hosted by: AskPat 508 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here. Welcome to Episode 508 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. You know what? It's the last day of 2015. I hope that you guys had an amazing year.
I had an amazing year. I had such a pleasure to be here on the show to field all of your voicemail questions to answer as many as I could here on the show. I just want to thank you so much and I'm not going anywhere. 2016 is tomorrow and the entire year I will be here, I will be answering your questions. Again, head on over to AskPat.com if you have a question that you would like potentially featured here on the show.
If you have just 30 seconds head on over to iTunes and lookup AskPat and leave a review. I would love for the show to be ranked really high for people when they come in. You know everybody's got their new devices. I know this is a great show and I know it's helped a lot of people and if you feel like it's helped you please do me a favor and head on over to iTunes and leave a review. I can't thank you enough for all the support and I appreciate you so much. We have a question today from Eliska from the Czech Republic, I believe. Here we go.
Eliska: Hey Pat. This is Eliska Pitou. I'm from Czech Republic. I was listening to your podcast, and in Session 78, Clay said that the most effective lead magnet is a PDF with tools or resources. Also, you said that your page with resources is the most visited page on your website. So, here is my question: what do you think is better to have for my website? Should I have only the page with resources or should I have only the PDF with resources like a magnet? Should I have the page also with the opportunity to download the PDF? Thank you so much Pat for what you are doing. You help me a lot and I hope I will hear your opinion on my question. Bye.
Pat Flynn: Hey Eliska. Thank you so much for your question. First of all, love your accent, it's beautiful. Secondly, I am so happy to answer this question because I've gotten this question a few times actually. A lot of people get the resources page confused with the resources Clay mentioned in session number 78. You're not alone, and so, just to define what these are real quick for those of you who are listening who don't know what this is about. Clay Collins came on my podcast; The Smart Passive Income Podcast in Session 78, one of the most commented on and downloaded podcast ever. Definitely, one of the most actionable too.
One of those action items was to create a lead magnet, whereby, it is not essentially a long ebook but more so a short 1, 2, 3 page resource guide or a list of tools related to the topic that you're speaking of, in a particular post that you are publishing, or a podcast episode perhaps that's related to it.
The reason that's really important is because lead magnets; a lot of people think they have to be this big grand thing, and yes, Ebooks the Smart Way which you can find at EbookstheSmartWay.com is a 30-page ebook that I created back in 2009 when I came out, or 2010 actually, when I started to build my email list. That just worked really, really well. It's been downloaded over 125,000 times, but nowadays especially, when people are so busy and they don't want to read the 30 pages of stuff, and especially if it's something you want to give away for free, people want the quick answer. A quick answer to a lot of people's problems are tools and resources.
If you can put a list of those tools and resources into a PDF file that people can get access to and exchange for their email address, they're going to be likely to download that and actually consume it and actually get a lot of great information from it. That's where Clay Collins, again the founder of LeadPages, came from when he was talking about that. That's something that they use to grow their email list and grow their business. It's something I've used and many people are using it these days too.
That is a list of resources but it also is something like SmartPassiveIncome.com/Resources, which is a page; a single page on my website, that has listed the top resources and things that I've used and vetted and made sure that is great for my audience; related to all different kinds of things. For me, for example, it's how to get started with hosting; here are the companies that I recommend. Email marketing; these are the companies I recommend, books; here are the books I recommend. All those sorts of things are on one particular page. That's helpful because it's one page and it has all those things listed. You could reference it anywhere; on your website, podcast, videos, public speaking; wherever you're mentioning things. You could mention your resource page. That brings people to a page that's really, really valuable to them because it gives them a lot of the top tools. Again, for the same reason, people love tools. They love tools because, as Clay was mentioning, people like the quick fix. People believe that tools, software, books; certain things will just be a magic button for people.
You know, sort of like photographers; they immediately get those high expensive cameras or lenses because they feel like it's going to help them. A lot of times, it does. I use a 50mm 1.4F aperture lens and I feel like that does make me a better photographer, even though, I know that the lens is doing most of the work. That's what we feel like when we are getting access to these tools and resources. That's why it’s helpful. People will get value from that, if you've used those things, you've vetted it and of course that's a great opportunity for you to have affiliate links as well. Now, where's the crossover there? How do you know which one to do? Well, I say you do both. You want to have both because the resource page, like I was saying; the whole list of stuff you've mentioned on your site, that's important because it's going to be there as a non-aggressive, passive way for you to generate income over time. Also, a non-aggressive, passive way for you to provide a ton of value, again, that's an amazing resource for your audience; that page that you create there.
The lead magnet that you create is going to be a shorter list and yes they can cross over a bit. I would leave a few, and actually, a lot more detail about each of those tools. For example, I have a post, or a podcast episode actually, SmartPassiveIncome.com/Session155 with my lovely executive assistant Jessica, who helped me crunch my email down from almost 10,000 unread emails to now an inbox of zero at least once or twice a week. It's been working out really well ever since, still. I work with her today and I love her even more now. In that episode I brought her on as a guest and we talked about strategies moving forward. At the end I said, “Hey if you want to get access to my top five tools for email marketing, (you see how these are still tools and resources but they're related specifically to the topic of that particular podcast episode), you go to this episode or you go to the show notes and you can download that there.” That's the call to action and that works out really well. I do get a bump in email subscribers from that particular post.
Again, I don't include all five of those things in my resource page because, yes, I could include them on there but I try to have the top tools and try to not overwhelm people on the resource page. So, resource page; yes. Have your top listed tools there; things that you know are going to help your audience. In individual podcast episodes and blog posts, you don't need to do a lead magnet for every single one but the more you do the more options you will get for sure. Have a list of tools or resources listed that are related to that particular episode only. That's what people can download in exchange for that email address.
Yes, my voice is back and I love it. My head is exactly where it needs to be moving into 2016 and I hope that you guys are there too. So, Eliska, I want to thank you so much for your questions. We're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. Again, like I said at the top of the show, for all of you who are listening, who have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show; head on over to AskPat.com, you can ask right there on that page.
I also want to mention that in about a month (a month and one day), my new book, Will It Fly? How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money will be out and available on Amazon. If you want to check it out now and sign up for early notice, and also pre-order bundles and bonuses and all that great stuff; head on over to WillItFlyBook.com. I'm super stoked about it and I know you're going to love it so go ahead check it out. Again, that's one more time; WillItFlyBook.com. Thank you all so much for listening in this year, and for however long you've been listening to the show, whether today's your first episode or you've been listening ever since February 2014. I appreciate you.
I love you guys so much and here is a quote to finish off the day and something that is going to be a mantra of mine moving into 2016. That is, “It costs zero dollars and zero cents to be a decent person”. That's by “Unknown.” That leads to so many other great things and I want to take that with me into 2016 and try to help out and be a decent person as much as I can in all areas of life, especially to my family and my kids and to you guys, the audience of AskPat of Smart Passive Income and everything else I do.
A lot of big things planned in 2016. I hope you guys are ready. Thank you so much and I will see you in the next episode, in the next year, here on AskPat.com. Appreciate you. Bye.