Full show notes for this episode can be found at https://podcast.jakehower.com/episode/how-free-can-make-you-more-money-in-your-business-with-pat-flynn

This is episode 18.

In today's show, we are breaking away from the conventional

structure of each episode, and we're actually just having more of what.

Tim Reed would refer to as a fireside chat with none other than Mr.

Pat Flynn from smart passive income.

Now, the reason I say we've broken away from it a little bit is because Pat's

followed a relatively unconventional way to monetization with his endeavors online.

And I think it's.

It's quite interesting to see how he's done this.

So we get into a number of things.

We touch briefly on his background.

We look at some of the key concepts that he does business by including

the value of free in business.

And of course he's be everywhere strategy and rather than look.

At, I guess his own experience in terms of providing you, the listener

with some takeaways for this episode, I posed to Pat a hypothetical, so

make sure you listen to the episode to find out what that hypothetical

is and hear Pat's interesting answer.

So without further ado, let's get stuck into today's episode with Pat.

Pat, how are you?

I'm doing excellent, Jake.

Thank you so much for having me on the show.

I'm really excited to be here.

Oh, I'm really

glad you could make it now.

We're pretty much smack bang in between a couple of, big moments for you.

And that of course, is the fact that you've just come off a week where your

website has been down for an entire week.

And by the time this episode goes to where let go, your new book

should have been released as well.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy because everything, isn't it funny how

that happens just nothing happens in life and all of a sudden everything

just happens at the same time.

That's what happened here, my website was down for an entire week after getting

attacked it was a DOS, Denial of Service attack, so it wasn't like I was hacked

in or anything, but my site was down and I, I was disgruntled at the service

that I was getting from my, Hosts or my ex host I guess and I was migrating

and that took forever because of just some errors that happened along the way.

So Now the site's back up.

It's faster than ever and I'm excited because I get to promote this new book

that's coming out Monday March 18th, which for listeners in the future probably

happened already and if everything went well Hopefully people enjoyed

the book and it's not Just a book.

It's a new sort of multimedia experience on a brand new platform.

So it's going to be really interesting to see how people receive it.

Yeah.

And I'm really looking forward to that.

Now for our show listeners, the premise of the multimedia marketing show is

to bring on guests and delve into some of their content marketing strategies.

One core philosophy you follow is the be everywhere strategy.

And given the fact that you lost one large component, of your business for a week,

it's going to be very interesting to delve into how using this strategy allowed you

to still stay connected to your audience.

Yeah, totally.

Cool.

So for those who may not know about you, I'm assuming they're coming from

another planet, but maybe if you just give us a, just a brief introduction to

you and your background and how you've gotten to the stage we're at right

this second.

Sure.

Absolutely.

And I never expect everybody to know about me, so I'm happy to share my story.

And it's just, I'm really excited to share it.

Every time someone asks me to do so because I really, it just reminds

me of the journey and where I've came from and every time I tell it,

I appreciate more where I'm at now.

So I'm happy to share it and just to keep it quick because I can go on and

on about this because I get really excited and it's what Let Go is about.

Let Go talks about it in detail, includes videos and actually

interviews with a lot of people who influenced me and myself as well.

But anyway, it started after college.

I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley.

with a degree in architecture.

It was everything I wanted.

I had gotten good grades.

I had done everything I was supposed to do.

And after I graduated college, I got pretty much my dream job

right out of college working on some amazing projects in a, in an

architecture firm up in the Bay Area.

And everything was going just like I was supposed to do.

told it was supposed to go, right?

I was living, I was following the path.

I was climbing the corporate ladder.

I had studied for this exam called the lead exam.

And once I passed that exam, I actually got promoted to job

captain and everything was going perfect until June to July of 2008.

I learned I was going to get laid off.

And that was a tough moment for me in my life.

To say the least, because everything I was working for just was like gone.

Everything was.

It just kicked out under me.

I couldn't get another job in architecture.

Nobody was hiring any architects at that time.

Luckily this website that I started to actually help me pass that lead exam that

I was just talking about which had at this time at the time of my layoff had been up

for a year and a half already because I was using it to study and I studied and

I just let it sit there after I passed.

This website really was my saving grace.

What happened was I got inspired by a lot of people, a lot of podcasts, actually,

that were doing internet business.

And one story in particular was about a guy named Cornelius

Fitchner from PMpodcast.

com who was talking about how I listened to him on this.

Podcast called Internet Business Mastery.

He was on there doing an interview and he talked about how he was making

a living teaching people how to pass the project management exam.

I got really excited because I knew about this LEED exam and I figured,

Hey, maybe there's people out there who could use this information too.

Maybe I can get paid for it.

We'll see.

So what I ended up doing was the next day putting an analytical tool on my

site just to keep track of the future traffic that I was going to get.

And the next day.

It registered thousands of people visiting that site every day.

And I had no idea this was happening.

I had no idea how long this was happening.

But once I opened up the comments, people started asking me

questions that I knew answers to.

I became this expert.

And long story short, I ended up writing an e book study

guide for my audience there.

And the first month I launched that, I had made about, I think it was 7, 908.

55 I believe.

And it was just...

Life changing.

That was more money than I had made in three months or four months of doing

what I was doing in architecture.

And the beauty of it was that a lot of it was automated.

People could come to the site, purchase an ebook, and it would get automatically

delivered to them without me having to be there to process that transaction.

So I was literally working three, four hours a week.

at that time.

And I know, a lot of us know that book, the four hour work week and,

it just changed my life and it just introduced me to everything that was

possible out there with the internet.

And, initially I had thought everybody who's doing business

online was doing it in a very scammy sort of way and, car salesman,

the very hype exaggerated type of.

Marketing tactics, but here I was not even knowing what I was doing, but I

had something to provide to people and people were paying me for it and going

out of their way to thank me for it.

And so that's when, I was like, wow, I got to share this with as many people

as possible because this, I was.

That's when I started the Smart Passive Income blog, which is

where most people know me from now.

And I initially started just to share stuff about how I created that lead

exam site and what I did and what I was doing to market it, market my

books and add new products to the site.

And then I eventually started to build and create new businesses publicly.

On Smart Passive Income, showing people my wins, showing people everything

that I was doing wrong all the failures that I've encountered so that people

who would be interested in doing something similar would have a head

start, would see me in my example and either learn from my mistakes or learn

from my, my, my wins and Now the smart passive income blog has just exploded.

Have an amazing audience who's very supportive and I love them to death

and I have a podcast now that has just surpassed 3 million downloads and it's

constantly in the top two or three spots in iTunes in the business section.

I have a youtube channel that has that is approaching two million views now.

And gosh, I'm I've been doing a ton of public speaking lately,

something that I never thought I would do and I'm enjoying it so much.

And now I'm writing these books and exploring these new platforms.

It's just, gosh, it's just been such an incredible ride.

And that there are many people, but there's way too

many people to thank for it.

But I, my, I think my wife is probably the biggest.

And without her, I wouldn't be where I am, where I'm at.

So I just gotta, I had to say that, I had to drop the wife card in there,

it's, she was really important and kept me going cause I could have easily just

done something else or found another job.

But her encouragement and also just, seeing other people's success stories

really encouraged me to go down this path and I'm really glad I didn't.

The layoff actually ended up becoming the best thing that ever happened to me.

Yeah, that's really

interesting.

Now, I just want to just connect a couple of things here.

What is really interesting and may not, when you put it on paper, make

a lot of sense, but am I correcting saying that this ebook that you went

on to solve for green exam academy was the first and only product you've put

out yourself.

I've come out with three products, that ebook on green exam academy.

an audio guide to go along with it.

That's the second product again, on the same website.

And then when they upgraded the exam, I created another updated

study guide and audio guide for that.

So nothing on smart passive income, actually, which is funny because,

one thing I like to do is post my earnings online each month and the

lessons I've learned each month.

To go along with them and most of what I heard now comes from smart passive

income through affiliate marketing and I, I haven't sold a product yet

on the site, which is interesting.

It's

incredibly interesting because I guess the common chain of thought is

that people move in probably the opposite direction from affiliates income to their

own products and their own services.

So it's really interesting that it's actually been the opposite for you.

Now, one of your, catchphrases you talk about.

Be everywhere, which we'll get into in just a second.

But before doing that, you talk about the concept of free.

It seems to play a massive role in your business.

Can you go into a little bit of detail, delve into free, what

free means to you in business

terms?

People gravitate towards stuff.

That's free.

Just naturally, it's human nature to, to be drawn to things that are free, because

in any sort of transaction, typically there's an upside and a downside.

When you're buying something, the upside is, you get whatever it is that you

buy, and the downside is what, the money that you're spending, or the time that

you're spending to, to, on that thing.

But when something is free...

Typically, there is no downside, so people gravitate toward it.

And there's some really interesting experiments that go along with

it that, I did a presentation at new media expo this past January.

That's all about the power of free if you want to learn more about it.

And also there's a book out there called free by Chris Anderson, which is really

good as well and overlaps a little bit with what I talk about specifically for

online business and internet marketers.

But for me, it's just really anything.

Any sort of information could be found for free online anyway.

Now, if people really wanted to learn something, they could go to YouTube

or Google and my purpose are, I feel that everybody's purpose should be

to take all that information and give it to people for free since it's

free already, but do it in a way that establishes them as the expert that.

Establishes them as someone who can take all that information that's spread around

the internet and package it into something that's easily consumable in a way that

adds value to people's lives and makes it convenient for them, so much so that those

people are going to go out of their way.

To pay that person back, which is just human nature.

And that's exactly what happens.

You can call it karma.

You can call it the universe or human nature or whatever.

But the fact is, and I've learned this through experience several times in

several different businesses, that the more I give away, the more I can serve

my audience, the more they're going to go out of their way to pay me back.

And yes, not everybody's going to, there are freeloaders out there, but

you don't want the freeloaders anyway.

And free is also good because, it's actually a way to weed out those people

who are going to take things for free and see people on the other end who are going

to be in tune with your message, who are going to appreciate what you've given them

and want to give you back stuff in return.

And the trick is, a lot of people do give stuff away for free, but they

don't necessarily have a way, or an easy way, or a convenient way, or a

way that makes sense for people who they've given stuff away free to.

To have them pay them back.

So for me, that sort of avenue is affiliate marketing.

So I give away all this free information on my website really high quality

posts, epic content, step by step tutorials about how to do everything

that I've learned how to do and.

In return, people can, if they wanted to, click on those affiliate links

to either purchase those products or services or tools that I, that

may be into, inside those tutorials.

And for me, the goal is really not to pick products that can earn a

higher commission or pick products that I feel that people would buy.

It starts with the goal of my audience and serving them and understanding

the path to success for them.

The more I can understand that path, The more I can see what products,

tools, and services and information can be used to help them get there.

Sometimes those products, information, tools, and services don't come with an

affiliate commission, that doesn't matter.

It's still something that they should have in their toolbox or learn.

But yes, sometimes those things do have an affiliate commission.

So sometimes those are things that you can create on your own too.

So that's, those are your own products, whatever it is.

You owe it to your audience.

If you really feel that you can help them achieve something to give them

all the information they need, only the information they need to help them,

get from point A to point B, and if you can do that, and you can share that

information for free, and there happens to be tools and services and whatever

to go along with it, More than likely people are gonna want to pay you back and

they'll go through your links to do that

And so tell me how do you identify the things

that people want to pay for?

Again, I'm not Looking for stuff that people will want to pay for.

I'm just looking for stuff that people are gonna find helpful Yes, and that

In turn is what people are typically going to want to pay for and I do

that through leading by example.

So i'll actually go through the process of myself of using these different tools

and i've gone through Many different services and tools and you know a lot

of those I don't promote because I don't feel comfortable recommending

them to my audience because my audience is the number one most important

thing to me because without them Obviously, I don't have a business.

I don't have traffic.

I don't have subscribers without my audience so it's a high priority for me

to make sure that A, I use the products that I'm recommending B, that I feel it

is something absolutely useful for my audience C, I show people exactly how

I use it or how I used it wrong or what people can do to use it better than me

and also to be there as a resource and for support if people need it and really what

I'm doing is, we said earlier that I don't really sell any products on my website.

Of my own, but I do because when I promote something as an affiliate,

I see it as it is my own product.

It just happened to be created and managed and you know the customer services from

someone else But I step in there as if it was my own and I treat it Just like it's

my own because it is my own if i'm rec if i'm recommending something to my audience

It's as if it was my own because if that Yeah, they're going to get mad at that

company, but who are they going to get mad at and angry at and the most me because

I'm the one who recommended it to them and then that trust is broken, definitely.

Now, I

just want to touch on a little bit about forms of payment

because trading dollars for payment isn't the only way you can do it.

To me, forms of payment can include engagement, can include sharing.

Do you think this plays a role as well?

In generating more income for you.

Oh

yeah, absolutely.

When I say ways to pay you back, I'm glad you brought this up, Jake.

It's not necessarily just sending you money or going

through your affiliate links.

It's adding to your social proof by sharing experiences or by by, by, by

sharing whatever it is you have to offer or just you or your website with people

that they trust because there's, to me, there is no better marketing tool.

Or a way to promote something than having other people promote your stuff for you.

Like I can go to someone that I don't know and tell them that I have

the best information in the world.

Or I have a product that's going to really help them.

And yeah, depending on how I pitch it it's going to be taken well or maybe not.

But if someone that they already trust, that is their friend, tells

them, Hey, there's this guy named Pat.

Like you should check him out.

Here's his website.

He has this product.

I used it.

It's great.

Here's his website.

They're going to be more likely to follow through and go and become a

customer or subscriber or reader.

And really it's that first impression before the first

impression actually happens.

It's a first impression from somebody else that you already trust.

Who you would take their recommendation because you already have that

established relationship with them.

Yeah, definitely.

And I guess that to me is very important as well, because one of

my businesses, I own a travel agency here in Melbourne, and some of our

biggest customers are not people who purchase from us but they're people who

Ravid fans, they will refer customers and people to us wherever possible.

And so they become some of the most important customers that we have,

even though they don't actually trade a dollar value for us.

And I think certainly you're going to agree here and for our listeners out

there, any type of engagement you can get, I think you've got to treat it like.

Gold.

You've got to engage with people who are engaging with you in a

manner that they are your clients.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it doesn't matter how big or how small they are.

I, you want to treat everybody equally because yeah the big people who

may have a large following already, they might be good to get into.

You might get a link from them or a share on Twitter or whatever, and yes, they

might have thousands of fans, but it's the smaller sort of people who are up

and coming or who are just regular people who you're going to make a deeper impact.

With and really create fans for life from and they're the people like you

said, who become the evangelists who just will do nothing but promote you.

And you never know some of that.

For me, I remember building relationships with a lot of smaller bloggers when

I was starting out as well, and now they're big and they're huge.

And since we've had that relationship together for a long time.

We all, we always help each other out and you never know who can do what for you.

So it's best to just try and serve as many people as possible and really

build a true relationship with them.

And like you said, engage.

That's really how you build relationships with people.

You engage.

You don't go to a party and become friends with people by just sitting in the corner.

You become friends with people by going up to them, talking to them.

And then I love this quote by James Schramko.

He says, the best way to do it, to go about it and to succeed in business.

Is to stop trying to be so interesting and start being interested.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's fantastic.

I I have a lot to do with James and one of the things with James, he's got a

team of 80 plus people working for him.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Turning over multiple millions of dollars.

But one of the things which I most respect about James is that he will

answer the phone to anybody and he will speak to anybody for as long as it takes.

He's so giving with his time.

And it goes along with exactly what you've just quoted him for there.

It's a, he's interested and that's incredibly

valuable.

Yeah.

That just, if he's doing that, that just shows you how important that

actually is because he's, that's where his time is being spent.

Yeah,

absolutely.

All right.

Now looking at that then.

So we're looking at engaging and finding more people.

And this moves us into, one of your other, catchphrases, which is be everywhere.

So can you explain a little bit about what be everywhere is and why it's important?

Yeah.

It's funny, the story behind this catchphrase, it, it was 2011 in

Los Angeles and I was creating a presentation for a blog world expo.

Which is what it was known for back then.

Now it's New Media Expo.

And the title of the presentation was How To Be Everywhere.

And the reason that I titled it that way was because everybody I spoke to

who found me on any of the different platforms I was on, was just like

Pat, you just seem to be everywhere.

Everywhere I go I hear your name.

Everywhere I go I see you.

How are you everywhere?

And so I wanted to create this presentation to talk about that.

And I did the presentation And it got a really great response.

And a lot of people started to follow this direction of what I'm about to share

and they're seeing great results too.

And this does work.

And it's almost common sense because when you have a website or build

a website, and it's like the first day, nobody knows about that website.

Except for you whether it's a blog or just a business or a static website or

whatever nobody knows about it except for you It's I compare it to putting

a message into a bottle and throwing it into the ocean you're just you put

it out there and you hope that the tides of Google take it to wherever

people are or the waves of the web just send it to where people are already.

And yeah, eventually over time, Google can find your site.

Some people who are influencers can potentially find it.

And yes, you could put you'll start to see results.

But if you want to see results faster, what you want to do is take

that message out of that bottle out of the ocean and just stick it right

where people are already passing by.

And.

To do this on multiple platforms and multiple mediums.

So really the structure is, you have your website or your blog is as the

hub of your business, because really that's where all the action happens.

That's where links are.

That's where you can that's something that you control and it's best to

control the center of your website.

So if you imagine we're creating like a little diagram here, your

blog is your hub and extending out of that, my, I love podcasting.

And a lot of people don't know this, but iTunes is a huge

platform, especially for podcasters.

And it's so untapped.

There are millions and millions of websites and only, maybe 200

to 400, 000 podcasts out there.

So there's very little competition.

And iTunes is also a big time search engine.

A lot of people don't think of iTunes as a search engine, but there are people out

there looking for information that you.

Probably have in your head.

Maybe it's already on your website if you were to just podcast about it people

will find you on itunes and They have and I did a survey on my blog before

I did this presentation asking just my blog readers How did you find me?

And the number one answer was they found me through 19% of my audience

who is now reading my blog found me through my podcast, which blew me away.

I had no idea it was that much.

And when I think about it, I still get emails every single

day from people saying, I found, I love your show on iTunes.

I found you on, I found you on iTunes.

And funny story, I went to New Media Expo this past January.

Where I talked about the Power Free, and I wear this little backpack that has my

name on it, and I let people know to, to find me and if you see me, just tap me

on the shoulder, I'd love to talk to you, and I had about 100 to 200 people come

up to me during the entire conference and just say hi, who are fans, and the 95%

of those people said I love your podcast.

I listen to your show Thank you for keeping me company on my car ride on

the commute to work every day podcast Even though that wasn't the first thing

I started even though it's not my blog.

That's what people remember and I think Because it's the power of the voice, and

obviously people listening to this now are listening to our voices, there's just

something about the voice, I don't know if it's because we can share inflections,

or, we can change the tone of our voice, which we can't really do on on, with text,

and, when people Listen to your podcast.

They're just plugging you into their ears and you're entering their brains

There's no little Xbox that they can clear not Xbox like Microsoft But

there's no little X in the corner that they can click out of and they're

just listening to you and people can listen to you No matter where you are,

so you literally can be everywhere.

I have people say, thank you.

Thank you for keeping me company on my way to Rome today, or thank you for coming to

the beach and having a run with me today.

Like I can literally be everywhere.

It seems.

And when you think about it, a podcast is a show that you have

that people can subscribe to.

So imagine a stadium full, imagine a room full of 50 people that you're

talking to all at the same time.

That's.

Impressive to get a group of 50 people who are listening to you in a room.

Now imagine thousands of people Listening to you just like they were

in a room, but they're spread out all around the world and they are subscribed

to your show So whenever you post something they are listening to you.

So it's like you have this worldwide stadium.

That is just Ready to listen to you anytime you have something to say I could

talk about this for hours, so I'm sorry I'm just gonna try and breeze through this

as much as possible just so people can get the idea So you have the pot you have

your blog or the website in the middle?

Then you should also have a podcast to go along with it And in addition

to that you should also have a YouTube channel Cause again, just like

iTunes, YouTube is a search engine.

It's actually the number two search engine in the world, and it's owned by Google.

And there's, video is just going crazy lately.

It's another great way, a great medium to just share things that

you can't share on audio and also on your website through text.

And so what happens when you have these three sort of content areas, you have

your blog for people who like to read.

You have podcasts for people who like to listen and you have videos for

people who to watch or who are visual.

And so no matter how people enjoy consuming content, they have a way

to connect with you and your brand.

And also, you're, by putting yourself onto these different platforms, you're

actually going to be found by people who would have never found you otherwise.

Because there are people who only listen to podcasts who don't read blogs.

There are people who only watch videos but don't listen to podcasts or read blogs

and, all the combinations there within.

And so that's the core.

And then there's also, your email list is important because that's a way to get into

people's daily lives, especially now with mobile and people checking their emails.

I'm so using your email list in a smart way and also social media as well.

And really that's, that becomes the core of it.

And what happens is, there's a cycle that happens.

And once you learn about the cycle and put yourself into it,

things just start to perpetuate.

So imagine those three platforms.

What that does for you is it allows you to be found.

So that's the first step, in addition to being found, you have

to be you have to be remembered.

And so there are certain strategies within each of those platforms

you can do to be remembered.

Obviously that's very important because people can find you, but if they

don't remember you, that's pointless.

Now be found, be remembered in the last one, then probably the

most important one is be shared.

And so that's where engagement comes in.

Like we talked about, we're building relationships or getting

people involved and excited or.

To have people feel like they're a part of your brand.

That's where sharing comes in handy and also just making it incredibly

easy to share your stuff too.

That's really important.

And so what happens when you're shared?

You're found again by new people who go through that same exact cycle and

in just the more content you put out that just the bigger your brand expands

and you're not just a blogger anymore.

You're not just a video person.

You're not just a podcaster, but you're this brand with.

All these, you're just a multimedia machine, and it does sound like a

lot of work from the outside, and it should, that's what it's supposed

that's the picture that it's supposed to convey, that, I'm Pat Flynn, I'm

everywhere, I'm doing all these things, however, it actually doesn't take

that much work, because what I do, say you're, say you post three times

on your website every week, Now just take one of those times each week and

turn it into a podcast episode instead.

And so each week you're posting one podcast episode, and over time you start

to collect all these little things in all these different mediums, each of

which become what I like to call a seed.

Because what you do is you plant that seed.

And when you post something on any medium, it's there for good.

And at any time people can find it and that's their entry into

your brand and into that be found, be remembered, be shared cycle.

Yeah,

that's that's incredibly important.

Incredibly important.

All of this.

Now in each episode, we like to really put in some actionable takeaways

that our listeners can take and implement in their own businesses.

I'm not going to do that in this episode.

We're going to just do something slightly different.

So you've hopped on a train a week or so ago, and you've headed

off up to San Fran, shooting some video, your blog has gone down.

The week pass and the blog comes back.

But one thing is missing is all your affiliate sales.

Affiliates no longer exist, so this is almost like a John Dumas, new

planet, exactly the same as Earth type

of thing.

Okay, so something happened like in the universe where there was no

such thing as affiliate marketing

anymore.

Exactly right, you've got your listeners, you've got your subscribers

because you are everywhere.

But you're now left with the issue of not being able to produce

an income to feed your family.

How would you go about finding this

income?

Now, I was promoting all these different products.

I actually, if you go to my income reports, you can see that I promote

maybe 30 to 40 different products that I do accept an affiliate

commission for on the site.

That wouldn't change.

I would still promote the exact same products because those

are the same products that are going to be helpful to people.

I just don't have an affiliate relationship with those companies anymore.

Does that make sense?

It certainly does.

Okay.

Because, again, I'm worried about the end goal of the user.

Instead of producing money through affiliate marketing, because I can't

anymore, even though those products are still there, I can create my own product.

And I think that is something that would take a little bit of time, of course, and

that's why I love affiliate marketing, because it takes less, it takes less

time and I don't have to worry as much about customer service or creating

landing pages or any of that stuff.

stuff delivery, that's all up to the company that, that I'm promoting, but

I would spend the time to make sure that I create this amazing product

that's going to help people and walk people through step by step how to do

everything that I feel they should do and organize all the information that's

all on my site into an easy step by step maybe modular type of program.

Which actually I'm working on right now that's what I would do now if

that wasn't possible, for example, if it wasn't possible for me to

make my own product at that time.

Maybe I don't have that skill.

What I would do is look at the skills that I do have and see

who else might benefit from.

Using those skills.

So what actually, what I would do is, and really this answers the question,

what do I need to do if I need to make money now, which I know is like the

million dollar question, like I, and it's tough when I get those emails, cause I

do get those emails from people saying really, very emotional things, almost

in desperation because they may be.

They're short sale on the house or, they'll, they lost something or whatever.

And I feel for those people and it's hard because when I, when

they're, when they ask me, How do I start a business and earn money?

I need money in a month.

It's hard to answer those people because that's not, it's possible.

It is possible, of course, but it's not likely.

And I am always trying to be honest and upfront with people.

And I typically say, starting your own business and hoping to earn a sizable

income in a month is nearly impossible.

It's not impossible, but it's nearly impossible, but there are things

you can do to help yourself, get back on your feet to start to earn

an income much sooner, and that is.

Freelancing, and I think a lot of people discount freelancing, seeing it

as like a, like half entrepreneurial type status, but I absolutely think

it's absolutely necessary it because.

If it makes sense for you and your life and where you're at now, and if you do

need money right away, you can take the skills that you have and give it to those

not give it but ask people who may need those same services and work with them.

For instance, if I were a writer and I just need to make money now,

I would search for people who need excellent writers and, require a

fee for any number of articles that they may need, that they may need.

And in addition to getting money right away for doing that stuff.

And of course, you have to learn how to market yourself a little bit.

And of course, the relationships that you have with people is what's

going to help you even further.

If you already have those relationships, I, really, if you think about me

and my situation if I wasn't able to do affiliate marketing or create

products, I, and, but I still had those relationships I have with people, it

would be really easy for me to say, Hey, network, or, people, I am happy to

do any work for you that you may like.

This is what I'm good at, this is how much I charge, I'm willing to negotiate, let's

figure something out if you need help.

And boom, I would get a ton of people who would potentially need

my help for, writing or marketing or consultation or, graphic design or

web programming or any of that stuff.

So taking the skills that you have in freelancing, and what that does is,

especially if you're just Beginning that puts you in the world to which

you can learn how to do other things where you can branch off of and

become your own entrepreneur later.

Yeah,

definitely.

And I think one thing particularly people getting into it is that

they're almost allergic to dealing with customers on a one on one basis.

They want to affect many lives straight away, but there really isn't

any difference between affecting

many and affecting one.

Yeah, you have to start with one in order to affect many, I think.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

All right, Pat.

That's fantastic.

Let's go a little bit into the upcoming release of let go.

So why did you decide to write

this?

It's funny.

I was actually in the middle of writing another book called be everywhere

that I had finished about 25, 000 words for and I had planned to finish

it by the time my daughter was born.

However, my daughter came three weeks early and then I had lost the

chance to complete it because I, I.

I, at least, need long blocks of time in order to get in the

right mindset to write a book.

It takes me, it takes quite a bit of energy and focus

for me to do it, at least.

And so I, that book is still there.

Halfway or more than halfway finished.

But then, A few months ago, I got an email from someone who talked about

this new platform called Snippet.

Said they were looking for entrepreneurs and potential authors and just

wanted to see if I was interested.

And I was like, oh I had this book already that I feel weird starting a new book

in the middle of writing another one.

But...

After I learned about the capabilities of this platform and what it can do, I had to

jump on the chance because, I would have, I would be, and I am one of the first

featured authors on, on this platform.

And, when do people get an opportunity to say that who's

the first author for Amazon?

That, that's awesome.

And who knows if this is going to be an Amazon or not.

I don't know, but it's an amazing opportunity and so I wanted to jump on it.

And I thought the platform and what it can do and its capabilities was the perfect

platform for me to share in detail.

My emotional story from how I got laid off to now becoming a very

proud Self employed entrepreneur and how I've been helping others.

And so the story is called let go it's a double meaning You know let go because

I was let go from architecture But also let go because in order to get to where

I'm at now I had to let go of that path that I was told to be on good grades

College, dream job, 401k all that stuff that, that just got taken away from me.

I had to let go of that because that's what I wanted to work for so long.

And also letting go of the fears that I had when starting my own stuff.

And so that, that's where the book.

Name comes from and it's an idea I had for a book for a really long time

And it just seemed like the perfect platform because what a snippet

is it combines a book and a blog?

It's a book in a way that it's made up of chapters and you know There's text

and stuff but each chapter is limited to a thousand words so what that does is

it makes each chapter really digestible and easy to consume and it keeps the

story or the whatever the books about moving really fast and it incorporates

multimedia, so it also includes audio.

It includes video, slideshows within the book and also social media,

which is what got me really excited.

So imagine you're reading a book and.

In the middle of the book, there is a hashtag conversation going on about

whatever that topic is, and people talking about it, and you can actually

add to the conversation right there in the book, or imagine they call these

discoverables, the different multimedia's in there, so when you read it, it's

just text, but then you'll see these little icons that you can push that,

that, Just add more depth to the story.

So you might see a video pop up talking or describing whatever is happening in

detail that you're already reading You know again with social media, which is

really exciting for me you can share those discoverables on social media

and then it includes a link to go Buy the snippet for whoever's sees that

tweet or that Facebook share, or you can actually highlight a particular

passage in a book and share that as well, which I thought was really cool.

And yeah so with the story, I had written it about two weeks.

It was fairly easy to write because it was my own story be everywhere.

I was only halfway through and that took three months.

So it's a little bit different as far as that's concerned.

But then, I realized what the capabilities were of this platform.

And I was like, okay, I can't do any of this myself.

I need to bring on a team.

So I actually hired a videographer to help me with the discoverables and the

trailers and stuff like that in the book.

And also, a producer.

Who is managing everything, because there's so many moving parts to it.

But again, I'm really honored and privileged to be a part of this

brand new platform, which is coming out on Monday March 18th and it's

just, I'm just really excited yeah.

And I don't know what to expect, who knows how maybe it won't do very well,

I don't know, but it's just been such a privilege to be a part of this and to be

able to share my story, and in, in the book, there's a lot of really interesting

things that I know a lot of people were wondering about, for instance, there's

an interview with my wife on there, and, we talked to her about what she was

thinking when I was getting laid off, and what was going through her head, we

talked to my dad in an interview who is a very traditional guy who, worked the

same job for 45 years and then retired.

And what his thoughts were when I got laid off, because he

wanted me to go back to school.

And then we film on location in San Francisco where I landed

my first architecture job.

We film on location where I had my very first mastermind meeting where I was told

to write that ebook that sold really well.

So it's just going to be really fun, very personal.

Memoir about what happened and I'm hoping that it just inspires people

to get off their, the their butts and do something because there's

so many opportunities out there.

And really, I want people to just let go of what other people told them to

do and just do stuff for themselves.

That's fantastic.

This platform snippet, it's such a great fit, A, for you and your Be Everywhere

strategy because it's combining all these different forms of multimedia.

So it's also a fantastic fit for this episode as well, because again,

the premise of the show is to be on the different forms of multimedia.

So this snippet seems to be appealing to exactly what we're talking about here.

It's cool.

It's incredible.

So our listeners can go check that out.

Where's the best address to check out

that?

Yeah, it'll be pat Flynn dot me slash let go.

And that'll, there'll be a big button there where you can go and get

instructions for, how the platform works.

And, at the time of this recording, I actually haven't even seen it yet on the

final, on an iPad yet or on a phone yet.

And so it's going to be really interesting to see how it works

out and what it looks like.

And I can't wait to share it and, it's technology so things could go wrong and

it's a brand new platform who knows, a brand new startup and things happen,

but I'm praying for a good launch and a just a good response from all the

readers and I don't even know what to call them readers, watchers, listeners.

Consumers or I don't know,

An audience.

There you go.

Listeners will include all the links to everything we've

spoken about in the show notes pad.

I've got one final question for you.

What do you see your title as you're explaining what you do to

somebody who knows nothing about the online space or anything.

What would your

title be?

That's so funny you ask that because every time somebody asks me, I

ended up saying something different.

Every time and I do have my foot in many pools, I am an iPhone application

I an owner of an iPhone application company also which we didn't talk about.

I am an author, I am a podcaster, a blogger, a business owner.

I can sum it up as an online serial entrepreneur, but when I say that,

even just hearing myself say it now, I'm like, what does that mean exactly?

So I just.

I say, I do business online and I help people in various ways and typically I'll

get people asking me how, and then I'll go into the different examples like the

green exam academy where I help people pass as I am in architecture industry.

I have a smart passive income in the blog.

I talk about business and online business strategies.

I have a podcast that goes along with it.

I have a security guard training website, teaches people how

to become a security guard.

And by that point, they're like.

Okay.

Serial entrepreneur.

I get it.

All right, Pat, I really appreciate you coming on the show.

This has been an amazing episode.

I'm sure our listeners will get a lot out of it.

So thank you very much for taking the time.

My

absolute pleasure.

Thank you, Jake.

And

I wish you every success and I'm looking forward

to getting my hands on a copy of

let go.

All right.

Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it, Jake.