Pat Flynn - How to Stand Out From the Crowd - Financial Bloggers Conference 2011

Key Takeaways

PN cool thanks man hey like seriously let's all give Philip like the biggest Round of Applause this has been an amazing experience this is this is incredible this is incredible last to speak right I have a lot of responsibility um you know you can go home I could have a really crappy presentation and you could think the conference sucked it's all my fault but you know that last I have a really interesting and special relationship with last in high school I didn't pass 5 feet tall and 100 PBS till my junior year I was a tiny kid it was super easy to find me on the marching band field um notice I say marching band field not football field I'm a geek like that no I didn't get any girls I was always that cute kid that the girls would want to be with but never get any girls and yes I was always picked last for everything and it sucked but I was picked last to speak today and I'm really really I'm super stoked to be speaking last because I've gotten to know a lot of you this weekend and and you know just the relationships we've built together this weekend and the relationships that we built before even meeting today been so special to me it's even more special because I'm up on stage here today um and I get to speak with other speakers who have spoken before uh right before this moment JD Roth is JD here JD's back there uh you're my hero I was on your blog when you had 4,000 subscribers and you were born to talk about personal finance I mean it's in your name JD Roth right I mean I think we should all go home and change our name to some keyword that we talk about on our blog that that's the best SEO no don't do that you taught me the power of a Blog and the ability to reach people not only Reach people and teach people but reach a lot of people you have almost 100,000 subscribers every time JD writes something 100,000 people's lives change in one way or another super powerful amazing stuff RIT you taught me a lot too I don't know if rit's here um incredible presentation you know I've been reading a lot about presenting and public speaking this is my first presentation just like Adam's uh first public speaking gig and uh you know I read standing deliver by Dale Carnegie and all the tips in there ver me did everything to a tea so that's why I have three points that I'm going to be standing on that's why I have a clear water bottle that people can see through so it doesn't you know it's all it's all there and REM taught me the power of going big going for the big WIS something that really affected my life was when I was still working 9 to5 I you know I used to stay late at work to uh to read his blog because if I leave 30 minutes after work i' get home at the same time because of traffic you know one thing I learned from him was going for the big wind so one day I go to my boss and I say I'm worth this much this is how much I should be earning next day $20,000 raise thanks sir me four months later I was laid off I don't know if they knew that was happening I didn't know it was happening I mean maybe they were trying to make me happy before they cut everything off but I don't know but that was a really depressing hard moment of my life it was about a week where I was just like this sucks I was about to get married how was I going to provide for my family right um and really what saved my life was a Blog vog um a little blog I had in a niche in a niche in a niche about teaching people how to pass the lead exam it's an exam that Architects take that teach them about sustainable design and green architecture and that sort of thing I had this blog when I was working 95 I didn't do anything with it it was built to keep track of my notes and and teach my co-workers how to pass the exam didn't touch it at all got laid off learned about internet business took this little blog I had turned it into a six figer business made over $200,000 in the first year from this site never looked back and that was incredible and and I wanted to share that with people and that's why I created the smart passive income blog which is where a lot of you know me from how many of you have ever been to or heard of the smart passive income blog before this weekend I love you guys and if you're not raising your hand I want to love you guys it's incredible I mean it's really blogging has really taught me you know not only the power of blog to reach people or the power of the internet to to sell things and make money and help everybody but also the power within me to to do something incredible something that changes my life in the blog because of the blogosphere now the blogosphere is interesting right when when we hear the term blogosphere you know sphere like the world right and I think this is where we're at right now um it's interesting I mean it makes sense because we're all different people and we have different culture cult and experiences we share and we we're this world right bogging industry is this world but I think that's a little misleading to me honestly I think it looks more like this the universe a blogo universe that's a little bit harder to say maybe that's why they didn't make it the blogo universe but I think that's what it is right and the personal finance industry is a big part of it and I think that's us right there maybe it's crazy did you know that every six seconds in this universe somebody creates a new blog there's another one every 6 seconds like isn't that crazy and we all know how much time and dedication and effort and energy it takes to maintain one of these it's not something you just set up one time we all blog every day or every week we're concerned about our blogs and these people I think maybe 50 since I started talking have just started their Journeys and there's all this noise out there and everybody's fighting for everybody's attention so how do we stand out how do we create something visible how do we create something like this going back to the Earth this is what we want to be the Earth beautiful something with life something thriving something unique I mean you could be Jupiter if you want to be but that's a big ball of gas I don't want to be big ball guys so how do you create something that stands out in this and that's what I want to talk about today I've done a number of different things to stand out you know I'm I am part of the personal finance injury but I'm also part of the make money online entrepreneurship that sort of thing which is a huge Niche three years ago I didn't have a Blog now a lot of people consider me one of the fastest growing blogs in the industry and a lot of you have stumbled upon my blog and before I even knew you so it's awesome again love you guys so the first thing I want to talk about and these strategies I'm going to be talking about you've heard before and uh you know some some people JD talked about a lot of stuff that I'm going to be talking about and when I saw that when when jie started talking I like ah he stole my information like what am I going to do he took my slides like um but you know I think I mean use this as an opportunity to confirm that what I'm saying is that much more important that you something that you should apply if you're already applying these things great use this as confirmation to keep doing that if you're not doing it maybe ask yourself why so the first thing let tell the story right Klingons telling stories is powerful engaging it transports your reader into the shoes of the person telling that story whether it's you or person that you're telling a story about incredibly powerful stuff JD said if JD says it everybody has to do it tell a story one of my best blog posts I I've written one of my most popular blog posts is entitled how to really profit from your blog it's title could use a little work although the really Parts in all caps I thought that was cool how to really profit from your blog and in this post I tell a story about a friend of mine his name is Neil Neil came to me because he had an idea he was is an expert in his industry he worked 9-5 and knew a lot about the subject that he was in and he came to me he said Pat you're doing awesome things with your blog you're reaching so many people I want to do what you're doing I want to eventually make money from my blog I said okay so we went out for sushi um you know spicy tuna rolls California rolls Philly rolls those are awesome and he started going over this stuff and I could tell the passion and fire in his eyes with the subject he was talking about and so I was getting really excited and then I asked him the question how are you going to monetize and he said advertising and I was like dude dude dude advertising you're handing your advertisers beautiful leads on a silver platter you're doing all the work and then you're handing them off keep them on your own brand keep them with you create products and become more of an authority and have them become lifelong fans of you and stick around with you forever I don't know if you were in Adam's presentation this morning which is Awesome by the way um about creating products and and how much of an effect that can have on a person's life super important so I was telling the story and and then in the blog post I go over seven or eight different ways that he could create products from the information that he knows now I could have simply just written a blog post and called it top eight ways to monetize your blog the the best ways to monetize your site right now the right now part's important but we all see those posts all the time we all see that stuff but what made it unique what made it stand out was the story that went along with it it's not that hard just the story was the frame around that same information that we all and the thing is it's hard to create absolutely brand new 100% unique content right there's nothing new Under the Sun as they say but the story is what makes it unique and that's what connects people and transports people into those emotional feelings that go along with the story so tell stories and if you you know I I tell people to tell stories sometimes I don't have a story well put yourself in a situation to make stories happen for you go out there and do awesome things reach higher make things happen for you so that there are stories or reach out someone else might have a story that they like to share on your platform so tell a story next is be personable not only be a person that your audience can relate to just be a person I don't I can't tell you how many times I've been on a Blog and I'm starting to read it but I don't know who's telling me this information and we're I mean we're all in the personal finance industry we all deal with people's money there's nothing I mean there's some things but money is personal for people people's families and and and livelihood are at stake and and how are people going to trust you with that information if they don't know who you are right I want to learn from a friend people connect with people people don't connect with content they don't connect with web design they connect with the people so becoming a person now does this mean you have to you know reveal everything about your life and you know what scars you have and what you had for dinner and post blog posts about what you had every day for lunch for the last 10 days no although I know some people do that um it's pretty awesome and I know that they do that and again I'm using JD a lot uh in in this presentation but as an example but I know that JD does Crossfit because of his blog and he's looking great I know that he wanted a Mini Cooper for a really long time and I also know that he and his wife do gardening now those things don't necessarily have to do with personal finance make the gardening thing because you know they save money with the with the the food that they grow but it has everything to do with a relationship that they have with the readers everything I don't even know JD unfortunately I haven't had the chance to meet him but I feel like I know him already and some people come up to me this weekend and said I feel like I know you Pat and it's awesome I love it so be a real person someone that people can connect to super powerful be transparent if you know anything about the smart passive inome blog you know this is huge for me be transparent be real tell everything like it is you know people come up to me they're like Pat you are the most transparent person I know in the internet marketing industry and I don't get it I'm like why does being honest and telling everything up front why is that so different it scares me it really scares the crap out of me we should all tell everybody I mean we're in this for our readers that's been a theme throughout this whole conference for the readers isn't it our right as bloggers with all the great information we have to give that information in the truest light without any type of hype or anything just to give them the right information so that they can make the choices that change their lives be transparent it's it's I can't tell you how incredible being transparent is and and again this goes along with also being personal being transparent about who you are as a blogger and I I know sometimes uh you know I talk about my family a lot on my blog and and that that's part of being transparent I not only the a lot of people know about the income reports and again that I don't know why people are so like whoa my gosh I can't believe you you post your income again I shouldn't anyone who's teaching making money online should do that I feel because then you really know who you're learning from but everyone knows I also am transparent about my life and what internet marketing blogging has done for me and I talk about my family a lot um a lot of people know that I have a 2-year-old son his name name is Kon um a lot of people know that uh actually a couple people came up to me this week and were like dude Pat I love the wedding video and uh that's that's the first thing they say to me they don't say I love your blog I love I love the content that you have they say I love the wedding video The Wedding Video is a five to six minute dance my my wife and I we had our first dance at at at our wedding reception we were dancing to the um Glory of Love and five minutes in DJ cuts out and people start booing the DJ and then all of a sudden you hear and we bust into this hip-hop routine that my wife choreographed she used to dance hip-hop in uh in college and you know we we bust it we bust it out and that's the first thing people tell me sometimes so again that goes along with being personable and being real and transparency and just being honest and you know treat your readers like you would treat your best friend every time I write a blog post I'm writing it for a friend or a best friend so be transparent engage this is something that we always hear now especially nowadays with social media having to engage with your audience really talk to them respond to comments respond to uh tweets and and and Facebooks and and you know doing that whole thing but I want you to think about engagement in another way some something that not a lot of people talk about I want you to seek engagement get your audience to participate how many of you have tweeted about fincom this weekend why because we're all a part of it and we all support it because we're a part of it so have people become a part of your brand and have them support you in the same way I said earlier in the beginning of my presentation that I was a short kid a lot of my friends like to play play basketball unfortunately and because they were my friends they invited me to play basketball which was nice to them but I was last picked for teams I was never past the ball I never got to shoot the ball I was just there running around like a chicken without a head and it's it I I didn't feel like I was really there even though I was and then they had the opportunity to do some local three on three basketball tournaments and they set up teams and obviously I wasn't good enough to be on the team wasn't tall enough too but they were like Pat you should come out and support the team and I was like no no thanks and the reason was they didn't really include me very much but I I guarantee you that if they pass me the ball a couple times if they let me shoot and miss and just encourage me and let me participate I would have been there like that I would have squirted Gatorade in their mouth during timeouts I would have paded them with towels I would have given them massages I don't I don't do that for free I monetized no my point is get people to par participate so how does this Supply to your blog you know your audience better than anybody else in this room so you would know best how to get your audience to participate the way I do it is I have people you know most of my audience are are bloggers who have their own blogs and trying to expand their business and make more money online so I have a reader challenge every every one or two months and I ask my readers to do something out of the box something different uh to include in their own brand and then I in my site I uh have all the participants like I have them linked on the blog and stuff those posts those Roundup posts that include all the participants are the most highest tweeted most like posts some of the highest sweet most like posts on my site why it's obvious because they're participating they're they're a part of it so they want to share what they've done they know that they're a part of you know my brand but they're proud of what they've done and the challenges one person I had a YouTube uh video challenge some of people created their first YouTube videos ever you know that's hard for people hard for some people to actually go up there and shoot video of them you know it's just I only asked for a minute but it was hard but I got I think it was like 55 participants over half of them did a video for the first time now some of those people have 50 60 videos one person has a video that has a over 25,000 views would never have happened unless I got that person to participate now he's making money from that YouTube video because uh it links to a blog post which has an affiliate Link in it he's a fan for life he's he's a part of the smart passive income brand he's a story within that brand again going back to the story and how powerful that is so seek engagement epic we've heard this term a couple times weekend be epic noteworthy amazing different surprising powerful and here's the best one sharable sharable be epic in rit's presentation he was talking about how he would spend 15 to 18 hours on a single post that's epic or actually the message that comes out of that work is epic you could spend 15 18 18 hours and not have come out of it obviously but the message that came across was epic because I mean he knows what he's doing and 15 hours of his time is going to be awesome right no matter where that time is spent so me I have blog posts that I spent 12 14 hours on one of them has over a thousand comments epic content it has three YouTube videos six minutes each an infographic in about 5,000 words it's one of the most profitable blog posts on my site cuz that has affiliate links and really shares something that would normally cost 97 $400 for some people depending on who you're buying from I give it all away for free that's epic now does this mean you have to spend a lot of time on a blog post in order for things to be epic no I have a blog post that took 10 minutes to write it's only 100 words it's actually called the only 100 words you should read today another one of the most popular blog posts on my site why because the the message that came with it was epic and the way it was delivered was epic delivery is important so what was in that post well a number of posts before that one were really high quality pillar articles you know epic posts and that one you know was a curveball it was only 100 Words and it basically said take the time that you would spend reading this post normally and my posts are long so maybe 20 minutes and do something for your business today and make something happen do something and that became an epic message because of the way it was delivered and when so be epic and then the last thing I want to talk about is become a brand this is this is crazy because if if you just stick with a Blog you're going to miss out on a lot and I know a Blog is what we're all comfortable with and we all love to write which is why we're here but if you just stick with blogging you're gonna miss out a lot miss out on a lot of new potential audience members new traffic and eventually down the line income if that's if that's why you're here big businesses big businesses you see them all over the place Facebook newspaper television everywhere why because they want to be everywhere and that's my motto be everywhere you want to be everywhere problem is we don't have millions of dollars to spend on ad campaigns like they do but we have things is like YouTube free except you just have to invest a little bit of time you have to step out of your box get a little bit uncomfortable and honestly if something that you're going to do to improve your business is a little bit uncomfortable that's probably a good thing because that means it's going to do something for you if you just stick with the norm you're going to get normal results if you just do what everyone else is doing you're going to get lost in the crowd you're never going to stand out again that goes along with being epic too if you do big things take bold actions you're going to see big time results and that can happen with branding yourself across many different platforms and you some people like oh but that's so much extra work I'm already spending so much time on you know I have three blog posts a week and I don't have time for videos I don't have for time for podcasts that's okay every two weeks take a blog post out insert a podcast and now what you're doing is you're doing a couple things you're hitting people no matter how they consume content um if you were sitting in on Cliff Ravens Craft's uh podcast um presentation yesterday you'll know the power of a podcast too and the point is the power of a voice you know what if I had just you know deleted myself from the stage just put my presentation up there for you to read it's boring and and you'd have to do the work um people love to live listen to people people love to watch people my podcast has over 750,000 downloads in about a year my YouTube channel has almost a million views how many videos in podcast do I have I have 26 episodes and about 30 videos it's not much over the course of a year a year and a half it's not much but it rounds out my brand and going back to how people consume content some people like to read and they love to read and those are the people who are going to be on your blog some people hate to read and those people will never go to your blog but if you're on YouTube if you're on iTunes they might find you I get emails every day from people who say Pat I found you on iTunes I love your stuff Pat I found you on YouTube thank you so much for that Facebook landing page tutorial how many of you have used that fa Facebook landing page tutorial awesome it's amazing so you're reaching out in places that you would you would find people who have never who would never normally find you and YouTube is a search engine you can rank for certain keywords in there there's an SEO quality to it it's a number to search engine in the world second to Google and who owns YouTube Google three billion videos are being viewed every day I can't even fathom that number I can't even write that many zeros and also for your existing audience for the people who are already on your blog they're going to see you as more of an authority figure they're going to be like okay you have this blog awesome you also do audio and you also shoot videos you are everywhere you're someone I need to listen to and your competitors or fellow bloggers who are talking about the same things you are might not be doing all those things you'll be seen as more of an expert in that way so before we all go home this weekend you know I just want you to think about those things you know these aren't brand these aren't brand new strategies they things that you've never heard before but I think they're things that we need to relisten to and rehear from time to time again so before you go home just I want you to think about why you're here not only why you're here in this room but know why are you here what's your message what's your what are your goals why are you put in the blog of universe and what do you have to share why are you here in this world and then also why are we here you know don't forget why you came here and and and what the purpose was and you know you each have a unique message to send and the thing is we're each Unique Individuals you nobody's like you and that is the most powerful advantage that you can have over your competitors nobody's like you nobody so what I want you to do is raise your hand as high as you can up in the air right now as high as you can all right everybody raise your hand one inch higher all right put your hand down everybody put their hand up one inch higher when I told you you could raise your hand as high as you can everybody I saw all the hands go up you don't know how much you can do you can always do more than you think you can do all right so if I ask you again to raise your hand as high as you can what's going to happen stand up on your chair on the table and just reach as high as you can because you can do so much you just have to believe in yourself so again thank you so much it's been a pleasure to meet you all this weekend if I haven't met you yet I'd love to meet you and um thank you