Right About Now with Ryan Alford - How To Start Small To Go Big With Pat Flynn

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Building successful businesses often starts with finding one problem and creating a micro solution.Passive income requires initial work and ongoing management, but it can provide recurring revenue over time.Authenticity and storytelling are powerful tools for building a brand and connecting with an audience.Being different and relatable can make you stand out and attract a loyal following.The riches are in the niches - focusing on a specific niche can lead to success and a dedicated community.Passive income is not truly passive and requires ongoing effort and attention.Being different is often more valuable than being better, as it allows you to connect with a specific audience.Building super fans involves creating a sense of community and facilitating connections among like-minded individuals. Building a community can provide ongoing value and support for both the business and its members.When finding a niche, start with something you have an interest or involvement in to ensure fulfillment and long-term success.The 'one-one-one' strategy involves finding one target market, one person, and one problem to solve, which can lead to successful businesses.Direct contact with customers allows for a better understanding of their needs and roadblocks, leading to more effective solutions.Personal branding is a powerful tool in building a business and connecting with an audience.Involving family in business can create a sense of purpose and provide opportunities for growth and learning.00:00 Introduction and Background02:49 Building Micro Solutions09:33 Creating a Business and Life with Passive Income19:42 The Riches in the Niches22:30 The Myth of Passive Income23:55 Being Different and Relatable24:47 Building Super Fans and Facilitating Connections25:16 Leaning into Community26:44 Finding Obscure Niches28:11 The One-One-One Strategy29:10 Starting Small to Go Big30:06 Learning from Direct Contact31:03 Building Confidence and Business32:33 The Power of Personal Branding33:26 Consumer Research and Focus Groups34:25 The Importance of Targeting and Communication35:23 Talking to Real People36:21 Involving Family in Business37:48 Raising a Brand: Leveraging Personal Branding for Children39:45 Coaching and Asking Questions41:08 Leveraging Kids' Skills and Talents45:29 Daily Routines and PracticesTo know more about Pat Flynn, follow him on Instagram @patflynn or his website https://patflynn.com/.  If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE. Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.theradcast.com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel    / radicalhomeoftheradcast  . If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

One target market, one person, find one problem. Just one little problem. That's where a lot of successful businesses are being started today. They are micro solutions that can build and bud into something much, much bigger. You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast.

If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. This is Ryan Alford, your host. Welcome wherever, whenever, however you are. We never know when you are because that's the beauty of podcasting. Time placing. We don't know. But here, all I know, if it's radical, we cover it. And nothing more radical than my friend, Pat Flynn. What's up, Pat?

What's up, Ryan? Thanks for having me, man. Hey, man. Founder of Smart Passive Income. Who doesn't want some? Look, we want passive income, but I sure as hell want it smart. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, there's a funny story about that URL, dude.

So my quick story is I got laid off in 08 with the Great Recession. I was going to be an architect. I was on my way and then I got the rug pulled out from under me. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I built a website to help people pass an architectural exam. And it did really well. In fact, it made six figures in a year and it saved me. It saved my family. It saved my life in a way. But more than that, a lot of people were like, how did you survive? Not only survive, but thrive during the recession. I was like, well, I built this website. And now I wake up and there's more money in my PayPal account because

these people are buying my products. They're getting my course material and all that kind of stuff. So a lot of people were like, just can you show me how to do that? So I built another website. And initially it was called Passive Aggressive Income Dude, which was the dumbest name in the world. And it was like an acronym, right? It was actually built for the acronym P-A-I-D. And I stepped back and I was like, first of all, I'm a really not aggressive, either passively or I'm not any of that stuff. I just wanted the acronym. And I actually hired somebody to draw a little cartoon of a Superman with paid on his shirt. And I was like, is this me? Is this, if I have kids in the future, do I want them to look back and go, oh yeah, my dad was the passive

aggressive income dude. I was like, this isn't, this doesn't make any sense. So I did some keyword research. This was a big thing at the time was to base your domain or whatever on whatever popular keywords people were typing in. And passive income came up. And passive income, everything that came up for passive income was scammy sounding. It was like get rich quick, all this kind of stuff. And I was like, I want to differentiate myself. I want to do it. I want to teach people how to do it the smart way, the real way. I want to get in front of those people and show them that it actually can happen, but also takes a lot of work. And that's where that came from. And I've stuck with it ever since. We've leaned away from

the passive income part of it because nothing starts that way. And it's actually, we're using SPI now, smart passive income for SPI as like the IBM play international business machines. So anyway, that's the long story about that, but still people are making recurring revenue from what we teach. It's an amazing thing. Exactly. We call that mail money now, right? Mail money. It shows up. It's not really physically in the mail anymore. I guess if it's in PayPal, the digital accounts, but the checks show up in the mail and you're not really having to babysit it too much. I never put it in work already. It pays you back every time. Yeah. Cause I never quite understood all, no income should be passive. I'm not passive about my

income. I'm active about it. Like never quite understood that anyway, but it's the terminologies we come up with. I know you've got a pretty popular podcast as well around smart passive income, but I know you summarize that journey pretty quick, the challenges, then the opportunities, but what the hell have you really been up to the last 10 years? Oh man. So it's really about creating a business and a life that allows me to spend as much time with my family as possible. Right. That's why the idea of passive income in general was very interesting to me. Okay, I can set things up once and just let it continue to work. And there's a number of different ways to do that. And I said, you know what, I'm going to experiment. I'm going to try a bunch of them. try a bunch of them. So initially I built some niche websites and I shared publicly on my website how I built that. So I started a website about security guard trading. Am I a security guard? No. Do I know anything about it? No. But if I could rank really high in Google for that and show people that you can actually generate revenue from ads that are on that website and

still help people along the way with the information you find, then okay, let's do it. So I did a case study. I shared everything I learned on the way. And on day 73 of that particular experiment, I hit number one in Google for security guard training with a website called securityguardtraininghq.com. And I showed the entire process of how that went. And that website started making a few thousand dollars a month. And eventually in 2020, this is now nine years after it was built. I sold that for a higher five figure mark, which was really cool and a fun little case study. But what that did was it showed that I knew what I was talking about, right? I wasn't just an entrepreneur teaching business, saying things. I was actually doing the things. And when I did a couple more of those kinds of experiments, I built a website on how to

start a food truck. Did I on how to start a food truck. Did I know how to start a food truck? No. But I positioned myself as somebody learning and I collected and collated that information. I was able to remove all the noise around the world about that and put it into one spot. One resource that eventually became the go-to resource for food truck beginners. And it was called foodtrucker.com. Also in 2020, I sold that website. There was a podcast to go along with that as well that I created. But again, getting it to rank, getting it to serve people, getting it popular in that particular niche, and then basically selling

it off. And I've done that a few times. In 2012, I built an app company, an iPhone app company that made a million dollars. And then I just was not satisfied with the work. It was more entertainment apps that were dumb and silly, but we did it. And I shared that case study to show people what it was like. And that environment in particular changes so fast. Like it was hard to keep up.

And I wasn't all in on it. It was just a little side hustle, a little project. So I sold that off. And then in 2013, that's when I started really documenting more about my journey. I came out with a book called Let Go. That book became the number one bestseller on Amazon, which isn't really saying much

because if you know how to game it, you could do it really. You could do it. But I challenged myself later to create a real book, what I would consider a real book, not just about my story, but a business book. That book was called Will It Fly? It was published in 2015. And even though it was self-published, it became a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

It's since had nearly six figures in units sold and it has helped tens of thousands of people around the world actually start the little side projects, taking whatever interest they have, whatever expertise they might have and package it in a way that serves a little pocket of the world. And that's my big thesis.

You don't need to create a business that changes the entire world. You don't need to create the next Tesla or Uber or what have you. That's hard. And there are people who can do that. And if you do that, awesome. I could never do that. But I can create a smaller version of that for a little pocket of the world, right? And I'm here not to change the entire world, but somebody's world.

And when you do that, especially with how connected we all are today, you're able to become a leader in a little niche. And as I like to say, the riches are in the niches. Again, over time, I continue to just experiment and try things. You know this, I created a physical product in 2019. That was a fun three year journey and just got my hands dirty with that. Again, sharing the process along the way, because I don't know how this works. I'm going to do it, figure it out, make a ton of mistakes, but take you along the ride. And that's what I've been doing. I've been known as the, or I've been called the crash test dummy of online business. I'll go in the car and I'll hit against that wall, but then I'll report back for everybody so that you can understand what works and what doesn't.

And to this day, I'm just so grateful because every day I get handwritten letters in the mail and notes via email, just how in one way or another, I've changed a person's life. And I've just remained consistent ever since 2008. When Smart Passive Income, the website started 2010, the podcast came out still running with that were 700, almost 800 episodes and 80 million downloads total total. It's in there amongst the rankings now with your show and several others, right? So I was early in the game, which was nice because I've become a leader in the podcasting space. I've taught podcasting. I've helped people like Tim Ferris start his podcast. So I'm just an OG and I'm just here to just share the results along the way and have fun and break things and build them back up again and take people on the ride with me.

have fun and break things and build them back up again and take people on the ride with me. I love it. I love the crash test dummy of a business and sharing that. I feel like I did that. I've done that last six years in podcasting. I documented, I don't know if I fully documented to the same level, but that's what helped us create the blueprint because we'd trial and error and broke shit and fell down and everything else. But it's really the only way you learn is like to be in it. Like I joked with, I was on another show this morning and I was joking with the host. I always laugh. I own an ad agency.

I've been in the agency business for 20 plus year. And when agency says they're a social media agency and you go look and they have four posts and two followers. And it's like to the, you only know stuff if you do it. And you got to do it for yourself before you can do it for others and or have a hell of a lot of training. But I think what you've done is proven, I think it's the lens of authenticity combined with the expertise.

And who doesn't like to see a good train wreck? Yeah. The train wrecks are the most popular thing. I love it. I want to get on the next train just to see if it wrecks. And I love that. You know, actually there's a number of different things around that. Number one, if I, to go with the metaphor, if I want to train and there's just coasting, it's just like a nice slow ride, then I'm probably on the wrong train. And in real life, I'm like, if I'm not at least a little bit nervous about the next project I'm working on, if I'm not maybe a little bit uncomfortable

because it's pushing me, it's getting me outside of my comfort zone, then I'm probably doing the wrong thing. I'm always now looking for the fear and looking for the nervousness. I used to avoid it because I was somebody who was just like a goody two shoes who'd never wanted to get in trouble back in the day. But I found that growth comes when you break things. And sometimes it's hard, but you learn

from those and then you grow even bigger as a result, just like tearing a muscle. You got to break some muscles down before you got to build them back up. So there's that component of it, right? The mental component of trying something new and trying something different. But the authenticity part of it is huge too because back then, and even now, there's a lot of people who talk the talk. They're really good at it. They'll hire copywriters for loads of money

to just say the right words. And for me, I'm not a good salesperson. I'm not a great copywriter. I'm decent at those things. But for me, what sells is story and just sharing the honest story of the things that have happened along the way and sharing the story of those who I've helped along the way too. In fact, that actually works better when I showcase the success stories of

my students. That sells better than any sort of copywriting I could hire for a sales page expert or marketing expert, right? Because they are the hero of the story. I'm not the hero. I'm just the guide. And when people see that they want to go to the guide, right? This is Donald Miller and StoryBrand kind of 101. Back in the day, I used to, when I first started, people started to go, wow, I like how honest you are about this, right? Like you were saying, wow, you shared your failures, but I trust you more as a result of that. And when I started to listen and see that, I leaned into that even more. So I did what's called my monthly income report. I started to share how much money I was generating

from all of my businesses every single month in a report and also how much money I was spending. And that put me on the map. And in fact, I was one of the first people to do that. And since then, many others have done that as well. But again, it's just leaning into that transparency and showing people here's what really happens. Now, of course, I could have just put any numbers on there.

And a lot of people have put their checks on their website or how much they were making. So of course, you got to put the lessons and the stuff behind it to back it up. And that was key. And then finally, the other part about this is just the sort of family guy aspect of this. That's another thing I noticed early on

was there's a lot of big names doing entrepreneurship and teaching this kind of stuff all the way up to Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, all these bigger names in the space, Grant Cardone, etc. And it's how can I compete with those guys? I don't have as much experience. I'm not as aggressive as some of them. What do I have? So I started listening. I started asking people in my audience, why are you attracted to me versus these other people? And they're like, Pat, it's because you're just a regular guy and I can relate to you. And I said, whoa, okay. I think that's a good thing, right? Initially, I was like, no, I don't want to be a regular guy. I want to be the dude everybody has as a poster in their office. And it's like, no, that's not who I am. We'll put you on the board, Pat. We'll get you on the rack.

I wasn't hinting at that, but I did see that array of all those great people behind you. We'll get your avatar. What was the superhero that was the passive aggressive? I'm kidding. AI can do a lot of things these days. We could probably AI that up real quick, but it would be very honest.

Sorry, I threw you off there. I just had to. No, no, it's okay. So I leaned into the whole, I'm just a regular guy. I leaned into the, my family is the thing, right? So I used to joke that my Lamborghini was a 2012 Toyota Sienna, which is like a soccer mom. Yeah. Like, Hey guys, I'm out here with the Lambo. And it's like, obviously not a Lambo. And people are like, yes, thank you. A little bit of taking shots at those people who maybe do have Lambos in their garages and say things, but we're not going to mention any names.

Lambo keys from camera. I'm just kidding. It just was more realistic. And it's like, hey, a regular guy like this who isn't super fancy, who cares about his family more than anything can do it, then maybe I can do it too. And that's where I found my position in the space of entrepreneurship. And that's why I think a lot of people have really resonated with that. A lot of my audience saw when my kids were born, not actually see it, but were there and then have seen the journey. My kids have been on my podcast a few times and now my kids are a part of my business. In fact, they are employees of my business. There's some tax saving things.

I'm not a CPA, but you can ask your CPA about those kinds of things, which has been really neat to see. And I don't know if you know about this, Ryan, but we talked about a lot of these little projects that I did. My most recent one, the one that actually my kids are involved with

is a YouTube channel and a brand about Pokemon. So Pokemon cards, Pokemon collecting. So I started that in 2020. My kids got me into it and then I kind of went full on it. And I developed a brand called Deep Pocket Monster because Pocket Monster is what Pokemon is short for. And we are three years into it. The channel is about to cross 800,000 subscribers. It is the most profitable thing I've ever done because it's a very lean team. It has gotten me invites to world championships from Pokemon and other things. I have a relationship with that company now. I'm generating revenue with affiliate marketing. I host an event once a year with a few thousand people, Pokemon nerds who come into one spot,

and I just have done what I could to nurture and build that community. And a lot of the people who've been in that space for a while are now coming to me for help and want to connect. So it's been a really neat journey to, again, in today's day and age with what we now have available, start literally from scratch again, show people that it is possible that a 41 year old man can have 2,500 people

watching him live while opening cards with cartoons on them and still build a brand and get fan mail and build super fans. Super fans was my latest book that I wrote in 2019. And I wrote that knowing where things were going, knowing that it is the human touch and the personalization of things that are gonna be so important when it comes to business

that if you aren't building a community, if you aren't creating those connections, you will be left behind. And I wrote that in 2019. And so many entrepreneurs now are passing that book around because I think we're starting to understand, especially with AI and how disconnected everything is, it's the people part of this

that's always going to remain what is most attractive to people. So that's my little plug for my book there. But most of all, just, I've had some people who were fans of SPI, my podcast, tell me that they heard my voice in their other room when their kids are watching me on their iPad and they're like, what the hell is Pat doing? What is he doing?

The Pokemon was on. Yep. Dude, it's insane, man. It's insane. It's so much fun. And I get to scratch a curiosity itch and play and experiment, yet use a lot of that business knowledge and community building knowledge into it. And now just the other day,

we celebrated our 750,000 subscriber milestone. And we had concurrently for over five hours straight, 3,500 people from all around the world watching me open things up, give things away, offer prizes, just have fun. And I'm 41, bro. It's wild. Dude, I got so much to unpack from all that because you and I may be very different,

but there's a lot of similarities. I'll get back to Pokemon shortly, but I do want to highlight something for our listeners. And I talk about this a lot in my content and others. There's some real irony with Pat. He didn't want to be like everybody else, and he didn't follow trends. And trying to be better than everyone else is fool's gold. But being different while being himself made him relatable. You don't want to be better. You want to be different. And you seem to have put together the master course of that. And the irony of you being

different has made you more relatable to more people, which there's a little bit of dichotomy there, isn't it? But it's crazy, but it's's actually but it's how it's worked so well for you and i i'm just i'm wrapping my head around food trucks and pokemon and the obscurity of some of these things it's so all over the map but i'll say this my kids and i have an addiction to dave and busters and the only when that's like our downtime thing to go do together when there's like dead raining whatever we go to Dave and Buster's and we play the games we're really good at them and we get all these tickets and probably could have just gone and bought what the prizes were the prize store without the games but it's the whole process it's it's casino uh magic for for adults and children but all my kids get is poke we have more pokemon cards in

my house like the active i was just sitting here thinking we should document and like every one of these experiences and the packs that we open you know everyone would probably be telling us how stupid we are to be at dave and buster's to get packs of pokemon but they that's one of the prizes they get which actually has some value because we have plopped some pretty good cards out of there. But the irony of, and I'm 46, 46 and 41 year old man talking this much about Pokemon, but again, the riches in the niches. And I've learned quite a bit about that industry as well. The intensity and insanity is off the chain. Yeah. There are some insane people. Whenever there's money involved with anything in 2020, the collectible space just in general from sports cards to Pokemon shot up.

And of course, because these cards are now valuable, they have money tied to them. Then you get the scalpers and the investors and all these people who hoard Target and put trackers on people's cars who deliver cards to Target just to know where they're at. It gets ridiculous. And then there was like a card that came out in Europe. It was like a Van Gogh version of Pikachu and people were like rioting when that came out.

And it was just like, there's bad parts of anything. And so I try to bring some positivity into it. But yeah, it's been fun and neat. And you hear about all these little projects that I have, but they're all working really well. And I'm not working on all of them at the same time, right? I create something, I build it, I lean into it, I learn everything there is to learn about it. Everything else doesn't matter. And then I either sell it or hand it off. Some of these things like the switch, I'm not, it's selling still every single month on Amazon. We launched in February of 2019 and made about a half million dollars in 60 days

selling that product. And since then, it's just been selling every month on Amazon and on our website. And it's pretty hands-off. We have a 3PL, a third-party logistics company that's working with us to ship them out and just handle all the orders and everything. Pretty hands-off at this point.

Even that initial architecture website that I built in 08, that is still generating about 1.5K a month. And I haven't touched it for four or five years, like at all. I haven't even logged in. I hope that like, I'm probably going to have to log into WordPress at some point.

And it's going to be like, hey, like I thought you were dead. Update your password. Yeah, yeah. But it's still working. So some of these things are pretty passive nothing is forever passive unless you know you're bobby bonilla or something from the mets but yeah that was a great deal for him think about the inflation

you still got to work with even like real estate right you still got to manage your properties you still got to keep track of of the macro macro environment and all that kind of stuff, stocks and whatnot. You still got to manage your portfolio. Nothing is 100% passive, right? And again, irony in the fact that my brand is smart, passive income. But again, I want to get in front of it and tell the truth behind it and not tell you what to do, but more show you how I do what I do so that you can make your own smart decisions from there. Yeah, I like that you pointed that out. It's okay. Being different made you more relatable because you were the same as those others, right? And I think it was Sally Hogshead who said, different is better than better. So I'm glad you pointed that out because I think it's so easy for us,

especially when we see social profiles or how much money we're making or whatever. It's so easy to go, oh, that person's doing this. I need to do what they're doing, but do it better. But I think different can be more powerful. And what people are looking for today are the one or two people that they can relate to. That's just human nature. It's innate inside of us to find somebody who's like us because they make us feel welcome. They make us feel a sense of belonging. And it's so easy to do that now more than ever because we all feel so disconnected, right? So as long as you can step up and go, hey guys, this is the spot for these people.

If you are an adult Lego nerd, AKA an AFOL, A-F-O-L, adult fan of Lego, it's literally what they're called. If you go to meetup.com, you can see thousands of AFOL, adult fans of Lego meetings that happen every single year across the country. It's not just adults. It's not the country. It's not just adults.

It's not just adult. It's not just like Legos. It's like adult Lego fans wanting to connect with each other because they don't want the kids screwing up their little sets that cost thousands or whatever. But it's wild, dude.

You just got to find your people. And if you are a leader, you can become that person to facilitate those interactions, right? The way to build super fans is to not necessarily look better in front of everybody else. It's to bring everybody together, right? It's where you can create a crowd of people who high five each other just because they're wearing the same color ball cap, right?

They might not even know each other, but because they're there for the same kind of reasons or they're in the same space because of you, they can already relate to each other even without saying a word. And that is so powerful. And that's why today in the SPI business, we're leaning into community more than ever. In fact, we changed our business model in 2021 from selling one-off courses, which made millions of dollars from podcasting to affiliate marketing, YouTube, email marketing, webinars. We teach the whole gamut. We taught them in individual one-off courses. We put all those courses into one community now that has a monthly recurring revenue for us

and a monthly payment for our students. And they're getting more value. We're getting more lifetime customers and they just have access to more stuff. And most of all, access to each other, which they didn't have before. And people are more likely to succeed when they're doing it with other people. So that's been the big thing with SPI these days.

But of course, I have a team of 11 people working with me full time there and they're taking care of that machine and keeping it well oiled, giving me time back to open cartoony cards online. That's paying you more than anything else. So the irony. Pat, okay, I'm listening and our listeners are listening, hopefully. This guy's different. So here's where my head goes if I'm listening and I have my question for Pat Flynn, who is the founder of Smart Passive

Income. How do I find these niches? Okay, the food truck thing, the obscurity of some of your ventures. How, I feel like, I'm like, was Pat like scanning SEO going, there's a lot of searches here, but very few businesses. I'm like, where, what, how do people find these obscure niches to, to mimic and or explore these types of avenues? It's a great question. And my answer back in the day, like a decade ago would have been what you just said. Let's go to Google. There's data, right? Let's see what people are searching for. Let's find what solutions they have available. Whatever has the higher volume, but lowest sort of solutions possible, then that's boom, there's your in. But the problem with that is, in most cases, if you go down that route, which you could still go down that route to find that information, right? What's being underserved? Let's go. Let's just go in there. go in there. What I find is, especially for people like me, who we don't have big teams,

or if you're just starting out, it's okay, you might do that. But you might end up building a website or creating a business about something you literally don't care about. And when that happens, sure, maybe there's some revenue opportunities. But even if you're generating revenue, are you actually fulfilled from that? It might be a great first step and to get your feet wet. And in many cases, that's okay. But I'm more in the camp today of starting with something that you already have some sort of interest or involvement with. And I like to teach a strategy. It's called the one, one, one. Right. So we're going to go over it right now. Find one target market group of people, community. It could be a community you're already part of or something that you just have some sort of interest in.

Again, you don't know what you're going to do in there. You just have some sort of tie to it, right? That is your group of people that you're going to try to figure out something for. Find one person, just one. You might need some time to join the community and have conversations and listen or talk to people. Find one person in there who you can reach out to.

It might be in a DM in a Facebook group or a LinkedIn group, or it might be in your community, in your hometown, whatever it might be. Just find literally one person and just have a conversation with them. And in that conversation, you're just going to ask them questions about what they're struggling with, what their challenges are related to blank, whatever that blank might be. One target market, one person, find one problem. Just one little problem.

That's where a lot of successful businesses are being started today. They are micro solutions that can build and bud into something much, much bigger. But it removes that barrier to entry so much because it's just one, just one person. And here's the cool thing, the sort of outcome of all this. When you find that one problem that you're like, actually, I think I can help you

with that. Or I've done that before. I've gone through that. Let me help you through that too. So now you're helping that one person solve that one problem. A few things happen. Number one, just the process of finding that person and communicating with them teaches you so much about what words to use, copywriting, selling, all those kinds of, again, you're not even selling anything at this point, but you're building chops. You're getting ready for that in the future

should you want to continue to move down that route. Number two, when you work with this person, it might take weeks or however many days or whatever to help them solve whatever problem, you are learning what their roadblocks are, what obstacles do they keep facing. And because you have direct contact with them and because they're going to you for help, you're going to learn that. You're not going to have to guess, which most business owners do when they're starting. They're like almost guessing what they think the problems are or they're guessing what a person might want to hear.

No, you are working with that one person to find out literally what is wrong. And you can work with them through that. And the beauty of this is when you get them to that result, not only do you have now a result and somebody who's happy, but also a testimonial that you can use when you sell this or pitch this to others. Yes, I've done this before. I've helped so-and-so. I've helped Joey go through this. Let me help you too. More than that, you now know that you can do this. Because at least for the students who come my way, who are doing this for the first time, they don't believe that it's possible for them. They see others do it. They don't think that they've done it. They start making up stories. I didn't go to business school. I didn't either.

Oh, nobody's going to listen to me. Are you sure you haven't even tried? You're just making that up, right? You're just getting in your own way. Let's find one person, break it down, get them a result. Not only do you get a testimonial, you get the confidence and the ability to wipe out any of those questions that this was not possible for you. You've done it. Now you can find the others who are there in those same communities and other auxiliary communities that are just like that. And you can build a nice little business that can support you and your family. Even an extra $500, $2,000 a month can go a very long way, especially if you know what to do with that money. And maybe you're reinvesting it back and scaling

up. Or maybe you just have a nice chill side project. Wherever you want to go from there, cool. But it starts with finding that one small problem, getting one solution for one person, and unlocking that confidence in your brain to just go out there and know, yeah, I can do this. Because once you find that you have a cure for this metaphorical, let's call it a disease that somebody has, it might not actually be a disease, but to the person that you're helping, whatever it is that they're struggling with, that is like a disease and you have the cure. And if that is true, you're going to do everything you can to go out there and help people. We often are our own worst enemy

when it comes to this kind of stuff. Breaking it down like this to make it graspable or easy, hopefully makes sense. It's helped a lot of my students and hopefully it helps some of your audience who might be listening, who've been struggling to try to build something

because it can start small. And oftentimes you got to start small to go big. One plus one. I like the simplicity of that. I'm a frameworks guy, so that resonates with me. And I will say this, I spent a lot of time, I've been in the agency business, worked with some of the largest brands in the world and sat in a lot of focus groups. And what you just described is actually the equivalent of like when we'd work with a large brand that was trying to sell something, we'd go into consumer research first.

And we'd go sit in focus groups, and we're trying to understand consumer problems, perceptions, and all that. That's a lot of the – I was sitting here, that's where my brain went. But because that's what the same thing is. You're trying to solve a problem that a consumer has, but ultimately you're trying to move them from one place to another. There's a current, their current state and a desired state. And there's a problem that has them in the current state. You're trying to get them to a desired state and that research

that informs that process with which to get there in marketing. And then you come with strategy and all those things, but I love it, man. There is power in simplicity. Yeah. Oh, amen to that. And I'm not that smart. I need to break things down in order for me to understand them. And the cool thing is because of that,

I can help others who are still trying to figure it out too. And I think that's my superpower. I don't claim to be the best at any of this stuff, but I am somebody who's doing it and I'm sharing the results along the way. And so I love that you said that too, because a lot of bigger brand agencies, you'll know they do these focus groups and it's because there's money at stake because they want to nail it and get it right. Why wouldn't you want to do the same thing if you're building your own business?

It's almost a fallacy of the fact that it's just actually pretty easy to build a brand online, right? Oh, I can set up a website. I can go to, I don't know, some website to get a logo design. I can use AI to help me write copy now. Great. It's so easy. And it's, we skip forward to that because those are the fun things that we get to see that are quote unquote tangible online. I can share my domain name with somebody else. Cool. Well, if you don't do the stuff and the work beforehand, you're just amplifying the fact that you don't really know who you're targeting and it's going to go nowhere. And if you just find that one person,

that can be, that is a key. That is going to unlock this entire world for you. And you got to go through that process. I think the other part of this is like, people are scared to talk to people. We're online, we're all keyboard warriors. Get on a Zoom call or talk to somebody in person. I have an email list of hundreds of thousands, yet I still get on a phone call every week with one or two of my subscribers

because I want to hear it in their own voice, what they're dealing with, what they're struggling with, maybe how they found me, maybe what they think is missing that we can help them with, whatever it is. When I hear those real stories, I can now imagine that real person when I'm writing or creating a podcast or something, listening to this even. There's a lot of business exercises on building an avatar, right? Oh, it's Johnny, he's 35. He's got 2.5 kids and you create this persona and it's okay, that's cool. But can you ask Johnny questions? No, because you made them up. Find the real people and talk to them and you're going to so much more, much faster. And again, because we're starting small, you're building those chops, you're getting those reps in, and then you can go bigger from there because you

got to get through it. You got to be a disaster before you become the master. Hey, man, you're, you got more sayings than I do. I don't think it was possible. You got to be cringed before they binge, baby. Yes, this is true. Hey, is other families important to you, man? You got your kids involved. They're filming you open Pokemon packs or whatever their roles are. Is that just, you've always been that way? Always been a family guy or like it was for me is I didn't know I was a family guy until I had kids. And then like it opened up.

Wow. This is it. Yeah. Thinking about someone besides myself. I had never held another baby before my own because I was definitely afraid. I thought I would break them. Like I was just don't please. I'm I don't know what I'm doing.

But as soon as my son was born in 2009, I was like, it just was like, oh, it all fit into place. And you hear this, it's cliche. You don't know love until you have your own child and what that actually is like. And then for me, from that point forward, it was always about doing what I could for the family. And I don't know if that was because maybe I came up from, I didn't have a rough upbringing, but we had limited resources. And so there were things that I wanted to do as a kid that we just couldn't. And giving those opportunities to my kids is really important. Making sure they have the most options possible. We're not telling them

they should or shouldn't go to college. We want them to figure that out on their own, for example. And my wife and I both had the similar kind of upbringing. So we are both kind of tag-teaming on the kids together in that way. But I was always a family man, never really started sharing it until people started pointing it out. That's why they connected. So then I went all in on that. And on one hand, you might say, oh, that's for show, Pat. No, I'm just opening up the lens to my world now before I just held that back. But now I found that the more that I tell stories about my about my kids and all the stuff like the more people can relate And it's like why wouldn't I keep doing that? And it's only what they and my wife are comfortable with obviously

I know there's some people out there who are like kids are born and it's like they're instagram famous on day one We wanted to make sure the kids were old enough to say yes or no to certain things and my kids are totally into it, I think they get inspired and The one thing that I did differently was I made sure that they knew if I was going to speak and do a keynote somewhere or travel for a week or something, or if I was going to be in my office all day because we had a big launch coming up, I would always tell the kids once they knew words what I was doing and why the why behind it, not just, oh, daddy's going to be in his office for eight hours today, but going, hey, I'm going to be really busy. And here's what's happening.

Here's this thing we created. Here are all these people who are going to be watching me and I'm going to try to do my best to say what I can to help them understand that they have this. And if I was going to go travel somewhere for keynotes, hey, I'm going to this place. Here's a picture of it. Look at this is the stage that daddy's going to be on talking to over a thousand people. And here's what I'm going to teach them. What do you think of that? Right. What do you think I should do when I'm on stage that could make people laugh? Even getting them involved a little bit, just to show that I'm not

like a person who works and work takes me away from the kids. That's, that was my upbringing. My dad would leave to go work at the Pentagon for a whole year. And I'm like, what do you do? I'm just going to go work on some government stuff. Okay. That's all I had. Now I'm like, what do you do? I'm just going to go work on some government stuff. Okay. That's all I had. Now I'm getting the kids involved in the process so they can understand and see firsthand what it is like. And again, I'm not trying to push them to be an entrepreneur. They can do whatever they want, but I want to show them what's available to them and lead by example as much as possible. That's powerful, man. I think a lot of people can learn from that. And I do, I love the showing them, talking about the why and explaining that. I think a lot of people can learn from that. And I do, I love the showing the talking about the why and explaining that. I think that's one thing I lacked growing

up. Everything was, I don't think it was like it is the way it is versus I like to try to explain why it is while also being a little stern and disciplined. Cause I think we're missing some of that in the world too. But yeah, I'll run an idea that I've got the outline written to that went down that it's called Raising a Brand, Leveraging the Power of Personal Branding in the Internet to Empower Your Children. Anyway, I've got an outline for that because I think a lot of parents don't know what to do with it. And they're like, there's a right way and a wrong way, like whether you're leveraging your kids to monetize, but more, hey, can you set your kids up for life? And it's based on skills and talents, know those things. But in the world of college football now with name, image, likeness and all that stuff.

Yeah, I think I think if it can be leveraged the right way, it can be powerful. And it's just I don't know, there needs to be some discernment of who is right for it, who is not. Yeah, that's an important book. That image, likeness stuff is pretty new. And there's going to be a lot of parents who aren't going to know the ins and outs of things like that. And a guide on that would be great. So I'd love to see that. One thing that my wife and I love to do when it comes to raising our kids is treat it like we're

coaching, right? So instead of just do this or do that, we know what we want our kids to do. Like we know what's right and wrong for them as much as possible and whatnot, but we don't want to tell them that. We want them to figure that out on their own. So I've gotten really good in my wife too on asking questions, almost like inceptions. Like, you know, where you want them to go, ask questions until they come up with that answer. Right. And it's almost the same as like when my kids were struggling with eating vegetables. Okay. What can we do about this? Let's grow a garden in our backyard and let's show them the process and all the care that goes into it. And let's make, get their hands dirty. And of course, once the broccoli

came out, they were all over it. They were eating it and now they're vegetable lovers, right? That took a long time, but because they were involved with it and they saw it sprout and they saw that went into it, they wanted to finish it off and eat it. And the same thing with our parenting styles. Let's coach them. Let's ask questions and get them to come up with the answer. And what's funny, sometimes we ask questions thinking we should have them go this way and they come up with brilliant answers that support the opposite direction. How incredible for them to have agency to do that and discover those things on their own. But yeah, that's our style. Every kid's different. I'm not saying that's what you should do or anybody should do. That's just, we found that works for us. It makes it resourceful

too. I think that's missing with, I think, some insights. Things in a way have gotten so easy because there's so many conveniences and different things that get done for you. So think creating not, I don't want to say like manufacturing issues, but making people come up with creative solutions. Your kids come up with creative solutions, build resourcefulness. And I think that's a trait that takes people a long way. It's give me of all the traits in people, give me some grit and some resourcefulness and I can probably train the rest. Oh, yeah. Oh, amen to that.

My son, 14, just built his own PC like from scratch. So he came to me about a year ago and he's like, Dad, can I get a PC? Because he's on a Mac and he wants the game and he's got his boys that he plays all the games with. And I said, yeah, we get you a PC, but you got to build it yourself. But there's these other ones. I can just get it now. Right. It's already built and I can start playing.

I'm like, we'll get you the parts, but you got to build it yourself. And so just last week, he got all the parts. I didn't even help him with what parts to get. I made him figure all that out. And now he's like the IT guy at his school. Like he can help all of his friends and he understands how the RAM and all the memory and the motherboards and the graphic cards, how all that's put together. That would not have happened if we as parents were like, no, like you can, you got to build it. Similar to like my dad, he bought me a car when I was 16. I was so happy and so stoked for that. And it was a stick shift. I didn't know how to drive a stick shift.

And so I learned very quickly and I still remember to this day, I miss my stick shift car, but yeah, you got to do some work to learn. Like you said, everything's handed to us these days, but it's getting entitled in a way. A lot of times this is, we're closing out here with Pat Flynn, founder of Smart Passive Income. I would ask, where's it going?

And what's the why? It's pretty clear, I think with you. I see it, I feel it. So I think what might be more enlightening is what are like some of your day-to-day routines that keep you like in this mindset, in this frame, like you're obviously self-driven, you're obviously self-motivated, but are there things and practices and techniques or they're part of what keeps Pat Flynn ticking? Yeah, for sure. On the home front,

it's constant communication with my wife about our goals. We are different people than we were 15 years ago, right? So we have to continue. We go on dates every single week. And I think that's really important for us to have a space to be able to chat and continue to remind ourselves why we like the other person and also talk things out when maybe we aren't so happy with the other person. That's very important communication. maybe we aren't so happy with the other person. That's very important communication. But talking about what we want to do in the future drives a lot of the actions that we take as a family, which is really cool. In my businesses, I have to give a shout out to two of my mastermind groups. I meet in two mastermind groups,

one on Monday, one on Wednesday, two different groups. I've been with these gentlemen for the last decade plus each. And it's a ritual every single week to get on these calls with the fellas and talk things through a person's in the hot seat each time. And we are brutally honest with them, just like we know they'll be brutally honest with us. And that is accounted for so much growth and so much stability in my life. I'd highly recommend getting involved in a group or groups like that,

a mastermind or a brain trust or however you want to talk about it. For me, I think focusing on honestly, my energy levels has been key. My food intake, really focusing, especially at this age now, it's like I feel a bag of Takis. Like I feel that for days if I eat one of those things. But if I have really good nutrition, like I'm at the top of my game and I can be really good and creative while I'm live or write really well, much faster when I'm eating well and also having some movement in my life. I row every morning. I used to row in college and I still keep that up. And that keeps me active and the blood flowing and just loose, flexible. And even though those aren't necessarily business related, they are because my energy levels are reflected in my business and my

outcome there and my output. And then finally, like every day is different. The way that I structure my week is every day is a different set of goals. Tuesday is my recording day. It is a Tuesday at the time Ryan and I are recording this. And I do all that I can in my power, my executive assistant in our power to put all the interviews and things related to podcasting on Tuesday, right? Monday is my writing day. Tuesday's my podcasting day. Wednesday's my video day. Thursday and Friday are cleanup. My business runs a four-day work week.

So Friday's open. That's when I do most of my Pokemon stuff. But yeah, it changes over time. When the kids were born, it was all wild because every day was different. And the sleep schedules were crazy. And so there were some sacrifices that had to be made and goals that I needed to put aside. And maybe I haven't golfed in a while, but I'm okay with that.

So I don't know, it's fun. And when my son goes to high school next year, the schedule is going to be different again. It's being flexible and adaptable. And again, this idea of quote unquote passive income, which is not actually passive, but more asynchronous income, I guess you could say, has been really beneficial

because my wife and I both take the kids to school still every day to school and pick them up every day. And like we're the only set of parents that are able to do that, it seems, in our neighborhood. And we're grateful for that because that is why we do what we do. And we're only going to have them for so long before they, you know, they're out there in the world doing their thing. And hopefully we've set them up for success. We'll see. I think they're rolling their way. And I think I'll go, I'll say, speak for our listeners.

I know I'm already a super fan. Pat, really enjoyed having you on. I appreciate it, Ryan. We're going to keep up with all things Pat Flynn. Yeah, so I'm pretty active on Instagram and mostly on X at Pat Flynn. If you'd just like to say hi, I'd love to say hi back

and let me know what you thought. But also Smart Passive Income is the website. You can check out our communities and everything that's going on there. A lot of great free content. I have a newsletter called Unstuck. You're starting a business and you're just feeling a little stuck

or you want some inspirational stories delivered to your inbox every week. We have the Unstuck newsletter there too, but I'm all over the place. Yeah, just really grateful for this opportunity, Ryan, to speak to your audience. I know I might be maybe fit a little bit different of a profile and hopefully it was a nice mix up for your, for your peeps. And just, it was a pleasure to chat with you, Ryan.

And I feel like you and I could chat for hours about all kinds of stuff. I think so. I think we need to exchange cell phone numbers and yeah, stay on the thing. I could pick your brain on a lot of different things and really appreciate it, Pat. And Hey guys, you know, to find us the radcast.com. That's where you'll find all the highlight clips from today. And look, super fan. I am one Pat Flynn. Thank him for coming on today. You know where I'm at Ryan Alford on all the social media platforms. We're going big on TikTok this year. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.

To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.