AP 1015: Which Niche Business Should I Focus On?

About This Episode

Today's guest is Sherree Murray, who started a business a few years ago called Remarkable Spaces, a home staging and interior design business. Then she created another company focusing on moving products (labels, planners, etc): WellPlannedMove.com. She's a real estate agent as well. She feels that she's kind of coasting and not getting very far. How can she bring a larger audience to the table? Which of her ventures will produce the most value at the end of the day? What are her ultimate goals in business?

Through our coaching session we identify Sherree's entrepreneurial goals. She also discovers which directions she doesn't want to go in. Once Sherree's highlighted her goal, we work backwards to create a blueprint for getting there. We also discuss strategies for driving traffic to her website and establishing relationships in her niche. Through our discussion, Sherree narrows her focus and develops a long-term goal even beyond scaling her niche site.

What You'll Learn:
Learn mindsets for finding focus between multiple online businesses, establishing niche relationships, and developing a long-term plan for your business's future.

AskPat 1015 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 1015 of AskPat 2.0, the show where I coach a person who has a business, but needs a little bit of help or maybe a lot of help, and you listen in on that coaching call. Maybe you have the same problems, maybe not, maybe it's something that you're like, “Oh, I want to know so that I can—if I ever have the same problems in the future, I know how to tackle it. Or, maybe you just need some motivation and to just get the gears going in your head to make things happen, finally, in your business.

Well, if that's the case, you are in the right spot, because this show is unique. We go through a coaching call, about thirty to forty minutes with the person, and you're just the fly on the wall. You can listen in and soak it all in, and in that way, we all win. I'm super thankful to be speaking today with Sherree Murray, who filled out the application just like you can at AskPat.com.

I selected her business for the call today. I can potentially select yours, as well. Again, just head on over to AskPat.com, fill out that application in the middle there. It's not a guarantee you'll get selected, so you're going to have to wow me in some way, shape, or form, or just let me know the value that you think the conversation can provide to some of the other people who are listening, as well. Just fill out the application, answer a couple questions there, and you'll hear from me if we're going to get on a call. We'll schedule it, we'll make it happen just like today, with Sherree.

This is a great conversation because Sherree's going through what many entrepreneurs go through and that's, “How do I know, which business to focus on?” She's got a few things going on and she's putting effort into each of them, and she has the thing that's like her baby, her business, the first one that is making a little bit and then she has her other one, which is exciting, but maybe just not as potentially lucrative like, “Where do we focus? How do we do this?” I think you all know that, typically, if you divide your energy too much between a bunch of different things, well, nothing will really succeed. We work through that today.

We make sure there's a light at the end of the tunnel for Sherree. There's a lot of things going on and I think a lot of you will relate. We break through it. This is how it's done. Yeah, thank you so much.

Before we get to the conversation with Sherree, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks, an amazing company. It's helped me since, gosh, 2000—I can't even remember. A long time ago, over ten years, or nearly ten years. They're great because they help me keep track of business finances, the income, the expenses, the invoicing. I can send an invoice to a client or a student in literally less than thirty seconds, it's crazy. It looks good, it looks great. I can keep track of who even opens that invoice, so in case they don't, I can follow up properly and make sure I get paid.

They can help you create project proposals, like just—it's insane. So many great things with FreshBooks. If you want to check it out for thirty days for free, an unlimited thirty-day free trial is available at FreshBooks.com/askpat. Make sure you enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section. That's all you got to do. Awesome.

Let's get to today's coaching call with Sherree Murray. Let's get it moving.

Sherree, welcome to AskPat 2.0, thank you so much for taking the time today.

Sherree Murray: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Pat. I'm excited.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, this will be really cool. Why don't you introduce yourself and what you do to everybody listening right now.

Sherree Murray: All right. Well, I'm Sherree and I started a business a couple of years ago, after just feeling discontent with my full-time marketing corporate job. I started this company called Remarkable Spaces. It came out of this desire to live out my skillsets, my passions for design in homes. I started basically a home-staging and interior design business.

Early on, I decided to also create moving products. I was looking for something that I could do on the side to add some extra income. It is sort of this organizational thing that I was still craving at the time. I created moving products, which is like moving labels, and moving planners, and stuff like that. I can get into that later. As time as gone on, I decided that this wasn't really making income for me in a way that I'd like it to. I knew I needed to either go back to a full-time job or start real estate. Now I'm a realtor. I also then do the home-staging design, and sell moving labels. That's where I'm at.

Pat Flynn: Okay. You've got, you said, Remarkable Spaces, which is the home-staging and interior design. That's really cool. Everybody's moving all the time and obviously the . . . What I like about that, too, the better the home looks for people who come in to see if they want to buy it, obviously, the faster you can sell the house, the more you can potentially get as a result of that. You're helping people make even more money or through those pains that come across when you sell a home. That's great. And then, Well-Planned Move's at WellPlannedMove.com.

Sherree Murray: Yes, that's the website where I sell the moving labels and then the planner, but I'm also utilizing Amazon too, to sell at least the color-coded moving labels, and then humorous moving labels.

Pat Flynn: Cool. And then in terms of the business models for both, for the Well-Planned Move, it's obvious, right, you're selling products and you're selling through Amazon, I think you said Etsy as well, and then off your own website. How is that performing right now?

Sherree Murray: It's doing a little bit better since the start of basically January this year. I've had this up since about almost a year now. I've seen it just slowly progress, it hasn't been any big sensation or anything. I feel like I haven't done enough for it. I don't know exactly what to do with that.

What it is, is the color-coded moving labels is more of an organizational kit. It's not just these little slips of paper that just says, “Hey, this is the living room.” There's a strategy to it. It's got a room color chart. It's got room signs that you would cut out and then tape on the walls outside each of the rooms in the new house.

Pat Flynn: How smart.

Sherree Murray: And then you have room labels and then priority labels that go along with that. It's not a simple kit, where on Amazon, there's a lot of moving labels out there, and I think the difference is mine's a higher price point because of the type of product I'm providing. It just creates a certain niche. That's where I need to figure out how to sell that to a niche.

Pat Flynn: Right. Okay. We'll talk about that. That's good and it's seeming like it's taking up a little bit. And then Remarkable Spaces, what's that business model? How are you getting paid and what are you providing there?

Sherree Murray: Early on, I had a few design jobs here and there for friends, or just people who knew somebody. I went about seven, eight months of doing that. Had three different clients and I just ended at the end, kind of awkward and weird with this one client and I thought, “maybe I don't need to stay in the design world,” so I stepped back and questioned myself on some of that.

Then this past year, I got two new design jobs and they've been consistent. I've had them for six, seven, eight months now because it's been a slow-going process. I think that also has made me question, “do I want to do this, still?” I'm one of these, I want to quit, get in, get out sometimes for just, I don't know, progress, I guess. Knowing that I finish a job and now I can move on to the next thing. I got to work on a little bit of that, trying to accept the process, that long journey through something.

Pat Flynn: For sure.

Sherree Murray: Home-staging, I haven't put myself out there too much as a home-stager, primarily because I decided not to invest in inventory. Just in the fact that, I mean, you'd have to have a warehouse, there's so much logistics and costs that's involved with that. I could go in and talk with a family on doing walk and talk consultations, where I go through the house and I help them figure how to used what they already have to then stage their home to make it welcoming, to make it not so cluttered and things everywhere, just to have it presentable.

Pat Flynn: Right, cool.

Sherree Murray: I've done bits and pieces of that, but now I mainly just work with a builder. They call on me every now and then to stage their model homes.

Pat Flynn: Got it. Okay. Let me ask you, what is it that you ultimately want to achieve? What do you want?

Sherree Murray: That's the big question right now. Okay. On the one side, I've been thinking about . . . Real estate, I can serve several clients at a time and it's localized, right?

Pat Flynn: Mm-hmm.

Sherree Murray: I can maybe at one time, maybe work with one to five clients at a time, whereas, what are the opportunities to impact even more lives, to help more people on a grander scale? This idea, as I keep listening to all your podcasts, it just makes me question what knowledge, or what expertise, or what ideas can I help bring to the table, maybe through the videos, or maybe it's podcasting, something along those lines. Do I stay where I'm at, just kinda coasting, and not really getting very far, financially, or in business? Or, do I do this other, or is there some way of bringing them together, bringing a larger audience to the table?

Pat Flynn: It seems like you're somebody who just loves to do, right?

Sherree Murray: Yes.

Pat Flynn: You're like most people who, you know, we love to try new things and experiment, and continue to work on things. What I'm worried about is, we need to find a clear-cut goal so we can work backwards and reverse engineer what you need to do.

Sherree Murray: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: I'm glad we're having this conversation now, because I've been having a lot of these similar kinds of conversations with people. A lot of people, they get into this trap where there is no real goal, and so they just work hard, and they work really hard, and they have a lot of talent, but it's not being focused on where it needs to be based on where they want to go.

I would just say, let's maybe do this: This sometimes works and that's the kind of thought experiments that I love to do, and that is, let's fast-forward two years from now. We're on a conversation here on Skype, we're catching up and you're like, “Pat, things are going great.” Take me through a typical day of what's making you say “life is great right now.”

Sherree Murray: Part of me has always had this desire to quote, be on stage in a way, where I have developed content or I . . . To be a presenter, be a trainer, to be a motivator, something along those lines, where people see me as this go-to person for information. Whether that's in real estate, maybe it's not there, maybe it's entrepreneurship, or something.

There's that, kinda floating around in my mind, but I'm living in this other world right now. I think it's talking through some of this and with you being on this other side, where you've been there, done that before, so you know what it looks like to be in that full-time career. You go from that to—you're sort of exploring these ideas and then you found your niche.

Pat Flynn: Mm-hmm.

Sherree Murray: I think that's where I struggle, is because I have all these great ideas, I'm constantly coming up with something and wondering, well, which one's actually going to produce the most value at the end of the day? Like I said, I can do these other jobs. I don't think home-staging's ever going to be huge for me locally because I just don't see it, the need for it necessarily. I think that's important, and then there's other home-stagers here so I got that to consider. The designing part of it, I still question whether I really want to commit to that because it's—there's just more, there's less control involved in that, where over here, if I'm doing more entrepreneurship, if I'm, maybe it's a little bit of the real estate stuff. Or is it something where I can just sit at the table and I can crank things out, and feel like I'm being productive, and I'm really on the other side trying to help people achieve some greatness, or some ideas. Or, get up and go after your dreams.

Pat Flynn: That's cool. See, like, even in your application, you didn't mention any of that in terms of your goals. That's great that we're unpacking that, pun intended, I guess. This is really cool. If I were to ask you—I'm just feeling my through all this—if I were to ask you, in two years from now, and you were full-time with the home-staging stuff, do you think you'd be happy? Is that—can you even imagine that?

Sherree Murray: Because I've been doing this for some time, I feel like I'm not going to be as happy as I'd like to be.

Pat Flynn: Okay. Already, we're already learning maybe that's not the direction we need to go, so that's, in my head, I don't know if it's the same in yours, but that's a little bit of a relief, right?

Sherree Murray: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Pat Flynn: Let's not even fight that, and go for it. That's great. We're cutting that out. Now, the Well-Planned Move that you have is interesting because that's a business model such that it can be created and automated in such a way that you can add new products, and that can be a great supplement in terms of income for what you're doing.

Let's do this experiment again. Two years from now, we're chatting, and I'm asking about Well-Planned Move, if you had Well-Planned Move still at that time. Does that make sense to be in your life at that time? And if so, in what way?

Sherree Murray: Yes, I think so. Primarily because it's my baby. This is something that I created that I have such pride in what I've done. It's a good looking product and I think there's value there. It's just, can I get it to where I want it to be in two years? I think so, I just need the right channels, the right strategies to make that known. I mean, I'm talking about videos, I'm talking about maybe connecting with some hot bloggers—some way to get that out there because, like I said, it's a niche product, so how do I compete on that level? Two years from down the road, I want to be cranking this out. I want to have good, strong sales. I've even set this up so that, like the humorous moving labels, even the planner, can be used as promotional items for like a real estate agent, or a lender, or a home builder, because I got a branding opportunity for them.

I want to see that grow, but do I put all my eggs right there? Or, is it still okay to still . . . Like, if I get into creating some videos and blogging, but what does that look like?

Pat Flynn: Cool. Okay. Here's where my head is at. I love this. I love that you said that you wanted to still have it in your life at that time and have it be rocking. These brand deals are really interesting. I think that—and we can jam on marketing this, because I think there's a lot of opportunity here for these specific products.

You mentioned some channels already, like blogging. I mean, mom blogs should know about this, they should just automatically: “Hey, you're moving? Go to Well-Planned Move and check out this stuff that I used and it's really helpful.” I love that there's three products already or, wait, three?

Sherree Murray: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, three and likely so many more things that a person who's moving would need help with.

Sherree Murray: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: The cool thing is that this is–I mean it's not unique in terms of how you did this, but you're . . . I mean, this looks really professional. WellPlannedMove.com, with the products . . . I don't know how you got them created or your process for doing that, but the information that you picked up in building this website, could that be something that other people can learn from? How you actually put that together. How you got the things printed. How you actually created this little mini sort of side gig here.

Sherree Murray: Yeah, okay. Yeah.

Pat Flynn: Because my head is like, okay, you've done something here that a lot of people would probably like to do in their own special way. They probably have their own systems that they want to teach that involve not just information, but actual stuff. Perhaps that's like phase two: “Well, hey, I built this successful, for a lack of a better term, like physical product business that has these methods, and worksheets, and labels, and other things like that. Might I take that knowledge and package it, and perhaps help others?” And that can be your entry into what your goals were. Like what you said, what if . . . Two years from now, let's just say, again, an example, you go “Pat, I've taught 100 entrepreneurs how to build their own little side business that they're now selling their own products on Etsy and Amazon.” How does that feel to you?

Sherree Murray: Oh my gosh. I'm like, getting butterflies right now. I think that would be phenomenal.

Pat Flynn: Great. I love that. I'm feeling it, too, on your end. Here's what I would do. Most people who—not most people, at least, in my experience. A lot of people who try to teach this stuff don't have a real-world experience doing this stuff. They're talking the talk, but they haven't done the thing, but you're doing the thing, so you have this advantage of actually creating something. What I would do is, I would take a dollar amount that you're making from Well-Planned Move as your goal, such that it unlocks your, “okay, I've reached this goal, now I feel qualified to teach this stuff,” right?

Sherree Murray: Okay.

Pat Flynn: Because if you weren't making any money——I mean, you are making money, but if you weren't making any money with this, it would be almost disingenuous to sell the process when it hasn't been working for you yet, right?

Sherree Murray: Right.

Pat Flynn: What I'm trying to do is have you realize that you have the start here of something that could become an amazing example for other people who need processes, who would benefit from creating a little side thing like this, or potentially a full-time thing. You still have some things to figure out because if I was learning from you about how to create this, I can create something that would look amazing like this, based on your teaching, but then how do I sell it? Those are the next steps for you to figure out for this site before I feel like you'd be qualified to teach this stuff. Does that make sense?

Sherree Murray: I think so. Yeah.

Pat Flynn: Well-Planned Move is a great start. Let's figure out how to grow it to a point where you would feel comfortable, and confident, and qualified to then teach this to others.

Sherree Murray: Okay. Yes. That sounds fantastic.

Pat Flynn: What would that mark be? There's no universal answer, but how much would you want this website to make every month, for example, for you to feel qualified to teach this stuff? I mean, obviously, you could get it to a point where it's only making . . . Let's just throw out $100 a month. You could say that and you could say, “hey, guys, I can help you earn an extra $100 a month”. Because that's real-world, what you were able to do. If you were to say, “I could help you make $10,000 a month,” and you were only making $100 a month, then there's a little bit of a disconnect there, right?

Sherree Murray: Right, right.

Pat Flynn: We need to match what you've done with what you can teach, therefore it's genuine, you have proof it's real, and you know the process, you know it can work. I think it would motivate you even more because people are just going to come to you and say, “how do I do this?” “Oh, I know how, because I did this.” What might that number be for perhaps, just a monthly earnings on Well-Planned Move for you to feel confident doing that?

Sherree Murray: I'm always scared to put out a number.

Pat Flynn: Of course.

Sherree Murray: Trying to reach that goal and not reaching it, it feels—

Pat Flynn: But, I understand that, but it's important to have that number because then you will take those actions.

Sherree Murray: Right. Right. Right now, I mean, I'm not making a ton, so if I could reach $1,000 in one month, that would be phenomenal.

Pat Flynn: That's huge.

Sherree Murray: I would be just like, “Yes, we're getting somewhere.” As time goes on, I'll see that hopefully increase, but . . . We're getting to the point where the season of people moving is about to peak. I need to figure some of this out sooner than later, so that we can get those numbers up.

Pat Flynn: Right. There's a lot to this, but if I were to say—for example, I had seen your complete kit here for about fifty bucks. You just need to sell twenty of them a month to get to that goal. That makes it really tangible. Like, “I can do twenty.” Obviously, how do we do that?

There's a number of things here related to the sites like this that you could do to increase that income. You can have—and you're doing some of it already—like the kits and the package deals. You can add more products. You can sell things on top of what you're selling here.

For example, if there was some sort of personalized element, coaching, or some sort of timed talk to you or somebody else, those can be add-ons. Information can be included in this as well which, I think it is included in terms of like a moving planner. Perhaps there's affiliate deals that you can make with companies in different areas, such that they could buy boxes or moving companies, or vans, you know, those kinds of things. I mean, there's a lot to it. What I would do is just consider a person moving—what are all the big pains that they have?

Sherree Murray: Right.

Pat Flynn: Each of those pains can be potentially problems or products that are yours or somebody else's that you could promote. I think getting people to A, just know this exists, is the most important thing. And then B, once they come in, perhaps there's a way for you to capture an email address or something.

I did see a pop-up come up on the website at some point, but it didn't really compel me to sign up. I wasn't sure what I was going to get, except more emails and I don't want more emails, I want something that's going to solve a big question that I have or an immediate concern that I have related to what I'm doing right now. What have you done thus far to grow or get found for that website?

Sherree Murray: Really, not much of anything at this point. It started really strong early last year, and then I just never saw people coming to it. There was just little interest, so I just kinda gave up and went off to do these other jobs that I've been doing because I thought, at the end of the day they were bringing me some income.

I think for me it's always been the strategies. What can I do? I'm only one person and I keep saying this a lot right now, is that I'm one person. But yet, I need to be able to do the financials, the photography, the social media posts, the writing, the content, the blogging, the writing, and the ads for Facebook, and all of those thing, but I'm also supposed to be doing X, Y, and Z else. I think I've just gotten lost in all of that.

Pat Flynn: Mm-hmm.

Sherree Murray: Now it's—I need to know, step one, let's work on this first. Step two, let's go here. And then I'll feel like, “okay, I now know what I need to concentrate on.”

Pat Flynn: Okay. We already have established what you're not going to do, right?

Sherree Murray: Yes.

Pat Flynn: Okay. That feels good, right, to like, “okay, let's take that part out of my brain so we can have a little bit more focus and work in your zone of genius here,” which is great.

Sorry, I'm a little all over the place right now, but one thing that I was thinking of is, if you could somehow get one of these influencers to share your product in some way, it would be a quick way for you to get a lot of this exposure. I'm imagining, for example, one of these popular mom bloggers or even YouTubers who, maybe they make an announcement that they're going to move and you go in and say, “hey, I hear you're moving, let me give you all the moving material that you need to make this easy for yourself. If you want to talk about it on your blog, that would be awesome, obviously, but if not, no worries. I'm an entrepreneur, I know you are one too and this is an attempt for me to show you my product.” If you had a little bit of inventory to offer to influencers like that, it would just take one to really make a big impact. If it was somebody local, I don't know, but that way you could even give it to them in person and establish a little bit of a relationship.

This is off to a great start. I can see more products, I can see it being talked about. The domain is so good that it's just easy to remember and talk through. I think getting people on an email list for like . . . people who come here, you know a lot about them, right?

Sherree Murray: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: You know exactly where they're at. You know what they need help with and so that gives you huge opportunities, but unless you can capture their contact information in some way, it's going to be hard for you to A, get more information from them, B, serve them better, and C, have them get to a point where you've provided some value upfront and then now you can ask for something in return.

What would you consider your next moves with this site? Again, remember, motivation in the back of your head should always be, “$1,000 a month because then, I can do the helping of other people who need this, so let me . . . I really need to figure this out so that I can help all those new people.”

Sherree Murray: Right. Well, on one side, I've always been that marketer so I'm always thinking, “how do I make it look good? How do I get it all looking perfect?” And all that. I've had people say, “you just need to do it. You just don't worry so much about making it look so perfect. You've got to get out there and start selling.”

This idea of going to the mom blogs and stuff is very intriguing and I've always been a little scared of that because the . . . I mean, early on, I looked and saw that, okay, well, in order to get them to write about your post, you got to pay X amount of dollars and I was like, “oh, well, I don't have that much right now.” But how do I do that? It's one, I'm just trying to make everything look good and work great, but then on the other side I just need to do it, but what is the strategy to do it?

Pat Flynn: Well, on the perfection thing, I mean, that's a very common thing for entrepreneurs. I'm looking at the website now and it looks great. There's nothing that would tell me that there's something wrong here. I think that's maybe something that you just have to get over, right? The perfection: It's there. It's better than a lot of websites that I've come across. Yes, you can perfect it along the way, too. I wouldn't be scared about that. In terms of some mom blogs or any blog, they sometimes will require a fee to get in front of their audience. Other ones, however, are happy to work with companies in exchange of goods for mention. Perhaps the strategy would be not necessarily targeting the top ones, but perhaps the up and coming ones.

Sherree Murray: Okay.

Pat Flynn: Maybe a little bit of market research and maybe some spread sheets of, “okay, who might my best targets be and let's just start an outreach program to help them.” There's just so many opportunities out there, I wouldn't want you to get lost, and just trying to capture those top bloggers, I think there's a lot of opportunity with the up and coming ones, like I said.

In terms of Amazon, I mean, there's likely some things you could do there to gather a little bit more momentum, too, because that's . . . Once you enter that space, if you become found, there is a tipping point where things can just start to roll up there, as well. If you can combine the two, well then, that's even more fantastic.

I think, perhaps honing in on where, ideally, you would want people to go because I know you're driving people to either Etsy, or Amazon, or your website—I think it's important to have the ability to buy online across all those platforms, but when it comes to when you're doing this outreach, you need to be very clear with, “I want people to be sent here” and so, there's no wrong answer, but you just have to pick one or else it's just going to be diluted.

Sherree Murray: I guess my concern or thought with that, early on, has been, well, people are more willing to buy from Amazon because it's a . . . Or, that's where they go for moving products, when they're just like, “hey, I just need simple packing tape or moving labels,” then they're go there. Wheras, I'm sort of this one little seed, way down, buried down in the SEO world, that the likelihood of them just finding me is going to be less. However, what you just said is, you've got to keep promoting your stuff. You got to keep putting WellPlannedMove.com in front of people because that's eventually going to click and people will come to know you.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's a lot of examples of people who are selling on their own websites, but also have it on Amazon, just for the eventual pickup there, too. People are going to talk about it and they're going to look for it there, so you want to be able to be found there. But I think you're right in that you would want people to just know about the website, because there's a lot more than just the product. I think there's a brand here. There's opportunity to get even more information than one could get just kinda finding you on Amazon. Likely, there's going to be some Google search engine pickup for this website as well, if not a little bit already. I think that you have the products you need right now, you can add more products later, but with what you have, I mean, this is a solution to somebody's pain, so let's go find people who have that pain and get in front of those audiences.

There's likely some other places that you might be able to go find them, such as Facebook groups, or maybe even finding people who are talking about moving on Twitter, or connecting with other people who help people with moves who perhaps have larger audiences. Or, maybe take this specialty, because that's what this is, right? This is a very niche thing.

Sherree Murray: Yes.

Pat Flynn: When you have a niche thing, it might seem hard because it's just a little small little space in a bigger space, but that's also a great advantage because you have this knowledge, you have this ability to get in front of audiences, where in some cases you might think of them as competitors, but in reality, you have this specialty within that space where they could invite you on and welcome it.

For example, I'm thinking of people who have audiences related to real estate. Although that's the bigger area here because real estate moving and such, your specialty is the process of moving and the organization of that. Perhaps another realm that you can dive into is the organization space. I mean, there's been this movement lately of organization and DIY, and there's these books, I can't even remember the name of them, but they were huge, related to organization and just keeping things organized in your life, that there are huge audiences out there who are just all about that. This fits into that, as well.

There's opportunity for you to come in with this specialty of, “hey, podcaster, you talk about organization all the time; one of the messiest parts of a person's life is when they're moving. This is my specialty within this area of organization. I'd like to come on and be a guest on your show to just coach people through how to do these moves in a way that they just won't get overwhelmed. At the end I'll mention my products, but whether a person gets it or not, I just want to be there to be helpful.” As a guest on these shows, for example, with this very niche specialty, you can be welcomed. You can build a relationship with these audiences and likely just plug in your product at the end there.

Sherree Murray: Well, I love that. I really do. I think that would be fun and enjoyable.

Pat Flynn: And probably give you a lot of experience related to where you want your goals to be, which is the speaking and the getting involved with the content, and let's not worry about creating a YouTube channel or creating a podcast right now. Perhaps let's get on other YouTube channels and get on other podcasts to start, so that when this thing hits $1,000 a month you have those skills already and it's just a matter of setting it up for yourself.

Sherree Murray: Okay. Okay, I like that. I like that a lot.

Pat Flynn: What do you like about it?

Sherree Murray: Oh, just that when there's more direction that I've achieved in our short period of time that we've talked—

Pat Flynn: Yeah, I'm feeling it. That's good.

Sherree Murray: It's, again it's sort of this motivating thing. It's like this is my baby, and to be able to see something that you created and people realize how unique and special it really is, there's joy and happiness in that.

Pat Flynn: For sure.

Sherree Murray: Not only that, but it's helping them. Somebody who's going to buy this is either, A, they are organized all the time. Then you have people who buy it because they just need some organization in their life. For them to walk away and say, “oh my gosh, I was not as stressed with moving this go round than I have in the past,” and how wonderful that feels.

One other thing I'll mention here too is getting people to review the products, too. What are techniques to have them—once they've used the product I want to have that feedback. So one, it helps other people and two, it lets me know, am I on the right track?

Pat Flynn: Yeah. That's one of the hardest things to do. I mean, I have a podcast that's had 50 million downloads and I only have 2,000 reviews. It's like, the percentage of people who leave reviews is going to be very small. I have seen it with books, too. I've sold 30,000 copies of Will It Fly? and there's 700 reviews. I'm like, “why aren't the other 29,300 leaving reviews?” Well, it's because it's not easy, for one.

The best way to do it, and I found this to be the case in book writing, in the podcast space, and from what I've heard with physical products as well, is you just ask. The personal ask is where it's at; it's not an automated email that goes out, which is what a lot of people on Amazon do because they setup these systems to have automated emails go out. If I were to get a short little video that was just like, “hey, I just hope the move went well, and hopefully the labels were working for you. Is there anything that I can help you with, with the move? I might know somebody, even if it's outside of the label thing.” I'm like, “oh my gosh, like, Sherree really cares about me.” If at the end you're like, “and if you had just a quick moment to reply back with a quick testimonial it would be super helpful, so I can help other people in their moves, too,” I'd be like, “now I have this responsibility to do that.” Because it's from your voice, it's more personal and when you ask me I'm going to do it or be far more likely to do it than just a regular email, especially an automated one. The benefit here for you is, you're just at the start of your journey. Every single sale you make is going to be very simple for you to just take, like, create a thirty-second video and send it to those customers.

Eventually, it will grow to a point where that won't be possible but that's, again, your advantage being just at the start here, is you can accelerate by having a little bit more personal touch throughout the process.

Sherree Murray: I never even thought of that. I just, you know, you come up with your own generic little thank you and, “hey, consider reviewing me or reviewing the product.” Now, every single time, and you still don't get anything. I like the idea of a personal touch. I've never been the type to have anybody just kind of put something on me like, “hey, I've got this product, you should buy it.” I've never been like . . . I'm usually, “let me think about it,” or “let me see it in the store, let me . . .” Coming with this softer approach of saying, “hey, I saw that you've purchased this, I'm so excited for you. I hope this turns out to be a really great easy move because of using these products. Thank you so much. If I can do anything more for you, let me know,” something along those lines.

Pat Flynn: Perfect. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that feels really good to me. What's really cool about this is that you had mentioned just how this is your baby. You have such joy in seeing this succeed, and I'm sure that when sales come in you're like, “oh my gosh, another person is going to use this, it's so cool”, especially because they're physical products. I mean, that's even more than what I offer. You can see people using this and slapping the labels on, and working through the books, and that's super cool.

Imagine giving that feeling to new entrepreneurs who, you know, busy moms on the side who just could use a little bit of extra money to have them have and experience that joy, too, just like you are. Again, that's motivation for you to figure out how to make this work. You've started it, it's almost there.

Sherree Murray: Pat, can I ask you a question? You do a lot of digital products and I've been trying to consider that for the moving planner. I do sell it on Etsy, a download of the digital product versus on my website, I have copies of the actual physical planner. There's this idea of turning this into a digital product that say like, a real estate agent could brand it and then have a digital download that they get to all their clients. My concerns are, is how do you, you know, the charging of that and the legal part of that?

Pat Flynn: Yeah I mean, you'd have to consult with some attorney who can help you, what's called white label your product.

Sherree Murray: Okay.

Pat Flynn: Or co-label it. Meaning, if you do a brand deal then that person would have their name and potentially face on it, it's the realtor, whoever. Perhaps yours would be on the bottom just kind of as the, “provided by WellPlannedMove.com.” The deal structure and the legalities of that, there's going to be a contract and it could be a bulk order upfront, it could be a percentage of sales that go to that person for each one. There's a number of different ways to do that. I think it's going to be based on what's comfortable for you. If you know anybody who you could potentially do this with and they're a friend, I mean, that's where I would start, because then you can easily work together and create some deal that makes sense for both of you in a friendly environment, such that you can replicate that with somebody else and just be like, “yeah, this is how it's done,” and you will have had that experience already with somebody that you know.

Sherree Murray: Okay. All right.

Pat Flynn: I like the thinking of just, “how else might I be able to get this into people's hands?” And now you're utilizing people who have a deeper relationship with people who they know who are moving. I think that's super smart. You're adding value to that person as giving them another way to provide value to the people they're serving, too. That's really cool. I mean, perhaps you could even charge a monthly fee to those people. You know, “hey, for $99 a month, you get unlimited,” you know, “these things for digital access. And then, if you wanted print copies, I sell them for fifteen bucks, I'll give them to you for seven if you want them for seven.”

Sherree Murray: Yeah.

Pat Flynn: Again, you just have to pick the lane and make a decision and go, because you could debate all day of, “oh, what's the best structure, what's the best deal, what's the best thing to do here” and then never get anything done. You're going to learn the most by just making decisions. No, not all those decisions are going to be perfect, but you can adjust and make them perfect along the way.

Sherree Murray: Okay. Okay.

Pat Flynn: What are the biggest takeaways from this conversation? We've made a lot of decisions, we've got a lot of motivation now, what's in your mind in terms of, okay, biggest realizations?

Sherree Murray: I think it's this narrowing of my focus is the most important thing that we've talked about here. That being, put more time and energy into my baby, this Well-Planned Move brand and the product line and what I can potentially do with that. I still have to figure out a little bit of this real estate, like how much do I want to be involved because at the end of the day, I've got to go where my heart is, where I can make the most impact and oh, have the most joy and all of that. I've been wondering if Well-Planned Move was ever going to go anywhere, and I just haven't given it a chance.

Pat Flynn: Right.

Sherree Murray: Maybe now's the time to work on that. If real estate is still part of it, great, maybe I don't work too hard, because I find that it is very time-consuming. That's going to take away from doing this Well-Planned Move stuff. I got to find balance in all of that.

Pat Flynn: Good. That's great. That's great that you know you need to do that. Those are perhaps next steps for you. I love it because now you have a goal and remember what that motivation is for it, too. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who just have no idea where to start and they would love to have something based on some sort of method that they have, that they could share, and you could create this amazing community of small niche product entrepreneurs online. That could be really cool, I think. Yeah, keep going with that. I'm excited for you and for the product, though I'll keep an eye on it as we go along and if you don't mind, I'd love to potentially reach out to you again, and we can catch up, and maybe not in two years like in our experiment, but we can catch up and see how you did. Would that be okay?

Sherree Murray: Yes. I would love that.

Pat Flynn: Cool. Sherree, this is awesome. Thank you for opening up and sharing, and being authentic here. I think a lot of people are going to relate to this story and hopefully follow suit and take the same actions you are, in terms of making decisions and just going. Good luck.

Sherree Murray: Thank you. I appreciate the time that you've taken with me today.

Pat Flynn: All right. Hey, Sherree, I know you're listening to this, thank you so much for coming on, being honest, and the action that you're going to take as a result of this. Hopefully a lot of you listening as well, you got some ideas that you can use and take action with, too. Sherree, thank you. I look forward to connecting with you very soon, so we can catch up and see what went well, what didn't go well. What were some of the surprises that happened? The surprises are always going to come. That's part of the nature of entrepreneurship, is you plan and then you do, and then you get results. Sometimes those results aren't the results you thought, but at least you're moving forward and learning, and adapting, and adjusting, and pivoting, so that you can make the next right moves moving forward. I'm excited to see where Sherree ends up. We'll definitely get her back on at some point.

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