Flipped Lifestyle™ Podcast

Latest Episodes:

FL268 - Autoresponder Creation + Content Delivery + Video Course Prep Dec 28, 2018

Show notes

Hey Y'all, welcome to another Flipped Lifestyle Podcast Q&A w/ S&J!

In the Flip Your Life Community, we hold a members-only Q&A twice a month where we answer online business questions of our members live on air!

This podcast episode features some of the highlights of these recent live member Q&As to give you a glimpse of how we help the members of our community, and help you as well in online business by listening in.

Today's Q&A highlights answer the following questions:

Question One:

"Should I launch my course without finishing up my email sequence? I already have an audience that gave me the course idea and content. I just haven't done the autoresponder side."

Question Two:

"What if you launch and can't get your next month's content out in time or decide to pivot to something else?"

Question Three:

"I'm selling my courses a la carte, but I'm wondering if I should quit that and only do the membership?"

Question Four:

"Can you please give us a quick rundown on how you go about planning your video courses? And how long does it take you to research and prepare your outline per video?"

Success stories mentioned on today's podcast:

"I just got my first paying member! I got the notice as I was feeding my baby, and I'm so glad I didn't drop him when I read the message!" - Rocio

"I have 232 people who have registered for my webinar! I call that a success. As I wondered what topic to pick for awhile, Shane told me to just do it. I think his exact words were something like, "if you can't make a home run just try to get a base hit." So, I picked something I thought my people would like and took action. Take action people, stop analyzing and just do something." - Janet

CLICK HERE to get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!

FL267 - Should entrepreneurs homeschool their kids? Dec 26, 2018

Show notes

In today's episode, we discuss, should entrepreneurs homeschool their kids? FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn: Hey, y'all. On today's podcast we discuss, should entrepreneurs homeschool their kids? 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 that figured out how to make our entire living online. Now we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right. Let's get started. Shane: What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to be back with you again today. And we have a very special episode of the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. For those of you who've been listening to our podcast for a long time, you know that normally we do not have expert guests on the show. It's usually a member of the Flip Your Life community who comes on the show, gets a consulting call. We do that on air and we share it with everybody so that you can benefit from the conversation. Actually, the only other guest who's ever been on the Flipped Lifestyle podcast is Pat Flynn, from the Smart Passive Income podcast. Shane: And this one came out of nowhere. Jocelyn sent me a message the other day because we have been discussing whether or not we were going to take our kids out of public school and homeschool them next semester. Jocelyn: We've been discussing it for a year. Shane: Yeah, we've been discussing it off and on forever, and the other day a friend of ours sent us this book. What's it called, Jocelyn? Jocelyn: So it's called The 5-Hour School Week. A friend of mine just kind of randomly sent it to me and said, "Hey, you might be interested in checking this out," because she knew that this is something we've sort of been tossing around for a while. Jocelyn: So, you know, I downloaded it, being a former librarian. I had to jump online and get that thing. Shane: And Jocelyn devoured it and read it in like 30 minutes or something like that because she can read way faster than us. Jocelyn: A little longer than that. Shane: We decided that this was actually a really big issue, not only for us, but for other entrepreneurs out there because as we built the Flipped Lifestyle and we define the Flipped Lifestyle, and we teach other people how to flip their life, a big part of that is freedom, especially time freedom and control of your schedule. That has been a really big problem with us over the last couple of years as entrepreneurs, people who work at home and have total control of our life, it's really been difficult to send our kids to school, where they're in this structured environment and they're sitting in rows and they're on the bell schedule like a factory. Shane: Then also, having to work our schedule around getting up so early to go to school or even if we want to take a trip, wrestling with do we pull our kids out? Do they get behind? Do we have to ask permission to even do that? As we've talked to other entrepreneurs, we realized, especially with people that already work at home or want to work at home, that this is a major problem. Shane: So we reached out to the authors of this book and asked them if they would come on to the show. not only to discuss homeschooling, discuss entrepreneurship and how that all fits together, but also to answer some questions from entrepreneurs in the Flip You Life community and that's what we're going to do on the podcast today, is we're really going to wrestle with this question. Should entrepreneurs homeschool their kid, and if they do, how does that work? What does that look like? That's a really scary proposition. Shane: So without further ado, let's stop talking. Let's invite, let's welcome our guests to the podcast today, and I'm actually just going to say your first names. Jocelyn: We'll let you guys say your last name, okay? Kaleena: Sounds good. Shane: And I am good at butchering names and I want you guys to say this. So we have Aaron and Kaleena. Kaleena: Amuchastegui. Shane: What is it? Say it again? Kaleena: Amuchastegui. Shane: All right. We have Aaron and Kaleena- Kaleena: Amuchastegui. Shane: Amuchastegui. Okay. Welcome to the show, guys. Aaron: Awesome. Thanks so much for inviting us to come on. You know, from you guys getting to talk about what you do and we're really excited to be able to share with you and your community. We're entrepreneurs as well, and we had to do some crazy flips in our life too, so we're super-excited. Kaleena: Yeah, super excited. Shane: I do want to stress that we are not affiliates, we're not getting any benefit for this, you know, financially. Jocelyn: We've met them for the first time, like a few minutes ago. Shane: Yeah, exactly. So we are literally here just to help entrepreneurs in their journey and to help people who are really struggling with this question about homeschooling. So if you could, you mentioned you were entrepreneurs, tell us a little bit about your background as an entrepreneur and then maybe you could go into that decision-making process that led you guys down this homeschool route. Kaleena: Yeah, absolutely. Aaron: Sure. We've been entrepreneurs for almost 10 years now. So originally we were full-time workers. I worked for a residential home builder. Kaleena worked for various offices, different things like that. Back in 2009, that was kind of that first moment of quitting our jobs to become entrepreneurs. Part of that was what everybody wants to try for, is trying to get more freedom, more life, more things like that, but our first couple of years of that was we thought that we were going to get a lot of our time back, but our first few years of entrepreneurship was just really, really long hard hours. Aaron: The businesses that we had chosen, there was 50 and 60 hour weeks and we were buying and selling and flipping houses and doing construction. Kaleena ran a big real estate brokerage. It was a really good experience for us, so we started, after a lot of hard work, we got the money and the finances that entrepreneurship was supposed to bring, but we hadn't quite figured out that freedom part yet because we were working and working a ton. Aaron: Then several years ago, we kind of had those years where there's nannies raising our kids, working way too much around the clock, and just kind of came to these, this kind of different experience where we started to, as entrepreneurs, that way working too much. Our marriage wasn't really going very good, we had nannies raising our kids, they were going off to school and we were really, really unhappy. Then we had kind of some really come to moments. We started adjusting that, changing that business, had to get recycled and back in 2013 Kaleena said, to kind of take a different angle. Kaleena: Right. Shane: You mean when you made it financially, everything didn't work out perfectly? Kaleena: Yes. Exactly. Shane: Come on, that's what everybody thinks, though, right? Once you get that. Aaron: It's so heartbreaking, though. Kaleena: It's super heartbreaking. Aaron: Like when you finally make it to what you think you're supposed to get to and you're still like, "Wait, we're still miserable." That's a sad, sad moment, really. Kaleena: Yeah. Shane: You know what though? That's a part of everyone's journey that we talked to that's made it is ... I think we were actually kind of fortunate in this regard in our journey because Jocelyn used to work in corporate, like the ladder. I mean, you're climbing to the top and you kind of get to a point and you realize, "Wait a minute, you mean if I get the promotion I'm still not happy?" and I did college football coaching and football coaching and things like that. So we kind of had these 70 hour work week experiences before we became entrepreneurs, and I think that kind of tempered how we walked into entrepreneurship. Now, granted, we had the 70 hours weeks when we were working full time, raising kids, trying to build a side business, right? Kaleena: Yep. Shane: But you do realize on the other side of that that it's not just the money. The money can create some opportunity, but it's the time. That's really what you got to get back or everything kind of falls apart. Jocelyn: Yeah, and it's just like part of the whole value. You realize that money is important, but time is even that much more important. Kaleena: That's true. Jocelyn: So it's kind of crazy. It's like a journey. You have to go through the journey to get there to understand that, I think. Shane: So as you're doing this with nannies raising your kids and things like that and you have this come to Jesus moment, like, "Oh my gosh, this is not what we want." Kaleena: Yeah. Shane: How old were your kids in 2013 when that kind of happened? Kaleena: So we have four children all together and I had three girls that were three and under. So I had a three-year-old, a one-year-old, and a newborn and when things really kind of hit the head, we had just had our third baby. She was maybe like a year, year-and-a-half old. Really, we just kind of self-imploded. Our marriage was failing. We were both making six figure incomes, but we were miserable, like I've never been so discontent in my entire life. Kaleena: So it's just those moments that bring you to your knees that you're like, "Okay, we've got to change some stuff." So Aaron went on this mission in growth, like a growth mindset kind of mission, where he started reading Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. He read the 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. Aaron went on this new mission and I started really scaling back my work. I started hiring people, which we hadn't done. I'd been carrying like 30 to 40 transactions at a time completely by myself. Kaleena: So we started outsourcing some of that work and getting rid of the nannies, and me stepping back into the role that I knew was going to make me happier. So that happened over the course ... I mean, it took a lot of work. I don't want this to sound easy. It took time. Like we were probably a full year in to some serious, serious life changes and business changes when we had this epiphany that things weren't ... We weren't being taken to the level we wanted to be taken to because we couldn't get our kids there with us. Shane: Love that. Aaron: Yeah you know, when we made that first shift to go from 70 hour work weeks to trying to live a four hour work week lifestyle, we made those big changes over that six months to a year, and it really started working. We really started to find where I could travel for work and do things that we could no longer do in California, and then I had a chance to open up - I was doing all these deals again in Texas so I talked to Kaleena and I said, "Hey I need you to open up a brokerage account." Like hey, we've got our family back, we've got our lifestyle back, but now I'm paying 30,000 a month in commissions to other people, I need to go open up a brokerage account. Aaron: And luckily she was super smart and just said, "You know what, we're not gonna work together now. I'm not gonna choose to go back to that lifestyle, we'll make up the money some other way. But I want to raise our kids." Aaron: At that time we weren't homeschooling yet, it was just as entrepreneurs the best lifestyle for us was for me to be running a business and for her to be able to focus on the family. But still at that time she was taking the kids to school and going through that process. Kaleena: Right, and essentially what you were talking about, that 70 hour week but with my kids in school. Shane: That's amazing, and for us we've kind of come to a point about the school discussion. When we quit our jobs, we went into it working together. But we've kind of set some limits in that place, we were working like, during the kids' school hours. So, we'd take the kids to school, we would work from - I don't know. We'd come home, we'd go to the gym, we'd come home, we'd work 10 to 2:30, and then go pick the kids up. Shane: But then we started asking ourselves, is that really what we want for our family? Do we want to drop the kids off and not see them all day? Do we want to have no say in their education? And we realized, I think in the last year, we traded our freedom back to society. Because we are just locked into this school schedule and school cycle now, and it really came to a head this summer when we had to write an essay to get permission to miss a week of school to take our kids to Jamaica. Shane: And I'm sitting here like, what's a better experience? Getting on an airplane and flying to another culture, or sitting in a classroom? And why am I having to write a five paragraph essay to get permission from anybody? We have total control over our lives. We control our finances, we control our schedule, we control everything. What have we done that we've given all our freedom away again? Jocelyn: If that wasn't bad enough, then my son missed a week of school, which was excused by the way because we got it excused from the school, but then he misses a week of school and he gets a little bit behind. And one of the teachers has the nerve to say to him, "Well if you weren't spending so much time in Jamaica, then maybe you would've learned this material." Jocelyn: And I'm like, "What?" Kaleena: Ugh. Shane: Like that is not an either or, you know what I'm saying? Like, life is not either or, even though society wants us to think that way. Kaleena: Right. Shane: Why couldn't we do that and then get caught up and then do something else, or if we had - Jocelyn: Or why wasn't that considered a valuable learning experience that you went to another country, and experienced things that most of these kids in this school may never experience in their lifetime? Why is that not... Shane: And you could bring that back to share it with the other students. Kaleena: Yes, exactly. Jocelyn: Yes. Aaron: I mean, you've read the books so you know, that's the whole basis of the five hour school week, and where that five hour school week came about. It was the same issues of dropping the kids off at school. Kaleena: Right, it was like, "Hey, we're refusing to jump through the hoops of life. We're not entering the rat race. We refuse, as adults, to live this way." And yet we were sending our kids right into that Shane: Oh my gosh. Kaleena: -same rat race that we were rebelling against so strongly. Shane: I'm so glad that you said that, because we literally had this conversation probably about two weeks ago. Jocelyn: This is what our entire brand is about. Our entire brand is about putting family first and not living the way that the rest of society says to live, yet that's exactly what we're doing every single day. Kaleena: Every day. Shane: I got to thinking about our lives. We come home, we've worked hard to build this life for ourselves, in the morning we get up, we go to the gym, we work on what we want to work on, we don't work when we don't want to. I play a little Xbox in the morning I ain't gonna lie. Kaleena: Yeah. Shane: We've kind of built this thing to do what we want to do with our life. And then our kids are just locked into this, every 45 minutes. Like Pavlov's dog a bell will ring, and you will go to the next place, and you will learn what you learn. And if you can't keep up with those other 30 kids that were randomly…

Full show notes at the publisher

FL266 - Product Success + Online Business Focus + Podcast Guest Networking Dec 21, 2018

Show notes

Hey Y'all, welcome to another Flipped Lifestyle Podcast Q&A w/ S&J!

In the Flip Your Life Community, we hold a members-only Q&A twice a month where we answer online business questions of our members live on air!

Today's Q&A highlights answer the following questions:

Question One:

"I'm a Certified Infant and Child Sleep Consultant and I have a membership to help parents get their little ones asleep for babies ages 4 months to 5 years. Many parents have asked me to create a program for newborn babies. My main concern with doing a sleep program for newborns is that I can't really talk about *results* in a black and white manner, the way I talk about results for older kids because they're newborns. While there's lots that parents can do to establish healthy sleep habits from day 1, there's still so much in the air when dealing with newborns. So a parent could easily purchase this newborn sleep program, follow everything, and still not see any results. If I were to move forward with this product, how should I take this concern into account?"

Question Two:

"I'm thinking about downsizing my job to help free up more time to focus on this community and my online business. Thoughts?"

Question Three:

"Do you have any tips for how to approach people to become a podcast guest?"

Success stories mentioned on today's podcast:

"First I want to give a huge thank you to Shane and Jocelyn for all of the hard work they put into FYL Live. It was at this event that I was able to finally see the mission and vision for my business clearly. Once I got clarity on these important foundations everything started to click. Before I even left the live event I put together a plan for promoting my online membership community. For 3 days in a row I promoted it and I created more than $800 in new membership sales in just 10 days after the event." - Amanda

CLICK HERE to get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!

FL265 - We help Christal take her Virtual Assistant Business to the next level Dec 18, 2018

Show notes

In today's episode, we help Christal take her virtual assistant business to the next level. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all, on today's podcast, we help Christal take her virtual assistant 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. Shane Sams: We're a real family who figured out how to make our entire living online. Now we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right, let's get started. Shane Sams: What is going on everybody, welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast. It is great to be back with you again today. We're super excited to have another member of the Flip Your Life community on the show so that we can help them take their business and their dreams to the next level. Our guest today is Christal Allen Harrahill. Christal, welcome to the show. Christal H.: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Jocelyn Sams: It is great to talk to you, we saw you not too long ago at Flip Your Life live, which was awesome. If you've watched our highlight video, you may even see me chatting with Christal a little bit at the event. So definitely look for that. But yes, it is great to have you, we are really excited to talk to you today. Shane Sams: How awesome was Flip Your Life Live by the way, was that not amazing? Christal H.: It really was, I was so amazed at the organization of it and how much I actually got done while at the event. I've been to a lot of conferences in the past and that was rare. Shane Sams: Yeah, we tried to make it a working event because we looked back at all the live events we had ever been to when we were planning and creating Flip Your Life live. That was what we said to ourselves, we looked at each other and we're like, man if you don't get anything done, what's the point, you're just going to a party, and you can have a party at the house. Jocelyn Sams: Exactly, I mean it's nice to get all the information, but then if you don't do anything with it, what was the point. Christal H.: Exactly. Shane Sams: We were talking before we actually started recording. We just released the highlight reel for Flip Your Life Live, which you might have seen that on social media or somewhere out there in the internet sphere. But we were talking about how we got emotional, 'cause we were like oh, I miss everybody. Like it was so fun, like where is everybody. Shane Sams: So luckily there will be another Flip Your Life Family Reunion next year, we'll be all over that. Christal H.: And the food was amazing by the way, I'm still missing that hot chicken. Shane Sams: Oh man, we're southern people, and when we get that southern food going, we're not holding back. Jocelyn Sams: When you come to a live event in the south, you've gotta have some good southern food. Shane Sams: Yeah, you're not just getting wraps from some takeout joint. We're going southern fried chicken and hot chicken, all that good stuff. Jocelyn Sams: So if you come for nothing else, come for the food okay. Shane Sams: We actually went before we planned the event. We drove down there to taste the food. Jocelyn Sams: Because it was very important to me. When we went down there, I was like there will be no frozen biscuits or nothing from a mix. These things have gotta be homemade. Some of these people have never had biscuits before. Christal H.: That's right. Shane Sams: The chef that ran the hotel, he's like, you want me to do what. I'm like we want grandmamma's southern biscuits, you are not a grandmother, he was a dude. I was like, you're not a grandmother, but I want it to taste like my grandmamma made them biscuits. Jocelyn Sams: And y'all I got a good southern pallet here okay, you better be making those biscuits from scratch, and they had better be appropriately salted and they better be good. Shane Sams: So the dude walks out in the thing and his first try at a grandmamma southern biscuit. He actually made this, looked like a cake, it was like as big as my head. He made this giant biscuit and he was like, I was just trying to mess around and get it right. Then he made like some other biscuits at the thing. Shane Sams: But he had made this huge biscuit, he was like man I never made a biscuit like that before. He got it right though. Jocelyn Sams: We actually went down there, we drove four hours to taste these biscuits. Shane Sams: We drove four hours to taste the biscuits. Jocelyn Sams: To make sure they're all right. Well that's a lot of talk about biscuits. Shane Sams: Let's drag it back around here. You wanna try a Flip Your Life biscuit, you gotta be at Flip Your Life live next year. Jocelyn Sams: We gotta bring it next year, we gotta make sure these are good again. Shane Sams: I know right. Jocelyn Sams: Okay, well I'm sure the listeners would like to hear about something more than southern biscuits. So let's start talking a little bit about you. Let us know who you are and a little bit about your background and what you are doing right now online. Christal H.: Well, my story really begins in my previous career in higher education. Towards the end, I found myself driving myself to the emergency room for the second time in two years. That really was my wake up call. I was under a lot of stress and I just found myself in a toxic situation. Not to say anything bad about higher ed, it was just a very specific situation. Christal H.: I love higher education, I'm always an advocate for it. But that really was my wake up call that I had to make a change, and I had been feeling that it was no longer a good fit for me anyhow. I've always wanted to be in business. So I took a step out on faith, and I started a personal concierge business, where I would literally drive around town and take kids to ballet practice, drop off dry cleaning, and then I also had a client who was in town, but I worked for him virtually. Christal H.: So after a couple of months, almost nine months of doing the business as I just described, I realized that the driving around part of it wasn't really the best way to make money. I decided to transition that to where I only work virtually so I could stay in one location and serve a lot more clients. My general virtual assistant business was then born. But as I just mentioned, it was general, and I served a lot of different clients, I had a personal chef, I had a virtual CFO, I had franchise consultants that I served and it was a great learning lesson, but I finally came to the realization after a lot of research and soul searching that I really needed to niche down. That came in the form of serving realtors and managing their transactions. Christal H.: That's what my virtual assistant business looks like today, and in the meantime, I also married my neighbor and had a baby. Shane Sams: Throw that in there, just some minor stuff by the way. Christal H.: Just the minor things, you know. Shane Sams: Did you say you married your neighbor? Christal H.: I did, my husband and I, it was just one house in between us and we lived next to each other for six years without paying attention to each other. Shane Sams: One day I went to a barbecue and there was Jim standing there and I said hey, I should have married you. That's a crazy story, how did you guys meet? Christal H.: He sent me, I guess he noticed me walking my dog every now and again, then one day our street was repaved and we all had to park like a couple blocks away and we found ourselves walking next to each other. Then probably about a couple months later, I came home from work and found a basket on my door and it was a gift basket from him. It was like fruits and nuts and sweets and I went next door to thank him and it started from there. Jocelyn Sams: The rest is history. Christal H.: The rest is history. Jocelyn Sams: Well at least he didn't tell you his printer was broken because that's bad news. Avoid those weirdos. Shane Sams: Yeah that's how I got Jocelyn to hang out with me. Christal H.: Oh, that's how you got Jocelyn. Shane Sams: She was walking in the dorm and I saw her and I was like whoa, that girls' ... she was walking up the stairs and I was walking down the stairs. I was like holy smokes that girl's good looking and what's your name Jocelyn. I was going out with my friends and she was going up to her room and I didn't get to talk to her there. I left and I couldn't stop thinking about her and then a few days later she walked like into the dorm. So we did the classic hey, what's your major and all that good stuff. Shane Sams: She goes computer science, and I'm like, my printer is broken, you're a computer person, you should come and fix this for me. But she got in the room and the printer worked. It was broken, but I thought- Christal H.: But you were quick on your feet with that answer, that was pretty good. Shane Sams: But moving on, I'm glad you threw Jim in there as a p.s., that whole story. Jocelyn Sams: All right, and you've got a new baby, which is awesome. Shane Sams: That's awesome. Christal H.: Yes. Shane Sams: Let me ask you a couple follow up questions real quick. What was the stress and the health problem. Was it a panic attack, or like what. Christal H.: It exactly was that and I had never had one before. So if you've ever had one before, you think you're having a heart attack. The chest pain is intense and I was driving home from choir practice, and I had almost made it home and was literally like a couple miles away from the nearest hospital and I ended up calling my grandmother and just saying hey just stay on the phone with me until I make it to the hospital. Christal H.: But yeah, it was a situation where I basically just, like I said it was toxic and I really at that point in my career hadn't really learned to use all of the maybe the resources and tools at my disposal, and didn't really have the support system that I needed to get help in that situation and didn't really ask for it as much as I should have. It was tough, it was really tough. Shane Sams: It's amazing what we do to ourselves in the modern world like falling into societies norms and getting in lock step and doing these things where we push and we push and we push and we push ourselves until the point where we literally get sick. We feel like we're dying and it's all because of stress. It's because we get so caught up in the momentum that we can't stop ourselves and we feel out of control. Shane Sams: I was reading a book the other day and it was talking about how in the modern world we're so stressed all the time by all of the expectations and social media and the internet and all these things that are really powerful tools that have made our lives better are also kind of slowly killing us because no matter how good we do, we can now see people all over the world. Shane Sams: So we will always be able to find someone doing better, which makes us feel worse and gives us more stress and then all of a sudden we have a panic attack and it was talking about how the stress hormone cortisol that we're all releasing into our bodies more often than we ever have in human history. That's what makes you old, and that's what makes your body fail, and it's just all because of this crazy rat race that we put ourselves in. Even in the last 25 years because of how fast society works now. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah I saw this quote on Facebook actually this morning. One of my friends has posted it and it said, survival mode is supposed to be a phase that helps save your life. It is not meant to be how you live. Christal H.: Oh wow, that's powerful. Shane Sams: How many people right now listening to this podcast are just living in survival mode every day of their life. That's what me and Jocelyn have really talked about a lot lately with our mission for Flipped Lifestyle. Shane Sams: It's always been about online business and then it expanded past that. Things like even service based businesses like you're doing with this personal concierge, this virtual assistant stuff. But really it's just about taking control of your life and being able to work for yourself, work from home, and get some of that life back so you can live a few hours a day not stressed out. Not freaked out by everything because if you don't ... if it doesn't kill you, it's at least gonna make your life miserable. That's not good because we only have one life. Christal H.: Amen. Shane Sams: This personal concierge business, this is brilliant. You're amazing, ever since the first time I ever talked to you. We had a coaching call a few months ago and even just me seeing you in the forums and your posts, it's amazing what you did to build to the point you are now. You said this is too stressful, you're in higher education, it's probably a pretty good job. Christal H.: Right. Shane Sams: You got benefits, you got things like that, it's not like you were digging ditches. But it's the same thing for us. We had good education jobs, tenured, all that good stuff. But you said this is too much and then you went and you invented this job. This personal concierge where you're literally doing these errands for people, but you built a business out of it. Shane Sams: So many people want to jump straight to the full blown like impressive income and it's all perfect. But you're like no, I'm gonna create something new, I'm gonna get in my car and drive around. My dad always told me if the economy ever went bad, he's like we'll just start washing people's cars. We'll go to people who still have jobs, and we'll wash their car right in the parking lot. We'll bring a bucket of water with us. Jocelyn Sams: Sometimes we'll play that game. We'll be like if everything falls apart, what will we do. We just kind of play that game, there's no way we could go back to regular jobs now. Shane Sams: Oh no. Christal H.: Same here. Shane Sams: But like you just invented this thing, but then you evolved it, and you went to the next level and you said okay, now I'm gonna be a virtual assistant. How did you find gigs for that, 'cause I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that are like hey, I can do that, I can be a personal concierge or I could be a virtual assistant. Did you go to Upwork or other places like that to find gigs? Christal H.: No I didn't learn about Upwork until some years later, oddly enough. So I just networked within the city. So even though I knew I wanted to work virtually, yeah, I networked locally. I went to Chamber of Commerce and other ... yeah- Shane Sams: It's a hustle. Christal H.: Meetup and other networking events and just- Shane Sams: See man, there's so many people listening to this right now and if Christal's not your role model at this point of the podcast, I don't know what you're listening to because you're sitting there listening going, man I wish I could change my life. But I don't know what my digital product would be. Shane Sams: Well, how about don't do a digital product. Go to the Chamber of Commerce, or go up and down Main Street, knock on every door and be like hey, is there anything you'd like to outsource to me, I'll even pick up your dry cleaning. Christal H.: Yeah. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, you know we're trying to talk about this more and more now because I feel like this idea of "passive income" has become so romanticized, especially in this space. People have thi…

Full show notes at the publisher

FL264 - Product Launch Plan + Email Subscriber Engagement + Introductory Offer Dec 14, 2018

Show notes

Hey Y'all, welcome to another Flipped Lifestyle Podcast Q&A w/ S&J!

In the Flip Your Life Community, we hold a members-only Q&A twice a month where we answer online business questions of our members live on air!

Today's Q&A highlights answer the following questions:

Question One:

"I'm just starting out, so what should I focus on? I would really like to get a beta launch for my membership up before the Christmas holiday. I'm planning to post on social media everyday. Create a worksheet as a lead magnet for getting people on my email list. Work on getting my website up and running (from scratch). Does this sound like the correct order?"

Question Two:

"How do you launch a membership site to your email list when you haven't emailed them anything in the past couple months?"

Question Three:

"I have a question about an introductory offer. I'm confused about whether I should create a product first (I know that you've mentioned "product first" philosophy), but I've also heard you say about having an audience and finding out what THEY want. I've been focusing on building an audience and getting email subscribers so that I can ask them what they want. I do have a product available, which is career coaching calls, but should I create a digital product now (I have an idea of what I'd like to create) or wait until I have feedback from an audience so I create the right product?"

Success stories mentioned on today's podcast:

"I asked for feedback on my sales pages about 2 months ago and got some great feedback and Jocelyn asked some really powerful questions. I changed one of my sales pages based on Jocelyn's suggestions and CHA-CHING. Four subscribers in three weeks!" - Stephanie

CLICK HERE to get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!

FL263 - We catch up with former guest Daniel Hulsman after his membership launch Dec 11, 2018

Show notes

In today's episode, we catch up with former guest Daniel Hulsman after his membership launch. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn Sams: Hey, y'all. On today's podcast, we catch up with former guest Daniel Hulsman after his membership launch. Shane Sams: Welcome to the Flip 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. Now, we help other families do the same. You ready to flip your life? All right, let's get started. Shane Sams: What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Flip Lifestyle Podcast. It is great to be back with you again this week. I am really pumped up today because we are welcoming back a former guest, who was previously on the show. He's now launched his membership, launched his business, actually has customers, and this is even a more special former guest, because he is our favorite former troll. It's our good buddy, Daniel Hulsman. Daniel, welcome back to the show, man. Daniel Hulsman: Hey, Shane and Jocelyn. Thank you for having me. Jocelyn Sams: Yes, absolutely. We are happy to have you. Jocelyn Sams: ... here, again, today. We have some exciting stuff to talk about, some, kinda, hard stuff to talk about. We just got a really good conversation brewing, today. So we're really excited about this. We've been following along with you after your membership launch. You've had a few ups and downs, I would say. Daniel Hulsman: Yeah. Just a few. Shane Sams: Now, let me get everybody caught back up 'cause I think this is airing somewhere around December, January. I'm not exactly sure. So, Daniel was on the show back in July of 2018. It was episode 212. Right, Jocelyn? Jocelyn Sams: Yep, flippedlifestyle.com/podcast212. Shane Sams: So the interesting story behind Daniel even appearing on the show is Daniel didn't come to the Flipped Lifestyle community or podcast in, what I would call, the normal way. Daniel actually sent me some scathing hate mail at one point. Daniel Hulsman: Oh. It wasn't that. Jocelyn Sams: Okay. Shane Sams: It gets worse every time I tell the story, though. You know how it goes. Jocelyn Sams: In his defense, it's not the worse thing we've ever gotten. Shane Sams: It's not the worse thing we've ever gotten. Daniel Hulsman: It was definitely saucy. Shane Sams: It was saucy? It was quite the criticism. Okay? Daniel Hulsman: Yeah. Shane Sams: As I'm known to do, I like to engage with people online whether it's via email or fan mail or not-so-fan mail. Right? I actually got into a great discussion with Daniel and, kind of, challenged him to come in and actually look at our community, check us out, see how everything's going. Anyway, long story short, I've even invited him on the podcast. I said, "I'll tell you what. Come on the podcast. We'll talk about it," and we did. Right? Daniel's been a member, now, for a while, in the Flip Your Life community and just an awesome guy, just a great heart, and I am so glad that we became friends and that we got to be doing this online business stuff together. Shane Sams: So, long story short, we talked to you about your business and all that good stuff. Tell everybody a little bit, real quick, about your business, the nutshell version and, kind of, what's happened since you've joined the Flip Your Life community since that podcast. Tell them just a little bit about your business and where it ended up at, at this point, today. Daniel Hulsman: Sure. Yeah. So, in a nutshell, I run a website called Video Game Music Academy which is a resource for new and aspiring composers looking to break into the video game industry which is something that I wanted to do when I was younger but there was never any resources. So I decided to make one in ... I believe we talked July 1 when we recorded that episode. On that day, I was just starting off with a 21-day challenge then at the end of that, I launched my membership website. Daniel Hulsman: So on July 1, I had no plan to launch a membership website. On July 21, I launched a membership website. Jocelyn Sams: It's, kind of, funny how that works. You know? A lot of people who know us, they're like, "You know what? I didn't really plan to have an online business but, then, I talked to you guys and y'all have one. Shane Sams: It's funny when people talk to use. They'll come to use with a timeline. They sometimes say, "Yeah, I'm thinking about doing this three months from now." Jocelyn Sams: We're like, "Yeah, I know." Shane Sams: We're like, "What about three days?" Daniel Hulsman: Yeah, that kind of insanity was very motivating. I like that aspect of the challenge when it seems a little bit crazy. So, yeah, the kind of insanity of that short timeline was a great motivator. Since then, I'd say that my website has gone from what you really could've called a hobby, 'cause it wasn't really producing in any meaningful way, to a business where I've got an LLC now and I think that launch gave me a little over 30 members. I launched again for another week, and now the membership part of the website has 58 paying members. Shane Sams: Amazing. Jocelyn Sams: Wow. That is awesome. Shane Sams: That's awesome, Dude. That's like a high. Right? Now, everybody thinks ... Let's look forward. One, congratulations. That's amazing. All right? We're proud of you for doing that. There's a lot of people listening to the show right now that wanna reach through and grab you and take your 58 members for themselves. Right? Shane Sams: It's hard. It's hard to launch a business. It's hard to build a following and it's hard to convince 58 people to give you money every month. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Yeah. Shane Sams: I'm sure that that was, kind of, of a high like one of the craziest best days of your life kinda deals. Jocelyn Sams: Well, and I know that I was so excited when I saw this success story come in. You know? I check our community, pretty much, every day. When I saw that come in, I was like, "Oh, my goodness. I'm so happy." That was awesome. So, we're so pumped. Then, real soon after that, tell everybody a little bit about what happened. Shane Sams: What happened ... Now, so you got members. You've got this active community. You've taken the leap from hobby to business. What happened next? How did it go next? What's happened since that day? Daniel Hulsman: Well, I got hit with what I think I described in the membership community as soul-crushing lack of motivation. Shane Sams: Don't sugar coat it now. Tell me how you were doing. Daniel Hulsman: Yeah. No. Yeah. The soul was definitely under the heel of the boot there. I don't know what it was. Part of me suspected that ... One thing about me is that when I have a big challenge, that excites me, but when I see that I can attain the challenge, when I see that it's doable. If I've done step one and I see that I am capable of completing step 10, then it becomes a big demotivator for me. It's not as exciting anymore. I think that was part of it. Then another part of it was just that I, kind of, got hit with a little bit of the overwhelm, a little bit of the imposter syndrome. It's like all three of those things, sorta, hit at once. Daniel Hulsman: I, kinda, went into a slump for a few weeks really ... right after I'd launched my membership site. It was really tough to get things done and to decide what the best thing to do was. It was really hard to dig myself out of that. It took me about a month, I think, to really dig myself out of that completely. Jocelyn Sams: I love the conversation that came out of that in the community because I feel like there were so many people who jumped in and just said, "Hey, you're not alone," and I really loved that because you're not alone. In fact, I was thinking about that earlier today because one of the things that we did that was really big, recently, is we had a big live event. We thought, "Oh, this isn't possible," and we had this big build-up toward it. We did the event, and now we're, kinda like, "Okay. Well, now what?" Shane Sams: Like you pulled something off that you really- Jocelyn Sams: You really shouldn't have been able to do. Shane Sams: ... really shouldn't be able to pull off. At least, that's what we're taught. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Yep. Shane Sams: You know, it's like we do that and then you're like, "Whoa." Then, on top of that, you're still working full-time. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Yeah, and it was actually interesting. Usually, you expect, when you get a launch and paying members, that that extra money would feel pretty good. But, in this specific case, I was transitioning between two teaching jobs. So my one contract ended at the end of July, and my next contract started at the beginning of September. So I ended up having a month where we just lost my income. That was the money from the website, really, started coming in which was great. It was really needed at the time ... super helpful but, at the same time, it also dulled a lot of the excitement because, instead of feeling like icing on the cake, it felt more like a patch on... a big hole. So- Jocelyn Sams: Well, thank goodness for the patch, though. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Yes. Without the patch, it would've been massive panic attack. Shane Sams: Yeah. You know, it's crazy what people forget when they think about starting a business, being self-employed, or even moving toward that kind of mindset and lifestyle, is just because you're doing that and just because you're succeeding in one area, you still got work. You still got family. You still got kids. All those things are still there and every time we add something, it cuts us a little thinner. You know what I'm saying? It's like in "Lord of the Rings," when he says, "I feel like butter spread too thin on toast," or something. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Yes. Shane Sams: That's what happens, especially early on, not just when you start building the online business, 'cause it's easy to get distracted when you're building everything. You know how you get in those modes of creation where you lose track of time and you look up and it's six hours later and you've built something. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Yep. Shane Sams: It's, kind of, like that when you're building the online business but, then when you launch and it goes out there, now you've actually added one more thing on your plate. Right?- Daniel Hulsman: At least. Shane Sams: ... and we just keep getting ... At least ... and we keep getting sliced thinner, and thinner, and thinner. That can add to the overwhelm. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Oh yeah. Felt like it. That's for sure. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, and I think that this is part of just being, I guess what you'd call a budding entrepreneur. It's because you have all of these things going on. You still have all of your personal life things going on. You still have all your work things going on. Then, you also have the membership community and once you've sold something to someone, you can't just be like, "Okay, guys. Take a little break. See ya." It doesn't exactly work that way. You have to be there for those people, too, which is really cool but it's also a little bit scary when you have so many other things going on, on all the other burners and you're like, "Okay, well, now what?" It's a weird middle ground between starting out and having, I guess what you'd call, a big business where you have people to help you. Shane Sams: So where are we now? So we've got the soul-crushing motivation kicked in. We all had a pow-wow about that in the community. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Oh, yeah. Jocelyn's been like my personal cheerleader, among a lot of people but- Shane Sams: Exactly. So we've gotten to the point where we're, kind of, grinding forward and moving, but where are you right now, just mentally and emotionally when it comes to the business and everything else? You're back in the classroom. You've got your new job. You've transitioned there. Right? So, at least, some of those spoils from that monthly membership feel a little better now. Right? Daniel Hulsman: Yep. Shane Sams: What's happening that's, kind of, stalled you out right now in your business and causing confusion? Daniel Hulsman: Yeah. So, I just opened up the membership again and closed it on October 31. It was open for about 10 days, and got my new members in. So it's only be about a week since I closed the doors, and I know that this is a very critical time for the new members, and also know that I really want to kick things up a notch in terms of content creation inside of the membership community in terms of educational resources. I also know that in January I'm gonna be doing another quarterly challenge or just that 21-day challenge that I use to ... it's been my main source of leads that have turned into sales. Daniel Hulsman: So I've got all these three different things. So I feel like I've got ... I really want to make sure I'm nurturing the community. I really wanna make sure that I'm preparing the website to scale a little bit more, and I also wanna make sure that I'm not just going to assume the funnel is going to be similar in January. I've gotta feed that funnel for the next challenge because I've now put my current list through that same challenge twice in the past six months. So I need to get new people coming in, new people on the list so that I've got more fresh blood in the challenge to go down that funnel towards the end. Daniel Hulsman: On top of that, on the personal side of things, I've transitioned into a new job which is still very high energy. Beginning a new teaching job is tough, learning 500 students' names and blah, blah, blah, a lot of things that go with a new teaching job. I also have some things going on in the family that I'm not gonna go into, but it's been tough on the family and good news, on the positive end, we have our second son. He's gonna be due in early February. Shane Sams: You got about three months, then. Daniel Hulsman: Yeah. Shane Sams: You're like a quarter away from having another human in your life. Jocelyn Sams: And I love how you work, Daniel, because you're, kind of, like us. We're like, "Oh, we have a three-year-old and an 18-month-old. Let's start a couple of businesses. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, sounds like a good time. Like, yeah, totally doable. You know, sometimes, people are the way that they are is, like, you have to have a lot of things going on in order to get things done. I feel like you're probably one of those types of people. I think I'm like that too. Jocelyn Sams: I remember the only time in college that I got all A's was when I had 18 hours and two full-time jobs ... no, two part-time jobs. Sorry. So it ended up being like a full-time job. Then I had 18 hours of course load. Shane Sams: The only time in college I got all A's was the semester I met Jocelyn, to impress her. Jocelyn Sams: 'cause we went to the library all the time. Shane Sams: Once I felt like I was in, I just, kinda, slacked off a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Jocelyn Sams: Which is so true. Shane Sams: I'm listening to ... going back to the soul-crushing motivation moment. Right?…

Full show notes at the publisher

FL262 - Autoresponder Offer + PASPY Formula + Opt-In Strategies + Content Planning Dec 05, 2018

Show notes

Hey Y'all, welcome to another Flipped Lifestyle Podcast Q&A w/ S&J!

In the Flip Your Life Community, we hold a members-only Q&A twice a month where we answer online business questions of our members live on air!

Today's Q&A highlights answer the following questions:

Question One:

"Per the new autoresponder suggestions - we should now immediately deliver a link to the product on the thank you page and up sell. My question - For the up sell should it be our normal 50% off the first month of online training offer or should it be something exclusive, not to be found or offered anywhere else?"

Question Two:

"I know we talked about PASPY at Flip your Life LIVE but are there any specific words or phrases that you use when you are selling on video to get people to buy?"

Question Three:

"Should the main opt-in on my website be broad to cast a wider net (and appeal to more people) or should it be very specific to catch only those who are my super target audience?"

Question Four:

"My husband and I are adopting a baby, so in about a month I'm going to have a newborn for the first time. What do I need to do for my business now so that it keeps running while I'm focused on the baby? I'm at a stage where I'm trying build an audience and get members."

Success stories mentioned on today's podcast:

"I decided today was the day that I would be raising my membership price from $29 to $39 a month. I also did away with the $10 trial membership after today. I had 4 people join the membership rate at $39 a month getting in while the getting was good." - Brenda

"In the last 4 weeks, I've been booked for three speaking engagements totaling almost $16,000!" - Jen

CLICK HERE to get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!

FL261 - We help Jeff find a profitable niche Dec 04, 2018

Show notes

In today's episode, we help Jeff find a profitable niche. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's podcast, we help Jeff find a profitable niche. 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? Alright, let's get started. Shane Sams: What is going on everybody. Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to back with you. Again, today this is our favorite day. It is recording day. It is a day we get to sit down with another member of the Flip Your Life community and help them take their business to the next level. And we're really excited today because this is another member who we have met in real life, Jeff Slaughter. Jeff, welcome to the show. Jeff Slaughter: Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Shane Sams: Let me tell you something, Jeff makes a mean chocolate bar. I'm telling you. He made some chocolate for our live event. Man, it was good. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, we were very fortunate that he brought a lot of chocolate along with him. He shared with everybody in attendance, which was awesome. My favorite were the ones with the little, it was the lip print, I think. I think they were some kind of salted chocolate. I don't know, they were really good. Shane Sams: When we met Jeff, he was like, "I'm a chocolatier." I'm like, "Man, that's a fancy way of making chocolate, but I like it." That's good stuff, man. Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Well, thank you. It was a lot of fun to be able to share that. Jocelyn Sams: Alright, well let's talk a little bit about ... Well, first of all, how did you get into making chocolate? Tell us a little bit about you, your background, your family and what you're doing online. Let's kind of just smash all that in here. Jeff Slaughter: Okay. Well, we moved to Europe in 1998 to serve in missions and landed in France and a couple years later, moved to Belgium. Was doing various mission projects there and wanted to start an online business to kind of help our funding. Jeff Slaughter: So I started one about Brussels and in doing that, I learned a lot about Belgium and Belgian chocolate. And became interested in ... Why is it such a big deal in Belgium? How do you make that? I discovered an online course I could take. Took a three month online course to learn how to do it. Was in Belgium at the time so I could get all my supplies and chocolate and just spend a couple years doing it as a hobby and then when we come back to the U.S., we would do it as a fundraiser. Shane Sams: To support your missions? Like that's what- Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Exactly. It was a great way to ... Kind of a great conversation starter as you saw it, Flip Your Life Nashville. It's interesting. It's not something a lot of people do and it was related to where we were. So it's been a really fun thing to do. It's definitely a side hustle. It's seasonal. I live in Louisiana, it's very hot and so- Shane Sams: The chocolate melts. Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Shane Sams: Right. Jeff Slaughter: So you have about five or six months out of the year where you can do it without worrying about it melting in your car. I do continue to go back to Europe. I'm there now about four months a year. Shane Sams: Doing missions still? You still doing missions? Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Our daughter started having children and my wife felt the call to be a grandmother. So we moved back to the U.S. and based here in Louisiana and I travel back and forth. What I do now is I do worship conferences all over Europe and digital media conferences for churches and ministries. So when I'm there, that's pretty much what I'm doing, going from country to country doing these conferences. Organizing them and making them happen. Shane Sams: Do you have just one child? Jeff Slaughter: We have three. Shane Sams: Okay. Jeff Slaughter: We have a daughter, who has two birth children and a foster daughter. And then two sons. Shane Sams: Well, you are busy. You are jumping back and forth across the pond chasing grandkids. Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. In fact, I just got my ... Jocelyn Sams: Making Belgian chocolate in Louisiana. Shane Sams: Making Belgian chocolate when you can. Jeff Slaughter: Uh-huh. Yeah. Jocelyn Sams: Alright, well you have a very interesting life here Jeff. Shane Sams: I know, right? Let me just give you some context here. Meeting Jeff in person, he's just this sweet, good, kind-hearted, normal guy, right? And then like, "What do you do?" "Well, I fly over to Europe, I make chocolate." It's amazing. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. I feel like you are short changing yourself, you know? You're just like, "Ah, yeah. I kind of just make some Belgian chocolate on the side." Jeff Slaughter: That's not how- Shane Sams: "I fly to Europe a couple times a year. I live in Louisiana, whatever. That's just what I do." Jeff Slaughter: It is an interesting life. I was in healthcare marketing before Europe, for 12 years. In a way I feel like I flipped my life on April 1st, 1998 when we moved to Europe. Because I had left what had grown to be a grind to me and was entering something that was life to me. Jeff Slaughter: And it still is 20 years later. I'm still enjoying it and all, but now ... I want to get into position to be able to support ourselves and not have to worry so much about retirement. Although, I don't plan on retiring until I'm in the box. Jeff Slaughter: I need to do something for the future. That's why I'm wanting to do something online that's substantial that we can build an income that will support us and let us continue to do what we're doing in Europe. Shane Sams: You know what's amazing about what you just said, and people really miss this sometimes I think, when we say, "Flip your life." Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm. Shane Sams: Flip Your Life doesn't mean make a million dollars online. It doesn't mean get famous online or anything like that. What it means, is taking control of your life and being in control of your future. Now, you said you did that when you went into something that gave you life, right? It doesn't matter how much money you're making if you wake up every day and you know that you're living a life of purpose, and that's what you did. Jeff Slaughter: Right. Shane Sams: And when you know you've got control of tomorrow, that's what flipping your life means. When we flipped our life and quit our job, we had made a lot of money the month before, but we actually had no clue if we were going to make money the next, the month after that, during February and the slow months. When we did it and we were home that first day, we looked at each other and said, "Honestly, we'll never go back. I don't care if we're broke, if we can just pay the bills, we are staying right here in freedom." Shane Sams: I love when you said that about you felt like you already flipped your life and now you're just looking for a little more control of the future. And you want to support your missions. Jeff Slaughter: Right, exactly. Shane Sams: Without having to ask other people to help you do it kind of deal. Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. I mean, support raising isn't easy and you tend to lose some over the years with attrition. I just feel like I can figure out a way to make it happen on my own. Shane Sams: That sounds like a membership. That's what it sounds like. Jeff Slaughter: It does. Shane Sams: You lose a little on attrition, you got to go find more, you know. Jocelyn Sams: Well, let's talk a little bit about what you've been doing so far. Jeff Slaughter: Okay. Jocelyn Sams: You have the chocolate business and I presume that's something you do locally, right? Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Although, I do have an online presence. I have about 400 email addresses and I sell online. I do some markets, although markets aren't that great for me. Shane Sams: You sell the chocolate online, not how to do the chocolate online? Jeff Slaughter: Right, I sell chocolate. I'll just make it and sell it. Christmas is a big time of year, Valentine's kind of ... Probably from about November through April, Easter, are my biggest sales months. I also do workshops. I go out and do workshops in homes and church kitchens and what not. I've done parties before. That kind of thing. Just trying to be creative in ways I sell it. Jeff Slaughter: But not in stores yet. Not really at that level of production yet to make a lot to be in stores. The profit margin is a lot smaller because you have to give up 30 to 40%. Shane Sams: Right. Jocelyn Sams: And I personally can attest that the chocolate is very tasty, so if someone is interested in checking out your chocolate site, what is that URL? Shane Sams: Okay, it's www.chezslaughterchocolate.com and Chez Slaughter is spelled C-H-E-Z, Slaughter as in S-L-A-U-G-H-T-E-R. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, there's not a lot of times people come on the Flipped Lifestyle podcast talking about something called "Chez", okay? Shane Sams: Chez chocolate. Jeff Slaughter: People usually say, "Chez" and the funny thing about that- Shane Sams: Oh, that's all we say down here, bro. Jeff Slaughter: I know. Shane Sams: People would be like, "Chez chocolate, Chez Slaughter? Who's that guy?" Right? Jeff Slaughter: People have called me Chez. Jeff Slaughter: It's actually a play on words because it's a French word that means house or place and so basically, it means slaughterhouse chocolate. Shane Sams: That is great. Jocelyn Sams: Okay, okay. That's pretty cool. Alright, well, it is really tasty so if you guys want to check that out, definitely do that, alright Shane Sams: Tell us about your other online business. Jeff Slaughter: That's my Christmas play business. Shane Sams: Tell us a little bit about that. Jeff Slaughter: Sure. When you guys announced Flip Your Life Live Nashville back in January, I was so excited to be able to come to something like that, I signed up as soon as I could. I loved the Facebook group that we had. Because it really pushed us towards being prepared to come and actually make something happen. And make something happen before you came. Jeff Slaughter: So many conferences you sign up for, you just go and sit and wait for words of wisdom to fall out. But this one was really ... You know, vintage Flip Your Life is, no, you got to roll up your sleeves and do the work before you come. Then when you come, it'll be more worth your time. Jeff Slaughter: I knew I needed a project and I wasn't really to commit to something ... the big idea. So I decided, well I have this Christmas script I wrote. I've had it on my website for a few years. It's never really gone anywhere. Let me put the Flip Your Lifestyle spin on it and see what I can do. Jeff Slaughter: So, that's what I did. I followed how you guys were teaching with Facebook advertising. I redid my website. Basically, started advertising mid August and it went through into September and during that time, I got about 200 downloads. I had 800 landing page views, 200 downloads. I've sold 8 scripts so far. Shane Sams: Amazing. Jeff Slaughter: So, it's not a huge amount of money. Not a huge amount of scripts sold, but, I guess it's about 4% of the script downloads, converted to sales. Shane Sams: That's amazing. Jeff Slaughter: What I learned is that ... I mean, this was a very small project, but I took what you guys taught and was able to get through it really quick and learn a lot in the space of six to eight weeks. That really taught me a lot. I now know I can take on something bigger and push it through easier and more confidently because I just took the steps of just doing a small project. Shane Sams: Amazing, and these are Christmas scripts for churches to do a play or things like that? Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Well, it's Christmas play. It tells the Christmas story through the eyes of the innkeeper and his family. It kind of brought them to life, basically just told the Christmas story through their experience. Shane Sams: How does- Jocelyn Sams: And it's called Christmas at Bethlehem Inn, right? Jeff Slaughter: That's right. Shane Sams: Yeah, I love this story because you took the first step that most people won't take. And I'm really calling anybody out there right now that's listening to this in their car or at the gym or maybe on a walk, and you're not taking action because you're looking for the perfect idea, you're looking for the home run and you're sitting there saying yourself, "Well, if I just knew what to do." Shane Sams: But that's the thing is none of us know what to do. The only thing we can do is try. And we encourage so many people when they come to the community, like, "What's your idea?" "Well, I got this but I don't know about it." And we're like, "Do it." Because you're going to learn the process. You're going to take action. You're going to move forward. You're going to figure out all the stuff so that the next idea, which is probably the better idea, is going to be easier, faster to implement and you're actually going to give yourself a chance to succeed. Shane Sams: I think that's what people really ... Most people only see success on the other side. They see us and they're like, "Okay, well you had this business and it worked." Well, did you see the four things we tried before that failed? That's what everyone listening has to do. If you don't ever try anything, you'll never know if it does or doesn't work. And that's really all we're trying to figure out is. If it does or doesn't work. Shane Sams: It's like the light bulb. Edison didn't just be like, "Well, this one is good." He had a thousand of them that failed until he figured out the one that did work. And you got to go into online business, you got to go into self employment thinking to yourself, "I just have to start and take step after step and when I take two steps back, take three steps forward and get back on the wagon and go try the next thing." Because sooner or later, something will work and the people that get rewarded online, are the people that start. Shane Sams: So kudos to you dude, for just starting something even knowing that it might not be the home run. What if it is? What if a month from now and it's Christmas and like, "Whoa, I sold a hundred of these things." You never know and now you're ready to take the next step as well. Jocelyn Sams: Well, the beautiful thing about that business is, it's there. You have that script, it's always there. So even if you do decide if you want to move onto something else, you've already done that work. It's just going to continue to work in the background, which is really cool. Shane Sams: Hey man. Jesus' birthday comes around once a year and there's always an innkeeper in the story last I checked. Shane Sams: That's evergreen content at it's best. Jeff Slaughter: Exactly. Shane Sams: Right? Jeff Slaughter: What I learned was that if I ... You know, I sell the script right now for $97 and it comes with four bonuses. I just got two more sales on Saturday, which is really funny because they came within three or four hours of each other. And I was like, "Okay, it…

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FL260 - We help Jennifer take her education business to the next level Nov 30, 2018

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In today's episode, we talk about how we help Jennifer overcome fears and create a plan to quickly grow her membership by the end of the year. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's show, we help Jennifer take her education 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. Shane Sams: What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to be back with you again this week. We have a beautiful day in Kentucky and we have an amazing guest. Another member of the Flip Your Life community. On the show today, we want to welcome Jennifer Bradley. Jennifer, welcome to the podcast. Jennifer B.: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you guys. Jocelyn Sams: It is great to talk to you again. Jennifer is someone we have actually met in real life, which is really exciting. You guys know that I love it when we have people on that we have met in real life. This is a really good show for me. Shane Sams: And I was telling Jennifer off air, we may know Jennifer better than anyone who has ever been on the show because she's also a member of our all-access mastermind. I literally talk to Jennifer every single day on Voxer. Jennifer B.: Yes. Jocelyn Sams: And we chose Jennifer to be a part of the podcast because she is a community member who believes in posting her success. Shane Sams: And taking massive action in her business. Jocelyn Sams: When we look for people to be a guest on the podcast, we look for people who are really taking action, who are letting other people know about the successes that they're having. And that is why she's here today. Jocelyn Sams: Let's jump into a little bit of that. Start out by telling everyone about who you are and a little bit about your background and your business. Jennifer B.: I'm Jennifer Bradley and I'm from Michigan. I have three little kids at home. Ages seven, four and two. And then I'm married to my high school sweetheart. My business is I'm a speech therapist. I started out selling on a third-party platform Teachers Pay Teachers. I'd just sell therapy materials that I have created. I recently, about a year ago, turned it into a membership platform. I have all of my therapy materials in one area for speech therapists to use. Shane Sams: And how has that gone? I know a lot of people that is a scary transition. They'll go to a third-party marketplace, they'll make a little money online, whether it's putting a book on Kindle or selling something on you-to-me or in another place like that. Then it's like, "Oh, man. If I go offline, how am I gonna find customers?" All that thing. How's your membership going? Jennifer B.: It's going great. At first, it was a little scary. A little bit daunting to have my own website and send traffic there. But I'm really seeing the benefits now because I own it and as a third-party website I'm on there and I have no control of changes that are made. Since I'm always selling one-off products, I have to continuously sell and sell because most of my products range from $3 to $10. Where the membership is growing now, I'm having members and I'm in charge of my own destiny. It's been an amazing transition. Shane Sams: How many members do you have now? Jennifer B.: I have 380 members now. Shane Sams: Oh my goodness. That's insane. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, that's awesome. Shane Sams: Just think about what you said out loud. We don't get too far into numbers for people, but I'm gonna paint the picture here for everybody. What if you had 380 people paying you 25 bucks a month or 50 bucks a month or 100 bucks a month. That's a crazy amount of customers and really all they're doing is logging into a community and getting access to your resources, right? Jennifer B.: Mm-hmm. Yeah. They just log in. They have access to all my therapy materials that were on TpT. Shane Sams: But we sat down at Flip Your Life Live last year and I worked with you at our table for a little while. You were telling me so many amazing things that I hear from so many people, "Oh, my gosh. I was afraid." You had something making money. This third-party marketplace. It was making good money too, right? Jennifer B.: Yes. Shane Sams: And you're like, "Oh my gosh. What if I stop promoting that? Is that gonna die? Am I gonna give up a good thing? A bird in the hand is better ..." All those fears that we have. I remember we were talking about your promotion strategy and you were still really promoting even the third-party marketplace. I looked over and I'm, "But the membership's making as much money as that. Why would you just not promote the thing that's passive and create stable predicable income?" And we were like, "Yeah. That's probably what I should do." Right? Jennifer B.: Yeah. I needed you to knock some sense into me because I was only pretty much promoting TpTs little one-off sales. Since starting to work with you guys, I have gone up almost 100 members in a month. I needed that. Shane Sams: That's incredible. Jocelyn Sams: Okay. That's awesome. Shane Sams: That's why we love bringing success stories on because most of the time people know what to do and they do just need to talk it through with somebody and see the fork in the road and be like, "Yeah, I've been down this road 100 times. I'm telling you, it's the right thing." But the most important thing is you actually took action on it. That's why you got 100 members in a month is because you said, "Yeah. That's the path I need to go down. I just need to hammer down on it." And that's what we love about you, Jennifer. 'Cause you put in the work. You do what it takes. It takes some risks. It takes a little discomfort at times to make it to the next level. Shane Sams: We were just meeting with our live event coordinator for next years live event. We were like, "Could we double or triple the amount of people who come to Flip Your Life Live?" I looked over at Jocelyn and I said, "This feels really scary. Though, it's probably right." That's where you were. Do I go all in on the membership and leave behind what got me here to get to the next level? And that was scary, wasn't it? Jennifer B.: Yes, it was very scary. Because TpT was a big income for me. To just let that do its own thing without promoting it was a very big jump. But it's been working out really well. Shane Sams: Now, you're full-time online. I know you do go in to the school every once in a while just for a couple hours to keep your toe in the water, but you are full-time online correct? Jennifer B.: Yes, yes. Shane Sams: Well, I just want to first, before we got on, 'cause we're gonna try and help you get to the next level. That's always our goal. There's always a next level. There's always a way to raise the bar. But congratulations for flipping your life because it takes a lot of energy and effort and courage while you've got three kids under the age of seven at home to do what you've done. And we never want to shortchange that. It's so easy to get complacent and it's so easy to always look ahead. But sometimes look back and say, "Wow. I've done something that 90% of people are not doing." And you've done a great job of that, Jennifer, so congratulations. Jennifer B.: Thank you. Thank you. Jocelyn Sams: I think that it's important to recognize that Jennifer didn't wave her magic wand to make all this happen. There was a lot of hard work and energy that went behind it. But I think that in hindsight you would say that it was worth it. Jennifer B.: Oh, yeah. Definitely. I didn't watch TV for three years, but it paid off in the end. Jocelyn Sams: Exactly. Shane Sams: I love it when people say that because we gave up cable for two years. I remember the day I turned cable back on and I just sat there flipping through the channels and I was like, "I get to do this for the rest of my life now. And I don't have to worry about it anymore." Jennifer B.: Right. Exactly. Shane Sams: What brought you to the Flip Your Life community? Jennifer B.: I heard you guys on Pat Flynn. I had been a part of another membership community to grow memberships. It was a great community, but it wasn't as family focused. It was more technical focused. I liked that you guys had the technical part but also you were a family. You were a husband and wife team. It was very focused on the community and the members helping each other and I really liked that aspect of it. Shane Sams: You know, that's one reason we started the Flip Your Life community in the first place. Because when we were out trying to start our online business, we found the same thing. We found a lot of courses. We found a lot of people telling you how to do things. But we didn't find anywhere where we felt like people were focused on the real issues that were holding us back. The things that held us back were not we couldn't grind though and figure out WordPress or we couldn't grind through and figure out how to take payments for a product. Those are all solvable issues. It was we've got a four-year-old and two-year-old and they're screaming while we have 30 minutes to work. What do we do? We had to stumble through all those problems ourselves and when we decided to start teaching this, we were like, "That's where we need to focus our energy. Helping people deal with the real issues that hold them back. Shane Sams: It's why we love people that come on with three, four, five, six, even seven kids. Because it just proves out there, look, Jennifer has three kids. Jennifer has a life. Jennifer was working. She built a business online. There you go. Why are you not doing that? I just want to encourage anybody that hears this. You can do this while raising a family working full-time. You just gotta take the inspiration and do it. Jennifer B.: That's what I liked. You guys talk a lot about the mindset and the fears. I think that was more my big thing. Getting over that stuff than anything. Jocelyn Sams: That's one thing that we've just really learned through the years of doing this. Usually, things boil down to something that we're afraid of. Maybe it's something that we think we can't do. Or some kind of self-limiting belief is what causes a lot of people's issues. Jocelyn Sams: Let's dive into that a little bit. Let's explore what's going on with you as far as what is holding you back right now? If you were to look at something and say, "I'm worried about something. Or I'm afraid I can't do something." What might that be? Shane Sams: 'Cause the fears do not go away just because you become successful. In fact, they may get bigger and you just have to keep overcoming that next obstacle. That next fear. That next mindset issue every step of the journey. I don't want anyone out there to say, "Wow. Shane, Jocelyn and Jennifer have made it. They're never afraid again." Right? We all have fears that are holding us back. What's challenging you right now? Jennifer B.: I think the fear of overall being judged by selling things or I'm being too pushy and just having that being judged by the speech community. Because it's a smaller community of professionals. So, I don't want to have ... I'm afraid of getting judged about being that pushy sales person I guess. Jocelyn Sams: I totally understand that. I've definitely gone through that as well. I think in the education space especially you can have these types of fears because a lot of people offer things for free because it's education. You have this mindset that, "Oh, nobody wants to pay for anything." Things like that. Would you say that that is part of it? Jennifer B.: Yes. Definitely part of it. Like I should be giving away things for free instead. Shane Sams: What happens here is it's a lot like everything else in our society in 2018 basically. The loudest voices come from the fringes. Right? And when you get the person who's really bitter and is a taker and wants everything free and really doesn't respect. I find that a lot of people that write us hate mail or something because we charge for our products or something like that, they're usually coming from a place of disempowerment and they're really mad and bitter. And they almost feel entitled like someone should either give them everything or maybe they're just frustrated and they can't achieve it and they wish they could have it, but they're not really willing to do what it takes, so they want to complain about it. Right? Jennifer B.: Right. Shane Sams: What we have found is those loud voices from the fringes are the ones that derail us the hardest. We look at our comments all the time. We look at our Facebook posts. We look at the emails that we receive. We look at our ... Even our reviews on our podcast on iTunes. Probably 1% of them are actually complaining or actually negative. But they are so loud and so mean that they just override ... You have 300 and something people paying you money every month without complaining. But that one comment on the webinar in the chat box ... wants to make you just bash your head through the wall. Jennifer B.: Yeah. Exactly. Shane Sams: It's just really important to keep that in context that we live in a world where anybody can scream as loud as they want and holler as loud as they want. But the people who recognize our effort and recognize our work- Jocelyn Sams: And find value in it. Shane Sams: And find value in it. And not only that, have found a way to believe in themself enough to bet on their own life. To bet on their own future with their money and their time. Those are the people we've got to really focus on. Because if we focus on the bad people that are judging us, how can we help the good people that aren't? Jennifer B.: Right. Shane Sams: We struggled through this when we were about to host our live event. We were like, "Who are we to host a live event? Everybody else goes and speaks at live events. You have 10 speakers on stage. We were like, "No, we're gonna host our own. We're gonna speak on stage for two straight days and interact with over 100 people. That's what we're gonna do." We had some negative comments. We had some negative things that we had to deal with. But look at all the good that came out of that live event. Just for you and for other people. If we listened to those negative voices, then we don't get to help all the people that really need it. Jennifer B.: Yeah. That makes sense. Yes. Jocelyn Sams: Sometimes it's hard to listen to that voice. Especially when you have these people who are saying, "Oh, well, your product's too expensive." Or, "I don't want to join your membership because it should be free. I can get better stuff like this for free." Well, you know what? That's fine. They're not your people. Shane Sams: Go do it, dude. Jocelyn Sams: Go for it. Do it. Spend your time looking for it. It is out there. But if you want to spend your time and effort doing it, then you're not my customer. I think that it just takes a little bit of ti…

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FL259 - List Building + Facebook Strategy + Content Marketing + Youtube Live Nov 27, 2018

Show notes

Hey Y'all, welcome to another Flipped Lifestyle Podcast Q&A w/ S&J!

In the Flip Your Life Community, we hold a members-only Q&A twice a month where we answer online business questions of our members live on air!

Today's Q&A highlights answer the following questions:

Question One:

"How can we build an email list while we are still finishing course content, website, etc?"

Question Two:

"I have 5500 members on facebook, what strategy should I use to convert them into email subscribers? I have only asked for subscribers once and we got 100. On a typical post, it shows it was seen by 600-750 people and 1300-2000 on live videos. What is a creative way to keep it front of them to continue to get more email subscribers?"

Question Three:

"How much content should be in place on the website before launching the membership? Currently there is plenty of content on social media places, but not much on the website. I have focused my efforts to make up a minimal product as a lead magnet. So how can I launch the membership before writing much or blogging?"

Question Four:

"One of the services you offer FYL members are the member call replays. I really value this and want to offer the same for my community. Will you share exactly how you do it, including the tools you use? Is it just Youtube live and vimeo? How do you get the chat under the live video?"

CLICK HERE to get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!

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