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Need to learn more about automating payment options for your online business?
Listen in on today’s episode as we help our guest relaunch his membership and fully automate payment options.
We have an amazing guest this week, Flip Your Life community member and Professional Drag Racer, Luke Bogacki.
Everyone has what we call an “unfair advantage.” Luke is no exception, a dream job in professional drag racing and a family of his own, he is as dedicated to his career as he is to his loved ones.
Luke has been in the drag racing scene since he was young, as he was blessed with a father that was truly passionate about the sport. He had won over 250 events in his 20 plus years competing, and has proven his versatility countless times.
He started a website called thisisbracketracing.com back in 2008, a membership community that focused on helping racers understand racing concepts and strategies so they can get their game to the next level.
Luke’s passion to reach and help more aspiring racers has driven him to invest more time on his website, join us as we teach him how he can relaunch his membership and set some automation for his website in order.
Let’s get started!
You Will Learn:
- How to capitalize on social media to relaunch a membership.
- What to include in your initial offer.
- The advantages of using automation for your online business.
- And a whole lot more!
Links and resources mentioned on today’s show:
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 Moment
Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is taking our children to school. And you wouldn’t think that would be a particularly significant Can’t Miss Moment but for us is because it’s something that we were never really able to do in the past.
Before when we worked at school, one of us had to take one of the kids to school because Isaac went to preschool at the school we worked at. And, the other one took another daycare.
So, this was every single day. And, I love taking the kids to school every morning because we’re one in the few – if maybe one of the only mom and dad combos that bring their kids to school. Just about every car we see, it’s either mom or dad so I love that. And, we haven’t missed a day so far this school year.
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 Luke take his drag racing membership to the next level.
Shane: Welcome to the 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. 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, great to be back with you again this week. Super excited to have another one of our Flip Your Life community members on to help them take their business to the next level. Been really looking forward to this episode. Met this guy a couple of months ago on Facebook and he’s got some cool things happening in his online business. And I know we’re going to be able to help him get to the next level. Today’s guest on the show is Flip Your Life community member, Luke Bogacki. Luke, welcome to the show.
Luke: Hey, guys thank you for having me. I’m a long time listener, fairly new member and just honored to be a part of the podcast.
Jocelyn: Awesome. Thank you for being here today. We’re looking forward to talking to you about your business. And when we get started on our podcast typically, Luke, we like for you to tell us a little bit about you, about your background and a little bit about your online business.
Luke: Sure. I am 35 years old, married, one child. Our son, Gary, is three years old and I, for over a decade now have, actually made a living driving race cars, drag race cars in what’s typically referred to as the sportsman categories. And, now for about eight years have been involved on some level in basically sharing my knowledge and experience as it comes to racing with other racers who are striving to improve and get better on their track.
Shane: So you basically make your living as a drag racer. You go out and race real fast. Explain to everybody exactly like what is drag racing?
Jocelyn: Yeah I was going to say like when it comes to things that I don’t know about, drag racing might be like number one.
Luke: Perfect. Yeah, I get some funny looks when I list that as an occupation. No doubt. Yeah, within what we do like most people affiliate drag racing with say, like John Force or years ago Don Prudhomme or Kenny Bernstein, and those are drag racers in the professional ranks. In what we do several times a year, I will compete at the same events as racers like that. We’ll go down the same race track but I am actually competing in the sportsmen categories which kind of lumped together, is generally referred to as “bracket racing.”
Shane: OK, so this is like the kind of racing that’s in a straight line, goes really, really fast, right? This isn’t going around a circle, basically.
Luke: Correct. Correct.
Shane: OK.
Luke: Yeah a straight line, typically quarter mile distances is what drag racing is typically referred to as a lot of what we is actually just an eighth mile straight line as well.
Jocelyn: And I love this because it’s a built-in niche. It’s sort of like what we do because I was an elementary teacher, I wasn’t only into librarian, but I wasn’t targeting all teachers I was just targeting librarians. And I see these kind of the same way is that you’re not targeting all drag racers, you’re just targeting these people who do bracket racing.
Shane: And what exactly is bracket racing, like what does that mean?
Luke: Yeah, the idea behind bracket racing like it actually came about – it’s probably been 40, maybe 50 years ago now. Ditty behind it is so that in a typical drag race like the guy or a girl with the most money or and – and or the fastest car isn’t necessarily the winner. That’s how it is in the professional classes. That’s how drag racing started. Bracket racing basically handicaps the two cars – the two competitors based on performance. Meaning that if I were to come out in my purpose-built dragster that runs – that covers the course in say 4.5 seconds, and Shane you were to drive your everyday streetcar, that cover the same course in 12 seconds. We could actually race and you could be competitive. You would basically get a 7.5 second head start. Now, obviously there’s a lot more intricacies to that, you can actually go too fast and lose as part of the handicap system which brings about its own set of strategies and again that’s basically what I offered other racers. It’s kind of an insight to those strategies the understanding and execution of both, you know, fundamentals and more in depth game planning.
Shane: So, basically this is like a golf handicap system kind of thing. And you’re trying to…
Luke: Sort of similar.
Shane: Yeah and you’re trying to help other people in bracket racing lower their handicap, that’s pretty much what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to make them more competitive, make them have those – have that strategy to not get disqualified, to get faster, to get better and win more of these bracket races basically.
Luke: Exactly.
Shane: This is a cool thing, too. Because it’s the classic example of at first you make money by what you do and then you figure out that you can make money by what you know because there’s all these other people that have not been doing this for years and years like you have that need this knowledge. And, everybody wants to ramp past the learning the curve. That’s why people search online. They want to solve a problem quickly. And, what you can provide for them is way, “Hey, it took me eight years to learn this one thing. But I can teach it to you faster.”, basically.
Luke: Yeah and that kind of corresponds with my, “Why,” so to speak. Like you guys always ask, “Well, what’s your why?”. Mine kind of comes in two parts, like number one, I didn’t necessarily realize it at that time but I was really fortunate kind of growing up where I did at the time that I did. My dad raced, so I’ve been involved in the sport as long as I can remember. But, where we grew up in Texas was like a hotbed for this type of racing.
Shane: Sure.
Luke: And I was surrounded by people that made a living doing it. And, as I came up like I got to not only watch them and see what they do so well. But, befriend most of them and kind of pick their brains.
Shane: Yeah.
Luke: And, it put me so far ahead of the game when I actually started racing myself. So, when the opportunity came to put on live schools to start the website, it’s really neat now to kind of come full circle with all of that and able to share that knowledge and those experiences that I gained from those racers that I learned from with new racers and people that are just as passionate at the sport as I was and still am today.
Shane: Well, we call that the unfair advantage. Everybody has some kind of unfair advantage. Like our unfair advantages were like being a football coach for so long, being an elementary librarian but also to just being teachers, that’s really positioned us well. To teach people like about online business. So…
Luke: No doubt.
Shane: Yeah, capitalizing on your strengths is one of the biggest hallmarks of online business. I got a question – I got a funny question, it’s totally off topic. Like what does the bank do like when you borrow money, like to buy a house or something, when you put drag racer. Because like when we used to be teachers, it was so easy to buy a house. But, right now when we’re self-employed like we were buying a new house right now and it was like – they – we make ten times more money than we ever made in our lives and it’s just like the biggest hassle because they like don’t trust you if you don’t have a W2, you know what I mean? Like, so what do…
Luke: No doubt.
Shane: So, what do they do when it’s just like – what occupation – drag racer.
Luke: Thankfully, when I purchased my first home, I went through a bank that the decision maker was one of my best friend’s mothers.
Shane: OK, that’s always good!
Luke: So, she kind of understood and stuck her neck out for me and then from there we built up enough equity that we haven’t been questioned as much. But, no, I definitely understand where you’re coming from.
Shane: That’s hilarious, man. Alright, so let me ask you one more question then we’ll jump in here. So, tell us where you are right now in your online journey. You do have a website and I know that you kind of thrown some mud on the wall so to speak. So, tell us a little bit about your online business and how you’re monetizing right now to give us some context on for your questions here in a few minutes.
Luke: Yeah, our business model is I guess fairly complex just because I don’t have a great handle on it. We started a website called thisisbracketracing.com back in 2008 and it was actually a membership community like I didn’t know that that term existed at the time I thought I was creating something that never been done before.
Shane: Right.
Luke: Obviously, I was not. But at that time, essentially all it was, was a monthly blog. Pretty detailed, instructional, written column. And, our members at that time would sign up for – like it was a $119 a year or $45 for a three-month trial. And that took off really well. At some – at one point we had I think over 300 annual members. And, the problem or the flaw I guess in that model was that it just didn’t have a lot of interaction. Like it was basically just me putting out information and…
Shane: That’s right.
Luke: our customers try testing it. And over time, actually early in 2014, we got away from the membership model for a number of reasons. My racing obligations got a lot stronger. We were traveling a lot more, we had more sponsorship, things like that. We started a family. So, obviously, that was taking away time. And, I just didn’t have that interaction, like I didn’t feel like I was making a difference, so to speak, with our members. So, we actually got away from the membership format and just sold the content, both written and we had started doing some videos. We’ve actually sold them individually. And that’s what we still do on the website.
Shane: OK.
Luke: But a year into that, which should be early this year. I had just kind of got that feeling like I miss working with people, and racers one-on-one. So, I started this Facebook challenge group, that was just basically, it was during our off-season. And, it was basically just outlining how I practice during the up season. And, inviting the members to basically go through daily challenges of, you know, performing the same practice regimens. And it took off like crazy. Had we had 700 members in less than two weeks.
Shane: But, these were unpaid members at first…
Luke: Correct.
Shane: Right.
Luke: And, we had 700 members and I would say at least half of them were actually like performing the challenges and posting the results and it was very interactive, it was really cool. And, so I’m kind of blown away by this at the end of the two weeks. I thought well I need to do something to try to capitalize on this and maybe monetize it. And so, I just put out a brief invitation saying that I would take like no more than 20 racers to kind of work with me one-on-one in a secret Facebook challenge group and we filled it within a day. And that challenge group, we started in February I believe. I charge each of the members $70 a month. In the beginning we had a little bit of turnover as I was kind of finding my way and finding the best way to interact with them and distribute content. But I feel like we’ve hit a pretty good stride there in the last four months. Like the same 20 guys have been coming back every month. They seem really happy with it. So, I’m kind of exploring growing our business through that Facebook group to be honest.
Jocelyn: OK. So, is this a recurring thing and for people out there who might not know what that means – does it recur each month. So, do you build them each month.
Luke: Yeah, I mean you guys are going to laugh at the method that I used to do it because it’s not – it’s not – not a great setup but I just send out a monthly PayPal request to each of them…
Shane: Oh, my gosh.
Luke: Yeah.
Shane: Yes. So, you’re basically invoicing these 20 people every month.
Luke: And I’m sure there’s a more efficient way, I’m saying that.
Shane: And, they’re – and but they’re paying though, right? Like every single month?
Luke: They are, yes.
Shane: This is fascinating because…
Jocelyn: I just want to say I love it that you take action.
Shane: Oh, my gosh. Like…
Jocelyn: But, I mean there’s so many people out there who aren’t doing anything.
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: And at least you’re trying things. I mean, they might not be the right things according to online business principles. But, listen, you’re doing something and so…
Shane: Oh, and you’re making money at it…
Jocelyn: Good for you.
Shane: That’s what – that’s what’s even more mind-blowing is like, you know, it’s just the classic example of a lot people come and they’re like I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do that. I could never do this but you didn’t even worry about that. You were just like, well I’m on Facebook and I can send them PayPal invoices. So, I got…
Jocelyn: I’m going to do it.
Shane: I’m going to do it and I’m going to make $1,400 a month until I figure out how to make more. And that’s just awesome man that you did that.
Jocelyn: So, I mean, applause to you obviously…
Shane: Yeah. Even though it is funny because you can totally automate all that. To where it bills them. Like that’s an ease…
Jocelyn: And you might feel like it’s a big, old mess. But there are so many people out there that are like…
Shane: No, it is awesome.
Jocelyn: Oh, wish I could do that.
Shane: Yeah, that is – it’s absolutely amazing what you’ve already done and you’ve put yourself in a position, you’ve planted the seeds to blow this up and really, really yield an awesome harvest. So, we’ll fix it. We’ll fix the PayPal thing in the forums. But like let’s jump into some questions right now that you might have on how to grow this. Because you’re in such a good position. Let’s figure out how we can double and triple this over the next month or two and we’ll lay the foundation to hire people later to set up all your automation, OK? Alright, so what’s your first question for us right now?
Luke: Yeah, I feel it’s really cool to have the trust of these people and the following that I have that’s been on social media. I’ve been spending a lot of time on – like looking through your sales funnel and email auto responder sequence. But, given the fact that most – right now anyway, most of the following that I have is on social media particularly on Facebook. Like how can I best capitalize on that to kind of relaunch this Facebook membership page without being overly salesy. Like do you have any recommendations along those lines?
Shane: We always want people to go after a low hanging fruit first before they get into the creation of sales funnels and stuff. Because there is a lot of labor in that to get it right. You’ve already got 20 people and you said that you limited it to 20 people and you have this following. I think the first thing that you do immediately is just open it up to anybody that had expressed interest, posted back in your group. I think you just open the door and say, “If you want in, come in right now.” There’s a couple of great ways to do that. That does not sound salesy. One, you can say, “Hey, I’m going to be putting a lot more work into this community. I’m going to be putting a lot of time into you guys and working with you to help you become a better bracket racer. I am going to have to raise the price of this product. It’s going to end up being $99 a month or something.” And you – and that’s fine. These people are buying race car parts, they’re probably used to paying Premiums for things to get better.
Luke: Yeah, that’s the nice thing about our market. Like obviously they’re well off enough to own a racecar so…
Shane: Exactly, so they’re going to be able to do this. And, there’s not a lot of difference psychologically when you’re buying between $79 and $99 but there’s a huge difference in, “I’m going to raise the price but anyone that wants in now, last chance.”
Jocelyn: You’ll be locked in.
Shane: We’re going to be locked in – you’ll be – and, you’ll be locked in forever no matter how the community pricing changes. And, I think that what you’ll find is you’re going to get 20 to 30 new members immediately because you got scarcity, you’ve got all these testimonials from these guys that you’ve been working with for a few months, right, to put out there? And, you’ve already got a channel open with them. You don’t have to have email marketing right now. You’ve got 700 people in a Facebook group or whatever. So, let’s do that first. Let’s capitalize on low hanging fruit. And for everybody listening out there, sit back and write down what you think your low-hanging fruit is. Go get that before you start doing something complicated. Just like racing, man, or running or football or anything. If you can fix something simple and fundamental, you’re going to get a lot more bang for your buck than something that’s complicated and hard.
Luke: Thinking along those lines like when we initially set up the secret group, I kind of – I took the 20 and I had a pretty significant waiting list because we’d gone through some of that. But I probably have 20 to 25 names right there. Plus, people that repeatedly have messaged or emailed me with specific questions. Like would the best bet to be contact those and those individuals in kind of a personalized way to get this ball rolling before I even put out anything public?
Jocelyn: Yeah. Definitely. I mean there’s no reason not to start there. It’s the same thing we do on everything else, too. We always start with our list. We start with our people who open their emails the most.
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: So, you just want to look at the people who are actually interacting with you, who have raised their hand and said, “Hey, think of me, I want in.” And, of course, yes, start with those always.
Shane: And this is a classic example of when you’re first getting a real stable online business especially when based on memberships off the ground. Do what doesn’t scale first so you can scale later and not have to worry about it. And later on, you might not be able to contact every person individually that wants to join, right? Because you got to take care of your members. But, right now, it’s just 20 people. I mean, you can get on there. Get a hold of them, send them a message privately on Facebook. Whatever you want to do and say, “Hey, I’m letting you guys in first before anybody else does.” And, go ahead and activate that. Get your 10 members. Then open it up to the bigger Facebook group and then you can post it if you wanted to like on your website because I know you get some good traffic. And, you can go in there and do it that way. Kind of – so, roll it out from the most interested to the least interested in this next pass and we’ll see how many people we can get like in the next two weeks or so.
Luke: I guess and that makes sense.
Shane: Yeah, you’re going to have to set a date though. You want to set a date like I’m definitely changing things this date. So, if you want to get in now and you can kind of push it over the next couple of weeks.
Luke: OK, and basically say in that you would keep that current price point until that day.
Shane: Yes.
Jocelyn: Yes. So, you just say, “Hey, because the interest is so high, I’m going to be raising my prices. But, because you’re on my email list, I’m going to give you a chance to get in at this price.”
Shane: And, that new price is going to be very Premium and it’s going to look really good on your sales copy that we create. And there’s also kinds of ways, like people get freaked out when they raise their prices. But, it’s just like any other store. We’re going to reward people for engagement. You know, later on if people were – get on your email list – you might reward them for the little bit lower price. You’re going to give them – or you might have a flash sale or you might have a Black Friday sale. Or, I don’t know what the biggest drag race is in the world, but on that day you might offer a special one-month discount to get in that. You know, there’s all kinds of ways…
Luke: I got you .
Shane: To play with that pricing. But by raising it, we’re showing how premium this is and we’re saying scarcity. This is changing and you’re not going to be able to get in it whenever you want at this price unless you start now.
Luke: OK.
Shane: OK? Alright. So, that’s the very next step we’re going to do, momentarily free…
Jocelyn: Yeah I would try, just with that in mind, I would try to get people to sign up first and then if they don’t sign up, then you’re going to start telling them hey I’m raising this price.
Luke: OK.
Shane: Yeah, you can send an email right now today saying, “I’m opening the doors” to those 20, 30 people.
Jocelyn: Yeah, I mean you don’t have to start with the scarcity…
Shane: And just see if they jump in…
Jocelyn: Right away, you know what I’m saying? Like I just wanted to count on that ending.
Luke: I got you. And, I guess this is sort of related like, I had thought about making everyone that is a member of the Facebook group, giving them unlimited access to the content that’s actually on thisisbracketracing.com more as a resource than anything because I tend to refer to it. Would you like include that in an initial offer or – I mean that’s something that I kind of want everyone to have…
Shane: Yes.
Jocelyn: Yes.
Luke: that joins the group, moving forward, so…
Jocelyn: Yes, if it benefits them and you refer to it often, there’s no reason why not.
Shane: Yeah. We fully believe that – and we do have some people who disagree with us on this. but we fully believe that all your content – period – should be included in any membership.
Luke: Right.
Shane: Because that gives people a way to keep engaging with you even when you’re not in the forums or in the Facebook group. And like they get to go get what they need, when they need it. They don’t have to pay extra money. And, it’s just a nice, steady relationship and people get reliant on that and they don’t want to lose it so they keep paying every month.
Jocelyn: Well, and then also makes your life easier. Because it’s like you just said you refer to all the time. So, if you’re constantly referring to things then it’s really nice for them to be able to just go and get the information they need rather than you trying to type out a 200-word response every time when somebody asked the questions…
Shane: You just give them a link to the video..,
Jocelyn: It’s just covered in the…
Luke: Right, exactly…
Shane: Yeah. That’s the point of a membership side, too as recurring revenue’s great and community and talking to people and building those relationships is also great. But the only way you can scale is to be to leverage your knowledge. And you leverage your knowledge by putting it into videos. You’ve done that as one-off videos, right? Like how to – I don’t know it – anything about cars, pick the tire, whatever. How to get the tire off and on, whatever. Tell us a video about that in your thing OK? You don’t want to have to keep explaining how to do that over and over to everybody. You just want to explain it once and then tell everyone forever that information. It’s the same thing we would do sale funnel training…
Luke: Right.
Shane: I can tell – I consider and tell you off my memory what to do with sales funnel or I can say, “Luke, go log into the course area, click on the sales funnel training.” And it’s just so much easier to scale that and still help people and then you can answer questions off the back of it and that’s where the community is built.
Luke: Got you. That makes sense.
Jocelyn: Alright, Luke. Those are great questions, what else can we help you with today?
Luke: I know we had touched on it briefly but where would I start in terms of setting up an automated sales sequence and or recurring payments? Making this easier on my end?
Shane: The first thing is are you collecting emails?
Luke: Just from the group members. The original, thisisbracketracing.com, had an email sequence and we’ve got probably 2,000 emails off of it…
Shane: So, what…
Luke: It hasn’t been updated in years.
Shane: Did you remember what you were using for that?
Luke: Mailchimp.
Shane: Mailchimp. OK. You can use something like that. I think that’s the first place you’ve got to start is to be able to collect opt ins on your website. You’re going to have to set that back up. OK?
Luke: OK.
Jocelyn: Yeah, and I would put some of your – maybe some of your paid content that you have, maybe make it available for free to get people to opt in.
Shane: Yeah.
Luke: OK.
Shane: Some of your really good stuff. Like even if it’s beginner stuff, free videos, stuff like that, anything you can do to kind of bait people and lead them into your sales sequence. And…
Luke: Yeah, I have been working on a lead magnet program, OK.
Shane: Exactly. The reason you have to do that is because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many people you interacted with online. You’re going to have to contact them and everybody has email.
Luke: That’s right.
Shane: And yeah, you can take those same emails, you can put them on your Facebook page, you can do all sorts of stuff with them. So, start there. The next place you’re going to have to go to get into payments, recurring payments is you’re going to need some form of shopping cart and a payment processing system. OK? For example, we use stripe which is a payment processor, so they’re the people that let you accept a credit card and it recurs monthly, right? And, they take like a percentage just like you would if you were a store and you offer credit cards. So, we have stripe that is integrated with Infusionsoft which you don’t have to use these tools, I’m just giving you examples, OK? So, infusionsoft lets us create the order forms, set up recurring payments and then use a stripe to collect them, OK? So, we’re going to have to get in deep and see what might be the best solution for you. We highly recommend stripe as a payment processor. And then, we’re going to have to pick some kind of shopping cart or membership software or something that can handle recurring payments so you don’t have to be invoicing people. And, it will keep your churn really, really low. Because instead of people having to remember to pay, it just comes off their credit card automatically, OK?
Luke: Got you. And that would be set up as a sales page on my website?
Jocelyn: Yes, that’s right.
Luke: OK.
Jocelyn: Yeah.
Luke: OK.
Jocelyn: OK, so you’ve got all that stuff in, we’re going to work on your auto responder, we’ll work on your sales page and then getting some type of membership software for just something to go along with this recurring payment that will allow people to log in to view the things that they purchase. And, yeah, I mean you’re going to do a Facebook group there is going to be some manual component. And that’s fine like we don’t always recommend Facebook groups in this case…
Shane: But it’s already relevant. Yeah.
Jocelyn: You already have it going.
Shane: Yeah. I think we just go with what’s working with you right now. I do think long term, we need to get your group off of Facebook and into your own stuff. OK.
Luke: Right, exactly.
Shane: Yeah, but right now, let’s get a 100, 200 members first and pay somebody to do that for you. OK.
Luke: OK.
Shane: There are shopping carts, too. PayPal natively cannot do recurring stuff. But, there are shopping carts like I think there’s one card Nanocast or Nanocart, something like that.
Luke: Oh.
Shane: But we can actually use PayPal just to handover recurring payments. So, we’ll start a forum post after the show, what do I use to take recurring payments and we’ll help you research that and pick the best thing for your option. OK?
Luke: OK, great.
Shane: Awesome.
Jocelyn: Yeah. So, mostly I just think that you need a little bit more automation in place obviously. I mean we definitely need automated payment, I think that you can do some membership indoctrination make that…
Shane: Easier.
Jocelyn: Yeah, yeah.
Shane: Yeah, you’ve got so much content, too. It’s going to be very easy I think to create an awesome email sequence that’s going to guide any bracket racer that’s gets into your funnel straight into your membership. Because we’re not going to create anything new. We’re just going to use stuff you’ve already done. And, we’re going to go ahead and put that in there. Anybody out there that’s got a lot of content. You just take your old stuff or your paid stuff and you start making it free within your email auto responder to show them how good it is and then you let people in.
Jocelyn: And, it’s not everything. I mean I have on Elementary Librarian and I have over 500 lesson plans. I probably make about 10 of them free…
Shane: Yeah.
Jocelyn: And I set them up throughout the year. So, it’s not like you’re giving everything away. Because I know there’s people out there thinking well the – why would you do that. The reason is so people will know, like and trust you and that’s how you get them to buy things.
Shane: It doesn’t matter how good your content is if nobody can see it. So, like we need to make sure that people are getting access to that stuff that’s awesome behind that pay wall and then they’ll join basically after that.
Luke: Got you.
Jocelyn: OK, so let’s go ahead and go onto your next question.
Luke: Yeah, I guess my last question you guys, maybe you already answered it to some degree. But, should I be doing anything like I feel like before I even expand the group, I need to go into it and tell the existing 20 members what’s about to happen. I mean I kind of pitched it to them initially as, you know, scarcity. Like there’s just going to be 20 of us. And I think most of them would be receptive to growing the group because obviously there’d just be more feedback, more discussion. But should I give them any type of special offer or just that guarantee that their price will always stay the same?
Jocelyn: Yeah, I think that’s what you do. I think that you just let them know that, “Hey, this was a part of a beta test to see if I wanted to expand this. it’s gone really well thanks to you guys who have been here from the beginning.” And so because of that, I’m going to expand it to a larger audience. But I want to let you know that this is your price, you’ve got the special introductory offer, it’s never going to change because you were a part of this initial test I am going to allow you to keep this price forever and just really be positive about it. Like don’t apologize for it. Make it like a positive thing. This is going to be beneficial for you because not only do you get to keep the price that we set up from the beginning. You also get access to all these other racers who are going to help you as well.
Shane: Yeah, I think that’s the biggest thing is – one, it is your group. You can do whatever you want. That’s what in – and like Jocelyn said, “No apologies.” But two, just make them feel like the founders. Like we still have our founders the – we still have the – most of the people around the very first time we ever sold anything on Flipped Lifestyle a couple of years ago…
Jocelyn: They’re some of our most active people.
Shane: And they’re some of our most active people and I do always keep them a little – I might jump in and answer their question first even if there’s 20 more before them. I might jump in and say, “Hey, you were the people that bet on us first.” I do have a little bit of a difference in the way I look at you. Yeah, they’ve got that special price they – and they’re like your friends. They’re like your oldest friends.
Jocelyn: And, there may be a time where you can do something special for them. So, say maybe you have a live event. Maybe you have a special pre-live event before that for those people, you know what I mean?
Shane: Like the day before…
Jocelyn: Like there are other ways…
Shane: You eat dinner with them or something.
Jocelyn: Yeah, there are other ways to make them feel special. But, like just don’t ever go in apologizing. And if somebody ever does get mad about it, just say…
Shane: That’s their problem.
Jocelyn: You know, I’m really sorry that you feel that way because this is the way that my business is heading. Thank you for being a customer and I wish you the best.
Shane: I think this sport is very social. You know what I’m saying like it’s the…
Luke: Yeah, no doubt.
Shane: Yeah, there’s a culture to it. There’s a – it’s one of those cult-like sports. Like I think these people will embrace it though I think you’re going to have no problem because they’re going to be like sweet, it’s growing, we’re the first ones that got in and I’m going to keep getting served with all this great content but now there’s more people in this tight knit group to talk to you. But I think they’re going to enjoy it. I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that. Sometimes we invent fears like – oh, what if everybody gets mad and quits. And those things aren’t really true. It’s just something that we kind of imagined ourselves.
Jocelyn: I think a good exercise to do is to write out a response to someone who’s angry before you even send out any messages. And I do this sometimes when I sell things. And I think somebody’s going to be upset it helps me personally to be able to process the information and to think through all those things somebody might have objections to. So, that way I already have a response prepared and I don’t have to worry about thinking about that if it happens.
Shane: Yeah.
Luke: OK, yeah I like that.
Jocelyn: Yeah, so I do that a lot. Alright, this has been a great information…
Shane: Great call.
Jocelyn: Packed call. We really love it when people come in with such awesome questions, so thank you for that.
Shane: And it takes – and someone who’s taken so much action just kudos again for all the action you’ve already taken. You’ve really set yourself up…
Luke: I don’t think a bunch of it is in the right direction but…
Shane: That’s alright man. I – it’s better than not – it’s better than no direction.
Jocelyn: Exactly, exactly. You’re doing stuff and that’s what a lot of people out there are not doing. So, yay! So, let’s kind of just take a step back and we always ask people at the end of all of our calls, what’s one thing that you’re going to take action on based on what we talked about today, say in the next 24 to 48 hours?
Luke: Yeah, I think that my first steps are obviously to dive into the forums and really start doing some research on automating my pay process and also just kind of writing up, A: how I want to pitch this to our existing group and then B: the detailed kind of personalized messages to people that I – the low-hanging fruit that you just said. People that I know would be interested.
Shane: Man, that is awesome action plan. I think you’re going to get new members immediately for that. And, while they’re joining, we will figure out how to automate everything and take it to the next level. Luke, man, I think you got a bright future in this dude. I think we can scale this very quickly. Once again, thank you so much for sharing your story and being such a great example of being an action taker to all – everyone in the Flipped Lifestyle community. All of our listeners at home and thanks again for being on the show.
Luke: Very cool, thank you guys for all that you and all your time. You guys are an inspiration.
Shane: Alright, guys. That wraps up another call with one of our Flipped 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 nine to five job. Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is taking our children to school. And you wouldn’t think that would be a particularly significant Can’t Miss Moment but for us is because it’s something that we were never really able to do in the past. Before when we worked at school, one of us had to take one of the kids to school because Isaac went to preschool at the school I worked at. And, the other one took Anna to daycare. So, this was every single day. And, I love taking the kids to school every morning because we’re one in the few – if maybe one of the only mom and dad combos that bring their kids to school. Just about every car we see, it’s either mom or dad so I love that. And, we haven’t missed a day so far this school year.
Shane: Yeah, that’s what’s really significant to me is I looked up to Jocelyn last Friday and I said, “We’ve been to school every morning, every year.” Because even with us, like sometimes I’ll have – I’m like going to the gym, or Jocelyn might have, you know, a doctor appointment or a hair appointment or something.
Jocelyn: And as it’s getting colder outside…
Shane: Right.
Jocelyn: I do not like to get out of bed.
Shane: And sometimes I would take the kids to school so Jocelyn can stay warm. But, we have been to school with the kids every day this school year so far. And, it’s awesome because man, the kids get to jump out of the seat, give us both a hug and kiss, and wave at us on the way in and they get – they’re at the same school now so they get to walk in together and it’s just such a unique experience that our kids are getting because of our online business, because of our location independence and our time freedom that we get to all go to school as a family every single day. Before we go today guys, I want to share a Bible verse with you. Jocelyn and I close every single one of our shows with a bible verse. We get a lot of our inspiration and motivation from the Bible and we want to share some of that with you. Today’s Bible verse comes from I Corinthians 9:24 and the Bible says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize.” Run in such a way as to get the prize. Make sure that you are giving every ounce of effort, that you are dedicated to making your online business work and run that race in such a way that you will get the prize and everything will work out in your online business. 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.
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