OVER DEZE AFLEVERING
In today's episode, we help Chad grow his new membership site.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's podcast we help Chad grow his new membership site.
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 welcome another member of the Flip Your Life community onto the show so that we can help them grow their online business and change their family's future. Today's guest is Chad Bostick. Chad, welcome to the program.
Chad Bostick: Hey guys. So happy to be here. Man, I've been a long time listener of the show for many many years and I was honored and shocked that you guys invited me to the show and just super, super pumped to be here.
Shane Sams: Well listen, man. We reward action takers in the community and we watch those forums like a hawk, looking for success stories, looking for great questions, looking for people that are following through with their action plans and you earned your spot on the show today, man. So we're glad to have you.
Jocelyn Sams: And I loved your success story. This is the reason that we chose you to be on the show today, because Chad put out that he got his first paid member and that's something that's really exciting and that we always celebrate here on the show. His success story says, "I'm out of town for work so I didn't think I would make much progress on my business this week, but while I was waiting for my flight Sunday evening," He had been to an event, "I followed up with one of the folks that showed interest at my live speaking engagement. We've exchanged emails a few times this week and last night he said he tried to sign up for my membership but the site wasn't working. He asked my permission to PayPal me money. I said yes."
Shane Sams: Wow, that's amazing. Someone was literally like, "Can I just throw money at you? Because this is awesome." That's what it's all about.
Jocelyn Sams: It reminds me of that meme that says, "Shut up and take my money."
Shane Sams: Right, exactly.
Chad Bostick: It was so odd because I didn't even know how to respond. Somebody literally was like, "Shut up and take my money." I sat there and there was all of these negative thoughts in my head. I should say no, I'm not ready yet, I'm not a real entrepreneur, I don't know what I'm doing here. But instead, thank God I have Gmail so the Gmail client on my iPhone had responses built in at the bottom and one of the responses was sure. And so I just clicked the button.
Shane Sams: Oh my gosh, that is a great story man. What a first sale story. That is awesome.
Jocelyn Sams: I love that. That is awesome. And in the back of your mind you're thinking, "My sales process doesn't even work. Why do you want to give me money?"
Shane Sams: That's amazing, man.
Chad Bostick: Yeah.
Shane Sams: Well listen, let's back up. We're going to get deeper into that first sale and we're going to talk about the next hundred sales as well, but before we do that tell us a little bit about your background. Tell us where you come from, what you do and the life outside of this online business pursuit.
Chad Bostick: Absolutely. My name is Chad Bostick. I'm married 14 years to my beautiful wife Shauna. We have two kids, two daughters. One is nine and one is two, and so we've kind of got the whole range of kids here in the house and it's awesome. I am a software developer. Grew up as a software developer and have been a very technical person inside the software development space for many, many years. The last 20 plus years.
Chad Bostick: What I struggle with my entire life has been anxiety. I have had really, really difficulties in creating relationships and talking to people and speaking up and it really held me back in life and in my career. When I first got my first programming job back in the 90s, I kind of lucked into it and it was awesome and it was great and I had a lot of fun, but then building my career and moving up took a lot of effort that I didn't know I was going to have to put into it. I showed up and I was a good employee, I did a great job, but after five years of the first company I worked at I found out that I was one of the least paid people in the entire organization and it was really soul crushing.
Chad Bostick: There was a lot of other obstacles that I overcame but after a while I figured out that what I was really missing were soft skills. I didn't have confidence, I didn't have a good communication style, and I had no leadership skills whatsoever. So I worked on those, I developed those, and then my career started taking off and I started getting job offers, I started moving into management positions or being asked to be moved into management positions even though I said no for many many years on that. And then I've had amazing opportunities to work at big Fortune 100 companies and really small awesome niche companies in a lot of different areas and work on some amazing projects, work with some amazing people, and yeah. That's what I'm doing.
Jocelyn Sams: That's really interesting Chad, and I can actually relate to your story in a lot of ways. First of all I'm really into computer stuff and I would even go so far to say as I'm a little bit of a nerd, or a lot-
Shane Sams: A lot of a nerd. I used to ... Our first dates when we first started dating in college, Jocelyn worked at the computer lab as the person who helped people with computers and I would go sit beside her at the computer lab.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, and what was funny is that I started out in college, my plan was to become a programmer. I used to program years and years ago.
Chad Bostick: Yes.
Jocelyn Sams: In the midst of all this one of the computer science instructors accused me of cheating. I think I might have mentioned this on the podcast before. I did not cheat but she accused me of cheating and after that I just couldn't even think about programming any more. It really affected me that much. Along that line I also suffer from anxiety. I've been dealing with it for probably my entire life, but the last couple of years it's been really bad, so I can definitely relate to you on several different levels.
Chad Bostick: Yeah, the struggle is real. It's not fun at all when you get those anxiety attacks. I was so bad, guys, that back in my teens and in my early twenties, it was so bad that I couldn't even go to my family reunions and have conversation with my aunts and uncles and cousins because they felt like strangers to me and I didn't know how to open up to them. I didn't know how to just relax around people that weren't my best friends, and I had very, very few best friends. So it was ... That anxiety held me back in not just work but a lot of life opportunities as well.
Shane Sams: You said something like you turned down some opportunities to grow in your actual job, like your nine to five. You were offered jobs and you said no to them over and over, is that what happened?
Chad Bostick: Yeah, so at one point I had a boss who we ... I was in the oil and gas business at the time, working in the IT department at an oil company, and it's very cyclical. When it's hot it's hot and when it's not it's not. There's a lot of ups and downs and I didn't have a good way to grow my career so my career was growing through attrition. As everyone else was leaving or getting laid off I was doing a great job and I was sticking around, and then I was being offered these opportunities to move up into a senior developer position, into a lead developer position, into a supervisor or manager position, and I was like, "Whoa. That is way too stressful for me. I'm just going to sit here in front of the computer with my headphones on and stare at the code all day because that sounds like ... First of all it sounds like a bunch of meetings, which is boring, and second of all it sounds like a lot of responsibility of dealing with people problems instead of technical problems." That really stressed me out.
Jocelyn Sams: All right. Listen, I totally get that-
Shane Sams: I'm sitting here nodding.
Jocelyn Sams: Yes, I'm sitting here shaking my head.
Shane Sams: She's rocking in her chair right now.
Jocelyn Sams: I totally get this because honestly, I've said it many times, I would rather work with things than people any day. And it's not because I don't like people, I mean obviously I talk to people for a living, that's part of what I do, but I just don't like managing people. It's just not my thing, it's not what I enjoy. I would prefer to sit on a computer all day long than to interact with people in a work type setting.
Shane Sams: The problem is there's different ways to make money. I heard a speaker say one time there's three main ways people make money. One is with your muscles, you actually do things, you build the software, you build the house, you do the thing, right? But those are the lowest paid employees. And then the next one is you make money with your mouth. Like you're the manager, you tell people what to do, you talk, you do those things. Or you make money with your mind, you're like the entrepreneur who's creating and running the company. And the problem is if you get stuck in the muscles then you never move to that next level where you make more money, and then you never get to have a chance to go to the third level where you can make even more money, like owning your own online business.
Shane Sams: I can see where that fear almost of success or responsibility could hold you back a little bit. How did you break through that, get out of that?
Chad Bostick: First of all, in the software development space, it's a really really hot industry and not always the case that the manager makes more money. In some cases the software developers make more money than the manager. I've had several software developers work for me over the last eight to 10 years, that they were in a niche and they had a skill set that was very, very hard to find and they named their price and we were like, "Shut up and take my money," because we need this job done. A few individuals got to name their price and got whatever they wanted to.
Chad Bostick: But when I was moving into management it was really difficult because I really said no for three or four or five times before I finally kind of just took a look at my life and was like, "You know what? Am I getting into the same patterns as I was before?" One of the things I was struggling with wasn't really the money because honestly guys, I felt blessed to have the job and I felt like not worthy to have the job in some cases. I did not graduate college. I was a college dropout. But I started writing code when I was 10 years old because it was fun and I don't feel like English is my first language, I feel like Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code is kind of my first language because that was ... BASIC programming was what really grabbed my attention when I was a 10, 11 year old.
Chad Bostick: It was a struggle for me to accept that job because on one hand I didn't feel like I deserved the job that I had, and get the money that I had, but on the other hand dealing with people problems just seemed like an insurmountable task. I would fail at it on my first day. And it turned out that wasn't the case and I had a knack in it. I just needed to practice my skill sets and get more comfortable in that area.
Shane Sams: Yeah, that's what happens with most fears. We create this story that tells ourselves we can't do this, but then we go do it and it's fine. It's taking that leap from one side of the cliff, I can't do it, to the other side, okay I'm going to try it and then I'm good at it, is what most people really really need to do that.
Shane Sams: So you've got this good job, you've started moving up in your career. Why online business? Why then do you want to pivot now and go down this entrepreneur path, which is a whole different set of challenges and problems than even climbing that corporate ladder?
Chad Bostick: Yeah, that's a great question and it's not now that I want to make the change. I actually started down the online path 15 years ago and I had a lot of starts and I had a lot of stops and I had a lot of successes and I had a lot of failures, and I feel like this is something that I've been seeking and searching for for over a decade and I haven't quite figured it out. And it frustrates me because I'm a smart guy and I know how to get things done technically. I know how to build a website, I know how to set up all the funnels and all that kind of stuff, but just turning it into a business is not a skill that I've ever learned. It's not a skill or a collection of skills that I've really figured out how to practice.
Chad Bostick: The reason I wanted to get it was just the freedom in so many ways. It's not just about the money for me. It was the freedom to work on the projects that excited me. I worked on a lot of projects over the course of my career that ended up kind of being the same thing over and over and over and just not really exciting. I worked on a lot of projects where I did not have a lot of empathy for the customer space. It was just like an area where it's like, "Okay, we're building this thing, but I don't really know who's going to use it or why they're going to use it." And just the project cycle of our project spins up and you work on it and then our project spins down and then the next project spins up and down. That project-based work has just kind of drained me over the course of the years. What I want to do is get into a business where I have freedom and flexibility to work on the projects that excite me, to work with the type of customers that excite me, and to have that freedom to work anywhere in the world however I want to do it.
Shane Sams: I love this part of your ... We have a form that we fill out for everybody that's on the show and it says, "The nine to five is slowly killing my soul." You have this really matter-of-fact way that you say things, and it's really matter-of-fact all the way. You get to that sentence and it's like now stop, we're killing my soul. Like, and-
Jocelyn Sams: But I think that so many people can relate to that. There are so many people listening to this right now that are like, "Yes. I totally get that."
Shane Sams: It's almost just finding a purpose. Every project has to have a purpose. I'm the same way, I get bored really really easily, especially if someone else hands me something to do. Even if I like to do it, if someone tells me to do it, it just hurts me somehow because I don't feel like I'm flexible and free.
Jocelyn Sams: It's because you're the rebel. We just read a book recently, it's called The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. It's a really interesting book. Shane is called the rebel. He doesn't want to meet other people's expectations and sometimes he doesn't even want to meet his own.
Shane Sams: Yeah, I just want to get out ... Today's been the greatest day ever because we just had all these random things we've been working on. Jocelyn looked over at me ... We recorded another podcast about 45 minutes ago, and she looked over and an email had popped up in her inbox. She looked over and goes, "Did you just send that email or did you schedule it?" I go, "No, I just got bored and started writing it." I like to just be totally flexible and free and throwing emails out there and just doing all these different things and the nine to five, I've been in that grind, man. It can wear you down.
Shane Sams: Even if it's something that you do feel blessed. When I got out of college I went to work for my dad. He was an insurance salesman, he had a couple agencies, and I got to go into insurance and I worked in one of the offices. I think I've told this story before, but I remember one day that I was only about a year into it and I was standing there leaning on the file cabinet, looking out the window, and across the street there was a herd of cattle, like cows. They were just walking around, using the bathroom, eating whatever they wanted. Some of them had jumped in the pond and they were getting a drink. I remember distinctly at that moment thinking, "Look how free those cows are. Man, I wish I was one of those cows." Because I felt so trapped in this nine to five life.
Jocelyn Sams: Never on another podcast will you hear this story.
Shane Sams: No, I wanted to be a cow. At that moment I knew that was my life's dream, was to be as free as a cow in a field.
Jocelyn Sams: You heard it here first folks, on the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast.
Shane Sams: That's kind of what took me down to even thinking about entrepreneurship. Even many years ago before we ever did this I actually started a couple websites, probably five to 10 years before we ever even thought about doing our websites that actually succeeded this time. Don't think you're alone in that it's been 15 years, why didn't I do this? I actually started a couple sites and sold a couple things back in two thousand and ... What year was that, four?
Jocelyn Sams: I think it was 2002, something like that?
Shane Sams: No, I think it was a little bit later than that. Yeah, because it was before I got my football coaching job. When the internet was in its infancy I somehow found a way to build a website and sell something online. I don't even remember what it was. Maybe-
Jocelyn Sams: No, it was like a football-
Shane Sams: Drills. It was football drills. That's what it was.
Jocelyn Sams: And so what he was planning to do was sell these on eBay, and he actually sold a couple of them.
Shane Sams: That's right, and I made like 500 dollars doing it.
Jocelyn Sams: On a CD-ROM and we were actually physically mailing them to people.
Shane Sams: Yeah, and I ... But the problem is, I did it for three months and then I listened to the rest of the world that said, "Well, maybe you don't want to do this, but you should go back to school, get another degree, go a different path." So that's what I did and then something 10 years later, we get back into this, it bubbles back to the surface, we start our journey and we make it. So dude, you are not alone when you feel like you've put this off and you can't figure out why. I look back sometimes and I'm like, "Oh my gosh. What would have happened if we had kept doing this back then?" But you can't do that, you've just to move forward with what you've got now.
Jocelyn Sams: Okay, so we have talked a little bit about what you've been doing the past few years as far as starting your own online journey and trying to figure out what you're going to do. Where has this taken you? What have you been doing recently?
Chad Bostick: A few years ago one of the next steps in the evolution of Chad and fighting my social anxiety and pushing myself past my personal barriers was I knew that I needed to launch a podcast. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to make money and my wife and I were both kind of like, "Where's the sponsorships going to come from?" But I just had this desire in me that I need to get out and I need to just start a podcast. So I did it the go big or go home way and I started a seven day a week show that was, really looking back, it was really about career development, but at the time I didn't know how to articulate it.
Chad Bostick: Every day of the week had its own topic. Monday motivation, Tuesday productivity, Wednesday leadership, Thursday technology, Friday people and communication, Saturday entrepreneurship, and Sunday is what I called being unplugged, which was a joke because I was working 24/7 and didn't know how to be unplugged. That was what I did and I produced 270 episodes and it was awesome and it was fantastic. It really helped me put myself out there not just in my job but outside of my job, and start to build a brand and start to connect with other people. Meet hundreds and hundreds of software developers and entrepreneurs and business leaders and managers all across the world and that was fantastic, but there wasn't any money and sponsorships. Or maybe there was, but I didn't know how to tap into it.
Chad Bostick: After a while that shut down. We had a personal event where a little girl needed our help and so we ended up adopting her, but through the adoption and fostering process I had to get another job. It was a serendipitous moment where I was actually on a call with a recruiter who was trying to recruit me for a manager job and my wife was on a call with Child Protective Services who was trying to help us get this baby. I was saying, "No no no, I'm doing my podcast and I want to figure out how to turn it into a business." The lady that was talking to my wife was telling my wife, "You have to quit your business and get a job or your business has to be successful for three years before you can get this baby." My wife was grabbing my shoulder, shaking me, trying to get my attention and say, "Chad, you have to get a job now, otherwise this baby goes and lives with somebody else." I said, "Okay, so tell me about this job again. Sounds very interesting. I want to take it."
Shane Sams: Right, exactly.
Chad Bostick: So I put a pause in the podcast but now after two years of reflection on what that show was about, it was really about me trying to explore my career development path and all of the obstacles that I've overcome in my career and the transformations that I've had in my life and my career and trying to help others see that transformation is possible in their own lives and in their own careers. Now what I've done is focus all of that energy down into a more succinct, clear message, and that is I help software developers and IT professionals build their confidence, their communication and their leadership skills so that they can get better jobs, make more money, and have a bigger impact on the world.
Shane Sams: Yeah. I love how this says on your form too that you recorded ... You'd heard John Lee Dumas, you just went all in making podcasts every day of the week. You did 270 episodes, then it says, "I made $2000 in ads but I spent $3600 in audio editing."
Chad Bostick: Yeah, I know.
Shane Sams: That's a common theme, though. Because you kind of have to invest and spend up front when you're starting your business. Everyone's first year or two probably looks in the red, because you have to get ahead of the game and then when you start making money ... There's only a $1600 difference there. If you go out and sell 100 memberships you're going to make all that money you originally invested back. All those building blocks have stacked up and led you to the place that you are today where you actually can succeed and make that first sale and do those things. So that's not wasted effort or time by any means, it's just learning, figuring it out, and you know now what that clear vision looks like because you did all those things in the past.
Chad Bostick: Yeah, it was definitely lessons learned and I'm glad that I did it. It was very costly and it was very kind of painful to see that paycheck that never arrived and to know that I'm responsible for my family's wellbeing. I've got to keep a roof over their heads, I've got to keep the bills paid and whatnot. But it wasn't happening and I felt like a failure. Why is this not working? Again, I'm a smart guy. I'm doing the right thing, I'm doing good, I'm on Apple's New and Notable section, my podcast is growing, but just selling those ads wasn't working so I needed a pivot and I had to take some time off in order to get that clarity to get it.
Jocelyn Sams: Absolutely. And the best news is, is that you didn't just give up. I think some people at that point would just say, "Well, podcasting's not for me. Better go do something else." But you didn't say that. You said, "Okay, well this didn't work, so now what can I do to make it work?"
Shane Sams: And we're getting back into that now. So you've pivoted back. You're ready to go forward with a clearer vision, with an online business, right?
Chad Bostick: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Shane Sams: What is the biggest thing that's holding you back right now? What are the fears and obstacles now as you move forward? We talked a little bit about your first sale a few minutes ago. Tell us what you're doing now, what's kind of held you back to this point, and then tell us more about how that first sale came about.
Chad Bostick: The first sale that came about was really ... I feel like I kind of lucked in to this client, where I gave a presentation at a local event and I hadn't really prepared a whole lot of information for that event, but I knew that I wanted to get back in touch with that side of me that was doing the podcast. I hadn't done any public ... Well, I'd actually never gotten up in front of a live studio audience and spoke. I've only hidden behind the microphone. I knew that I wanted to speak in front of this audience, and so I bounced a couple of ideas off my buddies and had the idea for Career Design Patterns and they said, "Oh, that sounds great, you should speak at this event."
Chad Bostick: I showed up, I gave the speech, and then afterwards this person approached me and said, "I need a job and I feel like I need a coach. Do you think you could help me?" And then, "Here, please take my money." That was amazing and it feels like I'm so honored to have that but I need to figure out how to repeat that same process. What I don't want to do, since I have to stay here with my family, I want to stay here with my family, I don't want to leave them and travel the world and be on a conference circuit. I want to figure out how to meet my avatars or meet my customers online and figure out how to put the message out there that I have been where they have been and I know how to solve some of their problems, and I can solve those problems for them.
Chad Bostick: What I'm really looking for is marketing messages and marketing tactics on how to ... Again, I know how to build a podcast but I don't necessarily know how to pitch myself and pitch the services that I'm offering.
Shane Sams: Okay. Wait, I want to talk about that, but I've heard something in our conversation that you haven't really articulated but I keep hearing it bubble back up.
Jocelyn Sams: Like a theme.
Shane Sams: It's a theme. You keep saying, "I'm lucky. Oh well, I got lucky and got that good job even though this shortcoming. Oh man, I was lucky enough to get offered one, two, three, four opportunities for this to move up the ladder. You know, I got so lucky that one person decided they wanted to throw their money at me."
Shane Sams: You can't keep saying that because you are not lucky. Here's what I've heard about you this entire conversation, Chad. I show up and I'm a great employee. You deserve the raise, you deserve the promotion. I show up at the speaking gig and I get up there and I do my best and someone wants to give me money because I'm worth getting the money. The danger of that word ... That word is actually banned in our household. We don't allow our children to say they're lucky or I'm lucky or we got lucky, because everything is based on effort. Everything is based on work. Everything is based on putting yourself in the right place so that you can be in the right place at the right time. That's just true. Are there some good fortune along the way that help us all? Of course. But being successful and what ... All the things you've done had nothing to do with luck. They had everything to do with Chad, and you're just killing it and you're doing it. Do you know how many people would not show up at a speaking event and get up on stage? 90% of people would be terrified to even do it, and you might have been terrified to do it but you did it and guess what, you got leads and you got a sale because of it.
Shane Sams: I just want to just really call that out a little bit right now and say don't feel like the good things that happen to you are luck. They are not luck.
Jocelyn Sams: None of it is an accident.
Chad Bostick: Okay. I'm taking it in. It's hard. Guys, it's always hard for me to accept any sort of recognition or rewards or pat myself on the back or do my performance evaluations, my self appraisals at the end of the year because I'm my own worst critic and I want to exceed not just everybody else's expectations but my expectations, and when sometimes it happens I'm like, "Wow." But I don't give myself enough credit that yeah, I actually deserve this. I own this. I rocked it out. I did the work. I put in the effort and my efforts and my ideas were good. That's definitely something I need to work on.
Shane Sams: See, the problem is though, if you don't ... In this particular instance you just said, I can't remember if we said this off-air when we were doing our preroll or if you were doing it during the call, but you said, "I look down. I've been trying this online thing, these side hustles, these podcasts, these affiliates, whatever. I've been trying this for 15 years and I can't quite put my finger on why it's not taking off, why it's not making the money."
Shane Sams: You've got this weird tug of war happening where the good things that happen to you, you're saying, "Oh, I got lucky." But then it stops you from taking your next step when it's time to take the next step because there's almost this fear of success tugging on the other side. So it's like luck is on one side, success is on the other, and you're afraid to go over and pull with success so you pull on the luck. Well, that must have been luck.
Jocelyn Sams: I think that part of it is that you are intentionally distancing yourself from any type of responsibility in the positive things, if that makes any sense at all.
Shane Sams: Like on the success side. Like if it's successful, well that couldn't have been me.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, so if you tell yourself, "Okay, well I had nothing to do with this success, it was just luck," that means that you sort of let yourself off the hook a little bit for repeating it.
Shane Sams: And you're also trying to ... It seems like too, the daily podcast thing cracks me up because it's like you do the 270 episodes, you're like, "I'm going to do it so much eventually I'll step on the success rake and it will fly up and hit me in the face." You know what I'm saying? I'm just looking to walk around and somewhere there's a rake in that field and I'm just going to let it whack me. But that's not being prolific, that's trying to get lucky. That's like playing the lottery every day in hopes that one day in your life it will hit.
Shane Sams: That's not the mentality you've got to do to be successful. The successful thing is, "What have I done that's been successful? I'm going to do that again and again and again, but I'm going to do it in a more strategic way where I'm not trying to kill myself and I'm not just looking to be lucky, I'm looking for the success." You went to a place and spoke on a stage where there were people who were your avatar that needed your help and gave you money. Now we have to repeat that, so you're on the right path-
Jocelyn Sams: Does it mean that you have to be a stage speaker and speak all over the world? No. But what can you pull out of that? What was successful about that that you could potentially replicate in an online way?
Shane Sams: For example, whenever we find our first customer, one thing we tell people to do is really get deep into a conversation with that person and say, "Why? Why did you pick me?" The answer is not going to be, "Man, you were just lucky and I felt like sending you some PayPal money." That's not the answer that that person would give you.
Jocelyn Sams: I felt kind of bad for you, and so-
Shane Sams: I felt bad for you bro, it's your first speaking gig and you just got lucky I was in the audience.
Chad Bostick: A pity customer.
Shane Sams: Yeah, right? Exactly. It's not a pity customer-
Jocelyn Sams: Hey, we will gladly take pity customers.
Shane Sams: I'll take pity customers. Anybody out there want a pity customer, throw your money at me. Or throw it at Chad. Whatever, we're all here.
Shane Sams: But he won't say it was lucky. He'll say, "Man, you said this that made me realize you were the person I needed to help me with my problem." That's really the conversation you've got to have right now and you've got to blow that luck thing out of your vocabulary because you've got all the things you need in place to find more customers, it's just going to be getting rid of the luck mentality to do it. Okay?
Chad Bostick: All right.
Shane Sams: Let's talk about this a little bit now. Your success, the real success in finding this member, was you got on stage. It says you got five ... Let's see, what does it say here? You converted five of 20 attendees. What do you mean by that?
Chad Bostick: I didn't know how to write it. After the speaking event, when it was over, everybody kind of gives you the applause and there were roughly about 20 people in the room. And then after, everybody was filing out towards the door, I was trying to grab my laptop and get my bags and all my stuff, and there were about five people that kind of gathered around me as I'm trying to find the exit, same as everybody else is find the exit, because there's another speaker right after me. Kind of in a classroom type setting and there was another speaker trying to set up his laptop and I was trying to get out of his way and people were standing around and they were saying, "Hey Chad, I really appreciated what you said." Or, "I'm struggling on this career stuff too. I don't know where I'm going next."
Chad Bostick: I was trying to get their names and numbers and whatnot but I did a poor job of prepping for that and having business cards ready or having flyers ready or having a sign-up sheet passed around the room. When I say I lucked into it, what I mean is after that we were filing out for lunch later on in the day and one of the attendees was out there in the lunch line and we just kind of bumped into each other and he said, "Wow, how did you get to be such a good speaker?" I'm like, "Wait, you weren't in my class obviously because I bombed it, right?"
Jocelyn Sams: Oh, Chad.
Chad Bostick: But no, he ... We sat down and we had a great conversation and he got really, really emotional about me spending time with him and sharing some of the struggles that I've struggled with over my career and some of the challenges that I've overcome with social anxiety, and I think it just struck a chord and it struck a nerve. After he's my paying client I have asked for his testimonial, I have spent a lot of time talking to him to try to figure out what's the DNA behind this little person here so that I can go find other people with the same problems or with the same ... That are looking for Chad. That's part of the process that I'm going through.
Shane Sams: See, that's amazing though because you had five people interested and one ... I mean, imagine if every 20 people you come in contact with, five people gave you their email and one of them bought. You just go find 100, then you find 1000, then you find 10,000 of those people and you just keep finding more of these people because you're just filtering is all you've done. You showed up, you gave the speech, you filtered down to five which filtered into one.
Shane Sams: I would guess that those other four people were probably ... You just didn't get to have the sit down and the lunch with them. You didn't get to warm them up even more so there probably might have been four more customers sitting there.
Jocelyn Sams: Okay, so here's the thing, Chad. First of all, I'm pretty sure we were separated at birth.
Chad Bostick: Nice.
Shane Sams: A lost brother. You might be Jocelyn's long lost twin brother, I don't know.
Jocelyn Sams: I think you might be, because-
Chad Bostick: A sister from another mister.
Jocelyn Sams: Exactly.
Shane Sams: I've never heard that before.
Jocelyn Sams: We-
Shane Sams: I've heard brother from another mother, I've never heard sister from another mister.
Jocelyn Sams: We both had luck programming back in, as my daughter says, the 19's.
Chad Bostick: Right. Back in the day.
Jocelyn Sams: Exactly.
Chad Bostick: What was your language? I have to geek out for a minute. What was your language?
Jocelyn Sams: I started out with BASIC, GW-BASIC in the 1990's. I went on to program Pascal and I hung my programming hat up on C++.
Chad Bostick: Yeah, that's a tricky one. Good, good, yes. We have-
Shane Sams: Okay, back to normal human language, guys, okay?
Jocelyn Sams: Right. But what I was going to say is that okay, I can totally relate to you with people. I don't really have a lot of the social anxiety. Mine is more everyday type of anxiety. But I can understand what you're saying about people coming up to you and you being like, "Oh, you thought that was really good?" Because I know, as I am, you're very hard on yourself and you think that no matter how well you do something it's still not good enough. Right?
Chad Bostick: Yeah.
Jocelyn Sams: Okay. I got your number, Chad.
Chad Bostick: You found me.
Jocelyn Sams: Yes. What I want to say to you is I think that it would really be beneficial to you to find some partner, and by partner I mean an accountability partner, who's going to push you out of your comfort zone. Because I don't think there's any way you're going to do it on your own.
Shane Sams: And not just your wife. This is like a mastermind, you know what I'm saying? You need to find the quick start that's got too much confidence but never actually does anything. That's the kind of people you're looking to surround yourself with. You know there's that saying that says you're the average of the five people you hang out with the most, right?
Chad Bostick: Exactly.
Shane Sams: That's not just saying find good people, it's finding the three or four other people that fill in the holes in your armor. We all have 25% of what it takes to really make it, but then we surround ourselves with those three friends, colleagues, mastermind people or whatever that kind of fill that in for us. If you're the person who's the quick start but never finishes and procrastinates anything, you need to find the person that says, "Get your blank together." Right? If you're the person who's telling everybody to get their blank together, you need the person that's saying, "Yo, why don't you dream a little bigger and go do something with all this blank you're doing?"
Shane Sams: You've got to make sure you've got the right people in this space that are feeding you to be able to do that. Okay?
Chad Bostick: Okay.
Jocelyn Sams: And the good news is, you're already a part of that in some ways. You're already a part of our community, you post in our community obviously. But go out there and say, "Hey guys, I'm a doer. I'm a person who likes to mark items off a checklist. I have trouble believing I'm good enough." Whatever the issues that you're facing are. I need someone who has the opposite skill sets, the opposite palette, I guess you would say.
Shane Sams: And let's form a mastermind together. Right, so we-
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, even if-
Shane Sams: ... can achieve together and talk or whatever-
Jocelyn Sams: It doesn't have to be an official we meet every Monday night and we have a 15 minute hot seat type mastermind. It doesn't have to be that. You guys could add each other on Voxer and just talk every day and say, "Hey, today I'm working on this. I'm worried about X, Y, Z." And this person would say, "Okay, well here's the thing Chad, get out of your own way." And that's something I have to say to myself all the time, so I'm not picking on Chad. But-
Shane Sams: It could even be a Facebook conversation with three people and you all just text each other. It doesn't have to be anything formal.
Jocelyn Sams: Or in our community.
Shane Sams: Yeah, exactly. Or you could go in and start an accountability thread and you all just join it in the Action Plan forum, right? That you all just get the updates for that kind of stuff. It's really simple to fix the problems that we all have. You know what I'm saying? It's just surround ourselves with people who can help us fix the problem.
Jocelyn Sams: And I totally know your problem because I have the same problem every single day. Get out of your own way.
Shane Sams: That's what we're ... I'm going to address your how to replicate this success in a second. But your problem has nothing to do with your offer, with the way you're presenting it, anything like that, because you're clearly presenting it in a way that's fine. It's just convincing yourself that one, you need to do this. You're worthy.
Jocelyn Sams: You're good enough.
Shane Sams: You're good enough and you're worthy to get the success. And finally, that people need you. Like that person ... Whenever I hear someone say, "And then that person got emotional." I can't tell you how many people have broke down crying with me and Jocelyn. That's when you know that someone needs you to get this right. Like you said, "They needed me to not do the podcast anymore so that this little girl would have a home with us." That moment of clarity gave you the catalyst to take that action, correct?
Chad Bostick: Exactly.
Shane Sams: You've got that same thing right here whenever you have the doubt, whenever you feel lucky, whenever you do that. That moment of clarity with that emotional person who needed your help has to make you take the next step. Okay?
Chad Bostick: Got it. Yeah, there's folks out there who are struggling with some of the struggles that I've overcome in my life and in my career and if I'm not actively trying to find them and help them then I am doing them a disservice. It is my responsibility to track them down, to find them, and to help them get past those obstacles, and that will help me sleep better at night.
Shane Sams: Exactly right. Jocelyn and I have always taken our online career as a responsibility, especially with Flipped Lifestyle but even with elementarylibrarian.com. We've got to help these people have their afternoons back with their children. Even with CoachXO, our football site, I've got to help these coaches win more games so they go home more Friday nights happy and enjoy their weekend.
Shane Sams: Everybody out there, no matter what your job is, no matter what you're doing, go out there with a purpose and find the people that need you to help them. Don't just go out and try to make money online. That's not what it's all about. That's a part of it that makes it work, but you've got to go out with purpose or you're never going to feel worthy. You're always going to feel down, and when things do get a little hard you're going to stop.
Jocelyn Sams: This conversation sort of reminds me of that book that we read. I can't remember what the book was. The one that talks about the different types of entrepreneurs and one of them is the reluctant hero or something like that.
Shane Sams: Was that ... Probably DotCom Secrets, I would say.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, I can't remember. But anyway, I can relate to that because I feel like my life is a mess. Every day I screw something up. All these people are looking to me for inspiration, information, just to inspire them to move forward and I'm like, "Gosh, I'm such a mess. Don't these people see this?"
Jocelyn Sams: That's part of it. It's like being yourself and being okay with people seeing that you're not perfect, that's going to make people even more drawn to you.
Shane Sams: All right. Let's just circle back here. I want to talk about now what you really need to do to grow this thing. Right?
Chad Bostick: Okay.
Shane Sams: Okay. Did you fire back up the podcast, or are you going to podcast again? Or right now basically, this was just, "I'm doing this and I did this speaking thing and I got a client."
Chad Bostick: No. I fired back up the podcast. I rebranded, so I kept all of my Libsyn account where it is but I just rebranded, put a new logo, put a new name on it to niche down from Hello Tech Pros down to Career Design Patterns. It's up. I think I've published about three or four episodes now and-
Shane Sams: How often are you doing this?
Chad Bostick: Weekly.
Shane Sams: Perfect. Okay, good. You don't need to do anything more than that. Because what you really want to do is create one really good episode and promote it for six days. That's how you make things grow. Let it kind of marinate a little bit.
Shane Sams: Here's how you can recreate the success that you had without going on the road. Just make your podcast lead to webinars and that's your lead magnet strategy. In your form you said, "I've experimented with many different lead magnets and they all fall flat." But a webinar ... If you did one podcast on Tuesday and a webinar that came out on Thursday and the end of every podcast invited people to go opt in for your webinar. I'm doing a live training on Thursday, I'm going to help you do X, Y, Z, and then you go give that same speech that you gave in that classroom that converted 25% of people and got your first sale. You just do that same speech in a webinar format.
Shane Sams: You can replicate the speaking circuit from your house if you just do that, and you can make that your entire lead magnet and opt in strategy. You just have to figure out a way to succinctly tell them why it's important that they go the next step beyond the podcast. Hey, did you like today's podcast? Did it help you overcome some of these issues you're dealing with? Well listen. I'm having a free training this Thursday where I'm going to do a live Q&A. I will talk to you about anything that's holding you back in X, Y, Z, so all you have do is go to blank slash whatever and register for the webinar. I'll see you Thursday and if I don't catch you there, I'll catch you right back here on the podcast next Tuesday.
Shane Sams: Just do the thing that you did on stage with a little bit of a pitch at the end of it, and you'll see that you'll get more opt ins. The podcast will produce opt ins, the opt ins will produce sales, and it will completely replicate that speaking thing where you don't have to travel so much. It doesn't matter where they hear you, all that matters is that they hear you, and putting yourself out there in that way is going to allow the people to hear you in the exact same way that that person did at lunch that day.
Chad Bostick: Yeah, I love the ideas of webinars. I've actually talked about it a couple of times to friends and to my wife. Just getting it set up, I get ... Well obviously there's some sort of internal battles that I'm having of launching that. But then finding the tech and then getting it signed up and then start talking about it, that I'm going to do this thing and then have it and have it scheduled. I think that's where I've been held back before. So I just need to get it scheduled and start doing it, on a weekly basis.
Shane Sams: Let me tell you how to do this to get it started really easy. One, your job actually is information technology so I don't ever want to hear you tell me you're scared of the tech. Don't do that, dude. You all were talking about programming in foreign languages I didn't even understand a minute ago.
Chad Bostick: I know. It's an excuse.
Shane Sams: It's an excuse. Here's all you've got to do. Anybody listening, this is the easiest way to set up a webinar. One, just go start a YouTube channel. YouTube has an amazing thing in it called YouTube Live. You can set up an event on a date. That's where you're going to host your webinar. You're going to do it on YouTube, you're going to do it live.
Shane Sams: Don't make a PowerPoint unless you already have one. If you've already got one from that presentation, maybe use that, but don't even make a PowerPoint. Just make a talking head, the first couple, and you're just giving the presentation. Then, at that point, here's all you've got to do. On your podcast you say, "Hey, go to this domain." And when they go there they have an opt in box where they join your email list. That's it. And then anyone who opts in on that form, you shoot them an email 30 minutes before the webinar with a link to the YouTube Live. And then in the description of the YouTube Live you just put the link to the thing you sell. And at the end of it you tell them to look in the description for the link, drop it in the chat box, and you tell them what to do.
Shane Sams: So it's literally as easy as sign up for my YouTube channel, which is just put your name and email in, you've got one. It's that easy. If you've a Gmail account you actually already have a YouTube account. You've already got a YouTube channel. You've just got to go turn it on and then you click the button that says schedule a hangout. You pick a date and that's it, it's over.
Shane Sams: Don't get lost in the technology. You can make a lot of money online just talking to people on YouTube Live and your podcast. Russell Brunson, one of the most prolific online marketers on the planet, he just does Zoom. He just has a Zoom link. They don't use fancy tools and stuff for webinars all the time. A lot of times they'll just, "Here's a Zoom link. Click it, open it up, listen to me talk. I'll give you a link at the end in the chat." And that's how they make millions of dollars online.
Shane Sams: Do it live, don't worry about so much the presentation. The most important thing is you tell people on your podcast to go opt in. You show up and you do it live and you ask them to buy something at the end of it. That's really all you have to do. Can you get fancier later? We can always get fancier later. But right now it's just about showing up. And I think that you've actually stumbled in to exactly what you need to do to make this thing go to the next level.
Jocelyn Sams: And it wasn't luck. It was all part of the plan.
Chad Bostick: I stumbled into it on purpose.
Shane Sams: That's right. There's a great quote that says, "Even if I fall on my face I'm still moving forward."
Chad Bostick: That's right.
Shane Sams: You know what I mean? That has nothing to do with luck. That has to do with relentless determination to move forward, and you keep doing that and you keep doing that and then you just look back and go, "Okay, I tripped over a stick last time. So I'm going to watch out for sticks moving forward. Oh, I tripped over a rock last time. Okay, now I'm going to watch out for rocks." So now I get to take a step forward and then fall again. Or two steps forward and then fall again and eventually you figure out how to just keep walking, and that's where you are right now. Do the podcast. Talk to these people in the same speech you gave on stage but do it on a webinar. That's your lead magnet that's going to get you opt ins, that's going to make you sales. Do that 52 times in the next year and see where it takes you. It's going to make your business blow up.
Jocelyn Sams: All right Chad. It has been quite a, I guess you would call it a smack down of a conversation. It has been a little crazy but you know what, I kind of feel like I'm talking to myself and I know how to relate to you because it's how I would relate to me. It's how other people need to relate to me. So take a lesson over there, Shane.
Shane Sams: I relate to you just fine. This is exactly how I talk to you sometimes, what are you talking about?
Jocelyn Sams: Sometimes. Yeah, this is like pretty much daily. Anyway. All right, as we wrap this up Chad, it's been awesome talking to you today. We have really enjoyed learning more about you and your business. We always ask people before we go what is one thing that you plan to do in the next 24 hours or so based on what we talked about today?
Chad Bostick: I think the first thing that I have to do is go find myself an accountability partner that will help me push past these barriers that I have. So I'm going to reach out in the forums first and foremost. Keep it simple, reach out to my community, Flipped Lifestyle community, and put it out there and say, "Hey, I need an accountability partner who's going to check on me and make sure that I'm actually doing the webinar and I'm not just pretending that I'm going to do the webinar some day but not really." So I need that accountability partner to keep me on track.
Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, and the awesome thing is is that you have something to offer them as well. You have the ability to get things done and someone else has the ability to dream a little bigger and make you think in those terms.
Shane Sams: Also too, I would challenge you actually as soon as you get off this to set up that YouTube channel and the next time you record a podcast, tell people that you're going to do something and have that opt in ready to go. Right? If you will go ahead and start the YouTube channel and create the opt in page, now you've got everything in place. There's no excuses anymore, it's just a matter of you actually doing it on your podcast. Does that make sense?
Chad Bostick: Yeah, that makes sense.
Shane Sams: Yeah, so build the thing and go do that and you'll be right on your way to making a habit. All right buddy well listen, we've got to go. I hate that this conversation has to end but I just want to thank you really quick man for being so transparent because it's hard to talk about the things that hold us back. It's hard to talk about dealing with anxiety and having that fear of success and feeling lucky sometimes. We all get there but you've overcame a lot of that, you're still overcoming it, and now you're going to help other people do it too and that's pretty impressive. I know you've helped a lot of people who are listening to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast today, and we just thank you for being on the show.
Chad Bostick: Thank you so much for having me. I can't express how much I appreciate you bringing me on the show and giving me this awesome advice. I'm going to take the action and flip my life.
Jocelyn Sams: Awesome. We cannot wait to see what happens next.
Shane Sams: All right guys, what an amazing conversation with Chad today. Man, we just tackled some big fears, some things that hold a lot of people back, and that's what we want to do for you inside of the Flip Your Life community. Maybe you need an accountability partner like Chad did. Maybe you need to go in there and ask some questions. Maybe you just need to celebrate some of the victories and things that are happening in your life.
Jocelyn Sams: Maybe you might be the perfect accountability partner for Chad-
Shane Sams: That's right.
Jocelyn Sams: Maybe you're listening to this and you're thinking, "I need someone who can get things done and I'm a big dreamer." Okay, join and hang out with Chad.
Shane Sams: All you have to do is go to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife. That's F-L-I-P-Y-O-U-R-L-I-F-E, all one word, flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife and you can join the most amazing community of online business owners and entrepreneurs anywhere. Family-focused real people who are out there trying to change their life who would love to have you in our community as well. Go to flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife and you can join today.
Shane Sams: Before we close, we love to end each podcast with a Bible verse. Jocelyn and I draw a lot of our inspiration from the Bible and there's a lot of great stuff in there about owning and operating a business. Today's Bible verse comes from Philippians chapter 3 verse 13, and it says, "But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize."
Shane Sams: And that's what we all have to do. It doesn't matter if you've been trying online business out for 10, 15, five years. Maybe you're just starting your journey. It doesn't matter about any of the failures in the past. It doesn't matter about what you've done before. All that matters is what you do next. So keep straining toward what's ahead and keep doing whatever it takes to win the prize and you'll get there eventually.
Shane Sams: That's all the time we have for this week, guys. Until next time get out there, take action, do whatever it takes to flip your life. We'll see you then.
Jocelyn Sams: Bye.
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