00:28
and monetize your audience. Now, what I like about profitable audience is I don’t really care what I say. I’m unconstrained and I have the opportunity to truly express what’s on my mind. So if you’re interested in starting your own online business, then please subscribe to the Profitable Audience podcast and leave a review. Now, in this episode, I share my techniques on how to suck it up and not quit when the going gets tough. But before we begin, I want to thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode. Postscript is my SMS or text messaging provider that I use for e-commerce.

00:58
and it’s crushing it for me. I never thought that people would want marketing text messages, but it works. In fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list, which is easily 10x bigger. Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for e-commerce, and you can segment your audience just like email. It’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy, and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve. I also want to thank Clearview, who’s also a sponsor of the show.

01:26
And businesses are always most successful when they own their own data, customer relationships, and their growth. And that’s why more than 50,000 e-commerce brands like Living Proof, Solo Stove, and Nomad trust Klaviyo to deliver their ideal customer experience. Now, having used Klaviyo for many years now, I can wholeheartedly say that Klaviyo is the best email automation platform in the world for e-commerce, and you’ll get everything you need to build strong relationships that keep your customers coming back. Now, with advertising getting harder and more expensive,

01:53
it’s time to take back control of the customer experience with email and SMS. So if you’re ready to drive future sales and higher customer lifetime value with a marketing platform built for your long-term growth, get a free trial at claviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-B-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. Now onto the show. Welcome to the Profitable Audience Podcast where we teach you how to build and monetize your audience. Now today we’re going to talk about times when things got really tough for our businesses and when we both wanted to give up.

02:23
And we’re also going to talk about ways to kind of push through the suck. So Tony, have you ever wanted to give up actually? Have you ever wanted to give up? That’s the more important question. To be honest with you, I don’t for the businesses that have worked for me, like the e-commerce and the blog, I don’t feel like I’ve ever wanted to give up because I kind of told myself that I was just going to do it indefinitely because it was so inexpensive. Well, when I brought this topic up to you the other day, you laughed at me.

02:51
and said, I don’t think I have anything to talk about on this. So is this just gonna be me filling up 40 minutes? That’s my question. The quitter, is the quitter gonna talk for 40 minutes? Can we get racial here a little bit? Oh gosh, you always do. I think, and I’m generalizing here just so if anyone’s listening, but I think Asians are brought up to be forced into do a lot of things that they don’t wanna be doing. So for example, I was forced into studying for the SATs.

03:19
when I was, I think I started in fourth grade and all the kids were outside playing. What? Fourth All the kids were outside playing and then I was sitting there studying for the SATs. I didn’t want to do it, but then my dad was like, okay, well you have to do this. And we’re just used to being forced to do things that we don’t want to do. So we’re just, okay, we’re just going to do this. Yeah.

03:44
What’s that? I can remember the Saturday before the SATs, I had to give up water skiing for the weekend so that I could study. That’s my experience. So yes, I totally can relate to you. Well, those are my weekends as a kid, right? Basically. And so I’m just kind of used to doing things that I don’t necessarily want to do sometimes for an extended period, even if it’s bad.

04:12
Well, I that sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Now that we’re recording this now that this is now forever on the internet. I mean the math team too, right? I didn’t want to join the fricking math team. This is going to be like a therapy session for me. Another therapy session for Steve. should have changed the name of this. So I think I want to like clarify a few things first. I think there’s, there’s two different, let’s just consider tough times. There’s when things get tough because things aren’t working or because you don’t want to do them. And then there’s also

04:40
when things get tough because of like circumstances outside your control. So I think we should talk about both of those in this podcast because I think there’s sort of two different ways to approach those. I mean, I think they’re related in a way, right? When things get tough, that means mentally you might not want to do it anymore. Right, absolutely. Right. Okay. Well, okay. Well, let’s start with you. Okay. So when did things get tough for your business? Which business, first of all, when did things get tough and did you ever want to give up yourself?

05:10
Did I ever want to give up? So I think things get tough. It’s like an ebb and flow. I was actually talking to a friend about this a while back and I said, being an entrepreneur is amazing and it’s also sucky because you either are like really high highs and you have low lows. So your high highs are when…

05:31
everything’s working. You’re getting great traffic. Your conversion rates are up. People are opening your emails. People are complimenting you. You’re getting great feedback on social media. And we kind of live and die by all of that. But then there’s these sucky times where Google doesn’t update. I remember I had the update, what was it, two or three years ago, where my site traffic dropped by like 60 % overnight. That sucks. mean, there’s just nothing. There’s nothing good about that. Or you get a really negative comment or an email.

06:00
Or you publish something that you think is amazing and then people give you feedback that you don’t appreciate. Or maybe you go give a talk and it wasn’t well received or as well received as you thought it would be or people didn’t get you. So I think that’s the hard part about being an entrepreneur is you sort of ride this roller coaster of emotions on when things are working and when things aren’t. Or we spend four hours trying to get your microphone to work before recording. Right. Those are some of low points.

06:26
Okay, and those are the times that actually the most most of the time when I want to give up when things don’t work is when I want to give up. You know what’s funny about that is when things don’t work from a technical perspective, that actually makes me a little excited. So I’m in the corner crying and you’re excited. Well, it’s because like, oh, okay, well, that’s a problem that I get to solve. That’s fun. That’s outside of the normal content that I do.

06:49
Yeah, I think all of us as entrepreneurs have these ups and downs and when things are hard and then when things are going well. Right, but you didn’t answer the question, have you ever wanted to give up? Yeah, every time my microphone doesn’t work. Shut up, you want to give up every time that happens?

07:07
I don’t want to give up totally, but like for example, do you remember several years ago when I just started an e-commerce, I built a Shopify site and everyone was like, you got to be on Klaviyo, you got to be on Klaviyo. And this was before Klaviyo was as slick as it is today. I will say Klaviyo is a lot different than it was when I started using it. And I could not get the forms installed correctly on my site. And I spent, I don’t know, it was two or three days trying to do this. And I was so angry and I was angry with you because you existed. Do you remember this? Like you were angry with me? I was trying to help you.

07:35
Well, I know, but like every time you talked to me, I was like, shut up, you know, because I was just so upset about everything. And so at that point, I was like, there go. There’s the Asian culture. I’m used to just being beaten down. But it was just like, is this even worth it? Do I even need Klaviyo? Can I’ll just find an easier solution. I forget what I was using before Klaviyo, but I was just thought this isn’t worth the headache and the time. I’m just going to give up and do something else, try something else and not.

08:03
continue to work through this, because it was just like my level of frustration was just far too high. I do remember that. I’m trying to block it out of my mind. You should. You should add that to your therapy session. See, I consider that more frustration. I mean, you got it working. mean, did you really consider giving up like deep down? you were you going to just screw Klaviyo? Yeah, for sure. I think I said more bad words in that 48 hour period than I had in probably six months to a year of my life. So here’s how I look at that.

08:33
From my perspective, you only spent 48 hours on it. I mean, that’s not enough time to give up on something. But remember, I only studied for four hours for the SAT. I mean, there’s perspective in that, right? This is like a random topic, but it’s kind of related. So when you watch like a series, for example, on Netflix, how many episodes do you give it before you give up on it? If it’s bad. Two or three, maybe. Okay, I’ll watch half the series just to give it a chance.

09:03
So and when it comes to tech stuff, like I’ll give it like a good solid Week or two of frustration. Okay before I you know why this is all what happened to me it’s because what happened to me in college like there’s times when For some reason like I would struggle through something But then it would take me like three months and then all of a sudden I would get it and be the best feeling in the world And I sincerely believe that just things take time to sink in

09:33
I agree with you. That’s actually one of my points on how to get over it. Okay. You’re just jumping way ahead now. I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’m sorry. So on giving up, the only time I wanted to give up and I’m going to loosely use that term here. But when I was blogging and I was writing every single day, like five days a week, I should say. Right. For that one month. Yeah. For that one month. It was for that one month. And I was like, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. This is too much. This is too much.

10:03
So I ended up giving up, but I didn’t give up the blog. What I did is I just went down to less writing and that worked out for me. And then in terms of money with the blog, it was pretty miserable early on actually, because I was spending all this time getting burned out and then no one was reading too. So that’s kind of tough. I think that’s really tough when you, and we see this a lot.

10:27
with people that are just getting started is they’re working really, really hard. They’re putting in 100 % effort and they’re just not seeing a return yet because it does take time. And they just get really discouraged because they’re spending, you know, all of their free time because they still have a full-time job and they’re just not seeing any traffic or email subscribers or any real traction and they get really discouraged. Yeah, I’m sure this probably happened to your blog too. How did you get over that?

10:55
I actually did. I didn’t have that problem in the beginning because I was just so excited to have something to do in an outlet that I probably would have blogged for a long time for free. Oh, interesting. really worried about it because I was just excited because I mean, I had been a stay at home mom for 15 years with really not no creative outlet. So for me, it was more of an outlet. And I thought I wanted to make money for sure. But I wasn’t as concerned about that initially is that I just was excited about

11:23
It was something new and interesting and I was making internet friends, which sounds weird, but I mean, that’s what it is, right? I mean, I gave myself a long enough timeframe to get through it, I guess. But yeah, I just remember that first year. I think the lowest point was when my mom was like, wait a second, you studied engineering, got your master’s in engineering. And now you’re writing about random stuff like on the internet and you expect this to make money. Yeah.

11:51
I have white parents so they’re like, you’re amazing, you did great, I could do nothing and they would still say that. She was like, how are you gonna make money off of this? Yeah, I didn’t have that. My discouragement came later on when I think, and it’s probably a little bit of our personalities too, my discouragement usually came from outside sources, like people being nasty to me or feeling like- People you know? No, people I didn’t know. Clearly that’s not the best way to go about this.

12:19
Yeah, just negative feedback or or even just Looking looking at something that I had done and realizing that maybe that wasn’t the best thing that I wasn’t my best work or I don’t know I think my discouragement came from a lot of that not Not necessarily feeling like things weren’t moving quick enough since we’re on the topic of negative feedback You know the negative feedback that hurts the most Is the one are the comments that have like a small element of truth to it? Yeah, not the ones that are just like oh, yeah

12:49
outright mean, but yeah. And because when I got started, my kids were little and I wrote a lot about like parenting and homeschooling and things like that. So people make comments about my kids. And I mean, you know me, if you want to upset me, say something about my like you can’t really get me upset unless you talk about my children. And then I lose my mind. So I think like hearing stuff about my kids was really hard for me, even if especially if there was a little bit of truth to it.

13:15
Yeah, and I’m just, you didn’t really have any problems with your e-commerce store, but when I first started out, I had spent all this time learning, like the shopping cart, going through all the source code, creating the store, and then my wife got all this inventory, and when we launched, there was no orders at all for a little bit. Yeah. And I remember thinking to myself, wow, well, at least I got all these hankies I can cry into. You have a lifetime supply of tissues.

13:45
I mean, we didn’t have that same struggle with the store, but I think for me in the e-commerce world, there were times when there was an issue with Amazon. And if you work on Amazon at all as a seller, you know that getting through to a real human that can help you is nearly impossible most of the time. And there were times when I would spend a week or two weeks just trying to get, like a couple of years ago when we got that suspension for being used, sold as new, where someone had like reported us falsely. And it took 90 days to get that figured out.

14:15
90 days of like going back and forth and jumping through all these hoops and like it was never enough for Amazon. And actually a good friend of mine got something similar, just got suspended off Amazon and he was like, I’m done. I mean, he just kind of wanted to give up and I was like, don’t give up, you’re gonna get through it. But I think that things like that where you feel like things are totally out of your control, like you’re doing everything they say to do, but it’s still not working.

14:38
That’s when I, I back then when I had that problem with the jewelry, was like, is this even worth it? Like I’m wasting so much time. I’m not making any sales because my stuff’s all suspended. And what am I doing here anymore? I mean, I started way before Amazon. Yeah. But that’s one of the things I just didn’t like about Amazon. You have no control. So most of the decisions I make these days are about having that control. Yeah, I agree. But it’s harder. Yeah. I mean, Amazon’s easy, I think, for the most part.

15:08
except for you have to deal with Amazon. But so I want to get into like how you can get over this because I think most people at some point, unless they were raised by Asian parents and made them go to SAT class when they were seven, probably feel like giving up at some point or another. Don’t you agree? I mean, I think everyone wants to give up. Well, I’m curious to see what’s that? A lot of people do give up. Yeah. So I’m actually curious what your methods are. Well, as you know, I have a list.

15:37
Of course. Is this the part where you talk for the rest of the interview? No, because I’m sure you have a list too, right? I don’t have a list, but I’m going to riff off of yours. Of course you will. So I think the first thing you have to do when you are building a business as an entrepreneur is you have to kind of adopt this you don’t give up mentality. Like you have to go into it saying no matter how hard this gets, I’m not quitting. And I think that’s really important because if you go into it with sort of this

16:07
laxadaisical attitude, then it’s going to be really easy when things don’t work out to just how many people do we know that started a website and then wrote three, three pieces of content or make record seven podcast episodes or make six YouTube videos and then they’re done. Yeah. So my corollary to that is you have to go in with low expectations early on. Like your timeframe has to be much longer. Right. Like if you tell yourself you’re to make money within three months or six months,

16:36
and that time period happens and you haven’t started making money yet, that’s when you’re most likely to give up. So this is why I always give myself at least a three to five year timeframe. I always watch at least half of the series before I like chest pains over three to five years, geez. Well, okay, take our course, take this podcast, right? What mentality are you going in with it? I mean, I would agree with you, but when you hear that out loud, that sounds really long.

17:06
Really, does it? Don’t you think for just a normal person that seems like a long time? I mean, do you consider a year a long time? Does a normal person consider a year a long time? I think a normal, I don’t know. People can email me and yell at me and that’s fine. I think a year seems like a long time for people. In today’s society where everything is instant, a year is a long time. Okay. Well, I mean, that’s even more reason to set the proper expectations. I totally agree with you, for sure. Right.

17:35
Most of your money is going to be made after a year, it’s time frame. And very little money is going to be made within a year. Like the blog took me three years. The store was a year, but that wasn’t our expectation. I agree with you. I just think for people to hear that is hard because most people expect, especially like think about this, if you just go get a job somewhere, you’re going to get a paycheck in two weeks. Yeah. Well, here’s the other thing. I think things have to be stable before you start your business too. Like if you are desperate for money. Right.

18:05
and you start your business, that’s gonna make it so that you’re gonna give up much sooner, right? Because you’re be like, okay, wow, I need money sooner, sooner, sooner. So, how can I make money sooner rather than later? Yeah, well, we always talk about it too. Like if you need money right away, like go drive for Uber, right? mean, do something. Or freelance or something, Yeah, but don’t, you’re not gonna make big money. I think having the right expectations is really critical and not giving up. You know, the other thing, I don’t know how relatable this is gonna be, but.

18:33
Doing any- gonna say none, none. I’m gonna just say none right now. Doing some sort of endurance sport, I think really helps you mentally. You took my point. Really? That is not my didn’t think this was relatable at all. I think it’s 100 % relatable. Are we gonna jump right to that then? Okay, I don’t know where it was on your list because I don’t have your list in front of me. It’s last actually. It’s last on my list because I think it’s so critical. And I was talking to you about this the other day. I hadn’t gone running in almost a year because of this pandemic.

19:02
And there’s this one run I do where you have to run up this mountain for a mile, like switchbacks and stuff. And if you can train your head to just not give up, like I wanted to die at that point. I just wanted to collapse at the side of the road, but I forced myself to get up there and my heart rate was just ridiculous, I think. But if you can train yourself to persist through, and I’m using running as an analogy here, but if you can train yourself to run longer, that kind of trains your mind to persist through the pain in the long run.

19:32
Yeah, so I actually think that is how you just told literally stole my most important point. I think that if you, if you have a focus on your health and your fitness, it’s actually really critical towards anything that you’re doing outside of that. Because I think if you can be disciplined, if you could, cause think about like, I used to have a personal trainer and the reason why I hired a personal trainer was because I didn’t want to give up in the gym when things got tough. Like, okay, well I can do.

20:02
20 pushups, but can I actually do 30? Maybe I could do 40, right? But when it got tough at like 22, I was like, oh, that’s good, I did 22, right? That seems acceptable. And the trainer was the one that pushed me, like, no, I can remember doing the girl pushups, you know, where your knees are bent, and I did the girl pushups for like the first month. And then one day he was like, well, you need to do the real pushups. And I was like, oh, I don’t know how, I can’t do those, I’m not strong enough. He’s like, you can do the real pushups. I would have kept doing those other pushups for probably another six weeks to two months.

20:31
had he not said, nope, you’re gonna do them right now, you’re gonna do them today. And I think if you have that mentality in one area of your life, it’s very easy to transfer it to another area of your life. And to me, like health and fitness is a really easy area to like work on that, right? Because it’s easy to exercise, not easy, but it’s something that everyone can do. It’s easy to work on what you’re eating, being disciplined like that. Like that’s something that every single person has access to, that not everything else works out that way.

21:01
If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter, the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself.

21:29
Now, first and foremost, protecting our IP starts with a solid trademark and Emerge Council provides attorney-advised strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult.

21:59
And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a hundred dollar discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L dot com. Now back to the show. I mean, to me, health and fitness is almost exactly like running a business. Like if you want to lose weight, you’re not going to see results right away. But then you got to persist. it’s it’s a lot of willpower sometimes, too. Well, and it’s also correlated to business in that. you maybe you need to lose 20 pounds, let’s just say.

22:28
and you get started, you’re making changes to what you’re eating, you’re, you know, let’s say now you’re exercising three times a week, you’re being more disciplined. Initially, you’re gonna feel like crap, most likely, because your body’s like, what are you doing to me? And then it’s gonna take a little bit of time for you to start seeing results, but then when you start seeing them, they sort of exponentially go. Like once you start lifting weights, you see much bigger gains over time than when you first get started.

22:55
Right? Like it takes a little bit of time for your body to start working that way. So I think it’s the same with business where you get started, you’re going to put in a lot of work, you’re not going to feel that great about it. And then eventually you’ll hockey stick, which is kind of the same with it’s like when you train for a marathon, right? You don’t run the 26 miles the first time you go out there, you run like a mile and then each week you increase it. And then all of sudden you can do it. I’ve never trained for a marathon, but I see your point. I mean, I’ve never trained for a but all my friends have.

23:22
And I never will. Yeah, I never will either. It’s no desire for that torture in my life. But yeah. OK, well, now that you stole my best point, I have a lot more. You do. OK, let’s see the next one. I do. So I think another really critical component in not giving up is to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. If you’re just doing this to get rich quick or to kill time or, because you on a whim, you’re definitely going to give up because you’re not going to understand the reason behind it.

23:52
But if you understand why you’re doing this, and I think for both of us, and you can correct me if I’m speaking for you incorrectly, but we did this because we want to build a business that’s flexible, that allows us to earn a living and spend more time with our families and sort of have this lifestyle where we’re not tied to something that we don’t control. And so when things get tough, like let’s just talk about when I couldn’t get the Klavia stuff working, right? Well, sure, I could have quit. I could have…

24:19
gotten a job in an office or done something like that, but then what was I giving up in that? Well, I was giving up the ability to pick my kids up from school or to take them to practice or to be at all of their activities. And so that’s what makes what for me, it’s like, well, sure, I could go get a job somewhere, but then what’s my life like and what is that what I want? No, that’s not what I want. So I’ve got to get through this stuff so that I can continue to build what I want as opposed to something that might be easier short term. That’s a really important point.

24:49
because I actually didn’t start my business at all. Like we had talked about it for the longest time and we dragged our feet on just even getting started until our first child, until my wife became pregnant with our first child. And then everything got kicked into gear and all of a sudden I was very diligent about doing the research and getting something started. So for us at least, one, it was a reason to persist, but it was even a reason for us to just get started in the first place. Yeah. And I think that’s really important because then

25:19
If you have something that you can go back to and say, okay, let’s just do like a pros and cons of what’s going on right now. As long as you have this like why in your pros, then I think it will usually overcome most of the cons unless you realize that, this isn’t just working out at all. Like it’s not what I thought it was. And that’s a totally different, so that’s a different podcast. And we kind of covered this point already, but you really have to commit. Like if you go in telling yourself, hey, I’m just gonna try this for a couple months and see what happens.

25:48
That almost never ever works out. Yeah, I agree. Okay, the next point, and this is sort of if you’re in that phase where you’re just like, this sucks, I can’t do it anymore, I wanna give up, it’s not going. I think one of the things that’s really helpful for me is to find a quick win. Like what is something that I can do today or this week that’s going to be a positive win that will help me get over the hurdle? Because I think a lot of times,

26:15
people get frustrated, like for me, like you were saying, you wanted to quit over Clavio? Well, I did, I mean, I didn’t do it, but sometimes people get frustrated and then they just sort of like, it just increases in them and as opposed to being able to step back and look at it logically, like you’re looking at my situation logically, I wasn’t, because I was in the middle of it. So I think if you can find a quick win, then it allows you to take a little bit of a step back and realize, okay, hey, it’s not as bad as I thought it was, I can do this, I can get through it, and look, this is something that I’ve already done that’s really great.

26:44
Yeah, actually I teach this in my profitable online store class. Like instead of going out and ordering like a huge container and nothing selling, just go out and try to sell one unit. Yeah. see if you can buy whatever means necessary. And as soon as you see that first sale happen, that will actually encourage you to, or get you excited to keep going. Yeah. And along those same lines, I think it’s really important to write down your wins.

27:09
if you’re working really hard, things aren’t going exactly how you want them to go, write down all the things that have gone right in your business. And I think it’s important, because I think also what happens is when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t see very well, either future or past, and being able to say, hey, look, these are five really amazing things that I’ve already accomplished. And that will give you a little more hope or endurance or perseverance, whatever it is, to keep going. Because you realize, hey, this is a time when things were bad and I overcame it this way.

27:37
So now I can probably do the same thing in this situation. Do you actually do this? Write down wins? Yeah. When things get really bad? Yeah. Really? Yeah. I’ve never done that before. Of course, you don’t have any wins. That’s why. It’s probably true. That’s not true. So my mom says all the time, you got no wins.

27:58
think people, and I know you’re kind of like this, like you don’t like to write a lot of things down. don’t, yes. Yeah. But I think people shy away from that, but I think it actually is really, really effective and people should do it more often. I actually do believe in talking about things. So occasionally when my wife and I like over the holidays, when things are getting really tough, we remind ourselves what the business has done. So it’s more of a gratitude thing.

28:25
And that makes it feel better. So it’s similar, we just don’t write it down, we talk it through, guess. Whereas you probably have ton of little Post-It notes all over the place. I have Post-It notes everywhere, multiple colors, depending on how good the win is. just piggybacking on what you said about your wife, that’s another one of my points, is find yourself either a mastermind group or an accountability partner. Because I think it’s really hard to build a business totally by yourself. That’s not saying you need a partner in your business,

28:54
me cussing you out for not for not doing anything wrong. You know you cussed me out earlier this morning for some reason I just can’t remember what it Oh I did I did. I was giving you a hard time about something. You were don’t don’t ruin my image stop. It happens daily by the way it’s oh my goodness it’s not even true stop it.

29:15
I think if you have someone that you can go to when things are difficult, that’s really helpful because they can, if you’re at the point where you can’t even see the wins or you can’t even see through any of this or even remember your why, your mastermind group or your accountability partner will help you see those things. Yeah. you some perspective. I mean, I can’t tell you how valuable my mastermind groups have been. Just even in terms of improving the business or just getting the encouragement to even try something new or to persist in something or

29:44
I remember there’s this, I can’t remember what it was now. There was this one marketing method which wasn’t working for me. And it might’ve been Amazon actually. We were having problems getting on Amazon and I think Lars was like, you idiot, just do it. Just do it and go all in. And now Amazon’s a significant part of our business because of that. Masterminds, highly recommended. Yeah. I think it’s important to have people that are sort of in your corner and sharing for you, but also will be very honest with you at the same time.

30:12
And on the flip side too, just even having a partner that maybe you share some equity with in your business is important too because it just makes it more fun. And as long as you’re having fun, even if you’re not making any money at the moment, you know, at least it doesn’t feel like work.

30:28
say that’s very true with our partnership. I mean, we joke about it, but I do think there are a lot of days where it’s just fun to work together. And so it’s not as it makes the long-term better because it’s like, hey, if we still have to do this for a couple of years before it takes off, then I’m okay with that because I’m having a good time. Yeah. But making money is important too.

30:48
Well, absolutely. mean, otherwise you’re out. Otherwise you’re out. That’s why I partnered with you, Mr. Fourth Grade SAT. Unfortunately, SATs do not translate into money. clearly. I’m sure my SAT scores were not even remember them. I’m sure they weren’t good. I try not to remember mine too, because my brother didn’t study and he beat me on his first try.

31:11
Let’s not let’s not dig up I’m pretty sure I beat my brother and sister, but they’re not test takers. That’s not what they’re, they have very different personalities. What else do you have on that list of yours? I have, okay, I’m not sure you’re gonna agree with this one actually. It’s okay to take a break. How long of a break are we talking about here? I think it’s, well, I don’t know. Not Have you ever taken a break in your life?

31:41
Or is this one of those things that you found on the internet? No, I think it’s something that I should do. Kind of piggybacking on all the other things we’ve been talking about. I think if you’re able to take a little bit of a break, you can gain some perspective. I think there’s something to be said about powering through and forcing yourself to do the next thing, which I think is really important. But sometimes it’s better just to walk away for a day or two and completely clear your head.

32:08
not check anything, not do anything so that you can come back and have sort of a fresh perspective on your business. Okay, I agree with you in a day or two. When you said break, like when I think break, I think like what our friend Bob did was like take a year off. So you don’t agree with that? I mean, if you got to take a year off, I mean, that’s gonna hurt rather than benefit unless you’re like totally in shambles, I guess, with your business. Like if you’re totally burnt out, then then maybe but if you’re totally burnt out,

32:38
then you might want to just consider changing the lifestyle a little bit. Sure. I mean, think there’s I don’t I don’t want to say that there’s like a acceptable time to take a break because I think for some people just walking away for a day, like, as you know, a couple of weeks ago, I went away for a couple of days and it was probably the first time that I didn’t work like didn’t check, didn’t check email, didn’t check anything for three or four days and probably 10 plus years. And

33:05
So I think that that was really helpful for me to just step away and clear my head about things. But I could see maybe taking a month off if things are really tough. I think it would be better for your business in the long run and definitely not in the short term. You’re going to get hit for sure. Yeah. I mean, what I like to do when things get tough is I just go running because it clears my mind. You get into this weird trance. Sometimes I’ll do like breathing exercises like the Wim Hof stuff.

33:35
to clear my head. And I don’t really need more than like a couple days to set away. I guess I try not to burn myself out in the first place. Like I try not to take on too much to begin with, but that’s just my personality. Like if you’re also, you’re also coming at this from your, like we both know you don’t like anything on your calendar. That’s correct. And so when you’re talking about this now, you don’t ever, I don’t think you ever really get to the point where you’re that burnout. That’s correct. I mean, I like to see, I like to look at my calendar in the morning and just see like,

34:05
one appointment. And it should be me. That’s the appointment. Well, you don’t even have a calendar slot, actually. What? Come on. You don’t have a calendar slot because it’s it’s kind of like it’s like an all day thing. I feel like just I just have the whole whole thing. The whole block. OK, next one that I have that I’m getting close to the end, I promise. Is it OK to pivot? I don’t think it’s OK to give up.

34:32
but it’s okay to try something different. And I’m gonna use us as an example. So a couple years ago, had a business, well, you had a business idea that you forced me into, very rudely, might I add. But- What? How did I force you into it? Do you remember this? I was boarding a plane and I get a text from you and it says, I have a business idea for you and I. You’re either in or you’re out. Tell me now, or something like that. Like that was the text. I think that’s how you interpreted it.

35:00
In reality, I probably said, hey, Tony, I have this great opportunity. Take your time. Take your time. But I just need an answer as soon as you can. Yeah, that’s a lie. Total lie. Anyway, you had a business idea. I actually thought it was a great business idea. We launched it and there were just a lot of, I think, hurdles that we didn’t anticipate in it. I think the execution was pretty good and I think the idea was good. But there were just there was certain things that were out of our control.

35:27
And after several months, we realized that, this is probably not the best idea. And it doesn’t make sense to keep going when we could probably think of something else that would be better and we wouldn’t be facing the same kind of hurdles that we’re facing in this business. And so I think it’s okay to do that. I think it’s okay if you give something time and you put your, because I think we put our best effort in for sure. It’s okay to say, hey, let’s pivot. Maybe you start a podcast and you realize I’m not good on a podcast or.

35:53
This isn’t something I like to do, but I really love video. So you switch to making YouTube videos. You’re not quitting. You’re just changing what you’re doing to make it a better fit for you. So that business that we’re talking about here, I don’t consider that a pivot actually. I think we just put that on the back burner. Actually, this is an interesting topic. I don’t know if we have time to cover it, but how do you know when to stop whatever you’re doing? Yeah, that might be a whole other podcast. Oh, is it a whole other podcast? I think we can do an entire podcast on when to stop.

36:23
When to quit? Yeah. So maybe we won’t get into that. But yeah, I don’t consider that pivot. There’s there’s certain times when it just doesn’t feel right. And that’s the only time when I’ll actually stop something. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. So I think that’s okay. I think it’s okay to sort of differentiate between giving up and changing direction. You have anything else on your list? I do. It’s a real but it’s more of a technique on how to

36:53
push through when you feel this way. It’s interesting they have all these techniques. It’s because I’m such a quitter. For me, like this podcast episode would be really short. Suck it up. Don’t quit. Yeah, exactly. The end. OK, let’s hear your last one. Have you heard of the Pomodoro technique? Yes. Why don’t you explain it, though? Yeah, because we haven’t talked about that, I don’t think, on any podcast yet. basically, it’s a tech. So this is what I do when I get frustrated with things and when I want to just give up.

37:22
is basically you pick a task that you have to do. And this is helpful if you have your tasks written down, but I know not all of us do that. Oh, a little subtle jab there. Not so subtle jab. Pick a task and then set your timer for 25 minutes. Everybody has a timer on your phone, so you can do this. And then work only on that task. Do not check anything. I actually, I’ve started doing this again because I have a lot. I have a lot of like personal stuff going on right now that’s interrupting my work, which is causing me a lot of frustration.

37:52
I’ve started to do this just so I can stay focused when I do have time to work. I actually even take off my watch because I have an Apple watch. So that thing buzzes all day long with notifications. So I flip my phone over, I take off my watch, I set the timer for 25 minutes and I work only on that one thing. I don’t check email, I don’t check social media, I don’t do anything outside of that one task. And basically what you do is you do that four times in a row.

38:16
So you set your timer for 25 minutes, you pick one task, you work on it. When the 25 minutes is up, you take a three to five minute break and then you start over again. And after the fourth time, then you can take like a 15 to 30 minute break. So if you think about that, that gives you basically two hours of uninterrupted work. And I will tell you, it is amazing what you can get done in two hours of uninterrupted work. I just did this this morning right before we recorded this podcast where I actually finished two slide decks in like 35 minutes.

38:45
because I had my watch off, my phone off. Now of course I pick up my phone at the end and I’ve got like 110 text messages, right? But think about it, normally those are all coming in as I’m working and I’m seeing them and even though maybe I’m not responding, it’s causing me to be distracted and to think about other things that are going on. So I think if you’re stuck in that really hard place, doing something like this where you can be hyper-focused and shove everything else out of the way is really effective, because then you have a win, right? Now I have a win that two of my tasks are done for today.

39:15
I was never like a huge fan of the Pomodoro Technique. Well, it sounds really fancy and all, but like this is the way that I used to study for my entire life, right? So what I do is I get into my office, I turn off all the lights except for one light, and then I just put on my headphones, and then I close all the distractions, and then I work for four hours straight. I mean- I don’t know if that’s healthy.

39:40
How

40:04
I agree with you, however, you can always keep working when your timer goes off. But for a lot of people, since you don’t understand this at all, even being overwhelmed with life, I think for a lot of people. Well, I’m just this is a study tactic, right? I mean, have to into that flow state. Yes. But I think for a lot of people, if you want to give up, if you had the thought of I’m going to work on this task till it’s done is overwhelming. But if you have the thought of I’m going to work on this task for 25 minutes, that’s very manageable. OK.

40:33
What if you don’t accomplish anything in those 25 minutes? How could you not accomplish anything? Well, what if you don’t accomplish anything significant in those 25 minutes? Then you get your three to five minute break, and then you go back and do another 25 minutes. Like sometimes when I’m coding something, eight hours will pass. I forget to eat, I forget to do a whole bunch of things. That’s like the ideal state for productivity for me. But if I had this timer going off, that’s gonna interrupt that.

41:02
I don’t know, I guess we just have different opinions. Let’s be honest though, how many people listening to this are coding? Well, it can be anything. It could be writing. Sometimes I’m writing something and before you know it, the entire day has passed. But you can always keep going. But… We’re arguing. I’m having such a hard time with you right now because I don’t think you understand what it feels like.

41:30
think you have no idea. You don’t understand what it feels like to be so overwhelmed that you can’t get started. And there are people that legitimately feel that way. Like that is a very legitimate feeling for people. And so to say you need to do something for 25 minutes seems doable. Whereas I need to work, I have to write a 5,000 word article. Well, heck to the no. I’m not gonna be able to do that. I’m too overwhelmed. But if you say, hey, I want you to write for 25 minutes, anyone can do that.

41:57
So I can relate to that on a larger scale. So for example, I’m going to bring tech here again. We are, course. So at our work, we have to design this really complicated microprocessor at my last job. But then the way tech works is you write a little piece of code, a little piece of code each day, and it just kind of builds up into something really big. So it sounds like this is your way on a smaller scale. Let’s say you have to write a 5,000 word article. Just say, hey, I’m going to write 500 words.

42:27
Yeah, or I’m gonna write the outline. Right. Right. Or I’m gonna do my table of contents. What I don’t like about this is the Pomodoro technique, it sounds like something groundbreaking, you know? I don’t think it’s groundbreaking, it’s just that’s what people call it. I didn’t want to act like we thought of this or anything. Oh, no, no, no, I know, I know. But when you call something the Pomodoro technique, really it’s just sit your ass down for 25 minutes, get something down. Oh, so Sit down, shut up, and get to work. I exactly. That’s what we’re saying here. Exactly. No, but I think the 25 minutes…

42:57
component is important when you are overwhelmed. And I also think, let’s just talk, let’s go back to email because that’s what I can talk about. I can’t talk about microprocessor design. And so yesterday I was working on something for ConvertKit because we were doing that for our upcoming challenge. And I’m not, I don’t use ConvertKit, I use Drip, but I had to set stuff up in ConvertKit because that’s what we recommend because it’s more cost effective. And I got frustrated because something didn’t look right and we were talking about this.

43:23
And I thought, you all I’m going to do is do these three things. I’m going to these three things done and then I’m going to consider that a win right now. And then I’ll go back and finish it up later. So I think if you can kind of take that mentality of, you know, maybe it’s really overwhelming to install email forms on your site. Well, just focus on creating that first email form. Get the first email form, get the verbiage right, work on that, work on what, however you’re going to, where is it going to live on your site? And then that’s a win for you. And so then you’re not as discouraged as you were when you got started. Yeah.

43:51
I can see that. Hey, let’s wrap things up here since we went all over the place here. I think the most important thing about all this is you have to train your mind to get through what I call like the suck. So, and it translates to whatever you do. For me, I think the best way to train your mind is through suffering. I know this sounds terrible, but if you want to run, push yourself to run farther than you can and to not give up.

44:20
And it helps have a trainer, like you said, to do this. But this muscle that you develop over time will translate into every single aspect of your life. I agree. And I think if you can get this right in one area of your life, you’re probably going to translate it to almost every other area of your life. And you’re going to see a lot of success all over. And then you can try the tactics. Like the quick wins, I think, is a good one. Because just in the course of teaching my class, a lot of students, they want to give up when they don’t see any sales. So just

44:49
do something and just try to get like one sale or whatnot. And that will give you the drive to continue on. So just make sure you sprinkle some of those in for every day. Simple things that you can just accomplish really quickly. Yep, I think it’s also okay to take a short break and refocus, sort of get re-centered in what you’re doing and be able to think about your business in a more removed way than when you’re stuck in the trenches. Yeah, I think a break is good or like a good run where you can just clear your mind.

45:17
For some reason for me, after I exercise is when I’m the most productive and I’m the most motivated actually. Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now if you love the dynamic between Tony and myself and you’d like to see the other side of Steve, please find your favorite podcast app and subscribe to the profitable audience podcast. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 345. And once again, I want to thank Clavio, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants.

45:44
You can easily put together automated flows like an abandon card sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign. Basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO. I also want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base.

46:09
SMS is the next big own marketing platform and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P O S T S C R I P T dot I O slash Steve. Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog and if you are interested in starting your own eCommerce store, head on over to mywifequitterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.

00:26
So if you’re interested in starting your own online business, then please subscribe to the Profitable Audience Podcast and leave a review. We’re also giving away over $4,000 in prizes through our podcast contest over at profitableaudience.com slash contest. Once again, that’s profitableaudience.com slash contest. All right, so what’s up with today’s episode? As you know, the Profitable Audience Podcast is a place where I don’t really care about what I say, and it’s an opportunity for me to get real and talk about what’s on my mind. So today,

00:56
I’m sharing with you an extremely personal episode where I talk about all my insecurities, my fears, my childhood. Basically all of my issues wrapped into one tight episode about imposter syndrome. But before we begin, I want to thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode. Postscript is my SMS or text messaging provider that I use for e-commerce and it is crushing it for me. I never thought that people would want marketing text messages, but it works. In fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list, which is easily 10X larger.

01:25
Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for e-commerce and you can segment your audience just like email. Also, it’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy, and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve. I also want to thank Klaviyo, who’s also a sponsor of the show. Businesses are always most successful when they own their own data, customer relationships, and their growth. That’s why more than 50,000 e-commerce brands like Living Proof, Solo Stove, and Nomad

01:55
trust Klaviyo to deliver their ideal customer experience. Now having used Klaviyo for many years now, I can wholeheartedly say that Klaviyo is the best email automation platform in the world for e-commerce, and you’ll get everything you need to build strong relationships that keep your customers coming back. With advertising getting harder and more expensive, it’s time to take back control of your customer experience with email and SMS. So if you are ready to drive future sales and hire customer lifetime value with a marketing platform built for your long-term growth,

02:24
Get a free trial at claviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. Now on to the show.

02:36
Welcome to the profitable audience podcast where we teach you how to build a following that you can monetize. And today we’re going to talk about imposter syndrome. And I didn’t want to turn this into a racial podcast, Tony, but I think most Asians have this problem actually, because we are taught at a young age that we are not good enough and then we have to try harder. And as a result, we’re afraid of talking in general, actually. I don’t think you have this problem though at all, Tony, for as long as I’ve known you.

03:05
I feel like you’ve always had this tremendous confidence that I don’t know where it comes from. mean, okay, why are we friends? how do you how do you get it? First off, what is imposter syndrome and how do you get over it? Well, you know, it’s funny that you said that you think every Asian has it because when I was researching this for the podcast today, I actually came across Do you know this is actually studied like the National Institute of Health has done studies on imposter syndrome.

03:32
I’m not surprised, but what do they say? I actually don’t know about the study. Yeah, I actually read through part of the medical documentation because it was so interesting to me. And basically, it’s not a what is I don’t know what the right word is. They don’t classify it as like a psychological problem because typically with imposter syndrome, it’s not something that you deal with your whole life. It’s a phase. So you have it sometimes and you don’t have it other times. So it can’t be considered like an actual diagnosis.

03:59
Whereas if you had depression, depression is something that you could have. It’s just categorized differently. But they’ve studied it in thousands and thousands of people. And basically what they’ve said is everybody has it at some point or another. I disagree with the study. All the studies, all this, you disagree with science. I feel like I’ve had it all of my life. And even today, I have problems getting over it. Maybe we could talk about that.

04:25
When I wanted to start my blog, the first thing that my mom said was, what can you write about? And then I said, well, I’ve been just read about the store. And she’s like, well, the store doesn’t make enough money. I’m like, well, it’s doing six figures. She’s like, well, I mean, is it making millions? You know, it’s not like a Target or Walmart. And so I was like, oh, okay, ma. Well, I’m just gonna just write. And she’s like, okay, well, maybe I’ll read it. Or she said something like that.

04:55
Okay, well, this isn’t going to be a podcast to talk about your mother. Is this? I know this is like a psychological podcast. Sorry. Okay. But the study, the studies that I read last night did say that a lot of imposter syndrome does come from your childhood. Yes. Yeah, you go. Yes. So does that mean that when you were a kid, since you don’t, okay, first of all, have you ever had imposter syndrome? Oh, absolutely. All the time. Really? Okay. So does that mean you hide it? Well, I hide it well, which is one of the points that we’ll talk about of how to get over it. Okay.

05:25
So clearly you can cover that section because I haven’t gotten over yet. I can talk about the childhood trauma part maybe. Yeah, okay. Dive deep into the archives of your life. All right, so you’re telling me that when you started your blog, you kind of knew that people were going to read it? Like you had the confidence? So yes, I did think people were going to read it, but there’s been other things that I’ve done. So for example, you and I both grew up taking piano lessons.

05:55
Yes. I don’t know how serious your piano lessons were, but based on the fact that you’re Asian, I imagine you did compete. Yeah. Yeah. So probably very similar. And I can remember every single competition that I would go to or recital five seconds before I would sit down. I had forgotten the entire piece. Like I was so nervous and so scared. And like it wasn’t until I put my hands on the keys that it would all come back to me.

06:23
But up until that second, I couldn’t have even told you the name of the song. That happens to me every single competition and even a recital actually. Yeah. And I think it’s that fear, right? That I don’t really know this. I’m not really good enough. I’m not going to play it correctly. I’m going to forget. I’m sorry. That’s not imposter syndrome, Tony. Well, but I think it is because especially if you’re in a recital, like, and I don’t know with your piano teacher, but in my piano teacher, like the little kids always played first. And, you know, as the recital went on, like the more advanced students,

06:52
would play last, right? So you started out with like the kids popping out, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Hot Cross Buns. And then, you you tried to earn that last spot in the recital. Did your teacher do this? Okay. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Hot Cross Buns. What type of messed up piano lessons are these? You didn’t play classical music? So ours. No, I’m saying like, so my piano teacher had students that were like five and 18, right? Okay. So she had two. So in a recital, the five year olds always played first, right? And they’d get up there and do their little bastion.

07:21
songs and you know as the as the kids came out like the better you were the later you went in the recital. Okay. Does that make sense? we had that too. Recitals I actually didn’t get as nervous at because there’s nothing on the line. Except for your family sitting there. Oh yeah but the thing is like for these competitions that I used to enter like we would literally drive three hours to the place. And there wasn’t even a cash prize that’s what bugged me.

07:48
You just get these stupid little ribbons. I got a certificate. Like, I don’t even think I got a ribbon. But for the recital, the big deal was to be the last one. Like, if you were the last one, you were the best student. So I was the last one for several recitals. I was also one of the older students. like, if I wasn’t the last one as one of the older students, that’d be embarrassing, right? But I would always think like, I don’t belong here because there was another boy that was with my teacher and I thought he was better than me. He probably was better than me.

08:16
technically, but I think I was better just overall. And so I beat him out. He used to go last and then I beat him out, right? Like for the last couple recitals I had, but I would always feel like I didn’t deserve to be last. I would get up there and everyone would know that maybe she just felt bad for me or you know, because I always got second last, you know what I mean? Like I didn’t feel like I was the one that should be last. If that’s the worst imposter syndrome story that you have, we got why are you

08:43
Why are we giving this podcast? Maybe this is just be a psychological analysis of my childhood. Of your childhood, should we start back? Let’s talk when you were three years old, Steve, and you took your first algebra 2 course. I’ve got an even more recent story than that. Like back when I used to work in my full-time job, I had major imposter syndrome at my work, even though I had the degrees and the experience and that sort of thing. When I first went into work, I used to think that all engineers had everything meticulously planned out. There was a set way to write code and structure everything.

09:13
And then just over the, so I was afraid to even put out anything because I was afraid it was gonna break. And then I found out that everyone at work is just winging it. And then it took me like 10 years to discover that. It took you 10 years? It did actually, because I have, everyone at where I used to work, and this is one of the reasons why I liked working there, everyone had PhDs from like MIT, Princeton, you know, and Stanford. And so I respected them tremendously. And I just didn’t realize that we’re all the same.

09:42
Okay, but think about this as someone who’s listening to this podcast right now. You have, you can correct me if I’m wrong. You have two engineering degrees from Stanford, right? mean a master’s in Sure. Yes. You have a bachelor’s and master’s in engineering. I mean, Stanford aside from being poor at sports is a pretty good academic school. Poor at sports. I mean, academically it’s no, it’s no FSU, but yeah, I hear what you’re saying.

10:09
Academically, it is a well-respected school. If you say that that’s where your degree is from, there’s a level of respect that comes with that. Just like you just said, well, they had degrees from MIT. There’s a level of respect that comes with that. Sure. Yet even you with two degrees from an Ivy League school felt like a phony. Someone listening is like, well, I have no degree. How do I not feel like a phony? How does that work? Well,

10:36
You just gotta do it, really. When my mom told me she wasn’t gonna read my blog, I still did it anyways. That’s like the most rebellious that I’ve ever been in my life. That’s probably true. I don’t know how you got, again, I don’t think you have imposter syndrome ever. At least I’ve never seen it. For me, it was just about doing it, it was just a means to an ends and just see what happens basically.

11:04
I do think everybody gets, I do think everybody has it at some point or another. I think some people suffer from it more. And I think we’ve met a lot of people, cause you and I, you we have the course, we speak a lot. Well, we used to speak at conferences. We haven’t done that lately, obviously, but we’ve met, we run an event, we’ve met a lot of people. And I think the thing that holds people back is fear. And it’s a lot of it’s rooted in feeling like, especially when we talk about creating something, right? It’s, don’t know enough.

11:33
I’m not smart enough, people don’t like me enough. That’s what keeps people from sort of making that leap from doing something that they like and are okay and to doing something that they love and are great at. I mean, also, and again, I’m just looking at myself this entire episode here. I think getting something perfect before you launch is like the biggest version of that, I think, right? Yeah. When we first launched our e-commerce store, like I was…

12:00
Mainly because of my peers. Like I knew my friends might someday find this site and so I was like super anal about making it perfect and that’s why it took so long to launch. I kept tweaking and tweaking it. When in reality, I don’t even think back then when we started, it didn’t even matter. We should have just gotten it out there earlier. Yeah, and I think we know some people who have launched really early, right? So they maybe are not in that imposter syndrome place and they launch, actually,

12:27
A good example is Jeff Rose, right? Didn’t he launch something without having anything created? He did. He just sent an email out and said, join this, and he had zero content. Obviously, he had built trust with his audience. I don’t know, but he had a really good amount of signups. If he had waited and tried to create this perfect thing before he did that, who knows what he would have missed out on?

12:50
I don’t think Jeff has a lot of imposter syndrome, but he’d probably correct me on that. he does. I want to take some credit for that launch for him, by the way, because we’re in the same mastermind group and that’s how I launched my course. And he was like, oh, okay. You mean I just launched with nothing? I’m like, yeah. Well, here’s the thing I think with launching with nothing though, not to get derailed on launching, if what’s the worst thing is if you spend all this time create, we have people we know that we’ve spent a lot of time creating things and launch didn’t get a great response and realize they created the wrong thing.

13:19
or created it in the wrong way. So almost that just jumping in and not having the perfection side of it is sometimes better for your business because there’s less risk, because you haven’t invested all this time and probably money in something that isn’t the right thing for you. Yeah, no, absolutely. mean, launching with nothing allows you to massage things as you go along. I mean, so we’re getting a little bit off track of imposter syndrome here. I’ll swing us back. So you did bring up a good point.

13:46
And I love that quote, like perfection is the enemy of the good, where you get so focused on having everything perfect that you can’t just launch something that’s good. And I think that’s a way that people that feel like they have imposter syndrome or have imposter syndrome make excuses.

14:03
It’s not ready, it’s not done, I’m not ready to go. I mean, I’ve done, you’ve seen me do this, right? I’m not ready, I’m not ready. Actually, you know what? Maybe that’s like your biggest form of imposter syndrome. It is, it’s the perfection, right? I want it to be perfect, just for the same reasons you do, because my friends are gonna see it, or people that I value, and I don’t want them to think that I’m not good enough, or I don’t know enough. So that perfection gets in the way of action. And I think that’s a way that people can have imposter syndrome and not hide it. A lot of people are purposely trying to hide it, but.

14:33
It masks itself as that perfectionist. There’s actually a quote that I like. I’m trying to think exactly what it is right now. It’s like if it’s perfect by the time you launch, you’ve launched too late. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And then the other thing that you mentioned just a second ago is the mastermind part. And I think that’s one great way to get over imposter syndrome is to have a group of people who are your cheerleaders, just like your mom didn’t quite think that you were making the right decision.

15:01
when you were launching the blog, you had, I don’t know, maybe you didn’t, but if you had other people that were cheering you on, that would help influence you to maybe realize that your mom just probably wasn’t understanding what you were doing. And then, I mean, she still doesn’t really understand what you do fully. And- She’s come around. Yeah, it’s taken a while. You had to get on Google, right? But I think, you know, if you have a group of people that are there to support you and like you pushed Jeff, right, to just launch it.

15:31
If you have that, can kinda help combat imposter syndrome. So, since we’re on that subject, I feel that your friends that are, the ones that actually have full-time jobs and whatnot, they’re probably not gonna be the ones that support you. I remember when we first started our e-commerce store and we wanted to sell handkerchiefs, everyone was like, oh yeah, that’s great, but I could tell deep down that they weren’t, they didn’t think it was gonna work, basically. So you basically have to find people that,

16:00
do similar things, I feel. Yeah, it’s total tangent, but I have to tell you this because I forgot to tell you earlier. So was talking to my parents the other day, and I said something about you. And I said something about Bumblebee. Because I think my family only knows you as like Seller Summit and the stuff we do together. Like they don’t have any idea. Sure. And my dad says he sells what? And I said, hankies. Oh, I was talking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Oh, OK. And I said he sells hankies.

16:30
Dad said he’s, like he couldn’t, like acted like he didn’t hear me. I was like, hankies. And he said, no, no he doesn’t. And I was like, yes, that’s what he sells. So anyway, I can see that. Like you’re, I mean, even my dad who like has no interest in, is like, you can’t make a living selling, I think he said something like that. You can’t make a business selling hankies. I was like, well.

16:50
And then I was like, well, they embroider him as if that’s the set. like, oh, little Steve embroidered the handkerchiefs too. I’m like, I mean, that is kind of your value prop. But I like I was immediately like, they embroider him. It’s great. Steve loves to sew. Oh, great. I wonder what your dad thinks about me now. Oh, my gosh. Anyways, it’s pretty funny. But you’re right. Like your friends that have full time jobs and all that, it’s definitely probably not your group. But that’s why I think it’s important to get in with a group of people that are

17:20
like-minded with you because that’s gonna help you. They’re gonna push you forward and force you to do some things that maybe are a little bit out of your comfort zone. Yeah, and just for that, your dad is no longer being, he has no chance of being a member of my mastermind group. Yeah. Good, I don’t think you talk enough about tractors. Actually, you know what’s funny is I was kind of ashamed to sell those things in the very beginning, Precisely for that reaction, because I’m a guy too, right? I mean, what guy sells handkerchiefs?

17:47
Now it’s actually kind of a funny story though, right? We can laugh about it now, but. For sure. But I think that’s a big component is just surrounding yourself with people that believe in you because then when you are feeling like, I can’t do this or I don’t know enough, your friends can remind you of all the things that you’ve accomplished along the way that do make you capable of.

18:08
being able to teach or have a course or have a membership site or run a podcast or start a YouTube channel, right? Whatever it is doesn’t necessarily mean you have to start a store selling hankies. And I actually, I think you’ve said this before and I heard someone else say it the other day on a podcast is that you really only need to know like 10 % more than the people you’re teaching. I think there’s this expectation with people that if I’m gonna do something and call myself not an expert, I don’t like the word expert, but if I’m gonna…

18:35
present myself as a leader in that field, right? I have to know everything. And nobody knows everything, right? Like that’s just unrealistic. I mean, realistically speaking, I’ve heard that quote before, the 10 % quote. I personally think from my perspective, I think 10 % is too little. Yeah, of course you do. I need to know a little bit more about You’re like, need to know 95%. That’s your life. But I’ll give you an example. Like my buddy, who’s one of my close friends,

18:59
He’s always kind of like on the bleeding edge of technology, but he, you know, he’s not an expert. He just does a little bit of research, but he’s always a step ahead of me. And he actually writes about like the tech that he uses, right? I mean, he just kind of documents everything and I always follow his stuff. And I wouldn’t say he’s the expert in anything because he’s just dabbling and learning about it. But he actually has built a following just writing these little tech reviews, you know, of these little things that he just uses.

19:26
So you even have to be an expert or even know a lot about it. Right. And I think that’s honestly something that’s really valuable for people is if they’re watching you learn, but you’re a couple steps ahead of them. Right. So I mean, I think because I think the problem, too, is if you if you become like the world’s foremost expert in something, you’re probably out of touch a little bit with the people that are in the beginning and you’re not as helpful. So if you can start documenting what you’re doing and talking about things when you’re a couple steps ahead of people, I think that’s a real advantage.

19:56
Yeah, I actually distrust people that call themselves experts, because there’s some stigma about that word where if you become an expert at something, I’m willing to bet that you kind of slack off a little bit. You know what I mean? Okay, no I don’t know. Here’s the psychology behind it. If you’re an expert on something, then if there’s something that you don’t know, you might not admit that publicly. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. You know what I’m saying? And then,

20:24
You just kind of play it off like you’re still the expert and you’re not learning anymore. And actually I think that’s something for me that I had to get okay with is that I hated, I think you and I talked about this before we launched our course is that if someone asks me a question, I want to be able to answer it. Because if I can’t answer it right then I feel like I’m a fake. If I don’t have your answer right that second, then who am I?

20:47
But I realize that sometimes your expertise and your knowledge comes in either knowing how to quickly find the answer, knowing the right people to talk to, knowing how to find the answer, because there’s a lot of people out there that don’t even, they’re not knowledgeable enough to know where to look, right? Because they don’t fully understand the problem, which is fine, because they’ll get there, they’re learning. But that’s part of the reason why you can become a teacher or a leader for people, because you know where to go to get the answers for people too. Right, I mean, some people don’t even know what questions to ask, really. Right.

21:17
Yeah. All right. Well, let’s talk about how to get over this imposter syndrome. Like we’d run a course over at profitableaudience.com and a lot of our people, they’re scared to start or they’re not sure about what to create content about. What are some steps that people out there feeling this can take? So something that I actually read last night, which I thought was a pretty interesting take on the whole imposter syndrome is they actually recommend starting to teach and educate people on the subject that you feel like you’re

21:47
faking about, right? Because the more you teach, the more you learn. And I actually, when I read that, I thought, you know, that’s actually 100 % true because I know you and I, we’ve both been blogging for a million years, right? 10 plus years. We started this course. I think we have a pretty deep knowledge of content marketing. But there’s been things that have come up in the course that we didn’t know the answers to. And I think just even launching the course has made both you and I do things better. Yeah.

22:16
Absolutely, and I’ll give you the perfect example of that. We just gave a lecture on site speed, and I know for me, I know a lot of stuff, but on my priority list sometimes, certain things that we teach might not be number one on my priority list, or there’s so many different things going on in business that I can’t always do everything perfectly, right? And the site speed thing, I recently revisited it, and then I actually did a lot more research, because it had been a while.

22:43
and learned a lot more new things that I actually ended up implementing and breaking my sight on occasion. That’s beside the point. But yeah, just teaching it actually makes you better at what you’re teaching about also in the process. I think it builds your confidence, right? As you teach it.

22:59
and explain it to others, whatever you’re talking about. It doesn’t have to be in the form of a course either. If you’re running a podcast about a specific topic, the more you’re talking about it, the more you’re interviewing experts or talking to people, the more not you’re. And I think in your knowledge growing, your imposter syndrome is going to shrink. I think another thing that helps imposter syndrome shrinking is for me, like when we started running the course, is that people are coming to me. And I’ve run a blogging conference for a long time too. So this isn’t a new thing for me to be teaching this.

23:27
but having people come to you and ask questions sort of confirms to me that, people do trust me. People do feel like I can give them an answer. And the more that that happens, the more confident you get in your ability to help other people. Also, there’s a huge difference in just doing something and teaching it. So, for example, like I run my own ads and they’re profitable, but then when you actually have to teach it, you actually have to go and when you break it down step by step, there’s like a,

23:57
whole lot more that you learn about yourself in the process as well. Yeah, and I think both you and I, it’s been funny. We’ve found all these problems, not problems, opportunities for improvement on our own websites because we’ve been teaching it. So I think just the process of teaching others helps you get over it because you’re just forcing yourself to keep learning. We’ve been talking about teaching a lot here. You don’t even have to teach anything to just put out content and build an audience. I mean, there’s armies of…

24:26
of vloggers on YouTube that all they do is just talk about their life, right? And to me sometimes, I even think to myself, why is anyone watching these people? But you can actually put out content and build an audience just based on your personality alone, right? So you don’t even have to teach anything. I think that though, I will say, is probably the toughest way to get over imposter syndrome. Because you have to believe that your life is interesting enough that people are just gonna listen to you talk about your life, right?

24:56
That’s true. But it’s possible because I mean, but that’s easy too, right? It’s very easy. Yes. Yeah. Yes, for sure. You don’t have like you’re not really an imposter because you’re just being yourself. I guess the only the syndrome would be if people just think you’re dumb or make fun of you, guess. Right. I love it. You go right to. Well, the problem would be people would think you were dumb. But that kind of.

25:21
wraps around to the fake it till you make it point, right? Actually, you know what? Yeah, let’s talk about that point, because I actually don’t like that statement. OK, I didn’t think you would. I put it in the notes and I thought he’s going to say, I thought you would say something before that we recorded, but I’m glad that you’re just throwing it on me now. But I want to hear your take on that first. I OK, so I think fake it is not the fake that you’re thinking. I think you’re thinking. So I immediately thought this is what Steve’s going to going to say.

25:46
because we get a lot of emails saying, I want to teach a course on how to make money online, but I don’t make any money online. Yes, we get that a lot. We do. Yes. And I understand. I understand why people want to do that, because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of opportunity in that space. And it’s lucrative if you can do it the right way. But the only way that you will be successful is if you’re actually making money online. And the people that tend to come to us with that are people that haven’t started doing that yet. And so you’re not you don’t have that trust factor with people or believability.

26:13
So I don’t think it’s fake it like that. I don’t think it’s like say that you’re something that you’re not. I say it’s to me it’s faking the confidence, right? Which is like probably why you think I don’t have a posture system because I’m very good posture syndrome because I’m very good at faking the confidence so that it appears that I think I know things but I mean I know things but it appears that I’m more confident in my knowledge than I really am. That’s the thing. Really? Yes. If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter,

26:43
the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now, what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself. Now, first and foremost, protecting your IP starts with a solid trademark.

27:11
And Emerge Council provides attorney-advised, strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult. And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a $100 discount.

27:41
That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L.com. Now back to the show.

28:07
Have you heard that whenever, I don’t know, because you’ve done a lot of public speaking. I don’t know if you’ve taken any public speaking courses or watched any self-help type videos on that, but they talk about going into the bathroom right before you speak and doing the Superman pose or doing- I do not do any of those things, but go on. I’m curious about these tactics. I like how you’re like, I would never, I would never do anything like that. It really works. It really works if you have something-

28:35
that builds up your confidence before you get on stage. So is that what you do in the bathroom privately? The superman pose? I’m probably adjusting my Spanx in the bathroom. Let’s be real. No, but listening to a certain song that hypes you up or texting a friend who’s going to tell you that you’re awesome. There’s things that you can do to help build your confidence before you get on stage. So that’s the faking. It’s the faking of I can do this. I can get through it.

29:05
I can tell my life story and have it be engaging. I can get on stage and talk about something and feel like people are gonna listen to me and think it’s helpful. So you have to fake that confidence level. I do the opposite, actually. I tell myself, hey, what’s the worst that can happen up there? People aren’t gonna laugh me off stage. Chances are people don’t have tomatoes. Chances are, And so, and it’s only like,

29:33
an hour of my time and people have short memories. It might be bad for a little bit, but then in a month everyone will forget about it. I mean, cause you have had a bad moment on stage. Have I? Yes, do you remember? Which one are you talking about? When I made that bad joke? When you made the bad joke. That was just very minor. I got really good marks for that speech actually. It was cringy. It was cringy, come on. Yeah. No, but it’s interesting. So you don’t feel confident.

30:02
You don’t try to make yourself feel confident before you get on stage. No. I just. You’re completely pessimistic. What is the worst thing that could happen? I could trip and fall on the way up. Yes. I just say, what’s the worst thing that can happen? And that actually makes me feel better. But I don’t pump myself up or anything like that. I just kind of go up and just be myself for the most part. OK, well, science would say that you should not do that.

30:26
Okay. So for people listening. Actually, no, I call my mom. She always gives me real confidence. Like, are you sure that they’re there to listen to you? Did they make a mistake? Are you sure they have the right Steve to? Okay. So, let’s see. Okay. So here just, just another side to that. When this is people in my profitable online store course, when they are looking for vendors to source their physical products online,

30:53
you have to, like if you’re a complete noob, you have to approach the vendor with more confidence that you know what you’re doing. Otherwise they might not take you seriously. So I see the value in that, being confident or projecting confidence, even though you might not actually have it inside. Is that what you mean by fake it till you make it? Yeah, I don’t mean you should fake, like put out BS, right? I think you need to, you have to.

31:19
know what you’re educating people are talking about or whatever it is, right? Whatever your topic is, you do have to know something unless your whole shtick is like, watch me learn something. You know, that could be it too. So I think you have to have an understanding of what you’re communicating to people. However, I think you have to fake because if you don’t and you think that you’re not qualified or not capable or not able to do it, you’re never going to do it. You know, what’s funny is about all this is we had this conversation the other day where I actually, I think I told you that

31:48
People who are just too confident, I don’t trust at all. Yes, I know. Why are we friends? There was a study that said that people who just are just, they project confidence, really they’re just dumb. That obviously wasn’t the exact words of the study. As you just told me like 25 minutes ago in this podcast, you’re so confident. So now I know what you really think of me, thank you. If you think you know everything, then chances are you don’t know as much as you think. Absolutely. I should find that study.

32:18
But see, this is why I’m a little hesitant to say, like you should go out with confidence, but always keep an open mind that you’re not the best. Told by a clearly child risen in an Asian home. That is Asian parenting right there. Yes. OK. But here’s the thing. I think that you’re.

32:42
I think the people that struggle with this imposter syndrome, to the point where it’s crippling, where they’re not taking action on their goals or their dreams or whatever it is, they could use all the confidence in the world. They’re not going to have that problem. The people that we’re talking about are just probably jerks in general. So I think there’s a, I don’t know, there’s two different groups of people. I would say there’s probably not.

33:08
a lot of people with like severe imposter syndrome that are come off crosses overconfident, annoying people. Sure. Maybe, I don’t know. I mean, okay, so I think for those people who don’t have like self-confidence, I think that they’ve just been probably watching too much or looking at too much social media and Instagram, right? Well, it’s interesting because in a couple of the studies that I read, they talked about how social media has actually made this worse. it’s- Oh, I believe it. Yeah, because-

33:36
And this is the thing, like, I believe if you want to launch something or start something or create something for yourself, a new business or idea, you actually need to get off social media, except for obviously promoting whatever you’re doing, right? But I think you should never get on Facebook, never get on Instagram, never get on TikTok, because you will see this world that other people are putting on there that’s so phony.

34:00
and so curated, right? Because you’re gonna be that same curator of phony content. It’s not phony, but you’re putting your best self forward on social media. Most people don’t go on social, well, okay, not most people. Some people go on social media and talk about how terrible their lives are. But for the most part, people are on social media to humble brag. So if you’re sitting there scrolling, which everybody does, all you see is this curated perfection and it’s not real.

34:26
But if you already are struggling with this, then it’s just gonna push it down. It’s gonna push it on you even more. This is funny. There’s this one person that I follow on Instagram. I had never met in real life. I was scrolling through and her picture is like she looks great. And then I actually met her at a conference once. I didn’t even recognize her. You’re talking about me? Thanks. So I mean, it can have the opposite of effect too, right? Yeah. But yeah, the point is,

34:56
stay off of social and it’s all fake. All those ads too, since we’re kinda like about money making and all that stuff, I just tend to think that this is kinda fake. There’s always an underlying story. for example, those people that grew to like millions of dollars in like three months or whatever, I bet their life is kind of like a wreck. I mean, there’s nothing that happens like that without consequences either. And you see those people, and it’s unfortunate because obviously you and I wanna see everybody succeed.

35:25
But it’s unfortunate that you what happens is and I think and the other thing is we’ve been doing this a really long time. So you see people who sort of rise very quickly and then they have this just crash and burn right because Yes, they did accomplish a lot in a short period of time, but there was no balance in their life. They just went a hundred miles an hour until everything blew up for them. So I think there’s a lot of unhealthiness in that as well. The other thing that I wanted to talk about before I forget is a lot of people that suffer from this don’t believe

35:55
that their success is due to their hard work or their accomplishments, they think they’re lucky. And you will hear people say this when you compliment them and they’ll say, oh, I just got lucky. Oh, I just came in at the right time. They don’t, and I’m not saying someone should be just taking credit and gloating for things, but you’ll hear it in how people talk because they won’t acknowledge the fact that, I mean, you had a pretty successful career in engineering from what I’ve heard. And I’m sure that…

36:21
if someone says something to you, you would probably have a combination of, you worked hard, but I just got lucky. I came in the company at the right time. mean, I have my philosophy on luck. What is it? curious. and I think I got this from JD, which is our mutual friend. Like when you work hard, you’re getting additional lottery tickets. Yes. And so you might get lucky with less lottery tickets and work less hard. But the harder you work, the more likely that you get, basically.

36:50
Yeah, I agree. I totally agree with that. But I think what people struggle with is not taking credit for the work that they did, that they think it’s all luck. That’s part of imposter syndrome. It’s thinking that this isn’t because I worked really hard or I had two jobs or I went to school and studied. It’s not because of that. It’s because I just got lucky. And I think people need to if you struggle from imposter syndrome, one of the things that I think is really helpful in overcoming it is making a list of your accomplishments, making a list of the things that you’ve done in your life.

37:19
whether it’s promotions or people you’ve helped or things that you’ve done. It doesn’t have to be all work-based. It could be someone that you helped out in your personal life or something that you did with a charity and making a list of those things so that when you are thinking about doing the next thing, you can look at this list and say, hey, I’ve done some pretty cool things in my life. I can do this next thing as opposed to thinking, I just got lucky and I don’t know if I can get lucky again. That’s true. Like have you done any of these things?

37:47
I know for me I just talk to a friend I guess. You’re pretty good at pumping people up actually. I like to pump people up, yeah. My list, yes. You’re like, how long is your list of things that you think you’ve done well? Well actually I am curious how you do it because you do project confidence with practically everything. Do you have any techniques that you personally use? I do think a lot about, I used to do this when I would do the piano. The piano recital thing really messed me up. It can we not talk about this piano?

38:18
I know it was 100 years ago, but whatever. No, but I used to think like, no, I deserve to be here. I practice four hours a day. I take extra lessons. I was a piano teacher at the time. I was teaching younger students. I would remind myself of all the things that I was doing to get me to that place to say that you deserve to be here. You didn’t get here because of any other reason other than you worked hard. So I try to think about that. Like when you and I talked about starting the blog course, I was very hesitant.

38:45
for a long time in doing this. I thought it was the work factor. Meaning like you didn’t think you had any time in your schedule for it. Right. There was a lot of that. But there was I mean there was definitely a component of am I qualified to do this? Shut up. Another 100 percent. That is true. Now now whatever we’re not friends anymore. No there was definitely a factor of because here’s the thing I know what I’m good at with blogging. I know the things that I succeed at but there are some things about blogging that I suck at.

39:13
Like, please, technology, come on. I mean, you asked me something the other day. was like, I don’t know who did that on my site. I have no clue. Like, there’s things about that world of content marketing that I don’t know anything about. And so I had to get over that to be able to agree to do the course. So the way I did that was to think of all the things that I did do well and that I do know a lot about so that I realized, but if I don’t know everything, I mean, that’s why I think we make a good team, because you know a lot of things that I don’t know anything about. Well, that’s all was about to say. Like, you wouldn’t be covering the tech parts anyway. So why?

39:42
why would you feel like you needed to know that stuff? Because I think it’s just, because it’s kind of like when you asked me that question the other day and I had no idea, like was a little bit embarrassing. cause sometimes you’ll say, well, and sometimes you’ll say, and this is not bad about you, this isn’t like a therapy session for our friendship, but you’ll say, how can you not know that? You know, like, you’ll make- never say that first of all, never. Not in that way, but you’ll make a comment like, really? Or to me, I take it as like, clearly this is something I should know. But I realize it like,

40:12
I don’t care that I don’t know it. You know what I say that, it’s not because that you don’t know it, it’s because that you would trust someone to do something to your site that you didn’t know about. absolutely. Rather than actually knowing it. Yeah. Right. And we have a little bit different philosophies on that too, which is fine. But I think that I had to remind myself of all the things. that’s, I don’t, I I get very nervous for public speaking. Very, very nervous.

40:36
And you know that, because I almost didn’t, well didn’t speak for like two years because I just was like, it was just causing me too much anxiety to I thought I walked in on you doing like the gorilla pose in front of mirror. Yes, yes, yes, me stomping my feet and jumping up and down. No, but I didn’t speak for like a year year and a half because I was like, this is too stressful for me, I don’t want to do it right now. And then I felt, you know, I got over my issues. after that speech when it went really well, you got a little cocky.

41:04
But I think that helps you with imposter syndrome. It’s OK to pat yourself on the back when you do a good job. It’s OK when you start your YouTube channel, right, and you’re talking about your day or some tool that you like or whatever you’re talking about. We talk about starting an NBA channel, right? You’re talking about things and you get your first 10 subscribers. It’s OK to jump up and down and be really excited about that. And I think those are the things that help you keep going and help you continue to create because you’re allowing yourself to take credit.

41:33
for the things that you’ve done. And that’s why think one of the core pieces of why people struggle with this is because they don’t allow themselves to take credit. So from somebody who does have imposter syndrome, I actually go into everything thinking it’s going to fail. And then when things work out better, I’m pleasantly surprised. And I’m not disappointed. That’s another way of doing it. But I feel like you haven’t had a lot of failures. I mean, it depends what you define as failures. I mean, you change things up, right? Things might not work the first time, and you change things up.

42:01
So do you view those things as failures or do you view them as something that you learn from and make improvements? No, I think it’s just maybe it’s because I’m an engineer, but I don’t expect anything to work the first time I code something up, right? Like I literally don’t expect anything to work. And then I know that it’s just going to take some time to refine it. Okay. So for you, since you say that you do struggle with imposter syndrome, which I also find to be quite funny because you

42:26
I don’t struggle with it. It’s just a life thing. I mean, it’s not really a struggle anymore. It’s just a story of my life. We can’t say you struggle. It’s something that you’ve experienced in your life, we could say. Which is not a phase. I just want to mention, since you quoted an NIH study, how am going to refute an NIH? Listen, isn’t that where your mom works? Actually, it is where my mom works. That’s why I use this study. I’m like, can’t challenge it. His mother works there. For you, what do you do?

42:54
Like what, how do you feel? Because I feel like you’ve been able to launch multiple different types of businesses. I mean, you started a podcast, you didn’t know anything about podcasting. You started an e-commerce store, you didn’t know anything about e-commerce. You started a website, you didn’t know anything about websites. So you’ve done a lot of things that most people who struggle with this probably would have a very, very tough time doing. Start a conference, you know anything about conferences. Well, I had you for that, so that’s not fair. Well, but still you were willing to do it. I think there’s still. Yeah, so.

43:22
I think I’ve talked about this in the past, but I go through everything thinking it’s gonna be a slog and then I’ll just keep doing it until it works. I mean, I’ll give you the perfect example right now, the YouTube channel, which I just been doing for six months. I mean, I’ll be honest with you, it’s not growing that quickly. I’m happy with the growth, but it’s just been a slog, but I know in like a couple of years, it’s gonna be good. So it’s just about getting used to suffering and getting used to the grind, really.

43:51
I mean, that’s the story of my childhood, Like every day was like a grind. So people that weren’t raised by Asian parents, how can they? Well, you have to get used to it. You have to go into it saying, OK, this is going to be a slog. I’m going to do this, though, for many years and eventually good things will happen. That’s probably not the best way to like end this podcast on a positive note. But that’s what I really believe. What is your philosophy? I’m a believer of

44:20
Honestly, think the biggest thing you can do is surround yourself with people that believe in you. Because the more the people around you believe in you, the more you believe in yourself. And they will, because I think, I mean, I agree with you that there’s suffering, but a lot of people- this partnership, mean, clearly I believe in suffering. I believe in a lot of suffering. But I think a lot of people probably don’t have the background to be able to endure three years of a slog of YouTube. Initially, they don’t have that mindset.

44:50
when they get started. So I think what will help you get that ability to slog through things is people around you, whether it’s like, no matter what you call it, focus group, mastermind group, meetup, whatever, that will push you and continue to cheer for you and subscribe when they don’t care about whatever you’re doing. You need those people because to do that alone and to suffer alone and slog alone is really tough. It’s not just that actually.

45:20
For the mastermind groups, what’s benefited me also is knowing that other people have faced the same issues that I have. And just knowing that what you’re going through is normal. And I think if you have, even if it’s like one or two people, you don’t need a giant group, that that’s gonna help you get through a lot of feelings of I don’t belong here, I don’t belong in this niche, I don’t belong on YouTube. And if you have those people to…

45:48
be there for you, talk about their experiences, I think it’s really helpful. And I think we’re gonna do a whole podcast on masterminds anyway. We are. But let’s wrap this up, right? So the key ways to overcome imposter syndrome, one is just to do it regardless of whether you think you’re perfect or not. Two was the mastermind group. then- off social media. That’s three. that’s actually a very important one. Yeah, I think that’s probably the first.

46:12
first thing you should do is get off social media. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Stop comparing yourself to other people that are doing similar things, like completely. And then you mentioned just start teaching. Yeah. Right. Even though you don’t think you’re you know more than anyone else, just start teaching what you know. Actually, incidentally, that’s how the blog, my blog got started. Yeah, actually, that’s kind of how mine got started, too. OK. And I think I think it’s important when you’re in that moment of feeling inadequate or that you don’t belong. Write stuff down. Make a list. Text yourself.

46:42
right? Text yourself the things that you’ve accomplished in your life so that you can look back and realize that you do deserve to be doing the things that you’re doing and you deserve the success that you’ve already experienced. And the last one was fake it to make it, which I don’t really like that slogan. So just just be confident. Project confidence.

47:01
Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. Now for more information about this episode, go to profitableaudience.com slash podcast, where we list all of the tools and resources mentioned in our show notes. And if you enjoyed listening to this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us a review. When you write us a review, it not only makes our day, but it helps keep this podcast up in the ranks so other people can use this information, find the show more easily and get some awesome business advice.

47:29
Leaving a review is by far the best way to support the show. And please tell your friends because the greatest compliment that you can give us is to provide a referral to someone else either in person or to share it on the web. And if you’re interested in building your own profitable audience, subscribe to our free six day mini course where we walk you through the exact steps needed to find your niche, build a website, grab email subscribers and monetize your content. You can sign up at profitableaudience.com slash free. Thanks for listening.

00:30
and digital products in order to teach you how to build and monetize your audience. So if you’re interested in starting your own online business, then please subscribe to the Profitable Audience Podcast and leave a review. Now, long-time listeners of this podcast know that I also cover some of these same topics on the MyWifeQuitterJob.com podcast. So what’s different about the Profitable Audience Podcast? Well, as you know, the My Wife Quitter Job podcast is predominantly an interview-based show. Now, I do solo episodes here and there.

00:58
but for the most part, I rarely share my own opinions. And in fact, because some of the guests I have on are just acquaintances, I’m actually usually on my best behavior and I will rarely be as blunt as I normally am. But with the profitable audience podcast, I’ve actually known Tony for a very long time and actually don’t really care what I say. In fact, I’m unconstrained and basically say whatever the heck I want. And I have the opportunity to truly express what’s on my mind.

01:25
In any case, today I share with you one of our first episodes. And if you liked the podcast, we are also running a big contest where we’re both giving away a membership to my Create a Profitable Online Store course valued at $1,800, a membership to our Profitable Audience course valued at $997, a bunch of Seller Summit virtual passes worth $1,200, and one-on-one consults with both Tony and myself. Now you can enter this contest over at profitableaudience.com slash contest.

01:55
Once again, that’s profitableaudience.com slash contest. Now we both appreciate any support that you can give for our show and please share it with your friends. And with that, here’s an episode from the profitable audience podcast on how to reach out to any influencer and get a response. Now, if you’ve been trying to get the attention of someone famous or well known, here’s exactly how to do it.

02:21
Alright, welcome back to the profitable audience podcast. Today we’re going to talk about a topic that’s actually very important. And that is how to get the attention of more prominent influencers to help grow your brand. And you’re in for a treat today, because this happens to be one of Tony Anderson’s greatest strengths. In my opinion, I’ve seen this woman in action. She is a master. I have my own techniques also, but I feel like they’re not nearly as effective as hers. So

02:50
Tony, I remember seeing you in action. What was the first event we went to together? Well, I guess our first event was a Startup Bros event. I don’t know if we’re gonna count that one. You’re gonna count that one? That’s the one? Well, no, I saw you in action in that one, right? Because you wanted to get the attention of somebody. I did. Well, I’ll let you tell the story. But I just remember seeing you on Twitter doing something. And then all of a sudden, you were talking with this person. And I was like, whoa, how did you do that?

03:20
Well, the person ended up speaking at our event as well. So it benefited you as well. All right. This is actually a really important topic when you are just getting started, because I know when people just get started building a business online, it is really hard to connect with anybody, let alone somebody who you feel like is light years ahead of you in the business world. And doing it the right way, I think, is important. And the one thing I want to start off by saying is this has to be genuine. You cannot…

03:48
I’m trying to think of the PG word. You cannot just be a kiss up to people. You have to actually be genuine in your desire to meet and get to know these people. And it has to be, at the end of the day, mutually beneficial. So when we talk about this, I know a lot of it’s going to seem maybe a little bit. Manipulative? Yes, manipulative. I was trying to find a nicer word for manipulative. But I think, so I think at the end of the day, both for you and I and other people we know that are good at this,

04:15
there has to be a genuineness behind it. It cannot be phony because if it’s phony, the influencer or the person that you’re trying to get to know will sniff you out and figure you out pretty quickly. All right, so walk me back. Startup Bros, what did you do? So we were at Startup Bros and this was my first e-commerce conference. I’d been to many other conferences before, but this was my first e-commerce conference. I was a little overwhelmed. So even though maybe I was a seasoned online person. for this? Seasoned what? I don’t know, influencer, online? Net worker?

04:45
Networker, yeah. Season networker. I don’t like the word networking, by the way. I don’t either. I was trying to think of a… I’ve been around the block. That doesn’t sound right either. It wasn’t my first rodeo. I just saw all these different things. I felt a little out of place at an e-commerce event because I didn’t know a lot about e-commerce. So I had a lot of the feelings that people might have when they’re attending their very first event or going to a meetup or something like that. And there was a person on stage speaking that you and I both…

05:14
thought did a really good job speaking and seemed like a very interesting person that we wanted to get to know. However, the problem is, is when you are speaking at an event, you don’t always have a lot of free time and you have a lot of people that want to talk to you. So you have to figure out a way to stand out among all the other attendees at the event or meet up that you’re at to get to know this person. Had we known that he was speaking and I knew he was cool before, I probably would have done the strategy before I even went to the event, but it works when you’re there as well. So the first thing I started to do was just tweet at him.

05:43
because he had a Twitter account and I think he even put his Twitter account on the screen while he was speaking. So I started responding to some of his tweets. I think a really good way to do this is be funny if you can. Now you don’t have to be a comedian, but if you can be witty or interesting in your tweets back or if you’re gonna comment on their Instagram or if they’re not on Twitter and you do this well with Photoshop I know, but I think that was the first thing that I did is I started engaging with him on Twitter and the reason why I did that is because I wanted him to have a frame of reference

06:13
when I walked up to introduce myself. He happened to be an NBA person, a fan, and so I latched onto, I found that commonality. It happened to be NBA, which was a real bonus for me, but I could probably find a commonality with just about anything, and anyone can. This is not something that I can do and no one else can, anyone can do this. I found that commonality, and then I found those tweets, and I started interacting with the tweets that I felt like I could have the most impact on.

06:38
So I did that, I responded to a couple of his tweets. I noticed that he followed me back on Twitter. So then when I ended up, I don’t know, it was probably later in the day, we went up to introduce ourselves to him. I already had that in because I introduced myself and I made a reference to the conversation we had had on Twitter and then there was that immediate connection. I wasn’t a stranger anymore. I had already interacted with him before I ever got to the in-person moment, which is the hardest moment. I’m trying to, you keep using the words we, I think.

07:06
back when we went to this conference together, we weren’t really friends. I mean, we were friends, but we weren’t. I went to the conference with you. feel like we had to have been friends. But there was no cellar summit, right? No. was no ulterior motives. And I actually don’t even remember who this person was now. It was Zach. Oh, it was Zach. OK, that’s right. Zach. It Zach, yeah. That’s right. Do you remember what you texted him? Well, he was a big Utah Jazz fan. And so he had tweeted some things about basketball. So I had kind of

07:34
done some smack talk, which is not surprising if you know me. So I’d come back with them with that. And I think that’s sort of the technique, right? You find the commonality, and then you engage in a lighthearted type dialogue. You don’t want to come at somebody or immediately attack somebody for their views. That’s not a good way to get their attention. And you don’t want to just kiss up, right? There has to be something in there where you’re a peer. You’re an equal. And then you use that to…

08:02
make the introduction. So and we’ve we’ve actually done this at many events, right, where we will comment on someone’s Instagram or do something. And then we go up and introduce ourselves and they have just a tiny bit of name recognition, even if they have no idea who you or I mostly do know you from the podcast. But if they have no idea who we are, there’s at least a little bit there before we even have to make the awkward face to face. I think that’s the key. I personally believe that you should never fanboy anybody. Right.

08:31
as soon as you fanboy someone that instantly puts you on a lower tier and they pretty much look at you differently, I feel like from then on out, And the other thing too to think about, and this is sort of a male female dynamic is that if you’re a dude and you’re fanboying a female, then they’re on the defensive with you usually, right? So there’s that. female? Yeah.

08:52
So there’s also that like you want to feel you want to always make it feel like there’s an equal playing field because I honestly believe it is a equal playing field. They might be an expert in whatever they’re talking about, but you’re an expert in something too. So it is equal. You’re just equal on different fields. Yeah. And I feel like also like the way you joke around, like I always try to joke around with someone and I don’t know. Maybe this is just my personality, but I always just like ripping on people right away. It’s kind of risky, right? It’s very, I, you’re, it’s risky.

09:22
I don’t recommend your technique all the time. don’t. Yeah. You actually, you always like give me the eye roll or something when I go straight to the Rippage, right? But I think it, I think it works for the most part. I guess it just depends on, you have to like seed all this stuff, right? I always actually try to be make fun of first and then, and then I’m like, okay, oh, it’s on. But I think the way you do it, and we’re talking about live events here, but if you’re not,

09:50
interacting with someone in a live event scenario, I think you want to just pop in here and there. Like, let’s say you did this remotely. So maybe leave a comment on a post that they’ve written or tweet out one of their posts or share one of their posts on Facebook. Just kind of over time. Yeah, not all at once. Right. Not all the same day. Just do it, you know, every time they publish something and just continue this for maybe like a month, let’s say any content creator.

10:19
will notice these things. I notice anyone who posts a comment on my post. I notice anyone who mentions my podcast or leaves a comment on one of my YouTube videos, especially right now since I’m trying to grow my channel. And if you see this person’s name enough times, if they do end up emailing you, you’ll recognize their name and you’re going to be much more open to talking to that person. And I think it’s really important because I feel like, especially right now, people aren’t going to events very often. your first interaction with these people

10:48
almost 99 % of the time is going to be on the web. It’s gonna be on a social channel, on their website, something like that. And I think the important thing to do is when you’re doing this technique where you’re sharing their content, commenting, you can’t do the, which I’m very guilty of this when I’m lazy, is great post. Love your content. Where it looks like someone in India has been hired to go and write on the content, right, or the comments. And I think it’s important to, if you’re gonna leave a comment,

11:18
actually reply to something that the person said in the blog post. You can even disagree. Hey, that’s interesting to me. I actually think X, Y, Z. And taking the time, if someone’s gonna leave me two paragraphs on a blog post, I’m definitely gonna remember them because most people will just comment, great post or nice, love it. Same thing with social media. If you’re gonna share a piece of content on social media, take the time to say, hey, I really enjoy this website. This article was interesting because X, Y, Z, even if it’s one or two sentences,

11:47
That’s just going to be more impactful on the creator when they see that you’re sharing their stuff. Let’s expand upon that. So one thing that I’ve done in the past that’s worked great is someone might post a tactic or talk about it on the podcast. I will actually use that tactic that they suggested on my own stuff and then tell them that it worked or, you know, I’ll report on the real results or write, I’ll write a blog post on it say, Hey, you know, I tried what you taught us in that lesson and it worked. This is actually how I got on Amy Porterfield’s podcast. Incidentally.

12:17
I tried some of her webinar techniques and I told her and she was like, oh my God, oh my God, a success story, right? And then so I had her on mine and then she had me on hers and then that’s, she actually used me in some of her presentations as well. Oh, humble brag, humble brag. Well, no, I’m just saying it works, right? No, it absolutely works. And it doesn’t have to be for someone in the business thing like Amy Porterfield. If you want to meet like a famous food blogger,

12:44
Go on Facebook Live making their recipe, link back, give them full credit, right? Don’t take their recipe. You can do this in any single niche. It works. And I think the more you do that, I mean, that’s a huge way to get someone’s attention. And it’s actually a good way to get on their blog or their podcast if they have something like that. It’s exactly what happened to you. People love to see, I love it if someone makes one of my recipes and sends me a photo. I’ll post it on the, I’ll add it to the blog post.

13:08
And if they have a site, I’ll link back to them because I want people to see like, hey, isn’t just a recipe that I say is good. Other people have made it and it’s good. Yeah. And so this goes back to the comment too. I mean, you can’t just say great post or whatever. Anything that you can cite about your own experiences, maybe using that tactic or being a little bit more critical sometimes, like don’t bash their ideas, obviously, but if you’re a little bit more critical and to make that person think about it a little bit, then that just kind of just naturally causes conversation. And that’s how you get to know people.

13:36
So I would say step one in interacting with influencers is to comment on their content or share their content. start out very, it’s very non-threatening. It makes the influencer feel good, right? They’re excited that someone’s sharing their content and it’s starting to give that name recognition so that if you do email them and maybe you want them on your podcast or you wanna see if you can write a guest post, you’re not just one of the probably hundreds of emails they get every day.

14:06
requesting the same thing. Which medium do you use? mean, do you still use Twitter anymore or? I don’t reach out to people a whole lot anymore. But when I got started and when I was doing this initially, I was always using Twitter. And I think that’s what Twitter is good for these days. People talk about, is it even worth it to be on Twitter? I do think it is to have those conversations because that’s where a lot of those conversations happen these days. And that’s where people are, I feel like.

14:31
feel like they almost have their guard down a little bit. Like they’re willing to chat with you on Twitter because it’s very, it doesn’t feel invasive, right? It’s just like a platform. They don’t know where you live. They don’t know much about you. It’s fine. And I think so Twitter is still really valuable for connecting with other influencers and actually even brands too, but that’s a whole other podcast. mean, I think my go-to is to get someone on my podcast. Uh, gives me the opportunity to talk to them for an hour, maybe longer. Usually the best conversations actually happens after the recording is over.

15:00
But I guess there’s also a chicken and egg problem there, right? In order to get someone prominent on your podcast, you kind of have to convince them. Right, so when you first got started podcasting, I know you already had a pretty successful website. following. So this is what I did, basically. I started out with my friends and colleagues in the area. once I had a decent following, so I’m just kind of referencing Noah Kagan here, because I remember when I first asked him, he said no, flat out.

15:29
And I was like, okay, this guy, he’s playing hard to get. So I have to, so what I did is I emailed him next time and I kind of told him a little about the audience and the nature of the audience. And then I talked about, you know, how the products that he was developing for sumo.com were kind of relevant to my audience and that I could probably drive him some sales. And that’s ultimately what got him to come on. Okay. But what if you couldn’t drive him sales?

15:56
If I couldn’t drive him sales, I mean, I’ve gotten other people through various techniques. I mean, you have to kind of work your way up, right? You can’t just go after that big fish right away. And I’m like flattering Noah here talking. Noah’s I know, but we should use a different example. come on. I hope he doesn’t listen to this. You have to work your way up, right? So what I would like to do is just find friends of friends, maybe to give an intro. And if you don’t have any friends of friends,

16:23
You you just got to work your way up. So maybe pick less prominent people who are on his friends list and get them on the podcast first. Someone who’s much more likely to come on. And then if you go up to him again, you say, hey, I had this person on this person on this person. You know all these people. Why don’t you come on the podcast? Kind of like a me too type of thing. Yeah, it’s funny when I want to say this is 2009 and there was a company that I had met the founder of at some blogging event and

16:51
They were launching this company and they needed to connect with bloggers basically. But they only knew two bloggers. It was me and Rachel Miller, who, know, Facebook Rachel Miller. And we were the two bloggers that we had somehow connected with them at some point. And I remember showing up at a blog conference and the vice president of the company or whatever she, I don’t remember her title, she said, hey, can you give me like 15 minutes of your time? And I said, you know, sure. So we sat down in the lobby of this hotel and she had a spreadsheet of every blogger she wanted to meet.

17:19
Not only did she have a spreadsheet of every blogger she wanted to meet, she had all their social properties, right? So she had their Facebook and their Twitter, and then she had who they knew. So she knew that this blogger was friends with this person who was friends with this person. And she basically created this matrix of, because if she could meet blogger A, eventually she could meet blogger D because it would lead her down the path of these relationships, right? And maybe blogger A was a little bit.

17:42
more accessible, right? Because they weren’t quite as big. you knew that Blogger A had partnered with Blogger B. it was, when I saw that spreadsheet, it was like sort of this, whoa, moment of, wait a second, this is so doable. It’s so doable to get to Blogger F if you can get to Blogger A, right? Or Content Creator A or Podcaster A. You can get to that final person by just…

18:04
working your way through the list of people and building up your own credibility because she had to build trust and credibility for these bloggers to want to even talk to her. Just seeing that written down was crazy for me because I was like, wait, this is like a whole strategy. This is a whole thing that anyone can do because they didn’t have any clout. They didn’t have any credibility back then. And they ended up building a huge company, just sold it like two years ago. Yes, it was a tap influence people. The big stuff. Yeah. Facebook is your friend, right? You can immediately figure out who people are connected to who.

18:33
and you just got to go for the lowest common denominator first and work your way up. In all that, important thing, there’s a couple of like really key qualities. And the first one is that genuineness. You can’t go into blogger A with the blogger F goal or the content creator A. You have to really be interested in content creator A. You can’t just feel like it’s a stepping stone. You have to actually build a relationship with blogger A because when you have that relationship, then that’s what’s going to transfer. It’s not about

19:02
who can I use and step on to get to the next person. And let’s talk about outreach for a little bit. Like do not use anyone’s template. Very obvious. Below this podcast, we’re going to have seven original templates that you can copy and paste. Yes, they just do not work. You have to be original with every email and don’t make it too long. Like when I receive an email that goes extends below the fold, I typically don’t even read it at all. I don’t know how you are.

19:28
Here’s a tip for Steve, if y’all are trying to get on his podcast and you’re listening to this, put everything in the subject line. That is where I put, I don’t even have text in my email. I put like a period or a punctuation, some sort of punctuation, just so the email goes through. I put everything in the subject line. So he reads it. Yeah. If the email is too long, then most people I would say are not going to read it because it just takes too much. If, especially if it’s from a stranger, be very concise. Like that first sentence or two should

19:58
I wouldn’t even introduce myself. I would talk about how I could help the person that I’m contacting first and then maybe give a one sentence intro at most. And that’s it, like three sentences. Here’s what you have to remember too is people, these content creators, they’re getting 50 to a hundred emails a day, maybe more. They’re probably not reading any of them. They probably have someone who’s actually parsing through their email for them. So you need to be very…

20:23
like you said, concise and getting to the point. I think you made up, you brought up a great point of what are you going to do for them? Not what do you want them to do for you? If you want them to do something for you, they’re not going to even, this is going be deleted immediately. mean, I also like to use what I call the Chufusion ambush technique. So once you have everyone’s Facebook, are you wondering what that is? Do you know what it is already? I’m afraid. Go on. Once you have their Facebook friends,

20:52
And let’s see, you know, some of them, right? So this is how I got Ryan Dice on the podcast. I had I think five or six friends of his who I actually just knew. And I had them all reach out to him at the same time, like within one or two days, saying, Hey, you know, I think you’d be a great guest on Steve’s podcast. And so he got like five or six emails all at the same time. And then I emailed him like two days later. And then he said, that I know, I know you do that, that

21:21
That one’s always been a little iffy for me. I’m curious if someone did it to you, it would feel a little bit spammy, but then guess if they were my good friends, I wouldn’t feel that they were my friends, they don’t have to be good friends, but it would probably work. I would certainly reply to that email. Get your friends off me. What Ryan said was like,

21:45
Oh my God, like I got all these emails from you. And then later on, he said it was actually quite effective on the podcast when I had him on. I mean, I can definitely see that for sure. It just seems that seems very overwhelming. I don’t think I would do that for you. I guess it’s on a case by case basis. For you, I would just open with like some NBA quote. Thank you. Or something like that. If you want to, if anyone ever wants to pitch me, please start with an NBA quote or fun fact, and I will probably respond to your email with a, with a GIF.

22:14
But that takes knowledge of who you are, I guess. you know, if you do… think that’s important. I it’s important to know the person. I think… But that’s… It’s so funny. I feel like all of this is a very tricky balance between being a very effective networker to being an absolute creep. The line is very thin. I mean, if you think about it, it’s kind of like dating, right? And maybe you’re a female, you don’t do the pursuing most of the time. But for guys, you know, you have to be prepared, do the research and stuff.

22:43
It’s only creepy if the person doesn’t want to have anything to do with you, right? Like a million years ago, we had this friend and he, he worked with my husband and he, he had like zero social ability. And there are a lot of people out there like that. And he liked this female and he, guess they had talked a little bit, but very, very surface, right? There was no relationship there at all. And this was before like email and texting and all this stuff. And he decided to bake a cake and leave it on her doorstep.

23:12
Okay, well that’s borderline creepy. That’s creepy, right? But I feel like a Was it a cake of a dead rabbit? It was an actual cake, but I don’t know if he could bake, so who knows if it was any good. All that to say there’s that fine line between is what you’re doing a normal level of networking versus you approach somebody, because we’ve both had this happen to us. I’ve seen it happen to you at events where someone approaches you and they know really weird details about your life. Yes.

23:40
that they would only know from looking at every single Instagram post you’ve ever put up. So that’s where for me and probably a lot of females, your creep radar goes off. I think it’s I think for this is like one of those podcasts where I feel like this is going to be so sexist at the end of the day. But I feel like if you go up to a dude and you know a lot of facts about them, they’re probably flattered. Right. Right. But if you do it to a female, she’s like holding her cover. don’t that sexist. I think it’s just an inherent fear. Right. I mean, yeah, sure. Yeah.

24:08
But I do think- love how you go to Starbucks at 9.30 a.m. every morning. love how you get your mocha frappuccino grande. I like how you started using your sexy voice on the mic. Right, exactly. Then you’re running to the bathroom as fast as you can. So I do think that stuff matters. do think knowing who you’re approaching and knowing a little bit about them is very important. The other thing, and this is totally an in-person event thing, and I think at one point we’ll get to those again.

24:36
When you do get your opportunity to meet somebody that you’ve been trying to meet, and this is really hard to do at events, you cannot be darting around the room. Your eyes cannot be darting around the room. You cannot be trying to, you have to be so focused on the person you’re talking to and you have to be not talking a whole lot. You have to let them talk to you. So don’t go up to them and just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

25:05
and you can’t be doing the whole dart around the room, looking uninterested, talking a lot about yourself. interesting because we have different tactics in this regard. yeah, so I think that’s very important. I you’re usually in bed when we do this. So the way I operate is I think all the networking happens at night at the bar, right? So I’ll just freely buy people drinks that I want to meet and then I’ll just go up to them and just start talking to them.

25:34
and asking questions. So same thing there. I don’t talk about myself at all. I literally just ask them questions the entire time. And then once I get an idea of what their personality is, that’s when I start busting on them lightly, see what they can take. I guess by the end, we don’t even talk about business at all. My go-to is actually our kids and relationships. Those are my go-to topics. If they’re single, that’s even more fun, right?

26:03
Because then I just talk about, you know, once the alcohol starts flowing, like they start revealing some stuff about like their personal lives and that’s how it get connected. And then later on, you know, they’ll remember the conversation and that’s when you can hit them up for anything or any ask. Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I don’t go to bed at six. Come on. I mean, I at least make it till eight thirty. You do. Yeah, that’s true. the drinks haven’t flown enough for that to work for me. Yeah. You know, people aren’t hopefully they’re not drunk by eight o’clock. You never know.

26:32
Depends on what event you’re at. Startup Bros, that was probably the case. But I will say about your tactic, which I agree with 99.9 % of the time, because I feel like one, you shouldn’t be talking about business initially. You want to get to know the person. You want to make them feel at ease and comfortable. But I do remember my second event with you, which was ECF. we, do you remember this? We had breakfast with Drew Sinaki and some other like massive e-commerce seller, both of whom were speakers at the event.

27:02
Do you remember this breakfast? probably don’t. don’t actually, but refresh my memory. I had no idea who they were. I mean, you introduce them as Drew and Charles or whatever. don’t remember the other guy’s name. You introduce them and we spent the entire breakfast talking about how hard it was to find a good nanny in New York City, which was fine. But it was your tactic of like talking about family. was already friends with them. So there was no tactics that time. I was already friends with both of them. Yeah. Yes, that’s true.

27:27
So then we have breakfast and I’m like, oh, this is good. Like networking, meeting people, knowing about their lives, whatever. But then what happened was we sit down in the speaker hall, whatever, the auditorium, and they both get up and do these like blow you away presentations. And I’m thinking, I just had breakfast with this guy that’s like a genius about marketing, email marketing. And I talked about nanny problems. Like I would have like five seconds to talk about email marketing. He could have talked the whole time, I would listened.

27:53
But I was so irritated that we didn’t talk at all about business because I felt like I had this golden opportunity to talk to a true expert and we talked about nannies. No, but then he spoke at our conference. You could ask him whatever you want. you get him on. I but I didn’t. You don’t know if you’re ever going to have that opportunity. I mean, we’re fortunate. We run an event, right? So we can always have that second chance. But that might be your only chance to talk to somebody in if you have a podcast, it’s definitely not your only chance. Right. So the moral of the story is start a podcast. Well, no, that too. I mean. Yeah.

28:22
It’s still, even if you have a blog or YouTube channel, that’s definitely not the end either. You can get them on your YouTube channel. A blog post, you can do a feature on them, Right. So it’s never the end. say, sometimes there’s too much social. I know there’s not for you, but for me, at some point I have to get to like some sort of business conversation. Really? Okay. I feel like once it goes into business, here, here’s another thing I like to do. I try to go to topics that the other person doesn’t know as much about as I do.

28:50
So if you talk about their core competency, like this example that you said with email or whatever it was, you talk about email, like they’re the superior person in that respect, right? But let’s say that person is really into ping pong. I’m being really racist now. And they’re really into ping pong, but I know a lot more about ping pong than that person. And then all of a sudden I become the authority in their eyes. Right? I like that. That’s good. I try to stay away from their core competency. And again,

29:19
When I’m doing this, I’m just trying to get to know the person. I’m just kind of seating it for later on, right? It’s always like a long-term game. And in a lot of cases, I don’t ask for anything for months, even years. I think relationships need time to just kind of sink in a little bit. I totally agree with that. I think that’s a great point is that you have to play the long game on this. is not about, this is not a one night stand.

29:41
That’s to use the dating analogy. mean, it dating is what it is, really. It is. It really is. But you have to be in it for the long haul or it’s not going to be beneficial for either person. And I think, too, you never know how those relationships are going to affect you five years from now. Right. You could be at a point where you have grown to be more successful than the person you wanted to meet, especially if you’re just starting out. Right. I mean, let’s just take you and I for a little bit.

30:10
I think in the beginning I didn’t have any intentions of working with you or whatnot. And then I found that you were doing events and then you, you think you planted the seed and then I don’t know how we kept in touch. Yeah. We didn’t really have a reason. I came on your podcast to talk about like productivity and that sort of Yeah. I don’t know how it’s straight to conferences, but I think you just casually asked about it or you, mentioned it or something like that. Cause we were at taking your course.

30:39
Yes, that’s right. You took the course. Actually, my memory is kind of really fuzzy because it’s been so long now. Here’s what happened. You came up to me and you said, I heard you were the most amazing person in the world. I knew this was coming. So maybe later, but initially you were like, oh my God, let’s tweet this guy. Wait, he’s not on Twitter. Oh no. He’s not on Twitter. He’s not on Instagram. He’s nowhere. How can I talk to him? No, but I think that’s a really good point is that when we met each other, we met because we had a mutual friend. Neither of us knew who the other person was at all.

31:07
But we actually had multiple mutual friends. But we met because of the mutual friend. And we kept in touch for probably a year, I would say, off and on, before we ever discussed anything working together-wise or even. I think it was like two years, actually. Yeah. I I came on the podcast, but that was it. There wasn’t any other like. I I think we would. But it was the same thing, though. We joked with the. When I see my Facebook memories, we were joking with each other on Facebook.

31:36
you know, making snarky comments on pictures that weren’t like super offensive, but just just a little bit, you know, to get to get attention and not that either of us were really trying to get the other person’s attention. But I think there was just like a back and forth over time that then ended up we became friends and ended up working together. I mean, that’s kind of my M.O. So I like to use Photoshop. I’m kind of like a jokester. So I’ll make fun of people that way. I have to make sure that they can take it first. You have offended. I have offended people, which is fine.

32:05
because that means we’re never gonna be friends. Like if you can’t take a little joke, then I don’t care how big you are. We’re just not gonna be on that personal level. Maybe you’re good to get on the podcast, because you know your stuff, but we probably won’t be close friends. So I’ve done this with a lot of people. It just works out in the long run, because you can always go back to that moment and kind of just joke about it and laugh about it. It’s something that stands out in the I totally agree.

32:32
For me, and I say this a lot in all the stuff that we do, and I know whether it’s teaching a course or doing an event, that for me, the networking is probably one of the reasons why I’ve had success. It’s the main reason why I’ve had success in business is that that was really for me, I built relationships really early on in the blog world. I actually formed a group of other bloggers, and then from that, it spawned my event that I started from that group because I knew somebody who knew somebody.

33:02
And it’s basically how I met you. I met you because I had an event where I had met JD Roth. JD Roth was like the linchpin in all of this. But I think for me, the relationships that I built have basically led to almost every opportunity and everything I’ve ever done was because of a relationship. And it wasn’t necessarily because someone did something for me, but if I hadn’t met you, I would have never gotten into e-commerce because I didn’t know anything about e-commerce. I didn’t even know that people could sell on Amazon.

33:30
So just the fact of meeting you and just being exposed to that world of e-commerce was another opportunity for me to build a business and grow a business. And it wasn’t because I used you for anything. It’s just that I got introduced to something that I didn’t understand. And then because of our relationship, I was able to do that. So I feel like when I look through everything that I’ve started and done, it’s always because of a relationship that I had with somebody that either pushed me to do something or taught me about something or made me see that there was an opportunity that I might not have seen.

34:00
by myself. I mean, this is that lesson that you just gave is is actually what’s taking me the longest to learn. Because I’m an engineer at heart. And I just want to be behind a computer. Most of the time. I think we I told you about this recently. I think the bulk of my week these days is actually getting on zoom calls and talking to people. Yeah, You said last week, you said I spent all week on zoom. Yeah, exactly. And it’s these relationships with people that actually want to to get to know better.

34:28
And it’s totally true. It’s like the people you know that will propel you in business. mean, the work that you do is obviously still important, but just getting it like you could do the, you could do really good work. And if it’s on par with everyone else, you’ll just kind of blend in with the crowd. But it’s the people who you know that will help propel you higher. Like my business didn’t actually start growing until I started going to events. Yeah. So it’s hard thing to say right now when there’s no events, but I know virtual events are, mean,

34:56
to be honest with you, they’re just not the same. No, I agree. They’re a good way to learn, I think, but they’re not a great way to network. Which I think is why having a network is, that’s why I think having a network is so important. People in our lives have helped us get to where we are in a variety of different ways, right? We’ve also worked really hard. But I also think about just like friendships and relationships that I’ve built over my years. And I think about, have a mutual friend that went through a medical issue over the summer and I was on a text thread.

35:25
when she went in for surgery. And so we were getting text updates about how she was doing. Well, I ended up looking at like, I was trying to say like, who’s on this text thread, right? Cause there were a bunch of numbers. And when I looked on him, two people on the text thread were local. Everyone else in the text thread was people she had met through building her online business. Her closest friends and confidants were people that we were all over the country, but we were all together because we all have this mutual friend in this person. And I feel like eventually it extends way outside of your business, right?

35:52
it’s great to make these contacts. It’s great to find people to have on the podcast or YouTube. But at the end of the day, a lot of these people end up being your friends. Yeah, actually, I easily talk to my, I guess, quote unquote, internet friends more than my than my local friends. Yeah, I think of it. Yeah. And here’s what I like. I feel like I can travel almost anywhere in the world and be able to just send out an email saying, Hey, does anyone want to hang out? Yeah. And, you know, I’ll have something to do wherever I go. And

36:21
That’s just really powerful to me. Yeah, and I think too, you have to think about when you’re in this online business world. I mean, you’ve told me before, some of the people that you went to college with, like, do not have any idea what you do, right? Doesn’t make sense to them. It does not not make sense, but they’re like, you sell hankies? What? You know, or when you get, when you start making these friendships and develop these relationships with people that are in your same industry, you have, you finally have that group of people where you could make

36:48
very strange comments to a regular person that doesn’t live in this world and they get you. And I think that’s really important to building your business is having people that get you so that you can say things that would seem absurd to other people, but you have a network of people that understand it. And I think that’s really critical to having success because

37:07
working in this business is lonely and you work by yourself a lot and it’s hard and you have days where everything sucks or you have a Google update and it crashes your site and to have those people that you can sort of go back to and talk about these things is really important to keeping you going when things are not going well for you. Let’s summarize everything that we’ve talked about because we’ve gone off on a lot of different tangents here. Ultimately you want to get the attention of someone. Let’s say you want to get the attention of someone.

37:37
So your tactic before was to tweet about them, comment on their blogs, just basically drop subtle things on their properties that just let them know that you exist, which kind of frames the future event when you actually meet in person. And then when you actually do meet them, what I like to do, and I actually didn’t get to hear what your tactic was. Well, I don’t get them drunk. Well, you don’t get them drunk. Yes, you don’t get them drunk. Yeah.

38:03
I like to just talk about topics that I’m strong in that they’re not that they’re interested in. I don’t fanboy and I basically talk about relationships and kids or whatever any commonality that we might have. It could be the NBA, could be volleyball, it could be math. It’s interesting because my tactic is then the opposite, right? I let them talk about themselves the whole time. Well, yeah, you ask questions, but if they’re interested about something that you just happen to be good at, then I steer the conversation that way. Yeah, I try not to. get way too excited. Yeah.

38:33
Well, that’s why when you meet Tony, actually, you’ll find that you reveal everything and you end up not knowing anything about her. Yes, that’s exactly correct. You don’t want to get me started on the NBA. We’ll be talking until five in the morning. But I think the important part in all of that is there has to be a level of genuine friendship there.

38:54
It cannot be, you cannot be doing this for your own personal gain. You have to go into all of this thinking, how can I benefit the other person? What do I have to offer? And as long as you’re approaching it from that angle, you’re going to have much more success than if you’re viewing this as a true strategy to benefit yourself. And I will also add that you shouldn’t ask for anything right away. Like if that’s your intention, I would wait, wait a little bit. I would say six months or so.

39:22
And so that’s why you got to kind of plan ahead and see everything and see the relationship. If you guys hit it off totally in person, then of course you can probably make the ask right away. I’ll do that right then and there usually. Ask them to come on the podcast and then have a deeper conversation on the podcast. And then if you guys are brave enough, you can try the Chiffusion ambush technique, which Tony does not condone or recommend, but it has been effective. I don’t condone your technique, but I do.

39:48
Endorse the technique of a mutual friend introduction. Yes. Yeah mutual friend introduction is always better It’s like that’s like you’re like a DEF CON 5 level with the email spam I’m probably like a DEF CON 2, you know, I have a friend of a friend I’m also a little riskier than you are too, right? Because yeah, I’m less worried about offending someone Whereas you’re very careful about not offending anyone. So we have different person. I’m the one who ends up offending people I don’t know how that works. Is that true?

40:16
Who have you offended? What? Well, we’ll talk about it later. occasion. that’s a whole, that’s a therapy session, that’s not a podcast. I don’t really see you offending anyone. You never say anything really that’s offensive. Because it’s like a ticker tape in my head as I’m talking, because I have in the past said very, very offensive things not on purpose. I see. So now, in fact, it’s actually a networking horror story really quick. It was my own event. We were at a wine tasting.

40:46
and one of the attendees actually hosted it at her house, because she lived by the conference center. And so there was probably a handful of people who had come in like a day early for the conference. So there’s probably like 15 people there. And the girl that was hosting her house, I thought was wonderful. And she was kind of being self-deprecating, right? She’s like, oh, well, you know, we’re still in the middle of the reno and whatever. And I was like, it’s not like you’re living in a trailer. Well, of course, the lady next to me lived in a trailer.

41:12
So super offensive and I was absolutely horrified because she literally just called me out right then and I mean I I know you’re envisioning my face when that happened because I wanted to die turned all red Absolutely, totally red. Anyway, so because of that that moment I have just that’s why you don’t see me offend people because that’s all I can think about is maybe it’s better than a trailer and that’s all I think about when I talk to people now Okay, so just for the audience like that’s not the way I’m talking about like ripping on people

41:45
So an example of ripping on people is like I might bust on like the magic if I were with you for example. Some light-hearted. personal. You don’t rip on a personal. I wasn’t trying to rip on anybody. Just to clarify if you live in a trailer I love you. Did you call that person trailer trash? you? I was, as you know, was horrified. Yes.

42:05
Anyway, so that’s I am very, very cautious about offending people, but I think being able to find something that you can joke about that’s not personally offensive to them is really important, like a sports team or, you know, or something. Yeah. I mean, I can’t come up with the top of my head. Their shoes. I rip on your shoes all the time. true. What’s wrong with Crocs and Sox? Super stylish. But yeah, I think the biggest takeaway in all of this is be genuine. Go in with.

42:32
trying to give more than you’ll ever receive. think if you can keep that at the forefront of your mind, you’re going to have success in meeting people. Yeah, I agree. Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. Now, for more information about this episode, go to profitableaudience.com slash podcast, where we list all of the tools and resources mentioned in our show notes. And if you enjoyed listening to this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us a review.

42:57
When you write us a review, it not only makes our day, but it helps keep this podcast up in the ranks so other people can use this information, find the show more easily, and get some awesome business advice. Leaving a review is by far the best way to support the show. And please tell your friends because the greatest compliment that you can give us is to provide a referral to someone else either in person or to share it on the web. And if you’re interested in building your own profitable audience, subscribe to our free six day mini course where we walk you through the exact steps needed to find your niche,

43:27
build a website, grab email subscribers and monetize your content. You can sign up at profitableaudience.com slash free. Hope you enjoyed one of the very first episodes of the profitable audience podcast. And once again, if you enjoyed the show, we are currently running a huge giveaway where we are giving away $4,000 worth of prizes, which include my flagship course on how to start a profitable online store, my profitable audience course, which teaches you how to build and monetize an audience.

43:56
free 30 minute one-on-one consults with both Tony and myself and free seller summit virtual passes. enter this contest, which is 100 % free, go to profitableaudience.com slash contest. Once again, that’s profitableaudience.com slash contest. Thank you so much for your support.

00:26
I never thought that people would want marketing messages in their text inbox, but it works. And in fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list, which is easily 10x bigger. Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for e-commerce, and you can segment your audience just like email. Now it’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy, and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash dev. That’s P-O-S-T-S-C-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash dev. I also want to thank Klaviyo, who’s also a sponsor of the show.

00:56
Now, if you’re looking to stand out in the inbox this holiday season, get more out of your email marketing with Klaviyo. Every customer is different. Klaviyo helps you build more personal connections with each customer based on the things that they actually care about. So you can send more relevant emails by tailoring every experience based on individual preferences and shopping behavior. With top-notch targeting and best in-class segmentation, you can unlock the full potential of your e-commerce data and create email marketing moments that keep shoppers coming back well after the holidays.

01:26
Just ask Living Proof, Tipsy Elves, Huckberry, or more than the 50,000 other brands growing with Klaviyo. And because Klaviyo was built for e-commerce brands of all shapes and sizes, there’s no better marketing platform to help you close out the year strong. So you can get started for free over at klaviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O.com slash my wife. Now onto the show. Welcome to the My Wife, Quitter Job podcast, where we’ll teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle.

01:55
so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here’s your host, Steve Tu.

02:05
Welcome to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast. Today I wanna talk about luck and business. Now one of my favorite podcasts in the world is How I Built This with Guy Raz. And if you’ve ever listened to an episode of How I Built This before, the final question Guy always asks is, do you think your success was due to luck or skill? Now I’ve actually thought about this question for a long time now, and here’s my answer. First off, I’m a firm believer that every business requires a little bit of luck

02:35
in order to succeed. And oftentimes success depends on timing and being at the right place at the right time. But have you ever wondered how some people keep getting lucky over and over again? And is it just a coincidence that some entrepreneurs always seem to find a way to steer luck in their direction? Now personally, I don’t believe in coincidences, but I know many of you are skeptical. So for example, I’m gonna read an excerpt from an email.

03:02
that I recently received from a reader after she listened to my podcast interview with Abby Walker, which is a student in my Create a Profitable Online Store course. Now for all of you who haven’t listened to this episode, Abby actually stumbled upon her product accidentally and ended up securing the sole rights to be the sole distributor for an amazing product that now makes her millions per year. So here’s the note that I got. Hey Steve, I just listened to your podcast with Abby, great podcast. Now I don’t want to discount her success, but a large part of it,

03:31
was based on a series of fortuitous events. It’s not repeatable. Now I know a lot of you guys haven’t listened to that podcast episode yet, but just based on what you heard from that email, do you agree with this reader? Here’s a quick recap of Abby’s story for context. In October of 2019, Abby made over $100,000 in a single month, selling high-heeled insoles online. And then the following year, she ended up making many millions of dollars selling this single product.

04:00
But what was amazing about her story was the number of things that magically fell into place during her journey. So one, she accidentally stumbled across her product while running her blog. Two, she happened to reach out to the manufacturer who was willing to let her sell their products under her own brand. And three, she happened to meet the CEO of the home shopping network who helped her get on the show. And the list goes on. Actually, there’s a number of things that just happened to fall into place. So was Abby’s success

04:29
based on luck or skill. When my wife and I first started our wedding linen store, several fortuitous events helped us on our path to success. So one, we happened to stumble upon selling handkerchiefs because my wife was a crier. We just happened to source a bunch of hankies from a Chinese supplier we discovered during our wedding. And we just happened to sell the excess handkerchiefs on eBay, where we discovered that they were in high demand.

04:54
And then when it came time to start our e-commerce website back in 2007, and remember, I knew nothing about websites or HTML or CSS back in the day, I just happened to be friends with someone who started an e-commerce store who pointed me in the right direction. And when it came to advertise and get traffic to our site, my brother-in-law just happened to work for Google on the AdWords team, and he suggested that I give AdWords a try. And with my wife, QuitterJob.com, I can’t tell you how many lucky events have taken place over the years.

05:23
So for example, I’ve been randomly featured in many large publications like Forbes and Inc Magazine. I’ve met so many amazing people that I’m now proud to call my friends. I’ve been invited to speak at popular conferences like Social Media Marketing World, FinCon, the ManyChat Conference, a whole bunch. And back in the day, when something lucky would happen to me, I’d literally thank the heavens above for helping me out. But looking back, did my actions play a part in facilitating these lucky events?

05:52
And did my wife and I do anything to improve our luck? Was my student Abby just at the right place at the right time? So in this podcast, I’m gonna break down some of these portuotous events and teach you how to get lucky in business and life. So here’s what I wanna say about Abby. First off, Abby’s success was the direct result of her ability to take immediate action. Of course, there were elements of luck in her story, but to base her sales entirely on circumstance, it would just be insulting.

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And if you closely analyze her story, you’ll realize that Abby is a big time hustler. In the beginning, when she was researching and developing her first product, she stumbled upon a forum where two women were talking about this amazing insole called Insolia. And then right away, she picked up the phone, found out where the company was based, and made a proposal to sell their insoles. Now was it luck that this company was willing to let her be the sole supplier for this product? Probably. But was it luck?

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that Abby secured this vendor. And here’s where I would say no. Was it luck that Abby accidentally stumbled upon this product on a forum? Yeah, probably. But would she have found it if she wasn’t working hard doing research on products? Probably not. When Abby met Mindy Grossman, the CEO of the Home Shopping Network at a random product pitch event, was that luck? Absolutely. But would she have met Mindy by staying at home watching TV all day or playing video games? No way.

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So bottom line, Abby took the initiative, hopped on a plane to pitch her product and drastically increased her luck. Now, when my wife and I first started sourcing product, we primarily looked online to find our vendors. But while the web is a great place to do product research, it’s actually a lousy place to establish lasting business relationships. So for example, it requires tremendous patience to communicate with someone in a foreign country in a different time zone. And for our online store, cultural differences

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caused a lot of miscommunication early on, which resulted in products that we sold that didn’t match our specifications. So one day, my wife and I decided to get off our butts and we booked an impromptu flight to Asia to meet our vendors directly. In fact, we literally hopped on an airplane and dropped in to visit our potential manufacturers on a whim. And fortunately, our timing was right on cue because our vendors just got back from the Canton Fair in China and they had all their inventory available to show us.

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Had we visited at a different time, we would not have been able to see the products firsthand and probably would have had to wait several weeks for samples to be fabricated. Even though we arrived too late to attend the actual fair, which at the time we actually had no clue about the Canton Fair at all, we still managed to nail down two solid vendors during that trip who we still use today. Now, another way to boost your luck is to build up your network. A long time ago when we first launched our online store,

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our website was actually stuck in the Google sandbox for an extended period of time. And for all you guys who are kind of newer to this online business stuff and you don’t know what the Google sandbox is, it’s kind of like a jail where Google places your website before it actually gets indexed into the main search engine. Now during this time, your site’s not gonna get any organic traffic at all and you pretty much just have to wait for Google to change its mind. I’m actually not sure if the Google sandbox still exists anymore, but back in the day when we first got started,

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It was actually really frustrating if you got trapped there because even if they typed in your site directly, it still wouldn’t show up in the search engines. Anyway, this is a long time ago, but I was tired of being stuck in the sandbox. So I actually reached out to a friend of mine who worked at Google, asking her advice on how to just get out of the sandbox quickly, basically. And as luck would have it, my friend happened to be in charge of writing the next post for the Google blog, like the main Google blog.

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And the topic of the blog entry was how online websites use Google Webmasters tools in order to improve traffic to the website. Now you can tell this is old because Google Webmasters tools doesn’t exist anymore. It’s now called the Google Search Console, but you get my point.

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If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter, the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself.

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Now, first and foremost, protecting our IP starts with a solid trademark and Emerge Council provides attorney-advised strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult.

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And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a $100 discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L dot com. Now back to the show.

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Basically, my friend told me that if I sign up for Google Webmasters tools and found it useful, that she would write the blog entry about our online store. And as soon as the blog entry was published with a link to our website, which is a very valuable link I want to add, we immediately escaped the sandbox. Anyway, this just goes to show that you never know when a random person that you’ve met in the past can actually help you out. And that incidentally is why I spend so much time trying to expand my network.

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every new person that you meet drastically increases your luck. And in fact, meeting other like-minded people is the main reason why I run this podcast. I don’t make a lot of money writing this podcast, but what I do enjoy is meeting a new person every single week. And what’s cool about running an interview podcast is that you have the opportunity to speak and network with other successful entrepreneurs one-on-one for an entire hour. And what’s even cooler than that is after the recording’s over,

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you actually end up talking with that person for another hour. And man, I’ve had so many people that would otherwise have been inaccessible had I not run this podcast. Now, another great way to meet new people is by attending conferences. And even though I have a wife and two young kids, I still try to hit five or six conferences per year, obviously when COVID’s not going on, because the connections I make are worth every penny. And this actually incidentally is what led me to start my own conference called The Seller Summit.

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which will take place in 2021, I promise you. But anyway, because I’ve been doing this for so many years, I can now travel pretty much anywhere in the world and find someone I know to hang out. And here’s just an example. The first time we traveled to China and Hong Kong, we actually had several friends show us around. And these are just random people I met through the blog, which greatly helped us locate the vendors that we wanted to visit. We also had other friends in the textile business give us some pointers as well. And…

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Quite honestly, we would definitely not be where we are today without their help. Which brings me to another way to improve your luck. You gotta put yourself out there. Now, while podcasting and attending conferences are great ways to expand your network, probably the best and the most scalable way to improve your luck is just by putting yourself out there to be discovered. And if you think about it this way, the more places you can be found, the more likely that someone will randomly discover

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and learn who you are. Okay, so what does it mean exactly to put yourself out there? There’s a whole bunch of different ways to go about it. So you can start a podcast and do what I do, interview people on a weekly basis. You can start a blog. Just start writing about topics that you’re knowledgeable about and chances are it’s gonna get indexed in the search engines, someone’s probably gonna discover you, share your content, and then over time it will snowball. You can start a conference.

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which is incidentally something I don’t really recommend because it’s a pain in the butt, but for networking it’s great. And you get a lot of social benefits for being the organizer of the conference because when you’re the host of your own event, your status instantly gets elevated in the minds of all the attendees who come. Or you can start a YouTube channel. For all you know, the last eight or nine months for me has been all about promoting my YouTube stuff and already it’s paying dividends. I’ve actually had three or four companies reach out to me

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after watching some of my YouTube videos, wanting to partner up or sponsor my event or sponsor my podcast. It doesn’t really matter what medium you choose, you just have to be consistent. Now, when my wife and I launched our online store, we actually blogged on a consistent basis, mainly because we were trying to get in the search engines. And after about six months, our website started getting some decent organic search traffic. And because we provided good content on our store in the form of arts and crafts pages,

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We actually started climbing the search engine rankings over time. And today, this is how a lot of people find our store online. And had we not had that content, we would just be another handkerchief store online. And over the years, our website has risen to the front page of Google for several of our targeted search terms. And when you start getting ranked in Google, that always sets off a chain reaction of events. So large companies began to notice us.

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And then major magazines like Real Simple, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Brides Magazine started reaching out to us in order to feature our products in their magazines. We were even featured on the Today Show because they found us on Google. And for all these magazines and TV mentions that I just talked about here, we didn’t actually solicit anyone. They literally came to us and I always like to ask, how did you discover us? And they said, oh yeah, we just Googled the certain product that we wanted featured and we found you.

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you know, or we found your blog post. And the majority of our media mentions have actually been the result of pure luck. 90 % of the time editors discover our content via search or Pinterest, and then they reach out to us to feature our products in their publications. So the million dollar question here is, is business success based on luck or hard work? And you know, I would say that every success story involves a little bit of luck, but it always comes down to hard work. And more importantly, I would say the initiative.

16:21
Here’s how I think about it. The harder you work and the more action you take, the more lottery tickets that you earn. And so I kind of equate lottery tickets to the people that you meet and the content that you put out there. Every piece of content you put out earns you additional tickets. Every person that you meet earns you another lottery ticket in life. And if you wait long enough, even though it’s all luck, the more lottery tickets you have, obviously, the more likely your number’s eventually gonna get called.

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Now do have to say this, over the years, my wife and I have felt extremely fortunate and we attribute most of our luck to our network of friends who have provided us with a ton of help for us to get started and whenever we have problems. And how did we get so lucky? Well, in a nutshell, we continue to play the lottery. After all, if you simply sit at home on the couch and do nothing, you’re never gonna have a chance at all. So why not give your business idea a chance and just see what happens?

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If you continue to accumulate lottery tickets, good things will eventually happen. Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now I’ve got some big announcements to make in 2021, but I first want to wish you all a happy holidays and a happy new year. 2020 has been a tough year for all of us, and I hope you’re all doing great. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 335. And once again, I want to thank Klaviyo, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants.

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You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned card sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign. Basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash KLAVIO. I also want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base.

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SMS is the next big own marketing platform and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P O S T S C R I P T dot I O slash Steve. Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog. And if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifequitterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quitter Job.

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where we are giving the courage people need to start their own online business. more information, visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequitterjob.com.