Garin Etcheberry

2:20 - What to do when you get stuck on your idea

Ever been focused on an idea or two but you’re unsure if either of them will end up working out?

This is almost everyday for entrepreneurs.

The key to moving your ideas along (and knowing if they’ll be profitable) is to validate them.

Noah Kagen at OKDork offers some prime examples of how to do this.

3:09 - Before and after implementing the Poster Child Formula

It’s funny – Garin is basically the poster child OF The Poster Child Formula.

Garin had virtually no email list subscribers before implementing this into his business.

Fast forward to today and has over 180 subscribers on his list.

3:36 - One method for building a list of almost 200 subscribers

Between posting on Medium and ONE relatationship, Garin was able to get a huge jumpstart on his business.

Garin is a big James Altucher fan.

So little by little Garin started getting on James’ radar.

The formula? It’s simple.

Listen to James’ advice of writing down 10 ideas everyday and giving them away to people they’d help Send those idea to James as a free gift

5:15 - Why the Poster Child Formula is so powerful (and how to get on anyone’s radar)

The thing that makes the Poster Child Formula work is because most people read stuff online and don’t do anything with it.

So when someone finally takes advice on something and then reports back on it to you it’s a breath of fresh air.

Literally, it’s extremely rare.

When someone sends results back to VideoFruit they get a response almost immediately because we’re so excited.

Most people teaching online are basically telling you how they want to be treated, pitched, or approached in their marketing.

That’s why if you want to get on their radar to help potentially grow your list, it becomes your job to give it right back to them.

6:50 - James Altucher takes notice. List explodes? No.

Garin started hearing his name being dropped on a few podcast episodes as a prime example of how to generate ideas.

This alone doesn’t suddenly start growing your email list.

Garin decided to really put James’ advice of generating ideas and sending them to businesses in a 30 day case-study.

Everyday Garin would send business ideas to local businesses and anyone he looked up to in a in business.

Soon after he started get results in the form of responses, opportunities to collaborate, interviews… And all by providing value.

8:10 - The exact process you can use to get on the radar of a big influencer Here’s what the workflow Garin was doing looked like:

1. Start a fresh Google doc
2. Write out your ideas for the person/business
3. Expand on each with a paragraph description (include detail of the inspiration behind it, how you would do it, deeper thought, etc.)

8:40 - How Garin helped an author with the Poster Child Formula

Recently James Althucher’s wife came out with a book going deeper on idea generation, so Gavin took it upon himself to send over 10 ways she can promote her book.

Ideas included: selling access to yourself when someone buys a certain amount of books, going on someone’s podcast who’s willing to promote your show, etc.

A powerful aspect of this particular outreach from Garin was he looked at what others were recently doing to promote their book that had success like Gary Vaynerchuck.

11:00 - Why you should be a curator of ideas

When you know what’s going on in the space of the influencers or what outside ideas can help them, you’re not pitching unproven methods…

You’re literally showing them what’s already working and helping them to realize they can do it too.

11:35 - Claudia’s response to Garin

First she replied to Garin’s tweet saying thanks and then tweeted her followers a big compliment to him…

Followed by James Altucher giving him big kudos. Once James tweeted it Garin had a flood of Twitter followers and reads to his Medium posts.

12:20 - What’s the goal of all this?

So you’re sending all of these fantastic ideas to influencers and business owners…

Are you doing it just to be nice?

Or is there a bigger picture at play?

For Garin, his ideas led to doing work for the people he was reaching out to and is continuing to grow.

For you, it could be an interview on a podcast, guest blog post, or doing work for them that adds leverage to your name.

13:15 - Natural next steps…

Think about it, you’re going to send a ton HIGHLY VALUABLE tips for the person on the other end…

Will they really be able to implement more than one or two of them on their own?

Naturally, they’re going to need help managing those ideas and bringing them to life.

This positions you as highly-potential fit to take the ideas and run with them on their behalf.

All you have to do is make it clear for them to say “go” and you can make it happen.

14:20 - A MAJOR caveat to this approach

You can easily set yourself up for failure or to get your feelings hurt by having expectations that the people you reach out to are obligated to pay you for your help.

If your mindset is “I’ll give so I get” then you’re setting yourself up for failure.

14:58 - 45 Idea generations in 30 days

Garin started thinking he’ll get a few responses back or a “thank you” or two..

But the responses we’re so exciting and surprising it took him off guard.

This started the conversation of working with a few people on a personal basis and even a few job offers.

16:58 - How does this help build an email list?

Garin posted the round-up article on Medium…

But there’s a lot of noise already going on there.

This is where the Poster Child Formula comes back at full-force:

Garin then tweeted the article directly to James Altucher because it was basically social-proof for James and his concepts.

In Garin’s eyes, he could inspire more people to start generating ideas, and that made all of the work worth it.

James loved Garin’s post and went on to mention Garin on podcasts, other blog posts, and all over social media.

When James retweeted Garin’s Medium post, it went viral.

19:25 - Garin’s lightbulb moment Garin was naturally stoked that his post took off and was being so well received. And he did what anyone of us would do on this occasion: have fun refreshing the browser all day while watching the numbers climb!

Then it hit him: He needs a way to capture all of this attention!

This why building your email list is so important – because what if this wasn’t replicable?

That’s when he went back to the post and added a call-to-action to sign up for his other posts.

20:40 - What does this mean for Garin’s business?

At the time of this recording, this hasn’t resulted in any dollars. However, he’s gearing up for a free “Website Build Party” where he’s offering a condensed version of his webinar.

He’ll end with a soft-pitch to buy their web hosting and theme through his affiliate link, followed by offering a full version of the “Full Build Party”.

Resources:

• Garin on Medium
• Garin’s site: Website Build Parties
• Noah Kagen
• James Altucher
• How To Become An Idea Machine
• Gary Vaynerchuck