Uncommon Advice
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Uncommon Advice
Pop-Up Podcast Strategy, Creating Million Dollar Newsletters, Business Impacting Life
This episode's journey starts at a Sneaker Expo, where we set up a unique podcast pop-up booth, and it ends with a deep dive into the world of building and monetizing newsletters. Nate gives us invaluable insights into generating income through newsletters and affiliate marketing.
The discussion doesn't stop there - we also share our unique experiences of working in different environments, examining the benefits and drawbacks of remote work versus the traditional office setup. We delve into the nuances of digital nomadism, the importance of a stable workspace and the integral role that a company's culture plays. On a more personal note, we share insights into the importance of hiring the right people, ensuring a productive work environment, and the necessity of taking time away from work to prevent burnout.
We wrap up the episode by drawing upon our own experiences of building successful businesses. We reflect on the importance of being a better leader, delegating tasks effectively, maintaining focus on the company's mission, and learning from mistakes. We hope that our experiences and the insights from Nate will inspire and equip you with the knowledge you need to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey. Tune in for a blend of unique tales, valuable insights, and practical advice.
If you want the Uncommon Advice that it takes to build a profitable lifestyle business then subscribe to my newsletter at https://natekennedy.com
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And it's funny. Even step back on the why we have an office like people walk in to and like, oh man, this is nice. You know we always get a lot of comments and it's funny We will have, like the football coaches come in sometimes for some meetings. Like, what do you do? You know, what are you just doing here? So I think it's. You know, having a nice space also also is you're trying to attract local people. Stands out compared if you're a local company saying, oh, you're gonna work virtual. We had a big weekend this weekend. We did something really uh new to An industry that we're trying to break into, so i'm excited about talking about that today. Welcome back to another episode of uncommon advice. So we're going to talk about some really, really unique stuff today, so i'm excited for this episode.
Speaker 2:See, i mean, yeah, no, this weekend was fun. This weekend was fun. And my favorite part of this whole weekend is just getting there and everybody being so amazed of us doing that, them being like We've never seen this before. Well, who came up with this idea? and actually one guy asked who came up. I'm like You see that guy over there with the blue shirt, no hair Yeah, that's him. He, that's that's what we call the godfather. And he started laughing And um, but yeah, no, we'll get into it more. But it was really cool to see the support that we got From that crowd of saying of people saying like we've never seen this before. This is actually really cool And people actually wanted to come up and do the interviews. So we'll get into here more.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so I mean, in our million dollar audience segment here, let's dive in. So I think we are going to trademark it. The podcast pop up. I don't know, maybe they're happening elsewhere, but we, uh, so one of our brands, sports bread, that we just recently started building out as we enter into new segments in the media company sports being a big one that we're tackling and Sports bread in its infant stages We've talked about it on a previous podcast that we're kind of kicking it off And what we're doing. We're trying to figure out a way to curate a lot of content for that industry. So sports bread is really the sports culture around sports. We've got some news updates that we do. Uh, we've got some shoe stuff that we're doing, some fashion and that and gaming. That's all you know, the the culture of around sports, not just news, but gaming, shoes, fashion, that kind of stuff, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly Yeah and uh. This weekend I mean just jumping into it this weekend We saw some great things. That was a good event that we went to. We went to on a couple weekends ago just to see the field was the first one we've ever been to as a A brand, trying to figure it out and see what's out there, and we went to this one. We had a whole setup. I actually didn't know how it's going to go because I've never seen something like this, right, um, and I've only I haven't really been. The sneaker exit was the second sneaker show I've ever been to, but, um, just seeing like I said, it's just seeing the feedback we got. Like everybody was like, oh wow, we like this is like nobody, nobody's ever done this before. And these people are people who have been to these sneaker cons and sneaker exits, which are some of the biggest uh trades out there. But really I want to give a shout out to uh, what was it called sneaker expo for?
Speaker 1:allowing the Social sneaks expo.
Speaker 2:Yeah for allowing us to get that setup. Yeah, i mean, they gave us a good spot. We got that setup, but let's jump into it on how it worked. So we got there was actually an idea, um, that we were talking about. We went to the sneaker exit and we're like What can we do different? How do we create content instead of just doing what everybody's doing, of just walking around and asking questions and Going to tables and conversation? We're like how can we stand out or how can we be that that different, that different differentiator in the, in the, in the, in the world of Of the sneaker culture, in the fashion, in the sports? and we're like, oh, why don't we just set up a podcast booth, basically, instead of everybody's gonna have tables of shoes, why don't we just set up a booth? And we did, and as we were setting up, people were already coming. Oh, when can we interview? I remember people literally just coming up to me Can I be next? I was like I got like two people in front of you, you got to give me and just going back and forth. But that was cool, but it was a conversations you have with some of these people.
Speaker 2:We were talking to people from very young age. I I met a guy that was just got into college But was playing junior colleges at d2 and this is how he makes some cash flow to keep things going. I talked to a kid that was 13. I talked to guys that are not even resellers there. They're just the guy just loves it since, like what he said, 1990 something He's been loving shoes and he has a huge collection. Then I talked to guys that has a barbershop and no, and owns a clothing line and owns a sneaker. So it's like you've met so much and you had so much conversation and to hear how all these people Come from different backgrounds or have different ways and different and different wise on what they're doing it for. So I think that event was actually I.
Speaker 1:I found it very successful, so I think so we had a lot of great conversations, but let's let's step back to what we did right a little bit.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:So we, the problem we had is The problem we were trying to solve is we wanted to create a lot of content. We wanted to Do it in an environment that was different. We had been to the sneaker exit a couple weeks back, which is a bigger, bigger one. That was at the charlotte convention center. They travel around the us And they do these conventions and all these different sneaker shoes companies come in, clothing lines come in and they set up boost, and so we went to that. We recorded some content and went well, and then we're like the next one came up. We're like let's, we're not really, we're not selling shoes, we're not selling clothing, and you know. So we weren't there. We were there more to kind of just Experience it on the first one. And then this one was like I, when we started looking at the cost to set up a booth, it wasn't Really that crazy. It was like 160 bucks and that came with four tickets, right, and for us, vip tickets to get in early gets set up, and they ended up The way that we broke in because we weren't sure, like really, if they wanted us to do it or not, right.
Speaker 1:So so we reached out to the people running the show and we said hey look, we're coming there to create content, we're going to create content and we'll give you clips when we've got them done. We'll send you the content as well, so you guys can have it. And they're like all right, sweet, come on in, man. They, they rolled out the red carpet for us, they set us up and they gave us a, an option of a perfect spot, right when everyone's walking in so they see us. And so that week, all within a week and this key is one key with this is execution, right. Exactly So, when you're running a business, execution matters, because ideas are great, execution wins.
Speaker 1:And we decided to do this. And so the team just deployed everyone's like all right, what do we got to get done? and everyone was working on the common goal. So we got banners ordered to have a backdrop. We figured out, you know, we got some turf to land off to make it look like a field, like. So ash and z, you know, and and mcayla here in the office, they all kind of ran with it, which was really awesome, but what we did, anyways, we go back to this the social sneaker dot. Social sneaks dot expo. And as we were there we. So we end up reaching out, we set up and we basically rent a booth and set up a podcast studio at this event, yep, and so we, the exposure that we got and just that community was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:So eight or nine interviews Walk around content people wondering like who the heck we are. So we had the qr code up there so they could scan it. Z built out a whole giveaway page. So there was it was. The goal of it was It was doing something different that has not been done, that we have seen done or Notice was being done and that got validated by everybody coming to us saying, wow, we've not seen this before. So when you're building million dollar audiences, how can you break into the environment? How can you create content? How can you do something unique That will help you grow your audience, help you build what you need to, but also get the content to You know, unique content that your audience is going to want?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean our goal was get the unique content, but we also grew our subscriber lists, our newsletter subscriber lists. We grew our following And I think the biggest thing that I again We keep saying it was the curveball was the difference, because all these people probably have been interviewed before. But they get that walk up, right, they people walk up to get a mic, not so, but we were different. We actually had these people where they sit down. They had the cameras on them. They're like they felt important.
Speaker 2:I felt like at that moment, like when you sit down and you're being interviewed, you're feeling important, right, when someone calls you over, hey, i want you to sit down with us, we're gonna ask you. It's like you're feeling important, man, this, this feels awesome and a lot of people were saying it. So I think the biggest takeaway of all of it is, yes, audience and everything, but To do all this you always have, don't try to go do what everybody else is doing. We, we. That's what we didn't do and I think that's what helped us work with our success here.
Speaker 1:Well, it helped too that we don't really aren't some reselling sneakers and in the correct game. But Uh, what is one thing you would have done different?
Speaker 2:You know, looking back to it, we we've spoken it already on some things. Right, we're not saying we hit it right off the bat with the home run, like there's stuff that we can definitely done better. I think something we would have done different is Schedule it out a little more, because there was a lot more people who wanted to Jump into the interview and wanted to do more with us. Um, we ran out of time basically, and some of them wanted to do it like a closing, and when you're there basically all day And you're talking to everybody, you don't want, when you're what, it's time to wrap up, you don't start wanting doing interviews. Um, you're gonna be tired. But I think it's just scheduling better, getting these people to try to get in more people, because I think we could have, but we just ran out of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think. So we had a pretty good kind of setup, uh, i mean With cameras and mics, and we had just like. We had to figure all that out during the week. Well, how do we, how do we make sure there's always music playing to these? How do we make sure we get good audio, good video And and be able to leverage that content? So I think you know with you right on, it's like getting stuff scheduled out. I think Making one thing that we did that we could have done better is we did not All the marketing that I've done over all the years and I realized that as soon as we set up the booth, we didn't have one single call to action. We had no offer and we had no call to action when we were there, we, you know, we could have used the banners to say, hey, you know we to promote the free giveaway.
Speaker 2:We had an offer, we just Yeah, we didn't.
Speaker 1:you couldn't see it unless you talked to us about it. So we could have done a better job with our copy on creating the offer to get people to engage, because a lot of people walk by Just looked at us. Not everyone pulled out their phone into qr code So I would have done a much better job. A better call to action to scan the qr code To get them to the giveaway page, to grow the subscriber base. That's one thing I think we improved. But Other and all man, it was a great. All in all is a great. First, i think podcast pop up Sports spread.
Speaker 2:So Nate said hey, you guys ready, we're going to go to the big one in Miami. We're like whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1:No, not yet That would that?
Speaker 2:that would be, that would be hectic. I'll definitely we need a little couple more of these, a couple more small, medium sized ones before We go. Take a big boy like that, but no, i guess we're not going bigger. Go home, i mean. Yeah, i mean go big or go home, yes, but I think, uh, the go big here, just that one itself, not being nowhere near as big as what like a snager con will bring to the table, was like a lot already. So imagine like trying to do one where there's like hundreds of thousands of people and not just thousands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and at that point then you got a bigger camera crew, yeah, more stuff going on. I think you know we probably You know me even more than the the mevo's and stuff that we got rolling, but, uh, but it worked out. Man, it's sometimes the you know it's. It's fun having you know that that makes shift flow. So so that the rules are center. The next thing so sports at sports spread online, sports spreadcom You guys want to see, follow along with our journey as we build that out and see how that evolves Is you want to learn how to build audiences. You want to learn how to, you know, manage newsletters.
Speaker 2:Head on over there and check that out Now let's get in before you say that, and there's also a giveaway. You guys can also sign up for the giveaway, though giveaways just not for people who are in the sneaker culture, all that's. If you like shoes, i mean, and I think everybody does, because we all wear them Just sign up, you just can go. You can go to our social media and go to our website, just sign up. All it takes is putting your email and you'll be into the giveaway.
Speaker 1:So, absolutely, and then uh, so that rolls right into behind the marketing, and one thing I wanted to do today is Talk about a framework, the framework of building out your own newsletter. So there's a process to it. It's a similar process. We went through a sports brand, we went through financial maverick other brands We've talked about on here. So I wanted to give that framework To you as one of our listeners, so you have the ability to go out and start researching this yourself. Build out your own. If you want, message me. If you got information on, you want to learn more info as well. So, um, the the first part and it's four part framework right? So the first part is Are you going to offer your own product and service Or are you going to be an affiliate that offers An affiliate is offers allows other people's products and service to be promoted in your newsletter, right?
Speaker 1:so When I first got in the marketing space, i always had the product And when I first got actually I take that back when I first got in, it was affiliate products. My second launch was my own product and for years that I've owned product Built, the agency came back. You guys, you know all that story, but this, what we do is selling other people's products, right, correct. So for us, there's two ways of going about it. If you have your own products and services and you want to generate more customers Long term, build a newsletter out and then always promote your products and services inside of there. But when you have that audience, there's also another revenue stream a lot of these people don't use and that is selling other people's products. And that is how we generate revenue with our media company is other people pay to get access To our audiences. So you got to first determine What do you want, right?
Speaker 2:right. But, nate, real quick, before we keep jumping into it. Not sure if you want me to speak on it, but I know you're in the works on something to help the audience actually have a written copy of some of the stuff that you're talking about, which is your book I know you're working on. So if you guys, we're gonna talk about it here, but that book, that Nate's writing that book right there itself, you know million-dollar audiences, that's a million-dollar book basically.
Speaker 1:So there's ways we can work on it but Not to be mistaken with Mike Fowler, who owns million-dollar books.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Correct there you go, but yeah, nate, to go into it. So yeah, like Nate said, we do a lot of work with both and it's interesting to see it right Because I feel like there's benefits into it. Right? If I was a product or service, i would probably go to a company. If I was, let's say, i'm selling shoes, clothes, i would go to a company. I won't go to any company too, right? You gotta know your audience where you're going. You can't just come to us because our newsletter audience might not be what it is for you, but I will go to a company like us because I don't feel you're not gonna go out there. You're not spending 20 grand on Facebook ads. I feel that it's very cost-effective. But then, in the other sense of what you just said, of building the frame of having people, what do you say? having people like us? that's how we generate revenue. It's not as easy as it seems, though, because you gotta build these audiences first to get engaged. You can't really try to sell in a 5,000-person audience.
Speaker 1:That's like correct me if I'm wrong there. Yeah, well, i think so. We'll get into that, right, and that's part of the framework. But you can, if you're looking to, if you own your product and service, you can go out to companies such as us and actually buy advertising space, assuming we have a brand that has your customers and your kind of perfect customers within it. Right, so you can definitely do that and it's a great way to start. But if you have your own products and brands, you can also create your own newsletter just to keep people up to date on what's going on inside the company, inside the brands, inside the industry that you're in. Right, become a curator. So you can do both And you can work in both of those angles, right.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 1:Now, with that, though, product, so determine what kind of how do you wanna monetize and make money? Because business is great, but business without money is not great. So I mean, it's a simple mathematical equation, but there's different ways to make money in this, in this I would say Correct, like industry or way of media.
Speaker 2:You have your CPAs offer. You have you can do. I know we've done a little bit of some CPCs. We do what we do now some of this revenue. So there's different ways to create money, but which one would you say is the most sustainable way?
Speaker 1:So you know, each way of generating revenue becomes has its own challenges. Mm-hmm, i we have done. I think it depends on the niche that you're in. So, for example, in our political space, a lot of that stuff is CPM, so they're just paying X amount for a newsletter to be sent for them with their information right.
Speaker 1:The way that we're tackling attacking the financial space is the opposite of that, though Correct. We're going where customers and clients are paying us on a cost per lead basis. So we're building relationships with companies that pay a very nice fee to send them a lead, and so a good size of a lead. So what we are doing in that avenue is monetize. we are now monetizing traffic as well arbitrage in traffic. They know that they can't get all the leads, so we build our brand, our financial brands being built, and we're going to send them our customers as well. They're going to pay us. you know we got stuff that's pays $5 cost per click. So if we send them a click, we get paid five bucks. We got stuff. if they fill out a web form, they pay us up to $150, right? So there's a big range of how you monetize it and that's performance marketing, right? So we're moving the financial side, we're moving more into that realm. So every industry's a little bit different and it's what works best for you.
Speaker 2:Zach. So that was the next question I was going to ask is what would you recommend for someone who is they don't have these 150,000 big subscribers. What would you recommend for them to start?
Speaker 1:Yeah, i mean you can, just, as you're growing it, do it as a affiliate. Okay, so a CPA model or cost per lead, cost per sale. Do it in that avenue to start, as you grow, and then you'll have a couple of advertisers. As you continuously grow your newsletter, you got a couple of advertisers that you can consistently convert for you, and so you just rotate them out throughout the weeks as you. But the key is that you're growing your newsletter, you're adding new subscribers. So I would start in that realm, because what can happen then from there is those advertisers will eventually buy. You can go to them when you're sending an X amount of volume and say, hey, let's cut a CPM deal.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. We get into it a lot here and growing, building these million dollar audiences. But how do you grow it Like, how do you get? well, let me just put it this way I don't know if you want to spill all the beans yet, but what would be some recommendations for someone who wants to do this? so what do they start to grow the subscriber base.
Speaker 1:Well, one you can. So there's a couple of news. I'll give you guys one example that you can go out and do So. There's been quite a few newsletters right now that have grown off the back of Twitter, so what they do is they go on Twitter, they post about their topic and everything else that they're doing, and they become content creators on Twitter, and then they drive people back into their newsletter. So that's a very fast way that you can do that, and what's really good about that, though, is you under so the second step of the framework. So we've got four steps to it, right. So we covered the product and affiliate. Now we got research audience, and the research audience and content, right.
Speaker 1:So Twitter, if you're gonna go that route, will allow you to test messaging, see what's getting engaged with as you grow it, communicate with others in the space to bring that engagement back to you and then know what kind of content they engage with, so you can start plugging that into your newsletter. So, in researching, what does your audience actually want to hear and want to engage with, right? So as you research that audience, you wanna figure that out. Do they wanna talk about the overall arching, like financials kind of. There's a wide range of financial stuff, right, so we can talk housing, we can talk crypto, we can talk equities right. There's so many different things that you can get into in the financial market, and there's newsletters that are specific to each one of those as well, so you can get into, decide who your customer is, what is it they want to learn about and engage with, and how you're gonna be the curator and the content creator for them, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean, we ran into it. Last week we had a meeting with this one company where they basically have a specific what we do we call a CPA. When we had that meeting where you can, if you have a specific let's say, you are a home mortgage company and you wanna build a newsletter on just mortgage they have offers that you can put into your newsletters to generate that small income of revenue or big income you never know, right. So yeah, that's pretty cool. But research, research we talked about it earlier.
Speaker 2:One thing that I always think about when we talk into research is, i think some of the biggest failures in marketing is when people go after not the audience, not the what would you say the like, the consumer, not the people that are interested. You don't find the interested people, right. So let's say you have a financial offer but you're throwing in sportswear or you're throwing in cooking, like that's not where your audience end up for your newsletter. Like you gotta stick to what it is. If you wanna build a cooking newsletter, build a cooking newsletter, build something different and just move them over, like we've done plenty of times. So researching, i think, is really important to be able to grow with this because, if not, you're just gonna continue. It's not going to perform for you and it's a killer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you gotta research, you gotta dive in and you gotta ask, right? So one thing that we do in our stuff is we have polls. Oh, the polls allow them to engage and for us, you know, there's a whole, whole training I do back in the day polls to profits, like leveraging. Polls generate revenue, and it's the polls in themselves are getting the engagement that you need, And also not only just engagement that you want in your newsletter, but it also gives you a pulse on what they like and what they don't like, what they wanna learn about all that stuff, right?
Speaker 1:So super easy way to get them involved. So, after you go, so not only do you have your research on the front and you have your consistent research while you're writing your newsletter and sending your newsletter out, right? And then after that, it's talk about design, right, because once you figure out who you want to, who you're gonna build your newsletter around, or in, frankly, it could be a topic that you love talking about that you build your newsletter around as long as but be careful, make sure there's a large enough audience. That's as weird as you to talk about that all the time. So when you put it out there, they are paying attention and you can grow that audience right.
Speaker 2:I think I've been one of the biggest ones to run to design issues. I designed, probably think three or four, and the last one I designed was a military one we're working on and Nate looks at the screen, goes what is up with that green? And it just didn't go well. Like I got what he was saying. I'm not a designer, i throw it in there, but I've designed a couple. I think my best one was actually financial Maverick. For right as of now, financial Maverick has been the best newsletter I designed.
Speaker 1:It was your first one, dude. You're home run.
Speaker 2:My home run and then everything else has got a down. But designing is important. It is important, and it's not just designing, but it's the way you lay the stuff out. Right, because Nate's taught me a lot of. You got to lay out what people first catch interesting in the beginning. Right, because if they catch it interesting, they'll keep working their way down.
Speaker 2:And some of the things that I was doing is I was probably putting some of the lamest stuff that I thought was interesting, but when Nate looked at it, he's like, hey, our audience won't find that interesting at the top And we corrected it and we fixed it And yeah. So I think for me, my biggest issue that I can probably say and a lot of people will run into it if they're trying to do this is the layout of it is knowing what needs to be at top and what doesn't. And, nate, how do you I know you know your audience very well, so how'd you figure out, like, this is what I need to put here and this is what I got to leave at the bottom?
Speaker 1:I kind of look at it is. A lot of times. If it's a newsletter that I'm interested in, i look at it on how one, two ways right, two things Like. One is I've been in the direct response marketing space and I've been sending emails since 2000. I think I sent my first one in 2007. I actually believe it was right is when I first started getting emails. So I've sent a lot of emails over the years and tested different stuff and had copywriters and written it myself and done newsletters, done just direct response emails, so like I've done a bunch of it. So I think it's the years of experience It's kind of helped me with that.
Speaker 1:But then sometimes too, i look through the lens of like how, how would I like to read this, does it, and does it look good? Does it look good on mobile, does it look good on desktop? And so integrating some direct response principles to get them to engage. And we talked about micro commitments, right. And in a newsletter, article one, article two, right. So you know there's that side of it, the direct response side. But it's also looking at what do I think would be engaging when I get it in my email and read, you know, through that newsletter.
Speaker 1:So, and then, on top of that, another way is another way for you to go look at it is chances are you will not be the first person to create a newsletter and audience in the niche that you want to go in It's what you focus on expands. I'll never forget, like how many times, like many, many times, i have gone in, like created this. I'm like I'm going to go create this, it's going to be amazing, everyone's going to want it. And then I'm like, all of a sudden, i'm like I've not seen anyone do it. And then, all of a sudden, because I'm so focused on it, i'm like, oh wait, this person's doing it. Oh wait, this person's doing it.
Speaker 2:Everyone's doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you start seeing it right. What you focus on expands. So I think, design wise, when you go out there, you can start seeing what other people in that industry are doing and how they're laying things out. A lot of times you'll find people are just half assing it and they're not doing a very good job of it, and you can make it better, correct, right.
Speaker 2:So another, this, another, this is out there like we're not another. This is like costs, like doesn't none of this costs a lot of money, like where we run our stuff is like we can design it itself. It's very user friendly. You just maybe you just have to play around with it a bit. But I mean we've done some pretty cool stuff off of like the beehive stuff. That's the one I've worked with the most. Some of the designs there and the way they lay it out for you is just it's simple, simple. You just got to play around with it and understand it and then it's ready to go. So it's definitely helped us.
Speaker 2:And I think financial Maverick, the design of that one up, even our American centrist one every design is different course to the newsletter, right. So the way we decided American centrist, we had a competitor and we looked at it and we're like, okay, this is what they're doing, it's working out. And we're like we're not going to copy it to the T, but there's stuff we can write. Like you say don't change, what's the saying that you have, don't know what one the one of the one of the.
Speaker 2:Don't change the way.
Speaker 1:Oh, if it ain't broken, don't fix something like that.
Speaker 2:So we did that and say we'll find what financial Maverick's design is completely different. Financial Maverick's design is loaded with emojis and pictures and it's like fun. Too many emojis originally, yeah. So when I first so little backstory. So when I first designed financial Maverick, it was like emojis and pictures and stuff everywhere Nate looked at he's like I loved it, but too many emojis. So we started cutting off. And then I build another one that also had emojis and he's like you got to stop using emojis. So actually they have not been using emojis on any of the designs, so we cut through it. But, yeah, design is a. I think design is really cool. Okay, that's the first thing people see is like the colors to pop in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in the in the four part framework, right, you've got choose whether it's your product or someone else's product to promote, and that's that's part one of the framework. Part two, you got to get into researching your audience And then in the content And then you have to. Part three is the actual content you're putting in and the design of the newsletter, so finalizing that. And then part four is the growth plan. So you know, starting out sending a newsletter, you're gonna be like I don't have any one of my newsletter. I'll tell you what. Shoot that over to five people that you know like and trust they're going to subscribe.
Speaker 1:When I first sent my, you know I tell people all the time I don't care if you're just sending a newsletter to your mom. If she's the only subscriber you got send it. There's a lot of times I post and my mom's the first one comment you know exactly On stuff. So I don't I think you know if your mom's your only subscriber send it and get in the rotation of doing it daily. But the growth plan is so, once you get it consistent, the growth plan is how are you want to grow it? Do you want to run ads? Do you want to do collabs? Do you want to? are you going to the strategy we talked about earlier? are you going to go create a Twitter handle and account and just post and drive organic reach over there to drive people back in? Are you? you know there's a lot of ways you can go about it. Are you going to partner with a another newsletter? maybe that's in your niche, that they can email for you and drive your subscribers for you as well. Right? So this?
Speaker 2:there's definitely a lot of different ways to grow it. What would you say is the most successful one you've seen?
Speaker 1:Well, the one that I like the most, once you get into it, is just paid ads, because it's once you have it built and the way that we built a lot of our our original audiences were strictly from buying ads. We're buying emails, we were buying Facebook ads, google ads, like all kinds of stuff that we did scale that as fast as possible. I think if you're just starting out, you know it depends what your budget is And I mean, and also there's.
Speaker 2:There's one thing to growth You also don't want to grow too fast. And mistakenly, because we made that mistake in the beginning of the year where we accidentally imported like 18,000. You remember that mistake into one of the newsletters and for and not saying if people are signing up and putting the news in and you're running ads, good, but it's so, let's correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's correct it. We were. we were moving from one system to a new system. So be careful what we say here. We don't want people just going out and buying a subscriber base and putting, throwing them into an email thing And these are. so don't, don't do that. And a lot of people have asked me like Hey, i bought all. I bought a million real estate agent, you know emails. What can I do with it? I don't know. I don't know. I mean I guess you could spam them, but I don't recommend it. So we were moving our contacts from one email platform to a new one And it takes time when you have a new domain to warm it up. All the tax, we don't get it, all the tech side of it. but we imported too many at one point which caused an issue with deliverability, so we had to recover from that.
Speaker 2:Correct. So the whole point of this is, if you go out there trying to grow your email list by buying an email list, don't import them all at once and just send them one email, cause might as well just bump that away.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's, it's done an over with So so a good way, though, I would say, is partnering. A fact If you want to grow quickly, I'd go find other people with newsletters in the spaces that you're in. Pay them to send one. Send an email for you. Let the subscribers subscribe into your newsletter, Right.
Speaker 2:That's what's. What's the typical budget you see people spending on this kind of stuff, Is it? is it depending on what you have, Or is it budget you recommend? people like, Hey, this has seen success. It completely ranges. Okay.
Speaker 1:We just signed an insertion order with a company that has this audience okay, uncommon advice audience and we paid them 2,500. So they are going to send a couple of sponsorships for us and some other stuff directly for our offer to their audience. So we've got that, and then I've talked to you on the political side. I had a conversation that for a million and a half emails, they wanted to do a 30, they were doing a special of 3,600. We have done stuff where we've paid 1,000, you've done stuff where I've paid 5 grand And the more you and those are those. I say those numbers, those were for test. That's because I want to test. You want to test stuff on the email paid traffic to make sure it works.
Speaker 1:Once it works, you want to make sure that they have enough subscribers that you can scale, and so, a lot of times, though, is what happens is subscribe newsletters don't grow their subscription base. So eventually they get ad blindness, right, offer blindness. They see your stuff enough. They just stop responding. So it's a diminishing investment. So and we just had this conversation right So we are working on a growth plan with bringing more advertisers in, and we're trying to figure out what's that sweet spot. If we sell them a $25,000 advertising package but we really can we're going to get them average performance where we can get them amazing performance out of $15,000 ad package, and they're going to buy 15 every month where, if we sell them 25, we're dealing with unhappy clients and everything else We're trying to fit. There's a balance in that every month too, and we just know with our growth and our ability where we're at, we give them the package that's best for them.
Speaker 2:I mean you've had, you've had success doing this, because I know you've mentioned you. In the past I spent 50 to 100k a month right on ads. Yeah, we've been up to 150,000 150 thousand a month on ads again. Like Nate said, you don't have to do this to start, but I'm betting with that. you probably saw a huge influx of emails and leads coming in that were just killing.
Speaker 1:Very mature. The newsletters and reputations of those brands are very mature to where you can sustain 5,000, 10,000 leads a day.
Speaker 2:And those were a lot better leads than just going on by an email list, right.
Speaker 1:Well, we've never gone out and just bought an email list. So some people will go out and like, go to these like data businesses and say I want all this, all the real estate. I don't recommend doing that. leads that we have purchased that, over the time, has been through paid ads. Okay, whether it's email or it's Facebook, whether it's Google, whether it's through co-redge, like there's a lot of ways that you can get traffic And that's how we do it. We don't. I've never gone to somebody to say, hey, i'll buy 100,000 subscribers from you in the space And then just started emailing.
Speaker 2:I would highly recommend against doing that Because you can run into a lot of a lot of issues spam cam.
Speaker 1:You got spam issues. You got upset customers. You got brand reputation. You're going to burn your domain And so you're trying to build a million dollar audience. And you know, as you build this million dollar audience through newsletters, it's you have zero once that brand domain is ruined. You're working really hard to get it back online to be able to get to the inbox. You have a newsletter and you're not getting in the inbox. It's completely irrelevant whether you have a newsletter.
Speaker 2:So question right here, before I know we move on to the next one you mentioned if you have a brand domain, let's say someone does do this and it does impact that performance if you, would you just cut it and start a new brand and try to put those leads in there and actually do it the right way, Or would you try to fight to get that back up and running? Or does it depend on where you're at with that brand?
Speaker 1:So I think it's. It depends where we're at with the brand. Okay, what revenue is it generating?
Speaker 1:is sometimes, sometimes newsletters can just die off And now it depends on it, right? So when we learned in the very beginning, actually the first two newsletters that I ever started are still some of our better performers. So the top four that I have are we still have three of the first four that we started. Okay, and we've got a handful of brands that we've had for a long time And I think it's being focused on the deliverability and everything else. But we've had brands we've built up. They've not performed well and we've just cut on.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 1:And tried to move into other avenues. But ideally you're building a brand that's sustainable long term, that can grow And people it becomes brand recognition for people because of the performance is really good when they are buying traffic from you. But we have cut brands. I would recommend if you build a brand, try and scale that one as big as possible.
Speaker 2:But what happens if you build, you're with the brand, but you do some stupidity issue of inbox, loading in 30,000 or 40,000 leads and trying to send it off and then you hurt your domain? Is it an easy process to get this fixed Or is this a no, no, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I mean it's if you have that problem, dm me, let me know You got that problem. I can hopefully get you a few tips to help you. But first off, that's a rookie mistake. If you're going to do that, Yep. And and I've done it as experience actually So sometimes it's just clicking the wrong button.
Speaker 1:But so I've done it as well. But I would say you don't want to be buying leads and putting them in. If they're subscribers, they're your subscribers, If they're not your subscribers, they're not your subscribers, right? So I think so with the growth plan, he's got to determine what's for you and your budget and go from there. Now, when I got into the newsletter space, we actually went in and put $300,000 in and said we're going to grow this as fast as possible. So that was our plan, right. We knew we're going to hit this hard, We're going to scale it really quick and we're going to grow really fast. And so I've done that. And I would say that we're doing what sports spread is the complete opposite. We don't have. We're not putting a $300,000 advertising budget behind sports spread. No, we haven't. We're doing it more content-driven and building it more organically, And then we'll ultimately get into some paid ads here soon as well, which we're getting ready to start out.
Speaker 1:So, but we won't have that large of a budget like we did in the original side of what we were building the first time, So it's a different plan different strategy for that brand, if you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2:And I don't know, if you know the number off the top and that $300,000 budget you guys started off with. How many leads did you guys generate? Do you know that number estimate?
Speaker 1:So we we, when we were done with that $300,000 ad budget we had, we had four newsletters that all had close to 100,000 people on it.
Speaker 2:Wow, so that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. It was good timing.
Speaker 2:So, basically, if you would have had one newsletter, you would have had-.
Speaker 1:I would love to say I'm a genius.
Speaker 1:But, but it was it, but it was. You know, the. The only reason that we scaled so fast is because I researched the market. I listened to the right people and I executed and I knew what the audience wanted. So that very front end piece when we talked about, i knew what products and affiliates we were going to promote. And then I did the research. I had the design down, like I had it all, all the basics, figured out, and we were able to scale And I also knew the market was really, really strong.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's not like I just, you know, woke up and hit gold and you know, one day it was. I did the research on the front end and know what we were going to do And we knew what return we were. We were pretty confident in the return we were going to get out.
Speaker 2:And you've only 2021, right, that was 2020. 2020, so it's 2020, that's those three years, And all of our newsletters, basically, are pretty up there now We have what do we have to now 12,? I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, On the political side we have, we're at 12.
Speaker 2:12, yeah, and then total well, 16, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, rown.
Speaker 2:From four to 16. Yeah, so that's awesome. Well, yeah, guys, yeah, we'll look for the book.
Speaker 1:The book is coming soon. Don't put the pressure on me. I got to write it now, So all right, So we'll talk more about that later.
Speaker 2:I thought you had chat GPT writing No, no, no definitely not.
Speaker 1:It'll be, it'll be me.
Speaker 1:So I want to jump in here and come on advice segment here, and this is I want to talk about a lot of things that have some top things that have impacted my business and my life personally.
Speaker 1:Some of the things and changes that I made and you can add some that for you that I have as well And reason being is I feel like in business, there's this when building a business, a lot of people talk about virtual and I've lived it in 2009. I put everything in storage and my wife well, susan and I not wife at the time, but now my wife we drove around the country and just there, did VRBOs, because Airbnb wasn't a thing yet. So Vacation Rental by Owner was online, so we would rent a house for a month and then go live in that city for a month. We did that for nine months. The goal of figuring out, like where we wanted to live when we got married, and we didn't visit. We visited two cities that we actually thought, two cities that we thought we would live in, and the rest of them were just, you know, towns to hang out in.
Speaker 2:Did you end up living in those two cities?
Speaker 1:Well, one was Charles, so we narrowed it down to three. It was Austin, texas, charleston, south Carolina or Charlotte, north Carolina, and we came back to Charlotte. We're originally back Gotcha, and so, yeah, we've been happy here, but even though we've tried to leave a couple of times since, keep coming back San Diego, come back Yeah.
Speaker 1:So these are things along the years. So I've lived that virtual life, i've lived the digital nomad where I've basically worked from a laptop anywhere I was at, in the country, even in the world, when we did some international travel. So like I've done all that And I think there's a lot of people that strive for that, but there's also a lot of people who are more like me, who I don't. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't want to live it consistently. I enjoy actually having stability of a spot to be at Right.
Speaker 2:And so, nate, real quick before you move on, you said you enjoyed, but you wouldn't want to do it consistently. Why is that? I?
Speaker 1:love the freedom. Okay, i enjoy the freedom of being able to take my laptop and go work. So I'm leaving out of town. I'm flying to Ohio here shortly for a charity event that we do every year, and last year we raised $500,000. So I'll report back what we raised this year and for charities. So it'd be pretty cool. It keeps growing every year. The first year was 150, then 500. So we'll see.
Speaker 1:Maybe, we'll hit a million this year. It'd be pretty cool. It'd be pretty cool. So for me, i can go there, i can get my work done and still help out with that cause, right. So I like the freedom of that Gotcha, i like knowing that, you know, when I go see my family in Hawaii I can still get stuff done. So we're built out virtually as a company with the ability to work anywhere in the world. But for me, I personally like being in an office, right, i like coming in. I'm a man, i'm a creature of habit. I like my process. I like when I find a coffee shop, i go to that coffee shop, you know. Like when I find a restaurant, i like I go to that restaurant.
Speaker 2:But it's funny because now things have changed And I mean again after COVID this was probably part of a big factor but remote like. it got to a point where people were like, if it's not remote work, we're not working for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's. I mean, i think, while that was happening, my team, at that point, my entire team was remote already. So we just recently, in 2021, is when I believe I I don't let's see 21, 22. Yeah, So, in 21, at least this space that we're in now shooting this video and shooting this podcast, and August of 21. So we've been in here for almost two years now, but I wanted to get back in office because everybody was trying to go remote, yeah, and I just I like to do the opposite.
Speaker 1:But at the same time too, i my kids at that time were being homeschooled, working at home and trying to separate the two just never worked for me. Some people it works great for just never worked for me. I knew that if we got in office and we started building a team out here, we could build a culture right, a company culture, because I set some big kind of goals of where we needed to go in the next five years And I had been trying to reach those goals in the last five years, being virtual and it wasn't working. Just not working for me Doesn't mean it won't work for you, but it didn't work for me. And so we started working at home and trying to separate the two. So what I wanted to do was one of the big changes for me was leasing a space and leasing an office space for the, for growth, to be able to get the right people in here, right.
Speaker 2:So so with the whole remote. We're jumping into the virtual and the remote thing. So I guess, like people kids more I'd say we're closer my age.
Speaker 1:Calling yourself a kid? I don't know. Come on now.
Speaker 2:Young adults, Young adults I don't know what you call my what am I?
Speaker 1:What am I?
Speaker 2:Gen Z. I don't even know what I am.
Speaker 1:Well, stop putting labels on yourself.
Speaker 2:Whatever, whatever they call our gender, my group's generation is. I know a lot of friends who are, who are remote workers, and if he talks to them it's like all right, if I can't go remote, i would leave my job. Like that mindset for me. I don't like that mindset. I like coming into the office, i don't complain, i have a break. Love my house, love my fiance, love my dogs. But there's a point that you always just like you know what you like. You got your own space, yeah, your own little freedom. So I agree with you. I like the freedom too, but I always like having knowing that I can come here and this is where I'm going to get. At home, i work still. I go home at night and I do work, but when I come here it's like it's different. It's a different feeling, it's just better.
Speaker 1:I think it's just better And for me it's a place I can go. I can turn on and turn off, so I've got kids, so I don't really like being on a laptop working when I'm at home anyways, and my kids are active doing things, so usually when I shut it down here I'm at a football practice or my daughter's got cheer or horseback or like horseback And there's all these things that my kids do, that We're spending that time helping them and, you know, getting them to those things, as opposed to only going home and sitting on a laptop right.
Speaker 2:And then, during the pandemic, you probably you didn't have this in 2020. Did you like? I felt like when I was finished working remote, i'll be done working. It's like, oh, i'm done and I'm staying at home. It's like you don't leave.
Speaker 1:Well, so I had an office in San Diego.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I. The team was virtual, but I still went and got my own office right And instead of working from home, but I had that office And I mean I went. I was literally the only one there, the entire building. I would go knowing that I was the only one in the building.
Speaker 2:And you did not, you did not care.
Speaker 1:No, i was the only one there, you know what I mean. So so I did that and still kind of got out and got that space to be able to get that stuff done. So but the key to that so that's huge For me having an office space to be to go to, to work at, turn things on, turn things off And stay hyper focused. And I preach in here too, and you just said you work at home and I appreciate that, that you do And I appreciate that. But I also want people, when they come in here, i want them to turn it on and turn it off.
Speaker 2:Correct, and you've said it before.
Speaker 1:Because I'm a firm believer that you have to have your own time outside of work. Don't get me wrong. There's times that we need to grind and we gotta put time in like we gotta work, but there's also times like if we do that nonstop, day and day out, you're just gonna get burnout, and so I don't. I know that. And so on weekends, i want you to take your time. Go chill, correct?
Speaker 2:Well, i mean, i know there's been times where you like I'm like, oh no, i'll just write this here tonight. He's like so you know, it's good to do it once or twice, but you start doing it, you're just gonna burn yourself out. Yeah, and you've said that to me plenty of times, So you know.
Speaker 1:So I also do believe having an office it's not I'm not the corporate mindset, it's more of a spot we can come be productive right, oh yeah, and so that's the number one is having a space. The second thing that's improved the quality of business and life for me is hiring great people. So hiring the right people, and so this kind of kudos, you and the team that we're building, because you're now helping build that team right As we brought you in. So it's with a lot of times, many years in my entrepreneur career, i would hire someone to fill the role, to kind of just take stuff off my plate, but I never managed it, never did it And sometimes never even delegated it. So I would just hire in someone just because I felt like I needed someone.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so now it's we're hiring strategically the right people that can help with our mission and our goal of where we're going, and I think that's been very and that's recent for us in regards to quality of business and life, because one it's I'm not coming home, you know, complaining about how someone wasn't productive in the office or didn't get something done that day, probably because I didn't train them the proper way to do it, and then get mad at them for not knowing how to do it right.
Speaker 1:So I've had to hiring the right people. I come home now and I'm talking about how the day was great and what we accomplished and the things that were going on, which, if you're married, there's a big impact If you're coming home and being positive, or it's coming home and being negative Absolutely. And so many years ago Susan would just I'd be talking to her and she goes, just fire him. I say what do you mean? She goes, you only discuss the people that are annoying you and that need to be fired. So just fire him, just let him go, Not like thanks honey.
Speaker 2:No, but we.
Speaker 1:But yeah. So I think, and now it's complete, my environment in my home is completely different. If I'm coming home and I'm being like, oh, we worked on this, this is so cool and this is exciting, and you know the team, you know one thing is hey, the team ran with this project.
Speaker 2:You know like, And I mean big shout out to the team. Right, we have we, we as a company we are. Our goal is to continue to grow here in house but we do have employees that do work in different areas. We have people in Miami. We have someone who lives about an hour and a half from the office. We have people in Hawaii. So we have people who work in different areas. But shout out to the whole team. I mean they've been doing a great job and we just we just brought in a new employee, her name's.
Speaker 2:Mikaela, and she's been killing it.
Speaker 1:Like what?
Speaker 2:she's been here two weeks and she's just like.
Speaker 1:She started week two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, week two. So she's just knocking out of the park. So, yeah, i agree with you. I agree with you, shh don't tell her yet.
Speaker 2:I agree with you 100% on that Cause. When you do, when you and we've talked about this before right, Like, and you've told us that I don't expect you, every day is not going to be you're not going to give you 100%. Right, There's some days that something might be going on, you might be off, and those are normal, but I, like you said, I never get home and you don't hear negatives. And you, when you work in a good environment, it's going to grow. Now, when you're in a negative environment, you're looking at the clock and like, all right, 430, 435, and you just want to get out. So I agree with you 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think so. so that's big The right people, right environment. And it's funny. Step back on the why we have an office. Like people walk in too and like, oh man, this is nice. You know, we always get a lot of comments and it's funny we will have like the football coaches come in sometimes for some meetings are like what do you do? You know, what are you guys doing here? So I think it's you know, having a nice space also is you're trying to attract local people stands out compared if you're a local company saying, oh, you're going to work virtual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we have a fun culture here. I feel like we have fun We have good conversations and just to let you know, when Nate says about the office, we have like huge windows, like what do you say? Those are 12 foot windows, like from like floor to the ceiling, of just windows where you can see everything outside. It's yeah, it's beautiful A lot of natural light.
Speaker 1:That was big for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The space cause nothing on a dark, annoying room. Yeah, it was funny, cause actually?
Speaker 2:Makayla, when she got into her office, like my old office, i had no windows, it was a box, and that was me too, my other office. It was just a box.
Speaker 1:Well, the benefit of working here now is we still have some open office space, so joining now is your win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you join, you have no pick.
Speaker 1:So I think the third thing that's had so the third thing that's had a big impact on me is staying hyper focused on business and life. So I've got very clear on what we are as a company and we are. We build audiences through newsletters. We build digital brands, right, and that through newsletters I attract these big audiences and that's what we do. When we're good at it And we are able to curate the content, we're able to build the list, so like we're staying hyper focused on that, whereas before I'd be a product company, we'd be a product company, we'd have a physical product, we have an education piece, we'd have, like all these different things right. So too many things going on to where once we got hyper focused on just building the newsletters and the audience building audiences through newsletters, i guess, is the best way to put it. It has allowed us to grow quicker because everyone's marching towards the same beat.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think we've also even had that issue where we have gone on an off topic and thought about an idea oh, what happens if we do this? And then we always take a step back and say that's not what we're good at, that's not what we do, we're not capable of doing it, or we've tried it and it didn't work. Why are we gonna go back to it?
Speaker 1:And if we stay focused, it keeps systems, processes and everyone can get behind that mission right. So I think that's that has been a tremendous help with business and life to be able to stay super clear on that and just push forward. Yeah, So now we're looking at where are we?
Speaker 2:at So real quick for the audience, nate. So this goes back to the leadership and hiring the right people. What are some of the things people could have put in place to hire the right people or to be better leaders? I would probably say So.
Speaker 1:I think some of the things that I had to do because this is the fourth thing the fourth thing that has helped is becoming a better leader.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:So that's the fourth thing, and I put a lot of time, energy and effort into that. So one is, i think, the biggest thing, and you and I just met right. We just did like a 90 day review of like how things are going and one of the things I put down as a note is I have to I'm better at delegating. So I think for me it's trusting the people that you hire to do the job you hired them for, correct, right, and so I think, being able to delegate and trust that it's gonna get done, whereas I'm used to I built everything. All my companies in the past were built by me doing it in the trenches designing, building, writing ads, all that stuff. So I still struggle somewhat giving that up And I think that has been one thing that I've had to really, really work on is and I alluded to it earlier is like I would hire people in the past and I would barely tell them what to do And I had to expect them to get it done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think there's that And then two that's allowed me by being able to delegate and getting better at it. It's given I've also kind of reset expectations to have more patience. Of all right, mistakes are gonna be made Correct. We just gotta fix it and move on, and I try and as I preach, it's like it's not executing and getting it wrong is not a problem with me Not executing and not doing it is Is a problem, correct Right.
Speaker 1:So, as long as we execute, even if we get it wrong, it doesn't matter, because we execute it, because we can fix that.
Speaker 2:So would you say one of you'd say one of the big reasons you didn't hit your goals, like you said in the past, is it because you just try to do it all yourself?
Speaker 1:I'd say that was part of it. It was a couple of things. One, i was in an industry. It was one is I was trying to do everything. Two, the way that I structured that business. I was the all my clients called me, even when they had account managers. They would never call their account manager. They would call me.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:So I had built myself to be this hub that everything had to go through This bottleneck. I created it myself, right, and so this bottleneck that everyone had to go through And so, and because of that, there was zero scalability once my time was maxed Gotcha. So, with what we have now, when I, in 2020, when I decided to shut the agency down and build our own brands and build our own newsletters, invest in growing our new business, it was with the goal of not having to be run by me. It couldn't be built on my name, right, it had to be built on the actual brands that we build, which is why now you hear us talk about financial maverick sports brand, american centrist. These are brands, not individuals. So I still have my individual brand that I create content with and I enjoy, and we've talked about why.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So real quick, you jumped. You said something that I don't think the audience has ever heard. I've heard it because you've told me, but I don't think why did that agency shut down, like what was the fact, what was the deciding factor, and say, all right, i'm shutting, like I'm done with the agency world?
Speaker 1:So yeah, i mean, the defining moment was on my 40th birthday. We were in Florida, living in San Diego, but who would have floated for a trip? Susan, katie and Lydia the four of us were out for dinner on my birthday on a Saturday night, i believe it was, and I got a phone call from a client freaking out about how something got screwed up on their marketing phone. Well, my personality is, i was one. I was really really frustrated that I couldn't enjoy a simple dinner on my 40th birthday, which apparently supposed to be a big birthday with my family, and it was one of those moments that got me so frustrated.
Speaker 1:But my personality, my personality is I'm going to get it fixed. That's just who I am. So then, at that point, when I get back, i get it all fixed. But I was at that moment I'm like, all right, well, it's all fixed. And I discovered that they screwed it up by tampering with the things that shouldn't have been tampering with, right. And so not only did they create the issue, they had zero respect for my time to go fix and wanted me to fix the issue instantly. And that happened a lot, and I just realized that as much as I me. And it happened a lot because I allowed it to happen, because my personality is bring it to me, i'll get it done, i'll get it fixed. Like I don't, i like to solve things Right, and a lot of times in my marriage she was going to be like I don't need you to solve this.
Speaker 2:So stop.
Speaker 1:And so it's just my personality And I also have that. I want to make sure people are happy. I want to please, like if I got clients. I want them happy Yeah of course.
Speaker 1:So it it was. I created that environment and the only way to get out of it I mean, i had some amazing clients that were with me for years. So it was tough conversations, i think to say, hey, look, you know, it's probably tougher on me, right, then it was them, but it was just because I was wanting to fulfill that. But I knew, i knew at that moment I would never get where I wanted to go and be happy. The only way to scale at that time because I was not a very good leader that I believe in the only way to scale was to hire more people. And I did not see that. I didn't ever really want to.
Speaker 1:I didn't see myself going and having hundreds of people working with me to get where I want to go, But I do know that in the media company we can get where we want to go with a great team.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. So. Hey look what we are now. Now we're growing. Now we're growing, now you're putting all that stuff into place and definitely we're definitely getting there.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so leadership. So to go back to that, right, the biggest thing is leadership. Do you focus on it? And I think one of the big shifts I made which I credit to a buddy of mine, trevor Mock, who owns a company called Carrot, which is a software company, and him and I were having a conversation one day and talking about leadership And the question was I was like what was the big change for you? And he goes, i went through, i became a trans transformational leader instead of a transactional leader, and that really hit home with me because I was always transaction Do this, do this, do this, tack, task, task, task, task, task Transformational. And now I'm not by far not an expert at it And I still resort back, kind of revert back to my old ways sometimes, but focusing on what is our end result, where are we going and where are we trying to get to so the team can drive there Right And not just be Nate. What do I need to do today?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Here's our mission. Let's go get it done. So, moving to transformational leader and focusing on constantly getting better at that has been a huge had, a huge impact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you mean leadership, just to put it out there, it's Nate's still involved in all of our meetings. He's still there, he's still giving feedback, he's helping out. He's not just become a leader and let go of everything and say hey Z, you're in Rome with there, or hey, ask you this, or hey Mikaela, or hey Joanna, like he just doesn't throw it. He's still. He's still involved. He's just like he's saying he's getting better at delegating it.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say supportive. I'm trying to move more into like hey, tap into me, I've got knowledge. How can I support you to reach this goal?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in a lot of a lot of people, when they move and say I want to, i want to get away from, i want to hand off the reins of the company running someone else, i always kind of want someone to like that slow that role, because really think about what that means, because a lot of people think that it means I hire someone, i dump all my stuff on their plate and then I go do what I want. That's a recipe for failure, because when you came in here, if I just dumped on everything on your plate and didn't help you and work with you and like even now, like I still ask you a bunch of questions.
Speaker 1:And so you. It's the way that you're doing stuff. You become more of an educator as opposed to a task doer, but you're still involved and you got to be involved and there's still a task you got to get done to correct.
Speaker 2:There you go, guys. Common advice, all right. So guys just make sure what's our, what's it called the bro code, gentlemen code.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, go ahead, share, share this podcast. Please do us a favor. Share like it. Comment if you got questions about anything that we're talking about, drop it in the comments, or if there's something you want to hear us talk about or something you guys want to know?
Speaker 2:is there? is there something you're dealing with? or is if you have a business and you have something in marketing and you want us to review? we've been wanting to do a review on a small business, so it's free. Guys will do it, we'll look into it and then we'll get some reviews on it.
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Speaker 2:Awesome, this world.