Be wary of business advice that suggests you should focus your time as a brand on one social media platform.

It’s conventional wisdom. It sounds good. “Be great at one instead of spreading yourself out too thin.” It assumes the only options are dominating at one thing or creating lots of bad content.

It’s a lot like the Quality vs. Quantity debate. It’s framed as either doing fewer of something really well or creating lots of garbage. These aren’t your only options.

This often comes from old school marketers who found success that way. I was one of them. I understand it. I also understand the underlying fear and motivation for maintaining that focus.

I am your cautionary tale. I have the scars to prove it.

You don’t have to be everywhere. That’s not realistic. But you need to diversify your social media presence as much as you can.

Let me explain…

My Rise

I started my business in 2011. I focused my time on my Facebook page, this website, and my email list.

Things took off surprisingly quickly considering I had very little idea what I was doing. From the years of 2013 to 2017, my business reached levels I never could have dreamed of.

During that time, I dabbled in YouTube. I started a podcast but would eventually lose focus. I never touched my Instagram account except as an ad placement. I only used Twitter to share links I read. And I avoided LinkedIn.

When they emerged, I had no interest in SnapChat, TikTok, or any of the other up-and-coming apps. I had my primary focus.

This worked just fine during those years. But it wouldn’t last forever.

My Fall

As we all know, organic impact with Facebook would plummet. This wasn’t a quick, obvious change. I wouldn’t notice it immediately. But over time, I went from getting thousands of website referrals from a single post to double digits.

Facebook ads got more expensive. In the early days, I thrived on micro-targeting and top-of-the-funnel campaigns to drive traffic. That eventually wouldn’t be nearly as cost effective.

Likely a combination of these two things and other factors, my Google search referrals fell from 14,000 per day at its peak to about 1,400. While many businesses would love to have 1,400 daily search referrals, it was a far cry from where I was.

For a few years, I was in denial that any of this mattered. I still had a huge email list. I still had my customers. My business may have plateaued, but I wasn’t in any kind of trouble.

So, I resisted change. I kept doing the things I was doing. My Facebook page. My website. My email list.

But slowly and silently, things got progressively worse.

Then 2020 happened, and that was not good for my business. It was all downhill from there.

Still, I felt like I could turn it around by doing more of the things I had always done. Just create more courses. Offer some deals. Write more blog posts.

It was unsustainable. I reached a point of no return. Something had to change.

The Pivot

I tried to ignore it for years. I didn’t need to be everywhere. I had nearly 200,000 followers on Facebook, after all. Why did I need to be anywhere else?

But at this point, it was blatantly obvious: I was getting left behind.

The vast majority of people who were seeing my Facebook posts, opening my emails, and visiting my website between those peak years moved on to something else. I wrongly assumed that if I kept doing what I always did that they’d stay with me — even while the world changed around us.

I started doing things that were hard. I got going on LinkedIn. Most importantly, I created my first TikTok video on September 30, 2022.

It was painful. But I knew that I had no choice. I could no longer keep doing the comfortable things. I had to be uncomfortable to get out of this hole.

Those TikTok videos finally led me into Instagram. Back to YouTube. And finally, fully embracing Threads.

The Lesson

This was a painful lesson, but it’s so incredibly clear now. And what’s hardest is that so many others don’t understand this. If I had made a conscious effort to build a meaningful presence elsewhere, this was preventable. If I had been an early adopter when new platforms emerged, I may not be in this position.

Many who push back on diversifying your social media presence are old school marketers like me. I understand it. But I worry about them because I think I may understand where that comes from.

First, there’s the matter of getting to where we are with a method that we used years ago. It’s tried and true. We assume this will keep working. There’s no guarantee it will.

Second, I can tell you the biggest thing that held me back from diversifying my presence and may be the same for others: Fear.

Fear of something new. Fear of the unknown. Fear of starting over and of looking ridiculous.

All of these things kept me from spending time on other platforms. Especially anything related to short-form video.

I know exactly what’s going through the heads of some marketers now who are resisting Threads because I was them. They see Threads as the “shiny object.” They don’t think we need to be there.

And deep down, they want it to fail. They don’t want to regret not joining that next platform. I’m certain of this because I was thinking the same thing.

Rented Land

This isn’t about “building your house on rented land.” It’s all rented land. It’s about diversifying that rented land as much as possible.

Algorithms change and will impact your distribution. Twitter turns to X. People change how they consume content. What they care about evolves.

We need to be ready for this. One way we can be ready is by being in multiple places. Focusing on one is an enormous risk.

When it comes to “rented land,” we often hear that it’s all about focusing on that one platform and driving people to the things we own. But even these things aren’t safe.

Privacy laws have changed. How people consume content has changed. Videos and short-form content are preferred to long-form blogs now. Email open rates and how people receive messages are changing.

None of this is guaranteed to last. You need to be prepared.

The Shiny Object

We often hear that you shouldn’t chase the shiny object. I’m telling you to embrace it: Chase that shiny object!

it doesn’t mean you should live a life of constant distraction. But be curious. Jump into AI. Create a Threads account. Keep trying new things.

When you diversify your presence, you may be surprised by what does well and where. You will also diversify your knowledge and make yourself more useful and well-rounded — and timeless.

A platform may not be your primary home now, but things change. How people consume content changes. Algorithms change.

That diversification gives you the ability to sustain losses and pivot in the future. It makes that pivot much, much easier. When something happens that drastically alters your impact on a platform (and it will happen), you’ll be glad that you did this.

I didn’t do this before. But I’m glad I am now.

Better late than never.

Your Turn

Are you diversifying your social media presence? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Focus or Diversify Your Social Media Presence? appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

I’ve gotta tell you, I’m really kinda fed up with the misuse and overuse of the “Don’t build your house on rented land!” rallying cry. Every time a platform changes or a feature gets taken away or Facebook goes down for eight hours, “gurus” flock to Twitter and LinkedIn and Facebook to shout: “SEE! This is why you don’t build your house on rented land!”

And it seems that absolutely everyone eats it up. “YES! You’re so right!” How do you argue with that, right? And they share and everyone else eats it up, too. It just keeps going and going…

All the while, using that rallying cry for that moment didn’t make any sense. But this is a phrase that strikes a chord for whatever reason, and people just can’t resist the attraction. It’s like marketing moths to a flame.

Let me explain…

A Thread of Truth

The “rented land” phrase is all about not relying entirely on a platform that you don’t own. You don’t own Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or YouTube, so you shouldn’t “build” your business there.

Sure, there’s some thread of truth to this. The idea is that it’s so much more important to own something — that “something” being your website or email list, in particular. While this is certainly true, the phrase is overused to apply to situations that don’t make any sense.

Facebook is shutting down Facebook Podcasts? THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON RENTED LAND! This absolutely happened, by the way. And it makes no sense because no podcaster relied entirely on Facebook.

Facebook goes down for eight hours? THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON RENTED LAND! You know, because your own website would never go down for eight hours (mine certainly has).

All the while, of course, screaming these statements from Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn — you know, from rented land! These people are building their expertise and audiences from platforms they don’t own.

The Reality

The reality is this: Having something you “own” certainly gives you more control and is more reliable. But, you need to leverage rented land to get people there.

And actually, do you know what leveraging rented land is? It’s the definition of “marketing.” You rent space where your potential audience may be with the hope of sending them to the thing that you own.

But ultimately, how much do we actually own? You own your domain. You own your content. But again, it’s about control and reliability. You rely on so many things that you don’t own to make that website work. You rely on plugins and features that are hosted elsewhere to function properly.

When Meta pulled the plug on Facebook Podcasts, I actually read a comment that said you should just host the podcast on your own website. Come on! Should you be able to find and even consume your podcast on your website? Sure! (I do this.)

But, how in the world do you expect to build your audience? No one wants to hang out on your website! They want to hang out on the rented land. That’s why we send our podcast episodes to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and Google Podcasts and Amazon Music and everywhere else. We don’t own any of these.

Ownership, Control, and Adaptability

I wouldn’t advise that you build a business entirely within a platform that you don’t own, with no rights to the customer list. That is the one, very narrow, use of the “rented land” phrase that I’ll allow (because I’m the gatekeeper, dammit!).

But, here’s a point that we all need to understand: While “ownership” may mean more control and reliability, this is really about adaptability. If Facebook shuts something down, what are you going to do next?

Hell, just because you “own” your website, it doesn’t mean it’s not at risk. What if the entire way that we consume the internet changes and your website becomes obsolete?

The same with your email list. The rules on emailing customers and subscribers are constantly changing. What if, suddenly, your email list has no value?

In the end, it matters less and less about whether you own or rent everything. What’s most important is that you’re able to adapt to whatever disruption occurs.

Your Turn

What are your thoughts?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post A Rant About Building Your House on Rented Land appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

The Hustle Culture is popular among entrepreneurs, business owners, and others within the professional ranks. If it doesn’t resonate with you, you aren’t alone.

I remember when I first got started with my own business a decade ago. I followed numerous entrepreneurs and marketers on social media. It was common to see posts from them late at night, on weekends, or during holidays, letting us know that they were working. It was a weird humble-brag of sorts.

That’s not me. For a while, I tried to fake it. But, my priorities are different.

This isn’t meant to make light of those in the Hustle Culture. Maybe you thrive on “the hustle.” You enjoy working late into the night, getting up early, working on weekends, and on the holidays. You have a certain pride in it.

That’s fine! This message isn’t meant for you.

My message has a very specific audience. It’s meant for those who feel as though the Hustle Culture is “normal,” but they don’t fit into it. That if they don’t follow along, they’re somehow abnormal.

You’re fine. You’re normal. Do not feel shame in it.

No hustle, no guilt.

There’s a reason I feel this way. There’s a reason I value time and experiences over cold, hard cash.

In this post, I’ll tell my story and how it shaped my perspective. Then, I’ll outline the mistakes I’ve made in designing my lifestyle, how I’m correcting those mistakes, and how you can apply what I’ve learned.

My Son Michael

It was 2003. I was 28. My wife Lisa and I had a very typical life. We were scraping by, trying to provide for our small family. Our son, Michael, was two-years-old and Lisa was pregnant at the time with what would be our second son, Ryan.

Michael was two years-old

After dealing with some breathing issues for months that doctors couldn’t pinpoint, Michael was given an x-ray. There, our biggest fears were realized. A mass in his chest.

“It’s cancer.”

Our little guy. Cancer. How was this possible? Our lives stopped.

Michael had neuroblastoma. Typically a bad prognosis, but he was lucky. He had a golfball-sized tumor lodged between his aorta and spine. A very delicate surgery would be needed to remove it, but the doctors were confident that the cancer hadn’t spread.

It was a frightening time. Knowing we couldn’t protect him from this monster. But that we’d do everything we could to rid him of it. And Michael, meanwhile, oblivious to everything.

Impact on Perspective

The surgery would be successful. Michael would require countless scans over the coming years. We’d get the occasional scare after eating bananas would lead to elevated numbers and he’d need to be retested.

But, Michael is a fully healthy, super-smart, young adult now. He’s a junior in college at Texas Tech and is studying to be an orthopedic surgeon. He’s an amazing human, and I’m so proud of him.

Not surprisingly, our experience with Michael’s health completely changed all of us. And, surely, the experience impacted Michael, and it’s a big reason he is who he is today.

After Michael, his brothers Ryan and JJ would eventually enter the world. While his brothers weren’t around to go through it (and Michael only has the physical scars), Lisa and I will never forget.

Michael (in the middle) and brothers today

The little accomplishments, ceremonies, and growth matter so much more now. Everything our kids do gets me emotional and puts me on the verge of happy tears. Always, in the back of my mind, I think of this period in our lives.

Once we went through this as a family, none of the stuff I previously obsessed over or cared so much about seemed to matter anymore. When given the chance to have some say in my career, I took it.

I didn’t want to waste valuable hours on the road commuting to and from work every day.

I didn’t want to travel the world speaking at conferences and meeting with clients.

I wanted my kids to be comfortable. I wanted to experience life with them as much as I could. I wanted to coach their baseball teams (I even started a team for them!).

Bottom line, I wanted to take full advantage of evenings, weekends, summers, and holidays. Not, of course, for “hustling,” but for sharing experiences with my kids.

It’s not that we don’t know that these things are important. We all have a big, life-changing experience like this at some point. When it happens, it helps hit you in the face and reminds you about what is truly important.

I got hit hard. How I would live my life no longer felt like an option.

Designing My Business

Once I was laid off for the second time in 2011, I had to make some choices. I had been working from home for the previous three years. This was a desire of mine, inspired mostly by Michael.

It was an easy decision. Every day, we’d walk our kids to school. As a family. Every day, I’d see them when they returned. I’d attend school events. I’d rarely miss anything.

So, having a taste of this lifestyle, I knew I couldn’t start working in the city again. I certainly couldn’t move our family again for a job. I had done that already when we moved across the country to take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the NBA.

Once my business became a “business” I started to take more control over it. I was never the boss before, and suddenly I made the decisions that would impact everything.

Soon, opportunities started coming in. Requests for my time. Potential partnerships. Work offers. Eventually, I would need to prioritize.

After a period of people-pleasing, that prioritization soon became easy. Decisions were based in my core values. My vision for the life I wanted to live.

Does doing this thing energize me? Does it conflict with my desire to spend more time with my kids? Will it take me from them?

Hustle Culture opposed everything I wanted to build. And my vision for what was and wasn’t important made saying “no” so easy.

My Mistake

Something I’ve realized this year was that I may have over-adjusted instead of joining the Hustle Culture. I was on a constant quest to delegate and work less. My plan was to one day take the summer off.

And so, I worked less. I accomplished less. I felt less needed and less productive.

And if we’re to be honest, my wife and family didn’t need me to be around all the time. And I was around all the time.

The problem with the Hustle Culture, for me, is less about working hard and more about the lack of balance. Well, I overcorrected and lacked balance going the other way.

By doing less, I was missing out on all of the things that made me feel so good during the first few years of my business. The struggle. The goals. The accomplishment.

Working hard feels good. It’s how I feel accomplishment. It’s exciting to see the results of that hard work.

But I can certainly work hard while working smarter. A big part of that is learning to plan better. To schedule my day. To respect the time I’ve set aside for my family. To take advantage of the time I set aside to work, bust my butt during that time, and bank content when I can.

If I don’t work hard during the window I’ve set aside for it, the impact spills over. I don’t feel as good about myself. I’m distracted by what wasn’t accomplished. I can’t enjoy that time with my family as much as I should.

These were really important lessons that I fully believe I’ve learned from. I’ve already started applying these lessons and I’ll continue to apply them long-term in 2022.

Design It

I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to design my business around the life I want to live. The fact that I overcorrected was a good problem that most people don’t have the chance to experience.

If you’re hoping to run a business that fits the life you want to live, I have a few recommendations on how you might design it.

First, make a list of your priorities that have nothing to do with business. These are things you will build around. They aren’t the things you’ll do “if you have time.” You will make time for them.

For me, I prioritize the following:

• Baseball (coaching, watching my kids play, practicing with them, taking them to lessons)
• Weekends
• Summers (usually baseball!)
• Time with my family (games, experiences, vacations)
• Mental and physical health (sleep, meditation, reading, running)

The things on this list all take time. But, I won’t skip them. Business has suffered, at times, as a result. But, that’s a choice I have made and it’s a result I accept.

Allow your priorities to shape your choices. To shape your opportunities.

If you have a clear vision of what is important to you and what you stand for, you will suddenly have a clear vision of what is a good opportunity and what is a bad one.

It will become so much easier to say no.

Prioritize these things, and take advantage of the time you set aside for work. Be productive. Create a routine. Plan. Knock out your work early, if you can.

Another lesson I’ve finally come to accept is that procrastination does not work. For my entire life, I convinced myself that procrastination was my process. That I thrived off of it.

The reality is that it creates more stress. It’s a built-in excuse for not getting done today what can be put off until tomorrow.

Your Turn

Admittedly, this was a very wordy way of saying that you shouldn’t feel guilty if you don’t buy into the Hustle Culture. Work hard. Find clarity in what is important to you. And build your business around it, if you can.

Anything you’d add? Let me know in the comments below!

The post No Hustle, No Guilt appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

I hit my 10-year anniversary in business recently, which has given me the opportunity to do a lot of reflecting on the unique journey I’ve had to get here. I was happy to join Shane Sams on The Shane Sams show to provide background on how my business came to be (and a whole lot more).

You can listen to the full episode below. Go here to subscribe to The Shane Sams Show on Apple Podcasts.

Shane is an awesome interviewer, and he did a great job pulling out all of the little highlights that led me to where I am today. When I say we talked about everything, I’m not joking. Here are a few of the things we covered:

• My love of baseball, coaching baseball, and the 1982 Brewers (and the ridiculous @TweetsFrom1982 feed)
• Getting prepared for everything and nothing with a Philosophy degree
• The value of doing jobs you hate (telemarketing and insurance)
• How I ended up working for the NBA, overseeing Fantasy Games
• Working in the non-profit world and getting laid off twice
• The pivotal experiences that shaped me
• Lifechanging experience of childhood cancer in our family
• Why I never would have started a business without the desperation of a layoff
• Making it by without a product for the first year
• Finding a niche where people will pay for my knowledge
• Launching your first product
• CREATE, CREATE, CREATE
• The importance of free time
• The balance between free time and feeling needed and productive
• The power of delegation and building a team

It’s a lot! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did telling it.

The Pubcast

If you missed it, I’ve been reflecting on my first 10 years on The Pubcast (my podcast!) lately, too. You can listen to that series of episodes below.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PUBCAST ON ITUNES HERE

THE FIRST 10 DAYS

I had been laid off for the second time in 2 1/2 years. I didn’t know I wanted to start a business. The only thing I knew to do was buy a domain.

THE FIRST MONTH

I was looking for a job. I was writing. I didn’t know what I was going to do with this website, but I knew that I needed to find income quickly.

MONTHS 2-7

I write and write and write. I make some mistakes. I start generating a ton of traffic, and I find a few ways to monetize that traffic.

MONTHS 8-12

I finally started seeing consistent traffic (I published 134 posts during that stretch). While I had yet to create a product, I explore my early learnings from starting a podcast and initial methods of driving revenue.

YEAR 2

It was a pivotal and active year in every respect. I wrote 277 blog posts this year, finding a niche in advanced Facebook marketing and advertising. I started interviewing industry experts, hosting a podcast, and launching products.

YEAR 3

Traffic exploded. I found monthly recurring revenue and I tackled my fear of public speaking.

MY STRUGGLES

There are unique challenges I was not prepared for, and many of the struggles I faced were self-inflicted if not partly by design.

The post My Story: The Experiences That Shaped My Business appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Eight years ago, I was laid off for the second time in two years. I had no experience in starting a business. I didn’t even know that I wanted to start a business. All I knew was that I couldn’t remain at an employer’s mercy.

I was the only source of income in a house of five as we raised three growing boys. The pressure was on. Stress was high. I was an emotional wreck.

Eight years later, I remain the only source of income in my home. All of that income was earned as a business owner.

It’s been an insane ride. I still struggle to believe that this is my life. But I’ve learned so much along the way.

The Solopreneur Project was created to tell that story.

[Subscribe to the Solopreneur Project Now!]

My Why

The foundation of this project is understanding why you are doing what you’re doing. It’s about giving yourself direction, motivation, and permission. When you have that foundation, decision making crystalizes.

Our oldest son is a cancer survivor. A golfball-sized tumor was found lodged between his aorta and spine at the age of two and a half. It forever changed our perspective and what was important to us.

I’m done wasting time. Wasting time on unnecessary phone calls. Wasting time fighting through traffic. And wasting time sitting in pointless meetings.

Whatever I did was going to be on my terms. It was going to help me build a business around what was important.

I’m not motivated to make the most money or be famous. I’m motivated by the prospect of free time, spending more of it with my family.

Who Is This For?

The Solopreneur Project is for people with a business model similar to mine.

• You focus on online content creation (blog, video, podcast)
• You sell a digital product (training or memberships)
• You teach how to do something through tutorials
• You build an email list

You could be successful or struggling to find that success. You may be established or just about to get going.

This project is for people who deal with the unique challenges of being a solopreneur.

What Is the Solopreneur Project?

The Solopreneur Project is a simple email campaign. It’s completely free. None of the content lives on my website or any website. Every day, you’ll get a different email.

It is still being built, but here is what it looks like at the moment:

1. My “Big Why”
2. Create without judgment
3. Does it energize you?
4. The freedom to say “NO”
5. Establish your core values
6. Following the crowd
7. Something you own
8. Create a routine
9. Evergreen vs. Nevergreen
10. The Hustle Fallacy
11. The permission
12. An evolution: Will they pay for it?
13. On pricing
14. On discounts
15. Misfits and how they hurt your business
16. The loneliness of going solo

At the end of many of these emails, I give you a short assignment. You can share the results with me or not. But the purpose is to keep you on task and help you assemble your direction and purpose.

Why Am I Doing This?

It’s been eight years! During the past couple, I’ve been looking for a way to share what I’ve learned as a solopreneur. I’ve written some blog posts about entrepreneurship. Last year, we experimented with a private community for entrepreneurs.

Eight years from now, will I be writing about Facebook ads? What will the state of Facebook even be? These questions are major motivators for me.

I am in a position to share information that could help a lot of people. Ultimately, my goal is to make an impact.

I don’t have any special training. As a result, one mental obstacle for me was always was the belief I wasn’t qualified to start a business. I was wrong.

I’m not saying that doing this is easy. And there is a long list of challenges that we face as solopreneurs that most people don’t understand. But you can do this, too.

The Solopreneur Project is completely free. One reason I’m doing it is to see where it takes me. I’m using tactics to create this project that I discuss in the project itself.

It may lead to a new product or a new community. I’m doing this to learn whether that’s possible. Your feedback will help me learn more about how I can help you.

Join Me!

If you’re not a solopreneur, that’s fine! Ignore this post (although you got this far, sheesh!).

But, if it feels like this post was written with you in mind, I’d love to have you along for the ride. Let’s figure this out together.

Subscribe to the Solopreneur Project Now!

The post The Solopreneur Project appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: I recently hit the seven-year anniversary of being laid off for the second time and starting this journey. Following is my reflection.]

Seven years ago.

Seven years ago, I had just been laid off for the second time in two years.

Seven years ago, my best guess about what I’d be doing today would be nowhere near reality. Give me the time to list every possible scenario, and I’d shoot off a combination of optimism and realism…

Work for a non-profit.

Work in marketing.

Work in sports.

Work in game development.

It’s gotta be one of those four. And who knows where I’d be. Seven years ago, we were in Colorado. But where would we be now? East coast? West coast? Midwest?

One thing would be certain: I’d have an employer. And if my career trends continued, I likely had two or three employers during those seven years. And I may have even been laid off again.

I had never worked for a single company or done one thing for five years. Why would the next seven years be any different?

As I compiled that hypothetical list, I’d likely reserve the most optimistic guess for last. It would be last because it would be so unlikely…

WORK FOR MYSELF.

Sounds amazing. Find more time with my family. Watch my kids grow up. Participate in their lives. Coach their baseball teams. Have control over my schedule. Own my time.

Just so unlikely. I wasn’t trained to start a business. I was a freaking philosophy major, after all. And I had never shown the initiative or drive to not only start a business but succeed at it.

Okay, maybe I’d try it. Maybe I’d throw something at the wall. I had long thought of creating a fantasy games product. Maybe I’d do that. But succeed? Still ticking without a boss seven years later, and it’s not because I’d hit rock bottom?

Maybe others could have believed it. But following two layoffs in two years and confidence in the toilet, there’s no way that I believed it.

It’s difficult to explain. But I guess I should put that college major to good use and get philosophical about it.

It’s been an amazing, fulfilling, eye-opening ride. I’ve learned so much about myself along the way. Most importantly, I’ve learned how I was my own worst enemy — that my own beliefs about myself and my capabilities prevented me from doing what I wanted.

So… Why am I still doing this today? Why am I my own boss, and not answering to someone else?

SUPPORT

I could have never done this alone. Others can. But I was not in a place where it would have been possible for me.

It started with my wife, Lisa. She was insanely patient with me as I blew through our savings while waiting for the perfect job opportunity that would never come. She embraced the idea of risking it all to do something different. And now, she’s my business partner.

But there have been so many more whose support has been critical to my own sanity and growth. John Robinson started as a friendly voice of emotional support as I navigated this new world. Today, he is an official part of the team.

Local business owners and friends kept me busy in the early days. They encouraged me. They provided ideas and contacts to keep me experimenting.

Dozens and dozens of marketers — from those who reached high levels to those who were still struggling like I was — were there to help with kind words, provide connections, and give needed constructive criticism.

A growing and evolving team surrounded me to keep this crazy business buzzing and moving forward. Their patience with my quirks and uncomfortable leadership, their willingness to help and contribute throughout the chaos are sincerely appreciated.

Andrew Foxwell reached out to me during a time when I was much more likely to read and respond to my emails (I’m terrible at that now). But he caught my eye early as someone who was selfless and smart and funny. His friendship and contributions to my communities, training, and content have been a huge boost.

And I can’t ignore the support from my reading audience. While I don’t always respond, your feedback and kind words keep me going. Passion and motivation are so much easier to find when you know that you’re making a difference in people’s lives.

There’s a long, long list of people I could name individually here. Ultimately, I’d forget or not have the room for too many important names. I haven’t forgotten.

DESPERATION

After that second layoff, I could physically feel the pressure of having to provide. My ability or inability to make a living would determine whether we could stay in our house, would need to find a new school and neighborhood, or whether my wife would need to go back into the workforce.

With each passing day without a paycheck, the pressure increased. While I attempted to keep a positive outward appearance, I was truly desperate.

I HAD to make this work. I had to make SOMETHING work. I can’t sit around the house forever. Eventually, things will be taken from us. Our lives will need to change dramatically.

Every moment of inactivity was accompanied by guilt. Rest? Relax? Sleep? How could I? What kind of parent and husband am I?

As awful as those first six to nine months were, I survived. And it was that desperation that forced me outside of my comfort zone to do things I wouldn’t normally do.

For years, I dreamed of starting some sort of business (nothing that ever would have worked, in all likelihood) when I had the comfort of employment. I truly believe that it was the desperation of unemployment that allowed it to happen.

COMMITMENT

I’m not going to lie to you and say that I was “hustling” and working 24 hours per day, eight days per week. That’s not what this “commitment” block is about.

It’s about doing — writing, creating, experimenting, and failing brilliantly — while there are few signs of progress. When there is every reason to wave the white flag and give up.

Looking back, my strengths and weaknesses allowed me to take a path that eventually led to success. I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. I wasn’t a comfortable salesman, so I didn’t create a product until near the end of the first year.

I firmly believe that this seemingly irrational commitment to content set the foundation for the business that still exists today. It laid the groundwork for building an email list and creating paid products. Without that content, I don’t know that I’d still be here.

STUBBORNNESS

On the surface, I may have seemed lazy in the initial months after being laid off. I rarely applied for a job. And when I did, I put very little effort behind following up and trying to make it happen.

Why? Deep down, I didn’t want it to work.

After years in the insurance industry doing crap that I hated (REALLY hated), I was spoiled for about five years doing a couple of pretty amazing jobs.

I managed fantasy games for the NBA for three seasons. Ridiculous. I worked as VP of Strategic Marketing for the American Cancer Society, following a cause that hits close to home (our oldest son is a cancer survivor).

So I didn’t want to settle for your typical, boring job. You know, the kind of job that 99.9% of people do. I was stubborn. Maybe a little crazy. But it’s a good thing.

Without this stubbornness, I’m sure I would have taken a job doing something that would have left me unsatisfied. I would have put dreams of doing my own thing on the back burner to simmer and eventually be forgotten.

LUCK

I find that it’s common among entrepreneurs to allow ego to take full credit for success. “You create your own luck,” as the saying goes. But I find this to be complete trash.

I’d be an ignorant fool if I didn’t acknowledge the contribution of luck in my life. I’ve been extremely lucky.

That string of luck starts nearly 20 years ago…

As mentioned earlier, I started my career in the insurance industry. I was not a good employee. I did not enjoy my job. In that way, I was probably pretty normal.

So, what did I do? I wasted time on the clock doing things that made me happy. I was obsessed with fantasy games. I used company time to manage my teams and, ultimately, contribute to fantasy sports-related websites.

That deviance nearly got me fired (it should have). But it also got me noticed. It led to connections and likely the most amazing two and a half years of employment I’ll ever have while with the NBA. And it’s this experience and the contacts from it that forced others to take me seriously in the years following.

Most importantly? It was my first exposure to Facebook in 2007 (!). And while it was early, it was my first exposure to Facebook from a business perspective.

If I hadn’t been a horrible employee while working in insurance, I never would have worked for the NBA. If I had never worked for the NBA, I wouldn’t have had that first exposure to Facebook. If I hadn’t had that first exposure to Facebook…

What would I be doing today?

WHAT ABOUT THE NEXT SEVEN YEARS?

The bottom line is this: Don’t trap yourself with your own beliefs about limitations.

I had a belief that I was incapable of starting a business. I had a belief that I didn’t have what it took. I was wrong.

It’s not because there’s anything particularly special about me. I was wrong because I made incorrect assumptions about what it took and what I was capable of.

So, what will I be doing seven years from now? I don’t know. Given the crazy paths my life has taken so far, I’m an example of how we can do things that we think aren’t possible.

If you’re limiting yourself with your own self-doubts, stop. Those doing what you want to do don’t have it all figured out. They don’t necessarily have any magical skill or experience that you lack. They’ve likely benefitted from opportunities and luck and their own stubbornness.

Put your head down and create. Experiment, fail brilliantly, and discover your own potential for the first time.

The post Fail Brilliantly: Seven Years Later appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

On this day in 2011, my life changed dramatically. I didn’t know it at the time, but the change was for the better.

I was laid off on August 18, 2011, and it was my second layoff in about two years. Confidence was at an all-time low. Pressure to produce for my wife and three boys was at an all-time high.

I could never have dreamed on that day that six years later I’d be boss-less. Well, I’d likely assume unemployment was a possibility. But not a business of my own that would not only succeed but sustain that long.

I’m not your prototypical entrepreneur, by any stretch of the imagination. You may think of overachievers. Hyperactive personalities. Extroverts. Work over sleep. None of these words and phrases describe me.

I feel incredibly lucky.

My wife Lisa has supported me throughout the crazy. She remained patient while my lack of paycheck could have been interpreted as laziness and refusal to work.

I’ve had jobs, experiences, friends, acquaintances, support system, privileges, and education that all helped make this possible.

Six years ago, our oldest son was 10. He’s now driving. Six years ago, I felt like a mid-30s kid still trying to grow up. Maybe even resisting adulthood.

I had no vision. I had no grand idea for what I was going to create. There was no business plan.

I just started to write…

This is where you expect me to write about how I became rich and famous. About how I make six figures when I sleep at night, and “here are the three steps so you can do it, too.”

Wealth and fame may motivate some, but it’s never been interesting to me. I measure wealth in time, freedom, flexibility. Time with family. Freedom to do what I want. Flexibility to control my own hours.

By that definition, you’re damn right I’m rich.

I walked my youngest son to school this morning, and I’ll pick him up when he’s done. I spend more time coaching my middle son’s baseball team than I do worrying about work. My wife and I spend so much time together that she gets sick of me.

And it’s glorious.

This new life of freedom still has its challenges. It’s not perfect. I have regular battles and struggles that are unique to this type of life.

After six years of this, here is a sampling of the important lessons I’ve learned…

Have Patience

That first year was rough. The first six months were even worse. It felt as though I was going nowhere. Progress was difficult to spot, and each step forward seemed to be followed by a step back.

You aren’t going to figure this out overnight. Progress may be slow. Have realistic goals and expectations.

So much of why I’m bossless today is because I didn’t let early failures ruin me. It could have easily happened. I was certainly close to that place. There are times when I still get low.

Impatience leads to a negative outlook. Dissatisfaction. Eventually, you’ll want to give up.

Don’t do it. Be reasonable about your goals. Be fair to yourself and your ability to reach those goals.

Keep Grinding

Going on your own can be overwhelming. There are so many things you can do, so many products you can create, so many tools you should use, so much advice you can take. The result is often paralyzation.

Paralyzation defined much of the early part of my journey. There are so many ways to go, and you don’t know where to start. The easiest thing to do: Nothing.

Progress happens when I create. So what if no one reads that blog post? Write. So what if no one attends that webinar? Host it. So what if no one buys that product? Launch it.

Irrational fear keeps us from trying. But the reality is that we learn something valuable with each new attempt. We learn about what worked and what didn’t, and we make it better next time.

If we’re constantly sitting back, waiting for whatever we’re thinking about doing to be perfect, we’ll never get anything done.

Keep grinding. Fight through the doubt and urge to do nothing.

Keep creating. The joy of helping even one person will be worth it.

Keep failing. It won’t be perfect. The more you fail, the more valuable experiences you’ll have.

Keep learning. Read, try, and experiment. Make yourself and your business better through knowledge.

Take Care of Yourself

You can sleep until noon if you want. Skip breakfast. Eat Skittles for lunch. Watch every episode of Game of Thrones in your underwear.

Who’s stopping you? You don’t have a boss. YEAH! You don’t have a boss! You do what you want!

As someone who’s done it, don’t. It’s not worth it. After 16 days of Skittles, you’ll begin to regret it.

Try to sleep like a normal human. Eat good meals. Don’t forget to exercise. Remember: Your business depends on you. You’re its most important asset!

Solitude is Hard

In the beginning, it’s pretty awesome not having a boss. There are other perks like not having that annoying co-worker around, too. But eventually, it can get awfully quiet.

During the summer months, it’s a party in the Loomer house. All of the kids are around. They want me to play catch in the front yard or play Uno while we watch a mid-afternoon movie.

Then they go to school… Crickets.

No work gossip. No complaining about a project. No office pranks.

It’s one of those things that no one really prepared me for. Working out of my dark basement gets quiet and lonely. And it can suck.

Find a way to remain social. Online social activity can help, but only until you fall in a rabbit hole of comments on a political post (DON’T READ THE COMMENTS, DAMMIT!). Get a hobby. Make friends. Do something.

Coaching baseball helps for me. I set up a daily call with John Robinson. I also go out to lunch every Friday with my wife.

It still gets lonely, but it’s a start.

Create a Routine

You don’t have a boss. No one is telling you what to do. There are a million things you can do today. Where do you start?

I’ll freely admit that I am not an organized person. I’m done feeling embarrassed about it. It’s who I am. I’m not changing. “Winging it” is a skill of mine. I can procrastinate like it’s an Olympic event.

But some structure is necessary. Every day, there’s one task that is primary. It needs to get done. If I get other stuff done, great.

Monday is for my PHC – Entrepreneurs Facebook Live. Tuesday is for training program lessons. Wednesday is for my weekly PHC – Elite weekly webinar. Thursday is for one-on-ones. Friday is for blogging, but it’s otherwise my free day.

That doesn’t mean I don’t do anything else on those days, but having that structure makes me more focused without the overwhelm.

Get Help

When you’re starting your own business, it’s easy to try and do too much. You know what’s best, and you’re trying to save money, so you do it all yourself.

Just stop this madness.

I was a designer, programmer, customer service agent, and podcast editor in the beginning. And I was terrible at these things.

Hire people whose expertise is in your weakness. Find people who are experts in the things that you hate to do.

It will save you a ton of time so that you can focus your energy on the important tasks associated with growing the business.

Balance Involvement with Personal Value

There’s a big potential pitfall associated with getting help. I was not prepared for it.

Once I passed off the things I didn’t want to do, I suddenly felt less valuable. I felt out of the loop. It sapped my inspiration.

Example: I don’t like handling customer service. I can get 99 friendly emails, but the one angry message ruins my day. By passing off that duty, I no longer need to deal with the angry messages. But I also don’t see the nice ones.

Those nice messages make my day. They keep me motivated. They provide inspiration and make me feel like I’m making a difference.

My point? Find a balance. Get help while also making sure that the value you provide keeps you inspired.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Innuendo is hilarious.

In the beginning, it was always about shipping and creating. Launch something new. Find another revenue source. Hit a new goal.

Those days are over for me. At least in this current stage of my business.

I’ve found a perfect place right now. It’s a good balance between effort and revenue needed to live my desired lifestyle. To make more, I’d need to create more. Launch more. Build more.

As I said earlier, creating and launching are good. That’s how you learn. But stay within your limits. Know that more money doesn’t equal more happiness.

Have a Reason Why

It’s pretty simple for me. My family keeps me motivated. I want to spend more time with them. Coach their baseball teams. Participate in their lives. Go on vacations with them. These things are what drive focus of my business.

Want me to speak at your event? Eh. It had better not be during baseball season. And it needs to be a family event for a fun vacation. Otherwise, it’s not worth it for me, and I don’t care what the speaking fee is.

Making business decisions becomes easy when you have an overarching reason why you’re doing it all in the first place.

Don’t Obsess Over the Competition

I’m not saying you should completely ignore what other people are doing. When I was finding my way, I learned a lot from the likes of Amy Porterfield, Mari Smith, Chris Brogan, Marcus Sheridan, and many others.

But don’t obsess with keeping up with them. Don’t assume that they have it all figured out. That their backstage is a well-oiled machine. That they’re as happy and successful as they can be.

Look, there’s something to be said for a little competition. I learned this recently in a 5K. I ran for 10 days straight to prepare, running some pretty bad times. I then took 10 straight days off for a family vacation. I jumped into the 5K cold, and ran my best time in months.

Why? Because I wasn’t running by myself. That 12-year-old kid passed me, but I’m going to pass him back. That man my age will not finish ahead of me.

Some competition is healthy. But don’t let it guide all that you do.

Embrace Change

Change is hard for me right now. I have everything the way I want it. Any big change completely throws that out of whack.

But I realize that change is necessary from time to time. Freshen up your approach. Try something new. Not only can your brand get stale to your audience, but repetition can create boredom for the creator.

I admit it. The very routine that I created for myself this year has resulted in more boredom than I’ve experienced since I started. But that’s just a good sign for me: It’s time to mix things up soon.

Doing something new and different — as long as it’s managed, controlled, and doesn’t overextend — can be liberating and inspiring.

As fun as this has been, I know I won’t be writing about Facebook ads for the next 20 years. I’m looking forward to that next business opportunity (baseball related?) that comes my way.

Your Turn

This list could keep going, but these are the primary lessons that come to mind from the past six years. I appreciate you, and I hope you’ve found this article and my content helpful.

Thank you!

The post 6 Years Without a Boss appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

In the early days of my business, I did all I could to please each customer and potential customer.

Is my product too expensive? Here’s a discount code.

You want ongoing updates to this product without paying more? You’ve got it.

You’re unhappy with my product? I’ll spend several emails trying to make it right for you.

If you do this, stop. Please, stop.

By trying to please everyone, you’re wasting your time on “misfits.” This time could be spent serving your ideal audience.

Let’s take a closer look at the types of customers and potential customers who are misfits — sucking away your time, value, and money.

The Skeptical Shopper

Sometimes a potential customer’s first exposure to my business is via a product landing page. They’ve never read my content before. They haven’t attended a webinar. They don’t listen to my podcast.

They’re skeptical.

This tends to happen when a friend or co-worker recommends someone to my products. Or they run a search and my product comes up.

Most frequently, this will happen when considering to book a one-on-one call with me. I’ll get emails like this…

I’m considering booking a one-on-one call with you. The $497 price for only 45 minutes is really high. What kind of experience do you have to command these prices? Will it be worth my time?

In the past, I’d write up a long response trying to convince this person that I’m “worth it.” I’ve figured out over time that this is a bad approach.

My ideal customer is someone who doesn’t need to be convinced of my value. They’ve read my blog posts before — hopefully many times. They’ve attended my webinars.

The bottom line is that these people already know what to expect from me. They understand and agree with my approach. There won’t be any surprises.

Those who don’t know me are more likely to be disappointed. Had they been a reader of my blog, they may know sooner that my style and approach aren’t a good fit for them.

So when I get an email like this, I tend to send a response along these lines…

Thanks so much for considering a one-on-one. If you set up a session, I want to be sure you’re satisfied. I’ve found that those who are most likely to be satisfied are those who already read my content and understand my approach. If there’s any doubt about whether you should set up a call, my recommendation is to hold off.

I’ve seen it before. I convince someone to set up the call. It’s not what they expected. I’m not what they expected. They’re disappointed. Suddenly, we have to go through the process of determining whether to refund.

I just wasted my time, and I feel like crap along the way. No more.

My sales funnel is most effective when those looking to pay for something are loyal, long-time readers. They are much less likely to ask for a refund, and they are most likely to have a long lifespan as a member.

The Bargain Shopper

I get this kind of email often…

I love what you’re doing, and I’m a loyal reader. I know I need to sign up for your training program. I’m just getting my business started, and I have a very tight budget. There’s no way that I can afford the $297 right now. Any chance I can get it for $97?

Look, I feel for this person. I’ve been there. But for my business, it’s best to hold strong.

By offering a discount, I’m watering down the value for those who paid full price. And those who paid full price have reason to be upset when a discount is this easy to get.

Additionally, what ultimately happens is that those who require a discount take more administrative attention than those who don’t. More work for less money.

My response is usually something like this…

Thanks so much for being a regular reader of my content! Unfortunately, there aren’t any discounts available at this time. My recommendation would be to wait until your budget increases. I never want you to buy something you can’t afford. In the meantime, there’s plenty of free content to consume. Have you checked out my free webinar?

It’s the truth. I want you to be happy with your purchase. I don’t want you to pay for something you can’t afford. There’s plenty you can access for free in the meantime.

There’s a way to both stick to your regular price and keep those on a tight budget happy. Those on a tight budget will appreciate it, and they’ll be more likely to be a loyal customer later.

It’s possible that offering discounts makes sense for you. Do what works for your business. But it doesn’t make sense for me (with a few exceptions).

The Square Peg

You’ve heard the old saying, “A square peg in a round hole?” Yeah. As business owners, there’s temptation to try and make it work. Stop it.

Sometimes I’ll get an email like this…

I’m a regular reader, and I’ve heard about your Power Hitters Club – Elite community. It sounds amazing, but I’m just a beginner and I’m just starting. While I can afford the membership without a problem, but will it be worthwhile for me?

PHC – Elite is my community specifically for advanced Facebook advertisers. My ideal customer is someone who spends thousands of dollars per month on Facebook ads. That way, it’s easy for them to get enough value out of the $97 monthly fee to be worthwhile.

In this case, the potential customer is a square peg. It’s a bad fit. They’re unlikely to get enough value out of the community to make the $97 per month worthwhile. As a beginner, they’re unlikely to add much value to the community. Their beginner questions may actually take away value from others.

I would purposefully steer this person away from PHC – Elite. This type of potential customer is precisely why I created a PHC – Basic membership option.

The Dissatisfied Customer

We all get them. You can’t avoid them. No matter what you do or how great your product, there will always be dissatisfied customers.

I might get a message like this…

I just attended the first lesson of your Facebook pixel training program, and I am really disappointed. You were all over the place, and you didn’t answer my question. It was really difficult to follow in the webinar format, and it would be better with live examples. Is this going to improve?

My training programs are set up the way they are for a reason. It’s efficient. It’s easy to keep updated. And the webinars with slides keep me organized and on task.

This approach, of course, is not right for everyone. I understand that. And I won’t force it.

Handle it quickly. Don’t wait. Don’t waste time.

I may respond like this…

Thanks so much for the feedback. Even negative feedback like yours helps guide my product creation, so I do appreciate it.

Unfortunately, this program seems like a bad fit for you. This is the format that will continue throughout the rest of the program. Let’s take care of this now, and I’ll cancel your account and provide a refund. Sound good?

Your instinct may be to get defensive. Or it may be to grovel and do what you can to make them happy. Neither works.

Don’t try to convince the dissatisfied customer that they’re wrong and your product will be great for them. Take an honest look at their feedback and whether there’s any chance they’ll be happy going forward.

The money isn’t worth it. If they aren’t happy, give them the refund and move on. A dissatisfied customer is bound to provide more stress and maintenance that you just don’t need.

The High Maintenance Customer

Some customers are simply high maintenance. You get daily emails from them. They expect special treatment and want custom solutions. Be very careful before giving in.

A potential one-on-one customer wants a custom solution. They want two hours instead of 45 minutes. I get an email with their login credentials asking to log into their ad account. They want me to record the session and request a written report after. I’m sent five documents to review ahead of time instead of the simple questionnaire that I provide. They want an “urgent” appointment time that isn’t available on my calendar. Oh, and they want me to sign an NDA (which I, of course, never do).

All of these things are well beyond the structure of my one-on-ones. I have everything set up the way it is for a reason. It’s how I can be most efficient and help the most people in the least amount of time.

While I could come up with a custom solution for them, I don’t. Instead, I help them understand that this is the nature of my service and this is what you should expect. If it isn’t acceptable, don’t book your time with me.

By caving, I would create more stress and dissatisfaction for myself. It’s not worthwhile.

By being firm and clarifying expectations, one of two things happens: 1) They go away or 2) They accept my terms and are satisfied with the session. By being up front, they accept the terms and change their own expectations.

The Bad Community Member

This is for businesses with memberships built around a private community.

It’s rare, but occasionally I’ll get a bad community member. They’re combative and argue constantly. They spam your community. They publicly complain about not getting the help they need when they provide no help to others. In the end, they provide negative value.

It’s one thing if a member simply doesn’t participate. That’s a zero value member. But the negative value member is a huge problem.

If you don’t do something about the negative value member, they will slowly erode the value of your community. They will make it less desirable for those in it. And you will lose money by continuing to accept money from this one person.

Set very clear expectations for behavior. Have a moderator who can swiftly handle negative value members when they happen. Put out the fire before it starts. And take conversations offline if necessary.

Finally, don’t hesitate to cancel and refund a negative member — even if you don’t typically offer refunds for memberships. Having them around can do way more harm than good.

Your Turn

The bottom line is that we need to look long-term vs. the short-term dollar. Adding a few dollars now for a customer who is a bad fit is bad for your business. Steer these people away whenever possible.

Any other examples you’d add? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: Stop Wasting Time on Misfits appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

The memories won’t fade with time…

I sat in a nondescript cubicle doing nondescript things on a nondescript morning at work. A phone call from my wife, Lisa, shook my life from “normal.”

First, silence. Then, cracking. Attempts to form words. Straining through tears. I sat, patient. And then I heard it…

“Michael has a mass in his chest.”

Our two-year-old son had been experiencing breathing troubles for some time. He had been diagnosed with bronchiolitis and other things, but they weren’t finding a solution. Finally, an x-ray. And the discovery.

I hung up. Stunned. Began for the exits. My boss then approaching, I looked down as I walked. Tears streaming. I attempted to explain. Unable, she guided me out.

I met Lisa and Michael in the hospital. He was poked, prodded, and scanned. We waited.

The examination room (meant for two, but now including several relatives) was silent. Lisa, pregnant with our second son, sat with Michael on the examination table. I was standing. Mind racing.

The door opened. The doctor entered. Blonde, wearing a white lab coat. Quiet. Reflective. Careful. No eye contact. Searching for the right words.

I knew immediately.

“It’s cancer.”

There were few words. Or I didn’t hear any before or after. Lisa immediately clutched Michael closely and cried.

“What’s wrong, Mama?”

Hours passed. They may have been minutes, but they were the longest minutes.

I would eventually leave that room to find myself alone in a hospital bathroom. Frantic. Scared. A phone call to my parents. A desperate negotiation with a God whose existence I both questioned and needed more with each passing second. Fearing what the future might bring.

The oncologist entered and brought calmness back into our lives. She led us to the scans. “It’s neuroblastoma. But I don’t think it’s spread. And I think we can remove it.”

Don’t Google neuroblastoma. It’s awful. It’s rare. And when it hits your child, the end result is rarely good.

But we were given hope. An operation was needed. The surgeon wanted to wait to see if Michael’s breathing would improve, not knowing whether it was caused by the tumor.

We waited. It didn’t improve.

Hugs and kisses for our Michael as the anesthesia set in, and we were guided to the waiting room. A room of love and warmth, as it was stuffed full of concerned friends and relatives.

Watching the clock. Watching.

The surgeon walked in. Confident. Called us all to him like a quarterback calls a huddle as he provided the play.

Michael’s lungs were deflated, one at a time. Holes were created in him. The golf ball-sized tumor, lodged between his aorta and spine, was cut away. Slowly, carefully. Pulled out.

We greeted Michael, finally waking, following his surgery. His face puffy and bruised. Countless tubes attached to his tiny body.

Back in his own hospital room, the medication kept him from feeling pain or from speaking much. His mama cuddled him in his bed while I slept on a nearby cot.

“Mama, I’m broken.”

He awoke, in pain.

This was the worst of it. It would soon be another day. And it would get better quickly.

Scans and samples every month. Every three months. Every six months. Every year. Distracting him with a toy as he goes into that machine again.

Waiting for results. Panicking over false spikes. Relief over confirmation that everything was okay.

These are the things I will never forget…

We Were Lucky

I’m happy to report that there is a happy ending to this story. Michael was 2 1/2 years-old when this happened. This summer, he turns 16. Michael is a healthy, smart, happy, kind, and caring teenage kid.

Not a day goes by that I don’t remind myself how lucky we were. So many families aren’t so fortunate. My heart aches for them.

This Changed Everything

It’s an understatement.

Prior to this experience, I was comfortably complacent. Happy and satisfied. Willing to let time slip away.

We are all given moments like these as a reminder. Sometimes we listen.

I suddenly appreciated everything more. I valued time with my family more. I paid attention to and appreciated the little things. I tried to ignore those things that mattered so little.

I saw urgency in the moment.

This is Why I’m an Entrepreneur

About six months after Michael’s surgery, the first of his brothers was born. I took time off to be with Michael, Ryan, and Lisa. I never returned to that job.

I chose to work for a company around the corner, rejecting the wasted hours of a daily commute.

I’d soon take advantage of an opportunity and do something crazy. We moved from Colorado to New Jersey, where I’d accept an incredible job with the National Basketball Association. A job I didn’t feel like I deserved. But one that I wouldn’t dare pass up.

Two-and-a-half years later, a decision just as crazy: I left that amazing job so that we could go back to our quiet, comfortable life in Colorado, where I would telecommute for a startup game developer.

That lasted six months. I was laid off. I waited. Took a job with American Cancer Society, where I would again work from home. Two years later, I was laid off again.

Our experiences with childhood cancer put me on this path. I would not move my family again. I would not waste hours on the road in a commute.

I wanted control over my life.

That’s why I’m here today. Everything we went through, now more than 13 years ago, provided the daily reminders of what is truly important.

This is why I’m an entrepreneur.

An Introduction to Alex

A year after Michael’s diagnosis, the Today Show played in the background. We heard the words “childhood cancer” and then “neuroblastoma.” We then saw the story of the courageous Alexandra Scott, a young girl battling childhood cancer.

Weak and sick, Alex told her story of starting a lemonade stand. About how she wanted to help other kids like her, one cup at a time. About how she raised $2,000 for that cause, and then others helped her raise another $100,000.

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation was born, and we were hooked. We dedicated ourselves at that point to do all that we could to further Alex’s message.

Unfortunately, Alex was taken by the disease. But her message carries on. ALSF has now raised more than $100 Million for childhood cancer research, and one of the biggest breakthroughs has been in the treatment of neuroblastoma, the form of cancer that Michael and Alex shared.

Every year since we first heard Alex’s story, Michael would hold a lemonade stand to benefit ALSF. Over the years, he’s raised more than $20,000.

But we’ve always wanted to do more.

A Chance to Make a Difference

Ever since we were introduced to Alex Scott, our dream has been to make a difference. To someday be able to do even more.

Now that I have my own business and things are going well, what can we do? This is a conversation I’ve been having with Lisa lately.

The first step is to sponsor the Lemon Climb, an Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation event here in Denver. Will you join us in our support of this great cause? You can donate to our team — any amount counts!

For my family, this is only the beginning. I look forward to doing more for this amazing organization. Thanks so much for your support!

Your Turn

Everyone has their story. Every entrepreneur has something that drove them to do what they do. For me, at my core, this was it.

What’s your story?

The post This is Why I’m an Entrepreneur appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

It’s weird, really. You may have come to my site to read a tutorial about how to get the most out of Facebook ads. But the dirty little secret is that list building is my most important revenue source, and it’s not that close.

Don’t get that twisted. Facebook, generally, and Facebook ads are very important. Not only is Facebook critical to my traffic-driving engine, but it’s also central to my list-building efforts.

But once you’re on my list, there’s no method that is more efficient at driving traffic and sales. None.

My List

I typically add about 100 people to my list on a given day (conservative count, it’s often more). I use a wide variety of methods to do this (we’ll get to that in a minute), but note that I’m referring to new subscribers only — ignoring current subscribers who registered for something new in this count.

My list today is a shade over 100,000 people, but that is also after a series of list cleanses. We run a campaign every quarter to re-engage anyone who hasn’t opened anything during the past four months. If they still don’t engage, they’re removed from my list.

I point that out because it’s important to have perspective on numbers. It’s easy to have a large list, but it’s more valuable to have a large, high-quality list.

My list was started in early 2012 — about six months after this website began. One lesson learned and piece of advice I often give is that I waited six months too long. Don’t wait.

If you have a website, give people a way and a reason to provide their email address. I don’t care if you get one new contact per month or 1,000 per day. Just do it.

My List Drives Traffic

A high-quality list is an unfair advantage when it comes to traffic.

Immediately after publishing a new blog post, I schedule an email to be sent to my list that will promote that post. I could ignore Facebook and Facebook ads if I wanted to get crazy. I could disappear after that and still drive traffic.

While results vary, a single email to my list almost always drives at least 2-3,000 people to a blog post.

And that is conservative. Last month, I wrote a blog post aboutFacebook ad collections. Doesn’t sound that interesting, really. I sent an email to my list, and it resulted in 7,063 people going to my website to read it.

That’s quite the head start. Another 2,449 would click from my Facebook post…

And 977 people have shared the post so far…

Without the list and Facebook, how many people would have found that post? Luckily, I won’t need to find out.

My List Drives Sales

I don’t like talking about money. I think it’s tacky. It’s also easy to provide misleading and inflated numbers to make myself look successful.

But I’ll say this about the impact of my list on revenue…

I started a 4-week training program on the Facebook pixel in February. Of those who signed up, 207 did so after clicking a link to the product landing page in one of my emails.

Those are some very high-value clicks. Facebook is still very important, and it’s a big reason for the size of my list. Organic traffic from Google also drives a sizeable chunk. But my list is ultimately the most important traffic and revenue driver for my business.

List Building Checklist

So, you get why list building is so important to my business. You understand why you need to focus there, too. But, how do you do it? Where should you start?

Here are seven steps that can guide your list-building efforts…

Step 1: What’s the Ultimate Goal?

You must start here. It’s far too easy to say, “I’m going to create an ebook (or webinar or video series, etc.).” The goal will set your path.

In almost all cases, you’re trying to sell something. It could be a physical product, digital product or service.

As an example, let’s focus on myFacebook Pixel 4-Week Training Program.

Step 2: Create a Valuable Related Piece of Content

Look at this as an effort to reverse engineer the purchase path to a single product.

1. What is the product?
2. How much does it cost?
3. Who would be most likely to need your product?
4. What problem does this product solve?
5. What content could you create related to this problem?

The end goal is to create a funnel that attracts our ideal customer. That ideal customer may not be ready to buy now, but they have a problem that we’ll address with this valuable piece of content — a problem that will be even better handled by our paid product or service.

Far too often, the typical business thinks list building means creating a newsletter. No. People don’t want your newsletter.

Your potential customer’s email address is valuable. You know that. They know that. Give them something of value in return.

In my example, I created Keys to Success, a webinar that I conduct on a monthly basis. This webinar focuses on the factors that contribute most to success and failure of Facebook advertising. A recurring theme is that the Facebook pixel is required for many of the strategies.

While 60 minutes of the webinar presentation are ad-free, the final three minutes are focused on the Facebook pixel training program.

Step 3: Consider Multiple Formats

Understand that not everyone consumes content in the same ways. Balance time, effort and shelf life when determining the format (or formats) you’ll use.

I know that the topic of Facebook ads is fluid and changes quickly. That’s why I’m not a big fan of creating lead magnets that are based on static content. That static content gets outdated quickly. I then need to update it or scrap it altogether.

That’s why my preferred format for this content is a webinar. I create the content once, and I can conduct webinars on a monthly basis based on that content. When things change, I can make these minor tweaks very easily.

However, that doesn’t mean I should ignore other formats entirely. Not everyone attends webinars. And they also present time zone issues since my audience is international. I will never get a high percentage turnout.

That’s why I’ve also created a Keys to Success video series based on the webinar of the same name. This way, registrants don’t need to wait days or weeks to consume the content. They can start consuming immediately. And they do so on their time.

(This series is currently available only via Facebook ads promotion.)

So, consider what works best for you and your potential customer. If possible, you may want to develop multiple lead magnets using varying formats.

Step 4: Drive Registrations On-Site

You may not have noticed, but my website is third party ad-free. There’s no AdSense on the side. There aren’t any ads popping up in the middle of content. There aren’t ads in the comments.

Why? Because I know that real estate is valuable. If it’s going to be used to promote anything, it will be used to promote my own products. Otherwise, the existence of third-party ads says that I can make more money promoting someone else’s products than my own.

Here are just a few of the ways I drive registrations to my Keys to Success webinar (and other opt-ins) on my website…

1. Blog Content

Let’s be very, very clear what this is. We’re not talking sponsored content here (mainly because it’s not promoting another business). This isn’t contrived content. It’s not worthless, fluff content that requires an email address to learn more.

In most cases, it’s writing a blog post on a topic that sticks to the same theme that’s covered in the related webinar (that is addressed by the related product).

An obvious example of this on my website is the 7 Keys to Facebook Advertising Success post. At the top of the post, I make it clear that the blog post summarizes what I cover in my 90-minute webinar (which I link to in the post).

I’ve also been writing several blog posts that stick to the Facebook pixel theme. This helps to keep funneling people to my training program. Here are a few more I’ve written since February:

• The Importance of the Facebook Pixel
• 6 Ways to Add the Facebook Pixel to Your Website
• How to Share a Facebook Advertising Audience or Pixel

While these are all tightly aligned with the end goal, the truth is that all posts I write about Facebook advertising are related to my product. As a result, this content is also helpful for indirectly driving signups by attracting the right traffic.

What I mean by that is you click on a link to one of these articles via social media, a Facebook ad or Google search. Once there, you may click internal links, fill out forms or go elsewhere on my website that leads you to register.

I regularly cross-promote as well. You’ve seen it in this post. Understand that I didn’t write this post to consciously promote other products and content. It’s just that all of these things are interconnected, so it’s easy to bring them up in the discussion.

And finally, by visiting these pages, I can create remarketing audiences to reach you with Facebook ads promoting my webinar or training program (but we’re getting ahead of ourselves — more on that later).

2. Sidebar and Other Widgets

As I said, I don’t monetize my website with third party ads. That’s valuable real estate that I’d rather use to promote my own stuff.

If you’re on your desktop, check out the right-hand column. If you’re on a mobile device, scroll below. You’ll find opt-in forms relevant to the type of content you’re reading.

Since I’ve made the move to writing about entrepreneurship in addition to Facebook advertising, I also make sure that the forms in the sidebar are relevant to the content in the body.

While I feel strongly that you should offer something beyond a newsletter, I also realize that sometimes people just want to be added to my list so that they’re informed of changes. That’s why I also add a newsletter form at the bottom of every post.

3. Pop-ups

Look, I hate pop-ups. I really do. And I go back and forth on this one because “they work” should never be reason enough to do something.

I got rid of pop-ups for about six months. The reality is that I’ve had six-month periods like this throughout my business. As I type this, I’m using them again. But I’m trying to use them more intelligently.

They won’t pop up every time. They only appear on posts, based on your behavior. And whether you see a pop-up for my Keys to Success webinar or What Now? webinar for entrepreneurs will depend upon the post that you’re reading.

This is something I’ll continue to monitor. For now, pop-ups certainly add a nice chunk of registrations. My goal is to limit the annoyingness of them as much as possible.

4. Menu Link

Pretty simple. I’ve split my content into “Facebook” and “Entrepreneurs” sections. Hover over either of those two links at the top, and a link to the associated free webinar will appear.

This won’t drive a large percentage of my registrations, but every bit counts.

Step 5: Drive Registrations Off-Site

Everything in Step 4 is important. But I drive the majority of my registrations from off-site sources.

You won’t be surprised about what is driving this: Facebook, generally, and Facebook ads, more specifically. I don’t do much else off-site to drive registrations.

Sure, I’ve used CTA buttons on my Facebook page to drive registrations. I’ve published posts to my page about my opt-in offerings. I add CTA forms within my Facebook Instant Articles. But the organic portion of this is small.

There are two primary Facebook ad sources that drive registrations for me:

• Ads that send people to a registration landing page on my site
• Facebook lead ads, that keep people on Facebook

At this moment, I’m spending about $20 per day promoting my Keys to Success webinar, and another $20 per day on the Keys to Success video series. While this may not seem like much (and it’s a small percentage of my daily ad spend), I’m carefully crafting targeting around people who know me, making sure to reach them at specific times for specific objectives.

A week before the date that each webinar airs, I expand the audience and raise the budget. I also have campaigns running to promote my webinar for entrepreneurs.

Since I focus on people who know me — and know me well — this method is very efficient, even on a relatively modest budget. I get about 100 registrations per day from Facebook ads.

You’ll recall that I said earlier that I get about 100 new people added to my list on a daily basis. Keep in mind that a decent chunk of those registering via a Facebook ad may already be on my list for other reasons.

Step 6: Develop Multiple Opt-in Opportunities

I’ve covered all of it in the steps above, but it needs to be emphasized: Have more than one way that someone can be inspired to provide an email address.

I’ve created a webinar and video series around the same content. But I also have an entrepreneur webinar, and I plan to develop a related video series. I may develop an ebook. And, of course, you can also register for my newsletter.

I completely scrapped my newsletter for more than a year because I didn’t find the thought of one to be compelling. But don’t forget that sometimes people just want a way to get on your list — as crazy as that may sound!

Step 7: Create Email Campaigns for Subscribers

There are two sides of this: Before and after the registration.

Before the Registration

I use email campaigns to drive people on my list to register. This may seem unnecessary (they’re on my list already, after all!) but it’s actually completely necessary.

Even if you’re on my list, an additional registration does several things:

1. You take the conscious step of showing interest in a topic. By doing so, you become more likely to make a related purchase.
2. Depending on the registration, there may be a more personal engagement. If a webinar, for example, we can have a live Q&A. This will also make you more likely to purchase.
3. By registering, you are tagged and sent into an additional campaign.

That takes me to…

After the Registration

My webinars follow the following promotional structure:

1. I promote my related product during the webinar
2. I send you the replay with a note about that related product
3. I send you two follow-up emails about that product

This can be automated or manual. Obviously, automated saves time and manual prevents mistakes from templates. I tend to use a combined approach where I use the same email I’ve sent in the past, and manually read it through before sending again.

Your Turn

I can’t stress enough how important the list is to your business. You must dedicate yourself and invest in both the building and nurturing of that list. Far too often I’ve seen marketers focus all of their energy on building the list, never able to take advantage of it!

Anything you’d add to this checklist? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: List Building Strategies appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

A product launch is one of the most stressful decisions an entrepreneur can make. You plan. You overthink. You second guess. You worry that no one will buy.

I often talk about how the best thing you can do in a situation like that is to simply wing it. Don’t fear the unknown. Don’t overthink it. Launch and react.

That was the case with my first product nearly five years ago, when I launched a Power Editor training course. I wasted weeks and months worrying about it. One night, I simply sent an email with a PayPal button. No course existed yet. The rest is history.

Five years later, I still struggle with product launches. In particular, I struggle with launching a product for my entrepreneur community because it’s brand new for me. A new audience and no history that would provide me confidence in the results that I can expect.

Well, I finally launched a product for my entrepreneur community early this morning. In typical fashion, I did it mostly on a whim. After weeks and months of overthinking it.

Here’s a recap of how all of this went down in a matter of hours…

The PHC – Entrepreneurs Dilemma

Back in January, I decided to expand my content and begin writing a weekly blog post on the entrepreneurship topic. This was a big pivot for me, after focusing exclusively on Facebook advertising for the past several years.

As a result, launching a product on this topic wasn’t as easy as launching a Facebook ads product. While I have a large built-in audience, it’s not clear how much interest I’d have in a product for entrepreneurs. It was a lot like starting a business from scratch (with some advantages, of course).

I emailed my list a couple of times, asking for feedback. Each time, I took a step back. Each time, I felt less sure of myself.

Do I have enough interest to launch a community for entrepreneurs? Do I need to get focused on a specific type of entrepreneur? How do I add value without overextending myself? What other free options already exist? How do I price this? Would anyone even sign up?

“Whom Is This For?”

I recorded a Pubcast with John Robinson yesterday at 10am, and I spoke about my issues with figuring out my intended audience for an entrepreneurship product. Check out this unedited excerpt as I start thinking this through…

The moment I described was extremely important. Getting that feedback from Emeric felt, at the time, like a punch to the gut. It was a step backward hearing that he’d have no interest in a general community for entrepreneurs. But it made a lot of sense, once I brushed off my own sensitivity.

I have experiences as an entrepreneur that may apply to all entrepreneurs to a point, but I can provide the most value to those who are attempting to build a similar business. Like Emeric was saying, an entrepreneur building an app may find minimal value in my community. Someone with a brick and mortar business will also find less value.

But someone building an online business selling digital products? An entrepreneur focusing on blogging, list building and memberships? Yeah, I can help this person.

I compare it to how I found my own niche with the advanced Facebook ads topic. My content originally lacked any focus at all. I wrote about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and even Google Plus. I wrote about blogging. And when I wrote about Facebook, it could be about personal use, privacy settings, basic marketing or advertising.

It wasn’t until I got hyper focused on advanced Facebook advertising that I found my footing.

The Starting Line

At about the 20 minute point in my conversation with JR, an idea suddenly strikes me…

This is how my launches often happen. I can’t be talked into it. Suddenly, an idea strikes me and it gains momentum. Instead of planning for two weeks, I take that momentum and launch immediately.

The wheels started turning. What’s funny is that this is a true lightbulb moment. I’m distracted for much of the conversation from that point forward as I start polishing the idea.

The Beta Launch

Recall that this conversation was happening at about 10:25am at this point. I conducted my weekly PHC – Elite webinar at 2pm. At 1:45, 15 minutes before that webinar would begin, I threw together a slide and officially announced my intentions to launch a PHC – Entrepreneurs community…

So I went from being frustrated by the obstacles in front of this community to officially announcing it within a span of four hours.

Immediately after finishing this webinar, I put all of the groundwork in to create tags, the Facebook group, checkout form and Infusionsoft campaign.

At 1:13am, I launched the beta to my PHC – Elite community with an email.

PHC – Entrepreneurs Email Announcement

I decided that I’d launch this beta to PHC – Elite members only. This would help control the beta, but it also allows me to get this product in front of my most valued customers first.

By opening the beta to PHC – Elite members only, it is also a nice added perk for membership. Indirectly, this launch also adds value and motivation for anyone thinking about joining PHC – Elite.

Following are the important details describing this community to those invited…

Hey, XXX! I made a big announcement during yesterday’s PHC – Elite webinar, and you may have missed it. I’m taking the plunge and launching a new PHC community for entrepreneurs!

This is a really big deal for me. It’s the first time since my business started nearly six years ago that I’ve created a product for something other than Facebook marketing. I’m excited, and a little bit nervous!

Go here to sign up for the exclusive beta at only $9/month:

https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX

If you’ve followed along at all, you know that I’ve been agonizing over this for a while. I started writing content for entrepreneurs during the first week of 2017. I even started a free webinar for entrepreneurs, too. I wanted to create a product as well, but I’ve struggled to pull the trigger.

It wasn’t until recording an upcoming episode of the Pubcast with JR yesterday that it finally came together. I’m ready to launch this thing!

Of course, I have some normal jitters about this move. While I have some expectations regarding whom this group is for and what the content will be, this isn’t yet finalized. And I’m still not sure just how many people will sign up.

That’s why I launched it as a beta, for a very small and excluive group. And you’re included!

THE PHC – ENTREPRENEURS BETA

I decided I’d launch PHC – Entrepreneurs, but make it available ONLY for PHC – Elite members right now as a beta. This is an exclusive invite! While I will write about this for the public, only PHC – Elite members can sign up right now. And only PHC – Elite members will get the beta price of $9/month (for life).

There are many things I need to figure out about the final product, and I hope you can help me get there. One of those items on the checklist is price. Something I heard from prospective members is that they don’t want it to be too cheap — they want it to be more exclusive, to keep out the “riff-raff.”

For now, though, only PHC – Elite members can sign up for $9 per month. So there won’t be any riff-raff. And even after the beta period is complete, you will continue to get access for this dirt cheap price. But I fully intend to raise the price (probably significantly) — and you’ll help me determine what that price should be.

Join me here:

https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX

WHO IS PHC – ENTREPRENEURS FOR?

Something I’ve realized is that this group shouldn’t be broadly for all entrepreneurs. I understand that there are many different niches within entrepreneurship, and not everyone will value the same information.

As a result, I’ve decided — at least initially — to focus on entrepreneurs with the following characteristics:

• Online, digital based
• Minimal emphasis on physical, brick and mortar
• Digital products and memberships
• Minimal emphasis on physical products
• Blogging and list building
• Webinars and ebooks
• Education and training programs

Basically, everything above describes my business. That doesn’t mean that your business needs to be exactly like mine to find value in this community, but the more commonalities, the better!

I also believe we should have common core values. Here are mine:

• Honesty, integrity and transparency
• No shortcuts
• No get rich quick schemes
• Priority is lifestyle over getting rich and famous

PHC – ENTREPRENEURS TODAY

As of today, PHC – Entrepreneurs will consist of two primary things:

• Private Facebook group for entrepreneurs like you
• Regular webinars and other live events to discuss entrepreneurship topics

It’s brand new. This community is in beta. But this is what you can expect — at minimum.

YOUR ROLE IN PHC – ENTREPRENEURS

You have a very exclusive opportunity to help me build this community, and I’m excited to have you involved!

I’m launching this in beta because I still have some unknowns that I need finalized. You can help me bring together the following:

• What resources should be available?
• What content should be created?
• What topics should be covered?
• What value should be provided?
• How much should this cost to guarantee optimal value of members?

I will constantly poll you and even consider group meetings to help bring this together. I envision this being a two-month process before we make an official launch.

LET’S DO THIS!

I’m so excited to get this going in beta, and I’m pumped to have you involved. This is such a big move for my business — I feel it! — and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

This beta opportunity will go away once the community is launched to the public. But if you sign up now, you’ll continue to get that crazy $9/month price as long as you’re a member (without interruption).

If you still need that link to sign up, go here:

https://XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX-XXX

This is beta, so there’s no landing page yet. Everything you need to know is in this email.

If this community isn’t for you, that’s perfectly fine. It’s not supposed to be for everyone!

If you have any questions at all, just hit reply.

Cheers,

Jon

Phase 1

As mentioned at the top, launching a product may be the most difficult step. That’s Phase 1, and it’s complete.

Over the coming days and weeks, I am going to soak up everything I can from the members of this new community to help determine it’s ultimate direction. I’ve created a survey as the first step to get a better idea of what they want to see covered and how.

Where do we go from here? We’ll see. Maybe the community never gets off the ground, and that’s perfectly fine. I launched in beta, and I can always close it down.

But without taking this plunge, I’d never know for sure. I can’t wait to see where this goes.

Yes, It’s a Closed Beta

I want to clarify that this beta is only available for PHC – Elite members right now. There won’t be any exceptions.

That’s difficult because I know that there are many in my audience that will be a good fit for this and would benefit immensely from this community. I only ask that you remain patient as we iron out the details.

If all goes well, expect an official rollout by July. If you can’t wait that long, join PHC – Elite first!

Your Turn

What are your product launches like? Are they carefully planned or due they erupt in a blaze of inspiration and chaos like mine?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: How I Launched a Membership Community appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

I’ve learned countless lessons since my entrepreneurial journey began in 2011, but one of the most important is this: Monthly recurring revenue is the key to efficiency, stability and sanity.

Let’s take a closer look at what monthly recurring revenue is and how it’s impacted my business…

Monthly Recurring Revenue

The term may be self-explanatory, but I feel I should add some clarity…

The typical product is sold as a one-off transaction. You give a business $100, and they give you the product. The transaction is complete.

If your business utilizes monthly recurring revenue (MRR), the customer enjoys your product or services for as long as they continue to pay. The transaction continues into perpetuity — or until they decide they no longer want to pay.

Your utilities would be an example of this. You’re going to keep paying that fee every month so that you continue to get water and electricity in your home.

This also includes some software and applications. You can use that software for as long as you make monthly payments. The customer will need to cancel in order to stop the transaction.

My Business and Monthly Recurring Revenue

As has been documented many times over on these pages, I had no clue what I was doing when my business (loosely defined as such) began in 2011.

I didn’t collect a penny of revenue from August through October of that first year. I collected pennies, but not much more, for the next five months. I then launched my first product, and my business finally became something that would keep a roof over my family’s head.

Revenue can be broken down into phases for my business:

Phase 1: Consultation fees only (Aug 2011 – Mar 2012)
Phase 2: Consultation fees, static virtual products and affiliate sales (Apr 2012 – Dec 2013)
Phase 3: Static virtual products and affiliate sales (Jan 2014 – Jun 2014)
Phase 4: Static virtual products and memberships (Jul 2014 – Dec 2015)
Phase 5: Real-time virtual products and memberships (Jan 2016 – Present)

During the first two phases, I was focused on finding clients. I also kept my business afloat with affiliate revenue.

Once the third phase began, I decided to begin focusing entirely on my own business — choosing to no longer take on clients.

In the fourth phase, I cut out affiliate sales and started the Power Hitters Club, my first membership.

Now, in my current phase, I’ve become even more efficient. Instead of creating static training courses that become outdated and obsolete, I create real-time training programs that are conducted via webinar. And I can conduct them on nearly a monthly basis, making only minor changes to the content as necessary.

This was a natural progression for me. I’ve always felt that the amount of effort necessary to manage clients was too great, while it took me away from building my own brand. It was inefficient.

But selling virtual products also involved inefficiencies. It wasn’t until I started offering memberships that my business found true stability.

MRR and Memberships

My memberships have evolved since launching in 2014, but I offer two options today…

Power Hitters Club – Elite ($97/month or $873 annually)

• Private Facebook group community for PHC – Elite members only
• Weekly, live, 30-minute webinars for PHC – Elite members only
• Access to all weekly webinar replays with links, video and audio
• Access to all recorded workshops and 4-week training program replays ($297+ value each)
• Exclusive access to me

Power Hitters Club – Basic ($29/month)

• Private Facebook group community for PHC – Basic members only
• Video recordings of weekly webinars given to PHC – Elite members

I started with PHC – Elite for the first two years, and then I launched PHC – Basic to satisfy those looking for a lower-priced alternative.

Today, I have about 1,000 total members.

MRR and Impact on Revenue

Here’s a chart showing average monthly revenue growth over six-month periods since my business began (the first and final periods being incomplete).

My business was profitable by the end of 2012. In this case, I define profitable as bringing in about the same income I did while working for the man.

Monthly revenue continued to grow for the next couple of years. I launched the Power Hitters Club (my monthly membership) near the end of June in 2014. Average monthly revenue has never dropped below that point since, and I’ve been having a record breaking 2017.

Thanks to my membership, I had a foundation of predictable revenue every month. I would bring in new members and some members would cancel. But from that point forward, I could assign reasonable expectations for monthly revenue, regardless of effort.

MRR and Impact on Effort

And effort was the key change here.

Looking at my chart, you could argue that MRR didn’t necessarily improve my revenue. It was already trending upward when I made the change. And in fact, revenue growth slowed through the first half of 2016.

But if you look only at revenue, you are neglecting primary goals of this business: I want to spend more time with my family.

That is precisely what happened. The first half of 2016 was a drop from the second half of 2015. It was about even with the first half of 2014. But the difference was huge: baseball.

I started a travel baseball team for my middle son. It was like starting a new business. I spent an insane amount of time — and still do — as a baseball coach.

Prior to the launch of my membership product, I needed to churn out a new product every three to six months. It’s the only way I could keep revenue coming in.

The reason is simple: Previously, my products were static. A training course consisted of modules of recorded videos and articles. These training courses would quickly become outdated and obsolete as Facebook made changes to their own product. So I’d need to either make updates to the current product or churn out a new one.

I churned out new products because that was the better revenue model. I wasn’t going to sell a $150 product that I’d update forever. You’d buy it as is, and eventually I’d need to create a new product.

So that meant lots of effort. Late nights. Weekends. All of the stuff that I hate. All of the stuff that kept me locked away and off of the baseball field with my kids.

So beginning in 2016, everything I sell is either a membership (monthly recurring revenue) or a real-time training. No more polishing videos and articles. No more outdated and obsolete products.

As a result, revenue may have been flat to start 2016, but I was infinitely more productive than the previous year.

MRR and Impact on Promotion

There was another problem with my prior model of having to regularly churn out a new product: I had to regularly run promotions for the latest product.

Fatigue…

The static training course product would get a high volume of sales at launch. But after that, the only way to maintain revenue levels from month-to-month was to offer discounts or create a new product.

Under my current model, there’s far less push. I come out with a new product on occasion, but I no longer offer discounts. I don’t need to offer discounts. I know that I have monthly recurring revenue to rely on.

Today, membership and MRR make the foundation of my income. Any real-time training sold is a cherry on top. So there’s no longer the internal pressure to find a way to sell more this month.

There’s less promotional fatigue for me, but there’s also less promotional fatigue for my audience. I can start to sell the way that makes me most comfortable again — soft sell. I’ll tell you about my 4-week training program. If you click the link, you fall into the funnel where I send you reminders. If you don’t click, no fatigue.

MRR and Impact on Lifestyle

It’s huge. MRR has changed my life.

We all dream of being more efficient. We yearn to do only the things we really want to do. We cherish our evenings, weekends and holidays. I still work hard, but not absurdly so. I don’t regret what I do while neglecting my family and personal priorities.

Ultimately, MRR isn’t about how much money it’s made me. There are plenty of ways I could have made a bunch of money — even much more. But that’s never been my goal.

It’s about allowing me to enjoy the freedom that comes along with it when executed properly.

MRR and Your Business

You may be stuck in that same hamster wheel that I was in a few years ago, constantly churning out a new product to keep revenue coming in. Consider an MRR model.

What membership could you create? What is the community you could serve? Why would it be valuable? How much would members be willing to pay?

Or maybe you could apply monthly recurring revenue instead to software or a mobile application. Or maybe even a service. What would it look like?

Your Turn

I’d love to hear your experiences with monthly recurring revenue.

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: The Importance of Monthly Recurring Revenue appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

They say you should hustle. They brag about working all hours of the day and night, about slaving away on weekends and not recognizing holidays. Overworking is seen as a badge of honor, as something that should be revered.

Life’s too short for that mess…

Entrepreneurship can easily become a game, if you’ll let it. You’re always watching the Joneses, trying to keep up and do what they do. They brag of their riches, accomplishments and beachside views. Jealousy and envy bring out the worst in you.

Life’s too freaking short for that…

The minute you celebrate this month’s record-breaking results, they are no longer good enough. You’re on to do better next month. And then next month. You’re never satisfied, and feel the pressure of doing more and more.

Life’s too short not to enjoy it…

You realize that no matter how well you do, there are bills to be paid and problems to solve. Whether you’re putting in the extra hours to keep the electricity on or pay for that new car, the anxiety of providing more will overwhelm you.

Life’s too short to allow it…

You work those extra hours while your kids play outside. You seclude yourself in your entrepreneurial dungeon while your spouse watches your shows alone. You do all of this, you think, to create a better day. A day you aren’t guaranteed will come.

Life’s too damn short…

We took our youngest son out of school on Wednesday. Drove him a few towns over, dressed in our best. Taps played and guns blared. We celebrated a man’s life taken far too soon. A father and husband. A man my age.

During the service, words spoken of the impact of his life focused on the little things. His guitar and favorite songs. How he spent endless hours with his son, coaching him and watching him grow. How he cared for and shared life with his wife. About how he helped others. About how he made you feel when you were around him.

There was no mention of educational honors or personal accomplishments, though he was an accomplished man. We don’t know how much money he made or how many things he accumulated.

And that’s what struck me that day. It’s so easy for us as entrepreneurs to get wrapped up in the things that don’t matter that we neglect the things that do. We forget what we’d regret, all with an assumption of another day that may never come.

Life is short, I know it’s cliché. It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. And we’ve all had our own personal experiences that remind us of this from time to time. That is inevitable.

For me, it’s a reminder of not only what is important and the urgency of making those things a priority; but also that I live the life that I can be proud of. One that leaves a mark, even quietly, that makes a difference. A life where those I love and may leave behind will smile when thinking of the good memories we created together.

It’s a good reminder, though I know there’s danger of sounding preachy. Live a life where your core values guide your business, your relationships and all that you do. No regrets. No wasted time on low priority nonsense that won’t enhance your life or the life of others. Do not compromise what is important while milking every last minute you have, as morbid — though real — as that may seem.

It doesn’t mean that we should neglect tomorrow and fail to plan. It’s always good to have a long-term life strategy. But my new goal is to make tomorrow important but today and now the highest possible priority.

Life’s too short to do otherwise.

The post Entrepreneurs: Life’s Too Short appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

As I pause to look back at more than five years on my own as an entrepreneur, I’m struck by how clear things appear now. How naive I once was.

It’s not that I know it all now, by any means. Far from that. But as I reflect, there are common themes to how and why my business took off — and why others do as well.

Being “different” is ultimately about listening to your conscience. It’s about being brave enough to be yourself. It’s about being willing to do something in a particular way, even if it’s always been done another way.

Understand that a portion of this relates specifically to my niche, social entrepreneurship or info marketing. I honestly have no idea what it’s called, but the type of business that relies on content, digital products and online memberships.

No matter what your field, much of this should remain applicable. Here are the seven primary reasons I’ve been able to find success while having no experience starting a business.

Teach

People are looking for answers. Whether it’s free content, a subscription or a paid product, your ability to teach can be the source of your success.

My most popular blog posts are those that detail how to do something. The most successful posts are those that break down complicated problems in a basic way.

When you teach with content, try to think of it from the most basic perspective. What does your audience already know? What do they need to know? What might be a source of confusion? How can this be simplified?

If you are looking to start a similar business based on teaching and education, I’d recommend the following approach…

First, create a list of every possible question a potential reader or customer may have about your topic.

Second, group those questions into categories of subject matter.

Every single one of those questions is a potential blog post.

The categories with a moderate number of questions within them are potential ebooks, webinars or video series.

The categories with the greatest number of questions within them are potential training programs.

This should be a dynamic list that is constantly growing and being updated. But it’s your future content plan.

Don’t Hold Back

One of the first questions I get when talking about planning out content like I do above is, “But what about crossover between free content and paid? Should I hold back?”

My answer: Absolutely not. Do not hold back. Provide so much free content that people are overwhelmed with the value and amazed that you don’t charge for it.

Technically, someone may be able to find nearly everything I cover within free webinars and even paid training programs within these pages. But that content is everywhere, scattered about.

A webinar or ebook brings it all together within one simplified, easy-to-follow guide. Particularly in the case of a single webinar, it may also be condensed and more top-level.

A training program provides structure to solving a problem. I write about the Facebook pixel throughout these pages. But if you want to master it, you may struggle to find the answers you need. My 4-week training program on the Facebook pixel exhausts everything you need to know about that topic in four step-by-step lessons.

Understand that I’m not duplicating content from a blog post to a free webinar or to a training program. I take different angles and a fresh approach in each case.

But the main thing is that I never write content, feeling that I can’t go deeper in fear that it’s something I may cover within a webinar or paid product.

Share Experiments and Results

Teach first. But I’ve found I get the most positive response when I share my own experiments and results.

Because teaching isn’t just about telling people how to do something. It’s telling them how you do it, and the kinds of results that you’ve seen.

I often like to share exactly how I create something and the results I get — sometimes good and sometimes bad. Don’t feel the need to cherry pick your results, focusing only on the good. Lessons are also learned when something doesn’t work the way you think it should.

Be Real

We’ve heard it over and over, particularly in the new socialized world of business: Be human. Be authentic. Be real.

It may be cliche at this point, but dammit… It’s true.

Granted, that “realness” may be more important for some businesses than others. But people appreciate when there are other people on the other end.

I often see businesses or websites built around a logo, lacking any human touch. No names or faces or stories. This impacts the ability to make a connection with that brand, and it also impacts trust.

Beyond having a personality in your writing, this is also where video, audio (podcasts) and webinars can help. They give your brand a heartbeat.

Take a Stand

I’ll often hear people recommend being controversial because it attracts attention. That’s contrived.

Don’t be controversial for the sake of being controversial. But feel free to take a stand when you feel your opinion isn’t the dominant voice.

Particularly in this info marketing world, I’m continuously confronted with strategies that make me feel uncomfortable. They are strategies that have long been recommended and implemented.

Just know that while the voice of opposition is quiet, that doesn’t mean you lack support. So many people feel just like you, but they aren’t confident enough to say anything. Because they, too, feel alone.

I don’t write rants quite as often as I once did, but those posts where the scariest to publish. I’d hesitate, fearing the potential backlash. Instead, I received personal thank you messages from those who have been wanting to say the same thing.

By taking a stand, you separate yourself from the rest. You begin to formulate a voice that may draw in potential customers.

Fill a Void

What is no one talking about?

What answers are difficult to find?

What solution to a problem doesn’t currently exist?

What resource is missing?

What content, product or service can you provide that isn’t currently available in the way that you can provide?

Think about ways that you can make the world better.

Be Different

All of this ultimately leads us here…

This was the most difficult for me when I got started more than five years ago. All I wanted to know was how others were doing it. How did they use their websites? What theme did they use? How did they title blog posts? What did they write about? How did they build their email list? What did they share on social media?

When I took that approach, I looked and sounded like everyone else. I blended into the background. Nothing I did was noticed.

Stop doing this. It’s okay to have inspiration. But don’t follow every step that someone else has already taken.

Don’t make your website look just like mine. Don’t use templates to make your landing pages look like 1,000 others. Don’t create the same, recycled, crappy blog titles that we’ve seen over and over again.

You will never emerge from the crowd if you don’t take risks. You will never separate yourself by looking and sounding like everyone else.

Be your imperfect self. Stand up for what you believe in. Write the way you think and talk, not the way others do.

Be unique, not because you’re intentionally being different, but because you’re not afraid to be yourself.

Build your business into something you’ll be proud of. Not a “start your own business in 30 days” template.

Your Turn

What else would you add here?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: Be Different appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

As I type this, I will be speaking for a rather large group in 12 hours at Social Media Marketing World in San Diego. I’d be lying if I told you I’m not nervous. I still have nerves. But my reaction to public speaking is nothing like it once was.

My horrific memories are vivid. It could be a school class report. An update for the board of directors. Or a simple conference call. My chest tightened up. I could hardly breathe. I shook and struggled to make it through.

It was embarrassing. To this day, I don’t know how noticeable some of this was. But it tore me up inside. I was absolutely petrified of any type of public speaking.

And let me be clear: Public speaking wasn’t limited to speaking in front of large groups. As mentioned above, it involved moments in front of small groups or when it was only me and a phone.

Today, I don’t love public speaking. I’ve learned to enjoy it. I’m still no pro and will tend to be a little shaky at times. But I no longer panic for weeks ahead of time. And that’s huge progress.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll undoubtedly run into at least an occasional public speaking opportunity. While I don’t think you should ever feel like you absolutely have to do it to advance, there certainly is a benefit.

So how did I move beyond this paralyzing fear? It didn’t happen overnight. It was a process. But I can trace it back to these things…

Record Videos

This is going to sound crazy to anyone who doesn’t deal with this anxiety, but even the act of recording a video was once very difficult for me. I’m not talking about live videos either. I’m talking about a situation where it’s just me and a camera. No one else. Pre-editing.

You can probably still see it when you watch my earlier videos. I struggled through. But I recorded video after video after video. Eventually, I’d get more comfortable.

As is the case with public speaking, I wouldn’t say that I love recording videos today. But it’s no longer difficult. I don’t stress over it. I can do it if I have to, and it may appear easy from the outside.

That is only possible due to the experience of recording many videos over the years. If camera time is too much for you, start with a screen share video where only your voice is audible. Then work your way from there.

Make no mistake, I prefer recording my screen only!

Record Podcasts

Like videos, starting a podcast wasn’t easy for me. It’s hilarious when I think back on it. I hit record, and no one else was listening. And yet, my voice was shaking.

But I’ve recorded well over 100 podcasts now. Maybe 200. And I’ve been a guest on close to 100 more. That experience helps a whole freaking lot.

One reason this helps is that I begin to have a routine. When I’m a guest, there’s a common story I tell. I’m never starting from scratch.

When I record my own podcasts, I cater to my own strengths and weaknesses. I keep it casual (that’s why it’s the Pubcast!). But it is somewhat structured, and I have certain things I always say at the beginning and end. Routine is important.

Like videos, podcasts help me with my ability to present for an audience. But since podcasts are more spontaneous than the typical video, they have likely done more to prepare me for speaking for a live audience.

Host Webinars

The parallels may be closest between hosting webinars and public speaking. In both cases, you may use slides (I do). The presentation still must change when speaking for a live audience, though. When you have a crowd, you need to engage more with the people in front of you.

But webinars have been critical to my development as a speaker. I host a webinar for the Power Hitters Club every week (now 145 of them!). I also host one or two live free webinars nearly every month.

This has gone a long way to helping me develop a voice. I also get a better sense for flow and rhythm — how long I should spend on each slide or topic, what is too fast or too slow.

Hosting live webinars is great practice for anyone looking to do public speaking.

Be Prepared

There’s no replacement for being prepared. One reason for the fear of public speaking is the fear of the unknown. I fear the worst possible thing that could happen.

What if my slides don’t work? What if someone asks me a difficult question? What if my presentation ends too soon?

I need to be confident in my content. I need to practice giving that presentation, even if it’s just for myself or in the mirror. I time it. And I edit anything that doesn’t flow properly.

Avoid Reading

One source of anxiety is feeling like you have to get everything perfectly. Every word. Don’t do that.

I have slides, but they are there as a guide to keep me on task. While my slides tend to have a lot of words, I don’t just read them. Each sentence is a jumping off point to another point that needs to be made.

More than half of your speaking needs to be off the cuff. You are responding to the slides and to the audience. If you know the content this well, you are less likely to be nervous.

Rest Well, Eat Well

I try to have a routine the night before and day of my presentation. I speak tomorrow, so I’ll get to sleep by about 11pm. I’m not going out tonight, even though there are pre-conference parties going on.

After eight hours of sleep, I’ll get up and run at 7am. I’ll grab breakfast with close friends. I’ll practice my presentation two more times. I’ll walk and clear my head with those same close friends. And then I’ll finally give my presentation.

It may sound like a process. It may be unnecessary for some. But that’s necessary for me, and probably for many who deal with this type of anxiety.

Your Turn

To be clear, I’m not a public speaking pro. I choose to only speak two or three times per year — for many reasons, but the stress and anticipation can be unhealthy for me. I do speak for some rather large groups. And you know what? When it’s all said and done, I have a blast doing it.

Do you deal with public speaking anxiety? Any other tips you’d add?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: How to Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

If you are an entrepreneur with a website, content is required. The inclusion of content humanizes your brand, provides proof of expertise and builds trust.

My website and business are prime examples of this. I am passionate about this topic because I’ve seen what a benefit content can be. I would never attempt to start a business without it.

I try to imagine if I had taken the short-cut approach. Many marketers in my field rely on sending people to a landing page to collect an email address and skip the content.

My traffic would be dramatically lower. My email list would be smaller. The remarketing power would be a fraction of what it is today. Most importantly, the level of trust and engagement would be nearly impossible to replicate.

I understand that my perspective comes from the info marketing and education industries. So my approach doesn’t apply to everyone equally. But I do feel strongly that all businesses should apply at least some piece of this approach.

I often hear from marketers who argue that they’ve found success without creating content. First, you’re in the extreme minority. Second, I contend that your level of success could be multiplied by adding in a layer of content.

Let’s take a closer look at the seven primary reasons why content is so important for a business website…

1. Prove Your Expertise

This is precisely one of the primary goals of my website. If I only sent you to a landing page for a product or opt-in, how do I prove to you that I know what the heck I’m talking about?

These free blog posts are my opportunities to do just that. The first time you clicked a link to visit this website, you may not have considered providing me with an email address. But after reading a no-strings-attached blog post helping solve a problem, your mind may have been changed.

A landing page, by itself, is mostly fluff PR. It’s very difficult to prove that you know anything.

But a blog post that doesn’t hold back information is a great vehicle for showing your reader the level of your understanding on a topic.

2. Highlight Complexity

I’ve often been criticized for giving away too much for free. Why would someone buy a training program, sign up for a one-on-one or join an exclusive community when they can just read my blog?

I find this to be a silly argument. Some people will never buy from me. Some people will rely only on my free content. That’s fine. They’re welcome to it.

But by writing close to 1,000 blog posts over the years, my blog highlights the complexity of this topic. There isn’t a simple formula to success. Things are constantly changing. It’s incredibly difficult to keep up!

As a result, those who read my blog appreciate how complex this topic is. They suddenly start to realize how much they don’t know. And they want to do all they can to sharpen their skills.

That, ultimately, leads to my paid products.

3. Attract Future Customers

Some marketers are hell bent on collecting an email address or squeezing as much revenue out of a single person today. It’s a short-term approach.

But I realize that you may not be ready to register for something of mine today. You may not want to buy something from me today. It may be because you don’t yet have the need or resources. Or maybe the level of trust isn’t there yet.

One blog post may be enough for you to realize that one of my paid products could benefit you. Or maybe it will take 10 blog posts. Or 20. Or you’ll never reach that point. Everyone is different.

A goal of this blog is that when you or a friend are suddenly in need of help with Facebook advertising education, my name comes up first. And that only happens due to a long-term commitment to content.

4. Build an Email List

Oh, I know. You don’t create content. You focus only on driving people to a landing page to build your email list. You’ve cut out the unnecessary work.

But no…

If you don’t create content, why would someone go to your landing page? It’s usually because you pay to drive that traffic. And costs to drive that traffic tend to be high.

When you visit my website, there tend to be multiple opportunities to provide an email address. Not in an intrusive, annoying, hard-sell way. But there are opportunities.

These pages get more than 200,000 unique visitors per month. A large percentage of that traffic is organic. And a nice chunk of those visits result in a new email subscriber.

Content helps me build my list efficiently in another way…

5. Build a Remarketing Audience

Who is more likely to provide an email address: 1) Someone who has never heard of you before or 2) Someone who visits your website frequently?

Yeah, it should be obvious. It’s the person who comes to your website frequently.

And keep in mind that the quality of the email address from a frequent website visitor should also be much higher. There is equity built with that relationship.

When I target people who have visited my website before with an opt-in opportunity, my costs and success rate are significantly better than targeting a cold audience. Of course they are, right?

It’s an unfair advantage, really. I get enough traffic now where I can focus not only on any website visitor, but my most engaged website visitor. Results improve even more.

6. Create a Traffic Engine

It took years of refining and figuring out my process, but I now have a well-oiled machine. It’s a traffic engine that keeps on working.

It’s not magic. It’s not a secret formula. It’s all very logical why it works. But it works incredibly well.

It functions like this…

I create and share content.
Remarketing audience grows.
Email list grows.
I promote content and opt-ins to remarketing list.
I promote product to email list and remarketing list.
I create and share content.
Remarketing audience grows.
Email list grows.
I promote opt-ins to remarketing list.
I promote product to email list and remarketing list.
I create and share content…

Every time I create new content, this process repeats. I share it to my Facebook page and Twitter. I promote it with Facebook ads. I share it to my email list. Those who visit may share with their friends.

My email list is constantly growing. The traffic is constantly churning. And I always have a warm audience of people who are willing to buy from me.

7. Build Loyalty

People hold no loyalty for a logo. No loyalty for a landing page.

But every piece of content you create is an opportunity to build on a relationship. Trust increases. Loyalty increases.

When someone purchases a product from me, I don’t want it to be because I did a good job of convincing them to buy from a landing page. I don’t want it to be someone who stumbled on me for the first time, and I talked them into it.

This type of customer — this type of sale — is the highest risk for me. They are much more likely to result in dissatisfaction. It’s not worth the additional effort. I’d rather you don’t buy in the first place.

But if you know me — if you’ve read my blog for some time, have been on my email list and attended a free webinar or two — you know what I’m all about. You know what to expect. You are much more likely to hold a sense of loyalty.

Not only are you more likely to benefit from your purchase, you are more likely to buy again. That’s what I want.

Quality Matters

With all of this talk about content, understand that quality matters. This should be obvious, but it isn’t to everyone. You can’t just create any old content and expect the “traffic engine” to fire on all cylinders.

While volume of content matters, focus on quality first. If you prioritize volume, you risk doing damage to your brand and reputation, impacting level of trust and loyalty.

Content Types

While my focus has been on my blog, know what you do best. You can also create content via videos or podcasts, for example. Just know that a blog may be most efficient.

That statement may be out of ignorance due to results I’ve seen, but the impact from my blog vs. podcasting and video isn’t even close.

Find Your Content Focus

I wrote about this topic already, so we won’t re-write it here. But a quick refresher is in order.

You need to think about…

1. What is your topic of expertise?
2. What are the questions your customers and potential customers are asking?
3. What topic provides volume of content opportunities?
4. What information may be valuable to your target audience?

This is a start. Experiment to find what works and what doesn’t. But read that blog post on content focus for a deep dive exercise to help lead the way.

Your Turn

Content drives my business. I would have nowhere close to the level of success I’ve enjoyed without it. So I hope that this helps convince you of the importance of content and gives you some early ideas for your own content plans.

Anything you’d add? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: 7 Reasons Why Content is Required appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

Now that I’ve begun writing more about the day-to-day grind of entrepreneurship, I am getting flooded with stories from readers that follow a common theme: They are scared. They have an intense fear of failure.

They are paralyzed by this fear, and I can relate. I’ve been there. And looking back, I wish I could grab my old entrepreneur self, shake him, and slap some sense into him.

Think about it…

• Are you delaying a product launch because you fear it won’t sell?
• Are you spending more time agonizing over results than acting on them?
• Are you risk averse and worry about making products perfect?
• Do you blame failure on things you think are outside of your control?

These things are all common for entrepreneurs. While normal, they keep you from experimenting, learning and ultimately succeeding. While I am self-aware these days, I can tell you that I still deal with this counterproductive behavior.

There Is No “Fail”

Do you know what failure is? It’s a failure to try. It’s a failure to experiment. It’s a failure to learn from the results — both positive and negative.

But that’s not what we typically define as failure. We define failure as poor results. And that’s a terrible approach.

Not everything is going to work the way you planned. Nothing is automatic. People aren’t robots. Crazy things happen. Bad results aren’t “failure,” but instead something you can learn from.

Ready for a baseball analogy? Let’s go…

I’m a baseball coach for 13-year-olds. We had a very similar discussion last week. I told them that they can’t be scared of bad results. They can’t be scared of striking out. They cannot fear dropping a ball or throwing it away.

Those who fear striking out are less likely to swing and more likely to strikeout looking. Those who fear striking out are more likely to take a tentative swing and ground out softly.

Those who fear dropping the ball on a tough play are more likely to let it drop in for a hit. It may not appear as an error, but that lack of effort prevented a potential out.

While telling these 13-year-old boys this, I refrained from using the word “mistake.” There are no mistakes. Everything we do is intentional. It’s just a matter of whether our intentional approach led to the desired result.

When the desired result doesn’t happen, we have to ask ourselves, “Why?” Was there something else we should have done? Was our approach correct? Did we do everything right, but it simply didn’t work out in our favor?

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or teenage baseball player, how do you react to things that don’t go your way? Do you blame the results? Do you dwell on them? Do you focus more on the results than the process that led to those results?

Do you learn from what happened?

The best athletes and most successful entrepreneurs have no apparent fear of failure. They swing for the fences, and they leave caution to the wind. As a result, you may not even notice the failures when they happen, but you notice the successes.

Be Willing to Embarrass Yourself

I would argue that we — entrepreneurs, young athletes, people in general — aren’t necessarily afraid of “failure” or making a “mistake.” We’re afraid of public embarrassment.

I again asked these same young athletes this simple question: “If you dropped a baseball, but no one was there to see it, would you be embarrassed?” They all shook their heads, “no.”

Of course not. And as a result, you’re more likely to take risks when no one is watching.

If we launch a product and no one buys it, is our biggest concern that it didn’t sell or that someone might see our business, our product, or the entrepreneur as an embarrassing failure?

Be willing to embarrass yourself. Get to the point where trying, doing and sometimes getting bad results is part of the process — not a source of embarrassment.

Don’t watch opportunities pass you by. Don’t sit back and wish for something to happen. Don’t blame results on things you can’t control.

Do something about it. Take risks!

Experiment and Learn

Those who are best equipped to learn are those with the most experiences and the most data.

Note that I used the word “experiences” here over “experience.” You can have “experience” doing the same thing for years at a time while having very few “experiences.” And you can also have many experiences in a short period of time.

Every time you try something, it’s an experience — an opportunity to collect data and learn from it. Your goal, particularly in the early days, should be to create the most experiences — the most learning opportunities — as is possible.

Of course, you shouldn’t simply experiment without the connection of learning from it. Otherwise, it’s wasted action. It’s experimenting without a purpose.

When making an evaluation, here are questions to ask yourself:

• What worked?
• Why did it work?
• What didn’t work?
• Why didn’t it work?
• What would you do differently next time?
• What would you do the same way next time?

By asking yourself these questions, you are actively learning from what happened. By actively learning, you are much more likely to get better results next time.

Be the person who isn’t afraid to try something. You are your own boss now. Act like it.

Do you often ask for advice, using the phrase, “Should I…?”

While you should always tap into the knowledge and expertise of those who been there, don’t underestimate the value of finding out yourself through experience. Don’t overvalue one single person’s experience that may or may not apply to your situation.

It’s a phrase I often get related to Facebook advertising. Should I target Lookalike Audiences or interests? Should I optimize for conversions or website clicks? Should I create multiple ads for split testing?

My answer is always a variation of the same: I don’t know. Should you? Try it. Experiment. There are no universal rules. Find what works for you.

Launch When You Aren’t Ready

Don’t be a perfectionist. Perfection is an impossible goal that will only lead to a perpetual feeling of dissatisfaction. And you won’t accomplish anything.

Admittedly, I’m dealing with this right now. I’ve been preparing to launch a community for entrepreneurs. I was originally going to launch it at the end of January. I decided against it.

Why? There was a combination of fear of failure (what if no one buys it?!) and feeling that it wasn’t ready. I’m spoiled with an audience of Facebook advertisers who provide me the confidence to launch Facebook ads-related products. But I don’t have that same confidence with a new topic.

So really, it’s a bit like I’m starting a new business from scratch. I don’t have the luxury of a built-in audience that I know would buy an entrepreneur-focused product. I have unknown, and that unknown creates uncertainty.

But as I look back through the past five-plus years, every product launch of mine has been a success. Note that “success” doesn’t mean that it resulted in a high number of sales. “Success” means that I immediately received data that I learned from, allowing me to improve and adjust.

My first product launch came after months of worry. I didn’t know what product to create, how to create it, how to sell it or how to promote it. I eventually, sent an email with a PayPal link to pre-order a product that didn’t exist yet.

Spur of the moment. Imperfect. Not ready. And it was the best thing I could have done. I immediately learned from the results. And all of those months of worry immediately looked silly.

The launch is exciting. It’s intoxicating. And, yes, it’s a little scary. But embrace it! Each new launch takes you a step closer to your goals, even if that product isn’t “perfect” or “ready.”

Your Turn

How do you relate to the topic of failure?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: The Fear of Failure appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

Looking back on the past 5 1/2 years, possibly the most difficult and important decisions centered around pricing.

How should you price your product? What if the price is too high? What if it’s too low? Should you offer discounts?

Most businesses err on the side I did in those early days: Underpricing.

Why? Because we lack confidence that our product deserves to be sold. We fear that we won’t sell anything at all. And we desire to have masses buy our product as affirmation.

The truth is that this approach is all wrong. The price you set will attract a certain type of audience. And if you price too low, any discounting (young businesses LOVE to discount) will devalue your product — and brand — even further.

I did it, too. I can see that now. Despite the warnings of peers and mentors, I still did it.

I am not, and never was, an expert on pricing. I didn’t model, plan, project and track psychological behavior to determine my ideal pricing structure. More often than not, I was winging it, guessing and throwing something at the wall.

But when you wing it often and long enough, you start learning some things. This post details what I’ve learned about pricing and discounts.

1. Know the Cost to Produce Your Product

My very first product in October of 2012 was a “Facebook Page Strategic Review.” Buy it and I’d review your page, complete with a video screenshare and two-page document recapping my recommendations. If I was focused and had no distractions, it would take me two hours to complete the review, start to finish.

The price: $97.

I was valuing my effort at — MAYBE — $50 per hour.

Looking back, there were two primary problems with this.

First, production didn’t scale. If I received lots of sales, my life would be chaotic — all for $50 per hour. And I risked being unable to deliver a quality product on time.

Second, to be worthwhile, the price needed to be much higher. But would a simple review of someone’s Facebook page be worth $300? $500? More? I still struggle to see how I could have provided enough value, with that particular product, to make it both worthwhile for me and the customer.

As a result, this was not a viable product. But it was not a failure. Why? Because I learned from it.

Before pricing a product, think about the costs associated with producing it. When measuring costs, think of time and resources. Think about customer service and maintenance. And please, I beg you: Do not undervalue your time.

2. Consider Scalability

There’s a reason why my products follow the webinar and community model these days: It scales.

The Page Review product had limited potential because it would never scale. It could only withstand me selling four or five per day.

At one point, I had a well-known marketer approach me about selling this product to their audience. They had reservations about the price, scalability and whether it would be worthwhile for me. I’m glad it didn’t work out.

Under my current model, maintenance costs change very little whether I have 10 people sign up for a training program or 200. The same goes for whether I have 50 or 5,000 people in my private communities.

The primary concern is making sure I first sell enough to cover costs and turn a meaningful profit (the product is worthwhile). With my current model, I can accomplish this with a small number of sales at a reasonable price.

February marked my biggest month of registrations for a single training program. My amount of effort did not change. That is the goal when creating a product that scales.

3. Consider Shelf Life

This one, too, was a critical lesson for me. It was yet another reason why I ended up with my current model.

My first truly successful product was a Power Editor training course. It did so well that I created a second edition a year and a half later.

But understand that there were major flaws with this approach. I created a training course and I sold it for $147 (of course, I discounted it at 50% off during launch).

This course was loaded with 40 or so lessons, each with a short video and written content. I over delivered in a major way.

The catch: Facebook changes really fast.

As a result, my training course quickly became outdated. So I was faced with a dilemma…

Do I update the course for current and future customers? If I do this, I keep the quality high and I keep people happy. But this suddenly increases my work hours on the product. It begins turning into a very cheap membership (get updates for a year).

Do I leave it as is? If I leave it without updating it, I risk upsetting new customers. I may even upset current customers who expect it to be updated.

Ultimately, I didn’t update it. Instead, I simply couldn’t in good conscience continue to promote it. So the shelf-life was really only about six months. And in reality, the bulk of the sales and promotion happened during the first three.

I would eventually release a second edition of this course. This time, I learned from my pricing mistake and sold it as a bundle of three parts for a total of $297. But I felt bad about the people who bought the first training course expecting updates (even though I never said there would be any), and I gave it to those first customers for free.

Plenty of lessons to go around here regarding price, shelf life, updating training courses and more. But probably the greatest lesson learned was this: If you’re going to create a static training course, make sure that the topic is evergreen.

The counter could be: “Just tell people it won’t be updated.” Yeah, sure. But that product will be worthless in six months.

My topic was the furthest you could get from evergreen. And since it wasn’t, I needed to either price accordingly or find a new model.

I found a new model: Live training via communities and webinars. The value is found in the live interaction rather than viewing something I recorded and prepared.

Side note: One reason I am experimenting with the topic of entrepreneurship is because there is a longer shelf life for the content.

4. Research the Market

I honestly had no idea how to price my training course when I launched it for the first time. But I didn’t pull my price out of thin air. I researched.

What are others charging for a similar product? Find out what they’re doing.

But of course, don’t do what I did — especially the first time. I found what others were charging and charged less. Why? Because I thought I needed to be cheaper.

We’ll get to this in a moment, but don’t price your product to appeal to bargain shoppers. Price it to appeal to value shoppers.

5. Know Your Value

You should understand the cost of creating and maintaining your product. You should research what others are charging for a similar product. And you should also know your own value.

That’s where things get difficult.

If you’re new to this, you’ll undoubtedly do what I did and undervalue yourself. Don’t do that.

Sure, visibility goes a long way to increasing your brand’s value. But I was seriously undervaluing what I had to offer in those days.

My traffic was good. While I wasn’t at the top, I had some recognition. I created a product that seriously over delivered. All of these things should have raised the value of my product.

Instead, I erred on the side of underpricing. I didn’t know — or trust — my own value.

6. You Can’t Overprice Your Product

It’s a lesson that I eventually figured out. It makes a whole lot of sense.

If you underprice your product from the start, you’re screwed. If you overprice your product, you can come down.

Raising prices because you underpriced something sucks. But if you shoot for the stars and price your product higher than you think anyone would pay, you might be surprised. People may actually buy it.

If they don’t? Just lower the price as part of a promotion.

7. Match Price With Your Target Audience

I’ve learned so many lessons over the years that originated from wise words of peers and mentors. I know this is one of them.

If you offer the cheapest price, you will attract the cheapest audience.

In other words, offering the cheapest price often attracts people who are shopping based on price — or primarily on price. And guess what? They often have the most unrealistic expectations for the dollar they spend.

I was creating a premium product and selling it to people who didn’t, in many cases, appreciate it. They always expected more, even though they bought it for a very low price.

I slowly learned that a higher price tag didn’t raise expectations regarding what would be delivered. Instead, it simply attracted an audience who wanted the best possible product.

While I’d consider my prices to still be moderate these days, the highest maintenance in terms of customer service and managing expectations was during the days I sold low-priced products. In the end, I was attracting the wrong audience.

My content and my products were for “advanced Facebook advertisers.” And yet, my price was attracting beginners.

8. If You Discount…

There are times when discounting makes sense. If you are taking pre-orders to gauge interest in a product, discounts make sense. If you are starting a community from scratch and volume matters, early discounts make sense.

But if you discount, do so off of a regular price on the high side — not from one that is already underpriced.

9. The Trappings of Discounting

If you offer a discount, your sales will go up. That volume can be intoxicating. But there are dangers beneath those numbers.

Remember that the increase is at least partially due to people who didn’t think your product was worth buying at the regular price. They are buying the discount as much as they are buying your product.

Those buying at the discount will likely be the most concerned about getting the value they expect in return. This is fine — everyone should demand value for what they buy. But the problem is that this group often comes in with unreasonable expectations.

I’ve found that customers who buy at a discounted price are more likely to want a refund. And if they sign up for a membership at a discounted rate, they are more likely to cancel within one month.

There are other trappings of discounting as well. You have to manage discount codes. What happens when someone signed up for a membership at a discount, canceled, and then wants to start back up later? They want the discount again. Do you give it to them?

The biggest trapping of all is the discount cycle. There was a time when I always needed a different promotion. How would I get sales this month? How will I beat last month’s numbers? I need to offer a special deal!

As a result, you’re constantly offering a sale on something. And after a while, it just becomes used car salesman noise. And that leads me to…

10. There is Reason to NEVER Discount

Based on what I know about discounting, it makes me skeptical about the entire process as a consumer. If a company always has a new sale, why would you ever buy something for regular price? And aren’t they just ripping you off when you do?

There is something strong and bold about never discounting. You know your value. Your price is your price. If a potential customer isn’t willing to meet your price, they are not a good fit for that product.

If you never discount, the game is gone. There’s no more psychology. No mind games. There’s something respectable about that.

Where I’m At With Pricing and Discounts

I’d say that I’m still adjusting to my early failings with pricing and discounts. If I were to start over today, my prices would likely be higher.

I’ve raised my prices slowly over the years. There was a time when I offered free 30-minute consultations. Then $97. Today, they are $497 for a single person ($100 additional for each extra person).

I do not offer discounts on one-on-ones. I realized that my time is valuable. And that price attracts the right customer who doesn’t need to learn everything in 45 minutes. They just need a single takeaway that will make the session worthwhile — saving them or making them the money they spent.

I no longer offer discounts on training programs. The price is what it is. It makes handling questions about price easy.

Part of this is by design, thanks to the model. Instead of always needing to offer a new discount or having to update content, I simply run a new, live training program nearly every month. I have a funnel that constantly feeds it from free webinars to training programs to memberships.

The one exception with discounting that I have is around memberships. While I no longer offer discounts for my established PHC – Elite membership (though some legacy members continue to benefit from old discounts), I still see reason to discount for a new community at launch.

I did it with my PHC – Basic group. As I type this, I am raising the price of that community next week. And as I think about creating a community for entrepreneurs, I’ll undoubtedly offer a discount at launch there as well.

The reason is that a community needs some level of volume. Obviously, you need a balance of quality and quantity. But I still suffer from a fear of starting a community of 1.

Overall, though, I’d say that where I’m at — whether intentionally or not — is a happy balance between premium quality products and communities combined with volume.

I could raise prices on all of these things. While I may be wrong, my expectation is that I would get fewer purchases.

Understand, there’s nothing inherently wrong with fewer purchases at a higher price. But I also see my business as a funnel building long-term relationships. I want more signups and more customers to create greater potential for more customers tomorrow and three years from tomorrow.

But like I said at the top, I’m no expert on these things. My pricing isn’t scientific or particularly well thought-out. I do still wing it. But when you wing it often and long enough, you tend to learn some things.

These are the things I’ve learned.

Your Turn

So these are my thoughts on pricing and discounts. How do you approach this?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: On Pricing and Discounts appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

The first time it happened was around four years ago. I launched a new training course about Power Editor. I was feeling good about myself because it was doing better than I had expected. My first product. Then an email arrived…

I don’t recall exactly what it said. I’ve received many similar emails since then. But a concerned reader was letting me know that some scumbag was selling my course at a ridiculous discount.

Anger. Rage.

I was obsessed. How could someone do this to me? I overcame so much to create a product. At this point, my business was just getting off of the ground. Someone else steals it and sells it for about 10% of the cost. That’s money I’m losing. They’re taking food off my table.

What do I do? Do I get an attorney? Do I threaten them? How do we take this down? How do I make them pay?

That was only the beginning, of course. No matter what product I sell, there will always be someone looking to steal it.

Over the years, my approach to the thieves, pirates and people willing to buy from them has changed. I hope that this post can provide some perspective while you — if you’re doing it right! — inevitably deal with a similar fate.

It’s Good to Have Something Worth Stealing

I don’t think I saw this at the time, but looking back… The first time someone stole from me, it was a sign that my business was legit.

Seriously. It wasn’t the first day that someone bought my product. It was the day that someone desired to steal it and make their own profit. That was my coming out party.

If someone steals from you, try having that perspective. Someone thinks that your product is so good that they can rip it off, offer half the value (it will never be as good), sell it to people knowing that it’s ripped off and still make a profit…

When that happens? Well, I guess you’re doing alright for yourself.

So, consider it an honor when you get your stuff ripped off. I’d be offended if no one was trying to steal it. If people are stealing your stuff, raise a glass and celebrate it!

Shortcuts Don’t Pay… Long-Term

My feelings about those stealing my stuff have shifted from anger to pity. Come on, man. This is your business? You feel okay about this?

This goes both for those who steal content and those who buy it. I understand why both groups are doing it.

They are both likely desperate in some sense. One needs to make a buck. One needs an edge while watching their budget.

But both are grossly unethical. They’re selling themselves short. One isn’t confident enough in themselves to create and sell their own product. And I can’t imagine either will establish a legitimate, profitable, sustainable business that they can be proud of with that approach.

That’s too bad. And in that sense, I wish I could talk some sense into them. I wish I could help.

If You Buy From Thieves…

It initially bothered me when I considered that someone might buy my product from someone who ripped it off. But I’ve come to peace with this.

Why? Anyone willing to buy my products from another source — underground and untrustworthy — is not my target audience.

We don’t have the same core values. I don’t want these people buying my products.

There was a time when every dollar mattered. I eventually realized that I simply don’t want some people buying my product.

My products are not a good fit for everyone. If it’s over your budget, please don’t buy it. I have plenty of free content that can help you, too.

But it goes to ethics as well. If you are willing to give your money to someone other than me for my product, we’re not a good fit. We shouldn’t be doing business together.

I established this years ago. My target audience does not buy my products based on price. They buy it based on value, trust and authority.

Mitigate Your Losses Where You Can

On Tuesday, I held the second webinar of my Facebook pixel 4-week training program. Immediately after that session, I spotted a discrepancy in the number of webinar registrants and number of purchases.

Yep, five people (at least three of whom had the same company domain in their email addresses) were rogue registrants within two minutes of one another. They found a back door and stole the second lesson.

I sent them an email. It wasn’t angry. It may have been edited several times. But the purpose was to let them know that they would need to purchase the program to access future lessons.

It was tough for me at first. I saw it as the equivalence of someone breaking into my home and taking something of value. But then I realized that these five people were never going to buy from me in the first place.

This was a good lesson for me. While I came to peace with those who made their way in, I wanted to find a way to prevent this back door without impacting the product or effort.

The back door was that someone who knew the webinar’s ID could easily find a generic webinar registration page and bypass the purchase process. And since I automatically accepted registrants, they were home free — until I found them, at least.

To mitigate this, I made a minor change. While I’ve typically allowed people to sign up for a training program after it begins, I will now update my landing page for the next month when the first lesson starts. Meanwhile, I will switch registration from automated to manual once the program begins to prevent the back door.

That’s one example of how I mitigate theft. Second, always make sure that at least part of your product can’t be ripped off.

For example, much of the value of my Power Hitters Club (both Elite and Basic) is found in the community. I also stream my weekly webinars directly to the private Facebook group. You cannot access those groups without being a paid member.

I embed recorded videos using Vimeo Pro, which provides options to prevent people from downloading the file. Even if there is a way around it, I’ll at least make those people work. And I don’t provide slides or anything else that can be passed on.

I’ve made it so the majority of the value in my products is what you can access live — with Q&A and direct engagement with my community and access to me.

Don’t Let Fear of Theft Control Your Product

While you should mitigate your losses, you also shouldn’t be paralyzed by potential theft. Create something awesome, thieves be damned.

It’s unlikely that you will ever completely eliminate theft. You can prevent thieves from stealing and selling it. You can prevent rogue webinar registrants from accessing a back door. But you can’t prevent people from sharing their access with friends and co-workers.

While I certainly don’t condone that activity and don’t encourage it, I’m no longer enraged by it. After all… If no one is stealing or trying to steal your product, maybe that product isn’t good enough?

Your Turn

This is a topic that I spent far too much time and energy worrying about in the past. My advice is to do your best to prevent theft, but don’t lose any sleep over it.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Let me know in the comments below!

Free Webinar for Entrepreneurs

I host a free webinar for entrepreneurs. It focuses on lessons I learned while starting my business.

The post Entrepreneurs: On Theft, Piracy and Buying from Thieves and Pirates appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

I’m often asked about how I promote my products. Since my new 4-week training program about the Facebook pixel just started this week, I thought I’d share how I used email to increase sign-ups.

General Approach

There will be disagreement with my approach. Some will think that it’s too soft, or that I left money on the table. Understand that this core disagreement is based on a fundamental difference of opinion.

As part of my core values, I focus on value first, sales later. I don’t enjoy selling — or at least, I detest pushy selling. I care more about building a long-term relationship with people who will buy later to squeezing every last dollar out of my audience for a current promotion (potentially at the expense of sales later).

Side note: My business manager, John Robinson, pushed me to market this more. I refused. It’s not my style. Know when to say no to your trusted advisors.

So, yes, I want to sell this training program. But you, as a hypothetical potentical customer, may not be ready to buy right now. You might not be a good fit for it. And I do not want to push away these groups of people.

Also understand that my training program isn’t a one-shot deal. I will likely host this same program nine times in 2017. So I need to consider that this won’t be the final time I’ll be promoting this program (or another program, my memberships or one-on-ones).

My goal is to be sure that those who are ready and are a good fit are given every opportunity to learn about and buy this program — without alienating them and losing a customer later.

The Hidden Steps

For those who attempt to replicate this approach, it’s important to understand that I didn’t start from scratch with Step 1 listed below. The reality is that there are years of work hidden beneath it.

What I mean by that is it’s easy for me to get inexpensive, high-quality registrations for a webinar. It won’t be for most marketers who haven’t put in the groundwork.

I did not go after a cold audience to fill this training program. I pulled from my email list (about 100,000 people after a recent list cleanse), my website traffic (about 200,000 unique visitors per month) and social media channels (well over 100,000 on Facebook).

These three things didn’t pop out of nowhere. It took time, work and investment to build a highly engaged and relevant audience of people who will be interested in my content, webinars and products.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t follow my steps below. But it does mean that you need to prioritize the hidden steps as well to make sure that when you follow steps 1-5 in the future, your results will continue to improve in quality and volume.

What are the hidden steps? Too much for this blog post, but everything involved with writing content, driving traffic, building an email list and building a social media audience.

1. Free Webinar

I’ve found that the free webinar is a good way to introduce people to a new product. While I do get sales on the webinar itself, I try to be sure that webinar has quality information first. The focus isn’t on the product.

Many of the sales actually come from those who register for the webinar, but later. I have your email address. You may remember me talking about that product. Well, here’s your last chance to buy…

I created a free webinar called Keys to Success. I know, boring name. But I’m a boring-webinar-name-kind-of-marketer.

The content of the webinar focuses on the things that I believe are most important to successful Facebook ad campaigns. What I found by creating that content is that a recurring theme for many of these items was the Facebook pixel.

You need the pixel to target properly. You need the pixel to track properly. You need the pixel to optimize properly. On and on and on.

So the webinar would become a good jumping off point to a 4-week training program about the Facebook pixel.

I scheduled my first “Keys to Success” webinar for January 30. I will eventually host one on a nearly monthly basis (again, this is one factor in not wanting to over-market).

Email #1: Announce Free Webinar

The funnel for my 4-week training program began here. I sent this email to 96,595 people…

The purpose of the email was to announce the background behind the webinar, what it would be about, what you would learn and when it would occur.

This is a partial screen grab. Don’t get too focused on the copy and content of each of my emails. I would never proclaim to be a master of email copy. The main thing is to understand the overall structure I’m using.

Email #2: Blog Post Promotion

Three days prior to the webinar, I wrote a blog post about how I promoted that webinar with Facebook ads. That email was sent to 97,652 people.

This was, of course, an easy lead-in to promote my webinar.

This is my favorite way to promote something — as a lead-in, rather than a dedicated email about the webinar itself.

Email #3: Webinar Replay

I ended up maxing out GoToWebinar registrations at 5,000 people. In fact, I didn’t know of this limit, and some people who registered weren’t able to attend (my bad!). So the total audience of this email was 5,180 people.

This email focused first on access to the webinar replay before jumping to the details of the related training program. The email included everything you needed to know about what it would cover, what you would learn and when.

This email admittedly did not include the price. This was not intentional. Price would be found when clicking the link.

And by the way, those who clicked the link to the landing page would be tagged in Infusionsoft so that I could email them later.

2. Training Program Launch Announcement

Now it was time to announce my training program publicly.

Email #4: Announce Training Program

A day after my free webinar, I sent four different emails to four different groups announcing my training program. I wouldn’t want to reach anyone who already signed up for the program or who was a member of PHC – Elite (they would get access to the replays as part of their membership).

I modified the copy ever-so-slightly based on different audiences.

For registrants of that free webinar (5,177)…

For people who participated in prior 4-week training programs from 2016 (253)…

For people who participated in my prior free webinar program (21,564)…

And then everyone else (70,408)…

In all, this was 97,402 people. There was no overlap. I also excluded anyone who was a PHC – Elite member (as mentioned, they get replays as part of their membership) and anyone who already signed up.

3. Large Group 1-Week Reminder

This is about my limit for dedicated emails promoting a product to close to my entire list.

Email #5: 1 Week Left

One week before the start of my training program…

This was sent to 98,155 people who hadn’t yet signed up for the program or PHC – Elite. This will be the final time I email about this program to my list in bulk.

4. Blog Post Promotion

As mentioned earlier, this is my favorite way to promote something. When you lead with helpful information as opposed to “BUY MY STUFF,” it’s an approach that makes me more comfortable.

Email #6: Importance of the Facebook Pixel

Four days prior to the start of my training program about the Facebook pixel, I wrote a blog post about… yep, the Facebook pixel. That, of course, was the perfect lead-in for my training program.

I sent an email to the 97,990 people who weren’t yet signed up or members of PHC – Elite…

I tagged anyone who clicked the link to this blog post in Infusionsoft because while they may not be specifically interested in the training program, they did express interest in the topic.

5. Final Reminders to Small Group

As mentioned above, I was done emailing my entire list about this program. I sent you a few messages already. If you didn’t click a link to at least show interest, I’m done trying with you for now (again, remember that this program will run in future months as well, so there will be more opportunities).

Email #7: 1 Day Reminder

One day prior to the start of the 4-week training program, I sent a reminder to the 4,834 people who satisfied these requirements:

• Clicked a link to the 4-week training program in a prior email, AND/OR
• Clicked a link to the blog post about the Facebook pixel
• NOT a registrant to the 4-week training program
• NOT a member of PHC – Elite

Email #8: Training Starts Today

And on the day the program started — about 10 hours from the first webinar — I sent this email to that same group of people (now 4,856 people thanks to more people clicking on links in old emails)…

Other Promotion

I also made a mention of the program to my Facebook audience with an organic carousel post…

I did create a Facebook campaign promoting the program, but it only targeted those who registered for the free webinar…

The bulk of my ad spend was actually on the free webinar, rather than the training program itself. I find that to be most efficient, allowing my email marketing to do more of the heavy lifting.

Results

So in all, I sent eight emails that fall into these buckets:

• Dedicated email to my entire list promoting the free webinar (1)
• Email promoting blog post that mentioned my free webinar (1)
• Email promoting blog post that mentioned my training program (1)
• Dedicated email to my entire list promoting my training program (2)
• Email to webinar registrants or other small group promoting my training program (3)

While it’s possible you may have received up to eight emails from me regarding the webinar or training program, most people received only one about the webinar and two about the training program. We funneled from there.

I’m not a big fan of talking about revenue. I think it’s tacky. But you, at least, probably want to know how many people signed up.

I have 185 students in February’s training program. On the surface, that may seem small considering how many people I messaged. But the final funnel was closer to 5,000 people.

Additionally, I must stress that this is a recurring program. I need to play the long-game strategically as opposed to ambushing my list to get the most possible sales today.

Future Promotion

Since this is the first time I’ve run this training program, promotion was actually heavier than it will be in the future. I will not send another dedicated email about the program to my entire list.

Going forward, my focus will be on:

• Getting 5,000 signups for the monthly free webinar
• Emailing those who signed up for the current or previous month’s webinar
• Including soft-sell copy in emails promoting blog posts
• Facebook ads targeting those who registered for the free webinars

My marketing focus also shifts to Facebook ads for doing the heavy lifting on filling the free webinar.

By putting promotion of this program in the background, I can then shift to promote another training program when it’s announced. Or push my memberships. Or one-on-ones.

It’s a juggling act, particularly for someone like me who respects your inbox and doesn’t want to overmarket.

Your Turn

What’s your email approach for promoting your products?

Let me know in the comments below!

TEST

Free Webinar for Entrepreneurs

I host a free webinar for entrepreneurs. It focuses on lessons I learned while starting my business.

The post Entrepreneurs: Promoting Products with Email appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This post continues a series exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

I’ve spent more than five years building my business. Five years experimenting, failing, trying again, and finding success. It’s a constant evolution, and the tools I use tend to be fluid.

In the beginning, I was scared of spending money. I cut corners and paid the bare minimum for the most critical services. In fact, almost exactly four years ago, I wrote this post about how I spent only $2,500 on my business during the first year.

Reading that post is kind of embarrassing now. You can tell I was even a little proud of how thrifty I was (I spent only $750 on Facebook ads — what was I doing??). That thriftiness held back my progress.

It’s easy to say that now, but I also remember the stress from those days. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to start a business. I didn’t know how to create a product. I had a family to feed, and I was afraid to take risks.

And that may be where you are, too. So I get it.

My approach to paying for software is much different these days. If I need it, I pay for it. Unless it’s ridiculously expensive, I don’t give it a whole lot of thought. If it makes my business better, it will pay for itself.

These are the tools that I use. They aren’t necessarily recommendations. They are what I use right now. But I’m always looking for the best possible tool that will not only help me today, but tomorrow.

[SIDE NOTE: No affiliate links of any kind here. The main thought is to be helpful and transparent without making you wonder whether a commission influences my willingness to list a tool.]

Website Tools

My website is the center of my business universe. While I could go on and on about the various plugins and whatnot that I use, let’s cover only the most important items…

Genesis Framework: I’ve used the Genesis Framework WordPress theme for more than four years now. I obviously like it enough to have stuck with it this long!

I don’t have any complaints. I actually own the full license to all Genesis child themes, but I’ve stuck with the same one for the past two years or so. However, this goes back to me doing things that aren’t my expertise. I now have someone on staff who will make these decisions going forward.

Is a redesign in the future? Stay tuned…

Synthesis Hosting: There was a time when my website crashed a lot. It would be down for hours at a time. It took too long to load.

And it shouldn’t be a surprise that I used one of those cut-rate hosting solutions in the beginning. I’m sure that would be fine for most websites. But I was quickly getting a few thousand visitors per day, and that solution wasn’t cutting it.

Synthesis is from Copyblogger, the same company behind Genesis Framework. Synthesis isn’t cheap, but you can’t put a pricetag on website stability.

Memberium: When I created my first membership site, it was hosted on Customer Hub, software created by Infusionsoft. I hated it, and I moved my community swiftly.

Maybe too swiftly. I then moved to Paid Memberships Pro. It was fine. But I had several issues with it, and the integration with Infusionsoft wasn’t what I wanted.

That took me to Memberium. All new webinar registrants, training program students, and Power Hitters Club – Basic members get their private content on powerhittersclub.com, which uses Memberium to show the right content to the right users. My Power Hitters Club – Elite community will eventually be moved there as well, but that migration has been quite a chore.

In other words, moving isn’t easy. Make sure you pick the right membership software in the beginning. I don’t know if Memberium is the best, but it’s portable. Users get access based on usernames, passwords, and tags associated with their accounts on Infusionsoft.

Appointmentcore: I’ve used several appointment scheduling solutions that allow people to purchase and schedule a one-on-one with me. Appointmentcore has been by far the best choice.

There are three primary reasons.

First, it is again integrated with Infusionsoft. So once someone schedules an appointment, they can be tagged and fall into a campaign sequence.

Second, it is integrated with GoToMeeting. In the past, I held these via Skype. Now, Appointmentcore automatically generates a meeting for each appointment.

Third, it is integrated with my Google Calendar. As a result, any appointment added shows up on my calendar. And if I add anything to my calendar, Appointmentcore spots the conflict and won’t allow anyone to schedule during that time.

Automation Tools

When my business was small, automation didn’t seem as important. I handled most things manually. But as volume has increased, automation becomes critical — otherwise, my work becomes overwhelming or results suffer.

Zapier: Zapier is freaking great. But the problem is, I know I’m only scratching the surface with what it can do.

It integrates with dozens of software. You can set up “Zaps” so that if one thing happens within one application, Zapier makes sure that an action is then executed on another.

An example of this is I have Zaps that connect Infusionsoft and GoToWebinar. Someone may register for a webinar on my website via an Infusionsoft form. When they do that, Infusionsoft adds a tag. Zapier spots the new tag and then automatically registers them for the related webinar in GoToWebinar.

Zapier also integrates with Facebook Lead Ad forms. So when someone registers for something via one of these forms, Zapier can automatically send them to Infusionsoft and GoToWebinar.

As I said, this is only scratching the surface. But even so, this tool has been extremely helpful for my business.

Infusionsoft: Infusionsoft is a difficult topic for me. It’s been the source of a whole lot of pain and frustration over the past few years.

Still. It’s a very advanced CRM tool. It’s sophisticated. It’s complicated. It’s incredibly deep. And therein lies the source of frustration.

I know there are limitless things I can do with this tool. I do more today than I did a year ago. But we’re still nowhere close to realizing the potential of Infusionsoft.

I probably know more than most people about how to use Infusionsoft. And yet, I still don’t know crap. And I don’t have the time or patience to figure it out.

This, ultimately, is the issue with Infusionsoft. In order to get the most out of it, you need to hire someone — a true expert — to do it for you.

Driftrock Flow: This is related to the Facebook ads side of things, but Driftrock Flow is an important tool for audience syncing. By default, data Custom Audiences are static. They are as current as the time you created the audience.

Unless you use a third party, tool, of course. Flow keeps my Custom Audiences synced every three hours.

Of course, there are plenty of tools that do this. Flow just happens to be the one that I use.

Stripe: This may not fall neatly under the “Automation” heading, but Stripe is tied in with Infusionsoft. It’s what I use as my payment gateway. When you purchase something on my website, it’s done through Stripe.

In the past, I used PowerPay and Authorize.net for this. Those two tools make me feel like I’m stuck in 2005 when I access their dashboards. Stripe is modern and easy to use. I love it.

Media Tools

I create images, videos, webinars, and podcasts. Here are the tools I need for each task…

Photoshop: I’m not a designer, but I find Photoshop to be a relatively easy tool to use — at least for my purposes. It’s probably too heavy for what I truly need — creating feature images and screen grabs — but I’m comfortable with it.

Wirecast: I use Wirecast to stream webinars to my private Facebook groups, rather than using GoToWebinar. So instead of requiring members of my PHC – Elite private community to install software or click a unique link to access webinars, I simply stream the slides directly to the Facebook group they are in anyway.

Take a look at this blog post for details on how I use Wirecast to stream webinars.

Blue Jeans: I could use Blue Jeans for streaming webinars as well, but I’m using both of these tools right now to find a winner. Blue Jeans is great for streaming interviews and including multiple cameras. I’ve live-streamed the video of my podcasts to PHC – Elite with Blue Jeans.

GoToWebinar: Due to Wirecast and Blue Jeans, you’d think that GoToWebinar would now be obsolete for me. Not the case. I still use it for large webinars.

So while I may stream small webinars to private Facebook groups, I still use GoToWebinar for my list building webinars. Otherwise, I’d need to require those who signed up for a webinar to join a Facebook group. People in my private communities are already in a Facebook group.

This is also valuable because it comes with GoToMeeting, which I use for team meetings, podcast interviews, and my one-on-one appointments (see Appointmentcore).

I know. There are other webinar applications out there. But this is what I use, and I’m comfortable with it.

Screenflow: Brought to you by Telestream (the same company behind Wirecast), Screenflow is software for screen video audio editing. When I stream my webinars live, I also save a recording that is later embedded in the members’ area. Screenflow gives me a good, high-quality recording (GoToWebinar, in particular, provides lower quality recordings).

I also use Screenflow for recording screen share videos and even my podcasts.

Vimeo Pro: Okay. So you know that I record videos and webinars with Screenflow. So how do I embed them on my membership site? Vimeo Pro, of course.

The nice thing about Vimeo Pro is that it allows me to control these things:

• Which sites the video can be embedded on
• Whether or not the video can be downloaded
• Add a logo overlay
• Some other stuff

I like Vimeo Pro a lot, but only for videos that will only be embedded on my membership sites. If I want broader distribution, I go with Facebook videos or YouTube.

Libsyn: I’ve hosted a podcast for about five years now (The Social Media Pubcast). For much of this time, episodes have been hosted on Libsyn, which also distributes episodes to iTunes and Stitcher.

An added benefit of Libsyn is that I can also add episodes “for download only.” In other words, these are episodes that would not be sent to iTunes, but I could embed on one of my websites. I use this for providing audio versions of webinars.

Customer Service Tools

Customer service covers more than people who are unhappy or are asking questions about products. It also includes people who simply have questions about Facebook ads. Those questions have gone up, and I needed ways to handle them!

ZenDesk: Back in the day, a tool to manage customer service questions wasn’t necessary. But now, it’s required.

Any email sent to info@jonloomer.com, any private message or wall post to my Facebook page gets directed to ZenDesk. A ticket is created and can be assigned to various members of my team. I then have a history of correspondence for each user.

Agorapulse: I’ve used Agorapulse for years now (I’m on the “Large” plan). While I originally used it for metrics analysis, I now use it for responding to comments on my posts and ads.

Facebook doesn’t provide the easiest way to manage comments on posts and ads, so it’s nice to have a third party tool like Agorapulse to sort it out for me.

Your Turn

This is a sampling of the most important tools that I use. Any others that are critical to your business?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: Software and Apps I Use appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This is the fifth in a series of posts exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

As I brainstormed ideas for topics to cover on the subject of entrepreneurship, many focused on the technical requirements of setting up a business. Software. CRM. Websites. Payment gateways.

But these subjects skip over an important topic for entrepreneurs: Self-care.

It’s no surprise, really. As entrepreneurs, we regularly skip over care for ourselves. But I’ve learned during the past five-plus years that my own health — physical and mental — needs to be a priority now, more than ever.

This can be a very lonely life. It’s ripe for self-doubt and depression.

I, by no means, have this thing figured out. It’s a constant battle. What I’m sharing today isn’t a detailed fix.

My intention is to highlight the pitfalls you’re likely to fall into as an entrepreneur, and some of the things that I do to overcome them.

This is a Different World Now

My life now is nothing like it once was. There was a time when my alarm went off at a specific time every weekday. I knew I had to shower, eat, and dress by a certain time to fight traffic and get to work by another specific time.

I answered to a “boss.”

While we complain about working for “the man,” there’s something comforting about that structure. There are set expectations provided by someone else. Now, your business obligations are self-driven.

As an entrepreneur, you don’t necessarily need to do anything. You can skip work today. You can skip showering. You can wear what you slept in. You can go weeks without shaving. (I’ve done all of these things.)

You create your own deadlines. Missed it? You decide whether that matters.

This new world is both liberating and paralyzing at the same time. It’s the ultimate responsibility. You determine every next step, not your boss.

First, we need to acknowledge this new world. Accept its benefits and challenges. See how our own strengths and weaknesses impact how we adapt.

While I will tell you that I don’t like having a boss, I’m also not the best at planning and organization. So it’s a constant struggle that I need to fight.

This new world of freedom has made several things much more important than the days of structure, roles, teams, and bosses. Here are a few things I’ve learned — even if I haven’t perfected them.

1. Create a Routine

It’s been a struggle for me from Day 1, but a routine is absolutely critical. Create a habit — one that is difficult to break.

There are two categories of routine items that go here: 1) Independent and 2) Dependent.

The independent items of my routine are the most difficult to keep. Things like “Run for two miles” could not happen, and no one else around me would notice or care.

It’s important to create dependent routine items or things that others will depend on. I have a weekly team meeting on Mondays. I host scheduled training sessions, free webinars, and weekly webinars for my private community. I allow people to book one-on-one sessions with me.

These are all obligations that are etched in stone on my calendar. I wouldn’t ever neglect them.

I like to bucket my days accordingly:

1) Monday: Weekly team meeting and free webinars once per month
2) Tuesday: Training program webinars
3) Wednesday: Power Hitters Club – Elite weekly webinar
4) Thursday: One-on-one sessions and write a blog post
5) Friday: Interviews, lunch with my wife, and publish a blog post

Notice how there’s very little overlap between days? I could do one-on-ones on multiple days (I once did). I could do my monthly webinars on days other than Mondays. I could do interviews on any day of the week.

Instead, each day has its own purpose. For me, that provides important clarity.

There was a time when I tried to create a very detailed routine. My calendar would be filled with blocks of time for the smallest of tasks. I’d block off time for answering emails, closing tickets in ZenDesk, replying to blog comments, reading and researching, and a whole lot more.

But I quickly failed with that approach. Something more important would come up, and I’d need to skip a 30-minute block. And once skipping blocks became more common, the notifications became noise and I ignored them altogether.

These days, I’m a little looser with my routine. I wake up at “about” 7am every weekday. I have a 15-minute check-in call with John Robinson at 8am. I walk our son JJ to school at 8:20am. I eat lunch at about noon.

After that, I work around the dependent items with the other things I want to do. I don’t HAVE to go for a run at 10am. My schedule is too fluid to force that. If something comes up, the next thing you know is that I skip running altogether.

So now, I keep it much simpler. I might have a long list of things I’d like to do. But in reality, there are two (independent) things I really need to do during a given day. I fit what I can in around everything else.

As a result, I don’t have a routine in the way that you may expect. I don’t wake up with my entire day laid out for me. I have realized over the years that this simply isn’t realistic.

By building my day around a small set of dependent and fixed items, there is more room to adjust and less possibility that I’ll feel I “failed” by being unable to stick to my schedule.

2. Set Aside Times for Calls and Interviews

This is part of a routine, but it’s so important that I’m creating a separate item for it.

If you aren’t careful and respectful of your own time, you won’t accomplish anything you plan to accomplish on a day-to-day basis. You will feel rushed and frustrated.

As my business became more and more successful — and as I’ve become more well known — people have demanded more of my time. Developers wanting to tell me about their products. People wanting to partner. Podcasters wanting to interview me.

While these things could rule my schedule, I don’t do them more now than I did four years ago. In fact, I may do them less.

If you want to set up a call with me, I have three slots open on Monday and two on Friday. If I’m not free or those times don’t work for you, too bad.

Oh, sure, I do make exceptions. But this basic structure is really important for keeping me sane. And it is also connected to number 3…

3. Say “No” — A LOT

There is no more liberating word than “No.”

There was a time when I said “yes” to just about everything. You want me to write a blog post for you? You want my quote for a round-up? You want to set up a call to tell me about your product or “pick my brain”? You want me to make an exception and schedule a one-on-one outside of times I normally would?

I said yes time and time again. And it created more stress.

Not every new opportunity is a good one. I don’t believe I’m exaggerating by estimating that I say “no” to 99% of opportunities.

And some of these opportunities have lots of upside. But they always add more work, more time, and more stress. So remember this, and prioritize accordingly.

I rarely agree to public speaking gigs. I almost never engage in partnerships. I try hard to make product and brand changes rare while staying fresh.

These are conscious decisions, and you should not feel guilty for saying “no.” Embrace the opportunity to choose your path, even if it means continuing down the one you’re on.

4. Stay Active

Get your ass out of your chair. DO SOMETHING!

This is probably the one thing that routinely falls off of the priority list. Something more important always comes up. Don’t let it happen!

Last year, I set a goal for myself to run 366 miles (or a mile per day). I eventually ran 400 miles. This was possible thanks to a colorful chart that I filled in every time I ran.

This is no small achievement for me. I’ve never been a runner before. In fact, there was a time when I created a Facebook group for people who would never run a marathon. This year, I’ll run 500 miles.

You don’t have to turn yourself into a runner. But freaking do something. I also use an app called Sworkit that allows me to do quick 10 and 15 minute workouts for strength and cardio. There are many apps like it to choose from.

At the bare minimum, find a way to get your butt out of your chair. I have an adjustable desk that can be for sitting or standing. I sit sometimes, and I stand sometimes.

Above is my office, with a standing desk and treadmill to the side. On the far wall behind my microphone is this year’s running chart. Good reminders to stay active!

Remember that your health is an investment in your business. Your business will not succeed if you are sick or lethargic.

5. Get Outside

The day can get away from you fast. The next thing you know, it’s 10pm and you’re still wearing what you woke up in.

When you’re on your own clock, there’s always an excuse. It’s too cold. It’s raining. There’s a 10 MPH breeze.

I’d like to say that people in San Diego have no excuse. However, that’s not fair. I guarantee I’d make up an excuse not to get outside if I lived there.

Staying locked up inside is a path to depression. There’s something therapeutic about the outdoors. The birds, the fresh air, the activity around you.

By sitting inside all day, you dull your senses. There are no surprises. What you see and feel is a boring, never-changing constant.

Go outside, and your senses come alive. New sounds, smells, and sights. It activates your mind.

As I mentioned earlier, I walk my son to school every morning. When it’s nice out (an excuse, I know!), I’ll run or go for another walk during the day. I’ve found that these are the times when my brain is most active with ideas.

It’s good for your health, but getting outside is also good for brainstorming business ideas.

6. Have an Outlet

Find a passion, preferably one that gets you out of the house.

My passion is coaching baseball. A year and a half ago, I started a travel team called the Spiders for my middle son.

Coaching a travel team is no small task. It’s not just two months of the year, showing up to a practice and game once per week. This thing is a year-long commitment.

We practice all year long, usually multiple days per week (depending on the time of year). We play in 13 or so tournaments in addition to league games. I’m constantly planning or participating in a practice or game.

But it’s way more than that. I started the team, so I am in charge of managing the roster, fees, uniforms and everything in between. I get some help (especially my wife for the financial stuff), but this is essentially an unpaid job.

I love every minute of it. Most importantly, it allows me to dedicate significant physical and mental energy towards something that isn’t related to my business. It’s a great way to get away from the rigors of entrepreneurial stresses.

Find something. It could be helping out at your kid’s school or volunteering for your favorite cause. But it’s healthy to get your mind on something else.

7. Find a Mentor

This was so important for me in the early going.

It’s easy to get lost in your own thoughts. We obsess over the smallest things. We lack direction and feedback. It’s overwhelming, lonely, and depressing.

Starting very early on in my journey, I had weekly calls with John Robinson, who is family and a successful entrepreneur. He was the guide I needed to walk me through not only business decisions but the emotional roller coaster. We now talk almost every day.

John wasn’t the only one. There were many others in the early days who were generous with their time and helped guide me through each step. Eventually, I felt as though I was pushed out of the nest and figured out that I could fly.

Finding a mentor isn’t an easy task. You can’t force someone to be your mentor. And mentoring needs to be something that someone is passionate about doing.

Not everyone wants to be a mentor. Not everyone would be a good mentor. But it’s good to have some sort of sounding board to guide you through.

8. Stay (Physical World) Social

I suck at this. I know it sounds ridiculous as someone who works in social media, but I am not a social guy.

When I walk into a room full of strangers, I find a secluded chair in the corner. I don’t like it. Meeting new people is not fun for me. It’s even a little scary.

So I won’t tell you that I’ve succeeded at this one. But I know how important it is.

Don’t underestimate what working for yourself can do to your social life. You no longer have cubicle friends. The community is gone.

I’m not looking for sympathy, but I lack physical friends. I have online friends and acquaintances, but I almost never do anything social in the physical world.

This is partly attributed to my focus on family. In my free time, I’m spending time with them or coaching baseball. But I absolutely should create room for friendships. I simply haven’t made it a priority.

9. Value Sleep, Rest, and Reflection

I’ve found that entrepreneurs like to publicly boast about how little sleep they get. I’ve never understood that. If you want to produce efficiently for your business, you need to be well-rested. You aren’t Superman.

I do everything I can to get at least eight hours of sleep every night. Sometimes more. I’m not always successful, but it is a priority.

Remember that as an entrepreneur, you have more freedom than other people. You create your own hours. If you aren’t well-rested, set aside time for it. Take a 30-minute nap. You will be a better producer as a result.

I’ve experimented with meditation, but it’s not something that has become part of my routine. But the main thing is making sure to set aside time to simply breathe and relax, no matter how you do it.

10. Punch Guilt in the Neck

As entrepreneurs, we are our own worst enemy. We beat ourselves up at every opportunity. Our output wasn’t good enough. Revenue isn’t good enough. The product you launched isn’t good enough.

We make ourselves feel guilty for sleeping. For getting away from the computer. For taking a break from work. For enjoying our lives.

Just stop. Punch guilt in the neck.

Forgive yourself for making mistakes. Forgive yourself for not reaching a goal. Forgive yourself for skipping a task today.

There’s a balance, of course. You still need to hold yourself accountable (you have no boss, after all). But stop making yourself feel bad for the smallest things.

Somedays, I do very little work. It’s important that I allow myself to enjoy that time. Otherwise, I spend the entire time feeling guilty and miserable. That free time then becomes counterproductive in every way.

11. Celebrate Small Wins

You’re doing something amazing. While everyone else is working for someone, you are creating a business. There will be plenty of ups and downs and stuff in between. But don’t forget to enjoy those little wins.

If you are never satisfied, you’ll always be miserable.

This doesn’t mean that you reach that goal and then say, “Screw it, I’m done here!” It means that you reflect on and appreciate the little things you accomplish on a daily basis.

You finished a blog post you feel good about? Great job! Today was a great revenue day? Congratulate yourself! Someone thanked you for helping them? Cheers to you!

You dictate how you feel about yourself and your business. Don’t overlook the little things. What you’re doing is incredible — very few people would ever dare take the risks you’re taking. Celebrate each and every success and appreciate what you’re accomplishing!

12. Don’t Dwell on Small Losses

You have bad months. A product doesn’t sell well. Software isn’t dependable. Staff leave. Customers complain.

These things happen. Don’t dwell on the small losses. When you dwell on failure, you create an environment where you fear making mistakes. And mistakes are how we learn.

It’s time for a baseball analogy (I am a baseball coach, after all!). The best baseball players aren’t that way because they’ve always gotten hits and won games. They’ve experienced loss. They’ve experienced adversity. These things made them better prepared, and they learned from it.

When you experience failure, look at it as a chance to learn something. Don’t ignore it like nothing happened, or it will happen again. But don’t put your head down, kick dirt, throw your helmet, and sulk back to the dugout.

Those who sulk don’t learn. You need thoughtful reflection. Those who reflect think about what happened and think about whether the result was avoidable. If it was, they find a way to prevent it from happening again.

Sometimes, the negative result was difficult or impossible to avoid. Sometimes, our process was right and we strike out.

13. Find an Emotional Release

We entrepreneurs are a ticking time bomb if we don’t take care of ourselves. We can be overcome with our own thoughts and obsessions.

Find a release. This could mean keeping a journal. Or having a friend or spouse whom you talk to regularly about what you have going on. Or it could be reading a book or watching a movie.

We all get that emotional release in different ways. Find your way.

14. Be Present for Loved Ones

Don’t let your business overcome you. Especially if you work from home, it’s very difficult to separate work from non-work hours. Don’t fall into this trap.

Turn off phone notifications. Put your device away. Spend time with your spouse, significant other, or kids — but be present. Avoid being distracted by your device or what’s going on with your business.

This is a conscious decision. Mentally put aside your business and enjoy time with the people who matter. Otherwise, while you may be physically present, that time is wasted.

While I prioritize time with my family, I am guilty of wasting it as well. I still look at my phone too often. I still nod my head and act like I’m listening when I’m thinking about something else.

Acknowledge it. Apologize for it. Do your best to correct it. They deserve better.

I do my best to separate work and non-work time. I’m not always successful — it’s a battle — but I realize how important it is.

15. Get Help (If Needed)

The independence you have as an entrepreneur is exhausting. It is. It’s also so rewarding when you allow it to be.

However, we can’t overlook the different stresses and struggles that are unique to entrepreneurs. The isolation is an easy path to depression and destruction.

Do your best to maintain your physical and mental health. Be self-aware so that you know when it’s time to get help.

That could mean speaking with your spouse or significant other about these challenges. It’s very easy to bottle up and keep these things from my wife. I actively force myself to be more open.

It could be talking with a mentor. Or joining masterminds. Clubs, communities, or support groups of entrepreneurs who are going through something similar.

Professional counseling should always be an option. Because of the unique lives we live, there are times when we need a little extra help. Seek it without shame.

Your Turn

I don’t have this thing figured out yet, but I am grateful for all of the support and lessons learned along the way.

Anything else you’d add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!

The post Entrepreneurs: Self-Care in a World Without Structure appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of posts exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

This isn’t your typical blog post about affiliate marketing for entrepreneurs. I’m not going to lay down how you can make a whole bunch of money doing it. It’s not the savior of your business.

Affiliate marketing does have its place for entrepreneurs. It had a place in my business. It has a diminishing — but still existent — role now. However, I don’t believe it is a good central, or long-term, strategy.

The purpose of this post isn’t for you to run away scared of affiliate marketing. Some of my marketing friends are very effective at it. They profit from it. And most importantly, they do so ethically while not losing the trust of their audience.

But that’s what takes me to the central focus of this post. It’s a balance. It’s a huge freaking balance. For me, it’s not worth it. I leave many thousands of dollars on the table because affiliate marketing makes me feel dirty.

When done right, there’s nothing dirty about it. But the problem is that there’s a very thin line you walk when recommending a product in exchange for money.

I don’t send emails about other people’s products. I rarely mention products that aren’t mine in my articles, webinars, or podcasts. When I do, it’s common that I’m not using an affiliate link.

Some likely think I’m crazy as a result. Some will be offended by this post. Some will point to the few, great affiliate marketers (many who are my friends) who have figured out the balance.

But I want you to understand that it’s not easy. How you approach this has long-term implications. While I’ve likely been way too conservative on this topic in the eyes of many marketers, I can confidently say that my approach has benefited me in the long-term.

Let’s take a closer look at affiliate marketing, its place in my business, and my recommendation for you…

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing relies on a relationship where one party (the affiliate) sells another party’s product and receives a commission — usually a set dollar amount or percentage of the sale.

In the online world, this is often tracked through the use of affiliate links (custom links to the seller’s website) and promo codes. When sales are made via these special links and promo codes, the affiliate gets a cut.

You may see this in a number of ways:

1) Dedicated Emails: The affiliate will send an email to their entire list or list segment promoting a product. The product company is leveraging the affiliate’s relationships in the form of a direct email recommendation.

2) Product Reviews: You’ll see this in the form of written and video reviews. What may appear to be an unbiased take on a product is actually a veiled sales pitch. Click on the links (which should be marked as affiliate links) and make a purchase, and the reviewer will get a cut.

3) Product Mentions: Other times, a product may get mentioned in an article when the context calls for it. Once again, the affiliate link needs to be called out so that it’s clear the author has a monetary incentive, but that product may be mentioned more casually as a product the affiliate uses as a solution to a common problem.

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a way for marketers to supplement their current income. Particularly for businesses struggling to sell their own products early on, affiliate sales can make a big difference.

While the majority of affiliate marketers can’t expect to make a living on commissions, those with large audiences are in an advantageous position. They can bring in significant income while putting in a fraction of the effort of the company that created the product.

The Drawbacks of Affiliate Marketing

I would not recommend starting a business solely as an affiliate marketer. Many do it. Few truly succeed for the long-term.

The biggest drawback is how affiliate marketing impacts the relationship between the affiliate and their audience. The danger is that the marketer makes a purchase recommendation — or directly promotes a product — while being motivated more by monetary reward than helping the customer.

First, let’s think about the affiliate marketer who is most likely to succeed. They’ve built a significant audience. How? They’ve offered lots of value and built long-term trust. When this person recommends something, their audience listens.

But damn… Isn’t that a contradiction? You’ve built trust. You’ve assembled this amazing audience of people who will do anything for you. Why waste that trust on selling someone else’s product?

Do you use that product? Does it have a great reputation? What if it fails? What if the brand suffers a PR hit? What if your customer has a terrible experience? And what if that ultimately reflects on you?

It’s one thing when it’s your own product. People understand when you push something of your own. And if it fails, you have ownership and can handle it.

[On a related note — but a tangent — feel free to tell people your product isn’t right for them. It’s not all about the sale right now. They’ll appreciate you more if you’re honest and you don’t believe it’s a good match.]

Let’s look at affiliate marketing in the simplest terms. What type of recommendation is most valuable: 1) One that has no monetary incentive, or 2) one that results in a commission?

It should be pretty obvious that the no-strings recommendation is most likely to provide the most value. It’s coming — it would appear — from a place of helping rather than of resulting in direct revenue.

If I see a Facebook post of yours featuring a photo of you with someone else’s book, I’m much more likely to buy that book if I know that you’ve read it, love it, and aren’t getting a dime for talking about it. But the minute I know money is involved (and affiliate links are easy to spot), trust begins to drop.

Understand that even if the intentions are pure, it doesn’t necessarily matter. All that matters is perception. If the customer thinks that money impacts whether or not you recommend a product, that alters trust.

Trust, once lost, can be difficult to regain. That’s lost revenue.

My Relationship with Affiliate Marketing

I’ve always had an uncomfortable relationship with affiliate marketing. I know how much it can impact trust, and I value my audience way too much.

Earlier in my business, affiliate marketing made up a decent chunk of my revenue. I relied on affiliate commissions while I struggled to sell my own products — and before I created any.

I wrote product reviews. I wrote a post about the products I used and loved. I sent the occasional email. I had ads on my site with affiliate links.

But as I found more and more success selling my own products, I involved myself in affiliate marketing less and less. I pulled myself out.

To me, this migration has been easy. Why would I waste valuable real estate on my website promoting someone else’s product (for which I get a small percentage) instead of my own (for which I get 100%)?

Why would I send you an email about someone else’s product, when I can tell you about my own? I’m already conscious of how many emails I send you. Why would I send that one extra email that makes you unsubscribe by pushing someone else’s product?

I rarely use affiliate links these days. I care very little about them. You’d still be able to search my site and find a few. But they make up about .5% of my revenue. It’s not consequential.

When I make product recommendations these days, I rarely use affiliate links. When I do, I make it very clear that it’s an affiliate link. However, it’s a product I know and love. And you’ll probably sense my discomfort.

The counter argument is, “What’s the big deal? If you love the product already, why not get a few bucks in the process?” And really, you’re not maximizing the value of your audience by leaving that money on the table (or so the argument would go).

But even when it’s a product I know and love, I’m finding little desire to use the affiliate link. I value the trust of my audience more than the few dollars that may result in a commission.

That may sound cheesy, but I consider it a sound business model. I’ve been in business for more than five years. I want to keep people for years at a time. Their trust is incredibly important to me.

I don’t want you to buy one product today. I want you to buy that one product today, but only if it’s a good time for it. And I want you to have such a great experience that you eventually buy five more.

On the flip side of all of this, you may wonder if I offer an affiliate program. People often email me, asking if they can sell my products. They’ll say that they’ve been reading my site for years, and recommend me all the time.

My response: I would hope that whether or not I offer an affiliate program wouldn’t impact whether or not you’d recommend my product.

Maybe that makes me sound like a dick. But so many problems come from an affiliate relationship.

I’ve toyed with affiliate programs. But I’ve never paid out a single commission. I don’t want people to recommend my product only because it may result in a commission. I want people recommending my product because they genuinely find it valuable.

Maybe that will result in fewer people recommending my products. I’m perfectly fine with that.

Granted, some people genuinely find my products valuable and need affiliate revenue to keep their business going. I understand that. But it’s a bad match for my business.

Understand that when motivated by money, some will sell your product at all costs. Some will mislead. Some will deceive. And that will reflect poorly on you.

Ultimately, I haven’t found affiliate marketing — whether accepting commissions or paying them out — to be worth the risk.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term

I see affiliate marketing, in most cases, as a short-term play. You know that some will be turned off by your pushing another product for a commission. But you’re out for that payday.

If you don’t rely on affiliate revenues, you can focus entirely on your products. And when you recommend someone else’s product, you can do so with a clear conscience knowing that it was pure — and that it can be perceived only as such.

I’ve found that my audience appreciates this. There is a ton of crap out there. They don’t know what to believe and whom to trust. And if they know you are simply trying to help, they’ll thank you over and over again.

Honestly? It feels freaking great to recommend a product, knowing I get nothing in return. It feels amazing when I can tell someone that my product isn’t right for them, that it isn’t a good fit.

Short-term, you bet. I’m leaving some silly money on the table. But I’m doing just fine.

My goal is to build a long-term business. While this month’s revenue matters, it shouldn’t be at the expense of future months and years. I’m trying to build an audience of loyal customers who will stick around for years to come.

The Balance of Trust

I, by no means, have perfected affiliate marketing. I don’t enjoy doing it. So maybe I’m not an expert on it and you should listen to someone else.

However… I can speak from the perspective of a consumer. I do not feel like the typical marketer — I don’t enjoy selling. As a result, maybe I see things that other marketers don’t.

Try to see through the eyes of your consumer. What are the things that chip away at trust? What builds trust? What makes them love you? What sends them away?

As a consumer, I see how the typical marketer is perceived. Slimy. Not trustworthy. Deceptive. Willing to say anything for a buck. Shallow. Lacking substance.

So understand that many — if not most — consumers are thinking something similar. How you act will determine whether you gain trust or fall into the slimy category.

It’s really, really easy to start slipping around in the slime when you get involved in affiliate marketing. You can do it ethically, but it’s a constant dodge of puddles.

There Are Exceptions

Before you send me hate mail, I know. I have good friends who are ridiculously successful and they rely pretty heavily on affiliate marketing.

And by “ridiculously successful,” I don’t just mean they make lots of money. I mean that they make lots of money while also having an impeccable reputation.

But remember that they are exceptions. Use them as a model. Notice how they retain your trust. See how they call out affiliate relationships.

The most successful affiliate marketers don’t deceive you. They are personable and transparent. That’s how you can do it long-term.

My Recommendation

I won’t tell you to avoid affiliate marketing. I’ve done it. I still get the occasional affiliate commission check.

But be very careful. Understand that there’s a cost to making a recommendation in exchange for a commission. Even if the dollars are coming in right now.

Supplement your income with affiliate revenue when it’s needed. You need to put food on the table. Put the kids through school. Every dollar counts.

Just remember that there’s a balance. You have long-term goals. Build your own product. Aim to eventually ween yourself off completely of affiliate commissions. Envision the day when you can recommend a product without needing a commission — because your business will be fine without it.

Always take a long-term approach.

Free Webinar for Entrepreneurs

I host a free webinar for entrepreneurs that focuses on lessons I learned while starting my business.

The post Entrepreneurs: Affiliate Marketing and the Balance of Trust appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This is the third in a series of posts exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

Last week, I took you through a 17-question exercise to help you find your entrepreneurial purpose. While it may not have provided a clear vision for your content or product, it helped clarify strengths, weaknesses, what is important to you, what you aren’t willing to do and more. It’s the necessary groundwork.

Today, we’re taking the next step. I am going to take you through yet another exercise (not 17 questions this time!) that will help you isolate your topic of expertise.

Ready? Let’s begin…

The Importance of Content Depth

Before we get started on finding your content focus, I want to stress how important it is that you find a focus with depth. While this is especially true for info products, it’s dangerous to assume it’s only true for that industry.

When your focus has depth, it provides endless opportunities to answer questions. You have no shortage of ideas for writing articles, recording videos or creating other types of content (ebooks, webinars, podcasts, etc.).

You must embrace this. With depth, you are given many chances to show your value. Your potential customer has more problems that you can solve. This makes it infinitely easier to write articles and create products.

Do not underestimate the value of free content. My business is a prime example of that. I spent the first two years of this website writing — a lot. I wrote more than 600 articles during those first two years.

It’s not that difficult to connect the dots between that content creation and my success today. Each new blog post was an experiment. Who embraced it? What content was ignored? What attracted the most comments and traffic?

That content creation period helped solidify my expertise and area of focus. It resulted in high levels of traffic (more than 18 million page views). And that traffic led to an email list of more than 150,000 people.

And of course… With that much traffic and an email list that large, I am at a sufficient advantage — an “unfair” advantage — when it comes to selling products. So many entrepreneurs underestimate this.

I want you to create content. I’ve seen how important it is. However, don’t feel like it needs to be a blog post per day. That may not be your strength. Maybe it’s video. Or podcasts. Or something else.

But you must find a topic that has depth.

Narrow Your Topics

During that 17-question exercise, there were a few questions that would help reveal quality topics for a business focus:

1. What Am I Good At?
3. What Am I Knowledgeable About?
4. What Do I Love to Do?
11. Whom Can I Help?
12. What Problems Do They Have?

To a lesser extent, the other 12 questions could also help lead you to your topic. But these five questions, in particular, should provide your primary inspiration.

With your answers to these five questions in mind, now consider these questions:

15. What Lifestyle Do I Desire?
16. How Important is Money?

If you desire a life of wealth and luxury, you can cross off any unrelated topics. You won’t be starting a non-profit. While I have tremendous respect for the non-profit world (and worked in it), you won’t be happy there if your lifestyle desires don’t match up.

I can use my path as an example. Once I was laid off in August of 2011, I anguished over what I should do next. As I started writing blog posts on these pages, I experimented with topics related to non-profits, small businesses, personal use of social media, and general social media marketing.

While I certainly could have helped people covering these topics, they did not match my lifestyle desires. I did not require wealth and luxury, sure, but I did desire a life of freedom without financial worry.

It took me some time — about a year and a half, really — but it finally occurred to me: Why would anyone pay me for my content, product or service?

I was focusing on non-profits, small businesses, and people looking to spend — in most cases — as little as possible on marketing. So why would they pay me?

That’s when I made the move to focusing on Facebook ads. Not only Facebook ads, but “advanced” Facebook ads. Why? Because those most advanced in Facebook ads would be those most likely to have high advertising budgets. And if they had high advertising budgets, every advantage was extremely valuable.

I became that advantage. And since this was now my target audience, it was easy to make a difference for someone that would result in hundreds or thousands of dollars of value for them.

So think about this. If money is very low among your priorities, it’s not as big of a deal. But otherwise, make sure that you can make a difference for the people who can afford to buy something from you.

While that sounds brutal, this is critical to your business success. Otherwise, you will forever overdeliver, overwork yourself, and undervalue your services.

With that in mind, start weeding out topics that aren’t a fit. For me, I love baseball. I love to coach baseball. If I were to create a business around that topic, I’d need to focus on people who invest money in that area.

So that would probably be parents of travel ball kids — where a single season often costs multiple thousands of dollars. And while that’s interesting, it’s nowhere near the market of advanced Facebook advertising — people who can easily spend that much or more per month.

In my case, I wouldn’t consider Facebook ads a passion. It’s something I’m good at and knowledgeable about. So keep in mind that your business and your passion will not always line up, and that’s okay.

What Are Components of the Topic?

We’ve narrowed your topics. It’s quite possible that you still have several candidates. Hopefully, you’ve cut it down to two or three.

Now we want to find that topic or topics that have the most depth. As discussed at the top, the topic with the most depth gives you the most opportunities for content and products.

When I refer to components, I’m talking about the ways you can slice and dice your topic. So here is a starting list of components around the topic of advanced Facebook ads:

– Power Editor
– Targeting
– Bidding
– Creative
– Optimization
– Business Manager
– Website Custom Audiences
– Facebook Pixel
– Dynamic Ads
– Engagement Custom Audiences
– Lead Ads
– Video
– Placement
– Ad Reports
– Audience Insights

See how easy that is with a topic of depth? I could do this all day.

I could do the same thing around the topic of travel baseball:

– Coaching Strategies
– Tryouts
– Team Finances
– Creating Lineups
– Playing Time
– Organizing a Practice
– Drills
– Booking Tournaments
– League Play
– Indoor vs. Outdoor Practice
– Involving Parents
– Daddy Ball
– Contracts for Kids, Parents and Coaches

Once again it’s a topic of depth. It’s easy!

What Are Questions Asked About Each Component?

Now we’re going to put your topic or topics to the test. This next exercise not only challenges you to find the depth of the topic but also exposes just how much you know about it.

If you don’t know Marcus Sheridan, I strongly recommend you get to know him. My approach was inspired by his teachings. Marcus is a big reason for my success.

When it comes to SEO and writing content, his secret is simple: Answer the questions of your customers.

Maybe you don’t have customers yet. That’s fine. But answer the questions of your potential or imaginary customers.

That is ultimately the secret behind my blogging strategy. I don’t care about keywords. I don’t have any true SEO strategies. I simply think about what it is my customers and potential customers are asking, and I answer those questions with a blog post.

Something I learned along the way was to keep those questions simple. Originally, I’d try to answer 20 questions in a single blog post. I’d attempt to answer all of the world’s problems at once.

But that did no one any favors. By focusing on a single question — a single problem — you make the purpose of your blog post clear. It’s great for someone searching for an answer. And it gives you more chances to create more individual pieces of content.

Above, we broke our topic down into components. Now, dissect each of those components. What are the guts of each component? What causes confusion? What causes frustration? What might people not understand?

What are potential customers asking about it?

If you’re an established business, this is easy. You should know what your customers are asking. But if you’re a new business, you need to get more creative. You research, observe, or simply imagine what they’re asking.

Let’s focus on the Targeting component of advanced Facebook ads. Here are some potential questions:

– What are different ways to target with Facebook ads?
– What is the best way to target with Facebook ads?
– How do you target your website visitors?
– What are different ways to target your website visitors?
– Is interest targeting effective?
– How does cost per action differ based on your audience?
– What size audience should you target?
– What are Lookalike Audiences?
– How does audience size impact bidding strategies?
– How do you target your current customers?
– How do you target if you’re starting from scratch?

See? We’re just looking at one component, and the ideas come easily. Each one of those questions is a potential blog post or piece of content (video, ebook) by itself.

For which components can you write the most questions? How confident are you in your answers?

These are questions you need to ask yourself to finalize your topic.

Experiment

Creating lots of content is a great way to experiment. It helps you understand what generates interest and what gets ignored. It also helps you determine what you actually enjoy writing (or videoing) about.

If you have multiple topics that are closely related and you can’t choose which direction to go, feel free to cover them all in the early going. That’s what I did here.

But if the topics are vastly different, why not create multiple websites? It may be more work, but it’s a great test to help you figure out which direction to go.

Ultimately, never forget that traffic isn’t your only priority. I was blinded by that early when I was getting high traffic to blog posts about things like personal Facebook privacy. The traffic blinded me to the fact that the attention wouldn’t lead to business.

Always be conscious of what could ultimately be a deeper piece of content. What would provide enough value to be offered in exchange for an email address? Or for money?

The post Entrepreneurs: Find Your Content Focus appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: This is the second in a series of posts exploring the topic of entrepreneurship. While my focus has and will continue to be on Facebook ads, I have plenty to share about what I’ve learned while building my business.]

More than five years ago, my entrepreneurial journey began — whether I knew it or not — when I was laid off for the second time in two years. I didn’t immediately know that I was starting a business. As a result, I didn’t have a plan. I winged it.

My direction has morphed multiple times since that fateful first day. But the greatest amount of change occurred during the first year when I was rapidly discovering my purpose.

I didn’t go through the following exercise all at once. As I said, I was figuring things out on the fly. But looking back, these are ultimately the important questions I needed to ask myself to determine which path to take.

If you’re stuck and unsure of where to start with a new business — or where to take a struggling one — begin here. This brainstorming exercise won’t give you a plan. But it will help clarify the priorities that mold that plan.

Some of this may seem too deep — too personal. You may ask yourself how it has anything to do with starting a business. But ultimately, all of this is connected.

We need to help you find a path that is permanent and sustaining. Something that allows you to tap into your passions, leverage your strengths, avoid what you dislike, and provide lifelong fulfillment.

This is just the beginning. Next week, we’ll take the next steps.

It’s time to get honest with yourself. Find a quiet place. Set aside some time. Let’s begin…

1. What Am I Good At?

You aren’t perfect. But you have strengths. There are things that come easily — or more easily — for you. What are they?

We’re brainstorming. Try not to spend too much time on each answer. Attempt to create a list of 5-10 primary strengths.

To provide an example and show that I have skin in the game, too, I’ll try a few of my own…

– Writing
– Teaching
– Coaching
– Parenting
– Problem Solving
– Big Picture Thinking

If it’s easy to list 10, 20 or more strengths, go for it!

2. What Are My Weaknesses?

Be kind to yourself here. The truth is we’re not good at anything without experience. So this list could easily be long. But don’t allow it to be any longer than your list of strengths.

Mostly, these should be things that you struggle with on a daily or regular basis. Things that you are working on — or maybe things that are a lost cause.

Here are a few of my weaknesses:

– Procrastination
– Public Speaking
– Verbal Communication of Love and Appreciation
– Organization
– Completing Tasks
– Details
– Impatience

We don’t need to obsess over each weakness and provide details. You know what they mean. Focus on assembling a complete list.

3. What Am I Knowledgeable About?

This could be related to your strengths, but it doesn’t need to be. Here, we’re focused more on subject matter. What types of useful and useless information clutters your brain?

My short list:

– Baseball
– Facebook Marketing
– Music
– Sports
– Technology

These are things that interest you. You have experience here. Maybe people come to you when they need information about the topic.

4. What Do I Love to Do?

There could be crossover here between what you’re knowledgeable about, what you’re good at and what you love to do. These could be business related, but they don’t need to be.

A few of my examples:

– Coach baseball
– Watch my sons play baseball
– Watch football
– Watch movies with my wife
– Travel with my family
– Sleep

Yep, I love sleep!

5. What Do I Like to Do?

Take a step back. The things above are the priority activities in your life. But let’s go down a level.

Here are some of mine:

– Run
– Solve problems
– Eat
– Listen to music
– Write

6. What Do I Hate Doing?

What situations and responsibilities repulse you? What makes you feel least comfortable?

My list:

– Clean messes
– Travel by myself
– Sell
– Cold call
– Argue
– Drive through traffic

Yep, I’m a marketer who hates to sell. I learned that in one of my first jobs where I worked as a telemarketer. And of course, that’s also why I can’t stand cold calling.

7. What Are My Unfair Advantages?

It’s important that you’re self-aware. You understand that you may have some built-in unfair advantages.

This doesn’t mean you don’t earn what you get. This doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard. It just means that you have certain advantages right now that not everyone has.

I’m fully aware of mine. Here are a few:

– Education
– Upbringing
– Social status
– Neighborhood
– Connections
– National Basketball Association

I feel very lucky. I can’t help but acknowledge that many of these unfair advantages were important to my ultimate entrepreneurial success. Know what these advantages are so that you can take advantage of them.

8. What Are My Assets?

These are the things or people around you that may help you during your journey.

Mine:

– Home office
– My wife
– John Robinson
– Connections
– Experience

I have a workspace, a supportive spouse, an entrepreneurial cousin who can help guide me and many connections from prior jobs. These assets gave me a leg up.

9. What Do I Value?

We start getting more personal now, but don’t skip ahead. These things are important. We will ultimately need to go on a path that allows you to embrace what you value.

These could be things, people, personality traits or anything that matters to you.

Here we go…

– Family
– Honesty
– Transparency
– Knowledge
– Time

These five things certainly frame what I do — and what I’m unwilling to do.

10. What Do I Despise?

It’s important that you’re clear about things that repel you. Ultimately, your direction needs to steer clear of these things.

Things that I stay away from:

– Greed
– Hate
– Bravado
– Selfishness
– Ignorance
– Politics
– Arguments

Knowing what you don’t want to be is as important as knowing what you want to be.

11. Whom Can I Help?

Now we start approaching business-related possibilities. Based on your knowledge, what you’re good at, and what you love to do, who can benefit from your experiences?

A few of mine:

– Baseball coaches
– Baseball parents
– Entrepreneurs
– Marketers
– Consultants

You don’t need a business idea in mind for any of these. Just recognize what groups of people could use your help.

12. What Problems Do They Have?

Now create a list for each group, putting yourself in their shoes. Think about the problems they are facing and the questions they may be asking.

Below is my example for marketers:

– Targeting properly
– Putting together a strategy or plan
– Understanding all of their options (overwhelm)
– Simplifying
– Achieving a positive ROI

13. What Makes Me Happy?

There doesn’t need to be a direct relationship with business when creating this list. But know this: Whatever you do in life, it must allow you the ability to experience these things that make you happy. If it takes you away from them, it isn’t worthwhile.

A few of my “happy places”:

– Making a difference
– Sitting in the stands at a baseball game
– Achievement and overcoming obstacles
– A smile on my sons’ faces
– Comedy

14. What is My “Big Why?”

This is your story. Your purpose. The meaning behind what drives you.

In 2003, our oldest son Michael was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. That period of time helped me appreciate what was important, prioritize my life, and ignore what doesn’t matter. Michael is a healthy teenager today, but that experience forever changed our family. I appreciate time: Time with my sons, time with my wife, time that I’m alive.

My “Big Why” is my family. My motivation is to provide for them, and — more importantly — spend time with them. Providing for my family without creating time that can be shared is counterproductive. I ultimately want to look back at a lifetime of experiences — not wasted hours spent on and endless desire to “achieve” and profit.

15. What Lifestyle Do I Desire?

When you’ve reached the peak of your profession, what does it look like? What does it allow you to do? What type of life would you like to lead?

Here is mine:

– Flexible schedule
– Travel with family
– Evenings, weekends and holidays free of work
– Financial freedom — without excess or dependence
– Quasi-minimalist

This is your goal. Whatever you do, it’s to reach this lifestyle that makes you happy.

16. How Important is Money?

This question is important. Don’t sugarcoat your answer. Be honest.

Your answer needs to be consistent with your purpose. If you determine that money is important, but your goal is to help those less fortunate, you are having a match-up problem.

Where on this spectrum are you?

1 – No importance
2 – Minimal importance
3 – Some importance
4 – Very important
5 – Primary focus

For me, money does have some importance. My wife and I have three sons. I want her to remain free of a job so that she can follow her passion of being active in their schools. We have lots of bills to pay, baseball teams to fund and college tuition to plan for.

Additionally, I do like nice things. Not extravagant things. Not completely unnecessary things. But nice things. And if I want to travel with my family, that isn’t cheap either.

As a result, I’d put the importance of money, for me, somewhere between 3 and 4.

17. How Important is Fame?

Where on this spectrum are you?

1 – No importance
2 – Minimal importance
3 – Some importance
4 – Very important
5 – Primary focus

I fall at a 1 here. I have no desire for fame and the problems that accompany it. I don’t want to be on your TV screen or trending on social media. I cherish a level of privacy.

Of course, that is somewhat at odds with what I do. I have a brand based on my name and I don’t hide behind a logo. But as my business grows, I will need to make a decision: Does growth consist of becoming more “known”? Or is it something else?

I plan to pull my public self out of the business more and more in the coming years. I already began that transition — a pullback on my initial direction — a year ago.

But maybe fame is something you desire. If so, be honest with yourself about this early. Being public will need to be a priority.

More to Come

As mentioned at the top, I am taking a risk by venturing away — even briefly — from my focus of Facebook advertising. Consider it an experiment. While I do see great potential here, I first want to be sure that it’s a topic that interests you.

The post Entrepreneurs: Find Your Purpose with 17 Questions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

No job. No money. No experience. No confidence. In late August of 2011, I started a business from nothing.

This is the first in a series of posts exploring the topic of entrepreneurship and my journey from nothing to profitability.

I know. I usually write about Facebook ads. I’ll continue to publish blog posts about Facebook ads on Fridays. But I want to at least temporarily explore the life of an entrepreneur — an accidental entrepreneur at that.

Not everyone reading this is an entrepreneur. But I hope that my story can help you — whether you are going on your own, considering going on your own, or simply battling the business ladder.

How far has this business come? I’ve received more than 18 Million page views from more than 8 Million unique users since this website was born. I have an email list that just eclipsed 160,000 people.

I don’t find it appropriate to discuss dollars — though I know some entrepreneurs do, and I open myself to skepticism as a result. But my business has exceeded my wildest dreams, and it continues to grow. There is no possible way I ever would have found this level of success while working for “the man.”

I’m not one who enjoys bragging, but I certainly am proud of this business. I’m amazed that this happened or was even possible. Coming from where I started? I’d never imagine being here today.

But “coming from where I started” — or, from nothing — is precisely why I’m writing this blog post.

I don’t believe my path to “here” was ordinary. Or at least, it’s not the prototypical path of an entrepreneur. I was not trained or educated to start a business. I was always something of an underachiever. When you envision the personality type that it takes to start a successful business, my traits are unlikely to match up.

And maybe you don’t look like the prototypical entrepreneur either. Maybe that’s at least partially held you back from finding entrepreneurial success — or even getting started.

This post is for you…

The Myths

I worked “in the system” for nearly 15 years. I always dreamed of having my own business, but I never seriously pursued it or thought I could do it successfully.

Back then, myths kept me in the system. I assumed there was something special about entrepreneurs. I assumed they had special training. I assumed they had a clear purpose, direction, and plan. I assumed they were the smartest of the smart, accomplishing something unattainable for most of us.

That’s only scratching the surface regarding the myths I believed about successful entrepreneurs. But these things kept me from even making an attempt.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully acknowledge some advantages. I have college educated parents who were teachers. I was educated with a liberal arts college degree. My wife and I had $10k in the bank — not a lot, but at least something. We also had very little debt.

But when I thought of the typical entrepreneur, I didn’t picture someone like me. I envisioned confidence, cockiness, fearlessness, and a clear vision.

I Was Laid Off (Twice)

This entire journey began on August 18, 2011, because I was laid off. But that’s only part of the story.

About two years prior, I was laid off for the first time. So this was the second time I was laid off covering a very short period.

Granted, you’ll recall that the economy wasn’t great in 2009 and 2011. And working for a start-up (in 2009) and a non-profit (in 2011) was probably fighting with fire during that time.

Getting laid off was partially a reflection of the time. But I also would never claim to be the world’s greatest employee.

Having this business is the first time I ever stayed with one company for at least five years. And typically, I’d get bored within a year or two.

Maybe being a “bad” (or restless?) employee is a good characteristic for an entrepreneur. I don’t like having a boss. I don’t like answering to someone else. I don’t like working on someone else’s clock.

Maybe. But certainly, not all “bad employees” make good entrepreneurs.

More than anything, getting laid off was a blessing for me. Bad employee or not, I never would have started a business while having a job.

I’m married and the father of three boys. My wife is extremely active in the boys’ schools, and she doesn’t bring an income. I needed to produce.

While having this responsibility may have kept me from taking a risk while having a job, it was also significant motivation when I was unemployed. I had to make it work. I had no choice. Four people I loved counted on it.

I Wasn’t Trained

I wasn’t a business major (I chose English, then changed my senior year to philosophy). I didn’t grow up in a family of entrepreneurs. I peaked at mid-management level jobs while working in the system.

So it would be false to say I was 100% unprepared. While I never managed more than two people at a time, having management responsibilities did give me some insight into business.

But that’s reaching. While I had some technical knowledge, I had virtually no idea how to start, build and manage a business.

I Had Basic Skills

I may be a little self-deprecating about my abilities, but I’m also not a “rah-rah-anyone-can-do-it” type. I’m also a realist.

I started blogging because I actually enjoyed writing. No, I wasn’t an A-student in any of my English or writing classes. Nothing I wrote was ever recognized. But it was a strength. If you can’t write, you shouldn’t start a blog.

I knew enough about WordPress sites to at least get started. I’ve had a computer in my home since I was in elementary school (which is no longer a big deal these days, but it is for my generation). I just typed “my generation” like an old dude.

So just to be clear here… While I certainly wasn’t trained to start a business, I had enough basic skills to at least get started.

I Wasn’t About “The Hustle”

If you listen to the typical entrepreneur, they make entrepreneurship look pretty undesirable.

You’ve likely seen and heard it. They never sleep. They work weekends. They don’t take holidays off. And they’re proud of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had to work hard. There were times when I had to work late hours, weekends and on days I didn’t want to work.

But that was nothing I was proud of. My end goal wasn’t to work myself to death. My end goal was to create more time for myself so that I could spend it with my family.

I wanted to sleep eight hours a night. I wanted my evenings free. I wanted weekends free. And I wanted holidays free.

Hell, let’s be honest. I wanted work to be my side gig. My focus was on watching my kids grow up and coaching their baseball teams. The reality is that I’m now a full-time coach (without pay) and a part-time entrepreneur.

But I was embarrassed to feel this way. If you are wanting an entrepreneur’s life without the sleepless hustle, know that you aren’t alone. And know that it’s not an impossible goal.

I Had a “Big Why”

I wouldn’t be here today without someone or something inspiring me. That “big why” that provides my motivation is my family.

Our oldest son is a cancer survivor. That experience was long ago now, and he’s in the clear. But it provided important perspective.

I respect time. I appreciate the time I have to spend with the people I care about. My family is my “big why.”

Everyone needs something to motivate them. For me, it isn’t fame or fortune. I leave money on the table because those things aren’t a priority to me.

Maybe money is your motivation. However, I’m skeptical that this is enough to carry you though.

I Had Support

My wife may be the key to all of this. She had every right to insist I take a low-risk path. She easily could have lost patience with me during that first year. She’s a special kind of crazy for sticking with me during that time.

Understand that this isn’t all roses either, though. Let’s be real. My wife was worried about me. She wanted me to bring in an income — quickly — to help pay the bills. She didn’t enjoy going into debt.

But she gave me the rope I needed. She would email me a list of job openings, but I never had the sense that I was disappointing her by not applying, getting an interview or getting a job.

It was important that she did have expectations of me. It kept the necessary pressure on.

But my support did not stop with my wife. There are far too many people to count and name here, particularly during that first year. People who assisted me, supported me, and cheered me on. They kept me sane and focused.

I remember the paralyzing days like they were yesterday. You may assume that every day, I was working my butt off and making stuff happen. Some days, I had no idea what to do or where to start. I did nothing. I felt guilty. I was frustrated and confused. I got in my own head.

Without these people, there’s no way I get through that first year. It would have been too much.

Sharing What I’ve Learned

During the past five years, I’ve focused on sharing what I know about using Facebook ads to promote a business. Meanwhile, I’ve stockpiled an awful lot of information about how to start a business, even in an atypical way.

Following are some topics I could explore:

• Delegating
• Software that runs my business
• Blogging strategies
• Podcasting
• Webinars
• List building
• Expenses
• Selecting a CRM
• Scaling
• Launching a product

Do any of these topics interest you? If so, I’ll look to continue writing on this topic.

Free Webinar for Entrepreneurs

I host a free webinar for entrepreneurs that focuses on lessons I learned while starting my business.

The post From Nothing appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

My voice trailed off and my body trembled as I finished the call. It was five years ago today, and I had been laid off.

Again.

It was the second time in two and a half years. The first time you could call a fluke. Something that could happen to anyone. But a second time? The self doubt creeps in.

I can guarantee you that there was no chance in my mind that I would be running my own business five years later. Not a thought that I could pull this off.

I want you to understand this. I doubted myself because I felt everyone else had it figured out. I believed them when they called themselves “gurus” and “experts” who perfected the path to prosperity.

I wish I knew then that many of those self-proclaimed experts were faking it. And even those who know what they’re doing have many moments every single day of self doubt.

No one snapped their fingers and created a business — their first business — without some embarrassing mistakes.

I’ve said over and over again that I really had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. I went months before making a penny from this website. And I was my worst enemy.

I feared mistakes. I feared failure. But you only fail if you don’t try.

In that spirit, it’s only fair that I share with you my five years of firsts. Some of this stuff is buried within these pages. Some of it is difficult — almost impossible — to find.

But it’s there. It’s funny. And I hope you find it inspiring!

Let’s take a close, painful and often hilarious look at my five years of firsts for this business…

The First JonLoomer.com

Looks pretty great, right? When I launched this website, I refused to invest a penny into it. It’s a free theme. I created that awful logo (more on that in a moment).

And guess what? It didn’t get any better from there for a while. In fact, it got worse. It wasn’t until April of 2012 that I finally discovered Genesis Framework, and I’ve been using it ever since.

My First Video

When I launched this website, I thought it would be a good idea to create an artsy video to go on the home page. Brace yourselves. It’s painful…

My First Blog Post

Now, keep in mind that when I launched this website on August 29, 2011, it wasn’t to provide information on advanced Facebook advertising. Instead, my main goal was to get a job.

So I wrote this post to declare my free agency to the world. Even my writing style has changed in five years.

My First Business Card

So, so bad…

I remember deciding I was going to a job fair, but I didn’t have a business card to hand out. I quickly had one made at OfficeMax, and you know what? I was really proud of it.

My First Logo

Oh, man. But you know what? It didn’t get much better. I updated it in November to match those awesome pea green business cards…

And then in February of 2012…

You probably wouldn’t be surprised that in each case, I created these monstrosities. I am not a designer. Always hire a designer, kids.

My First Facebook Page

Remember when Facebook pages looked like that? Gotta love the crappy logo at the top left. The sad thing is that I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the first version. It was worse.

I didn’t create my Facebook page until early November of 2011. The reason I hadn’t until then was pretty simple: I didn’t believe that I was actually starting a business.

Oh, and I had a welcome tab. Remember those? Here’s the beauty I created…

I even created a video about it. I’m sure you’d love to watch…

Two days later, I felt I had this Facebook page thing all figured out, so I wrote about The Anatomy of a Facebook Page.

My First Facebook Page Post

In case you’re wondering what my first post was from that page. Not all that exciting…

My First Ebook

That’s right. I wrote an ebook called “How to Run a Facebook Page that ROCKS!” I did that. All me.

Once again, this beautiful design was all mine. I didn’t even have it connected to a CRM. Honestly, I may have been just giving it away by direct link. I was a genius.

Oh, I’m positive you’d love to read that ebook. Read it here!

My First Facebook Ads

I ran Facebook ads prior to my business, but the first ones I ran for myself promoted my Facebook page and first ebook. Back then, you could do the whole, “Like my page to get this ebook” approach.

Now, this is what Facebook says the ads look like. Of course, the format was different then, I would have had a different profile photo and I certainly didn’t have that many Facebook fans…

I’m sure you’d love to know how these ads did. I don’t know because Facebook doesn’t provide results from 2011. But I can tell you that the total spent on these two ads was $1.99.

My First Podcast

I’m so happy I found this. I actually thought it was gone forever. I originally hosted podcasts locally here on the website, so when I moved to iTunes I didn’t migrate over the first episodes.

Well, I found the first episode and I just published it to iTunes. It originally aired on May 22, 2012, and it still has the same intro music.

Not a Pubcast yet. No beer. Bad audio. And I vividly remember being extremely nervous, having to re-record parts of it as a result.

My First Product

On October 11 of 2012 — more than a year after I was laid off! — I launched my first product: Facebook Page Strategic Review.

I promoted it as being “A Trained Eye for a Small Price.” In other words, I was offering way too much for not enough money. Here is how I described the service, complete with a handy video…

For $97 (Limited Time Price), I will do a comprehensive review of your Facebook Page activities. After you complete a questionnaire that will provide me background on your goals and priorities, I’ll provide a one-page report and video screen-share with step-by-step observations and suggestions.

Topics will include:

1. Naming Conventions
2. Description/Categorization/Optimization
3. Imagery (Cover, Profile, Tabs, Timeline)
4. Use of Facebook Tabs
5. Posting Best Practices
6. Diversity of Content
7. Engagement Strategies
8. Facebook Terms of Service
9. Strategic Suggestions

Once I receive payment, I’ll immediately send you a questionnaire to be completed to start the process. Within one week, you’ll receive a one-page report complete with a video review of your Facebook Page!

Don’t undervalue yourselves, kids…

My First Speaking Gig

Did I mention that I tend to have a fear of public speaking? It’s getting better, but I still remember shaking while introducing myself at the AllFacebook.com Marketing Conference in NYC in December of 2012.

But that was just a panel. My first true solo speaking gig was at Social Media Marketing World in 2014. While I was nervous there as well, it went great!

My First Video Blog

One of my New Years Resolutions for 2013 was to create more videos. Because as we saw above, that was going well!

So on January 4 of that year, I filmed my first video blog. Check out the sweet lighting by the end!

My First Webinar

I’ve overcome it a bit these days, but I have always been petrified of the stage. And believe it or not, this carries over to things like videos, podcasts and webinars.

I recorded my first solo webinar (not someone’s guest) in March of 2013. You can watch it below…

And since you can also access the replay notes and slides here, I was clearly really good at list building and protecting this type of content.

Your Turn

Now, I’m sure I could spend all day sharing embarrassing firsts. But this is all I’ve got for now.

Here’s the deal: I’m glad each of these firsts happened. I did things that made me uncomfortable — that I wasn’t good at — and I learned valuable lessons from them.

Are there any business firsts that you can share that are a bit funny or embarrassing now? Let me know in the comments below!

The post 5 Years of Business Firsts appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

[NOTE: I know I typically fill these pages only with articles and tutorials about Facebook ads. This time, however, I’m taking a slight turn to reflect on entrepreneurship and building a business. If you read carefully, you’ll see how much of this can be applied to Facebook ad strategy. Let me know if this is something you enjoy!]

In August, it’ll be five years since I was laid off for the second time in 2 1/2 years. We’ll reach a landmark anniversary for this website and my “business.”

I use “business” in quotes because it wasn’t a true business in the beginning. It was a concept without a blueprint. It was a website without a content plan. It was a brand without a logo. And it was a business without revenue.

I’ve achieved a certain level of success now, and it’s laughable to me as I look back on it all. I certainly wasn’t an instant success. I doubted myself. I was depressed. I made no money. I had no freaking clue what I was doing.

I didn’t even call it a business in the early going. When I told people what I was up to with my website, I said it was a way to show potential employers what I could do. And what could I do? I certainly couldn’t start my own business.

But things evolved. I was picky. I refused to relocate my family (again). I refused to apply for jobs that I wouldn’t be passionate about. And maybe it could be perceived as lazy, but I refused to settle for a simple paycheck.

Meanwhile, I was a man desperate to provide for a family of five. As the only source of income, I felt the pressure of making enough money to not only keep a new roof over our heads but allow my wife the freedom to continue to be active in our boys’ schools. I yearned for the flexibility that would allow me to see my kids grow up and to coach their baseball teams.

I’d love to say I was focused, prepared and an instant success. I experimented and I failed. I went through inconsistent periods of exhaustive work and lazy uncertainty. I listened to people when I should have ignored them. And I found motivation by constant rejection.

It was nearly a year until I created my first product. I had no idea where to start. I didn’t know how to launch. I didn’t know the technology behind it. And despite the hours of reading I devoted to entrepreneurial websites (I had the time to read!), I had no confidence that I could pull it off myself.

Eventually, I ignored the need to create something polished, and I sent an email to fewer than 5,000 people. It sent them to a basic landing page with an idea and a PayPal button.

There was no product (yet). But based on the response (or lack thereof), I would create something.

That “something” ended up being my first training course. It was basic and understated technologically, but it also overserved and offered significant value. It showed me what was possible.

During my time since, I’ve learned many lessons. These lessons apply to starting a business, but they also apply to many facets in life — whether it be finding success with Facebook ads, building a happy marriage or motivating young kids as a baseball coach (hey, I speak from what I know!).

Let’s take a closer look at a few of those lessons…

1. Successful People Are Not Idols

Holy crap, man, they’re just people.

I get it, though. In the early part of my business, I idolized those who figured it out — or at least made us all think that they figured it out. But as the years have passed, I’ve had the surreal experience of those roles being shifted.

The people I was looking up to five years ago were just people. They were at a different stage. They had failed and succeeded and found a way to get me to listen to them. But their experiences were simply their own — personal and flawed.

I do not understand the idolization of entrepreneurs who have attained success. In many cases, they are merely coasting now. You may think that they offer words of wisdom, but the truth is that most of the value they can offer is in the struggle that is no longer there.

The true success is getting out of the hole when no one knows who you are. When you have nothing. When you have everything to lose.

Once you’ve built a name and a reputation, you have equity. You can risk big and fail behind the scenes. You can pay people to do the heavy lifting while you’re drinking Mai Tais on the beach.

You’ll hear a lot about the “hustle,” but the truth is that the hardest work for these people has already been completed. Perspective has likely been lost, and much of the strategies they apply today aren’t applicable to your life.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t listen and research and learn from those who have found success. But do not treat those stories as having more value than your own. Learn from all stories equally.

2. Follow Those You Trust and Be Someone Who Can Be Trusted

When you lack confidence, you are vulnerable. When you’re vulnerable, you’re bound to listen to people you shouldn’t.

There is a lot of trash out there, people. You need to sort through it.

If you apply the recommendations of a person you don’t trust, you become the type of person who can’t be trusted. Someone else is looking for advice from you, just as you are looking for advice from others.

I don’t mean to make this about morals, but you need to decide the difference between right and wrong. You need to know where the line is drawn. And when unsure, err on the side of caution.

Ultimately, people are looking for others they can trust. They won’t follow your advice or buy your product otherwise. Allow that trust to guide you.

3. Do Not Follow a Beaten Path

I still struggle to figure out why and how I was able to make my business work, but my theory is that it is related to a decision to do things my way.

I had no confidence early. I did what I’m sure most people do. I read the words of the successful and attempted to apply their recommendations. It was often flawed and wrong.

Don’t try to be the next Seth Godin. Or Chris Brogan. Or Marcus Sheridan. Or Mari Smith.

Their paths are not templates to follow. There can be only one of them. And what they accomplished was under conditions unique to their lives and a different time.

Maybe doing what others tell you to do is a good way to start — it’s certainly what I did in the early going. It certainly wasn’t how I found success, though.

Success is found when you do things in ways that haven’t been done before — or at least, not intentionally copying the paths of others.

I’m happiest when I create something of my own. When I do it my own way. When I feel as though my brand is stamped on an experience in a way that hasn’t been stamped by others.

My goal is to help you find success — not by showing you how to do it my way (something that may not work for you), but to give you the tools that might help you answer your own questions.

Create something that is uniquely you that can’t be confused for someone else’s.

4. Do Not Look for Shortcuts

“The simple system for five cent conversions.”

“The blueprint for generating six figures in six months.”

Screw all that noise, man…

I get so many questions from people who look for shortcuts. They want the cheapest likes, the cheapest leads or the cheapest conversions. They look for weaknesses in an algorithm or ways to game a system.

Do not look for shortcuts. No sustainable, long-term success comes from it. Shortcuts are not a source of pride.

If someone comes to you looking for a shortcut, send them away. They expect results from a universally applicable and easy strategy that does not exist. They will only be disappointed.

Value the hard work, but also put value in knowing that there is not always (or possibly ever) an easy solution.

5. Create Solutions Instead of Applying “Tricks” and “Secrets”

Keep it going…

If your business is built on templates and tricks and secrets, it is unlikely to find any success. If it does, it will not last.

Your purpose should be to create solutions. Someone doesn’t have the answer? There isn’t a software that solves your problem? Create it — whether it be a workaround or a new software entirely.

Don’t always use tools in ways they are intended to be used. Look outside of the box. Be a problem solver instead of looking for others — people or products — to solve your problems for you.

6. Don’t Be a Click Bait Monkey

Click bait “works,” right?? I know, we’ve all experimented with it.

But click bait is the greatest fraud of them all. It’s knowingly misleading people into believing that more value exists on the other side.

Just stop…

Click bait headlines have watered down the meaning of “shocking.” It now means “boring, not that interesting and pretty much what you expected.”

So if you live off of click bait, you’ll find some initial success. But eventually, your audience will stop taking your shocking headlines seriously. And even when you do have big news, it won’t be believed.

7. Build for the Long Term

Along these lines, your business and your brand are more than the immediate click and dollar. So it’s important that you play the long game, or you won’t have a business next year.

Make decisions based not on how it impacts your business today, but how it will help you grow to the business you want next year and five years from now.

Don’t worry so much about the volume of customers, but building a pack of quality, raving, loyal fans who will buy from you over and over again.

While living in the “now” is a great motto for life, plan your business for tomorrow. It really doesn’t matter how much success you had today.

8. Find Motivation Greater Than Money

Look, I’m sure some people who are motivated only by money are able to find happiness. But I can’t help but feel that’s an empty existence.

I have three sons. As I write this, I have 10 years remaining with them in my home. And that is freaking depressing.

I’m surely not going to waste these 10 years at my computer. I won’t turn down an invitation for a catch in the backyard because I have too much “hustle” to accomplish today. I won’t waste a week on the road to make sure we have a BMW instead of a minivan.

You’ve got to have other reasons for why you do what you do.

My business eventually worked, and I’m convinced it’s due to desperation and perspective. Our oldest son is a cancer survivor. I care about every moment I spend with my boys.

So my “big why” is my boys and my wife. I care more about the little moments than I do the keynote spotlight on a stage. I’d rather spend an afternoon coaching my son’s baseball team the fundamentals of hitting than a Fortune 500 company the fundamentals of the Facebook ad.

While we still need to pay the bills, I value time more than I do the dollar. I value experiences more than I do contracts.

Of course, that doesn’t need to be your motivation. But find what motivates you, and be sure it goes deeper than “getting rich.”

9. Admit When You’re Wrong or You Don’t Know

I’m asked for advice often related to Facebook ads. My most common response: “I don’t know. Experiment and find what works for you.”

It’s not a cop out. It’s an understanding that there is no universal answer for everyone. And it’s self awareness that I don’t know everything — and I’m often wrong.

How I created my business is probably wrong for most people. How I run my Facebook ads may be wrong for many businesses. But I experimented and found what worked for me.

If someone acts like they definitively know all of the answers, do not trust their advice. Instead, listen to those who guide you to allow you to find the answer yourself.

I’ve screwed up a lot, and I’m proud to admit it. Know that you aren’t perfect either, and you’ll never find success without failing a whole bunch of times.

10. Say “No” — A LOT

There was a time when I only knew how to say “yes.”

You want me to do a whole lot of custom work for you for not a lot of money? You’ve got it! You want me to reschedule my Wednesday to get on a call with you and hear about your product? Why not?

While saying yes constantly gave me a sense of being needed, it also is an easy way to devalue yourself. It wasn’t until I started saying “no” — a lot — that I found liberation.

It’s really — REALLY — hard to get me to commit to something that is outside of my routine these days. And I feel damn good about it.

One of the greatest pieces of advice I ever received came from my now business manager and backup CEO John Robinson. I had a contract sitting on my desk — a three inch stack of papers — waiting to be signed that would allow me to write my first book. I was going to sign it, but then he said…

Ask yourself: Does the thought of doing this energize you?

Hell no, it didn’t! I thought about the deadlines and the long hours and the editing and the fact that whatever I wrote would no longer be relevant in a year. That was not energizing!

I turned down that deal. It was a major turning point in my business.

11. Some Guilt is Healthy, but Live Shamelessly

I’ve wasted too many hours feeling shame for not living up to a standard I think others expect. I see others who are more successful and assume I need to do better. I feel shame for not working around the clock, hustling late night and on weekends.

I’ve learned that some guilt is healthy. If I veer too far from my routine, I can get lazy. It’s the trap of an entrepreneur. It’s that guilt that keeps me in line.

But I’ve vowed to no longer feel shame for enjoying the moment. I don’t desire to live the day in exhaustion. It’s okay to rest, to breathe, to walk aimlessly and enjoy my day. It’s okay to do “nothing” from time to time.

Procrastination is not always a bad habit. Instead of being in a constant state of disappointment regarding my inability to get things done early, I’ve learned the art of productive procrastination. It’s no longer a source of stress.

Don’t allow the sleepless obsession of others to shame you into doing the same. Live your life shamelessly!

Your Turn

These are 11 primary lessons I’ve learned during the past five years, but I could go on. Anything you’d add?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post 11 Lessons for Struggling Entrepreneurs appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

A year ago today, I was making my final plans to announce my new membership: The Power Hitters Club.

This was new territory for me. Up until this point, monetizing progressed as follows:

1. AdSense on the site
2. Website sponsors
3. Facebook page review services
4. One-on-one services
5. Training courses

Training courses were by far my biggest money maker at that point, but they also presented challenges. The content took many hours to create, only to be quickly outdated.

A membership would focus on real-time content. I offered a weekly webinar and eventually a weekly blog post. The community itself was also central to the value provided. Content would not be outdated, so maintenance was minimal.

While I launched it as little more than an experiment a year ago, membership is now the primary focus of my business. Here are several lessons I’ve learned during the past year…

[Tweet “Here are 13 lessons learned during a full year of running a membership site…”]

1. Control Where It’s Hosted

When I launched the Power Hitters Club, I was admittedly unsure where to host it. I was still getting to know Infusionsoft, and I was using their Customer Hub product to host my courses. So it was natural to also host the members content there, too.

In hindsight, this was a mistake. In fact, it was a mistake to host my courses on Customer Hub as well. I’ve never liked the product, and I hate not having full creative control. I also hate not getting the actual traffic — and we know that’s important!

So beginning this year, I started using a membership plugin called Paid Memberships Pro. It’s not perfect, but it allows me to create membership content the same way I do content on my site. I decided to create a separate members site that I control.

I now know how much traffic I get. I now can create Website Custom Audiences based on where my members go. And I can now create content with ease for my members site.

2. Simplify the Software

Over time, the software used for my membership has gotten increasingly complicated.

• Paid Memberships Pro: Host members-only content
• Click Funnels: Host non-members workshops
• GoToWebinar: Host weekly webinars and workshops
• Infusionsoft: Tagging of users based on membership
• Zapier: Webinar registration automation for PHC and workshops
• Stripe: Payment gateway

This creates a lot of moving parts, and a lot of opportunities for bugs and mistakes.

We’re in the process of creating a single plugin to aggregate much of this activity to streamline this.

3. Don’t Offer Free or $1 Trials

When I first announced the Power Hitters Club, my email list was probably somewhere around 25-30,000 people (it’s over 75,000 now). While a decent size, I lacked the confidence that I’d be able to quickly create an active community.

And that was a major concern because if I launched a community and only five people showed up, it wouldn’t be a community at all! So I launched it with a $1 trial.

This was a big mistake. While I certainly received a massive influx of members, many weren’t quality members. Many had no intention to renew. And some even spammed the group.

I’ve often been asked if there’s a free trial option for those who aren’t sure, and my answer is a very clear “no” now. It’s just not worth it.

Your price attracts a certain type of member. If you offer $1 trials, you will attract $1 members.

Granted, things cleared up after a month, but damage was done that first month. It gave the wrong impression to those who actually wanted to be in the group since the $1 members were diluting the quality of the community.

4. Choose One: Quality or Quantity

That leads us here…

I know the argument is that we want both quantity and quality, but I don’t know that this is necessarily true. This is a balance. You can actually have too many members, lowering the quality of the group.

After some research, I settled on a $97 monthly membership price point. I didn’t want to be too cheap. I didn’t want to attract advertisers who spent very little every month. I wanted to attract “advanced” advertisers who invested thousands per month in their advertising.

A $97 monthly membership for someone who spends thousands per month on ads is nothing. These people get their money back instantly with the content they consume in the group.

I’m often asked if I have special prices for small businesses, non-profits or students. My answer is that if the $97 monthly price is a problem, this group is not right for them.

It may sound cruel, but it’s true. This is for advanced marketers already invested in their advertising. If you are spending very little or close to nothing on ads and you think that $97 is too much, it will likely be a waste of money for you.

I’m eventually going to run into a bit of a challenge. We’re trending towards having approximately 1,000 members by the end of the year. Is that too many? Will it be too noisy? Will I need to create a special community for some?

Nothing has been decided here yet, but plenty to consider.

5. Make the Community Accessible

When the Power Hitters Club was launched, I included a Facebook group community. It was easy to set it up that way, and even natural since I knew that my members would regularly be on Facebook.

But just as I wanted control of where the content was hosted, I quickly started wondering whether it made sense to control where the community was hosted as well. I could significantly increase the traffic and time on site on my domain with this simple move.

I polled my members, and they overwhelmingly wanted to keep the community on Facebook. And really, it just made sense.

As much as I want my members on my website, they will spend much of their day on Facebook. Such a group would be more accessible. Had I moved the community to my domain, it undoubtedly would have resulted in a drop in participation — and ultimately membership.

I guess you could say that this isn’t true for all memberships, but I’d counter that no matter what your community, your members are most likely to spend time on Facebook. And since many are already members of Facebook groups, the learning curve will be minimal.

While it may make sense if you have a huge community or your platform is already very social to host this on your site, the bottom line is that your focus shouldn’t be on selfish reasons. Make sure that it’s right for your members.

6. Get Feedback from Members

Your members are a treasure trove of information. Use them!

Instead of guessing about whether a change makes sense, ask them what they want. That is how I kept the community within Facebook, but it’s just one of many examples.

I also poll my community for ideas on products and content. These people are the most engaged, most loyal and most willing to help!

7. Be Prepared for Payment Failures

I was not prepared for this. I had no idea what a headache payment failures would be.

This can happen for any number of reasons. Their credit card may have expired. They may have gone over their spending limit. Or their card was suspended.

You can have automated processes in place, emailing members who have had credit card failures and removing members who don’t respond. But I’ve found this to be largely ineffective.

I dedicate one person to stay on top of payment failures to make sure that they get the problem corrected. This can otherwise be a major drain on membership.

8. Manage Member Accounts With a Spreadsheet

Do this from the start. Trust me.

When someone registers for the Power Hitters Club, the following process occurs:

• They are tagged in Infusionsoft
• They are emailed an invitation to join the Facebook group
• They are granted access to content on the membership site
• They are registered to the weekly webinar
• They request access to and are accepted into the Facebook group

That may seem simple, but what happens when someone cancels?

What email address was used to register for the webinars? They need to be removed.

What name was used to join the Facebook group? They need to be removed.

Do they still have access to the membership site? They need to be removed.

Do they still have Infusionsoft tags indicating they are a member and will be emailed as such? Those need to be removed.

Without a spreadsheet keeping track of these things (and more, including membership level, renewal date and credit card expiration), you’re going to end up with chaos.

9. Perform a Regular Audit

That leads us here. I experienced that moment of chaos, and I learned from it.

For the first six months or so, I simply assumed everything was running smoothly with the membership site. People who registered were granted proper access. People who canceled were removed. People whose cards failed also were removed.

But after stumbling on a couple of accounts where this was not the case, I dug a little deeper. And then deeper.

Hours upon hours later, I had uncovered some major problems. There were approximately 50 users who were getting membership while no longer paying.

This was the start of not only moving to a membership site that I controlled but building the members account spreadsheet. It was a major hassle, but one that taught valuable lessons.

We now audit every couple of months — in addition to our daily management of the spreadsheet — to be sure that those who are supposed to have access do and those who aren’t supposed to have access don’t.

10. Feed Them Value

In the beginning, membership provided the following:

• Weekly 30-minute webinars
• Access to the Facebook group
• Members-only discounts on products

Since then, I have shifted away from training courses, so the discounts are now different. They are for my workshops and they are actually much more substantial.

I’ve also added on a weekly blog post, only for members. With these posts, I’ll dig a little deeper or share something that may be relevant only to a small group.

The important thing is providing enough value to make membership worthwhile.

11. Provide a Warm Welcome

Upon becoming a member, you will receive a welcome email letting you know what’s next.

You’ll also receive a welcome from the Facebook group’s community manager, inviting you to share more about yourself.

And I am in the process of creating a personal welcome email and video that I’ll send to each new member.

12. Recognize Long Time Members

Recognizing long time members is important to show appreciation and to reinforce a personal connection. And it can also be important to help retain annual members.

As we hit the one-year anniversary, I want to acknowledge and appreciate my long-time members. So I have created a personal video and email thanking them, asking for any feedback on how we can improve the group.

As the group grows, it’s easy to step back and let the community run on its own. But I can’t forget that this is my community, and adding a personal touch is important.

13. Minimize Cancellations

We want to minimize cancellations and maximize retention. How do we do that?

One approach is applying the two things mentioned above to provide a personal touch. We can’t just step away and assume they are going to figure out the community and enjoy themselves. We need to welcome and appreciate them.

Follow-up is also important. We’re currently working in a process where we’ll follow up with members three weeks after joining. This way we can make sure they are participating in everything that gives the group value, and answer any questions they have prior to their first renewal.

We are also applying something more technical (but simple) that should help us prevent cancelations going forward. Previously, it was very easy — too easy — to cancel. Just click a link and you’re out of the group.

Now we have a cancellation form. You submit that you want to cancel and why, and it goes to a team member. That team member than works with the canceling member to learn more about why they want to cancel and see if there’s anything we can do to prevent it.

Join Me in the PHC!

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the Power Hitters Club, I am offering membership at the same monthly price that it was offered at a year ago: $77 (which is $20 off). Go here to sign up and use promo code PHC2015 to get your discount!

Your Turn

Do you have a private membership, or have you thought about starting one? What would you add to this list?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Lessons Learned One Year After Starting a Private Membership Site appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Two years ago today, I received the most important call of my career.

I always dreamed of starting my own business. But there were far too many reasons not to do it. I had three kids and the security of a job. A wife who didn’t bring in an income. Far too much risk.

But on August 18, 2011, the first step was taken that would lead me here: The security of a job was taken away from me.

I was laid off.

It would be fun to tell you that I immediately started a new business that day. That I incorporated, put together a business plan and got rolling.

But I was far from confident in starting my own business. As a result, I didn’t. I focused instead on finding another job.

That job search was sabotaged from the beginning. I did not want another “job.” I did not want to fight traffic. I did not want to lose the flexibility to coach my sons’ teams.

It was fighting through this lack of confidence and scores of irrational fears that eventually let me to where I am today.

But it absolutely didn’t happen overnight. It was a process of experiments, failures and doing uncomfortable things that I had never done before.

Throughout this post, I want to map out the stages of my business to help you understand where I’ve been during the past two years. I also want to provide a few important tips along the way to help you avoid some of the pitfalls I encountered.

The hope is that, if you’re facing a similar climb, you’ll find some inspiration or learn from the mistakes I’ve made along the way.

The Stages of My Business

Looking back on the past two years, this business has pretty clearly fallen into six different stages:

Aug 18 – Dec 19, 2011: “I Have No Freaking Clue What I’m Doing”

This is the stage that caused my wife the greatest worry. I shielded myself by not paying the bills. My wife saw just how scary it was.

When I was laid off, one of the first things I did was bought a domain. This domain.

I then started JonLoomer.com on August 29, 2011 with this post.

Reading that post is somewhat painful now. I even had a different writing style then, focusing on longer paragraphs.

I know now that short paragraphs are better!

As you can see from that post, my focus then was on getting hired. I started this website as a virtual résumé to showcase what I could do and have done in the past.

In the meantime, I sent countless applications that either went ignored or were rejected. I went to job fairs and met with recruiters.

Nothing.

However, like I said, I feel like I had a lot to do with where I was going. I really didn’t want any of these jobs. So I did the bare minimum to apply.

On September 7, 2011, I started a contest to #GetLoomerAJob. Seriously. I wouldn’t say it worked.

I wrote when I was inspired. I lacked a strategy. And I saw a huge spike in traffic when I wrote about a Facebook hoax. As a result, this would lead me to chasing traffic by writing about that topic for a while.

I was a mess, and this site lacked direction. The only money I made was as a result of consulting, and those gigs were few and far between.

Dec 20, 2011 – Feb 28, 2012: “Figuring it Out”

Maybe it was the urgency of having been four months since my layoff. Maybe it was my wife breathing down my neck as bills needed to be paid.

Or, more likely, maybe it was the realization that I wanted to do something on my own. Beginning December 20, 2011, this website took on far more focus.

It was on that day in December that I launched my first eBook.

It was called “How to Run a Facebook Page that Rocks.” Painful, I know. I designed the cover myself. And I released it as a PDF.

I couldn’t tell you how many people requested it. I didn’t even have it connected to list building strategies. But the point is that I was going outside of my comfort zone and experimenting.

The New Year brought a clean slate. And writing Out With the Old, In With the Awesome was therapeutic for me.

I started writing. A lot. Nearly every day. Focused on marketing topics, generally, and more and more about Facebook marketing, specifically.

On February 2, 2012, I finally started my newsletter. I really had no clue what I was doing, but that didn’t matter.

Once again, I was doing something that made me uncomfortable. I was trying something new. And I was pushing forward.

At this point, I had yet to make a dime from my website itself. But the building blocks were falling into place.

Feb 29, 2012 – Sep 19, 2012: “Building Authority”

February 29, 2012 was a big day for me. It was the day Facebook Timeline for Pages was announced, and the day I started obsessively writing about Facebook marketing.

It was also around the time I started investing in building my brand.

On March 23, 2012, I announced a new logo (with your help). It’s the same logo that graces these pages today.

On March 27, 2012, I moved to the new Timeline. I had swapped services with a photographer, getting a professionally done headshot and cover photo in the deal. I was finally “looking legit.”

And to be clear, I didn’t look legit before this. While I had gone through one website redesign by then, my Facebook Page looked as amateur as it could get. Everything was done with my own hands, which was not a good thing.

On April 26, 2012, I launched a redesign of JonLoomer.com. With a new logo and a solid theme, I was finally putting on the face of someone who was serious.

This was certainly a period of experimentation and doing new things. On May 16, I wrote a post asking for questions for my first ever podcast (inspired by Marcus Sheridan).

I have no idea how many people would listen to my podcast in those early days. But again, it didn’t matter so much. The most important part was the experimentation.

On May 18, 2012, I launched my second eBook, The 6 Secrets to Facebook Marketing Success. This edition would be offered in exchange for an email address (I learned from my earlier mistakes).

There was a much clearer strategy and focus. As of June 19, 2012, I had reached the 500,000 page view milestone, which seems so minuscule now (currently approaching 3 Million)!

This was also the stage when I started to get noticed. Big guns like Mari Smith and Amy Porterfield began referencing me. There is possibly no bigger development than this in terms of broader acceptance.

On August 9, 2012, I wrote an introspective post that was a lot like this one. I reflected on the past year and my vision for the future began to come together.

Still no money flowing through these pages, though my consulting business was doing better. However, I knew that I didn’t want consulting to be my main source of revenue.

Sep 20, 2012 – Jan 27, 2013: First Stage of Monetization

I spent more than a year building traffic to this website. It wasn’t until September 20, 2012, when I opened up the sidebar to advertisers, that I truly started to monetize.

It was easier than I had expected. And it brought a nice, dependable flow of revenue. It was the first time that I could add something of substance to my consulting.

I would work with a couple of those early sponsors (first AgoraPulse and then ShortStack) on partnerships around Facebook contests in November and December.

Possibly the most important development, however, was when I launched my first online product, Facebook Page Strategic Review.

It was a primitive product. It didn’t scale. But it was the first time I’d sell anything on these pages, and it would do better than I had expected.

It was also another prime example of why you should stop stressing over details and just “do it.”

Of course, this would lead me to a Facebook Ad Review product that completely flopped. But the experience was worthwhile.

Up until this critical stage, it still wasn’t clear what was going to become of my career. I was still hemorrhaging money, having plowed through savings and dipping into credit card debt.

But now — finally — it appeared that what I was doing was going to bring a steady income that could potentially equal what I was making over a year prior.

This stage was littered with experimentation, and there was no better example of that than the start of my video blog.

Here is my first episode:

Just eight months later, it’s completely different. I’ve purchased two new cameras and an entire studio. But I needed to start somewhere in order to determine my direction.

Jan 28, 2013 – July 14, 2013: Recognition and Acceptance

This was when I knew there was no turning back. I had made this work.

The crowning moment was the morning of January 28, 2013, when I discovered that I was named to the Social Media Examiner Top 10 Social Media Blogs of 2013 list.

After more than a year after my last eBook, I’d partner with ShortStack on How the Pros Use Facebook Advertising in July.

I took another step towards monetization when I launched the FB Insights Exclusive Workshop. This was a small group experiment that I learned a lot from.

The main thing that I learned is that I wanted to create a training product that scaled. Instead of a workshop, I needed to create a self-serve product that any number of customers could buy and learn on their own time.

This was also when I hosted my first solo webinar. Repeatedly slowed by doing something I had never done before and the technical requirements to get something like this done, it was an accomplishment to pull it off.

July 15, 2013 – NOW: Level 2 Monetization

For months I had talked about redesigning my website. I liked the old design, but the biggest problem was that it was not mobile responsive.

So on July 15, I took care of that with another redesign.

But the biggest development in this stage — and possibly of my entire two years running my own business — was the day that I launched my first online training program.

I had talked about doing this for months. But if it wasn’t one thing slowing me down, it was another. Fears, discomfort doing things I had never done before, the enormity of the project and a whole lot more were preventing me from a launch.

Finally, I decided it didn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it didn’t have to exist.

On July 23, I pre-launched FB Marketing Advanced University: Power Editor.

Not a lesson had been created. Only a landing page, some videos and a method for making payment.

I did this to get an idea of the interest before I invested time and money into creating the program. And boy was there interest!

This is the start of something big. Once the Power Editor program is complete, others will follow.

For the first time, my online revenue now exceeds my consulting revenue. And it’s not even close.

What I’ve Learned Along the Way

I’ve made so many mistakes. But that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Following are some of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way:

1. Just Create Something. The two examples that come to mind are my Power Editor Training Course and Facebook Page Strategic Review. I stopped obsessing over the details, and I just created something. And they worked!

2. Don’t Let Fear Paralyze You. It’s not going to be perfect. You’re going to screw something up. It’s okay. Accept it. Don’t let that fear stop you from doing.

3. Invest Early and Often. One reason I didn’t make a dime with this site early is because I barely spent a dime. It’s easier said than done, but I wish I had invested in the best systems from the start. Instead, I’m constantly upgrading.

4. Get Help. I’m not a designer. I’m not a photographer. I’m not a programmer. I’ve gotten help in all three places. I’m also getting help now with my podcast and hope to get help in more areas going forward. It’s the only way to grow!

5. Have a System. I know that I have to have a day-to-day routine since it’s a way to hold myself accountable for what I know needs to be done. Without a routine, there are no expectations for myself.

6. Get Uncomfortable. One big fear I’ve had to overcome is public speaking. I was nervous recording my first podcast. And my first video blogs. And I was a wreck preparing for my first webinar. But all have been successful, and fighting through that discomfort has been critical to my growth.

7. Try New Things. You can’t just do what you know how to do and expect to succeed. I’m constantly experimenting and trying new things. Some of them fail. Some don’t. But you’ll never know if something will or won’t work without trying it.

8. Network. The people I have met have been critical to my development. They’ve taught me new things. They’ve been important allies and partners. And they’ve helped me reach a whole new audience.

My Next 2 Years

What is awesome is that I now have the confidence to say that there will be a “next two years.”

My first year was touch and go. At around a year and a half, I began gaining confidence. And now, I know. This is my life. This is my future.

And it’s going to be awesome!

Thanks so much for being along for the ride. And I hope you’ll stick with me into the future!

The post 2 Years Later: From Laid Off to Successfully Doing Uncomfortable Things appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

This is part of a series of posts that I will be writing every Thursday during the month of August about my continuing journey to start a profitable online business. It will include lessons learned, mistakes made, milestones hit and advice I can give along the way.

August 18, 2011.

It’s a day that changed everything for me and my family. It’s a day not all that different for many people during a down economy. It was the day I received that fateful call.

I had been laid off.

It wasn’t particularly shocking news. I was VP of Strategic Marketing for a non-profit, a position that was created largely as an experiment to move from a long history of traditional fundraising to online efforts. The down stock market hurt companies, hurt families and ultimately limited donations. I made it through one layoff, but I doubted I’d make it through another.

Of course, this change didn’t affect only me. If it had, I may have seen it as an extended vacation. I’m the father of three boys, and my wife spends countless hours running the Loomer ship and helping in school. She does not get paid. She should.

The pressure was on.

I should have been a pretty marketable guy. Beyond the two and a half years spent with this non-profit, my history is filled with digital exposure dating back to 2005. I worked for the NBA from 2005 to 2008, being part of a team that led the league into the world of social. I helped create and manage the first ever Facebook group for them, before there were Pages.

So I didn’t expect to be unemployed long. I felt sorry for myself for a couple of days and then got straight to work.

JonLoomer.com Was Born

On August 29, I launched JonLoomer.com and wrote a blog post about Entering the Free Agent Market. My site behaved as an interactive résumé, highlighting my experiences.

It had video, recommendations and details of prior job responsibilities. I interviewed my son to gain perspective on pure career aspirations. It was simple. It was quaint. I expected it to be effective.

I applied. I waited. And waited. And waited…

Crickets.

Pressure began increasing. In late October, I decided to start shifting my focus. My site had begun as a hodgepodge of posts about social media and my job search. I was not committed. That changed with my first redesign.

I became a consultant.

When I took my first consulting gig, I knew that I needed to adjust my website accordingly. I wanted to get other similar opportunities. I wanted to establish myself as an authority. It would need to go beyond JonLoomer.com.

On November 4, it was time to start my own Facebook Page. By making this move, it became official that I was committing to starting my own business.

I rededicated myself to blogging. I wrote 26 blog posts in November, though no one read them. I received a grand total of fewer than 4,000 page views that month (I’ll get more than that today). But I stuck with it.

The frustration got to me in December. I slowed my blogging. But then, on December 20, I wrote my first eBook about Facebook marketing.

A week later, a blog post I wrote about a Facebook hoax went viral. It actually piggy-backed off of the temporary popularity of a similar post I wrote in September.

I knew this wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to chase traffic. I didn’t want to focus on personal use of Facebook. But I figured out the magic formula, and I pounded it into the ground.

I would soon receive the two biggest traffic days in the history of this site, driving 25,000 page views. But that traffic was empty, and it didn’t last. By the third week of January, things settled back down. But I then began writing more and more about Facebook marketing.

The Turning Point

The turning point of this site was on February 29. The site was in a traffic lull. I was keeping to a consistent blogging schedule, but I was losing motivation. Then, a beautiful thing happened…

Facebook Timeline For Pages was announced.

I became a content publishing machine, focused on a single topic. I wrote five blog posts alone on February 29. I wrote 42 more during March.

Finally, the results followed. My second biggest traffic month was in March (to that point), and it was content I was proud to write. It was on a topic that could lead to business.

I flipped the switch to the new Timeline by the end of March. You helped me pick a new logo and I redesigned my site again by the end of April.

A look at the rise and fall and rise again in traffic for JonLoomer.com

I was focused. I was obsessed. Traffic increased in May, June and July, hitting more than 100,000 page views in each of those three months. On January 30, Alexa ranked JonLoomer.com number 431,838 globally (yes, this is on my white board); by mid-July, that ranking was inside the top 25,000.

Jon Loomer Digital on Facebook continued to grow, and is now approaching 5,000 Likes. I started a podcast. I started affiliate relationships featuring tools I use by brands I trust. My email list has continued to grow, now exceeding 2,500 subscribers.

Moving Forward

Have I figured it out? Have I reached the top? Absolutely not. But I can taste it. It took one year, but I can finally taste it.

Make no mistake, I’m still struggling to pay the bills. I still have a family of five to feed. But the vision for how I am going to reach the point where I can finally breathe comfortably is coming into focus.

One year from now, I expect to make more revenue in online products and advertising than I do in consulting. I will be making speaking appearances to help squeeze out consulting altogether. I will have an assistant and a designer. I’ll be working with partners on developing an amazing new product.

I can see it…

There’s a reason it is all coming together. The experiences I had prior to August 18, 2011 certainly contribute. That time built a foundation. But there is no experience more valuable than one out of desperation.

I have failed. I have learned. I have adjusted. I have succeeded. I have celebrated.

It’s been an eventful year. I’ve learned more during this past year than I learned during the first 36.

I’m still learning. I’ll still fail. But the successes are coming faster as a result.

I don’t get personal in my blog posts all that often. Some have told me not to get personal at all, that no one cares about me. That’s fine. But I’m convinced that my experiences can help you.

Let me help you learn from what I have done and am doing. You do not have the time to go through the endless, obsessive minutes, hours, days and weeks of ups and downs and changes and mistakes. Let me guide you to get to the point I am at now.

Together, we’ll go the rest of the way.

The post A Personal Look Back: The Day It All Changed [Part 1] appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of invoices, bills, statistics, emails and to-do-lists. I know that I’m back-logged right now. But Father’s Day has been a good reminder to focus on what is important. For me, it’s these three little dudes…

They are why I work so hard. They are why building a business from home is so important. They are why all of the stress and tight budgets are worth it. And they are why living each breath is so much fun.

They are also why I am going off of my strict Monday through Friday blogging schedule this week. Instead of dedicating the time I usually do to breaking down the latest strategies on Facebook marketing, I have spent the entire day with them. And my final moments of the night will be spent camping in the back yard with them.

So I encourage you to remember why it is you do what you do. Refocus and re-engergize. If you can’t find the source of your inspiration, then you should find something else to do!

I end today’s tangent with a fun video from Jimmy Fallon, The Evolution of Dad Dancing. I must say that he never saw me dance. He’s missing the backspin!

The post Business Tip: Remember What is Important appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Michael’s response to this simple question is probably quite similar to that of others his age. Michael shoots for the stars. And he knows exactly what he wants to do.

This is his plan:

1) Go to college for “three to five years”
2) Play baseball (shortstop or pitcher) for the Milwaukee Brewers for 15-20 years (depending on health)
3) Own or be the general manager for the Brewers for a few years
4) Become a professor, mathematician or teacher until he retires

Pretty simple, right? The kid’s got it all planned out. The only qualifiers had to do with his health. He may play only 10 years in the big leagues if his health limits him.

You have to love the way kids think. It’s pure. While Michael is getting old enough that he’s starting to grasp realities, obstacles (injuries) and necessity to have back-up plans, his goals are limitless.

Michael starts with the “sky’s the limit” plan. Becoming a baseball player for the Milwaukee Brewers for 15-20 years before becoming owner or GM is one of the most complicated and difficult scenarios one could consider. Once he’s ready to “settle down,” he’ll use his knowledge from college to be a professor. Or mathematician. Or teacher.

Two weeks ago today, I was laid off. Since then, I’ve repeatedly been asked a variation of the question I asked Michael:

So what are you looking to do?

I have to admit, I approach the question much differently than Michael. My goals have been corrupted by an adult’s negativity, reality, failures and fears. Unlike Michael, I don’t start from the top. I start from the back.

1) Work in digital marketing and social media strategy

It’s the easiest start. It’s the widest net. It’s not looking outside the box, by any means. It’s the safe play.

2) Work in sports

Oh, I’ve been in sports before. I’d love to do it again. It’s just a matter of not limiting myself to one particular industry, and that’s a little scary.

3) I’d like to do some consulting

Yeah, I would. I’m only limited here by the fact that I’ve never completely gone on my own before (fear), so there is some unknown. And there’s that whole concern about benefits and whatnot. It’s one of those things I say, but don’t necessarily expect it to happen — at least on a full-time basis.

4) I’m looking to get PastKast funded

This is true. I am. This is my “play for the Milwaukee Brewers for 15-20 years” goal. I want to be my boss. I want to run my own business. I want it to be in sports. I want it to rule the world. And I want it to be glorious. But I always mention it last.

Michael's right. I could totally do Ron Roenicke's job!

I watch baseball with Michael regularly, and I coach his team every year. Every now and then, after I complain about a particular coaching move, Michael will look at me and say, “You should be the Brewers manager.” One day he may say it sarcastically, but right now he means it wholeheartedly.

I just smile. I think he’s nuts. But I love the purity of the suggestion. In a way, I think he’s right. I could totally do what Ron Roenicke does. I’m only limited by the negativity, reality, failures and fears of an adult.

It’s time that we all approach our careers like kids again. If we aren’t a baseball player like we originally planned, why? When did we give up on our dreams?

Look, I understand there’s a certain level of realism that has to be taken into account. Back when I was a kid, I used to want to play for the Milwaukee Brewers, too. As much as I want it to happen, my chance is gone.

But I can still reach the other dreams that are within my grasp. You can, too. We’ll just dream responsibly.

How about you? What career dreams do you have?

The post Career Key: Think Like a Kid appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Make no mistake about it, being unemployed in this environment is scary. It seems all companies are cutting corners, saving money and eliminating positions in an effort to stay above water. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a non-profit struggles during these times to raise money. As a result, my position was a casualty.

I could feel sorry for myself. I could mope and complain that I don’t have a job. But I won’t. I understand business. I get that tough decisions needed to be made. And I’m not ashamed to be one of the many who are out of work.

That's right. The Prince Fielder of digital marketing nerds is a free agent.

Of course, I realize that due to the same environment I mentioned earlier, there are lots of people like me available. Because of this, I think it’s important not to rest on your typical résumé or even LinkedIn profile. To be successful in a time like this one, you must separate yourself.

As a person with a digital and social background, what better way to show my skills than to apply them in the development of a personal website? So here it is. Everything you need to know about me. More than just bullets, I provide extensive details of my work history with the American Cancer Society and National Basketball Association. I even provide some details about me personally so you get a better understanding of who you’re dealing with.

Best of all, I built this. I may not be a professional designer or programmer, but I have taught myself enough to make myself dangerous. When confronted with a lack of resources, I am always willing to do the dirty work myself. This site is an example of that.

So poke around. Learn more about me. Think I’m a fit for your company? Let’s talk!

The post Entering the Free Agent Market appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.