We have done it! We have reached 600 episodes of the podcast. It’s mind-blowing that this podcast has come so far. 

To celebrate, in this episode of The Art of Online Business, I want to share 6 lessons I have learned in 600 episodes. These business lessons have all been a direct result of building and growing this podcast. 

These lessons have taught me so much about podcasting, business, and life and I am now able to run my business in a way that is more congruent to my strengths, my values, and what success means to me. If you don’t run your business through the filter of your values, I really encourage you to start doing that. Success looks different for everybody, and I hope these tips will help you get clarity on that. 

Even though we have been at it for 600 episodes, I feel like we are just getting started. I still have so much cool stuff coming your way! 

So I want to take a moment to thank you so much for making this possible. I appreciate you showing up every week, hitting that follow button, and helping me turn this podcast into what it is now. I’m looking forward to taking everything that I have learned in the past 600 episodes, learning from it, and moving forward. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why you have to be willing to do things differently
• How consistency will grow your business
• Why simplicity scales
• How to use your values as a filter in your business

Links & Resources:

• The Art of Online Business website
• DM me on Instagram
• Visit my YouTube channel
• The Art of Online Business clips on YouTube
• Full episodes of The Art of Online Business Podcast on YouTube
• The Art of Online Business Podcast website
• Check out my Accelerator coaching program

*Disclosure: I only recommend products I use and love and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

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Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy:

If Your Team Isn’t Creating the Results You Want, Do This…

How Feeling Good Actually Affects Your Business Sucess with Judith Gaton 

Facebook Ads are DEAD (Unless You Do This)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker1

Hey, my friends, if you are looking for a faster, a better way to grow and scale your online business, you very likely do not need another course or to be reading more books about how to grow your business. What you need instead is a personalized, cohesive growth strategy for your business, along with one on one coaching and group coaching, support and accountability to help you every step of the way. Well, that’s exactly what my accelerator coaching program delivers for you. Accelerator is an intimate 12 month rolling open enrollment, so it’s ongoing open enrollment, personalized coaching program and mastermind experience for established online course creators and coaches who want to take the guesswork out of optimizing and grow towards a profitable seven figure plus business without more anxiety, without more stress and hours spent in front of the computer, accelerator is about thinking differently and bigger about your business, about your team, your funnels, your ads, your vision, etc., so that you can create more profit, more impact with less hustle. So accelerators application only. And again, this is rolling ongoing open enrollment. So if you want to learn more and apply, just go to Rick Mul Radio.com forward slash accelerator. Hey, my friend, welcome to the Art of Online Business Podcast. My name is Rick Mulwray and I’m an online business coach. I’m an ads expert, and most importantly, I’m a dad. And this show is where we help established online course creators and coaches create more profit, more impact with less hustle. 

[00:01:57] Speaker1

All right, let’s get into it. All right. What is my friend? I don’t know if he realized this or not, but we have done it. We have reached another milestone here in the podcast, and this is episode number 600 here in the show. Like saying that out loud is kind of blows my mind. So what I want to do with you to celebrate episode number 600 is share with you six lessons that I’ve learned after 600 episodes here on the podcast. And some of these are general business lessons that I’ve learned along the way. Actually, most of them are, but for the most part, these lessons I’m about to share with you have been learned as a result of building this podcast. And in my business for the past, I mean, I started my business in January 2014 and I didn’t start this podcast here until July of 2015, so almost a year and a half later. And so, first of all, I want to thank you so much. If this is your first episode, welcome, my friend. We are just getting started. Even though this is a celebration today of 600 episodes here in the show, I feel like we’re just getting started. Seriously. I feel like this is been I’ve been kind of school, you know, up to this point, learning how to create the best possible channel that I can in this podcast. And now it’s like, all right, I’ve learned so much, many of these things I want to share with you here today that we’re just getting started and so much cool stuff coming your way if you’ve been listening for all 600 episodes. 

[00:03:51] Speaker1

Holy cow. Thank you. I hear from so many of you that you’re like, I went on this road trip, this epic road trip, and I just binged your entire podcast and I’m like, that is a lot of Rick in your in your in your ears but thank you all this to say thank you. This summer in 2022 we’re going to hit about 9 million downloads of the podcast, which again, that completely blows my mind. So anyway, thank you. Without further ado, let’s dove into these six lessons that I’ve learned over creating the last 600 episodes here on the show. So the first lesson is to do different, to not be afraid to do things differently. So when I first started podcasting, I actually started podcasting back in 2013. This is actually not my first podcast. My first podcast was called Inside Social Media, and it the whole concept was, well, when I left the corporate world in the fall of 2012, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do and I really had no idea. I knew that I wanted to focus on Facebook ads, but I really didn’t know where to start. I’ve been teaching myself Facebook ads at that point at the end of 2012 for like almost three years.

[00:05:09] Speaker1

At that point, I was trying to figure out what to do with this, and podcasting was starting to become a little bit popular. So I was like, Oh, why don’t I start a podcast? What do I do? What? I have no idea what to talk about. And so I went this completely opposite direction. And I remember this. I was on a plane, I was flying back to New Hampshire from LA. This is when I was living in LA and I was flying back to New Hampshire and I was listening to an interview with Gary Vaynerchuk. I think that yeah, I think that’s who it was. And he was talking about something around the popularity of publications like Ad Age and other advertising publications, and he’s talking about big brands and so forth. However, there was also an element of like small businesses, and that’s where sort of the light bulb went off for me where I was like, Wait a minute. I come from a corporate background. I was working for, you know, I worked for AOL, I worked for Yahoo, I worked for Funny or Die. I work for a company called Vibrant Media back when contextual advertising, which everyone’s saying is all brand new right now. We were doing this so, so many years ago, so I worked with some huge brands and then while I was at those companies, my clients were some of the biggest brands in the world. So anyway, so I was like, Oh, why don’t I? Do this. 

[00:06:33] Speaker1

Why don’t I take and look at what these big brands are doing in terms of social media and what small businesses can learn from them and what they can do to based on what these big brands are doing. And do these take these concepts and replicate what the big brands are doing, but on a small budget. And the tagline of that show was Big Brands. Strategies for Small Business Budgets. And I remember it all to this day. I think it’s a pretty damn good tagline. But anyway, you know, I started the podcast and I’ll never forget the podcasting was wide open back then, and the whole idea was to get heads of social media from big brands around the world and interview them on the podcast. So I started reaching out to brands and I was getting nowhere. Nobody was responding to me until one person responded. And then I started and he was like, Sure, why not? I’ll come on your podcast. And it wasn’t until I got the confirmation from him and I launched that episode with him that I leveraged his name with his permission to other brands, and then everybody else started saying yes and yes. And so I started using this list of people that I was having coming on the podcast to get other people. Well, anyway, that first person that said, yes, his name is Scott Monti and he used to be the head of I don’t remember his exact title, but the head of social media at Ford. 

[00:08:08] Speaker1

And so and he was super well-known in the space and really, really well respected. So anyway, I was willing to start something different at that point. Right. And that that podcast, by the way, lasted 53 episodes and I finished, I want to say in. The summer of 2014, I believe it was. And the reason I stopped is because it has zero relevance to what I was going to be getting into in terms of Facebook ads. And so that’s when I started to think about, Wait, why not? I’ve been podcasting now at that point. I’ve been podcasting for a year and I was like, Why not start another podcast? Again, it was still wide open at that point. It wasn’t the saturated podcasting market that it is today. And so what I decided to do was go all in on doing a podcast on paid traffic, on Facebook ads and Google and conversion rates and copywriting and all that stuff. You know, my show, to my knowledge, was the first podcast on paid traffic. Now there’s a whole bunch of them, right? But I was willing to create something new to do different than anybody else was doing at that time. And then we made another big transition here in the podcast when I don’t remember exactly when it was, but it’s probably like three years ago now at this point, which is crazy to my to think about. 

[00:09:46] Speaker1

I changed the name of the, of the podcast from The Art of Traffic to what it is today, the art of online business and my willingness to do different meaning. Here I am, changing the name of a podcast that was that was very successful. We did really, really well with that show to a completely other name. A new name, right. Obviously, we kept the art of. But I also wanted to change the types of topics that I was talking about. Of course, I still talk about Facebook ads. That’s a big misnomer that people think like, Oh, Rick, no longer does Facebook ads. Quite the contrary. Right? I can teach Facebook ads to anybody. And I still very much teach Facebook ads inside of our accelerator coaching program. And I also talk about it here on the podcasts. Right. But what I wanted to expand beyond that, because I realized after doing just Facebook ads for so long and teaching Facebook ads for so long that it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Right. And what I was seeing, so many people were coming to me and saying, my ads aren’t working. Can you fix this? Can you tell me why? And it wasn’t an ad thing. It was they didn’t understand the fundamentals of marketing. They didn’t understand their target audience and understand what their problems and pain points and challenges were. And they weren’t able to speak directly to their target audience to solve those problems because they didn’t have this fundamental understanding. 

[00:11:13] Speaker1

That’s not a Facebook ads problem. That’s a that’s a marketing issue. Right. And so then beyond that, I was getting questions about building a team and creating systems and processes and how do I work less and all this other stuff. And I was like, Oh yeah, I love talking about this and teaching this because I’d been through so many different things in in growing my business, right? And so I was willing to do different in terms of not only starting the podcast back then because there was no other paid traffic podcast, but I shifted the name and the type of content that I was sharing on on the show here. And I was I was nervous about it, right? What I started to do was to sprinkle in other podcast episodes about mindset, about systems and processes, about a variety of different things outside of the just straight up ads. And of course, we talk about ads here in the show. We talk about copyrighting all the same same types of things, but that we used to. But it’s so much more now because running a very successful online business is so much more than just one piece of the puzzle. And that’s why I was willing to do different, because that’s what I believed and that’s what lit me up in terms of what I was teaching. So I wanted, I wanted the podcast to reflect that direction.

[00:12:43] Speaker1

Right? The other thing I was willing to do different was everybody except for John Lee Dumas with entrepreneurs on fire. He was one of the first to do a daily podcast, but outside of that, people just did weekly podcasts, right? And so I was like, You know what? I want more. I want to do more. I want more downloads. And so one way to do that, and I wouldn’t recommend this as a strategy today to get more downloads necessarily, I decided to add another shorter episode to the podcast, and that’s where I started the Friday quick tip episodes to my knowledge, like I was one of the early ones to start that, you know, kind of a quick tip type of episode. Not like very few people to my knowledge were doing that type of episode. And again, to my knowledge, right, of course people are doing it, but now so many people are doing like that quick tip style episode, which is awesome, right? I was you know, I was willing to do different. I started this shorter quick tip episode on Fridays. I decided to go beyond just the standard types of interview episodes that that so many of us do here in the show, which obviously I still do. But I started to introduce different types of episodes, right? Like Q&A episodes. I started doing like, you know, I now do like, what would Rick do? What would I do in a certain situation? And I just break a certain circumstance down and share with you how what I would do with it. 

[00:14:20] Speaker1

I tend to go deeper on a topic rather than talk about a breadth of topics within an episode. So again, willingness to try different things and be different. And then lastly, there I had a willingness I have a willingness to discuss topics on the podcast here that few others are willing to talk about, and few others were doing it when I started introducing the episodes here on the show, you know, talking about things like burnout just as an example, right? There’s a whole bunch of other topics. But talking about things like burnout where and bringing like the really the science in it, talking about what truly makes you happy in your business and why you’re building it and why are you building it in the way that you’re building it, which I’m going to talk about here in just a couple of minutes. Right. But it’s that willingness to do different in your in my in the in the podcast here and in my business. So with that, I want to challenge you. How are you evolving in how you approach your business? Because we have to continue to evolve and do different. That’s just reality, complacency, especially in the online space. You will quickly leave your business behind if you’re not doing differently and you know you’re willing to evolve because things change so quickly. 

[00:15:54] Speaker1

So how are you evolving? How are you willing to do different in your business, whether it’s your mindset or how you market your business or how you sell, right, the way that you approach the operations of your business, etc.. Right. Just as an example, so many years ago, people were talking about, oh, you have to have a big team, right? And yeah, an office where people come into because that’s the only way that communication and culture can happen. Is it? I am proof that that’s not the case. Right. I tried that. Tried the big team, try the office. I had this amazing office here in San Diego several years ago. It was this two story. They called it a studio, but it was huge. I don’t remember how many square feet it was, but it was big. And it was it was one of those live work lofts and I just rented it for it was on top of a Starbucks. It was on top of a coffee shop. Even though a Starbucks it was on top of a coffee shop, like literally on top of a coffee shop. And it smelled like coffee the whole time I worked. Like where like what better thing to be smelling was your as you’re working. But anyway, like that’s what I thought success was. You know, I had a big office, I had a had a big team and I was like, this is the worst thing ever. I don’t want this. 

[00:17:18] Speaker1

And luckily I had an amazing landlord and he let me out. But anyway, you know, be willing to do different from what everyone else is doing. Be willing to test different things, different ideas, different strategies. Right. This is about defining your own version of success in your online business, which which we’re going to talk about here more in a minute. So and when you do different, when you are willing to test different things or different strategies or whatever, are you going to be for everybody in your in your niche? No, you are not. And that is a good thing, because the whole clichéd thing about if you’re for everybody, you’re for nobody is so true. You want to repel the people that don’t align with you and attract the people that do buy through the things that you’re doing in your business. So do different that strategy, number one, or that’s lesson number one, I should say. Okay. Lesson number two is about consistency. We are 600 episodes here in the podcast here. I started this in the summer of 2015. So when this episode comes out, we are almost at seven years, almost at seven years. And so I do this podcast for three different reasons and I want to share what those reasons are for you right now. Number one, I want to serve and help you with free valuable content, right, that you can go and implement in your business right away. 

[00:18:49] Speaker1

I hear from so many of you that just by listening to this podcast here and implementing, thank you for implementing and taking action on what you actually learn. Your business is completely changed, right? And you’ve been able to achieve amazing things in your business because of this show. Well, that’s exactly why I do this show. Right. And and the other thing like the bigger why, if you will and I’m going to be talking more about this exact topic here coming up, when I did an interview with a guy by the name of Jude Charles, he’s amazing. And anyway, have a conversation coming up with him where we dove into this exact thing right here. But I do this. I put this podcast out so that you could be an example for your family, an example that you can create a very successful online business that makes you money, that creates freedom in your life, and impacts a lot of people on the way without always having to work long and hard. Write that time spent does not equal the amount of money that you make because that’s my y and I want to be the example for you so that we’re getting super meta here so that you can be that example for your family, right? My why is I want to be the example for Maya, my daughter, my three and a half year old daughter, that in order to be successful, whatever success looks like to you, it doesn’t have to come at the expense of working all the time.

[00:20:21] Speaker1

And hustle, hustle, hustle. And, you know, just. Do you always doing work? That’s what I want to be the example of to my to my daughter. And I want that I want to be the example of that for you. So the second reason I do this podcast is for awareness, right to to grow an audience and for positioning. In the market. And I want to build a relationship with you, my listener. Most people would say that, you know, this type of thing is the is the first reason why you start a podcast or have a YouTube channel or whatever it is. Right. Which is amazing. Right. But this is the second reason for me. I do this podcast. They started this podcast, as you know, to build brand awareness, to grow an audience and to position myself in a very crowded space in the online business building space. And I use this to build a relationship with you, my listener. The third reason is I do this podcast as a form of lead generation, right, and applications for my accelerator coaching program. I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but it’s easily north of 90% of the applications that I get for our accelerator coaching program, which is for established online course creators. Maybe have a membership online coaches, teacher entrepreneurs who are already established and now they’re looking to scale, right? You’re looking to scale without all the hustle. 

[00:21:53] Speaker1

Right. You want to increase your profit, have a bigger impact with less hustle. That is what accelerator is for. And so 90% of the applications that we get for accelerator are result of of you listening to this podcast. And that is that makes a lot of sense, right? Because I get to spend two days a week with you in your ears listening. It sounds super creepy, right? Listening. And that is that’s a very like intimate experience. Right. Like I put in my I’m just I’m actually doing that right now. If you’re watching this video on YouTube, you know, I put my earbuds in, I go for a walk and I’m listening to my buddy James Tramp Goes podcast. Well, I’m, I’m like hanging out with James and whoever, whomever his guest is right when I do that. And so with those things in mind, with those lessons in mind, it’s important for me to show up for you consistently. Right. Consistency is what it’s all about. I really believe that consistency is what builds an audience and I can count on the number of times over seven years now, over 600 episodes that I’ve missed a published date doing this podcast. And for those times I didn’t miss a day. I hear it from you. I hear it from people like, Dude, are you all right? Like, What’s going on here? Why isn’t there an episode today? Right? What happened? And I actually recently missed a quick tip episode in the not so distant past here. 

[00:23:18] Speaker1

That’s a longer story. That was. I’ll take responsibility for it. But something something went down, and that’s why I didn’t go up. But anyway, like when you show up consistently for your audience, you build trust, you become a source of value and hope and the example for the people that you want to be serving. Right? When you show up consistently, you never know what kind of breakthroughs that might occur as a result of that consistency that you’re that you’re showing up for in your business. At the beginning of 2021, the downloads of this podcast here started steadily declining, and by the summer of last year of 2021, they were about two thirds of what they once were. And I was trying to figure out I was like, What’s going on here? Like, why is this happening? Is it the pandemic? Or are people just not commuting anymore? So they’re not listening in in the in the car? What’s going on? And then something happened the first week of October. October 21. Somebody of my team brought to my attention. They’re like, did you see this huge spike in in downloads over here? It happened on a Wednesday. And I was like, No, what’s going on? So I looked at it and was like, Oh, that’s got to be a bug. It’s got to be that’s not that can’t be correct because it was the biggest spike in downloads in one day that I’d ever experienced. 

[00:24:52] Speaker1

In one day I did the number of downloads that at the time I was doing in a month, and it happened in one day. And so long story short is, as it turns out, it was legit. Right. Something happened and I’ll share with you what I think happened. But for the longest time, like, we racked our brains and I’m like, what? Like what caused this? Right? Because I’m always about, hey, do more of what’s working. Let’s figure out what happened there to cause such a big spike in downloads and do more of that. Well, we weren’t able to pinpoint it. But ever since then, ever since October of 2021, the downloads of the show here are the highest that they’ve ever been. Now, granted, they’re not at the level of that spike, which is completely expected. It definitely came down after that spike. However, the downloads have stayed elevated, and I very, very, very much think it’s a result of the consistency that I have put in with the podcast. One thing that we think happened, because one of the things that I started asking my my my friends and they’re like, did you get featured on Apple Podcasts? And I’m like, I have no idea. You know, maybe. But I didn’t see it. Nobody sent me a screenshot or I have no idea. And then one day, a couple of months after that, my buddy Pat Flynn from the Smart Passive Income Podcast, he texted me and he was like, Dude, when you type in online business in Apple Podcasts, your number one like the show comes up as number one. 

[00:26:27] Speaker1

I was like, What? Like, Come on. So I did it. I was like, Sure enough, it was number one. And so right now it fluctuates between one and four. That’s the only thing I can think of. Right. But the point here in sharing this story is that this wouldn’t have happened without consistency and consistently showing up every single week, week in and week out to publish a podcast for you to publish two episodes for you. Right. So again, I want you to, to, to look at in your business, are you showing up consistently for your specific audience? Where aren’t you showing up consistently where maybe it might be smart to do that I want to be careful to say should be doing because there’s no should. Right. Are you showing up consistently to build that trust factor with your audience that you want to serve, to become a source of value for them to share with them how to improve their life? Right. Consistency is where it’s at, my friend. Third lesson, and I’ve talked about this here in the podcast before. Simplicity scales, my friend. Not complexity. Simplicity scales. I will never forget. Probably five years ago this was a New York City. I was standing up in a in a room in front of a whole bunch of my peers and.

[00:27:59] Speaker1

I said, I’m looking for help in the business. And I started talking about everything I was doing in the business. I had five different offers. I had three different target audiences. So my messaging was super split like the business had revenue wise had we’d reached $1,000,000, we hit seven figures, which was amazing. But at the same time. The business had become so chaotic in my mind and I wasn’t happy at all with with what I’d created. And not only was it not scalable in what I’d created because it was so complex, there were all these different things, like different offers for different types of people and different businesses. Not only was that not scalable, but my mindset around what I had built wasn’t scalable. I had reached a point where I’d become super unhappy with it and a lot of emotional and mental challenges, physical challenges. I talked about all those things in the podcast year before, but anyway, the complexity is not what scales. What scales is simplicity. Because if you are maybe let’s just say a couple hundred thousand in your business or you had 100,000 in your business, one offer, one audience, one solution, one marketing system with an asterisk. Asterisk. I’ll come back to that in a second. And one sales system that right there, my friend, can be scaled to seven figures and beyond. Then then you can add in additional offers, etc.. 

[00:29:39] Speaker1

The thing that most people do is they start out and they either get some success with an offer in their business and then they start like, Well, let’s add a membership. That’s a big one I hear all the time. Let’s add a membership people think that I like. I’m not a fan of membership. That’s because I always question like, okay, why are you thinking this? It’s my job as a coach to question things, to bring things to light that you are too close to see. That is very clear to me, looking from the outside in. And so, you know, I quite the contrary. If one could argue that accelerator is a membership, is a 12 month program, and a lot of people pay monthly. But it’s someone could say someone could argue that it’s a membership. Right. Just like like Amazon Prime here in the states, like you pay. I forget what the fee is, but you pay one fee for the entire year. That’s a membership. Okay. But anyway, so all that to say is I am a fan of memberships when used correctly. Right. So one offer, one audience a marketing system and a sales system by a sales system. Meaning you have a campaign that you that you use to sell your offer, whether it’s a webinar campaign, maybe you’re doing some live launches, but you have it on Evergreen as well. Maybe you are doing email marketing and that’s your primary sales system. 

[00:31:13] Speaker1

Maybe you’re doing video series or whatever it might be. Focus on one before you start jumping around and doing shiny object and squirrel over there to ooh. Maybe I should try this. Ooh, maybe I should try this. Okay. We’re making things more complex than we need to. And it’s again, it’s simplicity that scales. Now, going back to the little asterisks, asterisk. Is that how you say it? Four years on, on the marketing side? Right. For years, this podcast. So 600 episodes has been my singular marketing channel. Now, granted, I’ve been on other podcast and we run Facebook ads and all that stuff, but primarily this podcast has been my singular marketing channel and it has provided an amazing I look at the podcast here as my umbrella, which sits at the top of the the business, right? It is the primary marketing channel. Now, do I think it’s smart to have one marketing channel? No, I don’t. I think especially in this day and age, you’ve got to diversify. Right. However, get really good at one thing and then start to expand beyond that. Don’t dip your toe in it and be like, Yeah, I really want to do this and get into it a little bit and then be like, Oh, mate, let’s try this over here. Wait a minute, keep going on that until you realize whether it’s working or not and then make the decision. It’s simplicity that scales, my friend, not complexity. Okay. Lesson number, what are we on here for? And this is a big one here. 

[00:32:52] Speaker1

Values first. Values, values, values. And this is something that really changed for me in early 2021 when I started working with a d-ii coach, a diversity quality inclusion coach, Erika Corday. I’ve had her on the podcast here a couple of times. She is just one of my favorite people and I wanted to do better. I realized that I had not been doing. I wasn’t showing up as my best self and I wanted to do better. And I wanted to set a better example for. All of you. And so the first thing that we do of into the Eric and I dove into. Is defining. It was values, right. And defining what values that I want to live by and how they would be the number one filter for everything I do in my business so that everything runs through values. And it was such an eye opening exercise and one that I can honestly say that has been one of the best things I’ve ever done for the business and for my for my life. By the way, if you’ve not yet done, we’ll talk about this in a second if you want to connect with Erica Corday. Cannot recommend her enough. I get there is no affiliate or anything like that. I’m just just highly recommend. Erica. Her website is Erica Credit.com. E r I see ac0urd Erica Corday. She’s amazing. One of my favorite people. 

[00:34:21] Speaker1

And so anyway, it was a super eye opening exercise. And as a result of this work, which continues, by the way, it’s not like, oh, you know, we reached the end of 2021, we wrapped up our work. No, this is this is forever now. Like always doing this work. So as a result of this work, as it pertains to this podcast here, I went back one thing I did is I went back and I evaluated my back catalog of episodes. So, you know, at that time I think I was around 500 episodes ish somewhere on there. So there’s a huge I have a huge back catalog here. And I went through all the past episodes through the lens of this of my new values and using the, my, my values as a filter. And I removed content from the podcast that no longer aligned with my values. Talk about doing different. There’s a lot of people that that’s not something they’d be willing to do, right. But I’m willing to do different. My values are super like the utmost importance, right? And even if sure, I can change going forward. But you’ve got to be willing to change if you have a back catalog of content that is completely accessible for anybody literally in the world. Then you want to make sure that content aligns with your values as well. Right? And so as this podcast is my biggest platform, I committed from that point on to reflect these values in the content that I put out here on the show and the guests that I bring on the show to share with you.

[00:36:02] Speaker1

I also decided in that process of defining my my values, that one way I want to use this platform because it’s my biggest platform in the business, is that I want to amplify the voices and and life experiences from underrepresented and marginalized groups of people. Right. And I get to do that now through the work that I did of creating the values, getting clarity on the values, and now using those values, if you will, as a filter through which I do everything in the business. And obviously this podcast is a big piece of it, right? But it’s creating this body of work over 600 episodes so far that has allowed me to evolve into the CEO that I am today and the content creator and the coach. Et cetera. And so with regard to values, if you don’t run your business through the filter of your values, I’d really encourage you to start doing that. And if you haven’t yet clarified what those values are, no problem. No better time to start than now. Take some time away from your laptop and take some time away from wherever it is that you work to think about what’s most important to you and how you want to use your business. What kind of vehicle do you want your business to be? That’s been a huge lesson for me in over 600 episodes here. 

[00:37:33] Speaker1

And this is a, you know, a more recent lesson, but a very, very impactful lesson not only for my business, but also especially here for the podcast, being that it’s my biggest platform. All right. So lesson number five, and that is you have to build your business in a way that feels congruent to you, meaning build a business that is successful for you. Build a business where you’re focusing on your strengths rather than your weaknesses and then hiring for your weaknesses. And so I’ve talked a lot about here on the podcast, but for the first several years of my business, I was absolutely building somebody else’s business. What do I mean by that? I was chasing someone else’s version of success in my business, right? That seven once you hit the seven figure mark, that means you’ve made it. That means you’re successful. That means you can have such and such conversation with those people over there because you’ve made it now, which is a load of crap. Right? And you know that in order to be successful, you had to have again, going back to what I mentioned before, like a big team and coming into an office and all this other stuff and it’s simply not true. And I again, as I’ve talked about quite a bit here in the podcast, I’m not afraid to share these things that I experienced some really hard lessons in the first few years of my business, chasing that quote unquote definition of success. 

[00:39:15] Speaker1

And I experienced some really hard lessons mentally and physically, and I got to a really, really dark place. And so the point here is that you do not have to do what anyone else says, that you have to do, quote unquote, in order to create a successful business, because success looks different for everybody. Right. I have a buddy of mine who has a multiple seven figure business, works three days a week and does does his hobby every single day. And hangs out, hangs out with his kid. Amazing, right? That’s like another person’s success is, Oh, I want to have an office where everybody comes into and, you know, we want to do we want to have this whole structure, etc., etc., which is amazing, right? Whatever success means for you. You have to build the business in whatever way it feels congruent to you. And for me, I also realize that a successful business for me personally includes staying in my lane and focusing on my strengths, right? Which are being the CEO of the business. Creating content and coaching. That’s it. Ownership of everything else in the business, i.e. my weaknesses. Right? They get delegated to somebody else or outsourced, or better yet, just simply removed. Just as an example, like for this podcast here, 600 episodes. Now I don’t edit the show. I’ve never edited the show because I have no idea what I’m doing. 

[00:40:58] Speaker1

I don’t create graphics, etc. I map out the episodes and I record. And now, starting back in November of 2021, I’m doing this on video here now. So I’m recording this right now. For those of you who haven’t subscribed to my Art of Online Business podcast YouTube channel, all these episodes here are on video as well. Hi there. I just wait to the camera. So I’m recording this on the microphone in front of my camera as well. And so I map out episodes, I click record. Right. And the other thing that 600 episodes and the success of the podcast here has made me quickly learn. I learned a long time ago, but it made it very clear that we need systems and processes around the show in terms of, yes, putting it together and publishing and producing it, all that stuff, however, around the guest requests. I probably get three requests a day minimum every single day. And oftentimes they’re just I’ve talked about that here on the show, too. They’re the worst outreach, their PR companies. Nothing against PR, but do your homework, people, please. Right. But anyway, we needed a process and system around that because of the volume of requests that we were getting. Right. And I’m honored that people want to be on the show. I truly am. But when it’s around people wanting to be on to promote their client because it’s about the client and what this show can do for them, rather than what you can do for the show and what my guest can do for you, my listener. 

[00:42:44] Speaker1

That’s what it’s about. Anyway, so quick tangent right there. I can go in a big rabbit hole on that one, but I won’t. So creating systems and processes in your business again because of the consistency, this is about building a business that feels congruent to you and focusing on your strengths rather than trying to improve your weaknesses and then just hire for your weaknesses or don’t do them at all. All right. Lesson number six. Is. It’s about relationships, my friend. It’s about relationships. If you ask me, Rick, if you were to give one piece of advice to grow your business more quickly, what would it be? It’s this one right here. It’s about relationships. For example, some of the best episodes I’ve done here in the podcast are the past 600 episodes are result of relationships that I’ve built with people over the years. It was relationships that allow me to grow my podcast more quickly back when I started it as The Art of Pay Traffic. And it still is today, right? The relationships continue that allow me to continue to grow this podcast. It’s about relationships that help me bounce ideas around to continue to improve as a CEO, as a coach, as a podcaster, as somebody who’s able to show up as my best self in order to to serve you right.

[00:44:13] Speaker1

And most importantly, I think when it comes to relationships, it’s about the amazing relationships that I’ve been able to create with so many of you as a result of the last 600 episodes. I get DMS on Instagram from so many people on a consistent basis talking about the podcast, which I absolutely love. I love that and I respond to as many as I possibly can if I haven’t gotten back to you. It’s nothing personal, but I love that, you know, I meet people at conferences or what have you. They’re like, I love your podcast and we start talking about their business or whatever. And usually I immediately go into coach mode and like, How can I help you? Right? But it’s allowed me this podcast has allowed me to to create a relationship, whether I’ve met you or not, but it’s allowed me to create a relationship with you that that’s what this is all about. And so I just want to recap the six lessons here real quick before we wrap up. All right. So number one, the first lesson do different. You have to continue to evolve and be willing to do different. Complacency is going to leave your business behind and be willing to. I know this sounds cliché, but do you? Whatever you do is do it. And that is where you’re going to find the most happiness in doing what you’re doing. And you’re not trying to be somebody else or not because someone else is saying, Oh, you have to do this or you should be doing this over here when you’re like, Oh, I hate that. 

[00:45:48] Speaker1

Lesson number two, consistency. We’ve done 600 episodes, right? And we’re just getting started, my friend. Consistency. Where can you be showing up more consistently in your business? And by the way, that consistency might be showing up for yourself. Ooh, we could get we could get deep right there. That’s a whole other quick tip episode now. Lesson number three Simplicity scales. It’s not about complexity, right? Complex doesn’t scale. Simplicity scales. We talked about that. Values first, everything runs through the filter of your values. Lesson number five You have to build your business in a way that feels congruent to you and build a business based on what success means for you. Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses, and have other people take care of your weaknesses. And then finally it’s about the relationships. So with that, thank you, my friends, for making this possible, like tuning in each and every week and for subscribing to the podcast, clicking that subscribe button so that you don’t miss any of the episodes here. And like I said, I’ve said a few times here, we’re just getting started, my friend. This is not like a celebration. Like we’re all done. Hell, no. We’re just getting started and taking everything we’ve learned over the past 600 episodes, learning from it and improving going forward. Thank you, my friend, for listening. As always, I appreciate you. And until next time, be well and I’ll talk to you soon.