547 – Drum up business in bite sized pieces: Tom interviews Debbie Drum

Episode 547 – Debbie Drum
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode five hundred and forty seven of Screw the Commute podcast. We're here with Debbie Drum, and yes, that's her real name. It's Debbie Drum. Cool, very cool name. And she got out of that dreaded J-O-B. She was in outside sales for like ten years, selling all kinds of tuition management tools and stuff like that, where she kind of cut her teeth and learned a lot of stuff. But she's kind of like me in that I don't want anybody telling me what to do. I don't want to go to work every day I never have. And so she chucked that all to create a lifestyle business, and we'll be talking about just one of her, her great products today. All right. How'd you like to make a lot of money? Referring me, Well, you can make some some of the things that are in excess of five thousand for one referral. And we've got everything, all kinds of things, all the way from lower priced products, all the way to the big stuff. And all you have to do if you're interested is email me at Tom@Screwthecommute.com and we'll dig into what your audience is and see what's most appropriate for you, and we'll help you sell lots of stuff. Now, make sure you grab a copy of our automation e-book. It's free for listening to the show and it's Oh, I tell you what, I'll just say you're welcome right now because you will thank me if you download this e-book.

[00:01:52] We charge twenty seven bucks for it, but it's yours free for listening to the show, but it's allowed me. It's the techniques that I've used over many, many years to to handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and sixty five thousand customers without pulling my hair out. And it allows you to ethically steal customers from other people because you get back to them so fast. And and most of the stuff is either free or cheap, and it's already on your some of it's already on your computer. Plus, we have cell phone automation tips and all kinds of stuff for you, so grab a copy of that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And while you're at it, pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app, and you can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road. Now we're still going strong in my pilot program to help persons with disabilities for scholarships to my school for internet and digital marketing, and I'm really excited about this. We've got three people going through right now and guess what? Anytime you're feeling sorry for yourself, two of them are blind and they're making videos you can actually see on the Go Fund Me campaign. They're update videos. It's just amazing these these folks, and I'm really excited because we're going to get them either hired or in their own business or both.

[00:03:21] And then I took a grant writing course, and I'm going to after I proved the concept that I can really get these people trained and in gainful employment, then I'm going to roll it out to big foundations and corporations and help loads of people so love to have your help on this something you can really be proud of to go to go to my school website. IMTCVA.org, Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia, a distance learning school. The only one in the country actually that's dedicated to this topic and certified to operate by SCHEV the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. So check it out and it'll click you through if you go IMTCVA.org/disabilities. And of course, this will be in the show notes you can go over to the Go Fund Me campaign. Anything you kick in is great. And hey, if you're really flush with cash, you can sponsor a person yourself, so. So please check it out. There's something you can really be proud of. I know I am.

[00:04:22] All right, let's get to the main event. Debbie Drum's an expert at creating passive income. We love that in all forms of content, written video, audio and graphics, and she's an Amazon, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best seller. Debbie's created over 500 digital and physical products since she's been working as her own boss from the comforts of her own home since 2010. She currently spends her time helping entrepreneurs create simple, bite sized content to sell and give away to grow their business. Debbie. Are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:05:03] I am. Let's do it.

[00:05:05] To think about it there for a second. Right. Let me ask you something about your logo. It's a little it's a bumblebee with her a lady's head sticking on it. What? What did you come? How did you come up with that?

[00:05:18] Yeah, so my name, Deborah, it's a Hebrew name, and it means bee. Every present that I get every year has some kind of bumble bee on it, and I have a million things with with with bees. So and people call me bee all the time, and that's that's where it came from.

[00:05:45] Okay, so so you've got the tremendous amount of information products, and I don't know how many books I was looking at your Amazon author page and what made. Let's talk about before we get into what you're doing now, the the transition period from when you were working at the dreaded J-O-B. It kind of I mean, it kind of sounded like you liked it because you were learning things. But then what made you decide and did you save up money and how did you transition out of that job to start your own business?

[00:06:19] Yeah, I mean, that's where I learned how to sell doing outside sales, and I sold a very competitive service. There was only three companies that did what what we did for schools, for private schools around the country.

[00:06:33] And so you were the bad guy and went after the money when the students weren't paying, right?

[00:06:38] Exactly. Yeah, I know. And yeah, so once the school chose the company, that was it that, you know, that was it for years because they didn't want to change after they made a decision. So that's how critical it was to get the deal. And that's why I learned how to present. That's where I learned how to do webinars and just, you know, relate to people that everything you need to know that that translates to online sales. But I had to leave my house on a Sunday, and I didn't come back until Thursday. I was all by myself on the road. I was traveling so much. I was in my late twenties, just turning 30, and I had back pain. I had leg pain and I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's got to be a better way. And on top of all that, I had bosses who I didn't particularly care for too much.

[00:07:36] Well, you know, you know what? Boss spells backwards. Double S.O.B.

[00:07:44] Exactly. And I was literally, like, so unhappy and crying, and I I stumbled upon people making money from home and I'm like, what? I could just like not have to leave my house and somehow make money. I want to know how to do that. And I was I'm so fortunate because I was young enough and I just would like work 14 hour days, seven days a week. I would sit for hours and hours and learn, and I had no problem doing that. These days, I can't sit for 90 minutes without having hip pain, but that's a different story.

[00:08:23] Well, you know, they say an entrepreneur will work 18 hours a day to get away. Working for somebody else for eight hours?

[00:08:30] Exactly. So and that's what I did. I woke up at like 5:00 in the morning. I would learn from like five to no wait.

[00:08:39] Did you quit? No, no. So you were still working and then doing this, transitioning to this on the side.

[00:08:45] Luckily, I was able to do both for a while. I did. It did both for two full years. Ok? Yeah.

[00:08:53] And then save up the money.

[00:08:56] Well, I didn't go full time until I saw that I can actually consistently make a certain amount of money. All right. Ok. Yeah. So and that's when I made the decision because, you know, by by goes that paycheck by goes that health insurance and it's a big step. And yeah, and it took, you know, it took me two years to be like, OK, I'm ready to do it

[00:09:23] All right now. Did you actually give anybody the finger to your bosses when you left?

[00:09:33] Not quite, but no. I didn't return some phone calls.

[00:09:37] So, OK, all right, that's in a way the same thing. So, OK, so what was your what were you making or doing in those early days?

[00:09:52] Yeah, so, you know, I do consider myself an introvert, but I can be both an extrovert and an introvert, but literally when I was working my outside sales job, I was talking all day long. I was talking on the phone, I was talking in meetings and I was getting tired of my own voice. So I found a world where I actually could write and make money and and I'm like, Wow, I could just sit here in my own little corner and not have to talk to anyone. And that was my big thing. And you know, eventually I one of the first things I started doing to really, I think, become successful as video and I was terrible at VIDEO. But I did it and I took, you know, I bought your cause and I, you know, took so many different training on how to get better with public speaking. I remember my first video took. It was like a seven minute video, and it took me, I think, seven hours. So there was a lot of work to be done there. But yeah, as soon as I started, I call this the journey method what I do. And basically, you learn something along the way. You go through it from start to finish and then you teach other people how to do it and and you tell them what was successful. You tell them what was unsuccessful, what you would change, what you would do different, you know, just your journey. And people really appreciate that. Like, imagine you want to lose weight and you saw somebody who lost 50 pounds in three months. Well, wouldn't you want to know exactly what they did, what their journey was? And that's how people make money?

[00:11:47] Yeah. And I hate it when there's somebody that's never had an ounce of fat on them in their whole life trying to tell me how to lose weight, I want to say, oh yeah. But what was your first product, do you remember?

[00:11:59] Oh, yes. So I was publishing books at the time and I learned how to. I bought my first course was my first quote unquote. Investment was a $500 product to learn how to publish player on Kindle.

[00:12:14] Yeah, private label rights, folks. Yeah, kind of white label.

[00:12:20] So basically what I would do is I would change the content because anyone, any time you buy pre-written content, you always want to change it and upgrade it, you know, so that's what I would do. And well, everyone was publishing to Amazon and Kindle. I found a way to publish on the iBook store and I would immediately rank books and I would was getting sales. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is so cool. So I wrote like a report on it and a whole bunch of people who were promoting Kindle products at the time, they jumped on it. And this one affiliate that I had made, like I made like three thousand dollars, I'm like, Oh my God. So that's that. That's what catapulted my entire business. I think just having like a new product to market that people were excited about.

[00:13:16] All right. So you have one that we discussed last week sometime on workbooks. Tell them about that.

[00:13:25] Yeah, so that is a it's called Workbook Wealth, and it's taking the same concept of publishing any type of content, right, like a short report or let's say you have some kind of exercise or activity that you help people make a transformation with, and you can sure you can publish a PDF and you can hand that out. You could grow your email list, you can get people to opt in to get it. But I take that a step further because when I learned that putting something in the hands of your customer or your subscriber or putting something physical, no matter what it is, it ups the value of anything that you're doing. So let's say you have an online course or your coach or your consultant or your speaker, or you're an author, right? And somebody buys your package, whatever it is, five thousand dollar package, even a thousand dollar package, and you spend 10 bucks and ship them a physical workbook, something that they could hold in their hands, put on their coffee table, show their friends show in a video. Hold it up. Do a testimonial. If you can do that, the impact that you will have on that person will last forever, meaning they won't forget you. They won't throw you away. Most people don't throw these workbooks away or physical books away, right? They'll start engaging with you not only with your book, but they'll start opening up your emails. They'll start following what you're doing online because they're interested and they know you. How many times have you opted in to get some kind of gift in in your inbox from somebody online? And, you know, a week later, you're like, Who is this person? What? What did I? What is this? And it's unfortunate because you opted in for a reason. You gave your valuable email out to somebody and you wanted it. But for some reason, you just can't remember, you know, who the heck they are. And that is that changes when you have that next level of connection with somebody.

[00:15:57] Yeah. Now I've done that in a different format, but I like this because the format that I used really wasn't distributed kind of on Amazon and or Kindle Direct Publishing. But when they joined my mentor program, they get this really fancy folder that they can keep all their paper and notes and stuff in. It's all embossed and everything. So that's just one method of it. But but this one, you know, that wasn't sent through the, you know, it couldn't happen through Amazon. Put it that way where your specialty?

[00:16:33] I prefer that, you know, you know, because like, let's say they buy a package from you, a coaching package, you're you're not necessarily selling that on the Amazon platform. You're just you might have just published something through it and you do something called print on demand where let's say you sign up for my program, I put you your name and your address into the system. Whatever it is, Amazon or there are other print on demand distribution companies and it's all hands off. So that's, you know, I eat the cost because you already paid me right? And then it gets shipped to you a couple of days later and then, you know, then the magic happens.

[00:17:20] So what all is in the workbook course? You had templates and stuff.

[00:17:24] Yeah, we've got like 80 templates. See, my whole thing for creating anything really is I like to start from either 50 or 70 percent of the way done already. So I use templates and and other people's content in my business all the time. And when I get it, I customize it and I enhance it. And that's how products get created very, very quickly, right?

[00:17:53] And I got a bone to pick with you. I cannot believe that I saw Judith Briles in your product, but not Tom Antion. I cannot believe it. Well, you're just overlooked me like I didn't exist.

[00:18:09] We're new friends and funny story how we reconnected, but maybe that's hard. No, no, no.

[00:18:17] Let's still go ahead. Tell him, you go ahead.

[00:18:21] Go ahead. I'll wait. I don't know the complete story.

[00:18:24] The complete story is she bought something for me and then returned it.

[00:18:29] I don't know why, though.

[00:18:31] Well, it must have been a reason.

[00:18:34] Yeah, there must have been.

[00:18:35] So she called up, so she had the nerve. Folks, this lady know this is what she must have learned in her, in her job, you know, to be tough. And, you know, so she buys the product, she returns it in twenty fourteen. Don't leave that out. Yeah.

[00:18:52] And then seven, eight years later, she calls to her free consultation. This girl has guts. I'm telling you, folks, but here's here she is, you know, so it must have worked. Oh my gosh. So, so anyway, I am not included in her workbook product, and I'm highly incensed about it. But but anyway, tell them what? Tell them what's in there?

[00:19:17] Well, you're next.

[00:19:18] You're next.

[00:19:23] Um yeah. So we've got the templates in there, so you don't have to start from scratch. I give you my workbook so you could actually make a copy of it and plug and play your own information in it. I've got the covers so that you don't have to start from scratch creating a cover because when you have something physical, obviously you need a cover, right? A front and back cover, and I want to make this as fast and seamless as possible. Some people say, Oh, I got to create a book. I don't have time for that. My first one that I created was it took me less than two hours to create in total. So the whole point is is not to have this take a year in a day, but to just put some stuff that you probably already have put it together in a way that you can make a book out of it and send it to your customer or have your customer buy it. There's all different ways that you can make money, collect leads and really just. My whole thing is that I don't think that publishing a book is anything special anymore because anybody could publish a book. Joe Schmo from off the street can come in and upload a PDF, put his name on it and put it on the marketplace to sell. So the bigger picture, though, is another channel of distribution. So. A channel of distribution could be a YouTube channel. Another distribution could be a Facebook profile or Instagram profile or an opt in form, and now you're on Amazon or your your outside of the web and in somebodies hands in their homes, and you're just found everywhere. Omnipresence, right? That's what we want to be for our customers. We don't just want to be in one place.

[00:21:36] You know, some of these workbooks that can have to have a spine.

[00:21:42] Yes, actually, I show how to do just like a regular book or a spiral bound book because a lot of people like the spiral bite.

[00:21:53] Oh, so KDP will do that?

[00:21:56] No, KDP doesn't do spirals, but there's other cool print on demand companies that are really good these days and and they do the spirals for you.

[00:22:08] All right. So you've got templates in there. You've got training by everybody but me and I was looking at it this morning and there was like loads and loads of individual modules where they kind of look over your shoulder to see how you're doing it with screen capture and all that.

[00:22:28] Exactly. Yeah. So it's like pretty step by step if I go back, you know, a lot of this content goes back a number of years, and if I go in there and I say, Oh, this needs to be updated, I'll update it. And I'll also add to the course too, because a lot of things change with the times. Or I'll come up with a different innovative way for you to get something done or get more of a connection with your customer.

[00:23:02] Now one thing I was a little confused because I was in a hurry. Just, you know, zooming through the course this morning, you won one place. You said, you just love PowerPoint and you're doing things in PowerPoint, and then you went in and talked about Google Docs. So is it one or the other or just preference or what?

[00:23:22] Yeah. So there's different ways that you can that you can create these workbooks and you could use paid tools. You can use free tools like my first one that I created. I did it with Google Docs, but I also love designing in PowerPoint as well. I also love kind of using a combination of both PowerPoint and Google Docs or Word document. It just depends on your end goal. So a lot of people say, How much do I charge for a workbook or where do I get my workbook printed or I'm doing a live event? And where do I print this? This handout that I want to give and and I say, I don't know because everyone has a different goal and you kind of have to decide what your goal is first and then that dictates, well, how how is it going to be made? How are you going to print it? Are you going to charge for or are you not going to charge for it, you know? So it kind of you have to kind of answer a couple of questions before you decide what route you're going to take when it comes to creating your workbook and then printing it at the end of the day.

[00:24:37] Got it. All right. So we've got to take a brief sponsor break. When we come back, we'll ask Debbie what a typical day looks for her in her lifestyle business and and how she stays motivated now that she's all alone in her, doesn't have to go to the water fountain and stab people in the back all day, like at the job regular job. So, so folks. Oh, must have been. Twenty four years ago now, I kind of turned the internet marketing guru world on its head and kind of pissed them all off because at the time people at my level were charging fifty or a hundred thousand bucks to train small business people. And and I knew a lot of these people you you give them fifty thousand bucks. You'd be chasing around Mexico to try to get get your training. So I said, you know, that's too risky for small business and I'm going to I'm going to flip this so. So what I did is I charged an entry fee that was way smaller and then tied my success to your success, where for me to get my fifty thousand, you had to make two hundred thousand and then you didn't owe me anything after that. And so people really love this. And seventeen hundred students later, it's still going strong and it's the most powerful, most unique, longest running internet marketing mentor program ever. You have a trip to the retreat center in Virginia Beach twice once for a four hour TV studio. Whether it's just you and another for an immersion weekend and you have unlimited one on one consultation with me and my entire staff, and nobody does that, nobody at my level even talk to you alone, train you on things.

[00:26:21] It's all I do. I'm a fanatic. Evenings, weekends, holidays. I don't care. That's my lifestyle type of business. So. So if you're interested in that kind of high level touch and help you with your online business, either take it to a new level or to start one, then. Check out greatinternetmarketingtraining.com, and also don't forget that school, yeah, you actually get a scholarship to the school when you're in the mentor program that you can either use yourself for extra training or gift to someone. And I'll tell you what it would be one of the best gifts you could ever give a young person nowadays, because they're they're running up enormous debt that these stupid schools that are just indoctrinating them and giving them no skills. And then they get out with their MBA and they're competing for jobs at Starbucks, so. So that's not the way we roll around here. We want to give you high level skills that are in high demand. So check it out.

[00:27:22] All right. Let's get back to the main event. We're here with Debbie Drum. Yes, that's her real name. And she is the B girl, I guess not. Not B Level. Bee is their logo. And so, Debbie, what's a typical day look like for you? What time you get up? Do you eat? Do you meditate? Do you have a morning routine? You tell us what your life is like?

[00:27:45] Well, my life revolves around pickleball. All right. It really does. I stay in fit to play and I love playing, so I play like two or three times a week. So fitness is like a huge part of my life.

[00:28:07] Do they have indoor pickleball courts?

[00:28:10] They do. Yeah, I live in New York, so it's like today it's actually twenty one degrees, right? That's what I was thinking. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we play a lot of tennis centers have made indoor courts. Okay. Yeah. So it's super fun and that makes me happy. It makes me laugh. And then when I'm not on the pickleball court, I learn and study pickleball. Okay, but all right, what

[00:28:37] Time do you get up?

[00:28:38] I get up around five o'clock. Wow, OK, yeah, I just I'm motivated to get my work done. I work every day, seven days a week.

[00:28:49] Yeah, I know that feeling.

[00:28:51] Yeah, I mean, I and I enjoy it, and it's not hardcore anymore. I'll work about four to five hours a day. I'm actually starting to time my my because, you know, sometimes you sit there and you think you're working and you're really not right. So I'm starting to time tasks with the with an app that I'm using. So that's that's fun. And then every day recently, and I would say in the past since the pandemic started, I started to just develop and wanted to develop even more skills for my online business. So not only to better myself, but to better the people who follow me. So almost every day I'm learning something and just

[00:29:41] Or she's buying a course and returning it or something.

[00:29:43] Like buying a course. I purchased the course that I bought from you and returned. I don't know why, because it is fantastic.

[00:29:52] No, not technically. Not technically. I had you contribute to that to that.

[00:29:57] Well, not to those people, not to those people.

[00:30:04] Um, so yeah. So I love I love learning and and I spend a lot of my time to there's so we live in a time that we're so lucky because there's all this like amazing technology. I'm a fast girl. I'm also the queen of sass.

[00:30:25] All right. Tell them what that means.

[00:30:27] That's a software as a service, right?

[00:30:29] Right now, it's just sassy.

[00:30:31] Yeah. So basically, it's using tools, automation tools. I call them robots, right? Having building robots in your business so that they work for you nonstop, they don't have to take breaks. They don't have to eat. They don't have to sleep. They work in any time zone. Right. And there's just so many things that we can build in our in our in our business that can automate things to make us more money.

[00:31:04] Yeah, I'm all into that now, now or they all robots or do you outsource anything I do outsource? Yeah, not a not a ton, but I'm, you know, not as fancy pants as you are when it comes to like having buildings and academies and all this stuff. But but yeah, it's a combination of and outsourcing the automation as well or outsourcing the building, the automation.

[00:31:35] You still didn't tell us what you eat in the morning.

[00:31:38] What do I eat? You know, it's funny.

[00:31:41] Or any any morning routine now.

[00:31:45] I don't have one, so other than to take the dogs out, so they don't shit all the on the carpet.

[00:31:50] But yeah, I mean, I love I love my morning coffee and I start working right away and then take the dogs out and then do some kind of like physical activity or play pickleball.

[00:32:03] Oh, so you got you will play pickleball before you actually start working sometimes.

[00:32:08] Yeah, because pickleball sometimes starts at like seven a.m. How

[00:32:11] Far is it way? Is it?

[00:32:14] Sometimes it's like 40 minute drive. Oh wow. Well, that'll eat up like my morning. And then sometimes I come home, I'm like, Oh my god, I'm tired. I don't want to do anything. All right.

[00:32:23] No, you're not. It's not playing with this, right? Aren't you doing competitive pickleball?

[00:32:28] Oh yeah, competitive. Like, I play at the highest level.

[00:32:32] Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, so you're doing this. And so how where have you traveled to play pickleball?

[00:32:39] I travel to all over. Mostly Florida. I've been to North Carolina. Lots of lots in the Tri-State area like New Jersey, Connecticut, like we've got some of the highest level players and even New York in Long Island. So lots to

[00:33:02] Know. Is it female and female or or is it co-ed or what is it?

[00:33:07] I mostly play with men just because there aren't a ton of females that are at the higher level. So we're always looking for people, always looking for more females in the sport. When the guys let me play, I play, so sometimes they don't. But you know,

[00:33:25] When you hold your own with them,

[00:33:27] Of course. Yeah.

[00:33:28] Well, OK.

[00:33:30] Yeah, I mean, high level guys game is is not that fun for me because they're just like little too crazy. But yeah, but like just a normal, normal game with guys. That's fine.

[00:33:45] You should go in and just act like you're really terrible and then start betting and then leave real fast.

[00:33:56] How am I going to do that with? Everyone knows me. Oh, oh, that's true.

[00:34:01] They wear a disguise. Do you ever see those guys that dress up like real old guys and go play basketball and the videos? Oh yeah, yeah. You can dress up like a little old lady.

[00:34:13] Yeah, right.

[00:34:16] All right. Well, great. So how do they get a hold of you if they want to check out? You know, we just talked about your workbook course, but you have lots of other stuff for them to check out. So where should they check you out?

[00:34:29] Yeah, no. I mean, everything that I do is mostly about like creating small bits of content for your business so you don't have to sit there and just like always be creating and not growing. So I like things out the door. I like things quick. I like things simple, so that's what you'll see for me. You can check out the the replay for Workbook Wealth at DebbieDrum.com. There's some products in there as well.

[00:35:03] And then there's some other products there that are some lower ticket products that you can kind of get started if you want to start to create more content and automation in your business to gain more followers and fans and customers and.

[00:35:23] Do you have a pickleball core site yet?

[00:35:26] I do. Yes, that's that's hidden in only a magic place that if you find it, then you're lucky.

[00:35:35] Oh yeah. It's not like mine. You're aware of my course. Fatsotennis.com.

[00:35:41] You told me about that.

[00:35:42] Yeah, so. So she's not a fatso, folks. So it wouldn't be fatso pickleball. But if I take it up, I'm going to have a fatso pickleball courts.

[00:35:52] Maybe that's why I returned it. Was it like a like speak fatso speakers? Maybe like, Oh, that's not so.

[00:36:05] So anyway, well, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it.

[00:36:08] Yeah, thank you so much. And let's connect for you to get inside a workbook. Well, because you're awesome. And I, you know, I love what you do. Oh yeah, I

[00:36:18] Shamed you into saying that.

[00:36:22] No, I was on your email list forever. Let me reach out to him because he's amazing.

[00:36:28] So well, watch. Also watch because we're going to be doing a webinar here shortly. It's not book yet, folks, but but we'll be going into great depth on some of the stuff that she has. So, so. Ok, well, thank you so much, Debbie and everybody. We will catch you all in the next episode. See you later.

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