Highlights: The Hidden Rules Behind Every Thriving Business and Podcast

Amber: [00:00:00] I'm not that cool. Like, and, and I don't know anything about books. Like, it was totally- ... divine intervention. So when something like that happens, you just have to say yes in your life because there is a grander purpose behind it, and so that's exactly what I did. I said yes
Intro - Outro: You're listening to the Seven Figure Leap podcast. We're here to leverage rich relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level. Here's your host, Dustin Riechmann.
Intro - Outro: And this is what's now more important than ever, because today there is more information than we could ever need, and more than that, there is AI just making it so easy for us to just get what we need informationally in an instant.
Intro - Outro: Therefore, we're all on the same level playing field in terms of, you know, the vast knowledge of, of, of whatever we can choose to [00:01:00] learn. But what's gonna make us stand out as people, as humans? It's that emotional component to it, because AI does not come with that. It could try, but there's just something about the soul of a person that comes out in, especially their voice.
Intro - Outro: This is why you and I both love podcasting, right? It-- I could, I could s- I could type out the same things that I'm saying, but when you hear somebody and you hear them telling a story about something very difficult and their voice cracks a little bit, I mean, you can't help but, but feel that with that person, that empathy comes through.
Intro - Outro: And when it comes to business owners and, and entrepreneurship or just being a decent human being, the empathy that is shared between two people is gonna be something that connects AI will never, ever get, uh, in, in my opinion. Um, so as a creator, learning how to tell story better and, and, and studying this and practicing it in real time, whether it's at the dinner table or on a stage, can be the most valuable use of your time, in my opinion.
Intro - Outro: And it allows you to, it allows you to compete with everybody else because your unique story is unlike anybody else's. You have something that [00:02:00] nobody else has, your experiences and the way that you've seen it and the lens that you have, and that is something that often we feel like is a disadvantage because maybe we don't have as big of a following or maybe because we don't have, uh, as much authority yet.
Intro - Outro: If you have a good story, you can capture attention, and it doesn't matter who you are. And I think about my behavior on, for example, when I, I block out my distractions by the way. I put them in the calendar. Like if-- I think it was Nir Eyal who said, you know, "Plan or, or schedule your distractions." Yes. So I do have time in my calendar for literally doom scrolling, but it's contained, uh, at, at least.
Intro - Outro: Love that. Um, and that's really helpful. So when I'm in my contained doom scrolling moments on TikTok, I usually find that I'm most interested in when just people who I don't even know, they just start by telling a story And they, they, they're really good at the hook, of course, but then they just take me through something that is relatable that sometimes will give me goosebumps, and I don't even know who that person is.
Intro - Outro: But because masterful storytellers, they're building an audience and getting my attention at least, and that's something we can all practice no matter what level we're at.
Dustin: I love that. Yeah, and I, and I think as someone [00:03:00] who also is geeked out on it, you know, I have an engineering background. And so the things I think are most powerful, and I think storytelling is the prime example of this, they're sort of art and science, right?
Dustin: Like they're, they're skills. Like, they're things you can learn, and they're, they're things- Right ... you can develop, and you can, and you can come from, borrow from schools of thought. And so there's these practitioners, you know, like the Donald Miller with StoryBrand frameworks or Roy Sutherland, who's kind of a classic ad man of, of, uh, of Great Britain.
Dustin: Mm-hmm. What, what I found is really fascinating about it though, and you even said this too in, in your remarks, we're wired for this, right? Like, you used the word soul. I mean, you could look, talk about neurology and brain chemistry and stuff like that. Like, we literally file and access and convey information through stories.
Dustin: Like, we don't necessarily think about this consciously, but like it really is true, and so that's the science part. And I think the art part is something that, um, you really are masterful at, and you've, you've really, um, been able to do in many different formats. I think that's really what, what, what's so fascinating, like having seen you on stage, [00:04:00] see you write in the blogs in the early days, uh, of course podcasting, which is what we're gonna get into a little bit more next, and now into this YouTube world that is...
Dustin: You've done a lot of YouTube, but a lot of your- Mm-hmm ... YouTube used to be more tutorial based, like over my shoulder. Still in a story format, but like you said, Mr. Beast style, like entertainment. Like that's a... To me, that's like being a stand-up comic like level of difficulty of, uh- Yeah ... of, of, of nailing that sort of thing 'cause it's, there's a risk and reward, right?
Dustin: It's like wow, like that's- Really special when you do it right, and it's also hard and 'cause it doesn't come naturally to a lot of us. So k- kind of a final thought with storytelling and your own development, like how have you become, over the course of many years, a great storyteller and, and what pushes you to like try new mediums and, and try new challenges with this?
Patt: Yeah. The storytelling mastery, which I don't... I think I'll never get to mastery, but I want to. I wa- I, I wanna continue to improve. There, there, there's a few ways to improve. Number one, it's just by doing and practicing consciously [00:05:00] about trying to get better which m- which might mean, okay, uh, how do I hook an audience on- Mm
Patt: a particular platform better? How might I retain them? And I'm getting data back, especially from YouTube, on how well that is happening or not, and that data then informs what I should continue to do or what I should stop doing. Um, learning in more of an art in, a- as a consumer and paying attention to when am I most enthralled and- Yeah
Patt: like sitting at the edge of my seat while somebody's speaking, even if it's a TED Talk, right? There are multitudes of TED Talks, and certain ones just seem to capture your attention. What about them? I'm gonna watch them. I'm gonna study them. I'm gonna write some notes and, and then take from that and, and, and maybe implement it in my own way and try something different.
Patt: Uh, I get a lot of inspiration from YouTubers who don't necessarily have the fanciest uh, equipment or the biggest explosions or the who spend the most money, but who somehow capture my attention. There's one in particular, Ryan Trahan, who is just a kid who goes through these challenges. He did, he did a challenge where he'd, um, uh, he, he did like a bartering thing where he [00:06:00] started with a penny- Uh-huh
Patt: and he was able to get it all the way up to a house, and then he donated that house. And just the way he did his penny challenge, it's just like you can tell right away how nerdy and geeky he is and self-deprecating and all that kind of stuff, which I am as well, and I try to incorporate that, too. And just to give you some sense of, like, how deep I'm getting into this, we had a video on the Pokemon channel where I tried to collect, um, all of the Pokemon cards from, uh, for, for one Pokemon.
Patt: So there's 1,025 Pokemon. I chose one of them and tried to find all the cards that were ever made for that Pokemon. That Pokemon- Wow ...'s name is Gengar. It's a ghost and poison-type, uh, ghost-type Pokemon. And we were like, "Okay," like, "we can make a challenge and just try to find them all." But what's gonna give this meaning?
Patt: How do we make this something that can connect with people who might not even care about Pokemon, and how do we bring that into the story? So I pulled from my own experience and, and kind of maybe even the reason why I wanted to do this because I have a collection that is very organized. It's very almost perfect in a way how things are p- placed in binders, and there's certain ways to go [00:07:00] about it.
Patt: There's sort of a, a, a craft to collection, col- to collecting. And I had purchased this collection from somebody who needed the money, and I purchased... And there, there was a, um, a, a Gengar collection that wasn't complete yet, and I just put it aside. And out of my entire collection, there was this folder with just half of the amount of Gengars that were there, but it was messy, it was dirty, it was kind of like an older binder well- while all my other stuff is, like, neat and perfect.
Patt: So we were like, "Okay, let's play on that a little bit." I think that's, that's, that's, that's a human thing to go, "I need this to be perfect."
Nathan: Mm-hmm.
Patt: Right? So that's gonna be my reason for collecting and, and making this perfect collection and completing this incomplete thing, which is something we can all relate to.
Patt: And then in the story, I find out that some of the cards I find that I need are in not great condition, and I have to then weigh the decision of, well, I, I haven't seen this card in a while, but it's not perfect. Am I gonna be okay with that? And really start leaning into this push and pull. That's where good storytelling comes.
Patt: It's the ups- Yeah ... and [00:08:00] downs and roller coasters. It is the push and pull, the tension there. And eventually, by the end of the story, to spoil it- ... is it is the imperfect That creates character. It is through the imperfections and this imperfect collection that I had that built all these amazing experiences and connections with new people in my life who are now my friends.
Patt: That wouldn't have happened if I just wanted things to be perfect. So let, let's embrace the imperfection, and it's this, like, tale or m- moral of the story, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, thinking about it on that level has made this video earn well over $50,000 in ad revenue, just one single video. Wow. It's helped this video see four-plus million views.
Patt: It's helped me make connections with brands who would have never found me otherwise because they are now emotionally connected to what I'm doing on a human level. So that's just an example of, like, how deep we're getting into it. One, one resource I wanna give your audience before we move on is a screenwriting book called Save the Cat!.
Patt: And I don't know if you've come across this book, Dustin. It's- I have
Nathan: not ...
Patt: [00:09:00] wonderful. It's made up of a bunch of different storytelling tactics that you can use and incorporate in whatever you're doing, and like I said, it's for screenplay writers, but we're incorporating it into our YouTube videos, and I'm incorporating it into podcasts as well.
Patt: Um, Save the Cat! is just one of those strategies, and Save the Cat! means, like, if you're telling a story, have in the beginning of the story at some point some save the cat moment. And what that means is if you, if you've ever watched an old movie and, like, the protagonist saves a cat in the beginning, you know, they rescue a cat from a tree- Yeah
Patt: you as the viewer immediately start assuming certain things about that person. They're kind-hearted. They're good-willed, and you root for them when they, when they go through a challenge. Um, so we do the same thing. I'll often do trades in my Pokemon videos where I am getting a completely lopsided trade where I'm losing out, but this kid who's little, who doesn't have a lot of money or big cards, he's getting something special that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
Patt: So then that positions me as a save the cat protagonist. So when I go through a big challenge or something's very difficult and we lean in- we lean into that, it just feels e- even [00:10:00] harder for the audience to watch.
Nathan: One thing that I'll call out, this is a little separate from the, the day-to-day like recording process, but is we talk about the audience versus crowd. Almost every growth technique that people talk about for growing a podcast is good for growing a crowd.
Dustin: That's really good.
Nathan: And that's been the hard thing where, 'cause people are like, "Well, these videos got great results, so do the beginner version of that."
Dustin: Yes. 'Cause there's a lot more beginners than there are professionals at the top end.
Nathan: Yeah, so if you want views, like, don't target people who are ma- you know, like, making a million dollars a year.
Dustin: They're not camping out on YouTube all night, like, binging beginning or how-to videos, right? Yeah.
Nathan: Right. And so our YouTube team, who's fantastic, they're a company called 7x Content, and they do really great work, but we've had to, like, reign them back in in some of that 'cause they're like, "This will drive more views."
Nathan: And I'm like, "I totally agree, and it will drive views of the people that I'm not trying to attract." [00:11:00] And so that's been this balance, and that's why I've had to set my metric on consistency and pride rather than views a- and basically just trust that over time we'll ladder in. 'Cause there's lots of times where, like, the, the subscriber count of the show goes up by 50 subscribers in a week on YouTube.
Nathan: Like, that was pretty normal. We actually then had, like, a two-month period, actually after you came on, so, you know, correlation, causation, like, we can't say for sure, but, you know, just hit 50% growth on, like, went from 8,000-
Dustin: Ha- ha- I, on the side, I happen to be on the same, you know, couple weeks as, like, Dan Martell and some other people with large social followings, but forget that.
Dustin: It was mostly Dustin, yeah, so.
Nathan: Oh, 100%. Have Dustin on your podcast, your show will grow within 90 days. That's what the data says.
Dustin: I'm glad you said that. We're j- we're gonna flag that. That's gonna be the new lead video on my homepage, so.
Nathan: I, I love it. So that's been the thing of, like, all right, how do we be, you know, just consistent over time?
Nathan: So if you wanna transition, talk about flywheels.
Dustin: Yes. I would love to make sure we get some content on, on flywheels from you.
Nathan: Yeah, they have kind of... Usually there's two main [00:12:00] goals. Now let me back up. So there's three laws of a flywheel, right? And everyone uses this word, but, like, I actually wanna define it and break it down.
Nathan: And so the three laws are flow, so every step has to go smoothly from one to the next, and most specifically, the final step of the flywheel has to close the loop and come around to the beginning. Second is ease, so you want each rotation to get easier than the previous rotation. And then the third is growth, so each rotation should drive more results, growth, et cetera, than the previous rotation.
Nathan: And if we take the podcast recording process, early on that was a very scattered process. Like, "Hey, do you wanna come on my show?" "Yeah, we can do that. We can schedule it at a random time, virtual, in person, whatever." Like, everything is bespoke to whatever's happening then. Over time, we started to go to a linear process, and this is kind of like what professionals do, where it's like, all right, we've got our SOPs, you know, all of that.
Dustin: So it is step by step, but it's not a loop, and it doesn't close upon itself to build momentum, yeah.
Nathan: Yeah, and it doesn't, it doesn't really [00:13:00] follow these other laws that we'll get into. And so that linear process is like, "Hey, we only record in person. Here's who we're targeting with the show," that kind of thing.
Nathan: And that made it better. We started to have a system for how we recorded it and all of that. But then really when we made the batch recording events, that's when it turned into a flywheel. And one thing with a flywheel is you have to be really clear on what the goal is, because you can actually only have one goal for an effective flywheel.
Nathan: And our goal for the podcast is to efficiently produce episodes that we're very proud of. And so it's not really about growth or all of that, like it's about efficiency and pride. And so I can't just have episodes I'm really proud of if they take 30 hours a week of my time. And then like the k- exec team was like, "Hey, would you mind showing up to work at like the company that actually pays?
Dustin: We got this like $40 million company over here that kind of needs your attention." Yeah, so.
Nathan: And I can't just optimize for efficiency because then we churn stuff out that I'm not proud of, right? And so the intersection of those two things really is what designed this process. And so [00:14:00] every batch recording event that we finish, Kara and I will sit down and we'll recap it, and we'll rate how proud are we of each episode after we finished it.
Nathan: You know, just like on a one to five scale. How much friction did we feel? What caused the friction? And so there will be little things in there, like actually the recording intros was a huge point of friction because what would happen is first we didn't record intros, and then our YouTube team was like, "Hey, could you give a-- like we need to make like a trailer.
Nathan: Like give us more And we're really trying to find these things and cut and slice and, you know. And so all right, we'll do intros. And so then Kara would write an intro, like the bullet points of it, and put it on her phone. And we'd finish recording, and then she would give me the phone, and I would look at it, kind of memorize that, and then, like, try to deliver to camera and, like, bumble through it and get the pronunciation of their name wrong and everything else.
Nathan: And it actually-- Like, I felt embarrassed 'cause we just did an episode that I was really proud of, and then, like, I kinda just, like, screwed that up. And as a creator, I'm supposed to be good at this stuff.
Dustin: And the person standing in the room in many cases [00:15:00] too, your guest too. It's like, oh, man. Yeah.
Nathan: And so then when we added a teleprompter, 'cause now these Elgato teleprompters are two hundred and fifty bucks, and you should like every creator should own at least one.
Dustin: I bought one literally when I left, when I left your studio. I have one now. It's awesome.
Nathan: Yeah. And so we put that on the, the close-up shot that's just on me, and so now I read it off. And it's-- it was interesting, like reflecting back on the friction. Multiple recording events, tons of friction over intros.
Nathan: And then we fixed that one thing, and it flipped. Like the friction that I felt in recording dropped significantly. And it went from, like, a point of embarrassment to a point of pride because we could just make the guest... Like, I felt great. The guest, like, just got this killer intro and all that. And they were like: "Wait, how did you-- what?"
Nathan: And I was like: "Well, Kara wrote it." And, and they're like: "Oh."
Dustin: It's like a magic trick that you get to witness in person, yeah.
Nathan: You know, and then we started to improve the process of, like, Kara has a custom Claude project that's just about writing intros, and so she's feeding it notes throughout, and she's already fed it our show notes at the beginning, you know, and all of that.
Nathan: And so she's not even spending the [00:16:00] whole episode, like, crafting all of these intros. She's like: "No, not that. How about this? Okay, yeah. Good to go." And so there's all of these things that because we treated it like a flywheel that we measure every single time, then we're able to make it so much easier with each rotation.
Nathan: Now, if you go to growth, you know, this flywheel's not primarily about growth, right? That's a secondary. We do still measure it, but our goal is like, hey, if we make stuff we're proud of for the right audience, it will grow. But we do measure that, and so then we do ask, hey, what could we do to drive growth more?
Nathan: And there's things like, you know, we'll brainstorm guest selection, topics, packaging. You know, that's how we started writing intros was because our video team was like, "This will help us so much if you would, with growth, if you would do this thing for us." So we might try other things like we've been doing related episodes At the end where, you know, we'll record that little snippet as well as part of the intro.
Nathan: So it's kind of the flywheel approach. We're measuring every single week, seeing what results are we getting, how proud are we, is the [00:17:00] friction reducing, and all that. And now we're rounding off like pretty little things, but even then it's making the process that much sooner. Like a little thing was, "Hey, did we make sure to collect lunch orders from everybody for the Tuesday afternoon recording?
Nathan: 'Cause we're gonna wrap up and like let's make sure that lunch is there waiting for us." So when the guests came in in the morning, you know, do we hand them the menu for wherever we're ordering lunch that day and make sure... 'Cause it's just one other little thing to have dialed in.
Dustin: Yeah. And then I think we don't have to get into all, any more nuance, but I think an important thing for people to hear there is the three laws of the flywheel.
Dustin: You know, basically flow, ease, and growth. The fact that every sing- every individual flywheel should have an individual goal because you have to know what you're optimizing for, and one flywheel can only be really optimized for one thing. It can have secondary effects. And the other thing I, I heard you allude to is that a given process or system can actually feed or have multiple flywheels associated with it, right?
Dustin: Like you guys have a growth flywheel associated with podcasting. You have the primary [00:18:00] flywheel about efficiently creating content you're proud of. But then, you know, I experience other things there that maybe don't make the scorecard. But the, and the last thing I wanna say is you're keeping score. Like even if it's qualitative, you're like, "How easy was this?
Dustin: How proud am I of this?" Like you could still give something a one through five rating even if it doesn't have necessarily a hard metric to it. But measuring the flywheel over time is super important 'cause that's how you optimize. But like there's this nuanced stuff that maybe doesn't e- maybe just doesn't show up in a flywheel, which is totally fair, but like relationship capital, like having dinner with these people that are in some cases really established creators, maybe in some cases you're getting to know someone for the first time.
Dustin: The fact that you're capturing testimonials, the fact that you're, you know, creating secondary content from the primary, you know, event of having someone come in and do this stuff. Even the peer-to-peer capital that you don't have to be in the room for, but the fact that like how can I ever not be an evangelist of Kit because I'm in this room and I met the leaders of Kit, I met these other cool people that are on the podcast.
Dustin: When I hear that podcast, [00:19:00] not only the one I'm on, but the one these other people I know now are on Of course I'm gonna share that. And it's a soft thing, but I think it's something worth talking about that is just still really important.
Nathan: Yeah. So like the recording that you came out to, you know, you and John were both on it.
Nathan: You know him super well, obviously. Your community knows him super well. And part of that, like scheduling, you guys are like, "Well, let's come to the same one." You know, like, "We're both coming, let's..." But there's also, you know, you're walking away with relationships with two to three other professional creators who are building things, well, on the same scale and ambition that you are.
Nathan: And so the... Yeah, there's all of these other little side effects, and then you're gonna go listen to their episode 'cause you're gonna be like, "You know, I, I heard the five minutes in the hallway of like how it went, you know? But like how I wanna actually listen to it." Which then, you know, like I might have people on the show who maybe they're not like a diehard fan of the show already, right?
Nathan: But they're like, "Well, that was good, and th- I do wanna listen to that episode from, you know, the random other woman that, you know, did an episode right after mine." So I listen to hers and be like, "Oh, this is pretty [00:20:00] good." Which then, you know, it's this very slow flywheel, but it results in more things of like the community feeling of the people on the show listen to the show.
Nathan: They know the ins and outs. They know the messaging, the community. They know Kit. Like all... They know each other. They'll cross-reference shows all the time, where people will say like, "Well, in that episode when you had so-and-so on, you talked about this." And, and so it's just like the same process spinning over and over again.
Nathan: And then having people back. Like something that I wanna do even more of is having recurring characters on the show, right? So anytime you wanna come back, you're absolutely welcome. Just tell me what you wanna teach.
Dustin: Yes. All right, we got it on tape. Uh, this, this is my actual goal of having you on today.
Dustin: We're not releasing this anywhere. I just wanted to be invited back, get the next one, 40 in the bank. No.
Nathan: But like Jay Singh is coming on the podcast next week. He's been on before, and he's gonna like do this deep dive on You know, like how creators should implement AI. He's doing this huge AI implementation project for Kit as well, and so we'll probably talk about that some.
Nathan: And so anyway, I guess the thing is, [00:21:00] as you imagine this flywheel spinning over and over again, it's getting this small group of people as tightly connected as possible, and then we'll see what magic comes from there.
Dustin: I love that. Yeah, 'cause in, in reflecting on it too, a lot of the people that end up on your show, whether it's A or B happens first, they're also speakers at Craft and Commerce, right?
Dustin: And, or they're attendees of the mastermind that happens around Craft and Commerce. It, it is a deepening of the highest quality relationships in the Kit community, um, and even something as simple as like it exposed me to the Kit Studios. So now I wanna be going to Kit Studios. I wanna bring other people.
Dustin: I wanna host events at maybe the Chicago Kit Studios, which is closer to me. And so it just pulls me into the community ecosystem because I had to experience that to do the show that I really wanted to do.
Nathan: And I think that's another good point is the, like bringing people all at the same time, then we're like, "Hey, record with each other," right?
Nathan: 'Cause that's the thing. But then the other point that you brought up is someone could be listening to this and be like, "Well, good for Nathan," right? He's got... He has Kit Studios, you know? Like most people have not dropped tens of thousands of dollars, or in [00:22:00] my case, hundreds of thousands of dollars to build out like this level of production studio.
Nathan: But it's like you have Kit Studios as well, right? There's nothing stopping, and you know, we're working on building a New York location, working on building Austin as well. And so there's nothing stopping you from like flying to Chicago once a month and doing your recording event in Chicago and recreating the exact same thing.
Nathan: The only hard thing for you is that, you know, I have a 15-minute drive to the studio. You have a mult- you know.
Dustin: Take a four-hour train ride or fly up to Chicago. I'm in the St. Louis area, so it's not, it's not that bad.
Nathan: Yeah. So it, it's like, but again, like the exact batch recording process, like you could copy paste the entire flywheel and it would work great for you, and I would be thrilled because you'd be putting out all of this content, you'd be bringing people into the studios, and you'd probably be like-- people would be like, "This is killer.
Nathan: Where'd you learn this?" And you're like, "Oh, I learned from Nathan. You should check out his podcast too," you know?
Amber: There was no magic pill or formula or hack or anything like that. I had to do the [00:23:00] hard work asking myself, "Who would I be proud to be?" And now I'm really proud of the fact that as a single mom now myself and as a female, I have a 20-year business that has always been profitable. We have grown in every single economic downturn in the last 20 years.
Amber: I am surrounded by remarkable, heart-centered, incredible value-aligned individual because I did the work to know what my values are first to then be able to attract in other individuals that shared a lot of those same values. So yes, if you look at my bio, you'll see awards and achievements and all of these cool badges that I've gotten over the years.
Amber: But for me, at the end of the day, it's not about that. It's not about the money. It's really about having a pure heart of service Because that's what makes me feel alive at the end of every day. It's what makes me feel like the crazy journey of entrepreneurship is [00:24:00] worth it. Yeah. Because I was able to help one more person today.
Amber: And in some ways, like, it's building my legacy one micro moment at a time, and some, some point in the future, my kid is gonna grow up, and I want him to be proud of who his mom was. And so, I don't know, that, that's a little bit more about Amber that you won't read in my bio.
Dustin: I love that. Yes. That's the, uh...
Dustin: This is like the conversations we have with no microphone in front of us, so, um, I really appreciate you opening up and sharing that and giving context because, you know, I can be guilty of the same thing. You know, Seven Figure Leap, and I got a podcast or whatever, and I'm a podcast guest and all this- Maybe I am
Dustin: and so many similarities. I wa- I, uh, I wanna highlight and keep the spotlight on you, but I'll just say for anyone who's heard 70 or whatever episodes of this podcast, so much of what Amber just shared I have a, I have a common, a common, um, background with, you know. Not, not to the same depth in some cases.
Dustin: I never actually use these words, but I love them, and maybe it'll become the title of the show, but, like, who [00:25:00] would I be proud to be? I think that's such a powerful framework, not only for personal growth, but, like, a business lens, you know. Um, and you help people write books, and we're gonna talk about some of that today, too.
Dustin: And so a question that comes up so much in my world is, like, what do I really want? And me- meaning my world, like me, but also, like, our clients, our mastermind, and, and, and this is actually a better way, I think, to, to, um, attack that, is, like, who would I be proud to be? That's a... To me, that's a little more of a, uh, a healthy approach to what do I really want.
Dustin: 'Cause sometimes you say, "What do I really want?" Like, this weird guilt comes in, and, like, "Do I really get to get what I want?" But, like, who would I be proud to be is both, uh, in service to others and, you know, is fulfilling to yourself, and so I, I just love the reframe. Um, so thanks for the context. So what do you do?
Dustin: Like, I- Of course ... I know that's a loaded question, too, 'cause you have multiple things, but, um, sort of, like, give us a snapshot of, of what you do in the business world as an entrepreneur today, and I think that'll give us some, uh, some jumping off points for some of the ways we can help the [00:26:00] audience.
Amber: Yeah, absolutely.
Amber: Well, I mean, when I started NGNG, which stands for No Guts No Glory, like 20 years ago, I had taught myself code, built my own website, and started offering that as a service to other people, not because it was my bright idea to become an entrepreneur to begin with, but because some woman in Canada found my blog post online and asked if I could build her website, and I'm thinking, "Me?
Amber: I guess." You know? It was really... It was a weird moment for me, but I said yes, and then, you know, all of these years later now I've launched more than 1,000 websites for entrepreneurs- Wow ... which is crazy. And actually, that's a service that I really no longer do. It was about a year and a half ago that I finally, uh, shifted out of web, and I still do it very sparingly for my highest top clients, but that's it.
Amber: I, I'm out of the web game. And books, similarly, books found me. I didn't go seek them out. This woman, [00:27:00] a publishing, um, house out in California that's no longer around, uh, the woman who owned it came to me and said, "Can I teach you how to launch books so that you can launch books for my authors?" And I said, "No, thank you.
Amber: I'm, I'm a website developer." And she hounded me, I'm not kidding you, for four months. relentless. And I'm thinking, "Why are you f- why are you so interested in me? I'm not that cool." Like, and, and I don't know anything about books. Like, it was totally- ... divine intervention. So when something like that happens, you just have to say yes in your life because there is a grander purpose behind it.
Amber: And so that's exactly what I did. I said yes. And then she literally taught me how to run bestseller book launch campaigns, and my first books were for, like, Les Brown and Lisa Nichols and Mark- Wow ... Victor Hansen. And I thought, "Okay, that's random." And I didn't even tell anybody else that I was doing this for almost a decade-
Nathan: Wow
Amber: until, like, word of mouth started taking [00:28:00] off and people started, like, coming to me behind the scenes. It wasn't even published on my website that I do this. And then by 2020, enough people knew, we hit critical mass, and then my company exploded for book launch in 2020. That was actually what got us to grow 80% that first year, another 80% the second year, my hair on fire-
Amber: in the Forbes Inc. 5000 of being one of the fastest growing companies in America just basically based off of book launch and then also supporting those clients with websites. And the other piece to what I do, and this is where it gets like a gray area- Mm-hmm ... where people think, "I don't even know what she does."
Amber: Um, it's because I'm really a business strategist first, and I know just about everything that you can think of in terms about of, uh, digital marketing. And I'm so, like, strategic. I think of strategy as the fastest way to hit a desired outcome [00:29:00] without sacrificing quality. Mm. So if you come to me and say, "Amber, I wanna make $7,000 a month," or you say, "Amber, I wanna have a top podcast," or, "Amber, I just want to have 500 rave reviews from my customers so I know that I've made impact," or, "Amber..."
Amber: It... Like yesterday, I had a conversation with a woman who said, "I wanna sell a million books, and I have no following, so I have to figure out how to get 100,000 person following in the next few months so that I can secure an agent to get a traditional publishing deal so I can publish and then be on my way to selling a million books."
Amber: That was a conversation I just had yesterday. Wow. So everybody's goals are completely different. And when we come back to what you said earlier about, like, what do I really want?
Dustin: Yep.
Amber: It is a tricky question because people think they want these badges. I wanna be a New York Times bestselling author. Why?
Dustin: Yes.
Amber: Pause. They have no idea why. And I'm like, "Do you understand that that's gonna cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars? It's gonna be enormously [00:30:00] stressful, and you don't even know why you want that." "Because it sounds cool," or, "It feels like then I will be significant." Yep. Well, what if we could know our significance by impacting three people?
Amber: Would that be, move the needle for you differently? So by having a strategist in your back pocket, you can get down to the truth of what you actually want your life to be like, and then what I can do is I can cut out most of the options in terms of digital marketing and offers and growth pathways and all of that, and then deliver to you the plan that's gonna help you achieve that in the fastest way possible without sacrificing quality.
Amber: So that's, like, really what I do. Yep. Book launch, that's the fastest way to scale, whether you're trying to scale following revenue or impact, the book. A podcast launch is similar. It's not quite as powerful- Mm-hmm ... because with a book launch you can get a lot more people involved. Yep. And a podcast launch, it's a [00:31:00] little harder.
Amber: Um, so anyway, but a launch is the fastest way to scale, and so having that strategy kinda touches all of these different areas, which is why sometimes it's hard for people to understand what I do.
Dustin: Yeah. Well, it's kinda classic, you know. You're in marketing, you know, sell them what they want, give them what they need.
Dustin: Yes. And sometimes that means offer what they want, and then g- you know, g- give them what they need in the sense that- 100% ... like, people think they want a book. They want a New York Times bestselling book or whatever. Um, what they really need is oftentimes more clarity on their real objectives or-
Nathan: Yeah ... so that
Dustin: you can develop a strategy that actually addresses that.
Nathan: Thank you for listening to the Seven Figure Leap podcast. If you got
Dustin: any value out of this episode, I have three things, but one, most important, is to simply share this with a friend. Think of someone who could get value from this episode, from this show, all the amazing guests that we have. Copy it, send it in a text message and say, "Hey friend, I think you'll get value out of this.
Dustin: Please go check out the Seven Figure Elite podcast." And if you want to share it with your mastermind group, [00:32:00] your social following, all the better. Number two, for your own benefit and to help us reach more people, subscribe, follow the show. So if you're on a podcast player, just hit subscribe. If you're listening on YouTube, great, follow, like us there as well.
Dustin: And number three, again, this was really helping us but by helping us, you help us reach more people and help people like you. Give us a review. Give us a five-star rating. So if you're on Apple Podcast, Spotify, you can simply scroll on your phone right now, hit the five stars, and if you're so gracious to actually write a short review, it means the world to us.
Dustin: As someone who works in the podcasting industry and who helps people with guesting and being on other people's shows, I can't tell you how difficult it is to get ratings and reviews. You know, it's not something that really serves you, so the best thing I can do is ask you and say, "Hey, do you want to serve the entrepreneurial community?
Dustin: You want to help me and give back a little bit for all the time and effort we put into bringing you what I hope is an amazing experience?" Simply do those three things. Share it with a buddy, subscribe, and [00:33:00] send us a simple rating and review on your podcast player of choice. Goes a long way. Thank you so much for supporting the show, and we'll see you on the next one.