Mindset Mastery for Small Business Success: Podcasting & Community Building | Kevin Palmieri

What if your mindset is the secret sauce to unlocking small business success? Join us as we chat with Kevin Palmieri, the dynamic founder and host of Next Level University, a top 100 global podcast. Kevin shares his transformative journey from grappling with financial hardships and self-doubt to mastering clarity and consistency. You'll hear firsthand how he conquered limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome, and you'll walk away with practical tips on pricing your coaching services effectively while emphasizing continuous self-improvement.

Ever wondered how deep connections and core values can shape your business journey? Kevin and I delve into the importance of personal relationships in forming solid professional partnerships. We also unpack the immense potential of podcasting as a tool for long-form communication, establishing trust, and engaging with your audience. Get ready to understand the unique listener categories of 'listeners, longers, and lurkers,' and how they can unexpectedly convert into clients. Plus, we've got you covered with top resources for starting your own podcast journey, including Buzzsprout’s Facebook group and expert channels like Pat Flynn’s and Grow Your Show.

Starting and scaling a business is no walk in the park, but it’s definitely achievable with the right strategies. We talk about the critical importance of monetizing early, leveraging your personal strengths, and focusing on key behaviors that drive results. Learn how the 80-20 rule can help you prioritize income-producing activities and avoid common pitfalls such as hiring based on competence alone. We also explore the art of breaking down annual goals into daily habits, building a thriving community, and balancing digital marketing with community-building efforts. Tune in to gain actionable insights and elevate your entrepreneurial game!

Kevin Palmieri: CEO / Next Level University

Website: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/

Podcast: 
https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-university-podcast/
https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/podcast-growth-university/


#SmallBusinessSuccess #OvercomeImposterSyndrome #LimitingBeliefs #KevinPalmieri #NextLevelUniversity #PodcastingTips #BusinessGrowth #SelfImprovement #ClarityAndConsistency #Mindset #EntrepreneurMindset #BusinessPartnerships #BuildingTrust #ContentStrategy #SEOforPodcasts #CommunityBuilding #BusinessCoaching #PricingStrategies #EntrepreneurJourney #successmindset #entrepreneurmindset #BusinessPodcast #SmallBusinessPivots #SmallBusinessSuccess #Success #Podcast #SmallBusiness #BOSS #MichaelDMorrison #OklahomaCity

Chapters

• 0:00 Small Business Pivots and Pricing Strategies
• 10:41 Building Relationships Through Podcasting
• 21:01 Starting and Growing a Business
• 28:52 Building a Community

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots. Today we have a very special guest from around the world and I know, as I say, often no one can introduce themselves or their business like the business owner. So tell us who you are the founder and the host of Next Level.

Speaker 2: 0:16

University. We are a global top 100 podcast with 1830 episodes. I think people get to the next level of their life when it comes to health, wealth, overall life and love. And since we had podcast success, eventually people started asking me for podcasting, speaking and coaching help. So now I get to help podcasters grow their podcasts and businesses. It's been a weird journey, to say the least, michael businesses.

Speaker 1: 1:03

It's been a weird journey, to say the least, michael oh, I bet, but that's always more fun, kind of going through a journey and finding your niche versus this is what I'm going to do and this is how I'm going to do it. That's boring, right.

Speaker 2: 1:14

Yes, there's too much certainty. Uncertainty is good sometimes. We were talking about that with the weather before we jumped on here.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Yeah, absolutely. So before we break to introduce the show, what do you think we're going to help our listeners with the most today?

Speaker 2: 1:29

I would say clarity and consistency are two things that everybody needs, but especially a small business owner. If you want to get results, you have to do the right things consistently, and I think that could be something we could jam on today.

Speaker 1: 1:42

All right, indeed. Well, let's break for the intro and we'll come right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast designed for small business owners. I'm your host, michael Morrison, a small business coach and founder of BOSS, where we make business ownership simplified for success, so that you can own a business that runs without you. To learn more, go to businessownershipsimplifiedcom. All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. Kevin, where would you like to start?

Speaker 2: 2:14

I think that you and I were talking behind the scenes and, as a business owner, I think you eventually get to a place where your passion and what you want to deliver crosses over into trying to figure out what metrics and what habits you need to really lean into, and I think that could be a good conversation piece is what are you actually doing in your business and what are the things that you should be doing, should be focusing on and should be measuring over a long enough period of time?

Speaker 1: 2:44

Yeah, that's a great topic and you know, for a lot of business owners as a business coach myself mindset is a critical get-in-the-way challenge for a lot of business owners. Did you have anything growing up that you had to overcome, or did you just come out ready to conquer the world?

Speaker 2: 3:02

As much as I'd love to say the second one. No, I was raised by my mom and my grandmother. I didn't know my dad. I didn't meet my dad until I was 27. We didn't have a lot of money growing up.

Speaker 2: 3:13

So I have had to deal with the limiting belief of I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, I don't know numbers well enough, I'm not a natural entrepreneur All of I don't know sales, all of those things I've really really had to work diligently on overcoming from the mindset piece, and I think that's one of the reasons self-improvement is so important. I know there could be a subset of humans out there thinking okay, you have a podcast about self-improvement, how does that translate to business and knowing business? I've worked on myself so much and that has just created so many other opportunities for me where I had to learn about business and marketing and sales and all that. So I always go back to the center of. I had to overcome my limiting beliefs to get to where I am in business and I think that's it's always going to be like that, right, I have different limiting beliefs now than I did at the beginning, but there's still some there.

Speaker 1: 4:04

It's just about figuring out what they are and then what's the process of working through them yeah, your first comment or statement kind of led me down that road because it sounded like maybe a little bit of imposter syndrome unfortunately.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Yeah, that that happens. That happens very often and I think I'm curious to your take on this because you're a business coach. I know there's a lot of people out there that they want to go get the next certification. They want to go get the next whatever. It is the thing that says they're good enough at what they do to start charging for what they feel like they deserve.

Speaker 2: 4:39

I've always been a proponent of charge less than you think you need, because I think for a lot of people that's where imposter syndrome comes in. When I, when I started coaching, I started coaching for free and I noticed how much easier it was to coach for free than when I started asking for money, because the second I started asking for money, there was a suggestion that it's gonna be way more valuable, even though it's the same exact coaching. And that's that was the first time I ever I ever really dealt with imposter syndrome when I started charging people for coaching. Are you a proponent of like? Where are you in the pricing thing? You know some people say you should charge $15,000 for everything that you do because that's the way to do it. Where are you on?

Speaker 1: 5:22

Well, mine has developed over the decade and a half that I've been coaching and I just where we set our pricing is where we feel they're getting value from and what the price point is. You know we don't have high-end ticket items and all that. Like a lot of coaches, I just we focus on small business owners and I try to put myself in their shoes by going back to when I started my first business over two decades ago of what could I afford and not really what could I just afford, but also what kind of pushed the wallet a little bit, so something that I felt like this is a big investment. So if I do this, it's not going to totally break the bank, but it's going to make me want to learn, stay engaged and actually take some action on some things that I'm learning. So we we try to price ours around the same mentality there.

Speaker 2: 6:16

I think it's. I don't know. I think a lot of the advice people are given are by people who forgot what it was like to be a small business owner Amen, they're. On the other end, it's are given are by people who forgot what it was like to be a small business owner amen, they're on the other end.

Speaker 2: 6:25

It's like I've been doing fitness since I was 16. I'm 35, so it's been 20 years almost. I can eat pizza and get away with it, but that would not be good advice to somebody who is just starting out and I. I think it's very easy for people to forget what they did in the beginning. It's what I'm doing now as a podcaster is drastically different than what somebody should do in the beginning, so that's why I was curious to to your perspective on it yeah, yeah, and of course that's developed.

Speaker 1: 6:53

You know, when we first started doing the coaching, like I said, a long time ago, we did try to see what the market was charging, what people were buying and things. But then I was was like, you know, I was a business owner and so we coach from experience. So I've owned businesses before and I remember what that was like, you know, when somebody hit me with a charge and I was like there, you know, people talk about charge value. You know if somebody wants the value, they'll pay whatever. And I'm like well, if I can't afford a Lamborghini, just tell me what the price is, because I'm never going to buy that, because I can't afford it.

Speaker 1: 7:29

And so we kind of went backwards and said, okay, what can we just push the button a little bit so where they're committed and they actually get the value from our experience of owning businesses in the past and what you know, I've filed bankruptcy before and most of our listeners know that due to a cancerous business partnership. But that costs a lot of money, you know, and I can help curve that. You know possible bankruptcy for business owners, and so what was that worth, you know. So we try to add all those elements in.

Speaker 2: 8:02

We a lot of the conversation I've had. I've had the benefit and privilege of of talking a lot about a business partnership, because I work very, very, very, very closely with another individual and we co-host the podcast together and we've been working together for seven years and I've had people say how do you know it's going to work? It's like do you ever? I don't know, I think you, you want to, you want to know it's going to work, based on core values, core beliefs and core aspirations. The core values are similar, the core beliefs are similar, the core aspirations are similar, the vulnerability is there, the courage is there, the, the character is there, and that's it's always been an interesting thing, cause we've had mentors before tell us like this isn't going work. Yeah, I don't know, I, maybe it won't. I, I don't think that's the case. I mean, I can count on the number maybe one hand, two hands max. How many arguments we've had over the last seven years that were actual arguments but.

Speaker 2: 8:55

I think it's. That's an interesting. I think there's so many things in business where it's it's hard to to catch all of the recipes right, like there's a recipe for marketing, there's a recipe for sales, and everybody's everybody's recipe is different, but there's a recipe for business partnership. Yeah right, there's.

Speaker 1: 9:16

I think there's a recipe for everything, and that's what this podcast is is figuring out the recipe yeah, well, I didn't know we were going down that rabbit hole, but I'm glad you brought it up because I know that most business owners have thought about how easier it might be with a business partner.

Speaker 1: 9:34

And so by you bringing that up, I, after my bankruptcy, I spent a lot of time, a lot of research and we created a course of how to know if you're the right fit for a partnership. And the number one goal that separated successful partnerships from the demise of others was core values Interesting have to align. Once you get those aligned, we're not done, but kind of the next step I don't want to give the whole course away, but kind of the next step is, if you think about how most business partnerships are formed, we met at the campsite, we went out with some buddies, we were frustrated with our jobs. Hey, we've been friends forever, we'll never fight. Let's start a partnership and let's start a business and we'll conquer the world with no due diligence, no structure, no strategy, just we're friends, we're never going to fight.

Speaker 1: 10:25

And then six months later they're in litigation, most of them, because they never established kind of the boundaries, the guidelines and the exit plan and what if? Scenarios. You know that kind of stuff. So you're right on and you didn't even create a course.

Speaker 2: 10:41

I look at, I'm selling it, I'm selling it for you. I think it's that. That's kind of the case with every relationship, though right relationships are core values, core beliefs, core aspirations or kind of what you were saying, core location. If you grew up with someone and they were your neighbor and you were looking for a business partner, that was probably where you're going to look first, fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the outcome right, right.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Well, let's go to your side of the business. So you're in podcast. Do you want to hit that for a minute?

Speaker 2: 11:09

Yeah, I man. I don't like to be negative, nancy, but I think a good coach's job is to create accurate expectations, right. So the first thing I always tell people is if you love speaking, if you love communicating, if you love impacting people and you have a message and a mission and a purpose, awesome. If you think starting a podcast is going to be the thing that blows your business up overnight, I do not think it's for you and I don't want to see you invest the money and lose. But I don't know if there is a better way for you to connect with a potential audience than speaking into their lives. And the beautiful thing about podcasting is it's long form. So where else in the world does somebody give you an hour of their time every week? It's not. It's not social media. Right, there's there, it's, I mean it's. It's less and less on social media.

Speaker 2: 12:04

So I think a podcast is a really, really good way for a business owner, depending on what they are doing, to connect with their audience, to give free value, to be the problem solver. I think that's a common thing is a lot of people. I'll talk to this. I don't want to give away all the stuff Like I, I want to give people a reason to reach out. What if you answering all their questions for free is the reason that they reach out eventually? Because some questions require accountability and I'm a huge proponent of give everything away. You position yourself as that expert and then eventually they're probably going to reach out. If they're going to hire someone in the space, it's going to be you. You've already answered all their questions. Why wouldn't they hire you? Right Makes sense.

Speaker 1: 12:46

Yeah, and what is that old cliche of people buy from those they know, like and trust? So if they've listened to you, you're kind of earning that trust and that likability. And I was on with another podcast last week where we were talking about this that this is Q3 of 2024 at the time of this recording and we were talking about how many of service-based businesses where people go online to research and find their best, you know who they're going to hire. We call them lurkers, like they don't engage with your stuff, they don't like, they don't do anything. But every time we get a new client, they're like oh yeah, we've listened to your podcast, we've watched your YouTubes, we've followed you on LinkedIn and our team will go back and we're like they've never engaged, we're not even friends, we're not connections, but my gosh, they know more about me than than anybody.

Speaker 2: 13:44

It's so interesting, I same thing. We have kind of a same uh, we call it listeners, longers and lurkers. Listeners are people that you know, they self-identify. Somebody reaches out and says, michael, I love the podcast, I'm a listener. A longer is somebody who they don't listen, but they follow your journey because they want results similar to yours. So they kind of look up to the, the quote, unquote, success.

Speaker 2: 14:10

And then there's the lurkers, there's the people, which is the majority of people that you just don't know exist. They are a number and they never tell you. And then eventually they reach out and say, hey, I, I've been listening, for this is my favorite. I've been listening for a year. It feels like I already know you. Yeah, oh, that's amazing, awesome. How did you find us and why? Why have I never heard of you before? And it becomes this beautiful, this beautiful conversation, and I think the thing that's really starting to shift now is, even if you're let's say, you're a roofing business and you are looking for a local market, if you do episodes on why a metal roof is so much better than whatever a traditional roof and somebody searches that in Spotify, your podcast is going to come up.

Speaker 1: 15:30

And it's the SEO of podcasting is really increasing as of late and it's exciting because now you can kind of reverse engineer your episodes based on that. So, as a business owner, I think podcasting is becoming where would you suggest they begin? So they don't know what to believe and the expectations of how many listeners you're going to get and how much money to invest and equipment. Where would you say someone should go to research?

Speaker 2: 15:52

I would say YouTube, but tread lightly, because I think that's the normal where people go and there's a lot of stuff there I find a lot of value. So we host our podcast. If you don't know what that means, don't worry, but we host our podcast with a company called Buzzsprout. They have a really good Facebook group. I'm sure all the hosts have really nice quality driven Facebook groups. Almost every question you could ever imagine will get answered in that Facebook group at some point and it's not from people who are looking for your business because they already have your business, so they're genuinely just looking to add value.

Speaker 2: 16:26

So, yeah, I would look up podcast facebook groups because there are just there's so many different ways to do it, depending on how you want to do it. I think youtube pat flynn has a lot of really good content on youtube. He isn't, he is an expert. There's another, there's another channel called Grow your Show. That's all about podcasting. That has some really good quality content. So, yeah, I would YouTube that and I would probably get into a Facebook group, because the people in the Facebook group are there to add value. Most people aren't there to like sell you anything, so there's not necessarily any underlying goals of them getting you to do it in a certain way.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Well, we did not even talk about this. But for our listeners, I want them to know that we use Buzzsprout as well. We follow the Facebook group as well. Pat Flynn is kind of the guy that we said. You know this guy's legit, he's not trying to oversell. He you know everything he says. We try and it works and it's not over the top type stuff. So, for listeners, use that, however you'd like. And what I do love about Buzzsprout's Facebook group and I know this is a problem with a lot of groups and that is people solicit all day long. They just post, post, post list. Buzzsprout does not allow it. They'll shut you down, they'll kick you out of the group. So these are people that are literally there trying to help. I think they do have like once a week or maybe a month where you can go promote your podcast, but other than that it's all a helpful content. So I appreciate you sharing that, of course.

Speaker 1: 18:01

What does your company do for the podcast?

Speaker 2: 18:05

Yeah. So it's interesting. It evolved from just like a pure production company where we do it's a done for you right, our clients sit down in front of the mic and our team does all the audio editing and the video editing and we make social media content and we post it everywhere. We do the thumbnails, we do the show notes. But then, as we grew and evolved and scaled more and it doesn't make sense based on what I'm going to say next a lot of people started asking for coaching and they said how do I work with you too? And I said I'll just throw that in the package. We can. We can hang out once a month or every other week, or you can have access to me through whatsapp. So a lot of it now is coaching, because getting the show produced is valuable and it saves you a lot of time. But that's not the make or break thing anymore.

Speaker 2: 18:52

In the beginning maybe 2017, 2018, if you could produce a podcast consistently, you'd get some traction pretty quick because they're just it wasn't as saturated as is today. Now you need strategy, you need to know what matters, what numbers track all that stuff. So, yeah, it started out as just kind of the production and then it leaned more into coaching and support, which is great for me because I get to learn. I learned so much about what other people are dealing with and it's very hard for me ever to lose sight of that Again. I might be seven years in awesome. My problems are different, but I had all of the problems that anybody can possibly have over the last seven years. I've just probably forgot about what it was like to be in them, because it's been years since we've dealt with that.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Yeah, and a lot of the problems or challenges that we've had in business seven years ago.

Speaker 1: 19:41

They're not even existing anymore. We have AI or something like that. So well, let's move to the business side. So you're an entrepreneur that started. You're listening to Small Business Pivots.

Speaker 1: 19:55

This episode is proudly brought to you by BOSS, where business ownership is simplified for success. At BOSS, we help business owners create their businesses to run smoothly without them being there 24-7. Our seasoned business coaches, who have walked the path themselves, provide invaluable guidance and support, and with additional services like fast business loans some approved within 24 to 48 hours, comprehensive online courses, detailed workbooks and engaging classes, boss offers a wealth of resources to help you succeed. Discover how small business success begins with Boss at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying the podcast, make sure to stay connected by hitting that subscribe button, giving us a thumbs up or leaving a positive review. Your support keeps us going.

Speaker 1: 20:47

Now let's get back to our incredible guest. Well, let's move to the business side. So you're an entrepreneur that started your business? You said seven years ago, 2017. Yep, 2017. So I know for a lot of our business. Some are listeners, I'm sorry are considering starting a business, don't know where to start. Some recently started one and they're going what the heck did I do? So take us back to your early years. What's some advice or some tips that you can give people considering starting a business, what they should do, and then also those that have recently started one.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Yeah, for 2017, I started. I left my job in 2018 to do it full time after going through a lot of mental health stuff, and we probably waited too long to try to make money. I'm not saying the point of a business is to make money. I think to your point. It's to add value and in exchange, you get money for the value. But we didn't try to make money for the first couple of years because we were building the systems and we were working on our characters. That was a mistake. Yeah, we probably should have tried to make more money faster, and that would have added fuel to the fire and we would have been better off there.

Speaker 2: 21:58

The thing that I think I made the mistake of is I tried so hard to be somebody else instead of just strengthening the things that I already had within me. I think it's really easy to find content on social media and say, okay, I have to change everything about myself If I want to be successful. There are probably things that you need to sure up and strengthen, but if you're good with people, you have something that a lot of people don't have. If you're good with numbers, you have a lot of people that, a lot of things that maybe other people don't have. So go all in on what your strengths are and see how far that gets you in the very beginning, because I don't think in the beginning it's really about scaling. I think in the beginning it's about building demand and that's something that I think we waited way too long to do. So, as that happened and I gave away coaching in the beginning and I did coaching for free and then people started paying and then we talk about it more on the podcast and we build the community aspect of it Then that started working. But I waited way too long to do that and I think I was focused more on like, is this scalable or not? In the beginning. Yeah, my perspective is I should have crossed that bridge. When I got there, like let's, let's get to the point where I can't deliver anymore, and then I I'll realize it's not scalable, and then, probably like three years in, we started building team. That probably could have happened a little bit sooner. Honestly, we probably waited longer than we should have, but when you're not making any money, it's really hard to build a team. So I think those are a couple of things that we were we were guilty of and any, I think anybody early on, I would say really, really dial in what you're good at and no matter where you are.

Speaker 2: 23:39

I would ask what are you tracking? What are the key behaviors that will lead to the results that you want, no matter if you're starting, if you just started. What are three things we can do? Maybe one's track your bank account every day. Maybe another one is learn for 30 minutes a day, and then maybe one's track your bank account every day. Maybe another one is learn for 30 minutes a day, and then maybe it's send a prospecting message or five prospect. Awesome, even if you're a couple years into business, if you don't have the system dialed in yet, there's, there's a lot of room for improvement. So I would say, yeah, what? What are the, the behaviors that you are most consistently practicing that are ultimately going to get you the goal?

Speaker 2: 24:12

Every business is a little bit different, but usually it's, from what we've seen, it's building demand, all right. So what's one thing I can do to get somebody through the door? The other one is shoring up supply. What is one thing I can do to make sure that the deliverables are all there, and then another one is usually like long-term. So what am I doing for long-term marketing? I think that's kind of a good place to start with three things.

Speaker 1: 24:36

I concur, Without going into a coaching session, because sometimes I'm guilty of that going yes and and and and keep going, you're on fire.

Speaker 1: 24:46

No, I will add, for those startups, use the 80-20 rule and 80% of your time should be cash-related, in other words, turn cash into more cash. In other words, make sure that what you're working on is income-producing. Videos are great, websites are great, but you know what? Those aren't going to make a sale. Today, what will make a sale is pick up the phone, go to a networking, face-to-face coffees, that kind of stuff. So focus on that so you can build those teams, like you said because that's frustrating, isn't it Very, very frustrating.

Speaker 2: 25:18

But again, you don't know what you don't know in the beginning. So you're just like, yeah, I guess this is how it works. But if I've seen anything, it's that I've worked with a lot of people who are like I got to build my website. I got to make sure all my branding's aligned Eventually. You don't have to do that right now. We have to get people through the door or this is not going to exist in a year. Let's worry about the website a little bit later, or let's worry about making it perfect a little bit later. So I completely concur with what you said.

Speaker 1: 25:44

So you kind of moved past the starting phase. What would you say? Kind of crept up that you wish you would have done differently later. Once you kind of got established a little, you were able to sleep at night a little bit. You have recurring revenue, what was kind of another challenge where that can help those listeners in that position.

Speaker 2: 26:04

We did some hiring early on that was based more on competence than character, and it only takes one misaligned person on the team to misalign the whole team. So that was a mistake that we made. It was based on what are your degrees and how much experience do you have versus? Are you humble, are you willing to learn? Are you honest? Are you an aligned person based on what our core values are? That's a mistake we made early, probably two or three times, and then we learned. The other one I think is is a common experience is just accruing too much debt in the beginning. In the beginning you're kind of even year three and year four. It was like we're doing what we have to do to grow at the rate that we want to grow. Eventually, you're going to have to pay the piper, and the piper came around. So if I could go back and do it differently, it would probably be don't focus on growth, but Don't focus on growth at the expense of incurring more debt than you know you need. I think that's probably a common one, though.

Speaker 1: 27:05

Yeah, yeah it is, but I know employees are a big thing right now. What did you do to overcome some of those challenges? By hiring the wrong people?

Speaker 2: 27:15

We hired from the community. So one of the benefits of having a self-improvement company, a self-improvement podcast, is the people that are listening are usually people that are into growth. So they've been working on their confidence and competence and their insecurities and their ego. So for us, we knew that if you were in the community long enough and you, I think, a lot of people think of they have to work their way through the business. So they found us on social media and then they signed up to the email list and eventually they they worked on, worked one-on-one with us as a client or whatever. They bought something from us.

Speaker 2: 27:49

For us below that is team member. So a lot of our team members that came on they found the podcast maybe they were told by a friend they joined the mailing list, they joined the Facebook group, they worked one-on-one with us as clients and then eventually we said to them hey, we would love to have you on the team. You are awesome, you're amazing and this is what we think would work really well. So, yeah, we almost exclusively hire from the community. Now we won't, we won't go outside of the community just because it's burned us in the butt a couple, a couple, too many times at this point.

Speaker 1: 28:22

Yeah. So it sounds like you kind of created a system and a plan. What does that look like for a company of your size to have a plan? Do you look out three years, five years or just three weeks? I know a lot of business owners ask me well, I can't even look past Friday's payroll. How do I look out that far?

Speaker 2: 28:43

Yeah, a lot of that. My business partner is an engineer so, even going to the conversation earlier, he has a lot of strengths that I don't have. We usually look at the year, then we break it down quarterly and then that quarterly goal gets broken into what our daily habits are. So essentially we're looking year out and then our behavior is based on what we want that year to look like, end up being our our day to day. But that's evolved right. I mean, in the beginning I couldn't just focus on three things. That's a privilege. I think that level of clarity and focus is a privilege that comes with time. In the beginning you're putting out fires all over the place, and I'm still putting out a lot of fires, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:24

So a year gets broken down to quarterly and then gets broken down to daily.

Speaker 1: 29:29

I want to kind of transition in, because we've been talking about groups. Right, we talked about Buzzsprout and then your community, your groups. How does one build a community groups? I know digital marketing just becomes harder and harder as more people start using it.

Speaker 2: 29:47

Yeah, it's. What I've realized is, if you're capable of adding value to an audience, you have to be the one that creates the container. So, deciding on kind of what you talked about originally, michael, what is your community? Where do they hang out? Do they hang out on Facebook? Do they hang out on LinkedIn? Do they want to do in-person stuff?

Speaker 2: 30:10

I always like to cut down on the resistance of teaching somebody new behavior, so for me it's always been add value and then say, if you're looking for more value, this is our community, this is the group, this is what it looks like. And then in there it's just the same thing. You just add value. It's not a pool of clients. That's not why they're there. They're there so you can continue to add value to them. So, yeah, I mean that's kind of how I would do it.

Speaker 2: 30:37

Some people don't like Facebook, so maybe it's not a Facebook group. There's a million now Discord and WhatsApp, and there's a million different ones. But ultimately it's you ask yourself okay, in this Facebook group or in this group, what do we solve? What Facebook group or in this group, what do we solve? What are the problems that we solve? Just like you do that with your business. And then how do we solve maybe more specific problems or more niched problems, or you know problems that less people deal with, but they deal with them at a deeper level.

Speaker 2: 31:05

You can just get more specific in the group and I think one of the most common things is people say, well, I built the group but nobody's coming. It's like well, that's, that's how it works. I mean, it's your job to get somebody who is just at one part of the business into that so you can add more value. It's just a time thing and I think, just to give accurate expectations, it's just a conversion thing. It's less people will probably join than you think, but the people that join are also going to be the pillars of your community eventually.

Speaker 1: 31:34

Yeah, and that's that's what I love about podcasts. Um, that's one thing once they find you, that can't really be taken away. You know they're there to listen. Versus social media, you have algorithms and other kinds of things Like I haven't seen Michael in 10 years. What happened to him while he's still there? But the algorithms got him out of your. You know your way. But podcast boy you once they find you and subscribe or sign up or whatever, or communities, same thing, very powerful. I know one of the common questions is how do I determine or establish who my I determine or establish who my community is? So how did you define that?

Speaker 2: 32:15

Market research. In the beginning I thought I was a bodybuilding bro. I thought I was going to be talking to bodybuilding bros. It makes sense, that's who I am. Then we started to see the patterns of who would share the podcast on social media, who would reach out, who would join the Facebook group, who would sign up for the email list and it was all women. And I remember thinking something's going on here, this can't, something has to be happening. So I used to if somebody shared our podcast, I would message them, I'd DM them and I would give them my phone number and I would say hey, I'd love to chat. I'm not going to sell you anything. I don't have anything to sell you on. I just want to learn a little bit about what your experience as a member of the community has been like. I just want to get some information. And we realized that most of our audience had low self-worth and they resonated with my business partner and I because we both had really low self-worth and that became kind of a through line for us. And then we started to optimize for that when we had certain guests on. We would have guests that we thought would resonate with our audience. It wasn't necessarily the guests that I had the biggest pull for.

Speaker 2: 33:20

So I think there's two ways One, you just be yourself and you accept whoever it is that you attract as an audience, or you go into it with the reverse engineering of. This is the type of audience I would like to attract based on that. This is the type of content that I need to talk about. I find that the first one is probably better long-term this. The second one works really well. If you're like a service provider, right. If you're like a fitness coach, you're probably going to go in as a fitness coach talking about fitness. So I guess you can still be yourself in that. But yeah, there's usually kind of those two either you just go in and be yourself and you attract your people, or you decide in advance. This is the type of audience that I would like. This is the content that I think would make the most sense.

Speaker 1: 34:05

When you're building your community. What percentage breakdown would you say you're focused on digital marketing to attract them through SEO, and then also the flip side what kind of percentage of efforts are you putting in to actually build your community? So are you reaching out one-on-one, and over here we've got SEO just kind of creeping and crawling.

Speaker 2: 34:26

Yeah, I would say it's probably 80-20, the 20% being SEO. Creeping and crawling. Yeah, I would say it's probably 80 20, the 20 being seo. The ultimate thought is I want someone to listen to the podcast for long enough where they feel like they they would find value in the facebook group and again, any group, just take out facebook, but any, any group.

Speaker 2: 34:46

The mistake I see where a lot of people is they invite people to a group where they're not in the actual top of the community yet. So the marketing aspect is nice to get eyes on, hypothetically the top of the business, which is the podcast, but only a. I mean, we've had over a million listens and we have 750 people in the Facebook group, right, so just the conversion rate of that. Not that I wouldn't like to have a million people in the Facebook group, but some people are just swinging by checking it out. Other people listen and they don't like it.

Speaker 2: 35:20

I want the Facebook group or the the community, what we call the self-identified community. These are the people that have come through and said I listen, I want to be a part of the community, I want you to know who I am. I don't necessarily want them to convert cold from somewhere. I want them to go through the podcast, then hear about the Facebook group on the podcast and then work their way that way. So the majority of what we do is one-on-one conversations. Seo is probably 20% of what we do.

Speaker 1: 35:47

At this point I'd say SEO is probably 20% of what we do at this point I'd say but you said 750 for your community. Is there kind of a bare bones minimum as far as because I'm not into vanity numbers and I know a lot of startups are you know, the more people we have, the better we'll do, which is not always the case. But I also know for views and for traction, you got to have at least X amount of people, right? I mean, you can't just have four people and you're going to go anywhere. You have 750. Is there any suggestions or tips that you have that might say hey, if you can just focus on trying to get X amount of people, that's a good starting place of people.

Speaker 2: 36:34

That's a good starting place. I mean I would, yeah, 20. 20. Because the goal is to increase engagement. So in the beginning you're going to have to do all of the. I mean we post in there every day. So we do seven posts a week in our Facebook group to increase and make sure engagement is there.

Speaker 2: 36:46

But that started with. It started with 20. It's kind of the same system is, in the beginning, just do the behaviors consistently and then just hone. Oh, when we ask a question, we get way more engagement Interesting. This question created the opportunity for people to reveal too much about themselves. They didn't feel safe doing it yet. That's why it tanked. Then you just get data. So to me you can get the same amount of data from 20 people as you can from 750. It's just, the numbers are just, are just different. So, yeah, I'd say you get 20 people in there, you're crushing it. Don't don't look for quantity over quality. I think that's to your point. I think that's a common thing is people just go invite everybody. It's not, it's not for everybody. Just like the business isn't for everybody, just like the podcast, in this case, isn't for everybody. Invite the people that are aligned. I'd rather have a hundred aligned people than a thousand misaligned people.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Well, let's talk about your group. What can people get out of it? Where can they find it?

Speaker 2: 37:47

If you just search Next Level University, we will come up. We're on all the podcast platforms. We're on YouTube. Our website is nextleveluniversecom, not university. They wanted a lot of money for the URL. We were not willing to pay it at the time. And, yeah, for most people, when they come to us, they just know they want more than they currently have. Whether it's intimacy in their relationship, whether it's confidence, self-worth. They want to be more consistent. They want to feel ignited. For the first time in a long time. They've lost that fulfillment that they knew they once had. Then we can do one-on-one coaching or group coaching or whatever makes the most sense for you, based on where you are in life. And that's the ultimate thing for us is you will be more consistent, for sure. You will be more fulfilled, for sure, and you'll be accountable, which I know a lot of us are looking for. We're looking for accountability. We'll help you create your habits, we'll help you track your habits. All of that happy jazz. And that is us in a nutshell.

Speaker 2: 38:56

If you were to stand in front of a room full of business owners of all walks of life and seasons in business.

Speaker 2: 38:58

What is some applicable advice that would be relevant to all of them? That's a big question. That's a big question, I would say if you are very, very, very, very specific on the numbers that you're tracking in your business, are you also tracking those outside of your business? So you might be crushing it in business, but how is your relationship? Do you have metrics and measurements for your relationship? If so, awesome. Do you have that for health? If so, awesome, You're crushing it. But I've found that most people don't have health, wealth, life and love and business and everything mapped out. Most people don't have health, wealth, life and love and business and everything mapped out. If you're crushing business, treat your personal life like your business. If you're crushing your personal life, but you feel like your business is struggling, treat your business like your personal life and measure things like you are, and I'm willing to bet you'll get better results that way.

Speaker 1: 39:43

Great advice. If someone wants to follow you, kevin, personally, or connect with you, how can they do that outside of the website?

Speaker 2: 39:52

I search Instagram. My handle is at neverquitkid and you can email me. I do my own emails, kevin at nextleveluniversecom. Questions about podcasting, anything I'm happy to add as much free value as humanly possible.

Speaker 1: 40:05

Fantastic Well, Kevin, you've been a blessing to many. Appreciate you being on here Any final words of wisdom.

Speaker 2: 40:14

Oh man, focus on building demand. At the end of the day, if we don't have demand, we don't have a business. So just focus on building demand and add more value than anybody else, and the cream always rises to the top eventually.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Amen. Well, I encourage all the listeners to go listen to Kevin, follow Kevin, reach out to him. He's a wealth of knowledge in all areas of life business, and he's a blessing to many. So I appreciate you again and we'll catch you all around. Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. Please don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast. If your business is stuck, you need help creating a business that can run without you, or you need a fast business loan or line of credit, go to our website businessownershipsimplifiedcom and schedule a free consultation to learn why small business success starts with Boss. If you want to talk anything small business related, email me at michael at michaeldmorrisoncom. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivots.