by: AskPat 267 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 267 of AskPat. Thank you so much joining me today.
Before we get to today's question from TJ all the way over in Europe, I do want to thank not a sponsor today, but all of the people who have already purchased tickets to the upcoming 1-Day Business Breakthrough event with myself and Chris Ducker. It is happening on April 24th, 2015. And it's a live event happening in San Diego, California, but a number of people have bought the live, in-studio tickets. There's gonna be 50 seats available, but a number of you has also bought the online passport, which means you'll be able to, from the comfort of your own home, without travel or hotel, be able to catch the entire event. Three cameras; it's gonna be a huge production. And seriously, we can't wait to share it with you. If you've at all listened to the 1-Day Business Breakthrough podcast at 1DayBB.com, you're not gonna want to miss this.
And I have a special deal you AskPat listeners: if you use the promo code “AskPat” on the Eventbrite page at 1DayBB.com/live, you'll get 15% off your online passport ticket. And I would highly recommend checking this out now, because the price of the passport ticket is going up by the end of this month, so it's gonna go up February 1st. So, I recommend checking it out. Again, 15% off by using the promo code AskPat at the website 1DayBB.com/live. Check that out.
All right, now, let's get to today's question from TJ.
TJ: Hey, Pat. This is TJ from Astoria in Europe, and I just started my first blog at TheBrandNewFather.com. And having just started out, I realized that creating and running a personal brand can be costly in time and in money. I attended your webinar with Tim about growing your audience, and you shared three steps to get it done, in growing your audience and growing the number of subscribers and monetizing your brand. Now, I've read about all these three steps, but I'm a little lost on the monetizing part for my situation. Right now, I'm motivated by the impact that I can have, that I can possibly have on the other soon-to-be young parents. But in the long run, it's good to have a plan or vision on what my brand can become and how can I monetize it. So my question is, how do you make money in a niche where I wouldn't sell something myself, like becoming a father or being a father? I see a lot of mommy bloggers making money with that and doing lots of product reviews, but I feel like these two options will get me away from my mission, which is to promote dads being involved and having fun with fatherhood. So, I appreciate your insights, and thanks for everything you do, Pat.
Pat Flynn: TJ, what's up? Thank you so much for the question, and I think it's very cool what you're doing in terms of the subject matter of your website, and obviously, the mission that you have that you talked about. I mean, I remember when I was a father for the first time. I had no clue what I was getting into, but I'm obviously so thankful for what I got into. I just wish I had more information. And I feel that there's a lot of … you know, even though there are a lot of dad bloggers out there, I feel there's always room for more. Obviously, the mom-blog realm is quite huge, we you can try to even up the game maybe a little bit. But I like what you are asking here, because it's important to think about sort of the future and sort of what is this gonna do for you. You're gonna be giving and providing so much value to these brand new fathers there. How are you gonna get paid back for that?
And obviously, sort of the general rule for any online business is if you're providing value and serving your audience, you're always gonna get rewarded in one way, shape, or form. But something else that people … a lot of people forget is you need to give your audience an opportunity to pay you back and reward for the hard work that you do. I think this is where a lot of people go wrong online, when they hear about … even when they hear about me giving away so much information for free, I mean 267 episodes of AskPat, 146 episodes of Smart Passive Income podcasts, and now the other podcast with Chris and a bunch of other things, 700 pieces of content. I mean, it's all free content and extremely helpful, but within those things I also have opportunities for people to pay me back as well through affiliate links, through products, through advertisement clicks, and that's what you want to do for yourself too. And monetization is important; you shouldn't have to feel bad about monetizing. If you're providing value, you deserve to get paid for doing that. But there's obviously a lot of different ways in doing that, and each niche has a different method for doing it better.
And so, I'm feeling like you're kinda just worried about where this is going, but I like just in general the fact that you are thinking about this already. And I like that you mentioned the mom bloggers, because they're doing a lot of things right. They are definitely utilizing advertisements, which can be smart, and also product reviews. Now, I think you had mentioned that they would be against the mission that you have, but I think if you always keep in your head, “I'm only going to promote products or I'm only going to show advertisements that align with my mission,” then by all means, you should absolutely share those things and get paid back and rewarded for that. Because, for example, I get a number of people going through my affiliate link where I earn a commission for products that I know are going to help them. And that way, everybody is a winner.
So, if you make sure you align your brand with products that align with your brand and align with your audience as well, then it's a win-win-win situation. And I wouldn't worry too much about it affecting your mission; it could actually help. There are probably a lot of other products, services, tools, or resources out there that are great, that are going to help your audience that you couldn't do yourself or you don't have the time for or those things already exist. So why would create another competitor to them? Why not share those things? And if there's an opportunity through an affiliate link, or through a paid product review or an advertisement, you're totally welcome to do that as long as obviously your mission is still clear and those thing reflect your mission. It's where you start to dis-align those things or that line gets cloudy where people mess up and they end up promoting things just for the money or just filling there site with ads and it just becomes a terrible experience. You don't want to go down that route. That's why I'm encouraged by the fact that you mentioned this.
Now, there's a number of different ways you can generate an income through sites like this, where it might not seem obvious that there's products and opportunities, but to me, being in this space for a while, it is obvious to me. But this is why this show exists, 'cause I want to share this stuff with everybody. And it's stuff that I didn't make up; it's stuff that is there. And so let me give you a list of different opportunities you can have for generating income. But even before I get to that, I will say that when you build up your audience and you build this trust, some authority in this space, you're going to find out opportunities to generate an income are going to come knocking on your door. But you're going to have to pay attention, because you're going to have to listen to your audience; your audience will tell you what they need. You gotta listen, you gotta … that's why I really … I'm a big believer in opening up the blog comments, and that way you can get your ear in on those conversations that are happening and giving your audience permission to speak up, writing surveys, emailing, or even having Skype conversations with people in your audience. They're going to give you what you need, and oftentimes … they're going to give you what they need, excuse me. But that becomes what you need to, because that's what's going to help serve them. And so that's really important. You want to dive into this audience that you have and be able to tap into their brains and their needs and their wants and their desires. And yes, some of those things won't be monetizable, but you should probably work on building those things anyway, because those are things that are helpful and they need, and that will only build your trust and authority with people in that space.
Now, in addition to your audience telling you or talking about what they need and you just being there listening and building a solution, you're going to have companies, if you build this brand, knocking on your door as well. But again, this is where I'm at now, I have a large audience and just an amazing audience who is very loyal and responsive and I love you guys for that. But because of that, and because it's known that that's the case, I get a ton of companies messaging me. A ton of people who come out with new products, new books, who want to get in front of you guys. Every day, there's at least two or three emails that come in from people who say, “Pat, I came out with this new product. Can you share it? I give you a commission, or I'll give you 100% commission on some of the products.” And the reason they do that is because they just know there is going to be more products sold to them from that point forward, so they're willing to take that loss leader up front to giving me all the commission. And yes, it's tempting because there is obviously a lot of money there, millions perhaps, but that's not worth it. And you want … That goes against my mission, because a lot of those things don't align with what I know is helpful for my audience and how I want to approach my audience. And I highly value the trust that I have and the relationship that I have with my audience, and I know you would do the same thing, TJ. Just keep that in mind when you start to build your audience: a lot of companies are going to come knocking on your door. Like you said, these product reviews and advertisements, they're going to come. Just make sure that that mission is always reflected in who you work with. Not just companies too; other people will want to get in front of the audience too.
Okay, here's a list of different things you can do or I could envision potentially happening once you build this audience. So, a lot of people … I remember specifically when I was going to be a brand new father, I just wanted to talk to people. I wanted something where I could go and talk to other dads who were already dads and be like, “How do I do this? What's going to happen? Where does this ..?” I don't know … I didn't know what was going to happen, you know. It's just nice to talk to somebody. And I would have paid for that. I would have paid for access to a community or to somebody, an expert or somebody who's done it before, or somebody who can just help me answer questions. I would have paid for that. And so that would have been cool, and then I probably would have made a lot of good friends in there.
So that's one thing, a community or some space where I could ask questions. I don't know what that would look like, but I'm just kind of spitballing here. I could also imagine live events. Maybe there is like a dad getaway somewhere where they take their kids. You know, give the mom a break; she's worked hard for so long. Give … Have the dads take the kids out somewhere, or, I don't know. Live events is another thing. Writing a book. A book, I think, is perfect. A book for the moment you realize that your wife is pregnant, a book for three months out before she gives birth, a book for what happens in the first six months, another book for what happens from six to 1 year, then 1 to 2, then 2 to 4, then 4 to 6. The possibilities are endless there. I feel like even though I've been a dad for over five years now, brand-new things are happening every day, so this whole brand-new father brand that you have, it doesn't just have to be for brand-new dads, like literally having a baby soon. I mean, brand-new … I'm changing every single day, I feel. I learn so much from being a dad every day. And so I'm a brand-new father every single day, so there's something there.
But I think books are a great opportunity. That's how you can get in front of a huge Amazon crowd and potentially build an audience there, and generate traffic there and come back to your site, build up your email list, and eventually get into some of these other things too. You can do coaching, and that was sort of along the lines of community, but one to one. You can do webinars, not one to one, but one to many. Again, a place where people can talk and communicate and get access to somebody who can help answer questions. And here's another thing: this might sound like it might not fit, but I think it could depending what you're looking to do or what solutions are needed. You might be able to do an app or some type of software that would help. I could imagine some really, really nerdy dads, like myself, paying monthly for access to an app or some piece of software that would help me keep track of every little detail, just to make sure that everything was on track and that everything I needed to do … I mean, we're at an age where I feel that the dad, or at least in the community that I live in here in San Diego, the dads are almost just as involved in having the kids grow up as the moms. And obviously, dads and guys think differently than moms, so there might be a good opportunity there.
Again, I'm just talking out loud and I would love to hear what everybody else out there thinks. What do you think TJ can do to monetize in the brand-new father space? Use the hashtag #AskPat267, and give us your thoughts and continue this conversation. But I hope I've at least given you some ideas, and at least given you the fact that there are endless opportunities out there, but of course, you first have to build up that audience and build that trust, listen to them and opportunities will come knocking at your door. You just gotta pay attention, and try, experiment. That's what's gotten me to where I'm at today. I built a lot of things and created a lot of products that failed, but in doing so, I've come across many that have been successful, and you will too.
So, thanks so much TJ. I appreciate your time and your question. An AskPat t-shirt will be headed your way for having your question featured here on the show. For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like to ask me, you can head on over to AskPat.com and ask just right there on that page using the Speakpipe.com widget, which is really cool. You can just use any mic that you have close to you.
And I also want to remind you about the 1-Day Business Breakthrough live event, which is happening on April 24th. So, if you're at home and you realize that maybe you just can't make it out to San Diego that day, you can watch live and interact with other people in the community watching live as well. This is going to be a completely unique event; this is unlike any other else out there. And for those you who have listened to 1DayBB, you know how valuable that format is. This is it on steroids, plus you get all the recordings and everything from the day as well. You can get 15% off the online passport by going to 1DayBB.com/live and enter the promo code ASKPAT. So, check that out.
Thanks so much. I appreciate it, and I'll see you guys the next episode after this quote from Seth Godin. He says—and I love this quote—he says, “Just because you're winning a game, doesn't mean it's a good game.” Cheers, take care, and I'll see you the next episode of AskPat.
