Start With A Win - Monetize Your Dreams with Pat Flynn Part 2

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Every successful entrepreneur asks the question, “How do I differentiate my product or services?” In a world where infinite information is available at the click of a button, it can seem daunting to create something new. In Pat Flynn’s experience, customers will pay for quick and easy access to information that will bring value to their lives. One of the best ways to build customer loyalty and increase retention rates is by monetizing the community as the product.After launching a membership-based community within his company, Pat asked members to complete surveys for his market research. He was shocked by the results. Digital training content received the lowest level of interest. He discovered people valued the networking platform the most. The membership revenue ended up being the first recurring income for his business, shifting his whole profit model. Leaning into a community-centered approach takes the emphasis off those running the business and lets the magic take shape organically. Human connection and experiential learning draws lifetime customers, allowing businesses to draw in more passive income. Main TopicsComing from a place of giving rather than taking in business (01:25)Reciprocity as one of the most powerful aspects of successful businesses (05:35)Pat leans in to the power of community (07:55)The money is in the membership (12:15)Make the value clear for the customer through intentional messaging and positioning (16:54)The product is the community (20:47)  Episode Linkshttps://www.smartpassiveincome.com/all-accessConnect with Pat:https://patflynn.comhttps://twitter.com/patflynnhttps://www.facebook.com/patflynnhttps://www.instagram.com/patflynn/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGk1LitxAZVnqQn0_nt5qxwConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Hey, welcome back to Start With A Win. This is a two-part episode and this is part two of that two-part episode. So if you haven't listened to part one, make sure you go back and listen or watch part one on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcasts and come back here and listen or watch part two. I hope you enjoy. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. Obviously, this is one of the key aspects to getting SPI started was your podcasting. And you started giving value through your podcast. Everybody's afraid to give out their good stuff. And I find that interesting because they're like, well, give me your name and your email address,

and I'll give you something good. Is that the way to approach life? Because everybody wants to like you and trust you before they give you anything. What's your perspective on this? And I know what the answer is going to be, but I want our listeners to hear, truly, the good stuff is you deliver in a package of great information, but you can give away bits and pieces. Is that accurate? Or what do you think? Yeah, I mean, you want to come from a place of giving, not taking, especially if it's a first impression, right? Like imagine going into a gym and there's like a party going on and you go up to a group of people and you're like, Hey guys, you want to buy this Tupperware? It's like, who are you? Like, even if you're charismatic, that just does not come across well versus listening, having a conversation and then earning the right to tell them what's,

what you have going on. Right. So this is exactly, we talked about Tim Ferriss earlier, right? When, when he wrote his book, the four hour work week, like nobody knew who he was initially, how did he get known? And how did he get that book to become a best seller? Not just because it's a great book because people have to still get the book first, but how do they know about it? He went to conferences and he said, you know what, I'm going to go and see what everybody else is up to and then earn that ask, oh, well, what do you do, Tim? That's when the book would come into play. So he would go and just dive into, hey, what do you have going on? How can I help you with this? Like, that's really interesting to a point where

people would then go, well, Tim, like I've told you all about me. What do you have going on? How can I help you with this? Like, that's really interesting to a point where people will then go, well, Tim, like I've told you all about me. What do you have going on? Oh, okay. For our work week, boom, obviously it's a hook for people. So then they invite them on their podcast or connect on the blog. And then now it's a bestseller, right? So same thing, providing value first in some way, shape or form. And even in the mechanisms of like, like you'd mentioned, like capturing email addresses, right? We often come at a place of like, hey, I have the good stuff, but you have to like give me something first.

What if you gave something first and then a person was like, this is so good. Like, where can I get more? Oh, here it is over here. Wow. And so that's just a little change in the mind about like how to approach this. And I think that's especially now more important than ever

because we've just been tuning out how it's been done for years, right? And we see a pitch like that to just like, hey, get my thing, but put your email in first. It's like, we don't even notice it anymore because it's so commonplace and it doesn't make us feel anything. Make a person feel something

and get to the point where they go, like, take my money, right? Like, that's what you want. You want a person to just go, wow, that was so helpful. Take my money. And I know what you might be thinking is like, well, I don't want to give away my best stuff. Well, here's the thing. Like that stuff is available everywhere now. It's times have changed. Information is free everywhere. So how are you going to differentiate that or make that unique to you and the experience that you can offer that person so that they will want the same information but from you in the way that you package it, in the way that you make them feel, and perhaps you get them to the transformation, right? If I got a flat tire on the road, it's like, am I going to pay a person more because they have 20 years of experience changing tires,

but it takes five hours because they want it like, you know, they just, you know, it's going to take that much time. Or is it more valuable to have a person come in, whether they like have 50 years of experience doing that or not, to change my darn tire in 15 minutes so I can get back on the road. I'm paying that person. Right. And that should feel good to

you. Who's like listening. Who's like, Oh, I'm not an expert. I don't have a PhD in this. Like, am I qualified to help somebody? In fact, you are more qualified to help people because you're that much more connected to the exact experience that a person in your audience might be going through. Right. I would much rather learn from a person who has just gone through the thing that I'm about to do versus, you know, the, the, the 40 year PhD who's teaching at a lecture hall on, on a, on a podium, who's probably far removed from exactly how it works today. Right? Like that's, it's such an important thing to realize that you have a direct tie to who it is, your audiences, because you probably just went through the same thing that you're teaching in most cases. The speediness is interesting to me because I

think about YouTube videos that we, you know, watch constantly. And I remember a long time ago, the algorithm rewarded you for having a long video. And so now when those videos come into my feed, I'm just like, ah, I need to fast forward. I got to get to the, like, teach me how to do the thing. You know, I don't want to watch 25 minutes of you building up to the thing. Like, let's get this going. Yeah. This is really fascinating. I hope everybody's listening really, really well to this, because most of our listeners are entrepreneurs or some sort of a business person. A lot of them are in the real estate or the mortgage space, which obviously there were leads and buyers and sellers just pouring in before,

call it March of 2022. And then it just went kaput. And now everybody's like, I need leads. I need leads. I need buyers and sellers. No, you need to give value. If you're listening to what Pat's saying here, it's go give some value. And then what happens is you get that factor of reciprocity, Dr. Robert Cialdini and his, what is it, six factors of influence now, something like that. Reciprocity is one of the most powerful aspects of business that Pat's talking about here. And it's really what Pat's been doing to build his businesses over the years. So Pat, I want to dig into that a little bit more. What else? So we talked about, you mentioned your study piece for the architect that was 12 years ago, 14 years ago, something like that. What are you engaged in right now in business that you got going on?

First of all, I just want to make sure we cover what you just mentioned about what we need to focus on right now because it's so important. And I know this is true. The people in real estate, for example, who are winning right now are the ones who have spent the years to build those relationships ahead of time. Right. are the ones who have spent the years to build those relationships ahead of time. Those people who they've already spent time with, who maybe didn't need a home back then, but now need one now, they're going to come to the people who they already know and have a relationship with.

So as my buddy, Jordan Harbinger, another fellow podcaster says, you want to dig your well before you're thirsty, right? Which means build those relationships, carry them forward. Because if you're digging your well while you're thirsty, it's too late. And a lot of people are, you know people are reactive and that is more in that case versus being proactive.

And so building relationships is key. And that's why podcasting is so great. Some of my students in the podcasting course that I have don't care how many listens they have. They want to use their podcast platform to essentially be a way to connect with other people in the industry right and to build relationships with them which then carry over into business in some way shape or form so so that's huge anyway what i'm excited about right now besides the always thing that i talk about which is what we talked about providing value is community right now um especially post pandemic it's like people people were craving connection. And, you know, actually, the story is 2019 came around, and I had put on an event in San Diego, and we had 500

entrepreneurs in my audience come to town fly from all around the world to come and be with each other. And yes, there were great people on stage, and we taught things. But after running the survey after that event, asking, well, what was your favorite part of it? They said, you know, my favorite part was just connecting with other people in the hallways. And I was like, wow, we could have just like put together a hall and just let you free and not have to plan anything

and it would have been valuable, right? Which is like, wow, okay. So let's do more of that in 2020. And FlynnCon was gonna happen and then it got canceled or rescheduled to 2021. And then it got canceled because it just looked like it was never gonna happen. So we said, well, how can we bring that similar feel online of those moments in between the

hallways? Well, we need to build a community and create a space, a safe space for these people who are like-minded, who don't often get to speak the same language with other people into one place to feel that connection. And yes, there were places like Facebook groups and LinkedIn and other things, but there's too many distractions there. And that's not why they go there. We need a destination that people can come to.

So we built a community inside of SPI called SPI Pro. And these were for people who had an established business. So we did have like an application process. And when we launched this, we had 500 entrepreneurs come in and pay to get access to each other. And we ran a survey in there too. We said, okay, well, what do you want to see in this community? Do you want more content? Do you want workshops? Do you want all these things?

Content was the last thing people wanted. Because like we said earlier, people don't need more information. What do they need? They need and crave connection. They want guidance and support. And that's what these communities can offer. So now for the first time in the history of SPI, we have recurring income coming in. Oh, nice. Which is huge, right? Because we've had sponsorship dollars,

ad dollars, courses, you know, those kinds of things provide income. But if you stop launching them, then the money stops coming in. Versus what if we just poured our energy into the people and into the community? Can we get people to stick around? And our retention rates are extremely, extremely high, such that we're making, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars now on a recurring basis that's predictable, but earned because we've provided that experience for them. And what

happens is we build this community and people on the inside go hey you should invite these people can i bring these people in and it starts to grow from the inside just like i talk about in my book super fans because we're creating those experiences and connections and the beauty of a community is eventually you can get to the tipping point where it has a heartbeat now and it's taking a life of its own to a point where I'm not even that involved in there anymore because the value isn't necessarily me. The value is each other. And so as long as we can create this culture in there

and this rhythmic sort of cadence of what happens and when, I mean, it's just taking a life of its own now. And we're leaning into this so much now that we're launching something called the All Access Pass, which is like our way to combine the great courses that we've had that have proven to work, but with the community. So what we're calling community powered courses.

So now we're offering people access to all of our courses, but access to all that information is actually not what they need. And that actually is overwhelming. Like a lot of entrepreneurs do that. Hey, here's a here's a all access ticket to all of our courses. Like, good luck. No, that's like too much information.

But what this is, is now a guided pathway through the right courses for the people who are in here. So take this one first and go here and go here. Hey, here are these other people who are going through the same pathway you are. Connect with them, hold them accountable, help each other out. Just like at the gym, it's much easier to go to the gym and get a workout and see those results when you're doing it with other people. So we're trying to create something different and really take the lead here because we do believe that community is going to be a really important part of all businesses'

futures. And this idea of community-powered courses in the testing that we've done is just, I mean, the completion rates are ridiculously much higher than if you were to allow a person to go on their own. That's awesome. And for those of you wondering, first of all, the money's in the membership. Okay. Membership-based organizations, that monthly recurring revenue coming from Remax, we had 140,000 agents paying us every single month around the world in that system. It's really a cash flow cow there. It just continues to cash flow for you as a business. So if you can take your business and figure out, okay, how do I gain a membership here? Everything from a concierge service to, you know, Pat offering courses and training and things like that to group mentoring and coaching. You know, just all of

these different aspects has to be incredibly valuable, though. And it, you know, realistically, Pat's right. They could go someplace else and get this information, but they're not getting it curated in a way that is most effective for them except for by their peers. And I keep going back to the thought of Jim Rohn, you know, we're the average of the five people we spend the most time with, so choose carefully. And it's interesting because I bet you if you look in your membership base, you'd be like, okay, yeah, that's, all these people are bringing each other up because they are raising their averages when it comes to what they do and how they do it. And then it builds. I mean, do you see competition going on in there? Are people trying to, you know, accomplish things to become better or help each other get better or be accountable?

I mean, we purposefully make that happen. We have challenges that happen, for example, in the community to push people, right? We had one that was done last year that was huge, a 60 second pitch challenge, like get on video, get uncomfortable, no cuts, no edits, pitch your business. And yeah, we all knew each other's businesses, but to be forced to kind of elevator pitch it in front of everybody else was an amazing exercise

and people stepped up and that exercise alone carried forward into their business and how they talked about it on other podcasts, on their blog, in emails. And that exercise alone challenged them enough to now where they are stepping up. And yes, we had a contest, we had voting and other things. And Maria, who is the winner there from bloom and grow radio, she's now since take that message from that little exercise. And she's published a book and all these other things. And one thing that helps sell the membership is to feature those kinds of stories. Like what I just talked about

with Maria, like I invited her on the podcast and I didn't ask her to come on and say like, I didn't like my questions weren't like, Hey, tell me why SPI pro is the best thing you've ever had. Tell me why SPI pro is awesome. And everybody should get in. No, that's, that's not good. I just like, what was life like before you were in pro? What did you learn? And how did that change the trajectory of your business? And just naturally through those kinds of questions, SPI pro comes up, um, the help and the connections, she's like name dropping other members, like, Hey, shout out to Jim and, and, and, and carry in there. And if you're on the outside listening in now, you're like, what is this thing? This is amazing. Like, I should look into this as well, because look at what this has created. And I want that too.

And this is very Donald Miller story brand approach to business, which is the way I think all business should be done. You are not the hero of the story. Your customers are your students and subscribers are and in my case, the members of SPK Pro are the heroes. So let's tell their transformation story and that will attract people to come in. And that's what's been working. Awesome. So these people can see themselves getting better before they get better. And it gives them that energy and that drive to do so. Ladies and gentlemen, I mean, this is the, it's, I don't want to say it's the future. It's the current. It's the future for you if you haven't started doing it. But you're either getting better or you're getting worse.

I mean, there's no staying the same in life because if you sit there today and do nothing and tomorrow, yesterday passed you by and somebody did something in your space to get better than you. So, and it's not about being the best, but it's about being the best that you can be for yourself. Exactly. So it's fascinating to listen to this path that you're on, Pat. And thank you for doing this. First of all, I have the honor of sitting in rooms and speaking to mastermind groups and

being on panels and things of that nature with different entrepreneur groups. This is it. You're doing what these people need in order to, you know, go through the economic challenges, the employment challenges, the supply chain challenges. The price of, you know, cost of goods is not going down, which essentially means everything, you know, you look around your podcast studio, you're like, all right, everything in here just got more expensive. There's a reason why I only have one physical product that I've invented. Asset light businesses, folks. How's the growth of this going for you? Are you seeing some good interest?

What brings people to it? Is it mostly word of mouth? Are you marketing? Word of mouth is key, but we have the podcast and email marketing as a part of this. I mean, all the strategies and tactics that an entrepreneur might use to get this message out. But really, it's just showcasing these stories, again, and really making the value clear. This is a very important thing. No matter how you're sharing the message, the message needs to hit home, right? And you need to know, again, who it is you're serving, what's the language that they use, and really make it an obvious choice.

You almost want it to be positioned in a way, whatever it is you're selling, you always want it to be positioned in a way where it's like a no-brainer. If people are starting to ask questions and get confused about the messaging, well then how in the heck are they going to make the decision to move forward with it?

So the messaging, the positioning has been something we've been working on for a very long time to a point now where like, it's very clear, especially economically today, it's very difficult to consider like investing a ton of money into things. And, you know, in many courses,

like what we're teaching can cost thousands of dollars. So how might we position this in a way and make the economics almost a no brainer, right? So traditionally our, and again, I'm talking about the all access pass

that we're launching very soon and why this makes sense for our particular audience. So our online courses are $499 to $699. You know, power up podcasting has been serving thousands of people. It's earned over two and a half million dollars since 2017, $499 to get into that course. Well, you take that course, you're kind of on your own. I mean, you watch the lessons, you can get through it. It has a high success rate, sure. But you're on your own. Now consider that versus $59 a month. You can get access to not just that course,

but all the courses we have. You'll know exactly which courses to take next. You'll have support from the SPI team and you'll have access to other people who are doing this alongside with you for $59 a month. Where can they find this? I mean, it's, we didn't get on here intending to sell anything, but I'll tell you what, you know, I want to know. I mean, I don't want to, I'm not here to pitch your audience, but, uh, you know, you, you can, you, you can see what's going on as an example of like what we're trying to take the lead on.

So smartpassiveincome.com slash all dash access, all dash access. And again, you go there, it's such an obvious choice because here's what happens. More people are going to give it a chance, right? $59 a month. Sure, I'll try it for a month and see what works out is probably what a lot of people are going to say. They're going to get so much value that we're hoping they stay on for, you know, if they stay on for nine to 10 months, it would have made up for that cost. And then some, they'll stay even longer. So it's a win all around. We'll eventually, if we do the things that we're supposed to do, have a higher lifetime value per customer, right?

Lifetime value. We're in this for the long run, right? Not for the short gain. And so this is a lower barrier to entry. More people will come in and hopefully we can keep people longer if we do our job. Now, since we just launched this, it's our job to make sure that it does that.

So we're gonna have a lot of conversations, surveys, focus groups, et cetera, to ensure that what we're creating is going to keep people in longer. And we only should keep people in longer if it is worth staying in longer. So again, connection to the audience. And this is like,

especially with what is most important to us, which is the results of our customer. It's like, we have the responsibility to give them everything that they need to succeed, which is the community and the support. And it would behoove, I always use behoove wrong. I don't know why I dropped that just now.

Anyway, it would be wrong of us to not offer that and only offer the courses without this other option. And to make this other option, like the no-brainer deal, it's like, this is the future. This is what we're, like our product is no longer the course. Our product is community.

It's interesting when you build this experience around the community because people can actually contextualize the course into their lifestyle and their business. Right. As opposed to those just the fundamentals of, you know, we can all get on there and go, all right, here's how you do marketing. Here's how you do a sales pitch. Here's how you, you know, close the deal, work somebody through the funnel, all this other stuff. But ultimately it comes down to how do you build the relationships around that? And that's, I love that community is relationships and people helping each other. Yeah. So, and, and in our community, you know, people have developed partnerships. They've flown to see each other cause they've just become friends. And you know,

there's, we also do mastermind matching so i know you talk about masterminds a lot super important i'm into that have been around for over a decade and and it's like family a mastermind group right it's like that's how important these people have become and so we see the value in that and we've um hired people and have developed resources to best connect those who are in the community with each other which has been a tough challenge i gotta say i mean just putting people in a room and hopefully are in the community with each other, which has been a tough challenge, I got to say. I mean, just putting people in a room and hopefully they, you know, connect with each other is difficult, and we've been doing a pretty good job of that as well inside.

Awesome. Everybody, you heard where you can check that out, smartpassiveincome.com slash, what is it, Pat? All-access, and probably just all-access too. I think both of those go to the same place. Okay. Or you can go to patflynn.com and check him out and what he's got going on. Pat, I do have one question I ask all of our amazing guests on the show,

and I'm sure you have a really cool answer to this, but how do you start your day with a win? You know, I use the journal. You know, I have a built-in mechanism to determine what I can be grateful for to start the day. You know, in practicing gratefulness, we've all heard from everybody, from Tony Robbins to Tim Ferriss to everybody. And so, you know, I've developed this strategy using what's called the five-minute journal.

And the five-minute journal is something I have at my nightstand right next to me so that when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is I write three things that I'm just super grateful to have in my life. It could be business related, it could be family, whatever it might be, just whatever I want to wake up and be grateful for, I write down.

And seeing it right there, writing it down helps me internalize that and realize that, you know what, even if things go to crap today, I can still be grateful for something, right? And that's a huge sort of strategy that I use to just set myself up for success. Now, is every day perfect? No.

Is every day awesome because I do that? No, I mean, stuff happens, but I always have that to go back to and that's a check-in with myself and my mental every single day. Now, the five-minute journal also has, the end of the day, you write down three things

that you wish you could have done better or improve upon. So not only am I waking up every day grateful, I'm also thinking about, well, how can I be even a better person tomorrow? And so this has really helped me even just incrementally, you know, get better. And of course, those incremental changes exponentially grow you over time. Awesome. Pat Flynn, great guy, great friend, amazing podcaster and businessman. Make sure you check him out at Smart Passive Income, the podcast and smartpassiveincome.com. Pat, thank you for being on Start With A Win. Thank you, Adam. Thank you, Mark. And thank you for listening to Start With A Win. Hey, if you want to get more great content,

head over to adamcontos.com. And if you struggle with managing your time, fill out the form there and get our foolproof time management system, which will help you to manage your time like the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. Remember, until next time, start with a win.