When Alex Nerney reached out with interest in coming onto the podcast, we realized we both had a lot of questions for each other. So we decided to do a sort of digital coffee meeting, similar to my interview with Sara Dunn.
Alex Nerney is best known for his businesses Create and Go and Avacadu. Through these sites and his courses, he has generated over $100k per month. I share about my journey in podcasting and I learn about his journey with blogging. Enjoy!
Alex’s Journey
Alex has always been drawn to entrepreneurship, and read the 4-hour Workweek by Tim Ferris in college. After trial and error with several different careers, from corporate America to personal training, he started working on creating a business with his partner and co-founder Lauren.
Although their first blog, Health and Happy Hour, failed, they tried again with Avocadu. This time, it worked. They made six figures from the blog in the first year, which inspired them to go on to found Create and Go, a platform where they teach others how to monetize their blogs.
Jeff’s Journey
Jeff has always been into music, playing bass guitar and eventually merging into other guitars. He joined his first band in high school, and went on to play in several bands and record an album. During this time, he was also very involved in radio and audio, working with the local radio station and teaching others how to use audio equipment.
In 2015, he started a board game publishing company with his wife. They decided that podcasting was a smart medium to use in order to document their journey as new business owners navigating the industry. Eventually, this led to the creation of his own digital agency focused solely on podcast production. He also credits his teaching experience for helping him be a better business owner and leader.
Alex’s Perspective on Entrepreneurs
The path of an entrepreneur is always winding and challenging. Alex credits his perspective of looking at everything as a learning opportunity for staying positive through the ups and downs.
“If I took a lot of stock on all of the failures to it, I would have no self-confidence because there were just so many things that you had to try and that you had to fail at in order to get there.”
He credits his experience in sports for equipping him with the mindset and discipline to put in the extra work necessary to go above and beyond.
“It feels infinitely better to earn that thing and that comes through understanding that the hard times precede the good times. And without the hard times, you can’t be like ‘Oh this is awesome, this is purposeful, and this matters to my life’.”
Podcasting
Jeff was inspired to start podcasting in order to learn about the board game industry. From there, he discovered how it could help businesses and the power of the medium for building trust and creating smart content.
Podcasting allows you to:
- Talk to people you could otherwise never be able to talk to.
- Become an authority.
- Build trust.
- Discover unique, in-depth information about your customers and audience.
- Create content intentionally.
- Grow within an up and coming industry.
- Learn constantly.
- Leverage and navigate constant innovations in the industry, like voice.
- Expand your skills technically and artistically.
Measuring Podcasting
While measuring podcast metrics and analytics is not as straightforward and clear as other mediums, Jeff says you can still make educated decisions. Certain variables like timing, and tertiary numbers from connected platforms like websites, landing pages, social, and newsletters, offer solid insights.
When comparing platforms like podcasting and YouTube, Jeff emphasizes the importance of considering the following factors:
- Some people do better on audio than video.
- It’s easier to do high-quality audio than both high-quality audio AND video.
- According to Peter Thiel’s theory in his book “Zero to One,” your scale of competition is lower in podcasting than it is in other mediums like video, blogging, or social.
- Podcasting is a branding investment that will build trust and increase in value over time but will probably not bring you immediate results.
Blogging in 2019
Alex believes that blogging is still thriving because of complementary platforms like Pinterest and the fact that people today enjoy consuming content in a variety of ways.
His top tip for running a successful blog in 2019, is that once you’ve identified your niche demographic, your number one priority needs to be sale-centered content.
“This is not the sexiest answer, but it is the truest… what now needs to happen is the only content that they need to create is focused around solving one particular problem in general and then having an email opt-in followed by selling their own product in their email opt-in.”
Contact:
Website: Create and Go
Youtube: Create and Go
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