Podcast appearances and mentions of alex nerney

To celebrate the 200th episode of The PR Maven® Podcast, Nancy shares the top ten most popular PR Maven® Podcast episodes of all time. For each of the top ten, Nancy plays each guest's major tip, knowledge, and wisdom that they have learned from their successful careers and experience. Listen to these episodes' highlights for the best advice for marketing your business and personal brand. 1:39 – 10: Episode 7 Becky McKinnell, President of iBEC Creative. Becky talks about how to use social media to attract new employees. 3:44 – 9: Episode 34 Alex Nerney, Co-Founder of Create and Go. Alex shares which social media platforms he uses to drive visitors to the Create and Go blog. 6:05 – 8: Episode 10 Bill Green Retired Reporter, Anchor and Executive Producer at NEWS CENTER Maine. Bill talks about the importance of journalistic efforts and presenting both sides of the story. 8:18 – 7: Episode 9: How To Build Your Personal Brand and Network Online. Nancy shares how you should improve your LinkedIn profile and how you show up in a Google search. 11:46 – 6: Episode 5: Stefa Normantas, Managing Partner of Green Tree Event Consultants. Stefa talks about how volunteering and reading can help build your business. 15:11 – 5: Episode 8: Kate Paine, Founder and President of Standing Out Online. Kate gives a tip on how to use national news trends to target your audience. 17:28 – 4: Episode 13: Anna McDermott, Account Supervisor at Marshall Communications. Anna gives advice to young people who are finding themselves. 19:40 – 3: Episode 1: Nancy Marshall, CEO and Owner of Marshall Communications. Nancy talks about personal branding. 21:34 – 2: Episode 60: One-Year Anniversary Party With Tim Cotton. Tim gives advice for creating an online community. 22:58 – 1: Episode 36: Lieutenant Tim Cotton, Bangor Police Department. Tim shares how to listen to people.   Links: iBec Creative Create and Go News Center Maine LinkedIn Green Tree Event Consultants Standing Out Online Bangor Police Department's Facebook: @bangormainepolice     Activate the PR Maven® Flash Briefing on your Alexa Device.  Join the PR Maven® Facebook group.    Looking to connect:           Email: nancy@prmaven.com LinkedIn: Nancy Marshall Twitter: @maineprmaven PR Maven® Nation Twitter: @PRMavenNation

012. The next saga in our fast and furious failures is here… (and we've had many more than these movies, I can assure you). This episode is Part 1 of 3 in a series on making money with your blog. And as we often do here, we're first sharing what did NOT work out for us before we share what did.Including our first attempt at webinars, which I consider our real rock-bottom, most cringe-worthy moment.I won't spoil the story here, but it was an epic catastrophe -- and one that our MOMS were there to witness.

012. The next saga in our fast and furious failures is here… (and we've had many more than these movies, I can assure you). This episode is Part 1 of 3 in a series on making money with your blog. And as we often do here, we're first sharing what did NOT work out for us before we share what did.Including our first attempt at webinars, which I consider our real rock-bottom, most cringe-worthy moment.I won't spoil the story here, but it was an epic catastrophe -- and one that our MOMS were there to witness.

I had someone ask me about starting a podcast. They wanted to "Stand Out" without "Niching Down." The easiest way to stand out is to Niche down. When you do a show like We Have Cancer, Adoptees On, or the Chameleon Breeder, you get providing information that people can't get anyplace else. You end up with a smaller audience size, but a more engaged audience. Podcasting is Closer to Cable Television Than Radio In this clip of "The Loudest Voice," you will hear actor Russel Crowe as Roger Ailes explains how he doesn't want a wide audience. He's is going to purposely make content for a demographic that is being underserved. Roger went on the grow Fox news which dominated cable news for decades. When you turn on cable, you get channels on cooking, animal sports, outdoors, and none of the channels will get anywhere near the audience of the major networks. However, you will have people like my ex-wife who watch HGTV like her life depended on it. COVID Took Natalie Kennedy's Job - Podcasting Delivered Her Dream Today I talk with Natalie Kennedy who is the host of the Anxious Love Podcast. The podcast is where Natalie covers relationship anxiety, ROCD, and upgrading love partnerships-- how to go from DOUBTING your relationship to LOVING it and gushing about your man. You can see where she already has gone from the wide topics of relationships and she niched down. Just like a cable channel.  The show is for women. The show is for women having an issue with their relationships. The show is for women who are doubting their relationships and worried about commitment. Today you will hear: 00:58 Podcasting is Closer To Cable TV Than Radio 06:09 Natalie Kennedy Interview 07:13 Natalie Knows Her Niche 09:53 How She Picked Her Niche 11:07 Natalie's Transparency and how she describes her services 12:03 Dealing with Impostor Syndrome 13:37 Proof Of Concept - She had people asking for her services before she offered them. 15:45 Starting Her Podcast 16:41 How Many Episodes Does She Have? - This all happened really fast. 16:55 Is the Podcast Bringing in Clients? - ( spoiler - yes it is !) 17:21 Coaching Insights - How she gets people to open up. 18:45 You Don't Have to Know Everything - Just more than your clients. 19:37 How is Her Business Doing? 20:19 Pivots Don't Kill You  21:00 When Your Message Differs From Mainstream ( this is how you stand out).  Find Natalie at https://www.anxiouslovecoach.com/   23:05 Apple Holiday Break  November 22 to December 2 December 23 to January 2 Mistakes Breed Confidence 24:20 If you wait until things are 100% perfect, you'll never launch. Mistakes (are still something we want to avoid) leave to growth. I just moved, and the house is old, and I learned how to fix holes in walls. I hired a contractor who makes a mistake. Did I freak out? No. My experience with fixing previous holes help me stay calm, and I knew what to do. When you make a mistake, realizing you are growing as a person (or you can hire a mentor to help you avoid them, and learn that way). How Long Does it Take To Make Money with a Podcast? 25:22 I get this question all the time. In my travels, I started seeing an answer that start to appear, and reappear over and over. That answer is three years. Obviously Natalie today beat that record. Why do I tell people three years? I started making snippets every time I hear that answer. I forgot to write down who the first clip is. The other three are from Content Heroes Podcast. (Alex Nerney episode) The Business of Podcasting (Gert Mellak interview ) Dave from the Cigar Authority, on Ask the Podcast Coach.  Dave's book David VS Goliath What To Do When You are Face to Face with Your Audience 28:33 Just a quick clip showing that I practice what I preach, and when you have a listener in front of you take advantage. Zoom Podtrak P8 Follow Up 30:23 I talked about the Zoom Podtrak P8 in my last episode. I had mentioned that there was an issue with a noise in the headphones. That is definitely an issue. Also, there is no timer count down for the jingle buttons. This makes "talking up" any kind of music a real challenge. Join the School of Podcasting Worry Free 33:20 You can try the private Facebook group, go through the step-by-step videos, and even attend one of the group coaching sessions, and any time in the first 30 days if you're not happy, you can stop and I will refund your money. Go to www.schoolofpodcasting.com/start Natalie's Top Relationship Tip 33:22 I asked Natalie what she sees the most when it comes to her clients in regards to relationship issues. She has a really, really good answer. Coming Attractions 36:15 I will be showing you how to convert your RSS feed into an Excel Spreadsheet on my YouTube Channel I will be interviewing Rob Coste who ended up working with a MAJOR company that will make you say WOA!

The entrepreneurial journey is very much like your journey towards being good at sports. At first, you may find yourself in that awkward phase of just fumbling over things, and eventually, after some practice, you may well be on your way to reaching that success. John Livesay has someone whose passion in both sports and entrepreneurship lend him some parallel lessons that made him the highly successful internet entrepreneur that he is now. John sits down with Alex Nerney, the co-founder of Avocadu and Create and Go, to share with us those lessons, primarily with how he created two separate million-dollar websites. At the heart of it is his skills at monetizing his blogs, and he helps you with that by giving some tips and tricks to do the same with your own passions. What are some common mistakes people make when creating their websites to sell a product? What can people do to scale an online course? Alex answers all these questions and more as he inspires you to follow your passions and make money while doing it.Wanna Host Your Own Podcast?Click here to see how my friends at Brandcasting You can helpGet your FREE Sneak Peek of John's new book Better Selling Through Storytellinghttp://sellingsecretsforfunding.us9.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=655c123123cd21ff7a24d914e&id=6f12bc74af John Livesay, The Pitch WhispererShare The ShowDid you enjoy the show? I'd love it if you subscribed today and left us a 5-star review!Click this linkClick on the ‘Subscribe' button below the artworkGo to the ‘Ratings and Reviews' sectionClick on ‘Write a Review'Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join The Successful Pitch community today:JohnLivesay.comJohn Livesay FacebookJohn Livesay TwitterJohn Livesay LinkedInJohn Livesay YouTube

The entrepreneurial journey is very much like your journey towards being good at sports. At first, you may find yourself in that awkward phase of just fumbling over things, and eventually, after some practice, you may well be on your way to reaching that success. John Livesay has someone whose passion in both sports and entrepreneurship lend him some parallel lessons that made him the highly successful internet entrepreneur that he is now. John sits down with Alex Nerney, the co-founder of Avocadu and Create and Go, to share with us those lessons, primarily with how he created two separate million-dollar websites. At the heart of it is his skills at monetizing his blogs, and he helps you with that by giving some tips and tricks to do the same with your own passions. What are some common mistakes people make when creating their websites to sell a product? What can people do to scale an online course? Alex answers all these questions and more as he inspires you to follow your passions and make money while doing it.   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here's How » Join The Successful Pitch community today: JohnLivesay.com John Livesay Facebook John Livesay Twitter John Livesay LinkedIn John Livesay YouTube

Gone are the days when blogs are like their authors' personal diaries. Today, blogging can be monetized just like any other business, if you know where to start. This is what health and wellness blogger, entrepreneur and adventure junkie, Alex Nerney, teaches to his community at Create and Go, a website that teaches people how to build a blogging business and make money from it. Alex also runs Avocadu, a health and wellness website that reaches over 3 million visitors yearly, as well as two YouTube channels that offer unique content in his two passions – blogging and wellness. Joining John Livesay on the podcast, Alex shares his personal blog monetization philosophy, which puts emphasis on finding a niche and dominating the one platform where you can find the people who will get the most value from your content. He also talks about affiliate marketing and creating products and services based on what your community wants. With Alex at your side, you won't have to burn bridges anymore to focus on your blog; he's already done that for you! Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here's How » Join The Successful Pitch community today: JohnLivesay.com John Livesay Facebook John Livesay Twitter John Livesay LinkedIn John Livesay YouTube

Build a website in just 5 days (even if you're not techie) at www.free5daywebsitechallenge.com Learn how to market yourself online without ads, algorithms or spending all your time on social media at www.howtomarketyourselfonline.com Learn how to get your first web design client at www.startafreelancewebdesignbiz.com Leave a Review! I’m so excited to have Lauren McManus on the show this week to share her side of the story of how she and her business partner Alex Nerney built their multi-million dollar blogging empire, which they talk about on their website Create and Go. If you haven’t listened to my interview with Alex back in Episode 227, after you listen to this one with Lauren go check Alex’s episode out because it’s one of the most downloaded episodes of this show (and I’m sure this one will be just as downloaded!) Lauren basically travels the world because she and Alex can run the business from anywhere, so I think she was in the Czech Republic when we talked right before COVID really kicked up - so our connection was a little spotty at times, but I’m sure you won’t care because she’s got such good information for you today! Between what Lauren’s gonna share with you today and what Alex shared nearly 80 episodes ago, you’ll never consider quitting on yourself again! And be sure to listen til the end to find out how you can get your hands on their Blogging Bootcamp for Beginners. Lauren and I talk about: Why Lauren and her partner Alex quit their corporate jobs and started a blog. The different ways Lauren and Alex tried to monetize, and what finally led to their big income payout and continued success. How trying to be perfect is holding you back. How Lauren overcomes her fear of putting herself out there. What led up to Lauren’s first hire on her team. Advice if you are struggling to get traction in your side hustle. The belief Lauren had to change about herself to get where she is today. My favorite quotes from Lauren: “I think the biggest hurdle is honestly just getting started, whether it's starting your first business, whether it's creating your first product, whether you're creating your first YouTube video or podcast” “It's important to keep moving and just to keep trying stuff out, if something doesn't work, then scrap it and try again.” “Keep taking action. If you keep moving forward, at some point, you're going to get there and you're going to get there quicker.” Bio: Lauren is a former CPA turned blogger, and she and her business partner, Alex Nerney, started their first blog in the health and wellness space. After earning six figures with that blog in their first year, they started Create and Go, where they teach others how to start and monetize their own blogs. She now runs this blog full-time while traveling the world as a digital nomad. Resources Mentioned: Blogging Bootcamp for Beginners Connect with Lauren: Create and Go Website YouTube  Facebook Pinterest Instagram

Visit www.EAInterviews.com/AlexNerney for episode specific show notes & www.EAInterviews.com for complete show notes of every podcast episode. On today's episode, we learn about: Creating 6-Figure Monthly Revenue Through Sharing Advice with Alex Nerney

Create and Go Website:Click Here        Alex in a featured article on Forbes:Click HerePersonal Brand: https://alexnerney.comPersonal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexnerney/?hl=enPersonal Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheFitnessExpress

What if you could make six figures with your online business? How would that impact your life? How would that impact your family? The good news is that it's possible … and my guest today is here to reveal the secrets of how to do it. I'm thrilled today to bring you this conversation with Alex Nerney, who is an entrepreneur and adventure junkie. It all started when Alex and his business partner quit their jobs, sold almost everything they owned and went all-in blogging, thus Create and Go was born, an online blog that teaches others how to start a blog and eventually make money blogging. Within their first year, they made $103,000 blogging. By year four, they are now making over $100,000 per month online! And the best thing is Alex now lives his life completely on his own terms! Alex shares how he got started in online business, why he started with blogging, and how podcasts, video, and blogging can work together. You'll also learn some next steps you need to take in order begin the journey toward six figures. This was a fun interview where I learned a lot, and I know you will, too. You can connect with Alex at his website, https://createandgo.com, where you'll find his courses, blog, and his free 50-Day Blogging Bootcamp for Beginners. You can also connect with Alex on his personal website, Instagram, and YouTube. You can find the full show notes here: https://kentsanders.net/174 Need a ghostwriter for your next project? Learn more here: https://inkwellghostwriting.com. *** If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people discover the show, which helps us create better content and resources. Subscribe and grab your free gift: https://kentsanders.net/subscribe Follow Kent: Facebook: https://facebook.com/kent.sanders Instagram: https://instagram.com/kentsanders Twitter: https://twitter.com/kentsanders

What if you could make six figures with your online business? How would that impact your life? How would that impact your family? The good news is that it’s possible … and my guest today is here to reveal the secrets of how to do it. I’m thrilled today to bring you this conversation with Alex Nerney, who is an entrepreneur and adventure junkie. It all started when Alex and his business partner quit their jobs, sold almost everything they owned and went all-in blogging, thus Create and Go was born, an online blog that teaches others how to start a blog and eventually make money blogging. Within their first year, they made $103,000 blogging. By year four, they are now making over $100,000 per month online! And the best thing is Alex now lives his life completely on his own terms!  Alex shares how he got started in online business, why he started with blogging, and how podcasts, video, and blogging can work together. You’ll also learn some next steps you need to take in order begin the journey toward six figures. This was a fun interview where I learned a lot, and I know you will, too. You can connect with Alex at his website, https://createandgo.com, where you’ll find his courses, blog, and his free 50-Day Blogging Bootcamp for Beginners. You can also connect with Alex on his personal website, Instagram, and YouTube. You can find the full show notes here: https://kentsanders.net/174 Need a ghostwriter for your next project? Learn more here: https://inkwellghostwriting.com.  *** If you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people discover the show, which helps us create better content and resources. Subscribe and grab your free gift: https://kentsanders.net/subscribe  Follow Kent: Facebook: https://facebook.com/kent.sanders Instagram: https://instagram.com/kentsanders Twitter: https://twitter.com/kentsanders 

Does it feel like you’ve hit an income ceiling in your online business and you’re ready to finally bust through?  Today’s guest -- along with her business partner -- have built multiple successful online businesses. And now they earn 6-figures PER MONTH! They’ve built a freedom business that allows them to travel the world full-time. I am so excited to bring you my interview with Lauren McManus from CreateandGo.com! Lauren is a former CPA turned blogger, who with her business partner, Alex Nerney, earned six-figures in their first year blogging in the health and wellness space. They started Create and Go to teach others how to start and grow their own blogs and have gone on to earn six-figures per month. She now runs this blog full-time while traveling the world as a digital nomad. Lauren and I cover so much in this episode, including: The mistakes Lauren and Alex made when they were first getting started online (and what they would do differently today) How they decided which products to create and how they were confident their audience would buy them Why you don’t need to get caught on the content creation hamster wheel to grow a 7-figure business (and what you should do instead) The mindset shift that helped Lauren go from hating selling to actually loving marketing Where to focus on in your business to make the leap from 6-figures to 7 And a whole lot more! As always, you can find all of the links and resources that are mentioned in today’s episode at MonicaLouie.com/53!

#29: Alex Nerney shares how to build blogs that bring in six and even seven figures of annual revenue.Alex has a wealth of experience from growing two separate online businesses to well over a million dollars a year. And he has successfully coached and mentored multiple people to create their own six-figure blogs, with one of his students even making $45k per month from their website.If you’re looking to start or grow your blog to six-figures and beyond, this is definitely an episode you won’t want to miss.Show notes and episode transcript at contentheroes.com/29

Lauren is a former CPA turned blogger, and she and her business partner, Alex Nerney, run two successful blogs together. Their first blog, Avocadu, is a health and wellness blog that teaches women how to lose weight. After earning six figures with that blog in their first year, they started Create and Go, where they teach others how to start and monetize their own blogs. She now runs both blogs full-time while traveling the world as a digital nomad. Website: https://createandgo.com/   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/createandgo/

Ep #138: That’s been another great year. As always, it was filled with ups and downs. Now looking back, think about what you’ve learned and how you can use that experience to make 2020 an amazing year! Here, on Marketing for Creatives show I also reviewed all the episodes of 2019 and put together tips from six marketers with the key elements to use in your business next year. In this episode, we’ll talk about how to grow your personal brand in 2020 using online marketing. You’ll hear the experience from Alex Khan, Brendan Kane, Lou Mongello, Dan Gingiss, Michael Schein, and Alex Nerney. I’ll put the links to their full episodes in the description in the order they appear in today’s conversation so you can listen to those that will resonate with you the most. You will learn: The opportunities online media gives for personal branding Social media is a dialog between you and your followers How to leverage social media for personal branding The tricks to rapidly grow your social media followers What is your return on investment of having social media followers? How to set yourself apart from your competitors How to build brand loyalty and make people talk about you The examples of how to create a sharable experience How to leverage the names of other well-known people to grow your personal brand in 2020 To stay focused on the specific niche is important if you want to grow to 6-figure business or more Let’s get in touch: Would you like to get free PR? Download a free guide ‘How to Get Interviewed on the Podcasts Every Week’ on marinabarayeva.com/podcastguest Follow on YouTube.com/MarinaBarayeva Follow on Instagram.com/MarinaBarayeva Resources from this interview: How to Grow Your Audience with Instagram Live with Alex Khan How to Get 1 Million Followers in 30 Days with Brendan Kane How to Use Disney’s Marketing Strategies in Your Business with Lou Mongello How to Get People to Share About Your Business on Social Media with Dan Gingiss How to Create a Media Buzz for Your Business with Michael Schein How to Make Your First Six Figures Blogging with Alex Nerney

Check out the show notes: Alex Nerney Today's guest is a professional blogger, adventure junkie, and digital entrepreneur. He got started online in 2012, right after he graduated from college, by creating an ebook called "A College Guy's Guide to Getting Ripped" -- yes, really. He is a busy guy and somewhat of a content machine. As of today, he has four main projects that he's working on: Avocadu: Health and Wellness website reaching over 3 million people yearly. Create a Pro Website: YouTube channel teaching people how to start their own website from scratch! The Health Nerd: with 415,000 subscribers and still growing, the health nerd was a side project I started back in 2016. Plus, Create and Go, his main business. After making a bunch of money blogging and traveling the world, him and his business partner started Create and Go in early 2016. In the past few years, they've grown this business at an insane pace -- ending 2018 with over 1,000,000 website visitors and over $1,000,000 in revenue. If you've ever had an inkling to start a blog or you have a blog and have always wondered how to scale it to over $100,000 a month, then this conversation is for you. Now, let's hack... Alex Nerney.

Alex Nerney & Lauren McManus created a 6 figure blog in one year with Avocadu. They now want to help as many people live life on their own terms by teaching their success through Create and Go.    Alex and I chat about:  The worst mistakes bloggers make How Alex chipped his tooth by travelling at over 75 kph on a volcano How he always knows exactly what the right thing to do for his business is The pieces of advice he would give himself if he could go back in time      As always the last few minutes sums up the main points and leaves you with one little piece of action you can take away.    Find the show notes here   Check out Make Time Online to find out how you can make money online to free up your time and live life on your own terms.   Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram   Don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts here   Keep changing for the better! 

How to make $100k from a blog in your first year. Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus created Avocadu in 2015 and generated 6 figures in their first year.    Alex joins the show to chat about: Why Alex and Lauren quit their jobs when they were not making any money online. What the process was for Avocadu (their health and fitness blog) to start making money. Why nobody cares about your ideas. The worst mistakes bloggers make on Pinterest.        As always the last few minutes sums up the main points and leaves you with one little piece of action you can take away.    Find the show notes here   Check out Make Time Online to find out how you can make money online to free up your time and live life on your own terms.   Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram   Don't forget to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts here   Keep changing for the better! 

My guests on the podcast this week are Alex Nerney and Noah Riggs. Both are inspiring Internet entrepreneurs I met at FinCon this past week. There’ll always be a place on this podcast for sharp young guys full of energy & ambition. When I met these two men at the Hilton Washington DC, I knew they’d bring a lot of value to a short discussion. We pack a lot into our half-hour chat, including: The best part of FinCon Alex & Noah’s working relationship Our nation buried in student-loan debt ROI of Internet courses Being featured in Forbes, Inc. Magazine & Entrepreneur Alex’s 6-figure blog ROI of college tuition Noah’s plans to finish school Work to learn, you will earn later Becoming an attractive person How to find good mentors Being the hardest worker in the room How to ask for referral How to view investment returns The decision to start a blog Noah took Alex’s Pro Blogger course Alex shares how he met his business partner (hint: Tinder) Their favorite personal development book Happiness in America vs. other places Measuring success in the East vs. West What they would do with a new $1,000,000 How we got our investing start Investing in Pokemon & Basketball cards Holding stocks for the long-term Stocks that Noah & I own in common McDonald’s & Microsoft as long-term holds Investing in the S&P 500 Traveling to Bali (Indonesia)

Lauren McManus is a former CPA turned blogger, and she and her business partner, Alex Nerney, run two successful blogs together. Their first blog, Avocadu, is a health and wellness blog that teaches women how to lose weight. After earning six figures with that blog in their first year, they started Create and Go, where they teach others how to start and monetize their own blogs. But when they first got started, Lauren and Alex quickly realized that their initial product wasn’t selling because, well, no one wanted it. They hadn’t figured out who their customers were yet, and for the first six months, they didn’t earn a dime. Today, Lauren is here to share how they turned things around in their second attempt. They figured out the #1 way to drive traffic to their blog, they learned that their customers weren’t who they expected, and by 2019, they’ve grown their online business into two successful blogs that earn well over six figures a month while Lauren travels the world. To learn more about Lauren, Create and Go, Avocadu, or Teachable, visit teachable.com/eit5.

The Inbound Success Podcast launched on August 28, 2017 and today marks the 100th episode, and 100 straight weeks of publishing interviews with high performing marketers. On this week's Inbound Success Podcast, I'm taking a break from interviewing guests to share with you 13 trends that I've observed from the 99 interviews I did throughout the last two years. Listen to the podcast to learn more about the 13 things that the world's top-performing inbound marketers are doing, and get links to the specific episodes where you can dive deeper into each topic. Transcript Welcome back to the Inbound Success podcast. My name's Kathleen Booth. I'm your host, and this is the 100th episode of the podcast. I thought this was a great opportunity for me to take a break from the usual routine of interviewing some of the incredible marketers that I get to speak to every week and look back on the last 99 episodes and try and digest some lessons learned. I've had the incredible good fortune of speaking to some really amazing marketers in the last two years as I've done this podcast. It's given me an opportunity to meet people I otherwise never would have met, to learn some things that have really kind of made a difference for me in the way I think about marketing, and have prompted me to take a second look and reevaluate the way I've been doing some things. So, thought it was a great opportunity to share some of those lessons learned with all of you. How The Inbound Success Podcast Got Started But first, I wanted to just take a moment and tell a story about why I started the podcast. It was about two and a half years ago that I had my own marketing agency, Quintain Marketing. I had had the agency for 11 years. I'd gone to a lot of marketing conferences and listened to tons of podcasts, and watched webinars, always looking to make myself a better marketer. I had a lot of clients that I wanted to help. I also wanted to market my own agency and do better every day. I always would listen to these folks talk about the marketing work they were doing and the incredible results they were getting, and so infrequently felt that there was anything really tangible that I could take away from it and immediately use to improve my own marketing. This podcast was really an attempt to solve for that. It was me trying to scratch my own itch, and in doing so hopefully helping some of you. The interesting thing about this has been that it has certainly done that for me, and it has also done so much more. I already mentioned that it's enabled me to meet so many people I otherwise would never have met. There are a lot of people in the marketing world that I really admire and respect. And having the excuse of saying, "Hey, would you like to come on a podcast?" is a great way to meet someone new and to meet and to form that relationship, so that's been great. I've also met some really incredible people that I didn't know about through my guests when I ask them who else is doing a really great job with inbound marketing. And those relationships have been amazing. One of the most amazing and incredible things about this is that it changed the entire course of my career. One of first people I interviewed when I started the podcast was Bob Ruffolo, who is the founder and CEO of IMPACT. Now, I work at IMPACT. The reason is that before we started to hit the record button for the podcast interview, we were just talking about how things were going. I was telling him that I thought I might be ready to make a change, and that led to me selling part of my company to IMPACT and joining the team. That's been a really major shift in my life and a great one. I've learned so much. I get to work with some really smart people every day and do very, very interesting work. All this has come out of this little podcast. And most importantly, I've learned a lot about marketing. As I said, that was my original goal. 13 Lessons From Interviewing 99 High Performing Marketers So without further ado, I looked back through the 99 episodes I've done before today and really saw 13 themes emerge. That's what I'm going to share with you today. 1. There Is No "Secret Sauce" The first one ... And some of these, by the way, are going to seem like no-brainers, but they're important because it's important to remind ourselves of the things that we kind of already know. First one is, in most cases there really is no secret sauce to being an amazing marketer. The folks that I interviewed who were the most successful have a few things in common. Number one, they are voracious learners. They're always trying to improve their knowledge. They're always hungry for more. And they're consistent. That's huge, the consistency. A great example of that is Goldie Chan. I interviewed her. She's often referred to as the green-haired Oprah of LinkedIn. She has the longest running daily channel on LinkedIn. She's posted a new LinkedIn video every day for I think it's about two years. It's incredible. It doesn't matter where she is, what's happening, whether she's feeling well, whether she's traveling, what her access to Wifi is, she finds a way to do it because consistency is so important for her. And it's really paid off. They also do a few things and do them really well. A great example of that is Rev Ciancio who I talked with about Instagram marketing. Rev has an incredible Instagram presence. Which by the way, do not look at it when you're hungry because his pictures are all of mouthwatering hamburgers, french fries, pizzas, chicken wings, nachos, essentially everything that's bad for you, but that tastes so good. But, Rev has a fascinating strategy for how he approaches Instagram and has built an entire business around it. He does one thing, and he does it really well. Alex Nerney talked about Pinterest similarly, just a platform a lot of inbound marketers overlook, but he's really figured out a way to make it sing for him. The hungry learners who are consistent and who pick a few things and do them really well, that's really the secret sauce, which essentially isn't so secret. That's number one. 2. Listen To Your Customers And Prospects And Use What You Learn in Your Marketing Number two is they really listen to customers and prospects and use that in their marketing. Again, sounds like a no-brainer. We always talk about the need to do persona research and to build buyer personas, but I think what happens is we get very often so caught up in building the actual persona that we forget the big picture, that it's not about having this fictional profile of a person. It's really about understanding the way our audience thinks, what their real pain points and needs are, and the language they use to talk about that. A couple of the interviews I did were great examples of this. Barron Caster at rev.com who uses their own transcription product to transcribe all of the conversations they have with customers and then pull actual words that customers have used out and feed that into the copy on their website and landing pages, and that's gotten them amazing results. Val Geisler and Joel Klettke, two of the most accomplished conversion copywriters out there, both also talked about this type of research and understanding deeply, deeply the needs of customers and prospects. Paul Blamire at Atomic Reach, who is head of customer success and makes it a point to speak to new customers shortly after they've onboarded and really understand what brought them to the company and how the product is solving their needs. And he feeds that back in not only to marketing but to product development, to every aspect of the business to deliver a better customer experience from first touch in the marketing process all the way through the experience of using the company's product. 3. You Don't Need Fancy Tools Or A Big Budget Number three, you don't necessarily need fancy tools or a big budget to get incredible results. There are some really great examples of this. Oli Billson who I recently interviewed about the small events he's doing that are delivering tremendous amounts of revenue to his business. Chris Handy who talked about marketing for a Pre-K school, really small campaigns, but they just really ... They understood their audience, and they used the available tools that they had and got terrific results for the school. Adam Sand, who's using direct mail in conjunction with inbound marketing, super old school, but very effective for him. And Harry Campbell, who's The Rideshare Guy, and he's probably the top content creator in the ridesharing space. So think Uber, Lyft, Lime, Bird. He just started blogging and has created some great content and a big following. You really don't need fancy tools or a big budget. You can do it on your own with what you've got, if I go back to the first thing, if you're consistent, if you pick a few things and do them really well, and if you're a hungry learner who is willing to roll your sleeves up and apply what you're learning. 4. Connect With Your Audience On An Emotional Level Number four, the best marketers connect with their audiences on an emotional level, another thing that might seem obvious but that I think a lot of marketers get wrong. We tend to put our marketing hats on and make our marketing all about ourselves or we fall back into that comfortable place of corporate jargon, and kind of robotic speech, and use words like leverage and synergy. Nobody talks like that in real life, or not at least the people that you want to hang out with. The people who talked about this were Kieran Flanigan of HubSpot who shared their hearts and minds strategy for creating content with two types of content, content that solves a person's problems and tells them how to do something, that's really that mind's content, and then the heart's content, which taps into a pain and emotional need that the audience has. Then, Katie Stavely from Mautic. This is ironic that these are the two examples I'm giving for this one because HubSpot and Mautic could be considered two different sides of the same coin, HubSpot being a paid marketing automation, CRM, customer service platform, and Mautic being a completely free open source alternative to it. Katie talked about how important it was to be authentic in your marketing, especially with their audience, which it's all about community. It's opensource software, so your community is helping you develop your product. But regardless, the idea is to really make that emotional connection. 5. Sometimes The Biggest Wins Come From Content That Is Not Related To Your Products Or Services Number five, with content marketing, sometimes the biggest wins happen when you don't create content about your products or services. We as marketers, as inbound marketers, think a lot about top-, middle-, and bottom-of-the funnel strategies. We're always brainstorming what are the questions that our audience is asking as relates to our product or service. That often leads us to create content that is very much about us and not so much about our audience. But, I had two interviews that I thought really highlighted how successful you can be if you flip that script and talk nothing about yourself. What I mean by that is ... I'll start with Stephanie Baiocchi, who was actually Stephanie Casstevens at the time I interviewed her. She hadn't been married yet. And funny enough, she was not working at IMPACT. That's another great outcome of the podcast. Now she is. But, she talked about a campaign that she was running for a client that sold solutions for medical waste from physicians' practices. Originally, they were creating a ton of content around medical waste, and it just wasn't working. The reason is that their audience, which is really the office managers for physicians' practices, already has a medical waste solution. You can't be in business if you don't, so they weren't out there searching for any information about medical waste. They didn't even realize they needed to switch providers or that they had a problem. It was when she kind of took a step back and thought, "What are the biggest problems that office managers have? It doesn't need to have anything to do with medical waste," and she realized it was patient no-shows. They created a patient no-show policy template that office managers could use. That was a total home run. What it did was it opened up the conversation with their audience so that eventually they could begin talking about medical waste. But at that top-of-the-funnel level, they needed first to really open that conversation, and product- and service-related content wasn't going to cut it. Another person who did that really well was Ryan Bonnici, who is now the CMO of G2 Crowd, but at the time was working at HubSpot. HubSpot's a company that has a huge audience. Of course, trying to broaden the top of the funnel at a company like HubSpot is challenging. All the low-hanging fruit is gone, and so you really have to get creative. He was trying to target a small business audience. He really asked himself, "What are the problems that small businesses have?" And, again, doesn't have to have anything to do with HubSpot. He realized when you're starting your business or when you come to work at a small business, one of the first things you have to do is come up with an email signature. You're usually either copying one that somebody else in the company has created or you have to create it from scratch, and it's kind of a pain. He built an email signature generator, an online tool where you could type in some information about yourself and it would spit out a really nice-looking email signature. That tool generated a ton of traffic, leads, and revenues for HubSpot, and it cost them only $6,000 to build it, but the impact was enormous. So, great lesson learned about getting out of the habit of creating only product- and service-related content and thinking bigger. 6. Paid Ads Are An Essential Part Of Any Inbound Marketing Strategy Number six, the old myth that paid ads are not inboundy is dead, or it should be dead. This one was woven throughout almost every interview I did. It's funny because when I first started working with inbound marketing, it was back with my old agency. I had discovered HubSpot. We were following their original methodology of attract, convert, close, delights, for those of you who've been in the HubSpot world for a long time and all. I remember many times going to INBOUND and seeing Brian Halligan stand on stage and talk about how the old way, the old interruptive way of marketing was paid ads, and people didn't like being interrupted. I think we all read that as, well, paid ads are not acceptable if you're an inbound marketer. That myth started dying, I think, several years ago, but it's worth repeating that paid ads are, I would say, not even just inboundy, they're essential to an inbound strategy in this day and age. I'll just list off a bunch of names of my guests who've talked about it. This isn't even a complete list, but Mark Rogers, who at the time was with Carney and grew The Daily Carnage newsletter using Facebook ads; Sterling Snow from Divvy who's used ads to drive leads for their platform; Moby Siddique who has his own inbound agency and does some incredible Facebook ads work with Messenger bots; AJ Wilcox, who is a LinkedIn ads expert; Ali Parmelee, who's one of my coworkers here at IMPACT who does incredible things with Facebook ads; Anthony Sarandrea; Rick Kranz. The list goes on and on. All of them attribute the success that they're getting and the incredible results to some form of paid ads. Let that be the final nail in the coffin of that old myth. Let's really embrace ads, and not just checking the box with ads and promoting our posts, but really taking a full funnel approach to advertising. Because that's the other thing that these folks talked about is it's not about boosting something on Facebook. This is about really digging in and getting good at ads and thinking how ads can be used at every stage of the funnel. 7. Content Distribution Is Critical Number seven, it's not enough to create and publish your content on your website. You've got to promote it and distribute it. This is one that I've heard time and time again. A lot of the best marketers I've spoken to say you should spend twice as much time promoting and distributing your content as you do creating it. I think for a lot of us that equation is backwards. One person who talked about that was Kipp Bodnar who is the CMO of HubSpot, probably one of the companies that is the best at inbound marketing. He talked about what a game changer it was in the last year when HubSpot really threw some muscle behind content distribution and how that impacted their traffic. This is a company that already had amazing traffic, by the way. Then, Phil Singleton. I loved my interview with Phil who is an SEO expert and an author. Phil talked about this great strategy he uses for clients where he's creating e-books, just like lots of inbound marketing agencies do. But then he takes the e-books that he makes for clients, or he takes a collection of blogs, for example, and compiles them into any book, and he publishes them as Kindle e-books on amazon.com, and also in some cases as hard copy books through Amazon direct publishing. It is so simple, and straightforward, and inexpensive. It blows my mind that more marketers are not doing this. It was a cool episode, so definitely check that out. But yeah, the lesson is don't just like write those blogs, create those e-books. Think about what are you going to do with them once they're published. How are you going to get them out in front of the world? 8. Original Research Can Drive Tremendous Results Number eight, original research can have amazing results. I had several interviews where people touched on what has come of original research. One of the people I think that that is most famous in the marketing world for doing this is Andy Crestodina. He has been doing a blogging survey for several years and really credits that with bringing a lot of attention to his agency, Orbit Media, out of Chicago, giving him a ton of backlinks and press. It's a pretty simple survey. He does put quite a bit of effort into promoting the survey itself so he can get a lot of responses, and then once he gets those responses into packaging that content so that he can turn it into things like infographics and articles, et cetera. But, it's not just Andy. Michele Aymold from Parker Dewey uses original research and data to boost her marketing results. Clare Carr from Parse.ly, they actually don't even have to do that much research because simply by the nature of the product that they sell they have access to a lot of proprietary data. She's really productized that and used it to get a tremendous amount of press. In fact, she was able to dramatically cut back the amount of content she was creating while getting better results because the data itself was so attractive to their audience, and it also helped her reduce their PR spend. Then, Rebecca Corliss at Owl Labs. They produced the state of remote work, and that's gotten them quite a bit of traction. 9. Community Is A Powerful Tool To Fuel Growth Number nine, community is such a powerful tool for marketing. This is an interesting one because here at IMPACT we've been working really hard over the course of the last two years to build our own community called IMPACT Elite, which is on Facebook. We've learned a lot about community in the course of doing that. I would say it has been a game changer for our business, certainly. We now have over 5,000 people in that community. It's a delicate balance how you run it. You can't make it all about yourself. It has to truly be about helping the members of the community and getting them to the point where they're almost running it, if you will. I spoke to several other people who have built communities and had similar experiences in terms of the community being a fundamental tool in the growth of their business. One was Bill Faeth who is a marketer who specializes in the limousine and transport business. He has Limo University, and he has a big community around that of limousine companies. Frank Gruber, who started Tech Cocktail in the beginning and turn it into Tech.co, which was then acquired, he now has a company called Established. But, he began this grassroots community all over the country of startups and people interested in the startup ecosystem and wound up building a tremendous media business from that. Nikki Nixon who at the time I interviewed her was running the FlipMyFunnel community for Terminus. Ameer Rosic who has a community focused on blockchain called Blockgeeks. And Mark Graham, who is an old friend of mine doing amazing things, he's up in Canada and has a software platform called Commonsku and has built a great community around that. All of these folks doing incredible things with communities in very different niches, I should say. For Bill, it was limo companies. For Frank, it was startups. For Nikki, it's people who are ABM practitioners. For Ameer, it's folks in the blockchain community. And for Mark Graham, it's people in the promotional products world. All of these different niches need communities and people are hungry to connect with others who have similar interests as they do. 10. The Quality Of Your Content REALLY Matters Content quality. I had a couple of great interviews on this. This is one that I'd love to talk with more people who are focused on this. In this day and age, you can't just be creating content and checking the box. You have to really create great content that is better than anything else out there if you really want to get amazing results. One person who talked a lot about this was Oli Gardner and how he is putting a lot of effort into really making the content that they create be the best that's available on the Internet. Emily Maxie from Very talked about this, too, really digging deep and creating unbelievable resources for your audience. Both of these folks are getting great results in terms of traffic, and that traffic ultimately turning into leads, because they took the time to create in-depth pieces that really added value for their audience. Seems like it should be obvious, it's another one of these, but it's really not too a lot of us. I mean, you might think your content's really good, but is it the best? When you Google that topic that you created content about, is your piece the best thing that you can find in the search results? If not, go back and spend the time and make it better. I think one of the lessons I've learned is it's better to make less content that's better content than it is to create a high volume. 11. Creating A Podcast - Or Being A Guest On One - Is A Good Way To Build Your Brand Another theme that came out was podcasting. It's sort of ironic because we're on a podcast talking about podcasting. But a lot of my interviews, as I went back and reviewed, had to do with podcasting, beginning with George B Thomas, who I've had the privilege to work with over the years here at IMPACT. He's now at Impulse Creative. George is a prolific podcaster, and he's ... It might seem easy when you listen to him. It just seems like, "Oh, there's a guy that just has a great rapport with his audience," but he puts a ton of thought into how he does these podcasts, how he structured them so that they not only deliver value for the audience, but that they have naturally built-in incentives for people to share them and to grow his audience. That's really worth listening to if you're somebody who wants to start a podcast. Andrew Dymski is another person who's been podcasting for a long time and who I've been a guest on his podcast. He's been a guest on mine. He's got some great insights. Ryan Hawke, who has The Learning Leader podcast, Ryan blew my mind just with how prepared he comes to everything. He talked about this, too, how before he does an interview the amount of preparation he does, the amount of preparation he does when he even just invites somebody to come on his podcast. This guy is serious business, and that's why he's so successful. He really has put the thought into it and turned his podcast into a business. Dan Moyle came on the show and talked about podcast guest interviews. So not necessarily starting a podcast, but if you want to get the word out, going on other podcasts as a guest. At the time, he was with a company called Interview Valet. What's been really cool for me is seeing the other side of that. I get pitched a lot by companies like Interview Valet, and there are certainly other ones as well. They'll send me an email and say, "Listened to your show. Thought it was great. Here's a guest that I think would be really good for you." That's how I've gotten a lot of my more interesting guests. There's something to that podcast guesting strategy that really I think can help you get traction and raise your profile if you're trying to build a personal brand or trying to get the word out about a product or a service. There are plenty of companies like Interview Valet that, for a fee, will take care of that for you. It's kind of like having a talent agent. I also talked to Jay Acunzo about podcasting. He is actually a consultant to other companies and helps them create, produce, and get the best results out of their podcasts. One of his clients is Drift, which comes up a lot on my show. People love Drift, always cited as one of the best examples of a company doing inbound marketing really well, and they have a couple of podcasts. Then, Jeff Large of Come Alive Creative. Lots of folks talking about podcasting. It really stuck out to me that it's not just about, hey, everybody should have a podcast, and I don't think everyone should. It's not right for everybody. But, podcasting can play a role in almost everybody's marketing strategy for sure. 12. Video, Video, Video Number 12, video. Can't have a list of trends and things that are important in marketing without talking about video these days. Some of the guests that I've had that have spoken about this are some of the more impressive people that have been on this podcast. In 2019, I opted to kick the year off with an interview with Marcus Sheridan, who is an amazing man that is a big role model for me. I currently get to work with him at IMPACT. But, he's somebody that I followed for years and I have so much respect for because he sees things about marketing and about customer behavior that a lot of other people don't, even though they're staring us in the face. One of the things that he has really seen and committed to is that when it comes to marketing and selling, we can't just tell people something. We have to show it to them, too, and we show it to them using video. He talked about how important video was going to be in 2019. I know that he's out speaking at conferences and talking about video all over the world. Also, Eric Siu. I kicked off 2018 with Eric Siu doing predictions for last year. He talked about video as well and was like, "Video's going to be huge in 2018." So in both of my kind of yearly prediction episodes, the guests that I've had have cited video as one of the biggest things we should be paying attention to. And then, of course, I already mentioned her, but Goldie Chan, who is a LinkedIn influencer and creates a new LinkedIn video every single day, has made a career around those videos. She's amazing. She travels all over the world and is sought after as a speaker because of the LinkedIn video she creates. And Dennis Yu who has turned video into a formula for building people's personal brands. It's really impressive what he does. They're these short little videos that he films. Using that medium has helped countless people create brands for themselves. 13. Lead With Brand Which brings me to my 13th and last lesson learned from 99 interviews with incredible marketers, and that is that all of these strategies, and tactics, and approaches are powerful. But at the end of the day, the most important thing in marketing is brand. Brand is paramount. Without it, you can have some quick wins but you'll never have a true success that will last over the long term. I'm only going to cite one example here because it's the one that comes up the most. And if you listen to this podcast with any degree of regularity, you know that at the end I always, always ask my guests, "Company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?" There is one company/individual, the company and the marketer who's spearheading it for them, that by far comes up more than anybody else, and that is Drift and Dave Gerhardt, who I was very fortunate to have as a guest early on. I can't tell you the number of times people have mentioned Drift, and it's not just people from the marketing world. It's folks that have come onto this podcast from all different industries, and they all cite Dave Gerhart and his work building a brand at Drift as the one succeeding the most with inbound marketing. It's not for me to say what that brand is or to really try to encapsulate what Dave has done, but I think it's fair to say that they've built a brand that's incredibly authentic. There's no artifice. There's no fancy tricks about it. They, of everybody, really reflect everything I've said about the past, you know, this list of 12 to 13 trends I just spoke about today. When I look back through this list, they are doing a few things and doing them really well. They really listen to their customers. It's not about fancy tools or a big budget. The things that make them successful don't have anything to do with that. It's about connecting on emotional level. It's about creating content that sometimes doesn't have anything to do with your products or services. They do paid ads. And it's not enough to create and publish your content, you've got to promote it. They are so good at that. They've got a tremendous community, really high-quality content, a bunch of podcasts. They use video better than almost anybody else, especially on LinkedIn. Checkout Dave Gerhart's LinkedIn presence. And they just have a really strong brand. So my hat is off to Dave Gerhart and the team at Drift for ... If I had to give out an award for top inbound marketers, I think it would go to them. Thank YOU For Listening But really, everybody that I've interviewed over the course of the last two years has been so impressive. It is just my absolute privilege to get to do this every single week. I also wanted to say thank you to you for listening. Podcasting is a funny exercise. As I record this, it's Sunday morning, and I'm sitting in my home office, which is a tiny little room that actually had to be permitted as a closet because it's so small. There's chaos happening around me in my house. I'm by myself talking into a microphone. I'll go away, and I'll turn this into an episode. It'll go live tomorrow. You'll be hearing this Monday, if you get the episode right when it comes out or sometime after, and you're out there listening. But when I create these things, it's just me in a room. To know that there are people who choose to listen to this every week is just an unbelievable honor and a privilege to me. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to this content. I hope so much that you've learned something from it and that, even if it's in a small way, it's helped you get better results from your marketing and feel like a smarter marketer. If that has happened, then I feel like I've succeeded. With that, I will say I would love to hear from you. It's been a hundred episodes. If you are a regular listener, please take a moment and contact me. I always say at the end you can tweet me @workmommywork, which is my Twitter handle, but you can also message me on LinkedIn. You can email me at kbooth@impactbnd.com. You can send a carrier pigeon. However you want to do it, I would love it if you would get in touch and let me know what you like about the podcast and what's something that I can improve because I'd love to make the next hundred episodes even better. With that, I won't belabor it. Thank you again for listening, and I'll see you next week. Or not see you, I'll be talking to you next week for episode 101.  

Podcast guest Alex Nerney explains why adding a blog to your freelance writing business is a great way to supplement your writing income and add more predictability to your business.

Leave Us A Review Drew Duboff is a growth strategist, outsourcing expert, and founder of "Start Scaling Successfully."   An insanely insightful SEO guru, Drew discussed with us the importance of working smarter, not harder, and gave us some awesome tips on how to make Google's algorithm works for you. A fun (and serendipitous!), fact about Drew, is that his very first blogger clients were previous podcast guest, Alex Nerney, and Lauren McManus. Alex and Lauren run several insanely successful blogs  (including Create & Go and Avocadu) and earn six-figures — per month! If that's not a testament to Drew's work, we're not sure what is! We recently interviewed Alex and asked him about his meteoric rise to blogger royalty status. If you want to hear the full conversation — if you're a blogger you absolutely should! — you can find it here.  One of the most poignant points that Drew shared is that after deciding to launch his business, it took five months of marketing and building his reputation before he landed his first freelance client. His dedication to his goals, as well as his refusal to give up, is impressive — especially in a world where instant success and reward is frequently expected.  Drew also shared with us tips for entrepreneurs who want to build their businesses, such as employing reliable and consistent freelancers who are easy to work with. This not only reduces the workload but also gives business owners a chance to focus on the tasks that generate them the most ROI. This is a whole 40 minutes jam-packed with sage (and applicable!) advice for freelancers and entrepreneurs on smart ways to scale your business, increase your website traffic and maximize profits! Find all Show Notes, links and Drew's Best Tips on our shownotes:  https://jayalders.com/shifting-perceptions-podcast/drew-duboff-040.html Links & Resources Six Figure Blogger – The Formula for Making Six Figures from Your Blog with Digital Products and Services, Without Being Scammy or Spending Thousands on Overpriced Course - Create and Go Pinterest Traffic Avalanche - Finally, A Solution for Beginner Bloggers to Drive 10,000 - 100,000+ FREE Monthly Visitors to Your Blog - on Autopilot! - Create and Go Blog Monetization Bundle - The Blog Monetization Bundle of Our TWO Best-Selling Courses on How to Make Your First $1,000 Blogging All the Way to Earning Six Figures! - Create and Go  SEO Fitness Workbook: The Seven Steps to Search Engine Optimization (2019 Edition)   Monetize Your Content: How To Create and Produce Your Own Show Connect with Drew Duboff Facebook Twitter  Instagram LinkedIn Connect with The Shifting Perceptions Podcast: Shifting Perceptions Website Join Our Mailing List Facebook Instagram Twitter Connect with Jay Alders Jay Alders Website Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Pinterest Connect with Chelsea Alders & Companies Om Mamas Doulas Website Sun Dreams Productions Website Instagram Chelsea Om Mamas Doulas Sun Dreams Productions  

It’s so easy to worry about your stats on social media and get lost in vanity metrics. Instead of worrying about how many likes or followers you’re getting, it’s better to just focus on taking action and allowing yourself to just “Create and Go!”       In this podcast episode, we share:  Why Alex’s first blog failed and the lessons he learned   The importance of focusing on how you can help others through your business Alex’s social media experience before and after using Pinterest  Recommendations for using Pinterest if you’re starting a blog The power of leveraging your platform and making sales while you sleep  How you can measure your success on Pinterest  The value of sales-centric content and meeting your target market’s needs   Advice for anyone interested in starting their first blog     Memorable Quotes:  “The focus was correct. The focus was on helping other people before helping myself.” “Our best skill has always been ‘Let’s just try it!’”  “The only KPI you should ever measure is improving your sales; make sure people are  moving through the funnel like they should be.” “Just because something is loved by the masses does not mean it’s going to be profitable and also doesn’t mean it’s right for you and your business.”     “Just start. If it ends up not working, then it ends up not working, and you can try something new.”     About Alex Nerney: Alex is the founder of Create and Go, an online blog that teaches others how to start a blog and eventually make money online. Alex and his partner Lauren quit their jobs, sold almost everything they owned and went all-in blogging. Within their first year, they made $103,000 blogging. By year three, they are currently making over $100,000 per month online! And the best thing is Alex and his partner Lauren live their life completely on their terms often traveling the world.  Connect with Alex: https://www.instagram.com/alexnerney/ https://www.facebook.com/createandgo.co/   Links Mentioned: How to Start a Blog - https://createandgo.com/how-to-start-a-blog/ How to Make Money Blogging - https://createandgo.com/how-to-make-money-blogging/ https://onlinedrea.com/socialreport This Episode Is Made Possible By: Social Report: The world’s most complete social media management platform and my social media management tool of choice. Savvy Social School: Everything you need to increase visibility, growth, and engagement on social media

Alex is a ground-breaking blogger and the epitome of what it means to be a business growth expert. He and his partner Lauren first started blogging years ago, when he was a personal trainer and she was an accountant. But what began as a side hustle quickly evolved into a full-time blog earning over $100,000 in its first year. Alex and Lauren quit their 9-5s, sold almost everything they owned, and went all-in. Then in 2017, Alex and Lauren founded Create and Go, an online blog that teaches others how to make money blogging. Thanks to their effective business growth strategies, they are now making over $100,000 per month. Alex and Lauren have taken their business, and their life, to the next level! They have reached the milestones of financial independence and location independence - they are truly on FIRE. During our interview we discuss: - How and why Alex got started as an entrepreneur and later a blogger. - Alex breaks down his revenue sources totaling over $100k per month. - He shares the most important steps you need to follow in order to build a 7 figure blog. - We talk about the various stages of the journey the buyer is at. - Alex shares how to find the right keywords based upon they buying stage the person is in. - We talk about some of the top keyword paid and free keyword research tools. - Why its important to analyze your competition on google to help decide which keywords to try to rank and compete for. - Alex talks about how to write content that google is more likely to rank. - We talk about the importance of using your blog to take your visitors on a journey by answering their question and then directing them to the next question/answer. - He shares his favorite growth tool/software. - Alex shares and recommends one of his favorite books. Alex's website: www.createandgo.com Free Blog Training on Youtube Honest Bloggers Facebook Group ——————————– If you enjoyed this episode, please RATE / REVIEW and SUBSCRIBE to ensure you never miss an episode. Connect with Dennis Brown  AskDennisBrown.com LinkedIn Twitter  

Affiliate marketing is presumably everyone’s dream. It’s a great way for bloggers to drive revenue. Imagine, you don’t even need to sell your own products (you can if you want to) and yet, this can enable you a steady stream of passive income if executed properly and effectively. Joining us again on today’s episode is Alex Nerney- one of the highest paid bloggers in the biz and also co-founder of Avocadu and Create and Go. We discuss what to keep in mind to level up your affiliate marketing game. Now, if you’re wondering if it’s REALLY possible to make 10k per month through affiliate marketing then ponder no more, this episode is for you!

Leave Us A Review Alex Nerney, along with his partner Lauren McManus, attract over 250,000 visitors & six-figure incomes from their blogs every month. We sat down with him this week to find out what the catalyst was for him to give up a thriving personal training career to transition to full-time blogging.  Alex embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship. Sharp, witty, and most importantly, creative, he has harnessed his passions and skills to turn blogging into a six-figure monthly income. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Alex is his passion for teaching other people how to succeed. Rather than carefully guarding his success, he is an open book full of tips, tricks, and advice on ways that you can work smarter - not harder.  We talked about how managing your expectations is everything and the reality that most people aren't overnight successes.  From trading hours for dollars, to accidentally shooting what looked like soft porn during his first blog attempt, Alex takes us on his hilarious and very human journey of putting himself out there and learning something new. Although Alex is careful to acknowledge that there is no surefire way to success, his optimism is infectious, and his work ethic is admirable. Key Takeaways Seize Opportunities Alex took a leap of faith into the world of blogging. After being invited to The Millionaire Fastlane Conference, he met other entrepreneurs and heard their success stories. This inspired him to create a scalable income and build his own dream - instead of someone else's.  From that moment, Alex began figuring out ways that he could monetize his interests, while also offering value to other people. Not Everything You Touch Will Turn To Gold (without a plan!) Alex's first foray into the world of blogging was not an instant success. The aptly named 'Health and Happy Hour' consisted of him and his buddy, sitting around at his dad's house, drinking and writing. Health and Happy Hour served as a learning curve for Alex. As he puts it, "We learned very quickly that the thing that we think is awesome, doesn't mean that everyone else thinks it's awesome." Understanding the need for a strategic marketing plan, Alex focussed on creating a definitive target demographic - which leads us to our next important takeaway. Develop An Avatar  Alex stresses the importance of creating an avatar of your potential customer, and really getting to know who they are. He believes that this shift in his mindset allowed him to really up his blogging game. When you create content, Alex recommends that you always ask questions through the eyes of your avatar during the process. Would the content you're creating resonate with them? Does it add value to their life? If you can answer these questions in the affirmative, it's likely that you will connect with your target person. The 'Poop' Phase is Okay One of our favorite takeaways from our chat with Alex (besides the penis jokes) were his views on starting out at something new. We all know that initial stage - where your expectations are not mirrored by your results and everything you put out there seems to be 'poop.' Alex explained to us that this is a necessary part of the growth process, whether you're blogging, learning an instrument, or playing a new sport. As you navigate through the poop stage and develop your skills, you will continue to get better and be more successful. These growing pains won't last forever, but they are an essential step in honing your craft. Variety is The Spice of Life If your passion is waning, it can be difficult to continue creating consistent content. Alex mitigates this by developing different outlets that he can focus on. From the insanely successful educational business Create & Go, to his more creative outlet WANDR, a travel vlog, he emphasizes the need to keep following ideas that fuel your fire. “I like working on the projects that I'm working on - And the ones that I don't, I'm getting much better at delegating to other people. Then every day is my own.” Monetize Your Skill Set Alex shared with us his recommended ways of making money from blogging - even if you don't have a product to sell. From utilizing ads and sponsored posts on your site, to aligning yourself with an amazon associates account, there are multiple ways that you can create streams of income from your blog. Once you feel confident enough to educate others and create your own product or service, you can scale your business even further. As explained by Alex, "80% of (our earned) $100k a month happens through the process of someone  reading a post, opting in for an email, and then getting sold a product." They are some wild figures to wrap your head around! Alex is truly an impressive business person. We learned so much from our chat with him and will absolutely be using some of the tips he shared with us! If you want to hear more from our conversation with Alex (he's hilarious so we suggest you do!), you can click the link to our podcast and laugh along with us.  Links & Resources Six Figure Blogger – The Formula for Making Six Figures from Your Blog with Digital Products and Services, Without Being Scammy or Spending Thousands on Overpriced Course - by Create and Go Pinterest Traffic Avalanche - Finally, A Solution for Beginner Bloggers to Drive 10,000 - 100,000+ FREE Monthly Visitors to Your Blog - on Autopilot! - by Create and Go Blog Monetization Bundle - The Blog Monetization Bundle of Our TWO Best-Selling Courses on How to Make Your First $1,000 Blogging All the Way to Earning Six Figures! - by Create and Go The 4 Hour Week - by Timothy Ferris The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime! - by MJ DeMarco I Didn't Ask For Twins – Chelsea Alders Connect With Alex Nerney YouTube Instagram Facebook Connect with The Shifting Perceptions Podcast: Shifting Perceptions Website Join Our Mailing List Facebook Instagram Twitter Connect with Jay Alders Jay Alders Website Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube Pinterest Connect with Chelsea Alders & Companies Om Mamas Doulas Website Sun Dreams Productions Website Instagram Chelsea Om Mamas Doulas Sun Dreams Productions  

In today's episode, we're talking to Alex Nerney, one half of the couple behind the massively popular blog, Create and Go—which he started as a side project with his partner, Lauren after meeting each other back in 2014

In this week’s episode of the Exposure Ninja Digital Marketing Podcast, Tim is joined by Alex Nerney, the blogging behemoth behind Avocaduand Create and Go. Alex has managed to build up both of his blogs using a super savvy content creation strategy to drive tonnes of relevant traffic, both organically and through Social Media. In his first year of blogging, Alex managed to generate over $100,000 in revenue from his blog, which is pretty spectacular! What can you expect to learn from this podcast episode? While Alex’s main blog is focussed within the health and fitness niche, there are plenty of lessons to be learned here for ANYONE who’s currently running (or trying to run) a business blog! Here are some of the questions Tim puts to Alex during the show: What are Avocadu and Create and Go all about and how do you make money? Health and weight loss is a super competitive niche, why did you pick that market and weren’t you intimidated by the competition? Take us back to the early days. What were your traffic numbers like initially and how did you avoid getting disheartened? How did you start to create posts that brought in traffic? What did you change? How do you choose what to write about? What are your current top traffic sources? Do you pay for traffic to either blog? How do you think about how much to spend? What have you experimented with that did/didn’t work? Massive thanks to Alex for joining us on the show. Make sure you go and check out some of the killer content on Create and Go and if you’re a fan of Facebook groups – head on over to the Honest Bloggers Create and Go Blogging Community!   For show notes and to get a free review of your website and digital marketing, complete with a tailored plan to increase your leads and sales online, head to https://exposureninja.com/episode127

Selling courses or product info, just like any other business, could be risky especially if you aren’t sure what audience to outreach, which products or courses to sell, or how to go about selling and scaling them. Of course, nobody wants to hear crickets during a launch, right? On today’s episode, we interview one of the well-known online personalities in the personal finance field, and also the co-founder of createandgo.com, Alex Nerney. We will talk about his successful online business and the multiple courses he sells. Don’t miss this episode because he has a lot of helpful information and tips to share.

Ep #104: In the previous episode with Alex Nerney, we talked about how you can make money blogging and travel all over the world just with your laptop. But what if you’re not that much into writing and waiting while your blog will get a lot of tractions? If you have a service that you can deliver online, then today you’ll know how to generate leads and build the system online that will allow you to get new clients also working from anywhere.  In this episode, Tom Poland shares how to get new clients without even leaving home. Tom started his first business at age 24 and has gone on to start and sell four others, taking two of them international. In that time he’s managed teams of over 100 people and annual revenue of more than 20 million.  He’s the best selling author of Leadsology©: The Science of Being In Demand. He’s also shared international speaking platforms with the likes of Michael Gerber of E-Myth fame, Richard Koch from the 80-20 Principle, Brian Tracy and many others. Time Stamped Show Notes: [00:22] About the episode and Tom Poland [02:02] Tom started his business but realized that he always needs searching for clients, that turned out that he became a master in effortless leads generating [04:06] How the process of getting new clients online works [08:36] How to create an online presentation for a webinar that generates inquiries [10:07] How to find the audience that will be interested in your webinar [14:35] Allow people to get to know you before they become your clients [15:32] How to attract the right people to work with you [16:37] Why Tom doesn’t have a money back guaranty but offers one month of working with him for free [21:31] The program that Tom offers to people and how he and his partner manage the whole process [25:22] How he organizes the program workflow during a year [26:40] How to lead people to go from your webinar to the consultation, and then to your program [31:03] How to model Tom’s system and apply to your business [32:42] Where to find Tom online [33:21] For the show notes go to marinabarayeva.com and subscribe to the Marketing for Creatives show Let’s get in touch: Check what influencer you are as an entrepreneur. Take a quiz at marinabarayeva.com/influencer Did you get new insights? Please leave a short review on iTunes Follow on Instagram @MarinaBarayeva Follow on Twitter @MarinaBarayeva

Pinterest is often written off as a lifestyle site with little to no value for businesses, but you CAN use Pinterest to drive traffic, leads and sales for your business...and here's how. This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Alex Nerney explains how he has used Pinterest to successfully build a following and drive traffic and revenue for not one, but two online businesses. With more than 3 million monthly views on one Pinterest account, and more than 4 million on another, Alex knows a thing or two about what it takes to not only create a successful Pinterest presence, but do it in a way that generates meaningful business outcomes, and in this episode, he's sharing all the details of that strategy. This week's episode of The Inbound Success Podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, IMPACT Live,  the most immersive and high energy learning experience for marketers and business leaders. IMPACT Live takes place August 6-7, 2019 in Hartford Connecticut and is headlined by Marcus Sheridan along with special guests including world-renowned Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith and Drift CEO and Co-Founder David Cancel. Inbound Success Podcast listeners can save 10% off the price of tickets with the code "SUCCESS".  Click here to learn more or purchase tickets for IMPACT Live Some highlights from my conversation with Alex include: Alex and his wife Lauren created their blog Avocadu.com and within a year, were making more than $100 thousand dollars a month from it. From that success, they built CreateAndGo.com, a site that teaches people how to make money from blogging. Alex has two business Pinterest accounts, one that gets 3.1 million views a month, and another that gets 4.4 million view a month. When you think about how to use Pinterest for your business, you need to focus on curating content for your target avatar. The important thing to understand is that what works on Facebook and other platforms will not work on Pinterest. When starting out on Pinterest, you should plan to have around 10 boards. Pinterest is a JQuery search engine, which means it drives organic traffic through keyword search. You can do keyword research right inside of Pinterest by typing in a keyword that you want to get found for and seeing the types of searches that come up. You can use this information to create top, middle and bottom of the funnel content, just as you would with any content marketing strategy. PINGROUPIE is a helpful tool that can be used to identify boards that are influential for a particular topic on Pinterest. Images that are 1,000 x 1,500 pixels do best on Pinterest and you can use tools like Canva.com to create them. Treat the copy for your Pinterest posts like you would web copy and ensure it is SEO optimized. Pinterest has recently introduced the ability to share video on the platform, opening up new possibilities for how marketers can use it. The key to getting found on Pinterest is to post consistently. Resources from this episode: Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code "SUCCESS" Visit Alex's website Follow Create and Go on Pinterest Follow Avocadu on Pinterest Check out Alex's blogs on Create and Go and Avocadu Subscribe to the Create and Go YouTube Channel Follow Alex on Instagram Listen to the podcast to learn how Alex has used Pinterest to drive traffic to his blog sites and get the specific strategies he shares with clients looking to achieve similar results with Pinterest marketing. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth, and this week my guest is Alex Nerney who is the founder of Create and Go, which is an online blog which, get this, that teaches others how to start a blog and make money from blogging. So you're the blogger that teaches bloggers how to blog. Alex Nerney (Guest): I know, tragic. Kathleen: Welcome on. Alex: Pulling into this space. Thanks for having me. Alex and Kathleen having WAY too much fun while recording this episode Kathleen: Talk a little bit about yourself. How did you wind up founding Create and Go? What led you down this path and give a little bit more about your background. About Alex Nerney and Create and Go Alex: Yeah, for sure. Let's start out with explaining "the how we fell into this" for our readers. Back in 2015, I was working as a personal trainer at the time and my co-founder, Lauren, was working as a CPA, and we were really disenchanted and disenfranchised with where our lives were headed. You could kind of see the writing on the wall. We didn't have a lot of time for vacations, and not a lot of time to travel, didn't have a lot of time to do the things that we wanted to do. It felt like we were always chasing the weekend and drinking our sorrows away on the weekends. So we decided that we would start a website. Started out with a website called Health and Happy Hour and that website failed completely. It was a- Kathleen: Oh my God, but I love the name. Alex: It's an amazing- Kathleen: It's Health and Happy Hour. That's like having it all, having your cake and eating it too. Alex: Exactly, exactly. You know, the funny thing is people still to this day, I get that comment all the time. They're like, "That's an amazing name," but just another business tip is that your name doesn't necessarily mean your success, you know? So we started it and really was centered around us and we wanted to talk about working out and health and drinking, because those were the things that we liked to do. And so, we went through, and it was just where we started. It was our foundation. That blog ended up not succeeding. We started another blog called Avocadu.com. Less funny name, and hard to spell and not the most perfect name in the world, but that blog we grew very rapidly. Within a year, we were making $100 grand a month. During that time, we quit our jobs and went all in, sold all of our things and tried to make this whole blogging thing work. And so, what happened is we started this blog and it became successful, and the pain of going through that process of learning how to blog was very real, because I felt like other people who were teaching this subject about blogging about blogging didn't know what they were talking about, because that's all they had ever done was to teach people how to blog about blogging. They'd never ran an actual separate blog. And so, it was very much like, "We should do this because we can do this so much better." And so, that's how Create and Go was formed, and we teach blogging about blogging and we love what we do and we love getting to help people. We've had a few students now reach six figures and beyond, go from zero dollars to quitting their jobs in all sorts of niches, in anxiety and depression and law, and things like that. So it's just been a phenomenal process. It's been a lot of fun for us, and so, to this day, Create and Go makes over $100 grand a month. We make over $100 grand a month, but combined between our blogs, and we really teach people how to do it and how to get started. So that's me. That's us. Kathleen: That's a great story. I love that you shared that the first one didn't work, because I feel like there's so many of those stories, whether it's my first business, or, in my case, my first podcast was a big dud. Alex: Oh, really? Kathleen: I do find entrepreneurs especially tend to be very reticent about sharing their failures. I was business owner for 11 years, and I remember how isolating it can feel when you feel like everybody else is crushing and you're like, "Wait, what am I doing wrong?" Alex: For sure, for sure. Kathleen: But, under the surface, there's a lot that a lot of people are doing that's wrong, and I think if we all were willing to embrace that and talk about it more, we would all be better for it. You learn so much from those failures, and so thank you for sharing that. Alex: I totally agree, I totally agree. I think it's that necessary step of success, and it can be a very humbling thing as well, because I know you're like me, and you consider yourself a smart person and watching all these other people succeed while you are failing again and again, beating your head against your computer, it can be frustrating, but it just becomes part of the story, and I couldn't agree more that the more people that share that open process and share the facts that, "No, it's not all laptops on the beach." It's not all that dream all the time. I think it's so important for beginners starting out and having success. Kathleen: Totally, and I remember once I did research on this and I was shocked by how many seemingly wildly successful entrepreneurs, at the same time, have been flat out failures at things. Like Dyson is a famous example that most people know who tried, I don't even know how many iterations, 50 some odd, hundred some odd iterations of the vacuum before he landed on the one that worked. And Oprah got fired from her first job and network TV, and there's so many more like that where you look at these people and you think, "You're just magical. You know how to do things," and you don't see those earlier failures. Alex: Totally, totally. It's easy to see people's successes. It's not as easy to see the hard times, because the problem, too, is we don't record the hard times. Kathleen: That's right. Alex: We don't hold the camera up for the late nights in front of a computer, because we're just like, "Nobody cares." But, I think that one day someone will. So, I'm talking to my personal trainer, and I'm like, "Dude, you need to film yourself every day right now. When you're not aware, being perfect," he's young guy. He's 23, 24 now, and I'm just like, "Dude, you need to start filming everything, because if I could go back and have one thing, it would be to have the proof of those things. If you have the late nights in front of the computer where nobody's watching but you." Kathleen: Yeah, yeah. I feel like we could have a whole nother podcast on this topic- Alex: I feel like we could. Kathleen: -because I'm super passionate about it. Using Pinterest to Grow Your Business Kathleen: But, there was a very specific reason that I wanted to talk with you, because, in addition to teaching people how to blog, one of the things that is very interesting about you is that have a Pinterest presence, which, first of all, is interesting because Pinterest, the majority of the users of Pinterest are women, so I love talking to a guy whose doing well in Pinterest, break the stereotypes, and you get 3.1 million monthly views on Pinterest, and that has actually fueled the growth of your blog. I've talked to a lot of different marketers on this podcast about a lot of different growth strategies, and Pinterest has never come into the conversation, so I was really excited to talk about it for the first time, especially not just how do you do Pinterest and get followers, but how do you do Pinterest and achieve goals outside of Pinterest, using Pinterest? Alex: Totally, totally. So, humble brag, too, we also have another one that has 4.4 million as well. Kathleen: Ah! That's crazy. Alex: We got the Pinterest system down- Kathleen: That's awesome. Alex: -so I'd love to share about it. How to Monetize a Blog Kathleen: Now, before we dig too deeply into Pinterest, one thing I do want to clarify, because I want to make sure I understand it, and also my listeners. You talk about yourself and your co-founder making money with blogging and, obviously, teaching others not just how to blog, but how to eventually monetized the blog. Can you just give me the quick highlight reel of how are people monetizing blogs? How are you teaching them to do it? Is it primarily through advertising, or are there other methods that your clients and yourself are using to monetize your blog? Alex: There's a scalable system that people should start with, and I think it's almost true of any digital business, and it starts with basic things. What I've noticed from teaching just beginners is that getting those first few wins matter a lot. So what it starts with, it starts with things like sponsored content and ads, because those are layups, those are things where people can make their first few dollars, and sometimes it's just about believing that this thing is real, right? The next step up would be high-level, or affiliate marketing, just general affiliate marketing. Everybody should start there because of a variety of reasons, because it allows you to test things, it teaches you to sell, it teaches you what products are selling. It's a really valuable lesson. Then scaling up to a higher level version of affiliate marketing where you're marketing higher priced products and services. Again, another level of learning, another step. And then, the final step I actually think is creating your own products and services. I think that's the final step, is whenever you're building this community, you know how to sell things, you know what your community needs probably better than affiliate product, and then you create your own. And then you create your own products and services, and that's really how you scale something up to $10 grand a month, $100 grand a month, is by creating your own digital products and services. Kathleen: Okay. Thank you for clarifying that, and to make sure that I understand, so a lot of my listeners are actually in B2B marketing roles, and when I put on my B2B hat, what I hear when I listen to describe that, is you could start with, if you have a site with a blog, you could start with either taking advertising, or sponsored content, from companies that want to reach the audience that you have. IMPACT, my agency, takes sponsored content. So this is happening in B2B already, for sure. And then, it sounds like the second level, being affiliate marketing, for an individual blogger, it's easy to image how that might play out. For a B2B blogger, I could see things like if you are doing book reviews using an Amazon referral link so that you're getting a slight kickback on anybody who buys that, and I would presume that, in doing that, then the rule of thumb is always "be very transparent," because I believe there are FTC guidelines around that. Alex: Absolutely, absolutely. And those are serious things. Kathleen: Yeah. And then the third level being whether that's create a training course, or creating some kind of a subscription based, or membership based offering. Alex: Yeah. Kathleen: I could see it translating very easily to B2B, and have you seen that as well? Alex: I think so. I haven't personally worked in that space, but here's how I image it. So let's say you have a software business and let's say you're building out a SaaS program, what you could actually do partner with other SaaS programs, and say, "Hey, listen. I want to drive you traffic," or even then just do it for, even if they don't give you the affiliate kickback, learn how to create an email marketing sequence that sells that software, right? In that, you can prove through deliverables that sells, even if they're not giving you money, because, again, it's teaching you that sales process. Then, when you create your own, then you control the margins and everything, and it's really a plug-and-play scenario, because if you're promoting this software and it's something that you can do better, then you just plug in your own thing and be like, "Hey guys, I've now created my own. This is where you go." It's a good way to test things without, what happens with a lot of businesses, what happened with me a long time, is that you run to the end goal, you run to creating your own product, you run to creating some massive thing without properly testing it, and that's the biggest mistake ever, because you'll spend hours and hours, and sometimes it just flops. Kathleen: Yeah. I love this approach, because if anybody listens regularly to this podcast, they've probably heard me mention Joe Pulizzi's book Killing Marketing, and that's really the premise of his book. For a B2B businesses is, or really B2C, too, it's build an audience first, honestly. And then, the audience will tell you what your product should be through the dialogue they're having with you. And then, your business becomes monetizing that audience. Alex: Yes. Kathleen: But, in doing so, you have to do it in a way that also safeguards the interests of your audience, because if you're too spammy or too salesy, you drive your audience away, and if that's the base of your business, it's like shooting yourself in the foot. And so, for those B2B marketers that are interested in learning more about this, I would definitely recommend reading Killing Marketing by Joe Pulizzi, because that is the handbook for how to do this well in a B2B world. Alex's Pinterest Strategy Kathleen: But, so now that we've clarified monetization, let's dig into Pinterest a little bit. I'm so interested in hearing what you're doing here, because I'm a Pinterest user. I will admit I'm not a power user at all, by any stretch of the imagination. Every time I want to make some change in my house, I'll start a board. So it will be like, "Here's the driveway gates board, here's the board for outdoor shower inspiration." Or if I'm getting a new haircut, here's the haircuts board, or the recipe board. Alex: Yeah. Totally. Kathleen: But, sounds like this is a very different approach. So start from the beginning and describe to me what you're doing on Pinterest. Alex: So it really starts with the high-level of thinking about why people follow boards, or why people follow particular types of content. I'm into tattoos right now and really into motorcycles. I just got my license, very excited about it. So the things in the content of Pinterest that I'm personally following have to do with that, and Pinterest is sort of this curation place where you curate what you like into making it your own. I like a particular design of a tattoo, so I'm curating a bunch of those and putting those together, and it's all curated together. So, what you are doing, from a high-level business standpoint, is you are curating content around that target avatar. You are around that target person that you want to visit or come to your place. So for my business on Avocadu, our health blog, we're really in the women's weight loss space, right? So we curate everything from under the sun for the 45 to 55 year old woman who wants to lose weight, but is struggling to do that. So our entire design and everything is around curating content for that person. That's how you build up a big following and a big fanbase. Obviously, we'll get into the specifics and stuff, but that's how you want to think about it. That's how you want to approach Pinterest from that standpoint. What happens with businesses, and what happens with a lot of marketers and why they don't succeed on Pinterest is, well, number one, Pinterest is the red-headed stepchild of social media, right? Nobody really knows how to use it, it's kind of confusing, it's just very different. So it can throw people off. But, the second part is that they come in thinking that the same things that might work on something like Facebook apply there, and it's not true. It's a very different approach, and you have to know how the system works in order to have the success you can have, but once you can have success, you can have crazy success. We've had people go from zero visitors to 50 thousand visitors a month organically to their website with Pinterest within a month. Now that was a year or two ago, so the results are not always the same now, but you could still go from zero viewers to 20 thousand, 50 thousand within three months, with you doing and approaching the right strategy. Kathleen: So I'm going to pretend that I'm a business that's not on Pinterest. Well, I am a business, well, we might have Pinterest, but we don't do a lot with it. Alex: Yeah, yeah. Kathleen: So let's pretend we're starting from the beginning, and you mentioned beginning by identifying your avatar, or your target audience, in a very specific one, at that. And then, you go and you create your Pinterest account, and from my past experience with Pinterest, I know at least there are a lot of different ways you can slice it. You can have multiple boards. Alex: Yeah. How to Organize Your Pinterest Presence Kathleen: And how you decide thematically what goes on each of those probably could vary quite a bit. Can you talk a little bit about how you advise your clients to approach organizing their Pinterest presence? Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So it's starts out high-level, so it just depends if you're running a personal thing or if you're running a business thing. So if you're starting out, let's do an example. It's always going to be easier for an example. I actually really like the idea of an e-commerce store, because I think it really highlights the differences between what you would typically market, like on Facebook versus Pinterest. So let's say you're coming on there, let's use my sister's actually, Live Luv Lavish, and what should would first start by doing is by creating group boards around keywords on Pinterest. Pinterest is a jQuery search engine. What that means is it's like a Google, it's like a YouTube. People type in the things that they want to see. Those things are served to them. That's, again, what makes Pinterest so amazing is it has organic content, has organic reach. Organic reach only happens through jQuery search. So, because of that, you would start by creating group boards around the things that people want, with the keywords that they're looking for. She sells natural cleaners, like organic soap. One word would be "natural organic cleaners." Another group board might be, most people who are going to buy these are homemakers, right? So something like "Designing your perfect home," right? These are the group boards that you're centering this content around. Remember, you're thinking about this avatar. Who is buying my product? Who is interested in what I have to sell and what I have to say? And that is how you start, by organizing it through keyword research, essentially, on Pinterest. You go in, you type in your topic, and the great part is Pinterest will serve a lot of different results right underneath of things people are typing in, so it gives you a really good outline of "here's what these people are interested in." Kathleen: Okay, that's interesting, because it really is essentially the same thing that any marketer should be doing outside of Pinterest, which is really understanding, given my target audience, what kind of content do I need to create at the top, middle and bottom of the funnel? Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Using Pinterest To Do Keyword Research Kathleen: And so, it sounds like what you're saying is, with regular marketing and content creation, a lot of these people are going to places like Google Analytics and Google Trends and SEMrush and doing their keyword research on those kinds of platforms, but from what you're saying, it sounds like you can actually do your keyword research right in Pinterest. Is that correct? Alex: You do it right there. You can do it right there. Now, it's not going to give you the same stats and data, but it will give you ideas, and that's sort of what matters on Pinterest, because content can still go viral, as well as a Facebook, so it's more like creating the specific content around the avatar, and then getting in their heads, right? So, again, we go back to that example of Live Luv Lavish, we're talking about a homemaker. Let's say they have a son and, like me, he was always bringing home dirty sports equipment, right? So a great topic would be "what to do with your son's nasty sporting gear," and have a picture of hand holding a dirty sock, a dirty football sock, like mine. That would be a good example of something to start. Something that would do well on that platform. Creating Your Pinterest Boards Kathleen: Okay. So you identify your topics, your top, middle and bottom of the funnel topics. You create a board for each. Is there any kind of rule of thumb about if you're just starting, how many boards should you have? I'm sure the answer is, probably, it depends. Alex: Yeah, yeah. Kathleen: But, any guidance you can give to anyone? Alex: Yeah. We have very specific guidance in our course, and Lauren stays really up-to-date with the exact number of group boards, so I wouldn't want to talk out of place, but I would say at least 10 group boards around these specific topics that your audience is going to be interested in is a fantastic place to start. Kathleen: Now you just said something that I want to dig into a little bit deeper. You said "group boards." Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kathleen: So my understanding is, Pinterest, you have your regular straight up board where you, the person that created it, are the contributor. And then, are you referring to group boards where you create the board, and you contribute, but you open it up and invite others to contribute? Alex: I was actually referring to your own boards, but, as well, joining group boards is another huge strategy on Pinterest, joining group boards around the topics that, again, are relevant to your audience is a big way to get started. You can do that with tool like PINGROUPIE that will organize those group boards and show you which ones are most popular of that space, which groups boards were way more effective in way more important back in the day. They're a little less effective now, but they're still an important part of the process of really cultivating growing a solid Pinterest account. Kathleen: Okay. So you create your boards, and then, obviously, the next step is to start populating them with content- Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kathleen: -and I have a lot of a lot of questions here. Alex: Yeah, go for it. Creating Content for Your Pinterest Boards Kathleen: But, I'm going to just start with, talk me through what you tell people at this stage? Alex: Totally. So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to build it out with whatever content that you currently have. So whatever content you have, you have to start by creating Pins. There are images that are different size on Pinterest that work better than on a Facebook or an Instagram. I believe it's a thousand by 1,500 is the exact Pin dimensions, so it's a tall, long image. Again, another reason why most marketers and people give up on Pinterest and why you shouldn't, because that barrier to entry is there, and when there's a barrier to entry, we know that, beyond the barrier to entry are good things. So the barrier to entry is there to create the Pinterest images, and you would start by using specific Pinterest images for your target content. S o let's say you've written 10 different posts on different topics in your space. Or let's say, again, let's go back to that example, has created 10 different pieces of content. She would start by creating those Pinterest Pins and pinning them to the specific group boards that match that content. So, running it back, she has a group board named "all natural cleaners," right? So she would start by pinning her all natural cleaners on those group boards, and that would be the very, very first place that she would start. Kathleen: Okay. Now, I am not good at graphic design, and so my fall back for things like this, like Pinterest images, has always been Canva, which is great because it has templates that already know what sizes things should be. Are there any other particular tools that you recommend to people like me who are disasters when it comes to trying to go into graphic design programs? Alex: The start of how actually we got started back in 2015 was I was working on the blog and I was always interested in making an image for a program, and Lauren came over and looked over my shoulder and I was like, "Whoa, that is terrible," and I was like, "Yeah, it is terrible," and she just moved my chair over, was like, "Let me help you with that." So I, too, fall into that space of not knowing what to do. So the two strategies that I would have is, yeah, Canva's a great source, but especially for the busy marketer and busy business owner out there, Fiverr's amazing. Fiverr, $5 a Pin. It's something very cheap to get something that's actually pretty good quality. I'm sure that that is outsourced to the Philippines or something like that, but you will get great quality images for not a lot of money, and it can save you a lot of time and a lot of hassle, because, as well as just putting a Pin on each particular post, I'm going to get into the next part where you need to create multiple Pins around the same post, right? Because you're kind of split testing what works and what doesn't on there. So you're going to create four or five different images on one particular post to see which one works the best. So outsourcing that work to a place like Fiverr is a great resource. Kathleen: Interesting. Okay, so multiple images per post to see which one drives results. Alex: Yes. Kathleen: You Pin those. Obviously, you're creating these images, but you want them to live on the post so that you can pin from the post, so that when people click the image it takes them back to the post, correct? Alex: Yes, yes. You got that crazy Pinterest logic. You've got it down. Kathleen: Yeah. Otherwise you're driving traffic to your Pins, but it's not going anywhere. Alex: Right. Creating Copy For Pinterest Posts Kathleen: So, once you get the image on to Pinterest, are there other best practices as far as, do you use hashtags? Are there ways that you can use the copy that goes with the Pin to drive attention? Alex: The biggest things are having the words written on the Pin itself, having it written out. So if you have something like, again, "all natural," "the top 10 all natural cleaners," right? You want those big, bolded, easy, clear letters on there, so that when people are scrolling through their Pinterest feed, they see that. Pinterest, like everything else in marketing, in business, is a competition, so your click-through rate on Google is an easy example, right? So if my click-through rate is better, because I have a better title, Google will now favor that content, as long as we have the same read time and stuff like that. Same goes with Pinterest, right? When someone's scrolling through content, they're scrolling through and they see four different Pinterest images, right? So you have to stand out. That's your goal, is to stand out in the presence of somebody searching for your content. The easiest thing, and it's going to sound so dumb and so trivial, but it's to go on Pinterest, type in those things, look at what other people are pinning, and ask yourself the question, "Can I do it better?" And, "What would better serve this market? How can I make this image better or more interesting, or more clickable?" Those are the questions you want to ask, and then go create those things. If you do that, over a long period of time, you will be served very well. Video on Pinterest Alex: And, also, there's all sorts of new things. Pinterest just rolled out video, as well, which is going to be a huge opportunity for businesses. If you can produce videos and know how to produce videos, it's going to be a massive opportunity right now. Kathleen: I love what you talked about with finding what's already out there and doing it better, because it's the exact same advice that we give to people about creating content. If you're going to write an article about something, go to Google, find what's already showing up for that topic, and write something better, or don't write anything at all, because it's not going to get around. Alex: Yeah, or just don't, or just stop. Yeah, yeah. That was the simple process with even the product creation, was like go out there and see what products are available. Can you do it better? And then, there's a need for it. But, if you can't, do not. Don't- Kathleen: Yeah. Don't waste your time. Alex: Don't make something worse. Don't even bother. Kathleen: Yeah. Now, okay, when you said the word "video" and Pinterest in the same sentence, I was like, "Ah, we need to stop and talk about this," because I know my team, at IMPACT, is very invested in creating video. We have our own in-house video production team. So tell me more about video on Pinterest. Alex: Pinterest and video have been a long slog of a process. They tried to do this back in 2018 and just couldn't get it to work. I don't know exactly why they struggled for so long to get it, but they re-rolled it out earlier this year, and the initial results that people are getting have been really strong. It's a way to definitely stand out, like I said before, from the competition. So, again, if somebody's scrolling through and looking for all natural cleaners and they see four Pins and one is a video Pin of showing the cleaner and then spraying it and using it on something, obviously that's going to stand out by a large margin. So if you're able to produce videos on there, you already have your competitive advantage. Get your ass on Pinterest. It can serve you well. Kathleen: And especially when you think about the work that goes into creating good video. If you put all that time in and it feels like if there's just one more place you can put that video, get it out there, because it's all about distribution. Is it fair to say that, because this is so new, it's a little bit of the wild west in terms of best practices and what's going to work? Alex: All of Pinterest is the wild, wild west. Pinterest ads are the wild, wild west. Pinterest images are the, I love Pinterest, but they really struggle sometimes with just basic advertising things, the stuff that comes so inherently and so easy when you're on Facebook is not the same experience that you're going to have on Pinterest. But, again, these barrier to entries of, that make it a good thing, so yeah. It is the wild, wild west, but, again, there's really great rewards to the person and team that puts in the effort and time there. Shoppable Pins Kathleen: And hasn't Pinterest just, or are they in the process of introducing shoppable Pins? Alex: Again, this is one of those things that they've tried and fumbled, and they're there. They're there and I don't really have any good use cases of people doing it, but the one thing I have seen work really well. So back to Live Luv Lavish, because this is a great example. So she has a cleaner on sporting equipment. What's a great piece of content instead of just putting your product on Pinterest, would be to create some piece of content that that person would want. So I would create something like the five best sporting cleaners, and then list your product as number one on there and be like, "This is an awesome product, but here are some other ones that are really great." That is a really great way to do it on Pinterest, because people will share that content more than they will share something like a shoppable Pin. But, shoppable Pins do exist, and there are people that do well with it. They're not really in my circle, though. Getting Found on Pinterest Kathleen: Got it. Now, once somebody gets content up on their Pinterest account, are there tricks to getting it found and to getting that initial traction and getting seen? Alex: Not really. The biggest thing on Pinterest is this consistency of the platform. You'll see it on YouTube. If you're posting every Monday, YouTube will give you a little bump. The same with Google. If you're posting regularly or posting regular content, Google gives you a little nudge. They like that. They like fresh, they like new content. So that is what I would more say. You are essentially, there's this thought that I had when we were creating our initial Pinterest thing, it's called "shotgun theory." You know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun. A rifle, it shoots a singular bullet into a very small space, right? But, a shotgun, you spread out. The pellets explode and they spread out and they create a wide spread. Kathleen: That's the phrase "take a shotgun approach," which is- Alex: There you go. Exactly, exactly. And that's what you want to do. You want to spread out that content, because one of those things will go viral and go big. So all of the content is centered around that, right? That's why you're creating five different images, that's why you're pinning those 10 different posts, because, out of all of that, one of them will do well, but one of them will do really well, and that's the fun part. Kathleen: It does sound a little bit like, at this point, Pinterest is such a great opportunity purely because marketers haven't completely ruined it. They have some other platforms. Alex: Yeah, yeah. Like Facebook. Who Is - And Is Not - Right For Pinterest? Kathleen: I'm not saying get in there and ruin it, but there is this opportunity to be the first mover in your space for Pinterest. Is there anybody that Pinterest is not right for? Any type of business that it's not right for? Alex: I would say if you're really tech focused. I would say that Pinterest is going to be hard to come by. Pinterest has surprised me before. We have a client of ours who is in the health and wellness space. His name's Rusty Moore. A really good friend. And he got our Pinterest course way back in the day. It's a cool story, but I won't go too far into it. His blog is primarily, though, focused on men, and he was getting a million visitors a month on Pinterest to the male audience, because it was kind of underserved. So I wouldn't say that there are things that are never going to work on Pinterest, because he's kind of proof that you can make it work. I would say, though, that there are, a techy more focus is going to struggle more on there. Anything that's not visually stimulating will be a little bit more difficult. It's kind of the same as Instagram and these types of things where the things like recipes, or the things like travel photos. These images that are very visually stimulating give you a bump up and a leg up. But, I wouldn't say that there's too many topics that you couldn't work in. Lawyer, we have someone who made a lot of money with law. She teaches people how to make disclaimer pages and stuff like that, properly Kathleen: Fun. Alex: I know, right? Super exciting stuff, but she's doing really well with it. Kathleen: But, I think it all comes back to how creative you get about the content, because I don't remember the name of the product, but I read something once about, it was a blender, and the company that makes this blender created this completely viral marketing campaign, because their messaging was all about how it's very powerful and it can blend almost anything. They were sticking things like hammers in the blender, and things you would never put in a blender-they were putting in and making videos of it blending and chopping the things. And so I feel like if you're, even with tech companies, maybe you're not going to do your straight up marketing of your server, but if you can think of a creative way to demonstrate the power of your product or your service, then who knows? Alex: I couldn't agree more. I think it's all about the creativity of the individual. It's the same thing with monetizing a blog or website. I feel like it comes down to creativity. I know of an instance of a guy making $20 grand a month on his blog about herbs. And by herbs I mean the weeds you pick your backyard, and he's able to make, what, more than most high-paid lawyers, online, selling herbs. Kathleen: Wow. Alex: So it's more like how you creatively approach, again, that target person that you're trying to reach. So, yeah. If you had a tech company, or those sorts of things, I'm sure there's a way to work it in, if they can work in the blender industry. Kathleen: Well, and if you're listening and you have an idea, Tweet me or send message, because I want to hear it. Alex: Yeah, for sure. How Pinterest Has Helped Grow Alex's Business Kathleen: I guess, to bring this back to where the rubber meets the road, can you talk a little bit about the specific results that you've seen? You mentioned that you get 3.1 monthly views from Pinterest. What does that mean for your business? Alex: We can use Avocadu as an example. We get 4.4 million viewers, translates to about 200 thousand organic visitors to our blog and our website, and that is the primary traffic source driving in all of the income for Avocadu. We get Google traffic, as well, but that's a blog that does $10 grand to $20 grand per month, really on autopilot without us having to touch and do much to it. So there are some specific stats that you can expect. Out of your total impressions on Pinterest, which is what you're seeing, the 3.1 million, I can probably get, what, 15% of that to actually click or click over 15%, 20% of that. But, again, that represents a substantial amount of traffic. And then, as well, I think something that's so much more valuable than that is the fact that it's organic and searchable over time, because nothing allows you to scale more than having consistent traffic coming in and knowing that it's coming in every month, because it frees you up to focus on things like optimization and email marketing and these types of things. Kathleen: Yeah, that's pretty incredible. You mentioned 200 thousand organic website visits a month. Is that right? Alex: Yes. Kathleen: I'm sure there are lot of people listening who would just love to have 200 thousand visits to their website a month, period. Alex: Right. Kathleen: Who cares where it comes from? Alex: Right, yeah. Kathleen: So that's pretty great. Alex: And that's another good point. The average Pinterest user is something in the $70 grand per year ballpark, way above average mean and average income, so they're a good demographic of people who actually like to spend money. They're not like, I don't know, your StumbleUpon audience. I don't know much about, I just assume that it might be not as spending focused. Let's say that. Kathleen: Yeah. That's great. Well, I'm now totally trying to process all the ideas I have for what I can do on Pinterest. Alex: Good, good. Kathleen: Every time I do a podcast, my team probably groans, because I come back and I'm like, "Here's 10 more things we should be doing." Alex: Ideas. Ideas. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: Exactly. People who listen know that I always ask the same two questions of every guest I have and I would love to hear your answers. The first of those being, company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now? Alex: I would say, let's talk about one on Pinterest. Somebody I've been super impressed with is Kate Ahl. We have recently used her team to outsource some of the things on Pinterest, to outsourced some of the creation of the content and organizing of the content. I think she does it very well. She has a Pinterest podcast. It has this really seamless approach of getting people in, learning the best about the platform. I've been really impressed with her efforts, especially as of recent. I was always a fan of DigitalMarketer. I was always a fan of Ryan Deiss's team. I always thought they provided some interesting stuff that, I don't know, that definitely impacted our business. We learned about Pinterest because of being in the DigitalMarketer Lab back in the day, because they had posted something on, like, "Yeah, we're getting tons of visitors on Pinterest," and I was like, "All right, let's check this out." Kathleen: Well, I have to agree with you on Ryan Deiss. It was funny, you live in Austin. We were just talking about this before we started recording. I was in Austin a few weeks ago, and it was to visit and meet with DigitaMarketer. Alex: Oh, it was? Kathleen: Yeah. Alex: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Totally. Kathleen: We're a partner of theirs- Alex: Oh, awesome. Kathleen: -and we love those guys. Alex: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kathleen: So shout-out to Ryan Deiss and Marcus Murphy and Michael Meola and the whole team over there. Justin Rondeau, I just had him on my podcast a few days ago. Alex: Oh, nice. I've always been so impressed by Deiss's ability to see into the future a little bit. Obviously, sometimes, he gets it wrong, but I go did go to Traffic And Conversion Summit, not last year, but the year before, and it's always interesting. I love his looking glass of the marketing landscape and seeing his opinions on it. I think he really does understand marketing at an unbelievable level. Kathleen: Yeah, he's a smart guy, for sure. Alex: He is. Kathleen: Now, Kate Ahl, spell her last name for me so that I know how to find her. Alex: I think it's A-H-L. Kathleen: Okay. Alex: Yeah. Kathleen: Perfect. Alex: Yeah. Kathleen: Just one I hadn't heard before and I'm so excited to have one that's a Pinterest person so we can see some more examples of that in action. Alex: Yeah, for sure. For the people who are interested in Pinterest, we have a Pinterest course that teaches people how to do it, called "Pinterest Traffic Avalanche." As well as her stuff, she sees it from a very big business standpoint. She manages tons of different companies and their Pinterest accounts and stuff like that. So, because of her looking glass, being able to see into all of their stats and these types of things, it's the same way we're able to see for bloggers and small business owners all of their results. She can, not predict the future, but she's always fresh to date on the best content on there. How to Connect With Alex Kathleen: That's great. Now, you mentioned some of the courses that you have. If somebody's listening and they want to learn more about blogging, the stuff that you guys teach, or they want to learn more about some of the other things, like the Pinterest course, what's the best way for somebody listening to find and connect with you online? Alex: There's two ways that I'd send them, and it would either depend if you're a video person or if you're written blog post. If you are a written blog post type person, createandgo.com is where we blog at. We have two epic posts, one on how to start a blog, and then one on how to make money blogging. And that level, that stepping stone strategy that I just talked about on where you need to start and what's your next steps and will pinpoint exactly where you're at and what you need to do next, that is on there. There's a link at the top. You'll be able to find it pretty easily. The other thing is if you are more of a video person, and if you're listening to podcasts, you might like to just play it and listen to it. We have a lot of fans that do that. We have a big YouTube, a big YouTube channel, we have a YouTube channel, 58 thousand subscribers. It's doing well. I actually just recently posted the video version of the how too make money blogging. Again, really breaks down this whole thing. But, we have tons of YouTube videos on there. A lot of people who buy our products, they say they just binge watch the videos. And what's cool about it is you can see the first video I did, maybe three years ago, where I look like a mess, I am in Nicaragua and I have very long hair and haven't shaved in a while, and you can listen to this kid talk about blogging and succeeding with, but it's fun to look back on. Kathleen: That's so cool. Where were you in Nicaragua? Alex: We were in, oh my god, one of the, it's been a while. Kathleen: Was it San Juan Del Sur? Alex: Oh, so it was close. Now I see you're familiar. Kathleen: Were you surfing? Alex: Oh, absolutely. The surf [crosstalk 00:42:50]. Kathleen: I don't surf, but I went on my honeymoon to a place right near San Juan Del Sur and I loved it. It was amazing. Alex: Yeah. Okay. I've stayed there twice for a month at a time. One was a WiFiTribe. Another one was another group, but, yeah, the second time we stayed right by San Juan Del Sur and the Malibu resorts up there, and it was wild. It was a great- Kathleen: It's a cool spot, and most Americans hear Nicaragua, and they're like, "Wait, what? Nicaragua?" But, it's amazing. Alex: Yeah. Have one of their $3 tacos and it will change your mind. Kathleen: Yes. Alex: One dollar beer, $3 tacos. It's, yeah, pretty great. Kathleen: It's pretty great. Well, this has been so much fun, Alex. Thank you for joining me. I have, again, head is bursting with Pinterest ideas. Alex: For sure. You Know What To Do Next... Kathleen: If you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, you learned something, as usual, I would really appreciate it if you would give the podcast as five star review on Apple Podcasts, and if you know somebody else who's doing kick-ass inbound marketing work, Tweet me at WorkMommyWork because they could be my next guest. Alex: Five stars, do it. Kathleen: Yes. Alex: Right there. Takes two seconds. Pick up your phone right now, I want you to do that. I'll walk you through it. Kathleen: I love it. Thank you, Alex. Alex: Thank you, too. 

Ep #103: Have you read The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss? It talks about escaping 9 to 5 work and be able to live anywhere with the laptop. Many people succeed in that quest. In this episode, Alex Nerney shares how to make your first six figures blogging. We’ll cover what to start with if you want to make money blogging, how to grow your blog fast, and then how to monetize it. Alex is the founder of Create and Go, an online blog that teaches others how to start a blog and eventually make money blogging.  Alex and his co-founder Lauren quit their jobs, sold almost everything they owned and went all-in blogging. Within their first year, they made $103,000 blogging. By year three, they are currently making over $100,000 per month online! Time Stamped Show Notes: [00:22] About the episode and Alex Nerney [01:45] Alex shares how influenced by The 4-Hour Work Week book he started blogging that turned out to a successful business [05:33] How to find the profitable niche for a blog [07:14] Why Alex’ first blog failed and a key element of successful growth [10:12] How he tested different niches and discovered the one where he made his first six figures blogging [11:33] How to get a lot of traffic to your blog fast [14:36] The consistency and patience in marketing helps you grow [16:40] First, focus on one marketing channel, then only when it works well for you to jump to others [18:36] When and how to start monetizing your blog [22:29] If you want to make money blogging it’s not much about quantity, but more about specificity [26:06] Track how effective your email marketing campaigns and affiliate links [27:53] Modeling other people work doesn’t always work for you (and how Alex failed in that) [30:48] How to set yourself up for success to make six figures blogging [34:00] The fast way to test content and grow your blog [37:04] Where to find Alex online [38:45] For the show notes go to marinabarayeva.com and subscribe to the Marketing for Creatives show Let’s get in touch: Check what influencer you are as an entrepreneur. Take a quiz at marinabarayeva.com/influencer Did you get new insights? Please leave a short review on iTunes Follow on Instagram @MarinaBarayeva Follow on Twitter @MarinaBarayeva

In this episode, Alex talks about why he started a blog and the best monetization strategies for a blog.

Build a website in just 5 days (even if you're not techie) at www.free5daywebsitechallenge.com Already have a website? Take the Free "Jumpstart Your Website Traffic" marketing mini-course at www.jumpstartyourwebsitetraffic.com Leave a Review! My guest today is Alex Nerney of CreateandGo.com. In 2016, after side hustling on their blog for about a year, Alex and his girlfriend Lauren McManus decided to go all in on themselves. They sold everything they owned, quit their full time jobs, and moved in with Alex’s dad in Seattle and became full time bloggers. So when I heard about Create and Go, I was on Alex and Lauren’s website, reading their story on their about page, which by the way, guys, is a really good story and I’ll link up that page in the show notes, there were two things that really stood out to me and made me want to invite them on the show: The first thing was this quote from the story: “We were blessed and plenty thankful for what we had, but there was one feeling we couldn’t escape. Is this really it? Really… Is this really IT??? Yeah, getting drunk on the weekends when you’re young is fun and who doesn’t love going to the movies for the bajillionth time in your life, but we couldn’t escape the feeling there had to be more to life than this.” And if you guys have listened to this podcast for awhile, you know that the exact same thing happened to me when I was sitting at my desk at my day job one day, this feeling of dread just washed over me and I was like, “Is this IT? Is this really all there is?” And so I felt an instant connection to their story. The second thing that stood to me (aside from the fact that Alex and Lauren grew their online business to over $100,000 a month - yes, a month - over the course of span of 2 years) is that they share in detail on their About page every single failure and misstep along the way. So I’m gonna stop here and let Alex tell you the full story in our interview, but what I really want you to take away from this interview is that you gotta try a lot of different things, you gotta make mistakes and learn from them and try something new, and just never stop because you eventually will find your way, just like Alex and Lauren did. So in today’s episode, we’re talking about: How Alex and Lauren quit their day jobs and went all in to run their health and wellness blog full time How Alex and Lauren leveraged Pinterest to gain traffic to their blog What content does best on Pinterest What common themes Alex sees that separates the people that become successful from the ones who flop The exact steps they took to monetize their first blog, Avocadu.com How Alex and Lauren build trust with their audience by marketing towards deeper values The importance of being honest with your audience Alex’s advice for starting a YouTube channel Alex’s belief that he had to change about himself My favorite quotes from Alex: “If people are telling you that you work too hard, you are probably on the right track.” “You have to give up things that are good for something greater.” “Growth in anything requires an obnoxious amount of effort.” “If you feel like you are a hard worker but you are wondering why you are spinning your wheels, these are solutions for you. These are real solutions that literally just take a hustler’s mindset and stickability.” Links mentioned in this episode: About Alex and Lauren Digital Marketer.com https://createandgo.com/ https://createandgo.com/how-to-start-a-blog/ https://createandgo.com/how-to-make-money-blogging/ https://courses.createandgo.com/p/launch-your-blog Bio: Alex is the founder of Create and Go, an online blog that teaches others how to start a blog and eventually make money blogging. Alex and his partner Lauren quit their jobs, sold almost everything they owned and went all-in blogging. Within their first year, they made $103,000 blogging. By year three, they are currently making over $100,000 per month online! And the best thing is Alex and his partner Lauren live their life completely on their terms! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/createandgo.co/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOkrld1FHoM_VMMjaeMekug

Alex Nerney is a successful entrepreneur, blogger and coach from www.createandgo.com He and his partner, Lauren McManus - overcame debt, crippling anxiety and their soul-sucking corporate jobs -- to make over $100,000 per month blogging and travel the world to amazing places like Portugal, Peru, Bali, and others. Their mission right now is to help 1,000 students make $100/m blogging, 100 students make $1,000/m blogging, and 10 students make $10,000 per month blogging. Listen to the story, and more importantly ... how you can use their model to create opportunities and leverage expert blogging for yourself so you can create more income and freedom in your life. And - consider what they are doing with growing web traffic outside of just organic search (SEO). They are heavily using Pinterest organic, with some paid media. Currently, they drive over 200,000 visitors per month to their blogs via organic Pinterest traffic. HOT TIP: Don't do all this Pinterest work yourself! Hire experts like Kate & team at http://www.simplepinmedia.com Thanks for a great interview, Alex! Reach out to Alex and his team at: Personally: https://www.instagram.com/alexnerney/ Business: https://createandgo.com/contact-us/ --- Interested in getting personally coached by Jon to develop traffic, leads and sales? ➡️ Click here: https://chaosmap.com/talk   If you liked this broadcast, please give it a thumbs up

Alex Nerney ~ Location Independent Blogger, Founder of Create & Go ~ Current Series ~ 100 Interviews with 100 Major Influencers Creating a blog to travel the world is the dream of so many travelers. There are graveyards all around the world full of peoples blogging dreams. Many people try and many people fail….myself included. However, even though blogging can be a tough nut to crack these days, there are people that are doing it, and teaching others how to find success in the blogging world. Today's guest is Alex Nerney the co-founder of Avocadu.com and Create & Go. Alex, and his partner quit their jobs to start blogging just over three years ago and as luck would have it, they had nearly immediate success. Their first month earning, $170, then $900 in the second month and doubling it almost every month after until their seventh month when they hit $40,000 in one month. They had achieved the bloggers dream and now consistently produce over $100,000+ per month. On the show, we chat with Alex on what is really working in the blogging world and what is not.  We chat about how Pinterest has become their top-performing social media platform giving them around 4.4 million views per month and around 200,000 visits to their website. We also chat with Alex on the theme of this series, influence.  Alex and I get into a great conversation about how people are using and abusing influence in today's world, and how to find the “right” influencers to follow.   03:00: Alex on Austin, Texas 06:40: Starting a Blog w/ Instant Success 11:35: What are Most Bloggers Missing 16:15: Alex on Influence 23:25: What is Working for Video Marketing 26:35: 4.4 Million Monthly Views on Pinterest 27:50: The Misuse of Pinterest 33:19: Alex on Starting a New Blog 36:50: The Personal Brand Balance 41:36: Running Two Business at Once 44:10: Finding the Right Guru   Contact Info: https://createandgo.com/ https://alexnerney.com/ https://avocadu.com/ https://createandgo.com/pinterest-marketing/