FL254 - We help Dan determine next steps in moving forward and growing his online business that teaches birth professionals about how to effectively operate a successful small business

In today's episode, we help Dan determine next steps in moving forward and growing his online business that teaches birth professionals about how to effectively operate a successful small business.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's show we help Dan take his birth consulting business to the next level.

Shane Sams: Welcome to The Flip Lifestyle Podcast, where life always comes before work. We're your host, 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? Alright, 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 today, we're super excited to welcome another member of our Flip Your Life community onto the show today to help them take their business to the next level and really, really especially excited today because we have a great friend of ours, someone who's been in the community for a long time, hung out with him in person numerous times and can't wait to help them today, Dan Dekker is on the program. Dan, what's up, man?

Dan Dekker: Giddy up, giddy up, let's make some money. Woo!

Jocelyn Sams: That's probably the most energetic introduction we've ever had.

Shane Sams: I always love talking to you 'cause I know it's gonna be entertaining, especially when you do something like this. When I was reading your form that you filled out to be on the podcast, I love how ... Where it said like talking about your family, and you put three offspring. And I'm like, "Only Dan's putting offspring instead of children on the show, man." But Dan's got an awesome story, awesome business and we've had a lot of good times with Dan. So we're gonna ramp up everything that's going on in Dan's life today. So, Dan, tell us a little bit about you and your family and your online business.

Dan Dekker: Well, first of all I like to pretend I'm from Kentucky but I wasn't actually born there so unfortunately I don't really have that accent. But yeah, my wife and I, Rebecca, started ... She started an online business 4 or 5 years ago and it really took off. I'm kind of in this weird spot where like, yeah, we flipped our lives, we have an online business that fully supports us and our family now, which is totally awesome.

Shane Sams: Amazing.

Dan Dekker: And now I'm kind of starting my own thing so it's this weird mix of, I've seen it happen and was sort of along for the ride but for myself I'm kind of starting from scratch and having to do it all myself, which has been definitely a learning experience. But I have my business degree. I always did accounting work for different businesses up until four years ago when I quit to do mainly the accounting and helping with our website full time and to watch the kids full time. So, I did that and now just recently ... Well, I should say our business is a childbirth-related business. My wife started it. It gives education materials to childbirth professionals. So for the last 4 or 5 years we've been dealing with these childbirth professionals on a regular basis.

Dan Dekker: And that's where I kind of came up with this idea after meeting with all these doulas and midwives and childbirth educators, and realizing that a lot of them were really good at their jobs, were great at dealing with moms and families that are having babies, but they weren't all that great with the business side. You know, they get lots of training about how to help deliver a baby but no one tells them how to run a business. And so that's where this idea came from and that's what I'm starting as. It's a training class, kind of starting with the very beginning, for birth professionals to train them how to run a small business.

Shane Sams: So, Rebecca's business ... She is an expert in the birth and babies field, right?

Dan Dekker: Right, yeah.

Shane Sams: And her main priority is getting the research and the information to these nurses, doulas, you know, midwives, people who are helping people have a baby, right?

Dan Dekker: Correct. Yeah.

Shane Sams: And you have been kind of on the backend doing the accounting, taking care of the book work so she can focus on the research and getting this content to her audience. And as you were doing this, you were like, "Wow, that person is the best midwife ever, but, her books are in shambles and she has no idea what to charge or how to collect money or do anything like that so she can't sustain her business which would let her help other people, basically."

Dan Dekker: Exactly, yeah. Rebecca kept getting questions from people 'cause they see her running a successful business and she starts answering these business questions for them just 'cause they don't know where else to turn and she was able to help with these questions, so yeah.

Shane Sams: And I'm sure it's like many businesses, you know? Every field has its nuances, right? There's like, certain lingo, a certain tool, certain things you buy that some other businesses wouldn't buy, right? And you wouldn't understand exactly how to write it off or how to file it under your taxes or do things like that. But you guys literally have been in this field now for so many years that you're like, "Yeah, I know all that stuff." And you just wanted to turn that into kind of a course and hand it out there, right?

Dan Dekker: Yep, that's exactly it. So ... And yeah, just last night we launched the class a couple of weeks ago, and just last night I had my first webinar so-

Shane Sams: Awesome.

Dan Dekker: It went really well.

Shane Sams: Now, let's back up a little bit, let's talk about this.

Dan Dekker: We don't need all the details.

Shane Sams: Let's go back into the details here.

Jocelyn Sams: Well, first of all, before we get into all that, I just wanna say that I feel like this fits into a little box all too conveniently. So, can you talk a little bit about how you arrived at doing this? Because you didn't start out doing this birth business thing. You were gonna do something totally different. So, can you kind of take us down that road a little bit and like what made you decide to go this way?

Shane Sams: Yeah, what was your first idea that you kind of had a couple of months ago?

Dan Dekker: Well, if you back up even a little before that, it was on a member call or somewhere. We were talking to you guys and we're like, "Hey, we got this one business, Dan's thinking of starting his own business, should we do it?" And you guys were like, "No, don't do it, just go all in with the one business."

Shane Sams: Stay in the field, right?

Dan Dekker: And then we went to a business conference and Seth Godin was speaking there and he had a Q&A and so we were like, "Hey Seth, we got this one business that's going good. We're thinking of starting a second one." He was like, "No, you shouldn't do that either."

Jocelyn Sams: So, naturally.

Shane Sams: See, Seth agrees with me as always.

Jocelyn Sams: So, naturally, you decided to do what?

Dan Dekker: So, I just went for it anyway, yeah.

Shane Sams: I did not listen to Seth Godin or Shane and Jocelyn.

Dan Dekker: I got a lot of good advice and then I ignored all of it.

Shane Sams: That's how most people do man. So, tell us about that business and what happened, okay?

Dan Dekker: So, I started a travel website. Since we flipped our lives and we don't have ... We've so much more free time and we really love traveling ... So that's been a big thing for us. My family is still in Michigan. So we go up there several weeks a year and we've been using all this time we have now to travel 'cause we can work from wherever. So I'm like, "You know what? I'm gonna start a site helping families learn how to take these longer vacations, basically." So, I did that, I got a website up, I wrote some articles. Worked on it a little bit and just went totally nowhere.

Jocelyn Sams: What? You built it and people didn't come?

Shane Sams: I know, right?

Dan Dekker: That's right. Yeah, they lied in the movie Field of Dreams.

Shane Sams: He's a liar, that Kevin Costner, you should never trust him, ever.

Dan Dekker: Sketchy.

Shane Sams: He's sketchy, man.

Dan Dekker: So, yeah, I did that. I had a Facebook group. I think the only ... Like, actually I had to tell Rebecca to join my Facebook group. I'm like, "I have no members. And even you haven't joined."

Shane Sams: I love it.

Dan Dekker: But yeah, it was a big flop in the end of it. But, I'll tell you the nice part was when I had this new idea, all this stuff that I learned from the first one, like-

Shane Sams: That's right.

Dan Dekker: Setting up WordPress, setting up ConvertKit, which is our email provider, all those things ... I wasn't intimidated or worried about all of that. I was just like, "You know what? I'm just gonna work on the class and I can stand up a website and do all of that real quick." So that was the one good part about it. It got me-

Jocelyn Sams: So you-

Dan Dekker: Past some of those initial hurdles.

Jocelyn Sams: Learned things by making mistakes.

Shane Sams: Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Jocelyn Sams: Hmm. Very interesting.

Dan Dekker: That's right. And I actually tried something and failed, but I learned something.

Shane Sams: That's okay. And I like ... What's cool is, you know ... Here's what ... We like to watch ... In the community we see this happen all the time. When you're doing the travel thing ... Like, once you decide to do it, we're onboard with it. We're like, "Okay, if you want to do it-

Jocelyn Sams: "Like, we support you."

Shane Sams: "We support you. Whatever you want to do, man." You know? So it's like, "Watch the WordPress course, do the thing, do this, and we'll be here when you're ready to pivot, okay?" And like, as you're doing these things, I remember you come back later and we start talking again about how kind of like the travel thing's not going and this. But like, it's not that we didn't want you to start a business, right? We wanted you to start a business, but to capitalize on all of the things that you already had in place. You know, you have these skills 'cause you've been working on the business. You've been doing the accounting. You're like the master of the backend of this business that you and Rebecca have created. And she already had an existing audience, which is the most powerful thing. The most unfair advantage that anyone can have when they're starting out is if they've not made a dime, is they have an audience to market something to.

Dan Dekker: True.

Shane Sams: And that's kind of what we really wanted you to do was like, "Man, take advantage of the advantages that you have. Don't just seek something brand new." Because that's the hard, hard, hard road. And what you want to do in online business is you want to hit something and then go back and hit it again. And you want to find that nail and hammer it some more instead of just starting from scratch every time. 'Cause we see that happen all the time in the community. Someone will get the shiny object itch and they'll be like, "Hey, I travel. I'll take pictures and do the same thing. I'll make a travel blog, right?" Like, they all-

Jocelyn Sams: That's not to say that's a bad business-

Shane Sams: It's not.

Jocelyn Sams: It just maybe wasn't the right fit for you.

Dan Dekker: No, and definitely the thing that surprised me most about a travel business is I felt like I was pressured on vacation to do all this business stuff, you know?

Shane Sams: Oh, yeah.

Dan Dekker: Like, we were going, for example, into Memphis for spring break and I'm like, "Alright, we gotta hit all these like major attractions in Memphis or else I'm like not doing my job. And I'm like, "That's not what vacation's about." You know?

Jocelyn Sams: And a lot of people [crosstalk 00:09:44] might not know, but we have a YouTube channel and we do some travel reviews. Just more as like a lifestyle type thing.

Shane Sams: But I've started like blocking off three-hour windows for like, "Okay, guys. I've got everything written down we're gonna get at the hotel. Alright, go play on that playground for 25 seconds." You know, and like-

Jocelyn Sams: We really do this.

Shane Sams: Like ... 'Cause I record a lot anyway. And our goal is to get a film crew to come with us. That's our ultimate goal.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. So eventually we're gonna

Shane Sams: That may workout next year, you know?

Jocelyn Sams: Have the whole ... Yeah. The whole crew come along with us. And like, you know, they work some.

Dan Dekker: 'Cause it is super distracting. And you're like ... And the kids want to do it so bad. They want to see themselves on YouTube.

Shane Sams: Show their friends and stuff. Yeah, it's annoying when you get there.

Dan Dekker: Okay, so let's fast forward a little bit. Okay, so the idea re-materializes. We kind of pivot. We reached out for you and like, "Okay, maybe I should focus on what I'm really, really good at and market it to all of these people who have already bought things in this space."

Jocelyn Sams: We're on a member call and you're like, "Should I do this?" We're like, "Yes!"

Shane Sams: "Yes! That's what we want you to do." That's what we're talking about. If you'd asked Seth, he would have told you the same thing, okay?

Dan Dekker: Yeah.

Shane Sams: Alright, now ... But, even though ... I love this story. This is amazing. Even though you've been in The Flip Your Life Community for ... I don't know how long-

Jocelyn Sams: Like pretty much since it existed.

Shane Sams: Three years or something like that, right? Even though every time you all do something, we talk about it, it always happens and works and explodes and goes crazy. Which I know y'all have another big win that I'm gonna ask you about in a minute. But like, you still hesitated. I felt this hesitation coming from you of getting in this and like, "Okay, I can make this course. I can teach these people. I can help them create sustainable businesses that throw the pebble in the pond and the ripple is a lot of babies are healthy and born and families are happy and they're not worried." But you were just ... What was the hesitation to launch? Even just a couple of weeks ago?

Dan Dekker: I realized I had ... I struggle with doing some of these new things. If I don't know exactly what to do, it's like just enough to stop me from fully going through with it, you know?

Shane Sams: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Dekker: Like the best analogy I could make is ... I don't play many video games, but when I used to, I knew these people, they'd play a game one time and they move on to the next game. And like that was never me. I'd play one game and I'd learn it and then I'd play it like a hundred times. And I'd do it slightly different every single time, you know?

Shane Sams: Oh, I gotcha. Yeah, oh yeah.

Dan Dekker: And that's kind of what it is with me, you know? Like, when I worked in IT company, we had this special software and I learned the software and I got so into it. I became like the office guru. I went to conferences for the software and everything, you know? Like, that's me.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, I get you, man. I get you-

Shane Sams: You and Jocelyn are the same soul.

Jocelyn Sams: Okay, I really do. No, I love that. I love to refine. I love to make things better. Like, that's who I am.

Dan Dekker: But then it's like, "Okay, but I have to go learn all this new stuff. I have to learn how to use Zoom or like do a webinar", which I'd never done before. And that's where I just almost subconsciously hang myself up. So yeah, I spent most of the summer just trying to design this PowerPoint to get it ready to record to make a class.

Shane Sams: Alright. It's all good. This is the perfect segue into where I'm going with this. Okay. So Dan is totally stuck and Dan comes to Flip Your Life Live in Nashville.

Jocelyn Sams: This was like three weeks ago.

Shane Sams: That's right. So Dan comes there and the first day we had a long day of learning and Q&As and Masterminding and just working together. And the first night we had a working dinner, which was from seven till 11 o'clock. Everybody, the entire conference, was in one giant room. We ate dinner and we all just stayed in there until we almost collapsed working on whatever we were taking action on.

Jocelyn Sams: Literally almost collapsed for me.

Shane Sams: Literally. Jocelyn almost did collapse. She actually went to bed right before me and I was like stumbling up the stairs about to pass out. And then we had to speak all day the next day, too. So it was madness. But anyway, so I'm walking around helping different tables. And I sit down and ... Across the table ... There was a round table, there was about eight people there. Dan was directly across. I mean, we couldn't have sat more perfectly across from each other. And when I sat down, I was going around and I was talking to a couple different people. And I think I helped someone else at the table first. And then I look over and I make eye contact with Rebecca, Dan's wife, who is sitting beside him. And this is no lie-

Dan Dekker: I did not know this part of the story, by the way.

Shane Sams: No, this is no lie. So Rebecca ... I make eye contact with Rebecca first. Rebecca was already ... We had kind of talked before the event a little bit on some member calls and stuff and she was working on a book. She kind of knew what she was going with. They were getting ready to launch a live event. She kind of knew what she was doing. But I looked at her first and she leans back behind Dan and she looks at me and I could just see in eyes and she kind of shook her head like, "Get him, Shane. Get him. No mercy. No sugar. Tell him how it is."

Jocelyn Sams: This is the beauty of working with your spouse.

Dan Dekker: Oh my goodness.

Jocelyn Sams: I totally get this, you know?

Shane Sams: She knew it. She set you up, dude. And so then my eyes kind of snapped back to Dan. And he kind of like leaned back like, "Oh, gosh."

Jocelyn Sams: "It's coming."

Shane Sams: "It's coming."

Dan Dekker: It's like in school. I looked down, like, "Don't make eye contact." Right?

Shane Sams: Right. And I ... So Dan ... I can't remember what we said first. But we said ... I said, "Dan, what's up with you right now?" And you were like, "Well, I've got this course and I think I'm gonna launch it in like January and I'm gonna get-

Dan Dekker: Moving my vacation to January so [crosstalk 00:14:48]-

Shane Sams: Perfect ... Yeah, February, right? I'm gonna be putting it off.

Jocelyn Sams: And if you know anything about this podcast, if you're a frequent listener, you know that this is not gonna fly with us, okay?

Shane Sams: This is not going well. This is not happening. And so I look at Dan, I said, "Why don't you launch it next week?" Just ... His eyes get real big and bug-eyed. And I'm like ... He goes, "What?" I'm like, "Yeah. Just write an outline. Sell it. You got an audience. Pre-launch it, tell 'em what it's gonna be. Tell 'em it's a beta and they'll get to work with you. And you'll do the courses live over the next few weeks." And the look ... I wish that the photographer and the video people were at that table at that moment just to capture ... 'Cause Rebecca just is like leaning back snickering while I'm telling you this. And she's sitting there shaking her head. And so what were you thinking when I was like, "Dan-

Dan Dekker: I probably had a glazed [crosstalk 00:15:35] look like, "What excuse do I have? Is there a reason that I can't do this?" You know?

Shane Sams: And was there an excuse?

Dan Dekker: Of course not.

Shane Sams: There was not. So what happens next? So you go out and ... How did you launch the thing? What did you do after the next week or two?

Dan Dekker: So your challenge was I think start the waitlist before we left the conference and launch a week later. And so the conference was on a weekend or at the beginning of the weekend. And so we spent the drive home ... We composed some emails and I set some stuff up on Sunday. 'Cause I had to like switch my ConvertKit account to the new website and get the domain going, all that stuff. So there was some technical junk I had to get out of the way.

Dan Dekker: Well, we got the email ready. And then Rebecca knows her people and says, "You know what? If I send it Sunday night, no one will read it. So I'm gonna send it Monday morning." So we launch Monday morning. We got I think about 60 people the first day join the waitlist right away. I ended up with like 80-some over that week. And then ... And I'm losing track of the days now. And then it was just over a week later I finally ... I got everything set up to actually sell it. I had to set up a payment plan and all that stuff. So a week later I sold and the first day I sold 20-some and by last night, you know, someone bought 30 minutes before the class started.

Shane Sams: Oh, that's amazing. So you got how many?

Dan Dekker: 35.

Shane Sams: How much did you charge for that?

Dan Dekker: The class is listed at 150 and I gave them 50% off their part of the beta group. So that's awesome.

Shane Sams: So you sold 35 people-

Jocelyn Sams: And that's-

Shane Sams: Let me do some math there. Yeah, hold on-

Dan Dekker: A little over $2500.

Shane Sams: Woo-hoo!  That's amazing. And you've got buyers. I mean, you've got people in hand and they're gonna buy the next thing. And maybe you can offer coaching. And maybe this evolves into like the group thing where you get a monthly recurring revenue off of this. And now you guys have this whole second thing of income.

Jocelyn Sams: And let me just ask you. Like, how much of the actual course work do you have done?

Dan Dekker: Well, I had had to teach one class, so there's one class done.

Shane Sams: Exactly-

Jocelyn Sams: Okay, so-

Shane Sams: You had nothing when you sold it, right?

Dan Dekker: Oh, not at all. I mean, I made the joke to Rebecca. I was like, "Alright, what did we promise these people?" So I had to go to my own sales page and see what I promised to like fill out the PowerPoint, you know?

Jocelyn Sams: Oh, Dan. We have done this so many times.

Shane Sams: If I had a nickel. If I had a nickel for every time I said that Jocelyn before a member call.

Jocelyn Sams: You know, I want people who are listening to know that it's not being like dishonest or anything. You are going to create the course. Like, I feel like sometimes people are like, "Well, you know, that's really shady." But people [crosstalk 00:18:03] know that's the reason you're discounting them because the course isn't finished. You're going to finish it with their assistance.

Shane Sams: And like what Dan said a few minutes ago was, you know, "I spent all summer working on this PowerPoint." Right? But like when you sell something and they're showing up in a week for the first class, you don't have all summer to make the PowerPoint. You gotta go. And then you gotta just ask them questions and let them ask you questions and answer their questions. And that's gonna build the content. It's gonna be a better course than what you ever could have created-

Jocelyn Sams: The beautiful thing about-

Shane Sams: All summer on a PowerPoint.

Jocelyn Sams: Doing it this way is that people will ask questions and you will answer those questions as things that you never would have even thought of.

Dan Dekker: Right, yeah. When I had them sign up, they got a thank you or welcome email and it said, "Hey, reply to this email and let me know what your big problem you're having is." So I got a lot of great feedback right away by doing that.

Shane Sams: Yeah, how did the first course go? Did they ask questions during it, too? Like a lot of questions?

Dan Dekker: Yeah, I spoke for like 45 minutes and then they had questions for like 20 minutes at the end. So ...

Shane Sams: That's awesome.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, that's-

Shane Sams: Did anybody ask something you had not thought of? Like during either those emails or the thing? Or did they ask it, maybe you thought of it, but it was like, "Oh, I was gonna teach that four weeks ago but they asked tonight"? You know?

Dan Dekker: There was definitely some stuff I fleshed out more. Like ... It was able to ... I could tell what their actual problems were rather than just more guessing what their problems were. And so it wasn't for this class, but a lot of them had problems like knowing how much money to save for taxes. I'm like, "Alright, we definitely need to really flush out this whole tax session while saving money for taxes."

Shane Sams: Well, that might have been a-

Dan Dekker: "I don't know how much save?" To, "I'm behind on my taxes. I'm trying to catch up and save and all."

Shane Sams: So that might have been a throwaway line in one of your PowerPoints, but now it's like, "Wow, that might need to be a whole course."

Jocelyn Sams: That needs to be a whole course. Yeah.

Shane Sams: You know?

Dan Dekker: Yeah. At least it's gonna be the majority of that session, and it's all about taxes and stuff.

Jocelyn Sams: So I just really want to pull this thing out for people who are listening right now. Like, if you're sitting there trying to finish your course or your membership area or whatever it is, if you are spending months and months and months doing this before you have customers, chances are you're not even giving them what they really want. So then when you try to launch it and they're saying, "You know, I don't really want this", well, the reason why is because you didn't develop the course with your people in mind and with their help. So that's what we're trying to say is that just go for it. Like, what do you have to lose?

Shane Sams: And also, too, there's something else I want to unpack here a little bit. This is not just, "Rebecca had an email list", okay? This is the same exact thing as, "I know where my avatars' hanging out." They were hanging out over with Rebecca. Like, you knew where these people were. It's no different than if you knew they were in a forum, if you knew they were on Facebook, if you knew they were on Twitter. And when you launched, you just had 80 people on your list for this specific product. 'Cause every product is its own niche, right? And 35 people out of those 80-something people jumped on this.

Shane Sams: So there's a lot of people out there ... You're sitting there going, "I've got an email list. It's only 200 people. It's only 160 people." That's twice as big as Dan's first list, right? And he's helped 30-something people and now he has buying, paying customers. So don't ... Go find where your avatars' hanging out. Get some of them on a list and launch as fast as possible so that you can start building your core, start growing your business a year from now instead of finally launching, "Where is this gonna go?" Right? Like, this could be a huge thing for you guys on the side and it gives you a second income stream, which Jocelyn and I, you know, one thing we probably don't talk about enough is we're really big on having multiple income streams, you know? That way you got ups and downs. Every business has ups and downs and-

Jocelyn Sams: And-

Shane Sams: Things can go wrong. And you need that little extra protection in your business for more security and be able to invest things.

Jocelyn Sams: And let me just throw in a disclaimer, that's if you already have something that's successful. We don't like you going in 15 different directions if you don't have one thing that's really started to take off yet.

Shane Sams: That's right. Yeah, the natural progression is to expand into new things and other things. Like you ... Also, like keeping alignment with the thing that was working. That's really what you have done here is instead of just starting a random new business, you said, "Okay, well, this is in the same vein. We can talk to each other about this. We can understand it. We can serve the same person, but in two completely different ways." And that's how you keep stacking and building on successful ... Like, that's why we added recently ... Jocelyn and I just launched a new program called S and J All Access, which Dan and Rebecca are a part of of. And it's a Mastermind where people can literally send us a message on the phone, right? And we get back to them as soon as possible on the phone.

Shane Sams: And we did that because a lot ... Our goal had always been to graduate people, to flip their life and then turn them loose into the wild. But a lot of our students and ... Kept coming back. I mean, like, "Now what? What's next?"

Jocelyn Sams: We don't want to leave you.

Shane Sams: Right, exactly. So we had ... We wanted to offer a higher ... This was a completely different segment avatar than what we normally teach. But it's in alignment with our brand. So it's kind of like a different business, different product. It's just now we can serve two different people. And that's kind of what you've done. You're serving the same people in a different way.

Dan Dekker: Yeah, we've ... I, of course, was hesitant to join the All Access. But Rebecca talked me into it. And it's been awesome. And I was gonna tell you, if anything you're underselling it. Because when we first signed up it's kind of like, "Yeah, this whole walkie-talkie talk to you guys thing." But then day one, you send us this huge form to fill out and it's basically like, "Tell us what Point A is, tell us what you want Point B to be. We're gonna help you get there." And again, I'm leaning back like, "Whoa, whoa. Let's like slow down." But ... Right? It's way more than just talking to you guys. It's like you're helping us set goals and actually find things we're gonna accomplish in this finite amount of time.

Shane Sams: Yeah, it's deep-level stuff. That's what we really wanted to get into with that. And I need to sell this more apparently. Dan's telling me we need to get out there. We need to get out and promote this thing. We kind of got it hidden right now. It's like, "Okay, you gotta be a member and-

Jocelyn Sams: Well, it's kind of a beta right now, really.

Shane Sams: Yeah, it's kind of in a beta. We gotta be a member and there's only like one page you can get to it. So maybe we'll roll that out more. Dan can be our ... We'll use this as our first testimonial, Dan. How about that?

Dan Dekker: There you go.

Shane Sams: Alright.

Jocelyn Sams: Okay. So let's get into what you need help with next. Okay, so you had a really super successful launch. And what's going on right now? Like, where are you stuck?

Shane Sams: We overcame the launch fear, right? But I'm sure it was replaced by others fears, obstacles, or mindset issues. I remember you sending me the thing, "Okay, I'm about to do this class. And I'm kind of freaking out right now." Right? So like what fear, obstacle, or mindset issue has replaced the fear of launching now?

Dan Dekker: Being past that first class was a big one, so I'm really glad to be past there and I'm glad this podcast happened like right after that. So that was good. So I'm teaching two more podcasts in the next two weeks, so that'll happen. After that ... Now, when we emailed Rebecca's list, we didn't sent it to the whole list. We just sent it to a smaller subsection. It was really just a couple of hundred people. So now we've got ... After the first class is done we're ready for the big list. And, I mean, I don't know that my same format ... I mean, it'd be cool to teach it live, but if I've got a hundred people or more in a class, I don't know if doing like a Zoom meeting is gonna work or if I just need to sell them the recordings.

Shane Sams: Yeah, I think ... So basically it's like how to push it forward, right? I tell you what we did. And you don't have to do it this way, but what you're creating right now will be good enough to sell by itself passively. Especially since you have a much bigger list now. But, it might be beneficial to do like two more passes at kind of a beta type group and let more people in it. Let more people come through, let more people ... Like, don't rush it, you know? We always say, "Be the glacier, not the forest fire." The forest fire looks spectacular, but then it goes away, right? Well, like the glacier is an unstoppable force that keeps moving, keeps building power going forward.

Shane Sams: And when we did Flip Your Life, we did like three sessions in a row over like a six-month period to really get more people in, get more feedback. See what more questions were. And refine our own talk. You know, this first time you do it's gonna be great, but then the second time you do it's gonna be better. And the third time you do it's gonna be really, really good and you're gonna have like probably a hundred people go through this course to help you build it. And then when you sell it, now it's like, "Hey, guys, look. This is what went into this. This is now $500, not $150 to buy this course that you can buy passively." And then you can start putting it into other funnels and things like that.

Shane Sams: So I would probably recommend doing two more beta launches and beta groups so you can perfect the system and perfect the courses and perfect your speech. And then it's awesome and you can sell it forever.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. Sometimes people have this misperception that, "Okay, I have to go with a small subset, then I have to go with the whole rest of the list." Well, that's not true. Like, go with a small subset. Go with another small subset. Go to another small subset. You know, like make it where you're comfortable. Don't just say, "Oh well, you know, I've already launched once so now I have to launch to everyone."

Dan Dekker: M'kay.

Jocelyn Sams: Does that seem less overwhelming?

Dan Dekker: Yeah. I mean, I really like teaching it live, I think there's a lot of benefit to teaching it live. So to do that ... I mean, this is kind of a sensitive area where like we're trying to minimize the emails Rebecca sends to her list because they didn't necessarily sign up to hear about this. So should we blast everybody and get all those people on a new waitlist? 'Cause all the people who didn't get the first email from Rebecca don't know anything about this class. So I could kind of do like another first waitlist email just to thousands of people?

Jocelyn Sams: Yes. I would try to segment somehow.

Shane Sams: Yeah, you could send-

Dan Dekker: And then maybe only sell a certain number of seats in the first class? Like-

Shane Sams: Yes.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah.

Shane Sams: That's what you would do 'cause then you're gonna create more demand. 'Cause there's gonna be a lot of people that can't get in 'cause it'll sell out, you know? I tell you what you could do, too. You know what I'm gonna say about the email list. It's ... They're not gonna worry about it. I would set up a good rotating schedule for this waiting list every two weeks. One day every two weeks on Rebecca's email list where it's like, "Hey, guys. We're opening the waiting list again for Dan's course if you want to run a better business." And let every couple of weeks let more people get on that so you can start kind of filtering those people out as you go. 'Cause new people join the list all the time. 90% of people probably didn't even see the first email. So don't assume that anybody does or does not want that list.

Jocelyn Sams: And, you know, if it starts to become a problem you can also put on an opt-out for that particular thing. So you'll see people send emails sometimes that say, "I want to let you know about X, Y, Z. If you don't want to hear about X, Y, Z, click here, but you want to stay on my list." You know?

Dan Dekker: Okay, yeah.

Shane Sams: Most things have like when they click on "subscribe" it can go to a thing and you can have a menu. And there's like on and off. I think ConvertKit does that.

Jocelyn Sams: But I wouldn't worry about it. Like, this is a benefit for them.

Shane Sams: Oh, yeah.

Jocelyn Sams: And like if one or two people get mad about it, whatever.

Shane Sams: Yeah, you gotta explain-

Jocelyn Sams: They can go away.

Shane Sams: To them why it's good for their business. And then also focus on their mission. I would say most of the people that do that job are there to really help families and babies, you know? And if they go out of business, they can't complete their mission. And that needs to be told to them over and over and over again. And it's not a get up to the bat and swing and go with it, it needs to be in the autoresponder. Every single person that ever signs up for the list needs to get the email that says, "Hey, we also have business services. Would you like to sign up for this?" Like, it just needs to be added into everything and-

Dan Dekker: Okay, yeah. That's a good idea.

Shane Sams: And like-

Jocelyn Sams: If you-

Shane Sams: Lost that fear of ... You should tell them about this. It's important, you know?

Jocelyn Sams: If you come to people from a place of genuinely wanting to help them ... And I know that you guys do, just like we do ... They know that. And there are gonna be a couple of people who complain and whatever. But they're not your people. People know that you have a genuine art for wanting to help them move their business forward so that more babies can be born in the way that their mothers want them to be born or like what the evidence shows is the best way for them to be born. You know, that's your greater mission. So as long as you're moving towards your greater mission with a genuine sense of purpose, then people know that. They can just sense it.

Dan Dekker: M'kay. Yeah, I like that. I think it's a good idea.

Shane Sams: Yeah. And going back to the course itself, I know right now it's a course. Like, we're gonna sell it as a course. And that might be what you do passively to sell it as a course. But there's a really easy way to do recurring off the backend of something like this. So what you could do is I really want you to try to highly value this course at at least 500 to a thousand dollars when it's done, okay? And I know ... He's shaking his head, look at him. If you're watching this on YouTube ... We put the podcast on YouTube now, so you can see Dan going, "Are you serious?" Like, right? Like you-

Jocelyn Sams: We're always serious.

Shane Sams: Right? So this is a very valuable service. If they do your course, they're probably gonna save thousands and thousands of dollars every year going forward-

Jocelyn Sams: Or make thousands and thousands of dollars-

Shane Sams: Or make thousands more dollars.

Jocelyn Sams: Like, it's really free to them.

Shane Sams: So it's an investment is what they're really making in themselves. Not just buying your course, okay? But if you do it three or four times and it's really good seed and it's really powerful, okay, and they got this course, what you sell off the backend is a lower tiered kind of membership that's more like 19 bucks a month. Not really super expensive where you do a once-a-month member call. And that's it, right? There's no more like ... You don't have to add courses 'cause most of this is evergreen. This is financial stuff. It's like-

Jocelyn Sams: If it's not it should be.

Shane Sams: Yeah, exactly. You gotta keep looking at it and make sure that you're not ... You know, tax stuff's gonna change every year, but the basics are there, right?

Jocelyn Sams: Principles are the same.

Shane Sams: So off the backend of this 500 to thousand dollar sale you sell this little $19 a month membership and then you just figure out, "Okay, well, I know I'm gonna do one call." Then they can come and ask, "Oh, man, I had this problem this month with my build. Then I had this" ... It's just a safety net where they've got someone to go talk to and go ask a financial question once a month. It's easy, it's a good downsell. It's simple. You could even like get with a local print shop and put together a little paper newsletter. And you could say ... 'Cause that's totally easy to automate. You just go down and give 'em a list and they send it every month for you. And it might cost you a dollar a person, right?

Shane Sams: But it's like, it's a little thing from Dan that they get it in the mail, they open it and it's like, "Hey, it's January. You need to be worrying about X, Y, and Z this month." Or, "Hey, it's December. Maybe you should saving some money here and there for this or whatever." And just a little something to give 'me a safety net and a reminder that they're paying you that 19 bucks a month and it's worth it. And you get a thousand people in that and all of a sudden you're talking big money.

Dan Dekker: Sure. M'kay. I was hesitant for a membership idea originally. I mean, I kind of like that idea mainly because the goal would be learn how to do it and then you don't need a membership anymore. But I can-

Jocelyn Sams: But you do need it.

Dan Dekker: See, yeah, the continued questions.

Shane Sams: There's always gonna be ... People always have questions and people are always one question away from their next paying you.

Jocelyn Sams: And I can see it as even being maybe like an upsell for Rebecca's, too. Like, do you want to join both of these things? You can join this one for X dollars a month, or you can join this one for Y dollars a month. Or you join both for whatever, you know?

Shane Sams: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Dekker: Yeah.

Shane Sams: You can cross-pollinate easily. I think what's gonna happen is I bet you there's a ton of people on that list ... Even though they're birth professionals, even though they're end of the free content or end of the thing they got off the thing ... There's probably some people that probably are like, "I'm very confident in this part of my life." They would buy your thing and not buy hers. I bet you there's people on that list that are in that same boat. And you're gonna be able to now maximize that list better. But you've gotta be able to like ... There always needs to be a recurring component. Either before a product or after a product.

Jocelyn Sams: It could be an upsell. It could be a downsell. Like, I see so many different areas of potential with this.

Shane Sams: And memberships don't have to look like the Flip Your Life Community where there's hundreds of people and 30,000 questions and all these things going on in there. It can just be, "Hey, for 19 bucks a month, once a month, I'm gonna get on a call for an hour and answer questions." That's it. Nothing else. You could totally do that and it would be just enough for people to pay. It would be worth it. Like, wouldn't you when you were starting out have paid 19 bucks to talk to a professional to tell you something? Right? That could save you a thousand bucks. Which is what you're doing. So ...

Jocelyn Sams: Okay, let's not build the entire city right now.

Shane Sams: Alright. Five years from now, here's where you're gonna [crosstalk 00:34:23] be at, Dan. Okay?

Dan Dekker: So corporate offices. What should I be looking for?

Shane Sams: I think ... Yeah. That glass building over on Man o' War looks pretty nice, you know what I'm saying? The blue one? Okay.

Jocelyn Sams: So we are getting way down-

Shane Sams: Way down the road here. Okay, so let's back up the truck. You know we ask everybody, what are you gonna do in the next 24 hours? What are you gonna take action on to move you toward your next steps based on what we talked about today?

Dan Dekker: I don't know. It sounds kind of hard. I think I'm just gonna quit.

Jocelyn Sams: That is not the correct answer.

Shane Sams: That is not the correct answer.

Jocelyn Sams: Sorry.

Dan Dekker: Well, I need to teach my next two courses. That's definitely gonna happen. So I gotta finish this first round with this group before I can really do a whole bunch more. But I think the next thing after that will be getting an email ready to go to Rebecca's ... The rest of her list and getting them on the new waitlist so I can plan the second and third class to teach.

Shane Sams: You should set the date, too, for when the next course is going to roll out, right? Live, which might be ... Did you say you're going on vacation in January?

Dan Dekker: Yeah.

Shane Sams: Okay, so you'll be done with this one, though. You could do it ... You might be able to do it in December, just to get a few more people in [crosstalk 00:35:39] and get one done before the end of the year.

Dan Dekker: Yeah. Maybe early December.

Shane Sams: Yeah, 'cause you could schedule it even. You don't have to schedule it one week apart. Once you've done it once, you could do like, "Oh, I've got to do three courses again. Let's do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday in one week." With your next beta group and do it faster. And that way you're not getting into the holidays, right? And that way, when you send the waiting list out you can say, "Look, this is launching on December 1st. If you're not on the list you're gonna miss your chance to get in it." So it creates some urgency to get on that waiting list, right?

Dan Dekker: Yeah. I was just thinking. I could pitch it like a, "Get yourself all set up to start 2019 right", or something.

Jocelyn Sams: Yes, absolutely.

Shane Sams: Exactly. Perfect, yep. And then what you do is in February you do your third pass when you get back from vacation. And you're like, "Has 2019 not started off the way you wanted it to? Are you freaking out 'cause taxes are in two months? Here we go." Right? I mean, you can get 'em in on that way. And now you're ready during ... The second quarter you're gonna be launching the course, you're gonna have the nice, easy passive income stream where you can start setting that up. And then you can start downselling some other stuff to it, okay?

Dan Dekker: Cool.

Shane Sams: Love it, man.

Jocelyn Sams: Alright, cool.

Dan Dekker: Hey, I'll tell you one more part of my motivation for doing this is Rebecca always said, "If you ever start something yourself you can spend that money however you want." So-

Shane Sams: Oh, there you go. See?

Dan Dekker: Daddy's getting a new subwoofer soon.

Shane Sams: That's right.

Jocelyn Sams: Yes.

Shane Sams: But is she just setting it up where she gets to spend all the other money by herself?

Jocelyn Sams: Exactly.

Shane Sams: I think she's hoodwinked you here, dude. I think she's hoodwinked you.

Dan Dekker: She's already thrown out there there's gotta be some upper limit to this arrangement. But ...

Shane Sams: Alright. So before we go, we always like to share a Bible verse at the end of our podcast. Jocelyn and I draw a lot of inspiration from the Bible. There's so much business and financial and life advice in that book that you can pull out of it and really take it to the next level. But today we have Dan. Dan is gonna share his favorite verse with us on the podcast today.

Dan Dekker: Alright. Psalm 15. "Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from the heart. Whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and cast no slur on others; who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the Lord; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind; who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken."

Shane Sams: Ooh, I love that verse. I was telling Dan when he told me what the verse was gonna be ... I was reading that on Sunday. And that part where it says like, "who does what's right even when it hurts" ... Oh man, if that's not a ... If every business in America would just do that, we would live in a really, really cool place.

Dan Dekker: Oh, yeah. It's to do right when it's easy. But doing it when it hurts is the trick.

Shane Sams: Alright, man. Well, listen, dude. Great, great time today on the podcast. Cannot wait to see what you guys do next. I love you guys 'cause you're action takers. For example, Dan and Rebecca just launched a live event and they sold it out in 24 hours.

Jocelyn Sams: Just amazing.

Shane Sams: Which is amazing. Over a hundred people coming to y'all's live event. You guys are just action takers. I know you're gonna do great things. And I know this thing is gonna be a huge things for you guys as well.

Dan Dekker: Awesome. Thanks so much.

Shane Sams: Hey guys. Thanks for tuning in to today's Flip Lifestyle Podcast. We're so glad that you listened to our interview with Dan and heard us help him take his business to the next level. We would love to help you take your dream, your idea, your business to the next level as well. And we do that inside of our Flip Your Life Community. If you would like to ask me and Jocelyn a question inside the forums or on one of our member calls, all you have to is join, be a member. Show up on one of those calls and we will get to your questions.

Shane Sams: Well, you can do that for free right now at fliplifestyle.com/free. That's fliplifestyle.com/F-R-E-E. We've got a 30-day free trial waiting for you and we would love to see you and help you inside of our community. We have all the training, coaching, and community and accountability that you need to make your dream a reality. That's fliplifestyle.com/free. And until next time, do whatever it takes to flip your life.

Jocelyn Sams: Bye.