If you’re looking to learn more about the basics of email marketing, you need to check this out. Our final speaker for the Email Marketing Challenge, Liz Wilcox, shares her expertise about the steps of email marketing and the email staircase. She also shares a little more about her very accessible membership and who can benefit from it.

Resources

Liz’s website: https://lizwilcox.com/

Her $8 membership: https://lizwilcox.thrivecart.com/email-marketing-membership/

Her welcome sequence: https://www.loom.com/share/ad67f5969bad47eabda1d93f1a481ba9?sid=3ea1ad40-3448-46ee-858c-a55062aeaf3
Her screensharing & presentation software: Ecamm live

Transcript

  Yeah, just a few housekeeping notes on my end, um, before we can kind of jump right in with Liz. Um, but everyone, next week will be our last, uh, email marketing challenge call. It’s just gonna be kind of like a closing, um, call. We’ll take some questions and then I’ll also be announcing the challenge winner.

And as y’all know, the challenge is ending. So next week, I’m going to send out a poll for the next challenge that they’re challenged to start. Um, it’s going to have a lot of the same options, but, um, one thing that was kind of thrown around was the idea of some kind of like goal setting and prioritization for 2025.

Um, I think that kind of ties in really well because the next challenge will be in the new year. Um, and so I’ll try to, I’ll add more, uh, more to that in the email and, uh, let y’all vote. Um, with that said, super excited to have Liz here. Y’all have been actually kind of talking about, uh, her course and asking about, sorry, her membership and asking about it in the email marketing challenge.

Um, and so, you know, that kind of prompted me to reach out to Liz. Um, and, you know, she was gracious enough to join us. Um, so, I hope y’all are super excited for an action packed call and to, you know, have any questions about anything that she discusses or even, um, her membership. Alright, Liz, over to you.

All right. Well, that’s super cool to hear you guys were talking about me. Oh my gosh. Hey, I’m today. I want to talk about electronic mail. That’s what I’m known for and I clicked the wrong slide already So I’m on an onto a great start here guys What you don’t know is I’m only semi pro so bear with me.

I’m gonna try to make it fun for everyone involved Anyway, so So I want to just share today three steps to email marketing conversions. I’ve got a little bit of an agenda, but as we move along, if you’ve got questions, I have the chat, uh, pulled up for all of that, you know, I’m happy to stop and answer clarifying questions or tell you, Oh, that’s coming up next, uh, but I want to give you some quick reminders about email.

Uh, so you know why you should be doing this. I want to share with you my email staircase framework. Uh, give you some tips on how to make real connections and simplify the selling process for you. So what does that mean? By the end, I’m hoping that you learn the three major components of email. So you can finally feel confident that you know how email works.

I know it feels like this knot you’re never going to untangle, you know, you’ve been doing a lot in the challenge, but we really want you to feel confident that you know how this thing works so you can get moving into 2025. Right. And then of course, I want you to take action, start sending some weekly newsletters out.

Now I’ve got a disclaimer here. You wouldn’t be in this community if you weren’t a creative human. I’m going to share. My methodology, my framework, but don’t be afraid to deviate according to your gut. I don’t know you. I don’t know your capabilities, your capacity, your audience, the way you’re growing your business.

Anyone that comes on a zoom and it’s like, I’m going to give you everything you need. You should just You know, lock out right then and there because they don’t know you, right? So I’m just going to share with you what has worked for me and a lot of my customers and members in my 9 a month membership and you can take it from there.

So quick intro, aside from Survivor, uh, Which is just, to me, to me, Survivor is a fun fact. This is what actually matters, right? I have, uh, started and grown four businesses, two in the travel industry. Uh, one you’re seeing right now, the email marketing thing. And a little known fact, I actually own Texas swagger.

com, which is a merch shop for Texans. Super random. That’s me. Uh, but what I want. You to see in all these pictures is I’m really resourceful. Sometimes I might not have a lot of resources, but I’m resourceful. And I’ve built all of these businesses in the margins of life. When I started, I was an RV travel blogger.

If you’ve ever been to the woods, you can imagine the internet situation. Okay. And so I was having to go to like Lowe’s and libraries, but Parking lots, stealing wifi to download a blog post and hit publish things like that. You can see in the opposite corner of this slide, I’m giving this exact presentation and my internet is so bad.

I did download the slides onto my phone and just hold my phone up and swipe as I’m talking. So I’ve made a lot of come ups, uh, but I started very simply and I started and created a very simple approach to email marketing. And that’s what I’m going to share with you today. And just some quick stats, some hashtag humble brags.

This is a screenshot from my email list. I’ve got about 12, 000 people on their, uh, open rate of nearly 62 percent click rate over 6%. But what I really, what I really think is impressive is that middle segment customers, over 6, 000 customers. Over 12, 000, that’s 50%. So not only do I write emails that people want to read and click on, I write emails that people purchase from.

And that’s the bottom line, right? That’s how we’re going to change our lives, build our businesses. So let’s talk about email marketing real quick. Why should we do it? Well, number one, you own it, right? Raise your hand. If you were alive in 2022, 2023, you remember that billionaire bought a social media platform.

He changed the name. He lost all the advertising dollars, half of its users, and another half are gone in the last 30 days. If you have built your entire platform on that little blue bird, you’re You might be wondering where your people went, right? So it’s really important to own the audience. And you can do that with email marketing, whether you use kit today and you decide to try flow desk or stand tomorrow.

You can take those people with you. And because of that, it has a high ROI, a high return on investment. They say for every dollar you spend with email marketing, you can get up to 40 bucks in return on average for that. Now, I did the math for 2023. I need to do 2024s now. For every dollar I spent with email, I made 166 in return.

I don’t, I don’t know anybody that’s getting that return with Zuckerberg. So it’s an incredible return on investment, but why? Well, because you can make real connections with your audience. Everyone on this slide is a member of my email list and a customer of mine. There are also people I like, I like.

Enough that I’m going to go meet them in person or we’re going to go to the and attend the same events and you know Happenstance meet right? That’s the beauty of email marketing You can really dig in get to know your subscribers and then create products That they want, right? I know Andrea owns a company called Just Suck It, where she sells succulents.

So I know what kind of templates to sell her. I know Melody, you know, teaches course creators and she’s looking to be more visible. So I know I could sell her cold email templates. podcast pitches, et cetera, right? How do I know this? Because I’m emailing them. They’re, they’re showing me by clicking by opening by replying.

So what are we going to do? How are we going to get to all of these things to get to that sort of level? Well, we’re just going to follow the email staircase. Y’all I, I know you didn’t see me on survivor, but my strategy was super simple. And my email strategy is super simple as well. First, you have a follower.

Once you get them on your list, turn them into a friend. Once you have a list full of friends, you can have a list full of customers. So we’re just going to climb the staircase, follower, friend, customer. And that’s just another fancy way of, you know, the customer journey, right? So let’s talk really quick about followers.

What’s the key to getting followers? Get visible, right? This is, I’m pretty sure this is my second or third one of these I’ve done today. I am all about finding people that resonate with me. I think I’ve done six or seven this week. Um, and then once you can get visible, get those people on your email list.

I won’t spend too much time on this. There are a million and one ways to get people on your email list. You can Google it, pick the right one for you. Get going. And Mine just happens to be public speaking. All right. So how do we turn people into friends once they’re on our list? This is the, the difficult part or the one that gets people tripped up, right?

But it’s really the same way we make friends in real life. Number one, we, we got to show them we’re invested, right? No one is going to invest in you and your products or even care before they know that you’re first invested in them, right? It’s the same as. Uh, you know, there’s this push, this market push to work with companies and buy from companies that care.

Right? That’s why there’s all these social justice campaigns from Nike, Under Armour, et cetera. Right? We want to know that they are invested in what we care about. So show that you are invested in your subscribers. This can be as simple as, I just spent an hour with a, Lady in a beanie talking about email, you know, hopefully I write better emails from now on.

Thanks for opening See you next week, right? That shows you’re invested. It can be I just got a new mic for my podcast I just bought a new computer or I just read this article. I think you would find it interesting. Here you go The second thing you got to relate to your people, right? People buy from people they trust.

We’ve got to become relatable to them. And this is actually pretty simple. People want to relate to others. Something in my branding that I talk a lot about. Are the nineties. I love the nineties. Like look at my mug. This is literally a mug from 1997. Uh, I’ve got another mug here that’s got like Will Smith, his Fresh Prince era here.

I’ve got tapes here. I’ve got like an Eminem sticker somewhere. You know, it’s all very like nineties, two thousands, right? And that. gets people relating to me. Even if you hated NSYNC or the 90, Oh gosh, I didn’t like that era. The eighties were better. You’re relating to me in some way. So you’ve got to become relatable in the inbox.

And again, it’s as simple as saying, Oh, you know, my refrigerator broke and I’m waiting on the repair man, right? What’s more relatable than a broken appliance. It doesn’t have to be hard. People want to relate to you. And the third thing is stay top of mind, right? We go to the gas station on the corner, the one that’s closest, the one that’s top of mind, right?

So if we can be that person, that solution for folks, that is when we’re going to make the sale, right? And spoiler alert, when you do these first two things, when you show just how invested you are, when you become relatable to your audience, you’re You stay top of mind. The gas station on the corner from me is a place called Dodges.

They sell fried chicken. They cash checks. It is a hub and it is top of mind to me because I love fried chicken. Okay, highly relatable products over here. And I know they’re invested in me. They always have a clean parking lot. They know my name, etc, right? So where do I go to get gas? All right, now let’s talk about customers.

How do we create customers in the inbox? Y’all, that first bullet pretty much says it all. I don’t even know if I need the other ones. Stop. You gotta sell. You know, I, I went, um, I went, I don’t know where I was, but I heard this guy walking. He was on his cell phone and he said, well, how was I supposed to know?

You didn’t tell me. And isn’t that the same with our email list or, you know, our following, how do they know what services and offers that you have, if you don’t tell them, right, you have to sell, it is a hundred percent, your responsibility to sell. And at the end of the day, you don’t know. In order to make sales, just stop guessing, right?

I shared earlier, Oh, I know so and so would buy this because she’s XYZ, right? So get to know your subscribers and you can create offers or tweak your offer, tweak your messaging for those people. Right? All right. Write this down. I already said it. People buy from people they trust.

Side note, if you ever do presentations, have a slide like this so you can drink.

People buy from people they trust.

So back in the day when I had my travel blog, I was really nervous. I was doing something like this for the first time, you know, teaching others in a summit and I was super nervous. Um, and so I wrote an email saying, Hey, I’m super nervous. Can you give me some encouragement? I’ve never done anything like this.

And then I asked them, Hey, what are you doing this week? I’m a travel blogger, right? I want to know where they’re traveling. So you can see the subject line. What are you doing this week? David with who Liz, you can do it. And then he goes on and on. about where he’s at Rhode Island. I’m going to Arizona and he’s asking me, you know, have you camped anywhere that you recommend?

Let me ask you if, if I wrote back and said, oh yeah, uh, you got to go to Collins campground. It’s over on I 10. Do you think he would go there? Would he follow the recommendation? Of course, because people buy from people they trust, right? That he’s going to take me up on my recommendation. So here’s a little bit of proof.

I was running my very first digital course. Finally decided to do the big thing. I said, Hey, I’m thinking about creating a course on RV maintenance. Would you be interested? I had 141 people click yes. So I did the thing. I created the course. I did the pre launch, all of that. I did a typical Monday through Friday, open close cart.

And by the end of that cart close date, I had made 141 sales. Absolutely insane. But how did I do that? Right? Remember I just followed the email staircase follower, right? I got people on my list, turned them into friends. I knew that they needed help with RV maintenance. So that’s what I created. And then they turned it into customers, right?

So you might be thinking, okay, well, Liz I’m not creating a course or I’m not a travel blogger. I’m not a blogger at all. Maybe you’re a service provider or something like that. This sort of framework works for all sorts of folks. So this is someone in my membership that sent out an, a version of one of the emails I sent, it says resulted in three one on one bookings.

So if you’re someone that does bookings or has high tickets, does services, and you think, Oh, well email, you know, it’s not really working for me. If you break it down super simply, remember, invest, relate, stay top of mind. This will happen. And I want to point this out to numerous thoughtful and enthusiastic replies.

Replies matter, especially if you have higher ticket, because you know, those people, they’re going to want to think through, they’re going to want to purchase something for someone they trust. Right? So if you can open up a conversation, you’re going to close a lot more sales later, right? Now this is someone who was a coach and they follow the email staircase perfectly.

2, 200 sale from You know, it started with email. So met a stranger in a Facebook group, follower, got my lead magnet. Okay. Now we’re going to turn them into a friend. I sent an email last week. I assume they’re sending out emails pretty much weekly. I sent an email out, got more replies. One led to a call and got me the sale.

So they did this perfectly. Follower, they were in a Facebook group, right? Making themselves known, got them the lead magnet, emailed them, made them a friend or friendly enough to get on a call and book the sale. It’s so exciting. So follower, friend, customer. All right. Do we have any questions? Before I move into the next phase where I give you sort of the three components of email.

Is that making sense?

Okay, so we haven’t mentioned the three components yet the three steps.

Well, these are the three steps So this is my framework and now I’m going to share with you some components of like what is email made of

God? It got emails.

Do we need to send to to follow the staircase? I’ll just move into it.

Y’all Honestly, please feel free to interrupt. So the first component of email is your welcome sequence, right? The same way when we started this recording, you know, Colin said, Hey, this is how we found Liz. This is why she’s coming in the same way I said, Hey, this is my agenda, my objectives, my disclaimer.

You want to start the friendship, right? You want to set expectations. So the welcome sequence just starts us on this road, right? And inside your welcome sequence, these are the three things you need. Number one, you need to showcase a little personality. Right. It could be as simple as I love the 90s. I have, you know, I have mermaids all over my house.

I, you know, I get cold. So I’m always wearing a sweater, you know, just a little bit of surface level personality. This doesn’t have to be, you know, spread all your business everywhere, just something to get you related to people. The second thing is your vision. This is very important. This is the thing if you’re going to go out today after and take a look at your welcome sequence, I want to make sure you have this in your sequence.

If I’m, you know, if I’m, my vision for you is that you make money with email marketing. I don’t care about what your video looks like, what software you’re using, uh, none of that stuff. All I care about is you’re making money with email. So if you were graduating from Liz Wilcox University, that’s the degree I’m handing you.

So think about it, uh, from your point of view. You know, if I’m graduating from Brandy University, Heine University, what is my degree? That’s the vision you have for your subscribers. And this is very important in the welcome sequence to start that friendship, to let them know, Oh yeah, I’m enrolled in the right class or I’m enrolled in the right degree.

I want to learn how to make money with email. I’m in the right place. The second thing, or the last thing is values. Now. This is not spew your politics everywhere, but there are certain values, certain principles that guide the way that you do things, guide the way you, you know, work with clients, uh, you know, the way you do business, right?

For example, one of my values is inclusivity. That’s why my membership is 9 a month. I believe, cause I come from an education background, that everyone has an absolute right. To an education. It’s, it’s not a privilege. It is a right to be educated. And when I found out email could change my entire world and buy me ridiculous wallpaper, like you see in the background, I, I wanted everyone.

to know about it. And so that’s why, you know, and something I share in the welcome sequence. Hey, my thing is 9, not because it’s crap, but because I really value your right to an education. And I want to help people all over the world. And we do, we serve almost 30 countries right now, which is so cool. Um, And last, I think I already mentioned this, set expectations.

Tell people, Hey, I’m going to email you on Tuesdays, or even if, if it’s, I’m going to email you sporadically, cause I can’t get my stuff together. Whatever that, whatever’s true, say that. Okay. Um, and also another thing to note. In the expectations and this is going to help people flip the switch from, Oh, I just got this thing for free to, Oh, Carol’s a business.

Liz is a business. Spencer’s a business. We’re going to say, I’m going to offer you free and paid products, services, resources, whatever’s true. And again, a lot of people come in. Uh, to my email list with a free thing, right? So I want to flip that switch. I want to change that expectation. So I say, you know, I’m going to offer you free and paid products like my membership, like this workshop, like this, whatever.

Okay. So then what’s next after the welcome sequence? Newsletters, of course. And this is where a lot of people get tripped up. What do we say? Right. But remember, newsletters are going to help us grow that friendship. They’re going to help us become familiar in the inbox. Oh. Colin emailed me. Liz emailed me.

I’m going to open that, right? We want to be familiar in the inbox. And then when we do it weekly, we can really show up, serve. We can really show we’re invested. We can show that we’re relatable and we can stay top of mind. So let me give you some ideas and hopefully my tech will work. Give it a second.

Okay. Yes. Yay. It loaded Um, like I said only me semi pro so stuff like this gets me excited So this is uh the membership that some of your uh, fellow folks were talking about And I just want to go through and give you some ideas for newsletters So this is one we sent out this week, accomplishments, show your people you’re invested in them and invested in your craft by sharing some accomplishments, uh, that you’ve done this year.

And you can also ask them what have they accomplished this year? And you can keep that niche related, or, you know, you could go general. Another one is share a podcast. You know, what are you listening to lately? Again, related or unrelated to your niche, uh, you know, and this, this would be a great one. You could share a holiday specific email that segues into sharing some easily digested content.

So a blog post, an Instagram reel, a TikTok, something like that. Super simple. Also, you could share your top picks of the year, right? What’s the most clicked on stuff or what’s been the biggest things for your audience? You know, do like a wrap up post, like a top five things of the year. Uh, you could ask them what they’re up to for the rest of the year, right?

You could ask people for referrals, et cetera. Email marketing does not have to be hard. Did you guys hear that? There was like a crazy, like motorcycle going by. Anyway, email doesn’t have to be hard. Don’t get distracted by the motorcycles. You can add, you can just have very simple newsletters. So let’s talk about sales now.

Sales actually solidify the friendship. Here’s what most people don’t understand about building community online. Customers create community, not the other way around. It is so hard and we’ve all seen YouTubers are great examples of this. They build a giant YouTube following, they open up a Patreon and everyone calls them an e beggar.

Right? Why? Because the expectation was I got this for free and now you’re trying to charge me, right? Now you’re asking me for super thanks and like what, you know, I just watched this before I go to bed, bro. You know, why don’t you get a real job? But when you can create customers quickly You’re going to create that community because customers, number one, they invest, right?

Which means they take action. And when they take action, they share with a friend, which then grows the business, right? Uh, you likely heard of me because someone in the group mentioned me and guess what? They’re a customer. They’re in there, right? Or they, they’re thinking about becoming a customer, right?

Oh, has anybody heard of Liz’s thing? Is anybody in there? Right. And chances are, if someone was in there, they gave their opinion. They’re sharing for me, right? So I can do less and less of this visibility work. So sales really solidify the friendship between you and your subscriber. Now, there are things called ABC launches.

So the A is the big launch, the one we think of, right? We’re emailing, we’re on social, maybe we’re running ads. A B launch is somewhere, uh, you know, a little less than that, maybe 50%. Maybe it’s email only. Right. And a C launch is something like a flash sale or, you know, like two days only type of thing.

Right. Now, it’s your responsibility to look at your calendar and map these out. I’m not saying you have to map out your whole year, but look at, you know, we’re going into 2025. What do you want to do in the first three months? Are you going to launch something? Are you going to relaunch? Are you, you know, do you have room for a little something?

sale or a big one. It is your responsibility. I think I mentioned that at the top, you got to sell, right? So really thinking about it in ABC will hopefully help you kind of fill in those calendar, um, gaps. The next thing in order to sell is just a super signature. This is the easiest way to keep your offers top of mind.

This is just the footer of an email PS when you’re ready. Here are ways we can work together here are ways I can help you and maybe you put your podcast in and two paid offers, right? It doesn’t have to be all paid offers, but we want to keep those offers top of mind. Why? Because people don’t buy when you sell, they buy when they’re ready.

Think back to that gas station. Y’all I drive a 1989 Ford Bronco. I live in a place where I have no family and I’m a single woman. I go to the gas station a lot. I am always ready to buy gas because I’m not going to be that lady with that giant truck looking stupid on the side of the road. My sister, on the other hand, she drives a modern Volkswagen Jetta.

She gets 40 miles to the gallon. She’s got a partner. She’s in a city with gas stations on every corner. She gets gas like once a month, the gas station is always there. It’s always open, but she and I are ready at different times. And so having a super signature where you say, Hey, Hey, Hey, it’s here. It’s here.

It’s here. Here’s my gas station. So to speak is really going to help you, you know, When Carol is ready to buy, when, you know, I have a sale, I’ve got a little extra money, I’m ready to hire you for my website, right? So that’s a great, great way to keep sales, uh, coming in and keep your offers top of mind.

The last thing are just a little reminders in your email marketing. For example, I might send out that newsletter of accomplishments and I say, Oh, you know, I got 4, 000 people in my membership. I started a podcast and you know, we’re on episode 70, 20, 000 downloads, um, and something else. Oh, by the way, if you want to know, uh, how I was able to get 4, 000 members, I’m running a workshop on that next week.

It’s 15 bucks. Click here or whatever, right? So it’s just a little reminder. It’s not a complete sales email all about the workshop and why you should join and this and that, but I’m reminding them that I’m running that workshop at the end. So just a little segue, right? So that’s how we make sales. And I want to give you some ideas for sales emails as well.

So we’ll go back and in the membership, you can see things are, uh, categorized depending on your objective. So let’s look at some sales emails. Ooh, a Christmas in July. I know we’re far away from July, but you could do that anytime really. And you could give a discount or throw in an extra goodie. Um, In the top picks of the year, you know, you could click on, you know, my top picks.

I might do this podcast episode, that podcast episode. Oh, and my workshop, you know, available for replay right here. So you can turn that regular newsletter into a sales email, right? You could sell with a testimonial. If you just got a, Great testimonial or reply like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it. You know, this email campaign, maybe 10, 000 ask them, Hey, can I share that with my list and then put it in an email?

Right. Um, you could share an extremely generous offer, like a discount or access to something really special. Um, you could share fun facts. Oh, I love this email so much. I’m so glad it popped up. So fun facts, share three fun facts about yourself. And then share three fun facts about your products, right? So it’s just a really fun thing, right?

I was on Survivor. I got fourth place. I’ve been featured on Niche Pursuits three times. Uh, you know, here’s some fun facts about my products. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right? So that’s really fun, easy way, uh, to hook people. All right, where was I? All right, write this down my friends because I’m thirsty.

Stop making money, start solving problems.

Stop making money, start solving problems. So I think I heard this from Robert Kiyosaki, the rich dad poor dad guy and he said, you know, your job isn’t to make money. It’s to find a problem that needs solving. And when you can follow this email staircase, follower, friend, customer, really get to know your people, then you can know what to sell them, how to talk about your offers so that they know it’s theirs, right?

Because at the end of the day, your products are for serving, not selling, right? It feels gross to sell stuff, but I know my best, the best way I can serve you is, you know, through my membership, through my workshops, through my dot, dot, dot. Right. And so I don’t look at it as I’m trying to sell you. I look at it as, Hey, here’s what I’m doing over here to help you.

If you’re ready. You know, come on in and the proof is in the pudding, right? My very first book, uh, was called tales from the black tank. It’s over, Oh, I’m in the wrong place. This one with the crazy face. I wrote that because my people said, Liz, you’re a really funny storyteller. So I wrote a book on funny stories about RV travel.

I already shared this RV maintenance thing, right? Everybody said, Oh, I wish I had a trusted source. So I created that. The welcome sequence workshop. Liz, why, why do you only have four emails in your welcome sequence? Oh, well, here’s a workshop about that. Liz, what metrics do you track? Oh, let me create a workshop.

Very simple stuff, right? But I wouldn’t have created any of these or even known to, if I wasn’t speaking, connecting, and, you know, hearing what my audience was saying. So let’s recap this. Number one, most important. Email’s lucrative, right? I want you in on this. Number two, take the staircase to customers, follower, friend, customer.

Uh, at the end of the day, work on your welcome sequence, send some newsletters and, you know, never forget about sales, that’s your responsibility. And then, you know, at the end of the day, Connect to convert. So what are your next steps? I’d love for you to take a look at your welcome sequence. Are you setting expectations?

Do you have the personality, the vision, the values in there? Commit to sending your newsletters. That really is the best way to stay top of mind, show people that you’re relatable and get them to know with certainty that you are invested in them. Then of course, sprinkle in some sales. And if you’d like, I’ve got a freebie.

You can download my welcome sequence templates, some newsletter samples from my membership and 52 subject lines. Or, uh, I don’t know if Spencer or Colin has a link. You can join the 9 thing. Uh, it’s 9 check it out. I feel shameless when I promote it, but I love it so much. And it sounds like you guys have already heard of it.

So they, yep. They’re going to put a link in there for you. All right. Oh my gosh. Yay. We have time.

And maybe I’ll just jump in and say, everything that Liz is saying, actually a few things really resonated with me. Um, I was thinking about my own email list, and sort of that three step along the way. Um, I need to improve, uh, because a problem that I have, and I don’t know if anybody else has that out there, I’ve had an email list for a long time, like I created niche pursuits like, you know, over 10 years ago at this point.

And so, uh, every couple of years I go back and look at my welcome sequence and I need to do that again. I think it’s been two or three years and like, you subtly change over time, right? Like you kind of evolve. I want to make sure you’re, you know, like when I first started, I like all day, every day I talked about niche websites, right?

And now I, Talk about more than just niche websites, right? And I want to maybe introduce that slightly differently in my first email So that’s you already gave it on our to do list, but I’ll just echo that everybody should put that on their to do list I’m putting it on mine because that’s important that first email is just so important

It’s so important y’all put it on your calendar right now.

Like if you do it tomorrow make it a recurring thing You know, even in Google, like, you know, put two hours and say, repeats every year on this day or something.

So I like to do it

in January. Always look up those like first onboarding welcome, nurture emails, whatever you call them, just to make sure it really is representative.

Of who and what I am today, because yeah, we, we change, we don’t even know or realize we’re changing and we do for sure.

Shane, I know you’re on the call. I hope you’re paying attention. I’ve been trying to get Shane to start his, uh, welcome sequence. He has like 10, 000 plus emails. He gets like 50, I think a day, maybe 30 a day.

Um, but anyway, a fairly good amount of emails a day on his business and I’ve been hounding him to start his welcome newsletter. Thank you, Shane. Um, so I hope he, he has already and feel free to chime in

even like Spencer said, even just one email, like, Hey, this is what we’re about. This is a little bit about me, you know, the shorter, the better, honestly, you could share something.

I, I tend to, uh, in one sentence, I share my personality and my vision, and here’s the sentence so you can steal it, you know, uh, Oh yeah, by the way, I’m I’m Liz. Here’s one thing you got to know about me. As much as I love the nineties, I love the idea of you making money with email even more. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

That is it. That’s pretty much, you know, I give my freebie. I’m like, here’s the freebie. Here’s what it is. Oh, by the way, I’m Liz again. You know, as much as I love the nineties, I love the idea of you making money with email even more. So that’s the personality is I love the nineties, right? The vision. You make money with email.

So suddenly they know a little bit about me, like, Oh shit, that’s fun. That’s kind of cool. That’s a quirky, fun fact. Okay. Um, and then, you know, they know exactly where they’re going with me. Oh, this lady wants me to make money with email. That’s what I want too. I’m definitely opening the next email, right?

So yeah, steal it, please. I have a loose interpretation of IP. My whole business runs about you stealing my words. So please copy and paste and also you can get that freebie At Liz Wilcox. com. There’s a hot pink button at the top right hand corner. And, uh, that’s going to give you a welcome sequence templatized.

So you don’t even have to join the membership if you’re not ready to commit. Um, but that will give you the welcome sequences that I write templatized so you can just plug and play. I want this to be simple.

Awesome. Awesome. Um, Liz in your membership, do you also have like growth tactics? I know we didn’t get to that today, but, um, just like list growth tactics.

Yeah. So inside the membership, there’s a list building mini course, and it goes through whether you’re an online service provider, some kind of content creator, a niche site, uh, e commerce, and even local.

I have all sorts of ideas, uh, for you to grow your site. And um, At least once a year, I run a list building challenge, uh, in the new year, I’ll actually be running three. I’m really excited. Um, and I’m also hosting a list building, uh, summit in March. So you at least want to get on the list for that. Because I found.

The biggest piece to Collin’s question of like, yeah, I could send emails every day, but if you’re sending the same emails to the same people you’ve had on your list for 10 years, you’re probably not going to see much growth. I always tell people emails like water, if water gets stagnant, what do you do?

You don’t bleach the water. You don’t pray the water gets cleaner. You put new fresh water in and you get that water flowing. That’s the answer. Only way it’s going to move away from stagnant and get fresh. It’s the exact same thing with your email list. Maybe you’ve been talking to the same 300 people for three years.

Oh, I, well, I tried this. I tried that nobody’s buying. Well, I, and I say it was love. Well, honey, they told you they don’t want it. Go find people that want what you have to offer. That’s the only way it’s going to get flowing. You’re going to start seeing results and it’s going to stop stinking, right?

Stagnant water release. Is smelly. So we don’t want a stagnant list. So email growth is so important. It’s something we talk about on our live Q and A’s within our Facebook group all the time. And I do have a course within the membership that comes for free, uh, with that 9 product or price.

Awesome. Um, you’re just looking at, you’re looking at your newest, uh, member.

I just signed up. Oh my

gosh. Hey. Thank you for sharing. How you doing?

Yeah. Yeah. I’m, uh, I’m, I’ve been pretty pumped up on, uh, guarding email marketing and I have some of the blocks in place, but, um, You know, haven’t really started focusing on building that list too much.

Well, I’m so excited. And I see Heidi joined recently.

Thank you, Heidi. For me, it really goes back to that first slide about the reminders, right? You know, you own your email list, you know, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, X, whatever we’re calling it. Even Tik TOK, you know, is at risk of being shut down completely. If your entire business is built on that. You’re, you’re going to be in some hot water.

And so I, I don’t want that. I y’all. I grew up super poor when I found out I could like just type up some words and click this mouse and make money. I was like, Oh my gosh. I mean, can I say that? I was like, these rich people are lying. These rich people, this is actually kind of simple. Oh my gosh. I can just be my weird, uh, ridiculous self.

And The right people are going to come along and they’re going to enjoy it. You know, I can have a conversation and learn about them and create products. Oh my gosh. And I don’t even have to get on social media. I can just email them like email still thing. This is amazing. And that’s really, truly why I sold that business, that first business.

I was like, other people need to know about this. And so I saw somebody said, Oh, I’m struggling with analysis paralysis. Babe, the only thing that’s going to cure you. Is to start moving, hit send, and if you’re just starting chances are nobody, nobody’s listening. And that’s, and that’s the best thing for you when you’re beginning, you know, because you can get ugly, do it, do it badly, cringe at your own fricking self, right?

I mean, I cringe at the email I sent yesterday, okay, and I’ve been doing it, you know, weekly for eight years. I’ll probably rewatch this and be like, why did you say that? You know, you’re so weird. Um, but you, you gotta get going and I, hopefully with this, it really shows you, okay, you know, let me pull it back up next step so you, you can get out of that paralysis.

Look at your welcome sequence. Don’t have one. Lizwilcox. com, baby. Hot pink button. I got you. Uh, and you can even email me and say, Liz, am I doing this right? I will answer. And that is true because my assistant’s going on vacation next week. So if you get it next week, I will be the one, I will be the first point of contact there.

You know, and then just commit to sending newsletters. Put it on your, uh, calendar. If you can’t do weekly, You know, once a month, you know, you’re not going to get six pack abs or want to go to the gym five days a week from the get go, just go as much as you can. And then eventually, you know, cause you’re not there yet.

You know, we can talk about step three, right? So I really, really hope that helps because email changed my life. I know it can change yours. Y’all I live on my, in my dream house, on my dream street, in my dream neighborhood, in my dream town. I never ever thought I would do this. When I was in high school, I lived in a one bedroom trailer with seven people and I thought life, there was nothing to life really.

And so this is why I get so freaking geeked out. I’m like email? Really? This is crazy. Please just try it. Anyway, I’ll stop rambling. Thank you guys so much.

Hey, Liz, do you have some time for a few more questions? I have some personally and everyone else, of course, feel free to, uh, you know, put them in the chat, but so you said, you know, you’re getting a crazy ROI in investing in email.

Um, but if you have your list, what does, what does that mean? Like investing in email and, you know,

yeah, you’re a great question. So for me, that just means how much do I spend on my email service provider? So I have kit, I don’t even know how much I spend. Uh, I think it’s like. I think last year it was like 1, 500.

I might spend more now. Um, so yeah, I think, I think I spent, you know, between a thousand and 1, 500 last year. So that’s what I mean by that, right? Like if you invest in Facebook ads, you might have a daily budget of 50, 100 or whatever. Uh, you know, mine email is so much cheaper. Uh, can I say the word you cheap?

Uh, so. So that’s, that’s what I mean by that and I think, do I pronounce your name Shea?

Uh, Sean. Sean. You can

unmute yourself.

I will. Yes, sorry. Video on as well. Um, yeah, sorry, um, my main thing was, is I have a big list, but I’m too scared to email it because of spam and other things. I mean, it’s, it’s an old, it’s a list.

That’s two and a half years old. Um, it’s a business I took over a few months ago. Um, so I’m trying to work through the, you know, the cleaning it, and then trying to figure out what the hell I actually send them as well.

Yeah.

So yes, as Colin said, I’ve been stuck on this for a while.

Yeah. So I think number one, you definitely need to work on cleaning it for sure.

So have you worked with any sort of deliverability tool or checkers of the emails? So there’s, there’s tools that you can put that list into and it’ll tell you what emails are no longer valid or spam.

Yeah. No, cause I was thinking of just emailing the last six months or something like that rather than.

Doing the whole list.

You know, Shay, that is the most lovely thing I have heard in so long. I can’t tell you how many people who tried to cling to an email address they got 10 years ago at a networking event. I like, seriously, I feel such a relief. Yes. I think that’s exactly what you should do in the last six months.

Take, actually, I’m going to pull up a Loom video if you guys give me a second. You’re going to take my welcome sequence, we’re going to turn it into a hey, here I am type of email sequence and then you’re going to run from there. And if you need help, um, with what to hit send, I’m your girl. I know this, I think this is being recorded.

You could go watch the replay. I think I gave seven or eight ideas. You can join my thing for nine bucks. If you feel compelled, I send out every single Monday morning and email. You’ll also get a huge library. So there’s over a hundred to choose from, or, you know, um, you can just email me and I’ll give you an idea.

I’m I’m here for you. But yeah, let me pull up that loom video. Because that is my number one question. I ghosted my list for X amount of years. What do I do? And so I’m like, Oh, just turn this sequence into kind of a reintroduction. Um, but that’s exactly what I would do the last six months and just release the others.

You know, I think, I think that’s super smart of you.

Thanks for that.

Yeah, of course. I’m hopefully I can find this. Oh good. It popped right up and you can get my welcome sequence, uh, for free at the, at, with the button that I think Colin put the picture in there.

I think that’s so cute.

That was very sweet side note about list building y’all when I say oh go directly to Liz Wilcox calm hit the hot pink button that’s because I do so much of this and I do a lot of interviews and stuff and Usually like in podcasts people aren’t sitting at the computer like waiting to download the thing, right?

They’re going for a walk They’re in carpool, whatever and so I’ve designed my website so that it’s super simple for me to say, you know You Liz Wilcox dot com, a hot pink button. So they visually can, are walking themselves through, um, you know, signing up for my list before they even sign up for the list.

So that’s a little like real deep, uh, list building tactic for you. And there’s the loom for you. And actually the welcome sequence is right there in the loom. So you don’t even have to sign up for my list. I’d love for you to sign up, but it’s, it’s right there. You found a little loophole there.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, of course.

Um, and then I had another question. Liz, what, what are we, your presentation, what have we been looking at? You know, it’s been like slides, your head, your face has been like moving around, what, what in the world are we looking

at? It’s so fun. So I’m using Ecamm Live.

So Ecamm is a uh, App for Mac users only, it’s a software that lives right on my computer. So it’s not like StreamYard where you have to have the internet. And it’s something I’ve been using since 2018 and it has a virtual camera feature, which is why I’m able to like take over the screen and, you know, like share.

My screen without asking Spencer or Colin. Hey, can you turn on my screen share? So anywhere I go on the internet i’m able to do this and I love it for presentations Like for example if I had asked, you know, where’s everybody from and you said like, oh miami And i’m, you know, I can put that on the screen or you know, oh i’m from from Franklin, Tennessee, like, okay, you know, and whatever.

You can also add polls. It actually integrates with zoom. Now I’ve never used that feature. So integrates with zoom. So if Shay was asking that question, I could actually pull him into my little box with zoom. Um, but I, you know, I, I’d like to keep things simple. I’m like, I don’t know. I razzle dazzle enough, you know, that’s like a 2.

0 strategy, but I love Ecamm. I’ve been using it forever. It also has like countdowns. I can add, you know, different pictures. I can change my screen super quickly. I can add videos, stuff like that. And I also record my podcast with it.

Oh, okay. That is, that is super cool. I’ve never. Seen this before, heard of this tool, but I’ll have to check it out.

Oh my gosh. And they’re an amazing company. Like they’re really affordable. They haven’t raised their rates in a long time. Um, I don’t even know how much the rate is anymore. Cause I got in on a one time, like I paid like 80 from the, for this, like six or seven years ago. It’s insane. Like, they’re just a really lovely, lovely company.

Um, so yeah, ECAM.

All right. Awesome. Well, I know we’re past the hour. It doesn’t seem like we have. Any other questions? Um, Alpesh, thank you for sharing that. But yeah, Liz, thank you so much for joining. Um, I know a lot of members in our community really appreciated it. You know, as you know, people have been talking about you and your membership.

Um, and you know, personally, I thought the presentation was super helpful in the way that you broke things down. So thank you so much for joining.

Yeah, thank you. I can’t wait to see what everybody does with email. Good luck with the challenge. Y’all made the best win. Oh my gosh. So exciting. Um, and I hope to see all of you soon.

Thank you, Liz, so much. Really appreciate your time. And, uh, thank you everybody for watching. We’ll see you guys. Thanks.

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On this call, the group talks about a wide variety of topics.

One member shares his recent acquisition of an email newsletter on remote work opportunities, and they talk about Beehiiv ads, getting leads on other platforms, and newsletter growth.

They discuss the SEO landscape right now and their experience working with clients, the niche site model and whether or not it still works, and the importance of building a brand.

One member spoke about a new site she’d like to launch and the other members offered lots of ideas and suggestions.

Transcript

All right, everyone. Welcome. Um, I am personally going to have to leave 30 minutes early, but the call is welcome to, uh, you know, continue without me. I’ll just assign someone who’s available or someone willing, just the host. And you know, when I leave, there won’t be a problem. Uh, that said, thanks for joining y’all.

Um, I’ve seen all y’all here before, so y’all know the drill, uh, no agenda. We can bring up anything and everything. We don’t have to just be talking about pickleball the whole meeting.

All right, um Brooks, what are you working on nowadays? I don’t see you participating as much in the email challenge. So so So I um, I do see you actually in there. Sorry. No, that’s okay. That’s okay. Uh, yeah, I need to update that dude I just bought I just bought an email newsletter. Um, I I went to a I went to a friends event this past week You As like a favor.

I was like, Hey, look, man, I’m missing, I’m missing a very important call. And it was a, it was with John. So it was the group, the group newsletter call. I was like, if you really want me there, I’ll be there to support you. He was like, yeah, man, it’d be really helpful. So anyways. Um, yeah. So, so I missed that. Um, Yeah, so I just got reached out to, it just dawned on me, it was a complete stranger basically.

But it was in the Beehive Slack, so if you’re on Beehive there’s like a Slack, um, there’s a Slack group, um, with like different channels and stuff, so I think a guy sent me a message from that and he was looking to sell his, his newsletter, um, it ended up being Newsletters because he’s like, he like ran a bunch of ads and was like starting.

He was like spinning off these smaller newsletters in the same exact thing. He kind of thought if he like diversified his ads, like he would be able to get beehive ads on there faster or something. I’m not really sure what he was thinking, but, um, yeah. So I just snagged a newsletter from him. And so now it’s something I’ll like talk about in my email newsletter.

Cause it’s like another project for me to like talk about, about growing this, um, this email newsletter. Um, I think If things go well, I think it would like break even in like maybe nine ish months. Um, so to me it was like a no brainer to like give it a, give it a go. Um, And it wasn’t like, it wasn’t like a million dollars or anything.

So I didn’t, I didn’t have to like take out a, take out a loan per se to like buy this, buy this newsletter. Um, yeah. How big is the list? If you don’t mind. Uh, yeah. So the primary one is 10, 000. Um, It’s 10, 000 people. And then the other smaller ones that I bought that I’m like trying to figure out how to integrate them into the same newsletter, cause it’s literally the same topic.

It’s like remote work opportunities. Like, uh, so the other ones are like 3000, 2000 and maybe another 3000. So, um, do it now. He’s been busy getting these lists. Yeah. Yeah. He like. Yeah, he showed me, now, unless there’s something I don’t know, like, I take everyone for face value online, I do my best due diligence, and then I, and then I just trust you, and then I, I take a, I take action.

Yeah, unless there’s something weird about the list, but he, um, no, he ran, like, TikTok ads and, um, and Twitter ads to, like, to, like, grow the, to, like, grow the newsletter. Um, and then I think, I think he just got stretched then cause he’s trying to like, he’s trying to grow an app and some other things. And he’s like, yeah, I just need to like, he’s, I think this is like more than I thought it would be or something.

So. Well, okay. I’m not as familiar with like TikTok and Twitter ads. Is it, do they have either? I know with like Facebook, like there’s two ways you can run like ads to grow your, your newsletter. One is like you run an ad to your landing page. They go to your landing page and sign up. Right. Okay. The other one is they can, just while on the Facebook platform, fill in their information and subscribe or like give you their email that way.

Yeah. And this was kind of actually talked about on the dike John Dykstra call. I know we, we kind of had a snafu with the recording. Uh, we’re going to fix that. But if you listen to that, we talk about that a little bit about how John has used both. And, um, usually the idea, the belief is that the quality of emails and subscribers is better when they have to go to the landing page and put in their info as opposed to just filling it out on platform because it’s like an additional step.

It’s like more intentional. And the reason I bring this up is because, you know, I don’t know anything like you said about TikTok and Twitter ads, but like if they have a similar function, um, how were those emails like, you know, acquired, um, because that could affect, uh, you know, deliverability and engagement, et cetera.

Uh, so just something to keep in mind. I mean, maybe they only have one option and none of that matters, but yeah, no, that’s a good. That’s a good point. Like I, uh, for my local email newsletter, I use the Facebook ad forms. Uh, the main reason why, so like the leads on Facebook and then I, I automate. Pulling them to my newsletter.

The main reason I do that is because I’m not smart enough to figure out tracking for if I send them to my landing page, how to track the cost per lead. I don’t, I just don’t know how to do it. So I was like, well, Facebook, Facebook measures this for me. So let me just keep it the way it is. Um, so I wouldn’t have any data to say one way or the other, if it’s a higher quality subscriber, you know what I mean?

I’m not sure. Yeah. The only way I could think of is if you have like a special page. That only Facebook will, that you’ll only run ads to like its own form too. And then you just manually calculate, okay, you have 30 signups on this page. It costs you, you know, 60 that’s 200 or 2 a signup. Right. Um, yeah, then you don’t need like advanced analytics and like tagging and whatever.

Um, Yeah, I mean, you know what? So I’m actually I’m gonna I’m gonna push back on John’s thought a little bit. I wish I was on. I wish I could have made that call. I’m gonna push back just with a thought. Here’s my thought. Like, um, my thought is, it’s the same traffic. So the traffic that would take the extra step to fill out the form is also going to fill out the form on Facebook, unless, unless they wouldn’t.

Right, which that that seems crazy to me if they would click through and take an extra step to fill out I would imagine they would do it right on facebook Uh, well, so potentially yes But not everyone who fills out the form through facebook will go to a landing page and sign up so i’m fine with that and the reason why i’m fine with that is because I have like automation in place to like Clean up people over time like if they’re not if they’re not a good subscriber like to me a good subscriber is just someone that like Reads the newsletter like I think Yeah.

Um, because yeah, if they’re not going to open it or something, well then like, yeah, over time they’ll get like scrubbed off my list anyway. So if, if, if, if that, if that same traffic is going to see my ad either way, I’m just not sure. I’m not sure it matters. Uh, or maybe I’m missing, maybe I’m missing a part of the, of this math equation.

I mean, I, I think, yeah, long term, maybe it doesn’t matter, but it might just affect short term. Like numbers, you know, deliverability and stuff. And then I don’t know how that might affect, like, I mean, I think, but then also like, if you’re not sure who’s engaged and who’s not. because you scrub them over time, you don’t really understand how much you’re spending on a lead.

Yep. So, but, but, but I’m gonna jump in. Those same people that took the extra step to subscribe can also, can also unsubscribe. And, and I don’t, yeah, I definitely don’t know how to measure any of that over time. Uh, yeah, that’s, that’s fair. Uh, it’s still very possible. I guess the, the idea is that it would be cleaner, but yeah, I guess there’s, it’s, it’s.

I’m sure there’s better ways to have better tracking, but yeah, it’s beyond, beyond me. I, yeah, I mean, never, never say never, man. I mean, I’m happy to, I’m happy to like consistently like change, you know, what I’m doing and try different things. But yeah, that was just my, that was just my thought back on that.

I’m like, well, um, and I don’t, I don’t know how the better quality lists and higher open rates. I don’t, I don’t know like how that affects everything. Um, obviously it’s better. But I don’t know ultimately how that would affect everything. I guess if we had all the data, then it’d be easy to make. It’d be easy to make that decision, right?

Like, if you could fast forward and be like, Oh yeah, um, this will make your newsletter much better. Um, and you can measure it all. So like, then it wouldn’t, then it would make sense. But you know, you never have all the information. Like, welcome to, welcome to business, I guess. You know? Yeah, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know if there is a definitive way I wouldn’t be able to, Say, I don’t know, maybe, maybe people more qualified, more experienced in the call.

Um, yeah, feel free to, um, yeah, if not, I don’t know. My, my hope is to start a pickleball newsletter, um, try billing out, building that out. So. Cool. I said that would be cool. Yeah. I think there’s a, you know, growing space. It’s something that I like and I’m passionate about. So like, you know, might as well, I know, uh, a buddy who’s trying to start like a long term like pickleball resort type of thing.

So there could be synergy on that, but I think that’d be kind of a fun project for me where I haven’t really worked on my own project in a while. I’m not really counting the Amazon influencer. Um, I did like a hundred videos there and I made some money, but. Um, yeah, I think that would be something, something fun, man.

What, um, any, anyone feel free, like just interrupt or whatever. I’m, I’m literally just like now picking Colin with questions. Colin, what’s your, um, your, you had, you had niche sites, uh, and you like sold some, right. Um, and then, I don’t know this or not, but like you and me had actually, like, I look back on my Facebook message or you and me had like cross paths and some messages.

I think like maybe some link. Some like link exchange or something. I just, I found, I found your name. I don’t know if you recall that or not, but, um, Oh, I do not. Um, yeah, yeah. I’ve definitely done a number of them through Facebook. Um, yeah, I mean. Yeah, I kind of, uh, got my SEO experience, just kind of self taught doing niche sites.

I had a portfolio, had a team. Um, I sold like my biggest one two years ago, and then I used some of those funds and I said, okay, I’m going to grow like this batch of new sites. And I didn’t need it to be profitable, but I needed them to, you know, show some, some growth and they were for a while and then the helpful content update happened and it knocked.

Most of them, at least like my, my top, my, the most, the ones I was like most bullish on and said, okay, I think, I think I’ll just take like whatever money I made from this and get out and take a break. And, you know, I still do some client stuff, but I wanted a break from my own projects. Like, you know, so, you know, went back, uh, yeah.

Focus more on like client stuff, which is a little more stable, at least for me, um, more predictable, uh, And, uh, you know, just relax a little bit. I find it less stressful than owning niche sites where it’s like, you kind of have to like stress out about, uh, you know, Google updates happen and stuff. Um, at least niche sites, just like relying on Google traffic.

Um, and then like, you know, I want to buy a house with like my fiance and stuff. So like getting stable income is nice for the loan process. Y’all, everyone, y’all know that. Um, yeah, yeah. I think, Just hearing about like email marketing, uh, is, is something very interesting to me where I do, and I’ve thought about growing like a Pickleball brand for a little bit.

Don’t know, quite know what that looks like, but I think I’m either some combination, like I for sure want to do email marketing. I kind of want to get into do like a Pickleball Facebook page too, and see how that goes. Um, but lean more into the email marketing, but the face, the Facebook page might be a little too much if I do both at the same time, so I don’t know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I got you. When you, uh, when you say you’re doing client work, is it all SEO related? Like the agency stuff? Or is it like different stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All, all like SEO related. Um, yeah. Cool. Yeah. I, that’s actually like a, a pretty good revenue stream for me too, is I have a couple of, um, agency.

I guess agency clients, I guess I would call them. Um, but like, I find it interesting. It’s kind of weird to have, um, I’d be, I’d be interested to like what everyone’s thoughts on this is to like, you almost can’t be an expert. I mean, I guess you can, but it’s like, it’s such a moving business right now, like with, with what’s happening in Google, so it’s a weird, it’s a weird place to like, uh, to put yourself as like the expert and this is what a customer needs to do when in reality, like.

Yeah. Yeah. I was curious if you would chime in. Yeah. Cause that’s like my full time job. I get paid for SEO and like, I tell them like, look, Google’s broken and we don’t know what the hell’s going on. I just kind of like say, because we can do all of the right things and you’ll see no movement. And it’s like.

Yeah. The right now are one of the big sites that we’re trying to work on. Um, and it’s a potential million multimillion dollar website. And Google has got that tag right on that bitch, like do not rank. And we’re doing every, you couldn’t have more EAC. You could not have more. This is a real business. You could not, does not rank, does not show up for things.

It gets one click a day and then zero clicks and then two clicks a day. And then zero clicks. And that it’s so abnormal, especially for the content we’re publishing. So. I make it very clear, like, look, all that we’re doing all of the best practices, but Google, it’s a Google problem, not an us problem. And I have also some more evidence to back that up.

Uh, I think I mentioned here before that I have on my analytics, one of my other websites that All the search engines love it. Bing and, and DuckDuckGo and Ecos or whatever, they ranked them and it’s up there and it’s getting a lot of traffic, like thousands of traffic from those others, 12 clicks from Google.

So yeah, so it’s just like, no, this is not a problem with the website. It’s not the code of the website. It’s a Google problem. And that just got the, uh, explain that, but also just one more thing to not, I don’t like Ever state that I know everything, you know what I mean? Like, let’s, let’s, let’s do some more research.

Let’s figure it out because I always say no one, no one, no one, no one, not even the engineers know what the hell is going on at any given moment. So making that clear is like, we’re doing our best, but not, there’s not one person that knows how this algorithm works. So we’re all trying to work it together.

That’s actually well said, man. Yeah. Like not even the, the Google engineers individually can give you the answer. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point. That’s a, that’s, that’s a good point. Yeah. Cause I mean, any, like in software, sorry, I’m jumping in, but in any software, right? When you have so many people working on it, no, no one person’s going to know how it works.

That makes sense. Yeah. You’re right. You’re right. Do you, do you do, uh, do you work for a company doing SEO or is it like agency stuff that you’re doing? Or is it like a, I’m in house. So whatever I do in house, cool, cool. So you work with one single company doing SEO? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. I like that because I don’t, I don’t, I never liked the idea of an agency.

Like jumping around from a task to a task. I can’t put my, my heart into what I’m doing. I won’t care if I’m gonna be with someone else the next day. You know what I mean? I like to grow a thing. And when I was getting hired, they asked if I wanted to be a 10 99 or um, or a W2. That’s tax code. If anyone doesn’t know one is like you’re an independent contractor.

The other one’s like you’re part of the team, essentially. And that’s what I told ’em. Like, I can’t beat 10 99 because. I need to be a W 2. I need to be a salary guy in the team. I don’t want to be a labeled as a contractor. Or else I’m not harsh enough to be there. Yeah. Yeah, I could see the difference there.

Like, mentally. Yeah, the mental shift. Yeah, that’s uh, that’s what I’m basically 1099 for with a bunch of, a bunch of local businesses. And I tell everybody after, well what do you do? Uh, I’ve got like 50 part time jobs. And that’s what I’m doing is like, and, and I basically jumped from job to job every, every, you know, couple of hours, you know, but I’m not going to lie to you.

I I’ve been trying to, I’ve been trying to get some niche sites going because I want to, I want to supplement the, this income, uh, uh, you know, with my agency income. And, um, it’s, it actually makes me feel better knowing that you had, that you’re having some problems because I have, I have tried numerous sites over the years, and I, I can’t get any traction on on any of the sites that I’ve, you know, heck, I’ve been doing it for a long time.

And I just, like, I can’t get any traction. So I don’t know if it’s, it’s just, it makes me feel better than the other people are struggling to, you know, so I’ll mention that we’re using. So we have 2 websites. We plan on doing more, but these are major, massive websites. And one of them is excelling. The other one is dead and there is the exact same strategy for both of them.

Yeah. It just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve recently purchased a couple of expired domains, um, and they both have decent, uh, uh, backlink profiles. I mean, the one has been down, it was, it was a coupon website, a discount and coupon website for. For a couple of years when it went down a couple of years ago, I bought it.

I don’t remember what exchange I bought it off of and I’ve been trying to build that. Um, I just found out today. I didn’t get accepted into impact. I was trying to get in there as an affiliate. Um, no, no, but it’s, I don’t have, there’s no traffic. I mean, there’s barely any traffic on that site, but I just started to try and rebuild it and 301 redirect it.

There’s, it, there’s, it’s got like 255 domains pointing to it. Like 14, 000 backlinks. Um, you know, so I think there’s potential there, but, uh, it’s just a matter of, uh, so I’ve been filling it with, um, Amazon, um, Amazon, uh, product pages, you know, just, just talking about different products and trying to get some, some money flow there.

So, yeah, if that does work out your expired domains, if they do see traction, consider, you know, selling them and not holding onto them. Expired domains is a risky business to hold on to. I think, um, like my biggest project I sold and I got lucky, but if I had sold it two months later, I would have sold 60 percent less.

Um, because it died after that, or there was an update that affected it, you know, they’re, they’re quite susceptible to updates and, you know, your, your mileage may vary, but for me personally, uh, I don’t like the risk on that. Um, you know, I like to sell things while they’re going up and I don’t like to buy things when they’re going down.

So I, I, you know, I’ve been on both sides. Um, but as far as niche site, I personally am not a fan of the niche site model anymore. Um, I said this before in a few calls, I think brand is huge, um, for sites nowadays, and it’s not working in Jay’s case, but I think you do need some brand ability to succeed in the long run.

Well, and I am doing that on some of these other sites, or on these niche sites. I’m trying to build brands. I got social media going on all of them. Um, I’ve got, um, there’s 1 of the sites. Um, I have an RSS feed set up that that just automatically publishes, you know, when I, when a post goes up and just automatically schedules the post on across.

You know, all the social media platforms and stuff like that. So. I do have some, I am trying to build a brand, but so far, none of them have really caught fire. I mean, I guess, so what is like building a brand to you mean? Like, does, do you have a social media? Is it something you’re growing? Is this something that’s going to help people say, Oh yeah, like I know this site because of X, Y, Z.

Cause like, I, these, these stuff could indirectly like, you know, but like some people will just see like, okay, yeah, I have a social media page. That’s a, that’s just a checkbox. Is it something that they grow? Cause if it’s, if it’s just a checkbox, um, then it’s not really adding value to your brand. If it’s just a checkbox.

Yeah, no, I, I, I do agree with you. I, I mean, I, I probably to some extent it’s a, there, there’s a, it’s a checkbox, right? You know, but I go back and forth because what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to find ways to build at least some sort of following and then, and then get once there’s at least a, some, some sort of income coming back in from it, then I’m willing to reinvest that, um, but, um, At this point, I’ve, you know, I’m at the point now, it’s like, I’ve invested so much money into these, these, um, these ideas and the, that it’s just like, I, I’ve got to see some, I’ve got to see some return or else I can’t just keep throwing money at it.

So, I guess that’s what I’m trying to, I’m trying to build up some sort of traffic to it. So that even if I can get, you know. Heck, if I could get 20, 30 a week in even AdSense revenue out of them, you know, just something so that there’s some sort of, um, cashflow coming back, you know, cause that’s, that’s what’s happening.

I’m just outspend, you know, I’m just outspending anything that’s coming back. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, I’ve, I’ve definitely, I’ve definitely been there before and building up like niche sites in my portfolio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I get it. I did, I did have a, did, has anybody looked at, um, Microsoft Bing, uh, that hub hub?

Um, they used to have, there was a, they had a, where you can, you could actually, um, submit your RSS feed. I just ran across this last night and they, they used to have it set up that way. That if you were a news, if you were a news website, they had like a news feed that you could set up and they would take your news.

But they, I was just on there last night and I ran across this and it’s called being a pub hub and it says both news and non news supported. It’s like, I think they, they changed their, their, they’ve changed their requirements, I guess, so I don’t know. I just ran across it. I’m going to submit the sites and see what happens with it.

But I don’t know if they’re, I don’t know what they’re. If anybody had even seen that or anything yet, or when it even started. Worth a look. Yeah, if you go into your bing, the bing webmaster tools, and it’s, it’s, it’s in there under.

Hey, Mike, I was kind of curious what you do for, um, like your agency stuff. You’re saying you have a bunch of clients. Is it like SEO stuff or, or other? I do, I do everything from building websites, search engine optimization to, um, doing graphic design, just managing their, the brands, the company brands, Um, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m just the kind of the guy that, uh, I’ve kind of gotten on, you know, I’ve set up people on almost like a retainer thing and they, they just call me and say, Hey Mike, I need this and I need that and, and I get it accomplished.

And then I work with them to make sure that they’re, you know, their online presence is, is. Is doing well, you know? Yeah. Is that, is that something that you’ve, have you been in that for some time? Like I’m guessing you’ve kind of like grown that over a long time. Yeah. I’ve grown it over, over a long period.

It’s probably been about 10, 15 years and I’ve, I’ve, I’ve gone the route where I’ve tried to like expand and, and hire, um, I’ve had, I had people working for me and then, um, you know, tried to make an, uh, full fledged agency out of it. But, you know, that just brings a lot more headaches that you deal with, you know, and they’re, they’re not headaches that I enjoy dealing with, you know, because then you’re dealing with employees and finances and all that other stuff.

I don’t want to deal with that. I like working. I’m, I like. Keeping things close to home. And so I have a couple of people who work for me part time that helped me accomplish tasks, schedules, social media and stuff. And then, um, and then I have, I do have a developer that I, that I’ve been paying now for a couple of years over in the Philippines that works with me.

And, and he can, he, he’s built all kinds of stuff for me. So that’s, that’s basically it. You’re, you’re, uh, you’re one, one man agency with like helpers, like it can help, you can pull in and do certain things and yeah, you don’t, yeah, no, that’s awesome. That’s great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it works pretty good. I, you know, I, I’m sure there’s better ways to do what I do, but you know, that it’s, it’s just one of those things I’m, I’m comfortable with where I’m at.

And I, I like having that. Hands on control, you know, um, cause every time I’ve, every time I’ve tried to expand and hand off control to somebody else, I lose clients, you know, and that’s, that’s where I’m at, you know, Yeah, that it’s, uh, yeah, that’s hard, uh, like having a process for how you do things and bringing someone on board and like, they’re probably.

Not going to do it as well as you, but honestly, sometimes you can bring people on board that will do it better than you, uh, certain things, which, um, I’ve, you know, I’ve had a few of those, uh, over the year on my team as well, which is pretty, pretty awesome. But yeah. Um, Well, there’s a developer I work with.

Uh, he’s, he’s very good and, uh, and he, he works well. And, um, and actually the, the two other people who work for me are family members. One’s my daughter. She works for me part time and the other one’s my granddaughter. You have a lot of workers who work for me part time. So, you know, that’s not Family business.

That’s great. Yeah. Family business. Yeah. But I’d like to grow some of these niche sites. You know, I’m tired of watching these, uh, YouTube videos of these guys saying, hey, you could make 5, 000 a day. You know, you know, I just like to make, you know, five bucks a day, you know, at this point, I do have to run. So I don’t who intends on staying the whole time assuming all is all as well.

And I can assign host. Is that 230? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can hang on to 230. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s not good. It’s not good. You can head out. But, um, yeah, I would say Mike, for me, name of the game is focus personally and a big reason why I don’t like the niche site approach for me as much. Um, you know, I think focus focusing on one might might do you wonders if they don’t have any.

Yeah, I know I keep telling myself that. I know. Thanks. Thanks for this. Easier, easier said than done. I know. Yeah, that’s right. That’s, it’s nice that, it’s nice that I have these, uh, ma different mastermind groups. Uh, it’s good to listen to everybody else how everybody else is doing things and that it’s, it’s also nice to hear that, keep getting feedback from people.

So I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I have to hop off, but, uh, as always, y’all, uh, need to reach me. Y’all know where to find me. Yep. Take care. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I’ll tell you my two cents for the, for having a bunch of niche sites. I, I think of niche sites, not kind of how Colin mentioned it. Cause I think he has a perspective of it where it’s like, here’s a cheapo.

Um, AI blog That I kind of recreate no face. No, you know, nothing like that I I used to have that mentality. So I used to have this dream, but I was gonna have 25 50 niche sites And then I was gonna crank that shit up. They’re gonna come out like I was going to make all this money and the ACU kind of killed that dream.

Thankfully, because I wasn’t, I wasn’t proud of any of them. And now I’m bringing it down. I know this sounds like a lot to some people before really for niche sites. It’s cycling specifically fixed gear bike cycling. Cause there’s a massive culture behind that particular type of cycling. Uh, skateboarding, Um, uh, cocktail making, like, like, uh, mixology, cause I’m really into that, and then, uh, uh, archery.

But I’m also into that. So those are the four websites that I’m working on right now Slowly, and I’m super proud of them and those are niche sites, but I’m making YouTube videos where I was like Hey, welcome to my site, you know, like I’m just gonna be talking about it. I’m not gonna have a whole channel I mean, there will be a channel but it’s not like it’s just like a real thing Like when you look at the about me, it’s my face and I’m holding the equipment That’s the niche sites that I’m looking at.

So I don’t think you have to kill all your dreams, but definitely wind them down. Yeah. I, I think, I think there’s, there’s two types of niche sites. There are the niche sites that are, are just like, you’re just tossing things up there to see what sticks the sites that I have now. I mean, I, you know, I bought the, the, the one expired domain that was, um, you know, was the coupon site.

And I thought, Oh, maybe I can do that. But the other one is. Um, I have one site that’s on about, um, the child care business, um, because I was in that at one point and then my granddaughters and my one of my daughters has been in the child care business. So, it had some stuff on there that one is, I’ve had the longest.

Um, and then, um, you know, once, once, just on like spy technology kind of stuff. Um, you And, you know, those are, they’re things that interest me and, and I’m trying to build, you know, yeah, I’d like to build a brand out of them. You know, there’s there, they have brandable names, but, you know, I think there’s possibility for that.

And then if they got to a certain point, I’d probably sell them because I don’t, I don’t want to run a big animal. I don’t, I don’t want to run a big website with. Bunch of, you know, uh, writers and editors and whatnot. So I just want to try and build some brands that are out there that I can build some traffic to that people are interested in kind of like that.

Um, and if you, any of you guys watch it, Matt Wolfe, um, he does, um, Future tools. Yeah. Yeah. All the AI stuff. I mean, I’m actually, it’s funny is at the same time, he started doing all his YouTube videos. I had bought a domain called, um, the AI content news or something like that. And I was gonna, I was going to start writing about all this software that came out.

Um, but it just never, the timing was not right for me, but he’s, he’s really built up over the last like year, two years. I mean, he’s, he’s really built. Quite the machine, you know, um, and I think, sorry, sorry, go on, sorry about that. So I think that’s, that’s kind of like, you know, when I look at the, um, when I say niche site, that’s, that’s more the direction I would like to go.

That they’re, they’re good, informative sites. Are you going to be a part of it with your face and name? And, and, um, I would, I, I would like to be, I don’t, I don’t want to do videos. I, I just, that’s just not something that I want to do. Um, I, what would be nice is if I could find somebody else that had an interest in the same thing.

And then, and then then they do videos. I’ve actually talked to my granddaughter about doing that with the childcare website. Um, you know, so there’s, you know, I didn’t, I, I’d want somebody else to do it. Okay. It just doesn’t look fun to me. Family business. Keep it going. I know that’s right in the family.

There you go. Hey, I’ve, I’ve hired and fired a lot of family. So,

so

that’s cool. Renee, what’s happening? How are you? Hey, I just, I see you. I was just saying, Hey, Hey, I’m listening. Just working away. No, yeah. Don’t let me bother you. Multitasking. Um, you’ve been really good on the podcast, Brooks. I’ve been enjoying, uh, listening to, uh, you guest hosting on, uh, Niche Preach Pursuits.

Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah. They hadn’t kicked me off just, just yet. Yeah. They keep coming back. They keep asking you back. So you’re doing a good thing. Which ones did you do? I can’t, uh, I remember seeing some. Um, so some of the, so the, um, so the episodes where they do like a news segment and, uh, side hustle stuff and, um, yeah, Spencer’s been rotating a few different people in that like.

So yeah, I’ve done, I’ve been on a few of those episodes. Yeah, I got a, got a, got a few coming up. So they, I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see what Spencer wants to do with that long term, I guess. So question for the group. If, um, I’ll throw it out here. I’m thinking about setting up a second niche site. Um, and if you were to start it over knowing, you know, just had what Colin had said, like niche sites are kind of.

Yeah. Yeah, your approach has to be different. You have to really think about it as building a brand brand first. And if you were to start out brand new one tomorrow, what would be your kind of best advice on how to do that from day one,

do you, do you have a niche already in mind, like, cause I could, cause I feel like that could, that could, for me, that would change everything on how I would approach growing. Yeah, so it’s local travel with, um, dog. Ah, local travel, like, meaning that travels around to different places or just where you are local travel with dog?

Yeah, local as in geographic locations, so, um, near Toronto area, so everything you can do that’s dog friendly. restaurants, places to stay, day trips, etc. I thought you meant like a whole website about how to travel with your dog from your house to the vet, from your house to the Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah.

I think it’s a great idea actually because there’s not much off that. Yeah, also when I was looking for, I look for, for dog friendly things to do. Like one thing is a big one for us is hotels that are dog friendly because a couple of times we had to make a big like two hour drive and we had to stay overnight, but we couldn’t leave the dog with any because it was just last second.

So we had to find a specific hotel and yeah, that’s good. It’s a good idea.

But from building a brand. So like Mike, I don’t want to do video because that could be just all encompassing like it’s just going to be a time sucker. Yeah. But any other ways, um, that you would start out that type of niche site from the get go that’s thinking brand first?

You know, I would, I would start, I would start with the name and, and start looking in, uh, you know, go from the perspective of, of finding the name like the Facebook page. You know, can you find a Facebook page? Of this name, name, you know, can you build a Facebook page using that name and Instagram and x and all the different social medias?

I, I would try and do that first. Like I, I’ve got a couple of, of brands that I, I own like all the names across all the social medias. Um, and, and I think that gives you a better, um, you know, a better chance because then it’s. You know, you’re, you’re using exactly the same name over and over across the board.

Yeah, yeah, so I’ve got the, I’ve got the names, um, and I’ve checked that out. But I think for that, I wasn’t going to go all in social. Like at my other travel site, I’m all in social on every social. Um, but I’d still get, I’d still set the accounts up. Okay, yeah. No, yeah, just get the yeah, get that counts is what I that’s what I yeah, that’s that was one of the big things when I started like the spy.

The AI spy tech. I went, I went across and just bought as many. Users set up as many users and pages across social media, you know, whatever platform and just, um, just tried to make sure that I owned all those under the same name, I just think in the long run, there’s more value. Are you talking about snagging all the domain, all the names?

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, that’s, that’s basically what I’m saying. Yeah, that is number one, literally quite literally number one thing that I would do if I have to check all of the on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, all of those to see if they’re taken or not. And I need the dot com. I don’t want dot org that I want anything because i’m i’m catering to people people care about the dot com It’s just what it is So i’ll keep i’ll use shaggy bt to help me find really cool new names that I would have never came up with Um, so yeah, I think that’s number one thing finding all making sure everything’s not taken.

Yeah, so i’ve done that check Also, you mentioned your your reluctance for video. I think video is a little You Scary, but it’s overhyped because if you watch anything like I was mentioning this on the last the the youtube mastermind That was just uh, like 30 minutes ago. Yeah, or like wpeagle Some of you might watch his stuff because he does uh, niche site stuff But one of the things he does is he just takes his camera And just walks around Spain like this and talks about what we, what you would talk about, about like the Google update.

Cause again, it’s really affecting my site. I checked on the site. It’s not doing that well at all. And this other one’s broken, but blah, blah, blah. And it’s, it’s not short content. It’s maybe three, four, five minutes. It’s a story. No, not stories, not stories. Well, full blown videos, full blown horizontal videos.

And he’ll just kind of just talk while holding his phone and then publish it with a good, with a good thumbnail. So my point there is, I don’t see, I know this is, maybe you could just do this, start this way and then expand your, your production value, but why not say, Hey, in the city, here’s the five, not a short, a long form video, make it five minutes long.

Now I’ve been to, to Texas, uh, in Austin and I visited one place that was really drag friendly. This is the name of it. I really liked it. It was really cool. This other place was not so dog friendly. So stay away from there. Make that five minutes and then just click stop and publish it and just do like 10 of those and get the ball rolling.

And that’s it.

Yeah. I was going to do more Instagram, um, but, uh, not necessarily get into kind of production on YouTube. Just a few, a few thoughts, um, on like, like in my, in my mind, nothing, nothing has changed except, uh, we just can’t build these like little sites and get free traffic from Google automatically. Like, I think that’s the only thing that’s different beyond that.

There’s like, Really nothing else that’s different. I think we always should have been making like a brand, uh, not just like, you know, kind of random sites. And I mean, I too have some kind of random, random sites that, uh, I was like, yeah, man, uh, SEO is great. Google’s giving traffic. So like, why, I don’t know, like, why, why wouldn’t I, you know, have those projects?

But yeah, I don’t think anything’s different, Renee. I mean, just in my opinion, then like building, building anything, you know, like you’re gonna, you’re gonna, you gotta start something and just figure out how you’re gonna, how you’re gonna get track. Yeah. Instagram probably makes sense. Um, yeah. If you don’t want to do video, like you don’t, you don’t have to, but like.

I mean, obviously video is growing online, right? Like even, even further, but like, um, yeah, I mean, I can see, I could see growing, uh, probably potentially solely on Instagram. I mean, you know what I mean? I mean, like people, people do that. People pick single platforms and, and, and grow on those as well. So, um.

Thanks, everyone. Oh wait, another, another random creative idea. What if you could do, uh, if you don’t want to do video because you don’t want to be on video, what if you could do video in the perspective of your dog? Yeah, like through, through the ideas, uh, through the eyes of, through the eyes of, uh, Of the dog.

Um, that could be actually really interesting that I could see people watching just for that like, like low, low profile on the ground. Like just interesting. I don’t know. Like you’re at a restaurant full touch. Yeah. Get a GoPro for him, right? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe just gonna say, yeah, that’s a money maker right there.

And you could a, put a GoPro on him and then you could, you could put a mic on you and you could be the voice. Yeah, and you could create a, um, AI avatar for the dog as well. If you wanted to create a persona for him, then they can. Yeah. So you don’t need to be there. Cause look, Wendy, I mean, sorry, Renee. Um, I, I don’t want to be on video as well.

I’m not a fan. So I’m, I’m looking at those options of doing, doing videos without my face. Oh, sorry. My face is actually off at the moment. Hold on. Actually, it’s my space and it’s actually, um, You know, just being in the moment and kind of talking, you know, being succinct in terms of what you want to get across.

Um, that just doesn’t come natural to me. So, even if I was off camera, just to kind of. You know, talk about where I am. I would, I instantly would like clam up and be like, okay, I got to do this again. That doesn’t sound good. You know? So that’s why I don’t want to get into video. Cause I just feel like it’s going to be an editing nightmare on top of, you know, I just don’t have the bandwidth to kind of take that on.

So I know video is where, where everyone’s going. Um, but yeah, I kind of liked the idea of the GoPro. Um, bandwidth is huge. Bandwidth is huge. Like, like only, you know, that, you know what I mean? Like, if like, like, you know, like, you know, when your plate’s full and you’re like, yep, I can’t expand into that, but like, um, I would say, yeah, if you can find a way to create that content where it’s, it’s easy for you.

Um, but okay, so I’m gonna throw out an idea related to that dog, to the low profile. Maybe it’s actual. So look, maybe it’s actually a GoPro or maybe it’s you like holding a phone, like low to the ground, like a dog and looking up at signs and stuff. I don’t know, but like it, If you could figure out the actual GoPro, that would be cool.

But a second thing related to that, um, what if you could have a script, like a written script, uh, potentially you could use 11 labs and give your dog a voice, like an actual character voice. Um, and it, the videos could be in the perspective of your actual dog, like an actual, um, an actual voice created. I think that could be super cool and entertaining and like helpful as well.

Oh, uh, 11, 11 labs. Um, so some of my videos actually use my own voice and I don’t even my wife who’s ever here. She’s sitting on a couch over here. I bet if I played her some of the videos, she wouldn’t even, I don’t even know if she’d be able to know. It was like, An AI voice of mine. Um, yeah, like AI is getting it’s getting nutty.

Um, yeah

On the subject of AI one of the things that we mentioned in the in the last The call the the youtube one 30 minutes ago or so like an hour ago Was, uh, the use of AI and how you could get away with it. And I think you, you’re using the level lab that’s trained on your voice, right? All right. Okay. So when I, or many people, uh, run into an AI voice, we dip, um, obviously you have one that’s a little more original, so you might not be able to tell.

But it is such a like Immediately like get out of them. I I jump out of that video agreed Good get away with it with a real voice and stock footage But the other way is the opposite is not so easy to get away with so i’m gonna throw out I totally agree with you and I kind of do the same thing because it’s like it’s so common right now And it is easy to do.

Um, here’s Here’s one of the things I’m doing. I’m, I’m just testing and like playing around with stuff, but one of the things I’m doing is creating an actual hook. So, so, so like one of my issues with video and creating content is, is bandwidth, Renee. Like, so one of my issues is bandwidth. I’m like, I am the holdup of my team in getting out like video stuff.

I have an incredible like editor. He’s been with me a while now. And like, The holdup is me like filming and recording stuff. And so. Uh, what I’m doing though in that idea is I’m like, I’m actually recording. I’m actually recording like hooks. So it would be me on, you know, a video for like, maybe the first 30 seconds for like a hook.

Um, and then it’s cut to some a, some like B roll and like, uh, my voice. And so we’ve done that for a few videos. That’s been kind of interesting. Um, sounds great to me. Another thing I’m just gonna throw, just throw another idea that I did because again, I’m the whole, I’m the holdup for my team for content.

So recently. Oh, I actually have it right here. There’s just a, this Tascam microphone. So I’ve had this for a while and I started using it and then I didn’t. So it’s like portable microphone. So I am, uh, I’m literally going on bike rides, like a bike cruise and I’m recording, uh, it’s, it’s basically podcasts for me, but what we’re doing with that is converting those.

Uh, so I basically, all I’m doing is recording audio. Sending it to my video editor and then we’re creating, uh, he’s, I mean, one, it’s a podcast two, it becomes a YouTube video, and then I’m actually sending the, the transcript to my writer to, um, to create content out of that. And I’m going to send you all an example.

That like we literally just put out so y’all can you can see like kind of what i’m talking about. Um, Yeah, this like this video just went live the other day. So this is on youtube. Um, i’m doing that because One I kind of one I kind of think it’s cool because I have this little bumper video for like business on a bike With brooks that I created like four years ago because I had this idea But I was just never able to do anything but the real reason why i’m doing The real reason why i’m doing it is because it allows me to create content like whereas I wouldn’t do it otherwise Like, because I don’t have the bandwidth and my plate’s too full.

So like, I’m just all about like figuring out how to like remove the friction of, of content creation. I don’t know. I guess that’s the whole point of what I’m saying is like, if, if, you know, just keep iterating and if you can figure out how to remove the friction, then like, you’ll be able to maybe, maybe do it.

Um, just kind of a thought more of a rant, really. Sorry. That’s okay. I, I, I agree with you. Because that, uh, video editing, even with AI is just. It just eats up your time. I mean, it, it takes, it takes a while to go through everything. So, I mean, I’ve been doing it for clients for years and that’s the one thing that I just, it just, it just, uh, yeah, it just burns up time.

Um, I put a link in the chat. I just watched this, the video not too long ago that, but Mark Keese Brownlee. Yeah. Uh, I don’t know if you guys are for, for I’m sure everybody’s watched some of his videos, but. He actually just did something where he put a GoPro on the back of his, his dog. So check that out.

Nice. Cool. He puts a GoPro Una. Yeah. He puts a GoPro on the dog and Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, he goes walking around. So you could, you kind of might like, might give you some ideas. Yeah, no, I really like the idea actually. Um. If my husband could take that project on, I’m all in. So I’m going to serve alcohol with dinner tonight and approach the subject with him.

Blame it on all of us, you know.

No, I think it’s a, it’s a good idea. It’s a huge differentiator for sure. Like, um, first of all, this market is, there’s low competition, so that’s great. But, I can just, to me, this would be, there’s no one else doing this. Um, and definitely not in Toronto area, maybe in the U S I may do it in my city. I may, I may throw a GoPro on my dog.

Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, cause I have, I have a local brand and I’m like, man, that. Like that would be interesting content. Like, I think, I think people might be interested to watch it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And maybe it’s not every single one, but like, it’s maybe every fifth video or something, right.

Or every third video or yeah, it can be like a series, right. Um, yeah, you can just make it like a whole, like, uh, just a whole, a bucket of content, like a type of content maybe that you could make, but, um, Well, I think the cool thing too, is you, if you put a GoPro on him, I mean, you Basically just go around town with them, with your dog.

And then, you know, you watch the video later and figure out what’s worth talking about, you know, from my perspective, you know, I would just put the video on him. We would go somewhere, we’d go to the thing and then I would do the script and it would just be voiceover. So it’d be editing after. Yeah. To write in some comedy, some dog, some dog humor, you know, like dog jokes for like what the dog CNN stuff.

Yeah. I mean, I think it’d be really cool. And then that becomes a reel too, right? Sure. Yeah. It becomes everything. Yeah. It becomes whatever you want it to be, right? Yeah. Like, you have the content. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks, guys. Heck yeah. Hey, guys. Just remember us when your dog becomes a millionaire. Yeah.

Yeah, right. He’ll send us some treats. That’s right. I haven’t, I haven’t got him yet. I’m getting him on New Year’s Eve. So, uh. Oh, that’s cool. Oh, he’s a brand new star. Yeah. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So I did. Oh, are you getting it? It’s a vishla. I’m not sure if anyone knows that breed. It’s a pointer. Oh, yeah.

Pointer. Okay. Yeah. But, um, my older dog, he somewhat was part of doing this, but on a smaller scale and he passed away this year. So, um, we’ve just thought about now we’re ready to get another one. So our breeder has, we’ve been on the list for a long time. So. Yeah. Finally, the day has come and I’ve told her he’s my little Instagrammer.

So you could totally write that can, this is just me here. This is just me talking. I think all that should be a part of the story of this. Like if you’re, if you’re open to share that, like, you know, your past dog, you know, that was your, that was your, your, your, your. Your media pal, and now, you know, you guys finally decided you have a new person on the team.

I don’t know, like all that’s super interesting. I think people would like, love to, like, they would connect with you on, on all that, I think, so if you, if you choose to, if you want to be, you know, like personal in that sense, so I think that’s the future of brands and media personally. So.

Yeah, I have that little story in, as part of the website that hasn’t been launched yet. It’ll launch, but, um, Cool. Speaking of dogs. I can hear a dog, yeah. Sorry, that’s me. That’s, that’s my house. We have, uh, we have two, we have two foster dogs hanging out with us right now, actually. So, I have a house full.

Hey, Mike, I had a question just, uh, that Bing thing you were talking about. Yeah. The hub hub. I can’t even get to it. Now I’m trying to find where I, where I saw it. Um, because it was up on my screen and. Well, it, I looked at their thing and it says, Bing News Pub Hub, and if you click on it, site can’t be reached, which is interesting.

Um, oh, that’s alright. Yeah. But I have got the Bing webmaster tool now, which I hadn’t before, so that may be something to everyone else to do as well. If you haven’t And I’ve, I’ve verified my site while we are talking. Yeah. I’m gonna, I’m gonna submit my, my I if I could. Yeah. If it’s working. I don’t know.

I, I had it up in front of me and then I. I clicked away from it. Now I can’t find it. But yeah, I’ll submit it. See what it does. Keep you posted. Yeah, if you find it, because I mean, it’s basically pub hub dot bing dot com. But I can’t. It just doesn’t work for me. So it can’t be reached. Weird.

But I mean, doesn’t even know what to do to optimize for bing or kind of target bing.

I don’t have anything in particular. I mean, some of my sites are, I mean, they definitely, you know, they’re doing a little bit better on, on being as far as getting index faster and stuff. Um, but I did just have one just completely fall off the map and I haven’t figured out why yet. But, um, I, you know, I don’t, I don’t do anything specifically for Bing.

Oh, okay. So.

Hey guys, I’m gonna have to go. If I, if I leave, does it, uh, I mean, I know it’s kind of the end of the call anyway, but if I, if y’all wanted to stay, I don’t know what happens if I close it, close it out. So I, yeah, I think it’ll end it. Yeah. But I, I got to go anyhow. I got a, I got a meeting I got to prepare for, so it was good.

Okay. Good talking to everybody. All right, cool. I’ll call it in there. See you guys in discord. Good hanging out. We’ll see you. Bye.

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