SPI 861: How to Make People See You as the Authority (Even If You’re Not Famous Yet)

#518 “Audience driven.” It's a term that has become a part of our vocabulary here at Team SPI, and it's why we put on the Audience Driven Summit earlier this month. An audience-driven approach is the way we've always believed a business should be built, and it's the stance we're doubling down on today. It's how we believe all businesses should be created. And if you joined us in this Wednesday's episode, you heard how Arvid Kahl built his own business in the exact same way, where you spent some time to build an audience first, and then you understand, well, what does that audience need help with? What are the biggest struggles that they might be having? And then you figure out, well, how can I get a few of these people some results? What works best for them? When you take this approach, you're not going to know all the answers. But you'll find them out as you go along. It takes out the guesswork, because your path toward a sustainable business is driven by your audience. Now, this is a very opposite approach to how many people think about creating a business. But it's how we need to be thinking about building businesses today. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session518.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

22 Okt 202110min

#517 Many of the guests on this show are people I know personally. Today's guest, however, comes to me by way of crowdsourcing. Arvid Kahl is someone who was recommended by several of the members of Team SPI, and I couldn't be happier that they did. Arvid is one of the most fascinating people I've met in a long time. He's a software engineer and entrepreneur who's been building businesses the right way. What do I mean by that? Well, everything that I've talked about in terms of finding an audience you can serve and figuring out what they need? Arvid is doing it about as well as anybody out there, and he's going to tell us all about it today. This is going to be a really great episode because we're going to be going, almost from start to finish, from building an audience, to learning about that audience, and building something for that audience. You're going to learn a number of powerful principles and strategies that'll help you get started building a following, a community, and a business today. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session517.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

20 Okt 202158min

#516 We're going to talk some numbers today—and we're also going to go beyond the numbers. Here's one number: This podcast has gotten 65 million downloads and counting, which is awesome. And it's important to share numbers like that, because they represent social proof that the podcast is worth paying attention to. But there's something much more important than a number like 65 million: the people at the other end of it. On Wednesday, I spoke with Dustin Bakkie about accessibility and universal design. We talked about how creators and entrepreneurs can make our content more accessible to those who may be hearing or sight impaired, or have another disability. Everyone should have an equal ability to access the things we're creating. So, go ahead and listen to episode 515, if you haven't already. It's a great one, on a topic that's so important. That episode also got me thinking about numbers—big numbers like 65 million, and small numbers like ten. And how getting fixated on the numbers can cause us to make bad decisions, like not making our content accessible to everybody just because "enough" people can still access it. Most people who visit our websites and social channels are not going to need additional help to see or hear our content. So, does that mean we should ignore everybody else? No. If that were the case, then you wouldn't see handicap ramps or parking spaces anywhere. That's really what this is all about to me, serving the people in your audience, no matter who they are, no matter where they're from, no matter what challenges they might have. And that's why I still, every single month, love having direct conversations with people in my audience. That's where that number ten comes in, and it's what I want to talk about in today's follow-up Friday episode. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session516.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

15 Okt 202114min

#515 One of my favorite things that happens as a result of this podcast is when a listener or fan says, "You know what, Pat? I noticed that you haven't really talked about [topic] much, but it's so, so important. Is there anything you can do about it?" We get a lot of feedback like that, and we appreciate it. We're always trying to improve, and how would we know how to improve if it weren't for the people in our community who speak up? Today, I wanted to highlight one of those community members. His name is Dustin Bakkie. Dustin started his online journey focused on effective teaching and course design. He's helped a lot of teachers, especially through his YouTube channel (DustinBakkie1). He has a lot of really popular videos that have helped teachers, especially during COVID with how to effectively use Zoom, and how to create really good curriculums online, something that obviously bleeds over into entrepreneurship. But Dustin recently had an epiphany that he could serve his audience even better by helping creators like us create accessible online content. What does that mean? It refers to the ability of all people, regardless of ability or disability, to access what we create. Dustin is really focused on helping foster and normalize inclusive digital communities. I love that, and I'm so glad he's here today to talk about what that means and how you can start to implement it in your own business. I think a lot of us creators know how important accessibility should be, but we're worried that it's really complicated. Well, Dustin is here to break things down and show us that it's not as complicated as we might think. So sit back and listen in, because we're going to be learning something very important today that you may not have heard anywhere else. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session515.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

13 Okt 202136min

#514 I started my speaking career in 2011 at FinCon, the financial blogger conference. I got called onto the main stage at the last minute because the keynote speaker was unable to make it. I was kind of thrown into the deep end, and although I was nervous and scared, it was a life-changing moment. Flash-forward to 2018, when I decided to host my own conference. I pitched the idea to Team SPI, and we decided that in the summer of 2019 we'd put on an event in San Diego for 500 people who wanted to come. The very first FlynnCon was an amazing experience, a family-friendly event where entrepreneurs could come together and learn and connect (and even play some Mario Kart). Then of course in 2020, everything changed. We'd hoped to run back FlynnCon for a second year, but the pandemic had something to say about that. So we delayed it by a year. But soon we realized that hosting an in-person event in 2021 wasn't going to happen either. Long story short, FlynnCon was an incredible experience that may or may not happen again. But in the meantime, we're still moving forward on creating highly valuable experiences for entrepreneurs to come together and learn—like this month's Audience Driven Summit. Today, I'll share all the details about how FlynnCon came to be, how we tried to plan its sequel through the pandemic, and what you can look forward to in our upcoming summit. It may not be FlynnCon, but it'll still be a blast (and it's free!). Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session514.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

8 Okt 202113min

#513 A lot has changed recently when it comes to online courses. For a while, it was all about having as much content as possible. Sixty hours of video and five hundred worksheets? Great! Ship it! We might have thought that way once, but we know now that's just the wrong way to build a course. We want our course experiences to be more efficient—for both the course creator and the students taking it. But online courses have continued to evolve beyond just more efficiency. It's about the experience people have around that content, and how we can enhance their learning through extra guidance and community. This evolution is showing up in the form of cohort-based courses—”cohort” meaning a group of people, in this case, course students. The concept isn't exactly new. Cohort-based learning has been around for a while. (You may be familiar with “schools” and “classrooms.”) But when it comes to online education, cohort-based courses have come to the fore thanks to people like Seth Godin and his altMBA program, which a lot of very successful people have gone through. Credit for coming up with the altMBA concept actually goes to someone named Wes Kao—and she's our special guest here today. Wes is a cofounder at Maven, a platform where you can create and teach your own online cohort-based courses. In fact, I and a couple of my teammates on Team SPI have had the privilege of taking a cohort-based course from Wes and her team on how to do our own cohort-based courses. We're now running several “boot camps,” as we call them, where we lead a group of people through our courses in a more structured format, with accountability, working hours, and group collaboration. We're going to talk today with Wes about exactly what a cohort-based course looks like, how it'll deliver better results, and how to go about creating your own cohort-based course. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session513.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

6 Okt 202147min

#512 This past week I interviewed Joe Sanok from Practice of the Practice, who is the author of a new book called Thursday is the New Friday. My chat with Joe really got me thinking, "Who created the five-day week anyway, and why is it like that?" I think we've all been burnt out by working five days a week, and feeling like the weekend isn't quite long enough. What if we had an extra day? How cool would that be? Now, today's episode is actually going to take a bit of a different angle! But it's one that was sparked by the episode with Joe. That's because in thinking about a four-day workweek, I started to wonder: “Okay, four days a week. I could spend the other three days fishing on a boat with my kids, my family, building memories that will last forever. What would it take to make that happen?" So that's what I want to talk about today: how to start making your goals and dreams of the next phase (or next-next phase) of your life a little more possible. Maybe like me your dream is owning a boat, or having a coffee farm in Hawai'i—or probably it's something entirely different. I'm going to share some personal stories that illustrate how to start finding your path to making those dreams come true—or at least figure out if they make sense. Spoiler alert: it means putting yourself out there, and finding the people who can start to point you in the right direction. Now, if fate puts those people in front of you, awesome. But if not, you need to go find them. You need to put yourself out there, and yes, it's going to get uncomfortable. It's going to put you out of your comfort zone, but that's where all the most amazing things happen, right? Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session512.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

1 Okt 202115min

#511 Perhaps you've heard about the four-hour workweek. Well, a lot of us have come to realize that it's kind of hard to come by. Even Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, has said that maybe wasn't the best title for his book. Because even with passive income coming in, you still have to do work to maintain things. Four hours is probably out of the question for most of us—but what about a four-day workweek? That's three days for a weekend, four days of work, then rinse and repeat. In fact, this has become the norm in places like Iceland, where 85 percent of workers are working just four days a week. And guess what? They still get paid the same, and productivity is up. So the question is, when is this going to happen in the US? Well, the truth is it can happen right now if you are an entrepreneur and you control your own time. And even if you're not an entrepreneur, you can still make this happen if you're smart about it and willing to have the right conversations with your employer. Thankfully, my good friend Joe Sanok from Practice of the Practice might have a path forward for us. Joe has a new book coming out called Thursday is the New Friday, How to Work Fewer Hours, Make More Money, and Spend Time Doing What You Want. And he's joining the podcast today to tell us all about how he's made this approach work for himself and his business. He's not "at work" very much anymore, but he's still doing so much to help people, and making good money as a result. So, if you've ever felt overworked or that you're putting too much time into something and not getting a lot of results back, there's a lot of great stuff in this episode for you. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session511.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

29 Sep 202133min