How to Make a Full Time Income Connecting People with Dan R. Morris: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneur on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

0:30and podcasters kits. Their goal is to work four months a year. And today, Foundation, we'll talk about the lack of recognition that a learning curve exists is the biggest hurdle in making a full-time income online. And if you work hard and really put in a lot of effort, time, and energy, you can come out the other side with systems that allow you to spend time with your family and your kids while your business is still operating, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Dan and our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by my friend, Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

1:04Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.

1:43Dan, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? I think that it is not easy. I think you see click funnels. You see all you got to do is do this. You see you just need a sales funnel. You just need an e-book. You just need – it's always that. You just need this one thing, and that's not the case. You need an entire bevy of skills to become successful online. There's a level of smartness that you either gain over time or you gain through talking to people, but there is nothing easy about what we do.

2:27Bevy, Fire Nation. That's B-E-V-Y. And as I mentioned in the introduction, we're going to talk today about how to make a full-time income connecting people. Now, during the introduction, Dan, I also talked a little bit about BC Stack. I talked a little bit about the podcasters kits. Let's focus today on BC Stack. How did that concept, how did that idea come about? Well, at the time, we're in year seven. So at the time, we were mostly doing workshops. We did workshops all around the world. We did 14 in New Zealand. We were all over Canada, all over the United States. And our goal was – and I'm married to Rachel Martin.

3:10She runs FindingJoy.net. She's a full-time blogger, was making a full-time income there. So we were running these workshops about how to turn your craft, how to turn your hobby, how to turn your passion into a career. And we were pretty much focusing on bloggers and podcasters and a little bit of vloggers. But vlogging has got some stuff to it that's a little bit outside the scope. When we were in New Zealand once, I had mentioned Gary Vaynerchuk, and a couple of the people in the room hadn't heard that name before. And to me, I thought – or at least I had this idea in my head that Facebook and the internet were this great equalizer.

3:52And if you were famous online, you were famous online in our sphere wherever we were working. So when we got on the plane on the way back, we were talking about how could it be that some of our experts here are unknown there? And is it possible – as we learned, a lot of the experts there, we hadn't heard of before. We hadn't come across their products or what they do. And it even went further than that, even helping people out. I was surprised how many WordPress plugins they were using that I'd never heard of, and they weren't using the simple ones that everyone here uses. So to me it seemed like, hey, here's an opportunity.

4:31Like what if we introduced all of the experts we knew to the audience that we just amassed? And then vice versa, what if we introduced the audience abroad or the experts there to our audience at home? That was kind of the idea that started the whole thing is maybe the Facebook and the internet aren't the great equalizer. And there's a chance to create an entirely new audience from people that never would have heard of you, even though you're everywhere online. Even if you're on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, there's still a huge swath of people who just don't know who you are. So that's when we decided, all right, that's what we're going to do.

5:15We're going to create this product that connects people. We're going to connect experts to an audience and an audience to experts. and that was kind of the basis of how the whole concept of BCStat came about. And I love the evolution, Fire Nation, of this story because this is what Dan did. He identified a problem. He identified a void in the marketplace. He identified a problem that wasn't being solved. He identified some arbitrage and he made things happen. And you were able to turn it, Dan, into a win-win, which is what I love. I love talking about win-win. So let's focus on that. How specifically does BC Stack end up being a win-win opportunity for everybody involved?

6:00At first, I didn't have the idea of win-win in my head. And the first one wasn't super-duper successful because of that. So originally, you know, I knew Joel Kamm and Joel Kamm knew you. And I think Rachel reached out to you actually. So our very first one seven years ago, we started with the idea that we would have a product from Joel Kahn and one from John Lee Dumas in the stack. And we used that. We snowballed those two names. Hey, would you like to be part of this project? And we got other contributors, other people involved with the project because we started with this little snowball of awesome of John Lee Dumas and Joel Kahn.

6:47And then – and the idea was you guys would contribute like an e-book or something. And then when the buyers bought it, they would be introduced to your e-book and his e-book, and they would get this download of all these products. But it wasn't a win-win because the contributors – you don't win on exposure. Exposure is OK. Exposure is just exposure. But you can't build your business with the exposure. You can just hope it turns into something. So we changed it to where it was not only win-win, but it was win-win-win. Three groups would win all at the same time, and that changed everything about it.

7:26And the way we did that was we decided that if we're going to bring all these experts together and they were going to give us access to one of their best products, that there had to be a big piece of cheese for them to go after in order for them to do that. Why would they do that? That doesn't make any sense. So we changed it to don't give us an e-book. Just give me a link to a landing page. That's what I need. So I'm going to – you're going to let me use your e-book or your course or your master class and put it in BCStack. And I'm going to send the traffic directly to you, Mr. Contributor, so that they can sign up on your site.

8:10Now, they're going to bypass the paywall that everyone else has to go through because it's part of Stack. So if it's a$200 product, they're going to get it basically for free when they buy Stack, but it's not really free because they still have to shell out money. So that way, each contributor can grow an audience. But it's not just a regular audience. It's not just like a generic audience. It's a highly targeted audience. And let me explain that part. So let's just say we have a bunch of affiliates who send out an email that says, hey, BC Stack is coming up this next week. There's a bunch of products in it for digital marketers.

8:47I'd like you to go check it out. Let's just say that's the only thing that's in their email. Now, the people who read that email, if they're interested in digital marketing and have an interest in learning it themselves and taking a course, well, then they're going to click on it and go to whatever that link is. So that's like the first filter. Like those people have already decided I am interested in a course. I'm interested in digital marketing. I'm going to click. Anybody who's not interested just goes on to the next email. They pass it. So then they get to the sales page and they see all these products and they see that there is a price.

9:19So now they have to decide if digital marketing is right for them and if they're willing to put money behind it and if they like the products that are in it. So this is the second filter. And then the third filter is once they buy it and they go to like we call the download page or the landing page, then they get to go choose whichever products they want, kind of like a salad bar. You don't have to get everything. For instance, when I buy a salad bar, I know beets are part of the price, but I'm not going to put beets on my salad. It's not going to happen. So they get 65 products, but if you have no interest in Instagram, well, then you're not going to go grab the Instagram product, which means that all of the contributors, the audience that actually shows up at their front door and subscribes to get their product has already passed three filters and have raised their hand three times, including money, to say I want digital marketing.

10:10I want your product. I want what you have to offer. So for the contributors, it is a fantastic list-building opportunity that comes with three filters. So that's the first win. Now the second win. The second win is the buyers. So the buyers end up like, for instance, this year, there's 65 brand-new products. We're basically doing the world's largest product launch. We're launching 65 brand-new digital marketing products at once on June 13th. So anybody who buys that will get – just for$47 will get the world at their fingertips in terms of learning how to do what we do, which is taking somebody who's never met you before, somebody who's on a couch in South Dakota, doesn't have any idea who you are, and then at some point in time spends money with you.

11:00That is the concept. How do we get those people to our front door? How do we get them interested in what we have to teach them? And then how do we get them to trade their hard-earned money for what's in our brain? That's what BC Stack does, all the digital marketing knowledge that you would need to accomplish that. So the second win is the people who buy it. They get this at their fingertips. And if you've already decided this is the year, if I don't make money this year, then I'm getting out, then this is the product that you need because it's all the pieces of the puzzle. But then the third win, and this ended up being the gold, and that is the affiliates.

11:41We decided to use affiliates to market the product. And what that means is we basically decided to use commissioned salespeople. So anybody who chooses to help promote BC Stack to their audience makes 50 % of the price. So it's a$47 product, so they make$23.50. So like contributors, they can tell their audience about it, and they can also make money in addition to growing their list. And at this point, we have about 1 ,000 affiliates. So for the week of June 13th to the 19th, I think we will pay out over$100 ,000 in bonus or in affiliate commission. Plus we have$23 ,000 in cash bonuses to affiliates, which means this product actually feeds families.

12:36It helps pay bills. It helps people grow their business. I mean it's a huge cool thing. I mean, Jennifer America Marks, who's a huge YouTuber, the first year she did it, she walked away with like$23 ,000 of cash, and I think she built a studio, which has made her become even bigger on YouTube. But it's a win-win-win for three different groups of people. Everybody comes away about as happy as you can get. Fire Nation, I hope you're really understanding the power of the win-win-win. And I love that phrase you used, Dan, starting with a snowball of awesome. I mean, you did that back in the day. And by the way, a little fun fact for both you and Fire Nation, Dan, is Joel Kahn is actually now my neighbor here in Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico.

13:22We hang out on a, if not daily, at least a weekly basis. He's in my pool. So that's kind of a little fun fact, you know, kind of rewind the clock. And I did the exact same thing back in 2012. I started with a snowball of awesome. Like I was so intentional about providing enough value to people like Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin, Barbara Corcoran so that they would say yes to my show. And then once I got those yeses, that snowball of awesome started and it never stopped because who's going to have to qualify my show if I've already had guests like Tim and Gary and other people on. So that snowball of awesome is a great strategy for you to use Fire Nation in your industry.

14:00And let's talk, Dan, directly to those people in my audience who are trying to make a full-time income online. What is their biggest hurdle? I think the biggest hurdle is the learning curve, but more like the lack of recognition that the learning curve exists. Because you'll watch Russell Brunson's video, and you'll see how easy it is for something like ClickFunnels. They've made it incredibly easy to build these pages. But there's a lot of people who will get that, but they still won't find success because they forget that there's a learning curve. It's not just drag and drop, putting pieces on a page and following the idea of tell your story, and then you have a hook, and then you collect their name, and then instantly they start spending money with you.

14:58There should be recognition that each part has its own level of expertise, Like even writing your simple headline. Writing headlines is kind of a – I mean people get paid a lot of money to write really good headlines because it's a skill. And you can't underestimate that every single part of what we do requires some knowledge, some skill, and to some degree you almost have to fail. So for instance, when BCStack goes live on the 13th, because we're in the seventh year, I already know that once we get 2 ,000 visitors in the first couple of hours, we're going to tweak stuff. We're going to start changing things.

15:36We're going to tweak, and we're going to try to increase the conversion rate. Now, the first couple of years, we didn't do that because I didn't have that knowledge, and it took a couple of conversations and some people talking to me about just because you built it doesn't mean it's perfect. You might have to do a couple of things even during the week. So by the time BC Stack is over, I think most years we go through seven or eight different pages. And sometimes it's an entirely new page, and sometimes we just change the headline. But that part of it takes some learning. And then even Pinterest.

16:11If you're going to start Pinterest, there's an entire level of knowledge you have to have in order to understand how it works, how their algorithm works, how friending other people on it works, how to use boards. So I think the largest hurdle is being able to take one thing like Pinterest, go through it fully, figure it out, how to make it work, and then come up with some sort of a system that you can start and then put into your rotation so that you can move on to the next thing like email automation. And then pausing on Tuesday so you can go back and do what you told yourself you're going to do every Tuesday, which is load up 12 pins.

16:51It's, you know, for instance, John, you have like, I think eight calls to action at the different, you know, at different parts of your show or different, different shows. And, you know, that, you know, a call to action is easier to write, but then there's the follow-up, like there's the landing page and the sales page and then the follow-up email and those other things. So for me, it's the lack of recognition that there is a, there's quite a big learning curve to do what we do. It takes some effort. It's nothing easy. You can't just sit on your laurels because you bought AWeber and now you've got automated email.

17:27It takes effort. For me, that's the biggest hurdle is you just have to recognize I'm going to work hard for a long time and then I'm going to make it. There's nothing easy about it. There's no way to skip to the end. You really have to invest time and knowledge and acquire some skills. Fire Nation, we have so many more value bombs coming about how our man Dan took this idea and turned it into a full-time income. Some even more details on that. And how he's only working four months a year. And some other details on that when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Personalized support has quickly become an expectation from customers everywhere.

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20:01That's thought-leader.com. So Dan, we're back and you've already given us a lot of details, a lot of philosophy about how you approach business and life and how you turn BCStack into a success and the evolution of it. But how specifically did you turn this into a full-time income for your family? I think one day we realized that you sort of can't settle for like 10 % growth or 20 % growth. And I kept thinking to myself, there has got to be another way. And I think that if you think that, like you think about that with your business all the time, like there's got to be another level of consumer who would be interested in my product.

20:47And who could that be? Like if you just keep turning that over in your mind and every person you meet just think, all right, what in their world could probably use what it is that we do? And for us, that constant – I mean it's nagging. It's nagging today. That constant feeling of what could we do? Who could we reach that we're not thinking about? And for me, I came to the point where I just thought I bet you there's a lot of colleges that are teaching digital marketing. And stack could be useful to them. But how? How could they use that? How could they use that as part of their curriculum? So that was one of the directions that we decided to go was, all right, what if I stop thinking about digital marketers who have audience and affiliates?

21:38And what if I go after a different type of fish? So I started writing letters to universities, to digital marketing departments to explain what it is that we did. and we started getting some people emailing back how much would it cost per student and then you know there would be a negotiation on that part and then all of a sudden I would get an email that said I think we'd like to do this can we buy this for 500 students you know or 1300 students and I thought all right now we're finally hitting on something that we weren't before and then the next thing I started thinking is okay if if students are doing it are their companies that are sending their people to conferences like to learn digital marketing for their companies so then when i started researching all right what are the conferences what are these business level conferences that like you know lawyers go to they go to business conferences that for a day and they get they get credits so we started thinking about that who are the conferences and started conference you know started calling those folks like how is it how could we integrate what we do into what you do and that started a different conversation so that's two different customers that we didn't have before and the schools started taking off and then in the sixth year I decided to do something a little bit risky or fifth year two years ago and that was i decided what if we added affiliate bonuses like uh like some sort of cash bonus for like the top affiliate because i kept seeing these leaderboards yeah um and that was the year i decided all right what if we give away ten thousand dollars to the first to the first prize and it was scary let me tell you how scary that is because if you give away ten thousand you got to have a second prize and a third prize So we ended up with$20 ,000 of bonus, and I didn't know, is this going to attract bigger fish?

23:41Like are there people going to come out of the woodwork because they see that this has a big prize that are going to be willing to do it? And it worked. It did take effort. I had to actually reach out. I had to go to people I knew who were on the Warrior Forum and just start saying, hey, do you know any big affiliates who'd be interested? And I couldn't just throw the$20 ,000 out there. I still had to peddle it. So those three or four things started really changing the way that BC Stacked work where it would become a product that could actually make enough money for the family that we'd only have to do this one product a year.

24:20I don't know. You probably know this, but when Rachel and I got married, we ended up Brady Bunching, and now we got 11 kids. And we homeschool because of COVID So the idea that we could make Enough money from one project a year And we actually decided to do two projects a year As you mentioned in the intro, we do one called Podcaster's Kit in October But the idea that we could just work two projects a year And then spend the rest of the time with the kids And homeschooling and those kinds of things That was very attractive to us But it wasn't possible until we took a little risk and we really stretched and tried to find a level of customer that we hadn't really thought about before.

25:04So Fire Nation, I hope you are seeing and understanding and really taking note on the evolution. Like nothing is that overnight. It is that overnight success over the last 10 years. I mean, that's how you evolve as a business owner by trying, by testing, by seeing what's working for other people. Like I do love how Dan saw what happens when you add a leaderboard in there. Yes, it was a risk, but then man, he had to keep in mind how competitive your type A personality entrepreneurs are. And when there's a leaderboard involved, we either want to be at the top of that leaderboard or not even on it at all.

25:37And so we will fight for those positions. And I know some people that have spent 30, 40,$50 ,000 in ads for a$10 ,000 price point, because for them, it's not specifically about the prize money. it's about just the overall viewing of you being at the top, the overall recognition of you being number one top affiliates. And hey, we've been involved in that ourselves. I mean, I've been a top 10 and actually a top five Tony Robbins promotional partner for two years in a row. I got to go to Fiji for four days at Tony's private resort to spend incredible time with him last year. And then this year, I just got back actually four weeks ago from a four-day weekend in Palm Beach with Tony and the other top 10 promotional partners.

26:21And guess what? That leaderboard was huge. We were all fighting for those top 10 spots. And it is absolutely a reason why Tony's launch went so well because his affiliates were pushing so hard to be in a room with him. And I can tell you being in the room with Tony was worth everything. So I mean, people really look at it in that manner. So Dan, let's get down to the specifics. I mean, 11 kids. I mean, if you're truly only working four months, what are you doing slash working on the other eight? With that, again, asterisk being, you also have 11 kids, so we get that. Yeah, well, they take up some time.

27:00In fact, our daughter, two days ago, she was one of 200 people, 220 people that were recruited into the Space Force this year. Wow. So she's at boot camp today, getting her butt kicked. Being a military guy, I love that stuff. So congrats to her. Yeah, dude, the Space Force. How cool is that? So cool. Yeah, we were pretty excited. You know, my dad's – my dad and my brother, my grandfather. My grandfather was a general patent security guard in World War II. Oh, wow. You guys go back. Yeah, so that was pretty cool. So anyway, Rachel, she writes FindingJoy.net, which is a big motherhood blog, and she got published by Penguin Random House a couple years ago.

27:39Cool. So just today we submitted the second book proposal because we're really trying to take her words and reach an even broader audience. And then kind of like – kind of following you, I started a podcast called Tracing the Path, which is more in the lines of Paul Harvey. Boom. And what I've always wanted to do was I've wanted to live – my dad was military. So – and you know this. He worked 8 to 5 for most of the time. He was home at 5.30, and we played basketball all the time. And for the first six years of working online, working at home, being an entrepreneur, I have found it incredibly difficult to replicate what my dad did, which was not work from 5 .30 p.m.

28:34till bedtime. I think as an entrepreneur, you're almost – you're just switched on at all times. Everything is work. An email, you've got to respond to it at dinner. I mean it's like you're working all the time. So the idea that Stack and Podcaster's Kit in the last couple of years have become a full-time income have now allowed me a little bit of freedom to actually be a better dad, to actually spend more time with the kids. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to replicate what my dad did playing basketball every day from 5.30 to 9 it felt like. but it certainly is better and I think if you work hard if you really do put a lot of effort into it and to some degree it's almost a sucky sacrifice but if you put if you put that time and energy into it you can come out on the other side with systems that allow you to spend time with your family and with your kids while your business is still operating but you got to be really smart about what you're doing and in something like vc stack will give you the tools so that you don't have to wait until you think of it you know six months from now oh yeah i should learn this or oh yeah i should learn that like you could actually have all the tools that you need at your disposal and you could spend the rest of 2021 putting together a pretty incredible business because i guarantee you there's stuff in your head that people want to know And if you could get it out in a manner that gives you some extra time to spend with your family and your friends, I think it's a life changer.