AP 1144: Before and After with Fritz Westover and his Virtual Academy Membership Program

AP 1144: Before and After with Fritz Westover and his Virtual Academy Membership Program

Pat Flynn:
What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 1144 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you. And this is a special and very interesting episode because—and I do have to confess this upfront—I messed up. I messed up a little bit. I actually interviewed our special guest today, Fritz Westover a year and a half ago and unfortunately, with the launch of Superfans, this file got mixed up in all the craziness of that and that episode was never published. And Fritz is such a nice guy that he never reached out and even was like, "Hey, what happened to the episode? I guess it wasn't good enough." No, it was great and we just didn't publish it.

And so Fritz and I have been working together to try and get a new episode up. And here is that new episode.
I went back to the older file and in fact it was actually a little corrupted too. I don't know why or what happened, but things happen for a reason and we're bringing Fritz on back. We start talking about bits and pieces of his story and where he came from upfront. He's actually somebody who has built an incredible membership website called Virtual Viticulture Academy. If you don't know what viticulture is, he essentially helps people create their own vineyards. And that's amazing, but I'm really excited to have you dig deeper into his story. We talk about where he came from, what he needed to do from the last time we had him on—not the show, but in our conversation. And we'll just pick up from where we left off. Welcome in , this is Fritz Westover from VirtualViticultureAcademy.com. Here we go.

Fritz, welcome back to AskPat 2.0. It's good to hear and see from you again.

Fritz Westover:
Hey, thanks for having me back, Pat. It's good to be back again.

Pat::
Yeah. I'm excited to chat and just got to be honest with everybody: I messed up. The first time we recorded, we didn't play that in an actual episode of AskPat because of a mix up, but people know a little bit about what you're doing with viticulture and such and helping people and I'm excited to get an update on sort of what's been happening since. And if you can remember back to when we recorded, I would love for you to share a little bit more about sort of, kind of what you remember the takeaways were from that conversation. What were the most helpful things that you knew you needed some help on?

Fritz::
Yeah, no and I appreciate you having me back on. It's good to know that I just wasn't a terrible interviewer or . . .

Pat::
No it wasn't you.

Fritz::
But no. It's actually really great and timely because the advice that you gave me last time, my biggest question was: I was doing webinars that were free and I have an online membership academy called Virtual Viticulture Academy where I teach grape growing and help grape growers with their wine grape growing questions. And it's all over the country. And it's in a couple other countries now too. And my problem was, I didn't have a great conversion for my live webinars where I'd send a follow up email and say, "Hey, if you thought the information today was great, why not sign up for the academy?" And I would have over a 100 people on a webinar live. I thought, "Wow, this is not very good. I'm doing something wrong. Or maybe there's more I can do.

Your biggest suggestions to me, Pat, was to start a free trial. And I was hesitant about the free trial because I didn't want to just give away everything on the website, because I've got a lot of really great video content and all the kind of the goodies that I think people join for are there. I did kind of a hybrid approach. I took what I thought were some of the hottest things, the most downloaded in the community and I put those into a free membership trial on a separate webpage. And so basically it was a sampling of the academy, a sampling of my live Q and A, a sampling of my field courses that I videotaped and I put a small video on the top and I then gave the kind of deadline with a coupon code to get a little discount for all things that we discussed. After I did my next live webinar, after AskPat happened, didn't cost me a lot to put that together, had over a 100 people again on my next webinar. And of the people who attended live, I did a sequence of three emails, put that out there, put a deadline: I had a 12 percent conversion.

Pat::
Bro, yes.

Fritz::
New members. Yeah.

Pat::
That's actually, 12 percent is quite high. You went from very, very low to very, very high. This is great. And the trial, the sort of sample was really the key thing that kind of changed everything.

Fritz::
Yeah. And I know for sure, because you can kind of track that a little bit. The nice part was I now can reuse that same model for future webinars. And what I do is I just swap out the video at the intro or change up the content to more current content. And it's become kind of a evergreen strategy for when I do live webinars that are free. It's been great. That's worked out really well. And so I thank you for your advice on that. I took it and I used it and implemented it, so that's what people need to do. They need to get out and implement your advice and see how it works. And if it doesn't work, you need to know that too, right?

Pat::
Right exactly. That's so awesome. Thank you for coming on and sharing that. I want to know a little bit more detail about this page that you created. I think this is a very interesting hybrid approach. And so, did you take literally your best components and sort of put them on there? Walk us through that page: when a person gets access to it, what are we seeing?

Fritz::
Yeah. And it's still up in live and I'd be happy to share it in your show notes.

Pat::
Oh yeah, we'll put the link up.

Fritz::
Okay, cool. I'll keep it live so people can look at it, but basically it starts with a video kind of explaining what the free trial is about. It's kind of a long video right now. It's four minutes. I'm thinking about cutting that down for the next one a little, but it gives people a chance to kind of see a little bit about my personality and what I want them to get out of the free trial. Then I've got categorized by things that I have in my academy that I think are really special. The live videos, the live workshops I do, I videotape them, they're usually an hour long video that goes really detailed into a topic in the vineyard like pruning. Pruning is very complicated. You can't teach it by a book, you have to see it in a video. That's a really hot one.

And I always put the most recent ones that I have so it's up to date, so you don't feel like you're only getting the 1998 version instead of the 2020 version. And then one of the other big components that I do and I know you do this with your course members, you do Q and A sessions. In fact, I think you have one pretty much after our interview today, that'll I'll be sure and join. And so I do those Q and A's with the grape growers and it's twice monthly. And so I wanted people to feel what it would be like to be inside of that group and hearing the other questions and imagining what it would be like to experience that live Q and A even just by the recording. And in fact, I've also implemented something where I give out free passes to invite people to a live Q and A, so they can come in as a guest.

Pat::
Oh nice.

Fritz::
And that has also been really high conversion as well. That's a 50 percent or more conversion if I can get someone to come to a Q and A. And so what I've done is I actually highlight them and say, "Hey, we've got a new guest here today. So-and-so from Michigan's a grape grower, let's all welcome them." And then people will give a bunch of comments to welcome them. And then at the end I'll say, "Hey, so-and-so from Michigan's still here. Why not, at the end of the session, let's talk about what we like best about being part of Virtual Viticulture Academy and what's most useful?" And then people say, "Oh well, I paid for my membership with a discount I got from this supplier more than once." Or, "I just really love the Q and A. It's saved me a bunch of money." And you just, you can't create that out of nothing. You have to go in there. The audience and the members help because they know it's helpful for them and they want other people to have that experience. That's been a real win.

Pat::
They're selling it for you. You don't even have to do anything, you just kind of have to invite people. That's a fantastic strategy. I like that. How do you give them a free pass so that they don't just keep coming back to the next ones? How do you manage that technically?

Fritz::
Well, it's just a one-off code I use in my webinar service. I currently use GoToWebinar. And then for my social, I started doing social happy hours once a month and I use Zoom for that. And that's been going well too for building community, because one of my last questions for you was about my trepidation about starting a Facebook community, because then you've got to monitor it and it's just a lot of extra work that I was concerned about. I'm looking for a way to get that, maybe more on my own turf. And I'm still open to doing that in the future, but I haven't jumped on that. What I've done instead is I've started the happy hours and the socializing within the community once a month. And I bring a guest on who's an expert in an area of grape growing and they kind of hang out, we drink wine together, and we chat and ask them questions. Good value there too.

Pat::
Sounds like a great group. For those who can't remember, where should they go to see the membership community in case they're interested in just more of what you have going on, what's the URL?

Fritz::
Yes. It's VirtualViticultureAcademy.com and viticulture is spelled V-I-T-I-C-U-L-T-U-R-E. And that's the study and science of grape growing and that's basically all I do. As you know, I had the consulting business, I still do that. The membership is something I added on because I was filled up and I just needed to find a way to help more grape growers and that was the way to do it.

Pat::
Now that we are in 2020, and of course things have happened this year to almost force people to go more virtual, how has this affected your business?

Fritz::
That's a really good question. And a lot of people ask me that, and they say, "You kind of had your gears in place when this came in. You've been online for years." I started the academy in 2018 so I was already doing this cool online stuff before it was cool. I think the thing that I noticed the most is I actually had a drop in my live webinars. I think people were kind of webinar'd out and online meeting-saturated.

Pat::
Zooms and stuff.

Fritz::
Zoomed out. I actually noticed a little bit of a drop, but in terms of people signing up, we don't get hundreds of members every month. It's a trickle in, it's a very small niche market. We're probably at a steady rate. We haven't really dropped. The vineyards are still growing. If you're in the California area, burning right now, probably heard in the news. There's a lot going on in agriculture, it doesn't stop because of a pandemic. My business has just been plugging right along and I'm set up, I think, to have the best year ever. I'm happy about that.

Pat::
That's great. Good for you. I have just started doing some gardening in the backyard with some veggies and fruits and stuff and I don't have enough land I would imagine for a vineyard, but if I did, that might be something I would consider because, hey, I'm home now and it seems like a really cool thing and potentially even something I could turn into a business as well. How are your students faring during this time?

Fritz::
The students are doing well. I think they're spending more time in their vineyards as a result of being cooped up a little. I'm getting more questions this year than ever. People are having better success than ever. They're sharing their stories and just saying, "Hey, this being in the vineyard thing is important." And I say, "I know. I've been telling you that forever. You need to be in your vineyard if you want it to look good and be productive and have good quality wine." Pat, I will tell you, if you ever decide to put in a vineyard, you know who to call, right?

Pat::
I do. Absolutely, 100 percent, Fritz. Absolutely. What is next for you or from this point forward, sort of what's new? Or what's up and coming for you in terms of business growth or where do you want to take this?

Fritz::
This past year I implemented sort of, I guess the word would be an upsell. I already have an audience in the membership so I created a premium membership, which I said, I have only 20 slots for and I've got maybe a 150 members or more. It's going up. And I thought, "For sure, I'll fill these 20 spots with the more expensive upsell and they'll get a little more time with me, a call in the beginning, end of the season, mid-season check in." I do a little bit more customized recommendations for them and reports. And I had five that took it on and I was a little disappointed at first. And then I started talking to members who called—I do a 20 minute call occasionally with members just to get to know them. And when I talked to those growers, they say, "We could use a little more of this, this, and that." And I say, "Well, I have this premium membership that does all of that." And they just never opened that email. They just never got it.

Pat::
Oh, for real. Okay. Well that's good feedback though.

Fritz::
Yeah, it's good feedback. The lesson is to spend a little more time getting that word out. The next step for me then is also to—I've been talking to some folks in other countries who really like the model and wine grapes tend to grow in very beautiful places. Places like Italy and Spain and South America. The idea is to see how we can take this model and maybe test it in another country. And a little personal information about me: my wife is from Tuscany so I've worked in Italy. I speak Italian. It's not beautiful and perfect—I'm not reading Dante to my kid at night or anything. I'm thinking of starting there and I'm looking at a few partners that I know and trust there.

Biggest challenge, I think is really the membership depends on me and my face and showing up. And you know how that is with Pat Flynn. You've got to be there, you've got to show up and be present. In other countries where I may not speak the language perfectly, I'm going to need to find someone who could really be that face and then I could show up, but I'm not really going to be the lead on that. That's something I'm thinking about and I'm just wondering what the pros and cons would be. And I think I won't find out until I give it a try.

Pat::
Well, awesome. Well, it seems like things are going well. Let's talk about this upsell really quick and it's so awesome that you got direct feedback from people about the program and you're just like, "Well, they didn't even know about it." This is obviously gives you some direction in terms of, "Okay, well what can we do to get people to learn about it?" Yes, you could send more emails, but there are some other opportunities where you could probably share it. I would likely guess that on perhaps one of your calls where you have these people on already anyway, at the end of the call you can just mention, "Hey, we've had a few people who have been asking for more help and just want to connect with me even more than what we're doing here. If that's in fact you, I do have some slots open for this thing. I did send the email about it, but some of you didn't see it so that's why I'm mentioning it here."

That way it doesn't come across as sort of salesy or slimy. It's just the truth. You don't want to necessarily turn it into a full-blown pitch, but just at least an initiation or touch point about it so that in case people are thinking about it or interested, they can now reach back out to you or reply, or you can say, "Hey, look out for an email, I'll send it tomorrow. If it doesn't come across your inbox, look for it in spam or something." That way they at least know it's coming and that just becomes one of perhaps a few times, you mentioned it elsewhere if they're already there. That's kind of what I would recommend doing.
And maybe even pulling one of those members out, one of those five out and maybe doing a little bit of a interview with them in front of everybody else to be another moment to share that they are a part of something in addition, without going into a full blown pitch, it just maybe it makes this person feel special, getting a little bit more attention in front of the group. That's a benefit to them and they also will then become a great opportunity for you to go, "Oh, they're a part of this premium or executive level member."

Fritz::
Yeah, yeah, no, that's great advice. In fact, the happy hour would be a great way to have one of those members who's in the package just kind of chat about it and casually mention it.

Pat::
Yeah. Give them the spotlight.

Fritz::
Yeah, no, I think that's great. And I love the idea of the mentions during the live sessions. I probably didn't do that enough, and I have a list of people who, by the types of questions they ask, I also know that it might be beneficial to them. They show up a lot, they're there a lot. They probably would be a good, I don't know, a good example of someone who might want that extra hands on.

Pat::
That also reminded me of what you just said because somebody had quote unquote, sold me into a higher level program of theirs by individually reaching out to me and basically saying the same thing. Like, "Hey, I've been noticing a lot of the questions you've been asking and you've been asking a lot and unfortunately with the way it's set up, I can't help you fully the way I think I can. And this is why I'd love to personally invite you into. . ." et cetera. And it's almost the personal invite goes even stronger because, "Oh, I don't reach out to everybody, I'm reaching out to you because I think you'd be perfect for this. And I just want to let you know, in case you're interested, if not, no worries." And I think that personal invite with a smaller number of members would potentially work out really well.

Fritz::
Yeah, no, I like that. I think I'm going to do that, Pat.

Pat::
Cool.

Fritz::
Yeah. Didn't hut me last time I followed your advice, so I'll give that a go.

Pat::
We'll have to do another followup at some point to see sort of where this goes now.

And then on the partnership international stuff, I've had opportunities to do something similar too, with my courses and my brand, but you're right, it's a struggle. It's like, I wouldn't know how to communicate or be a part of a community where I just can't even honestly communicate properly. And it does require another person or a partner who would then become quote unquote the face or your clone essentially, for that language and for those people. And you essentially can just guide those people. They almost become an extension of you, but it would most likely be very difficult to try and do exactly what you're doing in the way that you're doing it without another person. And the problem with that is you have to find the right person, obviously.

That's going to take time. It's definitely like a marriage, you need to go on a couple dates first and learn about them and have them learn about you to see if it's a good fit, because sometimes on paper they might seem like they're a great fit and then it just doesn't work out. If you are going to do this, I would micro test it in a way where perhaps for a month long only you kind of do something for a community there that might be even small, just to kind of see what the relationship's like. There's obviously the component of time zones and just—there's just so much. Start it with one and just see how it goes. You might find that it's just way too much hassle, in which case you just go, "Okay. Even if the opportunity's there, I'm not even going to worry about it and just get it out of my brain now so I could focus on this." I would recommend kind of pushing a little bit to see what that's like, but don't commit and that can then give you some answers in terms of, "Oh, I like this. It kind of works," or, "Not really my thing. Let's move on."

Fritz::
Yeah, no, that's great. I think what you're just saying now is kind of what the direction I'm going. We're sitting here, it's the first week in October, and in November and December our new plan is—because of virtual school, my son's nine. I spent all morning doing school with him and we're not planning to go back to school anytime soon so we'll probably move to Italy. For about six to eight weeks.

Pat::
Whoa.

Fritz::
We can work remotely from there. The idea is—I did buy your podcast course so I've got that. I haven't gone through it yet. November is my podcast month where I'm going to batch my first season. It's going to be called Vineyard Underground Podcast. It's not out yet, but that'll be what it will be in the future. I'll get a chance to work with these people that I have in mind one on one. Kind of get out in vineyards with them, make sure that our advising style is similar and really just focus on that. That's the goal right now.

Pat::
Dude, I love it. It sounds like a good plan and you get to go to Italy and bring your family with you. Italy is on my bucket list. I have studied architecture there for so long. I know all about it, I've never been and I want to go so bad. A little bit jealous and that is definitely wine country for sure. Fritz, this is great. I can't wait to see how you take this and move forward with it. Congrats on the continued success. Thank you for taking action on the first time that we talked and I'm grateful that we had a chance to connect again before a new era and into 2021 for you. Congrats again. And the website one more time is VirtualViticultureAcademy.com if you want to check it out. Just keep rocking, man. Well done.

Fritz::
Hey, thanks a lot, Pat. I appreciate what you're doing. And I really think it's great that you follow up with people who you've helped. And I think that's just the model that not only helps people more, but it makes you better too. Keep it up, man.

Pat::
Exactly. And I can imagine you doing the same thing with your students, with your little happy hours and such. Keep up the good work and we'll chat again soon.

Fritz::
Sounds great, Pat. Thanks.

Pat::
All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Fritz. Again, you can find them at VirtualViticultureAcademy.com. Congrats on all the success and continued success that you're going to have, Fritz. I'm really excited to hear more from you later. We'll have to bring you back on again at some point, just to see where things are at. And again, I appreciate you for being so kind about allowing us to do this episode in this way. First time it's ever happened.

But if you're listening to this and you enjoy the show and you potentially want to be featured here, as well as a coaching student here on AskPat 2.0, all you have to do is go to AskPat.com and you can find the application button on that page. There you're going to fill out a little form and tell us a little bit about yourself and then I might reach out to you in the future to see if we could schedule a call that will not only help you, but help all the other people listening too.

By the way, if you did feel like this was valuable for you, if you could do a quick favor for me, if you could go to Apple Podcasts and leave a quick review, that would be incredibly amazing. An honest review would be incredibly helpful, whether it's feedback to make the show better, but more specifically a five star rating would be obviously appreciated if you really did enjoy the show, and that way it helps other people find the show and understand that it's one for them. Thank you again. I appreciate you in advance for that.

And I highly recommend you subscribe to the show if you haven't already. We've got a lot more great content coming your way, especially here at the end of the year. A lot of these before and afters now—we do have some special guests coming back with us who haven't been with us for a while and we're going to get an update from them. It's going to be a lot of fun. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Thanks so much Team Flynn, you're amazing. Keep up the great work and I'll see you in the next one. Cheers, take care, and as always, Team Flynn for the win. Peace.