The Fizzle Show

Email newsletters can be a great way to grow an audience and keep them engaged. IN fact, it’s like, the most common modern business advice around right now to start growing an email list as soon as possible. So in this episode we’re going to look at 6 of our favorite modern email newsletters. Enjoy! Show Notes: Fizzleshow.co/188

Most of us feel like the right website can go a long way to helping us get discovered. But most of us also don’t have a large chunk of money lying around to pay for a beautiful custom website. Shownotes: FizzleShow.co/187 So, we have to do it ourselves. That usually means choosing between Squarespace and WordPress. Putting together a great website can be a nightmare, and there’s a lot riding on the decisions we make. So, we’re going to help you make the best decision you can in this episode.

When we ask entrepreneurs what they are struggling with, it’s incredibly common to hear, “I want to get more done.” In fact, when we surveyed thousands of our readers, by far the most popular struggle was ‘time management.’ Struggle number two was ‘motivation.’ So today on the fizzle show we’re going to talk about that. We published a huge article about what we believe are the 10 most important time management practices. In this episode, we’re going to dive deep on our favorites from that list. Strap in, this is a good one. Show Notes: Fizzleshow.co/186

Modern western culture is buzzing with ideas about living a happy and fulfilled life. I can’t walk down the street without seeing a #liveyourdream hashtag on something. There seems to be hundreds of books, podcasts, courses, shows and instagram accounts about it. But with all the gurus and research courses and books out there, is there a framework that can really help? I mean, we should know that by now, right? Of course the answer is “no,” there is not a one-size-fits-all framework for a happy life; that easy button does not exist. *BUT*, as your own experience probably tells you, there absolutely are things you can do to keep heading in the direction of happiness and fulfillment. So that’s what we talk about in this episode: the ideas and practices that have meant the most to the three of us working, experienced and successful-ish entrepreneurs. After the past decade or so of full time professional creative work, what have we learned about rich inner fulfillment? Enjoy, and thanks for listening. Show Notes:

Overwhelmed. Submerged. Swamped. Engulfed. This is what it feels like to become lost *inside* your business. Shownotes: http://fizzleshow.co/184 - You get lost in the necessary day to day operations. - You get lost wasting months on an elusive project that never gets finished. - You get lost in the fog of un-motivation. (Or is it “de-motivation”?) - You get lost in the anxiety and worry of declining metrics. No matter the skill level, at one point or another all entrepreneurs get lost like this. So much so that it has a name. **It’s called working *IN* your business instead of working *ON* your business.** When you’re working *ON* your business crazy things happen. Things like fresh ideas, camaraderie, confidence and vacations. Mmmmmm… that’s what we got into this thing for, that’s why we became entrepreneurs in the first place, to design our own lives, to pursue what *we* wanted to pursue, to cultivate freedom. **So today we want to show you why your business pushes you until you’re overwhelmed.** We also wa

“I did everything right, but my audience *STILL* isn’t growing. How do I get random strangers to discover me?” I loved how honestly the question was asked in the [Fizzle Forums]. Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/183 It came from a woman who had taken one of our courses, the one about *defining and understanding your target audience*. The course had helped her make big improvements to her website, going so far as to design a new strategy for the content she writes. But when the dust cleared, there wasn’t. Much. Change. If you want to find out *why* this happens — maybe why it’s happening to *you* — click play and let’s get into it. Enjoy… and thanks for listening!

One huge risk in modern small business is to spend months or years working on a project only to release it… and find nobody wants it. Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/182 Entrepreneurship has *risk* at the heart of it. We manage risk. Some of us manage that risk well. Others poorly. Most of us don’t plan for risk very well, but we’ve got enough tenacity to make changes on the fly as we learn. So, what if you could reduce the risk of your business? What if you could make your project or business or campaign *more likely to succeed*? What if you could do that right now, without creating a [business plan] or [designing prototypes] or even [naming your business]? Would you do it? And if I told you it had something to do with talking honestly, curiously and candidly with potential customers — doing more listening than talking, in fact — would that make you nervous? Or would it excite you? It probably bums you out a little. **Talking to customers can be hard, but it will literally make your business more likely to succeed

This is part 2 of the conversation found here: fizzleshow.co/180 As an entrepreneur of a small business there’s just some kinds of tasks you *HAVE* to do… doesn’t matter WHAT kind of entrepreneur you are. So, in this episode we share our favorite workflow tips in 8 different categories. Head here for shownotes and the previous conversation: fizzleshow.co/180

We’ve all felt that feeling where, at the end of the day, you wish you felt better about the stuff you accomplished. Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/180 You wish you got more done. There’s a heaviness, a tiredness and a good helping of “dammit I didn’t give it my all today.” Let’s talk about that, and let’s talk about 25 of our favorite tips to manage tasks *we all* have to deal with. As an entrepreneur of a small business there’s just some kinds of tasks you *HAVE* to do… doesn’t matter [WHAT kind of entrepreneur you are]. So, in this episode we share our favorite workflow tips in 8 different categories: - Email — we all have to deal with this. Partnerships and opportunities are in our inbox alongside (thousands of!) spammy bullsh*t. *We’ve got some tips for you.* - Planning & Strategy — what’s the most important next step? Are we leaving money on the table? Should we make more products or try to earn more from the assets we already have? We all have to ask this stuff. *We’ve got some tips for you.*

Choosing a business idea is an incredibly important decision. A great idea can make your life so much easier. People will naturally identify with your mission and help to share your message. The right topic will make you come alive and you’ll fall in love with your business and customers. Read more: https://fizzle.co/sparkline/50-business-ideas

If you want to write things that inspire action — web sales pages that effectively sell your product, emails that readers will click on and share, etc. — this article is for you. Show Notes: https://fizzle.co/sparkline/writing-copy-for-web I repeat: if you want to make things on the internet that work, if you want to publish webpages and videos and podcasts and emails into the world that get results, you’re in the right place. Because in this episode we’re going to talk about COPYWRITING… ugh, sounds boring maybe? nope, there is an art form here that I’ll bet, if you listen to this show, you’ll see completely differently afterwards. Along with this show is a free guide and article which you can find at Fizzleshow.co/178

Of course you’re worried about your business idea. Of course you don’t want to put all the time and effort into building a business only to realize there was a mistake built into the idea that will forever stunt it’s growth. Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/177 Think about your business idea like a boat. You’re on dry land making your boat, designing and planning and strategizing. But you put it in the water and realize it’s got holes in it you didn’t notice before. THATS what this episode is about, showing you where the holes would be so you can investigate further and be CONFIDENT before putting your boat in the water. Because the thing about business ideas is that there’s no such thing as certainty, only confidence. There is no way to tell if a business is going to work with 100% certainty, but we can find confidence. That’s what we’re going to guide you through today in the form of 10 huge mistakes we see all the time.

Before people start a business they usually have a decision to make: am I going to quit my job and work full time on this, or am I going to work on this on the side? Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/176 Both have pros and cons, both are frustrating for different reasons. This is a topic to be careful about. Some experts and gurus out there would have you believe you need to just put it all out there, believe in yourself and take a big leap of faith. That’s the model that worked for them so they tell you to do it. But maybe there are more practical ways we can be intelligent about this decision. In this episode we break down common variables you may not already be thinking about like: - How much savings do you need? - What does ‘runway’ mean? - What’s a ‘burn rate’? - What are the different decision points here that would allow me to make a smart decision? It’s a practical and exceptionally helpful episode. Enjoy!

Some business ideas can be thought up and launched in a single afternoon. Others, however, require a ton of time and effort to get off the ground. Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/175 So, imagine this (or maybe it sounds familiar to you): - Imagine you want to support yourself, earn a living independently. - Imagine you have an idea that’s big, one that may not feasibly be able to bring in revenue in the short term, but who’s long term prospects are great. - What can you do for revenue in the short term that won’t take up all your time and energy so you can keep building your bigger idea? It’s a great question, especially if you’ve been thinking and scheming about starting your own business for a while. But it’s also a complicated question for reasons you may not see from the start, so it sparked a big conversation for Corbett and I. 
So, here’s another great, honest, no BS conversation on the Fizzle Show. I hope it’s helpful! Enjoy.

We probably all have one of those friends in our lives who thinks *too* big. Or those who once thought too big. Maybe now they’re angry at the world, jaded, cynical. [Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/174] **There’s a danger to thinking too big.** It can burn us out, burn us up, make us miss all the amazing that’s happening right now. **There is also a danger of thinking too small.** You keep doing what you’ve always done because you’ve always done it and then one day it doesn’t work. The market and the world has moved on. That danger could hurt you *financially*. You could also get hurt *psychologically* by thinking too small. Not a single one of us wants to end our careers thinking, “dammit I wish I would have been more brave, saw the bigger picture earlier on.” So, there’s an art to thinking big, and that’s what we explore in this podcast episode. We have no books to sell. We’re not gurus. We’re just a couple people who’ve been trying to think bigger (without toppling over) for about a decade with some success to

On the show today, 2 experts share what it’s *really* like to run a membership site. The experts, of course, are Corbett Barr and Chase Reeves (that’s me) 2 of the co-founders of [Fizzle’s Business Courses & Community], a membership site that’s been live for almost 4 years at the time of writing. There’s a lot of conversation in the world of online business about how valuable a recurring revenue model. Dependable recurring income that you can count on sounds very sexy if your business needs to be selling to new customers every single day. So, is it as good as it sounds? Or, as a smart Fizzler put it in the forums: what *don’t* I know about running a membership site? That’s what we lay out for you today on the show, diving in deep to a big list that Corbett prepared. Enjoy! Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/173

“I’ve heard from the Editor in Chief of a big site and they said Twitter was basically ineffective for them. Should I still even bother with it?” Here’s the deal — you’re a small business person. You’re the little guy. You can’t pay to advertise and reach people. You have to build an audience to get your message out. Social networks are where people are spending time. So that’s an opportunity to get in relationship with potential customers in meaningful ways. BUT, you’ve only got so much time. You can’t afford a team to run your social media for you. You’ve got to do it yourself, and that means you can’t show up in a meaningful way on *all* the social networks. (Unless it’s your job. I’m looking at you Gary V.) So, if Twitter is a waste of time, you want to know it right away so you can make investments in social media accounts that will produce returns for you. So, is Twitter a waste of time? It’s complicated. And it’s all explained in the podcast episode. I did, however, pull out 10 ideas we had for how to

Listen, as bloggers we want to get as many people interacting with our content as possible. And more than that, we want them to become FANS, to live their lives in relationship with us. Recently we made a guide to promoting your blog (fizzleshow.co/170) which talks about *syndicating* your blog posts, that is, publishing your existing articles to different websites like Huffington Post or Medium. > **Syndicate:** (verb) to publish or broadcast simultaneously on multiple channels, websites or platforms. (Comes from the Latin *syndicus*, meaning delegate of an entity.) [Medium] has become extremely popular in some circles, and can be a great place to syndicate your blog posts. ***Why? Because hundreds of thousands of people could come to know about your work!*** BUT, are we shooting ourselves in the foot if we use it because it simply doesn’t bring people into a strong enough direct relationship with you? That’s what we get into on the show today. Great conversation. Enjoy! Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/171

Today on the podcast How to promote your blog. This is the ultimate guide to getting more traction for your blog, whether you want more people to a particular post or to your site in general. It’s a huge episode and comes with a HUGE article where we lay out even more strategies. but here is where you’re gonna get some of the stuff we might edit out of the article. Because here’s the thing: you might be trying things already but it’s not working because you don’t understand the real core of those strategies, what’s important about them, or you might be afraid that promoting your blog takes a lot of work. We want to lay both those fears to bed. You can do this, you can create a strategy that you use to promote each and every post that feels right to you AND gets you the results. So in this episode and the article that goes along with it, that’s what our goal is: to help you put together a checklist for yourself to promote your individual posts and your entire site. Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/170

Listen, there’s so much shit out there you need to learn. So many tips and tricks and “best practices” to start using in your blog, podcast or business of any kind. Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/169 So today we wanted to try to cut through the smog and prioritize the biggest, baddest, most important things you should know. This list isn’t *everything*, but each item is *essential* if your business is going to succeed. Barrett Brooks has been working closely with indie entrepreneurs for the past 2 years. Long enough to see the patterns, not so long that he’s withered up inside. Today on the show (and in the text below) he shares the 5 lessons he feels are most important to entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes. Whether you’re a blogger, podcaster, freelancer or maker, these are 5 areas that can bring substance to your business, helping it get off the ground safely AND last through the years. It’s a bittersweet episode for us at Fizzle as Barrett is moving on to the next stage in his career. He shares all the detai