AP 0300: What Kind Of AskPat Questions Do You Like to Answer?

AskPat 300 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here. Welcome to Episode 300 of AskPat. This is so cool. I was going to do something special like have a little Sparta, from the movie 300, thing in there, but I couldn't, or didn't want to use that probably copyrighted audio in here.

I was going to get a roomful of 300 people and have them clap and yell, but that would be too much effort. I'm just going to say, “Thank you. Thank you guys for listening in. Like I always say, this show wouldn't be here without you. I wouldn't have made it to episode 300 if we didn't have at least 300 questions from those of you out there. Thank you so much.

This question today, from Emilio, is a great one, especially for Episode 300. I'm going to challenge you at the end of this, for those of you who are listening. Before we get to that, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is Lynda.com. That's L-Y-N-D-A.com, one of the best sites I've ever seen in terms of learning stuff, all kinds of things, business related things.

I use it a lot for photography and learning how to use different pieces of software. There are over 3,000 professionally recorded courses. These aren't just YouTube videos that are on there. These are professionally, in studio, recorded courses that are fantastic to help you get things done and learn anything that you're ready to learn to help you take your business to the next level.

What's really cool is you can sign up today for a free 10-day trial, all access to all of their courses. Check it out, Lynda.com/AskPat. Again, that's Lynda.com/AskPat. Awesome. Here is today's very appropriate question from Emilio.

Emilio: Hey, Pat. My name is Emilio. As I ask this question, I am rocking my AskPat t-shirt, because I was honored to have been featured in episode 13.

My question to you today is, what type of questions do you receive the most in here and is there a particular type of question that you like to answer the most? Is there some questions that you prefer not to answer at all. Do you see yourself doing this for a long, long time? I ask that because it's possible that at some point the questions could get repetitive. There are some people who don't go back to listen to the past 200 answers that you have given. Their questions could be there. That's why I asked that.

You and Mindy are doing an awesome job, and consuming this podcast, I think, should be a requirement for anyone in business. Have an awesome day, Pat. Thank you.

Pat Flynn: Emilio, what's up, man? It's good to hear from you again. Thank you so much for this very appropriate question and also for your question that we featured back in episode 13. It's awesome that you are rocking the t-shirt.

Unfortunately, I guess if you really want another t-shirt, let us know. We will send you one, but you have one already. Maybe significant other, or if you have a child, I don't know. I don't think we have child sizes actually. Yeah, we'll send you one if you'd like it. Just let me know, Emilio. Yeah, thank you so much for this question.

This gives me a good opportunity to talk about AskPat and a lot of the questions that have come in. Like I said earlier, there's going to be a little challenge for all of you who are listening out there in terms of these questions that are coming in.

What types of questions do I like to answer? What types of questions do I not like to answer? Which ones are coming in the most? What are some trends? These are the things I'm going to talk about.

Let me, first, talk about some of the most repetitive questions. I do get repeat questions. I do my best to not answer the same questions over and over again, although I think, we should all know this: when we have a blog, when we have a podcast, it's okay to cover the same topic time and time again, not back to back.

I do a good job, I feel, of making sure that I spread similar topics out, or at least questions that are similar out. I know not everybody listens to every episode. I'd be doing my audience a disservice by saying, “Hey, I already answered this question in episode two.” If they weren't going to go and try and search for that already.

It's okay to bring those things back up. For people who have already listened to those episodes, sometimes it's a good reminder. We don't always take action on the advice that we hear. Of course, sometimes things change and time goes on and advice, and tools, and different things come up. It's okay to do that.

There are a lot of repeat questions on things like getting started. How do I get started? How do I come up with ideas? Where do I start my blog, or podcast? Which one to do first? There's a lot of questions specifically from the people who are just starting out, which is great.

Niche selection is another one. People trying to balance the passion that they have for something versus not really feeling like they can make money from it. The idea that there's a lot of competition out there, how to break through the fear. There's a lot of those technical questions like how to get started.

There's also a lot of mental questions related to how to get started. Of course, there's 299 other episodes. You know that they're all not for beginners. That's why I like that people can just come in here every once in a while, see what's been talked about and pick and choose the episodes that are good for them. You know, based on the title, which one is right for you.

Although, I know there's some of you out there who listen to every episode and just thank you so much for that and all the reviews and ratings on iTunes. Those are really helpful.

Beyond that, monetization is a big topic, from podcasters to bloggers, to people doing video, a lot of people have gotten started and have built an audience, which is awesome. Then they're trying to figure out then how to monetize that audience. It's really interesting and fun to go through and dissect each of those websites and see and try to figure out how we might be able to monetize those.

I think it was an episode. . . I don't remember the exact episode, but ever since I started doing the hashtag, for instance. If we wanted to continue this discussion on Twitter, I would say make sure to use the the hashtag #AskPat300 so we can all continue this discussion.

Those have been really cool. That's been one thing that I wish I implemented from the beginning, just train you to do that on every episode. That's how we do it. A lot of people talk about those episodes and share and continue that conversation on Twitter, which is really cool.

Sometimes I present an idea and you guys take it to the next level. For those monetization ones, specifically, you guys do a great job of adding to what I start. I love that. Those are some of the repetitive questions that I get. There's a lot of repeat questions. I do answer them again sometimes.

If I see a huge group of questions coming in that are all around the same topic, that's a cool thing for me to know just as a content producer. That's a hot topic that I could cover in not only this show, but Smart Passive Income, or as a blog post, or a video on SPI TV, things like that.

Going back to what I was saying earlier, if I get a bunch of questions around the same topic, or the questions are virtually the same, I'll go with the first one that comes in that batch, if I haven't answered a question like that in a while just to be fair to the first person who asked that question. Some people might care about the t-shirt. Nobody's ever fought, or emailed me saying, “Pat, I asked that question a long time ago.”

A lot of these questions that I answer aren't just questions that have recently been shared. These are questions that date back to February 2014. They just haven't been answered yet. I go back and Jessica, my assistant, actually goes through the SpeakPipe questions that come in and writes them down for me, so I know what they're about. I often scroll up and down and they're just in a spreadsheet.

I just answer them based on what I feel is hot, or what my mood is like. It's not very scientific in terms of. . . I answer them in order and I couldn't possibly do that, because some of the questions that come aren't ones that I want to answer. I'll talk about that in a second.

I have been noticing some trends. I've been doing this for over a year now, AskPat, five days a week. We've been keeping up with the schedule, which is great. Mindy's been doing an amazing job, like you said, Emilio. It's really cool. I'm sure she smiled when you said that. I know she always appreciates when people talk about how well she's doing. She's doing an amazing job, obviously. The show would not be here without her work.

There are some trends that are happening over time that I've been noticing. There's a lot more podcasting questions coming in to play, which is really cool and really exciting for me, specifically as primarily a podcaster now, which is really cool. A lot more video questions coming in too, all the way from beginner type questions to how to set up, like I mentioned earlier, to how to do some more advanced things like advanced SEO, and retargeting and things like that.

It's really cool to see that there's just this wide array of skill levels of people that are asking questions and just questions in general. It's just niches, and topics. It's so much fun. Again, thank you guys for all the amazing questions.

If you have a question you'd like featured on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there. Again, thanks to you, SpeakPipe, for helping to manage the voicemails that come in and the MP3s that we just pop into the audio file.

There are some questions that I love to answer. These are the questions that where people tell a quick little story about where they're at, or their business. They present a question that I know that when I answer it's going to be really helpful to a lot of people, something that's kind of unusual, but also very helpful to a lot of people. Not so specific to just their own situation.

For instance if somebody were to ask, “Okay, Pat. I've been doing business for a year. I have 10,000 visitors every single month. I'd like to know how I can make $5,000 by sending three emails out once every other month.” Questions like that. The ones that get too specific on strategies and somebody's particular situation, I know that that's not going to relate to a lot of people.

When somebody tells a little bit about their story so that other people who have a similar story can just really gravitate toward that. Then they ask a question that would relate to all those people, those are the types of questions I like to answer.

The ones I don't like to answer are the ones that I said earlier. Also, there's a lot of questions that come in, which they're very emotional. They're very honest and truthful. I appreciate the questions that come in, but they aren't questions that I could possibly answer.

For instance, somebody might be going through a really tough time in their life. I want to help them, but then they ask and say things like, “I need $100,000 in three months. Can you tell me exactly how to start a business so I can make $100,000 in three months?”

The truth to that is that you can't. Yes, it's possible, but that's not what I teach how to do. I teach how to build long lasting businesses that take quite a bit of time to set up and time to invest into it, so that it can last a long time, so that you can walk away from it. There are ways to make 100K in three months, but they might not be ways that will be long lasting, or necessarily be good, or something that you could be comfortable with, things like that.

Those kinds of questions are tough for me to answer. Those don't just come in through AskPat, they come in through email a lot. It's hard. It's hard in this position as somebody who teaches this kind of stuff, who knows how to do things, but then people ask. They have a very personal story. It's just sometimes it. . . I feel for them, but it's really hard for me to answer those types of questions sometimes.

To finish up, I do want to challenge all of you out there listening. Like I said earlier, I have a little challenge for you. This is easy. I want you to ask a question that you know that if I were to provide an answer for, and I can't possibly provide an answer to everybody out there who's asking questions. There are dozens that come in a day now, which is just super cool.

I want you to stand out when you ask those questions. Tell a little bit about yourself in a story related to your question. That helps me understand where you're coming from and helps us all relate to you much better. I challenge you to come up with a unique question that's a bit different than anything you might've heard on AskPat before.

If you haven't listened to very many episodes, don't feel like you have to go back to every single episode. I will say, for those of you out there who listen to episodes on AskPat, I hear you. You've been asking for a better search function through those previous episodes. I totally hear you. This is a feature that people want for the Smart Podcast Player at SmartPodcastPlayer.com as well.

We hear you. It’s in the pipeline. We have a lot of other features coming out that have been deemed as more priority right now, but that is. . . I hear you, I hear you, so I'm just letting you know.

If you haven't listened to very many episodes in the past, don't feel like you have to go through all of them before you ask another question just to make sure you don't repeat yourself. Just be yourself. Be comfortable. Don't worry too much about your mic and your voice.

A lot of people start their question with, “Sorry for the bad quality.” Don't apologize. Don't apologize. Just ask a question. Be truthful, honest. Ask a question that you know will be helpful not only to you, but a lot of people out there listening as well.

A lot of people are out there, who are just like you. You asking a question is really helpful. Thank you, all of you, for all of your questions. It just means the world to me. I've been going to a lot of conferences and talking to a lot of people. People are really digging AskPat. I'm just so thankful with how big it has grown and how much people love it. I love you all for it. Thank you so much.

Again, if you have a question, head on over to AskPat.com. Emilio, send me an email. We can talk about this t-shirt since you have one already. I also want to thank today's sponsor, Lynda.com. Remember go to Lynda.com/askpat. You'll get unlimited access to every course on Lynda. I'm going through a couple courses right now for some software that has been recently updated. You can get the tutorials on tablets and on your iPhone and Android devices too. You can access them on the go. There are new courses added every single week. Check it out, 10-day all access free trial at Lynda.com/AskPat.

Thank you so much. As always, I love to end with a quote. Today's quote comes from Dr. Robert Anthony. He says, “You can have anything you want, if you are willing to give up the belief that you can't have it.” Cheers. Take care. I'll see you in the next—episode 301—of AskPat. Cheers.