Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
We’ve made it this far because of the conscious effort we put into the choices we make.
Some choices have bigger impacts on your life and business than others.
Today we’ll share with you our secret weapons for online success.
This is the single choice we made that helped us grow exponentially as husband and wife, as business partners and as entrepreneurs in general.
What’s our secret weapon?
Choosing to invest in ourselves and attend live events!
Attending live events has been the single biggest game changer in our online business.
There’s something about going to a live event that takes everything in your business to the next level.
Being surrounded by entrepreneurs of every level is a huge opportunity far too good to pass up.
WHY? Everyone who goes to a live event is serious about their business. No one is messing around. Everyone is there to work and make the right connections that will help transform their business in the future.
We would not be where we are today, if we had not gone to those live events early in our journey.
The revelations you get by meeting the mind (or minds) behind the content, behind the business, will blow you away!
Now that we got your attention with the perks, here are some tips and tricks to get you LIVE event ready!
How to Choose The Right Event For You AND Get The Most Out of It:
- “WHO IS LEADING THE GROUP?”
You should trust the person leading you to your next step. Make sure you do your research and learn about who is hosting the event, what they value, the purpose of the event and if they have the content you need to start or grow your online business.
- “WHO IS GOING?”
Take time to consider the size of the event. A smaller event gives a more personalized experience that lets you connect with others on a deeper level.
There’s less clutter, less noise, less competition for everyone’s attention, so the opportunity to build relationships with your fellow entrepreneurs is greater. This also makes asking your questions and finding the right answers even easier.
Remember: You’re not there just for the content. Go connect, build and strengthen relationships with your fellow participants, doing so will make a huge difference to your business in the future.
- “WHAT ARE YOUR PRIORITIES VS THE REWARDS?”
Invest in yourself and your business. We know how difficult it is for people to do this, but you must work on making a commitment to believe and invest in yourself and your business because the rewards are going to be bigger when you do.
Overcome challenges and remove obstacles. Being a parent makes this even more complicated since there’s going to be some guilt sinking in, “What will happen to the kids while I’m away?” But what if by attending this live event, your business takes off and in turn, it significantly makes your family’s life better, would you now be willing to invest time, effort and money?
You have to be ready to do whatever it takes to get to the next level and make that a priority.
Are you investing your time, money and energy in a way that saves, frees up and generate you MORE time, money and energy?
If the answer to the question above is “YES!” then you’re already part of the 10% who’s setting themselves up for success.
If your answer is, “No,” then there’s no better time than the present to START making the changes needed to create a truly amazing life for your family. Being resourceful is a handy skill that all entrepreneurs must possess, practice resourcefulness and go do what you said you were going to do — DO IT NOW.
Bonus Tips On Overcoming Challenges & Removing Obstacles:
- Try driving to the event location if flying there is too expensive for you. This also works well if you’re living in relatively close proximity to where the event’s going to happen.
- Stay at the event hotel, this saves you so much time, money and energy. This removes the distraction of stressing over your commute, the time it takes to complete your commute and allows you to be 100% present at the event.
- Look for the event’s pre-selling deals or early bird offers. You’re going to save so much more if you book your slots early since discounts and payment plans are often offered during the early stages of the sale.
- Check if your slot includes your meals during the event. Eating out will eventually add up to your bill and it’s certainly not worth the hassle of needing to run around looking for a decent place to eat without depleting your cash reserves.
- MINDSET SHIFT: Think of the huge rewards attending the live event will bring you. Spend some money to make money, spend time to free up more time, sacrifice now and harvest later.
Introducing Flip Your Life LIVE NASHVILLE!
Join Shane, Jocelyn and over 100 entrepreneurs from around the world LIVE!
Click here to learn more about Flip Your Life LIVE NASHVILLE!
Thank you for listening!
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 share our secret weapon for online business success.
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. 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’s great to be back with you again this week at another awesome episode where we’re going to bring you the very best content in making money online and online business. We are really excited for this episode because we’re going to be talking about a subject that is near and dear to our hearts.
It’s one of the most important things that we did, not only when we were starting out in our online business, but what we still do today. It’s our secret weapon that helps us 2X, 3X, 5X, 10X our business. Every time we do this, great things happen in our life and in our online business. We’re going to share that with you today.
Jocelyn: All right, we are flying solo today. We do not have a Flip Your Life member on the show. But we are talking about one of my most favorite subjects today and how it can help you in your online business.
Shane: Is it a solo or a duo, when it’s just us?
Jocelyn: I guess it’s a duo.
Shane: I think it’s a duo. Is this a solo show or a duo show? I don’t know, but we’re going to go with it. We have got a lot of ground to cover so buckle up. This is going to be an awesome episode. We’ve been looking forward to this. We’ve tried to record this episode five times in the last two months, but we’ve not been able to sit down and do it. We’re really pumped out today because we’re going to be able to, and we have a special surprise for everyone in the Flipped Lifestyle universe today.
We are going to give you an amazing opportunity to do something really, really cool with us at the end of the show, so make sure you listen to this program, make sure you listen to the entire podcast, and then stick around until the end because we’re going to give you an amazing opportunity that we really don’t want you to miss.
Jocelyn: Alright, now is the time where we finally give away our secret. Some of you may have already guessed this. If you have been long term listeners to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, you know that this is something that we feel very, very strongly about. It’s something that has changed our business time and time again–
Shane: Multiple times.
Jocelyn: –and something that we just feel like every single person who’s serious about starting an online business really has to do. That thing is going to live events. Now hearing me talk about live events might sound a little strange because most of you guys who listen to the podcast on a regular basis, you know that I’m an introvert. I don’t particularly love being around other people.
But there’s something about going to a live event that just re-energizes you and reinvigorates you and gets you excited and motivated to take the next steps in your online business. We have been to many live events now.
Shane: It’s kind of required, don’t you think? If we’ve not been to a live event in a while, we look over at each other and we’re like, “We need to go to a live event. We need some adrenaline, we need that shot of fire to take us to the next level, let’s go.”
Jocelyn: And the thing about live events that I love is that everyone who goes, everyone there is serious. Everyone’s made an investment to be there. Nobody’s messing around. Everybody’s there to learn. Everyone’s there to work. Everyone’s there to make connections that could possibly benefit them in the future. And it’s just an awesome environment to be in.
Shane: Yeah, I can honestly say that we would not be where we are today if we had not started going to live events early in our journey. Live events dug us out of a hole one time that we were in. Live events 10X’d our business one time. Live events have just changed our life in so many different ways, not only just because of the information that we learned, but just our friends the people that we met, the people that we connected with, all the people that we talked to now pretty much come from these live events, when we’ve went out and actually met people in the entrepreneurial space.
When I look back over the last few years, some of my greatest memories some of the most fun that I’ve ever had were at these live events and I just really cannot imagine what our life or our business would look like if we had not went to that first live event.
Jocelyn: Let’s go back a little bit and look at that first live event that we went to. We talked about this a couple of other times on the show, just bits and pieces about things about the live event. But back in 2014, we had just left our jobs and all of a sudden, Pat Flynn, who is the first podcast that Shane ever listened to about online business, he announced that he was going to host a live event.
Shane: So, in 2013, we had quit our jobs. We had this like little nest egg of a savings account that would get us through like three to six months, six months if we were really, really frugal, three months if we were you know living a normal life.
After we quit our jobs in September of 2013, around December and January, sales really dropped. That was kind of the first gut check moment in our entrepreneurship journey and our we-had-just-quit-our-jobs journey where we looked at each other and said, “Oh my goodness, have we made a mistake? Are the sales going to go back up?”
We were really overwhelmed, really confused. We had never ran businesses before. And quite frankly we needed some help. We needed a little bit of help. So, when Pat announced this live event that he was doing it was a really small live event.
It would only have 20 or 30 people, it was just him and a buddy of his that were putting this event on. His name was Chris Ducker, and they were doing this like event where you came and you just met other entrepreneurs, you had fun and spent a couple days with each other and made some decisions in your business to take it to the next level. But most importantly, it was about being in the room with other people who were doing it.
Everyone there had an online business. Everyone there was trying to build an online business. Some people were really successful. There were people there that were making hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there were people there that were making no dollars. Also, you had access to Pat, access to Chris, and access to these other experts so that you could ask questions about your business.
I really wanted to go to this event. But here’s was the problem: sales were down. We were looking at a goal, and we’re like, “What do we do next?” Our savings had gone down just a little bit and we were like, “Oh my gosh! If we go to this live event, we have to pay the money to go, we’ve got to buy the plane ticket, we’ve got to get a hotel.” If we do all that, that’s really going to knock a few months of that security blanket off the top of the cash reserves.
Jocelyn: And, y’all, it’s expensive to fly from Kentucky to California.
Shane: We had to drive three hours to get to the plane.
Jocelyn: I was not really keen on this idea. You guys know me. You know I’m very practical. I was, like, “I don’t know. I’m an introvert. I don’t like being around a lot of people.”
Shane: “Wait, I have to go hang out with other humans?”
Jocelyn: This is a hard sell for me, and especially with the financial situation we were in. I mean we weren’t like starving or anything but we didn’t have a lot of extra money to be throwing around, flying off to California.
Shane: This also goes back to getting off plan a little bit. Jocelyn had had it mapped out. Our money will last this much if we do this, and do this, do this. And I was kind of like throwing a wrinkle in the plan. I mean, really this would have of knocked, like, at the time a month, maybe two, of expenses off of our safety emergency fund.
But I was really passionate. I really felt like look if we can just go ask people who are doing this– we were all by ourselves in a small town. We didn’t have any entrepreneurial friends, we didn’t have a lot of people an online business, we had nobody we could talk to. I said, “The only way we’re going to be able to find people that we can get answers from and help us is to go to them and get that information.” We’ve got to do this. It’s so important and we’re going to make back ten times whatever we spend on this trip.
Jocelyn: I knew that we needed some help. I knew that we needed some expertise, some advice.
Shane: Some friends that knew how to do run businesses.
Jocelyn: Just to figure out how to get to the next level. So, very reluctantly, I did agree to this. This was probably like January of 2014.
Shane: And when she says reluctantly, guys, I’m pretty sure the whole way there, Jocelyn was giving me the eye roll. It was kind of like the eye roll I got when I first ran inside and told her that I discovered online business, and she was just like, “Oh, what are we going to do?” At the time, we were in the scarcity mindset of the money. And when I talked Jocelyn into it, when she said yes, I almost fell off my chair. I was, like, “Are you seriously saying we get to do this?”
Jocelyn: I knew that we were definitely all alone in what we were doing and that we were just really needed some support from other people. We had the support of each other, but we just really needed some validation and some help from other people.
Shane: We went out to California, we went to this one-day event, and it was incredible. It was just awesome just spending the day, being able to eat meals with other entrepreneurs to talk shop, to talk business, to ask people where they were to meet people at different stages of the journey. There were people there that were making money, there were people not making money, and just being able to connect with our mentors, with Pat and other people that could help us make some decisions in our business where we were stuck. And it was absolutely incredible.
We got some great advice at that event on our pricing. We got some amazing relationships, some of our best friends in the world, we met at that live event five years ago, and when we came home at the event, we took massive action. I mean, in the month after the event we were so fired up and so pumped up and had so much adrenaline running through our veins that we just constantly took action.
We were literally able to 5X our business after we came home from this event. We did what we said we were going to do. We took advantage and learned from other people, modeled what some other people that were doing right that we met in the event, and our revenue exploded. It also opened amazing doors and relationships for us. That’s what first got us to be a guest on the Smart Passive Income Podcast.
That’s what led to us doing Flipped Lifestyle. We actually talked about that with people at the live event. We told them about how we had been helping a couple of people that we knew in real life. That’s where we got the encouragement to go ahead and launch Flipped Lifestyle. If we had never went to that live event, I’m not sure where our business would be financially. I’m not sure what we would be doing right now. And I’m not even sure you would be listening to this show.
So what we want to do now is we want to give you some practical tips that you can use to pick the right live events for you, how to get the most out of the live events that you participate in, and some practical solutions to overcome some of the obstacles in your way from attending a live event.
Jocelyn: Alright, guys. If you’ve been around online business any amount of time you know that there are a lot of different events to choose from. We’re going to start out by telling about how to choose the right event for you.
The first thing that I would look for if you are looking to go to a live event is to look for people that you trust. Make sure that you know the person who’s putting on the event, you know what they value and what the purpose of the event is, and that there’s content that you need there.
Shane: You know, Jocelyn and I never look at necessarily the city where something’s in, or all the other little parties and things that are going on around the event. We always look at who’s leading the event. We have to be able to trust that person because we’ve consumed their content, because we’ve read their book, we’ve listen to their podcasts, whatever.
That’s why we chose Pat Flynn’s live event over all of the other live events that we could have went to because we trusted him. We had talked to him before via e-mail. We had listened to his podcast every single episode. We were confident that we were going to get the Pat that we heard on the podcast when we showed up at the event and we still do that today.
We just recently went to a live event in Boise, Idaho of all places in the winter of Boise, which was cold and snowy, and it wasn’t exactly like the best weather, hottest vacation spot on the planet. But there was a live event at Clickfunnels headquarter and it was hosted by Russell Brunson. We had recently picked up expert secrets and a couple other books by Russell, and we thought, “Wow, this guy’s got some interesting things to say about sales copy, and I would love to go see how Clickfunnels run their business,” because this is at their headquarters.
It was really neat. And we chose that live event. It was super expensive. We ended up spending probably almost $30,000 to go to this event. I mean, it was a two- or three-day event. I had to fly out there, travel, it was really expensive to just be in the room. It was a really exclusive group of entrepreneurs.
But we know, when we go to those live events, whatever we pay we’re going to go back five to ten times on the back side. It was a no-brainer for us to be able to go learn about all this information. We knew the content was going to be exactly what we needed right where we are in our online business. And based on our interactions with the Clickfunnels team, we do use Clickfunnels now. We were really excited to be able to go out and work and meet these people that we trusted and knew.
Jocelyn: In addition to trusting the person who’s running the event, another thing that I like to look for is the size of the event.
We’ve been to a lot of different types of live events. We have been to one as small as about 20 people, and we’ve been to ones as large as thousands of people. I vastly prefer events that are like 300 people or less. That is just my personal preference.
I don’t like going to these huge, huge events where you don’t know anybody. One event that we went to, there were a lot of corporate people in there who do like social media stuff. I mean it’s not even people who do what we do. I really like an intimate group of people who are all doing the same type of business.
Shane: The smaller events are really going to let you connect with people on a much deeper level because there’s less people there, there’s less clutter, less noise, less competition for everyone’s attention. That’s where you’re going to build those relationships that are going to be able to push you and take you to the next level.
It’s kind of like being in a small town as opposed to being in a big city. There is some anonymity in that, and there are some good things about that, but when you’re in a small town, even if you don’t know everybody personally kind of who everybody is. So when you go to these smaller events of 200, 300 people or less, you’re going to be able to connect with almost everybody in the room, somehow. You’re going to be either standing in a circle listening to a conversation, you’re going to hear and be able to meet the speakers and meet the people who are on stage a lot easier, and you’re just going to be able to connect with people on a lot better way.
Shane: It’s really important to do a smaller event when you first start out. If you’ve never been to one of these big live events, try to avoid anything over 100 to 150 people because the reason you’re going is to build relationships. It’s not just to show up, and get a magic wand piece of content that’s going to do something miraculous in your life.
That’s important. The content is important, but really what you’re looking is to deepen and strengthen relationships, and really get that future help that you need to take your life to the next level.
And you know, Jocelyn touched on something really interesting there. When she was talking about that big event we went to where I think half the people in the room were actually involved in what we were doing and the other half weren’t, you really need to look at the makeup of the event. Who are the people going? Are they like you? If Jocelyn and I walked into a room full of 23-year-olds who were at a motivational speech rock concert type event, we would be a little out of place.
Jocelyn: Hey, I’m young at heart. What are you trying to say?
Shane: I know. But, I’m just saying, we’re not going to be in the mosh pit, and I’m not wearing skinny jeans because look at my thighs. I mean, there’s no way that I could get into any skinny jeans.
Jocelyn: Yeah, I don’t think anybody needs to see that.
Shane: They’re nice thighs, they are just large thighs. They’re just not skinny-jeans thighs. I get the huskies, the stretchables. Whatever. But what I’m saying is, make sure you’re connecting with people who are similar to you like in your life, in your lifestyle, have similar goals, have similar interests, have similar dreams because that’s going to allow you to make better connections that are going to help you going forward.
Jocelyn: And this is really important because Shane mentioned it earlier: the people that we have met at live events many of them are still our friends today. When I say they’re our friends, I mean we talk like on messenger daily. We send each other texts. We talk on Voxer. I mean, they are like are real genuine friends.
Shane: Yeah, these are the people, we call them at our church, we call them 2AM Friends. If we’ve got a problem, or they’ve got a problem, we know that we can contact each other and get an answer really quickly to help each other. When you’ve got that decision in your business that you’re struggling with, when something in your life gets in the way and you get derailed and off your plan, it helps you build that support network.
You can meet people online; you can connect with people online. That’s how relationships can start and grow. But, man, when you are together in a room with a common interest and a shared purpose and you’re breaking bread together, that is just a difference that you cannot replicate anywhere else.
Jocelyn: And just one final consideration for the event’s size is just make sure to keep in mind that if you go to a small event, you have a high likelihood of getting your questions answered by someone. It might not be by the event host necessarily, but it might be someone else who knows that content really well or someone else who’s already been there in their business.
If you go to a larger event, I mean that could theoretically happen, but you have to go through a lot of people to find people who are like you. If you start out by going to the event with a lot of people who you know are like you, there’s a lot greater chance of you being able to get your questions answered.
Shane: I know what you’re thinking now, because we thought the same thing. “Man, this live event stuff sounds amazing! But I’m a working parent. I got to go to work. I got to have a job, I’ve got to take a day off and– oh, I know, I’ve got kids, and stuff like that. And all these obstacles are in my way from going out live event.”
I know that you’re thinking that because when we decide to start going to live events that’s exactly what we were thinking. Once we had figured out the live event and once we had decided that we were going to invest in ourselves and go to this live event, we had to overcome all of these other challenges just to get to the front door of the place. So, we’re going to talk a little bit now about how we overcame those challenges and how you can too.
Let’s get to the elephant in the room really quickly.
Kids, God love them, I love my kids, would do anything for my kids, die for my kids, but they create a serious obstacle when you’re trying to travel especially if you’re not going to travel with them. So the very first question out of our mouth when we decided to go live event was, “Oh my gosh, what’s going to happen with the kids?”
And also we had to wrestle with a little bit of guilt. You know, like, “Oh my gosh, we’re going to be traveling out here. We had never been away from our kids before we were going to be away from them for like four days.” And there was like this guilt of leaving our kids for a little while.
Jocelyn: It was scary as a mom and as a dad. You don’t want to leave your kids. We get that. I mean our kids were– let’s see, four and two I think we left.
Shane: We’ve never been gone for more than a weekend.
Jocelyn: Or maybe there were five and three, but anyway they were really young. We knew though that if we did it and we came back and grew our business and were able to make more money and grow the business more, that would eventually make their lives better and that is what happened.
Shane: And our purpose for doing this was to make sure that we could not only quit our jobs but stay self-employed, which would allow us to spend so much more time with our children later than anybody else in society actually even gets to.
If we go put in these four or five days, that may extend our business for four or five years and give us tons of time with our kids that we never would have had.
And quite frankly just a little selfishly, I think one of the biggest problems in our society today is couples and marriages are not investing in time together away from their kids. You know we all need a little break. We all need a chance to maybe go away with our spouse, or get away from that a little bit. That’s been an important part of our self-care strategy over the last year or so, is making sure that we have personal time, making sure that we have time for our marriage.
A business trip like this can give you that alone time, if you’re an introvert like Jocelyn, or give you that couple time that your marriage may need to not only grow in your business but come back refreshed as a parent, come back refreshed as a spouse and make everything in your life better, not just your bottom line. So, yes, you will feel a little strange maybe about leaving your kids for a couple of days.
Jocelyn: You may feel guilty.
Shane: Yeah, you may feel a little bit guilty, but that’s natural. That’s okay. It’s really, really going to be good for you, good for your marriage, and good for your kids to go to these live events so you can make everyone’s life better in your family.
Jocelyn: I would say my biggest struggle with going to the first live event is just being a little bit apprehensive about not knowing people. I am an introvert so it is hard for me to get to know people. It’s not something that I really love to do most of the time. But the cool thing about it is if you find the right event, you’ll find your people, the people who understand you, the people who are like you. When you find those people it’s really not as awkward to talk to them. As an introvert, I know a lot of you can probably relate, I really hate making small talk. It’s just not my thing.
Shane: Jocelyn will never say, “How’s the weather?” She’s not doing it.
Jocelyn: No, I just don’t like that. I don’t like talking about, “Oh, what’s your business? What do you do? How many kids do you have?”
Shane: Or like, if you’re in college. “What’s your major? What’s your schedule? Tuesdays-Thursdays, baby?”
Jocelyn: But if you meet me in person, and you ask me that, I’m not going to get mad or anything, I promise.
Shane: I hope no one’s asking your major.
Jocelyn: No, I’m just– I’m very like– nobody’s asking my major. I’m almost 40. But anyway, yeah, it’s fine, but it’s just those types of questions, it like drains my energy. So, I was just really concerned about that, but I loved the types of events that we chose to go to when we first started going into live events because it was so easy to talk to people because we all had something in common. We didn’t have to start at that base level of, “Oh, it sure is sunny today.” We actually had things to talk about and it was just really cool.
Shane: We’ve been to a lot of different live events, and I love live events that create opportunities for icebreakers and stuff before the event, like that’s something we really look for. Is there a group or some way that we can get to know people, even online before we get there so you get all that out of the way? And everyone literally hits the ground running, laser-focused, to take action and move everything forward, that really helps with that as well.
One thing that I really struggled with when we decided to start going to live events was, “Man, are we ready for this? Are we ready to put ourselves out there? Are we ready to take it to the next level?” The fear of succeeding or the fear of that next level is a very real thing. We see it all the time people have little success and then they get stuck because they’re like, “Man, what’s the next level look like? What’s the next level going to take to get to?”
And that’s a very real fear, but it’s kind of like having kids or getting married. You’re never ready for it. There’s no one that can explain to you what it looks like on the other side of that until you just take the step and you go and do it. That’s how we kind of overcame that fear.
Jocelyn: The cool thing is about live events– I say this to people all the time when they are not sure if they’re going to go or if it’s the right thing for them– I always say, you will never be the lowest level person there and you will probably never be the highest level person there. There will always be somebody who is further along than you and there will always be somebody who has absolutely nothing done.
One live event we went to at one time, somebody came with a piece of paper with some ideas written on it. The last live event we went to– the big one that we told you about earlier– there were people there who had not even started an online business. It was mind blowing, and they paid that much money to go to this event, but they knew that that was the piece of the puzzle they were missing to take it to the next level.
You just have to go do it, your first time, you got to rip the band aid off, and say, “Ah, I’m going in.” It’s like jumping into a cold pool. You just gotta do it get used to it. Once you do, it almost becomes like addicting. It’s so much fun and it’s such a good time and so stimulating, mentally, that you just get addicted to go into these things.
Jocelyn: All right, maybe you’ve gotten past all these mindset issues. Maybe your mind is right, and you’re like, “Okay, live events might be for me.” So, let’s talk about some other obstacles that might be in your way if you’re considering going to a live event.
Shane: The first obstacle that we all have to wrestle with is the obstacle of time. Do I have time to do this? Can I find time to do this? We all have responsibilities, we all have schedules, we all have things going on, but the bottom line is this is a decision on priorities. Are you going to do whatever it takes to take it to the next level? Are you going to make the time?
Because what we always find is everybody that tells us, “Oh, I don’t have time to start an online business. I don’t have time to take three days and go to a live event.” It’s not that they don’t have time. They’re just not looking for the time. If something is a priority to you, you will find a way to get it done. I always go back and wrestle with, “Well, what else would I be doing with that time?”
So if I’ve got an event and it’s over the weekend that we really want to go to, but I’m like, “Oh man, but the masters is on and I want to watch that,” or, “Oh, man, will the hotel get Walking Dead on Sunday night?” I’m thinking about all these other things that I might be doing with my time and then I look at it and say, “Is that going to take my life to the next level? Is that really the best investment of my time to move everything forward and to find that progress that I need?” That was really the only conversation I had to have with myself to get over this time obstacle.
It didn’t matter what else was on the schedule. It didn’t matter what else we were doing because that live event took place on those two days. And if we didn’t get out there and get it done it would not happen. So, we found the time and are scheduled to go.
Jocelyn: You might be thinking well, “I only have two weeks of vacation. I don’t want to spend three days going to a live event.” What if those three days could be the catalyst to you starting your own online business, and not having to have vacation time anymore?
Shane: That’s right. What if you gave you total control of your schedule, and you no longer had to answer to somebody else or write this stuff down and that’s what we were looking at when we were deciding, “Can we make time for this?” We were basically looking at each other going, “Well, if we don’t, we’re going to have to go back to work next year for somebody else.” So, that was really what pushed us to find the time is, “Hey, this is an investment of time. We are not spending time, it’s going to buy us time back later.”
Jocelyn: Another obstacle that especially for people in our audience can be concerning is childcare. I know a lot of you guys listening have children and you’re, like, “Okay, well all this sounds great if I didn’t have to find someone to watch my kids.” Well, there’s a saying around here at Flipped Lifestyle that I say all the time, and Shane actually kind of said it earlier.
If you want something, you’ll find a way to do it. If it’s not important to you, you’ll find an excuse. So, that’s pretty much the way that we look at it.
Shane: You’ve got to go down your list of every possible child care solution you can have if you want to attend some kind of live event that’s out of town. Maybe you and your spouse divide and conquer, and you go and one of them stays back with the kids. Maybe you can get the grandparents or another relative or a friend. That’s what we do most of the time. We have multiple people in our life that we have kind of put in place purposefully for this reason.
We have parents, we have brothers, I’ve got some friends, we’ve even got a babysitter that we have paid before to keep our kids for a couple of days so that we could go and invest this time into the future of our business and into their lives. We’ve seen multiple people bring their kids with them to the live event. This works really well especially if you’ve got teenagers or older kids because they can kind of stay in the hotel room.
It’s another reason why it’s really important to stay in the hotel wherever the event is taking place so that they’re nearby. We’ve seen people with younger kids actually bring someone with them. Maybe they have a 17-year-old niece or somebody that they can bring with them and watch the kids during the event because they’re in the same hotel, and are just staying up in the room watching TV while they’re down and in the event.
We even had one couple at an event that Jocelyn and I hosted. They bought an extra ticket for their 15-year-old so that he could come to the event and didn’t have to stay home alone, and also just be around all of that stuff. Jocelyn and I have talked about that before, too, about just bringing our kids to these events. Not actually bringing them into the meetings, necessarily, our kids are 9 and 7.
They wouldn’t be able to sit through a live event, but bring a babysitter. Find some kind of childcare, meet some friends in the city that we’re going to. Whatever it is just get them used to being in the entrepreneurial world, go into these live events, understanding how important they are to success.
The bottom line is, and we know this from every aspect of our life, children add costs. Children do add complexity when it comes to travel and things like that. But whatever we have to do to solve the problem, Jocelyn and I go out of our way to make that happen so that we can go get the information, the relationships, and what we need to take our business to the next level.
Jocelyn: Alright. Another thing that you might be thinking about that makes it a little bit more difficult to attend live events is the financial part. We understand this. We had been there before like we know that live events are very expensive.
Shane: It was terrifying for us to spend that money on that first live event.
Jocelyn: There are a lot of things that go into that. It’s not just that this is patting people’s pockets, it’s that live events are expensive to put on. They do have a high price tag, and it is expensive to travel. But we feel that it is worth it. There are a lot of different things that you can do to try to cut down on this cost a little bit.
One thing is by driving. If you live close enough to the event, driving is usually less expensive than flying. That is one way to do that. Another thing is to stay at the event hotel. Even if you might save a few dollars on the nightly rental rate, the nightly room rental, you know you have to remember that you’re going to have to get to the events you’re going out to pay a taxi, an Uber or Lyft whatever.
Shane: It’s going to add time and inconvenience and stress to your day. We actually did the math and it’s never made sense for us to stay off-site whenever we go to a live event before.
Jocelyn: Another way to save money on live events is to sign up early, look for the early-bird price and also look for events that offer a payment plan. If you sign up early enough, a lot of times events will offer a payment plan for you to come.
Shane: Meals are important to live events. One of your biggest costs is going to be eating, so look for events that provide as many meals as possible. We’ve been to events before where they really provided no meals, and we are like, “Dang it.” So we had to go buy breakfast, buy lunch, buy dinner, come back.
Jocelyn: That stuff adds up really, really fast. Look for things where all the meals are included. And finally don’t think so much as what the cost is, think what your return on your investment is going to be. Looking back at all the live events that we have been to, Jocelyn and I we’re talking about this before we came on air. Every live event we’ve ever been to has pretty much like 2X, 3X or 5X’d our business like huge crazy financial wins happened after the first live event that we went to with Pat Flynn.
I can’t imagine where we would be now without that live event and the financial return that we got with one piece of advice and another relationship that we made because we formed like a mastermind with some people that we met at the live event. Over the next three or four months, we built this amazing system for making money online, that in a single month, made over a hundred thousand dollars.
Jocelyn: If we told you, “Hey, you can spend a couple thousand dollars to bring back up to a hundred thousand dollars,” that’s a bet anybody would take. We’re not guaranteeing that when you go to any live event, don’t say, “The Flipped Lifestyle podcast told me–” don’t say that.
Shane: But you are guaranteed not to get that benefit if you don’t go do this stuff. It’s not going to happen. These crazy magnifying things are not going to happen if you’re not putting yourself in these situations. Everybody always says like, “Well, you were in the right place at the right time.” Well, guess what. Me and Jocelyn, we always put ourselves in the place so that we can be in the right place at the right time and that’s what we really see at these live events.
Only 5-10% of people out there, entrepreneurs are taking it to the next level and doing things like this to go to the next level, so that’s why 80% of people are failing, and the other 20% are making it because they’re putting themselves in the right place at the right time.
Jocelyn: And we always say, “People who pay, pay attention.” It’s the same thing here. If you pay to go to a live event, even if you don’t have anything done right now, how much is that going to motivate you if you’re surrounded by people who are doing the same thing that you want to do, you’re seeing the success that they have, you’re finding out ways to make that happen for yourself? How much better off are you going to be even if you have absolutely nothing right now than if you go to a live event, and at least get some motivation and surround yourself by people who are making it work?
Shane: And the actions that we take during the year. If we look back at our calendar the four weeks leading up to a live event are always huge periods of action-taking for me and Jocelyn, because we don’t want to show up and be, like, “We’re not doing anything cool and we’re not really cool. We’re just trying or we want to–” No, we took massive action. This is what I’m doing right now. I want to show up and show you what I’m doing so you can help me take it to the next level.
When we came back from that event where we paid almost 30000 dollars to go to it, I promise you for the eight weeks after that I was killing myself trying to get stuff done because I wanted to put everything I just got in action so I could get a huge return on investment back.
It just creates so much activity in your brand and your business, that you almost can’t afford not to go to these things. Look at the ROI, don’t just look at what it costs.
Jocelyn: So as we were planning for this podcast, we were just thinking back on how live events really have changed our life. We got to thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if we could host a live event of our own?
Shane: We’ve done live events before but it’s always been really, really, really small like 10, 15 people in a real intimate setting.
Jocelyn: And we love those events.
Shane: That was awesome, but it has been really closed up. As we were talking about this and we started thinking about you know everything to this point in our business has happened because of these live event experiences, if we wanted to do that to pay that forward to other people, we would have to do it on a much bigger scale.
We started talking about what if we had an event for a hundred people? What if we had like an actual Flipped Lifestyle conference? Flip Your Life Live. We’d do it in a major city and we’d have 100 seats available for people out there.
We started talking about it and we were like, “What would that live event look like? What would Flip Your Life Live with 100 people in a room actually look like? We started talking about the live events we had been to, the content at the live events we had been to, some of it’s been good, some of it’s been bad. We wanted to like strip away all the bad content and only provide the best content.
Then we looked at the relationships we built and how they were formed, how we could facilitate that better for everybody else. I had this big idea, I threw up all the ideas, what it would look like, what do we talk about. And then Jocelyn, ever the practical one in our relationship said, “Wait a minute, shouldn’t we see how much this costs first?” So, she started planning.
Jocelyn: Yeah, we started mapping this out and the pricing I have to admit scared me a little bit.
Shane: We did not realize how expensive it was going to be to rent the ballrooms and provide food for every meal, provide drinks during work sessions, and having cocktail parties to welcome everybody to the event. All the things that go into having an amazing live event experience, and it just kept going up and up and up and up, and really that was the point where we almost got totally scared and said, “Yeah, maybe we should not try this.”
Jocelyn: But I started thinking back to the event that I attended in October this year, BizChix live conference over in California, and it was a similarly sized event. The people there were just awesome. I got to make such genuine and amazing connections with several different women. I was, like, “We have to do this for our community.” We are doing this for you guys and it’s going to be a labor of love.
Shane: I’m going to say this: it is not going to be profitable.
Jocelyn: In any way.
Shane: Like, it is not going to be profitable in any way. Even when we put it together, we were like, “Well, that’s OK because we’re bringing 100 people together from the Flipped Lifestyle audience to go inside there for a couple of days and really do whatever it takes to change our lives and whatever we spend on this, it’s going to be worth it. It’s going to be a shared experience. Everyone’s going to be participating in this. And we had to do it. We just had to put this together.
So, we are super excited to tell you that the opportunity we mentioned earlier in the show is Flip Your Life Live in Nashville, Tennessee in September of 2018. We are going to invade Nashville with a 100 of our closest friends and we are going to have the most amazing live event experience that anybody in the online world has ever seen.
Jocelyn: Alright, guys, we mentioned it at the top of the show and we have been to all — different types of events. We have been to big live events, we’ve been to small live events, we’ve been to everything in between. We have probably been to, I would say, maybe a dozen live events since we started, something like that. We know what we like. We know what we don’t like and we know what you need as an attendee.
We are really excited to bring you the best content out there. We’re excited to bring you together the Flip Your Life community, let you have genuine relationships with each other. We want to meet you! We’re just excited to do this and bring everyone together and have an amazing live event.
Shane: Alright, who is Flip Your Life Live, Nashville, in September of 2018 for? It’s going to be for everybody. Listen, if you’re a beginner and you’re just getting started out, that’s OK. We’re going to have workshops to help you right where you are. Or maybe you’ve got an online business already and you’re making a little bit of money. Listen, we’re going to have content and workshops and sessions that are going to help you take your business to the next level.
Even if you’ve already got an avatar and an offer and an online business that’s rolling, we’re going to help you 5X or 10X it just like Pat and all those people did for us. This is going to be a super interactive live event. You know, Jocelyn and I are not going to be up on stage and then disappearing on you guys.
We’re going to be in the trenches, teaching content. We’re going to be doing live Q&As, we’re going to be bringing in people from the Flip Your Life community who have built amazing successful businesses to talk to you about the most important things that got them to the next level.
Jocelyn: This is not a sit-and-soak conference. We’re not going to sit up on the stage and preach at you and hope that you get stuff done. We’re actually going to do work. We’re going to have working sessions. We’re going to have a working dinner together like Shane and I are going to be there. Many of our success stories from the Flip Your Life community are going to be there. People are going to be there to answer your questions to help you get past the obstacles that are standing in your way right now no matter what level you’re at.
Shane: Each session is going to be going into a deep part of your business and then immediately taking action on it. We want you to leave with amazing plans for the future. We want you to leave with actual stuff done. If you need to get that sales funnel in place, you’re going to do it at this event. If you need to get your autoresponder written, you’re going to do it. If you just need to find an idea, an avatar and a product, you are going to get that done at this event.
For all of you people out there who’ve got some of these things in place, Jocelyn and I are going to go through things with you to help you audit it, to help improve it, so that you can come out and make more money on the backside.
We are building our dream event. This is the event that we wish we had had not only at the beginning of our journey, but we wish we could go to this right now and somebody could help us do what we’re going to help you guys do. This is not going to be an event where you just show up cold. We’re going to have a special group set up for all of the attendees so that we can meet each other ahead of time, so that we can get used to each other’s businesses and see where everybody needs to go.
We’re going to help you meet people before you ever show up to the event. We’re going to help you plan your trip. We have an amazing event coordinator named Amber who’s going to give you all kinds of information to make sure it’s easy for you to get a flight, easy for you to get directions to the event, easy for you to find a hotel. We’re going to teach you ahead of time how to get the most out of your Flip Your Life live event experience.
We are literally going to step-by-step walk you through the process of how to use a live event to take everything to the next level. We’re going to do everything for you, but babysit your kids. You’re going to have to figure that one out on your own. But we’ve already talked about that, and you know you’re not going make that excuse.
We are confident that you are going to show up at this event with tons of energy. You’re going to have tons of fun while you’re there and you’re going to leave with a plan in place and massive action taken toward flipping your life.
Flip Your Life Live Nashville, September 2018, is going to be a very small event. We’re cutting it off at a hundred people. There’s only going to be a hundred seats available for this, and I want to stress that this podcast is being listened to, guys, by tens of thousands of people all over the world.
And I want to stress that some of those tickets are already gone. By the time this podcast airs, we will have already open the doors for our Flip Your Life community. Our community members are going to get first dibs at these tickets. As soon as you hear this podcast, you need to go to flippedlifestyle.com/nashville and grab one of the tickets that are left before they’re all sold out.
This event will sell out guys. So make sure you’re going to flippedlifestyle.com/nashville as soon as you can and grab a ticket.
Jocelyn: Alright, guys, this is something that you must take action on soon. We have an early bird special for you until February. We have a payment plan available until February because we do have nine months until the event so there’s plenty of time to make payments right now, and we want you to be there. If you’re listening to this podcast. We want you in that room. We want to meet you in person. We want to hang out with you. We want to answer your questions live there in Nashville with all these amazing attendees.
Shane: We want to stress that you want to get in really early. The quicker you get in on this, number one you’re not going to miss out because the tickets are going to sell out. Number two, you’re going to get into that special Facebook group that we’re going to set up so that we can help you with your travel plans, so that we can get to know each other and we can build strong relationships between now and September before we go to Flip Your Life Live.
Jocelyn: We also want you to stay at the event hotel, because this is going to benefit you in so many ways. We chose a hotel in the area. It has a very competitive pricing, it’s the hotel that the event is going to be held in. There will be more information coming out about this, we’re finalizing all the details so if that information is not available when you book, we will get it to you via e-mail very shortly after.
Shane: And remember, we’re going to get a special rate for our members to stay at the hotel. So people attending Flip Your Life Live, you will be able to stay at the venue probably cheaper than you would be able to, anyway. You really want to be at the event. We’re going to have all of our meals together guys. There’s going to be breakfast at the hotel. We’re going to have lunch together, we’re going to have dinner together.
You’re really going to be immersed inside of the Flip Your Life community for this entire event. So we really want you to stay on site if possible.
Jocelyn: As an introvert, I love staying at the event hotel because you can go to your room for a few minutes during the breaks if you just need a break from people. If you just need a few minutes to process what you’ve learned, you can just run up to your room really quickly. You don’t have to like hanging out in public areas with other people if you’re an introvert.
Shane: Or if you’re an extrovert like me, you can just stay in the lobby and talk to people for 24 hours a day for three straight days. That’s pretty much what’s going to happen.
Jocelyn: I just wanted to throw in a couple other things about event hotels, just while we’re talking about it. One thing is that a lot of times, people want to find the cheapest rate. “Well, this event is being held at this hotel but the hotel on the street is ten dollars a night cheaper so I’m going to stay there.” Well that’s fine. But what you have to remember is that you’re also paying for transportation to and from the hotel.
So by the time you do that, you’re really coming down about the same because you’re having to spend more time you had to get up earlier and you’re having to pay for transportation to and from the event location.
Shane: I actually learned this the hard way at an event we went to one time, because we kept having to leave an event and go like far away from the venue whenever there was like in-between sessions or for dinner. Some people came up to us and they were like, “Hey, we’re going here, we’re doing this, can you meet back here in the lobby at this certain time?” And we’re, like, “No, we have to drive like 30 minutes, and then come 30 minutes back,” and they were, like, “Oh, okay, we’ll just go without you.” We got like totally left behind. You really want to be on site for this event because it’s going to be totally immersive.
Make sure guys that you head over to flippedlifestyle.com/nashville so that you can read all about this live event. While you’re there, you can check out a bunch of testimonials and stories from other people who have been to our live events so you can see what Flip Your Life Live is all about. Even though this is going to be a bigger event, there is going to be a hundred seats available, we are going to do everything in our power to make it a really personal, intimate life-changing event for you and your business.
Again that’s flippedlifestyle.com/nashville, there are less than 100 seats left. People have already purchased them by the time you’re hearing this podcast. You need to go grab a seat before they’re gone. And remember, right now you can get an early bird discount and there is a payment plan, but neither one of those are going to be available in February.
Jocelyn: All right, y’all. That’s our secret weapon. We want it to be yours. We want to see you at Flip Your Life Live 2018.
Shane: This time in the show, I always say get out there, take action and do whatever it takes to Flip Your Life. That’s our motto every single day is to get out there and take action and do whatever it takes. This is your moment. This is your opportunity to take your life to the next level, and get everything ready to Flip Your Life so don’t wait. Get over there and grab a spot and we’ll see you in Nashville in September.
Jocelyn: Bye.
Leave a Reply