Jeremy Enns Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Jeremy Enns
Jeremy Enns is today’s guest joining us on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots podcast.
He is a man with a zany, positive, outlook to life which is truly refreshing to see.
He does things his way, and is as he says “a story addict”.
If there’s one thing that I believe has the power to change the world, it’s Story.
Stories are how we transmit our deepest beliefs as a species, open our souls to those we care about most, relate to and empathize with people we don’t know, and ultimately bring about change by eliciting deep and powerful emotions from our audience.
How The Dots Joined Up For Jeremy
If there’s a thread that runs through everything I do, it’s a deep yearning to unearth and share stories that cause the listener, viewer, or reader to feel. Whether it’s podcast production and sound engineering, photography, or writing, this is the core of my craft and my purpose.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from exploring the world through different mediums, it’s that the method of portrayal matters far less than discovering and understanding the heart of a story, and sharing it authentically.
We all have a story we’re trying to tell, and more than anything I love helping others share their own story with the world.
So how do you take the concept of a story and turn this into a business that flourishes?
And is this something that was obvious to him, or like most of us it crept up and grabbed him after many ups and downs?
Well let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Jeremy Enns
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such deep subjects with Jeremy Enns such as:
We discuss how travel has become such a big part of his business, and how he brings it to life whilst still juggling work pressures.
How the two of us find the quality of podcasts a big distraction to listening to them. If you are going to be a top podcaster remember that audio is king.
Why you should benchmark your business against the best you can in your business. Look at the kings as success leads clues.
And lastly………..
Jeremy shares his big dot moment, that took him back to a sewing class in school. Strange place for it to happen, but true time and time again on Join Up Dots.
How To Connect With Jeremy Enns
Return To The Top Of Jeremy Enns
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Full Transcription Of Jeremy Enns Interview
Intro [0:01]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK, David Ralph.
David Ralph [0:25]
Yes, hello. Good morning world. Good morning. And welcome to another edition of Join Up Dots. Yes, this is David Ralph, of course, your host. And we have got a guest who’s who’s been hanging around for quite a while because we should have recorded about three weeks ago, and my internet crashed and it should have been for an hour. And then it went on for about two days. And then it was actually three and a half days and it’s brilliant. So we’re talking about living a life without internet. And we’ll be talking about everything that he does because he is a man with a zany positive outlook to life which is truly refreshing to see he does things his way and is, as he says a story addict. If there’s one thing that I believe has the power to change the world he says it story. Stories are how we transmit our deepest beliefs as a species open our souls to those we care about most relate to and empathise with people we don’t know and ultimately bring about change by eliciting deep and powerful emotions from our audience. Now, if there’s a thread that runs through everything he does, is a deep yearning to unearth and share stories that cause the listener, viewer or reader to feel whether it’s a podcast production and sound engineering, photography or writing. This is the core of his craft. And he’s purpose. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, he says, from exploring the world through different mediums is that method a portrayal matters far less than discovering and understanding the heart of a story and sharing it authentically. We all have a story we’re trying to tell and more than anything, I love helping others share their own story with the world. So how do you take the concept of a story and turn this into a business that flourishes? And this is something that was obvious to him on like most of us, did it creep up on him during the night and grab him? After many ups and downs? Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show, to start joining up dots with the one and only Jeremy Enns. Jeremy, good morning. How are you?
Jeremy Enns [2:16]
I am excellent. David, thank you so much for having me here.
David Ralph [2:19]
Hey, set the line you are you’re a bear. I’ve actually spoken to you face to face, which is quite rare in podcasting. Well, certainly in mine, I don’t generally connect with the with the webcam. But we had about a 20 minute chat, didn’t we about six weeks or so. And your voice doesn’t match your body? I’m struck. Now I’m listening to you how you sound very laid back and sexy. But when I was looking at you, you you’ve got a different vibe. Mm, yeah.
Jeremy Enns [2:47]
I suppose so I maybe will will let you make that the connection there. What What would you imagine my voice to be if from looking at my body?
David Ralph [2:56]
Well, at the moment, I would think that you are a little bit James Bond, a little bit suave, and a little bit output to kill me at the slightest moment. Now the other person that I see is somebody that would be running around doing shots in bars and having a crazy time.
Jeremy Enns [3:13]
So what you’re saying is I’m not a little bit James Bond, a little bit suave, and I’m not able to kill you at any time. Is that? What I’m to gather them each scene? That’s what you’re saying? My voice? Yeah,
David Ralph [3:24]
you’d say prove it. So So whereabouts are you now Jeremy? Because I understand you used to be in Canada, but now you’re sort of somewhere tropical?
Jeremy Enns [3:32]
Yeah, so actually, last time we spoke, I was in Lima, Peru. And now I’m in a town called credo Mexico. And I’m here for about a month then heading to a haka, and then probably somewhere else in Mexico and then back up to North America in the summer for conferences and all that fun stuff.
David Ralph [3:50]
So let’s talk about that. Because that I know so many people go, how’s that possible? How can he move from place to place to place? What’s that always part of your master plan? Or did you just get to a point of being? Oh, God, I mean, I could do this.
Jeremy Enns [4:04]
Yeah, so I had that had been a dream of mine. I think travelling had been a big goal of mine for quite a while, but I had never really entertained the thought that that was actually something that would be legitimately possible. So I had started travelling in my early to mid 20s. I’d taken a year off, worked for a few years and saved up a whole bunch of money, took a year off and went travelling and thought, How can I do that all the time. But I came back from that trip and went back to working manual labour landscaping job. I had actually gone to audio engineering school in the in my very early 20s. and wanted to work in the music industry and record bands. And that’s not an easy career to make it in these days. So I kind of gave up on that after a little bit and just was working odd jobs and saving up money to travel and that kind of thing. And after I got back from this trip, I discovered podcasts. It was a little bit later. To the game, actually,
David Ralph [5:01]
what year was, uh,
Jeremy Enns [5:03]
that would have been 2015 Oh, about a
David Ralph [5:05]
year after me.
Jeremy Enns [5:07]
Okay. And, and I discovered them as a listener and I was working a job where I could listen to podcasts basically all day long and pretty quickly the the first category I went home and, and looked up when I thought about, Hey, I should check these things out I’ve been hearing a little bit about them was online business and creative business and all that kind of thing. And quickly realised that they’re actually kind of was something of a roadmap to creating a small business where you could be location independent, and, you know, live and work from anywhere. So over the next year, I listened to probably, you know, eight to 10 hours a day of podcasts all day at work all my free time. On the weekends, I was just like a fanatic. And within that time, I was working at first on a photography business. And then one day, I kind of had a realisation that I’m listening to all these podcasts, people need podcasts edited, and I had gone to school for audio engineering, which, you know, doing the sound for a podcast is a whole lot easier than running like a full studio session, or, you know, doing live music or anything like that. And so pretty quickly, I got involved in producing podcasts professionally. And now here we are three years later, so and I’ve got a team of 10 of us. And we have about 30 podcasts that we produce shows for weekly and am living in Mexico right now.
David Ralph [6:31]
I’m gonna jump back into one thing here, Jeremy. I heard the word but I was a podcast fanatic. I also heard that you started listening about 2015. And before we started talking, you said and you admitted that you haven’t listened to a single episode of Join Up Dots, just bits and bobs? How’s that possible? How can you be a fanatic? And you haven’t stumbled into my world? Sir?
Jeremy Enns [6:56]
That’s the question, isn’t it? I would take that up with perhaps iTunes and or any of my past life listened on? I’m gonna blame the algorithms on that one.
David Ralph [7:06]
You blame? You blame that. But it is weird, isn’t it because I don’t actually listen to podcasts at all, the only one that I will listen to is my own one, just so that I can, I can get up on either of what I’m doing. Because when you’re recording, recording, recording, you don’t really engage your brain. It just sort of comes out of your mouth, and boom, it’s done. And I listened to an English one called Desert Island Discs, which is the world’s longest radio show. And that’s the only two podcasts I listened to. I find podcasts in many regards. How can I say this? I can’t bear the quality. There’s so many poor versions out there. But because I’m in it, I just cringe all the time. I can’t overcome that. Should I be overcoming that? Should I just go just listen to the content? Don’t worry about what’s going on in the background? Or does that bother you in podcast production as you are to get past those those hisses and crackles and just things that don’t seem professional?
Jeremy Enns [8:04]
I think there’s I think depending on the show, so I think there are definitely some shows that I work on that I would love to get the quality better at the source. And you know, probably as an audio engineer, I have a more critical view towards these things than the average listener. So, you know, I think depending on your audience, it may matter to some extent, but probably as people who work on podcasts, we maybe take that a little bit more critically than than the average and might be just, you know, a couple of grumpy guys. griping about those kinds of background issues.
David Ralph [8:42]
We like Statler and Waldorf aren’t we’ve on the map?
Jeremy Enns [8:46]
Yeah, probably something like that.
David Ralph [8:48]
What a rubbish show is the will show up. So when when you are doing your thing, because what I’m really interested in is the Well, I’m interested in everything you do. But I know so many people worry about travelling with their business, in case something happens in case I go into a town and I can’t get Wi Fi in case. Are you past that now? Are you still running around with your laptop trying to find this signal somewhere in the middle of the screen.
Jeremy Enns [9:17]
I’ve definitely done that a time or two. And there’s been a few panic moments. I would say there’s less of those these days. But a lot of that has to do just with travel planning and logistics in the first year. So I would say I had a lot fewer clients at the time and was not needing to work you know, kind of full time ish hours. And so there was I did more travelling and less working whereas now it’s pretty much you know, working from somewhere new every so often. So typically now I grant a co working space or a spot at a co working space and travel to places based on locations that have kind of services like that, and I’m pretty worry about getting anywhere that might provide difficulties with Wi Fi. So I think I’m gonna have to probably cross England off the list your story there. Yeah. And you know, you’re not possible for it to go up for three days at a time you come across. And
David Ralph [10:16]
one of the one of the things that I’ve realised and I was talking to somebody the other day, normally, I’m about sort of a month ahead of schedule on Join Up Dots. And over the last week or so, I’ve been one show. So basically, I’ve recorded a show, and that’s gone out. And then the next shows come along, and I’m far more relaxed about it. Now, in the early days, it would be, oh, my God, what am I going to do? I need to get this done. And now I kind of thing, it’s not going to kill me, and it’s not going to kill anybody else. If an episode of Join Up Dots doesn’t go out. Now, that’s my own personal business, when you’re doing it for your clients. Are you as relaxed about that? Or is it more pressure for you, because it’s a business that you’re working on?
Jeremy Enns [10:58]
Yeah, there’s definitely some pressure there. And we have had to get a lot stricter with clients about getting us the the material sooner, there was a lot of times and you know, there still are a few every now and then where the show is going out on, let’s say a Thursday. And they’re only getting us the audio on Tuesday or something like that. And we need to edit it and write the show notes and do get it all up online and everything in two days. And so we’ve tried to push back on that and get it a week in advance at least. But that’s made things a lot easier for us. But you know, there’s always I think we’re more uptight, like you said, Maybe then the podcast hosts are a lot of times, so we need to push back on that a little bit.
David Ralph [11:42]
Now, I actually I call myself a podcast host. But I’ve started to wonder whether I shouldn’t because I’ve noticed everyone’s calling themselves a podcast host. And just because you say it doesn’t mean that you are one what in your view makes a good podcast host? Can I put out on my mentor and being totally honest? Or should I just say I’m an online business owner? What what makes a good podcast host in your regard?
Jeremy Enns [12:09]
Yeah, let’s say you would you take a number of the boxes there. Perhaps all of them maybe we’ll find out by the end of this episode. But I think some things that that you do really well, if we’re going to go into just heaping praise on each other,
David Ralph [12:23]
yeah, digitise your way. Now, I’m not gonna bring it on, bring it on.
Jeremy Enns [12:29]
Well, you kind of already did in the intro. So I guess it’s your turn anyways. And but I would say that the ability to connect with a guest, like fairly quickly, and you know, we like you did mention, we had a chat before, but we we don’t really know each other. But you know, if I’m speaking for myself here, I’m feeling quite comfortable and having a good time. And I think great podcast hosts are able to do that with almost every guest they get on and able to kind of establish that connection quickly. I think the being a good Interviewer And knowing which questions that you know, they’re interested about, and following those kind of trails through the conversation, as well as knowing what questions their audience is going to be curious about. Those things are, you know, make for a good podcast host. And, you know, I think, I don’t know that this necessarily makes for a good podcast host. We kind of talked about audio quality before, but it makes for a good podcast, you’ve got that sexy sounding mic going there. And you know, I’m really enjoying hearing that in my ears right now. So I’d say you’re checking off a number of the boxes here. And I’d say you could get some kind of plaque made and put on your wall or something.
David Ralph [13:34]
You say you see listeners is Jeremy says it and he’s into podcasting, then he knows he knows that. I’m a podcast host. That’s that’s what you
Jeremy Enns [13:42]
send me something to sign I can do that. But yeah, that’s back to you.
David Ralph [13:46]
Yeah, I will do that. I will do that for you. Now, what I want to do is jump back in time with you because I’m interested in the landscape landscaping business. I’m actually interested in that at all, but your mind at that time when you were going to do that job, the manual labour job. Were you like so many of our listeners thinking there’s got to be more than this, but I just don’t know what I just don’t know what it’s what can I do?
Jeremy Enns [14:14]
Well, you know, I had done I’ve done a number of different kind of, well, I’ve done a number of landscaping jobs but a number of manual labour jobs and both before I went to school and then again afterwards, I also worked some retail in there. And you know, I definitely there was that thought in the back of my mind like okay, this is this is not yet there was always a kind of a temporary position that I felt that I was in, but I did not have much of a direction on what was to come after that. And you know, when that when I went to school, I thought oh, this is going to be it. I’m going to work in studios and record records for for bands and musicians. And that would be amazing and kind of became disillusioned with that after I interned in a studio for a while and you know, didn’t make any progress and I didn’t really see anybody else around me, really living a life that I wanted for myself, you know, they’re working a job that was really interesting and really fun. But they were also at the studio, like, you know, 10 to 12 hours a day, almost every day of the week. And I was kind of like, yeah, you know, I kind of want to do some other stuff with my life too, and have some kind of life outside of work. And so, I kind of move past that and wasn’t really sure it kind of in the back of my mind, I always knew that I didn’t really like working for anyone else. So I kind of had this idea that, you know, I’d like to do something for myself. But I had no idea what that could be. I didn’t know, it really, I don’t want to come off as conceited or anything but how easy it is to start a business online. And I think that the biggest challenge there is like getting settling on the idea really at the start. Yes, and that’s the really hard part. And once you kind of can latch on to that, then you can kind of just borrow from all these different resources that are out there. And you know, people have started service based businesses before, and people have sold stuff online before and people have done all these things before. And so once you kind of have an idea, you can just start cherry picking from what everyone else has done and kind of put the pieces together. And it’s it’s not this huge, big scary thing. And I think one of the really liberating things, especially in the online space, with the kind of business I have is you’re not needing to go take out a loan from the bank and go into debt to start up a business, you can just start, you know, like I did, offering my services on Upwork, or some kind of freelance marketplace, and you know, you’re making money from day one, and it’s probably not going to be a lot but you know, you can keep raising your rates and getting more clients and kind of build it up slowly over time. And it can be just a slow, steady growth kind of business that isn’t super scary. I kept my day job for the first six months or so, before going full time. And you know, I that’s I realised in hindsight was was pretty quick. And I’m, you know, grateful for that. But a lot of times, if you’re doing something that that is going to be successful in the long run, it might just be a matter of sticking with it and slowly building it up to the point where you’ve finally reached that, that moment where it’s time to make a decision and make the leap. And luckily for me, it’s worked out.
David Ralph [17:28]
Because I made a mistake. When I started Join Up Dots, my whole business model of it was sponsorship. And I thought, what if I if I grew a huge audience, and I get some sponsors on there. And I was in negotiation with sponsors, because my audience was very big at a time. I do very little promotional anything now but I realised that actually, you don’t need a huge audience, you don’t need huge amount of customers, you just need customers that value and value your your worth. But with the sponsorship, I suddenly realised, my God, I’m putting all my eggs in one basket here, this person who pay me one month, then say we don’t want you next month, I’m back, I’m back into square one. And that is where my business changed. And I started listening to what my customers wanted. But it still took a while because I didn’t value my own knowledge base. I think that’s one of the things, although I was a success myself, and I was, you know, doing very well financially. I think there was a bit in my head going, I think I flipped this, you know, yeah, I if I teach this to somebody else, they’re not going to get the same results somehow. And I had to really break it down and then rebuild it up to go, No, actually, this is how it works. This is how business works. You find what other people are selling. You look at what you can put your own spin on. And then you find customers that want that you don’t really ever decide on something. Yeah, some people do. I just saw a thing that Pat Flynn, you know, Pat Flynn, smart, passive guy, he created this kind of handle for a webcam, and no rate. I looked at it. And I thought that’s a great idea. You know, that’s a great idea. I don’t think I could ever invent something. I just basically do what’s already out there and put my own spin on it. And I think that’s the first stage on business, don’t you? I think that’s where people are struggling. They think they’ve got to create something amazing. But actually, there’s enough crumbs out there to make a good living on what everybody else is doing.
Jeremy Enns [19:24]
Yeah, totally. And I think about that all the time. And I don’t think that’s even necessarily the first step in business. I think that’s like, almost everything is just being adapted from somewhere else and brought somewhere new. And so I’ve noticed that with with what I’m doing, you know, podcasting hasn’t been around that long, but you know, there have been, you know, video production agencies or like, other types of business with CES which are dealing with media and kind of marketing and all that sort of thing. So I’ve kind of, you know, modelled my business after really there’s one client who has a video production business and he also has a plus podcasts. And really from listening to his show over the past three years, it’s given me all these ideas and things that were directly applicable to my business and kind of starting out as when I was a freelancer and then now growing to having a team. And really, it’s a different medium, but it’s the same business at its core. And the same way of dealing with clients. And you know, all the same issues come up. And so, yeah, I really agree with you there that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Or, really, maybe maybe you do need to reinvent the wheel if something’s already been done, and just tweak it a little bit. Maybe that’s a better use of the phrase, but you don’t need to come up with something entirely brand new, and just their ideas out there everywhere that if you’re kind of walking around with an open mind, they’ll start popping out at you and be like, Oh, you know, hey, this thing’s working over here. Maybe I could take that same concept and use it over here where it hasn’t been done yet.
David Ralph [20:56]
So we should tweak the wheel?
Jeremy Enns [20:58]
Yeah, to tweak the wheel? Yeah, maybe we should make it I don’t know, do you think it’d be better as like an octagon or something like that perhaps
David Ralph [21:05]
now we’ve gone too far there. We’ve gone too far, Jeremy, let’s just just tweak the wheel. And as you were saying, Now, I actually thought that would be a good business tweak for will. And I can already see what I would do within that. And that’s why I, when I do quite a lot of coaching now, which I never used it. And I don’t want to talk about myself, but hey, I’m gonna do that. And a lot of people always say to me, yeah, I’ve got this idea. But oh, so and so is doing it like Oh, great, great. If they’re doing it, let’s do it as well. And they go, Yeah, but they’re already doing it. Brilliant. You know, let’s do it. But wherever people make the mistake is they look at crappy people instead of benchmarking themselves against great people. And I always say don’t look at the past, you’re nowhere near there, but look at them and how they structured a website and their email opt ins and their lead magnets and look at that and download everything and use that as your your guide to business. Because it there’s clues success leaves clues, as some wise man once said.
Jeremy Enns [22:07]
Yep, totally. And I know a lot of people ask asked me about building a website. So I have a podcast community for for podcasters. And that’s something that a lot of people struggle with they they get the audio, but they have these horrible looking websites. And so I was having somebody asked me just the other day, like, you know, do you have any tips on like, you know, my, I know, my website’s not great. And I said, I’m not a web developer, I all I do every single time I’m going to build any website is just go browse through websites that I like, and copy them basically like, Section four section Exactly. And I’ll change the colours and you know, add my own images or anything and you’re not going to tell by the end of it, obviously, the text is all mine. But, you know, like, like you said, I’ve looked spent a lot of time looking at Pat Flynn’s website, and just looking at, okay, what’s he doing here? This has got to be working, because that’s, you know, he’s put the time in to do the research. So, you know, I’m just going to take what he’s done, tweak it a little bit, tweak the wheel, if, if I will. And can I get on here and trademark that phrase, while we’re on the call here before you know
David Ralph [23:10]
what he does? It’s already I’ve been, I’ve been keying as you speak.
Jeremy Enns [23:13]
Okay, beat me to it. You can
David Ralph [23:15]
spank the wheel. What about that?
Jeremy Enns [23:17]
Okay, I’ll take that one.
David Ralph [23:19]
Now we Pat Flynn is no actually I’m gonna play some words, and we’re gonna come back to Pat Flynn is okay.
Oprah Winfrey [23:24]
The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, Oh, I got all of this. What is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment, you know, you’re not defined by what somebody says, is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.
David Ralph [23:56]
Now, Pat Flynn has the classic story of getting getting sacked or I’m not sure what you say over there fired fired from his job and looking around thinking what the hell can I do and just starting doing stuff. And it led to something. Now what Oprah says wisely is, you know, you don’t get hung up on doing the next right thing. You just do stuff and sort of work accordingly. But the very first right thing, that’s a hard one, isn’t it? That’s That’s a hard one to decide where you should be pushing your energies. Do you remember that when you sat there in front of your laptop, and you thought, right, I’m going to buy a URL? Is this the right one?
Jeremy Enns [24:37]
Well, yeah, I do remember that at the start. And I think probably before, it’s actually interesting that this, well, now I’ve rebranded but my initial podcasting company, I’ve actually owned the URL for probably six years or something because it was the same company that I had set up to do music production, and I kind of just said, You know, I don’t know if this is going to be like the brand name or the website. That I want to go with forever. But you know, I have this already. And I’m just going to get started with this. And maybe it won’t work. And so you know, it’s no skin off my back then if I haven’t put anything else out there and in terms of money, buying new URLs, setting up new websites, so I tweaked the one I had a little bit. But in the meantime, I had probably bought, I would say, three or four other URLs, and was looking at doing a bunch of different things. And I think that that’s kind of that’s a bit of the trick at the start. Because I think you kind of need to, you know, just throw throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks at the start. And probably the first thing you do is not going to be your big success. But I’ve been like I said, listen to all these podcasts, and I was trying to grow this photography blog, and I had another website related to photography that I was thinking about doing something with, and neither of those amounted to anything. You know, looking back, I think they could have been the interesting thing. And boy
David Ralph [25:59]
didn’t like looking back, because everyone says that looking back they could have But why didn’t?
Jeremy Enns [26:05]
Yeah, I think it would have been a time thing. So for me, I had been growing, you know, at the time, it was a small audience, for sure. You know, I got a few hundred people a week reading my blog posts on this photography site, but I had no products or anything like that. And that’s kind of where I was stuck on. Okay, what what am I going to do here, and, you know, I definitely I would have liked to create a course at some point that was, you know, seemed to be right in line with the roadmap for online business. And I kind of fell prey there to the Well, there’s already so many other photography courses and photography blogs, I don’t know if there’s room for another one. And, you know, I, rationally I thought, well, you know, somebody is gonna appreciate my voice and and want to hear what I have to say and how I teach it. But you know, in the back of your mind, there’s always that it just kept me from ever creating anything. And so I delayed on it and delayed on it. And so that one I think could have worked, it would have taken a lot more time. And really for me, I continued writing that blog as I started producing podcasts, freelance. And really the thing was that it just the podcasting took up so much of my time at a point because I was still working full time and then podcasting for clients or producing the podcast for clients in the evenings and weekends that I just had to give up on kind of everything else I was doing for the thing that was actually bringing in some income here and was showing a lot of immediate promise. So the interesting thing, though, was that those first kind of forays into online business and blog building, I didn’t start a blog at the moment when I when I first started the podcast production stuff, but about a year in that I did start blogging and did start doing all of that more kind of, obviously, the the business was already online based but more content, marketing based style business and writing blogs and kind of creating products and things like that. And all that knowledge that I’ve gained, even though it wasn’t, you know, quote unquote, successful the first time around when it was applied to photography came in real handy A year later, when I applied it to an entirely different business,
David Ralph [28:13]
I reckon you are basically looking back and joining up your dots and finding out those experiences were never wasted.
Jeremy Enns [28:22]
I would say that is 100%. accurate.
David Ralph [28:24]
I’ll tell you one thing that I’ve been aware of recently, because just as we’re recording this, it’s two days after the five year anniversary of me buying the URL for Join Up Dots. And it flashed up as a sort of reminder of our Blimey five years ago. Now, if you go back through Join Up Dots has been ups downs, lows sideways backwards and stuff. But I’m getting now to the point. But you know, when a lady has a baby, and she screams like Madhouse for about three days as she’s pushing it out. And then about six weeks later, she’s saying I think we’ll have another one. And you think why why don’t you have an ember? Don’t you remember how you felt? And I’m getting to the point now that I’m actually almost wanting to remember the ups and downs because it’s starting to seem like it was a sort of linear path. But it wasn’t because I’m so far away from those dark days now. I never wanted to come across. But yeah, it’s really easy. But in many ways, it is easy. And that’s the problem. Once you get to where you want to be. You can just look back and go, what was I doing? What was I doing? I didn’t just do that instead of that. Why didn’t I just look at that person instead of following that person? When that email came through? And I paid $400 because I thought it was going to push me on. Why did I just do that? Just get your head down and do he? It is easy, but it’s hard, easy as I say.
Jeremy Enns [29:46]
Yeah. And you know, you’re talking about the ups and downs and I think a lot of people get discouraged. And there is that kind of period where you need to push through and just like you said, get your head down and keep doing the work. And I think it’s really easy to get to At the start by, you know, what are those $400 offerings that you think are going to just kind of make your business and I think probably almost none of those things ever actually work. Some of them might, you know, provide valuable resources. I think the one thing that, that I do believe in is education. And so investing in you know, courses and, you know, ebooks and whether those are like online courses or in person courses, if you’re, you know, doing something through like a university correspondence programme or something like that, depending on what you’re interested in, like, I think education is never wasted. And like I said, At the start, or not at the start, but just a little bit ago about learning all these things. During the photography phase. And, you know, I was taking courses, I was watching YouTube videos and all this stuff on like, how to build up an online blog, and like, what the strategy was there. And you know, those didn’t work out at the time, but they definitely paid off later. And I can, you know, that’s the the magnitude of which they paid off has been, you know, incredible.
David Ralph [31:03]
One of the things that I would say, Now, Jeremy is, I would always say to people, and yeah, I do coaching, but this isn’t about me, this is whatever the listener is out there doing. Try to find a coach, because I think video courses and online blogs, and all that kind of stuff, don’t fill in the gaps. You need to be able to talk to somebody and ask them the questions, but they’re not presenting, and they will then become better at doing it. Because you’re asking those questions. I think so many people think that they can throw up a 20 part video course and it’s job done. I don’t see that anymore. I just don’t see that that’s as valuable as going a little bit extra and paying to speak to someone.
Jeremy Enns [31:49]
Yeah, and I think there’s, there’s definitely a time and a place for both, I think probably at the start, you’re not you know, a lot of coaches are expensive, and for good reason. Because they get results. And I think a lot of times, I had had a consultation with the coach at the start, and I’m really grateful for her that she flat out told me, You know, I think you’re off to a good start, but you’re not at the level to, you know, employ me full time basically, or not, you know, not an employee her full time, but to actually, like, pay for regular coaching windows weekly, or bi weekly, or whatever it is. And so, yeah, I definitely looking back, I 100% agree with her. In the past six months or so now I have joined a kind of group coaching programme with that has a quite a bit of one on one time as well. And now has definitely been the time, three years into my business where, you know, I’ve kind of taken it as far as I could on my own. And so I think in the first couple of years there, there is a lot to be gained from some more, you know, broad strokes courses. And well and I know like I made it a goal to just read as many you know, business books as possible for a couple years and I did that all through audiobooks and and I think the one year I listened to over 60 audio books or something like that crazy, which I look back on and wonder where I found the time for that ever, but
David Ralph [33:12]
I can’t read books. Listen to them. I can’t. My brain wants to read quicker than the person talking to me. And it kind of annoys me I tried to do Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And it just drove me mentor. I just I’ll get on with it. It was too floaty, a voice this person talking to me. Well, I
Jeremy Enns [33:31]
know some of the apps you can speed up the I know I always listen at one and a half times or two times maybe? No, that’s
David Ralph [33:37]
what I should have done. I was just looking at Yeah, just floating along. So we’ve your business now because one of the things that were we connected was you’re doing a big promotion on the podcast power pack, where you bought elements from many different podcasters to bring a kind of smorgasbord of the valuable stuff for anybody who wants to start a podcast. How did this come about?
Jeremy Enns [34:01]
So this is exactly this is the tweaking the wheel or spanking the wheel, I guess is I’m limited to saying here. And so I have three friends, two of them are business partners. And then there’s one who actually worked for them who have all run similar type sales in the past. And so the two of them who were business partners, they’ve run a kind of a bundle sale like this in the travel space for the past four years, I want to say and then there, but I think she still is their virtual assistant, but she doesn’t work as many hours for them anymore. She took that concept and created a bundle sale like this in the belly dancing space, which is super, super niche. And, and so then I had this idea last year and I thought, you know, there’s nothing like this in the podcasting space. And they’ve had a lot of success with it. And their customers are like incredibly happy. And so I thought well, maybe I’ll try something like this. This could be you know, I’ve got these two, or these three great resources here. Who can tell me you know what went right What went wrong how to set it all up. And so I, you know, I interviewed them and took notes and thought, okay, you know, I can do this, this, this isn’t so hard. And so here we have now the podcast power pack, which is I think that the total value of the contributions is now up, over 30 $800. And it’s available for five days, only, February 25, to march 1, and for 297 US dollars. So it’s over 90% off. And it’s just an incredible collection of, you know, courses and ebooks and some software and all kinds of stuff really targeted at helping podcasters kind of up their game in a number of different areas that a lot of which, you know, a lot of podcasters are can fairly quickly pick up on getting good sounding audio and, and all that kind of stuff. But they have no idea how to do anything when it comes to promoting or monetizing or creating systems around their shows so that they don’t get burnt out, and they can balance the rest of their lives. So that’s really what the the pack aims to help bring a really broad view of what it takes to grow a successful podcast, to people for really a price that it would be kind of crazy not to get it? Well, it’s available. Yeah,
David Ralph [36:13]
we will have the links on the show notes at the end to make it useful and easy for everyone to get. Now the beauty of out what you said was the belly dancing, I’m still into the belly dancing. Yeah, that how niche is fat. And as soon as you said it, I thought to myself really, really belly dancing. But there’s really there’s there’s not a business out there that won’t do well, if there’s a customer for it. Well,
Jeremy Enns [36:39]
no, no, I don’t think so at all. And you know, there’s I remember meeting or I don’t know, if I met her just heard about her at at podcast movement. Last year, the year before, there was somebody who, you know, had a really successful show about like bird calls or something like that. And I was thinking bird calls, like, how have you created a business around bird calls? And then yesterday, I was talking to somebody who, let’s see, what was it? They knew somebody or they worked with somebody who has a podcast about fungus? And, and I was like, fungus? What? What, where’s the audience for fungus? What type of fungus is this? And so you might be right there. Perhaps. So I think you’re right, literally, there is almost an audience for everything. And, and there is a way to create a business around that if there is an audience there.
David Ralph [37:36]
Because I was looking at one the other day, and I thought this is a great one, I’m gonna throw it out to the world. And it is roast chicken recipes, as simple as bad roast chicken recipes.com. And there is about, I don’t know, 7000 people a month looking for roast chicken recipes. And so you create a website and you get your mom and everybody to start giving you their best recipes. And then you get it together and being you grow your personal brand. And then you can do weekend retreats where people come to your place, and you teach them how to do. And I was just musing on this roast chicken recipes. And I was thinking to myself, every cupboard I open, it’s for the businesses. You know, you could be the spice guy, where you just talk about spices and what spices work. But based on what you know, it just blows my mind. But people sit there and they say, oh, I’ve been racking my brains for years, and I just can’t come up with a business idea. And I think I might sell that everywhere.
Jeremy Enns [38:33]
Yeah, yeah, I just bought the URL. So it’s taken now, don’t even try spite us.
David Ralph [38:42]
It’s gonna be big one day, especially when the Spice Girls come back on, you know,
Unknown Speaker [38:46]
yeah,
David Ralph [38:46]
it’d be trending that one will.
Jeremy Enns [38:49]
Maybe they’ll just want to buy that URL off me and I can cash in that way. Yeah. But I think you’re right, like once, once you’ve done it once, and you realise, oh, hey, I can do this. And this is how I did it, you can just start applying that blueprint to almost anything. And you know, not every idea is going to be successful. But there most of them if you know what you’re doing there, there is a way forward there.
David Ralph [39:10]
My very first one was hemorrhoid cream. And I did a course I can’t even remember what it was. It’s so far back now. And I did a course. And the flavour of this this content was basically solve somebody’s pain point. And I remember thinking to myself, that’s that’s quite embarrassing to go in and say I’ve got piles. So if I, Marty market it online, people would come online, I’d make a fortune. I make piles of money. And it would be it would be brilliant. But I made a fatal flaw that I didn’t actually care about hemorrhoid cream at all. You know, I just didn’t have any passion in it. And I think that’s one of the five things that when you haven’t got a passion, even if it’s a great business idea, you can’t move through the obstacles that will naturally come up.
Jeremy Enns [40:00]
Yeah, and there, they definitely will come up. And I think probably, you know, a lot of people quit too early. And you know, if you don’t have any passion for it, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe you’re just building a business, if you don’t have any passion for it that you don’t actually enjoy being in is that any better than working any other job that you don’t enjoy being up? Maybe? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I know, one of the things that helped me kind of get through the low points when I was starting out, as I had heard somebody on some podcasts mentioned this, and she called it a success journal or something like that, where basically, every good thing that happened in her business, she wrote that down in a book so that, you know, when things seem to be going slowly, she could go back and look and see by date, oh, you know, things are actually progressing here. There’s, like, you know, these these milestones that I’m passing and so I think I did it for over and over definitely over the first year. And I wrote down like every new email subscriber, like every single one, because at the start, you know, when you got to five email subscribers, that was a big deal, or early, and then to 10. And then like, wow, past 50 this is really picking up here. And so every tiny little thing, if somebody ever got had an inquiry into my business or something like that, even if they didn’t become a client, I’d write down that somebody reached out and you know, it wasn’t from a cold email or something like that, that I had sent. And I think that that really just provides you with a sense of momentum and keeps you keeps you going, you’re able to look at it and say, Okay, yeah, you know, I’m making progress. I just got to keep doing these things that I’m already doing and and things are gonna keep working out for me.
David Ralph [41:32]
Yeah, I think that’s great. I never did that. I just ploughed on ploughed on and then set kind of targets in my head. And as soon as I achieved them didn’t celebrate at all, we’re just steamed through to the next one. And, and sort of ran out of steam. Really, it was it was only the podcast, I kept going a lot of the things I sort of stopped and looking back on it. A lot of it was just spaghetti on the wall time, you know, when you were just trying stuff to see what would work.
Jeremy Enns [42:00]
Yep. And it’s a real shame. Now we’re deprived of the hemorrhoid cream, no visit to the doctor required but maybe there’s still an opportunity to go back and finish what you started there.
David Ralph [42:12]
I’m gonna bring it back. Now my passion is back there. That is it. I thought it was a bum business. But no, it’s not. It’s gonna be it’s gonna be a good one. Jeremy is gonna fly. So let’s listen to a man who created many businesses, some of them flu, some of them died like a dead duck, Steve Jobs. Of course,
Steve Jobs [42:29]
it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards. 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [43:04]
Well, you’ve gone from where you are to talking to me in Mexico, you’re pretty much not off the path. You’re creating your path on you.
Jeremy Enns [43:13]
Yeah, I would say so. I think this is probably the the pinnacle here.
David Ralph [43:17]
You agree? Oh, you’re kind you are kind. You’ve never listened to a show. But you’re good at sucking out when you’re on that show. So, so well done to you, sir.
Jeremy Enns [43:26]
That’s the secret to success in everything I believe.
David Ralph [43:31]
I’m sure you’re right. So so when you listen to those words from Steve Jobs, do you sort of look back at your own life and think Yeah, that was a dot. And then that was a dark and vain. Oh, God, there was some extra ones there, too. Do you have loads of dots? Or do you have a couple of really big ones?
Jeremy Enns [43:47]
I there there are definitely a few big ones that stand out. And you know, I’m sure that the more I zoom in the more smaller dots I would see. There’s actually i don’t i in talking to people I don’t know that many people have this. But there’s actually like one single moment that I’ll almost trace back everything in my life to and it has nothing to do with business or anything. And it was actually in eighth grade I want to say and it was my friend Tyler we were in home economics class. And I don’t know if we were in the the sewing segment in a cooking segment of that class. I think we were sewing strange setting for a life changing moment here in eighth grade home at class beside the sewing machine talking with one of my best friends Tyler but we were listening to music and he put on Metallica and I never heard anything like this before. And I was like wow, what is this music and I was like grabbed immediately and I’ve been listening to like you know radio pop music and for some reason. him putting on Metallica I was immediately captivated. And after that I got into playing guitar I played in bands which brought me to going to audio school and ultimately led into podcast production and kind of all the Other mindset shifts happened because of a lot of these things along the way. And a lot of things that I had become really passionate about at one time or another, whether that was like, you know, playing music or recording music, and then creating a business around audio, I really trace so much of that back to that single moment. And think, Well, you know, if you’d never played that song that day, my whole life could be different. And I’ve, I’ve actually sent him a thank you card a couple years ago. And he No, he never wrote back to me. And I’m not sure if that’s just because he didn’t know what to say how to process that, or if the letter got lost in the mail or what but it’s, we’re not, we’re not really close anymore. He I moved away from there, when I was still in junior high, and kind of lost touch with him over the years. But I always look back on both him and that moment and be and I’m really grateful for that tiny little, you know, like three minutes where he showed me the song and it kind of changed the whole course of my life.
David Ralph [45:54]
Well, unlike you, Jeremy, he’s probably a listener of this show. And he’s now heard, you know, and, and he will come out of the woodwork and track you down into the darkest mitts of Mexico. So So you did tell us where you’re going after this.
Jeremy Enns [46:10]
So after this heading to wahaca, Mexico, have some friends who are going to be there for about a month, actually the belly dance girl, she’s going to be there with her husband. So we’re going to go hang out my girlfriend and them too, and maybe even some other friends are going to come down as well. And then I think probably Mexico City after that for a bit and then coming up to the US for conferences and so on. And I’ll be back home in Canada for some weddings and visiting family and friends and that kind of stuff over the summer.
Unknown Speaker [46:38]
And do you have children?
Jeremy Enns [46:40]
I do not.
David Ralph [46:41]
If you had children, would that change it for you? Or from what you’ve seen? Now? Would you say come along? Well, I
Jeremy Enns [46:50]
think you know, it would change it for a time for sure. I’m actually here in the city I’m in right now have two friends who are here, they just actually put on kind of a retreat for their community. And they both have young kids, and they’re here. And they’re really big travellers and have been for a long time actually, they’re the community they’ve built as all around the travel and kind of location independent space. And they were some of the people who initially kind of got me started on all these ideas of how to build a business like this. There if for anybody interested in what we’ve been talking about with location independence, building, that type of business. They have a podcast called location, indie. And it’s all about that kind of stuff. So they’re having a kind of mini conference here for for that community. And yeah, they both have small kids. I think a couple of people who were were at this conference had kids as well. So I think it’s totally doable. I think it’s also a really great excuse that a lot of people say, Well, I could never do that, because I have kids. So I think it is possible. But it would definitely change the style of travel. And that’s not really something that I’m too keen on at the moment
David Ralph [47:56]
know what you wait until the avons may and then you’ll just be driving around in a station waggon. We’ve kids kicking the back of your seat, and listening to the wiggles for 15 hours on the trot is a life change for sure.
Unknown Speaker [48:11]
Yep, I believe it.
David Ralph [48:12]
Well, this is the part of the show that we’ve been leading up to. And this is the bit that we called a sermon on the mic, when we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if he could go back in time and speak to the younger version of yourself, what would you ask him? And what advice would you give him? Well, we’re gonna find out because I’m going to play the music. And when it fades you up. This is the Sermon on the mic.
Unknown Speaker [48:41]
We go with the speed of the show the Sermon on the sermon.
Jeremy Enns [48:57]
All right, so I think that number one, I think this is something I had, but that I would definitely encourage myself looking back if I could meet my younger self was just to have patience. So I was, I think 2026 by the time I even got started thinking about, you know, getting into online business and this whole world. And, you know, all of my friends had finished university. Some of them were finishing Masters and PhD programmes and I was, you know, just as lost as ever kind of, and for some reason, inexplicable to me still, for some reason, I had a lot of confidence that, you know, I was going to figure it out at some point. And so, yeah, I was maybe starting to waver a little bit at the end and kind of getting impatient. So I would definitely kind of tell myself to, you know, keep keep being patient and you know, keep believing that it’s going to work out. And the other thing I would say is to just get started trying things way sooner. I think I delayed on a lot of things and kind of overanalyze and thought, well, that’s not going to work or like That this this idea could there’s no audience for that or whatever. And, you know, come came up with all kinds of excuses. And so I think I would definitely tell myself, you know, especially when I was in my early 20s, and you know, I’d always had that idea that I wanted to work for myself, and I would have, you know, gone back and said, Well, you know, it doesn’t, the first thing doesn’t need to be the thing that ends up working out in the long run, and just start trying anything and everything. And, really, I would also, I’d probably say, start listening to Join Up Dots and a number of other podcasts way earlier, I would have loved to tip myself off to those in 2005, rather than 2015, and start that kind of education, towards what it takes to grow a business and do that online, and really just opened up that whole world of knowledge there. I think that I would have loved to get access to that a whole lot sooner than I did. But I’m grateful that I discovered that when I did, and I’m grateful that I’ve now almost completed my first Join Up Dots episode. So this is probably another one of those life changing moments that I’ll look back on in 10 years. Well, we will be glad to have you again later.
David Ralph [51:09]
But what’s the number one best way that our audience can connect with you so
Jeremy Enns [51:13]
well, if anybody’s interested in podcasting, like I mentioned before, I’ve a Facebook group called Cut the bullshit podcasting. And so if you are interested in you know, just connecting with other podcasters, and getting information on what you could be doing better with your show, or how to start a new show, that’s a great place to find me there. You can also check out my production website, which is counterweight creative Co. And like we mentioned about the podcast power pack that’s going on, I think this show is going to be live during the sale. So you can head over to podcast powerpack.com. And you can find out all the information about that incredible deal that we’re putting on there.
David Ralph [51:57]
And we will have over links in the show notes. So Jeremy, thank you so much for spending time with us today, joining up those dots. And as I said, Please come back again, when you have more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is the best way to build our futures. Jeremy, thank you so much.
Jeremy Enns [52:15]
Thank you so much for having me on David.
David Ralph [52:19]
Well, Jeremy from Mexico, he was good when he I really I said afterwards, I said I could have just kept talking to you for ages and ages and ages. And so as he was saying you do what other people are doing, you put your own spin on it, you use them as a benchmark for success. And you get your head down and you do the work. And literally I think that a business can become a business within six months, really, if you put your effort if you’re just doing an hour here and oh, I’m going to go out and have a pint tonight. And then momentum is difficult. But if you go right for six months, I’m going to really work at this. I don’t see why you can’t be your own boss and do something that lights you up. As I am doing as Jeremy’s doing as we’re all doing, we will we’re not telling you lies. We’re telling you the truth. So hopefully somebody out there will hear those words. And then ping Yeah, now it’s my time. Until next time, thank you so much for being here. Look after yourselves. And that was David, Ralph and Jeremy. And that was Join Up Dots say
Outro [53:23]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you or wants to become. So he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to Join Up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.
