Leslie Samuel—creator of the popular blogs Become A Blogger and Interactive Biology, joins Mark on today’s episode to talk about breaking through the noise in the competitive world of blogging.

The simple answer, BE DIFFERENT… and that is what he set out to do with his biology blog. Leslie wanted to take a complicated topic and break it down one concept at a time and make videos that are fun.

Leslie’s blog grew from 400 in the first month to 8,000 in the first year and ultimately to 15-20,000 a month which eventually landed him a job as a professor!

Leslie’s passion for education led him on a mission to change the world one blog at a time. With a simple message of creating content, inspiring others, he is changing the world while building a solid online business.

Listen in as we delve into:

• How Leslie built his blog
• Creating Good content
• Identifying your target audience
• Monetizing
• Email marketing, and more!

Understanding the different networks, choosing one and going all in, focusing…that is how you will have an impact especially in this noisy world we’re living in, when it comes to social media.

Leslie Samuel

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Learn more about Leslie and go to BecomeABlogger.com where he’s creating a ton of value.

Leslie: Read No Excuses by Brian Tracy. It doesn’t just go through the psychology and all that stuff but it also gives you actionable steps you can take. For me, the book was a game changer.

Thank you for listening to the Best Passive Income Model podcast. Your support helps me to invite guests who share their knowledge that you can use to grow your business.

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I think if we can just be aware that there’s so much poverty and suffering out there, we would not be willing to flaunt our wealth and be more stealthy and actually do what we want do. So just focus on yourself. Otherwise, you’re focusing on trying to make yourself  look good in front of other people who don’t really matter.

Today’s guest, Sam Dogen, is someone who is helping millions of people think about the deeper issues of investing, real estate, retirement planning, career strategies, money philosophy and achieving financial independence through his website, FinancialSamurai.com.

A little about Sam Dogen:

• 13-year finance veteran with an MBA from Cal Berkeley. He’s been writing on personal finance for over 7 years.
• Has an MBA for UC Berkeley, rated a 5.0 as a tennis player, a 16 handicapper in gold, and speaks three languages.
• He has lived in several different countries and has visited over 40 as of March 2015. 
• He has also been seen in The Wall Street Journal, The L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Bloomberg, and Kiplinger.

Sam worked in the banking industry, specifically in equities, from 1999-2012. And while he found this high-stress job fun, it all went south in 2008 when the housing market crashed. He lost 35% of his net worth in six months and that’s when Financial Samurai was born in 2009, to help him make sense of it all.

Today, we delve into into the premises behind his book, How to Engineer Your Layoff: Negotiate Your Severance and Be Free—a book that teaches you how to negotiate a severance package.

Listen in as Sam talks about the WARN Act and why it shouldn’t be confused with severance pay. We also talk about how to get laid off when you’re a star performer.

What my book tries to do is empower the employee. Because employees have this mindset that the corporation, with their lawyers, and senior managers, and whatever, are the Goliath and we have no power as an employee to do anything. But I think people have to realize that we have way more power than we realize.

Sam Dogen

Hearing feedback from people after reading his book, who say their lives are so much better after leaving their corporate jobs, has been very rewarding for Sam.

I really think the fear in our heads is much greater than the reality.

When asked for his definition of happiness, Sam says it’s PROGRESS and expands on that.

Sam and Mark also get into a discussion on the concept of stealth wealth—the way you think about money and how you want to be perceived by your peers, friends, and society. 

With a plethora of information and opportunities out there, Sam and Mark both agree that in this day and age, everybody should try to leverage the internet in some way and try to make a lifestyle they want.

And finally, what does Sam think about Mark’s Passive Income Model? 

Listen in now to find out…

TIP OF THE WEEK

Mark: Go to FinancialSamurai.com and read the most commented posts on the sidebar:

• How Much Money Do The Top Income Earners Make?
• Creating Powerful Friends
• How Much Should People Have Saved in their 401ks at Different Ages
• The 1/10th Rule For Car Buying Everyone Must Follow

Sam: Save an amount that hurts you a little bit. If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not saving enough. Everything starts with a fundamental aggressive savings model for you to be free and build those passive income streams.

To better guide parents on how to raise financially savvy children, read my articles:

• How To Convince Your Parents To Buy You Everything You Want
• No Wonder Why Millennials Don’t Give A Damn About Money
• Children should read, Spoiled or Clueless? Try to Work Minimum Wage Jobs

Also check out the article, Scraping By On $500,000 a Year: Why It’s So Hard For High Income Earners To Escape The Rat Race.

Thank you for listening to the Best Passive Income Model podcast. Your support helps me to invite guests who share their knowledge that you can use to grow your business.

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In today’s episode, Mark Podolsky, the Land Geek talks to Jim Palmer, a marketing, business builder, and in-demand coach. Jim is the founder of the the Dream Business Academy, Dream Business Coaching, and Mastermind Program. He is also the host of Dream Business TV watched by thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses. He hosts Stick Like Glue Radio, a weekly podcast based on Jim’s own unique brand of smart marketing and business building strategies. He is internationally known as the Newsletter Guru and creator of No Hassle Newsletters and No Hassle Social Media.

Jim’s 30 years of practical business experience and his kind of staying power is anchored on powerful customer relationships. As an old school thinker, he believes that getting up every day, delivering value, and focusing on service first will give you a longer lasting and profitable business.

Jim set out to be a Vice President by the time he was 40. He achieved it but when he turned 41, his position was eliminated and he was unemployed. At that time, he had four teenagers to support and mortgages and bills to pay. He suffered through 15 months of unemployment and was even diagnosed with cancer. This brought him clarity and he started his first business because he was at a low point in his life and the only place to go from there was up. His first year of business was revenue free but it eventually caught hold and took off, becoming a 6-figure business. After 5 years, he started all over again. He created No Hassle Newsletters. 7 years ago, he started his own coaching business.

Mark mentioned speaking to The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur author, Mike Michalowicz. He has written other books, including the Pumpkin Plan and Profit First. When an entrepreneur starts a business, there’s a lot of time but no money. However, when the business gets bigger, there is money but no time. Only about 5% of entrepreneurs are able to get systems and processes into place, allowing them to be free. Jim’s wife jolted him back to reality when she asked him when they were going to go on vacation – something they were unable to do during the lean years. The reality of time freedom hit him. Then, he hired his first virtual assistant.

Jim brought up an interesting concept, “When I,” which is about moving your goal past when you should be investing in the future and the future company you want to have. The fastest way to get there is by getting a coach or working with somebody with experience. Another point Jim brought up is automating his business and documenting everything to a point where if something happens to him, his wife could effectively take over. Mark has done the same thing. Putting systems and procedures in place will allow you the flexibility of either continuing your business or selling it to a new owner who can then take over two days later and continue to run it. That’s a big part of getting top dollar for your business. For Mark, it’s in a Dropbox folder named, “In Case of Death.”

Jim’s journey to becoming a prolific marketer and author of six books started with his first book. From this experience, he has learned that you don’t need to be perfect. A lot of people suffer from perfectionism, which prevent them from doing things they can be doing. Jim’s advice is to decide you want to be judged on the value of the information and content you’re providing. Being his authentic self has been liberating for him. Just be a prolific curator of the content. The content draws people to you. You just have to remember that people consume content in a number of different ways.

Adam Grant’s book, the “Originals,” talks about people like Mozart and Bach who create original work. They kept creating work and as they did this they created masterpieces! Getting stuck because of perfectionism is something you can avoid. Good is good enough and you can always go back and iterate your past work. Mark calls it, “embracing the suck!” What’s important is that you have to be your authentic self because it’s liberating. Putting yourself out there will attract the right kind of people and repel people you’re not meant to do business with.

You also need to be immune to criticism. You will not have a shortage of people who are going to tell you that you should be doing things differently. Jim mentions a hater who commented about his video where he also featured his dog. The hater said when Jim looked at his dog, he was disrespecting the audience. One way to deal with it is like water off a duck’s back. Grant Cordone’s take on this is if you’re not getting haters, you’re not working hard enough. Even if you only have 30% of your audience that’s going to love you, you can already make a nice living off them.

One of the main things you need to do to be successful in business is to cure a pain and solve a problem. Starting with his No Hassle Newsletter, several other businesses came from that. The ideas usually came from customers who wanted more help. Jim says you shouldn’t overthink. That’s what gets you stuck. He doesn’t celebrate initial transactions but rather, he celebrates lifetime customers. It’s your job to find out all the other ways you can help them enrich their lives.

In dealing with haters, Jim asks his assistant about the background of that particular hater and if no business has been generated out of that hater, he just hits the unsubscribe button. He will not put up with being disrespected.

When asked if Mark had the Best Passive Income Model, Jim says he’s got one heck of a killer model. More importantly, Jim pointed out Mark’s clarity, enthusiasm, and passion for the business. He also pointed out vital things you need to succeed in business such as the processes and systems that are in place and that Mark knows his numbers. Since buying and selling raw land is not something the big companies are interested in, Mark is essentially flying under the radar too! Jim also applauded Mark’s abundance mentality. “Sharks swim in dense packs where there’s ample food supply,” a successful person once told Jim. Mark says that there’s always room for innovation similar to Cirque de Soleil’s model. They took the zoo, combined it with theater, and created a completely new market segment.

Tip of the week

Jim: If you want to make a boatload of money, stop answering your phone. You will earn significantly more income for who you are than what you do. It’s about your positioning in the marketplace. As a coach, it doesn’t help me to answer my phone like an operator. If people jump through hoops to be able to talk to me, I have already positioned myself because it now becomes a big deal to speak with me. You also want to have someone in your business, who will hold your feet to the fire so you can get things done and that is how you grow.

Mark: Get Jim’s free ebook, “Decide: The Ultimate Success Trigger” for free. You only have to pay $6.95 for shipping and handling for a 200-page book that will teach you how to finely tune your mindset and start the business you’ve always imagined. You can get it from DecideForSuccess.com.

 

In this episode of the Best Passive Income Model Podcast, listen in as Mark Podolsky chats with digital marketer, Eric Siu. Eric Siu is the CEO of the digital marketing agency called Single Grain and has worked with Fortune 500 Companies such as Sales Force, Yahoo, and Intuit. He is also the founder of the podcast, Growth Everywhere.

In this episode, Mark and Eric talk about how he got started. Eric graduated from college and was doing data entry at a cubicle somewhere when a friend suggested he try out digital marketing. Instead of rotting away doing the same job every single day, Eric decided to go for it. From there, Eric got an internship and never looked back.

Eric worked with his mentor, Neil Patel, as the Vice President of Marketing online, an educational marketing company called Treehouse when Neil asked him to help his cousin out and run the company. Eric eventually took over the company two years ago, paying $2 out of his pocket from the company profit. He then brought it to where it is today.

When asked about digital marketing, Eric said that it never ends. Social media has blown it up to a point where everything can be measured. It is important to have the ability to look at the numbers to see whether they’re working or not. 95% of the people start with something that you can draw conclusions from and this is a good start.

Eric started Growth Everywhere because he saw that there were no marketing podcasts out there. It also allowed him to talk to founders and pay it forward. It was a chance to put people together. It has grown by itself and Eric humbly says it gets nice comments. He has since started a training course behind the podcast. He believes that it is a complement to Single Grain and it’s also free branding for them.

For entrepreneurs, those doing a side hustle, want to increase their passive income, or are new to marketing, Eric advises the listeners to choose a path. Choose something and stick with that. Get good at it. Neil Patel at QuickSprout.com did just that. He came out with content every week for years. It’s about going an inch wide and a mile deep.

Eric advises having a budget of about $20,000 to $40,000 to get a funnel working. However, not a lot of people who are starting out have this kind of budget. He suggests that everyone can learn content marketing. He says it’s free to learn and be the expert. You can also eventually learn to articulate your message into words. When you do it consistently, you’ll get better at it, it will start compounding over time, and it’ll eventually get noticed. Building an audience is the hardest thing to do, according to Eric. If we’re not collecting email addresses or creating one-to-one relationships with our prospects, the platforms own us. Perry Marshall says that the goal of each email is to entice your customers to open the next email.

As a marketer, your job is to bring people to the point of sale. It’s all a game. Every single marketing tweak you make can add to or decrease your bottom line. To be a great marketer, you need a growth mindset. Keep pounding away at it. When you’re starting out, you have to learn a couple of times a day. If you say it’s too hard for you, you shouldn’t be in business.

On hiring a copywriter if you have a low budget, Eric suggests going through a Facebook Group called Cult of Copy. Siphon off as much information as you can. Educate yourself first. As a rule of thumb, ask yourself if your content is interesting to you. Is it something that makes you proud to share it with people? That would be a good parameter, according to Eric. To know who to trust and who not to trust, you can take in as much information as you can but it’s on you to determine signal from the noise. Look at consistency. How do you feel after listening to a podcast? Do you feel like you’re being dumped into a marketing funnel? 99% of the time, your gut will tell you when you’re getting the value or the runaround. Check out Frank Kern, Seth Godin, Eric Siu, Ryan Lee, Ryan Deiss, and Neil Patel. They all show up everyday. They are prolific and you get a sense that they really care. You get a sense that they love what they’re doing and that they just want to give.

When writing email, differentiate yourself with others by writing as if you’re writing to your mom. Have a long-term view of it. Build a relationship over time, as suggested by Gary Vaynerchuck. You can’t keep throwing right hooks because people will start to hate you. A good ratio agreed upon by Mark and Eric is 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 in terms of sending content before the promotion. The basic idea is to send 4 or 5 good pieces of content before you do the promotion. On Keyword Searches, Eric suggests that it’s something you don’t need to pay attention to. The more important question to ask whether or not you’re adding value to the world.

It is important to practice your writing every day. It’s like going to the gym and exercising. It helps you get better at it. Eventually, you start seeing the fruits of your labor. Eric set a goal of writing 500 words per day and inputting this into a spreadsheet that tracks the number of words he’s written in a year. When you get into the habit of doing that, you are able to automate the process. Keep going.

When asked about newbie mistakes that make him cringe, Eric talked about giving up too early. In terms of content, it takes about 12 to 24 months for things to compound and for you to see the machine giving your returns. You just have to play the long game. In the beginning you’re gonna suck. You just have to embrace it. You have to suck first to get good. However, when you no longer feel passionate about your work, maybe it is time to let go. 36 months is a perfect time to let go. As Seth Gold says, when you fail, you’re done. Move on to the next thing.

The strategy that’s working right now for digital marketing is Gmail Advertising. He says that it was something Google wasn’t consistent in implementing it. Not a lot of people are hitting it. Now is a good time to get in before it becomes saturated.

Eric also talks about playing a bigger game. He says he already has something that’s giving him a good cash flow. The next step is to figure out what he can do next to make him happy or how he can make an impact on the world. This is a game people optimize and play until their lives end.

When asked about Marks Best Passive Income Model, Eric said it sounds sexy. He also says that he can’t say much about it but at a high level, it’s interesting and he can’t really put fault in it.

TIP OF THE WEEK:

Eric: Long form content with 2,000 words or so are important to have out there. There are over 2 Million blog posts produced every single day. 300 to 500 word articles are not enough. Visit www.growtheverywhere.com and read “21 EPIC 10x Content Marketing Examples We Can All Learn From.” Read those and learn why they’re good.

Use a dashboard tool called Cyfe that helps you monitor your business data from one place and would cost $20 a month. It’s a steal and you can make as many dashboards as you want. Ahrefs allows Eric to see how many links he’s acquiring for SEO services. However, it’s fairly expensive.

Mark: Subscribe to Growth Everywhere Podcast and check out www.growtheverywhere.com. There are tons of resources on that website. My favorite tool out there is the Bad Hire Calculator.

Thank you for listening to the Best Passive Income Model podcast. Your support helps me to invite guests who share their knowledge that you can use to grow your business.

 

In this episode of the Best Passive Income Model Podcast, Mark chats with reluctant entrepreneur, Dan Lok. Listen in as Mark and Dan talk about his journey from a penniless immigrant to a multi-millionaire who owns 21 companies, tinkers around on Facebook making $150,000 a month in income, having a mentor who gave him the million dollar year of his life, online marketing, writing books and being the guy behind the guy.

Dan Lok talks about how he was an immigrant who didn’t speak a word of English and going to North America at the age of 14. By the time he was 17, his father’s business went bankrupt and he had to grow up and be a man. His journey from rags to riches began because he had no choice. He needed to take care of his mother.

Dan’s journey to success had many more failures than successes. He attributes part of it to the timing. He came into the business during its heyday. As a result, he got invited to speak in many different conferences and was making a ton of money as a speaker and information marketer. He took all that money and invested in businesses outside of information marketing.

Today, Dan has 21 companies, which he either owns or has a stake in. These companies include real estate education, software, and financial planning. When asked how he had the time to mentor people, he said that every deal is different. Usually, the mentoring happens at the initial starting phase of the business. He either puts in his time, money, or expertise, depending on what his partners need. His philosophy is instead of having 100% of a big pie, he would rather have 25% to 75% of many small pies.

For Dan, freedom is having the luxury not to do something you don’t want to. It’s being able to walk away from any deal. It is about being in control of your time. Currently, he runs his companies from his home because he chooses to.

When asked what kind of advice he would give a 25 year old, he said (1) try to be the best version of yourself and (2) don’t go out there and start your own business. He introduced the concept of the wealth triangle that’s made up of high-income skills, scalable business, and high returning investment. He suggests you focus first on the high-income skills. That will ensure there is a steady cash flow coming in. It also allows you to start a business from a place of strength. The worst place you can be in is when you’re desperate.

Dan has invested money in real estate all over the world. He likes Hong Kong because it’s not rent controlled and you can double your rent if the market can sustain it. He also has investments in Taiwan. He prefers investing in commercial properties. As long as you buy in the right location, he says it’s a passive commercial business.

On Mark’s business model, Dan says that you’ve got to know your stuff. What’s best for Mark may not be best for others and vice versa. What’s more important is that you find your niche. It’s not what you do but it’s how you do it that matters.

TIP OF THE WEEK:

Dan : Watch “How to Generate Massive Passive Income” on YouTube, and get a copy of my book, F.U. Money from Amazon.

Mark: Learn more about Dan Lok and his books at Danlok.com.

Thank you for listening to the Best Passive Income Model podcast. Your support helps me to invite guests who share their knowledge that you can use to grow your business.

[Tweet “The worst place you can be in is when you’re desperate.”]

 

 

Listen in as Mark and Damion talk about living on the beach, Damion’s journey to building an 8 Figure real estate empire, taking risks, making mistakes, putting systems in, and investing in QRPs. In this episode of the Best Passive Income Model, Mark chats with Damion Lupo, owner of an 8 figure real estate empire, multiple black belter, a renaissance man of life. Damion left home at 17, made his mistakes along the way, but made it by the time he was in his 20’s.

Damion mentions that when he left home at 17, he was moving fast, not listening to the rule, making his own rules, and just going for it. He did something unorthodox and brought what he learned from the experience of having his first big mess and stumbling around and learned what he didn’t know. Now, he has more than 30 businesses and companies.

When asked about Damion Lupo’s Tony Stark-ish lifestyle, Damion says that when he moved to the beach in California, he started getting up between 4 to 5 in the morning and doing whatever it is he was going to do including conquer the world and create stuff.

The journey to having 30 companies started in the late 1990s, when Damion owned an insurance agency at the age of 20. His friend, who later abandoned him, brought the deal to him. On December 30, 1999, he went to the closing and paid with his Visa Card. He remodeled that house and learned about electrical work by electrocuting himself. He says he also learned about roofing by falling off the roof. He then ended up buying 80 houses in the next 18 months.

On building a system, Damion says that it’s important to set up a system because you can’t do everything yourself. As you manage more houses, things will get exponentially more complicated. However, you need to have a balance. You should be setting systems up from the get-go but not to the detriment of people getting started so they don’t get stuck.

Mark mentions the Ready, Fire, Aim Approach where you take massive action, stretch yourself to the point of breaking, and make the adjustments later. Damion believes that making mistakes allow you to succeed. Go ahead and throw mud, move fast, learn, and expand because you don’t want to go to death’s door safely. He thinks that if you’re going to think big you’re going to trip and fall. The question is how fast you get up. When you think big, you don’t bring the past with you. You have a blank slate in your thinking.

Damion and Mark also discuss the Qualified Retirement Plan (QRP) as a way to use tax deferred money. Damion describes it as a big trust document. Basically, you can take the money and buy things like real estate and precious metals. Compared to an IRA, which has a lot of restrictions, the QRP is a much better alternative because you can put 10 times more money into a QRP than a Self-Directed IRA. At the same time, you can defer over $50,000 a year. The best part is being able to buy real estate, notes, and precious metals with your money. The best part of it is that you don’t have to deal with a third party and constantly having to pay fees. You just pay an upfront fee of $2,500 to set it up. Using a firm may be good because they can tell you which transactions are allowed. There’s a chapter in Damion’s QRP book that lists all these things.

QRP’s have a downside. Since you have direct control of the money, you might do some dumb stuff like self-deal or engage in a disqualified transaction. You have to be competent and responsible. If you’re irresponsible, don’t do it.

According to Damion, the coolest thing about the QRP is when it’s inherited. You can create a subaccount for a parent and hire them as an employee. If the parent/grandparent dies and leaves the asset to you, you can tap into that asset, grow it, and spend it no matter what age you are.

The QRP however, might go away. Congress has been discussing the possibility of abolishing it right now. This is something you need to do before it does because these will be grandfathered in.

When asked about Mark’s Best Passive Income Model, Damion says that it’s an awesome model, which he would have preferred to do when he started in the real estate business. However, he was moving so fast and didn’t think of another option.

TIP OF THE WEEK:

Damion: I want to give people a shortcut. My third book, Reinvented Life talks about the process of building my life back up. It’s an intimate encounter and story that is told on those pages that will help remove the pain and suffering of melting down. [Tweet “Be charitable now and not when you’re a billionaire.”]

Mark: Go to TheQRP.org and download Damion’s free book and set up your Qualified Retirement Plan (QRP) and start building your empire, tax-deferred and tax free. Avoid fees and get all these benefits.

Thank you for listening to the Best Passive Income Model podcast. Your support helps me to invite guests who share their knowledge that you can use to grow your business.