January 12, 2025 • 22 mins
Robin Waite, a renowned author and dynamic keynote speaker, unveils his transformative journey from leading a successful web design agency to establishing the empowering Fearless Business coaching program. Imagine making business not only successful but enjoyable and supportive—Robin has done just that. Get inspired as he shares his unique approach to group coaching, emphasizing the importance of community and lifelong support for solo entrepreneurs. Robin’s successes don't stop there; with best-selling books under his belt, he also reveals the joy of connecting with readers and the inspiration behind his writing achievements.
Curious about the power of authentic engagement and strategic networking? Learn how Robin harnessed podcast partnerships and strategic content marketing to create unparalleled growth opportunities. We talk about his game-changing appearance on Ali Abdaal's podcast, which brought a flood of new business, and how the use of platforms like Podmatch can enhance SEO and visibility. Discover the art of building genuine connections and the impact of giving value to audiences without self-promotion. Listen in to uncover how these strategies can shape a sustainable and fulfilling business model for everyone involved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eric Eden (00:02):
Welcome to today's episode.
Today we are talking about thepower of podcasting and content,
and we have an awesome guest tohelp us talk through that,
robin Waite.
Welcome to the show.
Robin Waite (00:15):
Thank you for having me, Eric.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Eric Eden (00:19):
And you are an author and a keynote speaker who
creates tons of content.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about who you are and what
you do?
Robin Waite (00:28):
Yeah, absolutely so .
I'm actually an introvert bynature.
I started off my career in 2004doing web design and branding,
ran that company until 2016.
And then, through various lifechoices, I've got two daughters
now and I was between daughtersat the time and life was just
getting a little bit too hecticso I decided I was going to
(00:49):
close the agency down,ultimately ended up selling it,
which was quite exciting as aprocess to go through, and then
from there went into informallymentoring people because they
heard that I'd sold my agency,wanted to understand how they
could do it for their own agencyand essentially, eric, anything
for like coffee and cake.
You know that's all you've gotto do to get my attention these
days.
(01:09):
So I did a bit of informalmentoring for free and then
eventually it got to a pointwhere there was so much demand
because I was getting invited tospeak at events and go to
networking events and thingslike that that I set up Fearless
Business, which is the businesscoaching program which I run
now and primarily we help sortof small one person businesses,
because that's where my heart is.
(01:30):
So the grassroots businesseslooking to grow up to six
figures and beyond.
Mostly they are in the serviceclient space.
So coaches, consultants,freelancers, those sorts of
businesses and my greatestpassion as well is I think
there's a lot of people outthere who either take business
like far too seriously orultimately make it really dull.
My job is to make it as fun asI possibly can do and to help
(01:51):
people get the freedom backwhich I've managed to create for
myself.
Eric Eden (01:57):
That's awesome and you've helped over 1000 people
with coaching something likethat right.
Robin Waite (02:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've had to shift into doingmore of a group coaching thing
now, which people have differentviews on and we probably won't
go into, but what it has allowedus to do is to essentially help
more people at scale.
I'm only one person and doingone-to-one coaching was quite a
lot, but yeah, since we shiftedinto the group format and it's
gone from strength to strength,we just seem to be helping more
and more people every year,which is fantastic.
Eric Eden (02:24):
Is a group coaching kind of like a mastermind sort
of structure.
Robin Waite (02:28):
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly that, and I try and
again try and make it sort ofdifferentiated to other group
coaching programs.
So we actually do like alifetime access program, so you
pay for it once, you get accessto it ad infinitum, and what
it's really allowed us to do iskind of build that community of
different, you know, fearlessbusiness owners, because
otherwise what you end up within a lot of traditional coaching
(02:50):
programs is kind of, you know,like a revolving door of clients
constantly coming and going andmy, my whole thing about when I
remember when I first startedgrowing my first business, was
you end up it can be quiteinsular, very lonely, like
trying to grow a business, andespecially now we're in this
online space.
So for me it was like superimportant to build this
community where people alwayshad a safe space to go to to
(03:12):
talk about their business andsometimes personal woes and
challenges and things like that.
Eric Eden (03:19):
That's great.
I love it.
And you've written a couple ofbooks, right.
Tell us just a little bit aboutthat broadly.
Robin Waite (03:26):
Yeah.
So the first one was kind ofmore linked to my web design
days.
So the first one was the onewith the red cover.
It's called Online BusinessStartup and it was literally the
three things, the trinity oflike building a business,
starting a business, goingonline and then marketing it.
And that did really well.
I think it sold about 15 or20,000 copies in its heyday.
It was at number one on Amazonfor about two and a half years
(03:48):
and it was great fun because Ihad several friends who'd also
written books and we were alwayssort of vying at the top of the
charts for like small businessand entrepreneurship, you know,
constantly having sort ofconversations and taking the
mickey out of one another aboutwhose book was number one or two
and things like that, and.
But the trouble is that book wasvery much about and he said I
don't run an agency, I'm a golfpro.
So Russ actually ended up beingmy first official coaching
(04:11):
client and I used to tell astory about Russ's journey,
about how we sort of transformedhis golf pro business.
We packaged up his offer and weraised his prices and at some
point somebody said, hey, youshould put that into a book.
So that ultimately ended upbeing Take your Shot and again
Take your Shot sold thousands ofcopies.
Now I think it's approachinglike 900 five-star reviews on
(04:33):
Amazon, which is like beyond mywildest imagination when I
actually wrote the book.
But it's told as an actualparable, like a story, so that
people can get really immersedinto it.
They can feel like get a senseof Russ's character and like the
nicest thing is when peoplesort of write to me and they say
, oh, I really empathize withthe character.
It felt like you were writingthe book about me because I
(04:55):
wanted people to really get intothe story of it.
Eric Eden (04:58):
I love it and congratulations on that.
It's hard for people to geteven more than 50 reviews on
Amazon, so that's that's great.
So congratulations on that.
It's hard for people to geteven more than 50 reviews on
Amazon, so that's great.
Robin Waite (05:06):
So congratulations on that.
It's hard work, Eric, which hasgone into that.
So yeah, just a little bit.
Eric Eden (05:12):
The life of an author .
So tell us a story about someof the best marketing that
you've done that you're the mostproud of in building your
business.
Robin Waite (05:23):
Yeah, I mean, as you know, marketing's a journey
and I think a lot of people,when they get into business,
they they really want to do moreof the thing which they got
into business doing the first,in the first place, whether
that's building websites,coaching as an accountant, a
graphic designer, whatever it is, and I very much was in that
sort of I wanted to spend moretime coaching.
(05:44):
And so the end of I think itwas 2022, I basically got to a
point where I was just reallyfed up with grinding out sort of
repurposing content and doingall the things a lot of the
gurus and experts tell you to do.
You know, I was doing all ofthe usual sort of stuff podcasts
, youtube channels, doing videos, short and long form content,
(06:06):
the rest of it but I was just abit burnt out by the end of 2022
.
So I went anti-social anddecided just to cut everything
like social media wise.
Not really.
I didn't have much of a plan atthat point, but I figured that
what I was doing was justchurning out content.
But I wasn't being terriblyintentional about it.
But what slowly became apparentwas that I was kind of stuck
here in my little studio in theCotswolds in England and not
really getting out much.
And and I realized that therewere some amazing business
(06:28):
owners out there doing likegreat things, having a lot of
fun doing what they're doing,and I wasn't really hanging out
with them.
So I wrote down a list of 10entrepreneurs that I absolutely
love, like.
I follow all of their content,their videos and stuff, and I
thought, right, I'm gonna putmyself in the room with these
people, I'm just gonna show upwith no agenda, just hang out
with them, have fun doing it,like add value to their
businesses if I can, um, butwith no real expectation of like
(06:51):
getting anything back in return.
It was really just have a bitof fun.
So this concept of likepartnerships came about and what
it led to blew my mind.
One of the guys who I helped wasthis youtuber.
He's sort of expert anyway.
One day one of his team saidRobin, listen, I have to pay you
some money.
You've been so helpful.
What can we do do?
And I said, well, ali Abdaal.
His first guest was, I think,his name's Ben Francis from
(07:13):
Gymshark, so worthmulti-billions of dollars.
And I thought who am I to go ondeep dive with Ali Abdaal?
But I said to the guy look, putme on the subs bench.
I know he's recording a coupleof seasons.
Anyway, long story short, I geta call like on a Thursday hey,
rob, can you come down to London?
We want you to record Likeyou're doing deep dive with Ali
Abdaal.
I was like, yeah, absolutely noproblem.
(07:38):
Realized that I had like twopodcast interviews, a coaching
session.
I had to the school pick up anddrop off to do.
That day it's had to likecancel everything.
But that one podcast interviewended up producing 3000 leads
for my business and I think lastcount it was somewhere
approaching $250,000 worth ofnew business from clients that
we enrolled into the programs.
But a lot of the time peoplelike it's two questions I get
(07:58):
asked is first, one is like howdid you get it?
How did you get that interview?
Well, one, it was just paying apound into the meter every
single day into Ali's brand.
I love what he was doing and Ijust showed up and was helpful
and that eventually gotrecognized.
But you can never predict whenor you know what you're going to
get back from a partnershiplike that.
But I was just willing just tokeep paying in because it was
(08:20):
just fun to do it?
And the second question I getasked is well, how did you do so
well, how did you manage to getyour 3 000 leads just from one
interview?
Um, ali's audience for thosewho know him is like incredibly,
like six million people, butthey're really engaged, they
absolutely love his brand.
So, you know, getting anendorsement from ali on his
(08:40):
podcast was, you know, there wasso much trust which was
elicited from that and what wedid on on the actual interview,
we didn't, we didn't just do a,a sort of a you know, the
typical sort of interview formatwhich you, you know very, you
know.
You know well, eric, about fiveminutes before we sat down to
record, ali said oh, you know,that coaching thing which you
(09:02):
did with Joe on my team andSafwan, do you think we could
probably do?
Do you think we could do thaton the podcast?
And I was like, yeah, of course.
So what?
What we ended up doing for thefirst two hours of the interview
, ali came up with two kind ofrole play businesses which he
thought, oh, let's, let's talkabout it.
How would you coach me throughstarting this business up?
And that's all we did for thefirst couple of hours.
(09:22):
I just coached him around thesetwo ideas and then after two
hours he said oh, it's deep dive.
We're supposed to be deepdiving into the guest background
.
I should probably ask you somequestions about yourself.
And then we did the usual sortof structure for the for the
interview.
But and and really what it wasreally fascinating was we.
We got to the end of theinterview and ali and I just
planned because he's like, oh,we should probably do a giveaway
(09:43):
or do something at the end forpeople to sort of sign up to or
whatever.
You know, I want to want topromote your business.
So I said well, let's, I'llbring 15 copies of the book,
let's sign the books and youknow both of us and then we'll
give them away.
I kid you not, within fiveminutes of the episode going
live on YouTube, those 15episodes, those 15 books were
gone.
And then they just kept rollingin.
I think in the first two months, three months I think I shipped
(10:06):
seven or 800 physical signedcopies of the book to all four
corners of the globe, and likeMongolia, south America, like
all the countries across EuropeAustralia, new Zealand, north
America, like everywhere, andit's carried on.
So we're now what, 18 months onfrom when that episode went
live and I literally I still getinquiries dropping into my
(10:28):
inbox daily requesting a copy ofthe book.
So a combination like thatreally high value content on the
episode I think massivelyhelped, but also having a high
value giveaway at the end of it.
It was like the double whammyof, you know, having the impact.
And what's been reallyinteresting is, you know, I have
quite a regimented sort ofqualification process when we
(10:48):
sort of interview and enrollclients and every single client
that has come through Ali hasjust been like, so wonderful to
work with.
It's just like the just reallygood people to work with, very,
I mean, his thing isproductivity, so they're all
very engaged and very, you know,hyper productive.
So it's been quite fascinatingas a journey.
But podcasts with people who'vealready got your audience there
(11:09):
are by far and away, as acampaign, one of the things
which everybody should be doingthis year.
Eric Eden (11:16):
Wow, that's an incredible story.
It really shows the power ofpodcasting, that you can win
hundreds of thousands of dollarsby guesting, but I think you
know some of the additionalthemes you mentioned.
On top of that is, you know,producing great content, and you
had the awesome book that youwere able to use as the high
(11:37):
value offer, like you weresaying, and you know broadly,
just being a creator who createshundreds of hours of content, I
think it probably allowed youto create a really great episode
with him that really resonatedwith people, right.
Robin Waite (11:51):
Yeah, that's it.
I mean I was.
I've been trying to tot up, Ithink.
Since we launched the groupcoaching program, we've done
over 500 calls and they'retypically about two hours each.
So there's there's at least athousand hours of coaching in
there and content, goodnessknows.
I think I've done probably 200podcast interviews.
We have the YouTube channel.
(12:15):
We have quite an extensive blognow with over 4,000 articles in
it, and it's for me.
It's always about, I think.
I think a lot of people getcontent marketing wrong, so
there's always this undercurrentof like self-promotion, which I
get it right.
We've got to.
We've got to put our name outthere and leverage it in order
to get leads and things likethat.
But one of the I think, one ofthe biggest learnings I've had
since especially since thatinterview with Ali went live
it's okay just to giveeverything away like you can.
(12:38):
I don't need to be like doingseven figures and be a scaling
coach.
I have a very nice lifestylebusiness doing two to three
hundred thousand pounds a year,you know, um, and that I have a
comfortable life with that aswell, not just financially, but
it means I get to hang out withmy kids.
I don't have to workridiculously long hours in order
to sustain that.
It's quite a nice steadybusiness, but that's just over
(13:02):
and one of the one thing whichmight be helpful.
So, um, on the podcast side ofthings, I went a bit old school
in September so I decided I wasgoing to like double down on the
podcast side of things in onthe first of September, just
going to see how many podcasts Icould guest on as you know,
humanly possible to guest on inamongst my, my day job and um,
(13:23):
initially I set a goal to do tobook 30 podcasts and then, um,
see how many of those I couldrecord.
So last count, count, Iactually ended up.
I've had to go into the back ofit because I stretched the goal
, basically.
So I booked now 51 podcasts andI think I've recorded about 35
episodes.
And one of the nice things islike we're taught about using
(13:46):
tools like Todoist and variousonline tools and stuff like that
.
But every time I come and sitdown at my desk with this little
postcard in front of me, I'mreminded about what my purpose
is, my mission is for the nextweek, the next quarter, the next
, whatever it is.
So gradually I'm just workingmy way through here and just
kind of ticking them off as I go, and it's just a nice visual
(14:06):
way to see what we do here.
And the other thing as well islike, when we produce a high
value piece of content, like apodcast interview like this,
this one, um, I like to repaythe favor to the host, for
example.
So and again, this is what Ithink a lot of people, when
they're guesting, really forgetabout um, a lot of best possible
chances got of helping not justme, help listen to the episode,
(14:29):
but also find some extralisteners for Eric as well.
So we I go to like part of thereason we do this is so that
when a new episode gets releasedI've guessed it on we'll create
a medium article, a blogarticle from it.
We'll we'll write it up, we'llshare it on LinkedIn.
So there's a few things thatwe'll do that will hopefully add
value to the podcast, raise itsawareness, and it also helps
(14:49):
with SEO, which is my backgroundfor like 20 plus years as well,
you know, getting good qualitybacklinks to your podcast,
because if we help your podcastgrow well, by virtue of that, it
benefits me as well.
So those and again, it's thatwhole notion of treating this
not as like a marketing campaign, not as me saying, hey, look at
me, look how amazing I am.
It's more about how can Ileverage this partnership to
(15:12):
benefit both eric, mostly, andalso myself in the same process,
because it can be a a win-winsituation that's great.
Eric Eden (15:22):
I think doing the marketing after you do the
podcast is where a lot of peopletrip at the finish line and
don't get the full value out ofthe time that they've invested.
So that's pretty awesome.
I like the concept of how youpick the right audience with
(15:45):
Allie, and it was the right fitfor you because a lot of
podcasts are very niche and theyhave very specific audiences,
and if you just go guest on anypodcast, you probably won't get
those sorts of great results,right.
So I think what podcasts you'reon and and are they really your
your tribe is, it's a big pieceof it.
Did you work on booking thesepodcasts directly for your goal?
(16:09):
Did you use agencies?
Did you?
Did you use some of the siteslike Podmatch, like, like?
How have you done it?
Robin Waite (16:15):
Yeah, mostly actually it's through through
Podmatch.
So, alex Sanfilippo, you knowhe's built such an amazing
platform on there and fortunatefor us to have a conversation
and he was like you've got toget onto Podmatch.
I mean obviously you wouldcause it's his own platform,
right, but he was like it's,it's such a great way.
It's like basically amarketplace between podcast
(16:35):
hosts, podcast guests and it.
It's relatively inexpensive butit's just a really simple way
to kind of meet podcasters.
And and the nice thing is aswell, you know, I've I've
purposefully gone out of my wayto select podcasts where the
host has gone through.
They've added, added all theirsocial media links on there.
They put a description of thetype of guest which they're
looking for in topics.
They've got a breakdown of kindof their audience and the also
(16:58):
the like, the backstory behindthe podcast.
So where they essentiallyfilled out their profile and put
lots of info on there, theytend to be the podcast we select
because, like you said, itmeans then we can make sure
there's a good crossover betweensorts of content which I would
talk about and hopefully givingtheir audience some value.
Um, you're always going to getwe have time but podcasts have.
I've kind of created this tiersystem for the podcast which we,
(17:22):
we, we guest on.
So tier one is kind of likeyour, your top tier, your diary
of a ceo, your colin and samir,your Ali Abdaal deep dive.
They're like almost celebritystatus sort of podcasts where
they've got millions offollowers.
Tier two tends to be sort ofmaybe they've got a hundred
people, but ultimately it'sabout looking for leads within
their business and growing theirbusiness.
(17:43):
And then you've got the tierfours, which I cast as more of
like the hobbyists 're kind oflike interested in podcasting,
just looking to do something, tostart producing content, but
haven't really quite establishedthat purpose yet.
So we, we typically I break itdown into like maybe every then
this is yearly one or two tierones.
If we can achieve that, that'sgreat.
Probably five to ten tier twosand then obviously the numbers
(18:05):
you know, scale as you gofurther down.
But the really interestingthing is it some podcast.
I think a lot of people look atpodcasts.
Oh, they've only got like 10subscribers.
Why should I go on that?
Well, that you only need oneperson listening to that podcast
who is like either a host of atier three or tier two, or maybe
an author or runs an event, oryou know as a, as looking for a
(18:26):
consultant in your niche, orsomething like that.
You only need one opportunityfrom a podcast for it to really,
you know, pay off, um, and it'sthe wonderful thing about
podcasting.
So, um, one final anecdote andthen I'll, I'll, I'll shut up,
but on my own.
Enough for this is to we.
We massively overproduced it,so we were spending a lot of
money on producing loads ofcontent, repurposing this any
(18:47):
other, and I hadn hadn'tnecessarily got the ROI I'd
hoped financially from it.
So I was like questioning, do Icarry on with it?
And then, the week I wascontemplating this, I got a call
from Google and call fromMicrosoft, and then a third call
from a company called Takeda,who are an international
pharmaceutical company.
All three of them booked me tospeak at their events or various
(19:08):
events within, booked me tospeak at their events, um, or
various events within, you know,um, parts of their organization
.
Episode 67 took me to get there.
They'd all listened to episodetwo that week, which was about I
don't know why itunes hadsurfaced it, but they'd all
listened to episode two, whichwas about, like, growth mindset,
which is something I don'tordinarily talk about, but at
the time I found it interesting.
So again, again, like withcontent, like you can never, you
(19:30):
never know when the payoff isgoing to come, and this is why,
if you keep, stay focused andproduce high value content,
something will happen eventually.
It's just, it's not a matter ofif it's when.
Eric Eden (19:42):
I love it and being consistent, sticking with it.
I think those are themes I hearfrom a lot of people and I'm a
big believer that podcasting isan amazing channel for
businesses that want to grow.
I'm headed to the biggestpodcast conference in the US
next week PodFest in Orlando.
Robin Waite (20:02):
And so.
Eric Eden (20:03):
I'm going to get to spend a lot of time with fellow
podcasters there and I'm goingto keep working my way up your
tier system and hopefully get totier one.
That's the dream, so I reallyappreciate you being with us
today and sharing all this greatstuff.
I think people on the podcastjourney, whether they're hosting
or guesting need this kind ofinspiration, so I really
(20:24):
appreciate you joining andsharing this with us today.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your book so people
can get in touch if they'd liketo learn more.
Robin Waite (20:33):
Yeah, amazing, absolutely, and I always say
it'd be unfair of me to talkabout how many books I gave away
on Ali Abdaal's podcast andthen not do the same for your
audience as well.
So if you want to share thelink, I'm happy to send free
signed copies anywhere in theglobe to anybody who's listening
to the podcast as well, eric.
So I think the website addressis just fearlessbiz forward
slash TYS for take your shot,but hopefully you will share it
(20:55):
somewhere around this as wellfor people to get hold of it.
Eric Eden (20:59):
Absolutely.
Thank you for making that offer.
I encourage everyone to taketheir shot and get the book and
really appreciate it.
Thanks for being with us today,my pleasure.
Thank you, eric.
Welcome to today's episode.
Today we are talking about thepower of podcasting and content,
and we have an awesome guest tohelp us talk through that,
robin Waite.
Welcome to the show.
Robin Waite (00:15):
Thank you for having me, Eric.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Eric Eden (00:19):
And you are an author and a keynote speaker who
creates tons of content.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about who you are and what
you do?
Robin Waite (00:28):
Yeah, absolutely so .
I'm actually an introvert bynature.
I started off my career in 2004doing web design and branding,
ran that company until 2016.
And then, through various lifechoices, I've got two daughters
now and I was between daughtersat the time and life was just
getting a little bit too hecticso I decided I was going to
(00:49):
close the agency down,ultimately ended up selling it,
which was quite exciting as aprocess to go through, and then
from there went into informallymentoring people because they
heard that I'd sold my agency,wanted to understand how they
could do it for their own agencyand essentially, eric, anything
for like coffee and cake.
You know that's all you've gotto do to get my attention these
days.
(01:09):
So I did a bit of informalmentoring for free and then
eventually it got to a pointwhere there was so much demand
because I was getting invited tospeak at events and go to
networking events and thingslike that that I set up Fearless
Business, which is the businesscoaching program which I run
now and primarily we help sortof small one person businesses,
because that's where my heart is.
(01:30):
So the grassroots businesseslooking to grow up to six
figures and beyond.
Mostly they are in the serviceclient space.
So coaches, consultants,freelancers, those sorts of
businesses and my greatestpassion as well is I think
there's a lot of people outthere who either take business
like far too seriously orultimately make it really dull.
My job is to make it as fun asI possibly can do and to help
(01:51):
people get the freedom backwhich I've managed to create for
myself.
Eric Eden (01:57):
That's awesome and you've helped over 1000 people
with coaching something likethat right.
Robin Waite (02:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
We've had to shift into doingmore of a group coaching thing
now, which people have differentviews on and we probably won't
go into, but what it has allowedus to do is to essentially help
more people at scale.
I'm only one person and doingone-to-one coaching was quite a
lot, but yeah, since we shiftedinto the group format and it's
gone from strength to strength,we just seem to be helping more
and more people every year,which is fantastic.
Eric Eden (02:24):
Is a group coaching kind of like a mastermind sort
of structure.
Robin Waite (02:28):
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly that, and I try and
again try and make it sort ofdifferentiated to other group
coaching programs.
So we actually do like alifetime access program, so you
pay for it once, you get accessto it ad infinitum, and what
it's really allowed us to do iskind of build that community of
different, you know, fearlessbusiness owners, because
otherwise what you end up within a lot of traditional coaching
(02:50):
programs is kind of, you know,like a revolving door of clients
constantly coming and going andmy, my whole thing about when I
remember when I first startedgrowing my first business, was
you end up it can be quiteinsular, very lonely, like
trying to grow a business, andespecially now we're in this
online space.
So for me it was like superimportant to build this
community where people alwayshad a safe space to go to to
(03:12):
talk about their business andsometimes personal woes and
challenges and things like that.
Eric Eden (03:19):
That's great.
I love it.
And you've written a couple ofbooks, right.
Tell us just a little bit aboutthat broadly.
Robin Waite (03:26):
Yeah.
So the first one was kind ofmore linked to my web design
days.
So the first one was the onewith the red cover.
It's called Online BusinessStartup and it was literally the
three things, the trinity oflike building a business,
starting a business, goingonline and then marketing it.
And that did really well.
I think it sold about 15 or20,000 copies in its heyday.
It was at number one on Amazonfor about two and a half years
(03:48):
and it was great fun because Ihad several friends who'd also
written books and we were alwayssort of vying at the top of the
charts for like small businessand entrepreneurship, you know,
constantly having sort ofconversations and taking the
mickey out of one another aboutwhose book was number one or two
and things like that, and.
But the trouble is that book wasvery much about and he said I
don't run an agency, I'm a golfpro.
So Russ actually ended up beingmy first official coaching
(04:11):
client and I used to tell astory about Russ's journey,
about how we sort of transformedhis golf pro business.
We packaged up his offer and weraised his prices and at some
point somebody said, hey, youshould put that into a book.
So that ultimately ended upbeing Take your Shot and again
Take your Shot sold thousands ofcopies.
Now I think it's approachinglike 900 five-star reviews on
(04:33):
Amazon, which is like beyond mywildest imagination when I
actually wrote the book.
But it's told as an actualparable, like a story, so that
people can get really immersedinto it.
They can feel like get a senseof Russ's character and like the
nicest thing is when peoplesort of write to me and they say
, oh, I really empathize withthe character.
It felt like you were writingthe book about me because I
(04:55):
wanted people to really get intothe story of it.
Eric Eden (04:58):
I love it and congratulations on that.
It's hard for people to geteven more than 50 reviews on
Amazon, so that's that's great.
So congratulations on that.
It's hard for people to geteven more than 50 reviews on
Amazon, so that's great.
Robin Waite (05:06):
So congratulations on that.
It's hard work, Eric, which hasgone into that.
So yeah, just a little bit.
Eric Eden (05:12):
The life of an author .
So tell us a story about someof the best marketing that
you've done that you're the mostproud of in building your
business.
Robin Waite (05:23):
Yeah, I mean, as you know, marketing's a journey
and I think a lot of people,when they get into business,
they they really want to do moreof the thing which they got
into business doing the first,in the first place, whether
that's building websites,coaching as an accountant, a
graphic designer, whatever it is, and I very much was in that
sort of I wanted to spend moretime coaching.
(05:44):
And so the end of I think itwas 2022, I basically got to a
point where I was just reallyfed up with grinding out sort of
repurposing content and doingall the things a lot of the
gurus and experts tell you to do.
You know, I was doing all ofthe usual sort of stuff podcasts
, youtube channels, doing videos, short and long form content,
(06:06):
the rest of it but I was just abit burnt out by the end of 2022
.
So I went anti-social anddecided just to cut everything
like social media wise.
Not really.
I didn't have much of a plan atthat point, but I figured that
what I was doing was justchurning out content.
But I wasn't being terriblyintentional about it.
But what slowly became apparentwas that I was kind of stuck
here in my little studio in theCotswolds in England and not
really getting out much.
And and I realized that therewere some amazing business
(06:28):
owners out there doing likegreat things, having a lot of
fun doing what they're doing,and I wasn't really hanging out
with them.
So I wrote down a list of 10entrepreneurs that I absolutely
love, like.
I follow all of their content,their videos and stuff, and I
thought, right, I'm gonna putmyself in the room with these
people, I'm just gonna show upwith no agenda, just hang out
with them, have fun doing it,like add value to their
businesses if I can, um, butwith no real expectation of like
(06:51):
getting anything back in return.
It was really just have a bitof fun.
So this concept of likepartnerships came about and what
it led to blew my mind.
One of the guys who I helped wasthis youtuber.
He's sort of expert anyway.
One day one of his team saidRobin, listen, I have to pay you
some money.
You've been so helpful.
What can we do do?
And I said, well, ali Abdaal.
His first guest was, I think,his name's Ben Francis from
(07:13):
Gymshark, so worthmulti-billions of dollars.
And I thought who am I to go ondeep dive with Ali Abdaal?
But I said to the guy look, putme on the subs bench.
I know he's recording a coupleof seasons.
Anyway, long story short, I geta call like on a Thursday hey,
rob, can you come down to London?
We want you to record Likeyou're doing deep dive with Ali
Abdaal.
I was like, yeah, absolutely noproblem.
(07:38):
Realized that I had like twopodcast interviews, a coaching
session.
I had to the school pick up anddrop off to do.
That day it's had to likecancel everything.
But that one podcast interviewended up producing 3000 leads
for my business and I think lastcount it was somewhere
approaching $250,000 worth ofnew business from clients that
we enrolled into the programs.
But a lot of the time peoplelike it's two questions I get
(07:58):
asked is first, one is like howdid you get it?
How did you get that interview?
Well, one, it was just paying apound into the meter every
single day into Ali's brand.
I love what he was doing and Ijust showed up and was helpful
and that eventually gotrecognized.
But you can never predict whenor you know what you're going to
get back from a partnershiplike that.
But I was just willing just tokeep paying in because it was
(08:20):
just fun to do it?
And the second question I getasked is well, how did you do so
well, how did you manage to getyour 3 000 leads just from one
interview?
Um, ali's audience for thosewho know him is like incredibly,
like six million people, butthey're really engaged, they
absolutely love his brand.
So, you know, getting anendorsement from ali on his
(08:40):
podcast was, you know, there wasso much trust which was
elicited from that and what wedid on on the actual interview,
we didn't, we didn't just do a,a sort of a you know, the
typical sort of interview formatwhich you, you know very, you
know.
You know well, eric, about fiveminutes before we sat down to
record, ali said oh, you know,that coaching thing which you
(09:02):
did with Joe on my team andSafwan, do you think we could
probably do?
Do you think we could do thaton the podcast?
And I was like, yeah, of course.
So what?
What we ended up doing for thefirst two hours of the interview
, ali came up with two kind ofrole play businesses which he
thought, oh, let's, let's talkabout it.
How would you coach me throughstarting this business up?
And that's all we did for thefirst couple of hours.
(09:22):
I just coached him around thesetwo ideas and then after two
hours he said oh, it's deep dive.
We're supposed to be deepdiving into the guest background
.
I should probably ask you somequestions about yourself.
And then we did the usual sortof structure for the for the
interview.
But and and really what it wasreally fascinating was we.
We got to the end of theinterview and ali and I just
planned because he's like, oh,we should probably do a giveaway
(09:43):
or do something at the end forpeople to sort of sign up to or
whatever.
You know, I want to want topromote your business.
So I said well, let's, I'llbring 15 copies of the book,
let's sign the books and youknow both of us and then we'll
give them away.
I kid you not, within fiveminutes of the episode going
live on YouTube, those 15episodes, those 15 books were
gone.
And then they just kept rollingin.
I think in the first two months, three months I think I shipped
(10:06):
seven or 800 physical signedcopies of the book to all four
corners of the globe, and likeMongolia, south America, like
all the countries across EuropeAustralia, new Zealand, north
America, like everywhere, andit's carried on.
So we're now what, 18 months onfrom when that episode went
live and I literally I still getinquiries dropping into my
(10:28):
inbox daily requesting a copy ofthe book.
So a combination like thatreally high value content on the
episode I think massivelyhelped, but also having a high
value giveaway at the end of it.
It was like the double whammyof, you know, having the impact.
And what's been reallyinteresting is, you know, I have
quite a regimented sort ofqualification process when we
(10:48):
sort of interview and enrollclients and every single client
that has come through Ali hasjust been like, so wonderful to
work with.
It's just like the just reallygood people to work with, very,
I mean, his thing isproductivity, so they're all
very engaged and very, you know,hyper productive.
So it's been quite fascinatingas a journey.
But podcasts with people who'vealready got your audience there
(11:09):
are by far and away, as acampaign, one of the things
which everybody should be doingthis year.
Eric Eden (11:16):
Wow, that's an incredible story.
It really shows the power ofpodcasting, that you can win
hundreds of thousands of dollarsby guesting, but I think you
know some of the additionalthemes you mentioned.
On top of that is, you know,producing great content, and you
had the awesome book that youwere able to use as the high
(11:37):
value offer, like you weresaying, and you know broadly,
just being a creator who createshundreds of hours of content, I
think it probably allowed youto create a really great episode
with him that really resonatedwith people, right.
Robin Waite (11:51):
Yeah, that's it.
I mean I was.
I've been trying to tot up, Ithink.
Since we launched the groupcoaching program, we've done
over 500 calls and they'retypically about two hours each.
So there's there's at least athousand hours of coaching in
there and content, goodnessknows.
I think I've done probably 200podcast interviews.
We have the YouTube channel.
(12:15):
We have quite an extensive blognow with over 4,000 articles in
it, and it's for me.
It's always about, I think.
I think a lot of people getcontent marketing wrong, so
there's always this undercurrentof like self-promotion, which I
get it right.
We've got to.
We've got to put our name outthere and leverage it in order
to get leads and things likethat.
But one of the I think, one ofthe biggest learnings I've had
since especially since thatinterview with Ali went live
it's okay just to giveeverything away like you can.
(12:38):
I don't need to be like doingseven figures and be a scaling
coach.
I have a very nice lifestylebusiness doing two to three
hundred thousand pounds a year,you know, um, and that I have a
comfortable life with that aswell, not just financially, but
it means I get to hang out withmy kids.
I don't have to workridiculously long hours in order
to sustain that.
It's quite a nice steadybusiness, but that's just over
(13:02):
and one of the one thing whichmight be helpful.
So, um, on the podcast side ofthings, I went a bit old school
in September so I decided I wasgoing to like double down on the
podcast side of things in onthe first of September, just
going to see how many podcasts Icould guest on as you know,
humanly possible to guest on inamongst my, my day job and um,
(13:23):
initially I set a goal to do tobook 30 podcasts and then, um,
see how many of those I couldrecord.
So last count, count, Iactually ended up.
I've had to go into the back ofit because I stretched the goal
, basically.
So I booked now 51 podcasts andI think I've recorded about 35
episodes.
And one of the nice things islike we're taught about using
(13:46):
tools like Todoist and variousonline tools and stuff like that
.
But every time I come and sitdown at my desk with this little
postcard in front of me, I'mreminded about what my purpose
is, my mission is for the nextweek, the next quarter, the next
, whatever it is.
So gradually I'm just workingmy way through here and just
kind of ticking them off as I go, and it's just a nice visual
(14:06):
way to see what we do here.
And the other thing as well islike, when we produce a high
value piece of content, like apodcast interview like this,
this one, um, I like to repaythe favor to the host, for
example.
So and again, this is what Ithink a lot of people, when
they're guesting, really forgetabout um, a lot of best possible
chances got of helping not justme, help listen to the episode,
(14:29):
but also find some extralisteners for Eric as well.
So we I go to like part of thereason we do this is so that
when a new episode gets releasedI've guessed it on we'll create
a medium article, a blogarticle from it.
We'll we'll write it up, we'llshare it on LinkedIn.
So there's a few things thatwe'll do that will hopefully add
value to the podcast, raise itsawareness, and it also helps
(14:49):
with SEO, which is my backgroundfor like 20 plus years as well,
you know, getting good qualitybacklinks to your podcast,
because if we help your podcastgrow well, by virtue of that, it
benefits me as well.
So those and again, it's thatwhole notion of treating this
not as like a marketing campaign, not as me saying, hey, look at
me, look how amazing I am.
It's more about how can Ileverage this partnership to
(15:12):
benefit both eric, mostly, andalso myself in the same process,
because it can be a a win-winsituation that's great.
Eric Eden (15:22):
I think doing the marketing after you do the
podcast is where a lot of peopletrip at the finish line and
don't get the full value out ofthe time that they've invested.
So that's pretty awesome.
I like the concept of how youpick the right audience with
(15:45):
Allie, and it was the right fitfor you because a lot of
podcasts are very niche and theyhave very specific audiences,
and if you just go guest on anypodcast, you probably won't get
those sorts of great results,right.
So I think what podcasts you'reon and and are they really your
your tribe is, it's a big pieceof it.
Did you work on booking thesepodcasts directly for your goal?
(16:09):
Did you use agencies?
Did you?
Did you use some of the siteslike Podmatch, like, like?
How have you done it?
Robin Waite (16:15):
Yeah, mostly actually it's through through
Podmatch.
So, alex Sanfilippo, you knowhe's built such an amazing
platform on there and fortunatefor us to have a conversation
and he was like you've got toget onto Podmatch.
I mean obviously you wouldcause it's his own platform,
right, but he was like it's,it's such a great way.
It's like basically amarketplace between podcast
(16:35):
hosts, podcast guests and it.
It's relatively inexpensive butit's just a really simple way
to kind of meet podcasters.
And and the nice thing is aswell, you know, I've I've
purposefully gone out of my wayto select podcasts where the
host has gone through.
They've added, added all theirsocial media links on there.
They put a description of thetype of guest which they're
looking for in topics.
They've got a breakdown of kindof their audience and the also
(16:58):
the like, the backstory behindthe podcast.
So where they essentiallyfilled out their profile and put
lots of info on there, theytend to be the podcast we select
because, like you said, itmeans then we can make sure
there's a good crossover betweensorts of content which I would
talk about and hopefully givingtheir audience some value.
Um, you're always going to getwe have time but podcasts have.
I've kind of created this tiersystem for the podcast which we,
(17:22):
we, we guest on.
So tier one is kind of likeyour, your top tier, your diary
of a ceo, your colin and samir,your Ali Abdaal deep dive.
They're like almost celebritystatus sort of podcasts where
they've got millions offollowers.
Tier two tends to be sort ofmaybe they've got a hundred
people, but ultimately it'sabout looking for leads within
their business and growing theirbusiness.
(17:43):
And then you've got the tierfours, which I cast as more of
like the hobbyists 're kind oflike interested in podcasting,
just looking to do something, tostart producing content, but
haven't really quite establishedthat purpose yet.
So we, we typically I break itdown into like maybe every then
this is yearly one or two tierones.
If we can achieve that, that'sgreat.
Probably five to ten tier twosand then obviously the numbers
(18:05):
you know, scale as you gofurther down.
But the really interestingthing is it some podcast.
I think a lot of people look atpodcasts.
Oh, they've only got like 10subscribers.
Why should I go on that?
Well, that you only need oneperson listening to that podcast
who is like either a host of atier three or tier two, or maybe
an author or runs an event, oryou know as a, as looking for a
(18:26):
consultant in your niche, orsomething like that.
You only need one opportunityfrom a podcast for it to really,
you know, pay off, um, and it'sthe wonderful thing about
podcasting.
So, um, one final anecdote andthen I'll, I'll, I'll shut up,
but on my own.
Enough for this is to we.
We massively overproduced it,so we were spending a lot of
money on producing loads ofcontent, repurposing this any
(18:47):
other, and I hadn hadn'tnecessarily got the ROI I'd
hoped financially from it.
So I was like questioning, do Icarry on with it?
And then, the week I wascontemplating this, I got a call
from Google and call fromMicrosoft, and then a third call
from a company called Takeda,who are an international
pharmaceutical company.
All three of them booked me tospeak at their events or various
(19:08):
events within, booked me tospeak at their events, um, or
various events within, you know,um, parts of their organization
.
Episode 67 took me to get there.
They'd all listened to episodetwo that week, which was about I
don't know why itunes hadsurfaced it, but they'd all
listened to episode two, whichwas about, like, growth mindset,
which is something I don'tordinarily talk about, but at
the time I found it interesting.
So again, again, like withcontent, like you can never, you
(19:30):
never know when the payoff isgoing to come, and this is why,
if you keep, stay focused andproduce high value content,
something will happen eventually.
It's just, it's not a matter ofif it's when.
Eric Eden (19:42):
I love it and being consistent, sticking with it.
I think those are themes I hearfrom a lot of people and I'm a
big believer that podcasting isan amazing channel for
businesses that want to grow.
I'm headed to the biggestpodcast conference in the US
next week PodFest in Orlando.
Robin Waite (20:02):
And so.
Eric Eden (20:03):
I'm going to get to spend a lot of time with fellow
podcasters there and I'm goingto keep working my way up your
tier system and hopefully get totier one.
That's the dream, so I reallyappreciate you being with us
today and sharing all this greatstuff.
I think people on the podcastjourney, whether they're hosting
or guesting need this kind ofinspiration, so I really
(20:24):
appreciate you joining andsharing this with us today.
I'm going to link to yourwebsite and your book so people
can get in touch if they'd liketo learn more.
Robin Waite (20:33):
Yeah, amazing, absolutely, and I always say
it'd be unfair of me to talkabout how many books I gave away
on Ali Abdaal's podcast andthen not do the same for your
audience as well.
So if you want to share thelink, I'm happy to send free
signed copies anywhere in theglobe to anybody who's listening
to the podcast as well, eric.
So I think the website addressis just fearlessbiz forward
slash TYS for take your shot,but hopefully you will share it
(20:55):
somewhere around this as wellfor people to get hold of it.
Eric Eden (20:59):
Absolutely.
Thank you for making that offer.
I encourage everyone to taketheir shot and get the book and
really appreciate it.
Thanks for being with us today,my pleasure.
Thank you, eric.
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