Podcasting Secrets

Welcome back to the second episode of a Monetization Nation interview with Redge Allen. In the previous episode, we went through Redge’s story and how he became a revolutionary entrepreneur. We discussed the importance of building skyscrapers on land we own, creating relationships with our clients, recognizing the lifetime value of a customer, and maintaining credibility and transparency. 

In this episode, we will discuss the gamification Redge and I have implemented to help us reach our goals.

Proper goal setting and careful, thought-out plans of action can help us in many ways. They can help us become a better person, spouse, parent, entrepreneur, etc. Redge and his system for gamifying goals has had a big impact on the goals I have set for myself in recent years. 

Some of my goals I have tried to do for years, and have failed at for years. But, by implementing a system of gamification, I’ve become more successful with my goals. The inspiration for my goal gamification came from a TEDx Talk that Redge gave, called “5 Minutes of Courage,” which is about habits. You can find the link to his TEDx Talk down below in the “Connect with Redge” section. 

This second episode with Redge explores the methods he has adopted in gamifying his goals, as well as in helping others to reach their goals. 

Identify Behaviors in Setting Goals & Change

Before I set my goals, I ask, “What are the most important things I want to achieve?” Then, I set my goals based upon the most important things I can do to achieve those goals. 

“There’s something really powerful about focusing on our behaviors. Writing them down and having evidence of them allows us to see them. It becomes more real and allows for momentum to continue.” - Redge Allen

Redge is also a big proponent of identifying which behaviors he can control in his success. 

Take Control Where Control Can Be Taken

About ten years ago, Redge used to be morbidly obese, and he had no idea how he would break some of the patterns he had in his life. “I think people set goals and hope they’ll lose 50 pounds. But, that’s a lot harder to control than it is to say. If I spend my effort on things I can control, then I can guarantee success in my own way rather than spending my efforts and resources on things I can’t control.” 

Redge then went on to explain that when we identify daily behaviors, it helps move us to who we want to become. That is where the real power is. Redge said, “Sometimes entrepreneurs and others spend so much energy thinking about things that they can't control that they forget about what daily behaviors will absolutely move them to what they want for the future.”

Say my goal is to make $10,000 a month in recurring revenue. What am I going to do today to make the first $10? What are the things I’m going to do every single day to work toward that goal? 

For Redge, one of the tectonic shifts in his life is when he went from being acted upon and thinking that things just happen, to making things happen and having an internal focus of control. He said, “All of a sudden, I realized I can be the author. I can be the creator, and I can have something come from nothing but my actions.”

Personal Accountability with External Help

When Redge originally wanted to lose weight, he realized there was something missing. He had the discipline but needed structure to know how to be successful.

“I started using technology to publish my goals or my daily behaviors. I started with a Google document; I've later moved on to an app called HabitShare. But basically, I am putting in the daily behaviors I plan to have. I'm then finding accountability partners who care about my success, who are willing to check my goals daily and to see if I completed them. I do the same for them, and it reciprocates that way.”

Redge is one of my accountability partners; I report to him and nine other men I respect that will hold me accountable. Each day I report how I did on my goals in a spreadsheet that they can see.

Leverage Consequences

On top of that accountability, Redge uses consequences to make sure he completes his goals. He does this to build trust with himself and keep his commitments with himself. So when he doesn’t complete one of his goals, he has a consequence. For example, if he doesn’t work out one day, his consequence is donating $100 to the politician he dislikes the most. As we can imagine, it’s a pretty strong motivator.

“If the consequence is more painful than the pain of doing a goal, then I'll do the goal . . . [and] very rarely will I miss.” - Redge Allen

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Redge for sharing your stories and goal gamification strategies with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Goal gamification is a great way to help us reach our goals.
2. We need to identify the most important actions that will help us achieve the goals that are most important to us.
3. Take control where we can and focus on what is within our control.
4. Do something today and consistently work towards our big goals.
5. Find others who will help by holding us accountable for our daily goals and habits.
6. Leverage positive and negative consequences to help motivate us to reach our goals.

Connect with Redge

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Redge or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/redgeallen/. You can also watch his TedTalk “5 Minutes of Courage” at https://youtu.be/ciKYCsEmrFU. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

What strategies have you used to help reach your goals? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/84-4-methods-to-implement-gamification-to-reach-our-goals/ 

Welcome back to another episode of Monetization Nation with Jim Sterne. In the last episode, we talked about the importance of passion marketing and value-based pricing. In this second episode, we’re going to review successful ways to use metrics to drive growth in our businesses. 

Navigating Tectonic Shifts 

The business landscape is constantly changing. We’ve especially seen change and tectonic shifts during this past year as we’ve been hit with a worldwide pandemic. 

“I think what COVID-19 has done is force us to up our game in being human,” Jim said. It has forced businesses to become more personalized. 

When the pandemic struck, many businesses were forced to close their doors and move remote. This meant many CEOs were leading Zoom meetings from their homes. “Suddenly that CEO is a human being and corporations are now made up of people, not offices and hierarchy. It's a bunch of people dressed like we are, in spaces like ours right now, doing our work,” Jim explained.  

In order to adapt, businesses have embraced the personal aspects of their brands. They are shifting their focus more and more to how they can relate to their customers. We need to focus on the customer, but it has to be an even softer pitch—it has to be about how our products and services will help our customers.

But how do we do this? How can we be more personalized with our customers and really understand them and their needs?

One way to do this is to launch different marketing campaigns and then analyze them. If we’re going to spend resources, time, and money doing an ad or campaign, we need metrics to know what’s working and what’s not. The more we do this, the more we can learn and narrow down what resonates best with our audience in order to serve them better.

In order to effectively measure the success of our businesses, we need to measure and leverage metrics. Jim, author of Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment, has shared three ways to do this.

1. Match Our Metrics with Our Business Goals 

We need to match our metrics with our business goals. Our metrics need to be aligned with our highest priority as an organization as we then use them to measure and drive our success.

"That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially." - Karl Pearson

One of the most important metrics to measure is customer lifetime value—what is the cost of the product, and are we attracting people who are coming back? We should choose a handful of metrics to measure and report consistently. 

Jim currently runs the business 2Y3X that helps businesses with growth. 2Y3X helps a business team reengineer the company. This is a two-year program that takes time and work. It focuses on making monthly goals and analyzing them to determine success. As we develop our own metrics, we should follow a process similar to Jim’s business. We should be using our metrics to make monthly goals and then reevaluate them at the end of the month to see our progress. And just as with Jim’s business, this process will take time and work before we will start to see obvious growth.

The metrics we choose need to be measurable, preferably measured month-to-month so we can see progress. 

One great tool to measure some metrics is Google Analytics, a simple way to start off for free. Then, once we start gaining more data, we can gear up and integrate better tools. 

1. Choose Specific Key Performance Indicators

According to HubSpot, “A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric used to measure and track your progress toward achieving a specific goal. Business KPIs, which can vary by department, may help gauge a company's long-term performance against its own targets and industry standards.”

We want to have one to three good KPIs by which we measure everything. When done correctly, these KPIs drive our decision-making and priorities as an organization. The worst thing we can do with our KPIs is to have too many. When everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.

“[KPIs] is absolutely crucial to having everybody in the company be aligned to doing the right stuff,” Jim said. 

I used to do a lot of work for Azul airlines, a new airline started by David Neeleman The founder of JetBlue. I helped him start this Brazilian airline, which was an incredible learning experience. Here’s one example of a great lesson I learned from David. He was very good at using KPIs to make company decisions. His company focused on two specific KPIs: one was the cost per seat flown, and the other was the revenue per seat flown. Many of their decisions were based on those two KPIs. 

For example, the front of their company’s headquarters was purple, even though their brand was named Azul (blue). But the color of their building did not affect either of their KPIs and so they kept the front of their building purple while I was there. They clearly identified their two KPIs from the beginning and made decisions to improve and optimize those two KPIs.

One of Jim’s KPIs is to get people to open the emails he sends. Over time, he has realized that the best way to do this is by creating a catchy subject line. He then measures success based on how many people open his email. 

Another term similar to KPI is a “northstar metric”. The term northstar metric is often used in the growth hacking community. This is where we pick one metric that we try to base all of our decisions on. Whatever the case, whether a northstar metric or two KPIs, it is essential everyone in the business knows these specific goals and we base our key decisions on these metrics. 

1. Communicate Goals Effectively 

We need to communicate our goals effectively with the entire business. 

The biggest mistake Jim sees is when there is a lack of communication. The analysts need to communicate to the business side of the organization. They should be taking the data and pulling out clear insights everyone else can easily understand, and then quickly and effectively communicating that with all relevant players.

“An analyst spends their time data mining in the coal mine, hacking away at the data, and wrangling it so that it will be in the right configuration so that they can do an analysis, and then they come up with an insight,” Jim said. They shouldn’t pass on the data, they should pass on the insights they gained and any other ideas they have to improve. 

A good analyst will take a look at a set of data, find the problem or friction in the data, understand the cause, and then make suggestions on how to fix it. They need to be on the business side more than the data side of things so they are generating value for the organization from the data.

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Jim for sharing your stories and insights with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. COVID-19 has caused a tectonic shift. It has forced businesses to become more personalized. A great way to do this is through metrics. 
2. We need to match our metrics with our business goals.
3. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should be used for making decisions and setting priorities company-wide.
4. Our metrics must be clear and measurable. 
5. We need to turn our data into insights and then communicate those quickly and effectively to all stakeholders.

Connect with Jim

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Jim or connect with him you can find him on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/jimsterne/ and his website, targeting.com. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

What are the KPIs of your business? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/83-3-ways-to-effectively-use-metrics-to-drive-growth/ 

Jim Sterne is a digital marketing and analytics expert with 35 years of experience. He is the author of Social Media Metrics, and a dozen books on advertising, marketing, customer service, email marketing, and web analytics. 

He is the founder of the Marketing Analytics Summit, the co-founder of the Digital Analytics Association, and the creator of the Analytics Cohort Mutual Mentorship Program. 

In today’s episode, we’ll discuss passion marketing and learn Jim’s number one monetization strategy: value-based pricing. 

Jim Sterne’s Story: Understanding Customers 

Jim’s first job out of college was in customer service. “My exposure to the world of business was being an advocate for the customer. It was my job to take the customer's calls and figure out what went wrong and make it right. That sort of defined how I view the world,” he said.  

From the beginning, Jim understood the value of the customer. Building a business isn’t about us. It’s about the customer’s wants and needs. 

From working in customer service, Jim moved to sales where he sold software development tools into enterprise businesses and government organizations. After a while working with the company, he became frustrated with the company’s marketing materials and took the initiative to create his own. He went to his boss and asked to take over marketing. This ended up providing him with enough success and resources to buy his first home in Santa Barbara. 

Then, in 1993, he tripped over the internet. “I went into teaching mode, and I became a public speaker, an author, and a consultant on how the Internet was going to change the world,” he said. “That was my consultancy—how do we make our website better? Well, better at what? What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you have a website? And that question opens up a whole can of worms: who are we selling to, what are we selling, what is our business model, and what are the politics?”

Once he discovered analytics, he was able to prove what worked and didn’t work on a website with data. It led him to start a conference on web analytics, which became the Marketing Analytics Summit and the Digital Analytics Association with about 6,000 members and 100 companies. 

“The foundation underneath all of that is the view of the customer first,” Jim said. “And all sales and all marketing are about what the customer needs. I don't care who you are or how long you've been in the business, you are not the target audience; your customer is, and that's my religion.” 

3 Key Points

While customers are central to monetization, there are two other supporting parts. Jim gave three key points for improving marketing and increasing sales and growth.

1. People
2. Process
3. Technology 

“There are three legs of the stool: people, process, and technology,” Jim said. “The technology is cool when it works, but without the people and process, it's just an expensive piece of software. I am passionate about aligning people to sales and marketing to work with data to improve what they're trying to accomplish.”

Passion Marketing: People

Understanding the importance of the customer can often fall into the tectonic shift of passion marketing—connecting with customers through their level-10 passions.

Passion-driven marketing is where we focus on what our customers are passionate about and connect with our customers through those passions. It’s all about what our customer needs and helping solve their problems so we become a priority. We are not the target audience, our customers are.

In Jim’s conferences, he focuses on building relationships. He implements passion marketing by really getting to know what his customers want. He shakes their hands, gets to know their names, and connects with them.

When hosting conferences, Jim follows two strategies for putting on and effectively monetizing live events. He says to use sponsors and webinars. 

Being a sponsor means money. “Whether it's an online event, or an in-person event doesn't matter. Be a sponsor and get your logo in front of the right audience,” he said. 

The second strategy is to put on our own webinar. What do we do better than anyone else? We need to show our audience we have what they need and can help them get it. 

“What is the biggest benefit you offer? What is your proposition?” he explained. “A webinar says, ‘This is what you need, and we can help you.’ And only the people who need what you offer will show up . . . now [you] have increased your prospect list, and you have permission to talk to them and to email them and to follow up. If you do this on a regular basis, maybe every couple of months, you will create a pipeline.”

Hosting a successful webinar and becoming a sponsor is one strategy to help increase our success rates. It helps us learn what type of people want the products and services we offer. It helps us get to our customer’s level and determine their passions.

Value-Based Pricing: Process 

Passion marketing works hand-in-hand with value-based pricing. So, what is value-based pricing? 

The value-based pricing strategy determines prices based on how much a customer believes our product or service is worth. Instead of factoring in the costs of production, value-based pricing focuses on the output—what the value is. 

For example, a tax attorney can save individual thousands of dollars in taxes in a few hours. Instead of charging the client for our time (the price of what the service is worth), we can charge the client for the value we are providing (saving them thousands of dollars). 

When I asked Jim what his best monetization strategy and process is, he told me it was value-based pricing. 

Jim said it means not talking about features and only talking about the benefits. “It's explaining what you get out the other end, the things that you have that you cannot put a price tag on. And if you are selling business consulting, you're talking about not just increased revenue, but an increase in profit share, increase in employee satisfaction, increase in customer satisfaction, increase in the cultural perception of being able to work in such a company—all of these intangible things that will make a company grow like crazy.” 

Instead of setting prices based on time or cost, he sets prices based on the value the customer receives. The value might be expanding a network, increasing employee satisfaction, learning new strategies, building reach and influence, increasing credibility, and more. 

“You go to a conference to meet people and grow your professional network,” Jim said. “That's the value. It's the ability to, five years from now, reach out and say, ‘Hey, we met at that conference, and I have a question,’ or ‘I'm recruiting for a role’ or ‘I'm looking for a role,’ and making that reconnection to somebody that you have met before. That's a career-maker.” 

One way to help determine our customer’s perceived value is by conducting surveys. It is essential to take the time to dive deep into what our consumers want. How often do we get follow-up emails after completing a service? Whether it’s the dentist or our auto insurance, they frequently ask us to rate our experience. 

This method of value-based pricing typically works better with companies that provide highly valuable and unique products than with companies that sell commoditized products (Source: Investopedia). 

Machine Learning: Technology 

The final key point to creating a successful business is technology. 

Jim is the author of Artificial Intelligence for Marketing: Practical Applications. While people and processes are crucial in building a successful business, he also recognizes the large part technology and data play. Technology and data can help us process the information we get about our consumers. 

He told a success story of a business working with AI. The company wanted to find patterns in behavior when people came to look at their website. They had a machine look at social media campaigns, email campaigns, subject lines, a variety of photographs, and more. After analyzing the data, it came up with 10 micro-segments, showing the company what types of people they should send their message to. This caused their sales to go through the roof. 

While the starting entrepreneur won’t have enough of their own data to fully take advantage of AI and machine learning, there is data out there that can be used. “For most entrepreneurs, an Excel spreadsheet is awesome,” he said. “But if you do have a lot of data, and a very complex question, machine learning is something that we just haven't had before, and it's very powerful.”

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Jim for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. The customer’s needs must come first.
2. We must connect with our customers and can do this through implementing passion marketing.
3. Value-based pricing determines prices based on the value a customer receives from our product or service.
4. Machine learning and AI can help process relevant data to help us understand our customers.
5. Hosting a successful webinar and becoming a sponsor of industry events may be good ways to increase our success rates.

Connect with Jim

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Jim or connect with him you can find him on LinkedIn and his website, targeting.com. You can also watch, listen, or read episode two for more stories and secrets Jim shared in his interview. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

Have you tried value-based pricing, and if so, how did it work for you? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/82-how-to-use-passion-marketing-and-value-based-pricing-to-monetize-a-business/ 

John Lee Dumas is one of the most successful business podcasters of all time, with more than 1 million listeners, more than 100 million podcasts listen, and many millions of dollars of revenue. Just last month, John’s Entrepreneurs of Fire show generated $313,000. In today’s episode, we’re going to discuss two key principles that helped John achieve this success. 

How John Escaped the Rat Race

It took six years of struggle. Six years of failure. Six years of feeling trapped. 

John Lee Dumas found himself sitting at a red traffic light with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Even after college and eight years as an officer in the army, his life moved at the same rate as his car in rush hour. It was going nowhere. 

“I had done all the right things, and now, here I was, stuck on this hamster wheel going nowhere, inspiring nobody, especially not myself, and just feeling like I was trapped in this world that I had created,” John said. 

As he inched along the roadway, he went to listen to a podcast, only to find he had finished the series. He drove on in the silence for 45 minutes, listening to cars honking, tires rubbing against the asphalt, and the quiet hum of the radio. 

At that moment, a “lightbulb” went on. There needed to be a daily podcast interviewing successful entrepreneurs. “There should be someone who creates it, why not me? I know all these great entrepreneurs who are hosting their own shows. I can be just like them, I can do this,” John said to himself.  

John Lee Dumas is one of my heroes. After years of struggle, John is now the founder and host of the award-winning podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire. With more than 100 million listens, of his more than 3,000 episodes, John has turned Entrepreneurs on Fire into a media empire that generates more than 1 million listens every month and seven figures of net annual revenue for eight years in a row. 

He just published the book The Common Path to Uncommon Success, which I have personally been devouring and loving. John's book, based on thousands of interviews from his highly acclaimed podcast, teaches his revolutionary 17-step roadmap that outlines a proven path for entrepreneurs to achieve the financial location and lifestyle freedom they're looking for. 

From years of failure to years of inspiring success, here are two key principles that helped him do it. 

1. Become a Person of Value: the Solution to Someone’s Problem

“Do not try to become a person of success but try to become a person of value.” – Albert Einstein 

John decided to become a person of value first and foremost. “If you are the number one solution to a real problem in this world, you will win,” he said.  

In John’s book, he says every human is tuned in to the same radio station: WIIFM—What's in it for me. That’s what it all comes down to. People don't care about us and what we're trying to do. They don't care about our business or our branding; they care about how we can help them achieve what really matters to them. 

“[People] will ignore the second-best solution, all the way through to infinity, because people want the best solution to their problem, and if you provide that, you will win,” John said. 

It’s about filling a void, solving a problem, and finding the niche that isn’t being served. Anyone can be passionate, but who cares? It all comes down to the question, “What’s in it for me?” 

“What I saw was a bunch of great business podcasts interviewing entrepreneurs, and they were all doing it one day per week,” John said. “But I had a problem with them because I wanted a podcast that delivered a fresh episode seven days a week . . . So I said, ‘I'm going to fill that void, I'm going to solve that problem.’ And I launched Entrepreneurs on Fire, the first daily podcast interviewing entrepreneurs, and it was a Grand Slam.” 

We can take what we are passionate about (the big idea), determine our niche audience, find a problem, and be the solution.

In order to determine what unique value we can offer, we must keep our eyes open, dive deep into areas of our passions, and uncover problems that aren’t being solved. People will pay good money if you are the best solution to their problem.

A good entrepreneur doesn’t just find a problem and solution and run with it. They must constantly check in and make sure they are meeting their audience’s needs. We can’t assume we know what our audience wants. We must ask them. One of John’s biggest failures was simply because he built and launched a service and then discovered after it was launched that his customers didn’t want the service. Remember, success relies on being able to provide VALUE to our customers. 

4 Questions to Ask Our Audience:

John gave four questions we can ask our audience to help determine how we can increase monetization and the value we offer. 

1. How did you first hear about me?
2. What do you like about my content?
3. What don’t you like about my content?
4. What is your biggest struggle right now? 

Don’t stop there. John encourages entrepreneurs to continue to diversify their revenue streams. Provide value in different formats. 

Building additional revenue streams will help prepare for unexpected circumstances. In John’s case, he doesn’t only produce a podcast. He has other revenue streams such as affiliate marketing, books, online courses, a membership site, and more. 

We must ask, what is it going to take for people to join our revenue streams? What will it take to keep them in? Every month we must prove we’re worth it to our customers. 

2. Surround Ourselves with Mentors and Peers

“You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Roans 

John shared steps five and six from his book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success.

Step 5. Find your mentor. 

We must get the right people to help us on our journey. A great way to find personal success is by following the clues of success others leave. As John said, “Your best mentor is currently somebody who is where you want to be one year from now.” They are still relevant because they just did what we are about to do. 

One of the most impactful things he learned from his own mentor is that your network will equal your net worth. 

“I've always fostered my network, and that's why I'm so obsessed with Entrepreneurs on Fire and interviewing the world's most successful entrepreneurs and surrounding myself with the right people,” John said. “I truly believe that to the core.” 

Step 6. Create or join a mastermind. 

Being part of a mastermind, or group will help us get to know people and build trust and respect. 

“Everybody deals with fear and doubt,” John said. “I thought I was the only person that was scared to launch a podcast . . . but then I joined a mastermind, and I realized, ‘Oh, everybody feels this way.’ What a comforting feeling supporting and guiding each other through this; it was critical.” 

The most impactful thing John learned in a mastermind is that everybody struggles with fear and doubt. Masterminds provide support and help guide us on our path to success giving us more confidence to move forward.  

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much John for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Become a person of value.
2. Provide the number one solution to real problems. 
3. Fill the void. Find the problem that isn’t being solved and be the one who solves it. 
4. Don’t let failure stop you. 
5. Follow the clues of success.
6. Our best mentor is someone who is where we want to be one year from now.
7. Build our network and surround ourselves with good examples.
8. Create multiple revenue streams and provide value in more than one format.

Connect with John

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about John, you can find his website at eofire.com. To read his revolutionary 17-step roadmap that outlines a path to financial freedom and fulfillment, go to uncommonsuccessbook.com. 

Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?

Did you like today’s episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

What key principles have helped you on your path to success? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/81-2-key-principles-that-helped-john-lee-dumas-become-a-multi-million-dollar-podcaster-with-100-million-listens/ 

“If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger.” Buzz Aldrin. 

In today’s episode, I will share with you a cause I’m passionate about… working to solve world hunger through entrepreneurship. This is Entrepreneurs of Faith, a Sunday episode of Monetization Nation. I’m Nathan Gwilliam, your host. 

Going to Bed Hungry for the First Time

In 1994 I was a volunteer missionary in a rural, northeastern Brazilian town named Arcoverde. I remember one night I was there that I went to bed hungry for the first time in my life. I had no food and no money with which I could buy any food. Missing one meal was really not that big of a deal, but the feeling of helplessness that I was hungry and there was nothing I could do about it, was a big deal. 

And, I cannot even begin to imagine how I would feel if my wife and children were also regularly going to bed hungry. That would be far worse.

What I went through one night is completely insignificant compared to the millions of people around the world who regularly go to bed hungry due to food insecurity. Imagine the helplessness and hopelessness they feel. 

World Hunger Statistics

Here are a few statistics to help us understand the magnitude of the world hunger crisis:

• 1 in 9 people still goes hungry every day. (source: Concern USA).
• Each year 2 million children die from malnutrition. (source: Jonathan Sacks)
• More than 820 million people go to bed hungry every night. (source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations)
• And hunger isn’t just an issue in developing countries. "One in four kids in the U.S. faces hunger.” (sources: Jeff Bridges)
• "35 million people in the U.S. are hungry or don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and 13 million of them are children. If another country were doing this to our children, we’d be at war." (source: Jeff Bridges)

Credible Sources Encouraging Us to Help the Hungry

"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education, and culture for the minds and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits." Martin Luther King, Jr

Matthew 25:37-40 (NIV) teaches: "Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you as a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

Causes of  World Hunger

Global hunger is caused by many issues such as food shortages, disasters, conflict, forced migration, crop failure, etc. And, I know there are many great organizations working to implement numerous great solutions to world hunger. Today I want to talk about one of these solutions. 

One Sustainable Solution to Help Conquer World Hunger

According to a World Bank report, poverty is the principal cause of hunger. We definitely need to help provide food to the people who are hungry today in the short term. But even more importantly, we can help people to become more self-reliant by building sources of income so that they can provide food for themselves and their families in a sustainable, long-term way. 

One of my all-time favorite websites is Kiva.org. On Kiva, we can see photos and stories of different entrepreneurs around the world and learn about the ventures they are trying to grow and why they need funds. These loans they are requesting are relatively small, ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. These loans are often used to purchase livestock and animal feed so the entrepreneurs can raise animals they can sell for a profit. 

Once we select one or more entrepreneurs on Kiva, we can make a donation of as little as $25. A group of lenders combines their funds to provide the resources the entrepreneur needs. When all of the funds are raised, Kiva makes the loan to the entrepreneur, along with providing support resources to help the borrower be successful. 100% of the money loaned goes to the field.  And, remember, this is a loan, not a donation, which means the funds are almost always repaid. 

Kiva borrowers have an astounding 96% loan repayment rate. Think about that. Only 4% of Kiva borrowers default on their loans. Compare that to the default rate of more than 8% on mortgages in the U.S. When the funds are returned to us, we can choose to then reinvest those funds with another entrepreneur, or withdraw the funds. So, the same money we use to fund our first loan to an entrepreneur on Kiva could be reinvested dozens of times to bless the lives of dozens of other entrepreneurs and their families.

So far, the Kiva community has 1.9 million lenders in 77 countries and has funded more than $1.6 billion in loans. 

Proverbs 28:27 gives us a promise when we feed the hungry. It says, "He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse."

Key Takeaways

Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. World hunger is likely a solvable problem. If we can put astronauts in space, we can definitely conquer world hunger if we all work together to solve it.
2. More than 820 million people go to bed hungry every night. 
3. Each year 2 million children die from malnutrition. 
4. We can choose an entrepreneur (or entrepreneurs) on Kiva.org and make a donation. 
5. Our loan funds are repaid to us and we can choose to make the loan to another entrepreneur. 
6. Kiva has a 96% average loan repayment rate. 

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Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/80-if-we-can-conquer-space-we-can-conquer-hunger/