Seanwes Podcast

There are many ways to spread the word about your products or services, but nothing beats word of mouth referrals. We place a lot of weight on the recommendation of a trusted friend. When someone we know suggests something to us, we listen. We’ve all had that experience where we were pressured to share something or “tell a friend” or “leave a review” and it felt pushy—or spammy even. There’s a reason for that and we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Asking for a referral is still one of the most effective ways to get one, but the timing of that ask is crucial. You’ll learn how to setup the ask ahead of time to increase the likelihood of getting the recommendation. We talk about ways to get your past customers and clients to refer you, as well as how to get in the forefront of people’s mind so you’re who they automatically recommend.

You’re leaving money on the table. Something was working for you in the past and for some reason you stopped doing it. Don’t feel bad, almost everyone does this! So much so that when I was on a plane last month, the guy sitting next to us on the flight home asked what I did. I decided to tell him my story. At one point in my story, I said, “At this point, things were going pretty well…“ He interjected: “So you did something else, right?” I laughed because of course he was right. He’d seen it time and again: people find something that works, but because of Shiny Object Syndrome they move on to something else. In today’s episode, we look at revisiting the things that were working for you in the past to potentially double your revenue. We also talk about what you should be focusing on if you’ve yet to find something that works yet.

I really cannot believe I’m about to share this episode with you. Seriously. The amount of value in this episode is immense. All I can say is I wish I had this to listen to a long time ago. I can’t tell you how we did it, but somehow we answered over 20 questions in this episode on the topic of determining what your first product should be. Vetting demand, digital or physical, competition, marketing, autoresponders, courses (paid and free), customer experience, and on and on… There are 6,600 words of incredible valuable show notes—you can’t afford to miss this episode. Grab a pen and some paper because I guarantee you’re going to want to take notes.

Attention is the currency of this day and age. If you have people's attention, you win. But how do you get it? That's the kicker. Imagine people eagerly tuning in to what you have to say multiple times a week. Think about how powerful that would be. Think about the impact of promoting something when you have that kind of attention. Today, we talk about ways to get attention (the good kind). We talk about how it takes doing something 50 or 100 times just to even get on peoples' radar. We answer a ton of questions live on the show from real people just like you who are trying to build their audience from scratch. You'll hear us share how to use teaching to increase your exposure—even if you don't consider yourself a teacher. You don't even need to be an expert to teach. We'll show you how teaching is actually one of the best ways to learn and how to get people's attention while you're learning.

Constant overwhelm. Non-stop craziness. Never a dull moment. Do these describe your situation? You’re not alone. Time has always been our most valuable resource, but it’s never seemed so short in supply as it does now. Where do you find the time? I mean for anything! How is it that you wake up tired, you go and go and go and go and somehow get to the end of your day tired, and still feel like you’ve hardly accomplished anything? Then you get up the next day and do it all over again. It’s madness. But the news gets worse: you’ll never find the time. Why? Because we’re too good at filling it. We fill time automatically by habit. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you had a gap in your schedule when someone asked you to do something during that time and you said no? If you’re like most people, probably never. Free time is meant to be filled, right? That’s how we operate anyway. You’ll never find time because our time-filling habit is automatic. You’ll only ever have the time if you make it. The only

You failed. Now what? How do you come back from that? How do you overcome the fear of failure? Does failure even exist? People may call me naive or dumb, but I don’t believe failure exists. Before you write me off, bear with me in this episode. I’m not saying things never go wrong, but I’ve removed the word “failure” from my vocabulary. The way I choose to see it is this: I’ve found something that didn’t work. To me, that’s progress. Every experience that turns out other than the way we desire is an experience we can learn from. In this episode, Ben and I are asked what we consider to be our biggest failures. I’ve struggled with the question, because I don’t think of things as failures. But when I mentally rephrase the question to, “What are some things you did that didn’t work out the way you want?” I immediately come up with stories to share. Something happens midway through this episode. Suddenly, things get unlocked. We go deeper into the mindset behind how you think of failure. One of the biggest t

People buy from who they trust. It’s no longer enough just to sell. We buy from who we trust. If we’re unfamiliar, we ask a friend, we compare, we look at reviews, we acquire trust by proxy. Too many people focus only on the first sale. They try so hard to close the deal and get people to buy their product, but what happens after that? What kind of experience are they having? Are they going to buy again? Your reputation and relationship with your audience is what enables you to sustain yourself long term through repeat business. Repeat business comes from brand loyalty. Brand loyalty comes from great experiences. You can only give people great experiences if you have their attention. Consistently delivering value with no strings attached is how you get their attention. That’s Relationship Marketing.

I have to take off a week from podcasting. The Community is set to finally re-open on Monday, May 18th, with a very big launch after being closed for developments for over a month. However, there’s an incredible amount of work left to do. Recording 3 or 4 podcasts a week and shipping them with featured images and shownotes is more than a full-time job. There simply was not going to be enough time to re-launch the Community if I continued my normal podcasting schedule. This is where I had to face a reality: I’m going to have to break my routine. You’ll hear me face this reality and talk through the impact breaking a routine has on an audience. While I initially felt like I was doing my audience a disservice, I came to realize that it would be an even bigger disservice to neglect taking care of the very things that allowed us to continue providing value. This episode also takes an interesting turn. I talk about prolific film-maker Casey Neistat who’s been doing insanely epic, daily vlogs for nearly 50 days

Confrontation isn’t pleasant. It’s typically associated with arguments and hostility. Whether it’s a client, your spouse, family, or friends, there’s nothing pleasant about confronting someone. Out of self-preservation, we often expect the worst based on past situations that went bad. Ben mentions in this episode that you generally have two types of confronters: doormats and bulldozers. Both of them stem from fear. We share several anecdotes and lessons learned from past encounters along with some healthy ways to approach confrontation—everything from asking your boss for a raise to talking with the neighbor who plays his music too loud.

You may have heard me talk about the importance of building your own platform, but social media is also a great way to engage with people. Your audience is already using social media, so meeting them where they’re at can work to indirectly bring them back to your site. It seems like you’d want to engage on a bunch of platforms and share your work in as many places as possible, but today we tackle an interesting question: Is there such a thing as being too many places? At what point is someone’s first experience with your brand potentially a negative one because you’re on a platform where you’re not really engaged? I don’t think the answer is as simple as a number. There’s a fine balance to strike between maximizing what’s working right now and being an early mover on the next big thing. We talk about that in this episode.

They say public speaking is the number one fear—even above death. But do you know where that supposed “fact” comes from? It turns out it was popularized by a book written in 1977 citing a very unscientific research study. While we debunk the number-one-fear myth in this episode, it doesn’t detract from the fact that public speaking can still be scary. This episode is for you if you identify with any of the following: 1. You’ve never spoken before but want to know what to expect for the future when you speak someday. 2. You’ve been invited to speak and have a gig coming up soon. 3. You’ve spoken in the past and want some refreshers on how to prepare, overcoming common issues, and how to get more requests to speak. You’ll hear some very practical techniques for minimizing fear and hear me share absolutely everything I’ve learned about speaking. I focus on preparing for your speech, how to practice, delivery, slides, how much time to allocate to your introduction vs. your message, what to do if you freeze,

Let’s face it: life can be stressful at times. It’s frustrating enough thinking about the things that are stressing you out, but you know what’s the worst? A lot of times, you don’t even know where the stress and anxiety are coming from. Many of us live with a base level of stress. The first step to getting out is acknowledging stress that’s already there. In this episode, we talk about some extremely practical tips for reducing stress. These are very specific, actionable things you can do to help discover, acknowledge, and decrease stress in your life.

Wait a minute… didn’t tax season just end? Well yes, it did, but this is actually the best time to start preparing for next year! A lot of people start off by saying, “Now, I know this is a boring topic…” If there were any topic to do that with, it would be taxes. But I don’t want to do that. Remember, people feed off of your energy! They’re looking to you for how to feel. That’s why I’m going to make this fun. This is going to be an exciting episode about taxes that will help you feel a lot more prepared for next year. This is an ideal episode for freelancers, small business owners, and any kind of entrepreneur. If you’re looking to understand taxes better, feel a little more prepared, learn to categorize expenses easily, reduce self employment tax, and get a handle on things, this episode is for you.

Choosing a niche can be scary. Narrowing your focus can be overwhelming. I’ve talked a lot about how people will put you in a box and that you want to define the box they’re going to put you in. A lot of people have been saying they want to curate what they share and niche down, but they are afraid. It seems like you’re saying no to so much. What if you’re too specific? What if the industry changes or your niche is no longer valuable? What balance should you strike between entering a validated market and distinguishing yourself by offering something different? Ultimately, it comes down to people. When you’re focused on understanding and serving peoples’ needs, you’re always going to be tuned in to what’s relevant and valuable. We talk about all this and a lot more in this episode.

We just returned from a conference and we’re feeling that conference high. You know, where you’re super inspired and fired up from spending time with incredible people and you feel like you’re ready to take on the world. I remember I used to feel this feeling once or twice a year when returning from a conference. But then it would slowly dissipate. The coals of my inspirational fire would cool and I yearned once again for the engaging discussions with likeminded people. The Community is like the conference experience you love, but it’s with you every day and right in your pocket. Cory Miller joined the Community on May 8th, 2014. Over the course of a year, I got to know Cory really well. He completely turned his life around. He went from gaming every single day to growing his own apparel brand. I loved what he was doing so much that I ended up hiring him to become the full time Product Director at seanwes. I got to hang out with Cory at the conference and he also drove down to the studio to join us for th

There are only two prices where a product or service is acknowledged for its full value: full price or free. For full price it’s obvious: when someone purchases at the full amount, they value for the full amount. When a buyer purchases a discounted product, they don’t see the original price as the value—they value it at the discounted amount. The only way to win by discounting is to become a discount brand. Discounts are always a devaluation. Giving someone a gift or doing work pro-bono is giving them something of full value at no cost. Unlike with discounts, the recipient of the gift values it at the full amount. In this episode, you’ll hear why I never ask clients for a budget and why discounting not only sacrifices your long-term profitability and brand perception, but it’s a big middle finger to your past customers. I talk about you what to do instead to create urgency and sell.

Just about everywhere you go, you see comments. All social media has commenting ability and everyone has a chance to voice their opinion. This makes sense for social media. After all, the people are what make the platform. But what about for your own domain? Should people be able to comment on your website? The immediate answer seems to be “yes,” but remember: your website is your platform and letting people comment is giving them some of your platform. You are offering them an opportunity to be seen by your readers and that’s a very big responsibility. Comments can be useful, and you’ll hear me acknowledge some of the upsides, but I’m also going to make some compelling arguments for disabling comments on your website entirely—as well as showing you what to do instead to maximize engagement.

We all want to be known for something, we all want to make a name for ourselves, but there’s a harsh reality we’re up against: The reality is people put other people in boxes. We are cognitively limited to maintaining 150 close relationships. What does this mean? It’s means people are forced to categorize. They’re going to put you in a box. There’s nothing you can do about that—it’s going to happen. What you can do is define the box they put you in. Embrace the fact that you will be put in a box and define what that box is. You have an opportunity to shape the box others put you in. How do you shape it? You curate what you share.

I have some good news: self-discipline is not an innate trait. It’s not something you have or you don’t; it’s a skill you develop. Tell me if this happens to you a lot: you want to do something but you just don’t feel like doing it a lot of the time. The people who are disciplined have learned one thing that others haven’t: don’t wait until you “feel like it.” A common misconception is that disciplined people must somehow feel like doing things more than others do. This simply isn’t the case. To help you develop the skill of discipline, we share 6 tips in this episode that will help you take the next step—whether it’s eating healthy, staying fit, waking up early, or showing up consistently.

I launched Learn Lettering one year ago yesterday. It was my very first product launch and it grossed six figures in the first three days of launching. How was I able to do this? Well, I have an exhaustive case study in e060 with all of the details, but essentially I owe it to a year of immersion in the world of marketing! I learned everything I could. I studied countless examples from other people. I searched the web and read articles, listened to podcasts, watched videos and gleaned whatever wisdom I could from those who had been there before me. I learned two things: 1. How to make sure you’re building what other people want (and will pay for) and not just what you want. 2. The absolute, undeniable power of email. In the last episode, we looked at Getting Started With Email Marketing. Today, we’re taking things to the next level and I show you how I use email marketing to launch a product. I share things I learned, what worked, what didn’t work, and everything from validation, to lead magnets, to wha