Podcast appearances and mentions of brett simmons

Ty Franck (one half of James S.A. Corey) is joined by our favorite Hawaiian Shirt Mustache motherfucker Brett Simmons! again and they go full on into the madness that is Mandy... and Nicholas Cage! We will be spoiling the crap out of the movie Mandy so you have been warned.

Ty Franck (one half of James S.A. Corey) is joined by our favorite Hawaiian Shirt Mustache motherfucker Brett Simmons! Ty decided to be COLD BLOODED to Wes while he is off having a wank and selected Furiosa are the deep dive this week. I hope everyone enjoys this episode as much as I did!

Ty Franck (one half of James S.A. Corey) and special guest Brett Simmons as Wes was unavailable so we replaced him! The guys discuss Brett's amazing stache as well as their love of the amazing Godzilla Minus One. Then they debate what their top 5 Godzilla films are...

Why is impact investing broken? And how can you be a more impactful entrepreneur?

Wes Chatham ('Amos Burton' on The Expanse) and Director / Good Friend of the show Brett Simmons aka Magnum P.I. do a deep dive on a Cocaine Bear...

Ty Franck (one half of James S.A. Corey), Wes Chatham ('Amos Burton' on The Expanse) and special guest / friend of the show Brett Simmons watch the classic 1978 Halloween film...

Without Your Head with Brett Simmons director of "You Might Be The Killer" "A camp counselor suffering from blackouts finds himself surrounded by murder victims. He turns to his horror movie enthusiast friend for advice, and to contend with the idea he may be the killer." Hosted by "Nasty" Neal Jones --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/withoutyourhead/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/withoutyourhead/support

Ty Franck (one half of James S.A. Corey), Wes Chatham ('Amos Burton' on The Expanse) are joined by the director Brett Simmons (good friend of Wes') to discuss WHORE... I mean Horror shorts including Brett's Husk and Love Death + Robots!

Hey Toasted Peeps!

Ty Franck (one half of James S.A. Corey), Wes Chatham ('Amos Burton' on The Expanse) are joined by the director Brett Simmons (good friend of Wes') to discuss the amazing... the epic movie PREDATOR!!!

We kickoff our summer-long series "Camp Spookshow" with Will's choice, "You Might Be The Killer" from 2018! Starting now through August 8th, we'll be bringing you summer camp themed episodes every week, from horror to cult flicks! We start with this meta-horror movie from Brett Simmons. Part of the Morbidly Beautiful Podcasting Network! Join our Patreon for bonus episodes & content over at https://www.patreon.com/aaspookshow & follow us on Twitter @AASpookshow as well as Facebook, Instagram, Slasher & our YouTube channel by searching All-American Spookshow Horror Podcast.  Email us at allamericanspookshow@gmail.com with questions & comments, and be sure to leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify!  Here's the link to the movie trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbGozPL5BeA LINKS:  https://linktr.ee/aaspookshow

More fantasy football talk!!! Cover your ears if you don't like hearing people talk about their fantasy football league, but tune in if you want to hear about the Mud Bums Fantasy Football league. WCSA Jeffery Simmons is joined by Brett Simmons and Gavin Lewis.

Fantasy football talk!!! Cover your ears if you don't like hearing people talk about their fantasy football league, but tune in if you want to hear about the Mud Bums Fantasy Football league. WCSA Jeffery Simmons is joined by Brett Simmons and Gavin Lewis as they discuss their league's draft day games, the best and worst players in the league and so much more! 

Writer/Director Brett Simmons, "You Might Be the Killer" is our Special Guest

Writer/Director Brett Simmons, "You Might Be the Killer" is our Special Guest

Brett Simmons is a writer/director of film and television, working on projects that include “Husk”, “You Might Be The Killer” and the CW tv series “Pandora. He went to school at Chapman University in Southern California and has actually...wait for it...taken acting classes so he says he gets actors and "understands where they're coming from." The problem with most directors, as he sees it, is that when they are trained they are directing other directors...not actors. So when it comes time to work with actors on set or even in the audition room, they may not have a fluid and easy relationship to those actors. Hear how Brett overcomes that and what he says makes actors stand out in the audition room in this episode.  The post What a Director Looks for in an Actor with Brett Simmons appeared first on Actor CEO.

Have you worked to develop your leadership? Leadership is an important quality. People often want to be the leader, whether that is being the captain of the team, the president of the class, the manager in business or leading in the community. Leadership is also in demand. Companies and organizations spend a lot of time and money developing leadership in employees. So, people work on many things to improve their leadership. They learn to organize themselves, manage a project, read a budget and speak in public.  They also pay attention to the way they dress, how to meet others and shake hands, and how to mingle and converse in informal gatherings. But, would you work on meekness in order to become a better leader? One of the misconceptions people have is that leaders are not meek. Brett Simmons believes that meekness is one of the most undervalued virtues of leadership. He is a consultant that teaches leadership in college MBA courses. He approaches the virtue from a secular standpoint, so some of his concepts don't always align with the fruit of the Spirit. But I think he is right when he says, "Meekness is my response to your initiatives directed at me."* In other words, it is the ability to absorb and dissipate what another thrusts at you. When others are irritating or harsh, meekness responds correctly, but not harshly, to produce positive results. If you are a leader, or developing leadership skills, remember to focus on meekness. *Brett L. Simmons, "Strong Meekness: An Undervalued Virtue Of Leadership," August 21, 2011, http://www.bretlsimmons.com/2011-08/strong-meekness-an-undervalued-virtue-of-leadership/ Please provide feedback and suggestions at: https://www.sparkingfaith.com/feedback/ Bumper music “Landing Place” performed by Mark July, used under license from Shutterstock.

Brett Simmons, Sr. Consultant at OUTLAST Consulting LLC talks on innovation across the entire value chain--with examples from various industries. More about our guest: Brett Simmons brings years of experience in warehousing, transportation, and operations in industries such as Mining, Railroad, and Consumer Packaged Goods. Brett uses his unique experience and education to deliver solutions that build on capabilities to offer lasting effects on an organization. Brett further reinforces process excellence and ensures cohesion between planning and structural requirements. You may contact Brett at: brett@outlastllc.com------------------------------------------------------------Episode Guide:1:29 - What Is Innovation2:27 - What Is a Value Chain3:39 - Innovation vs Day-to-day work4:20 - Article: The Discovery of Penicillin7:46 - Incorporating new work as frontline supervisors8:47 - Understanding failure12:08 - Rejections at work12:51 - Chopped: the cooking show and 'baskets'14:30 - Ron Howard's Apollo 1316:06 - Innovation is not a job title nor workshop17:36 - Innovation and constraints18:54 - Defining Innovation as brothers: from experience and looking back21:06 - Necessity: Mother of Invention?22:42 - Learning is about exposure23:49 - Collaborative environment in learning25:03 - Fortune 500 companies and Innovation26:21 - What is not Innovation30:11 - Advice for innovators------------------------------------------------------------OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management. 

A group of friends stranded near a desolate cornfield find shelter in an old farmhouse, though they soon discover the dwelling is the center of a supernatural ritual. EN Brett Simmons Director: Brett Simmons (story), Brett Simmons (screenplay)Writers: Devon Graye, Wes Chatham, C.J. Thomason | See full cast & crew »Stars: --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/gruesome-hertzogg/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gruesome-hertzogg/support

Jeffery Simmons, Trevor Evans and Brett Simmons answer reader questions and give away two tickets to Saturday's region quarterfinal matchup against McMinn County.

CRA Podcast Episode: EBA Fund: Converting the promise of entrepreneurship into assets that build economic inclusion and equityThis episode interviews Brett Simmons, Fund Manager, and Joyce Klein, Chair of the Board of the EBA Fund and Director of Business Ownership Initiative, a program of the Aspen Institute. The podcast highlights the launch of Entrepreneur Backed Assets (EBA) Fund, is a new nonprofit creating a secondary market for microloans, a new tool to help capitalize CDFI lenders doing amazing work to serve entrepreneurs of color, small businesses in low-income communities, and the millions navigating through the pandemic. The EBA Fund has been made possible thanks to the Citi Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, and Woodforest National.More information can be found at ebafund.org and at https://lnkd.in/g65muHdBrett Simmons, Fund Manager, EBA Fundbrett@ebafund.orgBrett Simmons is the Managing Director and Principal with Revolve and leads fund management for EBA Fund. He has more than a decade of program, planning, and entrepreneurial experience across industries. As Director of Programs and Policy, he was instrumental in Accion Chicago’s efforts to expand lending more than 150% during the aftermath of the financial crisis. Since that time, he has worked with several start-up engineered systems companies and in operations strategy and planning for Cummins Power Systems, a fortune 200 manufacturing firm. Brett earned a joint B.A. in Economics and History from Xavier University and has both a Master of Business Administration and Master of Philosophy of Religion from Yale University. Joyce Klein, Chair of the Board, EBA Fundjoyce.klein@aspeninstitute.orgJoyce Klein is the director of the Business Ownership Initiative, a program of the Aspen Institute, which advances business ownership as an economic opportunity strategy. Ms. Klein assumed the leadership of BOI (formerly FIELD) in 2012, after working as a senior consultant since the program’s inception in 1998. She is recognized as a leading expert on the field, speaking at national and regional industry conferences and being quoted in a variety of news media including The New York Times and National Public Radio’s Marketplace. Joyce has more than 20 years of experience studying and supporting microenterprise and entrepreneurial development programs in the United States, and has authored or co-authored numerous publications, including funder brief and strategy guides, evaluation and research reports, case studies and policy briefs. She has also designed and managed grant programs aimed at supporting innovation in the practice of microenterprise development in the United States.Under Ms. Klein’s leadership FIELD launched the Microfinance Impact Collaborative, helped to create the Small Business Borrowers’ Bill of Rights and the Responsible Business Lending Coalition, and launched new research into the role of platforms and networks in expanding the scale and impact of the US microenterprise field. BOI’s work includes examining the potential role of business ownership and the microenterprise field in addressing the challenges of financial inclusion, the racial wealth gap, and career development for youth.Ms. Klein also has worked as a consultant in the microenterprise field, providing assistance to clients including the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund of the US Department of the Treasury, and CFED (formerly the Corporation for Enterprise Development). Prior to her work with BOI, Ms. Klein led CFED’s work in microenterprise development. She holds a master’s in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. in economics from Boston College.CRA Today and the CRA HubLinda Ezuka, Founder, CRA Today and the CRA Hublinda@cratoday.comwww.cratoday.comhttps://www.cratoday.com/Hub The CRA Hub is a new way to connect and forge community development impact through our CRA programs. The CRA Hub is an exclusive membership for bank professionals to connect with fellow colleagues, find inspiration and master the art of the CRA. No matter where you are on your CRA journey, the CRA Hub has something for you. This membership is for you if: ~you are new to CRA due to a promotion, new job or position or were never formally trained on CRA;~you understand key CRA program elements and have navigated through your first CRA exam cycle and want to deepen your understanding of CRA best practices;~you are making progress on the integrity of your bank’s CRA data collection, maintenance and/or reporting and want to ensure enhanced data integrity;~you want to learn from experts about refreshing your CRA programs, and discover innovative programs to consider in your assessment areas;~you are navigating CRA regulatory reform or you suspect reform is on the horizon;~you want to vet an idea and discuss your approach to CRA decisions with CRA colleagues who understand the unique challenges in your programs; or~you want to forge potential partnerships for impact in a broader regional area.

What goes bump in the night giving Kyle a fright? This week it’s The Monkey’s Paw (2013) directed by Brett Simmons. Make a wish as we talk about this fateful film based on the 1902 short story of the same name. Who forced Corbin Bleu to do this? Will Chris survive prison? Where did our good friend Stephen Lang’s soul end up? Watch for gators in the road as the Boo Boys break it all down.

The WCSA Podcast is back in 2021! Editor-in-chief Jeffery Simmons is joined by WCHS basketball coach Chris Sullens, Mud Bums owner Brett Simmons and reporter/coach Trevor Evans to discuss Monday's big news - the firing of UT coach Jeremy Pruitt.

For the last podcast of 2020, editor-in-chief Jeffery Simmons and reporter Trevor Evans are joined by everybody's favorite guests - WCHS basketball coach Chris Sullens and Mudbums owner Brett Simmons. Make sure to check it out as the group talks about 2020 basketball, including the Pioneers winning their first district title in 43 years.

Welcome back Matt Turner and Chris Sullens! The WCHS coaches join Warren County Sports Authority Jeffery Simmons, Mudbums owner Brett Simmons, sideline reporter Ansley Mullican and WCHS coach Trevor Evans for a great conversation about WC Sports!

Join editor-in-chief Jeffery Simmons, reporter Trevor Evans, sideline reporter Ansley Mullican, Mud Bums owner Brett Simmons, WCHS basketball coach Chris Sullens and WCHS football coach Matt Turner for a marathon discussion on Warren County Sports.

Welcome to the first Pencil Whippin' podcast on the Warren County Sports Authority. Join Jeffery Simmons, Nick Stern and Brett Simmons as they break down the 2020 Masters and give you all the latest on the action at McMinnville Country Club!

Warren County Sports Authority editor-in-chief Jeffery Simmons and reporter Trevor Evans are joined by Mud Bums Sports Grill owner and mayor candidate Brett Simmons as the three talk local politics, local sports, the Simmons family loving sports, Halloween outfits and so much more!

Go behind-the-scenes of the making of PANDORA's second season premiere with audio commentary from director BRETT SIMMONS and showrunner/creator MARK A. ALTMAN (The Librarians, Agent X) as they talk about making the premiere episode with exclusive behind-the-scenes insights you'll only hear on UNBOXING PANDORA, the official PANDORA podcast hosted by PETER HOLMSTROM, Pandora's writers' assistant. ** Check out the score for PANDORA - ORIGINAL TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK from La-La Land Records ** Catch up on the entire season of PANDORA on the @TheCW app or download it on @iTunes, @Vudu or @Amazon. New episodes premiere this Fall on The CW on Sunday, October 4th at 8 PM in the U.S. and Space Channel in Canada. Pandora is distributed around the world by Sony Pictures Television. Check your local listings. Follow us on social media at: Twitter: @seriespandora Instagram: @pandoraseries #PandoraCW @pandorawriters **UNBOXING PANDORA now debuts every Sunday wherever you listen to podcasts! ** PANDORA: SEASON ONE now available free on @primevideo to stream anytime. New episodes air on @TheCW every Sunday at 8 PM or anytime on the CW app.

PANDORA: SEASON ONE now available to stream free on AMAZON PRIME in the U.S. & Canada and Season Two airs Sundays at 8 on the CW or anytime on the CW app. Go behind-the-scenes of the making of PANDORA with audio commentary from director BRETT SIMMONS and showrunner/creator MARK A. ALTMAN (The Librarians, Agent X) as they talk about making "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," the second episode of Season Two where the crew encounters a planet with a deadly secret. Go behind-the-scenes with exclusive  insights you'll only hear on UNBOXING PANDORA, the official PANDORA podcast hosted by PETER HOLMSTROM, Pandora's writers' assistant.  ** Check out the score for PANDORA - ORIGINAL TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK from La-La Land Records **  Catch up on the entire season of PANDORA on the @TheCW app or download it on @Amazon and @iTunes. New episodes air every Sunday on The CW. in the U.S. and Space Channel in Canada. Pandora is distributed around the world by Sony Pictures Television. Check your local listings.  Follow us on social media at: Twitter: @seriespandora Instagram: @pandoraseries #PandoraCW @pandorawriters  **UNBOXING PANDORA now debuts every Sunday wherever you listen to podcasts! **

Go behind-the-scenes of the making of PANDORA's upcoming second season with director and co-producer BRETT SIMMONS as he discusses filming sci-fi on a budget. Also: find out what to expect when PANDORA returns this fall on the CW this October 4th at 8 PM and learn secrets from the set you'll only hear on UNBOXING PANDORA, the official PANDORA podcast. ** Check out the score for PANDORA - ORIGINAL TELEVISION SOUNDTRACK from La-La Land Records ** Catch up on the entire season of PANDORA on the @TheCW app or download it on @iTunes, @Vudu or @Amazon. New episodes premiere this Fall on The CW in the U.S. and Space Channel in Canada. Pandora is distributed around the world by Sony Pictures Television. Follow us on social media at: Twitter: @seriespandora Instagram: @pandoraseries #PandoraCW @pandorawriters

Executive Producer STEVE KRIOZERE is joined by co-writer/director BRETT SIMMONS and star MARTIN BOBB-SEMPLE to discuss the making of 'Hurricane' in which Jax (Priscilla Quintana) races to save Ralen (Ben Radcliffe) from being convicted for the destruction of the Tereshkova while Thomas drifts further into the distant regions of space. Guest starring JEFFERY COMBS (Deep Space Nine, Enterprise). Catch up on the entire season of PANDORA on the @CW app or download it on iTunes or Amazon. Follow us on social media at: Twitter: @seriespandora Instagram: @pandoraseries #PandoraCW

Go behind the scenes with Executive Producer/Co-Writer STEVE KRIOZERE, director BRETT SIMMONS and star MARTIN BOBB-SEMPLE ("Thomas") as they take you inside the making of episode five, "Most Likey You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) in which Thomas is reunited with his estranged father. Find out the inside scoop on how we made one of this season's most popular episodes with guest stars Richard Blackwood and Tina Casciani as Tierney (whose name is a homage to noir femme fatale, Gene Tierney). Follow PANDORA on social at: Twitter: @seriespandora Instagram: @pandoraseries And you can watch PANDORA anytime on the CW app, iTunes or Amazon. And look for PANDORA: SEASON TWO coming next summer wherever you watch Pandora!!!

On our first episode ever we sit down with Brett Simmons. The director of You Might Be the Killer, we talk his first impactful film which is none other than Halloween.

June 20: Atlantic City, N.J. (Facebook Watch)D'Mitrius Ballard vs. Elias Espadas, 10 rounds, middleweightsEddie Gomez vs. Saul Corral, 10 rounds, welterweightsFranchon Crews-Dezurn vs. Kayla Williams, 8 rounds, female super middleweightsMike Reed vs. Angel Hernandez, 8 rounds, junior welterweightsJaba Khositashvili vs. Gabriel Pham, 6 rounds, super middleweightsDan Murray vs. Leonardo Kenon, 4 rounds, junior welterweightsGeorge Rincon vs. Greg Young Jr., 6 rounds, junior welterweightsJune 21: Belfast, Northern Ireland (ESPN+)Steven Ward vs. Liam Conroy, 12 rounds, light heavyweightsTyrone McKenna vs. Darragh Foley, 10 rounds, junior welterweightsLewis Crocker vs. Karim Aliliche, 8 rounds, welterweightsPaddy Gallagher vs. Liam Wells, 8 rounds, welterweightsCaoimhun Agyarko vs. Paul Allison, 6 rounds, middleweightsTaylor McGoldrick vs. Gennadi Stserbin, 4 rounds, light heavyweightsOwen O'Neill vs. Radoslav Mitev, 4 rounds, junior middleweightsJune 21: Indio, Calif. (DAZN)Title fight: Andrew Cancio vs. Alberto Machado, rematch, 12 rounds, for Cancio's WBA "regular" junior lightweight titleTitle fight: Angel Acosta vs. Elwin Soto, 12 rounds, for Acosta's WBO junior flyweight titleLuis Feliciano vs. TBA, 10 rounds, junior welterweightsBlair Cobbs vs. Robert Redmond Jr., 8 rounds, welterweightsAaron McKenna vs. TBA, 6 rounds, welterweightsAnthony Garnica vs. Gilberto Duran, 4 rounds, junior featherweightsEmilio Rodriguez vs. Clay Collard, 4 rounds, middleweightsJune 21: London (DAZN)Conor Benn vs. Jussi Koivula, 10 rounds, welterweightsTed Cheeseman vs. Kieron Conway, 10 rounds, for Cheeseman's British junior middleweight titleCraig Richards vs. Andre Sterling, 12 rounds, light heavyweightsDuane Sinclair vs. Anthony Fox, 8 rounds, light heavyweightsCharles Frankham vs. Ilgvars Krauklis, 4 rounds, junior lightweightsShannon Courtenay vs. Valerija Sepetovska, 6 rounds, female bantamweightsReece Bellotti vs. Josue Bendana, 6 rounds, featherweightsOtha Jones III vs. Michael Horabin, 6 round, lightweightsJune 21: Sloan, Iowa (Showtime)Sebastian Fundora vs. Hector Zepeda, 10 rounds, junior middleweightsMichel Rivera vs. Rene Giron, 8 rounds, lightweightsElias Damian Araujo vs. Yeis Solano, 8 rounds, lightweightsTristan James vs. Anthony Hollaway, 4 rounds, cruiserweightsJack Frericks vs. Randy Mast, 4 rounds, super middleweightsJoe James vs. Emeka Ifekandu, 4 rounds, junior welterweightsRony Hines vs. Grover Young, 4 rounds, heavyweightsJune 21: Elkins, W.Va.Eric Moon vs. Justin Thomas, 12 rounds, super middleweightsJune 22: Glasgow, Scotland (ESPN+)Lee McGregor vs. Scott Allan, 12 rounds, for McGregor's Commonwealth bantamweight titleKieran Smith vs. Ivan Montero, 10 rounds, junior middleweightsLewis Benson vs. Renald Garrido, 8 rounds, junior welterweightsMuhammad Waseem vs. John Chuwa, 8 rounds, junior bantamweightsCraig Morgan vs. Elvis Guillen, 6 rounds, featherweightsCraig McIntyre vs. Chris Adaway, 6 rounds, junior welterweightsReece McFadden vs. Joel Sanchez, 6 rounds, junior bantamweightsTommy Philbin vs. TBA, 6 rounds, super middleweightsBoris Crighton vs. TBA, 4 rounds, super middleweightsJack Turner vs. Jose Hernandez, 4 rounds, bantamweightsJune 22: Cleveland (CBS Sports Net)Brad Solomon vs. Navid Mansouri, 12 rounds, junior middleweightsDewayne Beamon vs. Lucas Emanuel Fernandez, 10 rounds, junior bantamweightsJose Martinez vs. Yeison Vargas, 8 rounds, junior bantamweightsMiguel Angel Gonzalez vs. Mario Perez, 6 rounds, lightweightsMontana Love vs. Michael Odhiambo, 6 rounds, welterweightsDestyne Butler vs. Brett Simmons, 6 rounds, welterweightsDewatne Zeigler vs. Tre'sean Wiggins, 6 rounds, junior welterweightsJune 22: Ahualulco del Mercado, MexicoTitle fight: Yazmin Rivas vs. Ana Maria Lozano, 10 rounds, for Rivas' WBA women's junior featherweight titleJoselito Velazquez vs. Martin Tecuapetla, 10 rounds, flyweightsJune 22: Horsens, DenmarkTitle fight: Dina Thorslund vs. April Adams, 10 rounds, for Thorslund's WBO women's junior featherweight titleKem Ljungquist vs. Gabriel Enguema, 8 rounds, heavyweightsKai Robin Havnaa vs. Levan Lukhutashvili, 10 rounds, cruiserweightsLandry Kore vs. Tomas Bezvoda, 6 rounds, middleweightsJoanna Ekedahl vs. Jelena Janicijevic, 6 rounds, female lightweightsFrederik Hede Jensen vs. Ruben Garcia, 6 rounds, junior lightweightsJune 22: PhiladelphiaAnvar Yunusov vs. Angel Luna, 8 rounds, featherweightsMilton Santiago Jr. vs. Ruben Lopez, 8 rounds, junior welterweightsColby Madison vs. Robert Simms, 8 rounds, heavyweightsClarence Booth vs. Gabor Gorbics, 8 rounds, welterweightsJames Martin vs. Kashon Hutchinson, 6 rounds, welterweightsPaul Kroll vs. Hector Mercado, 6 rounds, welterweightsRasheen Brown vs. Zoltan Horvath, 4 rounds, bantamweightsRomuel Cruz vs. Jonathan Conde, 4 rounds, featherweightsJune 22: Torrelavega, SpainSergio Garcia vs. Sergey Rabchenko, 12 rounds, for Garcia's European junior middleweight titleJune 23: Las Vegas (Fox/Fox Deportes)Jermell Charlo vs. Jorge Cota, 12 rounds, junior middleweightsGuillermo Rigondeaux vs. Julio Ceja, 12 rounds, WBC junior featherweight eliminatorJoey Spencer vs. Akeem Black, 6 rounds, junior middleweightsChris Colbert vs. Alberto Mercado, 8 or 10 rounds, lightweightsJesus Ramos vs. Rondale Hubbert, 4 rounds, welterweightsLeduan Barthelemy vs. Jose Cayetano, 8 rounds, lightweightsRyan Karl vs. TBA, 8 rounds, welterweightsMarquis Taylor vs. Lucas SantaMaria, 8 rounds, welterweightsQuinton Randall vs. Kewone Hill, 4 rounds, junior middleweightsEmmanuel Medina vs. Peter Dobson, 8 rounds, welterweightsJulian Rodarte vs. Miguel Aispuro, 8 rounds, lightweightsJose Valenzuela vs. Eric Manriquez, 4 rounds, lightweights

June 20: Atlantic City, N.J. (Facebook Watch)D'Mitrius Ballard vs. Elias Espadas, 10 rounds, middleweightsEddie Gomez vs. Saul Corral, 10 rounds, welterweightsFranchon Crews-Dezurn vs. Kayla Williams, 8 rounds, female super middleweightsMike Reed vs. Angel Hernandez, 8 rounds, junior welterweightsJaba Khositashvili vs. Gabriel Pham, 6 rounds, super middleweightsDan Murray vs. Leonardo Kenon, 4 rounds, junior welterweightsGeorge Rincon vs. Greg Young Jr., 6 rounds, junior welterweightsJune 21: Belfast, Northern Ireland (ESPN+)Steven Ward vs. Liam Conroy, 12 rounds, light heavyweightsTyrone McKenna vs. Darragh Foley, 10 rounds, junior welterweightsLewis Crocker vs. Karim Aliliche, 8 rounds, welterweightsPaddy Gallagher vs. Liam Wells, 8 rounds, welterweightsCaoimhun Agyarko vs. Paul Allison, 6 rounds, middleweightsTaylor McGoldrick vs. Gennadi Stserbin, 4 rounds, light heavyweightsOwen O'Neill vs. Radoslav Mitev, 4 rounds, junior middleweightsJune 21: Indio, Calif. (DAZN)Title fight: Andrew Cancio vs. Alberto Machado, rematch, 12 rounds, for Cancio's WBA "regular" junior lightweight titleTitle fight: Angel Acosta vs. Elwin Soto, 12 rounds, for Acosta's WBO junior flyweight titleLuis Feliciano vs. TBA, 10 rounds, junior welterweightsBlair Cobbs vs. Robert Redmond Jr., 8 rounds, welterweightsAaron McKenna vs. TBA, 6 rounds, welterweightsAnthony Garnica vs. Gilberto Duran, 4 rounds, junior featherweightsEmilio Rodriguez vs. Clay Collard, 4 rounds, middleweightsJune 21: London (DAZN)Conor Benn vs. Jussi Koivula, 10 rounds, welterweightsTed Cheeseman vs. Kieron Conway, 10 rounds, for Cheeseman's British junior middleweight titleCraig Richards vs. Andre Sterling, 12 rounds, light heavyweightsDuane Sinclair vs. Anthony Fox, 8 rounds, light heavyweightsCharles Frankham vs. Ilgvars Krauklis, 4 rounds, junior lightweightsShannon Courtenay vs. Valerija Sepetovska, 6 rounds, female bantamweightsReece Bellotti vs. Josue Bendana, 6 rounds, featherweightsOtha Jones III vs. Michael Horabin, 6 round, lightweightsJune 21: Sloan, Iowa (Showtime)Sebastian Fundora vs. Hector Zepeda, 10 rounds, junior middleweightsMichel Rivera vs. Rene Giron, 8 rounds, lightweightsElias Damian Araujo vs. Yeis Solano, 8 rounds, lightweightsTristan James vs. Anthony Hollaway, 4 rounds, cruiserweightsJack Frericks vs. Randy Mast, 4 rounds, super middleweightsJoe James vs. Emeka Ifekandu, 4 rounds, junior welterweightsRony Hines vs. Grover Young, 4 rounds, heavyweightsJune 21: Elkins, W.Va.Eric Moon vs. Justin Thomas, 12 rounds, super middleweightsJune 22: Glasgow, Scotland (ESPN+)Lee McGregor vs. Scott Allan, 12 rounds, for McGregor's Commonwealth bantamweight titleKieran Smith vs. Ivan Montero, 10 rounds, junior middleweightsLewis Benson vs. Renald Garrido, 8 rounds, junior welterweightsMuhammad Waseem vs. John Chuwa, 8 rounds, junior bantamweightsCraig Morgan vs. Elvis Guillen, 6 rounds, featherweightsCraig McIntyre vs. Chris Adaway, 6 rounds, junior welterweightsReece McFadden vs. Joel Sanchez, 6 rounds, junior bantamweightsTommy Philbin vs. TBA, 6 rounds, super middleweightsBoris Crighton vs. TBA, 4 rounds, super middleweightsJack Turner vs. Jose Hernandez, 4 rounds, bantamweightsJune 22: Cleveland (CBS Sports Net)Brad Solomon vs. Navid Mansouri, 12 rounds, junior middleweightsDewayne Beamon vs. Lucas Emanuel Fernandez, 10 rounds, junior bantamweightsJose Martinez vs. Yeison Vargas, 8 rounds, junior bantamweightsMiguel Angel Gonzalez vs. Mario Perez, 6 rounds, lightweightsMontana Love vs. Michael Odhiambo, 6 rounds, welterweightsDestyne Butler vs. Brett Simmons, 6 rounds, welterweightsDewatne Zeigler vs. Tre'sean Wiggins, 6 rounds, junior welterweightsJune 22: Ahualulco del Mercado, MexicoTitle fight: Yazmin Rivas vs. Ana Maria Lozano, 10 rounds, for Rivas' WBA women's junior featherweight titleJoselito Velazquez vs. Martin Tecuapetla, 10 rounds, flyweightsJune 22: Horsens, DenmarkTitle fight: Dina Thorslund vs. April Adams, 10 rounds, for Thorslund's WBO women's junior featherweight titleKem Ljungquist vs. Gabriel Enguema, 8 rounds, heavyweightsKai Robin Havnaa vs. Levan Lukhutashvili, 10 rounds, cruiserweightsLandry Kore vs. Tomas Bezvoda, 6 rounds, middleweightsJoanna Ekedahl vs. Jelena Janicijevic, 6 rounds, female lightweightsFrederik Hede Jensen vs. Ruben Garcia, 6 rounds, junior lightweightsJune 22: PhiladelphiaAnvar Yunusov vs. Angel Luna, 8 rounds, featherweightsMilton Santiago Jr. vs. Ruben Lopez, 8 rounds, junior welterweightsColby Madison vs. Robert Simms, 8 rounds, heavyweightsClarence Booth vs. Gabor Gorbics, 8 rounds, welterweightsJames Martin vs. Kashon Hutchinson, 6 rounds, welterweightsPaul Kroll vs. Hector Mercado, 6 rounds, welterweightsRasheen Brown vs. Zoltan Horvath, 4 rounds, bantamweightsRomuel Cruz vs. Jonathan Conde, 4 rounds, featherweightsJune 22: Torrelavega, SpainSergio Garcia vs. Sergey Rabchenko, 12 rounds, for Garcia's European junior middleweight titleJune 23: Las Vegas (Fox/Fox Deportes)Jermell Charlo vs. Jorge Cota, 12 rounds, junior middleweightsGuillermo Rigondeaux vs. Julio Ceja, 12 rounds, WBC junior featherweight eliminatorJoey Spencer vs. Akeem Black, 6 rounds, junior middleweightsChris Colbert vs. Alberto Mercado, 8 or 10 rounds, lightweightsJesus Ramos vs. Rondale Hubbert, 4 rounds, welterweightsLeduan Barthelemy vs. Jose Cayetano, 8 rounds, lightweightsRyan Karl vs. TBA, 8 rounds, welterweightsMarquis Taylor vs. Lucas SantaMaria, 8 rounds, welterweightsQuinton Randall vs. Kewone Hill, 4 rounds, junior middleweightsEmmanuel Medina vs. Peter Dobson, 8 rounds, welterweightsJulian Rodarte vs. Miguel Aispuro, 8 rounds, lightweightsJose Valenzuela vs. Eric Manriquez, 4 rounds, lightweights

Join Alex and Eric as they share their immediate reactions to two more horror movies from 2018. You Might be the Killer, a horror comedy from director Brett Simmons and The Ranger from director Jenn Wexler. We reviewed each movie within 30 minutes of finishing each one, so come get your hot takes! Fresh outta the oven!

In this edition of New Horror Express, we have our very first returning guest! That is right returning from Episode 10 is “You Might Be The Killer” director Brett Simmons. A film NHE host Scott Murphy and Brett could only talk a little bit about as the film had not received its premiere at the […]

This episode’s lineup: 1. Faust: Love of the Damned (2000) directed by Brian Yuzna 2. Cam (2018) directed by Daniel Goldhaber 3. Society (1989) directed by Brian Yuzna 4. Noroi: The Curse (2005) directed by Kōji Shiraishi 5. You Might Be the Killer (2018) directed by Brett Simmons 6. Return of the Living Dead 3 […] The post 37 – Body Horror, Strange Curses, and Bloody Transformations appeared first on Sticker Fridge Studios.

This week Byron returns from his eerie East Coast excursion, we focus our energy on one specific geometric structure, & return to camp with Brett Simmons meta counselor slasher, 'You Might Be the Killer'. Films & TV discussed during the first act of this episode: Sorry to Bother You The Village The Possession The Possession of Hannah Grace Night of the Comet The Jersey Shore... Want the next episode days before its wide release? Support us at http://patreon.com/frightday at the $4 level or above. Keep our mini-fridges full of blood...I mean...not blood...normal things that people drink...by going to http://shop.frightday.com Follow us in the shadows at the following places: @byronmckoy @samfrightday @kellyfrightday @frightday http://frightday.com http://facebook.com/groups/frightday http://instagram.com/frightday http://facebook.com/ffrightdayy

To coincide with the fact that the film is now available for streaming on Shudder, here is the interview I conducted during this year's Toronto After Dark Film Festival with director Brett Simmons and star Fran Kranz about the meta horror-comedy You Might Be the Killer. 00:19 - Introductory Comments 01:19 - Clip: "You Might Be the Killer" by Harlo 01:44 - Interview - Brett Simmons and Fran Kranz on You Might Be the Killer *Some Spoilers* 11:56 - Closing Comments Related Links Toronto After Dark Review You Might Be the Killer on Shudder

To coincide with the fact that the film is now available for streaming on Shudder, here is the interview I conducted during this year's Toronto After Dark Film Festival with director Brett Simmons and star Fran Kranz about the meta horror-comedy You Might Be the Killer. 00:19 - Introductory Comments 01:19 - Clip: "You Might Be the Killer" by Harlo 01:44 - Interview - Brett Simmons and Fran Kranz on You Might Be the Killer *Some Spoilers* 11:56 - Closing Comments Related Links Toronto After Dark Review You Might Be the Killer on Shudder --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/skonmovies/message This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit skonmovies.substack.com/subscribe

Meta horror is a tightrope and sometimes even the greats lose their balance. When that happens, you get bloated 2 hour slashers featuring some of the most unlikable characters and worst bangs of the millennium like those on display in 2000's SCREAM 3. We are joined by Brett Simmons, the writer/director of 2018's incredible meta horror YOU MIGHT BE THE KILLER, which is great because we have a good film to contrast Scream 3 against. Antivax nut Jenny McCarthy isn't the only one getting eviscerated this week on Horror Movie Night!This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Originally Aired: 11/09/18 – Our review of The Grinch. Play an interview with Fran Kranz and Brett Simmons and the geek news of the week. Show Notes: We talk the news of the week. Disney announces the name of their new streaming service. Harvard researchers have a theory that says Oumuamua asteroid is actually a […] The post Geek Hard: Episode 440 – Grinch Killer appeared first on Geek Hard.

Originally Aired: 11/09/18 – Our review of The Grinch. Play an interview with Fran Kranz and Brett Simmons and the geek news of the week. Show Notes: We talk the news of the week. Disney announces the name of their new streaming service. Harvard researchers have a theory that says Oumuamua asteroid is actually a […] The post Geek Hard: Episode 440 – Grinch Killer appeared first on Geek Hard.

In town to close the Toronto After Dark Film Festival with his slasher comedy You Might Be the Killer, writer-director Brett Simmons tackles Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween II … the first sequel to John Carpenter’s horror masterpiece, but by no means the last. Your genial host Norm Wilner is all in, even though he totally knows this won’t be the end of … Continue reading Brett Simmons on Halloween II →

In our latest episode NHE host Scott Murphy has a big announcement about the future of the show – namely we are going fortnightly. This news means you will be getting twice as much New Horror Express in your life! Besides that big news NHE host, Scott Murphy chats to “You Might Be the Killer” […]

Matt has a new favorite horror film of 2018 and he's gonna be talking about it ALOT so get your ass prepared for YOU MIGHT BE THE KILLER by listening to his interview with the director Brett Simmons, writer/producer Thomas P Vitale and producer Griff Furst

Shawn Blanc is a writer, small-business owner, productivity coach, and creative entrepreneur living in Kansas City with his wife and their three sons. Shawn has been teaching and learning about creativity, diligence, and focus for over a decade, and his online courses have helped thousands of people do their best creative work while learning to thrive in the midst of life's tensions. A while back, Shawn sent an email that caught my attention. He wrote about the importance of creating a customer avatar and developing a content strategy to connect with them and help them achieve their goals. I liked the email so much that I emailed him back and asked him to come on my show to talk about his journey to making a living through writing online and what he's learned about growing an audience. Shawn also shares my passion for productivity and deep focus; so much so that he's gathered 12 incredibly smart people for a free 5 day online summit about the power of focused life. In this episode, Shawn shares how he was able to make a full-time living by writing online, and we discuss how you can grow your audience by creating a customer avatar (your ideal listener) and creating content that addresses their needs and desires. Highlights, Takeaways & Quick Wins: Interview your customers to get a real life picture of your audience. Start selling products as early as possible. Your customer avatar is a real person that exists out there. Use the language of your customer avatar in your content to create a deep connection with them. Be in people's weekly cycle at a minimum. Your niche is going to draw your audience but your ancillary interests will keep people interested. Show up consistently to earn people's trust and create an anticipation of future value. Do guest-based podcasts to grow your audience. Reach people that are far outside of your social circle by connecting with the people you can connect with right now. Show Notes Aaron: Shawn Blanc is a writer/small business owner/productivity coach/creative entrepreneur living in Kansas City with his wife and their three sons, and Shawn is a member of our Community. He's been teaching and learning about creativity, diligence, and focus for over a decade now. His online courses have helped thousands of people do their best creative work while learning to thrive in the midst of life's tensions. A while back, Shawn sent an email that caught my attention. He was writing about the importance of creating a customer avatar, that's knowing who you're creating for and what you want to help them achieve, what kind of person you want to help them become. I thought it was really interesting, so I sent him an email right back. I said, “Shawn, do you want to come on the show to talk about this? I think podcasters need to hear about this idea of customer avatars and also content strategy.” Shawn agreed, and he also shares my passion for productivity and focus, so much so that he has gathered 12 incredibly smart people for a five day online summit about the power of a focused life, and that's going to be starting, I believe, as this episode comes out. If you're listening to this in your podcast player, it's starting today, I think. I'll give you that link later. In this episode, I want to talk with Shawn about why you as a podcaster need to create a customer avatar, know who you're creating for, develop a content strategy, and then also the benefits of deep focus, what we call deep work. A few small changes in your daily habits can lead to big improvements in your productivity and creative output. Shawn, that's one of the longer intros I've ever done. Thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate you being here. Shawn: Thanks, Aaron. I love it. Super excited to be here. Shawn Blanc Aaron: I think of you, Shawn, as a writer and as the creator of an online course called The Focus Course, which is great. You're so much more than that. Do you want to give everyone a quick introduction, how you got here and where you came from? I would also like to hear what your biggest struggles have been over the years of getting to the point where you're at right now. Shawn: Absolutely. I'm in Kansas City. Originally, I'm from Denver. I'm a Colorado guy at heart. I've been married for going on 12 years, and my wife and I have three boys. It's insane at our house. We used to call the first two the Twin Tornadoes, but we just had our third eight or nine weeks ago. Aaron: Congrats! Shawn: It's awesome. Love it. I love being a dad. I used to be a drummer. I know that we have a lot of musicians around here. Sean McCabe plays a little bit of music, I think. Aaron: Yeah, he used to write music, just like he used to do lettering. I still play drums. Shawn: I used to play drums for a large ministry here in Kansas City, and I ended up transitioning out of that. It's a long story, but I ended up becoming a marketing and creative director. I ran a team, an in-house design team, with about 17 people—web developers, print designers, web designers, writers, editors, project managers, whatever. We did a bunch of stuff. One of our huge things was that we would host a conference at the end of the year that I was running. 25,000 people would come out for that. I did that for several years, and then my wife and I got pregnant with our first kid. I was like, “I don't want to do this work as a dad.” Part of it was just super demanding. Anyone who has experienced working in the corporate design scene knows that it's a very demanding spot. Everything is urgent all the time. I was doing like 80 hours a week, and I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun, but I was like, “There's no way. I don't want to do 80 hours a week as a dad.” I had that, plus I had this little blog on the side, where I had been writing about marketing stuff. I felt like, “This would be a good opportunity to quit what I'm doing and take a leap, see if I can take my website full time. Could I blog for a living?” That was the thought. I was doing about $1,000 a month in advertising and some affiliate stuff. I figured that if I could give it 40 hours a week, I could get the revenue up to a spot where it could pay the bills. I figured that it could grow from there. Aaron: How old were you at this point? Shawn: I was just about 30, not quite 30, like 29, when I made that jump. I asked everyone that was reading on the site. I said, “I'm quitting. I'm going to do this thing full time.” I asked people if they would be interested in supporting me to write the site for a living. I was like, “If you like what I'm doing, I'll write more if you want to give me some money to do it.” I did this little membership drive. I was going to charge $3 a month for membership. I was doing a daily podcast as a perk of membership. Aaron: You aren't still doing that, are you? Shawn: It's on hiatus at the moment. We'll see. I'm going to be diving back into the podcast scene starting early 2017. I miss podcasting. It's fun. Aaron: You decided to ask people to support you, give you $3 a month, to go full time with your writing? Shawn: Basically. I figured if I could get 500 people, at $3 a month that's $1,500, plus the other $1,000 I was doing, and that would be $2,500 a month. That's not a ton, but I figured that would be enough to cover the bare necessities. I figured that things could grow from there. People signed up, and I hit the 500 person mark by the end of the month before I had even quit. I started my new job, April 4th 2011, basically fully funded as an independent blogger. Aaron: I bet that was exciting. Shawn: It was really exciting. I felt like I got this permission slip from my audience to go for it. As a creative person, sometimes you need that. Sometimes you want to be like, “Do you guys care? I'm here. I'm making this stuff.” A lot of the work we do as creative entrepreneurs is for your audience. I know that we're going to talk about this in a little bit, the customer avatar profile. It's for these people that you really want to serve. When you hear back from them and they go, “Hey, we like what you're doing. Let's keep the relationship going,” it's like having a DTR with your audience. There's something cool about that kind of permission slip moment. It's like when you sell your first product, or whatever it is. People are interested. You get your first positive review on iTunes or whatever. Obviously, there's going to be the junk that comes later, but whatever. Aaron: Some of the haters that come later? Shawn: You forget about that stuff and you keep moving on. Aaron: That's awesome. Asking for Money Aaron: When you think back, do you remember any big struggles or hurdles that you really had to overcome about that period in your life? Shawn: There were so many. It's hard to say, “If I could do it differently, I would do it this other way,” because who knows? If I had done things differently, maybe it wouldn't have turned out the way I thought it would. One of the biggest struggles for me was asking for money. It was a huge challenge related to the membership drive. I was asking folks to support me on a regular basis to write for a living. I was like, “Who am I? What kind of a dork says, ‘Give me money so I can blog for a living.'” Aaron: Nobody pays for things online anymore. Nobody wants to pay for writing. Shawn: Exactly. That was a huge challenge. It has continued to be a challenge for years. I have been doing this for almost six years now, full time. When I came out with my first book, it's called Delight is in the Details, and it was an eBook package thing. I did some interviews. I charged $29 for my book, and I felt like this huge hypocrite. It was this feeling of, “This is information. Information should be free on the internet. Why would anyone ever buy this?” I felt like there was no value in this thing that people would pay for. I was like, “I have to do it. I'm going to charge for it.” Aaron: Sorry to jump in, but at the time, did you really feel like $30 was a lot of money? Shawn: Oh my gosh. I woke up feeling sick to my stomach the day I was going to launch it. I was like, “I can't believe how much I'm asking for this.” Aaron: What did you think was going to happen? Shawn: I thought that people would buy it because they trusted me, and then they would read it and come and burn my house down because I had ripped them off so bad. I charged so much money for something. Aaron: It was your first time launching a product, right? Shawn: It was. It was my first product launch ever. It ended up bringing in like $5,000 in that first 48 hour launch window. It made $5,000 that first couple of days. In hindsight, it was this huge inflection point for me. I think I spent about 100 hours building the thing, made $5,000 from it in the first week, and I thought, “Woah, that was a great return on my time investment! Now I have this product that I can continue to sell.” Since then, in the last four or five years that I've sold it, I want to say that it's sold $50,000 over the years. That's awesome. There's something great about creating a product, and it changed a lot. Producing and selling a book changed my relationship with my audience. Now I'm creating products for them to buy. That initial hurdle was huge. $29 was so much money. I think that was probably the biggest struggle, of being able to properly identify how much value I'm providing people and to price it correctly. That's just hard. I think that's why you should start selling stuff as early as possible, because you have to learn. There isn't a formula for how much value you're providing and how much you should charge for it. You can't just plug your stuff into a worksheet and get a number back. You have to feel out the market, your market, your audience, your skill level. How much polish are you doing? How much depth of information are you providing? Whatever skill, service, or product it is you're providing, you have to learn how to make money and price your stuff! It's hard to do it when you're starting. The biggest challenging for me at first was becoming comfortable asking for money and learning to accurately price my products. Aaron: The other thing is that once you launched that book and got familiar with all that stuff, that was a stepping stone to your future products, your future books and courses, and everything else that you're doing. I'm sure, at that point, you felt like, “Okay. I've done this once before already. Now it's like riding a bike. I just need to get back on and keep peddling, keep going.” Shawn: Yeah, absolutely. It really was a huge stepping stone. One thing I loved about creating and launching a product was that there was a start and an end date to it. This thing has to ship. I worked on it, and I was done. I put it out there. Boom, now it's there. I'm done. It's out in the world. Obviously, you iterate on it. A year later, I added some new interviews. I added some new chapters. I created some videos. I remastered all of the audio for the audio book. Product Launch Hiccups Shawn: Super random story related to this. It was the relaunch of Delight is in the Details, a year after it had come out, and I put it out there. People are buying it during that relaunch period. I get an email from someone going, “I was just listening to the audio book, and the last chapter sounds like it's not edited correctly. Something is weird about the last chapter. You should check it out.” I recorded the audio book and edited it by myself. I go and I open up the audio book for the last chapter and I'm listening to it, and it is the original take that I did of the book. The way I did the audio book, I'm reading it into my microphone in GarageBand. If I goofed up in the middle of a paragraph, I would just take a pause, say, “Okay, again,” and then I would start talking again. That was my marker. The last chapter of the book was that track, the whole thing. The audio track should have been 10 or 12 minutes for that chapter, and it was 30 minutes because of all my edits, retakes, and pauses. The whole thing. What's worse is, it was there from the very beginning. For a year, I had been selling that thing. I was mortified. For a year, I had been selling my book with the last chapter all messed up, and I was mortified. Aaron: Nobody said anything?? Shawn: They didn't. Either no one listened to it, or when they listened to it, they just assumed… I don't even know. I was so mortified. There you go. What worse thing can happen? Earlier, I had been so concerned about selling something that people weren't going to consider valuable. Here's this huge, huge mistake. What a goof! Aaron: I need to remind everyone that this audiobook is called Delight is in the Details. Shawn: The irony, right? That was one of the selling points of the book, too. I was like, “If you buy this book, it's a case study in sweating the details itself. You'll see all the areas where I've sweated the details in this product.” Whatever. Oh man. I was mortified. Aaron: Thankfully, no one came and burned down your house, and it was over a year before anyone even said anything. A lot of us are so curious about people who do such good work, so when a mistake does happen, it's almost humanizing. It's like, “Now I can relate to this person, because they're not 100% on top of everything all the time, either, like I struggle with. I make a lot of mistakes, so it's kind of nice when you see a really awesome musician on stage mess up a part and then jump back into it. You're like, “Oh, they are humans, too.” That's really cool. Nobody burned your house down, thankfully. Shawn: That's why it's so helpful to ship early. You get stuff out the door and you start learning. I love it. Aaron: I tell people this a lot, too, when it comes to podcasts. If you're thinking about making a podcast, there are so many things you can tweak, improve, or work on forever, but it's so much better to say, “What's the minimum I have to do? I want to try and do a good job, but let's do this, ship it, and iterate and improve on it every single week.” If you don't ship something, you'll just pick at it and tweak it endlessly. Before you know it, it's been a year and a half, and you've got three or five episodes you recorded 18 months ago that you're still working on. In the meantime, nothing has happened. Start Moving Shawn: As well, we have this picture of what we want something to look like and what we want it to be, but we have zero experience. I like the analogy of those lifesize mazes. Especially around Halloween and Thanksgiving, there are those corn mazes. They're these giant things. Imagine someone standing at the entrance of this life size maze, staring at the entrance to it, and in their mind, trying to figure out how to get to the end so they can get straight to the end the fastest way possible without making any mistakes along the way. Impossible! Not going to happen. You have to go in the maze and go left to realize that you should have gone right. Then turn around. You have to go through the thing to make it through. I like the phrase, “Action brings clarity.” Action brings clarity. You're waiting for clarity before taking action, and it's not going to happen—you have to start moving. You just have to get going and you adjust course as you go. You start to realize what you should major on and what you shouldn't. Aaron: That's an incredible analogy. I'm totally going to use that in the future now. It's perfect. You sit there and you imagine yourself being at the end of the maze. That's where you see a bunch of other people. Your friends have gone through the maze and they're at the end, so you're like, “I have to get to the end fast. I can't make any mistakes. I can't take a wrong turn, because that's where all my friends are, and that's where I want to be.” You do have to go through it. That's really incredible. Creating a Customer Avatar Aaron: Shawn, you sent out an email and you were talking about this. I want you to explain how you think about customer avatars, and then if you did something like that for yourself when you were just starting, or if this is something that evolved over time. Customer avatar and content strategy, go! Shawn: This is great. When I first started as a writer, I was doing ShawnBlanc.net. My entire job was publishing articles and links on my website. I didn't have a customer avatar or a customer profile, what I had was an ideal reader. I think, in terms of podcasting, it's very similar. Who's your ideal listener? For me, I actually had a person who was my ideal reader, who's name was Shawn Spurdee. He was a really good friend of mine. He and I had become friends through the blogging Twitter-sphere back in the day. When I wrote articles or links, I had him in mind. I thought, “Is this something he would find interesting? Is there a story in here that he's going to want to read? Is this a link to something he would like?” You had that ideal reader. John Gruber wrote about this for his site, Daring Fireball. He talked about his ideal reader, and he called it “a second version of himself.” He goes, “This person is interested in all the same things I'm interested in, and he cares about what I care about. All the design decisions I make on the site, all the articles I choose to link to, the stories I choose to tell, all of that stuff is with this ideal reader/listener in mind.” It was instrumental for me to have an “ideal reader” for all of the work I was doing. You know who you're trying to target. I'm still the writer for sure, but we've switched a lot more of our focus onto direct sales, building a customer base, and selling products to our audience. I still don't have that ideal reader. Who am I writing this for? Who is this product being created for? It has gone beyond just an individual person that I know. We did a customer profiling thing. I have a guy who works for me full time, and his name is Isaac. We took a couple of big, giant sticky pad things, two feet by three feet, they're huge, these giant sticky notes. Aaron: Where do you get those? Can you get those on Amazon? Shawn: You can get a lawnmower on Amazon, so I'm sure you can get sticky notes. We got ours at Office Max, an Office Depot kind of thing. It's weird. You drive to this store, and you can walk in, and they sell products on their shelves. You have to pick it up with your hand and drive it home yourself. Aaron: It seems like a waste of time. Shawn: For this customer profiling session or whatever, basically, we had these four quadrants. What do they think? What do they feel? What do they want? What do they say? Something like that. You're trying to get this picture of this person. Who is this person? What are the things that they say? Like, “I love my family. I like to watch Netflix.” Whatever. Aaron: “I want to learn how to make a podcast.” Shawn: Exactly. It's not just business, it's just life. What are the kind of phrases they might say? If you ask them what they care about, what things would they list? What are their pain points that they're feeling in life? For us, creating this customer avatar, we named him Brian. We found a random picture of somebody and stuck it up there to begin to humanize the person. Your customer avatar is a real person that exists out there. We talked about, “Here's Brian,” and we came up with this stuff. Brian has a job that he kind of likes, but he's got these other creative ideas that he really wants to pursue. Maybe he wants to take it full time. Maybe not. That's not really the most important thing for him. The most important thing for him is getting his best creative work out there and being able to do it and feel like he's making progress on the areas of life that matter to him. He's also a dad and a husband, and he cares about his family quite a bit. He cares about his kids. He still wants to be available for them. When he comes home from work, he's really tired, so the evenings don't feel like a good time to do his creative work, but he's not a morning person either, so he doesn't know when he's going to get the time. These are some of the scenarios, the stories, that begin to emerge as you begin to write stuff about this person. What are the pain points that they feel? When they look around, what do they see? What kind of car does Brian drive? Does he like minivans? Does he have a minivan? How many kids does he actually have? You really kind of start to come up with this stuff, and there's a lot you can do to get to a higher level of doing these customer profiles. You can actually do interviews with your customer base. Aaron: I do this! I try to meet people and talk to them, especially when it comes to podcasting. When you interview your customers, you can actually begin to get a real life picture of your real life audience. Creating an Empathy Map Shawn: There's this thing that we did, an empathy map, and you take the empathy map to create your customer profile. We ran this survey to our email list, and we ran a separate one to our customer list. It was, “When it comes to focus, what's your single greatest challenge?” It was just this open-ended question where people could write stuff down. Some people say, “Time.” Or, “I can't focus. I'm distracted.” Then you get some people who go, “I'm trying to build my photography portfolio website on the side because I love photography and I'm trying to grow it. I'm working this other job, and when I come home in the evenings, family is first. I spend time with family, so by the time the kids are in bed, I've only got about an hour left in the day. I'm so tired, and I don't want to spend time trying to work on my photography website, so I don't know where to get started.” The person who gives an in depth answer to the challenge like that, vs. someone who just says “time”, they're really in touch with their pain point. There's a book called Ask by Ryan Leveque, and you can find it on Amazon. He teases out, “You ask these questions, and you separate the people with the longest answers. You put their answers up at the top.” You cut the list at 20%. The bottom 80%, forget about those people, and look at the top 20%, these “hyper-responders.” What are their challenges? What are their pain points? Aaron, you could do this. You could say, “When it comes to building a podcast, what is your single greatest challenge?” You'll probably have someone who says, “Building my list.” Or, “Building my audience.” Or, “Technical stuff.” But then you might have someone who really gives this heartfelt, in-depth answer. If someone gives you a heartfelt, in-depth answer, they're hungry for a solution. That person is going to pay for a solution. That person is going to digest this, and when you give them something, they're going to check it out. Look for these hyper-responders and cater your response to them. That's what we did. That's how we figured out that our biggest pain points for people who go through the Focus Course are one of four primary buckets, so to speak. It's time management, getting traction on their business or side projects, finding clarity on what's important to them and what they should be doing about it, and a lot of people also feel overwhelmed by all that's already happening in life. Or, they look at the thing that they're trying to make progress on, and they feel overwhelmed. They don't even know where to start. Really, all of these things feed off of each other. When one is in a rough spot, the others start to be in a rough spot as well. We go, “Okay, these are the main challenges we're going to address as part of the Focus Course, in all of our writing. This is it.” The people that fit within these four buckets are the ones who are willing to pay for a solution. Use Your Audience's Language Shawn: Read the actual responses, the answers, and take the language that people are saying and use it in your articles. Answer their actual questions in podcast episodes. You use it in your marketing language. The landing page for your product, or your podcast, or your sign up, or whatever—use the actual language of your hyper-responder customers. Now, not only are you listening to them and you know who that ideal customer is, but you're also even speaking their language. A) it's going to be cool because hopefully you'll do more sales, but B) you'll actually get to connect with the people you want to connect with. That's the whole point. That's why we're here. That's one of the huge benefits of having these customer profiles. It can help you stay focused on who you're trying to talk to and what it is you're trying to talk about, to help them. Aaron: That's mindblowing. That's fantastic. At the core, I kind of know this stuff, but hearing you explain it made it even more clear to me. I love that. I want to take it in this direction. How to Grow Your Audience & Create Deeper Connections Aaron: One of the most common questions I get about podcasting is about growing an audience. It's always, “How do I get more attention? How do I get more listeners? How do I grow an audience?” I love what you said right here. Use the language of your customer avatar in your content to create a deep connection with them. That's where listeners come from. So many people think that they'll magically get 100,000 people to listen to their podcast, and they won't have any idea of who these people are. They're nameless, faceless avatars on the internet. No! Especially in the beginning, you start small. You develop relationships with people who care passionately about the thing that you're talking about. By investing in them, getting to know them, and asking them questions—regardless of whether you're doing some kind of business thing or not—by just talking to them and getting to know their language, that's how you're going to resonate with them and even more people. What methods have you found effective for growing an audience and developing deeper relationships? Shawn: I think that's a great question. Everyone wants to know the answer to this. For me, there are three primary keys to growing an audience: Consistency Honesty and transparency Relationships. 1. Consistency Shawn: Consistency is core. This is a phrase in the seanwes Community, and it's a phrase I like to use, and that's this: show up every day. That's consistency. We're just people of habit. The internet is a thing of habit, so you have to have that consistency where you're in people's regular cycles. Sean McCabe talks about this a lot. You want to be in people's weekly cycle at a minimum. Show up on a regular basis. Also, that's how people know you're going to be there. There's something about that consistency. One of the ways you develop an audience where people are tracking with you and paying attention when you're showing up consistently. When you show up consistently, not only do you earn people's trust, but you create an anticipation of future value. You want to have that. That's huge. People are like, “I want to know what's next. I want to follow this story and be here.” Consistency is huge. 2. Honesty & Transparency Shawn: This comes out in a lot of ways. In some ways, you want to have the transparency like Nathan Barry talks about, to “teach what you know.” Share what you know. Also, there's a human element, passion and persona, who you are as an individual. Humanizing yourself is so helpful. We don't want to connect with brands, we want to connect with people. As indie entrepreneurs or indie creative folks, when you are running your own thing, you are a brand but you're also a person. You've got to keep the person aspect of it, the human aspect of it, you have to keep it there. Allow your mistakes to show through. Allow your passions to show through. For me, at ShawnBlanc.net, I cut my teeth and grew my audience originally by writing about Apple stuff. I wrote tons of product reviews. It was super nerdy, gadgety stuff. I would also write about coffee, camera gear, books I was reading, music, and things like that. Aaron: Stuff you cared about. Shawn: Exactly. Other interests that were related to Apple gear because it was my site, and I can write about whatever I want. That humanized the work that I was doing. So many people came to my site because of the Apple stuff but they stayed because of the coffee stuff. Your focus, your niche, is going to draw your audience, but your ancillary interests will keep people interested. You're a real person with real interests who is not just this robot spinning off the same thing all the time. 3. Relationships Shawn: This is huge. I stink at it, but I'm trying to reply to emails. When people email me, replying back to them. Also, here's a prime example, having me on your show, Aaron. The practicality of it is that when this show goes live, I'm going to tweet about it. I'm going to link to it. I'm going to point the people that track with me over to your stuff. That's a way for you to grow your audience, but it's also a way for me to grow my audience. Your listeners, a lot of people, don't know who I am. Now, hopefully, some of them will come check me out and sign up for our stuff. There's a really cool dynamic here of introducing your group to someone else. Hopefully, that person will also introduce their audience to who you are. Doing guest-based podcasts is an awesome way to grow your audience. I did some back in the day, when I was first starting my site. I did interviews, blog interviews. The whole thing was conducted over email, and it was just this back and forth email. I did one with Daniel Jalkut, who used to work at Apple and then started Red Sweater. He has the best blogging app on the planet for Mac, MarsEdit. It's a super great app. I emailed him and did an interview with him. I did an interview with John Grubar. I did an interview with Brett Simmons, all these people who are super famous Apple people. I'm going back and forth with these guys and posting their interviews. They link to me on my site, and I get this influx of new readers. Or you find software that's awesome. I would do super in-depth reviews about this stuff, and then people would link to those reviews. Honoring other people, connecting with other people, and doing stuff that's worth talking about. Then the word will spread. That consistency, being transparent and honest about who you are, having that passion and that human dynamic to the work that you do, and then just trying to connect with other people. Do things that people are going to want to talk about. Another example is the summit that we're doing, the Focus Summit. I'm punching way above my weight class here with some of these folks, and it's a chance to hopefully get some of their audience to discover the work that we're doing and visa versa. I hope that people who sign up for this summit will get introduced to some new people and that they'll find some incredible resources. It's just fun. We're all just folks trying to do our best work, right? Aaron: Absolutely. I love that. That's one of the best answers for building an audience that I've ever heard. The Importance of Investing One-on-One Time in Your Listeners Aaron: The thing that I'm working on, and I just want to share this, is investing more time in my listeners. It's hard sometimes, because you can spend all the time in the world talking to people on the internet, as I'm sure you know, Shawn. I'm sure people are constantly emailing you, asking for your thoughts, your advice, and your feedback on stuff, and you try to stay really focused. Something I've wanted to do is spend a little bit of time every day, like on Twitter, reaching out and telling people that I appreciate what they do. Or, if somebody emails me, having a conversation. In depth, giving them 15 or 20 minutes of focus time to reply, and even asking them questions. Someone says, “Hey, thanks for doing your show. I really appreciate this thing.” I'll reply and say, “Thank you so much. How is your podcasting journey going? What are you working on right now? What do you want to get better at?” Some great conversations have come out of that. I'm trying to invest a little bit more in my listeners. I'm at the point now where I've started inviting some of them on the show. “Hey, you sound like you'd be a cool person to talk about podcasting with. Would you like to come on the show?” It just spreads. It's the building of community that will eventually attract people to you. When I started, I had 30 or 40 friends, maybe a couple hundred followers. Every new person that finds my show and gets to know me as a person, who respects the work I do, they might have 200 people that follow them, and they share my show with those people. It just spreads out from there. It becomes this big net. You can eventually reach people that are far outside of your social circle just by connecting with the people you can connect with right now. Let them do the work of sharing your stuff with their people, too. Shawn: Yeah, exactly. Focus Summit & Products Aaron: That's fantastic. We're getting close to the end of the episode. We need to wrap it up. I told everyone in the beginning that I would get you to talk about this Focus Summit that you've got coming up. What's the deal with this? Tell us a little bit about that. Shawn: The summit! I'm so excited about this. We have Jocelyn Glei, who just wrote this book called Unsubscribe, which is a fantastic book. It's about email distractions and stuff like that. We've got Josh Kaufman, who wrote The Personal MBA. Anyone who is trying to do anything related to business, you need to read The Personal MBA. It is a bargain. Aaron: So much good advice. Shawn: It's like a $35 book, and that book is so packed. Excellent, excellent stuff. Sean McCabe is on it, and Sean and I talk about how quantity leads to quality, which ties right into this stuff on showing up every day. The summit is going to be really, really cool. When this podcast drops, the summit is going to be kicking off. Here's the link: The Creative Focus Summit. After the summit wraps up, we're opening up registration for our Focus Course. That has become my flagship product. It changed everything for me, in terms of what I was focusing on. I came up with this course as the next product in a series. I had done Delight is in the Details, and I wanted to write a book about diligence and productivity. I wrote the book, and then, long story short, I realized that it needed to be a course. I felt like the way that I wanted to get these ideas across wasn't a book that someone would read, highlight, think was cool, and then puts back on their shelf and returns to life as usual. I want something that's really going to effect change. I knew that a book would probably go farther, broader, and reach a total number of more people. I would rather fewer people go through the course but have a higher number of them really get real impact. For me, the book ended up turning into the Focus Course, and we've had close to 1,300 people go through it. It's basically productivity training for creative people and entrepreneurs and leaders. It's way, way more than that. It's not tips and tricks. It's what I call “meaningful productivity.” It actually gets to the core, the heart, and the foundation. What do you really care about? How are you really spending your time? This is not a “Five Life Hacks That Will Help Me Go Through My Email Inbox Better.” It's hard questions that will make me challenge my assumptions about my family, my work, my down time, and my rest time. Anyone that thinks that taking a nap will improve productivity, the Focus Course is for you. Aaron: That's me! You have to have a healthy life to do your best work. Shawn: You can't sprint this. This is a marathon, so you have to have that breathing room. The Focus Course opens up after the summit is over, and I'm super excited about it. We're going to have a whole group of people cruising through in January. We're doing a winter class for it. We've got some forums, so everyone can share their progress. It's going to be a blast. I'm really excited about it. The summit is free, and the Focus Course itself is going to be something we charge for, obviously. Aaron: You have to charge for things, or else people won't take it seriously. Shawn: It's so true. Aaron: You have to invest. Shawn: That's something else. We didn't get into that earlier when we were talking about the pricing stuff, but that's another reason to charge for your work. Someone is actually going to have skin in the game. They're going to find value for it. Aaron: They have to ask themselves, “Okay. Do I think this is going to help me enough in my life journey to actually put money towards it?” If they answer that question for themselves and then make the choice to give you that money, they are going to say, “I told myself, I believe, that this is worth my time, so I need to invest my time in it.” Shawn: Exactly. Very true. Aaron: Where should people go if they want to follow you, connect with you, or ask you questions? Shawn: Twitter is a great spot. I'm @shawnblanc on Twitter.

Shawn Blanc is a writer, small-business owner, productivity coach, and creative entrepreneur living in Kansas City with his wife and their three sons. Shawn has been teaching and learning about creativity, diligence, and focus for over a decade, and his online courses have helped thousands of people do their best creative work while learning to thrive in the midst of life’s tensions. A while back, Shawn sent an email that caught my attention. He wrote about the importance of creating a customer avatar and developing a content strategy to connect with them and help them achieve their goals. I liked the email so much that I emailed him back and asked him to come on my show to talk about his journey to making a living through writing online and what he’s learned about growing an audience. Shawn also shares my passion for productivity and deep focus; so much so that he’s gathered 12 incredibly smart people for a free 5 day online summit about the power of focused life. In this episode, Shawn shares how he was able to make a full-time living by writing online, and we discuss how you can grow your audience by creating a customer avatar (your ideal listener) and creating content that addresses their needs and desires.Highlights, Takeaways & Quick Wins:Interview your customers to get a real life picture of your audience.Start selling products as early as possible.Your customer avatar is a real person that exists out there.Use the language of your customer avatar in your content to create a deep connection with them.Be in people’s weekly cycle at a minimum.Your niche is going to draw your audience but your ancillary interests will keep people interested.Show up consistently to earn people’s trust and create an anticipation of future value.Do guest-based podcasts to grow your audience.Reach people that are far outside of your social circle by connecting with the people you can connect with right now.Show NotesAaron: Shawn Blanc is a writer/small business owner/productivity coach/creative entrepreneur living in Kansas City with his wife and their three sons, and Shawn is a member of our Community. He’s been teaching and learning about creativity, diligence, and focus for over a decade now.His online courses have helped thousands of people do their best creative work while learning to thrive in the midst of life’s tensions. A while back, Shawn sent an email that caught my attention. He was writing about the importance of creating a customer avatar, that’s knowing who you’re creating for and what you want to help them achieve, what kind of person you want to help them become.I thought it was really interesting, so I sent him an email right back. I said, “Shawn, do you want to come on the show to talk about this? I think podcasters need to hear about this idea of customer avatars and also content strategy.” Shawn agreed, and he also shares my passion for productivity and focus, so much so that he has gathered 12 incredibly smart people for a five day online summit about the power of a focused life, and that’s going to be starting, I believe, as this episode comes out.If you’re listening to this in your podcast player, it’s starting today, I think. I’ll give you that link later. In this episode, I want to talk with Shawn about why you as a podcaster need to create a customer avatar, know who you’re creating for, develop a content strategy, and then also the benefits of deep focus, what we call deep work.A few small changes in your daily habits can lead to big improvements in your productivity and creative output.Shawn, that’s one of the longer intros I’ve ever done. Thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate you being here.Shawn: Thanks, Aaron. I love it. Super excited to be here.Shawn BlancAaron: I think of you, Shawn, as a writer and as the creator of an online course called The Focus Course, which is great. You’re so much more than that. Do you want to give everyone a quick introduction, how you got here and where you came from? I would also like to hear what your biggest struggles have been over the years of getting to the point where you’re at right now.Shawn: Absolutely. I’m in Kansas City. Originally, I’m from Denver. I’m a Colorado guy at heart. I’ve been married for going on 12 years, and my wife and I have three boys. It’s insane at our house. We used to call the first two the Twin Tornadoes, but we just had our third eight or nine weeks ago.Aaron: Congrats!Shawn: It’s awesome. Love it. I love being a dad. I used to be a drummer. I know that we have a lot of musicians around here. Sean McCabe plays a little bit of music, I think.Aaron: Yeah, he used to write music, just like he used to do lettering. I still play drums.Shawn: I used to play drums for a large ministry here in Kansas City, and I ended up transitioning out of that. It’s a long story, but I ended up becoming a marketing and creative director. I ran a team, an in-house design team, with about 17 people—web developers, print designers, web designers, writers, editors, project managers, whatever. We did a bunch of stuff. One of our huge things was that we would host a conference at the end of the year that I was running.25,000 people would come out for that. I did that for several years, and then my wife and I got pregnant with our first kid. I was like, “I don’t want to do this work as a dad.” Part of it was just super demanding. Anyone who has experienced working in the corporate design scene knows that it’s a very demanding spot.Everything is urgent all the time. I was doing like 80 hours a week, and I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun, but I was like, “There’s no way. I don’t want to do 80 hours a week as a dad.” I had that, plus I had this little blog on the side, where I had been writing about marketing stuff. I felt like, “This would be a good opportunity to quit what I’m doing and take a leap, see if I can take my website full time. Could I blog for a living?” That was the thought.I was doing about $1,000 a month in advertising and some affiliate stuff. I figured that if I could give it 40 hours a week, I could get the revenue up to a spot where it could pay the bills. I figured that it could grow from there.Aaron: How old were you at this point?Shawn: I was just about 30, not quite 30, like 29, when I made that jump. I asked everyone that was reading on the site. I said, “I’m quitting. I’m going to do this thing full time.” I asked people if they would be interested in supporting me to write the site for a living. I was like, “If you like what I’m doing, I’ll write more if you want to give me some money to do it.” I did this little membership drive. I was going to charge $3 a month for membership. I was doing a daily podcast as a perk of membership.Aaron: You aren’t still doing that, are you?Shawn: It’s on hiatus at the moment. We’ll see. I’m going to be diving back into the podcast scene starting early 2017. I miss podcasting. It’s fun.Aaron: You decided to ask people to support you, give you $3 a month, to go full time with your writing?Shawn: Basically. I figured if I could get 500 people, at $3 a month that’s $1,500, plus the other $1,000 I was doing, and that would be $2,500 a month. That’s not a ton, but I figured that would be enough to cover the bare necessities. I figured that things could grow from there. People signed up, and I hit the 500 person mark by the end of the month before I had even quit.I started my new job, April 4th 2011, basically fully funded as an independent blogger.Aaron: I bet that was exciting.Shawn: It was really exciting. I felt like I got this permission slip from my audience to go for it. As a creative person, sometimes you need that. Sometimes you want to be like, “Do you guys care? I’m here. I’m making this stuff.” A lot of the work we do as creative entrepreneurs is for your audience. I know that we’re going to talk about this in a little bit, the customer avatar profile. It’s for these people that you really want to serve. When you hear back from them and they go, “Hey, we like what you’re doing. Let’s keep the relationship going,” it’s like having a DTR with your audience.There’s something cool about that kind of permission slip moment. It’s like when you sell your first product, or whatever it is. People are interested. You get your first positive review on iTunes or whatever. Obviously, there’s going to be the junk that comes later, but whatever.Aaron: Some of the haters that come later?Shawn: You forget about that stuff and you keep moving on.Aaron: That’s awesome.Asking for MoneyAaron: When you think back, do you remember any big struggles or hurdles that you really had to overcome about that period in your life?Shawn: There were so many. It’s hard to say, “If I could do it differently, I would do it this other way,” because who knows? If I had done things differently, maybe it wouldn’t have turned out the way I thought it would. One of the biggest struggles for me was asking for money. It was a huge challenge related to the membership drive. I was asking folks to support me on a regular basis to write for a living. I was like, “Who am I? What kind of a dork says, ‘Give me money so I can blog for a living.'”Aaron: Nobody pays for things online anymore. Nobody wants to pay for writing.Shawn: Exactly. That was a huge challenge. It has continued to be a challenge for years. I have been doing this for almost six years now, full time. When I came out with my first book, it’s called Delight is in the Details, and it was an eBook package thing. I did some interviews.I charged $29 for my book, and I felt like this huge hypocrite.It was this feeling of, “This is information. Information should be free on the internet. Why would anyone ever buy this?” I felt like there was no value in this thing that people would pay for. I was like, “I have to do it. I’m going to charge for it.”Aaron: Sorry to jump in, but at the time, did you really feel like $30 was a lot of money?Shawn: Oh my gosh. I woke up feeling sick to my stomach the day I was going to launch it. I was like, “I can’t believe how much I’m asking for this.”Aaron: What did you think was going to happen?Shawn: I thought that people would buy it because they trusted me, and then they would read it and come and burn my house down because I had ripped them off so bad. I charged so much money for something.Aaron: It was your first time launching a product, right?Shawn: It was. It was my first product launch ever. It ended up bringing in like $5,000 in that first 48 hour launch window. It made $5,000 that first couple of days. In hindsight, it was this huge inflection point for me. I think I spent about 100 hours building the thing, made $5,000 from it in the first week, and I thought, “Woah, that was a great return on my time investment! Now I have this product that I can continue to sell.”Since then, in the last four or five years that I’ve sold it, I want to say that it’s sold $50,000 over the years. That’s awesome. There’s something great about creating a product, and it changed a lot.Producing and selling a book changed my relationship with my audience.Now I’m creating products for them to buy.That initial hurdle was huge. $29 was so much money. I think that was probably the biggest struggle, of being able to properly identify how much value I’m providing people and to price it correctly. That’s just hard. I think that’s why you should start selling stuff as early as possible, because you have to learn. There isn’t a formula for how much value you’re providing and how much you should charge for it.You can’t just plug your stuff into a worksheet and get a number back. You have to feel out the market, your market, your audience, your skill level. How much polish are you doing? How much depth of information are you providing? Whatever skill, service, or product it is you’re providing, you have to learn how to make money and price your stuff! It’s hard to do it when you’re starting.The biggest challenging for me at first was becoming comfortable asking for money and learning to accurately price my products.Aaron: The other thing is that once you launched that book and got familiar with all that stuff, that was a stepping stone to your future products, your future books and courses, and everything else that you’re doing. I’m sure, at that point, you felt like, “Okay. I’ve done this once before already. Now it’s like riding a bike. I just need to get back on and keep peddling, keep going.”Shawn: Yeah, absolutely. It really was a huge stepping stone. One thing I loved about creating and launching a product was that there was a start and an end date to it. This thing has to ship. I worked on it, and I was done. I put it out there. Boom, now it’s there. I’m done. It’s out in the world. Obviously, you iterate on it. A year later, I added some new interviews. I added some new chapters. I created some videos. I remastered all of the audio for the audio book.Product Launch HiccupsShawn: Super random story related to this. It was the relaunch of Delight is in the Details, a year after it had come out, and I put it out there. People are buying it during that relaunch period. I get an email from someone going, “I was just listening to the audio book, and the last chapter sounds like it’s not edited correctly. Something is weird about the last chapter. You should check it out.”I recorded the audio book and edited it by myself. I go and I open up the audio book for the last chapter and I’m listening to it, and it is the original take that I did of the book. The way I did the audio book, I’m reading it into my microphone in GarageBand. If I goofed up in the middle of a paragraph, I would just take a pause, say, “Okay, again,” and then I would start talking again. That was my marker. The last chapter of the book was that track, the whole thing.The audio track should have been 10 or 12 minutes for that chapter, and it was 30 minutes because of all my edits, retakes, and pauses. The whole thing. What’s worse is, it was there from the very beginning. For a year, I had been selling that thing. I was mortified. For a year, I had been selling my book with the last chapter all messed up, and I was mortified.Aaron: Nobody said anything??Shawn: They didn’t. Either no one listened to it, or when they listened to it, they just assumed… I don’t even know. I was so mortified. There you go. What worse thing can happen? Earlier, I had been so concerned about selling something that people weren’t going to consider valuable. Here’s this huge, huge mistake. What a goof!Aaron: I need to remind everyone that this audiobook is called Delight is in the Details.Shawn: The irony, right? That was one of the selling points of the book, too. I was like, “If you buy this book, it’s a case study in sweating the details itself. You’ll see all the areas where I’ve sweated the details in this product.” Whatever. Oh man. I was mortified.Aaron: Thankfully, no one came and burned down your house, and it was over a year before anyone even said anything. A lot of us are so curious about people who do such good work, so when a mistake does happen, it’s almost humanizing. It’s like, “Now I can relate to this person, because they’re not 100% on top of everything all the time, either, like I struggle with. I make a lot of mistakes, so it’s kind of nice when you see a really awesome musician on stage mess up a part and then jump back into it. You’re like, “Oh, they are humans, too.” That’s really cool. Nobody burned your house down, thankfully.Shawn: That’s why it’s so helpful to ship early. You get stuff out the door and you start learning. I love it.Aaron: I tell people this a lot, too, when it comes to podcasts. If you’re thinking about making a podcast, there are so many things you can tweak, improve, or work on forever, but it’s so much better to say, “What’s the minimum I have to do? I want to try and do a good job, but let’s do this, ship it, and iterate and improve on it every single week.”If you don’t ship something, you'll just pick at it and tweak it endlessly.Before you know it, it’s been a year and a half, and you’ve got three or five episodes you recorded 18 months ago that you’re still working on. In the meantime, nothing has happened.Start MovingShawn: As well, we have this picture of what we want something to look like and what we want it to be, but we have zero experience. I like the analogy of those lifesize mazes. Especially around Halloween and Thanksgiving, there are those corn mazes. They’re these giant things. Imagine someone standing at the entrance of this life size maze, staring at the entrance to it, and in their mind, trying to figure out how to get to the end so they can get straight to the end the fastest way possible without making any mistakes along the way.Impossible! Not going to happen. You have to go in the maze and go left to realize that you should have gone right. Then turn around. You have to go through the thing to make it through. I like the phrase, “Action brings clarity.”Action brings clarity.You’re waiting for clarity before taking action, and it’s not going to happen—you have to start moving.You just have to get going and you adjust course as you go. You start to realize what you should major on and what you shouldn’t.Aaron: That’s an incredible analogy. I’m totally going to use that in the future now. It’s perfect. You sit there and you imagine yourself being at the end of the maze. That’s where you see a bunch of other people. Your friends have gone through the maze and they’re at the end, so you’re like, “I have to get to the end fast. I can’t make any mistakes. I can’t take a wrong turn, because that’s where all my friends are, and that’s where I want to be.” You do have to go through it. That’s really incredible.Creating a Customer AvatarAaron: Shawn, you sent out an email and you were talking about this. I want you to explain how you think about customer avatars, and then if you did something like that for yourself when you were just starting, or if this is something that evolved over time. Customer avatar and content strategy, go!Shawn: This is great. When I first started as a writer, I was doing ShawnBlanc.net. My entire job was publishing articles and links on my website. I didn’t have a customer avatar or a customer profile, what I had was an ideal reader. I think, in terms of podcasting, it’s very similar. Who’s your ideal listener? For me, I actually had a person who was my ideal reader, who’s name was Shawn Spurdee.He was a really good friend of mine. He and I had become friends through the blogging Twitter-sphere back in the day. When I wrote articles or links, I had him in mind. I thought, “Is this something he would find interesting? Is there a story in here that he’s going to want to read? Is this a link to something he would like?” You had that ideal reader. John Gruber wrote about this for his site, Daring Fireball.He talked about his ideal reader, and he called it “a second version of himself.” He goes, “This person is interested in all the same things I’m interested in, and he cares about what I care about. All the design decisions I make on the site, all the articles I choose to link to, the stories I choose to tell, all of that stuff is with this ideal reader/listener in mind.”It was instrumental for me to have an “ideal reader” for all of the work I was doing.You know who you’re trying to target. I’m still the writer for sure, but we’ve switched a lot more of our focus onto direct sales, building a customer base, and selling products to our audience. I still don’t have that ideal reader. Who am I writing this for? Who is this product being created for? It has gone beyond just an individual person that I know. We did a customer profiling thing. I have a guy who works for me full time, and his name is Isaac. We took a couple of big, giant sticky pad things, two feet by three feet, they’re huge, these giant sticky notes.Aaron: Where do you get those? Can you get those on Amazon?Shawn: You can get a lawnmower on Amazon, so I’m sure you can get sticky notes. We got ours at Office Max, an Office Depot kind of thing. It’s weird. You drive to this store, and you can walk in, and they sell products on their shelves. You have to pick it up with your hand and drive it home yourself.Aaron: It seems like a waste of time.Shawn: For this customer profiling session or whatever, basically, we had these four quadrants. What do they think? What do they feel? What do they want? What do they say? Something like that. You’re trying to get this picture of this person. Who is this person? What are the things that they say? Like, “I love my family. I like to watch Netflix.” Whatever.Aaron: “I want to learn how to make a podcast.”Shawn: Exactly. It’s not just business, it’s just life. What are the kind of phrases they might say? If you ask them what they care about, what things would they list? What are their pain points that they’re feeling in life? For us, creating this customer avatar, we named him Brian. We found a random picture of somebody and stuck it up there to begin to humanize the person.Your customer avatar is a real person that exists out there.We talked about, “Here’s Brian,” and we came up with this stuff. Brian has a job that he kind of likes, but he’s got these other creative ideas that he really wants to pursue. Maybe he wants to take it full time. Maybe not. That’s not really the most important thing for him. The most important thing for him is getting his best creative work out there and being able to do it and feel like he’s making progress on the areas of life that matter to him. He’s also a dad and a husband, and he cares about his family quite a bit.He cares about his kids. He still wants to be available for them. When he comes home from work, he’s really tired, so the evenings don’t feel like a good time to do his creative work, but he’s not a morning person either, so he doesn’t know when he’s going to get the time. These are some of the scenarios, the stories, that begin to emerge as you begin to write stuff about this person. What are the pain points that they feel?When they look around, what do they see? What kind of car does Brian drive? Does he like minivans? Does he have a minivan? How many kids does he actually have? You really kind of start to come up with this stuff, and there’s a lot you can do to get to a higher level of doing these customer profiles. You can actually do interviews with your customer base.Aaron: I do this! I try to meet people and talk to them, especially when it comes to podcasting.When you interview your customers, you can actually begin to get a real life picture of your real life audience.Creating an Empathy MapShawn: There’s this thing that we did, an empathy map, and you take the empathy map to create your customer profile. We ran this survey to our email list, and we ran a separate one to our customer list. It was, “When it comes to focus, what’s your single greatest challenge?” It was just this open-ended question where people could write stuff down.Some people say, “Time.” Or, “I can’t focus. I’m distracted.” Then you get some people who go, “I’m trying to build my photography portfolio website on the side because I love photography and I’m trying to grow it. I’m working this other job, and when I come home in the evenings, family is first. I spend time with family, so by the time the kids are in bed, I’ve only got about an hour left in the day. I’m so tired, and I don’t want to spend time trying to work on my photography website, so I don’t know where to get started.”The person who gives an in depth answer to the challenge like that, vs. someone who just says “time”, they’re really in touch with their pain point. There’s a book called Ask by Ryan Leveque, and you can find it on Amazon. He teases out, “You ask these questions, and you separate the people with the longest answers. You put their answers up at the top.”You cut the list at 20%. The bottom 80%, forget about those people, and look at the top 20%, these “hyper-responders.” What are their challenges? What are their pain points? Aaron, you could do this. You could say, “When it comes to building a podcast, what is your single greatest challenge?” You’ll probably have someone who says, “Building my list.” Or, “Building my audience.” Or, “Technical stuff.” But then you might have someone who really gives this heartfelt, in-depth answer.If someone gives you a heartfelt, in-depth answer, they’re hungry for a solution.That person is going to pay for a solution. That person is going to digest this, and when you give them something, they’re going to check it out. Look for these hyper-responders and cater your response to them. That’s what we did. That’s how we figured out that our biggest pain points for people who go through the Focus Course are one of four primary buckets, so to speak. It’s time management, getting traction on their business or side projects, finding clarity on what’s important to them and what they should be doing about it, and a lot of people also feel overwhelmed by all that’s already happening in life.Or, they look at the thing that they’re trying to make progress on, and they feel overwhelmed. They don’t even know where to start. Really, all of these things feed off of each other. When one is in a rough spot, the others start to be in a rough spot as well. We go, “Okay, these are the main challenges we’re going to address as part of the Focus Course, in all of our writing. This is it.” The people that fit within these four buckets are the ones who are willing to pay for a solution.Use Your Audience’s LanguageShawn: Read the actual responses, the answers, and take the language that people are saying and use it in your articles. Answer their actual questions in podcast episodes. You use it in your marketing language. The landing page for your product, or your podcast, or your sign up, or whatever—use the actual language of your hyper-responder customers. Now, not only are you listening to them and you know who that ideal customer is, but you’re also even speaking their language.A) it’s going to be cool because hopefully you’ll do more sales, but B) you’ll actually get to connect with the people you want to connect with. That’s the whole point. That’s why we’re here.That’s one of the huge benefits of having these customer profiles. It can help you stay focused on who you’re trying to talk to and what it is you’re trying to talk about, to help them.Aaron: That’s mindblowing. That’s fantastic. At the core, I kind of know this stuff, but hearing you explain it made it even more clear to me. I love that. I want to take it in this direction.How to Grow Your Audience & Create Deeper ConnectionsAaron: One of the most common questions I get about podcasting is about growing an audience. It’s always, “How do I get more attention? How do I get more listeners? How do I grow an audience?” I love what you said right here.Use the language of your customer avatar in your content to create a deep connection with them.That’s where listeners come from. So many people think that they’ll magically get 100,000 people to listen to their podcast, and they won’t have any idea of who these people are. They’re nameless, faceless avatars on the internet. No! Especially in the beginning, you start small. You develop relationships with people who care passionately about the thing that you’re talking about.By investing in them, getting to know them, and asking them questions—regardless of whether you’re doing some kind of business thing or not—by just talking to them and getting to know their language, that’s how you’re going to resonate with them and even more people. What methods have you found effective for growing an audience and developing deeper relationships?Shawn: I think that’s a great question. Everyone wants to know the answer to this. For me, there are three primary keys to growing an audience:ConsistencyHonesty and transparencyRelationships.1. ConsistencyShawn: Consistency is core. This is a phrase in the seanwes Community, and it’s a phrase I like to use, and that’s this: show up every day. That’s consistency. We’re just people of habit. The internet is a thing of habit, so you have to have that consistency where you’re in people’s regular cycles. Sean McCabe talks about this a lot. You want to be in people’s weekly cycle at a minimum.Show up on a regular basis. Also, that’s how people know you’re going to be there. There’s something about that consistency. One of the ways you develop an audience where people are tracking with you and paying attention when you’re showing up consistently.When you show up consistently, not only do you earn people’s trust, but you create an anticipation of future value.You want to have that. That’s huge. People are like, “I want to know what’s next. I want to follow this story and be here.” Consistency is huge.2. Honesty & TransparencyShawn: This comes out in a lot of ways. In some ways, you want to have the transparency like Nathan Barry talks about, to “teach what you know.” Share what you know. Also, there’s a human element, passion and persona, who you are as an individual. Humanizing yourself is so helpful. We don’t want to connect with brands, we want to connect with people. As indie entrepreneurs or indie creative folks, when you are running your own thing, you are a brand but you’re also a person.You’ve got to keep the person aspect of it, the human aspect of it, you have to keep it there. Allow your mistakes to show through. Allow your passions to show through. For me, at ShawnBlanc.net, I cut my teeth and grew my audience originally by writing about Apple stuff. I wrote tons of product reviews. It was super nerdy, gadgety stuff. I would also write about coffee, camera gear, books I was reading, music, and things like that.Aaron: Stuff you cared about.Shawn: Exactly. Other interests that were related to Apple gear because it was my site, and I can write about whatever I want. That humanized the work that I was doing. So many people came to my site because of the Apple stuff but they stayed because of the coffee stuff.Your focus, your niche, is going to draw your audience, but your ancillary interests will keep people interested.You’re a real person with real interests who is not just this robot spinning off the same thing all the time.3. RelationshipsShawn: This is huge. I stink at it, but I’m trying to reply to emails. When people email me, replying back to them. Also, here’s a prime example, having me on your show, Aaron. The practicality of it is that when this show goes live, I’m going to tweet about it. I’m going to link to it. I’m going to point the people that track with me over to your stuff. That’s a way for you to grow your audience, but it’s also a way for me to grow my audience.Your listeners, a lot of people, don’t know who I am. Now, hopefully, some of them will come check me out and sign up for our stuff. There’s a really cool dynamic here of introducing your group to someone else. Hopefully, that person will also introduce their audience to who you are.Doing guest-based podcasts is an awesome way to grow your audience.I did some back in the day, when I was first starting my site. I did interviews, blog interviews. The whole thing was conducted over email, and it was just this back and forth email. I did one with Daniel Jalkut, who used to work at Apple and then started Red Sweater. He has the best blogging app on the planet for Mac, MarsEdit. It’s a super great app. I emailed him and did an interview with him.I did an interview with John Grubar. I did an interview with Brett Simmons, all these people who are super famous Apple people. I’m going back and forth with these guys and posting their interviews. They link to me on my site, and I get this influx of new readers. Or you find software that’s awesome. I would do super in-depth reviews about this stuff, and then people would link to those reviews. Honoring other people, connecting with other people, and doing stuff that’s worth talking about.Then the word will spread. That consistency, being transparent and honest about who you are, having that passion and that human dynamic to the work that you do, and then just trying to connect with other people. Do things that people are going to want to talk about. Another example is the summit that we’re doing, the Focus Summit. I’m punching way above my weight class here with some of these folks, and it’s a chance to hopefully get some of their audience to discover the work that we’re doing and visa versa.I hope that people who sign up for this summit will get introduced to some new people and that they’ll find some incredible resources. It’s just fun. We’re all just folks trying to do our best work, right?Aaron: Absolutely. I love that. That’s one of the best answers for building an audience that I’ve ever heard.The Importance of Investing One-on-One Time in Your ListenersAaron: The thing that I’m working on, and I just want to share this, is investing more time in my listeners. It’s hard sometimes, because you can spend all the time in the world talking to people on the internet, as I’m sure you know, Shawn. I’m sure people are constantly emailing you, asking for your thoughts, your advice, and your feedback on stuff, and you try to stay really focused. Something I’ve wanted to do is spend a little bit of time every day, like on Twitter, reaching out and telling people that I appreciate what they do.Or, if somebody emails me, having a conversation. In depth, giving them 15 or 20 minutes of focus time to reply, and even asking them questions. Someone says, “Hey, thanks for doing your show. I really appreciate this thing.” I’ll reply and say, “Thank you so much. How is your podcasting journey going? What are you working on right now? What do you want to get better at?” Some great conversations have come out of that.I’m trying to invest a little bit more in my listeners. I’m at the point now where I’ve started inviting some of them on the show. “Hey, you sound like you’d be a cool person to talk about podcasting with. Would you like to come on the show?” It just spreads.It’s the building of community that will eventually attract people to you.When I started, I had 30 or 40 friends, maybe a couple hundred followers. Every new person that finds my show and gets to know me as a person, who respects the work I do, they might have 200 people that follow them, and they share my show with those people. It just spreads out from there. It becomes this big net.You can eventually reach people that are far outside of your social circle just by connecting with the people you can connect with right now.Let them do the work of sharing your stuff with their people, too.Shawn: Yeah, exactly.Focus Summit & ProductsAaron: That’s fantastic. We’re getting close to the end of the episode. We need to wrap it up. I told everyone in the beginning that I would get you to talk about this Focus Summit that you’ve got coming up. What’s the deal with this? Tell us a little bit about that.Shawn: The summit! I’m so excited about this. We have Jocelyn Glei, who just wrote this book called Unsubscribe, which is a fantastic book. It’s about email distractions and stuff like that. We’ve got Josh Kaufman, who wrote The Personal MBA. Anyone who is trying to do anything related to business, you need to read The Personal MBA. It is a bargain.Aaron: So much good advice.Shawn: It’s like a $35 book, and that book is so packed. Excellent, excellent stuff. Sean McCabe is on it, and Sean and I talk about how quantity leads to quality, which ties right into this stuff on showing up every day. The summit is going to be really, really cool. When this podcast drops, the summit is going to be kicking off. Here’s the link: The Creative Focus Summit.After the summit wraps up, we’re opening up registration for our Focus Course. That has become my flagship product. It changed everything for me, in terms of what I was focusing on. I came up with this course as the next product in a series. I had done Delight is in the Details, and I wanted to write a book about diligence and productivity. I wrote the book, and then, long story short, I realized that it needed to be a course.I felt like the way that I wanted to get these ideas across wasn’t a book that someone would read, highlight, think was cool, and then puts back on their shelf and returns to life as usual. I want something that’s really going to effect change. I knew that a book would probably go farther, broader, and reach a total number of more people. I would rather fewer people go through the course but have a higher number of them really get real impact.For me, the book ended up turning into the Focus Course, and we’ve had close to 1,300 people go through it. It’s basically productivity training for creative people and entrepreneurs and leaders. It’s way, way more than that. It’s not tips and tricks. It’s what I call “meaningful productivity.” It actually gets to the core, the heart, and the foundation. What do you really care about? How are you really spending your time?This is not a “Five Life Hacks That Will Help Me Go Through My Email Inbox Better.” It’s hard questions that will make me challenge my assumptions about my family, my work, my down time, and my rest time. Anyone that thinks that taking a nap will improve productivity, the Focus Course is for you.Aaron: That’s me!You have to have a healthy life to do your best work.Shawn: You can’t sprint this. This is a marathon, so you have to have that breathing room. The Focus Course opens up after the summit is over, and I’m super excited about it. We’re going to have a whole group of people cruising through in January. We’re doing a winter class for it. We’ve got some forums, so everyone can share their progress. It’s going to be a blast. I’m really excited about it. The summit is free, and the Focus Course itself is going to be something we charge for, obviously.Aaron: You have to charge for things, or else people won’t take it seriously.Shawn: It’s so true.Aaron: You have to invest.Shawn: That’s something else. We didn’t get into that earlier when we were talking about the pricing stuff, but that’s another reason to charge for your work. Someone is actually going to have skin in the game. They’re going to find value for it.Aaron: They have to ask themselves, “Okay. Do I think this is going to help me enough in my life journey to actually put money towards it?” If they answer that question for themselves and then make the choice to give you that money, they are going to say, “I told myself, I believe, that this is worth my time, so I need to invest my time in it.”Shawn: Exactly. Very true.Aaron: Where should people go if they want to follow you, connect with you, or ask you questions?Shawn: Twitter is a great spot. I’m @shawnblanc on Twitter.