In the early days, as Smart Passive Income began to grow, people started asking me if they could guest blog on the site, or guest host on the podcast. Initially my answer was an immediate “No.”
It took me some time to realize that I was being selfish and actually hurting my brand by closing it to other creators. I thought I was the only person who could help my audience because, well, “Nobody understands my audience as much as I do!” Right?
Wrong.
Some of my most visited blog posts and most listened-to podcast episodes are ones by other people. SPI is absolutely a better place because I decided to share my platform.
Your platform doesn’t exist for you. It exists to serve your audience.
There are so many people out there with skills and knowledge you don’t have, who can help your audience. And you owe it to your audience to share your platform with those experts.
SPI 590: Share the Platform
Announcer: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he figured out how to have lucid dreams and sometimes podcasts in them: Pat Flynn.
Pat Flynn: I remember when I started blogging in 2008, and this was man, we’re coming up to 14 years, 14 year anniversary coming up this October, that’s insane, for Smart Passive Income. And of course a lot has changed since then. One of the things that changed is my view on sharing my platform with others. I remember in 2008 and 2009, I was very much in learning mode, and I’m always in learning mode. I’m always trying to learn new things, but back then, especially when you’re starting out, you’re trying to absorb as much stuff as possible and trying to execute on as much stuff as possible. Right. And I had heard about this idea called guest posting. And this is where you write a guest blog for another person’s website, and hopefully you’ll get some exposure and hopefully, maybe you’ll get a backlink as well, which will help with search engine optimization.
Pat Flynn: And this strategy still is available today. You could guest post on another website, you could guest podcast on another podcast. You could guest YouTube on another YouTube or another person’s channel, I guess, is it, would it be guest channel, guest, video collabs? Anyway, that is a strategy to get in front of a new audience, especially if that audience aligns with yours. And hopefully you can attract through your message, through your personality, through your content, inspiration, your education. You can attract those people back to your own brand and hopefully serve them from there. Now, one of the tough things about this strategy is to gain the attention of another influencer. Another creator who has a platform already and likely you might not be as big as them or might not have as much to offer in return and you might not ever ask. And I remember when I first started, I was afraid of asking other people for their platform, for their audience to share something.
Pat Flynn: It wasn’t until, gosh, it wasn’t until after the podcast started that I started doing that. So that was July of 2010. Yeah. So I had waited over nearly two years to do a guest anything because I felt like I didn’t have enough to share or enough value to offer somebody else. That’s completely not true. You can provide value. Even if you are quote-unquote a nobody, you are somebody, but if you consider yourself a nobody, don’t, because you always have value to offer. It’s just about, well, what is most helpful to that person or to their audience? I remember being very afraid to ask. I had landed a couple guest blog posts on friends’ websites. I had gained some friends through social networks through going to events and whatnot. And we sort of traded spots every once in a while, but I was still very afraid.
Pat Flynn: But then of course, Smart Passive Income started to grow. And as Smart Passive Income continued to grow, a lot of people started asking me if they could guest blog on Smart Passive Income, and then later guest podcast. And initially my answer was always an immediate no, like I don’t do that. I’m trying to remember when the first guest blog post was on Smart Passive Income, but it was, it was not early on. It took a little bit of time for me to get over that because what I eventually realized was that by closing my brand to other people, other creators, other up and comers, I was being very selfish. I was also thinking like only I could help my audience. I was thinking, well, nobody understands my audience as much as I do. And all those things are absolutely false. Some of the most visited blog posts on Smart Passive Income have been ones that were actually written later on.
Pat Flynn: Once I opened up the possibility of ones that were written by other people, Kim Roach, fellow blogger, I don’t. Wow. Wow. I haven’t heard of that name in a while. I just remember that because I’m remembering some of the most popular guest spots that were on the blog and the truth about it is that not only does it help alleviate some time, right? Because somebody else is writing something or publishing something versus you. So you get some time back. But that is just a byproduct of the other things that are incredibly helpful for not just you, but for your audience. So yes, you get to have somebody come in and fill in one of your spots that you would normally publish something yourself. But you also get to gain this amazing knowledge and experience that you never would’ve gotten yourself, ’cause everybody’s different. Everybody has different experiences and different unique takes or on something.
Pat Flynn: And to have somebody on who has a unique story or a unique take on something is one of the most valuable things. And now your platform as a result of that becomes a hub. It’s not just about you. In fact, if you think that what you’re doing is about you and only you, you are wrong. It is about the service that you offer to others. It is about your audience. It is about serving them. And when I started opening up the platform, Smart Passive Income to other creatives, to other educators, the brand started to become stronger. And of course when those people, especially if they are up and comers, when they get that spot on your website or on your podcast, they’re likely going to share that with other people and attract other people to your brand that way. So it actually works just like you guest posting on another website, uh, person guest posting on yours could attract a unique crowd in that regard.
Pat Flynn: Also a lot of these people are much smarter than me and we have to realize that again, they have a lot more knowledge that can help expand the brand in whole, and this is why I’m excited because the next few episodes on Friday, you know, Friday is the follow-up Fridays. And I usually do a follow-up episode after the Wednesday episode, but we did this once before and it was such a hit that I wanna do it again. And that is I’m opening up the mic here on Smart Passive Income and the next month or so. Every Friday, you’re gonna hear a teaching Friday episode from one of our very own SPI Pro members. SPI Pro of course is our community of entrepreneurs, a safe space for you to connect with other people and other entrepreneurs who are sharing the same experiences as you and, and you can mastermind with them.
Pat Flynn: You can get challenged with them. You can get your questions answered from them and, and ask questions, et cetera. And if you wanna check that out, head on over to SPIpro.com, there, you can apply to see if it’s the right fit for you. And if you’re the right fit for us, we want it to be mutually beneficial. And if it’s not, we don’t want to waste your time. So again, go to SPIpro.com, but over the next month, like we had done once before here on the show, you’re gonna hear some workshops, some teaching from some SPI Pro members, because the truth is, I don’t know everything and I don’t try everything, but our SPI Pro members have their hands in many different kinds of things that are working in different kinds of ways. And we wanted to share the mic here at SPI with those amazing creators and amazing educators.
Pat Flynn: So you’re going to hear people who share stories and share strategies and tactics that you might be able to take away some incredible value from. And this is the value of opening up your platform to other people. And I wanna invite you to do the same, even if you feel like you have maybe more of a smaller brand and you question whether or not you could attract people to come and, and contribute to your platform. I want you to slap that thought away. I want you to realize that you, with the audience that you have built, even if it’s a small one, have value to offer others and others want to share their value with you and that audience as well. I also realize that by doing this, you also strengthen the connection you have with your audience, who are the guests on the show, right?
Pat Flynn: So SPI Pro members come on, and you’ll hear them teach. And it only solidifies their loyalty to the brand and my loyalty to them as well. It’s just an incredibly mutual, beneficial relationship that happens there. In addition to that, and this is one of the biggest pros or pun intended, I guess, but one of the biggest benefits of sharing your platform, especially in a public forum like this is that, I mean, you’re going to hear about SPI Pro for the next week. And then the week after that from not me from not any of my team members, but from literal members of SPI Pro. And no, we’re not telling them to pitch SPI Pro because just them being themselves and showing up in teaching it inherently is pitching SPI Pro every single time without even asking. And it’s just such a beautiful thing.
Pat Flynn: Every time that I’ve purposefully opened up this platform to others, to share their story and to share their transformations, it is done nothing but help the brand, um, case in point, there was a podcast episode way back when we launched Power-Up Podcasting, where I invited three beta students or three of our sort of tester students to come on and share their story. And without even prompting them all three of those students, Dr. B, Dr. Shannon Irvine, and Rob from Disney Travel Secrets, they all mentioned Power-Up Podcasting and how it is already changing their lives in different kinds of ways. And again, opening up the platform to them. And if you haven’t read the book Storybrand by Donald Miller, I highly recommend you would do so, or the book Superfans by yours truly because they speak to this idea of shining a spotlight on your audience, on making your audience the hero of the story.
Pat Flynn: Your student is the hero of the story. Your customer is the hero of the story and your audience is there and they hear this story and they feel like that they can do it too. It’s one thing for me to tell you about how great SPI Pro is and all the things that you get inside of it and how the team is even expanding to be more present in there and to take care of you. I could talk about that all day long, but it’s not gonna make as big of an impact as somebody from within SPI Pro who perhaps once doubted it, or perhaps once just wasn’t sure if it was the right thing, but they took a gamble on it. They took, they invested in it and now are getting a return on investment that is unmatched. And that’s what I hope that you’ll find, uh, over the next month.
Pat Flynn: But more than that, I want you to pay attention to the students who come on the members of SPI Pro, who come on to teach you because they have some amazing things to share. And not only do I just tell you to shine the spotlight on your audience, too, we practice it here. You’re about to hear it anyway. I just want to remind you about that. Share your platform because there’s so many other people who can help make it even better beyond you. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Smart Passive Income podcast. Look out for episode 591 next Wednesday, if that is not published already, and guess what? We’re talking, we’re talking funnels. We’re gonna get a little detail. We’re gonna get into the nitty gritty of funnels for all kinds of things, but especially high-ticket items. And if you don’t think that you can have a high-ticket offer for what it is that you do, well, you’ll be convinced otherwise after next week’s episode. So until then take care, thank you so much, and hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already, and I’ll see you in the next one. Peace out, and as always, team Flynn for the win.
Pat Flynn: Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast at smartpassiveincome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.
