Ep. 103- WOW! ==> Amy Porterfield! 50 MILLION PODCAST DOWNLOADS! #1 Marketing Expert in U.S. joins the show!

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this.

Not that. All right, we are here for what has to be one of the most special episodes we've ever had of this crazy thing.

So we have a guest, and if somebody said to me, okay, you can only choose one person that has taught you the most that their content is what you look forward to more than any other human being's content, and is the most real person in the marketing world, who would that person be? And without hesitation, I would say Amy Porterfield. That is who I would say. I. I mean, forget about it. There's no one else.

Now, if you don't know, I'm going to let Amy introduce herself and talk all about herself in a second, but I have to do the part where I really tell you how awesome she is. If you don't know Amy, then. Then you're from Mars and welcome to Earth. Hope it's going well.

But she decided she did the thing we all dream of, and she said, I want freedom in my work life. And she bailed.

She bailed on this great job that she had, this dream job that she had, and said, I'm starting my own business and I'm going to launch the digital course academy, and I'm going to teach other people how to build their own online courses.

So you hear a lot of people.

Have courses, all this stuff. So how did it turn out? How did it actually go for Amy? Did it. Did it work? Well, here's what happened.

Her business has earned over $100 million in revenue.

She has served over 89,000 students via her courses and her podcast, which is, no joke, my number one favorite podcast on Earth, Online Marketing Made Easy, has been downloaded over 50 million times. That is crazy. So she's awesome. Amy, welcome to do this. Not that.

Jay, that was such a nice introduction. Thank you for that. That made me feel very special. I'm really happy to be here.

Amazing. Well, let me ask you a question before we get into. We're going to talk today about myths and pitfalls to avoid. But with that intro, it's.

I'm sure people listen like, well, she's crushing it. Maybe she crushes everything in her life. Has it just always been easy street? Is everything you've always done just worked?

I wish the answer was yes to that. I will say that my first few years of entrepreneurship were very rocky.

I don't think there was a day in my probably first three years that I didn't think, this is not working and I'm going to have to beg Tony Robbins back from my job. Yeah, not all smooth sailing, for sure.

And I can't believe no one warned me that entrepreneurship was going to be so many highs and lows, so many great moments, and so many hard moments as well. I wrote a book, Two Weeks Notice.

And in that book, I tell a story about how I almost lost my entire business to a business partner because I rushed into something and it was really, really, really scary. So, yeah, I've had my ups and downs.

But for those that are thinking about quitting their job or have become entrepreneurs, I always say that my best day, my best, best day in my 9 to 5 job was nowhere near as good as my best day as an entrepreneur. It's just a whole different experience. So I'm glad I did it. But, yeah, hasn't always been smooth sailing.

I think that gives everybody like, okay, fine, I could try this too, which is good. We need that.

So let's talk about, you know, there's so many podcasts, there's so much content out there, and everyone's always saying, you should do this and this is a best practice and all this nonsense. But there are some myths out there that I want to see if you could help us bust. So in my.

In my agency business, I get this from my clients all the time, whether they're business or consumer marketers. They'll say this to me. They'll say, well, let's just send out more offers.

And if we send out more offers, it'll lead to more sales, and more leads is more, always better.

So you're setting me up really good because my secret sauce to building this business and hitting a hundred million dollars in revenue is because I really subscribe to less is more. Now, I wasn't always that way. In my first few years of business, I didn't know what I was doing. I created offer after offer.

I would do one thing and then it would be okay, and then I'd start all over and start from scratch with another offer. I think that's very normal. In the beginning. But what has served me well is that I have very few offers and I double down on them.

So I want to first kind of show a little bit behind the scenes of what my business looks like. So, so I have two digital courses. One is on Evergreen. I run it every single day in the background of my business.

And the other one is a live launch I do every September. So I have two digital courses and I have one membership.

But the only way to get into my membership is if you go through my signature program, which is how to create and launch a digital course, which is the one I launch every September. So I launch that course in September, then I invite those students afterwards to come into my membership. That that's the only way you can get in.

And then I do some affiliate marketing. I have a few different peers courses, my friends courses that I promote, but that's all.

I don't get paid to speak on stage because I, I, well, I rarely do. I shouldn't say that I rarely get paid to speak on stage. It's not something I advertise. I do not do one on one coaching or consulting.

And I don't have a bunch of other random offers out there. I don't have a mastermind or anything like that. And the reason for that is I got into entrepreneurship because I value freedom.

So the more offers you have, the more things you're creating, the more often you start from scratch. It bogs you down. And so I'm able to create a really amazing, profitable business with very few offers.

Now some people are listening and they're like, that's boring. As entrepreneurs, most of us favor variety. We love mixing things up. We love starting new things.

Maybe not always finishing them, but we love starting them. I just don't do that. Even though sometimes I have the urge I stay in my lane and I become known for something.

So the last point I'll make to this is the reason I'm able to be so profitable in my business with just a few offers is because I have become known for someone who helps you create digital courses. So there's a hundred different things that I could be known for in the digital space.

But when you're in a room of people that, and there's someone says, I want to create a digital course, who should I learn? From 9 times out of 10, my name's going to be at the top of the list. That was by design, year after year doing the same thing.

And when you're known for something, that's where the profit comes in.

So first of all, that's really eye opening to me because I think I'm one of those people like, oh, let's, let's have more offers because it'll lead to more business.

But when you talk about offers, you do have a lot of content or lead magnets or what someone might think is an offer, but those aren't in your, in your eyes, that's not really an offer, that's just a pathway to your offers.

Great question. When I say offer, I mean I'm selling something, but I do have a lot of free offers, so I really go big on my free content that I put out there.

List lead magnets, list building opportunities, quizzes, all that good stuff. So, yes, we create a lot of content in the business, but we just don't sell a lot of different offers.

And you know, you, you actually taught me something that I don't know if you realize you're teaching people that you do this, but every time I listen to you, every time I see what you're putting out there, there's so much free stuff and I don't get the vibe that there's an agenda behind it. I know ultimately you want us to buy something, subscribe something, but it feels like there's no agenda.

So I feel like you, you are like doing no agenda marketing and it builds the credibility with the people you're reaching out to. So when you do try to push something and sell something, they're into it.

Like, do you realize that you kind of are doing this kind of like good vibe marketing? Is that part of your mix?

You know, that's a huge compliment. I've got to take that back to my marketing team because they will love to hear that.

No, the, the truth is that everything we do is incredibly intentional and really strategic and I'm always leading to an offer. But I think where it feels a little bit different. Jay and I appreciate you saying that is because I'm not constantly selling that. It's.

I, I don't all like digital course academy. I only, as of right now, I think we're going to change this. But I only, only offer it once a year.

And so while I'm doing freebies about digital courses and coming up with your topic at that time, there's nothing to sell you, so there's A longer tail when free, free, free, free, free, free. Then I offer it, I talk. I call it priming the pump so that when I am ready to sell, they're absolutely ready to buy.

So I've got a longer tailway, I guess you could say there. But no, they always do eventually lead to a sell.

I love it. It feels good. It feels right. It makes you want to engage with. With everything that you're doing. So let's pivot to a different myth.

Okay, so my platform of Choice is. Is LinkedIn. Your platform of choice is Instagram, which, by the way, if you don't follow Amy on Instagram, go stop listening and go follow her.

And I post a lot of stuff on LinkedIn and some of them are like, oh, great, I'm posting all this stuff. I'm creating a lot of content, a lot of original content. I'm a content creator. But is that. Is that really the.

Is that real original content or is that just a myth in my mind that this is. Is this the right play?

Okay, this. I love this topic. So I do not believe that posting on social media means that you are creating weekly original content.

Well, with a caveat, yes, it's original content, but not in a way that is strategic and will grow the business versus the way I'm going to talk about. So I believe that it's important for every marketer to either have a podcast, a blog, or a YouTube slash video show.

And I believe, and I've been teaching this for years and years, that you should at least create that original content. Let's say you have a podcast every single week, rain or shine, no exception.

And the reason why this is so important is because you cannot be build your business on rented land. LinkedIn and Instagram are rented land for us as business owners.

And I've been around long enough to know that Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk changes the algorithm or the rules, and boom, the way I was doing business has been changed for me. I had no control over that. And I'm a girl that likes to be in control. Disaster my husband.

And so I want to make sure that I am controlling the growth of my business. And the only way I can do that is, is if I put it on my own platform and I grow my email list. And so. And I know you see the power in that as well.

My audience is obsessed with Subject line. Com. I tell about it all the time.

For the record, I even put it, Jay, you don't know this, but I mentioned it in a free Webinar I do about list building. So amazing now. So it's. It's just such a great resource. So I'm all about the list building.

So with that, that means that for me, it's a podcast every single week. I actually do it twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday. You will always find a podcast from me.

It's a lot of work, but it's worth it because I use social media to drive traffic to my podcast. I use social media to drive traffic to my lead magnets, but the goal is to get them on my email list, on my podcast.

I encourage you to get on my email list with my lead magnets, get on my email list. To me, all roads lead to my email list because I believe that's where you're going to have the strongest foundation in your business.

And my podcast or a blog or a video show will help you grow your email list. And one more thing, I see it as having two strategies. So let's say I podcast every week. The first strategy is it's casting a wide net.

IHeartRadio, Apple Podcast, Spotify. They're going to push me out to people that normally I would never have access to. So I'm growing a bigger audience just by podcasting every week.

But the second reason I podcast every week is I have an email list of people that are engaged with me, and I need something of value to give them every single week to keep them coming back for more. So I'll email my list every week, rain or shine, and I'll say, I've got a new podcast for you. Here's what it's about. Don't miss it.

If I don't send that email, my podcast downloads will go down. So that email's really important.

So I cast a wide net to attract a new audience, and I nurture the audience I already have with a podcast a week, or in my case, two podcasts.

So I. When I started listening to you, I didn't have a podcast. And it really, it got me going.

And one of the reasons it got me going, doing a podcast was that I think in this world where everyone's trying to have community, where AI is taking over the planet and all this stuff, to have a voice to. To have something that you can get out there consistently, I think is. Is so super important.

And there's people listening this thing, they're like, well, Amy's got a big following. If I start a podcast, I'm gonna get four people to listen to this thing.

Is a podcast for everybody or is it you gotta be Amy Porterfield, have a podcast.

I don't think a podcast is for everybody, but not because you. You have to be like me.

I believe that when you're choosing a podcast, a blog, or a video show, the first question you gotta ask yourself is, would I be willing to do that every single week? If you told me I had to blog every single week, we'd have a big problem. I'm not a fast writer.

I don't necessarily enjoy writing at that level, and I'm going to dread it every single time I have to sit down and do it, so. But I'm a good talker. In second grade, I used to get talking on my report card and got in trouble all the time, and it served me well now.

So I tell my dad, look, that that punishment he gave me wasn't warranted. And so I really love talking like this. And also a lot of the times my podcasts aren't on video.

So as a woman who doesn't want to do her hair and makeup all the time, I love that as well. You guys don't know. The gentlemen are so lucky with what you've got there. So I really love a podcast where video.

I've always been a little bit more hesitant to jump on video and feel comfortable on video, so I would never have a video show like that. So first it comes asking you, what will you do on a consistent basis?

But the second question, equally important is, where's my audience spending time? Now, it's pretty easy to say most people will listen to a podcast, especially if you're doing anything related to business.

But also a blog, for someone who is has a cooking channel or not a cooking channel, but they do recipes, meal prep blog is great. Or a video show could be great for cooking as well. Podcast, not so much.

So you gotta ask, where's my audience spending time and how are they going to engage with my. My content?

And I also think it gets your juices flowing because, like, for me, when I have to do a podcast or my newsletter, I have to sit down, my team back, all right, what the hell are we going to talk about? We got, you know, and then you have to like, research, like, and it makes you. Forces you to stay up to date on things and have new ideas and it.

It look like it's like a whole thing, but it is a hamster wheel. I will tell you, there are definitely times I'm like, this will never end. What will happen? I'll be 95 years old and still recording stupid things.

So right there's pros and cons to every platform. There's not gonna be any perfect platform. There's some days that I'm like, if I have to record another podcast, I'm going to scream.

And then there's other days I'm like, oh, I enjoy this. So, yeah, it's a love hate sometimes.

A hundred percent. Well, along those lines, let's get to a pitfall. Okay, I don't know how you do this and I need to do this, but you is it. You're.

Do you think it's a good idea to have a 12 month promo calendar? And if you say yes, I think I need to quit my job.

Okay, let's talk about this, because that is very overwhelming to a lot of people. This is another one of my secret sauce. Listen, I do a lot of things wrong. Just the other day I literally cried over a bad decision we made.

So I've got my issues, but the things I do right, this is one of them. And it's a 12 month promo calendar. Now let's talk about this.

What that looks like is let's say in October this year, you sit down with a few team members and you decide, what are we doing next year? Are we going to promote this in January? Are we going to do an affiliate launch for somebody else in March?

Are we going to roll out a new product in January or June or whatever? So you start to kind of play around with what would an amazing year look like?

And you take all the offers you already have that you want to continue to promote and you start looking for maybe some new opportunities you've been wanting to do. And so you first kind of get a list together of all the things we'd like to do. And then I like to print out, like on a Word document, a calendar.

January, February, all the way to December. So I have one page. I'm kind of an old school kind of girl. So I've got one page per calendar. And we start kind of mapping.

Where would we do all these things? And so we put them in the calendar and then we say, and this is like a, an all day session. Like, I love the idea of just spending the day doing this.

And then you look and say, okay, well if I'm going to create a new course, let's say for June, I'm going to have to work on it in April and May. So I've got to block out time to actually create the course and create the assets.

So you put that in there and I'm going to go to Italy with my family in July. So I'm going to mark off two weeks to make sure I've got my white space in there. Like, we're talking white space, promos, holidays.

You're putting it all in there. And the first time you do this, you will likely look at it and think, I want to quit my business. I'm not going to do all this.

The first time I did it, actually, it happens every year. I'm like, oh, my gosh, we cannot possibly do that. We're going to work our lives away. Then you start erasing things and moving things around.

So it's very fluid, very messy, but it is so incredibly powerful.

Now, the next thing you do, after you map it out and you cross things out and you get it all down, then you start to put revenue goals to each of those promos.

Now, sometimes it's an educated guess, but sometimes you look at what you've done before and you kind of go from there, but you start to put revenue goals with every single promo you plan to have. And that's huge for us because then that's how we start to decide, okay, this is the goal we want to hit for the end. By the end of the year.

But it's not just a number I pulled out of thin air. I literally tied it to different promos throughout the whole year.

Now, why this is so powerful is, number one, you get to see how it's going to happen. You're not just throwing out a revenue number and crossing your fingers.

You also know when you're going to be in a busy season versus a quieter season. That's huge for entrepreneurs know to know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel when things get really crazy.

Also, when you have a small team or a big team, it's really cool that they get to know, here's what we're doing next year. So plan accordingly around your vacations. Also plan accordingly in terms of what you need to be prepared for in order to make this happen.

But here's what we're doing. And then finally, if it. You get into it and it's too much or too little, I always say there's like a 10% wiggle room.

You could cut something out, add something in, but only 10%, meaning we're not changing this. And that discipline really makes a difference for your business as well.

Wow. I was. That was. Was. I was going to ask was how much moving around you do, but 10%, that's like almost nothing on one hand. It's.

It's it's liberating that you know you're not going to change a lot because you're, you've done it. You're like, I just got to follow this plan that we got.

And I bet your team really, really loves it too, because they could plan their lives and get motivated and get excited. Are they like, all into it once it's done? Is it like, yay, let's celebrate?

They love it. And, and in the beginning, we got to be realistic. If you've never done this before, give yourself 30% wiggle room.

Like, I'm sure in the beginning I changed way more than I do now. I'm more seasoned, but give yourself more wiggle room. My team does love it and it allows them to ask some questions, get some more clarity.

And also we do this thing, we've got a four day work week on my team and we have a unlimited time off, which sounds great, but oh.

My God, everyone could have applied for a job with you.

Right? Come on over, dude. We've got a few, few positions, but the unlimited time off, no one abuses it, which is the.

What I actually have to encourage people to take time off even though they have as much time as they want. But it allows us to have some blackout dates on the calendar.

So when I'm launching in September, that whole month is off limits to take vacation, and everyone knows that. And so if I sprung that on them in the summer, like, hey, by the way, no vacation time in September, they're going to be frustrated.

They know this a year in advance. And so it allows us to have really great conversations and expectations early on.

But I will say we work on this in October, we revisit it in November, we lock it in in December. So it's a process over time.

All right, I'm doing this. I'm going to try. I'm going to try. I'm going to. It is. I promise I'm going to try. There may be like 40% wiggle room, but I don't know. I'm going to try.

Yeah.

All right, massive pivot now. Now we're going to go to the segment of this podcast which goes off the rails. It is called since you didn't ask.

And I love the fact I have Amy Porterfield. She's stuck on this thing and she's going to have to talk about. I watch epically horrible tv.

Like, like, give me an example.

Okay. All right, let's see. Let's see. If you go down this rabbit hole, are you. Do you watch anything Related to the Bachelor franchise?

I do not. Although I watch it enough on Social. But I don't watch the Bachelor. Okay, the fact that you're watching the Bachelor's already cracking me up.

Tell me.

Well, I've never seen. I've never missed any episode. Bachelor, Bachelor in paradise, Bachelor at Golden Bachelor. Never miss it. How about Love is blind?

Oh, I just got into it. I've seen two seasons, and my husband and I are obsessed. Season six was wild, but I just went back to season one, and it was even better.

So you went back. Who does that? You watched and you went back to season one.

Everyone said season six was so great, I had to watch it. And then I was so confused. Like, does everyone go to the altar? What are these vacations? I had so many questions.

So they're like, go to season one now.

Did you make it all the way through? Did you watch it to the reunion?

Oh, heck yeah. And then I did deep dives into everybody's lives. It's embarrassing. Yes.

Oh, my God. I. I went. I had to. After it was over. I. I did not think that Nick and Vanessa did a great job during the reunion.

Hated it. Hated that reunion.

It was terrible because they didn't get to the bottom of Jimmy and Chelsea, and they were, like, holding hands.

The biggest one ever. And they. Of the top. The couple deserved the most discussion. Maybe he had like five minutes. I was so mad.

I. I could not understand it. And that dude, Trevor, he came on like the most unprepared human being alive. Who. What is wrong with that guy?

Massacre. What was he thinking? You had time to prepare, Trevor, and you look like a jerk. So. Yeah.

Oh, my God, Trevor. That was the greatest thing of all. I can't believe you gone back to season one. That is wild now. All right, what about. Are you.

Do you watch any of the Real Housewives?

All of them. I know a little come out of this. Yes. I know a little bit about every house, but New York is where my heart is. And yes, I'm obsessed with new.

With Real Housewives.

Now. Do. Would you like. I just watched Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and they had the. You know, the reunion and Kyle. Kyle Mauricio and the whole thing.

Are you in on all of it?

All of it? All of it. I'm. My husband hates it for the record, because they yell at each other the whole time. These women just yell at each other.

And he'll come in the room and he'll be like, you need to turn this off. And I'm like, you need to just leave. This is something I love.

No, this is important. We need to know why Kathy Hilton is running the show and why Sutton is having a nervous breakdown. This is important stuff.

On the reunion, she really struggled.

I'm amazed. I makes me feel better about myself.

I don't know why you're, like, validating me watching horrible TV and knowing that you do too, makes me feel better about myself.

I get it.

Episode just on this on your podcast.

I think so, too. And, like, that's why I had to ask you, like, well, what do you watch?

Because I was afraid you were going to be like National Geographic or something. Like, no, it's not happening over here.

Oh, yeah. I'm very, very intellectual person, let me tell you. Really? So, all right, you have to pick only one of these movies. Okay. You're sitting there.

There's three movies on the tv. You can only pick one. Okay. Legally Blonde, Bridesmaids, or Mean Girls.

I'd have to do Bridesmaids. I just really like that kind of humor. And when they're on the plane going on their trip, it's one of my favorite scenes.

Oh, my God, I do love that. Although I. I just saw the me I had to go to. My wife goes, we're going to a play. I'm like, what? And she took me to the mean girls play.

Like the musical play. Yes. It was not. It should not. It was not good. The movie is like, Regina George is the greatest villain of all time. But that play. I. I don't. I don't.

Well, we've covered a lot of ground today. We really have. We. I mean, all over the map. And this has been amazing.

Oh, I want to announce for everybody that Guru Conference, as many of you know, is the free virtual two day email marketing event. Like 25, 000 markers will be there. And this is exciting.

We have not announced any speakers yet, but here, officially, we're announcing our very first speaker who will be at Guru Conference this year. Amy Porterfield will be speaking at Guru Conference. Amy, are you excited?

Oh, my goodness, I'm so excited. It's going to be such a great time. I got to do it last year and I loved every minute of it.

So to get an invite to speak this year, it's going to be even bigger and better. So I can't wait.

Amazing. So, by the way, if anyone wants to register, we're going to run out of these virtual seats. We have. That's Guru Conference dot com.

You got to see Amy there. It's free and virtual And Amy, how.

Does everybody get involved with your world? What do they do?

Follow you? What should they do? They want to get involved with you.

Well, I appreciate you asking, so I would love for you to come on over if you love Jay's podcast and you want some more marketing advice. I've got a podcast called Online Marketing Made Easy. Come take a listen. And I'm pretty active on Instagram, so some come say hello.

Yes. And please listen to our podcast. We're gonna put everything in the show. Notes, follow Amy. She is amazing.

Amy, I cannot thank you enough for being here. We'll see you at Guru Conference. Appreciate you.

Thank you, my friend. Appreciate you too.

Right? You did it.

You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over.

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