FL261 - We help Jeff find a profitable niche

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's the end of October. People are getting nervous about not having anything. They're making their decision." Which was sort of interesting to me.

Jeff Slaughter: Basically, it's costing me about $40 as script to market it and to pay a fee to Gumroad to host it. So now I know for every $40 I spend, I'll make $50 or a little bit more than $50.

Shane Sams: Hey, I'll trade 40 for 100 every day of the week. I'll do it every time. Every single time.

Jeff Slaughter: It's a great lesson, it really was. Plus, I'm connecting with people and seeing my play live, which is important to me on a personal basis, more than the money really. So it's all good.

Jocelyn Sams: Alright Jeff, well you have a lot things already in place, which is really cool, but I understand that you're wanting to maybe think about where you're going to go in the future. Would you go in a different direction? Or do you have a different plan? So let's kind of dive into that a little bit.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay. Well, I did a website. I had website about Brussels for several years and this is back in 2008. Never really got off the ground. Made maybe 70 or 80 dollars in Google ads. I've done the Christmas side. I do the chocolate. So I've learned a lot over the years, but now I don't feel like I've hit a home run. I want to hit a home run with online business. And I don't want to just continue ... This has been 10 years I've been working on different things and I really need now to find something that will create substantial income. Yeah.

Shane Sams: So you want to ... You're looking for the home run, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: Well, let me ask you a question, okay. A lot of people say this, like, "I want substantial income. I want to do this, I want to do that." But until you define what the home run looks like, you're never going to be able to hit it, right? What is a home run? How much money a month do you need for you to consider it like, "Wow, home run, I'm comfortable. I can support myself, my missions." Things like that.

Shane Sams: What does that look like? Because you already have the attitude and the mentality, that Flip Your Life mentality, of, "I'm going to live life on my own terms. I'm going to go to Europe and be a missionary for four months. Even if I have to go raise money. I'm going to sell chocolate." The other time .... Whatever, you're kind of doing some that part, but what does a home run look like financially?

Jeff Slaughter: Well, I like what you say when you say, "You know, you just need a hundred people paying you $50 a month to make $5000 a month. That's really what I want to do. That would be my big goal. And if I reach that, I would dream bigger, but right now that's the goal and that's reachable.

Shane Sams: That's $60,000 a year for anybody out there that's bad at math. You know, it's just a hundred people, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right?

Shane Sams: We just have to create something that's valuable enough and is built in a way that will keep them paying that month after month and year after year.

Jocelyn Sams: But I just want to say as an observation, I feel like you're sort of shortchanging yourself.

Shane Sams: 100%

Jocelyn Sams: Because the things that you know and the experiences that you have, I feel like that you already have everything that you need. I don't think you need a new idea.

Shane Sams: Yeah.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Shane Sams: And the mindset issues that's holding you back is I think you're ... You said something very earnestly in that last statement is like, "You know, I've been trying for 10 years and I've not hit the home run yet." It's almost like you want the home run but you don't think you can hit it. You know what I'm saying?

Shane Sams: I used to tell my football players, they be like, "Coach, we want win Friday." And I'm like, "Really? Because you don't act like it on Wednesday. You know? Okay, because we're at Wednesday practice, you're not really paying attention. I'm just saying." Like the guy that's sitting over there, like do you feel like you can do this? Honestly?

Jeff Slaughter: Well I think that would be my greatest fear and that I can't and that I'm going to continue doing this for another 10 years and go, "Wow, Shane and Jocelyn, it's been 20 years." You know?

Shane Sams: Alright. Let's get into the business questions here and let's figure this out. Okay. What do you think you should do next? Okay, you've done these things. I feel you going up very seasonal because your life is kind of seasonal.

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Jocelyn Sams: But I feel like you need to, instead of trying to run from that, I almost feel like you need embrace that.

Jeff Slaughter: That's good.

Jocelyn Sams: Because that is your life. That's who you are. Why are you trying to go against it? Let's go with what you already know, okay. Well, you have a chocolate business, which is good in, say the winter months.

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Shane Sams: Why are you not teaching people how to make chocolate by the way?

Jocelyn Sams: Yes, I was going to ask the same question. You have an unusual life experience. You are an American who lived in Belgium. Who has that experience?

Shane Sams: Yeah.

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: Also too, you're a missionary who has actually supported his mission through fundraising, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: I know ... I can kind of see where this is going and it's going to be one of those weird shows where ... Usually, we're like be laser focused, go crazy on one thing and hammer down. But I'm almost like, "Man, what if Jeff had ... " So you know how we say, "You can get a hundred people to give you $50 a month", what if you had 10 things that gave you 10 people for $50 a month, right?

Jocelyn Sams: It's the same thing.

Shane Sams: What if you had a chocolate thing and it was ... Okay the chocolate business is big during this time. What if you taught missionaries how to do fundraising better, right? What if a hundred missionaries paid you 9.95 a month? What if a hundred-

Jocelyn Sams: What if you ...

Shane Sams: What if 100 people paid you $9 a month to learn chocolate? What if a hundred people ... Then what if people bought your scripts?

Jocelyn Sams: What if people bought an Easter script? What if you wrote an Easter script?

Jeff Slaughter: I have an Easter script.

Jocelyn Sams: There you go.

Shane Sams: That's what I'm saying. You've got all these assets. Assets are the most powerful thing in online business, that's what people don't realize. When you look at unfair advantages, when we look at you and we look anybody else, we say, "What are the assets this person has?"

Shane Sams: One of the assets me and Jocelyn have is we've lasted in the game now in online education longer than most people have. We've been here for six years now and we've got a good audience. We're killing it. What we've done more than anything else and anybody out there, no expert can match us at this, is we've answered more questions for more people than probably anybody else in the industry.

Shane Sams: Because we have member calls. We have Q&As publicly. We have Facebook Lives, YouTube Lives, everything. Right? What we realized this year is that we've got 1200 questions that we've answered on video that have never been released publicly. So we've been cutting those up and putting them on YouTube. That's an asset that nobody can match.

Shane Sams: Any competitor can come up to us right now and say, "We're going to be like you guys. We're going to try to compete with you guys." And we're going to look at them and go, "Yeah, but we have a thousand videos that are coming out on YouTube in the next month. Can you do that?"

Shane Sams: That's what you've got to look at. Sometimes everybody ... Listen like, "What are things I do have that I can bring to the table right now?" Sometimes that is ten different courses or something like that.

Jocelyn Sams: And I just want to say this too, like I've said this before on the podcast, if you want to make serious money, you have to solve a serious problem. So look at the things that you're already doing. Look at the experiences that you already have. What is a major problem that someone has that you have the experience to solve? I feel like you already have all these tools. I feel like you're making this way too hard.

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Shane Sams: Yeah. Sometimes when we look for the home run, we're looking for that perfect pitch, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Shane Sams: And it never comes. They're all just right down the middle so just swing, swing, swing and keep hitting them, right? You know, you hit 10 singles in a row as a baseball team, that's going to do more than any single home run could ever do. Because you're going to drive in more runs than a single home run could ever drive in. So you may just need to keep swinging. And just swing better at the right time of year, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Yeah, I think you guys are right. I think that the problem I have is overwhelmed with all the different things I do.

Shane Sams: Well that's organization. That's all we have to do is figure out your calendar. Jocelyn and I always look at our calendar for us and our avatar. And we want to make sure that we're matching up with our avatar and what they're thinking about, right?

Shane Sams: When we promote our membership, we're going to promote different things at different times of the year. So next month, we're recording this in October, we're going to promote Black Friday stuff. Like, "Hey, I have a video, I have a course about Black Friday sales." We got a podcast that we did about Black Friday sales. What am I going to promote publicly in November every year? Black Friday stuff, right? How can you maximize Black Friday?

Shane Sams: In January, what are we going to ... We're going to push our goal setting thing. I'm actually ... I've had our goal setting course inside of the Flip Your Life community. I've turned that into an e-book. We took the transcript, cleaned it up. Put in some workbook type activities, going to throw in some pictures and that's going to be a book basically that we release around that time.

Jocelyn Sams: On Kindle or some other third party marketplace.

Shane Sams: Kindle or something like that.

Jeff Slaughter: Right. Alright.

Shane Sams: Okay? And we're going to promote that when our audience is thinking about it. What's cool about your thing is one, what is someone who wants to get into making chocolate thinking about throughout the year? I don't know. What is someone who's a missionary thinking about fundraising throughout the year?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: What is someone who's wanting a play, a Christmas play, a other play. Maybe you can do something for VBS, right? Vacation Bible School. You have all these assets in your brain. We just have to organize them and bring them out at the right time and that's going to take some planning ahead a little bit.

Jocelyn Sams: And when you're thinking about it, if you are a person who has a lot of interest, like Jeff does, then think about what is it that really lights you up? What is it that you're just dying to work on and you want to help people with? Maybe you find yourself dreading working on one those. Don't work on it. Work on something else.

Shane Sams: As we've learned ... Dawson was getting onto me the other day about this. I've been getting into this online book publishing stuff, because I think it's a really good lead tool, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: But it could be a great money making tool. We have a friend who released 30 or 40 books on Kindle and she makes her living like that now. As I was looking at it, she was like, "Why are your old football things not in Amazon?"

Jocelyn Sams: So he's obsessed with making all these new Amazon books and I'm like, "Dude, we already have content."

Shane Sams: You legit have three books you've already written. I've got two playbooks. I've got a January to March weightlifting manual and then I've got a summer time, or an August installation. Like when people start practicing. Basically, I have something that can be sold for at least seven months out of the year and I've just never thought to put it out there. It's an asset that I'm sitting on that could be making me money.

Shane Sams: Sometimes those assets are in our head, not created. We need to figure out for you to do. So sometimes when people get into this thing and we really know what they should do but we got to figure out how to do it, I like to roll forward and fast forward a hundred days, okay? I don't want to think about what your audience is doing next month, because you've already had this Christmas thing that can be sold next month. And you've got chocolate going on right now too, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: The back end that you need to be thinking out is 90 days from now, 100 days from now, like in February, what is someone thinking about that you know you can help them with that thing, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Shane Sams: So what would that be? Either a missionary or a chocolatier or another play. What's happening in February in your world?

Jeff Slaughter: Well, I mean, you know people are thinking about Easter. I don't know the percentage of churches that still Easter type pageants, presentations and all that. I hear people say that those things are kind of not as popular as they once were with the more contemporary services and things like that. So, don't know what the response would be to something ... To an Easter play.

Shane Sams: Well listen, there are tens of thousands of churches, you only need a hundred of them-

Jocelyn Sams: Probably hundreds of thousands.

Shane Sams: -to buy your product, right? Every year. So it's not like you have ... It doesn't matter what the big churches are doing. Somebody wants it. There's a hundred churches in America that are doing an Easter play.

Jocelyn Sams: And if you already have it done, what do you have to lose, you know?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: Now, what you need to be thinking about is, "Okay, my goal was a hundred people to pay me 50 bucks." Right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: But you sell your plays for 100 bucks, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: Okay, so you only need 50 people that month to buy your Easter play. What if, in February and March, each month you sold 50 plays? Then you made your five thousand bucks. Right? And then you can re-market your Christmas plays to them later, okay? Now, once you figure that out, what happens after that in your life? What are people ... What is someone in your space thinking about in the summer.

Shane Sams: This might be something you need create. It might be something like Fundraising for Missionaries Community, right? You were good at that, dude.

Jocelyn Sams: So I think what-

Shane Sams: Chocolatiering. When would you sell that? We need to lay this out in the calendar and then what we've got to do now, 100 days out, is create the thing that's going to happen in 100 days so that when you get there, it's ready and you can, in the back side, work on the next hundred days to get the next thing ready.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Jocelyn Sams: I think what would be beneficial at this stage, is to print out a calendar with just blank months on it. Not days or anything. Just kind of write out, "Okay, what does my calendar look like?" You know, what does a calendar look like for people who are making chocolate? What does a calendar look like for people who are missionaries? What does the calendar look like for people who are doing plays in their church? And sort of just look at it and say, "Okay, what do I already have that I could put out there?" Or-

Shane Sams: What do I already know that I could create something for before we get to that point? Right?

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Sams: Exactly.

Shane Sams: Then it's project based. It's AAA, BBB, CCC. If a hundred days from now it's Easter, then what you should be working on now for the next hundred days is ... The day you get to February 1st, you turn on your Easter promotion and it rolls. Right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: You give market to all your emails list that have bought your Christmas play. Anybody that's bought that, anybody that's been on the list for that you start putting ads out for churches and pastors and things like that. If they need a play, you're ready to go. Right?

Shane Sams: And then what happens after that? That's what you work on then. We're always working on the next thing. That's what me and Jocelyn do. Yesterday we planned out the next eight weeks. The next two things we're working on are our Black Friday stuff. We'll be done with that this week. Then we're going to work on our affiliate program that we're going to roll out next year.

Shane Sams: Those are things that we know we're going to be doing next year, but we're already doing them now so that when we get there, we're ready, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: If we can get four or five of these things rolling ... There's nothing wrong with piecing that stuff together so that you can market.

Jocelyn Sams: I don't think it's the right answer for everyone. What I don't want to happen is for people to think, "Oh, well, they're saying I have to start order for businesses."

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Jocelyn Sams: And that's not necessarily true. But for you, because of the way your life is, because you have so many varied interests and you just do so many different things, I think it just makes sense to you. Do you feel that way?

Jeff Slaughter: I do. I mean, I think that's probably been the reason why I haven't moved forward with anything because I'm ... I don't know what you call it but just having so many things that I do, just creates this barrier, like which one do I focus on?

Shane Sams: Any plan will work. As long as the plan happens, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: And sometimes some people do need to go this route in your ... This may be why you're stuck as a listener if you're listening to this podcast right now, because you're trying to get so laser focused you can't do it. Or your thing is so niche, that it really is seasonal.

Shane Sams: There are seasonal businesses. We have friends in western Kentucky and every year they open a Halloween costume store. They only open it for two or three months. It is really seasonal. They tried it for opening it for a year one time, but it was just so seasonal it really worked really well in those couple months and there was no reason to do it any other time.

Shane Sams: Then in the other parts of the year, they found other ways to make money. Like making t-shirts or doing something different. Right? Sometimes, businesses are just like that. Sometimes, people are just like that. But you don't have to fall into the shiny object camp, just because you have multiple interests. As long as you're focused on working on one thing at a time to execute it correctly until it's time is done, you can still make plenty of money.

Shane Sams: It's okay to think, "I need a spring, summer, fall and winter business." And just do those four things. There's a lot of people that do that.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, I think that's totally fine and I think the next question that we need to address, because I'm just thinking if I'm the listener listening to this show, then my next question, and probably Jeff's next question is, "Okay, well, where do I start? How do I know what to start with?"

Shane Sams: You start on the next thing. That's why the calendar is so important.

Jocelyn Sams: That and also really defining what it is that you want. What is it that you want? What makes you happy to work on it? What makes you excited to work on? If you think of two or three things you're interested in and one of them you're just kind of like, "I really do not want to do that." Then that probably isn't the logical place to start.

Shane Sams: Yeah.

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Shane Sams: Yeah. Have you ever thought ... Let me ask you two questions because you've not went down this road and I want to know why. Why have you not taught people how to make chocolate? Okay, for one thing.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Shane Sams: Because you could literally just film yourself making chocolate and create a YouTube channel that people would watch, you know what I'm saying?

Jocelyn Sams: Do marketing for it.

Shane Sams: Because you're already doing it, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm.

Shane Sams: And then, why ... You have clearly been a successful, organizer and fundraiser for abroad missions. Why have you never thought to create a community to teach other missionaries, a paid community, on how to teach them how to fundraise? Because I would say that's really hard to do.

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. Well, with the missions, I worked hard in the beginning then really the thing that I've done the best is just keeping really in touch, close in touch, with our supporters. With lots of newsletters and emails and that kind of thing. My retention rate has been really high over the years. I haven't gotten a lot of new supporters over the years, but I've retained many of them because of my communication skills and commitment to stay in touch with them.

Shane Sams: Don't you think a 25 year old missionary would need to know that?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: You know what I'm saying? You got a guy struggling but he's called to be overseas on mission. He's struggling to make money and keep money because he gets over there and he gets busy and he doesn't know how to organize it all. That's a powerful thing to mentor. And yes, that's worthy of charging for. Dave Ramsey charges people to get out of debt.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Shane Sams: Right? If a guy can pay you 29 bucks a month and he can go out and make and retain 2500 bucks a month, that's a no brainer investment that he should make to get your wisdom. To get you mentorship. To get your advice. Right?

Jeff Slaughter: That is, yeah.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah and I think that, again, I think that you're shortchanging yourself. You think, "Well, this information is okay, but will people pay for that?" Yeah, they will.

Shane Sams: If you frame it right.

Jocelyn Sams: We think that what we know and the things that we are good at, we think they come easy to everyone but that is not necessarily the case.

Shane Sams: How many missionaries have you personally known, that got into it and five years later, they were out of the missionary field because they couldn't raise the money? A lot.

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. A lot of them. Yeah and a lot of them struggle on the field no matter what.

Shane Sams: Wouldn't it be amazing, if a young missionary, who was trying to fundraise, had a resource center that he could go to that literally told him what to do in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December every year that literally gave him template and schedule of when he should send things out. You got those in his inbox and told him what to do. It was all automated and he had a guy that he could reach out to, in a Facebook group to talk to, who's been there and done it. Wouldn't that be valuable?

Jeff Slaughter: It would be.

Shane Sams: Yep.

Jeff Slaughter: It would be very rewarding personally.

Shane Sams: Exactly.

Jocelyn Sams: Alright. Let's jump into the other question.

Shane Sams: The chocolate.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. Have you ever considered jumping into the chocolate as far as like teaching people how to make it, or teaching people how to market their business? Things like that.

Jeff Slaughter: Well, I have. And with chocolate, I guess the thought there is that it would be ... I guess my thought is that it's a very small niche. I've looked for ... You guys have suggested look for books on Amazon to see if people are publishing books. Really there have been none about making chocolate at home or that type of thing. Except one just came out. So maybe it's going to become a thing now.

Shane Sams: Okay, when I type in how to make chocolate in Google, there's 961 million results, okay? There are four advertisements How to make chocolate on the top of the Google results. There is a website-

Jocelyn Sams: If people are advertising, spending money, they're typically making money.

Shane Sams: That's right. There is a website called ... I'm not going to pitch another chocolatier online. I'm not going to tell you the domain but I'll put it in the chat later.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Shane Sams: There's an ad on the top and he's got an academy to teach people how to make chocolate.

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Jocelyn Sams: You are a guy who has lived in Belgium.

Jeff Slaughter: I know.

Jocelyn Sams: You know how to make Belgian chocolate. That is a skill that not everyone has.

Shane Sams: That's like going to a dojo in Japan to become a ninja. You're not like the guy who's taking karate down in the shopping center, right? You went to a dojo. You learned how to do the dojo.

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: you know what I mean?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: You have an unfair advantage that no one else can ever claim. Learn how to make Belgian chocolate from a guy who lived in Belgium and he's a trained chocolatier who has actually made money selling chocolate.

Jocelyn Sams: And makes money selling it.

Jeff Slaughter: This is true, yeah.

Shane Sams: Right? And even just like ... what if people could make chocolate and go down to their local farmer's market and sell it on the weekends. You know how many people do that?

Jeff Slaughter: Right. Now, there is a difference in making chocolate. Some people say, "Oh, you make chocolate." They think I'm going and getting the beans and roasting them and doing all that. I don't do that. That's for someone who's really serious about and almost scientific-

Shane Sams: Let me tell you something, 90% of these people are not searching for that, okay?

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Shane Sams: Alright. I just did another search in a keyword research tool that I have, okay.

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: How to make chocolate at home is searched-

Jeff Slaughter: Oh, really?

Shane Sams: Listen. Is searched for 681,818 times per month.

Jeff Slaughter: Wow.

Shane Sams: Not per year, not per decade, per month. There's over half a million people looking for that stuff. So massive audience there and maybe they just want a recipe. Maybe this just ends up being a recipe book.

Jocelyn Sams: But I think it could be a cool lead in. You teach people how to make a Christmas recipe or something. Then you say, "Hey, did you know that you can make money selling your own chocolate? Here's how."

Shane Sams: You could even talk about ... This could even become a course in your ... There's crossover with your missionary stuff. Like, "Yo, I make money selling chocolate. It's great for fundraising. I do little things like this to get to know people and build relationships."

Jeff Slaughter: Mm-hmm. That's true.

Shane Sams: There's so many searches for this. I mean, it's just the way to do it. The next steps probably are for us to get you organized. That's what we need to talk about in the forums, on member calls.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Shane Sams: In the community. Hash that out. Create a really good plan. You know, get in there and get into the planning guys, the calendar guys and say, "Hey, this is what I'm doing for the next two months. This is what I'm doing the two months after that." Really get that spelled out so that you always know the next thing you work at. Even if you shift gears, you can go work on the next thing and start creating all these assets, in a year from now, everything looks totally different.

Jocelyn Sams: Usually at this point, we ask people, "Okay, well what's your action step?" But I'm going to tell what your action step is, okay?

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Jocelyn Sams: You may have to think, your action step is going to be to get really clear about what it is you want. And you kind of told us a little bit about that but I want you to really think about it. What do you want?

Shane Sams: Paint your life picture basically.

Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. Then you're going to think about all the skills that you have, that we've talked about here today and you're going to think about which one makes you excited to work on.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Jocelyn Sams: Which one has a good search volume? Which one is ... Something that you think you can work on for a sustainable period of time.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Jocelyn Sams: And that's what we're going to roll with. We're not going to think about it. We're not going to say, "Well, you know, I kinda want to do this, but I kind of want to do this." No. We're going to choose something and we're going to move forward.

Shane Sams: So what will happen is if you've got that core thing. All these seasonal things, I really feel them ... I don't know, you said it would be really fulfilling to help other missionaries do what you've done, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: I'm not saying that's it, but it's more like instead of your just one thing, it's almost like that's your sun and all these little things that you're creating seasonally are just rotating around that, right?

Jeff Slaughter: I see. Yeah I see.

Shane Sams: It's different than what we normally say, "Go straight ahead, be one thing." You're still going to have an anchor product, right? Something in this mix is not seasonal, that might be it, right?

Shane Sams: What you're going to do is create all these other things to take advantage and leverage all these assets and experiences that you have and that's going to keep lifting that boat higher and higher, so that you've got stability plus big things happening throughout the year. Okay?

Jeff Slaughter: Okay. Well, what's so interesting about this is that it actually just makes so much sense. And I think that's the problem is I had been trying to find the one thing and for me personally, it's just not one thing.

Shane Sams: Yeah. It's hard for us to ... You know this Jeff.

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: We work with so many people every day, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: And people on the podcast don't always get to see what's happening in the Flip Your Life community, at our live events and things like that. We do harp on a lot of people. A lot of people don't have the life experience to pull it off or the focus to do it.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay.

Shane Sams: To be able to do multiple things or have different things rolling in the background and kind of roll through things throughout the year, right?

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Shane Sams: But you do. You do. You need to tell people that.

Jocelyn Sams: And you've already proven that.

Shane Sams: Sometimes that's a good thing to do. You know? We can pull off multiple things at once because there's two of us. And we've been doing this for six years and we've helped thousands of people. So we've seen every angle of it, right? We can pull off a couple things at once.

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Shane Sams: Some people can't and we're going to tell you exactly what you need right now and this is really what you need to do to go forward. Right?

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah. It's been great.

Shane Sams: Alright guys, great call today. Jeff, man, we've made some major progress in your business. This was a super inspirational call, but we want to get into some inspiration from the bible right now.

Shane Sams: Jocelyn and I draw a lot of inspiration from the bible in our business and our life. And we are super excited because Jeff actually has a scripture that he wanted to share on the call today. So Jeff, take it away.

Jeff Slaughter: Okay. My scripture comes from Proverbs three, verses five and six. And it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths."

Jocelyn Sams: I love it when the verse goes so perfectly with what we've been talking about. I mean, I don't know that you could've picked a more perfect one. And this was ... You chose this before the call.

Jeff Slaughter: Yeah.

Jocelyn Sams: That is so awesome.

Shane Sams: It's like trust him in all the things.

Jeff Slaughter: All your ways. All your businesses.

Shane Sams: And all the paths, right? And that's what we've been talking about the past forty-five minutes.

Jocelyn Sams: And that's the thing it's like God made us all. We're all unique. We all have different gifts and talents and sometimes he gives us multiple gifts and talents.

Jeff Slaughter: Right.

Jocelyn Sams: So maybe it's that we need to serve people in multiple ways.

Shane Sams: Boom!

Jeff Slaughter: And I feel today you guys have just given me permission to be who I am, rather than trying to find this person that's not even existing inside me.

Shane Sams: That's right.

Jocelyn Sams: Absolutely.

Shane Sams: That's awesome.

Shane Sams: Somebody out there listening to this right now, is feeling the same way and they're going to go home and take action because you were transparent and you were open and you helped us today, Jeff. So thank you so much friend for being here.

Jeff Slaughter: Awesome, thank you guys.

Shane Sams: Alright guys, an amazing call with Jeff today. Man, we really got some great focus and clarity and we know exactly what he is doing next in his online business. Jocelyn and I would love to help you with your next steps as well. Whether you're starting, building or growing an online business. We have all the training, community support and coaching that you need to take your life and business to the next level.

Shane Sams: We want you to get access to all of that right now absolutely free. You can try one month free in the Flip Your Life community. Right now if you go to flippedlifestyle.com/free that's F-L-I-P-P-E-Dlifestyle.com/free. And you can get a 30 day, all access trial to the Flip Your Life community.

Shane Sams: Not only will you get to get in there and get access to all that great stuff but you'll get to hang out with me and Jocelyn on our next live member call. Come and ask your questions and we will help you take it all to the next level. That's flippedlifestyle.com/free. We cannot wait to help you.

Shane Sams: Alright guys, that is all the time we have for this week. We cannot wait to see you next time. Until then, get out there and do whatever it takes to flip your life.

Jocelyn Sams: Bye.

Shane Sams: Guys one thing we are super proud of is Flip Your Life Live. You heard about the great progress that Jeff made at this year's live event. We want you to have that experience as well. We are doing it again next year. Flip Your Life Live 2019 and we want you to be there. Go get on the waiting list right now so that we can notify you as soon as Flip Your Life Live tickets are on sale. You can do that at flippedlifestyle.com/live. Get on the waiting list, get on the newsletter so we can keep you updated. So that you can be at next year's life changing event. That's flippedlifestyle.com/live. We can't wait to see you there.

Links and resources mentioned on today's show:

• Jeff's Chocolate Website
• Jeff's Christmas Play Script Website
• Flip Your Life LIVE 2019 Waiting List
• Flip Your Life community 30-day trial

Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what's possible for your family!

Get your FREE 30-DAY Membership in the Flip Your Life Community NOW!

– https://flippedlifestyle.com/free