AP 1168: How Do I (and SHOULD I) Go All in with What I’ve Started?

AP 1168: How Do I (and SHOULD I) Go All in with What I've Started?

Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody, Pat Flynn here and welcome to episode 1168 of the AskPat 2.0 podcast. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. So imagine being in the chair, you and I chatting together to help your business. Well, that's what you're about to listen to today with, not you yet, but Martin Hewlett. Martin from MartinHewlett.co.uk, he's the host of the Calming Anxiety podcast. And of all the voices that we've had here on the show, as you'll hear, he definitely has the perfect voice for podcasting, but also for what he's offering for people. He's helping people calm anxiety. And he's recently started his podcast. And I know because I have been in contact with him almost every day for a while, while the Income Stream, which was my morning YouTube show, which went up for an entire year straight daily, he was in there quite often, in fact, almost every day.

His episodes have now had over, I think at this point, over a million downloads. So congratulations, Martin. And today we're talking about, well, he's got this podcast, it's going well, he's got other things going on. What direction does he go into, how does he know whether or not he should go full-force into what is proven to work, but he just doesn't have the time for it, or should he continue to do what he's doing?

This is a giant episode because this could change the course of not just Martin's life, but your life as well. So I invite you to stick around. Thanks so much. And here he is, Martin Hewlett from MartinHewlett.co.uk and the Calming Anxiety podcast.

Martin, welcome to AskPat 2.0, thanks so much for joining us today.

Martin Hewlett:
Thank you very much, Pat. It's a absolute honor to be here.

Pat:
I'm honored that you're here. And I know that a lot of great things have happened recently because you and I have actually connected via the Income Stream, which is a morning show on YouTube that I have. And I see you in the community all the time and you've, along the way, kept me really up to date on your progress and how things have been going. For everybody out there listening, who doesn't know who you are, tell us a little bit about what it is you do and what you do and what you're known for.

Martin:
So my name is Martin Hewlett. Primarily, I was a paramedic and have been for 20 years. I also retrained as a hypnotherapist four years ago. After taking some of your advice of giving back to my community, I started a podcast about 14 months ago and that's called Calming Anxiety. And in under its first year, it passed a million downloads and we're way past one and a half million downloads now and generally hitting daily downloads between eight and 10,000 every single day.

Pat:
Wow.

Martin:
And it's just a podcast to help people with anxiety and phobias. Yeah.

Pat:
Well, congratulations on that incredible success. After 14 months, to see those kinds of numbers is unreal. And if you were to zoom out a little bit and maybe explain why you feel this is taking off or what about it has got it into everybody's ears, what would you say would be the answer to that?

Martin:
For me, I thought my demographic was going to be people like me. So I'm a - I'd like to say middle age, but I'm 56. And I thought I was aiming it at my audience, but the statistics, because I'm a data nerd and I like analyzing everything, my largest demographic are young women age 20 to 34. And so I would research what they were worried about, what was trending, and then record my shows aimed at them. And I do, I close my eyes and I talk to them. My shows are all unscripted and I just give back all the help and therapy that I've had, which has got me to where I am today. And I have great plans now to take it into a younger audience so that we can help people, pubescent age, high school, and help them quash their anxieties before they become full grown adults.

Pat:
Amazing. And so the analytics really is what has guided you. And I think that's really interesting and I think a lot of us don't even know necessarily who it is we're actually serving until we go out there and try. At what point after you started your show did you start to notice that it was more skewing toward that direction?

Martin:
Once I had claimed my podcast on Spotify, which was about six to eight weeks in, I then saw the demographic data and it was a real shock, this big peak in the young women age group. And I'm like, I wasn't expecting that. And then when I changed the show tags accordingly, that really grew the podcast. So I find that younger people, if I can say it like that, they're more inclined to share with their friends because they live their lives on social media. Whereas people my age would be less inclined to do that. And I think it was word of mouth that did it. And also I record my shows from a place of genuine understanding. When I was 14, I was in psychiatric care. I was in a care unit for six months. So I think that comes across in the show. People realize the show's not a marketing thing, it's just there because I've been there, I do understand, this is how I can help. That's what I do.

Pat:
And you got to know that you have the perfect voice for calming anxiety as well, right? You got to know you have this silky voice that can help put people at ease. Right?

Martin:
I didn't until two things changed how I saw myself. When I was training to be a hypnotherapist, I was practicing on one of the other cohorts and two other women on the course were in the room to watch. And I hypnotized all three of them and everyone came back and said, "You've just got a gift with your voice." And then the second bit, and I owe this to you as well. I joined Clubhouse on your recommendation and every room I've been in, without fail, as soon as I open my mouth, everyone says, "Oh my, your voice." And I live with my voice, so I don't see it. But now that spurred me on to even bigger ambitions. Yeah. It's... Clubhouse has been fantastic. I owe you that.

Pat:
Yeah, no worries. Sorry, I just got very curious about a lot of the success you've recently had. And I wanted to bring some of that to light and understand a little bit more, but I'm here to help you, Martin, at this point in your career and with what you're doing. What's on your mind these days, how can I help you?

Martin:
Well, I recently took on my first sponsor. The show, from the get-go I ticked advertising. So I'm with the Spreaker host and I get paid for pre and post roll ads. The income it generates is now about $900 to $1,000 US dollars a month. I then had my first sponsor, which I was really pleased with, which has taken me on. And in fact, once we were doing the income stream half an hour ago, another email came in and someone would like to sponsor next month, but I'd like, having read through Let Go, I had that light bulb moment. I'm still employed by the ambulance service. The podcast is making 50 percent of my take-home salary. How can I take that next step? It's making hobby money, that's how I like to think of it, but not enough to go full time, but I need to take that jump, that leap of faith.

I can't put it all into just one podcast. I do have various streams because of the podcast. I have a membership page, we've just broken $200 a month. I have the Buy Me a Coffee and that's it really. I need to know how to further my brand. And one other question is, I call it Calming Anxiety, but would you recommend I now change it to Martin Hewlett's Calming Anxiety?

Pat:
Let's speak on that last one first. Where does the idea to do this come from? I'm curious.

Martin:
I recently applied for a trademark in the UK for Calming Anxiety and it was turned down because it was too generic. If I went for my name and that, that is certainly a trademarkable moment. The company I formed when I set up hypnotherapy, I've called Martin Hewlett Limited. My accountant questioned me on that and said, "Why? You might expand." To which my instant reply was, if I asked you now, who was the most famous hypnotherapist in the UK, she would come back and say Paul McKenna, because he's, well-known in the UK. Ask me that question in five years and you will say Martin Hewlett. I'm a fairly focused, driven individual. And I want to put my stamp on my brand so that as I grow, I will be the go-to, the de facto person for anxiety globally. That's why I think.

Pat:
That's a very clear answer. Probably one of the most clear answers to a question like that we've had on the show. So if knowing me - you know me, what do you think my answer will be to that question? Should you put your name on that if that's your goal, to become known?

Martin: Everyone knows you as Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income. Yeah, I would do that.

Pat:
I would do it. I mean, it's happening already, but you can - not force it, but you can make it even that much more obvious that you are connected to this brand, to this podcast, to your website, to your YouTube channel, et cetera. If your name was behind it, and if that's the goal, you want to become known, the name that everybody talks about when it comes to incredibly helpful hypnotherapy in the UK, let's put your name on it. And I think that's fine. Plus, that'll give you the opportunity to have the trademark. I'm not a legal professional, obviously, so this is just my own opinion, but I definitely think that would be the right move.

Now, when it comes to the leap, as you say, if you take that leap - or excuse me, when you eventually get to the point where you do take that leap, what would that open up for you? What would that allow you to then do?

Martin:
I would focus even more. At the moment, everyone that knows me say, "Wow, how do you do it all? You work 12 hour shifts as a paramedic," although, technically at the moment I work from home, I'm longterm with a back injury. I homeschool the kids and I run the podcast and I do all the networking, and then I do hypnotherapy via Zoom. But I know I'm only working at 10 percent of what I'm capable as. So if I was to give up the ambulance service, I would then force my commitment to working and producing even more content. I wrote an online course for Calming Anxiety last year, but I'm going to rebrand that and I need to commit a lot of time to write out the coursework.

And that Eureka moment, when I read your book, I was actually in accident and emergency, facing the fact that I might not walk again because my back had gone badly. And I was like, I've never been so focused in my life. Most people would have been thinking, oh, this is horrible, this is bad. And I was just like, this is what I need, I need that at the moment. But luckily my legs worked.

Pat:
What would be the worst thing to happen if you were to stop working as a paramedic and do the leap and go full-focus into your business? What would be the worst case scenario there, you think in reality?

Martin:
We'd be financially very hard up for the first few months.

Pat:
And what would you do about it if it became financially harder?

Martin:
I'd work harder. I've never paid for advertising. So I would advertise and get more private one-on-one clients in, but that's not where true wealth is because there's only a set limit to how much AI could charge and how many hours I could work for. Which is why I made that transition late last year. Because of the income stream, I went from being a business owner to an entrepreneur and saw the different income streams. But I didn't believe in what I had then. I sold my course at $197. I now give that course away because it brings in emails. It brings in lifelong customers and super fans, but the next course will be four figures because I realized just how unique it is and people have made me believe in what I have to give.

Pat:
Let me ask you another question, similar question, but phrased a little bit differently. What would be the worst case scenario if you didn't take the leap?

Martin:
I would fail, and I don't fail.

Pat:
If you didn't take the leap, why is that failure? You have this steady job. Everything's fine. What - ?

Martin:
I have an ambitious plan to set up a charity to give back from when I was a child and it's been a lifelong goal. And now I'm on the verge of being able to financially create that. If I stayed as a paramedic, I can never build that charity. But if I became financially well off, which is something I don't personally like when you're helping and serving others, but now that I realized I can set up a charity to help adolescents with mental health problems, I'm driven towards making a financial success. It could be a difficult one for other people to realize because they might enjoy wealth, but just my whole upbringing and the way I see and perceive my core value, I can't take money off people I'm helping for my own financial gain.

Pat:
Based on the goals that you've shared and where you want to take things, which is more risky: taking the leap or staying where you're at?

Martin:
Staying where I'm at. I am moving - well, technically, in two weeks time, I lose my home. Just one of those things. And we've got no house to go to, to a fallen through. Once I've moved, then I think - I don't even think then I'll be committed. I will be on my opt-out plan. And my goal is that not this year, but next year I will be able to meet you face to face at FlynnCon and say I did it. That's my short-term goal.

Pat:
I can't wait for that. Thank you for that. Thank you for letting me probe a little bit with you. In terms of the business itself and how we're going to get you to a point where you're not just making as much as you were making, you're going to make way more, that comes with how many more people you can help in all the different kinds of ways that you can help. And you have this amazing opportunity in front of you with the audience growth, with your unique abilities, with the trajectory that you're on right now. I wanted you to know that taking the leap was the less risky thing. And so I'm glad that you got there, that's what I was trying to get to. But in terms of the business itself, I'd love to ask you what are your plans when that leap is made to - and I have some ideas and things I'd just love to hear from your perspective, in terms of how do we turn hobby money into real money and such?

Martin:
Well, although people have always said, "You are so successful, your show's really grown," I'm just scratching the surface. Yes, the podcast is in the top 1.5 percent, but the real top shows are in the top 0.05 percent, and that's where I want to be. I'd like that the ad revenue compensates the show for how many people it can get. So although 10,000 a day is good, I'm looking at a hundred thousand and I don't think that's unreasonable with the size of the planet and the way podcasts are going. And then my next move is to not just build the next online course, but have a whole set that will address so many other mental health needs and serve everyone everywhere. Because I've realized I have a global brand, I'm charting in 85 countries, and geography is no barrier to how far I can take this. And I think it's the most scalable business model I could be in. This time last year, I never thought I'd be in international business and now the plans are huge.

And the next part, after that, I'm already in development with what was, or what is my biggest super fan who reached out to me and redesigned my logo and now his company are building my app. And I don't want to say too much about the app on a podcast, but just that we will take on Headspace and Calm at their own game and be there.

Pat:
Dude.

Martin:
And I know how big they are, but what we have in the pipeline is game-changing and huge. I will tell you off camera, but I don't want to give our ideas away just in case.

Pat:
Yeah, no, sure. I mean, I'm sure we're going to see them come into play in the market eventually.

Martin:
You will.

Pat:
And we'll come back to the story and be like, you remember that episode where Martin was on AskPat, where he was not even letting us in on what's happening and here it is today. That's really exciting.

So there are things in motion, it seems, to be able to not just match the potential income that you could make, that matches what you have now, but to completely surpass it, to create something huge. That's the beauty of working for yourself and creating something on your own is there is no ceiling. The ceiling is as high as you want it to be. And for me, I think that's a beautiful thing. And the other thing about this, and this is also something to consider for everybody out there listening is let's say you try it and it doesn't work out. Maybe it's not happening as fast or as quickly as you want it to. The thing that a lot of people realize is that, well, you could even temporarily go back and do what you were doing to get your feet back up again, and then try it again.

And a lot of people don't consider that, they think it's an all in situation and you do got to go all in and let go to try it. But then that other ladder is still there for you to fall back on every once in a while and we forget that sometimes. So that's there for you as well.

Tell me about what you're doing on YouTube. Are you focusing on YouTube at all?

Martin:
No. I did. Initially I'd read the book Key Person of Influence, and that's what gave me the spark which said give something away for free. So I started a YouTube channel, and then I discovered you and went straight onto podcasting. And the difference between YouTube and the podcast is you earn money straight away off the podcast. I remember my first day, and I posted this all over social media, I earned 0.07 of a dollar, 7 cents, and everyone took the mick and they go, "Yeah, you can get rich off that." And now I see 900 to 1,000 dollars every month come in, just from that show, from something I love doing. So that's how I got into it. The YouTube channel I'm at about 380 subscribers. I don't update it. I used to update it daily along with the podcast, but I feel I was just not using my time efficiently when I have someone who can do it for me.

I took the Gary Vaynerchuk school of let's bombard every social media platform when I started. Now, it's podcasting, more Instagram now than Twitter, but I still use Twitter. My shows go on there daily, but I realized I need to focus on one. And that's where I get my growth and traffic.

Pat:
Okay, good.

Martin:
There's always a call to action on every show.

Pat:
I think that's where everybody should start, the focused effort. I think we also have to remember that Gary V has a team of 24 people who are creating content for him so he can be on all those platforms at the same time. And we don't have that.

So where I was going with this was, however, you could be at a point now with the reset you have and the success that you know these episodes are creating for people to potentially take those episodes, the same episodes that you recorded and in some way, shape, or form, put them into YouTube because YouTube can be a fuel to add more heat to what's happening. It can amplify what you've started now. There are a lot of people who I know who have a podcast first, who put those things onto YouTube now, same exact content, and it just might have some visuals or some movement or the camera might be on while recording.

And that same exact message can get now into an algorithm that at some point can be caught in a wind that finds its way to millions of people, which, that's very unlikely to happen on a podcast. Doing this, knowing that this content is helpful, gives you an edge on others who are starting on YouTube as well. And so there could be a point - I'm not saying do this now, I don't want you to get distracted because you are super focused, but could there be potentially a time or a place or a person who can help you take some of the great stuff that's happening on the podcast to pop them onto YouTube as well? Because YouTube can double, if not triple, even 10 times the money you're making on the podcast, if it catches wind in the way that it has for people like Lewis Howes and Shawn Stevenson, other, again, podcasters - Rob from Tesla Daily, who was the first podcaster of 2021 on the SPI podcast, who again, takes his audio podcast and has found his way onto YouTube and YouTube is performing even better.

So just a thought, I don't want to distract you, but it is a thing that I think can help you find more people who wouldn't be able to find you on your podcast and in a medium that could lend itself to a lot of help for people who often go to YouTube because they have anxiety, because they're escaping.

Martin:
That is on my to-do list. Once I've found a new home and built a new studio, it will be built so that I can do YouTube ones, but where I am at the moment, it couldn't happen because I want to get the lighting right.

Pat:
The lighting is important.

Martin:
The lighting is important. Everyone's got the same lighting and these tiles that you can see, I do have Phillips Hue, colored lights, but I want to make it as professional as I can.

Pat:
Yeah. The same quality of your audio show, so.

Martin:
Yeah. It's got to be right. And then I'll need to script the shows.

Pat:
And to script of shows. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be the same as your podcast. But to finish up here, Martin, what are the big takeaways for you from our conversation today? What are your next steps, do you feel?

Martin:
My next steps will be to sit down and look at my exit strategy from the ambulance service. You've made me realize I can do bank work so I can do two or three shifts a month to top up my money. But I think I'm at that point now where I need to let go. Thank you.

Pat:
The world needs you. I mean, it's obvious. I hope you see that with your numbers and the feedback that you've been getting and the conversation with your super fan. Imagine how many more people are out there who need this calming voice, this amazing app that is going to come out in the future. We'll talk more about that later. And I just can't wait for it. So keep up that focus and we're there for you. Can't wait to bring you back on AskPat if you'd like to come, maybe a year or so from now, we can catch up with you and see how things progress. Would that be okay?

Martin:
I'll put you in my diary. You'll go, "Oh my God, Martin Hewlett's coming on."

Pat:
Yeah. Let's do it. So one more time, Martin, where can people go and follow you, listen to you, all the things?

Martin:
Well, my website is CalmingAnxiety.net. It's so easy. That's where all the podcasts are via the fusebox player. Can I just say, I cannot thank you enough for that. That's up to my SEO from being on page 10 on Google to the number one search result if you look for me in my local area. Thank you.

Pat:
Wow. You're welcome.

Martin:
Yeah. CalmingAnxiety.net. Just look for Calming Anxiety on Apple podcast, Spotify, or Alexa. Thank you, Pat.

Pat:
So perfect. Thank you, Martin.

All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Martin and wow, very, very powerful stuff. And Martin, you are just an incredible human being. Thank you for what it is you're doing to help others, not just in your line of work, but by being here today and sharing and being vulnerable and being an example for us too. I look forward truly to connecting with you again in the future to see what you've done with this information, how you are taking action, and where you go from here. So congratulations, my friend. You've got something amazing on your hands. I'm just so proud of you and I'm happy to call you a friend. So keep up the great work and I look forward to speaking to you soon.

So if you'd like to get coached here on AskPat just like Martin did today, you can actually go to AskPat.com. You can apply to get coached. You can send a little audio file talking a little bit about what you're going through and what you might need help with. And I might reach out to you in the future. It might be soon. It might be much later, but either way, I'd love to potentially help you out. We got a ton of people coming on the show, very, very inspiring, very, very helpful episodes coming up soon. So make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already.

And as always, like we did last week, once a month, we have our Where Are They Now? episodes, where we actually bring people back on to talk about what they've done and what they haven't done. And I'm just so excited for what's coming up because we do batch process these episodes, we do get ahead and oh man, there are some amazing episodes coming your way. So you do not want to miss them. Make sure you hit subscribe. Thank you so much for listening and I appreciate you and I hope you stay well. Take care, thanks so much, and as always, Team Flynn for the win, peace.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host, Pat Flynn, sound design and editing by Paul Grigoras, our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess, our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media. We'll catch you in the next session.