Back in 1995, Stephan Spencer decided to drop out of college and start his own website agency. Four years later he had the “crazy” idea he could live anywhere he wanted, so he moved to the beaches of New Zealand. There he built his first SEO company when Google was just becoming a household name.
Stephan is a top SEO consultant and best selling author who is known as a cutting edge strategist for some of the world’s most recognized brands. He keeps seeing businesses make the same mistakes and he’s here to share his expertise so entrepreneurs can stop wasting dollars and start getting profitable results.
Whether you have an established website or about to launch a new one, listen in as Stephan shows Matt and Joe how to build for SEO and keep it optimized, the criteria Google currently uses for rankings, and which SEO tools everyone should be using. This episode is stuffed with SEO expertise, but if you’re craving more go check out our conversations with Brian Dean and Christopher Gimmer.
“Don't try and outsmart or trick Google. You're not going to win at that game. Everything you do has to be underpinned by value creation.” -Stephan Spencer
After ten years of working in personal finance, Gina Horkey wanted a change. She loved writing short stories and thought why not give copywriting a try. Just six months later she was making $100 an hour and getting ready to quit her job, sell her practice, and start working from anywhere.
Gina is the founder of Horkey HandBook, a website geared towards helping others find or become a kickass virtual assistant. Her background includes making a living as a professional writer, an online business marketing consultant, and a decade of experience in the financial services industry. She’s also proud to be a married, millennial mama to two precocious kiddos from Minnesota.
Sitting in traffic twice a day should be a thing of the past. Listen in as Gina talks with the guys about how to hire or become a badass virtual assistant, the 3 skills that every great VA should have, and her method to instantly increase ROI by contracting a new team member. Get even more insight about becoming or hiring virtual team members in our conversations with Moe Abbas and Josh Bartlett.
“You get paid to learn, it's basically what it comes down to... you get to be the person behind the curtain looking around and it's amazing!” -Gina Horkey
As a full-time police officer and part-time serial entrepreneur, Doberman Dan spent almost a decade trying to start a successful business. Then he started a direct mail fitness newsletter and finally started making money. Just a year later he quit the police force.
Dan likes to call himself a “kitchen table” entrepreneur, having written hundreds of successful sales letters, direct mail packages, feature articles, and newsletters while kicking back in his home. He’s seen too many businesses make common mistakes rather than change their approach to marketing. And he wants to save them so they can start making maximum money in minimum time.
Not every part of your business should be online. Listen in as Dan shows Matt and Joe how he uses his newsletter to leverage every part of his business, his system to easily keep your letters high-quality, and tactics to quickly grow subscriptions. After the episode, go check out our conversations with Adil Amarsi and Craig Simpson for more copywriting insights.
“You know, sometimes you produce your best stuff when you're under the gun and you don't have the option to goof off.“ -Doberman Dan
We’re back! And it’s just us this time for another round of our therapy sessions. We’ve been out speaking, talking with other podcasters, diving deep into the industry, and there’s so much exciting stuff happening we wanted to record all the reasons why we’re getting even more bullish on podcasts.
We’ve also been trying out lots of new strategies and it’s about time we showed you the tactics we’ve recently discovered are effective ways to drive traffic to your podcast. Think of it as a little preview of the virtual summit we’re launching later this year. We’re pretty excited to tell you all about that too!
And we wanted to share the best sources out there to keep up with podcasting news, the best place to send your listeners instead of your iTunes page, and the revenue source most podcasters are ignoring. When you’re done, check out the last therapy session we did after getting back from Podfest and our Biggest Lessons Learned Growing A Podcast for more insights about the business of podcasting.
“Let's smash this whole concept that you need to have a crap ton of listeners to actually make money with your podcast.” -Joe Fier
“Podcast listeners are the best possible lead that you could get in your business… they are the most engaged people that you can talk to because they're in your ear for an hour at a time.” -Matt Wolfe
From the age of 16 to 33, Robert Farrington worked at Target while slowly building his blog until he had 1,000,000 readers a month. He had used his side gig in order to pay off his college debt, build an investment portfolio, and now it was letting him become a full-time entrepreneur.
Robert is the founder of The College Investor, a leading personal finance site helping millennials get out of debt and start investing. He is America’s Millennial Money Expert®, and America’s Student Loan Debt Expert. He is on a mission to help people escape student loan debt and start building wealth for the future.
Time to brush off those old blog (or podcast!) ideas as Robert Farrington shows Matt and Joe how to build a massive audience with your content, the 3 primary ways to monetize a website, and ad strategies that cost nothing. After listening, go check out our conversations with Christopher Gimmer and David Sinick for more ways to craft top ranking content.
“Blogging is like compound interest rate... you put this work in and it might not necessarily do anything upfront, but over time you really do have this large nest egg.” -Robert Farrington
After shifting careers into marketing, Amber Spears was handwriting copy and barely making ends meet. Then she was offered the company’s struggling affiliate department and 10% on whatever she brought in. Always a saleswoman at heart, she leaped at the chance.
Now Amber runs her own marketing companies, helping clients do over $150 million in business a year with her affiliate methods. She is the co-Founder of East 5th Avenue, Affiliate Accelerator, SPEARS Method, and the Mimosa Mastermind. She is also a highly sought after speaker, trainer, coach, and consultant.
Affiliate marketing might have had a bad rap, but times are changing. Listen in as Matt and Joe talk with Amber about what a great affiliate partnership looks like, the right way to split revenues, and why an affiliate network is a fast, stable way to grow a business. When you’re done, check out our conversations with Stephen Esketzis and Dan Brock for more affiliate marketing strategies.
“These kind of handshake deals are just not the proper way to do business, it's business with a small b, not a capital B.” -Amber Spears
After a viral post generated $3,000,000 in new clients in just 2 weeks, Daniel Daines-Hutt was exhilarated and overwhelmed. Over the next year, he struggled to keep up with the work. He needed a way out, so he started making his own content.
Daniel is a self-confessed marketing nerd with a background in direct response advertising. Ironically, it’s his content that people actually know him for. He has made some of the top content on inbound.org and GrowthHackers. When he’s not in the ocean or nerding out with some good sci-fi, he teaches people how to write less often but get more traffic.
More content doesn’t mean more traffic, so listen in as Daniel shows you how to turn old blog posts into killer content, get direct access to people’s lizard brain, and crafting ads that get $22 back for every $1 spent. Nerding hard as Matt and Joe are? Then go check out Stephen Esketzis and Travis Houston too!
“You're more likely to get someone to take an action if you can make it simple.” -Daniel Daines-Hutt
One of the most stressful times in Caleb Simpson’s life was selling his energy bar business. The finances, lawyers, and buyers were all wearing him out, so he decided to give CBD (the non-psychoactive chemical found in hemp plants) a try. Results were so immediate that he knew exactly what business he was going to start building next.
Caleb is a father of three kids and ultra-marathon runner. After trying CBD for the first time his stress melted away and he found relief from the pain of his chronic injury. He founded Hemp Daddy’s to bring the healing power of CBD to those struggling with chronic issues like inflammation, anxiety, depression, and much more.
Not every industry is welcome on Google and Facebook. Listen in as Caleb shows Matt and Joe 5 ways to market taboo products without the aid of big platforms, segmenting your audiences without special links, and the tech stack to manage everything yourself. When you’re done, check out our conversations with Mike Michalowicz and Nate Broughton for more advice about building a business from scratch.
“I see everyone complaining and moaning... When is Facebook going to allow CBD? Maybe they'll never allow it, so you don't need to sit around waiting.” -Caleb Simpson
With a personal promise never to cancel an event, Chris Krimitsos was hours away from introducing a major speaker with only a couple people in the audience. He’d given up, but sent out one more email anyway. When he walked on stage the room was full of people who’d bought tickets last minute, that’s how tight-knit his community has become.
Chris is the passionate professional who hangs around after the event talking and listening to anyone who wants his time. With over 2,000 events under his belt, he’s created a business community that brings everyone - marketers, brokers, and dog groomers alike - into the same room. And he’s the creator of PodFest Expo, one of the largest, and still growing, events in podcasting.
Tired of connecting just digitally? Then let Chris Krimitsos show you how to get people together while keeping expenses low, avoiding rookie mistakes, and creating a live community people can’t wait to return to. When you’re done, check out our conversation with September Dohrmann for more event planning tips and our story of joining the podcasting world.
“Can we take this whole ego worship out of the equation?... because that's how you create a cohesive environment.” -Chris Krimitsos
With his first venture, Abdo Riani struggled to convince local businesses to invest in his new recycling program. He needed to show results, but how do you do that before you have a product? So he did it himself, using just his cellphone and a spreadsheet to get his first 500 users, enough to finally get the funding he needed for a scalable product.
Abdo is the founder of Startup Circle where aspiring and rising entrepreneurs can connect with successful founders over daily live Q&A sessions. He helps entrepreneurs accelerate their path to paying customers by showing them how to launch and grow products and services efficiently and with higher predictability by bootstrapping their way forward and quickly proving ideas by doing things that don’t scale.
Get your head out of the sky and pick up your bootstraps as Abdo Riani shows Matt and Joe tools and tactics to do anything at zero-cost, a 3-step process to interview 100+ experts in just 2 months, and getting The Wizard Of Odds Mentality. When you’re done, get more advice about sharing and monetizing your knowledge from our conversations with Liam Austin and Jonathan Levi.
“It makes sense to a baby… how a simpler approach can help you move forward on stronger foundations.” -Abdo Riani
After years annoying people on the phone Perry Marshall realized that cold calling was a modern version of slaves building the pyramid. That’s when he decided to dive into the fledgling world of online marketing and ended up defining its future.
“If you don’t know who Perry Marshall is — unforgivable,” says Dan Kennedy and he’s right. Perry’s books have laid the foundations for what is now the Pay Per Click industry, and techniques he pioneered are now standard best practices for every business. He has been endorsed in FORBES and INC Magazine and is one of the most expensive business consultants in the world.
Gear up for the latest wisdom from a living legend as Perry shares about the deep fractal insights of the 80/20 mindset, finding a path to utilize your strengths, and the 8 axis test that shows the best way to sell. After the episode, get more advice about finding your success from Brad Spencer and Marx Acosta-Rubio.
“There's innumerable ways that people get themselves into situations where their strength actually is a weakness.” -Perry Marshall
What a wild 2 weeks it’s been! First, we went to the Traffic & Conversion Summit then hopped right on a plane to Orlando for Podfest Multimedia Expo. We had some flight issues too, but enough about that.
We’ve been out on the road speaking, hosting our brew events, flying solo at a podcasting panel, and getting to meet our fans face to face. Now we’re back with a ton to share about what we learned and how it’s shaping the next steps in our business.
This time it’s just us out in nature sharing everything we just presented on the road like our no maintenance system for selling merch and how we’ve been monetizing our podcast from day 1. When you’re done, go check out our previous Therapy Sessions and some of our favorite episodes we mentioned like Joy Houston and Moe Abbas.
“Most of the year we're kind of in our own little bubble… until we go to an event and actually bump into listeners and they're like, ‘I really loved that episode!’” -Matt Wolfe
“In this evolution of our business that we have to be true to our path more than ever before. It's like way easier to get distracted now.” -Joe Fier
While struggling to make ends meet as a copywriter, Adil Amarsi landed a commission job for a real estate company. Just a week later the bank was hounding his phone to assure him the 6 figure deposit rolling into his account would be available as soon as possible.
With 17 years of copywriting experience under his belt, Adil is known as one of the greatest underground copywriters working today. He’s made over $500,000,000 for his clients while living the life he wants in the heart of London. And now he’s sharing his writing process through The Copywriter’s Room so entrepreneurs can discover how to write story-based copy that’s effective as his.
Dust off your pen and paper as Adil tells Matt and Joe how to sharpen your storytelling with 3 practice lessons, all you need to know for perfect headlines, and the psychology that gets people to spend more. When you’re done, make it a copywriting masterclass by following up with Joy Houston and Kevin Rogers.
“It's like a dynamic of conversation. Get both sides of the story and that's what causes buying frenzies.” -Adil Amarsi
We last had Casey Zeman on the show a year ago and a lot has changed. Like, now he has 3 kids! He might have a lot less time for work, but he’s still growing his business faster than ever and we wanted to find out how.
Casey is Founder and CEO of Easy Webinar, the only software platform that combines webinar technology and marketing strategy into one. He is a best selling author, podcast host, and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs create content that makes deep connections with their audience.
Time to rethink your daily routines as the guys find out how Casey Zeman has managed to grow his business while becoming a father to 3 kids, the hacks he uses to reach his goals, and building a team that freed up his time. When you’re done, check out our previous episode with Casey and get more tips to juggle kids and work from Flori Pyke & Anna Jonak.
“I’ve had to let more things go… giving up control is difficult for control freaks and I consider myself one of them.” -Casey Zeman
Right out of high school Stephen Esketzis created his first app to get people into night clubs. He worked with a friend to sell his app and got hooked on designing the perfect funnel to bring in customers. That’s when he stopped developing and went full throttle into marketing.
Now Stephen is a leading sales funnel expert who specializes in content marketing using purely SEO strategies. He used to be the head of content marketing at Clickfunnels before building multiple media brands of his own. And he is sharing his knowledge with thousands of entrepreneurs through his website, podcast, and the events he organizes in his home city of Melbourne.
Get ready to update your system as Stephen shows Matt and Joe how to create epic content, start a media brand from scratch, and planning the exact right time to make your exit. When you’re done, go get even more content strategies from our conversations with Brian Dean and David Sinick.
“I wanted to build an asset rather than just a funnel because a funnel should be a part of the brand, it shouldn't just be a standalone thing.” -Stephen Esketzis
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We’re totally loving these therapy sessions with you, it’s almost like outsourcing a visit to an actual therapist. Seriously, it’s getting addicting and we might have to start doing more.
In this episode, we tell you exactly why a network is the safety net that can never be taken from you. And we share exactly how we’re using our network to outsource the scaling of our business through strategic partnerships.
Still want more behind the scenes action? Go check out our previous therapy sessions Analyzing What Makes Us Tick and Getting Real On What We Struggle With to go even further inside our heads and business.
“Our safety net is our network… if you took everything away that we currently have, we still have our network to get back on our feet.” -Matt Wolfe
“When it comes to us it’s more just making sure the vision us going the way it should be, looking for opportunities, being strategic, and creating content like crazy.” -Joe Fier
At his first marketing job, Liam Austin saw that online businesses were the future. But how to start one himself? On a whim, he started a group on LinkedIn for entrepreneurs. When he checked in months later there were over 100,000 members begging him to do something. So he did.
Liam has launched and hosted 14 virtual summits and interviewed over 400 experts. He is the co-founder of Entrepreneurs HQ, which delivers one marketing tactic from a proven entrepreneur to your inbox daily. His mission is to make it easy for anyone to learn and utilize the strategies of proven entrepreneurs for their business.
Promoting a summit is barely more work than a webinar, so why not go big? Join Matt and Joe as Liam shows them exactly why virtual summits generate audiences that webinars can only dream of and his simple, foolproof system to launch a summit in just 90 days. When you’re done, turn this episode into a webinar masterclass and follow up with Casey Zeman and Joel Erway.
“The biggest benefit of a summit is not the money… the reason you're doing a summit is to build up your network, your email list, and an audience to ultimately take them down a path with you.” -Liam Austin
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The entrepreneur bug bit Nate Broughton while he was just a freshman in college. In his off time, he helped build an 8 figure online business when search engines were still in their infancy. The first thing he did after graduating? Start building a 9 figure company of his own.
Nate has been in the SEO game for 17 years and counting. He specializes in lead generation using organic strategies he’s perfected after having built and sold numerous companies across multiple markets. And now he shares his knowledge with other entrepreneurs as co-host of Opt Out Life.
Get ready to update your online content as the guys learn what effective SEO looks like today, the tactics that are no longer working, and the latest checklist for onpage optimization. When you’re done, check our conversations with Brian Dean and Christopher Gimmer for more organic traffic strategies.
“You can write pretty bland when you write for Google. Worry about finding a voice later when you have a bunch of traffic!” -Nate Broughton
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After losing his first fortune, Marx Acosta-Rubio was sharing a bottle of wine with his wife when he asked her, What did she really want out of life? They talked for hours about what truly mattered to them. That’s when he decided to make sure his next fortune was for his family to get everything they really wanted.
Marx dropped out of law school to become an entrepreneur and started one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. He’s gone from rags to riches to rags to riches again and learned along the way what real success looks like. Now he shares his wisdom with other entrepreneurs so they don’t fall into the traps and paralysis that keeps them from the life they actually want to be living.
Buckle up, because this is a double length deep dive into the mindsets that lead to real, life-altering success as Marx Acosta-Rubio shares why only a few people ever put knowledge into practice, the 3 questions to pick the right books to read, and his foolproof process to set the right goals for your success. Still want more? Go check out our previous conversation with Marx and get more tricks to rewire your brain with Dr. Steve Ruden.
“If we're not moving we're not growing… The difference isn't whether you feel like it or not, it's are you able to do it despite not feeling like doing it?” -Marx Acosta-Rubio
We’re big fans of Snappa, so it’s pretty exciting to have Christopher Gimmer on the show today. We use Snappa for all the graphics on our website, social media, our logos, etc... But we really, really wanted Christopher on the show when we found out all the marketing he uses to build such a successful business is 100% certified organic SEO.
Christopher has been pursuing his passion for entrepreneurship for over five years. He launched and grew a variety of online businesses until he became the co-founder and CEO of Snappa – the software that helps non-designers create online graphics in a snap.
Settle in as Matt and Joe learn Christopher’s system to market with only free, organic strategies, what it takes to design great software, and how to connect with your customers in order to improve every aspect of your business. When you’re done, learn more about creating and marketing new products from our conversations with David Sinick and Ben Adkins.
“Patience is honestly the biggest thing because with software you never know… this huge bug that’s going to take a week to fix, it’s just hard to predict that kind of stuff.” -Christopher Gimmer
After his efforts to sell climbing wall rocks in the mail failed, Craig Simpson doubled down and experimented to find exactly what offer and copywriting would make sales. Thousands of mailed rocks later he sold the business and started showing other businesses how to get the same success with direct mail.
Now Craig does over 300 direct mail campaigns every year. He has sent out 200,000,000 letters across the nation, targeting everyone from corporate CEOs to people with toothaches. He is also a bestselling author, powerfully distilling the knowledge of great advertisers to show his readers how to write copy that engages customers.
Take your junk mail out of the recycling bin as Craig Simpson explains to the guys exactly what makes great letter copy, how to actually get results with postcards, and what your first mailing should look like. When you’re done, go check out our conversations with Kelsey Bratcher and Joy Houston for more direct mail and copy strategies.
“You don't get a hundred pieces of mail in your mailbox every day like you do with email... if you're the only guy in there you're going to get more attention.” -Craig Simpson
Shortly after getting married, Rinesh Ganatra realized he didn’t want to still be a dentist when he was 60. He wanted to be free of his workday and he set a goal for himself to sell his whole practice by the age of 40. He told everyone he would die before he stopped trying to follow his entrepreneurial dream.
Rinesh has used his success teaching dentists the world over how to build their businesses as a gateway to launch himself into his true passion, sharing the skills and mindsets people need to reach their goals and live their dreams. Now he’s showing thousands how to impact the world from the comfort of anywhere.
Get refocused on your biggest life goals as Rinesh gives Matt and Joe endless insights about how to structure your life around your dreams, why silence is when your core beliefs come to the surface, and the 5 mindsets to create an unstoppable pull toward success. When you’re done, get more advice about achieving the life you want with Rob Nunnery and James Schramko.
“Look, your dreams are not sold at the convenience store… Don't think that because you know what you want that the world is going to give you a plate of convenience and perfect timing.” -Rinesh Ganatra
After the recession, Scott Carson sold everything he owned except his truck and his dog. He set off on a 27-week road trip to figure out what to do next. As he drove, he got invitations to speak about the marketing he had been doing on Facebook. So kept driving and speaking and that road trip lasted over 3 years.
Now Scott (aka “the Note Guy) has helped thousands of other real estate investors come to the sexy side of investing by plunging into the world of non-performing notes and looking to “rehab the borrower”. He is also a highly sought after speaker on distressed debt and has been featured in Investor’s Business Daily and The Wall Street Journal.
Listen in as Scott shares with guys his systems to make tons of content from a single video, automated email campaigns that run for years, and the best ways to invest in real estate. When you’re done, go check out our conversation with Cory Boatright for more about real estate investing and more PR advice from Andrew O’Brien.
“We do something big four or five times a month… They don't always work. But the only thing you can guarantee by not doing it is failure, right?” -Scott Carson
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We got a lot of great feedback about our last therapy session, so here is a new installment where we analyze what makes us our brains tick and how we rein in our minds when they start going a little haywire.
In this episode, we dive deep into strategies we use to go straight into the flow when we start recording, how to sidestep mental blocks that slow us down, and our personal strategies to overcome hang-ups that used to rule our lives. We also reflect on our latest personality assessment and look back at how much has changed for the better since we became entrepreneurs.
We hope this episode gets you analyzing how you overcome your own struggles and what strategies you use to release pressure and appreciate life. When you’re done, go listen to our previous therapy session and then check out Corona Brady for great advice about managing stress.
“My therapy quite honestly (this is going to sound cheesy) is this podcast… because I tend to be someone who bottles up stuff.” -Matt Wolfe
“Just think about how much easier life can be if you actually understand the other person you’re talking to… Just be love, have fun, be cool, and enjoy the time we’re on this planet together.” -Joe Fier
After changing her diet fixed Joy Houston’s fertility troubles she wanted to share what she had learned with other people suffering as she had. She created a nutrition course and marketed it with every tactic in the book. It failed hard. Then she realized she needed to talk with her customers to know how to actually connect with them.
Joy developed her Conscious Copy Converts process based on interviews that revealed the motivating factors and precise language customers use during the full cycle of engagement with a brand. Her results not only get higher sales but a richer experience that elevates the lifetime value of customers by nurturing relationships that feel mutually beneficial rather than overtly promotional.
Time to take your writing skills up another level as Joy Houston gives Matt and Joe her whole process to create powerful copywriting from scratch, what 4 personality types your copy needs to speak to, and how she charts the entire customer journey. When you’re done, check out our conversation with Joy’s husband Travis for more content strategies and get more copy advice from Kevin Rogers.
“When I write every piece of copy I don't think about thousands of people… I think about having a conversation with one person.” -Joy Houston