From What Felt Like Chaos To Peace And Profit School With Evans Putman

So today you hear part two of my conversation with Evans Putman, and I really suggest, if you haven't heard part one yet, to go back and listen to that one. First, listen to his story on how he moved from chaos to peace before you listen to this part two, because in part one Evan talked about a specific adventure in his younger years that set the stage to what he's doing now, why he stepped away from a very successful business to focus more on himself and to be a better father, husband and human, which led to way more peace in his life, and then he shared the exact steps he took to make this journey from chaos to peace possible. Now, in part two, evans talks about how his newfound peace brought even more success to him and his business, when and how he gets ideas for his programs, like the podcast ATM business model, the infinite impact method, the surfpreneur blueprint and the podcast profit school, and what the biggest mistakes podcasting entrepreneurs make when it comes to growing their audience. So again, make sure you listen to part one first, that sets the stage and talks about how he ended up where he is now, and then dive into this part two, which is very juicy and helps you find your own piece in your business and grow your audience of your podcast.

Without further ado, let's jump into part two with Evans Putman. I would also be interested. Like okay, now you started then your new business and so let's talk a bit about that. So what, what?

did you start, and how is it? Because you were very successful. How did it, how did it lead you and what are you doing now?

Evans Putman

Yeah, well, it's sort of morphed into multiple ways, but you know, one of the things that first thing I did was I was like, okay, I got sort of good at creating, you know, helping business owners connect their business to their podcast, create, let their podcast be the engine that drives their business right. That grow, that grow their audience, get leads, get sales. So I started teaching that to a lot of people I started, I partnered up with which one thing that I've learned over time is to ask for help. I think that's been a big growth thing for me. Right, don't think like you can do it all and if there's other people out there that are, have superpowers, combine your superpowers. We can do so much better when we collaborate and share, right? So, instead of trying to do everything myself, I found someone who was in the podcast space, who had an agency and did management and all the things that I didn't do, and I brought my stuff to the table and we combined and that really helped us both grow immensely and it helped me get in front of so many new people, so many heart centered entrepreneurs. We often say that we would work with people who had big positive messages and missions, who were out to create more impact and wanted to change the world and it put me in that space with all those people. So that was part of it. That was it with podcast sales machine. I don't know if that's what you were referring to, but that was the first sort of big step in the business and then from there, you know, it's expanded a little bit to different things. But you know, we've basically continued to fall back on the podcasting space because to me, one thing that happened in meditation was this came to me what I call the infinite impact method, which sort of came to me during that time that I was spending time meditating and I don't know if anybody's ever experienced flow before right, like if you're an athlete or you've done something, where it just feels like time stands still and everything's working out perfect I used to play basketball and I remember there were times where it was like I could throw the ball up with my eyes closed over the back of my head and it would still go in. I'm like, how is this possibly happening? But it was during that meditation. It felt like that and I remember jumping up, running in my office that I'm in now, for those that can't see it. I got a whiteboard over here and I started mapping out this whole business model and I was teaching it. So I wasn't just writing it, I was like teaching it to the blinds. I was staring straight ahead, there's nobody there, but yet it felt like there were like thousands of people there, right, it was almost like I was in this visual dream where I was doing it and just wrote it.

But this entire infinite impact method I call it came out and part of the podcasting is like something that fits in there, because the infinite impact method, there's four main pillars and these are like these words they came, I would say. I often say they came through me, not from me, right, but the words were rise, shine, simplify and serve. So everything I teach in my business now, like whether it's through the podcast, podcast profit school, which I have now through that business model, if it's through my event consulting and virtual events side that I do, it all runs through the same what people and people don't really see this because I don't talk about it a lot, but in my mind it runs through these same four pillars, because the first step is always you must rise into your highest authentic self. You have to be that person right. You have to have the belief that you can do the thing you wish to do. So that's like the first part I help people believe in themselves. I help people rise into their highest, authentic self.

Well, once you do that, you need to shine, which was the second part to attract and affect those you're called to serve. Right, if you keep it all inside and you don't share your talents or your, you know your gifts then one they'll be taken away from you, but you'll also feel miserable. At least I did many years of my life and I was sort of in the background. I felt, you know, stressed and constrained. So that's part of what I love about podcasting is I help people shine their message and their mission to attract and affect through podcasting. And then the next part for me is the simplify which came. It's simplified to take a quantum leap.

I started realizing I was like you can take more out of what you're doing and go farther faster.

Yeah right in business and in life. And then the last part is serve to change lives, because I believe everything is to change lives. So, if you look at it in business context, I teach people how to believe in themselves, how to get their message and mission out, whether it's through podcasting, through speaking at virtual events. I give them a simple, I simplify by giving them a simple business model that's usually only like two or three steps to get a massive growth in their business. And then the whole goal at the end is I teach them how to serve other people by creating offers and programs that are designed to give forward, to help that person change their life, versus just collecting a paycheck.

So, to me that's sort of that's like the underlying principles behind anything I ever launched. Now I look at it from that perspective. It's like, okay, how does this fit into that infinite impact method that came to me in the middle of meditation? So it's one of the things that I was grateful for and that's the other thing. I left out another big step. But that morning routine is just to be grateful. Take some time to write down a few things you're grateful for.

Conny Graf

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very powerful also like literally feeling grateful for the things you have and not just kind of like, oh yeah, I'm grateful, but it's a lot of people miss that part. But all I could think about when you were talking, remembering the beginning, when I asked you a question and you said, oh, my future. And then you said, oh no, no, we want to talk about the past, but you actually had a preview of your future when you had this download right. So now I know why you said that and I hear this a lot from people that they get this either in the shower or very unrelated situations. They get some kind of a download that they then have to run somewhere and start writing it down that they can can catch it all right, so that that's beautiful, that's beautiful.

Evans Putman

Well, thank you, and I believe too, like it's all a process of, like you mentioned earlier, the slowing down right, getting quiet, so that voice can speak to you. To me I mean three, three o'clock, three, fifteen in the morning. I'm up every morning and I don't get up. But I wake up and I have answers, a lot of times to like just a problem or something. And so I've gotten to where I keep a. I have to keep like a little notebook next to me. I have to write it down.

I close it. And then I think I'm like thank you for giving me that answer, I appreciate it. Now I'm going back to sleep so we can quit talking. So I'm actually talking to this imaginary self right, why not?

Conny Graf

So do you wake up on your own, or you're setting an alarm, or what are you doing?

Evans Putman

No, I just wake up on my own. It's generally at that time.

Conny Graf

Yeah, it's so funny because lately I wake up around two to 30 all the time. So Well it's funny because it.

Evans Putman

I literally will just be sitting there and it's like you should do this to fix this right. And it's like, oh my gosh, I've been stressed out, not stressed out, but trying to solve this problem. Now, all of a sudden it just shows up. So I just make sure to write it down now, because in the when it first started, when I first would do this, I wouldn't write things down, I wouldn't like sort of close the loop and then I just lay there and couldn't sleep, Right. But now that I've like, I take it. I say I'm grateful for you giving me that answer Now. I'm going back to bed now, Is that okay? So I promise, I promise I will do this tomorrow when I get up, but I'm going back to sleep now.

And that's the only way I can get back to sleep.

Conny Graf

Yeah, yeah, but that's beautiful, so I will. I will pay attention, because maybe, maybe there is somebody knocking on my door too and wants to tell me something, because so I wanted to ask you something before I let you go, since you were. You were so successful with your first partner and also now in the podcasting world and I'm having a podcast, obviously, otherwise you wouldn't be on. So what is the biggest mistake that we podcasters do when it comes to growing an audience? Because I think that's what you were good at. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to build this huge business around the podcast.

Evans Putman

Yeah, and one thing you know, what I've discovered over time through all the different business iterations is audience is huge. I think I don't think enough people put you know they talk about like the most valuable thing is, you know time or this or that I'm like, well, one of the most valuable things you can have as an audience. You know that because without that audience, you can't get leads, you can't get sales, you can't get the rest of it. So, to answer your question, the thing that that I learned and we would, I like to share with people. It's funny because I share this analogy.

You know, I'll just use Christmas, for example, for a lot of people. Maybe you don't celebrate Christmas, that's OK, but maybe you've probably seen a picture of a Christmas tree with all the the presents wrapped up, all nice and pretty underneath it, and I always explain that. I'm like, when I go back and explain to people like what I call I call it now our podcast ATM model, but I explain it to him. It looks like that picture, right, it looks like the big, beautiful, wrapped gift, everything's nice and perfect. But if you just went to that room, like down the hallway, and opened up the door and you see the chaos of the wrapping paper and the tape and the boxes, all that, the trash. That's what it really looked like doing it. So we learned and I'm sharing this because I want people to to give yourself permission To listen to your intuition and try stuff that's different, Because we just you know, I think it was I was blessed in a way that when I said hey, when I told Pat, he asked me can I help King? You, you're gonna help me grow the podcast, right? And I said yes. Then I went home like how the heck am I gonna help grow this? But I looked at it differently. So the thing that we did differently was we came to the approach of. We were very proactive and we focused and because of a necessity, because it was me and and nobody else to help at first, I had to figure out ways to you create it once and it produces results over and over and over, almost like planting a fruit tree Right, you plant that tree and then let it produce fruit over and over and over.

14:28

So the biggest mistake that most podcasters make is that they spend too much time Doing things that don't produce results over and over and over and over when it comes to grow in your audience. They spend and I can give you a big yeah probably everybody on here we would guess it. The biggest thing that they do is they all go all in on social media Because it feels productive, because it's busy, you're posting and posting and posting. But guess what? When you're on, let's say, facebook, and you find yourself scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling 90% of the time you're just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. You're not going anywhere. So why do you expect your podcast listeners to go from Facebook, from Instagram To Twitter, to your podcast, right? So instead we did social media, but it was probably like 20 percent, 15 to 20 percent.

We focused on creating evergreen Strategies, right things that would produce over and over and over again, that we could create once. We focused on being proactive, active, figuring out who our dream client was and Going out and putting our podcast in front of them, because anybody can find your podcast, but as a business owner, you want the right people listening to your podcast. So we were very proactive. One of the ways we did it was podcast guessing, because guess what, if they're listening to a podcast, they've already raised their hand and say I like to listen to podcasts. Yeah, but the second part is is that that podcast episode will live out there and produce fruit Over and over and over and you only have to do it once. But you need to be strategic about it. And the second part was we did content. We did like written content because I came from a content strategy place, so we would go out and create art, which now is like amazingly easy with AI.

16:24

Back, then, we were doing it the the old fashion way, right humans.

But we would create content on places like LinkedIn, like blog posts not the just the news feed content, but articles and where we knew our dream clients were hanging out. But instead of putting a link to the show, we'd actually embed the podcast's player so they could listen right there. But we had a specific strategy to get them to listen. So those were two ways that we did it. But if you think about it over time I like to use the analogy those that are can see this, could see this, but if you can't, I've got a glass in my hand with water. Right, if you do social media, it's like having like a styrofoam cup in your hand that has holes in it and you're pouring water in it pouring water, yeah never filling it up, but our strategies for podcast growth.

When they hit the top of the glass, the water has nowhere to go, it just starts overflowing. It creates an abundance of listeners. So once you hit that tipping point, you are just getting listeners all the time from all these locations that you've. All these fruit trees that you've planted all over the internet Are now producing fruit that the fruit of that for you is a bigger audience. And then, once you have that big audience, if you have a way in place to move that person from listener to lead and then from lead to community, community to client, it's the game's over. But it's all like you mentioned. It's the important thing and I'm glad you asked me this is starting with the audience first and growing that audience.

Conny Graf

The right way. Yeah Well, thanks for sharing that with us, because I think, like that is like when we're doing a podcast, like I started mine and always said if it changes one person's life, my mission is done. And you probably want to reach more than one person. But and so this is why I was also asking you this, and I think a lot of people who have a podcast this is the big question how can I reach more people? And so thank you very much for for sharing this with us.

Evans Putman

Real quick, can I? Can I share one thing just to give your people like a little bit of shift. You don't have to have a super large audience, right. You can have a good if you do this the right way, where you're very proactive about bringing the right people over into your world to listen, and then you you acknowledge them, you let them know they're seeing, heard and listened, to make them a part of the experience, and when you do that, they feel like not only is it your podcast, it's sort of their podcast too, right, and they want to share it with others and they want to stick around and they're not going to leave, they're going to keep listening. That's a great way to grow your show and it creates a highly engaged audience that then becomes like your biggest evangelist and also your biggest clients as well. So don't forget about taking care of your audience that you have and treat them like humans.

Conny Graf

Yeah, I think it's. It's refreshing that we don't all have to become Joe Rogan, right, exactly, that's actually and I think Pat Flynn said that too is there is beauty in when you're having, when you're still small, because you can serve your listeners or your clients so much more personally and so much more attention to detail. Yeah, so I love that you said that that we don't all need to have this huge audience and that we we can. We can really build something beautiful and serving people like your last steps. Serve people that comes from some small but quality service or product.

Evans Putman

Yeah, yes, absolutely, absolutely.

Conny Graf

Thank you. So, or share with us. Where should people go find you? If they're now intrigued and they have a podcast, they want to know how you could help them grow their podcast or do this podcast atm. Where would you send? Where should I send them my audience?

Evans Putman

Okay, you know, the thing that I'm really having fun with now and that seems to be connecting with a lot of people, because in the past I've got very like more expensive type programs that are, you know, but I want to serve more people so I started something new called podcast profit school.