THE SMART PASSIVE INCOME ONLINE BUSINESS AND BLOGGING PODCASTHOSTED BYPAT FLYNN
Pat Flynn from The Smart Passive Income Blog reveals all of his online business and blogging strategies, income sources and killer marketing tips and tricks so you can be ahead of the curve with your online business or blog. Discover how you can create multiple passive income streams that work for you so that you can have the time and freedom to do what you love, whether it's traveling the world, or just living comfortably at home. Since 2008, he's been supporting his family with his many online businesses, and he's been openly sharing his wins, his losses, and all the lessons in between with the community of energetic but humble entrepreneurs who follow him. Self-proclaimed "crash test dummy of online business", you'll learn about building authority online, email marketing, building a team and outsourcing, content marketing, podcasting, search engine optimization, niche sites, social media strategies, how to get more traffic, creating online courses, affiliate marketing, and productivity tips so that you create something amazing without burning yourself out. It's a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from Pat you're not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
Crummy right now. So All the more reason to get out. Yeah. And Yeah. My business isn't generating enough revenue or or profit for me to go full time with this. While also making our bills. So I have to do both. And sometimes it gets really overwhelming, but, you know, every time I go to the events, and I talk to the different customers that come by the booth. It's so much fun because I get to interact with them. I have customers that come by the booth every event that we go to with this one particular group or both groups that we're with. And they always give me hugs and say hi and It's like friendship thing. And it's it's really nice because they're rooting for me, and I'm rooting for them. So it's it's kind of a win win situation, and that's one thing I really enjoy, and I always have. I love that. Well, part of what I see is a lot products that could be sold. Right? And they you kinda have to be in person to do that. And, yeah, you have stuff on your website as well, but I know that had mentioned in your survey that that, you know, it's not really translating to sales. The traffic on the website is not necessarily going into sales. And, you know, what what I feel is your superpower is the in person stuff or when people see you or feel that energy that comes from you. And on a website, it can be very difficult to sort of have that energy come through. You know? So there are a few things I think that we could talk about to help you do that. Bring the energy closer to the people. Are you exploring any platforms like YouTube or anything like that for getting the name out there and and kind of having that be a place to to showcase what you have to offer? I have a YouTube channel, and I started it a while ago, but recently I've been trying to post as Amy Porterfield says consistently. And I've been for the last I think it was it started like, mid February. And I've been kind of trying to edit and create the videos and put them out on Wednesdays and send them out to my email list I'm not really promoting it too much on social media because
A is they've actually been teaching business owners and individuals how to profit through their Facebook group. And they've got their entire, you know, value ladder, right, a low end ebook that they sell that ascends people all the way to their high ticket, you know, done for you programs, but it's a very interesting And I think there's a window of opportunity when it comes to this type of business model, although the foundational concepts remain the same, but something that to acquire leads for pennies on the dollar right now, compared to, you know, obviously as meta advertising costs rise or an interesting year coming up into an election. So There's a lot of money getting pumped into the market. So it's been it's been a little bit different. Right? I'm sure you've seen some of the stuff, you know, similar in your line of work as well. Yeah. Facebook group coaching, I guess. It's been a fun way to not only grow a community, but grow your leads as well. That's really cool. And that's really smart. It goes along with what we're gonna talk about today, which is kind of that ladder and how do we get people in the door? How do we get people from the front office to the back of house stuff, if you will, and and the higher ticket items? And when I first heard about the 2 comma club, it was just like, man, that is really smart. Similar to how YouTube offers a silver plaque to people who get to a 100,000 or gold for for a 1,000,000, and it's just having that to be something to drive to is so smart. So I just wanted to point that out because all of us can use such a mechanism inside of our business for our people. And then just the name itself is too common club. It just rolls off the tongue so nicely. And I see people whenever I interview sometimes, they have the plaque in the background and their sport and click funnels. And it's really amazing. Let's talk about lead gen. I mean, what's working today? A lot of what used to work does not anymore. Especially from back in 2014. So when we talk about getting people in the door and let's say, you know, getting them to be on our e email list, so that we can nurture them and and drive them forward. You said Facebook groups is one way, but, like, what's working today? You have a ton of customers who are using the program to figure this out. What what is it really that's working today? On a scale 1 to 10, let's say, like,
The perfect bonuses come as a bottom bread bonus and a top bread bonus. Again, if your main thing is the meat of this hamburger. The bottom bun is a bonus that enables people to do or get or actually start using the main part of the of your offer. Right? You can't build a hamburger unless you have the bottom bun. Like, at least, if you have the bottom bun, you can hold on to it. You can hold it in your hand. You're fine. Right? The second bonus is a top bun bonus. This is something that perfectly aligns with the product, that is perfect to use in conjunction with or after, and it should be so obvious. And here's the example. So if your main thing is a website development program or some sort of course to build a website, Your bottom bun is a bonus for how to select a brand name and to get your dot com or your website URL, your domain in the best way possible. Because you can't build a website unless you have a domain. So that would be a perfect bottom bun bonus. Right? Maybe it's something else like, hey, before you set up your website, we wanna make sure you have a business plan in place. So So this bonus is gonna be your business plan bonus because until you have that business plan, you don't wanna build a website yet. So this does a few things. Number 1, it enables those who are telling that story in their head when they're coming across your sales page. Well, I don't know if this is for me because I'm not even ready to build a website yet. I don't even have a brand name. I don't even know exactly what I'm gonna be doing. Boom. Bottom bun bonus. You are now qualified to take that meat and eat it. Don't take a lot of the things I'm saying out of context, please. So that's number 1. The top bun bonus is great because it becomes a perfect add on. So in this case, webs
Which is how do you build a large software? And so this is where getting connected with Bonica and his company, Surge, was that first real big step for me. And since then, I've focused more on just kinda learning about the business of software is the way I put it. Kind of, hey, if I want to be a really good client, what kind of things do I need to understand? I can't just kind of come up to, you know, a software team and just say, well, I'd like to make Uber but better. Can you do that? Instead, it's really fleshing out the idea, understanding what I really want it to do, how I want my customers to feel what they should experience and packaging that together. That's really what I focused on and that's what's allowed me to then go to a company like Surge and say, okay guys, Let's build this together. And that's kind of the shift that's happened for me. That's amazing. Monica, we'll get to you in just a second. I I need to tell a quick story here and I think a lot of people have heard the story where I've failed as a person who had wanted to build software before because I didn't have the information that we're about to talk about. All the ins and outs and the things that you need to prepare before even going in. I think it's really easy for an entrepreneur with the entrepreneur mindset to go, oh, here's a problem. I wanna solve it. Hey, developer. Make this. And it just doesn't work like that. There's a lot more that's involved, and we'll get into that for sure. But I've failed once big time in early 2010, 2011. Couple friends were creating WordPress plugins and, you know, they did really well and my audience was bigger and I was like, oh, dollar signs and it just was a very expensive lesson. Later, I created the Ask Pat podcast player and and that worked out really, really well. And then all of us on the call right now are working on another software that is really exciting, and the process that we've taken through is already night and day compared to what I've done before. Like, I already know this is gonna turn into something amazing. And, Monica, you and your company have been incredible to work with already, and I know we're in the beginning stages of it right now. Before we get into what
Ful.com/spi. You're listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast, a proud member of the entrepreneur podcast network. A show that's all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, the first album he ever bought was an Ace of Base cassette tape at Flynn. I get this question a lot. It gets asked during podcast interviews that I'm on and especially when I'm just in person. It's some question that sounds something like this, Pat, if you were starting over and you had a $1,000 to invest in in your business, what would you do? Where would you spend that money? I'm gonna answer that question today and I'm gonna answer it in the same way that I've answered it on pretty much every other podcast and I think the answer is always surprising to people. It's surprising because it's not investing in a type of software. It's not investing that money in building a thing or a product that could potentially pay me back because in the beginning, if you're just starting out, you don't really know what product to create. The most important problem you need to solve when you're just starting out is figuring out who you wanna serve, and once you do that, you find the people there and determine what their problems are. This is straight out of my book, Will It Fly? And this is what I would do with a $1,000. I would first take that 1,000 and set it aside. I'll get back to it, I promise. I'm I'm not trying to trick you here or anything. The second thing I would do would be to, like I said, determine who it is that my target audience is. Now, who should that even be? It could be something related to an interest that you have.
