You may recognize today's guest from a previous episode of the show, CX 002: Unboxing Community in the Pokémon Card Niche. He's a young entrepreneur just getting his start in the world of online business, and… just kidding.
For real, though, Pat's back on the show today!
He's our first repeat guest, in fact (!), and he's here today to talk about overcaffeination, maple syrup, how many copies of the LEGO DeLorean he just bought, and some exciting things coming in the world of SPI Pro. (Including a very important price increase.)
We're all about transparency here, building in public, and being upfront and honest about how we run our business. A big focus of today's talk is why we decided to increase prices, why Pro is still very much worth it, and why you need to align the price of your community (and anything you're selling) with its true value.
Speaking of honesty, SPI Pro is still a screaming deal, even once prices go up on May 17. But if you apply now, you can get grandfathered in at the current subscription price, so if you're thinking about it, now is the time.
Today's Guest
Pat Flynn
Pat Flynn is a father, husband, and entrepreneur who lives and works in San Diego, CA. He owns several successful online businesses and is a professional blogger, keynote speaker, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, and host of the Smart Passive Income and AskPat podcasts, which have earned a combined total of over 65 million downloads, multiple awards, and features in publications such as the New York Times and Forbes. He is also an advisor to ConvertKit, LeadPages, Teachable, and other companies in the digital marketing arena.
In This Episode
- The evolution and demise of FlynnCon (and how it helped lead to SPI Pro)
- “Life-changing feedback,” and why SPI Pro has become the center of our business
- The time someone told Pat a mean but true thing that opened his eyes to aligning price with value
- The SPI Pro price increase—and how you can still lock in our old prices forever
- Pat freezing, in Tennessee, in 60-degree weather, with four layers on
- The most surprising, awesome things that have happened to Pat and Jillian in Pro
- The snippets from this interview that will become Jillian's new alarm clock wakeup audio
Resources
The CX 039: Aligning Your Membership Fee with your Community's Value with Pat Flynn
Jillian Benbow: It was like my special syrup in the fridge. I was like, "If anybody touches Brenda's maple syrup-"
Pat Flynn:
How is it?"
Jillian Benbow:
... "Which is mine." It's so good. Wow. I mean, I come from Canadia, I need maple syrup to survive.
Jillian Benbow: Welcome to a kind of different episode. This week, I am talking to founder of Smart Passive Income, Pat Flynn. May have heard of him. He's actually been on the show before to talk about Pokémon, Pokémon cards and his Pokémon channel. And today we're talking completely about our community, SPI Pro. And we thought this would be a fun episode to just kind of talk the origins of how it all came to be. And then kind of talk about what's going on with the community right now and in the next few months, because we have some changes going on. I know as a community builder, I love hearing just the weeds mechanics of decisions, other community builders make for their communities. So, we thought this would be a fun opportunity to do just that, and we like to build in public.
Jillian Benbow: So, if that is of interest to you, you can learn some origin stories and how an in-person conference was the original inspiration for what is now our thriving entrepreneurial community. So, enjoy this episode with Pat. You will see he's very excited and passionate about Pro and just about the things we're doing in community. And I'll see you in the episode.
Jillian Benbow: Welcome to a very exciting episode. This is a special episode with myself and someone who's been... You’re our first repeat actually.
Pat Flynn: Am I?
Jillian Benbow: Yeah.
Pat Flynn: No way.
Jillian Benbow: Without further ado, Pat Flynn is in the studio.
Pat Flynn: What's up?
Jillian Benbow: What's up? This is fun.
Pat Flynn: Yay. I'm jumping podcasts. I'm going from Smart Passive Income to now The Community Experience Podcast. It's great to be back, and we have a lot of fun, exciting things happening in the world of community, which I'm sure we're going to talk about today.
Jillian Benbow: I would hope so. I would hope so. So yeah, Pat and I wanted to do kind of like a special episode, because as everyone listening knows, we run SPI Pro, we have a lot of exciting things coming. So, we want to talk about that. But we thought it would be really valuable to just talk about the origin of our community, how it came about and some big changes that are coming soon, including we're going to increase the price pretty significantly. We're doubling the price after our next enrollment. We know people struggle with making choices about pricing. So, we wanted to talk about that because we think it's a good conversation to have out in the open.
Pat Flynn: For sure, I mean, we're all about transparency here, we always have been, and I think it's important because I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from starting a community. Then, what got you here, won't get you there. But also you learn a lot of things as you build your community. Then, one thing we learned is just, honestly, how much value that it’s providing to its members? But also how much more we're pouring into it? So, that has a little bit to do with the price increase. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But I do want to go back in time as I always do. Speaking of, Lego just-
Jillian Benbow: Get in the time machine.
Pat Flynn: ... Released. Yeah. Speaking of time machine, they just released the LEGO DeLorean and I bought three of them.
Jillian Benbow: I was going to say, "Did you pre-order it?" Nope. Bought three.
Pat Flynn: No, I bought three. So, we're going to take one of them today. We're going to build it and we're going to go back into time. Actually, we're going to go back to 2019, because we put on an event called FlynnCon and this was an event to bring essentially the super fans in the audience. People who have listened to the podcast, followed the brand, joined our courses, to come and invest in the community. So, this was really the first time that the people who were listening to the podcast and following the blog and watching the YouTube videos were all able to come together and meet each other. It was just such a fun experience. I built it in a way where it was actually built for community. Like any other event, there's time on stage. We invited some really amazing speakers to come in and share value on stage. I did a lot of keynotes as well.
Pat Flynn: But also baked into that were hour and a half to two-hour breaks in between each talk. A lot of events have four or five talks happening at the same time. And then, immediately, you go to the next one and just, again, you're drinking from a fire hose and it's a lot. But we didn't do it just so that people could have time to digest the things that were on stage. I did it because my favorite times at events are the times in the hallways where I get to meet people. We get to talk about the thing we just saw. Or we get to connect with each other on a particular thing. Then, you make friends and then you get to know each other. The feedback from the event was exactly that, that was everybody's favorite time.
Pat Flynn: They mentioned some of the talks. There was one where I was standing on a ladder and I almost fell down. There was another time where Stu McLaren spoke and just blew everybody's mind, Chalene Johnson, a few others. Chris Tucker being the MC was absolutely amazing. But honestly, everybody was like, "You know what? I met some amazing people. I found my people here. Thank you for bringing us all together." And it was just like, wow, this is the first time these people were able to meet each other after over a decade of SPI. So, we're going to do FlynnCon again next year, 2020 FlynnCon's going to be amazing. We pre-sold it. And the key word being “2020,” it got delayed. There was no way that we were going to put it together. We couldn't even try to do it, because there was just so much going on the world. So, it got delayed.
Pat Flynn: 2021 came around and it just became very apparent that it probably wasn't going to happen again. So, I eventually made the decision to cancel the whole thing. I could keep going one year, one year, one year until finally it makes sense, but we decided to just cancel it. I was so sad about that. We refunded all the tickets that were previously sold early, early bird, and everybody was upset about it. I was like, "Oh no." And again, people were like, "Oh man, I miss you, Pat. I want to see you. But I also miss my friends that I made. That was just such a unique experience. How am I going to be able to be and find other people like me? What you've just done, you bring the right people together."
Pat Flynn: That's where Matt and I and the team got together. And we're like, "You know what? I wonder if there's a way that we could replicate those hallway conversations online. People are craving community. People are really needing things." So, we actually brought that forward and launched SPI Pro. It was actually something that I've wanted to do for a very long time, getting inspired by people like Stu McLaren and other people, Michael Hyatt, who have communities. There was really no thing that was telling us to do it right now. But then 2020 happened and the cancellation of FlynnCon, and it was just like, "Wow, we need to do this. This is our way to serve our audience right now is to bring people together in a safe space, these entrepreneurs who just need each other." So, we built SPI Pro and that's, of course, Jillian, where you came into play and you've done such a wonderful job of managing and directing that. Our community there is just-
Jillian Benbow: I set up this whole interview just to get that snippet. We're good.
Pat Flynn: Oh, there you go. Well, you can have that play every morning when you wake up as your alarm clock or something. It's just like, honestly, I knew it was going to work, I knew that bringing the community together was going to be a fantastic idea. But I didn't know it would go this well. And I'm not saying that just in terms of like, "Wow, look at how many people are in here and how great it's working and the revenue and et cetera." But the feedback we're getting from people has been unmatched. I've sold courses, I've coached people, I've held live events, the feedback we're getting from people in SPI Pro, I've never heard this kind of feedback before, life changing feedback. And that's so, so cool, because those hallway moments that happen once a year at FlynnCon are now happening every day inside of the community online. And it's just so cool to see.
Pat Flynn: This is life changing what we're creating here. And this is why SPI Pro's become really the center of our business and our focus as a team and where all things will point to and why this podcast in particular is very important, not this episode, but just The Community Experience Podcast, our YouTube channel, The Smart Passive Income YouTube channel got rebranded to be focused on just community, because we do feel like this is the future of business.
Pat Flynn: So, this has led to a lot of decisions that we've made recently about SPI Pro itself. You had mentioned the price increase, and we're adding a lot more things in there now that people are able to meet in person, mostly, again, we're going to start thinking about in-person events for community members. We have a whole slew of things that we're going to be doing to add value here. Like you should do, when you have tested something and realized the impact that it's making, you should charge what it's worth. Having it now up for two years and getting this kind of feedback, we've heard nothing but, "Oh my gosh, I would pay 10 times more for this, because it's just incredible and what it's done." Because we now know that we now see that. We weren't sure in the beginning, we knew it would be helpful, but we have real case studies now of the impact that it's making. We know now that we're also severely undercharging for it, which reminds me of something, and I'm sorry, Jillian, I'm just literally taking over your podcast right now.
Jillian Benbow: This is fun.
Pat Flynn: I hope that's okay.
Jillian Benbow: No, do it, do it.
Pat Flynn: I had a lot of coffee this morning, so-
Jillian Benbow: That's great.
Pat Flynn: ... it's all coming out right now. Oh, that sounds bad, anyway. When I sold my very first product in 2008, this was product that helped architects pass a particular exam. Many people know that story. That was my first online business. I charged a $19.99 for a guide that helped people pass a $300 exam. And other guides that were available at the time were anywhere between $200 and $1,000. And people were charging tens of thousands of dollars to get consultation on how to manage this exam and go through it, because it helped with an architect's credentials and résumé and whatnot. It was very valuable.
Pat Flynn: But I wanted to come in and be like, "You know what? I want to be affordable for everybody. I want $19.99. That means nobody can't get this and get some help." And people did buy it. However, I got an email one day from one of my customers who said, "Pat, I'm a business owner, and I'm just going to tell you up front. I can tell you don't have experience with business." And I was like, "What? That's kind of a mean thing to say." But it was also true, because I had just started my business. But then, he followed up with saying, "I want to give you some advice. This will change your life. You need to charge what your guide is worth, because I bought this thinking it was going to be not so great, maybe give me a couple tips here and there. And it literally blew my mind and gave me the exact process I needed to pass this exam. So, I want to give you something back, because you've helped me. I'm going to tell you, you need to raise your price point."
Pat Flynn: Initially, I'm like, "Wow," like that the gut feeling of, "No, that feels wrong. No, I'm already selling the product. Why just do it just to make more money?" And he's like, "You're not doing it just to make more money. You're doing it, because you're charging what it's worth. And there's a perceived value of what is inside based on simply the price that is on the tag." And he gave this really clear example and it's an example I use and tell all the time, if you go into an antique furniture shop and you see these beds and these chairs and these tables that are worth thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, and then you look at the corner and you see this exquisite looking chair, the sofa, it's beautiful, it's soft, it feels great. And you look at the price tag and it says $10. You're wondering what happened here.
Jillian Benbow: What's inside those cushions?
Pat Flynn: Right? Or, "Is this haunted? Am I going to be like, “does this smell?" I don't know, something is wrong with this because it's priced so cheaply. So, to come back to SPI Pro, we know that we want to attract even more people who are of the right caliber to come in here. And not only are they going to be the right people, but they will be even that much more invested in themselves, not invested in SPI Pro, SPI Pro is the guide, the mechanism, the connection, the fuse box, if you will. But it's the investment in themselves that they're making with the program and the connections that they're making that are really priceless.
Pat Flynn: So, the price will be increasing. This may be the first time people are hearing about this. So, there is one final round of enrollment to come in at the original price before the price goes up and it's going to go up for those reasons. So, anyway, that's just a long way to come around to that conclusion. But I hope that teaches a lesson and I hope you listening, when you are launching your communities or you have your community, you do charge what you're worth. Very, very common is it for an entrepreneur to undercharge and there is that perception of value based on the price tag. So, be aware of that.
Jillian Benbow: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny, so a couple things I want to point out. So, with this price change, and I think we've always intended to do this. When we launched, it was very much, "This is beta, we're trying it out. We're going to see how it goes. We'll start at this $49 a month rate and kind of tinker." And we took two years. We took our time to really see like, "Well, what do people value? What do we focus on?" And based on that, have tried to just focus our efforts on the highest value things based on what our community wants. It's important to note that we are doing this price increase, so it's going to go to $99 a month and we feel very confidently in that pricing, but all of our existing members will be legacied into the $49 and it's kind of a nod, it's a nod to them to be like, "Look, you came in, you were with us when we were figuring it all out. As long as you're a member, you have access to this pricing."
Jillian Benbow: If they cancel and maybe come back a few months later, they don't. But then that's more incentive to stay. It's cheaper in the long run. And I think that's, it's an important thing to think about it for anybody listening that might be in a similar position and wanting to raise prices, like do good on your founders, on your people who joined early and stuck with you. There's no sense... They can stay at that price and that creates a sense of trust and loyalty. They're your original people. They're important.
Pat Flynn: For sure. I mean, that's definitely the right thing to do that legacy pricing as a thank you. Then, what's beautiful is that, when you increase the price point, it's a good opportunity for people to get in before the price points goes up. So, I'm just going to say it blatantly out right up front now, now's your last chance to get in at this price point before we increase it for these reasons. When we really think about it, let's think about... A great way to think about pricing is, well, how much is this going to cost? And what are things that also cost something similar and how do we juxtaposition these things? This is to be able to anchor. So FlynnCon, for example, I believe it was at the latest price point before the event happened was a $499 ticket, rather expensive.
Pat Flynn: But the value that was given there through the presentations, through the connections, et cetera, was well worth it. That was two days out of a year that people got access to each other at that level and with the value that came with it. At $499 or $490, whatever it is now, before the price goes up, you have year round access. So, this is why we were comfortable coming from FlynnCon to then charge $49 a month/$490 per year to get in. And that would actually be a savings, in fact, if you do go with the annual price, to be honest.
Jillian Benbow: Yeah, you get two months free.
Pat Flynn: So, we know that there's a lot more value with this daily potential connection. And even if you aren't able to get in there daily, there's events that happen at specific times, you can come in and join a mastermind group and you meet weekly or however often you want to meet, it's still a steal at $999 or $1,000 or whatever the annual price will eventually become specifically. When you have a product that you know is of value, you need to believe in it. And I think it's all obvious that we do. And we know that there's value here, that people are going to get back. Because, again, it's an investment in themselves. One big networking marketing event that you might go to is going to match the price that we have for the access to people continually. Not only that, the accountability that comes with that, who is holding your hand after you come back from these events to make sure you get your stuff done? Nobody, or you, only you.
Pat Flynn: But here you get access to a group of people who are just like you, who also are going to be helping you, but you're going to be helping them. And this is where the mastermind and these connections happen. And we facilitate those for you. Those things are available here, and those aren't available in person when you go to an event. Plus, guess what? You could do it wearing your pajamas right on your desktop. You don't have to go fly somewhere, get a hotel, spend all that money. So, there's actually even a savings, if you will, when you do it that way. So, in marketing, it's always good to share, okay, what is an equivalent to this? And how does this new offer compare? And why is it so obvious that this is the right way to go?
Jillian Benbow: Yeah. Well, and yeah, like you're saying, it's funny too, because we've put a lot of work into the programming we provide. Once a month, you do an Ask Me Anything with the community, where literally for a couple of hours people can ask, they can ask follow-up questions. It's always a lot of fun to see what people are asking. I mean, that alone is pretty cool. But we found we were spending a lot of time with live events that our team was hosting. Then, we opened it up for members to lead their own events. It's kind of funny, because the member-led events, the RSVPs they get, the participation, I've actually, with our team, I'm like, "Hey, we need to scale back what we're doing and just let them do their thing. Because they know what they want and they're connecting over that. Let's just help facilitate them scheduling and then get out of their way and show up to the ones that we can make, because they're so good." And it's amazing.
Jillian Benbow: So, it goes to show with community too. I mean, giving your members that ownership, it's their community. So, if somebody wants to host an event and help people with their LinkedIn profiles and 20 people show up, heck yeah, that's awesome. So, there's so many wonderful things happening. And I think it's such a special place as far as the type of digital entrepreneurs who want to talk shop with each other. It's very hard to find that without it being some sort of pitch. And there's something about just being able to let your guard down, have those conversations, meet up and work together. We all have our own business goals, but as a collective, we work towards a goal. It's magic. I love it.
Pat Flynn: Yeah. The community-led stuff is great. And as I talk about in my book, Superfans, when you can get your audience or your community or your members involved, well, now they're invested. They're not just even invested in the payment, monthly or annually, for your thing. They're invested in the culture and the community and the other people that are there. Those other people are now invested in them too. This helps just the community grow even stronger together. So, I love the fact that we can pull back from that, let them have the stage more, which is, again, something that necessarily cannot happen at an in-person event without a lot of planning ahead of time and a lot of logistics and stuff. This happens on the fly, people creating their own events and wanting to step up and serve, that just is incredible in and of itself.
Pat Flynn: But then can use now more of our team resources to fully go into other things that we know that are things that only we can do, like Demo Day and other things that we can put on and put even more resources and time and team into certain things that we can help with the community for. So, that is incredible. Again, the beauty of this now two years in, We can now have this pool of amazing people to now showcase and make them the hero of a story that we can share on this platform, on our blog, within SPI Pro with our member of the week or member of the month. And that brings more people in. And that's amazing.
Pat Flynn: Now, it's at a point where it's not self-sustaining like we can't walk away and it's just going to live on forever, but we can let things happen more now. We don't have to be as in the details and the weeds of everything like you have to be when you initially launch. So, I'm grateful for that, because now I can go, and be, and participate, and join these events more now. And in fact, I'm doing more of that.
Pat Flynn: We just hired an amazing person, Mandy, to be our director of marketing, which alleviates a lot of my responsibilities, because why? I want more time. To do what? To be involved in the community and talk and chat and post. So, I'm actually going to be even more involved inside of SPI Pro personally and just like any good leader, just be a part of the community. Not necessarily just be at the top of the mountain shouting things. It reminds me of one of my mentors, Michael Hyatt, who, when I went to speak at his event in 2013, this was in Tennessee. Tennessee has some of the most friendliest people by the way. So, I remember I was walking around and I was in jeans and I was wearing four layers, because it was so cold. It was like 60 degrees out. It was freezing.
Jillian Benbow: Oh gosh, just freezing.
Pat Flynn: Freezing for a San Diegan like me. And everywhere I went, people were looking at me and going, "You're not from around here. Can I help you find your way?" It was like the most friendly people ever. And I think it was because they saw that I was freezing at 60 degrees and they were wearing sandals and shorts. But anyway, I was at his event and this was his event. He was sitting in the audience the whole time with a notepad and learning. It was the people that he knew, who he brought to the stage to come up and even members of his own community to come up and teach. And he was there learning too.
Pat Flynn: And that's kind of what I've been doing in SPI Pro and I love that, because to me that spoke to being a part of your community, that spoke to him building a great team to be able to manage that event so that he could sit in there. And I feel like I've reached that level now on a virtual stage and, Jillian, you and the decisions you've made to grow this community to get the right people in place to make it what it is. I'm just so thankful for you and all that you're doing. So, thank you.
Jillian Benbow: Oh, well, thanks.
Pat Flynn: You can put that in your alarm clock too.
Jillian Benbow: Yeah, I know. I'm like, oh, what's the timestamp? Yeah. I think the signs of a healthy community for absolutely are you... My goal as a community builder, community manager is basically to make myself not needed. So, you model behavior, you connect people, you're the host of the party is my favorite analogy with this. But if I need to run out and buy ice, the party's going to keep going. The music will still keep playing. People will still keep mingling. There'll still be appetizers. And then I can pop back in and people are like, "Oh, were you gone?" That's the ultimate goal. And I think we're there with Pro, which is-
Pat Flynn: It's amazing.
Jillian Benbow: ... it's great. And not to say that that means, "Okay, now, we can just do other things and they'll all be fine." No, you still got to be there and you still got to do the things, you just get to work a little smarter. Because the community, the momentum has started. So, it's a wonderful place to be. Yeah. I'm looking forward to two more years and we'll see what happens then.
Pat Flynn: So excited. Call to action, y'all better get in now, if this is before the price increase, SPIpro.com, we want to see your application, we want to make sure it's the right fit for you. I'm also really grateful that we have the application process, because that allows us to make sure not that you're the right fit for us, but also that we're the right fit for you. It's a two-way conversation and we can quickly discover whether or not it's the right time or not. If it's not, we're going to guide you and have other things to share with you, content that you can use to get to that level. And you might find right away that it is not for you, but you won't know until you head over to SPIpro.com and you probably see how I entered that in just a normal conversation like that. Yeah, SPIpro.com.
Jillian Benbow: Gosh, I'm learning so much. So, yeah, I think just to point out the elephant in the room, something we wanted to make sure people knew was we are inviting you to join or at least if you're interested to apply while we still have our lower pricing, because we consider you to be part of that group. We want you to have that opportunity, if you want it. Or if you know someone who would, we'd love to get you into that $49 a month. So, if you go and apply and we invite you into our next round, which will be fully open in May, we will open the doors in May, you'll be able to join at that pricing. And you too will be legacied in. If you don't want to, no worries, no pressure, but we will not be as generous as we sometimes are with past-the-deadline offering, offering the lower price again.
Pat Flynn: I just want you to not have any regrets.
Jillian Benbow: No regrets.
Pat Flynn: It's either the right time for you or it's not. And you're okay with that decision either way. If you happen to have any questions along the way, of course, we're here for you. You can reach out to me on Twitter, in fact, or on Instagram @patflynn and feel free to ask anything I'd love to support you and make sure it's the right fit. Again, if it's not, we can point you in the right direction. So, go ahead, again, and apply, SPIpro.com, truly believe you're going to get massive value coming back from that. Obviously, if you get in there and you're like, "Hey, you know what? It's just not my vibe." Then, of course, you can go and we'll point in the right direction from there. There's no hard feelings. But again, SPIpro.com.
Jillian Benbow: Dot-com. Well, on that, actually, let's end it on this, Pat, what do you think, what is the coolest thing that you've witnessed or been a part of in Pro that you just were not expecting?
Pat Flynn: Oh gosh. So, we had a challenge in October of 2020, and this was a challenge to encourage people to pitch themselves in a 60-second video. We went through a number of submissions and we had a fun little live event that was actually public, not just an SPI Pro, but public, to share winners based on votes. Again, everybody who participated was a winner, because they were able to step out their comfort zone. I gave them a little guidance in terms of how to do the pitch and it was no editing. It was just turn the camera on, talk. And I continue today to get emails and direct messages from people saying that one challenge alone helped them reframe and position themselves in a business or a niche that they're in to just absolutely take hold of who they're about and what it is that they actually have to offer. That those have turned into sometimes five-figure clients, online courses, all kinds of money has been a result of that 60-second challenge for our Pros, which is amazing.
Pat Flynn: One in particular, Maria, who is somebody who helps people with house plants. But it's interesting, because her positioning is, and she's just written a book about this as well. In fact, I have it right here.
Jillian Benbow: Do you really?
Pat Flynn: Because I brought her back on the podcast. Actually she won that challenge and I asked her to come on the show and talk about her pitch and what she was about. Since then, she's had a publisher reach out to her and she's now publishing a book it's called Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness and Plants. And it's a house plant growing guide, but also it's a self-help guide at the same time. She came on the show and she just blew me away with, even since then, how much she's improved with her messaging, her positioning. Now she's got a book deal and and she keeps saying like, "Oh, it's because of Pro and just in there, thank you for challenging me, all this stuff."
Pat Flynn: And I was like, "No, you did it." But I also know in the back of my head, it's like, "But yeah, I know we had a little bit to do with it too, to get her to that point where she could take action and challenge her in a way." So, that's been really, really fun and exciting to see, because that's just one micro moment in many moments that have happened and continue to happen inside of Pro and, again, the power of bringing the right people together. So, hopefully you feel like that you can come in and at least apply at SPIpro.com. And I know, Jillian, can I ask you the same question? What's been the most surprising, awesome thing to happen since you've come in there?
Jillian Benbow: Shoot, let me think. But I will say, I'm disappointed your answer wasn't that I Rickrolled you in an AMA.
Pat Flynn: Oh, you did Rickroll me in an AMA. You're like, "Hey, check out this video. I have a question about how you did this." And I looked at it and it was a Rickroll. So, that was a good one.
Jillian Benbow: You replied very well. You were like, "I love it." To just get other people to look.
Pat Flynn: That's what I typed.
Jillian Benbow: We have no fun in Pro at all. It's very serious business. It's business [inaudible 00:31:48].
Pat Flynn: Always. No, we have a lot of fun.
Jillian Benbow: Let's see. I don't know how I pinpoint something. I've had Pros make me cry. Not because they're mean or anything, but just the level of emotion and just being so happy for people. This is adjacent, Brenda Petrella, Outdoor Photography School, she's done a bunch of our courses too. She mailed me maple syrup that she tapped from her own maple trees.
Pat Flynn: What?
Jillian Benbow: Yes. It was my special syrup in the fridge. I was like, "If anybody touches Brenda's maple syrup-"
Pat Flynn: How is it?
Jillian Benbow: ... "Which is mine." It's so good. Wow. I mean, I come from Canadia, I need maple syrup to survive. So, that was a highlight. Although, I feel like that was also related to a course. So, that's kind of a cheat.
Pat Flynn: No, I mean, she attributes a lot of her success also to SPI Pro and being in there. She's gotten into other things that we have to offer to and continues to come back and show support for others. I mean, that's really what it's about. So, I'm very proud of what we built and I hope that you'll come in and be a part of it as well. We want to help you with your hero's journey and your story too. So, Jillian, it's been amazing. Thank you so much for having me on.
Jillian Benbow: This has been fun. Yeah. You on a lot of coffee is fun. I wish coffee affected me like that still. It's like, no.
Pat Flynn:
Cool.
Jillian Benbow: Well, thank you, Pat. It's been a pleasure, and I'll see you in Pro.
Pat Flynn: For sure.
Jillian Benbow: For sure. And that's the episode. Thanks so much for being with us today. Man, Pat's all about sharing the knowledge and just how to look at framing for pricing and what is something worth. I hope you found value in that. Of course, if you would like to join us in Pro you are most welcome. If it is not the right thing for you or the right time for you, no pressure at all. I hope you found some interesting information, found some value from just especially what we talked about, about knowing the value of something. In this case, the cost of membership and how to communicate that. If you are thinking about increasing your prices, think about how you'll message that and what it means for your existing members. Make sure they know what's going on. Would love to talk to anybody about this further. I'm sure we'll bring it up as it's happening.
Jillian Benbow: You can check us out on Twitter @teamSPI and engage in the conversation. Let us know what your questions are about increasing pricing. You can find Pat online at @patflynn on all of the social medias. He's pretty active on Twitter and Instagram and of course, you can find him at smartpassiveincome.com or just head straight to where he wants you to go, SPIpro.com. Your lead host for The Community Experience is me, Jillian Benbow. Our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Our senior producer is David Grabowski, and our editor is Ray Sylvester. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Theme music by David Grabowski. See you next Tuesday.