Ep.518 ~ A Safe Business Model to Hit $5 Million in 5 Years ~ Joe Pulizzi

Today my amazing listeners I am thrilled to welcome back to the podcast Joe Pulizzi. It’s not often we have guests back on the show, so that might be a premonition to everyone out there how much I like our guest today. Joe was on our podcast back in 2017. Joe’s episode was very memorable for me because of the insight that Joe laid out for content focused businesses, and to me his message made so much sense.

There were a few points that Joe explained that really helped me along to continue to build this podcast. One was that you can’t always monetize your passion. We have seen a lot of businesses fail due to people trying to monetize their passions, and it has led to a lot of heartbreak, wasted time, and mounds of debt. The second point that Joe made was that media channels are the original content marketing businesses for 200 years before content marketing was even a thing. They build a massive audience, sell the audience what they want, and then diversify.

Joe started Content Marketing Institute in 2007. Over the years he built an incredibly successful business around content marketing helping entrepreneurs all around the world. Eventually, their live event became the largest event in the world for content marketing and Joe sold his company for $30 million dollars. Joe then unofficially ‘retired’, became a novelist and focused on his non-profit. Then Covid hit in early 2020. People started reaching out to him for help to start content based businesses most likely due to the fact that so many people were out of work, staying at home and had little to do. He noticed a spike in his book sales that he published back in 2016. He also noticed a lot more momentum on his podcast that had been stagnant for a few years. People were looking for a solution so Joe put his mystery novel away and released a new version of his book Content Inc. He started a new newsletter, fired up the podcast and he is back in business.

Today, we are going to dissect that book, and let me be the first to tell you, it is a darn good book to dissect for what is happening in the online world and global economy today.

03:35 Who is Joe Pulizzi?

05:59 The Content Marketing Model & Why it Could Be the Best Business Model in the World

12:45 Why Joe Retired After Selling for $30Million and Now is Back Doing the Same Thing

20:25 The 7 Steps of a Content Marketing Business

27:55 Examples of Fantastic Content Marketing Businesses

45:30 Creative New Ways Post COVID to Monetize for Content Entrepreneurs

47:35 Decentralized Automatized Organizations

51:35 When to Diversify in a Content Marketing Business?

58:45 Timeline for $0 to $5 Million in 5 Years

1:09:35 What Joe Would Do if He Started From Zero Today

1:12:30 Joe on Visualization

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