Podcasts about okay do

Okay Do'ers, get ready for this chaotic episode! The girls go from serial killer quizzes to equipment malfunctions!

Click above to listen in iTunes... Little did I know (or notice), but very subtle moves by my awesome parents helped to cultivate an entrepreneurial environment… Welcome to the first episode of me totally on my own not working for anybody else. I'm very excited to be here. Man, I've been dreaming about this for six years. My name is Steve Larsen and you're listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. Now, here's your host Steve Larsen. What's up everyone? Holy crap. I woke up this morning and I thought to myself, "Self, holy smokes. You really did this." Oh my gosh. Then I got up and I lifted and got ready for the day and I'm here. I'm ready to rock. This is going to be fun stuff. What do you do when you have that clean of a slate? It's been a lot of fun though already. I'm excited for this though, I've been dreaming about being on my own, owning my own business, being my own entrepreneur, I've been dreaming about this for probably six years. Really though it's been since like the middle of high school, so I don't know like 15 or 20 years, something like that. So, I'm excited for what this means. I'm excited for what it's going to require me to do and grow as an individual. I understand that I know that there's things I just don't know. There's stuff that I don't even know that I don't know and I'm excited to go find those things out. I know it'll cause some bruises and cuts and tears, every once in a while I'll get a bloody eye. You know what I mean? I know that. I understand that. It's so funny how many people have reached out and been like, "You're an idiot. Oh my gosh!" There's tons of people who are like, "You can do it. Oh my gosh!" It's been cool to have both sides of it, 'cause to me it means that I'm doing the right thing. So, when there's that much polarity with it, it's kind of like, you know, if you've offended nobody by noon you're not marketing hard enough. I feel like it's the same thing for you as an individual. If nobody's nay saying what you're doing, you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. You know what I mean? Anyway. So, I'm excited. I've got my first product launch, well, it's not my first one. I've done a lot of them but it's my first one solo on Thursday, and excited for it and I've been planning this product for a long time. I've tested it and it's been working like crazy and I've got honestly really two beta groups that I've been doing it with for the last while and it's been killing it. So, I'm finally ready to go public with it, which I'm very excited about. A lot of people have asked, you know, "How do you feel like you're ready? How do you feel like you're set to do this?" I know there's a lot of people, you guys are listening and you A, might either be hoping to one day get out there and do something on your own, you're dreaming about it and there's something keeping you back or you feel like you're not ready or whatever it is. Then the other side is I know a lot of guys who listen are actually by yourself and you actually have been by yourself for a while and that's awesome, I'm pleased to have you as well as a listener. I understand we got both sides of the coin here and both sides of the coin as far as how people feel. It's funny that people like reach out and tell you their opinion about what you're about to do with your own life, you know what I mean? Just expect that. Just expect that especially as you start publishing. Like if nobody has been doing that to you, you probably haven't been telling enough people and there's something weird that happens when you get really clear about what you want and you start moving forward. People start reaching out all over the place. Number one to say yay or nay, but then number two when you get that clear and you start going out saying, "Hey, this is what I want or don't want" it's funny how stuff kind of just starts to fall in place if you're actually serious about it and you're actually moving on it and you're not waiting for other peoples' blessing to move forward. You know what I mean? Stuff just will move forward with you, if you are. So, anyway. That's the deepness of this one. But I was thinking about just how I got raised and things like that and there's a great question that I got from a listener that I'm actually going to toss in right now. I thought it was the perfect question for what it was that's actually been on my mind, 'cause there are a few things that I did as an early kid that I can look back now and be like, "Oh my gosh, there's a few things that look, this helped me be prepared. This helped me get in the correct mindset where I could go do this." I understand, guys I'm only 29 years old and I understand there's other people who have been far more successful than me by this age and a lot of people who have been far less successful by this age. I think one of the keys is just to quit watching other people. Who freaking cares! I don't care. It's my life, it's where I am in my spot and I'm in competition with myself. Over and over and over again in Two Comma Club Coaching or any coaching in general that I do, side clients, you know, all over the place, one of the biggest things I see over and over and over again where get fumbled up, is it's good to look at other people, right? We tell people, we teach people, look go funnel hack this guy. Go funnel hack this person, this business, this over here. Copy them, model them, go through figure out what is it they actually did, how did they prove that that offer worked? How do they prove that they're attractive character works to that kind of audience, right? But also, please understand that your actual progress in this, right, should not be compared to another individual. Your actual value as an individual cannot be compared. "Oh well they did this by the time they were this age. They did this by the time they were this age." If you're doing that as far as competition, okay that's great but understand that I've seen a lot of people get crippled by it. Because what they do is they get out there and they start saying things like, "Oh, I must be doing it wrong. I'm never going to make it because I was never Russel's right hand funnel builder." You know what I mean? That's kind of what they do and they come out and they said, I've heard that a lot lately, it's like, oh my gosh, I wasn't planning to be, I wasn't even trying to be in that role for a while. I was just already in motion, they saw that, and they picked me up. You know what I mean? So, go get in motion. Go do stuff. Be in motion. Don't wait for approval from anybody else. You'll never get anything done. You'll get things done at a very slow rate 'cause you got to get second opinions on all this stuff. It doesn't work that way. Okay? You got to be willing to frankly give people the finger a little bit, which is something I don't do. Just move on. Like whatever, this is what I'm doing. Get out of my way. This is what I'm going to go do, and then you go do it. I don't know. Maybe I want to SoapBox right now but I'm certainly feeling excited and a little bit euphoric about this whole thing. Obviously there will be rough spots and everyone tries to remind me of that, duh. I get it. But there's also going to be a lot of freaking kick-butt stuff and I've got six mega selling opportunities this next month alone that I've pre-set up to help the jump as I leave. I mean, my goals are huge. I know that. It's going to be great. Do the same thing though in your life. Whatever it is that you're doing, the funnel that you're trying to put together right now. I was looking at a post the other day and the post was saying, "How many funnels are you going to build this next year in 2018?" I was like, "That is a rough question. Ouch. Who cares how many?" Focus on just one. Just do one. If you do one really good it'll change your whole life. It doesn't matter how many. I have no idea how many funnels I've actually built. I always tell people that it's like 300 but it's way beyond that. There was a single project that was 86 funnels two times. Okay? 86 funnels in two different times on a single project. I did it in like three or four days. Another one where it was supposed to be 330, I only ended up getting like 90 of them done but that was in two days. There was another one, like when we built Anthony DiClementi's that was 12 funnels. That was over the span of not that much time. So, it's in reality way past 300. I have no idea. But you know what's funny, is I can look back at the 12 that are killing it. Don't worry about the number of funnels. I know there's a strategy out there where you try and build a funnel a week, that's okay but you end up getting micro focused or hyper focused I should say, hyper focused on just the funnel that you're trying to get done and not actually making sure the thing converts and you're making money from it. There is so much mental capacity that is required just to get one kick-butt funnel out the door. Who cares about number two til you get number one done. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter. Stop caring how many funnel it is. Stop caring about, "I'm going to go get this done, this done, this done, this done." Well, then you're not going to get any of them done well. Okay? Do less better. Do less better. That's one of my favorite... I don't think he actually said that but it's a lesson that I got from him and I wrote it down. Do less better. It's all about saying no to more things than yes to a bunch of stuff. Say no to like everything. Okay? I do. It's the reason I don't funnel build for other people anymore. The kinds of people I want to funnel build for are like massive companies, huge companies. I would love to build funnels for huge, huge companies because I know with complete confidence that in a few tweaks I can totally change the revenue coming in to them. I could either take away their cost to acquire customers or we could go expand how much each one of them is giving them. I want to go build for massive, massive companies. So, I say no to like everybody else. I got tons more asks this last week and I get it. That's awesome, that's exciting, and quite honestly I'll probably do you know, some kind of event in the future where people can come in and I'll help them get their funnels out the door that they've been sitting on for a while. I would love to do that kind of stuff. I want to be involved with that kind of stuff, but the amount of mental mojo that it takes to get one of them, one awesome one out the door is huge. So, don't worry about number two, number three, number fifteen. Don't worry about number 12 til you have number 11 done. Number two, don't give a crap about number two until number one is kicking butt. You know what I mean? Anyway. So, as you think through the goals, whatever you're trying to do in 2018 whether or not you set goals and new years resolutions all that stuff, I'm off my high and mighty horse now. Let's get to the question from our listener, which I'm super excited about. Steph Brown: Hey Steve! This is Steph Brown. On your podcast you have given a few stories about how some events in your life growing up helped you on your journey to become an entrepreneur. I'm a mom of three young kids so far, and my question for you is how can my husband and I help to build a solid foundation for our kids so they would be ready to start their own businesses? What are some things your parents did well, what do you wish they would have done? What do you plan on doing with your own kids to help jump start their journey if they decide to become entrepreneurs? Thank you. Steve Larsen: Hey Steph Brown, fantastic question. Absolutely love the question. I have a four year old and a two year old right now and my wife is pregnant and expecting in June. I've had those same questions, the same kinds of things and it's made me very be introspective lately as I kind of look back and I think through oh my gosh, what are the three things that my wife and I should be doing? What are the things that my parents did? What are the things that I liked, what are the things I didn't like? Which is what each generation does building on the next. You know? You should look back and figure out what you liked that your parents did or didn't do and go build from it. Say I'm going to do this but not that. So, I totally get it. I'm not telling you how to parent but I totally get it though. In my mind that's how progress happens anyway. One of things my parents did is my dad grew up on a farm and he knew how to work and he wanted me to know how to work. So, he taught me how. I remember literally every single Saturday as a kid we would go do yard work. It pissed me off. I was so mad about it just week, after week, after week. People would be like, "Yay it's the weekend!" I'd be like, "Crap, I'm going to be picking weeds in the garden for six hours tomorrow." Which is not a joke. We would do that. We'd sit down and be like, "Oh my gosh." By the time I was eight years old I was mowing our lawn and I was mowing neighbors lawns and had my own little business. So, I was eight years old and I was going around. I think I was eight when I started doing it for other people, I was really young though. I learned how to ask people for money. I learned how to talk to people, 'cause it's not like they walked over with me to the neighbors and asked with me. It was like, okay, let me know what they say. I would walk over there by myself, scared out of my mind and I would go talk for myself, negotiate for myself as a very young kid. That was invaluable. I had no idea how much that would add to my life, later on down the line. As we continued to grow up though, we would do things like paper routes. My parents were not like ... We were far from poor. We were not wealthy though either. We had more than enough, we were middle class, very taken care of. It was awesome. My dad was an executive at IBM. He ran his own couple businesses for a while. He's a rockstar. He taught me how to learn. He taught me how to work. What I noticed they would do is they would set up these little scenarios for me to learn, these scenarios for me to own the projects. I think they understood, 'cause I'm the oldest of six kids, and they understood that my personality requires that I have ownership in stuff and it's been that way my whole life. So, when someone else would stand up and tell me what to do it took me a long time to be willing to understand that they're not trying to boss me around, sometimes they are my boss or sometimes they ... You know what I mean, so from a young age they understood quickly that I needed to have ownership in things. So, I'm excited to do that for my kids 'cause I've been thinking through what kind of cool projects I could give them where it's like, "Hey, children I want this outcome" and I give no instruction on how to get it done. Right? I love the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People when he's talking about his kids taking care of their lawn and their grass was brown 'cause the kids were still learning how to do stuff. There was trash all over. It was disgusting. People were like, "Why don't you just do it on your own and make it look nice?" His response was, "Because I'm raising kids not growing grass." Right? This is not meant to be a parenting show or anything like that but I'm looking back though, identifying the things that it was. There was a summer where ... My dad worked from home actually. He had a home office. I grew up in Littleton, Colorado, which is a suburb of Denver. Skied like crazy growing up and very outdoorsy. I backpacked my face off all over the mountains. Anyway, really enjoyed it. Lots of fun. There was a summer though that my dad was like, "Hey, children" and I was the oldest so mostly he was talking at me. He said, "Stephen come on in." I went and I sat down in his office and a lot of times it was almost like an interview when I was sitting with him, and I sat down with him and he's like, "I want to make you the yard manager." I was like, "Okay, what does that mean?" I had been mowing lawns and doing the trimming and weeding and all that stuff for some time but he's like, "I want to make you the yard manager." What he did, and this was one of the best lessons I ever had in my entire childhood ever, okay? I can't wait to do it with my kids. It's one of the reasons we bought the house that we did so that there's a yard, so that there's projects that need to be done. I am not trying to hire a maid. I am not trying to hire a yard guy. I have two little yard people right now that are in training, my two little kids. A third one on the way. That's how I'm looking at it because I expect them to work. I don't care how much money I make, they will have no idea that ... Anyway, I'm very firm on that. I know people who are like, "Let's give you a better life than I had." Yeah, okay, but I'm trying to teach you how to fish. I'm not trying to give you fish. So, what my dad did though is he sat down and he goes, "I want to make you the yard manager." What he did was he's like, "Here you go Stephen, I'm going to give you a budget. Every single week I'll give you a certain amount of money and you will go hire out your siblings for specific tasks and at the end of the week send me an invoice and I'll pay you and then you take whatever was over on the top." Now, that might sound funny to you but it was one of the coolest things I ever did. He gave me no other instruction. Right? He gave me nothing else and I was like, "Well how much money?" He's like, "Well you come up with the amount. Let me know how much it is." I was like, "Crap." That was one of the things that he was very, very good at is whenever I had a question this was one of the best things he ever did with me, he always asked me what I thought before he ever told me what he thought. I would have to go come up with the answer on my own. Do a Google search or ask friends, talk to people. Try and figure out what's the answer that I think it is and then I would take it to him and check it with him. He did that for tons of stuff. Totally pissed me off for a lot of my childhood but was one of the best ways that I learned how to solve problems on my own or at least take a stab at them. Then I'd go check them with now, the market. You know? Or now, a guru or a mentor or a friend or something like that. You know what I mean? So, what I did though is my dad said, "Okay, go figure out the amount." So. What I did is I literally wrote a contract. I sat down with my siblings and I interviewed them and I hired them to like okay, I'm hiring you younger brother of mine to mow the lawn. They would be applying for the position because it paid $11 a week, something like that. Trimming was $6 a week and weeding around the garden, weeding around the sides of the house it depends where you were 'cause the weeds were different depending on what part of the yard you were in and how crappy of an experience it was. Fertilizing was twice a season and aerating was this amount and I foresee these expenses and I foresee this. I had to come up with a plan. I think I was like 14 when I did that, 15, something like that. I can't remember how old but I was in my middle teens and I had already been running kind of a side business doing this stuff for other neighbors. I had a paper route. I was extremely active. I was actively trying to make money as often as I could as a kid. I was that kid that was like, "What can we sell to the other kids on the street in the neighborhood so that we can make money?" They'd go buy cases of soda and we'd sneak onto a gold course and we'd go sell it for a little bit more. We would take backpacks, we'd put backpacks on, put our swimsuits on and we'd go dive, which is totally disgusting. We'd go dive into the ponds at the golf course and get all the golf balls off the bottom. We'd clean them up and go sell them back to golfers. That's the kind of kid I was. I was always trying to sell stuff. I never realized that business was the thing that I was doing. I always thought entrepreneurship was like this nasty thing where you try and make as much money as you want. You know what I mean? I was totally wrong. It was totally false belief. I don't really know where I picked that up but I had to break that eventually. But anyway, so that's what I did though. So, my siblings would go out and I ran it like a business. That's what my dad was trying to get me to do. He's like, "Look, it's your thing. How do you want to run it?" He's like, "It's not on me anymore." He transferred all the ownership to me and he said, "Do it how you want to but here's the outcome I want. I want the grass looking good." That was it. So, I had to learn how to do sprinkler monitoring, you know, the systems. I had to learn how to do all this stuff and hire people out and at the end of the week my siblings were going be like, "Okay. Pay up." I'd be like, "Crap. I don't have the money." So, I'd go ask my dad and be like, "Dad can I get the money?" He'd be like, "Yeah, just write up an invoice." I didn't know what an invoice freaking was. He didn't tell me. He's like go look it up. So, I went and I looked it up and I made up what I thought was an invoice and I sent it over to him and he was like, "Okay sounds good." Before we even started with this I would send over an estimation of what I thought the weekly cost would be and be like, "Okay, think you could pull it off for that amount?" If an employee of mine, a sibling of mine, if an employee of mine didn't do their task that week I had to pick up the slack. I had to go do the job and I wouldn't pay them, I'd keep the portion for my own. So, I'd keep a management fee for myself to keep it all going and then my siblings would do all this other work on the side. Interesting experience. I mean, absolutely amazing. I totally took to it. I had full ownership over it. I took full ownership of it and I loved it. It was a great experience and it taught me management. It taught me delegation. It taught me that no job was below me. You know what I mean? I learned how to work my face off through that thing alone, and later on I was like hand digging trenches for sprinkler lines and putting up ... Like, I later on was insulating on my own and dry walling, patching and painting our whole garage on my own. You know what I mean? It taught me how to learn and work and solve the problem directly in front of me so that I didn't lean on another person to get it done. "That sounds hard". It's like, "No, what would you do first? What would be the first step?" "Well I'd probably do this. Then I'd do this, then I'd do that." Then I'd go check it, the whole system I was thinking of with another person but I didn't wait to start. It wasn't contingent on somebody else. It's totally this problem solving mentality that my parents instilled in me and that's kind of what I'm doing also. It might be weird to do it for a four and two year old but sometimes my little kid, like yesterday I can't remember what she asked me but she asked me something, I said, "I don't know, what do you think?" Obviously I had an opinion but that's not why I did it. That super helped me like crazy. Yeah, that yard manager thing was killer. That was absolutely amazing and obviously if you don't have a yard or whatever, or you have yard people, you can fire them or I'm sure there's other ways you can instill that or do that. That was amazing and that experience taught me a ton. I had side businesses my entire childhood growing up. For me to say, "This is the first time I've ever launched a business on my own" that's not true at all. I'm 29, I've been doing this for probably 21 years now. Have they all been very successful? No. Most of them haven't but I know what doesn't work and I know more of what does, and I know how to launch stuff. I know how to put plans together and I know how to manage and orchestrate people and put them all together and things like that. That's really what that taught me how to do, was how to orchestrate. How to delegate. How to not be the only person. My dad just, hey, here's the outcome I want and here's maybe a few pointers but after, I'd go try and find out the answer on my own. You know what I mean? That was ridiculously valuable. The other thing they did with me is they always fed me, clothed me, paid for school field trips, all that kind of stuff but any entertainment on my own, I mean, I paid for my own car insurance as soon as I started driving. My own gas, any movies I wanted to go to. You know, we'd get clothes at the beginning of each semester or before school would start again but after that though if I wanted anything extra I was really on my own. I'd go figure out how to do it. That was awesome. That was awesome to do it that way, because I got out of the mentality at a very early age, "Oh, I can't afford that" and I started getting into the mentality at a very early age, "Man I really want that cool cork gun" I remember thinking that and I totally saved up and I got one and I figured out how to get creative. I sold all sorts of crap to make money in order to go get toys. I did that a lot, tons growing up. Tons of times. Anyway. It taught me how to problem solve like crazy and keep me in good stress. Anyway. I am a huge advocate of good stress. Obviously there's distress and if i can tell that my little ones are entering a state of distress it's time to cut it out and time to intervene for me. I'm not telling anyone how to parent, please know I'm not a parenting expert, but that's when I would intervene though. That's when I do intervene, when I can tell they're entering a state of distress where the stress is no longer a growing and enabling style stress. You know? Like going to the gym. It's a bad kind of stress. It's the stress that's destructive. It's going to kill confidence. I don't want to kill confidence. I want them to have confidence to be problem solvers on their own, that they'll be self sufficient adults and they know how to do things on their own. I think particularly my mom wishes that I wasn't such an individual so that we would chat more and maybe ask more questions to her and stuff like that but they raised me to be a very self sustaining individual and to solve my own problems. It's not that they won't help, it's not that I can't chat, it's not that ... But it is primarily squarely, all of life, everything that I am, everything that I'm doing, everything that I'm being is on my shoulders and that was instilled in me at a very young age. I appreciate that. There were times where it sucked and there were times were it was not ... Oh man, but I carried that. While I wasn't very book smart in school at first I did learn how to learn and ended up getting almost straight A's throughout the remainder of college afterward because of the confidence they helped instill inside of me. Does that make sense? Anyway. It's interesting, as I'll hire people out or VA's or whatever, it's not that I can sit back and be like, "Oh, that's the kind of childhood you had" but I can sit back and go like, "Wow, you have very little confidence in your abilities." Sometimes I'm a little bit withdrawn on what I am able to do also for fear of looking like I'm being giddy, and I hate that in the internet marketing world. It drives me crazy. I'm not about to go take pictures of me laying across cars and crap. It's just not my personality. I would rather ... Anyway. It's funny 'cause I can tell though, there was a time when I was trying to hire ... You guys will meet her here soon 'cause I want to interview her, she's a rockstar of an ads driver, Facebook ads driver. I don't want to learn how to do Facebook ads. It's not a peak I'm going for. So, what I've been doing is finding these rockstar people and I went, and I've talked about this before, but just to recap I went and I created this cool contest and whoever was able to drive the most converting traffic to one of my pages, that's who I hired to be my Facebook ads person forever. Just because it was a competition, one person backed out. I was like, "Cool." So, then there was only two left. This is after I vetted out a huge list of lots of people. Then I went and I talked to the remaining two and I was like, "Okay, person A and person B this is the competition. Okay, I'm going to give you guys each $500. Whoever can drive the most converting traffic, you now have a job." I put a little pressure and there's nothing wrong with that, and it was awesome. Viva la Capitalism okay? That's what I'm all about. They were both pumped that it was a competition but the second I could tell was not going to be self sustaining. The kinds of questions that were coming from person B were questions that I didn't know the answer to, I don't know Facebook ads. I'm like wait a second, "You tell me what's best. I'm hiring you." It's the same thing that my dad would do with me. That's exactly what I said. It was interesting. I was like, "Huh, I can tell this person's going to be more of a liability on my time." I was like, "I don't know. You go do it. That's your job. That's why I'm hiring you." It's not on my shoulders, it's on yours. I'm paying you to figure that out. "Well what about this, this, this, this, this?" I was like, "I have no idea what even half of you just said 'cause I'm not trying to learn Facebook ads. I'm trying to be the best at funnel building, what you do with a customer afterwards. Offer creation. That's what I'm trying to be the best in the world at." You know? So, I got rid of person B because person A was just executing. Person B was asking a billion followup questions before they even got started. I was like, "Ugh." But anyway, that's part of it. So, anyways. This has been a long episode. I hope that's okay. They've all kind of been a little bit long lately. It's funny though how much ... It ticked me off like crazy that a lot of times it wouldn't be like, "Well here's the answer" and sometimes it would be. But a lot of times it was, "What do you think Stephen?" I'd be like, "Just tell me the answer! I don't want to go think! Don't do that. Don't make me think." But it taught me how to problem solve at a very young age, how to take responsibility. Anyway. So, you asked the question what I wished they would have done, which is a great question. While all those other things were awesome, I have incredible immense respect for my parents. I have absolutely zero bad feelings about the way I was raised. I'm completely thankful for both the good and the bad, the hard and the good. Everything that happened, both amazing and rough, for the way I was raised and I feel like that's powerful for each adult to eventually come to terms with. If you're okay with that. Man, this is like deep crap. This is not like a normal funnel episode. I am excited to make this change though. I had a very, and this is probably going to shock a lot of people, I was extremely shy as a kid. I'm not just saying that. Out of the 600 people in my senior graduating high school class, 600 people, I was rated and voted as the nicest kid. You know when they're giving like the most likely to do this, the most likely to do that, I was voted the nicest kid award out of 600 people. Nicest kid. It shocked the crap out of me, because in my head I was not that way. I was a little rage machine I just didn't know how to deal with it. But I had a huge fear of other people, I had a massive fear of adults. I was very shy. I'm excited to help instill greater confidence in my children. You'll notice that I love Setema Gali, I think that is his last name. He says something all the time, he's like, "Confidence is for kids." As an adult, especially as an attractive character you have to mean and exude absolute certainty, absolute certainty the evolved version of confidence. Okay? Again, no regrets. Nothing else. But I am looking forward to helping my kids have more confidence and help them be able to make ... I'm trying to figure out how to say that. But yeah, I think that'd be it. I just don't want my kids to be shy, and if they are that's fine. I'm not trying to change them or whatever, you know, but that would have been very nice. I had a fear of speaking, which is funny 'cause that's what I do all the time now. Stage, podcast, all over the place. But I had a huge fear of speaking and so eventually I had to face that fear on my own and I started doing things like door-to-door sales, musicals, stage presentations, things like that in high school at a very young age so I could get around that 'cause I started learning that about myself. But anyway. That's it. Long episode answering that question. Thank you very much Steph Brown for that. Shout out to you and thanks for ... If anyone else wants to get a question on here I do love hearing what it is that you guys have questions on and they often bring up kind of cool topics kind of like this one. Anyway. If you wanted to go to SalesFunnelRadio.com and there's a green button down on the bottom right and if you click that button you can record a voicemail to me straight off your browser. It won't take you anywhere else or anything and it automatically emails that over to me, the voice file and everything so I can toss it right in the episode. Obviously I kind of vet through them. Start with the phrase, "Hey Steve" and then ask your question in 30 seconds or less and that's how we do it. Alright guys. Hope you guys are doing great. That was some serious massive introspection. It was kind of a long one, I apologize. But great question though. There was a lot in my childhood that had to do with what I'm doing now and thanks for bringing that up and making me realize all that. That was helpful. Thanks Steph. Guys, thanks everyone else for listening. Go crush your 2018. I had a special episode coming out next, which I'm very, very pumped about. The next few are going to be really awesome. Alright guys, talk to you later. Bye! Thanks for listening to Sales funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to SalesFunnelBroker.com/freefunnels to download your pre-built sales funnel today.

Welcome to episode 373 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris. All right guys, let's talk YouTube. So over the last several months I have raved and raved and raved about Facebook lives and how fantastic it can be to connect and I actually had somebody email in and say, "Well, what about YouTube? Do I still need to be doing videos on YouTube if I'm also doing all this Facebook video stuff?" And so that's what I wanna answer today. I want to talk about why YouTube is still totally relevant, still totally important and valuable, and wonderful, and how to use it to support what you're doing, maybe with other video channels. Before I do that, I do want to jump in and let you know Hit the Mic Backstage is absolutely your next stop after this episode because tomorrow, November 1st ... Holy crap, I can't believe it's going to be November tomorrow, we've got a brand new training launching a new training YouTube best practices, so it's really going to expand on everything we talk about today. This is going to be your one-stop shop for exactly what you need to do to get the fundamentals of your YouTube game on point. All right, so hitthemicbackstage.com to check that out. Let's jump in. We're going to cover three things today.   The first one is just answering the simple question of, does YouTube still have a place for me in this video content arena? And the answer is yes. YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. And guess what guys? It's owned by the number one search engine in the world, and results from YouTube actually pop up in Google results, so yeah, guys it's still relevant. The power here comes from not saying, "I'm ditching YouTube and I'm going to Facebook video." But sharing them in both places, because there's not an exclusive rule here. No one says that just because a video's a Facebook live originally, it can't go to YouTube. In fact, any content I've put up on YouTube this year has originated from Facebook live. Don't skip it, use it. Facebook is fantastic for video and it's wonderful for the short period in which you're live and then the following, slightly longer period in which it can show up in the news feed of people paying attention to your page, then it kind of loses some of its steam. That's not the case with YouTube, because again, number two search engine in the world, the relevance is still there because it can still show up in search results so if you're creating content that's valuable, it's still findable, it's still searchable, it's still reachable, it's still viewable. That's why you gotta continue to pay attention to this tool. Let's talk about two thing we can do to really up our YouTube game. Number one, don't forget to do the SEO work, and when I talk about SEO or Search Engine Optimization, what I'm really talking about is your headline, or your title, your video title, and your description. That's where you want to make sure that the keywords that your audience is using to find that video. One of things we've started doing with some of our client's videos is actually including transcripts in the description. We've seen some great results with that. The best results have really been though in keeping it short and on point, relevant links, keyword packed description, and when I say keyword packed, let me just clarify that I do not mean keyword stuffed. I do not mean inventing a place to put keywords so that we can just shove as much as possible in there. What I do mean is using the words your potential viewer is going to use when looking for that video to describe that video. It really is that simple when we're talking about the SEO. Then making sure our tags are on point, now this is where we can start stuffing keywords. This is where we can start ... just everything that we think of, put them in there. Again though, they need to be relevant. We're not putting keywords to just random stuff because we think we'll show up in the search then, no, we're putting relevant keywords to the video. Okay? Do your SEO work. Make sure it's on point. In the video that you ... The training we've gotten backstage that goes up tomorrow, we're actually talking about one of my favorite tools which is TubeBuddy and how I use that to do a lot of this stuff, to monitor a lot of this stuff, and to make sure this stuff is on point for our stuff and our client's stuff. So pay attention to that part of that video because that's going to be a really beneficial one when you're looking at this part of it. Number three, be consistent. Now, I'm the first one to raise my hand on not being super good at this year. We've been really solid with doing Facebook lives fairly consistently. We've missed a few here and there, but on the whole, we've done it pretty consistently. I've been less consistent with making sure that those get up on YouTube, but it's something we're doing better the last part of this year and really committing to in 2018, because we are seeing results when we do it. Be consistent. That's really your best way to get subscribers. It's really your best way to grow an audience. It's really your best way to get consistent views on your videos. Make sure they're going up with some regularity. You also want to be consistent with things like your titles, and your keywords, and the process you use when a video goes up. So have a system. Having a system, being consistent with the tasks and what needs to be done makes it really easy to outsource, to hand off. Our admin team and the team we recommend most often for handling this stuff, AdminEase, they are fantastic with knowing this process and getting it done because they do it for a lot of their clients, they do it for us. I really encourage you to work with your VA and figure out what is the checklist of things that happen. Where does our keyword research go? What are our sort of standard keywords? Here's the deal guys, you talk about a fairly specific topic, because that's your business, so you're really going to have a good foundation of keywords that are probably going to go up pretty frequently. And then you kind of have a list to pull from depending on the specific topic of that video. There you go, there's your problem solved. Build those tools, build that list, and get it going so it's executable to maintain that consistency. Make sure your editorial calendar is built to maintain that consistency, all right? Super short ones to end October, if you're listening to this today, be sure to join us in Backstage so that you can grab the new training tomorrow. If you're listening to this sometime in the future, go to Backstage, the training is live, you're not going to want to miss it, all right? I will see you next time, have an excellent week. Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Learn more about repurposing content with AdminEase   Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Mike Migdall has a girlfriend. Okay? Do we have this down? He's also our guest and the latest in a long line of honorary Rude Dudes, which means we made him sit through the thoroughly uninteresting and wildly pointless "Breaking Away". Yes, it's finally time for Nicky and Alex to enter preschool. Remember when they were admitted into that fancy preschool like ... two seasons ago? Well, NOW it's time for them to go. Except now they're just going to some public skank ass preschool so I guess absolutely no one in that writer's room gave a flying fuck. We can assume there was a high amount of turnover in that room though, right? Maybe literally no one remembered that original plot point. Who cares! We also learn a lot about Jackie Chan Adventures while trying to determine if Mike has ever ordered a pizza. Has he? We're asking. And then: We read a very nice email from a listener! It's great! XOXO

Welcome to Episode 331 of Hit the Mic with the Stacey Harris. All right, guys. As you know, I just came back from December unplugged ... Okay, so technically I'm not unplugged during December, but I'm not in my office every day. I'm not sitting at my desk. I'm not creating content. I do tend to keep up with my social, although most of what goes out during December, I'll be honest, is scheduled, unless it's sort of an update of what I'm doing. I'm just not in it every day. I'm in vacation mode a bit more. We did really cool stuff over the last four weeks, and if you want to check that out, well then you should've been watching Snapchat and Instagram stories, because that's where all of the fun silliness of those kind of things take place, for future reference. Now, then. Here's the deal. I still had a podcast, technically two, go up every week. My social media went out, things like that, but what I want to talk about is how I'm able to keep my content consistent even when I'm not in content creation mode, even when I'm not actively in my office, at my desk, doing the content creation hustle and all of that day in and day out, so that's what we're going to talk about today, because I want to. Sound good? All right. Let's jump in. Number one, I have a schedule. Yeah, I know. It's not sexy. It's not exciting, but it really is the key to me keeping my content consistent because it allows me to know what I need to say and when I need to say it. It also, from a bigger picture, it's the key to knowing that my content's going to have a purpose. For example, this month we're talking a lot about content and that's because coming up on the 24th, we're going to kick off a three-day launch your podcast challenge. We're talking a lot about content right now. We're talking a lot about podcasting, and a lot of this podcast content will yes, feed information about podcasting, but this same thing is true if you do video, and the same thing is true if you write blog posts. Whatever it is, if you wan to be consistent, you need to schedule it. You need to plan what's going to go out and when it's going to go out, because that is how you can stay on top of it, but here's the other side of scheduling that we don't hear about enough. I'm guessing this isn't the first time you've heard me talk about editorial calendars and scheduling content, much less anyone else in the online marketing space. Here's the difference. I also want you to schedule time to create content. This becomes exponentially more important if you're going to be taking a large amount of time off, so if you know that you want to take December off, or you want to take two weeks off in the summer, or you want to step back during the summer altogether, maybe you want to take June, and July, and August, and just not be as heavily into your business during those months, that's cool. That's your prerogative. You are building a lifestyle, baby, but you need to schedule the time to create that content ahead of time, which means for me, in November, I have entire sections of weeks blocked out to podcast recording. I record for hours at a time getting ready for December. Seriously. Because I know I'm going to be taking that time off. If you want to take off a week or two, you might not need to make as much room to get ahead, but if you're going to be taking off a larger chunk, you're going to have to make sure that a large amount of time is scheduled for you to get that content created ahead of time. When you're looking at your scheduling, don't just schedule the time that you're gone. Okay, this is what I want to go out, but also schedule the time to create it. Personally, really guys, this is one of those things that keeps me on top of my content and consistently getting out quality content all of the time, even when I'm not working, because I do like to be ahead for those times where I take surprise time off, either good or bad reasons for that. I like to make sure I have that stuff ready to go, so I have content creation time on my calendar every single week. Yup, every single week I have time on my calendar to say, "Okay, this is what needs to happen. I'm gonna record one, two, three episodes on this day, whatever it is that needs to be done." Make sure you're scheduling time, not just scheduling topic ideas, all right? Here's the other part of that. Repurpose the content you're creating. When you are spending a ton of time creating content, you want to also find other ways to use it, and we've talked a lot about repurposing content in the last few months, partially because 2017 for me is all about doing more with less. It's all about creating really great content that I can use a lot of ways so that you guys get what you need, so that I can do other things like serve my members, and Hit the Mic Backstage, and do lives, and speak more, and things like that. For me, that's really, really important. It's also how it becomes really easy to take time away from content creation is to repurpose. Maybe you don't post videos for four weeks, but instead you have repurposed your best of content into blog posts, or into audios, or whatever, or ... You know what I mean? You can repurpose that. Maybe you talk about, especially this time a year, best episodes of the previous year, the things you need to know going in. Here's six of the best episodes I did in 2016 that really are going to help you have a better 2017. Something like that. Repurpose that content you've already created, repurpose that value, repackage that value, and make sure that ti's really working for you. That's another really great way to make sure that people are still aware of you, you're still getting out there, you're still giving value, you're still serving your community, even when maybe you're not directly available for vacation or whatever. Again, we're scheduling not only what we're going to create, excuse me, but when we're going to create it, so we're scheduling post topics, and when they need to go out, but we're also scheduling time to create those pieces of content. Again, whatever they are, video, podcasts, blogs, et cetera. We're repurposing. We're taking what we've already got, and we're doing more with it. We're taking the podcasts that we record and turn them into blog posts or guests posts, or LinkedIn publisher, or medium, or whatever. We are taking the content we have on our website and adding additional value, or extending the value. We are putting together collections of best-of episodes and videos, so that you can really, again, repurpose that value and give people value when maybe you're not available. For me, taking time off is a critical part of what I do. I have to step back. I'm really not very good at it, in all honesty. I am not very good at not being involved in my business. It's a constant practice when I'm taking time off. I think this year we're going to go on a trip where I have to be unplugged, so that will be interesting, but my social media stays going because I have a strategy for social and I have the tools in place to automate it when I need to. My content stays consistent because I have scheduled time for what goes up when. I have scheduled time for creation, and I'm repurposing, I'm reusing, and I'm bringing additional value into content that was already created. It really is the key for me. If you want to learn more about podcasting specifically and launching your podcast, if 2017 is the year you finally hit the mic, and launch your show, join us, join us, join us because I'm so excited for this. We're going to do a launcher podcast, three challenge, three days we're going to talk strategy, we're going to talk gear, we're going to talk launching, and we're going to do it all together. There'll be daily emails, and then we're also going to go live on Facebook each of the three days, as well as a bonus day on Friday the 27th. We'll go live for a wrap-up. All of that, the signup to get you on the list, is over at thestaceyharris.com/episode331. You'll see it right at the bottom of the show notes. Quick. You can just drop your information in. I will email you that we got it, and then I will email you on day one and say, "Let's get started." Okay? Do me a solid. Come join us for that, and if you have already launched your podcast and you want to know more about growing your audience, or marketing your podcast on social media, just come right over to Hit the Mic Backstage. That's the best place to take the next steps. Either way, thank you for sitting down with me, thank you for joining me, and I will see you next week.   Resources Join us inside Hit the Mic Backstage Connect with Me Connect with me on Facebook Tweet with me and include #HittheMic Be sure to leave your review on iTunes or Stitcher for a shoutout on a future show

Chad and Tim ramble on and on about Star Wars, Macs, iPads, Green Hornet, and much more than I can remember right now. Seriously, what did we talk about again? I dunno... Anyway, email us at either tim@mymac.com or chadperry@mymac.com. Okay? Do it now. NOW, DAMN IT! Please? No...okay, fine then! Sheesh...