PP 008: The Delights of Disruptive Marketing with Matt Giovanisci

Money Lab: www.MoneyLab.co
Matt Wants to be on Your Podcast Page: https://www.moneylab.co/dingle/
Give Me Your Email Address Page: https://www.moneylab.co/email/
Roasty Coffee: https://www.roastycoffee.com/
Swim University: https://www.swimuniversity.com/
Listen Money Matters Podcast: https://www.listenmoneymatters.com/go/itunes
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattGiovanisci

Kim: Welcome back to Influx Academy. This is Kim Sutton, and you’re going to learn about better leads, bigger lunches and larger profits. And I’m so thrilled to have with us today Matt Giovanisci – Matt, did I get that right?

Matt Giovanisci: You nailed it.

Kim: OK. Awesome.

Matt: And it’s Sootun, right?

Kim: Sootun, yes.

Kim: I’m going to give you Matt’s quick bio, but then I have to tell you how I found him and how we got introduced. But, Matt is an entertaining entrepreneur, web site wizard, music maker, video veteran, and alliteration addict – He said I could simplify it to serial entrepreneur but I think the longer version is so much more fun.

Kim: So I can’t remember if I already said welcome, I’m just so excited to have you here. So welcome, Mat.

Matt Giovanisci: Well, thanks for having me.

Kim: You’re welcome. So Matt and I, actually, well I found Matt – I can’t say he necessarily found – but in a Facebook group, apologies but I don’t remember which one, but Matt put out this phenomenal page on his website about a month ago. I’d love for you to tell the listeners about that page and what it has done for your business so far.

Matt: Sure. So and we are talking about the “Matt Wants to be on Your Podcast” page?

Kim: Yes, exactly.

Matt: There’s other ones too that I can talk about.

Kim: Oh I can’t wait to find those. Yes please.

Matt Giovanisci: I have a bunch like Easter eggs all over my site. So, yeah. The “Matt Wants to be on your Podcast” started as a PR stunt that I was kind of toying with, which was you know, I want to build Money Lab, I want to build the email list, I want to gain an audience. And I’m not really doing it through SEO and through consistent traffic, so I have to do these small little PR stunts here and there. And this wasn’t the first one I’ve done, but the idea was, you know, how do I get on a bunch of podcasts, like with very little effort, but also make the act of getting on those podcasts worth talking about. So it was just like it was like a two way sort of PR move.

And so I’ve hosted a very successful podcast for a long time called Listen Money Matters. I am a podcast producer. I am very familiar with the podcast scene and I know what podcasters are looking for in their guests, and I know that booking guests is one of the hardest things to do unless you’re just super popular and people just like flood your inbox.

Kim: Amen.

Matt Giovanisci: So I wanted to – instead of me with the original… You know normally if you want to get on a bunch of podcasts you put together what’s call one sheet, which I found out after I did this project that that was the technical name for it, and you put together this this one sheet, this one page, and you know make a list of all the podcast that you want to pitch. And you, you know, basically try to find their email addresses and then you pitch all of them who you are and why you should be on their show or why you think you’d make a great guest on their show or you’d have your assistant do it so you look bigger than you really are. Whatever.

That’s normally the case, and in fact when I ran the podcast for so long that’s how we were always pitched. You know, we as a podcast went out and found who we want on the show, but we got pitched often once our show got super successful. And so, I thought, “Well, what if my one sheet or my one page was so ridiculous – like so, such an insane thought in process and funny and all these things that if I just like posted it on social media that the actual page itself was so unique that it would spread to a bunch of podcasters saying like, “Look what this guy did.” and then those podcasters would be like I need to get this guy on my show.

That was the thought. And so, it originally started out as I wanted to build a landing page where I talked about myself and why I make a good guest. And I think it was the having goofy pictures of me and all these different reasons and why I would make a guest, and it started out with, you know, “I should be a great guest because I’m funny. I’ll deliver value to your show. And I’ve done a rap video about podcasting. And I own like really expensive podcasting equipment, and I’ve hosted a show before that was successful, and I have a smooth voice” and all these just goofy things like.

I also offered podcasters like intros they could use for me. I offered images that they could use that they could crop themselves into with Photoshop, and all these different like ideas that I kind of threw on the page. And once I finished it – because it took a couple days to make. I didn’t just slap it together because I wanted to make sure that the delivery and the jokes would land well.

And when I looked at it I was like, “This isn’t funny. There’s something wrong with this.

And the reason – that my girlfriend pointed out to me – was because I was talking in the first person so it sounded really douchey when I was saying, like, “I have expensive podcasting equipment” and “I am very valuable” and “I’m very funny.” And when you say it that way it’s like, “Wow this guy’s conceited. I don’t really want to have him on my show.

But, changing it to the third person – so instead of saying “I am… I have expensive podcasting equipment” it is, “Matt has expensive podcasting equipment. You know the same podcasting equipment that Mark Merrin uses. So of course you have to have him on the show. How insane would you be for not having him.

So it became a way to like, angle it so I could be more self-deprecating, which is what I wanted it to come out as, and I also wanted to be more ridiculous. And I think you know kind of switching it to third person really helped with it.

And, you know, I took pictures in my office with a DSLR. I actually had it on… This is really funny because you can actually see this. There’s a whole behind the scenes that I wrote on Medium on how I did this page and… The really funny part about it, which is super behind the scenes is… In order to take all the pictures of myself on that site, I just set up my… I have two soft boxes in my office for lighting, and I set up my DSLR – it’s a 70D Canon, you know, a hundred thousand bucks or something like that – and I just filmed myself. Like a straight like, like 20 minutes of film of me just posing in different things, and then I took that and imported it into my computer and then took screen shots of the best positions.

So there’s a video out there that I put on YouTube of me just posing randomly in front of a camera because that’s how I did it.

So that’s why that all came about, and I think when it was all said and done I ended up booking about 30 podcast interviews. I think I ended up booking like 20 in the first 24 hours, because that’s when it like kind of went minor viral. It didn’t go like crazy crazy but it did get spread in a few Facebook groups, and it may have gotten, you know, on a few like, private stuff and got passed around or whatever.

And so…

Kim: I just thought it was hilarious.

Matt Giovanisci: Yea, I booked a lot really quick, so.

Kim: Right. You just blew my mind though, like, and I think you’ve probably just blown the mind of a whole bunch of listeners with how you recorded yourself in a video and then took screenshots. Because so many people – me included – we don’t have money to keep on doing photo shoot after photo shoot after a photo shoot to get all these great poses.

Matt Giovanisci:Yeah right. To be honest I’ve done it before where I’ve taken selfies with my iPhone because I have to take pictures of me. With a little bit of Photoshop skills you can… It doesn’t have to be… Well, all my images were in black and white and they had a high pass filter over them, so they have a little grungier look to them. And that was to sort of sharpen up the images because they were taken as screen shots.

So there’s just little tricks that I did after the fact to make it look super professional when really it kind of wasn’t professional. I mean, these are… We’re talking about, you know, a 1080 video that I took screen shots. We’re talking about a very low res final product but that I kind of, you know, just through some Photoshop stuff over and, you know, made it.

And of course I, you know, I did a trick where the photos black and white but I colored certain things within me. So like my shirt might be blue in one image, or like, all the buttons on my mixing board are all colorful so I made the color and the rest of it black and white. So just little, you know, design tricks to kind of mask the fact that I used a video camera to take pictures of myself.

Kim: How true do you would you say that this page is? Like is this… Personally from everything that we’ve talked about so far, I thought that was pretty awesome and I think even just on our pre-show.

But the reason I asked this is because I think a lot of people – me included – get stuck in that rut where they feel like they have to do what everybody else is doing.

Matt Giovanisci: Yes.

Kim: And they’re afraid of expressing their own voice and being real. How do you think that your page has been reflected the true Matt?

Matt: Well, so it isn’t me. It’s a character of me.

Kim: Right.

Matt Giovanisci: I… You know, this is not… I don’t go around smiling like that all day. You know, making goofy comments and talking about myself in the third person. I am really into comedy, and I am…. I’ve been doing my I’ve been (??) for quite a few years. And, since I started… Like, I guess my whole life has been like, I’m a ham. That’s my stuff.

I like performing. I was in musical theater. I was in regular theater. I like being the center of attention. I try… Whenever I meet new people, like, my goal was to make them laugh. And, I’m an entertainer. That’s who I am.

And when you work from home and you… you know you run… I have sites where, like I have a site and it’s a site that I started back in 2006 and I’ve had it for 10 years. It teaches people how to take care of their pools and hot tubs. And I could have taken that site and been very very serious with it. And a lot of the stuff on the site is semi-serious because it has to be. It’s all chemistry.

But when I first started that site, I just made a vow to myself, like, “I can’t take this seriously.” Like nothing, none of this should be serious, nothing in life should be serious. Like if you can help it.

Like, I mean, I guess as far as like not taking myself seriously, that is true to who I am as a person. So, and my voice – my true voice – is the one you’re hearing right now. I’m not, you know, when I talk on the podcast, it’s a very different. It’s not a different person, but it’s a different, you know I’m not as goofy or funny consistently throughout an entire page. You know I have serious moments and serious thoughts. So when I sit down and create any brand – whatever it is – like Money Lab is my newest brand – it’s a personal brand of mine. You know my goal was to not be myself. That’s always been a very easy thing for me. You know the goal was to have fun and sort of like make fun of what our industry has become and kind of like poke fun and even.

I do that in the pool industry it and the coffee industry. I take the industry that takes itself so seriously, and say, “You know, this isn’t that serious, and nothing is.” Like, we should be making fun of ourselves. We should be self-deprecating. And that’s just my belief when it comes to building any brand.

And so personally I don’t like interacting with brands that are like incredibly serious and take themselves too seriously, when it’s like come on and you’re like.

Kim: Right?

Matt Giovanisci: You know what you sell, right? You know? It’s like, “You sell sponges. Why do you have to be so serious?” You know, “Why so serious.

I do think it is true to me as who I am, but it doesn’t, like, what you’re seeing is not like, you know… I’m not happy go lucky all the time. It’s just, you know, a character in a way. It’s an exaggerated version of me.

Kim: Now I find that so interesting that you were saying, you know, everybody takes everything so seriously. And you’re right. I mean… And your page was truly refreshing.

Just last week, I actually posted a video of one of my twins – he’s a year – giving kisses to my dog on my Facebook page. And let me just say, some people were disgusted.

Matt Giovanisci: Yep, of course they are.

Kim: Because he opens up his mouth and the dog licks him. You know it’s gross but.

Matt: We’ve all done it.

Kim: But it’s funny. But the next day I was accepted to become a contributor to Huffington Post, and a dear friend commented that I might want to be careful what I post – in the future.

Matt Giovanisci: No, I disagree with that. So I’d rather… So this is me and this is my personal opinion. So I… Don’t take this as like “I think you should do this.

I would not be careful. In fact, I would do the opposite of being careful. I would just be genuine. If I truly believe something, then you know… I’m not a bad person. So like what I believe that like bad things. But.

Kim: Oh I don’t… I don’t take it that way.

Matt Giovanisci: It’s not like you’re saying like, “I want all kids to put their mouths on other dogs mouths, like that’s what I believe and…” You know, you’re not going to say that. You’re just like, “Oh this was a joke.

Done. The conversation is over. It was a joke. It happened. There was no way for me to stop it. I filmed it, great, whatever. But to retroactively take things down.

Like I you know in the pool industry I’ve gotten in trouble for writing an article about hot tub sex. And people were like you need to take that down. And I said.

Kim: But it happens.

Matt Giovanisci: It happens. It’s the number one reason people buy hot tubs. To bang in it. And I wrote an article to teach people like, “If you’re going to do that, here’s some safety precautions.” Like here’s, you know.

Remember when the Jersey Shore was a thing? And everyone was saying “You can’t get pregnant in a hot tub.

You can, and you should be careful. So, my article ranks number one in Google for the term “hot tub sex.” And I do get traffic for that article. And people stay on the page and they read it.

They’re not looking for porn.

Like, everyone’s like, “You’re going to get bad people looking for porn.” No I’m not. That’s not what’s going to happen because Google is not stupid. They’re not going to be like… They are not going to serve up something that isn’t, you know, it’s whatever.

And so, so many people in my industry were like, thought it was distasteful, and told me to take it down. And I go, “You guys are just ignoring the fact that this happens.

And it wasn’t as if I was trying to do it as a publicity stunt. I was doing it because I had questions being e-mailed to me and I’m like, “I need to address this.” You know?

I’ve also gotten told, you know, even in the pool industry, saying, “You should take down this infographic showing all these different funny ways to jump into a pool.” It’s a joke. Most of it is a joke, and people are like, “People are going to try this and they’re going to sue you.

No they’re not. First of all they can’t. I’ll put a warning on it. Sure. But no. Like, this is a fun thing. People realize that when I say you know like “Do a triple backflip, you know, twist barrel-roll whatever into the pool” they’re at their risk at that point. It’s their pool. I didn’t encourage them to do it. It’s just an infographic. It’s a graphic.

You know and it’s something that, you know, I… It’s people just taking themselves too seriously, and the industry taking themselves too seriously.

Kim: So I’m still sitting here – quite honestly – I’m just still sitting here shaking my head that people would actually think that they can’t get pregnant in a hot tub.

Matt Giovanisci: Yeah.

Kim: I mean, like, “Hello?! Do you not know how sex happens.

Matt: Yes.

Kim: So, this is just to remind you, you are on Influx Academy. This is not a sex podcast.

Matt: This is not.

Kim: But it’s about being true to, you know, I mean and you don’t have to hide what really happens in life.

Matt Giovanisci: And what I was doing was addressing a problem – or a question – that people had. Like this was a legitimate question. And I’m like, “Oh am I going to not answer this because it has the word “sex” in it? Am I going to you know avoid this topic altogether.

No, I’m going to address it. And you know what. No one else in my industry is because they’re all a bunch of prudes. And I’m going to win. And that’s what happens when I’m true and I’m honest.

And the article was funny. Like, you read that article and you’re like “It’s informational.” There’s education to be had there but it’s also like, kind of tongue in cheek in a way. And so, I think that that is really the crux of it.

And on Money Lab that is my entire marketing strategy, is to say… Look at our industry as like online entrepreneurs, and go… You realize this is all insane, right? This is an.

First of all, it’s insane that anyone can even do this – like nowadays. Like we can work from home. Like, right now… I’m in like gym shorts and sitting at my desk, and I have not showered. I have not left the house. It took me two hours to make breakfast. Like, and I’m getting paid lots of money to just sit here and do basically like very little work.

And the reason this is all possible is insane. It’s an insane thought. And… But everyone’s like “This is so serious. This is my livelihood. This is my business and my passion and like.

Calm down. Just calm down. Let’s take this for what it really is.

Every one of you should be lucky to be where you are right now. And yes, we’ve all worked hard to get where we are, but you’re lucky. You’re a lucky individual. And so let’s have fun.

We’re in this position where we’re working from home. We get to do what we want. Why aren’t we taking advantage of the fact that we can literally have all the fun we want to have and we don’t have to just have fun off the internet and off the computer.

We can have fun on the computer, and with our customers, and with the people that we interact with you know over the Internet. And Money Lab has this.

You know, I have a set of like 10 grand rules that’s on my About Page that I strictly follow. But I’ve done some other pages similar to the “Matt Wants to be a Guest on Your Podcast.” There’s another one I think you’ll really enjoy, which if you go to moneylab.co/email it’s a page called “Give me your e-mail address” or “Can I have your e-mail?” and the whole page… It’s basically just a giant ploy to get your e-mail address from you, by, like, using every single tactic. Pop-ups, slide-in boxes, you know, drop downs. You know, in context, it’s an insane ride as you’re reading it.

That one actually went more viral than the podcast one, because that kind of hit, like a larger audience, and everyone thought like, “Finally, somebody is making fun of this in a very unique way” and how insane this all is.

And even yesterday I saw this tumblr account that was called something like “Opt-out shaming” or something like that. And… You ever see those pop ups that come up and it’s like “Do you want to subscribe to my email list?” You know, “Enter your e-mail. Click ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’” Thanks. “I hate my life and I want to go away or whatever.” Some like random thing that, like clearly that’s not what I think, but you’re shaming me into like “Give me your e-mail address.

Like, I saw an entire page that just found like the most ridiculous messages where it’s like, “No thanks. I would rather just watch Adam Sandler movies.” Like, come on, like what do you like. This is really, like poor taste.

And you can be funny with it and that is tongue in cheek, but like, at a certain point it’s like we should make a joke about how ridiculous it’s all gotten, and how ridiculous it’s going to get, too. Like, this is only I guess is only the be… You know, we just… This online entrepreneur stuff is pretty new and every industry has their like seriousness.

Like the pool industry… God, like the pool industry is so serious. And how ironic is that that the entire industry.

Kim: That blows my mind.

Matt Giovanisci: The industry based on selling.

Kim: Recreation.

Matt Giovanisci: Yea, selling pools. Like literally, people only buy pools like to have fun. And the industry itself is like suits, ties. Like “Don’t talk about… Don’t talk about that.” Come on man. Like, why are we not having fun? And be honest.

Like the coffee industry is another brand that I run. I run a site called Roastycoffee.com, and that has been a little bit more friendlier, and a little bit less taking itself so seriously. But there are a handful of people who have given me, you know, shit for calling the site Roasty for instance, because Roasty apparently is a bad term for like over roasted coffee. And I’m like “OK, whatever.” Or like you know somebody said like “Oh, you’re catering to the wrong people. Blah blah blah.

You know, like shut up! Like, I actually have like… This one little joke that I have there at the site is, I give what’s called “Hipster Tips.” So, like you’re reading a post about how to use a french press and I’ll give like a tip on like, you know, you should preheat the French press you get the maximum amount of… or whatever I say. I label it a hipster tip and my girlfriend drew this little like miniature cartoon hipster guy who’s like drinking coffee and he’s giving this old tip in the thing. And it’s like I’m sure that its derogatory to hipsters, but it’s funny, and so I’m going to continue to run with that, and people are going to enjoy that. And I’m not going to take you know I’m not going to take it down because one guy’s like “Ooh, this is lame.

I’m like, “Alright, see ya. Go to – there’s so many coffee sites, go to someone else’s.”

Kim: No there’s always going to be people who are offended by something. Actually I posted an article a couple months ago. I can’t remember exactly what it was called, it’s on my blog though, and it was something about “Business Tips From the Bedroom” or something like that. And I was just trying to tell about how you know the status of sex just foreplay and climax are sort of similar to, you know, the stages of getting a prospect warmed up and to becoming a client. You know, you sort of tease them and all that, and I personally thought it was funny.

I don’t think a lot of people responded because, you know, they get a little bit concerned about who’s going to see that they like that post.

Matt Giovanisci: Right.

Kim: Right. Or my favorite just recently is – and Matt you should seriously try to take a stab at the womanpreneur community. That’s a joke. But, you know, or the mompreneur community where people are talking about how it makes them so much more effective or efficient if they get up in the morning and take a shower and they get dressed and they put on their makeup and then they get to work.

But it’s the same as what you were just talking about. You’re in gym shorts. But you can’t tell me that getting up and putting on a bra is really going to make you that much more efficient.

Matt Giovanisci: Well it’s helped me.

Kim: Oh, has it? Maybe I just need to get resized.

Matt: Yea, you’ve gotta know your size.

Kim: Yeah. But wow. Yeah.

Matt Giovanisci: I know I had the same issue with people telling me to get up early. Like they’re just like “Oh, you could get up early. Like, you’ll be so much more productive.” And I’m like “Ummmm, that’s for you man.” Like, you know?

So one of the things that I try to avoid on my site – on Money Lab specifically – is I avoid giving advice completely. And when I go out in public, you know, when I talk to my good friends, and they ask me for advice, I will give my advice. But publicly, and to people I don’t know, I won’t give advice.

What I do is… The way I circumvent that is say, “Well here’s what I do…” You know? And I say here’s you know… They’re like, “Do you think I should get up early to like you know get more done.

I’m like, “Well I get up at eight. And then like stay in bed for an hour and read. And then I make a long breakfast and then I work and then I sometimes don’t. And then I work at night sometimes and I go to bed sometimes… Or not. Like, that’s what I do. So I don’t know.”

So I actually have this default e-mail script that, you know, so if anyone wants to e-mail me, I make my e-mail just very public on my web site, and I do get e-mails a lot. And people ask me you know my advice on something, or they’ll ask me like about a business idea they have and my thoughts on it, and my immediate response is, “I don’t know. Go try it. and then tell me what happens.

Because I can speculate all day. I’m very good at giving opinions and speculating and giving advice. Like, I would love to do that, but that’s not doing anyone any favors. That’s me saying like, “Well I don’t really know. My only advice – my biggest advice – is just go and do it like. Go try it.

Because if I try something – like this e-mail page, right? Or I’m sorry, like the podcast page, like Matt Wants to be on Your Podcast. I tried it. It worked very well. but someone else will try to copy it. and they’ll try it. and then it may not work as well. And they’ll be like, “Ugh, that was bad advice from Matt.

It’s like, “Well, I never told you to do it.” You know? But I could have written an article saying like, you know, “Here’s how I got on 30 interviews and you can too.” Now I’m like “Here’s what you need to do. You need to create a page. Be very authentic. Deliver value.” and just spew out bullshit. Oh, you know just kind of like generalized terms that really aren’t helpful, that really aren’t actionable, until you say to somebody, “You know what? I’m not going to tell you how to do this. All I’m going to say is, whatever’s in your brain right now, just go make it happen, and then tell me what happens afterwards, and then I’ll say cool.

You know, I’m not going to have an opinion afterwards either. They’re going to say like, “Hey, you know I tried to build your… you know… I tried to make an email, or you know, get on your podcast page. Didn’t work.” And I’m like “Aw, sucks man.” You know?

Kim: Right.

Matt Giovanisci: That’s my advice. Aw, well at least you tried. Go try something else now instead of wasting your time e-mailing me, because that’s what’s going to happen. I’m just going to tell you, “Go try it.

Because I mean, at the end of the day… like you… I mean early in my career like you have to read. Right? You have to like get as much knowledge as you can, and some people get caught in that trap where they’re just constantly reading, and they’re constantly, you know, looking for an answer or a quick fix because they just haven’t started yet. I mean, when I first came up with the idea for Swim University in 2004, I told everybody.

I was like, “Uh, I got this idea. It’s like going to this website and people are going to be able to like look up stuff, and like get rid of algae real quickly, and I’m gonna be awesome and it’s gonna be funny. It can be fun.

And then people were like, two years later, “You keep talking about this Web site, man. Where the hell is it?”

And then finally, like, my… I was in a band my bass player was like, “You need to do this, like, because I’m gonna punch you if you don’t. Like if you know you don’t make it, because you’ve just been talking about it so much.” And so, I was like “All right.”

And so, kind of like, you know he kinda gave me a kick. And I made it, and then I was like, “Oh wow. Everything I said I was going to do, or maybe some things I was going to do, I ended up not doing. Or some things I kind of did more. And it wasn’t until I started doing it more and more that like I realized, like, oh all of this reading, all of this like, you know, knowledge, it’s really hasn’t helped me.

What really helped, and I got all knowledge from, was actually making it. You know? And I had to learn on the fly, and figure out things as I went, and you know trial and error, and all those things and didn’t have anybody to help me. Because I was in an industry where this didn’t exist. I…

You know, you follow people who run blogs and teach people about blogging, but I was running something totally different, and people really didn’t, you know, couldn’t really help me.

Kim: Well, and you’ve waited, and I do agree. Like there’s people who just keep on learning and learning and learning, and then they keep on pushing it off.

I’m going to come back to there not being anything out there like it in just a moment, but I can’t remember if it was Pat Flynn or John Lee Dumas or maybe even somebody completely different, but one of them said they were procrastinating launching their podcast because they were afraid of failure. Right? And I think that’s a big key for a lot of people, is they’re afraid to just push go because they’re afraid of what’s going to happen.

Matt Giovanisci: You’re going to fail. You’re going to fail immediately. Everyone does. And then somebody will have success as some people get lucky. I mean, when I published Swim University, it took 10 years for it to like it even… Like actually, it took like eight years for it to be my full time income. Eight years. And I failed so many times. Like, I had written stuff for two years and then Panda, like Google Panda hit, and I just… The site got crushed, and I was like ugh.

But you know what? I just kept going. I’m like, “I have to make this work.” You know? And I just kept getting better and better at it.

And you know now I’m at a point where like, I feel more confident to put things out to the world and I know that they’ll do well. But a lot of them are going to like not do well, and not succeed, and you know, I’ll fail at little things here and there. Like, you do.

Like I mean, I put out a sales video and like everyone didn’t like it. And so I was like, “All right. I got to change it.”

And you know, I’m like, you put it out there. You get some feedback from people you trust. And then you reiterate, and you, you know make it better and you keep going.

And our podcast is like… To kind of go back on that is… like we have… I mean, Listen Money Matters is a podcast about personal finance. It’s very successful. But the first eight months we had 200 subscribers, like this whole time. Or 200 downloads in episodes, not even 200 subscribers. And for eight months, and we were putting out episodes left and right. And it just took time. It just took like more effort, and like we were like, “This is a good show. People need to find out about this.”

But, you know, at any point of those months we could have given up. But that’s just, you know, I really had faith in the show, and so did my co-host, and we had faith in the brand, and we were like, “This is going to work. We need to just buy some different stuff.

And you know, what we were doing wasn’t working, and so instead of giving up and quitting it, we just quit the idea of what we were doing, and kept saying, “OK. New idea. Let’s move in this direction.

And we kept the same show. We made it a little bit different. But we didn’t have to rebrand or even… We just kind of like… A slight pivot. A slight change in direction, and a slight, like focus on it and… You know it ended up working for us. But could it went another eight months with nothing.

And it’s like, “All right. Well, do we still personally believe in the show? And let’s keep going. If we don’t – if you just hate doing this, and we’re just both like sucks, we hate this. We’re going to stop.

So that’s what you do. So I think it’s my first brand role on Money Lab, which is, “Have fun. Make money.

That’s it.

So if I’m making money but not having fun, then should I even be doing it? Like if money’s not that important that, like if I’m miserable every day but I’m making good money, like, no. Thank you.

Kim: Well you could go back and be employed by somebody else.

Matt Giovanisci: Yea, oh sure you. I would have a great life, just like, getting a steady paycheck, and clocking in and out, and like. I mean.

And that’s the thing. Like, I didn’t leave my job because I hated my job. I loved my jobs. I was very good at my jobs. You know, I just wanted to also be self-employed. Because it will be fun.

Like I still have a job. It’s still a job for me. It’s just, you know, that wasn’t the reason I left. It wasn’t the reason I had to get out. I wasn’t, “I hate the nine-to-five. I got to do something. Like, I got to break. Got to be free.” That’s not what I thought.

That was just like, I’m just interested in being my own boss. That’s all. You know? And I didn’t mind going to work. I enjoyed my work. It was very similar to what I do now actually.

Kim: And you wanted to work in your gym shorts.

Matt Giovanisci: Yeah, you know, and I actually had a job where they let me dress… I didn’t work from home, but I got the dress the way I wanted to. And I got to work on my computer. I got to do website design, and marketing stuff, and build web sites and all that kind of stuff. So I got to do what I wanted to do because that’s where I headed. But, you know, I ended up becoming my own boss. Which is nice.

Kim: Matt, this has been great. Seriously. Like, I’m going to have… Like as soon as we’re done recording, quite honestly, I’m going to have to have my husband listen to the sex in the hot tub section.

Matt Giovanisci: Nice.

Kim: Yeah. Where can the listeners find out more about you? And I’m going to put all these links right into the show notes. But, where can they get your brand rules, and see your “Get Matt on Your Podcast” page. And all of those.

Matt Giovanisci: You can go to MoneyLab.co/Dingle.

Kim: Oh, that’s a catchy URL.

Matt: I wanted people to actually, like, ears perk up. “What did he just say? Did he just say “dingle”?

Kim: That’s what I was thinking. Right? If that word is said around my house we wonder what they’re are talking about.

Matt: Right. There’s nothing bad there. There’s nothing.

Kim: No… I’m not… I’ve already been there so I’m worried about it but… So this has been awesome.

And I just want to like… I hope all the listeners will take note, and you know, be true to who you are, and just, you know… Stop worrying about what the rest of the world is going to say, and you know, have fun with being an entrepreneur.

Matt: Yeah.

Kim: Well, thanks again Matt. I’m not even going to try to pronounce your last name again. I got it once already. I got it once already. Thank you for joining us on Influx Academy, and we’ll catch you next time.

Matt Giovanisci: Appreciate it. Thanks.