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Our guest this week is a man with the passion to design landscapes that are beautiful, eco-friendly AND easy, FYL community member, Ben Hale.
Ben and his family live in Ohio, where their house sits on a half-acre lot. He has a degree in microbiology and works full-time at his corporate nine-to-five job.
It is his goal to make it online to provide for his family and share his passion for eco-friendly and hassle-free landscaping, he created AestheticEcosystems.com but could use some help with his promotion strategy and branding.
Join us as we help Ben with his online promotion and marketing strategy while diving deep into how to target the right avatar with promotions and optimized branding principles.
If you need insight on how to promote and rebrand your business, then you should not miss this episode!
You Will Learn:
- How to work on your online business without disrupting your priorities at home
- Social Media Promotion: Debunking a major myth
- How to target the right avatar
- Fixing promotion strategies and branding issues
- How to pivot your online business
- Plus so much 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!
Get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!
– https://flippedlifestyle.com/free
Success Story of the Week:
Today’s success story is from Lynda and Kevin and it says, “Finally, our first video.”
“We’ve been talking about video for a while now, but we struggle with equipment and other issues like fear of the camera, etc. We finally invested in some better equipment and made a video of one of the recipes in our newest cookbook. After overcoming some tech issues, we dove in and made a great video. I quickly picked up editing skills, and cut it mostly together the same day. We still have a couple of things to add. We’re really happy with what we did.
The best part though was involving our 16-year-old in the process. I named him assistant director, and really took some time to explain the equipment and our process. I put together a quick shot list, was turned out to be super helpful, and our son was able to help us move from one thing to the next.
Overall, it didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would, and we conquered some of our fears in the process. We loved how our son took to it, and feel we gained miles of progress with just this one video. We can now see how this will work in our business and we’re supercharged to make 100 more.”
Lynda & Kevin’s Website: http://kevinshealthykitchen.biz/
Great job, Linda and Kevin, we are so proud of you, and we cannot wait to see what you do next!
We would love to help you write the success story for your online business.
At the end of today’s show, head over to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife where you can learn more about building and growing a successful online business with the help of our Flip Your Life community.
Can’t Miss Moment:
Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is working at our church’s Vacation Bible School.
So, Shane and I volunteer each year to work at our church’s Vacation Bible School and this is something that we’ve been doing for a really long time, probably almost 10 years. It’s really cool because when we worked at school before, even though it was the summertime, we still had a lot of stuff going on and it was just really stressful to think about working and Bible school while at the same time Shane was coaching and I was still working in the library during the summer.
We did it, but it was more reluctantly because we felt like we had to, I guess, and now we do it more because we want to. Because we don’t have to be at work every single morning, and we’re able to stop work early to get ready to go, and we don’t have to worry about all of the little things that we once had to worry about when we worked for someone else.
We love our time at Vacation Bible School and we switch groups each year. One year we’ll do Isaac’s group, and the next year we do Anna’s group, and the kids always know which year it is. This year was Isaac’s year, so we were able to work with him, it was super fun and we all had a blast, something that wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t do online business.
Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what’s possible for your family!
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 to the podcast right now? Check out the transcript below.
Jocelyn: Hey y’all! On today’s podcast, we help Ben take his online landscaping business 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. And now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? Alright. Let’s get started.
What’s going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast! It is great to be back with you again this week, and we are pumped up to talk to another member of the Flip Your Life community.
Our guest today is Ben Hale.
Ben, welcome to the show!
Ben: Thanks for having me guys! I’m so glad to be here.
Jocelyn: Yeah, we are really happy to talk to you today.
Shane: Yeah, it really confuses me sometimes though when I see you on Facebook, Ben, because like we’ll be talking in the Facebook groups or Nashville or you’ll like something over on our page or I’ll see you in the forums, but I have a real friend like in real life, like a dude named Ben Hale, and our kids play together and you guys spell your name the same. I never know who I’m talking to and sometimes I’ll send him a message that’s like, “Hey, online business,” and he’s like, “What are you talking about, dude?”
Jocelyn: When you joined, we were like, “Oh cool, Ben!” And we were like, “Wait a minute, it’s another Ben!”
Shane: When I saw you join, I was like, “Is that the guy we know?” And we’re like, “No, that’s not him. That’s another guy.” And I’m like, “Sweet! A new friend named Ben Hale. All right, let’s go. That’s great.”
Ben: Yeah, I guess I have delusions of grandeur because I have a Google alert set up for Ben Hale and I get all this other stuff from all these random Ben Hales.
Shane: That’s amazing.
Jocelyn: Well, that’s pretty cool. You can just put it up on your wall and pretend they’re all you.
Shane: I did that too for Shane Sams. I wanted shanesams@gmail at one time and I couldn’t get it because some other dude had it, right? I did the same thing. I set up Google alerts for our names and stuff like that. Apparently, all other Shane Sams are menaces to society. One guy was an MMA fighter.
Jocelyn: ‘All other’ Shane Sams?
Shane: Well, I’m kind of a menace to society myself. I kept getting alerts like “MMA fighter almost dies,” “MMA fighter almost kills somebody,” and then this one guy robbed a liquor store or something. I am, apparently, the only Shane Sams not in jail in the United States of America, so let’s try to keep it that way!
Ben: I’m apparently a fantasy novel writer and a judge-executive as well.
Jocelyn: Well, at least those are a little more respectable.
Shane: It’s a little more respectable than an MMA fighter who loses every fight and robs liquor stores.
Jocelyn: All right then, Ben. Well, apparently your name is all over the US and the world, but tell us a little bit about the real Ben Hale. Who are you? Tell us a little bit about your background and what you are doing so far online.
Ben: Sure. I grew up in the Midwest area. I’m pretty local to southwestern Ohio, spent most of my time here with my kids and everything, so I have three little guys, three little boys, and we live in a typical suburban household that we’re trying to convert into something that started as a disaster, converted it into something beautiful.
Right now, I work full time with a huge corporate company and I’m trying to flip my life into something where I can spend it working on my passions and spend more time with my family.
Shane: What do you do for this big huge, nameless, faceless corporation? What would you call your job? What’s your role? What do you do there?
Ben: You know, it’s kind of funny because I don’t really know. Right now I’m trying to help launch a new billion-dollar brand for the business. So I look for new ways, new opportunities for the company, and whether or not they’re marketable opportunities.
Shane: What’s your educational background? I have a background in microbiology, which totally does not relate to my job right now at all. But that’s how I got started in the company in microbiology. Funny enough I used that day-to-day in my current space that I’m looking to move into.
Shane: Okay. Basically, you’re a microbiologist turned into marketing stuff, is that what it is?
Ben: I still am on the R & D side.
Shane: Okay, I got you.
Ben: I do like the Science-y, technical stuff. Then I worked with the marketers who come up with the all the good lingo and spins.
Shane: I got you.
Jocelyn: Ben, you are speaking my language! I used to work for a corporation, and I worked with a lot of people, not in the biology space, it was different, it was in the engineering space more.
Shane: Jocelyn had to translate how commercial dishwashers work, like the big dishwashers in the back of restaurants.
Jocelyn: But I worked in the marketing department. So I had to work with a lot of people in engineering, and basically take what they were telling me and make it into something that people understand.
Shane: Yes, you’re like a translator basically, right? How do you get the science part and the techno-babble-lingo part over into branding and marketing that makes sense to the corporate people who buy these things, stuff like that and spend money on it?
Ben: Yeah, that’s kind of it. That’s a good way to put it!
Shane: Alright, cool. You’re like Jocelyn. Your official title is Geek Stuff Translator. That’s what it is, basically.
Ben: There we go. Emphasis on the geek, for sure, but yes.
Jocelyn: We’re you’re your kind of people, Ben. It’s all right.
Shane: Whenever I talk about Jocelyn, I always emphasize the geek. I’m just saying. Okay, all right.
Ben: That’s great.
Jocelyn: Okay, so we know a little bit about what you’re doing in your day job. What is it that you are trying to start online?
Ben: My online work is a work to do multiple things. One, it’s to switch my life around to spend more time with my family but it’s also part of my passion and vision with my life, to make a bigger impact on the world in a positive way as well as do things that I’m passionate about. For me, I’ve discovered this huge passion in landscape design, so attractive landscape design as well as sustainability in ecological principles. So I’m trying to merge all that into something that’s marketable for your typical family household.
Shane: Basically, you clearly love nature and love landscaping, and microbiology is like the earth, so that’s kind of your passion creeping back up. The thing that led you into your educational background. Now you’re like, “Whoa, I think I could do this and help other families make really pretty landscaping.”
Ben: Yes, yes! The microbiology thing, I mean that’s the complete nerd thing where I majored in studying bacteria and viruses and fungus, and so I thought it was totally unrelated at first, but turns out everything that has to do with healthy landscapes has to do with healthy microbiology in the soil.
Shane: Let me tell you something, Ben. You put the ‘fun’ in fungus, I’m telling you.
Ben: Oh yes, that’s right!
Shane: I can tell. You put the ‘fun’ in fungus.
Ben: I’m a ‘fungi’.
Shane: Yes! All you guys out there listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, you will not hear another podcast this week make two fungus jokes within five seconds of each other. You won’t. You will not do that.
Ben: I’ve been waiting so long to make the ‘fungi’ joke on my own podcast, and here I had to drop it on yours instead.
Jocelyn: Oh, that’s awesome! And I was going to say we could really use your landscaping expertise over here. Our landscaping is a disaster.
Shane: Oh, it’s an absolute disaster, dude!
Jocelyn: We had to get somebody.
Shane: People are like, “Wow, you’ve got it all together.” And I’m like, have you driven by our house? Because you would see our landscaping is not together. We might be your avatar, Bro. You might be in the right place. You’re about to not only get some help in your online business, but you’re interviewing the people who may actually need your help the most.
Ben: Great. That’d be super helpful.
Jocelyn: Alright Ben, let’s jump into a little bit of mindset stuff. This is something that we’ve realized recently has been just really, really important in helping people move forward in their online business. Let’s talk a little bit about what so far has been your biggest fear, confidence issue or mindset struggle that you have had to overcome or are currently trying to overcome?
Ben: Well, the biggest one that I’m working to overcome right now, and I think I’m becoming successful at it and this is something with my wife as well, is how to spend time on my business without feeling like I’m taking away from family life or things that are priorities around the home without causing disruption. That’s been a pretty big struggle for us. But something that really helped us was taking the time management training in the membership, and that really helped us just lay out a very practical schedule. We’ve been trying to stick to it as best we can and that’s really helped open up time for the business.
Shane: Basically, and what you’re talking about is like 168-hour grid, finding your time, the priority system of how to get things onto it. Where did you specifically find the time to work on your online business in that time management training? Because that’s the whole point of that training, is to help you find your time with your variables for your online business, without neglecting your family. That’s the huge difference in our time management system than everybody else’s. Where did you find the time to get that in?
Ben: For us it’s been especially on the weekends during nap time, so early afternoon has been really helpful. I get some good two-hour chunks in in the afternoons. That’s been a huge piece for me, actually. And then also shifting my content creation strategy to lunchtime at work has been helpful as well.
Shane: What do you do at lunchtime at work? What are you creating and where are you creating it?
Ben: I have switched my content strategy from blogging to podcasting. Part of that is to reduce the perfectionist attitude that I have with blogging. I’ve kind of forced myself to minimize the editing process with podcasting as much as possible and I’ve launched a podcast. Right now, the best place for me to record a podcast is in my car, in the parking lot at work during my lunch.
Shane: Oh, that is amazing. That is hustle, man! We get it the most and I hated the most is, “I don’t have time.” But when you look at the calendar and that time management course, you really do have time. You’ve just got to find the weird times. Like, “In my car at lunch,” I can’t tell you how many courses that I made in my garage in the car, when we first started out because one, it had the best acoustics of anywhere else in the house, and two, there was nowhere else to go because kids were running around, screaming. You got to find a way to do it. It’s absolutely amazing.
Jocelyn: Yeah. We work in the car, when we’re driving. We still do this because it’s just time that we have to work, like one of us drives, one of us works, and then we switch. We still do this today. I was talking to somebody about this just yesterday and it reminded me of a conversation that I had. People think that, “Okay, when I have it all figured out, everything’s going to be equal.” You think of your life as a circle or for lack of a better word, a pie. So, everyone has a pie, and all of our pie has 168 hours in every week.
Each part of your life has a piece of that pie. You know, you have like your work life, you have your family life, you have your personal, taking care of yourself, exercising and things like that. You have…
Shane: Your community.
Jocelyn: Yeah, just all the different parts of your life. And we would like to think that all of those different parts are equal, when in reality they never are. If you’re putting more time into the work side of your life, then something else has to be smaller. It’s not like we can get a bigger pie or another pie, everyone has the same pie. It is segmented in different ways.
Shane: And everybody looks for the four equal quadrants, and that’s not possible.
Jocelyn: And there’s no way to avoid that. There’s no way to make them equal. Whenever you spend more time or energy or effort on one thing, something else is inevitably going to get smaller.
Shane: There’s a reason we put the time management course first, and the money management course first inside the Flip Your Life community, is because you have to get those right. If you don’t get those right, you can’t do all the other stuff. And we really want people to realize, this does take time. It does take effort. And you’ve got to plan it. If you can get that 168-hour grid filled out right, and you can find those extra five hours a week, you will make progress. And you’re making progress, so good job, dude.
Ben: Yeah. Thank you.
Jocelyn: Okay. I think that was a great discussion, but that was actually sort of an outside influence, being time, you know, not something really inside your head. So let’s talk about do you have anything inside your head that’s may be holding you back and stopping you from getting to the next level?
Ben: Yeah, I have a current challenge that I’m really dealing with, and this has been going on for some time now. That’s that, I haven’t really made a legitimate sale outside of friends and family online yet. And I assume this has something to do with mindset as well as my mechanics of my business, and right now I would like to really understand the mindset piece.
Shane: People always say this, too, and this probably needs to be addressed. Selling to your friends and family is amazing. It’s actually almost harder sometimes to get friends and family to give you money than strangers. And I actually look at that as a good sign. If my family is like, “I will give you money for this stuff–” because family usually is like, “You should do this for free because we’re family.” Right?
Ben: To clarify here, I’ve had one sale, so on my introductory offer–
Jocelyn: Okay, Ben, you’ve had more sales than probably about–
Shane: — 99% of the people out there just wishing they were doing to start a business.
Ben: That’s true, yes.
Shane: So don’t worry about that. But what do you think the mindset or fear actually is? Is it imposter syndrome or you just scared it’s not good enough? Some people will create lots of content, but they’re scared to promote and sell.
Ben: I think it’s more the promotion piece. I don’t do a whole lot of promotion. My wife, Corrie, bless her heart with all the work she’s doing with raising our family already, she stays at home with the kids. She’s also taken on some of the social media strategy stuff for me, so that’s really helped. But it doesn’t seem like we’re really kind of pushing over the ledge yet and getting a lot of organic reach.
Shane: Social media is not a promotion strategy. And that might be one of the biggest lies and myths that everybody falls into because everybody sells, “How to do Facebook ads.” Everybody’s like, “I’m an Instagram expert. I’ll make your business grow with Instagram stories and I’ll do this and I’ll do that.” Social media is just a way to connect with your audience, not a promotion strategy. Your promotion strategy is your content that leads to an opt-in, that leads to a sale, and ads that lead to an opt-in that lead to a sale.
You may be thinking, “Oh, I’m sharing stuff on social, but nobody’s buying anything.” Well, that’s because you’re not promoting. You’re sharing on social media, that’s just a connection thing. It’s almost like community service. A promotion strategy is really strategic, it’s organized, it’s, “I looked up some keywords that people are actually looking for.” “I made a YouTube video that I know people are searching for, and that YouTube video had a call to action to opt into my list, and my list sells to them.”
So what if every piece of content you make going forward was to lead people to an opt-in? What if every podcast, whatever you talked about, you might an opt-in for it? You said, “Go to this link and download my opt-in.” You’re now promoting. Then what if every email in your list sold your thing? Now you’re promoting.
You don’t sound like a scared guy to me. You’re hustling, you’re making content, you’re not really afraid to sell, you know you want to charge for stuff. You’re just confusing components in your marketing strategy.
Ben: Okay, so maybe perhaps then it’s more of a concern than a fear. I feel like I have most of this stuff. I do have a lot of opt-ins on my older blog posts as well as, I pitched an opt-in of how to save time in your landscape. The title is, “How to Save 24 Hours in Your Yard This Year.” And so I pitched that at the end of every podcast episode. You know, go to the show notes, click on it to download. I feel like I have things that are there and things that are meaningful to my audience, but things aren’t really kind of clicking through.
Jocelyn: But aside from your autoresponder that people get when they sign up for your list, what have you emailed your list? Do you email them regularly about other things?
Ben: Yes. Right now what I do is they get about a once-a-week email aside from the autoresponder, which is updates to our regular content strategy. So beyond that, I’m not really pushing a lot of the emails to my list. And the big piece here, too, is this is also kind of a concern for me. Right now, my email list sends to only about 40 people. Only about, I guess about 20 to 30 of those people are people that I know personally.
Jocelyn: Okay. That’s fine.
Shane: Yeah, that’s common.
Jocelyn: I think that right now, really, it’s just a matter of continuing to grow that list and continuing to ask them what do they want, and remind them that you have something to sell, like I wonder if you’re even doing that.
Shane: Yeah. All right, well let’s talk about your actual question then. We got some good background here. A lot of context. You’ve done a lot already, dude, so that’s amazing. Just to figure out the timepiece, 90% of people don’t figure that out, and then 90% of those people don’t even get all their stuff built to get to the point where they can freak out about marketing. So it’s pretty cool. That’s amazing what you’ve already done. What do we need to do now to get you to the next level? How can we help you with the marketing? Like what’s your question there?
Ben: Okay. We kind of talked about this with some of the mindset stuff, but I’m really trying to understand how do I target the right avatar? I have a vision of who I want to target, which is families that want more health and beauty in their landscape, but don’t want to spend tons of time taking care of their landscape. So it’s kind of like a time savings thing. I’m trying to figure out do I target time or do I target landscaping or gardening? How do I really grow my tribe?
Shane: We know a lot about your business from the community and from your intake form. Tell everyone the name of your domain. That’s what I want to start with.
Ben: Sure. My website is aestheticecosystems.com.
Shane: Okay, that totally sounds like a microbiologist picked out that name, not a family who wants to save time on their landscaping.
Ben: That’s true.
Shane: That sounds to me like a research firm that the government would hire to make sure they can build an oil pipeline, and not divert the beaver in the river or something. I don’t hear, “No-hassle Landscaping,” or, “Save time on your landscaping,” “Spend more time in the pool with your kids instead of in your garden.”
Ben: Yes.
Shane: I think there’s definitely a branding issue here actually.
Ben: Okay. We’ve struggled with this. I’ve talked with my wife quite a bit about this, and we’ve gone back and forth and part of it, too. My brother designed a super awesome logo for us and I felt bad changing our name.
Jocelyn: Oh, no.
Shane: He can design another logo if he wants to, right?
Jocelyn: Just blame it on us. Say, “I talked to these people, and they’re helping my business and they said this name has to go, so, sorry, we have to do a new logo.”
Shane: Yes, “We’re going to have to make a new logo, bro.” You know what I mean?
Jocelyn: You can blame it on us, it’s all good.
Shane: And we don’t really harp on names and stuff like domain names, but this is not a domain issue. This is a branding issue, okay?
Ben: Okay. Got it.
Shane: Because what you told me you want to do, “I want to save families time in their landscaping or garden–” and some people call landscaping their garden– I can’t even spell ‘aesthetic’ without looking at it.
Ben: It’s true.
Shane: I don’t even know if some people will even know what it means. And ‘ecosystems’ sounds like ‘biomes’. Not like my gravel and those plants I bought at Lowe’s.
Let me tell you this, I did some keyword research before we got on the air, and I actually found a very interesting thing. There are a lot of search terms about this, like ‘sustainable gardening’. There’s 148,000 searches every month for ‘sustainable gardening’. No-hassle landscaping, and landscaping has like 200, 300 thousand searches.
I think we’ve got to work back our branding a little bit more to when they read your name, when they read your thing, when they see a YouTube video– if you had a YouTube channel called ‘sustainable gardening’ or if you had a YouTube channel called “No-hassle Landscaping,” people would immediately know what it is. And this is important for your brand because they don’t need benhale.com, they don’t need ecosystems and biomes and fungi. They need, “I can help you do your landscaping faster.”
Ben: Okay, great.
Shane: So that’s where we’ve got to start is almost like a little mini rebrand and what’s cool is you can change this overnight because nobody really knows anyway.
Ben: That’s true.
Shane: Does that scare you or does that feel right?
Ben: It does, but I think you are correct though. We have talked about this, my wife and I, a bit just to understand. It seems to encompass the view of what I originally had, but we have made a pivot in our strategy. So, originally, I wasn’t entirely clear on my avatar. Am I trying to help landscape designers become more ecologically minded? Do I help homeowners have ecological landscapes? And now I’ve kind of switched to where I’m using the same principles, but I’m focusing on, “This saves you time, and you get a beautiful landscape.” So I understand there’s kind of been a few steps away from where I originally started with my business.
Shane: Definitely families, because landscaping is super expensive. We have multiple properties because we have this property, we have our office, we have rentals. We have to landscape all those things, and that costs a lot of money. Not a lot of people have money to throw $5,000 every year at their landscaping. So this is a definite need, most people take care of their own landscaping. You’re just helping them to, one, if you do this right, there won’t be as many weeds. There won’t be as many pruning, there won’t be as many whatever-you-do in your landscaping, if you get these other fundamentals right. But you don’t have to tell them what the fundamentals are.
Some people want to tell all the fundamentals out before they sell their course. So it’s like, “Wow, if you get these bacteria fighting these fungi, then your landscaping, will do whatever.” But that’s what you tell them in your thing. Right now, it’s like, “Hey, did you know this tip will save you an hour a month on your landscaping?” “You will have a beautifully designed landscape if you do these things?”
And that’s where we’ve got to get to. We’re going to have to do some research and figure out what to call this thing that people will immediately relate to it. I even looked up some domains like ‘no-hassle landscaping’ or ‘time-free landscaping’, you know, stuff like that.
Jocelyn: You better register these before this comes out.
Shane: Yeah, before this podcast comes out because somebody’s going to totally go steal them. That’s where we’ve got to get into. And then your blog posts and stuff, your podcast, I mean? They’re going to have to follow this trend. Give me the most scientific name of one of your podcasts you ever done?
Ben: Well, I’ve been trying not to be too scientific.
Shane: Okay.
Jocelyn: That’s good.
Ben: Well I did have one. It was just titled Landscape Design Principles, I guess, or Principles for Easy Landscape, something like that.
Shane: Do you think anyone is searching for ‘Principles of Easy Landscape Design’?
Ben: No, that was one of my original blog posts, and now I’ve gone away from that.
Shane: But let me tell you what they are searching for. I’m using a tool called Vidiq to see what people actually searching for in YouTube, and 178,571 times a month — a month– people search for the term ‘landscaping ideas.’ That’s it. 4,500 times a month, people search for ‘landscaping with a pool’. Like how do I get landscaping around my pool? The chemicals are killing my landscaping. Right? See what I’m saying? That’s what you’ve got to really dig into.
Jocelyn: That’s a good biology topic for you.
Shane: What’d you say, Jocelyn?
Jocelyn: I said, that’s a good biology topic for you.
Shane: What’s that?
Jocelyn: My pool chemicals are killing my landscaping.
Shane: Yeah, I mean you know that, you probably know why it’s happening.
Jocelyn: That’s probably more chemistry but still…
Shane: Like, ‘backyard landscaping ideas’, 9,000 searches a month. So that’s really where you’ve got to do is get into the head of your customer and get out of your own head.
Ben: Okay.
Jocelyn: And you have enough people on your list to do that. The beautiful thing about being small and having a small list is that you can still personally contact these people, send them a video, invite them to a Skype call, ask them, “What are you struggling with? What can I help you with? What types of content? What types of products would you like to see me create?” That is the beautiful thing about still being super small.”
Shane: Even stuff like ‘lawn care tips’, because you’re going to understand what’s happening there. If someone searches for that, they care about what the outside of their property looks like.
Ben: Okay, got it. So I can target some of those more general terms.
Shane: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Look at this term, 75,000 times a month, people search for the term ‘DIY landscaping’. Now, who are you talking to more than anybody else than the DIY landscaper who wants to save time and money, right? That’s where you’re looking for. You’re not looking for just the person who wants to go totally green and sustainable, just this, that and the other. You’re going to teach them all that. You’re looking for someone who wants to take care of their own lawn, and their own landscaping.
Ben: So I needed to learn the ways of my marketing friends at work.
Shane: Yes, that’s exactly right, because I promise you they’re not using the word ‘Principles of Landscaping’, or whatever. The word ‘principles’ will never enter in their headlines on their magazine articles because that’s not what people really care about.
Jocelyn: And the good thing is, you’re part of the community and there are a lot of people who are really sharp on this type of marketing stuff. So go in there and tell people what are you planning to do, and let them comment on it and say, “Okay, Ben, that’s too techie. That’s too science-y.” Like, “We need to bring it back down to the level of, you know, normal people.”
Shane: Because nobody in the community will understand anything you’re talking about if you do that because there might be another microbiologist hiding in there somewhere. If you put something that’s too technical, people are like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ben: True. Okay.
Shane: Don’t ever get married to your branding. If I ever thought, or Jocelyn ever thought, that we could change the name on something and it would boost our sales, we would do it in a minute. If I thought shaneandjocelyn.com would sell more than flippedlifestyle.com, I would change it in a heartbeat, period.
And don’t ever worry about hurting anyone else’s feelings because in a very hard way, the only person that really cares about your business and your ‘Why’ is you and your wife. We had someone doing a big project for us back in the fall, and it was like 50% done, but we saw that it wasn’t going exactly the way we wanted, and we didn’t have time to deal with it right then and we shut it down. Even though we had already spent thousands of dollars on it.
You’ve got to be able to cut your losses in business and say, “This isn’t right. This is more right,” because we never know what the best thing is. We just know what’s more right. I’m going to go do this now. So basically in your business you gotta do what’s best for business, even if it’s not what you always want to do. Because sometimes names are better, sometimes products are better and sometimes the audience tells you something that you may not have even thought of.
Ben: I did give my brother kind of a hard time there for making the logo. But the reality is, yeah, I really liked the name. I thought to me, it makes sense, but I get it. To everybody else, it probably doesn’t.
Jocelyn: To most normal humans, no.
Shane: Good job of throwing your brother right under the bus on live podcasting here.
Ben: Hey, it’s what happens.
Jocelyn: I’m totally sending him this link.
Shane: Is there anything else in your business though that you think you might need to change besides just that branding and that name?
Ben: Yeah, the podcast, I’m concerned that now I have 16 episodes out, and I know it’s not 300 episodes or something, but to me, I have my branding on those previous 16 episodes. Is there a way I changed my brand, and do I still use these previous recordings, and just switch my branding and keep the same podcast stream or do I start up a new podcast?
Shane: No, you just change the artwork and you just change the text in your thing and you just leave those the way they are and move forward.
Jocelyn: I would maybe even do an episode and just say, “Hey, you know, I decided to change my name. Here are a couple of simple reasons why.” You don’t have to get into the big branding thing. Just say, “In order to simplify and to help more people find the podcast, I’ve decided to change the name to XYZ.”
Shane: Yup. That’s how you pivot for anybody listening to this. People think, “Oh my gosh, I’ve done all this work. I’ve got to change something. I got to move forward.” A lot of times Jocelyn and I don’t even say anything. We just change stuff and move forward. People can’t remember what the government scandal was last week because we live in a 24-hour news cycle. No one’s going to remember what your podcast was in a month. They’re going to remember what it is now in real time when they find it.
Jocelyn: And there may be one or two people that are like, “Why did you change the name? I liked the name the way it was.” But it’s fine. It’s not a big deal. You can’t worry about stuff like that.
Shane: Do you remember alternative episodes that we used to have, Ben? Because you listen to our podcast, you’re in our community, like you’re a fan of our show. Do you remember what we did, the special episodes that we did in 2013?
Ben: Probably. I’ve listened to almost all of them. So I know you used to do your Q&A with S&J. That’s all I remember.
Shane: Exactly.
Jocelyn: Can you tell me the title of number 14 — no.
Shane: But did you know that we have 50 episodes where we actually interviewed expert guests, and we don’t even do that?
Ben: I do remember that.
Shane: Ah, but see, I had to jog your memory.
Ben: But you did have to jog my memory.
Shane: That’s right. So no one’s going to know because all the people that are going to discover you in the future are new. We always get the spotlight syndrome, like, “Everyone knows everything I’ve ever done, and they’re going to notice this change immediately.” But if you change something and you serve them better, they’re not going to care. That’s what they really care about, is the results you’re going to give them. Just do stuff, just change them.
We have a rule in our business. Our people always ask us this because they’re scared me and Jocelyn want them to do something else. I’ll change something, like, “Hey, I always want the titles of our podcast to start with the number now,” or something. And they’re like, “Do you want us to go back and change everything?” And I’m like, “No, just do it going forward.” Yeah, just do everything going forward and you’ll be fine, okay?
Jocelyn: All right, Ben, we have had a lot of fun talking to you today about biology and changing your name and all kinds of fun stuff. But our time is just about up. But we always like to ask people before you go, what is one thing that you plan to take action on in the next 24 hours or so based on what we talked about today?
Ben: Well, the first thing, I’m going to apologize to my brother. But more importantly, though I’m going to look into what types of brand names would I like to select. I’ll do some keyword research, and really understand what do most non-nerd people want to hear when they’re trying to save time on their landscape.
Shane: I love it. That’s absolutely great. Thinking like your customer is important and I actually have one very specific recommendation for you. You must have a podcast episode called, “There is a Fungus Among Us,” and it must be you finding mushrooms in your gardening, and how to get rid of them. I just have to have that.
Ben: I’ll work on it.
Shane: Hey guys, thanks again for listening! We hope you enjoyed today’s podcast. If you still need more help with any of the topics that we discussed today, or maybe you have a question about something that we went over, we have all the training and support you need inside of the Flip Your Life community.
With over 50 training courses on dozens of online business topics, active community forums, and live member calls with me and Jocelyn every single month, the Flip Your Life community is your opportunity to get the help and support you need to make your online dreams a reality.
And the best part is you can get started today for free! That’s right, all you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/free, and you can get full unlimited access to everything we offer inside of the Flip Your Life community at no cost for 30 days. Your first month is absolutely free.
If you sign up today, you can get unlimited access to all of the courses inside of our training area, unlimited access to all of our community discussion forums, and you’ll get to attend our next two live member calls with me and Jocelyn, where you can ask questions about your online business.
And it’s all free for the first month. All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/free and start your free month today. That’s flippedlifestyle.com/free. We can’t wait to see you inside!
Jocelyn: Alright, next we are going to move into the Can’t Miss Moment segment of our show, and these are moments that we were able to experience that we might have missed if we were working at 9-to-5 jobs, still.
Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is working at our church’s Vacation Bible School.
So, Shane and I volunteer each year to work at our church’s Vacation Bible School and this is something that we’ve been doing for a really long time, probably almost 10 years. It’s really cool because when we worked at school before, even though it was the summertime, we still had a lot of stuff going on and it was just really stressful to think about working for Bible school while at the same time Shane was coaching and I was still working in the library during the summer.
We did it, but it was more reluctantly because we felt like we had to, I guess, and now we do it more because we want to. Because we don’t have to be at work every single morning, and we’re able to stop work early to get ready to go, and we don’t have to worry about all of the little things that we once had to worry about when we worked for someone else.
We love our time at Vacation Bible School and we switch groups each year. One year we’ll do Isaac’s group, and the next year we do Anna’s group, and the kids always know which year it is. This year is Isaac’s year, so we were able to work with him.
If you want to see a picture of us at Vacation Bible School, you can head over to flippedlifestyle.com, and click on today’s episode show notes.
Shane: As much as we love our Can’t Miss Moments, there’s one thing we love even more than that and that is a success story from our Flip Your Life community.
Jocelyn: Today’s success story is from Linda and Kevin and it says, “Finally, our first video.”
“We’ve been talking about video for a while now, but we struggle with equipment and other issues like fear of the camera, etc. We finally invested in some better equipment and made a video of one of the recipes in our newest cookbook. After overcoming some tech issues, we dove in and made a great video. I quickly picked up editing skills, and cut it mostly together the same day. We still have a couple of things to add. We’re really happy with what we did.
The best part though was involving our 16-year-old in the process. I named him assistant director and really took some time to explain the equipment and our process. I put together a quick shot list, was turned out to be super helpful, and our son was able to help us move from one thing to the next.
Overall, it didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would, and we conquered some of our fears in the process. We loved how our son took to it, and feel we gained miles of progress with just this one video. We can now see how this will work in our business and we’re supercharged to make 100 more.”
Great job, Linda and Kevin, we are so proud of you, and we cannot wait to see what you do next!
We would love to help you write the success story for your online business. At the end of today’s show, head over to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife where you could learn more about building and growing a successful online business with the help of our Flip Your Life community.
Shane: Before we go today, we like to close every single one of our shows with a verse from the Bible. Jocelyn and I draw a lot of inspiration and motivation from the Bible, and we just wanted to share some of that with you.
Today’s Bible verse comes from 2 Timothy 1:7, and the Bible says, “For the spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.”
Take that power, take that love, take that self-discipline. Get out there and to build something that can not only make your dreams come true, but can help other people as well.
That is 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 will see you then!
Jocelyn: Bye!
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