:06:28] Scott: What do you want to say on that?

[00:06:30] Chris: I think there are two things that people need to pull out of that right. In this expansion phase what we’re really talking about is not just product expansion, that’s a natural and easy thing to do especially if you’ve done the other three things correctly, especially that preparation foundation. If you’ve done your market selection correctly it is actually very easy to find additional products, 100%. And if you’ve done your attention and your cultivation correctly, you can launch even the most competitive products in those spaces successfully and we’ve seen that even in the new brand.

But the other thing and Scott this is something you and I hammered on over the last probably year and a half maybe two years I would say which is being channel dependent. And Amazon I think is a great example. It’s kind of living in North Korea where they just have complete control over everything and you can wake up one morning and all of the clothes you own are now illegal. Right. Everything that you’ve done for your entire life is now banned and you have no control over it. And while it’s great that they take care of all of our basic needs. They feed all of our sales. They are a great place to start up for us.

We can’t be completely dependent on them long term. Amazon is where we like to launch because that’s where all of the traffic is. But it is not the thing that is going to keep our chair or our table balanced long term. We need to start bringing in some other legs to prop that table up. And so having our own channel to sell some stuff in. Finding maybe another marketplace like a Walmart or something like that might be nice to add another leg.

But not just on the Amazon side of stuff. We don’t want to be too dependent. Let’s say we have… Say we have a brick and mortar business. We don’t want to be just dependent on word of mount to bring traffic to that. We want to have ads running too so we can bring in people who already don’t already know about our store. Same thing here, we want to have an email list. We want to have a Facebook presence. We want to have all of these things at some point. This expansion phase is where we start to branch out into other areas so that we can shore up every effort inside of the business. Whether it’s pure sales, whether it’s our marketing, whether it’s any of those things.

[00:08:29] Chris: And like we talked about in the attention phase. If we want to get really good at having Facebook ads that’s great. But in the expansion phase we need to start looking at what can be our secondary channel because if Facebook goes away tomorrow then we’re out of traffic. Does that make sense?

[00:08:44] Scott: Yeah, every channel you don’t want to be dependent on. Whether that’s your traffic source, whether that is heck even going down to your hosting, you should be able to have a backup in a sense to where like if that goes down within a phone call you can basically switch things over. It’s the same idea. Like we don’t want to be dependent on it. If you’re only selling on eBay, well that’s a problem. We want to be able to start to branch out. I would almost say imagine you’re building your business without Amazon.

Try to think of it that way. Not saying don’t do the… Amazon right now is running for you. Let’s say it’s running. You’re doing great. But pretend that you have to build your business without that part of it. And then this way here it’s going to force you in a sense to build your business outside of just Amazon. Now you have to me like the best of both worlds. You get Amazon traffic, we want that. Here’s another example Chris. Okay, Prime Day wasn’t that long ago. 3:05 or maybe 3:01, everyone was panicking because it crashed.

They crashed the servers. Like no one could get in. People were panicking. Not even sellers were panicking. People that were buying products that didn’t want miss out on the sales were panicking. And we had people in our own audience of our new brand that were upset that Amazon wouldn’t let them buy. So it’s a great thing to have but in the same breathe that’s one channel that if that’s what you’re relying on, you’re in trouble. And I think all the sellers seen that first hand. That they ether holy crap, if we don’t fix this thing we’re going to mount on a day’s worth of this huge rush of sales.

Now, we knew that they were going to get if fixed, they have a massive team and different people that are going to work on that to get that up and running. And who knows they might extend it if it was too long or something. We don’t know. They would have made it right. It ended up working great. We were up 42% from last year. Up 42% in sales. Just a crazy, crazy day for us in the new brand, that isn’t even 18 months but 19 months old. But my point is this, it’s a channel and we’re saying yes.

[00:11:02] Scott: Launch on Amazon. Yes, use their traffic, use all of the good stuff that comes with that but don’t depend on it long term. I think the other thing is, even the businesses that we’re working with inside of the inner circle like they have a longer term vision. And I think a longer term vision is huge when you’re building a business. So many people, you’re frustrated because you can’t find that one product that they are going to be able to sell on Amazon. I had someone that emailed me the other day, “Scott, I want to launch a brand but I don’t have any time to find products and because I’m looking at numbers on Amazon.”

Well, don’t worry about that. What market can you find that wants to find products that you could good marketing to sell to that person? That’s what you need to be thinking not just how do it sell it on Amazon? It’s a different approach but if you’re building a long term business that’s how you would do it.

[00:11:54] Chris: That I think is really the foundation of all of this stuff inside of PACE that we’ve talked about. All four of these pillars are to help you build up a brand that’s going to last. If you’re looking to get rich quick, you might not have to do this stuff. But I would also say that there’ no such thing as get rich quick and that you should probably even be doing this if that’s your goal. The numbers look great but it’s not going to make you a billionaire overnight and if you think that it is then you’re doing it wrong.

The other thing and the reason that we talk about this, Scott is not everybody wants to have this as an asset that they pass down to their kids and their grandkids. We don’t need to be the Rockefellers here but maybe I want to build a business and I want to sell it. Well, the foundations of this stuff in PACE are the “real” business things that actually make the business worth more. As we start to shore up the business with these pillars we add multiples to the business. So if we ever want to sell it if we just have that preparation foundation, we have a handful of products, we’re selling pretty well we’re going to get a lower multiple.

If we have attention in those products, we’re going to get a bit better. If we have attention and cultivation in those products, we’re going to do even better and if we’ve then expanded our market maybe to a higher market maybe we’ve added some more products, maybe we’ve added a second channel we an even better multiple and makes the business worth more while also making it more stable for you in the short term. It’s really about having some redundancy there. I like the prime day example because Amazon has all of these systems that they’ve built so that exactly what happened doesn’t happen.

It was kind of the case of everything can happen will happen all at once. Some of their systems failed but guess what, some people could still get through to the site. If they wouldn’t have built the backups that they had in place no one would have been able to buy anything until they fixed it. They still had some things that they could do and one of the things that they did was they turned off international traffic to the ‘.com’ site.

[00:13:59] Chris: And that brought it 20% all the way back. So they pulled that lever and they had that in place and then they found what was the real issue, they were able to correct it and everything came right back. But if they wouldn’t have been able to pull any of those levers, nobody would have been able to buy anything. And it’s the same thing in your business. If one of your channels goes down it’s nice to have another one. Even if it’s only 20%. Because then we’re not cashed out, we’re not cash poor and we’re not panicking. There’s still urgency but we can resolve panic and panic is where stupid decisions are made.

There’s a difference between urgency and panic.

[00:14:35] Scott: Absolutely. So that really covered actually one and two. We kind of brought those two together. So one is diversify and diversifying we’re talking about channel dependency. We don’t want to be channel dependent so again just to give you guys some ideas, that could be another channel like eBay, like could be another one like Walmart. Like whatever that is or it could be your own funnel. I prefer to be…. or wholesale. I would prefer to have my own funnel, my own email list to drive traffic. Like that’s how I would think of diversifying first.

But if you have an easier way for you it’s going international or whatever it is, have that in place. Now, this is something you can always go back to and add more channels but right now you got to start with one. The second one is adding more products to your product line so this way here you’re not dependent on just that one product. So we’ve kind of illustrated that pretty good for these guys. All right, so number three is automation.

I want you to talk a little bit more about this. This is kind of in your wheelhouse but automation, what does that mean for a business?

[00:15:38] Chris: I think three and four actually go together here. And the reason I say that is I’m going to call this duplication. So how can we duplicate ourselves inside of our business so we can get more done with less of our time? And there’s two real keys to that and this is where this should happen. We need to have the other three things in place before this is really a big idea for us before we’re going to start to worry about duplication. Because if we’re doing the preparation foundation, if we’re getting the eyeballs, if we’re doing the cultivation stuff, we do start to run short on time.

And unless you love being all over the place and being busy, notice I said busy not productive but busy then you can do this all yourself for the long term for ever if you really wanted to. But if you’d like to, I don’t know, breathe once a while, maybe go on vacation, go somewhere with your family, do something nice. It’s nice to be able to duplicate yourself, whether that’s through having a team or through the animation stuff.

Automation is great and for me any time there’s something in our business that we either don’t want to do on a daily basis or something that’s just utterly repetitive and drives me absolutely bonkers we go through a process. And the first thing is can we automate it? Is there a way to do this where no one has to look at it?

[00:16:58] Scott: Give us an example.

[00:16:58] Chris: So the example that I will give here that I think everybody can relate to is Amazon PPC. And I like PPC. I hate doing it all of the time. I like being able to make the executive decisions and a tool like Ignite gives us the ability to automate a lot of that process so that all I have to do is make the decision. I don’t have to analyze the data, I don’t have to do any of those things. So I was able to take a process that would take me a couple hours a week and cut it down to five minutes. Because Ignite is sitting there looking at the data. Well it makes sense to me to save several hours a week by paying whatever you need to pay to do that. If it was five grand a week that’s a little different depending on the plan you’re following in Ignite, it’s somewhere around $100 or less.

So that’s one example. Another example would be like customer order data. You don’t really get a ton of order data from Amazon. But one of the things that you can do is you can take those customer names and addresses and zip codes and all those kinds of things and create either an overlay of where all your sales are coming from, if you want to see that just because you’re curious, you can use them for custom audiences. You can do a lot of cool things with them. There’s not really a way to get that unless you go in every month and download the report and do all those kinds of things.

We actually have automated that process in our business. So that that customer data is being taken from Amazon any time we make a sale it’s done automatically. It just gets dumped into a Google sheet which is like an Excel Sheet just online. And so if we want to make a custom audience we can do that. We know by product exactly who has bought all of our stuff and so we can look at our customer list and then cross reference that, nobody has to touch that ever. If we want to look at the data, we just log into the sheet and do it. And there’s a lot of those kinds of things and I know a lot of that sounds like really intimidating, like, ‘Chris must know how to write all of this crazy computer code.’

Really it’s not. There’s a lot of things out there now especially that can help you with this process. Like a tool we use called Zappier. Just it plugs two different pieces of software that don’t work together, together. And it lets you do things like automating that process.

[00:19:01] Scott: Yeah, it lets you communicate back and forth, which I think it’s huge to be able to do that stuff but I think what businesses need to do at this point is they need to see where the easiest piece of automation or the thing can be automated first. Like what could you take off your plate?

[00:19:21] Chris: And that process starts with automation and then if we can’t do it then it’s delegation.

[00:19:25] Scott: And the delegation would move into the fourth thing that we want to talk about which is team. Building a team. You might into want to automate a certain thing because you want eyeballs on it. You want to actually have someone go through it. If you don’t want a tool to basically go through your pay-per-click, well maybe you want to hire someone that that’s all they do. And then that’s their job. Or maybe you have someone that their job is just to look at the data that Ignite pulls back and makes the decision for you because you don’t want to make that decision.

So there’s some different things you can do there. But I think team and automation is close. Automation is really like a tool that will do that for you. A team or building a team where people can actually work on your business for you. There’s a lot of leverage there as well.

[00:20:17] Chris: You just used a slip of the tongue there that I really like. The whole reason that we’re doing number three and number four here, this automation, this delegation, this duplication of ourselves it’s because a lot of business owners, especially successful business owners and you’re talking about people in the Inner Circle, people in the masterminds that you and I are participants in have an issue of being in their business. You guys may or may not have heard this. And I know you and I actually talked about it in the past working in your business versus working on your business.

As the business owner, your job as the CEO, the whole reason the big companies have a CEO is because they want to have somebody that has a 5,000 foot view of everything. Right, they are not executing the day to day stuff. They are setting the strategy and the vision. They are working on the business. They are pushing the entire business forward. That’s their job as the owner, as the president, as your own little CEO, if that’s what you want to put in your business card. That is your job long term. In the beginning you are doing all those things yourself.

But as you get bigger, as you start to sell more you literally cannot do everything yourself. You just run out of hours.

[00:21:28] Scott: And you won’t be able to grow. It’s going to stunt your growth because you can’t do it all. We’ve all been there.

[00:21:35] Chris: And quite honestly you shouldn’t do it all.

[00:21:35] Scott: And there’s things you might think you’re good at that you could get someone else to do a better job. That’s been my problem some times. I’m like, “I can just do it myself.”

[00:21:48] Chris: I think most business owners found that exact trap. Joe and I have literally have literally had that conversation about stuff in TAS, in the new brand like it’s just faster for me to do it. He’s like, “Yeah but should you really be logging in and checking PPC three times a day?” Probably not.

[00:22:06] Scott: Your time is more valuable doing the things that you enjoy but also the things that you are really super good at and things that you have to. Maybe you can have someone do product research for you down to the point where you’re going to make the final decision. Because you don’t want to go through and do all of the back and forth and all of the tracking and all of that… You don’t want to do that stuff. You just want them to say, “Here’s five products I found that fit our criteria that I think would be a great fit,” and you go, “I like those two, I don’t like those two.”

And then you can just go ahead and make that decision. That could be something. So there’s a lot that you can do there but I think having a team… And it’s going to take time. You might have to go backwards a little bit and then from there you’re going to be able to move forward.

[00:22:53] Chris: Well, and that’s the scary part of this process and remind me to tell the story about The Profit in a second. The scary part about this process is one you’re giving up that control. You know that it’s going to be done a certain way if you do it. But two is in doing this automation, delegation, duplication thing, if we’re trying to create little mini Scotts which is terrifying.

[00:23:12] Scott: That is terrifying. There’s one actually though that was running around is my son.

[00:23:27] Chris: He’s a large human. …Is that it actually takes more time upfront because to get all of the crap out of our head that we do on a daily basis and to get it down into a process that someone else can do is actually much more time intensive in the short term than doing it ourselves. And that’s why a lot of entrepreneurs fall into this trap of I’ll just do it myself because it’s faster. It’s going to take me… Like the next time I do this process if I write down every button that I click on, it’s going to take me two hours to do it. It would normally take me 25 minutes.

Because I need to write down everything, I need to explain why I’m clicking here, why I’m doing this. And then to then make sure that that makes sense to somebody after I hand it to them, it’s going to be another maybe four hours. Well, that’s worth six weeks of me doing that thing that was going to take me 25 minutes a day. Yeah, but then you never have to touch it again. And so it’s one of those things where you do actually do work Upfront and even the automation side. To figure out okay I need to put this here, this here even if it’s in a drag and drop format kind of like Zappier is it does take time to figure out that process.

But once that process is done you literally never need to touch it again. And so like, I end up doing a lot of the automation just out of pure frustration of things that I never want to see. And so it takes me more time that just looking at the stupid thing. Maybe even more time it would take me to look at it for the next two weeks. But then I never have to look at it again. And I never have to deal with hit until something breaks and I don’t get the report in my email that I was expecting to get. I can go look at it and it takes me five minutes to go click on a button. That’s fine.

The other side of this and this is the story from The Profit. I forget which episode it was but was one from this season, from the 2018 like summer season. And the business owner, if you guys haven’t watched the show, it’s a great show to watch. It is. Really is. Because he breaks down exactly what’s going on and it’s usually brick and mortar businesses which is…

[00:25:18] Scott: It’s usually brick and mortar, usually they are not even that big. I mean some of them might be doing up to a million. I think a couple have done a little bit more but generally it’s like a million dollar business or less. Little Mom & Pop shops or whatever. So, anyway, go ahead.

[00:25:32] Chris: And the biggest struggle on it is something that you see all the time on this show. And it’s something that you can kind of even get the vibe from Shark Tank based on the entrepreneur is that the owner is the one that’s doing everything. Now Marcus has built his entire team around them. He’s pulling in business owners and businesses that he’s invested in, he’s even pulled CEOs out of them and given them different jobs inside of his organization like the guys of Flex Watches now run his ad… Like his marketing agency inside of all his brands. So they then come set the creative direction for everybody

They still have their own business, they are still doing all that stuff but they are also doing this now because that’s really their super power. But to delegate and to be able to do those things takes a ton of time and effort and business owners are scared of it. And one of the things that he said and I’m pretty sure it was this season was the owner said, ‘Nobody can do it as well as I do it.’ And you can’t expect anyone else to. But even if they do it 80% as well and in some cases, quite honestly they are going to do it better than you. Even if they only do it 50% as well, is it still worth having someone else do that?

The answer in 99.9% of cases is yes. Because it frees you up to do something that is more valuable for the business. And this entire process starts with you basically just writing down everything you were doing on a daily basis. And then going, this is what lights me up, this is what makes me excited, this is what gives me energy and this is just what makes me want to kill things. This is what drains me, this is what stresses me out. This is why I’m going bald. That list is the stuff we should be trying to automate, delegate and duplicate out of lives.

And so we need to start with that list. But to even understand that if it’s not done as well as I can “do it” it’s still getting done. And we need to be able to do it. And that’s the only we can grow past that ceiling because if we’re at our eight hour capacity or our twelve hour work capacity or if you’re crazy our eighteen hour capacity, for the day and are willing to work those eighteen hours, is there a not one thing in there that we can offload?

[00:27:36] Chris: That will free us up half an hour to do something that will then let us to expand the business. Maybe I can start to dabble on another channel, maybe I can start to do some of those other kind of things. What can I get off my plate to be able to make more decisions and less tactical implementations?

[00:27:52] Scott: What I want to do here though is, I want you guys to be listening and thinking of your own business right now. So I’m going to and recap a little bit and then we’ll hit number five.

But number one is diversifying. So think about the channel that you are on right now. Or what other channels you could add and what would make the most sense for you right now. What would be the easiest one for you to do now? So again, I want you to think about your business what would be the easiest for you to do right now and any of these.

Number two is adding more products. I think we always can be looking at ways to expand our product lines. This also might be the time that you’ve already niched down and you’ve went like really deep in your market in these submarkets and now maybe you’re going to go a level up. Maybe you’re going to instead of going into the Kayak bass fishing market, you’re going to start offering bass fishing stuff. Or maybe you’re going to go up there and go into fly fishing. So there might be a time in your business when you’re like okay, I’ve got leverage now. I’ve went into the A, I’ve gotten the attention, I went to the C, I’ve cultivated my audience.

They know they can trust me. I can start to offer some more of these different products in these other submarkets that I wouldn’t have been able to do before because I didn’t have these leverage points. So I want you guys to be thinking where you are right now, what one of these things can you do? You don’t have to do all of these. So when we’re inside of our inner circle people that pay us basically a lot of money, $25k a year to be in this group like they want to be able to build the business, this is what we do. We’re going to analyze and like take one of these things can really go deep to then grow and scale the business.

Doesn’t mean we’re going to do them all. That wouldn’t even be my recommendation. I’d say, “No don’t do them all.” One at a time and the easiest one that will give you the best bang for your buck right now. Like that is it.

[00:29:48] Chris: And it depends. There is no right answer to that question and that’s the thing that’s interesting because if you have somebody and I’m thinking of somebody who in that last call we had with our mastermind set, I haven’t really done anything…. because I automated everything. Well, let’s focus on product expansion then. Like because we don’t have a time issue here. So how do we make the business bigger, maybe it’s product expansion? It’s not going to be automation because we already got that handled.

So it depends on your business in your specific situation.

[00:30:14] Scott: Yeah, absolutely and that’s what I want you to be doing right now. It’s like I want you to do a self-audit in a sense. I want you to be looking at the different components that we are talking about and what one could you do right now. Even going back to all of the different things. So now once we get done with the expansion part right here and we’re working on that, then we’re going to go back and we’re going to start to… And that kinds of moves me to number five, which is exploring the PAC now of PACE again. So we’re going back. Once we get through the expansion, and we’ve done something in there, we might go back and say okay let’s look at our attention pillar.

Let’s see what we’re doing in this pillar. Again guys if you have not listened to that episode or the C, the cultivation episode or even the preparation foundation one, go back and listen to these because these are things that you’re going to want to go back time and time again because we’re always going to be shoring up the foundation, we’re always going to be working on getting more attention, we’re always going to be working on how can we cultivate with a…. And really communicate with our list more in the future and build our list and just do all these cool things.

How can we do that? So what we want to do here is again explore, this is number five by the way. We want to explore the P, the A and the C where can we go back into one of those that makes the most sense that’s going to drive our business to grow and scale it? What’s your thoughts on…? At that point what would you be saying like…? And I know what’s going to be business dependent… It depends. For me personally, I’d have to do a quick scan of your business but I’d be looking at those but I don’t think you can ever go wrong with getting more attention.

I think that, I mean if I’m going to default back to something I’m like, “Okay, cool what do I work on now?” It’s like how do I get more attention now? How do I get more traffic? And because once I have those pieces in place like once I have my own… Maybe I’ve got my funnel in place how do I get more traffic to it? How do I run ads more effectively?

[00:32:17] Chris: How do I go colder and colder there?

[00:32:20] Scott: Talk about that. Like okay cold traffic, warm traffic just to kind of give you guys a quick little run down on what that is, explain that Chris.

[00:32:27] Chris: Internally and this is something we don’t really talk about but we have a really bit of a different definition than maybe say like digital marketer, or some of those kinds of people. We kind of talk about hot, warm and cold. Hot people are people who have already bought from us. Warm people are people on maybe on our email list or who kind of know who we are just through the grapevine. Maybe they’ve seen people post about our stuff in a niche Facebook group. So they kind of know who we are. Cold traffic is people who have no idea who [inaudible 00:33:00] why we exist, maybe they are not even aware that Kayak bass fishing is a thing.

That’s going to be cold traffic. Warmer traffic is going to be people who understand what Kayak bass fishing is but maybe haven’t interacted with us directly. Hot are going to be people who have either bought from us or have been on emails forever and have what’s called brand affinity. I’m saying sarcastically but they know who we are and they’ve interacted with us and it’s been a positive interaction for them. So typically when we started advertising it’s going to be to that warm traffic. Then we’re going to create our little hot bucket out of that.

So it’s going to be people obviously who know what Kayak bass fishing is. But at some point we reach an upper limit of people who are actively interested in Kayak bass fishing and we have to extend that out to other people. Now when we do that, the logical place to start is just other bass fishermen who don’t know that a Kayak, you can bass fishing in a kayak. Then we go to trout fishermen. We just make that circle a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger until we get to a place where maybe they don’t even fish but they just like being outside.

And when we go back to that attention pillar, that starts to massively increase the size of our business but it’s also a lot more difficult. So we don’t want to do that up front and when you say Scott go back and explore the P, the A and the C really before you get into this expansion phase I like to have those things up and running. It’s not necessarily like we need those 100% dialed in. They just need to be functional. They need to be there. Because if we’re doing those things that gives us an understanding, it gives us a solid base to build our business from.

[00:34:37] Chris: And then once we start to diversify our products, we diversify our channels we need to go back and we need to really shore those up. We need to make sure that they are set, that they are in place and that we can rely upon each of those pillar consistently as we start to do the expansion stuff. Because what worked, and let’s just give the example of building our own funnel, if we want to add our own channel and that’s what we decide to do in that E, expansion phase, well what we did from an advertising or an attention getting perspective to create sales on Amazon probably isn’t going to be the same thing that makes that channel successful for us.

I’ not saying forget about running Amazon PPC because that’s just silly. It’s free money. Please grab that free money. It’s like being in that money booth convention where they just blow $20 up in the air and you got grab as much of it as you can. That’s how I feel about Amazon PPC. But you can’t run Amazon ads to your own funnel. So you need to figure out Facebook or how to make that work for you or YouTube ads or something like that. And then that shores up that attention pillar. Let’s us go out to a different people, in a different way and create that message. Or even if you’ve already figure out how to run Facebook ads for a giveaway, you’re not going to run the same type of ad to a free-plus shipping funnel or to a full price funnel.

You’re not going to do it. It’s not going to work for you. You might have some similar messaging that words might be similar, the pictures might look similar. Though the message overall is going to be different. And so you need to start understand those things. Once we’ve chosen our method of expansion we need to go back, we need to make sure that we have a solid foundation still and then we really need to dive in to the attention or the cultivation so that we can ramp up what we just chose to expand. Does that make sense?

[00:36:21] Scott: Yeah, you’re going to be working…

[00:36:23] Chris: We’re expanding the expansion.

[00:36:25] Scott: Yes we are. You are like you said Chris, you are going to need those other pillars in place. Like I said, the very first one your preparation foundation like you can’t do any of the other stuff unless we have that. So we have to do that first. So if you’ve started your business and you’re up and running or if you’re at the million dollar mark of revenue or maybe you’re at the $10 million mark, you’re still going to be going through this process. Period. Like it doesn’t matter what size businesses you have and we found that. I mean, again like in the inner circle right now we’ve got some that are well over that mark.

But they are still trying to get a way to get more attention. Trying to find a way to communicate with their audience. How many people do we have that’s like, “Okay. I’ve got an email list, now what do with it?” That’s why the cultivation part is really, really important. And this is a big focus for a lot of people. But with that being said, we want to do all that but then we also once we start to get that going, we do want to look into the expansion because if we automate some things, guess what we’re going to be doing with your time. You’ll be working on the A and the C a little bit more

And not been taking away from your business. So it just comes a time that you have to analyze your business. You have to look at it. And that’s why we’ve done each of these as their separate episode. Because what I want you to do I want you to go through. I want you to give your business an audit in a sense. Go through this process. See where you are and where you need to spend your time. And then from there you move on to the next pillar. And that’s why we wanted to do this in four chunks really, in four pillars. Because each one has its place.

And I think it’s really, really important. If you look at any business, any successful business it’s going to fall into these four pillars. There’s going to be work that they’ve done in all of these pillars. Now there’s some big businesses that are lacking in some of these and that’s fine but they could be doing a better job.

[00:38:13] Chris: It’s funny because I was actually just about to bring up that exact point. It’s really easy to get the P right. To get your preparation foundation in place. And you look at small business in American and I think I forget what the business number is but there’s millions of them, most of them make under $250,000 a year but it’s comfortable for a lot of… If you can pull in $250,000 you’re doing really well, you’re still in the top 1% of America which is also the top 1% of the world. Top 1% of the top 1%, that’s pretty darn good. I’d like to be in the 99th percentile of anything. Like I don’t need to be the top guy. I don’t need to be Jeff Bezos

If I’m in that top 1% I’m doing something right. If I’m in the top 1% in the world in the health or fitness or something like that, that’s the concept. Like you’re freaking Mr. Olympia if you can get the P right. But you’re at least in the contest, you’re at stage, you’re in the finals of Mr. Olympia. Then you add in the A and a lot of people get this right. But then they don’t know what to do with it. Like advertising now is so much easier than is has ever been. But it’s also much more intimidating. Because it’s easy to waste a lot of money. We can get a ton of eyeballs but then what do we do with them?

C is where I start to see what kind of makes or breaks a lot of businesses long term. And I see it in businesses with 500,000 emails, I see it in businesses with 500 emails. They don’t understand how to create and foster long term relationships with their customers so they become commoditized. How do you sell a $4 bottle of water in the same refrigerator as a $1 bottle of tap water? If you go to Texas you have Fiji water for three bucks right next to Ozarka which comes out of the tap. It’s bottled municipal source, it’s the conversation that we had this week, right. And it comes right from the tap in a city and they just filled up the bottle of water and they sell it for 89 cents. So the bottle of Fiji that’s $3.89. Well how does Fiji do that?

[00:40:10] Chris: Well they have different messaging, people that buy the Fiji bottle actually understand that it’s coming from a better source. It’s coming from all these things. If you don’t have that connection with your customers. You can’t sell it for $3.89. You’re competing just on price and a lot of companies even companies that’s successful for five or ten years run into that as competition starts to come into their market. We’re not talking about product specific competition here. I’m talking about market competition, right. E for me the expansion phase helps to bolster you doing even a mediocre job in the cultivation section.

Because we’re becoming less dependent but it also is really the thing that is going to make us not just survive but thrive for the long term. Because the businesses that are the most successful have people working on them. Not people working in them. And that is the thing that most entrepreneurs even successful entrepreneurs, even people who have businesses that they build when they run their entire lives that is the part that they struggle with. And the example that just popped in my head here and let me know if this is accurate or not, but your dad’s construction business, did he work on that business or did he mostly work in that business?

[00:41:24] Scott: At first it was in. And the he was out. And when he was out of the business the business actually was doing really well, well because I was doing a lot of the work but anyway besides that… But he had a good foreman. It was me that was…

[00:41:38] Chris: Right and you were working in the business.

[00:41:39] Scott: I was working in the business but in a sense I was also working on the business because in my head I was thinking I would potentially own the business one day so I had a little bit more heart into it, a little bit more drive. But I was also managing people. So I was a little bit of the working on but I was also in at the same time when he pulled himself out of the business it actually was doing better. His problem was his partner was… That’s for a whole other story. So bad marriage. But yes, you’re absolutely right. The business actually did better once he got out of the business, worked on it, instead of working in it.

[00:42:13] Chris: Because you’re able to see the things. Like even as a manager of people. Everybody makes the joke like middle management in corporate. But middle management isn’t actually really important. They are the people who are doing the tactical implementation in managing the tactical implementation. You can’t have a CEO who says, “Here’s where we need to go,” if he’s also managing all of the people running Facebook ads and he’s managing the day to day product development. He’s writing all of the software. He’s running al of these things. He can’t set that strategic direction.

And you can build a very successful business by doing all those things. But if you want to have a successful business over the long term, if you want a business that’s assailable asset that’s not 100% reliant upon you which is a huge mistake that I see people make right you get hit by a bus tomorrow the business vanishes. Well, that’s a problem. If you’re building that for your family or you’re building this as assailable asset that then becomes an issue. If you can’t take a vacation without losing 200 grand which happens to businesses, right?

That’s an issue. We need to be able to bolster that. And that’s really one of the things inside of the expansion phase that I think is… It’s really setting you up… That is the thing that secures everything else.

[00:43:29] Scott: It really does and it’s partly you’re adding fuel to the business but in the same breath that would also be in the A and the C because you’re creating awareness and creating a bond. But you are by being able to scale your business by you not doing the work necessarily but you’re having other people or automation help you do more so you can do more things to actually drive the business. Going back to my father’s situation though again, I was just thinking about that. Like we back in the day we’re talking, this is over 20 years ago. Brick and mortar and we were, we were just approaching the $2 million mark back then for Brick and mortar.

The problem with not going to four or five was a partner. And the problem with that was the partner did not want to grow as far as… He did not want to change pricing. He did not want to add different sales tactics in a sense. Like different ways to upsell the job, he didn’t want to. And so by that there was a lot of resistance. So because of that he wasn’t able to really grow and scale at the level that we could have. Because if we could have done that well we could have been at $5 million. I could almost guarantee you. And that’s way back in the day. Nowadays it’s probably like a $10 million construction business.

The other thing is though we were dealing with Home Depot starting to do their own installation and oh my gosh, my father’s partner was like what are we going to do. How are we going to stand apart? The thing was we never were affected at all. And the reason was it’s because our unique selling proposition to those people were we’re a family owned business, we’re going to be there, they’re just hiring subcontractors. That was our way of… And we still did very, very well and I think that that business could have…. We could have sold that business for a lot of money but that didn’t happen. But it did well for as long as… My father was in business with this partner for over 20 years.

[00:45:30] Scott: Now when I was growing up they had that business and I just happened to work in it for the last eight. But anyway…

[00:45:36] Chris: Something that you just touched on there that’s interesting before we wrap this up. You talked about the partner wasn’t really willing to expand beyond $2 million. And one of the other things and this actually happened in the Inner Circle. Joel was talking about a conversation that he had with someone else in there. And a lot of us run into this mental thing where like I’m comfortable. Why would I grow my business? Well one, stability. All of the stuff that we’re talking about is making sure that this thing doesn’t disappear overnight. So that not only are you comfortable but you are comfortable and secure.

But a lot of you say, “My business is $1 million a year. I don’t really want to do more than that.” But if you’re cultivating an audience, how many people in that audience are you not serving or are you not helping by doing those things. And one of the things that you just brought up, we have to be open to other things And it’s extremely important in business to not think that you have the answers. If you are the smartest person in the room you’re in the wrong room. Now there’s only two of us in this room, so maybe we should go out in the hallway. Maybe Scott needs to go somewhere else so that he’s no longer the smartest person in this room.

But you talked about the sales tactics. Well, he wasn’t willing to do an upsell with Hurricane Glass or something. It doesn’t hurt you to offer that and not necessarily where you were then but where you were now. That might be something that somebody wants. They don’t want windows to shutter if you get a hurricane. You’re not only doing yourself a revenue disservice by not offering that but if you truly are the best person to help get those windows installed because you actually care about the quality of the job. You’re not just some you can hire up from the Home Depo that maybe hang a window once, you care about the quality, you want them to get the best thing. You’re literally doing them a disservice by not offering that because then they have to go to home depo and get the crappy guy to install it for them.

And so not only did they go spend their money somewhere else and you lost revenue but they are worse off because they didn’t get it installed properly.

[00:47:34] Scott: You’re absolutely right. We did care about our customers and really we did stand behind our products and they’ve had a problem with their… It wasn’t like they had to go through a bunch of channels to get to the person. I actually went in to get a carpet, an estimate carpet from Home Depot, it was a whole process to get someone just to come to my house. I’m like no, I’m not doing this. I’m going to the local guy up the street that’s been in business for 25 years with his son. And I did that because it was a hassle. You know what I mean. Like some feel Home Depot, big company, they are going to be around forever. Sears was doing siting for years. We competed with them all the time.

And we got a lot of jobs from competing against them. But anyway, that’s for a whole other conversation. Yeah, remember Sears? But going back. I’m going to end on this. Going back on like you said, like stunting the growth like the partner stunted the growth because they didn’t want to do those things and they didn’t want any of our salespeople to do those things. You can do it in an ethical way. You’re doing it not to, like you said not to try to trick someone like honestly like you’re talking about certain glass. There’s Lowe Argon glass which basically Lowe is like… You can’t see it but it’s a film that’s on the glass that actually… It reflects heat.

So basically if it’s hot outside, it’s going to keep the hot air out… It’s going to keep the heat outside.

[00:48:53] Chris: It’s going to keep your house warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

[00:48:55] Scott: Exactly. Argon is a gas that was filled in between the two panes of glass which actually again insulated it further. And we would have a heat gun in the house and we should show them okay, it’s 100 degrees outside, boom you heat it, it’s this. You can show them that example and it would be like a $25 upgrade per window. So $25 for Lowe Argon and then maybe you’d say okay grids, we want to put grids in your window. Do you want grids? Grids are just those white things that make it look like a country home and there’s different styles. Those are 25/30 bucks. Do you want your windows cased on the outside with aluminum so that you don’t have to paint your outside casing? That’s 40 bucks.

So by the time you’re done you take a $200 window you bring it up to a $300. And a very, very simple thing but didn’t want to do it. So that’s a problem.

[00:49:37] Chris: You’re giving them the customer that option then. And oh by the way if you have grids on your windows and you hate them you do know you can just take them off.

[00:49:48] Scott: Well, in this case they can’t because they were between the two panes of glass.

[00:49:51] Chris: That’s terrible.

[00:49:51] Scott: No, that was better because guess what, the people that had grids, it was a pain to wash the windows in between the panes. Now you just wipe your window, you have the grids and you’re good. So now the windows that we saw they were in between the panes and that was a selling feature. Anyway, enough window talk. But it does go well into what we had… Etch glass too. If you wanted to do etch glass. That was premium money. So you would do like etched into the glass, you do like these little designs that you could do in the glass that would be like a flower or something like a garden window or something.

[00:50:28] Chris: Fancy.

[00:50:28] Scott: It was. And that was a big upsell. That was like a $300 upsell. Anyway way enough talk in that but I think it gives you guys a little bit of a different an idea of how expansion does work by covering all of these different things and really what I want you guys to do is analyze your own business right now where it is, no matter where it is. If you’re doing $50,000 a month, why not do 1$00,000 a month by doing these things in PACE that will allow you to get there and you’ll be able to not have to lay awake at night wondering if Amazon is going to send you an email tomorrow and say, “We’re going to pause your listing on your one product that’s selling 200 a day because I’m getting complaints.”

Let’s know how you’re going to fix it and how you’re going to fix it and then we might let you start selling again. Who wants to wake up to that email? Not me, not you. So we would definitely not want to do that. So anyway, hopefully this has been helpful. This is the fourth part of PACE. We did an overview as well. So technically there’s five podcast episodes that we did. I’m actually going to link all of these up, Chris at a very convenient link. And that I theamazingseller.com/pace.

[00:51:44] Chris: I was going to guess that

[00:51:45] Scott: So we’re going to go ahead and link those up on that page. This way here you guys can go back and you can listen to all of these episodes and this way here it will make a lot more sense. I’ve also did four whiteboard videos. They should be all posted by the time this airs. I will also link that up inside of that post. And then the other thing I did want to bring up is if you guys are at that level, if you’re at the level of you know I want to grow my business beyond $500,000 a year or a million dollars a year, if you’re at that point and you would like to be part of one of our Inner Circle groups, our TAS Inner Circle groups, you will have to apply but you can by doing that over at theamazingseller.com/mastermind.

And you can go over to TASinnercircle.com. Either one of them will take you to the same place. Now, probably TASinnercircle.com will be the best place to go there. But there’s an application process. You do have to be at a certain in your business but if you want us to help you grow your business using the PACE method and really like analyze the business but then also dig in and really be a partner in the business in a sense. If you’re interested in that definitely go do that, we’d love to work with you. So that’s it, Chris anything you want to wrap up with?

[00:52:56] Chris: I’m good.

[00:52:56] Scott: We’re good. All right guys. So as always remember, I’m here for you, I believe in you and I’m rooting for you. But you have to, you have to… Come on say it with me, say it loud, say it proud… Chris is going to say it not on the count of three. We’re going to say it right now. Oh, oh, let’s do count of five. One, two, three, four, five.

“Take action.” Have an awesome, amazing day and I’ll see you right back here on the next episode.

[END]

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itswomanswork · 7 years ago

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11 Ways to Monetize a Podcast – Plus My Actual Results

How do podcasts make money?

Producing a show takes real work, and if you want to keep your show running, you’ve got to find a way to make it work for you too.

The truth is most shows don’t make any money at all — and it took years before my podcast, The Side Hustle Show, could reasonably be considered a business on its own.

Monetize a Podcast: 11 Real Ways to Make Money From Your Show

Since I launched the show in 2013, I’ve tried a bunch of different monetization strategies. I’ll share my experience and results with those below.

Today, the show brings in over $1000 an episode on average, which is awesome! But it also took a long time to get there.

Now in fairness, I’ve heard from other podcasters that don’t care about monetization at all. They do their shows for other benefits, such as:

Building relationships.

Building authority.

A creative outlet.

And it’s true — a podcast can certainly do all that and more.

But let’s talk dollars and cents. Here are some real ways podcast hosts can make money from their work.

1. Referral Sponsorships

Early on, I experimented with some “affiliate sponsorships” on The Side Hustle Show.

This is a great way for podcasters to get started because you don’t need to have any minimum number of listeners to begin. All you need is a product or service that you like and can recommend to your listeners with an affiliate or referral link.

For example, you might have heard me say, “This episode is brought to you by Ting … visit sidehustlenation.com/ting to claim your free $25 sign-up credit…,” that’s what I mean by a referral sponsorship.

The story goes I’d never even heard of Ting, but heard them advertised on Entrepreneur on Fire. I checked them out and signed up through John’s link — cutting my cell phone bill in half and saving over $800 a year.

Living proof that podcast advertising works!

How Referral Sponsorships Work

This strategy generated few hundred dollars in revenue for the show – nothing amazing but not too bad either. These are companies I tested with:

Ting – New customers get a $25 credit and so do I.

Airbnb – New customers get a $25 account credit and so do I.

Website Magazine – New customers get a free subscription to the magazine and I earn $2 per sign-up.

Aubible.com – New customers get a free audiobook and I earn $10-25 per sign-up.

And these were my results:

Ting – $175 (woohoo for free cell phone service!)

Airbnb – $25 (I only earn my $25 AFTER someone completes their first stay, so I have several more potential $25 credits pending.)

Website Magazine – $182

Audible.com – $0.

So yeah, $382. I’ll chalk that up in the “better than nothing” category.

Benefits of Referral Sponsorships

One cool thing is that since these links are still “live” and active, they have the potential to continue earning for months or even years down the road as more people download back-episodes of the show.

In contrast, traditional sponsorships (see below) will earn you a flat fee without that upside potential.

This referral sponsorship strategy is the exact method that Scott Oldford used monetize his Executive Minute podcast right from the start (much more effectively than me, I might add), and probably what I would do from the very beginning if I was starting over.

I think it gives the perception that the show is perhaps bigger or more established than it really is, which can help build credibility and authority. Listeners might think, oh wow, this guy already has a sponsor, he must be legit!

At least that’s what I might think. Am I way off-base on that assumption?

Risks of Referral Sponsorships

The biggest risk in referral sponsorships is the company discontinues their referral program.

This is exactly what happened with Website Magazine. It’s frustrating because I have several episodes promoting them that are no longer earning anything.

2. Traditional Sponsorships

These are sold on a CPM, or cost-per-thousand basis, and generally priced as follows:

$18 per 1000 downloads for a 15-second “pre-roll” mention at the beginning of your show.

$25 per 1000 downloads for a 60-second “mid-roll” mention during the middle of your show.

A weekly show with 1000 listeners could generate $43 an episode, or $172 per month.

(But of course you’re free to negotiate whatever rate you can!)

As the number of listeners scales up, or the frequency of episodes increases, or your comfort level in including multiple ad spots softens, you can see how these numbers can become quite significant in a hurry.

If your weekly show has 5000 listeners, you’re up to $860 per month, or a little over $10,000 a year from just one sponsorship spot at the beginning of your show and another one in the middle.

Not a bad side hustle, right?

The same audience for a daily show would yield over $50k a year.

I had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Podcast Sponsorship himself, John Lee Dumas, in 2013 and he explained how it all works and how you can begin seeking out sponsors for your show.

My Experience with Traditional Sponsorships

Beginning in 2016, several companies began reaching out to see if they could sponsor The Side Hustle Show.

At that time, new episodes were reaching 5,000-10,000 downloads.

The first ad deal I did was with Teachable, the online course-hosting platform, and we did a 4-episode run for $1000.

After almost 3 years of producing the show every week, it was really cool to earn that kind of cash directly!

Today the show reaches over 20,000 listeners a week and typically earns $800-1200 per episode from traditional sponsorships. I currently have 2 sponsors per show and have 2 ad breaks: one a couple minutes in, and one a few minutes before the end of the show.

How to Find Sponsors for Your Show

In addition to the companies that reach out directly, I have several different sources feeding me advertising deals.

Those include:

AdvertiseCast – A really cool podcast advertising marketplace where you can create you own listings. (Here’s my listing.)

Libsyn – My podcast host occasionally sends me deals.

True Native Media – A podcast advertising broker.

Adopter Media – A podcast advertising broker.

Ad Results Media – Kind of a pain to work with and super slow to pay, but can bring in bigger advertisers.

These companies take a commission from every ad they book on your show, ranging from 20-50%.

There are also companies like Midroll that can act as a liaison between you and advertising partners. However, I believe you may be able to negotiate better rates and find more relevant sponsors by reaching out directly.

For instance, if you hear a company sponsoring another podcast, you know they are at least open to the discussion.

Otherwise, it doesn’t hurt to ask!

3. Sell Your Own Products

Selling my own products is another podcast monetization angle I’ve done over the years.

On several shows I’ve invited listeners to check out my Kindle Launch Plan course on Udemy or to order my book, Buy Buttons.

Make it an Easy Call to Action

I think it’s a good idea to register product-specific domain names that are easy for people to remember and type in. I use GoDaddy for all my domain registrations, and Bluehost to redirect them wherever they need to go.

For example, for the Udemy course, I registered the vanity domain KindleLaunchCourse.com, and redirected that to the Udemy landing page, with a built-in special offer for podcast listeners.

In 2016, 14 people signed up through that link, earning me $350. (Pricing has changed since then.)

For the book, I used another vanity domain, BuyButtonsBook.com, which redirects to Amazon.

This is also super handy when you’re a guest on other shows; you’ve got an easy-to-say URL to mention.

Unfortunately I can’t track which purchases come directly from the podcast, but I’m sure it’s a number greater than zero.

4. Sell Your Own Services

The first service I ever sold on Side Hustle Nation was a private mastermind group with me for $97 a month.

It’s hard to say how many mastermind members came through as a result of the podcast, but my guess is I would have been hard-pressed to generate any applications without building that trust over time through the show.

In 2015, the last full-year I hosted the masterminds, they earned $5200.

Coaching and Consulting

On the “public coaching” series I did on the show, I invited listeners to reach out if they were interested in coaching services themselves.

That was a $3100 income stream in 2015.

I think it worked because listeners could get a sense for my style and methodology for free, and then pay if they wanted the one-on-one attention.

5. Sell Your Guests’ Products as an Affiliate

In a couple instances, my guests have a product or course they’re selling, and after them spending 30-45 minutes dropping some useful value, I have no problem with them inviting listeners to check it out if they want to learn more about the topic.

I don’t always have an affiliate link for these types of offers, but I’ve found it’s most effective when the guest creates a special offer for Side Hustle Show listeners, as Sean Marshall did with his “Clone My Business” Udemy course.

On top of delivering an awesome episode, Sean offered Side Hustle Nation 70% off his Udemy course, and 46 people took advantage of that, earning me $619.50 in affiliate revenue.

Another is example is Greg Mercer from Jungle Scout. Greg has delivered 2 awesome interviews on The Side Hustle Show, and then made a discount deal for his Amazon product research software.

As a Jungle Scout affiliate, I’ve typically earn over $300 a month in commissions — largely as a result of those two episodes.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Of course, the risk in pushing this strategy too far is your show becomes a thinly veiled pitch-fest with everyone just looking for a new audience to sell to.

Be sure to disclose your affiliate relationship if you have one.

6. Sell Your Guests’ Services as an Affiliate

Several of my guests haven’t had any product to sell, but did have a service business the audience found compelling.

One example that comes to mind is Gabe Arnold of Copywriter Today. Gabe came on the show to share how he’d built his content writing business from zero to $20k a month.

At the end of the show, he offered listeners a special deal on the service if they were interested.

After the show aired, it generated a couple dozen new customers and earned me a few hundred dollars in affiliate commissions.

7. Listener Donations

One fascinating way to monetize your show is from your listeners themselves.

Joshua Sheats from Radical Personal Finance is an awesome example of this. Joshua set up a pledge page on Patreon.com, and now has over 250 backers contributing a total of more than $1500 per month at press time.

He puts out a killer show almost every day and asks his fans to consider a monthly donation to support the cause.

How to Accept Donations

Patreon takes a 5% fee on top of any credit card payment processing fees. According their site, “We’re happy if a creator sees around $0.90 of every dollar!”

Theoretically you could accomplish the same thing with fewer fees by hosting the donation campaign yourself, although their platform looks really nice and has some fun social proof elements.

It’s essentially a pay-what-you-want pricing model. The content will still be available for free, but if you find value in it, there’s at least an avenue to collect on that goodwill.

Jen Briney of The Congressional Dish earns several thousand dollars a month from her show, which is entirely listener-supported. She accepts donations via Patreon, PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, and even paper checks in the mail!

I’ve yet to try this myself (it seems weird for a business show to ask for money, right?), though listeners have voluntarily PayPal’d me a few dollars or sent Amazon gift cards my way. Pretty sweet!

8. Re-Purpose Your Content

So far all of these podcast monetization strategies have relied on at least some listeners tuning in.

This content re-purposing strategy can earn you money even if no one ever listens to your show.

How it works is you take the information from your episodes and turn it into other products like books or courses.

For example, The Side Hustle Path series on Amazon is almost entirely derived from podcast content. And despite the first book being free to download in digital form, over 400 people have ordered the paperback version, earning me over $1100 in the last 3 years.

Related: Permafree on Amazon: How and Why to Give Your Book Away, Plus My Results

Portions of Buy Buttons were also sourced The Side Hustle Show interviews, and that book earned around $18,000 in its first year.

9. Syndicate Your Show to YouTube

Not all podcasters are fans of this strategy, but I syndicate my episodes to YouTube.

(I use a tool called TunestoTube.com to get this done.)

I joke I have the world’s worst YouTube channel because there are very few actual videos — my “videos” are mostly just placeholder images and the mp3 podcast episodes.

And while most episodes don’t get a ton of traction on YouTube, some have tens of thousands of views.

Because it’s such a quick and easy process, even just a handful of incremental listeners would be worthwhile. It’s another search engine and another channel for people to potentially discover (and hopefully fall in love with) my content.

You never know where you’ll find your next biggest fan!

I monetize my YouTube channel with the built-in advertising service and have earned an extra $1000 in the last 12 months.

10. Charge Your Guests

Actually charging your interviewees is an interesting — if controversial — podcast monetization strategy. I’ve never attempted this and have a hard time imagining doing it in the future.

However, my friend Joe Pardo charges guests on The Business Podcast $500-3000 per episode — and explains why here.

I suppose if you’ve built the exact audience your guest needs to reach, it could be a small price to pay to spend 45 minutes in their earbuds.

Still, to do this and not have your show come across as a feature-length ad seems like it would be a challenge. Plus there are probably some disclosures you’d want to be upfront with your audience about.

11. Paywall Old Episodes

Finally, some shows keep their recent episodes free but charge for archive content.

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History is an example. His most recent work is available to download free, but older episodes cost $1.99 each on his website.

(He also sells bundles of episodes and accepts listener donations.)

Monetization is Nice, but Remember: Listeners First

Every podcaster needs a way to support their show, but the most successful ones have found ways to do so that still respect the listener.

After all, the audience is what makes your show viable. It’s not about you; it’s not about your guest; it’s about the listener and what they can gain from investing their valuable time with you.

My Podcast Monetization Totals

I wish I could give you the clear-cut answer as to how much The Side Hustle Show makes each week.

Right now, my money-makers are:

Traditional sponsorships ($800-1200 per episode)

Affiliate partnerships with guests ($0-1500 per episode)

YouTube ($0-25 per episode)

Email list growth (50-1000+ new subscribers per show; which leads to revenue down the road)

If I had to guess, I’d say each show I produce is worth an average of $1500-2000 to my business. There are also production costs of around $100 a week, not counting my time.

And to be sure, it’s taken several years to get here, but it’s incredibly exciting to have built a revenue engine like that from the ground up. I’m completely serious when I say starting a podcast has been a life-changing experience.

Your Turn

If you have a show, how do you (or how do you plan to) monetize it?

As a podcast listener, which of the above monetization angles do you prefer?

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