AP 1257: Where Are They Now? Emory Wanger

AP 1257: Where Are They Now? Emory Wanger

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1257 of AskPat 2.0. We're starting off this year with a whole bunch of Where Are They Now? episodes. Fan favorites here because we get to go back into the past, see where people were the last time they were on the show, and speak with them today to understand what is working, what is not. And today we're speaking with Emory from ByLand.co.

By Land is an amazing website to help people with backpacking. And one of the first times he was on the show, this was back in episode 1148 so over a hundred episodes ago, Emory had just launched his first online course and was dealing with a lot of what we always feel when we're selling for the first time. A lot of those sort of thoughts about, well, is this the right thing for me? Kind of feeling a little icky sometimes, because you know, we often will publish things for free and we get an amazing audience and a lot of support.

But we almost feel bad to sell things. So we're gonna talk with Emory about, well, what has happened since? How has that course taken course, if you will, and how is this podcast doing and all those other things as well. So this is gonna be an amazing update. Again, from Emory Wanger you can find him at ByLand.co.

Again, it's ByLand.co. He's a podcast called The By Land Podcast. And just a great update here. So, highly recommend you listen all the way through. There's a lot of lessons to be learned, and I look forward to seeing you there. So sit back and enjoy.

Pat Flynn: Emory, welcome back to AskPat. Thanks for joining me today on a Where Are They Now? episode.

Emory Wanger: Thanks for having me get back, man. I appreciate it.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. So before we go into where you are now, I think for everybody who's listening who may not be familiar with you and your story, first of all, quickly just introduce yourself and then go back to the last time we chatted and see if you can remember sort of where you were then and the kind of things we discussed.

Emory Wanger: Okay. So my name's Emory. I run a backpacking website and now an online course. So teaching people how to backpack from scratch, no experience necessary to get you out on your first trip and whatever adventure lies beyond. The last time we spoke, if I recall, I had just launched the course and I was kind of in that, that post I just did a ton of work, what is gonna happen now and then that whole, like I remember us talking about relaunching and what that looks like and what to do now, and then life was also kind of crazy back then, so I was just kind of navigating what to do afterwards, if I recall.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Yeah. I remember we talked about your course, it was brand new for launching and that's always an interesting time because we kind of assess, well, how did that go? Do we like it? Do we enjoy it? Do we wanna do it again? Do we wanna do it differently? So I'm curious to know where things ended up. And I also remember us chatting about specifically because you target backpackers, but there's a wide range of different kinds of backpackers, right?

Little niches in that niche from the person who's backpacking the Pacific Coast Trail to the person who's just doing the sort of day hike. And we talked about creating different resources for those different groups of people. And in fact, you did that. And I always use that as an example. In fact, the backpacking hiking example always comes up in, in my conversations because it's just so clear you'd have different resources for someone tracking for six months versus somebody who's doing it just for a day. So thank you for inspiring that for me. But let's hear about you and what you did and how did things go after that course launch, and what were your next steps.

Emory Wanger: So things have been really good. I wouldn't say that they're wonderful, but they're like slowly, when I say they're not wonderful in terms of like, am I a bajillionaire?

No, I'm not a bajillionaire. But what has happened is it's been a very good journey in terms of teaching me the course has taught me what people want and what they're looking for. And then it's also allowed me, speaking of the resources to kinda like start dabbling in these different areas of expertise.

For example, one of those niches is hunters that liked backpack and go hunting in the woods. They take backpacks and they go from multiple days. I ended up creating a Facebook group for backpack hunting that's grown to over 30,000 members. Crazy. So, and what's really, really cool about that is that early on is people were very like, well, you know, Facebook groups, it kinda get crazy after a while and you got a bunch of funny business going on.

And I told myself from the very beginning that no, no, no, this was gonna be, I'm gonna hold tight to this thing and we can build a community, we can do this thing together. We can weed out the people that are up to no good. Attract the people that want the community and want to help each other out. Cuz there's this big learning curve to it all.

That's exactly what happened, Pat, like, I'm not even kidding around. It blows my mind how many people are in that group, first of all, and that are all in on this idea of helping each other out and learning as much as possible. And I've just slowly been massaging it and now I'm kind of like, okay, that proved a concept there.

What else can I do? What other niches need this same thing. I wanna teach people how to be not only just backpackers, but like other things as well in the outdoors, because I have two kids, two and four years old. That's a whole thing. Like kids in the outdoors. There's all these different things that I'm going into, and this original course has been this foundational piece of I did this thing, it's out there now, what can I do to kind of like mix in all these different expertises and niches while building a community?

Because the way I look at it, overlapping circles of interest. Backpacking started for me from hunting, and that turned into through hiking, that turned into going backpacking with kids and hiking with kids, and then who knows where I'm gonna be in 10 years. And that's kind of the idea that I wanna start building these tight communities with overlapping interests, and I'm in the middle of like, I was like, you know what? I think I have the energy to maybe start some mini courses and start designing some more stuff just to kind of help people, encourage them to try new things because maybe they're past the beginning stages of backpack and they want to go and try new things.

It's kind of where I'm at right now, and like I'm feeling very energized lately.

Pat Flynn: Oh, that's so cool, dude. First of all, congratulations. That's, that's amazing. So it's almost like, like I'm imagining a Bass Pro Shop store, right? It's huge. The, the industry is huge, but there's the freshwater situation over here in this corner and that group of people are really tight with each other, but some of them also because they love the outdoors, will hunt and they kind of sometimes go over to this area of the store and communicate with other people and sign up for that part of the shop's newsletter. And then there's people over here who you know are just hikers. And you know, there might be a person who's all three, there might be a person who's just one, but there's opportunities available. And I love that you didn't just start with that. You're not like, Hey, I'm gonna build the big shop and whatever you're interested in, like, come in and just find each other.

You're like, here, let me start with this niche. Let me build this out. And naturally and likely what's already happening is a certain percentage of them are, for example, dads, and you're like, cool, let me set up a situation for dads to take their kids out, and we will have those conversations over here.

It's not that we're leaving this other place, it's just an extension of that for those who have that sort of particular interest or sub niche. And so the opportunity for you to serve those people becoming even greater. And I loved that you used the term like mini courses because that's, that's really what it is.

It's like, here's a course for these people over here. Here's a course for these people over here. And you can mix and match and, and kind of create deals and bundles across the way as well, which is really exciting. May I ask you from a selfish perspective, for both me and the audience listening, how did you cultivate a large Facebook group to be nice and good, like how did you do that?

Emory Wanger: First of all, I like to consider myself to be a nice person that enjoys other human beings and relationships. And I was tired of seeing all just the craziness. So when I started that group, every week, every Monday morning, I try and I've been very religious about it, monday morning I jump in there and I welcome the new people and I say, Hey, if whether that's 300 people or five people, it's welcome to the group.

This is what it is. Here's our principles. If you see any funny business let me know. Here are the rules of the group generally, and every message is a little bit different, but I try to find ways to welcome them and remind them of what's happening. And also, hey, we are friends here, like the we are in this group for this interest.

There's likely your next best friend in this group. Please act accordingly. And then also, I've noticed it's kind of like a, I've had to coach people in the comments a little bit. And say, Hey, because we live in this virtual disconnected world, a lot of times we don't really see the the emotional impact of our words on other people.

And I've noticed that a lot of people don't really mean harm, they just don't know how to say it. And it's so much easier to just bang out a quick message or quick comment when they're, they're trying to critique, but they're being too critical and. You can tell the difference between that in the comments section and people that are just trying to be jerks.

And I get rid of the jerks and I, I coach in the people that are trying, and I guess I don't have a, it's, it's one strike and you're out. I mean, you can, you can tell really quickly and feel free to try again. I've even let people back in the group, and that's gone a long way because they're like, Hey, I don't know what I did wrong.

I was like, well, here's what you did wrong. You did this, this, this, and this. And they're like, oh, I'm sorry, I, I didn't really know. I'll be better. And I'm like, cool. Ding, you're back in like. That's how I've been doing it. So yeah.

Pat Flynn: That's awesome. That's really helpful. Do you have other people as moderators and admins there to help you as well? Or is it just a one man show?

Emory Wanger: So yes, I have a couple people, and that was another key thing is that I've started groups in the past that did not take off very well, and I realize that I was the only one that had a dog in the fight. So when you bring in other people, they tend to have a bit of ownership over it and they're like, okay, so I promote it here.

They're in there helping out and. And so yes, I have some other moderators that go in there. They get rid of comments, they get rid of people that aren't on board with this thing. And that's fine if you're not on board. It's not like we're kicking people out, we're just weeding out the people that aren't bought into this culture of just being nice.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, and just, it could be as easy as that. Like let's just all be nice. And if you're not, then you know, go somewhere else. As far as growing this group, I mean, there is always gonna be a tipping point where, you know, naturally people just start talking about it and it grows kind of on its own, which it's there already it seems.

But in the beginning, how did you bring people over and how did it start to gain momentum?

Emory Wanger: The initial kickoff was, Hey guys, I posted it to Instagram. I don't have a gigantic following, but it was enough to kind of get an initial crop of people. I was like, I'm thinking about doing this thing. We can talk about how to get better.

And then the timing worked out to where I went on a, some friends of mine have a very popular hunting podcast. I went on there to talk about backpacking and just things. It was very early on and they were kind enough to, to talk about it and be like, Hey, you know, you started this group. And I was like, yeah, hey, it's just a place to share.

And I didn't overly sell it to them, but it was enough for their audience to kind of get ahold of it. And then I kind of noticed, you know, when you start seeing how algorithms work , and you're like, oh, okay. So as you get people commenting and you're kind of stoking these little fires in there with conversation fires, the Facebook notices, and is like, oh, there's conversations in here, and then it starts recommending it to people that might have a similar interest, and I was like, oh, how come no one told me?

I didn't know about this. I thought groups were just kind of this, which duh, right? Silly. Of course there's an algorithm, but that's how it worked. Once that, so when the initial batch got in there, maybe got to a hundred people, 200, 300 people, podcast goes out, get like a thousand people. Boom, and then all of a sudden now the conversations are going and eventually you're just kinda like you slowly just back off. You're, I don't, you don't have to muscle it anymore. It, it kind of, you just, you just monitor.

Pat Flynn: Foot off the pedal, but you're still rolling kind of d you know, downhill now, which is, which is awesome. Yeah. And you just let the group do its thing.

How, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise, but using Facebook as the community platform now is typically frowned upon from people who are trying to build communities because of certain aspects. And, you know, you've done a great job of bringing the right people in to a point where it could probably survive on Facebook, and is.

you given any thought to the push and pull of going elsewhere? There's a lot of other platforms and a lot of other places you could bring these people. Totally cool. No matter what your answer is. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Emory Wanger: I've thought about it because I'm kind of seeing what's possible.

This group is like this petri dish that I didn't think would happen, and I'm like, whoa, actually people do want community. And to your point, do I do this on Facebook or do I do it elsewhere? If I bring it elsewhere, what does that look like? What platform does that look like? Is this culture on this platform willing to port themselves over to this other thing?

I think it's audience specific. Depends on, I don't know, general, if you think of like your box that a hunter's in, maybe they're a little more country and maybe they're not up on technology. Maybe they don't want a discord channel or something, whatever it might be. And that that like barrier to the next entry is like, well, what do I do here?

So I'm open to advice. I've begun thinking about it, but for now I'm kind of just like, all right, until I figure that next step out, even monetizing the group, I just put like some resources in there in terms of here's some affiliate links. I try not to pressure it too much because I wanted to be very gentle with it, and I kind of just wanted it to grow naturally, and then eventually when it becomes to a point where I can be like, okay, here's a product for the group and I'm not there yet. I'm, I'm in the process of like doing that and I wanna make sure it's right because I don't want to taint it. But yeah, I've started putting some links in there and I know that's not where you asked, but.

Pat Flynn: No, no, I was gonna ask about that anyway,

Emory Wanger: So it's all part of the conversation like, where do you take this group from here?

And I think it's probably like, alright, cool. Do you know how much information, in 30,000 people and like a hundred comments on a post. The questions, the amount of content just sitting in there ready to be answered is ridiculous. And I'm like, I don't even have to make this up anymore. I don't have to think of what they're asking.

It's all right there. And I'm only one person. I'm like, I need like five people to go in here and just clean, find the questions, get the answers, and make a thing. Right?

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's the power of community right there. And once you build that community, I mean, that becomes amazing breeding ground for content, for coursework, for resources, for success, stories that you could share and, and just for inspiration.

And, and that's what we use community for as well, like pulling these stories out in these conversations and turning them into pieces of content. I mean, one thing that one could do in a situation like that would be to take one of those questions, turn it into Instagram reel or a short, or, you know, a TikTok and then, you know, hey, I answered your question, but it's also available now for everybody else, and that can help grow the thing organically as well.

How does, has the group affected your website and your sales. A lot of times people create these communities, but they're often siloed and, and actually take a lot of time and effort without seeing a lot of results. I mean, yes, very, very fulfilling, but is it having an impact directly or indirectly with your actual business and sort of bottom line?

Emory Wanger: I think I would say that it is not to the extent that I expected it, but I also haven't massaged that portion of it. I haven't tried to figure out, okay, how do I get these people into this other funnel of like information? I'm slowly doing that and allow, I don't wanna scare them off by thinking, because I, I made it very clear with the group that it's not a self promotional place.

Like if you put just like a YouTube video in there with no context, that's not okay. You gotta put some context in there, like, I'm cool with you sharing a video. I also have to have to live by my own rules. So I don't wanna be a special case and be like, oh, this is my group. You, you, you can't do this, but I can.

So I'm trying to kind of be ethical about that and being like, these are the rules of the group. How do I work inside them without sounding like, being like a fraud of my own group? You know what I mean? So you had a episode recently about, you know, focusing on community on one of your podcasts, and I feel like community has been my ultimate focus, especially considering, and I know it's an old saying at this point, considered in the last few years, both outside me and inside of me.

I've felt the desire to be just more connected to people, and that's what I'm kind of like doubling down on. So at the cost of separating that community, I'm not willing to chop it off like for self-serving like purpose. Until I find that middle ground, if that makes sense. Community, and it sounds silly, but like community is one thing, connecting with, with people as another and, and impacting their lives for the better is, is what I'm doubling down on right now.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, that's great. And I just wanna validate that because we're literally doing the same thing. We're, we're doubling down on community. We're hiring for community, we're putting community together.

Cuz the last few years have been tough. People want to connect and anybody who has a brand can step up to create these spaces for those people to connect and come together, which ultimately heightens your brand. And even if you never just share a post that says, Hey guys, buy my thing, which you would never say it like that, but even still like it can feel very promotional once you start doing things like that.

Naturally people are gonna be curious about these other things that you have and generally just kind of find their way there. You still have to perhaps give them opportunities to find those things, but you don't have to, you know, you don't have to ram it down their throats, especially if you are doing this for the right reasons, which, which you are.

Emory Wanger: One of the oddities about this whole exploration of things is when that group took off, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna build a website for this group specifically. And I promoted it to them all the time. I was like, I built this with you guys. I'm gonna put your content in there. It's gonna be great.

And I, I was very happy with the website. I thought it were great, and no one went there. I put it in the links in the weekly message. I put it in there. Some people clicked through. And I was like, what is going on here? Like, this is really fascinating. Like these, they prefer to stay here. And here I built this complete asset based on the information in this group.

Why did they not go over there? So I gotta figure that out. I gotta figure out where they want to be. It's not wasted time because it's a lesson learned. But I closed the website down because I was like, this is pointless. No one's going here. And I, I'd rather just, I have the By Land thing. I don't need to be in 10 different places.

So now I'm kind of looking at like, okay, By Land is, maybe the vision for By Land is the original vision, which is like, and it's a journey. It's an exploration of journey education, community and just being there for people to encourage them. And so that's kind of why I'm like, screw it. Let's, let's just put everything under By Land and like not do this whole separate business. It's all just categories and we'll see where it goes.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, I love it. And we will see where it goes. And first of all, Emory, I just wanna say super stoked for you and congratulations on what you've created and what doors this will open up for you. We only will tell with time, but it is giving you many opportunities and, and I'm excited to see which path you go down.

So congratulations. If you wanna give a shout out and express where people can go to follow you and your work and anything you wanna share, feel free to do that now.

Emory Wanger: ByLand.co is the main website. The backpacking course is LearnHowToBackpack.com. And all the social media and YouTube stuff, the podcast and everything is under those.

So under By Land is basically the main parent brand there.

Pat Flynn: Perfect. Emory, thank you so much. Appreciate you for coming back on and sharing with us your progress. And we'll check in again in the future.

Emory Wanger: Thanks, man.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Emory. A nice catchup, and always good to hear from our friends here to see how they're doing.

And Emory congrats on all the success and what's to come, and I'm looking forward to checking in with you again in the future. If you wanna check out Emory and his work, definitely check out By Land, ByLand.co. And I like to use Emory's website, in fact, as a example, a lot when I'm teaching, in fact, because I always use the backpacking example in my teaching, and this is where it comes from, you know, the idea of a resource page, there can be a resource page on a website like Emory's, where it's like all the gear, all the things. But then there's the specialists, right? There's the people who are going on a day hike. They need a certain set of equipment and certain types of backpack and a certain kind of shoe, for example. So that all that should live on one page.

And if you are going on a one day backpacking journey, then that's the page you should go to. And then what Emory has, there are special resources and pages specifically for those, you know, hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, it's a completely different set of equipment and as a result, a a completely different set of page that can be beneficial for those people.

So, just wanted to point that out if I haven't already. It's just, thank you Emory. I appreciate you. Wanna wish you all the best. And to everybody out there listening, be sure to subscribe. We've got a lot more where they now episodes coming. These are highly requested, so you know, I'm delivering on that for you.

We will be taking coaching calls in the future, but for right now, we just have a ton of people who wanted to give us an update. More coming next week. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. And I'll catch you next one. Cheers. I'll see you.

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.