Marc's Blog

E119: Create & Monetize Your Own Software With Chris Guthrie

March 21, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Chris Guthrie teaches entrepreneurs how to start or grow their internet businesses depending on which stage of the journey they’re in. He got started with Amazon FBA which he quickly dominated. Since his success in selling on Amazon, he quickly discovered the pain points of other sellers and created Salesbacker to address those pain points.

Quotes To Remember:

“A lot of times, you just have to look at the market.”

“If you are ever doing on the software side, you really try to offer something as minimal as you can.”

“If you could find a way to offer a free version, then you should.”

“You just got to decide whether it’s not worth it to you – the hard work.”

What You’ll Learn:

Turnaround time of WordPress Plug-in vs. SAS Company
How to efficiently maintain a software
Making profits out of a software
How to price a software

Key Links From The Show:

Recommended Books:

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

The Dip by Seth Godin

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

Please consider supporting Breakthrough Success on Patreon. I publish five episodes per week which I carefully prepare for, and I choose to not run ads in my podcast to enhance the listener experience.

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

How To Turn A Blog Post Into A Skillshare Course

March 21, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

To expand your brand, you need to expand your ideas. Any piece of content you create can be turned into multiple pieces of content.

You can turn a blog post into a video, take parts of that video and turn them into blog posts, and take parts of those blog posts and turn them into videos.

That’s part of the reason Gary Vaynerchuk can create so much content. He expands upon his existing ideas.

However, there’s more to this model than expanding your free content into other forms of free content.

You can use your free content as inspiration for your products. Various authors first conceived of their book ideas by creating free content.

One free piece of content stuck, and these soon-to-be authors realized that they had a book worthy message in their popular pieces of content.

While the association from free content to book or lengthy course may seem more clear, you can create short SkillShare courses based off individual pieces of content.

Why SkillShare?

SkillShare is the Netflix of learning. Students pay monthly to get access to a wide range of training courses.

Instructors get paid around five cents for each minute watched. This is a significantly greater payout rate than YouTube which gives you around $1 for every thousand views.

You can also put your training courses on a site like Udemy, but SkillShare’s key advantage is that short courses rock.

Short courses tend to attract more students. Once students finish watching one of your short courses, they may decide to watch more of your courses due to the dopamine rush associated with the gratification of completion.

That means more money for you.

And when I say short, I mean very short. SkillShare only requires a minimum of 10 minutes for each training course.

Some of my training courses barely fit that bill with some of them at the 11 minute marker.

The idea is for students to get into the habit of watching several of my courses instead of stopping at one.

And many of these courses are expanded versions of my free content.

Expanding On Your Free Content

When you choose any free piece of content to expand upon, you must start by choosing the right content.

The right content is the content that you can actively discuss in a video format. You also want to ensure you choose a lengthy piece of content that feels incomplete upon a second analysis.

Most of the content I create feels incomplete when I give it a second look. When I finish writing this blog post, it will feel complete in my eyes. However, even a few days later, this blog post will feel incomplete. That’s how it goes even after I publish a new piece of content.

I’ll look at it a few days later and it will feel incomplete. While I do go back and occasionally update blog posts, lately I’ve been completing them by turning them into micro courses on SkillShare that are 10-20 minutes long.

I will ask myself the question “What did I miss here?” until I have some answers. I’ll sometimes think of additional ideas as I do videos for the course.

The idea is to stack a few 1-2 minute videos together into a final product. This workflow and small length of courses makes it very easy for me to produce at least one new training course every day.

You’ll make $1 for every 20 minutes people spend watching your courses. Those minutes will accumulate over time as you create more courses. Creating more courses will attract more students, and your new students will then go through your older courses.

Remember, SkillShare is Netflix for learning. If your courses are short and impactful, some of your students will binge watch them. The increase in minutes will increase the revenue you generate from SkillShare.

No New Content Ideas With This Strategy

All of the revenue you make from SkillShare following this model is based on existing content. I’m not asking you to create anything new. You just take some of your old ideas and give them a different twist.

In some cases, there may be very few differences between your free content and your SkillShare courses.

Of course, if you think of an entirely new idea and want to turn it into a SkillShare course, then by all means go for it. This strategy is meant to expand your existing ideas, but if you tap into new ideas to expand your range, that’s great too.

Starting

Starting is always more difficult than doing the actual task. Most of the fuel in a rocket is used during liftoff to get a few inches off the ground. Once you start implementing this concept, it will be easier for you to create SkillShare courses based on your existing content.

One way to make starting easier is to change the starting point. Instead of thinking about starting videos, I just focus on getting dressed up for the video.

Once I get dressed up, I’ve already started. I can’t get out of my clothing for videos until I do the videos.

You can apply this same principle if you find it difficult to get started. But I guarantee that once you start doing videos for SkillShare courses, the actual action of doing all of those videos is much easier.

In Conclusion

You can take a single piece of content and turn it into several. While most strategies approach turning free content into more free content, you can take some of your free content and creates products.

One of the blog posts you recently wrote can become a 10-20 minute SkillShare course. That same blog post can also be turned into a much longer course or even a book.

I prefer SkillShare right now due to the overall ease and leverage the SkillShare itself provides. I don’t have to worry as much about promoting my course as I would if I decided to host it on my own site.

With that said, I’ve benefitted greatly from hosting some courses on my own sites such as the Content Marketing Plaza.

In the end, you should pick what works best for you. But regardless of what works for you, make sure you spread the idea of your existing content into future content and paid products.

What are your thoughts on turning your free content into SkillShare courses? Do you have any advice on finding that free content or creating more SkillShare courses? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

E118: Putting Health & Wealth In The Front Seat Of Your Life With Maria Whalen

March 20, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Maria Whalen is the world’s leading authority on invincible wellness. She fights for personal health freedom, sustainability and independence in all things ? offering autonomy for your health, finances, business and lifestyle. Maria invented the revolutionary Invincible Wellness? System that gives each of us the power to handle almost anything ? right now ? when it comes to our health.

Quotes To Remember:

“You don’t want to biohack your body.”

“It sucks to feel so good and be so healthy, said no one ever.”

Vitality is long-lived. Energy is short-lived.

“You are not gonna not make more money, you’re not gonna not be more successful when you have optimum health.”

“There’s so many valuable things that you could literally monetize by simply having your health.”

“Our wealth is literally not more important than our health because the thing that can compromise your wealth is your health, not the other way around.”

“It’s not so much about more sleep. It’s about the quality of sleep.”

What You’ll Learn:

Why we should take health seriously
Being Healthy 101
Recommendations on getting more sleep
Tips on going to the positive direction

Key Links From The Show:

Invincible Wellness? System

Maria Whalen & Speaking Empire Workshop

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

E117: Scaling Your Own Multi-Million Dollar Amazon FBA Enterprise With Greg Mercer

March 19, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Greg Mercer is a seasoned ecommerce entrepreneur who makes $400,000 per month in Amazon sales. He is also the founder of Jungle Scout, a popular Amazon keyword research software that helps Amazon sellers find and analyze profitable products to sell on Amazon.

Greg just launched his new Shark Tank style podcast Go Pitch Win.

Quotes To Remember:

“What’s a much safer bet is just to sell what’s already selling well on Amazon.”

“As far as getting started, I think that’s probably the hardest part for people.”

“Once you get started, I think that it’s fairly easy to reach your full potential after that because you’ve crossed the biggest hurdle.”

“It is really important to join some kind of group where there are some people a little bit past where you at.”

What You’ll Learn:

Jumping from your job to being an Amazon FBA
Advantages of Amazon FBA
Finding products to sell on Amazon FBA
Starting a side-gig and develop it
Tips in investing in Alibaba

Key Links From The Show:

Greg’s Site

Go Pitch Win

The Million Dollar Case Study

Amazon FBA

Alibaba

Audible

Recommended Books:

Rework by Jason Fried

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

Support Breakthrough Success On Patreon

I offer my patrons various perks, and even a donation as small as $1/mo would make a big difference for growing and maintaining Breakthrough Success.

You can support Breakthrough Success by going here.

How To Land Awesome Guests On Your Podcast

March 19, 2018 by Marc Guberti 9 Comments

I’ve been privileged to have some of the most remarkable people be guests on my podcast. I’ve interviewed game changers, leaders, and even some of my role models back from when I started.

Podcasting is becoming more important as the days roll by. You get to build relationships, learn, and provide your audience with valuable content. Podcasting may perhaps be the best way to grow a content brand today.

However, a big part of podcasting is landing awesome guest for your show. The value of your guests determines your show’s value and how much you learn by hosting each episode.

Regardless of whether you are just getting started or are deeper into it, this guide will help you land awesome guest for your show.

Get Clear On Who You’re Interviewing

The more clear you are on your topic, the more clear you’ll be on who you need to interview. Breakthrough Success is a blend of personal development and business growth tactics.

Narrowing down your topic allows you to get more clear on who you need to interview. However, it also helps you get clear on similar podcasts. One of my favorite ways of finding great guests is to look through the guests on other podcasts in my niche.

I’ll look through EOFire, Side Hustle Nation, and a few others to see who’s been interviewed on those podcasts. I will then contact some of those people and ask them to be on my show. I am building on this list of podcasts I can refer to for finding guests, and it’s important to build that list.

Once you get clear on who you need to interview, you determine podcasts that will fill up the list. Since I first implemented this approach, I now have five podcasts that I use to find great guests for my show.

Getting The Yes

Once you find a guest on someone else’s podcast, and you want to contact them, you need to contact them. This isn’t something that gets put on the to-do later list. Almost all tasks on that list never get accomplished.

Once I commit to finding guests, that’s the only thing I do. I don’t create a back burner list of guests that I have yet to contact.

As you send more pitches, you’ll be surprised to hear that most guests will say yes. Podcast guests want to get interviewed on as many podcasts as possible. They’ll make it work in their schedules.

While getting a yes for a podcast interview isn’t too difficult, you still need a great pitch. Emailed pitches are short and to the point. All of my emails live by the 5-Sentence Rule. None of my emails are more than five sentences.

It takes me much less time to write emails. But more importantly, it takes the potential guest less time to read the pitch and understand what you’re asking.

A shorter email gives you less time to tell your story and list your accomplishments. You need to squeeze the best ones into 1-2 normal-length sentences. These two sentences you read are at the normal length. I had something to say and added a period to end the sentence. I didn’t go on and on to turn several sentences into one sentence filled with my credentials thus making it more difficult for someone to understand what you’re saying.

See what I did there? That was intentional. Don’t do that with your accomplishments. Just mention 3-5 big ones. I tell people I’m an entrepreneur, author, and blogger with 500K social media followers. I also mention that I published 19 books and created 25 training courses before my 20th birthday.

I can mention more, but I don’t. Those two sentences paint a good enough picture which attracts potential guests to my podcast. If you spend too much time persuading, you won’t give your potential guests enough time or desire to take action.

If you’ve had guests on your show or confirmed upcoming guests, mention them. I tell all potential guests about some of the past guests on the show. This gives me authority by association.

Not only will potential guests recognize that authority by association, but they’ll also want that authority by association for themselves. Think about what it says about you if you got interviewed on EOFire. You could say the following:

I got interviewed by John Lee Dumas

I got interviewed on the same podcast that featured guests like Tim Ferriss, Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, and many more.

This is why so many of us want to get featured on a prominent publication (think New York Times). We recognize their authority by association and want a piece of that.

If you convey yourself and that authority by association, more people will agree to be on your show. If you don’t have any superstar guests yet, mention the top people who have been on your show.

If you don’t have any guests period, mention that your podcast is new. You’ll get some people on board. During the post conversation, ask your guests if they could refer another guest to the show and repeat that pattern for future guests.

As you get more guests, you can leverage your association with them to get more yeses from future pitches.

Ask Awesome Guests Who They Know

Awesome is contagious. Awesome podcast guests know other awesome podcast guests. If you really enjoyed an interview with someone, ask that person for multiple recommendations.

At the end of an interview I enjoyed very much, the guest recommended another guest. That recommendation was awesome!

Then that guest made several recommendations and that has led to even more awesome.

Awesome people know awesome people who you don’t know. They hold the keys to the kingdom, and all you have to do is ask. It’s easy to ask, but it’s also easy to not ask. Make the choice to ask guests if they know someone good for your show, and you’ll have a stream of awesome guests coming in.

In Conclusion

Podcasting is one of the best opportunities for learning and growing your brand. I honestly can’t say enough good things about it.

However, the value of your podcasting experience and your listeners’ experiences depends on the guests you attract to the show. Attract the best guests, and you’ll have the best podcast in your niche.

What were your thoughts on these tactics? Do you have any suggestions for attracting awesome guests to a podcast? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Guest Blog Your Way To Massive Traffic

March 16, 2018 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Guest blogging is a marketing tactic where you publish your content on other blogs. While appearing on podcasts seems to be the preferred method lately, guest blogging still packs a powerful punch.

If you get your content on the right guest blogs, you can get massive traffic back to your content. However, not all opportunities are created equal. Some guest blogging opportunities pack more of a punch than others.

In this blog post, you’ll learn exactly how you can guest blog your way to massive traffic.

Find The Best Opportunities

As mentioned before, not all opportunities are created equal. But just like any saying or piece of knowledge, it’s only useful if we take action based on that knowledge.

Search for different opportunities, but understand that some are more challenging and/or more rewarding.

You don’t want to write a 2,000 word guest post if it will only be seen by five people. However, if another opportunity can put you in front of 5,000 people within the first week of publication, that’s a better opportunity.

Put your guest posts on the most successful blogs.

In the short-term, you may have to settle with blogs that aren’t on the top because the top guest blogging opportunities tend to request past work. While you can provide your own blog posts as past work, some opportunities will require that you submit past guest posts.

In the beginning, take any opportunity that comes your way. As you get exposed to more opportunities, get more selective.

Look At The Past Content

The biggest mistake most people make is trying to solely craft content for the guest blog’s audience. Before you can even reach the audience, you must win approval from the gatekeeper.

Therefore, you need to write a guest post not just with the reader in mind, but also the gatekeeper.

For some set-ups, the gatekeeper is the blog owner. For other set-ups, an editor is the gatekeeper.

To write for the gatekeeper, you must first look at some of the past content that got published. Notice what worked and what topics haven’t been discussed in a while.

The gatekeeper doesn’t want another blog post on the same topic that has been continuously covered. They either want a completely new topic or a fresh perspective on a topic that hasn’t been covered in a while.

Before I submit any pitch, I will always look at the past content to capture these trends. That will help me craft a better topic for my pitches.

Make Your Pitches

Discovering the right topic idea is the first step towards crafting a great pitch. The rest of the pitch focuses on what you’ll provide.

Write a list of the tactics you will discuss within the guest post. What are some of the highlights? You don’t need to go deep at all with this. You aren’t providing the entire blog post. In most cases, you don’t even need an introduction. Only a few guest blogs ask you for a blog post introduction in your pitch.

When making a pitch, you should list three potential topics and brief outlines of each. That way, the gatekeeper has more potential topics to choose from. Three is the ideal number of topics to provide enough variety without overwhelming the gatekeeper.

For each of those three blog post topics, here’s what my pitch looks like:

Title of Blog Post
Tactic #1
Tactic #2
Tactic #N

I’ll continue with that approach until I cover all of the tactics or points I’ll discuss within the guest post.

As you make more pitches, you’ll get better at getting approved. If you find it difficult to get a yes, make up for it by sending more pitches to more guest blogs. The people who craft the best pitches have also sent more pitches than most people would ever dare to do.

Delegate The Writing

Guest blogging is a lot of work. Once you get approval for a topic, the real work begins. Now you have to write a guest post that fulfills the guest blog’s standards.

To cut down on your workload, you can delegate the writing process. There’s nothing wrong with hiring a freelancer or employee to write guest posts for you.

If you choose the right person for the job, you’ll save hours of time. Not only will you save all of this time, but you will also produce higher value content. That’s because you get to be the first editor.

While we favor the work we created from scratch, we can be more critical and fair with other people’s work…especially when that work will represent our brands.

Scale By Pursuing New Opportunities While Leveraging Current Relationships

As you get more of your guest posts published, you’ll make more connections. Some of the gatekeepers for one guest blog may be gatekeepers for other guest blogs.

Whenever your guest post gets published, ask the gatekeeper if they know anyone else who offers guest blogging opportunities. If you want to write for a certain guest blog over the long-term, make that clear and submit more topic ideas.

It’s great to continue expanding your horizon. Make more pitches and get your content on even more blogs. However, you shouldn’t forget about the relationships you already have. Leveraging your existing relationships is one of the best ways to grow your brand and grow healthier relationships with others.

In Conclusion

Guest blogging is a massive traffic opportunity. In some guest posts, you can mention one of your blog posts within the content. However, everyone gets an About The Author section.

In this section, you can promote your landing page and boost your email subscribers in the process.

Similarly to any goal worth pursuing, you need to remain patient as you send pitches. Remember that guest blogs live on content. They need as much of it as possible.

If you provide valuable content and present your pitches to indicate that value, you’ll get more yeses over the long-term. In fact, some guest blog owners may even come directly to you. In my case, I was contacted by CrazyEgg and Rank Watch to write a guest post for them.

That’s what will happen in the long-term if you’re willing to put in the work now.

What are your thoughts on guest blogging? Do you have any tactics you want to share? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.