hosted by: AskPat 521 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody, Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 521 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.
We have a great question today from Venisha, but before we get to her question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is Braintree.com. You know it's a beautiful thing when your customers want to pay you obviously. If you have stuff for sale, you want to get paid and there is obviously online certain mechanisms to accept payments and Braintree is one of the leading ones out there because they help you accept all forms of payment; including PayPal, Apple Pay, Android Pay. If you're doing any software, this is the tool for you especially, but it is also great for everybody who is building a business online.
And in addition to accepting in all the different ways, you can accept all the different currencies as well. Well a lot of them at least, at least 130 currencies. So as your company grows, you can continue to accept payments of course, which is great, and all it takes is a couple of lines of code to get started. So to learn more, visit Braintreepayments.com/pat. Again, that is braintreepayments.com/pat.
All right, now here's todays question from Venisha.
Venisha: Hi Pat, this is Venisha Mongor from Miami, Florida. I'm a singer songwriter and I'm about to start an online business making custom first dance wedding songs. And my question is that webinars seem to be really huge online and you all talk about how they help build your email list. What I'm trying to figure out what I could possibly do on a webinar with this type of niche in order to actually do a webinar and collect emails for my list, because I am going to be starting from scratch.
And also, once I do get a customer and they get their song and everything's said and done, how am I supposed to keep them as a subscriber and continue to come to my website or to continue as a customer if I pretty much gave them what they came for? Is it possible to do anything else in this type of niche to keep them in the loop so that I can continue keeping my email list and my audience?
Thanks so much for everything you do. I've been following you for a few years now and everything you say is great. So hopefully you get back to me. Thank you.
Pat Flynn: Hey Venisha, thank you so much for the question today, I really appreciate it. And I love the idea, I think this is fantastic. My wife and I did a fancy wedding dance that my wife choreographed, so I know, because we went through the process of wanting to do something fun and exciting for those who were at our reception. So we chose to do a choreographed dance. Now, we didn't have the ability to create our own song, but that's even cooler. So I think this is a really cool solution for you.
So in terms of a webinar to collect emails, that is a good possibility. Now my mind didn't go there first when you had mentioned what your business idea was, my mind first went to in-person wedding conventions. What are they called; bridal bizarres, I think they're called sometimes. And getting audience there is a great place to go. You can potentially sing songs or make up songs on the spot and really impress people to have them be interested in what you have to offer. Now of course, that is not entirely scalable but what is scalable is word of mouth.
And so what is involved with word of mouth online, well of course there is social media. So I would definitely recommend that has you begin to grow your business, Venisha, that you utilize social media to share your talents, to have people talk. Because, I don't know about you, but I know that these types of custom wedding things that people put on flash mobs or sometimes custom wedding dances, and choreographed dances; mine, which is online and available, didn't necessarily go viral, but there were a lot that went viral. And if you could become somebody who is the singer songwriter for a song, that then something happens and then it becomes viral, of course your name is going to be spread out there. This is a good opportunity and a good lane for that to happen, this social media.
So I would definitely recommend that. Part of you workflow, when you work with people, is you get them to sign over the fact that you would share this information. Or be able to post it up on YouTube or that if they post it up on YouTube, you share it yourself. I don't know exactly what that wording is, but you want to be able to utilize those things, maybe create some sort of library where people can see what else you have to offer. And of course YouTube and Facebook and that sort of thing, that's gonna be your best vehicle for getting the word out there.
Now let's go back to webinars. I don't think webinars is not an option you can use, I definitely think it is an option you can use but you have to do it in a different way. I don't think the option would be because I'm trying to imagine signing up for a webinar if it was about a singer songwriter who wanted to create custom songs, then that really wouldn't entice me. What would entice me if I were a bride or a husband who wanted to be involved in that process; I would be interested in attending a webinar with information about great ideas to make the reception more entertaining. Obviously that's not the copy you want to use, but how to create a mind blowing wedding reception. Now of course, your pitch for your songwriting can be a part of that, but you've have to come up with other content and discover well what else could a person include in their wedding reception to make it awesome. And that way you'd be able to provide information to people that they could then take home with them, even if they weren't able to use your services, well you'd be providing value to them and that is the first step for anything. Before you ask, you want to provide value, and this is a great way to do that.
Maybe the webinar is about 10 things that you need to make sure happen in your wedding reception, and then you could offer the service on top of that. There's a number of different ways you could do it. You could test different things but like I said, you want to make sure you provide value to this particular audience. And so of course, a lot of people want to make sure that their wedding receptions are great or that they all have their checklists in lined. And you could be there to be the one that serves that information, and of course at the end, you pitch also that you do wedding services in terms of custom songwriting and that sort of thing.
Now your second part of your question, how do you keep them engaged after they buy? This is a fantastic question cause there's a lot of ways that you can do this, although it might not seem obvious at first. Of course, like I said earlier, you can share their stuff, you can stay connected with them on social media. Twitter's a great way to do that and obviously have people share your stuff and stay engaged and of course word of mouth then happens after that. If somebody says, “Oh my gosh, your song was awesome. Whoa, somebody custom did it for you? Who did that?” Well, you want to make sure you're there when people are asking that question, in people's heads so that you get that word of mouth. Which I think is going to be a big component of what your brand is.
But in addition to that, your existing customers; you're right, after they get that song, well then they're done right? They're done for the wedding but what are some other moments in life that happen afterwards where a custom song could be used? Well I'm thinking first child, or first anniversary; first child especially. And maybe you combine you're talents with a videographer that they use or what have you. Or maybe somebody has some sort of video of a graduation and then you're able to take that video and put a song on top of it that works perfectly to the way that video is. I mean, I'm just spit balling here, but there's a number of different things that you can do.
The first thing that comes to mind though is the first child and having you write a special song for them using their name. That could be pretty awesome. And if they were to happen to be a couple who you did the wedding for, then you can give them a discount. It'd be kind of cool I think. I think you'd be able to get know these couples over time and through your songs and services, be able to stay connected with them. I think that'd be pretty awesome. Of course this is sort of a long term game but I definitely think there is something there.
So Venisha, I hope that answers you question and just be creative with it. You're a creative type, you're an artist and you can do the same thing with your business too.
So I want to thank you so much for your question today. I truly truly appreciate it and I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for those of you who have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show just head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page and also get access to all the other great episodes and questions that you guys have asked yourself. The show wouldn't be here without you obviously, cause you guys ask the questions, I provide the answers as best as possible and that's what makes this show awesome.
I also want to mention that I have a book coming out February 1st. It's called Will It Fly? How to Test Your Next Business Idea so You Don't Waste Your Time and Money. And pre-orders should be available now. Obviously for those of you who know how I work, I batch process these episodes. I'm recording this at the beginning of the month for later in the month. So if everything goes according to plan, by the time you are able to listen to this, pre-orders will be available. Or maybe you're listening to this after it launches on February 1st, you can just order the book and check it out.
So if you are starting out with your business or even if you have a business already and you just want to make sure that that next thing you're working on is something that is going to work out. Or at least just want to know whether it's going to work out or not, use this book to guide you. Willitflybook.com is where you go to check that out or if you are going to purchase this before it comes out February 1st, you can get access to some cool bonuses too. So again that's willitflybook.com.
Thank you so much for all the support, I really appreciate it. Venisha thanks again for the great question and best of luck to you. And for those of you out there, as always I finish with a quote, and today's quote is from Tony Shay, founder and CEO of Zappos.com. He says, “Chase the vision, not the money. The money will end up following you.”
Love it, love that guy. Cheers, take care and I look forward to serving you in tomorrows episode of AskPat. Thanks, bye.