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Introduction 0:00
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:18
It's beautiful day for the #PirateBroadcast™. And I want to thank you so much for watching the show, checking out the podcast, checking out Russ Johns, whatever. And however you access this material, because we bring #interestingpeople to talk about #interestinthings, and what what is going on in the world today on a number of different topics. So today we have Donothan, how are you today? What's going on in your world today?

Donothan Gamble 0:49
I'm doing well. How are you doing today?

Russ Johns 0:51
Not too bad. Not too bad. We were talking before the show. And I know that we could talk about a lot of different things. I wanted to ask one question that I had on my mind is, you know, and I'm reflecting on this, because a couple of different reasons and 2020 wrapping up and, you know, the new year coming on. Do you have a morning routine? Do you have like a standard routine that you go through every single day that kind of, you know, frames your day, and what activities you put in front of you every day?

Donothan Gamble 1:28
Yeah, so I typically, so I have a four year old son. My wife and I have been running our lives as we try to get everything done that we need to get done, right. Like if shooting videos, if it's dealing with anything customer facing, dealing with contractors, dealing with you know, figuring out our funnel is looking at data, whatever it may be. So typically, we'll wake up around five o'clock, and we'll have everything knocked out by seven o'clock. And then you know, if there's other tasks, like little tasks that we can do throughout the day, whether that's dealing with affiliate managers, or whatever, we do that throughout the day, but for the majority of our day, our work is done by seven o'clock. So just really, five, knocking it out, and then just having our whole day to ourselves and being able to enjoy our four year old son.

Russ Johns 2:15
Oh, that's awesome. That is fantastic. I love that idea. And I love the idea. You know, I'm not historically a morning person, there's been times where I've had to adjust my schedule, based on what's going on in my world. However, the whole point I wake up with is, you know, I love doing the #PirateBroadcast™ first thing in the morning. I wake up with gratitude, because people like you helping and contributing to the information that people can gather and, and receive every day. And we were talking about marketing, and I know that I'm passionate about marketing, I love the automation. I love the systems. I love the process. Hopefully, the process for you getting on the #PirateBroadcast™ wasn't too difficult, you know, it's pretty pain free.

Donothan Gamble 3:03
It's very easy.

Russ Johns 3:05
Tracie is an amazing producer. And I love what she does and how she helps us. And one of the things that you've been doing is for those that are not familiar with the two comma club in Russell Bronson's Click Funnels and things like that, that's an area that you've actually been able to accomplish some major goals before 7am in the morning. And I know that it takes a little bit of work, also. So I want to dive into that a little bit. But I want to find out what the motivation was for Click Funnels and marketing and Facebook ads and and what's the motivation for you? What triggers your motivation every day to get up? You know, you got a four year old, there's life and a lot of things going on in the world today. But what's your motivation, Donothan?

Donothan Gamble 4:04
Yeah, so I mean, to do that two comma club, we really weren't initially motivated to necessarily do that. What ended up happening is we had found somebody online who was sharing their story about, you know, they had used a free plus shipping lead magnet, and they share their numbers and showed how they did it and everything like that. And pretty much what we did, is we just replicated exactly what they did. And so through all of their milestones, we were able to hit all their milestones. And that's really how we got to the two comma club in our first year doing e commerce. So it really wasn't necessarily a motivation to get to the two comma club. It was more looking at somebody else's business model and saying, I think we could do the exact same thing. And we were able to do that, in terms of what gets me motivated in business and entrepreneurship on a daily basis. It really is just lifestyle, you know, really being able to do whatever we want being able to spend time with changing. Being able to do things with my wife, you know, just really having that family time and not having any restrictions on what we can do, you know. If we want to go on vacations, if we want to buy something, you know, like, this summer, we bought a boat, which is something that, you know, I always wanted to do. So we spent a lot of time on the lake, you know, while we really couldn't do the air travel and stuff like that this year. So it's been awesome, just being able to, like, watch our son grow, being a part of every milestone that he has in his life, and not missing out on anything, because I just hear, before you're even a parent, right, you hear everybody's day, you know, you gotta be with your kids, they're going to grow up so fast. And you know, a lot of parents don't get the opportunity to spend every day with their kids, sometimes they miss their first walk, sometimes they miss their first word, a lot of times, it's somebody else raising their kid. And so we've been really blessed to be able to spend every day with our son and watch them grow and not miss any of those milestones.

Russ Johns 5:56
That's fantastic. And I love that. And the reason I want to bring it up is to allow people to understand that, especially at 2020, there's lots of individuals that may not be as fortunate as we are in terms of our lifestyle and our ability to generate income, you know. I've been working from home and doing online work for a lot of years. And, for me, it's the freedom, it's the ability, and the opportunity to, you know, pick and choose my schedule, and I love what I do. So I have a tendency to work more, and my kids are grown. So it's like, okay, I'm just doing my thing. However, for a lot of people that don't necessarily have the ability to see what and how you do things. You know, there's a lot of, let's say, misdirection, a lot of, you know, people saying, hey, just buy this course, and you'll be a millionaire overnight. And that's it. It's more than that. It takes a lot more effort, or a lot more strategy, or a roadmap to make things happen like that. So what do you recommend for people that are thinking about it, but haven't pulled the trigger? Or kind of like, fear and doubt getting their way? What are your suggestions or recommendations?

Donothan Gamble 7:22
Yes, I mean, we were in their shoes. You know, anytime you're learning something new, you know, the first person you want to go to is obviously someone who you think is an expert. And so, November, we started writing our funnel in January 2017. But before that, we had went to San Diego, and did like this three day binge with an expert on building funnels, and it was 7500 bucks. And pretty much, he just helped you create your funnel, if you want to say that he didn't build your funnel, he just helps you kind of chalk it out on a on a chalkboard and do the brainstorming of it. And then the next step is, you know, hey, if you want us to build this funnel for you, it's going to be $25,000. And then we also need a $25,000 ad budget to go ahead and test it. And, you know, you get to the point, we just log in to clickfunnels. And you're like, oh, this actually is like, very simple to do. And I don't really necessarily need to pay somebody $25,000 to build this out. For me, the biggest thing that I have is you have to just get started right now, that's I think one of the biggest hurdles that people have and why they go to those courses, is because they're really looking for a reason not to get started. And it's like, it's kind of counterintuitive, right? Because he's like, well, I'm doing this course, I spent, you know, 3000 1500 700 bucks on it, I'm ready to go. But a lot of times, they would have just did some upfront work or you know, went on YouTube and watch some videos, it would have allowed them to get started and do some testing. And then they would have maybe been able to apply the knowledge that they learned in the course a lot more effectively. So I don't think it's always that courses aren't good, right? I mean, I think there's a lot of people who are pitching expert things who may not be an expert, but they still may offer some value. But it's like you can extract value out of a lot of these courses, if you haven't, you know, actually gone and done some of these things for yourself, because you really don't understand what the person is talking about, you know, but I would just say just get started, be persistent. That's one of the biggest things that I see is like people are so motivated for, you know, the first month, and then they don't get results and it demotivates them. And so you just got to stay motivated. And that's, you know, even if you're in a job, usually, you know, the employee when they first come in there, you know, they want to work hard, they show up early, you know, they're bringing everybody coffee and doughnuts, and then over time, you know, you kind of see that, that effort decrease. So, you know, with entrepreneurship, I don't have anybody paying me a set salary or a set, you know, hourly rate or anything like that. So I have to be persistent, and it's not always about doing the most work, you know that I think there's this thing about entrepreneurship, I, maybe back in the day or you know, if you were doing brick and mortar or you know, online didn't exist, you got to put in a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of time. And with with digital entrepreneurship, it's not really necessarily just all about time. It's really about, you know, are you learning something new every day? And are you being persistent? Because those are the people who typically are going to win people who can learn who can implement and who are persistent. So that that's, that's the biggest thing. And the most, one of the most like, the biggest reason I see people fail is because they're just not persistent. And they don't stick with something, and they just don't start.

Russ Johns 10:44
Yeah, it's really a powerful, powerful lesson when you can actually, consistently over time, you know, like #PirateBroadcast™, I've got over 300 episodes, and talking to people every single day about this, and you know, different topics and different subjects. And it's really amazing to me to watch this grow and allow conversations to take place. And it's like anything else, if you take action every single day, you're going to make progress. Regardless, you're going to learn something new, you're going to make something happen, things are going to take place and things are going to start to grow. So along the lines of affiliate programs, or Click Funnels and some of these tools and tactics, you also do Facebook ads quite a bit to complement what you're producing. How does that mix work in as far as your time and attention and the learning curve? I mean, Facebook's always changing things. So how do you stay on top of the Facebook ads, and what needs to happen next is just testing all the time.

Donothan Gamble 11:57
So it is a lot of testing. So we just recently had one of our ad accounts, completely disabled, right. And this has happened throughout our journey of using Facebook ads. A lot of times, which is why, you know, you need to have more than one ad account. But I mean, for the most part, we've always tried to stay as legitimate as we can, not making any false claims, not doing anything malicious. And yet, it still happens, right? There's no way to kind of outdo Facebook, and then banning your account or anything like that. So really, when I look at what we do in our business, it's really just making sure the customers having the best experience. And so it's not necessarily about what platform I'm advertising on. It's really just making sure that I'm focused on the customer making sure that you know, at every touch point, I'm making sure that I'm speaking to the customer, where they're at in my in my funnel, right. So if they're a new person, I make sure that I'm speaking to them, like I would speak to somebody I've never met before, because I need to do indoctrination, right. If I'm speaking to somebody who maybe has seen an ad who has filled out a form, maybe watched a webinar of ours, you know, I'm speaking that person, like a warm person, I recognize them. But you know, I don't know them by first name yet. They're just somebody I see in the neighborhood, walking your dog every day. And then you know, if it's a hot person, you know, we know each other by name, you know, you have to be able to change your language. And I see a lot of people not do that. They use the same language throughout their entire, you know, customer journey. And it really doesn't advance the customer, right? I'm trying to get somebody from not knowing me to bringing out their credit card, and feeling comfortable with my suggestions. Because like I said, we do a lot of affiliate marketing. So if I suggest a product to somebody, I want them to view me as a friend making that suggestion to them, so that way they're willing to take action on it. So for me, it's just making sure that you're focused on the customer and focused on where the customer is in their journey. And the platforms to me are always going to adapt towards making sure the customer has the best experience.

Russ Johns 14:01
And that's why they evolve all the time. It's like they find out that the audience is not responding to whatever it was they were responding to last year. And then they adjust. They just didn't make some corrections along the way. And it's really about I love the fact that you brought up the customer journey and the experience because I think building relationships and building a strong community with individuals that you're working with or selling to, you know, the people that you're making recommendations for whatever it happens to be, whatever vertical it happens to be in is really important. So are there any strategies you use to identify what that customer, what that vertical looks like or what they're, it's either pain or pleasure that they're chasing, right? They're either running away from or running to something so it's really about that journey of how can I eliminate the pain in my life and receive more pleasure? And so that journey has a number of different steps in it. So how do you how do you go about thinking about that?

Donothan Gamble 15:16
So the main thing is through like our email segmentation, like with our affiliate offers, obviously, there's products that we don't have ourselves, right, like, we're not huge in weight loss, but a lot of our customers struggle with, you know, weight loss or are looking for weight loss products. And so one thing that we make sure that we do is, you know, if we position an offer to them, we're making sure we tag those people who are opening their email who are clicking through to the offers, and that way, we're able to give them additional content that we feel is going to be valuable to them. The other thing is, we always make sure that we have, you know, like a weekly newsletter, essentially, that offers some kind of free value for our audience, because we want to make sure that our audience doesn't just have to pay for value. When they're, you know, with us, we obviously want them to look at us as a resource. And so that's, it's been really good to make, you know, these creatives, and a lot of these creatives that we make and test with our email list become lead magnets on the front end, or sometimes even paid products, just because we get really good response from it. And then we also have our blogs too, right? So it's, you know, as we're creating content on our blog, we're able to share that with our email lists and provide value without necessarily having to create, you know, additional freebies for them.

Russ Johns 16:32
Awesome, awesome. Hey, I want to just give a shout out to some of the pirates in the room. Daniel Hall. He's a programmer, and somebody that enjoys video. I know, Daniel, thank you so much for the message. Let's get together, catch up and continue the conversation. I love it. JD, enjoy the day pirates. Thank you so much. Mike Baker talking about his morning routine. prayer, meditation, clarification, definiteness of purpose. I love that. When we have a clear goal and a clear understanding, it's just like the customer journey. It's like we know what we need to accomplish. In order to put things into perspective. Sheila Chamberlain says I have a new member, he's living with me and daughter. Needs to get help. I'm not sure what kind of help you need. But I know there's lots of people out there that are very helpful. Paolo, says, hey, hello, and Jill Sullivan is in the room. Jill is an amazing individual that's always sharing out some sunrises. And she's a chef, and amazing individual. So thank you so much for being here, Jill. Donathan, I know that there's a lot of things that people could do. And for some of the people that might listen to this, they're going affiliate marketing, I don't know what that is, I have no idea what that is, you know, if you're not in the circle, you may not understand it or appreciate what that actually entails. So maybe you could dive into that and explain to people what affiliate marketing is, in a nutshell, for your experience.

Donothan Gamble 18:19
Yeah, so when I look at affiliate marketing, I look at it as I have two options, right? Essentially, as I think of it, when I create a business, I'm either going to create my own product, which means I'm going to 100% on it, I created, I come up with the idea, whatever it may be, or I'm gonna, you know, rebrand somebody else's product and sell it as my own. Or I can sell someone else's product and get a commission for it. So when you look at affiliate marketing, it really is just, you know, I have somebody else who already has a product maybe already has done all the testing, maybe already figured you know, everything out about conversions and everything like that, takes a lot of the guesswork out for me. And so I'm just going to send traffic to that person. And when people buy, I'm going to get a commission from it.

Russ Johns 19:02
Yeah. It's pretty simple. It's like, for me, I am a partner of Dubb. Dubb is a tool I use all the time, I love the tool. So I send traffic to Dubb, when people use my link to sign up, I get credit for it. Small credit, you know, it's not going to retire me but it's something right. And then also, stream yard, you know, the platform that we're on right now, you know, I'm a partner of stream yard and I and I promote stream yard all the time. And, I love the platform. So it's easy for me to talk in a positive way and promote the the platform any way I can. And that would be an extension of affiliate marketing where you can do that. I mean, Amazon has affiliate marketing products, a lot of businesses that people don't even know about, have affiliate programs where if you love a product and you love a service, ou can go out there sign up for their affiliate marketing, or their affiliate program, and then just market that program and get paid for it. That's, you know, maybe I could do that for Boeing jets or something like that.

Donothan Gamble 20:12
It's really great doing affiliate marketing, actually, because my wife gets so many free products. You know, we've gotten beds, we've gotten water filters, we've gotten, literally almost like a lot of the stuff we have in our in our home is from affiliates, health products, a lot of stuff, because a lot of people are looking for other ways to drive traffic to their business, without necessarily having to go on YouTube, or Google or Facebook and try to figure it out on those platforms. So, you know, if you have an audience already, that's nurtured or you have a source of traffic, a lot of affiliates are willing to just send you products, which has been really awesome, too.

Russ Johns 20:49
That's fantastic. What's your favorite way of growing your audience? In general, I mean, for somebody that hasn't really thought about that, or taking the steps to move forward in that direction.

Donothan Gamble 21:01
So right now, I like free lead magnets. Just because I haven't tied to like cpls. So we get like cost per lead. When somebody signs up through our through our lead gen, which is which is nice. It's relatively cheap. And then we're kind of able to evolve that person through our automation through our emails. So free lead gen is I mean, lead gen through Facebook, using a lead magnet is probably the best way.

Russ Johns 21:28
So do you run ads for those free gens?

Donothan Gamble 21:31
Yes. So we'll have like a lead magnet on the front end, you know, get like a free book or something like that. And then once somebody signs up for the book, then we send them to an affiliate offer, and then kind of start putting them through our, our funnels.

Russ Johns 21:45
Fantastic. I have a couple of questions here. The question, for increase in segmentation of email lists, you need more form fields, how many form fields are too much?

Donothan Gamble 22:00
So I don't really, I mean, it's not really about form fields, for us at least. So when we get somebody's email, we know where that person came from. So they're automatically on a sequence.

Russ Johns 22:13
So you're using the Facebook ad to drop them into the sequence?

Donothan Gamble 22:21
Correct.

Russ Johns 22:21
Okay, so, so rather than a form on your website and saying, okay, do you like blue? Or do you like green? And then dropping them into a sequence like that? You're using a specific ad for a specific vertical segmentation? And then drop them in there? That way, right?

Donothan Gamble 22:38
Yeah. So if somebody joins through x lead magnet, right, they give us their email in exchange for, you know, whatever it is, we're giving away for free, or if it's paid whatever it may be, and then they automatically are put on an email sequence. And then from that email sequence, they kind of evolve over time, right? So if they go on something else, or they become a buyer, you know, obviously, they transition to another, another sequence. So we always know where somebody is in their journey with us, just by creating these automations in our email sequences, and then, you know, as they kind of evolve, you cut them off from email sequences that aren't relevant to them anymore.

Russ Johns 23:16
Right, right. What's your favorite email platform?

Donothan Gamble 23:21
So I use ConvertKit and get response. ConvertKit, by far has just been probably one of my favorite.

Russ Johns 23:30
I've been using drip. So it's been good for a lot of reasons, but Active Campaign drip, ConvertKit even MailChimp has made some amazing changes recently that it's like, okay, just drop the landing page in and run with it. It's kind of crazy what automation can do these days. So it's fantastic. So silverfox DJ, been quietly listening, Russ, good morning, the pirate community and Gabe, he's another pirate that you should probably connect with, you'd be a great one to have on his show. He's in the evenings, central time. So Gabe's an awesome individual that is supportive of the community and putting great content out there and interviewing #interestingpeople, as well. So it's fantastic to see the community come up. I know that there's a lot of people that are still a little bit shy and you know, not very aggressive about doing something online because it's so foreign for them. But it doesn't have to be, I mean, it it can be very simple in the simplest terms, you know, like affiliate programs, just find something you love, promote it, and, you know, earn a commission from it and it's it's just a matter of, okay, I'm on LinkedIn or I'm on Facebook, or I'm on Twitter, and talk about product and allow that product to be highlighted once in a while. And if people buy it, then it's, that's as simple as it could be, right?

Donothan Gamble 25:09
Yeah, I think what happens is, is the way that the school system has conditioned people, right, is that you can put in all this effort to go and get a regular job. But when it comes to entrepreneurship, it's like, you need an entirely different set of skills, right? But it's really the same if I'm, if I'm going to look for a job, I have to, you know, create a plan, I have to put myself out there, I have to go interview, you know, I mean, I have, you're already doing outbound lead generation, essentially, right? You're putting yourself out there to hopefully get somebody to say, hey, we're willing to give you a job,

Russ Johns 25:48
Or at least have a conversation.

Donothan Gamble 25:50
Correct, at least a conversation. And it's the same thing, really an entrepreneurship, right, like, I'm putting something out there hoping that it provides somebody value or somebody sees me as, you know, interesting. And then in return, hopefully, you know, they're willing to spend money with me. And I think it's really a similar mindset, really a similar skill set, but it's just the way society has conditioned us to be like, look at entrepreneurship, like it says, high risk, and you know, you got to have all these different skills, and it's just not regular to do it is, I think that's really, a lot of the hurdle is just getting over what we've been conditioned to believe.

Russ Johns 26:28
I love how you started it. Yeah, we get up at five and work till 7 so we can spend the day with our son, Chase. To me, that sounds like wow, you know, it's like holy, you mean, I don't have to rise and grind 24/7? I don't have to, you know, work 20 hour days, and I don't have to risk everything? That sounds like a pretty good deal. I think some people don't believe that it could be that easy. And I know that you've worked hard. You started this very young, you've done a lot of different things and activities. However, that's the goal is the freedom at the end of the tunnel, you know, the freedom that we have, when we have automation in place, and we have some systems built out. And we have the opportunity to delegate some of these things that take place. And it's really, I mean, the digital media in the online world has really changed a lot of lives. And I think that there's a lot of people that if they realized how available it was, if they just took the steps, and moved forward, little, baby steps and just learn a little bit, do a little bit more, learn a little bit more. And you can really, you can change your life is what it is. It's really your life. So what's the next step for Donothan and the family in the whole adventure that you're going through now? So what what do you see in the roadmap in the next year and a half.

Donothan Gamble 28:05
So like I was telling you before we got on the show, you know, really, I just got introduced to doing podcasts and kind of putting myself out there to help people. So for me, it's just to keep helping people and kind of help provide a legacy for for my son that, you know, he's able to take advantage of and do whatever he wants in his life. So those are my two things is to continue helping more people and to keep building his legacy for him.

Russ Johns 28:33
Fantastic. So what's the best way for people to track you down and get a hold of you?

Donothan Gamble 28:38
So right now, I only have a YouTube channel that I'm kind of doing, it's a $50,000 a month journey that I'm kind of creating, like how to go from zero to $50,000 a month and, you know, create automation and have multiple streams of income. I just like the 50,000. I mean, it's great to, you know, do seven figures a year over that. But it comes with a lot more responsibility, a lot more effort, you know, you have to start having more systems, a lot of more costs. Now you have to start hiring people and things like that. And so, at $50,000 a month, we've really been able to just live the 5am to 7am. With very, like minimal effort, right? And it's because we've been able to put in automation, diversify our revenue streams and not rely on one platform for our leads and things like that.

Russ Johns 29:33
Yeah, it's very important not to depend on one platform. Yeah, that's good until Chase gets up and he starts running Facebook ads. Dad's gonna be out on the lounge, out on the boat, say, hey, I can sleep in today. I see what you're doing. Don says, good morning all, thank you so much, Don, for being here. Appreciate you. Daniel Hall says Donothan Gamble, would love to connect. So I put an invitation out to connect on LinkedIn to Donnie. So hopefully we can connect. And and coach David says arrrggghhhh. It's so funny to connect with you. Well, Donathan, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for the insight and information on affiliate marketing and a little bit of Facebook activity in the fact that you don't have to work your fingers to the bone. And you can actually enjoy life and spend time with your family. Work, the freedom that you are searching for, and enjoying life. So thank you so much for being a pirate, thank you so much for being here and share with us all the value.

Donothan Gamble 30:53
Thank you, Russ.

Russ Johns 30:54
So it's really important for me to do the same thing. And as you know, everyone, I have a YouTube channel, as well. Go over there and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Allow this information to come and you know, if you have questions, you have conversations that you want me to talk about or subjects that you want me to bring up. Just drop drop me a line, make sure you have a message and I'll find the people that can talk about that subject. And as always, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and you #enjoytheday. Take care, everyone.

Exit 31:33
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