What Did I Just Say? on an episode of Matt Report Season 4
I don’t like doing podcasts, I get nervous, and just clam up, public speaking is just a fear that I’ve been trying to break…and up until recently I had done one podcast 1, which was an old cast of Apply Filters. It was a surprising invite to be interviewed on the Matt Report, and because of my fear of humiliation I almost said “no”; however when a WP Legend asks to be on their podcast I had to say “hell yeah”.
I survived and the episode was recently published, so go check it out (and the many other great interviews).
Our conversation was wonderful, it really was. Even though I was still a little sick, which is why my voice is so rugged, and I found myself lost without an answer (remember I wasn’t feeling good), I think our conversation could end up being beneficial to a few of his listeners.
Here are some notes:
- Matt’s intro is awesome and I’m not offended at all. A “blue collar” WP product guy is right on: I worked hard to get to the point were I have a business that provides for my family, and I don’t have those world domination goals that the opportunists bring with them when building a product business using WP as act one.
- I did make $6k in that first calendar year of Sprout Apps. It was rough, and in the beginning of 2015 I was very close of giving up until I read this post from James Laws at Ninja Forms. There was another blog post and some conversations about the early day struggles of WP product businesses…anyway, I was able to learn from others that if I wanted to make Sprout Apps succeed I needed persistence.
- Matt talks about intimidation factor by hearing about the successful folks in WordPress a lot…then I reiterate what he says as if I wasn’t listening. Which is sorta ironic because I talk about mixed messages…haha, hey I was sick!
- I threw out arbitrary numbers of for my goals, I don’t have a goal for “$15k a month” because I don’t have a plan at the moment to get there…
- …at the moment I’m fine tuning my business process in order to continue to grow at 15-20% without having to put in 15-20% more work. In fact I want to decrease my workload and continue a stable business. If I end up having to work really hard later because I took my “foot off the gas” than so-be-it.
- I wrote about the “review gate” stuff here. I don’t want to rehash that debate, I only brought it up to show how something like this affected me personally rather than it affecting only my business.
- I wrote about the Freshbooks squatting on “Sprout Invoices” here. It’s a better read than a listen, since I was obviously was unprepared to talk about it clearly. 😕
- Here’s a email marketing blog post, which has more detail than what I talked about.
- I briefly forget what content marketing was until…yeah, thanks for listening this far into the show. Oh and I said, “I know…I think” while talking about something.
- My multi-pronged marketing approach: WP.org (free download marketing), e-mail marketing, (very little) affiliate marketing.
- I was asked about content marketing and I meandered into how I do email marketing, so I never really answered the original question. The point is that I don’t do content email marketing to I grow a subscriber list. I only do email marketing to convert.
- My method to convert (via email marketing) is starting to create a conversation, with a basic promotion or asking them how I can help.
Thanks Matt for the opportunity!
Notes:
- I can’t count that one podcast I did with a friend that had two subscribers: me and him ↩
Hi Matt
I listened to this episode and you sounded great. Humble and professional – easy to listen to, enjoyable and most of all, informative.
You’re family should be proud of you.
Thank you!
Hi Dan
I listened to your interview on the Matt report and you didn’t come across nervous or anything like that. You sounded great, spoke well, were humble and professional and most of all, informative!
Your family should be proud.
Awesome. Thank you!
Dan, that was a great interview – I listened to the whole thing on a long walk. It never occurred to me that you were sick. Lots of heartfelt and useful information from someone who is *doing* it. Thanks. As a marketer moving toward digital product creation, I am particularly impressed by your approach to email “marketing” – I would call it “outreach and business development” which is what it should be. You are right on the money. Nick