Seanwes Podcast

Technology is a wonderful thing. Want to watch a movie? Stream it. In seconds, you're enjoying whatever film you like. Want to go somewhere? Raise your wrist and call a car. Within minutes you are on your way. We want what we want when we want it. For the most part, life can now give it to us. At least... it can in most areas. In others, not so much. On a regular basis, we see viral videos and follow the work of popular artists, entrepreneurs, and writers. Their work seems to instantly take off and reach thousands or millions of people. It seems so easy. So effortless. Do things just come easier to some people? Is it merely luck and being in the right place at the right time?

Future focus. Those are the two most important words when it comes to making mistakes. It's too easy to dwell on the past and feel bad about messing up. We tend to beat ourselves up for making a mistake, but there's zero profitability in dwelling in the past and doing that. The number one goal is to prevent this same problem from occurring in the future. Assess the situation: what went wrong? Focus on the WHAT not the WHY. It doesn't matter why you made the mistake. Focus on what you did that produced the undesired results and implement processes to prevent the same problem from happening again. Notice that I said SAME problem. You're always going to make mistakes. The ideas is to make NEW mistakes. Don't ever make the same mistake twice. In this episode, we also talk about taking the empowering "future focus" mindset and applying it to delegation. When you operate this way, you can allow others to make mistakes in your stead. You need to adopt this "future focus" mindset before you make your next mista

Let's say you've been blogging every week for two years now. Last year, maybe you started a podcast (bear with me if you haven't). Several months ago, you thought, "You know what? I might as well throw some videos into the mix!" You're good at making and sticking to commitments so your audience knows what to expect. But now, imagine you just got back from a retreat. On the plane ride home, you did a lot of thinking because you didn't want to pay $8 for wifi. You realized what you're doing right now on a daily and weekly basis isn't taking you where you want to go. Maybe it's simply not allowing you the time to do the work you want to do. You've come to the conclusion that a change needs to happen. But back at the ranch, people are expecting fresh content. You don't want to let them down. How do you realign the commitments you already made in the past so you can head in new direction to accomplish your current goals without alienating the audience that has come to expect new content from you? Today's sho

Today, we talk about integrity. More specifically, we talk about your reputation and your word, but it all stems from integrity. The higher your integrity level, the more easily a good reputation happens automatically. In other words, if you have integrity, you don't have to work hard at shaping your reputation. What does it mean if you commit to something? What does it mean if you say you'll do something? Is there a 50% chance you'll do it? An 80% chance? A 97% chance? How valuable is your "yes"? What is the weight of your word? It's easy to make promises you can't deliver on so people feel good in the moment, but it comes at the expense of the long-term relationship. When it comes to business, are you selling with a focus only on today or are you serving with a focus on the next 30 years? Your word is your reputation. Your reputation in business is everything. How we operate in business is a reflection of how we operate in our personal lives. Today, I want to talk today about the importance of your

Ben had a big goal the last time we met: he wants to make $500,000 in a year. I told him it's doable, but I insisted we set the foundation. In e233, we talked about the importance of focus and managing your time. In e234, we talked about building business assets the smart way. This is the third and final episode of our series you've been waiting for. There are five critical things you need first. We talk about what those are. Then, we reverse engineer exactly what it takes to make $500,000 this next year with your business. Are you in?

Business assets are things you build that continue to serve you. Compare having to work every month for money to having it come in automatically. We all want to build assets! Because assets are so appealing, it's tempting to try to get them as soon as possible. But assets, like products, require upfront investment to acquire. It takes time, money, and effort. When you're just starting out, you typically don't have the money to afford the time to build assets. This is why I recommend against trying to build assets as the very first thing you do. Instead, you should prioritize generating cashflow. When you start with a full focus on cashflow and building up front capital, you earn freedom. Freedom is your first asset. The freedom that comes from the asset of cash in hand provides you the time and availability to work on investing in building other assets. In this episode, I share a very purposeful and methodical approach to building assets from square one.

Ben has a huge goal. He wants to know if it's possible to make $500,000 this year. "Yes," I told him. This was at our regular, early Monday morning meeting at the coffee shop. "There are a number of ways to accomplish this goal," I said. "If you want to do it in a year, it is possible, but to do it sustainably, you need to think in longer terms than 12 months." Reverse Engineering a $500,000/Year Business. That's the title of the show we'll be doing two episodes from now. However, we need to take a step back. I'll be deconstructing what it takes to make half a million in a year, but first I want to set the stage. There are certain things you need to do to be able to accomplish this goal. In order to do those things, you need to say no to other things. The reason I will accomplish my goals and you won't is because I have a list of NOs and you have a list of MAYBEs. You have to get an explicit list of things you will NOT be doing this year in order to accomplish your goals. Saying no is your only tool fo

What's the difference between a goal and a plan? They sound similar and you may even use them interchangeably, but they're quite different. A goal is where you're going. A plan is how you'll get there. You start by defining what you want to accomplish. This becomes your goal. Then you convert that goal into a plan that you can act on. I give you a 5-step process for turning goals into plans in this episode.

When was the last time you scheduled blank space on your calendar? I mean empty space where you said, "During this time, I will specifically and intentionally not do anything." You know how sometimes someone cancels a meeting or an appointment with you and you suddenly have some extra free time? You know that relieved feeling? That's margin. Margin is something we all crave but very few of us create. By habit, we fill time. If there's space on our calendar, we schedule something there. But this space is important. As with all things important, it needs to be planned for. That means we need to schedule margin, as in, intentionally plan to do nothing. In this episode, we talk about the ways that margin gives you a better life and how to get it.

There's a really big problem today. You can be internet famous and have tens of hundreds of thousands of subscribers and followers and still be making no money. You might even (gasp!) have to get a day job. We have people thinking they can just "get famous" and once they have a massive audience, they'll automatically be set for life and start making bank. What's wrong here? Why are there stars with 100,000 followers who still have to go to work at a minimum wage job? They have no business model. Repeat after me: a YouTube channel is not a business. A blog is not a business. An Instagram account is not a business. I don't care how many followers you have. A BUSINESS is a business. What is a business? That's exactly what we talk about in this episode. You need a business plan and a strategy. Blogging and videos are acquisition channels. They are merely tools that advance someone on the Buyer's Journey. What is the Buyer's Journey and how can blog posts and videos lead people to buy? I'm glad you asked.

After the podcast ends, we usually do a little "after show" segment following the music. Community members enjoy an additional live bonus segment called the "after after show". It's typically more laid back and low-key. The recording you're about to hear came from an "after after show" conversation that went long. It went nearly 30 minutes. We weren't originally planning on releasing it publicly, but it was such a deep conversation that I really wanted to share it. It's about taking a step back. In this off-the-record conversation, I get real with Ben about the challenges of producing as much content as we do. It was right before I was about to take a sabbatical week and you can tell I really need one. I conjectured about what I might be able to accomplish if I stopped doing all of my shows and newsletters. If I stopped podcasting and publishing daily videos, what might I be able to do? It's not so much that I want to stop, in fact I really enjoy the work, but more that I'm not sure I've had the chance to

I remember buying a product once, and in the package was a hand-written note. What a surprise! What a delight! Someone took the time to write my name and a personalized message. It felt really special. This is an example of something that is unscalable. While in the beginning you may be able to write a hand-written note for all of your customers, as you grow and as your business scales to hundreds or even thousands of orders, you will no longer be able to write personalized notes for every person even if you made it your full time job to write notes all day! Some things don't scale, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do them. Responding to every comment, message, or email in the beginning is the key to growing. Those connections and deep engagement will create ambassadors. They're the people who will help you grow! In this episode we talk about doing the unscalable things not only in the beginning, but how you should still be allocating time to do the things that don't scale even when your business is m

I was asked recently how I learn so much. Pretty much constantly, I am acquiring knowledge. Every chance I get, I'm acquiring knowledge. If I get up from the computer, I'm playing something on my phone while I get get food in the kitchen. I'm constantly acquiring things. Constantly learning. This person wanted to know my sources. I said I'll do you one better—because I wanted to "teach a man to fish," right? Every time you hear a concept, name, book, reference, or anything at all, stop what you're doing and look it up. Whenever you're consuming content and you hear a new name, stop the recording and look it up.

I was on my way back from visiting family for the holiday and catching up on my listen and watch lists in the car. I'd taken my turn driving and now I was able to watch videos on my phone. I was watching this interview with a very successful business man who used an older cell phone. He didn't have a smart phone. He explained that smartphones are a huge distraction. Instant messaging, emails, and social media are constantly sending a barrage of notifications and interruptions every 2 to 3 minutes all day long; it's a complete killer of focus. The true cost of a smartphone nowadays is not merely the $800 you spent on it for those hundreds of gigabytes of storage or the monthly fee you pay for data, but the value of the time lost using it. He was explaining that you easily waste an hour a day because of it (and many people waste way more than just one hour a day). He said if you value your time at $100/hour, that's 365 hours a year or $36,500 down the drain. But if you value your time at $1,000/hour, it's

I just made a bold statement with this episode's title. I know this. Your parents absolutely can instill valuable principles and insights that can contribute to your success. I 100% believe this and I certainly have my parents to thank for many things that have contributed to my success (thanks Mom and Dad!). However, the purpose of this episode is to make you aware of inherent biases and conflicts of interest that are present. Whether you have supportive parents of not, it's important to understand how these emotions affect the advice a parent can give. Objectively, parents want the best for their kids. They certainly don't wish for them to be in danger or harm's way. The last thing they want is for you to be hurt because they care about you. From a young age, we're told to stay out of the street and not to talk to strangers. These are all for very good reason. However, success requires risk. It also requires failure. Repeated failure. Therefore, it's against the emotional nature of a parent to wish for

Raise your hand if you often stop yourself from putting something out there because it's just not quite perfect. I know I've done that a lot. I consider myself a chronic perfectionist. I'm a recovering perfectionist though and I want to help you in this episode! Many of us have perfect ideas in our mind but what comes out doesn't match that perfect vision. This can be discouraging and it can keep us from producing. The difference between you and someone who is able to do something perfectly every time with seemingly no effort is a sea of imperfect work. The only difference is that they've accepted imperfection and put out less-than-perfect work anyway. It takes producing a sea of imperfect work to reach that point. But even after reaching a point of mastery, our perfectionist tendencies can still hold us back and affect how we work with others. We talk about why we struggle with perfectionism, how using the "90% perfect" concept can help, working with other perfectionists, and the difference between hu

Long-time listeners are very familiar with my "Full Price or Free" mantra. I position things at one of two options: Either full price or free. What's the problem with discounts? Everyone loves discounts, right? Yes, they do. That is, until they don't. What do I mean? Do you remember the last time you bought something only to see it get discounted the following day or next week? How did that make you feel? Did you enjoy feeling duped? Discounted prices punish early buyers. Discounts not only devalue your products, but they also create poor customer experiences when your buyer finds out next week that they should have waited to buy from you later. In this episode, Ben and I navigate the seas of pricing and make a case for why you shouldn't discount and how to sell without discounting.

By not offering payment plans on any of my products, I'm leaving an additional 20% revenue on the table. I know this. Why don't I offer payment plans then? Because I don't want people to live outside their means. I certainly don't want them to go into debt. If someone cannot yet afford a product from me or they would have to go into debt to buy it, I don't want their money. I want them out of debt. I want to help better people's lives. If buying my product means putting someone in a stressful situation for many months, I don't want them to buy from me. This is why I make such high quality content available for free. I prefer people apply the information I give away freely to their business first and make money from that. Many people have reported that they are charging thousands more with their clients as a result of the free information I produce. This is what I want for them! While I'm leaving money on the table, I know that I'm not the cause of enabling people to live outside their means. Ben and I

Social media is big right now. It's so big, you forget things looked very differently even 10 years ago. When we grow audiences on social media, it's easy to get complacent. But you have to remember that you don't own those platforms. You don't get to make the rules. Those platforms can change the game on you. When you build your home on someone else's platform, you're at their mercy. Things will change. It's not a matter of if but when. No platform will be around forever. What would you do if your biggest social media account was gone tomorrow? Would you survive? How significantly would it affect you? We talk about planning for when the social landscape changes, building your own platform, pointing people to where your home is, paywalls on the internet and the future of communities.

You want to grow your business. You want to double your revenue. You want to launch your product. You want to be charging more. You want to be stressed less. You want to be doing the best work of your career. You want to be doing less of work you hate for people that drain your energy? What's the solution? Mindset. Everything begins with changing the way you think. The fastest way to change the way you think is to get around people who think that way. Immerse yourself in a culture of people who are where you want to be. Absorb their thinking, learn how they speak, get to know their language. The fastest path to getting where you want to be is by getting around people who are already there. Successful people think differently. The reason the majority of people are not successful is because the majority of people are not willing to challenge the status quo of thinking and change their mindset.