We’re live. Last Entreprogrammers of the year! It has definitely been a heck of a ride for all of the guys. The conversation starts about plans for 2020 and small closures needed to move on. Big Plans for Chuck.
Mani and John Advise Chuck who has had massive growth and Improvement in 2019, secure guidance to enter the next level and dominate.
Sponsorship management is one of the big things that Chuck talks about.
In other topics, the guys discuss the problems that they don’t want to have next year, one of them is hiring the right person or even the proper training of the current employee, it has been a recurrent problem.
Thoughts of the week
Chuck – “Either you have a hiring problem or a training problem”
We’re Live. New Approach for Chuck has been working exceptionally well, lots of sponsors, people seem to be comfortable with how things are being handled at the moment and he’s been having lots of responses and great feedback on everything. Great Work Chuck!
He just developed a perfect way to manage his team and make sure everybody is clear on what they need to do, no more lost emails or unnecessary text or whatnot. Direct and concise and gets the job done.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
We’re live, after all the blurriness that the guys have passed recently, they have continued their life and their work like nothing happened. Chuck has come back to using the Pomodoro technique to pick up productivity and it’s been going well, in fact, Chuck has gained a lot of new audiences and people that want to work with him. There’s no such thing as bad publicity right? Apparently not.
Some people say that Chuck's reputation and business have gone down, there’s nothing farther from the truth. John recommends him to keep on going and even at a higher pace.
Thoughts of the week
John – “You just need to build your system to gather the sponsors and practically make a manual with it”
We´re live. Chuck had great success with his Book Launch, Currently a best seller in Amazon, Kudos!
But not everything was peachy for this book. It was a really long and tiresome process to finally get the product ready, this includes cover, digital files, audible version, etc.
Chuck Tells his story about the whole Journey
The most ironic thing is that John offered Chuck to publish the book, he really regrets he didn't take that chance and save himself a lot of hassle
Thoughts of the week
John - “I Offered you to publish the book”
Chuck - “ I KNOW!”
We’re live. And the Witchhunt Continues!
Believe it or not ladies and gentlemen, they are still pursuing Chuck and John to take them down from the internet (LOL). This is practically impossible for 2 main reasons, John is practically showing his middle finger to their faces and he’s just going to keep at it, that’s just how John is, and in a Witchhunt that just doesn’t work. On the other hand, Chuck Does not even care, it’s just not that important for him and this type of behavior also freaks out the mob.
But they are still coming for them, Chuck is receiving much more attacks because they still think they can take him down. It’s just not going to happen, deal with it people.
Thought of the week
John – “In order to have a Witchhunt, there needs to be fear and it´s not happening”
We´re Live. The guys start the conversation with a situation that concerns Chuck, regarding the Linux Foundation. Chuck is thinking about this because he doesn’t want any trouble. John Clearly says he has a case here, Chuck was publicly defamed.
The situation has blown out of proportion for a lot of time, the guys just want to finish it and continue working.
The conversation turns into the storytelling of different disputes that the guys had. The Internet is an abstract place with people that just attack, it's just not worth the time. John says that this has been growing over the years and probably get worse.
Thoughts of the week
Chuck - “I don’t want to do this out of anger, I want to do it because it benefits me”
We´re Live. Chuck and John Tell us a funny anecdote of how hatred took over a twitter post from Chuck, John probably did not respond the most civil way haha. People ended up calling any type of names the guys, but that´s how it is in the social storm right? Never on an argument, always in the mood for a battle.
This move on to a nice conversation with the guys focused on how any system does not welcome newcomers unless you´re strictly thinking the same way as they are. They always talk about tolerance, which is practically none existent. Satya gives a great anecdote on how at some point he had to change his accent just to be accepted.
Thoughts of the week
Satya - “There´s no real advantage or privilege”
We´re Live. Satya explains to Chuck the process of how he manages his whole business, which is divided into 3 parts. Gives great explanation and Chuck is something completely different from how things are managed in life. Lots of learning here.
Satya is a Family man but has accomplished dividing family and business in a great manner, has time for everything, in fact by next year half of his business will not need his attention.
Chuck and Satya share their experience, they are basically in the same spot but have different perspectives.
Thoughts of the week
Satya - “When running a business is always a good idea to have cash cushion”
We´re Live. John is crunching some numbers for Bulldog Mindset, and it's looking really good.
Low Expenses and big Revenue, the next step now is to increment the expenses to get even bigger revenue.
This became the main topic of conversation, When is the best time to hire?
Expenses will always need to grow in order for the business to evolve, this includes more employees. As an Entrepreneur this needs to be done at the exact moment, it could get problematic and even not finding the right person to hire. Nevertheless, it's a risk that needs to be taken.
Thoughts of the week:
Mani - “ In order to get big you need to expend a lot”
We´re Live. Guys start the conversation sharing a few laughs about an accident that Chuck had and has a nice scar in the head to prove it hehe (Harry potter Reference comes in).
Chuck´s First Marathon is coming in, he feels ready. John Gives him some advice but overall it's looking good for chuck.
John Gives a summary of what he is currently doing with Simple Programmer and the plans that he has for the future of SP. As far as everything goes this is a business that´s self-sustainable wich is good.
Mani asks him, what would John do differently if SP started from cero. The First thing John says is taking off his face from the branding. When a business is based on yourself it makes it so difficult to transition.
The great conversation starts here on how to start a business and how to make it work.
Thoughts of the week
John – “Competition has become so hard on youtube, back in the days you needed content, now you need to have a good looking ass”
We´re Live. Mani is running different ways to do sales at this point. Just to make it more fun or interesting. This set up quite a nice topic on discounts.
This is a double-sided blade, yes, you will sell, but there´s going to be a point that you are only going to sale when there´s a discount, there are many ways to work this to your advantage. Take Udemy for example, they only sell with discounts, and it works.
GTM comes to conversation, any tracking method in that case. Mani wants this set up and the best advice that Satya gives him, yeah this task can be outsourced but he needs to make sure what he wants to track.
There´s actually a lot of pages and stuff that can be tracked, if the path is not laid down correctly It can get really confusing and just track the wrong thing.
Thoughts of the week
Satya – “Make sure you know what you want to track on your sales”
We´re Live. Ladies and Gentleman, We Have new blood on Entreprogrammers.
Welcome To Satya Mallick!
Satya is an entrepreneur and gives us a brief review of his work, a small presentation of self if you will. Been on various business and had some success.
Satya starts an interesting conversation about skills that an engineer needed 5 or 10 a years ago, but he´s looking into the future now. Guys totally agree on this, AI is everywhere today from self-driven cars to computers that make their own decisions.
John Talks a little about the transition of Simple Programmer, Everything is going good for both of them (John and Josh). Really positive movement for Josh, Gets good payment for 30 months and gets to work on his own thing. So, Much success to Josh on his endeavors
Thoughts of the week
Satya – “An Engineer without programming skills 5 years ago was useless… In 5 years without AI skills it will be useless too”
We´re Live. Chuck Starts the conversation with John, about how he´s been lifting weights recently and how sore he got, especially on legs than even on his runs, couldn’t complete the goal for that time. John Gives him great advice on this and focuses on nutrition to keep the long runs coming.
Chuck is talking about migrating all of his podcast processes to a different system, the last one didn’t have an API so automation is off the table, which really slows down the whole process. Also, his Email list has stopped growing insanely like it was recently.
Thoughts of the week
John – “You got to analyze the decision you make, what´s that going to do at the bottom line”
We´re Live. The conversation starts on how much Chuck is doing in half a month, he is crunching really good numbers, although he´s been slacking on his major focus which is sponsorship sales, this is great for him because he´s a master at this. John Tells him clearly, that he doesn’t know anybody who can do that amount of sales in so little time. So, Kudos Chuck.
Josh is struggling with a very important decision business-wise, its something that could take him years to work, so he´s looking for advice from the guys. Big Decision from him, apparently he´s going solo with other projects. John is trying to prepare him as much as possible
On the other hand, John needs to make decisions too based on this, Josh did a lot of the day to day business that keeps bringing Revenue on this entrepreneurship.
Thoughts of the week
CHUCK - “The Thing is, as long your delivering value they´ll keep paying you”
We´re Live. The guys talk about about a system to minimize decisions called Flywheel, it works really well. Mani explained clearly, with fewer decisions you add it works better so you need to focus.
Chuck is getting really good on his running, is competing on a Bulldog Mindset Challenge against marathon runners and he´s killing it.
Chuck is planning to charge people to manage other people podcast until they can get all their sponsors and experience ready, which is brilliant. Charges $2500 per podcast a month, until they get their sponsorship. Really easy money for Chuck.
John and Mani give really good advice on this, Chuck is in the stage that he can charge a minimum amount for any of his services, and still get the client no problem. John says his minimum is a $1000, if it's less it is just not worth the time.
Thoughts of the week
John - “If its not a $1000 I don’t even bother to open the email”
We´re Live, Guys talk about the app to record the program, Zoom seems to be working fine with the guys, but there´s a slight audio decrease on quality so bare with us.
Chuck got a serious issue with his Drip account, they stop doing everything he configured to do without telling anything to him, Big rant. Trying out Active campaign, this is important on email marketing, deliverability can never stop.
Podcast business for Chuck has been growing wild, incredibly good in a really short time. Congrats to Chuck!
But the guys are checking the numbers and something seems weird, low traffic cant brings lots of subscribers.
Thoughts of the week
MANI- “400 people a day and 50% conversion rate on the opt-in, something´s wrong”
We´re Live, The guys start discussing and comparing sales of the same product but with 2 different approaches, direct promo sales and a funnel to a sales pages. Funnels worked way much better and haven’t even finished the sale.
There are different levels of audience or possible buyers to the product, this is important when making a sale, we´ll make things easier to reach goals and even to spot failures.
Mani Shows the guys and even way to split groups with just the names of the subscribers, great brainstorming here.
Thoughts of the week
“Choose your sale technique Wisely”
We´re Live. The guys start talking about a competition about Pomodoro, who´s more discipline who gets more Pomodoro done. John and Josh share strategies to work on this, using apps that block your social media or internet connection, but the guys agree that they are too smart for that, they will find a way around. Discipline is the key here.
Mani was participating in this, and couldn’t get much done because he was on vacation. Guys share a few laughs, John had a huge advantage and had way more Pomodoro, there was money involved too. Hilarious haha
On at all, the guys really get productive with this system, although there are losers, the productivity skyrocketed.
Thoughts of the Week
“Don’t bet against a person that has run a marathon with Broken ribs”
We´re Live. John is checking back with his 10 Pomodoro a day technique, and it's amazing how much of a difference it makes. It´s the equivalent of 4 weeks of work in 1 week, that´s something else. To put the cherry on top, between 5 Pomodoro break, he´s reading a book.
John talks about some real state he´s been making recently, that´s something that he can't stop doing and makes a lot of progress on it, it just makes a good revenue, on the other Josh asks him how are things with Bulldog Mindset, stable position but he´s been losing some subscribers. Emphasis on growing on youtube, the algorithm has changed so much which makes it really difficult to progress.
Social media has changed a lot throughout the years, one of the main reasons why is so difficult to grow, its because there´s so much content right now. There´s a lot and depends on the audience in the case of the length of videos, for example, some people prefer small curated content than a full contrast of one point.
Thoughts of the week
JOHN – “The best strategy in social media is to be prolific as possible”
We´re Live. Google Hangouts is finally going die and supposedly going to be replaced by Youtube Webcam, we´ll see how it goes. Other topics, Charles feel off a roof and really hurt his elbow, he has a really funny anecdote on it. He´s a little worried because he´s got a 5k really soon, his doctor will tell him.
There´s an interesting argument with the guys about how Doctors do stuff, are they really needed? They all agree that doctors (Medics) mostly work o tell you what is wrong and prescribe you medicine, but there´s an actual belief that they don’t actually fix the stuff that you wanted to be fixed. Charles says clearly that he will go to anyone who really believes that he can fix him!
Charles is getting really serious about running, Jonh has solid advice on how to push through the fatigue that accumulates off all the training. It's really a difficult job to do the only way to do it its to have the mindset for it.
John talks about the Pomodoro technique, It has been doing 10 Pomodoro a day, but the game changer here is that he´s not looking at his phone until he completes the 10 Pomodoro. The results are amazingly good.
Thoughts of the day
JOHN – “Put the phone down and do the work!”
We´re Live. The guys start the conversation with how Google gets so many apps on the run just to experiment with them, Wave or Google plus is just an example even Google Health, that are completely shut down right now. That just leads to knowing that sometimes google is out of their game, and this is happening much more.
Chuck tells some good news to the guys, he´s now a host for 3 more podcast shows and some more business that he´s into, life is going pretty well for Chuck and he´s looking for advice with the guys. The first thing that they tell him is that he needs to take more action up front, hold the torch he´s on the perfect time and moment for this to happen.
Thoughts of the week
Josh – “ITS TIME TO TAKE UP FRONT ACTION”
We´re Live. Chuck starts the conversation about some emails that he had with some producers and involves John in the process, there was some type of complaint of how John is writing his emails, looks like he´s not giving much information away, chuck wanted feedback from the guys on this.
Chuck asks some advice to Josh about a problem that he´s been having with deliverability to his subscribers there was a serious issue that he should have at least send an email to tech support (Wich he didn’t) because almost half of his subscribers were not receiving anything, had to reorganize everything and in the process lost quite a pack of subscribers.
This is a really important topic for the guys, most of the business they conduct rely a lot on this email lists, all of the content and interaction goes through here , if this not taken care of, could be a game changer for the bad on any of the entrepreneurship they are doing, these are big numbers, so there´s lots of software that helps the guys with this.
Thoughts of the week
“IT doesn’t matter if your business is small or big, deliverability to your audience must impeccable”
We´re Live. Mani wants some feedback on a video that changes his traffic with little details changed on it like changing the title and thumbnail, there was a huge difference in traffic and the guys are analyzing it. They´re not sure what actually happened, the various hypothesis is on but is a mystery still. They Go through all the changes you can make to a youtube video just to make sure what makes the dramatic uprise.
The main concern is the tags, which actually it only leads the search engine to find the video, the guys agree that tags have no effect whatsoever, but Mani insists that the tags must do something, if not, why keep them? Youtube algorithm has changed a lot across the years, so it is essential to get up to date with this changes, your strategy can just plummet in a day if you don’t know what´s happening.
John claims that Youtube is a neural network, they have enough data to take the decisions of which videos will be recommended in your feed and what not, the algorithm do changes every now then but the concept remains the same.
Thoughts of the week
“Youtube is a temporary business, it's not eternal so you have to learn how to move in the network”
We´re Live. Mani Talks to the guys about an email campaign about some new courses that he´s developing and looking for feedback on this especially from Josh who´s done this lots of times for Simple Programmer.
The main topic in this conversation is that when your doing a campaign there are two ways to do it, build the products for a brand you´re already working on and be correlated to the brand or the product itself alone, this depends on how are you running things and what are the end results you are looking for.
Mani talks about his entrepreneurship on book summaries and explain to the guys how this has become a great way to get a profit, but not only that, the knowledge and content that people are aware with this is tremendous and that´s what´s makes the difference between selling the book itself and the summary.
Josh gives an example of a brand transition, this happened with Simple Programmer. John Message didn’t get through completely people got really confused with it at some point. Charles recommends that they should circle back to their basic idea and build it from there because there´s already an audience, they will lose some people but actually gain newcomers.
Thoughts of the week
Mani: “If don’t focus your push on the brand, that´s a recipe for disaster”
We´re live. Mani talks with John about how he´s preparing to come back to his cycle of work, always a difficult thing to do especially when you have a long vacation. Mani is thinking about some launch that he wants to do, and his rambling on ideas. John Advice him to focus on the main plan, getting back to the cycle is crucial and focus is what he needs.
The next item in hand for mani was to set the price point, critical issue because it is based on a lot of factors and can be the decisive point between getting amazing success and just blowing it all away. The most important factor in this is the value of the product.
This can get really deep and dense especially when the product is expensive, setting the price point is based on the trust that the client has in it, there can be a lot of people that can pay high prices but not all of them are willing to do it because of that fact, there is no trust that the product will work for the client.
Thoughts of the Week
MANI – “ The Price Point is a crucial decision, if you don’t know what to put, you´re stuck, You´re f*cked”