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Entrepreneur Mastermind Podcast

Welcome to the Entrepreneur Mastermind Podcast! One of the most powerful ways you can grow your business and expand your knowledge is by having a mastermind group of people who come together to share their business experiences, struggles and solutions with each other. We wanted to document this process by making our mastermind public and completely transparent. Initially this podcast was called Entreprogrammers since we were a group of entrepreneur programmers starting our first businesses, but since then several people have left and new people have joined and we’ve rebooted the podcast as the Entrepreneur Mastermind Podcast.
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Now displaying: September, 2018
Sep 28, 2018

0:15 

We’re Live! Chuck says he is having one of those weeks that makes him want to be a pig farmer. Chuck talks about his sponsors not paying him on time. John jokes that Chuck is going to burn down the building. Chuck continues with how these companies are promising to pay in 45 days, but no show. Chuck says he understands that this is a process. John and Chuck agree on a paying upfront policy. 

5:10 

John talks about sticking to what was agreed upon as far as due payment. John jokes to put up an ad that out the issues of nonpayment from the sponsor. Mani asks about book sales. As Chuck goes into having issues with PayPal restricting his account, but he cannot pull money out from the book sales. 

9:10 

Chuck talk about talking to Richard at .NetRocks. Mani suggests not using PayPal and switch to Strip to receive payments. Mani jokes about running an 'I cannot buy my lunch' sale. John talks more about using this injustice as a marketing strategy. 

13:00

Mani ask is the course is for sale now. Chuck mentions that it is on sales for 500 dollars as of now. Mani asks about some analytics on the current sale. Josh and Mani suggests an urgency strategy for the course and using a timer on the sales page. Josh and Mani give other kinds of suggestion for the sales and marketing strategies. 

18:00

Mani suggests writing up 4 marketing emails for revamping the sales of the course. Mani asks about Simple Programmers sales on Plural Sight. Josh gives some analytics and numbers on the sales. Josh says it is about 18k in sales. Josh talks about the issues with the commission and discount offer. 

25:00

Josh talks about the 45k sales last year. And Josh says their attitude is what have you done for me lately. Josh says John’s numbers are still pushing in sales at Plural Sight. Mani talks about the tier of commissions according to a Robert Farrington. Josh continues to talk about the clicks and conversions of the material on Plural Sight. 

30:00

Josh and John talk about the EPC target. John suggests working backward to figure out how to meet the EPC. John talks more about the complexity of the sales.  Josh talks about experimenting with a waitlist. Mani and John talk about the traffic direction, click and marketing with courses on Simple Programmer. 

40:00

John asks Josh talk offering their own discount to up the sales. Josh think it has to be beyond 25% to make it worth it. Josh talks about the sales on the membership.  Josh talks about Jonathan Stark’s book called  The Freelancers Roadmap and how he is using this as a bonus to the sales they’re doing. 

45:00

Josh talks about a plugin to setup authors call WooCommerce Authors. Chuck talks about how he is using the WooCommerce site. Chuck ask about how to set up the author plugin as far as getting people on the site. 

50:00

Mani and Josh discuss marketing and writing copy for courses, rather they are martial arts or developer material. Josh talks about the skill of building out the course. Josh talks about doing a 21-day course but did not work, then they switch to interviews on webinars. Josh talks more about working with Jason on building courses. 

55:00

Josh continues to talk about the process of marketing courses on books or videos. More on the complexities of launching courses.  Chuck says he likes to idea of hiring someone for their skills to build a course. Chuck talks about how he could do this with one of the developers. 

1:00:00

Josh talk about his idea with this upcoming course with coding and technical material. Josh talks about this as a review type course to prepare for coding. John talks about signing up for another marathon but he got sick.  Mani suggests chewing garlic to help with a cough. Josh asks about the Thrive convention. 

1:08:00

John says is it wipeout from running. John asks if they notice the merge with Create Space and Kindle. Which could help with sales on their book. Mani ask about John’s book Bulldog Mindset. EntreProgrammer talk about the publishing companies. Josh and John talk about Novel Rink that pulls Amazon API and how it is being shut down. 

1:13:00

EntreProgrammers talks about how this is similar to people running Facebook ads and such. Mani talks about how it is short-lived as people are trying to build businesses off of a social media platform. Mani says like Alex Jones. John says Alex would be able to write a book. Josh says Alex is still very diversified with several places to pull his material. 

1:19:00

Josh said he did have the opportunity to get into the Prepper niche. Josh talks about how Google controls 80% of their email list. So they are done if they get in trouble with them. Mani talks about Alex Jones traffic numbers. 

Thoughts of the Week! 

Josh - Pomodoros are effective

John - Have an exact why

Charles - Just got to keep going

Mani - Syndicate your content

Sep 17, 2018

0:15
We are live. John and Mani are at Thrive Conference. Not related to Thrive Cart or Themes. Chuck mentions recording some 14 plus EntreProgrammers podcast this week. Chuck also mention some new signups the the My Story podcasts on the Dev Chat TV network. Chuck explain how the My Story shows fit into the Dev Chat TV network.

4:00
Chuck continues to explain the type of guests on the My Story Podcasts. Josh talks about interview he did with student of Jason Humphrey. Josh and Chuck talks about their guests and topics that are most interesting to them. Sharing all kinds of perspectives.

7:00
Josh ask about the unique guest on the Dev Chat TV network. Chuck explains some of the dynamics between the panelists and guest. Chuck talks about the different perspective and diverse outlook of the panelist on the podcasts. Chuck share that this diversity helps him learn new things.

11:00
Chuck talks about the freedom and goals he is working on with his business coach. Chuck says he is going to work hard in the next few months so he can step back form the business. However, he does plan to have a passion podcasts that he want to continue with. Chuck says this shows are on Podcasting and getting a job or working in the business.

14:00
Chuck says his only issues is time and having a lot of things to do. Chuck talks about getting in to automation and building out systems. Chuck says he is traveling and still working on his book.

20:00
Chuck ask for a suggestion if the needs to hire someone else to handle the sponsorship scheduling. Or should he continue to have Michele do the podcast production and sponsorships tasks. Chuck mention he needs more help with sales calls and selling sponsorship spots.

23:00
Josh thinks a non-skilled person can handle this. Chuck says the outreach for sponsorship might get automated to some degree. Chuck explain his plans for outreach. Chuck says he just trying to figure out how to automate the task in the business.

28:00
Chuck mentions how he needs people that work for him to help, if needed, to create process. Josh says the good salesperson is a good relationship person. As far as Chuck looking to fill the spot for sales calls. Chuck says he does not want to bring someone in, thinking they have a long-term job. Josh thinks he needs to hire himself a figure out the process.

35:00
Josh says getting clarity and honing in on the actual work is difficult. Chuck ask about things on the Simple Programmer end of things. Josh talks about another launch he is about to do. Josh says he is excited about how the contents is coming together. Josh says he is really looking into the prelaunch material.

38:00
Josh and Chuck talk about content creation and marketing content like Jeff Walker. Josh talks more about video material and content for people to engage with.

45:00
Josh talks more about creating content with John. Chuck talks about the tactics with writing a book and Getting a Job and creating or locking in the theme of a hero’s journey. Chuck talks about how his process is working with writing his book.

55:00
Josh talks about rerunning the Plural Sight campaign. Josh talks about the reduced commission from Plural Sight. Josh says this course feeds into the membership. Josh says he is hoping for a 250 sales to boost the membership.

1:00:00
Chuck ask about using WooCommerce but there was an issue with completing the sale with PayPal. Josh says there are always issues with people paying with PayPal. Chuck and Josh continue to uncover issues with the lost sale on Chucks WooCommerces store.

1:05:00
Chuck explains the content of his early copy of this book. Chuck says he is interested in doing some webinars soon. Josh says with launch will be different without John. Josh says this is a good test to see where they are.

Thoughts for the Week

Chuck - Be willing to challenge what you think the way things are.
Josh - We tend to procrastinate on the things that are most important

Sep 17, 2018

0:15

We’re Live! John is back from vacation. Chuck sporting his Javascript Jabber wear. Mani comments on the cooler weather coming soon. Josh jokes about the small weather changes in San Diego. Chuck continues the talks about the 69 and below weather in CA. Josh talks about the -15 degree weather in Pennsylvania. 

4:30 

Josh talks about the bulge at the bottom of his computer and it needing a battery change. Josh talks about the features of his new MacBook, and how he doesn’t like it. Josh can’t wait for his old computer to get back. More tech talk about computers and John having issues with playing back YouTube videos. Josh talks about double dongle commercial. 

11:30 

John talks about getting back to work and just interviewed James Clear. John mentions getting his slides done for FinCon. John talks about his strategies and his talk for the event. 

15:00

John and Josh talk about their SEO and other lists of things they need to do for Simple Programmer and John’s side projects.  Mani asks if they have an editor. Josh talks about working with their outsource content editor. Josh mentions that the title and backlinks are most important for them. More talk about content creation and things that work now and the types of content that does not bring traffic anymore. 

20:00

Josh ask if anyone wants to write a blog post about interview questions. John and Josh talks more about questions and content for their site. Mani ask more about their editors fees and time it takes. More talk about link backs. Mani mentions a membership site transition. 

27:00

John mentions reading Blue Ocean Strategy. John continues to describe the courses and subscriptions models of businesses. More on what a Blues Ocean business is about. Josh talks about building the business like ax PluralSight. Josh thinks that a podcast is what the business needs.  Josh talks about their subscriber numbers and the direction he would like to take his podcast. 

34:00

John suggest that Chuck take care of the podcast production for Josh. John suggest the podcasts run under Chucks network and they can share sponsorship. Mani talks about a blogger he really enjoys to follow. Mani talks about the problem with the celebrity businesses or business models. Josh says he like what he does right now, but would like to do the same thing and have the business grow.

40:00

Josh mention Zigziglar’s business model. Josh thinks this will be a good experiment since there are a lot of things starting up. John talks about the presence that he might have in the Simple Programmer business. Mani ask why would they Josh and John would want to redo the business model, but only with Josh in the seat. Chuck gives his ideas with what Josh could do in place of running Simple Programmer. 

47:00

Mani says Simple Programmer says that Simple Programmer is the Kingmaker as a business model. John says you have to business brand first. John talks about being exposed to the brand at different times. John continues with the introduction to point of sale. Josh talks about the sellability. Josh continues with the time people enter into the business or engage with the content. 

55:00

Chuck gives his view on what Simple Programmer is without the help of John’s celebrity. Josh talks about how they have had thing fail when they hand it off. Josh talk about running a business similar to Udemy. Josh talks about help Jason out with the course creation for their community. Josh talks about what he learn with building out the community and coursed and then replacing the hosts. 

1:02:00

Chuck talks about reading the book “The One Thing.” The pertains to the podcast production software PodWrench and working on the network. Chuck talks about moving to Google Calendar, away from Schedule Once. Chuck explain how they are using the calendar for appointments. John suggest moving to his process with Assistiant.2, a chrome plugin. 

1:05:00

Chuck talks more about scheduling appointments and stuff within the podcast recording process. Chuck talks about the Show Runner material for running the podcast without him. Chuck mentions that a few of his sponsors wanted live ads. So in October Chuck is moving to live ad reads in the podcasts shows. 

1:10:00

John suggests some automated features for ads reads and show notes material. Josh says there are podcast services that offer a full service for podcasting, but if Chuck had software it would be a game changer. Josh continues with disrupting the market with podcast production software. 

1:20:00

Chuck talks more about getting people on the show in an automated fashion. John talks about what Richard Branson with with T-Mobile as an example. Chuck talks about just solving his own problem. Chuck mentions that they are two show he would like to do as podcast shows, and step away from hosting most of the shows. 

1:25:00

Chuck talks more about podcast production with authors or technically savvy guests. Mani mentions a podcast call Optimize Daily.  Josh talks about using podcast as a conversion for memberships rather than a traffic generator. Josh talks about his ideas with Copy Chief. 

1:35:00

The EntreProgrammers discuss podcasting and marketing tactics for memberships and courses. More talks about podcasts tailoring for membership. John talks about Tropical MBA podcasts and how it drives membership. Chuck talks about John coming in periodically on the podcasts and writing posts for the membership. 

1:41:00

Mani talks about BiggerPockets Podcast and their business model. 

Thoughts for the Week! 

Josh - Pruning 

John - Variation is the enemy of progress 

Chuck -  Focus on the things that matter

Mani - Don’t build a personality business   

Sep 12, 2018

0:15

 We’re live. I believe. Josh talks about getting emails from Chuck. Chuck mentions going back to shaving his head.  Also, Chuck mentions that things are getting better and is very busy. Chuck talks about how his WooCommerce was not working for him. So no sales for the pre-sale on his new book. Chuck talks about more issues with the commerce site. But immediately sell 5 books as soon as it was set up. 

4:00

Chuck talks about extending the deadline on the pre-sale since there were issues with the site. Mani asks about open and click-thru rates for emails and other marketing tactics. Mani asks more about the email open analytics. Josh mentions that he might be better off looking at the Google analytics. Chuck says he is matching peoples expectations on the price. Chuck mentions learning a lot from this launch and being able to do better next time around. 

9:30

Chuck mentions other simple mistakes he made like not sending people to the landing page form the e-commerce site. Josh says welcome to the club of marketing and e-commerce mistakes. Josh talk about all the moving parts of shopping carts and WooCommerce. Chuck talk more about the issues with his shopping cart and web page. 

14:00

EntreProgrammers talk about mistakes with marketing and more simple mistakes on top of it all. Chuck talks about focusing on having his business run without being involved. So no recording podcast with the other hosts or panelist on Dev Chat TV. Chuck mentions that he needs to have more of a presence on YouTube to help the traffic on the podcasts. 

21:00

Chuck talks about possibly releasing the podcasts as video on Youtube. Also, some talks about getting the podcasts on Spotify. Chuck says that he does not like certain podcasts hosting sites. Mani talks about moving his website to a different hosting site like Liquid Web. Josh talks about being on a custom Digital Ocean system. Mani asks about using Simple Programmers web guy for help. 

25:00

Mani talks about moving his content around on his website for 2000 Books. Mani talks about getting some help moving his web content without ruining the activity and other stuff. Chuck asks about why rebranding from 2000 Books to 10X Books.  Josh suggest not doing this all at once. Josh suggest cleaning up the site, moving to a new host, and working on the domain name as a safe way to move the site. Josh and Mani talk about making the transition smoother along with not ruin the Google traffic. 

32:00

Chuck suggests creating another site or duplicating the site them running both before taking down the older. Josh asked about DNS and other things to think about website directing. Josh suggest setting up the DNS. Josh talks about Simple Programmer traffic and website information. 

40:00

More talks about indexing and redirecting. Josh talks about changing EngineX and rolling back sites.  Mani says he feels more comfortable hiring someone to do this for him. Mani asks if they know anyone who could help him. Mani says he thinks he knows who he wants to hire. 

 45:00

Josh suggests asking about the migration services and waiting to change the domain last. EntreProgrammers talks about growing out their websites. Manis asks about Josh's selling of the memberships and course sales. Josh talks about testing and issues with Zappier. 

52:00

Josh talks more about issues and getting help from Podia. Josh talks about activity with the memberships. Josh talks about more plans with the community and memberships. Josh talks about the how he had to change the name of the community. 

1:00:00

Josh and Mani discuss the thing they did that could have made the launch more successful. Chuck talks about doing something similar. Josh talks about the types of groups that they could sell membership or subscription too. Josh suggest to Chuck to start a community around the course Chuck is creating. 

1:05:00

Josh talks about selling automated products and prices. Mani asks about Chuck course and possible membership group. 

Thoughts for the Week

Chuck - Focus

Josh - Let go of things that you can have someone else do

Mani - Products make you money, system make you a fortune

Sep 3, 2018

0:15

 We’re live. John in progress talks about a 15 person meet up in Barcelona. John mentions the numbers he gets on engagement on Instagram. John says the engagement numbers are better than email. John says that he is basically doing an email via Instagram. 

4:30

Josh talks about selling sponsorship for spots on Simple Programmer. Josh mentions that the spots were filled immediately. Josh continues to talks about the membership stuff in Simple Programmer.

8:00

Josh and Mani talk about the course, How To Market Yourself, and how they are working out the marketing material. Josh continues to discuss the community and courses he is helping market with a client. Josh talks about his launch is for next month. 

10:00

Mani asks if they are getting a discount from Plural Sight. Josh talks about doing a test for another client’s product marketing. Josh continues to talk about the strategies he learned to get the marketing strategies on point. Josh talks about working with pop-ups. Josh talks about testing the opt-in rates. Mani asks about testing with  Two Step Carts. Josh mentions that Podio does the same thing. 

19:00

Josh talks about cart abandonment and how their system works at the checkout. John talks about how million dollar companies are able to hire people to do all their testing. Mani suggests that how retargeting could work, but Josh should hire someone to hire someone to do it for him. 

23:00

Mani and Josh continue to talks about their strategies for marketing, and outsourcing. Josh mentions using banners as something different in marketing. Mani and Josh go back and forth on testing and marking emails. More marketing and email discussion. 

29:00

Josh talks about using a timer with the banner. Mani shares a story about a marketing strategy with coupons and collecting emails to build a list and get more sales. Josh talks about using a wait list page and filling out forms for membership. John talks about the psychological effect of coupons. 

35:00

The EntreProgrammers continues to discuss the using coupons. Josh says he may segment the new coupon idea geographically. Josh talks about the new Asia subscribers and traffic form the email list in the US and other counties. Josh talks about the unopened email form those in Asia. Josh says the US subscribers have twice the engagement after that fully subscribe. 

40:00

Mani shares some comedy relief from a comedian who talks about negotiation between the different nationalities. Charles mentions having a great week and has written 6,000 words on this book, and is up for pre-sale. Chuck mentions that the book should be complete soon. John talks about helping Chuck with the information he needs to launch on Amazon. Chuck mentions doing a self-publish on Amazon. 

45:00

Josh and John give Chuck some pointers on how to launch directly and on Amazon. Chuck talk about implementing an opt-in page along with the book. John gives the rundown about how to launch from book, Kindle, to audio. Johns says this is a great way to not compete with yourself on Amazon. John says the order should be a printed book first, Kindle, then audio with extra content with a relaunch between each format. 

50:00

The EntreProgrammer give their best ideas to Chuck to have a successful book launch. John and Mani discuss that the book launch in the first format should be hardcover and softcover later. John says the Kindle book will hurt the printed version because of the price. 

55:00

Chuck says the book form him is apart of a course and should be relaunched multiple times with each format. Chuck says he is very interested in raking and build his product offerings. 

Thoughts for the Week

John - Pick the difficult path

Chuck - Your vision is going to change…

Josh - Scarcity is everything 

Mani - You have to walk the path of complexity, to get to simplicity

 

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