by Jason Owens | Apr 24, 2020 | Uncategorized
Our paths have crossed at some time in the past 18 months.
Perhaps we met when…
- You attended one of my 2 or 3-hour workshops in NC
- You saw me speak at Craft Content Nashville
- You purchased my book, Finding My Voice
- You purchased a seat at my full-day The Sales Workshop event
- We spoke to each other at a networking function
- You signed up for a free give away from my blog (JasonROwens.com)
- We attended Experts Academy
- You saw me speak at one of your Rotary events
No matter when or where we met, 2 things are certain:
- We met
- I have your email
Why am I Reminding You?
I am going to start writing again which means you’ll be hearing from me more often.
Translation: I’ll probably send out new material once a week.
What I Write About
- The Inner Life of Entrepreneurs
- Information Marketing
- Creating Membership sites
- Life Behind the Scenes as I Build my Business
- Maintaining your Performance in the Face of Adversity
- The Intersection of Faith and Entrepreneurship
Who Am I?
I am Jason Owens.
I research new entrepreneurs, and I speak across the southeast on ways to help more new entrepreneurs succeed.
Please Unsubscribe
If you don’t remember me, or you’ve transitioned away from self-employment, or you don’t want to receive more email from me going forward, then please unsubscribe.
No hard feelings.
If you need to unsubscribe just go to the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the page.
Discussion
For those of you who are still with me I have one question to pose:
[reminder]What is one thing that you wish you would have known about starting a business? Continue the conversation on facebook, twitter, or linkedin.[/reminder]
by Jason Owens | Apr 22, 2020 | Sales
Information products
Savvy business owners know the power that products have to jumpstart stalled sales efforts, create new relationships, and scale your business like never before.
Nowadays it is so easy to create very high quality information products, a category which includes podcasts, ebooks, hard copy books, online videos, CDs, and DVDs.
Most computers come with just about everything you need to be up and running in full “product creation mode” in no time.
Couple this with a few well-placed freelancers who can help with editing or design, and there is no limit to what you can create. Be aware, however, that there are few subtle nuances that can spell success for failure here.
The Always-Increasing Price of Free
In 2009 you could give away just about anything that was in an ebook. iPads were the new rage, and everyone seemed to have a Kindle.
These new users were hungry for digital content to put on these new tech toys.
Now here we are several years later, and the price of free has changed.
[Tweet “Make it so good that people want to share it!”]
Customers are more sophisticated, and they won’t just give out their email to anyone for a free chapter of your book.
What has changed is that people’s appetite for free has increased like crazy.
To stay relevant you have to provide more and more value — translation: doing more and more stuff for no immediate payoff.
You have to give away so much value that it will cause people to rave about you. I don’t say this lightly, and I know first hand how difficult it can be.
One Man’s Story of Growth
Check out this evolution chain of one podcast for one very notable figure in the expert/guru world.
- Started podcasting about 3 years ago. Did it all himself. No intro music. Lots of editing. By his own admission it took him 2-3 days to do one podcast.
- Refined his process to remove the time-consuming part of editing and found that no one cared about his missteps on the broadcast.
- Added intro music and started having more guests. Refined his process even further to reduce production time to less than one day per podcast.
- Today he has a host and moderator, full intro and outro music, and a complete line up of guests, not to mention a sizable following. His podcast is essentially radio broadcast quality.
Granted, not every listener expects this level of sophistication for every newbie. My emphasis here is that this level of growth is available to every one of us!
[Tweet “A phenomenal amount of growth is available to every one of us!”]
Through a consistent stream of high quality content, this man developed a substantial following and several very lucrative revenue streams because he went the path of free and stuck with it.
If you follow a similar path, you can scale your business in no time.
The 3 Golden Rules to make the most of your free products.
- Make is Sharable.
- Make it actionable.
- Hard copy is ok.
Make is Shareable
Sounds basic, but dig beneath the surface here. I don’t mean sharable in that it is possible for you to share it. Instead I mean make it so good that people want to share it.
Rule of Thumb: If you feel your product is so good that you should charge money for it, then you’ve probably added enough value.
Make it Actionable
This isn’t the time for “high-level overview”.
You can’t afford to be theoretical here. Your readers are going to insist that they be able to put your content into action right now — today.
If you can’t deliver that, you are dead.
Hard copy is ok!
In our world people are too quick to jump to digital versions of our products, but don’t miss the opportunity to go old school on this one.
I can’t tell you how many times people have lent me a book because they were amazed by the authors slant on some issue or technique.
So, don’t be afraid to go old school if you want.
[reminder]What steps can you take right now toward creating a rave-worthy scalable product? Continue the conversation on facebook, twitter, or linkedin.[/reminder]
by Jason Owens | Apr 21, 2020 | Internet Marketing
For those of you who’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know that I started publishing a lot more in the month of March.
This is the first of two articles I’m going to publish about my new content creation process.
In this article I’m going to share with you the secret to how I’m doing it.
In the next article I’m going to tell you the benefits I received from increasing the amount of times I’m publishing.
Delegation (Once Again) is King
I’m not a bad writer. In fact, I really enjoy writing.
The thing that was most difficult for me to realize is that while I might be good at writing a blog article, I’m not the best in the world.
I need to delegate the things that I’m good at doing so I can concentrate on what I’m best at doing.
This is where Alexandria Powell enters the scene. Together we have found a way for her to focus on her unique ability — writing, so that I can concentrate on my unique ability.
This simple act of delegation has completely changed the way that I view my content creation process here with my company.
A Look at my Editorial Calendar
You can see in the following image I have set a target to publish three times per week.
I want to have one video every Monday sharing something inspirational people can use to get started on the right foot.
On Wednesdays and Fridays I want to publish text content in the form of blog articles.
In the past I was publishing perhaps one or two blog articles per month.
Now, I’m publishing eight blog articles per month, and four videos per month.
If I didn’t have the following two workflows set up, there is no way I would be able to churn out this much activity on my blog.
The Secret Ingredient
You might be jumping ahead with the thought that I just hired someone to write all my articles.
The problem with the expert industry is that most often the expertise, the very thing people will come to us to hear, exists only in our heads. Content creation is not easily outsourced!
[shareable cite=”Jason R Owens” text=”Content creation is not easily outsourced! Here’s the next best thing.”]Content creation is not easily outsourced![/shareable]
Until we get to the days where we can sit down into a matrix-style chair and have somebody download our brains, it will remain very difficult for us to find ways to scale content creation.
Meet Alexandria Powell, the person who almost single-handedly has transformed my content creation process.
As you’ll see in the upcoming workflows, we found a way to download information from my brain and put it into my blog.
Once we tackled this step, content creation began to flow like water.
For those of you who are experts, public speakers, workshop leaders, and published authors, I highly recommend you contact Alexandria to set up this exact same workflow in your business.
My Workflow for Video Creation
I employ our time-tested technique called block scheduling. I usually shoot all of my videos on a Saturday morning.
In a few hours I’m able to create and upload all of my videos for the month, yet the blog posts that announce those videos still remain outstanding.
Here is the workflow for creating 4 video posts to show on each Monday:
- Jason – Records videos on iPhone (time: ~ 30 minutes)
- Jason – Edits and trims the video on iPhone (time: ~8 minutes)
- Jason – Uploads the video to YouTube (time: ~ 30 minutes)
- Jason – Sends video ID, headline, and publish date to Alexandria (time: 20 minutes)
- Alexandria – Creates and schedules 4 video posts (one for each Monday in the month)
At the end of this workflow each of the videos I have hosted on YouTube are scheduled to be released on a given Monday morning for each week of the month.
[shareable cite=”Jason R Owens”]Block scheduling your content creation is key to success.[/shareable]
Likewise there is a corresponding blog post that announces this video to all of my blog readers. These are also scheduled and ready to go for every Monday morning for the month.
At this point I have maybe 2 to 2.5 hours into the entire process of capturing the idea, jotting a few notes on the flow of each video, shooting and uploading all four videos, and sending over all of the descriptive text to Alexandria so she can publish the corresponding blog posts.
My Workflow for Blog Creation
As a precursor to this workflow, I usually use a tool called Evernote to capture all of my blog article ideas. I like Evernote because it is available not only on my desktop, but my laptop, too.
It’s also available on my phone, so I have Evernote with me everywhere I go. I usually use Evernote to make a very quick notation as to what the blog article would be about.
Once I have chosen the ideas I’m going to use for a given month, here are the steps I follow to turn these ideas into blog articles:
- Jason – Uses voice dictation on a word processing app on my phone (the Pages app on my iPhone) to create a first draft of the blog article. (time: ~7-10 minutes)
- Jason – Sends article to my Content Manager, Alexandria.
- Alexandria – Enters a more polished version of the article, chooses a featured image to capture the theme of the article, sets up any tweetable quotes inside the article itself, and schedules the article for publication.
As a rule of thumb it takes me about 20 minutes from capturing the idea, jotting a few quick notes for an outline and then creating the first draft for each regular blog post.
If I have to create any additional images or include screen capture images, like I had to do for this post, that will add another 15-20 minutes depending on the level of detail.
Total Time
In all I am probably putting in about 6 hours of work per month to create 4 short videos and 8 blog posts.
Again, I can’t stress how important it is to find someone who can help you do the very things you are not world class at doing. This has completely transformed my content creation process here at my company and I have a feeling it could greatly help yours as well.
[shareable cite=”Jason R. Owens” text=”Find somebody who can help you do what you aren’t best at doing!”]Find somebody who can help you do things you aren’t world class at doing so you can focus on what you do best![/shareable]
[reminder]What are some tips you have found helpful in creating content for your expert business?[/reminder]
by Jason Owens | Apr 3, 2020 | Jason R Owens Podcast
After a very difficult period in her life, Laura Diehl woke in the middle of the night, her head filled with the title for a book and pages upon pages of notes.
Only a short time later this late-night epiphany has grown to several published books, a series of conferences, and her first-ever virtual summit.
Click the triangle to listen to the podcast to learn how she did it.
[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonrowens/JOP013.mp3″ artist=”The Jason Owens Podcast” title=”Ep.13 – 2 Ways You Can Benefit From a Virtual Summit – An Interview with Laura Diehl”]
Transcript
Complete show transcript is available here.
Links
- Laura’s Main Site – GPS Hope
- Hope and Healing Virtual Summit for Grieving Parents (You should click through to see how many people Laura recruited for this event. The number really is impressive!
- Laura’s YouTube Channel
[shareable cite=”Laura Diehl”]Forward motion is better than no motion.[/shareable]
Tools She is Using
Benefits of Running a Virtual Summit
List Growth
Laura saw an increase of about 200 subscribers from running her virtual summit
Solidifying Your Expertise
Become even more of an expert in the eyes of other experts in your field, b) your prospects.
- Other experts in your field
- Your prospects
What Is Working Right Now
I noticed that the blog posts in Laura’s blog often have what I’m calling a “Double Call-to-Action” where she has an after-post opt-in form above a second call to action for her speaking skills.
Laura says, “That [after-post opt-in form] has been our most consistent way of adding to our email list…”
Listen to the Audio
[callout]I would LOVE it if you would leave me a review on iTunes![/callout]
Click the triangle on the green bar to listen now.
[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonrowens/JOP013.mp3″ artist=”The Jason Owens Podcast” title=”Ep.13 – 2 Ways You Can Benefit From a Virtual Summit – An Interview with Laura Diehl”]
by Jason Owens | Apr 1, 2020 | Case Studies, Jason R Owens Podcast
Welcome to my brand new podcast specifically devoted to helping authors and public speakers harness the power of content marketing.
I have packed this inaugural episode full of content that you can use to build your business right away.
Click the green bar to start listening.
[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonrowens/JOP001.mp3″ artist=”The Jason Owens Podcast” title=”Ep.1 – Kickoff and Case Study on List Building via Text/SMS”]
Show Notes
In this inaugural episode you will hear:
- What you can expect from this podcast as a listener.
- A case study on list building using SMS/Text which is working right now.
Transcript
Get the complete transcript here.
Links From the Show
Listen to the Audio
[callout]I would LOVE it if you would leave me a review on iTunes![/callout]
Click to Listen Now
[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonrowens/JOP001.mp3″ artist=”The Jason Owens Podcast” title=”Ep.1 – Kickoff and Case Study on List Building via Text/SMS”]
[powerpress channel=”podcast”]
by Jason Owens | Mar 31, 2020 | Uncategorized
[youtube id=”3rbSz6066Zo”]
When you find the activities that grow your business, you can become an unstoppable force when you do those activities consistently.
Click now to discover how.
by Jason Owens | Mar 26, 2020 | Jason R Owens Podcast
If you have had a life experience that you think people could benefit from hearing, then this episode is for you. Today I am joined by Cortney Donelson, author of Clay Jar Cracked.
In the midst of a life experience, Cortney realized that she had a message to share.
She has built her experience into the perfect trifecta which includes:
- A Book which currently has over 20 5-Star reviews on Amazon
- Speaking Engagements
- Retreats and Workshops
Click the triangle to listen to the podcast and learn how she’s doing it.
[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonrowens/JOP012.mp3″ artist=”The Jason Owens Podcast” title=”Ep.12 – How to Use Your Bravery to Develop a Powerful Message – An Interview with Cortney Donelson”]
Introducing Cortney Donelson
Cortney believes the content for her writing only came to fruition after experiencing one of the greatest tragedy-turned-love-stories ever told.
Her first book, which will be released by Morgan James publishing on March 7, 2017 called Clay Jar, Cracked, and her devotional blog, “As a Clay Jar,” are the products of her passions, faith, heart to encourage others, and God’s provision.
Cortney lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her courageous husband and her two extraordinary children. She works for International Mission Foundation.
Show Notes
- 3:49 – Interview with Cortney Donelson
- 27:53 – Post Game Analysis
- 31:00 – Overview of Cortney’s Product Offering
- 33:35 – Three Steps You Can Take to Get Traction with Your Message
- 35:29 – Four Part Framework for How to Grow Your Bravery
[shareable]Your Bravery is like a muscle. It grows the more you use it.[/shareable]
Transcript
Complete interview transcript is available here.
What is Working
- Being brave
- Referrals for speaking engagements
- Mentor who is introducing her to a broader network
The Four Elements of Bravery
- Thinking that your message could help people.
- Telling anyone your story for the first time.
- Capturing your thoughts and feelings by writing a book/journaling, etc.
- Putting yourself out there.
This doesn’t have to happen all at once.
It doesn’t have to happen all in this order.
Your Bravery is like a muscle. It grows the more you use it.
Three Steps You Can Take to Get Traction with Your Message
- Start with the message first.
- Package the message so that it resonates with a tribe somewhere.
- Tribe begins to pull on you by placing a demand.
This is very iterative. You will need to do this again and again.
It takes time.
This is art!
Links
Listen to the Audio
[callout]I would LOVE it if you would leave me a review on iTunes![/callout]
Click the triangle on green bar to listen now.
[smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/jasonrowens/JOP012.mp3″ artist=”The Jason Owens Podcast” title=”Ep.12 – How to Use Your Bravery to Develop a Powerful Message – An Interview with Cortney Donelson”]
by Jason Owens | Mar 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
In March of last year, Hyk was nothing more than a mostly-empty storefront that was in the process of being converted from a t-shirt shop to an upscale outdoor retailer.
Ben Ferguson, owner of Hyk, and his team had more questions than answers:
- Will this work out for the best?
- Will we be ready for the season?
- Are we making a huge mistake?
Find out how Ben and his team coped with the transition, what they learned, if the story had a happy ending.
This single hour could give you the inspiration to take your business to a whole new level in 2019.
What
Converting Your Retail Experience for Success at the Estes Park Startup/Meetup
Who
Ben Ferguson, Owner of Hyk
When
Wednesday, February 6 from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM
Where
Coffee on the Rocks, 510 Moraine Ave, Estes Park.
This live, in-person talk will be delivered only once, so if you miss it, its gone.
by Jason Owens | Mar 17, 2020 | Uncategorized
[guestpost]Troy and Taryn Mason write at intentionallyrefined.com. Intentionally Refined is a website dedicated to inspiring and encouraging you to improve you, improve your marriage, improve your relationships, and more. They do this by discussing: self-improvemnt / personal development, marriage and relationships, productivity, goal planning, health, and more.”[/guestpost]
I am an entrepreneur. In my business (I assume in your business as well) the environment is constantly changing.
There are constantly new things that we have to learn and implement. There are new strategies, new technologies, new ways of doing things.
We have to plan. We have to capitalize. We have to implement. We have to make it profitable.
I not only have the stress that comes with running the business and working on projects for clients, but I also have the stress of adapting the company to a constantly changing environment.
If you’re like me, you handle the stress really well. At least you feel like you handle it well. You manage all of the things I just mentioned. You get it all done. You’re a productivity machine.
But you know this comes at a cost. There’s only so much of you to go around, and when things get crazy at the office, the home life suffers. I neglect my wife and my kids.
I don’t intend to do it. I don’t want to do it. But I do it. Maybe I’m not as bad as some people are about it. But I’m not as good about it as I want to be.
It’s actually pretty easy to fall into the trap of neglecting the family. I mean, you’re working this hard for them right? They know you’re busy. They understand.
You want to give them a fulfilling life. You want to give them more than you had growing up. Those are great intentions, but when it really boils down to it, all they want is you.
They want to spend time with you. They want you to pay attention to them. Your spouse wants you to answer his / her two prevailing questions. (Shameless plug – On our blog you can read about his two prevailing questions here and her two prevailing questions here, or if you’d like to subscribe to our emails, you can click here).
I would never discourage you from working hard and growing your business. But I would encourage you to stop, just for a few minutes, and make time for them.
When you’re gone from this world, do you want them to say, “He built an awesome business!” or do you want them to say, “He was an awesome husband / dad. He loved me so much.”
Deep down, they want to say the latter. Take some time for them. Blow a day off from work once in a while. It will still be there waiting. Show them that they are more important than the business
See more from Troy and Taryn Mason at intentionallyrefined.com.
by Jason Owens | Mar 16, 2020 | Uncategorized
We all dream of having so much organic traffic coming to our site that list building becomes effortless.
Those of us who live in the real world, however, don’t have a bajillion hits of organic traffic each week. We’re willing to build our list any way we can.
Recently, I was talking with a member of my community, Jonathan Hill. He and his wife, Faith, run Fortified Health Club.
Jonathan told me of an amazing success he had with a tool which is a sister product to a service many of us have heard of in this community — LeadPages.
I won’t go into detail on that now, but I do want to talk about the tool Jonathan is using: LeadDigits.
LeadDigits
LeadDigits is a premium product you can get when you choose one of the higher levels of service offered by LeadPages.
[shareable]A great way for public speakers to build a list! Completely automated.[/shareable]
Many of you have seen signs when you’re around town; “Text PIZZA to 47474 for a free slice and a drink”.
Jonathan put this very technique to use when Faith was delivering a talk at a local chiropractic clinic a few days ago.
[callout]Disclaimer: I don’t want you guys to get hung up on the audience size. What I want you to concentrate on is the conversion percentage.[/callout]
Let’s go to Jonathan now as he frames the scenario:
[guestpost]The talk was called ‘Toxic Beauty’ for a women’s event, and texting that phrase will get you a list of ingredients to always avoid in your cosmetics regime. Immediately after texting it, you will receive the list via email. — Jonathan Hill[/guestpost]
The step-by-step follows:
- Faith is in front of the small audience at this chiropractor’s office, and she’s talking about health and nutrition.
- At a few key points in the presentation, Faith simply says something to the effect of, “If you’d like more information on this, take out your phones now, and I’ll send it to you right away.”
- She then offers the keyword CLEARSKIN and instructs attendees to send that to 44222.
- While Faith is in the front of the room making the offer, Jonathan is in the back of the room watching all these results happen in real time.
What blows me away is the conversion rate they received!
Of the 14 people in attendance in this room, 12 of them used texted the CLEARSKIN keyword to get the freebie Faith had offered.
For those of you keeping score at home that’s an 86% conversion rate!
[shareable]Read about this list building technique that garnered an 86% conversion rate![/shareable]
Imagine if you started doing this very same technique and began experimenting with it during your talks!
[callout]Try it right now! Text CLEARSKIN to 44222 to check out the user experience and to get the freebie![/callout]
If I understand the integration LeadDigits correctly, you can connect it to your existing email marketing system to do the delivery of the actual freebie.
It works just as if somebody were to opt in on the opt-in page of your site. I created a similar campaign for one of my clients several months ago, and we used InfusionSoft to do the delivery.
[reminder]What list-building hacks have worked for you? What ideas have NOT worked so well? Let’s get a conversation started![/reminder]
![013: 2 Ways You Can Benefit From a Virtual Summit [Podcast]](https://jasonrowens.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Jason-Owens-Podcast-Episode-13-Laura-Diehl-of-GPS-Hope-Featured-Image.jpg)
![001: How to Build Your List While On Stage [Podcast]](https://jasonrowens.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-Jason-Owens-Podcast-Ep-1-Kickoff-Case-Study-on-List-Building.jpg)
![012: How to Use Your Bravery to Develop a Powerful Message [Podcast]](https://jasonrowens.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Jason-Owens-Podcast-Ep-12-How-to-Use-Your-Bravery-to-Develop-a-Powerful-Message-An-Interview-with-Cortney-Donelson.png)
Cortney believes the content for her writing only came to fruition after experiencing one of the greatest tragedy-turned-love-stories ever told.
