0:04

Radical . Welcome to this week's

0:06

episode of the Print On Demand cast

0:08

. Each week , join the gnarly , travis

0:10

and Josiah as they provide insight

0:12

into the print-on-demand industry and equip

0:15

you with the totally tubular tools

0:17

, advice and strategies you need to achieve

0:19

success and , hopefully , have a few

0:21

laughs along the way . Now on

0:23

to this week's Totally Tubular Show .

0:30

Well , hey everybody , welcome back to the Print On

0:32

Demand cast . Glad you're here and

0:35

glad you're listening

0:37

. So this week on the Print On Demand

0:40

cast , we're going to be talking about

0:42

the state of the

0:44

Print-on-demand cast . That's kind of redundant

0:46

, I guess . But yeah

0:48

, if you've noticed , I didn't put

0:50

out an episode last week . I'm actually

0:53

recording this Thursday . It's audio only

0:55

. So , yeah , there's some

0:57

changes . Obviously , josiah left

0:59

the print-on-demand cast to go

1:02

on to bigger and better things and

1:05

that has caused me just to , you

1:07

know , kind of pause . So this is going to be

1:09

an abbreviated version . Um , it

1:11

is obviously audio only and

1:14

, um , I'm going to kind

1:17

of give you some of

1:19

my thoughts on on what

1:21

to what I'm thinking

1:23

about with the Print On Demand cast , and

1:25

so I'm not

1:27

going to be talking a ton about Print On Demand

1:30

, although I mean specifically

1:32

. So if you don't want to listen

1:34

, that's totally fine . I just wanted

1:37

to get this out there for you guys

1:39

so you can know what to expect . So

1:41

the first , I guess the

1:43

first thing is I've really been focusing on

1:46

my print on demand business a lot

1:48

, been doing a lot of custom products

1:50

, a lot of custom ornaments . I did

1:52

post something in the Facebook group . I'm

1:55

kind of sharing how I do

1:57

custom ornaments . If you're

1:59

interested in that , you can go check that out

2:01

. Um , if you're not a part of the Facebook group , um

2:04

, just ask and I'll let

2:06

you in . It's print on demandcastcom slash

2:08

, facebook , and , um , you can

2:10

get in there and check that video out . Um

2:12

, and yeah , so I've been doing

2:14

that process , even kind of uh

2:18

, tweaking that process a little bit , with my

2:20

virtual assistants , as different things

2:22

have come in different ornaments . Um

2:24

, you know , and we've kind of figured out a few

2:26

other things even since I did that video

2:29

. So , uh , beyond that , we've , um

2:31

, I've been creating some

2:34

new mock-ups for

2:36

some new products that we're launching . So

2:39

I've been doing a lot with Photoshop , smart

2:42

objects , because we use bulk

2:44

mock-up to do most of

2:46

our mock-ups

2:48

and they require a smart object . So

2:50

I've been finding things that I like

2:52

, manipulating the actual

2:55

photo to

2:58

where I like it , and then I create a

3:00

smart object . A smart object , um

3:02

, so I've been learning about , you know , some

3:04

shading and , uh , you know different

3:13

things like that , the lighting that makes it look more real , I guess in a , in a good mock-up , and so I've

3:15

been doing a lot of that , putting some of those things together . Um

3:17

, just going through a lot

3:20

of things with our , my virtual uh

3:22

, talking

3:24

about how to add particularly

3:27

this one new product that we're going to be launching

3:29

, or that I think is actually getting launched

3:31

either today or tomorrow , and

3:34

then the ability to continue

3:36

to work on our mock-ups

3:39

to make our products appear

3:41

even better

3:43

you know , in the marketplace in , uh

3:46

, on Etsy , on Amazon , on Walmart

3:48

, uh , we're just kind of rethinking

3:51

through all of that things , cause that's really , um

3:53

, the mock-ups are really one of the most important

3:55

things to make

3:58

your product stand out once somebody actually clicks

4:00

on it . So you know , seo is pretty dang

4:02

important , but once somebody actually sees it in the

4:04

search that they've entered into that particular

4:06

platform , well

4:08

, the next thing you know is your mock-ups

4:10

, and so if you have really good mock-ups , you can increase

4:13

your conversion rate , which

4:15

then in turn tells the

4:17

platform hey , people

4:19

like this product , so we're going to rank

4:21

it higher . So it's pretty important

4:24

. Um , so I've been really focusing on that a lot

4:26

and , yeah , so that's

4:29

really kind of the update , I guess

4:31

. Um , I haven't really done much . As

4:33

far as it's been cold here in Colorado

4:35

, we had a pretty big snowstorm . My

4:38

kids went um sledding

4:41

in the dark . We a couple

4:43

of years ago we took them on New Year's Eve

4:45

and we did a midnight sledding run

4:47

and it was a lot of fun . And so now my

4:50

two youngest uh just did that the other

4:52

night . My uh , my

4:54

son had a couple of friends over and so they

4:56

went to the sledding hill around . You know

4:58

11 o'clock on a Friday night I think it was Friday

5:00

and uh , yeah , had a good

5:02

time , but yeah , I haven't really been doing much . So that's

5:05

, I guess that's the update . Not

5:07

that you care much about what I'm doing personally , but

5:09

that's what I'm doing in my business . Um

5:11

, last time we had

5:13

a print on demand cast . It was actually episode

5:15

two 20 . This is episode two

5:18

21 . I talked about

5:20

a free spreadsheet that I

5:22

provided to you guys , um

5:25

, and you can get that . It's print on demand

5:27

castcom slash production

5:29

dash comparison dash sheet

5:31

. Or you can go to the

5:34

episode notes of episode two 20 and

5:36

download it there . Or you

5:38

can just go to the Facebook group , cause I just posted

5:41

in the Facebook group right

5:43

before I pressed record on this . I

5:46

just kind of did some updates on it and made

5:48

it a little easier . So

5:53

you only have to like enter in the product price once and you know and the percentage

5:55

of how much the platform is taking . You know , like Amazon

5:57

takes 15% on a coffee mug , or you

5:59

know , etsy takes this much , and I added an extra field

6:02

for additional fees because , like , etsy

6:04

charges you to relist the product . So

6:07

you know some of those types of things . Yeah

6:11

, so you can go there and

6:13

you can . You know if you already downloaded it . Maybe

6:15

you want to grab it again

6:17

. I just tweaked

6:19

it a little bit , but it's

6:22

available for you . It's free . There's no like

6:24

email opt-in or anything like that . I just wanted to make you

6:27

aware of that , I guess , because

6:29

that was . It was a lot of fun making that and I

6:31

think it's a really valuable tool . So check

6:34

that out and hopefully that'll help you

6:36

. All right , it

6:38

is now time for

6:40

the weekly dad joke .

6:43

Time for the weekly dad joke . Time for

6:45

the weekly dad joke .

6:46

This week's weekly dad joke , brought

6:49

to you by your friends at the Print On Demand cast

6:51

, is not actually weekly because I didn't have one

6:54

last week , because I didn't record a podcast . But that's

6:56

okay . We're not going to change the bumper . Here

6:58

it is . So

7:01

you probably didn't notice about me , but I like

7:03

to run . I actually recently ran a marathon

7:05

that I'd been training for for quite a while

7:08

. I didn't win , but crossing the finish

7:10

line I still felt the

7:13

thrill of victory and

7:16

the agony of defeat

7:18

. And

7:22

that's this week's Weekly Dad Joke . Hope

7:24

you like it . I

7:26

thought it was funny . So I do actually like running

7:28

. I don't do it as much now . My wife recently

7:31

got a elliptical for free

7:33

on Facebook Marketplace and I've

7:35

been doing that a little more . It's a little better on your

7:37

joints , you know , get a little older , you

7:41

know . Maybe I'll get back into running , maybe

7:43

not , I don't know , it doesn't matter . We

7:46

don't have a point of interest this week . Like I said , it's going to be a shorter

7:48

episode , but I do

7:50

want to get into the main event . So let's cue

7:53

the bumper when

8:07

we do audio . Only I get to . I

8:09

have a lot more options on the

8:12

bumpers , so , um

8:14

, because we don't have as many video bumpers , we didn't

8:16

put as many of the audio to video

8:18

, so uh yeah this

8:21

week's main event , like

8:23

I said at the top , it's the state of the print

8:25

on demand cast , and it's

8:28

just kind of me pulling back the curtain , getting honest with

8:30

you , sharing with you what I'm

8:32

thinking , and , um , here

8:35

we go . So I realized something

8:38

recently about the print on demand

8:40

cast , and I have been

8:42

and if you , if you're a long time listener , you've probably heard

8:44

me talk about how I want

8:46

to monetize the podcast , and I've talked about

8:48

it for a long time and , um , even

8:51

kind of spilled my guts on why

8:53

I hadn't and you know different things like

8:55

that in some of the episodes . And so I

8:59

just realized , though , that I feel like I've

9:01

been seeing the podcast

9:04

in an incorrect

9:06

light . I guess I'll say I

9:08

was treating it actually

9:10

like it was the product

9:13

, like that was the product , and

9:15

so we were doing , you know , social

9:17

media , trying to promote it . We were

9:20

, you know , doing our email marketing , trying to get

9:22

people back to the , you know , and that was kind

9:24

of the center of everything , and I

9:27

guess I don't know why it took me this long , but I

9:30

just literally realized

9:32

that a podcast is really

9:35

just part of a marketing

9:37

device . It's part of a marketing system

9:39

to get people to a

9:42

product . And

9:44

, like I said , I don't know why it took me this long

9:46

, but it kind of made things a lot clearer

9:48

for me , where the

9:50

print on demand cast kind of fits in

9:52

to the ecosystem

9:55

of my business and

9:58

I realized I

10:00

don't really have a product Because

10:02

I , you know , I thought I did with the print on demand cast . But

10:04

it's like I said , it's not a product , it's , it's a

10:06

, it's a marketing strategy , it's part of

10:08

the funnel . You know that helps

10:11

people , warms up the leads

10:13

and get you know if you're in the marketing speak

10:15

. It gets them , you know , into that funnel

10:17

and closer to a buying decision

10:19

for a product . And so I realized

10:21

I don't have a product and I've taken

10:24

a few stabs at a few things . Um

10:26

, you know , I , I do have a

10:28

, some , some consulting that I've done

10:30

, you know , with some people , some training

10:33

and you know different things like that . I've

10:35

also , uh , I do have

10:37

a membership

10:39

that I've created that

10:42

I really haven't announced or talked about much

10:44

and

11:07

there's a few people in there but cast , I really need to have a solid , not just a product but

11:09

like a solid funnel , you know , that actually gets people into that product and it needs

11:11

to be a really good product . It can't just be , you know , an ebook

11:13

or you know what I mean or something that , um

11:16

, yeah , it just needs

11:18

to be good , um , and

11:21

so if I have a product , then

11:24

there's a reason for

11:26

the print on demand cast to exist beyond

11:28

just my ego . You know

11:30

, I mean , yes , it it did start

11:32

as a , um , kind

11:34

of a passion project . It was fun , it . You know , I mean

11:37

there was ego involved in that . I wanted to be

11:39

seen as somebody who understood business

11:41

and understood print on demand , wanted to

11:43

, you know , kind of pop myself up . You know

11:46

I may not have articulated that

11:48

, but I'm sure that was in the mix somewhere

11:50

, as as I'm sure it was for Josiah

11:53

. So here we are

11:55

four years later and

11:57

obviously it's , it's

12:00

something that we've done every week . It's

12:02

something there is a kind

12:05

of a work element

12:07

to it . It's not as fun

12:09

and exciting coming up with the content

12:12

or whatever every single week anymore . So it's

12:14

a little bit more challenging

12:16

to motivate myself to do it , bit

12:22

more challenging to motivate myself to do it . And so now that I've realized that , um , it's not

12:24

actually a product , I'm not even sure , you know I

12:26

want to do it anymore , so I

12:29

I I do want to do it , though you

12:31

know , like there is a part of me that

12:33

wants to continue to record podcasts

12:36

. It is fun , I enjoy it , um

12:39

, but it takes a lot of time , and so it takes time

12:41

off of other things that I could be doing

12:43

, other things that will actually make me money

12:45

, you know , and so I could see , if I

12:47

had this funnel , all nice

12:50

and pretty , and had , you

12:52

know , people actually buying

12:54

a product or joining a membership

12:57

or something like that , it

12:59

would make a lot of sense to continue

13:01

to do a lot of podcasts

13:03

, you know , and YouTube and social

13:06

media and all that stuff . But

13:08

since that's not in place

13:10

, I'm I'm likely slowing

13:12

down the creation of

13:14

these shows . Um , at

13:17

least , if I'm going to create something , it's probably only going to be on

13:19

audio for a while . Um , if I do videos

13:22

on our YouTube channel , they'll just be tutorials

13:24

or examples of something I want

13:26

to share , like I did , uh , you know

13:28

, that video on how we did custom

13:30

. I just thought it was a cool thing and I thought

13:33

people could benefit from it , um

13:35

, and so I mean , so

13:37

there is a passion in me to help people

13:39

. That is established

13:41

. I just don't know that the podcast

13:44

is the most valuable way to do that . You

13:46

know , I don't know that Instagram reels

13:48

and you know cute

13:51

stories and tick tocks

13:53

and all that stuff is the way to

13:56

actually help people . So

13:58

I think those are part of

14:00

driving people toward

14:02

something that we have to offer . So

14:04

I think for the time being , I'm

14:08

just going to slow down on this . I'm going to really focus

14:10

on working on the business

14:12

, like I have been . I

14:15

I've been outsourcing a lot more tasks

14:17

to my virtual assistants

14:20

, and outsourcing

14:22

does take

14:25

time . In the beginning , the virtual assistant

14:27

really has to understand what you're

14:29

trying to accomplish and you have to spend time figuring

14:31

out how to communicate that to them in

14:33

a way that makes sense , so

14:36

they can understand the nuance of

14:38

whatever decision that you want

14:40

them to make , because it's not

14:42

usually just a yes or no

14:44

or do this or do that . A lot of times

14:46

there's nuance , especially when it's like a customer

14:48

service related task

14:51

which I've been outsourcing

14:53

some customer responses putting you know

14:55

, hey , when I forwarded

14:58

this email or I , you know , put a

15:00

filter on my email and when this type

15:02

of email comes in , it's going to go to a VA and

15:04

they have to do this , and so it takes

15:06

more time to set up the filters

15:08

, set up the , you know , do a video and say

15:10

, hey , this is what I do when I get this and here's

15:13

some nuances , and then it takes time

15:15

to answer their questions as they're

15:17

getting more and more comfortable with kind

15:19

of thinking the way I would think about

15:21

these things . So , you

15:24

know , product customizing

15:26

, you know , like , when an order comes in

15:28

and we got to make the art for it

15:30

, or you know , trying

15:32

to outsource that , trying to get all those systems in

15:34

place , systems

15:42

in place , I've really been focusing on trying to get that off of my plate more and more onto

15:44

my virtual assistants plates , and that just takes a lot of time . So

15:46

, and the other thing that I've been focusing

15:48

on is kind of slowly putting

15:50

together an actual product

15:52

. You

15:55

know , and I could go back and forth on this I'm

15:57

like , do I want to jump into this thing ? And actually , you know , and I could go back and forth

15:59

on this I'm like , do I want to jump into this thing ? And actually , you know , and like I , like I

16:01

was saying , I do have something available

16:03

, but I just don't feel like the

16:06

whole funnel is together yet and I like to

16:08

have things complete before I launched them . So

16:11

I've been kind of procrastinating

16:13

on that and pushing that back . But I I

16:16

am . I do have an idea , I

16:18

have kind of a master plan , if you will , for

16:21

an actual product that can really actually

16:23

help people . It

16:25

it would probably , in

16:28

fact for sure it would be part

16:30

of this community that I talked about

16:32

, so it would be community delivered

16:34

. Right

16:36

now , the , the , the community

16:38

I'm talking about is on school , which is

16:41

a new community driven platform

16:43

for learning

16:45

and different things like that , and they have a classroom and they have

16:47

a calendar that you can schedule

16:50

different things . So I'm thinking about doing

16:52

something like that . It may or may not be on school

16:54

, but it would

16:56

different trainings that I've done

16:59

or will do . It would have some

17:01

group coaching around

17:03

different topics , possibly

17:06

some one-on-ones with me for

17:08

people who are , you know , part of this

17:10

. And

17:12

then the kind of the big idea

17:15

that I'm genuinely

17:17

really really excited about but

17:19

I think is going to take some time for me to complete

17:21

, is that it would include

17:24

access to some paid software

17:26

tools , and I don't want to give too much away

17:28

. But these software

17:31

tools will be included for free if you're

17:33

a part of this community and

17:36

they're pretty awesome , like , if

17:39

you want to do print on demand

17:41

, um in

17:44

a specific way , this

17:46

will save you money , um , and

17:48

you'll have the community and you'll have , you

17:51

know , access to me and trainings and all

17:53

of those things . So it's kind of

17:55

a a win-win . I just

17:57

have to put it all together , so yeah

17:59

, so that's kind of what I'm thinking and

18:03

it's not going to happen this year . You know , it's

18:05

already November , middle of

18:07

November . We're right in thick

18:09

of Q4 . Well , we're not in the thick of it . We're

18:11

getting coming into the thick of Q4

18:13

. It's

18:19

going to be , um , I'm still working on it , but obviously I'm never I would never launch

18:21

anything in December , but , uh , you know , january , february timeframe

18:23

, maybe we look

18:25

at that time timing and , uh

18:27

, I'm just kind of working on it in the background

18:30

and that's one of the reasons that I'm not

18:32

going to really focus

18:34

a lot on the print on demand cast , at

18:36

least until I launched that thing . I

18:38

may , you know , show up here and there , uh

18:41

, and maybe every other week or

18:43

every three weeks or so . I just I don't want to give any

18:45

promises . Um , I'll try to stay active

18:47

in the Facebook group . Um , I

18:49

may throw a video out there occasionally

18:52

. Um , I may email our list

18:55

occasionally , but even that , I'm just cooling

18:58

off . I'm not doing any marketing , because

19:00

what am I marketing for ? What am I marketing to

19:02

towards ? Um , so

19:04

, yeah , that's what I'm thinking about . Okay

19:06

, so if you've listened to

19:08

this far , first of all , thank you . Second

19:10

of all , I would love

19:12

for you to help me out with something . Uh , I've

19:15

asked for people to , like you

19:17

know , email me and do all these you

19:19

know and respond to this question or

19:22

that question . Well , will

19:24

you do like a two minute survey for

19:27

me ? I put it together . It's really

19:29

easy . It's basically just a

19:31

survey on about

19:34

some things I'm thinking about

19:36

and like what you would like in a

19:38

product , and there's no email

19:41

. You don't have to enter in your email your

19:43

name . It's completely anonymous . I'm

19:45

just gathering data . But

19:47

if you would be willing to do that , literally

19:50

two or three minutes , just

19:52

go to printondemandcastcom slash survey

19:54

, fill

19:57

it out there . It'll also be in the show notes of

19:59

this particular episode . I

20:01

probably will post it in the Facebook group

20:03

as well at some point . But printondemandcastcom

20:07

slash survey and

20:10

literally it'll take you two to three minutes . It'll

20:12

help me get some data on what people

20:15

are thinking about . The

20:17

reason I'm doing this is a couple

20:19

of weeks ago well , actually last

20:21

episode 220 , I

20:24

asked hey , if you're interested in

20:26

doing local print-on-demand

20:28

, send me an email . And

20:31

I didn't hear from anybody . And so

20:33

that could mean one of two things Either

20:35

A nobody wants to do local

20:37

print-on-demand and they're not interested in learning about

20:39

heat presses and you know

20:41

places to buy blanks

20:44

and getting a wholesale license and you know those

20:46

types of things . It could mean that , which

20:48

is totally fine , or it could

20:50

mean that people just

20:52

are busy and they just don't

20:54

really want to

20:56

sit down and like remember

20:58

to hit reply

21:01

or sit down to their email and type

21:03

in info at print on demand castcom

21:05

, or they just completely they spaced

21:07

it , they didn't remember . This

21:10

survey has has

21:13

that as one of the options you know , so you can click

21:15

the button if you're interested in that and that will

21:17

give me a lot more information . So that's

21:19

kind of the reason behind the survey . So

21:22

yeah , if you would do that for me that would be amazing

21:24

. Printondemandcastcom slash

21:26

survey . And really

21:28

that's it , guys . I know this is a short

21:30

episode . I told you it would be . I

21:34

do appreciate you guys . I don't

21:36

want to leave you hanging . I'll

21:38

still participate in the

21:40

Facebook group . I'll still answer the

21:43

info at printondemandcastcom emails

21:45

. I'm not going anywhere . I'm

21:47

just prioritizing , which

21:49

is exactly what you should be doing

21:51

in your print-on-demand business figuring out

21:54

what makes you the most money and

21:56

focusing on those things . So

21:59

that's it . That's me pulling back

22:01

the curtain . I hope you can appreciate it . I

22:03

hope you can support me in

22:05

those decisions and

22:07

, yeah , I hope you guys have

22:09

a great rest of your week

22:11

and probably next week and maybe

22:13

the week after that , if I don't talk to you before Thanksgiving

22:16

. Be thankful , man . If

22:19

you're in the US , man , we live in a great country

22:21

. If you're not in the US , well , I'm sure I'm

22:23

positive that there are still incredible

22:25

things for you to be thankful for . So

22:27

let's just remember to be thankful for all

22:30

the blessings that we have , and

22:32

until the next time , for

22:35

Travis for myself , for

22:41

Travis for myself . I don't know how to do this without him , man . That's okay , though

22:43

. I'll see you guys next time on the Print on

22:45

Demand cast . See ya .

22:52

Hey babe , thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Print on Demand cast . We hope you

22:54

enjoyed the Totally Tubular show . If you've got a question or a suggestion

22:56

for the show , send Travis and Josiah an

22:58

email at info at printondemandcastcom

23:01

. Want to be wicked nice ? Take

23:03

a minute to rate and review the show on iTunes

23:06

or wherever you get your podcasts , and

23:08

don't forget to subscribe now so you don't

23:10

miss next week's episode . See you next

23:12

time , for sure .