Seanwes Podcast

Some of you may remember my wife Laci from the last episode she was on: seanwes podcast e189 Finding Your Passion. Today we're talking about coming up with a practical business plan. It's been a year and a half since Laci was on the podcast and I'm excited to have her back on! We talk about going from the exploratory phase of finding what you're passionate about to actually starting a business. Laci and I had a great conversation about this over coffee recently. She had an idea in her mind of what it would look like to start her business, but that ended up changing significantly after we talked. We've decided to share that conversation here on the podcast to help you figure out what you want to do and then sit down and come up with an actual business plan.

Recently, we hosted the very first seanwes conference. It was an incredible time and we learned a lot! We’re pouring everything we learned into seanwes conference 2017, but we thought we’d also share some of those behind-the-scenes insights with you! Whether you’re interested in hosting your own event or just morbidly curious about what it took to put on seanwes conference, we’ve got some great insights to share with you today. This is the perfect episode for anyone putting on their own conference or in-person event. Learn from our mistakes and avoid common event mistakes!

You ever go to a meetup or conference and have someone ask the dreaded question: "What do you do?" You clam up. You don't know how to respond. "It's complicated," you say. They look uncomfortable. You stumble over your words. It's not a pretty sight. People want to listen. They're eager to look for themselves in the story you're telling, but you need to grab their attention quick or you're going to lose them. You only have a short amount of time. You need to be ready to give a pitch for what you do at any time in any amount of time! It's difficult because you lack clarity. In many cases, you haven't decided for yourself who your ideal customer is. You haven't determined what very specific thing you do. You haven't determined the very clear outcome or result you provide for people. Your message needs to be adaptable and you have to be ready to expand and contract on the fly. We naturally want to give people the ABC (this is a mistake), but what we really need to give them is the XYZ. We talk more about

The media likes to glorify young successes. Teenagers and twenty-somethings selling their startups to a large company and making a lot of money at a young age... We see the stories so often it can start to feel like it's a common occurrence. But it's easy to forget it's not the norm. These are exceptions to the norm. They're big stories and we see these stories on a regular basis because the media publicizes them. If you're young, it feels like you're supposed to have everything figured out already. "Look at all the people my age doing so well!" If you're older, it feels like it's too late. "Look at all the people so much younger than me doing better." 99.99% of the people who win are tortoises. Slow and steady. It takes consistent effort over a long period of time to attain any kind of lasting success. How do you keep that perspective? That's what today's show is all about.

What does it take for someone to go from just discovering you to buying from you again and again? Why do some loyal buyers turn into brand ambassadors while others don't? What we're really describing here is a sales funnel. We break down every step along the way in this episode and go into great detail. Whether you're just getting started with selling products or you've been selling for a long time, I guarantee you'll get tremendous insights from this episode. We cover how to attract the right people, build the relationship, encourage them to buy, and ultimately get them to spread the word. If you've felt overwhelmed by things like email lists, lead magnets, conversion rates, and automation, this episode is for you! We break everything down into usable pieces to help you make sense of the overwhelm.

Today, I take you behind the scenes. Inside seanwes membership, Aaron Dowd and I host a weekly, members-only show called Fired Up Mondays. Our latest episode was so good, I decided to bring this exclusive clip to the seanwes podcast. I'm even more raw and real on Fired Up Mondays because I let the members in on the insider stuff and my plans for the future. Today's episode is no exception. You'll hear me lay out my plans to go all in on CommunityTalk.com—that's the SaaS company we're working on. We've built the best community messaging system in the world (we've been using it internally for years), and now we want to make it available to other community organizers. I also talk about my plans to build out a media agency by hiring members from our Community (the talent pool here is absolutely insane).

I just had the thought, “I wish I had three of me.” Ever find yourself saying or thinking something like this? Ever wished you could have clones? Ever felt like you don’t have enough time in the day? You wish you could have three of you. But why? “Well, I could do more,” you say. Alright, what would you do? “Well, I’d do this, and I’d do that… and then I’d do this other thing over here—all at the same time!” That’s neat! If you had had to prioritize all three things though: which would make the most difference? “I suppose if I had to pick, it’d be this thing.” So you know the one that would make the biggest difference? “I mean, yeah—if I had to pick, this one would be the most important.” So, why not do that one thing right now? Why not do the one thing right now that you know is the most important?

There's no other word I can use to describe seanwes conference but incredible. The event far surpassed and exceeded my expectations. It was a beautiful picture of empowering talented, professional people and the result was nothing short of flawless. It honestly blew me away. Everyone said it was the best conference they'd ever been to. People with many different kinds of different businesses came from all over the world to be in one place together for several days, to enjoy some fantastic speakers, great conversations, and famously delicious Austin food. In today's podcast episode, Ben and I recap what happened at seanwes conference—an event we started planning nearly 2 years ago. We specifically designed this event around the in-person conversations we knew people wanted to have. Generous margin was scheduled around speaking sessions with ample time for Q&A and lunch. In fact, after lunch we had an hour long "session" that was really just a time for people to talk. The first speaker after lunch didn't s

Take a moment and project forward. Get in your time machine and travel 20 years into the future: who is the future version of yourself you hope to meet? What does that person look like? We don't think about this person often enough. When you don't intentionally think about becoming the person you want to be, you just end up becoming the person you are. How often do you think about this future version of yourself and how are you taking actions now to become the person you want to be?

You have to make money to support yourself and you know you need to sell something, but how do you find the right balance between giving away things for free and putting a price tag on something? Relationship marketing is important and giving away valuable content for free is a great strategy, but how much is too much? Can you give yourself out of business? Yes. Yes, you can. You have to support yourself. If you don't sell, you don't make money. If you don't make money, you can't keep doing what you do. That means you can't continue helping people and everybody loses! But finding the balance is tricky. We talk about finding that balance, how people don't pay for content (they pay for context), and how true value is in the application of information not in the consumption of it. In other words, it doesn't matter whether what you provide is paid or free—what matters is whether people apply it.

We finished up something special a couple weeks ago: http://30DaysToBetterWriting.com. It's a mini course—30 lessons, 30 days, 30 minutes a day—crafted to help you build a writing habit. Why build a writing habit? Writing is the starting point for all other mediums. • Want to do a speech? Write. • Want to sell products? Write. • Want to record a song? Write. • Want to compose a book? Write. • Want to produce a feature film? Write. • Want to make a great podcast? Write. • Want to teach an online course? Write. • Want to shoot a compelling video? Write. It all starts with writing. Today's episode is an extremely practical guide to helping you clarify your message, improve your writing and speaking voice simultaneously, increase your writing speed, and so much more. If you know you should be writing more but struggle to maintain a writing habit, this episode is for you!

Content marketing is all the rage—and for good reason! (Content marketing = creating things like blog posts, podcast episodes, and videos as a way of attracting clients and customers.) It's a fantastic way to build an audience and attract a loyal group of followers who will buy from you and support what you do. But there's a downside: it's not a quick solution. It will take 2 to 3 years of consistent, regular publishing for the bulk of benefits from content marketing to surface. It's a good long-term strategy, but is it something you should be doing when you're just starting out and trying to make money? This was the topic of a conversation Ben and I had over coffee at our last meeting. He's in a similar place right now, and I actually recommended he stop focusing his efforts on content marketing and do something else instead: Build one-on-one relationships with people and give them no-strings-attached value. Why? Tune in to today's episode to hear the discussion.

If you’re feeling stuck creatively, it’s simply because you’ve given yourself too much freedom. We think freedom produces creativity, but really it paralyzes us. When there are infinite possibilities and too many options to choose from, we feel overwhelmed. The solution is impose constraints on yourself. • Limit your options. • Reduce the tools at your disposal. • Give yourself less time. When you have fewer options, tools, or time, you’re forced to move forward.

I'm doing something different today: I'm talking about current events. Apple has removed the headphone jack in it's latest device: the iPhone 7. Crazy or brilliant? This move has been rather controversial (as have previous bold-at-the-time moves like removing the floppy and CD drives from devices), but it is a calculated move nonetheless. Today's show isn't exclusively about Apple—it's more about the concept of patience in business and making decisions in the best interest of the long game. Whether you love or hate Apple, their actions affect us all—and there are lessons to be learned. We'll be talking about those today. Again, the point of the episode is not Apple but to use the topic as an opportunity to dive into a discussion about the long game. We do talk about Apple, but you should listen regardless of whether you care that Apple removed the headphone jack. We talk about the future in regards to innovation and market acceptance, how people react to change, and how to set yourself up with enough c

You were taught a myth. The myth is that competition is a good thing—it’s not! When people say, “Competition is a good thing,” they mean that it’s good for consumers. As a business owner, you don’t want to compete, you want to DOMINATE your market. It’s a weird concept to wrap your mind around at first because you’ve heard the opposite said so many times. If the word “dominate” scares you, you’re going to get run over. You may have an averse reaction to the word, but it’s not about practices that aren’t above board. It comes from a place of wanting to serve your customers in the very best way possible. Right now, someone else is serving your customers and doing so to a poorer degree than you. Are you satisfied with that? You know you have the best product (this is the dominating mindset): you know it’s the very best and if people went with you instead of your competition, they would be better off. It would be great for them! Why then are you satisfied with someone else serving these people poorly? Whe

There are many different ways to be in business. But you do have to sell something. What you sell, who you sell it to, and how it helps them are all important things to think about. There's no right, or wrong, or even necessarily better business model—it's all going to depend. Some business models work better for different businesses. I find that a lot of people don't have a good grasp on their own business model, so I feel it's an important conversation to have. A lot of people need clarity on this topic. We talk about examples of different business models and go over the pros and cons of half a dozen of them.

People live their life in weekly cycles. They have habits that repeat: On Mondays they make a long commute, on Wednesdays they watch their favorite show, and on Fridays they hang out with friends. We all have recurring events and things that happen on a weekly basis. If you want to stay top of mind with your audience, you've got to get inside that weekly cycle. People will attach the act of listening to your podcast or reading your newsletter or watching your videos to their own existing habits! But this only happens when you get inside the weekly cycle. In this episode, we talk about staying top of mind with your audience by being consistent in your publishing schedule.

It's written! My first book has been in various stages of the back burner for the past three years. At the end of 2015, I said, "Enough! I'm going to finish it once and for all!" In July of this year, I set aside a month to write this book. I ended up finishing all 75,000 words of it in 14 days (not including over 10,000 more words spent journaling about the writing process). It's called Overlap: Getting from the life you have to the life you want. The book is for the person who wants to achieve greatness. It's for anyone who wants to create additional streams of income or become a master at their craft. Whether you're a leader or simply broke, without the support of their family, and feel like you don't have enough time in the day, this book will give you clarity. It will help you create the life you want. There are 26 chapters (you can see the full list at http://OverlapBook.com. Before this recording, I asked the members of the Community which of the 26 chapters they most wanted to hear my talk about.

This is a special episode. We're showing you what's inside seanwes membership! Becoming a member gives you access to The Vault, Learning Paths, mini courses, full network show archive, live broadcasts, 24/7 Community chat, mobile apps, custom content feeds for your favorite podcast app, and hundreds of like-minded people across the world eager to provide feedback and accountability. seanwes is the place to build and grow a sustainable business. Go behind the scenes of seanwes membership and see what's inside.

You've heard us talk about the Community at seanwes, but this episode is really about engaging in a community of any kind. If you don't have time for a community, are considering joining a community, are part of a community, or run a community, this episode is for you! Time is scarce and we don't have a lot of it. You may feel like you barely have time to read this sentence, let alone engage in a community. But a community isn't a time sink, it's a time investment. What you invest in time with a community, you get back in clarity. It's not that you can't afford to spend the time, it's that you can't afford to spend years heading in the wrong direction! If you want to be successful, you need to get around people who are successful. These people can help you get where you want to go faster. Find people who are already doing what you want to do and position yourself around them. Just like you would schedule time to meet with a mentor or a coach, schedule time to interact with a community. This is where you