Nick (00:00): As aspiring business owners and content creators, it's so easy to get caught up in the numbers and start comparing yourself to other people that you've been looking up to started in my online business journey and realize that this was the direction that I wanted to go with my life. I had just found Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn. Now I was so inspired by the interviews of people who were also beginners in the entrepreneur space, but were still figuring out ways to live the life of their dreams and seeing the amount of people that were impacted by the podcast and how they drew inspiration from these stories as well was such a cool thing to me. And I always thought it would be amazing to start my own podcast to interview entrepreneurs and hopefully inspire new people with my content. But I was stuck. I've constantly seen everything that creators like Pat Flynn, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, and all the people that I looked up to who were creating content at such a high level.

Nick (00:46): How could I, or you possibly create anything at this level? Well, the truth is we can't, well, at least not at the beginning, but we'll get into all of this in the interview. And I'm so incredibly excited to share this interview with you. Because from before I even started the podcast, having this guest on my show was a major goal of mine. Pat Flynn is today's guest and he is the host of the SPI podcast with over 65 million downloads and counting. He's the author of three books. Let go, will it fly in super fans? Two of which are Amazon bestsellers. And one of them is a wall street bestseller. He's helped countless numbers of aspiring entrepreneurs launch and grow their own businesses through his free and paid offerings. And has recently started on his newfound passion, which is YouTube and Pokemon of all things. And he's here to tell us all about how he managed to do this.

Nick (01:36): Now, make sure you stick around through this entire episode, because in the interview, I actually bait Pat in with one of his long-time passions back to the future, and I trick him into altering his past and future in the space time continuum. Now, finally, I'll be giving away, signed copies of his three books. Let go, will it fly in super fans? And I'll be sharing more details on that later on in the episode. So make sure you stick all the way through until after the interview gets done. Let's get into the interview with Pat Flynn.

Nick (02:04): This is the Nine-Five Podcast and I'm your host Nick Nalbach, where we get into the minds of entrepreneurs and people just like you. So you can start, build and grow your own online business.

Nick (02:22): Hey, welcome back to the Nine-Five Podcast. This is the show where we bring on entrepreneurs and business owners to help you start and grow your own business. And Holy cow guys today, I am so excited to be able to introduce Pat Flynn on the Nine-Five Podcast. So Pat, welcome to the Nine-Five Podcast. Thank you for having me, Nick, really excited to be here, man. When I, a lot of people that have listened to the podcast at this point have heard your name pop up, I've referenced your podcasts and stuff that you got going on in that whole realm, because it has been a big part of like kind of my introduction into entrepreneurship and a lot of people that have heard that story. As soon as I found out that entrepreneurship was a thing that's about the time that I found your podcast.

Nick (03:02): And I was, I was one of those guys that basically had binge-watched the episodes from like one to it. Wasn't like 300 at that time. And just what you were doing, interviewing those entrepreneurs and bringing them on. I just thought that was so cool. And that was why I eventually knew I wanted to get into podcasting and I didn't think it was going to happen this fast. I thought I had to have this big audience to do it. And then it did. And less than six months later, being able to get you on the podcast was probably one of the coolest things that's happened to date since starting the thing. So I just want to thank you for being here.

Pat (03:30): That's so cool. Well thank you for having me. And I mean, I I'm, I'm always ecstatic to hear that I have had some sort of, uh, help with somebody start because really it's you, it's all you, I'm just somebody who's doing it as well. And however you want to take inspiration from that. It's like, it just makes me so happy to see that even people, I don't know, cause this is the first time you and I are actually meeting, um, are still getting value and it makes me wonder how many other Nicks are there out there? How many other people listening to this right now are getting inspired by you and your previous episodes. Like we can just continue that ripple effect moving forward. Um, as long as we show up and we provide value, which is kind of, I'm just trying to lead by example. So it's working. Thank you. And I'm sure people are going to come around and say the same thing to you down the road too, if they haven't already

Nick (04:09): Part of why I've wanted you to come on so bad because you've reached a certain level. And throughout that whole process, you've kept this level of genuine ness to you. Like as you became more popular and more famous, like you didn't, you didn't change as a person. So speaking of you as a person for anybody who's listening to might not know who Pat Flynn is. Why don't you give just a brief little introduction who is Pat Flynn and what are you doing in this online space?

Pat (04:34): Yeah. Uh, so I'm a father and a husband first and foremost. I live in San Diego, California, 38 years old. And I've been doing all my business for about 13 years now, because back in 2008, I was actually laid off from architecture career. And that was a hard blow for me because I didn't know anything else. Um, all I wanted to do was being an architect and it was really difficult because I thought I was going to do that for the rest of my life. Well, I ended up finding a podcast. This is why podcasting is important to me because it was a podcast that changed my life. It was called internet business mastery. And I heard an episode where these guys, Jason and Jeremy were interviewing another person about how he was making six figures a year, helping people pass the project management exam or the PM exam.

Pat (05:15): And I had never heard of that exam before, but I remember specifically that I had taken several exams on my way to architecture and many of those that didn't really have a lot of good information. So I determined that, okay, well, why can't I do this too? So I built a website and tried to help people in the, in the realm of a very specific exam in the architecture space called the lead exam. And it ended up taking off like wildfire. It wasn't an overnight success, but, uh, and I worked really hard at it. I mean, it was 14, 16 hours a day working on the website, um, in forums, building relationships, answering people's questions to attract more people back and search engine optimization, all that kind of stuff. I had to learn on the go, but eventually I ended up publishing a study guide to help people because that was the easiest way.

Pat (05:56): And for 19, I sold this thing in the first month in October, 2008, I ended up making $7,908 and 55 cents from like a $19 99 cent ebook minus like PayPal fees. And it just completely blew me away. And that just showed me like, wow, this thing I could have done this thing all the way long ago. I just didn't even know it existed. I have to share this. And so I built smart, passive income.com, which is where most people know me from now, which I started sharing what I was doing on that architecture website on smart, passive income. And then I started experimenting with different ways to generate income everything from writing articles on [inaudible] dot com, which doesn't exist anymore to, I built an iPhone app company with my friend from high school and, and we got that to a million dollars in earnings and then sold that and then little niche sites in different spaces all the way up to now recently, a couple of projects that I've been working on are a physical product invention with my videographer that is now almost in best buy stores now, um, to a brand new YouTube channel in the Pokemon space.

Pat (06:51): It's just like a lot of things, but at the same time, my core business is at smart, passive income, a podcast with over 65 million downloads. We have a SPI pro Academy in a, in a community for, um, entrepreneurs who want to pay a small monthly fee to get access to each other and build a network there. Uh, we have books, we have, um, all like the YouTube channel, all kinds of things to help serve the entrepreneur at any level to help them achieve their dreams and make things a little bit easier and have less friction on the way. So that's kind of where we're at now and now, you know, I continue to lead the charge in the world of podcasting. That's become like the number one way that I've still been able to reach more people and make connections. And I teach a lot of people how to podcast with online courses and stuff.

Pat (07:29): It's, it's just, I feel so blessed. And, and the beauty of all of this is, although it sounds like there's a lot. Number one, I have a team doing a lot of the work for me now. And number two with the time that I have, I get to spend with family, I worked from home and I'm seeing my kids grow up and, and to be able to spend time with them and help out my wife is just, you know, I feel very, very blessed. So looking back the layoff, probably the best thing that ever happened.

Nick (07:50): Yeah. I, I just love that story. I think it's such a powerful thing because yeah, you took something that at the time was not a very great situation for you and you were able to build it into what it is now. And I, I really want to touch on, you said there is a lot going on, but you do have a team behind you. And that's something I want to get into in just a second here, but something I'd like to do with all the guests that I bring on the show here is I like to ask them what their superpower is. So by superpower, I mean like what does that thing that you think that you were just a rockstar at kind of like a, a pump up moment of break moment here? Like what do you think your super power?

Pat (08:23): I think my superpower is my ability to speak the same language as, as any other person. Now, I, I can't speak a bunch of different languages. I don't mean languages like Spanish or Russian or anything like that, but I w what I mean is I can empathize with anybody and I can understand exactly what they're going through. I could feel what they're feeling to a point where I can then take what I know and be able to help them. Cause there's some people who might have great information, they might have the solution, but if they don't know how to talk to somebody about it, then it's not going to be very helpful. Or they're not going to know that you have something that can actually helpful, or they might think that you're being too pushy or too aggressive, or what have you. But I feel I have a great way to number one, understand what a person might need help with, uh, and really ask the right questions to try to get to, to try to understand that I don't, I don't just like look at a person and know that I have to do the research, but when I do the research, I can then understand how to present something in a way that's going to be helpful for them.

Pat (09:15): And that allows me to build my business. That allows me to be a great parent that allows me to do all these things that they think I'm just maybe as a struggle for others, but that's something that I feel just comes natural to me. It's I think it's one of the reasons why, when I think back to like high school, um, you know, I had a couple of best friends, but I had like 20 different groups of people who I could have associated with. Like, I could hang out with the nerds in the band room, right. And chill with them and talk nerdy music stuff. But then I'd go to the nerd crowd and talk like math and calculus with them and it'd be super cool. And then I go to the other part of the lunch court, which were more of like the, like the gangster, like hardcore, like maybe a little bit scary crew in the, in the school. And I've, I was able to fit in and like talk to them at their language and, and hang out with them too. So I think that that is my super power.

Nick (10:00): I like that I was going to ask you, is it something that comes naturally? Or is it something that was kind of like a learned skill, but you definitely answered that, that I like that that's something that I've struggled a lot with, like kind of stepping back and speaking that same language is something that I know I've struggled with myself and it's something that I'm continuing to work on, but no, I definitely think that's a super power

Pat (10:19): It's, it's, it's hard to do because, and there was a book written about this. It was in, uh, made to stick by chip and Dan Heath, there's a chapter there called the curse of knowledge. And the curse of knowledge is when you know, something it's impossible to know what it's like to not know that thing. And so by knowing the thing, it's going to be very difficult to teach somebody who doesn't know often, because we can't fully empathize with them. So that curse of knowledge is something we have to learn about and get over. And I think that this is why a lot of my online courses or some of the online courses that people like one of my favorite testimonials for my online courses is OPEC. Your online courses are like the only ones I can ever finish. And I'm like, that makes me so happy. Cause that's my job. I want them to finish it. And typically on the courses have a, a little bit lower of a retention rate or completion rate, but for hours, like it's a very high rate. And I think it's because I can break things down and make it easy to speak the language that a person is trying to fight through to build something like a podcast, for example. Yeah,

Nick (11:13): Definitely. Yeah. I always think of like college professors, stuff like that, you sit in class and you're like, this professor knows their stuff, but they, you just can't follow along. Cause they're way up here. That's exactly what I think about through all that.

Pat (11:25): And that, that's actually a great analogy because when, when we want to build businesses, right, we often feel like we have to be that person on the podium with all that knowledge and the expert, like the expert or else we're not qualified. But honestly I would much rather learn from somebody who had just done the thing that I'm trying to learn to. Who's just a couple steps ahead versus like, you know, the person who's way over there because I, you know, for my podcast, for example, I have a ton of people like Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, like huge names on my show, the shows where I have regular people on are the ones that get more downloads because they're more relatable because those people are just a couple steps ahead. And that's, what's so interesting to me. And that's why I think, you know, in the world, the podcasting people, like how do I get this celebrity on my show? I'm like, don't, you don't need to. In fact, it's going to be more powerful if it's somebody just like your listener who goes through something. So hopefully this inspires you. If you've been like trying to start a business or be an entrepreneur, like you don't have to be the expert. You just have to be like a few steps ahead because you'd probably be more relatable to be honest. And that's your advantage there too,

Nick (12:23): That perfectly segue into where I wanted to go next with this good something that I, I was realizing just really the last couple of months, to be honest, when I started following you and listening to the guests you were bringing on and some of the bigger name guests, like I'm thinking like Noah Kagan and, um, you had Gary Vaynerchuk on there and Chris Ducker and all these guys, I started following them all, but I was seeing what you and all these other highly successful at this point entrepreneurs were doing. And I'm like, Holy cow, like, how do you do all of these things? Like you're everywhere on social media, you're on YouTube, you're on podcasts, you're blogging. It's like, how can one person keep up with all of that? So I'm curious when you started smart, passive income, what did that look like? Like right at the very beginning, because obviously you could have been doing all these things at the same time.

Pat (13:09): Yeah. You can't, you can't do them all at the same time. If you try, you're going to fail miserably and you're either going to get burned out, trying to do everything you need to do to make each of those things work. Or you're just going to like, be like a little blip on each of them. So I started blogging on smart, passive income.com in 2008 and I blog three times a week. That's all I did blogging. I learned everything I could about blogging, SEO, how to write good titles, how to, how to write better. Um, and I just got so into that to get to a point where I could then do it a lot better, uh, do it a lot faster and get some time back. Okay. Now what I do with this extra time, well, let me start a YouTube channel. So 2009, when you're later, I started my YouTube channel.

Pat (13:48): Now I didn't know what I was doing there. And I was very afraid to put myself on camera, but every time I wrote something that would make sense to have a video, to go along with it, I just filmed the video, put it on the YouTube channel. And then I embedded the YouTube video on my website. And I did that for a very long time. I was never consistent with YouTube and got really serious about like mastering YouTube until 2017. And we'll get to that later. But there was a library of videos that seem to get people to come and find my website. So they're here. I was in two places now that in 2010, so if Oh eight blog, Oh nine video, 2010 here comes the podcast in July of 2010. I launched that. And I find that the podcast more than anything does a better job of building a connection of getting more exposure for me.

Pat (14:31): I knew some people who were all in on YouTube and it, and that was working for them. Other people who were all in on blogging and that worked for them. But for me, I found that, uh, podcasting was going to be my home. And so I doubled down on the podcasting. I reduced the number of blog posts that I was publishing and things started to take off from there 2011. I started speaking on stages. Um, my first time on stage was in Schaumburg, Illinois at the financial blogger conference. And that introduced my world to the world of public speaking. And just how amazing that was, even though I still am deathly afraid of getting on stage. I still do it anyway because of the impact that you can make and how that positions you as an authority being on, on the stage. It's pretty, it's pretty neat.

Pat (15:08): Then by this time, you know, the blog has coming out once per week, the podcast, I start learning how to master that, to turn it into a machine and in a way where I am now planning a little bit more ahead. I'm now batch processing. I'm learning from other people and we're kind of coordinating. And like you said, all my friends they're doing it too. So we're passing information back and forth. This is where like I started getting involved with mastermind groups and really honing in on, Hey, what are you doing? Oh, cool. Let me help you with that. Okay. And let's all help each other out for the better, good for everybody. And that was incredible. Uh, 2013, I wrote my first book, let go, 2016, my next book came out 2017 or 2014. I had another podcast come out because I finally learned from Johnny Dumas that I could actually hire other people to do that for me.

Pat (15:54): So that was the first time I actually hired somebody to help me produce anything all throughout 2008 to 2013 was all me, but I was only able to be everywhere because I had optimized every one thing at a time. And in most cases, when people go, Oh, should I do the same thing? I typically say, no, I typically say pick the one thing. That's going to be your one thing and master that and just learn everything there is about it. And don't even worry about what might be next until, you know, for sure that you should do something next. And you've mastered this first thing first, whatever it is, video YouTube, bloggers, social, whatever. I was perceived as being everywhere because I put myself in places where my people are. I was a guest on other people's podcasts quite a bit. I say yes to that more than I probably should.

Pat (16:37): Although don't worry. I'm very grateful to be here, Nick. Um, and, and it's put me on the map in front of new audiences and yeah, they they're smaller audiences, but guess what? I was Johnny Dumas's first podcast interview. That relationship has meant so much to me. And he still continues to feel like he has to pay me back because I was in his first episode. Right. Kind of thing. And we help each other out too. So I say yes to things that other people may not. And I think that allows me to connect more with who my target audiences, because really what it comes down to all this stuff. I'm just talking about tools and tactics right now. Um, you know, platforms and positioning. No it's about who it is that you're serving and how can you get in front of them and provide them value. And to me, there's nothing more than the relationships I built with others that has done.

Nick (17:21): And I think podcasting in general, like, like you said, that's kind of where you took hold and where you really grabbed on. And that's your thing I've found since starting a podcast that it's, I always thought that I had to have an audience. I was like, podcasting was something, yes, I want to do it, but it's gotta be down the road. I have to have a big audience. Then I'm going to create a podcast where people are going to come and listen to. And since starting it, I just kind of said, screw it if no one listens, no one listens, but I'm just going to try it and see what happens since starting that I've realized how powerful it is of a platform, not even just from building an audience standpoint, but the relationships that I can build with the guests on the other side. And I cannot imagine trying to build that relationship without something like the podcast, but I'm curious with that. So that effect has like you built an audience around the podcast when you started the podcast, what did that audience actually look like for you?

Pat (18:12): Bloggers, essentially people who knew me for articles that I was running and I was trying to write really helpful articles. Uh, at the time I was just starting out a project where, and this is what I had become known for in this space, which was here. Let me show you how it all went down, right? Like here's a business I'm starting here is all the steps I'm doing to make that happen for free, not, not paying. You don't have to pay to see this. Um, here's my income. Here's how much I was making. Here's where it's all coming from. Here's why it went down this month and what I wish I'd done differently. Like here's all the lessons. Uh, I had even been featured at one point in Forbes magazine, along with several other huge, huge entrepreneurs, as one of the most transparent entrepreneurs in this space.

Pat (18:50): And to see my name there with Tony Shea. And so many others was like, what? Like, I guess this transparency thing really, really matters. So let's be even more open. How might I be able to be even more open with my audience beyond my income reports and on my blog? Well, let me start a podcast so that people can hear me and hear my story. And also here within these conversations that I'm having with people. And so that's when the podcast came out, it was just an audience who, number one. Yeah, they were following me on my blog and had barely just started an email list, but they were following me because they knew that they were going to get something that they couldn't get elsewhere. They're going to get the insider information on what it actually takes to start a passive income business. And I was just very upfront with people.

Pat (19:32): You don't start passive at all. In fact, that's the last step of the process, if, if, if that's even possible, but I just wanted to get in front of people to teach them the right way, because there were a lot of others, scammers and snake oil salesman who were Tate telling people that the riches and dreams were just behind this wall, where you have to first put in your credit card number. And I was like, no, you don't need that. And this stuff should be freely available. And that's what I did in leaned into. And that seems to continue to work.

Nick (19:55): I think that's what really kind of pulled me in towards the content you were creating, because you can look at all the gurus that tell you, this is what you need to do to make money, be successful, live the life of your dreams. And in my opinion, like they're making the money off of this book that they're selling you to quote unquote, live your dreams. And you're not getting the full transparent secret. And that's, that's something that I've really gravitated towards what you've done at. Like I was following when you were doing the, uh, income reports and all that. I just thought that was such a cool way of yeah. Just being transparent, being upfront with the audience. I think that's important. Yeah, definitely. So the audience is obviously one of the most important things. It is the reason we have a business online. It's the reason we're able to keep doing what we enjoy doing. Talk to me about super fans, like what is a super fan and how do we get them?

Pat (20:43): You remember I told you I had published this study guide for this architectural exam. After a couple months, I started noticing something interesting. I started to get a lot of personalized emails from people saying, thank you for putting out that guide, which was really weird to me because I had worked felt, I felt like I worked even harder, like when I was in architecture and I got nobody to thank me, like nobody I have, I have my fingerprint on all these buildings across the United States. Nobody will ever know, like in there would be really no way for me to prove it. Either yet here I was helping people with this little tiny exam in the architecture space. And people were reaching out to me to thank me. They were calling me by name and praising the work I was doing and sharing it with their friends.

Pat (21:17): And I thought that was incredible. Like, this is like, what, how is this even happening? There's one woman. Her name is Jackie. She reached out to me and she was just so, so thankful because when she passed the exam, thanks to my guide, she was able to get a promotion and a raise. And she was able to take her kids to Disneyland for the first time, which was like really special. And at the end of the email said your biggest fan, Jackie, I was like your biggest fan. Like, I don't get it. Like I just helped you pass an exam. Like I don't get it. Um, a couple months go by. And then one day I started to notice that there were like dozens of emails coming in from one company. This was my customer list. But all the names that were coming in were like the same ending to the email.

Pat (21:54): They were all coming from the same company and it was Jackie's comp. Um, and Docky apparently because I guess she was a big fan. She had convinced her boss to have everybody in the office, take the exam and buy my study guide. So that one person Jackie turned into 25 different sales as a result of me just being able to help her do something that she's been looking to do and was struggling with. And again, I didn't even know who she was. It was just because she needed that help. And I was able to provide value. I did chat with her a little bit while she was studying to help her out a little bit more, which I think helped too. But still that one person who turned into something that turned into way more business and in super fans in my book, I talk about this idea of the super fan.

Pat (22:33): And it's very much inspired by her article written by a man named Kevin Kelly in 2006, called a thousand true fans, a true fan or super fan, being that person who is going to go to bat for you and your company, uh, or what it is your art or craft is. It's. If you are a musician, they're going to drive eight hours to see your set. They're going to wait for you backstage to get a selfie with you. If you have a product they're going to not even read your sales page, they're buying it the moment it comes out because they want to be first, right? Um, that's, that's like what a true fan or a super fan is. And the crazy thing is you don't need very many of them to do some amazing things. Here's some math, a thousand true fans paying you a hundred dollars a year.

Pat (23:06): That's less than $10 a month. It's like two cups of coffee at Starbucks. And that's on the low end of what a fan might pay you for something. Right? Cause I know I pay a lot of money to Pokemon for a lot of stuff or back to the future memorabilia or whatever. A hundred dollars times a thousand true fans is a six-figure business. That's a hundred thousand dollars a thousand people. And to break this down even more, that's one fan a day for less than three years. And so this should allow you to have a little bit of a grasp on what is actually important here. Getting millions of people to find you, but not actually like really diving into a relationship with them. But you just want more viewers on your webpage or for the few people who are listening to your podcast or watching your videos, getting to really know them and turning them into a fan in some way, shape or form.

Pat (23:49): And the beauty of this is a byproduct of this is those fans will bring new people in. And when those new people come in, they're not cold anymore. They're already warmed up because somebody else did that work for you because you've helped the person who brought them in. And so your audience is going to grow from within instead of you having to go out and, and find new people. So this is like this, this is so important because a lot of us are spending so much time on these things that are gonna get us more eyeballs. We're more ears. But then what happens when people are there, if you can provide an amazing experience and a lot of touch points and moments, cause it's not like a person listens to a song and they're immediately a fan of the band and going to see a concert.

Pat (24:26): It's multiple songs. It's getting to know the band, it's getting to hear their album and then go back into their history and hear other things. And then the, you know, all those, all those kinds of things that then lead to the point where you are now backstage with them. Cause you paid VIP access and you're spending thousands of dollars in you're having the time of your life. We can provide that same experience, even though we're not musicians per se or artists or celebrities. We are still somebody who can develop fans and have this amazing group of people who can support us, who are going to buy our products who are going to switch away. Any trolls that might show up on your doorstep, who are going to follow you no matter what happens. Even if your website were to go down, all your social media accounts get hacked, you can set up, shop in.

Pat (25:07): Those fans are going to be there. It's business insurance, in my opinion. And that's what we should be building for all the things that view my business are for the purpose of hopefully turning that person over time, because it happens over amount of time into a fan of some kind that is more worth it to me then. Okay, how much money do I need to spend to purposefully target this person based on their search history and interests on Facebook to hopefully get them intrigued by this lead magnet that I have to write really good copy for to get them intrigued. I'm not a good copywriter. I'm not a good salesperson, but I am a relationship person. And that is what's been driving my business ever since.

Nick (25:39): And obviously like what we were just talking about, that transparency that plays into all that as well. This, this whole topic is something that I've been bringing up quite a bit on the show because especially just starting out, we look at the successful and say, Oh my gosh, I need a million followers. I need a million subscribers. I need all these people coming in. And recently I've been saying like, Whoa, hold on, take a step back. If you can focus on helping one person at a time, that's how you're going to actually grow. And that's how you're going to build those super fans. But if you think about it, when you're, when your audience is young, and I think I've heard Gary Vaynerchuk talk about this quite a bit. If you just get a million subscribers and followers all at one time, there's no way that you're going to be able to engage and interact and really get to know that audience. But if you're able to go one person at a time, you're actually able to build real relationships with this audience. And that's going to, like you said, it's going to last and it's going to be sustainable down the road. So I think that I love that. And super fans is exactly that.

Pat (26:32): And you only have so much time to actually make those connections. So let's say it's, I don't know. I'm just 20 people a week that you could actually like really reach out to build a connection with it's going to be 20 people a week, whether you have 20 people on your email list or 200,000 people on your email list. So if you're just starting out, you have the same advantage of right now that anybody does to build those relationships. And in fact, if you want to look at overall percentage of an entire audience, will you actually have the advantage being small, um, and that small can come as a result of you finding one person, like you said, I think that that's my favorite strategy. Like let's not even worry about building a website or doing anything yet until we can find one person we can help. And that will then influence them, determine the direction we go. And if we even like it, right, like we might not even like the thing that we think we might like. And so validate at first, this is what my whole book will it fly is about. And then, uh, from there you can start building it out and, and, and maybe incorporating, uh, different niches or something. But, you know, as I often say, the riches are in the niches, like that's, your advantage is being small. In fact,

Nick (27:32): I know for everyone listening, you heard Pat mentioned superfans and will it fly? I will put links to all those in the show notes for this episode. So if you are wanting to go find that they will be in the show notes. So with, with having those super fans, after we kind of get those fans, we're starting to build that audience, something that you and your team have spent a lot of time focusing on recently is building a community within this audience. So you're not just bringing in an audience yourself, but you are kind of building this community where everybody can kind of interact and get to know each other and help each other out. Can you talk a little bit about community and what you're doing in that space right now,

Pat (28:10): We've always known community to be very important. We've had Facebook groups and all that kind of things. Um, but in 2019, we ended up putting on an event in San Diego called Flynn con. And this is going to be the first of many, although 2020 has been very difficult obviously. And I don't think it's going to happen in 2021 either. But anyway, I had built this specifically because my audience said that they wanted to meet each other and hang out. And, um, I figured, Hey, let's experiment and see what it might be like to put on a conference. And I built it in a way based on what I know about conferences. Some of the best moments that happen in conferences are not when one person's on stage and everybody's just sitting quietly in the audience. It's after those moments in the hallways with the interactions and the networking and stuff, that's when the magic happens at events.

Pat (28:51): So we built our event specifically to have a 45 minute to one hour talk onstage, and then like a one and a half to two hour break before the next one, so that people could talk, interact, get some help from the people who were there on the sponsor booths, but also to be able to interact in and form connections. And by far, that was the people's favorite part, right. Which is funny because then it's like, okay, less work for me to do. I don't need to be on stage as much because I can just, you know, we've already done the work. We're bringing people together. And then the, uh, new year 2020 came around and we're like, okay, Flynn con coming up again. And then of course, February and March happened. And then the pandemic went down in the crisis and a lot of people just knew that events weren't going to happen anymore.

Pat (29:29): And so we had on our backlog to do a membership community that was a paid premium membership community to instill community and networking and do these kinds of things that kind of happened in between the hallways, but do it like, you know, a more ongoing basis. And that was planned for mid 20, 22. Well, here we are, a mid 2020 people are craving community. We're like, okay, that project that's coming out later, let's bring that into now so that we can actually help people now make these connections that they were going to have otherwise. And I'm so glad we did that because we launched with a founders group of about 500 people, $49 a month or $499 a year. And now we have recurring income in our business to about 350 to $400,000 in our business. That just kind of happened overnight from a community that we've built.

Pat (30:14): Yes, we've earned trust with them. They've gotten help from us before there is an application process. So we didn't even accept everybody, but now we have this recurring income in our business, but more than that, people have recurring value being sent their way through not content. It's not a content play, it's a community place. So we have events. We have ask me anythings, we have people that can connect with each other about certain things so that like, it's kind of its own engine. Now it's taking care of itself. And the cool thing is that we've never heard such great feedback from any of our products before, um, people in their connections in their, we often hear the fact that people will come for the community or they'll come for the, excuse me, they'll come for the content, but they'll stay for the community. And people are stick around.

Pat (30:51): They they've, they've, they're paying annually for it because they want to stay. And that's just so exciting and, and the results that people are getting in there too, because they're getting direct help from people just like them is really important. And when you can facilitate a moment of conversation and networking and connection for your people that does nothing, but ultimately build your own authority and level up your brand to you when you facilitate those interactions, it helps people remember why they are sticking around and for you to do that. It elevates your brain too. And that's because we as humans, we want to connect with other people just like us and as connected as social media and everything today allows us to be, it oftentimes make people feel very separated from each other. And so when you can create these clusters and go, Hey, if you are this, you come in, you're welcomed and you're just like us.

Pat (31:36): Let's hang out. Then people feel very welcome to that. And they may or may not want to pay for that. Um, anything has the opportunity to have you build a community for it. Lego has things like even more specifically, there's a thing called [inaudible]. That is an adult fan of Lego in AFL. If, if, if you look up a meetup.com [inaudible], you will see that there's thousands of members all around the world of adult fans of Lego who come together and they meet in person, or they used to be, uh, you know, we'll see what the pandemic, uh, how long that'll last, but it, um, is something that allows them to go, Oh, you're weird too. Like me cool. Let's hang out. Right. And everybody's weird in their own regard and, and wants to find other weird people like them. And that's where as a business owner, you have the opportunity to either create those moments or just let those moments and opportunities pass by.

Nick (32:24): I, I completely agree. And I I've been in that SPI pro community, I think since, since the very beginning there, and I, the sense of community within that SPI pro is so amazing. I've had several of the guests that I brought on this have come from that community. That's awesome. And then I actually did, it was one episode where I had several guests up here on that same episode and we kind of did like an SPI pro episode. And it's just so cool being able to connect with people like that and work with other people that have the same kind of mindset. And if you're able to build that around your business, that's such a powerful, impactful thing. Yeah. Do you think that building a community kind of going back to this audience thing, is it possible to start building this community from the very beginning? Like you guys, you obviously have this platform around it, but how do you, I think the engagement amongst everybody in the community is what really makes the thing thrive. So you think of that, is that something you can build from the beginning

Pat (33:22): To launch a community without yet, having anybody know who you are to not have made any connections yet, and to rely on just copy alone is going to be very, very difficult, nearly impossible. And the reason is because not only will, you have to fight really hard to get people to know, like, and trust you before they spend their precious time with you. Number two, if they even get in, it's going to be very empty. So I think that your approach could be not building necessarily a community at the start, but building more of a coaching process or perhaps building a small mastermind, if you want to consider it. Okay. Like let's start with a smaller group. First, not a membership community with that could potentially have hundreds, but let's just have a small group of five people. And let's just get together every week to talk about this and mastermind and one person in the hot seat, let's help each other out just to see what that experience is like, because that's something that you can then bring into a community once your community or your audience stretched to grow a little bit bigger.

Pat (34:16): I would say that if you want hard numbers, I would say that you could probably launch a small tight-knit community, where there is some good interaction with an email list of a hundred people. And sure, maybe you get 10%, 15% of 10 or 15 people in there at the start. Well, as long as you position this in a way where you can have these people interact at certain times, versus just like, Oh yeah, here's this platform, go figure it out. Like, you know, that's going to be a little bit more difficult. You have to be really active in the beginning, especially if there's not a lot of people and not a lot of activity going on. So the onboarding process of a membership website where membership committee is going to be really, really important, but I wouldn't even think about like an, a, a self-driven self perpetuating community yet until much, much later, I would say it's going to be a very active process to yes. Bring people together in a group like fashion. I wouldn't even think about it as a community first. I would think about it as more of a cohort or a small group session kind of thing before you can then expand it to more people in that way.

Nick (35:13): Yeah. No, no, that definitely makes sense. Um, I kind of want to take, take a little bit of a turn with the episode here. So you obviously mentioned back to the future. Well, I want to go back in the past. We're going to go say what happened that DeLorean were going to say what's up to young Pat. What, what advice, if any, would you give your self prior to getting laid off

Pat (35:38): From your architecture job? Um, okay, so we're going into the DeLorean. We go back, we see younger Pat, um, maybe like college Ange. Yeah. We can go college age. Okay. So this was before me and my wife started dating. So number one, I would say she's not, she's not worth it. My ex-girlfriend that's number one. No, I'm just kidding. Um, number, number one, you know, as far as advice and stuff, um, it would be to talk to and connect with and help as many people as you can provide value, whoever it is that you, you come across, see what you can do to serve them, because I need you to see that when you help others, you will get other things back. It's not going to be necessarily a one for one all the time. It's not even going to be for everybody, but the more you put yourself out there and show up and serve others, the more you will be rewarded.

Pat (36:25): And it took me a long time to realize that it didn't, it took me until, you know, nearly, you know, a year or two into business to actually like, make that connection. And in lean into that even more, if I knew that right from the start, it would have been much, much better. Number two, I would have said, Hey, you know, emails, how you hate emails. Well, you're going to need to do emails. So do more email marketing. I wanted to avoid email marketing, like the plague, because it was just like, I didn't like it, but I soon found out two years after I started my business that I should probably build an email list. Yeah. I started a business without an email list, which is a thing that you shouldn't do anymore. You should absolutely have that for communication purposes with your audience. I didn't start building my email list until 2010.

Pat (37:01): So that's another thing. Hey, email. Yeah. Get, get to love it because it's going to be something you're going to be a need to know and do a lot of number two. Number three, I would say, you know, the, the other thing I'm thinking about is with relation to like how scared I was to get my voice out there. Even though I have a podcast, I had a podcast, um, it took me a year and a half to finally do it. After I said I was going to do it. I was so scared. I always kept backing down. Um, I didn't actively look to seek myself on stage. It was actually a friend who asked me or otherwise I could have done it much, much sooner. So I was very scared and very self-conscious about what other people thought of me. And, you know, I heard some advice the other day.

Pat (37:35): I can't remember who it was from, but it was a good analogy. It's like, when you go up on stage or you're going to get on a podcast or on a video, like, I want you to think of Oprah, right. And Oprah had these really famous episodes where she would give away cars. Right? It's like, you get a car, you get a car, you get a car. It's like, do you think like when Oprah was backstage about to give away a car, to every single person in the audience that she was worried about, how people would think about her, that she was worried about where she was standing or what she looked like. She was probably thrilled and excited to death to give people something that could be really useful. So why not? When you approach the stage or you get behind the microphone to get just as excited because no, you're not giving people a car, but you could give people the information that they've been looking for this whole time.

Pat (38:20): You can give people the inspiration they need, because they're down in the dumps right now, you should be just as excited to give that kind of information and show up just like Oprah does when she does her car shows or any show for that manner. Cause she's just an amazing woman. So that story and, and, and, and, um, number four, I guess, would be, speaking of story, is, um, learn how to tell stories better. Like when you learn how to tell great stories, you can teach anything, you can get people to buy anything. You can get people to just really, really engage with you when you tell a great story. And I didn't realize how important stories were until, you know, two or three years into my podcast. When I started getting training for storytelling and understanding the story arc and the hero's journey and all these other things that, you know, we all have our own hero's journey.

Pat (39:03): And it wasn't until I realized that I was on my own hero's journey path. And we've talked about my story in the beginning already, my dream to be an architect, that's what had happened. I got laid off and now here I am challenged and struggling just like any good hero. And then I'm getting guidance from somebody, a podcast to help me learn these things. Just like Harry, just, just like Katniss Everdeen gets from Haymitch in, you know, uh, the hunger games. And then I have to fight through all these struggles again, because I am just doubting myself. I don't know if this is the right thing for me. And then I come out the other side, having made my first sales and here I am back again in the same world, but now better, stronger, and on a new direction. And I have that story.

Pat (39:39): You have that story. Everybody has that story, but when we put it in an architecture, in a framework, it's something that then other people will respond to much better. And I remember having a conversation with somebody who was like, Oh, Pat, will you got laid off? Like you were so lucky. Cause that's a great story. I don't have that. I don't have my was almost dying, you know, a story kind of thing that can like get people emotional. And I'm like, okay, well just tell me how you grew up. And then we found bits and pieces that made it a really compelling story. Even though on the surface, she thought it was boring. We ended up being able to reframe this in a way that actually was very interesting and very relatable to people, traditional household, going to school, the way that she was supposed to never really allowed to go out of the house and like meet her friends when she wanted to. And that like affected her personality in her life today in not expanding outside of the rules that she is within, within her work and within her, um, just life. And that's holding her back from the success that she wanted. Now it's a story that we can all relate to. So storytelling, I think young Pat young paddle on that, uh, is, is, uh, Pat Taiwan is, um, is something that you need to get better at.

Nick (40:46): And I I've always been under that same impression, like with a story you have to have, this has to be a fascinating story. You have to be like the most interesting man in the world type of a story. But yeah, exactly what you're saying. Like as long as the story is relatable, that's, what's going to attract people because yes, you're just like me. We're the same. Like we both have gone through the same thing. So I really love that. Thank you.

Pat (41:06): Started speaking on stage. I got this advice to create a story bank and this is advice from Rameet SETI. He said, whatever happens in your day. That's interesting. Like at the end of the day, just like jot it down or put it in an Evernote folder and just kinda like, you know, um, expand on that story just a little bit. So you remember it later. And what I found is that I have now hundreds of stories in my story bank of just like random things. Like the day years ago that my son asked me to play with the iPad in the car. We don't let him play with iPad in the car, but this turned into a pretty incredible conversation about how he was trying to convince me. And this ties into some marketing lessons that I then presented on stage. And I remember closing a keynote in front of 500 people telling that story.

Pat (41:45): I didn't tell it fully here, cause there's a way to tell it, but people were laughing and they were crying at the end of it because it was just a moment that people could relate to, even though it was just like a little thing that could have just passed on by, but because I recorded it and I turn it into something that actually mattered, people could resonate with it. And so create a story bank. It's so amazing because now that story bank, when you're creating a podcast, Oh, I need a story about some, okay, let me go to my story bank. Or if you're creating a presentation, Oh, let me go to my story bank. Or now what happens is because I've told so many of these stories, if I'm in a conversation with somebody like in a restaurant or something, just like with friends, I'll remember one of those stories. And guess what? I tell it in a way that was practiced, that has a format. And like I'm the life of the party, even though I'm an introvert, I'm just like, just because I could tell story, it's just, just such an amazing, magical thing. It's just so funny.

Nick (42:35): I love that idea of the story bank. I have not heard that one before, so I'm, I'm gonna have to start doing that. I'm going to start a notion tab after we get,

Pat (42:42): I mean, this story of you having once listened to my podcast and now being able to get to the point where now I'm a guest on your show is a story. Like, I hope that you not because I want you to talk about me, but because this is like a huge goal achieved for you that I think could inspire others, like little things like that. It could be great.

Nick (42:57): Yeah, no, exactly. I think that's an excellent tip. Um, so you kind of fell into my trap a little bit with the backs of the future DeLorean stuff here. So I think you oversold young Pat a little bit too much. And if you know anything about time travel, I think you changed the trajectory,

Pat (43:15): Continuum ideas. So I might not even be here today. If I actually did what I said I was going to do.

Nick (43:20): Here's what happened in my Bulletproof narrative, you kept your architect job and you have this architect job all the way until 20, 20 pandemic time hits. And now you're laid off with everybody else that unfortunately went through this. You still know everything that you know, but what happens, where do you start? How do you start to rebuild? Or I guess not rebuild. How do you start to build?

Pat (43:42): Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I always think about the fact that if I didn't get laid off, what would I be doing? Right. And I would still probably be in architecture. Like, honestly, definitely wouldn't know what I know today, but let's say I do. What would I do to sort of bounce back? Um, I've been recommending for anybody to find a specific group of people who have a specific need, help them, help them solve that problem, whatever it might be. Uh, you could literally do this anywhere. Everybody goes through challenges. Everybody has struggles. You just have to find out what they are and then help them with that and find one person to help. Like you've mentioned earlier, this is so, so key. So let's say you, for example, you know, maybe you can sing, well, guess what? There's a lot of parents out there who have kids stuck at home and they're trying to help them, you know, with activities and stuff.

Pat (44:23): You could offer a service to allow for a mom to get an extra hour of time, which is something that a mom really wants right now because they don't necessarily their kids to have singing lessons. Yes they do. But they also just want a break. So your sales position is not, I want to help your son learn how to sing or your daughter learned how to sing. It's going to be, let me help you get an extra hour of time and I'll teach your daughter how to sing at the same time. Right. Cause you didn't have to number one, know who your audiences, so, and who's the one actually pulling out the checkbook if you will. Um, but then you just help one person, see if you like it. Right. And then if they like it, and if you, if you love it, like I would even do it if you've never done it before, like how do you know that you do or do not like this?

Pat (45:04): How do you know that you're good or not good at this? You, you don't, you're just telling stories in your head until you actually find factual truth about it. And I think we just always try to stop ourselves from doing these things. So for me, in particular, knowing what I know now, I know there was a lot of businesses, for example, that have been struggling to make sales because of the pandemic, especially brick and mortar stores. I think that I would go into a brick and mortar store and just go, Hey, I can help you sell more of this online. Would you like that? Yes. Okay. Well here is what we can do. Maybe let's work together for a week and if you make any more sales, cool, you can keep me on board and you can pay me this. If not, then no worries.

Pat (45:42): I don't deserve your money. Like just walk into a store and just ask. And if they don't need the help or if they're not somebody who is open to that, well, I wouldn't want to work with them anyway. So learning how to get the know faster so I can get to the S sooner would be the way to go. I love it too Shay, by the way. I like that. Okay. Pokemon YouTube. What's going on here, man? Yeah. So the pandemic gave me a little bit of extra time to like play around. Plus I'm not able to go vacation and do things and my kids were into Pokemon. So I was like, you know, let me just like, explore this Pokemon thing for a little bit and play a game with them and see the cars. And I started doing some research and started going into YouTube and finding that there was this whole world it's not even underground because I don't know if you know this, but Pokemon is a biggest media franchise in the world.

Pat (46:25): It's bigger than Marvel. It's bigger than star Wars. It's huge. A hundred billion dollar company that's been around for 25 years. It's ridiculous. Anyway, there's a lot of YouTubers out there making it fun and exciting. And I got really hooked into their content. I mean, they're opening packs on YouTube. They're having fun. Like people are buying the packs online and it's just like, there's so much history and artwork and there's so much to unpack there. So of course, like anything I get into, I just go deep with it, like really deep. And so I actually get so involved with these communities where I'm a moderator now and these live streams, I'm showing up on a schedule. Like, it's just like, I love this community. And I get the idea of, well, you know, no, I'm like, first of all, when you get involved in something, you start to notice where there are opportunities.

Pat (47:08): Especially if you have any business experience, you start to notice like where there are holes. And I noticed that in the Pokemon community, like everybody was doing the same kind of content on YouTube. And I was like, nobody's using any really cinematic stuff here. I have equipment that can do that. Nobody's telling stories about these cars are just like ripping and shipping. That's all they're doing. What if I came in and just like built something different, totally different. That more stories, stories remember. And then also like made these cars look really, really good. Like so good as if like you were holding it yourself. If you were holding your phone, it's almost as if you're holding the card itself. And that's a unfair advantage that I have. I have camera equipment. I know how to do that. So before I started recording my first videos, I got really active in these communities and started reaching out to the creators and asking them what they needed help with.

Pat (47:51): Some of them were starting podcasts. Perfect. Let me help you with equipment. Let me like, let me just make sure everything's set up for you before you start and I'll give you some tips because I'm a podcaster. Wow. Pat, that was super helpful. Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you? Oh yeah. Actually I'm thinking of starting a Pokemon channel. Would you like to share it if like, if it comes out? Oh yeah. I'll mentioned on the podcast. I'll bring you on. And this has already happened. Another creator, he ships items and I go, Hey, you know, it'd be really cool. If you had stickers of your brand in your packaging, I think it'd be a helpful here. Let me do this for you. I'm going to, I'm going to pay for a sticker sample for you. I'm gonna grab your logo and I'm just gonna send it to you.

Pat (48:24): You can do whatever you want with it. And now this person's like super thankful that I've done something for them. They're like, okay, so what can I do for you? Oh, well, you know what? I'm going to start this YouTube channel. So relationships people before tactics and strategy, just relationships and people. That's all. So I built my channel. It's called deep pocket monster. It's kind of a pun on like deep pockets, sort of, you know, I got some money to spend and invest in this space, which is really interesting, but more like deep research going deep into the cards. Pocket monster is short for Pokemon or as long for Pokemon. And so far we've been up for nearly 90 days. So not even three months yet. We're just about to cross 20,000 subscribers. I've already earned more than $2,000 in ad revenue on the web, on the website or on the, on the YouTube channel.

Pat (49:04): I have a hundred paying members that are paying $2 and 99 cents a month specifically to get access to emojis on a live stream and other things like member only posts and stuff. And I just secured my first sponsorship deal for $4,000 on one of my next upcoming videos too. My videos have over 150,000 views and I'm getting invited onto other podcasts. I'm meeting people that are super high up in the space that I would have never, never known that I would have guessed to, um, to, to kind of reach out to and talk to. And a lot of people who are very knowledgeable about YouTube were telling me that this could be more profitable than anything I've ever done before if I do it right. Which is like pretty cool. So it's pretty exciting. And it's on the side, right? Like I'm only spending 20% of my time doing it because my other business is still most important to me, but who knows what's going to happen in the future, but I've opened up another opportunity because I put myself out there.

Pat (49:55): Number one, I did research to find out what would be better. Different is better than more, by the way. And number two, creating something that people want to talk about something refreshing. And it still has a lot of PatFlynn notes on it. It's very family centric and family friendly. It's very educational. It's very speak the same language. And it's very much coming from a place of service and giving. So that's kind of what's happening. And YouTube, I've just been absolutely loving I've I've on my main channel then going live daily, just really falling in love with the medium of video is still podcaster at heart though. But, um, especially with a visual space, like Pokemon cards that you want to see, um, I've definitely taken advantage of YouTube and the algorithm and all of that. It has to

Nick (50:32): Offer that that's so fun. Okay. Pokemon is something that I grew up with and the cards and all that. And I actually, I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk started talking about it a little bit and then actually a little bit, some people that I work with, they started getting into it. And then I was like, I was calling up my mom and I was like, Hey, do you know what I did with all those Pokemon cards that I have? Like, they're buried somewhere in the basement. They're worth a lot now. It's like, don't throw them out. Yeah. That's so funny. Well, Pat, I know I've had you for a while, so I could probably keep going and asking you questions all night, but I think we should probably get this thing wrapped up. Where do you want people to go to get in contact with you? I know you're on social media, YouTube podcasts obviously, but where would you want people to go to get in contact with you or find out what you're working on?

Pat (51:20): Uh, smart, passive income.com is the easiest place to go to, to get access to all the things, all the training courses, you know, information free that we offer for building businesses. Um, you can find me at PatFlynn on most places, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, uh, clubhouse, et cetera. And then my Pokemon channel deep pocket monster in case you just want to dive into that and see what the heck's going on there. Cause it's been a lot of fun. So, um, yeah. Thank you for again, Nick having me on and, and, and brilliant interview and I'm just so grateful for it and I hope everybody had a good time.

Nick (51:50): Totally, man, I cannot thank you enough for coming and chatting and sharing with the audience. So thank you. Well, guys, I honestly could have continued to ask Pat questions all night long, but I hope you were able to draw some value from this episode was so cool to be able to have this chat with him and be able to share with everyone here listening. So thank you so much for being a part of it and thank you so much for being awesome. Now, at the beginning of this episode, I mentioned that I'd be giving away sign copies of Pat's books. Let go, will it fly in super fans? And if you want to win one of these signed copies, I have three things I need you to do. First one, go follow me over on Instagram. My handle is at nine five free and I N E F I V E F R E.

Nick (52:29): Number two, I want you to leave an honest review of the nine five podcasts either on iTunes or wherever you listen to the podcast. And number three, I want you to take a screenshot of your review and post it to your Instagram stories. And don't forget to tag me so that I know that you did it and just remember nine at nine, five free. And finally, after you follow me on Instagram, make sure you pay attention to my Instagram feed the next couple of days, because I'll be sharing additional ways for you to earn some extra points that can increase your chances of winning one of these signed copies. I'll be announcing the winner sometime next week. So you may even want to turn on those notifications so you don't miss out on that. So that's it for me today. If you want the links, transcripts or show notes for this episode, make sure you head over to my website.

Nick (53:10): I'll be putting the instructions that I just went over so you can win a signed copy of one of Pat's books in the show notes as well. And the show notes for this episode can be found@ninefivepodcasts.com forward slash episode 36. Just remember nine five is all spelled out. That's N I N E F I V E podcast.com forward slash episode three six. Thank you so much for sticking around until the end. Your continued support of the podcast really keeps me excited to keep putting out more content like this. So stay safe and have a great rest of your week. I will catch you guys in next week's episode.

Nick (53:54): [inaudible].