AskPat 2.0: A Weekly Coaching Call on Online Business, Blogging, Marketing, and Lifestyle Design

#1230 Two things will change the game for you when you're scaling your business: relationships and stories. So how do you leverage them the right way? Today I talk to Caelan Huntress. He has a book coming out called Marketing Yourself, so we get to go into the nitty-gritty of expanding your reach. Caelan is planning a podcast tour for his upcoming book, which is really smart. But how should he mes...

#1229 Junaid Ahmed has been behind the camera for three decades, but after meticulously setting up his home studio and sitting in front of the camera for the first time the words just wouldn’t come out. He managed to solve his problem and is now busy helping others do the same. The thing is, as a father of three, time is limited. How does he scale up from one-on-one coaching and grow his business?...

#1228 Today we're speaking with Sally Sparks-Cousins, who has an amazing brand that helps entrepreneurs build, measure, and optimize their sales funnels. You can find her at Sparkle Class Academy or TheFreedomFunnelFormula.com . Our focus today is hiring, because Sally is both a visionary  and  an integrator. She has great ideas as a visionary. And as an integrator, she wants to plan and...

#1227 How do you create passive income as a coach who spends a lot of time teaching your clients directly? That's what we're talking about today with Maxine Shapiro , a coach who also has a customer experience podcast called  Let's Talk About CEX . She's feeling like she can't branch out into passive income because the business revolves so much around her. We explore some things she might do...

#1226 Today we're speaking with Dave Donahue from GuitarACO.com . He's a guitar teacher with a private student base, as well as a YouTube channel. Dave just launched a new member community with his initial group of about 20 “alpha” members. I help him figure out how to structure his course to create the best experience for his students. We also discuss YouTube ads and other potential ad platforms...

#1225 Today we're speaking with Tim Phillips from  Sober and Happy . He's getting started on his journey with a business that helps people get sober and build the life they want. Tim has his foot in many different places, as far as content creation, social media, and building community. In this episode, we're going to narrow things down and figure out where Tim should—and shouldn't—be focusin...

#1224 Today, we're speaking with Toni Weiss, a screenwriter from Germany. Tony has an idea to help other screenwriters with his own online course—but he's got a limited amount of time because he has to direct and produce a new movie of his own. He's almost done filming and editing his screenwriting course, but what kind of a course should it be—fully prerecorded, or with some live training? Should...

#1223 Today I'm excited to chat with Matt Woicik from  ml2solutions.com  and  digitalmarketingextreme.com . Pre-pandemic, Matt connected with a lot of local businesses in person through places like his local Chamber of Commerce. But once in-person connections shut down—and many businesses starting struggling just to keep their doors open—Matt found his leads starting to evaporate. I...

#1222 Today we're speaking with Phil Hayes-St Clair of  philhsc.com . He's a girl dad, serial entrepreneur, and educator. He owns a talent for relationship building. He's been so successful at making connections that he's had a lot of people asking him how he does it. So, he created a course with the help of our  Heroic Online Courses  course, and he's already got a beta group of st...

#1221 Greg Langston from  CollegeFlightPlan.com  is today's guest. His business helps teens (and their parents) understand their values, purpose, and superpowers so they can make good decisions about their education and career. This is stuff I wish existed when I was in high school, and I'm sure many other parents have understood just how powerful this kind of support can be, especially...

#1220 Julie DeLucca-Collins of GoConfidentlyCoaching.com started her coaching business during the pandemic, when she lost her job. She realized she wanted to support others in stopping the overwhelm, getting focused, and building their business. Julie and I talk about how she's working with her clients now, and some of the issues that are coming up for her. She has multiple offerings, but some of...

#1219 Michelle Mozes of  MichelleMozes.com helps people with their branding, and business is going well. A big part of her success is that she's kept herself at the center of her brand, which lets her stand out from her competitors. Michelle has managed to 4X her revenue, but she's also feeling the urge to do more… she's just not sure exactly how, or as you'll learn today,  why . She thi...

#1218 Ling Yah Wong is the host of So This Is My Why , a cool podcast that draws some amazing guests. And she wants to know, how can she best leverage these big names? She wants to do it the right way, by using these big names to help grow her audience and create a win-win for everyone. So, how can we “name drop” in a way that feels authentic and not slimy? Doing things authentically and ethically...

#1217 Today we're talking with Michelle Waters, who has two businesses,  reThink ELA  and  reThink Your Lifestyle . She's a former teacher who is noticing a big shift happening in the teaching world, with many teachers thinking about moving on and creating something new, either on the side or full-time. She's created reThink Your Lifestyle to help teachers figure out what kind of bu...

#1216 Today we're talking with Karthik Vijayakumar of  DesignYourThinking.com . Karthik is a member of SPI Pro, and through his participation in the community has found a new direction for his business that he's really excited about: sales page copywriting. But he's having a dilemma around leaning in to who he is—especially because he gets a lot of inspiration from myself and from Team SPI. H...

#1215 Today I'm talking to Matt of  SkylandersCharacterList.com , who's in an interesting niche—and an interesting predicament. (You may also remember Matt from  episode 10 of  The Community Experience !) He started a business in a very focused niche: selling collectibles for Skylanders, a toys-to-life action-adventure video game series that's no longer being made. It's been going w...

#1214 This might be one of the most useful episodes of this podcast you've heard in a long time. Michelle Krieg does a lot of work in the yoga space, and she's had a long journey to get to where she's at, with a lifestyle that she loves for the most part. But she's still feeling held back. Through our conversation, Michelle realizes she needs to let go of some of the thought patterns she's been op...

#1213 Today we're speaking with Alexandra Mannerings of Merakinos, a data services and analytic education company devoted to helping nonprofits and mission-driven organizations amplify their impacts through data. Alexandra is trying to transform the way nonprofits use data and analytics to be more successful with their chosen mission. Her services cost a lot, but she doesn't want to exclude organi...

#1212 Today we're speaking with Ashton and DC, a wife-and-husband combo with a real estate business called REI Remodel . They're creating educational materials for would-be real estate investors, and they also want to build a "club" or community for these folks. As you know, at SPI we're all about the power of community, and I talk with DC and Ashton about the iterative process they can use to kno...

#1211 Today, we're speaking with Jodi Gregory from  SeekInfo.com . Jodi helps people with advanced research strategies—way more than just a simple Google search. She's been doing this for twenty years now. And recently, she's had an inclination to teach people how to do what she's been doing through a  cohort-based course . But she's feeling stuck with how to get the course up and runnin...

#1210 Today I'm talking with a self-proclaimed introverted entrepreneur, Mark Wilson, who has a company called Sales for Introverts . Yes, he helps introverts become better salespeople. I think it's an awesome niche, and not just because I'm an introvert myself. I know the mindset struggles of making sales and growing a business when you don't feel naturally extroverted. Mark has overcome his own...

#1209 Today we're speaking with Dan Bennett, known as The Antipreneur. He helps entrepreneurs make better videos, tell better stories, and build better businesses. Dan has a lot of experience  on YouTube  and building audiences. He does a great job connecting with people in person, and he needs some help bridging the online and IRL worlds. We talk YouTube and storytelling, quizzes and le...

#1208 Today, we're talking with Trixi from SewASoftie.com , a not-for-profit charitable opportunity that helps kids learn how to sew. Sew A Softie has been growing tremendously. Trixie's challenge now is figuring out what to do next and how she can grow her brand awareness and reach even more people. The catch is that Sew A Softie is a one-person show, so Trixie is limited in terms of how much tim...

#1207 Today we're speaking with Chris Tiley from Never Too Old to Lift . He's a physiotherapist (physical therapist, in US terms) who works mostly with older folks who want to move and feel better. Chris's approach to helping people feel better and get stronger is through strength training—hence the name of his business. But as we talk about today, strength training may be what people need to feel...

#1206 Today we're talking with Kim, who runs GentlyBeing.com and the YouTube channel of the same name. She creates these really cool spiritual, meditative videos that relate to the season we're in, like the winter solstice, the full moon, and other times of year. She has over a thousand subscribers, and she's in the middle of trying to understand how she can scale up and do even better. We go thro...