Vinyl Impressions Radio Syndication Podcast

In this episode of the Vinyl Impressions Radio Show Syndication Podcast, host Martyn Brown interviews internet marketing pioneer Jimmy D. Brown. Celebrating 24 years in the industry, Brown discusses his journey into internet marketing, the creation of influential products like Earncome and Nichology, and the inception of the PLR (Private Label Rights) movement. He shares pivotal moments, lessons learned, and tips for maintaining quality in digital products. Brown also offers advice for newcomers, emphasizing the importance of perseverance, joint venture relationships, and balancing work and personal life. As he approaches retirement, Brown looks forward to focusing on personalized, faith-based business and life coaching.

All right, guys. Once again, it's good to have you here today. My name is Efe Ohwofasa, and I have my friend here again, Martyn Brown, an expert who is sold out to helping his clients grow their business and achieve more, and is very passionate about supporting entrepreneurs and business owners on how they can use business. All the tools on the internet to build a business increases and make more money. And today there's a threatening topic we're going to talk about. Today things are evolving. With the internet award these days and entrepreneurs who are not aware of what they need to do to evolve along the line that we're missing out and living a lot of cash on the table. And something that Martyn want to talk to us today is about creating pillar pages and their significance for sesh engine optimization strategy to build your business. Perhaps you are an entrepreneur. You write blog posts, you share blog posts, you use your website or your blog posts you want to create your brand, you want to get brand awareness share your message out there, but there's something you're really not doing quite right. And that is what Matt is going to talk to us about today. So Martyn, It's good to have you here today. How have you been? Apart from having a cold and a cough I've been fine. Thank you. Great. It's good to have you here today. And I hope this cold and cough will not interrupt the powerful information you have for us today. So going back to the topic, Martyn, creating pillars pages and their significance for search, engine optimization strategy. What do you have to say regarding that Martyn? Yes. Those online will know about posting articles to their blog, and it's a great way of creating your brand and showing people your expertise and getting them to come and join you, join your email list, perhaps, or join your club or your membership. And Ranking those articles on the search engines so that people can find you when they search. So if they want to find me, they might find a search for membership, perhaps on how to grow your business online. So they will type in Something and it will take them hopefully to my site if it's ranked on the search engines and it's been Fairly easy to rank for certain keywords or key phrases on the internet but things are changing and they have changed and you know what i'm going to mention google They have changed their algorithm totally from how it used to be and how things used to rank get ranked online, and they've turned it on its head, basically, and I and all my colleagues and millions, let's say billions across the world have lost their ranking. They didn't know why at first, but we've discovered mixed in with the reasoning behind the search engines doing it, what they're looking for, they're telling us what they're looking for, what they need to make your article appropriate to the searches that their viewers are typing in. So when they get to your website, you've got to show that you are. The expert and that you are going to have the solution or the answer to their query So yes, it's changed totally the idea is that now you can send people from your social media and Send them to your article and when they get to the article the call to action Or cta as we call it the call to action is clicked upon And then they can sign up for your newsletter, your membership site, or whatever you're promoting, maybe sales or service. So yes, it's all changed. Great. So when you say they are looking for something, what is it they're looking for that will make you to amaze and utilize the opportunity? Okay. When people search online, they, they no longer just put in a word. They put in a phrase. Or they will speak and voice search has upped to over 50 percent now on mobile devices, especially. And so your article has now got to be optimized for search engine placing. Placements by having what is required. So what is required is phrases that people speak in. So I could say, Hey, Google, find me some something X, whatever. Online so that I can join in with whatever. Now, when I say that. If my article reflects it, I will be shown on the search results pages. The old keyword method of just typing in words appropriate doesn't work anymore. It's changed. So this is where we come in with the new system, which is what we call pillar posts. Pillar posts are looking at the broad outline of everything you're about, but the pillar posts links to in depth items that the person could be searching for. Once the search engines find that you are appropriate to the search terms they've even spoken in, typed into their mobile device or with their desktop device, they're all different now. Once it's appropriate, they will rank you. They will no longer rank you for the old fashioned meta tags and alternate versions or keywords or the old phrases. Creating a pillar post, that's pillar as in a pillar that holds up a building, a pillar page. It involves thoughtful planning, a comprehensive content creation, and strategic linking to cluster content. Now cluster content can be a cluster of everything else you've written before that is appropriate to the word or phrase they're reading on your pillar post. It sounds complicated, but it's not. Think of the pillar post as being the main portal of everything you want to talk about, certain words or phrases are linked out to the other posts that you've made, either in the past or very recently that are appropriate to the search term. So choose a broad topic, identify a broad, comprehensive topic, Topic that is central to your business or industry. This topic should be something that you want to establish your website as an authority on, and that word is important. That authority now thorough research and content outline. You've got to, you've got to achieve that to structure. Every aspect of the pillar post. So the long form content needs to develop a robust long form piece that is comprehensively covered the chosen topic. Totally. So this content could be in depth. It could be informative. It could be engaging. It can include sections, images. videos, infographics, and other forms of multimedia to enhance its comprehensiveness and appeal. I've got a report that does show you this step by step. And if you're interested, let me know, and I'll drop the I'll drop the link so you can go and have a view. Keyword optimization incorporate relevant keywords and phrases naturally throughout the pillar page content. Don't squeeze in those keywords like we used to. And focus on user intent and natural language usage to optimize for voice search because voice search is becoming bigger and bigger every day. The other important thing is the internal and external linking in your post. Now include internal links to relevant cluster content. So within your website and consider linking out to authoritative external sources as well. So if I write something and the BBC, the CNN or World News has got something appropriate to it, consider linking to it if it's not a competition to your product or service. And you must have clear navigation and structure. So when people want to find things, have a content at the top listing so they can click on the content listing and go straight to that point. And I won't go through every single point, but you'll get the view of how it should be, and it should be optimized. For readability and SEO. So pay attention to readability by using clear and concise language and additionally optimized meta tags, URLs and other on page search engine optimization elements to ensure that the pillar page is search engine friendly. Because when the, when Google's or any search engine crawls across your site, They want to be able to return a search engine snippet that's going to make them want to click and be appropriate to them. And then you must promote and share it. Once the pillar page is published, promote it through your marketing channels, including social media, email newsletters, and possibly paid promotion as well to maximize visibility. And finally. Continuous updates, and this is what a lot of people don't do, regularly update and expand your pillar page as new information becomes available, because that's going to be your anchor portal. And so when it becomes available, your Industry trends may evolve. So change that update them or user needs may change, and this will help maintain its relevance and authority over time. And you will stay at number one on the search engine results pages. Very wonderful. That's great. This is very detailed information, and I think it's a very powerful tools people can use to grow their business. So Martyn, if somebody need help with this, you just talk about now how can they contact you? And then remember you mentioned about a free pdf file you want to give to people where can they have access to this free information guide? You've just talked about okay go along to Martynbrown. com And the free information by the way, i'll put a link in but it is Martyn with a y so it's Martynbrown. com And i'll put If you click on articles, then your content that I've just been speaking about will be the very first article or very near the top. And you click on pillar, the pillar post, and it will give you step by step what you need to do. If you don't do what it says, you will not rank. It's fresh from the search engines. It's their authoritative instructions on how to do it. Made user friendly. It's very technical, but it's as user friendly as you're going to get it and summing it up  Remember this E A T, EAT, it's looking for expertise, authoritiveness, and trustworthiness. And if your pillar piece achieves that and is mobile friendly and voice search friendly, you are guaranteed to be near the top or at the top of the search terms on the search engines. Powerful. Thank you very much. I believe this resource you've provided the link people can go to be a great resource to people. Thank you very much for this wonderful context. It's a mind blowing one, Martyn. So what is your final words to people who want to create Pillar pages and use it as a signifier for success edge of strategy for the business. While creating a pillar page requires a substantial investment of time and effort, but I say this when done effectively, it can serve as a cornerstone resource that boosts your SEO efforts and provides valuable information to your audience. Do that and you won't go wrong. Great. Thank you so much, Martyn. You're welcome. Good.

  📍  📍  📍  Welcome to the Vinyl Impressions Radio Show Syndication Podcast, where we bring you the groove and essence of radio, all wrapped up in the timeless charm of vinyl records. I'm your host, Martyn Brown, and on this show, we delve into the world of radio, exploring captivating interviews with station owners. Talented presenters and visionary entrepreneurs join me as we uncover the secrets of successful radio promotion and discover innovative ways to elevate your online presence. Whether you're a station owner, a show presenter, or a DJ, our guests offer valuable insights and strategies to help you flourish in the digital age to get in touch with the podcast or share your thoughts, drop us an email.  Podcast at Vinyl Impressions dot club. For more updates and exciting content, visit our main website at Vinyl Impressions dot club and connect with us on our Facebook page, Vinyl Impressions Radio.  I'm excited to welcome today's guest, David Fagan, the visionary behind the icon builder.  As a former CEO of Guerrilla Marketing, which sold over 23 million books worldwide, David has a storied history of elevating brands and individuals to iconic status. In the helm of the Icon Builder, he's now focused on crafting the image and market presence of tomorrow's leaders. He can also help radio station owners, of course, radio presenters, too. And those listening on the Vinyl Impressions channels can feel involved, too. Meanwhile, it gives me great pleasure to say, David, welcome.  Thank you. That's a great introduction. I think I want you to do all my introductions moving forward here. I was going to say, just give me a nod and I'll be there. It really is a pleasure to have you here though. And David, maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about the journey that led you to create the Icon Builder. Oh, absolutely. For years, I was in a whole different industry, had a whole different life. I don't talk about it a lot because of trading brand confusion, but I very quickly realized, the power of what is now referred to as authority marketing, 20 years ago it was maybe just being called being bold maybe being a little egocentric, I started to form this belief that I called the humility myth that a matter of fact, I included it in several of my books, including the book, cracking the icon code and the humility myth is this idea that, if we're just a good person and we live a nice life and, we treat people well. That everything's just going to work out and we're going to be successful. That is the humility myth. And that is not necessarily the case. And it's a very fast way to have very skinny kids. What I learned is, we could not be the world's best kept secret and we did need to say. Why us, there is this question that everybody is asking themselves out there, either consciously or subconsciously. And it's why you, why should I hire you? Why should I work with you instead of somebody else or something else? And so from that kind of belief system, came, icon business development, which became icon builder and icon builder media and cracking the icon code and icon bootcamp and so on and so forth. So that's how it all got started is just really learning the power behind different ways to put yourself out there and become somewhat of a celebrity expert.  When you started on this journey yourself, where did you come from? And what is your background prior to doing this? I know you said you don't like to touch on that very much, but hey, this is the  marketing bugle podcast. So more than 20 years ago, I was in the the mortgage business, the banking business, the real estate business, late nineties, early two thousands, right out of school, there was a very big boom going on. One of the first booms in, in, in my lifetime, if you will. And so I was involved in that, quite a bit. I oversaw nine different bank branches before too long as it pertained to real estate and lending. And so I was very much required to speak to train, to attract referral partners, people that would refer business in the real estate industry and other industries.  And, I realized that, , I looked very young.  I probably still look young, but back then I looked like I was 13 years old. I did not have a college education. So I realized early on, like, how do I get these people to listen to me? What does it take to get somebody to not just persuade, but attract and enroll. And so I had to get, clever at, how to quote certain kinds of people and how to read certain kinds of things and.  Earn certain types of accomplishments to ultimately  impact, persuade, influence, have credibility, get exposure, these types of things.  I think the concept though, of turning individuals and businesses into icons is fascinating. Maybe you could share just a little bit about how you would encourage somebody to become an icon. Back in the 2000s, this is really when reality television started to take off. And so one of the other things that helped form my belief, as well as other people's beliefs, is that the individual consumer, the individual person, period,  we became less enamored And interested in the company, right? That you can't really hug a building. And even though a person could be flawed,  we found ourselves as an individual and as a society drawn to people and their flaws as long as they were real, as long as they were authentic, as long as they were honest. And we started understanding that, you. And screw up, if you said you were sorry, this is even when the anti hero started to take off more and just everyday culture and it was really from that. It wasn't really like me putting out this belief. It was more of me being an observer of what was going on around me that, this was really becoming a thing and people started having a following on YouTube, 2007, 2008, social media things like Facebook, LinkedIn come out, people starting to have a following in these places. And this was really before the word even  influencer came around,  but, it was something that, I noticed it caught on to pretty early.  And started observing too, that  this wasn't necessarily an accidental thing, somebody could very purposefully write books and speak on stages and serve in certain positions and put themselves out there in these ways, winning awards, serving on boards, getting testimonials client testimonials, getting celebrity endorsements and all these things started to become something that  I. Formulated as the way to crack the icon code, right? And not to just be like an icon in the world, but you could be an icon in your industry, in your geographical area, and that people were doing it all over the place. And it didn't have to be this accidental thing, but you could become very intentional about this process. Were you surprised by how people embraced this notion, this idea when you released your first book?  I really wasn't.  Too shocked by it. I was obviously more surprised by the people who didn't get it because there are a lot of people out there still to this day, but especially back then there were like, I don't need to be a celebrity. Matter of fact, I don't really want to be on TV. I don't really don't want to be on stage. And, I started doing news and media, I started doing a radio show at a cable TV show, which, further heightened my own icon status.  And that got me touring places. And what was even more fascinating is I would go to places like Australia and they have something there, which maybe you're aware of, but they call it the tall poppy syndrome, right? And the tall poppy syndrome is right. Those little things that have the flowers and in the U S we like to pick them and you make a wish, right? You just blow the poppies away and they float away. In Australia, that's the best thing. It's like you really start to pop yourself up. People start to pump you up and maybe hero worship you a little bit and you really put yourself out there and it really leaves you exposed for the winds to come along and just blow you and all your works away. So I was probably more surprised by the people that weren't just against it, but we're like culturally opposed to it. It was like in their DNA.  To be scared, fearful do I really want myself to be promoted as an individual? I like the idea to hide behind a company or a team or to play it safe, tuck down  I was probably more surprised by that and having to fight that humility myth that sort of developed in people and involved in people.  And do you find now that leaders that really do become icons, I'm thinking Richard Branson's of this world and people of similar notoriety. Do you find that's also helped your cause in terms of you've got those examples to give away now to say, this is what happens when you become an icon because Richard Branson is way more than just his brand, the Virgin brand. Yeah.  Yeah, absolutely. It has absolutely helped a lot of people. And as always, there's that pendulum, the law of the pendulum.  We've probably swung too far. We're influencers.  Or people that are dubbed influencers have a lot of pull and power. And now we're going, what's your expertise? What really is your claim to fame, so to speak? And the idea of fake it till you make it, maybe is allowed a lot of fakers in the world. And so we've seen the pendulum kind of come maybe a little bit backward. Hopefully it should be where now people are saying, okay, good for you. You have a following, but what is really your expertise here? And for us to maybe challenge that a little bit what have you really accomplished? And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think we do need to do that as a society, but I think if anything, some of us have gotten frustrated with, Hey, there's a lot of us that feel like we've got We've earned that icon status that authority status that celebrity expertise. Maybe there's some other people who work the formula. They cracked the code,  but there's really not a lot of depth. Maybe they're just regurgitating. The shallow end of the pool, they went to one Tony Robbins event, and now all of a sudden they're an expert and it gets difficult, right? Because, who are we  to challenge some of these people, maybe they fake it till they make it, but they do in fact make it, right? So it becomes tough to you know, Separate, the real people doing the real work that have real value and the people that are maybe just a little bit synthetic or plastic or don't have a lot of depth to them, right?  Absolutely. I think these days more than ever, it's to be famous just for being famous. And I guess, as you say, in some ways, we need to crack that a little bit so that you're famous for something. Not just for being famous, and  how do you adapt your strategies, David, so that they remain fresh and effective? Technology is a massive part of that. Technology has just been driving us all faster and faster. And there's a ton of pros to it, but there's some cons to it as well. There's an upside to it, but there's a downside as well. Technology, like I said in the mid to late two thousands, it was really places like YouTube, Twitter Facebook, LinkedIn. And then all of a sudden we saw a lot of things pop up. That aren't really here anymore. Things like Flickr, even Pinterest is barely hanging around. I don't know if you remember, but Google plus had its own platform. That was really supposed to be a big deal a couple of years ago. Clubhouse. That was all the rage, clubhouse. That was going to change us, so social media platforms.  TikTok didn't even exist more than a handful of years ago, right? Now it's probably the 800 pound gorilla, the thousand pound gorilla out there. So you really have to stay up to date with social media, and you really have to Pick your vehicles because you can't really ride in all of them. I probably didn't get on Instagram as fast as I should have. And that's been amazing, but I held back on clubhouse and I'm glad I did because, to me, it didn't do as, as much email was really big for a long time. It's still big for, if you know what you're doing. You got to do a little bit of everything, but at the same time, you got to pick the technology and the platforms and the ways to communicate with your base that you really want to be, on the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, if you will, and you can't do them all right. You got to do all of them to a certain point. Then you got to pick a few of them that do really well. For us to evolve and all these industries, we've had to say, okay, we're.  We're really going to stay in this and learn this and read about this and study this and experiment. Experimenting is so important with what we do constantly experimenting in our own business and then based on what works, telling our clients, okay, here's how we've perfected some things on Amazon and the publishing world. And that's always changing. That algorithm is always changing. And then, hey, here's what we're doing in Facebook or Facebook groups or LinkedIn, and Twitter's become X.  Videos are getting shorter. Now they're getting longer. Now they're getting shorter again. Let's get out of direct mail. You know what? Everybody left direct mail. Let's get back into direct mail because there's no competition there anymore. So I was involved in guerrilla marketing,  the former CEO of guerrilla marketing, the only CEO ever of guerrilla marketing. And guerrilla marketing is all about the unconventional way To reach conventional goals in lead generation and attracting and enrolling people. But it's all about the unconventional. What was once unconventional becomes conventional. And what was once conventional sometimes then becomes unconventional. If you're out there sending things in the mail, you're a griller marketer right now. You're like, wow, that's crazy. Like you're sending something in the mail yet. 15 years ago.  Everything was sent in the mail. That was, how do you create the lumpy mail? How do you put something in there? We were mailing watermelons, like we'd put a sticker on a watermelon and we would say for more green in your business, give us a call. Like we were just trying to think of crazy, cool, outside of the box ways to get to people's attention. And there were gatekeepers like, okay, how do we get past the secretary? If we mail them a watermelon, just this, like that's got to stand out. You don't hear of anything like that anymore. Nowadays, if you did that, it's come full circle back to okay, that's clever. That's gorilla, right? So a big part of our business nowadays is understanding the trends, understanding technology. Playing around and experimenting. It's fun and a little bit stressful at the same time.   It sounds it. And I guess as well with things like this, as you say, things are circular. They do come round again. Would you say it's easier now or harder now than when you started?  Wow, that's,  that is a tough one. I would say it's easier  to get into. I would say it's more difficult to really break through. Yeah. If you want to get into this nowadays and say, put on an event.  Because of zoom, because of Facebook live, because of all these, stream yard, all these technology platforms. It's very easy. It used to be you wanted to put on an event. You're going to go to a hotel. You're maybe getting food. There was just more real thoughts. Involved, at least it felt like it nowadays. Same thing to getting into it. Not only is fairly easy, but it's also hard to get people out of the business. It used to be somebody went bankrupt and they're like, okay, I'm out. I got to go do something else. Nowadays, you live at home with family members. You have no cost and that. That person that really isn't being successful, they can hang out in the back corner forever. And you don't really know, are they making 5 or are they making 500, 000? Like we, we really just don't know. So I would say it's easier to get into it. As like a lot of industries,  probably 10 or 20 percent are doing 80 or 90 percent of the business. So there's a lot of internet marketers. There's a lot of speakers. There's a lot of authors of books. Everyone's got a book now, right? That that are probably just barely getting by really in some ways. So very easy to get into it. Much more difficult to really have a decent paying career and really, break through and have something significant. You mentioned about surrounding yourself as well as being in networks with people. I know you have an event that you're currently involved in as well. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that.  We've got a bunch of events. Probably the 1 that's most exciting is some of these event broadcasts we do with major media partners,  big city newspapers, TV networks. The next 1 is called the the trailblazer summit and that's in June. June 18th through the 20th. It's an online broadcast. It goes out through a lot of social media platforms different types of TV platforms, but it's all about, different pioneers, trailblazers, disruptors of the past and present Mark, Victor Hanson Dennis, Waitley, the psychology of success, John Gray, men are from Mars winner from women are from Venus Jeff Olson, slight edge. The list goes on and on. John. Really just cool people that you would know that were really trailblazers out there, right? But also people that are like, um, 1st female SWAT team or FBI negotiator people in the coffee industry water, recycling, food, forest for food, sustainability people in the social justice world. Excited about some of these. Mainstream events  that have mainstream media with not just people from, say, that the success industry, but from people  that have been disruptors and pioneers of all kinds of industries coming into play. So that's a trailblazer event.  Dot com, you can find out more about that. And, you could view that from anywhere in the world. And I think when the world shut down a few years back, everyone got very international. We definitely were on the cutting edge of that. And when we broadcast things, we broadcast United Nation. 160 plus countries, 162 countries, 190 countries sometimes. So that's very fun and exciting.   Is that something that keeps you switched on with all of this as well? Is it something that you really enjoy immersing yourself in?  Yeah, absolutely. I, one of the things that, you know maybe drives my team a little bit crazy. But I'm really following the market trends and it's interesting that the market trend used to be, you would develop this sort of well branded event. And once it's this well branded event, everybody wanted to come back to it because they knew what to expect. But nowadays in the marketplace,  people really want the new thing, the next thing. And so, some of these events we've done in the past they're great, but I. Sometimes lose interest in them because I feel the crowd or the audience losing interest in them. And, I'm excited about bringing up some of the great  legends of industries and areas,  but I want to mix in that person that maybe nobody knows about it's really out there changing the world. And that's a lot of fun for me. To have these people come to me and be like, David, you just had me published in this big city newspaper. And I just got a letter from somebody saying, you changed my life or you saved my life. David, I didn't know that this, these people were out there and I've been doing all this work. And now I just got this letter that I made this impact and it just made all my years of pain and discomfort. And, All worthwhile because now I found my people. I found my audience. I found my tribe. I found my community that, they're in tears coming to me because of my work. Now I'm in tears coming to you for, bringing me to the world. And that's, Probably 1 of the most rewarding things that a publisher or a publicist like me, an agent like me, can have, we really do run talent management agency in the world of publishing publicity and production. When we find that talent, that expert and bring them to the world, and they start changing it. It's a lot of fun. And so I'm always looking for different platforms, events,  channels, networks that I can, expose people to.  You seem to juggle quite a lot of things as well, David, which is, of course, a talented itself. I know because of the way we run the Violin Impressions radio show syndication club. I know that you work closely with your wife as well on the agency side of things. Yeah. Maybe you could tell us a  little bit more about that. She's amazing. She's editor in chief of a top talent magazine. She's just really good with people. One of the things we do is these international keynote tours. We've been to Kenya three times in the last year and a half.  Speaking at universities, and she's always really quick at picking up basic of any language. So she's, she'll stand up in front of these university students, thousands of these students and just start speaking. So I Healy to them. She comes from the pageant world, she was had different Miss California titles. So she just does really well on camera, really well on stage, really well with people. And so it makes it a lot of fun. People see me do this and they think, Oh, David, he's got to be this  extrovert that just, loves being out there with all these people. That is not the case. I'm the guy that speaks and then afterwards goes up to their hotel room and orders room service. You say to me David, Here's 200 people that all want to meet you, just walk through and just shake hands and say hi to all of them and just tell them about yourself.  I'm not horrified of that, but that's not a good time to me. My wife, Isabel, on the other hand, it's absolutely, she's the life of the party, let's do karaoke. We go on these cruise ships like the marketers cruise, right? And I like to hang out in small groups of people and talk to people and everything,  but I'm in bed by 11, 12, like that's late for me, right? I'm getting up, going to the gym, she's in the hot tub, she's doing deals at the bar, people are like, I don't even see you guys together on the ship. It's our lifestyle sometimes, or the way we do business is a little bit different. She's the big time socializer life of the party. I'm more of the, let's have a very on purpose business meeting and have an agenda and, and I'm very intentional, right? I'm not transactional. I'm very relationship based as well,  but I'm more intentional in that way. She's more let's just go have some fun, see what happens. That's great. I guess as well in many ways, that's why the relationship works so well because you've got that equal balance of both bases are covered in that respect for anyone who's looking to build their brand into iconic status. What are your top tips, David? What would you say that they must do? What must they do first? That's really good. I would really sit down and take inventory of your accomplishments. We have a list of 15  accomplishments really to focus on video testimonials, celebrity endorsements, being featured in the media, speaking on stage. Publishing a bestselling book, the list goes on and on to get really intentional about those accomplishments. Those accomplishments  should become your bio. They should become your answer to the question. Why you. Why you? Why should I work with you instead of somebody else? Something else? Why you instead of nothing at all, right? I could just sit here and do nothing. Why should I, make an investment of time, money and resources into what you're doing? The answer to that is really those accomplishments. Get out there and, give, serve and share. Those three words are very important in the beginning and will continue to be important. How do you very strategically give, serve and share. If you want more fans, right? Fan is short for fanatic. Winston Churchill has a pretty good quote about that. Fanatic is someone who, can't stop talking about you and won't change the subject. And, it's, you We want those kinds of people, right? Who just can't shut up about us. So, you got to give, serve and share. And when you do that in the right way, helping other people get to where you want to be, that's a kind of a Zig Ziglar quote, another kind of legend, in order for you to get to where you want to be, you have to help a lot of other people get to where they want to be. Give, serve, share.  That's how you're going to get fans. Icons have fans, celebrity experts have fans. And you give serve and share. So by that, you can get testimonials. You can get endorsements. You'll get opportunities to serve people in places. Those things can become accomplishments that you can share with people and start to win people over. It's how you can develop a following, right? If you want to have more people subscribing to you, I'll tell people that, really focus on how you make people feel in my book, word genius. I tell people there are 7 feelings that will really help people move forward.  And so stop focusing on kind of the numbers and the analytics and start focusing more on how do you make somebody feel?  They need to feel like you're the authority. They need to feel like there's a perception of value to what you do. They need to feel like there is a sense of urgency. There's 7 of those feelings. I'm not going to give them all. They're in the book where genius, but, there are some early things that anybody can do to give, serve and share, create that following, create those feelings and inadvertently, Yeah. Whether you realize it or not, you're going to start to become the authority in something. You're going to start to become the celebrity and expert in something. You're going to start to have a little bit of icon status, in your industry when you're out there becoming that super connect.  Yeah, really good advice. Really good advice for those interested in learning more about your work and also maybe seeking your expertise. Where can we find you? What do we need to do?  My website right here is davidtfagan. com. There's a place they can even, book a very short interview with us,  but really more of the company is toptagency.  com and at toptagency. com, you'll see a lot of the books we've published for people. You'll see an example of a lot of the Media, we've gotten clients in, there's a lot of frequently asked questions and answers of the organization. Personal, maybe a little bit more davidtfagan.  com. More of the company and organization toptagency. com. Those are two websites, but I'm not hard to find, you Google me, I'm probably going to come up in a lot of different places.  Absolutely. David T Fagan. Thank you so much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Thank you for your insights as well. And we wish you all the best with your next event in June. Yeah. Thank you, my friend. Thank you for listening for more details of any of our podcasts, please visit vinyl impressions dot club. 

[00:00:05.00] - Martyn Brown Welcome to the vinyl impressions radio show syndication podcast where we bring you the groove and essence of radio all wrapped up in the timeless charm of vinyl records. I'm your host, Martyn Brown. And on this show, we delve into the world of radio, exploring captivating interviews with station owners, talented presenters, and visionary entrepreneurs. Join me as we uncover the secrets of successful radio promotion and discover innovative ways to elevate your online presence. Whether you're a station owner, a show presenter, or a DJ, our guests offer valuable insights and strategies to help you flourish in the digital age. To get in touch with the podcast or share your thoughts, drop us an email at podcast at vinyl impressions dot club. For more updates, and exciting content, visit our main website at vinyl impressions dot club, and connect with us on our Facebook page, Vinyl Impressions Radio. Today, I'm thrilled to be chatting to Jason , a trailblazer in Internet marketing, webinars, and so much more. With product sales in excess of two hundred and fifty million, Jason's journey from humble beginnings to Becoming a global influencer in Internet marketing, plus Internet radio stations, of course, is nothing short of inspiring. Now alongside wil Matos, he cofounded Rapid Crush Incorporated, a a company that has revolutionized digital marketing strategies and set records in the Internet marketing space. And he's also the author of the influential book, One to Many, which delves deep into the secrets of Successful webinars. In our case, one is radio stations, perhaps, and many, our audience. His achievements really do speak for themselves, but I guess we should speak to the man himself. Jason, welcome.   [00:02:16.00] - Jason Fladlien Pleasure to be here. And hello to those listening in on the Vinyl Impressions podcast, of course.   [00:02:21.59] - Martyn Brown Now could we start by asking a little bit more about your early days And what led you from being a rapper, your link to online radio perhaps, and a monk to a leading figure in Internet marketing.   [00:02:35.50] - Jason Fladlien Yeah. You could really start anywhere at this business. That's the good news. You know, I was always, interested in Music and specifically hip hop. And I started rapping in front of audiences at, like, seven years old, seven or eight, Somewhere along along there. So it felt very natural to me. And I always thought music would be where I would end up. So I tried that off and on throughout the years, but I had a lot of trauma that went through my life when I was growing up. You know, I was in a household that there was a lot of drug abuse and a lot of chaos. And I ended up Being about eighteen years old and just so depressed, I had all these panic attacks all the time. I I end up having agoraphobia, which is Afraid of open spaces, meaning you really don't go outside much. And I'm just sitting there just lost. And A friend of mine who was in the music space, he had went and he traveled with the Hare Krishnas for a little bit. And he came back, and he was telling me about that. So I I was intellectually curious, always was, still am. So I started googling around and looking at it, and I started reading it. And I'm like, okay. I'm I'm at my lowest point of my life. I can't focus. I can't do anything. I'm staying up till seven in the morning, sleeping until three or four in the afternoon. That was my life living with my dad in this little tiny apartment. And so I thought, oh, I'll try it Let's see what happens. So really saved my life. I I eventually got rid of all my panic attacks in a few months, And I just felt really invigorated to go out and do something boldly. And so I tried that with the music. The music, unfortunately, though, It was at about the worst time you could launch your music career because CD sales were dying out, but streaming hadn't been figured out yet. And I wasn't frankly very good at it. I I'd have to work eight or nine hours to do something that talented musicians could do in one to two hours. So I'm not one to give up, though. Yeah. I I was trying really hard, this, that, and the other. And so I started looking at the the business and marketing side of the music, And I started trying to apply those methods to the the the music that I was putting out there, and it wasn't working well. And out of desperation, I kinda said, you know what? I need I need capital. Well, that's the answer to the music business because I didn't have any money. So let me make some money online, and then I'll pour that into the music business. And that was about two thousand six. And now here we are going on in twenty twenty four. Still haven't circled back around to the music. I always thought that The music would be the thing that switched me on, and I didn't find anything else as attractive to me. But The marketing very quickly became as attractive, if not more attractive to me. So I had the passion for it, But I also had the skill set to it. Whereas music, I had the passion for it, but I lacked on the skill set side. So you really want both. You want something that you're passionate about that also comes naturally to you. And even and it still will be hard. Don't get me wrong. But at least you're you're predisposed to getting it, And you can do something with it. And that's what I really saw with with the marketing was, wow. I like it. It's very interesting to me. It motivates me. It gets me excited, and I can get it right away. I don't have to practice Extra hard for many, many more hours just to be barely competent at it. I can pick it up in a decent time frame, so therefore, maybe I can get traction and some momentum, and that's why I don't think I ever came back to the music.   [00:06:13.89] - Martyn Brown You mentioned that it was at the time when CDs were dying out and Streaming hadn't yet been figured out. That's probably around the same time, I guess, as the Internet was really finding its feet. We've been through the dot com boom and bust, and the Internet was really starting to come into it. So When did you first get online?   [00:06:39.00] - Jason Fladlien Way long ago. So I was actually fourteen when I first got online. So it's nineteen ninety seven. And I remember I bought a little two eighty six computer. So this was not a tower. You laid it flat on the desk. And I and I painted houses for, like, a month Just trying to make some money to save up, and I bought this computer, and I got the Internet. And I was really just So fascinated with how the Internet worked. And this is in ninety seven when it was just nobody even barely anybody had the Internet. And I started learning how to build websites back then, and that was really cool. And I was you know, we were doing music back then. I was still I was working on music, so I was Trying to produce albums even when I was fourteen, and I was building websites around anything and everything. Because really to put anything online back then, I had a of different interests and passions. And in order to put anything online, you had no code. It's not like these days where you just go to Twitter and, you know, type it out your phone. So starting when I was fourteen, I really got on to the Internet, and then I didn't look at it as as a way to make money until maybe, like, you know, seven years later with the music. So I'd always Really been a child of the Internet. Nowadays, every kid is a child of the Internet. But back then, it was very, very rare That somebody that was young was into the Internet. So that that also was a huge advantage for me. So I was able to see a lot of things as they came out of their infancy and see what worked and see what didn't work And get this awareness and be fresh about it too. Because, you know, a lot of people in the time and the space that we're starting to get in the space, They were what they are as old as I am now, forty. I've learned at forty, you have a lot of A lot of biases that you've accrued along the way that are hard to set aside, so it makes you very resistant to new emerging technologies. And I didn't have that back then, so I was a rare breed that I could get it on the ground floor.   [00:08:31.60] - Martyn Brown That's great. So you decided then that the music for now was going to be put on pause and that you're going to focus mainly on the Internet and the marketing side of things. So what happened? What was your First product, and when did you get the inspiration to create that?   [00:08:49.00] - Jason Fladlien Yeah. It's I first started to try to be an affiliate marketer, and It it was a it's an interesting story because my, you know, my my dad and my mom got a divorce, and I'm living with my dad now. And I'm, like, Twenty some years old, and my dad wanted to get back in the dating scene. So he bought a product From a guy named David DeAngelo, who's a a a well respected marketer and goes by the name of Evan Pagan, who I've later given advice and and, Yeah. I consulted with him and his wife on a project. It's a small world. But at that time, it was like, okay. I had heard about Evan, because he was the first guy to ever offer two hundred percent affiliate commission. So you saw my forty dollar ebook, and I'll pay you eighty bucks, something like that. And so my dad had his back end because my dad must have bought the book and then bought, like, his two hundred dollar advanced dating secrets or what have you. And we didn't have much space. We lived in this tiny little apartment Right next to, like, a pawnshop, a cash for gold place, and, like, a redneck bar. So, like, not a very good area to live in. And I found this one day, and I just got into marketing. And I'm like, oh, I got source material, so I can kind of write these articles To presell this program and then make two hundred percent affiliate commission. So I tried for about Two months writing article after article after article. My model was really simple. There was a site called EasyinArticles back then. And if you ranked for the if you wrote The right keywords into those articles with the right density, you could get some traffic. So you'd write an article and get a hundred or two hundred clicks in some instances, maybe even more. So I would pick these different keyword focused dating concepts, write articles about them, put a little bio box so you had a, You know, like, twenty five, fifty words you could put at the end of every article, and it would be like, hey. If you want my free ebook on blah blah blah, go here. So I wrote an ebook, And then I wrote, like, fifty articles. I I was writing an article every day pretty much for sixty days and did not make any money. I think I made a total of, like, a hundred and sixty dollars. And then I was like, well, hold on a second. This ain't gonna work because then I don't get paid Until, like, two months after that, there's, like, a forty five or sixty day holding period. So, hey, I'm not making any money. And, b, if I make money, I I don't even see it for a long period of time, and I'm so damn broke. I need money quicker. So because I had learned how to write these articles, I get this brilliant idea one day, then I go, I'm gonna I'm going to write articles for other people as a ghostwriter. Now keep in mind, and I I left this part of the story out, I was painting houses full time during the day just to try to make some money to just keep my article or my music business going. So I could only work an hour or two before I went to go paint houses and an hour or two after that. You know, work a full time job and then sandwich two hours before and two hours after into trying to build my business. And we worked a lot in the painting business. I worked with this crew, and we would typically work six to seven days a week. And I had to drive, like, an hour to and from each day to go to most of the job site sites that we were at. That's why when I say I was working Two hours before and two hours after, that was literally my whole day. I didn't I didn't have much else I could do back then. So I said, you know what? I want to write articles for other people because at least I can replace this painting job that I have right now so I could work from home and move one step closer. So the first day that we had a rain out from painting houses, it was raining outside, and we were working on an exterior job. I can I went home, and I said, this is the day I'm gonna do it? And the problem was I didn't have a portfolio with a different a lot of different articles. I only had dating articles. So I I used one of those, and then I wrote nine other articles on nine other topics just to show that I had this portfolio that was a variety of different topics I could write on. And then I built a one page website Well, that basically said, hey. I'll write articles for you. It's three dollars and twenty five cents an article. I guarantee twenty four hour turnaround time. I was that desperate. Well Yeah. And there was a website back then. The biggest forum for Internet marketers calls the war it was called the Warrior Forum. And just like that bio box on an article, if you posted on the forum, you could have a little one or two sentence bio box. Alls I did was went through and found different popular threads that were happening right now and responded with my two cents for whatever that was worth. And then they would see the bio box. Need an art you know, need a high quality article done cheaply fast? Click here. And then they go to the website. And after posting just on a few different replies, I had three different clients that wanted to hire me to write articles. And I said, oh my god. This is awesome. And then seven days later, I quit painting houses because I was making about I was making a little bit more money. I was making about twelve bucks painting twelve bucks an hour painting houses. I was making Fifteen bucks an hour writing these articles, and I knew I was way under priced. And I knew I could increase the price, and I and I started to have clients that I had to turn down because I had too much demand, so they were willing to pay me more money. And so in seven days, I started working for myself, and that was what changed everything. My god. I I I now had proof that I could make money online, which is everything. If you're if you you know, I was trying to do things That without any proof behind them. So it's really hard, like writing articles on dating, but I'm not a I wasn't interested in, you know, being a pickup artist or anything like that. There's no proof associated with that. There's no authority. So that's why it's really hard. In in the inner marketing space, there's no authority. But now I had authority. I could show people that I could Make money online, and I had a system in order to do that. And and that's really was the game changer. So after about six months of writing articles, I decided to publish an ebook on the topic, and I wrote an a little ebook about About six pages, it wasn't that long, on my article writing system. Because I could write an article on any topic, and I could write it fast, and it would be high quality. And so I taught this article writing system and showed people how to do it, and I sold the thing for four dollars because I was so I I didn't think anybody would pay me any amount of money. I I was so scared that to take money from other people for an ebook because I didn't want them to get a bad deal. I didn't have any confidence. I didn't know what I was doing. So I sold this little ebook for four bucks, and I took out a classified hat on the Warrior Forum. Twenty bucks to take the thing out, and I basically the pitch is brilliant. I didn't know what I was doing, but it worked really well. The pitch was essentially, like, I am confident I could cut your article writing time in half the first time you read my ebook. And it's only four dollars for you to find out. And if you don't like it, I'll give you your four bucks back. Wow. That was almost the whole pitch. I think I threw in a couple other bullet points, and and then I said, go here and buy. And that was it. I made more money in two days selling an ebook than I did all week writing articles. And I'm like, This is this is really cool. And something happened that I wasn't really tuned into consciously, but I recognized when I saw it. People were buying this product, and they were reporting back, Oh my god. In, you know, thirty minutes after they bought, they were seeing a benefit in telling other people about it. And that's very uncommon even now, but back then, it was very uncommon in the info space that somebody could buy a product within thirty minutes already got more than their money back because they're like, Jesus. This is already improving my life instantaneously almost. So I saw that in, like, a Neanderthal. I was just like, I'll just do more of that. I'll just find one little thing that I can improve upon for people that the first time they understand it, they could apply it. So they could obviously see they got a good deal, And I'll sell really cheap products, and I'll just make them really short ebooks, very down down to the second, do this, do this, do this, do that, do that, do that, done. All step by step without much else in between, and then the pitch is basically like, it's not much money. Even if all it does is save you Time, it will be worth it for you try me out. And people really responded back. So I did that for a few months straight where I was just going out, Trying to find these one little problems, one little solution type of products I could create, and I developed a reputation very fast As somebody that was up and coming, somebody that really had some value to to offer out there, and that got me really pumped up. But it also what was cool is building these products. You know, they say the best way to to learn something is to teach it. So I would teach these topics that were kind of not connected, but there was some overlap to them. So then I was able to connect them. So then that made that made me what I call trade up. So I could trade up the skill set that was small and make it larger. So for example, there's not a whole lot of difference between writing articles and writing emails. So email content that people needed for their autoresponders. So I started teaching people how to do that. I had clients that had hired me to do that during my article writing days, So I could teach that. If you think about it too, like, a lot if you take three info products that are on one specific topic, if you have if you found three related topics, You could combine those three together. So I was able to to combine different elements together or add a little bit extra on top of a foundation. So membership sites were very popular back then. So I'm like, okay. I already know how to create information and package it. So let me show how to let me make the small leap to selling it with a subscription basis instead of a one off basis because I had to write sales letters for all of these Products I was launching, let me teach people how I write sales letters. And then it was, let me teach people how I create products Because I'm creating all these products. So I would do something. It would create proof and experience that I could then publish on the next thing. And so within twelve months, I was really cooking, and I was always looking to trade up my skills. Now that I can do this, what can I build on top of that? And that's when my world forever changed I did my first webinar ever, and, man, I never looked back. That's when I really found my edge.   [00:19:17.29] - Martyn Brown And product eClass was one of the next, I guess, membership style sites that you started work on. So how did that come about?   [00:19:26.40] - Jason Fladlien Here's the story. It's really interesting. One day and and this is a technique I still use to this very day. I run a I run a it's a thirty thousand dollar mastermind now per year. It's called Driven, and I run it with Perry Belcher and Kasim Aslam. And I'd I'd instruct these multimillion dollar business owners the same strategy that I've used myself and then I I I first stumbled upon Many years ago with this first webinar that I ever did. And I call it the I don't know if this will work or not strategy. It's a I saw webinars as a thing, and I was looking for an edge to get into them. So I go to my list one day. It says, hey. Listen. You've seen me be super productive because I'm publishing all these products creating all this content all the time. I wanna teach you how to create a time you know, what I do for my time management. Now I've never done a webinar before, So I don't know how it'll work. It could be a complete train wreck. I could mess the whole thing up. So if you'll indulge me, you come to the webinar and you show up, I'll give you the recording of the product for free because I'm gonna create my next product live on a webinar. And that was a time management system for Internet marketers. That was the name of the product. Terrible name, but whatever. You know? You you learn. And I was all jazzed up thinking everybody and their brother was gonna show up to this thing because who wouldn't want a free product? These are people that are buying products from me constantly. Only seventeen people showed up. No. I didn't know that that was a small number. I was super excited. I was like, cool. Seventeen people. Awesome. I'm excited. This is September seventh two thousand eight, by the way. I just looked it up. That's the first webinar that I ever did on this time management system, and I taught it. And A lot of people liked it. And out of seventeen, six left me a really good testimonial. I go back to my list the next day, And I say, hey. You screwed up, but I'll give you a second chance. I plan on selling this product for thirty seven dollars. The next forty eight hours, you can get it for twenty seven bucks. And I watch more people buy that product than any product I'd launched previous because they missed out. They coulda got it free the day before. They screwed up. I'm giving them a second chance, so they better make good on it. But I noticed that I could feedback from the results of the the live webinar we just did. Now that was a pure Training webinar in the sense of you come for free, you get the product. If not, I'll sell the product later, Which is a great model to this very day, very effective model. So then I started thinking. I'm like, okay. That worked out well to fulfill. What could I use it for next? So I had this little product called three hour ad, and it was how to write near world class copy in less than three hours. So everybody back then taught this really complicated copywriting system that would take hours and hours and hours of research and then days and days of toiling over every single word, And I never wrote copy like that. I I would just sit down and say, okay. I've noticed that there's four ways to basically write a headline. So I've studied all these all these different sales letters, and There's five categories I could put them into, and the fifth one was miscellaneous. So there was typically four ways that I would write a headline and then a lead. There's basically five ways to to open the sales copy and then bullet points. Well, there's there's a really easy system to write bullet points if you're not trying to be creative. So I was creating templatized type of copy and spitting it out there. So I wrote a little book on it, a little ebook. People really liked it. They liked it so much, in fact, that they would write into me asking for more examples, asking if I could expound on a certain point, so on and so forth. So I get this brilliant idea. I say, hey. Listen. And this is a twelve step copywriting process. That's how many steps I had in it. So, I'm thinking, wow. Webinars are great to teach on. I'll just do one session a week. So a twelve week e class. And I told the audience, I said, hey. You bought the book, But some of you wanna go further, so I'm gonna try this new group coaching program. I've never done it before, so I don't really know what I'm doing. So I don't wanna open it up to too many people. I wanna be hands on with the people, and then we'll sell the recordings later. But I wanna make sure everybody who joins gets the best experience possible. That's why I'm limiting I think I limited to, like, fourteen people, And I charged either two hundred or three hundred bucks. I can't remember now. What I do remember is this is the first time I hit triple digits on a price point. Because before that, it was, like, forty seven bucks was the highest price point I think I'd ever sold at. And so I I took in all these people, fourteen people, For, like, three hundred bucks. So it was a lot of work to do this product, but I was able to do training on a webinar, so I got better at it. Because each session will be about two hours. So twenty four hours of of experience on the webinar. So the second webinar that I ever did was a series of webinars packaged up as a group coaching program. So then the third webinar that I ever did was was a fulfillment for product eClass. So I thought, well, that worked for copywriting. Let me teach people the same stuff I put in an ebook, but put it in motion, had more depth, had more interaction, and then that became product eClass. And so that was the third webinar that I ever did. And then after that Well, this is the greatest thing that I made the the leap towards. I thought if I'm fulfilling on webinars, Then I should use a webinar to sell the series of webinars that I'm offering. Because then the pitch is kinda simple, isn't it? Hey. Did you enjoy this free webinar that we did one time here? Would you like x number more or the same where we can go even more depth over a period of time. Would you be willing to pay something for it? Okay. Here's the deal. And so this is a nice free preview Of what they could pay for, and that's how I did it. So I went from, a a class that if you attended Free, you'd get the recorded product of. So I was recording the product on the webinar. Then I went to pay me money, and you'll get a series of live webinars that you also get the recordings of, To a webinar to sell a series of live webinars that you would act that you would get the recordings to. And then only after that, after doing that several times, Then we decided to sell use a webinar to sell things that weren't fulfilled by webinars, but that's the progression. So a lot of people wanna skip that. They wanna fight the black belt the first day they take karate, And that's no wonder that they fail. I stair step my way up there by getting comfortable in this setting and then trading up and then trading up And then trading up. And that's when it really hit, man, because nobody knew how to do webinars back then. It was a new emerging technology, And I was making the rules up as I went because I didn't have any previous experience to draw from. I didn't know how to sell on stage. I didn't know how to do teleseminars. So I was able to organically build it from the ground up very much like Tesla built their vehicle from the ground up. They weren't like Ford or GM that had a hundred years of, quote, unquote, experience, But couldn't apply it in a new paradigm as easily. So I was able to really get an edge in that business, and that's That's what took it over for me. I said, man, let's just figure out everything we can about webinars. And here I am sixteen years later still trying to figure it out.   [00:26:21.50] - Martyn Brown Well, you've just released the book about this as well, One to Many. How did that come about? Is that just another extension of what you've already done, or is it something that you've always had a Burning Desire to Do.   [00:26:33.29] - Jason Fladlien Yeah. So that's an interesting story. So that book, I think we released it on two thousand seventeen or two thousand eighteen, somewhere around there. So it's a relatively old book. I joke that it's probably perfect for the market now because I have the curse of expertise. I'm so far ahead of of you know, I'm so unconsciously Competent at the thing that it there's a challenge for me to bring it back to people who are just learning to be consciously competent with it. So the book is, like, perfect timing for twenty twenty four in my opinion. But that this is a lesson, and this is how I always think very strategically. So I I had wanted to create a a training program on webinars forever, but The first time I did it, I think I did in two thousand eleven, the market wasn't ready for it yet. So I tried it again in two thousand fourteen, and the market still wasn't ready for it yet. So I'm like, People don't wanna learn how to do webinars because you know, think about it, man. You gotta be a good public speaker. That's hard. That's, like, the thing people are afraid of the most. Then you have to be a good educator, so that's hard. Then you have to be a good salesperson, and that's hard. And there's a lot of moving parts. So the technology is also challenging when it comes to webinars too. So I was using webinars to sell other things to my audiences. So I was not selling shovels. I was using the shovel to dig for the gold. And so I didn't even have an audience that came to me to learn how to do webinars. So I just kinda pushed it away in my my initial attempts to be successful with it. I was too ahead of the market. But then finally in two thousand seventeen, I thought, man, maybe it's time to do this now. So I'm always looking for these elegant solutions. How can we do one thing that that gives us many solutions? And so I created a program that I initially sold for five thousand dollars in person. Seventy some odd people could come to this This room so I partnered with Joe Polish because he had the audience. So I'm like, dude, you have the audience. I'll do all the work. We split the money. Well, just you record it, and I'll prepare everything, and we'll split it fifty fifty down the line. So we created a program called Genius Webinars. And the way it was created was people paid five thousand dollars to be in person And because there's an interesting market dynamic that a lot of people aren't aware of is to a millionaire, five thousand dollars is What is that? Point five percent of their net worth? Mhmm. It's nothing. Yeah. To to to somebody who's worth fifty thousand dollars, A five thousand dollar offer is ten percent of their net worth. It's twenty times as much. K? Now people generally will either have too little of Time or too little of money. And if they have both, too little of time and too little of money, there's one that they'll have even less of. And so people that are super successful, they almost always have too little time. It's crazy. They have so little time. It's it's it's Scary in a way. So they'll buy time. And so the way that I'm selling this is if you come in person and we Cram it down your throat for two days. That's probably the only way you'll get it. If you're too busy otherwise, I gotta force feed it to you. The second way successful So people buy time as they get they get the advanced version of the thing. So I pitched it as, hey. We're gonna do it. We're gonna train it in person, and then later Ron, we're going to take it, edit it, record it, put it out there. So if you wanna wait a couple months, yeah, you could pay less for it. But to the person in the right condition, waiting a couple months It's far more expensive to them an opportunity cost than it would be to pay a premium on the product. So everybody knew going in. I'm gonna create this recording of this product that we're gonna sell for fifteen hundred dollars. So you can pay five thousand and be in person at the live concert, right, or you can download the m p threes later for fifteen hundred dollars. Your choice. Yeah. I knew we'd sell it out because there's also this Concept of scarcity, supply and demand. So if there's seventy three spots and if you don't get it, somebody else does. I knew we could find seventy three people. So we created this course. We got paid to create it in advance. I go and I I do it in person. We take the training of the program, and then we package up when we sell it for fifteen hundred the course, we deprecated it now. It's not available anymore because I just finished a new training, in October twenty twenty three called goat webinars, Which I don't even know if we have that live yet and ready to sell. But that's what we were using before Go Webinars was Genius Webinar. So we sold the recordings for fifteen hundred dollars. And then from that, I took it and wrote the book off the same exact materials. And everybody knew all along the way. This is all derivative. I never once hid it from the audience. I told everybody up front because the book is it's two dimensional, Whereas the recordings are three-dimensional. You don't get to see me demonstrate the book in action with the techniques whereas on the recordings that you do. And so we were able to derive from a five thousand dollar product to a fifteen hundred dollar recording of the product To a ten dollar ebook or a twenty dollar paper book, paperback book from that, one activity. And I've learned that throughout the years is is, man, you can take one thing, put it into three different things, not pretend and hope people don't find out about it. Just tell them straight up that that's what you're gonna do, and different segments of the market will assort themselves accordingly. And so that's what that book ended up being. And then what's cool about the book, and I didn't anticipate this. I just we put a book out there because at the time, we were dabbling with the idea of doing webinars for people as an agency. Did not work at all. Terrible ideas. But, nonetheless, the book is a very effective way to help get lead gen for for agencies. This is one of the most effective ways. And if you're speaking and doing podcasts, a book is one of the most effective ways to get clients. So we created the book to do that. Well, the good news is is, man, the book is also the thing that has the most longevity. Has the slowest burn in terms of profitability, but it has the longest Longevity has the most longevity. So that book continues to this very day to bring in very high high profile clientele to me that start By reading that book. So that that's where the book fits into the thing, but it was an afterthought. It was a strategic byproduct That we could also capitalize on from an existing foundation of intellectual property. And so there's a lesson to anybody listening. If you can get Really unbelievably good at one thing. There's two two byproducts to that. One, you can trade up, like we've talked about. But two, you can also go horizontal. You can create a lot of different variations of that one thing, and that's almost Always better than having ten separate things.   [00:33:08.70] - Martyn Brown And that's just one of the things that you can learn from being a product e class that actually   [00:33:14.40] - Jason Fladlien Just to try to figure that one out. I mean, so mostly with strategic partnerships. Nobody can do everything excellently. So if you look at and you break down, there's really four elements to any online business. So you gotta drive the traffic. You gotta have conversion. You gotta have fulfillment, and then you gotta have support. K? So traffic, how do we get people to come to the thing? Conversion, how do we get as many of them as possible to buy the thing? Fulfillment, How do we make the thing as excellent as it possibly could be? Because then that not only obviously increases the brand affinity, but it also increases the back end potential. The easiest thing to sell to somebody is, hey. You just bought something from me, and it was awesome. Wasn't it? Yes. You also need this thing, don't you? Yes. Would you like to buy it? Yes. Because the last thing I bought from you was excellent. And because I bought that thing, you know something about me that most other people don't know. And so this is what you wanna do. You wanna create excellent products so that way people can come back and buy more from you, so people can get a better result, so they can brag about you, and And so they can refer other people. And then the support is the glue that holds all that together. So support presale, port during the sell, support after the sell really sets that thing up. It it's it's almost impossible for you to be a ten out of ten in all of those categories. And there's there's a significant difference between being a ten out of ten and a nine out of ten. In every in every market that matures, there's usually one or two, Almost always just one, occasionally two dominant players in that space. So in the tablet space, there's iPad and then there's Who? Right? Surface? Mhmm. Maybe, kind of. Right? There's Coca Cola, there's Pepsi, and then there's who? There's nobody. The electric car market, there's Tesla, and then there's Prius? I don't know, man. It's not that not that it's hard to figure that out afterwards. So most markets, they can only manage one person. If you if you break through, then you get all the attention. But if you don't break through, you're in obscurity. You see the same thing on algorithms. So on YouTube, if you can tip the algorithm, you can get millions of views. But if you can't tip it, you're lucky to get hundreds of views. Mhmm. So being a ten out of ten is often the difference. Nine out of tens fight for crumbs, but the ten out of ten takes everything. It's just how markets work. So you wanna be a ten out of ten, But you in order to be a ten out of ten, it's something you almost have to sacrifice everything else. So you can be like a ten out of ten in one category. You can be like an eight out of ten at best in another category, then you can be like a five out of ten at best in a third category, and then you're like a three out of ten in the fourth category. Over time, maybe you can improve upon it, but it's unlikely. So Amazon, you know, biggest company on the Internet, for many, many years had the worst customer support for their vendors you could ever possibly imagine. Now they had good customer support for their users, but at the expense of their vendors. It was terrible. And and by the way, that's a lesson in itself. Their vendors are these third party sellers. Amazon couldn't create all the products, so So they had to partner with people that could create all the products. So this is what we look at. We say, okay. If we're really excellent at conversion, which is where I spend all my time, And we can focus on that, then we'd need to partner with people who have the best products. Because I can't always create the best product. And if I can I can create the best product for only a segment of a market, not for every segment of the market? So we gotta find the best product, so there's a partnership there. And then we have to drive traffic, so we do it with affiliates. So that's another partnership there. And then we just try to be excellent because over time, you can be a ten out of ten at two things. But it takes a while. So ten out of ten in the first decade, then then ten and ten out of ten in the second decade. So we have the support that glues all that Together. So we're good at conversion. We're good at support. I'm very good at at fulfillment, but I can't do Excellent fulfillment and simultaneously do excellent selling. I can't do both at the same time. So either gotta find somebody to sell the thing, and then I could spend all my time on fulfillment, Or I can spend all my time selling it and then partner with somebody who has all the fulfillment. So a lot a lot of our big successes came Through strategic partnerships, taking their very best thing so I I here's what I try to do, Paul. I look at the market and say, What does the marketplace need the most right now that if they had the best version of it would make the biggest difference in their life? And then I say, can I create it? And if I can't create it, can I find somebody who's created it? And and if they've if they haven't got there yet, can I help them get to there And then partner with them? And then because we have affiliates, here's where conversion drives traffic. People know that I can when everything aligns right, nobody can outconvert me. We hold all the records. Right? We have biggest product launch record in our space. We hold biggest affiliate promotion in our space. So if all the stars in the moon line up, nobody's gonna be flatland on a conversion event. So affiliates like to promote my stuff, because it will make them more money than promoting their own stuff or somebody else's stuff. And so that's that's the other side of the thing. So that's how we got there. But I started by really focusing on being excellent at fulfillment. That was my first thing. The cool thing, and this is double dipping it, this doesn't apply to every business, but the lesson applies to every business. I got so good at fulfillment, I could shift fulfillment to the sales pitch. Mhmm. So because I could create transformational products in one sitting on my On my info products, I just had to switch that to the front end. So the things that I would sell for four or five or ten bucks became the the content portion of my webinar That I would then give away for free. And then I would sell other things that were higher ticket on the back of that. And I'll tell you one thing, and this is this is always The truth, it's very hard to do, very easy to understand, though, is, you know, compounding is the greatest thing you could ever do to your money And your skill set. So Mhmm. Buffett Warren Buffett says compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understand it benefits from it. He who doesn't pays it. So everybody Pays compound interest on their credit cards, and they they stay broke. Yeah. And they pay compound interest on their homes when they take mortgages out on them. And it sounds only four percent or whatever. It's way higher these days, but, generally, let's just say it's four percent. It's like on a half million dollar home, you're gonna pay double that. Yeah. On the interest rate, that's how that's how they get you so they can become richest through compounding. Buffen has made all of his money because his His favorite holding period is forever. If you take a penny and you double it, in thirty days, you will have over a million dollars. K. So compounding is the most effective thing you could possibly do. And so what I did was compound a skill set repeatedly To the point where I became the very best at it. And then nobody could compete with me, and nobody wanted to compete with me, and everybody wanted to learn it from me. And that's what you gotta do is you gotta stay true to this one skill set. And if you can, you can get in at four bucks. You can start there, and then you can end up setting all the records, which is incredible. And it's crazy, but that's how you do it. People will overestimate what they can do in a year, but they underestimate what they can do in ten years. Mhmm. And what I am suggesting is is Get really good at something and compound it by trading up and finding the strategic byproducts for it, And then you will win. This is why I'm struggling so damn hard in the in the YouTube space these days because I've I've decided in to become more present on social media because I did all this stuff without any social media falling.   [00:41:04.80] - Martyn Brown Yeah. Yeah.   [00:41:05.40] - Jason Fladlien Which is insane. It's a whole different topic for a whole different day. But now I'm frustrated because I I know that I can reach more people if I use social media, but it's very humbling because I have to start over again. And, you know, I've struggled for the last year on it. I say struggled. We look at the numbers. We had over a million views and, you know, grew, you know, three times the subscriber base on YouTube and so on and so But I have no idea what I'm doing, and I feel like I'm lost, which is crazy because a lot of stuff seems similar, but it's not. And that's the beauty of it. So, like, an open loop on a webinar, I could do that all damn day long. I could set nested loops and all kinds of crazy stuff. We so the concept of open looping still is important on on YouTube. Very different, very nuanced and slightly different, but that slight difference is everything. And so I'm humbling myself and having to learn it from the scratch again. And now I'm like, okay. I gotta do it for five or ten years to become really excellent at it or get lucky. The harder I work, the luckier I get.   [00:42:05.09] - Martyn Brown You never stop learning as Jason, for anyone who wants to find out more about you and also your successes and also about the Rapid Crush Inc, Where do we need to head to?   [00:42:16.69] - Jason Fladlien Yeah. Get my book. It's on Amazon. It's called One to Many. And then subscribe to the YouTube channel, because man, dude, I'm I I am going extra hard on that stuff right now. So there's some really good value there. So Jason Fladlin, just, you know, put me in YouTube, and you'll find me there.   [00:42:31.00] - Martyn Brown Great stuff. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you, and good luck for the future. Thanks again, Jason.   [00:42:39.30] - Jason Fladlien Oh, you're most welcome. And thanks to all the radio station owners and radio show presenters for listening to the Vinyl Impressions podcast Well   [00:42:46.90] - Martyn Brown Thank you for listening. For more details of any of our podcasts, please visit vinyl impressions dot club.  

      [00:00:04.720] - Martyn Brown Welcome to the Vinyl Impressions Radio Show's syndication Podcast, where we bring you the groove and essence of radio all wrapped up in the timeless charm of Vinyl Records. I'm your host, Martin Brown, and on this show, we delve into the world of radio, exploring captivating interviews with station owners, talented presenters, and visionary entrepreneurs. Join me as we uncover the secrets of successful radio promotion and discover innovative ways to elevate your online presence. Whether you're a station owner, a show presenter, or a DJ, our guests offer valuable insights and strategies to help you flourish in the digital age. To get in touch with the podcast or share your thoughts, drop us an email at podcast@vinylimpressions. Club. For more updates and exciting content, visit our main website at vinylimpressions. Club and connect with us on our Facebook page, Vinyl Impressions Radio. Today, we're chatting with someone who I guess you could call a disruptor, as together with his business partner, he's become one of the major players in the field of lead and listener generation and funnel pages. In fact, you may have heard of Andy's company already because it's rather well respected in its field. It's called Convertry, and it's well worth checking out if you plan on having your own online radio station or you present a radio show to promote or any business, really.   [00:01:42.580] - Martyn Brown In fact, I launched my very own vinyl impressions radio show syndication site on his landing page creator for my website. And he founded Convertry because he thought landing page platforms could do better things. Well, he invented the pixel perfect layout for a start. I think this is going to be a fascinating conversation. Andy Fletcher, welcome.   [00:02:06.900] - Andy Fletcher Hey, thank you so much for having.   [00:02:08.230] - Martyn Brown Me today. It's great to have you here. I think we should start in the time on a tradition, though, of going back a little while and finding out more about you and what got you involved in the.   [00:02:20.120] - Andy Fletcher Online world. Yeah, sure. My background is all technology. I have a computer science degree for my since and after university I worked in a couple of tech jobs. And at one of them, I worked at this absolutely terrible startup where we did all manner of things that never worked. We burnt through a lot of venture capital while I worked there. I'd like to add that that wasn't... I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for that. I'm totally totally totally totally at fault. And one of the things we did was celebrity websites. So my stupidest claim to fame is that I worked on the official website for Anton Dec, which also dates me rather a lot, too. So while I was there, I was like some of the other people were aware that there was going to be like somebody was needed for SEO. And a mate of mine there bought an SEO book because he knew I would read anything put on my desk. He bought it at lunchtime. He left it on my desk, knowing that I would pick it up when the senior managers were coming around looking for somebody to be the... Can I swear on your show?   [00:03:24.280] - Martyn Brown Of course.   [00:03:25.020] - Andy Fletcher Go right in. It was put partly referred to as the SEO bitch. And they were coming around looking to see who to make the SEO bitch. And sure enough, I was sat there reading this book on SEO. And the guy was like, oh, Andy, you know all about this? Fantastic. You get this new job. And I was like, wait, what? So that was the big set up. That's how I got started with online digital marketing, got into the idea of it. And at that point, learned some SEO skills, learned how to rank websites, learned about on page, all the typical stuff, but getting stuff ranked in Google. And then when that start up went belly up and they decided that paying us was optional, I went into business for myself doing SEO for clients and then making SEO products.   [00:04:08.910] - Martyn Brown Great. So in terms of online, it's been one of those things, I guess. It's in your blood in many ways, right?   [00:04:15.400] - Andy Fletcher Yeah, definitely. I'm definitely a child of the Internet. I grew up with it. I had my first computer when I was about 15, I think, and an Internet connexion at 16, which I still am I was then just the biggest nerd in the world. I can still remember my parents going away when I was 16 years old for the weekend. And I was super excited. Where all my contemporaries were super excited to get rid of their parents and have parties. I was super excited because it gave me unfettered access to the computer for 48 hours so I could learn HTML.   [00:04:49.870] - Martyn Brown And then fast forward, you started Convertory, which was really established itself as one of the major players in how would you describe that? I used it initially for a landing pages, funnel building.   [00:05:02.990] - Andy Fletcher Yeah, definitely both, I would say. We have a lot of people that use us specifically for landing pages and then plug in other best in class tools. And then there's a lot of people who use us as like a full stack funnel builder.   [00:05:15.290] - Martyn Brown Right. So for anybody who's maybe not come across Convertry before, maybe you could just give us a bit of background as to, first of all, how it came about, but secondly, how it's evolved since it started. I know it's got radio presenters on it.   [00:05:30.810] - Andy Fletcher Certainly. So Convertry is actually the punchline to a joke, a really bad joke from an Internet marketing conference in summer 2015, something like that. I was on a panel of digital marketers, like more tech-focused digital marketers answering questions about how software gets built and things like that. And my mate, Jay, who is sat at the back. And sorry, before I tell this story, I would like to point out that alcohol was involved in this event because, of course, it was.   [00:05:59.960] - Martyn Brown All the best stories are out there.   [00:06:01.740] - Andy Fletcher And it will make me sound like slightly less of a jerk when I tell you the punchline. So anyway, my mate, Jay, I'll stick his hand up and he's like, Andy, you're a developer. It's 2015. Why when I get my developer to... I say like, I want to move my logo to the other side of the page, I want to move the sign up button a bit to the right. Why does it take him so long? Why is it so expensive? Et cetera, et cetera. And at the time, my answer was, Jay, speaking as the developer that has to it for the people like you, off. And I got a laugh from the crowd, and it was funny. But that thought really nagged at me why at the time was it so hard to get pages live? There was all kinds of page builders that promised the Earth. But if you wanted to do anything that was slightly off piece, certainly if you wanted to take advantage of breakthroughs in page speed technology or anything like that, you just couldn't. It was really hard. You had to custom code stuff, you had to hire developers.   [00:07:02.500] - Andy Fletcher And that was pretty wild given the number of page builders that were already on the market. So that's when we started putting together the first version. At the same time, my business partner, Neil, was reading all of the page speed reports coming out of Amazon and Google where they were talking about how you lose, at the time it was 40 % of your traffic. If your pages didn't load in three seconds, it's now up north of 50 %. And we realised we could combine these concepts of you put a thing on a page, you hit publish, and where you put it is where it appears. That's it. You don't have to understand responsive technology and rows and columns and all of this complicated stuff. It's a simple thing. If you can use Word, you can use Convertory to make a page. And then that page will load really, really, really fast. And that makes such a big difference to add spend to any landing page.   [00:07:52.650] - Martyn Brown It's one of those things, isn't it? I guess once you've set up a website using something like WordPress, you know how much of a challenge it can be to actually set up a page. Enough of my audience have tried it for radio stations. So was that part of the thinking behind Convertery, as in we just want to make this super simple for the end user?   [00:08:14.950] - Andy Fletcher Very much so. The goal was as simple as it can possibly be. We wrote it on, we made all of the developers working on it, print out the words just like Word and stick it up on the wall. Right. So every time we developed a new feature, they would often ask us, oh, how should this bit work? What's the decision? And I tap the sign every time. I want a 60 year old to pick this up, move some things around, start typing and be like, oh, it's just.   [00:08:43.910] - Martyn Brown Like Word. And you have achieved that. I mean, if anybody who's not used ConvertV yet, it's definitely worth getting an account so you can see just how simple it is. What are the advantages, though, Andy, of not using WordPress? Because WordPress has become a bit of a default in terms of online websites, especially for radio presenters.   [00:09:05.660] - Andy Fletcher Certainly. So WordPress still has its place. We still run our own blog on WordPress. It's definitely not a either or thing, but there's big chunks of the experience that WordPress makes really hard for people. With a tech background, I've worked on a tonne of WordPress sites, and it's always the same sticking points. Things like the security has been compromised, like some update, they forgot to run it, they haven't logged in in a little while, they come back and the site's been compromised. Things like, WordPress itself is simple-ish and it just works. And then any time you want to do something, it's like, oh, you need a plug in for that. And then this plug in isn't compatible with that plug in. And this plug in doesn't work with that theme you've got. And this theme has this other file that you have to connect to that plug. And it becomes this mess of tech when a marketer just doesn't care. It's not what they're interested in, and nor should it be. They want to focus on, How do I write a compelling message? How do I build a simple page that will generate me leads and make me sales?   [00:10:08.360] - Andy Fletcher And what we've set out to do with Convertry is just push all of that into the background, let us worry about all of that technical stuff so marketers can focus on marketing. Got you.   [00:10:18.550] - Martyn Brown And I guess in recent years, a lot of people now when they're visiting a site, they're doing more so on their mobile device than on a desktop device than ever. How is that affected Convertory and how you developed Convertory itself?   [00:10:37.660] - Andy Fletcher Yeah, that's a really good question. So Convertory gives you a mobile specific mode, which to our knowledge, hardly any other builder out there does. Whereas most give you, it's a responsive design. So you design the desktop page and then it will produce the mobile mode based on that. But whatever it produces, that's it. You can't really influence it that much. With Convertory will still produce an automatic mobile mode for you, but then you have complete control. You can move things around, custom fit it, change all the scaling, change any part of it you want to really craft that mobile experience. And that makes such a huge difference to conversion rates, even simple things like being able to hide certain things on mobile, maybe shrink the headline font down, or just swap the ordering around by simply dragging things up and down the page, makes a really big difference to that mobile conversion experience.   [00:11:30.050] - Martyn Brown And that's super important these days, I guess, because more and more people are using their mobile device for more things than ever. So I guess it makes sense that when you have, what you call it, a mobile-first approach?   [00:11:45.830] - Andy Fletcher I wouldn't say that I'm a bit reticent on the whole mobile-first thing. I still encourage people to think about the desktop experience and then scale it down to mobile. The trying to design mobile first and then add things into the desktop, I find, causes people to leave out key elements they really wish they had on a mobile device. Makes sense. So generally, we encourage people. It's like build the desktop version, generate the automatic mode, and then think about what stuff you're taking out rather than building one thing and then adding things in and being like, Oh, yeah, my testimonials should really be on the mobile site as well.   [00:12:25.780] - Martyn Brown Makes sense. When you have a site with Convertory, because it's not just about landing pages or the funnel that you build, it's also about the checkout process, I guess. People can buy merchandise from radio stations, et cetera. Convertory is really good at being able to have... Well, it's almost like an all-in-one solution. But if you don't want to use Convertories built in checkout, you can, I guess, attach others as well. Can you just talk a little bit about what you are finding now out in the real world and how people are paying online? Because before, I guess, it was so difficult to get out your credit card and enter all your details. But now with things like Apple Pay or Google Pay, mobile wallets, I guess, has that made it easier? Or are we still in the infancy of that?   [00:13:21.700] - Andy Fletcher We're definitely still in the infancy of that. Our industry has a bit of a fetish with the latest, greatest technology. And while Apple Pay is big, all of these wallets are big business now. But compared to the number of people that don't have it, don't understand it, don't want to understand it, they have a credit card, they know how to type digits into a box. And I think a lot of people are very focused on these. How can I make it easier for the user by having these no typing your stuff in Apple Pay style stuff? But what they're doing there is optimising for the subset of people who are right at the cutting edge and they're going to make it work whatever your UI looks like. Whereas your average user doesn't understand that stuff, doesn't want to understand that stuff. They understand. They've got a card, they type the numbers into a box, and then they've bought your thing. And we find optimising for that side of it generally produces a better result than going, have you got an have you got an Apple wallet? How about one of these Google things? What about Amazon Pay?   [00:14:23.690] - Andy Fletcher Have you got in? And your average user is like, No, no, I don't.   [00:14:27.280] - Martyn Brown Give me the box. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I guess, though, in the future, that's going to become more and more relevant, isn't it? That most people will end up with some digital wallet. I mean, I guess the most well-known is PayPal, which isn't without its flaws. We know. But would you say there's a move towards the online wallets?   [00:14:51.190] - Andy Fletcher Oh, definitely. They're coming. They're here in a fairly big way, and they're only going to get bigger. We've just noticed this theme of people obsessing over the cutting edge part and ignoring just the big bulk of users in the middle who don't really get it. Maybe they've got Apple Pay set up on the phone and they know how to waive it at a checkout rather than waving their card at it. But for online purchases, we're just not seeing a lot of that stuff yet.   [00:15:20.890] - Martyn Brown Yeah, makes sense. Now, being in the advantageous position of the owner of a platform, I guess you get to see the various ways that people are using the software. So what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people making online?   [00:15:36.960] - Andy Fletcher Oh, there's a really good question. So I would say probably the biggest mistake is trying to be too clever and too fancy. So a really good example is everyone comes to our platform wanting things like fancy animations when study after study after study has shown they ruin your conversion rate. People don't... Animations appeal to the person that has to look at the site seven times a day for a year, whereas somebody just trying to get the information gets distracted by things moving around and fading in and dancing around the page and all of that. Your average user is very happy to start at the top. And maybe they'll skim read, maybe they'll read the whole thing, but they're very happy to just know that all they've got to do is pull that scroll bar down and get to the end. Yes. You'll notice a really big theme in a lot of what I've been talking about here, and that's like a focus on simplicity first. Everyone online is obsessed with the latest widget, the latest craze, the latest this, the latest that. And a great many people would sell a great many more products if they would just focus on the basics.   [00:16:47.710] - Martyn Brown It's the old Kiss principle, isn't it? The keep it simple process.   [00:16:52.320] - Andy Fletcher Absolutely that. There's so many parts to this that you just don't need. And some, like Wrangled guru who has said, oh, you must have this magic thing or you can't sell online. And this just doesn't make a difference a lot of the time.   [00:17:09.720] - Martyn Brown Yeah, yeah. I mean, in terms of funnels and funnel creation, I know some people go, What is all this about? I know the idea of building a sales page, having a buy now button at the bottom, and that's it. Can you just maybe elaborate a little about what is a funnel and how Convertry can help people create these funnels?   [00:17:31.720] - Andy Fletcher Yeah, of course. That's another great question. So we think about funnels in a couple of different ways. The first most important one is the idea of the positive and the negative action, which makes everything so much easier to test. So with a typical website, you'll find, and I imagine anyone listening has at some point logged into Google Analytics. You've maybe got a WordPress blog, you've installed the plugin that you put Google Analytics on it, you log into Google Analytics, analytics. You're like, how is my website doing? And then you log in to Google Analytics and Google Analytics is like, here is a load of random data. And you're like, no, no, no, how is it doing? And it's like, no, I can't help you with that. It'll tell you that a bunch of people clicked on this page, a bunch of people clicked on that page. But it's very hard to determine what people actually did and didn't do. Where did they drop off? What made them buy? What didn't make them buy? That's where a typical website falls down. With a funnel approach, we have each page has a specific action. So as talking about a sales page the way you just did, we have a product for sale.   [00:18:38.720] - Andy Fletcher And ideally, we have no other links on the page other than the ability to buy the product. So everyone that comes to our page either buys the product or they don't. So when you look at your analytics, you don't have to look at it and go, okay, so three % of people bought it and seven % of people went to this other page and then one % of that, it's like on this page, five out of 100 people bought the product, and tomorrow we're going to try and make it six out of 100, which makes everything about it just so much easier to think about than the complexity you get from a typical website.   [00:19:14.030] - Martyn Brown Makes sense. I guess my big question to you, Andy, on more of a personal note, are you a Cody yourself? Is that how you came up with the idea for Converterie?   [00:19:26.830] - Andy Fletcher Yes. I think I mentioned I have a computer science degree. I'm a completely nerdy techy guy. I fell in love with digital marketing. I fell in love with the I love direct response marketing online. This idea that we can tell how our marketing is doing, we can runwe can run an ad on Facebook and then people come to our landing page, and then we know how much we spent for those clicks. And of those clicks, how many people made it to the page? Of the people that made it to the page, how many people opted in or how many people bought? Everything is just so much more measurable compared to, well, I stuck 5,000 flyers out there and I don't really know what happened because I can't tell which ones produce the callbacks, or I put up a load of billboards and I think my calls have gone up, but I don't really know how. I love that aspect of direct response online, which is where my tech skills got converted over into marketing skills.   [00:20:21.850] - Martyn Brown Right. Okay. And in terms of your team now, obviously, Convertory is a major platform. I'm sure there's not just you, Andy. How big is the team?   [00:20:31.760] - Andy Fletcher Yes. So contrary to some people's belief, we still get some people who email support and be like, Hi, Andy. And it's like I'm really flattered. I'm genuinely flattered that people think that I still write all the code and answer all the support things and do the webinar. I do everything. However, it's true. I don't. There's a team of 20 of us now. It's grown almost in spite of me at times. We've got an incredibly talented team that handle a lot of the day to day operations now.   [00:21:02.940] - Martyn Brown And how do you keep the team motivated? I know radio stations get this. I guess this is the insatiable beast in many ways. It's never actually finished, so it must be quite difficult for you as CEO to carry out that motivation, coming up with the ideas to continually evolve the platform.   [00:21:24.390] - Andy Fletcher Yeah. So we've never really struggled with a motivated team. We seem to be really good at recruiting just really driven people, people really excited to build the next feature or design the next feature or answer support questions or whatever it is. We've got really lucky in the staff that we've been able to hire. They do a fantastic job every day. And my job is to feed the pipeline, it's to talk about what's next. But I rarely have the issue where it's like, oh, I've got to motivate them today. They will show up really wanting to play wanting to add the next feature.   [00:22:02.290] - Martyn Brown Nice. I mean, it sounds like a great team. Whereabouts are you based?   [00:22:05.570] - Andy Fletcher So I'm in South London. I'm in Stratham Hill. Way, way back when I was first getting started online and seeing some success, I was like, me and my business partners, we were mimicking what we thought business was. And as we got money, we got an office in central London, and then we got some staff in the office in central London. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that was really expensive.   [00:22:26.880] - Martyn Brown Yeah, yeah, yeah.   [00:22:28.030] - Andy Fletcher So now I work from home. I'm sat in my garden office right now. I live at home with my partner, Sarah, and my cat, Rufus. I'm sat in my garden office, and then the entire team is spread all over the world.   [00:22:39.990] - Martyn Brown Great. Like most big companies these days, that's the way to do it. How important, though, for you, Andy, is the work-life balance?   [00:22:48.750] - Andy Fletcher Not important at all. I'm a complete workaholic. I love it. This is my hobby. This is my passion. This is my job. This is what gets me up in the morning. This morning, I woke up at 1:00 AM with my brain buzzing with ideas, and I got up and I started writing them down because I was awake. I love doing this.   [00:23:08.620] - Martyn Brown Well, that goes some way to show how important convertory is in your life, which is great. What is the benefit, though, of being based in the UK, would you say, rather than being based anywhere else in the world?   [00:23:21.060] - Andy Fletcher Oh, there's a really good question. Certainly in terms of just core infrastructure, I think being based in the UK, this is going to be true of any first world nation, but the majority of the world's population didn't roll the lucky dice that I did to be born in a first world country. In terms of the UK over somewhere like America, though, or France, Germany, any first world nation, I'm honestly not sure it makes the greatest difference these days. We've all got really similar access to this global marketplace of talent and tools. And I often think it's like, I live in London because I live in London. I like it here. But I could do this job from a beach in Thailand or Frankfurt or New York or anywhere. I don't think it would make the greatest difference.   [00:24:13.180] - Martyn Brown Yeah. Just don't tell, Sarah, that I think it's some good ideas. Anybody who's thinking of starting out making their first steps online, do you have any tips for anybody who's thinking about starting or growing an online business?   [00:24:29.270] - Andy Fletcher Yeah. Get over the fear and do it. Just embrace the fact you're going to suck horribly and just get started. It took me so long to do the first few things, and I sucked. And I didn't want to suck. That was awful. I hated it, so I put off so many things. And when I finally got over my own ego and accepted that it was just better to do a bunch of imperfect stuff and learn some lessons, that's when things really started working for me. But that gap between wanting to do the thing and doing the thing because everyone's afraid, right? You don't want to have that feeling of just how bad you suck at it. But that's going to be true for the rest of forever. So you may as well embrace whatever the next thing is. I still suck at so many things in my job to this day, but my brainwiring is different now. And it's just like, cool, let's get up. Let's learn how to do it. Let's figure it out. Let's try a thing. And I wish I got to that a bit quicker.   [00:25:31.880] - Martyn Brown I normally ask in these interviews, are there any tools or resources that you can recommend? So what do you think, Andy?   [00:25:39.500] - Andy Fletcher Oh, I don't know. I mean, I've heard there's this really terrible Funnel builder that everyone should have... No. So obviously, I think people should come and check out Convertry. We've got a 14 day free trial. It's completely risk free. Like come and give it a go. I think it'd be really useful. I feel like I should mention some other things, though. So I'm currently obsessed with Alex Hormosie's $100 million offers book like most of the Internet is and his new book, $100 million leads, which is coming out next month, I imagine will be just as good as the first one. The dude is amazing. So for anyone listening that has somehow not heard of Alex or Mosey, you should definitely check out his YouTube and his podcast.   [00:26:20.720] - Martyn Brown Great.   [00:26:21.600] - Andy Fletcher I have learnt unbelievably much from that guy.   [00:26:24.780] - Martyn Brown That's amazing. I mean, that's a great resource as well to share. How do we find the 14 day free trial that you mentioned?   [00:26:32.980] - Andy Fletcher So www. Convertory. Com, and then just click the Sign Up button and it's readily available there. It'll give you a choice between whether you want to pay monthly or annual, but either way, you get to try it for 14 days before we build your card.   [00:26:47.600] - Martyn Brown Great. And what's next for you, Andy? Is there something else you're working on?   [00:26:53.190] - Andy Fletcher Yeah. So what's next is probably our Editor 2.0 project. Well, like Convertoryuser, editor, is it's been cutting edge the whole time. It's the core focus of our product. We see really big opportunities to take it to the next level still. So we're starting work on it at the moment. We're hopeful to have something out later this year. Certainly a bunch of beta tests and proof of concepts for how we take a lot of the core technology we already have and really level it up and push what's possible.   [00:27:28.270] - Martyn Brown Excellent. Well, all the with that, Andy, thank you so much for your time today. It's been an absolute education. Thank you so much for spending your time with me and my fellow radio station owners, presenters. We really appreciate it.   [00:27:45.870] - Andy Fletcher No, thank you very much for having me. It's been.   [00:27:48.790] - Martyn Brown Amazing to be here. Thank you for listening. For more details of any of our podcasts, please visit vinylimpressions.Club.