Road to Revenue | Geniuslink

Pat Flynn | The Power of Community &The Entrepreneur Mindset | Road to Revenue Podcast - Ep 14

• Geniuslink • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Ever wondered how a major setback can fuel the journey to incredible success? Join us on this episode of Road to Revenue as we sit down with Pat Flynn, the visionary behind Smart Passive Income. From the unexpected blow of losing his dream job in architecture to becoming an influential entrepreneur and philanthropist, Pat's story is a testament to resilience and the importance of serving others. He shares how his mother’s teachings shaped his dedication to helping fellow entrepreneurs through transparent business strategies and income reports.

We'll also dive into the power of community building in today's digital age. Listen to Pat as he discusses the evolution of their business community and the introduction of the Experts in Residence program. Learn how fostering meaningful connections and accountability can drive entrepreneurial success, and why creating tailored support for different stages of business development is crucial. Discover the significance of in-person connections and how they can be a foundational strategy for growth.

Finally, we explore Pat’s insights on niching down, finding fun in business ventures, and balancing multiple passions. From software creation to streamline giveaways to his thriving Pokémon channel, Pat demonstrates the importance of staying grounded through supportive relationships and mastermind groups. As we wrap up, Pat shares his unique metrics for success and teases his upcoming projects, including a new book titled "Lean Learning." Don't miss this episode packed with actionable advice and inspiring stories!

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💠  www.smartpassiveincome.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Road to Revenue. I'm your host, Lee. This is the podcast where we talk to creators to understand the bumps in the road, the twists, the turns in their journey on their individual road to revenue. Joining me today is the one, the only the amazing, Pat Flynn. Welcome, Pat.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, Lee. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat today.

Speaker 1:

Oh, do you know what I am super excited? Before we hopped on camera, we were talking a little bit around. You've got a long, long history, so I'm not going to drag you all the way back there, but you have come a long way. What I'm really interested to really just start off with is where do you find yourself now when you think of the I guess stage of the evolution that you are in of this? Pat Flynn, how do you describe that to people?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, when I think about the different stages that I've gone through, it helps me understand kind of where I am now, and I think it's important to always go back and look at the history to kind of appreciate where you've ended up. Right, and for those of you who don't know my story, I was laid off from an architecture career that I loved and it was my dream job, and that was 2008. I then started a business helping architects pass an exam and it thankfully did really, really well. I started teaching online business and speaking and writing books and doing affiliate marketing and all this kind of stuff. And here we are today and I think in the beginning, when I got laid off, the whole idea was just to survive. I had gotten laid off, I was just about to get married. I moved back in with my parents. I was not in a place that I wanted to be, so I just wanted to make enough money to survive and move out of my parents' home and kind of just, you know, live From there.

Speaker 2:

As the business continued to grow, I started to realize that the ceiling was quite high in the world of entrepreneurship, right when in the career in architecture you know, there were little incremental bumps and increases along the way. And then, you know, hopefully I'd be, you know, 50 or 60 one day and have my own architecture firm, and that's when things, would you know, blow up. But the opportunities were ripe, especially in 2010, in the world of podcasting, in the world of blogging, in the world of affiliate marketing and entrepreneurship that I took hold of that and I started to realize that, wow, I don't have to just survive here. I could potentially thrive in this, in this arena, here, I could potentially thrive in this arena. And that's exactly what happened. And then, looking back today, the idea of philanthropy is very important to me. So, giving back, I'm definitely very grateful and feel very blessed to be in the position I'm in, because money is definitely not an issue anymore and I'm able to do what I want when I want, with who I want. And that is the dream, that is, I'm living it.

Speaker 2:

And any time a podcaster typically wants me to tell a story or share more information about how to do that, I'm always happy to do that, because 15 years ago was a long time ago, but it also wasn't the idea that we don't have to wait until 65 to enjoy life. We can do it now and we can build these things online. To make that happen, or at least speed that up, is really incredible. I'm here to share how that happens. I didn't make all the right choices on the way, but here we are. I think the biggest thing is just perseverance and consistency and the undying curiosity that I've always had with you know how might this work? And let's talk to people to see what would make it work. And talk to people who have done it before and see what worked and didn't work for them and learn from them. And I'm continuously learning and I think that's another lesson along the way that you know I'll never let go is just the importance of keeping an open ear and an open eye on what's working and what's not out there.

Speaker 1:

You've always been and, yes, you're selling training, going back to the architecture course, but you're very much sharing. That's been a very core piece of everything that you've done.

Speaker 2:

Where does that come from? I think a lot of it comes from my mom. In fact, she really taught me through example the idea of serving first and this idea. You know, we'd always go to friends houses or you know her friends houses for parties and birthdays and stuff, and she was the one always like in the kitchen, trying to help out, wanting to make sure the host was taken care of, and you know, she was just so thankful to be invited that she wanted to just give back and that was her way. And you and we weren't rich or anything like that, by no means. In fact, we were pretty low class growing up and the only thing that we could offer was ourselves and our time and our care.

Speaker 2:

I've learned over time that service also comes with listening, being a good listener, intaking something and hearing a person out and then discovering different ways to potentially solve that problem, and that's played a role in my journey here on the road of entrepreneurship. But it was in 2009, 2010, when I started the Smart Passive Income blog, where I started to share all this information for free on the website. I had built this rather successful and rather quickly brought up this architecture business and a lot of people were struggling at the time. So I said I'm just going to blog about my efforts here and talk about all the things, all the things that went well, all the things I wish I'd done differently. Anything I was learning, I was posting online and I even got to the point where I was sharing my income. I was showing my report, my income report, on how much money I was making, how much money I was making, how much money I was spending, where it was all going, what was working, what wasn't. And lo and behold, I didn't understand it at the time, but people really enjoyed the transparency and the authenticity behind that and even though philanthropically that wasn't giving money, I was giving time and free information. And back then information wasn't as plentiful as it is now, but that was new. That was kind of revolutionary back then to be that open. A lot of people teaching business held their secrets behind a paywall and here I was just kind of giving it all away for free and that combined with realizing why people listen to me. I didn't understand when I first started out why people listen to me. I just kind of shared what I was doing and that's it. But I eventually discovered that it wasn't just the authenticity, it was because I was just like them.

Speaker 2:

I never positioned myself as an expert. I never positioned myself as a know-it-all or a guru or the guy who is in front of a mansion with the Lamborghini outside. That's not me at all. My Lamborghini I joked at one point was a 2009 Toyota Sienna, and people really resonated with that. They're like yes, this guy gets it because he's just like me. He's not like Tim Ferriss or you know, I can't be like Gary Vaynerchuk. He has a whole agency, but this guy, pat's just a regular guy who just wants to make it work for his family. And a lot of people resonated with that too.

Speaker 2:

And when I discovered that positioning in the sort of unique proposition that I had in the space, I leaned into that right, I started actually saying like I'm just a regular guy, I just figure things out and I'm here to help others behind me. I almost equate it to you know, I'm in this jungle and I have the machete and, yeah, I might get a couple cuts and bruises from vines and thorns, and maybe there's a tiger over there and I, you know, I might get a couple cuts and bruises from vines and thorns and maybe there's a tiger over there and I'll let everybody know behind me what the dangers are ahead, but I'm going to clear a path for everybody, and so that's how I feel about the role I've played in the quote-unquote road or path that others have had in their career. And it's amazing because now, 15 years later, I'll still get random emails from people who say hey, pat, I wanted to reach out and tell you that your podcast or your blog or your YouTube video on podcasting, whatever it was, changed my life back then. And it's interesting because I don't know these stories that are happening until people tell me and I'll get one of those a week or a few a month and it's just so incredible that the seeds that I planted earlier are now sort of still there and still providing fruit for people and have had, have had the ability to help people, you know, live their life. And it's just, it's pretty wild.

Speaker 2:

I, I, I. This is why I love these podcasts, because it forces me to think about, kind of, what has really happened here. And it's just again, it just blows my mind and when I typically when anybody is like can you, can you tell me more about how to do this? I'm an open book and I just continue to spew anything and everything I can to help people because, like I said, I remember what it was like and a lot of people are struggling today. A lot of people are waking up to, oh, maybe the career that I chose isn't the right one, what can I do next? And entrepreneurship is an answer for a lot of those people. So, yeah, that's kind of a good trip down memory lane there.

Speaker 1:

And it's really interesting because you were and I love that description the hacking away with a machete and trying to cut a path that everyone else can follow Very pioneering at the beginning and you've evolved though over time, haven't you now? So so, where there's still, there's still pioneering going on. But there's also an element of you mentioned there's so much information out there. You've got a real handle on curation as well. Um, and and how? How did you make that shift over into understanding? It wasn't just about getting access to information that people needed, but actually you needed to whittle down what was not misinformation, but what was the information that mattered.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is a great topic because it's actually the topic of my next book. I call it Lean Learning. You know we're at a buffet of information now. This was different Back when we started, information was what was valuable because it wasn't available everywhere. Not everybody had a phone in their pocket like they do today and not everybody was sharing everything for free. This is why when you saw sales pages for online courses back then, it would say things like 65 hours of video. If you say that now, it's like no, that's way too much, like that's, that's unnecessary, I don't have the time for that right now. It's like get the result faster right Now. It's curated information, it's the right information at the right time for the right person, and that's the. That's the trick of of content creation today is finding out who it is that you're serving, what it is that they need help with right now, and then creating the best information or the best video, the best interview, whatever it might be, to support that on that transformation and the result getting faster is what is valuable now.

Speaker 2:

And so, even in my own learning journey over the years, you know, for a while I was absorbing as much as I could because it wasn't available. So I was subscribed to 30 different podcasts, I was subscribed to 50 different blogs and I was just taking it all in. But I discovered over time, especially that the more that I learned just for the sake of learning and keeping it in, just so I had it the less time I had to take action on those things, and sometimes the more confused I was because I was getting perhaps conflicting information or something was pulling me this way, and then this amazing thing happened over here and it's pulling me that way, and then another thing over here. So I had squirrel syndrome and it's my duty to be aware of that for my audience, who is just like me or who is just a few steps behind me. And so over time, I've realized and you see this in our business model in 2017. We had online courses and these were one off courses that you could purchase for a few hundred dollars, that were about podcasting, affiliate marketing, email marketing, webinars all like the whole gamut.

Speaker 2:

And in 2020, we started to realize and it wasn't just because of the pandemic. We started to see and hear from people that it was just, it was, it was a lot and it was, it was confusing and it was just they didn't know where to go next and, in fact, more value was coming from accountability, from connections, from community, and so we changed our entire business model. We still have those courses, but they're now built and put into a membership program because the membership is now the community and that is our business model. We still have those courses, but they're now built and put into a membership program because the membership is now the community, and that is our business model. Our business is the people, the community, and, yes, they get access to the information, but it's, in fact, the fact that they're running through those courses together with other people in cohorts. It's the fact that other people are there sharing their wins and motivating people and sparking inspiration at the same time, or the ability to go in and ask questions and get real answers from real people who are going through it with you in real time. That is able to. Actually what is happening is a two to three x completion rate on those courses because those people are there going through those things together.

Speaker 2:

So, when it comes to curation, a few things have to happen. Number one the most important thing is priority what is most important to me right now and then learnings that support that. I call that just-in-time learning. I didn't invent that term, but that's what it is. It's learning about the thing that is most important and in front of you right now and removing everything else from your plate, from your eyes, and that's a hard thing to do because we, as humans, are uh, we like to um hoard things, right, especially if, uh, we grew up in a way where those things weren't readily available. Right, it's like our brains don't know how to handle all this information, so we, so we soak it all in as if that's not going to be available anymore. It's almost like food, but like food, we're getting bloated and we're tired and we're we're overweight in information. Right now, putting the rest of the buffet aside for that one dish that's going to make you happy right now. That's the idea and that's the idea of lean learning in the book that I'm writing right now.

Speaker 2:

But we've seen it in the success stories of our community.

Speaker 2:

The feedback that we're getting now is more positive than ever as a result of focusing on community and as a byproduct of that, we now have recurring revenue in our business for the first time, and it feels great because, instead of selling a new course every month to people and almost like drilling it into them, like, hey, there's a new course and here's another new course, and they're hundreds of dollars each.

Speaker 2:

We can charge. Just right now it's the equivalent of $59 a month, or $179 or $199 a quarter, and although we're quote unquote losing money up front because it's a lower payment initially, the idea being, if we can continue to provide value over time for our audience, well, we're going to eventually end up making more and a person's going to get better results and everybody wins. And I like the marketing and the kind of business where everybody wins right, where everybody has a positive ROI in the end. So that's kind of where we're at now, but it's difficult. It's hard especially with more content being published now than ever, especially with a lot of the content coming our way forcefully, like we don't even ask for it, and it's getting in front of our faces. So there's a lot of willpower and discipline that's required to, uh, succeed today, but that, combined with the accountability and and other people, um, that's required to succeed today, but that, combined with the accountability and other people, that's how you combat that.

Speaker 1:

It's almost like crowdsourcing support and crowdsourcing the motivation really isn't it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Great, I mean moving into that community piece. It's almost like growing a family as well, isn't?

Speaker 2:

it. It is. People are the most important part of business. It always has been, and now, when we put the people at the center of it, then it's even more apparent how much this works. But you get to know your people very, very well and that benefits you in so many different ways, not only from a cool we have community and recurring revenue, but more than that, you get to know exactly who it is you're serving even more intimately. You have further conversations with them, you are able to dissect what the problems and the obstacles are, so that not only can you help the people who are in the community, but you're better able to display and portray what it is that you do to those who are on the outside of the community.

Speaker 2:

In fact, my favorite strategy is sharing the success stories of those in the community, which puts a spotlight on them. That's very Donald Miller story brand-esque in terms of how to run your business and market it. But those on the outside go oh, that person was just like me, they had the same obstacles, and look where they're at now. Maybe I should be a part of this community as well, and inherently we all want to be a person who feels like we belong to somebody or something or some idea, or we want to find our people and speak the same language, because we can't often speak with those who are close to us. I mean my, when I talk business with my wife, it's just like she doesn't care, it's not her world. And to find a space where I can have safe conversation and be around people who understand and also get ideas from, it's absolutely incredible.

Speaker 2:

And as a creator, as the sort of owner, if you will, of these communities, it's beautiful because you can eventually get to that point.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't happen right away. There's a lot of you've got to continue to remain active up front, especially to nurture the community that you're building, but eventually it can get to that tipping point where I mean it has a heartbeat of its own now and it's, it's alive and it's thriving. And and you know, I'm even required less in there now, because sometimes the people connecting with others like them, who are in there, going through those courses with them, is more valuable than even connecting with me. So it's it's almost, you know it's at this point now where you know it's just kind of it's run in itself, which is amazing. I mean, we still have team and we still have community leaders and people who are responsible for making sure people are taken care of in there, of course, but if you can create the safe space for your people to connect with each other, it just enhances the strength of your brand and eventually helps you remove yourself from the process even more.

Speaker 1:

It's almost counterintuitive, right, Like you get to serve more people but actually have maybe a little less pull on your own time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean that's exactly right. It's still important to show up and be there and we have regular Ask Me Anythings where I'm in there once a month and there's posts that I am responsible for sharing every month, and what we're doing now is actually we're expanding this. We actually it's not just about me anymore as far as experts in this community, but we have a program that was launched by my CEO, because I'm not CEO of the company anymore CEO, because I'm not CEO of the company anymore. I'm just the talent, if you will, who's on the mic and on the videos. But Matt Gartland on my team is much more talented at running and operating the business. Now we have a team of 10 full-time people too, and that's a lot and I never thought I'd get there.

Speaker 2:

But here we are and it's great. It's enabled us to scale. But what's really amazing is that you know, the entire team contributes to the success of this brand and Matt has done a great job of building it out in a way where we're now expanding with what we call the EIR program or the experts in residence program. So not only is our team contributing, but we've partnered with other people, other experts, who have their own unique selling proposition in the world of business, who want to get in front of a few more people. But also we want to tap into their expertise.

Speaker 2:

So we have people like Terry Rice and Jason Pfeiffer, the senior editor at not Wired but at Entrepreneur Magazine, who has just so much experience, who now is available for our community to tap into, and we're going to build this out. We're going to have, hopefully, about a dozen of these by the end of the year. And now it's not just like Iron man and Tony Stark anymore, it's the Avengers, it's like all of us with each of our superpowers, and I don't know who's the Hulk or who's Black Widow or who, but it's a great thing when a bunch of people with a superpower come together for for the, for the bigger hole to be able to access people.

Speaker 1:

That you've made, you've done all the steps, you've taken all the hard work. That's, that's absolutely incredible, um, to open up doors that otherwise wouldn't be there thank you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's. It's been pretty amazing to see, and just you know we're continuing to grow and scale. And you know, on the other hand, if I had wanted to, I could have been fine with just me and a couple other people on the team, no outside talent, and it could have been a nice tight community and it would have been profitable, perhaps even more profitable. But our goal right now is to scale and grow bigger and bring these other people in to find each other. We have just found that there's not a lot of other creators in the space who are doing this and who are stepping to the plate, especially for the beginner entrepreneur, in fact, and that's really who this community is for is the beginner to intermediate entrepreneur. We do have a secondary community for the higher-level entrepreneurs in our program, spi Pro, and there's higher levels, more strategic type of conversations that are happening there that would quite honestly overwhelm those who are just starting out. So we've had, we now have, two communities and two ways to generate recurring revenue, which is fantastic, and it provides our SPI Pro community provides a nice sort of like second stage or a place to graduate to, if you will, if you've just started out in our program. So it's been really neat to see and again going back to our sort of journey here, like I'm so grateful for where this ended up, and I definitely wouldn't have been able to get here if it wasn't for the other people I connected with. I mean, again, it's all about people and who you know and who you've connected with, and from my team to just other creators in the space, everybody from Amy Porterfield to getting to know Tim Ferriss, to Gary Vaynerchuk and Donald Miller, and you know what it is.

Speaker 2:

It's the podcast. The podcast changed everything. The podcast created those relationships. There would have been no way that I would have been able to pick all these people's brains and chat with them for 30 minutes to an hour if it wasn't for the show. And this is why we continue to be very bullish on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Even though YouTube is where you can get more views and kind of have more arms, reach out to new people, the podcast, even just for the ability to connect with another influencer or creator in the space and have a conversation and build a relationship, is huge, and a lot of these relationships have turned into business partnerships In fact. Not only that, but like lifelong friends now and I'm actually later this year going to be going to a mastermind meeting with some of these incredible podcasters and authors, to be in a room that I would have never thought that I would have been able to get access to, simply because of relationships. So, you know, a lot of people ask me, pat, if you had, you know, $2,000 and you were starting over today, what would you do? And I always say this surprises a lot of people I always say spend that money to go to an event and build relationships with people like in person.

Speaker 1:

That's going to be more valuable and provide more long-term ROI and positive return than anything, because relationships Because that is one of those questions, right, that people have probably been asking you all the way through. Right that that people have probably been asking you all the way through. And is there another piece that it's almost like? Is there a myth that won't die, or a question that people keep asking that is is in the wrong direction, or maybe a bit of misinformation? Is that one thing that you keep having to go back to to, to reset or reframe people?

Speaker 2:

on. Yeah, I mean, that's a fantastic question. Typically, a person will ask me whether it's in an interview or a coaching call, or I'm just meeting somebody on the street and they're like hey, pat, do you have any advice? It's interesting because the first question I usually get is what should I do first? Should I build a website? Should I create a ebook or sell an online course, like what would be the best route to monetization? Right, and they're looking for the platform, they're looking for the device that's going to generate revenue for them and it's like, okay, well, that's maybe question number six, right? Question number one we should be asking is who are we trying to help? What is our target niche? Who are we trying to help? What is our target niche? Because then, and only then, can you discover what the problems are in that space and then, and only then, can you determine what a solution might look like for those specific people. And, in fact, even that word people is a little scary.

Speaker 2:

Let's bring it down to person no-transcript One market, one problem, one solution, and some amazing things happen when you break it down that way. Number one it's one person, and so you don't need a website, you don't need social media. You just need to go out there, put yourself where these communities exist and listen, talk, converse, find one person. That's a great exercise in and of itself. It's how do I find these communities? Where are these people? How do I begin having conversations with them? That is an amazing exercise to do and, again, we're just trying to find one person, and the discovery of the problem that that one person might have is an exercise in and of itself. It invites education on how to go and find these problems. What questions to ask? Right? What's the most challenging thing for you right now? What are the obstacles? What are the things they've tried before? All these questions start coming up that are so useful as you continue to build this out over time, that again, we're just bringing it down to one.

Speaker 2:

And then when you get that one result for that one person, no matter how it is, maybe you have to work with them for three to four weeks to make that happen, or you have to do some research and find the right solution and then point it their direction, in which case, okay, affiliate marketing might be a good opportunity. Whatever it is, maybe you need to connect them with a person who knows, but when you get that result. For that one person, some things happen. Number one yes, great, they got a result. That's ultimately what we want. But number two you have a testimonial.

Speaker 2:

Now you have a real life person that has gotten help because of you, and that is huge, because the biggest thing that happens is you've now unlocked the confidence that this is possible, and where there is one person that you can help in a community, there's often many, many more. And that unlock is so key because I see it often with people who ask that question first, which is what do I do first? Should I build an online course? Cool, okay, they build an online course and then they wonder is this even going to work or not? They start questioning all the work that they did. They start comparing themselves to others who might be doing the same kind of thing and thinking their thing is maybe not as great or lesser than, and so when you get that unlock of confidence, you can no longer ask yourself well, does this even work? Because you know the answer. Now it did, and now you go out there and find other people like that, and that, I've seen, is the best way to get started if you're literally just starting out.

Speaker 2:

So many people are asking the wrong question, which is am I going to make money? No, no, how are you going to find a person to help first, you can scale from there. And, yes, all these other things come up when people talk about that. They're like, oh, but I don't want to be known just for that thing, or I don't want to pigeonhole myself into that one space. Don't, why are you thinking about that right now? Help a person and then scale and grow from there.

Speaker 2:

You can always expand outward from there, and it's interesting because when I teach this strategy to people, and especially students who I'm walking through this process in our programs, they then discover, oh, it's actually cool that they are so niched that they are almost immediately the go-to person for this sort of thing. Right, the competition is far less. When you niche down, it's so much easier to find people. When you niche down, it's so much easier to talk to people and, and and share the right messaging, share the same language as those people, um, that they end up just wanting to stay there. Right, you can make a great living having just a few customers, honestly, uh, and and you don't need to be the next Uber or create the next thing that changes the world. You just need to change somebody's world, and when you do that, incredible things happen. You can live an incredible life and completely change it by just focusing on helping a few.

Speaker 1:

So you help more than a few, right? So you've started off with that one and grown it, but is that what you go back to every single time when you're looking at the next kind of evolution, the next offering that you've got when you've made the push into community? Is that the wisdom that you went back to?

Speaker 2:

Always, it always comes down to the individual and the person. In fact, I'm working on another business right now because I'm curious and I always create new things and I like to share these things, and so I am publicly sharing the creation of what I'm about to tell you, and that is I'm developing a software right now. Why? Because I want to make money? No, because I have an itch that is really bothering me that I just need to scratch, and I know that there's a lot of people who have this same itch. How do I know? Because I've literally talked to them and I've gotten information, so I'm going through the process that I talk about in my book. Will it fly through this new software development? So let me give you a little bit of background to share with you, kind of where this is coming from. Okay, so I have a new youtube channel that I started in 2021 I don't know if you know this, but it's in and around the world of collecting Pokemon cards. Yes, yeah. So this channel, which was started as just kind of a fun little side thing because I started collecting and I wanted to, I thought I could provide some new ways of telling story and showcasing my collection and the things that I was learning along the way on this channel. It's called Deep Pocket Monster. We're three years and three months into it and we're about to cross a million subscribers. That's incredible, it's, it's wild, it's it's actually. It's actually way more profitable than anything I've done, because it's just me and a producer. That's it. There's no team, it's just videos, and we're getting money through ad revenue. It's, it's, it's, it's awesome, it's. It's so much fun. I get to be a kid again. I go live every Monday to 2,000 to 3,000 people watching concurrently every Monday and they're watching me open packs, I'm giving the cards away and all these things.

Speaker 2:

With these giveaways, I have to set up a Google form beforehand, typically two Google forms, because there's a giveaway for the public viewers and there's a giveaway for the members of my channel. We have about 4,000 members of the channel who pay $2.99 a month to support the channel, so we have a separate giveaway for them. So I have two giveaway forms that I have to set up in Google Forms beforehand. I share those links and when I share those links, when people fill out the form with their YouTube username, they dynamically get added to the respective Google Sheet at the same time, which is great. It keeps track of all the entries.

Speaker 2:

But in order to run these giveaways, I have to then copy and paste those names and put them into a random name picker. I choose typically wheelofnamescom because it makes like a nice Wheel of Fortune, little animation with that name picking opportunity, and I share that on screen and then the name is selected, I open the pack for that person and then I send them information. But after the stream I have to then, first of all, between every giveaway, I have to copy and paste all the new names and then, after the giveaway ends or after the stream ends, I have to then go and find the username connected to the email that was put in the Google form and then send them all emails. It's a pain, but it's one of the most fun things that we do and it provides a lot of you know good vibes, just, and positivity in the space. So I'm going to continue to do it, but I've noticed that every week I've done this for the last two years it's just a pain in the butt and I hate it, and so I'm building software to make this more automated for me and for other people who do this too and it's not just people in the Pokemon space who are doing this, but literally everybody who does live streams, not just on YouTube, but on Twitch and on Kik and on Instagram and on Facebook and on LinkedIn, has an opportunity to do this, but they don't because the mechanisms are just so like broken right now. So I'm creating a solution for this, like broken right now. So I'm creating a solution for this, and phase one is going to be doing this for myself and a few others in the space to test this out. Phase two will then be opening this up to you know, the masses, if you will, and then phase three would be ideally building this, uh, in such a way that a company would want to acquire it and buy it off me and inject it into, for example, an email service provider, because this can help you generate more emails. So that's the big idea.

Speaker 2:

And where did this all come from? The pain that I have and the pain that others have doing the same thing over and over again. That's a great opportunity to create a software. Did I know it was going to be software when I was? Did I even know this was something I was going to do? No, it always can comes from where the biggest pains and where the biggest challenges. And I just so happened to have this challenge myself, which makes it easy and it's definitely recommended that, if you're starting a business, to look at your own challenges and then start talking to other people who may have similar challenges to to to verify that. Okay, green light, I'm going to go to the next step in research and see if this might be a thing. So that's where I'm at.

Speaker 1:

You're first to hear it and, uh, that's so exciting, that's so so exciting and and it's it's such a core problem like in, in, in what you're doing, so it absolutely makes so much sense to tackle it. Yeah, I'm super excited. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that progresses and that's just like one stream of activity and I know when we were speaking earlier it's talking about. I mean, this is the road to revenue, right, and we do want to talk about, we do want to understand from creators what their revenue streams look like. But is it fair to say that you also look at it from an activity stream standpoint, not just that revenue piece?

Speaker 2:

Yes, revenue is important, obviously, and there are multiple revenue streams in our business. I mean, we've brought things back down to the community and MRR, which we talked about, and AIR, which is great. We have that recurring revenue. For the first time we do sell those courses one-off as well, so we have that. But affiliate marketing plays a big role and GeniusLink has played a major role in that, especially for a lot of the stuff on Amazon, which has been incredible. That, especially for a lot of the stuff on Amazon, which has been incredible.

Speaker 2:

But we are affiliates for other software and for other tools and for other people and their programs. You know, if it makes sense and it, you know, combines nicely with with our audience without conflict. Sponsorships have become a major player in the podcasting space and on our YouTube channel, which is, which is great. I also have on my end on the YouTube channel for Deep Pocket Monster, some sponsorships there as well. I do affiliate marketing in that space too.

Speaker 2:

I'm the number one affiliate for a binder company. In fact, I've built a relationship with this company that we've done a lot of custom things together and have sold products that have the Deep Pocket Monster logo on it with this company, because I've used a lot of the tactics that I've learned over time here in the business space building partnerships with companies and having conversations, building relationships and I brought that into the Pokemon space and a lot of these Pokemon creators are like, wow, this guy knows what he's doing with business and it's like, yeah, that's what I've been doing for like 12 to 15 years now and I'm just bringing it into a new space. And that is just a great opportunity for all of us, because most of the spaces that we're in have not seen, you know, good business acumen or like has had somebody come in to you know, put these pieces together and to really focus on serving the audience first, and that's what I would highly recommend that you do. But in terms of activity, yeah, I mean I also think about it from from. Well, what's going to light me up?

Speaker 2:

you know, that that that's typically the first question when I'm you know, when I, when you meet people, and typically one of the first questions you ask after you get their name is like well, what do you do? I don't like that question because oftentimes you cannot necessarily know what a person is like by just what they do. Some people hate what they like to ask well, what is lighting you up right now? What are you most excited about right now? And that is such a great question, because oftentimes it's not about work, it's about family or it's about a hobby or F1 or whatever it might be that a person's into, and those become great conversational points. But for me, when I think about the things that I wanna do to generate revenue, I also try to see how I might be able to put the fun into that. I always feel like there is a way to make things a little easier. No matter what it is you're doing, even if in the end it's like, yeah, a lot of hard work, you can still find fun into it. And I think if you find the fun, you find you find the freedom, and I think that's really important to understand. So not all parts of it are going to be fun. It's not always going to be unicorns and rainbows, but you can find some unicorns and rainbows in the thing that you're doing. And if not, then why are we doing it? Yes, maybe for revenue, that there's probably ways to make the thing that you just have to do for revenue still fun and exciting and challenging and add a spin into it so that you can actually enjoy it again. So, yeah, activity is important and for me it's not just like working for work's sake. It's work because there's purpose. But also taking time off to breathe and and have time away from the work and away from the creating is important too.

Speaker 2:

I've I've rediscovered fishing over the last couple years and I've gotten really into getting back into a fishing mindset where, okay, I'm going to go back into nature and I'm going to unplug and I'm just going to be one with the water and try to catch some fish. And, yes, even though some days I come back with nothing, it was still a great day because I was able to unplug and actually I get even more excited to come back to the work that I was doing, and having these regular fishing trips in my monthly calendar allows me to have just an understanding that there will be some breathing space on the other end of a launch or the other end of my book, or the other end of whatever's happening, and that has been really key. Or the other end of whatever's happening, and that has been really key. And I've been encouraging a lot of my students to look for hobbies or other things that can take them away from the work that we do and the craziness of it and the pressure.

Speaker 2:

The big challenge, however, is because I have that entrepreneur in my blood. I've contemplated several times a phishing YouTube channel and I have to tell myself, no, pat, no, this is not the purpose of this. This, this is for you to be away from this stuff, even though my eyes I'm like Ooh, opportunity here. Yes, these the oh man, if I had a, uh, if I had a fishing channel about this specific kind of lure, this is what I would say, and I was just like I would be lying if I said I never brought the camera out on the boat with me before. But I do put it down and I do focus on me and I do give myself time to breathe.

Speaker 1:

There probably is an upper limit of the number of channels that you can have running concurrently, but you're probably not there yet, are you?

Speaker 2:

I might be close, because this channel, the Pokemon channel, is growing quite heavily. I still have the Pat Flynn channel as well, with about a half million subs, but the Pokemon channel in fact again leaning into people community. Last year I held an event. I actually hosted a Pokemon event New guy in the space but held this event in Anaheim, california, for 2,500 Pokemon nerds to come in and it had a little expo hall with buying, selling and trading. It had activities, it had keynotes, it was built like a business event but with Pokemon on top of it, and the space had never seen anything like it. In fact, I was able to get most of the top creators in the space to come to this event without even having to pay them, because they wanted to come, they wanted to see their friends, they wanted to make connections with sponsors, which was good opportunity for them and they wanted to meet their fans and their fans wanted to meet them. So I just created the safe space for that to happen. And guess what? This year, in 2024, in June in Orlando, we're going to have 5,000 people come out and we're going to have many more creators. We have twice as much space and it's already sold out. You know it's it's the vending space is already sold out and the hotel block's already sold out. You know it's it's the vending space is already sold out and the hotel block's already full. People want to connect with other people like them, and I'm proving it again in a space that I've been brand new in.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know anything about pokemon until three years ago, and it's not like I grew up with this. I didn't have a big collection, but I knew that if I could care more about serving this audience more than anybody else, great things would happen and that what's happening. That plus, there's been a book that I've been reading lately. I've read it a few times now. It's called 10x is easier than 2x and it's solidifying the actions that I take, and I love the concept of this book. It's like, okay, 10x is easier than 2x. How is that possible? Well, when you try to 2x or 3x something, oftentimes you just understand that you need to do twice as much of something or or be twice as efficient with something right. So you just kind of lean into the things you're already doing and just try to do them better. But in order to scale faster and grow bigger, you can't just do more of what you're already doing. You have to change the, the ways. You have have to take bold actions and take some risk, and so I highly recommend that book. Ben Hardy is one of the authors in it and he's been on my show before. It really challenges the actions that you're taking to go well.

Speaker 2:

Am I just kind of continuing to do the same things that I've been doing and I'm just kind of like working more and harder? Or might there be a smarter approach to what I'm doing to try to 10x my results? Might there be a different path that I just don't see yet. And this is where the connection with other people, whether in a community or in a mastermind, become important, because oftentimes you can't read the label when you're inside the bottle. So the path to 10x might be right in front of you. You just don't see it, and this is why connecting with other people to have these kinds of discussions, to break things down and then build them back up, is really key. Because did I need to create this event?

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

But it is a bold action that's getting bold results, and now I'm now coined the stepfather of the Pokemon community because I've stepped up to help and do these things, and it's really amazing that I've been welcomed with open arms, and it was only because I helped out.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't welcome with open arms. In the beginning, though, there were gatekeepers and there's people who were like, hey, who's this person? And you know, you got to give it time. You just consistently show up and you don't let the trolls or the haters get to you, and eventually people will see really why you're here and if you are coming in with a genuine heart and from a place of service. Over time, the community begins to realize why you're here, and they'll support you and they'll go to at bat for you, and not only that, they'll wave your flag high and try to get other people on board too, which is what's happening now, and I'm at a point now where even Pokemon International, the company who created Pokemon, is reaching out and wanting to build a relationship as well, and so that's been amazing and just a part of the story. How do you stay grounded?

Speaker 1:

with it all.

Speaker 2:

Because it could be very easy to not be grounded. Oh, I've flown really high before into spaces that I probably shouldn't have flown into. I gotta say, like it's not, like I've always been grounded, I've had the cockiness before I've. I've gone into dark parts of business because, oh, money, yay, and like fame, woo, like that stuff takes control of you without you even knowing it. And I'm so grateful because, before all that happened, I put into place and have had a few things in place to make sure that if that happens which it did that these mechanisms will bring me back down to earth and they have. So. Number one mastermind group I've been in two mastermind groups for over a decade.

Speaker 2:

These are groups that meet together every single week and we know more about our businesses than often we know about ourselves. Sometimes, because we're sharing these things openly, we're getting honest feedback. It's like a round table. Nobody's at the head of the table. Every week somebody's in the hot seat. We share our deepest challenges with this group of people. These are people who I've connected with over time, who I've built a relationship with, and they're so important to me because I know I'm of importance to them as well.

Speaker 2:

If you look in history. I mean Napoleon Hill talked about this and Andrew Carnegie had his brain trust, and Hoover and all these important people have had supporting casts around them to support them on their way, but they also support those people as well. The mastermind groups have been key for keeping me grounded. Like, literally, if I get into a place that I probably shouldn't meaning like, okay, I'm starting to kind of give a little bit of a vibe, that isn't really what I'm about, and my mastermind will tell me right away. They'll be like Pat, what are you doing here? Like this isn't you. I'll be like what are you talking about? And they'll be like okay, here, here's, here's the facts. And I'll go oh my gosh, I didn't even know I was doing that, and so that's been really key. My wife has always support it for you. I was like holy crap, thank you.

Speaker 1:

I love that. It's a brilliant saying.

Speaker 2:

And she's like you know, on one hand, it's like, oh wow, you're like she's controlling you. I'm like, no, she's there to support and help me see things that I don't. And this open communication line I have between my wife and I it goes both ways too is really important, and so I have her to thank for that groundness as well. And I have, thirdly, my audience. I have asked my audience time and time again to call me out when I need that calling out, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, not just because, oh, they're customers and students, but because they literally want to make sure I stay on track as well.

Speaker 2:

And I have given permission to my audience, if you will, especially the super fans in the audience, to just hey, if things seem to be going a weird direction, like tell me, because that's who I'm doing this for, and to hear it from them, which I have heard it before you know definitely snaps you out of whatever, whatever you know cocktail, you just drank, so you know it, you just drank, so, um, you know it's, it's important to have that. You know I, I, money and and fame, and you know, seeing the following count go up, views go up. It does something to you psychologically that oftentimes you don't even know is happening until it's too late. And and we've seen it in other creators before who have gone down the dark path, who have, who have changed. Some of my friends have gone down that path, who are no longer my friends because of that, and I didn't want that to happen with those who were important to me in my life.

Speaker 1:

So I have those strategies in place to help become a barrier for that it's so important to have checks and balances in place just to keep you on the right road, not just to revenue, but in general. One of the things you mentioned was around the numbers. In a lot of these the likes, the comments, and there's so many metrics right, like being a creator, there's no shortage but what are some of the ones that that you really look to as being that, that master metric that that really helps you understand where you are, um, and and are there some that actually you're not paying attention to because or you deprioritize?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean I know we've talked about subscriber count already and YouTube is on my mind now because it is a big part of my creation process, but honestly, the sub count doesn't really matter in the end. What really matters to me are the individual pieces of content that I'm creating and how people interact with them. Engagement, interact with them right Engagement. In the world of YouTube, that means click-through rate and retention, so the click and then the stick, and those are two of the most important analytics that I see on the different videos that we have, and we can make decisions rather quickly as a result of seeing those numbers in real time when we come out with a video, for example. But it also tells us a story. If people are not getting to the end of a video, well, we start questioning and wondering why, because that's not what we want to happen. We don't want people to drop halfway through or before that. So it helps us actually understand what actions to take and how to go about the next video right. We're always trying to improve, and so storytelling has become a really important part of the process, and that's something that I think, especially as AI comes into play even more heavily now this year, in 2024, storytelling is going to be absolutely key because that is going to be the thing that really stays with the human that you're creating information for right. The information is going to be freely available now and it's also just being automated, but it's the story and the personal parts and the connections, the emotions on top of that that are going to be the thing that helps us stand out from. You know all the AI generated content that's out there and the people who are just using you know AI generated content.

Speaker 2:

One metric that I pay attention to it's not a perfect metric, but it's a signal is how many thank yous am I getting? You know a thank you goes a very long way, but we have a folder in my Gmail for people who respond to, sometimes my newsletter, my unstuck newsletter or just in general what I'm doing, and we see the volume that comes in on those thank yous and if we start to see a lot of them, that's a good sign. And if we start to see not so many of them come in, it's like, okay, well, what have I done lately to to earn a thank you? You know, and then it makes me wonder okay, well, maybe I need to be a little bit more active here, or I need to create something that's going to blow people's minds because I hadn't done so in a while, and so let me work on something. And so that gives me signals. And then not just signals, but what actions to take next. Beyond that, I actually have a PO box, and if I I check the PO box, maybe once every two weeks it's at a local UPS store and most of the time when I go in there I'll see a handful of handwritten thank you notes and those are great signals. It's like wow, a person actually took the time to handwrite me a letter Like nobody does that. Therefore, if that happens, then that means I'm doing something right.

Speaker 2:

And if I happen to go through a quarter of not seeing a ton of those, again I question what have I done lately to earn a thank you? And again, I love that positioning and that works for me. Who's a three on the Enneagram and a very service first kind of person? That metric makes sense to me and I think all of us have to find our own metric that makes sense for our goals and the way we want to live and the values that we have, and to me that's really important.

Speaker 2:

The other thing is just how am I feeling? What is my general metric on happiness right now? And I do check in with myself. You know, every end of the week, every weekend, my wife and I have a conversation about, well, how did our week go? And, in general, like, how happy are we right now? Because then we can determine whether we can change course or not if we need to. Or, you know, it might've been a rough week for one of us and we can support each other and that's important as well, just for a relationship.

Speaker 2:

But in general, it's a great way to check in with myself to just go okay, well, what went well this week and what can I be proud of? Okay, let's do more of that, and maybe what didn't go well this week and where might I be able to improve. So I know the numbers are important. It's important to have KPIs and, yes, we look at KPIs in our business and you know how many members are we retaining, how many new members are coming in, how many applications are coming in. I mean, those numbers are important for from a business standpoint. But I feel like if you can nail the, the end goal, the transformations that you're offering, both for your audience and for yourself, then those numbers that we just talked about are going to grow, like just kind of as a byproduct. It's not a perfect one-to-one or perfect linear equation, but it is an equation and it does work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's really interesting because it's almost one of the things a lot of people talk about is to try and do things when you're starting out that won't scale right. Just do them and you spoke about it and actually find that one, you know, do the one, one, one and absolutely having that one problem for that one customer, that one, and getting that feedback full circle, that that actually that signal of people doing something that doesn't scale, that writing that handwritten letter, um, that actually at the other end of it, when when you have scaled, actually that becomes your indicator yeah that is interesting yeah, I like that lee you've got a lot that you're looking forward to that.

Speaker 1:

You've already mentioned that. You've got going on, but is there one other thing that I've been asking all of my guests because I really want to understand what's that thing? That's? Maybe it's six months, maybe it's 12 months out, that you're you're really looking forward to that. That just sits in the back of your mind uh, thank you, lean.

Speaker 2:

Again, it's been an honor and a pleasure to be here and chat with you and um, ingenious link again has been important part of the equation here. So again I thank you for what you do. Two things. Number one, I am working on my fourth book. However, this is my first traditionally published book. I talked about it a little bit earlier. I'm not here to pitch it to you and I don't have a publication date yet. We're still working through the first draft and it's looking really good. It's called Lean Learning and that, and it's looking really good. It's called Lean Learning, and that's something that is really exciting and also scary. It's my first traditionally published book, so there's more players involved, there's more decision makers and it's a lot slower than I am normally used to working, but I'm hoping because of that it'll be a much bigger splash and that'll enable me also to expand into sort of a different space. It's not just for entrepreneurs, it's for self-development, it's for education. So I'm excited to potentially start talking about and kind of expanding outward from the entrepreneurial ring that I've been in for so long. However, it is still relevant.

Speaker 2:

And then the next thing that I'm excited about is what we've been doing a lot of. My CEO, matt, and I. We have been doing a lot of advisory work for other companies. In fact, combined, we advise 14 different companies now many of them together literally at the same time. So this co-advisory what we call super advisor situation has been really amazing and we're going to lean into that even more. We're building out a website and we're going to be starting to. All of them have come to us first, we're going to actually expand our portfolio from there and what that means is we actually now have shares of these companies Like we're literally on the board of these companies as advisors to be able to kind of co-support these companies in ways, using the vast knowledge and experience that we've had in the creator space for so long.

Speaker 2:

We were able to take, for example or I was able to take ConvertKit back in 2014 when it came on as an advisor, from $10,000 MRR to what is now over a million dollars a day they're earning, which is really amazing and we're working with Circle and we're working with all these other companies in the startup creator space in the economy. So it's been really amazing and I look forward to doing more of that and it's fun because I get to help and influence a company without actually having to work in the company, the big idea being, hopefully there would be acquisition one day, and two of the companies in this past year that I've advised have been acquired, which has been amazing. So those are nice little celebrations for us, but that's really fun and I look forward to leaning into that even more.

Speaker 1:

It does sound absolutely incredible and I like it. It's not just 10 X instead of two X. I mean, that is a hundred thousand X instead of two X. So it's no. You have been an incredible guest. You've shared lots of nuggets today, um, and I know we've only just scratched the surface. I'm super excited for the, for the next book, the I mean the the publishing world stepping into that, that huge testament to, obviously, the books that you've already put out there, and they're absolutely incredible. And it's going in my wishlist before it's even published. So I can't wait. But thank you so much, thank you to everyone who's joined us and really appreciate your time. Thanks, pat, you've've been amazing. Thank you so much.

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Lee Elwell

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