Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
In today’s episode, we help Carla and Al grow their fitness membership website
You Will Learn
- Why a free consultation may make a bad lead magnet
- Shane’s tips for running facebook ads and why frequency is something people always get wrong!
- How working together as a couple can be awesome and challenging at the same time
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jocelyn Sams: Hey y’all, on today’s podcast we help Carla and Al take their fitness business to the next level.
Shane Sams: 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 that 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? All right, let’s get started. What’s going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast, great to be back with you again today. Super excited to welcome another member of theFlipped Your Life community and, in fact, we’ve got two members on today. We’ve got a couple with us to take their online business to the next level, it’s Carla and Al. Carla, Al, welcome to the show.
Carla: [00:00:30] Hey.
Alan: Hey.
Carla: Thank you for having us.
Jocelyn Sams: All right, guys, we are excited to talk to you today. We have actually talked to you before on a workshop that we have done, so that is very exciting. You guys are taking massive action.
Shane Sams: Massive action. That’s why you’re on the show, by the way, that’s why you got the invite, because we’re like, every day Jocelyn goes, “Have you seen this Carla and Al? They are posting every day. They are success stories all the time, they’re killing it. Let’s go. Let’s talk to them.”
Jocelyn Sams: [00:01:00] Yeah, and a lot of people, they think that we don’t come in the community or whatever, but we do. And we look to see who’s taking action and who’s posting regularly and those success stories and that’s how you guys got here today because I said, “These guys are action takers and we want to talk to them.” So, we are glad you’re here today.
Carla: Awesome.
Alan: Awesome.
Carla: Well, we wouldn’t be having all those success stories if we hadn’t of found you all. And we’ll get into it a little later, I know, but part of the reason why I’ve been posting so many of those success stories is just because of you all and just pushing us to do more.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:01:30] Love it.
Shane Sams: That’s our job. Push people off a cliff, baby, and I taught you to shoot down on your way. Right?
Jocelyn Sams: You may or may not have a parachute. You know, whatever.
Shane Sams: That’s right but whatever. It doesn’t matter.
Jocelyn Sams: All right, well let’s jump into a little bit about you guys. Our audience would love to know a little bit more about you, your background, and what you’re doing online.
Carla: [00:02:00] Well, it’s the both of us but it started out just being me at first and I honestly, I had a daycare for 20 years. A very successful, in-home daycare, a waiting list, you know. There was nothing to complain about in that business at all other than the fact that I was home-bound all the time. So, even though I was able to be here with our son when he was younger at home, once he got to school, I couldn’t be involved in school and all of those things because I had to take care of everybody else’s kids. And then transitioned out of daycare when I was going into ministry, I was actually, my degrees are in Christian ministry and Biblical studies but then I was going on to seminary and that was going to require daytime classes out of the city, so I was going to have to travel to go. So transitioned out of daycare thinking that I was going to be going into full-time ministry in a local church.
Carla: And while I was in school, I ended up, I decided, “I need to lose this weight.” I had gained a bunch of weight in school with studying and snacking while I was studying and it’s like, okay, before I graduate, I have got to get this weight off, and did that and had no idea that this was the ministry that God was actually preparing me for. And I have gotten so much more out of this than I ever have in a local church. The local church ministry is very rewarding and you know that you’re preaching and teaching and helping a lot of people but this has just been phenomenal to see what God can do and reach people that might not ever walk through the doors of a church. So then, the next step for us for even with online was time for dollars. It’s like, okay, I can only help so many people because people work and so everybody needed early mornings or evenings and I only had so many hours in a day and so much room for people to go. So I could either make a larger building or do online and online was the way to go for me.
Shane Sams: [00:04:00] And what we’re talking about here is as you lost the weight and you got in shape and you got healthy, you had the classic, “How did you do that?” You start helping people and then this became your business slash ministry was helping other people to go through that weight loss journey. And I can attest to this, too, your before and after pictures are incredible.
Carla: [00:04:30] Thank you.
Shane Sams: Like absolutely. So, tell everyone how old you are, first of all. How old are you?
Carla: I am 44 years old, according to my husband, I haven’t done the math.
Shane Sams: So he knows the year, that’s good you remember that, Alan.
Jocelyn Sams: I totally understand [crosstalk 00:04:50].
Shane Sams: But like a lot of people when they get older, like you leave your 30s behind but you say you’re 30 forever, you know what I mean, like it is hard to lose the weight, it is hard to get in shape, and when you make a dramatic transformation like you did, people are going to notice that.
Carla: [00:05:00] Absolutely. And I did [crosstalk 00:05:08]-
Shane Sams: And being the light on the hill, you know?
Carla: Mm-hmm (affirmative), right. And I did it as I was turning 40 and then now, all of a sudden, that’s my avatar, that’s who we connect with is 40 and 50 year olds is where we’re doing this. But yeah, I mean, you’re absolutely right, as I was going along the journey, you kind of keep yourself accountable on Facebook, it’s just like, “Yeah, I went to the gym,” or, “I’m eating this,” that’s just kind of like that public accountability and everybody’s like, “Oh, my gosh, how did you do this? Help me out.” I’m getting all these inbox questions on, “What do I need to eat? What do I need to do?” And it just turns into a business. So, yeah.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:05:30] Yeah, for sure. And I want to go back to something you said that I thought was interesting about having a ministry that’s not necessarily what other people might consider top of mind to be a ministry, and I feel like that’s what we do, too. Just because you’re not working in a church for your income or because you’re not a full-time missionary or something like that, it doesn’t mean that you are not doing ministry-type work. And so, that’s something that we think about a lot. Shane and I do this little weekly, what would you call that, like a …
Shane Sams: [00:06:00] We do this like … You mean on Sundays?
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah.
Shane Sams: Yeah, we do this journaling session where we basically, Jocelyn and I sit down for two to three hours together, we both have a blank notebook, and then we’ve got like a special system I kind of developed for us, and we go through it to kind of evaluate every area of our life, all of our missions, mission statements, everything that we’re doing, the three things we want to do next week, and it’s kind of like this process that we go through.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:06:30] And so what I was saying is sometimes like we’ll score ourselves on spirituality and we’ll be like, “It’s just okay this week,” or whatever, and then we’ll get to thinking about it and we’re like, “You know, actually, it’s better than we thought because we’ve recorded a podcast, we do include a Bible verse on every podcast. I send cards to people each week. I actually pray for them while I write the cards.” So when you get to thinking about it, it’s like we, I think we sometimes undervalue things like that when they’re actually really valuable.
Shane Sams: [00:07:00] We all have a mission, right, and this is spirituality that we’re talking about here because that’s the faith part of our life, but like we all have a mission, we all have a ministry, and it’s not checking off the boxes of doing whatever we think we’re supposed to do, it’s not, “I showed up at this building for one hour, there, my spirituality this week,” it’s, you know, did we reach out to somebody? Did we help someone? Did we talk to somebody? And just on an actual ministry standpoint, I got a message a couple months ago from a guy in Iran and Iran is not a Christian country, they’re not, it’s very hard to be a Christian in that country. And somehow he told me that the way he listens to our podcast is he has to go through virtual private networks and they kind of hack their way through to get outside content, because they’re government restricts it, and he was telling me how they don’t have any access to certain things and he couldn’t access our community and things like that and he was trying to figure out how to learn more just about how of running a business, not necessarily online, and he always listened to us because we were Christians. And he knew it wasn’t a Christian podcast, per se, or anything else, but our ministry, our mission, shone through our podcast.
Shane Sams: And it reached this person in Iran who can’t even listen to information about that. So, what if we don’t have a business podcast that includes that stuff? That guy doesn’t get that. What if you don’t use your getting our physical body in shape as a conduit for your ministry? Right? And everybody out there listening, you can reach people in bigger ways than just by what you sell. It’s not just what you sell online. This is your life, this is your legacy, this is your mission, and you’re going out there into the world to change people’s lives.
Carla: [00:09:00] Absolutely. I tell people all the time, I actually have it’s a part of my program, where I say that as Christians a lot of times we compartmentalize things as my stuff and God’s stuff and we think the God stuff is putting in that time in those four walls of the church or just in prayer or just in Bible study and we don’t realize that God wants to be involved in everything that we do. And as far as this being ministry and transitioning into this aspect, I mean because we were so involved in our church, I mean we did so much. We did everything. My husband was the chairman of the board, I was a minister, we were over many auxiliaries and committees and things we got a lot of flack, honestly, from this because people don’t understand. They want you there in the church. So it can be difficult and I know Jocelyn’s talked about family and she just did the podcast recently about explaining to family what you do, we kind of went through that with the church, even.
Shane Sams: [00:10:00] Yeah. It’s really important for everybody to remember that people look at what we do through their lens.
Carla: Right.
Shane Sams: They can’t possibly … Nobody ever has all the facts for everybody else. They fill in the holes with what they think is going on, but nobody has all the facts and you can never worry about what anyone else is thinking, but, on the same side, when you’re looking at your own business, you do have all the facts. And you have to realize that we don’t do business just to make money, everybody’s got to have a mission, and I’m talking to everybody out there, I know that we have a lot of people who are Christians that listen to our show, we have a lot of people who are not Christians who listen to our show, you have got to embrace your mission and live your God-given purpose through your business. If you don’t, it’s just turning a gear at a factory, that’s all it is. And we don’t want to do that. There’s got to be a bigger thing behind that.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:11:00] Well, let’s jump back into our business discussion a little bit. Okay, so you have a brick and mortar business, do you still have that?
Carla: I do. And I have no plans of stopping that, I just am not really focusing on growing that. I enjoy it and it’s nice to do for as long as I can do it, but I don’t want it to balk me down in time and also, like I said, it’s time for dollars and can’t do that. But it also helps me be a better trainer online because I’m working with people physically on a day-to-day basis.
Shane Sams: [00:11:30] And it will compliment it. I got a buddy who he started, he kind of followed our journey, he was a football coach and he basically grew his business, his wife quit her job, he kept working because he loved it, he was a coach, and then he quit his job but he stayed to coach. And I was like, “Why did you stay the coach? It’s so many hours, you’re not making any money really.” And he was like, “I love it and it makes my online business better.” And that’s okay. That is a choice that … Everyone’s choice should not be quit, move to Bali, and live on passive income on an hour work day, that’s not your goal.
Carla: [00:12:00] Absolutely.
Shane Sams: Got to keep some of the real world stuff, too.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, and it just boils down to what do you want. If it’s something that is enjoyable and fulfilling to you, then yeah, it’s fine. Just because somebody else takes a different path doesn’t mean that you have to take that path.
Shane Sams: [00:12:30] I was in a group of guys the other day talking to some people and I was really geeking out over like a bunch of research that I was doing for some of our stuff, they were kind of like, “Why don’t you hire a research assistant?” Because a couple of them had hired a research assistant to research their stuff so they could just show up and record, which is fine, I don’t care. But I’m like, “Because I love it.” I can get lost in a keyword research tool for hours at a time and I look up and it’s … You know, like you started at daylight, you look up and it’s night time. You’re like, “What just happened?” If you like doing something, don’t ever let anybody else who runs a business or some personality or some guru say, “Well, that’s not something you should be doing. You’re the entrepreneur, you’re the CEO, you shouldn’t be doing that.”
Shane Sams: Like, if you love it, you do it. That’s it. And we’ve chosen at times to make less money on something. Like, man, we could really scale this and make a lot more money but we don’t like that, so we’re not going to do it. That’s what it’s all about, I love what Jocelyn said there, “What do you want?” It doesn’t matter what we want or what society says you should want or what a guru says is the right away, it’s what you want. And you’re doing what you want and that’s awesome.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:13:30] All right, let’s transition a little bit into some fears or confidence issues, maybe mindset struggles, that you have overcome already or are currently trying to overcome in this online business journey.
Carla: Really, in the very beginning for me, the biggest struggle was really imposter syndrome. And I found myself looking at other people that I know, they aren’t even in the online but just here locally, people that I … And I’m nothing like them and I had to realize that I’m nothing like them and just be me. And even putting stuff online and going live and just like am I really, do I really know what I’m talking about? Again, it’s that imposter syndrome. And I remember, it’s been several months ago, and you’ve said it several times since then, but it was that we compare ourselves and we look at all the people in the industry and we compare ourselves to them and these experts and some of them are very well experts, but you’re like nobody else knows how they are. We just know them because we’re in the business. And that’s so true, that people that know that are going to reach out for me and that I can reach out to me for help and that I can help, they don’t know who any of those people are. And so that’s just me. So that was a great light bulb moment for me but just really getting out there and just doing things.
Carla: And I know I posted in the community recently about my husband, he’s in the process of needing a new kidney. He had a kidney transplant 26 years ago, which is amazing, but we just found out a year ago that he is in need of another kidney. So that was kind of a big blow but in the process, he’s had some procedures and he’s had some things, so we spent quite a bit of time in the hospital with some other stuff, kidney related, non-kidney related. And I found that every time I was in the hospital waiting for him while he was in surgery, I would get so much done that it was like the things that I was scared to do or I would overthink, in those moments, in those times, I think that it was just like I had no fear. Just like, “I’m going to do it and I’m going to see what happens.” And every time I did it, it produced great results. Like we usually gained a member from it.
Carla: [00:16:00] And I remember one day I just said, I’m like, “I’m just going to put on here that I’ve had extra time and see if anybody needs any … If they have any questions. And I’m going to do my first public Facebook Live.” And I did it. And it was just-
Shane Sams: Was that in the hospital? Was that from the hospital?
Carla: Well, I did the questions and then when I got home, I actually did the Facebook Live at home. But, yeah. But it was just like … And then once it was done, the first time, it’s just like no big deal. So it’s almost … I just realized that once I do something once, then from thereon, the fear is gone and you just go on and do it. All through school, people used to call me fearless and it was just like what happened to that part of me.
Shane Sams: [00:16:30] Life.
Carla: Right.
Shane Sams: Life beats us up a lot. We’re going to get a lot of emails like, “Man, I really took Carla’s advice to heart and I pushed my husband down the stairs because she said [inaudible 00:17:01] when her husband was in the hospital, so I figured, hey, I put my husband in the hospital, I’m finally going to take action on my online business.”
Jocelyn Sams: [00:17:00] Please don’t do that.
Shane Sams: Disclaimer, we are not promoting violence towards spouses. But you do get a lot done in those moments. And like what’s funny is we joke about it but like the real thing is, in that moment you know what’s really important
Carla: Exactly.
Shane Sams: It’s fear, it is a real fear is am I going to lose my spouse, a real fear is is my spouse going to be okay, a real fear is how are my kids doing. It’s not a fear to turn on a Facebook Live, y’all. It feels scary but that’s not real. That’s not real. It feels a little scary to publish that first blog post or to ask someone for money. That feel scary. But like when you really put it up against the things that are actually scary, it’s not so bad. And I love what you said, too, you just did it. Jocelyn and I talk about this all the time, Jocelyn, she loves to make things better, like she is a magnifier, she is an improver. I’m like, I don’t even know if I proof read half the stuff that I post. But like you need both, you need all of that, but you have to give birth to something before it can grow.
Carla: [00:18:00] Absolutely.
Shane Sams: And until you do it, you’re not going to be able to improve it, so you might as well just start.
Jocelyn Sams: And with that in mind, just playing off each other, that type of thing, tell me a little bit about Al, how are you involved in the business? Like how did that come about?
Alan: [00:18:30] Well, it kind of came about from I was actually working up in about two, two and a half hours away from here, and I really loved the job but it was traveling back and forth was hard, each week I had to go up there and I would stay in an apartment and then I would just come back on the weekends. And we just got kind of sick of doing that. So I started looking for another job down here in Indianapolis and once I did that, I got to the company there and things didn’t turn out, let’s just say it that way. And it pretty much kind of forced me into looking at other options and I was looking for other jobs and different things and then I just kind of decided what my wife was doing seemed to be something that we could do together. We’ve always wanted to have a business together, so we decided just kind of pursue this as far as from a job standpoint.
Shane Sams: [00:19:00] I wish that more people would take that attitude. And like I know a lot of people out there are listening and we have people that run the spectrum, we have people that are all in together and we have people whose spouse is totally not onboard with anything they’re doing, and then there’s everything in between. Nothing’s every just totally like perfect one way or the other. And I got a forum post last night, I was in the community, I was answering some questions, and I read we have a member, who’s actually in a very similar space to you, but we have a member and she was working in like her fitness business and she was getting this thing launched and getting online and really fired up over the last few months and doing well, like starting to get things together. And I saw this post and it was like, uh oh, life threw us a curve ball kind of thing and her husband got laid off last week. And she was like … And the questions was basically like, “What do we do? How do we do … Do we put the online business on hold while we find a new job? Do we do this? Do we do that? Do the other?”
Shane Sams: [00:20:00] And there were all these little things and her business, she has a brick and mortar business, it’s working, she has an online business that has gotten to the point where it’s ready to start growing, and I was kind of like, “What if you guys just work together? Why is the answer go find help from the outside when you might just be able to work together and double your efforts?” Because we all have different strengths that we bring to the relationship. We just had a member call yesterday or we just had a coaching call yesterday with another couple in the community and it’s incredible what they’ve done. They were trying to grow their team and we were meeting with them to help them kind of grow their team a little bit and they’ve literally in like two or three years, maybe three, they’ve went from like zero or some money, they were working full-time jobs, all that stuff, to they both work at home together and they’re making like $200,000-something a year. But, really, it was because they pulled together and they took non-traditional roles, too. She’s the face of the brand, he is Mr. Mom slash the bookkeeper. It doesn’t matter what it looks like if you can just do it together.
Carla: [00:21:30] Absolutely. And we compliment each other so well. When I first started asking him to help me with some things and, like, for instance, PowerPoints and trying to put presentations together, I could work on a slide and it would take me forever and I’m trying to be all perfect about it and figure out this and find a perfect picture and the perfect font and, oh, that’s too busy looking. Where I give it to him and he can have 10 PowerPoint presentations done in the time that I would get two slides done. So things like that, it’s really perfect. And now I don’t like numbers and taking care of that, I’m more of the creative end, so now he’s the one that’s getting into the analytics and the Google AdWords and all that kind of stuff. So he enjoys that, so he can get behind that, tell me what it is, I can create the content, so it’s just a perfect combination.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:22:00] Well, that is something that’s positive about working together, tell me something that is challenging. Because we get this question all the time, so tell us something that’s challenging for you guys.
Shane Sams: [00:22:30] People are like, “How do you work to … How are you together 24/7 all the time?” And we’re like, “Because it’s awesome?” [inaudible 00:22:45].
Carla: Right, it is. And that’s-
Shane Sams: Most days it’s good.
Carla: Like I’m struggling to find an answer for you because it’s just not. I can’t tell you anything about it. He doesn’t get on my nerves. I don’t think I get on his nerves.
Alan: No.
Jocelyn Sams: I can’t say the same thing.
Shane Sams: I was like [crosstalk 00:23:03]. Let me chime in here.
Carla: [00:23:00] But we are so sarcastic and we’re so both passive aggressive but not in a bad way that we’ll just kind of continue to give it back and forth to each other that we don’t hold anything in, we just … Then we just tell each other to get over yourself. It’s just like we just laugh about it. We don’t argue and we never have.
Shane Sams: Jocelyn and I always say our conflict usually comes, because we’ve been married, I mean we’ve been together almost 20 years, so we’re kind of over all the … It’s kind of over the petty stuff that you get mad at, you know what I mean? And the only problem is, there’s no filter. Like at this point in your life, like if you don’t have that mechanism like you said of get over yourself, like I’ll get over me, you get over you, we’re both kind of stupid sometimes. And one thing Jocelyn and I have always done is we kind of have an unwritten, unspoken rule, no matter how mad we ever get at each other, we’re allowed to sleep in the bed. Like that’s our bed, that’s not your bed, that’s not my bed, [inaudible 00:24:07]. Kind of like where the Bible says, “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.” That’s kind of our manifestation of that in our marriage. And I love it.
Shane Sams: It is true, though, people are scared to work together and I think that most people who have a problem with my spouse is not onboard with my online dream, that problem stems from maybe they feel left out of your dream. Maybe you’re not including them in your dream. Maybe it’s your dream and not y’all’s dream. And until it becomes y’all’s dream, it ain’t going to probably happen. So, that’s really good wisdom, guys, of just like, hey, you married each other, starting a business is the minor component of that issue.
Carla: [00:24:30] The ultimate goal is the same-
Shane Sams: [crosstalk 00:24:52].
Carla: Right. And the ultimate goal is the same for both of us, it’s not so much about the business. Yes, the business is very rewarding and we love to help people and it is our ministry, but the ultimate goal behind the business side of it is to be able to spend time with each other, spend time with our family, be able to be there and do great things with our grandkids and spend time with them and do things with them that we weren’t even able to do with our own son. And that’s one thing with Al not being at work and at first in the very beginning having a real hard time with not … He’s the provider, so that was really difficult for him in the beginning not getting up and going to work everyday, he felt like he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do. But then realizing that we’re doing this so that we can spend more time together. Let’s enjoy this time we’re spending together. And that’s it, we just constantly are pushing towards what we want without realizing sometimes what we want we have right now.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:25:30] Yeah, I love that. And, that is the thing about working with your spouse is that you do have to be on the same page, you do have to have that same ultimate goal. That is what makes all of the in between that much easier. Now, sometimes Shane and I have much different ideas about the ways to get to the goal and that’s what makes it a little bit challenging sometimes, but neither one of us are wrong and that’s what we’ve had to kind of learn over these years is that your idea would probably work and my idea would probably work, so we just have to agree to disagree and figure out a way to get to the end goal.
Shane Sams: [00:26:30] Yeah, sometimes you got to flip a coin and pick one. And it doesn’t matter, as long as you both go all in on it. Just like raising kids or deciding where you’re going to live. Running a business together is no different than that.
Jocelyn Sams: Well, it’s sort of like, I think of it as like racing, so way back when I used to do races and I didn’t really race because I’m not very fast but-
Shane Sams: Are we talking NASCAR or running?
Jocelyn Sams: No.
Shane Sams: What are we talking about?
Jocelyn Sams: No, I used to train for-
Shane Sams: Were you a formula one driver in a former life and I did not know this?
Jocelyn Sams: I used to train for 10ks, half marathons, that kind of thing. So anyway, my way of training might be different than somebody else’s way of training but we’re still going to cross the finish line and that’s the same way that I’ll look at this.
Carla: [00:27:00] Absolutely. And I, talking about working with your spouse, I couldn’t spend this much time with anybody else, honestly, he’s the only person that I could do this with.
Jocelyn Sams: That is the truth right there.
Shane Sams: Yes, 100%. You’re my crazy, Jocelyn, everybody else is crazy, the world’s crazy out there, guys, you see it on the news every day, but you know what, I got my crazy right here. I’m her crazy and we’ll be crazy together.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. I think people could definitely believe that you’re my crazy. Okay. So we’ve had a lot of conversation today about a lot of different things but let’s talk about how we can improve your business. What question do you have for us today?
Carla: [00:27:30] Really it’s just about our next step. What we’re doing is working and we recently set a goal for ourselves which was at the beginning of the year I set a goal that I just wanted one new online member each month, which I could do without trying basically. I shouldn’t say without trying but it came pretty easily. But then recently it’s like okay, we’re bumping this up to one a week and that was scary to say out loud and to do. But it’s been happening and we’ve actually even exceeded that. But most of our success in that area has come through Facebook and everybody, there’s been some connection somehow, even if I didn’t know the person, I knew somebody who knew the person. So it was referrals or Facebook posts. So we got to figure out how we can reach further beyond people who already know us and trying to figure out how to do that I guess is where we need help.
Shane Sams: [00:28:30] This is something that we talk about all the time and we just talked about it a little bit a minute ago. There’s different paths to victory. The most important thing when it comes to traffic is to figure out what’s working and do more of it. That’s why you test ads is because, you know, we just ran four ads, I’m meeting with our ad person tomorrow, we’re going to kill three of the ads and put all of the money onto one ad that beat all the other three. And then we’re going to test another one against that. So that becomes our control ad, now we’re going to test something else. But, the point is we found the one that worked and we’re going to do more of that. I want to challenge you a little bit here, not necessarily to look at new things and figure out how you can leverage the network you’ve already built more. Because all those people who’ve come to you told someone about you and they came to you, maybe the question is not how do I find more new people outside of that, it’s how do I leverage all my current clients to go find me three or four more clients.
Shane Sams: So maybe you’ve got … Let’s say you’ve got 20 members, what if five of your members went and found two more members? Well, your membership would grow by 50%. Did I just do that math right in my head? I think I did. Yeah. Right? Like you would go from 20 to 30. Maybe that’s part of the strategy here, I don’t want you to leave that behind because it’s like finding a nail and you got the nail and you got the hammer and you’re like, “Man, I need to go find another nail.” And you haven’t even hammered that nail in yet. So that has to be a part of this as you reach out to your [inaudible 00:30:18]. So I just wanted to challenge you a little bit there and don’t ignore what’s working. Maybe there’s one tweak you could make to get more out of that and maybe all those people who are there can grow into like five more people and you can become this … Maybe it’s like a spiderweb, your little local area, you get 10 members, then they send out to people they know, 20, then all of a sudden there’s somebody from the city and now we’re up the road [inaudible 00:30:40]. And then all of a sudden it starts growing out like a wagon wheel.
Carla: [00:30:30] Absolutely. And that’s the exciting part of the newest members, I mean, we just added three new members since we submitted our form for the podcast and it’s one’s in Maryland and here we are in Indiana, so that opens a whole new-
Shane Sams: And did you know that the people you said that knew the people you knew, did you know them actually?
Carla: [00:31:00] Not all of them.
Shane Sams: Okay. See, just because they know about you and didn’t know them, that’s still random people. So, there is a sales funnel happening that you’ve not quite identified somewhere in there and you just have to polish it up, do something to that, to get more people.
Carla: Yeah. And we recently started just actually this week we got the, what is that, the Crazy Egg and we’re really trying to watch more traffic and see what’s going on in our website because we’re seeing that we’re getting traffic but we’re just not getting the clicks. And I don’t know what the statistics are or what the percentages are, but it’s like everybody’s scared to give their email address. Everybody’s scared to make that … I don’t even mean just buying, I just mean they’ll go so far to get to the form and then they stop when they see they have to give their email address. And I’m not sure if we’re doing something wrong.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:31:30] That happens.
Carla: Okay.
Jocelyn Sams: No, you’re not doing anything wrong. Like generally a conversion on that is going to be between 3- and 5%.
Carla: Okay.
Jocelyn Sams: So if you’re getting 3- to 5% on any type of opt-in, any type of sales, like order form, then you are falling within the norms.
Shane Sams: [00:32:00] Yeah, and that’s like for everything. In general, about 3% of the people who ever see anything about you will come to your site. About 3- to 5% of the people will ever get on your opt-in. And about 3%, 5% of those people will ever eventually buy over the grand scheme of things. Now, do somebody out there, I’m sure you’ve got your 10- to 20% and your [crosstalk 00:32:28]-
Jocelyn Sams: And if you do, that’s great.
Shane Sams: Yeah, that’s great, I’m proud of you. But, don’t expect massive numbers in those things. Now, your opt-in rates and stuff are different because you should be so dialed in on your lead magnets that the people really want it. But even those numbers over the … Like the more you balloon out, the smaller the numbers get, just like a map.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:32:30] But what I’m trying to say is if you have that 3- to 5%, that means that you’re probably doing things right. If your conversion rate is more like 1%, then probably it’s a marketing problem. You’re not convincing people that they need to put in their email.
Shane Sams: [00:33:00] Also, too, anybody listening, please don’t write me emails about how I don’t know what I’m talking about of percentages, we get so many emails whenever we throw out a number, we’re just spit-balling here, y’all. I don’t need you to educate me on how to do all the percentages, okay? So, whatever. Okay. What are your opt-ins right now?
Carla: I have several that I’m using for lead magnets. Really, the most popular one all of a sudden is the free consultation, which is great because I can usually sell them if I’m talking to them right away, but then it also is that takes time, that I’m not … It’s not just happening right there online.
Shane Sams: [00:33:30] That should never be a lead magnet. Any time they get to talk to you, even if you’re qualifying or selling somebody, there’s got to be barriers before that. Like there needs to be free content, an opt-in, a vetting process, usually that’s an application type thing, and then they get to talk to you to sell them into your membership. Because what happens is, if you talk to 10 of those people that just sign up for the free consultation, maybe one buys, but if you had filters, those 10 people go through and only one of them actually make it all the way through to get to you. Because that’s how you protect your time if you want to do that. So, there would need to be something before that to make sure people are serious and then they get to talk to you.
Carla: [00:34:00] Okay. So, if it’s working for me currently and I’m able to manage the time, keep it there, but then as things grow-
Shane Sams: As things get bigger you’ll have to put filters [crosstalk 00:34:30].
Carla: Should make that change, all right. And then the others are I tried to have … I actually just put the page up on my website yesterday to do it this way, I have it’s called a free resource page, so there’s one, it’s how to make a super shake. So it’s like a meal replacement shake, so a recipe guide for that. And then there’s like a mini workout so they could kind of get a taste or what it would be like to received a workout from me. Just some other things, I just try to think of a variety of areas, overcoming obstacles, seven tips to keep going when you want to give up, those types of things are what I’m using right now.
Shane Sams: [00:35:00] What are your ads going to? You said you did some ads, have you done ads?
Carla: We don’t really understand. We have a … We got the Google AdWords and we setup a campaign but Al’s the one that’s dealing with more of that and he might understand more but right now it’s just a matter of putting words in. We don’t really know what we’re supposed to be doing.
Alan: [00:35:30] Yeah, I mean, we’re kind of using the keywords to kind of trigger off of that.
Jocelyn Sams: I would probably check the conversion rates first. If you’re getting that at least 3- to 5% on the conversion rates, then I would start running traffic to those opt-ins or those whatever you have there for people to download.
Shane Sams: For one thing, lead magnets have to be actionable immediately. They’ve got to be actionable immediately. So, what you could do, like that shake thing, that’s the one that really stood out because anybody can go make that shake. They might have to get some ingredients but if you could really think like what do most people have in their house, well, they probably got bananas and milk and something else, right? And you could [inaudible 00:36:13] peanut butter and you just showed them and you think that’s so simple because you know how to do it but most people don’t even know, hey, this is a great way to make your own protein shake at home, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But like, if you could do the shake thing and have a YouTube video or a Facebook video and you can drive traffic to that video and actually make an audience of anyone that watches that video and then what if they saw an ad after they watched your video that was like, “Hey, I’ll show you how to make a shake a day, five new shakes.” That’s what you opt-in for.
Shane Sams: Well, you’ve already got someone that watched a video about making a protein shake, wouldn’t it make sense that they would want the opt-in for the next thing, which is five more flavors? That’s the thought process you’ve got to add on top of your research. Okay. They want this, they are a total novice and have no clue what to do, they can do this in 15 minutes if they watch my video, or at least feel like they know how to do it, and what is the next step? Now that’s what you run ads to. You run ads to that next step, because that’s where you get your opt-in, is what I’m saying. Because if you just throw someone up there and go, “Opt-in to get my protein shake.” What? You’ve never done anything for me before, how do I know that I can make the shake, how do I know that you know how to make the shake. You’ve got to prove that they can do it and you can tell them how.
Shane Sams: So, that’s where your content, your ads have to start. Awareness, hey, I’ll show you how to make a shake in two minutes or less. Hey, the next one is five new flavors of shakes, I’ll show you how to make them. They opt in, then the next thing is, hey, while you’re drinking these delicious shakes, why don’t you buy my workout so you can actually get in shape on top of it?
Carla: [00:37:30] Mm-hmm (affirmative), and I’m following that sequence right now that you just laid out in my responder. So, that if they opt into that first one, then I’m basically taking them through that series. I guess I just don’t understand, when we … I feel like a big dummy. I don’t know what an ad is.
Shane Sams: [00:38:00] Carla. No, listen, you just said an amazing thing that everyone needs to listen to. You know, I’ve got all this cool stuff in my auto responder, I’ve got this thing email one, email two, email three, but unfortunately, it’s in your auto responder and until people opt in, they don’t know about it. So you need to look at that and go, “Man, maybe those first three emails need to be my ads? And I need to pull them out.” And then here’s what’s cool, you can still take people through the exact same auto responder because they’re not going to pay attention enough the first time you do it, so they need that email to remind them of what they’ve seen in the past. But it doesn’t matter how good your content is if it’s hidden behind an email auto responder or a paywall. All your content needs to be out there and in your auto responder. It’s not an or thing, it’s an and thing because 90% of people don’t see 90% of what you do. You have to release 100% of everything and then guide them to the rest of it. So you’ve got to use some of that stuff to get them in there so they can see how amazing you are and how amazing that stuff is and then they’ll buy.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:39:00] Yeah, and it’s also just top of mind, like the whole purpose, like your ad, too, is just to remind people, “Hey, I’m here, I have this cool stuff for you. Oh, you came to my website, I’m still here, I have this cool stuff for you.” It’s just building that relationship and I think sometimes people overlook that. Like they think, “Well, if I spend money on an ad, this person has to opt in or they have to buy my product.” No. Like just get top of mind and get them to know, like, and trust you so that they will the opt in or purchase your product or service.
Shane Sams: [00:39:30] Something we’re starting to do right now is … For one thing, we don’t ever turn an ad off until it’s had a frequency of seven, six or seven, somewhere around that. Because if you haven’t seen it five or six times, you’re not going to take action. And most people are like, “Well, I just ran an ad for 24 hours and nobody bought.” Well, just because people saw it doesn’t mean they were in the place they could buy or opt in or whatever … They might’ve been in a grocery store line and didn’t want to type their email address in on their phone. So then maybe they’ll see it again on their desktop later or whatever. So, you got to have a lot of frequency there. And like one of the things we’re doing, we’re actually uploading our podcast to Facebook on our Facebook page now and we’re probably going to start running ads at it every day just to get it in front of people.
Shane Sams: And I’m not even sure if people will listen to it on Facebook but I want people to remember we have a podcast because they saw it on Facebook and at least they go back and maybe they haven’t listened to it in a week or two. Well iTunes and the podcast app will slowly, it’ll only show your last six things you listened to on that first stream, so I need you to remember that it’s there so you can scroll down and get to my podcast, now you’re back in the fold, now I’ve got another chance to sell to you. So you’ve got to have some frequency behind that. You’ve got to have some top of mind, like Jocelyn said, or none of the ads are ever going to work. And you’ve got to bring that content out into the light. Don’t hide it inside there and think, “Man, my auto responder is sweet. But nobody’s ever seen it because they won’t opt in.”
Carla: [00:41:00] so these things that we’re doing in the auto responder are basically, and since Facebook has been what’s working for us, put them into Facebook ads, is that what you’re telling me?
Shane Sams: Yes.
Carla: Okay.
Shane Sams: You need to tell people what’s in the auto responder so they want it and they want to opt in. But you got to do some stuff, like do a Facebook Live today, set up the camera in your kitchen, and I want you to make a protein shake in 10 minutes or less with common household ingredient. And then go in and set up a video ad that targets people that like shake-ology and that like simple green smoothies and like all those things. Go target those big brands and show people you making a shake. They already like shakes. And some of them will comment and like and then you can actually make an audience of people who watch that video and then send them to an opt-in for five shake recipes. Like that’s a sales funnel right there. Now they’re in your auto responder and you can show them all the cool stuff. Okay>
Jocelyn Sams: [00:42:00] All right, guys, we are about out of time for today but before we go, tell us about one thing that you’re going to be taking action on based on what we talked about today?
Carla: Well, we’re going to continue doing what’s working and improve on it and doing this Facebook and I guess doing, since I said that I’ve done one Facebook Live, I guess I got to go on and do some more videos. So, to do those. And if we do the shake or even workouts, whatever the things that have been working within my opt-ins and put those out there and make ads out of them.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:42:30] All right, that sounds good. And we can’t wait to see your action plan stuff and, most importantly, I can’t wait to see your success story once you guys get this going.
Carla: Awesome.
Alan: Awesome.
Jocelyn Sams: All right, thank you so much for being here today, we enjoyed talking to you all and we will see you in the community.
Carla: Thank you.
Alan: Thanks for having us.
Shane Sams: That was another information pack call with one of our Flip Your Life community members, hope that you got a lot of benefit out of our answers to our guest questions as well. If you’d like to become a member of our Flip Your Life community, head over the fliplifestyle.com/flipyourlife and we can help you with your online business.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:43:00] All right and it’s time to move into our Can’t Miss Moment segment of the show and these are moments that we were able to experience that we might’ve missed if we were still working at a normal 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM job. Today’s Can’t Miss Moment is Isaac’s basketball lessons. So my son Isaac, he has started playing basketball recently, actually he’s been playing a couple years but he’s sort of started taking it more seriously in about the last six months or so, and one of the things that we were able to do is get him signed up for some basketball lessons. Private lessons, as many of you know, are not inexpensive, it is rather costly to get somebody to work with your child one-on-one or with anybody one-on-one. It was an investment, we didn’t really take it lightly, we made sure that it was something that he wanted to do, that he was actually going to participate in, and we were able to get someone locally to work with him on his basketball skills and he has improved so much. I’m really, really thankful to be able to provide these types of opportunities for our children so they can learn from people and get ahead faster than they would if they were just going at it on their own.
Shane Sams: [00:44:00] You know, as much as we love our Can’t Miss Moments, there’s actually one thing we love even more, and that’s a success story from our Flipped Your Life community members. So before we go, we wanted to share an actual success story from the success forums in the Flip Your Life membership.
Jocelyn Sams: [00:44:30] Today’s success story is from Matthew. Matthew says, “I have been busy.” I like that, Matthew. He says, “Over the last month I have totally revamped and redesigned my website. I’ve edited 23 video saxophone lessons into Amazon S3.” He created 23 associated pages on the site for his video lessons. He installed and configured the membership plugin and paid membership [inaudible 00:44:56], created a nine part email auto responder series with a goal of selling his saxophone lessons membership. He created sales pages and relevant free view pages for the auto responder emails. And, my favorite, he has eaten far too much chocolate ice cream, pausing only for vanilla at approbate moments. That one is the best one, Matthew. I’ve been doing low carb, so I haven’t had ice cream in a long time. But, Matthew says, “Now onto the marketing and recording more video sax lessons.” I love it, Matthew. You are just killing it, my friend. Keep working hard. Keep eating ice cream. Not too much, but an appropriate amount. And I can’t wait to see what you do next.
Shane Sams: [00:45:30] Today’s Bible verse comes from 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10, and it’s all about using your talents to serve other people. The Bible says, “God has given each of you a gift from His great variety of gifts. Use them well to serve one another.” Guys, that’s all you have to do to be successful with your online business is find the thing that you’re expert enough in. Find that talent, find that gift that God has put deep inside of you. Use that gift to help other people, to solve their problems, and serve other people and you will be successful. God would not have put that dream in your heart, that idea in your head, He would not have given you that talent if He did not want you to go use it to serve the world. So don’t waste that gift, you listening right now, have a gift that someone else needs, only you can help somebody else, you just got to take action and put yourself out there into the world so that those people can find you. That’s all the time we have for this week, as always, guys, thanks for listening to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast and until next time, get out there, take action, do whatever it takes to flip your life. We’ll see you [inaudible 00:46:47].
Jocelyn Sams: [00:46:30] Bye.
Shane Sams: I love podcasts where we talk about Jesus in the first 10 minutes. I just love it. I love it. That’s [inaudible 00:47:04] Jesus in right there.
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
You can connect with S&J on social media too!
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.
Matthew says
Hi Shane and Jocelyn,
Thanks soooooooooo much for mentioning my “success story” in this episode 238 of your podcast and thank you for your kind and encouraging words 🙂
I was driving as I was listening to this particular episode and thought that the success story sounded familiar…and indeed once I realised it was my success story I almost drove off the road.
Amusingly I will confess that I was eating a chocolate ice cream as I was driving and listening to your podcast.
As an update, today I have just finished recording Saxophone Video Lesson numbers 48, 49 and 50. I will edit and upload these over the next 3 or 4 days. My saxophone membership website continues to grow, albeit a little slower than I would prefer, but “slow and steady wins the race” as they say.
I will keep moving forwards, I will keep taking massive action and I will keep listening to your podcasts !!
Thanks again,
Matthew
(Melbourne, Australia)