AP 1041: Where Are They Now? Meg Brunson (From AP 1009)

About This Episode

This week we're bringing Meg Brunson back on the show, who was coached in Episode 1009. Meg was having some trouble related to structuring and branding her different projects in light of the new podcast she was launching. This week she's back to tell us what's happened since that coaching session, which was over seven months ago now. Let's dive in!

We start off the call by recapping Episode 1009 and Meg's strategy since then, including her ad spot strategy for her podcast. Next, we talk about some of the events that Meg is attending and what her onstage speaking goals and ultimate business goals are. We segue to discuss some of her struggles in getting data and analytics from her podcast, and she explains how she's come to define success for her show. We wrap the call by discussing Meg's future expansion ideas, and I offer her strategies for testing and validating her new plan.

What You'll Learn:
Discover strategies for marketing multiple projects under one brand, growing a podcast, and boosting your business.

AskPat 1041 Episode Transcript

[pb_transcript]

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 1041 of AskPat 2.0. This is a show where I coach an entrepreneur like you through a process, through a pain, through a problem, and we work through it together, like coaching style. If you want to check out more of these episodes, all you have to do is obviously go through the archive in your app that you're using to download this, or you can go to AskPat.com. You can check it out there. You can also apply to get coaching too.

I'm really excited about this particular coaching session, because we're bringing back somebody who was on before. We're bringing back Meg Brunson from Episode 1009. So, this was recorded a long time ago, maybe seven or eight months ago, and I'm excited to bring Meg back on. This is kind of the theme for AskPat this month, if you haven't noticed yet. It's kind of a Where Are They Now?—Meg came on in 1009, and she had some issues with decisions she was going to make related to her brand. She has kind of two different brands, and she was creating a podcast, and she wasn't quite sure which direction to go. We coached her through that process.

In this episode, you're gonna hear how she took action, what exactly she did, and what some of her plans are moving forward. So, I hope you enjoy this Where Are They Now? with Meg Brunson, again, from Episode 1009. If you want to kind of get the background story on this, you can go ahead and listen to that one. It might be interesting to go and listen to that one after you listen to this one, if you haven't already, just to get a feel for where she was at. I'm so proud of her. I'm so excited for you to listen to this.

Now, before we get started, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks, an amazing company that's there to help you manage your business finances, from keeping track of your income, your expenses, to your invoicing. If you do any billing of any kind, you have any students, or you're a coach, or you're a consultant, you have clients, using something like FreshBooks is so quick. In less than thirty seconds, you can create a professional-looking invoice. I love FreshBooks specifically because they allow me to do things like check on those invoices to make sure that I'm getting paid, to understanding who has even yet to open the invoices I send out, so that I can get paid.

I've been doing a lot more of that client type works and coaching sessions, and I've been using FreshBooks. It's amazing. What's really cool is they're offering you a thirty-day free trial here through AskPat. All you have to do is go to FreshBooks.com/askpat, and just make sure you enter “Ask Pat” in the “How Did You Hear About Us?” section. All right. Now, here's where Meg Brunson is now.

Meg, welcome back to AskPat 2.0. I cannot wait to hear the update. How have things been going?

Meg Brunson: Hey, Pat. Things are going so well.

Pat Flynn: Good.

Meg Brunson: I took your advice 100 percent. I think I kind of knew that's the route I wanted to go, and you just confirmed it. It's definitely been the best decision I've made for my business.

Pat Flynn: Oh, I'm so thankful to hear that. I want you to . . . because there may be some people who listen to this who may not remember Episode 1009, which . . . I'm just checking the calendar here. That was back in March of this year, so it's been six, seven months now that you've put work together. What was the big issue before, and how did you address that?

Meg Brunson: The issue before was that I was launching my podcast, and my podcast has this cute and catchy name. I didn't know if I should create a separate website for my podcast or if I should put it on a personally branded site, which focuses on a slightly different topic. Do you want me to get into what those topics are?

Pat Flynn: Just quickly, quick reminder, and then just tell us, kind of what have you done and where things are at.

Meg Brunson: Sure. My website, my personally branded site, really focuses on marketing, so it focused on Facebook marketing pretty exclusively at that point, and my podcast is a little bit more about my personal journey. It's called FamilyPreneur, and it's about being an entrepreneur and being a parent, and how those worlds kind of collide and how balance looks to us.

Pat Flynn: Right. So, they're kind of related, which was the issue.

Meg Brunson: Kind of related, right. So, that's where I got stuck. I was like, “Should I have FamillyPreneur.com and MegBrunson.com and keep them separate, so my audiences could pick one or the other?” I was a little nervous that I might miss some people who would be interested in my podcast but maybe not as interested in Facebook marketing or that I'd turn off some of my Facebook marketing clients, because they didn't really care about my podcast. So, that was my internal struggle at the time.

You kind of encouraged me to just go ahead and personally brand it, because I'm the similarity there, and that's what makes me unique. We talked about Amy Porterfield, for example, who's personally branded but still has a cute and catchy podcast name. So, that's what I did. I went forward with it, and I haven't had anybody have any . . . I've gotten no complaints about it being difficult to understand or follow my podcast. I send people back to MegBrunson.com slash whatever for the podcast episodes, for the show notes. I think it's really helping. It's helping my credibility. I'm finding more of my ideal clients.

Pat Flynn: Love it.

Meg Brunson: Even my marketing clients are transforming into, like I said, more of my ideal clients, so I'm working with people I really resonate with and connect with on a personal level, not just a professional level, which makes my professional work so much easier—

Pat Flynn: Oh, that's huge.

Meg Brunson: —because we actually connect. We actually get each other and get along. I feel like probably 95 or something percent of my clients now are parents, and we have that level of understanding which just makes working together so much better.

Pat Flynn: That's so cool. First of all, I want to congratulate you on taking action, taking the advice and putting it into action. I remember . . . I'm actually reading the transcript from our previous conversation. I had said, “You are the connector between all the different projects that you create, even though some of those projects may not necessarily 100 percent be congruent with some of the other projects, because you are multi-passionate. You never know. A lot of people will listen to both, and likely you'll have clients that are more your ideal situation.” It seems to be like that's exactly what's happening. It reminds me of my good friend, Chris Ducker, who says, “Your vibe attracts your tribe.” By having this podcast under your brand, it's more you. That's your vibe. Check that out. You're getting approached by people who you want to work with, who want to work with you. That's so amazing. Congratulations.

Meg Brunson: Thank you. I want to say it was about six months ago that I started adding sponsorship spots to my podcast. It's just promoting my stuff.

Pat Flynn: Okay. So, sponsorships with air quotes.

Meg Brunson: Yeah, with air quotes. In the beginning, each episode is sponsored by something I offer, and it's allowed me to just push a little bit of, “Hey. Remember, I'm good at marketing. I'm a Facebook expert,” you know, all this stuff. I can think of one specific case where I launched a brand new program, and I just threw it in a sponsorship spot on my podcast, and I closed a client within that week, a $2,500 client. I sold a decent chunk of stuff. I feel like it's because I connected them.

Pat Flynn: That's so amazing.

Meg Brunson: You know, I was able to build that connection.

Pat Flynn: Can I put you on the spot really quick?

Meg Brunson: Sure.

Pat Flynn: Can you pretend we are recording an upcoming podcast episode of yours and you just read what your normal spot would be for something like that? I would love to hear it, if that's okay.

Meg Brunson: Yeah. Actually—

Pat Flynn: Or if you have to pull it up . . .

Meg Brunson: Yeah. If you give me two seconds.

Pat Flynn: Sure. Yeah. As you're pulling that up, I'll just chat about that really quick. That's a very common thing to do in podcasting. When you're starting out with a podcast, often people ask, “Well, how do I get advertisers in?” It's very difficult to get sponsors and advertisers, because you don't have numbers yet, because you don't have that big audience, but you can use those sponsorship spots, like what Meg's doing, to promote your own stuff, to share your own material. You can also do affiliate marketing there as well. This is really smart for you to essentially train your podcast listeners now to know that there's stuff that's being offered. Right now it's yours. Maybe down the road it could be somebody else's. Maybe not, because this seems to be working so well. Anyway, it looks like you got it ready. Okay. I'm gonna press record, and let's hear your podcast spot.

Meg Brunson: So, I'd say: “You are listening to the FamilyPreneur Podcast, Episode Number 100. Today's episode is brought to you by my Facebook mentoring program. It's a big opportunity for entrepreneurs who are looking to make big things happen with Facebook. This is a ninety-day program that'll be customized precisely to fit your business needs. At the end of that three month period you'll be equipped to run Facebook ad campaigns that will increase your traffic, leads, and most importantly, generate more revenue for your business. Cha-ching.”

Pat Flynn: Nice.

Meg Brunson: “Due to the level of support I'm providing, this offer is limited and expected to sell quickly, so act fast. Visit MegBrunson.com/mentor to see if you're a good fit.”

Pat Flynn: I love that. That's great.

Meg Brunson: Then I'd say something like, “Now, we're gonna introduce your guest. She is a . . .” boom, boom, boom. It's just a cute little pitch. I'm looking now, I've got a list of eight or nine, and I kind of just go through them. If I have something specific, then I will focus on that, but typically I just rotate through those eight or nine things, promoting different aspects of my business and things that I offer.

Pat Flynn: Super smart. So, you're ind of rotating them, so that it's not the same exact thing every time. Likely, correct me if I'm wrong, each one is a little bit different, perhaps tailored to different sort of problems or pains that those people are having.

Meg Brunson: Exactly.

Pat Flynn: I love it. A few things I want to point out about that ad spot, because I think it was really, really great. Number one, it felt fully you. It didn't feel like you were just like, “Okay. I'm gonna read this lecture thing, and it's gonna sound completely different.” No. It fit you. I love how you said it was ninety days, because that just gives me, as a listener, like, “Oh. This isn't a forever thing. I can do it, and it'll only take three months, and I can get results.” You talked about the benefits, which is fantastic. That's the number one thing I always look for, like not just what this is, but how is it gonna help me? You talked about that. You injected a little bitt of scarcity there, “Limited time offer, get it now while there's still spots available”-kind of thing. Then finally, the call to action, which was there too. I don't know if you wrote that or somebody else wrote that. I'm assuming you did, because this is your expertise, and so well done. I just want to congratulate you on that. That's fantastic.

Meg Brunson: Well, thank you.

Pat Flynn: What else has been happening since we last spoke?

Meg Brunson: Like I said, the personal branding is propelling my business. In the past couple weeks, I've been accepted to speak at three conferences coming up, and I'm traveling for all of them, so there's a video related conference in San Diego in October.

Pat Flynn: Which one is that one?

Meg Brunson: It's called Broadcast Your Authority.

Pat Flynn: Oh. Okay.

Meg Brunson: I don't know if you're familiar . . . I think you're familiar with Tamara Thompson.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. I know who that is. Yeah, she's great.

Meg Brunson: It's her event. Then I'm going to be at DC PodFest in November, so that's super exciting to me, because I'm a new . . . I still consider myself a new podcaster, even though I'm almost a year in, but to be accepted to speak at a podcasting conference, I'm so excited to be able to combine my knowledge when it comes to Facebook with my new experience as a podcaster. Then in March I'll be at the Lakeside Conference for . . . It's a women's business workshop, Lakeside Conference, in Wisconsin. I'm really being able to just expand my reach and influence and help more people. I know that it's the personal branding.

Pat Flynn: That's so cool. What is your goal with speaking on stage now?

Meg Brunson: I mean, my ultimate goal really is to help more people. When I worked at Facebook, I was restricted to how many people I could actually help, because it was a sales position. You know, Facebook was ultimately concerned with their bottom line, and there were a lot of people I wanted to help, because I saw myself in them. They're parents, they're trying to build their own side hustle, and because of the restrictions placed on us I was limited as to how much I could do. So I really just want to influence as many people as possible to allow them to build their business and become the parents that they want to be, get some of that time back and that freedom back. I feel like that's my ultimate goal.

Of course, being able to build my own business is right along with that, right? I've got a course launching, and I've got my mentorship programs. I have a whole bunch of programs that I'm offering that are gonna help people get to that spot, but also help me maintain my spot, where I am, so being able to sell some of that is gonna be a bonus too. So just increasing my reach and influence and my following, those are really my goals. I think visibility from the stage is a really fun way for me to do it. I really love being at conferences and being able to connect with so many different people.

Pat Flynn: Well, you're gonna do great. I'm excited to hear kind of how that all goes down. Now, you're also a brand new podcaster, like you said. You've launched your show. How has that been going, sort of production wise? That's a big, common question I get when I teach people podcasting is like, “Okay, how much additional work is this gonna be? Am I gonna be just tied down to always creating content, and editing and all this stuff? How is production going for you, related to your podcast?”

Meg Brunson: I'm doing a lot of batch producing, so I take a month and I record twelve episodes in a month. That's honestly my favorite part is having those conversations with others. Then I'm currently doing a combination of editing my own podcasts and outsourcing some of them. I'm doing about fifty-fifty at this point, editing myself and outsourcing, partially because of the way that I'm batch producing it. There's some episodes—I just am a little bit of a control freak, so there's some episodes that I just want to have that final say in how they turn out.

Pat Flynn: I can totally relate to that.

Meg Brunson: So I am splitting that a little bit, but I'm doing most of it by myself and finding that by batch producing everything I've kind of found my flow. The months that I record that does take . . . Each one of my recordings is thirty minutes to an hour, so that does take time. Then I go through the batch process the following month. So, I'm probably . . . I'm trying to make it an accurate guess here. I'm thinking maybe five hours a week that I'm putting in on a regular basis, but this is something I really enjoy doing. I am thinking eventually of outsourcing more of it, like I could have somebody actually put the stuff on my website, put the notes there and things like that, but right now I'm managing all of those pieces. It's really my . . . I don't know. It's the fun part. You know what I mean? It's something I really enjoy doing.

Pat Flynn: Great. That's amazing. Were there any struggles with your podcast, getting it up and running or anything you've run into that maybe was a little bit surprising, a little bit on the difficult end?

Meg Brunson: I mean, I think the biggest, I don't know if it's even a struggle, is just not really knowing where I should be or where I want to be when it comes to metrics. I've struggled a little bit coming from a marketing standpoint, where I'm used to having access to a lot of data, where I could see—

Pat Flynn: Which, there is none in podcasting hardly.

Meg Brunson: Right. Exactly what's working. With Libsyn, Libsyn is my podcast host, and I have upgraded to a higher pay structure to get access to some more analytics, because I wanted to see as much as I could. I think that was the biggest struggle was not having the data to back what was happening in the podcast world. I took your podcasting course, and I'm a member of your community, and I've gotten a lot of support from that community too, just through the Q&A and the discussions about how stats really don't matter as much. I know that. As a marketer, I know that deep down that's not the bottom line, and it's, I feel like, a more accurate measure of success, which I'm seeing now, are the random people who message me. It's not every day, but I get random messages, or I'll run into even a friend.

You'd think that your friends would listen to you all the time, but they don't. When you run into a friend and they're like, “Wow. I really enjoyed this week's episode,” I'm always like, “Wow. You listened to it. That's amazing.” I think that it was figuring out defining success, you know, what success is from this podcast, and that's what I struggled the most with, but now I'm just totally sold on it. I love, just being able to even see how many downloads are happening each day is amazing. They don't have to be huge numbers, because I still don't consider myself huge. I'm not quite at 7,000 downloads, and that's cumulatively since I launched in January. I know there are much bigger podcasts, and I know there are smaller podcasts. I think that there's success at all sizes.

Pat Flynn: Right. Yet you're still seeing . . . and there are numbers that you can track, like sales, and clients, and those kinds of things. Plus, I think another side benefit of having a podcast is when you have clients who then listen, they're going to continue to work with you and continue to pay you. That's often an under-thought about sort of aspect of podcasting, especially if you do any coaching or have students too. That's fantastic.

Meg, to finish up I'd love for you to speak on what's next. What do you think the big challenges are gonna be? Perhaps I can help guide you if you need it, but it sounds like everything's going very well.

Meg Brunson: Well, I'll go ahead and be a little vulnerable, and tell you what I'm thinking about next, and see what you think about it.

Pat Flynn: Okay, cool.

Meg Brunson: So, I'm actually thinking of expanding it. I'm releasing a podcast episode every Wednesday, and I'm thinking about adding a Monday day that would be more of a solo show, where I would just focus on marketing tips. But again, I'm facing some of those same struggles, kind of ironically, that I faced in the beginning of, “Will I turn people off?” You know, people who are really listening for more of that FamilyPreneur balance content, do they also want that marketing piece? I feel like that's what I'm kind of struggling with. As I build my authority in the marketing space, do I want to bring that on as a second day, or do I want to potentially launch a second podcast? I feel like it's the same issue, but it's a different perspective. That's where my head is at right now. Everything is telling me to just make it a Monday thing, like in January. I've already thought I could call it Marketing Monday, and I could call Wednesday the Mid-week Mastermind and still have it work.

Pat Flynn: Ooh, I really like that. Now, my suggestion would be to test, and this is based on a lot of students that I've coached and a lot of people in the course. By the way, thank you for mentioning the Power-Up Podcasting Course. That's so nice of you. The cool thing is you can just say, “Hey, guys. For January . . .” You can make a big deal leading up to it, into the new year like, “Hey, guys. For all of January we're gonna have a special Monday series.” That way you kind of have a potential to go, “All right. We did it in January. Not very many people liked it, so let's get back to usual,” versus committing to it forever.

You can just make a big deal out of it, make it an event, have it come out every Monday in just January, so just four episodes just to kind of give people a taste. Then you can actually call on your audience, your clients, and your people, and go, “What did you think? Should I continue this? Did you like it? Should it be changed to something else? Should we have a different day for a different thing? What do you guys think?” That way you're also getting your audience involved too. I love helping people in a way where I can go, “You know what? That's a great idea. Let's test it.” That's what I would suggest.

Meg Brunson: That is a good idea, and January I think would be a great month to test, after the holidays, and the new year, and new year, new strategy.

Pat Flynn: New strategies, new people who had just gotten phones for Christmas who are now looking for new podcasts to download, so I think the timing's right there too. So cool. Well, keep me posted on that. I mean, I spoke to Lisa who was in our last show yesterday, or last week, and I was like, “Man, I could see all of these people coming back again, and again, and again, and again, just like upgrading, and upgrading, and upgrading.” Would you be interested in, months down the road, coming back and giving us a third sort of Where Are They Now? Would that be of interest to you?

Meg Brunson: Oh, of course. This is so much fun.

Pat Flynn: Well, I love the action that you've taken, Meg. I'm so excited to hear how things go later on. We'll check in back with you later, but one more time, give a shout out to where people can go to find you, your podcast, and all the good things.

Meg Brunson: Everything is at MegBrunson.com. There's links to absolutely everything, all my social media sites, the podcast, my blogs, everything.

Pat Flynn: Well done. Meg, you're a rockstar. Keep up the great work, and we'll talk to you soon.

Meg Brunson: Thanks, Pat.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Meg Brunson. Man, just so many amazing things there. I definitely recommend you check out her podcast. Come to the show notes, you can get all the links there on Smart Passive Income.

I just want to know how you feel about these episodes, people coming back. Use the hashtag #AskPat1041, or you can hit me up @PatFlynn on Twitter and just let me know, or on Instagram, whatever suits you best. I'd love to hear what you think of these shows where people are coming back. We've got two more this month, or more perhaps, but two more recorded so far.

I'm looking forward to next week's also, because we're bringing back the very first person that I coached on this style of AskPat, which started in Episode 1001. So, if you haven't yet subscribed to the show, make sure you do that now. Thanks so much for listening. I appreciate you. If you haven't yet done so, leave a review on iTunes. That would be amazingly helpful. Thank you so much in advance. I appreciate you. We'll see you in the next one.
[/pb_transcript]