15 Years of Online Business Advice in 28 Minutes

you are about to watch a video that contains 15 years worth of business advice and experience wisdom mentorship Lessons Learned and mistakes made all compressed into one single video that you are able to watch right now I'm so glad that you're here so let's get started lesson number one when building a business you don't need to build a business that changes the entire world you just need to build a business that changes somebody's world as I often say the riches are the niches and I know it's pronounced niches but it Rhymes better this way when

I got laid off from my architecture job a corporate job that was my dream job I wanted to dive into entrepreneurship to support my family and I thought I had to build something big the next eBay or PayPal or some giant software that the entire world would use the problem was I didn't know how to do that nor did I have the resources to make that happen but I found a little pocket of people in this world who had a little problem they needed to pass a very very specific exam in the architecture industry called

the lead exam so I stepped up and built a website and I created resources and tips and I showed up and help people I offered advice I answered questions and forums and soon became within three months the go-to expert for that exam in that time and as a result I was able to build a business that generated over a quar million dollar in just a single year not only did that help me survive the layoff during the Great Recession it helped me Thrive I was able to put a down payment on a new home because

of an online business not by going big but by niching down going narrow and becoming a specialist and that idea works even better today because there is so much competition and so many people out there building businesses too that the way to cut through all the noise is to go narrow and go deep with that group of people and when you get to know that audience who is within that specific group and you specialize in answers and resources and solutions for them you more quickly become their go-to resource the competition goes away and those people

who you serve become your own marketing team without you even having to ask could always go bigger after you start but when you begin remember you don't have to build a business that changes the entire world build a business that changes somebody's world and you can start from there number two and this is now more important than ever don't waste people's time it is disrespectful it is a leadon and nobody likes to be let on so if you're building an email list for example and you're promising something that a person will get when they subscribe

not just the free gift that they get or the lead magnet but rather the value that they get over time be sure that they understand and can see that values there right away if you're creating content for example maybe you're a YouTuber well your title and thumbnail package creates a promise an expectation when a person clicks into that video and if you don't address that promise and get to that expectation doesn't take very long until a person leaves and will never come back and as a result YouTube's not going to push your video up for

you either and if what you have to offer does not match a person's need a member of your audience a member of your subscriber base well better to sever those ties now so you're not both wasting each other's time a part of not wasting a person's time is to also let them know a little bit about who you are and why you should be the person that they should listen to which is exactly what I want to do right now my name is Pat I've been an entrepreneur for over 15 years I've been a podcaster

since 2010 I published several books I also advised 12 different companies in the startup and Creator space and across those 15 years along my business Journey I've generated over $10 million in revenue and I have students who pay me for my time to coach them on their personal business Journey now I only have a couple of those students and I don't have any spots available right now so don't even worry about that because guess what you don't have to pay anything to watch this video you just got to remain here take notes whatever it is

you need to do to best absorb this information so let's keep going on to lesson number three and this is a tough one especially if you're just starting out and you feel like you don't have a lot of opportunities ahead of you and that is learning to say no is more important than learning how to say yes when I started a business I said yes to every opportunity yes to every speaking gig yes to every person who asked me to write a guest post yes to every podcast interview yes yes yes yes yes but what

I soon realized is that every time you say yes to something new you're also saying no to something else something else that might be more valuable something else that perhaps you once said yes to by learning how to say no you keep the distractions away you keep those new opportunities at Bay so that you can recommit to the things that you've already committed to and trust me it's one of the most difficult things to do however when I learned how to finally say no I got more time back more time that I could spend in

my business and the current commitments that I had but also more time with my family my kids my wife and even my hobbies the key with learning when to say yes and when to say no is understanding what your priorities are because if you just mindlessly and aimlessly go and you take action without Direction I mean that's insane right there's a saying that says Vision Without action is a dream but action without vision is a nightmare if you're just taking action working mindlessly without Direction with no priorities well then you're probably going to be overwhelmed

probably going to feel lost and you're going to have a very hard time seeing any success from that so understand what is important to you and set your direction and say yes to those things that will support that and say no to the things that don't number four failure is a part of the process and every failure can can be an incredible lesson this is hard for us uh perfectionists to understand I grew up in a very traditional household where if I came home with a 93% of my math test right an a well my

dad would say well what happened to the other 7% and we work for hours to try to correct those mistakes I was conditioned to be perfect which made it very difficult to become an entrepreneur because as an entrepreneur you have to be imperfect you have to move forward not knowing everything that's going to happen and it's those failures it's those course Corrections that help you get to where you need to go not because you created a plan that worked out perfectly in fact that is very very rare to happen business plans are just best guesses

the action that you take and the failures that happen along with the lessons that come with them are the things that are going to guide you forward the only true failure is giving up number five your health and fitness matter so much to the success of your business you being the person who runs your business who makes decisions who is the creative who is the one actually doing the work whatever stage you might be at if your body if your mind and body aren't up to speed well neither is the work that you're going to

do from that mind and body every time I focused on health and fitness because of a reason like maybe I was getting too fat or because I was feeling sluggish whatever the reason might be because it was New Year's and I had a goal for myself I'd always see as a byproduct of that better creativity in my business working much more in the flow in my business making better decisions in my business having more quality output in my work the healthier you are the healthier your business will be so please take care of yourself because

if you don't take care of yourself it's going to be very difficult to take care of others your employees your subscribers your customers and your future I have a trainer that I work with now and I have a very specific dietary plan that helps me become the best version of myself I cannot tell you what would work for you but it's something that you have to be conscious about because the snacks that you're eating the sugar that you're taking in yes it might feel good in the moment but it's not helping you longterm for the

business that you want to make and the long-term future that you want to have number six and this is a quote from my good friend Chris stcker and that is do what you do best delegate the rest do what you do best and delegate the rest ultimately that's where you want to end up if you're just starting out seems like a pipe dream but that's where you want to work toward eventually you want to have some hired help I wouldn't necessarily recommend having hundreds of employees although some businesses may require that in order to do

its job however I will say that when you can continue to stay in your zone of Genius in the work that you do the better the work will be the more fun you'll have and the more energy that you'll have toward that now in most cases you're going to have to do some stuff that you just don't enjoy doing I have a lot of things in my business that I do that I don't necessarily enjoy but I know it's a part of the process however as much as possible I've removed all the additional work from

the editing of my podcast and videos to uh sometimes writing emails or scripting so that I can focus on just the things that I love and I'm passionate about if you have that be your North Star at least you'll be able to make decisions and no one to say yes to certain moments that would allow for that to be more likely to happen for you you have to be open to the idea of having some outside help yes it is an investment it costs money read this book called buyb your time by Dan Martell great

book if you're looking to hire virtual assistance check out virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker it will open up not just your eyes to how many amazing people are out there who can do these things sometimes better and even faster than you can thus you'll get an Roi on that but it'll you to focus more on the things that you do love doing number seven feedback is critical learn to accept criticism criticism was one of the hardest things for me to understand and how important that was that constructive feedback and maybe sometimes not so nice feedback

on some of the things that I was doing as I was building several of my different businesses but I just have to say it is so important to be open and receptive to those things because those are real people who have real feelings and emotions about the things that you are creating and in many cases especially if they are from your target audience that information even though you might not want to hear it can be exactly what you need to hear and understand in order for you to Pivot and adjust and move forward it can

be very very easy to put up a defense wall or start talking back to people who just might not have enjoyed the things that you've created the way that you think that they should enjoy it and I would go as far as to say it is your job to get constructive feedback you want that criticism that is the fastest way to get better and if you switch what that means in your mind not a personal attack to you rather a favor from somebody who actually cares enough to criticize your stuff well then you can take

that energy and move it forward in the right way part of putting yourself out there though in creating Solutions and building a business is that you might actually end up with certain people who disagree with what it is you're doing and will troll you for it in fact be haters and actually just try to take you down haters will come whether it be from a competitor or perhaps just somebody who's unhappy with something in their life and they're just putting it out on you well I'm here to tell you it's probably going to happen it's

happened to me and I almost quit because of it in 2011 I had somebody Target me and basically try to take me down they were saying so many negative things about me in fact calling me a con artist and so many other things and they weren't just pasting this on my own website they were pasting it on every website where I was a guest either as a guest blogger or guest podcast and when that happened mentally I was just done I couldn't take it it kind of reminded me of all the times I was bullied

in school it was cyber bullying essentially and it took a friend of mine to reach out to me to see if I was okay to tell me the following he said every second you waste thinking about this hater and everything they said about you is a second you were taking away from people who need you who are waiting for you who care about the things that you have to say and I was letting this one single Troll and hater get to me so I came back and eventually I mustered up the courage to reach out

to this person and just ask why why did you do this and here is what this person said they said that they thought I was an easy target and it would be a way to get traffic to their website I eventually learned that hurt people hurt people if you end up on the receiving end of hate or troll I would lead with empathy and realize that that person has gone through some stuff to feel comfortable enough to do that online or wherever in many cases those people who are hurting you it's because they are hurt

themselves especially as you grow bigger as you scale your business as you become more successful more and more people will try to take you down I once heard that we live in this bucket of crabs where when a crab tries to crawl out of a bucket a bucket of live crabs when a crab tries to crawl out the other crabs will take its claws and bring it back down that's kind of how we are in this world different cultures respond to that in different kinds of ways but as you grow people aren't going to want

that because it is a reflection on them and how much uh they wish that they could do that but they don't have the courage or they don't have the drive like you do number nine this is a question that I received from Tim Ferris that has been absolutely life-changing for me and it's a question that I ask myself when I am faced with a tough choice or tough decision uh if I'm faced with some Challenge and I'm not exactly sure which way to go or I'm building something and I don't know how to do it

this question has changed everything and that question is if this were easy what would it look like if this were easy what would it look like and that question is so important because most of us especially those of us who are entrepreneur alike we over complicate everything we think things will require way too many steps because we've never done these things before however again if you use that filter If This Were easy what would it look like it can help guide you and that can actually be a question that helps guide you to who it

is that you should reach out to because there are likely people who have done these things before who could tell you exactly how to do these things or how they've gone through the same challenges too if this were easy what would it look like it is a powerful question that has saved me so many hours so many dollars and so much headache now number 10 momentum makes money momentum is absolutely key especially if you are a content creator or creating anything online a few things to talk about with this it's like physics right an object

at rest tends to stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force and maybe this video and the feelings around this video are that Force for you to finally get moving but as with pushing any Boulder or Rock especially a large one right it takes a lot of energy up front but once you get going and the ball starts rolling things get a lot easier so it's all about the start just getting started without worry about failure without worry about being perfect just hit record and go just start talking to people about your product

and seeing what they say just go and build that momentum the second part of this after the start is once you start to see some results don't stop lean into that for example if you're a YouTuber and you start to see a certain kind of video do very well for you don't move on to another kind of video do more like that create a series of that kind of video begin to analyze why that video did so well and build upon that momentum makes money and there's going to be Seasons where it just feels like

you are absolutely still no matter how hard you push you're going nowhere but you keep pushing until you finally start to get that Boulder rolling and then all of a sudden you're going to see that momentum will kick things off and the money will come now as your Boulder is rolling this 11th lesson can come into play and I don't want it to which is why I'm telling to you telling it to you right now and that is number 11 the easiest way to lose momentum is to compare yourselves to others whether that means you

compare yourself to somebody who's much higher or much further along than you which makes you feel what like you're behind like you aren't good enough the impostor syndrome starts to kick in but the opposite isn't as good either if you start comparing yourself to people who are at a lower level or who are a little bit earlier in the stages of business than you are well what does that do you just begin to get a little cocky or maybe complacent with where you're at you might feel like you're ahead when really everybody's trying to catch

up and you're just like that rabbit taking that nap as the tortoise passes by the only comparison that you should do is you against you yourself today versus yourself yesterday versus yourself last week versus yourself last month versus yourself last year when you compare you to you you can't get mad at anybody except you you're going to be motivated to outdo you because it's you that is in the pilot seat when we compare to other people we're comparing apples and oranges two different stories two different timelines we might see somebody who just out of nowhere

comes and becomes successful in a space at your in and you're like oh man that person's lucky and I'm not I've been here forever and look at them they're already successful and I'm not when you dig a little deeper and look under the hood and you go wow this person's been actually doing some stuff for years leading up to this and has built relationships and has done all these other things that I wasn't doing so when you compare yourself in this way you're not necessarily comparing two things that are similar uh in the same timeline

right so don't do that it's only a recipe for disaster number 12 and this is one of the most important lessons that you could take away from this video and that is your earnings are byproduct of how well you serve your audience always start with serving first solving problems becoming a resource for somebody right yes you're still going to need to pitch and you're still going to need to ask for money and that's important that's a skill in of itself that can um come over time but when you start with money that's where they're problems

and I found myself in not so great situations because I've LED with money first trying to generate as much revenue as possible whether it be affiliate programs for programs that I don't even know what they are they they just have a good commission and so I just kind of create ads and do Arbitrage and this was the way it was back in 2009 2010 when we were all being Scrappy and trying to figure things out I was selling stuff that I didn't even know what I was selling because I just knew there was a commission

that was bad those always led to eventually losing money on ads and they never worked out and then in 2011 a couple friends of mine created some WordPress plugins some software and they had smaller audiences than me and I said well my audience is bigger I'm going to create WordPress plugins too and sell them to my audience and guess what I spent 6 months and $166,000 on something I didn't even launch because I rushed into it and I didn't even build something that was worthwhile for my audience to subscribe to in purchase I led with

money and revenue and I lost but when you lead with problem solving and serving your audience first as long as you have that be your North Star there's no losing as long as that keeps guiding you and the decisions that you make here in there I think the toughest part about this particular lesson is that when I teach people this right your earnings are a byproduct of how well you serve your audience it's not like okay I'm going to do uh you know uh some service active service or random act of kindness to a group

of people and then I'm going to ask those people to then pay me because I first did the transaction or service and then now I want that money back right that's not how it works when you do this transactionally then it defeats the whole purpose it still is a result of generating income first versus just let me put myself out there and give and give and give or as Gary Vander says you jab jab jab right hook or left hook right when you continue to serve and show up your audience maybe not that day maybe

not even to the particular people that had been served by you but the universe has this incredible way of paying back those who step forward and help people right so serve first because your earnings are byproduct of how well you show up and serve your audience number 13 and this is especially true today now more than ever the number one skill that you could have as an entrepreneur is story storytelling if you can tell great stories you could sell you could connect you could build rapport and relationships with people story selling some people call it

but when you learn how to craft a story you learn how to connect to a person emotionally you understand how to relate to your target audience whether you learn how to tell your own story which you should absolutely learn how to do that should be called your signature story or you get really good at telling the stor of those who you've already served or who are in your target audience this is why podcasting is so powerful it's just such an incredible platform to learn storytelling and to tell those stories on and in this day and

age where information is just so plentiful and with tools like chat GPT and Claud and all these other things that are just doing a lot of the stuff for us it is the stories and the experiences and how you share them that will connect to people more than anything right we're at a buffet line of information now all the information we ever need is just right at our fingertips but it's the way that you tell people about what that means and how it affects them and how you connect emotionally again if you can get a

person to laugh cry smile get angry upset whatever you've connected with them you can do some amazingly powerful things with them hopefully you're going to use that power for good though so figure out how to tell better stories learn about that take classes on that I'm doing the same thing right now 14 you have what you need to get started the most most common thing that I see with a lot of my students in SPI Pro and inside of our SPI Academy is they think that they don't have all the things they need available to

them they don't have access to whatever it is that they need to in order to achieve success you might already say a number of different excuses well I don't have enough money or I don't have enough time or I don't I don't have whatever right but if you were to actually compare what you do have with that right not the things you don't have but the things you do have you do have access to any of the information that you might need you have access to to setting priorities you have access to the ability to

say yes to things and also to say no to things you have access to mentors and guides and people out there who have probably gone down the same path that you're trying to go down right now there are so many things working in your favor yet we often think about the things that we don't have available to us but the truth is you can get started right now in most cases a business doesn't require even a website or a social media handle in order to begin and start its journey in fact all you need to

begin it's just one person help them solve one problem and help them get one result this is the one one one strategy find one person in a community that you are passionate about that you have some interest in that you know that you could provide some help for one person just one that's it you don't need a website for that just join a community they might be in your community already maybe local maybe online number two find one hyp specific problem that you can help a person through and then number three with that one person

and that one problem help them get a result because that does a couple things number one that education and learning to find that person talk to them and help them through to get that result is going to be invaluable number two you'll have a testimonial so when you go and scale this thing you'll already have a real life case study that you can share to help others understand that you're not just talking but you've actually helped people through this process before too and thirdly and more importantly you'll have the confidence you will no longer be

able to tell yourself I don't know if this is going to work or I don't think I can do this I don't think it's going to help anybody you've busted that myth already and if you're like most people when you help that one person you're going to almost feel an obligation to go out and find others because you've created this metaphorical cure for this metaphorical disease that whatever it is the problem that is you're solving and if you had a cure for something wouldn't you want to go out there and help others with it too

now that you know it can do it that's why getting that one person solving one problem for them and getting one result is key and guess what you can do that right now nothing's stopping you like every little excuse that you have in your head right now you're just making that up there's no proof behind that that that is the ultimate reason why you cannot do this you can find one person helping get one result do it 15 one of the most powerful things if not the most powerful thing that you can do as you

build your business is create and facilitate a way for your subscribers your followers your customers your students to come together and connect with each other when you step forward to create and facilitate those safe spaces in your community to bring those people together magic happens you don't even have to necessarily even participate in whatever activities that you set up just by the mere fact that you were the person to bring those people together to help them find each other creates magic case in point on my Pokemon YouTube channel you might not know this but I

have a Pokemon YouTube channel it's approaching a million subscribers just in about three years which is really amazing I put together a live event called card party that happens once a year in fact actually next year it's going to happen twice a year because it's been so successful we had about 4,000 people in Orlando this past June 2024 to hang out and nerd out on Pokemon fans creators collectors investors vendors Etc and it's not even an event that's centered around my brand it's centered around the community but you know what because I've been the person

to step up and create this the brand reputation and the longevity and the offers that are coming and the opportunities that are knocking on my door are ridiculous and any one of us you watching right now can be the person to step forward and create that metaphorical sort of tent that you bring your community in and you set up chairs and tables and you have drinks you have a potluck and people are there and whether that happens in real life or online you can do that because now more than ever people are longing for that

human connection and as the world progresses more into an AI ification if you want to call it that the human aspects the storytelling the community are going to be that much more key to our success as business owners and to just and just the world so go out there create communities and I have one more for you this was a quote from a thought leader who I've gotten a lot of inspiration from his name is zigg Ziggler and he's said a lot of quotes he's got a lot of quotables but this is my all-time favorite

and it's how I not only live my life but I pass this down to my kids and I pass this down to you so I'm just going to play a little clip to finish this off from zigg Ziggler here's the philosophy I built my life on my career on you can have everything in life you want you'll just help enough other people get what they want that's true in your personal life it's true in your family life it's true in your corporate live and hopefully these lessons that I've learned across the past 15 years of

my business have been helpful for you to today and if you enjoyed this content hit subscribe I got a lot more stuff coming your way especially when it comes to selling and the idea of stepping forward and building a community all of those things and more are coming your way so hit subscribe and I'll see you in the next video thank you