Doug: Hey, what’s going on. Welcome to the Doug show. My name’s Doug Cunnington. And today I’m very excited to talk with John. John dabbled in internet marketing since 2005 before becoming a sheriff’s deputy in 2010, while doing internet marketing as a hobby on the side. After 10 years as a law enforcement officer, John made the transition to internet marketing full time.
Now he makes more than he did in law enforcement and has a lot more fun And it’s a lot safer too.
John has seen success running a portfolio of websites and multiple internet based businesses, including a large dog training brand around with around 500, 000 followers across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Tik TOK together.
His businesses support his family and allow him to be his own boss, write his own schedule and consistently push himself to new levels. I love that. I can’t imagine working for someone else these days.
So. John has been interviewed multiple times and podcast. He’s appeared as success stories multiple times for income school.
He was featured as a YouTube creator on the rise. I think I saw that email when it came out and he has been mentioned in multiple books, magazines, and other publications in the dog training niche. John, this is amazing. It’s a pleasure to talk to you, how’s it going today?
John: Good. Thank you. I really appreciate you having me on your show
Doug: And you have done so much. It sounds like you’ve been dabbling online for a little while, and we’re going to go into tons of detail about how you avoided getting hit by HCU. We’re going to talk about YouTube. You have a huge channel. And I was, I was like, man, uh, this is crazy. And the quality that you have as well, we’re going to get into all those details, but I’m curious about how you got started initially with internet marketing, like Do you, do you remember when you first heard about niche sites or SEO or anything like that
John: Yeah, it was like 2005 and now, of course I wish I leaned into it hard then. Right. But it was like 2005. I just started dabbling and I was in sales at the time. Wasn’t even considering any other careers really yet. And yeah,
Doug: Alright. Do you remember what it was like when you started your first site? Was like, was it in 2005? Like right when you heard about it?
John: Yeah, I was right around there. I started it. And I remember, Oh, wow. I made five cents today. That’s kind of cool. And like, you know, actually, I started on hub pages. I don’t know if you ever heard of that. It’s like a blogging platform where they share revenue from the advertisers. And I wonder if I could do a little bit more.
And then, Oh, I’m up to 10 this month. That’s amazing. And then like, I just, I always did on the side. It was fun. I always liked writing. I always enjoyed writing. So, that kind of helped a little bit. Um, and then, yeah, I just, it was kind of a slow cascade from there, but it was, it cascaded.
Doug: And then itsounded like you kept it going on the side a little bit while you were You know, working your, your day job. So what was it like, uh, say the next few years, how did it transition from, you know, just making a few cents to maybe a little bit more from there?
John: Yeah, so, yeah, I was a cop for 10 years and, and always on the side. I was doing this just because I enjoyed writing. You know, I was always, it was funny. I was always the officer with the big long reports when I’d write my reports at work. Right. So, But when I would do this on the side, it was fun.
It was kind of like a little bit of a release for me. And I started earning, Oh, here’s 30 bucks this month, 50 bucks. And I remember getting up to a hundred, 300 a month. And I was, I started getting pretty excited about it at the time. And then purchasing portfolios of writing from writers. And then, which actually was just more inspiring than anything.
It was really just all part of my hobby. The whole thing was just a really fun hobby. It felt like from the get go. And it introduced me to all these broad topics that I had no clue about, frankly, and I got to learn about
Doug: Alright, and did you have any like courses or a mastermind group or anyone that understood what you were working on? I know a lot of us that work online, you know, our spouses or friends are tired of hearing about this stuff and then our other friends don’t really understand. So did you have like a cohort of people that kind of knew what you were talking about?
John: No, not at all. Not until I joined income school. But I remember, I remember earning a little bit. And then I remember especially when I went full time, my, my own father kept asking me, I’d say once a month, my dad would ask me, how is it? Are you making money again? Can you explain it one more time?
Probably once a month for like three years. He’d asked me, it was hard to explain.
Doug: Yeah, I think, yeah, my parents never quite got it. They’re just like, ah, he works on the computer a little bit. And then, uh, I think they, now they know, like there’s like video, right? Like so they can see video, and they understand YouTube and stuff like that. All right, cool. So what year was it when you joined income school and where were you at?
Like as a lone wolf up to that point too. So if you could set the stage with like the year, number of sites, income, if you can kind of remember what it was
John: Yeah, So I, I I can’t remember exactly. I want to say it was 2020. If I remember correctly, or give or take a little bit, I think it was about 20, I think it’s 2020. I joined income school just to get a little bit more into my hobby, a little deeper into it. And I, At that time had kind of a portfolio of websites kind of built up, just kind of more, you know, they’re like everybody else.
I want it to be passive, right? Well, I’ve learned that there’s not a lot of all the time, but I had a portfolio of websites on all these different topics. But when I joined income school, they really encouraged me to pick one and focus in on it. And then I kind of had that community supporting me, which was great.
Um, and then finally, some people that kind of understood what I was doing, but this portfolio site was, was earning me some decent but was not at all full time by any means.
And you know, again, I still looked at it as a hobby. And Yeah. Then, then when I got an income school and I started a new site in the dog training niche, and that’s when I started really focusing in on that.
And that paid off a lot to focus in on one topic and really become the expert in that one.
Doug: Was it hard for you to put aside the other sites that you had? I know it’s really difficult for people to, they see it as an opportunity and they’re leaving money on the table, but you know, it just leads to, uh, frustration, overwhelm, and you always feel like you’re behind. So was it hard to leave those other sites behind?
John: It wasn’t hard to leave them behind because they’re on all these topics that like all over the place. Right. So they, I had topics on, I had a, I had ballet website. I don’t know anything about ballet. Look at me, you know, um, I had, I had all these other different random sites and no, it was actually.
It was nice to focus in on one. What was actually a little demotivating though, was to watch as time goes by, as those Google algorithms come out, watch those passive sites in my portfolio, start to slowly do this, right? But you only have so much time in a day and a week. And so I was focusing all on this one site to become a real expert.
And, you know, obviously I’m glad I did. That’s insulated me from the helpful content update and so many other things
Doug: Okay. And you joined income school to just, you know, Learn a little bit more. You knew there was some community in there. Any other details about what led you to the decision to actually invest in a course? Cause I mean, these are kind of expensive, right? And I’ve, I’ve paid thousands of dollars for various courses over time and I always get something out of it, but it’s still hard to pull the trigger.
So can you talk about that a little bit, the decision?
John: Yeah it was just, just leaning into it, and I, I really, I used the money I made from that passive, little passive portfolio of sites just to buy this training course. I consider investing in myself and my knowledge and in something I enjoy to do. The decision, honestly there wasn’t, it was a pretty easy one for me,
Doug: Okay. And then you started a new site for project 24 basically, right?
John: Mhm. Yeah, that was the dog training niche.
Doug: Okay. Perfect. And take us through like the first, I don’t know, year or so. Cause it seems like you started in 2020. So it’s about four years old right now. And I’m curious, you know, you had a pretty good amount of experience in the past sounds like roughly 15 years of working online before it really took off.
So it was like a long training period and then boom. So what was it like in the first whatever, year or so
John: Yeah, no, this, yeah, I love to talk about it. This is, that’s where I get excited because like I, things started falling into place in my mind as to how this stuff works right around then. I started just writing articles on the site, right? Like anybody else, I started niche website by buying a domain name, launching the site on a certain topic and writing articles.
really well researched articles as much as I could showing you know, studies and research to back up the conclusions I was making. And I wrote probably 70 articles, maybe, 70, 75 articles, and they’re all very thoroughly researched. And I, I was writing a lot. I was writing many hours a day and I was researching many hours a day.
And before I, over time I was able to I just, I was in it so much for so long that I could start to rattle off stats, right? 8 percent of dogs that have this condition, this happens. 20 percent of these dogs react this way when a dog goes by if they didn’t have proper socialization. 40 percent of dogs of this breed have this one specific genetic issue that hits them at some point in their lifetime.
I could start rattling off all these stats, which was great. So then, when I was, when I had income school and I was going through their steps of building a niche site and they say, Okay, you know
We want you to now start putting out a few YouTube videos out there. Just see how that goes. That was like the next step in the you know, they kind of led me through some of the steps and the, the videos. Were they were fun. So I found a lot of success and kind of mixing entertainment with education. Right. So it was great because I had like 70, 75 articles, very well researched. I could rattle off stats off the top of my head.
I could just pick one of those topics from the articles and make a video. And I started mixing entertainment with it, like making these little, I never had the same intro in any of my videos. They’re always different. Right. I always did like a skit. Like, you know, like if we’re talking about.
Just as an example, say we’re talking about leash training. I’m like, is your dog pulling on your leash all the time? And you’re like, are you looking like an idiot walking down the road? And I’ll show me like, getting pulled by my dog down the road. And then maybe I’ll have like a car drive by and the window roll down at some point and laughing.
You know, like, I make something kind of humorous in the beginning to snap people out of that just, you know, just cruising through YouTube. State mental state that they’re in something funny. And then I start going into the, the training aspects of how to fix it. Right? So mixing entertainment education really, I think helped a lot, but that beginning phase was very difficult.
I’d say it took about 18 videos making once per week on a very regular rigid schedule, once per week, about 18 videos. And that’s when it finally started to take off. I made a whole 0 dollars, um, on from YouTube for at least 18 weeks. Until. Yeah. Until finally I started to get some traction and got through the ghost town phase
Doug: So, I want to go back, you mentioned that you have enjoyed writing in the past. Do you have a background in writing or did you study it? Or what’s the story with that?
John: No, just, I’ve just enjoyed it. Yeah. Nothing, no, no real I mean, I, I’ve, I’ve kind of dabbled in it as a fun hobby and written things, but not, I don’t know. I do kind of enjoy like more technical side. That’s why I was always a good report writer when I was, you know, in law enforcement, because I kind of liked diving into like the facts and getting like more factual and not, I didn’t never, I never wrote fiction or anything like that, I just enjoy it.
Doug: Okay. And then do you maybe growing up or anything, did you journal or do you do that sort of writing as well? Or purely a non fiction, uh, factual kind of situation
John: Purely non fiction and factual. I don’t, I don’t know. Yeah, I didn’t really write a whole lot as a kid. I was more into, I was into computers as a kid a lot and I loved doing that stuff and learning about programming and things like that. But, but never into writing really
Doug: Let’s switch gears into the video portion. So a lot of people, all right. So, you like writing, which is a big advantage right off the bat for video. A lot of people are super nervous to do video. And on top of that, I mean, there’s like a, a growth of faceless YouTube channels because people are so nervous or services popping up around this.
So did you have any reservations about putting your face on video, doing video, any of the normal hang ups for youtube
John: Oh, yeah,absolutely. Of course I did. Yeah, I was, I was not excited about that. But honestly, the great thing about it is it’s a barrier of entry. You know, if, if you could just get over that fact of putting your face, your mug on the screen, if you can get over that, um, you right there have beat out 80 percent of the competition just by getting over that.
And like, it’s kind of funny if you look at some of my first early videos on my channel, they’re a little embarrassing because I’m very much. I very much like. And then to train your dog, like I’m very rigid, you know, I’m not like relaxed. But, but that’s, yeah, that’s the barrier of entry. That’s the price you pay.
You know what I mean? You either like get over that and like maybe success is an option or you don’t. You can’t have both. You can’t not be uncomfortable and not get over that and have success. You know, you either like, you, you know, you find something awesome you want to purchase, you got to pay the price.
You can’t, you can’t get something cool you want to purchase for free, you got to pay the price. The price of this is getting over that. Does that make sense? Like that, that’s how I looked at it.
Doug: And it’s another, it’s a great way to put it, John. The other thing is, you know, we, we go on with our, with our lives, right? We’ve, we’ve lived our lives up until this point and we have like some kind of result and some of us are pretty happy with it. You look happy with your results you’re getting these days.
I’m happy with my results, but I was very complacent for many, many years. And if we keep doing the same thing that we have been doing to get the results that we’re getting. That’s what we should expect in the future. So until you get out of your comfort zone and go beyond what you’re comfortable with, skillset is, you’re going to get the same results.
And it’s very obvious. Like when we, like you said, most people, like you said, 80%, I mean, I think it’s like 95 percent want to get on YouTube.
John: Yeah. i was guessing
Doug: what I’m making it up too So, um,
John: No, it’s true. It’s true. They don’t want to, they don’t want to put themselves out there and they’re like, what if someone recognizes me? Well, what if someone recognized you? Then what? Like I remember thinking that and I was like, okay, so if someone recognizes me by that point, I’m big enough to have local people recognizing me.
Like that’s a, that’s a success. I think by that point I’m doing pretty dang good, you know?
Doug: It’s crazy. Yeah. Well, and then the other thing and you wrote it in you know, some of the notes we have here and you mentioned it about the ghost town phase. So you created 18 videos at least before anyone really noticed. The thing is, no one cares about your videos or you or anything that you’re doing.
So if someone actually sees you, it’s, it’s absolutely amazing. If someone actually watches your video it’s great
So what, what was the metric you said about 18 videos before something sort of took off? So what was it like, were you getting a couple of views here and there? Was it just your family that was watching or you putting it on replay or something like that? Like, what was it like in the first couple weeks?
John: Um, it was hard, like I knew it was going to be a long course, you know, and I really, I really do. I really do believe like an income school, for example, I was so thankful that they kind of prepped me for that. They’re like, look, this ain’t good. This isn’t like easy, easy, like you got to commit to it for a while and seeing zero results.
And so I was kind of expecting that a little bit. But. Yeah, it was, it was, it was crickets for a while, but I was producing the best stuff I could make just, and it was almost like a creative kind of expression for me to like doing those fun skits. I was telling you about, like, I was trying to have fun with it, you know, and have a good time with it.
And it really was enjoyable. It’s still, it still is. It still feels like a hobby in a lot of ways. Yeah, it was, it was a little hard to get through that ghost town phase. Nobody watching until I remember, I remember an author reaching out to me around that time and saying, Hey You know, I have a book about dogs.
I would love if, if you would consider reading it and maybe even like, mention it on your channel or, or you know, I, I can mention you in the book and I was like, wow, mention me in the book. Like I’m here, I’m trying to, I’m trying to build some authority, EAT, you know? So. I was like, why would you, why would you want to do that?
I’m so small. And then it was so funny, like the next video, my channel kind of started take off like really quick. And of course, right after I did that interview with the author on my channel, so she was happy,
but it was hard. That ghost town phase was hard for sure
Doug: And can you share the, you know, number of subscribers? How many videos do you have out there these days?
John: I have over 200 videos. And I have, uh, about 250, 000 subscribers on YouTube. And then I have a lot of other social media stuff, obviously Facebook, Instagram, tiktok, that kind of thing. For, I don’t know, probably another 250, 000. And it’s so, It’s weird, you know, below about 10, 000 subscribers.
I don’t know why this was, but below about 10, 000 subscribers, even though everything I said was well researched stuff, you know, based on my articles, it was all backed up by studies. It was very informative stuff that was true, true to fact. It was all factual stuff about dog training and, and these dogs.
People would still be like, Oh, who are you? You don’t know what you’re talking about. Where’d you come from? Like, get out of here. And like, and so, And I, I was always very polite to those people. I was like, Hey, I’m not perfect. I could have made a mistake could you tell me, like, I would love to hear where I made the mistake.
You know, if you say my information is so inaccurate, I’d love to hear it. And I started to realize every time I’d ask someone that they’d always come back with something very broad and no specifics. Like, Oh, you just don’t get it. And they never, I’d be like, okay, great. I understand. I don’t get it. Can you tell me where, like what, like, could you please just point out something that was not factual?
I’d love to correct it going forward. And they would be like, Oh, you just don’t get, you still understand. You’re not going to get it. And So I started to realize, okay, I know my stuff is good. It’s all research, peer reviewed, like studies and stuff that I’m basing this on. And then I hit about 10, 000 subscribers and it was weird.
Like the whole, in my comment section, the whole vibe changed. Everybody started becoming like thankful, like, Oh, thank you so much for this information. You’re right on the money. I have these dogs too. You’re right. They act just like that. You’re exactly correct. it’s like almost like this whole shift.
And now I get like, over, I don’t know, 10 to 20 emails a day only to thank me, not even ask me questions. Just thank you so much for you’ve helped me so much. I wouldn’t, my dog was out of control and you’ve helped me so much. And everything you’ve been telling is so right on. And. And, um, it’s funny, I went to this dog meetup group, actually yesterday, I went to a dog meetup group and it was the most humbling experience I’ve ever had.
Like I had people tapping me on the shoulder, asking for selfies with me. They asked to pose. They said, Hey, can you pose with my dog? I’m going to send this to my wife and tell her like what she’s missing by not being here today. I didn’t know you’d be here. This is awesome. And, and, and they went, thank you so much.
You’ve helped me so much. I wouldn’t have my dog. I would’ve had to give them up to shelter. Like so many, like humbling things that just like. It was so inspiring. Like, just, I just, I don’t like, I was just so thankful for these people to like, just come to me and say these things and express how much I’ve helped.
You don’t know. Right. Cause you’re on the other side of a camera. You don’t know how. And what kind of impact you’re having. And anyway, so I don’t know, that’s, that’s, that’s been very motivating too.
Doug: Yeah, it’s very cool. I mean, you’re literally, you’re like changing peoples lives because as a, my dog’s sleeping behind me here, like it’s part of our family, you know? So you’re really impacting like their family So it makes sense that they’re super pumped that you were able to help.
John: And it makes me want to help them more, you know, it makes me want to like do even better than I’ve been doing so far. Like even, okay, how can I, how can I communicate this, this material even more effectively and help these people have even more of a great is, and I really think that’s how you succeed now, especially in the modern landscape with these Google updates and stuff by like, Actually, like that’s Google’s just trying to figure out who really knows their stuff.
Right. And who doesn’t. I think that’s how you succeed now.
Doug: Yeah. Okay. So there’s so much stuff that I want to cover here. So quick couple more questions about YouTube. So how long did it take you to hit those 10 K subscribers and then how long to hit 100k?
Just curious, if you happen to remember
John: Gosh, I, I don’t exactly remember to be honest with you. I’d say maybe if I had to guess i’d say, i don’t know maybe a year or so to hit
Well, that, that 10 K, uh, that 10 K came pretty fast. Cause after the 18 weeks I hit a thousand subscribers and then it started like the trajectory of the subscriber growth just went crazy high.
So, that, that was probably within like six, eight months. And I’d say about a year or a year and a half I was at a, I was at 100k maybe
Doug: Wow. that’s amazing
John: maybe two at most, but yeah some where in there
Doug: Okay. Pretty fast. overall, I mean, cause I mean, the thing is you started the channel in like 2020, right? So it’s, it’s like less than four years to go to where you are at. Okay. Very amazing. The other thing I want to go back to the blog. So you, you published a 70 to 75 articles in the first year or so.
Then you started doing some YouTube stuff and you mentioned to me that. Your site has avoided the helpful content update in the fall of 2023. Right now we’re recording this at the end of March and of 2024. So the big core updates the multiple core updates are rolling out a lot of devastation in the niche site community, but it sounds like you made it through.
Okay. Can you talk a little bit about that?
John: Yeah. So to be clear, that site that I’ve just went headlong into, and I’m very active on the dog training thing, that one has avoided it. My portfolio of passive sites get hammered, just absolutely and I think that’s, and that actually tells me a lot about what these algorithms are doing and what Google is trying to do, frankly, is like I almost noticed no difference in my dog training one.
And it’s funny cause I, I, I’m big enough now I conduct my own research. Um, I put out behavior studies to owners and they fill it. I love my audience. They fill out these behavior studies in depth and I can. Crunch the numbers, get the statistics, you know, 20 percent of these dogs react this way to whatever, like I can make these conclusions and I’m, and I’m publishing my results and PDF format a lot of times, and like, here’s my newest study, here’s this.
And, and I think, and a lot of people are, they, you know, they try to rip off of that, of course, if it’s, you know, I, I do have you know, an attorney house I contract with and, and, you know, they’re, we do DMCA stuff and that kind of thing, but still, it doesn’t matter. They, you know, they. They, a lot of times they’ll spit it out as if it’s their own conclusions and I don’t know.
I think Google is just getting better at finding who’s just leeching off someone else’s and not doing their own original research. But yeah, I think that’s how I avoid it. Just being really active. And I’m always, now I’m like always getting mentioned in another dog magazine. I’ve had mentioned the dog magazines and dog books.
I’ve done interviews with like, Really high up people, high up in the dog world anyway, high up in the dog world. And I think doing these things and staying very active, I just think Google notices that, but it’s funny, all my things that I thought would be passive and have been for many years, actually fairly passive.
They’re just getting. like crazy
Doug: And I mean, there were several years where basically that worked okay. But yeah, the last then the fact that AI has gotten so much better where it lowered the barrier to entry of copycats in like highly derivative information. So. Yeah, I mean, Google has a tough job, but I mean, when I look at the SERPs, I’m like, I don’t know, maybe I should use a different search engine than Google.
’cause the results kind of I don’t want to go to Reddit to read. I don’t know. People debating and they don’t know what they’re talking about. Plus marketers are in Reddit infiltrating, putting in a bunch of affiliate marketing stuff, so that’s an issue too. But back to your point of So. You’ve grown big enough where essentially you can publish fully original content and you can almost just know for a fact, like I’m not, I don’t even need to go after keywords.
I’m creating a new piece of content that is important that I know the audience cares about. So you’re like, I don’t even care about Google. I mean, you care about Google, but you don’t care what Google thinks about the thing that your gonna publish, right?
John: No, no, absolutely not. I mean, it’s in the back of my mind, but no, I, I’m more just trying to help them as much as possible, help the the owners of these dogs as much as I possibly can, like with everything I do, it’s just like, how is this going to help them the most, but luckily, I don’t know. I just think, I think Google and some of these algorithms.
I don’t know. It’s, it’s, it’s obviously a hot button topic, but I feel like the, the whole point is supposed to be to find the most helpful topic, right? In theory, should be getting better over time. I mean, that’s arguable, Right.
Doug: So anything else on EEAT to note here? I know, I mean, there’s, we could talk about it for like two days, but yeah an other broad topics?
John: Well just like, it’s really just that early interview, or that early, um, yeah, interview I did with that author, in that dog book. It’s funny how little opportunities can cascade because at the time I agree to do it. I didn’t really know why I agreed to do it. I wasn’t getting paid for it. I, you know, I was just trying to help out this author of this dog book.
And, and I thought, okay, it could be cool to get mentioned somehow in this book. Well, anyway, that, that author ended up being like a contract writer for a local newspaper and a dog and also for a big time dog magazine. And she was so thankful that I reviewed her book and I put it out there and everything.
Then, then all of a sudden I noticed I was quoted in a newspaper, and then I was quoted in a magazine that was big time in the dog niche that she happened to be an editor, or happened to be a writer for and, you know, cause she started looking at my stuff and being like, wow, this stuff’s really well researched and well, you know, well done so it kind of cascaded from there, and I think, it’s funny how one little thing like that can branch off into so many, and to this day I still talk to her and she still, you know, wants me to do like a review of her book and, and, and I just mean, she doesn’t even ask for stuff.
Like she doesn’t want me to promote it necessarily. I do because I’m super thankful for her. But she just, she wants me to review it to see if the dogs in her, like, now she’s like writing some fiction, if the dogs in her stories are acting in a way that’s, you know, normal for, you know, for the dogs to act and that kind of thing.
And so it’s like, it’s like, it’s become doing expert reviews and it’s, it’s a pretty cool how it cascaded and branched off from there. But no, as far as EAT like you just, for me anyway, I’ve decided I’m not going after. than I like to go after one topic for any business. I’m trying to build maybe two at most No more of this like ten websites on ten different topics.
I can’t do it I can’t keep up with it. And I’m certainly can’t become any kind of decent like authority in that niche at all
So I just found I’m very passionate about this topic and it makes it easy to you know And then when people express their thankfulness, it’s easy to to dive headlong into and stay in it
Doug: This is sort of a new question. So we’ll see, we’ll see how it goes. So when I look back at my progression, like learning about niche sites and starting a site and you know, the skills I had before, basically I’m looking back as a, Is a wiser, older man now. And I’m like, how much, how much did I get lucky?
Right. Did I just get lucky with timing? Yeah. A hundred percent. I can tell you timing helped out. And if I did the same thing that I did in 2013, if I tried that in 2023, that’s what I did. The results would be dramatically different. So I got lucky with timing and I think obviously no one can control timing, but I just got lucky in that.
So John, is there anything, like, do you think you got lucky in any capacity, whether it was like timing with covid or some other thing, but like, can you look back or are you too close to it to think like, Oh, like I’m just bad ass and I was going to do this anyway, or di you get lucky in some way?
John: I’m certainly not badass. I, I would actually take a different take on it. Maybe like you didn’t get lucky in your timing. Maybe you got lucky in your approach. Maybe, maybe you didn’t necessarily know how you’re approaching it, but it ended up being the right approach at that time for the landscape at that time.
I feel like we can kind of know the right approach now, like the right approach is to become an authority, authority in your niche and to just be able to like rattle off the stats and then you get noticed, you get mentioned. And I feel like, like. You know, the approach you got to take as far as luck, like with COVID.
Yeah. People did buy more dogs during COVID. Absolutely. They bought more dogs during COVID and that went up and it, and it, and I felt like when things opened up with COVID again, I kind of saw a little, little dip, but you know, that happens. But I really think it’s more just the approach you pick for the landscape at the time.
And I just feel like it, everybody’s struggling with, do I take, do I try it for the easy way? You know, like, do I make a faceless YouTube channel and use AI to do whatever, or do I do the harder way, which is where I just go headlong into some topic, I research it six to eight hours a day, I read everything, I get to know all the stats and all the, all the studies and, and get to know the big players in the game and, and what things are working, what’s not working, then really communicate stuff in a helpful way to my audience, who takes the harder way and who takes the easier way.
I feel like when you take that easier way, You do get hit. You always got to worry about it. You always got to worry about algorithm updates. I mean, and, and big credit, honestly, to income school and Ricky and all them, because they said that from the beginning, they’re like, they’re like the, the more you just create content for the person to help them as much as possible and to really benefit them in the most selfless way, really, you can the more you’re going to be insulated from these types of updates and things. And I really believe that. So no, I mean,
I, I feel like we kind of know the route to take and it’s just whether or not people want to do it. I don’t think there’s really passiveness that much in this industry. Um, as far as to be big success, maybe you can see small success in some ways, but I don’t think there’s a lot of passiveness.
If I wasn’t working at this as a full time thing right now, I wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be going as well. I mean, I, Let me take that back. If I wasn’t doing it daily anyway, you know, I started not doing it full time. Obviously in 2005 I was doing on the side and I was just doing weekends and evenings and stuff like that.
And yeah, you gotta have to have some consistency. You can’t just take six months off.
Doug: Yeah. That’s a great answer. And you know, you mentioned, you know, the easy way and the hard way. So the hard way is always probably going to be better. And then the other one is like when people try to accelerate the timeline and they’re like, I want this to work in four months because that’s the, that’s the amount of runway that I have.
So I have to compress it into four months versus like, if you have a long timeline of say, like four years. much better decisions. And I think, you know, when people try to do the easy fast way it’s just gonna blow up in their face
John: Oh yeah, totally. I agree. And I I’m quoting somebody else and I wish I remember who, and I’m, I’m sorry for this, but somebody said either you want your Jordans or you want to pay the price for your Jordans. Or you want your Jordans, then you got to pay the price. If you don’t want the Jordans, then you don’t pay the price and be happy that you have your money still, or pay the price and be happy you have your Jordans, but you can’t have both.
You can’t have the Jordans for free. You got to decide you’re going to pay the price and go the hard way and, and be kind of successful. Or do you want to, Not pay the price, not put in all that hard work, have a whole lot more time for yourself, I suppose, but not be successful in that niche. You just, you got to pick one.
You can’t have both. You can’t put in no time and be successful. It doesn’t work that way. Absolutely not. I have no time. I have no free time. I just, I have none. My, I use Google Calendar in 15 minute blocks. Like, I just, I block it out by 15 minutes throughout the entire day. And, I mean,
Doug: how many hours a week would you say you work
John: Well, it’s tough too because I’m a single dad too. So, I’m, you know, right now I’m, I’m probably right about 40 hours a week. I am dying to work more. I would love to be able to work more, but my kids take priority over everything.
Doug: Well, that’s good. that’s more important
John: and they’re young, when they go to school, things are going to open up a little bit more too So.
Doug: Okay. Well, good. That’s healthy. You know, 40 hours is manageable. And then from a lifestyle perspective, of course spending more time with your kids is the most important thing
John: Yeah, yeah, no, I 100 percent agree with that. Family is always first. That’s, that’s a, that’s a big reason why I do what I do is because being able to write my own schedule and be my own boss is very much priceless to me because I want to be there for my kids
Doug: Shifting gears slightly, let’s talk about monetization. So can you give us a breakdown of, you know, where money is coming from? And I, you don’t have to answer this, but I always want people to know that I ask like, Hey, how much are you making? And you could deflect this and say, Hey, I’m doing it full time.
That’s totally cool. But I always try to ask, cause I want to make sure the audience knows that i’m not like You know, given soft questions or anything but yeah tell us about it
John: yeah, no. So, okay. I mean, I can definitely give you like a breakdown and kind of like a percentage basis possibly. It is full time and supporting me and my family. I make as much or more actually more than I made as a deputy. It’s so it’s really, it’s a little bit hard to tell because there’s a lot of cross traffic between like YouTube and my, and my website.
Right? Because a lot of people see me on YouTube and of course I mentioned my website and they go across and back and forth. So it’s a little hard to tell.
But I would say that I probably accredit. Honestly, I probably accredit overall, maybe like 60 percent of my, of my overall income or 70 percent to YouTube just because either directly or indirectly, either directly from, it’s not just all YouTube ads, but it could be YouTube ads.
It could be sponsorships. It could be people who see something I mentioned on YouTube and then go to my site and then I get some affiliate commission there or ad revenue there. I also do coaching calls or like business calls. Online dog training so people pay me hourly on my website. They can sign up for a session with me and get some help with their dog.
So I’d make a little bit of money there with, with basically remote dog training, which is fairly difficult. That’s why I actually refer to it as coaching because it’s like, it’s hard to say it’s dog training when it’s not hand you’re just coaching the owners mostly. But so there’s a lot of cross traffic, but I would say if I didn’t have YouTube at all, if we just deleted that from the equation, I would say it’d be a 70 percent less income I’d imagine.
Doug: Okay.
And part of the other breakdown. So, do you have ads on your website?
John: Yeah.
Doug: Then some affiliate products as well
John: Yeah. Ads affiliates. I do the remote coaching calls. And then it’s, yeah, then it’s YouTube ads and YouTube affiliates and some sponsored videos too. Like sometimes companies will pay a flat fee to get a 60 to 90 second mention of their product or service in one of my, one of my videos.
Doug: Okay. And then do you do all the negotiation for that, for those direct deals and stuff? Or do you have any sort of agent or what are advertising house or something like that
John: I basically do it myself. I say basically because, you know, I, if anyone’s done YouTube for any length of time, you realize you see the flood of offers you get, right? Like, you know, I get them like, you know, have your, your mention our, our dog leash, our 5 dog leash, and we’ll give it to you for free and just do a dedicated video for it.
And like, it’s like, or I, and you get random stuff to like mention our hair loss product. And I’m like, what are you saying, man? Like, I know I have some issues. I know I have some problems, but, and like mention our hair loss product, you get a free hair loss product. And anyway, so there’s so much like spam sponsor offers that I actually kind of like just made a a flow for my, my virtual assistant, make my virtual assistant go through and she just does like the first back and forth.
It’s usually like three or four emails. Like, no, we can’t do it for a free dog leash for 5 dollars. Sorry. You know, unless I will say. Unless it’s something super beneficial to my audience, like, of course, but I would have probably already mentioned it anyway. Frankly, because I don’t need, you know, I don’t need to get paid. That’s what I I’m helping.
I’m helping people. That’s the most, that’s the biggest priority. But anyway, so she gets through all the junk. And then if anything seems good, it’s a reputable company. Like she’ll forward them to me to consider Um, and then I’ll do the final negotiations myself, but it was taking so much of my time to go back and forth with, you know, probably like five sponsorship deals.
Well, probably per week, it’s probably five to ten offers a week. And, of them, you know, I’ve had, like, promote my shoe drying rack. And I’m like, I’m a dog channel, why would I promote a shoe drying rack? You know?
Doug: There’s some mistargeted. I get some you know, at least your like hair loss supplements or whatever, at least those are well targeted, but I’ll get some for like hair care products and I’m like, I am bald, like I’m, I shave my head. Like I don’t even have hair. Like, you don’t want to see the hair I’m going to be putting this off stuff on. Right. So,
John: Yeah.
Doug: So I.
John: Wait, wait, hair loss stuff is well targeted, man. I I’m, I’m, I’m having a little self crisis here. Okay. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead
Doug: sorry to, sorry to break it to you, John, but, uh, yeah, I’m just kiddign
John: it’s true. I can own it.
Doug: can you share how much you charge for like a, whatever, 90 second ad spot or anything like that? Feel free to punt this one too, i’m just curious
John: it’s, it’s very, it, it, it differs a lot. Yeah. No, I can’t, I, I, I really can’t share what I’ve kind of gone, I, so. I would initially name the price first with these negotiations, but I’ve kind of steered out of that. And like, I have this flow now where I’m like, I try to encourage them to name the first price.
Cause whoever names the first price loses. Right. And I’ve, I’ve had a couple of them where I name a price, I think is way too high. And they’re like, okay. They don’t even flinch and I’m like, Whoa, like, you know, I’ve had a couple of them like that. So no, it’s hard. I think, I think I’ve relied a little bit on some you know, calculations of like, you know, your average views and I don’t know, 20 to 30 per thousand, or, you know, your average views for average video, you know, I’ve done some of that stuff and it kind of gets me in the ballpark.
Doug: Okay. Cool. Thanks for humoring me on those and yeah, it’s, it’s really tough because I think, you know, you have a super targeted audience. I have a super targeted audience and, you know, we don’t, we don’t know what their budget is and every now and then I think they get some. Whatever outside investment, they hire a marketing company that has a huge budget and every now and then I’ve like seriously over negotiated.
Cause I’m in a lucky spot too, where I’m like, I don’t need revenue so I can, I don’t care. I could just like offend them And that sort of thing
John: yeah, yeah
Doug: so it, I mean, it changes and sometimes they’ve said, Oh, okay. But like you said, if you name the price and they’re like, Oh, sure. Yeah, no problem. And they don’t have any back and forth.
You’re like, Oh crap. It’s too low. and that’s your new high water mark right? And you know what to look for after that, so. Alright
John: And for me, and for me, it’s just, it’s what’s most helpful for my audience is the first filter, right? So it has to be helpful for my audience before I even consider it. And then if it’s super, super helpful, there’s been times where it’s like, I was getting ready to mention this anyway. In fact, you know, like, like this is, this is a great product and you’re asking, can you sponsor one of my videos?
Of course you can. And frankly, I, like I would give them a much cheaper price because it is super helpful. You know, like I, yeah, so that’s how I look at it.
Doug: And those are the best partnerships too. There’s a couple of podcasts that I listened to. Do you listen to mind pump? It’s like a bodybuilding weightlifting. it’s pretty good, but they, I mean, it’s a very big show in the fitness space, but they have, I mean, I think they’re getting paid like a serious amount of money it’s because it’s a big show, but they’re like, we really like these products and like, we finally got them to sponsor and.
You know, they had actually mentioned the products before the sponsorship came through. So those are the best partnerships
John: Yeah. I’m just kind of getting there too. Where like I now have been reaching out to people that I just believe in and that I know help are super helpful for my audience and most of my audience uses anyway. Like they tell me, they email me all the time. Oh, I do this and this is so cool. This is working.
And yeah. And I reach out to those companies and be like, Hey, would you be interested in sponsoring something? Because my audience loves you guys and you are super helpful and it would be just super, like, it’s a well fit. And that’s what I’m doing more of now is reaching out to other companies and I’m getting some really good results for that.
And it just, it feels better when it’s something that’s it’s just, it’s right. When it’s something that your audience loves anyway
Doug: Let’s talk about imposter syndrome and you know, you, you gave, you laid out some clues about how you really took a deep dive into the niche and became an authority with your relationship with like an author. And I’m sure you got some introductions and you’ve been, you know, you’re in this space and you have some partnerships with bigger companies as well.
But I’m curious about the imposter syndrome because I mean, I, I still feel it myself when I go to a conference or something. And then I talked to people who have been doing it like a decade longer than me and they’re much bigger than me. And they’re like, yeah, I get a little, yeah. Like, why am I even here, we’re just hanging out. We’re just normal, like everybody else, but somehow it feels different. So talk about fighting imposter syndrome.
John: Yeah, it’s it’s interesting and honestly, that’s kind of the reason why I just started with the writing only also Starting with the writing I think really helped with that because I you know, I’m proving my conclusions as I write these articles You know, here’s the study that says this here’s whatever and I’m just I’m going through I’m not trying to pretend I’m something I’m not I’m being very honest, you know about you know, this is my opinion You know, my about page has a accurate description of my, my credentials.
And which when I started it was very little other than I was willing to document everything and like document how I was learning this stuff and document and, and show, you know, all my deep dive today into the separation, anxiety issues and the dogs showed me this study. This is so cool. And look at this.
And this is the, uh, the, the, solutions to that, that seems to help the most according to this study. And like, so I started there. And then with time, it’s like, it’s like, how do you eat an elephant? Right. One bite at a time, you know? Like, so I went out and I bought myself a K a canine communication course and I got certified in canine communication.
It wasn’t that difficult. It was fun. It was something I’m into anyway. And then, you know, I, I go out from there and I sign up for this. you know, behavior club for, you know, canine behavior. And now I’m part of this club and I get, you know, kind of regular trainings from them. I just slowly kind of chipped away of getting one or two more things as I go.
But I think the biggest. You know, those are all just great on paper. I think the biggest thing for was really just doing all that writing and research in the, in the beginning. I think that at least for the launching, at least launching me now, I’m like talking to experts in the field all the time.
They reach out to me and I, I kind of like do like a little mastermind and we chat about these dogs and what works best for them. And I’m always constantly getting more educated, but back in the beginning, just doing the research on those articles It, like, like I said, I could rattle off these stats so quick and you know, and I, I, I would have people reach out.
What do you, you know, I’ve had dogs for 40 years, why are you the authority? And I’m like, I’m not, I’m just being honest with who, with what I know and don’t know. But I always, everything’s an opportunity, right. Like, I’m always like, Hey, let’s talk about it. You haven’t for 40 years. Let’s talk about it.
Like, tell me what, you know, like, let’s, let’s chat for a bit. And, uh, but fighting imposter syndrome. I mean, as long as you’re really honest about what you know, what you don’t know. I really feel like that’s the best way to go. And you know, if you’re rattling off stats and you site your sources. Who’s gonna argue you know, and if you say that’s my source and they they argue about that source I’ve had that too.
They just they decide they don’t like me for whatever reason they argue about the source. Okay? Well, I’m just relaying the source, you know, this is this is the US National Library of Medicine’s published study done by Stanford Then I guess you disagree with them. I don’t know I don’t know what to say then I’m definitely not gonna hold any kind of any kind of credit with you if they don’t hold credit
Doug: That’s perfect. Well, let me let me go a little deeper. So you just went was it a meetup yesterday that you mentioned?
John: yeah,
Doug: So people recognized you and so this is more in a social setting on a personal level. That’s weird, right? So you went somewhere and people are like, hey, can I get a selfie with you?
Cuz you’re just like normal dude, John, right? You’re like, hey, I would be here anyway, probably so what’s that like mentally.
John: It’s weird, man. Like I just said, it’s very humbling, very humbling because you realize the impact you’re having. I had one guy go on at that meetup yesterday for about 10 about how
he does exactly what I recommended for teaching a brand new command to a dog that hasn’t learned a command It’s just kind of like a broad overall approach.
I use right for for teaching a brand new command regardless You know, there’s differences between what command and how you teach a certain command, but there’s just broad overview You’re teaching any new command. Here’s where I start and he’s like I do that with every command He learns it in five repetitions and John you just like you have like helped me so much You have no anyone on and on it.
It just it’s it’s just It’s humbling. I don’t know. It’s funny. Like I was out at, uh, with a friend out like at In N Out, just grabbing some burger, a couple of burgers and, and someone was like, Hey, you’re John, you’re that guy. And like, Oh my gosh, this look, here’s a picture of my dog on my phone. And like, and the person I was with was like, are you like, you famous or something?
And I’m like, no, no, no. Only to like a couple of dogs, like this little dog group, like just like this dog group, nobody else. , it’s, it’s weird because it’s like the responsibility to help these people. Just, it feels, it becomes bigger in my head. I had someone reach out to me recently about a dog they had that they’re having a horrible, it was their 15 year old kids dog. He started biting, like really serious biting, like injuring people, including kids. And it was their 15 year old. They’re, they’re 15 year olds dog that really got him through a lot. The 15 year olds devastated about having to maybe put down the dog. Everybody’s telling me you got to put him down.
And anyway, so uh, like, man, I have insurance. I have different, you know, insurance stuff for what I do. I like dog trainers insurance and and some other things. And they don’t allow me to handle like real serious things with big, heavy biting issues like that. But I’m like you know what I can, I just felt this huge sense of responsibility.
Like I got to help this guy out somehow. And I just, I gave him all this free public. I put that dog out there like up for adoption. You gotta be someone really well trained. Like it was a little bit of risk myself. I had to be super thorough on like this dog could be dangerous. Like you gotta know what you’re doing.
Ideally it would go to a professional who knows how to handle these types of issues. Or somebody who’s willing to get professional help. And I don’t know, it’s just, I feel like the more. The more people start to recognize you and lean on you and trust you, kind of the more responsibility I feel to help them if that makes sense.
Like, but it’s such a good feeling. And.
It pushes me to like do, to learn new things and go further with, with how to help them ways I wouldn’t have thought of before And I just think on a broad, I think on a broad level for this business, that’s, that’s, that’s what it’s all about for me now is just trying things that I’m uncomfortable with and trying to broaden my abilities by just being uncomfortable, trying to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
That’s just, that’s something I’m trying to get good at lately.
Doug: Let’s talk a little bit more along those lines. Right? So how do you stay motivated to continue to produce and improve when you’re working for yourself? It can be tough because we have different energy levels, like maybe throughout the year, throughout the day, um, other stuff going on with your life in general. Life always gets in the way, like the best laid plans are going to get shaken up. So how do you stay motivated.
John: Okay. Hopefully this conversation doesn’t get a lot of very woowoo for you. But so , I do a lot of little things. I’m a big believer that the little things add up. So I, I followed like, I dunno if you’ve heard of Andrew Huberman or he’s, he’s a, I think he’s a neuroscientist and he talks about very factual.
He has a very popular podcast. He talks about peer reviewed studies that show you how certain things, small things you can do throughout the day to stay extra motivated. And I do them all. I eat that stuff up. I follow him, I follow Joe Dispenza. I follow a couple of these other like people who are all about like staying in the right mental mental space, little things.
It’s crazy. Like if you have your monitor at eye level or slightly higher, like studies show 27 percent more alertness during I’m making that number up, but some percentage of, of more alertness during the day, if you listen to white noise while you work, there’s like 30 percent more focus. If you like, if you get sunshine before 9am and yet you get, you know, like 20 percent and people are 20 percent more alert or something.
If you have, you know, like take. Like showers that are cold in the mornings or like, there’s all these things. And there’s like, I started, I started following this guy and right these down. And it’s so, I do like all of them. I just, I, I, you know, certain amount of exercise, certain time of the day as to this percentage of more productivity in people.
And I just started checking them off and, and yeah, I don’t know. I, all the little things I do like these little, these little tricks. Like that. And it, it’s been really working honestly. It’s kind of a newer for me. I’ve only been doing these things for like eight, six, eight months lately, but I’ve been, these have been the most productive months as far as my work output
Doug: Yeah. Funny enough. I was obsessed with, uh, Huberman for, for a couple of years and then like at some point there’s so much stuff it’s the podcasts are so dense with information. I’m like, all right, this is just, it’s more info than I need, but basically all the shit you just mentioned, I do most of that.
So, one question, John, how much sleep do you get? That was one of the big hacks that took, not a hack. It takes work, but I’m sleeping more than I have And I’m like. Whatever, it’s 20 IQ points, smarter and calmer and all that stuff. So hows your sleep.
John: I was always a believer. I need at least eight hours, maybe more now. I’m like, I try to get like seven and a half, but I can They say that, at least from like Huberman, I think it was, that like the 90 minute circadian rhythm, as long as you’re, you wake up in one of those 90 minute blocks, if it’s 90 minutes every day, you tend to be more focused, so I, I don’t know, I go for, I would like to do 7 and a half, I can do 6 hours of sleep I can’t do 6 hours, if it’s 6 hours of really good sleep, I can do it for a couple days, 3 days, 4 days, but but I shoot for 7 and a half hours Just seems to, I just seem, yeah, I just seem to, but I have young kids too. Really young kids. So like when I have them with me, it’s who knows if someone wakes up with a bad dream or something, it could be all over the place. So it’s kind of hard
Doug: Yeah. And I’m lucky, you know, no, no kids. So I like don’t set an alarm. I haven’t set an alarm for probably like eight or nine years, actually probably longer than that. So yeah, I just wake up when I’m ready and it’s very leisurely. I know it’s a luxury.
John: no, but if you can be consistent with it, they say as long as you’re within like an hour of your normal wake up time and you’re very consistent, you tend to, it tends to work pretty well.
Within an hour of your normal go to sleep wake up time That’s what I meant.
Doug: Yeah, yeah, and that like that’s been a huge game changer Especially like just like going to bed at a consistent time each night, which is I mean like socially sometimes that’s tough but You know, I don’t. we don’t go out to often so it’s not too bad.
I just got back from a conference stayed and we stayed up till whatever like 1 to 3 in the morning, which kind of wrecks though.
I mean, we’re old now, right? So it takes like a week to recover from that kind of thing I’m still
John: yeah that’s ridiculous.
Doug: Yeah, yeah, I’m, I’m more likely to like wake up at four in the morning than I am to stay up to like three in the morning. So like, yeah, just kind of wrecked everything for a few days there.
John: Yeah. Right.
Doug: Okay. So I do, um, we are coming up towards the end.
I want to run through a couple more things here. How do you focus? Sorry. How do you choose on what to focus with? Let me try that one more time.
How do you choose on what to focus on with so many projects and sites. And obviously limited time.
John: For me. I had to narrow it down. I had to narrow it down to like one or two topics. Like I said, that portfolio of websites, it just wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to go, I wasn’t going to maintain and build authoritativeness and in, in, you know, all these different topics, a ballet website and like these other hobby websites, like I wasn’t going to do that.
So I I, I focus in on just one knowing that. The chances of success to be very thorough and very helpful and, and very successfully helping other people in one niche, your chances of overall success is far greater, in my opinion, anyway, than trying to kind of like, I’ll be a half expert or half, like try to half tackle like five different topics.
I can’t do that anymore. So, I’ve chosen one, the one I’m the most passionate about. The one that I think I can focus on for the longest stretch of time, because I love that topic. I love these dogs. I, I’m, I am just wholeheartedly in it. And and that really does help for me to, to, To just stay motivated and all that.
And then, you know, I, like I said, I, I’m a big, I rely on my Google calendar, like nobody’s business. Like I, I block out, I try to work in 90 minute chunks to have a short little 15 minute break, 90 minute chunk again, like I do that stuff. And if it’s not working, if I find myself consistently missing deadlines.
Um, or consistently missing the gap of time. I’ve allotted for something, then something’s off with my calendar. So I go and I adjust things a little bit and you got to have a little me time in there too, a little bit. I’m a little, I’m certainly a bit of a workaholic, I think. , you know, it’s also important to, to blow off some steam a little bit sometimes and have a little bit of me time.
Um, yeah, I try make that quick too
Doug: And then if I remember right, the 90 minute work blocks is straight from Huberman too right?
John: Yeah,you caught that. Yeah. That’s straight from Huberman also.
Doug: How many 90 minute blocks can you do in a day? You should do like three, just two or three
John: I don’t know. I, I know more than that for sure. I mean by, by lunchtime I’ve already done like three maybe another three. I, I work, so, you know, I have my kids half the time. So when I don’t have them, I work like, like really long days, like from morning till night. So really, really long days.
Yeah, I, I do the 90 minute block things. I do 15 or 20 minutes of a break. And I keep that going as long as I can. It’s, it’s difficult it sometimes., and I try to adjust things too. Right? Like, so there’s parts of my job that are more difficult and more demanding than other parts. Right. And if I know this time of the week, I’m usually feeling pretty exhausted, pretty gassed, I’ll put the easier stuff there, right?
This part of my week, I’m feeling pretty fresh and pretty good to go. I’m going to put the heavy research or the heavy behavior studies, reading that I want to do, or. whatever or even just like outlining a video. It’s just sounds like an outline, but for me anyway, it’s an outline plus a ton of research that’s attached to it to make a good outline with good content.
I’ll put that near the front and near the beginning of the day when I’m feeling fresh and, and, and alert, you know, I, I try to kind of optimize as best I can and it’s, it’s never perfect. I’m always changing things.
Doug: Got it. Okay. Well, as we’re coming up towards the end here, what’s next? Like what, what do you have planned for maybe the next 12 say 18 months or so.
John: I want to get, honestly, it’s, it’s, I’m just focusing on how to help my audience the most. And right now I think. you know, just in my niche, a lot of dogs are being given up to shelters lately. because I think a lot of people bought them during the, got them during like COVID and stuff. And for whatever reason, They’re getting to a certain age, you know, where they’re starting to have some problems for, and a lot of it, honestly, socialization problems because they’re all, they were kept indoors during all our socialization time when they were puppies because of COVID.
So I really want to focus more on rescue centers and rescue dogs. I think it’s just a really good cause. I think It’s a good thing to do. These dogs are sitting in these rescue centers. These rescue centers are full to the brim. So I really want to focus more on them. I’m going to do more hands on stuff out at these rescue centers working with the dogs.
I’m still just focusing on this one. Like I still have that portfolio sites, but it’s just, Google’s just hammering them. We’ll see. And my hope is. You know, I don’t have, I don’t have junk on my sites. I think it’s good Even the stuff that Google’s hammered, of course, they Google apparently disagrees in some way, but, but with the stuff in my portfolio, but for my dog training niche, that’s where I’m, I’m niching down.
I really believe in niching down and getting that’s, uh, so going forward. I want to do things that make me feel good. I think help people and just help these dogs as a whole. So yeah, that’s, that’s kind of where I’m focusing going forward. I think, I think if I try to be helpful and do good.
I just think I’ll have more success. I don’t know where it’ll come from or how it’ll come, but I just think I’ll have more success somehow. I’m a big believer in faith and I think thats how it will play out
Doug: In Project 24, it sounded like it was a turning point for you, and I’m an affiliate out there so we’ll link up so people can check it out. I love what Ricky and the team are doing over there, but can you talk a little bit about, like, the impact? It seems like an inflection point, but just talk about Income School a little bit, and project 24
John: Yeah, absolutely. I really believe in them. And Ricky’s just a good dude. He’s just a good guy I’ve chatted with him a few quite and he’s he’s just a good good real guy He’s and he’s honest if he doesn’t know something like he’ll be honest about it or if he does like, you know I don’t know that but I could let’s figure it out.
You know, he’s just a very honest guy and I loved that they were up front about things like the ghost town phase he’s not one of these marketers that’s like, I’m going to make you 20, 000 dollars. You know, your first three months, you know, like, no, no, no, that’s BS. That doesn’t happen. You got to work hard.
And he’ll, he’ll be honest with that about that. So yeah, it was just, it was having kind of having what was spoke to me was having someone pitch internet marketing to me. Um, Well, not making it through rose colored glasses that just said this is going to be very difficult. This is the ghost town phase.
This is how long till most of our members make their first, you know, 10 in a month. This is how long till we’re super honest. And I was just like, yeah, this is, these are the guys that I want teaching me marketing is someone who’s gonna be super honest about it. So I signed up for them. I was like, okay. I did a couple of their in person things.
They’ve invited me back before to talk in their masterminds and to talk about kind of how I’ve done things. I’ve been interviewed on their podcasts and, and other things. And, and because Man, I just, I love that. Finally. There’s like someone honest in the internet marketing world. I hate to say it.
We have a kind of a bad reputation, you know, like, especially now, like the tiktokers are like, you know, join my marketing group. And you know, you make 50,000 dollars in the first three months. I’m like, no, no, no. Like, anyway, it’s just great. Someone say, Nope, it’s going to be hard work. Like you can, you can make a lot of money, but you got to work real hard.
And, um, so yeah, it was a turning point for me. Their guidance was right on. And when things changed, I’d always like, Oh, let’s see what like Ricky and income school say about it. And I’d go check it out. And they’re usually pretty on top of it. I don’t know. I, I do, I do believe in them. I’m not, I’m not an affiliate for them.
They don’t pay me anything. I go on all their, their shows and stuff completely for free because they’ve done so much. I don’t, I don’t, I’m not. I’m not making anything from them. I just believe in them so much. They’ve helped me and my family so much just by giving me the direction that I needed. Cause I was kind of all over the place when I just had that portfolio, you know?
Doug: Awesome. Very good. Yeah. So we’ll link up to that so people could check it out if they want to look at project 24. John, this has been amazing. I think you gave a lot of good summaries, but I, if you want to say anything here at the end to summarize or to inspire people, I’ll just kind of open floor and let you talk if you want to
John: Yeah.
Just make sure that. You’re helping people as much as possible with what you do and you’re enjoying it. So that diving headlong into it and kind of nerding out on, on your topic doesn’t feel like work to you. And, and, and keep your audience in mind, like, how can you help them the most? And throw a little creativity in it. I love snapping people out of their YouTube browsing by having some goofy little skit of me getting yanked by a leash and almost falling on my face. Like I love having that right out of the gate when they watch my videos to kind of wake them up a little bit, have some fun with it, enjoy it, just be you and be honest about what you know.
And more importantly, be honest about what you you don’t know if you don’t know something yeah, just get comfortable being uncomfortable. Like it’s either, you know, if you want an easy life, you got to work hard. It’s, you know, if you want a hard life, don’t do much work, you know, take the easy route.
That’s, I’m a big believer in that, but yeah, keep your audience in mind how to help them the most. And, and I don’t know, I think, I think, and really focus in the big takeaway for me that made a big difference to me was to focus in on one thing and put all my energy there.
Doug: Very good. All right, John, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you today and hopefully we can catch up soon.
John: Thanks man. It’s been great. I appreciate you having me.