FL302 - We Help a Manly Truck Driver Find His Touchy Feely Niche For Men

In today's episode, we help a truck driver start an online business.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jocelyn: Hey, y'all. On today's podcast, we help a truck driver start an online business.

Shane: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast where life always comes before work. We're your host, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. We're a real family that figured out how to make our entire living online, and now we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right, lets get started.

Shane: What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. It is great to be back with you again today. We are super excited to have another member of the Flip Your Life community on the show, so that we can help them find their idea, start, build, and grow their own online business, just like we have, and just like hundreds of other people have in the Flip Your Life community.

Shane: Super excited to welcome our guest today, Bryan Goodwin. Bryan, welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast.

Bryan: Hey guys. I appreciate y'all having me on here today.

Shane: I think this is a first Bryan because ... we're going to get into your story in just a second. Bryan is a truck driver, and we are actually recording this podcast, he is in his truck on the side of the road right now. Right?

Jocelyn: Not driving.

Shane: Not driving, he's not driving, but this is the first time I think anyone has ever recorded a podcast with us inside of a semi truck, so I'm pretty excited about that.

Bryan: Well, actually I've heard just about all y'all's episodes, so its ... I think yeah the first one y'all had someone that was a truck driver or is a truck driver. No, there's a truck driver in the forums.

Shane: That's right. There is. There is. I remember that podcast, but they were not actually in their truck.

Bryan: Yeah, they weren't actually in the truck.

Shane: That's where you took it to the next level, Bryan. You took it to the next level.

Bryan: Glad I could do that.

Jocelyn: I'm just curious. I know you spend a lot of time on the road. I'm sure that you listen to a lot of different stuff, but how did you discover us, and have you listened to everything?

Bryan: How I actually found you, I'm not a hundred percent. I believe what happened is I was just looking for a business podcast. I was looking for some more information on businesses, because I listen to the (inaudible) and things like that. Y'all's came up, and so I decided let's give them a try, started listening and, I don't know, got all the way up to one particular episode, and I was like, "All right. Well, they've got me pretty much sold. I've got this, but I want to see what else I can learn," so I jumped all the way back and started with episode one, which I actually had to manually download the first 30 because y'all had already cleared the 300 mark-

Shane: Right.

Bryan: -by that time, so I had to manually download the first 30 and then go from 30 all the way up to what I had listened to at that time.

Shane: Love it.

Bryan: I've listened to a whole lot of Shane and Jocelyn Sams.

Jocelyn: Bless your heart.

Shane: Right, bless your heart, man. I know we had you hooked here because I've heard you say y'all about five times, and as soon as you heard that hey y'all at the beginning of the show, you're like, "Wait a minute."

Bryan: Oh, yeah.

Shane: These are my people. These are my peeps. I've found my people.

Jocelyn: Yeah, so I was curious about that because I know you spend a lot of time driving, and you probably spend a lot of time listening.

Shane: Well, I'm glad that we have kept you company on many miles of road.

Bryan: Yep.

Shane: Hopefully, we can help you take everything to the next level, what you're doing. Maybe someday we'll get you off the road.

Bryan: Well, that's the objective.

Jocelyn: All right, so you are a driver right now, and tell us just a little bit more about your life, about your background, and then we'll get into more of the business side.

Bryan: Okay. I've been driving truck for about 11 years now. I drive for the oil field. I actually just hauled what's called frack sand from quarries and stuff like that and take them out to where they do the hydraulic fracking at, and they use the sand actually as a means to prop the cracks and the rock up. I won't go into the details on what fracking is because that just goes completely off rails, but-

Shane: We've been known to go off the rails a little bit here on the show, man. That's okay.

Bryan: So-

Jocelyn: This is all Greek to me. I have no idea what all this means.

Bryan: Yeah-

Shane: Jocelyn, I just heard sand and I was like, "Sweet. Sand. Okay."

Jocelyn: Okay, I can call it that.

Shane: There's a big truck of sand. Bryan's at the wheel. Here we go.

Bryan: Yeah, so the issue that I run into is that I'm subjected to the swings in the market, so if oil fields, natural gas, and oil prices are getting really high, then yeah I get to have steak and go out and have fun, but if they fall through the floor, I'm eating Cheerios out of a tinfoil bowl. There's a lot of feasts and a lot of famine, and you don't really know when one is going to come upon you, and when the other one's going to leave, so just the swings, and I'm not enjoying the trucking life anymore.

Bryan: I've always wanted to get myself out of the truck after about, I don't know, probably about seven years of it. That's when I really started diving into podcasts and started trying to come up with different ideas. I've ran podcasts and blogs for probably about 10 of those years, but just I'm to the point now to where it's like, "All right. I've got to start trying something. I've played at poking the bear a bit. Now, let's go ahead and let's wrestle the guy down to the ground."

Jocelyn: Yeah, exactly. Well, tell me about your driving? Do you drive for away? Is it mostly more locally? I know you live in Oklahoma, right?

Bryan: Right. It's mostly just regional. There's been a couple times where we've had to go grab sand at some really odd places, all the way up from Oklahoma all the way to Pennsylvania to pick up a load-

Shane: Whoa.

Bryan: -get halfway ... yeah-

Shane: My gosh.

Bryan: -go and get halfway back for the oil company that we were hauling for to go, "Yeah. That sand you got, nevermind. We don't need it. Go take it back."

Shane: Oh my Go-. I think you just also set the record for the longest commute of anyone who's been on the show. I got this 24 hour commute, guys, and I'd really like to show you...so maybe this aha business thing can open some doors for me.

Bryan: Open some doors, exactly. So, it was - but most of the time it's just around the western Oklahoma area, western Texas, Texas panhandle area, may go up into Kansas just a little bit, but most of it's Oklahoma.

Shane: Just a lot of moving down the road, man.

Bryan: Yes, sir.

Shane: Lot of lonely times on the road, right?

Bryan: Yep, lot of I-40.

Jocelyn: All right, so you've been doing this driving thing for quite awhile. You decided, okay this is not the life that I want long term. So tell us a little bit about how you decided to start something online, and what it is that you're doing.

Bryan: All right. Started out - one of the podcasts I listen to is Late Night Internet Marketing, and Mark Mason is the host there. And he had talked about how he was doing drop ship. I was like all right, hey...cause I'd kind of heard about it and I'd wondered how do you get into drop shipping, thinking that would be better than having a room in the back packed full of inventory.

Shane: Let me explain what drop shipping is, because some listeners might not know. Drop shipping is basically where you are responsible for selling goods, but they're kept at another location. So if you fulfill - you may have a big inventory that's kept at a factory, and you just sell it online - the order goes to the factory, or the warehouse or whatever, they send it out. You're just responsible for basically selling it. You buy the goods, they're kept somewhere else, they're shipped from somewhere else, and so you never touch the stuff, you're just responsible for the marketing, and the sales, and getting it actually ordered by people.

Bryan: Precisely. And so I thought, that would be a great idea. It's really easy to get it all set up. So I went over to one of the little online store areas. You can set one up for about 30 bucks a month, and tried that out, and just through 3-6 months worth of 30 dollar payments out the window. And didn't make sale. But, I liked what the premise was about, but just because I was focusing more on the guy lifestyle - just being the guy. That's kind of what I've always...

Shane: What kind of products were they, that you were trying to sell?

Bryan: Well, they were anything from some of the unique whiskey glasses and decanters. And so you had kind of like the smoky bar room vibe to it.

Shane: Gotcha. Stereotypical man stuff.

Bryan: Yeah, stereotypical is the best way to put it, yes sir. Stereotypical man stuff that was neat looking - wasn't just a normal glass, it was like a glass looked like it was kind of twisted - things like that.

Bryan: Anyhow, went from that and just realized I wasn't making any money, wasn't making any sales. The closest I'd get - the software that was in the background would say that the sale was done in a very sketchy way, and so it was probably a stolen credit card, so I was like all right, I'm not going to set here and put myself at risk and be on the hook for a bad sale.

Shane: Right.

Bryan: So I went ahead and I decided I'll ditch that and go back into what I really like to do. I like to write, I like to blog, like to write. And just kind of start go blog and do affiliate marketing, things like that. And that's where Relaxed Male come from. And it's just kind of progressed, and every time I progress a little bit, about once a year it, seems like I'll get a little more focused, and a little more focused. So it was guys lifestyle, and I was like, no, let's talk about guys and getting them leadership and keeping the outdoor element to it, because I think getting people outside and being outdoors and stuff like that is really important for people as a whole. And for men more in particular.

Bryan: And so I've gotten down to where now it's men's coaching. Men's outdoor coaching is what I'm focusing into.

Shane: I love this journey, okay. Cause you said some really interesting things there.

Shane: One, just like, to combat stereotypes a little bit. So, since we're stereotypically talking about men's stuff we're selling, let's combat some stereotypes. You wouldn't think, you know, you talk to a truck driver - we all have this Americana image of a good 'ol truck driver driving down the road, a manly man, working with his hands and all this stuff. But you're like, I'm a truck driver, and I love to write. I like that. It's like, I thought about what I really like to do, and I was waiting for you to be like, fix diesel engines, or something like that. But you're like, I just love to write. And I just want to blog.

Shane: But it's so funny, we live in this weird world now where that is true. We all are a weird conglomerate of interests now, because of the internet, because of online, because of the way the world works now. And it's like, yeah man, a truck driver can love to blog, and he can get his message out there. And this driver - you know, you probably have a lot of anxiety about meeting deadlines and stress getting the sand where it needs to be, and there's people yelling all this stuff. I'm like, man...you just go home on the weekends, you're like, I'm getting out, I'm going outside, going for a hike. I'm going to hunt, fish, whatever you do. You do something outside to relax. You've learned how to manage this crazy lifestyle of driving to Pennsylvania from Oklahoma every once in awhile, right?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: And you've learned how to manage this, and now you want to mentor other men how to do this, right?

Bryan: Right.

Jocelyn: And I think it makes a lot of sense, I mean, there's also a lot of family stress I would imagine that goes along with this type of job, too.

Shane: Yeah, just being away from everybody and stuff like that.

Bryan: Oh yeah. That's one of the big things about in oil field, is you're on call. It's not a - it's Monday morning, it's time to hop in the truck and go drive around. It's all right, it's time to head out and it's 11 o'clock at night and they're like - hey one trucking company messed up so they're needing some loads. So I need you and about five other guys to hop in those trucks and head out to go grab some sand.

Bryan: So, it was always...it was kind of a running joke at the company - which is an amazing company, I'm not disparaging them in the least, because the company I would drive for, they're great folks. But, there was more than one time where I would be two hours down the road going to the city, and I would get a call just as I crossed into the city limits, and they'd be like, we need you to go ahead and go on a run. And it was like, oh man, all right, I'll be there in two - I'll be back in about two hours.

Shane: Crazy, man.

Bryan: Cause we'd sat there for two days beforehand with nothing, so it was like, all right, let's get some errands run.

Shane: But the crazy thing is though, Bryan, this is the life that a lot of people live, and there's millions of truck drivers. There's millions of people that are on call. Everybody from truck drivers to doctors. And that disruptive, not being able to plan things ahead lifestyle can make you feel out of control.

Shane: I'm sure there's a lot of people listening right now, you don't feel like you have control of your schedule. You feel like you're at the whim of the markets and everybody else. And that's just - the world works - we all got to grind, we all got to do things. We all have to meet expectations of others and ourselves. And managing the anxiety of that, managing the stress of that is really half the battle toward living like a flipped lifestyle.

Shane: We've talked a lot about this lately. I don't want to pigeon-hole the flipped lifestyle into totally 100% you've quit your job, you're making money with digital products, whatever.

Jocelyn: Life is good.

Shane: Yeah, life is good. That's not what it is. It's more like being able to create a life where you feel in control. That's the flipped lifestyle. If you could just manage your anxiety and stress, that might be the first step of hey, I've got joy back in my life to enjoy what I'm doing now, and then I can do something else later too, and change what I'm doing.

Shane: So, I think it's a super worthy mission, and I think it's an amazing idea. I love that you're - I can just picture you driving down the road in your semi-truck, but your wheels - you listen to a podcast and you just turn it off, sitting in silence thinking about your next blog post. For some reason, that makes me really gloriously happy. That's awesome.

Jocelyn: Your website is relaxedmale.com

Shane: Which is a great two-word domain name, by the way.

Jocelyn: And you've tried a couple different things on this, right? So let's talk a little bit about that.

Bryan: I've tried a couple different things. First off, like I said, I was doing affiliates and realized it didn't work. So, focused in on more of a service, just because I had the epiphany that I wanted to help people. And, I've done that for - every since I was little - I would try to find a way of helping people out. So, naturally wanted to start doing coaching, so that's where the...I started getting into how to coach, and wanted to run a blog post about how to help guys through the different challenges that they're running into through today's society.

Bryan: A lot of the posts are maybe a little on the touchy-feely side, but at the same time there's also a touch of woo-woo into it, so there's a method to it, and I've been trying to kind of use the blog as a means to map out a good solution. And I've got couple different ways that I like to take that.

Shane: Cool. I pictured it's like, Bryan Goodwin, the touchy-feely truck driver. I just pictured...which could actually be totally misinterpreted in a terrible way. No, we're not going to call you the touchy-feely truck driver. I do not want to do that, okay. I do not want to go there. But, I think we all can just be friends here and know what we mean, okay?

Jocelyn: Let's steer clear of that.

Shane: Let's steer clear of the touchy-feely...

Bryan: Touchy-feeling truck driver.

Shane: I think Relaxed Male is a much better choice of a domain name than the Touchy-Feely Truck Driver. Yeah, that might be a terrible made-for-TV movie someday...

Shane: I love your website. I'm looking at your website. You're doing a lot of things great. You've got a great - you're website at the top says Reconnecting Leaders to Nature - I want to talk about that in a little bit. Love your logo, it's a stick man leaning back on a mountain like he's in a hammock though. That's pretty genius, and it looks amazing. And then all your imagery is very good, it's manly, you have this picture of this tent that's by this campfire, by this lake, with mountains...it's like someone pulled over their truck in Colorado and slept under the stars. You know what I'm saying?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: And you've got this big picture of a chain, and your writing is very good, it's very plain spoken. It sounds like you. I love how you started your About page with "You know, this was going to be an online store for guys. I was going to try some drop shipping. Then, as I was writing the blog post, the store fell away and I closed it." I love how decisive that is. "The store was not important. I wanted to talk about the adventure of being a guy." And then you just go in to talking about how - basically what I just said - your writing is very good, very, very good. Is that plain English, Jocelyn? Very good, or should I say you write well.

Jocelyn: Yes, either way works.

Shane: Either way would be correct? Okay. All right. I'm just making sure all the grammar police aren't out there pulling me over. Ya'll write good, you write real good, man. You know what I mean?

Bryan: You're all right.

Shane: We're all right, we're all right.

Shane: Your website's beautiful, you write well, you've got awesome imagery. Your doing a lot of things right, and I can see how this has evolved by just sitting here and looking at your site. You've got a pop up opt in and a hero bar at the top way for them to opt in. Have you been able to collect some emails and stuff like that?

Bryan: No, my email list is very hard-earned, and I've actually had two new ones sign up just within a couple weeks.

Shane: Awesome man, those are real humans, man. Everyone counts. You know what I mean?

Bryan: But, I avoid like the plague to say I have just X-number of opt ins, because I think I have a low number, but I mentioned something about it on the blog and something about just visits, and people were like well, that's better than what I'm getting, so...

Shane: How much traffic do you get right now?

Bryan: This month here, apparently I've done something correct, because I'm up to about 10-30 people a day visiting.

Shane: I'll tell you what you did correct, you joined the Flipped Lifestyle community, man. You've went into the Flip Your Life community and you said I'm doing something right around here, and everybody's like, I'm paying attention. So they showed up, right? That's great. That's good for 30 or 40 emails a month if you do it right.

Shane: All right, so you've got the blog, you've got some direction. You've got some opt ins and things like that. Let's talk about how we're going to grow this thing.

Jocelyn: All right, so you have the website, you're no longer selling items that are being drop shipped, and I'm just kind of looking at it here - I don't really see any form of monetization right now, would that be accurate?

Bryan: No, there is some up at the top where you'll see coaching. Coaching the Mastermind are the monetization areas.

Shane: Oh, okay I see it.

Jocelyn: Okay, I gotcha.

Shane: There's buttons below the fold, so we need to get those above the fold for sure.

Bryan: Okay, there's also the...so I need to work on.

Jocelyn: I see, I see the menu bar.

Shane: I see the menu bar now, I see it. Yep. It's just kind of hidden a little bit.

Bryan: Okay.

Shane: It's not prominent, basically.

Jocelyn: Okay.

Shane: But that's okay.

Jocelyn: So, we have that. What is holding you back right now?

Shane: What kind of internal fears or doubts, or maybe an external obstacle, like technically challenges or something...what's kind of keeping you from moving forward. Because it looks like you're doing a lot of things right, so what's stopping you?

Bryan: I have where I want to be. I have a vision of how I want Relaxed Male to look. I want to be able to not have grand conference, but you know you have, maybe a yearly gathering of some of the guys who are able to get together, and we go out to do a week long camping expedition out in the middle of the Grand Teton or something like that. I have this vision of that, but I'm not exactly sure how to progress into that - to get on the right road to go to that dream. I see coaching and masterminds as kind of a way to get the ball rolling, but I'm not 100% sure if that's really the best way.

Bryan: Right now, I feel like I'm just trying, but I'm just not making any headway. I don't know if it's just me being impatient or what. But that's precisely what I'm feeling - I've been hammering at this for totally the blog is almost two years old. Which, everything I've heard and read and understand about blogs, I'm just right there at that point where a lot of times you start building critical mass and everything takes off out of nowhere. But I've also done blogs that lasted four years and stayed around 10-15 visitors a day.

Bryan: So I don't know if I'm just always, am I focusing too much on the visitors? Am I too obsessed with my numbers and just keep chipping away and eventually something's going to break and I'm going to all of a sudden have people paying attention, or what.

Shane: Yeah.

Bryan: Am I making myself any more clear, or am I about as clear as mud?

Shane: No listen, I guarantee you that there are thousands of people listening to this podcast right now in their cars, on treadmills, or wherever they're at, and they're shaking their head like that's totally me. Right? That's part of the journey.

Shane: There's four phases of entrepreneurship. Jocelyn and I call it the Flipped Life cycle.

Shane: So, at first you become a yearner. You yearn for more. You want more, you know there's something else. It's almost like you're out on a hike and you're standing on one side of the mountain. And you know there's something cool on the other side of that mountain. You yearn for it, but you don't really do it.

Shane: So then you learn. You start learning about online business. You start learning about all the things that go, right? You start learning about how to start a blog, how to do these things. And it's kind of like learning the trail that takes you to the top of that mountain to see what's on the other side.

Jocelyn: And a lot of people never get past that.

Shane: That's exactly right. And then what happens is you move, you shift, and you actually go on the trail. You start walking, right? And this is where you want to go become an earner. You want to take all these things you learned, take action on them, and go earn some money, right?

Shane: But before that is the grind. You got to sweat, you got to hump it, you got to pull it up, you got to climb the mountain. But then here's what freaks people out...they grind for all this time, they get to the top of the trail that they learned about, they look over, and they realize that there's a huge valley with no trail, and they got to get to the mountain top on the other side, right?

Shane: And that's where a lot of people quit. And that's kind of where you are right now. You went to the top of the mountain. You're getting traffic, you're getting some emails, you're getting some traction. You're idea is kind of clarifying into some general concept into what you want it to be, and then you realize ah crap, there's still a lot of work left to do. You know what I mean?

Bryan: Yes.

Shane: But that's kind of what happens. You have to go through the grind, and then there is a tipping point where you start earning money. And then everything just starts burning it up. You figure it out. Right?

Bryan: Okay.

Shane: Now, so that's kind of like the path. And you're kind of at the edge of the grind. You're kind of coming out of it like, man if I just could put this together, I think there - it's like a puzzle that you've poured out. You see all the pieces, there's a picture on the box, and you're just not sure where the corners are yet. Right?

Bryan: Right, okay.

Shane: And that's where a lot people are. And what we want to do is we want to get you to the next level. So I think the best use of our time here is probably clarifying this idea, right? We've got to take the fuzzy picture, and we've got to turn the knob, and we've got to bring it into focus. Okay?

Shane: So, let's talk about really the mission of Relaxed Male first. I think you're onto something here about a mentorship and a coaching program. I know a lot of people that do this really well. There's a guy named Aaron Walker. His brand is called A View From the Top. Have you ever heard Aaron?

Bryan: Oh yes, Aaron's...Big A.

Shane: Big A, man.

Jocelyn: Yep. Shane loves Big A.

Shane: I love Big A. I've met the guy, and I have some friends who hang out with him. Gosh, what a genuine soul and human being. He's got this Facebook series. And every morning he goes for a walk, and he goes, What's going on, it's Big A coming to you live from the National [inaudible 00:25:33]. Right, it's hilarious.

Shane: But anyway, but I know a lot of men that are in his mastermind. He's got a mastermind that's called Iron Sharpens Iron. And he just wanted to take his mentorship to these people. And it's an expensive mastermind, but they do trips like this. But they don't do hiking - they meet at a hotel or something. It's a different vibe than what you're doing, but it's definitely taking your life experience, finding guys that need it, and a lot of guys need this. Reconnect with nature, get rid of this anxiety from your job, let me show you how - listen to how stressful my job is, and I figured it out, so I can totally help you figure it out. So, you're more than qualified and worthy to do this.

Shane: But I want to talk to you about your mission. I think your mission is a little too broad.

Bryan: Okay.

Shane: Relaxed Male is fine. That's a good domain name, we can use that. But it says Reconnecting Leaders to Nature, okay?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: And I think that's influenced maybe from hearing other podcasts and a lot of people do stuff like that, like leadership and whatever.

Jocelyn: It sounds nice.

Shane: It sounds nice, but it's so - what is a leader? Who are you really talking to? I'm just wondering if you wouldn't reconnect now. Imagine if this said - let's go super hyper-specific and broaden back out - what if it said Reconnecting Truck Drivers to Nature? Right? You are a truck driver. What if every truck driver in America listened to your podcast or read your blog at the truck stop or - there's millions of truck drivers out there, and they're probably as stressed out as you were until you figured out dang man, if I just go out and camp for a few days, I feel so much better about that drive to Pennsylvania. You know what I mean?

Bryan: Okay.

Shane: And so maybe it's just a tightening of the message to draw in super high quality traffic. You can get 30 hits a day on a blog, but if every one of them joined your list because they're targeted, you're getting 30 emails a day. So it's not about the bulk of traffic, it's about the quality of traffic. And I could even see maybe it expanding out to more like reconnecting blue collar workers to nature. Right, guys that are out there - these are manly men who are - what about the mechanic that's working on the trucks? What about the guys on the oil field that are taking the sand out, putting it where it needs to go?

Shane: I think if you could just focus in a little tighter, you're going to have a better chance of resonating.It's not about getting attention. It's about resonating with the people who are paying attention.

Jocelyn: Because right now, when I look at your website, just on first glance, it reminds me of some type of yoga retreat or something. And I don't feel like that's who you are.

Shane: Yeah, right. It's more like being the meditative quality of being in the tent. It's not about sitting around going Wohhmm with yoga mats on the side of the lake right?

Jocelyn: So I think where we are right now, is you have to decide who am I and what problem am I solving for people in a unique way? And that's what your site needs to say, and that's where your content needs to go.

Shane: And you also have to create competitive advantage with your idea. Take the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. When we were thinking about the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, we started looking at other podcasts and saying, well what are these other guru people doing, right? We know we can teach this, we've taught people in real life...how can we be different? Okay?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: And how can we resonate? Well, the first thing we said was we've got to both be on the podcast. There's nobody else that's a husband and wife team doing what we're doing, right? Or at least not doing it as good as we can do it, okay? So that was one differentiator. And then we said let's exclude solo-preneur, single people, 20-something millennials running around Thailand on 6 bucks a day. We don't want to talk to them. We want to talk to families, we want talk to - we can talk to single people, but we want them to have kids. We can talk to married people, but we want them to have kids. And we decided that we would talk to families, we would talk to adults who were raising children, who wanted to go out and start their own online business, right?

Shane: We would talk to people who had real responsibilities, like keeping other people alive and making in a real 9-5 job.

Bryan: Right.

Shane: So if you can think what's my unfair advantage? I've been in a truck for 11 years. Who's a truck driver going to listen to? Another truck driver or some random other person who's trying to tell them to connect with nature? Right?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: Who's the guy working on the oil fields going to listen to? A guy that understands what he's dealing with? Your anxiety is different than our anxiety, right?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: So if you can really hone in and just...I'd love to see a picture of you on the About page in your truck - like someone takes a picture of you leaning out the window. And be like, hi I'm Bryan, I'm a truck driver, I understand you. Let's go on a hike. Right? When a guy sees that, he wants to opt in, right? Because that dude gets me.

Shane: I think back when the...when I was looking for somebody to follow, I looked at a bunch of gurus. I ran through the Ravenscrafts and the Brian Masons and the Timothy Ferris's and Gary Vaynerchuck's and all this. But I connected with Pat Flynn of The Smart Passive Income podcast, for one reason, and one reason only. When I went to his blog, at the very top above the fold, was a picture of him holding his son who was the same age as mine. I didn't know Pat Flynn from Adam. I didn't know what he was talking about. I didn't know what his podcast was about. But I did know this: he had a son, and he had the same concerns I did about that little boy. And I needed to go and listen to him, right?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: So, I think that's what you're too broad right now is. It's just too leadership and male. I get it, it's every man who could ever possibly lead anyone. But that's not where we got to be at. Does that make sense?

Jocelyn: Yeah. And we've said if you're targeting everyone you target no one.

Bryan: No one. Yeah. All right. And so, I can see. Is blue collar at this moment still too broad?

Shane: Not necessarily. Usually it works better when you start really targeted. Truck driver's still pretty narrow. You don't want to also exclude people, right? Blue collar makes sense because you could say something like the blue collar man has a different kind of stress, a different type of anxiety than business people do. You know, we're out and we're doing physical things that could kill us. You know what I'm saying? We're risking our lives every day to make industry move, right? When I pull the lever on that thing of sand, if I'm in the way, whatever. If you're working on a car, you could break your hand or cut yourself, or whatever. You're constantly on call, you never know when you're going to be needed. There's just a different way to present that, but a lot of blue collar people can totally relate to that.

Shane: Like a mechanic, from an oil field worker, from a truck driver, from a logger, from a whatever is going to be able to understand what you're talking about.

Jocelyn: And just remember that you don't have to necessarily use that in your language. And what I mean by that is, Shane and I, on our website, we don't say we only target families and people with children. We don't explicitly say that, we just put pictures of ourselves with our kids. Do people follow us who don't have kids? Yeah. And that's okay. But, in our minds, we're marketing to the people who are people - parents - with children.

Shane: Yeah, and you could also say like - it says Reconnecting Leaders to Nature. That's cool, but what if it just said - what if it said this: The Relaxed Male. Reconnecting Working Men to Nature.

Jocelyn: Yes. And that's what I was going to say is that you can use your language to allude to that without explicitly saying that, if that makes sense.

Shane: Any person that's working could consider themselves a working man. But we all know that stereotypically, when you hear about a working man, you're talking about a blue collared guy going out and using his hands and doing stuff like that, right?

Bryan: Right. Okay.

Jocelyn: So does that make sense and fit the direction you think you're going?

Bryan: Yes, it helps out tremendously. I had a little adjustment made last week with the mastermind group that I'm with. They were pointing out that I was being even more broad with one of the lead magnets, one of the opt in forms that I had on the site. I wasn't even mentioning men, it was self-coaching tools for a better life. And it's like, what does that even mean really, and who's that supposed to really attract to. So, they were like, well, you're about guys so why don't you start incorporating guys into that. So from here, yeah, I can see just nudge that down even granular.

Shane: Yeah, right here it says: 14 of the Best Morning Routines. And it's just a name and thing, right?

Bryan: Right.

Shane: But what if that said - forget 14 - what if it said The Best Morning Routine For Working Men. No way they don't know it's them. You know what I'm saying?

Shane: And you got this other opt in, I'm looking through your site, and it says Get Four Self-Coaching Tools to Beat Anxiety. What if that said Working Men Experience a Different Kind of Anxiety...and then the sub-heading said Get Four Self-Coaching Tools to Help the Working Man Beat Anxiety, or something like that.

Bryan: Oh okay.

Shane: You know what I'm saying? We can grammarize this is a little bit better later on. Right now we're just trying to get the mud on the wall. So. And your pictures. On this picture. I'm looking at your above the fold hero image. It's this beautiful picture of a tent sitting on a side of a lake looking down into a valley. I don't even know where that is. But it's gorgeous.

Shane: But what if that was actually a truck driving down the road...

Jocelyn: This needs to be...the About page needs to be a picture of you driving your truck.

Shane: For sure. And even your front images, if it was like a truck - a huge open cinematography spread of a truck going down the road, but it was driving through the mountain of Colorado. So kind of tied in this image of truckery and cars and going down the road, but into nature or something like that. There's just a...

Shane: And then instead of this picture of the tent that you've got on one scroll down, that could be a picture of people working in an oil field. And we could - about 50% of your images are nature, and about 50% of them are what we would consider blue collar jobs.

Bryan: Okay.

Shane: Truckers, miners, whatever.

Bryan: Okay, got you there, yeah.

Shane: And imagine then how much easier it would be to sell this thing. Hey guys, I'm Bryan. I'm a working man. I drive a truck. I know what you go through on a daily basis. I've been doing this for over a decade, and I know that you're job, while it's paying the bills and you're taking care of your family, you're doing a great job, but you're stressed, you've got a lot of anxiety. You're having trouble managing your working job and your life with your family. Well, I've started mentoring people in the Relaxed Male Coaching program, whatever...and I'm going to tell you how, on a daily basis, to get rid of the anxiety, get rid of all that stress, and I'm going to make sure that, not only can you go do your job that you love to do, but you can come home and be with your family. You can come home and go out into nature and be there with yourself so that you're a balanced working man, or something like that.

Shane: That'd be an awesome name for it - The Balanced Working Man, or something like that. Have a guy standing up on top of an oil rig or something like that. But by niching down and really communicating who you're talking to, your blog posts are going to get more traffic. Those posts are going to get more opt ins, and you're going to have a much clearer picture of what you want to teach people. Does that makes sense?

Bryan: I'm seeing that, yes sir.

Shane: Does that clarify maybe how you could actually even teach your mentors in your coaching program?

Bryan: I think it helps at least give me a better direction on how to point them to the...I realize how scattered I am with the information, and I'm just kind of talking too broad of an audience. So I definitely see where, if I was to just take that and just squeeze it down to even blue collared, ah, heck I could even do for the oil fields. I mean that would...

Shane: Oh, that's a huge industry. Natural gas, oil, truck. That's the truckers, the drillers, the unloaders, the loaders, everybody.

Jocelyn: I can even...

Bryan: Precisely.

Jocelyn: ...see this maybe going into - you could sell to corporate. To companies.

Shane: Oh gosh, that would be huge. Make a deal with a company.

Jocelyn: Yeah, maybe they want their workers to have a better quality of life, and you could market to them.

Shane: Oh wow, that's really good. Really, really good.

Bryan: Okay.

Jocelyn: Okay Bryan, I think some really good stuff has come out of this conversation today, and I can't wait to see where you take this.

Jocelyn: We always ask our guests before we go what is one thing that you plan to do in the next day or so based on what we talked about on this call.

Bryan: Well, that is definitely going to be niching all the way down. I think I'm either going to focus in on the oil field angle a lot more. Get the language changed, and start just making sure that I have that particular guy in mind whenever I start re-writing some of the sales pages and things like that.

Shane: And also, as you're - you've got coaching and mentoring down there - you could really focus hard on your product. Because it'll help you when you blog. If you know what that coaching and program's going to look like and you know what that happens, you know what you're pointing your stuff to to get something sold, it's going to make it a lot easier to write opt-ins, a lot easier to write blog posts, and it's going to make a lot of difference. Okay?

Bryan: Okay.

Shane: All right guys, that wraps up another great conversation with one of our Flip Your Life community members. It is awesome to see someone get focused on their idea, because with great focus on your idea, that's what leads to an awesome product. That's what leads to an amazing platform, and that's what leads to making money online and replacing your income so that you can quit your job and live the life you want.

Shane: We would love to help you inside of our Flip Your Life community. All you have to do learn more about the community is go to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife. You can read about all the amazing courses that we have inside to guide you through the process of starting, building, and growing your own online business. You can check out all of the amazing forums with our community of hundreds of family-focused entrepreneurs from around the world to rally around you and support you in your dreams. And of course, me and Jocelyn will be in there right with you all along the way.

Shane: So go to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife and check out the community today.

Shane: We would also love to meet you live and in person in Lexington, Kentucky on September 19-21 at Flip Your Life Live. This is our Flip Your Life family reunion. It is our conference that we hold for all of our listeners of the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, and everybody that's a part of our Flip Your Life community. We would love to see you in Lexington, and you can get your ticket now at flippedlifestyle.com/live - that's L-I-V-E.

Shane: But you want to hurry, because we are almost sold out and tickets will not be sold after August 30th. So you've got to get your ticket right now if you're going to get one. We only have a few left. It's in the teens, guys. Those seats are going to fill up, and we're not adding anymore chairs inside of the venue.

Shane: And guess what? We are not doing this event in 2020. This is your last chance to come to Flip Your Life Live, the big conference that we've been holding for the past couple of years for our Flip Your Life community and Flipped Lifestyle podcast listeners. So go to flippedlifestyle/live right now so that you can get your tickets before they sell out.

Shane: All right guys, that is all the time that we have for today. But before we go, we're super excited because Bryan has a Bible verse that he wants to share with you guys. Jocelyn and I get a lot of our inspiration and motivation from the Bible for our business and our life, and we love it when our guests have a verse that they want to share with everybody. So Bryan, take it away.

Bryan: All right, my Bible verse is Isaiah 41:10 and it reads: So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Bryan: Just completely dig that verse, because if you're ever feeling overwhelmed, you know that you don't have to live a life in fear. And fear is one of the big things that I like to talk about on my site itself, but there's always something you can use from God - He will actually help you out - you don't have to live a life of fear and worry that you're going to mess something up, because God's there to actually help you out.

Shane: Whoo! That was a great Bible verse from Bryan. I love anytime the Bible says do not fear. We talk about this all the time with our kids. The Bible says do not fear or some permutation of that phrase like 365 times. The Bible gave us a do not fear quote for ever single day of the year, ya'll.

Shane: So go out there in a fearless way. Don't be afraid to pursue and chase your dreams. There's nothing to be afraid of, there's everything to gain. You just got to take action and go get it done.

Shane: That's all we've got for today ya'll, so until next time, get out there, take action, and do whatever it takes to flip your life. We'll see you then.

Jocelyn: Bye.

Links and resources mentioned on today's show:

• Bryan's Website
• Flip Your Life LIVE 2019 Tickets & Registration Information
• Flip Your Life community
• PROLIFIC Monthly

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