Your Dream Business

This week’s episode is a little different to usual. I wanted to give you all a little update on what has been going on and some of the lessons I have taken from this situation. It is only a short one this week but I am going to rest up and be back next week. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• At some point in our lives, we will all have things happen that are beyond our control and we have to deal with, and it’s ok to stop and take in what has happened.
• Sometimes we have to listen to our bodies and rest when we need to take time off.
• Your health should be a priority.
• When something bad happens, the only thing we can do is change how we react to it.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Life sometimes throws things your way that you can’t control, and unfortunately we all have to go through hard times and things that feel very unfair in our lives. The important thing is to remember that it is ok to take a break and listen to your body, your health has to be a priority and everyone will understand.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• What’s been going on? 01:06
• Dealing with bad situations 04:03
• A lesson to takeaway 06:58

Transcript below

 

Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. Now I need to warn you straight off. This is probably going to be the shortest ever episode that I've done. But when I started this podcast, I made a commitment to show up in your ears every single week, regardless of what had happened, regardless of how much work I have on. Because when you create content for people, when you want to help people through content, that's what you do. You make a commitment and you show up.

 

What’s been going on?

 

So when life gets a little bit busy and a little bit in the way, sometimes that can be a really tricky thing to do. And honestly, to say that life has got in the way over these past couple of weeks is a little bit of an understatement. So to kind of frame this, I, I wrote an email a couple of days ago to someone cause I had to rearrange something.

I'd made a commitment to record for inbound. I'm speaking at inbound this year and they'd had a delay from me anyway, getting the stuff from me cause because of stuff I'm going to talk about in a sec, but they'd already had this one delay and then I've been booked into record my, my session. And I had to email them and basically say, I'm so sorry, but something else has happened. And as I wrote the email for the first time in forever, I felt like I was one of those kids at school who was just making stuff up and you're like, Oh yeah, you couldn't get your homework in because of what reason now? Oh, whatever. Yeah. I believe you. Because honestly these last few weeks in my life it's felt like that a little bit. So these are all personal reasons and maybe this episode might be a little bit too much information. So I hope not.

But I mentioned last week that my mum had passed away. So about five, six weeks ago, we were given the diagnosis that she had got terminal cancer and completely out of nowhere, she just got poorly and passed away, which was a awful and you know, obviously kind of life changing experience. And then about a week into her, once she passed, we were helping my dad and, and running around and doing everything. And my sister and I. I'm one of three sisters, but my, my sister and I are probably both Enneagram threes and we jump into action and we've been doing all the organising and sorting everything out for the funeral and, and organising everything. And about a week into doing that, I then felt really unwell on Sunday night. And I'm recording this on Thursday right before you're listening on the Monday.

Um, so I'm really up against it, but it felt really weird on Sunday night. Anyway, got a very long story short ended up in hospital. Thank goodness for the British NHS. And I was given some tests and checks and it appeared, I'd got an acute apendicitis. So the same day, the Monday morning I was in hospital and then operated on and it's Thursday and I'm home. I got home yesterday and I'm recovering. And honestly it feels like, and I've made this stuff up. Like first your mom dies. Well, first she gets diagnosed. Then she passed away. Then you end up in hospital. It's like, how many more things can you be making up? And can I like, can I just say that one recording this episode is really awkward because I want to do it. I want to record an episode, but I know I needed to do something quickly because obviously I should be resting.

 

Dealing with bad situations

 

But secondly, I don't know about anybody else, but ever since working in corporate world and being a mom, I never like admitting any defeat of any sort. So I had a marriage breakdown. I didn't have a day off. I am very good at like, you know, caring on when things are tricky. And for me I feel really embarrassed and really, yeah, just embarrassed that I'm not well. And that a, I had to deal with the, you know, what happened with my mom and I'm still dealing with her and then I get in hospital and then I have to have a surgery. And then, you know, I came out yesterday and tomorrow I'm going to the funeral of my mom and, and it just, I feel really embarrassed. And I know that seems like a really stupid thing to say, but I do.

I like to see that I'm in control. I like to see that I'm organised that I'm, you know, that I'm not literally recording the podcast a few days for it has to go out and relying on my amazing team to get all this done for me. Uh, normally I am, you know, but, but I think the reason I wanted to do this, although I would have quite happily like kept it quiet and just recorded a normal episode. I did like little air quotes then you can't see it when I said normal, but the reason I think I wanted to say it is because it's some point in our lives, we will all have stuff like this happen. And when you run your own business, it's really hard. It's not a case of, do you know what? I'm going to take a few weeks off work. I'm going to put my head down and then I'll be back.

It's not that like, it gets separated lots, trying to do everything and manage everything has been really, really tough going. And I just wanted to kind of go, do you know what it's alight. Sometimes we have to. And yeah, I know that my very, very wise friend, Mary Hyatt said to me that this is your body making you stop. You need to stop. Now, you know, you you've been running around since your mom passed away. You've been doing all this stuff. You worked very hard. Anyway, this is your body going. Now you need to rest. And what's interesting as while I was in a hospital, there was a nurse that said exactly the same thing, which I find really interesting. But so for me, like I said, I think, I think I wanted to come on to go listen. Sometimes we need to listen to ourselves and listen to our bodies and we need to take that rest that we need to take.

And we need to take a bit of time off. And if that means doing a very short podcast or getting your husband to reply to some emails for you or whatever it might be, sometimes we have to do that because obviously what I've learned in these last few weeks is, is my health. And my family's health is far more important than the necessarily, you know, some of the other things I might have had in front of that list. So that was the one thing I wanted to say today. The other thing that was really interesting and, and you know, I try looking for lessons in everything and I am a true believer that even when things are not great, even when you're struggling to see what the not positive, cause I'm not saying there's always positive in something, but seeing what the lesson is in or what you can learn from it, it can feel really difficult in the moment.

 

A lesson to takeaway

 

But I had a really interesting kind of, I dunno, I guess lesson, when I was in hospital, I was sat in this bay and there was six women in this bay and I was probably one of the youngest there. And over the way from me sort of opposite me diagonally. So not the bed in front of me, but one to my right and one to my left, but facing me were two different women. And it was like, they were either ends of the spectrum and it was like, I was sat there and I was being given the choice. You can either be like her, or you can be like her. So on my right hand side was this lady I'm going to make up their names for their own privacy and name was Kath. And she was in because she had had trouble walking and she couldn't walk very well, but she was angry.

Okay. She was like livid with life. She shouted at everybody. She cried, she said she was tough and that she didn't cry. And then she cried and then she shouted at them when they didn't give her the right answer. She was angry with herself and she basically was fighting everything that was going on. She had a huge kind of, I don't want to say chip on her shoulder. Cause that sounds really mean, and like I'm judging her and I'm really not. I'm just literally taking their, their reactions, the sort of face value. But anyway, she was so angry, so frustrated, so fighting against everything, but not in a, I'm going to win this, in a why me type way. Um, and interestingly, you know, the reason I can identify with this is because I've come from a family of, you know, my mum was a bit of a martyr bless her and, and maybe would've dealt with it in the same way.

And I watched her and I watched how the nurses were with her. The staff were with her and how it made their life more difficult and they were trying to help, you know, what else are they there to do? And she was cross and angry and it just made the whole experience really, really upsetting for everybody, not just for her, but for the staff, but for people around. Everyone was sort of like kind of looking like, Oh gosh, what's going on every time she shouted at someone. And of course, as you well know those bays, they put the curtain right. It's not sound proof, right. Obviously, you know the curtain comes for their privacy, but you can hear everything whether you want to or not. So anyway, she really struggled. I was really angry and, and like I said, it was really unhappy and I'm not, you know, like I said, no judgement. It was just interesting.

And then across the way to my left, opposite me was this beautiful soul called Ann. Oh this lady by the way was probably early sixties. This, this one to the right, the right lady to my left was 86. Right. She had the most debilitating looking arthritis I've ever seen. And in a family that has had arthritis, I am used to seeing sort of my Nan's hands and my mom's hands, this poor lady, the stuff she could hardly do with the hands was unbelievable. She was in there because she got some problem with her feet and she was very likely to be getting her feet amputated, which kind of, it just blows my mind from a gosh that's horrendous. She was eight six, she'd just stopped driving a few weeks ago. She lived on her own. Her daughter lived fairly close by. She had a nice relationship with the husband, died years ago. And she was the loveliest, most nicest woman ever. She chatted. She was kind, if she didn't understand, she asked them to repeat themselves. She wasn't cross with them. And I spoke to her and had a bit of a chat with her and sort of said, you know, this must be absolute terrifying.

And it obviously was, and she's like, I don't know what I'll do, but I'll work it out. But it wasn't like, you know, I'm going to fight this angry. It was a, you know, this has been dealt with me and I'm gonna, I'm going to find a way to make that work. But the point was, she wasn't, it wasn't anybody's fault. It wasn't, you know, obviously I'm going to get this. Obviously there was no, martyrism nothing. She just literally was taking it all in her stride and was just, I guess, taking what she'd gotten, just going, okay, how are we going to make the best of this? And it just blew me away that this woman at that age had obviously been through an awful lot of stuff in her life could still think like that. And it just reminded me a really, really strong reminder that, you know, what? We're given what we're given, whether we like it or not, sometimes it's brilliant, which is ACE. And sometimes it's, but the only thing that we can possibly do is change how we react to it. And I'm not saying, and it's easy to do. Cause I don't think for one second, it is easy to do when life is hard and it throws absolute massive curve balls you. But if you can, then it's gotta be a nicer experience for you and for the people around you. So, so there you go. The weirdest, the shortest podcast ever, I just wanted to come on.

Cause like I said, I didn't want to let you down. I don't wanna let myself down. I didn't want to not put out a podcast. I am listening to my book and I am going to take it easy for obviously I've got the funeral tomorrow and then I'm gonna take it easy this weekend. And then I'm hoping that with a bit of rest and relaxation, I'll be ready to get back to it next week, which I am really looking forward to because as you know, I love what I do. It's very sad, but it does make me very happy. So I am looking forward to getting sorted and feeling more like myself, more upbeat, more sort of physically well. Also, if you're new to the podcast, please do think this is when it's normally, like, I promise you, I give you so much good stuff. You have lots of good marketing and business knowledge and I've got a great interview coming for you next week. You're going to love this one. So anyway, I will leave you to it. I will go back to my bed, to recover and I look forward to seeing you all next week.

This week’s episode is an interview with the very lovely Sarajane Case who is an expert in all things enneagram. We talk all about what the enneagram is and why it’s good to know which type you are, as well as the different enneagram types and identifying yourself.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• The Enneagram is a personality typing tool that is self-guided and it is motivations based so we can understand why we operate the way we do.
• Types of Enneagram: Type 1 – The Perfectionist/Performer, Type 2 – The Helper, Type 3 – The Achiever, Type 4 – The Individualist/Romantic, Type 5 – The Investigator, Type 6 – The Royalist, Type 7 – The Enthusiast, Type 8 – The Challenger and Type 9 – The Peace Maker.
• The Enneagram diagram is a circle with 9 numbers all the way around, then there are wings either side of your chosen type which you lean towards one more than the other.
• We need to get to the root of what we need and understand what it is that we are craving.
• Enneagrams give us the information of what patterns we tend to repeat over and over again.
• By identifying your enneagram type, it helps to get to the root of what is holding you back and get to our growth pattern faster.
• It is important to understand that not everyone thinks the same as you and motivated by the same things you are.
• You don’t have to be your Enneagram identity all the time.
• You have to learn to create space between your thoughts and your reactions.
• The Enneagram is a map that gives us information, we can add the tools we need to work with it.
• You need to enjoy the journey and the process, rather than completely focusing on the accomplishment.
• There are many factors in the Enneagram, so every person is going to show up differently to another.
• There are 3 subtypes to every Enneagram number: One to One, Self-Preservation and Social. They are what you think you need to do to survive.
• Most people when they read their type feel embarrassed or as though they have done something wrong.
• We need to have compassion with ourselves and what we have learnt through life.
• We have to remember the best of you sometimes gets held back, and that’s okay.
• Everyone in our life is getting the overflow of how we talk to ourselves, so if we allow ourselves to rest, we can allow others to rest.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…The enneagram is a great way to identify what motivates us and why we react certain ways to certain things, it is a tool we can use to understand the root of what we need. But, it is important to remember that we are not defined by our number and we must be compassionate with ourselves and others.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• An Introduction to Sarajane 08:00
• What is an Enneagram? 10:30
• The Different Types of Enneagram 12:40
• The Benefits of Identifying your Enneagram Type 15:05
• The Meaning behind Enneagram 3 18:51
• How to Use Your Enneagram 27:20
• Enneagram Connections 32:00
• Enneagram Subtypes 33:20
• You Are Not Your Number 39:15
• Where Does Your Enneagram Come From? 41:03
• Sarajane’s Book 48:00
• Managing a Large Instagram Account 49:35

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAYS EPISODE

• Enneagram Questionnaire
• Sarajane Links – Instagram – Instagram
• Book

Transcript below

 

Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So, okay. In total honesty, I have had a bit of a week. It was strange. Cause yesterday I was talking to someone and they said that they were listening to an episode a couple of weeks back and said, you, you sounded like things weren’t good. Is everything okay? And I don’t actually remember. Saying it on the podcast, but obviously I must have, or alluded to something, but unfortunately last week as I record this, my mum passed away and she passed away of cancer. She had a very short and a very unfair fight and it’s, or away from us, way quicker than we were expecting.

 

And quite honestly, as like a 41-year-old. I, I don’t think I ever expected to have to organize funerals, work things out. I do bank stuff for my parents and, and it’s been a real tricky week. And the reason I say this actually is for a couple of reasons, first off that, uh, one today’s episode is very axled. I’ll get to that in a second.

 

But the other thing is as a business owner, when something like that happens, it’s really tough. It’s really good. Right? Because in one way, you’re your own business and you’re the boss. You decide what time you take off. You decide whether you need a few days, you know, you’re not having to try and get compassionate leave or whatever it is. But then in the same breath, it’s really hard because of the fact that you are your own boss. And if you don’t work the business, doesn’t often work. Now I am. And I always am so very grateful for my team, but at times like this, I am crazy grateful for them because they really did kind of pull together, get stuff done and were brilliant and, and picked up things that aren’t normally there is.

 

And that’s the things that actually the business did. Carry on and take it over. But obviously I always have big plans of things that I need to be doing and things that can only be done by me. Like a podcast episode. I can’t, you know, put that out to one of the team members, I’ve got to do it. So I, it was just really interesting and I felt like I need to do something more structured or official, or I don’t know, about how do we manage when things like this happen? How do we cope? How do we get back to it? How do we sort our brain out? Because honestly, to begin with when mum first got ill, I think I went through a thing of, you know, well, what’s the point? And, and almost like my brain was just not in the right place to work.

 

So even if I had sat at my desk, even if I had tried to work in a really hard or did the eight hours or whatever. Nothing was happening. Cause my brain wasn’t having it. And then obviously I started to sort of pull myself together and the fact of right, come on, we need to get on with this. And she passed away and which, like I said, was an absolute shock to us all.

 

So then we have the time I’m spending with my pair of my dad and my brother trying to help them out and sort them out and do various things then. So yeah, it’s really. Like I said, challenging as a business owner, but you know, what was amazing was yesterday was my first proper day back doing calls and doing a coaching call with the Academy, doing some 90-day calls and it was ace.

And I loved it because honestly, yeah, what I do makes me very, very happy. So although I was absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, it really was a nice break. And that sounds awful, but honestly it was. So, so I am literally recording this right up to the wire and I am relying on my wonderful team that they’re going to turn all around and get it out for Monday because obviously I’ve been a bit distracted with everything else that’s going on. But I am absolutely still here and still doing stuff.

 

I’m just a little bit quieter, but it just makes me think even more. So, you know, that that life’s for living and going out there and doing. You know, your, your dreams and your hopes and, and just going, for it. It’s gotta be the right thing. The other reason this episode is particularly apt for what’s just happened is.

On this episode, I’m interviewing the very lovely Sarah Jane and Sarah Jane is an expert in all things Enneagram. And if you’ve not heard of it, don’t panic. I’m going to put a link to a free Enneagram sort of questionnaire thing. But obviously my brain isn’t quite kicked back into get it, but you can do. But basically it’s kind of a personal development type, finding out who you are or confirming who you are, or maybe why you do things the way you do. And I am a big fan of this stuff because I see very much personal development is not trying to attain a level. I can’t get to, or not trying to be a person that isn’t me, but I see it as really understanding me and then shaping the bits of me that I would rather shape or understanding the bits of me as to why I do what I do. And one thing that we talk about in this episode, which is great. And like I said, is very prevalent right now is because I’m an Enneagram three. Enneagram three jump into action. So crisis happens and we don’t go, we might hide for a millisecond and then we’re like, right, what needs to be done?

 

And that has been so evident over the last week. So the stuff we’ve done in the last this week has been unbelievable and it seems very fast, but, you know, organizing the funeral and doing all the stuff. And today I have a call with the celebrant and I’m the one who’s going to be telling you what she needs to say.

And you know, and I’ve taken a really strong role in my family in terms of right. What do I need to do? And, and just, you know, going with it. And I think that’s a lot of time because I’m an Enneagram three because I take action because my default, if you like is to, to make things happen and to take action and to do things.

 

So it was really interesting that this is the episode that was due out this week after what’s happened. So I think you’re going to really enjoy this episode. We talk about what Enneagram is to, like I said, if you don’t know what it is, no worries. We talk about why it’s good to know. And then Sarah takes us through Sarah Jane takes us through the certain different Enneagram types.

And really the idea is, although there is a quiz you can take, she mentions in the episode that you should almost identify yourself, but like I said, it’s really, really good. I find it really useful. I will link up to that in the show notes. So if you go to TeresaHeathWareing.com/128 then you can do your own Enneagram test and see what you are. Okay. I will leave you to it. Enjoy this interview with Sarahjane.

 

Okay. I am very excited today to welcome to the podcast the very lovely Sarahjane Case. Welcome Sarahjane.

 

Sarajane Case: Hello. So excited. I’m here. Thanks for having me.

 

Teresa: Very excited you’re here. Thank you so much for coming on. So I’ve mentioned in the intro that basically you and I happen to be in the same mixer group with a lovely friend, Mary Hyatt.

 

So, and it was so fortuitous because I’d already been following you on Instagram and I was getting more and more into what Enneagram is and all that sort of thing. So it was just like, as there’s so many things that the universe just went you to need to like get in the same world. So that was amazing.

But what I want to start by doing, cause there’s so much, I want to ask you, but just want you to explain to my audience who you are and how you got to do what you do now, which is pretty special.

 

Sarajane Case: Yeah. So I, we primarily teach the Enneagram now. I come from the background of teaching creative entrepreneurs, how to prevent and recover from burnout.

 

And I found the Enneagram when I was doing that work as a coach. And it helped me to kind of fast track, about 10 years of discovery work. You know, people. Usually we take all of this time, figuring out what we struggle with, what our problems are, what our repeated patterns are. In the Enneagram kind of is like, Hey, here are your repeated patterns.

 

Here are your struggles. And so we could really get down to the root of their work much, much faster. So. That’s how I first fell in love with it. And then eventually I got to the point where I was like, I want to just talk Enneagram. I want to skip straight to the point. And so that’s where we are now. I started by, it started with working with my coaching clients and then building out the Instagram account. I started in the end of 2018. And, um, yeah. And it grew from there.

 

Teresa: So we should say that your Instagram accounts, how many people follow you on Instagram?

 

Sarajane Case: I think we’re at about 545,000 now, somewhere around there.

 

Teresa: Unlike was that ever your intention? Was it always like, like, you know, did you sit there thinking, yeah, this is where I want to go with this or was it just a case of like, I’m just going to post this? Cause I like posting this stuff.

 

Sarajane Case: Yeah, it was really about a friend of mine being like, you’re driving me nuts, and this is all you want to talk about. Can you just find an outlet already? And I was like, I guess I’ll create an Instagram account. And, um, so I just started posting and it went from zero to a hundred thousand in three days. Like I had no expectations. Anyone would follow it.

 

Teresa: Okay right. So I just need to put a caveat there for my listeners. If you’re sat there listening. Oh, brilliant. I’m going to start an Instagram tomorrow. And in three days, time, I’m going to a hundred thousand. That is insane. That must have been the biggest need for that. That’s a great that quick.

 

Sarajane Case: Yeah, I think it was like the right place. Right time. I created something that I was hoping for, that I felt like was missing and I had been craving. And I think that I just kind of hit it, dropped it in the bucket, right when everyone happened to be thirsty for it. And now there’s so many Enneagram accounts out there. It’s insane. But when I first created mine, it was really hard to find one.

 

Teresa: Wow. And I do want to come back and ask you about some Instagram stuff in a bit, but reason I’ve got you on is to talk about Enneagrams. So if someone is saying this and it’s like, what the hell is Enneagram that you’ve just mentioned 20 times, explain to my audience what Enneagram is.

 

Sarajane Case: Yeah. So it’s similar to something let’s say like Myers-Briggs, StrengthFinders, DISC, you know, one of these personality typing tools. The major difference here though, is that it’s. You self-type. So it’s not like you can take a test, but I recommend that you just read the types, you see which one you resonate with.

 

It’s so it’s self-guided. You’re not diagnosed. And then the second piece of that is it motivations based. So strengths by unders DISC, all of these things are your behavior. So it talks about what you do, but Enneagrams all about why you’re doing it. And so you’re able to really get to the core of why we operate the way we do.

 

Teresa: So that’s interesting actually, because I did take a test and I paid for my test. Um, it was one that Mary sent me and was like, this is a particularly good one since then I find there’s a free ones. Um, and I actually having what you just said. If I had read all the things, I probably could have come to the conclusion of what I was without actually taking the test. But I guess, I guess if you’re not as aware of yourself, cause I would think I’m fairly aware of. Who I am the type of character I am, but if you’re not then taking the test might just take that decision off the table for you.

 

Sarajane Case: Yeah. Well, a lot of people take the test and it’s asking you questions that you might answer from the perspective of how you think you’re supposed to be.

 

Teresa: Yeah.

 

Sarajane Case: So when I first took the test, I got asked questions, like, is it important for you to help people? Do you think it’s important to love? And I was like, I was like, sure, but really those aren’t my motivators. That’s just. A bonus to who I think good people are or do. Um, so when, but when I read my type, I felt exposed.

 

I felt uncomfortable. I felt like someone had like written out my life and put it on the internet for other people to read. And that’s kind of how it usually feels when you find yourself.

 

Teresa: Okay. So can you, and I can, I’m guessing you can do this off the top of your head, but can you run through the different types of Enneagram?

 

Sarajane Case: Yeah. So I’ll give you the titles and kind of the basics worldview. So type one is the perfectionist or the reformer. They’re really focused on being a good person, not being evil or corrupt. You have type two, the helper who’s focused on being loved and liked. Type three, the achiever who’s focused on achieving and kind of achieving the next best thing. And then we have type four, the individualist or the romantic they’re focused on finding and expressing their identity. We have type five, the investigators who’s focused on being competent and capable. Type six, the loyalist who is focused on safety and security and belonging. Type seven, the enthusiast who’s focused on freedom and happiness. Type eight, the challenger who’s focused on not being controlled. Type nine, the peacemaker who’s focused on not losing connections and maintaining their own peace of mind.

 

Teresa: Okay. So obviously if you’re listening to this and you might already have gone, Oh yeah, that’s me. So. Um, the other thing that we’ve got with the Enneagram is which I didn’t quite understand. So I need you to help me understand this is the fact that you have wings, that you have like a tight and then you have a wing type. So explain how that works.

 

Sarajane Case: Yeah. So the Enneagram diagram is a circle, so it’s got nine numbers moving all the way around on either side of your dominant type is two other types, right? There’s one. So for three or, there’s two and four. Yeah. And so you pull from both of those numbers to kind of flavor your personality.

 

However, you’re going to lean usually into one more than the other. So I’ll say for myself, I’m a seven. So I focus on freedom and happiness, but I also have an eight wing that’s pretty heavy. And so I can be really averse to being controlled. I can be really bold and direct and it can balance out that seven lightness with a little bit of grounded kind of challenger energy.

 

Teresa: Yeah. So I’m, we’re gonna talk about my Enneagram and this is going to be really interesting to when you talk about it as to how this shows up in my world. But what’s the, what’s the benefit to, I mean, how you, how you came about doing it kind of slightly hinted to that, to what the benefit was, but what’s the benefit if someone’s sitting here going well, what’s the point of me knowing what I am, or what’s the point of me going to look at this?

What’s the benefit in us knowing what our Enneagram is?

 

Sarajane Case: So I think it’s twofold. The first one being that anything that we’re trying to change in our life, any habit, or, you know, expression of ourselves, it’s not serving us. We need to get to the root of the problem, but usually we’re treating symptoms, right?

 

Like, Oh, I just need to change my behavior. I just need to drink more water. I need to run more. I need to, you know, make a...

In this week’s episode, we are going to be talking all about launching an online product. Due to what we have all experienced in the world lately, lots of people are starting to think about how they could take their business more online, which means you can work anywhere, at any time. I want to help you by giving you all the tips I have learnt from having an online business and the things you need to do to get started. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• The knowledge industry is anyone who can teach or serve from the topic they know and understand.
• Online products in the knowledge industry include; masterminds, coaching programmes, memberships and courses.
• If you sell a product right now, can you now teach it?
• The knowledge industry has opened up and we can now learn anything from anywhere.
• There is huge potential for you to earn money from selling what you know.
• No matter what you offer, it needs to be transformative.
• Understand who your ideal customer is and who would need support, so you know who you are talking to.
• There are many ways to deliver an online product and you may need to use some third party websites/platforms.
• Don’t try and do too much – we are all sort on time so too much content isn’t always the best way.
• Breakdown how your product or service comes together so you are clear on what your customers/members actually get.
• Look at who else is offering a similar product or service to you – do not get disheartened by this, just use it as research.
• Don’t take one person’s word for it – ask lots of people for their opinion.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…This is not a “get rich quick” option. Creating and selling your online product takes a lot of work and there are lots of things to think about, but it is so worth it.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Online Products in the Knowledge Industry 04:30
• Can You Teach Your Product or Service? 05:21
• What Transformation Can You Offer? 07:37
• Who is Your Ideal Customer? 09:49
• How Are You Going To Deliver Your Online Product? 11:44
• Research 18:19

Transcript below

 

Hello, and a very warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining me as always as I'm recording these episodes.

 

Cause I'm doing I'm batching some episodes at the moment. I've just had a lovely message into my inbox saying how much someone loves the podcast. And honestly, it makes my day. It literally makes every single thing I do worth it because I just love the thought that you're out there listening to this right now and you're getting something from it.

 

So if you're sat there and you've never DM me, or you've never tagged me into an Instastory, or if you've never gone and reviewed the podcast, then I urge you, please, please do so I really, really do appreciate it. Okay. So today's episode, we're going to be talking about launching an online product, and there's a couple of reasons why I want to talk about this.

 

One of the main ones is because obviously while I'm recording this, we are still in some elements of lockdown. And, uh, the pandemic is still very much around. And obviously that has had a massive, massive difference to our lives and our businesses. And during the lockdown, you might have really quickly jumped into action and taken elements of your business online.

 

You might have followed and not done anything with the business and the business that you run today that you've reopened hopefully by now, if you've had to fill out or if you have to close, if it's physical shop, you might be looking at, okay, "What if this happens again? How am I going to protect myself from this going forward?" Or you might be one of those people that like said you jumped on it. You immediately started doing stuff online. And now you're thinking, okay, that was fine as a interim solution. But now, how am I going to do this properly going forward? Because it gives you another option. And that's what I particularly love about doing the online business. That when it happened, when everything shut down, I could carry on if in fact anything, I jumped into more action. So for me, it was very much a case of, I couldn't be more grateful for having an online business. I also love the fact that I can do my job anywhere and no one is expecting me to be in a certain place at a certain time.

 

And I don't have to deal with that. So for me, having an online business has been so freeing and also amazing because I can help so many more people. People that would never have been able to take my services when we offered it as consultancy or when I offered it as an agency. So there's loads and loads of reasons.

 

These are just a handful of reasons why having an online business is so good. But like I said, I wanted to talk about it today because you might have been floating the idea based on what's happened. And I want to just take you back a bit. Also you might not have ever even thought about it cause you might be sat there thinking, "Well, I can't for my business, it wouldn't work".

 

And actually I want to show you today that actually I think it can, and maybe you should consider. Whether this is something for you. Now, some of you are going to listen to this episode and go, "Nope, not for me". And that's absolutely fine. And some of you, I might open your eyes to a new way of doing business. But I think if anything is going to the fact that we had a pandemic and the world literally shut overnight is probably enough for most people to go, "Okay, let's just look at this".

 

So what if you're sat there going. One, I had to jump to action and sort of couple something together. Or two, I really want to be serious about this and think about doing it properly. How are you going to get started? How do you know if this is even a viable thing for you to do? And one of the very first things that you should be thinking about and having conversations with yourself about. And that's what this episode's all of about.

 

Okay. So let's start talking about what an online product is. I am not talking so much about selling your product online, as in, if you are a physical shop and you have, you know, you sell cards, greetings cards, and you put those online. That's not so much what I'm talking about. I am talking about online products that normally come in the knowledge industry.

 

So the knowledge industry. Is anybody who can teach or serve from the thing that they know and understand. I don't think that was an exact definition and I'm sure I probably could have found a better one, but anyway, it just came out at the time. So it tends to be things like masterminds. Coaching programs, memberships, and courses.

 

They tend to be the types of online products that I'm talking about. And like I said, there are lots of you that can do those. Have a great example of someone locally that has a food product that they sell. They sell spices for Indian food. I use them. They're amazing. And she was doing prior to lockdown, she was doing in-person cookery lessons.

 

And doing in-person catering and obviously locked down happened and she couldn't do it anymore. So she then started a subscription program for her spices, where she would send you a spice or a couple of spices every month and give you a recipe. And I think there's a video alongside it or whatever it is.

 

So, you know, even if you sit there thinking, well, I sell a product, that's not gonna work for me. She's proof that it can. And it does. So, like I said, these are the first things you need to think about, you know. Is it something that if you do sell a product, is it something that you could teach? Because there's no reason why in her example, for instance, she couldn't go online and teach people online and have that part of a course or a membership.

 

And you just need to look at some of the celebrities. Like I know Gordon Ramsay is known worldwide. You know, he has done something, I think it's a teachable, I can't remember where he teaches you how to cook like him. And it's a, it's a course and he sells this course online. So. Now we're in a world that actually the knowledge industries opened us up so amazingly that I can learn anything from anywhere. Whether it's how to play guitar, whether whether it's you know personal development, whether it's baking a cake or learning how to do photography or whatever it might be. The knowledge industry is huge and there's huge potential. Not only for me to learn things, but you to earn money. For us to sell and promote our, our services and our products.

 

So that's the first thing, like I said, If you sell a physical product, if you do something physically, like maybe you do nails or maybe you're a masseuse or whatever, is there a way you can go on and teach that online. Now you might not want to. And that's absolutely fine. Not a problem, but I'm just trying to give you ideas that if you did want to go and do something online, that's where I would start looking.

 

So those are the kinds of things I'm talking about. So let's go through, I've got five steps that I want to tell you about that I think you should consider doing before you go down the route of trying to find a platform and working out and doing all that sort of good stuff. So step number one, I want you to sit and think what is the transformation?

 

What transformation can you offer someone with an online product? So. Is the transformation that you're going to give them a new skill? Like I said, it could be teaching a musical instrument. It could be show me how to use my iPhone better. It could be telling me how to do accounts. Is it going to get them more customers?

 

Is it personal development? Is it going to develop them? Is it going to be, and I've been member of online coaching programs where I've been part of a group coaching that's helped with personal development. Is it going to make them fitter? Are you a personal trainer? And you can take that online. Is it going to teach them to cook?

 

What is it that it's going to do? What is it that your, your product or service that you're going to sell online. What's the transformation. So what will, if I have it, what will the transformation be to me? So a great example of this is one of the, well, not the, one of the first, the very first interview I ever did on the podcast was Pat Flynn.

 

And he has this amazing story. Where he was in the legal that is obviously a long time ago, so please excuse me if I get some of the details wrong. Um, and he had asked to pass an exam. I'm sure it was a law has to pass an exam. And when he got major down turn, he started helping people. By telling them how to pass this exam or telling them kind of giving them skills and advice about how they could pass this exam.

 

And he started to sell it online. And he'd take this years and years and years ago, and that was how he started his entry into the knowledge industry and having an online business. Because he passed this exam. He was very good at it and he just shared his knowledge and other people wanted it. So what's the transformation.

 

So that's the first thing I want you to write down. What is the transformation that you provide? In your product or your service that you can sell online. So my transformation is I help businesses market themselves better and get more customers. I help them grow their businesses. So that's the transformation that I offered through my stuff.

 

Okay. Number two, who can you make this transformation happen for? So. Who is your customer is basically what I'm asking, who is the person that this transformation will be brilliant for, or who is the person that wants this transformation. So obviously for me, mine are business owners, you know, someone who doesn't own their own business is not going to come and join.

 

One of my programs or do one of my online things, because the whole point is that aimed at business owners. So who is the person that needs that support. I've got someone who supports mums and has a online sort of personal development membership where she supporting mums do better mums. So obviously that is for mums.

 

I've got people who are doing training programs for personal training, and again, they, they help a certain type of person. So I want you to write down who is it for? And I want you to try, do as much detail as possible. I want you to sit there and think like, if you've got any customers that have bought this thing already or do this thing already, but just not in the guys that we're talking about, maybe it's an in person thing.

 

Write them down. Think about them. What age are they? Where do they live? What type of thing? It's not a, what kind of jobs did they have? Do they have children? Do they not have children? What's the pain that you're fixing. What is the thing that you are helping them to solve? So the transformation is helping them with that pain.

 

So for instance, if my transformation for my Academy is that I help you market your business better and get more customers. The pain of my customers is that they need more customers is that they want to grow a better business. Is it that they're overwhelmed. So that's step number two, who is the transformation for who would be the perfect person to have this transformation?

 

Okay. Step number three. So we've already talked about what the transformation is. We've talked about who it is, and now I want you to think, and this is where we go slightly more into the online product itself. How are you going to deliver that thing or what is instantly in your head about how you can deliver it?

 

So I want you to think about the different ways of delivering some of the different things I talked about, coaching, masterminds, courses, memberships. I want you to think about how you going to need to deliver the thing. So for instance, if you are going to do something that's personal development, that is very much around growing someone from where they are at this point, it's going to have to be fairly high touch.

 

You're going to have to know the people that you're talking to, and therefore you might want to do a small coaching. Sort of group program that only has 10 people in it. You might not be able to do a membership with thousands of people in there. Whereas if you're teaching something, it might be that you can teach in a one of course.

 

You only need to do the course once the information doesn't change and you can put all that together, they can do it in their own time, on their own watch. And that's as much as they need from you. And they don't need anything more than that, your knowledge. So I guess, you know. If it's something where you need to develop, it might be a membership.

 

So for instance, if I talk about, I don't know, learning to play guitar, that might be a membership because it might be, you know, you go in and you need to pick what level you're at, or you need to go through things and they can add things every single month or every single week or whatever it is. So for me, the membership for the Academy was really important because I knew that one of the best ways I can help people is through answering their questions.

 

And it was no good just saying here's a course on Instagram or here's a course on Facebook ads, or here's a course on creating content, which is all in the Academy. And I needed those courses in there. But there was no point in me just giving them the courses, because one, they wouldn't know where to start.

 

They wouldn't know whether it was relevant to them. They wouldn't know, you know, should they be on Instagram? And I knew that they'd have questions. So for me, I needed that to be a membership more than a course. However, I am in the process of putting together something else. Little bit hesitant to tell you what it is because it's in such early days and I've reviewed it.

 

And it can't be a membership, it has to be a course because it literally is you need everything there ready for them. And it's kind of a full like start to finish things. So you don't need the kind of constantly adding of the membership. So. I want you to think about that. I want you to think about what is it likely to be, and in the same section, I want you to think about what other mechanisms are you going to need to deliver this content?

 

So for instance, if it's a membership, are you going to be doing live videos? Are you going to do coaching calls? If it's a course, are you going to be on video or is it going to be worksheets or is it going to be screen recordings. I mean, this is really going to come down to what it is you're trying to get across.

 

So like I said, if you are teaching a cookery lesson than it probably needs to be you filming yourself, cooking it. If you are going to be teaching guitar, then again, I'm probably going to need to see the guitar, but then I might need a download to the music. So I need you to think about. What sort of big mechanism does it need to be?

 

Is it a course or is it a membership is a coaching thing, is it a mastermind? And then, Hey, might you deliver some of that content. So is it going to be a membership that has a monthly coaching call or is it going to be a course that has a Facebook group, because you will need to answer some questions afterwards.

 

So how to think about that in step three and see how. Uh, what kind of comes up there and this isn't set in stone, by the way, this is really just a brainstorm of right. If I was going to do this, "How might this look?". The last thing I want you to be careful of in step three is that you don't try and do too much.

 

Our kind of default position is to go. Right. Well, I probably need to do a course every other week and then a five downloads and then a live and then a coaching call and then a, this, this, this, and honestly, I'm exactly the same, but so is everyone else. And we always try and do too much. Too much content isn't always the best way. Like if you could give me something in five words, rather than five worksheets. I would rather have it that way because we're short on time. So I don't necessarily want to go through reams and reams and reams of stuff. So don't fill then the trap of, "Oh, that doesn't look enough value or that doesn't look good enough".

 

Just go with how you feel. Okay. Step four. This is where, what you think about what they get, which kind of ties into what I just said. So in step three, you thought about, What is it that you, or how are you going to deliver it in step four, I want you to go, okay. How does this look in reality is it? So now, you know, okay, I'm going to need to do videos or I'm going to need to do some kind of coaching call.

 

I want you to always, almost map out what they get for their money. So you're almost like thinking about how the product comes together, how the service comes together. So if you are doing a group mastermind, it might be that once a quarter, they get an in person event, or once a quarter, they get a so do call with you,...

In this week’s podcast I have an interview with the very lovely Matt Johnson, who is an agency founder, podcaster and author of the book called “Micro Famous”. We talk all about not needing loads and loads of followers in order to be successful, using a niche and understanding who your customer is.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Attention spans are getting shorter – having something in your ear like a podcast whilst you are doing something else works really well.
• You don’t have to have big numbers on social media to be successful.
• Micro famous is being famously influential to the right people.
• You have to decide what you really want – is it about fame?
• More content does not equal more sales.
• The algorithms have put a barrier between content creators and customers so we have to focus on engaging content.
• The three stages of influence – Get Seen, Get Noticed, Get Known.
• The aim is to get linked to the problem you solve.
• Become known for something but only to the people you want to serve – this is easier and faster.
• Ways of finding your niche – Create a new one or speak to an existing one.
• Find what people are right from you and create content that speaks to them.
• If you don’t know how you have got somewhere, you won’t be able to go back and fix it.
• You can’t count on authenticity to grow your business but you can still show up and be authentic.
• Not all forms of visibility are congruent with your expertise.
• Podcasts are brilliant if you sell ideas because your audience can listen and engage with you for a long time.
• Podcasts are also really good if you prefer talking to writing.
• Podcasting creates demand because you can take your audience on a journey – you are their leader.
• Appearing on other podcasts helps to reach new people who are looking for solutions.
• Reach out to other podcasters and pitch yourself.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

 

Find a podcast you can pitch yourself on and just go for it! If you have never done it before, you may be surprised how much you enjoy it and the potential growth to your business.

 

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• An introduction to Matt Johnson 08:02
• Why Podcasting 11:35
• Micro Famous – The Book 16:02
• The Numbers Game 19:20
• How to Build Your Influence 26:05
• Finding Your Niche 29:25
• Being Authentic 32:18
• TikTok for Business 35:51
• The Power of Podcasting 42:50
• How to Get on Other Podcasts 46:30

Transcript below

 

Hey there and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. How are you doing? I hate starting the podcast, honestly. Like I try and find something different to say every time and I can’t, it’s really irritating and I feel like it must be irritating for you to hear me start the same way.

 

So, yeah. Sorry about maybe that’s how I should start it every time. I just like saying I hate having to start the podcast. Anyway, let me go back to being professional. But it is tough. And if you do a podcast, let me know. I think it’s hard to try and think of something different to say. Anyway, I am batching episodes today.

 

I’ve been really bad recently, and I don’t mind admitting to you that my head has not been in like a great space in terms of getting work done, because I think we all go through this at times and there’s been so much going on in the world. And I think you have talked about it in a couple of episodes back that I was struggling a bit. But I’m giving myself a serious kick up the backside. And today I am batching three episodes all in one go because then, one I get into the flow of it. It works quicker. It happens easier and ideas do flow. When you batch contents, if you’ve never done it before, I’m sure I’ve done an episode. So I will find the episode and link to it in the show notes, but do go check it out because batching really is helpful in terms of creating content.

 

And sometimes we do just need to give ourselves a kick out the backside and say, get on with it enough now. So that’s what I’ve done today. And I’m on episode two of three. I’ve got one more to do after this, but this is an interview. So it doesn’t take me that long because of course I’ve already done the interview.

 

So today’s interview is with the very lovely Matt Johnson and he is an agency founder, podcast, and author of the book called Micro Famous. And we have a really interesting conversation about not needing loads and loads and loads of followers in order to be successful. We talk about the fact of how you can use a niche and really drill down into who your customer is that you suddenly don’t need 20,000 downloads per podcast episode, or you don’t need, you know, 5,000 people to watch a video. That actually you can make just as much money on a hundred people watching a video rather than 5,000 people watching a video.

 

And we have this really interesting conversation about kind of checking in with our ego. Cause do you know that sometimes? I really genuinely have to do this. I genuinely have to check in with myself because sometimes I will do things because my ego wants me to do them. So I will be invited to speak on a particular stage or a particular location, and I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, totally want to do that”.

 

And when I look at the business reason for it, There isn’t one. Like the audience might not be my type of audience. I might be getting to go somewhere amazing that I want to go to. But actually from a business point of view, it’s may not be the best use of my time, but it’s my ego going. “Oh, no, but wouldn’t it be amazing to go there or how amazing that these people have asked or how cool that you get to fly somewhere?

 

Well, how will it look on your social media?” So. This was really interesting. And I think this is such a great reality check for us all to have. When we do stuff, are we doing it for our ego or are we doing it to grow our business. Because sometimes we don’t need to do that thing to grow a business. We can still grow a really successful business without being the Instagram famous person that we think we’ve got to be, or without getting a hundred thousand downloads on a podcast, we can still be successful.

 

It’s just where your priorities lies in what you’re doing with it. And how you are using that following. So I had a really, really lovely chat. He’s such a nice guy. It was really, really interesting. And we just talked about, you know, how you can become influential to the right people. And I think this is really going to resonate with lots of you, because one of the things I said on the podcast is people get really hung up on numbers and we do, we all do I do, you know, I check my podcast downloads as often as I can tell you, you know, we’re literally a daily thing often. But it’s because we’re all thinking that success comes with numbers and it doesn’t always. We just need to be really clear that that is going to lead to that success, that we don’t necessarily need to have all these millions of people following us or all these people downloading our stuff or watching our stuff or engaging in our posts in order to be successful.

 

And actually the truth of it is, do you know what some people are? Now I have someone asked to come on the podcast a little while back. And I looked at their social media and on the surface, it looks super successful. They had all the lovely Instagram where the photos, they had, obviously a few photo shoots.

They seem to have a few good few followers on all different platforms. And then I started to dig a bit further and actually there was no credibility behind them. Literally none. I couldn’t find what that business was. I couldn’t see who they’d helped. I couldn’t see like proper testimonials. They talked about them being a speaker.

 

But when I looked at their speaker stuff, there was not any pictures of them stood on stage. There was no credibility behind it. And the reason I tell you this is not to be mean about someone, obviously I’ve not told you who, so that’s fine. But the reason I tell you this is because it’s easy to, to inflate all those things.

 

If you want loads of followers, like you could go and buy it, them tomorrow, you know. But what use would that be to anybody? Absolutely none. On, although I wish my Instagram would grow faster than it grows. Although I know I have to work my bum off to get followers and to get people, to listen to the podcast and to get you, you guys, to recommend my podcast, which, you know, I would love it if you could. If you’ve got a friend or two that you could just say, “Hey, you want to listen to this woman. She’s all right on occasions”. And you know, in between her, uh, terrible intros, but, you know, Although I have to work really hard for that. I know that you listening. I know that when, you know, you pick up your, your earphones to listen to this podcast, that you’re totally invested in it rather than, you know, me buying a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and knowing that basically, 97,000 of them or wherever I am at the moment, might 3,000 followers. You know, a pointless. So what’s the point in that? So, like I said, I think this is a really good episode for one reminding you, you don’t need those numbers, giving you an ego check as to are you doing these things and then giving you some actual practical steps in terms of how you can become that micro famous, how you can make sure that you are famous to the right people. So I think you’re going to love this episode. I really enjoy chatting to Matt. He’s a really, really nice guy and I will obviously link up the whole, his stuff in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. And without further ado here he is. So I am really pleased to welcome Matt Johnson to the podcast.

 

Teresa: Welcome Matt. How you doing?

 

Matt: I am so good. Thanks for having me.

Teresa: Good, good. We’ve just been having a lovely chat about mapping in San Diego would be one of my favorite places and, and that’s just reminded me that we met each other last year. In San Diego, and it’s just crazy how time flies.

And who you meet when you go to these things. So it’s awesome that we’ve been able to catch up. But Matt in case my audience don’t know you enough to have done an intro, but in case they don’t know you can you just tell us who you are and how you got to doing what you’re doing now?

 

Matt: Yeah. So the, uh, the, the back of the nap story is I run a podcast production agency, specifically for coaches, consultants, thought leaders it’s a hundred percent done for you. Uh, and, uh, I, I essentially run it in about four hours a week. So we have an amazing team of specialists that do all the work behind the scenes. I just built the system and then make sure that the trains run on time, so to speak. Uh, but I got here, you know, five years ago.

I was just some dude. Working with somebody else’s marketing agency. I got the opportunity to start working with some influencers that were key relationships in the agency. And I started doing Google Hangouts back when that was the thing. And one of the guys that I was doing Google Hangouts with that was getting into coaching in that space called me up one day and just said, “Dude, like we have so much fun doing these Google Hangouts.

 

Why don’t we turn this into a podcast?” I’m like, it’s “well funny you should say that. Cause I was going to call you up like next week and pitch you on the same idea”. That was five years ago. So, um, we ended up starting a podcast that got named, like the top five in the residential real estate space. We had a blast, it’s got a million and a half downloads.

I still, I took a step back from being the main cohost on that. And so I let my partner kind of run with that. But I still, uh, I still have fun, you know, dropping in whenever I feel like it parachuting in and co-hosting that show and, you know, giving him a hard time. So yeah, that’s a, that’s kind of how I got started.

And then the more I did podcasts and the more podcast I launched as part of my kind of marketing consulting, I realized that that was actually the most effective thing I could do for business coaches and consultants. And so I just dropped all the other marketing consulting stuff and just went deep on podcasting. So now we just do that one thing for one type of person.

Teresa: And how long have you been doing it for? I’m just interested because podcasting seems to have taken a real rise in profile in the past. I dunno, 12 months here in the UK. So when, when did you start focusing purely on the podcasting better?

 

Matt: I started the podcast in 2015.

I probably didn’t focus on running it as an agency and told the end of 2016. Um, I was a big fan. I like I got into Adam Carolla’s podcast. Within like six months of him starting, it would have been like 2010. If I hadn’t had that foundation of being like a fan, almost a super consumer of podcasts, I wouldn’t have thought about it either. Because yeah, it wasn’t getting a lot of attention in the agency where I used to work.

Like I said, we did like Google Hangouts and stuff, and webinars were still big, but yeah, podcasts, there was like, I think two or three. Podcasts in our space up until that point now there’s probably there’s somewhere between 50 and a hundred, maybe even more than that. So yeah, it’s, it’s definitely the numbers have exploded and the attention that it gets like on the national stage has exploded. But I haven’t to be a fan way before that.

 

Teresa: I find that really interesting recently, you know, because here in the UK we have the BBC and the BBC are really pushing podcasts, heavy. Every kind of celebrity comedian, whoever is now starting a podcast as well. And it’s like, I don’t know about you, but it’s like some jumping on our bandwagon. Like you go and stick to your TV, like leave our podcast alone.

It’s competitive enough anyway, where have you lot there we did a big production and all this sort of thing. So it’s just really interesting. I don’t know. Why do you think that is? And I know we’ve, I’ve bullied on here cause you’ve got book and I want to talk about some of the concepts around the book, but why do you think we like podcasting when we have video and live video and Instastories? I just find it fascinating.

 

Matt: I just, I think there’s something. Special and different about something you can listen in your ear while doing something else. I don’t know about you, but like when I’m, if I’m not hanging out with somebody, if I’m just alone, I can’t even watch a movie anymore. I can, I can do sitcoms to an extent, but, but you find yourself like, even then, like reaching for your phone, scrolling through Instagram, you know, like I can sit for a couple of hours if I’m by myself and I can go from one YouTube video to another if they’re interesting, but I think just the, the short attention spans with video.

Uh, is getting shorter. And so the idea that people are just going to sit there and watch a half hour show, unless it’s something really, really good. Uh, I think our attention spans are just getting shorter, but when we can have something in our ears and we can still be doing something else that occupies a different part of our brain, that combination actually works really well.

So like, if you dig into the numbers behind the scenes and I’m sure you’ve done this on Apple podcast, once they started tracking how much people listen to a podcast episode, You’re shocked, like people are listening to 80, 90% of a podcast episode. Like on average, we’re not talking about the super fans.

We’re just talking about the average. So it’s insane how much people will sit there and listen to 80% of you talk for 45 minutes. There’s literally no other, there’s almost no other content where people would do that. There’s definitely no other marketing medium, like good luck getting somebody’s attention for 45 minutes on a Facebook live.

I do it by the way on my real estate show. And it’s hard. It’s a really, really hard, and we don’t get any favors with Facebook anymore on live video.

 

Teresa: Yeah. And I think for me, you hit some exactly. It’s the fact I can learn. Do something at the same time. I hate wasting time. It’s a huge frustration to me.

So if I’ve got to drive somewhere, if I even, so every morning, I. Put this ridiculous microphone every day. It takes me a long time, but hours get ready every morning, every morning. That’s what I do. I listen to podcasts. I listen to audible because it’s this inane activity that I have to do that I don’t have to think about.

That is like second nature to me now. And it’s like, the fact that I can, I need to do that because it’s awesome on current time. But the fact that I do that, and then I can learn is just amazing. And for me doing a podcast, I like the fact that, and I’ve talked about for other podcast but someone is listening to this and I am in their ears right now.

You know, it’s so personal, it’s so, and when you do it authentically and when you do it naturally, which took me some time to find my, my space and how I felt about it and to get over the hang-up of it needs to be perfect. And I can’t say hmm and I can’t make a mistake. And whereas now I literally, I was going to say, I just put add the old rubbish, hopefully very authentic because that’s how signed if I was talking to you, if we were on the phone. And you know, whoever’s listening to this now, if, if the three of us were having a conversation, that’s how it signed. So for me, I like the authenticity and I like the personal touch a bit. Whereas like you said, on a video, I tried to watch, uh, cause we’re out of time. My daughter was here. I was doing way too much work.

As I said, we’ll do something. Let’s watch a film. She said she put a vendor’s end game on. I mean, we’re not talking a five-minute film, are we? Geez, man. And I literally find myself every 20 minutes, like, Oh, should I make a drink? Oh, do you want some popcorn. Oh, I’ll just check on someone and say, Oh, I’ll just do this.

I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t sit there. It was insane. But yeah. Anyway, so for me, I love the podcasts. I think podcasts brilliant. And the fact that you’ve been doing for such a long time, kind of crazy, cause it feels like now everyone’s doing.

 

Matt: I know, I felt like I was late to the game in 2015. And then you get, yeah. Then now I’m somehow magically transformed into an OG podcasting, which is like, especially in my original space and real estate.

Yeah. It’s very weird. Yeah. Cause there’s so many new podcasts that have come out since then that they look up and go, like I’ve had people come on to my podcast and go, Oh man, I started my podcast because of you. I’m like, how long have I been doing this?

 

Teresa: What episode do you on?

 

Matt: I don’t track them. I have no idea. 300 and something. Yeah. Like at one point we were doing two and three episodes a week. I’d put out so much content. It’s insane.

 

Teresa: I love it. I love it. And I do like that when you’re like, what if see Jordan is like a hundred and something it’s like, that is a long time, man.

 

Matt: I was doing...

In this week’s podcast we will be talking all about promoting your lead magnet on social media to build your email list and also how to not feel bad about selling on social media.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• A lead magnet is content you give away for free, in return for an email address to get them on your email list.
• A landing page is where people sign up for your lead magnet, this usually has photos of what the lead magnet includes, as well as reasons to why it’s going to benefit your audience.
• You can put your lead magnet on social media more than once in different posts.
• Your posts on social media needs to be consistent to your landing page.
• Don’t worry about posting more than once – you are not bombarding people.
• You can set up a pop up on your website to promote your lead magnet.
• Changing your cover photos and ‘Call to Actions” on social media will also help to promote your lead magnet.
• You can also talk about your lead magnet in your regular content such as blog or podcast.
• If you are being interviewed or speaking on stage, you could talk about your lead magnet at the end – check you can do this.
• Promote your product/service in unique ways so it is not just focused on “Sell, Sell, Sell”.
• If someone gets irritated by what you post, they are not your customer – let them go.
• There is nothing wrong with asking for money for what you do.
• If people don’t invest money into something, they are not as likely to invest their time and energy into it.
• If you are worrying about being too ‘salesy’, you won’t be. Because you are conscious of it so would not come across like that.
• The only person who sees every single post you share is you.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…You have to keep talking about your lead magnet and promoting it, otherwise people won’t know about it. Don’t feel like your landing page or lead magnet isn’t good enough, it’s just that people need to be aware of it and then they can see how awesome you and your content are!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Promoting Your Lead Magnet 02:50
• Sales Posts on Social Media 13:10
• How to Sell Without Feeling Bad About it 15:54

Transcript below

 

Hello and super warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing on this very lovely Monday morning, if you're listening to this on a Monday, which you may not be, or you might be so whatever day or time is, I hope you are super well.

 

Okay. So this week I have decided that I wanted to talk about something that keeps coming up again and again and again. So as you know, I have my Academy and I also have a 90 day program. And in the Academy we have coaching calls. So a couple of times a month, we all get on a group coaching call and people get to ask me questions directly and I get to help them directly with their business.

 

And basically they can come on and ask anything. And I love it. Because I love the fact that they kind of put me on the spot. My brain has to work really quickly. I have to think about what they do and what their business is. And I really, really enjoy it, but basically a question keeps coming up again and again, and I thought, you know, what if members of the Academy have got this question then maybe you guys have too, and therefore it might be worth doing an episode to address this question. Okay. So basically what I've been asked over and over is how do you post on your social media about your lead magnets? And if you don't know what a lead magnet is, go and check episode 110, because that episode I talk fully about what a lead magnet is, but basically in short it's you giving away some content for free or giving something away for free in order to get someone's email, to get them on your list.

 

So how do you post a lead magnet or post a sales post without feeling yucky and salesy and sleazy? And also once you have your lead magnet or also once you have your thing to sell, where should you be posting it and how often? So we've had lots of big discussions about this recently, which is why I thought, you know what, let's come on here.

 

Let me answer it in front of you guys so that if you've got this thought in your head or you're wondering, then I can help you at. Okay. So let's just take it back a little bit. So I'm going to be talking specifically, I guess, about the lead magnets to begin with. So as I've already said, a lead magnet is something that you give away for free.

 

So as you well know, I have lead magnets. I have them on my website TeresaHeath-Wareing.com. I put them in my social media and I often give a freebie along with the podcast. So what happens is I create a landing page where you go to and you basically put in your details and that sort of start, the process of giving you the lead magnet.

 

And on that landing page, I have pictures of the thing that you're going to get. So if it's a download, what I do is I screenshot each page of the download and I might fan it out on a desk or I might, and I do this all on the computer, by the way, I don't physically print it. I literally screenshot each page.

 

And then I'd go into Canva I find a flat lay image. If you Google or sorry, not Google. If you put the search flat lay and desk into Canva, it will show you lots of free images that you can use and base guide, put the, I put the screenshots on the desk as if it's being printed out and put on that desk.

 

And then I will use a Photoshop program that my designer sets up for me where basically I can put it on a clipboard, but again, you could probably do this in Canva. So I have a few different looks of this thing that you can get. Okay. And I create it and I put it on the landing page. And then also on the landing page, I write some reasons why you want it, why it's going to help you, what it's for, why it's brilliant and the difference it can make to you and your business.

 

Now, obviously, if you don't help businesses as such, if you don't do marketing, then this isn't properly. What you would write, you would write how that thing will benefit your audience. So that's the first thing I've got and the idea is I want to get people to that page. I want them to see that page and think, yes, I need that download.

 

I'd like that download. And therefore they opt in and they get the download. And obviously what I get in return is you come onto my email list and I get to help you further. I get to promote the podcast. I get to email you every week and tell you something or engage with you and hear back from you. So.

 

What, how am I going to get people to go to that landing page? And I think this is the tricky thing. So what happens is people go to the effort of creating a lead magnet and it takes a bit of time. There is no doubt about that, but I promise you it's worth every second of your time, but it takes a bit of time and you create this thing and you set it up and you have your landing page and no one visits it and no one opts in.

 

And then you think, well, what was the point of that? It was pointless and I shouldn't have done it and I've wasted my time. But it's not that the lead magnet isn't good, it's not that the landing page isn't good, it's the part that no one knows about it. And you've got to get people to go to it. So let's first say where you can put this in order for people to see it.

 

So obviously you're going to put it on your social media. That's the very first place, and I'm going to address how you feel about that in a bit, but you're going to put it on your social media, but I want you to think about putting it more than once. And if you need to go back and have a look at mine, just to see how I do it, then please do.

 

You're probably gonna find it easiest on something like Twitter, because you can scan back quite far, quite quickly, but what you will see is, I don't just have one post for the one lead magnet. I create at least three posts for that lead magnet. So for instance, I've got a lead magnet that is all about launching.

 

So if you are launching any product or service online and you are going through a launch process, I've got a lead magnet. So it's all about it, which is a TeresaHeath-Wareing.com/launch. And basically what I've done for that one in particular is I've created a little video of it sort of scanning through the pages which I did in Canva.

 

And I did it myself, it wasn't my designer. Then I've created an image of it's sat on a desk. I think if I remember rightly Oh, no, I don't think no, I didn't actually, I did an image a bit fan down, but it wasn't sat on a desk just have a really nice, nice border around it and that sorta thing. And then I did another image of it on a clipboard and I'm basically on, because it's a landscape image that you would put on sort of Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook. To the left or the right of the image I've written something that says "Get My Free Download" or something like that. So I, I, I now have three different images, well, two images and a video for one lead magnet. And also I might sort of, when I'm putting the posts in, I will write different things on the first one I might talk about.

 

Get my complete list or checklist about how I do a launch or I've done loads of launches for myself and clients. And over the time I've perfected creating this launch and therefore you can have this in this check list or whatever it might be. So again, you want three different types of images or videos and you want three different types of caption that is going to go along with that social media and it's Oh, that's posts. And it's going to encourage people to go to your landing page. And I just, one quick thing about your posting on social media is it needs to be consistent as in what I see in the post, I should recognize when I land on the page.

 

So I want to see similar images, similar fonts, similar colors. I want to see the tone of voice similar. So, you know, whatever you're writing in the caption, I want it to be confirmed in the actual page that I go to because if they are very different, someone is going to get to that page and go, "hang on a minute this doesn't feel right this wasn't what I was expecting". So make sure that it really matches and that the two are really inline with each other in sync with each other. So like I said, so that's the first thing you gotta do. Are you going to create three different images or videos and you're gonna create three different captions and then you're going to schedule them on social media.

 

Now I always schedule these because they can be scheduled. I don't need to do them at the time. I use Agorapulse to schedule my stuff. And it's a great scheduler because you can put things out more than once. You'll see why this is helpful. So I'm going to link to that in the show notes, which is TeresaHeath-Wareing.com/125 lots of links today. So I schedule these in Agorapulse and then what I will say to Agorapulse cause I can cause it's a cool system is I can say, I want you to repeat this and I will tell them how many times I want them to repeat it. And then I have a category called lead magnets.

 

I'm trying to make this as simple as possible. So I hope I don't lose you. I have a category called lead magnets. And I set in the schedule how often I want a lead magnet post to go out. Okay. So it might be that it goes out four times a week, but I've probably got in there 20 add posts for different lead magnets.

 

And like I said, if I'm doing three for each one, so then what happens is it will send out one post about the launch lead magnet, and then it might do one about list building. Then it might do one about webinars. Then it might be one about sales pages, and then it might come around. Another launch, one comes out and it'll send that one out and then it might do some other ones.

 

And then what happens is when it gets to the end of the list, it's starts again. And because it's mixed up in all my other social media posts, because obviously I post a lot on all platforms and I'm not suggesting that you do what I'm saying is have a look at your platform that you're on and how often you post and try and work out realistically, how often you can mention it, because what you don't want to happen is go, Oh, well, Teresa does hers four times a week, but if you're only posting five times a week, it's going to be a really dull feed because you're literally just going to go lead magnet, lead magnet, lead magnet occasional post. Like I said, I do mind very often because I post an awful lot. So bear that in mind when you're thinking about it, but then it goes into the schedule and the schedule just keeps going and going and going and going. And honestly, it's, that's how often you need to do. I need act that all the time.

 

People think if they post it once that that's it, everybody will see it. Everybody will jump on it and everybody will, you know, go and get their lead magnet. But the truth is they won't. And then I get the question all the time was I don't want to irritate people. Well, you're not going to irritate people.

 

I promise you because of the fact that the chances are, they don't even see the post half the people we've talked before about algorithms and how they work and the fact that hardly anybody sees your post compared to the people who follow you. So you really, honestly, do not need to worry about bombarding people. And also if they are feeling bombarded, then they're not your customer, then not for you. So, okay. So that was the first thing I wanted to say that this needs to go on social media more than once and in more than one different view. So now you're putting it out regularly, social media, you've got these different posts going out and hopefully that will keep encouraging people to opt in.

 

The next place that you can put it is you can yeah. Put it as a popup on your website. I know they're a bit irritating, but they do work. You can change your cover image on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn to be your lead magnet and promote that and change your call to action buttons or your links in your social media profiles to go to your lead, to your lead magnet, you can do things like put it in your regular content.

 

So like I said, I've just talked to you about a lead magnet on my podcast and you might be listening and think actually I really need that. That's really perfect. And you might go and get it from that. So again, put it on your regular content. If you've got them. A blog or a podcast or a video. The other places you can look at putting it is, are you being interviewed anywhere?

 

So is this something that can help someone if you're doing a podcast interview or if you're stood on stage? So I often have lead magnets at the end of presentations. Now, obviously during this lockdown period, we are not stood on stages, but I'm doing lots of online different types of talks for different sort of events and there might be a lead magnet that works really well. I would just say to check that you can do that. Cause some events don't allow you to do that, but like I said, the point is you put it everywhere and you put it everywhere, multiple times. The same with your sales. Okay. So. When I talk about the Academy as a sales thing, I don't just literally put a post up saying, join my Academy it's brilliant. What I try and do is think of different and unique ways in which I can promote the Academy or the 90 day program. Where I'm selling it, but not in a horrible way. So I'm not just going "buy my stuff". So for instance, what I might do is I might post about a latest course that's gone in there. So we're just about to launch an amazing Instagram story course.

 

Honestly, it's taken me ages to do, but I'm so proud of it. I literally go through every button, every thing, every option you've gotten it and show you what they all mean. And then I give you loads of ideas and lots of creative and all this thing. But anyway, so I would talk about that on social media and I would go, "Hey members, the new Instagram story course is now live or active in the Academy".

 

This is what I talk about. And then I put that out is if I'm talking to the members and great that I would see that because they do follow me on social media with also, I tell them in other places as well. And then what happens is I get people go, "Oh, how do I get that?". And it's like, that's fine. Great. You can get it if you join the Academy.

 

So that is a really nice way of kind of selling your product or your service without feeling like you're selling it. Again, we have coaching calls, we have lives. So there's times where they can come on and ask me questions as this is evident, because this is why I'm doing this episode. And again, I'll promote that on my social media to say, "Hey everybody, look, we're going live in the group on Wednesday".

 

And then people will go, how do I get to do that? And it's like, well, you join the Academy. So honestly, it's, it's a really, really useful way in terms of thinking of it in different ways, rather than just straight up saying, "Look at my stuff, it's brilliant" things like let's say you make cakes for a living, you know, you would be posting pictures of the cakes just made, "Hey, cool this idea was, or what this one thing was". And then you'd go, you know, if you've got one for your next the occasion, then give me a shout. Or if you need this, then, whatever, whatever. If you're florist, you might show pictures of some flowers that have just come in or a bouquet that you've just created. So the sales posts don't have to be as direct and as sleazy selling as you think they have to be, they can be a fairly subtle way. Occasionally you will want to put a much more direct post in, but you can sort of mix them in with some of these more subtle type post. So again, you want to be putting that everywhere. You want to be posting all the time. You want to be mixing up the regular ones. So I think we do an Academy promotion posts twice a week, I think.

 

Um, but like I said, again, I'm posting an awful lot. So, how do you do all this without feeling like you're selling your soul to the devil? And I know this is something that bothers people, a huge amount. And I want to, I want to just address that. And there's a few things I want to bring into this first off.

 

I want you to imagine that. Well, hang on, let me go back a bit. So first off you sell something that helps someone. Okay, without doubt. Now I sell membership and 90 day programs that help businesses get better at marketing so they can sell more. Okay. I am good at this because I have spent the last 16 years doing this over and over and over again.

 

I've learned it. I failed many times. I've learned why I failed. I fixed it. And now I know what to do. So you are doing the same, whether it is you're a personal instructor and you're helping people get fit. Whether you're photographer and you're creating beautiful photos for people to have as memories.

 

Whether you are a coach and you are helping people get through really difficult times, regardless of what your business is. And I want you to sit the night for a second and think,...

In this week’s podcast, I have the amazing Megan Hyatt Miller who is the chief operating officer at Michael Hyatt and Company. She is also the co-host of the popular Lead to Win Podcast. In this episode, we talk all about Michael Hyatt Company and how Megan runs it, as well as how you can stay focused and get work done without feeling overwhelmed. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Our life has different seasons – different things are possible in different seasons.
• Respect the constraints that you have in your life and don’t fight it.
• Your weekly big three are the three most important things you need to achieve each week.
• Instead of writing a huge to-list every day, try to focus on the top three things you need to do and then move onto any others IF you have time.
• The act of writing is really good to clarify things and have a sense of calm.
• Having a paper planner is like having a sense of control that you can hold in your hand.
• Success includes all parts of your life, not just work.
• To have a great day, you need to have a morning and night ritual.
• Self-care is important to support yourself.
• You can be successful without burning yourself out and make compromises.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…We have so much going on in our lives, so it is important to decide what you want to focus your energy on and what you want to achieve. When you plan and prioritise the important things, you will ultimately be more productive.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• An Introduction to Megan 05:54
• Working at Michael Hyatt Company 08:05
• Succession Planning and Diversifying 09:42
• Managing Your Time Efficiently 13:18
• The Season of Life 18:20
• The Full Focus Planner 22:20
• You Can Win at Work and Succeed at Life 34:00
• Journaling for Kids and Students 39:00
• What’s Next for Megan? 43:52

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast. How are you doing? I am sat recording this on a beautiful sunny day in Rochford in England. And I have to say, because we haven’t been able to get in a plane this year yet. I was missing, going to amazing sunny places like California and Nashville. And I was in Greece and Cyprus and Dubai last year. So I am really, really very grateful for the sun shining here because, I don’t know about you, but it totally makes a difference to my mood and how I feel. And obviously I’ve had my garden done. So after I’ve recorded this, I’m probably going to go and work in the garden, which will be heavenly. Anyway, haven’t come on to tell you a weather report. Today I have an amazing interview for you. I am interviewing the very lovely Megan Hyatt Miller, who it was such a delight actually. So nice to have her on. I really think you’re going to love this conversation. It was so, so enjoyable to do from my point of view. Now you might recognize the Hyatt name as I have had two or two members already at the Hyatt family. So I’ve obviously already had Michael Hyatt on the podcast and Megan is Michael’s daughter. And as you know that. Well, his other daughter, Megan’s sister, Mary is my coach and very dear friend and she’s been on the podcast twice. So it was so nice to add Megan to the lineup.

 

I feel like I should be interviewing their entire family, but I think we’re going to stop it at Megan, but it was great to chat with her. So let me tell you a little bit about Megan first. So Megan Hyatt Miller is the chief operating officer. At Michael Hyatt and company, she’s also the cohost of the lead to win podcast, which is consistently featured in the top 10 of iTunes. As a leader of leaders, she is the grand architect of Michael Hyatt and company successful achievement focused culture. Today, she teaches other companies, how to practically craft a company culture that makes a double win effortless. Uh, they have a sort of phrase that they win at work and win at life. She enjoys her free time with her husband and check this, five children. Five. There’s a woman is basically chief operating officer at a hugely successful business that is in an industry that is incredibly fast moving.

 

And she does all this while being mum to five children, which completely blew my mind and these children. And I think she says it on the podcast. We’ve got a couple of teenagers. A couple of boys who were around sort of 10, 11, I think. And then a baby who is only just turned one like, WOW. So in this episode we talk all about Michael Hyatt and company and how Megan runs the company and what she does in there. But the reason I bought Megan on is because Megan is one of the people behind the full focus planner. And I use the full focus planner to help me stay organized. Now I’ve tried so many planners and I have to say, I failed dismally at loads of them. Couldn’t get on with them, thought I loved them. And then we did it for three days and then be done. I have been using the full focus plan and I for six months solidly and consistently, and I love it. And they’ve got some great thoughts and opinions on how you can actually stay focused and get work done without the overwhelm, without having hundreds of things on your, to do list. So that’s what we talk about in today’s episode.

 

And like I said, It was just such a lovely conversation, loved chatting to her, really enjoyed it. The other thing that you should know is while I was in Nashville last year, Mary, very kindly, this is before see way before lockdown. Took me to Michael’s and Michael Hyatt companies offices. Oh, my actual word.

 

You have never seen offices. Like it. They’re beautiful. This so, so amazing. And the culture that they’ve created in that business is, is phenomenal. So honestly, I think you’re gonna love today’s episode. Megan was just delight to interview and it was so nice to have a chat with us, so please enjoy. Okay. So it gives me such pleasure today to welcome to the podcast. The very lovely Megan Hyatt Miller, Megan, welcome to the podcast.

 

Megan: Hey, it’s so great to be with you. I’m so excited to be here.

 

Teresa: I honestly, and I’m really, really excited to have you on, and it feels like I’m slowly getting the entire Hyatt family on the podcast. It feels like, you know, should I get your mom on? Should we get one of the other sisters on?

 

Megan: Of course.

 

Teresa: Obviously your, your dad, Michael Hyatt, very kindly come on and we’ve had Mary on a couple of times. So it seems perfectly fitting and wonderful that you agreed to come on because one, it’s nice to have all three of you, but two you and your take is very different and your life is very different from, from what we get from them, which is really cool. So, so in case my audience don’t know, you, can you just give them a brief overview of what you do and how you got to be doing what you do?

 

Megan: Absolutely. So I’m the chief operating officer of Michael Hyatt and company, which is obviously a family business. You know, you just heard Teresa say that. Uh, my dad has been on the podcast, Michael Hyatt before.

And so we have a leadership development company and our mission is to help overwhelmed successful leaders, get the focus that they need so they can win at work. And succeed at life that when it work and succeed at life, part of our mission is really what gets us out of bed every morning. Definitely what gets me out of bed because I’m also a mom of five kids, including three kids that are adopted as of two kids who were my stepkids and three kids who were adopted. So we have an interesting family and I’m running a company. And so that’s what I’m trying to figure out. You know, how can I grow this company and build this life that I want at home and do both at the same time. So that’s a big part of who we are. And one of the things that we offer is called the full focus planner, which Teresa, I know you are a big fan of and love. Yup. And we’ll probably talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Um, but that is a quarterly planner that helps people just really, um, kind of cut through all the distraction that we’re experiencing right now. And, you know, kind of no matter what time it is, um, so that you can focus on what really matters and get those things done. So anyway, we do all kinds of things, including goal achievement and, uh, leadership development. As I said, coaching, um, related to that and productivity also. Um, and mostly right now we’re a virtual company. Like everybody else, we were already significantly virtual, but now we’re a hundred percent virtual and, uh, people are trying to figure out just like you guys are how to do it with your kids at home and all the rest. And it’s an interesting journey, right.

 

Teresa: For sure. That is a very good word for it. Interesting.

 

Megan: Yeah. And air quotes. That was my interesting, that’s what you can see us.

 

Teresa: So Megan how long have you worked at Michael Hyatt and Company

 

Megan: Since 2012. So it’s been a while.

 

Teresa: Yeah. What was that like to go and work with your dad? Like. Cause quite honestly, not that my dad has a company, but I couldn’t imagine working with my dad.

 

Megan: Well, you know, people ask me this a lot and I always say, if the relationship is good, it will be probably better when you’re in business with each other. If it’s not, run, like it’ll make it worse. So that’s always the advice I give. But, you know, it’s funny. I came to work for my dad at that point. In 2012, I had just brought my two younger boys home. They were, um, three and 14 months old when we adopted them from Uganda. And I thought I was going to be a stay at home mom. So I’d quit my previous job. I was in communications and I thought I’m going to just be a stay at home mom. And for nine months I was. About to rip my hair out by the roots. So I love my kids, but I was like, I got to talk to some adults, you know? And so I just went to work with him part time and over a pretty short period of time, it just became more and more. And I. Have more and more responsibility until eventually I was running the whole business and now we’re in business together. So, um, it’s a really special thing and we have a lot of fun. We, I think, think a lot of light, a lot of like, and we’re really complimentary with each other. So for us, you know, just the fact that we have a great relationship and we’re really committed to transparency and great communication has made it, um, honestly easy and loads of fun. So I’m enjoying that.

 

Teresa: Yeah. And I can see that. And I think from an outsider, looking in and watching the things that you guys put up and how you are when you are together, it obviously works so well for you. Doesn’t it. And the other thing that I wanted to ask, it’s really interesting. And I, I I’ve heard your dad say this before, is that he, he wants, he’s obviously getting to a point where he’s starting to step back a bit and step back a bit, hence why you are in charge and you are leading it, but how do you. How is the vision of running a company with his name on, you know, do you think that matters? Do you think that people will want him always or cause that transition must be, you’ve got to plan that out and think about it.

 

Megan: Absolutely. That’s a great question. Well, we kind of began the conversation about succession planning probably at least three years ago, and really came up with the plan that we have now that we’re executing. So I’ll become the CEO of the company in January of 2022. Um, And he will continue to write, uh, for our audience. He will speak on behalf of the company, you know, a number of times a year, but he has other things he wants to do as well. And so our intention is to during that period of time between now and then to continue to raise my profile, but actually, um, we’re not really looking to replicate or to fill the role that he’s going to vacate with my personality. Um, we want to spread that among a number of people and really have a kind of, uh, the voice of our brand rise up and fill that space rather than it being just totally a personality oriented brand, because there’s some limitations to that that, um, you know, obviously, uh, you know, you’re, you’re limited when only one person is kind of the face of the brand.

 

So we’re intentionally diversifying that. So it’s not just me. It’s not going to just be him. It’s going to be other people as well, because I think that gives not only freedom for the two of us, but it also provides a diversity of perspectives, which I think is very relevant right now. So that’s kind of how we’re approaching it.

 

Teresa: And I see that already. I see that you’ve got two younger people on the podcast. Is it leads when podcasts that no. That’s your podcast.

 

Megan: The focus on this podcast, which is the one for the planner.

 

Teresa: Yes. So obviously they’re younger. You’ve got a different demographic. Yeah. Also, I really liked the fact of when I look at, you know, your business, I love the fact that you or the other person, because your dad, you know, he’s been in corporate worlds. He’s very corporate looking guy. He’s a lovely, lovely guy, but he’s, you know, he’s been in business a long time. Yeah. You bring a different perspective. You bring that you’re managing now with young children. Just, you know, your, your daughter’s almost a year old, like, and I think what’s so smart about this is to the company. You’re bringing lots of people who might not resonate with, you know, I resonate probably better with you, you talk about because I’m a mom.

 

Megan: We’re in the same season of life. Yeah, exactly.

 

Teresa: You know, where is other people will definitely look at your dad and go, you know, get that other people will want someone younger, like the people on the podcast. So yeah, I think that it’s a great movement. Like you said, it’s really hard to have an entire company around one person because a...

 

Megan: Lot of pressure.

 

Teresa: Isn’t, isn’t up to it that day, or doesn’t want to go and speak on a stage or, you know, so I think, I think it’s a great move. So let’s talk about. Because when you, when you say your bio, when you say who you are and what you do, I think people, and I know lots of my listeners are women. I know lots of them are business owners, lots of them have their own children and manage families and homes. And they’re probably sat there going say, “What ? You did what? Did you have an extra, like six hours in your day that we don’t know about”. How on earth do you manage doing everything you do?

 

Megan: Well, it’s not magic that’s for sure. I think that it it’s come really from clarity around what I want for my life. And two of my kids have special needs. Uh, the boys that we adopted from Uganda had some special needs. Actually many of those have gotten better over the years, but when we first brought them home, I was quite overwhelmed with, um, what they were going to need.

From me as their mom to really kind of heal from the early experiences that they had had and be in a place where they were thriving. And so I knew that it was not going to be an option for me to kind of let the reigns out on my ambition to the point of working, you know, 50, 60, 70 hours a week, you know, as a, as an entrepreneur, I knew that was not possible without sacrificing my family. And so when my dad came to me and said, um, you know, Hey, I think it’s time for you to start running the company for you to become the COO. I said, well, I don’t know if I can do that because I’ve got these kids and they’ve got a lot of needs. And, and I just thought about it and I thought, okay, you know what? They are in school at this point. I think I could do this. If I could be done every day by 3:30 in the afternoon so that when they come home from school, I can be totally present because otherwise they’re with the babysitter after school. And then, um, you know, it’s bedtime by the time we have dinner, it’s bedtime shortly after, and there’s not a lot of time left for me to do what they need. So that was the parameter that I put in place. And I said, I can do this, but I’m going to work from nine to 3:30 every day. That’s it. End of story and whatever doesn’t fit in that timeframe is just, you know, just a no go. And so about 90 to 95% of the time I adhere to that and I’ve done that for years since they were little, you know, they’re now 10 and 12.

 

And like I said, they were three and 14 months when they came home. So that has the constraints of that have driven really. Pretty extraordinary innovation on my part in clarity, around my priorities, because you know, in, in only that amount of time, every day, I don’t have time to do anything. That’s not important. You know, I can’t waste time. I can’t get distracted with things that I could delegate to somebody else. Um, I can’t have pointless meetings. I have to do. You know, a solid day because it’s shortened day of high leverage work. And that has really worked well for me. I would say that that vision for my personal life has been what’s enabled me to professionally succeed.

 

Teresa: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s the thing, isn’t it? Because often I talk about the fact that people start their own business, they go into their own business thinking, Oh, I’ll have the freedom. Now what I had was more work than I ever more time that I had to work than I ever knew. And there’s that constant for mums, especially the, when I’m with my daughter, I don’t feel like I’m giving that enough attention when I’m here. And she’s sure like, and obviously at the moment it’s even worse.

 

Megan: Oh gosh.

 

Teresa: I’ll be on a call like this, where I’m on screen and I’m talking to someone and even, and it’s happened a couple times, even when my door’s shut, it’ll start to sneak open and she’ll come and just stand. And I’ll be like, with my arm, like, get your word, like, try to like, let it be seen on my face. It’s so hard. Cause you feel like just trying to juggle it all. You never feel. I think sometimes that you’re never quite doing the right thing at the right point. And I think the other thing that’s interesting and one thing I love about. What you portray in particular through your own social media, through when I’ve seen you? I was very lucky that I got to see you in Nashville at the end of last year.

 

Megan: That was so fun.

 

Teresa: It was really fun, really, really fun. And also it was, um, it was, I think my last trip since.

 

Megan: Oh, right.

 

Teresa: Which is just like I can’t believe it, but I really gotta play it again. Um, but yes, and it was a great, great trip, but some, one of the things that I loved is that you’re very honest about the struggle, but this is hard because

 

Megan: It is hard.

 

Teresa: I think if you like me, I, and I know you, you know, we read a lot, we look at a lot of entrepreneurs. We, we try and model things and see things and think like, Oh, this is great. We’re going to try this and do this. And you see some people and you’re like, “How on earth, do they do that?” And one thing that we talked about at the time was talking about...

In this week’s podcast we are going to be talking all about podcasting and how you can start your very own podcast! Here are all the things you should be considering if you want to start a podcast. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• You need to have an outlet to give your audience long form content. For example, a blog, podcast or videos.
• As a business owner, you need consistent content.
• Podcasts are great if you like to talk, as opposed to write – you have to like what you’re doing.
• Set yourself a length of time you are going to guarantee to yourself how long you will be consistent for.
• Practise talking to yourself and record it – see what it is like.
• We are our own worst critic, get someone else to listen to your first recording to check it.
• Think about what kind of podcast you are going to have.
• Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to have an interview for every single episode.
• If you are going to interview people and you want some great people on your podcast, it will take time.
• Will you do episodes or seasons? Think about consistency here.
• Think about the name of your podcast and your artwork.
• Google your name idea and search in iTunes and Stitcher – ideally you don’t want your podcast name to be the same as someone else’s!
• You will need an intro and outro to describe what your podcast is about.
• Intro script – summarise what your podcast is about and why people would listen to it. Needs to also explain what your listeners will get
• Outro – if you like the episode please like and subscribe or leave a review (Call to action)

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…A podcast is a brilliant way to give your audience consistent, long-from content. There is a big process to it, but hopefully this episode has helped you to break down all the different things you need to consider when setting up a podcast. Having a podcast is very rewarding so it is all worth it!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Consistent content - 05:27
• 5 steps to getting your podcast started - 09:00
• The process of a podcast - 33:01

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Phil King
• Contact Phil
• Becci (show notes)
• Download
• Audacity
• Wave
• Captive

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing so for me, it's been a bit of a tough few weeks. If I'm honest, I think generally in the world at the moment we are going through a lot of stuff. It's very hard and heavy, and there's a lot of things going on that can really affect our mood. And unfortunately, I've had some pretty horrible news myself that has also affected my own, uh, mood of myself. So it's been tough, but do you know what I've sent an email out to the Academy members yesterday saying we need to bring more light into our lives and I need to bring some fun and easiness and enjoyment because I don't know about you, but I think I've got to this point in lockdown and I am done. I just want to go out for dinner.

I feel like a child having a tantrum. I want to go out for dinner. I want to see my friends. I want to hug my family and I am now finding it quite tough, which is interesting because up until I don't know, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I was all right with it, really, I think. And I was really okay with it at the beginning when lots of people were nervous about it, whereas now I'm done and I want to travel. And the thought of not getting on a plane this year fills me with so much upset. I can't tell you because travelling is our worlds. That's what my husband's and I love to do. I love to stand on a stage and speak. And the thought that I can't do that again is really, really hard going, and, and with this other sad news on top, it's been a tough few weeks, but as I've said, I'm determined that I need to bring some fun and light and laughter back into my life.

So I am trying so very hard to find so much gratitude and positivity of everything at the moment. So yeah, I just, I was conscious last week, that last except set, I'd probably send it a little bit rushed and a little bit, uh, not my usual self. So I just wanted to say that that might be the reason why, and I'm trying super hard to stay as positive as possible, which I hope you guys are too. It is a tough time and we are all struggling. So I am hopefully here to keep you smiling. My mum said to me the other day that if I get upset, then we know we've got a problem because I am known for being the happy jovial joke, making smiley person in my family. So, uh, that is what I'm going to continue to do while we are going through this tricky time.

Also, in case you missed it and you do want some positivity and motivation, then do go check out [inaudible] episode, which was three episodes back ago. It was, uh, episode 120. It was so good. I got so many great comments about it. So if you are in need of some motivation, maybe I should go back and listen to it myself. Then do go listen to that. Anyway, let's get on with today's episode and I've decided that I'm going to dedicate today's episode to the subject of podcasting and starting your own podcast. Then let me explain why I want to do this because, well, one, I have done an episode on podcasting before, but that was a long, long time ago. Something like episode 19. I think if I remember, rightly I say, remember, rightly I obviously have not remember the number I went and checked it earlier and I forgotten, again, it wasn't a case of, I can remember what episodes I did walk, cause I honestly can't.

I can barely remember what happened at arrogance. So I want, I haven't done enough set up for a long time, but to, as you may know, I have a 90 day programme where I work more closely with business owners who are trying to achieve and are achieving amazing thing in their industry. They're normally launching an online product or an online brand. And we go through a whole process of basically, how do they make sure they're getting seen? How do they get people on their email list? How do they then launch and sell the thing that they're selling? So something that's come up a lot recently is that a number of them have decided that podcasting is the way to go for them and that that's going to help them in the getting seen category. And obviously I have a podcast and I am a big fan of them.

So in the process and the conversations we've been having, I've realised that more and more and more people are looking to start podcasts. So I thought, why not do a whole episode on talking about the things that you should be considering? If you want to start a podcast, now you might be sat there thinking, well, I don't want to start a podcast. Why do I need to listen to this? But as always, I am sure there are things that you can pick up in between even if podcasting is not for you.

 

Consistent content

 

Okay, let's get started now, first off, let me just remind you because I feel like I need to, again, I do it every opportunity and you're probably a bit bored of it, but why you need that consistent content. If you are sat listening to this podcast today, right now I am in your ears and you don't have a blog or a video series or live videos or a podcast or something where you are showing up on a very regular basis, ideally weekly, but it doesn't have to be, but you are not consistently showing up giving people longer form content.

So I don't just mean your social media. Then I am telling you right now, and I would love you to come and challenge me on this, but I'm telling you, you need to be. So if you are sat there right now, thinking to reason, I don't need any of those things, then please, please come and find me, please come and DM me on your favourite platform and tell me what you do, because I'd like to find the exception to the rule. But honestly, I can't see. And I've yet to come across a single business owner that does not need some consistent content. So before the podcast, I had a blog, I was terrible at it. Okay. Hands up dreadful. I was inconsistent. I lacked the motivation to want to do it. I dabbled at writing it myself. I got copywriters to write it with me, telling them what's right, but generally was not a big fan.

And you know what? No one read it. Well, I say no. And I'm sure a handful of people did, but hardly anybody in comparison to where I am with the podcast today. And it was torture. I hated the thought of doing it. I would sit staring at a blank screen and would have no idea where to start. And then I discovered podcasting and thought to myself, I've been told my entire life. I talk too much. Surely this has got to be one benefit when it comes to podcasting. So obviously the first thing I want to say is that you must have this consistent content. Podcasting might not be it, but the reason I chose podcasting over everything else was the fact that I do like to talk. And I hate to right now, as you will know, if you're on my email list, I write to you every Wednesday.

And I wrote those, write those emails. You can probably tell by the typos, but as I've told you a million times, I hate writing. So that's why podcasting for me was so much better. And you know what? Most of the time are not aligned States constantly, but most of the time it's easy. I think of something to say, I know my subject, I know what I'm talking about. And I say it, I hit record. Like I've done today. I have literally about four lines of scribbled notes about things I want to make sure I include, but otherwise I just talk. So for me, choosing the right content is so important. You've got to be able to like what you're doing now. You don't have to love it, but you, if you hate it, you're never going to do it. So think about that. Think about, do you like to write, do you mind going on videos, would you rather just do live videos rather than do all the editing and the prep and the process stuff?

Do you like talking? Do you want to do a podcast? So that's my first thing to think about. Choose something that you love. Also, I would say choose something that your audience is going to love, but in all honesty, I think any level of content is great. So I would be more concerned about what you can get on with. So if you're sat there thinking, okay, yeah, let's go with podcasting. That could be a good option for me.

 

5 steps to getting your podcast started

 

I just want to take you through five main steps that I've got to getting started for the podcast. The things that you need to think about to ensure that you are going about this the right way and ensuring that you are starting something that you want to continue with because there's no point going yet. I'm going to go all out with a podcast and then not do it properly or not hit your kind of consistency.

So you've got to take this seriously if you're going to do it. So there's a couple of ways that I've got that might help you do that. And I, let me remind you, cause I know I've said this before on the podcast a few times, but I started the podcast and I, my assistant at the time asked me, how long was I going to be doing it for before I knew whether it worked or not. And I told her 12 months now I know some people would like 12 months, you can begin it. That's 52 episodes of a podcast. That's more than 52 hours of my life. And do you know what I knew? I had to give it some time. And I was right too, because in the first nine months I had some steady growth, but nothing crazy. Amazing. And then suddenly month nine just shot out of nowhere.

All these new listeners, all these new downloads, it was like, suddenly everybody woke up and realised I was still showing up every single week. And therefore that's what I want you to think about as well. So whatever you start, I need you to be consistent. And I need you to set a length of time that you're going to guarantee to yourself that you are going to be consistent for. Okay? All that being said, the very first step of starting a podcast might surprise you. But what I want you to do at the very beginning before you do anything else is I literally want you to try and record an episode. I don't want you to buy the mic. I don't want you to sign up for the systems. I don't want you to do anything else at this point. If you are sat there thinking, Oh, I really want to do a podcast.

I want you to almost put your money where your mouth is. And I want you to record an episode. Now, one of the easiest ways you can do this is I would do something like zoom. I would go on to zoom as if you're going to be having a meeting. And I would hit record as if you're recording a meeting and I would just talk to yourself. There's lots of other ways you can do it. Lots of the systems is things on your phone. There's dictation things on your phone, but honestly I would try and record an episode, pick a subject in your industry that you love, pick something that you know, you're going to be able to talk about and just see what it's like. Because the ability to sit and talk to yourself for some length of time, I, I guess there is a skill to it. I don't feel particularly skillful. I just feel like I'm one of these people who can talk for Britain, but there is obviously some kind of skill to it and it might not be your bag. And the last thing you want to do is commit all this time

And money and effort into buying the equipment, coming up with the designs, thinking of the name, doing the process, and then go to record an episode and realise you hate it. So I want you to do that first, if you want to do too great. Because one of the 90 day students that worked with me, she said to me, threes, I've just spent the last, like it was some obscene amount of hours, like five hours talking to myself. I don't know how you do it. And I think she had to do that to know whether she could do it ongoing. So that's what I want you to do. Step one. I want you to have a go actually hitting record. Now, one thing I want to tell you is I don't want you to go back and necessarily listen to the episode and start judging yourself because I'm telling you it won't be good. And we know that we know that when we start things, we're not good at them. And the only way we can be good at them is that we keep going and we keep doing it. The first episodes that I did with a Bismal, like I literally could hear myself and don't go back and listen, I promise you. It's not worth it. I can literally hear myself like clicking to stop the microphone. I was like, so on and off, whereas now I hardly ever stopped recording.

I was about to say, I tend to just keep rolling. And I make very few mistakes. I need to stop. But you know what? I just did. It was like, I dunno, it was like the universe go, here we go. I'll make you make a mistake. The, so I had to stop, delete that last bit and then carry on. But that probably happened like two or three times in an entire episode. And they only happened in the solos because obviously the interviews, we don't do them like that. We just roll. So anyway, that's what I want you to do. That's why I want you to test it, but don't go back and judge yourself. Don't go back and go, Oh God, I sound awful. You're going to think you sound awful. I'm sure if I listened to my stuff while I'm telling you, if I do listen to my stuff sometimes, and I think, Oh God, you sound like an idiot.

But at the end of the day, we are our worst critic. So maybe give it to someone else, listen to if you want, if you do. And if you are concerned of Bates, like I'm going to keep messing up now on say, I'm determined. I'm not going to stop this recording. After I just said to you, I don't stop them. Right. I'm not going to mess up positive mindset, Theresa. Okay. So give it to someone else to listen to. If you are concerned that you just want to check it saying it's okay, don't worry about your same quality at this point. Just try speaking to yourself about your subjects and see how it feels. Okay. That's step number one. So let's say we got past at number one and you think, do you know what that was? All right. I can think I can do this every week. Then let's think about step number two. What kind of podcasts are you going to have now? This is one of the things I think about it straight away, or I would think about it straight away. Because when I started the podcast, it was something like 20 something episodes was.

So I think it's like 25 were all solo episodes. And the reason I did that is cause I didn't want to have the added pressure of having to find a guest. And in all honesty, I wanted the most, best brilliant kickass guests I could find when I had a guest. So I knew it was a waiting game because you don't get brilliant guests or it's very hard to get brilliant guests when your podcast is brand brand new. Now, lots of people, I'm not like this, but lots of people who go on podcasts and are interviewed, we'll ask you what your download numbers are. Well, if you've just started your download numbers and nothing or hardly anything so trying to get the most amazing person in your industry at that point could be a really tough call. So I knew I had to have some episodes in the bag as it were, but also I was given some great advice by strangely enough, the person that came onto my podcast as my first ever interview, Pat Flynn.

And he said to me, get really good at doing it first, get really good at recording and being on the podcast before you try and interview someone, because honestly that first, those first two interviews. So I interviewed Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield, my first two ever interviews like Holy moly. And do you know what? I was terrified? Like sat there. I was like, the whole house had to be quiet that sit in a room like no internet, no TV, like no lights of Jacob. They were light lights, but like I literally was panicking interviewing them and I was comfortable, but with podcasting and things by then, so I couldn't have imagined trying to do that at the same point as trying to get it all together. So that's what I did now. I'm not suggesting you do the same. I'm just saying what I did, but I do want you to think about, are you going to do just interviews?

Are you going to do some interviews or are you going to do no interviews because that's going to help you plan going forward. And the other thing I need to tell you is if you are going to interview people and you want some great people, then they're going to take time. They're not going to be able to suddenly jump on an interview tomorrow with you. And therefore you edit it by the end of the week and you have it ready for Monday that isn't going to be the case. So if you are going to interview, I want you to think about that. And again, I want you to think about how you can practise doing that before you do the real thing. Now, if you've been doing lives and interviews on lives, or you have a membership and you've been interviewing experts, then again, you've got some experience, but if you've got none, then, like I said, she did not want episode number one first time ever to be recording with someone who is...

In this week’s podcast we have the brilliant Marcus Sheridan who is the author of one of my favourite books – “They Ask, You Answer”. We are going to be talking about how this concept came about, why it is so important and how we can use this in our businesses going forward.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Make sure you are talking to your customer through your content. Show them what they want to see.
• Don’t over-complicate your content.
• Focus on the questions that your buyers want to know.
• The 5 subjects customers research – price/cost, problems/negatives, comparisons, reviews/ratings and the best thing.
• The mistake most companies make with their content, is to talk about answers that are not even in the buying funnel or they are the top of the funnel – you have to start at the bottom.
• The questions at the bottom of your buying funnel are the questions you get asked all the time.
• You should aim for 75% of your content to be focused on the 5 subjects that customers research.
• Be brave with your content – you don’t have to follow the rules and worry about what your competitors are doing!
• Teaching equates to trust. Trust equates to sales.
• Be honest and transparent with your customers.
• Over 80% of all people will not go to a restaurant if they don’t advertise their prices in their online menu.
• Over half of people will not buy what is in their basket if they can’t find a discount code after seeing the code box.
• When discussing pricing in your business, help your customer to understand the market place in general.
• The more specific companies are in talking about cost and price, the better the results become – more leads.
• Give your customers an educational experience.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Customers are unlikely to purchase the first time they see your product or service, but if you are helpful, supportive, answering questions and giving knowledge, they will take that and remember you to purchase in the future.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• An Introduction to Marcus 02:06
• Sales Initiative vs Marketing 09:22
• Revenue from Action 17:15
• Content Creation 20:23
• Answering your Customer’s Questions 26:30
• Being Brave with your Content 32:20
• Being Honest with your Customers 36:30
• Educational Resources 47:10

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How has your week been? I hope you've had a really good one. If you've been following me on Instagram, you'll see that my garden has been finished. If you're not fallowing me on Instagram, you might think, why am I talking about my garden? Well, basically, I have had some contractors in, and they have done my gardening, which is really exciting. And I've been putting on Instagram, and I got so much interaction that was wonderful. So I've been sharing the updates in there, and it was finished as I'm recording this, so a few days ago, by the time you get to listen to this. So, yeah, it's exciting stuff. So that's what I've been doing with my time. So I hope you've had a good week.

Anyway, this week we have a great interview for you. Now, you will know, because I've said it before, that one of my favourite books I've read for marketing is a book called They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan. And I was so very lucky to be given some of Marcus' time in order to bring him onto the podcast, to talk about how this came about, why it's so important, and how we can use it in our businesses going forward every day.

But, honestly, if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it because it gives you some really interesting ideas on the importance of content creation, and you know I go on about that all the time, but also about the types of things you want to address in your content creation. So I really recommend that you go and buy that book. It's a really good one. I'll link to it in the show notes.

 

An Introduction to Marcus

 

But let me tell you a little bit about Marcus. So Marcus is a sought-after international keynote speaker, and he's known for his unique ability to excite, engage, and motivate audiences. In 2017, Forbes named Marcus one of 20 speakers you don't want to miss. And he's being dubbed the web marketing guru by The New York times, and featured in Inc, The Globe Mail, Forbes, and more.

As the finder and president of the Sales Lion, which recently merged with IMPACT in 2018, Marcus has established one of the most successful digital sales and marketing agencies in the country. Within his speaking company, Marcus Sheridan International, Inc, he gives over 70 global keynotes annually. Well, he probably did before lockdown happened. And Mashable rated his book, They Ask You Answer, as the number one marketing book to read in 2017. Forbes has listed it as 11 marketing books that every CMO should read.

So, honestly, this guy wrote a book that kind of changed how we viewed content marketing. And I am so very honoured to be able to bring him to you, to the podcast, and be today's interview. So I hope you enjoy.

Okay. I am really, really excited to welcome today's guest to the podcast. Marcus Sheridan, welcome to the podcast.

Yeah, Teresa, it's a pleasure to be here. And hopefully, we'll have a fruitful conversation for our listeners today. So I'm excited about it.

I am really excited about it, because I think my listeners know I listen and read books all the time, and I always get something from there. But you know, when you just devour a book and go, yes, yes, and yes, and yes?

Right.

That's what I did for the entire thing. So to get you on to talk about it is just brilliant. But before we do, can you just give a little bit of an overview for my listeners in case they haven't heard from you before, just kind of who you are, and how you got to do what you're doing today?

Well, I started actually right out of university as a pool guy, believe it or not. I fell into a business in 2001 with two friends. And I didn't ever think I was going to sell swimming pools, but that's just how it ended up after school. And things were going okay until 2008 when the market crashed. It looked like we were going to lose our business, and I talked to three consultants at that time, they all said the same thing, "You should file bankruptcy, Marcus."

The issue though was, if I had done that, I'd lose my home, my two business partners would lose their homes, my 16 employees at the time would lose their jobs, so we had to figure out how to really get back over that edge. We didn't have much money, we didn't have any money, we didn't have any [inaudible 00:04:50] time for the most part. And it was a really, really scary time in my life. But it was during this period of time where I essentially dove into all of the stuff that you and I today know as inbound marketing, content marketing, social media.

And, for me, really, it started at HubSpot's site, and that's where it started to click for me. What I had in my simple just pool guy mind was, Marcus, if you just obsess over your customers questions, and you're willing to address them honestly and transparently, you might save your business.

And so that's what we did. I brainstormed every single question I had ever received from a customer about pools. And I said, I'm going to write an answer in an article or video format once a day, until I stop, right?

And to make a long story short, we ended up becoming what is essentially the Wikipedia of in-ground swimming pools here in the US. And today, it's the most traffic swimming pool website in the world. And we went on to have ... We were having so much success in terms of lead generation, and our brand became so national in many ways that we started manufacturing fibreglass pool shells as well.

So, today, we have fibreglass pool, [inaudible 00:06:06] river pools dealers, franchisees now, it's a franchise now, all over the country. We have dealers everywhere. We're was the fastest growing manufacturer in the US. And so that's been one major section of my life, and it's all because of the crash of 2008.

The other side of that, because what was happening, I started to write about it personally, like here's some things that I'm doing, these are working pretty cool. I figured everybody should know this stuff. And it turns out that I was doing stuff that just people had done. But they were obvious to me, this philosophy of They Ask You Answer led me to the 1000 mindset, I was like, I'm going to answer every question. But if you actually lean into that, you're doing stuff that's innovative, it's all get out.

And so I started writing about it. And then suddenly, I had events say, "Could you share that at our events?" Somebody would say, "Could you teach me how to do that?" So that led to demand to build out a consulting company, which has today become IMPACT, which is a almost 70-person firm in the US digital sales and marketing. So I have that and couple partners there.

And then I have a speaking company, and that's really what I do full time when we're not suffering from pandemics. And so, I have given about 60, 70 keynotes a year really just all over the world, the last 7, 8 years, something like that now. And it's really been amazing. It's been the most amazing ride, but all because of the crash of 2008.

I mean, that story is phenomenal in so many ways. That, first off, you said you went into it straight from university.

Yeah.

Because when you read, it almost feels like it was such a long time ago. It almost feels like you must be double the age you are because it feels like so much happened. So the fact that you went straight into business from university is kind of one thing, because that is a big scary thing to do. Was that always your intention? Did you always know, I'm going to run my-

No. And I certainly didn't know I was going to be a pool guy, right? Nobody grows up saying, "I want to be a pool guy," right?

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's extremely rare. What happened was, believe it or not, my two friends had started this company, and they had just signed a lease for a retail outlet where they could sell hot tubs and stuff. And I had graduated from university, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And they said, "Hey, we've got this thing." And I'm like, okay, I don't really want to do that. Because, again, who wants to be pool guy, right? And this was what was on my mind at the time. And I didn't realise that titles were actually quite overrated yet, but that you can ... It's not about so much the type of business that dictates your happiness, it is more of what can I do to make this special? And you want to grow something, right?

So that's what I realised, is I just wanted to grow something. But I didn't know that. I was their first employee, they asked me six months in to be a partner. So that's how we were the first [inaudible 00:09:21] essentially.

But I became a partner because I obsessed over learning about the stuff that I was selling. I'm like, well, I'm here, I'm going to learn about it. So quickly, I knew more about hot tubs than they did in terms of information. And I just dove into it like I do with most stuff, and they were impressed, and they wanted me to be a partner. And so that's how that happened.

And I didn't have any business schooling or anything like that. You know what you're ... I think one of the things I'm most grateful for is I didn't have any marketing schooling. I think marketing, especially in universities, screws people up big time. Not everybody, there's exceptions to this, but because it's moving so fast. I had never seen a university student read the book before, and I've had a bunch read the book because, thank goodness, I've now had professors find the book and start teaching it, and that's happening more commonly. But the ones that didn't have it in class, they were like, "I was never taught any of this stuff." And they're not. It's just not being taught.

It's really unfortunate because I think, if you look at the theme of the book, which is, be the best teacher in the world, lean into transparency, be willing to do, think like a buyer, and adjust to what your buyers want in terms of the way that you say it, and teach it, and sell it. That should be common sense, right? But it's very uncommon.

And that's the thing. And that's what's interesting, like you said, A, you haven't come from marketing background. So, for me, being in marketing, having a degree in marketing, which I totally agree with you, and I openly tell the world that what I sat in university for three years and learnt is nowhere near what I do today.

True.

And to be fair, it wasn't the case the minute I left university, it was a very different world. But it's the sheer fact that I've kept up with the speed of change, and embraced everything, and never sat there and thought, I know all this, hence why I read all the time. So I think the fact that you hadn't come from marketing, and yet you picked up on a concept that as a marketer is very hard to sell to businesses.

It's very difficult.

So as a marketer, you can look at this concept, and see how amazing it is, and what it can do to try and then go into a company, and go, this is what you should do. That very resistant tip because there's lots of things that probably come up for them. So for you to sit there and think, you know what, this is a really good idea, and just effectively come up with it yourself, effectively just go, how could this benefit the business? And then just go and do it without coming from that background, I just think is absolutely insightful.

Well, I think that what's fascinating to me is, over the course of talking about this stuff over 10 years now, the number one email that I've received from readers, and listeners, and audience members, you would think would be, "Hey, Marcus, I'm on a business, and I need more traffic leads and sales." That's actually number two. Number one is from marketers who are frustrated in their organisation, and they're ready to leave because they feel like they catch a vision, but their cohorts, their peers, their sales manager, or the leadership team doesn't catch the vision. And so because of that, they want to leave. It's the number, one email that I've received. And I probably get a couple a week. It's really fascinating. So why is that happening?

I think there's a few different reasons why this is happening. But, ultimately, I really do for the most part blame marketers. And the reason for that is, I think we as marketers talk like marketers. And it's not until you learn to talk the language of sales, and the language of leadership, that you really start to get the ear of everybody else that you need to win within the organisation.

And again, this goes back to the way universities can mess us up, again, there's exceptions. But the reason why They Ask You Answer has just done so well as a book, it's because it wasn't written for marketers, and it doesn't have marketing speak, marketing lingo in it, right? So in other words, no business owner, I shouldn't say no, but very few get really pumped about content, right? They surely don't get pumped about marketing. What they get pumped about is if you say things like, so if you had a choice, would you like to be the most trusted voice in your space? When anybody thinks of a question they think of a need, that they think your company name, would you like that as a business owner? Everybody's going to say, yes.

If I go to a business owner and I say to them, "So do you think teaching, really teaching, really addressing your customer's questions needs, worries, concerns, do you think that's going to be fundamental to your business in 20 years?" Every single one's going to say, "Oh, absolutely." But if I said to them, "So do you think content marketing is going to be fundamental to your business in 20 years?" They're going to be like ... you're going to get this whole array of answers. And so that's part of the problem.

So when I teach or speak, I literally obsess over using as little marketing-isms as possible. And one other thing I'll say about this, I learned a long time ago that if you want to get something approved in business, you call it a sales initiative. If you want to get it rejected or tabled for later, you call it marketing.

That is such a good point. And when I think back two years ago, when I used to work in corporate world, I did marketing for Land Rover, and you'd barely be near the sales team. Whereas, now, when you think about how it should be, it's like, how on earth did we do our jobs, when we literally had no contact with the customer or very little contact with the customer? How did we even know what to say, or do, or how to connect to them? And how the world is now, and how all of that is almost mashed into one, and needs to come from the same common place, which is serving the customer, and listening to the customer, and hearing what they've got to say.

Yeah. So I think this is a really good point. Some of the most progressive companies that I've worked with when it comes to business mindset, they've literally said, "So we have a revenue team that consists of sales and marketing," right, individuals. And if you look too, at the way the buyer has changed, so much of the sale happens before they even you know them as a company, before the first handshake, etc. Then we have to make major adjustments for this whole, the 70% of the buy decision is made before they actually talk to the company.

So as part of that, I think the two responsibilities sets to be viewed is this, sales teams have to say, we are very responsible for the marketing side of the business, we are responsible to these subject matter experts, we are responsible to make sure that during that 70% when they're engaging us, but we don't know it, when they're vetting us digitally, that they get everything that they could possibly want to know, they could find everything they could possibly want to know, that nothing slows them down. There's no friction. We're not holding back on them. That's sales job, because they're the ones that have their ear to the ground, right? They're the ones that have all these questions.

Yeah, yeah.

They're supposed to be the best subject matter experts.

And then marketing's job though now has to evolve too. They can't be like they always were and be in the land of [inaudible 00:17:12]. They have to be responsible for revenue, for certain element of revenue, not all of the revenue, but they have to.

And marketers are notoriously underpaid. The reason why they're underpaid is because they don't show revenue. The moment you start showing revenue, you get raises. You just do. But if you don't show revenue, you can't expect for a CFO to come in and say, "You know what, you're just doing a great job, your campaigns are just so beautiful, your impressions are really great and wonderful." So you don't get raises off of impressions. That's not how it works, people. You should tie revenue back to campaigns. And when you do that, you win, right?

And so, the other thing about the book is, you notice in the book, I consistently say things like, so you should talk about cost and price in your website, and we did this one time, and here's how we did it. And here's the piece of content, and it generated over, now to that 10 million in sales or some stupid number now. But I always put a number

In this week’s podcast we will be talking all about launching your online product or service. I am going to talk you through all the different steps involved, and some of the key things that make the real difference in terms of the success of a launch. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• Launching an online product or service is a bit like baking a cake – you have to follow the steps and the process.
• This is not a quick win, it takes time.
• You need to create consistent content in the warm up phase so people can engage with you on a regular basis – you need to be known for your product or service.
• Start building your email list!
• Love your audience, keep showing up.
• You can launch a product or service through masterclasses, webinars, live videos, waitlists or challenges.
• You need to demonstrate what they are going to get if they then purchase from you – give them a taster.
• The day you do the webinar, masterclass or challenge, is the day you start selling.
• Start planning your launch 6 weeks in advance.
• Being live makes it easier to have that conversation whilst they are sat there and they also get to ask you questions.
• Create downloads and workbooks to add value.
• Consider your price point – you should offer a discounted rate for people to buy straight away. You could offer a payment plan.
• Open cart or closed cart – is there going to be a day where people can no longer join?
• Your sales page is SO important – there is a download on my website and a course in my academy on this subject.
• Consider why people didn’t buy – follow up with a survey for feedback.
• Don’t forget to love the members you already have.
• Review all of your steps before relaunching.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Launching an online product or service is a LONG process, there are so many different steps to it but I promise, if you have the drive and the desire to have an online business, it can be the most wonderful thing.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Quick launch - 04:00
• The warm up phase - 06:37
• The pre-launch - 16:21
• The actual launch - 22:58
• Post-launch - 31:28
• Retention and relaunch - 33:23

Transcript below

 

Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? As I'm recording this, it's a beautiful sunny day. We've been so lucky with the weather and I am so, so grateful for having nice weather. I have to say it really does make a difference to my mood. So I am very grateful for the sun shining today and I hope the day that you're listening to this, the sun is shining too and I hope you're having a good day. Okay, so I want to talk today about something that I love. So when I started in marketing about 16-ish years ago, I did well basically over these 16 years, I have done so much marketing. There's probably not much I haven't done. The one thing I haven't done hands-on is TV advertising. We, I used to work for Land Rover, as you may have heard me say before, when I worked next to the people who did the TV advertising, but I didn't do it myself.

But other than that, I've pretty much done everything and stuff that is no longer around. I used to do fax marketing, we still lot of postal marketing, whereas some of these things obviously we're not using now. And then some of the things I use today, I had to learn like everybody else because they weren't in my degree 16 years ago. So for me, as you know, it's a passion. I love every, every minute of marketing and I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff. But the last few years I've been very honoured to work with lots of business owners in a particular area, which I love and I want to dedicate today's episode all to that area. So I want to talk to you about launching. Now I have been very lucky over the years, like I said, to work with some amazing entrepreneurs and business owners to help them launch their online products and services.

And I have done many, many, many launches, including many launches of my own and I have also spent a long time learning about them and buying courses and attending conferences and even doing a certification with lead pages in conversion marketing. So I know what I'm talking about in this, in this sector, and having done it for myself and for clients, it really has helped me fully understand the process and see what works and what doesn't. And what are some of those secrets behind a successful launch? Why is it that some do really well and others not so well? So today I want to talk you through the wider launch process. Now I want you to know that if you are not selling an online product, if you don't have a course or a membership, I don't want you to skip over this episode and think this is not for you.

This is for sure going to give you something even if you don't have those online products. But if you do have an online product, then this is going to be music to your ears because I am literally going to talk you through all the different steps involved and some of the key things that make the real difference in terms of the success of that launch. And do you know what? You know me, I don't lie. I don't tell you some BS. I'd come straight out and tell you the truth. So you're gonna get a very honest look at launching and what honestly makes the launch a success and what doesn't.

 

Quick launch

 

Now, what I'm going to be talking to you about today is quite a process. So that's the first thing I want to quickly address. This is not a two minute job. This is not a, "Oh do you know what? I'm just going to do a quick launch." Now you can do it that way. But that's one of the reasons it's probably not successful because there are lots of moving pieces in launching. And the one analogy that I like to use is it's like baking a cake when you bake a cake. And this is the reason I am not a very good Baker other than the fact I'm celiac and can't eat wheat other than when you bake a cake, you really have to follow the rules and ingredients. You can't go rogue, you can't throw some extra flour in or substitute eggs for something else. You've got to really follow the steps and the process and making one tiny change or moving the goalpost in one place or adding too much or too less or doing something different is going to have a huge impact on the results of that cake or that baking at the end.

And that's how I want you to envisage the launch process. There are many moving parts in this and that. Any point, any one of these parts can affect the whole launch. So I want to talk you through the whole launch in in its entirety, but also I want you to know that actually when I worked with people, when people are in the Academy and they're launching or they're on my 90 day programme and we're working together on a launch, the the moving parts, there's a lot more to each single moving part and therefore there's a lot deeper than we'd go, but at the moment for this episode, I'm going, I'm looking at the bigger picture, but if I was to talk to you about one specific area, there's a lot I could go deep in, but like I said at the moment I just went to see it like that.

The other thing I want you to know about this episode is I have put together a download where I talk you step by step through this process. Now, in all honesty, because I'm very honest, this style, it doesn't exist at this point. I'm going to do this episode and by the time you are listening to me say this in your ears, the download will be done and you can go to teresaheathwareing.com/launch and you can get your own step-by-step launch process and you can follow that through.

 

The warm up phase

 

Okay, so we're going to break it up into four different parts. We're going to break it up into the pre-prelaunch or the warmup phase. Then we're going to look at the prelaunch. Then we're going to look at the launch and then we're going to look at launch.

So let's start with the pre pre-prelaunch, the warmup phase. Now this is the bit that most people do not give enough time to and this can have a huge impact on the success of any launch going forward because you know what happens? People like the idea of having an online business, they liked the idea of selling a course over and over and over or having a membership where lots of people can join. It's this whole going from a one-to-one to a one to many type business and don't get me wrong, I love it and this is what I am doing. This is what I have wanted to do for a long time. This is what I am putting my time and effort into and this is what ultimately I want going forward in the long run. A big massive membership with lots and lots of amazing business owners in there that I can help.

So I want you to know that often these tools or these strategies in terms of having these types of businesses people see as a quick win. I am telling you straight up, this is not a quick win. This is hard work. This takes time. And I know you're not going to want to hear that and I know you're going to think no, there must be a cheat. I'm sure someone's that I can launch that list and I can launch like this and I can do this. I can do that. I promise you you are going to have to work hard at this. And this is not a quick win, easy way to make money. So that's the first thing I want to say about this. So the the warmup phase is really the bit that most people are probably not hand on heart consistently doing enough or long enough before they start deciding to actually sell the online product.

So in this warm up phase, this consists of creating consistent content. Yeah, I know boring, boring, boring, the reason to stop going on about it, but Teresa is on episode 121 of the podcast. I am practising what I preach. I am teaching you from what I know works and consistently showing up in your ears week after week, after week after week. Honestly, that is a massive part of the success of my business. So consistent content is a must because how am I going to see what? How am I going to know? You know what you're talking about. How am I going to engage with you on a regular basis if you're not putting that consistent content out? So that's kind of the first step because you need to be known of your product or service. Now I've got a little story to tell you about. Like I said, I've dealt with lots of businesses, had lots of conversations about launching, and there was a very lovely lady who came to me because she'd been advised by someone else just alone.

Just get it out there because you know one thing that holds us back from launching, I'm going, I'm digressing now, I'm sorry, but it's fear. And that's what held me back. And I've done an episode on fear before. I'll link to it in the show notes, but fear held me back from launching. Now I have the consistent content. I had the list, I had all these other various things, but I didn't launch cause I was scared. I was scared that no one would buy. I was scared that people wouldn't like it. I was scared that people would go, you're wrong. So I didn't launch right. So I get it. So I know that this person who gave this lovely lady, some advice was saying, just launch for the fact of, get over the fear aspect of it. And I totally, totally get that. However, I need to explain the situation.

This lady was in, this lady had had a successful business in one distinct area, let's say finance, so she would have done something in finance. She was helping people financially. She was probably doing one a one work, and she decided that she wanted an online business and she decided that she wanted to pivot. So then let's say she wanted to teach yoga online. I'm making this up for the benefit of this. This is a real woman, but I'm protecting her by not telling you what her businesses were. So let's say she literally decided that actually she didn't want to do finance online. She didn't want to do an online programme finance. She wanted to do an online programme for yoga. And she knew she, that might've been a passion for his VA. She knew what she was talking about, but she'd never told anybody. She'd never come out and gone, do you know I'm a bit of a yoga expert, or I love yoga, or I'm good at it.

She had literally only ever been known for finance. So she went to this expert and this person was and is seen as an expert and this person said, just launch, just get out there and launch the yoga course or the yoga membership or whatever it was. And she was nervous about this. So she asked if she could have a chat with me. We're in the same group. Um, so we were both being educated by this person and she came to me and I said, with all due respect to this person who's teaching us, I don't think this is a good time for you to launch because no one even knows you can do this. You have no history or no content out there that tells me you are good at this or you know this stuff I do not. You are not some synonymous is that a word, did I say that right? Synonymous with this subject. When I think of you, I think of finance. So actually this is going to be an incredibly difficult sale. And then what happens is she goes ahead and launches and gets like one or two people in there and in all truth, the chances are those one or two people could have been friends. They could have been someone that knew her because she's done something for them in the past and they haven't slept the same thing and this lovely lady did the launch and it didn't go down obviously as she wanted it and then she pivoted again because she thought, Oh, well, this obviously isn't a market. There's no market for this. I'm going to pivot again and now let's say she pivoted over to the food industry and was going to teach people to do cookery because that was another passion and then she was told to launch again and it's like, no, no, no.

Now that is enough. You have got to be known in your industry to be able to sell a product or service. I don't know of any business out there that I can think of. Any single person that sells a course or a membership or anything online coaching programme that has not done that thing for a very long time and is not well known for it. So if you are brand new to your industry, I am sorry and you're not going to want to hear it, but you've got some groundwork to do and that grind to it takes time and we're talking months and months. We're not talking weeks. You know, I've been in marketing the 16 years, I'm not saying 16 years, but I've been doing the online marketing stuff for a good few years. I've been teaching social media for six years, so this isn't a something or nothing I've just picked up.

This is something that I do every single day, day in, day in, day out. And like I said, the podcast is now, you know, 121 episodes old. And I've been consistently doing that every single week. So like I said, I know you don't want to hear it, but consistent content is key. The next thing you're going to have to do. And I want you to do it from day one. I want you to imagine if you were sat here starting a business and I'm telling you now how to start, I want you to start building that email list. That email list is so, so important. So within the email list building phase, you've got things like lead magnets and I've talked about lead magnets lots of different times. You've got things like landing pages. So you need someone to go to a landing page to one's opt into your lead magnet.

And the lead magnet is some information about you and what you do in terms of your, you know, whatever the product and services you're going to sales. Obviously mine is always about marketing in some way or another. And you won't be able to go there and download that lead magnet or opt into that PDF or get that workbook or that check sheet or whatever. So that is just as crucial. And then the next bit is you need to love them and you need to keep showing up. So even once you've them on your list, even once they are con you know, consuming your content, you need to find other ways to love them and show up in their world. So if you were on my email list, you'll know that I send an email every Wednesday and I try and add some value. I might try and make you laugh.

I might try and make you think, I might help you with the business aspects of things. But basically every Wednesday I'm going to turn up in your inbox and say hello. And then I try and appear in lots of other places. So I get on other people's podcasts, I speak at events, I put stuff on social media saying, look, I've just done this or here I am. Or you know, or I do live stuff or I show up in the Academy. So I'm trying to do things where I am showing up all the time. So especially on social media, that's probably the one main place I'm showing up. So not only am I saying, here's my email list, here's my podcasts, but here's something else on social media that might help. Here's something that you may not know. Here's something that might support you. So I'm trying to appear as frequently without irritating you as possible.

So that's the thing I want you to think about. Those things are really, really important. And honestly, there's no end the time that you could spend putting into that and it will be worth every single second because you need to be able to get known for your thing because otherwise it's going to be so hard when you come to sell it. Okay?

 

The pre-launch

 

So let's say you are known for your thing and you've done everything I said, and you've built up this lovely audience who love you and want to hear from you. So now we'll talking about the actual launch. So when you are ready to sell something, so obviously the one thing we're not going to get into here is the product or service that you're selling. So whether it be a course or a coaching programme or a membership, whatever that is. Obviously you need to have a think about that, but we're going to talk about the launch of it.

So in the prelaunch, what we're going to be looking at here is how are you going to launch it? May some of the most popular ways to launch it online products are through master classes, webinars, live videos or maybe challenges. And the two ways that I've used most often are challenges and webinars. I love a webinar and the reason I love doing webinars and challenges and actually teaching people and helping people is because that's what they get in my paid programmes. That's what they get in the Academy. That's what they get in the 90 day programmes. So for me, those ways are great ways to demonstrate what they'll get because if they enjoy a one hour master class with me, they're going to love what's in the Academy. If they like the sort of motivation of a challenge, then the 90 day programme might be perfect for them.

So likes of, these are the two kind of main ways in which I do it, but there are ways you can, not for the lives and weightless and various other things, but going to talk the processes if we're doing a challenge or a webinar. So the first thing you're going to need to do is obviously plan that challenge or webinar and work backwards. Now the day that you do the challenge or end the challenge or the day that you do the webinar is the day that you open the cart and that's the day that you start selling. So you need to plan backwards from that point. So I like to give myself or a light to give myself the opportunity at least two weeks to promote the thing that I'm doing to launch. Now I won't talk about the launch necessarily. I might say something's coming.

I might say, you know, this is leading up to something...

In this week’s podcast I am bringing you an interview with the legend Dean Graziosi. Dean is a multiple New York Times best-selling author, an entrepreneur and an investor. We are going to be talking all about mindset and how Dean has got to be the success he is today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• If you want to be in a different place in a year or 5 years from now, you have to start planting those seeds today.
• The only person you have to be better than, is the person you were yesterday.
• “The definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm” – Winston Churchill.
• It is okay to fail!
• Success isn’t easy, but it’s beyond worth it.
• Share what you know and get paid for it.
• You have to be the guardian of your thoughts.
• Don’t regret your past mistakes, just keep moving forward.
• Keep on Innovating and implementing.
• It is down to you how you come out of this crisis.
• Whatever gets our attention, gets results.
• Identify what is truly important to you, and then say no to everything else.
• Make a list of things you are going to stop doing.
• Don’t let anybody dim your glow.
• Replace envy and anger with compassion.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…There is no such thing as an overnight success, but the opportunity is there if want it. You are choosing to better yourself and level up, and I know you are capable.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• An introduction to Dean - 07:37
• Mindset is everything - 14:05
• Marketing and mindset - 20:24
• Stand out moments - 27:48
• Levelling up your mindset - 33:03
• Thriving during a crisis - 35:43
• Commitment - 44:00
• Managing your time - 45:42
• What’s next? - 53:10

Transcript below

 

Hello and welcome to this very special episode of the podcast. So you might be sitting there thinking, why is it so special Teresa? Well, I've got an interview for you today that to be totally honest in my wildest dreams I couldn't have imagined doing this interview. But I want to give you a little bit of a backstory before I tell you who it is as to how it came about because it was kind of a little bit strange but wonderful. So you know that I am a little bit woo-woo now. I never used to be and my friends and family who have known me for obviously a very, very long time don't recognise that side of me, but I am and I just think, well, what's the harm in trying? What's the harm in giving this some thought or doing this thing? If it helps, then great.

So the other week I was on a Zoom call with my good friend Biz Paul and we were chatting away about the podcast and I just happened to say to him, do you know what I could do with like a really amazing guest? Now, I have had some of the most amazing guests, so it certainly wasn't me sitting there going, I need someone good, I haven't. It was like, who on earth could I possibly go for next? Because I have had such amazing people. And if you're new to the podcast, you might not know that I've had Amy Porterfield, Pat Flynn, Jasmine Star, Tyler J. McCall, James Wedmore, Michael Hyatt, Mary Hyatt. Like honestly, I've had some really amazing, amazing people and so many more and I know I'm going to miss off the names and I feel terrible.

But I was just sat there saying to Biz Paul, I can really do with like a really good guest, that'd be A's. I'm going to have, to have a think about who I could approach. Obviously Brene Brown is always on the list. And I'm working up a highway approach here. So anyway, I sit there and then 30 minutes later, I am not even kidding you. I promise you I'm not making this up. 30 minutes later, a DM came into my Instagram which presented this opportunity of this interview to me. Like if the universe wasn't listening to my conversation and trying to help me out, I don't know what or how that happened, but all I know is how very grateful I am for it and how I welcome even more of it to come.

So let me tell about today's guest. Today I am bringing you an interview with the legend and yes I can say that because I think he is a legend, Dean Graziosi. Now, if you don't know who Dean Graziosi is, you're going to want to Google him for starters. But let me read you his bio because seriously, it's crazy. So Dean Graziosi is a multiple New York Times bestselling author. He's an entrepreneur and investor and he has started or has been involved with 13 companies that have resulted in over a $1 billion revenue. For 20 years Dean has been dedicated to delivering self education to those seeking transformation and success outside the normal path of traditional education.

Recently he and get this, Tony Robbins. Yeah, their friends like, oh my word. Launch the knowledge business blueprint with a goal of making self-education viable for millions. It began with one of the largest online trainings in history with over 200,000 people live. Like could you imagine doing a webinar where you've got 200,000 people live watching you? He lives in Paradise Valley, Arizona and I was looking at Arizona and it looks amazing. I think that's on our list of places to move to, with his wife Lisa and his three children.

So this guy is not small fry. He is a very, very well respected and well known business person. Let me just tell you a few people who've interviewed this guy. So he's being interviewed by Larry King, like a proper person that interviews people, the worst English ever, that Teresa. He's been interviewed by Ed Mylett, by Louis Hughes. He has testimonials on his videos from Richard Branson and his best mates with Tony Robbins having spoke at Tony's events. Like honestly in my wildest dreams, I couldn't imagine that someone the size of Dean and how well known and well respected he is would ever give me the time to have this interview. I am so, so very grateful, not only to be given the opportunity for me to speak to him for a good 45 minutes, but also the opportunity to bring this interview to you because everything he says in here is like music to my ears and I just want you to take it in.

Now, I know that people listen to podcasts and I listen to podcasts while doing something else, but I really want you to concentrate on some of the stuff this guy has to say because he knows what he's talking about. And honestly, I think you're going to love it. I want much love for this episode and for Dean. I want us to put it everywhere, tag me into every social media profile you've got with this episode because honestly, I could not be more grateful to bring this to you. Thank you so much as always for listening. I love that you give me your time and I really hope that you love this episode as much as I loved recording it.

 

An introduction to Dean

 

Here we go. Okay, so today it gives me the greatest honour to welcome to the podcast, entrepreneurial and personal development legend, Dean Graziosi. Dean, welcome.

It's good to be here Teresa, how are you?

I am great. Thank you. I'm really, really good. How are you?

Fantastic. Fantastic. Besides, you might hear a little chainsaw in the back from my neighbour, but other than that we are solid to go.

I think we can do it with that.

Yeah. And listen, I just want to say something, Teresa, it's amazing what you do. My team gave me a briefing of all the things that you have going on, the impact you're making on the world. I want to say congratulations for what you've accomplished, the people you're helping, people listening to this podcast right now are going to gain capabilities to go faster and quicker towards their goals. And that's a pretty amazing thing. And the other thing I want to promise everybody who's listening, there's millions of podcasts. There's millions of videos you could be watching. If you're with us right now, I promise this is my desire to serve. If I'm going to take the time, we're going to light it up. So let's have some fun.

That sounds perfect. Thank you, Dean. Okay, so let's start by normal standard question. In case my audience have been living under a rock and don't know who you are, can you just give us a really brief overview of who you are and how you got to do what you're doing today?

Yeah, so I'll do it. I'll share it in a way enough to give you insight to understand why I am qualified to give you some great advice today. I promise you I'm not going to share anything today that's a dream, a hope or something I think could work. I'm going to share it through experience. So I've been an entrepreneur my entire adult life, by 11th grade I had a firewood cutting business and by 12th grade I was buying old rundown beat up wrecked cars, fixing them and selling them. But I think more than that, and I'll give you a quick brief of that, more than I think what's important for everybody listening or watching right now is that I know what it's like to want more. I know what it's like to feel left behind.

I know what it's like to have envy of other people getting ahead and you just don't know where to start or you started and you don't know how to scale it. I've had those emotions, the sleepless nights, the stomach aches, the feeling like I'm never going to reach my full potential, but I've also, I know what it feels like to break through with that, to figure out authentic marketing, to get my first sale, my 10th sale, to get to a hundred grand a year and then a hundred grand a quarter and then a hundred grand a month and then a hundred grand a day and then a hundred grand by lunch. I've been through all of those journeys, failed miserably in between. Felt like an imposter, had family and friends tell me I was an idiot and a fool for trying to do something above my pay grade. I didn't to college. I barely got out of high school.

All of those things so that the best thing I could share about me is I'm here today that I've been blessed to start 13 different companies. I'm a multiple New York Times bestselling author. I've had more success than I ever imagined possible. I get to partner and be friends with the people that were my heroes at one point of my life. And I didn't come from anything, I didn't go to school for this. So I think the best thing about my story is that I'm qualified to deliver advice. But no matter where you're sitting, just wanting to start and don't know what the first step, in the middle wanting to scale or you're crushing and want to optimise. I've been at every one of those. So that's why I think it's a good thing that we sit and have a little conversation today.

Absolutely. So, I mean that is incredible. And also, obviously as I was prepping and re-looking at things and re-reading things, I went back and looked at your YouTube, your main video that you have on YouTube of who you are. And show rule of showreels, like that is, I couldn't even start to imagine or I'd love to imagine having something like that. Did you ever think in your wildest dreams when you first started or when you even started getting some of your success that genuinely that's where your life would end?

No. That Richard Branson would be like deans of bad-ass entrepreneur and Tony Robbins and Larry King, no. Heck no. Let me be blunt. Hell no. I remember in high school, listen, here's one thing I did know Teresa, and I would bet this for everybody listening, because if you're listening, your somebody who wants another level, right? You could have bingeing out on Netflix right now and beyond your 14th different series, right? But you're here so you want another level. So I just want to tell you this, there were points in my life where I was just hoping I could make a thousand dollars a week and not be broke like my parents. Right? And I know what that feels like. But then there was a point where I hated watching my mom struggle to make nothing.

And I knew I was going to be successful no matter what so I could retire her and then retire my dad. And I did both of that in my 20s. But no, I didn't ... But here's the thing. Here's the part that can crush everybody and this is a part I want everyone to listen right now. Like right this moment, get rid of distractions. This is really important is when you see someone that has success, yes, I live in the house of my dreams. Yes, I get to do cool stuff like fly private and do all this cool stuff with Tony Robbins and go to Richard Branson's island with him for a week and all this crazy stuff, but it didn't start there and what that can do when you see other people on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube in their Lambos, their fancy watches and the jets, you're like, oh, it's so far from here to there.

Can I really even get there? And what it can actually do is not inspire you but demotivate you to think I'm starting with four followers. It'll never work. Listen, we all started there. We all started as underdogs. We all started questioning ourselves. We all started feeling like imposters. We all started with hoping to get one person to believe in us. If you want to be in a different place a year or five years from now, you have to plant seeds right now. No matter where you are, because here's the thing, you're still going to deal with crap in your life, no matter what job or career you're in. Shit happens, for lack of a better word, people disappoint you. You're let down. You have to deal with problems. You're going to be stressed, and the next five years is going to go by anyway, so why not start today, right?

Why not start planting seeds? Listen, farmers plant apple trees, they don't produce crops for seven years, but then they produce apples for 25, right? We all have to plant seeds. We all have to start somewhere. And here's the thing, there's one person out there right now that needs you, needs what you're going to share with the world, needs your product, needs your service, needs your course, needs your book, needs your mastermind, your workshop. They need it. And don't look at, I need to change the world. Change one person first and then change five and then change 50 and then go to a hundred and in a year from now, you'll look back and see a culture of progress. And in five years you could look back and not even recognise yourself. And in 32 years for me being an entrepreneur, I can't believe I'm here, but I didn't get here overnight.

I've been working my ass off for 30 years. I love it. I wouldn't change a thing. But I think sometimes social media, Teresa sees a young kid in a Lambo and it looks like it happened overnight. Half of those people are renting it or taking a picture in front of a friends. Other ones had great success at a young age. And I love it, but they also haven't faced the recession yet. Or a shift in the economy. That's when wisdom comes in, allows you to thrive in those times. So just know the only person you have to be better than is the person you were yesterday. And if you look at that, anything's possible. Believe me, I am a shining bright example of that.

 

Mindset is everything

 

And do you know what? I love the message of this isn't an overnight and often people look at someone who is successful and think, oh, it's okay for them because look where they are right now. Look what they've got. It's easy for them to say these things, but they don't see the journey or they haven't seen the journey. And like you said, when we're sat in a position where we're like, okay, we're not there yet. Having the faith and the absolute tenacity to just keep going and going and going. And no matter how many times I'm not dying to get back up again, and I think for me, the thing is, I know I'm going to be there. I can't tell you when. I can't tell you how.

Yeah, of course. Exactly.

But I know it.

What is my favourite quote from Winston Churchill is the definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. That's just it. Listen, and here's the thing you guys all have to remember, while I'll talk about marketing, I'll share anything. There's no question off limits, I'm here to serve. But I want you to know something, if you don't have the right mindset, you'll never make this. You'll never make it because I believe there's like a success auditor and you have to fail. All those failures, all those roadblocks, people not believing in you, the money not being there, the partner letting you down, all of those things, the spouse thinking you're crazy and a dreamer. What if that was all designed for you? By God, the universe, whatever you believe in. By the success auditor, and you had to get through that because it might take you three failures and I'm sorry to say it could take you 30 failures.

It's all by design, but what if on the 31st try or the seventh try, your next level of life appear? I promise you, your next level of life, abundance, income, wealth, lives on the other side of the fear you have or the mountain you have to climb. Success isn't easy, but it's beyond worth it. It's not worth it just a little bit. It's worth it that you have control of freedom, time and money. When you have control of your time and money, what else can you do? When people say money can't buy happiness, I say, you haven't given enough away yet, so don't give me that crap because there's nothing better than cutting a check to solve other people's problems.

I can only imagine, that would just be such a peaceful thing to do. Was there a point where you were like yeah, now I've made it? Or is it a continual gradual thing?

No.

Oh great.

I'm always afraid it's going to go away. I am like, I am. I'd love to be honest and say yes, there was this moment in 2009. No, no. Because being an entrepreneur, there's always new challenges, well, I think that's the only way you get to the next level. It's not a 45 degree angle, it's the quintessential, infographic you see online about being entrepreneur. It's like just when you think you got it COVID-19 comes, right?

Yeah.

Just when you think you got it, United States is attacked by an outside enemy and 911 happened. It's like those things happen. Just when you think it's working Facebook changes the way you advertise. Just when you think it's working your accountant robs a half a million dollars or $10 million from your account. That's just part of the journey. I'm not saying you should enjoy it, but it's part of navigating new territory so you could evolve to your next level and I think that's where the success auditor goes, "Oh, that person's not willing to get through that problem. Okay, let's just stick them as an Uber driver for the rest of their life." I'm not saying being an Uber driver is bad in any means. I love Uber drivers. I'm just saying there are certain people that get to that fail and check out. And there's certain people say, this sucked, I hated it. What can I learn from it? And now how do I go forward?

And that's got to be done to that mindset piece, hasn't it?

It does.

Because if you don't have that, then that's the point in which I guess you check out because you don't have the tools in your mindset.

I'm going to give you a little story Teresa, you're going to like this.

Yeah, I love it.

And then I'll let you guide it with questions because I can talk too much.

You carry on.

So I have a high level mastermind and I was teaching mindset, right? And it's about they're there to scale their companies to a whole nother level, right? So everybody was on fire, but one person, one person at lunch said, "Hey, I don't need the mindset, that's for other people. I need the...