AP 1230: How Do I Scale My Business the Right Way?

AP 1230: How Do I Scale My Business the Right Way?

Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody Pat Flynn here and welcome to episode 1230 of Ask Pat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. And today we're talking with Caelan Huntress. He is a digital marketer and entrepreneur who helps people create automation systems and growing their business and building websites and all that kind of stuff. Really, really smart guy. He's got a book coming out called Marketing Yourself, and I highly recommend you check it out at MarketingYourselfBook.com or his website, CaelanHuntress.com.

Today we talk about different, basically it was like a back and forth brainstorming session for how to grow and scale business and really, really cool. And it's especially interesting because, yes Caelan helps people with digital marketing. So we have to go deeper. We have to go a little bit more creative here and we do. Because he's got the basics and foundations down obviously. So, hope you enjoy this episode, it's going to be super fun. Let's get right into it. Caelan, welcome to Ask Pat, thank you so much for joining me today.

Caelan Huntress:
Thanks Pat. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Pat Flynn:
As am I. Why don't we start off with yourself? Tell us a little bit about what you do?

Caelan Huntress:
Sure. Yeah. I'm a marketing automation specialist. I run a digital marketing agency called Stellar Platforms, which helps experts and entrepreneurs set up smart marketing systems.

Pat Flynn:
Nice. Where did this come about for you? Why get into this?

Caelan Huntress:
Well, I left the United States about 12 years ago and had to start my own business. This was back when digital nomading was becoming a new thing, and so I jumped into that with both feet and started as a web designer. Making websites is a lot of fun because you've got to have an overlap of skills. You got to write good copy, you got to design decent graphics and you got to know a little bit of code. I happened to be able to do all three. I ran a web design agency for a while and found that the most fruitful conversations I was having with people was around their marketing, how to build their list, how to find more clients and how to convert their leads into customers.

That became the core of my business. I started doing a lot of work with sales, funnels and lead magnets, helping people grow their income, their impact and their influence.

Pat Flynn:
Nice. How long ago did you start this agency?

Caelan Huntress:
12 years ago when I left the United States, I took my two kids and my pregnant wife to Costa Rica and we had a baby there. He's an anchor baby. He's a citizen, we're all permanent residents, but Costa Rica wants to eat you. It's got bugs and spiders and snakes and when you have three little kids, it's really stressful. So we thought, "What if this was completely different? And we moved somewhere with no natural predators?" So we moved to New Zealand four years ago and that's where I live right now.

Pat Flynn:
Wow. New Zealand. That's amazing. It's definitely my bucket list to go. The people are so amazing and friendly. I'm actually really jealous. That's so cool. All right. So marketing and automation, is there a particular niche within the entrepreneurial digital marketing field or is it just spread across a bunch of different people?

Caelan Huntress:
Well Pat, the types of people that I specialized in working with when I was a web designer, were authors, coaches and speakers. I've had some bestselling authors and some nationally syndicated radio hosts and some hall of fame public speakers as my clients. I got to know that market really well. So the experts and entrepreneurs, people who have something to say and something to sell, that's where I've really focused my attention.

Pat Flynn:
Very nice, hence conversions, they're promoting courses, they're promoting books and programs and all kinds of other things. Excellent. So, how's the business going?

Caelan Huntress:
Oh it's great. Yeah. It's funny when the pandemic hit, a lot of people realized they had their employment situation shuffled up and a lot of people who wanted to do something on their own, realized that they needed to build their own personal brand. So I've gotten a lot more into online courses and producing videos. I don't do a whole lot of one-to-one work, but I've been able to do what I teach my clients how to do and grow my audience at scale.

Pat Flynn:
Nice. Do you have a particular platform that you're focused on in terms of growing your audience, getting more exposure?

Caelan Huntress:
Well because I'm a marketing automation specialists, I like to use all the platforms. My clients will say, "Hey, I'm on Entreport or I'm on ConvertKit or I'm on Active Campaign." So can you make me landing pages or an email automation sequence? So I'm always using different tools and I like comparing this tool versus that tool, and sometimes that's what people hire me to do, is to make that migration when they've been working on one tool for a little while and they want to go to another one, they need somebody like me who can push all the buttons and pull all the levers to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Pat Flynn:
Nice. Where can people go and find you? Because I think people might be interested in what you have to offer real quick before we dive in?

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. Well, I've got my personal website CaelanHuntress.com, where I talk about a lot of my adventures and my personal thoughts, but my name's hard to spell. So I also have my digital marketing agency, StellarPlatforms.com. That's where I keep a lot of my professional work.

Pat Flynn:
Definitely a lot easier to spell that's for sure. Cool. So what's on your mind?

Caelan Huntress:
Well, I've got this book that I'm coming out with soon Pat. On August 12th, I'm launching a book called Marketing Yourself. The subtitle is How to Elevate Your Personal Platform to the Next Level. I've been working on this book for five years. It's really got a lot of the best understandings of what I know about how to build your platform, grow your audience and have the impact that you want to have on the world. When this book launches, I'd like to go on a podcast tour. In September and October, about four or five months from now, I want to get on a lot of podcasts and talk about my book.

What I'd like to know from you Pat, is how should I approach podcasters? Is there a best practice for reaching out to them? Is there things that I need to provide to them in advance so that they can see at a glance, whether or not I'm a match for their audience?

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. This is a great question. First of all, you're on this podcast already, so you're off to a good start. We started with one already.

Caelan Huntress:
One down.

Pat Flynn:
Okay. So there's a sequence of different kinds of people that we can work toward in terms of podcast hosts. Number one, start with anybody who has a podcast already that you know, that's going to be obvious, but many people forget about that, that perhaps you have friendships or people that you've connected with before. Now is the time even though it's May at the time of this recording to initiate those conversations, because you do want to give podcasters some months in advance to put it in the schedule, many podcasters yes record week to week, but many podcasters like myself record three to four months in advance.

Starting this now is really good. So start with people you know. Now, if there are podcasts that you know match the audience that you want, I would imagine that my audience is similar, there's many other podcasts that you likely know, a fun trick that you can do is go to Apple Podcast and find one of these podcasts. Then you go down to the related podcast where people who listen to this, also listen to this. This will give you a nice rabbit hole of different podcasts that you know those audiences are overlapping and are your type. So you start with one and you can write that map or that trail, which is really cool.

Then of course, if you happen to know any of them, great, if not, the best way to initiate a conversation would be through an introduction. If you know somebody who knows them, then that would be the next best thing. That's way better than a cold email or even a personalized video, which would be in the docket. But I think if you have a relationship with somebody who knows them already, awesome. One thing that you could do is also if you know some people who have been on the podcast circuit before, another author perhaps, or other people who you know are frequent guests of other shows in that niche, that person can be used to introduce you to directly those podcasters whose podcasts they've been on before too.

Caelan Huntress:
Oh, that's so smart.

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. You're welcome. I'm trying to find ways to connect you to these people before you have to cold connect with them, right? So we're working on relationships you have and how you might do that on different levels. The other thing that you could do is if there are any podcasts in particular that you're like, "Oh, that would be a dream podcast to be on." Look at their archive and then see if you know anybody who's been interviewed there too. They could have 200, 500 episodes. There might just be one person who you now know is connected to them that you didn't know that was the case for before. So how does that all sound so far?

Caelan Huntress:
Oh, that's so smart Pat. I like that a lot because looking through a podcast archive, since I've done so much work with the types of people who are on podcasts it's going to be easy for me to say, "Oh yeah, I know that person." Or, "They were a client of mine." And then reach out to them and ask for an introduction. It's a lot smoother than just trying to get in their email inbox past the spam filter.

Pat Flynn:
Right. Okay so next from there, if you maybe don't have the ability to get an introduction, but you do have a connection still, for example you see somebody who was on their show, but you don't really know them that well, or maybe you aren't able to get in contact with them, that still at least gives you a conversation starter with that person who owns the podcast. So now it's not just like, "Hey, I'm some random person who wants you on my show." It's like, "Hey, I have seen your archive. I know this person who you interviewed we're actually good friends. I would love to chat with you."

Now they're that much more open to receiving a question or an ask of sorts. So that works too. Now, I wouldn't do it via email. I would start by those personalized reach outs directly to the podcaster. I would do it with a video direct message on a platform that you know they're active on if possible.

Caelan Huntress:
Very smart.

Pat Flynn:
So video is great because it's video, but I would also save that video. So here's a two step process. So, film a short video that you're going to send to this person, it's personalized, it's different. Not everybody's doing that and make it rather quick. Many times you're not actually going to get a person to reply, many times you will. But, what you can do is take that same video. And when you send an email to the person, this is when you send the email, say, "Hey, I filmed this video for you. You might have missed it, I sent it over to your DM but it was really important. I wanted to get it in front of you."

Now a person's almost going to feel bad that they missed it in a way and be likely to see it. Now you're going to have a conversation. It could still be a no, but obviously if you don't try, then it's automatically a no. So, that's the sequence of how I might be a guest on a podcast, no matter what, whether you have a book or not, the fact that you have a book is even better. You could also use that book as leverage for yourself to, "Hey, I'd love to send you a copy of the book." Or, "I'll gift your audience five copies that you can give away." I appreciate that when people do that.

Caelan Huntress:
Talk to me more about that. What's that like?

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. So if you know that your book is perfect for that audience, you might say, "Hey, you know what? I would love to serve your audience. I have this book coming out and I know that the topics are similar to things you talk about, but I just go really deep and I'd love to explore a conversation we can have for your show to really help your audience do X, Y, Z. On top of that, I'd love to give you five copies of my book anyway, whether you choose to have me on your podcast or not just as a thank you for what you do." And you can choose to give them away or what have you.

That often works well because now you're approaching it from a value giving first, instead of asking for something first, right? Another trick if you will, and be careful how you use this because it could be abused. But if you mention that podcast in your book... "Hey, I mentioned you in my book now I'm intrigued." Now, people have done that to me and then they show me a sample chapter of the book and it's like, "Oh my gosh, you spent four pages writing about my work. I appreciate you. Let's talk." But then I've had other people reach out and say, "Hey, I mentioned you in my book."

And then I look through the PDF and it's on the final page, big thanks to... and then this giant list of podcasters. It's like, "Okay, that doesn't really count I think, but okay, good try." So yeah, again, don't abuse that power, but that is possible too.

Caelan Huntress:
Oh wow. Yeah. Being a marketer, I'm very sensitive to the powers that can be abused inappropriately. And one of the things that I've seen people do and I'd love to know your opinion on Pat is sending some document in advance, like a media kit or like an interviewer's guide. Do you find those useful or do you find that overwhelming that now you have stuff to study.

Pat Flynn:
It's overwhelming usually, but some podcasts will want to know as much about you as possible and would appreciate that. So, what I think would be the best case scenario would be you initiate a conversation first. Don't send that media kit first.

Caelan Huntress:
Right.

Pat Flynn:
Because then it's like, you're already assuming that they're going to read it. I would initiate a conversation or get an introduction or what have you and go get the okay. Yes. I'll have you on the show. Cool. Would you like to have my media kit? It might help you and your team make things easier or if you just want to get on the call and chat, I'm down for that too? Whatever is easiest for you. And that's how I would approach it. I would have it at the ready, just in case. I prefer to have the option as the podcaster to say yes or no and not just be force fed stuff. If that makes sense.

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. Totally makes sense.

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. What else?

Caelan Huntress:
Well, how have you seen people best leverage an appearance on your show? Is there anybody that came through your show and then they did something where you thought, "Oh, that's really clever." And you could see that it had a definite positive effect?

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. Many things. One person that comes to mind is Jordan Harbinger, great storyteller. He tells stories about people who've been on his show. And of course, when you tease those things and talk about it, it's like, "Oh, I need to go and listen to that in full now." That's really cool. So now I'm listening to his podcast. If you could tell some stories or tease some things from your book for example, then that would encourage people to go and check out the book. So one or two stories from the book are you likely to want to bring up? Because you know it just is so juicy that people are going to want to learn more or understand how that works or what have you.

That's number one. And Jordan did a follow up actually where he paid me money. This was after his spot on the show. This was like a week later. He's like, "Hey, by the way, I would love to pay you to get more people to listen to the show. Can I sponsor your upcoming podcast episodes? And have you tell people to go back and listen to that one?" And I was like, whoa.

Caelan Huntress:
That's clever.

Pat Flynn:
It was super clever. And he's been one of the only ones who I know who does things like that, because he's not even saying, "Hey, sponsor this so that they can buy this." It's like, "Sponsor this so that they can listen." And then I can build trust with them and then they can come and find my stuff. So I like that thought. And if you have an ad budget, perhaps allocating a little bit of it for something like that, especially if the episode is very relevant to that audience and also seems to move really well. You'll understand right away if you get a lot of tweets and a lot of conversation happening after it, you'll see which ones are like, you've really hit the nail on the head with that one.

And, "Hey, by the way, can we get more people to listen to this?" Or, "Can I pay you to boost this post on Facebook?" A creator would never say no to that. It's free money and free exposure and it's-

Caelan Huntress:
And it's promoting their own work.

Pat Flynn:
Exactly. So that's a cool strategy that you can do specifically for a book. I think offering a sample chapter is an option that could potentially work or perhaps a part or piece of the book that is relevant to that particular episode. Like, for me for example, I have Will it Fly is one of my books and there are many exercises in that book. And when I get on another show I used to, or during the time at which this book was getting promoted, I would recommend one of the chapters and I would say, "Hey, I'm just going to give your audience a PDF file of that exercise so that you can just go right to it and see how it will impact your life or whatever the pitch is."

Of course they're likely to download it, you can do a couple things, you can give it to the creators so that they can do it and unload that or better yet you have a lead page set up for people to get that so that now you have their email and can follow up with them, et cetera.

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah, well, I've got a lot of lead pages set up or a lot of the assets that are referenced in the book. Every chapter has a workbook to it and I'm selling the package of them as a companion course, but I also have each one already set up as a lead magnet, because I've had these as lead magnets for a while. But I'd like to ask you about the ethics of offering lead magnets. Like if I come out and I throw down a URL, like when we're in an interview and the host isn't expecting it, is that a faux pas to say, "Hey, you should go to my website." Or is this generally accepted that it's okay?

Pat Flynn:
It's generally accepted, but I wouldn't risk because some people would consider it like, "Hey, you're just using this now to promote your stuff. You didn't tell me that you were going to do that." So I always am just upfront with that when I'm a guest on another person's show and kindly ask like, "Hey, would you mind if I offered this epic resource that we're likely going to talk about and I'll just tell people where to go so that they can get it? I don't say like, "Hey, do you mind if I throw a lead page in front of your audience so that I can collect their email and follow up with them for years and sell them and take them into my coaching programs?"

You know what I mean? So I think again, as long as you approach it from serve first, cool. I think it's good, but I would, not warn, that's not the right word. I would allow this person to know what your goals are from the episode for example.

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. Just setting good expectations. That makes sense.

Pat Flynn:
Exactly. I think that's just being a good human being. Right?

Caelan Huntress:
Right. Which is what we should all be doing anyway. Right?

Pat Flynn:
Exactly.

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. What should I watch out for? What are some of the mistakes that people have made approaching you to get on your podcast that I should be aware of, so I don't trip over them?

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. I don't think you do this, but "Dear host of Smart Passive Income," I often get. Use their name, number one. There's so many bad things that the bots and spammers do like do this, but I honestly get two or three messages a day that are just like that. But more than that, even if it is personalized from somebody, having it be very clear that they're doing this just for them and not even really considering how it might help me or my audience, then that's not good. I'm already turned off. I'm turned off if I don't know you and you're already asking me for something, it's basically an automatic no.

The introductions work so well. Honestly, when a friend of mine goes, "Hey, you got to check out this." I'm usually going to say yes, because I just care about that person so much. Now I've been getting better at saying no, because I have had that problem of saying yes to too many things and I think we can all relate to that. But, an introduction goes again a very, very long way. So I would fight for that if you can. But even if it's a direct ask, a person will email me and if it's very clear that they know my brand, they know my audience, they know exactly what kind of things they would need and they have a pretty epic story to tell, then it's pretty clear that I'm likely going to make room for them in some way, shape or form.

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. I've seen this advice a lot in the preliminary research that I've done to figure out how do I get on podcasts? People say you want to reference their audience and talk about the specific benefit that the interview will give to their audience. Some of the advice I see in this, it seems to be pretty meaty. You want to go and look through their archives and find a specific thing to quote, and it seems like it would be a lot of work to front load it that way, but I'd like to be more efficient about it.

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. That is true. At the same time, that also sounds very machine-like in a way. When I get in the position of doing this again, because I will, I'm in the middle of writing the next book and whatnot. So, I will do a podcast tour as well, which again, I 100% agree with that strategy. I think it's super smart. I would likely listen to one of their episodes, that seems to intrigue me and just do it while in the car. That's a waste of time anyway. Then that alone would give me info about them and perhaps their quirks or something they mention. I wouldn't choose the latest episode either.

I would choose an episode that was maybe at least a month behind. That way a person does just go like, "Oh, well you just listened to the latest episode and then you just pull that out." Versus, oh, you listened to that part and you knew that. Right? And then when you not just pull, like, "Hey, I loved in the episode when you talked about this or I loved your quote." And then they just copy and paste from the transcript, that I'll see as well. It's obvious when a person actually did listen to the show, but what I love and what I recommend is, if there's a little thing that was breezed over, like the podcaster goes, "Yeah. I was a little bit tired today because took the family to Disneyland and oh my gosh, I walked like 12 miles on my Fitbit. Anyway, let's get to the show." I'll bring that little moment back and be like, "Hey, last time I was at Disneyland, I did 10 miles. You beat me." That little random thing does so much to go, "Okay. You caught that." Okay, let's chat, you know what I mean?

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. That personalization, it creates an authentic connection and when we're living in a world of automation where there's so many bots who are fabricating authenticity, having an authentic connection where it's obvious that you actually engaged with the work, that you did the listening, that you did the reading, it really does stand out.

Pat Flynn:
I wouldn't even say, I listened to one of your episodes, name of episode, just be natural about it. I wouldn't lie and say, "I listen to your podcast." Even though you listened to only one. I would just be like, "Hey, I heard your episode and you talk about this. I do the same thing too. I'd love to chat with you. I'm writing this book and I know that this kind of thing would be relevant to your audience, if not, no worries. But I'd love to send you a copy of the book. Let's chat." Let's just make it natural, right?

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. So what's been most effective for you Pat? You've got a new book coming out. You're going to do another podcast tour, you've done this book/podcast tour thing before, what have you found the most effective for growing your audience, growing your list? Is there anything that you could attribute that these metrics were raised by these activities?

Pat Flynn:
The metrics are one thing, right? And you can track on the lead pages and all that stuff. It does work just in general, the podcasting spots work. But what really works is really focusing on while being a guest on the show, making a connection with that audience. So great storytelling. The better I tell stories, the more of an impact it makes. That's really the secret. Just tell better stories. Right?

Caelan Huntress:
So much of life is it focuses around that. If you tell better stories, you'll be fine.

Pat Flynn:
It's so true though. It's so true. I don't know if that's what you wanted to hear, but that's what I found to work best. On top of that, what has worked in terms of preparation for this, is a spreadsheet. Who have you reached out to? Who has yet to reply? Who said yes? Who said no? And keeping track of all that so you can see all 20, 50, 100 podcasts that are there and then the links to them and all that stuff that come in after it gets published, that's all super handy to have. It also becomes a place to go back to, if your book does really well and you really want to thank these people.

You don't even need to send them anything physical, just a postcard or something to say thanks, goes a very long way and I've seen a lot of follow up business happen as a result of a podcast, months go by, follow up with a video just saying thanks again for that. Oh, let's talk.

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. I've had a lot of luck with postcards go a long way when I'm sending them from New Zealand, they really do go a long way. So handwriting-

Pat Flynn:
Oh, you're right.

Caelan Huntress:
... a little note. People really like seeing the international stamp and I've had people follow up with me like, you sent me a thank you card from New Zealand and I show it to everybody and I'm like, "It's just mail."

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. But it's mail that people aren't used to getting and that's again, the key, something different.

Caelan Huntress:
Yeah. And it's that authenticity versus automation. It's one thing if I'm just spamming emails, but if I take the time to hand write something, then people feel like there's an authentic connection there.

Pat Flynn:
Yeah. For sure. Man, this has been amazing. I think this is going to be really helpful for especially any authors out there, anybody writing books, but honestly just anybody who wants to share their message and be a guest on another show. So I appreciate you prompting this and asking the right questions and I want to wish you the best of luck on the book. What's the name of the book and where can people go check it out?

Caelan Huntress:
The book is called Marketing Yourself and they can go to MarketingYourselfBook.com, even easier to spell. I made it super simple. Right now it's just you can join the wait list on it. It launches on August 12th, but after that date, then you'll be able to purchase it and the Cornerstone Workbooks, the companion course from that website as well, at MarketingYourselfBook.com.

Pat Flynn:
Nice. So good. Well thank you, Caelan. Appreciate you and best of luck.

Caelan Huntress:
Thank you Pat. This is a wonderful conversation. Much appreciate it.

Pat Flynn:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Caelan. Again, you can find him at caelanhuntress.com or check out his book, marketingyourselfbook.com. Thank you so much for coming on Caelan, I appreciate you. And I'm looking forward to the success that you have moving forward. I hope a lot of these ideas get pushed through because they're definitely some great ideas here that I think are a perfect fit for you. And I want to wish you all the best and good luck on the book launch as well. Yeah, this is it. This is awesome. Just thank you so much for listening all the way through. I appreciate you, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on some upcoming episodes.

We got some, where are they now episodes coming up. We got some episodes specifically that are going to help you grow and scale your business even more and get some time back as well. So, you don't want to miss out on that. Thank you so much, and I appreciate you. I look forward to serving you in the next one. Peace out. Take care and as always Team Flynn for the win. Cheers!

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sarah Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski. And our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media.

We'll catch you in the next session.