The Fizzle Show

Are you feeling down about the low numbers on your email list? Have you ever wondered how you could really accelerate its growth? (Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/248) Perhaps all it takes is a mindset shift. That’s what we did recently on a separate website we run and it had HUGE results. First of all, you already know how important your email list is to your business, right? If you don’t know about how important email is to modern business, you can check out any of these educational posts. The gist is this: for many of us successful indie entrepreneurs, our email list is the core of our business because through email we have a powerful form of “digital relationship” with our customers. So, if you aren’t getting a very good “conversion rate” on your website — from casual visitor to email subscriber — then it can feel kinda terrible. Like, there’s all these people coming to your website, but so few of them are taking you up on your offer. For many of us the is a PRIME LOCATION for investing so

Here's a little love note from Fizzle for you and yours wherever you are during the holidays. There won't be a regular episode of the Fizzle Show this week.

What if there was something you could do right now to bring more energy into your life every day as an entrepreneur? You know the whole game — on a fundamental level — is about energy, right? Energy enough to think, energy enough to strategize, energy enough to take action effectively. (Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/246) And yet many of us entrepreneurs struggle with having enough energy. For entrepreneurs, the work never stops. Entrepreneurs never really “clock-out” or leave work at the office. They are the business and this makes it difficult to take a break and keep energy levels up in their busy day-to-day lives. And yet, all your strategy and action rely on having enough energy. So what can we do to get more energy!? Well, before I tell you, can I just say: you’re not going to like it? And some of you are going to ditch out right here. But others of you, if you really want to have more energy, if you really want to setup a REGULAR HABIT of more energy, you’re ready to hear this. And our

Is it actually possible to support your family over the long-haul with an independent online small business? Like, is it actually possible? (Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/245) Or are we all just kind of hoping that our blog or podcast or freelancing business will last? Well this episode right here is your answer. In it we learn exactly how possible it truly is… AND we get to hear from a real buddha of online biz; a mentor to many of us because he’s been doing it for so much longer than most of us. Creating your own business is not about making it easy; there is still going to be work that needs to be done. That said, it is POSSIBLE to create a life that is less stressful, more prosperous, and purposefully designed to support your dreams and your family all at once. Steve Maxwell is the founder of Bailey Line Road Chronicles, and he’s been supporting himself and his family through his writing and web work for almost 25 years now. Steve shares his journey with us, and how he has transitioned over the ye

Want to hear from some giants in the online business space about what’s changed in business the past 10 years? You should. Show Notes: fizzleshow.co/244 Why? Ever wonder what is actually important to learn when it comes to building your own business? Are you getting left behind by the ever-changing entrepreneurial landscape? Then you better get into this episode. Everyone knows there’s so much we need to learn when starting a business. We simply don’t know everything we need to before starting our businesses. But that begs the question; what’s worth learning and what isn’t? If you waste your time learning unnecessary things, you are the only one who pays for it. Bottom line: you are just hurting yourself and your business. In today’s episode, we are talking about exactly what has changed in online business for indie entrepreneurs over the last 10 years. Because if we can figure out and be smart about what has been changing, maybe that can help us better prepare for what will change in the future.

What would happen if you realized that you aren’t actually doing what you love? How would you transition into a truly meaningful life? Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/243 While we’re at it, what does it really mean to use your gifts to change the world? And how can you earn your living along the way? If you’re working for yourself already you know how easy it can be to get caught up in the busy-ness and lose track of what matters most. Well, this episode is going to SORT YOU OUT! Today on the show we are joined by Charles Eisenstein, author, scholar and speaker. And Charles is going to help us all think DEEPER about how we earn our money. Charles is known for his thoughtful and challenging articles on civilization, consciousness, money, and human cultural evolution. He has a degree in mathematics and philosophy from Yale and is the author of several books, including Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, just to name a few. Inside this episode, we get into some rea

If you’ve ever had high hopes about how good your sales were going to be… and then had those hopes destroyed by little to no results? **Get the shownotes: Fizzleshow.co/242** So often we see business owners who get super excited about launching a new product or service, and they have high hopes about making those sales. They then proceed to put it out there, push it to social media, email their list, and give something away for free thinking that this is going to be “the thing” that lands them a ton of sales. But instead, they are met with disappointment and little to no sales at all. So why does that happen? It happens all the time — we think our sales efforts are going to have bigger results than they actually get. Why? Because we haven’t yet learned how to make the sale happen NOW. It’s simple stuff, but many fresh entrepreneurs still haven’t learned how to do it. Today on the show we talk about: making the sale, how to avoid the post-launch disappointment, and the three esse

If you are stuck in the romantic notion of what it looks like to create a business and you need some motivation to stop running away from the hard work, you’re going to love this episode. On today’s show we are joined by none other than Justin Jackson, who went from having a day job to being a successful author and creating 100 projects in one year, all to show that it is possible for you to become an indie entrepreneur (even in Canada!). Justin is the founder of MegaMaker, where he advises software, SaaS, and digital product companies. His books, Marketing for Developers and Jolt have sold thousands of copies, and truly saved him from bankruptcy. On his blog and in his podcast he focuses mainly on topics like product marketing, helping entrepreneurs and software companies around the world. Inside this episode Justin shares his experience of pursing his indie entrepreneur dream and how he got caught up in the romantic fantasy of what it’s really like to start a business. Justin gets vulnera

If you’re working through all the hope and doubt and strategies it takes to become a full-time blogger, then you’re going to enjoy the bejeezus out of this episode. Today on the show we are joined by Beth Hornback, who has an incredible story about how she carefully worked the steps and stages necessary to quit her job and work on her blog full-time. Beth is the creator of the blog, Eat Within Your Means, where she shares plant-based recipes and cooking tips to fatten your wallet and skinny your jeans. Whether that’s by cooking chickpeas from scratch or sharing ways to limit or eliminate oil, it’s easier than you think. Along the way Beth also shares her personal successes and struggles on the path to finding her means. In today’s episode Beth shares her journey of the wins and struggles she faced while transitioning out of her corporate job and into becoming a full-time blogger. So if your dream is to be a blogger full-time and you need a bit of guidance and motivation to get there, then this podcast

You likely will face some kind of adversity or negativity as you build your business. This article is all about how you respond. How we deal with negativity and adversity is an essential ingredient in our success, so let’s think a little bit critically about this. Because it really is true: we all encounter negativity on the journey to success. In this article you’ll learn a few successful ways to respond. Show Notes FizzleShow.co/239 (http://fizzleshow.co/239)

I’ve always had this assumption that real artists, real creatives, live lives without much commercial success. But today’s show directly confronts that idea… hell, it blows it up. We brought in Jeff Goins who’s just written a book called Real Artists Don’t Starve to break down 3 myths about starving artists. (Note: the Michelangelo story was well worth the cost of admission.) (Note: there is no cost of admission, this episode, like all our episodes on The Fizzle Show, is free!) Jeff breaks down 3 myths of the starving artist and helps us all get a much clearer perspective on how we can pursue our own success with creativity. Enjoy! Show Notes: FizzleShow.co/238

As indie entrepreneurs we live and die by the execution of our ideas. Without the right focus and motivation, discipline alone won’t save you. I find it’s very common for creatives and business builders to feel they lack discipline. We think if we had more discipline then we’d be making more progress on our idea. I don’t agree. You don’t lack discipline, you lack motivation. You lack the internal drive, the clarity and focus of desire, that would make being disciplined almost easy. As I said before, us indie biz people live and die off the ideas we execute. Not the ideas we capture in our Moleskine notebooks, but the ideas we execute. And if you’ve got issue with motivation (or discipline, if you insist), then you’ve got big problems with execution. But here’s what I believe: you deserve to bring your idea to life. You deserve it. You’re not sitting on your ass doing NOTHING; you’re doing things to make it happen… it just sometimes feels like, you know, you don’t do enough, you couldn’t do enough, yo

Burning out and blowing up costs us all way too much in our businesses. “Just power through it” is terrible advice because it’s a recipe for burnout, for blowing up. Nobody gets to storming out of the office yelling “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” without powering through a whole lotta bullsh*t for a while. So, in this podcast and article we want to help us all learn a new way to handle moments when there’s too much on our plates. We are all going to have too much on our plates at some point. The question is, will you put in a little preventative maintenance and work smarter instead of harder? There’s a podcast episode here I really think you should listen to because it’s full of wisdom and details about this that, frankly, once you hear it you’ll never forget it. Below are some notes about this conversation that you’ll be able to come back to again and again. Here’s that podcast episode. You can listen to it here or in your favorite podcast player (recommended because then y

We spoke to one of the most prolific and successful course makers we know, Vanessa Van Edwards, about how we can all improve our online courses. For any of you course makers out there these insights are going to help you make much more successful courses — both for you and your customers. Online courses are being created like crazy these days because the market for e-learning has exploded in the past decade. Now average people like you and I can use tools that come built-in to phones, tablets and laptops to create training that people are desperate for. However, the massive popularity and ease of access to tools means there’s a ton of competition out there. Today you can’t just make a course that sells, you have to make a course that students complete and rave about. What we need to do is make every one of our students a walking testimonial for our course. Show Notes: http://fizzleshow.co/235

“Lots of people tell you what you "should" want as a creative or as an entrepreneur. Shut out the noise for a hot second and decide what success looks and feels like for yourself.” Holy sh*t there’s this entrepreneur named Stephanie Halligan that you have to hear about, she’s… a badass. “I spent a long time trying to sell and monetize my list on Art to Self and it kept feeling shittier and shittier. I had to ask myself what I actually wanted my art to feel like and how I wanted to make money from it. The answer was NOT $30 e-courses and email funnels.” There’s a lot of people out there who want to tell you exactly what to do with your dreams. Today we hear from someone who actually had the tenacity to listen to her Self and create her own way. Stephanie Halligan started Art to Self on Jan 1, 2015. She proceeded to make a comic and short essay every day for TWO YEARS! If you do creative work of any kind, if you want to find a way to make your creativity create financial flexibility for you

As indie entrepreneurs, sometimes all it takes is a little travel break to remind us why we started our business in the first place. Travel is amazing for inspiration and perspective. As indie entrepreneurs it would be terrible to make a business that doesn’t allow you to travel. Just think about that! You put all this work in to get your business WORKING. Topic we care about… check. Validated unique selling proposition… check. Growth channel setup… check. Minimum viable product tested… check. … (BTW, all those stages above are taken from our small business roadmap training. If you’re somewhere in that process, it’s definitely worth checking into.) You do ALL that work just to create yourself into a prison you can never take a break from!? That’d be terrible! But it happens all the time. And it can happen to any of us if we’re not careful. So, in this quick article (and, more importantly, the super thorough podcast episode that goes with it) that’s what I want to help y

As an indie entrepreneur, if you want to make sales and build a thriving business you need to overcome the hurdle between free and paid. When we say “free” we mean the stuff you do for free… the content, the social media stuff, the free guides you create as lead magnets. That free stuff is the first step in seeing if people like what you have to offer. It’s an important step. But getting those people from interested in free things to purchasing paid things… there’s a huge hurdle between the two. And a lot of people get stuck on that hurdle. Many modern entrepreneurs hit this hurdle… some never fully get over it. Don’t let that happen to you. There’s no reason to let that happen to you. Show notes: FizzleShow.co/232

One of the things we hear most often is that people want CLARITY in order to get started. They feel overwhelmed and murky, like they would totally get started if only they knew what to DO! Maybe you feel like you need answers before you begin, because you have to get this right. Today, we are flipping that. I know you think you need CLARITY in order to take ACTION. But today, we're out to prove that CLARITY comes from ACTION. Perhaps the very best part is that you don't have to buy anything to start doing this. Not from us, not from any other marketing wizards on the internet (and please don't trust anyone who tells you otherwise.) As you're going to hear in today's real life stories, you just need an internet connection and some conversation in order to make seriously meaningful progress.

Business ideas almost never work right out of the gate. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs put a ton of pressure on themselves to make their idea work. The truth is, every business goes through natural shifts over time. It’s true. If you’re building a business, expect to make shifts and tweaks over time… because from our experience it seems that’s just what entrepreneurs do. We’ve seen this hundreds of times with Fizzle members. Entrepreneurs come up with an idea, and then they tweak, twist, pivot and adjust over time to see what will work. We all want a business that’s growing. And we all — every one of us who’s doing the work — knows what it’s like to feel stagnant, motionless for too long. If you want a growing business, you’re going to need to know how to make little tweaks over time. Show Notes: http://fizzleshow.co/230 (http://fizzleshow.co/230)

Hey, we all need to be growing our email lists. Email is still the centerpiece of modern online businesses. But it’s challenging to do so. People bounce away from our pages Our message gets lost in the clutter of our website Our call to action falls flat Well, a well-known best practice in online business is to offer a freebie or “opt-in incentive” to visitors as an invitation to join your email list. What most of us online have found is HOLY CRAP THIS REALLY WORKS!!1! A freebie can be an insanely effective tactic for growing your email list. IN THIS POST YOU’LL LEARN: How effective a good freebie will be for you What makes a GOOD freebie What’s working for others (9 examples) How to design the right freebie for your business Read more: FizzleShow.co/229