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businessentrepreneurship
FL282 - We help Mike move from a client-based business to an online membership
About this Episode
In today's episode, we help Mike move from a client-based business to an online membership.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's podcast, we help Mike move from a client-based business to an online membership.
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. Now, we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right. Let's get started.
Shane Sams: What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to be back with you again today. Super excited to talk to another member of the Flip Your Life community, and we are pumped up about today's guest because we have been trying to get him on the show for a while now. Not only is this one of our amazing international members of the Flip Your Life community, but it's also someone that actually we have met in person, believe it or not, even though they had to fly all the way across the world to do it. We want to welcome to the show all the way from Melbourne, Australia, today Mike Giuliano. Mike, what's up, brother?
Mike Giuliano: Hey. Hey, guys. Thanks very much for having me. I am also super excited and pumped. And, yes, we've tried to get this going and I'm glad we're ready to go.
Shane Sams: Apparently, it's hard to coordinate when you're 15 time zones apart. I don't know. It's like, what is it 7:30 AM there right now, and it's like 4:30 PM, or something like that.
Mike Giuliano: It's, yeah, that's right.
Shane Sams: So thank you for being the one that had to get up early. I really appreciate that, man.
Shane Sams: But listen, we had a great time with Mike last year at Flip Your Life LIVE, him and his wife Pat made the long trip all the way. And we kind of followed along with their journey, because they were posting in the Flip Your Life LIVE Facebook group.
Jocelyn Sams: Because they had to leave like days early, of course.
Shane Sams: Right, before everybody else, where did you land? You landed in, like, Memphis, and rented a car, like drove over to Nashville, or something like that?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, that's right. So we landed in L.A. and then caught a flight over, and then got to hire a Mustang, so the convertible, that was pretty cool. And got to enjoy the south a little bit. So, yeah. It took us a while to get there, but we were revved when we got there.
Shane Sams: So what did you think about the ... what's it-
Jocelyn Sams: Had you ever been to the south before?
Shane Sams: Had you ever been there, yeah. And then what'd you think about it?
Mike Giuliano: Okay, so I've been to U.S. between 12 and 15 times. Never been to the south. First time. I've got plenty of friends in the south. And we loved it. We loved the people, we loved everything about the south. So we have dear friends in Minnesota, and they were shocked when I said, "You know what, I wanna move to the south."
Shane Sams: So we have got a conversion. We have someone converting to southern life. That is what I'm talking about right now.
Jocelyn Sams: Well we have other Australian friends who came over for the event, and they also loved the south. And anyone who has been to the United States from another country, you know that the south is not Los Angeles or New York, or you know ... The places people typically go in the United States. The south is very different.
Shane Sams: I'm super excited that you'll be coming back to the south this year for Flip Your Life LIVE in Lexington, Kentucky, correct?
Mike Giuliano: Yes sir, yeah, we can't wait. It's only a few months away, so yeah, it'll be cool.
Shane Sams: Well we're gonna get more into that later and talk about your journey, what's got you to this point today, where we're at. But tell us a little bit more about your guys' background, tell us about you and your online business, and what you've been doing for a living over the past few years.
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, sure. Over the last 20 years, I've been a digital strategist. So basically that's helping companies grow online. Website development, SEO services, social media, commercialization, reputation management. And I've done work for all sorts of companies. Councils, government departments, Australia Spy Agency, large corporations, small business, it runs the gamut. That's what I've been doing the last 20 years.
Shane Sams: What was it like? Can you tell us what you were doing for the Australia Spy Agency?
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, that one kinda like, piques interest.
Shane Sams: That one stuck out to me. I'm like, "Is this, like, covert stuff? Are you, like, classified and sworn to secrecy?"
Mike Giuliano: No, so what we've got, it's called SEO, so with SEO I help them do some online marketing.
Shane Sams: Okay, good. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't really secretly taping me and I was being investigated here, by the Australian secret service.
Jocelyn Sams: So are you ... You don't have to answer this, but are you or are you not coming to the south as part of a witness protection plan?
Shane Sams: Is this a spy system? Are you spying on us, is that what's happening here?
Jocelyn Sams: You don't have to answer that.
Mike Giuliano: Hey, I'll take any excuse to move to the south, so ...
Shane Sams: That's right.
Mike Giuliano: I'm coming to learn and grow the business.
Shane Sams: Alright, so let me ... Okay, so you been doing this for 20 years, you've been helping people at SEO, working in WordPress, working in different development for websites and things like that. And this has all been one-on-one client work, like really intense, really up in each other's faces. Meetings and talking to people, and you're wanting to transition into more of an online membership model, so you don't have to do so much of that time for dollar stuff. Correct?
Mike Giuliano: That's correct, yeah. Some of those contracts I've had a few years, some of them a few months, some of them are project by project. But it means that I have to go to the client, I have to be with the client, and I'm locked into their meetings and their terms. So, yeah. So that's why I want to move to a membership model, to have more freedom.
Shane Sams: So tell us what your membership model looks like. What kind of service are you gonna providing, in a scalable way, charging a low monthly price? What are you gonna be doing for people to be able to transition into that? What is your new online business, what's it going to look like?
Mike Giuliano: So what's happened is, over the years, I've had small businesses contact me when they had their website get hacked. When they've tried to do an update on WordPress and it's destroyed their site. So I know that there's a need out there for small businesses to have the protection that the large companies take for granted, basically, because they've got the marketing dollars to pay for that. So what I've been able to do is, get all my services, so we'll keep your website updated, we'll do your daily backups, we'll do all your plugin updates. Every day we scan to make sure your updating plugins, themes, core files, your security. We provide real time hacking protection. If you're gonna need common site real time backups.
Mike Giuliano: So we package that into our membership site and we've got three different levels there. And it makes it affordable for anyone who's got a WordPress site, to have the same protection that the large companies get.
Shane Sams: That's very interesting because, just today, I was answering some questions inside of the forums in the Flip Your Life community, and one of the big things that we see a lot is people will start working in WordPress, and they'll get a little freaked out. Not because of using WordPress. Using WordPress itself is really easy. It's almost like using Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, or even saving files on your computer. It's just, you know, the categories are kind of the folders, the posts are kind of the ... or the pages are just kind of saved in things. It's really easy to actually create stuff in WordPress.
Shane Sams: But that's where they get freaked out. It's when those little numbers by the update buttons pop up and you got a red three, and it's like oh, you need to update this, update this, but then you click a button and everything on your site breaks. Right? Or you get in, like we did one time ... One time we logged in to flippedlifestyle.com, and instead of me and Jocelyn and our podcast staring back at us, it was a skull and crossbones and a terrorist organization, who had overwritten our page.
Jocelyn Sams: That was fun.
Shane Sams: That was fun. And we didn't know anything about security, anything about updating plugins or-
Jocelyn Sams: You learn real fast when something like that happens.
Shane Sams: Yeah. We were literally in Disney World, we were walking out the door, the kids were in a stroller. And I looked down at the site and I went, "Uh. Hold on a second."
Jocelyn Sams: "We have a problem."
Shane Sams: "Something's wrong." So basically what you're saying is, for someone who is scared of that stuff or is not as tech savvy to set up backups, to do those updates and to ... You're just kinda gonna be the one stop shop, click the button, here we go, we'll take care of it for you. Now you can focus on making content or products, or whatever else you're doing on your website. Right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And also on top of that, my experience with the large companies and government departments is, reporting's important. So on top of providing that protection, the backup, we also provide monthly reports. So every month we're gonna give the client an SEO report. So we'll tell them how they're doing with their keywords so they know if they're improving or if they're going back a little bit. We also give them a monthly site audit, so that tells them little things that they can, little and big things that can make changes to their website. So the more changes you make, the better you tweak your site, the better you're gonna rank, and the better usability experience that customers or visitors get. And the more comfortable customers feel, the more they're gonna stay on your site, take that call of action, or purchase that product.
Mike Giuliano: And also on top of that, we provide back end and video tutorials as well, just to teach people that don't know certain things in WordPress, how they can accomplish certain things, and improve their site.
Shane Sams: So this is amazing, because this membership is very different than a lot of the ones that we feature on the show, because it really is a service. It's not really just a content-based or a teaching or learning how to do stuff. You do have a component like that, like you just said, there's WordPress tutorials that go deeper into using the platform. But primarily, this is a service-based, scalable, monthly membership. So as you grow I'm sure you'll have a team, or I don't know exactly how you're doing this on the back end, if some of it's automated or whatever. But you're basically saying, "Well, for every one of these team members I can have X clients." And that becomes infinitely scalable without you.
Shane Sams: And that's really what we're talking about about passive income. About creating a freedom online and creating a business where you're not trading time for dollars. It doesn't have to be log in, watch course, ask questions, or whatever. It can be a service. You can totally take a service that you're doing one on one now, and figure out a way to systemize it in a way where you can grow it. You can scale it, and it doesn't involve you actually touching the keyboard everyday. And that's just a really interesting concept, and I think this is gonna go over like gangbusters, actually. So, good job, dude.
Mike Giuliano: Ah, thank you. Ah, thank you.
Shane Sams: So tell us a little bit more about how you came up with this idea. When did you start really thinking about transitioning? When did you start thinking, putting the idea together? Or when did you just decide, "Man, I've had enough of this client stuff. I've gotta find something else." Did you hear one of our podcasts? Did you get an idea? Where did that part of this journey start?
Mike Giuliano: Well see, this is the interesting thing, but also it's the embarrassing thing. I'm in the digital realm, so I've always heard of people turning an idea into a online product. I mean, me personally, I own over 800 domain names. So I'm big in the marketing sphere on line, but it's always been for clients.
Mike Giuliano: So one day I was listening to a podcast, and you and Jocelyn were being interviewed. And I thought, man, number one, I love the accent. And number two, you guys were so candid and honest, and I was taken back by that. So I quickly looked up Flip Your Life and then started listening to your own podcast, subscribed. And my wife used to have a bridal shop, which was about a 60 minute commute. And we actually home school. And so, our whole family would listen to Flip Your Life. And my kids know, if there's one, there's a hundred. If there's a hundred, there's a thousand. So they can recite that. And, you know, they did caught on the southern voice a little bit as well.
Mike Giuliano: So, we would listen to you guys every morning and every afternoon. Through rush hour traffic. And that's when you mentioned about Flip Your Life LIVE. I thought, you know what, this is what I'm gonna do. So I looked over at my wife ... We were actually, when we decided to go to Flip Your Life LIVE and heard about it, we were driving to a country location to celebrate our anniversary. We looked at each other and thought you know what, this is the time, let's do it. And we signed up!
Jocelyn Sams: So I have to ask you one thing, because when you guys were at our event, you told me that you had gotten Pat to listen to the show, but at first she didn't really love it so much. Tell us a little bit about that.
Mike Giuliano: Yes. So she said she couldn't really listen to it because she felt that the accents were a bit strong. And me and the kids love the accent. So for a while she didn't want to listen. But then she didn't have a choice. There's five people in our family, four of us wanted to listen, so we listened.
Shane Sams: Love it.
Mike Giuliano: But you know what, the voice kept on chipping away at her. Her guard up, and then eventually she thought you know what, these guys actually make sense. Same thing, she saw the honesty come through. And the fact that you guys genuinely care. That's the difference. I mean, you can open up Facebook, open up any website, go to Google, and see ads for heaps of programs that quote unquote teach you how to make money, but they don't care. And they don't really work. Whereas that was the difference, the fact that you guys genuinely care and you're there for the whole journey.
Shane Sams: That's amazing.
Jocelyn Sams: Well, what makes me so happy about that is that you guys cared enough and were willing to make the investment in time and money to fly all the way to literally the other side of the earth to come to our event. And not only did you do it once, but you found enough value in it that you're going to do it again.
Shane Sams: Yeah, that's incredible.
Jocelyn Sams: And for me, that is just the ultimate, I don't know what you would say, I guess compliment, to what we do, is that you were willing to do that not just once, but you're willing to do it twice. And that just makes me really happy.
Shane Sams: Yeah, I've got an awesome picture of me and you and Jocelyn and Pat sitting at a table at the event. And it really ... You know, we took hundreds of photos at the event. And I love all of, I mean I really appreciate every photo that I have with every member and every listener that was there. But that one really did stick out to me when I was looking through it, because every ... I actually have it, I think it's on the sales page right now for next year's event. And I've actually got it in my ... I keep a folder that's the main items from Flip Your Life LIVE last year. And that one just really is the one that reminds me that we really can reach out and impact people all over the world. And that you can. You can help anybody with a WordPress website anywhere in the world. And if anybody listening to this podcast right now, if you'll just pick your rock up and throw it in the pond, you're gonna ripple out and impact somebody, somewhere, that you just could never do if you didn't start an online business.
Shane Sams: But I really do love that picture of all four of us, 'cause it just encapsulates everything that we wanted to do with the Flip Your Life community and Flip Your Life LIVE, and that was bring together family-focused like minded people, to really push their business and their life forward.
Jocelyn Sams: While we're on that subject, we've started selling tickets for next year. We are almost sold out of VIP right now, and we're still working on selling general admission. But as you were the person who probably traveled the furthest of anyone else at our event, if someone was thinking about should they come or should they not, what would you say to them?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, book it in. Definitely, it's a no brainer. From my personal perspective, it was really what I ... It was the kick in the pants that I needed, to move from having to do work for clients to having the freedom. And now, like you said, we've signed up for September coming up, 2019, and now it's about growing what I've created through being inspired through you guys. And I was, I tell you what, when you were sending out those emails saying, "Okay, we're gonna open registration," I was just hanging out. And being in Australia, I know I'm the last one to get the email. And I wanted to be the first one to book into VIP. As soon as I saw it, I booked it, man.
Shane Sams: Nice man, that's amazing. That's awesome
Jocelyn Sams: We love it. And we're so glad that you guys came, we're so glad that you're coming back.
Shane Sams: We just had a VIP meeting too, Mike, and we've got so many ...
Jocelyn Sams: We've got some surprises for you.
Shane Sams: We were actually looking at each other over this meeting, with our live event coordinator the other day, we were looking down going, "This is ridiculous, what the VIP people are gonna be getting." So, it's gonna be phat. You're gonna enjoy it.
Shane Sams: So once you signed up for the event, now this is where you started thinking about your idea, and you really took some action and started putting this together. 'Cause that's one thing we really focus on with Flip Your Life LIVE, is getting stuff done before you get there. Like, I'm actually, at the very beginning of April, we're about to start going through the entire Flip Your Life blueprint, live with me, with the attendees, to prepare everybody for the event. Everybody always asks us, "What if I haven't gotten anything started? What if I haven't got an idea yet? What if I've not done anything?" Well that's okay, 'cause you're going to get a live walkthrough of the blueprint, and we're also gonna do a business audit, for our more advanced members that maybe already have a successful membership. And we're literally preparing every week, doing these live trainings with the attendees, to get stuff done before the event. So what did you do before Flip Your Life LIVE last year?
Mike Giuliano: Before Flip Your Life LIVE, obviously the first thing was to think of, okay, what can I provide, what service or product can I provide to help people in business? And using my skill set for the last 20 years, I came up with WP Safe Care. So first was coming up with that concept.
Mike Giuliano: And then the next thing was mapping out, okay, how is it gonna roll out, and what am I gonna offer. Now, what I didn't do is really attend to those early calling sessions being provided, the live sessions. I needed to do more of that. And that's where last year's Flip Your Life I fell a little bit short, and I encourage anyone listening that if you booked in, please please please, do your homework, attend every session and every recording, because it will make your life easier at the actual event. So, yeah.
Shane Sams: Yeah, that's what we talked about at the event. You were running the idea by us, me and Jocelyn were sitting with you talking about that. And we were going through that, and I was like, "You've known about this for months, what are you doing? Like why don't you just build this thing?" And you were like, "I know, I know, I know."
Mike Giuliano: Yep, I know. It was crazy, and probably because I was sort of stuck in that rut, and having to do work for clients, and maintain the clients that I had. But yeah, even if your listeners take an hour every day to work on their project leading up to Flip Your Life LIVE 2019, it's definitely well worth it.
Shane Sams: Now, I know you have taken massive action since Flip Your Life LIVE, because you left with momentum, you got home, and you really really started making this transition to, "I have to build out everything so that I get to leave client work and do this membership site" So, tell us where you are right now when it comes to building this thing, getting it ready for launch. What does it look like now, is it all done, is it all finished?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, so everything's completed. I actually took the files off the site last night, so it is live. I've got a handful of clients that I've been doing this for, testing the system and testing the concept, and that's working really well. So I am ready to go.
Shane Sams: Awesome. So we're ready to launch then. That's what we're really gonna talk about the rest of the podcast, is how to get this thing launched, okay? So basically, someone could give you money today and log in and use this service, correct?
Mike Giuliano: Absolutely. Yep, it's ready to go.
Shane Sams: Alright. See, that's the magic time. That's the product first mentality. Once you get to that point, everything else is just finding people to buy it. That's where that saying comes from, "If you can find one, you can find a hundred and one or a thousand and one." You know? So that's what we've gotta do, is get this thing out there. So what is your ... We might have a couple questions here. We're gonna talk through launching this thing, rolling it out, but ... What is your specific question right now that you might have. Let's just start with the first one.
Mike Giuliano: The first question would be, I've got three membership levels. It's what do we call them? So we had a contentious discussion, a heated debate in the household. So I've got three, I've given them certain names, and some people said I should call them Bronze, Silver, and Gold. And other people said I should call them Small, Medium, and Large. So it's, what do I call my three levels?
Shane Sams: What do you want to call them?
Mike Giuliano: What I have called them is Pinello, which is the $59 a month, and you get a certain amount of service. Arcano, which is $79 a month, and you get a few more things. And then Di Fara, which is $99 a month, and you get some more syncing and some more reports.
Shane Sams: Okay, Mike, I'm just a simple man from Kentucky. I don't-
Jocelyn Sams: We're both sitting here looking at each other like, what?
Shane Sams: What are those words, what do those words even mean? Like, what are those words? I don't ...
Mike Giuliano: So, my daughter was the only one who liked them, everybody else hated them. These are three incredible, famous, New York pizza makers. I love making pizzas, I've got a massive pizza oven in my back yard, and that's what I try to do every week, make Napoli style pizzas. So these guys are my pizza heroes.
Shane Sams: Those are your pizza heroes, okay. Okay. So, well ... I've never-
Jocelyn Sams: This is the first time I've ever seen Shane speechless on this podcast.
Shane Sams: 'Cause you're saying those words, and I'm like, "Man, I don't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth." I don't even know what that meant. I thought you were speaking a different language, and I thought, "Man, I thought Australian's spoke English." I didn't know what was going on. Okay.
Mike Giuliano: They're all Italian surnames, that's what they are.
Shane Sams: I got it, okay. Italian sur, okay. What do you think? What do you think about naming?
Jocelyn Sams: Okay, here's the thing. No matter what you call them, people probably won't know the difference. And they're going to refer to them to whatever they feel like referring to them. So in other words, what I'm trying to say is, I think that you are making a big deal out of something that's not really a big deal.
Shane Sams: So basically it's, yeah. There is some argument, I think, for clear naming. Our plans are, we have a standard plan, a premium plan, and we used to call it exclusive, but now we changed it to accelerator, or whatever.
Jocelyn Sams: But most people probably wouldn't know that.
Shane Sams: They still don't know what it means, they just know that one's cheaper and one's more expensive than the other. Right?
Jocelyn Sams: And so, if someone wrote in, they might say, "Hey, I'm on the middle plan, or the higher plan, or the basic plan," or whatever. So what I'm trying to tell you is, don't let this get in your way. Call them whatever you wanna call them, and it really doesn't matter.
Shane Sams: It will not impact sales. It actually could be a good thing, 'cause people will be like, "Oo, fancy." Right?
Jocelyn Sams: But these are the types of decisions that people let stand in their way when they're trying to start selling something, when they're trying to change something. They let little things like this just stop them in their tracks. So you know, you could have been marketing this forever, but you haven't done it because maybe you didn't think the names were a hundred percent right. No one will remember them anyway.
Shane Sams: Yeah, I mean basically, the list of services is what people are gonna read. And they're gonna click the price that makes the most sense to them. So, I wouldn't worry too much about the naming. If you wanna have fun with it, it's your business. Have fun with it. If you fall on the more logical clear side of small, medium, large, there's nothing wrong with that either. And anybody out there that's naming anything, I don't care if it's naming your domain name, naming your business, naming your product, naming your course, whatever it is. Just name it. It doesn't really matter, that's not what's gonna sell product.
Jocelyn Sams: You can always change it. If later on there's some kind of a issue with it, then change it. We've changed our product names a million times. It's not a big deal.
Shane Sams: Yeah. And I don't even know ... The correct technical coaching answer, what I would give you is, "Well, sir, you should split test that. You should have a page where half the people go to, with the fancy fun pizza names. And half with the other names." So there is a merit to that, if you want to do that later. But, bro, I mean it's ... I don't know. I kinda like it. I kinda like the crazy names, myself.
Mike Giuliano: Yes.
Shane Sams: Maybe your niche can be Pizza Fan WordPress Users. It's only people who know the greatest pizza people in the planet. So, okay.
Shane Sams: Alright. So we've cleared up the name issue. So let's go deeper. So what else do you need to work through to get this thing really launched and start promoting this thing hardcore?
Mike Giuliano: Okay, so I've three price brackets that I feel are reasonably priced. Just not sure how the market's gonna accept that price bracket. Apart from providing all the security and the updates and backups, we also evaluate by providing the reports. It's a holistic service to help someone grow, but doing graded online business and WordPress site, but doing it on a mass level. So just the pricing bit was the other sticking point.
Shane Sams: Okay, so you've got 59, 79, and 99.
Mike Giuliano: Yes sir.
Shane Sams: Usually I don't really worry about the middle price, 'cause a lot of times people are drawn to it just for what it is. But what is the major difference between 59 and 199?
Mike Giuliano: Okay, so 59, you get all the-
Shane Sams: I'm sorry, 99. I meant 99.
Mike Giuliano: Yeah. So all three of them, you get all of your backups, updates, real-time hacking protection, and real-time backup. You get that with all of them. You get the SEO report and the side order report and you get tutorials with all of them. With the 99, if you're a product-based business, an eCommerce site, we'll sync all your products through Root Commerce. We'll sync it with eBay, Amazon, Facebook, Google products. And we also provide you three competitor analysis. So you tell us your three competitors, and every month we're gonna give you an SEO insider report on those competitors, so you know what they're doing. So that helps you stay sharp on your game.
Shane Sams: Hmm.
Jocelyn Sams: Okay. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of value.
Shane Sams: Yeah, so what do you get on the middle plan? What's the differentiator in the middle plan?
Mike Giuliano: The middle plan, if you're an eCommerce site, if you got Root Commerce, then we do eBay product syncing and Amazon.
Shane Sams: Okay. So-
Mike Giuliano: We've had clients in the past where they'd dedicate one staff member just to do eBay, or just to do Amazon, whereas we automate this process. The site maintains their products in Root Commerce, and then we sync it with those different channels.
Shane Sams: The thing that I'm hearing that kinda scares me with the way you've divided up this pricing is, it almost feels like, hey, all WordPress users can use the 59, but it sounds like 79 and 99 are both really really focused on eCommerce. You know?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah.
Shane Sams: And I'm afraid that you've almost got two products here. That might be why your pricing feels a little wonky. So if I come to you and I'm a WordPress person and I'm selling courses. I'm not even gonna look at 79 and 99. And that's not what the point of having three prices is. The point is figuring out what people can afford, and giving them the value that matches that. So I'm wondering if you shouldn't move all of the eCommerce type benefits up to that $99 level and maybe charge 199 for that. And then do something else for the other two. Like the other two could just be, like 59 for just the protection, or 79 for protection plus reports. And then you've got this big package that says the eCommerce Pro Package, or whatever. 'Cause, right now, if I'm not doing anything on eBay or any of that other stuff, I'm gonna just overlook any other benefits of the other two packages. Does that make sense?
Mike Giuliano: Yes, absolutely.
Shane Sams: Yeah. So I wonder if you could do like 59, 99 and 199.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, I think the 99 sounds a little low for the type of value that you'd be providing with the upper limit package. But the beautiful thing about this type of service is that there are a lot of similar types of service. Not exactly to what you're doing, but people who provide maintenance or different services for WordPress sites. So that gives you a really good place where you can go and look and see what other people are doing in similar spaces.
Shane Sams: I can tell you right now, we have paid up to 199 a month just for updating plugins.
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah.
Shane Sams: We have a business that's doing that, but everyone won't be able to do that. Some people would only be able to pay maybe 59 for updating plugins and stuff. What I'm saying is, you're giving so much value, and some of it might not be relevant to all WordPress users in those other two packages. So you gotta figure out a way to go 59, 99, and something bigger for all that other stuff. And you'll make more money that way, for sure.
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, that's gold. That's brilliant. I'm gonna do that, absolutely.
Shane Sams: So basically let's say this ... In general, I'm trying to think of a way to theme this for everybody listening. So basically your core service is usually that lowest price. And then your core service plus a bonus is the middle price. So the bonus there is the reporting, right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah.
Shane Sams: And then the big package usually has extra services. Right? So for example, if you look at our package, we have a standard membership, that's our lowest price. Like 19 a month right now. So you can go in and watch videos and talk on the forums. Right? Okay?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah.
Shane Sams: So our bonus that comes in the middle package, our premium package, which is I think $49 a month right now, is you get two member calls with me and Jocelyn every single month. And you get to actually come ask us questions on those member calls. Right? So see, what we've done is, that applies to everybody. You know what I mean?
Shane Sams: Now our third tier has things like access, additional resources, and that's really what this eCommerce really bonus package thing is, right? And what it'll do, you're almost having three options but two products, really. 'Cause that eCommerce people are gonna jump on that last package every time. 'Cause they know the value. So that's really what you're doing with your tiers, is you're trying to figure out a way to get people to move up the ladder, or to buy a different product completely. So you need to package it that way so it's not so much conf ... 'Cause if I was on your website and I just had a WordPress website, I'd be like, "Ah, man, I can totally get away with 59 bucks, I don't even need to think about the other two. I'm not on eBay." Right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, you're right, yeah.
Shane Sams: So if you wanna open this up to the masses, you're gonna have to change that just a little bit.
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, absolutely, will do. I'll get that done today.
Shane Sams: Okay? Alright. So I think we've figured out how we've named your pizza packages, right? We've got some pricing things figured out, we've talked a little bit about how to structure a three-tiered offer. So what do we need to do now to launch this thing? You've opened the doors, right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah.
Shane Sams: So we can't just build it and hope people will come. What's your plan going forward now, to roll this out to the masses?
Mike Giuliano: Number one, I'm gonna start providing hints and tips on SEO. So basically providing light coaching on how people can grow their websites from an SEO point of view. So I'm gonna be publishing that on the different social media channels. I'm putting together a report that people can download that will summarize, okay, an action plan of what you need to do. So everything will be actionable items to help you grow your ... That's the whole thing. Helping you grow your business online. So I'm providing that content for free. To get the WP Safecare branding out there, and the packages out there.
Shane Sams: I wonder if you should actually say how to grow your business with WordPress. Instead of how to grow it online? 'Cause that's really the goal, right? Is WordPress.
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah.
Shane Sams: So like, how to grow your business using WordPress. There was a discussion today in the forums actually, like should I build my website on ClickFunnels, should I use WordPress, WordPress scares me. That's really the exact conversation that you're trying to have here, right? Is like, "No, WordPress is awesome, let me just show you how to keep it safe so that you can grow your business effectively." You know what I mean?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah.
Shane Sams: What's your opt-in gonna be? What are you gonna be getting leads with? What's the free deal?
Mike Giuliano: I'm putting together a free report on some actionable items to move forward with your WordPress.
Shane Sams: Security or just using WordPress?
Mike Giuliano: From an SEO point of view. And what you need to do to your WordPress site to grow from an SEO point of view. Because that's the foundation. If you're not seen on Google, well, you're not seen. Normally. So that's gonna be the, providing that free report and getting people in like that.
Shane Sams: I have an idea, but it might freak you out.
Mike Giuliano: Freak me out. Go for it.
Shane Sams: I wonder if your freebie should actually not be all of your WordPress training.
Mike Giuliano: Yep, okay.
Shane Sams: 'Cause all your stuff is SEO, but at the end of your article, imagine if you said, "Oh yeah, you gotta do this, this, and this, oh but by the way, if you're not using WordPress, doesn't matter anyway." You're not gonna be ... You need to use WordPress, don't worry, I'm gonna teach you how to use WordPress completely. 'Cause people sell that. Like actually sell courses how to do that, right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah.
Shane Sams: So if you became this person who was the go-to person to learn how to use Word ... You can learn how to use WordPress and still not know how to protect it and back it up and do all those things. I'm talking about making good posts, SEO posts, the difference in posts and pages, and even deeper stuff. Like sidebar structures and how to use widgets. All the things these videos you've got teaching people how to use WordPress. That still doesn't infringe on your core offer. Like at all.
Shane Sams: So I wonder if you shouldn't be like ... You can still write about SEO and write about using WordPress and maybe be like a little news person, who, anytime something updates in WordPress you have an article about it or whatever. You just type up a little blog post about 5.03's release or whatever. Or you have a plugin of the week. Whatever it is. You're just really focused on helping business owners use WordPress better. You can dabble in marketing, dabble in SEO, but like ... Man, if you were sitting there and you were like, "Do you wanna get more out of WordPress? Well, join our free community and get access to a hundred videos learning how to use WordPress."
Shane Sams: Now you definitely have a business owner that's interested in WordPress, probably using it, definitely needs your service. And it feels like you're stripping value out of your product, but you're really not, 'cause that's not your offer. Your offer is WP Safe. Right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah.
Shane Sams: So why not just be the ultimate guy for business owners using WordPress? And then bam, secure, secure ... Your list would probably explode 'cause you could ... Like, "Join my community for free. Get access to all of our WordPress trainings." Boom. And now you just follow up with, is your WordPress site safe? Right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, yeah. That's awesome.
Shane Sams: Does that scare you? Does that scare you to let all that content out?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah, well it's funny because the video tutorials are part of the packing, but I could take them and make them free and get people in like that. And the crazy thing is, because I've been doing this for so long, I've created training manuals for my large corporates teaching this stuff on how to use WordPress. So I've actually got a lot of the content already.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, and you don't have to feel like you have to use every single bit for free, either. Maybe you could use part of it for free and then have the other behind the paywall, and that's totally fine.
Shane Sams: Yeah. And it's just the way you present it. All content wants to be free anyway. Everything in those videos, I hate to tell you, is on YouTube, and I could go find it. But I gotta find it. That's the problem. Right?
Mike Giuliano: Right.
Shane Sams: So your offer is you get to get it not free, but here's what you put in your package. Priority support and content coaching. And they can go ask, "Hey, where's a video about setting up a new sidebar or a specific page?" Oh, yeah. Well, priority support will answer that question for them, but it won't do it for the free level. So you could draw your line there too. If you want help going through the trainings, that's inside the $59 thing. Whatever. But then if you just wanna use it yourself, hey, DIY community, people can get in there and talk to each other. But you have guaranteed people using WordPress. That's amazing. Right?
Mike Giuliano: Yeah. Fantastic.
Shane Sams: How many videos do you have?
Mike Giuliano: Over 100, I think about 125, something like that.
Shane Sams: You have 125 blog posts written if you do this too, because every week you could release one training with a blog post, maybe a transcript. And at the bottom it can say, "Hey, we have 99 more of these inside the community." 'Cause they're all spread out among your website, they can dig and hunt, but they're really all in one place with a nice organized system if they were starting from scratch in the community. So they're basically getting curation in the free level, but you can use those as blog posts now everywhere. Upload them to YouTube, whatever. Build your audience.
Mike Giuliano: That's fantastic, yeah. That's brilliant.
Shane Sams: Love it.
Jocelyn Sams: Alright. Well I think that you have some solid direction. I cannot wait to hear bout your launch. When is that going to be?
Mike Giuliano: Okay, so I'm gonna put all those things in place. Change the pricing, change the name. Not the name of the levels, but have an eCommerce level and then the other two levels. So I'm aiming to go full on live in two weeks.
Shane Sams: Alright. So are you gonna launch, real quick, with a webinar? Are you gonna do just adds to your site? Or are you gonna just kinda slow roll it out, everything's ready to go, and you're just gonna start cranking out content? What's the plan?
Mike Giuliano: I'm gonna be running ads.
Shane Sams: You're gonna be running ads.
Jocelyn Sams: Alright, awesome. Well, I cannot wait to hear more about it in the community. I know you will be posting a success story so we can all live through you vicariously. It is going to be awesome.
Shane Sams: And we are going to celebrate massive business ... What do you have? You've got like, what, 16 weeks? No wait, you got about 20 weeks between now and Flip Your Life LIVE. So you gotta be rolling into Lexington, Kentucky, man, like, "Guys. Went on the podcast, dropped a hundred, two hundred members. I found one, and then I found a hundred and one, and then I found whatever and one." Right? We're gonna be celebrating that downtown Lexington this September. Sound good?
Mike Giuliano: Sounds good, looking forward to it, man. That's gonna be awesome.
Shane Sams: Alright guys. That was a great conversation with Mike, today about his business. Talked about a lot of things we don't get to talk about sometimes on the podcast. Service-based memberships, getting into those price points. And even some of those things that hold us up, like naming. I can't wait to see what Mike does over the next few months.
Shane Sams: And we would love for you to take massive action over the next few months as well. And we'd love to see you at Flip Your Life LIVE to celebrate all of the accomplishments, all the things that you're gonna be doing in your online business over the next few months. If you'd like to meet us, meet Mike, and meet everybody else that's coming to Flip Your Life LIVE, this is an open event. Anybody that's listening, anybody in our community, anybody anywhere in the Flipped Lifestyle universe, can come and hang out with us and Mike at Flip Your Life LIVE 2019. All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/live. That's L-I-V-E. And you can grab a ticket to the number one event for family-focused entrepreneurs. Man, it's gonna be a great room, a lot of great people are gonna be there, and we cannot wait to introduce you to our hometown, basically, where Jocelyn and I met. Lexington, Kentucky. It's gonna be an amazing event. We can't wait to see you there.
Shane Sams: Alright guys, that is all the time that we have for today. Thank you so much for listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. If we can help you in any way inside the Flip Your Life community, we would love to do that. But until next time, get out there, take action, do whatever it takes to flip your life.
Jocelyn Sams: Bye.
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