AP 1131: How Do I Transition My Offline Business Online, Brand-Wise?

AP 1131- How Do I Transition My Offline Business, Online, Brand-wise

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Pat Flynn:
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Pat:
What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to AskPat 2.0, episode 1131. That's a lot of episodes, and I appreciate that you're listening to this one. Because what this is, and what you're about to listen to, is an actual coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur just like you.

Pat:
Today, we're speaking with LeAnne, who is from roitalentdev.com/. She and her partner have created this agency, if you will, in Texas. They want to take this, now, online. But online, it's a lot harder to connect with a brand, and a more corporate-y professional style personality versus a human. So we have some discussions about the idea of transitioning to online. How do we keep the brand we have, but show up in a different way, such that we can attract more people? Because LeAnne's really smart, she noticed that a lot of the people that are attracting loads of people online are the individual personalities. You think about Rick Mulready, Amy Porterfield, myself, and people like that, versus ROI Talent Development, which is a little bit more on the corporate-y side. So how do we still promote and do this, but online now?

Pat:
That's what we talk about today, and if that sounds interesting to you, please put that phone in the pocket because it's time to listen in, here is LeAnne. Again, you can find her and her company currently at roitalentdev.com. Here we go.

Pat:
Hey LeAnne, welcome to AskPat 2.0. Thank you so much for being here today.

LeAnne Lagasse:
Thank you so much Pat, for having me. I am pumped to me here.

Pat:
I'm stoked, too. So tell us really quick, before we dive into what I can do to help you, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do, maybe a little backstory. Give us some insight, if you can.

LeAnne:
Yeah. I am a former communication professor. I taught at a large research university in Texas for about 14 years, and I was the director of public speaking, and I taught all sorts of other courses in communication, business and professional communication, interviewing, all sorts of stuff like that.

LeAnne:
About four years ago, my colleague and very close friend, her name is Joy. I'll probably say her name quite a bit throughout this interview. She and I decided that as a side hustle, we were going to start a human resources and workplace consulting and training company. It was just full steam ahead, as soon as we launched. That was about three years ago, we have been really busy ever since then in our local market. We are a very recognizable brand in our area, we've done some traveling. Mostly around Texas, but we've traveled a little bit outside of Texas as well. So we've stayed really, really busy.

LeAnne:
That's been awesome, but our dream, what we really want to do, is we want to pivot and create an online business. Specifically, we want to create digital courses for individuals that work in human resources, or for smaller- to middle-size companies that don't really have a great HR presence, but really need, still, the really good help around how to craft great employee experience, processes and procedures, how to attract and retain the best employees, how to make sure that they have brand evangelists, super fans if you will.

LeAnne:
So we really want to pivot, but the challenge we're running into right now is, as we survey the online digital course space, what we see is a lot of individual thought leaders. You've got your Pat Flynns, and your Rick Mulreadys, and Amy Porterfields, so a lot of people who are just an individual. So Joy and I, there's two of us, and at least in our local market, known more as a brand and a company. So we're running into this really weird thing where we feel like we're needing to run two routes, and we don't really know how to do that very well. How do we build an online business as a brand maybe, instead of as this individual thought leader? It's where we are right now.

Pat:
Got it. Thank you so much for that insight. What's the name of the brand, or the company, right now?

LeAnne:
Yeah. We are ROI Talent Development. It's funny, Pat, because even that has become a bit of an issue for us.

LeAnne:
When we started, we didn't know what we didn't know about what our clients, what our customers would really need. So talent development is the wing of HR that houses the things that we do, where we go in and do trainings and consulting with businesses and non-profits, and things like that. But as we're growing, and we're figuring out our groove, we are a little bit concerned that we've outgrown that talent development name. But, that's how we're known; so that's, again, where we're like "Do we need to pivot and create some kind of different brand, that's more about Joy and I as people, as opposed to just the company?"

LeAnne:
Yeah, we're ROI Talent Development.

Pat:
Yeah, there's definitely a challenge there for sure, because obviously, if you were ... Just on a small scale, you created a Twitter account called ROI Talent Development. Who is somebody going to be more interested in speaking to, ROI Talent Development, or insert name here?

LeAnne:
Right.

Pat:
The human being on the other end. I'm not necessarily saying that we need a brand change, it's just the way that we show up online will have to show the human and the personal connection part, more so than the actual name of the business, if you will. That can be done.

Pat:
With Smart Passive Income, for example, that's a website, that's a brand. But, that has become, through how I've shown up, synonymous with Pat Flynn. The hard thing is, we don't know how to do that until we're in it. I didn't plan that Pat Flynn and Smart Passive Income were going to be synonymous, it just became that way because of how I showed up and that only happens over time.

Pat:
The way to fast forward that would be to ... Again, you don't have to change the local brand name, but perhaps there is either a website or a secondary brand name that is, essentially, the sister company. Or, not even a separate company, but just a DBA, essentially, for the online presence.

LeAnne:
That's what we've been thinking about. But then we worry, well we've built a little bit of a following. We've got an email list, it's not big because we really just started this spring. But we've got about 285 I think, last time I checked, pretty engaged email subscribers from all over the country that are mostly women, ages 36 to 44. They're right in our sweet spot. And, we're also delivering weekly content, and blogs, and webinars that we do, and things like that. We're afraid if we did pivot ... I know it's only 200 and something people. But then, do we lose them, does that slow us down? It feels very overwhelming.

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, you could take that list and you could move them over, and just announce "Hey, online we've decided to really show up for you." This actually could be spun in a way where it's actually of benefit to them, to now know that yourself and your partner are going to be a little bit more on the forefront of the digital online space.

Pat:
There's even companies who I know do a good job, that on the surface might seem, okay how is that a personality. But, when you dig a little bit deeper into how they produce their content, and how they show up in their content, and how they connect with their audience, in fact, there are real people there.

Pat:
For example, in the way that Wistia, which is a video hosting company, they show up in a really amazing way even though they're, on the surface, a little bit more corporate. But they might be interesting to follow, or at least pay attention to because on their socials in particular, and as well as on their website, you really get to know the team behind it, and you really feel like you're connected with the team, and the team actually cares and helps, because they show up, they're in emails, they're in social. They even have a dog as a mascot, and people get to know him on their socials. So there's some personality there, because the brand becomes what you make of it.

Pat:
I mean, you could literally call it whatever you want, it's what you do within it that will become the thing that people can connect with, and the human to human aspect is a really important component of that. I would say that, although it might seem like wheels are spinning, and there's potentially the feeling like you're starting over, the thought that perhaps is this going to seem like two different things, I think this is just an extension of that, and a way for people who choose to want to get value in more of an online capacity get it there, and it's more easy to connect with you there as well. They can both, actually, feed into and support each other, not essentially take away from each other, if that makes sense.

LeAnne:
That's really helpful. Let me ask you this, because one thing that we noticed when we started, and one of the reasons why we were a little bit more strategic with creating the brand and really pushing, "We are a company," is because a lot of the people that work in the space that we're in, they are individual. They almost have this freelance vibe about them. We felt like what differentiates us is that there's two of us, and we have different specialties between the two of us, within our discipline, and our research, and whatnot. We wanted to have that established brand vibe for businesses that would be hiring us.

LeAnne:
But now that we're thinking okay, let's say for example, an HR leader is going to need to go back to the decision makers and pitch to them, "Hey, we really want to invest in this product. Here's the return on investment, here's what this is going to do for us." Does it make more sense for us to have that more corporate-brand vibe, than to your point earlier, that personal connection? I guess, it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, but in my brain I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to marry those two things together.

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, the way to go about this, to actually ... We could talk about what may or may not work all day long.

LeAnne:
Right. Yeah.

Pat:
The true way to figure this out would be to go to somebody who would be a decision maker, maybe somebody you already have access to, and just be like, "Hey, this is what we're thinking of doing. If you go back to your higher ups and pitch this to them, how would it come across? Would it actually be a negative, or would it, in fact, be a positive?"

Pat:
Also, don't forget you also have this other company, or this part of the company, the ROI Talent Development company, that is indeed a very professional brand. That is a noteworthy accomplishment, it's a noteworthy credibility factor. Even if people find you for you, you still have ... It's very similar to when I started. People who were coming to me for business advice, they saw that I actually had, even though I was Pat Flynn on Smart Passive Income, I had intheleed.com, which was helping people pass an architectural exam. They could go there, and they could see me being professional to the people I needed to be professional with. But then, in the online fashion, especially when it comes to initiating conversation and relationships, then here I was on Pat Flynn and Smart Passive Income.

Pat:
I wouldn't discount and try to hide ROI Talent Development. I would say you both are the owners of ROI Talent Development, a website built in Texas, to help XYZ. And, now you're bringing this stuff online in a way that people are now able even to get more access to you. For me, I'm like okay, how do we find out the answer now?

LeAnne:
Yeah.

Pat:
Let's have those tougher conversations now, so we don't have surface level conversations forever. You might have access to certain people that would be able to tell you, straight up, "How would this come across if blank?" Or even, maybe you actually do make a real pitch to one company, and just get a sense so that with the next company, you know that you could pivot one way or another. I hope that's making sense?

LeAnne:
It is. It really, really is. I think part of what I'm hearing you say, too, is we're just going to have to start doing some stuff. The problem we're really-

Pat:
Ready, fire, aim.

LeAnne:
Yeah.

Pat:
Ready, fire, aim. I think, having in mind these worries, and having in mind the things that you want to pay attention to, is really key because that way you're not just, "Well, let's just do something, and whatever happens, happens." Now, you can, with these things in mind, make the right decisions, as you create. You can pivot and adjust, you know this.

LeAnne:
Yeah.

Pat:
This is part of the role of entrepreneur, is you have to make a decision and you go, but you probably know that's not going to be the direction you always go down. You're going to have to go around some things, you're going to have go above and below, and make some pivots, and adjust. That's truly what makes the entrepreneur the entrepreneur, the ability to take action despite not knowing all the answers. But, along the way, being able to adjust and pivot in the right direction.

LeAnne:
Okay, that's super helpful. Would you say, then, that when it comes to the current following that we've developed ... Which again, we're running these two routes. We've got all of our local clients and those relationships that we've built, that we think are really, really strong, and then we've got this whole other ... Right now, it almost feels like a secret, the secret audience, almost, that exists, that we're delivering all this content to. Those are mostly women, like I said, 36 to 44, that work in HR, or they're leaders. They're very driven, ambitious women who care about establishing really strong workplace culture.

LeAnne:
Would you say that, with those followers we've got already, that are the women, our target audience for our digital courses, that we would move that list over to something new, like a new brand? And then, just communicate to them, "Hey, we've moved you." Or, is that something we need to ask them permission to do? "Hey, we're starting this new thing. Join us here." How do we communicate that?

Pat:
That's a great question. I don't think people like to feel like they're being moved and shoved around, so I wouldn't necessarily take that approach. Then it's, "Oh, where are you putting me now?" That kind of a situation, versus if you can have the answer be, "Oh, this is what I get now," that would be the reaction you would want.

Pat:
If you can, in your messaging, position it in a way where it actually is of benefit to them in some way, shape, or form, then that's going to be the ideal situation. It could be ... You could make a huge deal about this brand addition, or this new leg of the brand if you will, and that you'll be able to better communicate to them through these channels, and because of that, they'll have access to more resources, they'll be able to get more insight from others and whatnot. You can probably do a better job than I at determining what the benefits would actually be.

Pat:
But in fact, if you are not able to, and your partner is not able to manage and organize, then your audience is not going to feel organized as well. They're not going to be receiving information in a way that's going to help them, if you both aren't aligned, and are both super pumped about this direction moving forward. It might take some wordsmithing and crafting, just to get a sense of what the reaction might be.

Pat:
But, I would say that this could be a beautiful milestone message, versus we just think that things have to go this way, instead.

LeAnne:
Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay, I like how you said that. Beautiful milestone, that's the vibe I'm going to go for, Pat.

Pat:
Good. Yeah, beautiful milestone, that's what we want.

LeAnne:
We'll see if we can pull that off. I think we can, I think we can.

Pat:
Mind you, there may be people who will either leave or whatever, but you know that this will open up the opportunity for you to even find way more people who are going to come in, who are going to be more enticed, who are going to be more excited, and want to work with both of you, and get involved with the services, and the programs, and the courses that you want to offer down the road.

LeAnne:
That makes a lot of sense, too, because our face-to-face clients that we work with, there's just a handful of them, really, on our email list in the first place, because they have direct access to us.

Pat:
Right.

LeAnne:
We're having conversations with them on a regular basis. I think if they heard this, for example, they'd be shocked that we were even working on this, which I think is indicative of the problem.

Pat:
Right. I can't believe you're even worried about this, just do it.

LeAnne:
Yeah.

Pat:
We're here for you.

LeAnne:
For sure. Okay, that's super helpful.

Pat:
Good, awesome. What else? Anything else on your mind?

LeAnne:
Man. I think ...

Pat:
What else are you worried about, related to this?

LeAnne:
I think the other part of this that feels very, very overwhelming to us is that Joy and I both were ... Funny enough, we were some of the first faculty members, in probably the country, teaching online courses at the university level, because we were really young faculty when we started having to create online. We laugh, because when we first started teaching our students, we had these online public speaking classes and our students would have to mail us, snail mail us, VHS tapes of themselves giving presentations. So when we started teaching online courses, Joy and I were the ones that started developing them.

LeAnne:
So we've got all this experience on the curriculum, and the structure, and building engaging curriculum for students, but we are really green, and very much rookies, when it comes to the overwhelming nature of digital courses, and what programs we should use. Every time I see conversations online, integrations with this program and that program, and oh here's these advanced email metrics you need to be thinking about, and oh you should start a podcast. Which, by the way, we really want to do. So all these things just feel overwhelming.

LeAnne:
I guess, my next question would be: what should we focus on? What would you say is the thing we need to focus on more than anything, in the transition to digital course creation and online business?

Pat:
Yeah. The biggest thing, especially for those getting in the online space, is to see how you can get to a result as fast as possible for somebody. What I mean is, a lot of people who create digital courses often want to go, "Okay, I'm going to go for this giant, huge launch, right up front. I want 1000 people in." Which is great, that's cool to have these goals. However, there often is a lack of confidence when you're doing something for the first time.

Pat:
So I love to have students of mine who are creating online courses find one or two people that they can walk through a process, to number one, verify that the process works in that online capacity, in that online fashion. Number two, offer feedback along the way for you, so you can better define this course, so you can actually create it with them. Number three, the ability for you to now, at the end before you launch this course, you already have now some testimonials, and people who have literally gone through the process that you now are going to teach everybody. Now, you have people who perhaps have had objections that your target audience also has, so they're more easily able to see a version of themselves in somebody who has already taken this course, and has gotten results. Whether it's a small group of people, or even just one, a beta launch, or even walking people through the process before it's then recorded and put on the course fashion.

Pat:
Then finally, what this does is it unlocks your own confidence, so that you know that this thing actually works. You're going to be that much more confident in your messaging, in your emails, and everything that you say is going to be that much more believable because it's actually going to be true, versus, "I hope this works." Whenever things come across that way, it doesn't always translate well, if that makes sense.

Pat:
Before even necessarily the logo, or getting involved in a particular online course platform I'm like, "Okay, here's the process." Outlining the process, and your methods that you do for people normally in person. How might you then structure this in a way that makes sense online? Then, start taking one or two people through it, because a lot of them are going to ask questions, they'll be able to plug in those holes for you. Or, at least tell you where those holes are. And then, you're going to be that much more confident on the other end.

LeAnne:
Okay, that's super helpful. We had thought about creating something and having people go through it. But then a part of us were thinking, oh is that because we're scared? We don't want to actually launch, because we're scared of actually putting it out there. That's really helpful.

Pat:
Yeah. This way, you're able to have it happen in a container like a Petri dish, where it's a way for you, if things don't work or aren't going well, well at least it was contained in that space. It wasn't a failed public launch, it was an experimental private launch.

LeAnne:
Right. That makes so much sense.

Pat:
Good. Yeah, you have all the pieces. I think that, ultimately, you're just getting in your own way.

LeAnne:
Yeah, 100 percent.

Pat:
Just to call it.

LeAnne:
Yeah, 100 percent.

Pat:
It was just so funny when you said, "Hey, our audience would probably laugh if they heard us talking about this stuff," because you know you have so much great things to offer, and you have stuff that's worthwhile. Now, it's time to transition into the digital space, and these little beta tests, and these little moments with people who you can reach out to, to go, "Hey, how will this be received?" These just become ways for you to battle, and combat the self-doubt that you might be having. Because likely, they're going to be automatic yeses and, "Yes, this is awesome, let's keep going anyways." These are things that we can put in our favor, so that we can continue to be confident and move forward.

LeAnne:
For sure. Yeah, that's very, very helpful because I think we've been so tentative about which way to move that, I think to your point earlier, we just need to go. As we're going, we're having those little touchpoint conversations, and getting good feedback. I think we're both perfectionists, too, so we want this to be a perfect product, and we're just going to have to come to terms that that's not going to exist. At least, for now.

Pat:
Exactly.

LeAnne:
Yeah, for sure.

Pat:
Great.

LeAnne:
Okay, I feel better. Thank you.

Pat:
Cool. Yeah, you're welcome. I mean, you're at a higher level, and as a result now you have higher level problems.

LeAnne:
Right.

Pat:
There's always going to be problems and new things that come, but the truth is, what got you here won't get you there. I love that you're experimenting with new things, I think it's such a smart move for you and your partner, Joy. I just want to wish you luck. Hopefully we can catch up with you again in the future, and unlock even more. I'd love to get a check in with you later, and maybe even share that here on the show to give everybody an update, if that's okay?

LeAnne:
Oh my goodness, Pat, thank you so much. This has been so helpful. We are huge fans of you, and are so appreciative of everything that you put out. We feel like we can't consume it as fast as we need to.

Pat:
I appreciate you so much.

LeAnne:
Thank you so much.

Pat:
All right, take care.

LeAnne:
Okay. Bye, Pat.

Pat:
All right, I hope you enjoyed that coaching call with LeAnne. Thank you, LeAnne, for being so receptive. I hope that a lot of this not just hit home with you, which it seems like it did, but for those of you listening right now, especially when it comes to just putting yourself out there, trying things, and having that guide you versus worrying a ton about okay, what is actually the right move here. Because actually, there is a lot more that you can learn by doing, and then learning that way, versus learning as much as you can, and trying to get things perfect. That's really the big theme here, and LeAnne, I appreciate you. Again, you can find her at roitalentdev, D-E-V.com. I appreciate your time today, and I appreciate you, for listening, all the way through. That's so meaningful to me.

Pat:
Once again, I highly recommend you check out the community and platform that we have, to bring these kinds of entrepreneurs who have gotten results already, together. No matter what level you're at, if you've gotten started, you have an email list, you have a website, you've been getting some results here and there, you can scale and communicate with other people just like you, over at SPI Pro. If you go to smartpassiveincome.com/pro, you can check that out. I'd love to invite you in there, and see if it's a right fit for you.

Pat:
So far, now being a month into this, it's just been an amazing, amazing thing that I only wish I had done sooner. It's funny, because that's one of the comments that I've been getting a lot, from people who have been listening to my podcast and on my blog for a while, and even taking part in some of my courses. They say, "This is exactly what I was looking for." Especially during this time, where we're craving connection, and trying to make up for not being able to meet in person with other people. So if you've been able to, perhaps, save a little bit of money by not going to events, perhaps you might want to invest in something like this online community, smartpassiveincome.com/pro, instead. Check that out.

Pat:
Thanks so much, I appreciate you. And as always, make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already. And of course, #TeamFlynn for the win, I love you. Peace.