AI transcript
0:00:06 Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle show, greatest hits collection.
0:00:09 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:15 Welcome to the Side Hustle show because building your own income streams, well, that’s the best way to recession-proof your life.
0:00:19 One challenge that most new businesses face is the awareness problem.
0:00:20 Nobody knows you exist.
0:00:25 In this episode, you’ll learn the fast-track strategy to make that problem go away.
0:00:29 How to build your email list quickly and connect with your ideal customers.
0:00:31 Ready? Let’s do it.
0:00:40 I haven’t had and still currently don’t have a big marketing budget for going and getting new clients.
0:00:45 I don’t have thousands of dollars a month to run on ads and hope that it works.
0:00:52 I also didn’t start out knowing a bunch of VP of marketing at big companies or knowing a bunch of founders or anything like that.
0:01:00 You want to find yourself in this situation where you have an expertise and you can actually help a lot of brands but they don’t know you exist.
0:01:10 When going through that process of how do I grow, how do I find places to market that will actually get me real clients that isn’t going to be a waste of time.
0:01:19 This strategy of just getting in front of someone else’s established audience that already has an audience full of people who are potential clients for you.
0:01:23 They have trust built with that other brand you’re partnering with.
0:01:30 You can borrow that trust and get it placed on you when they bring you in to teach a workshop to all their people.
0:01:35 It really helps establish trust with you a lot faster between you and their customers.
0:01:43 That’s Dustin Lean from jumpxmarketing.com, an agency focused on email and SMS or text message marketing for e-commerce brands.
0:01:51 We last heard from Dustin back in 2017 and he was just ramping up jumpx after shutting down his own physical product business.
0:01:58 Since then, he’s grown it into a six-figure operation and he’s built it in such a way that it only requires part-time attention.
0:02:01 One of his key drivers, partner workshops.
0:02:10 These virtual lunch and learn sessions where he can showcase his expertise and build his client roster without advertising, without bidding for work.
0:02:15 This works in just about any niche and in this episode, Dustin breaks down his exact process.
0:02:20 So you can go out and apply it in your own business to help you keep track of the steps involved.
0:02:25 I put together a free cheat sheet at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2.
0:02:34 Once again, that’s at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2dustin and then the number two to grab that free partner workshop cheat sheet.
0:02:36 Now, back to the interview.
0:02:44 I want to replicate this thing, maybe for whatever freelance service or whatever agency service that I may have.
0:02:49 How did you go about identifying your dream targets?
0:02:53 Was it a dream 100 list? How did you go about saying, “Who should I first reach out to?”
0:02:55 That’s funny you mentioned dream 100 list.
0:02:57 Yeah, that actually is exactly what I did.
0:03:00 But I didn’t quite make it to 100. It’s a lot to find.
0:03:03 I guess backing up, there’s an avatar that has to be established first.
0:03:05 You have to know who you’re actually trying to target.
0:03:10 That’s another reason why I think freelancers or agencies that are niched down,
0:03:15 not necessarily to something so specific that literally no product exists like that.
0:03:27 If you’re trying to go so niche that you’re like, “I’m only going to help e-commerce brands that are selling garbage cans to women that are 54 years old living in Wyoming,”
0:03:29 you’re not going to find any clients. It’s impossible.
0:03:34 But niching down enough to where you can establish yourself as an expert is really useful.
0:03:39 It helps you decide who these other brands and websites that you should partner with
0:03:42 that actually is going to bring you the types of people you want.
0:03:47 And it establishes kind of this trust that you’re not trying to pretend to know everything.
0:03:50 I found myself in that position in the beginning and I kind of just niched down.
0:03:55 And that’s why now it’s e-commerce, e-mail marketing, and SMS marketing.
0:03:59 And it’s specifically for health and wellness brands. That’s all we work with.
0:04:05 And it’s really help close clients easier because when you have those conversations or you’re teaching on a workshop or something,
0:04:09 you know that those people know who you help and who you don’t help.
0:04:15 So the ones that see themselves in the category that’s the exact right fit, they get really excited because they think,
0:04:18 “Oh, that’s me. That’s exactly me.”
0:04:24 And it helps them to trust you over a competitor who’s maybe claiming they can help everyone with everything.
0:04:29 And that makes it, I imagine, an easier pitch. I would love to come and do an educational workshop
0:04:34 on the seven critical elements of a killer e-mail campaign or something like that.
0:04:37 How to grow your e-commerce e-mail list versus like,
0:04:40 “Let’s just have a workshop about broad digital marketing strategies.”
0:04:47 It seems like it’s much more actionable for the audience and for the potential audience conduit
0:04:50 or who might be your influencer that you’re reaching out to.
0:04:55 Dream 100, by the way, this comes from a book called “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Homes.
0:04:58 It’s got a bright red cover. You can’t miss it.
0:05:02 Highly recommended reading. And the Dream 100 is like your dream client list.
0:05:06 Like, who would you love to partner with, work with, connect with in some way?
0:05:10 And then you can kind of start chipping away at that and really focus all your energy on those people
0:05:14 rather than every other client, every other potential connection under the sun
0:05:17 because these are the ones that are really going to make or break your business.
0:05:22 But let’s talk about those. Like, how did you identify those and then we’ll get into kind of the initial outreach?
0:05:26 The first thing is getting really clear on who your customer is.
0:05:30 Really the biggest main question is where are they already hanging out?
0:05:36 Where are they online already? What other brand or website or company has…
0:05:41 Maybe they have a really big budget and they’ve already spent the money to acquire the customers
0:05:44 that you also want to acquire. So maybe it’s a software company.
0:05:47 When you’re filling out that Dream 100 list of who to partner with,
0:05:51 think about who has your exact same target audience but is not a competitor.
0:05:55 And that brings us back to talking about why niching down is important
0:06:01 because in my case, I’m doing email marketing and SMS marketing for e-commerce brands.
0:06:07 Now, I can go to another agency even or someone who’s a blogger with a big audience
0:06:11 but they teach about SEO, specifically SEO, for e-commerce.
0:06:15 And now we’re not competitors so they don’t have to worry about me trying to siphon their audience
0:06:18 for my business and I don’t have to worry about the same thing from them
0:06:22 so we can actually form a good partnership, do a good workshop and cheer each other on
0:06:26 instead of feeling like we have to compete because our target audience is the same.
0:06:29 They’re also providing SMS and email marketing services.
0:06:33 Like, why do we want to put this guy in front of our email list in front of our audience?
0:06:36 But that makes total sense. I remember Joshua Lysik.
0:06:40 We did an episode on the OPA plan, other people’s audiences where he was doing these
0:06:44 in-person virtual lunch and learns for his copywriting business
0:06:47 or web design, web development business back in the day.
0:06:50 And it was like, I target kind of local small business owners
0:06:54 so he would reach out to accounting offices, legal offices in his town
0:06:56 and bring people in that way.
0:07:01 It’s like, these companies don’t offer what I do but their customers need this
0:07:03 or their customers might want to learn this.
0:07:07 And so he follows kind of same strategy as on an in-person basis.
0:07:09 But let’s say, okay, now you have your list.
0:07:13 I like this, software companies, bloggers, online influencers, even YouTubers,
0:07:18 people who may have a list with some of your target customers on it,
0:07:20 even other agencies if they’re not direct competitors.
0:07:22 What’s the initial outreach?
0:07:26 Like, hey, I’m just curious to see what that email or direct message might look like.
0:07:29 Definitely varies. It comes down to a few key things.
0:07:33 One thing that I believe is that there’s no such thing as a good cold email.
0:07:35 You can read all kinds of blog posts or watch YouTube videos
0:07:37 on how to write the perfect cold email.
0:07:39 But I just don’t believe that even exists.
0:07:42 Anything that feels cold is cold and doesn’t get open.
0:07:45 The cold emails that do well are actually warm emails.
0:07:48 So if it’s someone you don’t know, which in most cases it’s going to be,
0:07:51 you have to find a way to make it feel warmer.
0:07:57 So a good example of this is when you’re making your list of people to reach out to
0:07:59 teach these workshops in front of their audience.
0:08:03 Think about what services you’ve already used or what blogs you already read
0:08:06 to stay on top of some of this stuff for yourself.
0:08:09 And then that way, when you’re reaching out, you can say,
0:08:12 “Hey, I listen to your podcast every week.
0:08:14 I love it this last episode with so-and-so.”
0:08:17 Really made me look at my business differently in this way and that way.
0:08:19 And it really helped. And I just wanted to say thank you.
0:08:24 So that’s a really easy way to give a compliment that’s genuine and authentic.
0:08:27 But that just makes it feel warmer. It makes it feel like there’s some kind of connection.
0:08:30 You know who they are even if they don’t know who you are yet.
0:08:34 And that helps that opening line get read and the email continue to be read
0:08:37 instead of it going straight into the trash.
0:08:40 Right. I’m trying to think of cold emails that I get.
0:08:43 And they do a good job of making it feel warmer.
0:08:45 “Hey, Nick. Long time listener here.”
0:08:46 Something like that.
0:08:49 Yeah, that gets my attention versus some random…
0:08:50 And now, of course, I’m going to get…
0:08:53 That’s going to be the first line of every email that I get.
0:08:55 Yeah, sorry.
0:08:58 The other element here that might be worth looking into…
0:09:00 And this is something that I try and do.
0:09:04 If there’s a guest that I want to get on is looking for mutual connections.
0:09:07 I said, “Hey, would you mind passing along an intro?”
0:09:09 So through Facebook, through LinkedIn,
0:09:14 you’re probably only one or two degrees of separation away from anybody.
0:09:18 So I imagine that may be another way to make that introduction a little bit warmer.
0:09:21 But what else do you have on this outreach and pitch part?
0:09:23 That’s probably even better in most cases,
0:09:27 is if you know somebody who can give an intro, kind of vouch for you.
0:09:29 The other thing to think about is…
0:09:32 I learned this from Noah Kagan and it just stuck with me.
0:09:36 He said, “Always remember whiffed. What’s in it for them?”
0:09:38 So I always think about that when I’m writing an email,
0:09:41 is look at how many times you wrote “I” in your email.
0:09:43 Like, how many sentences start with the word “I”?
0:09:47 Like, “I listen to your podcast. I want to partner with you.
0:09:50 I think that I will do a great job.”
0:09:54 Your email is so focused on you that it’s not even providing any value
0:09:56 to the person you’re trying to partner with.
0:09:59 Because at the end of the day, if it’s not a win for you,
0:10:02 a win for the partner and a win for their audience,
0:10:05 then it’s a lose. It has to be a win-win-win.
0:10:08 So focusing on what’s in it for them.
0:10:10 And it doesn’t mean you can’t talk about yourself a little bit
0:10:12 because you need to to establish some credibility
0:10:15 and you need to say, “I’m reaching out because…”
0:10:19 You know, there’s this specific topic that I know a lot about
0:10:22 and, you know, I get really good results for our clients
0:10:24 and I think that your audience would get a ton out of this.
0:10:27 So, like, that’s the value then is I think your audience
0:10:30 would get a lot of value out of this because…
0:10:33 And so always keep getting it there as fast as possible
0:10:35 so that they start to think, you know,
0:10:37 “Is this actually good for my audience?”
0:10:40 And so if you can establish that it’s good for them and their audience,
0:10:43 they’re a lot more likely to say yes,
0:10:46 which is kind of the third and final part of cold emails,
0:10:50 or I should say warm emails, is making it as easy as possible to say yes.
0:10:52 If you have a specific pitch for them,
0:10:55 break down exactly how it’s going to go.
0:10:57 And in this case, workshops, you know, breaking down,
0:10:59 you know, “I want to teach this workshop.
0:11:01 Here are the topics that I want to cover.
0:11:04 The way we can use my software, I already pay for it.
0:11:05 You don’t have to pay for it.
0:11:07 I will build the landing page.
0:11:10 I will create email copy that I’ll send to you
0:11:12 to send out to your audience so you don’t have to write it.
0:11:14 You know, I’ll create a graphic and send it to you
0:11:16 so you can post it on social media.
0:11:18 Put things in there to assure them
0:11:21 that this isn’t going to be a laborious project for them
0:11:23 and that you’re going to handle all of the hard work.
0:11:26 All they have to do is help you promote to their audience
0:11:29 and get the pats on the back.
0:11:31 Still to come in this episode,
0:11:34 what Dustin calls the magic sauce for his business,
0:11:36 how he structures his workshops,
0:11:41 and the soft sell way he converts attendees into paying clients.
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0:12:52 Okay, do you ever get anybody coming back to you and say,
0:12:56 “Yeah, that sounds good, but I want a 50% referral commission
0:12:58 on anything you sell off the back end?”
0:13:01 And you’re like, “Well, it’s an agency, so the margins.”
0:13:04 It’s a little more tricky than a digital product.
0:13:07 Do you get that kind of like, “Oh, I want a piece of the action?”
0:13:08 Man, you know, it’s funny.
0:13:11 I don’t think I’ve ever gotten someone reply with that,
0:13:13 but that is something that I offer sometimes,
0:13:16 depending on who I’m actually doing one next week,
0:13:19 next Thursday, where we have an agreement
0:13:21 of how much, you know, how we’ll split the commission.
0:13:24 So like you said, it’s a fine line with margins on an agency.
0:13:26 You can’t give away everything,
0:13:28 or it’s not worth it, of course.
0:13:30 But one thing that I do is I, like,
0:13:32 I also have some digital products and stuff.
0:13:35 So sometimes that’ll be a part of what the workshop is.
0:13:37 In that case, if it’s a digital product,
0:13:39 I mean, it’s pretty much 100% margin, right?
0:13:42 So I can give them 50%, and that’s no problem at all to me.
0:13:46 I’d much rather pay 50% of a $100 product
0:13:48 for everything that’s sold
0:13:51 to people that I never would have gotten in front of, to begin with,
0:13:54 or I would have had to spend $99 to get in front of them
0:13:56 to sell them a $100 product.
0:13:59 It’s still a better deal than straight advertising.
0:14:03 So on the agency side, what we do is a $500 referral.
0:14:07 So if we get a client and they stick with us for at least three months,
0:14:10 which everyone is contractually obligated to stick with us for at least three months,
0:14:13 so that’s easy enough, then we pay out $500.
0:14:17 That’s a nice way to push someone over the edge who isn’t quite sure,
0:14:20 or maybe they have a really big audience and they have a tight calendar.
0:14:23 That’s a nice way to kind of squeeze yourself into their calendar.
0:14:24 Okay, that makes sense.
0:14:27 So most people are not necessarily looking for that
0:14:29 or asking for that upfront,
0:14:33 but it can be a way to sweeten the deal.
0:14:36 Especially, like you said, if they’re giving you a warm introduction to their audience
0:14:39 and you’re making money off of that, then you make it a win for them.
0:14:43 And we’ve talked about different strategic complementary partnerships.
0:14:46 I think this is an interesting way to do that too.
0:14:52 Anything else on the outreach in pitchfront that you have seen deliver success?
0:14:55 One example is this isn’t necessarily a strategy to seek out
0:14:58 because you can’t really, it’s kind of more of an inbound type of thing,
0:15:02 but I recently had a software company set up a call with me
0:15:08 to pitch me on using their software for my clients in the call.
0:15:11 I guess just looking for opportunities to pitch also.
0:15:15 So on the call, I said we actually already do have some clients that use your software.
0:15:18 And the other ones, I will definitely put it in front of them
0:15:20 and tell them the pros and cons of using it.
0:15:23 What do you think about also doing a workshop in front of your audience?
0:15:28 That was the fastest 2000 email subscribers I’ve ever gotten in my life.
0:15:33 It was just from this software company that was pitching me,
0:15:37 just being able to say, honestly, we already use you, so this is great.
0:15:39 Let’s do something together.
0:15:41 And it was able to give a lot of value back to them
0:15:44 and teach their software to their customers.
0:15:49 So looking for opportunities to pitch where it’s kind of a no brainer, yes.
0:15:50 It really comes in handy.
0:15:53 So keeping it top of mind and not always thinking just about,
0:15:55 it’s not all about going straight for the sale.
0:15:57 Sometimes it’s trying to do these workshops
0:16:00 and keeping it top of mind how you can partner with different companies.
0:16:03 Yeah, I like this a lot, especially the software angle.
0:16:08 We’ve talked about the software with a service business model, business angle before.
0:16:13 We’ve seen people do this with Asana and QuickBooks and Salesforce
0:16:15 and your SEM rush and all these different ones.
0:16:19 Where it’s like, if I’m an Atrus customer, for example, for SEO and keyword research,
0:16:22 Atrus doesn’t have, at least to my knowledge,
0:16:25 an in-house team where they’re like, we’ll just do it for you.
0:16:28 So it’s like, that might be, if you’re an SEO service provider,
0:16:32 if you’re an agency to reach out to them as just as an example to say,
0:16:36 hey, I want to teach people how to use your software better.
0:16:39 Or so, you know, here’s seven things you didn’t know you could do
0:16:41 in this tool to skyrocket your thing.
0:16:43 Because a certain percentage of that audience is going to be like,
0:16:45 that sounds super cool.
0:16:47 I just don’t have the time to do it myself.
0:16:48 How could you do it for me?
0:16:51 And that’s like your ideal customers are like this software company angle,
0:16:56 like piggybacking on the popularity of an existing software and existing audience.
0:17:00 In your email, you say, I’m going to make it as easy for them as possible to say,
0:17:05 yes, we’ll use my hosting software, you use my landing page, anything like that.
0:17:08 What does a tech stack look like today?
0:17:12 What makes the most sense for you for email collection, for webinar hosting, all that stuff?
0:17:14 For my website, I use Webflow.
0:17:15 I used to use WordPress.
0:17:16 I still really like WordPress.
0:17:18 I think I have a couple of sites on WordPress.
0:17:23 But Webflow has been really cool as far as being able to drag and drop design a little bit easier
0:17:25 and make it look a little cleaner.
0:17:27 So I’ve been enjoying using that.
0:17:32 So I’ll pair that with ConvertKit is what I use for email capture, things like that.
0:17:37 And obviously for the email marketing side of things, which ties into the workshops
0:17:43 because in the workshops, there’s always a call to action for them to go opt into something.
0:17:48 And then there’s drip campaigns that come after that to help me close sales that way.
0:17:54 For the actual webinar, I use Webinar Ninja, which I’ve been really happy with so far.
0:18:00 Competitive on their pricing and the streamability is really strong for the most part.
0:18:04 And also when I build landing pages, I just use Webinar Ninja’s landing page
0:18:08 for signing up for the workshops when it works really well.
0:18:12 So they have good kind of automated emails after people register.
0:18:17 It sends them a sequence of emails like you’re registered, here’s your information, all that kind of stuff.
0:18:21 And I like that you can go in and edit those and you can add more or subtract.
0:18:26 So they have a lot of Webinar Ninja does a good job of getting you 90% of the way there.
0:18:31 And then you can kind of just add in the extra little parts that you want to make it personal for you and your business.
0:18:37 Okay. So the process flow would be this outreach and pitch like, hey, I’d like to host this workshop.
0:18:42 Here’s the email copy to send people out to all build the landing page.
0:18:47 People register for it on that landing page after your partner sends out that email.
0:18:50 And it’s like, here’s the date and time enter your email to register.
0:18:57 At least for my business, that’s the magic sauce is if you can be the one who hosts the workshop yourself
0:19:00 using your software and having it go to your email list.
0:19:08 That’s not always the case, especially with bigger brands or bigger software companies who don’t want you to have their customer data,
0:19:15 which I can understand a lot of software companies like really big ones, they already do workshops like they’ll do monthly workshops.
0:19:17 So they kind of already have a system for it.
0:19:21 So you’re really just pitching yourself to be one of those guest workshop people.
0:19:28 They already have it all figured out and that’s great too, because you can go on there and still get in front of thousands of people in an hour.
0:19:37 But I really like when I can control the setup process and collect those emails because then even the people who,
0:19:43 let’s say you get in front of 300 people that signed up for the webinar and maybe you get one sale out of it.
0:19:44 That’s still awesome.
0:19:50 But what’s more awesome is now you have 299 other email addresses that you can put into a drip campaign.
0:19:57 I’m explaining more about your business or teaching them so that they become more comfortable with you for when they are ready to work with you.
0:20:00 They work with somebody, they pick you, you can put them in your newsletter.
0:20:04 So it’s just establishing that relationship even stronger.
0:20:07 So if you can set it up yourself, it’s great.
0:20:13 And a lot of companies appreciate it because they might not have the internal teams to even know how to do that.
0:20:15 Maybe they’ve never done a webinar in their life.
0:20:17 So it seems daunting.
0:20:22 So to come in and say, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle all the tech,” is really a big win for a lot of brands.
0:20:30 Yeah, totally. That would be me. I don’t know if I’ve been on the hosting side of a webinar co-hosted lots, but never been the one to fully run and set up the whole thing.
0:20:36 Going back, especially the company that already has, “Oh, we do a monthly webinar for our customers already.”
0:20:37 That’s a fantastic target.
0:20:41 And Tailwind comes to mind as a Pinterest scheduling software.
0:20:44 You have some killer Pinterest strategy that might be worthy of sharing.
0:20:50 Or you’re like, “Here’s how to design eye-catching video pins in Canva,” or something like that might be compelling for them.
0:20:53 Active Campaign comes to mind as well.
0:20:57 Here’s the crazy, simple sales funnel that works for me in Active Campaign.
0:21:06 I don’t know. Maybe they’re already doing this, and it’s easier to insert yourself into their existing process rather than have them create a new process for you or do this totally one-off thing.
0:21:16 So that was Webflow, Drag and Drop, Website Builder, ConvertKit for the email capture, WebinarNinja for the hosting and scheduling of the workshop itself.
0:21:19 Any other must-have tools for you to make this happen?
0:21:20 A couple more I was thinking about.
0:21:23 One is just something like Keynote or Google Slides or PowerPoint, whatever.
0:21:25 It’s not something to make some slides.
0:21:28 I just find it easier to teach that way on the workshops.
0:21:37 But then for the outreach part, sometimes you can identify easily what company you want to partner with or pitch for doing a workshop, but you can’t find the right person.
0:21:38 And so that comes up a lot.
0:21:47 It’s like, “I know I want to partner with Clavio. It’s a big company. I can’t just email their CEO or founder. It’s not going to work.”
0:21:50 So a tool that I like to use is called Hunter.io.
0:21:53 You can create a free account and it does plenty, in my opinion.
0:21:56 I don’t even know what their paid one does, but anyway, I use the free one.
0:22:08 And you can just type in any URL and they will scrape the internet and see what email addresses are set up for that and give you a list of their titles if they can find it.
0:22:12 It’ll say, “Director of Marketing is this person and here’s their email address.”
0:22:19 If they can’t find that detailed information, they will help you figure out how to guess the person’s…
0:22:23 Maybe they can find the people’s names, but they’re not 100% sure on what the email is.
0:22:29 They’ll say, “Well, this is their name and we think it’s firstname.lastname at whatever…”
0:22:32 Yeah, at the company, as the common email structure at this company.
0:22:33 Okay.
0:22:34 Right. So it helps you guess.
0:22:41 And then you can just go on LinkedIn and find who the active director of marketing or whoever is, director of content, something like that.
0:22:46 And then now you have their name, you have the email structure, so you can just guess their email accurately.
0:22:53 I mean, that’s been really, really useful because trying to go through info at or something like that or a contact form, you’re never going to get there.
0:22:54 Yeah, you’re not going to get anywhere.
0:22:55 That’s actually really helpful.
0:23:00 I remember this was like long ago in the SideHustle show archives.
0:23:03 It was like, I was trying to figure out how to get sponsors for the show.
0:23:08 And so my genius idea was to have a virtual assistant go through other business shows.
0:23:12 They made this big list of companies that were already advertising.
0:23:16 And I picked the five or six that I liked and thought would be a good fit.
0:23:21 And from there, the process kind of stalled out because I couldn’t find the right decision makers at these companies.
0:23:29 And occasionally you’d get a reply back of like, “Well, you know, we buy through this agency or it was much more difficult than I thought I was a genius.”
0:23:32 Like, “Oh, this is going to be a fantastic way to sell some ad spots.”
0:23:38 But it’s a really important point is it’s one thing to come up with your target list, your dream 100 list, so to speak.
0:23:45 But another thing to find the person who has the authority to say yes, like how to find the right decision maker at that place.
0:23:48 So hunter.io, cool resource to check out there.
0:23:50 Anything else on the tech and tools front?
0:23:51 Nope, that’s it.
0:23:52 That’s what I use.
0:24:06 I’m curious about the webinar structure or if there’s any resources to learn what makes a good presentation in terms of what’s five minutes of intro and 45 minutes of educational content and 10 minutes of call to action.
0:24:08 Like, what kind of structure have you found to work best?
0:24:15 What’s worked best for me has been, well, first of all, focusing on making it a workshop and not a webinar.
0:24:26 And I mean, essentially, it’s the same thing, but the mentality of a webinar is usually like, “I’m going to use this workaround way to try to pitch people to work with me or buy my thing.”
0:24:28 It can work, sure, but…
0:24:30 Do you think marketers have just ruined the term?
0:24:31 Like, marketers have ruined…
0:24:32 Yeah, absolutely.
0:24:33 Marketers ruin everything.
0:24:35 And I know because I am one.
0:24:41 It’s like anything that’s good and pure gets distorted as fast as possible.
0:24:43 Now it’s not even a workshop.
0:24:45 Now it’s like masterclass is like the next one.
0:24:46 Yeah.
0:24:47 No, that’s funny.
0:24:49 I don’t even call my courses courses anymore.
0:24:52 I started calling them either masterclasses or I’ll call them like a mini course.
0:24:57 Like I’m trying to like find new terms so people don’t have these like weird associations from the past.
0:24:58 Yeah.
0:25:07 So I think of them as workshops and I pitched them as workshops and all of the verbiage leading up to it is saying your free online workshop is starting like things like that.
0:25:15 And that bleeds into the content of it as well because the goal is to make sure they can learn something that they can apply immediately after they’re done.
0:25:20 Where a lot of content dies is when it’s too much all at once.
0:25:27 And someone has to try to absorb what you’re telling them and you’re telling them 10 different things and they have to try to apply it to their business in their head.
0:25:31 And then they have to try to figure out how to do all 10 things and then they get the results.
0:25:40 But in this case, I like to just teach them something they can actually go use because I find the best clients come from people who are willing to take action on advice.
0:25:43 So it’s almost like a good filter for finding the right clients.
0:25:47 So structure wise, I try not to go over an hour.
0:25:52 Typically what I’ll do is about it ends up being like maybe six or seven minutes of an intro.
0:25:55 I’ll start with here’s what we’re going to cover.
0:26:01 I’ll tell them this is a workshop, not something to passively watch and I’ll tell them I want them to take notes.
0:26:08 I’ll tell them that I’ll send them the replay afterward, but I want them to take notes and I want them to write down questions because we’re going to do Q&A at the end.
0:26:12 So I make it very much feel like this is a workshop where you’re doing something right now.
0:26:15 You’re not just half listening while you’re making dinner or something.
0:26:17 I want them to be engaged.
0:26:26 And so about five or six minutes of intro and then we’ll go into teaching and I’ll typically try to start with here’s the common problem.
0:26:28 Here’s why it’s a problem.
0:26:33 If you continue to try to do it the way you’re doing it, here’s what you’ll be missing out on.
0:26:37 Here’s how most people try to solve this problem, but here’s why that doesn’t work.
0:26:40 Then here’s the actual solution of what you should do.
0:26:43 And so that’s kind of the order that I try to keep it as far as how to teach.
0:26:49 And then I try to show as many screenshots as possible if it’s something technical, because again, you know, I’m going to give them this recording.
0:26:51 So I can remind them, here’s a visual.
0:26:52 You’re going to have this.
0:26:54 So don’t worry if you’re not absorbing it right now.
0:26:57 Focus on writing what makes sense to you.
0:26:59 I ask a lot of questions too.
0:27:04 I try to ask a question at least every three slides and I ask them to kind of respond in the chat.
0:27:11 One, it helps me when I’m teaching because you kind of feel like you’re in a silo because nobody else can, you’re not seeing any other faces.
0:27:13 You’re not hearing anybody else.
0:27:16 If no one’s engaging at all, you just feel like you’re talking to a wall.
0:27:20 When really people are probably really engaged and interested, but you just don’t know that.
0:27:32 So I try to ask questions every three slides or so, and it keeps them engaged and it can help me kind of redirect if I’m getting too technical on accident or something I said didn’t make sense.
0:27:46 I can kind of ear note those questions for the Q&A section and then toward the end, every workshop I do, I give a link to some kind of bonus resource that’s directly related to how they can go do this thing right after we get off.
0:27:49 I taught one recently on abandon cart sequences.
0:27:54 So it was how to set up your abandon cart sequence in 30 minutes or less.
0:27:57 And so it’s a really specific thing we’re trying to solve.
0:28:00 It’s not a super big trying to teach them everything at once.
0:28:02 It’s one specific thing.
0:28:10 And so the bonus resource was email scripts that they could just copy and paste into their email provider so that the work was done for them already.
0:28:14 And they could just put it in there, push, go and watch the results come in.
0:28:20 That’s kind of the approach I take there is I don’t typically pitch services on these workshops.
0:28:26 My goal is to teach them something useful they can use immediately and then capture their email.
0:28:37 Those are my two goals because if I capture their email, then they go into a drip sequence for me to pitch them services later after they’ve kind of already got their feet wet and seeing that it works.
0:28:39 If they try what I say, it’ll work.
0:28:42 In the case where you didn’t collect it up front through the invite.
0:28:43 Right.
0:28:46 So yeah, if it’s already collected, then I still do the bonus thing just because it’s helpful.
0:28:51 Yeah, really the process doesn’t change whether I collected their emails, you know, whether I hosted it or I didn’t.
0:28:56 The process stays the same, but the results are just usually bigger if I can collect the email list on top of it.
0:28:57 This is cool.
0:29:06 And this is kind of in contrast to a Russell Brunson expert secrets style webinar with, you know, here are the limiting beliefs that we have to overcome.
0:29:09 It’s like, no, here’s the problem, the technical problem you’re facing in your business.
0:29:11 Here’s why what you’re doing is not working.
0:29:13 Here’s the trend line of you keep doing what you’re doing.
0:29:16 But the good news is, oh, by the way, you can do it yourself.
0:29:19 Here’s how our clients are getting it done or here’s how we’re doing it for clients.
0:29:26 I imagine kind of working in those type of soft cells, like just letting people know that it is something that you do versus by my thing.
0:29:30 We don’t buy my $10,000 thing at the end of the lesson here.
0:29:36 I still do workshops or webinars where I’ll pitch a $99 product or something or even a couple hundred bucks.
0:29:43 But I find it, I don’t think I’ve ever closed anything over 1500 bucks using the webinar in my life.
0:29:54 So trying to pitch agency services that are in the three to five thousand a month range over a webinar is a pretty tough pitch in 45 minutes to an hour.
0:30:01 But if I can be really helpful, yeah, you know, in the beginning when I’m talking about who I am so that they, my favorite line is just to tell them like,
0:30:05 you shouldn’t believe everything you hear on the internet because anyone can lie over the internet.
0:30:07 So don’t take my word for it.
0:30:09 Just like, these are the clients we’ve worked with.
0:30:11 Here are the results we’ve gotten for them.
0:30:14 Now, you know, you can probably trust me and now let’s move on.
0:30:23 And it kind of helps establish early that I’m not trying to calm them and that I recognize there’s a little bit of trust imbalance that we’re going to have to work through.
0:30:29 But that I have actual expertise and I’ve worked with real clients and that lets them know that they can work with me as well if they choose to do so.
0:30:36 But it’s in a way, like you said, where it’s a little bit more of a soft approach to where I can focus on teaching them.
0:30:44 Because at the end of the day, trying to do services for people, a good service solves one of three problems or ideally multiple of these three problems,
0:30:52 which is you’re either saving them time, you’re saving them money or making them money, or you’re improving the quality of their life in some way.
0:30:58 In this case, you’re not going to ruin your chances of closing a client if you teach them how to do one thing on their own.
0:31:01 And if they can do the one thing on their own, then they don’t need to hire you anyway.
0:31:02 It’s not a good fit.
0:31:10 So getting that out of my head early was important of not worrying if I was going to disqualify myself by teaching someone to do something themselves.
0:31:20 Because chances are they’re either going to be overwhelmed by it anyway and want help, or they are very capable and can do it themselves in which case, wonderful, great, help somebody today.
0:31:26 Or they’re going to, maybe they do understand how to do it, they just don’t have the time to do it, so they’ll hire.
0:31:31 There’s really no reason to not just full-on teach everything you can, teach everything you know.
0:31:38 It’s only going to build the confidence of people around you that you are the right person to hire for current or future projects.
0:31:40 Yeah, this is a list-building play.
0:31:44 This is a credibility and authority-building play, trust-building play.
0:31:49 I think there’s a lot to this that has really worked out well in your favor.
0:31:55 More with Dustin in just a moment, including overcoming the imposter syndrome of actually hosting your first workshop.
0:32:04 What happened when his worst-case scenario moment came true and how he successfully transitions educational viewers into paying customers right after this?
0:32:08 Tell me about getting psyched up before doing the first one.
0:32:12 I’m just like, “Oh, what am I going to talk about? Who am I to teach this stuff?”
0:32:17 I imagine some people are like, “This all sounds cool, but they’re still facing some of that imposter syndrome.”
0:32:21 I always get a little bit nervous. I feel like if you’re not a little nervous, you probably don’t care.
0:32:26 Nerves are an okay signal, but for me, what helps is just being prepared.
0:32:29 The more prepared you are with your slides and your material,
0:32:33 and ultimately, as long as you know what you’re talking about, which presumably you do,
0:32:36 if you have services for somebody that you’re going to do for them,
0:32:40 then you don’t have too much to worry about because this is kind of your zone.
0:32:44 If people are showing up to your workshop and they know what the topic is ahead of time,
0:32:48 so if they’re showing up for it, it’s because your name was already on the landing page.
0:32:54 They know that you are going to teach them this thing, and you can assume they don’t know how to do that thing yet.
0:33:00 That helps me at least to remember that I don’t have to be an expert at everything for everyone,
0:33:05 but to these people who signed up, I’m an expert to them on this one thing.
0:33:11 I can let go of the ego of assuming I have to be an expert at everything to teach anything.
0:33:14 I was going to say, even if they do end up taking action,
0:33:19 like you said, maybe I’d be afraid of, well, if I show people how to do it themselves,
0:33:23 nobody’s going to hire me, but like you said, going back to your abandoned cart example,
0:33:29 if you can deliver some wins on this one very specific email process, email sequence,
0:33:31 and they see some positive results from that,
0:33:35 it’s like, well, maybe we ought to get back in touch for what else have you got?
0:33:38 What else have you got for the rest of these emails that we should be sending?
0:33:40 How do we collect more, all this stuff?
0:33:46 Are there any surprises, mistakes, disasters along the way outside of the ever-present technical problems with webinars?
0:33:48 Can anybody hear me type of stuff?
0:33:50 Oh yeah, I had a bad one.
0:33:55 I had a bad one about, it was really kind of a worst case scenario, which was good though, I got through it.
0:33:59 But about, I think it was like three months ago, I was doing, it was definitely one of the bigger,
0:34:01 if not the biggest one I’ve ever done.
0:34:05 I think there were 11 or 1200 people on live with me.
0:34:09 That was a bit of a freak out moment just for a second because I was looking at the screen
0:34:14 and I was like, I know that the process is exactly the same, whether there’s one person over there or like a million.
0:34:19 It doesn’t really matter, but there’s a lot of people staring at me right now.
0:34:24 And so that was a little bit of a panic moment, but got past that and I was like, it’s going to go fine.
0:34:27 I’m prepared, let’s go, got into it, it was going great.
0:34:30 And then there was one part where the brand that I was partnering with,
0:34:36 they were asking me to do like a live screen share and walk through how to use part of their tool.
0:34:41 And I had practiced and it worked fine, but then of course, when it was with a thousand people watching,
0:34:46 as soon as I hit the screen share button, the whole thing crashed.
0:34:49 And I couldn’t see anything, nobody could see me.
0:34:51 I didn’t know if people could hear me still or not.
0:34:57 And then I was getting emails and texts from the brand, from their director of marketing and he was freaking out.
0:34:58 Dude, where did you go?
0:35:00 He’s like, we can’t see, we can’t hear you, where are you?
0:35:01 Everyone’s leaving.
0:35:03 I was like, I don’t know how to tell you.
0:35:09 So I just rebooted my computer, took like six or seven minutes, which is kind of an eternity when you’re on a webinar.
0:35:13 And like, of course, you assume people will drop out, but got back in.
0:35:22 And to my surprise, I think only about something like 7% of people left and everyone else stayed and waited,
0:35:24 which I thought was super cool.
0:35:27 It made me feel good about the value being provided there.
0:35:29 But that was a pretty big blunder.
0:35:32 I don’t think the brand appreciating that one very much.
0:35:37 Yeah, those types of technical challenges, especially when you got a bunch of people staring at you in the face.
0:35:38 That’s one reason I like podcasting.
0:35:39 Hey, we’re not live.
0:35:40 We can edit it.
0:35:43 In fact, if the call drops out, nobody has to know.
0:35:47 Yeah, it’s a whole new skill set to deliver anything live.
0:35:48 This has been awesome.
0:35:50 I really appreciate you sharing kind of that stuff.
0:35:56 And it sounds like just kind of leaving it with the call to action being like, hey, make sure to go grab this bonus versus press hard.
0:35:58 I only have three clients available for next month.
0:36:00 Like, you know, make sure you sign up here.
0:36:01 Is that correct?
0:36:08 Yeah, and really just making sure that that bonus is in good alignment with the service that you offer and with what you taught during that workshop.
0:36:15 It just helps keep that cohesiveness together so people know what your niche is and they know that they’re a good fit for you.
0:36:23 After the webinar, you’re sending out the replay and people who did opt in are added to kind of a welcome onboarding sequence.
0:36:30 Can you give us just a brief sense of what type of messages you’re sending those people after attending?
0:36:32 It’s really at least the one that I use.
0:36:33 It’s not super long.
0:36:42 I think it’s four emails, but it really is just doubling down on what we talked about on the workshop and reminding them like actually go use that resource.
0:36:51 And that’s a good place to work in like our clients at put a link to your website, use this and got these results in the last few months.
0:36:52 Like it’ll work for you too.
0:36:57 So kind of using a reminder method there of like we do this for clients.
0:37:01 It will work for you whether you hire us or not, but you can certainly hire us.
0:37:08 I use a very teaching heavy focus, but then making sure to have like a or this is how I do it.
0:37:16 I guess I should say I have my main call to action on sales type drip emails is just to go book an exploration call.
0:37:18 I use tidy Cal for mine.
0:37:20 There’s a bunch of them out there Cal and Lee.
0:37:21 What’s the one that you use?
0:37:27 I really liked it when I use it schedule once I bought tidy Cal because it was $15 AppSumo lifetime deal.
0:37:29 I just haven’t like fully switched over to it.
0:37:30 Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty good.
0:37:32 Yeah, I like the one that you use too.
0:37:42 But the main thing with that too is making sure people feel because just remember how many pitches people get like business owners get pitched stuff all the time from people trying to sell them on stuff.
0:37:49 So if you can be the person that’s there to be helpful and there to be a resource, you’re much more likely to get the win with that client.
0:37:52 I have a short questionnaire that they fill out just to make sure it’s the right fit.
0:37:55 And that all just happens straight through tidy Cal when they’re signing up.
0:38:00 It just asks them, you understand this is a 3000 plus dollar service.
0:38:03 Like in theory, if this was a good fit, do you have the budget for that?
0:38:04 Yes or no.
0:38:08 It kind of just helps the process move along a better and it shows transparency.
0:38:13 And then I like to have something in there that says, you know, just so you know, we’ll talk about your business.
0:38:17 No matter what, you’re going to leave with some wins that you can go back and apply.
0:38:20 If it’s not a right fit, I will tell you that it’s not a right fit.
0:38:22 But if it is, I’ll tell you that it is.
0:38:24 And then you have to stick true to that.
0:38:30 You have to actually be willing to tell a potential client that it’s a bad fit and that they shouldn’t work with you.
0:38:33 And that’s how you keep credibility in an industry.
0:38:39 Yeah. Okay. I like that using that, you know, just blog and that’s always a frustration point for companies.
0:38:40 You’re just researching.
0:38:43 If you’re not putting your pricing on the website, fine.
0:38:47 But I don’t also want to waste your time if it’s just like you’re completely out of my league.
0:38:48 Well, what’s your budget?
0:38:49 That’s like my least favorite question.
0:38:50 What’s your budget?
0:38:52 Like, no, no, no, don’t answer that.
0:39:01 As a trap because there should at least be a range because typically what people will do is what they’re really wondering is how much can I get away with charging you.
0:39:06 A service in theory, if it’s a well thought out service, should have some kind of standard pricing model.
0:39:11 Even if it’s percent based, you can say our pricing is 10% of the revenue we make for you or something like that.
0:39:16 I like to be upfront about it because it saves me time from not talking on the phone with people who aren’t a good fit.
0:39:20 It saves them time from not trying to talk to me when it’s not a right fit.
0:39:25 So just trying to be a, I don’t know, be a good of a human as you can be while you’re doing business, you know.
0:39:28 Did you do anything on a performance basis like that, 10% of revenue?
0:39:38 I don’t currently, I did though, it really saved the agency in a lot of ways when COVID first hit because there were, we lost about 50% of our client revenue in across two weeks.
0:39:40 And so that was pretty intense.
0:39:50 And so immediately I flipped it to a percent based model when reaching out to clients because it gave them the security that they’re not going to have to pay a big fee if they’re not getting any results.
0:39:54 And during a time like a crisis like that, it was really helpful.
0:40:01 And then that comes back to making sure everything’s a good fit, especially doing percent based model because you can get the bad end of the deal on that pretty quick.
0:40:09 So what I did that was useful is I did for email marketing, I would say you’re going to pay us 10% of the revenue we make for you.
0:40:16 That’s attributed to email, but there’s a $1,000 minimum or there’s a $1,500 minimum, or I don’t remember exactly what I was.
0:40:17 I think it was 1500.
0:40:24 That’s probably you give a baseline so they know, okay, this is the minimum I’ll pay, but it’s also the most I’ll pay if the results aren’t there.
0:40:36 So it can be useful, I think, especially if you’re trying to get in the door with a new client or maybe a client that’s not quite at the level to pay a higher retainer and you can kind of work them up to that and you have the space on your roster for that.
0:40:37 It can be pretty useful.
0:40:40 I think it’s really compelling from a client perspective.
0:40:51 When I’ve seen people do it with Facebook ads or something where it was like, just pay us a percentage of what you make off the ad and then there’s a whole issue of tracking and attribution and everything that goes into that.
0:41:04 But it’s from the client side, it says, okay, you’re willing to put some skin in the game, so to speak, and say, look, we trust our process, we know you’re going to make money, and that’s why we only are going to make a fee based on if you win, we win kind of a thing.
0:41:13 Dustin, this has been awesome. So this is at jumpxmarketing.com. You can check out the agency over there. What’s next for you? What’s got you excited this year?
0:41:23 I’m just really focusing on helping more young brands, people with side hustles. I really think, I mean, just looking at the statistics, e-commerce is just exploding.
0:41:40 I think in the next four to five years, personal blogs were in like 2013, 2014, where it started to feel normal for people to have those. I think we’re going to start seeing in a few years, most people have some kind of e-commerce store on the side where maybe they sell their favorite items that they use.
0:41:51 There’s a lot of different things happening now where you don’t actually have to own, you know, you can do drop shipping now, or you can do partnership deals where you’re just selling other people’s things on your site directly for them and taking an affiliate cut.
0:41:57 So I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more smaller e-commerce brands start out and they’re going to be really low risk.
0:42:04 And I’m really excited about that for entrepreneurs who are just getting started because the more of the risk you can take out, the more fun it gets.
0:42:14 I like it. Sounds like a great mission and excited to see where that one goes. Dustin, let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side-hustlation 2021 edition.
0:42:21 This has been my theme for the past few months is just shoot your shot. We hold ourselves back a lot when we say no for other people.
0:42:33 So if you have historically been afraid to pitch ideas to other brands or to try to partner with people or do things with influencers, whatever it is, if you’ve or even reaching out to a client, you know, it’d be a perfect fit.
0:42:40 But you felt a little bit afraid to reach out and get that failure to shoot your shot. You never know who’s going to say yes or no.
0:42:48 Most people are going to say no. So just know that and no, it’s not a direct reflection on you. It’s just not the right fit at the right time.
0:42:58 So shoot your shot, launch, get started and learn as you go because that’s really the only way to improve is to get started so that you can start learning.
0:43:02 It’s so true and very similar to 2017’s advice. I had to go look this up.
0:43:10 The number one tip from back then was give yourself permission to take action. So interesting to see that, you know, not a lot has changed on that front.
0:43:16 You got to get out there. You got to get started. You got to put something out into the world and see what kind of reaction it gets.
0:43:22 So Dustin, really appreciate you joining me again. We’ll have to do it again in another four years and see where you’re at.
0:43:24 Absolutely. Thanks, Nick. I appreciate it.
0:43:26 You bet. We’ll catch up soon.
0:43:35 Just try to be a good human of all the actionable advice that Dustin just dropped.
0:43:40 That’s the bit that stood out to me because that’s an almost daily conversation I have with my kids.
0:43:47 Let’s just try to be good humans to each other. Be helpful, be kind, be respectful. Stop kicking your brother in the neck.
0:43:54 This is an episode I know I’ll be referring back to you for years because it’s so applicable to a ton of different businesses.
0:44:01 How do I get clients? That’s a question that every entrepreneur asks themselves and there are lots of ways to do it.
0:44:08 But I really like Dustin’s approach here of being of service first and seeking out these win-win-win relationships.
0:44:15 If you’re thinking the virtual workshop strategy is worth a shot in your business, I put together a free cheat sheet to help you get organized
0:44:20 and keep track of all the steps at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2.
0:44:29 Once again, that’s at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2dustin and the number two to grab that free partner workshop cheat sheet.
0:44:34 Big thanks to Dustin for sharing his insight. That’s it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:44:37 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:44:41 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. I’ll see you then. Hustle on.
0:44:43 on.
0:00:09 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:15 Welcome to the Side Hustle show because building your own income streams, well, that’s the best way to recession-proof your life.
0:00:19 One challenge that most new businesses face is the awareness problem.
0:00:20 Nobody knows you exist.
0:00:25 In this episode, you’ll learn the fast-track strategy to make that problem go away.
0:00:29 How to build your email list quickly and connect with your ideal customers.
0:00:31 Ready? Let’s do it.
0:00:40 I haven’t had and still currently don’t have a big marketing budget for going and getting new clients.
0:00:45 I don’t have thousands of dollars a month to run on ads and hope that it works.
0:00:52 I also didn’t start out knowing a bunch of VP of marketing at big companies or knowing a bunch of founders or anything like that.
0:01:00 You want to find yourself in this situation where you have an expertise and you can actually help a lot of brands but they don’t know you exist.
0:01:10 When going through that process of how do I grow, how do I find places to market that will actually get me real clients that isn’t going to be a waste of time.
0:01:19 This strategy of just getting in front of someone else’s established audience that already has an audience full of people who are potential clients for you.
0:01:23 They have trust built with that other brand you’re partnering with.
0:01:30 You can borrow that trust and get it placed on you when they bring you in to teach a workshop to all their people.
0:01:35 It really helps establish trust with you a lot faster between you and their customers.
0:01:43 That’s Dustin Lean from jumpxmarketing.com, an agency focused on email and SMS or text message marketing for e-commerce brands.
0:01:51 We last heard from Dustin back in 2017 and he was just ramping up jumpx after shutting down his own physical product business.
0:01:58 Since then, he’s grown it into a six-figure operation and he’s built it in such a way that it only requires part-time attention.
0:02:01 One of his key drivers, partner workshops.
0:02:10 These virtual lunch and learn sessions where he can showcase his expertise and build his client roster without advertising, without bidding for work.
0:02:15 This works in just about any niche and in this episode, Dustin breaks down his exact process.
0:02:20 So you can go out and apply it in your own business to help you keep track of the steps involved.
0:02:25 I put together a free cheat sheet at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2.
0:02:34 Once again, that’s at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2dustin and then the number two to grab that free partner workshop cheat sheet.
0:02:36 Now, back to the interview.
0:02:44 I want to replicate this thing, maybe for whatever freelance service or whatever agency service that I may have.
0:02:49 How did you go about identifying your dream targets?
0:02:53 Was it a dream 100 list? How did you go about saying, “Who should I first reach out to?”
0:02:55 That’s funny you mentioned dream 100 list.
0:02:57 Yeah, that actually is exactly what I did.
0:03:00 But I didn’t quite make it to 100. It’s a lot to find.
0:03:03 I guess backing up, there’s an avatar that has to be established first.
0:03:05 You have to know who you’re actually trying to target.
0:03:10 That’s another reason why I think freelancers or agencies that are niched down,
0:03:15 not necessarily to something so specific that literally no product exists like that.
0:03:27 If you’re trying to go so niche that you’re like, “I’m only going to help e-commerce brands that are selling garbage cans to women that are 54 years old living in Wyoming,”
0:03:29 you’re not going to find any clients. It’s impossible.
0:03:34 But niching down enough to where you can establish yourself as an expert is really useful.
0:03:39 It helps you decide who these other brands and websites that you should partner with
0:03:42 that actually is going to bring you the types of people you want.
0:03:47 And it establishes kind of this trust that you’re not trying to pretend to know everything.
0:03:50 I found myself in that position in the beginning and I kind of just niched down.
0:03:55 And that’s why now it’s e-commerce, e-mail marketing, and SMS marketing.
0:03:59 And it’s specifically for health and wellness brands. That’s all we work with.
0:04:05 And it’s really help close clients easier because when you have those conversations or you’re teaching on a workshop or something,
0:04:09 you know that those people know who you help and who you don’t help.
0:04:15 So the ones that see themselves in the category that’s the exact right fit, they get really excited because they think,
0:04:18 “Oh, that’s me. That’s exactly me.”
0:04:24 And it helps them to trust you over a competitor who’s maybe claiming they can help everyone with everything.
0:04:29 And that makes it, I imagine, an easier pitch. I would love to come and do an educational workshop
0:04:34 on the seven critical elements of a killer e-mail campaign or something like that.
0:04:37 How to grow your e-commerce e-mail list versus like,
0:04:40 “Let’s just have a workshop about broad digital marketing strategies.”
0:04:47 It seems like it’s much more actionable for the audience and for the potential audience conduit
0:04:50 or who might be your influencer that you’re reaching out to.
0:04:55 Dream 100, by the way, this comes from a book called “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Homes.
0:04:58 It’s got a bright red cover. You can’t miss it.
0:05:02 Highly recommended reading. And the Dream 100 is like your dream client list.
0:05:06 Like, who would you love to partner with, work with, connect with in some way?
0:05:10 And then you can kind of start chipping away at that and really focus all your energy on those people
0:05:14 rather than every other client, every other potential connection under the sun
0:05:17 because these are the ones that are really going to make or break your business.
0:05:22 But let’s talk about those. Like, how did you identify those and then we’ll get into kind of the initial outreach?
0:05:26 The first thing is getting really clear on who your customer is.
0:05:30 Really the biggest main question is where are they already hanging out?
0:05:36 Where are they online already? What other brand or website or company has…
0:05:41 Maybe they have a really big budget and they’ve already spent the money to acquire the customers
0:05:44 that you also want to acquire. So maybe it’s a software company.
0:05:47 When you’re filling out that Dream 100 list of who to partner with,
0:05:51 think about who has your exact same target audience but is not a competitor.
0:05:55 And that brings us back to talking about why niching down is important
0:06:01 because in my case, I’m doing email marketing and SMS marketing for e-commerce brands.
0:06:07 Now, I can go to another agency even or someone who’s a blogger with a big audience
0:06:11 but they teach about SEO, specifically SEO, for e-commerce.
0:06:15 And now we’re not competitors so they don’t have to worry about me trying to siphon their audience
0:06:18 for my business and I don’t have to worry about the same thing from them
0:06:22 so we can actually form a good partnership, do a good workshop and cheer each other on
0:06:26 instead of feeling like we have to compete because our target audience is the same.
0:06:29 They’re also providing SMS and email marketing services.
0:06:33 Like, why do we want to put this guy in front of our email list in front of our audience?
0:06:36 But that makes total sense. I remember Joshua Lysik.
0:06:40 We did an episode on the OPA plan, other people’s audiences where he was doing these
0:06:44 in-person virtual lunch and learns for his copywriting business
0:06:47 or web design, web development business back in the day.
0:06:50 And it was like, I target kind of local small business owners
0:06:54 so he would reach out to accounting offices, legal offices in his town
0:06:56 and bring people in that way.
0:07:01 It’s like, these companies don’t offer what I do but their customers need this
0:07:03 or their customers might want to learn this.
0:07:07 And so he follows kind of same strategy as on an in-person basis.
0:07:09 But let’s say, okay, now you have your list.
0:07:13 I like this, software companies, bloggers, online influencers, even YouTubers,
0:07:18 people who may have a list with some of your target customers on it,
0:07:20 even other agencies if they’re not direct competitors.
0:07:22 What’s the initial outreach?
0:07:26 Like, hey, I’m just curious to see what that email or direct message might look like.
0:07:29 Definitely varies. It comes down to a few key things.
0:07:33 One thing that I believe is that there’s no such thing as a good cold email.
0:07:35 You can read all kinds of blog posts or watch YouTube videos
0:07:37 on how to write the perfect cold email.
0:07:39 But I just don’t believe that even exists.
0:07:42 Anything that feels cold is cold and doesn’t get open.
0:07:45 The cold emails that do well are actually warm emails.
0:07:48 So if it’s someone you don’t know, which in most cases it’s going to be,
0:07:51 you have to find a way to make it feel warmer.
0:07:57 So a good example of this is when you’re making your list of people to reach out to
0:07:59 teach these workshops in front of their audience.
0:08:03 Think about what services you’ve already used or what blogs you already read
0:08:06 to stay on top of some of this stuff for yourself.
0:08:09 And then that way, when you’re reaching out, you can say,
0:08:12 “Hey, I listen to your podcast every week.
0:08:14 I love it this last episode with so-and-so.”
0:08:17 Really made me look at my business differently in this way and that way.
0:08:19 And it really helped. And I just wanted to say thank you.
0:08:24 So that’s a really easy way to give a compliment that’s genuine and authentic.
0:08:27 But that just makes it feel warmer. It makes it feel like there’s some kind of connection.
0:08:30 You know who they are even if they don’t know who you are yet.
0:08:34 And that helps that opening line get read and the email continue to be read
0:08:37 instead of it going straight into the trash.
0:08:40 Right. I’m trying to think of cold emails that I get.
0:08:43 And they do a good job of making it feel warmer.
0:08:45 “Hey, Nick. Long time listener here.”
0:08:46 Something like that.
0:08:49 Yeah, that gets my attention versus some random…
0:08:50 And now, of course, I’m going to get…
0:08:53 That’s going to be the first line of every email that I get.
0:08:55 Yeah, sorry.
0:08:58 The other element here that might be worth looking into…
0:09:00 And this is something that I try and do.
0:09:04 If there’s a guest that I want to get on is looking for mutual connections.
0:09:07 I said, “Hey, would you mind passing along an intro?”
0:09:09 So through Facebook, through LinkedIn,
0:09:14 you’re probably only one or two degrees of separation away from anybody.
0:09:18 So I imagine that may be another way to make that introduction a little bit warmer.
0:09:21 But what else do you have on this outreach and pitch part?
0:09:23 That’s probably even better in most cases,
0:09:27 is if you know somebody who can give an intro, kind of vouch for you.
0:09:29 The other thing to think about is…
0:09:32 I learned this from Noah Kagan and it just stuck with me.
0:09:36 He said, “Always remember whiffed. What’s in it for them?”
0:09:38 So I always think about that when I’m writing an email,
0:09:41 is look at how many times you wrote “I” in your email.
0:09:43 Like, how many sentences start with the word “I”?
0:09:47 Like, “I listen to your podcast. I want to partner with you.
0:09:50 I think that I will do a great job.”
0:09:54 Your email is so focused on you that it’s not even providing any value
0:09:56 to the person you’re trying to partner with.
0:09:59 Because at the end of the day, if it’s not a win for you,
0:10:02 a win for the partner and a win for their audience,
0:10:05 then it’s a lose. It has to be a win-win-win.
0:10:08 So focusing on what’s in it for them.
0:10:10 And it doesn’t mean you can’t talk about yourself a little bit
0:10:12 because you need to to establish some credibility
0:10:15 and you need to say, “I’m reaching out because…”
0:10:19 You know, there’s this specific topic that I know a lot about
0:10:22 and, you know, I get really good results for our clients
0:10:24 and I think that your audience would get a ton out of this.
0:10:27 So, like, that’s the value then is I think your audience
0:10:30 would get a lot of value out of this because…
0:10:33 And so always keep getting it there as fast as possible
0:10:35 so that they start to think, you know,
0:10:37 “Is this actually good for my audience?”
0:10:40 And so if you can establish that it’s good for them and their audience,
0:10:43 they’re a lot more likely to say yes,
0:10:46 which is kind of the third and final part of cold emails,
0:10:50 or I should say warm emails, is making it as easy as possible to say yes.
0:10:52 If you have a specific pitch for them,
0:10:55 break down exactly how it’s going to go.
0:10:57 And in this case, workshops, you know, breaking down,
0:10:59 you know, “I want to teach this workshop.
0:11:01 Here are the topics that I want to cover.
0:11:04 The way we can use my software, I already pay for it.
0:11:05 You don’t have to pay for it.
0:11:07 I will build the landing page.
0:11:10 I will create email copy that I’ll send to you
0:11:12 to send out to your audience so you don’t have to write it.
0:11:14 You know, I’ll create a graphic and send it to you
0:11:16 so you can post it on social media.
0:11:18 Put things in there to assure them
0:11:21 that this isn’t going to be a laborious project for them
0:11:23 and that you’re going to handle all of the hard work.
0:11:26 All they have to do is help you promote to their audience
0:11:29 and get the pats on the back.
0:11:31 Still to come in this episode,
0:11:34 what Dustin calls the magic sauce for his business,
0:11:36 how he structures his workshops,
0:11:41 and the soft sell way he converts attendees into paying clients.
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0:12:52 Okay, do you ever get anybody coming back to you and say,
0:12:56 “Yeah, that sounds good, but I want a 50% referral commission
0:12:58 on anything you sell off the back end?”
0:13:01 And you’re like, “Well, it’s an agency, so the margins.”
0:13:04 It’s a little more tricky than a digital product.
0:13:07 Do you get that kind of like, “Oh, I want a piece of the action?”
0:13:08 Man, you know, it’s funny.
0:13:11 I don’t think I’ve ever gotten someone reply with that,
0:13:13 but that is something that I offer sometimes,
0:13:16 depending on who I’m actually doing one next week,
0:13:19 next Thursday, where we have an agreement
0:13:21 of how much, you know, how we’ll split the commission.
0:13:24 So like you said, it’s a fine line with margins on an agency.
0:13:26 You can’t give away everything,
0:13:28 or it’s not worth it, of course.
0:13:30 But one thing that I do is I, like,
0:13:32 I also have some digital products and stuff.
0:13:35 So sometimes that’ll be a part of what the workshop is.
0:13:37 In that case, if it’s a digital product,
0:13:39 I mean, it’s pretty much 100% margin, right?
0:13:42 So I can give them 50%, and that’s no problem at all to me.
0:13:46 I’d much rather pay 50% of a $100 product
0:13:48 for everything that’s sold
0:13:51 to people that I never would have gotten in front of, to begin with,
0:13:54 or I would have had to spend $99 to get in front of them
0:13:56 to sell them a $100 product.
0:13:59 It’s still a better deal than straight advertising.
0:14:03 So on the agency side, what we do is a $500 referral.
0:14:07 So if we get a client and they stick with us for at least three months,
0:14:10 which everyone is contractually obligated to stick with us for at least three months,
0:14:13 so that’s easy enough, then we pay out $500.
0:14:17 That’s a nice way to push someone over the edge who isn’t quite sure,
0:14:20 or maybe they have a really big audience and they have a tight calendar.
0:14:23 That’s a nice way to kind of squeeze yourself into their calendar.
0:14:24 Okay, that makes sense.
0:14:27 So most people are not necessarily looking for that
0:14:29 or asking for that upfront,
0:14:33 but it can be a way to sweeten the deal.
0:14:36 Especially, like you said, if they’re giving you a warm introduction to their audience
0:14:39 and you’re making money off of that, then you make it a win for them.
0:14:43 And we’ve talked about different strategic complementary partnerships.
0:14:46 I think this is an interesting way to do that too.
0:14:52 Anything else on the outreach in pitchfront that you have seen deliver success?
0:14:55 One example is this isn’t necessarily a strategy to seek out
0:14:58 because you can’t really, it’s kind of more of an inbound type of thing,
0:15:02 but I recently had a software company set up a call with me
0:15:08 to pitch me on using their software for my clients in the call.
0:15:11 I guess just looking for opportunities to pitch also.
0:15:15 So on the call, I said we actually already do have some clients that use your software.
0:15:18 And the other ones, I will definitely put it in front of them
0:15:20 and tell them the pros and cons of using it.
0:15:23 What do you think about also doing a workshop in front of your audience?
0:15:28 That was the fastest 2000 email subscribers I’ve ever gotten in my life.
0:15:33 It was just from this software company that was pitching me,
0:15:37 just being able to say, honestly, we already use you, so this is great.
0:15:39 Let’s do something together.
0:15:41 And it was able to give a lot of value back to them
0:15:44 and teach their software to their customers.
0:15:49 So looking for opportunities to pitch where it’s kind of a no brainer, yes.
0:15:50 It really comes in handy.
0:15:53 So keeping it top of mind and not always thinking just about,
0:15:55 it’s not all about going straight for the sale.
0:15:57 Sometimes it’s trying to do these workshops
0:16:00 and keeping it top of mind how you can partner with different companies.
0:16:03 Yeah, I like this a lot, especially the software angle.
0:16:08 We’ve talked about the software with a service business model, business angle before.
0:16:13 We’ve seen people do this with Asana and QuickBooks and Salesforce
0:16:15 and your SEM rush and all these different ones.
0:16:19 Where it’s like, if I’m an Atrus customer, for example, for SEO and keyword research,
0:16:22 Atrus doesn’t have, at least to my knowledge,
0:16:25 an in-house team where they’re like, we’ll just do it for you.
0:16:28 So it’s like, that might be, if you’re an SEO service provider,
0:16:32 if you’re an agency to reach out to them as just as an example to say,
0:16:36 hey, I want to teach people how to use your software better.
0:16:39 Or so, you know, here’s seven things you didn’t know you could do
0:16:41 in this tool to skyrocket your thing.
0:16:43 Because a certain percentage of that audience is going to be like,
0:16:45 that sounds super cool.
0:16:47 I just don’t have the time to do it myself.
0:16:48 How could you do it for me?
0:16:51 And that’s like your ideal customers are like this software company angle,
0:16:56 like piggybacking on the popularity of an existing software and existing audience.
0:17:00 In your email, you say, I’m going to make it as easy for them as possible to say,
0:17:05 yes, we’ll use my hosting software, you use my landing page, anything like that.
0:17:08 What does a tech stack look like today?
0:17:12 What makes the most sense for you for email collection, for webinar hosting, all that stuff?
0:17:14 For my website, I use Webflow.
0:17:15 I used to use WordPress.
0:17:16 I still really like WordPress.
0:17:18 I think I have a couple of sites on WordPress.
0:17:23 But Webflow has been really cool as far as being able to drag and drop design a little bit easier
0:17:25 and make it look a little cleaner.
0:17:27 So I’ve been enjoying using that.
0:17:32 So I’ll pair that with ConvertKit is what I use for email capture, things like that.
0:17:37 And obviously for the email marketing side of things, which ties into the workshops
0:17:43 because in the workshops, there’s always a call to action for them to go opt into something.
0:17:48 And then there’s drip campaigns that come after that to help me close sales that way.
0:17:54 For the actual webinar, I use Webinar Ninja, which I’ve been really happy with so far.
0:18:00 Competitive on their pricing and the streamability is really strong for the most part.
0:18:04 And also when I build landing pages, I just use Webinar Ninja’s landing page
0:18:08 for signing up for the workshops when it works really well.
0:18:12 So they have good kind of automated emails after people register.
0:18:17 It sends them a sequence of emails like you’re registered, here’s your information, all that kind of stuff.
0:18:21 And I like that you can go in and edit those and you can add more or subtract.
0:18:26 So they have a lot of Webinar Ninja does a good job of getting you 90% of the way there.
0:18:31 And then you can kind of just add in the extra little parts that you want to make it personal for you and your business.
0:18:37 Okay. So the process flow would be this outreach and pitch like, hey, I’d like to host this workshop.
0:18:42 Here’s the email copy to send people out to all build the landing page.
0:18:47 People register for it on that landing page after your partner sends out that email.
0:18:50 And it’s like, here’s the date and time enter your email to register.
0:18:57 At least for my business, that’s the magic sauce is if you can be the one who hosts the workshop yourself
0:19:00 using your software and having it go to your email list.
0:19:08 That’s not always the case, especially with bigger brands or bigger software companies who don’t want you to have their customer data,
0:19:15 which I can understand a lot of software companies like really big ones, they already do workshops like they’ll do monthly workshops.
0:19:17 So they kind of already have a system for it.
0:19:21 So you’re really just pitching yourself to be one of those guest workshop people.
0:19:28 They already have it all figured out and that’s great too, because you can go on there and still get in front of thousands of people in an hour.
0:19:37 But I really like when I can control the setup process and collect those emails because then even the people who,
0:19:43 let’s say you get in front of 300 people that signed up for the webinar and maybe you get one sale out of it.
0:19:44 That’s still awesome.
0:19:50 But what’s more awesome is now you have 299 other email addresses that you can put into a drip campaign.
0:19:57 I’m explaining more about your business or teaching them so that they become more comfortable with you for when they are ready to work with you.
0:20:00 They work with somebody, they pick you, you can put them in your newsletter.
0:20:04 So it’s just establishing that relationship even stronger.
0:20:07 So if you can set it up yourself, it’s great.
0:20:13 And a lot of companies appreciate it because they might not have the internal teams to even know how to do that.
0:20:15 Maybe they’ve never done a webinar in their life.
0:20:17 So it seems daunting.
0:20:22 So to come in and say, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle all the tech,” is really a big win for a lot of brands.
0:20:30 Yeah, totally. That would be me. I don’t know if I’ve been on the hosting side of a webinar co-hosted lots, but never been the one to fully run and set up the whole thing.
0:20:36 Going back, especially the company that already has, “Oh, we do a monthly webinar for our customers already.”
0:20:37 That’s a fantastic target.
0:20:41 And Tailwind comes to mind as a Pinterest scheduling software.
0:20:44 You have some killer Pinterest strategy that might be worthy of sharing.
0:20:50 Or you’re like, “Here’s how to design eye-catching video pins in Canva,” or something like that might be compelling for them.
0:20:53 Active Campaign comes to mind as well.
0:20:57 Here’s the crazy, simple sales funnel that works for me in Active Campaign.
0:21:06 I don’t know. Maybe they’re already doing this, and it’s easier to insert yourself into their existing process rather than have them create a new process for you or do this totally one-off thing.
0:21:16 So that was Webflow, Drag and Drop, Website Builder, ConvertKit for the email capture, WebinarNinja for the hosting and scheduling of the workshop itself.
0:21:19 Any other must-have tools for you to make this happen?
0:21:20 A couple more I was thinking about.
0:21:23 One is just something like Keynote or Google Slides or PowerPoint, whatever.
0:21:25 It’s not something to make some slides.
0:21:28 I just find it easier to teach that way on the workshops.
0:21:37 But then for the outreach part, sometimes you can identify easily what company you want to partner with or pitch for doing a workshop, but you can’t find the right person.
0:21:38 And so that comes up a lot.
0:21:47 It’s like, “I know I want to partner with Clavio. It’s a big company. I can’t just email their CEO or founder. It’s not going to work.”
0:21:50 So a tool that I like to use is called Hunter.io.
0:21:53 You can create a free account and it does plenty, in my opinion.
0:21:56 I don’t even know what their paid one does, but anyway, I use the free one.
0:22:08 And you can just type in any URL and they will scrape the internet and see what email addresses are set up for that and give you a list of their titles if they can find it.
0:22:12 It’ll say, “Director of Marketing is this person and here’s their email address.”
0:22:19 If they can’t find that detailed information, they will help you figure out how to guess the person’s…
0:22:23 Maybe they can find the people’s names, but they’re not 100% sure on what the email is.
0:22:29 They’ll say, “Well, this is their name and we think it’s firstname.lastname at whatever…”
0:22:32 Yeah, at the company, as the common email structure at this company.
0:22:33 Okay.
0:22:34 Right. So it helps you guess.
0:22:41 And then you can just go on LinkedIn and find who the active director of marketing or whoever is, director of content, something like that.
0:22:46 And then now you have their name, you have the email structure, so you can just guess their email accurately.
0:22:53 I mean, that’s been really, really useful because trying to go through info at or something like that or a contact form, you’re never going to get there.
0:22:54 Yeah, you’re not going to get anywhere.
0:22:55 That’s actually really helpful.
0:23:00 I remember this was like long ago in the SideHustle show archives.
0:23:03 It was like, I was trying to figure out how to get sponsors for the show.
0:23:08 And so my genius idea was to have a virtual assistant go through other business shows.
0:23:12 They made this big list of companies that were already advertising.
0:23:16 And I picked the five or six that I liked and thought would be a good fit.
0:23:21 And from there, the process kind of stalled out because I couldn’t find the right decision makers at these companies.
0:23:29 And occasionally you’d get a reply back of like, “Well, you know, we buy through this agency or it was much more difficult than I thought I was a genius.”
0:23:32 Like, “Oh, this is going to be a fantastic way to sell some ad spots.”
0:23:38 But it’s a really important point is it’s one thing to come up with your target list, your dream 100 list, so to speak.
0:23:45 But another thing to find the person who has the authority to say yes, like how to find the right decision maker at that place.
0:23:48 So hunter.io, cool resource to check out there.
0:23:50 Anything else on the tech and tools front?
0:23:51 Nope, that’s it.
0:23:52 That’s what I use.
0:24:06 I’m curious about the webinar structure or if there’s any resources to learn what makes a good presentation in terms of what’s five minutes of intro and 45 minutes of educational content and 10 minutes of call to action.
0:24:08 Like, what kind of structure have you found to work best?
0:24:15 What’s worked best for me has been, well, first of all, focusing on making it a workshop and not a webinar.
0:24:26 And I mean, essentially, it’s the same thing, but the mentality of a webinar is usually like, “I’m going to use this workaround way to try to pitch people to work with me or buy my thing.”
0:24:28 It can work, sure, but…
0:24:30 Do you think marketers have just ruined the term?
0:24:31 Like, marketers have ruined…
0:24:32 Yeah, absolutely.
0:24:33 Marketers ruin everything.
0:24:35 And I know because I am one.
0:24:41 It’s like anything that’s good and pure gets distorted as fast as possible.
0:24:43 Now it’s not even a workshop.
0:24:45 Now it’s like masterclass is like the next one.
0:24:46 Yeah.
0:24:47 No, that’s funny.
0:24:49 I don’t even call my courses courses anymore.
0:24:52 I started calling them either masterclasses or I’ll call them like a mini course.
0:24:57 Like I’m trying to like find new terms so people don’t have these like weird associations from the past.
0:24:58 Yeah.
0:25:07 So I think of them as workshops and I pitched them as workshops and all of the verbiage leading up to it is saying your free online workshop is starting like things like that.
0:25:15 And that bleeds into the content of it as well because the goal is to make sure they can learn something that they can apply immediately after they’re done.
0:25:20 Where a lot of content dies is when it’s too much all at once.
0:25:27 And someone has to try to absorb what you’re telling them and you’re telling them 10 different things and they have to try to apply it to their business in their head.
0:25:31 And then they have to try to figure out how to do all 10 things and then they get the results.
0:25:40 But in this case, I like to just teach them something they can actually go use because I find the best clients come from people who are willing to take action on advice.
0:25:43 So it’s almost like a good filter for finding the right clients.
0:25:47 So structure wise, I try not to go over an hour.
0:25:52 Typically what I’ll do is about it ends up being like maybe six or seven minutes of an intro.
0:25:55 I’ll start with here’s what we’re going to cover.
0:26:01 I’ll tell them this is a workshop, not something to passively watch and I’ll tell them I want them to take notes.
0:26:08 I’ll tell them that I’ll send them the replay afterward, but I want them to take notes and I want them to write down questions because we’re going to do Q&A at the end.
0:26:12 So I make it very much feel like this is a workshop where you’re doing something right now.
0:26:15 You’re not just half listening while you’re making dinner or something.
0:26:17 I want them to be engaged.
0:26:26 And so about five or six minutes of intro and then we’ll go into teaching and I’ll typically try to start with here’s the common problem.
0:26:28 Here’s why it’s a problem.
0:26:33 If you continue to try to do it the way you’re doing it, here’s what you’ll be missing out on.
0:26:37 Here’s how most people try to solve this problem, but here’s why that doesn’t work.
0:26:40 Then here’s the actual solution of what you should do.
0:26:43 And so that’s kind of the order that I try to keep it as far as how to teach.
0:26:49 And then I try to show as many screenshots as possible if it’s something technical, because again, you know, I’m going to give them this recording.
0:26:51 So I can remind them, here’s a visual.
0:26:52 You’re going to have this.
0:26:54 So don’t worry if you’re not absorbing it right now.
0:26:57 Focus on writing what makes sense to you.
0:26:59 I ask a lot of questions too.
0:27:04 I try to ask a question at least every three slides and I ask them to kind of respond in the chat.
0:27:11 One, it helps me when I’m teaching because you kind of feel like you’re in a silo because nobody else can, you’re not seeing any other faces.
0:27:13 You’re not hearing anybody else.
0:27:16 If no one’s engaging at all, you just feel like you’re talking to a wall.
0:27:20 When really people are probably really engaged and interested, but you just don’t know that.
0:27:32 So I try to ask questions every three slides or so, and it keeps them engaged and it can help me kind of redirect if I’m getting too technical on accident or something I said didn’t make sense.
0:27:46 I can kind of ear note those questions for the Q&A section and then toward the end, every workshop I do, I give a link to some kind of bonus resource that’s directly related to how they can go do this thing right after we get off.
0:27:49 I taught one recently on abandon cart sequences.
0:27:54 So it was how to set up your abandon cart sequence in 30 minutes or less.
0:27:57 And so it’s a really specific thing we’re trying to solve.
0:28:00 It’s not a super big trying to teach them everything at once.
0:28:02 It’s one specific thing.
0:28:10 And so the bonus resource was email scripts that they could just copy and paste into their email provider so that the work was done for them already.
0:28:14 And they could just put it in there, push, go and watch the results come in.
0:28:20 That’s kind of the approach I take there is I don’t typically pitch services on these workshops.
0:28:26 My goal is to teach them something useful they can use immediately and then capture their email.
0:28:37 Those are my two goals because if I capture their email, then they go into a drip sequence for me to pitch them services later after they’ve kind of already got their feet wet and seeing that it works.
0:28:39 If they try what I say, it’ll work.
0:28:42 In the case where you didn’t collect it up front through the invite.
0:28:43 Right.
0:28:46 So yeah, if it’s already collected, then I still do the bonus thing just because it’s helpful.
0:28:51 Yeah, really the process doesn’t change whether I collected their emails, you know, whether I hosted it or I didn’t.
0:28:56 The process stays the same, but the results are just usually bigger if I can collect the email list on top of it.
0:28:57 This is cool.
0:29:06 And this is kind of in contrast to a Russell Brunson expert secrets style webinar with, you know, here are the limiting beliefs that we have to overcome.
0:29:09 It’s like, no, here’s the problem, the technical problem you’re facing in your business.
0:29:11 Here’s why what you’re doing is not working.
0:29:13 Here’s the trend line of you keep doing what you’re doing.
0:29:16 But the good news is, oh, by the way, you can do it yourself.
0:29:19 Here’s how our clients are getting it done or here’s how we’re doing it for clients.
0:29:26 I imagine kind of working in those type of soft cells, like just letting people know that it is something that you do versus by my thing.
0:29:30 We don’t buy my $10,000 thing at the end of the lesson here.
0:29:36 I still do workshops or webinars where I’ll pitch a $99 product or something or even a couple hundred bucks.
0:29:43 But I find it, I don’t think I’ve ever closed anything over 1500 bucks using the webinar in my life.
0:29:54 So trying to pitch agency services that are in the three to five thousand a month range over a webinar is a pretty tough pitch in 45 minutes to an hour.
0:30:01 But if I can be really helpful, yeah, you know, in the beginning when I’m talking about who I am so that they, my favorite line is just to tell them like,
0:30:05 you shouldn’t believe everything you hear on the internet because anyone can lie over the internet.
0:30:07 So don’t take my word for it.
0:30:09 Just like, these are the clients we’ve worked with.
0:30:11 Here are the results we’ve gotten for them.
0:30:14 Now, you know, you can probably trust me and now let’s move on.
0:30:23 And it kind of helps establish early that I’m not trying to calm them and that I recognize there’s a little bit of trust imbalance that we’re going to have to work through.
0:30:29 But that I have actual expertise and I’ve worked with real clients and that lets them know that they can work with me as well if they choose to do so.
0:30:36 But it’s in a way, like you said, where it’s a little bit more of a soft approach to where I can focus on teaching them.
0:30:44 Because at the end of the day, trying to do services for people, a good service solves one of three problems or ideally multiple of these three problems,
0:30:52 which is you’re either saving them time, you’re saving them money or making them money, or you’re improving the quality of their life in some way.
0:30:58 In this case, you’re not going to ruin your chances of closing a client if you teach them how to do one thing on their own.
0:31:01 And if they can do the one thing on their own, then they don’t need to hire you anyway.
0:31:02 It’s not a good fit.
0:31:10 So getting that out of my head early was important of not worrying if I was going to disqualify myself by teaching someone to do something themselves.
0:31:20 Because chances are they’re either going to be overwhelmed by it anyway and want help, or they are very capable and can do it themselves in which case, wonderful, great, help somebody today.
0:31:26 Or they’re going to, maybe they do understand how to do it, they just don’t have the time to do it, so they’ll hire.
0:31:31 There’s really no reason to not just full-on teach everything you can, teach everything you know.
0:31:38 It’s only going to build the confidence of people around you that you are the right person to hire for current or future projects.
0:31:40 Yeah, this is a list-building play.
0:31:44 This is a credibility and authority-building play, trust-building play.
0:31:49 I think there’s a lot to this that has really worked out well in your favor.
0:31:55 More with Dustin in just a moment, including overcoming the imposter syndrome of actually hosting your first workshop.
0:32:04 What happened when his worst-case scenario moment came true and how he successfully transitions educational viewers into paying customers right after this?
0:32:08 Tell me about getting psyched up before doing the first one.
0:32:12 I’m just like, “Oh, what am I going to talk about? Who am I to teach this stuff?”
0:32:17 I imagine some people are like, “This all sounds cool, but they’re still facing some of that imposter syndrome.”
0:32:21 I always get a little bit nervous. I feel like if you’re not a little nervous, you probably don’t care.
0:32:26 Nerves are an okay signal, but for me, what helps is just being prepared.
0:32:29 The more prepared you are with your slides and your material,
0:32:33 and ultimately, as long as you know what you’re talking about, which presumably you do,
0:32:36 if you have services for somebody that you’re going to do for them,
0:32:40 then you don’t have too much to worry about because this is kind of your zone.
0:32:44 If people are showing up to your workshop and they know what the topic is ahead of time,
0:32:48 so if they’re showing up for it, it’s because your name was already on the landing page.
0:32:54 They know that you are going to teach them this thing, and you can assume they don’t know how to do that thing yet.
0:33:00 That helps me at least to remember that I don’t have to be an expert at everything for everyone,
0:33:05 but to these people who signed up, I’m an expert to them on this one thing.
0:33:11 I can let go of the ego of assuming I have to be an expert at everything to teach anything.
0:33:14 I was going to say, even if they do end up taking action,
0:33:19 like you said, maybe I’d be afraid of, well, if I show people how to do it themselves,
0:33:23 nobody’s going to hire me, but like you said, going back to your abandoned cart example,
0:33:29 if you can deliver some wins on this one very specific email process, email sequence,
0:33:31 and they see some positive results from that,
0:33:35 it’s like, well, maybe we ought to get back in touch for what else have you got?
0:33:38 What else have you got for the rest of these emails that we should be sending?
0:33:40 How do we collect more, all this stuff?
0:33:46 Are there any surprises, mistakes, disasters along the way outside of the ever-present technical problems with webinars?
0:33:48 Can anybody hear me type of stuff?
0:33:50 Oh yeah, I had a bad one.
0:33:55 I had a bad one about, it was really kind of a worst case scenario, which was good though, I got through it.
0:33:59 But about, I think it was like three months ago, I was doing, it was definitely one of the bigger,
0:34:01 if not the biggest one I’ve ever done.
0:34:05 I think there were 11 or 1200 people on live with me.
0:34:09 That was a bit of a freak out moment just for a second because I was looking at the screen
0:34:14 and I was like, I know that the process is exactly the same, whether there’s one person over there or like a million.
0:34:19 It doesn’t really matter, but there’s a lot of people staring at me right now.
0:34:24 And so that was a little bit of a panic moment, but got past that and I was like, it’s going to go fine.
0:34:27 I’m prepared, let’s go, got into it, it was going great.
0:34:30 And then there was one part where the brand that I was partnering with,
0:34:36 they were asking me to do like a live screen share and walk through how to use part of their tool.
0:34:41 And I had practiced and it worked fine, but then of course, when it was with a thousand people watching,
0:34:46 as soon as I hit the screen share button, the whole thing crashed.
0:34:49 And I couldn’t see anything, nobody could see me.
0:34:51 I didn’t know if people could hear me still or not.
0:34:57 And then I was getting emails and texts from the brand, from their director of marketing and he was freaking out.
0:34:58 Dude, where did you go?
0:35:00 He’s like, we can’t see, we can’t hear you, where are you?
0:35:01 Everyone’s leaving.
0:35:03 I was like, I don’t know how to tell you.
0:35:09 So I just rebooted my computer, took like six or seven minutes, which is kind of an eternity when you’re on a webinar.
0:35:13 And like, of course, you assume people will drop out, but got back in.
0:35:22 And to my surprise, I think only about something like 7% of people left and everyone else stayed and waited,
0:35:24 which I thought was super cool.
0:35:27 It made me feel good about the value being provided there.
0:35:29 But that was a pretty big blunder.
0:35:32 I don’t think the brand appreciating that one very much.
0:35:37 Yeah, those types of technical challenges, especially when you got a bunch of people staring at you in the face.
0:35:38 That’s one reason I like podcasting.
0:35:39 Hey, we’re not live.
0:35:40 We can edit it.
0:35:43 In fact, if the call drops out, nobody has to know.
0:35:47 Yeah, it’s a whole new skill set to deliver anything live.
0:35:48 This has been awesome.
0:35:50 I really appreciate you sharing kind of that stuff.
0:35:56 And it sounds like just kind of leaving it with the call to action being like, hey, make sure to go grab this bonus versus press hard.
0:35:58 I only have three clients available for next month.
0:36:00 Like, you know, make sure you sign up here.
0:36:01 Is that correct?
0:36:08 Yeah, and really just making sure that that bonus is in good alignment with the service that you offer and with what you taught during that workshop.
0:36:15 It just helps keep that cohesiveness together so people know what your niche is and they know that they’re a good fit for you.
0:36:23 After the webinar, you’re sending out the replay and people who did opt in are added to kind of a welcome onboarding sequence.
0:36:30 Can you give us just a brief sense of what type of messages you’re sending those people after attending?
0:36:32 It’s really at least the one that I use.
0:36:33 It’s not super long.
0:36:42 I think it’s four emails, but it really is just doubling down on what we talked about on the workshop and reminding them like actually go use that resource.
0:36:51 And that’s a good place to work in like our clients at put a link to your website, use this and got these results in the last few months.
0:36:52 Like it’ll work for you too.
0:36:57 So kind of using a reminder method there of like we do this for clients.
0:37:01 It will work for you whether you hire us or not, but you can certainly hire us.
0:37:08 I use a very teaching heavy focus, but then making sure to have like a or this is how I do it.
0:37:16 I guess I should say I have my main call to action on sales type drip emails is just to go book an exploration call.
0:37:18 I use tidy Cal for mine.
0:37:20 There’s a bunch of them out there Cal and Lee.
0:37:21 What’s the one that you use?
0:37:27 I really liked it when I use it schedule once I bought tidy Cal because it was $15 AppSumo lifetime deal.
0:37:29 I just haven’t like fully switched over to it.
0:37:30 Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty good.
0:37:32 Yeah, I like the one that you use too.
0:37:42 But the main thing with that too is making sure people feel because just remember how many pitches people get like business owners get pitched stuff all the time from people trying to sell them on stuff.
0:37:49 So if you can be the person that’s there to be helpful and there to be a resource, you’re much more likely to get the win with that client.
0:37:52 I have a short questionnaire that they fill out just to make sure it’s the right fit.
0:37:55 And that all just happens straight through tidy Cal when they’re signing up.
0:38:00 It just asks them, you understand this is a 3000 plus dollar service.
0:38:03 Like in theory, if this was a good fit, do you have the budget for that?
0:38:04 Yes or no.
0:38:08 It kind of just helps the process move along a better and it shows transparency.
0:38:13 And then I like to have something in there that says, you know, just so you know, we’ll talk about your business.
0:38:17 No matter what, you’re going to leave with some wins that you can go back and apply.
0:38:20 If it’s not a right fit, I will tell you that it’s not a right fit.
0:38:22 But if it is, I’ll tell you that it is.
0:38:24 And then you have to stick true to that.
0:38:30 You have to actually be willing to tell a potential client that it’s a bad fit and that they shouldn’t work with you.
0:38:33 And that’s how you keep credibility in an industry.
0:38:39 Yeah. Okay. I like that using that, you know, just blog and that’s always a frustration point for companies.
0:38:40 You’re just researching.
0:38:43 If you’re not putting your pricing on the website, fine.
0:38:47 But I don’t also want to waste your time if it’s just like you’re completely out of my league.
0:38:48 Well, what’s your budget?
0:38:49 That’s like my least favorite question.
0:38:50 What’s your budget?
0:38:52 Like, no, no, no, don’t answer that.
0:39:01 As a trap because there should at least be a range because typically what people will do is what they’re really wondering is how much can I get away with charging you.
0:39:06 A service in theory, if it’s a well thought out service, should have some kind of standard pricing model.
0:39:11 Even if it’s percent based, you can say our pricing is 10% of the revenue we make for you or something like that.
0:39:16 I like to be upfront about it because it saves me time from not talking on the phone with people who aren’t a good fit.
0:39:20 It saves them time from not trying to talk to me when it’s not a right fit.
0:39:25 So just trying to be a, I don’t know, be a good of a human as you can be while you’re doing business, you know.
0:39:28 Did you do anything on a performance basis like that, 10% of revenue?
0:39:38 I don’t currently, I did though, it really saved the agency in a lot of ways when COVID first hit because there were, we lost about 50% of our client revenue in across two weeks.
0:39:40 And so that was pretty intense.
0:39:50 And so immediately I flipped it to a percent based model when reaching out to clients because it gave them the security that they’re not going to have to pay a big fee if they’re not getting any results.
0:39:54 And during a time like a crisis like that, it was really helpful.
0:40:01 And then that comes back to making sure everything’s a good fit, especially doing percent based model because you can get the bad end of the deal on that pretty quick.
0:40:09 So what I did that was useful is I did for email marketing, I would say you’re going to pay us 10% of the revenue we make for you.
0:40:16 That’s attributed to email, but there’s a $1,000 minimum or there’s a $1,500 minimum, or I don’t remember exactly what I was.
0:40:17 I think it was 1500.
0:40:24 That’s probably you give a baseline so they know, okay, this is the minimum I’ll pay, but it’s also the most I’ll pay if the results aren’t there.
0:40:36 So it can be useful, I think, especially if you’re trying to get in the door with a new client or maybe a client that’s not quite at the level to pay a higher retainer and you can kind of work them up to that and you have the space on your roster for that.
0:40:37 It can be pretty useful.
0:40:40 I think it’s really compelling from a client perspective.
0:40:51 When I’ve seen people do it with Facebook ads or something where it was like, just pay us a percentage of what you make off the ad and then there’s a whole issue of tracking and attribution and everything that goes into that.
0:41:04 But it’s from the client side, it says, okay, you’re willing to put some skin in the game, so to speak, and say, look, we trust our process, we know you’re going to make money, and that’s why we only are going to make a fee based on if you win, we win kind of a thing.
0:41:13 Dustin, this has been awesome. So this is at jumpxmarketing.com. You can check out the agency over there. What’s next for you? What’s got you excited this year?
0:41:23 I’m just really focusing on helping more young brands, people with side hustles. I really think, I mean, just looking at the statistics, e-commerce is just exploding.
0:41:40 I think in the next four to five years, personal blogs were in like 2013, 2014, where it started to feel normal for people to have those. I think we’re going to start seeing in a few years, most people have some kind of e-commerce store on the side where maybe they sell their favorite items that they use.
0:41:51 There’s a lot of different things happening now where you don’t actually have to own, you know, you can do drop shipping now, or you can do partnership deals where you’re just selling other people’s things on your site directly for them and taking an affiliate cut.
0:41:57 So I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more smaller e-commerce brands start out and they’re going to be really low risk.
0:42:04 And I’m really excited about that for entrepreneurs who are just getting started because the more of the risk you can take out, the more fun it gets.
0:42:14 I like it. Sounds like a great mission and excited to see where that one goes. Dustin, let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side-hustlation 2021 edition.
0:42:21 This has been my theme for the past few months is just shoot your shot. We hold ourselves back a lot when we say no for other people.
0:42:33 So if you have historically been afraid to pitch ideas to other brands or to try to partner with people or do things with influencers, whatever it is, if you’ve or even reaching out to a client, you know, it’d be a perfect fit.
0:42:40 But you felt a little bit afraid to reach out and get that failure to shoot your shot. You never know who’s going to say yes or no.
0:42:48 Most people are going to say no. So just know that and no, it’s not a direct reflection on you. It’s just not the right fit at the right time.
0:42:58 So shoot your shot, launch, get started and learn as you go because that’s really the only way to improve is to get started so that you can start learning.
0:43:02 It’s so true and very similar to 2017’s advice. I had to go look this up.
0:43:10 The number one tip from back then was give yourself permission to take action. So interesting to see that, you know, not a lot has changed on that front.
0:43:16 You got to get out there. You got to get started. You got to put something out into the world and see what kind of reaction it gets.
0:43:22 So Dustin, really appreciate you joining me again. We’ll have to do it again in another four years and see where you’re at.
0:43:24 Absolutely. Thanks, Nick. I appreciate it.
0:43:26 You bet. We’ll catch up soon.
0:43:35 Just try to be a good human of all the actionable advice that Dustin just dropped.
0:43:40 That’s the bit that stood out to me because that’s an almost daily conversation I have with my kids.
0:43:47 Let’s just try to be good humans to each other. Be helpful, be kind, be respectful. Stop kicking your brother in the neck.
0:43:54 This is an episode I know I’ll be referring back to you for years because it’s so applicable to a ton of different businesses.
0:44:01 How do I get clients? That’s a question that every entrepreneur asks themselves and there are lots of ways to do it.
0:44:08 But I really like Dustin’s approach here of being of service first and seeking out these win-win-win relationships.
0:44:15 If you’re thinking the virtual workshop strategy is worth a shot in your business, I put together a free cheat sheet to help you get organized
0:44:20 and keep track of all the steps at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2.
0:44:29 Once again, that’s at sidehustlenation.com/dustin2dustin and the number two to grab that free partner workshop cheat sheet.
0:44:34 Big thanks to Dustin for sharing his insight. That’s it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:44:37 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:44:41 And I’ll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. I’ll see you then. Hustle on.
0:44:43 on.
One challenge that most new businesses face is the awareness problem – nobody knows you exist.
To help erase this problem, I’ve invited Dustin Lien from JumpXmarketing.com back on the show.
Dustin first appeared on episode 251 back in 2017. Back then, he was just ramping up JumpX after shutting down his own physical product business.
Since then he’s grown it into a 6-figure operation and built it in such a way that it only requires part-time attention.
What’s been his key driver?
Partner workshops, essentially virtual lunch-and-learn sessions where he can showcase his expertise and build his client roster without ads or bidding for work.
This works in just about any niche and in this episode, Dustin breaks down his exact process so you can go out and apply it in your own business.
Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:
- Dustin’s fast-track strategy to getting in front of the right audience
- how he quickly built his email list
- his top tips for creating warm outreach emails and connecting with customers
Full Show Notes: Webinar Marketing: How to Grow Your Agency w/ Virtual “Lunch and Learn” Events Live Workshops
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