AskPat 2.0: A Weekly Coaching Call on Online Business, Blogging, Marketing, and Lifestyle Design

On today's AskPat 2.0 coaching call, I'm talking with Lela Burris from LelaBurris.com. She is a professional home organizer who until recently has been helping people out in their homes. Her blog has been getting quite a bit of traction and she's got some concerns about making the pivot from her IRL persona to the one on her blog. When she shifts to being all virtual, will everyone accept who she really is? Do these two different brands clash with one another? We chat about how she can make this work out just fine and identify next steps for growth. Whether she decides to pursue a course or something else, she's got her beta customers all lined up! Read the show notes here: http://smartpassiveincome.com/AP1142

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Today on AskPat 2.0, I have a great call with David, from TDWellness.com and OneSmallBite.net. He's a registered dietitian, nutritionist, and certified exercise psychologist with a couple things going on, and he needs help creating some order. We talk about his issues around branding and organization, which are relevant to lots of entrepreneurs in the early stages. David's also got some shiny-object syndrome, another common ailment among entrepreneurs. We talk about how I allow myself a little time to pursue those shiny things—but not so much that I end up having to say no to things I've already said yes to! It's a great convo about things a lot of entrepreneurs deal with, so check it out.

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Tom Dimitroff and Matt Kelley are teachers by day, entrepreneurs by night, and coaches all the time. Their idea for a website that helps coaches and athletes keep track of their stats (and a whole lot more than that) came about organically out of a need they had as baseball coaches. They've got a great start, but have a bunch of questions about exposure and growth. They are at the bottom of the first inning, so to speak, and have the whole game still ahead of them. What is the best way for them to connect with their existing customers? When is the right time to expand out of their region? How much should they charge and what pricing model is best for what they're doing? Should the athletes pay, or should the coaches pay? What about building an app for it?

We discuss communities, webinars, and a lot more on this week's AskPat 2.0 coaching call. It's on deck right here. Batter up! 

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Today I'm speaking with Becca, an entrepreneur who's exiting a retail business successfully and has great plans to start something new—something her town has never seen. It's a great idea for marketing, supporting local businesses, and building community. And it's completely fun. We talk about this new business and brainstorm together. Becca gets excited about how excited I get about some of the ideas we come up with. She still has some things to iron out, like exactly what kind of business model to use, and we generate some ideas for that, too. Soon, you'll be able to check out her business at goodiebike.com. Right now, she's still waiting for the first, most crucial piece of her idea to arrive in a shipment that's been delayed because of COVID-19. But she hasn't let that slow her down—she's ready to take it on the road. 

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This week's guest is way too young to get my Doogie Howser, M.D. reference. But he's not too young to know his way around camera equipment. He's been part of the #quaranteam on The Income Stream, my morning YouTube show, and, I reviewed his YouTube channel, Anything Cameras, where Noah and his partner post videos that help people improve their filming and photography. The channel is growing, but Noah's just sixteen, and he wonders whether his audience will think he's too young to know anything. How can he improve his videos and get to the quick wins sooner? Can he launch a course without having a huge following? What about teaming up with another fledgling YouTuber in his niche? We get some creative ideas flowing for him. 

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Joaquin Elizondo has an awesome niche. He's a Hollywood editor for film and TV, and it took him fifteen years of hard work in small markets to get there. He's built up a brand to help other film editors break into Hollywood. He's been coaching a bunch of folks one-on-one, but he wants to do less one-on-one and get more customers. Not everyone wants one-on-one coaching, and not everyone has the money to pay for it. Another dilemma is that he will soon (hopefully!) be going back to his full-time editing job, which he loves. How is he going to continue to coach others once he gets back to work?

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Maddie Kertay is the BadAss Quilter, who says that she's "always going to stand on the side of love, diversity, and blazing a path for more people to become fabric artists." On this AskPat 2.0 episode, Maddie and Pat chat about everything she's doing to spread her message and grow her community (The BadAss Quilters Society), and the many directions she could go next: growing the private community, a podcast, sponsorship, affiliate marketing, merchandise . . . When would be the best time to reopen her community to new members—before or after she launches her podcast? Should she hire a virtual assistant (VA)? What things could she, as the CEO (and self-proclaimed micromanager) trust a VA with? (Note: This episode contains mentions of the "A" word, in case little kids are around.)

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On this episode of AskPat, I'm talking to an entrepreneur just like you. RJ Weiss is the founder and editor of The Ways To Wealth, a Certified Financial Planner, husband, and father of three. He wants to know what next step he should take to bring more people to his websites and diversify where his traffic comes from. I want to know what he's doing to keep people there. After all, you can double the amount of traffic to your brand, but if you're not optimizing conversions, what's the point? This feels like a really productive conversation, and by the end we do get to what his next steps might be. Podcast or YouTube? He can do it right and bring his existing audience right over with him. Check it out. 

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On this week's AskPat coaching call, I talk with Jason McCarthy, founder of a site called DigiNo.org. He gets 80,000 visitors a month, but it doesn't translate into revenue. Why is this? Where is this traffic coming from? What do these visitors want, and where is the disconnect that's preventing them from spending money? We work through a lot of questions, and Jason's already done a ton of the right things: advertising, investors, an email list, videos... but his income is unreliable. This one is a toughie, but stick around to see what we come up with together.

If you enjoyed today's episode and you love the format of this show and helping other entrepreneurs, can you help me convince others to listen, too? All you have to do is leave a quick review and rating on Apple Podcasts (and subscribe if you haven't already). That would mean the world to me, so thank you so much!

My team uses Gusto. It has made life so much easier. They make payroll, taxes, and HR actually easy for small businesses. And honestly, I couldn't live without it—truly. Fast, simple payroll processing, benefits, simple management tools, all in one place. They automatically pay and file your federal, state, and local taxes, so you don't have to worry about it. Plus, they make it easy—once you start adding employees or even just for yourself—to add on health benefits and even 401(k)s for your team. Get three months of Gusto free when you run your first payroll. Check it out: gusto.com/askpat.

Buy my new book, Superfans!

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Scott Robertson has been paying out of his pocket to keep his site, InsaneScouter.org, alive. He and others have compiled this vault of Boy Scout resources, and he's set up a Patreon-style site called Knapsack so people can financially support his efforts. In this coaching call we spend some time on his selling proposition so he can monetize his business after self-paying for everything so far.

It's a common challenge for entrepreneurs: figuring out how to communicate to customers what will they ultimately gain by getting access to what we're offering. An effective selling proposition is one that incorporates the words "so that." Scott and I chat about how to do this for his business, as well as other places Scott could take his crowdsourcing/membership platform.

If you enjoyed today's episode and you love the format of this show and helping other entrepreneurs, can you help me convince others to listen, too? All you have to do is leave a quick review and rating on Apple Podcasts (and subscribe if you haven't already). That would mean the world to me, so thank you so much!

My team uses Gusto. It has made life so much easier. They make payroll, taxes, and HR actually easy for small businesses. And honestly, I couldn't live without it—truly. Fast, simple payroll processing, benefits, simple management tools, all in one place. They automatically pay and file your federal, state, and local taxes, so you don't have to worry about it. Plus, they make it easy—once you start adding employees or even just for yourself—to add on health benefits and even 401(k)s for your team. Get three months of Gusto free when you run your first payroll. Check it out: gusto.com/askpat.

Buy my new book, Superfans!

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.