This episode is Part 2 of the series: "The Greatest Free and Freemium Tools I Can't - and Won't - Live Without".
Part 1 is Episode 93: https://SubscribeMe.fm/93
See the entire list of the greatest Free & Freemium Tools at https://SubscribeMe.fm/freetools
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And check out my S3 Video Player For WordPress.
I've been selling online since 1998. And in all of those years, I've tried and tested an insane number of tools - desktop software, online services, and mobile apps. And I started making a list of all the free stuff I'm using almost every day, and the list came up with just blows my to think that I depend on so many of these tools on a day-to-day basis, yet I've never had to pay for most of them.
So here are some of the greatest free and freemium tools most of which I couldn't live without - and wouldn't want to live without.
See full list at https://SubscribeMe.fm/freetools
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Tip #1: If you write a Kindle book solely for the purpose of making money, then you're going to be terribly disappointed, because a Kindle book will simply not make much money for a vast majority of the authors. And that includes me as well.
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When I say "Don't Write a Best-Selling Book (Do This Instead)", I'm not ACTUALLY telling you to intentionally NOT write a great book or I'm not telling you that you should write a below-average, low quality book.
The main point I'm trying to make is, don't set out with the intention of writing a "best-seller", because there are some downsides to having that kind of a mindset. Let me explain.
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Check out my Kindle book at https://SubscribeMe.fm/kiwk
Kevin Kelly wrote, "To be a successful creator... you don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans... You need only thousands of true fans."
But how do you attract your 1000 true fans?
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I just finished a 3-day launch of my new course at https://1001TrueFans.com. I had over 150 people unsubscribe from my various lists these past couple of days because I sent them an email about the course.
So I figured, I would share how I felt about that on today's show, in case you're also going through something similar, and I hope that it helps you realize that you are way more valuable to your true fans, and that we should obsessively focus on those who stay, than those who leave.
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Question: I would like to start monetizing my podcast by creating a membership club for new episodes. Do I put all the available episodes in the club and make them pay to listen, or leave a certain amount as free to continue attracting new customers.
My Answer: I don't think you should put every single episode behind a paywall and make it all premium-only. You've got to have free episodes there, because that's what allows you to attract new listeners, and turn them into podcast subscribers, and then eventually, into paying members. If you have no free content, it's very difficult for anyone to know how good your content is.
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What if you weren't married to any specific platform to build your audience? What if your product was platform-agnostic? Or platform independent? As it should be, right? You don't create a course only for your Facebook followers. You want your entire audience on ALL platforms to buy your course, right?
So if your goal is to get more leads, there are WAYYY better options for generating leads, at least when you're first getting started, than simply starting a new YouTube channel, or a new Podcast, or a new Instagram account and THEN trying to grow the followers or views or downloads on that platform, and THEN trying to get them to sign up for your course.
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Podcast Monetization, Direction, Strategy.
Today's episode is the first of an AMA series I'm doing - AMA stands for Ask Me Anything. So a little while ago, on my birthday, I was feeling extremely grateful and thankful to my customers, my audience, my followers, my friends and my family.
So I asked my audience, via email, via Facebook, via Instagram and even via Twitter, to submit their questions to me, and I said I would answer them on my podcast.
So here goes the first question, which is about monetizing a podcast and getting your listeners to pay for premium audio content.
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So what does it really mean to stream audio or video? Is downloading a file the same as streaming? Does every video you watch online a streaming video?
The 3 types of "streaming" - Progressive Downloads, Adaptive & True Streaming, why one of them is not even actual streaming, what you should know about, why you should care, and the way it impacts how you deliver content to your audience.
I'm not going to go too deep into this, because you and I, we don't need to exactly become audio or video engineers. But I know enough to be really dangerous, enough to create an incredible plugin at https://S3MediaVault.com. And I'm going to boil it down to some simple concepts and examples so you too know just enough to come across as a well-informed person at your next technical conversation at a party of geeks and nerds.
But seriously, the more important thing is that I want you to be able to make an informed decision when it comes to the media that you're creating and and how you're delivering it to your website visitors, subscribers and paid and free members.
Go Deep, Then Wide: One day I woke up and figured out, that I have to do what my late father R.N. Jayagopal DID, not what he SAID.
But in my father's case, he obviously wasn't trying to mess with me or trying to mislead me. It's just that he himself didn't fully quite understand his own mega-success in life.
And it is really an immutable law to learning from successful people, is to do as they do, not as they say.
But in my father's case, he obviously wasn't trying to mess with me or trying to mislead me. It's just that he himself didn't fully quite understand his own mega-success in life.
Listen to the full episode at https://SubscribeMe.fm or wherever you get your podcasts.
A Programmer and a Marketer Walk into a Bar is actually a true story. Easily one of THE most fascinating stories of my life.
And this is also the story behind one of the biggest lessons I learned as an Entrepreneur.
So enjoy the story, with the audio taken straight from my live video.
If you are an Entrepreneur, then one of the most challenging things today, is building an audience. So where do you go to find your audience? Facebook? Instagram? Podcasts? YouTube? Amazon?
Check out my online course DOPE, Do Once Publish Everywhere, at SubscribeMe.fm/dope/ It is about How to Build Trust, Respect & Influence and Reach New Audiences Using Live Streaming, Video, Audio and Repurposing Content on Multiple Social Media Platforms
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I recently created a video where I talked about why YouTube may no longer be a good idea for storing yours sales videos and promotional videos.
I created that video purposefully, planning ahead, knowing that I'll be able to use the content for this podcast as well.
I call it "Purposeful Repurposing". And I've actually created a full online course about it, titled DOPE - D O P E - Do Once, Publish Everywhere: How to Build Trust, Respect & Influence and Reach New Audiences Using Live Streaming, Video, Audio and Repurposing Content on Multiple Social Media Platforms. Check it out at https://SubscribeMe.fm/dope
So here's the audio from that video. Enjoy.
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DOPE stands for Do Once, Publish Everywhere.
I recently launched a new online course, and I wanted to share with you some of the lessons learned, as well as thoughts and comments from my launch.
I talk about 3 things:
1) Perceived Value
2) Turning 1 media format into 3
3) Urgency, Scarcity and Exclusivity - or USE, as I like to call it
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I wanted to share these 19 thoughts with you, about doing business online, and I hope they help you focus, or re-focus, in 2019 and beyond.
I talk about everything from focusing on Making Offers (MOMMY, my new acronym), to creating an Epic Lead Magnet, to increasing its perceived value, why you should stop creating and start promoting, and my "Kindle-book-for-Review" strategy to quickly build a list of prospects, and more.
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And if you get to the root cause of the fear of making offers, that in turn comes from the fear of people unsubscribing.
A lot of us are scared to sell stuff, make offers, because we think if we sell stuff, people will unsubscribe, they will mark our emails as spam, they will hate us, they will trash us on social media.
In short, a lot of marketers fear the sky will fall on their heads if they make offers to their list. And they are so terrified of people unsubscribing. Trust me, that included me as well at one point, and such thoughts do pass through my head even today. So it's not unusual for marketers to worry about the dreaded unsubscribe.
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Since Episode #69, I've continued to wind-down my Facebook group. I still post there occasionally, but everyone in my group knows that I've moved the community to my own website and most have them followed me to my new forum. You can check out my new community by going to Forum.SubscribeMe.fm .
And on this episode, I also talk about how I use Slack, how I use my Online Forum, When to use which tool, and How I'm using Scarcity, Exclusivity and Urgency to Build My Online Community
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One of the common myths that a lot of content creators have, in this day and age of crowdfunding, is that if you have a large enough audience, then you can earn a decent income using donations from your listeners.
90% of creators, will not be able to make even a few hundred dollars a month from their show, and I'm going to show you why.
First, I'm going to play you a clip from a podcast called RadioLab, a super-popular radio show and podcast with millions of listeners, where you will hear a really shocking revelation about the ability - or should I say, inability - to raise funds through donations even when you have a super-successful podcast, which, according to their media kit, they get 1.6 million weekly radio listeners.
On a cold morning in January 2007, a violinist wearing a baseball cap was playing some beautiful music in a Washington DC subway train station.
1,097 people passed him by, but only 7 of them stopped to listen to him. He had a mat spread out in front of him to collect donations.
For his 43-minute performance, he collected a whopping $32.17 from a total of 27 passersby.
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And if you need help growing your business, check out my coaching program at https://SubscribeMe.fm/coaching/
It doesn't matter if the ad is like a pre-recorded ad from a third-party, or a show-halting, host-read ad. Yes, I agree that those ads are not the same, and people are generally more receptive to host-read ads, where the host of the podcast, or the YouTube video, or the author of the blog post, are themselves reading out the ads.
And it gets more interesting when you throw in affiliate products. And the creative and organic host-read ads.
If you know someone who tells you that they love ads, or they like ads, they're either lying to you, or something is wrong with them and you need to tell them to get their head checked LOL!
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My AdSense earnings would fluctuate between $500 to $1500, most of the time averaging about $1000. But I never averaged more than that through AdSense ads. This, despite being #1 on Google, getting tons of traffic, targeted audience, despite buying every course on AdSense and SEO and list-building and optimizing every darn part of my website, constantly creating traffic and on and on and on. The work to stay at the top of Google as relentless, but all of that work didn't payoff as much as it should have, given that I did reach #1 on Google and built a list of more than half a million email subscribers at one point.
You know why it didn't work? Because ads generally don't work for most people - not for most publishers and content creators, anyway.
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3 bold predictions for the next 5 years: Subscription Overload, Loss Leader Overload and Lifestyle Aggregators.
I predict that by the year 2023, everything we use today in day-to-day life, will become subscription based.
And because there's going to be an explosion of subscription-based services, there will be what I'm calling Subscription Aggregators. or Sags. And one step up from Sags, will be what I call Lifestyle Aggregators, or Lags.
Finally, there's going to be an explosion in Loss Leaders.
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After I got back from speaking at Podcast Movement 2018, I was thinking about all of the positive things that have happened for me in the last 2 or so years.
I've been getting a lot of traction with my efforts in the podcasting space. Which is why I'm going All-in on Audio.
I have 3 podcasts now - one of which you're listening to right now - https://SubscribeMe.fm .
And then there's my 2nd podcast called "Cut To The Chase", which I had put on the back-burner for a while, but I'm moving it to the front-burner now.
And then a few days ago, I launched my THIRD podcast, which is really an Alexa Flash Briefing first. See https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GLP1KV1/
That is also available as a podcast at https://CutToTheChase.fm.
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"To Have Great Power, You Need to Take On Great Responsibility".
That's my new "Reverse Spider-man" quote, a cool twist on the original Spider-man quote.
I actually came up with the idea for this as I was preparing for a presentation that I'm giving next week, at Podcast Movement 2018, in Philadelphia.
But as I was creating the slides for my presentation, I have a section in there, where I talk about building your own platform, owning your platform, owning your domain, building everything on your own website, vs building it all on a third-party platform.
As I was doing a comparison table comparing third-party platforms versus your own WordPress site, I came up with the idea for today's episode.
Do you remember Uncle Ben from Spider Man? He is Peter Parker's uncle who gets killed by a burglar who is trying to escape after a robbery. So in the movie, Peter Parker, aka Spider Man, lets a burglar get away just a little bit earlier, and that same burglar ends up shooting and killing his Uncle Ben. And a dying Uncle Ben tells Peter, one of the most famous movie quotes ever. He tells him: With great power, comes great responsibility.
It's an amazing quote, no doubt.
But guess what? Uncle Ravi has a quote for you today, that's going to put Uncle Ben's quote to shame.
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Part 2: Product First? Or Audience First? I talk about Strategy #2: Building an Audience First and THEN creating a product (ideally, productS) for that audience.
Which is WAY easier said than done.
And I'm also going to let you in on a little secret... that Strategy #1, which is Product First, Audience Next, and Strategy #2, which is Audience First, Product Next, are actually not mutually exclusive at all. You DON'T HAVE to choose just one or the other. You can actually do both. In fact, you MUST do both. But only in a certain order. And I'll talk about that in a second.
Now to give you better context, I have to say this real quick about Strategy #1. The cool thing about Strategy #1, is that once you've accomplished that, then Strategy #2 - which is building an audience first - becomes kind of moot, because now you already have an existing audience who have already bought your first product. So creating additional products for an existing audience is going to be a lot easier than finding or building a new audience.
I actually have a name for this: Go Deep, Then Wide.
So when you find a niche where you have already created a product and you're starting to build up an audience in that niche, it is a lot easier to go deep into that niche, than to go wide, and start coming up with new niches that are unrelated to that product.
Almost every single successful entrepreneur or company, almost always tends to go deep, before they go wide.
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Product First or Audience First? A burning question for anyone starting an online business. And as much it might seem similar to the complicated "Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg" discussion, it's actually not all that complicated when it comes down to the core nature of these two strategies.
There is no simple one-size-fits-all answer here, so I'll try to break it down as best as I can, given my own experience selling a number of products online since 1998, and then add to that my experience coaching and consulting with clients since 2003.
There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to creating an online business. Each one involves a completely different strategy.
Strategy #1) You create a product first, and THEN find an audience for that product
Strategy #2) You build an audience first, and THEN create a product
Strategy #1 is basically to start with what skills and resources you have and create your product or service first based on your own knowledge and experience. And then you find an audience for what you've already created. And then you keep improving the product and extending it and then creating other products and services around your core product or core niche, as you get more feedback from current, past and future customers.
Strategy #2 is basically to first build an audience, that is hopefully big enough, hungry for a solution to a pain, can actually afford to pay for it, is easily reachable, and easy to work with. And then create something FOR that audience.
There are a lot of tangents I can go in when talking about some of these things - like how big of an audience do you really need? That really depends on what kind of a product or service you're selling.
If you're selling something for 1000 dollars, and your goal is 100,000 dollars, then you only need 100 clients. If you're selling something for 20 dollars, and your goal is the same 100,000 dollars, then you need 5000 clients. So I won't get into that discussion today, as I have that planned for a later episode.
For the purposes of today's discussion, I'm just going to stick to the two strategies: Build Product Then Audience, or Build Audience Then Product.
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