Jason SurfrApp's Blog, page 9
February 10, 2019
What To Do When You Experience Burnout
Episode Summary
We’ve had the DISpleasure of dealing with creative burnout on more occasions than we’d like to admit. It simply seems like experiencing burnout is a right of passage when you work for yourself.
But… We have a few tips on how to avoid burning out. How to (hopefully) not hit your own wall and feel like your health and life are suffering because of your work.
Burnout is something soooo many of us deal with but we can feel ashamed to admit it. Well, we’re here to pull back the curtain on burnout shame and to talk openly and honestly about it. We hope this episode helps you learn from our mistakes and avoid burning out with whatever you’re spending time on.
QUESTION FOR YOU: Have you experienced burnout? How have you dealt with it? (Feel free to comment with your answer on YouTube).
Episode “Sponsor”
Our show will remain sponsor/ad-free and you can support us by becoming a Wandering Aimfully Member. Our monthly membership program offers our brand new program Build Without Burnout as well as “The Vault” (all the courses, workshops, and software you’ll need to run your online business) and you get access to an amazing community of creative small business owners to help inspire, motivate and support you. Learn more about our membership here.
February 3, 2019
How To Deal With Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome
Episode Summary
Let us start off by saying EVERYONE deals with self-doubt. Especially when it comes to running your own business or making a big change in your life, it’s normal to go through imposter syndrome.
One way Caroline deals with self-doubt before starting something new is to acknowledge how much she’d regret not doing that thing. Yes, it’s scary to navigate uncharted waters, but it’s much worse to have never dipped your toes in those waters and always wondered “what if.”
For Jason, dealing with imposter syndrome and self-doubt comes down to challenging his own assumptions. Put your doubtful thoughts to the test and don’t let them impact business decisions or life choices until they prove that negative assumptions are correct.
Don’t let self-doubt hold you back from getting started and don’t compare where you are on your journey to the end of someone else’s journey.
QUESTION FOR YOU: What self-doubt in life or business can you challenge this week? (Feel free to comment with your answer on YouTube).
Episode “Sponsor”
Our show will remain sponsor/ad-free and you can support us by becoming a Wandering Aimfully Member. Our monthly membership program offers our brand new program Build Without Burnout as well as “The Vault” (all the courses, workshops, and software you’ll need to run your online business) and you get access to an amazing community of creative small business owners to help inspire, motivate and support you. Learn more about our membership here.
January 30, 2019
The 3 Myths of Passive Income You Should Avoid
Well, friend, you’re not alone. We’ve spent the better part of a decade trying to master generating revenue while we sleep and we’re here to tell you it’s not as simple as some folks may lead you to believe (#spoileralert #realtalk).
With our disclaimer out of the way, we do want to let you know that it is absolutely possible to make some extra side income so you can feel a bit more financially stable.
We’re going to talk specifically about three myths when it comes to creating passive income with digital products. Ready to rock? Let’s do this!
(Ps. You can watch this post in video form here:)
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Download The Passive Income Worksheet –
No Email required!
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We know it’s unconventional, but we’re happy to give away some of our resources without making you give us your email address first. That said, if you DO find this article and this worksheet helpful, sign up for our newsletter where we share worksheets like this every Monday.
Passive Income Myth #1
You can create a passive income business without building an audience
Other people make it sound easy right? Build a digital product, spin up a sales page, go to sleep and wake up every morning with more money in your bank account. The issue is that most of us have tried this and it hasn’t worked.
Passive income only works when you have a steady stream of qualified traffic finding out about your product.
In today’s crowded digital landscape, potential customers need to hear from you multiple times and learn to trust your expertise over time. This means you’ll need to capture their attention and communicate with them on an ongoing basis if you want to sell to them, and that means building an audience.
By the way, when we say build an audience, we don’t just mean on social media. Social channels are where most people consume passively — they scroll or read for a moment and then it’s on to the next thing. It’s a great place for awareness or reminders, but not necessarily sales.
Instead, you want an engaged email list providing consistent, helpful content tailored to your target audience.
Attract them by delivering value, and continue to deliver that value to build trust, or else your “passive” product will remain the best-kept secret on the internet, and secrets don’t add up to revenue.
RELATED GUIDE: The Ethical Guide To Building An Email List Without Sleazy Tactics
Passive Income Myth #2:
Passive income is ‘set it and forget it’…and it will last forever.
Most people assume that if they can just get the right funnel with the right price point and the right strategy that sales will roll in and never dry up.
The truth is, things are always changing in online business. Ad prices, media habits, competitors…it’s always shifting.
That’s why you need a clear plan for tracking your product performance and evaluating your marketing efforts on a regular basis.
You can set it and forget it for a WHILE, but eventually, something will change and you’ll have to tweak things and test them in order to respond.
The biggest thing to realize here is that passive income isn’t the savior of your business—the thing you set up one time and spend the rest of your time counting your money. You have to continuously test, tweak and evolve if you want to keep those sales coming.
Passive Income Myth #3:
You can create passive income products about anything, even something you don’t have direct experience in.
In the “passive income” world, we often see people trying to jump on a trend or topic that there’s demand for. They’ll try to teach you how to be more effective on Instagram, for example, without themselves having figured out how to be effective on Instagram.
This is something our friend Paul Jarvis calls teaching “second-hand knowledge” and it could work, but customers aren’t as easily fooled as marketers want to believe.
We believe the best digital product ideas are the ones that stem from your authentic experience.
Make sure your product is on a topic you know intimately, with processes and information you’ve picked up and practiced over time, and add your own unique personal spin to it.
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If you’re looking for a step-by-step program to help you launch digital products and potentially create passive income products, you might want to check out our program, Build Without Burnout Academy.
This is a six-month guided program teaching client-based business owners how to transition to digital products, without losing your sanity in the process. Get weekly course videos, monthly calls for accountability and support, plus get access to the rest of our courses and Slack community inside our Wandering Aimfully Membership.
How To Actually Create Passive Income:
Let’s recap what it really takes to build up a passive income source
#1 Make sure you have a good email list to create passive income
Your email list needs to deliver consistent, helpful information about your product topic. Don’t send out a bunch of fluff email content. Don’t list of a bunch of links unrelated to what you are trying to sell. Be direct. Be helpful. Be consistent.
#2 Re-evaluate your passive income funnel every 3 months
Use an experimenter’s mindset to figure out what works and what doesn’t to build up passive income. Remember: There is no set it and forget it. You need to set things, check on them, tweak them, and not forget about them.
RELATED ARTICLE: Challenge All of the Assumptions, Especially Your Self-Limiting Ones
#3 Create a passive income digital product you have direct experience with
Create a product around something you have hands-on knowledge of and can speak confidently about. You want to make sure to teach in your own unique way and with your own twists. Don’t try to sell secondhand knowledge.
Last but not least when it comes to passive income…
You can’t just create a product and put up a sales page expecting it to bring in real revenue for you overnight. Like anything else in your business, it takes time and effort and passive income is not the silver bullet everyone wants it to be.
The sooner you let go of the desire for it to solve all your financial difficulties, the sooner you can get to work making REAL product income that can positively impact your life.
January 28, 2019
For 30 Days I’m Riding A Stationary Bike At My Standing Desk
I want to try having a stationary bike at my standing desk and commit to seeing what happens (and you know, writing about my findings or lack thereof).
I’ve been a standing desk connoisseur (that’s what we standing desk users call ourselves) since 2015. I strongly believe that sitting is the new smoking* and it can’t be good for our bodies to be scrunched up into a tightly compacted ball for hours on end each day. Although, if you’re a Cirque de Soleil performer and sitting in a desk chair is how you are able to do what you do… keep on keepin’ on!
Extremely random and unimportant fact: I’ve never seen a Cirque show.
As the years have gone on I’ve wondered if there’s more I could do than just stand at my desk?
You know, get some additional health benefits (6-pack abs) by adding something else (hopefully 6-pack abs!) to the daily standing routine (plllleeeeeease abs!)
Sure, I could be one of those really fit people who set some sort of push-up or jumping jack alarm every hour (but… ew). I wanted to try something that didn’t feel like I was literally exercising for 8 hours each day. I wanted to get some sort of physical benefit from being at my desk while adding another 30-day experiment notch to my belt.
See also: Do A 30-Day Social Media Detox and Why I Love 30-Day Challenges
Before we keep going I have to legally tell you that I have a sponsor for this 30-day stationary/standing/weird challenge. Well, do I legally have to tell you? I don’t think I do, but, now I feel like I’ve covered my soon-to-be-sore-from-biking-daily ass, so here we are. It’s time for the background color change so you actually read this next part…
For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve gotten pretty good at getting sponsorships for various projects. There was IWearYourShirt, BuyMyLastName (twice), SponsorMyBook, a Trivia + Beer Roadtrip, a 90-day fitness challenge, and a handful of others. Yeah, I’m weird and oddly good at convincing people to sponsor my ideas (call me when Superman needs a vacation).
This 30-day challenge sponsorship came together over Twitter and it started with this short string of tweets:
TWEETS
Then after a handful of DMs and a few days later… BOOM… Dubsado is sponsoring this little experiment.
Okay, so who/what is Dubsado and should you care at all?
Well, I think you should care because I’m literally getting paid to tell you to care. Okay, I’m not really getting paid to do that. But, don’t you want to learn more about a company that was willing to sponsor a crazy/silly idea I had on Twitter??
Dubsado is….
Alright, with that little sponsor introduction outta the way (seriously though, thanks Jake and Dubsado team, you rock!), let’s jump into this experiment!
The preface
I Have No Idea What I’m Getting Myself Into, So This Should Be Fun To Watch!
I’m starting on February 1 and ending on March 2. I’ll be riding for a few hours each day while I work at my desk. I’ll be writing a daily update in this post describing what happened.
Should I track calories burned each day? Miles ridden? Level of butt soreness (on a scale of 0 [meh] to 10 [I can’t wear pants])? Energy levels? Quality of sleep increase or decrease? Sex life improvement (or the opposite if I feel I need to start wearing those tight spandex bike shorts at my desk all day)??
There’s a lot to think about tracking and to be honest I’d love to crowdsource what I post about each day.
Or at the very least, I’d love to know what you want to come back to read? The best way to reach me during this challenge will be via email or I decided to set up a simple text message forwarding thing.
January 27, 2019
Do You Have Big Dreams?
Episode Summary
What’s the thing you’ve always dreamed of doing? That place in the world you’ve had on your bucket list to visit? An experience you’ve read about over and over?
We share our big dreams, or lack thereof, in this episode. We also explore if our big dreams come from our own desires or if we’re merely focusing on things society has told us we should want.
Can you believe Caroline doesn’t want to hang out with Oprah? 
January 20, 2019
Why and When You Should Make a Business Pivot
Episode Summary
Is your current business not quite serving you? Making a business pivot can look like many things:
Switching from one type of business to another
Scrapping all your current offerings and changing it up to something else
Getting rid of a bunch of features and try a slew of new ones
Or quitting a business completely! (which you shouldn’t feel bad about!)
We go through all these different types of business pivots and share stories from our various business ventures since 2007.
We’ve had our fair share of business transitions and believe it’s 100% okay to make a change but it can be hard to know when and how. Hopefully, our experience and advice in this episode will help you if you ‘re in a position where you want to make a change!
QUESTION FOR YOU: Is your business currently in a state of flux and feeling like you need to switch things up? (Feel free to comment with your answer on YouTube).
Episode “Sponsor”
Our show will remain sponsor/ad-free and you can support us by becoming a Wandering Aimfully Member. Our monthly membership program offers our brand new program Build Without Burnout as well as “The Vault” (all the courses, workshops, and software you’ll need to run your online business) and you get access to an amazing community of creative small business owners to help inspire, motivate and support you. Learn more about our membership here.
January 17, 2019
Time Management Tips for Client-Based Business Owners
If your client projects often seem to take longer than you think and time feels like it just slips away every day, we have some tried-and-true time management tips for you.
Do you wish you could carve out time to work on projects related to growing your business like creating content and perhaps a digital product to offset your client income? But do you feel like every second goes to client work?
You need a better system to feel in control of your schedule and we’ve got you covered!
(Ps. You can watch this post in video form here:)
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Download The Time Blocking Worksheet –
No Email required!
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We know it’s unconventional, but we’re happy to give away some of our resources without making you give us your email address first. That said, if you DO find this article and this worksheet helpful, sign up for our newsletter where we share worksheets like this every Monday.
Time Management Tip #1:
Your first time management tip is to set micro-deadlines
What the heck are micro-deadlines and how do they differ from normal deadlines?
Chances are if you work with clients you’re no stranger to deadlines. Your clients know when to expect the final deliverables to complete the project. But the problem with setting ONE fixed deadline at the end of a project is a little thing called Parkinson’s law.
Parkinson’s Law says that: “work will expand to fill the time available for its completion.”
This means if you only set one deadline at the end of four weeks, for example, you’ll fill that entire four weeks with the work for that project, probably not very efficiently.
It’s like defining one big bucket for the project and your time will expand to fill the bucket. Instead, try setting a final deadline AS WELL AS micro-deadlines throughout various stages of the process.
By defining these smaller “buckets” based on the specific tasks in each phase of your project, you can better keep your work contained to those individual buckets, making you more efficient overall and only spending the time necessary to complete each task.
Time Management Tip #2:
It’s time you utilized time-blocking on your calendar
This was by far the biggest game-changer for both of us, and it’s incredibly simple.
What exactly is time-blocking?
Think of every hour on your calendar as one “block.”
Realistically define how many “blocks” you have available for deep client work each week (by deep client work we just mean the actually doing of the creative thing, not answering emails or hanging on social media).
Then, schedule your clients by blocking off these hours on your calendar each week.
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Not only will time-blocking help you with your client flow, but you’ll have a clear sense of what you should be working on each hour and that will help you avoid that feeling of time slipping through the cracks.
Time-blocking is also a great way to block off the things you want to make more time for aside from work like family, new creative projects, fitness or say building a new digital product.
Time Management Tip #3:
Make sure you estimate your client projects accurately
Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
With every client proposal you send out, make sure you’re estimating exactly how many hours you’ll spend on it and doing what tasks.
Then… and this is the key… as you complete the actual project, make sure you’re using a time-tracking tool like Toggl to track your time and match each part of the process up to your estimate.
Remember that you’re being paid based on this time estimate, and every hour you go over, the value of your time plummets.
The closer you stick to your estimate, the more efficient your projects will be.
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If you’re looking for a step-by-step program to help you launch digital products, you might want to check out our program, Build Without Burnout Academy.
This is a six-month guided program teaching client-based business owners how to transition to digital products, without losing your sanity in the process. Get weekly course videos, monthly calls for accountability and support, plus get access to the rest of our courses and Slack community inside our Wandering Aimfully Membership.
How To Manage Your Time Better
Let’s recap the time management tips for client-based business owners
#1 Set micro-deadlines for every stage of a client project
One big deadline for a client project is good in theory but not great in practice. Sure, you can still use a project completion deadline, but you should also create micro-deadlines along the way (we recommend weekly milestones for micro-deadlines).
#2 Utilize time-blocking on your calendar
Look at your calendar as a group of available blocks. Instead of just saying you’re going to get XYZ part of a client project accomplished in a day, break bigger tasks into 30-60 minute blocks and put them directly on your calendar.
#3 Correctly estimate the time allocated for every project
Incorrectly estimating the time it takes to complete a client project is the fastest way to run a business that isn’t profitable. Your time IS money and you need to estimate it and track it properly. Use a time-tracking product like Toggl and you’ll start to figure out exactly how long your work ACTUALLY takes and you’ll get better at estimating client projects.
Time management may seem boring and rigid, but coming up with a system that works and sticking to it is WAY better than being exhausted all the time.
Working nights and weekends, and not getting paid what you’re worth is not a healthy way to live or run your business. When you have a client-based business, your TIME is your money-making asset so it’s important to use it wisely.
Just implementing a few of these changes could drastically improve your well-being AND your bottom line.
January 13, 2019
Our Unique Wedding and Our Unconventional Thoughts on Marriage
Episode Summary
A few years ago we found ourselves at an impasse: Caroline had one idea of what she wanted for our wedding and Jason had a completely different idea. While we were both 100% committed to each other and our relationship, we also found that the topic of being married was different for both of us.
How did we get on the same page when it came to our wedding?
What did we do for an engagement (hint: you’ll never guess!)?
Why do we think the idea of marriage may not be for everyone?
In this episode, we break down how we went from looking at a wedding from two separate perspectives and eventually landing on our own dream unique celebration (on a cliff, drinking tequila and eating donuts – no joke!)
We also share some thoughts related to relationships in general, which may help you if you’re in a committed relationship and feel like you and your significant other aren’t on the same page with what to do next.
QUESTION FOR YOU: Did this episode give you a new frame of reference for your own relationship? We’d love to hear about it! (Feel free to comment with your answer on YouTube).
January 8, 2019
How To Pick The Right Digital Product Idea
You want to create a digital product so all your business revenue isn’t tied to trading hours for money, but you have multiple product ideas you’ve been thinking about.
If you have no idea how to pick the best digital product idea to pursue, we have three simple and tips to help you narrow it down. Ready to choose ONE idea to focus on so you can start building and making additional money? Let’s do it!
(Ps. You can watch this post in video form here:)
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Download The Choosing A Product Idea Worksheet –
No Email required!
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We know it’s unconventional, but we’re happy to give away some of our resources without making you give us your email address first. That said, if you DO find this article and this worksheet helpful, sign up for our newsletter where we share worksheets like this every Monday.
Picking A Digital Product Idea Tip #1:
Choose the product with the most natural fit for your existing audience
One big mistake we often see business owners make is that they build a small audience related to their service, but then want to create a product on a completely different topic out of left field.
Is this you right now? Maybe it’s motivated by boredom because you spend all your time on your main service offering, or maybe it’s just because you’re multi-passionate. Either way, you’re likely making it harder on yourself by trying to reinvent the wheel.
Digital products sell best when you have a captive audience who needs what you’ve created.
Even if you have an email list of 500 people or a small social media following, that group of people is already paying attention to what you’re doing and that’s a valuable asset.
If you’re short on time and you want your first product to offset some of your client income, help yourself out by choosing the idea that’s the most natural fit with the small audience you already have.
What does your existing audience need? What are they interested in? Start where you are, get some momentum and THEN you can always create that other “left field” product later on down the road.
Picking A Digital Product Idea Tip #2:
Try validating one or two of your product ideas by launching pre-orders
Want to know which of your product ideas is most viable? Quit guessing and instead put your ideas to the real test by asking people to pre-pay for them!
Pre-selling is our favorite way to ensure we don’t waste time building something that nobody wants.
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Refine one or two of your ideas enough to put up a simple sales page, and promote the page or pages to your audience. Of course, be sure to let them know it’s a pre-sale, and they may have to wait a while to receive the final product.
Set a benchmark for yourself for how many presale orders you need in order to justify investing the time building the product.
This has two benefits. #1: It will show you if there’s enough interest in your idea to make it financially viable BEFORE you carve out time to build it. And #2: It will make you set a deadline to deliver your product and an audience to be accountable to, which might just motivate you to finally create what you’ve been meaning to create.
Picking A Digital Product Idea Tip #3:
Go with your gut on what you’re most excited about!
Okay, the last two tips are pretty strategic and are based on the assumption that your digital product HAS to make you money right away.
But the truth is, building a product isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t easy when you’re already working on servicing clients with your business.
Enthusiasm, excitement, and passion go a long way in fueling you through the difficulties of bringing your idea to life.
You can over-analyze all you want or strategize which idea will have the greatest impact on your business, but sometimes you just have to go with your gut and make that thing that keeps nagging at your brain.
Maybe it will take your business to the next level, maybe it won’t, but we guarantee you you’ll end up learning a lot and you’ll experience the satisfaction of finally getting that exciting idea out of your brain and into the world.
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If you’re looking for a step-by-step program to help you launch digital products, you might want to check out our program, Build Without Burnout Academy.
This is a six-month guided program teaching client-based business owners how to transition to digital products, without losing your sanity in the process. Get weekly course videos, monthly calls for accountability and support, plus get access to the rest of our courses and Slack community inside our Wandering Aimfully Membership.
How To Pick The Right Product Idea
Let’s recap how to pick the right digital product idea
1. Think about which product best serves the needs of your existing audience
It’s easy to get distracted with all the ideas of unrelated products to what you currently talk to your audience about, but staying focused on what your audience already expects from you will point you in the right direction. Save your “left field” product idea for later on once you get a digital product created and generating revenue.
2. Launch a pre-order to see which idea people are actually willing to pay for
Collecting email addresses and positive sentiments on social media can feel validating for your product idea but the BEST validation tactic is to get people to put their money where their mouths are (you know, without actually doing that because of germs). Don’t be afraid to launch a pre-order before your digital product exists. If you can get your audience to buy into the idea of the product you’ll know you’re onto something!
3. Consider which idea you’re most excited to work on and can’t stop thinking about
When all else fails, listen to your gut. Your intuition exists for a reason and often times guides you in the right direction. If you simply can’t make a decision on which product idea to choose, lay them out in front of you and let your gut decide.
If you want to build a product…
The most important thing is that you stop over-thinking things and start taking action. Use one of these three tips to finally narrow in on a product idea and go all in on making that a reality.
Business is about experimentation and you won’t truly know which idea is right for you until you make a decision, build the thing and learn from the experience.
January 6, 2019
The Things We Wish We’d Known When We Started Our Businesses
Episode Summary
Whether you’re starting a business or you’ve been on your own entrepreneurial journal for over a decade like we have, we’ve got some lessons learned and tips for you in this episode!
When was the last time you set out to plant seeds for your business? No, not actual seeds, but tasks and to-do items that may not bear fruit for many months? This can seem difficult if you’re trying hard to generate revenue right now, but it’s an important way to shift your thinking to play the long-game with your biz.
We also discuss how to use an “experimenter’s mindset” with your business and practical next steps. So much of our positive progress and growth has come from putting our ideas and assumptions to the test (and not counting ideas out before giving them a chance!)
And we chat about comparison traps, dealing with feelings of overwhelm, and focusing on taking imperfect action. Lots of goodies for you this week!
QUESTION FOR YOU: What seeds are you planting for your business this year? (Feel free to comment with your answer on YouTube).
Episode “Sponsor”
Our show will remain sponsor/ad-free and you can support us by becoming a Wandering Aimfully Member. Our monthly membership program offers our brand new program Build Without Burnout as well as “The Vault” (all the courses, workshops, and software you’ll need to run your online business) and you get access to an amazing community of creative small business owners to help inspire, motivate and support you. Learn more about our membership here.
