In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Facebook marketing strategist Nick Wolny. Wolny shares a personal story about studying classical music, emphasizing the value of committing to a single methodology to achieve mastery—a lesson he later applied to marketing. He highlights that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp now see over 50 minutes of daily user engagement, and that Facebook Live videos generate ten times more comments than regular videos. Wolny advises entrepreneurs to focus ad spend on warm audiences—email subscribers and recent website visitors—using low‑cost ads to bypass low email open rates. He stresses the importance of early side‑hustling for skill development, and recommends testing rough drafts with a trusted tribe to avoid over‑attachment to ideas. For personal fulfillment, he advocates cultivating positivity and gratitude, warning against endless self‑development consumption. Wolny’s favorite book is Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza, which he says demystifies meditation through neuroscience. He also shares a misquoted Thoreau line about "quiet desperation" and the allure of unfinished songs. The episode concludes with a call to action: listeners can download an 84‑page free guide on monetizing Facebook Live at nickwolny.com/blast.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode.
Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Nick Wolny with us. He is a Facebook marketing strategist. So welcome to the show, Nick.
Hey, thanks so much for having me.
Of course, thanks for joining us and we'll dive in. The first question I have for you, Nick, is is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
So I actually went to school for classical music.
I have a few degrees in French horn performance, and one big thing that I discovered while I was at music conservatory is, you know, I wanted to rise to the top, so I would go fly and take a lesson with this master teacher, and then I would go fly and take a lesson with that master teacher.
Kind of, uh, really like looking for the magic bullet, so to speak.
And, you know, months and years would go by and I still would just get my butt kicked in auditions and even in performing things solo and stuff like that. And so one of the biggest, um, one of the most important experiences that I had was that I decided to put my head down and stick with one methodology rather than trying to take, you know, one singer from this expert, one singer from that expert, sticking with one methodology, uh, and becoming very masterful at that methodology.
When I did that, um, my music career began to really take off.
And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Okay, so Facebook sometimes gets a bad rap, um, but what I want everyone to know is that the activity on the Facebook platform is the highest that it's ever been. People are on, between Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, they're on it for over 50 minutes a day.
Those numbers continue to go up year after year.
In terms of Facebook Live, those videos live, they get 10 times the comments as regular videos. The one piece of information that I think is really important to know on the Facebook ad side is that many, many entrepreneurs run Facebook ads only to their warm audiences, and it's such a great way to amplify apply a launch or promotion or a sale and not be a jerk interrupting people's cat videos that are in their newsfeed, right? You can actually use Facebook to get back in front of people that are on your email subscriber list or that have already checked out your website recently. They already have an interest in who you are and what you're up to.
And by using that, you can kind of leapfrog over the issue that a lot of us have on the email marketing side, which is open rates.
Be so low, 20-25%, with the ad for, you know, a pretty low cost, you can get in front of a lot more of those people when it's time to sell. And what is your best piece of overall business advice, not necessarily industry-specific?
I get really attached to my darlings, like very, very quickly, faster than average, surely. So I think a good piece of business advice is that, um, if you have a rough draft or if you have an idea, take it to your community or take it to your group, your trusted tribe early on.
Because what I find happens is you start to get attached to your idea or to your content or to your course concept, whatever it is, you begin to get really married to it. And it's important to bring the rough drafts to the group or to bring the rough draft to your 5 or 10 closest friends who are not afraid to to give it to you straight, to say this is garbage, or to say, hey, can I buy this now? It's so important to do that early on.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I would start side hustling earlier.
I would start side hustling when I was 5 years old, because basically I think you learn all of the skills of consulting and time management. I mean, culture matters.
You learn all of that through the side hustle. Everything that has happened in my career has happened through side hustling. Um, and it just, it forces you to be very, uh, very well structured with your time and with your attention management. And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness? I love this question. I think that, uh, I think that so much of it just comes back to cultivating positivity and cultivating a sense of gratitude, especially if you're someone who likes to be really invested in self-development. You know, you're listening to a podcast right now, so you're obviously invested in self-development. But that can start to become a trap after a while.
It's like, ah, I just gotta consume more and more, when really coming back to that experience of gratitude, bringing the focus back into what you already have, having a positive outlook, I think that's really key.
And what is the best book that you've read, and what was the number one thing you learned from I thought I'd throw a wrench in here.
There's this meditation book that is unbelievable.
It's called Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, and it's by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
What I really loved about that book, it transformed my outlook on meditation.
I always, I like the idea of meditation, it's very trendy, but I could never get into it. And this book really breaks down The neuroscience, and it takes a very tactical approach to what meditation is and what neuroscience is and how you can begin to apply those skills and tapping into your subconscious in your day-to-day life.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
It's actually a misquote. So it's, um, most men lead lives of quiet desperation and die with their songs still inside them.
It's by Thoreau, and it's kind of a funny story because everyone quotes that as being Thoreau and being for Walden, but he—
that's actually not what he proposed. Walden, he wrote the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. But the song part is just really sexy, so I guess that's why that ended up getting really popular.
Yes, dude, thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where's the best place for people to find you online?
Yeah, so I have a free gift for anyone who's listening.
So if you go to nickwolny.com/blast, that is N-I-C-K-W-O-L-N-Y.com/blast, you can get a copy of my free guide. It's an 84-page guide on how to monetize Facebook Live in your business.
So you can just head on over to that URL and scoop up your free copy.
Thank you so much for that, and we will talk with you soon.
Thanks for having me.
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