 Five months have gone by since I have started my side business a new and completely unknown audience People who don't know who I am. I'm star. I started that in part to re-experience what it's like to be you for those of you who are starting also from nothing And so I'm learning those lessons again that new business those people in that new audience I never use my name there. I whenever I advertise there I always exclude you guys this audience So you don't know who which that page is and that page doesn't know who I am who I my background and everything So that's that's a true Audience from scratch that you can also copy and the topic is not business or marketing or money or career or anything The topic is spiritual growth So I am also experiencing what some of you are doing which is trying to grow a new business Doing something. That's not a hard skill selling something. That's softer than money or business or marketing So I Want to experience that so I know what it's like in your shoes so I can teach you better I can be a better guide for you because I'm in it myself so it's been five months and Let me share with you what kind of lessons I'm learning now So a couple of quick I guess numbers update is that I now have about 2,000 people who have engaged with Some of my content over the past five months about 2,000 not 2,000 fans only have about 200 fans So that's also instructive for you Your number of Facebook fans does not equal your number of people who have engaged with your Facebook content That you can reach again through warm Facebook ads That's probably a lot of jargon and you if you don't understand what I said All you need to remember is this Facebook fans is not how many people have actually engaged with your Facebook content Your Facebook fans is just the people who bothered to like took the extra step of coming to your Facebook page and clicking like but lots of people see your content Who don't come to your page and click like lots of people to see your content and they might click like on that piece of content But not on your page. So I have 2,000 engagers But only 200 fans So that's because I've been advertising and I've also spent $1,000 in Five months on Facebook ads. You probably haven't spent that much You don't have to spend $200 a month like I do Start with $20 a month $20 a month can already make a difference for your audience building. Okay, so please While Facebook ads is still working and it's still working pretty well Please spend at least $20 a month if you can spend $200 a month like I'm doing that's great That really helps to build your audience without taking years and years and decades, right? It could take you months months and maybe a year or something like that. So So that's a quick update and in terms of my lessons here I'll start to share that with you the first lesson. I'm looking at my notes here the first lesson relearning it and I think my clients are learning this too is that Videos are not the kinds of videos that I make which are I call them talking head videos Very simple authentic videos are not good for new audiences No matter how pretty you look Yes, no matter how pretty you are or how handsome you are If you just make a talking head video without an enormous amount of editing if it's just unedited talking head Nobody wants to watch it. Nobody. I mean when I say nobody I mean like point one percent like maybe one up to one percent of the people you advertise to might want to watch 30 seconds to a minute of it but Advertised video videos that you pay to advertise on YouTube or on Facebook to cold audiences people who don't know who you are Videos like that have to be Extremely edited it has to be like the first three seconds are exciting the first the next seven seconds are also exciting And then the next 20 seconds also capture their attention and the whole thing has to be so interesting and exciting and For somebody who has no idea who you are to go well Maybe I'll watch because everybody is so used to seeing Super hyper produced video on commercials that if they don't already have a relationship with your brand They won't care about you talking no matter how smart of a talker. You are no matter how pretty you are Honestly, no, I'm not how I'm me I'm talking about some of my clients are way prettier than me Way better looking than me and even their videos to cold audiences are not working if it's just a talking head video So take away don't spend money Advertising your talking head videos to cold audiences only spend money Advertising your videos to warm audiences as you know I I pay money in this business in my main business here I pay money to advertise my videos to you Because you already have a relationship with me. You already know who I am. You already trust me so you are much more likely to Want to take the time to watch some guy talking for half an hour or even five minutes, okay? so So what I have learned in my new business is now that it's been I started doing my talking head videos in my new business I started I tried the talking head videos in the beginning and I advertised it to new people nobody cared like Thousands of views and like five likes. I mean, it's it was just a waste of money Okay, but now but then four months after I had been regularly advertising my written content So so what do you advertise to cold audiences who don't know who you are when you're trying to build a new audience? What do you do? How do you build a new audience? Don't use video unless you are a video editor unless you want to take the hours or sometimes dozens of hours To produce an extremely well edited video and that's a big to me That's a big time sink because you don't know if it's gonna do well Okay, so that's why I think highly edited video is very risky just in terms of your time management Whether you could do so many other things with your 50 hours or your 20 hours even or even your five hours Okay, so much more you can do with your time To build an audience instead of trying to figure out a super edited high quality video It's just unless you are the video editor. So What do you how do you build a new audience? writing text not pictures That's another danger that I've learned over the years and my clients are relearning again is if you use pictures Images quotes means to try to build an audience You end up building people you end up growing an audience of people who are not going to buy from you because they just like pretty pictures they like nice quotes and They are not They don't have the relationship with your with your brand that you know is this deep enough to want to spend even $20 with you $20 and maybe if you're lucky, but But you could say yeah I built a huge audience with means and with image quotes and with pictures and then you try to deepen that relationship with the audience Maybe yeah, that could that could be a way of doing it But I prefer just to start with building a real audience and how do you start from zero? and build a real audience Words writing no images not a single image can be found on my new side business page not a single image Not even attracting them with an image and then try to get them to read the captions. No. No not a single image So I'd see so many of you doing this and Please please try what I'm saying. Don't use images on Facebook Unless it's with your friends and family unless it's with your warm audience great But when you're trying to advertise and build a new audience Images ah cute cat photo and then some writing You'll get a lot of likes because the cute cat photo or the what inspirational roomy quote or whatever it is You're using the image. It's gonna build a fake audience. It's not building you a real audience It's building a you an audience of people who just like to like nice looking things So you would rather just use status updates. I write I try to write 500 to 800 word 500 to 800 words per post Just writing no images no links Just they have to click see more or continue reading to read this long thing as long-ass post And then I spent $200 a month Okay, now I'm spitting some of that money with advertising videos to my warm audience But I spent at least $100 a month $100 a month to advertise these 500 to 800 word status updates to cold audiences And it works Because I'm only drawing people Who are Going to say you know what I really want I really am so passionate about this topic of spiritual growth That I want to read that I am so passionate. I need it right now. I want it right now. I want to read You know and of course you want you need to format it in the way that's Readable that's not just one giant long paragraph But hopefully only every paragraph is only between one to three maybe four lines, you know So anyway, so that's what I'm learning again videos are bad for advertising the cold audiences Uh on youtube as well because I'm doing that with youtube ads as well people are like I don't know who george cow is I had I don't want to watch his talking head video at all Right, so youtube ads you know to cold audiences I'm going to start doing youtube ads to warm audiences soon. But anyway, so Uh facebook youtube ads don't do don't do that for cold audiences to try to build an audience from from zero Use words instead use words. Okay, and after you use words to build an audience for a couple of months consistently Then you start doing videos and advertising your videos to that existing warm audience Because now you're deepening you you you got them with thoughtful messages or with inspirational messages that are not just you know 20 words, but you know three three hundred I think it's good minimum If you don't if you don't want to write 500 to 800 words or or some some of my posts are like a thousand words Or more but just 300 is a good minimum 300 Words good minimum on facebook to build a real audience. Okay all right And so my second lesson that learned is that Oh, I was going to say so now that I've I built an audience several months of these long posts I advertised to cold audiences now. I'm advertising my videos not these videos But my spiritual growth videos which none of you have seen because they're hidden um I advertised my spiritual growth videos to uh to this existing new audience um And I'm seeing regular engagers now regular people who are commenting I'm like, oh, I recognize their names and when I start recognizing the names of commenters That's a clue That now I have a real audience Okay, because I recognize their names not not friends and family or anybody I know But I recognize the names because they they've commented several times regularly now Oh, these are real people, you know, we actually engage you with my content. So that's great. Um Okay, the next lesson is to You know to realize that In business, especially when you're building a new business or starting a new audience There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty Tremendous amount of uncertainty You don't know if it's going to work and Even what I say, you don't know if it's going to work. Ah, george says Text posts to cold audiences to build a you know to build a build a real business and build a real audience That's what works for me and I'm recommending that to clients and that works for for for clients as well But it might not work for you, right There is no I'm sorry to say There is no proven formula for you You can't buy it except for what you proved yourself There it do not buy any secret recipes any proven formulas any Seven steps that will absolutely build your business of six seven figures Don't buy any of that stuff Because none of it. It's true None of it is true except for the people for whom it worked Okay, and you might say well scientifically doesn't it work this way or that way There are always exceptions to the rule always And you might actually be the exception to the rule who knows So so the the second lesson that I'm relearning again Is to say, you know, I don't know if my current george kao strategies are going to work in this new business Of course, I'm going to try it, right? I'm going to try it, but I'm also open to new things too. Um So the mantra I'm repeating to myself again and again is Why not try it out? Okay, that's my mantra. Why not try it out Uh, should I start making videos again? Even though they didn't care about it four months ago five months ago Why not try it out? Should I post a second time a week now that you know, I'm thinking of creating more content But they've only been used to once a week content. Why not try it out Okay, whatever it is you're curious about don't ask me Will this work for me? I can't tell you nobody can tell you not any marketing Your marketing coach your business coach that you're paying a thousand dollars a month to cannot tell you if it's going to work Only you can figure it out by trying it out on your business on your audience with your style with your personality That's the only answer Okay, all the courses you take from me are mere suggestions Try it. Why not try it out Okay, yes taking courses gives you a step-by-step plan to try out But it's not a guarantee at all not even close to a guarantee not even close I'm not even sure if it's 50 percent going to work out for you. I'm not sure So that's why I no longer make promises And please catch me if I start if I if I make a mistake and make promises on my sales pages I'm trying to sell you something if I make any promises, please sit george You might have missed this one. This was a promise you made that you shouldn't be making these promises I will no longer make any promises to you The only promise when i'm trying to get you to pay me money to buy something from me The only promise i'm going to make is it worked for me and it worked for these clients But i'm never going to say works is going to work for you. It might not 10 chance of work for you. Maybe maybe not Nobody can tell you and do not spend money on any program That gives you any sense that this will definitely work for me Nothing will work for you except what you try and prove to yourself So the only mantra is well, why not try it out? And so if it's going to be why not try it out, you might as well do something that's low investment low effort Test it out if it has some good effects Use more investment use more effort use more time if it doesn't have good effects Leave it away. Maybe try it again in a few months. Right, but leave it away for now Okay, so that's the second lesson The third lesson is when to work more so up to now. I've only on my side's business I've only been spending two Hours per week on it Discipline that's actually less than two hours a week because it's on a saturday afternoon and I want to like kind of Stop working and and go out there. So it's usually like an hour and a half to you know But an hour and a half to two that's the how much time do you spend on your business? How much all of you who are saying George I work full-time on the job. I have a family Let me ask you the question. Can you carve out two hours a week? To build your future Please say yes You have three kids You have you work 40 hours a week in the job and you commute one hour each way Okay, you just add up the hours And you have 168 hours a week I'm asking you to spend two hours out of what 168 hours to invest in your own future And the future of your family So if I don't have a family I don't have a job. So it's maybe easy for me to say two hours, but some of you do Captain I know is here alive Captain spends, you know, at least two hours a week on his business I only spend two hours a week and I've already done what all the results that I'm telling you Okay, I I write a 500 to 800 word post every week every single week without fail without fail No matter how I'm feeling if I'm sick if I'm visiting my mom if it's my birthday I worked on my birthday. I probably shouldn't have said that but But I worked on because it was a it was a day for me to do my my side business So two hours on my birthday was kind of an honor like, you know, I don't make excuses. Ah, it's my birthday I should take it off Nothing special. It's just my birthday So what I did was that's not true. I I we took two days, you know, we went away for two days You know, but it was before my birthday and on my birthday I just I'm like now my wife's working today. So I might as well do my side business If I spent and it was it felt it felt like an honor like yes Investing in my future on my birthday is the right thing to do. It was it was a smart thing to do You know, it's it's a it's a way to honor My purpose and my being so work on your birthday people Work on your future at least spend an hour or two on your on your on your birthday working for your future So that because it's an honoring your purpose in my opinion So and then yeah, of course, I take regular time off. I have plenty of time off In fact, one of my habits right now that I'm developing is called mindful boredom I actually am bored a lot of the time not a lot of time. Sorry, but uh evenings and weekends I have a lot of boredom. I just like I finished all my to-do lists. My email is clear Uh, my side business. I already worked on it. What am I going to do now when my body? Play video games, right? So I'm I'm learning mindful boredom and like, okay, don't have to play video games You don't have to surf reddit all day long. Um What can you do that's useful? What can you do that's mindful? What can you do that's purposeful in this precious life of spiritual growth? That's why we're here in my opinion. We're not here to play video games You know, we're not here to eat food food is wonderful video games are wonderful But we're here for spiritual growth as much as we can possibly have the energy for it So it's like either spiritual growth or rest. Okay, everything is either spiritual growth or rest for me It's like rest when I don't have enough energy for spiritual growth And then spiritual growth is everything that I do everything that I do right now. I'm spiritually growing I'm hoping remembering to bring humility to this remembering to bring compassion remembering to breathe remembering to care remembering to be diligent remembering love is the ultimate thing ultimately and ultimate energy everywhere Everything I do, you know, and and when I'm bored, I try to Read something spiritual or pray for someone or you know, or do something spiritual to grow So anyway next lesson. So when oh, sorry when to work more So now that I have been spending two hours a week Without fail Since july early july on this new business. I'm now ready to add a third hour a week So i'm going to spend sunday morning for one hour It's that'd be perfect for me for for writing instead of writing on a saturday afternoon when i'm like kind of tired in the week already I'm going to be writing my blog post for the side business on sunday mornings instead starting tomorrow in fact Or not tomorrow this sunday so So but the lesson is this Some of you work Too many hours on your business You give yourself too many hours To work on your business and so you are very inefficient with the time you spend in your business I promise you that's why I only gave my I mean that's a that's a kind of a smart thing to say I only get two hours a week to work on my business. What i'm going to do in those two hours I'd better dang, you know be super effective in in what I choose to do some of you research A couple of things i've noticed a lot of you do that takes too long You're researching things on the internet you are Taking courses online courses Taking courses is fine But you should be taking one session of the course and immediately applying the lessons from that session as much as you possibly can Before you take the next session and it should be like Watching something or reading something applying it watching something applying it It should be that back and forth and sometimes it's watching something applying applying applying Answer get get questions get answers to your questions and then watch something else Some of you consume too much content. Some of you research too much I do very little research I do very little internet research except when i'm trying to implement something and I can't figure out how to How to implement that particular idea so um anyway Some of you are spending too much time looking for information like You got to be better organized You're like have information all over the place and I've heard from people like they spend hours a day Just looking for things on their computer. I'm like, how is that possible? I spend no time I'm very organized. I spend no time looking for information I'll give you a shortcut for being organized Put everything into google drive Upload all your files into google drive and then google drive has the best possible search So you don't have to sort you don't have to put things in the folders putting things in the folders Is extremely inefficient except for just a few folders. Maybe only a few folders You shouldn't have like 50 folders. You should have like 10 folders at the maximum And just and then use the search function instead of trying to Figure out which folder things are in you should be just using the search On your google drive or on your computer your computer has a search function for files, too Except the computer search is slower than google's own search Put things on google drive google's own google applies its own brilliant search algorithm to your own private files It's amazing. It's all still private of course to you, but you're using google's Uh brain to search your private files. It's it's just incredible so um So when to work more is once you have proven that you're using your time effectively in two hours a week four hours a week six hours a week then You you should then add an additional hour or additional two hours additional three hours But don't say great. I'm just going to work on my business for 10 hours a day Then you you're going to burn out you're going to spend too much time at the computer Many of you are spending too much time at the computer and no wonder you're not enjoying your business You're just not being efficient in the time you're at the computer. Okay, so um Okay, and then the next lesson that I'm learning is keeping the tool simple Part of why I can spend so little time working and get out so much done It relatively speaking is um, I keep the tool simple So I'm finally going to start building a website for my side business now Five months after I've built I've I'm building an audience now. I'm going to start thinking about building a website I don't even have an email newsletter yet That says this should be like enlightening for some of you like no I thought email newsletter was number one the most important asset in your business No, no the most important asset in your business is not your email newsletter and in your in your email Addresses on your subscriber list. No the most important asset in your business is your relationship to your audience That's the most important asset and that can happen wherever they are So I have a relationship with my audience on my facebook page I don't need them to join my email list And yes Now I'm going to finally build a website and have an email list and encourage them to join my email list So that I can control that better in the future if and when facebook is not my preferred mode of marketing anymore but Meet people where they're at and keep the tool simple. So now as I'm starting to build a website I Uh was always thinking gosh actually finally start trying square space So square space is supposed to be the more sophisticated version of Weebly or wicks. Weebly or wicks are what I've typically been recommending so I finally Uh, this is not the first time I've tried square square space. This is a second or third time So I spent an hour again like honestly with my pretty good tech skills And with my good marketing intuition trying out square space again My god, it's too complicated It's and it's kind of buggy compared to Weebly So Weebly is what I use for my main business George cow.com. That's all on Weebly completely on Weebly And I'm like square space. Why can't you be as simple to use as Weebly? It's not and so I decided to skip square space again And then probably going to use Weebly But the other tool that I'm looking at that you might want to consider for website building Look super easy is bookmark dot com b o o k m a r k just like just like a bookmark bookmark.com Um, I you know, I'm gonna try it out and because one of my clients said she's really easy for her So and it looks really easy. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give that a try Okay, and final final lesson is um Just keep publishing Just keep publishing I made a video in again in my side business that I was stumbling more than I wanted to stumble And I was a bit embarrassed. Um, it was a facebook live and I Said maybe I should take it off and try again And then I caught myself like oh That's what someone in my audience might say who's that kind of starting out with content creation Oh self doubt. Okay self doubt. Maybe that wasn't so good. Maybe I should take it off But I said no Why not Try it out even though I feel like I stumbled too much. Why not try it out Let me see after I'm gonna keep it up for a week and see what the audience says and indeed after a week Same amount of engagement and likes that as I did previous videos where I didn't stumble as much So what's the lesson there? The audience doesn't really care if you stumble Or if you have typos That's not those are those are not your real audience. Those are not true fans People who are going to become true fans and who are your true fans even people who don't know you yet They will sense your energy and your presence through your writings your your values Your uh purpose your mission that all comes through your writing as well as your videos, of course And they will stay For that they will stay for the thing that they cannot name Which is your values your energy your purpose your mission your your care That's what they're going to come for and that this is we're going to stay for typos I'm not saying please go and have typos. Of course you want to you know Do at least a basic edit right if not two basic edits And your videos I don't want you just to like wake up Not care about your hair at all and just like turn on be like oh, hello everyone. No, I'm not saying to purposely be You know, but I'm saying don't be perfectionist. They can don't try to be polished Just be yourself as you just be yourself as you would be with a client. How's that? Of course when before you see a client, you're gonna check your hair You're going to you know make sure that um You're you're not gonna you're not gonna you're not gonna cancel the client appointment because You're not feeling good right now and you want to can't no see that's the thing that some of you do I'm not feeling good. I'm not going to make my video. I'm not feeling good. So I'm not going to write What if a client were were to schedule with you? Are you going to do that? No, you're going to show up for the client no matter how you feel No matter if you're you know, how perfect you are right now You're going to show up in your course. You're going to look yourself in the mirror and make sure your hair's okay Right, that's all you're going to do And then you're going to maybe prepare yourself energetically for one minute by just you know Whatever you do to breathe or prepare yourself energetically for clients Do the same thing for your videos. Do the same thing before you write Keep the appointment with yourself because you are your most important clients Okay, and then just keep publishing of the the main lesson I was going to say about just keep publishing as this It doesn't matter what the external metrics are People like this video. They didn't like this video people like this writing. They didn't like this writing The most important thing is your internal practice of not giving into self-doubt. That's the most important thing So if I had taken down that video because I was having some self-doubt I would have practiced reinforcing myself down to say, yeah, you're right. I'm not that wasn't good enough I'm going to take it down. That's practicing reinforcing self-doubt But if I instead keep it up, I am practicing kind of going against myself down and go I don't care. I'm going to keep it up. I'm going to be a rebel against my self-doubt Rebel against my self-doubt and I'm going to keep it up and I'm going to say hey I'm going to keep it up because I'm practicing the muscle of me being good enough creator authentically in the moment as I am And yes, of course over time I will keep looking at the content of the past and thinking how I can improve and practicing little bits about improvement, but Don't take things down after you make it Okay, keep it up. Okay. Keep it up there Reinforce rebel against yourself doubt reinforce yourself as a good enough creator reinforce the muscle of Just being authentic. Okay without too much editing I hope this is helpful And thanks for those of you who are joining me live here Alejandra, thank you so much for your great comments. I appreciate it so much Captain thank you for your comment there Arturo. Great to see you here Heather, thanks for joining me Stacy. Thank you Ludovic Let's see who else Beyonce, thank you Matt. Thanks for joining as well. Okay, everyone. Have a great rest of your day and remember Just keep creating Reinforce your ability as a creator and rebel against yourself doubt. Okay. Be well. Take care