SPI 826: HUGE UPDATE!

SPI 826: HUGE UPDATE!

Matt Gartland: Maybe I will make a mistake in terms of trying to hire someone, to come in and do these things. And I’ve never managed someone. And that also feels scary. So now I have scary upon scary. Those are real cons to think about, which is, like, is this something you even want to try? What could go wrong? And ultimately, what’s the risk of trying to get other people involved?

So think that through based on what you’re selling, think that through based on your definitions of success and goals. We’ve always, I think, at SPI said, discover success and achieve success on your own terms. But for us in terms of what we really connected on Pat, you and me, is to create something bigger than ourselves, either one of us.

Pat Flynn: Hey friends, I hope all is well. We have a very special episode for you today, because it’s not just myself and not just me and Matt. But we are inviting Caleb Wojcik on the podcast today to share a special announcement with you. Yes, this involves the future of SPI, the future of you being a part of it and what we do here.

And Caleb is very much involved in this decision. And don’t worry, we’re not going anywhere. We just have some changes happening on this end. And we wanted you to be a part of it. We wanted to share the ins and outs of things that are happening. And as you know, what got you here won’t get you there. And we think about that a lot.

So we’ve made some changes to better serve you in the future. And with Caleb here, I think this is very fitting. You might know Caleb as my videographer and somebody who I’d partner with on a invention called the SwitchPod. And we’re still working on that. But we’re doing some special things here at SPI and Matt’s going to talk about what he’s doing.

Caleb’s going to talk about what he’s doing. And we’re going to talk all together about how this matters to you. So stay tuned, listen in. Here we go. Caleb, Matt, and me in a roundtable. Let’s do this.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, if there was a boy band audition for men over 40 years old, he’d totally try out Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: Matt, Caleb, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Matt Gartland: Awesome to be back. Thanks.

Caleb Wojcik: Yeah, thanks for having me, Pat.

Pat Flynn: Both of you have been on the show before. I think this is the first time all three of us maybe have been together, but we’re together to announce something pretty big and we’re going to talk in depth about it. However, Caleb, maybe I can let you talk about really quick just to kind of hook them in and tease a little bit about what’s coming.

What is your involvement now in SPI? Because you’re no longer just my partner with SwitchPod, which is where most people know you from who listen to the show. You’re not just my videographer and editor for some YouTube videos. What’s your role at SPI now?

Caleb Wojcik: So I’ve kind of been, quote unquote, secretly working for SPI for a few months now, getting up to speed as the creative director.

So I’ve come in to kind of put my hands in all different kinds of things in regards to content and community and trying to elevate the brand in different ways, working on the newsletter, trying to do new fun ideas and how to increase engagement on that as well. So I’ve been creative director here for a little bit here for a couple months.

Pat Flynn: And then Matt, you are also progressing in your role with SPI, but in a unique kind of way, perhaps this is a good time for you to tease a little bit about what we’re going to talk about in depth later with regards to your new role and kind of what you’re up to.

Matt Gartland: Yeah, well, today I serve as our chief executive, been in that slot for a few years now.

But as we think about just where our brand and business is going, and as that even reflects like the creator economy and trying to support a lot of the people that we have a pleasure to like, we need to evolving ourselves, right? So, you know, what we’re building towards as a future state across the three of us are different roles and opportunities to, you know, teach and lead and provide value to the people that we have the pleasure of serving either on the audience or inside the community.

But that also gives us an opportunity to have a bigger impact in the market. And that requires us to kind of change things up sometimes, right. In terms of who does what job, you know, inside the company.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, I often Here the phrase what got you here won’t get you there and we have big visions for where there is for SPI and everybody who’s listening your involvement in it and what it means for you and we’re going to get to those things, but I think it would be fun to talk a little bit about the past before we talk about the future.

A lot of people know that I had just started SPI just as a blog to talk about my success with Green Exam Academy and my work with helping people in the architecture space pass an exam. And that became sort of my story and my solo adventure being a entrepreneur, a solopreneur, if you will, and just sharing things on the blog as I was learning.

I was building an iPhone app company. And a lot of people don’t even remember that. And I shared a bit about that. I had written on ehow.com and made a few dollars there. Then in 2010, I started the niche site duel, which I think was the first thing that really put SPI on the map. I put myself out there as somebody who was building a website from scratch.

And sharing every bit and part of it. And in 73 days, we got to number one in Google for security guard training. And everybody who was following along on this series or journey really saw that, wow, this was not just a person just kind of talking about the online thing. They were actually doing it and showing it and it worked.

And so a lot of people followed our lead. I started a food truck website after that. And then came 2013 when I decided to begin writing my first book. And both of you were actually involved in that book. Let Go is what it was called. Still available. It’s more of a memoir of how I got let go from my architecture job, but then had to let go of who I thought I was to become the entrepreneur I am today.

I think Matt, you were first involved with that project. Can you recall what it is you actually did? You did a lot, but just kind of as a time travel experiment, like what was that like to work with me and that project and what did that mean?

Matt Gartland: It was a remarkably fun project. It was innovative as well because we were doing a multimedia book project or a publishing project ultimately.

And that’s where, you know, Caleb eventually gets tapped in. I initially started out as the editor, right? To help just shape the story and ultimately the manuscript and the thing that we are going to eventually publish and then got involved in just kind of managing the overall effort across other stakeholders.

So you could call that project management, you could call governance, you know, there’s different terms for it. Because then eventually, yeah, we were publishing on a kind of a video book publishing technology at the times no longer around. But Caleb, you came in to shoot video and write scripts and make sure that all of these extra media assets were complementing, right, the narrative that Pat was writing and I was editing on paper.

Caleb Wojcik: Yeah, and to visualize it for people, it was an iPad app that as you were reading the words of the book, there’d be a video embedded and then you could have Pat telling the story that’s related to the thing in the place that he was in. So like, we went and filmed around Cal where he went to college and we went to like, where he used to row and march on the field and interviewed your dad.

And so it was like, if you were reading a book and then you could like, actually see what he’s talking about. It was kind of a Innovative thing that I kind of wish I’d taken off. It didn’t really take off after, you know, doing that 10 years ago, but that was kind of my involvement was filming those videos to place in the book and, you know, the launch trailer as well.

Matt Gartland: And Pat, to go back to your part of the question there around like what it meant, at least to me, was just how cool it was to work with other really talented folks. You know, both of you ultimately, right at sort of the, this really interesting intersection of content in media with technology, with like, where’s the internet going in terms of how we tell stories and connect with people.

Like there was such, it was like a golden era moment in time where like all of these things were connecting together and was privileged as heck and grateful to like have stumbled into this, met you guys, became friends, started the fantasy football league together, all these other things. But like there, there was like that moment in time where things were really clicking and it was an inflection point to certainly like, what transpired thereafter.

Pat Flynn: Was definitely a fun time.

Do you remember the name of that platform? Because it’s actually escaping me. I think it was Snippet. Snippet. Snippet, that’s right. Ah, it was so ahead of its time. I really wish it worked out. Because it was a really neat experience.

Caleb Wojcik: I think if their theme song was like, Skip It. Do you remember the Skip It theme song?

Those commercials in the 90s? Oh. Skip It. Skip It. Like the little, like, Oh, yeah, put on your foot and it spins in circles. Yeah, they need a good theme song. That’s that was the reason it didn’t.

Pat Flynn: That was the problem. Yeah, I think they needed a jingle. I’d be better at that now. But yeah, again, like I said, ahead of its time.

And we ended up just scrapping that project because it kind of died. But we then republished that book on Amazon. And then a lot of the content that we filmed became sort of like bonus content for the book and its readers. And that content still lives and it’s out there. And I’m so glad that we captured that, Caleb.

I remember a few moments, like you said when we interviewed my dad, we got some really good moments there. We went to Cal, we got a parking ticket, I remember, which was like 65, which kind of was mad. But I was back to where I was at school and having a good time. We filmed that Mimi’s Cafe, which is where I got my architecture job.

And it was just fun to kind of be out in the wild filming things that then related to content that we were publishing. That was the first time I’ve ever really done something like that because I was always just writing in my office at home. This was the first time we, it felt like a much bigger project.

And so from there, both of you inspired me, Matt, working with you just showed me what it was like to work with a project manager and an editor who kind of knew what they were doing. To put out a large project like this, who could help with the communications and the tools required and all those kinds of things.

And Caleb, your ability to capture those moments and direct and all those kinds of things inspired me to think even bigger. And from there, Caleb, you helped me in many ways with a lot of the speaking that I was starting to do, I can’t remember the conversation, but what was the capacity to which you started working with me because I think we slowly ramped but then ramped up quite big after that.

Caleb Wojcik: Yeah, I mean, I think the very first thing was I was at New Media Expo and you were speaking there, and I think Chris Ducker like held a camera in his lap, like in the, in the back row and filmed your talk and you needed somebody to edit it. It was like, oh, that’s right. That basic, at that point, and it was just like, you know, putting slides on on top of it and so you could put it on YouTube, you know, this is more than 10 years ago.

But from there, it kind of went into breakthrough blogging as well. And I had done a bunch of video stuff at fizzle and done a course with you for fizzle. So that’s where it kind of like picked up and kind of went into doing more YouTube videos eventually.

Pat Flynn: At Breakthrough Blogging, actually, that was when Matt, you and your team over at a Winning Edit started to work with me for the first time.

Give us a picture around what your role and what Winning Edits was at that time, because spoiler alert, I ended up acquiring and we started combining forces eventually. But what was it like back then? And tell me what you remember about Breakthrough Blogging.

Matt Gartland: Awesome project, custom dev, even a little bit on WordPress.

We pulled in a freelancer to do some of that custom development. All of that kind of ran through my team that I’ll come to that part of the story. It was awesome. Awesome. And I can remember vividly, like we had this whole thing built out, you know, we put tons of time and energy into it. We were ready to sell this thing, like launch and sell this thing.

And Pat, you came to us at like the 11th hour and you’re like, you know what? I want to give it away for free. So we ended up launching that for free. It was immensely valuable. That was one of the, not only like a key memory of the moment, but also just like, it continues to speak to the themes of you personally. I think of all of us that we have now today at SPI, just generosity and value delivery, right.

And wanting to be able to just give forward as, as authentically and as service oriented as we can be.

Pat Flynn: I feel like we pre sold it. I feel like we pre sold it for a very low price and we’re going to go big in public with it, but then decided to not just give it away for free, but give a refund to everybody else just because I wasn’t happy.

Matt Gartland: Oh, is that it?

Pat Flynn: I think so, because it was going to be this membership website. So this is back in, what was it, Matt? 2013, 2014? 14 at the latest. 14 at the latest. Yeah. So we built this LMS platform learning management system. We kind of built it out on our own. Circle and Teachable weren’t around back then.

So we built it on our own. We had all these video lessons to become a breakthrough blogger. And we had envisioned all these incredible conversations and experts coming in and kind of what you’d expect as far as a thriving membership. And it just didn’t take off. I think. It was also ahead of its time.

Most people were just not quite comfortable getting off of Facebook and off of those other social media platforms at the time, because back then Facebook was still great. Facebook pages were still taking off for people. So it was a tough ask for people. And so I wasn’t happy with what we promised versus what was actually given, even though when I offered that refund to everybody, only 10 percent of people actually took us up on that offer because they said they got a lot of value.

But I have and you know, we always have super high expectations to what we deliver and then fast forward to, you know, 2020, we build another membership, which is the SPI Pro community. And then later the all access pass. And I do remember taking lessons from what I was hoping Breakthrough Blogging was going to be and carry them forward into what we have today.

But now it’s just not me anymore. And it’s not just me working with an agency to help build this. We have an entire team. So we can fast forward a little bit. Caleb and I started to do a lot of videos in 2015, 16. We. Came out with a video podcast, and this was SPI TV. And this was the first time that Caleb, you and I got really into like a content schedule and trying to come out weekly with video content.

And a video podcast was not what we know a video podcast to be today. A video podcast today is just a video podcast on YouTube, right? An interview that’s filmed or captured in some way, shape or form, then shared there versus a video podcast was actually a podcast. It was a. RSS feed that you would subscribe to on Apple or on iTunes back then.

And we had the number one video podcast in the world when we launched, but it’s because nobody watched video podcasts.

Caleb Wojcik: It was because nobody was making them, honestly. It was, you know, people were asking for that in their iTunes podcast app. They like wanted video in there, but not that many people were leveraging it.

So we kind of saw it as an opportunity to get tens of thousands of more views on the videos you were making which long term it hurt, you know, maybe the youtube performance of the videos, but maybe not maybe it’s just bonus views, you know more outreach to people. So that kind of went away eventually, but we did stay consistent on youtube for a long time. We kind of stopped numbering them eventually when it was It didn’t feel like it was a show anymore.

And we learned more about YouTube and how to title and thumbnail and things like that. But we’re consistent, you know, weekly for a while, at least a year, I think.

Pat Flynn: That’s when I finally started to feel a groove with video creation and going out there and filming and publishing and learning about that stuff.

Some of those videos are still getting views today on YouTube. In fact, the ones that we filmed, how to write a book fast was episode one, and that still has millions of views. How to plan anything is another one. I mean, we have some classics, like they’re, they’re almost like classics in our, in our library now. But it was around this time, Matt, that you and I started to talk a little bit more deeply about what our partnership would look like.

And the SPI and Winning Edits sort of relationship. Can you quickly tell us the story about how it molded from the SPI hiring Winning Edits relationship to us combining forces?

Matt Gartland: Yeah, absolutely. And it was all organic. Like it was just pretty continuous flow of progress and change for you and SPI for me and Winning Edits and that business model and how our client base and that side of the market was evolving, which was what we had to look back at at least today, as like a creator studio, that’s effectively what Winning Edits was. That’s what you would call it today. We got started with books and publishing and working with, with authors in many cases, traditionally published authors that wanted to work on a manuscript before they submitted it, you know, to their publisher, and then we would hopefully win additional business in terms of them working on their newsletter, working on their blog, working on other content productions from the strategy all the way through execution and publishing.

That’s kind of what winning edits was. We did everything essentially except for what Caleb does, which is video. We never got into like video production. But this was the dawn of the creator economy, right? That term didn’t exist back then that the term creator wasn’t as, as cemented as it was. But along the way, Pat, we loved just about all of our clients.

Not, not all of them, service businesses are hard, but one of the things that made sense for our partnership and a relationship that, that built and it ties into this kind of stage of the, of the chronology is that we were constantly just allowed to work with you on new ideas and experiment and innovate and adapt.

And that was one of the things that just was the most invigorating for the work that we were doing with you. And for me personally, like why the ambition to think about something bigger than just myself, or even just bigger than yourself at the time, you know, and SPI is like, what could we do better together as a proper kind of duo, right?

If we really kind of did join forces and think about where the industry was going, if we really just kind of pushed out all of our chips and so to speak on like one project, which was the SPI project, what could we do? To insert a specific thing into this also, we’re courses, you know, by that time we did have several courses right on Teachable teachable had come around and we started to launch, we started to sell your business model to time, it was just your own. We started to shift dramatically in terms of the revenue generation away from affiliate revenue, which was the kind of the first business model of SPI, if you will, right, then into self paced DIY courses, right? So the whole business model was changing itself, and we knew that was also not going to necessarily stay stick around forever.

So to bring this part of the story to some conclusion, it was like, gosh, we can do something probably more exponential than we could in the current relationship that we had. If we could push all of our chips in. So that’s what we did, you know, in terms of taking the SPI assets and turn and then taking my assets, if you will, the team and other assets from when he edits kind of created a baby company, you know, push them together and we created SPI Media.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. Tie the knot, had the baby. All those things. Caleb, what does that make you in this relationship? Like a sister wife? Maybe.

The business models were changing and there was a specific moment in time when we were having these conversations, Matt, about the future of SPI and the work that I wanted to do and the work that we wanted to do together. Caleb, all the while you were filming these videos for us when building these courses and we were getting in a really good groove with that.

So we, we have like six or seven courses filmed and we could turn them out really well and they were super high quality. They were helping people earn a lot more revenue, find a lot more email subscribers and achieve great things like starting a podcast with Power Up Podcasting. Yet there came a point in time where it was like, okay, I can fill more courses and I could keep going the way I do, but eventually I’m going to need some help around what we’re building here because it’s much more bigger than me now.

It’s, it’s not just like the Pat Flynn business. This is SPI. And I think Matt, you were the one who, who gave me this analogy that really got me excited, which was the Avengers analogy, right? So maybe I was the Tony Stark minus endgame part of it. And then we had all these other players with different strengths and different abilities to come on your ability to manage a team and to build a team and to hire and to manage finances and operations and the technical side from Mindy who came from your side as well as well as the people who’ve come on as director to help with certain components.

And now we have the community component as well. Which has been so strong and we’ve shifted our business models once again to entirely focus on community and I definitely know that yes, I could have just kind of coasted and done what I was always doing and probably continue to sell a few courses and do really well with that.

But I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to reach as many people and serve them in the best way possible if it wasn’t for the combination of all these people together. And so, Matt, can you quickly describe for anybody who might be thinking about going down that route, what may be the pros and cons to something like that are, and then we’ll talk about the future of the company and Caleb, your role moving forward and Matt, yours as well.

And then mine, what am I going to be doing? Am I still going to be hosting this podcast? Maybe, maybe not. I will. I will. Don’t worry about that. But Matt, tell me a little bit about. Kind of maybe the pros and cons list that you were building or we were building before we made the decision to really turn this into from a personal brand to more of a company in a media outlet.

Matt Gartland: Let’s start with the cons actually, right? Especially if you are, and most are at different points in their journey solo, right? They’re solopreneurs, they’re creators, they’re doing it all themselves. They’re leading with a lot of creative energy, which is essential in most cases to get some sort of an entrepreneurial venture off the ground, right?

You have to have that, that drive, that big idea, that spark, that personality, charisma, whatever it is to kind of, especially online, like to get something in motion and start to actually have traction, right? But over time, that same set of energy ways of working and behaving and performing can sometimes be counterproductive, right?

You have to start at some point, especially if there’s success, start thinking a little more methodically with strategy operations These are things come along. So on the con side though, is maybe that feels scary. Maybe I don’t have those skills. Maybe I will make a mistake in terms of trying to hire someone, even if it’s a fractional VA to come in and do these things.

And I’ve never managed someone. And that also feels scary. So now I’m, I have scary upon scary. Right. So those are real cons to kind of think about, which is like, is this something you even want to try? What could go wrong? And ultimately, what’s the risk, right? You know, what’s the risk of trying to get other people involved?

Risk of time, your time, risk of just mental angst. Risk of investment of different forms of resources to learn a new skill or investment of dollars, right? In terms of people or investment of dollars to learn the skill, if that’s the pathway to skill development. So yeah, there’s a collection of like cons, which is like, man, this, this could go wrong or there’s trade offs, there’s opportunity costs.

So think that through based on what you’re selling, think that through based on your definitions of success and goals. Right. And there’s no judgment here when it comes to definitions of success and goals. We’ve always, I think at SPI said, discover success and achieve success on your own terms. But for us in terms of what we really connected on Pat, you and me is to create something bigger than ourselves either one of us, right.

And to do that, we needed people, we needed different methods, we need different strategies, and we needed to be solving for different problems. But on the con side, back to the question, can this work? What are the trade off costs? How long it might it take to be able to get other people involved for me to be able to grow or evolve, you know, in a certain way on the plus side, my gosh, right?

You have an opportunity to invent something new. If you get other people into it. The mix that has diversity of thought, right? You get to reclaim some of your time and freedom to maybe, you know, specialize more in your particular zone to genius or craft, or have again, side hustle time and energy to go build a thing.

Eventually Pat, you were able to go do Deep Pocket Monster, right? With a lot of the additive time and freedoms that you were able to reclaim over time. So the upside can be actually immense, but it takes a lot of even confidence building and self awareness to like going back to let go, you know, the memoir to to let go of certain things in terms of responsibilities or work or whatever it is that you’ve been producing up until this point to give it away to somebody else.

Pat Flynn: I definitely had multiple let go moments on this journey for sure. And there was definitely one with that combination of you and I working together I had to let go of the fact that I thought that I was just gonna be the one in charge the whole time and, you know, do everything myself and even if I had assistance, I still had sort of control.

I had to give up a lot of that control for the benefit of where we all agreed to go on as far as this journey together and what we wanted to create and what our goals were. But like you said, I was able to get a lot of additional time back and just specialize. And I can do the things that I really, really love and want to do while others who are on the team get to do what they specialize in and love to do.

And sort of this combination, which is not cheap. I mean, the team is not inexpensive and yes, I could have had more perhaps profit in the end if it was just me and it was a leaner situation. But I guarantee we wouldn’t have been able to create the community, which is the best thing we’ve ever created it right now.

These testimonials that are coming in from people who are experiencing their transformations inside of the group wouldn’t have been able to happen if it wasn’t for this. So I’m so grateful and there’s not one ounce of regret in the decisions that I’ve made and that we’ve made, I believe, moving forward.

Caleb, a similar question to you because for the longest time, you have been more of a freelancer type, right? And filming videos on your YouTube channel, helping other people film courses, and doing a lot of these projects here and there. What has you excited about now, having this role now with a company and having a lot of ability to direct in terms of where it goes and what can be.

Caleb Wojcik: Yeah, I mean, for the past 10 years or so, I’ve tried to juggle as much as I possibly can for one person. I’ve had help here and there. I had an editor work with me for seven, eight years straight. But I, you know, would try to do whatever I could to bring money. And I had, you know, the digital part of my business where I would, you know, make YouTube videos, do affiliate income and courses and sponsored videos occasionally and stuff like that.

So I do that when I didn’t have clients, when I had clients, I was flying around the world, filming for them, editing for them, doing that sort of thing. You know, you and I came up with a physical product idea. So I had service digital and physical businesses going, and then a combination of COVID starting and me starting a family kind of had me rethink this.

Like, how much do I want to travel anymore? How much do I want to be reliant on clients and that sort of up and down income and also, you know, it gets lonely working by yourself as an online entrepreneur, you know, even if we’re only on Zoom with each other or slack, like, you know, you still have like a group effort of working towards something bigger.

So I was kind of craving some of those things. When we, the three of us started talking about different ways to work together earlier this year.

Pat Flynn: COVID has done a lot to slow people down and reassess and definitely did that for me as well, especially with travel and the family and whatnot. And your family, both of your families are quite young, mine are and almost in high school or in high school age and middle school now. So I definitely can support those kinds of decisions for sure. Matt, tell us about the future of SPI. What does it mean now with Caleb and his role? And what is in your vision SPI and SPI Media as a company? What is it now that these changes are being made?

What is this all leading to?

Matt Gartland: You teased it there when you said Avengers, right? So I think that the future is Avengers 2.0. It’s not, not the 1.0 idea that I had that we started to build into, but it’s still born of the same common vision, which is to, you know, integrate and surround ourselves with other talented, amazing people with different superpowers that, you know, you know, the combination of all of us sort of a one plus one equals three sort of equation, right?

Like we can produce compounding results at a time where there’s a lot of still change. I don’t think there will ever not be changed, like especially in this industry, right? So bringing in fresh perspectives and ideas, but still someone like Caleb coming in and taking on a leadership role that has credible experience on a number of fronts in this industry, but is also bringing in unique ideas, different perspectives.

That’s the sort of thing that a company like ours needs to stay relevant, stay sharp and keep innovating and ultimately serving. Right. Our members, you know, in our audience. So the time was right that, and we’ve been Pat, you and me building into this since last December, when we really kind of started, started talking about it.

And we’re recording here on what, September the 3rd. So we’re like basically nine months into the planning of this is that I’m stepping out of that CEO role and I’m giving it to Caleb and I am thrilled to be doing that. And elated that it is in fact, Caleb, who will be my successor. I was once upon a time, Pat, your successor, right, in this role so that you continually can focus and specialize and in your craft, I can play a different and more expansive role in service of SPI in the broader kind of sense of solopreneurs in a creative economy going forward. And Caleb, you have an opportunity to come in and really think about where we need to go, right?

Generally, maybe still the same, but the ways and means of getting there with new energy, more specificity. You know, sometimes, as Pat says, like we get trapped inside the bottle, you know, you’re coming in from the outside, and I think that’s a really important moment, and we’re grateful that you’re going to be taking that on.

Caleb Wojcik: Yeah, thank you. My wife always says I need some sort of like thing to fix or like some sort of project, and like once I figure it out, I kind of get bored, and it’s hard for me to like keep working on something, and so, Coming in to work with you guys, not that it’s a problem, but more if it’s like, it’s a project, it’s like, Ooh, I can like, see what this is now, maybe I can see some ways that we could improve it or, you know, talk with the team about what they want to change and adjust and like, let’s, let’s progress better so we can help more people start their businesses and get to full time, like, that’s our, our purpose and goal right now.

So it’s exciting to. Be a part of a team again, and to have more voices that aren’t just, you know, voices in my head that get in my way, you know, like I’m open to debates and discussions about what to do with the company and the changes we’re already like working on behind the scenes that you guys will see come to fruition hopefully soon, but yeah, just excited to be here and to be working with you guys in an even deeper way.

Pat Flynn: Caleb, when’s your birthday? Nine, nine. Almost happy birthday to you, but also it’s sad it’s not December 6th like Matt and I, because that would have been even better if. You had to have that birthday to be CEO.

Caleb Wojcik: If we were all born on the same day and the same year.

Pat Flynn: Yeah.

Caleb Wojcik: I mean, my wife’s birthday is the day before.

Matt Gartland: As a filtering criteria.

Pat Flynn: That’s true. Caleb, coming in as CEO starting on October 1st, which is amazing. In your mind, what does that mean for SPI? What does CEO mean for people who hear that term a lot, they might not know exactly what that means. What is that exactly?

Caleb Wojcik: I mean, for me personally, it’s, It’s the next step in a like 15 year journey of even finding out about who you are and what SPI was, you know, like I found out about you, Pat, through, you know, just a podcast.

Someone mentioned you. I started listening to your podcast when I was on my commute during my cubicle days back in 2009, 2010. And you know, we’ve got to know each other since then and we’ve worked together in a lot of different ways. And this to me is just another chapter for me to come in and bring my experience alongside seeing SPI from an audience member and now a team member to kind of, you know, continue to help in the way you want to help people and helping people start their businesses.

And I’ve started multiple businesses myself. I’ve been around people starting their businesses for 10, 15 years and my role as CEO is to bring all of that experience. Into also a leadership role of like working with a team to help solve that problem and to help people do the same. So I think I bring in just all the stories of like what I’ve done with my entrepreneurial journey as well as.

All of them I’ve heard from my days working at Fizzle and all the entrepreneurial conferences I’ve been to and all my peers that have started businesses and and it comes all together into this role now.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, you definitely have that unique position of having been in the audience, having started multiple businesses, you and I having worked together, you know who we’re building these courses for and exactly who the audience is.

In fact, we’re going through a number of exercises right now as a company led by you and Matt and the entire team in terms of like. Really defining who it is that our avatar is, you’re going to start to see some changes on the website and in our messaging related to all that, which has really been a great exercise already.

So I’m looking forward to seeing this and I’m sure the audience is as well. Matt, since you’re stepping out of CEO so that Caleb can come in, what are you stepping into? Can you reveal any of that? I know the plans, but what are we comfortable sharing currently?

Matt Gartland: It’s a two part answer and happy to, I think probably share most of it.

Part one is that. Yeah, I’m not like leaving, leaving like the company. I’m not a co founder anymore. Any of that sort of stuff I’m stepping into admittedly a much more narrowly defined and limited role that of president where I can still play sort of a force in the market particularly with business partnerships and strategic alliances.

I love that work. I feel that I’m very good at that work, and I’ve brought a lot of that to the table over the last several years, and we’ll continue to do that, you know, in service these days now of Caleb taking on on the chief executive role, but still kind of be a tip of the spear in that regard in terms of like B to B partnerships and relationships.

That’s what that role is meant to be. I’m also just remarkably good at finance and I love finance. So I’m still going to help out with finance stuff. That’s kind of like inside the box of SPI, but outside the box, which is, you know, it’s all exciting, but this stuff gets really exciting is there’s so many different permutations, of course, of entrepreneurs out there.

And Pat, you mentioned a moment ago, like this exercise we’re going back through as a company around, you know, really who is our ideal customer persona, right? Like who are we really here to serve in the best way possible. And like, we teach and advocate ourselves to our fans and members is to niche down and be more specific.

Right? And it’s an interesting moment. We’re like, man, we should maybe take our own medicine a little bit sometimes. Right? So we’re kind of going through that. What I’m stepping out into to serve into. Is an opportunity to try to think about other niche opportunities, different forms of entrepreneurs at different stages of their journeys with different sorts of companies in different markets.

Take, you know, CPG as an example, you know, consumer packaged goods, you know, that’s a very different industry to be in with, you know, different, you know, constraints, a lot of operational differences, say, with like creators, you’re dealing with manufactured goods, you’re dealing with. Crazy supply chains.

You’re trying to think about how to get into retail or specialty, depending on what your, you know, your product is. If you’re in food and beverage, I wouldn’t say that SPI is a thousand percent focused on that sort of, of a person, right? Of an entrepreneur, just some overlap with branding and audience building for sure, but they have a lot of unique needs as well.

Is that sort of an entrepreneur being served as best as they could with some sort of an offering, right? That’s maybe community powered to be born of a common ethos, right? The tethering effect here from SPI is like, can we think about even go back to the Avengers reference, sort of a multi universe, right?

Where there’s other discreet offerings for more specialized and different, more narrowly defined entrepreneur types. And can I help play a role in bringing these things to life and having them all in some way play together, right? Kind of almost like a private ecosystem or a network. of discreet entrepreneurial offerings, but it’s all, it’s all the MCU, right?

It’s all the same multiverse in some way.

Pat Flynn: You are in superposition, if you want to call it that. You’ve been watching Dark Matter. I read the book and then I’m in the middle of watching it right now. Great book. I highly recommend.

Matt Gartland: And I can nerd out and gush and I don’t mean to. I guess spiral out here, but it’s an exciting moment.

It’s like so many entrepreneurial journeys. Like you have an idea, there’s the beginnings of traction. There’s other people that believe in, in the thought process and some of the problems you want to solve, but you don’t really know what’s going to happen. So you, you put something out there, much like as we’ve done here today, looking backwards at SPI, so many amazing things that we did had.

They were not guaranteed to work. And we even struggled with a lot of them going back to even like breakthrough blogging. Like it was awesome. And then it was a struggle and it kind of didn’t work kind of did. But you look back at it, it’s like, We’re talking about it now in 2024 is kind of a marquee moment, so I don’t know fully yet what this new vision is going to turn into our kind of code nerdy name for the like the idea is called mothership because it’s like this mothership idea where there’s like little ships underneath it that could come online and serve different again, sort of more narrowly specialized entrepreneurial types.

So we’ll see. And it’s not like I will be in those communities. There will be a different. No, because you would die. Yes. It’s like, Hey, Pat, go host 10 different podcasts and write 10 different. No, no, that doesn’t work.

Pat Flynn: No, but we find a Pat Flynn equivalent for each of those communities. Right. And then that’s kind of what the idea is.

And Matt sort of taking lead on kind of. architecting, if you will, all of those things, because now we’ve had a really good foundation with SPI and we’re working on some others currently, which is pretty cool. So you’ll hear more about this later. If I’m sure Matt, you’ll come back on and talk about some of the progress with those things.

And you know, when there’s a name for it and all this stuff, we’ll have a fun reveal and all that kind of stuff. But for the, what does this mean for those of you who are listening, especially longtime fans of SPI. Caleb, maybe I’d have you voice this first and we can go go around the circle once to finish off in terms of what everybody has to look forward to and what the future is for the listener, the audience member, the community member.

Caleb Wojcik: Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s, it’s experimenting a little bit with, with content, especially the content landscape has completely changed of how people consume stuff in the past 10 to 15 years. Like you said, you started blogging and writing. And when I was at my desk job and I finished my work, that’s what I would do.

I would go read personal finance blogs or read entrepreneur blogs. I don’t know if that’s as popular anymore necessarily, you know, then it kind of got into podcasting and got into video and now there’s threads on social media and short form video and there’s all these different formats and styles of ways people consume content nowadays And we’re gonna try and experiment a little bit and kind of freshen it up a bit and try things out as well as doubling down or tripling down in the community and figuring out the best way to help different people at Those early stages of being an entrepreneur.

What do people need when they’re first starting? What do people need when they’re close to leaving their job or whatever else to go full time? You know, how can we best help people in those different stages? That’s what we’re really focusing on with the community and whatever potential changes that might mean for how we can help people.

Love it, Matt.

Matt Gartland: Kind of a similar answer. Pat, I think back to a phrase that you use really early on in our journey together through SPI as the crash test dummy of online business. And I think that’s true. It’s sort of like a back to the future. Like it’s kind of the future is the past a little bit in terms of, you know, that, that spirit where we’re going to do that again, and maybe even double down on that more these days, which is, as Caleb just said, experiment, test, iterate, maybe faster than we have in the last year or so, maybe a bit more in public again, as we used to do in different ways in service of the people listening that also care about, you know, Evolving and trying to improve upon their market position, which I realized is a businessy phrase.

But you know, how are you speaking to whom you want to speak to and whom you want to serve? Are you getting that language tight, right? And is the thing that you’re offering, whether it’s a service of some kind, a coaching program, A one on one program, right? Whether that’s a product, whether that product is information in education, like a DIY course or a community based product, is it really hitting?

So I think it’s exciting. And again, thrilled to have someone like Caleb coming in to now lead this next wave of critical thinking and innovation, kind of go back to those roots of like the crash test dummy attitude of like, let’s shake some stuff up if we need to, let’s get more specific, let’s test and let’s share those stories as we go.

Pat Flynn: I’ve been doing a little bit of that with my YouTube shorts experiment, getting back into that, falling in love with again, just putting myself out there, seeing what works, what doesn’t, and then relaying that information. I definitely see us doing a lot more of that for sure. I also am inspired by different companies who don’t just have clear goals that they try to meet as a company, but they have clearly defined goals for their users.

For example, they offer a plaque for anybody who gets to 100,000 subscribers. It’s a very clear goal that people who are on the platform have, and it’s a something to strive for. And it’s becomes a reward. It becomes a way to have you to even like thank that person. And I think we need to do and will do more of that. Not just knowing what our goals are, but what your goals are, the listener and what those different stages of your journey are and how to not just kind of help you get there, but recognize when you are there and reward you for being there and those kinds of things. So I’m being a little vague at the moment, but we’re also still in development of what that might mean exactly. So look out for some stuff that’s gonna hopefully encourage people to move into different stages in their journey and be very, very clear with where that delineation is and when they get there and, and to be proud of that and to share it and have this sort of, what I love about that too, is, you know, whenever anybody gets like a YouTube plaque, they share it, they’re proud of it.

And we haven’t really given our people the opportunity to do that, although they are reaching these milestones. I think we can lean into more celebration for our users as well. So Caleb, Matt, this has been an amazing conversation, a blast from the past and a look into the future and hopefully a great.

future for all of us, including those of us listening to the show. Thank you again for coming on. I’m sure us three especially will come back on the show and talk shop and talk about, you know, a year from now, what worked, what didn’t and all those great things that we do. Any final words, Matt, Caleb, before we finish up?

Matt Gartland: Yeah, I’d say that you know, the future is promising and our only limitation is ourselves. Like, let’s lean to it. Let’s go.

Caleb Wojcik: And then for me, I’d love to hear what you guys want. What do you guys want from SPI? What do you guys want from the podcast, from the community? Like. Let us know on social tag us. I’m open ears.

You know, I want to hear.

Pat Flynn: Exactly. We want to hear from you at Pat Flynn at Caleb Wojcik at team SPI. We want to hear it. We’re here for you and just, I’m not going anywhere. So don’t worry about that. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Caleb. And we’ll see you in the next one.

All right. So I hope you enjoyed that update a little behind the scenes on stuff that’s happening on this end.

We’re very excited. About the future and especially with Caleb coming into the mix a little bit more than just editor or partner with me on the SwitchPod. He’s coming in with fresh eyes to the brand and especially with top of funnel related things. You’re gonna start to see some different things come out of SPI. Again all with the idea that it’s here to attract more people like you into the community and also just serve you better In the world that we live in now in the online business space.

And we’re here to help you. More details coming later. But again, thank you so much for listening. And for those of you who have been a part of my journey for a long time, especially those who’ve been here since 2010, you’ll know that there are moments where certain things happened where, you know, it’s not just me growing up, if you want to call it that, but leveling up, I guess.

I mean, there was a lot of growing up in the process as well, but we’ve had many milestones over the years where it’s been momentous moments. That’s a lot of Ms where big milestones have happened that have kind of put SPI and what we do here into a whole other realm. And I feel like we are at the precipice of another one of those changes again, all for the good.

So very excited. Thank you to Caleb. Thank you to Matt as well. We have big things coming, so stay tuned. Hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already. And I look forward to serving you in the next episode. Cheers, everybody. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!