Creator Scale

#93 - In this podcast episode I chat with Matt Giovanisci of Swim University & Money Lab about how to get more traffic to a website from Google. He shares what he’s learned from 10+ years of experience optimizing his websites for search engines, doing content audits, and creating epic content.

We dive into what he does on his websites to drive more email sign-ups, affiliate income, and digital product sales.

If you're like me and you have years worth of old content on a website and a lot of what you’ve made is not being found by anyone anymore (or it is completely out of date or irrelevant) this podcast episode will help give you direction on what to do with all of it so your website starts to rank for what search terms you’re targeting.

• 3:07 - Matt's Businesses
• 16:16 - Deleting Posts for More Traffic
• 31:26 - Getting a Post to Rank
• 40:29 - Tools for Website Rank and Speed
• 47:13 - Matt's Beef with Squarespace
• 54:03 - Affiliate Marketing
• 58:55 - Books/Courses Surpassing Affiliate Income
• 1:12:42 - Keep it Simple
• 1:22:21 - Matt's Recommended Products

• Swim University
• Money Lab
• Brew Cabin
• Traction
• Ahrefs
• WP Engine
• Cloudflare
• Imagify
• Tiny jpg
• Convertkit
• Wordpress
• Genius Link
• Lasso
• BuyCarbonate
• Matt's Course on Asana

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#92 - Separating work from your personal life is hard enough already without partnering with, hiring, or working for other people close to you. When you work with your spouse, friend, or a family member, it can be a convoluted mess of emotions, tones, and debating.

In this episode I talk with my wife Jen about how we work together on each other’s businesses or on the same business with all the dynamics of a boss/employee/partner relationship while staying married (and sane).

We discuss how to over communicate, give appropriate feedback, split up roles and responsibilities, and prioritize what needs to be done. We also dive into how each of us work differently using digital or physical systems to track work and not make each other crazy.

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 02:55 - Whose the boss?
• 08:36 - Giving & receiving feedback
• 19:12 - Combining strengths & weaknesses
• 21:31 - Agree on goals
• 30:28 - Follow the calendar
• 32:54 - Open communication

• BOOK - Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
• Asana

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#91 - Working from home is way different than going to a separate physical location to work. You don’t clock in or out, no one is looking over your shoulder, and your normal routine of hygiene or commuting go out the window.

And right now, a lot of people are being forced to work from home due to CO-VID19.

In this episode I talk with my wife Jen about how over the past 9 years of working from home we’ve figured out what boundaries, rules, and setups allow us to get the most done.

We discuss finding a perfect location in your home for you to work, whether you should have set hours, how to let the rest of your family or roommates know the boundaries around interrupting you, and more.

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 08:21 - Setting Boundaries

• From Million Dollar T-Shirt Wearer to Selling His Last Name... Weird Business Ideas with Jason Zook — Caleb Wojcik
• Where work happens | Slack
• SelfControl

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#90 - Whether you want one or not you have a personal brand.

People want to follow and learn from other people online and even bigger brands “try” to act more like a person than a huge company.

In this podcast episode I chat with my buddy Chris Ducker about how to build, scale, and monetize a personal brand, whether you should name your brand after your name or something else, what to do when your name is common or already being used online, and how having a strong personal brand can help future proof your business.

We also discuss how to financially survive an economic downturn and get over your superhero syndrome (a.k.a. doing everything yourself and not hiring help).

• 1:57 - Feeling at home on a stage
• 10:40 - Build a personal brand
• 28:19 - Scaling beyond yourself
• 31:20 - Monetizing your brand
• 37:42 - Surviving a downturn
• 45:59 - Superhero Syndrome
• 52:58 - Find Chris

• Virtual Staff Finder
• Virtual Freedom
• Chris Ducker
• Switchpod
• Patreon
• Rise of the Youpreneur

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#89 - If you have the ability and skills to edit video a great way to supplement your existing income is to do video editing for other people.

Not only can some editing only projects help fill the gap between other clients or projects you have, you can get paid well doing so.

In this episode I chat with Jacob Cross, who I’ve hired to help me film for clients before, but who piqued my interest when he said he and his wife edit YouTube videos for 8 different clients at once on top of the video production work they already do. We discuss how you can find potential video editing clients, how to reach out to them, what the workflow is like, and how to charge them.

• 3:31 - How Jacob got started with video
• 8:43 - How 1/3 of his revenue comes from virtual editing
• 20:36 - Editing to increase YouTube watch time
• 26:59 - Music platforms for YouTube
• 31:17 - Remote Editing Workflow Tips
• 38:55 - Why Jacob only bills hourly
• 42:16 - Advice for starting a virtual editing business
• 48:03 - How Jacob increased his pricing
• 52:01 - Allocating time for each task

• Frame.io - Video Editing Collaboration
• Musicbed - Music Licensing
• Artlist.io - Royalty-Free Music Licensing For Video, Film & Youtube
• SoundStripe - Royalty Free Music & SFX
• Timely - Fully Automatic Time Tracking
• Trello - Project Management App
• Jacob's Video Production Company - Cross & Co

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

# 88 - If you’re running a service based company, like making videos for people, you need clients or customers to stay in business each month. And when there is a recession like what we’re currently going through during CO-VID19, sometimes your services are the first to go for a company looking to cut back.

But now is an important time to focus on who you can best serve, how you can find them, and convince them to work with you.

In this episode I chat with Mike Kilcoyne, who I got to know well when he signed up for my Freelance Filmmaker Accelerator Program last year. We discuss how he niched down to what clients he could serve best, how to make them repeat clients, when the right time to hire help is, and how to land and work with clients in other cities then where you live.

We also talk through this pandemic causing economic downturn and how you can work to help your business survive through it.

• 00:00 - Mike's progression from start of Accelerator Program till now
• 07:47 - Figuring out what style of work attracts you
• 13:32 - How Mike gets new clients and keeps them
• 21:54 - Relinquishing project control to grow the business
• 36:18 - Collaborating with teammates and clients
• 45:10 - Mike's unique lead generation system
• 49:50 - Mike's advice for landing clients in the next 3-6 months

• My Freelance Filmmaker Accelerator Program
• Creating Stuff with Mike Kilcoyne - Learn from my mistakes in entrepreneurship.
• How to Recession Proof Your Business
• Mike Kilcoyne on LinkedIn
• What The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Means For Marketers

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#87 -If you're like me, you're overwhelmed with everything that is going on right now. The global pandemic is turning the economy into an unknown mess, we want to make sure our finances and our lives don’t implode, and there is an ever-growing pile of work to do to help your business survive all of this. But sometimes, what’s most important is to just take a break.

In this podcast episode I give you permission to take a break.

I discuss how to let yourself rest when there is so much to do, spend your downtime wisely, and avoid feeling overwhelmed by the news.

Be nice to yourself. Give yourself a break.

Wandering Aimfully
Self Control App for Mac

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#86 - In this episode I talk with photographer and video creator Tyler Stalman about how important it is to become a “full stack creator”, his term for being able to do the multiple types of creative work needed in today’s competitive landscape. 

We discuss how to start a client business and scale it, the importance of setting up multiple revenue streams, how to make your work stand out from the crowd, working authentically with sponsors, what has been working for him to grow on YouTube, and how to stop comparing yourself to others.

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 03:54 - Staying in Business During the CO-VID 19 Pandemic
• 11:19 - From First Clients to Fully Booked
• 16:56 - Building Multiple Revenue Streams
• 22:39 - Making Your Work Stand Out to Potential Clients
• 37:03 - Reviewing Product & Promoting Sponsors
• 42:58 - What Works on YouTube
• 44:49 - Comparing Your Work to Others
• 54:14 - Are Cinema Cameras Worth it?
• 1:00:41 - How is Tyler Improving?
• 1:02:34 - Shooting Raw Video

• Tyler Stalman's YouTube Channel
• The Stalman Podcast
• The Stalman Podcast #46: Make Money Making Videos, with Caleb Wojcik
• Ania & Tyler Stalman Photography
• Ania's Fashion, travel and lifestyle blog
• Tyler's Instagram
• iStockPhoto
•  Philip Bloom's Review of the Sony PXW-FX9
• Quote by Ira Glass: “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, ...”
• Crimson Engine & Mondobytes C200 Luts

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#85 - With the CO-VID19 coronavirus, the world is a bit crazy right now. But I wanted to do my part to share how I’m trying to weather this as an entrepreneur and small business owner and give you some tips for how to best spend your down time during any pandemic quarantines.

Now is a time for getting prepared. Not just through buying toilet paper, but using this time wisely to make sure on the other side of this pandemic you’re set up for success.

Most of the external precautions and panic are causing cancellations and closures that will either directly or indirectly impact what you do for work. Whether those are events you attend to network at and find clients or customers are being cancelled, products you promote are getting delayed, or just the overall wallet tightening that happens during an economic downturn, chances are you’ll be impacted financially.

If you've been sent home from school, are forced to work from home, or all of your business has suddenly dried up, the best thing you can do right now is work to take back control of the situation.

First and foremost, yes, take all the precautions you need to. Stock up on non-perishable food, take care of your family, and stay informed.

But, if you're like me, you've checked the news more this week than you did in all of 2019 and it is time to make better use of your time.

Here is a hierarchy of how you should spend your time.

1. Build.

2. Learn.

3. Audit.

4. Distract.

You can only sit in fear for so long. Fear is productive to a point. It made me cancel a vacation, go to the grocery store before the frozen food was all sold out, etc. But once the fear gets you to accomplish the utilitarian thing, it’s time to re-group and move forward.

So, go. Do something productive. Make a list and check things off.

You can only quarantine and chill for so long.

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.

#84 - If you choose what kinds of videos you’re going to make, decide who you want to help, and then show up publicly every week year after year you’ll grow your audience and reach.

This is exactly what my friend Thomas Frank has done. He has continually showed up consistently for his audience and become an expert YouTuber.

In this episode I talk with Thomas Frank, a full-time YouTuber, about what it is like to run a channel with millions of subscribers, work with sponsors, grow a team, and what goes on behind the scenes of planning, filming, editing, and sharing a YouTube video.

• 00:25 - Introduction
• 04:22 - Widening your initial audience
• 12:04 - Making online courses affordable
• 20:02 - Being a full-time YouTuber
• 29:10 - Sponsored videos and ad agencies
• 41:26 - Choosing what topics to put on YouTube
• 52:10 - Thomas' system for video production
• 57:28 - Advice for growing a YouTube channel

• Thomas Frank on YouTube
• Thomas Frank on Instagram
• Thomas Frank on Twitter
• College Info Geek
• Thomas' Skillshare courses
• Thomas' Podcast
• Starting Strength with Mark Rippetoe
• Nerd Fitness
• "I Don't Feel Like It" is a Mindset for Amateurs - College Info Geek
• Standard

To learn more about me and what I offer, go to CalebWojcik.com. Cheers.