Today, I sit down with the founder and creator of Live your Message, Marisa Murgatroyd. According to Marisa, At 4’11 and a quarter, she’s called the shortest woman in marketing, but that doesn’t stop her from having huge ideas. She’s the “go to” brand builder for industry luminaries and heavyweights such as Justin Livingston, Callan Rush, and Danny Iny.
Marisa helps entrepreneurs create a business that is authentic and aligned with who they are, to empower them to turn up the dial on their “inner superhero,” so they can be the superhero to their tribe, as well as in their own lives.
In today's conversation, Marisa shares how she pivoted her career from documentary film-making to creating and selling digital products. She reveals how to engage a community successfully and create content that makes a difference.
And much more...
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In today's broadcast of In The Trenches, I sit down with author, content creator, brand strategist, and copywriter, Kayla Hollatz. Kayla shares her journey from day job to self-employed. She shares the unavoidable struggles and enthralling successes that make her business what it is today.
And much more...
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Cary Richards is the founder of infostack.io. Infostack is a company that curates collections of premium tools and resources, and makes them available for limited periods of time at extreme discounts. Cary produces these "stacks" in a number of niches and industries, from self-publishing to entrepreneurship to software development to health, fitness, and beyond.
Cary had a rocky start when it came to entrepreneurship. For years, he hustled to make an extra income on the side - something that would let him quit his job and work full time on his creative and entrepreneurial pursuits - but with limited success. He stumbled into self-publishing as a potential avenue for this type of career, but after years of struggling to get noticed, he realized his breakthrough wasn't going to be from writing. That's when he came across the idea of selling other peoples products instead of his own. And not just as a basic affiliate, but as someone who curates high quality, premium resources and tools, and then sells them together as a collection.
Not long after this epiphany, Cary found my blog, and soon thereafter purchased my course "Influencer Marketing Method," which is all about how to find, connect with, and turn influencers into promotional partners. Cary needed contributors and affiliates for his new business, so he knew instantly this was the solution to his problem.
By following the step-by-step video tutorials inside the course, Cary built up a contributor list of over 30 influencers (authors, course creators, software developers, experts, and more), and another dozen or more affiliates.
In spite of his success in recruiting affiliates and contributors, Cary still felt stuck on the business side of things. How should he pay affiliates? How should he structure the launch window? How should he deliver the digital products? And a dozen more questions...
That's when Cary decided to join $100k Academy, my premiere training program for online entrepreneurs growing 6 and 7-figure businesses. For the next 3 months, we worked together (along with 9 other top class entrepreneurs) to launch his business effectively from scratch.
What ensued blew all of Cary's expectations out of the water:
In the first day, he did about $25,000 in sales. By the end of the week, he had generated just shy of $80,000 in sales. In the end, he did, on average, more than $10,000 in sales per day for his one week launch. Shortly thereafter, Cary quit his job and is now growing Infostack.io full-time.
It took years for Cary to become an overnight success, and I'm excited to share his story with you today.
And much more...
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Did you enjoy today's broadcast of In The Trenches? Please click here to leave an honest rating and review on iTunes. Your review helps me spread the word of this podcast, which allows me to line up amazing guests and continue to produce this podcast ad-free. Thanks so much in advance for your support.
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." -Archimedes
Archimedes was an Ancient Greek mathematician, scientist, engineer, philosopher, inventor and all around badass.
Among hundreds of inventions and discoveries, it is Archimedes who is credited with defining the principle of the lever. (source)
You probably know what a lever is, but just to clarify (thanks Merriam-Webster):
Today, the idea of a lever seems pretty ordinary, but in 200-300 BC, it was groundbreaking.
Archimedes clarified mathematically that a lighter, smaller object can move a much larger, heavier object, given the right circumstances.
More importantly, it showed us that effort and results are not linear; that we can put in less effort and get better results with the right tools applied the right way.
Here’s the thing:
The lever by itself is not enough.
For a lever to unleash its power, it requires a fulcrum.
What’s a fulcrum?
Merriam-Webster once more:
If we have nothing to set our lever against, the positive effects of the lever disappear.
So what if we have all the tools, all the drive, and all the technology at our disposal if we have nothing to set it against; nothing that supplies the capability for action?
The lever becomes a paperweight, our work - just more noise...
In the military, I was Logistics by trade (88A then 90A for the three people in the world who want to know that).
But when I deployed to Iraq, instead of running logistical operations, I served as a Convoy Security Platoon Leader for my Battalion. Instead of organizing and hauling supplies, I led over 10 guntrucks and 30+ soldiers with a mission to protect the convoys that went out every night.
The purpose of these missions was always the same: to resupply the combat arms units in our Brigade so they could continue their mission.
In the context of warfare, combat arms units (infantry, artillery, armor, etc.) are the lever. They are the units that we use to achieve a desired action.
But combat service support units (transportation, logistics, etc.) are the fulcrum. They supply the capability for action.
Without resupply, combat arms units can’t accomplish their mission. The lever is useless.
Without combat arms units, there’s no purpose behind combat service support. The fulcrum is irrelevant.
When we take a step back to examine anything in life, it’s clear that just about everything in nature has this relationship: the lever and the fulcrum.
We don’t live in a closed-loop, linear world; everything impacts everything else, directly and indirectly, often disproportionately.
So why would entrepreneurship, art, or writing be any different?
While you may have the tools, drive, and technology (the lever) to create and ship whatever you want, what effect can it have without a fulcrum?
If you write but nobody reads your work; if you build but nobody buys your product; if you start a movement but nobody follows…
If you attempt to serve others but only serve yourself...
Are you really hitting the mark?
Are you really creating the impact you set out to create?
Are you really doing work that matters?
***
The tools are important, yes. We can do much more, with much less effort and in much less time than we ever could before.
Wifi, professional grade free software, 8 core processors - I am thankful for these things...
But if we don’t have a fulcrum to supply the capability for our actions…
If we don’t have a team to support, compel, and compound our work…
If we don’t have people around us to turn our noise into a signal, to spread the message, to help us serve those who need it…
Can we really do great work?
Maybe...
But certainly not as fast, effectively, or with as great an impact in the world as we could with a fulcrum.
Don't go it alone.
Assemble a team.
Find your fulcrum.