SPI 804: Never Be the Smartest in the Room! SPI Pro Anniversary Roundtable

SPI 804: Never Be the Smartest in the Room! SPI Pro Anniversary Roundtable

Ron Desi: I’ve been wanting to make a pivot, not to completely get off Fiverr, but to do something else to diversify my income. And I’ve been trying to do that for five years. And it wasn’t until I joined SPI Pro that it started moving the needle in the direction I wanted to, because I’m like many entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, there’s so many ideas that I had going on. I didn’t know where to focus. And then if I did focus on something, I didn’t know what to do next. And so I became part of a mastermind in SPI Pro, and that has been absolutely the best thing I’ve ever done.

Pat Flynn: We have a big treat today. We don’t just have one guest or even just two. We have three guests and these guests are coming straight from inside of our community at SPI Pro. We have our big SPI Pro anniversary coming up. This is almost like a, in a way, a little celebration podcast to celebrate four years of SPI Pro.

But I wanted to bring on Mandie, Ron, and Anita, three incredible members out of the hundreds inside of SPI Pro, who we wanted to represent in terms of not just telling you about SPI Pro, that’s actually a small part of this conversation today, but rather how to best benefit from being inside of a community, whether it is something like SPI Pro or a different community, right?

Your own benefit from the communities you are involved with is directly proportional to how well you take advantage of your opportunities in those spaces, how you ask for help, how you show up, how you connect all those kinds of things and more.

So today we’re talking with Mandie Kramer. She is an instructional designer and is a micro learning and AI consultant. And she’ll tell you a little bit about what that means, but you could find her at MLX Design.

We also have Ron Desi. Ron is actually quite well known in the world of Fiverr. He’s got over 10,000 positive feedbacks and is a top rated Fiverr creator and seller. He’s a professional spokesperson and it’s just pretty amazing because a lot of different companies hire him for being a spokesperson and he’s got some other things involved that he is talking about and getting help from with his own community members inside of SPI Pro to learn more about what he can do to specialize and show up even more and not rely just on Fiverr for business.

And then we have Anita, who’s helping so much in terms of the world of women empowerment. She has a podcast called Empowering Women in Conversations, and all three are going to show up and provide value to you today. We have a fun conversation around just what it’s like to be in a community and how to maximize your value within it.

And we also learn from each of them as well in their own little special parts of the world and the superpowers that they have. So here they are, Anita, Ron, and Mandie, here we go.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network, a show that’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, when he was a kid, he thought the definition of a professional was someone who just wore a tie to work, Pat Flynn.

Pat Flynn: We have a big group of people in the room right now. We have Mandie, Ron, and Anita from Inside of SPI Pro. What’s up, everybody? Thank you for being here today.

Ron Desi: Hi, Pat.

Mandie Kramer: Hey, good to be here.

Pat Flynn: This will be a lot of fun. And also, it’s definitely a challenge as a host to virtually Direct traffic here in a conversation like this. But I’m so excited because we all are super passionate about our different businesses and what we do and as well as SPI Pro. Mandie, I want to start with you real quick.

Tell us a little bit about your business. You talk about AI, micro learning. What does that mean? And how did you get into that?

Mandie Kramer: Yeah, so I’m an ex teacher, ex middle school teacher turned full time instructional designer. And in that pivot, I was working on online course creation with startups and individuals.

It was super fun. I’ve been in the world of e learning a long time. And what I’ve noticed is AI quickly took over a lot of the things that I ended up doing that I was doing for businesses. So I had to pivot. And so that’s where the micro learning comes in is bite sized pieces of awesome content that can be used in marketing.

So I’m the founder of MLX Design and we basically streamline the gap between prospect to customer with educational marketing strategies. So it’s been a pivot this year and I’m super excited. It’s off to a great start.

Pat Flynn: Nice. I definitely want to dive into that for all the listeners. I’m assuming certain platforms are working better than others these days and kind of how you get people from the micro platforms to a larger course and what’s working in that.

We’ll get into that for sure, but I appreciate that, Mandie.

Anita, tell us about kind of your business and kind of how you got into it.

Anita Sandoval: Oh, yes. I am a licensed professional counselor in Deep South Texas, Rio Grande Valley. And I’m the founder of Positive Awakenings Counseling Center, have been there for over 14 years.

And it’s been an amazing journey. However, I always felt that I could do more because the valley needed more of me and there’s only one of me and I felt like I was burning out and I needed to take care of my mental health. So then what I ended up doing during COVID, I opened up my podcast with the help of Pat and calling it Empowering Women in Conversations.

My niche, my goal was to help women. I noticed here in the Valley with our traditions, between our culture, there was a lot of need for women in empowering them. So then, over the years, I’ve gone ahead and thrived with this podcast, but then I’ve gone into my journey and having masterclasses and online courses here with my business as well.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. Incredible. Definitely want to dive into that as well. There seems to be a theme of like pivoting and especially around COVID kind of certain decisions that were made during that time. Ron, I know you’ve been following SPI for quite a while. I think I had read in your bio from like 2013. So this is like back before courses back even before my books.

How did you first discover SPI and tell me about your journey between then and now. I know that’s a loaded question.

Ron Desi: Sure. The first part of that is I first heard about you and gosh, I can’t remember the name of the podcast. You actually joined their group. That’s how you got your start. I think it was. Oh, Internet Business Mastery.

Yes. Internet business mastery. Thank you. So I was listening to them and I think they mentioned you or something like that. And then I was just kind of on a podcast journey, so to speak. And so I discovered you and then I met you, I think in Philadelphia when you had that meet and greet. And then. I decided to join SPI Academy when it first came out. I wasn’t that active, so I quit. Tried it again and quit, and then I’m sure we’ll get into this, but then I decided to go all in and do SPI Pro. And I’ve been doing that now for six months or so. So it’s, it’s been great. So I, for the past 10 years, I’ve been selling on Fiverr.Com. I’m primarily a video spokesperson. So video is hot these days.

I’m the face of a few YouTube channels for some companies and businesses. So basically if a company gives me a script, I’ll go ahead and present the script on camera. And this is actually one studio that you see right here. And it could be anything from, like I said, YouTube channel ads for Facebook or YouTube.

And in fact, just yesterday, Pat, I got Fiverr’s version of their Gold play button, which is this little award right here for selling over a million dollars in order. So that was pretty cool. Very proud of that. So, yeah, so that’s been fun. And now with the help of SPI Pro I’m pivoting to something brand new that I’m sure we can, we can talk about later.

Pat Flynn: I definitely want to dive into all of that and for all of you kind of where the next couple years are headed for for each of you and kind of how SPI Pro can be a part of that. But since I’m on with you, Ron will continue. I want to chat a little bit about the community. You said that you’ve joined a couple times and then quit.

What about SPI Pro, was it that made you stick? I see that you’re super active in there. I mean, you have over 100 comments just in the last six months and you’re very active. Tell me about SPI Pro, what that has done for you different than kind of just the more consumable stuff that you could find in the in the All Access Pass.

Ron Desi: Basically, what I liked about SPI Pro specifically was the access to all of the Experts in Residence, I think that you, you call them whether it’s on the webinars or what have you, the other thing I’ve noticed is that the people in SPI Pro, and I’m sure the academy as well, but the people there, it’s a give, give, give, give, take community versus not that Academy, it’s the same thing, but there seems to be a very special group of people.

I don’t know how many people are in SPI Pro, but it is that give, give, give, give, give, and then ask when you need help type of thing. And everyone I’ve encountered had personal conversations with, and that’s one thing I definitely encourage people to do. If you join SPI Pro, just find people who you connect with and just have a conversation with them.

Like we’re doing now over zoom or what have you. And. I’ve noticed that people will come to me and ask questions about Fiverr and I’m willing to help. And at the end of every question or at the end of every session, after I’ve been helping them, everyone says the same thing. Thanks for that, but how can I help you now?

And it’s this reciprocosity, if that’s a word, of everyone helping each other, which has been awesome. That’s really what I love.

Pat Flynn: Yeah. And we see that all the time. It’s so incredible as sort of the creator of the, community, just kind of sit back and see all this stuff kind of happen organically. It didn’t happen right away.

We were very active in the beginning and we’re still active, but when you get the right people in the right room, magic happens.

Anita, you are bringing your women together in your community and empowering them. Do you have any tips for both men and women who are coming into a community of any kind on how to best utilize their time in there?

Because a lot of people do join and they kind of lurk and they’re not necessarily as active. Although they might be introverts, I mean, it’s definitely important to in some way, shape or form get involved. And so what tips might you have for somebody who is going into a community to kind of get over that fear of like meeting new people in especially a virtual space?

Anita Sandoval: Speaking as a female, and again, I can’t speak. For the male gender, but I know for women, something that I speak about is that we have a lot of anxiety or a lot of fears of perfectionism. And we have to hit certain standards. And so when I came in, I came in with the mindset, it’s okay to fail. It’s okay to make mistakes.

It’s okay to not. fit in with a certain person. And I’ve actually joined other communities where I, with females, and I believed, Oh my gosh, she’s too perfect. And, and what I loved about all access pass was that with you, Pat, you were able to make mistakes and you were okay, nonchalant with it. Normalizing the mistakes helped me as a female get that perfectionism out of the way. And then the difference between All Access Pass an SPI Pro I noticed is there’s this saying that says, if you’re the smartest in the room, you’re in the wrong room. And one of the things that I recommended for females, and this is something that I did within myself, you know, what you paid for this, you got to get, you know, to learn more.

You don’t want to be the smartest in the room. And so with SPI pro, I noticed there was a lot of executives and residents helping you, but I would attend at least two to three every single week. And if I didn’t like it, that’s okay. I got out. And if I did like it, then I would stay and I would learn. And I would always tell myself, what was the one thing I learned from this meeting?

And that’s how I noticed myself growing and changing and understanding the vocabulary, understanding, normalizing the, making the mistakes. So one of the tips that I do recommend is normalizing those failures as learning experiences. So I came in with that thought in mind. What am I learning here? And I noticed with SPI Pro because I’m not the smartest in the room, which was okay.

Cause I want to not be the smartest in the room. What am I willing to learn? What am I going to learn? What do I want to learn?

Pat Flynn: That’s amazing advice. And I think that’s definitely just a human trait, even to come into something and compare yourself to others. And I think it’s important if you have a community of any kind to normalize that failure and in fact, welcome it and invite that.

And when you do that, and if you again, bring the right people in the room, everybody wants to help each other in that space. Nobody wants to see anybody fail. And that’s the beauty of this. And so people will step up. People who’ve had experiences or who have gone through similar struggles will step up and talk about their story.

And we’re seeing that and they can help each other along the way. I mean, it’s just when you bring the right people in the room, like I said, magic happens for sure. Mandie, I’m curious as a person who specializes in things like curriculum and design and learning, what are the mistakes that some people make when they come into a community?

Because a community like SPI Pro isn’t necessarily built on curriculum. I mean, that’s mostly what All Access Pass is like, right? And we’ve hired amazing people like Ashley to help us design the courses in a way that helps people through that material in the best format possible. However, any community that’s not about necessarily the content or the courses that are in it, but rather the people, how can a person go into a community and in a way kind of design their experience to get the most benefit from it?

I know that you’ve gone in here and want to learn something. You want to progress in your business. How do you go into a community like this and actually do that? Cause it can be easy to just go in there and just start chatting and kind of get lost in the, you know, in the different parts of it. So how does one intentionally go in with growth in mind?

Mandie Kramer: What I would recommend newcomers into a community is to begin with the end in mind. So thinking about what are your end business goals. For your community it’s a business community, but if you’re going into community for whatever topic, think about what you want to gain from that experience from from these people, because that will help you put a lens through all of the amazing opportunities that are in front of you. Like SPI Pro, there’s, you know, you have access to the All Access Pass and the courses. You have multiple events going on a week. You have opportunities to network. You have so many different things in front of you, and it can be overwhelming.

It can feel like FOMO if you’re not diving into every single opportunity. So what I would encourage is take some time to reflect for yourself and think about what are your end goals and what do you need to achieve those goals and then take a look at the resources, the network, the community, and pick and choose and ask yourself, will this, event help me go one step closer to the goal that I’m trying to reach.

And if it doesn’t, you have to, it’s a more healthy approach to just say no. And to pick the events and the networking and the resources that are going to help you move the needle in the end, because time is a very valuable resource and you really want to look, you want to be using your time very wisely.

I am a mom of a new, new baby. And this is my second one. And. Along with building my own business, being a mom, you know, taking care of everything around the house, three different animals, like it just piles up. And so one of the things that I have really liked about SPI Pro is being able to know that those opportunities will always be there.

And I can just make the choices that are right for me at this moment in time. And so far, it’s been really pivotal in my business growth.

Pat Flynn: I appreciate you saying that. That’s a big and very common thought that a lot of new members have, which is I have to download everything. I have to get involved in all the things.

And that’s a recipe for, like you said, a lack of time to actually take action on things. I think coming into a community with a goal in mind and then going, okay, how does this event, how does this mastermind, how does this How does this conversation actually help me toward that goal or not? Not that everything has to be super clear and direct A to Z, but I think it’s important to have that filter on, or else you start to feel a lot of anxiety, or almost feel like it’s not even worth it.

Even though you are getting value from it, because you’re using 10 percent of all that’s available, it feels like you’re not getting all that you could. Rather, you’ve pinpointed and opted into the 10 percent of the stuff that can actually help you get to where you want to go, which is, which is really key enough about SPI pro specifically, I think a lot of people who are listening to this know that we have a promotion going on and we have Pro applications.

We’d love to see yours inside of SPI Pro and hopefully accept you into the group because it is for a certain kind of entrepreneur, but we want to tend to this community and make sure it has the right people in it. And of course, All Access Pass is available, too. But I want to dive into each of the super powers that that you each have.

You’ve kind of spoken to them a little bit. And since we were talking already, we’ll go to you and then Anita and then back to Ron. We’re kind of kind of flipping back forth in this way. But you’d mentioned microlearning and AI being involved in that and converting people from the microlearning platforms to a much larger thing like a course or a community.

Tell me a little bit about your strategy for doing that. What is working today for a lot of your clients?

Mandie Kramer: In today’s world, the attention spans are. shorter than they ever have been before. And there is so much being shouted at at people constantly, whether it’s in their inbox on social media, there’s, there’s a lot of noise out there.

So what are some clean and simple ways to separate yourself from the noise and reach those people and impact them in a very efficient way, in an engaging way, while still reaching your business goals of trying to sell maybe an online course or trying to increase your enrollment for your community. And so it is a, in my opinion, a more refreshing approach to marketing because you have little micro learning objectives within each piece of content, and you can diversify that content to reach different types of learners.

So whether they learn through video or by text or by listening, or maybe they like reading or writing, you can do a quiz. A quiz is a micro learning strategy to hook people into what you’re talking about. From there, it helps create this, I want to call it like a gap between where they are and where they want to be.

And so the micro learning can help teach them about where they are in their journey and help them realize what their problems are. And then you can come at the end of that micro learning opportunity and say, here’s the solution I provide for your problem. And it’s a fun way to create content. And AI is used to help alleviate the pressure of coming up with so many different ideas and even create scripts and to help create fun titles and you could teach AI to do so much of the actual content development for you that you can really set aside more time for yourself to be creative and do the things that are very fun and passionate for you and let AI do the content creation part, even the video editing and allow you to be more consistent with your marketing. So one of the huge benefits that my clients have realized is the micro learning strategies that I’ve taught them allows them to be more consistent.

And when they’re more consistent, then they start to be that thought leader in their area. And they start to have an email list that becomes more engaging and are more engaged. And it leads to a lot of confidence for that person too, because they’re not trying to think about, you know, what are they going to post on social media or how are they going to explain what they’re trying to do with their online course. It just simplifies everything and it makes it so it’s Easy and fun and allows them to put in their creative spice into it if you will.

Pat Flynn: Nice I know you talked more about this on your platforms. Do you have a recommended website people go to to learn more about how you teach that?

Mandie Kramer: So mlxdesign.com, it stands for micro learning experience design, so they can check that out if they want to learn more.

Pat Flynn: Awesome. Just want to make sure we send some people to all of your websites and businesses. Anita, tell me a little bit about your master class. I think this is a, trend that we’re seeing, and obviously we’re doing this as well, where you have an audience and you take a group of those people and you put them into some cohort or learning program.

Tell me about how long you’ve been doing that for and what’s been working really well to encourage your students to actually participate and take action and get results in your business.

Anita Sandoval: Since COVID happened, I was suffering with counseling burnout, and I know that I’ve been doing telehealth since before COVID.

Here in the Valley, the online business, it’s really a new thing. So when they will look at me doing this online venture, well, what is she doing? And so once COVID hit, of course, they’re like, Oh, my gosh, can you help me out? But I then since moved and said, Okay, even though online counseling is great, me being burnt out, I decided to help the community.

And in doing the Empowering Women in Conversations podcast, they started reaching out, wanting more. So then it kind of helped because I would give them strategies and techniques, but they wanted more. And so that’s when I started looking into the All Access Pass and looking into the webinars, masterclasses, and how can I help them?

I can’t do everything. I needed to do one thing and people pleasing from the autonomic nervous system within my expertise is what helped. So then I had to figure out what my patients want, and that’s where I came up with the empower her pathways, which helped my patient bridge of where their journey was and having that compassion for them to be okay with wherever they were and, and within the online community that I had with you all, it did help me understand, you know what, it’s okay to do this, because I felt so alone here where I’m at, there’s really no one here doing masterclasses, online courses, psychoeducation. So with the help of the community, I was able to develop the masterclasses and help my patients through that journey of where they were in their stage of change within that journey.

And it just helped facilitate, I would do the office hours online. So I, instead of doing one I could do one with 20, one with 50. And It just helped me with my own mental health to not burn out, but yet feel fulfilled that I was still helping them with my expertise and they were learning in their journey and asking those questions.

And so with the program that I was able to adjust, they would give me that feedback and that’s how I was able to develop those online courses and master class and help keep my mental health efficient to be able to help them. So it was a good symbiotic relationship and collaboration within the community, within the learning experience, within my patients and myself.

Pat Flynn: How are you getting your students who are there in a cohort to connect with each other? That’s been a huge benefit, obviously, for Pro and even the All Access Pass. It’s instead of one to one, it’s one to many, but then the many to each other. What platform are you hosting that on and what are you doing to encourage communication?

Anita Sandoval: So I learned within your community on how important it is to know that you’re not alone.

So the platform I use is Kajabi and it’s good. It’s a little bit of everything, but I’ve learned the experience of how connecting the right type of people together to help them grow. And it has almost the same thing with. The circles, for example, if my patient is in one journey, I group them in that journey.

And then if they’re with the other, so I make sure depending on their journey that they’re at, that they’re talking within each other. So they could know that they’re not alone. And even if somebody else is in another journey, they’re still compassionate where they’re at and not criticizing themselves because they’re not far ahead or they’re too far behind.

And so it’s important to connect the type of people to communicate. And I help facilitate that as well by entering the community and having them talk to one another, help each other out, helping them, whoever is an expert in a certain specific theme that they’ve accomplished, telling their stories with one another, and they’re able to relate with one another, connect learn, grow and change whichever journey that they’re at.

Pat Flynn: Yeah, building a space for people to feel comfortable to share those things, especially the not so good things, but not feel like they’re getting ridiculed for it rather that they know they’re getting help and being seen and being heard is really, really key. And that’s something that we’ve continued to try to hone in on and learn about how to do best.

And as we always promote SPI Pro is like a safe space to talk about your journey in business. And I appreciate you kind of plus wanting that as an example in your community.

Ron, I want to ask you, perhaps even selfishly, a lot of questions about Fiverr because it’s something I don’t know too much about. For me, I’ve had experience hiring people on Fiverr and for a while it was positioned as like the place to get cheap work done, but I also know it’s progressed into something where you can get some really amazing people to help you and get help for your business in different ways.

When did you start on Fiverr and how long did it take until you kind of started to get your wheels going and your voice heard on there?

Ron Desi: I started in 2012, but when I started back then, I, you probably remember this, Pat, fiverr was this crazy platform where you could hire people to do crazy things.

And I, my first gigs, that’s what they call a service on Fiverr was I would review any beer you wanted me to review. It sounds crazy. And I got zero orders from that. Then I just let it go for like a year and a half. So about 2013, I discovered I’m pretty good on camera because I was working in a capacity where I had to film some stuff and post it on YouTube for our education programs.

And I thought I’m pretty good on camera. I’m decent in speaking to an audience. So I thought, let me try my hand at doing some spokesperson work. So me in front of a camera, talking, reading a script and presenting it in whatever capacity training programs, whatever. And that’s when I started. So 2013 was about that time and I quit my full time job in 2015.

And ever since then, I’ve been full time on Fiverr. So you’re talking almost 10 years on Fiverr doing it full time. It’s been a great ride. I’ve, I’ve loved it. I love helping people. I’ve helped a bunch of people on SPI Pro. If they wanted to kind of start a side hustle to get them onto Fiverr and to help them in that way and that capacity.

So it’s been great, but one of the things that I’m challenged with, and I think you’ve said this, or I’ve heard guests on your podcast say that you don’t want to build your business on someone else’s land and 90 percent of my business, my revenue, my livelihood comes from Fiverr. If anything were to change, Fiverr gets bought, something happens and I get kicked off Fiverr or what have you, that goes down to zero really quickly or their algorithm changes and all of a sudden my sales plummet.

So I’ve been wanting to make a pivot, not to completely get off Fiverr, but to do something else to diversify my income. And I’ve been trying to do that for five years. And it wasn’t until I joined SPI Pro that it started moving the needle in the direction I wanted to, because I’m like many entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, there’s so many ideas that I had going on.

I didn’t know where to focus. And then if I did focus on something, I didn’t know what to do next. And so I became part of a mastermind in SPI Pro, and that has been absolutely the best thing I’ve ever done. So they’ve really helped me, you know, the people in SPI Pro as well as this mastermind have helped guide me to a place where now my new business that I’m creating a website on, and actually I have a client of mine who is helping me build this. Basically what I’m doing is to build YouTube videos for law firms. And I even have the domain LawVids.com and eventually you go there. Now, nothing will pop up if you go as of, I guess, June of 2024, but it’s helping, it’s gathering other spokespeople that I know and giving law firms a platform to grow a YouTube channel. So when someone types in, I got bit in a dog park in whatever your city is, boom, the video from YouTube will pop up and then that helps to build lead generation device for these law firms.

So basically that’s where I’ve been and kind of where I’m going now.

Pat Flynn: Wow. I mean, this is definitely a, an example of the riches are in the niches, you know, it’s pronounced niches, but I keep struggling with that because people always correct me, but I’m going to continue to say it. I’m going to continue to say it, but you will be the face of these law firms.

And you know, in these videos that people find because you have this talent, you are able to attract people to some service in the space of law because these lawyers or the people that they have on their team just aren’t as capable or just don’t know how to do that.

Ron Desi: Correct. Exactly. And I’m even niching down further to personal injury attorney.

So it even goes way down. I say niche to my daughter gets on my case. She’s like, it’s niche. I’m like, it’s niche. So, but yeah, so I niched down to there. And so I actually am, I know a lot of other spokespeople. I run a Facebook group where it’s probably some of the best spokespeople you’ve seen on Fiverr and I’m going to be having them as part of my team.

So it’s not just me. They could pick from a slew of other spokespeople, depending on who the target law firm wants to target, who their customer is, and all those kinds of things. So they could choose one spokesperson. It could be me, they can mix and match. And so that’s kind of how it’s going to be going.

And I have one of my clients is a marketing firm who works with law firms to market, and they’re helping me figure this out as well. So it’s been, it’s been great.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. You’d mentioned team, and in your case, it might be a little different because these are other spokespeople who are kind of joining forces with you to provide for these law firms.

But do you have a team that you’re working with to help you in your business or an assistant or anything like that? Can you give us a little bit of insight on that?

Ron Desi: Sure. One of the things I love about what I do is I like to stay small. I have no ambition to grow, grow this into some gigantic agency with multiple you know, having a large team or anything like that.

But the long story short to answer the question is I have no team at the moment. I have a few folks that I work with, a video editor. So if there’s someone, if there’s a video that needs to be more advanced edited than I can deal with. You know, I send that off to that person. I have a few people who do some script writing for me, but those are all freelancers that I tap into every so often.

So my team is just pretty much me.

Pat Flynn: Nice, very nimble with what you can do and when, which is great, but there’s also challenges that come with that, right? There’s a lot of administrative stuff that needs to happen in business as well. How are you handling that? And, you know, is it kind of just, if it comes across my table, I’m going to take care of it, or are you pretty proficient in the more administrative and kind of organizational parts of running a business?

Ron Desi: Right now on Fiverr, one of the things I love about it is they have everything in one, it’s a scheduling system, it’s a, you know, a project management system. So I live and die by going into Fiverr every single day, multiple times a day to work with customers and keep myself on track.

With this new venture, you make a good point, Pat, is that I’m probably going to need to figure out the organization and scheduling and everything else. And I probably will have to hire someone at some point to help keep me on track because if I have different clients, if I’m working with 10 different law firms, and they’re not on Fiverr, I have to figure out, you know, a CRM or a project management system, making sure that there’s customer service. And so there’s all these other moving pieces that I’m working through right now. But I would say Fiverr, I can do it by myself. I’ve been doing it by myself effectively for a long time. But with this new venture, I’m probably going to have to expand that team a little bit.

Pat Flynn: I would definitely advise, or at least start thinking about that for sure, because you want to continue to do the things that you’re great at. We don’t want you to you know, no longer be on camera because they’re just managing people all the time either. So there’s a balance and there’s, you know, obviously a lot of people in pro who have gone into building a team.

And I’m curious, Anita, do you have a team that you’ve built and who might be involved? And what has that experience been like? Or is it just still you?

Anita Sandoval: Well, I did have a virtual assistant in Fiverr as well, freelance. It’s really good for the small stuff. And then I had a virtual assistant, but then as I was growing, I needed to hire somebody else.

So I’m actually scheduled someone for next week to interview. So, so yeah, it’s depending where your journey is at, you’re going to have to shift and pivot and change the workers, the team, but definitely a virtual assistant to help me with the techie stuff. I’m really good at speaking and mental health and psychoeducation and teaching.

But not so good with the technological part. So it’s humbling myself to know what can I, and can I not do, and delegating those that I cannot do so that it could free my time to do what I do enjoy doing.

Pat Flynn: What did you have your virtual assistant do?

Anita Sandoval: She would be the ones doing the social media, the podcast.

She would be the one doing the copywriting. Any workbooks, electronic, and then of course the CRM and the videos that go into the masterclass or the online course. So she would do the back end of the Kajabi because I had no idea on how to do that. Yeah, that’s basically it.

Pat Flynn: And you said you found her on Fiverr.

Anita Sandoval: I found someone that was the other person. Yes. Yes. The one I found her. Oh my gosh. You don’t want, I found her through SPI pro through another person that I met and I collaborated with on a podcast. She uses that one. So I’ve met a lot of people in SPI pro that we’ve helped each other out. And to add, I just wanted to add this in one of my bucket list is to be on a TED talk, TEDx talk, and I joined one of the meetings with Nashim and she helped me on how to do the steps and I applied and then we met again at another meeting that she was doing and I got chosen as a finalist.

Ron Desi: Let’s go! Nice! That’s awesome!

Anita Sandoval: I would not have done it without SPI Pro. Not that I want to be like, oh my gosh, you know? And then I’ve met other counselors who have been on TED Talk. So I’m collaborating with them with the presentation that I need to do, that I need to submit and they’re giving me feedback on it.

So I feel like I have the one up to be selected on this Ted Talk coming up. So just wanted to share with you.

Pat Flynn: Good luck. I’m looking forward to seeing the sort of winning post when you talk about when you’ve gotten selected and, and even if you don’t, you know, you’re still learning and you can kind of apply again, but I love that example of how connections inside of SPI Pro can help. And I think a part of the reason why that worked for you so well is because you had this clear goal, just like Mandie was saying earlier, go into a goal and then you know who to talk to and what to get involved with. And that’s amazing. So good luck on that. I look forward to hearing how that goes.

Mandie, tell me about the structure of your business, are you working with a, with a team and what does that experience been like?

Mandie Kramer: Yeah, it’s just me right now. It has always been me. My next goal is to hire a dual nanny and also some kind of assistant. That would be my first hire. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I’ve been able to.

Grow my business and also sustain like a healthy work life balance, and that has been one of my focus points as I continue to grow is to make sure that I’m not 100 percent always online and that I can break away and take care of the kids when I need to, but the business is like my passion and I really, really have fun with it.

So I don’t think of it as work. I think of it as, you know, a way for me to, to have fun. And even though my husband doesn’t quite understand that, but I definitely would like to hire and grow. I want to eventually be at a point where the creation of the social media and the, like, I can teach my micro learning method to my staff and then they could create the social media content around that for my clients. That’s my next bigger vision to be able to work with larger clients and be able to have more than a few clients a month that are are paying for that. But until then, it’s just me, and I’ve got kind of three different, we talked about diversifying incomes.

So I was a founding member in the All Access Pass, and then this past year I joined SPI Pro, and so I’ve been around for, I think it would be what, two years now, or one, one and a half years, and So while I was in the All Access Pass, I learned a lot about the individuals creating online courses and my network grew and people kind of saw me as an expert in that.

And that was really a confidence booster. I was working with companies and designing courses with them. I wasn’t too knowledgeable and what the experiences of online course entrepreneurs were until joining this community and realizing that I could help them. And that was really fun and exciting. So one of the aspects of my business is private coaching for those who are really struggling with trying to create their first online course, because I noticed that they just really need a lot of handholding and that support and they get through their struggles a lot faster with that. And then I have the higher end offer for larger companies for their social media, micro learning, educational marketing package. And then I want to start actually something in between, which is more of like a mastermind. I’m taking a lot that I’ve learned from you, Pat, in creating smaller communities and masterminds and helping teach my method to smaller groups of people that can apply and they, they get, it’s almost like a membership type of deal where they get templates and Chat GPT prompts and all of those things they need to succeed.

It’s, it’s, it’s. So I have different levels, it’s kind of like done with you and then a done for you. And just having a variety of those different things allows me to not get overwhelmed with needing a team right this minute. It helps me bring in the projects that I know I have the time for. And then when I get to that point, then I can feel confident in making that first or next hire.

So yeah, I hope that answers your question.

Pat Flynn: No, it does. And to finish off between all three of you, I want to ask, and you had alluded to this, but I’m curious about the timeline more. What is the future hold for you in your business? What are some bigger goals that you have? I mean, you know, you already talked about the TED talk and you know, I want to go even beyond that for you as well.

But Mandie, let’s start with you. What’s the timeline on the coaching that you want to do? Those kinds of things. And kind of what’s ahead for you in the business? I know that. Balancing everything from mom life to the business is hard, and it can feel slow at the start, but obviously you got your priorities right, and I love that you’re focusing and making sure that you have extra time to do what it is that you need to do for the business to make sure that you’re still showing up as mom, and I want to commend you for that.

It’s very difficult. But where are you headed in the next two years? What If we could fast forward two years from now, what do you have going on in your life and business? Kids are a little bit older, obviously, running around the house. Yes, of course. But what about business wise?

Mandie Kramer: Yeah, I would love to be in a place where I’m working with businesses that have a team maybe of three to three to five people and really diving into their learning and development within the team and helping them from the inside out.

So not just focusing only on using microlearning for marketing, but how can microlearning be used to train employees to help onboard new customers? So microlearning can be applied in so many different contexts. So I’d love to be at that level where I am seen as like the consultant to hire for those companies that can come in, help set the standards, help develop the structure for a really impactful learning environment, and then be able to duplicate that with company after company.

So that’s what I would love to see and work with larger companies. But for now, I absolutely love working with individuals. And some smaller startups at this point now, it’s a stepping stone.

Pat Flynn: What would be a example of like a dream company to work with?

Mandie Kramer: Can I say SPI?

Pat Flynn: Yes, you can. Okay.

Mandie Kramer: Yeah, I’m working with some companies that kind of go deep down to my roots of the sustainable development goals.

And I would love to work with companies that are looking for a larger global impact that not just trying to make money to grow as a business, but also making an impact for people in the planet. So if I were to pick a niche down, I would choose that direction for sure.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

We’re going to conjure that from our conversation today and come back to this in a couple of years. Anita, tell me about the next two years of your life. You got the TED talk. What’s beyond that?

Anita Sandoval: I have big dreams. So ideally my end goal, and that’s okay because I have my vision board there is, you know, be successful enough to have my husband retire and my children, except three girls, girl, mom, there’s a reason and be that empowered woman by doing something different, getting an RV, traveling and you know, taking the girls with me, they’re homeschooled. So that way we can be able to record and I can still do my courses, do TEDx, different places, do seven marathons in seven days, do some hiking. So it just really explore the world and, you know, make videos about it with my girls, teach them what the history books have.

And traveling while doing my empower her pathways and being that example for other women that it’s okay and have my husband support us women because he’s a girl dad in in doing so.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. I see the RV. I see your brand on the side of it. You’re on tour around country meeting these women and, you know, introducing your daughters into this world.

Just being that incredible example as a mom and a business leader. So, you know, I love that vision. Thank you for sharing that, Anita.

Ron, tell me about your vision next couple of years. What are the big dreams that you have? Big goals that you’re going to achieve here?

Ron Desi: Basically, and I don’t want to sound like an advertiser for SPI Pro, but this is the first time that I could probably Answer that question, because before joining, I probably would’ve said, I’ll just keep going on Fiverr and figure something out.

But now what I really want to do is continue this LawVids.com and get enough clients so that it’s really just kind of on self piloting, so to speak. And I want to get to a certain revenue goal where I’m comfortable, life is good, but at the same time, it allows me to do other things. And one of the things I want to do that I’ve really, by tapping into SPI pro, what really is, what I’ve discovered is I love helping people with getting started on Fiverr and freelancing in general. And so I think maybe in the next few years, I’d love to have a podcast or slash YouTube channel even came up with a name for it. Thanks to my mastermind Freelancing to Freedom and trying to really help people.

People who are either in a job they don’t like, or what have you, or just want to make a few dollars. And I’m thinking if someone can get on Fiverr or some other freelancing platform and just make 500 to 1,000 a month for many people, that’s life changing. And that’s kind of what I really want to help to do.

So it’s right now, I need the, the income coming in from Fiverr and then diversifying that income. So that’s my mastermind was like focus on that now, and then Freelancing to Freedom, you know, have that a year, maybe a year and a half out, start doing that once these other things are built up. So that’s kind of my goal and what I’d like to do.

Pat Flynn: I love that, Ron. How much are you charging for a video? Let’s say a law firm contacts you right now and says, Hey, can you read the script for us to help us generate leads? How much are you charging for that today?

Ron Desi: Working with the marketing agency, they said the best thing to do is to do by a subscription.

So they were saying 10 videos a month, which includes, you know, upload to YouTube and optimization and all of that kind of stuff, it would be 5,500 per month, and then there’s the packages of 10, 20, and 30 videos a month, the. Law firm I’m working with now does about 30 videos a month. They’re pumping out a lot of content.

So it’s, it would be 5,500 a month for 10 and then I have to kind of scale up from there. I’m trying to figure out now my, the, the, the pricing and the expenses and all of those kinds of things. But according to the people I’m working with that they said that 5,500 for a personal injury law firm to get 10 videos should be easy to do.

So I thought, okay.

Pat Flynn: Nice. How much are you charging two years from now?

Ron Desi: That’s a good question. Haven’t thought that far ahead, but I would assume that if the demand is there, it might go a little higher. Cause one of the things I, I think I just listened to one of your podcasts. I can’t remember who the guest was, but said, always start high.

You could always drop, but always start high. And then I noticed that he said that he kept going up in price as he got more customers. So that’s probably what will happen.

Pat Flynn: I mean, I could see this easily being a thousand dollars for, for a Per video, if not more, you know, so 10 K 20 K and you coming in with the specificity in mind.

Every time you niche down, you could charge up if you find the right clients. That’s a good point. I just wanted to kind of highlight that here because we’re going to get to that level in the future, and we’ll probably have to do a reunion between the three of us a couple of years from now to see how things go.

And maybe that’ll be a nice way to hold you all accountable to everything you just said. So Anita, Mandie, Ron, thank you all of you for coming on today and sharing. We’ll go round robin super quick. Where can people go to find more about you and what you have going on? Some of you share that already, but we’ll share it again.

Ron, let’s start with you.

Ron Desi: Sure. To find me on Fiverr, it’s website video. This put that in the search box. The easiest way to contact me, if you wanted to ask me questions about Fiverr is on Twitter, x just at @RonDesi. LawVids.com as of June, 2024 it’s there’s nothing there, but hopefully that’ll change in the next month or two.

Thanks, Pat. Appreciate it.

Pat Flynn: Nice. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Anita.

Anita Sandoval: Yes. You can find me at my AnitaSandoval.com, or you can feel free to email me. The contact info is there. You can also listen to the podcast at Empowering Women in Conversations. Feel free to email me. All my contact is there as well.

Pat Flynn: Thank you, Anite. I appreciate that.

And last but not least, Mandie.

Mandie Kramer: Yes, you can visit my website. It’s MLMLXDesign.com. Andf you do slash SPI, I do have a short 15 minute training for microlearning with an AI guide attached to that so that you can check that out. And I’m also collecting names for the waitlist of my mastermind.

So if any of the microlearning stuff resonated visit my website and, and check it out. I’d be happy to meet up with you also on LinkedIn. You could just search Mandie Kramer and I’ll pop up.

Pat Flynn: Amazing. Thank you, Mandie. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Anita. Appreciate y’all and I’ll see you inside of Pro.

Mandie Kramer: Thank you so much.

Ron Desi: Thanks Pat.

Anita Sandoval: Thank you for having us.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoy that conversation and round table with Mandie and Anita and Ron. Thank you all so much. If you want all the links to all the things we mentioned today and each of their properties and the things that they have going on from Mandie at MLXDesign.com to Ron over on Fiverr, you can find them out Ron Desi, or at @WebsiteVideo. And of course, Anita, who you can find on her podcast, Empowering Women in Conversations or AnitaSandoval.com and appreciate all three of you and everybody who has joined SPI pro you mean so much to us over at SPI and we are here to help you.

And you are here to help each other. And that’s the coolest thing about building a community of like minded people. And if it is something that sounds like it is of interest to you, we would love to see your application over at SPIPro.com. We’re always welcoming new members who are a right fit for the community.

And if you just aren’t quite ready for our community yet, because you’re not quite at that level, it is. For those who have established businesses, you don’t have to be making millions of dollars, but you know, some recurring or at least stable revenue coming through, but you need growth, you need scale, you need those higher level conversations a business owner needs at that stage. Then SPI Pro may be the right fit for you. Just head over to SPIPro.com and you can apply there. And of course, we’re always welcoming new people into our All Access Pass, which gives you access to all of our courses, a dozen plus, plus the community of people who are going through those courses together to learn more about those specifics and get some results.

So those two things work hand in hand. And yes, SPI Pro members do get access to the All Access Pass and all of our courses and the accelerators that happen there too. So SPIPro.com or just go to SmartPassiveIncome.com/community to see more about both. And again, thank you so much and happy anniversary to SPI Pro and all of its members and a big shout out to the team at team SPI who works tirelessly to make sure that the space is a safe space for entrepreneurs to come in to collaborate, to connect, to mastermind and to learn. And that’s why we’re here to help you reach your goals. All right. Take care. Thanks so much. And I’ll see you in the next one.

Thank you so much for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at SmartPassiveIncome.com. I’m your host, Pat Flynn. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. Our senior producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. The Smart Passive Income Podcast is a production of SPI Media, and a proud member of the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Catch you next week!