281: Scott Voelker On How To Get Out Of Your Own Head And Take Action

281: Scott Voelker On How To Get Out Of Your Head And Take Action


Today I’m thrilled to have my buddy Scott Voelker back on the show. Scott was my partner in crime for the 5 Minute Pitch and I recently spoke at his conference at Brand Accelerator Live.

As entrepreneurs, our biggest problem often lies in our own heads. In this episode, Scott and I break down the Take Action Effect, how to overcome your excuses and make progress with your business. Be sure to check out his new book!

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What You’ll Learn

  • Key takeaways from Brand Accelerator Live
  • Why Scott decided to write a book about the Take Action Effect
  • How to get out of your head
  • The mindset and process required to make progress with your business

Other Resources And Books

Sponsors

Klaviyo.com – Klaviyo is the email marketing platform that I personally use for my ecommerce store. Created specifically for ecommerce, it is the best email marketing provider that I’ve used to date. Click here and try Klaviyo for FREE.
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Privy.com – Privy is my tool of choice when it comes to gathering email subscribers for my ecommerce store. They offer easy to use email capture, exit intent, and website targeting tools that turn more visitors into email subscribers and buyers. With both free and paid versions, Privy fits into any budget. Click here and get 15% OFF towards your account.
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EmergeCounsel.com – EmergeCounsel is the service I use for trademarks and to get advice on any issue related to intellectual property protection. Click here and get $100 OFF by mentioning the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast.
Emerge Counsel

SellersSummit.com – The ultimate ecommerce learning conference! Unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high level BS, the Sellers Summit is a curriculum based conference where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an ecommerce business. Click here and get your ticket now before it sells out.

Sellers Summit

Transcript

Steve: You’re listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrapped business owners and delve deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. Today., I have my buddy Scott Voelker from The Amazing seller back on the show and this time we’re going to talk about the biggest hurdle that most business owners face the mental aspects of Entrepreneurship and getting out of your own head.

But before we begin I want to thank Klaviyo for sponsoring this episode. Black Friday is right around the corner and for my e-commerce store email marketing is a heavy part of my holiday sales strategy. And in fact, last year, it was close to 50% of my overall sales. And of course as you all know klaviyo is the email marketing tool that I use for Bumblebee Linens now Klaviyo is the growth marketing platform chosen by over 20,000 Brands generating more than three point seven billion dollars in Revenue in just the last year and with the holiday season right around the corner klaviyo has created the ultimate planning guide for crushing those holiday Revenue targets for marketing creative to segmentation strategy. These are proven tactics for more personalized marketing, especially in time for the holiday season. To get ahold of this guide, visit Klaviyo.com/mywife. Once again, Klaviyo.com/mywife.

Also want to give a shout-out to Privy who’s a sponsor of the show. Privy is a tool that I use to build my email list for both my blog and my online store and right now I’m using Privy Display a cool Wheel of Fortune pop-up basically user gives your email for a chance to win valuable prizes in our store and customers love the gamification aspect of this and when implemented this form email signups increased by a 131%. Now, you can also use Privy to reduce car abandoned with cart saver pop-ups and abandoned cart email sequences as well one super low price that is much cheaper than using a full-blown email marketing solution. So bottom line Privy allows me to turn visitors into email subscribers and recover lost sales so head on over to privy.com/steve and try it for free if you decide you need to the more advanced features use coupon code MWQHJ for fifteen percent off once again that’s privy.com/steve. Now on to the show

Intro: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast we will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle so can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here’s your host, Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. Today, I’m thrilled to have my buddy Scott Voelker back on the show. Now, I’ve had Scott on the show many times in the past talk Amazon and online business in general. He was also a partner in crime for the 5 minute pitch our Shark Tank like show where we give away $50,000 to one lucky winner. But you know Scott he is always taking action on something and recently he held his first ever conference brand accelerator live, which was a huge success and at this event. He released his first Book that teaches others how to take action with their businesses. Now, even though his pickle ball game is lacking. I’m happy to have him back and welcome to show Scott how you doing today man?

Scott: I had to hold back to laugh on that, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be listening in to that intro.

Steve: You are agreeing right if you didn’t say anything, I mean you agreed your pickleball game is hurting.

Scott: Yeah. No, I’m practicing I’m practicing, we are gonna have a showdown and that might have to be aired as well. We might get some some good viral video out of that.

Steve: Yeah that’ll make a good Instagram story, I think.

Scott: Definitely definitely it will. Hey man, thanks for having me back on. No, this is exciting me back on and yes a lots happened since the last time I was on and like you said the event and everything and I’m just back from the event and I’m just starting to kind of take it all in its kind of crazy.

Steve: I was gonna say I just literally saw you a couple weeks ago. How is the post-conference wind down doing? Are you still pumped up?

Scott: I’m actually more fired up now than ever and going into the conference. I mean, I picked your brain a lot because you guys you and Tony Anderson have done a tremendous job at your event and I’ve really just picked your brain and I was nervous all the way up to and I told you that I’m like man. This is like crazy. Like there’s just so much to be done. And your you feel like you’re you know, people are depending on you and all this stuff and now that it’s done and I seen the results from it and the community and it was just amazing. I’m like so excited for like the next one. Right? Like I’m just like super super excited and then the book like the book launch that was like part of it was like the secret reveal. I didn’t know how that was going to be, you know. Received and that was a smashing success. So yeah, I’m feeling really really good.

Steve: Well it was so well received that the line was like three hours long so I didn’t have the patience to wait in it.

Scott: Well, that’s because you’re not a true fan ha ha ha.

Steve: I figured I’d hit you up later, but ended up not getting my books sign. So I guess the next time rock you in pickleball. I will get my book signed.

Scott: Yeah, bring it right up a little sweaty. But yeah, go ahead and bring it.

Steve: What were some of your key takeaways from the event. What did you like about writing the event and what didn’t you like?

Scott: That’s a great question. Well, I think what I really liked about it was Community like the community. I didn’t realize how strong of a community I know you’d, you kind of thought that I did have a pretty good Community because the first event, you know, there’s a couple girls that wanted to get into that event because they thought I was supposed to be there and who is and they were going to take down some of your..

Steve: well, let’s tell the story because I don’t think a lot of people know about it. So this is what happened. So Scott had a meet up at the Seller Summit and the people there thought that Seller Summit attend this meet up with the same thing and we were of course having free alcohol that night. And so we didn’t want Outsiders coming in and spending our you know, our bar tab essentially.

Scott: Sure.

Steve: But these these fans of Scott were so fanatical that I think they got into a fight with Tony you’re trying to get in and eventually I think you had to step in right and you say hey this is not part of my event and you ended up separating out. And so after that point you were banned from having meetups during

Scott: Yes

Steve: Seller Summit parties.

Scott: That is true. True actually, there was a text message that came from you while we were at another location because I had it off location. And that’s when you said Scott you got to get over here and handle this and so I don’t know if I did I think Chris Shaffer actually went over and kind of figured that out. But yeah, then we move the party back over. But yeah, I was banned from having it during sellers Summit any activity. So we had to do it like late at night when all the parties were over.

Steve: So I’m kind of curious. If Tony could have taken those two women, maybe not two-on-one, but maybe one on one it would have been a fair fight.

Scott: Maybe her and Liz

Steve: Oh yeah her and Liz, that’s true.

Scott: So but yeah, so to be there in person and I think you agree right like we’re on a mic right now. We’re in our office were like talking to a mic and whenever you’re in your office or by yourself, you don’t really realize the people that you’re connecting with on the other side until you meet him in person and they tell you their stories and they tell you how much you know, they know about you and how much they resonate with your story and all this stuff and when you get those people in a room, it’s just it’s magical to me. It’s like there’s so much energy and that’s really what I feed off of like that brings me back to the mic with even more energy that I had before if that’s possible and it is possible by the way. But yeah, so I mean just the people and my wife to be there and be part of that and she really got involved in the community, which I wasn’t expecting because a lot of people know my wife doesn’t like the spotlight.

She actually, she took a zero in public speaking back in high school, but she’s like, I don’t want to be up in front of the class. So she’s not the First and she doesn’t like that but she felt just such a connection here with the people and yeah, so I mean to have her be part of it and everyone that was there just it really just was a magical moment just in that. Now, the content was awesome. I got I mean, I got a ton of great positive feedback from your presentation and so many others and just everyone said that they had just an amazing time the community had people from Australia from Germany come in. It was just absolutely amazing. So that’s what I took away. I just love the people.

Steve: Absolutely, I actually chatted with your wife for like a good 45 minutes, I want to say and she did not come across as an introvert at all

Scott: Yeah. Well, yeah well and it’s funny because she had said like she made a thing in her head like and I don’t know if you have you ever heard of Mel Robbins the five-minute rule or the five second rule– five second rule. It’s great. Great book. She’s she’s awesome. It’s she’s got this thing where it’s like five three two one go do it like kind of like take action right like go do that. Don’t overthink it and my wife was reading her book and she said you know what if something makes you uncomfortable just go ahead and just say to yourself. I’m going to go ahead and try to talk to five people just randomly and just see what happens and just do it and when you do that you start to get yourself in that Rhythm kind of like the book that I wrote the take action packed like once you get that action is set in motion you start to see that wait a minute here.

This is actually going pretty good, you know, like good things are happening in and when she did that she started to build more confidence and then, you know kind of just take it from there. So yeah, I’m just Again, like so proud of her for doing that and then at the conference at the end, I was surprised at the very very last session that I was coming up on stage. You kind of closing down the event. I was getting ready to come out. I had my music that was going to come out to and all that stuff and then all of a sudden they said Scott come on out and then I come out and it’s not what I thought. It was my my wife on stage my son Scotty on stage and then my father on stage and that was just a huge milestone for my wife to actually be on Stage in front of a couple hundred people insane and through me so

Steve: They just spoke for a couple minutes.

Scott: Yeah.

Steve: Well words to say too..

Scott: I was yeah. Yeah, it was really good and everyone’s like I would have never known that she was like nervous to be speaking in front of people. And so yeah, so that was a big thing. I mean that was a big shift for her and a confidence Builder. So I mean she’s now in our brand accelerator like we’ve got a group in there like a private group and she’s in there talking to people everyday and communicating and so really I think it changed even the way that this event is going to be moving forward having her involved in all which wasn’t something I was planning on so It’s not exactly..

Steve: I think you should have her give a session

Scott: I do too. But hey, let’s not let’s not get crazy. Now, let’s not get crazy because she already said she goes to I don’t want to feel like I got to be Forced. You’re not forced not you don’t have to do it. But yeah, I’ve already taught maybe even doing an interview or something like that. It would be pretty cool. Pretty cool.

Steve: Absolutely.

Scott: You know, so that that’s all the good. Now, What’s something that that didn’t go? Well or that I wasn’t expecting was that the second part of your question?

Steve: That was yes.

Scott: Okay, I would say we wanted to do some beach balls stuff here Steve. I think I told you the story right? We had these giant beach balls that we thought would be fun for the crowd to kind of, you know be able to kind of hit and stuff in between sessions and it was just a fun. I’ve seen them in events. I thought it’d be fun. Well, we did that and then we didn’t realize that at our event we’ve got tables so people can actually write down notes and put their drinks up. Well started knocking over drinks.

Steve: I guess I missed that part.

Scott: Yeah, so people started leaving the room and everything so we’re like, oh wait a minute. Okay, we just learned something. We’re not going to throw beach balls unless we don’t have tables which we are so the beach balls that was that was a fail. Yeah. That was a complete fail. But I think the only other thing is is I think it was a little too short. We have to add half a day. I think we might do like a kickoff party next time and then that way there we can have solid two days. Maybe do maybe a little bit of a break out. We’re not sure but like I don’t think I think it’s funny because I was expecting something to go wrong and everything really really went well. I mean again like Tony does it such a great job organizing Kevin Sanderson, my planner did a phenomenal job. So I can’t say that there was anything that didn’t go really well. I went it exceeded my expectations.

Steve: I did not notice anything go wrong at all everything started on time. Yeah, you did jostle me a little bit. I think it was like 8:00 in the morning. I was I think I was checking my phone and you were blessed and heavy metal the eight in the morning and you ran around you shook me. Scared the crap out of me.

Scott: Oh, that’s funny. Yes, I was getting you going man. Come on. I gotta go. You’re in the Scott Voelker event. Yeah

Steve: So dude, so you recently released a book called The Take Action Effect, which I actually completed last night great read time passes quickly and think it finished in just like a couple of hours. It was a really good read. So first off, I want the audience to buy it, but can you You tell the audience what this book is about and kind of what inspired you to even write a book in the first place?

Scott: Yeah, it’s a great question. Well, here’s the deal when I would say probably a couple years ago. I started thinking myself. Like there’s probably something in there that I can share. I mean, I’ve done a lot through my years you’ve done a lot through years like we’ve all done a lot and we don’t give ourselves a lot of credit as we’re building up these skill sets and really kind of being, I think Like agile and being willing to Pivot and taking risks and all of this through our life. And so, you know, I started thinking myself like there’s got to be something that I can share and I had already done this in multiple Industries. I did it in photography space and then I did it in the Amazon space but then switched it over to e-commerce and now more into the brand building stuff and I’m just like, you know, there’s something there that I want to leave behind for my kids.

I want to really document my story, but I want to I don’t want to be just a story about Scott. I want it to be something that can apply to people and then I started thinking like Why aren’t people doing it? Why aren’t people actually taking action. A lot of times it’s fear itself sabotage. It’s I’m not smart enough and I went through all of all of these things. And so I started thinking myself. I’m like, how can I bridge this to where it’s going to be a mindset piece that people can really understand and see that they they can do it. Right? Like we both know we’ve done it your wife has done it. You’ve done it like we’ve all done it but why is it different for you than other people they they start they get stuck and they stop. Right? So I said I got to figure out this this piece. So I wanted to turn it into a book about taking action, which I didn’t know it was gonna be called take action and told a 3

Steve: I knew, It was going to be called in before you wrote it dude.

Scott: Really? Okay. Take a yeah. Yeah, I and I and at first I’m like, I don’t know if I want to name it that I don’t know if it makes sense. But then as I started going through it, I started to identify like in my own path, you know my own Journey. There’s been these moments these moments in time that we’ve made a decision, right? We made this decision to do something and then from there our life changed forever. Like there’s something there that just clicked or that a circumstance came up and we had to do it and then all of a sudden it changed and if that didn’t happen you wouldn’t be where you are today. And so I started to kind of like unpack everything and saying like Okay, if someone was going to do it from scratch, what would that look like if I get a lot of people and you do too like what would you do today if you were to start over again.

So I wanted to create a book that would allow people to get through their own self sabotage their own like sticking points and then to get them built up enough inside that to really think that they can do it. Like there’s a confidence in all of us, but we don’t know how to identify some time. So I wanted to really unpack themselves through some of my own stories, but then from there turn it over to them. And then once we get that mindset piece done now, let’s figure out what you can actually do or the business that you’re currently in. How can you take that to the next level with core principles that aren’t going to go away. That’s why it’s really How To build a future proof business but really a future prove you in building that skill set.

Steve: So let’s do this. Let’s apply some of the concepts of your new book and helping the audience take action with their businesses and let’s start with mindset because it’s actually something that I typically don’t cover on the podcast because as an Asian, I was just kind of brought up to just kind of suck it up and do it the way things work. So let’s talk a little bit about just kind of breaking the routine. I know you and I we probably both get emails all the time. People who are just kind of stuck in this rut this routine of going to work coming back eating dinner my wife and I we were stuck in this rut first. So how can you first convince yourself how to get unstuck? And how did you get unstuck?

Scott: Well, the one thing that I think people that are feeling stuck they need to really see exactly what they want. And I know this has been something that people have talked about, you know for years, right? Like what is your why but it’s, it’s even deeper than that. So for me going back and I remember exactly when it happened for me. I lost my mother when she was 50 years old. So that was a real eye-opening experience and a life-changing thing for me. I was 23 years old 24 years old somewhere in there and I had a three year old daughter and a two-month-old son. So I got married young had kids young, but then my mother passed away suddenly and so that shook me and I thought I was going to own my father’s company at the time that I was working for a construction company. And then found out that his you know him and his partner. No just that partnership was not good. We had people in the business that were stealing. It was just a nightmare. So I seen that my future was kind of limited there. So when when I started to identify this myself I started to say like what can I do and I didn’t have confidence in myself back then because I didn’t go to college.

So because of that I’m thinking like well in order to get a really good job, make six figures you got to go to college. And so then that’s when my wife came to me with an idea of starting a photography business. And I mean the rest is history from There but at that point we established the what we wanted we wanted lifestyle and freedom. We didn’t care that it was like, oh I got to make, you know, a hundred fifty thousand two hundred thousand we needed to make whatever $4,000 a month back then in order to pay the bills. So that was the goal so I could be home with the kids more and we can live a life together. Right like so, you know to me with the wake-up call was my mother passing away and then me realizing how short life can be and having kids and then seeing them grow up and then Being able to see them take their first step or maybe my son if I didn’t do again that take action moment. If I didn’t do that, I would have missed my son’s baseball but his little league career because I would have been working because I knew I was working 12 hours a day if I was still working in my father’s company, but because I did this that that one moment I call them take action moments in the book that moment that I decided to make the leap allowed me now to watch my son.

You know at you know, every baseball game and actually coached him all the way up till he was 16 years old and we travel all over all over the country playing Baseball so I would have missed out on that. So I think for people it’s that it’s that what is it that’s going to drive you and I get people say well, yeah, I want that too, but then you don’t put in the hour at night or the hour before you go to work, right? I built that Steve; I built a house while I was working construction. I built a house from the ground up myself with a few buddies my dad on the weekends or at night while I was working a full-time job 60 plus hours a week and I did that because I wanted a house that Built that I could say that I built that I raised my family and that was just important to me back then that was my goal. That’s what I did. So for people right now, they’re like, well, I want that freedom, but I don’t want to put in the time you have to put in the time in order to get the result and when you get frustrated, you gotta push through if you really want the thing that you’re going for like the you know that goal of yours, whatever it is. The why.

So, to me people just don’t have a strong enough why in order to drive them that no matter what it takes, you’re going to do it. You’re going to show up and just you’re going to make it happen no matter what and learn through that process.

Steve: You know, it’s funny is we have similar whys and I met your entire family and I think you guys have a super tight family and I can understand the way you were brought up your super close to your dad and your mom that you don’t want that for your kids. I was kind of the same way when I was brought up. I actually didn’t see my parents all that much because they were working all the time. And so I wanted to be able to spend as much time as possible with my kids because of my childhood and that became my why And that is when things got bad that is kind of what pushed us over the top. We just keep plodding through the muck so to speak when things aren’t going that well.

Scott: Yeah it well and again, so let me ask you so okay, you had this and I mean obviously your you know your brand my wife quit her job, right? Like that was all because you wanted to get your wife to be able to stay home and she wanted it you wanted it because it was important you guys that you had a parent, you know with you know, your children.

Steve: Yeah.

Scott: Like that was important. Portent so in the beginning was it wasn’t easy like that was her struggles along the way. Yeah. I’m sure there were I mean you can answer that better than I can but I know we did like we had I mean I look at businesses Seasons, you have all these different seasons you have seasons that are you know, you have winter. Oh man. It seems like it’s never going to end and then all of a sudden spring comes and then summer and then it’s great, you know, so it’s all about understanding that it is going to take some struggles. But if you really want it you’ll push through so that way there you can have it and work at the other side.

Steve: So I think it requires more than just wanting it right? I don’t know there’s some people who want it but I don’t at least in my audience, but they’re just not putting forth the effort like what is something that you can do just push them to make that extra effort?

Scott: Well, I think first off a lot of times by people don’t start. They I think gathering information is easy, right? We all can do that. Right? Let’s just keep Gathering. Let’s just keep Gathering. Let’s keep Gathering. Look at all the different things we can do and then all of a sudden Seems like you have to do so much and then it becomes overwhelming you do nothing. Okay, or you go you know, what if I never start if I just keep learning if I never start I can’t fail. So there’s a lot of different things. It could be as you were a kid your parents made you feel as a failure because you would start something in you wouldn’t finish or you quit. Maybe you quit your little league because you felt like, you know, the kids didn’t treat you the same or maybe you’re coached batted you 9th or whatever right?

There’s we have we all have our own little internal struggles. Right? but I think that people are afraid of failing and to me you’re never failing you don’t fail unless you give up period, right? so every single thing that you do every action that you take will give you knowledge that you will always have but if you just keep consuming, you’re never going to get there, you know, the questions or you know, the answers that you’re looking for because you’re not actually putting something into action. So I think people struggle with starting because they don’t want to fail or you know could be their wife. They don’t want to fail in front of their wife their kids, you know, maybe their parents because they’ve said I’m going to be a doctor and their parents want them to be a doctor or they want them to be a lawyer or whatever, right? So there’s all everyone is a little bit different but I think a lot of times it’s like if I don’t start I can’t fail.

Steve: If you sell an Amazon or run any online business for that matter, you’re going to need a trademark to protect your intellectual property. Not only that but a trademark is absolutely necessary to register your brand on Amazon. Now, I used to think that any old trademark registration service would work and that could even try to register my own trademark by myself on the cheap, but I was dead wrong. Securing a trademark without a strategy in place usually results in either an outright rejection or a worthless unenforceable trademark. Now, that is why I work with Stephen Wagner and his team from Emerge counsel. They have a package service called total TM, which provides the same attention to detail and process that large law firms do at a fraction of the price. Now for me personally, I like Emerge Council because of their philosophy, their goal is to maximize IP protection while minimizing the price. So before you decide to register a trademark by yourself or file for other I could protection such as a copyright or a patent, check out Emerge counsel first and get a free consult. For more information go to emergecouncil.com and click on the Amazon sellers button and tell Steve that Steve sent you to receive a $100 discount on the total TM package for Amazon sellers. Once again, that’s emergecounsel.com over at emergecounsel.com now back to the show.

I know for me. I have problems starting things if I think it’s one gigantic problem that I need to solve.

Scott: Hmm.

Steve: So for the blog for the longest time, like I hate writing I started hating writing.

Scott: I can’t believe that too because you get some long posts.

Steve: I do I write them now but back in the day, I used to hate writing. I used to dread every minute of it. I just sucked it up and did it but the reason why it took me so long. I wanted to start a blog for probably two years and the reason why I could not do it was just because I didn’t want to learn how to install WordPress and get that whole infrastructure in place.

Scott: That’s crazy.

Steve: But once I had that down which turned out not to be that bad at all once I had the website up just adding the post was was a no-brainer, right? All I had to do is just log in and start writing but because I had include that first hurdle. I just had a lot of problems getting started.

Scott: Well, yeah, and I think people overcomplicate it so like in my book like I break it down. So all you have to do is just focus on like these or principles right like figure out your market like figure out how to get attention in the market, you know, then from there learn how to build some relationship with the audience so that way they know like and trust you and then figure out how to monetize after the fact now that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to do in the research stages. You’re not going to make sure that there’s ways that you can monetize like we want to make sure that we do this work but really it’s that simple like you don’t have to go out there and think you have to you know, know every single part of the business and I think that’s where people get hung up. Because then we start hearing about all these all these new things we can do all of these different platforms that we can use social media this that and the other thing when in the beginning you just really need to start and I like to start with a home base.

Like like you said like the blog the website like that’s kind of where you kind of you build the foundation there and then you can start building things off of that that will bring things back to the home base. It’s really that simple but so many people get overwhelmed I think also because they’re comparing to other people right there comparing to other screen shots that are being posted in In their you know, their Facebook group that they’re following a hundred different Facebook groups with a hundred different gurus showing all of these different things. I think if you just if you put the blinders on and you just follow a system and a process then I don’t know how you can fail. You just you just continually push through obviously, you got to understand how to validate a market, you know, see if there is potential there for that market whether that’s traffic, you know monetization ways like all that stuff, but it’s pretty simple if you break it down.

Steve: So before we get into that, which is what I’m going to transition to, A little bit. I just wanted to talk about this one quote that I really liked. I think it was Pat’s quote actually not “instead of trying to learn everything there is to learn about getting started with the business. For example, all you got to know is what you’re working on right now.”

Scott: Yeah, that’s it.

Steve: That’s all the knowledge. You need it ignore everything else just work on learning about what you’re trying to accomplish like right this second.

Scott: Yeah a hundred percent. I I mean again, I mean Pat has said it to I think he learned it from someone else or heard it from someone else just-in-time learning. It’s like just Learn what you have to learn right now, like shelf all that other stuff. And I said that at our event I said, you’re going to learn a lot of stuff here. You’re gonna have a lot of different ideas, but there’s things that you can apply today or maybe six months from now. You can always go back to the Shell from for later. You can come back to them.

Steve: Absolutely, Yeah, so Scott, let’s let’s talk about starting a future-proof business. What is the first step from someone who is just getting started?

Scott: I think the first step is and I think this is where people struggle though. They’re like what Niche do I go into do I just look at numbers do I just you know, and there’s like probably a ton of different responses or replies that we could we could go, you know into that direction. Like I think people get stuck because sometimes they’re like, I want it to be my passion and you know, I would love for it to be your passion. But if you’re struggling for six months to figure out what your passion is, then I think you just need to move. I think you need to You need to..

Steve: But that means it’s not your passion. If you’re struggling to figure out what it is right?

Scott: True. And but I think you know passions can kind of come from starting something as well and I’ll get em, I’ll give you the example. So my wife and I started our photography business when I was leaving the construction World. Well, I was we wanted to leave the construction business, but we were building the photographer’s I was not passionate about photography. Okay. I was not my wife was in a sense, but she still wasn’t like every day looking at like photography magazines and like all of that stuff, she just enjoyed good photography like that was it and we had we had went to photography studios and she seen that there was a there was really a I think a hole in the market where we were because no one was really giving a good experience. So she came to me with this idea.

Now, I my passion at the time was getting the hell out of my job. Right? Like that was my pet. I want to get out like get show me a different way and I’ll get out. So once we did that, that opened me up to number one Photoshop, which I have My my Photoshop six journal on my bookshelf as a reminder bought it for $64.95 back in 2002 2003 something like that. And so that book right there bought it and I started learning about it. I started becoming really passionate about that and then I started also figuring out how I could get more people in the door for my wife to be able to photograph. Then I started to develop a passion for marketing, right? So those passions weren’t there before I started but I started because I wanted to get out of the thing.

And then that built up skill sets that I now have I mean that one Photoshop book has made me millions of dollars just that one book, right because of all the I built businesses on it. I’ve taught people on Photoshop. Like I’ve had CDs that I’ve sold around Photoshop templates, you know photography clients that came in and I’ve done you know personal work for, for five hundred dollars for photo Restorations, like all of that stuff. I’ve made Millions on that book, but it’s a skill set that I built that was a passion of mine and you know, so is the Marketing, so I just think that people need to get out of their own way sometimes and say listen Okay, this one might not be my passion. But someone else that I know it’s their passion, then you can go ahead and plug into that and then start to learn the process and then when the passion arises in you, you’ll kind of identify and then you can act on it.

Steve: I mean that’s very similar to my story. I am not passionate about handkerchiefs or linens.

Scott: No?

Steve: Not at all but I was passionate about getting my wife out of a rut of going to work every day to a job that she did not like and I was very passionate about having a parent stay at home with the kids and as we started the e-commerce business, I became interested in the nuts and bolts of how to run the business how to market the business all the customers psychology aspects of getting someone to buy was very interesting to me and I became very passionate about that.

Scott: Yeah and see so you didn’t have that before you didn’t start that but you started it for the one thing but then it opened up something else for you and this skill set that you have you’re going to have forever, right?

Steve: Absolutely and it can be Applied to any business actually.

Scott: Any business. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah.

Scott: Yeah, No, I absolutely love it another short story. Let me just because this happened at seller Summit. Actually, we were at a meet up after hours, by the way. It wasn’t during the event. It was it was all

Steve: I know is off hours because there’s no one fighting trying to pick a fight with Tony. So.

Scott: yeah, so and I met a guy there and he this it was his first time at like an event like this and he was a little confused. He was struggling with his with his with his passion. Well, like what he was going to build his business on and I got to I can do it and he’s like, you know, I just wish that I could hire someone that could do all the marketing things, but I’m like but you don’t know your passion yet. He goes. Yeah. I know I’m struggling with that. But I’m just kind of confused and I go well, you know tell me a little bit about like what you do and he goes, well, I were corporate he goes my wife. She runs a speech therapy business, you know, brick and mortar and I go wait a minute stop time out for a minute and I started digging into that welcomes the find come to find out he’s really passionate and so is his wife about speech therapy for kids that she’s been doing for 15 years.

Why don’t you help your wife get that online to help more kids not just locally and he’s like, wow, I didn’t even think of that and I’m like see that could help you learn the process of building a business online and then you have all of the content that you’ll ever need because she’s doing client work every day, right? She could show up on video on blog posts and then he started to tell me because you have then there’s these products that were buying on Amazon and they never come how we wanted. There’s always little flaws were always tweaking them or telling people to use this rubber band for this for that I go well that’s a perfect, perfect way for you to create your own customized product because now you’re going to be able to refer products and so his mind was blown after we got done but he didn’t see the opportunity in front of him because he was looking for his passion not just an opportunity.

Steve: Interesting

Scott: It was pretty crazy.

Steve: I had a similar story with my wife quit her job like I was running the business and people’s just started asking me questions about e-commerce and I was like okay I kind of know this stuff I mean I’m not an expert but I’m you know I can just talk about what I’m doing with it, and that turned out to build a pretty big following.

Scott: Yeah not exactly exactly so it doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t have to be your passion to start with I think you just have to move you got to do something and start learning and then once you do you’ll plug that into whichever business adventure is going to be coming your way you know in the future.

Steve: Here’s the thing about passion this is kind of why I brought it up earlier like when you’re passionate about something Things that you just read about and do all the time like when I was a kid, I used to play Nintendo games and I used to like create my own little strategy guides and everything and I spent like all of my time doing this stuff and no one was paying me. I didn’t have any idea. I didn’t have any intentions of making money on it but kind of by accident little kids started paying me for these little strategy guides that I was making and I haven’t it’s great when things just kind of happened by accident. It’s just all about identifying what it is that you can do with the skill set that you have because Everyone has a skill set.

Scott: Absolutely. I think you’re building skill sets as you as you take action, right? Like as you do things you’re learning things and to me, that’s how I’ve you know been like I said, like I think we all have a safety net to fall back on with whatever leap were making next. Like if I go all the way back like I can still right now probably go out there and start my own company building houses. Like I’ve done it. I know the process. I know how to manage subcontractors. I know the nuts and bolts right? I know it. Photography same thing like I know That stuff but I’m not using it today, but I might be using some of the marketing stuff because that kind of that stuff is interchangeable. So I just think that people need to understand that you just got to start if you have if you’ve been listening to Steve, you know for the past year and you’ve been wanting to do something but you haven’t you need to just give yourself a deadline and do something right? Like just get something started simple as that.

Steve: So I know for you that when you were trying to figure things out after the photography business, so first of all, why did you To show that and what led you to create podcasts?

Scott: Yeah. Okay, it’s great great question. So when we were running a photography business was a brick and mortar in my home actually built the studio separate access to that to our house in our basement. So was a full, you know full studio. And so we were doing that we had that we had the two kids at the time we had Alexis and Scotty and then we were pregnant with Kayla who now is 11 and we just started saying ourselves. It’s going to be really hard with a new born and taking all these clients. And also when in the beginning it was great because we’re like, oh we can make our own schedule. But our own schedule was a lot of times in the evenings or on the weekends because that’s when people are off of work or the lighting was best at night. So we started to get a little bit burn out with client work.

So we’re like, how can we create like a side, you know Revenue stream. So this way here we can work less with the clients that we had and then I started to dabble in eBay to be honest with you and the way that we did that it was we had some props that we used to buy. For the studio we were buying these little wooden bridges these little four foot Bridges. And so my wife seen that they were also selling at a store locally for like 30 bucks, but they were selling on eBay for a hundred and thirty bucks. So we said let’s try to sell them and we did and we ended up buying like 25-30 Bridges and we sold them all on eBay and that’s what opened my eyes to online selling. And then from there. I started building these projectors that I was transferring film for for my video the video side of the business because we were doing some video transfer work too and I started some of those sold over $100,000 in these projectors that I was modifying.

And sold them on eBay. So that’s what opened it up there. And then I started hearing about private labeling just because when you’re in this, you know, entrepreneurial space you start hearing about other channels and you know, what’s coming up and so I started to think maybe I should just throw five grand at something and see what see what happens well back then it was easy, you know, you can just throw them almost anything up and you know, because you could put up a stainless steel garlic press and probably hit number one and sell 50 units a day and then it got harder but I started to ask myself the same thing. I had people asking me. Like, how are you doing it? Like how did you start your own online business? How are you selling e-commerce, like all this stuff and I said, well, maybe I’ll just document the journey and I’ll just start a podcast because I like talking I don’t like writing like you said, so that’s what I did.

I started it in almost four and a half years now and so I just wanted to be able to show up on a medium that I didn’t mind jumping on and that was podcasting and then it’s totally like pivoted since I started right before it was like Amazon focus now, it’s more brand-building focus that that’s kind of how.

Steve: I know. Had a couple of podcast before the amazing seller. Why

Scott: yes

Steve: Those not do well.

Scott: Well, the one I had was on well, I was 40. I was 39 and I started to go through that. Oh my gosh, I’m you know, I’m going to be 40. I’m not in good shape and stuff. So I started getting into Beachbody products. I went in I did Insanity for 60 days and I got totally ripped. It was like awesome was in the best shape of my life and I’m like, you know, there’s probably a lot of guys that are 40-ish and you know, they feel like they want to get back in shape. They want to be healthy. And so I started really getting into it. I mean, I was really really dialed in almost obsessively and so I had a buddy of mine you met him Jimmy and him and I was said, you know what let’s just jump on and do a podcast will talk about what we’re doing and we did it and after about six episodes we were like, it’s just too much work. We just don’t feel like doing it and we just stopped and that was it was like literally just because we just

Steve: Why did that happened though. Why did you just decide to stop?

Scott: I think it was hard for him and I to get on at the same time. I might have been doing a lot of Publishing so I felt like you know, a lot of the work was coming down on me. So it was him and I just kind of like riffing as friends.

Steve: Okay

Scott: And there wasn’t really so it kind of got to be like a little bit of a hassle even though it was like it was six weeks worth of stuff. Maybe it was a six or eight whatever it was. And so I just started to lose a little bit of interest in it still had the passion for helping people. Actually. I hope the few of my buddies lose over a hundred pounds just by setting up there, you know simple diet and simple exercise routine. So I still have a passion for That I still have a passion for just living just a healthy life and staying active and all that stuff. So I think I just I didn’t see the reason in doing it when I was doing my other stuff. I was still doing photography stuff. I was I mean, I built an online photography tutorial based membership site. Like I was running that for six and seven are almost seven years, which did really really well, but I was doing that and I was trying to do the podcasting thing and so it just it took up too much time at you know, at the time that I was doing.

It so I think I just got kind of a little bit burnt out and he wasn’t as into it as I was so I felt like you know, I’m gonna have to kind of I’m gonna have to kind of try to keep him enticed. So just got a little bit old quick. Yeah, but then the second one was on a marketing it was marketing but it was more broad. So it wasn’t like Niche down. It was like really broad like just how to Market your small business, right? So it’s just too broad and I didn’t realize at the time and it was fun because I was helping photographers get more clients, but it Wasn’t around just photography. I probably should have narrowed it down to just photography. But at the time I wanted to kind of get out of the photography Spotlight and be more than just business not just photography.

And then that’s where I said. Well, let me just, you know Target Amazon sellers because that’s kind of like up-and-coming and there was no one else doing it at the time. And so then when I started doing that it was great, right like had a great following and I still do but that all of a sudden I started being coined as the Amazon guy and I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m right back where I started. I was the photography guy now. I’m the Amazon guy. I don’t want to just be the Is on guy I want to be the guy that helps people build businesses and that’s kind of where we are now. Like I’ve done that pivot over the past four and a half years.

Steve: So how do you know when you need to Niche down?

Scott: I think in the beginning you have to I really do I think if you’re not you’re going up against like just everyone I think if you can Niche down in the very beginning, I think it’s going to make your life in the process easier. I think the only thing I would say though is you definitely want to allow yourself room for growth meaning if I was going to Niche it down. In like let’s say fishing, right? Like if I went fishing, that’d be too broad. I’d go bass fishing or I’d go kayak Bass Fishing. I would try to drill down but I wouldn’t name my site the ultimate bass fishing whatever right? I would name it something like, you know, something fishing more broad or even just Outdoors sports or something that would allow me to be able to be in fly fishing bass fishing deep sea fishing like anything that I could have other verticals under I wouldn’t just Target myself. That Niche down I would allow myself to come out of that if I wanted to.

Steve: And how do you find the people who are to listen to your podcast? I guess in this example. I got it. I don’t even know the story. How did you get your first listeners on the amazing seller?

Scott: Yeah. So what I did was I went into a Facebook group and I was there for probably over eight months just being a contributor just going in there answering questions. Guys, I’m not an expert, you know at the time I might have been making $10,000 a month or something, you know revenue and it wasn’t You know crazy and I was just kind of answering questions Fielding questions. And so then as I did that people would start at asking me questions and then I said, you know what? Maybe I’ll maybe I should just start a podcast and answer some of these questions on a podcast that way there.

I can build a community. I had no idea how I would monetize it didn’t care because I’ve built audiences before and like if I just build the audience the rest will figure itself out. And so then I just I asked the group I said, hey, I’m thinking about starting a podcast that’s going to talk about the things that I’ve talked about here. But I can go a little bit deeper. Would you be interested if I did it and I had about a hundred people say yes, and that was it and I started my but I almost didn’t start Steve almost didn’t start. I almost did not hit record on that episode.

Steve: So what pushed you over the edge.

Scott: Actually my wife my wife said to me because I was telling her what I was doing and everything and she said, you know, I really think you should do it and I’m like, well, yeah, but you know who’s going to listen to me, you know, like I’m just you know, Dabbling over here. You know, I know what I’m doing, but I don’t know. I’m still kind of learning things and she’s like, yeah, but you just whenever we’re at a party or any everyone’s always huddled around asking what you’re doing, you know, like what how are you doing this like because people don’t understand like we are, you know kind of on the same mindset as far as like we understand the online space or if you’re coming into the world, you’re starting to hear us all talk about it.

But when you’re at a party with people that are just in corporate or whatever they don’t they don’t really understand it. They don’t know landing pages and you know, like Optimization like all of this. They don’t know these terms and so she was like, you know, I really just think that you should do it, but she goes you’re just really good talking to people you’re really energetic you get people excited about things. Why don’t you just give it a shot and I’m like, I don’t know and then she’s like just record like 15 20 episodes and I’m like, all right, I’ll do it. And then I did it and then here we are, you know, so if I never did it if I didn’t have my wife also pushing me. I probably never would there’s another take action moment to by the way, he’s going to highlight that.

Steve: I mean, they’re gonna take away I got from that is you need a really good support system and spouse to get you to take action.

Scott: A hundred percent man. I mean like going to an event like your event our event now any event that’s like like-minded people. There’s so much power in that like when you make a few connections just a few that could be like game-changing stuff because from there it can push you or it can make you believe in yourself when you don’t believe in yourself, right? Because you’re not giving yourself enough credit.

Steve: I just want to let you know that tickets for the 2020 Seller Summit are on sale over at sellersummit.com. Now what is seller Summit? It is the conference that I hold every year that is specifically targeting e-commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online and unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high-level BS. Mine is a curriculum-based conference where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an e-commerce business. And in fact, every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their e-commerce business entrepreneurs who are importing large quantities of physical goods and not some high-level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000 feet. The other thing I can assure you is that the Seller Summit will be small and intimate every year we cut off ticket sales at just a couple hundred people. So tickets will sell out fast, and in fact, we sell out every single year many months in advance now if you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur making over 250K or 1 million dollars per year, we are also offering an exclusive mastermind experience with other top sellers. Now, the Seller Summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. From May 6 to May 8. And right now, we are almost sold out of Mastermind tickets already and I will be raising the ticket price regularly starting the day after Cyber Monday for more information, go to sellerssummit.com. Once again, that’s SELLERSUMMIT.COM or just Google it, now back to the show.

Here’s a good story. There’s this one seller summit attendee that that you know of and he was talking to Mike Jackness and you said I’m thinking about selling this blah blah blah and then Mike told him like I’m not going to talk to you again until you’ve actually launched your product love it. And then after that he actually launched a product and today he runs a seven-figure business.

Scott: It’s ya see that there

Steve: you have one conversation with Mike

Scott: once that’s what I talk about the book as far as a take action moment. Like that was a moment that you made. Decision, right? Because Mike gave him like Hey, listen, if you don’t do this don’t talk to me until you do it, right like and I think we need people like that in our lives that can help us see a little bit clearer, but also believe in ourselves and then from there once you take the action you’re and I’m sure that him getting there from that conversation to the seven figures wasn’t easy, right? There’s been struggles. There’s been you know, probably inventory issues. There’s been maybe hijackers there’s been all kinds of stuff. But the thing is is he got momentum and the problem he had then isn’t the problem he has now get different problems now, right? It’s just at a different, you know at a different level. But yeah, I love that. I absolutely love that.

Steve: So Scott, who is this book for man?

Scott: this book? Really when I was writing it was like it was kind of strange because I was like this. I wanted to serve two different people. I want to serve someone that’s feeling stuck in their in their nine to five or there JOB, and they’re thinking themselves. I’m stuck right I put all this time and energy into a degree. I can’t give up. On this career because if I do I’m going to waste all that right and I’m miserable, you know, and I want to be home more or I want to be able to take more Vacations or I want to be able to just live the life that that I deserve right? That’s it’s for that person that doesn’t believe in themselves because they don’t see the big picture and I want to use myself and my story as an example and then give them the roadmap the other person it’s for is if you’re building a business right now and you’re feeling stuck in that business, whether it’s either growth or if you’re feeling like I’ve built this thing and I’m not really sure that I even want to build this business.

I might want to build something else. Well, I want to give you the opportunity to grow that business. So this way here you can sell it for more when you decide to or you can also take the same principles and then start a business from scratch and then lay the the, you know, really the foundation and you know create that that roadmap that will allow you to build something that is Diversified and that will give you that freedom that you want and that you deserve And also you can repeat this process. So it’s really for two different camps either if you’re feeling stuck or if you’re feeling like I’m stuck in my business that I built. I’m not sure if I want to be here or I want to grow that business outside of just one channel.

Steve: My key takeaways were basically the book will help you get out of your own head. Yeah, basically, yeah Scott. I know you have a snazzy URL for it to work and they find the book?

Scott: Yeah. It’s very simple takeactioneffect.com will take you over to the book and you can grab it over on Amazon and paperback hardcover and it’s on Kendall.

Steve: And it’s coming out in audible to right?

Scott: Yes. We are going to be recording that depending on when you’re listening to this. So if you are listening to this before December 2019, because I’m hoping to have it released by then. If you do grab a copy of the physical book, all you have to do is send me a copy of that receipt at Scottattheamazingseller.com and just send me that and I will send you the audio book for free.

Steve: Cool. Yes Scott, man. Thanks a lot for coming back on the show. Really appreciate it.

Scott: Yeah, I appreciate you having me and I want people to look out for some footage of me beating up on you in pickleball.

Steve: Ha ha ha just sign the book first dude sign the book first.

Scott: Okay, I’ll do that. Thanks Steve. I appreciate it, brother.

Steve: Take care.

Hope you enjoyed that episode now Scotty V is the man and if you haven’t picked up his book yet head on over to amazon.com right now and buy it now it is a quick and interesting read and you’ll be super motivated when you’re done for more information about this episode go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode281.

And once again, I want to thank Privy for sponsoring this episode. Privy is the email capture provider that I personally use the term visitors into email subscribers. They offer email capture exit intent and site targeting tools to make it super simple as well. And I like Privy because it is so powerful and you can basically trigger custom pop-ups for any parameter that is closely tied your eCommerce store. Now, if you want to give it a try it is free so head on over to privy.com/steve. Once again, that’s P-R-I-V-Y.com/steve.

I also want to thank Kaviyo for sponsoring this episode, Kaviyo is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce Merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence a post purchase flow or win back campaign. Basically, all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifequitherjob.com/klaviyo. Once again, That’s mywifequitherjob.com/klaviyo.

Now I talked about how I use these tools in my blog and if you’re interested in starting your own e-commerce store heading over to mywifequitherjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini-course just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast where we are giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequitherjob.com

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2 thoughts on “281: Scott Voelker On How To Get Out Of Your Own Head And Take Action”

  1. Sean D says:

    Steve, that was awesome. You and Scott do a great job together (Pickle Ball Skills or not). You, Voelker, Mercer and Jackness together are some of my favorite podcasts.

    Can’t wait to get his book, The Take Action Effect. This all came at a perfect time for me (Crossroads).

    Really appreciate all the great content you put out there.

  2. Jonathan C says:

    Love this episode Steve! I wish you guys get your show SO popular that Netflix picks it up as a REAL competitor to (fake) SharkTank. You guys are much better and real!
    Also love your new article on the 5 Lessons on Not giving a s— (reminds me of Mark Manson). Great learnings and reminders!

    Keep it up and rock on Steve & Scott!

Comments are closed.