Scott Voelker’s 19 Year Journey From Home Builder to Amazing Seller to Online Business Builder
When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Scott Voelker may be a new grandparent but has the energy of a teenager. This year marks his 19th year being self-employed, and although he is slowing down to focus more on family, his workload at Brand Creators is still more than most will tackle in a lifetime.
Running the Rock Your Brand Podcast is his primary focus with nearly 900 episodes and 16 million podcast downloads, but that's just the start.
Last year Scott checked a few things off his to-do list:
- Wrote the book Take Action Effect.
- Ran a high-level mastermind (10 people at $25,000 to join).
- Completed a $200k home renovation for an Airbnb rental.
- Managed his podcast 175k-350k monthly downloads.
- Created online courses for Brand Creators.
- Hosted a live event with over 250 people in attendance. (pre-Covid)
- Completed a handful of exciting case studies.
- Sold a business which all together netted just at 7 figures.
In his early days, Scott would see others being successful with a project or business and think, “I can do that, I can do better”, and next thing you know he would be building something new.
For those that know Scott best, this doesn't come as a surprise. Even before Scott was building a business, he was building homes in the construction industry. Scott loves to create new things.
Scott has been in both the online world and physical brick and mortar businesses. He previously ran a photography studio for 5 years. It's these types of experiences that have made him incredible at building brands.
Watch the Entire Interview
Scott's Philosophy on Building Brands
Interestingly Scott has been able to boil down two things that are the same for every brand.
Whether it's building an Amazon FBA business, launching a live event, selling courses, brick and mortar stores or niche websites, Scott says one thing is always consistent.
Traffic + Offers is the core of any business.
You have to have an audience to sell to (traffic) and something to sell (offers) that makes a profit.
Scott's Key Strategies on Building Brands
While this is a bit simplified, Scott dove a little deeper into business strategies that he used to build the business that netted him 7 figures in the three and half years building the company he recently sold.
This particular business he grew with a business partner. While it started off as an Amazon FBA business, they also built an authority site in the space that really enhanced the overall business.
-
Grow your email list.
This is a traffic channel you can control. It's also efficient and cost-effective. Running contests and landing pages with lead magnets was Scott's go-to strategy in growing an email list for their authority site.
With the contests, he was finding he could run a Facebook ad and generate email subscribers at .15-.18 cents per subscriber. The lead magnets would be closer to .70 cents per conversion, but he found subscribers' quality to be much greater.
The tool he uses for the contests is Giveaway Boost, a WordPress plugin. He actually partnered with Chris Guthrie a mutual friend of ours to build this tool. Check out Giveaway Boost for yourself! -
Don't Disregard Ad Monetization
For the longest time, Scott was convinced that adding ads to your website wasn't worth it. He felt it diluted the value of the site and distracted from the main goals of the site. In his case the goal was to sell products on Amazon not earn revenue through selling ads.
This all changed after talking with someone who was having success with ads. Scott decided to give it a try, and his only regret was that he didn't start sooner.
Using premium ad platforms (like Mediavine and Adthrive), he was sometimes generating nearly $6k a month in display ad revenue. The Amazon products were still the primary money maker, but the extra income far outweighed the negatives of adding ads to his site.
-
Diversity Monetization
Similar to how he diversified the advertising fees. Scott recommends repurposing content for additional revenue.
For example, after doing Facebook live events, he would upload the video content to YouTube. After a while, the YouTube channel started making a couple of hundred dollars a month for little extra work.
Another monetization strategy was to include a call to action for a paid product after converting someone from a Facebook Advertising campaign. The primary goal is to capture the email subscriber, but if you can upsell them on the back end to offset the ad costs, it makes running ads a game-changer.
-
Consistency is required
When Scott signs up in his own head to do something, he's going to do it. Scott says consistency has done him well. The fact he has 900 podcast episodes is a testament Scott can be consistent.
Scott's giving credit to consistency reminds me a lot of what Nathan Barry from ConvertKit said in one of our last podcast episodes, it's evident that consistency is a critical factor in any brand.
What I love about these strategies is that it doesn't matter what business you are in. They work. The products they sold in this business were accessories to household items—for example, an accessory to a Kirby vacuum or other appliances.
Selling the Business
After three and half years and the decision to simplify a bit, Scott and his partner in this Amazon FBA business decided to sell.
Scott and his partner choose Quiet Light Brokerage to sell. Before they sold, they met with their team and were sure to prepare themselves early. They started to get their financials in line with a third party accountant and prepare the business for the sale.
Their preparation paid off. When listing the business, 6 offers came almost immediately. They choose one of the highest bidders, but unfortunately, Covid hit.
The benefits of taking the extra time to prepare financials allowed the buyer to leverage the SBA lending options. When Covid hit, finding a bank open to complete the deal delayed things. Eventually, after about a month, the buyer backed out.
They went back to the drawing board and eventually sold the business to a very capable, if not better, buyer.
Getting Back to Creating a Lifestyle Business with Brand Creators
Selling the business was a significant component of simplifying and getting back to creating a lifestyle business for Scott.
Scott knew he was pushing the limits with so much going on. Even with the sale of the business, Scott made an important decision.
He was no longer going to compare himself to others. He would instead look at what he wanted. Pick his own numbers to challenge himself with, understand those numbers, and get real with it.
The first step was the rebrand of his podcast from “The Amazing Seller” to “Rock Your Brand”.
Rebranding Amazing Seller to Rock Your Brand Podcast
In business, it's not uncommon to take on the identity of your business brand.
I can't tell you how many times I've been referred to as the “Niche Pursuits guy” Scott found he was known as being the “Amazon Seller Guy”. He wanted to expand to other things than just the Amazon sales.
No, he's not saying goodbye to Amazon, but Amazon is simply a tool. The rebrand allowed Scott to focus on what he was truly great at, building brands.
The rebranding also allowed him to stay true to himself and the lifestyle business he wanted. The Rock Your Brand podcast allowed him to not just talk about Amazon selling, but all things business.
Not only could he have unique guests on his show, but he could talk about health, fitness, or even business mindsets, things that are often highly needed and neglected for entrepreneurs.
But the broader niche didn't solve all his problems. In fact, this required him to focus more. He scaled back even more by stopping the sale of his courses, slowing down on case studies, deciding to put his focus in just a few areas.
Scott's New Focus
- Brand Creators Academy
- Brand Accelerator Live Event (once per year)
- Little Workshops 3-hour lessons he can tackle on a Saturday and turn into evergreen content.
- Podcasting 3 times a week.
Scott and I go way back, and I'm excited to see him put his focus into these areas. He's built himself a great funnel and will hopefully be able to spend a lot more time being grandpa “Papa” Scott.
One of the things Scott and I connect the most with is our attention to the family. Many people say that family comes first, but with Scott, you know he means it. From his father as his mentor to how he makes his kid's events a priority. Even with taking on so much, it's evident his family truly comes first.
You can read more about Scott, his family, podcast, and brand creators academy at BrandCreators.com
Related Posts
Want to learn step-by-step how I built my Niche Site Empire up to a full-time income?
Yes! I Love to Learn
Learn How I Built My Niche Site Empire to a Full-time Income
- How to Pick the Right Keywords at the START, and avoid the losers
- How to Scale and Outsource 90% of the Work, Allowing Your Empire to GROW Without You
- How to Build a Site That Gets REAL TRAFFIC FROM GOOGLE (every. single. day.)
- Subscribe to the Niche Pursuits Newsletter delivered with value 3X per week
My top recommendations
