AP 1256: Where Are They Now? Dan Bennett

AP 1256: Where Are They Now? Dan Bennett

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1256 of AskPat 2.0. And also Happy New Year. If I didn't catch you last week, we had an amazing episode last week. This week we have Dan Bennett for another Where Are They Now? episode. This whole first part of the year is gonna start with these because we've had so many amazing guests on the show who have come on to become vulnerable and asked for coaching, and I've helped them out.

And Dan came on several months ago, I think in episode 1209. And he needed some help. He had a business helping people, specifically entrepreneurs with their video, but was doing a lot of that stuff in person and wanted to bring this online and wanted a way to, to, to get people to notice what he was doing and, and bring more clients in.

And oh my gosh, he's found a strategy that not only works for him, but can literally work for anybody here. And it involves community and it's, it involves serving. It's just such a beautiful strategy that I've talked about here and there before. But Dan really has put it into practice and is walking the walk.

So I'm gonna let him tell you what exactly happened and we'll catch up in the beginning about where he was as well. And I dive in, I ask him a lot of questions to get more specific about this strategy so that you can take something away from this and do something amazing too. So thank you again to Dan, and here he is, Dan Bennett.

We've got so much to talk about here.

Pat Flynn: Dan, welcome back to AskPat. Thanks for joining me today.

Dan Bennett: Hey Pat, this is super exciting. I appreciate being here.

Pat Flynn: Second time on, and of course now we're in a Where Are They Now? episode. And before we get to where you are now, can you remember what we talked about the last time and, and maybe we could use this opportunity to give the listeners who didn't get you on that first episode to learn more about kind of where you came from and and where we were at at that point.

Dan Bennett: Yeah. I had some pretty specific questions for you at the time, and it was doing a whole bunch of what I call I R L work in real life work and trying to make this transformation into the digital realm, and I was like, Hey, these things work in real life. How in the heck do I make them work in this digital realm? And you had some really key pointers that I implemented and things have changed since then.

Pat Flynn: Things have changed. Well that's, that could be good or bad, obviously, but hopefully good. We'll, we'll see in just a sec.

Can you remind people. What you do and, and what the Antipreneur is

Dan Bennett: all about. Yeah, so the, the Antipreneur moniker is just a, a way to get easily found when you Google me cuz there's a lot of Dan Bennetts and real low, low level it just is pushing against the status quo. Just kinda skipping out on all the silver bullets and magic pills and getting to the heart of the matter.

And with my brand video for entrepreneurs, I help entrepreneurs look and sound great on camera, which is really making them shine, back to getting to the heart of the matter. That's what I love, to help others do.

Pat Flynn: Love it. And like since we last chatted, I mean, videos become even more prominent. TikTok is really, really on top of a lot of people's minds and YouTube as well.

And all the video platforms are making sort of changes and upgrades and such to help us. So, so that's really cool. I hope that business is, is doing well because of that. Tell us, where things are at now and And how things are going.

Dan Bennett: Yeah, so last time we spoke, like I said, I was like, how do I do this on the digital side?

Because even though I've been on the internet forever, I've had videos up on YouTube in one form or another for over a decade. I was never really doing it on purpose. One of the things you mentioned was to interface with people live. And then of course sometimes take those pieces of content and get them in front of other people, kind of to show that trust process in motion.

And what ended up kind of accidentally happening, and now I really leverage on purpose is just community distribution. Just really showing up in all the different communities I'm in. And what's beautiful about it is because what I do, if I show up, looking in sounding good, that's kind of my live portfolio.

and I really don't have to sell anything. I just have to you know, look and sound good and be helpful. So that takes the real life thing and, and bring it to the digital side. Really opened up once I started joining some incredible communities that I joined for the sake of my own business and my needs.

But the way I'm showing up in them has created a lot of work as well. So, really exciting to, you know, take those words of wisdom you gave me and implement 'em in really cool ways.

Pat Flynn: That's really great. I know you're in SPI Pro and I'm curious where else are you showing up And it, and that makes great sense. I mean, you show up live, you provide value, you answer questions for people, but then people are looking at your video and you're like, wow, this guy is not just talking the talk he's walking the walk.

Dan, I need some help. Can you help me with my video? Like is that the kind of customer journey that's happening right now?

Dan Bennett: A hundred percent. Yeah. That's awesome. And I'm a fair amount of Circle based communities just by chance. A lot of the people that are helping me with my business happen to run communities.

Tom Ross is one with learn.community, excellent community there. Jay's Creator Science community is another one I met with a bunch of beautiful creators. And yeah, it, I don't wanna oversimplify it, but it really is show up and get those dms. Another thing too is I end up in a lot of situations where I'm the student, I'm in a workshop or I'm on a Zoom call or some kind of networking thing, and the private dms come in.

They're like, how do you look and sound like that? And then I respond with like, well, it's kind of my job, so I help people do this too. And it, it does a lot of work for itself.

Pat Flynn: You almost magnetically attract those leads versus like going out and just trying to like blast in front of everybody, right? How do you balance, cuz this is, this is a we've talked about this strategy before, not for people doing video, but to get into other communities and be seen as an expert there, like a micro expert that kind of compliments the creator who created that community or supports them even.

I mean, you're, you're helping people in these communities, which ultimately helps that creator. First question on that is like, do you get in contact with the creator to further those services and and create something more formal, or is it only handled sort of more privately in dms like that?

Dan Bennett: It's kind of been both. The first generally happens organically over time. I've never really jumped into a community and instantaneously been like, Hey, you know, how can I help you directly? But there's been interesting things, like I started using Butter to handle all of my cohort live events. Butter's cool. And I jumped in their community cuz it's available and did my video intro and under 24 hours later, the community leaders like, would you do a workshop on how to help our Butter people look better on camera?

And I was like, oh my gosh, yes. That's incredible. And I didn't ask, I just showed up and did an intro and it was impactful enough to, you know, get that invitation. So it's, it's kind of like that where it's happened very organically. I'm thankful for it. And you recently put out some really great content about how to show up in business communities and I just sat there and nodded the whole time I was watching that video.

Cause I'm like, that's what I'm doing. It's so cool to hear you speaking on that topic. Cause I think it's really important, and it's a way again, that we can get what we need from a community, but also show up for others. And being a community owner myself, I'm thrilled when people are out there helping other people and it's not me.

So I totally get why it works.

Pat Flynn: Agreed, agreed. A hundred percent. In fact, if, if I see somebody doing that, I wanna amplify that, right? Because that takes more work off of my plate, even as a community leader, and it allows the community to connect with each other. So that's amazing and I appreciate you calling that out, that we've been teaching a lot of this stuff where you can go into a community, don't go in with an ask, go in with a serve.

And when you do that, great things happen. So let's say you didn't have this great looking video that just automatically soon as people see it, they, they're attracted to you. How, how else are you providing value? Because I know you are, you're not just showing up and nodding your head and, and things happen.

Although, like you just said, it can happen in this case simply because the quality of your stuff is so amazing. But how else are you going into these communities and, and providing value. What does that look like? Is that just simply a, a post that's really detailed or are you creating something more formal to do that?

Can you tell me a bit about your process there?

Dan Bennett: Yeah, it's actually super fun. It's kind of like playing a game. In the video I mentioned that, that you did, you talked about being in a fishing community and just. Kind of like reporting your data about a fishing expedition you had done, and people love to know when it happened, where it happened, depths, temperatures, all that stuff because you put in the work.

So I love that form. My form's a little bit more responsive. I want to do more of what you're doing. You know, with like the fishing type example, but like mine's a little bit more responsive. And for fun, because I'm a metaphor and analogy guy, I call it bullets in the belt. So I always have some ammo around my waist and if someone's like, man, I wish, you know, there was just someone could help me.

Or there was a video around like how to just make better video with my smartphone cause I got a great smartphone, but I don't know how to shoot with it. And I just pull a bullet out and shoot it and boom. Actually I have a video on five great ways to use a smartphone to make video. So I'm always kind of ready to help because it's like you said, nowadays video's not going anywhere.

It's here to stay and it's becoming more popular. It's pretty rare that I would ever enter a community full of creators and, and online business people trying to do great things where they're not interested in video in some format. So I kind of go hunting and it's kind of fun.

Pat Flynn: So that's important, right? Being in the right communities is sort of like step number one. Yeah. Right. Obviously that bullet analogy is great. And so on one hand, you have that bullet available, you could fire it ahead of time, but because it's used in response to somebody, I would imagine that because of that, it doesn't come across as spammy.

It actually comes across helpful, right. Versus if you had started with that and just say, Hey, anybody who needs help with like phone stuff, I have this for you. It comes across a little bit more pushy, right. And, and, and that's, that's a really interesting thing cuz you, you almost kind of wait till people ask before you serve in some ways. How do you know what bullets to put in the belt?

Dan Bennett: So with video being the way it is now and it being so accessible and able to be done in a pretty decent way fast, if I don't already have something on my YouTube channel, cause of course I'm tackling my own topic weekly I go and make one, I use Tella. tv ot a Loom, I make something real quick and I'm like, Hey, I saw your question, just wanted to answer it real quick.

And even sometimes if the answer is something I could write a response to. I'll go make that quick video still cuz then they're like, oh man, this person took time to like actually answer my question. And something else magic that happens that really I think gets to the core community is I get quite a few emails, probably two to four every day nowadays where I'm tagged in something because someone else saw a post that was like, you know, oh, I need help with video, this, this, and then someone says at Dan, like, I bet Dan might know. Yes. And then I get that email, I go in, save the day and high fives all around. So that's a, a great way of, you know, having helped someone once or twice and then all of a sudden they become an ambassador for you.

Pat Flynn: I would imagine that in order for that to happen, you'd also have to show up continually in the community.

And are you perhaps engaging in conversations that aren't necessarily things that you have bullets in the belt for and, and just actually participating and helping others in different ways and joining the, you know, meetups and, and all those kinds of things like that takes time obviously, but are are, are you doing to, you know, actually join the community and, and be a part of the conversation elsewhere too.

Dan Bennett: Yeah, a hundred percent. So I'm definitely not in any communities I didn't join for the sake of my own business growing and me getting the knowledge I need on specific topics and and such. Also, I really like to show up live.

Not only does it kind of show what I can do, but you know, video is my forte and I, I love to see people's faces. And the other thing too is that a lot of times I kind of have this like, This visual in my head of when I'm in a community, I want to instantaneously find the people who are roughly around the same level as me, whether it's revenue or experience, or whatever the case may be, to lock arms beside me, find some people who might be behind me so I can reach back and grab their hands, and then quickly find the people who are ahead of me so I can grab onto their coattails every once in a while too and pull us all forward.

And so I'm constantly looking for that. And the other thing I'll share, and I really want this to come across to people as something that makes this lightweight and it's not as intense as this may sound. I actually have time blocks in my calendar every week, and because I'm in Circle communities, more than one of 'em, obviously I have a dashboard on the left that shows all the communities I'm in.

So I actually block off time to go in, look at my notifications, hunt around, see what's up, ask questions if I have those questions, show up to events if I'm scheduled or RSVP to do so, and then pop right back out. And a lot of times people are like, you're in six or seven communities, how do you do it? And it's actually not that big of an effort weekly for me. It's, it's just very purposeful.

Pat Flynn: Very purposeful with your time, honoring that time and, and, and also not, cuz I can imagine this being something very simple to sort of bleed into other parts of life, right? Like outside of those time blocks. So, so you have to be very strict with that. I, I love that strategy and that's how you show up everywhere.

You have a regimented schedule to, to do that and show up when people have questions and you have this sort of system for that, which is, which is fantastic this, first of all, this is something is gonna inspire a lot of people. This, this episode, because it's something that clearly is a great way to add value, show up and, and become an expert, right?

So anybody out there, you might be in a community, you're probably responding to comments with a comment without a video. If a person can just imagine instead replying with a helpful video, I mean, you're immediately gonna stand out cuz nobody's doing that. What is the easiest way for a listener who's in a community right now to start showing up in video and, and looking, looking decent and making an impression?

Dan Bennett: I think it's, you know, to do the best with what you have. So making sure you're look okay. Making sure if you have a microphone, it's close to your mouth. I love that we're both people who don't mind having the microphone in the shot cuz the mic gets to do its job. Using the best camera you got. And if that means setting one up as opposed to using your laptop one, take that extra 10 minutes and set that thing up, even if it's just for a Zoom call to really put your best foot forward.

And then again, you know, services like Tella.tv or Loom have a certain amount of space you can use if there's for free. So you really can test it out and try it before spending any money. And it's so stinking powerful and it seems so easy, right? Like a no-brainer. But as soon as you start implementing it, people are like, wow, that was so thoughtful and kind of so powerful.

You know? And I don't know, video still stands out as much as we use it, as much as we're used to it, as much as we see it. It's just about every day where I put a video somewhere that took me two minutes to make and someone's like, whoa. And that's how you leave a wake.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. How do you best answer a question you see somebody else asks In a community, I can imagine some people rambling on, or going forever, like are there any tips or principles that you have when you approach answering a question in a community like that?

Dan Bennett: Genuinely, I think about how I structure my YouTube videos. So my short and punchy three to five minute type videos are scripted. I'm straight to the point. I don't wanna waste anyone's time.

You're here to learn the five, you know, easiest ways to look confident on camera without spending. Boom, here's the information. If you want more, you can get it, but I really try and respect that time. So when I'm making those videos, I edit them. And again, in, you know, something like Tella.Tv, you can edit your video before you send it, even though it's done in a browser.

So I just kind of like think about it beforehand, hit record, try and be as concise as possible, and of course, helpful. I have this crazy awesome example in the Circle community itself. A lot of people were struggling with what size the artwork needed to be. For your headers and your thumbnails and all that kind of stuff, and I just went and made a Canva template.

I'm a longtime graphic designer and instead of just like, here's a template, I did a video walkthrough of how to use the template once you have it, and all that kind of stuff. Took five minutes. And eight months later, I'm still getting comments on that post saying thank you and it was so helpful. And it took me, you know, five, six minutes to make that video.

Pat Flynn: That's so great. And you posted that like in a Circle community or like on Facebook or somewhere?

Dan Bennett: Yeah, in, in the Circle community itself, so, yep. And there's just a lot of people like, oh, what size do I make these things? And you know, it's tough sometimes to dig through all of the best practices and know exactly the dimensions of things.

So I was like, wow, here's a easy win. And that's great. Yeah, it worked out good.

Pat Flynn: It's very uncommon to, in a community, see a post that was published like eight months ago still continue to get some use. That's a great thought, how do we maximize the longevity of, of our responses in a video plus instruction, and then, then a template that people could, I'm guessing, could download and use as well at the same time.

I mean, there's no, there's no wonder that's probably pinned somewhere or mentioned in a resource area somewhere in that community. So that's, that's fantastic. Last question here, Dan. This has been great cuz not only are we getting this incredible update, but we're also getting like a, a tutorial from you as well.

When a person privately messages you, they see your video or whatever helpful answer you offered and are like, Hey Dan, that was amazing. Like, Can I work with you? Where do you take them from there? How do you engage with that person who reaches out and properly and with grace, kind of take them into, I don't know, a package or an offer of some kind?

Dan Bennett: Yeah, so something that's changed drastically since last time we spoke was consolidating everything I do into this brand Video For Entrepreneurs, which has made it really easy for people to understand what I do. No more guess. You read the title and you're like, I think I got my head wrapped around this.

Yeah. And then having very specific products underneath that brand that speak to the problems I see all the time. So ThreeHourStudio.com is like how to get all of your gear, set it up and all that. And I do it with you. You know, I have my membership of course, if you wanna kind of teach yourself over time and then one to one work and one-to-one work.

And I'm not saying this is for everyone. I'm kind of, you know, very sensitive to being salesy and all that kind of stuff. So I rock the heck out of a free 15 minute strategy call. And part of the beauty of what I do is in 15 minutes I can actually solve, you know, 3, 4, 5 of your problems sometimes. Cause a lot of times your technical problems are something you're stuck on and just haven't been able to search an answer for.

And those 15 minute non-sales, all strategy calls oftentimes turn into working together cuz they get not only the help in the community but a dose of me in real life and then decide to follow up afterwards. So that's been one of the ways it's worked really well for me.

Pat Flynn: You're probably also helping them unlock some of those blockers up front that then qualifies them to, you know, get into one of your programs. Where should people go after listening to this? Cuz it's probably gonna be exciting for some people and they want to go into and dive into some of the stuff that you have to offer. Where should they go check that out, Dan?

Dan Bennett: For the first time, I can say one thing. VideoForEntrepreneurs.com.

Pat Flynn: That's so clear. I know what that means.

Dan Bennett: Everything's in one spot now, it makes me happy.

Pat Flynn: Nice, man. Well, congrats on that and streamlining everything and finding a method that works for you. That comes from a place of service, which I know is where you always came from, but with the strategy of video and showing up in communities and and taking the serve first, show up first approach.

That's really inspirational, so, so well done Dan, and wishing you continued success on your journey.

Dan Bennett: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And I believe the old episode is 1209 if anyone wants to hear how it was a long time ago. And no fluff, no bs, the words you spoke that day not only did I take to heart, I've shared with a lot of people since and what we've shared today is my version of taking what I was doing in real life and bringing it to the digital landscape, and I thank you.

Pat Flynn: Man, thank you for that. And then you had mentioned a resource. I've heard of Loom before. You said Tella something or other? What? What was that?

Dan Bennett: Yeah, Tella.tv. Grant, one of the founders is an incredible guy and they're doing some really cool stuff. We're not only can you record quickly and give someone a link like Loom, but you can make it look really attractive.

So it's great for educators, people sharing their screen and their face and you can edit right there in the browser so you don't have to learn how to edit with software. And I'm kind of a, you know, unpaid ambassador if theirs, cuz they're making it really easy to not only create that video but look good doing it. So yeah. Happy to share the info.

Pat Flynn: Well you should be a paid ambassador, first of all, but second of all, what's the URL specifically? Cuz it's not t e l e tv, correct?

Dan Bennett: Yep. That is T E L L A

Pat Flynn: T E L L A. Okay. Gotcha. Tell a, like, tell a lot of story or something. Okay, cool. I'll definitely check that out. Thanks for that resource and thank you Dan. Good luck.

Dan Bennett: Thanks.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Dan Bennett. You can find him VideoForEntrepreneurs.com. Great domain name. Just one spot to bring people to now. So really proud of you, Dan, for taking the advice and, and really finding, you know, and taking it to the next level with what you're doing and for coming on and teaching that strategy.

I like imagine if every community member in every community around the world focused on doing something like this. I mean, the communities would be that, that much more vibrant. However, hardly anybody is doing this kind of thing. When you do it, you will stand out, I promise you that. So Dan, thank you so much.

Again, check 'em out VideoForEntrepreneurs.com. We can definitely help you with your video quality and getting set up properly. And thank you again to Dan. Thank you for listening all the way through. We get another, Where Are They Now? episode coming next week that you're not gonna wanna miss. So make sure you subscribe for that.

And until then, take care of peace out and as always, Team Flynn for the win. I appreciate you. Oh, and by the way, if you wanna join SPI Pro, just like Dan did to get some help and be a part of the community. Head on over to SPIpro.com, or if you're just starting out your business journey and you're not quite yet at sort of generating an income level, head on over to SmartPassiveIncome.com/community.

We have a lot of other fun things that you can get involved with to help you on your journey as well there too. So SmartPassiveIncome.com/community. Thanks so much. Peace out.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is David Grabowski. Our series producer is Paul Grigoras, 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.