Below is the transcription of this episode:
Dave: What's going on my friends? This is Dave Sharpe, welcome to Wake Up Legendary and this morning for our 30 and unders are we going to? Are those millennials? I don't know. I'm 30 and over now so I can't be a part of that group anymore. But pay close attention because this 24 year old marketer exploded in the first two months, Shannon, how did you do it?
Shannon: Oh, with TikTok.
Dave: Welcome to the show all the way from New Jersey right?
Shannon: Actually New York right now.
Dave: Okay. Okay, so you're from New Jersey though?
Shannon: Yes, I'm from New Jersey. I'm actually after I started affiliate marketing. I was making enough money that I was able to move to New York and get a nice apartment here. So now I'm settled up in the city.
Dave: So you wanted to get out of Jersey?
Shannon: Yes
Dave: My wife's from Jersey. Where in Jersey are you from?
Shannon: Down the shore. So like Central Jersey. I know. They say central it doesn't exist but Central Jersey.
Dave: Okay, okay. You wanted to go to New York, right?
Shannon: Yeah, cause I actually, I went to college in San Diego. So I was out there for five years. And then once COVID hit, I decided to come home kind of wait out the pandemics. I don't want to pay those Diego rat races. And then I was kind of itching to just get out of Jersey. Again. So New York seems like a good option. So here I am.
Dave: So instead go and pay those New York prices. Which have always been high.
Shannon: Honestly, they've all Yeah, now they've always been high and San Diego is pretty high too. So it wasn't like too much of a shock. Like I feel like if I went from paying rent, like somewhere in the Midwest, and then I'm moving to New York, like seeing these grades.
Did you consider Indiana I mean, I heard that's hot. Man. You're in the morning in your business. You know what you can afford, right? Right. So yeah, gratifications on living your dreams.
Dave: New York. One of my favorite cities in the world. Seriously? I love New York. So what were you doing before you found legendary and how did you find us?
Shannon: So I'll kind of rewind so when the pandemic first hits, I'm a personal trainer. I was in San Diego. I was personal training out of a gym, then obviously that shut down I couldn't do in person training anymore. So my goal has always been to graduate college to have an online business. I wanted to have freedom. I wanted to be able to remotely set my own hours. So I was like, this is the perfect time to let me build an online fitness business. So I worked with three different business coaches. I spent about a little over a year and a half trying to build that and at the end of the day, it just was not what I had expected. So I thought I was going to have freedom. I thought it was going to be like a walk in the park but I was glued to my phone and laptop for like 10 hours every day constantly chasing clients doing my lead jet, my marketing my content creation, my sales like everything. And so finally in June, I was just so burned out. I was like this is not what I expected. This is also kind of making me hate personal training, which I love. So I think I need to take a step back from it. So that was in June. And I knew that I wanted to move to the city. But I had no income at that point. But I was like I know I'm gonna move no matter what. Like that's already decided. I just have to Yeah, I was just like, I have to figure out how I'm gonna be able to do it. Um, so I was on Tik Tok one day and I followed another girl who was in Legendary m\>arketer and I kept seeing her stuff and seeing herself and seeing her stuff. And at that point, I was like, I guess I have nothing to lose like I keep seeing all these people talking about affiliate marketing. I was like I have nothing to lose at this point. Like I know that I want to be able to work remotely. I want to be able to work for a few hours a day and have my business kind of run itself. And that's kind of what it seems like this business model was all about. So I signed on to the 15 day challenge I loved that I loved to kind of like that. Like I said the business model of all of this and my business advisor Grant was amazing, super helpful with everything. So I ended up signing onto the blue branch and from there everything has just taken off and been steadily increasing over the last I started at the end of July for about five months.
Dave: Wow. So you're crushing it now and you're not homeless in New York?
Shannon: Yeah, not homeless in New York crashing in the house. I would say that I've had really, really good success with the whole program.
Dave: Well, that's fantastic. Congratulations. But so this is this is there's a lot of lessons I think in what you just said just to kind of tease apart for people. But the first one is that whenever you're going to start a business, it's very, it's very, it can be very misleading because you think that you're just gonna walk in and be the boss and you're just gonna have passive income you're going to have freedom I'm going to you know not work for anybody anymore. I'm going to be able to call the shots but if you but you only eat what you hunt and kill right I mean not to be morbid, but you literally are in charge of feeding yourself. So now you don't have leads being fed to now you don't have customer service being taken care of for you. Now you don't have all these other things that maybe you had previously in your job and that we also have in affiliate marketing and I'll get to that here in a second. But whenever you're running an agency or whenever you're running a business, even with full transparency, if you're creating your own course, your own coaching program or your own event, which in a sense, you were kind of running your own coaching program. You're in charge of all the facets of the business, right? Whereas in what you were talking about, I had to get clients and now I have to take I have to actually I've got clients yeah, I've got clients, but now I gotta serve those clients. So now I have no more time to go get clients, it becomes this sort of you become it's really easy to get overwhelmed.
Shannon: 100% And I think another thing going off of that, that I learned with that that helped me be successful with this is when I first started so I had gone through three different business coaching programs like fitness business coaches, specifically. And I think obviously online and these days everybody likes to glamorize everything. Same thing with affiliate marketing, it's like making $10,000 a month of passive income with the fitness business. It's like the same thing as XYZ and they make it seem like it's a walk in the park. It's so easy, and it's not. So I think that learning that from that experience, and bringing that into this and really kind of knowing I need to show up I need to put in the work every day and I need to learn and grow helped me immensely because like I know that it is possible what I can be doing. But I know from experience, it's not going to happen unless you actually put in the time and work and effort.
Dave: Marketers are going to sell unrealistic expectations. So, because even if you so you turn around and we're selling make money online training products, Legendary whatever it is, if you went out and said hey, you know what, this is gonna require more commitment than anything you've ever done. This is gonna require you know, this is gonna require you just, you know, stay home on Fridays, but some nights is gonna require you to, you know, fork over, you know, some serious time and money if you're committed and you want to do this, like that's not a sexy sales message. And that's the same with everything. You know what I mean? Like, that's the same with everything. Marketing is selling the best case scenario, and then giving the disclosure, you know how with the medications that they put on the commercials on TV, it's like, you see the people running through a field of flowers, and then they're like, this also could kill you. You could have permitted 15,000 heart attacks in the next hour. You know, so, it's selling the unrealistic, it's selling the best case scenario. And, and I think what I've tried to do over the years is I've tried to find some middle ground in still marketing with hype and excitement, not not hype, like the way you would think of hype. I mean, passion. But marketing. I think when you think the way to bring it to the center is to be more authentic and more transparent. And for us, we've been able to just showcase a bunch of success stories like having actually interviewed our clients. That's been the way that I think we've been able to say, hey, look, we don't really need to use hype because we just talk to our students and talk to our clients. Yeah. But what I was getting at was the fact that affiliate marketing I think is the only business model that allows you to really have one singular focus, which is marketing and not have to worry about all the other facets of the business, all the customer service, all the product creation. That's kind of what I was getting at. Yeah, so at least there's that right at least your only focus right now starting out as affiliate marketing. If you want to go to coaches, courses, events in the future, I have confidence you can do that. But I feel like it gives you a little bit more breathing room to only have to focus on one facet of the business, which is the marketing and if you never want to leave that you don't have to and it's not you don't have to worry about like if you want to spend 10 Hours a Day Marketing, that's great, but usually you don't have to.
Shannon: Yeah, definitely. And I feel like myself as a marketer, because when I first started I had no idea how to market like I had a little bit of knowledge from my previous business, but still I wasn't good at it. So I think having that kind of one singular focus has helped me so much to become a better marketer which can be applied to other things that obviously just affiliate marketing so I feel like that has been great.
Dave: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So what were some of the lightbulb moments as you're going through that? I mean, what are some of the things that were aha moments for you?
I think so when I first started affiliate marketing, honestly I had really no idea. So I think just learning about how basically every company has affiliate programs, so you can promote basically any products that you might find today like most people have an affiliate program, which is super cool. I also think it's awesome how you can promote multiple programs at once you have like no limit on it. And then I think the biggest thing for me, as I previously mentioned, going through the trainings, was learning how much power tic toc has and how much you can leverage leverage that to be successful and 2021
Shannon: Yeah, yeah, it's insane. And there'll be something else that comes along. It's more powerful than this. I mean, before it was Instagram before it was Facebook before it was LinkedIn. And you know that all the marketers kind of come in and, you know.
Dave: Absolutely, you know, the one thing I agree with Gary Vee is that marketers screw everything up. Because we just, you know, we just we, we take over it like vultures on a dead carcass. You know what I mean? It's, it's, it's unbelievable, but TikTok. They're figuring out how to have stain power there. And it's just as powerful today as it was a couple of years ago. Which is, which means that you know, it's the easiest platform that I've ever seen that somebody could get on and start marketing with. There will be something else that comes along and it's just as easy that's just more powerful. But since TikTok is here, what are some of the things that have worked for you? What are some of the things that you could bullet point to say these things are really these are strategies or these are things not to do or or whatever that that you could kind of summarize in a couple of bullet points for us.
Shannon: Yeah, definitely. So I think the thing that has helped me the most on TikTok is seeing what is viral and what the trends are and hopping on that so I personally follow a lot of accounts of people who like specifically hunting for the trends. They'll say this is on the come up this week, like he's this sound and apply it this way, or just scrolling down my TikTok feed, I'm always looking for different sounds, and seeing how I can apply that to my business. So I think that probably figuring out viral trends and viral sounds has been the biggest game changer for me because I'll spend like two minutes on a video with a viral sound not thinking it's going to do anything and it's going to have a billion views. And then I spend like half an hour on a video I guess like 10. So also going off of those views aren't important. It's more important to be consistent or to be consistent than to focus on the amount of views that each video is getting, but I think for me like I said, using viral sounds, trends and videos has been the biggest thing for me that's helped.
Dave: And with these, you're not just like, tell how you are using the viral sounds and trends, are you integrating that into your topic? So you're not just using them in dancing or doing something that's just kind of funny and hoping that goes viral? You're, you're integrating that particular trend which the trend might mean like a specific movement right or a specific talk give us some more specifics so we can have some clarity.
Shannon: For like viral sounds. For example, a lot of them will play music or it'll play like sequences of music and during one like you say something that you're happy about and then the next one, you say something that sits in the back of your mind that was like because that's just an example. But so I would find something like that. And I would see how I can apply it to my business.
Dave: Yeah, so you can apply it to your topic, right? Yeah.
Shannon: So I can apply it to whatever topic that I'm talking about. So that way because there's no point in getting a viral video if it's not going to be helping your business at the end of the day. So if I post one with just like dancing to a viral trend, like that's not helping me that's also attracting the wrong audience that I want. So I always try to apply everything to whatever topic that I'm talking about. Or if it's a sound and I don't really know how to apply it to something like business related. I'd just like to make a post talking about something because my niche is how to make money online. So I'll make a post talking about something in my niche and then I'll just have that music playing in the background.
Dave: Yeah, sounds It's interesting. It's interesting how just using sounds you know, trendy sounds, and, and so forth. I think I talked about this with the mastermind. That you're you're and I kind of drew the chart out kind of like it's like it's like an it's like an L and you know, like the higher like say creativity is over here. And then your income is down here. And it's like one of those charts like you'd see like with the stock market or or whatever Bitcoin or whatever. The higher the higher your income goes based on your creativity. So like your creativity, if your creativity is over here, your income if your creativity sucks, and like you it's just you'll see your income will always flatline and stay low. So like with a lot of this stuff. It's really about finding, it's really about finding how I can integrate these trends and these songs into my topic? And how can I even put my own little spin on it? You know, I'll never forget who's a part of our communities crushing it lately, you know, had a video that had some ungodly amount of millions of views. He used a great hook. He was talking about Apple jobs that we're hiring for $18 An hour or something but he started the video off with an apple on his finger and it just, you know, he drilled a little hole in the Apple or whatever, and then had an MD just thought it was really cool. And those, those creative little little pieces, catch somebody's attention and get them to pay attention. So you know, there's a lot of guys and gals, particularly in fitness, who show off their bodies to get people's attention. But since you're and make money online, and that's not the attention that you're particularly looking to get. You're also having to be creative with how you use trends, how you create content, what would you or what would you either add to that but I also wonder what would you say to yourself, or or do differently what since based on what you know, now vs when you started?
Shannon: I think based on what I know now versus what I started I think one big thing that I've learned is the TikTok Gods are hard to please. So they like to flag you for any and everything. So I think that I've learned a lot about certain words that you want to avoid or certain texts that you want. To avoid putting it on the screen. Because sometimes, like I, that algorithm is just so crazy. And so sometimes my videos get flagged for no reason or I'll repost an old video, and that gets flagged and taken down when the original one didn't. So I think it's been a learning curve of learning how to keep Tik Tok happy. So that was a big thing. Also, I think, in the beginning, I didn't really know about the virality factor and trying to, like I said, use those sounds and trends to get everything going. So I think if I was to start from square one again, I would be more cognizant of the words that I use hashtags that I use everything like that, so that way, not getting flagged and like not allowed to post for a few days. And then think that's the biggest thing because I think from day one, I've been pretty consistent on it was say three to five times a day and using the relevant hashtags, which is always good. So I think the biggest thing I said is just keeping TikTok happy and staying on a good base with them.
Dave: So do you have a backup backup account going or do you have multiple channels going right now? When are you also downloading the videos that you're posting onto your own phone or devices?
Melissa: Yeah, so I always download my videos. I have them just auto saved to my phone and then I'll go and snap text. I can take off the watermarks that way I can repost them on Instagram because on Instagram I'm really lazy with my account. All I do is repost my reels. I don't post any pictures like that. So I always have them saved. I actually just made a backup account like a week ago so I was like I think it would be good to just start reposting on there just to have it just in case because you know like TikTok so hit or miss don't mistake my account on Monday. So I just made a backup one just to be safe, but I'm still posting on my main one.
Dave: Do you have a different perspective now about how you could be more leveraged in the fitness niche now that you've gone through? Our training is kind of, you know, marketing the way that you are now versus the one on one kind of serving clients doing personal training? Maybe virtually or whatever. Do you see how you could go into any niche that you wanted to, especially when you're passionate about fitness differently and with more leverage, meaning that doing things one to many versus one on one versus how you saw things before?
Shannon: Yeah, definitely. I think that I have a whole new perspective on good marketing and that was one of the biggest like I should have mentioned that aha moments. When I first started was going through all of the marketing trainings that you guys have compared to my previous business coaches and what I learned with them, I was like, I feel like I have been just like duped for the last year and a half like all of the marketing advice that I've given, obviously was not successful. Business didn't do too great. But going through the program and learning your guys' marketing advice, I was like, I wish I would have known this a year and a half ago because then my fitness essence probably would have been thriving. So I think that I have definitely learned how to go into any niche that I want, and how to really attract the right clients that I want. And also another big thing going hand in hand with that is content creation for your nation for your target audience, which I think I have a way better idea of how to do
Dave: Yeah. It's really nowadays on social media that is even more so about edutainment than ever before. Like especially on the front end like on TikTok like going into long spiels or pitching your products or I see people on Facebook who are pitching fitness services and and you know it just comes across as pitchy. When you really have to suck people into your world. And the way that you do that is edutainment, the education that you are doing has to be done in an entertaining way. The way that we luckily are able to do that on TikTok is with a lot of these trends and sounds and we can join in. It's a lot easier than if you don't even have to be a copywriter like you don't even have to be able to do long form video. Like we once had to do when we had YouTube only as a video platform service. So you know yeah, like you can do a you can be in the fitness niche and never even talk to a single client. Because you're just creating edutainment content on say tick tock or on say Instagram and then pointing people to different affiliate offers maybe dropping your own ebook or something. Maybe doing a webinar that you sell, and you do once or twice a month that you sell for 37 or $99 a month and you give people some one of your secret strategies or something like that. I mean, the one on one model is powerful as it can be in some kind of areas like therapy or like psychiatry or certainly like or like, you know, you're getting your body operated on in some way, shape or form. You need to physically be there and you need to be one on one with somebody. But I mean even telemedicine. is going digital and even workouts nowadays are going. I get up when I get on my peloton. And you know, I'm watching a ditch. I'm watching one person doing the exercise leading the class to many live people. And then there's tons of people like me who usually are catching the replay. Like the game has just officially changed in so many niches and a lot of people have not yet caught up.
Shannon: Yeah, definitely. And I think going off of something else that you said. That really struck me as well as you came in kind of factor of it. With my previous marketing. It was all just education, education education, because it was so difficult in the way that it was explained to me I guess it was very difficult to grasp the concept of how to entertain and educate. So with your program I feel like everything was just laid out so easily. Like it was just so easy to understand from day one. So the whole edutainment kind of factor. I think that that has been the biggest kind of game changer for me finding the balance between both entertainment and education. I think that is another thing that has helped me completely skyrocket instead of just all focusing on these are the facts I want you to learn. Yeah, keeping it fun because nobody likes to be throwing facts all day and nobody likes to be educated all day long. So that whole factor and how easy you make it to understand and apply was like one of the biggest game changers.
Dave: If they want to be educated, they'll raise their hand and say, Yeah, I want your education like I'm willing to pay for it. But ultimately, the reason why they're on any social media platform is to be entertained. Yeah. So that has to be the number one thing and one of the great pieces of feedback that like Sarah Ravel got this weekend from Brian Brewer at our mastermind was that as Brian was watching her original account, that's why I ask if you had a backup account too because she lost a big account. He said it felt like a soap opera. And like the more that you make your content in your journey, feel like a soap opera meaning that you add an element you tell the story if you can control the story or it can be your personal life like, you know what I mean? Like it doesn't it doesn't have to be your personal life. Like you can create the narrative like you can write the script of whatever you show on social media. Because well that's what people have been doing with sitcoms and movies and shows forever, right? It's only recently that reality TV became popular and even that, you know, is a bit scripted. So all of that is there for entertainment on the front end and then monetize on the back end. Look at the other I think or Kaylee Jenner, whatever that has the billion dollar makeup brand on the back end like the cheese never pitching. She's never pitching makeup. She's never pitched makeup. She's only entertained. And she's only been you know, whatever. But she's never, it's that her channels have never been out of makeup. It's just that she sucked people in with her content. And then she just Oh happens. Here's the makeup that I use. And like that's how she's built a billion dollar company. So I think I really understand that, that you know how there're many different ways to entertain. It doesn't have to just be dancing on video. With the journey it can be with your story it can be with where you're going. Yeah, we're all part of the soap opera part of the show that people come back and tune into to kind of follow your journey if you will.
Shannon: Yeah, definitely. And I think going off of that something I can relate to my fitness business. And this is like people want the life that you're living like the lifestyle that you're living. It's not so much about how much money you can make. It's about having freedom. It's about being able to go on vacation and not have to request PTO. It's about being able to be in control of your own income honestly. So people aren't so interested in what you do. But they're interested in how they can get to have that freedom in that life experience as well.
Dave: Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point there they're not interested in the how, you know, they're interested in the what and the why right in the who in the hope there's a great book by a guy named who, who not how he's it. He owns Strategic Coach. It's kind of a coach for CEOs and executives and business owners. His name's Dan. I forget his last name, but the concept is who do you need in your life? Who do you need in your business? To help you get to where you want to go? Not how. Right and it's not that I need to figure out and learn a skill. It's not that I need to figure it all out myself. It's Who do I need to hire? Who do I need to either hire as a coach or who do I need to hire as a person in my business? And in this case, from an onlooker to a marketer or somebody who's on social media? It's way more than who you are, who you know, who you are in your life, in and like what you're doing and how you deliver the content. Versus like they woke up and said, Oh, I need to learn affiliate but they don't give a shit. If you would tell them if they like you. And you were like, look, I'm going to show you the easiest way to make a million dollars here is all you need is a hotdog stand and I'm going to show you how to just post it up on the corner down on it's only going to cost you a couple $1,000 to buy and I got I'm telling you, you are going to live the happiest life and make a million people would be starting hot dog businesses all over it the How does it matter? Yeah, it's the who in how the who delivers the content to in half and how the who delivers the lifestyle you're so right about that. That's like a very big boulder asking for a golden nugget that you just dropped right there because he erases your business model. Nobody cares about all the details of your drop shipping or affiliate marketing or Amazon like people are willing to do anything if they trust you. And if it seems like you have what they want.
Shannon: Yeah, definitely. And I think going off of that as well and something that I usually do for people on my success is to build that like no like trust factor. Always say in my videos or comment back to people and message me on my instagram if you want any help with it. Um, so I feel like all day long. I have conversations with people on my Instagram asking me questions about my experience. And so I feel like that's what I leverage to build that knowledge and trust factor and it's done really well for me because a lot of people are skeptical about things. So just having a one on one conversation with them, letting them know that I'm like a real person. Really has helped me.
Dave: Yeah, very cool. Very cool. Well, thank you for your time today, Shannon, it's been very enlightening to talk to you. And I think even though I started off talking about you know, 30 and unders like there's nuggets that all ages can take from you and it just is such a great example that no matter who I am, no matter how old I am, no matter where I come from, I can learn from anybody. And if I want to be successful in this business, I humble myself and be open to wherever the nuggets are gonna come from and you drop a lot today. So thanks for your time. Keep up the great work. Stay legendary and if you will come back and keep us posted here in a couple of months.
Shannon: Definitely. Thank you for having me on. I'm glad that I could drop some little nuggets of wisdom. I know everybody on here always helps me out tons with all their advice, so I'm happy to get practice.
Dave: Yeah, cool. Cool. Stay cool. Stay Legendary. We'll talk to you soon. Okay. All right. You can go and follow Shannon on TikTok and Instagram at hustlewithshan. And clearly, hearing her talk about what she does and seeing what she does. We'll probably put together a perfect picture to explain it even more. And clearly she is somebody who is awesome and totally deserves to be lifted up and supported. How do we support each other? Well, we like each other stuff. We comment on each other's stuff. You know what I mean? Like, drop somebody a comment. You know what I mean? Even don't be don't be a ghost out there, like support fellow members of this community. Just by trying to make them look better out there on the internet. You know what I mean? Giving them some support, you know, don't just DM them. Don't just pm them. You know what I mean? Like going leave a public comment on their stuff like that helps. That's a game changer. Like that's a commitment that I'd like everybody to make who's listening and watching right now and I'm going to be pushing this even more and more and more. Because everybody goes and they follow people and they're like, oh, what's their what's their handle? Like I want to go in stock their stuff and all this no, go and support their stuff. Go and publicly let them know. Not even just on the show. We love the comments and the feedback. I try to read as many as I can but go and support the actual person by leaving them a public comment letting them know how awesome they are. And she's certainly worthy and deserving of that so get out of here my friends we'll see you back here tomorrow for another episode of Wake Up Legendary get out of here. Stay great, be Legendary. And we'll talk to you later. Peace.
