What an important summer season!
Let’s attempt to atone for what’s been going at Aspect Hustle Nation.
In these quarterly Progress Reports, I break down how the enterprise grew (or shrunk), what I labored on, and different happenings from the final three months.
I’m tremendous grateful to have had plenty of break day recently, particularly in August and September. These little breaks typically function a inventive reset and provides me some new perspective on the enterprise — and the gratitude to have the ability to run it.
Why Progress?
So why a “progress” report? As a result of that’s what it’s all about.
To me, progress means ahead movement, or actively taking the steps to enhance every day. It’s one factor we will management.
Progress is common; everybody could make progress towards their targets in some significant means, nevertheless small the steps could appear.
In reality, I’ve even obtained a bodily productiveness journal referred to as The Progress Journal.
It facilities on 5 key habits I’ve discovered make me really feel simpler and happier once I do them persistently. You’ll be able to be taught extra in regards to the journal and what’s inside right here:
5 Ways to Be More Effective Every Day – In Just 5 Minutes
What I’ve Been Working On
These are the initiatives that occupied most of my time this quarter.
From Twice a Week Aspect Hustle Present Episodes Again to As soon as
One in every of my massive experiments final quarter was seeing what would occur if I launched twice as many podcast episodes.
This was a results of the under-rated entrepreneurial ability of “wanting round.” I observed that lots of the high entrepreneurship podcasts have been publishing 2-5x per week — in comparison with simply as soon as for me.
In whole, I ran the 2x every week format from April to mid-August, 4.5 months.
My speculation was the general viewers dimension (measured by Podtrac) would enhance, however that the downloads for every particular person episode could lower.
In my thoughts it is smart: give folks twice as many menu choices, they’re extra prone to discover one thing that appeals to them. However the quantity of people that order every particular merchandise will seemingly go down.
That’s just about what occurred, however sadly I sometimes promote adverts based mostly on the variety of downloads per episode — and didn’t promote many adverts for the Monday episodes in any respect.
And since it took a good quantity extra work, mixed with me eager to take a while off with the household over the summer season, I retreated again to my as soon as every week format.
I’ll most likely nonetheless throw some shorter bonus episodes within the feed once in a while, however the present had a very sturdy September solely releasing one episode every week.
In whole, I launched 19 new podcast episodes! Among the many favorites have been:
Prime Day Promo
In July, I put all my books on sale to coincide with Amazon’s Prime Day promotion.
Initially I used to be simply going to ship an electronic mail linking on to the books, however I additionally needed to incorporate my affiliate hyperlink to make the most of different Amazon purchasing that might be taking place over these couple days.
Sadly, Amazon affiliate hyperlinks aren’t allowed in emails. (Although a lot of folks do it… I didn’t wish to draw additional scrutiny.)
So I created this post as an alternative, that listed my books and another favourite Amazon purchases. Then I despatched out emails selling that weblog publish. It was an additional step, which I’m positive damage conversion charges, nevertheless it was taking part in by the foundations.
How did the promotion do?
Listed here are the totals:
- $300 in Amazon Associates commissions that week
- $264 in e-book royalties that week
- Roughly $25 in incremental royalty “carry” the remainder of July
Plus, I’m positive there have been some Audible gross sales in there too, so perhaps round $600 in whole worth.
And it was fairly cool to have 3 of my titles within the High 20 books within the Entrepreneurship class on Amazon for a quick interval.
Castbox Promo
At Podfest, I met Scott Johnson from the What Was That Like? podcast. It was nice to swap techniques about rising our reveals, and he had a brand new one for me: Castbox app advertising.
The way it works is that they promote your present within the Castbox app, guaranteeing at the least 5,000 new subscribers.
The catch?
It was $3500!
Yikes.
I’d by no means spent that form of cash to promote the present earlier than — up till this summer season I’d by no means spent a dime. However I made a decision to roll the cube and provides it a shot.
In the long run, Castbox delivered over 11,000 new “subscribers” (in response to their stories). I didn’t see as many incremental downloads as I’d anticipate, however undoubtedly a noticeable carry.
The promo ran in mid-August and evaluating the Castbox numbers from July and from the earlier September, I’m estimating the promo has delivered over 22,000 incremental downloads up to now.
That works out to a price of $0.15-0.17 per obtain, which compares actually favorably to different podcast promoting companies like MowPod (who I additionally met at Podfest), which expenses $0.80 per obtain.
And if folks just like the present and keep subscribed, that value will proceed to go down. And hopefully they share it with others as effectively.
But it surely was a giant expense, with form of an oblique ROI in future sponsorship income.
Including Calls to Motion on the Backside of Articles
Taking a cue from Matt Giovanisci, I went via my high 40-50 articles when it comes to site visitors, and added a bulleted call-to-action listing on the backside.
It appears like this:
These are 3 high-value actions any new reader can take. Previous to this, most articles simply ended with an indication off or an invite to go away a remark under.
The massive aim was to see if I might enhance the e-mail opt-in price (with out resorting to popups). My baseline conversion price was 1.7%.
After this modification, the conversion price was 1.9%. For the extent of site visitors the location will get, that tiny little bump is price 10-15 new sign-ups a day.
Soundcloud Trial
One other experiment I attempted to develop the Aspect Hustle Present viewers was syndicating episodes to Soundcloud.
In contrast to different podcast listening locations, Soundcloud requires a separate internet hosting subscription. It value $15 a month and I feel I obtained lower than 10 listens over the course of my two month trial.
So I pulled the plug on that.
Listener Win of the Week
In an effort to encourage listener involvement, I attempted including a “win of the week” phase to the present. I used Speakpipe to arrange a touchdown web page for straightforward recording. I promoted it on air, within the electronic mail publication, and within the Fb group, however didn’t get many submissions.
I feel I obtained 3 or 4 I used to be ready to make use of, however not likely definitely worth the effort.
New Weblog Content material
In the beginning of the 12 months, I created a Google Sheet with a number of key phrases I needed to focus on, and a month-to-month plan to sort out these articles.
I didn’t do a ton of penning this quarter, however added to the library:
Generally, a contract or visitor creator submitted the primary draft, and I cleaned and formatted it.
You’ll discover that a few of these are extra listicle format posts, some are opinions or informational content material, and a few are based mostly on podcast interviews. Not each podcast episode simply lends itself to website positioning/search intent, however many episodes do. When that’s the case, I do my greatest to beef up the present notes to create a useful resource worthy of rating on the primary web page.
And as typical, I spent chunk of time updating the archive content material as effectively.
YouTube Content material
I printed 5 new movies this quarter, not together with a number of YouTube shorts (created with Lumen5 based mostly on audio from my now-defunct Cash Making Minute podcast).
None has over 1000 views 🙁
Just a few of the movies are video variations of full podcast episodes. However someplace within the modifying from the Zencastr uncooked video via Screencast-o-Matic, the video itself will get all jumpy, which makes it onerous to observe.
I’ve obtained to determine that out earlier than I push extra episodes over to YouTube.
Cool Enterprise / Way of life Stuff That Occurred
Loved the Northwest Summer time
We made essentially the most of a gorgeous summer season within the Pacific Northwest, my first right here since 2004. That meant a lot of swimming, mountain climbing, bike rides, {golfing}, Mariners video games, choosing blueberries, roasting marshmallows, and extra.
The close by pool was open for lap swimming early within the morning so I’d bike over there 3-4 days every week to get some train. It felt nice to swim once more, although I’m a lot slower than I bear in mind being!
Visited Buddies in California
We took a household journey to see associates in Tahoe and Livermore in August. It was enjoyable to see everybody and for the children to cease by their old-fashioned.
Solved a Rubik’s Dice!
I spent extra time on this than I care to confess, nevertheless it was so satisfying to lastly end! I attempted watching YouTube movies however they have been all WAY too quick and tough to rewind to the precise spot.
So what ended up working was this 40-year previous pamphlet Bryn’s mother had saved. It nonetheless took plenty of learning — and truly coloring in a few of the pages because it was in black and white — however ultimately I obtained it discovered.
I feel the following step could be memorizing the completely different guidelines and patterns to maneuver the colours round — I wouldn’t have the ability to do it with out wanting on the directions.
Attended My seventh FinCon
After they introduced FinCon was going to be in Orlando, I’ve to confess I used to be less-than-thrilled to make one other cross-country journey.
Ought to I am going? I’d already purchased my ticket final 12 months however it could be low cost to eat that value and nonetheless save on the flight and lodge.
My tie-breaker was submitting a talking proposal: if I obtained chosen to talk, I’d go. If not, I’d sit it out.
That was fairly foolish considering — my talking proposal did get accepted, however inside 10 minutes of strolling into the foyer of the convention lodge I knew I used to be in the appropriate place! These are my folks, and it was so nice to spend a couple of days speaking store and catching up on life and enterprise.
It’s fairly uncommon to have a group of individuals all tremendous supportive, placing good work out into the world, and conducting massive issues.
Turned 40
It was a milestone journey across the solar this September. To commemorate the event, I up to date my massive listing of things I’ve learned in my time on this planet.
Visited the Rose Bowl
Our annual custom of attending a Husky highway sport resumed with a visit to Pasadena on the finish of September. The Dawgs didn’t handle a victory, however we nonetheless had fun!
Progress of the Nation
There are 4 major metrics I monitor:
- Web site site visitors
- Podcast downloads
- E mail subscribers
- General revenue
Twitter followers and Facebook likes are nice, however these are the numbers I pay essentially the most consideration to. And like the good Peter Drucker stated, “What will get measured will get managed.”
Web site Site visitors
Aspect Hustle Nation obtained round 8,300 visits a day in Q3, up barely from final 12 months however up virtually 8% in contrast with Q2.
The largest spike on the chart is once I was (briefly) featured on Inside Edition on Labor Day. It was somewhat bizarre since we filmed the phase in June, however did have a pair associates message me that Monday that they noticed me on TV.
Different enjoyable milestone: the location hit over 1 million pageviews for the quarter!
Podcast Downloads
The Aspect Hustle Present noticed over 1,500,000 downloads throughout Q3, or round 16k downloads a day. That’s about the identical as Q2, and what’s cool about that’s I lower off the 2x every week schedule in mid-August.
Meaning the present reached an identical obtain whole in fewer episodes.
Maybe extra vital than the uncooked obtain counts is Podtrac’s estimation of general viewers dimension. I consider they’re monitoring this based mostly on the variety of distinctive units downloading or streaming your present.
Any month over 100k is superior in my e-book.
I’m inspired to see the peaks on the obtain chart beginning to creep up since mid-August. They’re now reaching over 30,000 downloads on new-episode launch days.
E mail Subscribers
I added round 7,000 web new electronic mail subscribers in Q3 (after unsubscribes). That’s about 76 new subscribers per day, up considerably from Q3.
These new electronic mail subscribers are coming in from:
As famous above, the BC Stack drove a whole lot of latest electronic mail subscribers. When folks registered for the Podcast Growth Playbook course, they have been robotically added to the Aspect Hustle Nation electronic mail listing. (through Zapier)
I ended the quarter with 94,688 subscribers. To achieve my aim of 100,000 by the top of the 12 months, I’ll want so as to add 57 web new subscribers a day from right here on out.
It’s gonna be shut!
General Revenue
The 12 months is off to an important begin profit-wise. Margins are sturdy and it’s rewarding to see a few of my initiatives beginning to repay and construct on one another.
There have been some disappointments this summer season in dropping one vital affiliate accomplice and having payouts lower for a couple of others. That was irritating however has lengthy been a part of the affiliate sport.
What I Learn
Taking Stock
My buddy Jordan Grumet (aka Doc G from the Earn and Invest podcast) penned this considerate private finance information from his perspective as a hospice physician.
This may make you assume twice about how a lot is “sufficient” and the brevity of life.
I’ve nonetheless obtained some homework to do on the worst-case-scenario planning aspect of issues consequently.
Soul in the Game
I’d by no means learn any of Vitaliy Katsenelson’s stuff previous to this, however his workforce despatched me a duplicate and I believed it seemed attention-grabbing. Inside are tales about rising up in Russia, elevating good children, Stoicism, and constructing a constant inventive follow.
Becoming Trader Joe
The origin story of Dealer Joe’s. Fascinating, however not wonderful.
Possibly most insightful have been the components about constructing an organization tradition and the way Joe noticed some long-term demographic developments that helped information decision-making.
Ghost in the Wires
That is the enjoyable true story of a well-known phone system and laptop hacker, Kevin Mitnick.
What I discovered most attention-grabbing was that a lot of his “hacks” have been what he referred to as “social engineering.” As an alternative of brute-forcing a system or hacking into some obscure technical backdoor, he’d simply name folks throughout the firm posing as a co-worker. If he knew sufficient of the interior lingo, the individual on the opposite finish of the road would typically assist out or give entry with out asking too many questions.
The EXITpreneur’s Playbook
I picked this one up at FinCon from the Quiet Gentle brokerage sales space. Acquired me considering on what it could take to make Aspect Hustle Nation a lovely acquisition goal. Backside line: I’ve obtained plenty of work to do earlier than that occurs!
After which, I’d nonetheless need to provide you with reply to the query of what to do subsequent. Simply retire? Begin one other challenge? There are definitely some features I’d miss, however I’d be mendacity if I stated the thought of getting paid for the following 3-5 years upfront wasn’t fairly compelling.
What’s Subsequent?
What initiatives are on the horizon for This autumn? I really feel like I’m nonetheless taking part in catch up from the summer season!
The aspect hustle quiz I discussed final quarter continues to be on the desk. Aside from that and persevering with so as to add new content material, I’m engaged on some programs and scaling work to take away myself from the work that doesn’t require my direct involvement.
Simpler stated than finished, however loads of alternatives.
The enterprise operates effectively once I’m not sitting in entrance of the pc, however after a couple of days or perhaps weeks, the work begins to pile up. It’s fragile in that means, and I’m wondering if there’s a method to strengthen it and develop on the identical time.
Possibly a homepage redesign is within the works for 2023.
Your Flip
How’s the 12 months shaping up for you up to now?
What have been the most important initiatives you made progress on! Let me know within the feedback under.