In this episode we speak with Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. We discuss the true value of free in business, the launch of LetGo and his popular ‘be everywhere’ strategy.
Pat Flynn is a serial entrepreneur, author, podcaster and expert affiliate marketer. His experiences and strategies that he shares in his blog and podcast have helped a lot of people achieve their goals. Pat was recently recognized in Forbes Magazine for his transparency in business and in the New York Times for his podcast, which to date has been downloaded over 2.5 million times.
EPISODE SUMMARY:
- Pat’s journey – Pat’s background and how he has become an industry leader.
- The value of free – How providing value in the form of free content can actually make your business more money.
- Be Everywhere – This strategy has been adopted by many, many people. If you haven’t yet, you need to hear why you should.
- Let Go – The release of Pat’s hybrid book on the Snippet platform.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Jake: Welcome back, listeners. As I mentioned at the top of the episode we have got Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income on the line tonight. Pat, how are you?
Pat: I am doing excellent, Jake. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I’m really excited to be here.
Jake: I’m really glad you could make it. Now, we’re pretty much smack bang in between a couple of big moments for you. That, of course, is the fact that you’ve just come off a week away … You’re website has been down for an entire week. By the time this episode goes to air, Let Go, your new book should have been released as well.
Pat: Yes. It’s pretty crazy because everything … Isn’t it funny how that happens like nothing happens, and all of a sudden, everything just happens at the same time? That’s sort of what happened here. My website was down for the entire week after getting attacked. It was a DOS , denial of service attack.
It wasn’t like I was hacked or anything, but my site was down. I was disgruntled about the service that I was getting from my host or my ex-host, and I was migrating. That took forever because of just some errors that happened along the way.
Now, the site’s back up. It’s faster than ever. I’m excited because I get to promote this new book that’s coming out Monday, March 18th, which for listeners in the future probably happened already. If everything went well, hopefully people will enjoy the book. It’s not just the book. It’s a new multimedia experience on a brand-new platform. It’s going to be really interesting to see how people will receive it.
Jake: Yes, and I’m really looking forward to that. Now, one thing that … For our show listeners, the premise of the multimedia marketing show is to bring on guests and delve into some of their content marketing strategies. One core philosophy you follow is the “be everywhere” strategy. Given the fact that you lost one large component of your business for a week it’s going to be very interesting to delve into how using this strategy allowed you to still stay connected to your audience.
Pat: Yes, totally.
Jake: Okay. Cool. For those who may not know about you, I’m assuming they’re coming from another planet. Maybe if you just give us a brief introduction to you and your background and how you’ve gotten to this stage we’re at this second.
Pat: Sure. Actually, I never expect everybody to know about me, so I’m happy to share my story. I’m really excited to share every time somebody asks me to do so, because I really … It just reminds me of the journey and where I came from. Every time I tell it, I appreciate more where I’m at now.
I’m happy to share it. Just to keep it quick, because I can go on and on about this, because I really get excited. It’s what Let Go is about. Let Go talks about it in detail, includes videos, and actually interviews with a lot of people who influenced me and myself as well.
Anyway, it started after college. I graduated from the University of California at Berkley with a degree in architecture. It was everything I wanted. I had gotten good grades. I had done everything I was supposed to do. After I graduated college, I got pretty much my dream job, right out of college, working on some amazing projects in an architecture firm up in the Bay area.
Everything was going just like I was told it was supposed to go. I was living … I was following the path. I was climbing the corporate ladder. I had studied for this exam called the LEED Exam. Once I passed that exam, I actually got promoted to job captain. Everything was going perfect until June to July of 2008. I learned I was going to get laid off.
That was a tough moment for me in my life to say the least, because everything I was working for was gone. Everything was just kicked out under me. I couldn’t get another job in architecture. Nobody was hiring any architects at that time.
Luckily, this website that I started to actually help me pass that LEED Exam that I was just talking about, which had, at this time … at the time of my layoff, had been up for a year and a half already, because I was using it to study and I studied, and I just let it sit there after I passed.
This website really was my saving grace. What happened was I got inspired by a lot of people, a lot of podcasts, actually, that were doing Internet business. One story in particular was about a guy named Cornelius Fichtner from PMPodcast.com, who was talking about how … I listened to him on this podcast called Internet Business Mastery.
He was on the air doing an interview and he talked about how he was making a living, teaching people how to pass the project management exam. I got really excited because I knew about this LEED Exam. I figured, hey, maybe there’s people out there who can use this information too, and maybe I can get paid for it. We’ll see.
What I ended up doing was the next day, putting an analytical tool on my site just to keep track of the future traffic that I was going to get. The next day, it registered thousands of people visiting that site every day. I had no idea this was happening. I had no idea how long this was happening.
Once I opened up the comments, people started asking me questions that I knew answers to. I sort of became this expert. A long story short, I ended up writing an e-book study guide for my audience there. The first month I launched that, I had made about $7000 … I think it was $7908.55, I believe. It was just life changing.
That was more money than I had made in three months or four months of doing what I was doing in architecture. The beauty of it was that a lot of it was automated. People could come to the site, purchase an e-book, and it would get automatically delivered to them without me having to be there to process that transaction.
I was literally working three, four hours a week at that time. I know a lot of us know that book, The Four Hour Work Week. It just changed my life and it just introduced me to everything that was possible out there with the Internet. Initially, I thought everybody who’s doing business online was doing it in a very scammy sort of way, car-salesman-y, very hype-y, exaggerated type of marketing tactics.
Here I was, not even knowing what I was doing, but I had something to provide to people. People were paying me for it and going out of their way to thank me for it. That’s when I was like, wow, I’ve got to share this with as many people as possible because this … I was desperate almost, and this was life-changing.
That’s when I started the Smart Passive Income Blog which is where most people know me from now. Initially, it started just to share stuff about how I created that LEED Exam site, what I did and what I was doing to market it, to market my books and add new products to the site.
I eventually started to build and create new businesses publicly on Smart Passive Income, showing people my wins, showing people everything that I was doing wrong, all the failures that I have encountered – that people who would be interested in doing something similar would have a head start, would see me and my example and either learn from my mistakes or learn from my wins.
The Smart Passive Income Blog has just exploded. I have an amazing audience who’s very supportive. I love them to death. I have a podcast now that has just surpassed three million downloads. It’s constantly in the top two or three spots in iTunes in the business section.
I have a YouTube channel that has … that is approaching two million views now. Gosh, I’ve been doing a ton of public speaking lately, something that I never thought I would do, and I’m enjoying it so much. Now, I’m writing these books and exploring these new platforms.
Gosh, it’s just been such an incredible ride. There are many people … there’s way too many people to thank for, but I think my wife is probably the biggest supporter. Without her, I wouldn’t be where I’m at. I had to say that. I had to drop the wife card in there.
She was really important and it kept me going, because I could have easily just done something else or found another job. Her encouragement and also just seeing other people’s success stories really encouraged me to go down this path. I’m really glad I didn’t … the layoff actually ended up becoming the best thing that ever happened to me.
Jake: That’s really interesting. Now, I just want to connect a couple of things here. What is really interesting … it may not, when you put it on paper, make a lot of sense. Am I correct in saying that this e-book that you went on to sell for the great Green Exam Academy, was the first and only product that you’ve put out yourself?
Pat: I’ve come out with three products. That e-book on Green Exam Academy, an audio guide to go along with it—that’s the second product—again, on the same website. Then when they upgraded the exam, I created another updated study guide and audio guide for that.
Nothing on Smart Passive Income, actually, which is funny because one thing I like to do is post my earnings online each month and the lessons I’ve learned each month to go along with them. Most of what I earn now comes from Smart Passive Income through affiliate marketing. I haven’t sold a product yet on the site, which is interesting.
Jake: It’s incredibly interesting. It’s just a common … I guess the common chain of thought is that people move in probably opposite direction from affiliates’ income to their own products and their own services. It’s really interesting that it’s actually being the opposite for you.
Now, one of your catch phrases … You talk about “be everywhere,” which we’ll get into in just a second. Before doing that, you talk about the concept of free. That seems to play a massive, massive role in your business. Can you go into a little bit of detail … delve into free, what free means to you in business terms?
Pat: People gravitate toward stuff that’s free just naturally. It’s human nature to be drawn to things that are free because in any sort of transaction, typically there’s an upside and a downside. When you’re buying something, the upside is you get whatever it’s what you’re buying. The downside is the money that you’re spending or the time that you spend on that thing.
When something is free, typically … I mean there is no downside so people gravitate toward it. There’s some really interesting experiments that go along with it. I did a presentation at New Media Expo this past January that’s all about the power of free, if you want to learn more about it. Also, there’s a book out there called, Free by Chris Anderson, which is really good as well.
It overlaps a little bit with what I talk about, specifically for an online businesses and Internet marketers. For me, it’s just really anything … any sort of information could be found for free online any way now. If people really want to learn something, they could go to YouTube or Google.
My purpose or I feel that everybody’s purpose should be to take all that information and give it to people for free, since it’s for free already, but do it in a way that establishes them as the expert, that establishes them as someone who can take all that information that’s spread around the internet and package it into something that’s easily consumable – in a way that adds value to people’s lives and makes it convenient for them – so much so that those people are going to go out of their way to pay that person back, which is human nature.
That’s exactly what happens. You can call it karma. You can call it the universe or human nature, or whatever, but the fact is – and I’ve learned this through experience several times in several different businesses – that the more I give away, the more I can serve my audience, the more they’re going to go out of their way to pay me back.
Yes, not everybody is going to. There are freeloaders out there, but you don’t want the freeloaders anyway. Free is also good because it’s actually a way to weed out those people who are going to take things for free and see people on the other end who are going to be in tune with your message, who are going to appreciate what you’d given them and what want to give you back stuff in return.
The trick is a lot of people do give stuff away for free, but they don’t necessarily have a way, or an easy way or a convenient way, or a way that make sense for people who they’d given stuff away free to, to have them pay them back. For me, that sort of avenue is affiliate marketing.
I give away all this free information on my website, really high quality posts, epic content, step-by-step tutorials about how did you … everything that I’ve learned how to do. In return, people can, if they wanted to, click on those affiliate links to either purchase those products, or services, or tools that may be inside those tutorials.
For me, the goal is really not to pick products that can earn a higher commission or pick products that I feel that people would buy. It starts with the goal of my audience and serving them and understanding the path, the success for them. The more I can understand that path, the more I can see what products, tools, and services and information can be used to help them get there.
Sometimes those products, information, tools, and services don’t come with an affiliate commission. That doesn’t matter. It’s still something that they should have in their tool box or learn, but yes, sometimes, those things do have an affiliate commission. Sometimes those are the things that you can create on your own too, so that those are your own products.
Whatever it is, you owe it to your audience, if you really feel that you can help them achieve something, to give them all the information they need, only the information they need to help them get from point A to point B. If you can do that and you can share that information for free and there happens to be tools and services and whatever to go along with it, more than likely people are going to want to pay you back. They’ll go through your links to do that.
Jake: Tell me how do you find … How do you identify the things that people want to pay for?
Pat: Well, again, I’m not looking for stuff that people will want to pay for. I’m just looking for stuff that people are going to find helpful.
Jake: Yes.
Pat: That, in turn, is what people are typically are going to want to pay for. I do that through leading by example. I actually go through the process myself of using these different tools. I’ve gone through many different services and tools. A lot of those I don’t promote because I don’t feel comfortable recommending it to my audience, because my audience is the number one most important thing to me, because without them, obviously, I don’t have a business.
I don’t have traffic. I don’t have subscribers without my audience. It’s a high priority for me to make sure that, A) I use the products that I’m recommending, B) that I feel it is something absolutely useful for my audience, C) I show people exactly how I use it or how I used it wrong or what people can do to use it better than me, and also to be there as a resource and for support if people need it.
Really, what I’m doing is … You said earlier that I don’t really sell any products on my website of my own. I sort of do because when I promote something as an affiliate, I see it as it is my own product. It just happens to be created and managed and the customer service is from someone else.
I step in there as if it was my own and I treat it just like it’s my own because it is my own. If I’m recommending something to my audience, it’s as if it was my own, because if that … whatever I recommend doesn’t perform, yes, they are going to get mad at that company, but who are they going to get mad at and angry at the most? Me, because I’m the one who recommend it to them and then that trust is broken.
Jake: Definitely. I just want to touch on a little bit about forms of payment, because purchasing … I guess trading dollars for payment isn’t the only way you can do it. To me, forms of payment can include engagement. It can include sharing. Do you think this plays a role as well in generating more income for you?
Pat: Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, when I say “ways to pay you back” … I’m glad you brought this up, Jake. It’s not necessarily just sending you money or going to your affiliate links. It’s adding to your social proof by sharing experiences or by sharing whatever it is you have to offer or just you or your website with people that they trust. Because to me, there’s no better marketing tool or way to promote something than having other people promote your stuff for you.
I can go to someone that I don’t know and tell them that I have the best information in the world or I have a product that’s going to really help them. Yes, depending on how I pitch it, it’s going to be taken well or maybe not.
If someone that they already trust, that is their friend, tells them, “Hey, there’s this guy named, Pat. You should check him out. Here’s his website. Here’s his product. I used it. It’s great. Here’s his website.” They’re going to be more likely to follow through and become a customer or a subscriber or a reader.
Really, it’s sort of that first impression before the first impression actually happens. It’s a first impression from somebody else that you already trust who … You would take their recommendation because you already have that established relationship with them.
Jake: Yes, definitely. I guess that to me is very important as well, because one of my businesses … I own a travel agency here in Melbourne. Some of our biggest customers are not people who had purchase from us, but they’re people who are rabid fans. They’ll refer customers and people to us, wherever possible.
Pat: That’s awesome.
Jake: They become some of the most important customers that we have, even though they don’t actually trade a dollar value for us. I think, certainly, you are going to agree here. For our listeners out there, any type of engagement you can get, I think is … you’ve got to treat it like gold, or you’ve got to engage with people who are engaging with you in a manner that they are your clients.
Pat: Yes, absolutely. It doesn’t matter how big or how small they are. You want to treat everybody equally because … Yes, the big people who may have a large following already, they might be good to get into. You might get a link from them or a share on Twitter or whatever.
Yes, they might have thousands of fans, but it’s the smaller sort of people who are up and coming or who are just regular people, who you’re going to make a deeper impact with and really create fans for life from. They are the people, like you said, who will become the evangelists, who just will do nothing but promote you.
You never know. Some of that … I mean, for me, I remember building relationships with a lot of smaller bloggers when I was starting out as well. Now, they’re big and they’re huge. Since we’ve had that relationship together for a long time, we always help each other out. You never know who can do what for you. It’s best to just try and serve as many people as possible and really build a true relationship with them, and like you said, engage.
That’s really how you build relationships with people. You engage. I mean, you don’t go to a party and become friends with people by just sitting in the corner. You become friends with people by going out to them, talking to them. Then I love this quote by James Schramko. He says, “The best way to do it, to go about it, and to succeed in business is to stop trying to be so interesting, and start getting or start being interested.”
Jake: Yes. Absolutely. That’s fantastic. I had a lot to do with James. One of the things which most impresses me, this is for … a listener …. One of the things with James is he’s got a team of 80 plus people working for him.
Pat: Yes, that’s crazy.
Jake: He’s turning over multiple millions of dollars. One other thing which I most respect about James is that he will pick up … He will answer the phone to anybody and he will speak to anybody for as long as it takes. He’s so giving with his time. It goes along with exactly with what you just quoted him for there, that he’s interested and that’s incredibly valuable.
Pat: Yes. If he’s doing that, that shows you how important that actually is, because that’s where his time is being spent.
Jake: Yes. Absolutely. All right. Now, looking at that then … We’re looking at engaging and finding more people and let’s … This moves us into one of your other catchphrases, which is “be everywhere.” Can you explain a little bit about what “be everywhere” is and why it’s important.
Pat: Yes. It’s probably the story behind this catchphrase, I guess. It was 2011 in Los Angeles. I was creating a presentation for a BlogWorld Expo, which is what it was known for back then. Now, it’s New Media Expo. The title of the presentation was “How to be Everywhere”.
The reason I titled it that way was because everybody I spoke to who found me underneath the different platforms I was on, was just like, “Pat, you just seem to be everywhere. Everywhere I go, I hear your name. Everywhere I go, I see you. How are you everywhere?”
I wanted to create this presentation to talk about that. I did the presentation and it got a really, really great response and a lot of people started to follow this direction of what I’m about to share. They’re seeing great results too, and this does work. It’s almost common sense because when you have a website or build a website, and it’s like the first day.
Nobody knows about that website except for you, whether it’s a blog or just a business or a static website or whatever. Nobody knows about it except for you. It’s sort of … I compare it to putting a message into a bottle and throwing it into the ocean. You put it out there and you hope that the tides of Google take it to wherever people are, or the waves of the web send it to where people are already.
Yes, eventually, over time, Google can find your site. Some people who are influencers can potentially find it. Yes, you could … you’ll start to see results. But if you want to see results faster, what you want to do is take that message out of that bottle, out of the ocean, and just stick it right where people are already passing by, and to do this on multiple platforms and multiple mediums.
Really, the structure is you have your website or your blog as the hub of your business, because really that’s where all the action happens. That’s where links are. That’s where you can … That’s something that you control and it’s best to control the center of your website.
If you imagine, we’re creating a little diagram here. Your blog is your hub. Extending out of that … I love podcasting. A lot of you don’t notice it, but iTunes is a huge platform, especially for podcasters, and it’s so untapped. I mean, there are millions and millions and millions of websites, and only a handful of a hundred thousand to maybe 200,000 or 400,000 podcasts are out there.
There’s very little competition. iTunes is also a big time search engine. A lot of people don’t think of iTunes as a search engine, but there are people out there looking for information that you probably have in your head. Maybe it’s already on your website. If you were to just podcast about it, people will find you on iTunes.
They have, and I did a survey on my blog before I did this presentation, asking just my blog readers, “How did you find me?” The number one answer was they found me through my podcast. Nineteen percent of my audience who is now reading my blog, found me through my podcast, which blew me away.
I mean, I had no idea it was that much. When I think about it I still get emails every single day from people saying, “I love your show on iTunes. I found you on iTunes. Funny story, I went to New Media Expo this past January where I talked about the power of free.
I wear this little backpack that has my name on it. I let people know so you know how to find me. If you see me, just tap me on the shoulder. I’d like to talk to you. I had about 100 to 200 people come up to me during the entire conference and just say, “Hi, we’re fans.” Ninety-five percent of those people said, “I love your podcast. I listen to your show. Thank you for keeping me company on my car ride on the commute to work every day.”
Podcast, podcast, podcast, podcast … Even though that was the first thing I started, even though it is not my blog, that’s what people remember. I think because it’s the power of the voice. Then obviously, people listen to this now or are listening to our voices. There’s just something about the voice.
I don’t know if it’s because we can share inflections or we can change the tone of our voice, which we can’t really do on … with text. When people listen to your podcast, they’re just plugging you into their ears and you’re entering their brains. There’s no little Xbox that they can click … not Xbox, like Microsoft, but there’s no little X in the corner that they can click out of.
They’re just listening to you and people can listen to you no matter where you are, so you literally can be everywhere. I mean I have people say, “Thank you for keeping me company on my way to Rome today,” or “Thank you for coming to beach and having a run with me today,” like I could literally be everywhere, it seems.
When you think about it, a podcast is like a show that you have that people can subscribe to. Imagine a stadium full … Imagine a room full of 50 people that you’re talking to all at the same time. I mean, that’s impressive, to get a group of 50 people who are listening to you in a room.
Now, imagine thousands of people listening to you just like they’re in a room, but they’re spread out all around the world and they’re subscribed to your show. Whenever you post something, they’re listening to you. It’s like you have this worldwide stadium that is just ready to listen to you anytime you have something to say.
What’s great about … I can talk about this for hours, so I’m sorry. I’m just going to try and brief through this as much as possible so people can get the idea. You have the pod, you have your blog or the your website in the middle. Then you should also have a podcast to go along with it. In addition to that, you should also have a YouTube channel, because, again, just like ITunes, YouTube is a search engine.
It’s actually the number two search engine in the world and it’s owned by Google. Video is just going crazy lately. It’s another great way, a great medium to just share things that you can’t share on audio and also on your website through text. What happens when you have these three content areas … You have your blog for people who like to read, you have podcasts for people who like to listen, and you have videos for people who like to watch or who are visual.
No matter how people enjoy consuming content, they have a way to connect with you and your brand. Also, by putting yourself onto these different platforms, you’re actually going to be found by people who would have never found you otherwise because there are people who only listen to podcasts, who don’t read blogs.
There are people who only watch videos but don’t listen to podcasts or read blogs, and you know all the combinations there within. That’s the core and then there’s also … Your email list is important because that’s a way to get into people’s daily lives, especially now with mobile and people checking their emails everywhere, and so using your email list is a smart way, and also social media as well.
Really, that becomes the core of it. What happens is that there’s sort of this cycle that happens. Once you’ve learned about the cycle and put yourself into it, things just start to perpetuate. Imagine those three platforms. What that does for you. is it allows you to be found. That’s the best first step and when … and in addition to being found, you have to be remembered.
There are certain strategies within each of those platforms you can do to be remembered. Obviously, that’s very important, because people can find you, but if they don’t remember you, that’s pointless. Now, be found, be remembered, and the last one, and probably the most important one is be shared.
That’s where engagement comes in like we talked about or building relationships, or getting people involved and excited, or to have people feel like they’re a part of your brand. That’s where sharing comes in handy and also just making it incredibly easy to share your stuff too. That’s really important.
What happens when you’re shared? You’re found again by new people who go through that same exact cycle. Then the more content you put out, the bigger your brand expands. You’re not just a blogger anymore. You’re not just a video person. You’re not just a podcaster, but you’re this brand with all these … You’re just a multimedia machine.
It does sound like a lot of work from the outside and it should. That’s what it’s supposed … that’s the picture that it’s supposed to convey. I’m Pat Flynn. I’m everywhere. I’m doing all these things. However, it actually doesn’t take that much work, because what I do …
Say you post three times on your website every week. Now, just take one of those times each week and turn it into a podcast episode instead. Each week, you’re posting one podcast episode, and over time, you start to collect all these little things in all these different mediums, each of which become what I’d like to call a seed, because what you do is you plant that seed.
When you post something on any medium, it’s there for good. At anytime, people can find it, and that’s their entry into your brand, into that “be found, be remembered, be shared” cycle.
Jake: Yes. That’s incredibly important, incredibly important in all of this. Now, in each episode, we’d like to really … to putting some action, well, takeaways that our listeners can take and implement in their own businesses. I’m looking to do that in this episode. We’re going to just do something slightly different. You’ve hopped on a train a week or so ago, and you’ve headed off up to San Fran, shooting some video. Your blog has gone down.
Pat: Wonk, wonk.
Jake: The week passed, and the blog comes back, but one thing that’s missing is all your affiliate sales. Affiliates no longer exist, so …
Pat: So just …
Jake: This is almost like a John Dumas, new planet, exactly the same as earth type of thing.
Pat: Right. Okay, so something happens like in the universe where …
Jake: Something happens. …
Pat: … there was no such thing as affiliate marketing anymore.
Jake: Exactly right. You’ve got your listeners. You’ve got your subscribers because you are everywhere. You’re now left with this issue of not being able to produce an income to feed your family. How would you go about finding this income?
Pat: Right. Now, I was promoting all these different products. Actually, if you go to my income reports, you can see that I promote maybe 30 to 40 different products that I do accept the affiliate commission for on a site. That wouldn’t change. I would still promote the exact same products because those are the same products that are going to be helpful to people. I just don’t have an affiliate relationship with those companies anymore. Does that make sense?
Jake: Yes. It certainly does.
Pat: Okay. Because again, I’m worried about the end goal of the user. Instead of producing money through affiliate marketing, because I can’t anymore, even though those products are still there, I can create my own product. I think that is something that would take a little bit of time, of course. T
That’s why I love affiliate marketing because it takes less time. I don’t have to worry as much about customer service or creating landing pages or any of that stuff, or delivery. That’s all up to the company that I’m promoting. But I would spend the time to make sure that I create this amazing products that’s going to help people and walk people through step-by-step how to do everything that I feel I should do and sort of organize all the information that’s on my site into an easy step-by-step, modular type of program, which actually I’m working on right now. That’s what I would do. Now, if that wasn’t possible, for example, if it wasn’t possible for me to make my own product at that time … maybe I don’t have that skill. What I would do, is look at the skills that I do have and see who else might benefit from using those skills.
Actually, what I would do is … and really, this question … or this answers the question, “What do I need to do if I need to make money now?” which I know …
Jake: Yes.
Pat: … is the million dollar question. It’s tough when I get those emails because I do get those emails from people saying really very emotional things, almost in desperation because they maybe … They’re short selling on a house. They lost something or whatever, and I feel for those people.
It’s hard, because when they ask me, “How do I start a business and get … and earn money? I need money in a month.” It’s hard to answer those people because that’s not … it’s possible. It is possible of course, but it’s not likely. I’m always trying to be honest enough and upfront with people.
I’d typically say, “Starting your own business and hoping to earn a sizable income in a month is nearly impossible. It’s not impossible, but it’s nearly impossible. There are things you could do to help yourself get back on your feet to start to earn an income much sooner, and that is freelancing.”
I think a lot of people discount freelancing, seeing it as like a half entrepreneurial type status. I absolutely think it’s absolutely necessary. Because if it makes sense for you and your life and where you’re at right now and if you do need money right away, you could take the skills that you have and give it to those … not give it, but ask people who may need those same services and work with them.
For instance, if I were a writer and I just need to make money now, I would search for people who need excellent writers and require a fee for any number of articles that they may need. In addition to getting money right away for doing that stuff, and of course, you have to learn how to market yourself a little bit and of course the relationships that you have with people is what’s going to help you even further, if you already have these relationships.
I mean, really, if you think about me and my situation, if I wasn’t able to do affiliate marketing or create products, but I still had these relationships I have with people, it would be really easy for me to say, hey, network or people, “I am happy to do any work for you that you may like”.
This is what I’m good at. This is how much I charge. I’m willing to negotiate. Let’s figure something out if you need help. Boom, I would get a ton of people who will potentially need my help for writing, or marketing, or consultation, or graphic design, or web programming, or any of that stuff.
Taking the skills that you have in freelancing … What that does is also, especially if you’re beginning out … Sorry, if you especially if you’re just beginning, that puts you in the world to which you can learn how to do other things where you can branch off of them, becoming your own entrepreneur later.
Jake: Yes, definitely. I think one thing, particularly people getting into it, is that they are almost allergic to dealing with customers on a one-on-one basis or trying to do … They want to affect many lives straightaway, but there really isn’t any difference between affecting many and affecting one.
Pat: Yes. I mean, you have to start with one in order to affect many, I think.
Jake: Yes. Definitely. Definitely. All right, Pat. Well, that’s fantastic. Let’s go a little bit into the upcoming release of Let Go. Why did you decide to write this?
Pat: Well, it’s funny. I was actually in the middle of writing another book called, Be Everywhere that I had finished about 25,000 words for. I had planned to finish it by the time my daughter was born. However, my daughter came three weeks early and then I had lost the chance to complete it because I, at least … need long blocks of time in order to get in the right mindset to write a book.
It takes quite a bit of energy and focus for me to do it at least. That book is still there, halfway or more than halfway finished. Then a few months ago, I got an email from someone who talked about this new platform called Snippet. They were looking for entrepreneurs and potential authors and just wanted to see if I was interested.
I was like, “Well, I had this book already. I feel weird like starting a new book in the middle of writing another one.” After I learned about the capabilities of this platform and what it can do, I had to jump on the chance because I would have … I would be, and I am one of the first featured authors on this platform.
When do people get an opportunity to say that, like who’s the first author for Amazon? I mean that’s awesome. Who knows if this is going to be an Amazon or not? I don’t know, but it’s an amazing opportunity, and so I wanted to jump on it and I thought the platform and what it can do and its capabilities was the perfect platform for me to share in detail, my emotional story from how I got laid off to now becoming a very proud self-employed entrepreneur and how I’ve been helping others. The story is called, Let Go. It’s sort of a double meaning, Let Go, because I was let go from architecture but also ‘let go’ because In order to get to where I’m at now, I had to ‘let go’ of that path that I was told to be on – good grades, college, dream job, 401-K, all that stuff that just got taken away from me.
I had to ‘let go’ of that because that’s what I wanted and worked for for so long, and also letting go of the fears that I had when starting my own stuff.
That’s where the book name comes from. It’s an idea I had for a book for a very long time. It just seemed like the perfect platform because what a snippet is … it sort of combines a book and a blog. It’s a book in way that’s made up of chapters and there’s text and stuff, but each chapter is limited to a thousand words.
What that does, is it makes each chapter really digestible and easy to consume. It keeps to the story of the … whatever the book’s about, moving really fast, and it incorporates multimedia. It also includes audio. It includes video, slide shows within the book, and also social media, which is what got me really excited.
Imagine you’re reading a book, and in the middle of the book, there is a hash tag conversation going on about whatever that topic is. You see people talking about it and you can actually add to the conversation right there in the book or imagine … they call these discoverables, the different multimedia in there.
When you read it, it’s just text, but then you’ll see these little icons that you can push that just add more depth to the story. You might see a video pop-up, talking or describing whatever is happening in detail as you’re already reading. Again with social media, which is really exciting for me, you can share those discoverables on social media.
Then it includes a link to go by the snippet for whoever’s sees that tweet or that Facebook share. You can actually highlight a particular passage in a book and share that as well, which I thought was really cool. Yes, so with the story … I had written it in about two weeks. It was fairly easy to write because it was my own story.
Be Everywhere, I was only halfway through and that took three months. It’s a little bit different as far as that’s concerned, but then I realized what the capabilities were of this platform. I was like, “Okay, I can’t do any of this myself.” I need to bring on a team, so I actually hired a videographer to help me with the discoverables and the trailers and stuff like that in the book, and also a producer who is sort of managing everything, because there’s so many moving parts to it.
Again, I’m really honored and privileged to be a part of this brand-new platform which is coming out on Monday, March 18th. I’m just really excited, like … I don’t know what to expect. Who knows how … maybe it won’t do very well. I don’t know, but it’s been such a privilege to be a part of this and to be able to share my story.
In the book, there’s a lot of really interesting things that I know a lot of people were wondering about. For instance, there’s an interview with my wife on there. We talked to her about what she was thinking when I was getting laid off, and what was going through her head.
We talked to my dad in an interview who is a very traditional guy, who worked the same job for 45 years and then retired, and his thoughts for when I got laid off, because he wanted me to go back to school. We filmed on location in San Francisco where I landed my first architecture job.
We filmed on location where I had my very first mastermind meeting where I was told to write that e-book that sold really well. This is just going to be really fun, a very personal sort of memoir about what happened. I’m hoping that it just inspires people to get off their butts and do something because there’s so many opportunities out there. Really, I want people to just let go of what other people told them to do and do stuff for themselves.
Jake: That’s fantastic. This platform, Snippet, it’s such a great fit, A) for you and “be everywhere” strategy, because it’s combining all these different forms …
Pat: Yes.
Jake: … of multimedia. It’s also a fantastic fit for this episode as well, because again, the premise of the show is to be on the different forms of multimedia. This Snippet seems to be appealing to exactly what we’re talking about here. It’s incredible. Our listeners can go and check that out. Where’s the best address to check that?
Pat: It would be at PatFlynn.me/LetGo. There’ll be a big button there where you can go and get instructions for how the platform works. At the time of this recording, I actually haven’t even seen it yet on the final … on an iPad yet, or on a phone yet. It’s going to be really interesting to see how it works out and what it looks like.
I can’t wait to share it. It’s technology, so things could go wrong. It’s a brand-new platform, a brand-new startup. Things happen, but I’m praying for a good launch and just a good response from all the readers. I don’t even know what to call them. Readers, watchers, listeners, consumers … I don’t know.
Jake: An audience.
Pat: An audience, there you go.
Jake: Pat … Listeners, we’ll include all the links to everything spoken about in the show. Pat, I’ve got one final question for you.
Pat: Sure thing.
Jake: What do you say your title is? You’re explaining what you do to somebody who knows nothing about MySpace or anything. What would your title be?
Pat: It’s so funny you asked that, because every time somebody asks me, I end up saying something different every time, and I do have my foot in many pools. I am an iPhone application … an owner of an iPhone application company also, which we didn’t talk about. I’m an author. I am a podcaster, a blogger, a business owner.
I can sum it up as an online serial entrepreneur, I guess. But when I say that, I just keep hearing myself saying like, “What does that mean exactly?” I say I do business online and I help people in various ways, and typically, I’ll get people who’ll ask me well how?
Then I’ll go into the different examples like the Green Exam Academy, where I help people pass their exam in architecture industry, Smart Passive Income, the blog. I talk about business and all my business strategies. I have a podcast that goes along with it. I have a security guard training website teaching people how to become a security guard. By that point, they’re like, “Okay, serial entrepreneur. I get it.”
Jake: All right, Pat. I really appreciate you coming on this show. This has been an amazing episode. I’m sure our listeners will get a lot out of this.
Pat: Awesome.
Jake: Thank you very much for taking the time.
Pat: My absolute pleasure. Thank you, Jake.
Jake: I wish you every success and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Let Go.
Pat: All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Jake.
Jake: Thanks very much. Cool. That’s awesome.
In this episode we speak with Pat Flynn, of Smart Passive Income. We discuss the true value of free in business, the launch of LetGo and his popular ‘be everywhere’ strategy.
Pat Flynn is a serial entrepreneur, author, podcaster and expert affiliate marketer. His experiences and strategies that he shares in his blog and podcast have helped a lot of people achieve their goals. Pat was recently recognized in Forbes Magazine for his transparency in business and in the New York Times for his podcast, which to date has been downloaded over 2.5 million times.
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“I would still promote the exact same products because those are the same products that are going to be helpful to people.” @PatFlynn Tweet This
EPISODE SUMMARY:
- Pat’s journey – Pat’s background and how he has become an industry leader.
- The value of free – How providing value in the form of free content can actually make your business more money.
- Be Everywhere – This strategy has been adopted by many, many people. If you haven’t yet, you need to hear why you should.
- Let Go – The release of Pat’s hybrid book on the Snippet platform.
Jake: Welcome back, listeners. As I mentioned at the top of the episode we have got Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income on the line tonight. Pat, how are you?
Pat: I am doing excellent, Jake. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I’m really excited to be here.
Jake: I’m really glad you could make it. Now, we’re pretty much smack bang in between a couple of big moments for you. That, of course, is the fact that you’ve just come off a week away … You’re website has been down for an entire week. By the time this episode goes to air, Let Go, your new book should have been released as well.
Pat: Yes. It’s pretty crazy because everything … Isn’t it funny how that happens like nothing happens, and all of a sudden, everything just happens at the same time? That’s sort of what happened here. My website was down for the entire week after getting attacked. It was a DOS , denial of service attack.
It wasn’t like I was hacked or anything, but my site was down. I was disgruntled about the service that I was getting from my host or my ex-host, and I was migrating. That took forever because of just some errors that happened along the way.
Now, the site’s back up. It’s faster than ever. I’m excited because I get to promote this new book that’s coming out Monday, March 18th, which for listeners in the future probably happened already. If everything went well, hopefully people will enjoy the book. It’s not just the book. It’s a new multimedia experience on a brand-new platform. It’s going to be really interesting to see how people will receive it.
Jake: Yes, and I’m really looking forward to that. Now, one thing that … For our show listeners, the premise of the multimedia marketing show is to bring on guests and delve into some of their content marketing strategies. One core philosophy you follow is the “be everywhere” strategy. Given the fact that you lost one large component of your business for a week it’s going to be very interesting to delve into how using this strategy allowed you to still stay connected to your audience.
Pat: Yes, totally.
Jake: Okay. Cool. For those who may not know about you, I’m assuming they’re coming from another planet. Maybe if you just give us a brief introduction to you and your background and how you’ve gotten to this stage we’re at this second.
Pat: Sure. Actually, I never expect everybody to know about me, so I’m happy to share my story. I’m really excited to share every time somebody asks me to do so, because I really … It just reminds me of the journey and where I came from. Every time I tell it, I appreciate more where I’m at now.
I’m happy to share it. Just to keep it quick, because I can go on and on about this, because I really get excited. It’s what Let Go is about. Let Go talks about it in detail, includes videos, and actually interviews with a lot of people who influenced me and myself as well.
Anyway, it started after college. I graduated from the University of California at Berkley with a degree in architecture. It was everything I wanted. I had gotten good grades. I had done everything I was supposed to do. After I graduated college, I got pretty much my dream job, right out of college, working on some amazing projects in an architecture firm up in the Bay area.
Everything was going just like I was told it was supposed to go. I was living … I was following the path. I was climbing the corporate ladder. I had studied for this exam called the LEED Exam. Once I passed that exam, I actually got promoted to job captain. Everything was going perfect until June to July of 2008. I learned I was going to get laid off.
That was a tough moment for me in my life to say the least, because everything I was working for was gone. Everything was just kicked out under me. I couldn’t get another job in architecture. Nobody was hiring any architects at that time.
Luckily, this website that I started to actually help me pass that LEED Exam that I was just talking about, which had, at this time … at the time of my layoff, had been up for a year and a half already, because I was using it to study and I studied, and I just let it sit there after I passed.
This website really was my saving grace. What happened was I got inspired by a lot of people, a lot of podcasts, actually, that were doing Internet business. One story in particular was about a guy named Cornelius Fichtner from PMPodcast.com, who was talking about how … I listened to him on this podcast called Internet Business Mastery.
He was on the air doing an interview and he talked about how he was making a living, teaching people how to pass the project management exam. I got really excited because I knew about this LEED Exam. I figured, hey, maybe there’s people out there who can use this information too, and maybe I can get paid for it. We’ll see.
What I ended up doing was the next day, putting an analytical tool on my site just to keep track of the future traffic that I was going to get. The next day, it registered thousands of people visiting that site every day. I had no idea this was happening. I had no idea how long this was happening.
Once I opened up the comments, people started asking me questions that I knew answers to. I sort of became this expert. A long story short, I ended up writing an e-book study guide for my audience there. The first month I launched that, I had made about $7000 … I think it was $7908.55, I believe. It was just life changing.
That was more money than I had made in three months or four months of doing what I was doing in architecture. The beauty of it was that a lot of it was automated. People could come to the site, purchase an e-book, and it would get automatically delivered to them without me having to be there to process that transaction.
I was literally working three, four hours a week at that time. I know a lot of us know that book, The Four Hour Work Week. It just changed my life and it just introduced me to everything that was possible out there with the Internet. Initially, I thought everybody who’s doing business online was doing it in a very scammy sort of way, car-salesman-y, very hype-y, exaggerated type of marketing tactics.
Here I was, not even knowing what I was doing, but I had something to provide to people. People were paying me for it and going out of their way to thank me for it. That’s when I was like, wow, I’ve got to share this with as many people as possible because this … I was desperate almost, and this was life-changing.
That’s when I started the Smart Passive Income Blog which is where most people know me from now. Initially, it started just to share stuff about how I created that LEED Exam site, what I did and what I was doing to market it, to market my books and add new products to the site.
I eventually started to build and create new businesses publicly on Smart Passive Income, showing people my wins, showing people everything that I was doing wrong, all the failures that I have encountered – that people who would be interested in doing something similar would have a head start, would see me and my example and either learn from my mistakes or learn from my wins.
The Smart Passive Income Blog has just exploded. I have an amazing audience who’s very supportive. I love them to death. I have a podcast now that has just surpassed three million downloads. It’s constantly in the top two or three spots in iTunes in the business section.
I have a YouTube channel that has … that is approaching two million views now. Gosh, I’ve been doing a ton of public speaking lately, something that I never thought I would do, and I’m enjoying it so much. Now, I’m writing these books and exploring these new platforms.
Gosh, it’s just been such an incredible ride. There are many people … there’s way too many people to thank for, but I think my wife is probably the biggest supporter. Without her, I wouldn’t be where I’m at. I had to say that. I had to drop the wife card in there.
She was really important and it kept me going, because I could have easily just done something else or found another job. Her encouragement and also just seeing other people’s success stories really encouraged me to go down this path. I’m really glad I didn’t … the layoff actually ended up becoming the best thing that ever happened to me.
Jake: That’s really interesting. Now, I just want to connect a couple of things here. What is really interesting … it may not, when you put it on paper, make a lot of sense. Am I correct in saying that this e-book that you went on to sell for the great Green Exam Academy, was the first and only product that you’ve put out yourself?
Pat: I’ve come out with three products. That e-book on Green Exam Academy, an audio guide to go along with it—that’s the second product—again, on the same website. Then when they upgraded the exam, I created another updated study guide and audio guide for that.
Nothing on Smart Passive Income, actually, which is funny because one thing I like to do is post my earnings online each month and the lessons I’ve learned each month to go along with them. Most of what I earn now comes from Smart Passive Income through affiliate marketing. I haven’t sold a product yet on the site, which is interesting.
Jake: It’s incredibly interesting. It’s just a common … I guess the common chain of thought is that people move in probably opposite direction from affiliates’ income to their own products and their own services. It’s really interesting that it’s actually being the opposite for you.
Now, one of your catch phrases … You talk about “be everywhere,” which we’ll get into in just a second. Before doing that, you talk about the concept of free. That seems to play a massive, massive role in your business. Can you go into a little bit of detail … delve into free, what free means to you in business terms?
Pat: People gravitate toward stuff that’s free just naturally. It’s human nature to be drawn to things that are free because in any sort of transaction, typically there’s an upside and a downside. When you’re buying something, the upside is you get whatever it’s what you’re buying. The downside is the money that you’re spending or the time that you spend on that thing.
When something is free, typically … I mean there is no downside so people gravitate toward it. There’s some really interesting experiments that go along with it. I did a presentation at New Media Expo this past January that’s all about the power of free, if you want to learn more about it. Also, there’s a book out there called, Free by Chris Anderson, which is really good as well.
It overlaps a little bit with what I talk about, specifically for an online businesses and Internet marketers. For me, it’s just really anything … any sort of information could be found for free online any way now. If people really want to learn something, they could go to YouTube or Google.
My purpose or I feel that everybody’s purpose should be to take all that information and give it to people for free, since it’s for free already, but do it in a way that establishes them as the expert, that establishes them as someone who can take all that information that’s spread around the internet and package it into something that’s easily consumable – in a way that adds value to people’s lives and makes it convenient for them – so much so that those people are going to go out of their way to pay that person back, which is human nature.
That’s exactly what happens. You can call it karma. You can call it the universe or human nature, or whatever, but the fact is – and I’ve learned this through experience several times in several different businesses – that the more I give away, the more I can serve my audience, the more they’re going to go out of their way to pay me back.
Yes, not everybody is going to. There are freeloaders out there, but you don’t want the freeloaders anyway. Free is also good because it’s actually a way to weed out those people who are going to take things for free and see people on the other end who are going to be in tune with your message, who are going to appreciate what you’d given them and what want to give you back stuff in return.
The trick is a lot of people do give stuff away for free, but they don’t necessarily have a way, or an easy way or a convenient way, or a way that make sense for people who they’d given stuff away free to, to have them pay them back. For me, that sort of avenue is affiliate marketing.
I give away all this free information on my website, really high quality posts, epic content, step-by-step tutorials about how did you … everything that I’ve learned how to do. In return, people can, if they wanted to, click on those affiliate links to either purchase those products, or services, or tools that may be inside those tutorials.
For me, the goal is really not to pick products that can earn a higher commission or pick products that I feel that people would buy. It starts with the goal of my audience and serving them and understanding the path, the success for them. The more I can understand that path, the more I can see what products, tools, and services and information can be used to help them get there.
Sometimes those products, information, tools, and services don’t come with an affiliate commission. That doesn’t matter. It’s still something that they should have in their tool box or learn, but yes, sometimes, those things do have an affiliate commission. Sometimes those are the things that you can create on your own too, so that those are your own products.
Whatever it is, you owe it to your audience, if you really feel that you can help them achieve something, to give them all the information they need, only the information they need to help them get from point A to point B. If you can do that and you can share that information for free and there happens to be tools and services and whatever to go along with it, more than likely people are going to want to pay you back. They’ll go through your links to do that.
Jake: Tell me how do you find … How do you identify the things that people want to pay for?
Pat: Well, again, I’m not looking for stuff that people will want to pay for. I’m just looking for stuff that people are going to find helpful.
Jake: Yes.
Pat: That, in turn, is what people are typically are going to want to pay for. I do that through leading by example. I actually go through the process myself of using these different tools. I’ve gone through many different services and tools. A lot of those I don’t promote because I don’t feel comfortable recommending it to my audience, because my audience is the number one most important thing to me, because without them, obviously, I don’t have a business.
I don’t have traffic. I don’t have subscribers without my audience. It’s a high priority for me to make sure that, A) I use the products that I’m recommending, B) that I feel it is something absolutely useful for my audience, C) I show people exactly how I use it or how I used it wrong or what people can do to use it better than me, and also to be there as a resource and for support if people need it.
Really, what I’m doing is … You said earlier that I don’t really sell any products on my website of my own. I sort of do because when I promote something as an affiliate, I see it as it is my own product. It just happens to be created and managed and the customer service is from someone else.
I step in there as if it was my own and I treat it just like it’s my own because it is my own. If I’m recommending something to my audience, it’s as if it was my own, because if that … whatever I recommend doesn’t perform, yes, they are going to get mad at that company, but who are they going to get mad at and angry at the most? Me, because I’m the one who recommend it to them and then that trust is broken.
Jake: Definitely. I just want to touch on a little bit about forms of payment, because purchasing … I guess trading dollars for payment isn’t the only way you can do it. To me, forms of payment can include engagement. It can include sharing. Do you think this plays a role as well in generating more income for you?
Pat: Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, when I say “ways to pay you back” … I’m glad you brought this up, Jake. It’s not necessarily just sending you money or going to your affiliate links. It’s adding to your social proof by sharing experiences or by sharing whatever it is you have to offer or just you or your website with people that they trust. Because to me, there’s no better marketing tool or way to promote something than having other people promote your stuff for you.
I can go to someone that I don’t know and tell them that I have the best information in the world or I have a product that’s going to really help them. Yes, depending on how I pitch it, it’s going to be taken well or maybe not.
If someone that they already trust, that is their friend, tells them, “Hey, there’s this guy named, Pat. You should check him out. Here’s his website. Here’s his product. I used it. It’s great. Here’s his website.” They’re going to be more likely to follow through and become a customer or a subscriber or a reader.
Really, it’s sort of that first impression before the first impression actually happens. It’s a first impression from somebody else that you already trust who … You would take their recommendation because you already have that established relationship with them.
Jake: Yes, definitely. I guess that to me is very important as well, because one of my businesses … I own a travel agency here in Melbourne. Some of our biggest customers are not people who had purchase from us, but they’re people who are rabid fans. They’ll refer customers and people to us, wherever possible.
Pat: That’s awesome.
Jake: They become some of the most important customers that we have, even though they don’t actually trade a dollar value for us. I think, certainly, you are going to agree here. For our listeners out there, any type of engagement you can get, I think is … you’ve got to treat it like gold, or you’ve got to engage with people who are engaging with you in a manner that they are your clients.
Pat: Yes, absolutely. It doesn’t matter how big or how small they are. You want to treat everybody equally because … Yes, the big people who may have a large following already, they might be good to get into. You might get a link from them or a share on Twitter or whatever.
Yes, they might have thousands of fans, but it’s the smaller sort of people who are up and coming or who are just regular people, who you’re going to make a deeper impact with and really create fans for life from. They are the people, like you said, who will become the evangelists, who just will do nothing but promote you.
You never know. Some of that … I mean, for me, I remember building relationships with a lot of smaller bloggers when I was starting out as well. Now, they’re big and they’re huge. Since we’ve had that relationship together for a long time, we always help each other out. You never know who can do what for you. It’s best to just try and serve as many people as possible and really build a true relationship with them, and like you said, engage.
That’s really how you build relationships with people. You engage. I mean, you don’t go to a party and become friends with people by just sitting in the corner. You become friends with people by going out to them, talking to them. Then I love this quote by James Schramko. He says, “The best way to do it, to go about it, and to succeed in business is to stop trying to be so interesting, and start getting or start being interested.”
Jake: Yes. Absolutely. That’s fantastic. I had a lot to do with James. One of the things which most impresses me, this is for … a listener …. One of the things with James is he’s got a team of 80 plus people working for him.
Pat: Yes, that’s crazy.
Jake: He’s turning over multiple millions of dollars. One other thing which I most respect about James is that he will pick up … He will answer the phone to anybody and he will speak to anybody for as long as it takes. He’s so giving with his time. It goes along with exactly with what you just quoted him for there, that he’s interested and that’s incredibly valuable.
Pat: Yes. If he’s doing that, that shows you how important that actually is, because that’s where his time is being spent.
Jake: Yes. Absolutely. All right. Now, looking at that then … We’re looking at engaging and finding more people and let’s … This moves us into one of your other catchphrases, which is “be everywhere.” Can you explain a little bit about what “be everywhere” is and why it’s important.
Pat: Yes. It’s probably the story behind this catchphrase, I guess. It was 2011 in Los Angeles. I was creating a presentation for a BlogWorld Expo, which is what it was known for back then. Now, it’s New Media Expo. The title of the presentation was “How to be Everywhere”.
The reason I titled it that way was because everybody I spoke to who found me underneath the different platforms I was on, was just like, “Pat, you just seem to be everywhere. Everywhere I go, I hear your name. Everywhere I go, I see you. How are you everywhere?”
I wanted to create this presentation to talk about that. I did the presentation and it got a really, really great response and a lot of people started to follow this direction of what I’m about to share. They’re seeing great results too, and this does work. It’s almost common sense because when you have a website or build a website, and it’s like the first day.
Nobody knows about that website except for you, whether it’s a blog or just a business or a static website or whatever. Nobody knows about it except for you. It’s sort of … I compare it to putting a message into a bottle and throwing it into the ocean. You put it out there and you hope that the tides of Google take it to wherever people are, or the waves of the web send it to where people are already.
Yes, eventually, over time, Google can find your site. Some people who are influencers can potentially find it. Yes, you could … you’ll start to see results. But if you want to see results faster, what you want to do is take that message out of that bottle, out of the ocean, and just stick it right where people are already passing by, and to do this on multiple platforms and multiple mediums.
Really, the structure is you have your website or your blog as the hub of your business, because really that’s where all the action happens. That’s where links are. That’s where you can … That’s something that you control and it’s best to control the center of your website.
If you imagine, we’re creating a little diagram here. Your blog is your hub. Extending out of that … I love podcasting. A lot of you don’t notice it, but iTunes is a huge platform, especially for podcasters, and it’s so untapped. I mean, there are millions and millions and millions of websites, and only a handful of a hundred thousand to maybe 200,000 or 400,000 podcasts are out there.
There’s very little competition. iTunes is also a big time search engine. A lot of people don’t think of iTunes as a search engine, but there are people out there looking for information that you probably have in your head. Maybe it’s already on your website. If you were to just podcast about it, people will find you on iTunes.
They have, and I did a survey on my blog before I did this presentation, asking just my blog readers, “How did you find me?” The number one answer was they found me through my podcast. Nineteen percent of my audience who is now reading my blog, found me through my podcast, which blew me away.
I mean, I had no idea it was that much. When I think about it I still get emails every single day from people saying, “I love your show on iTunes. I found you on iTunes. Funny story, I went to New Media Expo this past January where I talked about the power of free.
I wear this little backpack that has my name on it. I let people know so you know how to find me. If you see me, just tap me on the shoulder. I’d like to talk to you. I had about 100 to 200 people come up to me during the entire conference and just say, “Hi, we’re fans.” Ninety-five percent of those people said, “I love your podcast. I listen to your show. Thank you for keeping me company on my car ride on the commute to work every day.”
Podcast, podcast, podcast, podcast … Even though that was the first thing I started, even though it is not my blog, that’s what people remember. I think because it’s the power of the voice. Then obviously, people listen to this now or are listening to our voices. There’s just something about the voice.
I don’t know if it’s because we can share inflections or we can change the tone of our voice, which we can’t really do on … with text. When people listen to your podcast, they’re just plugging you into their ears and you’re entering their brains. There’s no little Xbox that they can click … not Xbox, like Microsoft, but there’s no little X in the corner that they can click out of.
They’re just listening to you and people can listen to you no matter where you are, so you literally can be everywhere. I mean I have people say, “Thank you for keeping me company on my way to Rome today,” or “Thank you for coming to beach and having a run with me today,” like I could literally be everywhere, it seems.
When you think about it, a podcast is like a show that you have that people can subscribe to. Imagine a stadium full … Imagine a room full of 50 people that you’re talking to all at the same time. I mean, that’s impressive, to get a group of 50 people who are listening to you in a room.
Now, imagine thousands of people listening to you just like they’re in a room, but they’re spread out all around the world and they’re subscribed to your show. Whenever you post something, they’re listening to you. It’s like you have this worldwide stadium that is just ready to listen to you anytime you have something to say.
What’s great about … I can talk about this for hours, so I’m sorry. I’m just going to try and brief through this as much as possible so people can get the idea. You have the pod, you have your blog or the your website in the middle. Then you should also have a podcast to go along with it. In addition to that, you should also have a YouTube channel, because, again, just like ITunes, YouTube is a search engine.
It’s actually the number two search engine in the world and it’s owned by Google. Video is just going crazy lately. It’s another great way, a great medium to just share things that you can’t share on audio and also on your website through text. What happens when you have these three content areas … You have your blog for people who like to read, you have podcasts for people who like to listen, and you have videos for people who like to watch or who are visual.
No matter how people enjoy consuming content, they have a way to connect with you and your brand. Also, by putting yourself onto these different platforms, you’re actually going to be found by people who would have never found you otherwise because there are people who only listen to podcasts, who don’t read blogs.
There are people who only watch videos but don’t listen to podcasts or read blogs, and you know all the combinations there within. That’s the core and then there’s also … Your email list is important because that’s a way to get into people’s daily lives, especially now with mobile and people checking their emails everywhere, and so using your email list is a smart way, and also social media as well.
Really, that becomes the core of it. What happens is that there’s sort of this cycle that happens. Once you’ve learned about the cycle and put yourself into it, things just start to perpetuate. Imagine those three platforms. What that does for you. is it allows you to be found. That’s the best first step and when … and in addition to being found, you have to be remembered.
There are certain strategies within each of those platforms you can do to be remembered. Obviously, that’s very important, because people can find you, but if they don’t remember you, that’s pointless. Now, be found, be remembered, and the last one, and probably the most important one is be shared.
That’s where engagement comes in like we talked about or building relationships, or getting people involved and excited, or to have people feel like they’re a part of your brand. That’s where sharing comes in handy and also just making it incredibly easy to share your stuff too. That’s really important.
What happens when you’re shared? You’re found again by new people who go through that same exact cycle. Then the more content you put out, the bigger your brand expands. You’re not just a blogger anymore. You’re not just a video person. You’re not just a podcaster, but you’re this brand with all these … You’re just a multimedia machine.
It does sound like a lot of work from the outside and it should. That’s what it’s supposed … that’s the picture that it’s supposed to convey. I’m Pat Flynn. I’m everywhere. I’m doing all these things. However, it actually doesn’t take that much work, because what I do …
Say you post three times on your website every week. Now, just take one of those times each week and turn it into a podcast episode instead. Each week, you’re posting one podcast episode, and over time, you start to collect all these little things in all these different mediums, each of which become what I’d like to call a seed, because what you do is you plant that seed.
When you post something on any medium, it’s there for good. At anytime, people can find it, and that’s their entry into your brand, into that “be found, be remembered, be shared” cycle.
Jake: Yes. That’s incredibly important, incredibly important in all of this. Now, in each episode, we’d like to really … to putting some action, well, takeaways that our listeners can take and implement in their own businesses. I’m looking to do that in this episode. We’re going to just do something slightly different. You’ve hopped on a train a week or so ago, and you’ve headed off up to San Fran, shooting some video. Your blog has gone down.
Pat: Wonk, wonk.
Jake: The week passed, and the blog comes back, but one thing that’s missing is all your affiliate sales. Affiliates no longer exist, so …
Pat: So just …
Jake: This is almost like a John Dumas, new planet, exactly the same as earth type of thing.
Pat: Right. Okay, so something happens like in the universe where …
Jake: Something happens. …
Pat: … there was no such thing as affiliate marketing anymore.
Jake: Exactly right. You’ve got your listeners. You’ve got your subscribers because you are everywhere. You’re now left with this issue of not being able to produce an income to feed your family. How would you go about finding this income?
Pat: Right. Now, I was promoting all these different products. Actually, if you go to my income reports, you can see that I promote maybe 30 to 40 different products that I do accept the affiliate commission for on a site. That wouldn’t change. I would still promote the exact same products because those are the same products that are going to be helpful to people. I just don’t have an affiliate relationship with those companies anymore. Does that make sense?
Jake: Yes. It certainly does.
Pat: Okay. Because again, I’m worried about the end goal of the user. Instead of producing money through affiliate marketing, because I can’t anymore, even though those products are still there, I can create my own product. I think that is something that would take a little bit of time, of course. T
That’s why I love affiliate marketing because it takes less time. I don’t have to worry as much about customer service or creating landing pages or any of that stuff, or delivery. That’s all up to the company that I’m promoting. But I would spend the time to make sure that I create this amazing products that’s going to help people and walk people through step-by-step how to do everything that I feel I should do and sort of organize all the information that’s on my site into an easy step-by-step, modular type of program, which actually I’m working on right now. That’s what I would do. Now, if that wasn’t possible, for example, if it wasn’t possible for me to make my own product at that time … maybe I don’t have that skill. What I would do, is look at the skills that I do have and see who else might benefit from using those skills.
Actually, what I would do is … and really, this question … or this answers the question, “What do I need to do if I need to make money now?” which I know …
Jake: Yes.
Pat: … is the million dollar question. It’s tough when I get those emails because I do get those emails from people saying really very emotional things, almost in desperation because they maybe … They’re short selling on a house. They lost something or whatever, and I feel for those people.
It’s hard, because when they ask me, “How do I start a business and get … and earn money? I need money in a month.” It’s hard to answer those people because that’s not … it’s possible. It is possible of course, but it’s not likely. I’m always trying to be honest enough and upfront with people.
I’d typically say, “Starting your own business and hoping to earn a sizable income in a month is nearly impossible. It’s not impossible, but it’s nearly impossible. There are things you could do to help yourself get back on your feet to start to earn an income much sooner, and that is freelancing.”
I think a lot of people discount freelancing, seeing it as like a half entrepreneurial type status. I absolutely think it’s absolutely necessary. Because if it makes sense for you and your life and where you’re at right now and if you do need money right away, you could take the skills that you have and give it to those … not give it, but ask people who may need those same services and work with them.
For instance, if I were a writer and I just need to make money now, I would search for people who need excellent writers and require a fee for any number of articles that they may need. In addition to getting money right away for doing that stuff, and of course, you have to learn how to market yourself a little bit and of course the relationships that you have with people is what’s going to help you even further, if you already have these relationships.
I mean, really, if you think about me and my situation, if I wasn’t able to do affiliate marketing or create products, but I still had these relationships I have with people, it would be really easy for me to say, hey, network or people, “I am happy to do any work for you that you may like”.
This is what I’m good at. This is how much I charge. I’m willing to negotiate. Let’s figure something out if you need help. Boom, I would get a ton of people who will potentially need my help for writing, or marketing, or consultation, or graphic design, or web programming, or any of that stuff.
Taking the skills that you have in freelancing … What that does is also, especially if you’re beginning out … Sorry, if you especially if you’re just beginning, that puts you in the world to which you can learn how to do other things where you can branch off of them, becoming your own entrepreneur later.
Jake: Yes, definitely. I think one thing, particularly people getting into it, is that they are almost allergic to dealing with customers on a one-on-one basis or trying to do … They want to affect many lives straightaway, but there really isn’t any difference between affecting many and affecting one.
Pat: Yes. I mean, you have to start with one in order to affect many, I think.
Jake: Yes. Definitely. Definitely. All right, Pat. Well, that’s fantastic. Let’s go a little bit into the upcoming release of Let Go. Why did you decide to write this?
Pat: Well, it’s funny. I was actually in the middle of writing another book called, Be Everywhere that I had finished about 25,000 words for. I had planned to finish it by the time my daughter was born. However, my daughter came three weeks early and then I had lost the chance to complete it because I, at least … need long blocks of time in order to get in the right mindset to write a book.
It takes quite a bit of energy and focus for me to do it at least. That book is still there, halfway or more than halfway finished. Then a few months ago, I got an email from someone who talked about this new platform called Snippet. They were looking for entrepreneurs and potential authors and just wanted to see if I was interested.
I was like, “Well, I had this book already. I feel weird like starting a new book in the middle of writing another one.” After I learned about the capabilities of this platform and what it can do, I had to jump on the chance because I would have … I would be, and I am one of the first featured authors on this platform.
When do people get an opportunity to say that, like who’s the first author for Amazon? I mean that’s awesome. Who knows if this is going to be an Amazon or not? I don’t know, but it’s an amazing opportunity, and so I wanted to jump on it and I thought the platform and what it can do and its capabilities was the perfect platform for me to share in detail, my emotional story from how I got laid off to now becoming a very proud self-employed entrepreneur and how I’ve been helping others. The story is called, Let Go. It’s sort of a double meaning, Let Go, because I was let go from architecture but also ‘let go’ because In order to get to where I’m at now, I had to ‘let go’ of that path that I was told to be on – good grades, college, dream job, 401-K, all that stuff that just got taken away from me.
I had to ‘let go’ of that because that’s what I wanted and worked for for so long, and also letting go of the fears that I had when starting my own stuff.
That’s where the book name comes from. It’s an idea I had for a book for a very long time. It just seemed like the perfect platform because what a snippet is … it sort of combines a book and a blog. It’s a book in way that’s made up of chapters and there’s text and stuff, but each chapter is limited to a thousand words.
What that does, is it makes each chapter really digestible and easy to consume. It keeps to the story of the … whatever the book’s about, moving really fast, and it incorporates multimedia. It also includes audio. It includes video, slide shows within the book, and also social media, which is what got me really excited.
Imagine you’re reading a book, and in the middle of the book, there is a hash tag conversation going on about whatever that topic is. You see people talking about it and you can actually add to the conversation right there in the book or imagine … they call these discoverables, the different multimedia in there.
When you read it, it’s just text, but then you’ll see these little icons that you can push that just add more depth to the story. You might see a video pop-up, talking or describing whatever is happening in detail as you’re already reading. Again with social media, which is really exciting for me, you can share those discoverables on social media.
Then it includes a link to go by the snippet for whoever’s sees that tweet or that Facebook share. You can actually highlight a particular passage in a book and share that as well, which I thought was really cool. Yes, so with the story … I had written it in about two weeks. It was fairly easy to write because it was my own story.
Be Everywhere, I was only halfway through and that took three months. It’s a little bit different as far as that’s concerned, but then I realized what the capabilities were of this platform. I was like, “Okay, I can’t do any of this myself.” I need to bring on a team, so I actually hired a videographer to help me with the discoverables and the trailers and stuff like that in the book, and also a producer who is sort of managing everything, because there’s so many moving parts to it.
Again, I’m really honored and privileged to be a part of this brand-new platform which is coming out on Monday, March 18th. I’m just really excited, like … I don’t know what to expect. Who knows how … maybe it won’t do very well. I don’t know, but it’s been such a privilege to be a part of this and to be able to share my story.
In the book, there’s a lot of really interesting things that I know a lot of people were wondering about. For instance, there’s an interview with my wife on there. We talked to her about what she was thinking when I was getting laid off, and what was going through her head.
We talked to my dad in an interview who is a very traditional guy, who worked the same job for 45 years and then retired, and his thoughts for when I got laid off, because he wanted me to go back to school. We filmed on location in San Francisco where I landed my first architecture job.
We filmed on location where I had my very first mastermind meeting where I was told to write that e-book that sold really well. This is just going to be really fun, a very personal sort of memoir about what happened. I’m hoping that it just inspires people to get off their butts and do something because there’s so many opportunities out there. Really, I want people to just let go of what other people told them to do and do stuff for themselves.
Jake: That’s fantastic. This platform, Snippet, it’s such a great fit, A) for you and “be everywhere” strategy, because it’s combining all these different forms …
Pat: Yes.
Jake: … of multimedia. It’s also a fantastic fit for this episode as well, because again, the premise of the show is to be on the different forms of multimedia. This Snippet seems to be appealing to exactly what we’re talking about here. It’s incredible. Our listeners can go and check that out. Where’s the best address to check that?
Pat: It would be at PatFlynn.me/LetGo. There’ll be a big button there where you can go and get instructions for how the platform works. At the time of this recording, I actually haven’t even seen it yet on the final … on an iPad yet, or on a phone yet. It’s going to be really interesting to see how it works out and what it looks like.
I can’t wait to share it. It’s technology, so things could go wrong. It’s a brand-new platform, a brand-new startup. Things happen, but I’m praying for a good launch and just a good response from all the readers. I don’t even know what to call them. Readers, watchers, listeners, consumers … I don’t know.
Jake: An audience.
Pat: An audience, there you go.
Jake: Pat … Listeners, we’ll include all the links to everything spoken about in the show. Pat, I’ve got one final question for you.
Pat: Sure thing.
Jake: What do you say your title is? You’re explaining what you do to somebody who knows nothing about MySpace or anything. What would your title be?
Pat: It’s so funny you asked that, because every time somebody asks me, I end up saying something different every time, and I do have my foot in many pools. I am an iPhone application … an owner of an iPhone application company also, which we didn’t talk about. I’m an author. I am a podcaster, a blogger, a business owner.
I can sum it up as an online serial entrepreneur, I guess. But when I say that, I just keep hearing myself saying like, “What does that mean exactly?” I say I do business online and I help people in various ways, and typically, I’ll get people who’ll ask me well how?
Then I’ll go into the different examples like the Green Exam Academy, where I help people pass their exam in architecture industry, Smart Passive Income, the blog. I talk about business and all my business strategies. I have a podcast that goes along with it. I have a security guard training website teaching people how to become a security guard. By that point, they’re like, “Okay, serial entrepreneur. I get it.”
Jake: All right, Pat. I really appreciate you coming on this show. This has been an amazing episode. I’m sure our listeners will get a lot out of this.
Pat: Awesome.
Jake: Thank you very much for taking the time.
Pat: My absolute pleasure. Thank you, Jake.
Jake: I wish you every success and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Let Go.
Pat: All right. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Jake.
Jake: Thanks very much. Cool. That’s awesome.
