Jason Van Orden: How to Monetize Your Unique Brilliance With Content Marketing, Scalable Courses, and Automated Sales Systems (#262)

Jason van Orden How to monetize your unique brilliance with content marketing, scalable courses, and automated sales systems.m4a – powered by Happy Scribe

Feisworld podcast helps independent creators live their creative and financial freedom. I’m your host, Fei Wu, and I’ll be taking you through a series of interviews with creators from around the world who are living life on their own terms. Each episode is packed with tactics, nuggets you can implement origin stories to make listening productive and enjoyable. We’re not only focused on the more aspirational stories, but relatable ones as well. We also have none interview based miniseries releasing throughout the year to help Deep dove into topics such as freelancing, marketing, even indie filmmaking that would benefit creators like you.

Show notes, links and ways to connect with the guests are available on Feisworld.com. Now onto the show. Hello, hello, this is Fei Wu from Feisworld Media. Well, today I really want to welcome a lovely guest whose name is Jason Van Orton, and I know this sounds like a very Dutch name because he is well, he’s American with a Dutch descent. And I’m going to invite Jason to talk about his name as well. Well, why did I invite Jason to join me today?

Because we are here to talk about how to monetize your unique brilliance with Konta marketing scalable courses and automated sales systems. Recently, I met Jason through, again, our mutual friend Michael Roderick. I know that’s a name has come up over and over again, and I will definitely go live with Michael in the near future. Stick around. Subscribe to the show. Michael is a super connector who introduced me to Jason. And as a result, you know, right before I officially met Jason through his course, you know how to create a successful online course.

It is an eight week program, one of the best courses I’ve ever taken, really hands down. And Jason just has this really warm and authentic vibe that that drives with not just me, but everybody in the course as a result, you know, twenty five thirty of us became friends, connected on and offline, started Zoom meetings and so appreciative of this connection and Jason’s area of expertise. So if you are thinking about content marketing or if you have taken courses online before and you ever wonder how you can create a body of work, a possibly a course or two online?

Well, this is the episode for you in this episode. And Jason answers a lot of the common questions that came up over and over again in our workshop. And he definitely does not hide anything. He addresses all the difficult questions, such as the imposter syndrome. Like if you are a twenty five year old listener listening to this, you may be thinking, I’ve only been working for a few years. Do people really find that maybe it’s feeling obnoxious to even have a cause?

I know some folks have been told that if you’re in your 20s or 30s, do not write a memoir because nobody want to read it. Well, that’s not always true. Is that because everybody’s live and how they kind of travel through the world is very different. And we welcome I mean, Jason and I definitely want to challenge you on the idea of people who think that they have nothing to offer or they don’t really have an area of expertise where they don’t deserve to have course.

Because in this episode, we also talk about things such as having an entry course, something that you can do very easily. You can even sell for free market for free, or you can have something, what we call the signature cause that takes more resources, more time, possibly more budget, more research to get it done. Very, very, very interesting. But there are there’s an area of Jason’s journey and what we call origin stories a lot of people don’t know about because, you know, Jason has a young kid.

But even before he started his entrepreneurial journey, he thought about traveling around the world how to have as told to live as an independent or kind of location independent entrepreneur. He speaks to that in great detail, in great length, talking about his journey and work experience in France. That’s something he always wanted to do and how he actually made it happen. And he also lived and traveled to Portland, Oregon, to New York City, among many other places.

I was really kind of the interested to discover more. So many people talk about traveling, being location independent, but how do you actually go about it? How do you travel with a family? Things like that. You know, is just it just very helpful, in my opinion, to hear how other people handle the situation and why they decided to do it, how they made it possible. So you may be wondering, OK, I have not heard of Jason.

Who does he help? What is his background? What does he offer right now? Well, Jason helps thought leaders to reach a larger audience with their ideas. What does it mean? That means creating new income streams from their expertise and build the business models that align with their values and goals. As a consultant as well as trainer and strategist, he draws from more than 40 years of researching top Internet influencers and experimenting with his own personal experience. His experience includes creating multiple successful brands, launching over Check It Out 60 online courses, teaching more than 10000 entrepreneurs, generating seven figures in online course sales and a million downloads of his podcasts.

His mission is to help visionaries with impactful ideas and to connect with people they serve best and the problems they can most uniquely solve. These things are interesting and I just want. And real quick, I mean, other than the social proof points on the numbers, you will notice that Jason is very, very prescriptive and articulate about that people that he’s targeting. I mean, if I were to read this one more time, right, his mission is to help visionaries with impactful ideas to connect with people they serve best and problems they can most uniquely solve.

What are I pause on this? Because recently I’ve been following and reading newsletters from a woman I had never heard of until I met up with my mentor, Bob. Her name is Eleanor Strong Eleanor with an E at the end and her website literally is just say enter your email for newsletter. I thought it was a joke, literally. I didn’t think there was any credibility to that website. I did enter my email because she was referred to me and she had this thriving online community, i.e. Facebook group with more than three thousand highly, highly engaging people.

And she does these what her what she refers to as messenger, like Facebook messenger lead sales. It’s incredible. She posts very long form content. But one of the things coming back to why I mentioned this about Jason and she said you have to get very clear on what your point is a point A is for your client. So that’s not the claim point A, that’s not a kind telling you how successful he or she is with the numbers that they find successful.

It’s about how you define the people that you can help grow the most. So as I’m reading this for the the third or fourth time, you know, Jason is helping visionaries with impactful ideas. So people who are leading their cohorts, people who have already validated their ideas and are able to generate either a lot of value, a lot of income, and then to help these people connect with the right customers that they can serve best. Right. And problems they can most uniquely solve.

I think these are really key words. So if you are an entrepreneur currently struggling to scale, struggling to charge the consulting fees that you feel like you deserve, these are the areas that you should consider. How do you manage down, narrow down on trying to provide as much value as you possibly can? And sometimes the painful part is at the beginning, instead of speaking to everyone, you have to really target to a much smaller audience. I think a lot of us don’t realize that there are six to seven billion people on the planet right now.

We don’t need every single one of them. We need such a small slice of the pie. And if we can talk to them more specifically, the better off you will be. And I know this through my YouTube experience. Right. So, for example, I lately have been teaching people a lot about live streaming, multi streaming, using stream, among other a different, you know, technical solutions and software and platforms. So what I notice is if I create a title called How to Start Your Life Stream, but that’s pretty general and that is hard to hit on hard to right the YouTube algorithm.

If I just simply change that title to how to start life dreaming for authors, how does our life dreaming for podcasters, all of a sudden you’re talking to a very specific audience. And furthermore, you can offer tips and tools specific to the audience because you know their behaviors, you know the assets, a body of work they already have. Right. For example, I know that podcasters are already good at talking to people interested in talking to people.

So my selling point is, instead of waiting for weeks to edit your show, why not just go live in the first place? You can really captivate your audience on so many channels prior to heavy duty editing. So what that said, if you want to check out my YouTube channel, you can find me just simply at Feisworld Media. Again, Face World is spelled as everyone frank e i. S o our world. Without further ado, please welcome Jason Van or into the phase.

Roll the podcast. I can’t wait to see you at the end of the show.

Everyone, this is Fei Wu from Feisworld Media, I know I haven’t gone live in, like, oh my gosh, like a week and a half already, but today I’m really excited to be introducing my mentor, someone I’ve taken a course from about creating courses. His name is Jason Van Orden. And welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Yeah. Thanks, Fay. This is great. I’m glad to be here to chat with you.

I’m so glad you said yes to this because I love the fact that you follow up to all the students that you had, which were like, good. Thirty of us very engaging how to create your course workshop that you did. I to be honest, I was super impressed and I was even upset the last time I went live with a lovely guest. And I had to miss the last session. But yeah, thank you. Thank you for doing that and connecting connecting us.

And before that, a big shout out to Michael Roderic for connecting our group. Yeah, right. How about that? He’s he is such a wild connector.

Michael’s amazing. Yeah, Michael. I mean, very cool people through Mike all the time. It’s great.

That is true. And he recommended more people for me to go live with. So but I think as a result of your course meeting people in that forum, 30 people over the course of eight weeks or so, once a week with occasional Q&A getting to know you more, I feel like that even further strengthened my connection to them. And they’re just more reason to to learn from one another. So, yeah, you know, before we before we started going live, you had mentioned about your name.

So, like, I yeah, I think most people probably haven’t even ask. I assume you’re Dutch, but I feel like all the Dutch friends I have when I see Van, it’s usually when it’s spelled a little differently, like, yeah, well, how did you end up having a slightly the story of my name, Van Orden. Yeah. I mean, it’s a family name that goes back quite, quite a ways and it is Dutch and so cool side story here.

I went to Amsterdam a few years back, just kind of on my own. I like everyone’s all going on these little personal retreats to just kind of think and figure out what’s next. That was in Amsterdam was right before Christmas. It was a great time to be there. And I took the opportunity to go on a train just like a half an hour outside of Amsterdam to a little village called Nurdin, which is spelled N n. And of course, in Dutch.

For those who don’t know, Van often means from or of. Right. So Van Norden would be from Nurdin. And so my ancestors at some point their name came from that village. And if you look it up on Google Maps, it’s it’s really cool. It has a star shaped moat around it. It’s like a port town and they fire off these cannons just ceremonially every once in a while there. So I got to step off this, took a train and a bus and stepped off the bus.

And here I am in this like old Dutch town that my ancestors lived in several centuries ago. And then at some point they came over here even when it was New Amsterdam in New York where I live, which used to be New Amsterdam. Right. And at some point, they changed Van Norden to Van Orden. But yeah, I mean, I like my name. I like my Dutch heritage. And before that it was French, which is great because I’ve had the opportunity to live in France and and I speak French too.

But there’s my brief family tree for for what it’s worth. Yeah.

Well no way. I didn’t know Van means from. So would it be.

Wow. Wait a minute. I’m Nadhim.

So, like how I think about the origins of different names to be very fascinating and some of my friends who are of Filipino descent will have like a really long name. And sometimes it’s about a combination of your grandparents and your parents. And the name is like wake along as, you know, Chinese. So my name is incredibly short. But with that said it all back in the day in I don’t know, in Holland, if Jason from or in, I mean, how many then how many variations could you have if you solely rely on first name or something or.

Right. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know because there’s word and you get into those Nordic countries where it’s like, you know, so-and-so is daughter, so-and-so son. Right. And then. Right. And so it’s interesting how those names proliferate.

Yeah. Well, so you speak French also, like fluently.

Yeah, I speak French. Well, I’ve spent three years of my life living in France, a lot in Paris and most recently in twenty fourteen. I lived there for a year, which was like a big lifestyle goal I had for myself even before I was an entrepreneur and knew how I would make that happen. I just at the time when I originally had that dream, I was an engineer and I just thought, well, maybe someday I’ll find an American company to live in France and work for.

But then I ended up becoming an entrepreneur and years later had the opportunity to go and live there for a year. In fact, it’s as if I have a quick story if it’s pretty scary or C. So I lived when I was in my life when I was like 19, 20, I lived in France. So that’s where I really fell in love with France. And I always wanted to go back and live there for a whole year as an adult.

And I visited there in two thousand four and I was going up the hill where at the top of secateurs was a big domed basilica. It’s one of the most visited next to Notre Dame. It’s one of the most visited churches there. And you get a huge view, big view of Paris up there at the top. So I was up there visiting the basilica and just kind of walking around. And Monmouth has just one of my favorite neighborhoods of of Paris, lots of hills.

And it’s walking down these stairs on the hill and thinking, wow, it’d be so cool to live in this area of Paris someday. And I remember walking down these stairs into a cafe where there was all these colored. I remember distinctly because there was these cool metal like bistro tables and they’re all different colored green and blue and red and yellow. And so that really stuck out. And I remember sitting there eating lunch and just thinking like, wow, it’d be cool to live in this neighborhood someday.

So fast forward to twenty fourteen and things just kind of lined up finally to to move to Paris with my wife at the time and my daughter. And we, we found a place to live in Monmouth with a view of Coeur and in fact so right outside our living room window you could see Sacre-Coeur up here and you could see this staircase going up the hill over to the right this way. And in fact, that’s a staircase that’s been in a lot of movies.

If you see, you might they might look familiar and I. So after we got this apartment that day, I walked up the hill just to kind of explore and I got to the top of that staircase and boom, there was the cafe with all the different colored tables. So just 50 or 100 yards or whatever away from the apartment I lived in was the place I sat and dreamt about the very thing that I had finally realized a decade later.

Right. So that was pretty cool to come full circle. And when I saw that cafe, I’m like, no way. This is just it was just one of those weird, surreal moments. Right? So I got to live in Paris for a year and absolutely loved it.

Wow. I think so. So funny. We don’t talk about it often, but there are a lot of I don’t think coincidence is the right word. And I actually that the fancier one just left my brain. But it just all these very surreal experiences that we’ve had and how things are connected, especially as I get older, I don’t know. It’s just like how everything all kind of happens. And I think, again, going back to Michael Roderic for creating this group, I know that he had one before that I didn’t belong to.

But all of a sudden, the pandemic is bring all of us together in the platform that synergy. And then for you, you it kind of something was left behind. But there’s something like almost waiting for you to reappear in that circumstance. Right. What about you? When you saw things lined up in twenty fourteen. Well if you don’t mind sharing that briefly, what’s that about. Yeah.

Right. So when I first had that dream I was still an engineer and I only lasted like three years as an engineer before I was like, OK, I can’t, I can’t work for other people, I’m just not made that way. Right. And it’s a very circuitous path to kind of keep a long story short, I quit my job in two thousand three, just kind of I was done. It’s like, OK, I’m going to figure something out.

I’ve been dabbling in. Real estate investing a little bit. So I just quit my job cold turkey and started focusing on real estate investing, which I made a little money there, but it wasn’t really a great fit for me. But it was a key step in the journey, because by being part of this real estate investing world, I started I started ending up consulting a lot of investors on marketing. I have been learning marketing for a while as a musician, in addition to being an engineer, is also a musician.

And I was learning how to market my band online for several years. And that’s how I learned that I enjoy marketing is actually pretty good at it. So as I started associating with real estate investors and they’d all have these paying points of how do I find buyers, how do I find sellers, put together my deals and make money? I started teaching them all these online marketing and direct through the mail marketing methods that they could find people. Right.

And so I learned at the time how to put together good marketing campaigns. And I also kind of ran into because at the same time as I was learning real estate investing, I’d been ordering these courses off of eBay in places that people had recorded. And so this little light bulb went off in my mind that all of these courses that I was going through were just these workshops that somebody had ran at some point record and then put online. So I decided to go ahead and do one of my own.

I hold a workshop of my own. And so that was like the beginning of my whole online course journey was going through that workshop, doing it, and I sold twenty five spots into a room at a local community college. I remember I spent a couple of hundred dollars on the room rental since I was a musician. I had all the gear to record it, all the audio, and then as soon as it was so I sold two hundred dollars a pop.

So I made like five thousand dollars off of entry, sold some follow up coaching stuff as well. And so like after that day, having basically grossed about seven, eight thousand dollars and one day teaching people which I love doing, I was like, OK, this is for me, this whole information marketing make courses. And then that was my exposure into like the online course world. So I said, I’m going to make this a short story, but fast forward like that bloomed into like podcasts and businesses and teaching people online course stuff and personal branding, online and consulting and marketing.

And so by the time I got to it was after I did my first real estate investing deal that I had the money to go on that trip to Paris in 2004. So that was just like a vacation for a week or so. But then another decade later, all of these online pursuits had grown into a business that was successful enough that I could live anywhere. And my daughter was now like three years old. So she wasn’t too young. It felt like, OK, she’s old enough that we could go and live somewhere else with her and not have it to be too much of a hassle.

And so we we did that. We went ahead and just got the visa and put stuff in storage and sold a bunch of stuff and found a place in Paris. And thankfully, our nanny at the time who had been watching your daughter, she’s like, this sounds like a wonderful experience. We just said, hey, look, if we give you a place to live and some spending money, would you come to live in France with us? And she was all down with it.

So off we went. So those are all the things that a line which is like my daughter was old enough. My business was in a place we had the nanny who was willing to come with and off we went and had a year. We had a one year visa. And then at the end we’re like, that was wonderful. Now let’s go back and be close to family again. But absolutely great that we had that experience. My daughter can you know, she doesn’t remember much of it, but she still feels that attachment to Paris and sees all the pictures of her move in front of the Eiffel Tower.

And so it was a lifestyle dream made possible by, you know, entrepreneurship and the online income streams that I had established for myself and learned over all those. So that type of stuff. And now I teach people, like in the workshop that that you took.

Very true. I mean, how wonderful is that to hear that story and to travel so far? And I mean, most recently, I got to say that, you know, since the pandemic, people in our profession, all types of professions, are finding a lot more freedom, a confidence and just a lot less anxiety overall around the pandemic when it comes to just making ends meet. And obviously, there are other things we’re still very concerned about with our friends and family.

But making money, I just felt really grateful that I when I started my business in January, twenty, twenty sixteen, I thought, oh my God, what if I delayed our decision to do that January twenty twenty eight. No, super scary. And so you know, with I said home for you is New York I assume.

Yeah. Do you work. In fact I just moved to Brooklyn, I was living in Manhattan but in the middle of covid here I moved, I decided to go ahead, move to Brooklyn just. Yeah. More, more of my. I’ve always wanted to move to Brooklyn and lived down here and the timing was right and stuff. So that’s my whole.

How awesome is that? Were you born and raised as well?

No, it’s actually grew up in Alaska.

Oh.

Well, here in the corner of the of the country.

The first guest from Alaska has been practicing for six years. Yeah. Yeah. Growing up in Alaska.

Yeah. It’s a beautiful place. Gorgeous. I highly recommend people visit during the summer. It gets quite cold, quite dark. I mean, it looks like a snow globe around Christmas if you go there, which is kind of a nice vibe, I suppose, but very glad that Alaska is part of my life and history. Don’t know that I’ll ever live there again just because it’s I mean, you got well, I guess you got to be resilient to live in New York City, too.

But I’m just I’m kind of done with the cold and dark of Alaska. I have wonderful memories there. But now I’m a city guy.

Yeah, well, I mean, this is fascinating. It’s crazy that I feel like I’ve known you for intense eight to ten weeks. But these things you never really brought up. Right. You go right into the courses and I promise whoever’s watching right now, we’ll get to that very soon. But until what age did you move out of Alaska?

Yeah, so I lived in Alaska, so I lived there a couple of times. I grew up there and like my formative like elementary middle school years and then moved away for a while. And then we moved back to New York during high school and stuff. And I ended up back my parents. They eventually retired and went to Idaho. I ended up going to I ended up going to university and Utah. They had a really good engineering school in the north of Utah called Utah State where I went.

And I also got a guitar degree there, too. Turns out in the middle of world and then rural college in Utah, one of the best guitar teachers in the nation lived there. So that was a lot of fun going to school there. And then when I when I lived in Paris for a couple of years, I think that’s where I really turned into those early young adult years. That’s where I really turned into a city person. I just loved Paris.

I mean, just Paris for Paris, but also just the city vibe. I was like, OK, that’s so later on, I came to New York, my wife at the time, she she wanted to go to graduate school here. And so just kind of been in New York or New York. Paris. I live in Portland, Oregon, for a while also. So and I guess just to kind of bring it into this topic that we’re that we’re getting to about online courses and online income.

I mean, the reason why I’ve lived these different places is, again, just the business allowing that latitude of lifestyle design. So moving to Paris was a distinct choice. Moving to Portland was a distinct choice. The first time I moved to New York, I was still getting my business going and it was hard at first living in New York City and getting it going. But we’ll sit down and set certain criteria of where do we want to live next.

And so when we moved to Portland, it was like a list that we want, you know, a good city with a lot of culture, but it’s commuter friendly, don’t have to own a car. And this. And this and this. And this. And it was like Portland rose right to the top, like, great, let’s move to Portland and live there six years and loved it. And then it felt right to go to Paris and it felt right to come back to New York City.

So, you know, it’s nice to have that’s part of being able to have when you have that diversity of income streams and especially ones that aren’t completely what aren’t location dependent and are totally it doesn’t necessitate me being present all the time. In order to make money, you have to have that latitude to be able to go like, OK, well, what do I want my life, my lifestyle look like, what I want my career to look like?

Where do I want to be located in? Part of the reason I came back to New York was for career, because there’s just a certain you know, you meet some people here and you you connect and you I mean, a little less maybe during covid, but it’s an amazing city for opportunities. So these are all very distinct decisions empowered, enabled by the business mindset that has been underneath my my career for the last ten, fifteen years.

Yeah. Hello. This is this is really fantastic because, I mean, you started doing and exploring the entrepreneurial world a lot earlier because you did the math. Twenty three, you’re done and you start your own journey. And back then, if I remember, I graduate in six. So I just remember back then compare then until now. Third, I wish I knew Dorie Clark then and I remember reading about Seth Godin, but the idea of the concept of multiple revenue streams were not that prominent.

So could you talk about the multiple revenue streams you had then versus now? And, you know, what are some of the differences and how you were able to even hone in and pick up the first few of those? So how do you realize that you’re not relying on a single stream of income?

Yeah, so when I saw I mentioned that that first course that I did for real estate investors and I was literally burning CDs and and printing out the manual and sending it through the mail. So this is before all this infrastructure for online courses put together. So that was one of my earliest online income streams. And then I was also doing consulting at. The same time, so that was just two different income streams, so it was nice to have the course that, again, I sell.

Of course, I didn’t have to go and consult for an hour to get that money. Somebody bought it any time of day, got shipped out to them. And then as time went on, then I in two thousand five, podcasting started becoming a thing. And I got really fascinated with that because I loved teaching. I had the audio experience. I had like the technical engineering background to understand the ins and outs and the intricacies of it. We didn’t have the same tools that there are today that make it a lot easier to to launch a podcast.

And so then I started doing some podcasting consulting and then I started doing online workshops to help people launch podcasts. And then I had businesses that would come to me and asked me, can you help us set up a podcast? And I get speaking gigs. And then I also got a book deal because of a podcast that I was doing and some tutorial I created in twenty five started doing really well and Google and Wikipedia had it listed on the podcasting page for a little while.

So then that’s just starts because I’m creating content specific to at that time to the to podcasting, helping businesses with podcasting. These opportunities start showing up and each one just kind of starts creating this portfolio of places that I can go to create new income. And then one of the podcast that started three podcasts in two thousand five and one was a friend of mine. It was the first podcast about Internet marketing and online entrepreneurship. And I think just because we were early in the game and people enjoy it and resonated with it, it grew very quickly.

And then we started people just started asking like, well, how do you do what you guys are doing? Like, he was selling stuff on eBay and I was doing my various things online. And so we just started talking about that. And eventually that turned into group coaching courses. And then we made a digital ebook about how to find your business idea and started selling that. So over time that turned into a company with a whole suite of of digital courses and products that people could buy to learn entrepreneurship.

So that’s kind of an example of some of the different income streams that. So some of it was one on one. Some of it was group online programs, some of it was digital programs. Some of it was I’d go and speak somewhere. And you mentioned your mutual friend, the Torie Clarke, and she is a very similar thing. I think the actually I think the phrase she uses is like a portfolio career or a portfolio of income. Right.

And that’s really kind of what you’re going for. Is that around a specific expertize and a specific audience, you have these multiple ways to serve that audience and not all of them are a one to one exchange of your time. I mean, that’s the key thing, right? If all I’m doing is coaching or consulting or teaching or speaking, what that requires me showing up and spending a certain amount of time to make a certain amount of money. But as soon as I start introducing more of these one to many or digital sources of income, now I lift that ceiling on how much I can help people with my expertize and then, of course, also make income off my expertize as well.

Right. And I think this is so relevant for everyone to hear because I think some folks who may be watching this will be thinking, wow, I’m so far from creating my course, my God. Like, I’m not even comfortable recording a single video and uploaded to YouTube. Or some people may be thinking, I’m too young. I don’t really I don’t want to be seen as this expert because I’m not. Well, I think it’s time to rethink a lot of that, especially during the pandemic.

And I just shared our video to a group I started called Dance Lifestream and Videos where, you know, there’s a really large audience that I have grown because of my YouTube videos teaching fitness entrepreneurs how to teach online. And I notice a number of them are doing something super smart and it’s supported by the platforms we have today in twenty twenty, which is instead of just teaching live online, a lot of people say, I love to join your class, Jason, but you’re teaching a seventh year and that’s when my my family is having dinner together and they’re unable to join whatever may happen.

So I notice some instructors are basically using recorded materials, recordings from their previous lessons. It’s already done. They repackage them as lessons they can sell and repurpose on their website. So it’s for us is like a business. Webinars on demand for them is people can purchase for a lot less money or a subscription service where if you pay fifty dollars to join the class, but for twenty dollars extra, you get all these recordings if you choose to. So it’s very relevant what you’re saying here.

And I think it’s there’s an interesting you said there’s a lot of times people have existing materials that they might have made. If you’re already a consultant or a coach or a service provider or there’s materials you’ve made for the thing that you do for your for yourself, and then by kind of repackaging those in new ways. And I you know, the reason I had a course to start selling online in 2004 is because I. Did this one workshop that I did live.

And so it was like from an idea of, hey, I’d like to try running my own workshop to actually doing that, probably as little as like five or six weeks later, I was running the workshop and then it continued to make money for me after that at the same time. So it’s like anybody could put together, you know, repurpose stuff, existing stuff, or even just do a quick series of Zoom calls or whatever and repackage that.

And now you’ve got a new income stream. And I always I always encourage people to do it in a very, very simple way just to try it out. Don’t get caught up and having to do record lots of videos in advance or set up a really fancy nice website or anything. It’s like just get something out there and see if you can get a few people to buy in. And one of the coolest things about online courses is that you you can sell it first and then create it later.

So a lot of times when I create a new online course, I, I make a curriculum outline and make an outline of everything people will accomplish and what are the benefits of taking the course. And I put a price tag on it and have an information page and people can go there and sign up. And I have a good idea of what I’m going to teach over the coming weeks or days or whatever, but I haven’t sat down and created it all in advance.

Like I’ve gone to the market and said, hey, does this interest you? And people have said, yeah, and signed up for it before then. I invest the time into actually creating the course. Right. So that’s another advantage that that brings to do things that way. And we buy things like this all the time. We pay for the magazine before we get it. We pay for the movie before we get it. We. So it’s it’s it’s a very normal way to do business.

Right.

So that’s something that most people probably are not thinking about that. In fact, I did learn about this from the I think it’s called the School of Design, started by a friend of mine, turned out to be very successful. And this gentleman was also saying that he validated this idea, collected money, I think was five thousand dollars altogether, which I know sounds like a substantial amount. But he literally with five thousand dollars in his pocket, he had zero content, but he knew what it was going to create.

So I think this is fascinating why people might be thinking like, how do I seek feedback from. And one of the questions I wrote down is like the idea of validating your idea or validating your course. What are some of the ways that we should be thinking about? Should we do it through email? Shall we post a message on LinkedIn? And what’s the level of details like how do we invite people into that conversation?

Yeah, so to me, I always encourage people to start from getting very specific within themselves of who’s the audience I can serve best, who who do I want to create discourse this value for based on your own expertize, maybe your experience and who you’ve worked with in the past, maybe who you feel drawn to work with moving forward. And then once you have that idea, one of the best ways to begin validating is to go ahead and do what I call indirect research.

So you go to existing Facebook groups, Reddit groups, LinkedIn groups, forums, and wherever the people that you want to reach for this course, wherever they’re hanging out online, see what questions are asking, see what pains are running in to see what their hang ups are, see what their big goals and motivations are that are bringing them to looking to understand or better get some help with accomplishing a particular goal. And so that’s your first kind of to make sure that it’s like, yeah, if you see a lot of people asking about these questions that you can answer and want to help people with or looking and talking about striving to to reach certain goals that you want to help people with, that’s a first initial validation of like, OK, there’s a need in the marketplace.

People are aware of it. They’re actively looking for it. And the next thing you want to know is are they ready to invest their time, their energy and their money into reaching that goal? And then, in your case, through buying your your course. So that’s when that next layer of validation starts coming in, where you go ahead and you decide, OK, based on my research, well, then there’s the more that there’s one more step.

So that’s indirect research. Then I say do direct research, which means get on the phone or on Zoom call like this or have coffee or whatever with five people who fit that audience and and talk to them. Just have a conversation, ask them about their experience to hear the last time you tried to do such and such. Tell me how that went. You know, what problems did you run into? What was important about that to you? What what are you still running into in terms of challenges?

So you just want to better understand their experience because this is informing you when it comes to designing that course. So once you’ve done some an indirect and some direct research and having those handful of conversations, now it’s time to just put the offer together, put an information page together and then go out there and offer it to two people. And then when they actually pay for and if you can get four or five, six people or more to sign up for a pilot course, well, that’s the.

The ultimate validation, because now they’ve invested money and signed up, and then you take people through that pilot course and you give them some results and you get some testimonials and you’ve made a little bit of cash and you’ve refined and proven out your process. And so now you can kind of take that and and refine it some more and turn it into a more automated income stream for you. But those are kind of like some of the main milestones of validation as you go from the initial like, what’s my idea to like, OK, now I actually have this new income stream that’s part of my portfolio of income.

So that’s yeah, that’s the process.

I love that. And we’re talking of the privilege to talk to you as someone who’s been doing this for well over a decade. And you started when you were really young and you definitely have a reputation. And one thing that I heard and sometimes people are embarrassed to ask this, but I do sense from certain groups where people felt like, well, I don’t have Jason’s experience or credentials that well, I personally feel that way as well. And I feel hesitant to reach out to people to say, we’ll talk about anchor and in a second, whatever it may be.

Fifty dollars, one hundred dollars, especially during the pandemic. Another fortunate situation where there are a lot of people offering help for free or lowering their prices and that. How do you feel like do you feel like if people cannot collect any there isn’t any incentive, clear incentive from where people are unwilling to invest. And of course, that doesn’t yet exist. So people just give up or should they hit record anyway? They process that.

So there’s a couple of things. Yeah, if you are if you’re having a hard time selling the thing, if you get to that stage. So it could be two or three things that are wrong. I mean, you’re trying to get the three M’s message market and media match, right? So the message is actually to start with market market. Is the audience like so so if you’re having a hard time selling it, the first thing to ask yourself is how they chosen the right audience.

Like, are they aware enough of this of this pain or problem or desire and actively looking? And if they are you actually getting in front of that audience? Because sometimes people are marketing, but they’re not really landing the message in front of the right people. The next part of it is, is message. Right. And so that’s like, have you put the right offer in front of people with the right language that they will resonate with and see it as relevant to their particular problem or issue desire that they’re that they want to fix or accomplish.

So it’s worth it. If you’re having a hard time selling its worth, maybe you go back and talk to some more people. You need to adjust a little bit what the outcome is. I mean, ultimately what you’re looking for is that ideal audience and that ideal outcome that they want that you can help them achieve. And if one of those things are off, then the messaging and the offer are going to fall flat. Now you bring it to price and that could be part of the issue.

Usually that’s like the first thing people go is like, oh, well, I just need to lower the price. But I usually what I recommend, rather than just lowering your prices is so like you mentioned, with the pandemic and stuff, I think a lot of people did get nervous and started adjusting their prices because they were worried what people are going to want to spend money and but and there is some truth to that. But at the same time, really, what happened when quarantine, quarantine started hitting?

And like we go back to March when it started getting real for everybody around the nation, here around the world, is that everyone’s needs and priorities just shifted massively, literally overnight. Right. And so some of the income streams that my clients were selling no longer were as relevant anymore, maybe because they were doing it in person and nobody was booking in person stuff because of quarantine or whatever the case may be, that something just wasn’t as important. So what I told them all to do is we need to go back and do some more research and figure out like there are still plenty of urgent needs and priorities, in fact, maybe even more so for certain markets and in the certain places.

Right. So it’s about having that research. But most of all, the empathy for the audience that you’re trying to serve and the better you can understand their circumstances, the better you are going to be able then to dial in that right offer. So ask yourself, have chosen the right market? Am I getting in front of that market? Have I really chosen the right offer and message? And the last thing is media is just if you aren’t getting in front of them, maybe you need to try a different channel, right?

If you’re if you’re hanging on out on a certain messaging board and nobody’s responding, then maybe it’s like, OK, try a different channel, too. And often the goal is to get to where you have your own email list of people who you’ve earned their trust and they’re just following what you do because they enjoy the perspective that you offer. And then when you launch your course, they’re ready and willing and able to sign up. Obviously, the first time you sell the course, you’re going to have to pound the pavement a little more and maybe use your network or whatever the case may be, go to past clients or so those are some of the things you can do.

But you don’t want to just, like, scrap it immediately and you don’t want to I wouldn’t say just immediately drop drop the price. But you see, like, can you get a better message in. Cricket match there is is going to help.

Yeah, I love that message and something I just remembered, one of many tactics that you taught us during a workshop, one of which is to relating to our own stories and our own real authentic experiences. So one of the courses that I just launched and I decided to put an accelerator workshop on top of it, which we can explain in a second. But the idea is that I notice when I drop when I tell the world what I tell on social media that this is what I’m doing.

Hey, come check it out sometime. It’s not really the best way to go about it. I’m not saying that people should never do that. They should. But I also notice just if you relate to the reason why I created that. So in talking to you just now, I notice I’m going to post something new on Facebook, on LinkedIn to talk about all the pain points I lived through personally as a podcast or like the title. I can really see it.

I almost quit podcasting 10 times. I had the reason it was not really worth my time. I’m not that good at it. There are a lot of self doubt and looking at the wrong analytics and and busying ourselves and but I didn’t. And I think we’re really turned everything around is when I finally, after so many years of just contemplating getting help, I finally got help. My producer, my editor, my virtual assistant changed everything. And I know what I learned is, was I making a tremendous amount of money from advertising as a podcast or back then?

Absolutely not. But in retrospect, by paying not that that much money to get such quality help and knowing who to look for change everything. If I didn’t do that in twenty, twenty, sixteen, then again in twenty eighteen, I would absolutely regret it. Giving up. The one thing that I love the most is talking to people and to learn from them. So there’s, there’s that pain of not doing. I feel like these are kind of storytelling that I want to help people see something that they’re not seeing just yet.

That’s something I use that like maybe we were just a few steps ahead of people that we’re trying to help, right?

Yeah, people really undervalue their own experience sometimes. So when people are feeling trepidations about how am I going to put myself out there as an expert to help others to accomplish this thing? Well, if you’ve been through that thing, that trial, that challenge, that learning, that specific knowledge that has value to other people and there are billions of people on this earth today. Right. And you only need a small fraction of those people in order to help, in order to make an income stream and have an impact.

And there are going to be people who just resonate with who you are and your story and your way of going about it. And if you share like, hey, I used to be where you’re at and I know how it is, I struggled with this and this and this and I have these questions and I almost gave up because of that. They’re like, yeah, that sounds like me. So you’ve been through it, you understand it. And then that starts creating a trust and a resonance and and also credibility.

Right. And so when you’ve got that credibility and that trust and resonance, now you’ve got people who are going to be willing to say, yeah, I would like you to help me with this business goal, with this problem, with this issue.

Yeah, absolutely. And I I think about the idea of an accelerator for people who are new to this firm or it’s been there are a lot of confusing terms and there’s a marketing. But essentially the idea that you gather a group of people like a mini mastermind or like a founders club, where essentially for me, I’m walking people through the course, so giving them accountability, having building communities so that they can support each other, that was the intention that I had recently.

As I put it up, there’s a link in the comments. I’m going to check it out. But I definitely had the hesitation. I was I didn’t even get a chance to check in with you. Jason, I but I would love for you to honestly like to say this is a terrible idea or this has some those ideas and legs. I love to hear that, which is I has it. I was very hesitant to look at my course and say, OK, it’s pretty good quality.

This is one of my signature courses. Then I want people who are like, oh my God, where have you been in my life? I love this. I’m so glad I’ll give them free access just to test things out because I was working under a lot of pressure and on a deadline. So people came in. Some people would do a lot. There were engagement points are quite high, but some people are just like I can see they’re they’re not doing anything.

So I said, OK, this is self-paced and I’m going to start an accelerator workshop for four weeks in September and really get in the conversation, do the work that you’re just describing, like what’s their pain point? How can I how can I help them navigate different chapters like, oh, maybe Jason, you should start with Chapter five as opposed to one. Go there first and I can customize it for them. What what do you think of this idea in general for me, but also for other people who are not seeing a lot of traction?

Engagements and their courses, should they do something like this?

Yeah, I mean, if you. It certainly helps to be able to sell your thing if you have success stories already. And sometimes when you’re working on something new and if you don’t have it, if you haven’t built a platform into following you already trust you, then sometimes you just got to get some of that early proof and credibility. And so certainly having both for feedback, but then also just to hopefully get some success stories of people going through your system.

That’s where it can be worth it sometimes to go ahead and give it away for free. Your guide just coach. If you’re worried about that credibility, fine. Go find a couple of people to coach through it for free and get those results and get a testimonial from them. Just saying it’s like, hey, you know, it was fantastic. I was running into these problems and now here’s where I was before. And then I started working with Fey or whoever, and then afterwards it was then I got here.

So that’s it. And then also when I talked about the direct research, one reason why that’s important, not only to kind of like see what your market is really saying and wanting and enter that conversation already going on in their mind. But also I find that when people are in those early stages and kind of looking for that, that that OK to their idea and that confidence in their idea, when you’re listening to someone express their experience, you’re going to find as long as you’ve chosen an audience, you’re really excited about going finding you start getting like giving them answers to their questions.

And they’re expressing like here I’m struggling with this. I want to know how that in your mind, you don’t know how to help with that. So then that starts. I find that those conversations can actually be quite invigorating and give you fuel and confidence to then move forward with with your course. Because, you know, at this point, it’s like, OK, now I just really want to go and help these people I just talk to. So.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s how I that’s how I feel. I mean, I, I feel like a lot of what you said during the course and we’re trying to I mean you did it for eight, ten hours. I’m trying to I’m trying to distill the information I remember most clearly here. And but we definitely we have limited time. But one of the things that you brought up and we definitely through some really hard questions that you and one of them is the idea of selling tangibles versus intangibles.

I one of my mentors that I’m working with, literally could turn two dollars into twenty thousand dollars within a short period of time. This is not an investment you make and over the course of 12 months. But it’s something that he can repeat every 30 days. And and he works with clients on a retainer basis. And it just literally mind blowing to me. And I admit that that’s not really how I work with my clients. I can’t work with me.

Doesn’t mean you have a course or you have a we figure out how to make a YouTube channel thrive and all of a sudden you’re seeing five thousand dollars in the bank. I guarantee you, I I’m not doing that. So a lot of people are selling intangibles. What are some of the ways mindset shifts that people need to have and understand to get that message out?

So I’m just I’m actually coming down here to a worksheet that we use in that course that you that you took and early on, whatever that was, that you want to you don’t have to. Do you want to share that?

Oh, my screen. Sure.

Yeah, I want to make it co-host. Let’s see. I’m not done with them. Yeah.

OK, so. And hopefully we won’t be going to get Internet in my. Of course, things get slow once we do the.

I’m curious to see what it looks like live, but it should be displaying everything that you and I are are seeing, so, OK, so here we here we go. Find it. OK, so come down here to share screen. We’ve got two different screens here. That’s what I keep looking up and down. OK, I’ll share this one. OK, you see in that, there we go. Yep.

OK, so one of the things that have people thinking about when they’re so this is a positioning workbook and positioning is just about getting very clear about who you serve, how you serve them, why you serve them, because this is how this is a big part of your brand and how you’ll be perceived in the marketplace, how you want to be perceived in the marketplace. And I said earlier that you want to get very clear about who the ideal student or customer client is and get very clear about what the outcome is that you are delivering as a result of them working with you or taking your course.

Right. And we kind of go into this tangibles versus intangibles. And sometimes you can very clearly say, well, here are the results. It’s like you can follow my process. You stand to be able to save this amount of time or make this amount of money, or sometimes it is something very clear. You can point to that. But these are the types of things that people will pay for. So I have all my customers and clients who are putting together their own course think in these five areas about what are the outcomes you’re delivering and that’s results.

So what measurable results will you help them achieve and or transformation like afterwards? How are they going to be different or feel different? What changes? How is their life going to be different? Are they going to believe things differently about themselves or about the world relief? So it’s like what kind of mental, emotional or physical symptoms or pains or problems or dissonance are you going to help them get over capabilities? This is where you’re giving them skills, you’re giving them knowledge or maybe helping them connect with other people and opportunities.

So if you’re a career coach, by the end of working with you, hopefully there are new opportunities opened up to them in their career. They have new capabilities to to maybe interview or to go in and apply for jobs or to ask for a raise. And then the final one, which is which is very intangible, but perhaps actually the most important of all of them is what fundamental human needs are you fulfilling for that audience? And here’s a list of thirty four fundamental human needs that we all share.

But for your audience, in the course that you’re selling, it’s likely two or three of these are the ones that are the most motivating for them, know a need for belonging, a need for you to see a bunch of them. I hear a need for freedom or self-expression. So your course ultimately is helping them fulfill a handful of these needs. And you want to know what those are. So you can you can speak about them in the in the information about your course.

Oh, I was looking through the list. Makes me so happy or anything about like podcasting. And also, of course, creation is such a great it’s a part of self-expression. I don’t know why that resonated. Number thirty self-expression resonated with me so well, because I think in our traditional careers, that’s one thing that is lacking so much every day is you go to a meeting. Most people know they have to shut up and listen to like one or two people talk at the most.

Right. And you’re not like I remember leaving just leaving my job or just, well, still in it. And it’s hard to say, wait, who am I like? What do I care about? Like, what am I here for? What’s what what can I contribute? How can I be of contribution to other people’s lives? It’s very unclear. So. Yeah, thank you for sharing that, let people have a lot to offer, and it is normal to discount a lot of those things.

But again, your your experience, your knowledge, it has value to others. And those are some of the different forms, those five categories that that value takes. So just because you can’t point to like here’s the deliverable that I’m going to hand to you by the hour that you’re going to have in hand by the end of this thing doesn’t mean that there’s not value inherent in what you’re going to teach, teach them and offer them.

There’s a lot of people probably feeling very positive right now. But I also would like to welcome invite you to maybe share some of the challenges or maybe even common mistakes that early cause makers are making, because you have access to a lot more people than what I could witness. What are some of the things that come to mind?

So one of the biggest mistake that people make is not getting very clear about who that ideal audiences and doing the research to figure out what that outcome really is, what the value really is that they offer, because people are buying your course, they’re buying what they’re going to have by going through the course. You know, they’re not buying your time. They’re buying what your time is going to afford them having by the time they’re done working with you. Right.

So getting very clear about those things early on, that’s a big mistake. If you don’t do that, that’s where you’re going to put something on the marketplace and have it fall flat. The other thing, big mistake is that I see people just take way too long to get something out to the marketplace. So we’ve talked about how you can get something very quickly. You can even sell it before you have the whole thing created and in fact, keep it very simple the first time around and just sell a pilot version of, of course.

So you don’t we don’t want is to have six months go by and you’re still perfectionist loops or, you know, the technology is hanging up or, you know, you’re still trying to finish a whole bunch of videos and you still haven’t even proven if people want to buy it or not, because that’s just opportunity lost for you. Like every month it just keeps going by your money, lost people that you know that you would have helped. That’s lost to you as well.

So that’s why I really encourage people to get something to market fast. I’ve sold workshops for three thousand dollars that it was basically a series of Zoom calls within the recordings and some Google Docs put on a Google Drive. And all of that was emailed to people after each different session. Right. So very basic, not fancy at all. But people again, they were paying for the value of the workshop, not the fact that it was in some polished, of course.

Then later I took that information, made a more polished course out of it. But still, people happily paid that three thousand dollars to be part of that workshop because of the value delivered to them, despite the fact it was all just Zoom and Google Drive is how it was delivered. Right. So I was able to go from idea to getting that people signing up for that within about three or four weeks at that point by keeping it very simple.

And, you know, you talk about the transformation, the shifts, and I’m sure you’ve probably made mistakes on your own as well. But for you to be able to condense and convey that information, then this this is worth it. What have you learned from your own experience? Like how what made you or helped you choose the content or the course that you were creating and what so I’m kind of just really curious. Hmm.

Yeah. So, I mean, the courses that I teach, I always first I mean, again, it always starts with the audience. And so I love working with people who have ideas that they want to get out in the world. Part of that is because I’m a very curious person and I love learning about all the different ideas. You know, you’ve got a very fascinating history that I’ve learned about recently and I’ve learned about your mom and the paintings behind.

And like that stuff is just like interesting to me. Right. And I get to work with lots of different people who have interesting stories and ideas and things that they’ve done, and they just want to get those things out in the world. Right. So that’s one of the things. So that’s choosing that audience is a big thing that drives me. But then I also encourage my my clients and students to think about, you know, what is the vision of the world that you want to contribute to and create in the future?

Like what is the purpose that’s driving this for you? And I have a vision of helping more. I think of it as like Spotify has become a big thing. And one thing that we love about Spotify, I think, is not only just that, it’s just like anything is on demand for us. Right. And then also, if you love music, you can discover like that specific style or artists you just like that you wouldn’t normally 20 years ago, you probably wouldn’t have even known about or had access to.

Right. Same thing. When people are going online and more of them are, especially during covid, looking for help, looking for information, looking for perspective, looking for belonging around a particular area of their life. What’s amazing is now the Internet in the last 10, 15 years allows them to find that one specific person who can best serve them because of that person’s story. Or so what I’m saying is like there are people out there who would love to hear from Faye, her perspective on podcasting or any other online media and how to use that.

Right. Because of your story, because of your back and how they resonate with you. And so it’s, you know, being clear about that. That audience helps them, first of all, resonate with you, but then also being willing to share your own story and vision of the future. So I believe that I’m. Helping to create kind of this like Spotify of expert effect, like I help all these people get their messages and their stories out in a bigger way, and that just helps solves more problems and helps more people and populations in the world by empowering all these experts that have something to share.

So hopefully that’s answering the question, but that’s like some of my motivation behind what I do. And I always encourage my clients to understand their motivations of at the same similar level.

I love the metaphor. You should totally implement that on your website because you are a musician. And to relate to that, by the way, are you like a guitarist or are you a guitarist? Oh, wow, fantastic. I love that metaphor to have access to different people and I think must be really satisfying to you as well as an entrepreneur. So you’re not exclusively facing not just an author, but an author within a certain age and you cannot help anybody else.

So really, I feel like I find this part of your career to be really envious, too. And the last time before we were we came on Lifestream, you mentioned the Pivot’s that you’re making to your business, which a lot of people don’t talk about. I’m I love when entrepreneurs share their pivots. And for you, could you share maybe with us where you know where you’re potentially going next and what you like to do and how this community can help you?

Yeah, I mean, it’s very natural as you go on as an entrepreneur to have these moments of shift or pivot. It might be within the same business because the market has shifted or now you’re going you’ve hit a plateau. And to go to the next level, you’re going to need to pivot or shift things or how you’re doing things. Or what happened with me most recently, a few years ago is that I’ve been doing my the Internet Business Mastery podcast business, the one that allowed me to go on living in Paris for a year.

I’d been doing that for like a dozen years and I was just ready for some some changes. And so a couple of things when I kind of looked introspectively like, what do I need to change? Because I’m feeling a little bit atrophy here. Essentially, no one was I wanted to shift market, so I’d been working in a specific market that I would call kind of like the beginner entrepreneur, aspirational business opportunity market. So, you know, a lot of people like I don’t like my job, can you help me get out of my job by starting a business?

And that’s great. It was like it was really about we want to help you find freedom from your lifestyle. But then after a while, like I I started just wanting to I found myself drawn when I thought about it, I what I was really passionate about was helping people who had ideas. They really felt compelled to get out there. And I was still teaching and helping entrepreneurship, digital marketing, things like that. But I wanted to work with the academic who had written two books and was teaching at graduate school.

But now one of their ideas to go beyond academia or do the speaker who who wanted other income because speaking gigs gets tiring traveling or covid happens and now you’re not speaking or so people who are really good at what they do, but they just need help getting it out there in a bigger way. And my knowledge and expertize doing this for 15 plus years would be invaluable to them. And again, for the reasons I said earlier, I love working with people like that, with ideas.

So it’s a shift in audience. The other thing is that my last business was like everything was purely digital courses, which is great. I mean, of course that gave me a lot of latitude in my free time because people could buy my courses at any time in the middle of the night when I’m sleeping there on the other side of the world, they go through it at their own pace. But I discovered I was really missing more interaction with the people I worked with that I feel like I’m really fulfilled and shine when I’m regularly interacting with the audience that I that I serve.

And so I do a lot more workshops now. It’s still one to many so that it’s leveraged for my time. But for instance, you were part of a workshop where 30 people were there. And so it’s kind of like the lift ride share, right? It’s like if the guy has the Lyft driver has one person in the car, that car is only making money off of one person. But when it’s like three people doing the ride share.

Now, that car in that time is making money off of three people. Well, you know, when I’ve got 30 people in a workshop, I’m making more money for my time than if I were just working with one person during that time. Even if I even if one person was paying me more money, I still end up getting in aggregate paid more. So that was a shift that I that I made to is just doing more. Live facilitated courses for my fullfillment, I also felt like I could get the kind of results for people I wanted that way.

You know, I still make digital courses now and again, but it’s just I’m a big fan of knowing, like, where do you shine in your unique genius, your strengths, what fulfills you and choose those channels and a business model that’s really going to fit that for you so that for many years to come, as you’re building your legacy in your business and your income, it’s just you’re consistently fueled and driven by the vision that you’re creating.

I mean, just in case people are watching, this will be an ideal currently will be an ideal client or a group of people that you’re looking for that I work with. Yeah.

So, I mean, it’d be it’d be I, I work with a lot of existing coaches and consultants who have basically hit a ceiling because they’ve taken as many clients on as they can. Right. And so now they want to help and serve and more people. So they’re looking for other ways to do that. So I’m helping them translate their expertize online or a lot of times I work with like authors and speakers, like I said, like a lot of people write books and then they have this amazing book.

But now they’re like, OK, how does this book make me money? Like the books, not a business model. It’s a great calling card. It’s a fancy business card. But now how do I take that and turn it into income streams? Like that’s an ideal person for me to work with. Or similarly, like a speaker who they’re tired of, of speaking to all the traveling and everything like that. So now they are looking for other ways to to make income because it really, Mac, they’re really maxed out the sea.

Let’s another example. I mean, I worked with a lot of academics who, again, so it’s like people who want to expand their reach. They have some channel that they’re so whether it’s speaking their books or teaching at a university or whatever the case may be. And so they just want to reach people in another way. So then I help them translate their expertize into content online that will reach a broader audience and help them build their social media following and help them build their email list so now they can reach and impact more people.

And then they also have this audience that’s that’s built in audience that puts them more in control of their own career. Right. They’re not dependent on the conferences that book them to speak. They’re not dependent on their book publisher, who’s probably not doing much to actually market their book. They’re not dependent on the university that they that they work for. Right. So that’s what I mean, those are some of the people that I work with now.

Yeah, I love that. But I know we were a little bit over time. You’re good to speak to. Try for a few more minutes before we have just a few more minutes. Yeah.

OK, cool. Yeah. So this is a super helpful I definitely see some overlapping themes between the work we’re doing, but at the same time I just feel like it’s so, it’s just so wonderful to be able to learn from people who are ahead of me and who I consider as mentors and colleagues. And as I mentioned before, I I’m currently working with a number of authors and speakers, more authors and speakers right now. And a lot of them were senior executives.

And like you said, I do see book publishing or book as a content, as a calling card to them is at the center of their ecosystem, for me has always been YouTube based on these different platforms. But I finally kind of turn things upside down and trying to look at it from a from an angle that they’re they’re considering. So I agree with all this, everything you said, even I have a lot of friends in Cirque de Soleil as well.

I know it’s a thing right now given the pandemic, but that’s something I always trying to convince my friends to see that I know that’s not a permanent solution. Your name is not know your character name is. What if you get injured your way? So I think a lot of people in the industry could definitely see the benefit of branching out and an understanding again back to building different revenue streams.

So to sum it all up, this really comes down to what I call the three P’s, and these are areas I work with people in and that’s positioning platform and product and all of these things, they they give you more security. They put you more in control of your future. Positioning is about that personal brand and having a very strong personal brand that you are known for what you know or what you do in a marketplace. It’s a more opportunity to show up for you or you more readily can sell your expertize and the product piece that’s being able to sell that expertize or your skills in a variety of ways.

That portfolio thing we are talking about earlier and in between that platforms, a positioning platform product platform is not to be being dependent on major media outlets or just your book or just the university to be seen to be heard, but showing up regularly online so that for that audience, that positioning that you want, you’re reaching a maximum of them as possible, given whatever time and energy you have to put into getting your ideas out there. And when you have those three things in place, you’re reaching more people.

You’re you’re making money in a variety of ways. You have a more secure, consistent income going on. And then when you. You want to launch or create or do something new, whether that’s for profit or nonprofit, something that matters to you want to get a message out in the world, you’ve got all of these resources at your avail available to you in order to amplify those those things. So, yeah, it really is a powerful thing to create for yourself in this day and age, a personal brand in that way that then ends up with this business model around that.

And I would say even somebody who’s working in corporate as a professional, it still behooves you to have a personal brand as a person who is known for this thing. Employers, they want to see that you go when you do an interview, guaranteed they’ve searched for you online. And if they see all of these articles you’ve created or that you’ve done these different things, are you really understand as such and such audience, they’re going to be like, awesome, this person’s going to be great.

They’re going be that much more likely to want to hire you. So I’d say in this day and age, it’s becoming know necessary really to have that positioning in that platform in different ways that you make money off of your expertize, having those three things in place.

Absolutely. I love the clarity here. And for anybody want to learn more about his work, I’ve included his website, his social media links, all in the description just to make it super easy so he doesn’t have to spell it live here.

So, I mean, can I show that that worksheet earlier and I’d like to give people something they can really dig into and apply. Yeah, just checking. I want to give them something they can actually download and if they want to start thinking about. But I want to make sure I give the right to the right anywhere else. So I’m just double checking it here really quickly. So. I should have checked this before, it’s been so long since I set this one up, I’ve already forgotten.

So I have this thing called the lean launch method and it basically goes through, OK, Eileen, launch method downloads. So it’ll guide you through that process of getting a pilot out. It helps you think about the audience, the outcome. And then there’s two other critical pieces that we don’t have time to get into, but two of the critical pieces of an online course and helps you think about both of those. And then it gives you a case study of how I did that three thousand dollar workshop from idea to launch in like three or four weeks.

So if you go to lean launch method download, that’ll give some people something actionable. I’m really into frameworks and people being able to fill out in the blanks or ask questions of the genius out of their mind. And that’ll be a good start for people to dig into.

This is wonderful. I just left it in a comments and I’m going to go ahead and go back to all the sources where we’re publishing this and make sure I include that link as well. Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks. Absolutely. My pleasure. So thank you so much for joining me, Jason. It’s been such a pleasure chatting with you, learning even more from you. So thank you so much. I hope you will do this again.

So we love chatting with you. So it’s been great. Thank you.

This episode of the First World podcast is brought to you by Fey’s World LLC, our marketing service agency created for independent creators and businesses. We offer website development, video production, marketing, mentorship to people who want to tell better stories, level up and create a profitable brand phasor podcast team. Our chief editor and producer, Herman Silvio’s associate producer, Adam Lefort, social media and content manager, Rosta Leon transcript editor Allena Almodovar. And lastly, myself, the creator and host of Face World.

Thank you so much for listening.