The Exchanges

Q Yep. And I, and I love that. So walk us through price point. You've done over three million. Obviously they can do the math and divide into 2500, but what is the price point on Podcasters Paradise?

A Yeah, they could do the math, but then they would be wrong just because I've done, um, an interesting pricing. You know, when, when we launched, there wasn't a ton in Podcasters Paradise. There were some great tutorials. There was a Facebook group, but you know, there wasn't a lot of content within and we were still freaking out ourselves. So we launched, um, we pre-launched at actually one 97, 197 dollars. And then 45 days later, we actually did our real launch and At four 97. And then since then, about every quarter, Nathan, we've bumped the price up about a hundred dollars approximately, give or take sometimes more. And now our price point as it sits today is 1297 or 15 payments of 99 dollars.

AI assessment note: “And now our price point as it sits today is 1297”

Q So holy mackerel, you just gave, I want to dive into a bunch of these different tactics. You said it like it was gravy, but I know people are wondering right now. So the pre-launch. For 45 days. What was your intention there? Why not just start off and launch it at four 97?

A Because I didn't have a thing created for podcasters paradise, and I was not going to create or spend a minute of time creating any of the content within until I had proof of concept. So I said, listen, everybody's telling me that they want to have this community. We'll put your money where your mouth is vote with your wallet. If you want to be part of this community, be an early bird adopter, be a founding member. The doors will not be opening for 45 days. But if you join now, you're going to get in for one 97. When I opened the doors in 45 days, it will be four 97 and it will only go up from there. So I had 35 people join on that webinar that I did for that pre-launch webinar.

AI assessment note: “Because I didn't have a thing created... until I had proof of concept.”

Q process for opening and closing a cart with real scarcity and real price increases. This was evident in May when you had a record month with an open and close cart strategy where you guys topped 500, almost over half a million dollars, which was amazing. Why is this working so well where you always are increasing the price a hundred bucks every quarter? Why is it working so well?

A Scarcity. There's no better word in sales, in my opinion, than scarcity. There has to be a reason that people are taking action now because they don't take action now. They're never going to take action. So I put everybody's feet to the fire and I always say, listen, you're going to make two decisions today. One of two decisions. You're either going to choose to join podcasters paradise at the lowest price you're ever going to be able to join for lifetime access. And with a Completely money back satisfaction guarantee, or you're not going to. And later on, the price is going to be higher. Um, we are moving away from lifetime access to recurring and you know, that, that third day money back guarantee might not be there either. So I'm using scarcity at every step along the way and continuing to step up the price incredibly consistently being very vocal about it. So people know that, Hey, this is something that's happening. And even though if I'm not ready to podcast now, but I think I might be in the future, Let's just dive in because I know that right now I have lifetime access to the lowest price I'm ever going to get.

AI assessment note: “Scarcity. There's no better word in sales, in my opinion, than scarcity.”

Q how did you, you know, for the, you know, we have a lot of SaaS entrepreneurs listening, software as a service. They're highly technical. They focus on lifetime value, ARPU, customer acquisition cost, and they're always, you know, they get the metrics, but they don't sometimes understand distribution, like how to build an email list. Walk me through just real quick. How did you get your, those first 4000 emails?

A That was the biggest thing about podcasting that I loved is that it allowed me to build an audience utilizing and leveraging other directories. Those directories being iTunes, Stitcher Radio, SoundCloud. So these directories that had massive listener bases were Finding Entrepreneur on Fire, the podcast that I interviewed great entrepreneurs like Nathan himself. And on the intros and outros, I would give a strong call to action saying, hey guys, if you want to get the show notes, like everything that we talked about from today's episode, go to eofire.com And you're going to be able to get this show notes. It'll be linked up there. And plus I have some gifts and some giveaways. And all those gifts and giveaways were email opt-ins, like the top 12 resources for entrepreneurs, 11 habits of successful entrepreneurs. And that, so once I got people to the website, it was really.

AI assessment note: “all those gifts and giveaways were email opt-ins”

Q a break or eat lunch, and I sat in a big pile of sap, which wasn't fun, and John told me a little bit about his history and about what he was planning to do, and John, I want to ask you, you have amazing discipline and entrepreneur on fire. Do you credit that discipline and that thinking to your experience, um, in the army or in the armed forces?

A A hundred percent. I mean, I can remember when I was 22 years old. I was like most twenty-two-year-olds. I was partying in college. You know, all the focus was on keg stands and girls. I mean, that was it. But then I graduated, you know, I was the first class to be commissioned as an officer post-nine-eleven. So it was real deal Holyfield. Like, we knew that we were going to war. And so I, I went from 22 to 23. It was really like going from a boy to a man almost overnight. And then, you know, before I knew it, I was in charge of 16 lives, you know, 16 men and four tanks about to deploy to war, and by the way, the normal deployment time, you know, was nine months, and we had three months to do it, so we had to compress nine months of, you know, what would be a deployment into just three months, and it was at that time that not only did I grow up, but I said, man, there has to be systems that work, and I did the research, I read the books, I studied the best, you know, that had done it, you know, all the way back to Eisenhower and World War II, and I came up with systems and plans, And we made it happen. And that gave me the confidence going forward that, hey, there is nothing that can't be done if you put your mind to it. Like Nathan, when I launched a seven day a week podcast, you know, good friends of ours, you know, Jamie Tardy and Cliff Ravenscraft, the killer podcasters, yo…

AI assessment note: “A hundred percent.”

Q which means you make 29 bucks per copy. If you sell all 20,000, you make 570 grand, which is your current P&L statements you put on your blog. That's like two or three months of revenue, maybe even just two or maybe one good month. Why spend all this time on something? I'm only assuming it's obviously a profit motive here. So do you have other motives for doing this?

A We do have other motives. Number one, this is a long-term play. This is a legacy play. This is something that I want when people come to me and say, John, I am so inspired by your podcast, but again, I'm not going to be a podcaster or somebody that does webinars, at least not for the, for the foreseeable future. What do you got for me? Like, I want to be able to point them in the right direction and say, Hey, here you go. Go to this link, thefreedomjournal.com and, you know, invest in yourself and accomplish your number one goal in a hundred days. Like I want to be able to be able to give people that gift. And so that's one thing. And even more so, and Nathan, this is something that you and I have talked about and it's going from just being successful to having significance in this world and really leaving a legacy that matters. So one of my past guests, Adam Braun really inspired me and he's actually coming on EO fire in a couple of days to talk about this. He launched this incredible charity called pencils of promise, and they are an amazing organization that builds schools in developing countries. So we've actually partnered together Before this Kickstarter launch. And every time we hit a funding level, I'm writing a check to pencils of promise for 25,000 dollars to build a school in a developing country. And we're really excited that number one people that contributes to th…

AI assessment note: “We do have other motives. Number one, this is a long-term play.”

Q do it. Okay. First things first, you're crushing it with the podcast. You're doing all kinds of revenue, revenue numbers that people would never expect you to be doing when you first pitched this idea to them about EO Fire and the community you're going to build four years ago. Why now have you decided to go into physical products and tell us about that product called the Freedom Journal?

A Well, the Freedom Journal is truly a passion project, and the story behind it, Nathan, is really one of 1200 interviews that I've now done, and people reaching out to me, you know, Fire Nation specifically saying, John, what is the magic bullet? Like, what does Nathan do that's his secret sauce to success and your other 1199 guests? And I, we're kind of getting a little frustrated because my answer was always, well, Nathan is like the hardest worker I know, as well as all the guests that I've had on EO Fire, they are just hard workers, so, How about that? How about you try working hard? But that always kind of, you know, frustrated people and it wasn't the answer they wanted, but I did then step back another step, give myself a little bit of space. And I said, people like Nathan and other alumni of EO fire, they do have one commonality. They know how to set and accomplish goals, period. And the portion of fire nation, love you all that do not know how to set and accomplish goals are struggling. And I wanted to To create something that was going to fix that. You know, I have very premium high level podcasting and webinar courses that is just not for everybody. Not everybody wants to podcast or do webinars, but I can tell you that I know that everybody needs and should want to set and accomplish goals the right way. And I knew that I could create this in a month, Nathan, as far a…

AI assessment note: “I wanted to To create something that was going to fix that.”

Q chemicals in my brain get off that day. I forget to use the tool to keep me focused. I mean, do you, do you think the freedom journal as a book is going to solve the problem of people that when you tell them just work harder and it doesn't make sense to them, do you think it's going to help them solve and really, you know, become more successful?

A 100%. And I'm really glad you brought up the moleskin notebook because I have one, Nathan. I always have one. I mean, in fact, on a couple mancations that we've been on together, you know, we've compared moleskin notebooks because that's a huge part of what we do. And I love them. And this should continue to be part of every entrepreneur's arsenal for sure. 100%. But the thing that I was realizing is that, Hey, I'm writing down a lot of cool stuff and I'm really enjoying looking back and seeing what I put in that moleskin. But It didn't have a specific purpose. Like it was helping me get things out in the air and it was helping me stay organized on a lot of levels, but I realized it was missing a key ingredient. And that was that it wasn't really focused on just allowing me to set and accomplish those big goals that I had in my life. It was just kind of keep me going forward day to day. So I still, to this day, use that moleskin every single day, but the freedom journal is that one focal point that I know that I open up, I fill out the day. At the night, I have my very specific recap at night, and that is getting me one step closer, one day closer to accomplishing my number one goal in 100 days in a very focused way.

AI assessment note: “100%. And I'm really glad you brought up the moleskin notebook”

Q to make this a habit to get to really engage? Because, you know, if you create a great piece of content, but no one's engaging with it, obviously it doesn't work so well. This thing's working. You're, you're, you're an expert on the subject. You've interviewed over 1200 people on it. You know it works. How are you though going to convince people to build this into their daily habits?

A I know that people do realize that the reason they haven't achieved the type of success that they want to is because they haven't really conquered that one big domino that they have in their life. And if you pitch that huge domino, you can just push that thing over. And then all of a sudden the next dominoes are just going down that line. That's what people really need to realize needs to happen in their lives. We have just those bright, shiny object syndromes, no weapons of mass distraction, just keeping us from accomplishing that one really big goal. And if you can get there, it's that domino effect, baby, that's going to happen, that snowball going down the hill. So that's why page one, step one of the Freedom Journal is teaching you how to set a smart goal. Because Nathan, this is where I see so many people fail. And you know, this January now, let's be honest, even you and me who are really focused on fitness, we probably put on an LB or two over the holidays. And so a lot of people say, I want to lose weight. Now they never accomplished that to the level they want to, because that's not a smart goal. It has one of the five attributes, which is specific. They do want to lose weight, but it's missing the other four attributes that make it an amazing goal. So let's go through this real quick. Smart stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time bound. So what wo…

AI assessment note: “So that's why page one, step one of the Freedom Journal is teaching you”