115: Traveling for Free, Designing the Life of Your Dreams and Making it Reality with Instagram Hacker, Zach Benson

Show Notes

It all started with dance.  In high school, Zach got a DVD on breakdancing and started practicing.  He began to win competitions and made it on So You Think it Can Dance.  Now, he teaches dance clinics all over the world.

How did you design your life and make it possible?

He saw other dancers that tried out multiple times for things So You Think You Can Dance and over time make it.  He took a lesson to never give up from them.

He also dreamed big as a kid and put together what he wanted his life to be.

A producer for SYTYCD gave him the idea and advice on how to go teach dance clinics around the world and leverage his stardom that way.

What did you have to do to make it happen?

Zach is more impulsive

He takes action on things he wants to do and doesn’t think to much about it

But he also seeks and finds people who have been there and done that- and listened to them, taking their best advice and putting it to use.

In the beginning, he got a lot of no’s before getting to his first yes on teaching a dance clinic.

He changed his business model to start offering really cheap rates to get in the door at places.

From there, he used his experience and relationships to build great relationships that could reference him and grew from there – upping his rates as he got more consistent.

Playing the long game is important.

You mentioned being more impulsive in your younger years.  Are you still that way today?

Things have changed.  He still embraces taking initiative.

“I’d rather burnout than restout and take advantage of opportunities when they come up…”

What advice would give people to go out and create the life they deserve?

You need to know what you need to be happy.  Zach volunteered to live on $2 a day for food to help a cause and learn what really matters to be happy.

Whatever it is that fulfills you – you need to know.  If it is a lot of money, great.  If not, ok too.  But know what it is.

Self-educate and keep going

Play the long game and outlast

People give up to close to their success

What have you learned about life and success by traveling abroad and working throughout the world?

That people matter most and to put them first.

For Zach, traveling helps him grow.  He gets to expand his network, see how others live, learn other cultures, and network with other entrepreneurs.

Life is all about people and relationships.  All it takes is a simple question or compliment to create a conversation that turn into a huge opportunity.

How do you travel and get to stay at 5-Star hotel for free?

Through the power of Instagram

5 years ago, he bought an Instagram account with 400,000 followers

From there, he started to grow it and build up the empire

Businesses don’t know that much about social media marketing on platforms such as Instagram.

Instead of negotiating a free to stay by just posting about it to his following, Zach offers to teach them how to improve their Instagram accounts and their footprint.

What is the process of how you do it?  Do you need to have a massive following?

Zach has a step by step process in his Tribe Influencer academy

You don’t need a big personal brand

You don’t need a huge network

Think of something you have of value that a hotel can use such as a specific skill or process

Use that as an offering and do a barter with them

Make sure to have a clear offer of what you will do and what it will do for them

You can do this with all hotels.

It starts with an email to the reservations department

Then follow up with phone call and ask to speak to the sales and marketing director for the property

Usually the training last about 1 hour

At the 23 min mark, Zach talks about why Instagram is such an important medium to use for business in today’s age.

The attention shift from Facebook to Instagram is happening faster than ever.

It is the fastest growing and most engaging platform in the world with almost 1 billion users

Twitter and Snapchat are dead

Instagram gives you more organic reach than Facebook

Now is the time to get on the platform.

Top 3 things people need to do to succeed on Instagram?

If you are going to start – build a page/account around passions, something you are really into and interested in.

By looking at what other accounts do in your focus, you can learn what they do to be successful and even reach out to them.

You can also buy an Instagram account, a niche page.  You can growth hack your business with it.

What is the best way to grow a following on Instagram?

Utilizing engagement groups is one of the best ways

Engagement groups should be larger and have high quality

Doing manual follow and unfollow is another, but can be damaging if you don’t know what you are doing.

Post 4-6 times per day

How do you get people to go from following and engaging to buying?

First, you need to become a legit brand which is a minimum of 10k followers

This gives you credibility

In looking legit, it will attract more followers and engagement

This helps you rank higher and helps you to show more in key words and top posts

Once you have a larger following – you can collaborate with other influencers

Then you need to make sure you have your online and offline sales process in place and dialed in.

At the 32 min mark, Zach gives some hacks for optimizing your profile and his free Growth Hacking Guide which you can get at

www.MisfitEntrepreneur.com/Assistagram

An easy SEO hack is putting key words in your short bio that when searched for will lead to your profile

Research your hashtags very well.  Look for hashtags that don’t have millions of posts.  Instead focus on hashtags that have smaller amounts of posts.

Look for ones with 10-20k posts which will allow you to get noticed more often

What is your best advice for entrepreneurs to be successful in business today?

You need to remember that it is all about timing

Knowing and respecting people’s timing and make sure you are there when the timing is right.