How To LEAVE YOUR JOB Through The Power Of Online Business w/ Amy Porterfield ($80 Million In Digital Sales)

Amy Porterfield. Long time coming. How are you? I am

so great. Thanks so much for having me.

First question, what took you so long to write the freaking book? Amy ? What took you so long?

I didn't know what kind of book I wanted to write. Being an entrepreneur for 14 years. There's so many stages I went through and so many different types of people I serve. But then one day I was like, wait a second. I know how hard it is to leave behind a nine to five job. I know how hard it is to get that business off the ground from scratch. And that's the book I need to write. Cause this is the book I wish I had 14 years ago. But it didn't come to me until a few years.

Finally. Yeah. Yeah. . . We needed this book forever ago, . But thankfully you and I were just talking off Mike, and now I finally get to tell you what happened. Yeah, he wasn't gonna,

he said we

have to wait. I'm ready. Yeah. Before you wrote the book, . I followed your content for about three or four years now. I remember being in my corporate job and I followed your content and I did what you said, and I took your marketing strategies. I used your marketing for this podcast. I used it for all the online stuff I did. And about one year ago, it's a year and one week ago, I quit my job. and then I went and I traveled full-time around the world for seven months. What?

That's like a dream. So you didn't work. Yeah. It's

because of you. You're one of the reasons

why. Oh my gosh. Wait, you didn't work for seven months and you traveled around the world.

I, I did the online stuff that you're gonna talk about

today, . Oh, okay. So you left your nine to five job. You started what you're doing now, but you got to travel while you were doing it.

Meaning, because I could do what I wanted when I wanted with

who I wanted. Oh, thank you. Is exactly what I was just gonna say. You are my dream story. That is why I do what I do. And I could tell you're loving it. I know you're in the right place. So thanks for sharing that with me. It's like you are One of the reasons why I wrote.

Awesome. I love sharing that as soon as I get to see you and I get your reaction live, because now I know how it feels when somebody tells me, Hey, something you, this piece of content you made help. Cool. It's the best feeling in the world. It's, it makes

it all the hard work

worth it. So let's begin. Before we get into the details and everything, in the back half the interview, we'll go into all the frameworks you talk about in the book, you talk about how to un bosh yourself, the four steps of leaving your job. We'll get into the tactics and the details, but first I wanna really hit on mindset and identity. Okay? Because this is such a difficult part of this transition from an entrepreneur to an entrepreneur. If you could go back and talk to Amy, you were in Carlsbad, right? If you could go back and talk to a younger Amy, like 15 years ago that had just left her position with Tony Robbins and you're sitting in your house in Carlsbad and you're wondering, what did I just do? What would you tell that younger Amy? What would you let her know?

I would tell her that there's gonna be a lot of sacrifices, a lot of bumps along the way, but what the rewards will far exceed all the challenges, all the heartbreak, all the worry and concern, and overwhelm. Once you stick with it, I would tell her, keep going. Do not give up. I know this feels awkward. I know this feels scary. , but the rewards are amazing. Like the life I live now, not just all the money I've made, but the fact that I genuinely have freedom. That was all I wanted and it didn't feel like it was ever going to come when I first left, cuz kind of everything started to go wrong in the beginning, But if I could just tell her, hold on. It will get easier. That's what I would say. , brian: What parts of the journey now, what parts were drastically wrong? Ooh, good question. So let's start with the parts that I got wrong. Number one, I thought it should happen a whole lot faster. Yeah, I looked around and so my first. Launch of a digital course was about one year into my business. I made $267 when I thought I was gonna make a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. And the reason I thought I was gonna make a hundred thousand dollars, as I looked around and on social media, it looked like everyone else was making that kind of money, which now I know they weren't. Everyone's sharing their highlights. And so I just had an expectation that was so unrealistic. So that's one area I got wrong when I made $267. I cried for a week and I told my husband, I am not cut out to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. So that was a rough time. I also, so I thought it would happen faster and I also thought that every decision I made in the. was set in stone, like there was no turning back. So it was really scary to make decisions and I just thought that there would be no pivots or it wasn't allowed to change my mind. So when I started my online business, I did social media for small businesses and I didn't realize that I don't have to do this forever. Cause I hated it for the record. . So two years in, I'm like, oh great. I've built a business I absolutely hate. I'm gonna have to go back to my. Like I kept thinking that was another mistake I kept thinking I have, I'm gonna have to go back to my job where my husband's that's off the table. I don't even wanna hear you talk about a nine to five job anymore. We are beyond that, and so I had to cut that off so I wouldn't keep saying, uhoh, this isn't gonna work. So those are some of the things that came up that did not work in the beginning, and I got wrong. I think one of the things I did get right is I always knew content was Queen. I knew that I had to be creating content in order to get myself out there. So a few years into my business, I built my podcast. That's like the backbone of my entire business. Without it, I wouldn't have a multimillion dollar business. So I'm glad I realized content was so important. I learned that from my Tony Robbins days. And then other than. . I think I also learned early on that relationships mattered. And the people I surrounded myself with, that was going to change everything. So I purchased, or I enrolled in a mastermind. And I know you, you have a mastermind, right? ? Yeah. So I enrolled in a mastermind. The minute I left my nine to five job, it was $17,000. This is. . 14 years ago it was $17,000. I did not have that kind of money. I had to do the payment plan every month and hardly even was able to afford it. But I was in a group of 20 entrepreneurial women that were doing, way bigger things than I was, and I needed that. So that was one of the things I really got right. . brian: We'll get to Tony Robbins Yeah. It was June 19th, 2009 was your last day, right? ? Yep. , yeah. We'll get into that real quick, but first I just, this is such a unique perspective and I'm asking this question from a frame of reference. So when I left, I had all my ducks in. , I had a six month emergency fund. Ah, I had my starter idea, which we'll get into. Yeah. I was executing and I had passive income. I was like, I'm financially free. Woo. Three panic attacks, , thought I was gonna go to the hospital all three times. I was like, where is this coming from? And I could not figure out emotionally, like I did not anticipate the emotions coming in, and I didn't anticipate all of this rollercoaster ride that I was gonna go on. You said you cried for a freaking week after making $267. What's some advice that you can give to somebody before we get into the tactics and the strategy? Because no matter how well prepared somebody will be, they'll still have this rollercoaster of emotions. What's some advice you can give to them? Being able to have a little bit more fun on the ride. ? amy: I wish I had more fun on So number one, you cannot take this all so seriously. And I know that's easier said than done when I had to pay the bills. You and I both had bills to pay after we left our nine to five job, but, Again, coming back to not every decision you make is going to be set in stone. You've got to give yourself a little bit of grace that mistakes are going to happen, and this is part of it. So the challenges, the troubles, the doubts, that is just a prescription for entrepreneurship, meaning there's no way you're gonna run from it. So if we could normalize all the scary thoughts, all the doubts, all the fear, and say, oh, yet this is part of the. I'm normal. I'm good to go. I think that would take a lot of pressure off. Also, you have to be careful of your expectations. If you expect that you should make 500 K right out of the gate, that first year, ask yourself, where is that number coming from? how the heck am I even going to get there and see if that's even rooted in like realness? Because I think we put these expectations together that are not, absolutely not attainable, and then we think that we've screwed up when we haven't met them. . So we put way too much pressure on ourselves in those first few years, and we have expectations that are wildly beyond what really is probably going to happen. Also, I wish I would've. , every time it doesn't work. It's just one step closer. I wish I laughed, yes at the mistakes. I wish I just rolled with the mistakes. I let them mean I wasn't good enough. So be careful what you let the mistakes mean because that could really screw you up. . brian: And it's funny when you think quote with this, but somebody said it's a Tim Ferris exercise fear setting, where you write out all your worst case fears and you're like, okay, what's the percent likelihood of this happening? And at the very bottom I wanna talk to you about your identity shifts, but we're getting to your origin story first. At the very bottom of the list I put. What if I have to get another job? And then I thought about it and that was paralyzing me while I was in the job. Same. And I was like, yeah, my, your worst case scenario is your present day reality. Yes. You're not dead. You're fine. You're fine. You're still breathing. Yes. Perfect. Oh my gosh, I love that.

Yeah, so you gotta make your move, which is a nice little Tony pun, and we'll use that as a transition point. Going back, Amy, to your last corporate job, you were working with some small, little known personal development junkie guy. Maybe some people have heard of him, Tony Robbins, right? And you were on top of the world. You were killing it until one fateful meeting happens. What happens

in this. . Okay, so like you said, I'm getting paid. I'm traveling the world. I get to work with Freak and Tony Robbins, like it's a good job. And one day Tony did like a focus group where he brought in a bunch of online business owners to the office in San Diego and it was this big oak table and they all were sitting around the table. And this is very humbling. I was brought in to take notes. . Now, what I usually say to that is Tony took notes for everything and then turned them into guides and outlines and all of that. So like he didn't miss a beat. So here I was at a side table, wasn't even invited to the main table. Here I am at a side table taking notes, and Tony went around and said, tell me about your businesses. Now these guys, if you're in the internet marketing world with a lot of people listening won't know, but they're. the OGs Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Evan Pagan. There's this like Brennan Really? Brendan Bouchard was there, really big names, and I didn't know any of them, but he went around and he said, tell me about your online businesses. They talked about their courses, their memberships, their masterminds, their physical products. They talked about their impact they made and how much money they were making. Blew my mind. And they also talked about their freedom. They were working when they wanted, where they wanted, how they wanted, they had beautiful lives and they talked about that a lot. And I put down my pen and I thought, I don't even know what these guys are doing. I want a piece of this. Let me in. So it was that moment that something shifted in my mind and I thought, I've never been free. I've never not had a boss. This is the moment. And I was in my very early thirties and I thought this has to happen. So fast forward a year from that fateful meeting, and that's when I drove out of the San Diego offices with the boxes in the back of my car, ready to start my own business, having no clue what I was gonna do. Really? . . brian: What song did you play So in the car you're driving what car? Because, okay, first of all, I've never said what kind of car it is. My husband still makes fun of me. Have you ever seen an echo, ? An echo? It's like an egg. It's a tiny egg, and it was white, so it really looks like an egg. It is hideous. So here I am driving out with my tiny little egg car and the beat. Here comes the sun came on the radio. Ooh. And I just knew this is a sign. I'm like, this is a sign. Here comes a sign. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna just change my whole life. And then the next morning, I wake up in my little condo in Carlsbad, California, sitting at my kitchen table with my little beat up laptop and thought, what am I doing? What did I just do? And what the heck am I doing? Hence why I wrote the book, because I was clueless and I don't want that to happen to anyone else. Yep.

September Earth, wind and Fire for me. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. I was driving, it was a Wednesday and I'm driving. And for people that are listening, pay attention to what me and Amy are saying because I want you to document your freaking moment that you leave after you get the book. Remember these days because it's a small moment in like you expect streamers and confetti to pop out outta nowhere and then it's a Wednesday and you don't even have anyone to call cause they're at work. . amy: It's so true. It's very anti-climatic, but you still have to document it. Like when you might have done this, I'd give anything like to a selfies weren't really a thing 14 years ago. Yeah. But to take a selfie and just to see myself in that moment, I wish I journaled more around that time. Like it's a big deal. Yeah, that's huge. I wanna talk, I wanna use this as a unique opportunity to talk about the other side of getting everything you ever wanted. So when you hit that mountaintop, there's a couple of different mountaintop moments in life, and you're really uniquely positioned to speak on this before we get into the tactics. One is when you quit your job. One is maybe when you make your first million, maybe one was when you made your first 10 million, or you hired your first team member. Yeah. . Walk us through what happens when you get everything you ever wanted, and then you're standing on the mountaintop and you're like, Ooh, now. Yeah. How do you handle that?

So I'm in Enneagram three for years without I know. Me too. You too. And it's never good enough, unfortunately. And That's correct. It's a little bit of a dangerous slope to be on, however, so I remember all those things. I remember hitting the million dollar mark, the 10 million mark, hiring my first full-time employee. All of it just recently, New York Times bestseller that. . I wanted that boom bad. I wanted it bad. So all those are such big deals. And the, when it first started happening, I just thought this is really sad and I gotta be honest, I hate that this is my answer, but I got nervous. What if it gets taken away? , like when I hit my first million dollar year. , what if I can never do that again? What if that was a fluke? Or when I hit the $10 million year no way. I could never do that again. So I, first, my first thought is usually a little bit of fear. Unfortunately, that's just my worried personality. But as I've been better and better at knowing you have to celebrate all of these, like when I hit New York Times bestseller, I really let that sink in. Like I really did that. I worked really hard for it. I did that and for days it just kept popping in my. Oh my God. I actually did it. I did it. And so I've gotten better at celebrating and really recognizing it. But in the beginning it was scary because I had never done it before and I didn't know if it could last. So it's a bummer. . But it is true what came up for me.

To this day, I still have anxiety about posting content on LinkedIn for the fear of one day having to go back and make a job posting. Thank you.

Thank you my friend. So we both have a little bit about that, and maybe it's because this life we have now is so freaking good. that it's is this real? Is this really happening? Yeah. And so it sometimes feels a little bit too big, and that is why I want more and more people to become entrepreneurs. You don't even know how good it could be, and it's not like I set out to generate $80 million in my business, never even on my radar. What I wanted was to make it just as much money as I made at Tony. . That was always my goal. If I could just cover my salary, my life is good. So even if you can't dream that big just yet, you never know how good it's gonna get. And

just so you know, ladies and gentlemen, we'll give Amy her flowers in the intro of this episode, but also just to hit you with it again. 72 million in course sales. 46,000 students. Actually, it's about 50,000 now. Yeah. 42 million podcast downloads and growing. And at Enneagram three, which is the coolest part of 'em all. Heck, yeah. You did the thing. Yeah. I want to talk about I want to hit one more time just just to punctuate this point because you're so uniquely positioned to answer these questions. And the question is, what advice can you give Whenever somebody's in that position and they do it and they implement what we talk about, and all of these ideas and thoughts start popping up the. Can't be me, I'm gonna lose it. All. All of these limiting beliefs, these little saboteurs that come up on our shoulder, what's some advice you can give for people to deal with that type of stuff that comes up where they try to self sabotage on

this journey? Okay. I am like a master at self sabotage, so totally get this one I, this is gonna go away. What? I'm not good enough. This is, I'm not the right person for this. All of those things that come. , but here's how I kept on the course of continuing to go forward, instead of trying to get back my nine to five job, I was crystal clear on what I wanted. Yes, that's the one thing I was confident about. I wasn't confident about anything else, but I knew I did not want a boss. And having a boss like Tony Robbins is really cool. So it had nothing to do with any of the people in my life at the time. I just knew I was so tired of building somebody else's dream and I didn't wanna be on someone else's time or someone else's dime. I had a new husband at the time that I never saw cause I was traveling so much. So to me it was so clear what I I wanted freedom, period. That's all I wanted. When, it was hard, when I made 290 or $67, when people closed their doors in front of me no, we don't wanna work with you, or whatever. . I knew what I was going for and that's why I never quit. Get very crystal clear on your why, and then you're good to go.

Run towards something, not away from something. Yes. I love that. So let's talk about your first business. After you leave Tony Robbins you leave and you're in your, you're in your car, you're listening to your music. Here comes, the sun is playing. You're on top of the world. You make your first business. You said, this is gonna be my thing. I'm gonna kill it at social media. It was the best business ever. Wait. What happened? Yeah. It wasn't the best business

ever. It was not. I'm an introvert, so that's the one thing you, that I, yes. Like I to my core and I know I can turn it on and I can do what I need to do. But this is easy. I'm in my house, my husband's downstairs, my dog's right here. I'm all cozy, so I can turn it on as much, but you put me on a stage and Oh, , all the nerves are gonna come up. So I . I put myself in a position where I had a bunch of clients and I was doing social media for these small businesses, and I hated it because I didn't know how to set boundaries and something I know we're gonna talk about. I didn't know how to emboss myself. , there's this concept in my book, two weeks notice all about embossing yourself, which is starting to believe that you don't need permission, especially the ladies listening. This is really hopefully resonating because this, I see it more in women than men. , you don't need permission. You don't have to ask for everybody's opinion. You don't need to ask what the decision should be. You have to start thinking you've got the answers, and you don't have to look to everybody else. That's how you start to emboss yourself. Decision by decision, action by action. I have no id, I had no idea at the time how to do that, so my clients became my boss. Like I literally let them teach me, treat me like they were my boss. So every day I had way too much work than I could do. I was scrambling. I had to touch a desperation like, I can't lose this client, or I'm not gonna ma be able to make my goals this month, or whatever it might be. . So I did this for two years until I realized I hate this and I thought I'd rather go back to a nine to five job than continue this business I hate. But luckily that's when I started to take digital courses really seriously and change my business. . brian: And then, so now So first off, ladies and gentlemen, remember Amy left her job. She survives two years doing the thing that she doesn't even wanna do. Yeah. And she still survived. She's still kicking. I was, she's still swimming a lot. Yep. Yeah. And then we go into your first online course that makes $267. Yeah. On a topic. that maybe you shouldn't have talked about. Okay, let's talk about this . This is something I teach my students a lot now because I made the biggest mistake. So I thought, okay, I gotta get something up. I gotta do something quickly. So for some unknown reason, I thought I should teach authors how to launch a book online using social media. , I had never written a book. . I had never worked with authors. I have no idea why I thought that I should be teaching that. I think it was just desperation. I clung onto something really quickly and I put it all together and that's why it didn't work. I wasn't an expert, so I teach my students now you have to have a 10% edge. You need to be 10% ahead of those that you serve, meaning you don't need to be light years ahead. It's not like you quit your job. How long? year. A year. And you teach people how to quit their job. Correct? Because you've done it successfully and now you've worked with a bunch of people how to do it. You're making bank, you're doing great. You've got more than a 10% edge, but you started with a 10% edge. . So you're a great example of you don't need 20 years of being out on your own before you can teach someone how to quit their job. You just need a proven roadmap that you're willing to teach someone how you did something. You did. . And so I had never done it, so I should not have been teaching that. , brian: and it was such a limiting belief Ooh, tell me about that. I almost didn't start the podcast because I said, who am I to speak on this and or real estate or entrepreneurship? I still was in my job when I started the podcast and I was like, I don't have a hundred doors. I don't have a hundred units under my belt yet as an investor, how can I make a real estate podcast? And a mentor said something to me that changed everything and he's you can position yourself as the grizzled veteran. that's got thousands of units and millions of dollars, of course sales. Or you could be the enthusiastic beginner, Ooh, document the journey. Love that. Yeah. Be 10% better. And that's the same thing as what you say, the 10% better talk to the person you were three years ago, like Exactly. Yeah. And that so many people have zones of genius that they haven't tapped into yet because they don't see themselves. So it's just so powerful to be able to put that belief in people that are listening to right now and let them know, Hey, like there are people no matter where you are, if you just bought your first house or you just did your first course and made a thousand bucks. There are people that have $0 in court sales. Exactly. They wanna learn from you. Yes. Oh my God. And it was yeah, it was such, such a freaking journey trying to figure like, walk through all of that. And it's funny now because now here we are 15 years later, and now you've made the book. Finally you've done everything that you thought. Content has been difficult on my side because you create the course, you're 10% better. But then on this show in particular, we talked to eight figure entrepreneurs. So when I'm speaking to an audience, and you'll have really good advice for people on this one, when I'm speaking to the audience, I was speaking to high, so I was like, here's how you make millions and millions of dollars through real estate and through courses and through everything. and then I got advice from my friend. He said, they're not trying to do that. Talk to you three years ago. Yes. He's talk to that person. They're not trying to make millions of dollars. They want to learn how to replace their six figure income. That's it. So can you talk about finding your ideal customer avatar? Yes. This is one thing that I go deep in the book about this because it's so important. It unlocks so much of your potential of what you can do in your business. You have to. Who it is that you wanna serve and who you want to add value to. And you have to know them as though they are your best friend. And one of the best and easiest ways to do that is exactly what you said. Could you serve someone that's just three years behind you? I love that. And essentially, that's exactly what I did when I was first starting out as well. You don't have to do that. Like one of my students, he helps women in their sixties get. , obviously that's never been him , but he just found a way to connect with them and he serves them and it's great. That's his ideal customer avatar, but because he's never been them, he's had to study them, he's had to do what my dad told me in second grade. Listen more than you talk, you have to really ask questions and get into their head, and you're asking yourself what's keeping them up. , what are they worried about? What do they want? You hit it. They wanna replace their six-figure income. I am exactly that girl. 14 years ago, I would've been your ideal customer avatar. . And so you have to know them. And the way you get to know your ideal customer avatar is you spend time listening, getting in their comments of social media, asking them questions, conversating with them in the dms, all of that. And it takes time. But you'll. . brian: Yeah. So you've got this idea that's your 10% edge. Yeah. Talk a little bit about how to formulate your starter idea. . Okay. So to actually find the starter idea? Yes. Okay. So in the book I talk about something called the sweet Spot, and I'll just go over it really quickly. But there's four quadrants, and again, this is not your big end all, be all million dollar business idea. , it's the thing that's going to get you outta your nine to five job. It's gonna push you out, you've gotta start somewhere. And so for the sweet spot formula is what it's called, and there's four quadrant. First quadrant is what we already talked about, your 10% edge. Where have you gotten results? What are you good at? And it could be your personal life or your business life. Like one of my students, he's an accountant, but he's really good at getting his kids to sleep at night. He became a sleep expert, and so he created a whole business around something that was. Personal to him, but he made it his business. So what are you good at? What do people say? Oh my God, how do you do that so easily? Why do, why can you practically do that in your sleep? Look, personal and professional. So that's where you're gonna start. The second thing is, what kind of solution do you want to be? Like? What do you wanna solve? Or what desire do you wanna meet? It doesn't always have to be a problem you're solving. Could be a desire that you're meeting, but what is that? Because we gotta figure out that and make sure it's tied back to what you do well. So that's another thing. The solution that you are going to. . The third quadrant is what are people spending money on? . So if this guy's I wanna be a sleep expert for toddlers. Wonderful. Are there books about it? Podcasts about it, courses about it. Consulting, coaching. Do people pay for something like that? And I always have to stop here and say, Some people will say, yes, too many people are already doing, it's saturated. There's room for me, right? I hear it all the time, and I call BS on that because number one, there's over 7 billion people in this world. Number two, no one doesn't quite like you with your stories, your experiences, your insights, and there's always room. You need a tiny sliver of the internet to pay attention to make. and to make an impact. So we don't worry if someone else is doing it. Great. It's already validated. Wonderful. The fourth quadrant is what lights you up? Notice I did not say, what's your passion? What's your mission in life? That will totally stop you in your tracks. That's too hard to figure out. Just what do you enjoy? What do you like to talk about? What do you like to teach? As long as you enjoy it, you're. . brian: I was in Barcelona. Yeah. And I had a couple of coaching calls, one-on-one. Okay. And I hated doing them so much. shout, no offense to you guys. Listen, I know you guys listen to the podcast that I did the calls with. I hated them so much that I literally refunded them the money. I just threw a dollar sign out and I said, I hope they don't say yes to this. And they said yeah. I was like, oh. . I could not, I couldn't think of anything else besides the entire day of how I could show up for that one coaching call. . Mm-hmm. , , you hated doing one-on-one. Hated Talk about that. You're very similar in, in, in ways. I hated it. I, my personality doesn't work that way. I'm actually not really good at, on the fly, like coming up with tons of ideas for someone or dissecting someone really quickly. I have a really good girlfriend. , anytime an idea or issues brought up, she has 10 ideas to solve it. , that is not my personality. No. I love to plan and to formulate and to teach. I love all of that. I like to put frameworks together and roadmaps, but I like to do it one to many. And so that's why digital courses was the perfect fit for me, but I just didn't like, and I got nervous. It might have been my insecurity at the time am I gonna tell them something good enough? Is this gonna add enough? I hated all that worry. So I'm like, why am I doing this to myself?

Yes. And people listening pay attention because Amy's talking about two separate businesses that she did after she left her job, that both were not her thing. Yeah. So she was able to hang it up, say, this isn't my thing. It's time to pivot. Yeah. You deserve to do something where you wake up in the morning and you don't even need coffee because you're on fire all day every day. You deserve that. Every single person listening to this.

Amen to that. Yes. It's very.

So I wanted to get that foundation set before we moved into like audience building and everything. Okay. Because you're another expert at that, and that's actually something that you did through social media and your corporate career. Yeah, so now we have our starter idea. We have our 10% edge. We have done our quadrant to figure out what kind of. Path do we wanna follow? We wanna make sure it's something that lights us up. It doesn't need to be our end all, be all passion, but something that lights it up. And now we have our target audience, our target consumer. Now when we are creating content and we are building our audience, does it really matter? how many followers we have on social media, Amy, or is there another number that we're looking for that is more important?

Okay, so social media is important. We've gotta grow our social followers, but not for probably the reason most people think. They think. So I can sell more, I can build my cloud or I can get people to start liking me. None of that. I use social media to grow my email list. Oh, and so we've gotta talk about the email. You do not have a viable business online. If all you've done is build your business on social media, because that means you're building your business on rented land and Marcus Zuckerberg or Elon Musk can change that algorithm and boom, your whole business changes overnight. What worked before is not working now, and so what I teach my students is we need to take people off social media and into your. . Now I get a lot of people saying, yeah, but Amy, we get way too many emails. People don't open emails. Oh, you open emails? Why? From people that you genuinely want to hear from. There was a recent study that a bunch thousands of people were studied to see, do you want to hear about an offer through email or social media? And they said, if. , if it's an offer that I am paying for, I want an email with all the details. I don't wanna just see a quick Instagram reel and not even get any real details. People want to get an email if they're paying for something. Building your email list is incredibly important, and let me tell you a quick story. In 2021, Facebook and Instagram went dark. It went down for hours and hours, and we were all like, is the world still alive? What is happening? It was so bizarre, and that morning I had happened to send an email out about a program I had for years, but I only sent it to the people on my email list that didn't have it. It was a $500 program. by that evening when social media was still totally darkened down, I made $17,000 with one email to a segmented part of my list because my email list is more engaged than anything that would ever happen on social media. . So you've gotta start growing the email list, and I'll tell you, every entrepreneur I talk about, their biggest regret is they waited too long. And so you can start an email list, even if you're still in your nine to five. Yes.

And that was a whole other can of worms. I listened to your freaking podcast, online Marketing Made Easy. I listened to the podcast and I was like, okay, Amy's talking to my email list. I gotta make an email list. So I started up my newsletter and it's small but mighty right now. We have 1700 subscribers on there. Love it. We're working on it. And guys, if you're listening, you need to freaking subscribe and subscribe to Amy's newsletter as well, . But uh, 75%.

Oh whoa. Just so everyone knows 20% is the average, so 75. That must be a really good newsletter that people are I'm trying opening it up. I'm trying. That's awesome. With 1700 people on your email list, you could make hundreds of thousands of dollars. You do not need a huge email list. You need an engaged email list. That's another thing. It's not like I'm saying, you have to have hundreds of thousands of people for this to work. You absolutely do not.

And what this looks like, guys listening, is if Amy was talking about like the person that was the toddler sleep expert, now that would look like maybe once a week they're sending out a newsletter saying, Hey, here's what worked this week as I was putting my toddler to sleep. Like here's three best practices that I used. And then if you wanna sign up for this, like here you go. And then just lead with the content over and over again. This is so true.

Wait, I have a quick question for you, Brian. This is like off topic a tiny bit, but your email list, do you, how often do you podcast.

Daily. Whoa. What I got. I didn't want to look back on this 10 years from now and say that I could have worked

harder. Oh my gosh. You are a unique person for sure. Okay, that's baller. But do you email once a week telling people about your podcast?

In sorts. Okay. That to me I, I'll put a link to some of the episodes in the weekly email.

Okay, cool. Cool. Because one thing I do is every Thursday morning, rain or shine, I send an email out about my podcast that came out that morning. And it's basically a short email, what it's all about, and they can click to it. And then if there's an off week, for some reason that email doesn't go out cause I'm promoting something. I will see my downloads dramatically. My audience is very much in tune with, oh, the email. Great reminder that I've got a podcast to listen to, and it has grown my podcast exponentially. So just something to think about.

And podcasting is one of the hardest mediums to grow. It sucks to grow. So now I've been kicking and screaming and pouring advertising dollars into the podcast. And I've realized now that I'm pouring tens of thousands of dollars in, and what I should be doing is just simply taking two hours of my morning every single morning. Now is my writing hours, and that's where I spend writing. Twitter threads, making content writing newsletters, writing LinkedIn posts, and then I can use that to grow the newsletter and grow the email list. Can you give, you're the email list queen, by the way, people listening. She's an online course queen, which means she's the email list. Queen . What are some best practices, maybe three to five tips for people to grow their email list or grow their just newsletter or anything that they have? Yep. Maybe they're unfamiliar with lead magnets and all this. Give us maybe three to

five tips. So the first tip is, yes, you need a lead magnet. So those of you who are brand new to this, don't worry. If you hear terms in online business that make no sense to you, you have to remember, no one teaches us this stuff. You just gotta learn along the way. So a lead magnet is a freebie, a cheat sheet, a checklist, a guide that you give away, an exchange for someone's name, an email. . And so you've got to have a lead magnet in order to grow your newsletter. And so it could be as simple as a guide, or it could be a 10 minute video or a 10 minute audio, whatever you want it to be. This, okay? So that's number one. The second tip is you need to talk about that lead magnet every single week, maybe multiple times a week. I'm bad at that , okay? This is gonna change things. You can't just link to it in Instagram bio or anything like that. I wanna see a real once a week on Instagram where you're talking about something and then the call to action is to get on your newsletter. Or I wanna see a dedicated post on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. Or another great way is in your blog or on your podcast, I think every single week you should be talking about your newsletter, on your podcast and telling them to go sign up for it. So it's not build it and they will come, it's build it, and then talk about it wherever, whenever you can, multiple times a week. It makes a huge difference. And also, if you're gonna have a new. You have to have a reason for them to want to sign up for it. Meaning sign up for my newsletter for tips and tricks. Not good enough. No. I want you to name the newsletter. I want you to talk about exactly what they're gonna get week after week. And the next tip is that newsletter needs to go up every single week or more. Same time, every same day. So mine is Thursday morning. Every Thursday morning, rain or shine, I'm sending out a newsletter. So it's important with the consistency and that's the final tip I'll give you when you're grow. I've got a few more. When you're growing your email list, you gotta email the list consistently. It's one thing. To get them on your list. But if you wanna sell with that email list, you need to nurture them over time. So they should be hearing from you on a regular. Now in order to grow that newsletter, to grow that subscriber list, one of my most favorite things to do is every quarter we do a list building promo week, where the whole week is dedicated to growing the email list. Okay, and it looks like this. I'm gonna give you two ideas. Number one, this one work like gangbusters. , we built a quiz that people would take, yeah, in order to learn how anything about them related to what I do. So we built this quiz. They take the quiz and to get the results of the quiz, they sign up for your newsletter to get the email with their results. So we blasted the quiz all week long, made a big deal about it. and that grew our list exponentially, so that was a big one. Also, one quarter, we did a giveaway. We put together a really cool entrepreneurial package. And so in order to get this giveaway, you had to, let's say, often hear and then maybe share it with one friend, or you've seen those contests where you ha you take a few quick steps and you're entered to win. We did that and that grew our list, and it also got us out on social a lot. So that was one that worked. And then the final thing is one of the quizzes we did, we actually gave people, they answered a bunch of questions, and then we gave them a playlist from my podcast based on where they are in their entrepreneurial journey. Then we said, okay, your results are, here's the 10 episodes that you need to listen to in order to get traction. So not, were we getting people to listen to our podcast, but they were joining our email list. That one probably worked the most because by you and Knee, we have a lot of podcast episodes, right? . So if you could give 'em a cur curated playlist based on where they are in their journey,

boom. What service did you use to host the quiz and how did you promote a quiz? Because at face value, I'm hearing like quiz like what? Yeah,

so bucket.io is the tool that we used for the quiz. And I have a podcast episode on how to create a quiz. From the woman who creates mine. Okay? So if you go to online marketing Made Easy, we did an entire episode of how to create a quiz because there's some nuances. It's not for the total newbie to create a quiz, cuz you gotta figure out some strategy there. But a ab you absolutely could do it.

All right, you guys are gonna get a quiz, . All right. And you're gonna answer the hell outta that quiz. I love it guys. D, all of the above, baby. Y'all got this . Okay. That is awesome. Once again, Amy, just to punctuate this talk about how big is your email list right now and how much are you making?

So our, my email list might be smaller than you think. It's 250,000 people and Wow. That is right. It's smaller than you might think. I've been around for a long time. We prune the list a lot. So if people aren't opening up our emails for, I think right now it's 60 days, we're gonna take them off the list. Wow. We do some things to see if they wanna stay on. But the thing is my email list. , it's really engaged. They really pay attention. So anytime I wanna make money, I can rely on that list, even though it's not as big as maybe most people think.

That's huge and that's massive that you prune the list. Yeah. So is there any specific process? So you just look at un like un disengaged for 60 days, and then do you maybe send 'em like a breakup email where you're like, Hey, are you getting this

or, yeah. So we'll do the breakup email. We have a nurture sequence. And but remember that a lot of people that come into my world, they think they're ready for, let's say, a digital course or to build their business. And I think they get a little bit gun shy because there's a lot that goes into this. Because I have a lot of newbies, some of them fall off and they're just gonna stay in their nine to five job or whatever. So I attract, we attract a lot, but do they wanna stick around for everything I have to offer? If they don't, I'm fine because I only wanna be talking to people that actually need me.

Okay, perfect. Yeah. Talk a little bit and then we will go into this last 15 minutes. We'll go like really into the numbers and everything. Okay. So somebody may be listening to this that I know for a fact somebody's listening to this. That's entrepreneurs. There's a bunch of entrepreneurs that listen to this show that are doing massive things and they're decade of millionaires. They hate social. Yeah, and I keep trying to get 'em online and they won't go online. They're super overwhelmed, but they're like, do I have to do TikTok and YouTube shorts and Facebook reels and Instagram and Twitter threads and all of this. What's some advice that you would give for somebody building an audience that's starting out and they're looking to build, start their audience? Start their email list today.

Okay, so what I'll say is that, I am an example of someone who doesn't do all the social media things. So I don't have a thriving YouTube channel. I don't have a thriving TikTok. I don't do a lot on LinkedIn or Twitter. I do a lot on Instagram, so I chose one platform. I'm on all of them a little, but I'm a big fan of going all in with what's working. So I chose one channel, Instagram, and that's where I spent a lot of my focus. So those of you who don't wanna do a lot on social media, I don't think that you have to. You do need to show up on social. You can't ignore it completely, or you're leaving so much money on the table that you will regret it, but you don't need to get on TikTok and do dances if that's not for you. You don't need to be making tons of YouTube videos if that's not your thing, but you do need to figure out what your thing is. But here's something that a lot of people don't talk. , the way I made social media work is because I have a consistent content creation plan, and that is two times a week I podcast. That is my weekly original content. I teach all my students. You need a weekly original content plan because it does two things. Number one, it attracts an audience. You do not have. So if you podcast, you blog, you have a vlog those are ways that you're gonna be pushed out into the world even though you're not always doing the organic or. Pushing them, it could organically happen. , that's why I love podcasting. Cause I do think that we get pushed out in front of audiences that we don't necessarily have access to. So you are blogging our podcasting every week to find your audience, but you're also blogging our podcasting every week. So that you are nurturing the audience you already have. You're emailing your list saying, I've got a new podcast this week. And on social you're talking about it so you have something to talk about. Because most people are like, what do I even talk about on social media? Talk about your weekly original content. Hey, I've got a blog this week, and then the next day, let me tell you a quick story that I tell on my blog, or whatever it might be. So the content becomes easier when you have weekly original.

I love that. That's awesome. And also talk about what you're doing, like what are you building towards? Because there's some people that are like, Hey, like right now my goal is I wanna build a $1 million a R r education business online this year. Wait. And it is my first year. Wait, what? R

mean? I'm embarrassed to ask that. Cause you're gonna tell me, I'm gonna be like, oh gosh, what is that

annual recurring revenue? Oh, okay. Yeah, I was gonna say that was, okay. So that's a whole that I wanna put my business hat on. Okay. All the social media people are gone now. All right. They already got everything they need. Now I want to go into entrepreneurship, Amy, here. So that, this is a major question I have. So when it comes to courses, . So you have one off revenue and then a recurring revenue like Mastermind where it's like annual fee, monthly membership, stuff like that. What are your thoughts on the ratio between the two? Because isn't it more difficult to have a product where you're just having to promote over and over again to get people to sign up? Do you do membership style? What are your thoughts on this? Okay, so

real quick, I'll tell you what my business is set up to be. So I have one Evergreen digital course that's $500 all about list. I have one, what I call a signature course, and it's how to create digital courses, and it's $2,000 and I only launch it once a year every September. Okay? And then I have a membership that's $97 a month, and you have to go through my signature course on how to create a course to get into my membership. And the reason for that is I didn't want a membership where I had to keep reteaching everything over and over again. I can refer back to my digital course saying, you learned this in module five, or You learned this in module two, go back there, da. And I can build off of it, but I don't have to always start from scratch with them. And so it's an amazing community. So I've got these three digital courses, and then of course I have my book now and I have my podcast, and then I do affiliate marketing. So a few times a year, yes, I'll market someone else's product, but like the software, the Convert Kit, the Searchy, the Cajabi, these are softwares that I recommend. Those make me a lot of money because I use them. So it's really easy for me to talk about. . So that's basically my offer. And so I love to have an evergreen course. I make money every single day with my $500 course. That's important that the money's just coming in regularly. But I also love a live launch because when it's live, , there's a whole different energy around it. Yes, people get excited. There's urgency, there's scarcity. I'm not gonna offer it for an entire year. So there's a lot. It's huge list builder around that time. Cause I do a lot of list building up to it. And I use affiliates, so that's another thing that helps me immensely. I use affiliates that help me market my $2,000 course and they get 50 50 split. So a lot of people do. 40, 60. I do 50 50. And they make a lot of money. And I make a lot of money, so that helps immensely. So I, I don't know the right ratio, but that's what mine looks like.

I was lit well me versus 72 million . I think everyone can make their own decisions. Like I'm not a math guy, but, So this is crazy. I was literally, I remember where I was. I was in freaking Belgium and I heard your podcast about the 50 50 affiliate split, and that blew my mind. I was like, why would I give half of my money away, half of my profit for a course, for a mastermind, for a membership? Anything that you guys. The idea of giving 50% away to somebody else was insane. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Can you talk about your affiliate model? Because you are a master at that? Yeah.

So I am a little bit old school where 14 years ago everyone gave 50 50. That was just like a norm and then it's changed. So one thing I wanna make clear. Let's say you're selling a one-on-one coaching program and you have affiliates, I wouldn't do 50 50 for that because you're doing way more than they are doing in real time. That's a whole different ballgame. But with a course, you gotta remember I created one time. And I can update it year after year, but I've done all the heavy lifting and now I get to market it year after year, and I do a nine week Facebook group. I show up once a week for nine weeks doing q and a, but that's something I've done for years. So it's not even a big deal. Why I do 50 50 is for two reasons. Number one, I believe that it's an easy sell to anyone who's interested in promoting my program 50 50. Like they're like, yes, please, all day long. I don't have to talk anyone into it if they're interested. They love the ratio, so it's just easy for me. The second thing is they are bringing people to the table that I would've never had access to. They're bringing hundreds. Thousands of people on my webinar inside my course that no would never, would've known me. And so now there's other things like oh, I forgot to say, I just developed, it's still in beta, a one-on-one coaching program, but I'm not the coach. I've trained coaches. , I was gonna say. Yeah. Now that I bring all these people into my course, the next step is eventually they'll wanna coach with me, where I keep all that. And so it grows your list, it grows your income, and you get exposed to people that normally never would've found you. It grows your business quickly.

How do you approach a potential affiliate? What does that outreach look like? So

it's my least favorite part. So I don't love asking that kind of thing. I like to just sustain my own business myself. But once a year, I have to, funny you should ask . I did it today. And I reached out to this woman that I have a relationship with and she just asked me to coach in one of her programs, and I said, yes for free. So I, I tend to make sure that I've given value before I ask leading with value, okay. Leading with value. And then I study someone's. And I get really clear on who their audience is, and then I'll approach 'em. And what I said to this woman, I said, I know who your audience is. They are absolutely a perfect fit for Digital Course Academy. Here's all the reasons why. Just really brief. I do 50 50 on a $2,000 program and I do all the heavy lifting. , I do all the live webinars, I write all the emails, I do all the social. You can tweak them and make them your own, but I'm gonna do all the heavy lifting. All you gotta do is send traffic to that webinar, and my webinars convert really well. I've got a proven track record that makes you easier,

right? Oh, that's a huge key point though. So you're having them. Give you traffic for the webinar, not a landing page. Yeah,

so that's another thing. Ooh, I do a bootcamp and a webinar, so they get to choose either one, but that's where they're sending the bulk of their traffic. Then I can support from there. That's why it's not a lot of heavy lifting for them. Now, I love a affiliate partner that will create bonuses that go along and they, buy from me and you get these bonuses. I love that extra mile that they'll go, but I do so much of the work for them. So that's the picture I.

How do you track who comes from where? For the

webinar we use we've used so many different affiliate software programs. I'm not exactly sure the one we're using now, but there's tons of different ones and , all the links are gonna come. Actually, I think we did it through Keep, which is my email service provider, but we're moving to HubSpot and they have it too. Okay. So my c r m has an affiliate program inside of it, and so we put each partner's name and details in it, and it generates a special link for my webinar or for my bootcamp or for my sales page. All different links that are unique to. . brian: That's huge. I didn't, I had no idea. I thought that you, when you were talking about affiliates, I thought that you were like, Hey, like here's my $2,000 landing page right here. And then they click the link and they sign up for $2,000 Land two, they without their credit card, pay $2,000. And you're like, oh, yay. Herp to dirt. There's a thousand dollars for you. Oh my God. This is huge. Yeah, it's definitely more like a, there's a system for it and it's all Yeah. Tracked.

How often are you doing webinars?

So I do a live launch once a year for Digital Course Academy, and I'll do like a ser the same webinar, but I'll probably do it like six times over, two weeks. Okay. So I do that and then I have an Evergreen webinar, so I just record it once and I play it all year long. So I don't do tons of live webinars, but here's a little tip for all of you listening. You have to have a sales vehicle to sell, let's say, a digital course, a membership, a mastermind. It's not enough to just say, go to my sales page. If you're struggling with getting sales, it's because you're missing a sales vehicle. And a sales vehicle looks like this. Maybe it's a video sales. Maybe it's like a Jeff Walker three part video series that leads into the cell. So he d he teaches like a launch model with video series. Maybe it's a webinar like I do, but I just did actually, I just did a launch that ended two days ago where I did a 14 day bootcamp. The bootcamp was $37. , we got like 8,000 people into the bootcamp and then at the I taught list building for three trainings, and then I did a bonus training where I sold them into my $500. Course about building an email list, but bec I'm all about giving tons of value first, whether you buy or not. I have a motto if I do something for free and I wanna sell, okay, like on a webinar , I say, no matter if they bought or not, they walk away feeling inspired, excited and driven to take action. no matter if they buy or not. So I know I'm always delivering on the front end. So when I sell, I never feel salesy. I never feel weird about it. I've earned it. I earned the right to sell. And , A bootcamp is a great sales vehicle, a webinar, a video sales letter. You need something before they hit that sales page.

All right. So a webinar or a low ticket offer that yields the high ticket offer. Yeah. So that way you just have micro value. And then you lead in with the big ticket. Yes. Okay. So you go low ti low to high for your ticket prices. Yep. I love that. So I only have one offer right now. So now that makes me think, and I'm, the gears are turning. Maybe I create the low ticket offer, the maybe seven day bootcamp that transitions into the Mastermind. Yeah. That is a seven day

big bootcamp to put your plan together to quit your job would be baller. Think about

it. Yeah, no, that. That is so good. From a timeline perspective I know the answer to this could be it. It depends and it probably does. But if somebody's listening to this right now and they're on fire, like they're still listening to us at minute 55 and they're like, everything Amy's saying is awesome. I wanna start my social media. I wanna start my brand. I wanna build my email list. I wanna create my big idea, my starter idea. I wanna do all of this. , what order do you recommend them going in? Would you recommend a period of time with them building an audience, or would you recommend them just going, just creating the idea, creating the course, and then building the audience? I'm curious about that.

I like the idea of starting to build your audience first, and you don't need to do it for years and years, even if you do like a. Three month audience building and then continue to build it as you build. Your course. And the reason for that is if you really care about your audience, you're gonna ask them questions, you're gonna listen, and they will help you figure out that first offer that you're putting together to make sure you get the mark. Yes. So I really like to get the audience building going first before I put together my offer.

That is so big. Yeah. What I did is I called a hundred people. Oh, so good.

You're such a little, go-get.

My podcast is Action Academy. I literally just do everything that you say. It's so good. Yeah. I called a hundred people, so I called 20. I called 20 people that had left their jobs. Recently. I called 20 people that left their jobs within the last three years. I called 20 people that left their job within the last 10 years, and then I called 40, the remaining 40 or some odd of people that were actively like trying to leave their job. And I was like, what were your biggest roadblocks? What were the biggest problems? What were the biggest issues that you came into? Because what people do is they create this course. It took me a freaking month to make the course, and then it was just like, a lot of it's just solving a problem that doesn't even

exist. I'm dying that you're like, it took me a freaking month. It takes most people way longer than that, so

that's really, oh, but it was a month, like 24. Like it was all I did . Total version. Gotcha. Yeah, it was all I did. What's some advice in closing that you can give to somebody to make sure that they are in fact solving a problem that exists and they're not creating a solution for a problem that nobody's even talking

about? Ooh, I love this. I think you need to look. , whatever it is you say, okay, I'm gonna solve this problem. I want you to go online and find five to 10 people that are talking about that problem that maybe there's podcasts about that problem. Again, are there books about that problem? I want you to see evidence that other people have spoken about that problem before because you ask a great question. Some people get into my world and they're like, I wanna empower. . What does that mean? What That is way too just like airy fairy out there. What exactly do you want to do? And if they say I wanna make 'em stronger, what exactly does that mean? Like it has to be more concrete. And we don't have to get into this now cause we're wrapping up, but the more you can niche down, the more you can say I. This person do that thing. You will be, you. People will find you. They will know. They'll cut through the noise and know you are their person. The more general thing you wanna do, you're gonna get lost in the sea of online noise. Yeah.

Don't compete with Tony Robbins on personal development. No. Be the best person that quit their job and traveled the world. Or like Amy, where she does all of her things. Find your thing, find your niche. That is perfect. Amy, I just realized we're a little bit over time. Where can people find you? Where can they get.

Oh, thank you so much for asking. My book is anywhere you buy books online, and so it's just called two weeks notice and if you go to two weeks notice book.com, I've got bonuses when you buy the book. And then of course I've got my podcast online. Marketing Made easy. Thanks so much for asking. This has been a really fun conversation.

Thank you so much. It's been amazing. And guys, I will link all of her podcast episodes she talked about in the show description, and you guys will have all the different topics that we're talking about so you can dive in on the authority of online marketing. Miss Amy Porterfield. Amy, thank you so much. Thank you, friend. All right. This has been Brian with Amy with the Action Academy Podcast, signing off.