Seven-Figure Strategies: Graham Cochrane’s 5-Hour Workweek Strategy

Your Dream Business

This week, I sat down with the inspiring Graham Cochrane, a seven-figure business owner who has managed to scale his online business while working just five hours a week. Dive into an engaging conversation where Graham shares his journey, insights on building a successful online business, and actionable strategies for audience growth. Whether you're a course creator, membership owner, or coach, this episode is packed with valuable tips to help you streamline your business and achieve your goals. KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

1. Building a Scalable Business: The importance of focusing on audience building as the primary asset for long-term success.
2. Creating Valuable Content: Strategies for creating engaging and valuable content that resonates with your target audience.
3. Personal and Professional Growth: The significance of aligning your business with your personal values and lifestyle.

If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful. LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE Connect with Graham on Million Dollar Life Giving Business Formula Training, Podcast, Youtube, Instagram, Rebel book Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

Transcript

Teresa: If you got the chance to sit down with a seven figure business owner who only works five hours a week. What would you want to ask them? Well, this is exactly what I got the chance to do. I got the opportunity to sit down and talk to Graham Cochrane, who has a seven figure online business. And like I said, only works Five hours a week. And I got to pick his brain about how he has done it and how he has built his business. He shares the number one skill that he believes that every online business owner should have to build a successful business. And also he has a really fascinating question that we should be asking ourselves while we're building that business to ensure that we are attracting the right people into our world. It really is an insightful conversation, which I think you're going to get so much out of. Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I'm your host, [00:01:00] Therese Heath Waring, an international bestselling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you're in. In each episode, I'll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we'll be diving into some mindset tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you're a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you are in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business Podcast. This week, I have got an amazing guest for you. I'm interviewing the very lovely Graham Cochrane. Now I first met Graham when I went to the Kajabi conference last year, and he was one of the speakers on the VIP [00:02:00] day. And he's just one of those people who is so lovely and seems so nice that you just instantly want to be friends with them. And I spoke to him at the conference. And when I did the summit, I knew I wanted him to speak because at the summit, I got him to talk about his affiliate work that he does with teh Kajabi because he makes a ton of money through Kajabi affiliate. However, today on the podcast, I am picking his brain about completely different stuff. We are talking about how he built his business, how he finds the online world. And I'm asking him questions about what is working right now. What would he be doing if he was just starting out again? And he is a big YouTuber, has a really successful YouTube account. And I might mention to him that I'm thinking about a YouTube channel and I ask him what I should do and how I should get started. So it was an awesome way to [00:03:00] pick his brains about all that good stuff. He is a really lovely guy and very smart on what he does. And I know you are going to get so much value from this episode of this podcast. So. If you've got a friend who you think would also value this podcast, please do go and share it with them. And it would be remiss of me not to ask you while you're at it to give me a review on either Apple or Spotify. A lovely five stars would be amazing. I appreciate it so very much. And I want to remind you, if you have the VIP pass for the summit, then you can watch Graham's session that he did there. It really was excellent. Okay. I will leave you to it. Here's the lovely Graham. Graham, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. How are you doing? Graham: Oh, I'm doing great. I'm not as great as you're about to be on your trip, so I can't wait to hear about it when you come back. Teresa: Yeah, it's an exciting time at the point recording this. We've got lots of exciting things coming up, which is awesome. So you spoke at the summit. And people loved your session. [00:04:00] And we had such a lovely conversation that you very kindly agreed to give me your time again and come and be a guest on the podcast. But just in case someone doesn't know who you are, we will start the same, maybe slightly boring way, but I find it helpful to explain who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do today. Graham: Yeah, well, I'm excited to be here. I loved your summit. I love your energy. And when I got to meet you, I think in person at the Kajabi event in 2023, you were just super kind and nice to me. I got off stage and you said some nice things and you're very gracious. So I knew I liked you immediately when I met you. So. It's not a problem to spend time with you. Yeah, I would, I tell people I've been online about 15 years now in the online coaching space, selling courses, communities, masterminds, things like that. Originally in the music recording space, my first company's called the Recording Revolution. I'm a musician by trade. I grew up making songs, writing songs, but then I learned The art of recording and producing and audio engineering [00:05:00] and stumbled into content creation. I thought I was trying to put out some stuff on the internet in 2009 to get leads for a freelance service of recording and producing music. Had no idea that people would just like the content for what it was because they wanted to learn how to do it themselves and they didn't want to hire me as much as they wanted to learn how to do it. And so I became a, an educator and people wanted more content, more content, more YouTube videos, more articles. And I just was like, this is the coolest thing ever, but you don't make any money writing blog posts and making YouTube videos. So if I'm going to keep doing this, how can I make money? And that just opened the door to trying to figure this stuff out. I didn't know that these things existed. I didn't know the Amy Porterfield's of the world. They didn't know there was a world where people were selling courses. And so I stumbled into it, eventually figured out that was the having your own digital product was the best way, in my opinion, to monetize. I've done it all though. Affiliate marketing, brand deals, advertising, [00:06:00] sponsorships, done it all, but stumbled into that, built that business up. And then I would say the last six or seven years, I've been teaching people the business model, how to do what I've done in hobby niches, all kinds of niches. And Now I'm writing books and speaking and, and hanging out with cool people like you. So I just say, like, I like to teach, I like to empower people. I like people to get transformation. And I've discovered I have a gift of taking complex things, making it simple and helping people actually go implement it, which at the end of the day is what makes people have life changes when they actually do something with the information, right? Teresa: Yeah. And I'm so glad you said that because I think In this online space, there is no short of information and, and in terms of people teaching in this online space, there's no short of those people as well. But I think the one thing that people often miss is you actually need to do the work. So learn and find out and follow people and everything is brilliant, but actually You've got to go out there and you've got to do these things [00:07:00] or otherwise it's never going to actually happen and you can't live from the beach and earn money as you sleep. But I mean, it's nice. That would be lovely. But we do actually have to do some work as well. So when we had you on the summit, we talked a lot about you do a lot of affiliate stuff. You do brilliantly well with the affiliate stuff. You built a big audience. You are known for what you do, which is amazing. But actually I'm gonna be a bit selfish and like proper pick your brains on this session. Graham: Sure. Teresa: 'cause because it's my podcast that I can. But. Graham: Do whatever you want. Teresa: I'm also fascinated because you have been in this industry and this space for a long time. What are your thoughts? Because I feel like it's gone through various different things. And I've been in since probably about eight, nine years and I've seen lots of changes. So what changes have you seen and what do you see kind of really like, what do you, what do you project for the future of it or how we need to [00:08:00] show up or what we need to do if we want to be in this space? Graham: Man, that is a great question. Is that a good thing that I'm old enough and been around long enough that like I'm being asked that what have you seen this change? It's so funny. I still feel like I just got into it. Okay, so let's talk about what hasn't changed and then story about what's changed. Teresa: Yeah. Perfect. Graham: 30, 000 foot view. What hasn't changed and will never will change is really the audience is the asset. So you got to build an audience, right? I've, I've always said this and it's, it's proven true. Even though a lot of moving pieces change around, the core tenant is without an audience, nothing is possible, but with an audience, anything is possible. So we're really in the audience building business. And more than ever, you want to own that audience. You know, we're both Kajabi users. Whatever tool you use, you want to have an email list. You want to own the relationship so you can have direct communication with your people. And we're seeing this with platforms like TikTok. They're considering banning it in the United States and it's on the Congress floor. If you've built a business on TikTok, 2 million [00:09:00] followers on TikTok means nothing if it's banned, right? Or even if it's not banned and everyone leaves TikTok for the next TikTok, because that's what's happened, then you have to go rebuild those followers over there. You don't actually own the audience. So, You want to have your own audience, but the reason you want the, the reason the audience is the asset is because you may not know what to sell. You may not even like what you're selling. You may want to change what you're selling. It doesn't matter if they like you and they trust you, then you can monetize in a million different ways and you can even evolve. I've evolved in how I monetize and change, but it's like the people like me and the audience building is the hardest part and it's the part people don't want to do. They want to shortcut the process and let's just run ads or let me just, you know. And there are ways to bypass it a little bit, but what's the point if really the skill that's most necessary to win online is the skill of audience building, you might as well learn it now because then if everything's taken away from you, you can go build another audience. Absolute worst case because you've learned that skill of how do I, it comes down to serving people. Like no one's good. No one's going to follow you for no [00:10:00] reason. They have to have a reason. So that hasn't changed. And interestingly enough, email marketing has not changed, even though email, there's new nuances of like things that work and don't work, but like email marketing still is the number one driver of sales online, which is fascinating to me and everyone wants to kill it, but it's just not dying and maybe it'll die one day, but I, I really think it's, it's, it's going to be around for a long time. So email marketing hasn't changed, audience building hasn't changed. And then just paying attention to what your people want. And really listening. And this is, this is what's harder for people like you and me that are, you know, if you want to call us OGs or whatever. When you're starting out, you're scrappy and you're willing to like, listen and, and pay attention. And then when you get some success, it's very easy to just, let's just do more of what's already been working because now that I've cracked the code, I don't need to think anymore. And then you start to decline because now you're not doing the thing that got you there, which was paying attention to what your people want and being scrappy and innovative and [00:11:00] excited. And so it's very easy to get dogmatic about your own thing that was innovative at one point. And, and that's true for me. Like, well, this is the way I do things and this is the way it's worked. And so I think you always got to stay in that lane of what do my people want? They used to want this or that I used to, My videos used to do well when I did this, but if it doesn't work anymore, be willing to not just change and trend chase. It really is because trends don't matter. What matters is what your audience wants and your audience is different than my audience. They are very unique. And the way you win is by serving the audience. So those are all the things that are 30, 000 foot view, but they're so important. And those haven't changed. A lot has changed. I think there's, it's easier in a way than like the tools are. I mean, if anyone complains about the tech staff or the tools today, I just. I just don't have patience for that. It is so easy to push a button, create a brand and monetize [00:12:00] your knowledge. Yes, it takes work. And this is called a business. It's a business, but it is, this is not hard work guys. This is not hard work. So the easier tools, more creative tools. AI is very interesting. I feel like I'm kind of a late adopter in the sense that I don't, I don't nerd out over the newest thing. So I probably that's to my disadvantage. But even I am not an idiot enough to know that like AI is only going to be a tool to speed up things. Like we're in the creation business. So if it can speed up my content creation, if it can speed up my web design, if it can be a bridge between me and my clients and Whether it's an AI chatbot that helps answer some of their low level questions that so I don't have to or my customer service person. I think those tools are new and those are changing. And if people get uncomfortable with them, it just think about, again, it's just a tool. How can I use this tool to make my business faster, leaner, increase or improve the customer experience. Those things are all in flux. And then here's, here's what I'm thinking about Teresa. [00:13:00] This is interesting because the last, I would say the last six years. I've had a lot of not pushback, but a lot of people asking me, Graham, why aren't you doing a lot of short form content? Why aren't you jumping on, you know, especially the last five years since Tik Tok really started to emerge. Why aren't you on Tik Tok? Why are you doing a ton of reels? Why aren't you doing YouTube shorts? And I mean, I've done a few of these things. And there's been this push and this trend to do that. And then what's fascinating to me is I've, I like doubled down on long form content. I went longer. Everyone got shorter. I went from like 15 minute videos to 30 minutes to 45 minutes. And I don't know if you've been following, you know, Mr. Beast and Alex Hermosi, but even Alex a week or two ago of this recording posted that he's, he's moving away from short form content. He's moving to longer form content, and he's moving away from all of the different random topics that grew his audience and realizing none of those people converted into customers or into the right prospects. So he's like, I'm going to just double down on one [00:14:00] lane for the type of audience that I want to build. One type of content, educational in nature, not entertainment in nature, because people who consume your entertainment content don't want to buy education. They want more entertainment. People who consume your education content want more education. So if you're selling information or education, that's, I'd rather have a smaller audience. That's the right audience....