AP 1155: How Do I Create My Own Offers and Diversify My Income Streams?

AP 1155: How Do I Create My Own Offers and Diversify My Income Streams?

Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to AskPat 2.0, episode 1155. Yes, that's a very big number and I'm very excited because we have a really big show today to help you. Because what we're about to do is we're going to play a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you.

Today, we're speaking with Shannon Kennedy from Eurolinguiste.com. That's Eurolinguiste.com.

Let me just tell you a little bit about Shannon. She helps people learn languages, but in a very sort of unique way using the brain and sort of hacking it, if you will. Here are some of the languages that she knows: French, English, Mandarin Chinese, Croatian, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, German, Hindi, Hebrew, and Russian. What? Incredible. And she's built this really amazing brand and it has allowed her to collaborate and connect with a lot of other creators. And she and other people in the space that she's in with, language learning have created products together.

But the problem is, some of those things aren't going to be going down for much longer, and we need to help Shannon come up with some ideas on what she could do to create some stuff just on her own, so we can diversify that income and what else might we be able to do? Well, that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. So without further ado, here she is, Shannon Kennedy from Eurolinguiste.com.

Shannon, welcome to AskPat 2.0. Thanks for coming in today.

Shannon Kennedy:
Thanks, Pat, for having me.

Pat:
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm sure the audience is excited as well. First, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do?

Shannon:
Sure. My name is Shannon and I run a site called Eurolinguiste, which is a site that helps people who are interested in languages learn new languages.

Pat:
Very cool. When did that begin for you?

Shannon:
I started the site back in 2012.

Pat:
2012. So, about eight years. How's the site going? What have you been doing to grow? What's the business model?

Shannon:
It's been doing really well. It's actually served as a really great platform for helping me collaborate with other people in the language learning industry, but I've struggled a little bit to really do anything on my own. I have a couple of products that I sell on the site and I'm looking to kind of grow that and develop it in this next year. Because my focus has really been collaborating with other people, I haven't been able to give it as much attention as I would have liked. And that's kind of the direction that it's going.

Pat:
Okay. Well, we'll dig into that in a minute. A couple of quick things, one more time, what is the URL so people can go and find it in case they're curious.

Shannon:
Sure. It's Eurolinguiste with an E at the end - it's the French spelling - .com.

Pat:
Ah, okay, cool. Thank you. We'll have the link in the show notes and everything on the website. When you said like, when you collaborate with others, tell me about what that's like. Who are you collaborating with and in what way?

Shannon:
In particular, one project that I've been doing for a couple of years now has been a monthly subscription course that I've been doing with two other personalities, I guess, in the language learning realm. Basically, we released new content each month and those partners that I was working with that on have decided to move on to other projects. And because that was such a big earner for my sites, I am now kind of figuring out what I'm going to do to replace that.

Pat:
Gotcha. Gotcha. And did they take the sort of audience and the list and the students with them?

Shannon:
No. So, it was something that we all kind of owned. And I'll be able to repurpose the content that I created for that for something on my own, but they're taking the content that they've each created. I'm not really exactly sure what we're doing with the list necessarily, but it's definitely open for us to remain in touch for all of the students who were on that platform.

Pat:
Okay. Well, that's good news. At least it's not like they threw you out and there's literally nothing to work with to begin. It sounds like you just are trying to figure out what to do next in particular.

Shannon:
Yes.

Pat:
Okay, cool. So, what ideas have you had thus far? I'd love to hear maybe a little bit about what's been going through your brain in terms of where you might go from here, and then I'll dig in a little bit and see if we can land on anything together.

Shannon:
Sure. So, I've had three ideas that I've been thinking about developing. One was to take the courses that I already have - I have a podcast that I kind of started and then stopped working on for a specific language that I'd like to kind of revamp. And I've also started working on it for another language that I specialize in. So, these podcasts, it's free audio, but there's a bunch of bonus materials that people can get as a part of each episode that actually helped with the language learning itself, like worksheets and vocabulary lists and bonus materials. So, I want to work on kind of revamping the contents that I already have available. I also have a course for time management for language learners that I would like to give attention again, relaunch, and probably actually even redo. And so that's kind of one thing, is basically recreating and improving content for courses that I already have.

Then the next is basically doing something somewhat similar to what I was doing with the other collaborators and doing a monthly subscription course, but doing something a little bit different. Before, it was just a general course that there were different topics on that we kind of approach scientifically. And so now I want to approach them more in an engaging and a passion-driven way. So, more about tying language into your everyday life as opposed to approaching theories about language learning.

And then the third thing that I have is I'd really love to create a course for parents who are interested in helping their children learn other languages. I'm a mother of two, and I'm currently going through the process of raising my kids to be multilingual. And so I've learned a lot of things along the way, and I know that this is something that a lot of parents are curious about. So, I wanted to put something together to support other parents who are doing this.

Pat:
And that third one, that parents' course would be more of a new thing, right? Because you don't have content on that quite yet, but it is something that you're passionate about?

Shannon:
Correct.

Pat:
Okay. Very cool. What languages are you likely going to - if not already - teaching your kids? I'm curious.

Shannon:
I teach my kids French and Mandarin Chinese.

Pat:
That is legit. Oh my gosh. That is so cool. That is so cool. I'm curious as a parent too - that would be amazing. I even want to learn Mandarin. That's particularly helpful for business and a lot of the things that I do. I might have to reach back out to you a little bit later about that.

But anyway, I think interestingly enough, the first idea of just taking stuff that you kind of already have, to me, seems like the best first step. Because it's stuff you already have, it just takes a little bit of repositioning and maybe creating a few new things versus creating brand new things.

And I like this idea - you had mentioned almost a funnel already. You had mentioned, people can listen to the podcast and they get a lead magnet, some worksheet to download, vocabulary list, et cetera. Now, you have them on your email list, in which case you could provide them these courses that are really great and already sort of proven to do. And I think the big struggle is going to be, you had mentioned doing it for one language and then maybe a second one. And there's only so much time that we have. So, I think the big struggle is like, “Okay, well, which one do I do first?” And is that because it is the first one you mentioned, maybe where your mind is probably headed first?

Shannon:
Yeah. I think that redoing the one that I originally released and then finishing it, because initially I had envisioned it as like a 20-episode season and I only really got to episode 8, or somewhere between 8 and 12 before I transitioned into working on more collaborative projects. So, I kind of just left it off where it was and I'd love to complete the first season for sure and then maybe look into transitioning into other languages as well.

Pat:
Yeah. I love that idea. In fact, when I first started online business, I was in a group called Internet Business Mastery. And there was a guy who was also a member, his name was Sean Noonan, and he was teaching Indonesian with his wife through a podcast. And this was back before even podcasting was a huge thing. And he was doing extremely well. And I know some other people who have done something similar. Sean had kept it up with hundreds of episodes. Other people have, like you, kind of created all the episodes that they need, and then that just is the engine that feeds everything else. And anybody who comes across, for example, the website or anybody you meet in person — "go start listen to the podcast." And it is almost like a free course in a way where people can learn, they get some value, they go and dig into some of these giveaways. And then the course, already available, can be there to serve them too.

So, I'm in love with that idea. I think more people need to be using their podcast in this sort of manner with very purposeful creation to help serve people. And I love the idea that even better, it's like, “Okay, if I get 20 episodes in, it's the way I want it to be. Now, that's there, I can focus on, you know, number two or number three.” I think two, which is the time management course - which is a perfect upsell, by the way. Anybody who's in your other course, they could either, at the moment they purchase get it at a discount, or maybe you could serve it to them later. It can even be automated. That and/or the parents' course can come next. In that case, once all this is sort of like finished, it unlocks your ability to just go wherever your heart desires or whatever you're most interested in. I think I can see both of those playing out very well.

In terms of the parent one, I'd be curious because, of course, you have this audience already for your initial stuff. I'm curious to know, have you done anything to even now begin to start understanding who in that audience are parents or who may be curious to teach their kids? Just so you can have them sort of on either a separate list or tagged so that you can just even start conversations with them now. Even though you're not maybe necessarily building that course right now, you can at least engage with people who would be interested to get feedback and even have them help shape what this thing ultimately becomes.

Shannon:
I actually haven't started doing anything like that, so that's a really good suggestion. Thank you.

Pat:
Yeah, no, you're welcome. I mean, even - like, I could probably talk to you for another half hour about what it might be like and what the struggles might be. How do I add it on top of school? Is it going to take a ton of time? Where do I even start? Right? Just start maybe even having conversations, but more specifically, try to unlock the objections that they might have or some of the big struggles or things that they might tell themselves to go, “Well, that would be great, but ... ” Insert excuse here, right?

If you can start to learn what those excuses are, you can start to unpack what you might need to say or what might be needing to serve them and what solutions you can create that actually fit into those schedules. Because as you know, as a parent, our schedules are way different than people who don't have kids. So, sometimes it can be very difficult to find that time and have that energy to do that. And that also is pretty cool because, speaking of collaborations, I mean, there are many, many parents with large audiences out there who likely you could help and they would want to share you and your program like crazy, right? I can imagine that happening too.

Shannon:
Yeah. That was actually something that I kind of envisioned building this on, where initially I would release a set course where it just had the content that it had. But if that course ended up being a valid idea and successful, that what I could do is I could add a next step, which is like a monthly subscription and each month some parents' resources to work on with their kids that month with different activities, different vocabulary lists, collaborate with other parents who teach their kids languages with bonus interviews, and that sort of content. That was something I imagined this possibly growing into. But first, I kind of wanted to validate the base idea itself.

Pat:
Yeah. And that's a very smart thing to do. I think a great exercise for you to do Shannon would be to ... And I often share this on the show. You might remember if you hear it, but if not, that's okay. You know, the DeLorean from Back to the Future, you go into it and you time travel. And I want you to time travel in the DeLorean like two years down the road, or even let's say to the end of 2021. Because you're doing a lot of this stuff early 2021 to build. And so it's the end of 2021, literally a year after the date at which we're recording this and you're happy, you're stoked, you still have time with your kids, and you're enjoying yourself. You're enjoying getting up and serving your audience. What does the business model look like? What are you doing? What are you not doing? Which of these three ideas are actually there? And how would you feel if not all of them were there?

Sort of like, you can start to paint a picture of what your ideal situation would be like. And then what's really cool about that is any decisions that you make can use that as a basis for which one might be the right decision. Sometimes, and you may have done this already, but sometimes a lot of us entrepreneurs, we have these ideas right in front of us and we're like, “Yes! Yes! Let's do this!” And then we can get overworked or we can get bogged down. And sometimes it just takes a quick moment to go, “Okay, well, let me step back a little bit and think, okay, a year from now, which of these ideas would make the most sense for me? Which one helps me with my long-term goals? Which one's fit into my life?” Have you done any sort of thought experiments like that yet?

Shannon:
I have. I have thought about it quite a bit. And I think the biggest thing that I struggle with when it comes to doing this is prioritizing which of these projects I tackle first. As you said, redoing what I've already done is probably a good place to start because basically the foundation is already there and it's just a matter of improving it, repackaging it, and relaunching it.

Pat:
I agree with that, yeah. And then it's like, “Okay, well what's the next priority?” And something that works for some people, doesn't work for others, but it may work for you. And that's sort of laying out all these ideas. And really number one, first, unpacking all that would need to happen for it to actually happen. So, sometimes we see the idea and we understand the end result, but we don't quite get clear or have an understanding of, “Okay, well, what's it actually going to take? What pieces do I need? What do I need to get?” And that can start to unpack, “Okay, wow, this is actually, you know, it's a great idea, but this one would be the most complicated one to get started versus this other one, which is also a great idea. I wasn't as excited about it, but it's also more obvious that that's the one to start, because it would only take about a month versus this other one, which is going to take much longer.” Right?

So, sometimes opening the folder and going, “Okay, here are all the pieces that need to happen before this folder gets closed, and the things there can be helpful.” And other people also sometimes do like a ranking thing where they go, “Okay, almost like, this idea, how much does it actually spark joy? Okay. Let's rank it from 0 to 10. How hard would this be? 0 to 10.” And you just kind of create your own grading system to then be able to compare. And that's how I prioritize. It's like, I don't know off the top of my head how these things are going to go or how I actually might actually feel if these things work. I want to unpack that and slow down and kind of have a bird's eye perspective on everything, and then I can choose my own adventure.

Shannon:
Yeah, that's definitely something interesting to think about. Because as you were saying that, even in my head already I was thinking, the multilingual parenting one, that's going to be so much fun, but it's definitely something that's going to be really research intensive.

Pat:
Right.

Shannon:
So, it would probably be one of the most complicated courses to complete on my list of the ideas that I have. So already my brain is kind of reshuffling the order that I might actually complete all of these things.

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, and that's good. And you know, for things like that, you can chip away at it, right? Knowing it's a more long-term goal. Maybe that becomes the thing that hopefully in maybe 2022 becomes the big sort of focus, but you don't have to wait to get started at least with, like I said, having conversations, learning a little bit more, discovering maybe what else is out there that's not doing a great job so you can do better. All while being okay with it being delayed. And that way, these other things can take the forefront of what happens in 2021. And then you feel comfortable with that.

I think, for me, in particular, I found myself falling into the trap of, I have three things that I want to do and by not prioritizing, I'm always letting myself down because I'm like, “Oh, I'm not working on this one.” Even though I want to, but I am working on this, but there's this other thing I really want to do versus like giving yourself permission to go, “Okay, this isn't the top priority right now. And this is something that will become a top priority later, but only after I finish and focus on these things first.” And I think that would be a wise approach for sure. So, I almost feel like we have the order of operations kind of nailed down for you, Shannon.

Shannon:
Absolutely, yeah.

Pat:
That's good. What else are you curious about, if anything, or perhaps might need some help with for the coming year?

Shannon:
I would say that my biggest struggle is successfully launching. As I said, I do have products and I have launched them in the past, but I've never really felt like any of those launches were particularly successful. And I would definitely like to improve my launch strategies so that I can come away with that feeling when I get ready to do all of this in the coming year.

Pat:
Gotcha. Can you define for me what a successful launch looks like to you?

Shannon:
A successful launch would be to have decent conversion rates. The sales of the course - I found that when I launched, the sales were steady but low in number and then they kind of died off. And I just left it when I went to go and work on some of the other collaborations that I was doing, because with the monthly subscription that I was doing, we had new students kind of cycling through. So as students would leave, we'd get new students. So it kind of had the steady source of income for me, whereas with the other course that was there, initially when I launched, it was okay, it wasn't great. And then after the initial launch, it was like, “Okay, now what?" How do I continue to have steady sales from this without having to constantly relaunch it? And just bore people with this course constantly relaunching, which is just like one thing. So, figuring out how to have a more successful initial launch, and then figuring out how to continue to have steady sales with something once it's available.

Pat:
Great set up there. I am going to share a number of different things that have just come to mind that may or may not help you, but at least is in the realm of marketing and sales and launching.

Number one, your best customers are your existing customers. I'm imagining that there may be some students of your courses who get in and a membership that can live on top of that, your recurring program would be a perfect upsell. And I think that sometimes we discount how connected some of our products are together. And so that could be an interesting way to generate income without having to get more people, because you already have people and they're enjoying something and then they can get something else from you. So, that's number one. And that's the easiest place to start because people have already gotten value from you. They trust you. You don't have to work hard to earn that trust. You've already gotten it. And when they buy one thing, they're more likely, if you've helped them, to buy something else. So, that's sort of idea or thought, I guess, number one.

Number two, a lot of the things that have been working really well for our launches are number one, a nice long setup time. So, a couple of weeks at least, kind of getting people prepared and opening up their mind to what I'm about to share with them. Again, uncovering these objections and really hitting them hard on. for example, when I launched my podcast course, a lot of my free content that had come out, again, if you have a podcast, you can add that on there as well, was about just why podcasting was such a great opportunity. What the first couple of weeks might look like after starting one, what the results have been for a bunch of different people who have also started their show recently, to just open up people's minds to, “Wow, this is a good opportunity. Yeah, this is great.” And then boom, I come in with a solution to actually help them create it. And I don't have to sell it because I've already sold them on it. They just have to invest in themselves. So, that's number two.

Number three, during a launch, two things have been working really, really well. Number one, stories. Stories, not from me, but stories from my previous students. So, pulling out success stories from your students, from your customers, and making them look like the hero is an amazing way to get people who are on the outside go, “Wow! That person's just like me. I can do this too.” Or they rally behind somebody who's just like them, so they're more likely to sort of take advantage. And I've seen it time and time again across all different niches. People want to know what it's going to be like, and they want to hear it from somebody else first. And so when they see it, it's not a testimonial either - s testimonial is a testimonial. This is like the before-after picture, the story that came out of this, the transformation. And then pulling that out and showcasing that even as a part of the sales process, even as part of the email marketing sequence, goes a very long way.

And then finally, the last day of sales has always provided more than 50 percent of the sales for us. And it's because we know that people want to not miss out on the opportunity. So, we have either a discount or bonuses that go away and other marketing strategies like that. And with two to three emails sent on that last day, it really helps people understand that this is the time to make a decision now.

Now, to keep sales going, this is where we start to get into the evergreen promotional sort of strategies, where, “Okay, how can we, without having to like go through these big launches ... ” And I still would recommend doing that every once in a while, but you can, in between, still get sales by having a funnel in place where we can sell in a more evergreen-type fashion. Now, the problem with evergreen is that we have to work a little bit harder to still create that sense of urgency. Because sometimes when we have a live launch like you've been doing, well, the deadline is there. That's the decision-making date. When it's evergreen, sometimes without that, people can always go, “Well, I don't need this right now.” Or, “There's no reason for me to make a decision right now.” So, there are tools out there and other mechanisms - we can have it be time-based, where at the end of a certain time, after a person subscribes, that deal's going to go away or that bonus goes away.

The tool that I use to sort of allow for every individual to have their own launch-type sequence is called Deadline Funnel [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]. And that's been really key for helping to add urgency and scarcity into individual evergreen-type sequences. And then bonuses, bonuses have done a great job to help people go, “Okay, well, I can get that too? Well, I have to act now.”

So, it's going to take some time. It's going to take some effort. As far as conversions, I love that you mentioned that first because that's my favorite word in the world. You don't need any more traffic to make more money. You just need better conversions. So, reading the email messages and seeing which ones are getting opened more and working on those subject lines, going into the click-through rates of each of those emails and what can we do to better set up that click, and maybe even adding some sort of re-marketing campaign using Facebook ads and stuff.

I know I'm giving you a lot right now and I hope this isn't super overwhelming, but this is just sort of a brain dump for you, Shannon, to maybe pull one or two ideas from.

Shannon:
Oh, no, not at all. I've been taking notes.

Pat:
Oh, good, good. Yeah. So, I mean, evergreen, there's some stuff on the podcast. We've had people on the show before to talk about evergreen sales. This is definitely ... Once you solve this puzzle, this is what can create sort of those ongoing sales. And it's going to be more steady, which is what it sounds like you're looking for versus the one-and-done launches where if you don't do the launch well, it's like, "Oh my gosh, what's going to happen?" But having those ongoing sales allows also for you to continually check in on things and see what's working and to make incremental improvements that can add up to more dollars over time. So, I hope that's helpful.

Shannon:
It is and it makes me think of that Reel that you put together where you had like, initially after launch, and then it was like an hour after launch where you're kind of like, rocking in the corner.

Pat:
Yeah. Five minutes after launch, in fact.

Shannon:
Yeah.

Pat:
That's real life as an entrepreneur, and we all kind of can relate. Shannon, this was amazing. Thank you so much for asking questions to get some good information, not just for you, but for everybody else listening too. And I hope, again, that this was helpful. One more time, where can people go to learn more from you?

Shannon:
Sure. They can find out more about me at Eurolinguiste.com.

Pat:
And is it Euro like, E-U-R-O at the start too?

Shannon:
Yeah, E-U-R-O.

Pat:
Not Neuro.

Shannon:
Yeah.

Pat:
Got it.

Shannon:
Yeah, E-U-R-O.

Pat:
Perfect. Well, thank you, Shannon. We appreciate you and best of luck to you and maybe we'll follow up with you later on to see how things are going.

Shannon:
Great. Thank you so much for your time, Pat.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed this coaching call with Shannon. Shannon, you're amazing. Keep up the great work. I hope that this helps you. And I can't wait to connect with you again later to see how things fair out and looking forward to seeing all this stuff implemented.

It's one of my favorite things to do here. In fact, this year, we're going to have a lot more of the Where Are They Now? episodes coming out. And not just at the end of the year, but actually throughout the entire year. Every month, we're going to feature, I believe, at least one Where Are They Now? episode so we can keep that motivation going and remember what it was like to speak to people here back in the day. And then we're going to bring them back, time travel a bit, and see where they're at. And I can't wait to do that with every single guest here. And Shannon is no different.

So, if you'd like to check out Shannon again, Eurolinguiste.com. And of course, if you'd love to get coached as well, all you have to do is go to AskPat.com. You can fill out the application there on that page and I might reach out to you and we'll schedule a call and we'll do the same thing and we'll help other people too who also listen in as well. And if you are listening in, thank you so much, I appreciate you and keep those reviews coming because they motivate me and my team who check those out, and I do see every one of them. So very, very much appreciated.

Thank you so, so much. And, if you've made it to the end, you're just a rock star. Thank you so much. Make sure you hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. And I can't wait to serve you next week. We've got a good one coming your way as we always do. So, hit subscribe. We'll see you next week. Until then, cheers, and as always, Team Flynn for the win.