How to Win Big in a Recession

25:19That's great. Right? Sure. Exactly. Totally. We spend far too much energy debating whether or not something should happen when it has already happened. It just is not a good spend of energy. Instead, we need to spend that energy deciding what to do next because it happened. And then at least as a representation of Lewis's story and Pat, your own. And I mean, I've been through some partner stuff. Pat is aware of. We talked about Jason on your show a little bit. But to go back to Lewis, like when he was really successful and people knew him in the face where he was running these, you know, six figure mastermind events.

25:56Right. But he reached that point and realized, like, that's not going to help me achieve this bigger mission that I have. So he made that choice to leave that behind and get into a process or at least a moment of like giving up some revenue. Right. So so but but choosing to align himself better with that source of purpose and focus and then transform and reinvent himself and be willing to go through the process of getting there. to me is just not only inspirational, but in terms of, again, the skills that I think entrepreneurs can learn and practice and imbue into their own efforts. That's such an important one and one that, frankly, Pat and I are doing at SPI where going forward, and we've talked about this a lot, obviously, but we're a community company now.

26:41We've completely reinvented the business model, and that's not easy. Going from a place where we've been tremendously successful in past years with like one-time purchase DIY courses. And those are still really valuable. But, you know, we have much stronger conviction these days on, you know, how we think about nurturing and controlling sort of the impact that we might be able to make on students that want to learn the skills that we're teaching. And, you know, though I would say that we don't have total control, but we can have more control and are just aligned better with our purpose in terms of, okay, we can create and we can control community environments and we can invite people to participate and to join those communities.

27:21So, you know, and it's, again, not easy in terms of like underlying business economics and, you know, helping a team transform from A to B is, you know, changes is hard. But for us, it's worth it. And again, kind of speaks to, I think, some of these important skills that entrepreneurs can invest in and have confidence in, you know, for the long haul. Yeah. The I mean, just quick additional context there is that for those who don't know Lewis's story well enough, he had built a business that was doing very, very well, but he was thinking of the podcast as largely a feeder for his masterminds and his courses.

27:53And then he was organizing these masterminds, which means that he was ultimately broadcasting to millions of people for the purpose of identifying 20 or 50 of them that were going to pay him a lot of money for a very impressive weekend or week. And he said that was just taking up so much of his time and energy that it became unsustainable. He came up with this mission for himself. This was the, I guess you go back to what's the definition of success, which is he has this kind of crazy line about how he wants to impact, I can't remember what it is, X million people's, I think it's a hundred million, a hundred million people's lives weekly or something.

28:30But, but that helped. And you know, that sounds crazy, but what it helped him do was start to filter the decisions that he makes. Is he going to get there by spending this much energy on masterminds where he's really serving a very small number of people and everything else that he's building is just feeding towards that? Or does he step back, make a hard decision, very similar to the ones that you're describing right now for SPI, and say, I'm going to refocus on what is ultimately going to grow this business, even if in the short term, it means that there's going to be some pain and some disorientation as I figure out how to build the next phase of this thing.

29:10Because you know what? It's pretty easy in a way to just keep going with whatever seems to work. It's a lot harder to say, you know what? I'm going to change before I must, before I'm forced to, before the thing that I'm doing right now actually reaches a breaking point. So let me do it on my terms. Even if it means feeling like I'm taking one step back, I will ultimately be able to open a door and take infinite steps forward. That's what he did. That's what you're doing. That's what everybody needs to do. You got to change before you must. You have to do it on your own terms. Well said. That's fantastic.

29:39More than just talking and reporting on these things, which is always a joy and it's a lot of fun. How are you guys practicing these intentions and these skills in your own work? How do I maybe start with you here? So in terms of, again, trying to work in public and lead by example, I know that's important to all of us here. What's one really important project, and it doesn't have to be one of our SPI projects per se, that is just really in focus for you that hopefully is also sort of a symbol for some of the stuff we've been hitting on today. Yeah, I mean, the first one that comes to mind is the all access pass with SPI.

30:10I mean, we are trying to reinvent how online education is for entrepreneurs because, you know, a lot of it is trying to go to where the puck is going, not just going to where the puck is. But in addition to that, we have numbers, right? We started seeing declining completion rates from our courses. And even though courses were still selling, we have to ask ourselves, well, what is actually most important here? And ultimately long-term, what is going to help this business? It's the success of our students. And so if the success of the students are going down because of just macro environment or just online courses aren't how they used to be, and truthfully, everybody has all the information they need accessible to them if they really wanted to find it now.

30:47So it's not even just about the information anymore. It's how is that information delivered? How are people being held accountable? How are people going through this together? So we developed All Access Pass, credit to Ashley and our team, who we hired to help build this curriculum out. And Jillian and community director, everybody, has been so fantastic because it has been and like trying to push a boulder uphill a little bit in a place to where it's never gone before. But we knew that the view would be nice up there. And now, product market fit, it's like pushing the boulder downhill. It's like exactly where it needs to be now, right?

31:18So we had to push it uphill a little bit, which was hard. But now we're at a point now where we're seeing such success with it that it's starting to take a life of its own. In fact, we just did a launch recently that performed very, very well. And for many people, they DM'd me and said, this is like the most no-brainer thing you've ever offered, Pat. And, you know, it wasn't like that in the beginning. And we've made some mistakes along the way. But here we are. And that's really, really exciting. And then maybe the other thing on the side that I am very much open about that a lot of people on SPI, especially those who come to my office hours, talk about because I always give people updates is my sort of side project.

31:51I like to spend 80 % of my time doing things that I've already committed to, said yes to, team-related things, SPI. 20 % of my time is like experimentation. From 2017 to 2019, that experiment was a physical product called the SwitchPod with my videographer, Caleb, and that did very well. And that's still running, and it's mostly automated at this point, being fulfilled by 3PL, et cetera. But starting in 2020, 2021, I started a YouTube channel about this little thing called Pokemon, which many people know is a game, cartoon, trading card game. Well, this channel has kind of gone bonkers. It's now approaching 600 ,000 subscribers, 130 million views.

32:26It's generating revenue now, and it's a small agile team. and more than that, I'm going to Japan this summer to go to the world championships and stuff, which is really neat, but it is super fun. But what's really interesting is I tie it back into SPI and especially Superfans, the book I wrote, it's all about building community. And how do I create a specific language there and how do we lean into who these people are? How do we build for them? And one thing I am building is an event. In June this year, I'm hosting an event for the Pokemon community and the creators there to meet the fans and the fans to meet each other and the creators to meet each other.

33:01And the cool thing about this is without spending a dime on advertising, we have just sold our 750th ticket. And the beauty is when we look at the numbers, it's like, where are these tickets coming from? They're not even coming from the big A-listers that are on there, right? Those people are great to have. That's this equivalent of having like Gary Vee or Tim Ferriss come to your conference, right? But because it's so much lifting up other members of the community, we have the B, C, even, I don't know, I don't wanna say D or F, but like the lower level creators on YouTube are on the website saying they're coming.

33:33And they're the ones that are talking about this event more than anybody else because we've made them look like a hero because it is about them. But now they have proof. They're showing the website, guys, go to card party. I can't believe it. We're gonna be there. And then their community's like, you made it. Oh my gosh, this is so cool. I'll see you there. How do I get tickets? Where do I go? And it's just taking a life of its own. And so this idea of community and just providing the space for people to come together and to highlight those and spotlight those members of your community just lifts the entire community up.

34:04And people notice that. I'm now being told that I'm one of the most valuable people in this space right now because I'm doing things nobody's ever done before. People say it's an overnight success, but then I have to remind them, I started this journey in 2008. I just happened to create this channel in year 12, right? But it's just a fascinating example. And I think it really inspires a lot of people because I didn't know anything about Pokemon two years ago. And here we are. So hopefully that encourages a lot of you. No, that's great. Where can folks go if this is the right ask of like to learn more about Card Party?

34:31Card.party is the website. Card.party. That's pretty sick. And of course, for All Access Pass, folks haven't yet checked that out. Where do people go, Pat? Smartpassiveincome.com slash All Access. I got to say, it's probably the best thing we've ever created here at SPI over the years. And it's like the results and the feedback is just incredible. And, you know, the completion rates are just off the charts. And it's exactly what we needed to do. And yes, per what Jason was talking about earlier, it's like we are taking a little bit of a hit up front for that. Like it's, you know, we'll make more money selling a$499 course for a one-time payment than, you know, the equivalent of$59 a month.

35:07But over time, especially for delivering value, everybody wins so much more. And that's why we're here for the long term. So Jason, what's the big thing you're working on right now that, you know, deserves a lot of attention? Yeah, well, so Pat, I loved those stories. and just quick things that they made me think about was number one, when you were talking about what you guys have done at SPI and the way in which that shift was driven by a recognition that if those, what were the completion rates or what you said was going down on the courses and that the most important thing was the success of the people who were taking them and of the people in your community.

35:45It makes me think about something that I picked up from friends of mine, Adam and Jordan Bordenstein, who have a consultancy called PenName. And a thing that they like to talk about with their clients is whether or not something is a door or an engine. So imagine that you're going down the highway in a car. If the door falls off, that's bad, but you can still drive. But if the engine falls off, you're not going anywhere. And so it's always worth evaluating when you see something shift, do you have a door or do you have an engine? What kind of problem is it? Because if it's a door, then you can just kind of fix the machinery of it.

36:25Maybe the product needs a tweak. But if it's an engine, right, if you're seeing that if success of the students is the most important thing and you're seeing completion rates go down, then you have an engine problem because that's actually the core of the value of the business. And therefore, it's time to think about how else to serve people in a way that's going to be most meaningful. And so I think what you're describing there is a real perfect example of how to go from a look at whether or not something is a door or an engine, recognize that it's an engine, and then make an important fundamental shift that ultimately is going to drive incredible value, even if in the short term it requires some kind of reorientation.

37:01I like that analogy, too, because the engine is under the hood. You don't necessarily see it if you're just looking at the car from the outside, right? The door might look shiny. It's perfect. the door works i can sit in the car but you can't go anywhere unless the engine works so in your business those of you listening or watching what is the engine that drives to continue the pun the business the door doesn't drive the business right the engine does so i i i appreciate that analogy yeah and then and then the pokemon thing just just reminded me about how you know we often and think, oh, that space is so full.

37:37There's so many people doing something there already. There's no way I could contribute something new of value. And what you're proving is that that's not true at all. Actually, sometimes if something is really crowded, it means that everyone is doing exactly the same thing, which is the perfect opportunity for someone like you to come in and do something brand new. So just another way for people to think about that. For me, I'll tell you something that I've been working on personally outside of entrepreneur. I have a newsletter and I have grappled for years with trying to figure out how to make this newsletter a meaningful part of my ecosystem.

38:13And I'll tell you the quick journey. I started a newsletter not really knowing exactly what I wanted it to be. This was years and years ago. I called it the Pfeiffer Five because I just couldn't come up with a better name. And I was like, the concept is that I'm Pfeiffer and I'll write five things. That was terrible. I mean, I got a couple thousand subscribers out of it, but it doesn't mean anything, right? Like, why would you subscribe to this? It broadcasts absolutely nothing about what its value is. I then changed it to align with the book that I was going to come out with, which was called Build for Tomorrow.

38:44And the book is about how to recognize opportunity in change, which is fine as a subject for a book. I found it to be a hard one to do weekly as a newsletter because it's just kind of abstract. And it was hard to communicate what the value was week in, week out in this newsletter. And so I got it to about 20 ,000 subscribers. But it really, I just couldn't get it past that. I'd hit an absolute ceiling. And then about a month and a half ago, I was having a conversation with Lenny, whose last time I always forget how to pronounce, of Lenny's newsletter. Do you know how to pronounce his last name?

39:21I don't, but I'm familiar with the newsletter. So Lenny, he writes this newsletter for product people, and it's got north of 325 ,000 subscribers, and he does very well with it. And we were talking about how to build a successful newsletter, and he said, and you guys know this well because you're masters at it, that you really need to define your audience and the value and make it, it doesn't have to be a kind of ultra niche product, but it has to have a very, very specific audience so that there are people out there who say, ah, this is for me. And it doesn't take a lot of work to get them there because they just see it and understand it.

39:55As he was saying this, I was thinking, this is the mistake I've made all long. I have never really been able to communicate that. And in fact, because I haven't been able to communicate that to others, I haven't even figured out how to communicate it to myself. And so I said to myself, I am going to rebrand this newsletter one more time. And it's going to have a specific purpose and it's going to be very clear what it is. And what I came up with was a newsletter called One Thing Better. And it would be each week, one way, this is the line I came up with, one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

40:33And now, yes, that's still very broad in that it's not just for product people or for some very kind of specific audience. But I'm thinking, you know, I already reach a fairly broad audience. So what if I just just narrowed in on the value prop instead. And then also built in some expectations that I think people have of newsletters, which is that, oh, I get too many of them. They go on too long. So I wanted one thing better to be like, look, I'm not going to hit you with a million things. It's going to be very, very manageable. It's one thing. And then also that gave me a way to think about the content.

41:03It made it easier to produce this newsletter because now I knew what I was looking for every week instead of some random essay that I would have to write. You guys, I mean, Matt, I texted it to you. You guys have been in it already because the conversation that we had for problem solvers, which then I put in Entrepreneur Magazine, I then had further thoughts on and put into One Thing Better, which was about how agree to disagree is the wrong way to think. And the one thing better would be disagree and commit, which is something that you guys taught me and is, I know, foundational to your relationship.

41:32And we can expand upon that. But anyway, it's been very interesting. It's only been a few weeks since I made that shift, but already I get more responses to this newsletter. Already the subscriber rate has gone up and I'm really excited to see where I can take this now. Congratulations, Jay. That's awesome. Yeah. Big props. Where can folks go to check out this new version of the newsletter? Oh yeah, thanks. You just go to jasonfeiffer.com slash newsletter is a fine place to go. That's a F-E-I-F-E-R, jasonfeiffer.com. Nice. We'll pop that in the show notes and stuff. We could spend another hour talking about newsletters.

42:08So sorry, Pat. Yeah, no, I was just going to plus one on getting specific with that. I want people to take away how important that lesson is. I mean, we had a very, very long debate, if you will, inside of SPI about our new newsletter, Unstuck. And it wasn't always called Unstuck. But once that term came in and that resonated with the people in our audience who are stuck, well, get unstuck. And that's where that came from. So there's very clear value just built into the even like why should I even subscribe to this? Right. I mean, there are a few people out there who just because of who they are in the name, people will subscribe and, you know, no matter what.

42:47But you got to really understand, like, well, what's in it? What's in it for them? And so that is a really good case study. Jason, thank you for sharing that. And we'll put the link in the show notes and everything for people to go and check that out. Yeah, thanks. Well, I appreciate you both sharing. I'll share quickly myself. and a lot of my stuff is maybe the engine under the hood to Pat's add-on reference there where it's kind of invisible sometimes, but I love being kind of the stealthy guy. So my big thing are new partnerships, especially for us at SPI. And because this is the first episode, it's kind of fun to even highlight sincerely like that we have signed on to the Entrepreneur Network.

43:20I'm so excited about that. There's more things we can be doing together. And sort of in this moment and time, maybe some attempt here to tie together a lot of themes from at least the conversation today around resiliency and around reinvention and around, I would even add, we didn't maybe go there earlier, but as entrepreneurs trying really hard to not have ego and you can't get it to zero probably, but like get in the way, you know, like, and be willing to be like, okay, the thing that was the golden era and the glory days of a model seven years ago or three years ago, like we need to say goodbye to that because it's not working as well or because again, it's not consistent with how we want to operate and serve, right?

43:59So a big part of what we're trying to do, and I'm thrilled to be leading on for us is, you know, how can we really rethink and sharpen, you know, our vision going forward with partnerships? And it's just a genuine thrill, Jason, with you and Terry Rice, who's a fantastic contributor and meeting John Deep on the podcast network and a lot of other names. I don't mean to have this be like an Oscar celebration speech, but - The music will start playing in a second. It's great. It's thrilling that, you know, this is happening and is emblematic of how I think, you know, a lot of, so hopefully listening can think about, you know, the importance of relationships, you know, kind of, you know, being the connective tissue to a lot of the work that we do.

44:36And to the extent that, you know, in your own entrepreneurial efforts, you can find genuine partnerships, you know, that can be exciting, that can challenge you, that can, you know, really push you forward in a way that you need to be pushed, right? It's certainly true in a microscopic, like intimate way between Pat and I that Jason, we talked about on your show. So yeah, that's my work right now is with a lot of focus there. I love that. And that reminds me of a fun research term that I think about a lot, which is the false consensus effect. The false consensus effect is the mistaken belief that other people think like you.

45:08Because of the false consensus effect, we don't often turn to others to ask, what would they do in this situation? Or how did they solve this problem? Or what ideas did they have? Because we just figure they think like us. Whatever ideas they have, I already had. And that's not true, of course. And one of the amazing thing about partnerships is that once you start working with somebody else who you're really aligned with, they're a flood of new ideas. We've already seen that in the very short amount of time that we've been working with you guys now on the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. And that, I mean, Matt, the very first time we talked about this, you had like 20 ideas for things to do, one of which is what we're doing right now, which are these roundtables.

45:46And that was awesome because those were things that had not come up in conversation inside of Entrepreneur. and that's exactly why you work with smart people. Thank you. And again, just the beginning, at least for us. So stay tuned, so to speak. We'll wrap up here, guys, and we want to be snappy for everyone listening. But again, we'll wrap up with something I'm calling because even Jason wasn't intending to steal this necessarily from me, but like one, one, one. So like real sharp focus. So what I'm curious to wrap up with for folks is to give them something tangible that can maybe start using or consume and really help them again with their entrepreneurial pursuit.

46:17Pat, I'll start with you. So here's what we're looking for. We're looking for one good read, one tool, and one result that's really in focus for you. So let's start with one good read right now. Yeah, I was just having lunch with somebody the other day and it reminded me about this book, a classic book. We've all read it, or hopefully, and if not, you should. How to Win Friends and Influence People, I think now more important than ever with the rise of AI and jobs and all the things happening in the world. The people part of it is going to be of utmost importance. So How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

46:46A tool that I've been using recently that I've really loved is an AI-based tool. I've been diving into the world of AI. And this tool was recommended to me by a man named Matt Wolf, and it's called MyMind. And so it's similar to an Evernote and other things where you can sort of like find an article, find an image, and save it. But typically in those tools, when you save something, you need to do a good job of organizing it or else it's just going to be a complete mess, right? You need to categorize them, tag them, put them in folders, et cetera. With my mind, whether it's on an app or my desktop, I can save the thing and then I can move on.

47:20And whenever I want to go back, I just go to mymind.com and essentially I have like a search bar for my brain. And the AI will categorize it all for me. It understands what's on that picture. It understands all the things that I've put into this bucket and has already done all the organization for me without me having to do any manual tagging or anything. And it's been pretty fascinating. It's, you know, I'm buying a new truck soon so I can start doing kayak bass fishing. So I've been saving a lot of those things. And it's been really helpful for me to go back and just be like, what were those options I had again for all those things?

47:52Oh, they're all there. It's it's pretty fascinating, fascinating. So that's one read, one tool. And what was the last thing that result and kind of even harkens back to how we think about success, which is a fluid thing. It evolved. So like what's like one metric or result that's really important to you right now? Yeah, I mean, it's just energy. We talked about it earlier, but I'm feeling a good energy. And that means the boundaries that I place around my work have been working. And I just want to remind people how important that is, because productivity is not just adding more things into the time that you get back.

48:23It's almost allowing that time to just be so that you can recharge. And I know that's not a very specific metric, but that is something that I do track and pay attention to every day. All right, Jason, how about for you? We'll start with one good read. Yeah, well, so I already shouted out this book. So I'll just amplify it here at the end, which was the perfectionist's guide to losing control by Catherine Morgan Schaffler. I don't identify really as a perfectionist. And also just full disclosure, she wrote the book primarily for women, but I had such a great conversation with her that I checked the book out anyway.

48:56it. And I just found it an incredibly useful way to think about navigating things that you think about yourself that are limiting and how to reframe them in a way that are not limiting. You know, the book is very much written for people who have come to feel that their perfectionist instincts are holding them back or are complicating their lives. And Catherine's argument is basically you cannot change fundamental things about yourself but you can definitely change how you think about those things and use those things and i found it a very enlightening book and so i would i'd strongly recommend it the perfectionist guide to losing control a tool so first of all pat i'm totally checking out what you just described that sounded awesome um uh i'll just go back to i haven't been playing with anything that's been blowing my mind new lately in the way that you're just describing.

49:50So I'll go back to just the thing that always blows my mind, which is the absolute fabulousness of Descript, which is this, if you work in video or audio in any way, or really in anything in which you're writing and there's some kind of video or audio being produced, I make podcasts, but it's not just for that. Descript does just amazing things. I will tell you the thing that just changed my life, which is that I can talk to somebody. Like at one point for my podcast, I talked to you guys, And then I take the audio file and I drop it into Descript. Two minutes later, it has an AI transcription of the conversation and it's pretty good.

50:28And then what's so amazing is that you can edit audio by text. So if Pat said something amazing, but also stumbled a few times or went on a little tangent that wasn't all that useful, I can just highlight that half a sentence and hit delete and it disappears from the audio. It is just the most amazing thing. I used to have to edit audio by just like literally clipping inside of squiggly lines. And that took forever. And this is so much better. So I love to script. And then the metric is for me, this is the least scalable metric. And you wouldn't want to make this your whole life, but is DMs. like it when I post something or I put something out in the world what matters to me a lot is seeing how many people were compelled to reach out personally and I have made it a point to respond to literally everybody I understand that there might be a point in which that is not possible when I reach a certain scale but right now it is still possible and so I respond to everybody and I do that because I know that a lot of them reach out to me and don't expect a reply and so when I do reply, it is a delight to them.

51:42And I have basically locked in a fan for a long, long time. It is a small, small gesture. It is the easiest thing that I can do. I can respond to 10 DMs while I'm waiting for my pasta at a microwave. And I will make people happy and I will grow my audience and they will stay with me. So I love to see that I am doing things that create personal responses. and I track in a way how much something takes with my audience, some idea that works with my audience, based not on the number of people who would click like on a social media post, but how many people were compelled to reach out to me directly.

52:17That's fantastic. I love that personal touch. For me, super fast. Speaking of newsletters, and not to be confused with Lenny's newsletter, but Harry's newsletter, just gold when it comes to specifically copywriting, but a little more broadly, some marketing stuff. So when we think about communication, Jason, you're emphasizing a lot of that there just a moment ago. It's just so important. It never fails that even for those of us that have been kind of doing this for a while, and especially when we're going through maybe moments of reinvention, like we are with community stuff, like revisiting our skills with precision of language and communication.

52:54And Harry's newsletter, it's actually at marketingexamples.com, is brilliant. It's short. It's all the things, Jason, that you're describing in terms of like effective newsletter kind of technique. You know, they're like two or three minutes long. He actually even puts the amount of time like it'll take to read at the top of the newsletter. It's really cool and super useful. For the tool, I will go analog and Pat will chuckle. But it's this guy, my classic three by five note card, which I've been using for, gosh, like my entire career. It's such an effective way to quickly get ideas out. If something doesn't work well, you just literally throw the card away.

53:27You're not like ruining notebooks. and it's a way to constrain your thinking also because you have a very finite amount of real estate to kind of jot down an idea so always love myself a good note card and then the result i'll just talk about the business one that's really in focus for us right now which is lifetime value of our members so yes other things around like revenue and mrr are really important but you know what we really think about in terms of measuring like the success of the communities is is retention you know, keeping people there. So having the ability to measure that from a lifetime value standpoint is really, really important.

54:00So guys, we did it. First episode of the round table is in the bag. That was fun. Thanks for doing this today, guys. We will have this out in the next quarter. We'll keep this rhythm going quarter over quarter. So thanks to everyone listening for the first run of show of this and stay tuned for more good stuff to come. Thanks, this is so fun. Thank you. So there it is, the very first, but certainly not the last roundtable with entrepreneur podcast network hosts. There will be more to come. There will be more voices to come. But to start, I just was so thrilled to kick that off with Matt and Pat from Smart Passive Income.

54:35Do not forget to look for Smart Passive Income wherever you get podcasts. And stay tuned for more from Problem Solvers next week.