podcast #28 - amazon s3 › teresacontent › podcast › pod… · a keynote speaker and speaks...

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Podcast #28Transcript

Hello, and a really warm welcome to episode 28 of the Social Media Marketing Made

Simple Podcast, and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing. I am so excited for today I can’t

tell you. I’ve been waiting some quite time to finally get around to interviewing people,

which was intentional, because I wanted to work on the podcast on my own and know

that I knew what I was doing, and that I got all the systems in place, and everything was

working well before I went out to the world to ask people to come onto the podcast.

And today is my first interview and it’s so good, I mean, so good. I’m not saying that

I’m a really good interviewer, by the way, this isn’t some uber confidence thing, but the

person who I’ve interviewed is such a good guest on the podcast that I am over the moon.

The guy that I have interviewed for today’s first ever interview podcast is normally at the

top of people’s interview lists, so this guy, you don’t normally start with him, he’s normally

what you work up to.

So today’s episode I am interviewing the amazing Pat Flynn, I feel like there should

be some kind of like, woo, applause, clap, clap, clap. I should get some sound effects in for

future ones. I first met Pat back in Converted 16, which is a conference in Minneapolis,

and I have to say at that point I didn’t know a lot about Pat. I vaguely knew that he was

this guy that helped people with online businesses, but I haven’t seen him talk before, and

I went a long to this conference in Minneapolis, and Pat was a keynote speaker, and he

is so good at speaking, he makes you an instant fan, and immediately fall in love with his

style and how he does things, and makes you want to follow him and consume as much of

his content as you possibly can.

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Achieve YouTube Success With Pat Flynn

Podcast #28


Pat is a father, husband, and entrepreneur, who lives and works in very beautiful

San Diego, for some reason lots of people in my industry all live in San Diego, which

is crazy but that’s just the way it is, so let me share a little bit about Pat with you, he is

a keynote speaker and speaks all over the world, including during the closing keynote

of Social Media Marketing World 2018, which I can only imagine that for people in my

industry that has gotta be top of the bucket list type thing.

He is the owner of two podcasts, in fact, he’s had more than two, but two main

podcasts, Smart Passive Income, and Ask Pat. I’m gonna link up to all these things in the

show notes, which now have over 50 million downloads. As a fledgling podcaster I can

only imagine the day when I can say I’ve had a million downloads, let alone 50 million

downloads.

He is a Wall Street Journal best selling author and has two books, Will It Fly?, and

Let It Go. Will It Fly is a book I’ve read, it’s really good if you have an idea and you want to

see if it’s going to succeed when you put it out into the marketplace, and his current focus

is not on YouTube although he still does the other podcast as well, where he currently has

over a 130,000 subscribers, and to top it off he is one of the nicest men you will ever met.

In our industry he really is probably the nicest person of social media. He is a devoted

husband and father, and often shares personal posts on his social media with him and his

two delightful children.

This year, at Podcast Movement Conference he even invited his son to come

onstage with him and speak, that’s right, I mean I couldn’t imagine bringing my daughter

onstage with me and hoping she says the right things, but his son came onstage and

spoke with him, because they now have a podcast together. Now, all these things could

be the reason why Pat has one of the loyalist followings ever. He has notes all the time

from people who say thank you to him for sharing some of his knowledge, and for helping

them with their business. People love Pat Flynn, and in this podcast he shares with us

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how he got to be the successful entrepreneur that he is, and what has made the biggest

difference to him and his business.

And then, on top of all that he gives his top tips on how you can kill it on YouTube,

which I have to say I sat there with complete fascination, because YouTube is something

that I am thinking about working on, so I was kinda taking in every single word he said,

anyway, I feel like I have wound you up enough, so without further ado I would love to

welcome you to the amazing Pat Flynn.

Hey Pat.

Pat Flynn: Hi, how are you?

Teresa Heath-Wa: I am really good, thank you, and you?

Pat Flynn: Great. Congratulations on your new show and you know I’m happy, and

honored, to be episode number one, and fun fact, I don’t know if you know this, but for

another very famous podcast called Entrepreneurs On Fire, I was also John Lee Dumas’

first episode.

Teresa Heath-Wa: That’s amazing.

Pat Flynn: So you know, this is the start of a good thing.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah, well if I can follow in his footsteps, then absolutely, so as I’ve

said before I’ve never interviewed anybody before, you’re my first, and I said in the intro

that we sat down in San Diego a few months back, back in June, and I talked to you about

how I wanted to get people on the podcast, and that I wanted to interview, and you very

kindly said that you would be happy to be a guest, and how fitting it was that you would

be my first guest.

Pat Flynn: I’m happy to be here.

Teresa Heath-Wa: I am so over the moon and for my listeners out there that

are listening, if you don’t know Pat, I am about introduce you into someone who is

phenomenal, and I’m telling you now, you need to follow him. I know I’ve mentioned you

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Podcast #28 Transcrit


so many times before, and I’ve talked about you all the time, so I know that they would’ve

perhaps heard a bit about you, but they probably don’t know your story, and your story’s

fascinating because you have this great saying that getting laid off was the best thing that

ever happened to you, and really, that was kinda the start of your journey, so I would love

it if you could just spend a minute or two kinda taking us through how you kinda got from

there to here? That would be awesome.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, I mean, getting laid off was great but I didn’t know it at the time, at the

time it felt like the worst thing to ever happen, this was back in June of 2008 I was told I

was gonna be let go from my dream job, and I had my dream job for a number of years as

an architect, or aspiring architect, I was quickly climbing the corporate ladder only to be

thrown out with a lot of other people who were losing their job too around the same time.

2008 was a tough year for a lot of people, and to make this even worse I had just recently

proposed to my girlfriend. We were planning a wedding and she’s Filipino, I’m half Filipino,

and so if you know any Filipinos you know that you need to invited the entire Filipino

nation to your wedding.

And so, we’re like, what are we gonna do? So my fiance moved back with her

parents to save money. I moved back with my parents to save money and I was just

trying to figure out, okay, what am I gonna do next? And luckily, I discovered this thing

called podcast, because I had some extra time and I listened to a podcast called Internet

Business Mastery, and there was one particular episode, and I don’t know, divine

intervention, right? Like things just kinda happen for a reason sometimes.

I had randomly stumbled upon this podcast, and within this podcast archive, I

randomly stumbled upon ... it wasn’t even their latest episode it was from a while back,

but it was an interview with a guy named Cornelius who was making six figures a year

by helping people pass the Project Management Exam, or the PM exam, and that’s my

first big light bulb moment in my online business career, because I had taken a number of

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Podcast #28 Transcript


exams to lead up to where I was, and where I was going, as an architect, and I was like,

maybe there’s someway that I can take this information that I know about one of these

exams I took, and I choose one in particular that was extremely difficult that I had recently

passed, it was called The LEED Exam, L-E-E-D, which is a worldwide sorta standardization

of green buildings, and environmentally friendly architecture, and that sort of thing.

Very niched exam but it was on my mind so I was like, okay, how can I take this

information I know? So I had created a website and I actually had some information

already up that was mainly created just to help my co-workers, and me pass this exam, so

to kind of rewind a little bit, in 2007 I had studied for this exam which is very difficult, and

to help me and a couple co-workers study I created a blog to essentially just keep track

of our notes so we could always go back to it, it was always like a good repository for that

information, and then after we passed the exam, we literally just let it sit there, because

there was no more reason to go back to it.

So when I went back to it several months later and I put a tool on the website to

check the traffic, which was like I had no idea what I was doing I signed on the next day

and I noticed that thousands of people were already visiting this website from like 30

different countries around the world, and it kinda scared me, I was like, I have no idea how

this is happening, where these people are coming from, but I basically found out that they

were coming from two places, number one, Google, Google loved what I was posting, or

what we had posted on that website, and so they started to rank me really high for a lot of

those keywords, but I was also being found in a lot of forums, because people who found

me through Google were like, oh my gosh, this resource is exactly what I needed, you guys

have to check this out.

I was getting kinda ... people didn’t even know who was behind the website but I

was famous in this little niche of this exam, and so when I discovered that I was like okay,

I gotta show that I’m a real person on the other end, so I opened up the comments, I put

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my face on the blog, I started saying, hey, my name is Pat, I took this exam too, I’m here

to help you, and that’s when I started to become seen as like an expert in this space, and

people started to call me ... oh, go to Pat’s website, because he’s an expert on this exam.

It kinda made me laugh at first, because I was like I’m not an expert, I mean, I’ve

taken this exam and I barely passed it, but I started to becoming known as one, because

I was the one who was posting information and really just helping people for free, until

October when I published a study guide. I’m taking a lot of the same information that I

had published for free, and packaging it into a $19.95 eBook, and in that month when I

launched that eBook I had made $7,908 dollars and 55 cents.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Oh my God.

Pat Flynn: From launching that, and it kinda just, I mean, my first reaction was, what

is happening? This is crazy, this can’t be true, I must be doing something illegal, like, this

can’t work, I don’t even know if this is right, like, I thought that at any moment like the FBI

was gonna come and knock on my door, because obviously it just was so new to me, but

the coolest part about this was not the money that was coming, the fact that I was able to

kinda save myself from this layoff, but the fact that I was also getting these amazing thank

you letters, both emails and hand-written letters from people who had passed the exam

that I was helping them study for, and a few of those people were like, Pat, I’m a huge fan

now. I’m a fan of what you do. I’m gonna share you with the world.

Like, I told my entire office about you and we all bought your program and I was

like this is amazing, and that’s when I started smartpassiveincome.com, which is where

most people know me from now, where I just decided to share every little bit of this story

and everything that I had done, and things that I am doing, things that I’m doing right,

things that I’m doing wrong, how much money I was making, where it was all coming from,

different strategies I was using, because when I was trying to learn all this stuff nobody

was sharing anything, everybody was like okay I would love to teach you internet business

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stuff but you have to pay thousands of dollars to get access to it, and I was like, that’s not

right, like, I’m just gonna share everything and see what happens, because that’s what I did

in the first go around, and now, I’m known as a top leader in the space, and an amazing

with ... we just past 55 million downloads which is kinda insane, and speaking around the

world, Wall Street Journal best selling book.

The beauty of this is not just the fact that there’s this incredible support that I have

from an amazing fan base, and audience, but the fact that I can also structure my time and

my life in a way that allows me to spend more time with my kids, my wife and I, we walk to

school with our kids every day, we bring them back from school together every day, and

we’re like the only set of parents who do that. We can go to Target which is a place here in

the US that you can buy things at, like, at two in the afternoon when nobody else is there,

so little things like that mean so much because now it’s like I’m in control as opposed to

when I was working in architecture, it’s like I was always under somebody else’s direction,

I was always under ... you know, even the layoff, like that was out of control, now my

business is fully under my control and I can decide when I want to do things, how I want

to do things, and even decide like how big I want to go, and how much more money I

want to make.

It’s just so incredible I’m just so thankful and blessed, and this is why I love coming

on shows like that and even being episode number one, and just wanting to help as many

people as I can.

Teresa Heath-Wa: A, that shows in everything I’ve ever seen you ... it comes from a

deep desire of wanting to help people which is such a great lovely way of doing business

because it’s not like you said, hey, I’ll tell you all my secrets, but you’ve gotta pay all this

money, and sometimes that can feel a bit of a con, you know, the reason they made

money is because they’re selling this to so many people, whereas your isn’t like that at all,

you’re very much this is what I’ve done.

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There’s a couple of things that I want to just pick up on, one, I love the fact of your

work life ethic, because I think so many people come into their own businesses, especially

if they’ve been in the corporate world, I was from a corporate world myself, and you

come into this business thinking great, now I get to control my time, and I think very few

people do, I think you’ll find yourself working harder and longer, and thinking oh my gosh,

I’m working all these hours for what? Probably less than I was earning in corporate world,

so the fact that you kinda went, no, I’m not gonna do that, you know, I’m gonna run my

business but make suer I have that time for my children and my wife, and I’m present for

them.

And then, the other thing that I love, and I was looking at again today, is the fact

that you publish your income records, which one, I think is such a brave move because

that is the most transparent thing I’ve ever seen, but the other thing I loved about it was I

could look at your income records starting from as way back as you started to post them,

and you can start to see your journey, and for someone like me where I feel I’m at sorta

at the tip of my journey where I’m really gonna start, it’s so good to see how your income

increased month, from month, from month, and I was wondering as I was looking through

what must it felt like, that first month you did a 100,000.

Pat Flynn: Oh, gosh.

Teresa Heath-Wa: I bet it was so exciting.

Pat Flynn: It was mind blowing and kind of unreal it seems, because you hear about

these people who do these big launches or make that much money, and it’s just like, that

can’t be me, and to actually work hard and put in the effort to get to that point, which

didn’t happen right away, and I tell this story about even how I earned my first 8,000

dollars in that month of October of 2008, I mean, there was so much work that went into

that, I mean, I don’t want to lie and say that, yeah, this is easy, I’m on a laptop on a beach

sipping pina coladas, it’s nothing like that, like, I work my butt off, and I still continue to do

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it, but I am now in control of when I want to work my butt off, and when I want to relax,

you know, work hard, play hard, on my own time, not somebody else’s time.

And now, I think the best part about this is I’m building my own dream and I’m

building my own legacy versus working hard and waking up everyday to build somebody

else’s dream, right? Like, I’m working on my own stuff now, and in terms of work life

balance the kids to me are the most important thing because that’s the next generation,

and so I want to make sure that I’m an example for them, and I want to show them that

you can do what you want to do, but still you gotta work hard for it, and that’s what I

teach in my business too, and I love that you mentioned the fact that I serve first.

That’s what I teach. That’s what I practice. The way to make money is to solve

peoples problems, that’s what any successful business does, that’s what we’re doing right

now on this podcast, and when you serve first and you help people they’re gonna wanna

continue to go back to you for additional help, and sometimes that additional help is just

free content on your website that you had distributed out there, but other people need

to go deeper with you, and are willing and happy to pay you for that, whether that’s an

upcoming client, or access to an online course, or a physical product that you might have,

or something, but it really just comes down to what are the pains and the problems of

your target audience, and how are you helping them? Serve first and you will be rewarded.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great philosophy. So in those early days was

there a particular platform, or strategy, or something that you really felt helped accelerate

you? Because obviously, I think now there are so many things that people could be doing,

whether it’s podcast, a blog, YouTube, was there one thing that you thought, you know

what? That was the game changer when I started that things started happening.

Pat Flynn: Well, it’s funny, because that is what I tell myself every time I tried a new

platform, right? So I started with the blog and the blog was safe to me, it was like, okay,

I could hide behind my blog, I can type out something and if it’s not good I could rewrite

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it or you know, I can edit it or have somebody else look at it, it wasn’t live or my face

wasn’t really shown that much in the beginning, so the blog to me was a big game changer

because it allowed me to build my initial small, but somewhat sizable audience, and the

transparency and the income reports obviously definitely helped, and especially in the

space that I’m in, which like I said earlier was everybody was very secretive of things.

I’m just gonna go opposite and that really helped, and then in 2009 I started

YouTube, and that was a big game changer for me, because that allowed me to teach in

a different way and to teach a little bit more efficiently with visuals, it also opened up my

blog and my brand to more people who wouldn’t of found me otherwise, and then 2010,

after the YouTube thing was going, and I got that machine rolling, then it was the podcast

in July of 2010 that really launched things for me, and I think a few things really made

the podcast a big part of this, and number one, it was because it was a little bit easier to

produce than video, but also the fact that a podcast is a easy way for you to connect with

other people, just like how we’re connecting right now, and people are listening to us.

So in addition to having the audience listen to us, now, you and I are having an

hour long conversation, and we’re able to deepen our relationship now, you and I have

already known each other for a while but a podcast is a great, easy, platform to go, hey

influencer, or hey other person out there who shares the same audience, like, come on my

show I’d love to feature you to my audience and you know you can get a lot of benefits

from the connections that you make on a podcast, and now a lot of my best friends are

people who I’ve initially connected with on my show, and so a lot of the growth happens

across all those platforms, blogs, YouTube, podcasting, a lot of growth happens and the

way that I really became known is the result of other people sharing my story, and, A,

knowing that I had a good story, B, refining that story to be something that wold inspire

people and help people.

But, C, having other people learn about it and want to share it too, that’s the cherry

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on top, and that’s how you can get really good exposure as opposed to you going out

there and trying to convince somebody that you have a great story, having another person

who is already earned that trust with somebody tell that story for you, and feature you,

you’re way ahead of the game when you get that exposure from others like that.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah, no, that’s awesome. And like you said it’s kinda every platform

you come to, and I remember when one of the first times I saw you, you talked about

being everywhere, and constantly being seen in things, and actually that’s kinda what you

do really well, is that, if you’re into podcast, there’s a podcast, there’s a blog, [inaudible

00:20:59], and although it must be such hard work to keep up with all that it does mean

that you are opening yourself up to lots of different people in lots of different ways, which

obviously is gonna help in terms of building you, and your brand, and what you do.

Pat Flynn: Right, but you gotta work your way there, right? Like I said, I started with

a blog, a year later I started the YouTube channel, a year later, after that I started the

podcast. I wouldn’t recommend going everywhere all at the start, because when you

do that you divide your energy across all those spaces, and none of them have the

juice it needs to become successful. I say, you know, pick the platform that you’re most

comfortable with, then go all in with it for a period of time until you begin to see how to

make it more efficient, to either hire a team or use tools to gain some more time back, yet

still continue to be consistent there too.

And then, you can move onto the next thing if you want to. A lot of people don’t

do that, and they are just all in on one thing, which is okay too, but I think part of my role

in the online space is to try a lot of things for people so that I can report back and share,

okay, here’s what I learned about this, and here’s what you should avoid, and here’s what

you can do, here’s some things that I experimented with that you can try.

I like to call myself the crash-test dummy of online business, you know, those

mannequins that go in the cars and they get into accidents for the purpose of helping-

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Teresa Heath-Wa: They get thrown out the car.

Pat Flynn: Other people. I get in a lot of accidents.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah, yeah.

Pat Flynn: I make a lot of mistakes but I’m always happy to share them for the benefit

of others.

Teresa Heath-Wa: And that’s awesome, so one thing I know that you and I have in

common is that you love The Miracle Morning, in fact, do you know how Hal Elrod? He

wrote The Miracle Morning.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, good friend of mine.

Teresa Heath-Wa: And one of the things that I’ve found as I’ve gone on in business

and obviously presumably you’ve found the same as you’ve grown in business is that your

routines changed, how you see things and view things, is there a miracle morning that you

have? Do you wake up in the morning and have a set routine? Is there something that you

would put a bit down to your success today?

Pat Flynn: I do, I mean, ever since discovering ... actually a funny story about Hal. I

think it was 2015 I go to my mailbox, and I get a book from a guy named Hal, and it’s

called The Miracle Morning, wake up before five a.m., and it’ll change your life. I like threw

it away because I was like there is no way, I’m sorry Hal, but I was like ... I didn’t throw it

away, but I put aside, because he wrote a little note in there, but I was like there’s no way,

because I was a night owl ever since high school, really. That’s where I got most of my

work done, that’s when I felt the most creative, like, there was no way I’m gonna wake up

before I have to, but I started noticing that there was a trend, like I started noticing Tim

Ferriss, and a number of other people, talking about how important their morning routine

is, and how they would wake up earlier.

I think Hal even put it in his book itself how most people wake up because it’s time

to wake up for somebody else, I gotta wake up and go to work to help somebody else’s

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dream, I gotta wake up and go bring the kids to school, why not wake up for yourself first,

so that by the time it’s ready to help others, which you should still continue to help others,

you’ve already accomplished so much for yourself to improve your life, and so I was like

okay I’m gonna experiment with this and see what happens like I always do, and I started

to see immediate results from implementing The Miracle Morning, and there was a few

things in The Miracle Morning that I do, and still continue to do, and it’s changed over

time especially because the kids grow and their schedules change, because they’re ... the

kids and the school is really the only thing that’s like I have to put in my schedule now, or

else it would be complete freedom.

Obviously, school’s really important, but the journaling and the meditation, those

were two big things that were very surprising. I always knew that exercise was gonna help,

I always knew that affirmations and reading were gonna help me in my life, but meditation

completely changed the way that my brain handles situations, and journaling allows me to

reflect on every single day, and every day with excitement about what I’ve done but then

wake up the next day excited about what I’m going to do that day, so you know, every

morning is the same, and I have a routine definitely, but I find it does change over time

with the other external factors that are happening around me.

Teresa Heath-Wa: The really interesting thing about the journaling thing, and

meditation, is I started it probably 6 to 12 months ago, and I didn’t get it, I literally didn’t

get it, I didn’t know what I was writing, why I was writing it, I tried to look at all these

different things, and I started to do it, and I was making myself do it, and I didn’t get it,

and then suddenly something kinda just clicked and I started to realize the beauty of

journaling, and even things like, you know, if you’ve had a bad day, or something really

stressful happened, to take yourself out of that mood, I found that suddenly write and

then I’d come out of it in a completely different attitude, or look at it a different way, and I

loved the fact, and in fact, I’m gonna do it this week, Pat, because you’ve inspired me.

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I saw your children ... it was in Hawaii was it? On a holiday?

Pat Flynn: Yeah, we were on a holiday and they busted out their journals, and they’ve

been writing every day.

Teresa Heath-Wa: I love that and my daughter’s eight so very similar age to your

children, and she’s away at here grandmother’s at the moment, she’s coming back in a day

or two, and I’ve decided that as an activity, because she’s still off school at the moment,

so of course trying to juggle everything is hard work, but I decided as an activity I’m gonna

get her to start journaling, and just start writing what she feels, and what she thinks, and

yeah, I’m really excited about [crosstalk 00:26:40].

Pat Flynn: I love that. Yeah, I mean, we’re so lucky that the kids are excited about that,

but you know, we went to the store we got them whatever journal they wanted, right?

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yes.

Pat Flynn: Like we want to make sure that they’re excited about doing that, so you

go pick any journal you want, doesn’t matter what the price is, like we’ll get it for you as

long as you promise that you’re gonna try this journaling thing for a while, and then we

pitched it as, you know, it’s great because a number of reasons, you get to learn how to

write better stories, you get to learn how to write better in and of itself, but in doing that

you also give yourself something that in the future you can go back to, and then you get

to remember these things that maybe lost in your brain, so you want to make sure you

capture those special moments, but in addition to that my son brought up a good point on

my podcast, because my son and I launched a podcast recently.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yes, you did, yeah, yeah, awesome.

Pat Flynn: We talked about journaling there and he does it because ... and they teach

this at his school which is really great, they write in the morning to get the cobwebs

out of their head so that they can be primed and ready for the day, and so it’s so cool

that they’re teaching kids that, and we’re just practicing that and sharing those kinds

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of things, and I’m just so thankful that you’re passing that onto your daughter, so like

congratulations, that’s super cool.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Thank you. The other thing is there’s something different about

physically handwriting isn’t there, so when you’re typing it’s a different ... it’s almost like it’s

a different part of my brain, or it doesn’t quite flow the same way, and I think we live in a

very technology space, obviously, because of what we do.

Pat Flynn: Of course, yeah.

Teresa Heath-Wa: But because the children now, my daughter’s a whiz on her iPad, and

it’s just great for her to do something that is with a pen.

Pat Flynn: Tactile, yeah.

Teresa Heath-Wa: And actual writing so I am super excited to start [crosstalk 00:28:20].

Pat Flynn: It’s almost becoming a lost art, you know, and they don’t even teach cursive

in school anymore which is kinda scary, but I think definitely writing in journals is great for

all kinds of reasons, and to get ... the earlier the better. The earlier the better.

Teresa Heath-Wa: No, that’s awesome. So, so, good.

We’ve moved on ten years you’ve been in business which is kinda crazy to think

the success you’ve had in ten years is just phenomenal, and about 12 months ago, in fact,

we talked just before the call that it was exactly 12 months ago you decided to focus

super hard on YouTube and although you might’ve started YouTube sometime before you

decided that you were gonna put some real effort into it.

Having had the podcast obviously for quite some time at that point, hadn’t you?

Pat Flynn: Yeah.

Teresa Heath-Wa: You decided that you were gonna focus super hard on YouTube and I

am fascinated because this is an area that I am yet to really get involved with, and actually

out of all the platforms this is probably the one I do the least of, or know the least about,

though however, in my head I’m thinking, do you know what? I’m gonna have to do this

15



and I’m quite excited about that, that’s not a beating force like, oh no, I’ve gotta do this,

this is I want to do this.

So I’m super excited to talk about YouTube and kinda what, A, made you decide to

go to YouTube and work super hard on that, and what has it done, you know, what have

you seen coming back from it?

Pat Flynn: YouTube has been really interesting, like I said, I started it in 2009 and when

I started I was super nervous and scared, I didn’t want to put my face on camera, but I

knew that video was something that was gonna be really important, and one of my first

videos was a tutorial, and it was a tutorial that was showing people something that I got

so many questions about, and the video just made sense, like, I’m just gonna show you

how to do it, because writing this thing in a blog post would take forever, like, I’m just

gonna do a video, YouTube just came around, and so okay I’m gonna post a video.

And the feedback I got from that was really great, and the cool thing about that

was I used a tool called ScreenFlow, there’s other options like that called Camtasia, you

could even use QuickTime, and what you can do with these tools is you can record what’s

on your computer and just use your microphone to kinda voiceover while you’re recording

and that way you don’t even have to put your face on camera, and so I could teach a

tutorial using a tool, or various tools, and show people how I did things, and it was just

very easy to do, and I started noticing that I started to gain a little bit of traction there, and

what’s nice is YouTube is also connected to Google, because Google owns YouTube, and so

when you kinda have YouTube talk to your blog, and your blog talk to YouTube, like it really

just increases your search engine optimization.

And so, I started to get a lot of people finding my blog through YouTube, even

through just a few initial tutorials, because people use YouTube to find answers to

questions more than anything, and so I was answering people’s questions, which is the

number one thing you should do, if you’re gonna do videos, like what questions are people

16



asking?

Teresa Heath-Wa: [inaudible 00:31:12].

Pat Flynn: Create videos that literally answer those questions. That’s really where you

want to start.

Teresa Heath-Wa: That’s a good idea.

Pat Flynn: And so, there’s other tools out there that can help you determine what

those questions are, I recommend checking out one that’s available today, it wasn’t

available back then, but it’s called answerthepublic.com. It’ll literally tell you the questions

that people are asking in your topic, so you type in a keyword, it’ll literally give you the

who, how, what, where, why, which? And there’s your videos that you can create right

there.

Teresa Heath-Wa: That is amazing.

Pat Flynn: So you can start with that, but anyway, I started to slowly get a little bit

more comfortable with the video, and then I started to like put a little bit of my face on

there, kinda just experimenting and seeing what was gonna happen, and nobody said

anything negative about that, so I started to put myself out there a little bit more, and you

know, back then YouTube was just more of a okay, if I need a place to put a tutorial that’s

where I’ll put it on, I wasn’t ever being consistent there, it was just kinda a repository of

video information that would support my blog.

And then, I let it sit and didn’t do anything with it for years, and then I came back

to it a couple years ago and tried to get a little bit more consistent. We created a show

called SPI TV, which we posted a video every week on the YouTube channel and we did

see some consistent growth there for a while, but again, there was no real plan, there was

no real, like okay, why am I doing this?

I was always just kinda like okay let me dabble, let me dabble and see what

happens, but it wasn’t until 12 months ago that my videographer and friend Caleb

17



[inaudible 00:32:36] and I just decided, okay, we’re going to go full on with video, I

don’t know what that means, but we’re gonna see and so to start we’re gonna go to

this conference that happens in Anaheim every year, it’s called Vid Summit, and it’s

a conference put on by a guy named Derral Eaves, where we invites all these top

influencers in the YouTube space to talk about how they use the platform and what it’s

done for them, and tips, and things like that.

And so, before hosting any new videos Caleb and I went and we just like immersed

ourselves in the world of YouTube, and we started to meet people that we have never

even heard of before who were just crushing it on the space, and you know, video is really

interesting because like a podcast you can really build a relationship with the people who

are there, but unlike a podcast, I mean, you have the visual things on top of it, which I still

love podcasting, because it’s just so much easier to produce, but there’s just another level

of flavor that you add on a video that if you do it right can really help launch things.

Plus, the discoverability and the find-ability on YouTube, like I said, people are

searching for things there, searching and finding new podcasts is a lot more difficult so

I was looking at it there was so much more opportunity in the YouTube space if we can

crack that code, but there’s so many people who started YouTube and their channels die,

like let’s do this right.

So we went to as many presentations as we could, but more than that, we started

building relationships with other YouTube influencers there, people that again I have never

really heard of before who are now, as a result of starting a YouTube channel really good

friends of mine, and I think again, similar to what I mentioned about the podcast before

about being a relationship building platform, YouTube has done the exact same thing now,

now that I’m consistent in it.

Nobody wants to be a friend with another YouTuber who’s inconsistent or doesn’t

show out very much, but since going we started going five days a week on the YouTube,

18



after we kinda figured out okay this is the plan and how we want to do it, that opened up

the doors to many, many more relationships in the YouTube space, and now those people

are promoting my stuff and are even promoting some of my programs, but linking to my

channels, we’re doing collaborations now, it’s been really, really cool.

I think more than anything business wise, that’s been the biggest benefit, it has

allowed me to connect with these other channels which I gotta say are a lot bigger than

mine, and so Shaun Cannel, Roberto Blake, Sonny [inaudible 00:34:53], Amy Landino, a lot

of these names that I’ve heard of them before but never really connected, but now that I

have a YouTube channel myself that is consistent, like we have something in common that

we can talk about, and I share my special powers on their channel and they share theirs

with mine, that’s been the greatest thing, so like I said, five days a week which was a big

undertaking but we heard that you gotta like have this channel, which is great ... I actually

experimented by just posted a couple videos to see because I had about, over the years,

about 50,000 subscribers on the channel.

It’s like, that’s a lot of subscribers.

Teresa Heath-Wa: That is a lot of subscribers.

Pat Flynn: We can, like if I post a video out, 50,000 people are gonna see it.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: That’s not how it works, because I haven’t been consistent YouTube

algorithm comes into play, and I posted a new video and I remember seeing like after a

few days 400 views, and I’m like this is sad, like I have 50,000 subscribers.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah, 50,000 subscribers, yeah.

Pat Flynn: And only 400 people even saw this video, and looking into the analytics

only 200 of them were my subscribers, and I’m like this is insane, like, what can we do

to reawaken the algorithm here for YouTube and it was really about just like you gotta

be consistent, and it’s gonna be slow at first, even though you have these subscribers

19



and you’ve been around for a while it’s gonna be slow at first. I was even contemplating,

should I just start a new channel, because like I don’t like what I have?

And then, no, go back to your old channel just restart it by putting a lot more

energy into what ... you know, the concept that you’re putting out there, and so we did,

and so for about a couple months we were going five days a week, and not really seeing

much, but then all of a sudden things started to click, and then one video started to get

a ton of traffic, and we’re like, okay, let’s put more videos out like that. Like, let’s read the

signals that YouTube and Google are telling us, that was really the big trick I learned is that

you kinda have to just put yourself out there and be consistent, and over time, time being

the most important thing, you’re going to see what YouTube is telling you that they want

more of.

And then, you start to learn about these things that are, they’re not tricks, they’re

public knowledge, but you want to work with YouTube essentially so there’s a few ways

to do that, number one, you want to make sure you keep people watching your videos as

long as possible, and watch time is the most important factor, so the longer you can keep

people watching a video the better, and the funny thing about this, and the almost sad

thing too, is that if you have people watching your videos for five minutes or more that’s

really good, like five minutes is really good, on a podcast that’s sad.

On a podcast, people are listening to hours of you at a time, whereas on YouTube

if you get five minutes or more it’s because when you think about it, when people are

listening to you in a podcast, I mean, they’re on the go, they’re out on a walk, or on a

commute, like they don’t have a quick opportunity to just leave, there’s no distractions,

on YouTube, there’s a video but then there’s like 40 other videos that are mentioned on

the same page, and then all these ads, and these other things people can click on, it’s a

challenge.

And so, working on your hook at the beginning of your videos is really important,

20



which is something I had never really done, and it’s funny because what I’ve learned in

the YouTube space about creating hooks and keeping people going, and these pattern

interrupts that you can create in your videos to keep people engaged, I now bring that

into my podcasts now, and I’m seeing even an increase in my podcasting downloads and

the engagement there too as a result of what I’m learning in the YouTube space.

It’s kinda cool because even though I’m focusing on YouTube I’m taking that

information and applying it elsewhere. So watch time is really important and also keeping

people on the YouTube platform, so I initially was gonna go into YouTube going okay,

at the end of every video I’m gonna have a lead man that’s gonna go into my email list

that’s gonna bring people into my business, and all the people who are the top people in

YouTube that I know said, don’t do that.

And I was like, really? I want to collect these leads, and they’re like, you will collect

these leads, but you need to give them the opportunity to watch more videos, and to

watch more videos after that, so create themes of videos that kinda work with each other,

and then begin to cross-promote those videos with each other, but the call to action being

to, A, subscribe but to, B, to watch another video, and then every once in a while, like

once a month, you create a huge video that comes out that’s very, very valuable that then

can promote your email list, and that’s what’s going to help drive more traffic than having

every video at the end be like an ad that then people get oblivious to.

And that makes sense because you want to keep people on YouTube, because what

does YouTube want? YouTube wants more people on YouTube to see all those ads that are

gonna show up, and the more that you can help them achieve their goal, the more they’re

going to help you, and we’ve noticed that since working with them in that way, more

videos are getting what’s called popped, meaning, you’re just creating all these videos and

it’s funny because sometimes you create videos where it’s like, that was a great video, but

nobody’s watching it, it’s not getting the download numbers I want, and other times you

21



create videos that are like, that’s just a scrap video filler piece, and it just explodes, and

you’re like I have no idea what happened but okay, okay YouTube, I’m gonna create more

content like that, and then you just kinda ride that wave for a while.

Most of the videos that I come out with now, and we’re not doing five days a week

anymore, we’re doing one to two per week now, which kinda fits into our schedule.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Still, that’s a huge undertaking.

Pat Flynn: That is a huge undertaking. So we do things in our production process,

Caleb and I meet every Tuesday, and we plan videos and then we shoot them all in one

day, or the whole month now, so we can get a whole month’s worth of videos in one

day, because we plan ahead, and we batch process, which if you’re doing anything like

podcasting or YouTube, batch processing is like the key to you staying on top of things and

not feeling that you’re in that content hamster wheel, but now our videos come out and

after a couple weeks they get about three to five thousand views, which is decent, even

though we have now over 100,000 subscribers, but the crazy thing now is every once in a

while a video will pop and so there was one video that we did recently that now has over

300,000 views.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Oh my word.

Pat Flynn: And that one is like ... we’re starting to notice that new people who have

never heard about me are finding that video because YouTube is like, hey, everybody loves

this video, they’re sticking around to watch most of it, and when we show it on other

people’s channels people are clicking on it, which is another thing.

If you can relate your videos to other people’s and other influencers videos you

might show up as a suggested video either after they watch that video, or in the sidebar

of that video that they’re watching, and so we’re noticing that this video and a few other

videos in particular are being the drivers for bringing new people into the channel, and

then watching more videos on our end, and then becoming a fan, and now I’m starting to

22



notice like with the podcast, when I did focus on it in a similar way back in 2010, people

are kinda now discovering me through my YouTube channel, and I’m getting messages like,

hey Pat, I discovered you on YouTube which is really cool. That’s the kind of response you

wanna get whenever you get into a platform like that.

It’s oh I found you here, or I found you there, that wasn’t happening with YouTube

before, because when people would find my videos before they would find the answers

to their questions but then they had nothing else to get into, there was no way to get

to really know me anymore, because those people watch videos, and they want to see

videos, but I didn’t have anything for them, now that I have more of me showing up,

they’re like, okay, Pat’s answering my question, what else does he have? Oh, Pat’s really

cool, oh, he has a family, oh, he likes Back to the Future, and now they’re getting to know

like that real me now because again the consistency and just trying to answer as many

questions as possible.

The other cool thing about YouTube is it has really opened up for me that creative

freedom that had been missing for a while. When I started the podcast I felt it, because

it was like a brand new show, it was like my own radio show, and I could add my own

personality, but now the podcast, even the blog, are like machine-like now, so we’re three

months ahead on the podcast and the blog we’re about the same, and so that’s great,

and that’s why, again, like I said earlier, we’re putting in the time to become efficient as

possible and building up a team so that I have time to do this extra thing, and this extra

thing right now is YouTube.

Now, we’re building a team to do that to open up extra time, but we’ve noticed

that now we’re getting a little bit ahead on content, and it is providing some ROI in terms

of business, the next phase for us is to experiment with the YouTube Ads. Facebook Ads

are really popular right now and now that I’ve gotten comfortable on video, and with

YouTube, I think there’s a lot of opportunity there because most people aren’t going to

23



take the chance on a YouTube video when they’re not very familiar with it, so I think

there’s a lot of opportunity in the YouTube Ads world too, and that’s kinda the next phase,

and experiment, so a lot of good things on the YouTube front, but again, like I said earlier,

the creativity is now coming out of me, we’re doing some fun things like shooting a video

series in my Tesla and putting cameras up everywhere.

We’re doing these tactics in a Tesla video with difficult influencers, and just being

weird and silly, and more me, and when I started YouTube I was like, okay, who do I like

watching? I’m gonna make my videos just like them, and that’s a great way to get inspired.

Teresa Heath-Wa: That’s a good tip.

Pat Flynn: But you don’t want to be just like them.

Teresa Heath-Wa: No.

Pat Flynn: You want to get inspired by them, perhaps how they structure their videos,

you can structure yours very similarly, but you gotta add your own style in there, and you

just gotta be fully you, and when you’re fully you as are good friend Chris Ducker says,

your vibe is gonna attract your tribe, and the right people will find you eventually if you

just continue to put yourself and the real you out there.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Because like you said, if you’re doing the same sort of thing in terms

of in your style, if I’ve watched one video I’m gonna watch another, and another, and

you’re so right, when you’re on YouTube I find myself all the time watching one and then

consuming another one, and another one, and another one, and you need that content on

there for people to do that don’t you.

Pat Flynn: Right.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Can I ask one question? You said that if you can link other YouTubers

in with your video that it helps your reach. Is that in the text, or is that in the video itself?

Pat Flynn: That’s in the video itself, in the description, on each other websites, on each

other social, YouTube is smart enough to see like, oh, you’re featuring this other YouTuber

24



here, and obviously in the video itself you can actually link to their channels for people to

click on, and in the description same thing.

They’re gonna notice like, oh, there’s a little pocket of people, like who talked to

each other here like let’s show each other’s ... like their videos to each other’s audiences,

and help grow the channel, because they know that’s gonna keep people on YouTube even

longer. YouTube is really smart like that.

Another big tip is look at the data analytics. YouTube is probably the best platform

for looking at how people are consuming what you’re putting out there, and the behavior

that they have, and you know, go into individual videos. You can see where they drop off

and you can stop doing whatever you did at that moment, and in future videos-

Teresa Heath-Wa: At that point.

Pat Flynn: Right. You can find when people are more engaged. You can find out which

videos people are more likely to consume, which ones seem to be the ones that YouTube

is pushing out for you, like do more of that. There’s so much stuff that YouTube will tell

you, and it’s great, just work with them, just work with them, and they’ll help you out.

Teresa Heath-Wa: I think the analytics so many people either, A, don’t look at them at

all, or B, they look at them and I know people say to me, well, what should it be, and it’s

like no, no, no, it should never be anything. You can’t compare your YouTube channel with

me YouTube channel, or my non-existent channel, you can’t do that, it’s about looking at

your own stuff like you just said.

Looking at your own content, seeing when they drop out, seeing when they turn

off, or turn on, or what videos go well, and it’s learning from that rather than trying to

think, okay, well, that video from that person got all these views, why didn’t mine get that?

Pat Flynn: Oh, it’s so hard to avoid that though. It’s just in our nature to compare right?

Like, why not me kinda thing, but I think the best comparison you can make is to your

earlier self, are you improving every day? Are your numbers improving every day? Are you

25



personally developing every single day going back to Hal Elrod stuff.

I think when you compare yourself with your earlier self and just make sure that

you’re on the right trend there, then you’re gonna set yourself up for success. Still look at

others and get inspired by others, and watch others, and learn from others, analyze others

but try not to let that discourage you because that’s apples and oranges. They are not you

and you are not them. You are you and you used to be a difficult way. Are you improving?

Are you increasing your subscribership over time?

Don’t worry about the numbers, like I said, I have now 130,000 subscribers.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Amazing.

Pat Flynn: If I were to just always look at the numbers and go, wow, I only get 5,000

views on most of my videos, that’s not the way to approach it, it’s okay, every video now

has an opportunity to introduce myself to new people, to add more value to my audience,

and an opportunity to go viral on the platform, and some videos have, and so just ... it’s a

hard game though and you just gotta keep going with it though.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah, and I think as well that sometimes it’s so easy to compare

yourself to someone else, it’s so easy for me starting out to look at your podcast figures,

or your YouTube figures, and think I should have that. And it’s like, when you go back and

look how long have you been doing this? How consistent have you been? How many

videos have you put out? Like you said earlier, and it’s such a good point, because I think

sometimes in the digital space more than other spaces people think it’s overnight success.

People think they put one video out, do one podcast, put one blog out and

suddenly the world’s gonna fall at their feet, and God, don’t we wish it was like that, but it

isn’t, its hard work [crosstalk 00:48:09].

Pat Flynn: It rarely happens like that, however, we always hear about those stories.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Of course we do.

Pat Flynn: We always hear about those stories because they’re so rare, and when you

26



think about it, it’s like you hear about them all the time, but you hear about them all the

time because they get so much media because they are rare, and hardly ever happen, so

because it’s rare and hardly ever happens what do you do? You be consistent, you grind it

out. Those are the stories you never hear about, the people who grind it out, who succeed

because of that.

At the same time, you gotta focus on you and just keep going.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Yeah, yeah, totally. So you gave us some amazing tips there. If you

were say one tip, if I was starting out actually on YouTube, what is the one thing that you

would say you must do this, or you’ve gotta focus on this, what would you say that was?

Pat Flynn: Hit record and go.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Okay.

Pat Flynn: Like, you’re gonna make up every excuse in the world to not do that, you’re

gonna go, oh, well I haven’t properly planned this, or people are gonna hate this, or this

isn’t even very good, doesn’t matter. Like, if you go back to every successful YouTubers

channel, and if they have their earlier videos on there you’re gonna go in there and go

like, wow, that was you? Yeah, because it’s bad and we all have to get through the disaster

before we can become the masters as John Lee Dumas says.

And so, you gotta hit publish and go, and your first runs are gonna be terrible. My

first videos I cannot watch them anymore, because it just makes me throw up, but you

have to get through that to get to the good stuff, so just hit record and go, and even if

those videos are bad, and it’s funny, because those videos that I don’t like listening to, that

I think are terrible, have tens of thousands of views, and you open up new opportunities

for yourself when you put yourself out there, and so don’t worry so much about what it

is you’re gonna do, I mean, create a little bit of an outline and kinda have an idea of what

you want to record, but then just go, and trust yourself to just improve over time, it’s not

gonna be perfect, it never will be, so give yourself an opportunity by hitting publish and

27



continuing to be consistent.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Pat, that is awesome, you have just given us so much to think about

in terms of YouTube, and used as a channel, so really quickly, I know you’ve got some

exciting stuff planned, and in fact, you’re going to look at selling products, a physical

product.

Pat Flynn: Yeah.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Which for someone in the online space must be the most terrifying

thing ever, because it’s a completely difficult world, so this is exciting stuff for you.

Pat Flynn: Thank you, yeah, I mean, again, experimentation, crash-test dummy, one

thing that a lot of my audience has been asking about are physical products, because a

lot of us have physical product ideas, but how do we turn that into an online business?

Is it even worth doing? I gotta say since starting this journey with my partner Caleb on

this, my videographer, we’re actually creating a vlogging tripod that was non-existent

in the market, and so we’re literally going through the prototyping phase, working with

manufacturers in China, that whole thing.

I gotta say just going through this process makes me appreciate the online digital

space way more, because we have it so much easier doing online business than this stuff,

but it’s also so much fun, and it’s interesting because when you create something and you

get like the prototype of it, and you actually have it in your hands, and you’re holding it, it’s

just unreal, right?

And when you create something that you see a lot of other people get excited

about too, wow, there’s like really big opportunities here. So the Switch Pod which is what

it’s called is coming out very shortly, you can find it at switchpod.co, which if you’re a

vlogger, or doing any video, you’ll see it and what it does.

It’s just so much fun, and exciting, and you know, I’m documenting the whole

process and once it up on a Kickstarter, and however well it does, or however badly it

28



fails, it’s again, going to be a lesson that my audience is gonna learn from, and you know,

we’ll see what happens.

Maybe it sells to a tripod company for billions of dollars or maybe it makes no sales

at all.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Let’s keep our fingers crossed to the first.

Pat Flynn: Well, yeah, even halfway there would be great, but that’s exciting. I’m

always trying new things, next year I’m putting on an event in San Diego, my first one,

and that’s a new exciting thing that I’m deafly afraid about, but to finish off, that’s what’s

pointing me in that direction, the fact that it is giving me some nervousness. If what I’m

doing now doesn’t give me a little bit of nervousness, then I probably know I’m not either

going big enough, or doing the right thing, I don’t want to ever get too comfortable,

because complacency is not good.

I mean, I think it’s important to be happy, and proud of what you’ve done, but

when you just sit there and rest on your laurels then you can potentially shoot yourself in

the foot. I think it’s important to continue to strive for bigger, better, things and to always

try new things, and have fun with the process. The biggest thing about all the projects that

I do is just I want to have fun doing it, even if it fails, at least I want to learn something

and have fun, and so don’t forget about the fun, because when you’re in this, and you’re

in the thick of it, and you’re in the front lines, like, it can be so draining.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Oh my god. Yeah.

Pat Flynn: You just gotta remember why you’re doing this in the first place? There’s a

reason why you are staying up until two a.m. to finish that [inaudible 00:53:07], there’s a

reason why you’re writing that email, there’s a reason why you are stressing out about this,

it’s because this is meaningful and important to you, so keep going, don’t let the fear stop

you, it’s a sign that there’s something amazing on the other end.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Pat, honestly, you couldn’t of finished that better. Thank you so, so

29



much.

Pat Flynn: Thank you.

Teresa Heath-Wa: For being my first guest. I am so thrilled.

Pat Flynn: Congratulations. You did a great job.

Teresa Heath-Wa: Thank you.

I really hoped you enjoyed that episode with Pat as much as I loved recording it.

As a first episode for my interviews go it was absolutely nerve-racking. I was so scared,

because I didn’t want to mess it up. I didn’t want to not interview him well, or be able to

get some of his amazing tools and tactics across to you guys. I wanted you, if you haven’t

ever heard of Pat, to become a huge fan of his as much as I am.

I loved hearing about his story. I’ve heard it a few times but I still love seeing his

story about how we got to do what he does now, and also take some of those amazing

tips about YouTube, and how he’s used it recently to keep growing his business.

If you want to find out more about Pat you can visit smartpassiveincome.com

where you’ll find links to his podcasts, his courses, which include an amazing Power Up

Podcasting course, also 123 Affiliate Marketing, because actually Pat is very honest that

he gets a lot of his income from Affiliate Marketing, and there’s also a free course on how

you can build your brand, so definitely go and check them out.

Also, don’t forget to check Pat’s YouTube channel, which is not only entertaining

but it is jam packed full of great advice, and I will give you links to everything in my show

notes, so I will give you links to all of his sites, and his social, and everything else.

So if you want those things just go to www.teresaheathwareing.com/28 and that’s

the numbers 28, not the words twenty eight. Anyway, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this

weeks podcast, and Pat is just the start of it. I have got some amazing people lined up for

you, and in fact, the next three podcasts are all gonna be interviews, because I want in

September to be a bang in terms of my interviews.

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So next week you’re in for another amazing treat. I can’t wait until you find out who

I’m interviewing next week. Until then, have an amazing week.

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E [email protected] H www.teresaheathwareing.com 32


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