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Thinking of transitioning your business into a membership model?
Listen in on this episode and she how we help today’s guest transition his one-on-one coaching into a membership.
Today on the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, we have Business Coaching Practitioner, Scott Beebe.
Scott has been working for large multinational companies and other corporate settings. He was also a founding pastor at a small church, then a staff member for a bigger church before becoming an executive director for a small non-governmental agency in Nigeria.
After a series of situations beyond his control, he literally woke up one day without a job. So, he later launched and founded the Business on Purpose platform, where they liberate small business owners from the chaos of working in their business. He coaches them on where to focus so they can achieve their purpose as a business, become efficient and set systems to avoid bumps along the road.
The highlight of today’s discussion will be on how to tactically use his content to engage his membership and scale the business, so this will definitely have very helpful key points throughout the episode.
You Will Learn:
- How to build the other end of your revenue pendulum.
- What am I charging them for?
- Do I start my podcast under my business name?
- Plus a lot more!
Links and resources mentioned in today’s show:
- Flipped Lifestyle
- The Flip Your Life Community
- Scott’s Website (Business on Purpose)
- Dan Miller (Coaching with Excellence)
- Aaron Walker
Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what’s possible for your family!
Click here to leave us an iTunes review and subscribe to the show! We may read yours on the air!
Can’t Miss Moments
Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family.
“Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is hanging out with some of our friends. We have several different friends in town. A lot of mommies and kids because a sort of following to that stay-at-home/working mom category. So, a lot of my friends either stay at home or they have days off. Well, just the other day, my friend Amy, she has Wednesdays off and we decided to get together and let our kids play. And, her kids, Preston and Harper, they are some of my kids’ best friends. And, they came up and we blew up the big inflatable water slide and they played on the playground and just ran around the backyard and had a great time.”
You can connect with S&J on social media too!
Thanks again for listening to the show! If you liked it, make sure you share it with your friends and family! Our goal is to help as many families as possible change their lives through online business. Help us by sharing the show!
If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below!
Jocelyn: Hey, y’all on today’s podcast we help Scott scale his business coaching practice online.
Shane: Welcome to Flipped Lifestyle podcast, where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. We’re a real family who figured out how to make our entire living online and now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? Alright. Let’s get started. What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to be back with you again this week. We are in the middle of the summer and it is hot here in Kentucky right now.
Jocelyn: Very, very hot.
Shane: Very hot. So, I am super excited to be inside, in our air-conditioned office and talking to one of our Flip Your Life members today. We’re going to help one of our members take their business to the next level and we are super excited to welcome Scott Beebe to the show. Scott, welcome to the program.
Scott: It’s muggy and it’s hot where I am as well. Man, I am delighted that we get to enjoy the AC together.
Shane: That’s awesome.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Shane: So, really excited about this interview. We got to hang out with Scott recently actually in Chicago. He was also attending the Podcast Movement. And, Scott came up to me at the event and we started chatting and talking about family and just life in general and not just about online business. And, we had a great conversation and I’m super excited to be reconnecting with him here on the podcast.
Scott: Guys, it was a treat. You know, we were just talking about that Podcast Movement and everything was going on there was so many moving parts. And, Shane, I know you felt like, “Man, who’s this groupie coming up to me?” And it’s funny, I told I had just gotten done telling a guy, “Hey, there’s a guy here. His name is Shane Sams.” And I don’t know if Jocelyn’s here or not. He’s apparently – he’s pretty stocky, big arms, unlike you…”
Shane: “He’s the loud guy with big arms. Where is that guy?”
Scott: Yeah, you can find him – I mean literally within – like as soon as that guy left, I turned around and you walked right in front of me and I thought, “Alright, let’s go ahead and stop him now and just be the freak.”
Shane: Yeah, you weren’t the first person to stop us so don’t feel bad. And, then usually that’s how most people look for me. It’s the really loud guy. Jocelyn – well she’s…
Jocelyn: I just listened.
Shane: Yeah, she is – listens. When we lose each other in Wal-Mart or in the store or something, she just like tilts her head up and starts waiting for my voice to echo back down from the ceiling. And usually she can track me down.
Scott: That’s great.
Jocelyn: Yeah. So, it was great meeting you. So, for our audience, let’s go ahead and just tell us a little bit about you. Tell us about your background and about your online business.
Scott: Thanks, Jocelyn. I grew up all over the country, ended up finishing high school in South Carolina, went to the University of South Carolina, got to walk on the football team. I was actually – it was my first bit of market research. I thought I was a terrible football player, only played when you’re in high school and found out that they only had one deep snapper, long snapper – so, it was a guy who basically throws a football upside down backwards between his legs for about 15 yards in less than 0.8 seconds. They only had one of those guys. And my roommate was a manager and he said, “Man, you ought to go out for that.” And so, practiced in the dorm hallway, ended up walking on the team, earned a scholarship my last two years.
Shane: Awesome.
Scott: So, that’s where I started to develop the grit – I guess the entrepreneurial grit – even though I didn’t necessarily come from an entrepreneurial background at all. Ashley and I met in college. We married right out of college. Ended up going to seminary. Graduated there at a seminary in Texas. And then I went to work in business. I was actually working in business while I was in seminarian sales – and went to work for Pfizer. So, since 2001, half of my time from now until then has been in large kind of multinational corporations and corporate settings.
Shane: I’m sorry about that man. I’m sorry about that, for you brother. I’m sorry about that.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Scott: I’ll tell you this. You talk about the learning that goes on into that setup, I mean, you guys have been in bureaucracy before. I mean, you’re both school teachers so for sure – you’ve seen that background. But, the things that you get to learn there to take with you that are not necessarily exciting while you’re there. But, that you get the contrast to look back on, I think, is really powerful. And so, I had half the time there. The other half of my time is a very non-linear blueprint. We’ve started at church. I’ve been the founding pastor of a small church. I’ve been a staff member of a really big church. And then, I’ve also been the executive director of a really tiny, non-governmental agency working in Nigeria. And so, that’s been essentially the last 16, 17 years something like that. And all of that has led to a situation where about a year and a half ago – well, almost two years ago. Out of the situation was completely out of my control, that little non-governmental organization, the board went through some scenarios where they had to end up dissolving the leadership positions because half of – well, the majority of the board was leaving. And so, I literally woke up one day and didn’t have a job.
Shane: Wow…
Scott: And – and so, a few days later I was fired. Friday, February 27th of 2015, I just gone to Coaching with Excellence with Dan Miller, about a month prior and met a guy named Aaron Walker – and all that. So, I was kind of in that world a little bit – and three days after Friday, February 27th, I launched and founded the Business on Purpose platform, where we liberate small business owners from the chaos of working in their business. Trying to give them their lives back and help them to clarify their vision-mission values to work on their business. And so, that’s what we do.
Shane: So, basically what you do and ended in – and now we’re going to get deeper into this here in a minute. We’d like… you’re a one-on-one type coach where you really focus on efficiencies and systems and getting the owners’ vision in place and like key people from being overwhelmed. You kind of come in and said, “No, no, no – do this, this, this, this. Let’s get this fixed up.” And then you can actually achieve the purpose of your business instead of being stuck in the muck and mire of your business. Is that correct?
Scott: Yeah, so let me press down on that a little bit, Shane. That – it’s not only true, it’s absolutely true. See, I’m a little bit different than traditional business coaches in that – I don’t just kind of follow the business on or where they want to go in terms of advice, wisdom, background, et cetera. What I do is I’ve got a very, very specific coaching framework that I take businesses through to do exactly what you talked about. So, we systematize and automate the entire backend of small businesses.
Shane: OK, awesome.
Jocelyn: OK, Scott. We always try to start with they why in everything we do. So, tell us why do you want to flip your life using online business?
Shane: It sounds like your business from when we talked the Podcast Movement and in here, you’ve become very successful, you’re doing a good job. You’ve great clients. People are paying on time and paying you for what you do best. Like why – tell us why you want to change that? What’s wrong with the model you’re using right now for your life?
Scott: Well, you guys can’t skirt responsibility, I mean this is partly y’all’s fault because…
Shane: Stupid inspiration…
Scott: When we listen to these podcast and you guys are talking about this margin. You know, I tell business owners all the time, “What we’re about to build for you is going to create margin.” And, I’m warning you upfront, of course, they always laughed, to like, “Give me the margin.” And, I’m like, “No, no, no – I’m warning you when you have that margin, you’re going to backfill the margin with something.” And, typically they backfill it with more nonsense and more crap at work rather than backfilling with what you guys have backfilled it with. And that’s kind of those can’t miss moments and that sort of thing. So, here’s – I’m going to give you two why’s: one is going to be the personal, one is going to be the business – and they really are connected. I’ve got – my wife and I actually have three years – three spring breaks left with our oldest daughter before she’s out of the house. We’ve got about seven spring breaks left with our last child before he’s out of the house. So, guys, we’ve got seven years to go all in to do everything that we could possibly do – oh, and yeah, by the way, these are peak earning years and we need to save for our – build money for college and all those sorts of things. So, for some reason in God’s unique design, He created this time kind of when you’re in your 30s and 40s where – yeah, you might feel great and look great, produce great, perform great but at the same time you better be doing that stuff because that’s when you got to build all this stuff. And so, that’s the personal why. But the business why at the same time is when I’m in these one-on-one meetings, man, the things I’m getting out of there are gold. And when I walk out of there – there’s so many other people that could benefit and value from the things that a business owner and I uncover one-on-one.
Shane: Yeah.
Scott: And I want to be able to bring that to people.
Shane: That’s awesome, man. And, I like – I love how you say that, that you only have this many spring many breaks. And you only have this many years. It’s so funny the way we used to look at our life as like that. Like, “OK, we’ve got summer vacation. OK, we got Christmas off. OK, we’ve got spring breaks.” And like I think that that mentality that you’re moving toward is more, “Wait a minute, I don’t just want spring break. I don’t just want to be available for those spring breaks.” You know, right now that’s all I’ve got because you’re taking that time off, you’re vacationing, but then you’re working. Whereas, if you could scale just a margin back – impact more people but also you could be like, “Wait a minute, let’s get a little bit of the summer, a little bit of the fall, a little bit of…” Let’s take back some of these can’t miss moments. So, that in those – seven years from now, you’re not looking back and saying, “All we have was those spring breaks.” We have life together while our kids were still here, you know?
Scott: That’s right. That’s right and, I mean, we had our kids young. And so, we’re not even going to be 50 when our kids are up and out and doing their thing and all that. And, we’re in great – I mean – reasonably, relatively great shape.
Shane: You look good man, you really do, I’m telling you. I saw you in real life like a couple of weeks ago. You look good.
Scott: But, now is the time to be able to go jogging with your kids and – we live in a beautiful place in South Carolina. And, there’s tidal creeks, and rivers and man, I want to get out on paddle boards and Jon Boats and do all those things with our kids right now. Because, it’s the old cat’s in a cradle – and I don’t want to be holden by that fear. But at the same time guys, it’s true.
Shane: Yeah.
Scott: It’s completely true and so we want to maximize this time. But, what you said on the backend is entirely true as well. Because there are a lot of people that can value from what – for whatever reason, God has given me access to – when I meet with these business owners, there are so many people that can value – I mean, we just built a – from scratch yesterday – or two days ago, I just helped a client build an incentive compensation calculator. And there’s a lot of business owners that would glean insight from that. And, I want to be able to share that with people.
Shane: That’s awesome, man. Those are great why’s and when you go in to online business with those things on your mind, it’s a lot easier to keep that fire going and build that momentum. So, let’s talk a little bit more about the online component of this. Tell everyone where you are in your online business journey. Are you right at the beginning? Do you have anything for sale or is this truly – we are just starting out from scratch. I mean, do you have – and if it is starting from scratch, do you have any ideas what you kind of want this to look like?
Scott: I don’t feel comfortable saying it’s entirely from scratch. I mean, we’ve got a pretty robust backend in terms of WordPress. We’ve got a couple of plugins. We’ve got Ontraport as a backend system in terms of our CRM…
Shane: That’s awesome.
Scott: And management, all that kind of stuff. So, we’ve got those parts and pieces in place. I’ve got a VA that she manages all of that for us. I’m terrible at marketing. I’m a content creative machine. Like I said, I mean – when I leave these meetings. I mean, I’ve got a client training podcast we put out just for a client so I can share the stuff with them. I am doing Screencast all the time of these tutorials we do because we leverage Google Drive for just about everything we do. And so, when I’m building something new, I’m creating a video tutorial. So, we’ve got all of these component parts that are in digital format. I’ve got, golly, probably 60 episodes between two podcasts in terms of audio content. We’ve got content everywhere.
Shane: Yeah.
Scott: And so, I would say that we’re not at the starting gate and yet at the same time we’ve got a ton on content. I just don’t know how to put that in a model…
Shane: For sure.
Scott: That is recurring.
Shane: This is the way a lot of people come to us. A lot of – because the information is so bad out there and so fragmented about how to actually transition to an online model. Especially with recurring revenue like memberships. We like to say that many people come to us with a box of puzzle pieces. And maybe – and like the picture has been ripped of the front of the box how that happens sometimes? So, you can’t even see what you’re supposed to build. So, a lot of people will come into our Flip Your Life community and they just dump out the box and go, “Here’s all my stuff, what do I do?” And like – it’s like all the things to make an online business are there but there’s not – we don’t have picture yet exactly how to put it together. But, we know they will all fit together and that something will exist. So, that’s a great place to be. It’s better than nowhere. You know what I mean? And, it’s a lot easier to put those pieces together and get that started, OK?
Scott: Yeah, so vision is a priority for me, you talked about the picture on the front of the puzzle box. I mean, we have got a defined vision story I mean, that’s what I help clients do, is articulate their vision story and over to build all of those systems and process on the backend. So, long distance, I can tell you what the business looks like and recurring model is very much in it. And to your point it’s taking those puzzle pieces. I would even say I’ve got chunks of pieces together.
Shane: Yeah.
Scott: But, ultimately, what does picture look like. I think we’ve got a snapshot of the picture. I don’t know how like put it all together.
Shane: Right.
Scott: And get it started, I think that’s ultimately it…
Shane: That’s why we’re here and that’s what the Flip Your Life community for and that’s what we’re going to do right now.
Jocelyn: So, what would you say, Scott, is your biggest challenge with starting out right now? Like, what is the one thing that you’re just kind of like, “I really don’t know what to do.”
Scott: So, if I could articulate it a little bit differently, it’s really how to add or to tactically add recurring models to what I’m doing. So, currently roughly about 85 percent of my revenue stream comes from one-on-one coaching. And so, we talked about that and I’ve even gone through the community and I’ve got a plan here in the next one month that I’m implementing right now to transition that, to start doing more online one-on-one and even more group coaching. So, I’m starting to plan for some scale there, Jocelyn. But, I’m really looking for a way to tactically add these recurring models as an outlet for my one-on-one. So, I still want to do some one-on-one coaching because there’s huge value in that in terms of not only what I can bring to the client but what the client interaction can bring in terms of my own content creation. And so, it’s coming up. I think the easiest way to say it would be – how do I build an online membership form where I can all these – these gold nuggets that I’m getting. Put them into bits and pieces of content and just basically say, “Hey, guys for X number of bucks a month, I’m interested in giving you access to all this and I’m also interested in doing a once a week, every other week, live Q&A for the whole forum.” I would love to do that I think it would be a lot of fun. And, a lot of interesting input like one huge mastermind. And so, I don’t know if I clarified that well. Does that make sense Jocelyn?
Jocelyn: Yeah, it does. And just do that.
Scott: Yeah, oh yeah…
Jocelyn: You know what to do.
Shane: We just looked at each other we’re like, “Just do that, man.” Like…
Jocelyn: No, but the way that I see this working is sort of like a pendulum, OK? So, like right now you’re all on one side of it. And, you want to be on the other side. But, like you can’t just cut off the one side…
Scott: Right.
Jocelyn: Because that’s not going to work, that’s your source of income. OK?
Shane: You got to swing back…
Jocelyn: So, I think what you’re going to have to do is start like baby-stepping, just like you said, OK? So, like right now, you’re going to take down your amount of live coaching that you’re doing. You’re going to do some more of that on video. You’re going to do some more of that online somehow. And then, I think at the same time, once you get some of those hours back, you’re going to start building this other end which you’re going to invite your live coaching, your live consulting clients, too. They’re going to see that membership at your beta rate. You know they get like a special rate because they’ve been our customers before. You’re going to start building that content, building that community and then at the same time when you continue to build some more of that margin in, you’re going to invite more people in at maybe a reduced rate because they’re not doing the live coaching part with you. But, that’s how you’re going to start building up that other. And so, that’s how it’s going to swing from one side to the other. You’re just going to have to do it in stages. But, you know exactly what to do.
Shane: Yeah, that yeah…
Jocelyn: I mean you just outlined it.
Shane: You just had to do it. And like another thing to it is like – one thing that is a danger zone for almost all entrepreneurs is like it – all entrepreneurs are content machines. This is kind of a no-sugar moment here, like, “That’s not the special thing about you,” OK? Like a lot of people create a lot of content but they don’t create a revenue off of that content because they’re totally focused on the content. So, you start thinking, “Well, I’m going to build this membership and I’m going to – I got to get people get into this content. I got to get them into all this stuff that I’ve created.” I can tell you right now that 90 percent of the action are our coaching community does not take place in our courses or content. Even though they’re world-class, that’s not where it is. People want to talk, people want to ask, people want to listen and ask questions and be in a community. So, you’re so focused I think on all these chunks of content in your puzzle box that you’re missing the corners. The corners are a forum where your people can talk. You already have a bunch of guys, a bunch of business owners that could go talk to each other right now. You could start seeding this if you would just open the community to the forum. You said something else interesting, too. You have a podcast for your clients. Is that public? Or only clients can get to it?
Scott: So originally the goal was that it would be private and then we just didn’t have the time to figure out how to do that so we just made it public.
Shane: OK, perfect.
Scott: It’s now is its own channel though.
Shane: Is it on iTunes?
Scott: Yeah.
Shane: OK, that’s fine. I think you need all this content you’re talking about is just released into the world. This is not about the content. It – there’s not in this specific thing. Some memberships are about the content like our education businesses. That’s why people are there is to get the content, the tool to go use at their workplace, right? That’s not what this is for. This is for – you’re trying to build a community around your leadership, a thriving community with a culture where people are moving in the same direction, with the same values. And, all you have to do is open the door and start charging. You could even take all the people you’re in it right now as a part of their monthly package and just add that in. And, as you phase out these – driving the one-on-one meetings, go more to the Skype coaching as you phase these one-on-ones and you get more into the group coaching, you can charge a lot more for your one-on-one time. But then, all these other people that are listening to your podcast, that are consuming all your content on your WordPress website, are going to move – they can be funneled into these forums where you can say, “Ask me anything you want.” Show up at the Q&A, and now you’re reaching a 100 people instead of one person one-on-one. See?
Scott: OK, so I think you smoked out a bit of the fear and I think the fear is you’re talking this out is not the content that makes sense. The fear is not showing up and doing calls, webinars, et cetera. That stuff’s easy for me. I think the fear is when you guys say, “Open the door and start charging.” Let me tell you where my mind immediately goes is, “Open what door and how – and what am I charging them for?”
Shane: Right.
Scott: And so, I guess the technical side and I know that you guys have a lot of content out there. Even if you can just direct me into past tutorials, podcasts, just to say, “Hey, here’s a plugin, here’s a whatever…”
Shane: Yeah, we have a course about this in the community. This is the simplest way to do this and I’m going to get a lot of blowback from this from some people who are promoting certain products and things like that. But, all you need is a BB Press forum behind a membership plugin. That’s all you need. Everybody gets so complicated with this. But, if you really are doing something where at the community is the center, where it’s led by a coach to something like that, you need a forum and something to protect it. We recommend – a lot of our members use Paid Member Pro and Stripe which is a payment processor. It’s literally a one-day setup make-a-sales page and you can totally sell it. Like the point is not to get them into this fancy module where it’s going to drip content and all that. It’s a forum. Start – if you want to create a new video to teach them something about, I don’t know, something – like organizing their desk, whatever. Like here, “Hey, guys here’s my new video on how to organize your desk.” And you make it a forum post. Like it’s all you do. And then, if then you say, “Hey, guys do you have a question what you need to do next on your online business? Ask me.” And, it functions like one-one-one coaching but it’s completely batched into your timeframe basically. That’s all you have to do for this business is to get it going and because you have people you’re talking to already, just invite them in. They’re already paying you. So, fine. Don’t charge them anything if extra right now. Just be like, “Hey, guys check this out. It’s faster access to me. We don’t have to wait to one-on-one calls anymore. You can talk to me in between in the forums.”
Jocelyn: You know, I think more importantly they’ll have access to one another.
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: I mean, we all know how important that is to be around people who are thinking like us and moving in the same direction that we are. So, I think that that’s a big benefit as well.
Shane: Yeah, we just started a book club in the Flip Your Life community as a tone forum. And, I posted the first book. And, within 24 hours, it had like 30 posts. And, we’re reading, “Profit First” and going through it so everybody can get their finances in order. And, I’ve read that book three times. My mind, in our own community, has been blown by some of the insight that other people reading this book have given. Imagine if you unlock that potential with the clients you already have. It’s not just what you’re seeing then it’s them feeding off each other’s momentum.
Scott: OK, well. Don’t make fun of me and please invite me back at some point. I just looked at my WordPress and we actually have Paid Membership Pro in the background.
Shane: We found a puzzle piece y’all. We found a puzzle piece, yeah.
Scott: Well, and that’s the thing is I think at the end of the day it’s almost like more than anything else, probably what I need in a way – and even your point about members with members. I’ve already reached out to one of the members. I put a post up, a member shot me and actually directed me to one of the courses about webinars. And, I didn’t even need to talk with you guys about it because a member answered a question for you.
That’s the kind of thing I do want to see. I love the model that you guys have. My content is somewhat different than the content that you have but the model is what I’m looking at. And so…
Shane: Content – let me jump in here real quick. Content – well, here’s what your content’s going to become. A lot of people think that you sell content. And a lot of ways, we do. But, you can – all of your content is a path to the community. That’s really what – if you’re going to go into the scalable, recurring income, steady, growing, predictable online business, then all of your content has to be fair game now to say breadcrumbs from one person to me. And, go out – and go down another path – breadcrumbs from a person to me and my community. That’s what all of your content now becomes. And the heart of that is the pulsing heartbeat of your community where your people are engaging you’re engaging and you’re guiding them to those pieces of content. You could tell all your content, do as many courses as you want. If there’s no guide with a lanyard walking them down the path, they’re never going to find what they need anyway. And, that’s what a membership coaching community is supposed to do.
Scott: OK, alright. Now, in terms of content, you guys ever share content publicly for a period of time and then put it behind the wall?
Jocelyn: You could do that.
Shane: Not really.
Jocelyn: There are probably people out there who do.
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: But we don’t do that. We basically just have free content and then that leads to our paid content. So, basically everything that we put out there for free, especially for Flipped Lifestyle, it always leads back to our paid community. For instance, this podcast, we only speak to people who are members of the community.
Shane: Right. We actually do it backwards I think to what you’re saying. Our community is going to first shot at that content. But, eventually, I have no problem. I promise you we could turn our courses off. We could put everything we’ve ever created out there for free on our website and it would not affect our membership.
Scott: Your membership just because of the forum.
Shane: Yeah, it’s the forum, man.
Jocelyn: Yeah, that’s the benefit. I mean like everything that we teach in Flipped Lifestyle is out there somewhere else.
Shane: Exactly.
Jocelyn: You know, you could probably find it for free on YouTube but people are there for another reason. They’re not there for the training necessarily. They’re there to get somebody to point them in the right direction – to tell them which step to take next.
Shane: And, also this applies to everything. Like we just had a member who is on the podcast recently. After the podcast she had a membership. Since she got like 26 members like over a weekend or something. And, she teaches dancing, right? And, there’s a lot of people teaching dance – the dance format that she’s to going with. Like her style of dancing is not a secret. You know what I mean? But people relate to her because of who she is, how she talks, they like her videos. They just relate to her in that way because of who she is. And, even though it is a very content-driven membership, right? It’s still driven because of the personality, the people that are watching the video and talking about it. They recorded their own videos and posting them in her forums. Like that community builds around that content. And it becomes way more important than the actual stuff they consume. They may watch those videos once. But, they’re going to talk about it and go experience those things they learned there and that’s going to deliver a result in their life that makes them happy. So, they come back for more discussion and more community and more content later. And, that’s what you’re going to have to try to build here.
Scott: So, speak to this real quick. Because I think the other big hurdle for me is because I’m too into content, I can look at that as a bit of an excuse to not market because I can tell myself, “Well, I’m busy building content.” So, from a marketing standpoint, listen, I’ve run the spectrum, I’ve spent a $1,000 a month on Facebook ads, I’ve done the ridiculous boost post, I mean I’ve done it all. And so, just simple steps – one and two – when you guys say open the door – how do I market – if step’s one the current tribe, if you will, that I have. What’s step two?
Shane: OK, here’s how you market this initially. You email all your current coaching clients and tell them to go log in. You just marketed it. OK? And then, I want to back up away from the marketing here. People get this so backwards because all the gurus teach us, “I’m a social, I’m a Facebook expert, I’m an Instagram expert.” If your offer is not correct and your offer is not ready and launched, there’s no reason to worry about marketing.
You don’t even have your offer created yet. So, the first thing we’re going to have to do is, is to take a deep breath. I sense a little bit of fear for this reason – I know what it is. It’s the same reason – since this when we quit our jobs, it’s the same thing. Like, it’s that security gland. What’s working is not messing up. You don’t want to rock the boat necessarily and you’re thinking in your brain, “I’m going to do this.” So, your brain automatically says, “Oh, he’s switching this tomorrow.” Because Jocelyn says this to me all the time. She’s like any idea I have – she’s like, “Are you going to do this like today?” But like in reality, this is a maturity process. We’re playing a marathon game here. This is one year from now. This is going to be mature enough to actually start marketing. But, we’re going to grow it organically. While you have this other coaching practice, we’re going to start scaling back, shifting resources. You got to get over the fear and open the doors. You got to focus on the offer and letting it evolve. And then, we can talk about marketing. Wouldn’t you think so, Jocelyn?
Jocelyn: Yeah, you just need to focus on getting people to your site with the content that you already have. And, you can certainly run at to that content and you want to focus on getting people to opt in.
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: Getting them on to your email list.
Shane: Yeah, don’t worry so much about making the pitch and making the sales. Like right now, man, I’ve got like three ads running in Facebook. They’re running the episodes of our podcast. They’re not going to a sales page. They’re not going anywhere fancy. I’m playing a long game. I know that anybody new that hears that six months from now may turn around and like – and if they keep listening to podcasts, eventually they’re going to need us. And, when they’re ready and this timing is right for them, they’ll come. But, I’m not in this big game of optimizing every little thing and all that stuff because I know our offer’s good. Our content – our free content is great. Our offer is great and I know once people come to that realization, through their own way, they’ll join.
Scott: Yup. The offer is the most important thing. You got to get your offer right first. And, that’s what you’re going to be doing for the next three to six months.
Scott: But, that offer is, is an offer that evolves…
Shane: Yeah.
Scott: And it’s not – I mean, it makes sense. I mean my coaching of –where I’m at today, a year ago, looks not – 180 degrees different but it’s close.
Shane: Yup.
Scott: To being completely different…
Shane: So, does ours – ain’t it Jocelyn? Like, tell him what was looked your life when we first started?
Jocelyn: Pretty much an outline. That’s what we had.
Scott: And then what happened after that?
Jocelyn: So, we had an outline and we offered it to our email list. We just said, “Look, we’re going to start this. And, this is what we’re planning on doing. But, we’re going to let you in at a special rate because we have not created a whole lot of it yet. But, the benefit of joining right now is that you’re going to be able to put input in, you’re going to be able to help us mold this for future people and you’re getting in at a really awesome rate because we don’t have anything done yet.”
Shane: And, we only had like 500 people on our email list when we launched this thing, right? Like when – two years ago, when our first name was the Flip Your Life course – was what we called it. And it was how to create and sell a digital product. But, during the beta period we talked to people, right? And, so we didn’t have a huge list. We were just starting out. But, like 20 people bought it the same day, man. And like, that’s all we needed to learn and evolve and eventually we came to the realization, “Why are people joining? They can learn all this stuff from everybody else. They think we talk funny and they want to hang out with us.” And, they want to hang out – and they want to get – people are alone in entrepreneurship, they want a community. So, if it’s the right community with the right leader, people will join. But, you just got to let it evolve over time. We didn’t start Facebook ads, have affiliates, and try to get all these launches, and go out on all these podcasts. And, now we just started it. We got some people and go, “You’re ahead of the game, you got clients. They’ll go in there, I promise.” Yeah, for sure.
Jocelyn: You’re just going to do it the way that all of us have to. It’s just one step at a time.
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: You can’t do 10 steps from now, right now. And, that’s where my mind goes to also. Like, I want to think of what I’m going to do in three months. But, I have to think about what I’m going to do in three days.
Shane: Yeah, exactly. Jocelyn, you’re just raining on my parade, that’s what it does. I mean…
Jocelyn: Listen, and now…
Shane: That’s what we’re here for, man.
Jocelyn: It rains on mine, too. Because I do the same thing.
Scott: Well, I mean, it is sobering. And here’s what I appreciate about it is the – and you guys had proved your point. In that like you said Shane is where you’re running people to your podcast. I’ve been listening to your podcast. For in fact, I could tell you when you guys switched from kind of the launch model to the paid membership model. I heard it. It was around just about this time last year, I think.
Shane: That’s right. September, October or something.
Jocelyn: That’s right.
Scott: And so, even just kind of hear you guys evolved into where your offer is today, I feel like there’s a crystal clarity today for you. And so, I see what you’re saying it makes tons of sense.
Shane: Yeah, and that’s the thing is if we had never switched, or if we had done this – we follow up these launch models, and really pushy ads and closing the doors and all that stuff – that’s not how we’ve chosen to grow this. We get messages all the time that say, “I’ve been listening for four to five months. Go look in the start here forum when you get off the call with us, Scott.” There’s like three people in there that joined like this week. And, every single one of them are like, “I’ve been listening to this podcast for months. I’ve got it together. I’m ready to do this.” Because we try to force people into our time with all this scarcity and stuff like that. And those tactics, you need them. But, in reality, if the offer is good and the person needs it, they’re going to buy it. And so what’s the number one problem there is create the offer. Get the offer out there and get some feedback on it from anybody and start evolving the offer. And, once people start latching on to it, then you start the marketing. Everybody wants to run Facebook ads they want – and that is not the right way to do it.
Scott: May I ask you a question quick about podcast and that is I’ve got the business, the podcast that I run is – does that podcast – like you guys, it’s the same name as your member forum. Does that podcast need to be the same name as the forum that I create? Or is that…
Shane: Not necessarily.
Scott: Does that really matter…
Shane: Not necessarily. It’s just the product name, no…
Jocelyn: No, people get hung up on naming. It’s really not the thing.
Shane: But, we here – here’s our philosophy on naming. Like, here’s our logic for our naming. We’ve lived the Flipped Lifestyle. We have already quit our job. We have already been successful on online business. We are already on the other side of all that which was a two-year, very difficult process to get stable, right? But we call our community Flip Your Life because the people coming in are trying to get to that Flipped Lifestyle. Does that make sense? So, that’s just our fun little way to – and Flip Your House. That’s kind of a play off that. You know what I mean? But, like it doesn’t matter what you call anything. Like, you can call a car a rutabaga or a potato – but if it gets me from point A to B, I’m getting in the potato. You know what I’m saying?
Scott: You’re going to drive the potato.
Shane: I’m going to drive the potato. It don’t matter what you call it. So, everybody out there, get your potato ready so people will jump in the potato and get to where they want to go, OK? Jocelyn is shaking her head at me right now.
Jocelyn: Yeah, I got nothing.
Shane: I got nothing, yeah, alright.
Jocelyn: Alright, Scott. It’s been a great conversation. I mean, I think I think that you have so many awesome things going on. And, it’s going to be really good for you, I think. I see a lot of good things in your future. So, we always end our calls with asking our guest what is the one action step that you will be taking action on, say in the next 24 to 48 hours, based on what we talked about today?
Scott: Good grief guys, I mean I’m the business. I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking that question…
Shane: No, no, no, no, no, no – not on the Flipped Lifestyle podcast today my friend.
Scott: Man, I didn’t know I was going to have to put on the beat…
Shane: That’s what you get for saying hi to me at Podcast Movement brother.
Scott: That’s true.
Shane: You’re right.
Scott: It’s my own fault. So, alright. So, let me think through this. If I look back after everything that you’ve guys have said, you’ve kind of minimized the urgency for marketing. I didn’t say minimize marketing. But, just minimize the urgency for this kind of over Facebook marketing. You’ve minimized the urgency for having to create more content. I’ve got it there. So, the big thing that sticks out to me guys is what you said is opening the door. And, we’ve even got the tool in place. I’ve got the person who can do it.
Shane: Yeah.
Scott: When we open that door, what are they going the door to? Is it just a forum, am I going to load that with anything?
Shane: Here’s what you’re going to do and go put this in your action plan in the forum then start a general discussion thread called, “Opening the Door to My Membership”, OK? And then, just start that conversation and we will flesh this out more in detail. The only thing you need to do right now is your WordPress person needs to get the forums installed and protected. You need to figure out your five key forums that’s like what we call our success story action plan, general forum, our social lounge and our can’t miss moments. Those are our five core forums, OK? Don’t worry about content right now. Get it protected and then I want an email written within the next week to all of the people who are your current coaching clients and tell them you’re opening a community for everyone to interact together. And then we’re just going to open the door where I’m going to sell it right now. You’ve got people paying you already for your time, let’s just get them in there, get some conversations flowing, we’ll break the ice and then we’ll take the next step.
Scott: Sounds great. That’s perfect. Thank you.
Jocelyn: Alright, Scott. Again, this was a great conversation. I think that our listeners are going to take a lot away from this. So, thank you so much for being on the Flipped Lifestyle podcast today.
Scott: Guys, thanks. Thanks, really. Thanks for having me and for everything that you guys are doing for all of us.
Shane: Alright guys, that wraps up another call to one of our Flip Your Life community members. If you’d like to become a member of our Flip Your Life community, head over to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife and we could help you with your online business as well.
Jocelyn: Alright, next we’re going to move into our Can’t Miss Moment segment. And these are things that we were able to experience recently that we might have missed if we were still working at a normal 9 to 5 job. Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is hanging out with some of our friends. We have several different friends in town. A lot of mommies and kids because a sort of following to that stay-at-home/working mom category. So, a lot of my friends either stay at home or they have days off. Well, just the other day, my friend Amy, she has Wednesdays off and we decided to get together and let our kids play. And, her kids, Preston and Harper, they are some of my kids’ best friends. And, they came up and we blew up the big inflatable water slide and they played on the playground and just ran around the backyard and had a great time. And Amy and I were able to try and get a little bit of sun and keep them from killing each other.
Shane: And, it’s a cool Can’t Miss Moment because we can kind of work around our friends’ schedules. Like when Amy has time off, we can kind of bend our work schedule around that to make sure that our kids can get together with their friends, can get that playtime in, that we can socialize with people. And, it’s a lot easier to coordinate stuff like that when you don’t have the nine-to-five work grind, kind of hanging over you. And that somebody else may have more flexibility. Before we sign off, I’d like to close every show with a verse from the Bible. Today’s verse comes from verse Peter 4:10, the Bible says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others.” So, make sure you are using whatever gifts and talents you have in your online business. Get out there, serve other people. People need you and what you know. That’s all the time we have for this week. As always guys, thanks for listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast and until next time, get out there, take action do whatever it takes to Flip Your Life. We’ll see you then.
Jocelyn: Bye.
Stewart says
Add a “back to top” button please.
Thanks so much guys and I don’t even know what I’m going to be doing, but I’m talking my first steps.
Stew
Shane Sams says
Love it man! Taking action is the first step. We can help you choose on an niche, find a customer avatar, and decide on a product offer to sell!
We have trainings in our Patreon private feed and in the Flip Your Life community!
Check both out:
Patreon – https://flippedlifestyle.com/patreon
Flip Your Life Community – https://flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife