Wed, 30 December 2020
(Case Study) Digital Product Launch Update - Strategy Call |
Mon, 28 December 2020
Predictions for 2021 and Really Good News for Us! |
Fri, 25 December 2020
What’s The Best Way To Create and Recycle Content? Jam Session |
Wed, 23 December 2020
(Coaching Call) Steps To Grow Online Brand In The Exercise NICHE? |
Mon, 21 December 2020
One Simple "WORD" That Gets People To BUY and Take Action |
Fri, 18 December 2020
What Should I Do First? Email List or Digital Product? Jam Session |
Wed, 16 December 2020
When LIFE Throws You A Curve Ball and How To Reinvent Yourself with Sal |
Mon, 14 December 2020
Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here! Today on the show, we’re going to talk about the word failure, what it really means, and how you can get unstuck when you’re feeling down or ready to give up. I’ve seen first-hand that this is a massive problem for people who are starting a business. When they try something, and it feels like it’s not working out the way they had planned, or they’re having a hard time learning a process, it can be easy to give up. I know how difficult it can be when you’re feeling out of your comfort zone, and it can be easy to start to self-sabotage.
You need to get out of that mindset and be ready to learn from your failures and mistakes. With 2021 right around the corner, I wanted to address this issue head-on and bring it to your attention. I want to teach you the tools you need to learn how to fail forward and avoid getting stuck in the process. As a society, we’ve labeled failure as a bad thing. However, that doesn’t mean you’re still not in the game, ready to move forward and try again. In my eyes, the only way you can fail is by giving up or giving in when things get hard or don’t go as planned. This conversation might just be exactly what you need to get yourself fired up and inspire you to move forward.
I wanted to add a shameless plug here about our coffee crew. We meet virtually every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning eastern time. We talk a lot about building our brands, but we also cover topics like how to stay motivated, stay committed, go after the life you desire and have worked so hard for, and get unstuck and get over the barriers that you face. I hope you’ll feel inspired too, and if you want to join us and spend time with some really cool people who are helping each other stay motivated, head over to takeactioncrew.com. It’s completely free, and we’d love to have you!
How to Learn From Your Failures
We always use the word failure in a negative light, but what does it really mean? To me, it means that you tried something, and when it didn’t go as planned, you decide to give up and move on without trying again. If you’re not done and take time to learn from your “failure,” you didn’t actually fail. I like to use the word lesson instead of failure because you’re learning when something didn’t go as planned.
As an example, let’s say you go through my Digital Product FastTrack Workshop, you follow the instructions exactly, and you only end up making two sales. If you feel like giving up, I’m going to blow the whistle and call a timeout.
Instead, look at the positives. Number one, you have a digital asset that you can sell as long as you want. You just might not have the right audience. You also learned throughout the entire process, and you made something that your audience wants and needs. You’ve also been through the process, so when you’re ready to go through it again, you can with another product. So at the end of all that, did you fail? Or can you look at how far you came and what you’re capable of accomplishing? The next time you see something in your market that would be a good digital product, you know how to do it, and you’ll be ready to try again.
There is no such thing as failure in my book until you stop trying altogether. You’re either on the sidelines or in the game; there is no in-between. If something didn’t work out, take time to review what you did, what could have gone better, and how you can improve for the next time. Your “failures” happen for a reason. It’ll help you to dig a little deeper and ask questions about why things happened the way that it did so you can improve.
Presell Your Products Before You Create Them
If you’re worried about no one buying your products, I recommend doing a presale to make sure that people are interested before you actually create it. I’ve done this several times with my own brands and products. In fact, I did it with the recent workshops that I created them.
Here is an example, imagine that you’re in a pottery studio and someone is hosting a pottery class in a week. When you purchase the ticket, your buying it to attend a class on a later date, but you’ve already paid for it. You can even use this same technique with digital products and ebooks. You can offer a special discount to the first select number of people that sign up. I’ve done this time and time again and will do it again in the future because it works so well. When I do it, I usually reach out to my list and community to see what topics people are interested in learning about so I know there is an interest beforehand.
The Five Steps to Building Your Brand
Failure is learning and discovering the reason why something didn’t work or go as planned. It doesn’t mean you did something wrong. You ran a play in the game and needed to adjust according to what went wrong. Failing forward is really getting results, learning and moving forward, and doing it time and time again.
There are five stages to building your brand:
Stage one: You need to find your niche, validate it, and make a commitment to build a brand within that niche.
Stage two: This is when you’ll start to build your brand’s foundation. This means you’ll build your website. So you’ll need to get your domain name, set up hosting, design your website and get it running and from there, start getting traffic to your website.
Stage three: Build your list. This could be your email list, getting people to your Facebook page or group, or building your list on Instagram. Wherever your audience is, you need to reach them there. For me, this is an email list.
Stage four: Monetize your brand. How are you going to make money? You can do this in several different ways. You could write product-based blog posts, promote independent products that are affiliated, create your own physical or digital products, etc. There are several different ways to do it.
Stage five: Grow your brand. This is when you’ll go back to previous stages and improve on each of them. It’s an endless cycle.
No matter where you are at in the brand-building process, you’re learning by doing, and it’ll help you in the long run. Even if you’re not doing the same thing in five years, you’ll be prepared for the next thing you want. You’re always learning from what you’re doing now. I think that instead of calling it failing forward, it should be called learning forward. Personally, I don’t like using the word failure and the negative thoughts that come with it.
Embrace Learning Forward
There you have it. Yes, I did try to give you the best way possible to help you think about what failure really means. If you’re going to call it a failure, let’s call it failing forward. You need to learn how to stumble forward and fail forward.
Rember, Actions = results. The only way you’ll get a result is if you do something and take action. If you just think about it, you’ll never get anything done. You’re always learning even if things don’t go as planned.
As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. Now it’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode |
Fri, 11 December 2020
How Can I Start My Day and Guarantee Success? - Jam Session |
Wed, 9 December 2020
The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster Ride That Lead To Millions with Chuck Mullins |
Mon, 7 December 2020
The 5 Day Profit Push Email Sequence (Walkthrough and Examples) |
Fri, 4 December 2020
What's The Best Way To Use Paid Ads To Sell My Digital Products? - Jam Session |
Wed, 2 December 2020
How Billy Niched Down And Built A Brand Helping Chiropractors with Digital Marketing |
Mon, 30 November 2020
3 Steps To Adding $1k Revenue Stream with a Simple Digital Product |
Fri, 27 November 2020
What's The Best Way To Launch My Digital Product? - Jam Session |
Wed, 25 November 2020
Success and Failures After Building Multiple Brands Online with Spencer Haws |
Mon, 23 November 2020
The Solution To Finally Commit an Get Results in Your BRAND (30 Day Roadmap) |
Fri, 20 November 2020
Welcome to this week’s session of our Friday jam session. It’s always one of the highlights of my week. It’s so fun to hang out with some awesome people and answer some great questions. If you’d like to join us, it’s super easy. Head over to takeactioncrew.com and answer a couple of simple questions. It’s totally free, and you’ll be able to learn right along with us and even get some of your own questions answered in the process. So what are you waiting for?!
Today we’re going to talk about the best email promotion strategies during the holidays. I get questions regarding this topic often and figured it would be a good time to cover this with the holidays fast approaching.
Build a Relationship With Your List Before Launching a Promotion
If you are thinking about sending out a promotion to your email list, don’t expect it to be successful if you just send out an email with your promotion. There are some things to consider and to prepare before you ever send anything out.
If you don’t have an email list, you’ll definitely want one to take full advance of the practices that I’m sharing with you today. If you need help building your list, sign up for our new email list building fast track workshop. You’ll be able to grow your list to 500 subscribers in just 30 days. It’s much easier than you might think.
Before you ever send a hardcore promotional to your email list, you need to let them know you are there to give them valuable information. Use the know, like, and trust method. Make sure people know who you are, like what you’re providing them, and know that they can trust you and what you have to offer. All before you ever ask them for anything in return.
In the beginning, provide 90% value and 10% promotion. As you gear up for a promotion, you can focus an additional 10% on your promotional efforts but not much more than that.
Steps to Prepare for Your Promotion
Before you ever start advertising your promotion, there are a few things that you need to do beforehand that will ensure that you see the most success.
Step 1: Create an Offer They Can’t Refuse
You need to have a great offer to share when you send out a promotion. A 10% discount isn’t going to get anyone excited to sign up or purchase your product.
If you’re selling a physical product, you could give them a free digital product, a bonus, or an instructional video to go along with their purchase. During a promotion, an incredible offer is going to get your subscribers to take action and purchase your product. So, take some time to really think about what you could offer to motive them to buy.
Step 2: Explain the Timing of Your Offer
Explain to your subscribers why you are offering this promotion and explain the timing. If you’re offering a holiday promotion, explain why you decided to launch it on a specific day that you did. If you only have a limited supply, be sure to mention that as well.
Step 3: Establish a Deadline
There needs to be some scarcity in place for your product. People always react to deadlines. It’s human nature.
Make sure that you give your subscribers enough time to get excited and think about your promotion, though. Give them a heads up before you launch your promotion, even if it’s only two or three days before. You want to build up some excitement, so they’re ready and willing to take action when your promotion is live.
Emails to Send Out During Your Promotion
Email #1: Let your subscribers know that something is coming and to be ready
Email #2: Send the day that you launch the email. Remind them why you’re offering a promotion and how long it’ll be available. Not everyone reads all of your emails, so make sure that you’re very clear about the promotion and deadline in all of your related emails.
Email #3: Send out the second day of the promotion. Remind your subscribers about the promotion in case they missed the first couple of emails or haven’t made a purchase yet.
Email #4-6: Send the day the deal is going to end. In every one of these emails, you’ll see that some people will click on the email and subscribe, and others will ask to be removed from your list. Don’t let those people who unsubscribe get to you. If you’ve provided them with valuable content, you’ve done everything you can, and they just don’t see the value that you offer. However, there are plenty of other people who will see the value and purchase because of it.
If you’re doing a three-day promotion on the final day, you can send two to three emails. Send one in the morning, one in the late afternoon, and one three to four hours before the promotion ends. It’s that simple.
This method really does work. In 2003 I started list building using a fishbowl. I had people put their emails in a fishbowl and raffled off a free photo session. We had to manually enter in all of their emails and blind copy everyone when we sent out emails. That was our email marketing back then, and it worked! Because we did promotions, we were able to sell out our holiday seasons in July each year. They really are powerful if you do them correctly.
It’s the same concept in 2020. Email is a great way to reach your audience whenever you want. If you do it right and deliver value all year long, you can successfully promote your offers, and it will do well.
Questions From The Take Action Crew
Q: When creating my lead magnet, should I create it in a word or pdf format?
A: You always want to create a pdf. If you send out a word document, it’ll show up differently for every user.
Q: Do I need to have a minimum number of subscribers to sign up for an affiliate program?
A: If you’re signing up for Amazon’s affiliate program, you don’t need to have a list. However, keep in mind they want you to send people to their website. To get around this, create a blog post about the products you’re promoting and take people back to your post, so you have more control over that traffic.
If you’re signing up for a private brand’s affiliate program, they may look at the size of your list. But for the most part, they dont care as long as you’re sending their affiliate link out to your targeted audience and people are using it.
Q: What are your thoughts about a VIP email list?
A: I’m not a huge fan, and I personally wouldn’t build my email list using a VIP list model. However, there are times it can be useful. This is a list that is hyper-targeted. If you have a list where you build a pre-launch list, you’ll let people know that you’re sending out the promotion to the early bird list. This will only work if you have a limited quantity.
Q: How often should I offer discounts to my subscribers?
A: You shouldn’t always be offering discounts. This is where bonuses come in handy. But also make sure to avoid being predictable. You don’t want people to wait around to purchase because they know what type of promotion you’ll be launching down the road.
I hope that you enjoyed this week’s edition of our Friday jam session. If you want to join our coffee talks live each week, head over to takeactioncrew.com to join us and get your own question answers. Thanks so much for listening. It’s always one of the highlights of my week.
As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways from Today’s Episode
Links
Quote:
Use the know, like, and trust method. Make sure people know who you are, like what you’re providing them, and know that they can trust you and what you have to offer. All before you ever ask them for anything in return.
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Wed, 18 November 2020
Today I have Judson Morgon on the Podcast. He owns a company called “Butter” that helps people create videos for their brand. Today, he will share his struggles and what it took for him to get where he is today. Before we dive in I want to let you know about something really exciting! We just finished creating a new workshop to teach you how to create your own digital product within 30 days. To sign up for the course, head over to brandcreators.com/digital.
How Judson’s Entrepreneurial Career Began
I started my career as an actor in New York and have a master’s in acting and directing. I was there for five years, and did really well, and was on a Broadway show. That’s where I met my wife. Her career took us to LA. I quickly realized that I didn’t want to live a life as an actor and have always felt like I was meant to be an entrepreneur.
I ended up moving behind the camera. I noticed that big brands always need help creating content. From there, I created an agency creating videos for brands. My expertise is to incorporate stories within each video.
Always Be Prepared to Pivot
When I started my agency, my wife was succeeding as an actor. It was paying the bills while I was figuring things out starting my business. I really wanted to figure out my own thing and how to make a nice living being my own boss. It was a challenging part of our marriage, while my wife was the primary breadwinner.
Growing up, I never understand the importance of providing for my family in the way that they needed. It took some serious therapy and my wife communicating in an open way about her needs. It’s important to think ahead about how do you want to provide for your family and how you’re going to make it work.
For me, I had to set a goal, reverse engineer, and take action every day. The key is to pivot, pivot, pivot until you find your niche and passion, and take massive action daily! You can’t sit on the sidelines and wait for things to happen.
Around 2015 I discovered the Amazon FBA model and started a business around that, and I also started my video agency around the same time. It’s a nice combination, and it was nice to find a way to provide for my family and feel like I was doing my part.
Look For a Need in Your Market
Before I started my own business, I was making films within the music industry. I was good at doing things on a budget and was a great storyteller, and had steady work coming in. I saw a need for creating corporate videos and was impressed with how much brands were willing to pay for them. Over the past four years, I transformed where it was just me making videos to building out an entire team.
When COVID hit, we shifted our focus more to making more videos for eCommerce brands. We primarily focus on video because Facebook and Amazon both like video best. There is a huge opportunity in video because not everyone can or even wants to do it on their own.
Tips for Effective Story-Telling
When you watch an effective story on a tv show, you’re able to learn the lessons and live vicariously through the people on the screen. Storytelling is massively important. Here are a few tips that I use when I’m creating a new video.
Engage With Your Customers’ Emotions - When you talk about the benefits, always incorporate emotions. Position your product as the guide and the customer as the hero. In all of your content, you want to start out with something that would stop someone in their tracks and catch their attention.
Present a Problem Your Customer Faces - Reach out to a target audience and present the product as a solution for the problem they face.
Incorporate Videos In Your Content - People want to buy from human beings. There is no better way to do this than through video. There is human interaction going on when you’re on a video call and can see someone face to face.
How to Use Retargeting to Bring in New Customers
Our Amazon brands will hit eight figures this year. Every single product that we sell has a notecard that gives our customers 20% off if they go to our website. If they purchase or not, we retarget them with Facebook ads. It’s a very simple process. For every $100 we spend, we make $200. Because we’re retargeting people who have already shown interest, we see higher conversation rates.
Let organic information tell you what people want before you pay to promote it.
I would post content on YouTube first. It’s the #2 search engine in the world. The video stays there forever, whereas, with Facebook, it goes away after time.
The Process of Creating Video Content with Butter
I’m a big fan of taking action. Don’t overthink creating videos. If you’re on a budget, you can record video directly on your phone. If you’re the face of your brand, turn the camera on yourself and tell your story. People will connect with you and like that you’re authentic.
I wouldn’t try to do a pro video with your phone. If you’re making $500,000 in revenue or more, I recommend creating a pro video. We’ve done split testing, and pro video showcasing a product always does much better than a simple home video.
At Butter, we work with companies of all sizes, and our video packages start out at $2,500. We want you to grow and scale your business and help teach and guide you through creating your own videos.
Relationships with your potential customers are just as important as your current customers. If you’re trying to sell a product, your video should be crisp and clean to highlight the benefits and features. However, customer testimonials or unboxings need to be real and authentic and not feel staged.
On our website, we offer a free 30-minute strategy call. Back in the day, when I first listened to Scott, I realized just how easy it can be to take action. You can’t underestimate the power of taking action, one step at a time.
I first launched on Amazon selling an iPhone case. Imperfect action is so much better than overthinking. Try something and be willing to pivot as you go along. You’ll know when things work And once you find something that is effective, scale the things that work. Amazon does the same thing. They are always pivoting until they find things that work well. The biggest takeaway is to take action now and get things done!
Final Note From Scott
There you have it! Another great episode. These episodes aren’t always about one area of business. Instead, it’s all about telling someone’s story and how they come to be an entrepreneur. They each have taken their own unique road to get where they are today. Everyone will face trials and roadblocks. The key is to keep moving forward and take action. These Wednesday podcasts are designed to help you see successful people and see what they’ve overcome to get where they are today and help inspire you to do the same.
As a reminder, we just wrapped up finishing creating our digital product workshop. You’ll learn how to create a digital product and get it ready to sell within 30 days. It’s much easier than you might think. The workshop is only 3 hours long, and it walks you through every step of the process. Also, remember to check out Judson over at Butter. It’s a great business and website.
As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand. Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: Pivot, pivot, pivot until you find your niche and passion and massive action on a daily basis. Links Butter.la - https://www3.butter.la/ Digital Product Creation Fast Track - https://learn.brandcreators.com/offers/Zo37wCyz/checkout |
Mon, 16 November 2020
Today I'm fired up to break down the three-step process of validating your digital product before you take the time to promote and create it. I'm going to share a recent coffee talk that I did related to this topic because we went into great detail. To join our weekly coffee talks head over to takeactioncrew.com. We'd love to have you, and you'll be able to ask questions and get more involved. So, it's a win-win!
One of the biggest hangups people have with creating their own digital products is that they feel like they are too difficult to create. To help, I actually just taught and recorded a digital product fast track workshop. We teach you how to validate, create, and sell your digital product within 30 days. It's much easier than you might think, and I walk you through each step of the process.
The First Steps to Create a Digital Product
If you're thinking of creating a digital product, I recommend validating the idea before you actually move forward.
If you don't validate your brand, you'll end up doing a lot of work to discover that there isn't enough traffic or ways to monetize. The same goes for your digital products. You need to make sure that people want what you're creating. The best way to have people validate is with their wallets. This is where preselling your course comes into play.
If you have any reach on Facebook or have an email list, you have a way to test out your product before creating it. Minimal Viable Products (MVP) are also a great way to get started. The goal here is to get a good quality product out there quickly without actually creating the product until you know that people are genuinely interested and willing to pay you for it. There is no point in creating something to only realize down the road that no one wants it.
The way that I look at it is when you come up with an idea, you need to make sure that your market is interested first. With a digital product, it's fairly easy to validate quickly so you can be on your way to selling and creating the product.
Have you ever had someone commit to something but not follow through. That happens when you start to build an audience for your brand. Typically it's because people are busy, overcommitted, or don't have the money to pay for it. However, when someone votes with their wallet, that is deemed a true vote.
Step 1: Validate Your Digital Product Idea
When I started marketing my Email List Building Fast Track Workshop, I didn't create a product at the start.
All I did was draft up a Facebook post to see if anyone would be interested in the workshop first. I didn't email my list or anything thing. Just from posting on Facebook, I had 120 people say they were interested. After a few days, I direct messaged everyone who showed interest and included a link to the payment page. From doing that, we had 50-60 people who actually purchased the course.
I posted on Facebook again after the initial sign up and shared the same information along with the date of the course and asked people to comment who hadn't yet and wanted to purchase.
Keep in mind that Facebook will flag you if you send too many direct messages in a short amount of time. But there are plenty of ways to get around that.
Before you ever create a digital product or course, you should create an email list. So you can reach out to those people and promote your digital products once you're ready. As long as you have your list ready first, it's fairly easy to reach out after that because those people have already shown some interest in your market and brand. You'll use this audience to help you validate your digital products before you create them. If you don't have any ideas on what type of product to create, you can always ask your audience what type of content they would be interested in.
Step 2: Have Your Audience Validate With Their Wallet
Offer a special promotion for the first few people that sign up for your course. Make them feel like they are a part of the creation process and to show that they are getting a special deal because of it. You don't need to make it complicated. When I first started, I was collecting payment through a PayPal button. It's as simple as that.
Step 3: Create Your Digital Product
As you build and create a digital product, you'll be able to show a sneak peek before the course is live. This will get the people excited who have already signed up and for those who haven't yet, help get them motivated to take action and sign up. So, you're serving both audiences at the time without double the effort.
As you get closure to your launch date, make sure to share some of the behind the scenes as you continue to prepare. You can do this by sharing pictures, screenshots, videos, and explanations. Better yet, get your audience involved and ask them questions about particular parts of the content you're creating and what they want to see. You'll get them excited for what's to come and give them a chance to feel like they are apart of the process, so they know you're including things they care about.
Once your course is complete, you'll be able to use it for years to come. You can drive traffic there from social media, your website content, etc. You're always planting seeds that will help benefit you later on down the road. This is why it's essential to create evergreen digital products that can be purchased at any time.
We Started Brand Creators Academy Because We Saw a Need
At our event last year, we had people say they wanted access to me and Chris, a community, and resources to help build their own brands. So, from there, we built out Brand Creators Academy, and it's been a huge success a year later.
Every single course or piece of content we create is based on what our audience is looking for. We've created both free and paid content to meet the need of our audience, depending on where they are in the process.
Consider Selling Products Under $50 to Start
Keep in mind that when you sell a product or course over $50, people take a lot more time to think about the purchase. My goal with my fast track workshops under $50 is to acquire people investing in the training while allowing me to reach people who are willing to put some skin in the game. Once they purchase my workshop, it shows that they are one step closer to potentially signing up for Brand Creators.
There you have it. That's exactly how I have created my own digital products time and time again. I get to know what the market wants and from there have people vote with their wallets. This is all before I actually create the course, so I can save myself time from building something that people don't want.
I've done this twice within the last two months. First, with my email list building workshop. I validated that my audience wanted it, and from there, I decided to teach it in a live workshop. I showed up for three hours and taught the course live. I also recorded it, so it's now a digital product that people can pay and take the course at any time to learn to grow an email list of up to 500 people within 30 days! I'm teaching everything that I am doing myself that has worked.
It's the same process with ebooks, templates, and video series. You need to validate the product, create an MVP, and get sales quickly. You can always polish and make changes later on down the road.
As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. Now it’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Links
Quote: If you don't validate your brand, you'll end up doing a lot of work to discover that there isn't enough traffic or ways to monetize. The same goes for your digital products. You need to make sure that people want what you're creating.
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Fri, 13 November 2020
Welcome! Friday is always one of my favorite days of the week. I love getting to hang out with some awesome people on our coffee talks. If you’d like to join our live Friday jam sessions, head over to takeactioncrew.com. We’d love to have you join us! Once you’ve joined, you’ll be able to ask your own questions each week to help grow your business. Today we’re going to talk about how to run Facebook ads for your brand and everything you need to know about how to get started.
Keep in mind that you always want to start by planting seeds and build out content from the start to avoid putting all your efforts into one platform. However, it can be frustrating to wait for months for that content to bring organic traffic to your website. So, there is definitely a time and place to use Facebook ads. It allows you to instantly drive traffic and get eyeballs on your content. However, you have to consider that when you’re paying for ads, you need to find a way to recoup the cost and make money. That’s why I always suggest selling digital products to start. You can also start by creating your email list, which we recently taught how to do in our email fast track workshop.
Remember, consistency is key. If you are posting on Facebook every day, you have a good chance of getting in your audience's feed. The more that they interact with you, it lets Facebook know that they want to hear from you. However, you won’t get full reach without paying for ads.
How to Use Facebook Ads To Grow Your List
If you don’t have an email list and don’t want to wait for months to see progress, I recommend paying for Facebook ads to get a head start. All you’ll need is to build a lead magnet and landing page. Even if you don’t have anything to sell them yet, you can use the content you’re creating to drive traffic to your website. I would pay for up to 1,000 subscribers without having a paid product. Because once you have a list, you can sell to those people in the near future once you do have products ready to go. Once you have your list, you can ask people directly what content they are looking for to help make the content creation process easier.
You can also build a list by doing a giveaway as another option if you don’t have your lead magnet ready yet. The quality will be less than leading people to a lead magnet. However, it’s much cheaper to get leads. You have multiple options, so there is nothing stopping you from taking action now!
The Value of Selling a Digital Product
I recommend starting with a digital product, and you can incorporate a physical product later down the road. This helps keep your funnel going so you don’t run out of inventory and break your process. Start with offering a digital product on the thank you page of the lead magnet, and you can sell your physical product after that. Remember, once you capture a person’s email, you’ll be able to reach out to them on a regular basis, so you’ll have plenty of time to sell your physical products. Once you start to see your lead magnet converting at 20-30% on the front end, you need to get a digital product created quickly so you can start bringing in some revenue.
When you start sending out emails, ask yourself what you’re putting in front of people that you can start recouping income from. It can be as simple as adding affiliate links to your blog post or implementing ads to your website.
Coffee Talk Q&A
Q: How far out should I start to promote my workshop?
A: In all honesty, it just depends. I recommend starting out promoting two weeks out at the most. You want to keep it close enough that people will keep your workshop top of mind. It’s also essential to make sure that you provide frequent updates as you get closer. You want to keep in touch with those who have already signed up for your workshop and are waiting for it to start, as well as those who haven’t signed up but are still interested.
Q: Should I create an ebook or mini-course first?
A: I would say you should do whatever is going to be the easiest. For me personally, I recommend starting with an ebook or guide first. You can easily use the content that you’ve already created in the past to create a rough draft, so it should take too much time compared to getting a course ready to go. It’s also usually cheaper as well. Once you have an ebook or guide created, you can use it to outline a course. While you’re building out the course, you’re able to bring in some money from the guide, so it’s a good place to start.
Q: How much should I spend on Facebook Ads per day?
$5 is the minimum I would spend a day. That will be enough to get started as you test and start to get data back from the first few days. You need to give Facebook some time to learn more about your target audience and the type of people interested in your product or service.
So even though you have to pay for ads, it’s considered an investment in your business. As soon as you start to grow your list, think about what you can offer on the backend to make back the money you spent on ads. It’s much easier than you might think. The key is to get started and take action sooner than later!
Q: Is there a minimum number of months I have to sign up for Brand Creators?
No, there is no minimum time frame for Brand Creators. We offer month-to-month, quarterly and yearly options. However, we designed the program to serve as a way for us to work with you month after month as we help you grow your business in the process. We have worked hard to make it possible to connect you with other business owners who are in similar situations as you. This allows you to learn from others and to let you know that you are not alone. We expect a commitment on your part because we know that if you’re truly committed, you are going to see results. Stop consuming and focus on taking action. That is why we created Brand Creators to help you make it possible to do that.
Q: Are people from ads less engaged than other leads?
A: No matter how you find new customers, you need to put in the work to build a relationship and establish trust from the very beginning. At first, people will not be committed or dedicated to you or your brand because they don’t know who you are or what you stand for. As you start to build goodwill, you will gain their trust in the process. For me, it’s helped to show up consistently no matter what I have going. To show that I genuinely care about my community and what they are looking to accomplish.
Q: Best advice you’re received from a mentor or parent?
A: My mother always taught me to always be open and honest. She said that it was important to always be transparent. My father always taught me by doing and taking action.
When I was doing the Rock Your Brand rebrand, I messaged Pat Flynn. I was struggling with how to move forward. He told me to take a step back and think about how someone would describe me in five years. What would I be known for? This got me thinking and motivated me to move forward with the rebrand. I recommend using the same exercise for yourself if you’re struggling to figure out what you’re going to do next.
Thanks for joining me today! As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand.
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Links:
Quote Keep in mind that you always want to start by planting seeds and build out content from the start to avoid putting all your efforts into one platform. Or If you don’t have an email list and don’t want to wait for months to see progress, I recommend paying for Facebook ads to get a head start. All you’ll need is to build a lead magnet and landing page. |
Fri, 13 November 2020
Welcome! Friday is always one of my favorite days of the week. I love getting to hang out with some awesome people on our coffee talks. If you’d like to join our live Friday jam sessions, head over to takeactioncrew.com. We’d love to have you join us! Once you’ve joined, you’ll be able to ask your own questions each week to help grow your business. Today we’re going to talk about how to run Facebook ads for your brand and everything you need to know about how to get started.
Keep in mind that you always want to start by planting seeds and build out content from the start to avoid putting all your efforts into one platform. However, it can be frustrating to wait for months for that content to bring organic traffic to your website. So, there is definitely a time and place to use Facebook ads. It allows you to instantly drive traffic and get eyeballs on your content. However, you have to consider that when you’re paying for ads, you need to find a way to recoup the cost and make money. That’s why I always suggest selling digital products to start. You can also start by creating your email list, which we recently taught how to do in our email fast track workshop.
Remember, consistency is key. If you are posting on Facebook every day, you have a good chance of getting in your audience's feed. The more that they interact with you, it lets Facebook know that they want to hear from you. However, you won’t get full reach without paying for ads.
How to Use Facebook Ads To Grow Your List
If you don’t have an email list and don’t want to wait for months to see progress, I recommend paying for Facebook ads to get a head start. All you’ll need is to build a lead magnet and landing page. Even if you don’t have anything to sell them yet, you can use the content you’re creating to drive traffic to your website. I would pay for up to 1,000 subscribers without having a paid product. Because once you have a list, you can sell to those people in the near future once you do have products ready to go. Once you have your list, you can ask people directly what content they are looking for to help make the content creation process easier.
You can also build a list by doing a giveaway as another option if you don’t have your lead magnet ready yet. The quality will be less than leading people to a lead magnet. However, it’s much cheaper to get leads. You have multiple options, so there is nothing stopping you from taking action now!
The Value of Selling a Digital Product
I recommend starting with a digital product, and you can incorporate a physical product later down the road. This helps keep your funnel going so you don’t run out of inventory and break your process. Start with offering a digital product on the thank you page of the lead magnet, and you can sell your physical product after that. Remember, once you capture a person’s email, you’ll be able to reach out to them on a regular basis, so you’ll have plenty of time to sell your physical products. Once you start to see your lead magnet converting at 20-30% on the front end, you need to get a digital product created quickly so you can start bringing in some revenue.
When you start sending out emails, ask yourself what you’re putting in front of people that you can start recouping income from. It can be as simple as adding affiliate links to your blog post or implementing ads to your website.
Coffee Talk Q&A
Q: How far out should I start to promote my workshop?
A: In all honesty, it just depends. I recommend starting out promoting two weeks out at the most. You want to keep it close enough that people will keep your workshop top of mind. It’s also essential to make sure that you provide frequent updates as you get closer. You want to keep in touch with those who have already signed up for your workshop and are waiting for it to start, as well as those who haven’t signed up but are still interested.
Q: Should I create an ebook or mini-course first?
A: I would say you should do whatever is going to be the easiest. For me personally, I recommend starting with an ebook or guide first. You can easily use the content that you’ve already created in the past to create a rough draft, so it should take too much time compared to getting a course ready to go. It’s also usually cheaper as well. Once you have an ebook or guide created, you can use it to outline a course. While you’re building out the course, you’re able to bring in some money from the guide, so it’s a good place to start.
Q: How much should I spend on Facebook Ads per day?
$5 is the minimum I would spend a day. That will be enough to get started as you test and start to get data back from the first few days. You need to give Facebook some time to learn more about your target audience and the type of people interested in your product or service.
So even though you have to pay for ads, it’s considered an investment in your business. As soon as you start to grow your list, think about what you can offer on the backend to make back the money you spent on ads. It’s much easier than you might think. The key is to get started and take action sooner than later!
Q: Is there a minimum number of months I have to sign up for Brand Creators?
No, there is no minimum time frame for Brand Creators. We offer month-to-month, quarterly and yearly options. However, we designed the program to serve as a way for us to work with you month after month as we help you grow your business in the process. We have worked hard to make it possible to connect you with other business owners who are in similar situations as you. This allows you to learn from others and to let you know that you are not alone. We expect a commitment on your part because we know that if you’re truly committed, you are going to see results. Stop consuming and focus on taking action. That is why we created Brand Creators to help you make it possible to do that.
Q: Are people from ads less engaged than other leads?
A: No matter how you find new customers, you need to put in the work to build a relationship and establish trust from the very beginning. At first, people will not be committed or dedicated to you or your brand because they don’t know who you are or what you stand for. As you start to build goodwill, you will gain their trust in the process. For me, it’s helped to show up consistently no matter what I have going. To show that I genuinely care about my community and what they are looking to accomplish.
Q: Best advice you’re received from a mentor or parent?
A: My mother always taught me to always be open and honest. She said that it was important to always be transparent. My father always taught me by doing and taking action.
When I was doing the Rock Your Brand rebrand, I messaged Pat Flynn. I was struggling with how to move forward. He told me to take a step back and think about how someone would describe me in five years. What would I be known for? This got me thinking and motivated me to move forward with the rebrand. I recommend using the same exercise for yourself if you’re struggling to figure out what you’re going to do next.
Thanks for joining me today! As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand.
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Links:
Quote Keep in mind that you always want to start by planting seeds and build out content from the start to avoid putting all your efforts into one platform. Or If you don’t have an email list and don’t want to wait for months to see progress, I recommend paying for Facebook ads to get a head start. All you’ll need is to build a lead magnet and landing page. |
Wed, 11 November 2020
RYB 906: Never Shared Before Stories on Building and Selling Our E-commerce Brand (My Business Partner)
Never Shared Before Stories on Building and Selling Our E-commerce Brand (My Business Partner) |
Mon, 9 November 2020
Today I'm going to share with you some examples of how to write emails for your list that deliver goodwill, let your subscribers know more about your brand, and how to sell all at the same time. I'm going to walk you through each email and why they work if you're thinking about building a list and want to see how it's done or how to launch a product, just model what I'm doing.
Review of Email #1
Every time that you send an email, you're entering someone's inbox. They're either going to be ok with it or unsubscribe if they don't want to hear from you. The goal is to deposit goodwill every single time you reach out. The first email I'm going to talk about was sent out after the promotion for our email list building workshop and is part of the post-promotion campaign.
Subject Line: do this and you'll get results [no matter what]
I've been thinking about this over the past few days after wrapping up my email list building workshop last week.
One thing that will always give you results is being consistent and committing to whatever you work on. But I see people that make things too hard or overcomplicate things and never take action.
I've reviewed a few messages over the weekend from students who went through the email list building fast track work shop, and they told me they completed their lead magnets after putting it off for months.
Do you think they have a better chance of growing their email list now? Of course, they do! :) No matter what you're working on, you need to make a commitment to yourself and stay consistent. I've got a personal example. Right now, I'm writing this email to you even though I have my family in town and could have put it off.
(Side note) I was actually holding my grandbaby and was still staying consistent with what I committed to. But I committed to writing an email at the beginning of every week, and NO MATTER WHAT, I always write the email. This allows me to stay consistent with my schedule and develop a habit that I will repeat regularly. It only takes me 15 minutes or so, but I make sure that it gets done. So my question to you, are you committed? Are you consistent?
Are you taking action on a regular basis? I'll give you one more example. Every week I've been doing my morning coffee talks three times a week. Why? Because I made the commitment to do them and created a weekly routine that is now automatic.
Commitment and consistency is the key to getting results, so I'll leave you with that. Think about it today and ask those hard questions.
Are you committed and constant? If you're not, there is good news. You can always start today.
As always I am rooting' for you.
Scott
Ps. Being constant and committing to sending a message to your email list is probably the easiest thing you can do. Think about it. You write an email and direct people to whatever you want in your brand.
Right now, I'm bringing attention to email list building and how committing to list building can bring you results. But if you don't have a list yet, that's what you need to do first. Need help? Watch the on-demand email list building fast track workshop here. This is the easiest way to build an email to 500 subscribers in 30 days or less.
Analysis of Email #1
I kept the subject line all lowercase because I want it to sound like I'm writing to a friend and make it more personal. I don't usually auto-fill people's names. My audience knows who I am, so I just want to jump right in and avoid having to re-introduce myself every time. In the first sentence, I'm letting my audience know about the product in case they didn't know before. I'm starting by telling my audience the truth and always want to lead with what I'm talking about. Also, I incorporate stories to help create a clearer picture.
I also include social proof to show that other people have gone through the course and how it helped them to take action and get things done. Then, I really take a lot of prep to write my email. I always start by deciding what my call to action is. I encourage you to only have one call to action for the most part. If you can emphasize one thing, it's easier to direct people there without giving them multiple places to go.
Why I Don't Use Automated Emails
Automated emails for me is to only deliver the goods and follow up to make sure they're consuming the thing that they downloaded or purchased.
I'm not going to create a long six-month automated sequence. I want to start putting people into separate buttons, and I like to know where my market is at all times. I actually don't like automation, to be honest. There are times that it's helpful, but in this case, I would avoid it.
The emails that you create don't have to be perfect; just get them done. It's also helpful to read your emails out loud to see how they flow. I don't worry too much about length, either. Instead, I focus on providing goodwill and valuable content.
Review of Email #2
Subject Line: STOP waiting or you'll be left behind
I know that sounds a little harsh, and yes, I capitalized stop on purpose to get your attention, and if you're reading this, then it did.
Yesterday we wrapped up our last email list building workshop, and it was awesome. But we also had people saying they couldn't (interest reason or excuse) don't why they waited so long.
Seriously after you understand the power of having your own email list to message your market on a regular basis, it changes everything. Today my message to you is simple. Stop waiting! Therefore, You don't have to wait until (interest reason or excuse). You just need to start.
No more excuses or reasons why you're waiting to build your email list. Here is what Kevin has to say after he attended the workshop. "Biggest take away so far = start is super simple. Get it out on the internet and add sophistication later if necessary."
So, If you're ready to start building your email list, the easy way go through our email list building fast track workshop here. We are finalizing the video recordings and should be ready by the time you're reading this.
Plus, we just added another free bonus that you're going to love. :) We're giving you access to a 30-day case study that you get to watch us build an email list of 9,000 subscribers in a random niche. It's time to get off the sidelines and get in the game so you can have an asset that will bring traffic to your brand. If you have any questions, reply to this email.
Remember, I'm rooting for you.
Scott
Ps. Oh, and that bonus case study. I also included a separate 36-hour case study showing how I wrote two emails that got crazy open rates. This stuff works. If you just get started and get in the game. Sign up for the email fast track workshop now.
Analysis of Email #2
I'm being completely transparent with my readers in this email. Call yourself out if you think people will have a specific question about why you're sending out the email. It's not about tricking people, it's about getting people's attention because their inbox is cluttered and what you have to say is worth their time.
Review of Email #3
Subject Line: i need your HELP [quick feedback]
Today I wanted to get a sense of where you are in the journey of building your brand. I have an idea of where my audience struggles, but I'd like to make sure any future trainings are in fact, what you need. To be completely honest, I'm planning on doing at least two more fast track style workshops for the end of the year. So I want to make sure I choose the correct topics to teach, and that will help you the most. If you can take just seven seconds to answer this one question, it will really help me serve you better. I know it's a noisy world out there with hundreds of things you can do. And I want to help simplify that and help you get results.
PS, your feedback and response here will be anonymous, and it takes just seven seconds. But if you want to add more to your feedback, you can take longer. :)
My Life-Changing Email List Building Course
There you go. You have everything you need to start writing those emails. When you do, always be thinking about your CTA and what action you want your subscribers to take. If you haven't built your email list yet, I'm here to help. My on-demand email list building workshop is available now and will help you build your list to 500 subscribers in 30 days. |
Fri, 6 November 2020
RYB 904: How Do I Write Email Subject Lines That Grab ATTENTION And Get Opened? Jam Session |
Wed, 4 November 2020
RYB 903: ALS Diagnoses Sparks Health Questions for Entrepreneurs and Wakeup Call |
Mon, 2 November 2020
RYB 902: Giveaways vs Digital Downoads To Build The BEST Email List (What's Best?) |
Fri, 30 October 2020
Welcome to this week's Friday jam session. It's one of my favorite times of the week when I get to hang out with some incredible people and answer some great questions. To join us, head over to takeactioncrew.com to sign up for free. We'd love to have you! I also wanted to let you know that moving forward, we'll require an application process for our Brand Creators Acamedy to make sure that we're bringing in people who are ready for the program.
Today we're going to talk about what to do after you create an email list. I'm going to share with you how to send something for sale without your subscribers getting mad at you. This is one of the most common questions that I get, and I am excited to break down the process for you today.
If you are looking for additional help, I encourage you to head over to takeactioncrew.com. So you can join our Facebook group where you'll receive additional tips and communications from me and others within our community. It's a great place to network and meet other people who are working on growing their own businesses and learn from each other. Just make sure you have a profile picture and can answer the three simple questions that we ask. This gives us the ability to make sure we don't get people spamming our group.
Build a Relationship With Your Subscribers
The mistake a lot of people make is to start an email list and strictly focus on launching a product and selling it to your subscribers. However, it's important to remember that each person that you're communicating with has certain wants and needs. They are real people with real feelings. Make sure that you deliver something of value before you ask them for anything in return.
While you're providing value, you can also offer something to your list as long as you weave in a subtle offer and avoid making it solely about asking for them to give you something. People who sign up for an email list are usually looking for help in solving a problem or want to learn how to do something. Make sure that you're providing your list with a solution to their problem and always start by providing goodwill. Don't worry about giving out too much information because you can always go deeper.
The key is to attract the right people and repel others. I recommend always start by selling passively, and as you get closer to the launch of your product, you can transition to a hardcore sell. I do this in my own businesses and have seen a lot of success. As you start out by selling passively, you're going to show that you can deliver goodwill and establish yourself as an expert within your niche. When you're ready to start promoting your products more aggressively, most people on your list will be found with it. Especially if they see the value that you can offer them. You can sell all you want, but you need to deposit goodwill into your list beforehand if you want to see the best results.
How You Can Sell From The Start
If you want to start selling right off the bat, there are ways to do that. Just make sure that you do it strategically. For example, when a person sign-ups for your email list, you can send them to a thank you page with an exclusive offer for a paid product. They'll get something for free, and you're simply informing them about a special offer after they've received their goodwill.
For the most time, people are going to be ok with it, and if they aren't, then repeal those people. Remember, you only want to focus your time and efforts on those who are interested in what you have to offer. From there, your audience will know about the offer, and you can continue to subtly touch on your paid products moving forward.
You can't do any of this if you don't have an email list, so it's time to start growing yours today. I want to help you build an email list with up to 500 subscribers within 30 days. We do all of this within the Brand Creators Academy. We have a full community who are sending out emails, running promotions, and building their website. Every time I send an email, there is a marketing lesson, and you can always learn from what I'm doing. So even if you're a part of the Academy, I encourage you to take time to read over my emails and take what you've learned to create emails for your own list.
Questions From Our Take Action Crew
How do I decide how much to charge for membership fees?
I would recommend starting out by looking at what others within your niche are charging for similar products. This will give you a better idea about what people are willing to pay and how your competitors are successful. I would always start by offering an early member price to get some founding members on board. They will be able to help you build and grow your community and get reviews in the process. You can always increase the cost as time goes on, and you build up your library of content and what you have to offer.
Do you have any advice about what to include in emails sent to my subscribers?
Keep your emails light and simple. Don't use spam keywords so you can avoid getting sent to the junk folder. I also recommend only including one or two links, especially when you're starting out. The goal is to get your emails through the spam traps, so moving forward, your emails will be sent directly to your subscriber's inbox moving forward, and you'll be able to reach more of your subscribers.
Do you plan out your year per quarter?
Right now, I'm thinking about Q4 but am also looking forward to what I'm going to do in the beginning of 2021. It's always flexible, depending on what we have going on and the opportunities that come up.
Should I test my lead magnets before adding a bump?
An order bump is offering a promotion on a more expensive product during the checkout process. The thing is, if you don't have the front edit converting at a decent rate, order bumps and other things you've added to the backend won't matter. Start by getting the front end built out and working well before adding anything else to the backend. Always start with a lead magnet, create a landing page for it and start driving traffic to it. You can always build out from there.
Do deadlines really help?
Yes, it's important to set deadlines for yourselves to keep yourself accountable. You'll be able to get much more done this way.
Final Thoughts From Scott
We have to take what we learn and put it into action because actions bring results. The quicker you get in the game, the better. If you're interested in joining us for our next coffee talk, head over to takeactioncrew.com. We'd love to have you, and you'll be able to ask your own questions if you have any!
I wanted to let you know that our new workshop is available, and it's one of the best investments that you'll ever make for under $50. There is so much helpful information and will be very helpful. Head over to brandcreators.com/list to get access to the course. It'll only take you a couple of hours to go through the course, and within a couple of days, you should be able to get everything set up so you can get started on building out your email list.
As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand. Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote The key is to attract the right people and repel the others. or We have to take what we learn and put it into action because actions bring results.
Links
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Wed, 28 October 2020
I’m excited to announce it’s our one year anniversary of launching Brand Creators Academy. To celebrate, we are open for registration from October 26th-October 30th. Head over to brandcreatorsacademy.com. After we close registration, we’re going to change the process and will start taking applications. This will allow us to see where you are in the process and if you’re a good fit to join Brand Creators.
Today we have Nathen Hirsch on the podcast. He recently sold his company, “FreeUp.” He’s going to share with us why it happened, how it happened, and what he is working on now. He’s also going to share his tips on how to build a successful business and what it takes. Let’s get right to it!
The Process of Selling FreeUp
When I originally started FreeUp, I wanted to build a sellable business and have the opportunity to sell it if the time was ever right. Last year I had a client reach out to see if my partner and I would be willing to sell the business. The offer we received was very reasonable. It required a lot of due diligence on both ends but turned out to be a win-win situation for both the buyers and us. There are only so many ways that you can grow a business, and I knew that I wouldn’t want to take on investors, so selling the business was always something that I had been willing to consider.
How We Expanded FreeUp’s Target Market
Once we decided to expand our target market with FreeUp, we went after the marketing niche. We were able to get a lot of influences to promote us. It’s a lot easier to get in with tier A influencers within the eCommerce community vs. the marketing space. However, we slowly chipped our way up, and by the time we sold the business, we were focused mainly on the eCommerce and marketing space.
We were also very diversified in our marketing efforts. I would say the most successful marketing efforts came from podcasts and affiliate links. We also had success with content swaps and networking on social media. We actually scaled the business without any paid ads. It was tough to track ROI with paid ads with FreeUp, but with my new business, we’re starting to test out paid ads now that we have the other aspects of our business figured out.
How Nathan Handled Tough Times In His Business
I realized that FreeUp couldn’t scale when I was the one taking all of the calls and talking to everyone who wanted to join. By year three, we had to hire VA’s to take calls to streamline the process. It also took us a while to work with developers to create a better experience. It just took us a while to figure that all out. It was also stressful during the sale of the business. It was tough to spend so much time selling the business and balancing managing the business at the same time. It was overwhelming to know that they could back out of the deal at any time. It was really tough when the sale was finalized because we had to tell our entire internal team. We hadn’t told them until it was final in case it fell through.
It wasn’t until a few days after we signed the agreement that we were able to celebrate. We sold our business in November of 2019. I spent some time with my family, and after that, my business partner and I decided that we wanted to continue working together. I spent the next few weeks listening to quite a few podcasts and learning about managing properties to see what we wanted to do next.
However, around the same time, we had a lot of people ask us if we could share with them how to hire a VA. From those questions, we create and launched a course the week that COVID hit. Our goal was to get 100 people to sign up, and we were surprised that we hit that number within a week. From there, we created Outsource School to create a community and a membership platform. Our goal was to make sure we had a steady stream of revenue coming in, and a subscription-based business allowed us to do that.
How Nathan Met His Business Partner
Conner was my first hire back in college. I was running my Amazon business, and he worked with me for a while until I decided to bring him on as a partner a few years later. We have the same values, and we both care more about the bigger picture and treating people well. We have completely opposite skill sets which has worked really well for our business, and that’s what makes us work so well together. If you’re looking to bring on a business partner, remember that it’s important to work together before becoming partners to see how you work together through both the good and bad times. You may get along well when things are going great but may discover later that you don’t do well when faced with conflict.
The Goal For Outsource School In The Next Two Year
We currently have 400 members within our community, and our goal is to get to 1000. We’ve been working on making updates to our messaging, pricing, creating a library of resources, Facebook group, offering live coaching calls, and perfecting our software. Our software is meant to bring all your SOPs into one place and allow it to connect to your other tools. It also makes it easy to update videos, specifically certain video clips, when parts of your process or business need to be updated.
The Importance of Social Media In Your Business
After I started FreeUp, I started posting to social media every single day. Every single thing that got engagement, I would create additional posts that were similar and remove any posts that didn’t gain any traction. I learned as I went. Consistency really is everything. I have rules for each platform and always schedule posts in advance. We run our ads from our business page, but many people engage with me directly from my social media profiles.
People don’t want to just hear your advice all the time. So I talk about podcasts that I’ve been on, tips for hiring a VA, and highlight things Conner and our other partners have to say. I also ask my community a lot of open-ended questions on social media. You want to always ask questions and include a call to action to get the best results. People love talking about themselves and giving feedback, so I’ve found that it’s been really helpful for our business.
The Secret to Creating a Successful Business
In order to manage a successful business, you need to have streamlined processes in place. Break it down into why you are doing this task and how it impacts the big picture. Make notes on how to complete each task and reminders of how to do it accurately. It’s also important to make sure that your business can run without you for the most success.
Feel free to follow me on any social media channel if you’d like to connect. You can also try a free trial of Outsource if you’d like to easily find some rockstar VA’s to help you grow your business and make it easier on you. We give 3% of all of our sales to one of our favorite charities, “Teach for the Philippines.” They help children give an education who may not have an opportunity otherwise.
Final Note From Scott
There you have it. Nathan is an amazing guy. It was great to learn how he always tries to focus on recurring business or products that the customer needs to buy time and time again. Think about that in your own business and how you can incorporate a similar strategy.
If you’re interested in building your own brand and want the support of a community dedicated to helping you take action, you’re going to want to head over to brandcreatorsacademy.com.
As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. Now it’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand! Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: In order to manage a successful business, you need to have streamlined processes in place. Break it down into why are you doing this task and how it impacts the big picture. Links Outsource School: https://www.outsourceschool.com/ Brand Creators Academy: |
Mon, 26 October 2020
I’m excited to share a recent coffee talk I did, sharing a hot seat session I did with Dino, a member of Brand Creators. He recently purchased a niche site that is currently getting 65,000 page views and 7,000 unique visitors per month. Today I’m going to share some low-hanging fruit that he can take advantage of and how you can do the same in your own business. I wanted to provide you with some key takeaways, so you know what to look for and how to successfully build your own brand.
My Initial Evaluation of Dino’s Website
When you’re looking to buy a website, you need to start by looking at the opportunities that could come from the current site. Can you increase the value? The key is to know the building blocks and principles, so you’re off to a good start.
Dino approached me and asked if I thought he should buy a particular website. When he was looking at the site, it was making $800 a month in ads. Now he’s making over $1,500 a month in ad revenue alone. The one thing I saw when I was evaluating the site was that there was no lead magnet. The previous owner never had one. My first recommendation was to get one up asap. It’s important to capture leads from website visitors so Dino can instantly start to grow his email list. Over time, he’ll build a nice solid list from the steady flow of traffic he has coming to the site. Every time he posts new content, he can send it out to his email list so it’s essential to get one started.
Don’t Wait to Create a Digital Product
Dino had a digital product that the previous owner had created but never sold. He needs to get that up on the website for sale soon. He can always play around with the guide's price later, but it’s important to get a digital product up on the thank you page once a visitor has signed up for the free lead magnet to give them a follow-up call to action.
I also want you to keep in mind that Dino took a shortcut by purchasing a website that already had a library of content already created. The website started out with content only until Dino purchased it. He is now starting to add additional elements. Whether you start your site from scratch or purchase one, you’re going to have to pay for it either in money or time.
Brand Creators Virtual Event Take-Aways
In our recent Brand Creator online event, we had Cassidy Tuttle come on as a guest speaker. She shared how she has been able to take advantage of selling her own digital products and uses email funnels to make over $15,000 a month. If you missed our Brand Creators event, you can purchase the recording now. There are some great insights that will help you grow your own brand. We walk you through how to create content and how to get traffic and monetize your site.
There you have it! I hope you learned something from our hot seat session reviewing how to take existing traffic and turn it into profits and a growing email list. Remember, business drives traffic and offers. Whether you start a brand from scratch or purchase a website, it’s important to understand what areas of the business to look at and where to focus your attention so you can grow your brand from the start.
As always, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand. Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Links
Quote: It’s important to understand what areas of the business to look at and where to focus your attention so you can grow your brand from the start. |
Fri, 23 October 2020
How To Choose Your Digital Product
Every person will be in a different part of the process. However, it's important to understand that whatever digital product you create should be something that your audience wants. There are three simple ways that you can find inspiration on what type of digital product you should create.
Investigate Your Market Place
To start, I recommend heading over to Amazon and taking a look at Kindle books within your market. See what content has already been created. This will give you a better idea of what people within your market are looking for. I also recommend heading over to your competitors' sites to see if they offer any digital products.
Send a Naked Emai to Your List
Another great way to get ideas for content and needs in the market is to send out a naked email. Ask your email list what type of content they are looking for to better serve them. Even if you have a small audience, get their opinion. Having an email list when creating a digital product is going to be huge.
Use Your Own Experience For Content Ideas
If you've been in the shoes of your audience, use your own experience to come up with content ideas for your digital product.
Identify Your Digital Product's Purpose
Your product needs to solve a problem or improve a person's life. Make sure that you identify the main purpose of the product before you start to create it. It's important to highlight the product's features to show how it'll solve a problem or make their life easier.
How to Promote Your Upcoming Workshop
Start by announcing your workshop, talk about it on your Facebook profile, fan page etc. From there, you reach out to each individual that said they were interested. You would simply send them the link to your PayPal account and collect payment that way. Keep it really simple from the start. When you're ready to take it to the next level, you can directly create a sales page within ConvertKit.
To promote your course to your email list, you could easily pull small take-aways from your workshop to send out. You can share bite-sized pieces of content pieces from the workshop to show that your course will provide value and give them a sense of what to expect. Just make sure that you always have a home base. Somewhere that people will always be able to find your digital products and courses.
I hope you enjoyed this week's edition of our Friday jam session. Until next time, remember, I am here for you, I believe in you, and am rooting for you. It's time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today's Episode
Links
Quote:
"Your product needs to solve a problem or improve a person's life. Make sure that you identify the main purpose of the product before you create it". [fusebox_transcript] |
Wed, 21 October 2020
RYB 897: The "ONE THING" Can Change Your LIFE and Business with Goeff Woods |
Mon, 19 October 2020
(Live Case Study) How To Get Paid To Create Your Digital Product |
Fri, 16 October 2020
What Are The Best Tools For Email List Building and WHY? Jam Session |
Wed, 14 October 2020
RYB 894: How 11 Cents Led To A Million Dollar Business with Shane Sams |
Mon, 12 October 2020
5 Things I Learned After Selling Our E-commerce BRAND |
Fri, 9 October 2020
What Is An Email Funnel? Jam Session |
Wed, 7 October 2020
How To Create A Healthier and More Productive Entrepreneur with Abel James |
Mon, 5 October 2020
RYB 890: BIG AMAZON NEWS + Preparing Your E-Commerce Business for 4th Quarter with Jeff Cohen |
Fri, 2 October 2020
BIG Takeaways and Highlights from BAL 2020 Virtual (Jam Session) |
Wed, 30 September 2020
RYB 888: From Starting A Worm Business To Helping Sell A 20M Business (Story Time with Joe Valley) |
Mon, 28 September 2020
RYB 887: One Digital Product And Launch That Generated $12,500 in 3 Days |
Fri, 25 September 2020
Today we're going to talk about what it takes to start a podcast. It's a question I don't often talk about, so I'm excited to answer some of some questions related to the topic. |
Wed, 23 September 2020
RYB 885: How Darren Landed The "Down To Earth" Netflix Original Show That's Changing LIVES |
Mon, 21 September 2020
RYB 884: The NAKED Email Method and The RESULTS |
Fri, 18 September 2020
RYB 883: What's Best Way To Sell My Digital Product? - Jam Session |
Wed, 16 September 2020
RYB 882: Youth Pastor To Paid Speaker To Creating An Online Business with Grant Baldwin |
Mon, 14 September 2020
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Fri, 11 September 2020
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Wed, 9 September 2020
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Mon, 7 September 2020
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Fri, 4 September 2020
Welcome! I love hanging out with some amazing people every week where I can answer some awesome questions. If you want to become part of our Take Action Crew, head over to takeactioncrew.com to join us. You can ask your own questions every week and be apart of an amazing crew. |
Wed, 2 September 2020
Today I have Kevin Sanderson here with me, and I am excited to have him back on the show. We’ll go through some of the ups and downs he’s gone through since he left his job two years ago. |
Tue, 1 September 2020
I had a special announcement that I didn’t want to wait to make, so I’m posting an unplanned episode of the podcast. I wanted to let you all in on a change that I’ve decided to make. I am closing down my private Facebook group for the Amazing Seller podcast. I started it over five years ago, about six months after starting the podcast. Over the last few years, it’s grown to over 58,000 members, and with it attracted a lot of spammers who don’t belong there. So, I’ve made the decision to close the group. For now, it’ll be archived so you can still search for resources within the group, but moving forward will no longer be any activity within this group moving forward.
What’s Next for Rock Your Brand?
I’ve decided to create a new private group focused on building your brand and a place to qualify to become a member of Brand Creators down the line if you’re interested in that. Brand Creators is our paid group of members that I work with daily to help grow their brands. I wanted to create a new group where I can post my podcast episodes and do my coffee talks live. My focus is to have the new group filled with the right members, so there will be a smaller number of members.
How To Apply For Our New Facebook Group
You’ll need to complete a brief 2-minute application to become apart of the new group. We will require that you have a profile picture and have an established presence on Facebook. We will not allow anyone jumping into our new group for self-serving purposes. We’ll be posting things here that you can’t always get on the podcast, so it’ll definitely be worth it if you’re a good fit. To submit an application, head over to Brandcreatrs.com/ryb if you want to submit an application to become apart of the group.
Providing You With a Better Experience
I will continue to record and post three podcasts a week. I’ll also be hosting my coffee talks on Monday/Wednesday/Friday at 10 am eastern time. If you want to become apart of our Take Action Crew, submit an application, and we’ll host those within our the Rock Your Brand Facebook group moving forward. The goal is to provide you with a better experience. We’re also using this as an application process of sorts for those who want to become members of Brand Creators in the future.
I wanted to take the time to hop on and be completely open and honest with you about the reasoning behind closing the Amazing Seller Facebook group. If you want to be apart of the new Rock Your Brand private Facebook group, fill out the short 2-minute application. I would love to have you and look forward to seeing you on the inside.
Direct download: EMERGENCY_EPISODE_FB_Group_Announcement_1.m4a
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am EDT |
Mon, 31 August 2020
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Fri, 28 August 2020
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Wed, 26 August 2020
Today I wanted to call a little time out and reflect on the past 14 guests that we've had on the show. I wanted to give you a place that you can find all the episodes that I'm going to touch on in one convenient location. When I decided to rebrand the podcast, I had already been doing it for over 4 ½ years. A common thread with all of the interviews that we'll review is that every person has had pivots. As you grow and circumstances change, you'll have to change how you operate and do business. I want to share this with you to see the evolution of a business. Take some time to use this as your own personal playlist and listen to each of these interviews. You'll discover that each person was once in a similar place that you are now, and success is much closer than you might think. |
Mon, 24 August 2020
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Fri, 21 August 2020
Welcome to this week’s Friday Jam session. It’s always one of the highlights of my week. I enjoy being able to hang out with some awesome people and answer some great questions to help you grow your business. Head over to takeactioncrew.com to join us every Friday to get your own questions answered. Today I’m going to teach you how to write awesome subject lines and get more clicks in the process. |
Wed, 19 August 2020
RYB 870: (The RISK of Losing It All Paid OFF) Engineer To Full Time Expert Copywriter with Daniel Throssell
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Mon, 17 August 2020
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Fri, 14 August 2020
Welcome to our Friday jam session! This is one of the highlights of my week, where I get to hang out with some awesome people and answer some great questions that will help you grow your business. You can join our take action crew anytime and get your own questions answered. In the last few weeks, we've been talking about building an email list and creating a good lead magnet. Today we're going to talk about how to drive traffic to your lead magnet so you can grow your email list in the process. You Need a Lead Magnet to StartA lead magnet is a short pdf guide or infographic that provides value for your target audience, and the goal will be to drive traffic there. You'll create a landing page to host your lead magnet once it's ready. Limit the time that you spend to create your lead magnet. Typically it should take no more than a couple of hours. Keep it simple, and you can even use your old blog posts and other content to create it. To start, you may not know what the offer will be for your lead magnet. The goal is to just try to build out your email list. Start by testing things and don't over complicate the process. Utilize FacebookI don't know many markets that don't have some sort of audience on Facebook. You need to identify your targeting to get started. A simple tip is to head over to Facebook and use the search bar to type in topics and keywords related to your niche. You'll be able to see where your market is hanging out and what groups and pages they're a part of. The pages in specific will allow you to target your audience and share your lead magnet. You'll also be able to learn what other topics they are interested in. From there, you're going to start running ads (start with $5 a day per ad). You'll start to show up once the add is approved and can test your lead magnet quickly. Look at the first 100-500 people to see how many people click on it. Test out your ad for at least 7-10 days. A good conversation rate is at least 15%-20%. Keep in mind that your ad isn't typically going to work right out of the gate. You'll see that it's not converting well and change the targeting first and your landing page second if you're still not getting traffic. If you don't want to spend money, put your landing page in your blog posts, on the sidebar on your website, and create pins on Pinterest directing people to the landing page. Use your Facebook fan page to set up a group and run ads. It will ultimately build up your following and likes by running ads, but that shouldn't be your main goal. It's required to run ads, so that's the main purpose. Guide To GiveawaysWhen you do a giveaway, you may have less targeted leads and will need to weed out the people who don't want to be on your list for the long haul. However, it's an affordable way to bring in new leads and grow your email list. To clean up your list after a giveaway, start immediately by sending out email broadcast messages to your list. You want to reach out with useful information. Email at least once a week, and you'll naturally get unsubscribers who aren't interested in your content. After the giveaway continue to follow up, and you'll allow people to self opt-out. You can also send an email to encourage them to unsubscribe if they don't want to be apart of the list anymore. As always, I hope you enjoyed this week's edition of our Friday jam sessions. If you want to join us head over to takeactioncrew.com to join us at 10 am eastern time every Friday, we'd love to have you! Thanks For Tuning in!
“Remember, I'm here for you, I believe in you, and I'm rooting for you! Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand”! |
Wed, 12 August 2020
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Mon, 10 August 2020
Today we’re going to talk about the only three things that you need to start email marketing. If you haven’t started implementing this into your business yet, you need to! Email marketing makes it easy to reach out to people in our market and stay front of mind. The idea is there are a lot of people who aren’t ready to buy right now. However, they may be looking for tips to help them out in the moment and eventually will be more inclined to make a purchase at a later date. When we have an email list, we can control the communications with our customers, and it will change the game. Email marketing has been a part of my business for many years, and today I’m going to break it down for you to simplify it so you can implement this strategy in your own business.
If you are interested in building your email list and have been following what I’ve been sharing, pick up a copy of our playbook. It’s the exact process and steps that I use for all of my businesses. There is an entire section dedicated to email marketing to help you out.
Now let’s get right to the three things you need to do email marketing the right way and to keep it super simple.
Before you even start, you need to know what your market wants so you can create a valuable lead magnet. Make sure that it’s niche-specific and isn’t too broad. If you haven’t decided what your lead magnet is going to be, that is what you need to work on. The market may not even realize what they need until you create it, and that’s ok. Just make sure that it’s specific and calls out a problem, solution, or something that your audience wants. Make sure to keep it simple, especially at the beginning.
All you are going to do is put the lead magnet on the landing page and drive people to that page so they can sign up to get their freebie. On the landing page, you’ll be collecting their email address that you’ll add to your email list. Don’t talk about driving traffic to your site until you have your landing page ready to go.
We use Converkit and absolutely love it! Inside Convert Kit, you can actually create landing paging so you can do it all in one place. Make sure that you dont overthink it. Simple is always best when it comes to email marketing.
Bonus Tip - Add a Thank You Page
The thank-you page will let people know you’ve sent their freebie and will include an offer for one of your products. It’s an easy way to upsell and promote your product. Even if they don’t purchase the first time, you now have access to their email and can reach out again at a later date. I recommend always creating your own custom thank you page and avoid using the word “subscribe” to make it more personal and provide added value.
If you haven’t started email marketing or haven’t leverage your list, its time to get serious about building your own email list. There is so much you can do to have it help you positively promote your business while providing genuine goodwill to your audience.
As always I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
Now its time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: If you haven’t started email marketing or haven’t leverage your list, its time to get serious about building your own email list. There is so much you can do to have it help you positively promote your business while providing genuine goodwill to your audience. |
Fri, 7 August 2020
Welcome to this week’s Friday Jam Session. I enjoy hanging out with some awesome people and answering some great questions every week! To join us head over to takeactioncrew,com to hang out with us. Today we’re going to be talking all about what to write and send to your email list. I’ll be sharing with you five different things you can send to your email list that will help you grow your business. What Do You Send To Your Email List
#1 Fulfill Your Promise - What did you promise your email list in the lead magnet that they signed up for. To start, send the download that you promised them. The second email can be a follow up to see if they received the download and see if they’ve been able to use it yet or if they have any questions. Not everyone gets the first email or even opens it, so it’s always good to follow up with another email to your unopen list, and it’s super easy to do.
#2 Ask Questions - Make it a point to send at least one email per week. It’s important to ask open-ended questions so you can get feedback and start a conversation with your audience. This is also a great way to have a better idea of what problems and solutions they are looking for and show that you are a trusted source ready to help them. When someone responds it will improve your credibility and boost your delivery rate.
#3 Send Them To Your Blog or Website - The goal is to drive traffic to your website/blog, so your email list helps you with that and will help rank your content higher in Google when they see that people visit your website. You can always send an email to let them know you’ve recently uploaded a new post, or if you update an old piece of content, send an email letting your email list know, especially when you have new people on your email list.
#4 Send People to YouTube - If YouTube is a big part of your website, send people from your email list to your website. If you’re doing this, always put your video in a playlist. You’ll send people to the playlist so it’ll automatically play the second video that you have up instead of automatically playing someone else’s content if you send them to a specific video.
#5 Send People to Your Facebook Page or Group - If you’ve recently posted something on Facebook that you want people to be aware of, drive people to Facebook. On a page, you can always share the link. However, if you have a group, it can’t be shared as easily.
Always make sure that the emails you write are about your audience and not you. Create Powerful Subject Lines 15:14
One of the most important things you can do is to create subject lines that create curiosity. Questions are also very effective. Make sure to look at the platforms that work best for your business and work best for you. Friday Jam Session Questions
Should I Send A Second Email to The Unopened List?
At a regular rhythm, I would send a follow-up email 24-36 hours after to the unopened list. You’ll be amazed at how many people will open your email the second time around, so don’t miss out on that opportunity.
Should I Create Email Sequences or Create an Email Every Week?
For my email lists, I have an onboarding sequence, and if we have an offer going on, we have a deadline sequence that goes into place. When you’re just starting out, build a 3-5 email sequence that is sent when someone signs up for your lead magnet. From there, you can add them to your general list where you’ll send at least one email out a week.
Should I Create Email Sequences for Launches?
I don’t set up email sequences for launches. The only auto message I do is if they sign up using a landing page. I like to address current concerns and stay in control of the message.
As always I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
Now, it’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand! Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: Not everyone gets the first email or even opens it, so it’s always good to follow up with another email to your unopen list, and it’s super easy to do. |
Wed, 5 August 2020
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Mon, 3 August 2020
Today we're going to talk about five mistakes people make when creating their email lists and how to avoid them. Email marketing doesn't have to be complicated, and I'm here to share some ways to help make it easier. Let's get right to it! I actually just sent out an email to my list, letting them know that we're focusing on email marketing for the next few weeks. It's been very useful for my businesses and has worked for me for over fifteen years. Over the years, I've followed the email marketing formula that has worked well for me. There are a few common mistakes that people make when they're implementing email marketing, and we're going to talk about how to avoid those to successfully grow your email list. Start With a Lead MagnetTo start, you need an effective lead magnet, landing page, and a place to collect your emails, such as ConvertKit. Next, you'll need to figure out how to get people to your landing page and what to send to your email list each week. You'll change up your lead magnets as you go, and your product offerings change. However, to start, you need to have a good understanding of the basics before getting started. The goal is to simplify the process to make it easier for you. Your first lead magnet may not be your most successful, but you need to start somewhere and start testing to see what is the most successful. Keep in mind that marketing isn't just selling your products and services to your audience. You need to gain good will with your audience and give them something of value before selling them anything. This will help build trust in the process and show them that you're a reliable source in your niche and genuinely care about helping them. 5 Mistakes To Avoid1) Choosing the Wrong Lead MagnetYour lead magnet needs to be directly related to your niche and repel people who aren't interested in your product or service. Your lead magnet needs to be directly related to your target market so you can attract the right people. Niche it down and call out their specific problem, so they're more likely to sign up. 2) Asking People to Join Your NewsletterI prefer to create a precise lead magnet instead. A newsletter doesn't show your audience what you're actually going to give them. Always include a call to action and always have them answer with "yes." To confirm that they actually want the lead magnet and know what they're signing up for. 3) Not Building Your List at AllYou should start building your email list the right way. Create a lead magnet as soon as you have your website up and have your first blog posts up. It can be as simple as transforming a blog post into a lead magnet and creating a landing page for it. 4) Not Sending EmailsIf you have an email list, you need to start sending emails to your list, don't wait! If you have a list and haven't sent anything for a while, there are ways that you warm your list up. To start, send them a recent blog post or update to check in on them or let them know what you've been working on and get the dialog going? 5) Only Sending Emails When You Want to Sell Them SomethingI'm not saying you can't put a promotion on an offer page, that's actually a good idea. However, always lead with value and goodwill, and make sure you're smart about when you send promotions. Once you have your lead magnet dialed in you'll start to see success. How to Use The Brand Creators PlayBookContent is the long play. Once you've posted a piece of content, it should start ranking within 3-4 months. From there, your email comes into play so you can get eyeballs on your content without having to wait for so long for organic traffic to come to your website. In a perfect world, you will build a website, add content, build your email list, and do Pinterest off on the side where you can create pins that go directly to your lead magnet. Part of the email list building will include Facebook Ads. That is the formula that I would use. The money coming in on the backend comes naturally as you bring traffic to your site. Creating a lead magnet doesn't need to be complicated. Take time to go back and review the five mistakes to make sure you avoid them! Thanks For Tuning in!
"Remember, I'm here for you, I believe in you, and I'm rooting for you! Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand"! Take-Aways From Today's Episode
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Fri, 31 July 2020
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Wed, 29 July 2020
Today I have Shannon Irvine back on the show, and I’m happy to have her! Today we’re going to help people who want to build a business that will set them free and help them avoid doing things they don’t want to do by removing their negative mindset.
Your An Entrepreneur At Heart
Entrepreneurs share common DNA. We always have our foot on the gas and are always in some stage of learning and growing our business. However, at the same time, we have our foot on the break without our knowledge or permission.
At times it feels like our business growth is slow, and we can’t get it to where we want it to go. Why? Because our brain is wired to keep us safe and familiar. As entrepreneurs, we have to show up and do things that most won’t, and that’s difficult for our brain to allow.
We’ve also inherited stories about worth, being successful, and failing. Because we were young when we learned these things, they are holding us back as an adult. These roadblocks make it difficult for us to surpass expectations and achieve our greatest dreams!
Why We Have Negative Thoughts on Repeat
You want a big business, and you have a high vision, but you have a story on automation that says that “money doesn’t grow on trees” or something similar. And it makes it easy to sabotage your success. We tend to repeat the negative instead of the positive. If you repeat the same negative story over and over, your subconscious will say that’s what you believe, and it’s on autopilot. It eventually turns into an identity, and you become that person. Out of that place, 90% of our decisions are made, and we take action based on our decisions. So, it’s time to control your thought process so you can stop the self-sabotage.
The 4 Steps of the Mind Matrix Process
It’s possible to transform our way of thinking. The Mind Matrix is a four-step process that I take my clients through to help erase these negative stories and achieve their goals.
Step 1:
Recognize the exact words that you’re saying to yourself that is sabotaging your success. You need to pinpoint the actual words because that is what’s automated and needs to work to reverse.
Step 2:
Record you saying those words out loud and write them down on a piece of paper. It’s been on automation your entire life. Now we’re taking it out of your subconscious mind. What you focus on does grow, so it’s time to focus on the positive and remove those specific negative thoughts.
Step 3:
Start to refute it. Your logical adult mind will look at that sentence on a piece of paper and realize that it’s not a thought that you want to keep. Usually, the first time you read it out loud, your brain will start to reject that thought immediately. But sometimes deep down, it still feels like it’s true even though our logical mind knows that it’s not true.
At this moment, think about someone that you love. Take the lie and put it on that person. So use their name instead of yours when you say it out loud. You’ll realize that it’s absurd to say those things about someone that you love, so why would you say those things about yourself.
Step 4:
Record yourself saying those truths in the first person and listen to it first thing in the morning and right as you’re drifting off to sleep. This is the most simple step, but it’s still so hard. This will help reverse your way of thinking about prune away a story that has been holding you back from success.
Note from Scott:
Once you go through this process, you’ll see that as you grow and scale your business, you’ll have new insecurities that you can apply these same tools for the rest of your life.
It’s Time To Change Your Mindset
There are people out there waiting for you to start your business. There is only of you, and they need to hear what you have to say! It’s important that you get unchained from these stories holding you back so you can help those people and automate the thing you want most.
What I see most is entrepreneurs chasing the next strategy or shiny object. They expect some secret sauce to help them. If you’re on this entrepreneur hamster wheel, it’s time to make a change! The faster you train your brain to be a million-dollar entrepreneur, the faster that you will get there.
If you don’t think that you need help, it’s hard to get help. You have to know that you need it before you’re ready to take action. We’re here to help you unlock your true potential and share the tools that will help!
Final Note From Scott
My mind is literally blown. I love spending time with Shannon and am always learning from her. She makes it super simple to understand the brain and explaining the reason behind our actions. Sign up for her free series to learn how to unlock your mind and reach your full potential.
Thanks For Tuning in!
“Remember, I'm here for you, I believe in you, and I'm rooting for you! Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand”!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote:
"We always have our foot on the gas and are always in some stage of learning and growing our business. However, at the same time, we have our foot on the break without our knowledge or permission". |
Mon, 27 July 2020
Today we're going to talk all about email writing mistakes and how to fix them. I'm talking with Karen from our Brand Creators about an email she recently created and sent out to her new email list. I rewrote it for her and made a few recommendations on how she can improve her emails moving forward.
You'll learn a ton from today's episode, and when we're finished, you're going to be ready to write effective emails for your email list! If you want to be apart of our coffee talks throughout the week, head over to takeactioncrew.com and join us every Monday/Wednesday/Friday at 10 am. We would love to have you!
Real-Time Email Review
Today I'm sharing a real email example from Karen Curtis, one of our Brand Creators members, and how I would improve it. The best part is that you can always better create better emails, including better stories and content within each one, so never get discouraged when you're writing. When we talk about sending out email broadcast messages to my mailing list, I recommend sending out at least once a week.
Use The Subject Line As Your Hook
If a subject line catches your eye, save it, so you know what types of emails are effective. You can always come back and reference those later on. Sometimes it won't be something that you think would be effective but actually is.
I prefer not to send an email with a subject line in all caps. It signals to the spam traps and could go to the promotions or spam folder, which we want to avoid. I like to have the first letter of each word capitalized or capitalize on a keyword to catch the person's attention. It still stands out without your email heading to spam.
Make sure your subject line direct and easy to understand. Make it clear what the email is about so they can know what to expect before they even open it up.
How to Write an Effective Email
People don't care about us as business owners. If I just talked about myself and what I'm doing, you'd probably just ignore me. You want to know how I can help you. Keep the language of your email all about the customer and how your products and services are going to benefit them.
Avoid asking questions right out of the gate because they can't answer you even if they wanted to. Instead, use a question as a call to action. Hold off on images if your email list is new. Anytime we put links or images, it's easier for them to get flagged when you send them. Always add a ps.
Keep your emails very clean and very lean. Always get them to reply back to you. Ask them a question to get them to respond to help build brand credibility. Not only will it give you a better chance of being delivered, but you'll also have people opening and replying to.
Always make sure that your emails are searchable and super easy to read. Break up the text with space, so it's simple to follow along.
Send an Email to Your Unopened List
A day after you send an email to your new list, send another email to the people who haven't opened your first email. You'll keep it similar but always change up the subject like to help pique their interest. Try to make it more appealing and give them a reason to open the email.
If you haven't purchased our Brand Creators book, get yours today. There is an entire section teaching you how to create an effective email list and how to send out effective emails. |
Fri, 24 July 2020
Welcome to this week's Friday Jam session, glad to have you here! As always, this is one of the highlights of my week. Every Friday, I get to hang out with some awesome people and answer some great questions. Join us by heading over to takeactioncrew.com to join in on the fun every week and get your questions answered.
The question we're going to start with today is, "how do you build a brand with the intention of selling it?" The goal is to find traffic in the market that produces revenue if you want your business to be successful and prepare it for sale. Not only will you be making money from ads, products, etc. as you go along, you'll also be able to sell your blog for around 3x the amount of your net profit when you're ready.
We're in the process of selling one of our businesses now. We had a previous offer before COVID hit that was an amazing offer. We were ready to go, and we were a month into the sale, and they backed out right in the middle of the pandemic. We've now supposed to close with a new buyer in a week that has been a long two-month process, and today, I'm going to share what we need to make that brand success and ready to sell. Create Your Strategy From The StartWe built traffic following our Brand Creator's playbook. Everything we've implemented follows that same model. We focus on creating content that gets indexed by Google, sending three emails a week to our audience, a Pinterest strategy, selling over ten physical products, and a digital product. On top of that, we also implemented our ad and affiliate revenue streams. We even have some Etsy and eBay sales. The key is to have diversification in place, which buyers love.
If you want to start a business to sell it, make sure that you get your accounts set up by a 3rd party accounting team. Your books have to be to make the sale a success. When you want to sell your business, having your books done by a third party helps build credibility, so potential buyers know it was done accurately. I would get that process set up when you make your first sale. How To Prepare Your Business to SaleStart by finding a market or a niche that will be around for the long haul. Make sure that you validate that you'll get traffic, and there is money to be had in the market. Can you make money selling digital products and putting ads on your site? Focus on getting the ad networks, affiliate links, and digital products set up to start with. If you want to sell your business, they want to see diversification.
If you want to sell your business for a million dollars, you'd need to make $350,00 net profit per year. Keep in mind you'll have to have your business for at least 18 months before you can sell. Buyers want to see a positive trend for longer than a year. So you should always start planning ahead of time before you want to sell.
The perfect formula to sell your business includes diversification, traffic, and revenue. By following this formula, you'll be able to sell your business quickly because you want to buy something that they know has the potential to grow quickly.
If you're really niched down, it might be hard for someone to take it over, but it can still be done if you have a good strategy in play. It's also hard if you're the face of the brand, so branch out and bring in others contributes to making it easier to transition ownership. You can still be the face of the brand but had other people to the mix too.
I recommend getting help with your business by finding people who are good at what they do and get a good process in play. You'll learn how to do things but delegate the day to day process to a team member. It'll help you sell it, so it's easy to transfer to a new order. How to Choose a Good Broker For Your SalePersonally, I work with Joe Valley's team. Their whole business model is to help you before you decide if you want to work with them or not. It's helpful to have a plan in place a year before you actually sell your business, so it's important to talk with a broker before you decide to sell. So they can walk you through the process and get you prepared before you move forward when you're ready. Do You Need an LLC
Yes, you should have an LLC and start it fairly quickly. For the brand we're selling, we started sourcing a product, to begin with, and began with an email list. As we were building it, we were building content and driving people from our email to the website. During that time, we were getting an LLC up and running. It's not that difficult of a process, but you'll need it in place when you sell your business, so the sooner you set it up, the better.
I hope you found our Friday Jam session helpful today!
Remember, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
Now it's time to take action and go rock your brand! Take-Aways From Today's Episode
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"The perfect formula to sell your business includes diversification, traffic, and revenue".
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Wed, 22 July 2020
Today I’m interviewing Dave Tarun. I wanted to get him on the show. I’m a huge fan of his show “Gold Rush". The cool thing about Dave is he is such a hard worker. He’s had some struggles along the way but has overcome it all. Let’s get right to it and hear from Dave. |
Mon, 20 July 2020
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Fri, 17 July 2020
Welcome! This is always one of my favorite highlights of the week. I get to hang out with some awesome people and answer some great questions. To hang out with us head over to takeactioncrew.com, its totally free! We always have a blast. I want to start our conversation today with something that came up yesterday on our 100th celebration of our coffee talk session. The question we’re going to answer today is how to niche down your brand. This is a bottleneck for a lot of people. If you can’t get out of this stage, you can’t build your brand, so I’m here to answer all your questions about this particular topic. How to Niche Down Your Brand
You should always have a market that you’re going to focus your efforts on, and from there, you can start to niche down, so you’re focused on one segment of the market. For example, a main niche would be fishing. From there, you would niche down to bass fishing, fly fishing, and deep-sea fishing. And even go down a third level and do kayak bass fishing and tournament bass fishing.
If I’m selling a fishing rod, I want to sell a bass fishing rod that is designed specifically for kayak bass fishing. It’s going to be much easier to rank for long-tail keywords instead of being too broad, and I’ll be able to reach the right audience.
Anytime you’re able to tailor content for a specific demographic or person, you’ll bring in a lot more traffic to your website. Validate the Market
Now we need to make sure that people are searching for our niche and that there is money to be made in that niche. So, you’re not wasting your efforts. Ask yourself what type of products people would want to buy in your market, and from there, you would find affiliate links you could add to your blog posts to bring in revenue.
Always ask yourself what problems your market might be having and how you can help them find a solution to those problems.
Tailor Your Content to Your Sub-Niche
You have to start by determining what your big market is. That will be your angle, and from there, you can show your audience what you’re going to give them. You want to find a specific target market that you want to serve and tailor all of your content for that specific audience. Start with the greatest opportunity, so you’re not wasting your time.
For example, keto would be the niche market within the health and fitness market.
Be sure to grab our Brand Creators checklist. Once you’ve validated your sub-niche, you’ll be well prepared to get started. I also recommend you grab our playbook. It’ll help you create your entire brand once you’ve validated your market and is meant to be a guide to help you along every step of the way.
Thanks again for joining me today! As always I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you. Now it’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: Find a specific, target market that you want to serve and tailor all of your content for that specific audience.
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Wed, 15 July 2020
Welcome! Today I have a special guest on the show, Jordan Harbinger. He’s got a fairly new and very popular podcast, and he’s getting over 6 million views a month! The first podcast he had with his old partners, he got kicked out and had to start over. He struggled for a little while with the whole thing, but he got back up and started his own podcast without having to compete with the old one. The big take away I want you to get while you listen is that no matter where you are in your journey, you will face something that will challenge you, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to give up. Let’s get right to it and learn a few valuable takeaways from Jordan. Jordan’s Starting Over Story
I’ve been doing a podcast for a decade. I started a company in my twenties with some friends that did well. As we got older, I realized that I was doing all the work, and they weren’t doing as much. When you’re running a business, you’re married to your business partner. So whatever their problems are you have to deal with them because it becomes your problem too. I didn’t feel like I could start over because we had been together for so long and didn’t know what would happen if I left.
I ended up moving to a different city to get away from it all, but every day it was still so hard to deal with it all. I talked to my team and asked what they would do if I left, and many said they would come with me if I did. I tried to convenience my partner to split the company to we could end on good turns. We negotiated a split, but in the middle of it my partners decided they could do it all without me and drove me out of the company completely.
In the meantime, I had moved on to the Jordan Harbinger show. My partner didn’t want me to be successful after I left the company. He sued me, and I just drug them through the mud, and I cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars through the process. They ended up destroying their business in the process. I was so worried about starting over, but within eight months, we had built the show to the same size as the first show I had.
I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but its a shame watching something I built get ruined. Nobody wants to see something that they’ve worked so hard to get destroyed, so that was definitely a challenge to deal with. How I Relied On My Network
I had to lean on my network to get through the hard times. Because I knew I couldn’t get through this on my own. You can’t really do anything by yourself. Luckily many of the fans from the old show came over to my new show. Luckily I grew up with good saving habits and was able to keep going while we started over and pay my team during the process.
In the first month, I made over 100 calls to ask for favors and use my network to keep things going. I also had to work with advertisers that had been on my old podcast for free for a while. It was all about damage control and using the relationships that I had built to ask for help and keep moving forward even when things were tough.
That’s the thing about digging the well before you get thirsty. Many people say, “hey, that’s a good idea,” but don’t think they’re ever going to be thirsty or that anything bad could happen to them, so they don’t end up doing it. I was so glad that I practiced what I preached.
In my mind, I thought that my business partners would never be able to get by without me. I did most of the lead generation and marketing. So, I felt like I was relativity safe, but once I got sued, my options were a bit limited to what I could do. The company is in a lot of trouble now, but when you’re talking about people who don’t know how to run a business, they’re not really thinking about what’s bad for revenue, they’re just acting impulsively.
My family and friends helped me put one foot in front of the other and keep going. I was so angry for a while, but I had a great support system who helped me move forward and told me this was the best thing that could have happened to me, and they were right. All the negativity I was putting into being angry I could have used in a positive light and put into my business and my personal life. I lived in the past for a while, but it’s so important to get out of that mindset because it’s such a waste of energy and time.
I strongly encourage anyone who’s angry about something in their life to stop. It’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die; it only makes things worse for you.
I would say that networking and relationship development is key. Do something every day that increases it. In the morning, go to your contacts that you haven’t talked to in a long time and recultivate those relationships. If you help 100 people with something tiny, you’ll find that you’ll end up having a lot of help from them in the long run. Jordan’s Take Action Moment
By taking action, I was able to move forward. I focused like a laser beam. Every time I had negative thoughts, I pushed them out of my head. Instead, I would focus on preparing for my podcast, revenue a relationship, or workout. I had to stay focused on challenging the positive. After doing this for a while, I realized that everything was going to be ok.
Towards the end, I had many close friends who told me that I needed to get out. It was a forcing function because I didn’t have the guts to leave on my own. Once the rug was pulled out from under me, I didn’t have a choice. Once I started to rebuild, I realized that I should have done it years ago. I’ve never going to let my family or future business partners get in a negative mindset as I did.
Luck Plays a Big Role in Success 28:30
If I had started over from scratch without a base to start with, I would have gone on to other shows to build momentum, just like I did. It’s important to build relationships with other businesses. Short of getting extremely lucky, whatever you’ve done in the past, will help prepare you to be successful. The skills that you’ve learned will help you succeed.
We usually only hear from those who’ve made it big. It’s called survivor bias, and it’s really unhealthy to focus on that. Part of the reason I have a show is because of hard work, but the rest of it really is luck, and many successful people don’t want to admit that.
You have to increase your surface area for luck. You can control how much time and energy you put into something and how worthy you are of an opportunity. Luck is the spice, not the dish. Final Note From Scott
Everything might look good on the surface, but there may be some challenges someone is going through that we don’t see. Like Jordan says, it’s so important to build relationships and improve your network that will benefit you later. Go back and think about what Jordan said today and how you can apply it to your own life.
Remember, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand! Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: That’s the thing about digging the well before you get thirsty, many people say “hey that’s a good idea” but don’t think they’re ever going to be thirsty or that anything bad could happen to them so they don’t end up doing it. Or You have to increase your surface area for luck. You can control how much time and energy you put into something and how worthy you are of an opportunity. Luck is the spice not the dish. |
Mon, 13 July 2020
Today I’m’ gong over the exact roadmap that I would use if I was starting from scratch. There were a lot of things I’m teaching you today that I have done in the past and would do again in a heartbeat because they work! Get ready to listen and apply what you learn to your own business. Let’s get right to it!
If you haven’t downloaded a copy of my Brand Creator’s book, you need to get one. Head over to brandcreatorsbook.com as I talk a lot about the methods taught in my book, and it’s definitely a game-changer. How I Would Start Over From Scratch
I actually start over from scratch quite often with all of our new businesses, and I follow these same principles that I’m teaching you today. There are three main things you’ll do to start,
Your Website Is Your Home Page
You need a home base where all of your content will reside and where the traffic will be coming. Spend a day going through domain name ideas, choose one, buy it and go out and get your hosting. Then it’s time to start building your WordPress website. If you’re using Host Gator or Bluehost, they have a quick process. You’ll add in your logo and a few plugins to help with SEO, social sharing, and an image compressor. But other than that, just keep it simple to start. You can always improve on things later. Outline Your First 10-20 Blog Posts
You’ll start by building your content out. I would start with 2-3 articles a week to get the ball rolling to just get them out there. Post about your blog content on social media to get them to head over to your website. You’ll start by writing about the following categories:
You’ll start by building your content out. I would start with 2-3 articles a week to get the ball rolling to just get them out there. Post about your blog content on social media to get them to head over to your website. You’ll start by writing about the following categories:
Use Pinterest To Boost Your Blog Posts
Every single blog post that I create, I would make a Pinterest image that goes within my blog post and also starts pinning on Pinterest that directs to my blog posts. Create a Facebook Fan Page
When I start to build my email list, I need to be able to have access to Facebook ads, so go ahead and create a Facebook page, so you have it ready. You can also repurpose your blog content to add to your Facebook page. Build Out Your Email List
Email about what you wrote on your blog and send them there to find your digital products and articles. It’s as simple as that. Create a Digital Product
Create ten blog posts that you could include in a book. Start by posting them on your blog, then compiling them to create an ebook that you could sell on your website. Create a lead magnet that you can drive people to sign up and promote your new product. This is a great way to start making money quickly.
Most of the time, I’m starting a site to build out for the long haul, so I’m not always focused on making money right away. However, if you see an opportunity, you should go ahead and create digital products.
I would repeat this same process no matter the brand or niche that I’m in.
My energy is focused on this exact strategy and nothing else! Stay away from shiny objects if you want to achieve your goal! Thanks For Being Here!This process doesn’t have to complicated. Once you have the direction of your niche, you just need to create your 30-day road map and continue on from there.
Remember, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand! Take-Aways From Todays Episode
Quote: Your energy should be focused on this exact strategy and nothing else! Stay away from shiny objects if you want to achieve your goal! |
Fri, 10 July 2020
Hey guys! Welcome to this week's edition of our Friday jam session, I'm so glad you're here. As always, this is one of the highlights of my week. I get to hang out with some amazing people and answer some awesome questions. To join us head over to takeactioncrew.com. It's totally free, and you can join us every single Friday at 10 am. We'd love to have you.
Today I'm going to kick off our jam session with the question of how do you stay motivated in running your business. I get this question all the time and thought it would be a great place to start.
How Do I Stay Motivated
Let me remind you that if you ever start a business, you can't expect to make any money for a couple of years. Many people think that it's easy to make money quickly in the online space, but it still takes quite a bit of time. You can definitely have small motivators to help get you through to make it easier.
You need to have something you can measure so you can start to see results and celebrate those even when they aren't monetary. The key is to look at your results differently and always celebrate the smallest wins.
How to Install Small Habits Into Your Day
Figure out what you don't like doing and schedule a time to do it every day. I don't always love to work out, but I schedule it into my day and have made it a regular habit. It's become part of my everyday routine now.
Surround Yourself With The Right People
Everyone at our coffee jam sessions is inspired by other people here who are action takers and getting things done. It's really helpful to be around other people who are taking action and help lift you up and inspire you to take action yourself.
Are you being demotivated by the people you're surrounding yourself? Or do you feel uplifted and motivated after you've spent time with someone? These can be hard questions, but it's important to focus on being around positive people who are ready to lift you up and inspire you to keep moving forward to achieve your goals.
To me, being rich means spending time with my family and choosing my own hours and when and what I do for work. "Being successful" will be different for everyone.
I used to follow many people, but now I just draw inspiration from people and put blinders on so I don't get discouraged or lose momentum. Whatever is coming into the mix like texts, social media, emails, you need to turn them off and avoid getting discouraged or comparing yourself to others.
To start, just don't share anything with the negative people in your life. Sometimes it's hard for people to imagine because some of the things you're working for may seem far fetched.
What Are The Results You Are Trying to Achieve
Make sure you're being realistic with those goals and be specific. You won't gain any traction if you don't know what your goals are to start.
Create a Schedule To Feel Like Your Gaining Tracking
As you go along, you'll see progress and be able to check things off as you go along. If you put something out there, you have a chance to reach out.
I always have one main task that I focus on every single day. It's ok to have other small ones but only have one big thing to make sure you get your priorities straight.
Commit to Your Schedule
If you've only been going for a few months, you haven't committed fully. Give it at least a year, and make sure that you stay consistent in the process.
Try writing down three things that you will accomplish each week. Don't let anything get in the way of you doing those three things.
Today is a new day, and you can't kick yourself for what happened yesterday. Today is a fresh start for you to take action.
Put the Blinders On
Don't get distracted when you see other people doing other things. You need to stay laser-focused because staying distracted will make sure you never do anything consistently. Don't let anything get in your way.
There is so much opportunity out there. My advice is to focus on one brand for at least six months. You need to give all your attention to that one thing. So you can figure out the process for that brand. Limit yourself, so you're not spreading yourself too thin.
Simple will win...simple will get you results in the long run. It's less work for you and is very effective.
Embrace the Building Process
When you're excited about the opportunity, you're fired up. The building process can be boring and difficult to stay focused. Find new things to add to your business to help keep it exciting, but just don't lose focus. Stay committed and keep going because the results will come!
Use other people's doubts to help your stay motivated and move forward. Eventually, you'll be able to prove them wrong and show them the results of your hard work.
How to Support Your Side Hussle
I want you to clean out your garage or some part of your house this weekend. Anything that you aren't going to use or are ready to get rid of. Go ahead and post it on eBay or another platform and use that money to support your business. It's actually quite simple to just go out and start finding ways to flip products. People always want to buy second-hand stuff.
Thanks For Being Here!
If you want to join one of our live Friday jam sessions, head over to takeactioncrew.com. We'd love to have you!
Thanks so much for listening. Remember, I'm here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
It's time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today's Episode
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Wed, 8 July 2020
RYB 852: How Health Problems Turned Into A Fulltime Business and The "FAT BURNING MAN" with Abel James
I’m excited to have Abel James here with me today. I love the story about how he started and how it’s led him to where he is today. He’s also gone through many struggles and ups and downs, but he’s come out on the other side, ready to take on the next challenge, take action, and make things happen. It was a great interview and will show you that you never know where your journey will lead you. Let’s get right to it and learn from Abel!
Abel’s Entrepreneurial Start
I loved the saxophone in elementary school and learned to play at a young age. Music was very important to me, growing up and helped me build confidence and become the great speaker that I am today.
In my teens, I was selling things on eBay and selling my music online, too, and have always had an entrepreneurial start.
After college, I worked as a strategist and got my business chops going. However, I wasn’t healthy and ended up being really sick for a long time. I was overweight and didn’t eat well. During that time, I actually ended up losing everything in an apartment fire in Texas. After hitting rock bottom I realized that I needed to make a change and started to research how to live a healthier lifestyle and spent a lot of time doing research to find the best methods for me. Be Prepared to Pivot At Anytime
Everyone gets burnt out eventually. For me personally, I’ve had multiple career paths, but I’ve created transferable skills that I can take with me no matter what industry or niche I’m working in. It’s important to see the waves and catch them when you can. However, there are times when the rug will be pulled right out from under you. In these moments, you’ve got to be ready for anything and to move on to a new path.
When you work online, you always have to be able to adapt because things are always changing. We’ve gone through multiple business models because things never stay the same. Just stay positive and keep moving forward.
Get out there and go to conferences and meetups, even virtually. It’s so important to build relationships and networks so you can help each other to grow. Your network will be able to help you when you need to pivot. Abel’s Transition to the Fat-Burning Man
In my 20’s I was following the wrong advice and was getting really sick all the time. When I started shifting my research I realized that I needed to change my lifestyle. I spent a lot of time interviewing people and coming up with my own health plan and within a month I saw a significant change and felt so much better overall.
I started running marathons for a while and realized that it wasn’t that hard to achieve those results. I’ve learned a lot about fueling through nutrition and realize just how important it is. My podcast took off fairly quickly once I started it. I had a lot of listeners and had some great people on the show even in the early days.
I had to deal with getting a roof over my head and making money at the same time as I was working on my business. I was working remotely part-time as a consultant until I was able to make enough money doing my business. I did my “passion project” for free for about two years before I was able to focus on it full time. I knew that I could make this type of business consistent if I put all my energy on it. You always need to make sure that you find a balance between doing what you love and providing for your family. How He Created a Steady Flow of Business
I had to determine what type of business model I wanted to get started. The most successful for me is a digital course that is priced at $27, brought in my organic traffic and podcast. The other one is a subscription-based coaching program. That really worked for a long time. When you charge people for a subscription service, you have to show up because people will expect the very best from you.
When you’re the face of your business, you have to keep your business up and continue to make money, which can be difficult. Building business and alternative streams of business is a whole thing. When you hit milestones, there will always be another one. We love the clime and always want to keep growing and improving.
If you think it’s right to pivot overnight, go for it. It’s really important to follow your heart.
It’s important to work together and help each other become successful too. Some of the best friends I’ve made I have given “trade secrets” to and have wanted to help.
Don’t always think of the people around as competition, instead learn from each other.
Abel’s Take Action Moment
Saying no at the beginning for anything that was over the line ethically. I started a brand that could have easily made a ton of money, but that’s not why I did it. I didn’t want to do anything that would put my morals in jeopardy. It’s important to protect our audience and only give them quality information that is beneficial. Abel’s Advice For People Getting Their Start Now
I'm actually so envious of people who are just starting out because you can be free and do things your way right now. People are making hundreds of millions of dollars doing venture capital and paying for traffic but have no soul, and they probably aren't as happy. Make sure you're doing what you love and don't lose sight of who you are. Find what you're natural talents are and build on those from the very start.
The digital space is getting very competitive, but you'll do well if you can get the traffic or sell a subscription-based product. However, keep in mind that the rug can be pulled out of you at any point. I would recommend building an audience and monetizing from there. That's what I would do if I was starting over right now.
You can't just have sales. You still have to pay for your employees and other expenses every single month. It's really challenging to make that happen even if you're making a lot of money. When you're starting out, you don't have a lot of overhead, which is a bonus. I would build a community from the very start and provide value where you can.
Just because you see people at the top and be successful, they’re still having issues and have to adapt often. Final Word From Scott
What a great guy! I loved getting to know Abel and about his journey. I agree with what he said about taking care of ourselves as entrepreneurs so we can take care of other people. It can be challenging when we’re busy, but he’s proof that it’s possible.
Think about how you can relate to his story and learn how he just took action even though he didn’t know what the final result would be. It’s not just about marketing and business. It’s about how he’s taken his situation and turned it into a successful business.
As always I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you!
It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: Build a community from the very start and provide value where you can. Or Don’t always think of the people around as competition, instead learn from each other and help each other grow.
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Mon, 6 July 2020
Welcome! Today I have one of my very own Brand Creator members, Thai Linda, on the show! She’s going to share how she was able to increase traffic and sales for her business and show that no matter where you are in business, you’ll want to see where the low hanging fruit is. She started building out an email list when she started Brand Creators, and it took off! It wasn’t always easy, but she never gave up. Let’s get right to it!
PSA: We’re opening up Brand Creators on July 6th, for five days! If you want to join, now is the time. We talk a lot about being stuck and how to overcome that. We show you how to get unstuck and to take action to see real results, and we’d love to have you. Head over to brandcreators.com/join to sign up.
Thai-Linda’s Backstory
I got my degree in speech pathology, and on the side, my husband and I had a boat dealership and were making tornado shelters. We were getting by until the economy took a downturn, and we had someone embezzle from us, and we lost everything.
There was a factory near us that made custom picture frames. After talking to a few people that worked in the factory, we discovered they were in need of wood. So we made the decision to move to the rustic wood business, especially because we had plenty of land to make it happen. We were recycling reclaimed wood by working with contractors in the area. We would pick up the wood they wouldn’t use or were planning to dump. We improved the services that our competitors were offering and started to get a lot of business.
Our primary customer at the time was a large chain store that built custom wood frames. We reached out to tell them we wanted to sell wood. They had specific requirements but said they would buy as much wood as we could get them as long as we met those criteria. It was going well until a couple of years ago when they decided to buy the picture frames from China. We had no warning, so we had to think fast of how we could make money moving forward.
We decided to pivot to selling online about three years ago. I had already done research about selling wood online but hadn’t taken any action yet. Once we lost our big client, we got to selling on Amazon. It took a long time to figure out how to ship everything, and it took a few months for me to send in inventory without any problems. Most of our inventory was reclaimed wood for projects. We weren’t making anything with it yet just selling the wood. Most of our competitors were selling processed products that looked like new wood, so we took the direction of going with the really rustic authentic barn style wood to stand out.
We just put it out there, and it took a couple of weeks to get the first sale. It was a sample box, but it was still exciting. It started to sell, and it just kept growing, and we sold more and more every week. The best part was that we were able to keep all of our original employees, and we ended up hiring a couple of other people in the process. I was a rehab director overseeing six rehab centers and then coming home at night to help with the business. We couldn’t survive on the business alone at the time, and I didn’t want to give up the income I was making.
Thai-Linda’s Next Pivot
We decided that we were ready to take the business to the next level so I wouldn’t have to work full-time anymore. I started adding more handmade projects, and soon enough, business started to pick up. We got to the point where it was busy enough where I felt like I could finally quit my job, which was such a great feeling. In March of 2019, I finally quit and decided to work on the business full time. I was just working in the shop all day, so I didn’t have much time to build the business.
I made the decision, so join Brand Creators, and I was actually one of the first groups to join. I just decided that I was going to do it, and once I got in the group and felt the motivation, that’s when everything started to pick up, and we’ve made huge progress since then. It really was life-changing.
How She Took Action With Brand Creators
When I started with the group, I had a good foundation. We had a website and sold on Amazon, Etsy, and Wayfair. But it was all organic, and I hadn’t done a lot to grow it. The first thing after starting with Brand Creators was completing the checklist and working alongside the group. We ended up getting over 10,000 email subscribers and extra sales, and it’s continued to grow since then. The essential push really helped us get a better presence on social media.
Note From Scott: It’s a big thing to be willing to go all-in and never give up even when things get tough. It really does pay off as you’ve shown us.
We almost quit right before we started Brand Creators. We had been to the same shop for a long time and had just expanded to the shop next store. It had cost a lot of money to make it happen. Unfortunately last July our landlord let us know he wasn’t renewing our lease. It was hard because we had 6,500 square feet with an acre lot full of equipment that was full of supplies and equipment. We had no idea what we would do next and how we could afford to move the shop.
It’s important to remember that when difficult things happen and you think it’s the worst thing possible, it can sometimes turn out to be the best possible thing.
Our new shop is much better than our old one, and it actually costs about the same. It was an example of something that turned out much better than we could have ever imagined. The new location has allowed us to expand our product line, hire more people, and up to our production. So it was a huge blessing.
Note From Scott: When you’re going through hard things, you’re asking ourselves why. However, once you’ve done it, you realize it’s actually a good thing. Always look at the lessons learned from the tough times. You gotta ask for help in order to give help, or you won’t get anywhere.
It’s a huge accomplishment to have a lot of families work for us that we can take care of, and we all count on each other. The transition from the little business to where we are now has been so tremendous and happened in such a short time. When we took the leap and started growing our email list and focused on our marketing, it took off like wildlife.
The big payoff is being able to enjoy some freedom as I’m sure that’s what we’re all working for. We all want that time with our kids and family, so it’s rewarding that we’ve finally been able to make it happen.
For people who are in a business like ours and you’re doing the daily grind, it can be hard to turn that off. You need to work on your business, not in your business. Make sure you take the time to build your business so it can eventually work for you. I recommend setting regular goals for yourself to get things done.
How Thai-Linda’s Email List Has Helped Grow Her Business
I’m still learning, but I’m getting more comfortable with sending out emails. The first giveaway we got 10,000 subscribers, and at first, I didn’t send anything because I didn’t know what to say. I would honestly just send them a coupon to say thanks.
The group helped me come up with some ideas to include in an email, and I actually had a few people reply, which was really rewarding. It was exciting to see that it was really working and that people actually cared about what I was sending. My open rates and click-through rates are getting better, too, as we get a more engaged audience.
Why It’s Worth Pushing Through The Tough Times
If you’re wondering if it’s worth the effort, it really is! We started Brand Creators in October, and below are a few stats to see our growth.
Just go out and take action. It’s never going to be perfect, just go for it! There is always room to improve later on.
Final Thoughts From Scott
I want you to go back and read each step that Thai-Linda took. She started by building an email list. Now that is taking off, she is focusing on her content. She now has a great foundation, which is great. Figure out what you need to focus on. If you’re looking for help, make sure that you go over to brandcreators.com/join to get more information if you’re reading this the week of July 6th so you can sign up and be a part of our awesome community.
Thanks so much for being here! Remember, I’m here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
It’s time for you to take action, and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
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Fri, 3 July 2020
Welcome to this week’s edition of our Friday jam session. This is always one of the highlights of my week. I love hanging out with some awesome people and answering some great questions. You can become part of our Take Action Crew by visiting takeactioncrew.com. We get together virtually single Friday, and it’s a total blast! Today we’re going to talk about how to simplify your business and a few ways on how you can make that happen. Let’s get started!
How to Keep Your Business Plan Simple
In the beginning, it’s all about simplifying. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t need to be complicated. It comes down to understanding what your business looks like and where are the drivers that you need to focus your time and energy on.
Where are the things in your business that are the best use of your time? If you’re in the beginning stages, it’s easy to focus on consuming content and get lost on what your first steps should be. If you can put the blinders on and see where you’re going, then nothing will get in your way.
Start by asking yourself where your business is going to be in twelve months from now. Make sure to set realistic expectations. What is the level of success you’d like to see? Make sure you have a detailed picture. A great tip is to reverse back to see how to get there.
Of course, you need to start by getting your business up and running. The problem I see is as people are building up their business, they keep consuming information that isn’t focused on what they are doing right now. Avoid shiny objects and stick to your path!
Content is King
I would always start with the content. It takes 3-6 months for it to index, so you need to get that going. Pinterest will help drive traffic there, too, while you wait for the content to be indexed.
Once you’ve figured out your long term target, work backward to get small targets done first so you can reach your long term goal. It’s all about taking it one step at a time.
Growing Your Business
I am adding Pinterest to all my brands moving forward. Most of the time, you’ll find that it’s a helpful platform, but always be sure to do a Pinterest audio first to make sure its worth your time.
At the same time, you should be planning on how to get your first digital product ready to go. I wish I would have focused more on this aspect in the early stages of my businesses in the past.
The most common questions that you should be asking yourself when you’re starting a business include:
Implementing a digital project is a great way to move the process along a bit quicker.
Should I Set Up a Timed Popup On My Website?
If you add a popup to your website always give visitors a few seconds before a popup comes up. Once you set up a timed popup on the website, you want to make sure they don’t see it again for 30 days if they come back to your website. This will make sure they aren’t getting spammed with your promotions and signups.
How Can I Transfer from Etsy to a Stand-Alone Online Store?
Don’t abandon Etsy. Instead, I would find a way on how you can grab the customer’s email address and direct them to your new website. Let Etsy work for you but have other assets in place as well.
12 Month Plan For Your Business
It really will just depend on your market and how much time and effort you put into it, how long it’ll take you to see substantial growth. You’ve got to be consistent and incorporate the following aspects that will help feed into each other.
You just need to make sure you’re creating content that people are searching for and using Pinterest and your lead magnet to help grow your reach.
You can build an email list pretty quickly too.
How Many Visitors Should I Expect Coming To My Website
If you can get 100 visitors per day within 2-3 months, that’s really great. It may depend on the season and your type of business.
Always start with one product to give visitors and see if another one makes sense. You need to have one product before you can focus on more. It’s important to focus on doing things well, not adding a ton of products that you can’t manage.
I recommend implementing ‘just in time learning” - what do you need to learn to get the task at hand done? This will help you stay focused on your current path.
How Long Should It Take To Complete Tasks For My Business?
Each task is pretty easy to get done if you set aside time for it. You could have a WordPress built up in an afternoon.
From there, you’ll move on to content creation mode. You’ll find long-tail keywords and write articles to post on your website. Then it’s time to focus on Pinterest to help drive traffic to your blog. Then you’ll implement an email list and your lead magnet. Each step will be a little different but could be done a week at a time. Just make sure to prioritize content creation first.
Once you start to actually do stuff, you’ll be able to look at the data to see what works well and what you should improve on. A lot of times, you’ll learn by doing something and taking action. When you notice that something is working, always do more of that!
Thanks For Being Here!
I hope you enjoyed this week’s Friday Jam session. To join us next week, head over to takeactioncrew.com to sign up. We’re here every week at 10 am Eastern time and would love to have you here!
Remember, I’m here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you!
It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episodes
Quote: Just In Time Learning - what do you need to learn to get the task at hand done? This will help you stay focused on your current path. |
Wed, 1 July 2020
Today I have Todd Herman on the show, and I am thrilled he’s here! He wrote a book called “The Alter Ego Affect.” that I really enjoyed reading. In fact, he actually reads the book himself on the audiobook, which I love because it makes it more real. So, if you get a chance, you should definitely listen to it. Now let’s get right to it and learn a few things from Todd. Why Your Alter Ego Matters
How To Get Unstuck
How To Take Action and Embrace Your Alter-Ego
Note From Scott: Nowadays, it’s so easy to compare people, especially on social media. It can be hard to see other people who are successful and wonder how you’ll ever get there. Many people will show up on video or a blog post in fear of judgment or not good enough. What advice do you have someone who might be struggling with this? Avoid The Path of Least ResistanceWelcome to the club. It’s a heavy load to worry about what people are going to think about you. The reason you want to do something is that you like it. However, when you start, you’ll realize the difference of great work. Also, what you’ve done is discouraging. This is part of the process.
Final Note From ScottI wasn’t kidding when I said that Todd is an awesome guy. I consider him a good friend and loved having him on the show. He is someone worth having in your diet of consumption. He will help impact you in the right way, so go grab his book, “The Alter Ego Affect.” Now, take some time to think about what you’ve learned today and how you can apply it to your own life. Thanks for hanging out with us today! Thanks For Tuning in!
“Remember, I'm here for you, I believe in you, and I'm rooting for you! Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand”! Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quotes:
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Mon, 29 June 2020
I am fired up because our guest today is one of our very own brand academy members, Octavio. He was stuck for a long time and wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to create his own brand. He was overthinking things and was hoping he would finally have the moment where everything would align perfectly, and things would. He finally made the decision to go all-in even if it wasn’t going to be his brand for the next 20 years. You’ll always have a pivot on your journey.
As a reminder, we are opening up registration for Brand Creators on July 6th. I want to highlight people that are in Brand Creators academy to shire and inspire you and show you what we’re doing on the inside. Head over to brandcreators.com and make sure to download the checklist. Once you do, we’ll notify you when we open enrollment. We only open up four times a year, so stay tuned. Let’s get right to it and learn a few things from Octavio.
Octavio’s Brand Creators Journey
I have consumed content for years, but I’ve been too risk-averse to pull the trigger on anything. One time I even got to the point where I had ordered a product from China, but the order ended up being canceled. Now looking back, I realize it was probably divine intervention. All along, I’ve listed to your podcast and was inspired about the focus on a brand. The approach of Brand Creators seemed so genuine and relatable.
My method is to see it, do it, teach it. When I was building my website, I had the Brand Creator videos open on one screen, and I was doing the task on my website as I went along.
Note From Scott: It’s easy to consume but harder to take action. Without action, there is no result...period. Until you get in the game, you won’t see any results of any kind.
The Start of Dad Goes Green
When I started, I didn’t know what niche I would focus on. Eventually, you just have to choose and take action. I choose my niche based on something that I had personally been affected by. In 2015 I got introduced to a coach who changed my life by teaching about proper nutrition and exercise. I knew that it would be a good fit for me, and I want to help as many people as I can to live a healthier life.
The other part of it was that I’m not tech-savvy. I wanted to show my kids by example, that they can do something. You are never too old to pursue your dream or go out and get what you want.
I love being a part of the Brand Creators group and helping other people. I did have a hard time getting in front of the camera at first. It’s scary to put yourself out there, especially knowing that people might judge you. But the main thing I’ve realized is if you don’t put yourself out there in a genuine fashion, you won’t accomplish as much.
Once I did my first video, it made it so much easier. I know more than someone starting out, and all my advice is based on people who know way more than I do. I’m just pointing people to valuable information and am here to help inspire them to get started living a healthier life.
I’ve found that I’m creating content all the time now, even when I’m not planning it. Every day, there is an opportunity to turn into an example, blog, or training for my website. I understand when people unsubscribe because I only want people who are genuinely interested in making a change and consuming my content to stick around.
Overcome The Need For Perfection
Perfection is the enemy of getting things done. If you wait until something is perfect, you’ll never achieve anything. When you’re starting out, no one will ever see the first few blog posts for a few months. So you can always go back and make changes. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, and you’ll never get started if that’s what you’re waiting for.
I remember in Brand Creators, we try to be consistent publishing one blog post a week. When quarantine hit, I realized that I had room to do more. Slowly the gears started turning, and I started publishing more blog posts each week. As I ramped up, it got addicting. I enjoy coming up with 3-5 blog posts a week now. I have help from VA’s and good writers. It’s been fun to build-up positive collaboration with the people I get to work with.
I’ve only been doing this for six months, but everything I learned from Brand Creators is super helpful, simple, and it is easier to take action.
It’s been fun sharing my experiences with other people and helping teach them. I want other people to realize that it’s possible and no never lose hope.
Note From Scott: By sharing your story, you’re helping to inspire other people. My goal with Brand Creators is to have a community that is really good at uplifting and supporting each other.
The Power of Keywords and Outsourcing
I always start looking for keywords using Google autosuggest. These are some of the hottest keywords people are searching for. I would do this a day before I went to write or order content.
After 20 blog posts, I discovered a blogpost spreadsheet, so I made a whole list for the rest of the year, and it saved me a ton of time. That way, every week, I knew exactly what I was going to write on. As I have felt more comfortable with writers, I’ll give them more creative freedom.
When I was initially blogging, I was just talking and writing randomly. I had no idea how I was putting the content down on paper. Once I started using an outline, it made it so much easier. Now my writers know my style, and they create the outline (I review), and they do the rest.
I now spend very little time writing content. I just come up with the keywords and checking in with the content writers. I like to check their progress when they’re halfway through, but then they continue with it, finish it up, add images, and it’s finished.
Note From Scott: I wouldn’t recommend ever stopping writing content altogether. Even if you only write a few a week at some point, you can see what happens. It just makes a website seem old if you stop adding new stuff.
Other courses and videos only talk about basic principles. In Brand Creators, we talk about each other’s business and niches. It’s helpful to talk about specifics and get a better insight. It offers a lot of support and encouragement.
How You Can Get Started
Make a decision and move forward with something. For me I recognized later on in life that I work best when I’m held accountable by a coach or mentor. Consider putting your money where your mouth is if that will help you take action. For me, it definitely helped. It was worth hiring a true professional to help me take action.
In Brand Creators, the beauty is that everyone comes to the table ready to contribute in their own way, and we all can learn and grow together. That’s why I love being apart of this community so much.
It’s Time To Take Action - Final Note From Scott
What an awesome interview from today Octavio. Our community really does support each other and help make each other struggle. We always talk about no matter where you are, you just gotta start and own up to it. You can’t have results unless you get started.
It opens up the opportunity to help each other when we talk about our niches and what we’re working on. I really hope you got a ton of value out of our talk today and have inspired you to get unstuck and get started.
Surround yourself with people who are already doing what you’d like to do. They will help uplift and inspire you for sure.
If you’re looking to be apart of an incredible community, we’d love to have you as part of Brand Creator’s and will be opening our doors on July 6th.
Remember, I believe in you, I’m here for you and am rooting for you.
Now its time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote If you don’t put yourself out there in a genuine fashion you won’t accomplish as much.
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Fri, 26 June 2020
Welcome to this week's edition of our Friday jam session! I'm so glad to have you here. If you want to join us every Friday, head over to takeactioncrew.com to be a part of our weekly sessions, it's one of my week's highlights because I get to hang out with some awesome people and answer some great questions. We're going to start with a topic that I've had a lot of questions asked about this week to get things started. Digital Product LaunchA few ways that you can monetize as quickly as possible include
What is the one thing that you're market wants and need right now? Turn it into a digital funnel that can lead to making money a lot quicker.
In order to make this possible, you're going to need a product.n
For the people who are currently creating content right now and don't have an email list, let's start here. What are the things that someone needs to know to get a result in helping them with whatever they are trying to accomplish (a guide, cheatsheet, etc.) Reach out to the market to make sure you're creating things they are actually interested in.
Once you do that, you will create blog posts, written content, and videos that address each sub-topic. You're building a product while creating content at the same time. We're basically publishing the product in parts. At the end of it, you can combine all those blogposts, bundle them up, and make an ebook.
Word of Caution: Don't just copy and paste your blog posts into an ebook. Always add value. This could be as simple as adding a few screenshots, images, and additional resources.
Now you have a digital asset, and you're ready to launch it. Launch Runway Timeframe
I created a popup Pinterest workshop and only advertised it for a short time before the actual event. We wanted to help people with that one specific area and knew that we would have people interested. We also wanted to get people that are interested in building their brand so we can invite them to join brandcreators.com when it opens.
Keep in mind that if you have a bigger launch, it'll take more energy, resources, and times if you've never done a launch before always start with a small mini digital funnel to get started. Identify the One Thing
What is the one thing that will give your audience a quick win?
Make sure to do your research and now what people in your niche want.
You can use your free lead magnet to build your email list. On the thank you page, you can introduce them to your digital project and give a discount if they purchase within a certain amount of time. Just make sure that the lead magnet and digital product are closely related, so it would make sense for them to buy it.
I recommend limiting the number of lead magnets that you have on your website to keep things simple.
Over the next six months, you can create additional digital products using your content and then could combine them and use it as an order bump. Email List Benefits
Once we've built your email list now, we can talk about launching other products. Giving visitors a quick win will help invite them to purchase your first project. This will help you move fast when you're ready to create new products.
You want to reach out to your email list and ask them what they are looking for in your niche. What are they struggling with or need help with? Once you get some answers, you can create content that helps solve the problem. Always do this with new products to make sure you're always creating content that your audience wants.
Never just assume that you know. Don't ever just guess that something is going to be a good product, actually ask what the market wants. From there, you can create it.
Here is what your sequence should look like. Always make it known beforehand that you have a new product launch coming.
Step 1: Lead by asking a question of what they want to learn or know more about. That will become the product.
Step 2: Send an email and let them know that you had asked the audience a question and want to share how you've been able to help solve the product and lead them to your product.
Note: Every email isn't going to be solely focused on selling your product. You'll always include tips and ways to help them that are related to your product. Naturally, lead into it.
I can't stand when I go to read an article, and they want my name and email for me to read the whole thing. Instead, just implement a lead magnet. How Long Should You Nurture Your List Before Selling?
I would have the free lead magnet, and I would send that to your email list. They'll enter their email address again (they won't be added to your list twice). It'll send them to a thank you email with an offer for your product, and you can always send a follow-up email.
Make sure to give them valuable information in the process and make sure they are utilizing the free lead magnet. Paid Memberships
You need first to know exactly what people want and what they are willing to pay for monthly. It would be figuring out what is the solution or the problem that you are going to help solve and, from there, create something free on the front end for a quick win. Then you can lead with your first product, to get yourself rolling.
I would recommend never to start with a membership site right off the bat. You want to make sure they are getting everything that you progress. Start with a small sales funnel and build off of it. Join In On The Fun
If you want to attend one of our live Friday jam sessions, head over to takeactioncrew.com to join us live every Friday at 10 am. We would love to have you!
Remember, I am always here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today's Episode
Quote: What is the one thing that you're market wants and need right now? Turn it into a digital funnel that can lead to making money a lot quicker.
Or
What is the one thing that will give your audience a quick win?
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Wed, 24 June 2020
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Mon, 22 June 2020
Hey everybody! I’m so glad to have you here. As a reminder, we’re opening up brand creators on July 6th. If you want to be notified when we open, make sure you go to brandcreators.com. Look for the icon that says “checklist.” Make sure to grab it, and you’ll automatically be notified when we open up registration. Benefits of a Digital Product
I’ve been known for selling physical products in the past, but you can also make money on digital products too. I’m going to provide you with a simple way to create your own digital product. From there, you could take the same content and use it for blog content and can get traffic from it too, which will save you time in the long run.
You can still charge for it if you’ve published it on your blog. You’ll be making it easier for visitors to consume the content, and it’s all in one place, so they don’t have to go search for it all, especially if they want that information in a pdf format.
We did that in one of the products we’ve been talking about for three years. We took some of our past blog posts and turned it into a guide. We sell it for $4.99, and it leads to some additional upsells, which is great. We can make money faster when we’re solely focused on creating a content-based website, and digital products make that possible.
Creating a digital product doesn’t have to be hard, especially when you implement this exact process by creating content and understanding what your market wants and needs.
Get Very Clear On Your Markets Wants And Needs
#1 What is the problem or help you can provide to get a result
First off, if you’re just starting and have started the brand growth validation checklist, you have a good idea about what your niche needs.
Create a guide or manual to hand off to visitors. If you have an email list, ask people what they are struggling with or looking for more information about.
If you don’t have an email list, go to a Facebook group and ask people. You can also implement social media if you have a reach there.
A great way is to go into the inside of the community your apart of. You’ll see commonly asked questions that people need content created on.
If all else fails, head over to Google and find common problems that people are searching for.
#2 Create an Outline
What is the main thing you are going to help someone with? Create an outline for 5-10 blog posts.
#3 Write The Content As a Blog Post
You can publish one blog post every week, and once you’ve finished, you can compile them into a guide, say five or six blog posts worth. You can include pictures from your blog as well, which will save you some time.
Write the content, stay consistent, get it down, and after a few weeks, you’ll have a guide, you can turn into a digital product. Make sure you get an email signup on the blog sooner than later so you can grow your email list.
#4 Edit & Add Additional Content
Maybe you want to add in additional content that isn’t in the blog posts or more pictures.
Our Brand Creators playbook was made from six podcast episodes than turned into six blog posts and then turned into the playbook. I made plenty of changes and added stuff to make it more robust before it became the finalized playbook. If you want to check it out head over to brandcreatorsbook.com
#5 Create a Good Cover and Format
A pdf is super easy to use and create. You could send it over to someone on Fiverr to format and create the cover if you don’t have time. It’s a super easy and affordable way to get it done. Remember, this is a digital asset that can turn into dollars and turn people into a customer. Even if it doesn’t cost them much, it shows that they are serious and are ready for the next step.
That is the exact formula I have used all the way back to when I was teaching people photography. I’d start with a video, get it transcribed, and then turn it into a book or quick download. It’s always been a super easy and effective method. How to Promote Your Digital AssetThere are six ways you can successfully promote your digital asset. Within Brand Creators we will be focusing on this within the next few weeks as it’s a really important part of the process.
We’re not going to send people directly to your digital download. Offer a free lead magnet they can download instantly. On the thank your page, they would get an offer or promo code for your digital guide.
Content takes time to get moving, but this can help get things going and adds an asset to your business.
We have a lead magnet to our book, and then a physical product upsell.
Create a widget, header, or popup to get people to sign up and get to the thank you page. Even if they don’t buy you can follow up with more tips and send a reminder about your guide later on.
Give them something of value and segment your list in the process. You could also drop a line at the end about buying your guide.
There is a lot you can do with the email list once you have it.
If you have pages or groups, if you want it sharable, add it to a page. I wouldn’t post this in other people’s groups unless you’ve added value to the group first. Always reach out to the admin first.
I like it because I can drop a pin within my board, and someone can find it and it can get picked up by goggle. It can go to a landing page or a blog post.
They can be really powerful, but you’re going to spend money before you figure out if it’s going to work. It’ll take several tests to figure it out. Test it with a small budget first. If you’re doing paid traffic is you’ll be able to pixel the audience and get their email address. They will also see the thank you page immediately.
The process is fairly easy, and you can do it while you’re creating content for your site. Take time to plan it out and see what you could turn into a digital project. From there, you have an asset you can sell almost immediately. Mark Your Calendars!
If you want to be surrounded by other brand rockers where we’re sharing learning and supporting one another, you’ll want to be apart of our brand creator’s academy when we open up enrollment on July 6th. You must get the checklist, so you understand where you have these opportunities in your market and brand.
Thanks again for being here!
As always I am here for you, I believe in you, and I am rooting for you.
It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand! Take-Aways From Today’s Post
Quote: Creating a digital product doesn’t have to be hard, especially when you implement this exact process by creating content and understanding what your market wants and needs.
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Fri, 19 June 2020
RYB 844: Best 3 Traffic Channels and Content Types - Producing Evergreen Assets (Friday Jam Session)
Welcome to our weekly Friday jam session! This is one of the highlights of my week when I get to hang out with some super cool people. If you want your question answered, become part of our take action crew. It's totally free, and we do it every single Friday. It's time to sit back, relax, and let's jam!
What You Need To Know About Choosing Social Platforms
I've been asked a lot of questions about what platforms to focus your energy and how to leverage them to your benefit. Here are a few answers to some of those questions, and I hope they help you on your journey to creating a successful brand!
What Platforms Should You Focus Your Efforts On?
It's common for people to look at what's trending and see what everyone is gravitating towards. Instead, I recommend answering a couple of questions.
#1 Use Keywords to Find Proof Your Niche is Being Searched For
Identify where your market is hanging out and consuming content. Start by going to Google and typing in a short keyword from your niche. From there, try the same process using some long-tail keywords. Find out if there content being created.
From there, you can head over to Ubersuggest and let it tell you what other content is being created using the same or similar keywords. You'll also be able to find websites that successfully implement those keywords and see what type of content is doing well for them and what channels they are leveraging.
The goal here is to be able to identify the best platform you should start with based on your keywords and what the competition is doing.
#2 What Platform Are You Confident With and Can Show Up Consistently
You should never bank on one traffic source. I would focus your efforts on Google Traffic, Pinterest, and Youtube. They are evergreen types of traffic, and you can create an asset, which will be beneficial for years to come.
Note: On one of our brands, we discovered a post that we created ten months ago that is now starting to take off. It's getting over 2,000 page views every single month now. It takes some time, but it pays off. We identified that there was traffic on Google for that topic, so we wrote about it, and it's now paying off, which is awesome. We can leverage that piece of content to monetize, which is great. So you just need to get started now.
The perfect formula would take your Youtube video and imbed it into your blog post and create an entire blog post around the content.
The most important number to worry about is how many people visit your website. Views are not money in your bank account.
The goal is to plant the seeds and do the work now so you can watch them grow over time.
Do All Platforms Require The Same TIme A Week?
There is no guarantee. However, when you can be consistent with good content, it's going to pay off. Don't worry about how much you think you need. If you show up consistently, you're going to have content and plant seeds that you can get traffic from and start to monetize.
How To Effectively Use a Blog For Your Business
This week I had a lot of questions about creating blogs and why they are so important. I hope the answers to a few of these questions help show that by creating consistent content, you'll effectively drive traffic to your website and can monetize sooner.
How Many Posts Should I Create a Week?
Commit and Be Consistent. Start with one post per week to start and learn the process and how to batch content and optimize. If you do that, you can build a process and make it go much quicker.
Set a date when each piece of content will be published so you can commit to it, and you'll be able to show up consistently. If you are going to do a video, first upload it to your website and create a blog post around it. You'll embed the video on the blog. This will give you two assets on two platforms and two places they can be searched for.
Depending on if you know you're not going to show up on video, don't do it. If I were to start a new brand right now, I would start with blog posts and Pinterest.
Organic Traffic is Key
When you have organic traffic with diversified traffic streams, you have more control over your business and attention to your traffic.
Ads will take a lot of money to figure out what works and what doesn't work. There will be problems you'll need to deal with, and you'll need to be able to take at least $500-$1,000 to just test. If you do make sure you start by building an email list, so you benefit from the paid ads.
When Should I Expect to Rank for SEO?
Don't worry about the numbers for a few months. It can happen fast, but that is where you go after the long tail so you can rank quicker.
How Can I Effectively Use Tags On My Blog?
They will not help you rank. Their goal is to help visitors use the search bar. Keep them specific to what people would be searching for on your site and take them to the content that matches. I would say use three to five tags per blog post.
Will YouTube Videos Show Up In Google Searches?
Yes, you'll start by recording it, upload it to YouTube and add it to your blog as well. You can get ranked for that video in a Google search, which is an added bonus.
How Long Should Each Blog Post Be?
Don't try to put a certain number of words just to have them there. Question-answer posts are typically 1500-1700 words. As long as you tell people what they need to know and answer their questions, that's all that matters. If you do longer posts, they can be your pillar posts and have other shorter posts that are related and link to it and vs. versa.
Auto Suggest Is Your Friend
Go Inside each platform and see what keywords are auto-suggested. Those are the keywords that are getting ranked, and people are searching for the most.
YouTube Tip: If you are searching for a keyword, and there are some videos coming up, look at the videos with lots of views and low subscribers. They are the ones getting organically ranked and not getting boosted by their subscriber base.
How a Blog Will Help You Be Successful
When you're launching a product, it's not really a business. If you're going down that road, I really believe you need to build out your brand so you can get traffic.
If you're launching a product on Amazon, how are you going to advertise and get sales? Without a blog or website, you'll have to pay for a lot of ads. Try to find a way to get your website and blog up and running so you can drive people to your website and drive more sales to your product. If you're trying to sell one product, you only have one chance to sell them something without a website.
Once you get the traffic you can turn on an ad network and generate money that way too.
Focus on Bringing Traffic To Your Site
Everyone should make it a priority to bring targeted traffic using lead magnets to your website.
Once we get the traffic, we can do so many things. It's just a slow process, but it's a skill set you can take with you wherever you go.
Once you get going and start to see traffic from content, you can start to worry about monetizing using affiliate offers, both digital and physical.
Ad networks are also one of the easiest ways to start to earn money.
Should I Use Google Ads?
I would never pay to get traffic to a blog post unless it was a sales page. Google ads are great for selling products, but you need to learn the best way to target keywords. If you want to increase traffic to your blog post, you would have the ads go to a lead magnet and then to your specific blog post.
Are Backlinks Important to My Site?
It's not important at the beginning and will naturally happen when you create good content. You'll typically get backlinks without even doing any outreach.
Thanks For Being Here!
As a reminder, we're opening up brand creators on July 6th. If you want to be notified when we open, make sure you go to brandcreators.com. Look for the icon that says "checklist." Make sure to grab it, and you'll automatically be notified. We'd love to have you along for the ride!
If you want to join us on an upcoming jam session head over to takeactioncrew.com and you can join us over there.
Thanks For Tuning in!
“Remember, I'm here for you, I believe in you, and I'm rooting for you! Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand”!
Take-Aways From Today's Post
Quote: You should never bank on one traffic source. I would focus your efforts on Google Traffic, Pinterest, and Youtube. They are evergreen types of traffic, and you can create an asset, and it'll be beneficial for years to come. |
Wed, 17 June 2020
Today I'm excited to have Jasmine Star on the show. She is known as a business strategist and social media guru. During today's episode, you'll discover that if you think being an entrepreneur is a straight path, you're wrong. It takes time, dedication, and consistency to make it happen. I'm so glad to have Jasmine here now let's get right to it! Jasmine's New RoleMy husband and I just adopted our daughter four months ago, and I am glowing. In a sense, she chose my husband and me, and it was well worth the wait. We actually only had 24 hours notice to get ready for her arrival, and we couldn't be happier. In the gloriousness of it all, that is how we were able to usher her in. From a business perspective, the world hasn't been the same since we brought her home, especially during the COVIDD-19 quarantine. It's a mixed blessing because I get to spend an unexpected amount of time with my daughter, and I couldn't be more thankful. It's been a big blessing. Jasmine's Origin StoryWhere you are right now isn't the same place you'll be in five years. Back in 2005, I was a first-generation immigrant and college student in law school. It was uncharted territory, but it wasn't in alignment with what I wanted to do. After my mom relapsed with brain cancer, it forced me to face head-on that I had depression and remembered that life is short. We have moments to change the direction and trajectory of our life. Sometimes pivots are thrust upon on, and other times pivots are given to us as a gift. I had to take a step back to see what I needed to learn. The pivot away from law school was difficult, and I fought it because everything was uncertain. I realized that it was a gift to reassess what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a photographer, but I didn't have a camera. My husband and I had been married for a month, and he gifted me with my first camera. Always bee willing and open to go with the flow and let go. Look for new opportunities that you might not have considered before. At the time, my husband worked as a sales rep for a startup company, and it was 100% commission-based, and he had just started the process. His checks were far and few between. I worked part-time at a church, and it was difficult to try and stay afloat. Once his experience in the sales world improved, we had more regularity and stability. In the beginning, it was important for me to understand that pursuing a creative passion was a luxury. I didn't want to put pressure on monetizing my passion too early. Jasmin's Shift to Teaching Other PhotographersFor me, I prefer to teach what I know. I'm not a mind-reader and never guess a pivot. I diversify based on what people are asking for. If I see an opportunity and think it's strategic based on where the market is going, I'll absolutely jump at the opportunity. My first pivot was deciding to be a photographer, then teaching photographers about photography and then teaching them how to create a profitable business—then pivoted to teaching creative business owners how to create a profitable business. I've really created a stronghold on empowering small business owners, and that pivot started as diversification. Pay attention to what questions you're being asked the most. It's a test to see if there is a demand for the questions you're being asked and if people will ask follow up questions. Once you've diversified a few times, you're hedging your bets for the pivot, and it'll make you much more confident over time. Content Is KeyYou speak your dreams into existence. If you believe you've discovered your highest purpose, you do everything you can to make it come true and don't give up. Note From Scott: I was podcasting for five years on eCommerce, Amazon, etc. I had to reposition and decided what I really wanted to be known for long term. I wanted to focus more on brand building. It took time and was risky at first. It's tough because you don't know how it might turn out, but it always seems to work out for the best. I've failed far more than I've succeeded, but knowing what doesn't work is the only way you succeed. The very first time I pivoted to serving small business owners, I didn't know digital marketing and just knew I had a business online. I saw other people hosting online events and thought I needed to do the same thing. If you compare your new journey to someone else's marathon, who's gone around the track 800 times, you're going to sell yourself short because you don't know all the steps that it takes at the beginning. What is the point of creating something if you don't know how to bring it into the world? You'll learn the most massive lessons from the scrappy, cheapest, easy, and low hanging fruit where you start, and you can scale as you go along. What Social Media Platform To Focus Your Attention OnI use a very diversified approach to social media. Personally, I'm naturally drawn to Instagram as a creative storyteller. From a business perspective, my ideal customers are on Instagram, but it will be different depending on what products you sell and who your customer is. If I were going B2B or C Suite, I would be pouring buckets and buckets of attention to LinkedIn. Pick a platform where my dream customer is at and spend a significant amount of time building content for that platform. Is Email Dead?Stop thinking that email is dead. If you're doing the work, cultivating your list, and creating content for your readers, it's a game-changer. We have the most success with our email lists, and we get the most engagement and reach, but you have to nurture your list to make it successful. Go Live Every Chance You GetI go live any chance that I get, especially in an algorithmic nature it's a powerful mechanism. It's not for the faint of heart, but if you're good, it shows. You can't depend on editing or redos, and it shows how you handle yourself. People want to see that you're a real person and that you're authentic. If you do it well, you'll be successful. I never do live videos for people who actually watch it live. The power is in the reply. Don't undervalue going live. It'll be a life-changer for your business if you're consistent. Don't spend all your time focusing on selling. Go live be so consistent before you advertise your product, so when you make a call to action, they get what's happening. Jasmine's Take Action MomentI joined a mastermind class, and before, I had no idea that it even existed. I looked at the price tag, and it was more than the price of the car that I was driving at the time. It was a high level of pressure, excitement, and belief to finally say that I was going to be on me and make it happen. I was ready to commit and knew that it would be worth it, and I would earn the money back. Note From Scott: Some level of accountability or good mentorship is key to success. Find people (not testimonials) who have worked with someone else to see what their experience was to make sure you're working with the best people. Make Social Media Your Workout RegimentMarketing your business is an active discipline. Your actions must map your aspirations. Just know that when you have these big lofty goals, your actions must map that. You have to be fully dedicated to getting the results that you want, and they will be proportional to your effects. The only person who can stop you from doing what you want is you. Show up as you and do your best. Your purpose is greater than your fear, and it has a profound effect. A belief is a thought that you tell yourself over and over again. Tell yourself that you are going to find a way to make your dreams happen, and you can get there. You have to believe in yourself to make things happen. If you'd like to follow along on Jasmine's journey, you can follow her on social media @jasminestar and her website jasminestar.com. Final Word From ScottWhat an amazing interview! Jasmine is so real, raw, and transparent. Where you're at right now isn't where you're going to end up. You don't need to have all the answers, and everything figured out right now. As you climb, you'll see new opportunities and building your skillset as you go along. Everyone always has ups and downs and face unique challenges. You are not alone! She has pivoted often and makes great things happen even though she's experienced many ups and downs. As a friendly reminder, our Take Action Morning Crew gets together every morning at 10 am EST to join us. Visit takeactioncrew.com to join! Remember, I am always here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you! Now it's time for you to TAKE ACTION and go rock your brand! Take-Aways From Today's Episode
3 Quote Options We have moments to change the direction and trajectory of our life. Sometimes pivots are thrust upon on, and other times pivots are given to us as a gift. You speak your dreams into existence. If you believe you've discovered your highest purpose, you do everything you can to make it come true and don't give up. If you compare your new journey to someone else's marathon, who's gone around the track 800 times, you're going to sell yourself short because you don't know all the steps that it takes at the beginning. |
Mon, 15 June 2020
I’ve talked a lot about evergreen assets in the past and how they play a big part in helping to generate income for your business down the line. Today I’m going to share how one asset we created ten months ago on one of our websites is starting to show signs of traffic and will soon turn into an income-generating asset that we’ll be able to use for years to come. My goal for today is to help you learn how to create evergreen products that you can use to grow your own business if you’re on the search for new ways to drive extra traffic to your website and get extra income from your blog and other content stick around! |
Fri, 12 June 2020
Welcome to this week's Friday jam session. I'm so happy you're here. This is always one of my week's highlights, and I love spending time with some awesome people and answering some great questions. If you'd like to join in on the fun each week head over to takeactioncrew.com, it's totally free, and we get together every Friday at 10 am Eastern, where I answer your questions about your business.
Today we're going to be talking all about how to use your Pinterest traffic to build out your email list. Now it's time to sit, back, relax, and lets officially kick off this week's jam session!
Can You Drive Pinterest Traffic to Build Your Email List
Yes, it's definitely possible to build out your email list using Pinterest traffic. However, it's important to make sure that you're creating the right type of content that targets the right people you want to bring to your website.
Today I'm going to answer this question in detail and go over what it looks like with a few examples. Let's dive right into Pinterest and learn how to make it happen!
When you create a piece of content to put on Pinterest or your website, you always want to make sure that it's specific to the person who is visiting your site or searching for topics related to that content. The Power of a Good Lead Magnet
When you're ready to create a lead magnet to help drive traffic to your website and encourage people to sign up for your mailing list, always make sure that it's relevant and fulfills a need for someone visiting your website. Think about what type of problem they might be facing if they click on your Pin on Pinterest and go to your site. What type of content can you create to help solve that problem?
The goal of using Pinterest is to create assets that people can save to their own boards to reference later and share with others. When someone clicks on the pin, it takes them a specific webpage on your site related to the topic described on the pin.
When someone gets to your site from Pinterest, a pop-up, or signup where they can get a freebie that will help them solve their problem is a great way to capture their interest. You're giving them something of value, and in exchange, they're giving you their email address. This makes them feel like it's a good trade instead of just asking them to sign up for an email list without giving them anything upfront.
Note: Always make sure to confirm that a visitor wants to receive the freebies and include the word "yes" to make sure they know what they are agreeing to.
Avoid Generic Opt-In Forms
Honestly, no one wants to sign up to be on a mailing list without incentive. If you just ask someone to sign up for your list without anything in return, they won't know what to expect, and chances are they won't sign up.
They want a specific piece of content that will quickly help them solve a problem quickly. Consider creating a lead magnet that piques a person's interest and encourages them to signup for your mailing list to get the piece of content.
An opt-in form is a great way to show visitors what they are getting. Make it well worth their time and give them something they can actually use.
Avoid making people have to go through extra steps to give you their information. Keep in mind, the more barriers you create, the less likely they will stick around long enough to sign up. Like I mentioned earlier, always make sure the opt-in is tailored for your specific audience. The problem you're helping to solve on Pinterest should be similar to the content you're offering on your website.
Note: Never ask for a person's last name. For an opt-in form, you just need a person's email address and first name. Think Outside the Box
I recommend avoiding using the words subscribe to your opt-in forms. Instead, just say something like "get your free guide" and include a similar phrase such as "yes I want my free guide" at the bottom of the form.
Make sure it's easy to read, simple, and the fonts and colors aren't overwhelming and detract from the content you're offering to visitors.
If you're driving traffic to your site, you should always have either an opt-in form on your sidebar or header (using Hello Bar plugin), a pop-up, or embed the opt-in within the content.
Drive visitors directly to your blog instead of an opt-in form so they can have access to all the resources you have to offer.
A Final Note From Scott
I hope you found this Friday, Jam session to be helpful!
You can definitely build an email list on Pinterest, but it shouldn't be your main focus. Instead, I recommend always driving visitors to your blog instead of directly to an opt-in form so they can have access to all the other resources that you have to offer.
As a reminder, if you ever want to attend one of our live Friday jam sessions, head over to takeactioncrew.com to join us. We'd love to have you.
Thank you for listening. I enjoyed having you here!
Remember, I'm here for you, I believe in you, and I'm rooting for you!
Now it's time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Takeaways From This Episode
1. Can You Drive Pinterest Traffic to Build Your Email List (1:35) 2. The Power of a Good Lead Magnet (4:45) 3. Avoid Generic Opt-In Forms (13:45) 4. Think Outside the Box (17:10)
Quote: Drive visitors directly to your blog instead of an opt-in form so they can have access to all the resources you have to offer. Or When you're ready to create a lead magnet to help drive traffic to your website and encourage people to sign up for your mailing list, always make sure that it's relevant and fulfills a need for someone visiting your website
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Wed, 10 June 2020
Today I’m excited to have Amber Mazola on the show. She is the executive producer for the show “The Profit.” If you watch the show, you’ve seen her on the show at times, talking to Marcus Limonus about the businesses that he’s had on the show. We’re going to learn about her journey and how she got to where she is today. She runs a successful business, and we’ll learn about her take action moment and how she made things happen. Let’s get right into it and here from Amber. Amber’s Unique Path to Success
Right out of high school, I started working as a PA in New York. I worked on a show called Cosby, that had Bill Cosby on it. I did all the grunt work like getting everyone coffee, doing runs in the city, and basically anything else that needed to get done. It helped me to learn people skills and how to connect and network with others in the industry. Working as a PA also made me realize that I am never to goo for anything and definitely helped me through my entire career and made sure I never felt like I was better than anyone else.
From there, I moved on to being an assistant, and then a writer, and eventually I got into working on unscripted shows. I ended up working on a show called Girls Behave Badly, a prank show where I wrote all the pranks and that I worked on that show for about five years and then decided to go to the unscripted world. At the time, I had no idea that I’d be a producer. How Amber Became a Producer
I loved the creativity and enjoyed being a freelance producer. I would go from job to job, and it made it really exciting. It was fun to meet a lot of new people and work on lots of different projects. At times, I felt that writing was a bit lonely, and I quickly realized that I would rather be interacting, interviewing people, and being in the field.
At the time, it never occurred to me that I might own my own business someday. Even though, as I look back now, I was doing a lot of the same things at the time. I had a producer I worked with at E that encouraged me to start my own business and actually helped me along the way at the beginning to make that happen.
The Launch of Amber’s Business
I put together a pilot for my very first show as a business owner and. It was basically a mini recreation of what the actual show would look like and had to send it to the network to look at it. At the time I was eight months pregnant and had to run it over to the studio because the tape we had originally sent over wasn’t working. They ended up showing it last and it went really well. It ended up being one of the select few that they picked up. It was called Dirty soap and was about soap opera stars from E!. It followed the lives of these gifts and their relationships.
It was a crazy time. I had to quickly build a company while I had just had a baby on top of everything else. It’s really important to hire people who you truly trust and make sure you’re not being a micromanager even though it might be hard to let go. You can’t do it all alone and it’s important to have a team that can help get things done. How Networking and Hardwork Led to Amber’s First Show As I was a producer working my way up through the ranks, I traveled a lot, worked long hours, and worked with executive producers. During the years, I proved that I willing to do anything and work hard to make things happen. I was also good at working and communicating with the talent on the shows. Being in the business for so long, I worked with the same people and the executives for years. They feel like family and are at other networks now, so it helped me open doors and pitched my ideas.
I had a lot of times where it was two steps forward and one step back but I never gave up. My first show was canceled after the first season, and it was hard to move forward, especially after I had just started my business. It was so hard when I was told that it was canceled. I had been on a high and things were going well, and everyone liked what they saw, but the raters were low, so the show couldn’t go on.
Note From Scott: You have to work hard to get your foot in the door. In my opinion your network is your net worth and you have to work hard to make things happen. How “The Profit” Came to Be
I had been asked by a producer to come over to CNBC and be a showrunner around the time I had landed my first show. I said no because I had just started my own business and wanted to focus on that. I was told my another producer that if I came over and helped run the show, he would help me relaunch my business.
The show I agreed to run was called Treasure Detectives. After it was over, the producer said he had one more show he had that he wanted me to help with. I didn’t want to do it because it was a business show, and I didn’t have as much experience working on those types of shows. He said that’s exactly why he needed someone like me to help create the story around the show and have someone with a different view of things.
For the first season of “The Profit,” I was the showrunner. I helped do all the behind the scenes stuff. After the first season, the production company they had been working with didn’t work out, so my company was able to pick up the show. We were responsible for making the entire show happen. We basically took on all the responsibility and was in charge of the pre-production, production, post prediction, and to get the show ready to air.
The biggest change we made from season one to season two was traveling to help businesses all across the country. We realized that whatever businesses needed help or the ones that Marcus wanted to choose, we had to go, and it didn’t matter where they were located. What Challenges Do You Face On The Profit?
Because it’s happening in real-time, we don’t stay with one business for more than a couple of days. We go in, and Marcus helps them out, and then we leave and go on to the next one. We make a lot of fast changes, so it’s hard to help the business owners follow through, and they’re not sure what to do when we leave.
Marcus is clear on what he wants to be done when he leaves and what he expects when we get back after the changes have been implemented. Sometimes the businesses need money to make it happen, but it’s a challenge when they have to do everything on their own.
Another challenge is that Marcus is one person and doesn’t have an assistant, so it’s hard because he has so many businesses that he is running and helping with. He likes to know first-hand what's happening and be the contact person when people reach out to him.
It’s also challenging when people present themselves differently on a casting tape than in real life, so when we show up, things aren’t what we expect.
My company is in charge of casting for the show. We get applications and have a casting team that goes through thousands of them. We look for certain criteria that Marcus wants and then present the top candidates for him and the network to choose from.
How Amber Balances Work & Family When you have kids, you just have less time to do other things and have select windows to work on things. When I travel, I’m not gone longer than 48 hrs, or I will take my kids with me. I do miss dinner and bedtime a lot because I work late.
There is always something that suffers, and it’s usually my relationships. I will say that after the quarantine is over and I’m back to work, I would say the change I’m going to make is I’m going to get to work earlier and leave at 5 pm so I can have dinner and do bedtime with my kids because I realize just how important family time is.
Note From Scott: It’s really important to simplify and get your things in order. If you have a schedule it’s easier to get things done. Family is everything and it’s tough to balance when you’re an entrepreneur for sure because there are always things you could be working on.
Amber’s Take Action Moment If I hadn’t taken a step backward to be a showrunner again after starting my business I never would have had the opportunity to work on “The Profit.” It got me to where I am today and by taking a step back it led to something great.
My advice would be to never give up and dont be afraid of the word no. Keep going to make things happen even.
If you want to follow along on my journey you can find me on Instagram @amber_mazola. Final Thoughts From Scott
Thanks for joining me today for my interview with Amber. I loved hearing her story and how she got to where she is today and how she is reshifting her priorities and restructuring her schedule so she has more time with her kids. You can see it’s never easy but as long as you keep showing up and working hard you can be successful while still having a family.
It’s interesting to see how people are led by the actions they take. It’ll work itself out in the end as long as you keep taking action. I hope you enjoyed that!
Remember, I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
Now it’s time for you to go out and take action. Now go get em! Takeaways From Today’s Episode
Quote: Your network is your net worth and you have to work hard to make things happen or I had a lot of times where it was two steps forward and one step back but I never gave up.
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Mon, 8 June 2020
Today my good friend Chris Shaffer and I are talking about how to drive traffic to your Amazon products using Facebook Ads, and we’ll give our honest opinion about when it can be valuable and when it might not be beneficial. Let’s dive right in.
Are Facebook Ads Worth It? This conversation will be focused on talking about making Facebook ads to sell products within the Amazon eco-system.
Note: Don’t utilize Facebook ads until you’ve made sure to maximize the resources that Amazon has already provided to you. You’ll end up getting more bang for your buck by taking advantage of using Amazon advertising.
When people are on Amazon, they’re on the search to buy something. So when you spend your advertising dollars there, you have more of a chance to make a sale. Whereas people on Facebook aren’t necessarily looking to buy something and it might be difficult to convince them to buy your product from an ad if they’re not actively looking to buy a similar product.
There may be times that you can’t make the pay per click platform on Amazon work for you or if you’re at the “point of no return” and have spent all you can advertising on Amazon and it’s no longer leading to sales it might be a good time to look at how you can get external traffic.
Keep in mind that Amazon doesn’t necessarily prefer external traffic. It actually converts at a much lower rate if you’re not already optimized within Amazon, and it will negatively affect how you rank organically if you’re conversion is really low from external traffic.
Use Facebook Ads As a Secondary Marketing Tool However, there is something to be said about being on the same playing field as your competition. If everyone is selling on Amazon and using the same strategy and set of resources and tools, it might be hard to stand out. When you add the external side and learn how to incorporate it and make it work, you might just be able to get a leg up from your competition and leverage your rankings.
The key is that it’s an addictive piece of marketing. You need to make sure that you have a solid foundation first. The most qualified traffic does exist on Amazon, so exhaust all your efforts there first before paying for additional traffic. You can also use your email list or other free sources, but just don’t pay for any more traffic until you’ve all you can internally first.
Two Ways to Drive Traffic From Facebook to Amazon There are two main ways that you can bring people to your Amazon product by using Facebook Ads. Although we strongly recommend the second option we’ll cover both. Sending Ad Traffic Directly to Your Amazon Ad
This is usually not a recommended method for three mani reasons.
Create Your Own Landing Page
ConvertKiit has a great landing page feature, and Giveaway Boost works great too. You can run Facebook Ad for your product and can visitors to a custom landing page. This way, you’ll be able to collect their email address and now have a targetable audience you can reach out to in the future. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to do the task that you want them to complete.
By creating a landing page, you’re able to take advantage of all the cool features inside Facebook ads like conversion optimization, which is the secret sauce behind the most successful Facebook ad campaigns. You’ll choose the targeted audience that you’re looking for. You can’t do that if you drive traffic directly to Amazon. You can also go back later and see what other types of products people who bought your product be interested in. Does It Make Sense to Use Facebook Ads For a Single Product
If you only have one product to sell it might not be worth doing Facebook ads. You’ll lose money If you only have one product to sell, it might not be worth doing Facebook ads. You’ll lose money or break even to get data, and it’s a lot of planning to get it to where your product is profitable. Paid traffic makes it hard if you’re just selling one product.
If you have a reorder product, it makes more sense to advertise on Facebook or if you have multiple products. You can always send out emails or create ads that feature your additional products for those who have already purchased it with you before. If you lose money on a reorder product during the first sale, chances are you’ll make more when that person purchases again because you’re not paying to get their business the second time around.
Note: Always maximize your advertising efforts on Amazon before creating Facebook Ads for your products.
You also need to have a good grasp on Amazon pay per click before you move on to Facebook ads. If, for some reason, that isn’t going to work or it’s not doable in your category, then go to Facebook ads. It’s an easier conversion because people are already there looking for things to buy, and there are fewer moving parts you need to worry about. Learn the Game to Drive More Sales
First and foremost, you have to figure out how to market your products on Amazon if you want to make sales. This is the most important part of your business.
We always talk about building an email list and creating content because if you can get good at that part of the process, you’ll be in a good position. Your product needs traffic for you to sell. You can drive traffic fast with Facebook ads, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll convert that traffic.
You may not make money on your first sale, but if you create content, you’ll be able to make a profit much quicker. Always look at the big picture and analyze what other products or services your customers need and how you can create additional offerings to help them out.
The goal is to drive people to a piece of content or product that you can control. Giveaway Boost is a great plugin and gives you the formula to make this successful. You can create a page with an offer that you can control. It’s easy for people to signup and get a coupon code once they have. The best part is you can target those people later and create an email list and communicate. What to Ask Before Creating Your Facebook Ad There are a few things you should take into consideration before moving forward with creating your Facebook Ads. Let’s review those now. How Do You Want to Run the Ads The most successful approach is to create your own landing page. You’ll also need to establish who your target audience is and decide what offer you’ll give when they come to your landing page. You need to have this all figured out before you can set up your ad and get it ready to go.
You could also consider leading the Facebook ad with an informational freebie like a checklist, download, or guide related to your product niche. On your thank you page, you could have a discount for your product. This way, you’re giving something valuable before asking them to buy something. It's an effective marketing tool.
Who Do You Want to See Your Ads If you want to target existing customers, you can download your customer list from Amazon. If you go this route giving a coupon can be effective since they’ve already purchased from you. If you’re not using existing customers and go into broad targeting, it makes more sense to use a giveaway or to provide something an informational freebie and then make the sale on the backend once you’ve cultivated and built the relationship. Always test it to see which works best for your market and brand before making a final decision of what works best in the long run,
If you don’t have a business with multiple revenue streams, it’ll be harder to make ads work. You can also offer promotions if they buy more of your product to bring in additional sales. Or start to make content related to your product niche.
Amazon Is the Unicorn of Online Sales Platforms Amazon has made it so easy to put your product on there and start to make money, but it’s not always that easy, especially with Facebook Ads. They do give you lots of features, but it’s not easy to turn it into revenue. Generally, you need to plan for the worst and work towards the best when you’re advertising your new product.
You need to work on creating a real business for Facebook Ads to work. You don’t have to create content to create an email list, but we highly recommend it. You need to build your business and not just sell a product to make it a channel that works best for your business. When you have additional people, you can reach out to it’s beneficial and will make it much easier to scale in the long run.
You can drive as much traffic to amazon as you want, but how do you scale that in a profitable way? Have a bunch of other products or provide visitors wit ha place where they are paying you back with ads or affiliate links that you have on your site.
Use the Brand Creators PlayBook to Get Started If you want to build out a site that has useful content and drives traffic over time, check out our playbook that helps you identify your market on the traffic side and how monetization your business in ways you may not have considered before. To get your copy head over to brandcreatorsbook.com, if you’re just starting this your foundation, it is a great tool to get you started.
Be sure to check out the full blog post going over Facebook Ads that Chris has laid out to help you out! Thanks so much for joining us today!
As always I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
Now it’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand! 5 Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote: Always maximize your advertising efforts on Amazon before creating Facebook Ads for your products. |
Fri, 5 June 2020
Welcome to another week of our Friday Jam session. This is always one of the highlights of my week. I love spending some time with some awesome people and answering some great questions. If you want to be a part of our Take Action Crew, we go live every single Friday where you can ask me any questions you have about starting your business. To join us, head over to takeactioncrew.com to sign up for free.
Let’s dive right into today’s session.
Valuable Advertising and Affiliate Info
This week I had a bunch of questions related to ads and affiliate links and when is the best time to use them. I'm excited to answer a few of those today, and hopefully, you'll find my answers helpful.
When to Apply for Affiliate or Ad Programs
Don't apply too early. You need to focus on getting traffic before you can even consider monetizing your site. Once you get there, you'll have plenty of options. We didn't turn on ads until we had 18,000 visitors to our site for one of the brands we're working on.
We do have a few affiliates but no ad networks. You'll need at least 10,000 visitors to your site to qualify for an ad network.
Don’t talk about monetization until you have traffic.
Start out by writing a few pieces of content, including reviews or comparisons, where you can go back in later and add affiliate links when you're ready. Just get the content written now, and you can do the rest in the future.
Should I Consider Advertising on My Website
Yes, advertising is great. Over on brandcreators.com, I'm currency only offering private offerings. Our playbook, checklist, and signups for Brand Creators when registration is open again in July. I'm not selling anything else on my site.
We do have a resources page with all the products that we use that link to affiliate programs. If you're driving traffic to your site to sell your own stuff, I recommend limiting your advertising to other companies. You'll just need to pick and choose what to include. On a side note, I do run ads on a couple of our other sites.
Just be sure that any ads you include on your site are of interest to your visitors.
In regards to affiliate links, you can have a few on your site, and once the traffic is there, people will see the. Keep in mind that the benefits of affiliate links just aren't there when you only have a few thousand-page views. Instead, focus on creating content and wait to get steady traffic to worry about affiliates.
How to Get The Most Out of Your Blog
When you’re getting ready to start a new website or blog, it can be overwhelming. This week I answered a few questions that I hope will help make it easier to get started.
What Elements to Include on Your Homepage
Let people know immediately that they’ve come to the right place. Answer the questions they’re looking to have answered. Always have a lead magnet front and center but also make sure they know they are in the right place and not just in an eCommerce store, so it’s not a turn-off.
Ask yourself what your visitors are trying to achieve and tell them right up front how you can help. Keep your messaging on brand which will help detract people who aren’t ready to hear your message or not apart of our target market.
Why You Should Integrate Your Online Store to Your New Blog
Include a tab on your blog that includes access to your shop. Integrate the two as soon as possible, especially if they are in the same niche and go hand in hand. You can always have a separate Shopify store and use a subdomain, so it still looks like it’s all apart of the same website.
Post Blog Content As Soon As Your Website is Up and Running
Who is seeing your unpolished blog if you don’t feel like it’s ready?
Just start publishing blog posts, and you can make changes to your site later. There will always be things you want to change and fix. But to an average person, they’re going to look past those things. Just start getting it running so you can monetize sooner. You won’t get any traffic if you don’t publish any content. There’s no better time like the present to get started.
How To Come Up With New Blog Content
What are the five questions your market is asking right now? Write “how to” articles that answer these common questions. They are easy to answer and are asked often.
Create a content tree where you have the main content topic you’ll focus on and branch off from there.
Head over to Google and use the autofill feature to see what is being searched for often in your niche and what keywords people are using.
Best Ways to Sell Digital Courses or E-books on your site.
You’ll need to create a sales funnel on your site. It can be as simple as creating a landing page in Convertkit or Gumroad. Keep it simple.
Build an email list and hop on social to bring people to your website where they can view your digital course or e-book.
How to Structure an Interview
I start by asking questions that you, as the listener, will benefit from. Know your audience and what they would want to know.
Make sure the person you’re interviewing feels comfortable.
When I interview, I only have a couple of points, including their back store.
I also ask a few of the questions, like what did they do when they had a business venture fail.
So many people don’t typically share their failures, and I think it’s so important for my listeners to hear about how successful people overcame rejection and discouragement.
When I interview, I want to know what people do on the days that are bad. And how they kept pushing through. Get really raw and real. Get questions answered that they aren’t usually asked.
Live Streaming & Video Editing Tips
I’ve had a lot of questions about live streaming during the past few weeks and am excited to touch on a few of those today.
Live Streaming Videos on Multiple Platforms
In the beginning, you need to get comfortable and make it easy. Start broadcasting to one platform. You can always add another platform at a later date. The goal is to get a few people watching who you can engage with. Even if you don’t have anyone watching in the beginning, still get started and don’t overthink think it.
Live streams are not easily searchable on Facebook. Consider streaming to YouTube because it’s saved on the site and makes it super easy for people to search for those videos at a later date. You can always take your YouTube video and upload it to Facebook. It’ll perform better when you upload it directly to Facebook.
Should I Go Live & Stick With The Same Time Every Week
When you do something live there is less structure and it becomes more natural. Just get started and know what you’re going to do upfront.
Commit to yourself and show up the same time every week. This will help people look forward to joining and know when to expect they’ll hear from you. Consider answering questions that show you are an authority in your market.
How to Crop Videos for YouTube
ScreenFlow is great for Mac users. You can zoom in and even slow zoom on different parts of your video.
If you’re just starting out consider going to Fiveer and hiring out someone to edit your videos for you! It’s pretty cheap to find someone and will save you lots of time from having to do it yourself if you have a lot going on.
Too Many Plugins Will Slow Down Your Site
Keep your website very light so it runs faster. You don’t need a bunch of plugins to get started. If your site is slow people won’t stick around. I recommend starting out with just a couple of plugins like Yoast and an optimization plugin that compresses images.
Always check to see how your site works on mobile.
Why I Don’t Charge More for My Products
I’ve had a lot of questions about why my products are so affordable. In particular, my Brand Creators Playbook. I use this all the time within Brand Creators. I only charge $4.99 for the playbook. If you buy my book, it shows that you are interested in my content and is a great lead magnet. I also want to help you succeed, and I can reach more people if I charge less.
If you purchase the playbook, I do off a market selection class, but I don’t advertise to anyone else. I actually go in and show you how to go through the process to find if a market is good and show some examples of some that should be avoided.
My goal is to give people enough content and information to get them started. And if they’re interested they can join Brand Creators when it opens again in July.
Always give people as much value as you can and don’t be afraid of giving too much.
The goal is to attract the right people.
Thanks For Tuning In!
I hope you enjoyed this week’s Friday jam session. Head over to takeactioncrew.com to join for free. We go live every Friday at 10 am when I answer all your questions. Thanks for being here.
Remember, I’m here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you!
It’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand!
Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
Quote
You won’t get traffic if you don’t publish content. There’s no better time like the present to get started.
Or
Always give people as much value as you can and don’t be afraid of giving too much. |
Wed, 3 June 2020
This week on the podcast, I had the opportunity to interview Jon Gordon, the author of “The Carpenter” and the “Energy Bus.” Today You’re going to learn all about the obstacles that he faced and how he overcame being turned down by 30 publishers for his first book. He’ll dive into all his failures and how he’s dealing with overcoming tough moments. He’s full of positivity, and I’m excited for you to hear from him, so let’s dive right in. How Jon Became The King of Positivity
I consider myself a naturally pessimistic optimist. I always start by focusing on the negative. In fact, I had to learn how to become positive and, after years of practice, firmly believe that somehow, someway we will always get through difficult times.
The worst parts of my life have to lead me to where I am today, so I am grateful for those moments of growth and learning. I had to somehow find hope and have a strong foundation in order to move forward every time things get tough. I didn’t choose positivity, it actually chose me.
As a naturally negative person, I know how hard it but also know that you have the power to overcome the thorns and turn the negativity you’re feeling into something incredibly positive. The people who choose to take a positive approach are the ones who take action, are timeless, and end up getting things done.
I was rejected by 30 publishes when I wrote my first book and it didn’t become a best seller for 5 years after it was first published. I actually started out by doing my own small tour with a few people showing up in every city.
My vision was to encourage and inspire as many people as possible, one person at a time, and I knew that even though I was starting out small, it was still worth it. The goals for my business have changed over the years, but the vision has always remained the same. My motto is “win today.” If you wake up every day focused on winning just for the day, you will create the future.
You have to overcome fear and doubt and focus on what matters most. I have found that by trusting in God and encouraging others, I am able to set aside negative thoughts.
No matter how tough things get to continue to work hard, and you will eventually see great success in the future. What you believe in right now will help to determine what you create moving forward.
There is a positive and negative dog inside each of us and whichever one we choose to feed will win the fight in the end. I recommend talking to yourself instead of listening. Feed yourself words of encouragement to motivate yourself and keep pushing forward. Being positive doesn’t guarantee that you will succeed but if you focus on the negative it means that you will fail.
Note From Scott: Even the most successful people have challenges. We all face obstacles and have rough days. Whatever you feed your brain, that is what is going to win. Whatever you focus on is going to become your reality. Jon’s Take Action MomentWhen I had the idea for my book, The Energy Bus, I wrote it in 3 ½ weeks. Every day I got up early to write, took a break to walk, practice gratitude say a pray and do it all over again. At night I would spend some time editing and brainstorm more ideas for the remainder of the book.
After I finished writing, I found an agent and started to reach out to publishers. I was turned down by 30 publishers, but I didn’t give up. Eventually, it was picked up by a few coaches, businesses, and teachers, and it snowballed from there.
I self-promoted the book and went on tour. There were some cities where I didn’t have scheduled appointments, but I chose to be fearless and just went for it. I wouldn’t be doing the work I do today if I didn’t do all that. I choose to stay humble and hungry, even to this day.
The most successful people never think they have arrived and always want to grow and are always on a mission to make a bigger difference. How Jon Overcame 30 Rejections of His BookI just keep showing and up and doing the work. Don’t let the critiques get in your head, and don’t worry about the response you’re getting now. It takes time to see success.
Now in a year or two, if you’re still not getting a response, then it may be time to reevaluate your current direction. For now, just keep going, and you’ll see it start your business grow and hard work pays off.
Instant success just doesn’t happen. If you love what you do, you’ll continue to work at it. Discipline is easy if you really love doing something, so focus on getting better and ask yourself where you want to be in ten years. The Path to Success
How Jon’s Side Hustle Became His Full-Time CareerMy number one piece of advice is not to leave your full-time job until you start to see some success in your side hustle. I owned a restaurant when I first started writing my books. I found one hour a day to write and kept moving forward with my goal. At first, I had to do both so I could keep food on my family’s table.
Make money with your job and make sure you’re dedicating time to building your side hustle every single day. You’ll know when it’s time to make the leap. Even an hour a day will have a huge impact and make that jump-off point arrive even faster than you could have ever imagined. Ways to Manage Your Side Hussle
Note From Scott: It might not be your ultimate passion but you need to be passionate about the process from the beginning How Jon Defined His Core MessageI have experienced many ups and downs in my life.
I found that every time I talked about positivity and encouragement, I felt energized, and I knew that is what I wanted my life’s work to focus on. At the time, I had no idea that I would write about leadership, but I just jumped, and it led me to all these other things I could never have imagined.
Often times, people think you have to have it all figured out when you start. Just go with your gut, and when you’re on the right path, it will lead to other things. Eventually, it will all come together in time.
Everything prepared me for future ventures, and it’s crazy to see how far I’ve come.
I found my calling and purpose around 30 years old and didn’t’ become “successful” in my chosen career until I was closer to 40, so it took a long time to get there. One thing will teach and lead you to the next. Just be patient.
Ask yourself ten years from now what do I want to create, what am I doing and what does it look like? Is it part of my core purpose. Don’t want to waste time ad energy on things that aren’t.
Note From Scott: I went from being Scott the e-commerce guy and selling on Amazon and realized I wanted to be the guy who supports people in starting their own business and living out their dreams. In the past 18 months, I’m worked to shift my trajectory. The CarpenterIf you care more you’ll do more and those who care build greatness. Those who focus on excellence and are craftsmen will always do well no matter the economy. You need to focus your efforts to love to serve and care. I wrote my book around those principles. Wrap Up With Scott
As we’ve done the rebrand for the podcast, Jon has built what we call a rockstar brand. Someone who is willing to share and help others. It’s about staying true to who you are and always focus on winning the day. Now it’s time for you to go check out his books the “Energy Bus” and “The Carpenter.” Both are must-reads and have changed my life for the better. Thanks again for joining us today.
As always I am here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
It’s time for you to get out there and take action Take-Aways From The Episode
Quote from the episode
Being positive doesn’t guarantee that you will succeed but if you focus on the negative it means that you will fail. |
Mon, 1 June 2020
What if I told you that you’re working harder than you need to. What if you could do less while still watching your business continue to grow? Today I’m excited to share how this is possible and how you can start implementing this stragety immediately. I shared this at the Sellar’s Summit a while back and am glad that I’m finally able to share it with you today.
Remember, just because you’re always busy doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re making progress. The exercise that I’m going to share with you today will help you to identify what has worked for your business in the past or what is working now and how you can do more of that to keep building momentum.
Every day I show up at 10 am EST time with my take action crew. We talk about everything you need to do to be successful in business and life to get massive results. If you’re ready to join us, head on over to takeactioncrew.com and sign up, it’s totally free, and you’ll be able to ask me questions each week that will help grow your brand.
If you’re ready to get massive results for your business, let's dive right in! Moving the Needle Exercise
It’s time to reduce, overwhelmed, and grow your business. It’s important to ask yourself lots of questions and take the time to provide thoughtful answers. When we ask ourselves questions, it forces our brain to find the answer that we’re looking for. I’m going to share a few questions you need to answer to help you grow your business.
Step 1: What area of your business would you like to grow?
Note: Personally, I want to drive more traffic to my site because I want to make more money. If we can get the right people to come to our site from our target market, that is the goal, to get more traffic, it’s time to dig into your data and see exactly where your traffic is coming from.
Step 2: There are three parts to this question
Step 3: Create your plan moving forward and analyze the answers to the prior two questions.
It’s much more simple than you might think. But it’s human nature to tend to try and over complicate things. Do More of What’s Working
You can’t do it all, and it’s as simple as that. Instead, focus on doing more of what’s been working for you in the past.
As an example, I have a brand that is three years old that;t I’m in the process of selling. As of January 1st, 2020, we had 736,385 page views, including 372,880 new users.
We have some good traffic, but I want to increase it every more. We took some time to look at our data to see where the traffic is coming from.
Total users coming from Social - 177,514 Pinterest - 107,179 vs YouTube - 594
From looking at the data, I am clearly getting much higher traction from Pinterest than YouTube. The experts will tell me to continue to focus on YouTube and try to grow my presence there. However, I should focus on what’s working, and clearly, that is Pinterest.
Always focus on what’s been proven in the past to get you the best results.
I have a newer brand that is also showing significant progress from Pinterest. Double down on the areas where we can see the numbers and are getting the most movement. We don’t need to shift our focus to something new until we max out the methods that are working for us now. Process Break-Down
Step 1: What has worked in the past?
Step 2: What takeaways or lessons can you learn from your past successes?
Step 3: What is your next step?
Step 4: Create a plan & process
Note: Look for clues - even a small amount of data will help you see what’s working and what you should focus on moving forward. Round Two of the Exercise
Once you’ve determined the number one source of traffic, it’s time to move on the second and implement the “move the needle” exercise again. For our example, the second-highest source of traffic is coming from organic search with over 140,000 new users
The goal: I want to grow our Google traffic
#1 What has worked in the past?
#2 What takeaways or lessons can you learn from your past successes?
#3 What is your next step?
#4 Create a plan & process
Note: Spend 90% of your time working on things that you know work. If you’re able to focus enough time getting those things done you can focus 10% of your time learning and exploring new things that are not proven to drive the most traffic to your site. It’s Time to Take Action! After sharing a couple of examples of how to implement my “move the needle exercise,” I hope you can now see the power of identifying what areas you need to focus on to bring more traffic. This will help you overcome the shiny object syndrome. Spending your time focused on things that appear shiny, new, and fun. Instead, you need to look back and see what’s worked in the past and build on that.
It’s time for you to apply what you’ve learned today and go and take action.
Remember, I’m here for you, I believe in you and am rooting for you.
It’s time for you to take action, now go get em! 5 Take-Aways From Today’s Episode 1. Moving the Needle Exercise (1:25) 2. Do More of What’s Working (2:00) 3. Process BreakDown (9:40) 4.Round Two of the Exercise (12:10) 5. It’s Time to Take Action (14:48)
Quote
“The exercise that I’m going to share with you today will help you to identify what has worked for your business in the past or what is working now and how you can do more of that to keep building momentum.”
Or
“It’s time to reduce, overwhelmed, and grow your business.”
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Fri, 29 May 2020
Today I’m going to share a few highlights from our latest Friday Jam session, and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s always one of the highlights from my week, and I enjoy hanging out with some awesome people and answering questions that will help them grow their businesses. If you want to be a part of our Take Action Crew head on over to takeactioncrew.com, it’s totally free, and you can join us every Friday to ask me a question or just hop on to say hello. I’d love to have you there. Let’s dive right in! Let’s Talk Live Streaming & Video ContentMy favorite part about Friday Jam sessions is that it always feels like there is a theme in regards to the questions. Even though it’s not planned at all. One of the most popular subjects this week was around live streaming and video content. So, I’m excited to answer a few questions that can hopefully help you if you’re looking to live stream or create video content. What You Need to Know About Live StreamingThe first step to live stream is to decide what you need to learn to make it possible. For starters, you’ll need to know what type of equipment and software are essential to make it successful. You’ll also need to learn how to structure a live stream and identify all the different elements and steps you should take before you get started. My best advice on this subject would be not to overcomplicate the process. Once you decide what you’re going to speak about on your broadcast, just get started and don’t overthink it too much. It’s as simple as using your phone to record. It’s time to take the barrier to entryway down and just do it. People care most about the content that you’re creating, so don’t stress about the equipment and software too much. You can always get fancy later, but for now, just get started and create some traction. The Best Time to Start Creating Video Content Is NowIf you’re already created a bunch of content on your website, start creating videos now. All you need is a tripod and the camera on your phone, and you’ll be ready to start recording. The editing side of things doesn’t need to take a lot of time. In fact, I recommend keeping it real and raw. Just be yourself and get going! Give people the type of content they are coming to your website. And always be sure to create a hook at the beginning of each video to tell them why they are showing up to watch your video and why they should stay. It helps draw them in and give them a reason to keep watching after the intro. Note: If you’re already rockin’ and rollin' with the content side of things, you may want to take the video creation slow so you can keep building momentum writing content. However, it’s still good to get started now. It doesn’t matter if you only have a few people watching your video content. Eventually, people will notice that you’re committed. You’ll be surprised at how many people want to come along for the ride and support you along the way so you might as well start now! Get Started Creating Your Website TodayI’ve received lots of questions about hosting platforms and when the best time is to launch a website. So, I’m going to answer a few of those below, and I hope they help you on your journey to starting your own website. Four Web Hosting Tips to Get Your StartedI like to stick with what I know, so for me personally, I use Hostgator for all my websites. I am comfortable with the platform, and it's an interface I enjoy using, so there is no need to change a process that works so well for me.
When You Should Launch Your WebsiteFirst and foremost, you need to commit to the market that you’re going into. Just start writing content and get started now. The most important thing you should focus on is the traffic and building out our email list. You can always add lead magnets or products at a later date once you’ve got a decent amount of traffic coming in and people subscribing to your list. The Power of PinterestI have been loving Pinterest in the last few months. In fact, my daughter and I will be hosting a live training in a few days digging into the strategy we’ve implemented. When I first started using Pinterest, I wasn’t gaining much traffic because I wasn’t using an effective method. Since then, my daughter has come in and helped us out. Now we’re gaining traction like crazy. Our Pinterest training is currently in Brand Connect, however, since signups aren’t currently open we decided to go ahead and offer a pop-up workshop this coming week to teach you all about how to implement Pinterest for your business and how you can create evergreen content that will drive traffic to our website. In my opinion, there is a place for Pinterest in most businesses. Just just be sure to do your research before you start posting to make sure there are people searching for your niche within the platform. It’s a great place for “how-to” articles and recipes. Keep in mind that if you opt to use a scheduler, it will slow your reach. And make sure you know what you want to be done first before you hire a VA or another software to help you. General Website and Email QuestionsHow to Bring in Additional Traffic to Your WebsiteMake sure that you don’t take on too many projects at once. Pick a couple of ways to drive traffic to your site and focus on those to start. If you’re making videos for Facebook, try and repurpose them for YouTube so you can get the most life out of them as possible. Like I mentioned earlier, I recommend focusing more on Pinterest over Instagram. There is more engagement, and you’ll definitely see more traffic come to your site in the long run. How to Grow an Email List for a Physical ProductYou’ll need to start by grabbing people’s attention, who actually want a physical product. To find these people, I recommend doing a giveaway of your product or an accessory if you don’t have the physical product readily available. For example, if you’re selling a physical fishing reel, you could do a give away for a fishing pole. I always give away something that can be purchased on Amazon and will just ship the winner their prize directly, so I don’t have to worry about the shipping cost. I would also recommend giving a discount code off your product for everyone who doesn’t win the giveaway, so they still feel like they got something out of it. Keep in mind that it may not be the best use of your time to build out an email list for a physical product. It takes a lot of time to nurture the list before you’re able to convince a large number of buyers to purchase your product. Check out Pinterest ads if you’re looking for another way to get the word out about your physical products. Benefits of the Yoast PluginIt’s a great tool for people to use who are under the 25,000-page view mark. It’s good in the beginning to make sure you’re getting reassurance that you’re optimizing the best way possible. However, once we’ve gotten past that point with any of the brands we personally work on, we want to get past just checking boxes. How to Organically Rank in GoogleWe have two brands we’ve created within Brand Creators. Within five months, we were getting between 8,000-10,000 page views on both sites. So you can rank fairly quickly if you follow a strategy. I would suggest getting started with Pinterest immediately to get traffic quicker, so you don’t have to wait a few months for organic Google traffic. But still, focus on blog content, so just do both side by side. Turn a Blog Post into a YouTube VideoIt’s super simple. Create bullet points for the topics you want to cover. What is the message and lesson that is taught within the blog post? Always start with your hook and go over the number of points you want to cover after your intro. Don't create a script instead do it freestyle, so it comes across more natural. Map out the points but start your intro explaining what you’re sharing and get them started. If you’re cool with being on camera, just jump on and get started. You can do it! As always I am here for you, I believe in you, and I’m rooting for you. Now it’s time for you to take action and go rock your brand! 4 Take-Aways From Today’s Episode
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Wed, 27 May 2020
RYB #834 Building The TOP Swimming Pool Content Website After Getting FIRED (Matt Giovanisci's Story)
I had the opportunity to interview Matt Giovanisci, and I’m excited to share a few highlights from our interview with you. Matt started a niche website 15 years ago called Swim University, where he posts a lot of “how-to” content related to pool maintenance.
I came across the website a while back and used it in a case study for Brand Creators Academy. I also mentioned Swim University, and it’s success in a recent podcast a few weeks ago. I received an email from Matt after the podcast was published, offering to come on as a guest to tell his story and answer any questions that I have.
I’m happy that he was able to join us on the podcast and can’t wait for him to share with you all the ins and outs of his business, how he’s found success, and a few things that didn’t work out so well along the way.
Let’s dive right in and learn a few things from Matt about the process of how he got started and has since built multiple successful businesses. How Swim University Was BornSwim University has over 5 million visitors a year. As a seasonal website, we get over 1 million visitors each month between May-July and between 300,000-500,000 visitors during the other months of the year.
When I was 13, I got a job at a local pool supply store where I worked my up to become a manager before I graduated high school.
Over the next several years, I worked for a couple of other pool supply companies before pursuing a job at a web design company. I had taught myself how to code and design websites, but after a few months on the job, I realized that’s not what I wanted to do, so I went back to the largest of the three pool companies I had worked at in the past and become their marketing director.
Around this same time, I decided I wanted to build a website where I could teach people how to maintain their own pools. I knew all about affiliate marketing and AdSense, so I figured it was time to get started. I built the site for Swim University in 2006. I got a logo created to add to my site and still use the same one today.
At the time, I used an alias, Matthew Stevens, since I was writing all the articles myself and making all the video tutorials I included on my site. I had a job opportunity to work with Martha Stewert’s team on a project related to Swim University, and at that time, I decided to change my name on the site to Matt Giovanisci. My boss eventually found my site, and I was fired.
I spent two additional years at another company (non-pool related) before they had to let me go due to the condition of the company’s financial situation. I knew it was coming a couple of months in advance and decided at that moment that I would make Swim University my full-time job if I did get laid off. It had been a side hustle for over seven years up until this point.
How Swim University Become Matt’s Full-Time Focus
At the time, I was making around $10,000 or so a year from affiliate links and ads that I had on my site. Most of them were from pool companies and other related products that I had sold directly because I wanted to make sure all the content on my site was relevant to pool maintenance.
I was getting somewhere around 25,000 visitors a month, and my goal was to make $40,000 a year from Swim University.
After I lost my job, I spent an entire year dedicated to growing Swim University. I focused on publishing content, creating YoutTube videos, graphic design, infographics, and dabbled in a few other projects along the way, and by the end of the year, I was making over $40,000 a year, and it’s just grown from there over the years. Matt’s Defining Take Action Moment
I was in a band back when I had just purchased the domain for Swim University. At the time, I talked a lot about the website and how I was going to make it a huge success. After a couple of years, one of my friends in the band finally told me to stop talking about it and just go out and do it. He told me that he didn’t think I’d ever actually make it work.
I thrive off negative motivation, so this was just the fuel I needed to get started. I was shamed into starting Swim University in a sense. If I’m told I can’t do something or it’s a stupid idea, it gives me the motivation to see things through and prove that person wrong. So I’m grateful to my friend for giving me the drive I needed to finally get started.
My single guiding star is I will never work for anyone else ever again. I’ve come to realize that everyone has their own area of expertise, and for many managing a team isn’t one of them, and I just dont ever want to work under anyone ever again.
However, in the pursuit of working for myself, I’ve learned useful skill sets that would keep me from ever being unemployed in the future if I ever needed something to fall back on.
Note From Scott: The skills that you’ve learned, whether in a previous job or learning to start your own business, can be used in future ventures. Guiding Principles Matt FollowsI’ve come to realize that in every venture I’ve taken on, I’ve had to learn new skill sets to get me to a level of success. For Swim University, I had to forcefully learn to create “how-to” content that goes above and beyond anything else out there. I’m not a natural-born business person have spent years learning how to improve my skills. I don’t ever do anything just to make money. Instead, I focus on things I enjoy doing and learning new things.
By paying extra attention to details it makes my content stand the test of time. For me, the code for Swim University’s website was really important. I paid attention to all the micro details and created all the code myself. I wanted to make sure that everything was up to high-standards and creates a positive experience for anyone who visits. Every year, I go in and update the content to keep it fresh and up to date. How I Create Content For My Website
Personally, I enjoy editing content more than free form writing. When I have to sit down and write an article, I start by writing the first draft, editing it, and then going back in to add in-jokes, reorganize paragraphs to better fit the story arcs, and taking it to a whole new lever before I deem it complete.
How I write content is similar to how I build a website and always pay attention to the micro details.
It took me many years to find someone to help write content for my website. I didn’t think anyone out there could write articles good enough for Swim University, especially if they didn’t have as much experience as me in the pool space.
I now have an editor who manages all the content for Swim University, and I answer to her. She sets the rules. Our other team members include a videographer, graphic designer, and a customer service manager. I keep my team lean, and it works great for us. How I Get Eye Balls on My Content
One of the reasons Swim University does so well is because it’s fast and lean. I know how to format articles using the proper tags, how to do data schema, and have done the research to know what Google wants the data format to be like.
I make sure to find a balance of giving the robots want they want while creating content that people will be interested in reading.
If you want to have a successful business, make sure that you’re website is easy to load, maneuver, and the content is structured in a way that Google can easily read. The Most Important Elements of a Blog Post
The fundamentals are most important, so there’s no need to go out and complicate things. My goal for every piece of content that I write is to make it bookmark worthy. I want it to be so good that someone wants to save it to read later or shares it with someone else. Matt’s New WordPress Plugin - LassoI’ve been working on a new plugin that I’ve actually had on my own site for over four years. It makes it possible to select a specific keyword in your article and add an affiliate link to all instances of that particular keyword. It also allows you to create a display box that shows all the information for your affiliate products and makes them stand out.
Note from Scott: Head over to brandcreators.com/lasso to check out the details of Matt’s new plugin and all the awesome features it has to offer. Now is the Time to Get Started
If you have a business idea or something you’d like to try out, start now. You’ll learn as you go along, and at first, it’ll be a huge learning curve. But you’ll learn, grow and improve as time goes on. Stop measuring everything you do. Instead, be present and enjoy the moment.
If you want to connect with me or check out any of my latest projects, head over to moneylab.co. Wrap Up With ScottHopefully, what Matt shared with you today has left you feeling inspired and motivated to go out and take action. I love Matt’s story as it’s similar to mine in a sense. We both started out learning a trade and went out and used those experiences to go out and create something of our own.
When you take action you’ll see the best results and will improve new skill sets that you learn along the way. Remember, consistency pays off. It takes time but is definitely worth it.
Always be in the present, be a giver and give it you’re all. Life is too short not to do something that you love and are passionate about.
Remember, I’m here for you, I believe in you and I’m rooting for you
It’s time for you to go out and take action
Now go rock your brand! 4 Takeaways From The Episode
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Mon, 25 May 2020
What does it take to get people’s attention on Pinterest? How can you use strategies that will draw people in and keep coming back to your brand? If you are ready to put in the work and see your brand grow, you’ve come to the right place! I thought I had a good handle on my Pinterest approach but I was surprised to find that there were a few key factors that I was missing. Thankfully, my 24-year-old daughter shared her Pinterest expertise with me and now I get to pass on that information to you! Make sure you have pen and paper ready - you are going to need it for this informative episode! Why you need evergreen assetsIf you’ve been around the Rock Your Brand community for very long, you know that I get fired up about helping business leaders like you create a future-proof business. In my experience, one of the best ways to set up your business for long-term growth is by creating and cultivating evergreen assets. Evergreen assets are things like, a YouTube channel, an email list, an Instagram account, a blog, or a Pinterest account. While working with my daughter, Alexis, I learned that I was not using Pinterest to the fullest extent that I could - so she showed me how to up my game! Now it’s time to pass on some of those lessons and tips to you. Tips you can use to maximize your efforts on PinterestDon’t leave all of your Pinterest strategies up to guesswork, learn how to make the social media platform work for you! Here are a few helpful tips that I’ve picked up recently - I hope you get some of the same great results that I did!
To get a full breakdown of each of these tips that I’ve shared above, make sure to tune into this episode - you don’t want to miss a minute! OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER
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Fri, 22 May 2020
Are you ready to take your brand to the next level of growth? What do you need to focus on right now to get started? How do you push through the challenges and take action? If you need a little push in the right direction - you’ve come to the right place - it’s time for another Friday Jam Session here on the Rock Your Brand Podcast! On this episode, you’ll get to sit in on a Friday morning session of my Take Action Crew conversations - this is where I take on questions as they come to me live from followers like you! Make sure to learn more about the Take Action Crew in the resource section at the end of this post! Where do I start?Let’s face it - there is no perfect road map to life as an entrepreneur. Some leaders start their business early in their career, some take a few years to build up the courage to branch out on their own - that’s ok! The truth is, everyone has to decide when they are ready to flip that switch from inaction to action. If you haven’t taken that first step yet, what are you waiting for? There will never be a “perfect time” to start taking matters into your own hand - you just have to make that leap! Finding the right partnerHave you considered taking the bold step of entering into a business partnership? What are some of the red flags you are looking for? Have you put together a pros and cons list yet? For many business leaders, there will never be the “right partner” they are better off calling the shots on their own. If you are considering entering into a business partnership I’d encourage you to take your time talking through the roles and responsibilities carefully. In much the same way you’d cautiously enter into a romantic relationship - a business relationship needs to be approached cautiously! What are you waiting for?I get it, there are a ton of reasons why now isn’t the best time to start your business - we are in the middle of a pandemic after all! When is the best time to start your business or that next project? If you wait until the conditions are just right, they will never come! From planning your next product to creating that next piece of content, you can’t let fear stand in the way. Do you have a game plan to move past the things that hold you back? What are you waiting for? Tune into this episode to hear more as I address tons of questions from leaders like you! OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER
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Wed, 20 May 2020
RYB 831: How Former School Teacher Built His SUCCESSFUL ONLINE Basketball Business (Collin Castellaw’s Story)
Looking back at your career, can you identify one person that made a huge impact on your trajectory? What was it that you learned from that individual that means so much? How will you pass that knowledge on to others? On this episode, I welcome my guest, Collin Castellaw - a professional shooting coach turned digital content expert. Collin’s brand (Shot Mechanics) is one of the largest basketball training resources in the world. With a social reach of 800,000+ and over 100+ million-lifetime online video views, Shot Mechanics has empowered players from all over the world to unlock their full potential. In our conversation, Collin opens up about how he got started as shooting coach, why he approached a major rival for partnership, lessons he has learned along the way, and so much more. Have pen and paper ready, you don’t want to miss a minute of Collin’s powerful perspective! Providing valueWhat is your approach when it comes to building your business? For years I’ve followed the method of providing value as much as possible and then going in for an ask. Seeming to come from the same method, I wanted to get Collin’s take on building an audience. Collin was quick to point out that he was to bring people in because they could see the value for themselves. What can you learn from Collin’s story? Tune into this episode to hear more! Following the dataProviding value and getting people’s attention is just the first step - next - how do you leverage that attention and turn a profit? What would be your approach to turning over 30,000 video views into profit for your business? Collin decided to put his time and energy into creating a training video that he would offer to his fans for just 99 cents! What sounded like a great deal ended up a HUGE flop. How did Collin recover from that flop and figure out how to move forward? Learn the answer and so much more by listening to this engaging episode! The big take action moment!For years I’ve been telling people to get off of the sidelines and to take action! It’s my belief that our lives are filled with take action moments but many of us are too scared to seize them. I hope you can see a bit of your story in Collin’s story and draw some inspiration from his ability to take action. Collin’s take action moment - where everything changed - was when he met and befriended his mentor, Adam. That relationship helped Collin see what he needed to change in his business and where he needed to grow as a leader - it made all the difference and it started with that bold action to reach out! Learn more from Collin’s story by listening to this episode - you don’t want to miss it! OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF ROCK YOUR BRAND
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Mon, 18 May 2020
Are you struggling with getting your business off of the ground? What would it mean for your brand to get over 26,000 page views in one month? Does that sound too good to be true? It’s not! After a ton of hard work and modifications, my team and I have dialled things in just right on several brands that have led to some impressive results. I want you to get in on this and experience similar results with your brand! If you are ready - I’m ready - let’s do this! Evergreen assetsWhen was the last time you got stuck fixing something at home and you turned to YouTube or Google to find the answer? Chances are high that you’ve done something like that in the last month or so. People and brands who create those resources for us to find when we are stuck have what we call “Evergreen assets.” Evergreen assets are resources that you create that someone will find helpful now or six months from now - they are evergreen. What kind of content can you prepare for your brand that will become an evergreen asset? Maybe for your brand that’s a checklist or an ebook that addresses a particular question or issue that people have in your target market. Answer common questions!Another great way to make your brand stand out from the competition is by answering common questions that people have in your target market. Consider creating a video that compares the top five products made in your market - you could also create a series of comparison videos where you review products side by side. When you review products or answer common questions that people have in your market - you establish yourself as a trusted and knowledgeable source of information. Upping your Pinterest gameDoes your brand have an active presence on Twitter? What about Facebook? When people think of social media they usually think of the big three, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram but what about Pinterest? The advantage that Pinterest has over Facebook and the rest is that Pinterest isn’t dependent on a timeline - it centres on pins. You can create pins that people will pin to their Pinterest boards that will keep them top of mind and in front of them - that’s great for evergreen content! How can you use Pinterest to up your game and move past the competition? Tune into this episode to learn more, you don’t want to miss it! OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF ROCK YOUR BRAND
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