SPI 425: How to Host a Lower-Priced Workshop That Leads to a Higher-Priced Product, with Rick Mulready

SPI 425 – How to Host a Lower-Priced Workshop to Lead to a Higher-Priced Product, with Rick Mulready

Pat Flynn:
I want you to imagine that you have a product, a very valuable premium product that you sell to your audience. Maybe you’ve sold this already, maybe you haven’t, but oftentimes it could be very difficult to convince a person that even though this is a great solution for them, the higher price point can often dissuade them from making that purchase.

Pat:
Now, there’s a lot of marketing tactics that we can use, some that are really good and very honest and authentic, others that maybe aren’t quite so great and we’re going to not talk about those. But one of the honest ones involves somebody who had recently done this himself and has seen massive success with it. So, I invited him on the show today to talk about exactly what this strategy is and how we can all use something similar to create a lower priced item to then lead people into a higher priced and premium product.

Pat:
And again, whether you have a premium product or not, this is something to definitely think about. And when I say lower priced product. I’m not talking about a “tripwire.” A tripwire is often a word that’s thrown around in the internet marketing industry as a very low-tier, low like a tripwire that you’re not even supposed to see like a $7 or a $19 product. We’re not talking about that.

Pat:
We’re talking about a solid product with a solid price with the value there and I’ll share with you what this is on the other end of the intro here in just a minute. But this then leads into the bigger one and everybody is happy. And we’re going to talk about specifics. We’re going to talk about numbers. We’re going to talk about the step by step and all things with our special guest today, Rick Mulready, from The Art of Online Business and RickMulready.com.

Pat:
Great friend of mine; love the guy. I love his information just as much so you will too, I promise. So, make sure you stick around. Here’s the intro.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income Podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he helped a company go from a half million to $20 million a year, but he’s still scared of spiders, Pat Flynn.

Pat:
What’s up, everybody. Pat Flynn here and welcome to Session 425 of the Smart Passive Income podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. We’re talking about workshops, conducting live online workshops. Selling them, not just giving them away for free like a webinar but actually selling these and what are they going to be about?

Pat:
How do we structure them? How do we promote them the larger thing within them? Do we do that? When might it make sense to do that and when might it not make sense to do that? All that and more today with our special guest, Rick Mulready. So, you’re going to hear his story. You’re going to hear how it all happened; and Rick has been on the show before so we’re not going to go deep into his origin story here, but we do pick up from where we last left off, which is a new name for his podcast, why he made that brand change and then we’d pick it up from there.

Pat:
So, here he is. Rick Mulready from The Art of Online Business Podcast.

Pat:
What’s up, Rick? Welcome back to the SPI Podcast, thanks for being here, man.

Rick Mulready:
I am honored to be back on your show, man.

Pat:
I think the last time you were on, you had a different name for like your podcast. You’ve done some brand changes. Everything is looking amazing now. What’s the name of your show? Where can people go find you really quick?

Rick:
Yeah. It’s the Art of Online Business.

Pat:
Easy-peasy. Not just paid traffic anymore.

Rick:
Correct, yes. It used to be The Art of Paid Traffic. That’s what a lot of people know the show for, but I, as you said, rebranded it and just it’s very intentional to kind of like step back and be able to talk about all things online business which is really what I was doing anyway on the show. And people loved it. And that was really the direction I wanted to go to be able to talk obviously about ads and all that stuff in addition to everything else.

Rick:
And so, we rebranded, I think it was in the fall of 2019, and it’s going really well. And we’re undergoing a new website design literally as we speak too.

Pat:
That’s cool. And I love that. That’s a classic example of what I teach often which is the riches are in the niches and you can start niche just like you did with paid traffic specifically. And if you want to, if there are signs, you can expand out. Or you can just go even deeper with who you are already [crosstalk 00:04:03] and I know you. You want to serve as many people as possible across all different spheres, and you’re doing that.

Pat:
You’re even getting into helping teachers now, which is really interesting. Can you talk about sort of what this opportunity is? Where did it come from? I think it would be really cool to share how you’re sort of diving into that space to kind of relay that. We all, no matter what level we’re at, we have to go back to the beginning sometimes. Tell us what you’re up to.

Rick:
Yeah. I mean, completely going back to the beginning that’s really exciting for me because I haven’t done this in a long time, meaning start something from complete scratch. And so, this is going to sound really funny but I’ve been told I’ve become kind of big in the teaching space.

Pat:
What do you mean?

Rick:
Well, it’s like that’s a funny thing like I’m big in Germany. Like when bands say I’m big in some obscure like some other country. I’ve heard from a lot of teachers like, “Yeah, you’re really big in the teaching space.” And how that came about was I’ve had teachers who sell the resources on Teachers Pay Teachers in my programs, whether it’s my ads course or whether it’s in my accelerator coaching and mastermind where I help them grow their business. And it just sort of started to snowball and I started helping more and more teachers.

Rick:
And I just love the teaching space because my younger sister is a teacher. She teaches Spanish to middle school or is it middle school, junior high? Sixth, seventh and eighth grade, what is that?

Pat:
That’s middle school.

Rick:
Middle school, okay. She’s been teaching for like 23 years. And so, that I have a special place in my heart there. My older sister has homeschooled my two nephews. And so, this has just been really special to me. I love being able to help teachers in any way that I can.

Rick:
And so, I started to see what they go through, what their mindset is, what they need help with and all these other stuff. And I just started talking to more and more teachers and everyone kept asking me, can you create an ads course specifically for people selling on Teachers Pay Teachers?

Rick:
And I was like, “Yeah, it’s pretty easy to do.” And so, teachers reach out to me to ask me to keynote their conference this summer in July. And so, I’m really excited about it. So, as we’re recording this in early first of April of here, I’m literally in the step one basic … Well, step two of beginning to build my audience because I’m going to launch the course in May.

Rick:
So, now I’m in the sort of that pre-launch phase where I’m building my audience. I’m putting together a lead magnet for them. And since this is outside of my specific niche, I’m talking to Teachers Pay Teachers sellers right now learning what their big challenges are, learning what would be most helpful to them both in a course and also in what some information that they would recommend to other TPT sellers that I could share in like a lead magnet, for example.

Pat:
That’s cool. How are you reaching out to them? How are you finding these connections to then have conversations with?

Rick:
Yeah. So I am starting with the people that I know who either are my students right now or had been my students. I’m reaching out to them letting them what I’m doing. And they’re giving me their responses to my questions. So, basically, I’m asking like, the idea I had for a lead magnet was, and this is a big mistake that people make. I know that you talk about this a lot, Pat, is like it’s not just one lead magnet. You have to test different ones to find out what’s going to resonate the most to attract your audience.

Rick:
And so, what I’m starting with is like I’m putting together a quick resource. I want to give them a quick win that they can consume and go do right away. And so, I’m putting together five, six, seven … I haven’t figured out which one … expert tips on how to sell more resources on Teachers Pay Teachers. And I’m asking like one tip from each of these people.

Rick:
So, I’m starting with my students, then getting their answers, then I’m saying, “Hey, who would you recommend that I talk to?” I mean, just about an hour ago, I literally reached out cold to two people that I was referred to and to see if they’d be willing to be included in this.

Rick:
So, I’m building up these answers here. I’m just starting to get … And I’ve credibility from the perspective of I’m letting them know, “Hey, I’m going to be keynoting the TPT conference this summer. If you’re going to be there, I’d love to say hello in person,” sort of thing.

Pat:
That’s cool. So what are you looking for? When you’re having these conversations, what is your ultimate goal here, and how are you processing all that info?

Rick:
I want to know because I’m an outsider, if you will. And what I mean by that is that the TPT world… it’s very different than any other niche that I’ve come across. In that, the teachers think that if you’re not a teacher, or if you’ve not been a teacher, or if you haven’t been doing this a while, then you don’t get it.

Rick:
And so, I need to learn that. I need to know that. And so, that I can talk about that. I can be up front with that and say, “Look, I’m not a teacher in the classroom sense,” but relate to them why and how I’m able to help them, share my story, that sort of thing.

Rick:
And so, I need to learn what the mindsets are from people in the niche so I can address them in my messaging, in my course, in my lead magnet. I need to know what their mindset is, what their biggest challenges are so that I can address those things both, again, in the lead magnet I’m putting together and also in my course.

Rick:
Like I already have the entire course mapped out in my head just based on what I’m going to teach in the actual course and then also bonuses that I can put together because I know some of the things that they’re struggling with now just based on these conversations.

Pat:
That’s really cool. I can’t wait to see what happens out of that because, I mean, I want to do everything I can to help teachers as well. They deserve it. They are owed so much more. So, if you can step up and help these teachers make additional income, and you’ve done already with a few of your students. I mean if you could scale that and do it on stage, do it in a course. I mean, that’s huge, man. That’s really awesome. Congrats.

Rick:
Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks. And I know that you and I talked about this and just it’s so cool. Like you just said, it’s so gratifying to be able to help teachers because … I mean, I have a lot of teachers that I help who are still in the classroom like they’re teaching full time. Then they’re doing this thing on the side. They have families and it’s like … I mean, it’s similar to when we talk about with people with a day job and then they’re building their side hustle after the kids go to bed or whatever.

Rick:
I don’t know if you know this or not, but what I … Probably three months or so back in 2005, I substitute taught.

Pat:
I did not know that.

Rick:
I remember cutting home, dude, and I was like I have never been more tired. I was so exhausted. I was like, I don’t know how teachers do this. And I called up my sister, I was like, “I don’t know how you do this,” and she just laughed at me. She’s like, “Welcome to my world.”

Pat:
I mean, teachers are special. They deserve so much more, and we’re home-schooling right now because of this virus thing, and it’s a challenge to even take care of two kids, let alone you have 20 or more in a classroom. So, great that you’re helping out. I’m excited to hear more about them and where can people go to potentially learn more? Maybe they are teachers, they know teachers, if they want to check you out.

Rick:
That would be my website RickMulready.com. I’m going to have information on there. I’m going to have this lead magnet that a whole bunch of emails coming to share information and help and everything like that once people get on the lead magnet there. So, yeah, RickMulready.com.

Pat:
Cool, awesome. Thank you. I wanted to get into something that I recently heard that you started talking about a lot and that’s working really well for both you and your clients who you’re sharing this with, so thank you for coming on to share it with us today. And that’s the idea of how we can sell more of our product using sort of a lower level, lower-tier product to sort of build relationships, get people excited versus like what a lot of people are doing and what I’m doing as well are these free trainings, free webinars, free video series leading up to a launch.

Pat:
However, you’re coming in with a strategy that it’s a little bit different. Can you give us some insight on what it is that you’re doing and then I want to sort of lay out the steps to hopefully have everybody listening to this achieve similar results.

Rick:
Totally, yes. So, just to kind of give a quick background. So I’ve done webinars. I’ve done video series. I’ve done what I called the Live Stream Launch formula which is basically kind of combining webinars with a traditional video series.

Rick:
Now, the traditional kind of video series where you script it out. It’s a four-part series and you’re in front of a camera and all that stuff. I did that in like year two of my business and I wanted to stick a fork in my eye. I hated it. It was like, you know what? It worked truly well for the launch, but I was like, I was miserable. I won’t do it again.

Rick:
And so, a couple of years ago, I was looking for something new and what I decided to do was do this kind of a video series format, if you will, combined with webinars. So I would do actually a live training for the video series. So, a live training number one, live training number two, build a Facebook group community, all that stuff. That worked really, really well and I had a really good time.

Rick:
And then last year in 2019, I did a lot of evergreen. And the evergreen, it worked okay, and I just based from a resource perspective, and I just didn’t put a ton of time and effort into it to be honest with you, and I wasn’t super psyched about it. So, coming into 2020, I was looking for sort of another way to offer my Foundations‘ Facebook and Instagram Ads course which is for beginners.

Rick:
And this is not a new format, like it’s been around for a long time. I’d just never done it myself and I had no idea how well it was going to do. So, what I decided to do is do a paid workshop. And what I decided to kind of pick a topic, just pick one topic regarding ads that I could do a deep dive in. And I decided to do targeting because that’s sort of the biggest question that people ask.

Rick:
And so, essentially, I took one topic out of my course and then was going to do a deep dive training on this one topic. And I charged for the workshop because it was going to be about a two-hour workshop. It ended up being three hours long because it was like an hour of Q&A. I told people, I was like, “Hey, I’ll stay on to answer your questions.” And we did. I stayed on about three hours.

Rick:
And I did it on, I’m looking at my calendar. I did it on a Tuesday. And so, I sold the workshop for $97, and then I told them that the deadline for that price was, I forget, a week and a half or so before the workshop. And then I increased the price to $147. So I was like, “If you get in by this time, it’s this price. After that, it’s $147.”

Rick:
And there’ll be a recording. Everybody asked for, “If I missed it, will there be a recording?” “Yeah, for sure. You’re buying the workshop, you’ll get it.” And so, what I wanted to do was, a) deliver a ton of value on this one topic. And I was charging for it because it was going to be such a deep dive and I just want to do a really, really thorough training, but it was also a way to get people into my Foundations course.

Rick:
And so, I sold the course at the end of the workshop and then after in a followup email sequence. So, I followed the exact same format as my webinar but the webinar was the actual workshop. And I tell people that right up front, like literally slide number two, I said, “Hey, this is not a webinar. This is a workshop, a training workshop.”

Rick:
And so, everyone expects now that there’s going to be an offer at the webinar. Slide number three, I tell them, I say, “Hey, I will be letting you know how you can enroll into my Foundations course,” and I offered a $97 coupon. So, basically, the price they paid for the workshop, they could apply that towards the price of the course.

Rick:
I give them that link right there and say, “Here’s the link if you want to go enroll in a course. Here is the coupon code, put it in there. I’m going to get jump right in the training right now. I’ll come back to this at the end of the training but here it is.” I’m very up front with them about it.

Rick:
And then I dive into the training. And it was literally two hours’ worth of training and I remember looking down at the … So, number one, and you know this, Pat, is that the show-up rate was huge [crosstalk 00:16:45] because people are paying for it.

Pat:
What was the show up rate?

Rick:
For that one, I want to say it was like 60 percent. It was really good.

Pat:
I mean, on average, we’re getting for free webinars 20 percent, maybe 25 percent although I did a recent one and I think it was because of this virus thing, we saw a 45 percent but that was still on the free end. And to see [crosstalk 00:17:04] 60 percent and 70 percent is unreal.

Rick:
Yeah, and I just did it and I’ll follow up with this one again and the one I did last week here is that the show up rate was awesome. And so, I remember literally looking down at the chatbox and I remember distinctly, I was 17 minutes into the workshop and I had all these comments from people saying, “Oh, my god, I can’t even believe like this is so much,” what they say, like this is so worth the money that they paid for.

Rick:
And we’re only 17 minutes into this. Like I love seeing that stuff. And so then people started throwing out other topics. They’re like, “Please do more of these types of workshops. I love it.” And so, of course, I’m taking note of all those topics.

Rick:
And then we went into the followup sequence after the workshop. So I want to say we did like … Do you want me to share numbers with you? I’m happy to share numbers.

Pat:
I mean, if you don’t mind sharing numbers.

Rick:
Yeah, so I did like $20,000 in just the workshop registrations. And then we did an almost additional $30,000 in course sales afterwards. That was over two weeks time period for the registrations and then also the course sales.

Rick:
So, I was like that was so much fun. I love doing webinars but this was like just a different feel because when people pay for something like that, there’s a total different energy in the comments, in the chatbox and stuff like that. And I don’t know, I loved it. It was so good.

Rick:
And so, people were asking for different topics. Another one that they were asking for was the Facebook pixel. And I was like, “All right, I’ll do a workshop on the pixel.” So, literally, March 23rd just about the time I’m recording this, about a week and a half ago, I did a pixel workshop.

Rick:
Now, the virus thing hit and so things changed a little bit. By the way, I do want to caveat here, Pat, that none of this … Well, the targeting workshop I ran ads to, the only cold traffic ads I ran were Amy Porterfield and Marie Forleo because most of their audience know who I am.

Pat:
They know how you are, right.

Rick:
I didn’t do any other cold audiences though. It was those two audiences and then my warm traffic, so people on my email list and website visitors and all that stuff. And I did the exact same thing for the pixel workshop.

Rick:
So, I didn’t go like I would normally do for a free webinar because this is a paid opportunity. I didn’t go broadly, if you will, on the cold targeting. So, I ran the same exact strategy for the pixel workshop in March. Now, while we’re preparing for it and the ads were running, things started to quarantine. We got shut down here in California and things started to get really bad.

Rick:
And so, I basically stopped the ads about a week before, and I was okay with that. And sales weren’t as high. Now, what I did with this though was the intention was, “Okay, $67 for this workshop.” And then I was going to raise it to $127 for just following the exact same format as I did.

Rick:
Now, all this happened, I was like, “You know what? I’m not going to raise the price. I’m going to keep it at $67. I’m still going to charge for it.” And then what I decided to do was, you know what? All of the registrations I’m going to donate to Feeding America. And I let people know that.

Rick:
I said, “Hey, not only you’re going to get the workshop, but I’m going to donate all of the fees that were paid to attend the workshop here to this great charity to feed people.” And so, sales were down, but I looked at it and we did $5,100 in sales for the workshop. And so, I looked at that and I’m like, you know what? It was lower priced than last time. We had a lot of $147 purchases in that targeting workshop in January.

Rick:
So, for all intents and purposes, I felt really good about it, and especially this was right when things were hitting. People were … There was a lot of panic, and there still is, but it was kind of at the height of it right there. And so, did that affect sales? Yes, it did. Is the pixel as sexy as targeting? No, it’s not.

Rick:
So, I knew that the revenue wasn’t going to what it was in January, but I did the exact same format. This time, I had a 73 percent show up rate. And again, the comments and the energy in the chatbox and all that stuff was awesome. I followed the exact same format again. I changed up the emails a little bit in the followup sequence obviously to reflect the times because one question people were asking is, “Should I be doing ads right now? Should I be selling? Should I list building?” All these other stuff.

Rick:
So, I addressed all that in my emails and we ended up doing close to $25,000 in the overall launch. And I had also lowered the price for this launch for the program because of the times. And so when I looked at it, I’m like, “Two workshops in the first quarter, we did really, really well.” And I would say again, it’s apples to oranges because the prices were different and obviously, times were different.

Rick:
So, I’m looking at it. The pixel workshop, the revenue was a little bit less than half, but the price was lower across the board and the times were different. Super happy about it. I’m loving this paid workshop format, if you will. Have you done one of those?

Pat:
No, I haven’t. And we have discussed it before, and I love how you sort of positioned it. And I’m curious, when you promote this to your list, when you promote it to people who know you, what is the positioning? Since it’s a smaller part of a larger whole, I’m curious to know, was there any worry about that? And also, what’s the messaging to get people to come to the workshop?

Rick:
Yeah, I think it … I mean, at this point…so I’ll start with the targeting one. The targeting workshop, I just basically said, “Look, like I get so many questions around targeting and I address it in my Foundations program,” but some people they just want to know about targeting.

Rick:
And I let them know like, “All right, cool. I’m going to do a workshop just on targeting. And this is a paid workshop.” And I let them know. I let them know right up front. And I said, “This is going to be a deep dive.” I let them know how we’re going to go in depth. I also let them know this is an opportunity for live Q&A.

Rick:
And so, that’s just sort of the messaging there. And then for the pixel workshop, it was even easier because I reference the targeting workshop and how the response that people had for it, how much they loved it, how much they were asking for other topics and the pixel was like number two. So I’m like, “Here you go. Here’s the workshop.”

Rick:
And am I getting less people to sign up because they have to pay it to attend as opposed to like a free workshop? Well, yes, I’m sure. But the show-up rate is much higher and again, I’m offering the course. I’m very upfront about it. I’m not like hiding it, “Oh, surprise. Here’s my course.” I’m letting them know.

Rick:
And especially with the pixel one for this time, I let them know, “Hey, this is what I’m doing. And by the way, I’m also going to be giving you the opportunity to enroll in my course because it was closed.” I’m telling them right up front before they even register.

Rick:
And so, it just really, it further qualifies them. I just get to add a ton of value. And the other thing too, Pat, is that now I have amazing assets that I can leverage now. I can sell these workshops one-off, by themselves [crosstalk 00:24:55]. I was just going to say, include them as bonuses.

Rick:
So, I just get to repurpose and leverage this content, and so I just love the format so far.

Pat:
What technology are you using to collect registrations and deliver the workshop?

Rick:
So, we use ConvertKit as well. So, we just create a … What do we do for this one here? We just create a simple opt-in page in Kajabi like for the workshop. As far as our payment process, we just use Stripe. Right now, we’re using SamCart.

Pat:
Cool.

Rick:
And so, Stripe and PayPal. Simple checkout form with SamCart and then we deliver it. I have a keynote. My slides are in keynote and I deliver it via Zoom, super easy. And that in the past, we’ve done like unique URLs and all these other stuff. Simplify. It’s like here’s the URL, and I just trust that people aren’t going to be sharing. I mean, does it happen? Yes.

Rick:
But the followup email from ConvertKit, “Hey, thank you so much for registering. Here is the link,” and then we send them a couple of value emails. I call them value emails, just letting them know, giving them more information about me. Mostly again, this is warm traffic, so they mostly know who I am. But I’m giving them some information leading up to the workshop just to get them pumped up.

Rick:
Same kind of reminder email sequence leading up to the workshop as well. So, we’ll do 24 hours, three hours, one hour and then at the time of the workshop, like we want to make sure that, “Hey, don’t forget. Here is the link and this is what we’re talking about.”

Rick:
So, very basic, I’m all about … You and I talked a lot about this, the simpler, the better. With these workshops like let’s just make it really simple for people and for us to be able to deliver the content.

Pat:
How soon in advance are you promoting the workshop?

Rick:
Good question. So, yes, when I start mapping out and I know that you guys do the same thing. But when I start mapping out a promotion, I’ll list out all the assets that I have. So, email lists, I can run ads, got the podcast, social media, et cetera.

Rick:
And so for a workshop like that, I’ll start sending out— so, I’m looking at my calendar right now for the March 23—so that was a Monday, and the first time that I promoted it was March 11th on the podcast. So, that was about a week and a half before that.

Rick:
And I give people a link to go to register. And the first email that we sent out was on March 12, so 11 days before. And I sent three invite emails leading up to the 23rd. So, I sent one on the twelfth, seventeenth, so basically a week before. And then the twentieth, which was a Friday. So, workshop was on a Monday. I sent out the previous Friday, the previous Tuesday and the previous Thursday.

Rick:
And then I was talking about it on my podcast episode, I was writing two podcast episodes a week, Wednesday and Friday. So for the two weeks leading up to the pixel workshop, all four episodes, I’m promoting the pixel workshop.

Pat:
Got you, okay, cool. And then in terms of followup process to selling to the bigger item, give us a rundown of how that is like immediately after the workshop ends.

Rick:
Yes, so we have an email … all in ConvertKit. It’s all set up as a sequence. And the cool thing is, is that I already had the sequence from my … I’ve done webinars from my Foundations program so many times, but I have the emails already, and I know that they work. The one thing I had to do for the pixel workshop was because of the times and the virus and stuff like that, that I just edit. I edited them accordingly.

Rick:
And so, the workshop was at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time. That one was about two hours and fifteen minutes or so. So, I forget what time but in the afternoon and I want to say like three o’clock maybe, we send an email out with the recording. So, it’s processing in Zoom. The recording is—. We send that out and then people that registered, whether they registered or … So, everybody who registered basically and didn’t purchase Foundations gets the email every day.

Rick:
Well, everybody gets it Monday afternoon because they’re getting the recording. But then they get the email the next day and then on cart close day, I actually sent four emails out on cart-close day.

Rick:
Now, this is what also helped me as well, Pat. In January for the targeting workshop, I decided kind of last minute. I said, “You know what? I should let my entire list know that Foundations is open for a couple of days right now,” because again, it was closed.

Rick:
And so cart was closing that time on a Friday, so I decided to, again very last minute like Wednesday afternoon, I sent an email to my lists on Thursday, the day before cart was closing. I said, “Hey, by the way, I just want to let you know: Surprise. The Foundationscourse is open for enrollment for the next 48 hours basically.”

Rick:
And then I sent another one on Friday morning and then I had two more emails scheduled for the entire list on Friday afternoon and evening, but the only people who got those emails are the people who opened up either one of the previous two emails. Does that make sense?

Pat:
Yeah, totally.

Rick:
Because I don’t want to spam the entire list. If they’re not interested, I’m not going to be sending them four emails in two days. And so, I decided to do the same thing this time but, number one, I prepared for it. Number two, because of the times that we’re going on, I opened it up for three days. So, pixel workshop, cart opened for everybody who registered. But then the next day which was a Tuesday, I also sent an email to my entire list.

Rick:
And again, at that point, I’m addressing what’s going on in the world. And the big question was, should I be running ads? Should I be selling? So, I was addressing that to them and let them know, “Hey, by the way, I’ve opened my Foundations course for the next 72 hours.” And so they got an email on Tuesday, email on Wednesday and then there were three emails scheduled on cart close day. The people that got those emails, they had to open up either one of the previous two emails.

Pat:
Got it. Okay, excellent. This is really helpful because my brain is kind of spinning right now with opportunities that we can do with a lot of sort of smaller, more micro-content versus a lot of the flagship products that we have. And that micro-content in those workshops could definitely lead into a lot of these other things that we do have to offer too. That’s really cool.

Pat:
On the actual training, so two to three hours, a good chunk of time for Q&A at the end. I want to know a little bit more about the structure of them. How are you making sure that the people who are there watching live and the people who watched the replay in the recording later—however they might get access to that—are learning the best way possible?

Pat:
Workshops are different than presentations, and it’s just like you’re not just sitting and kind of just watching and getting inspired like many people do in watching just a webinar. But a workshop, a training, and I know you’ve done this both in person and now online as well through these. Give us some tips on how we can run a really great high value workshop.

Rick:
Yeah, I think, so one of the things I do is when people register, I think it’s on the confirmation email, I say, “What’s your biggest question with regard to said topic,” whatever topic I’m doing it on. “Or what’s your biggest challenge with it? Like what’s your biggest challenge about the pixel? What’s your biggest question, or what’s your biggest targeting question or what have you?”

Rick:
And so I have like have all these responses and I’m like, “Oh, okay, cool. I’ll make sure I want to address that in the training.” The other thing too, Pat, that I was really clear on was who this is for and who it’s not for. I should have mentioned that.

Rick:
I was very clear specifically with the pixel because you can get very advanced with the pixel really quickly. I let people know this is beginner to intermediate, like I’m not going to get super advanced with the coding and all that stuff.

Pat:
You share that in the training or even in the lead up to the training?

Rick:
Both.

Pat:
Okay, both.

Rick:
In the lead up, yeah, registration, page, emails, all that stuff. And so right away, number one, I let them know that. Number two, I find out what their biggest challenge is and then number three, … I want to say like on slide number three or whatever. I said, “This is what we’re going to dive into today.” And I have a whole bunch of bullet points that we’re going to cover today.

Rick:
Now, unlike you mentioned like a webinar, I’m not sharing case studies. I’m not sharing … Like this is full-on let’s dive in deep. And so, I basically take them from the beginning of what I feel they need to know and what I also know what their biggest questions are. I start them in the very beginning and what they need to know from a foundational perspective and then move them through towards the end.

Rick:
And so, for targeting, for example, I mean targeting like such a … I could teach a day’s worth of targeting. But what I did with that was I started out … I’m trying to remember what I did there. I started out with like, why it’s important, what are some of the questions and challenges are the people have with it. And then I talked about how you start to use it in your overall ads strategy.

Rick:
And then I went through each of the different targeting opportunities, what they are, how to use it, what they mean, how to set them up. I took them right inside the ads manager and showed it. And then towards the end, I kind of wrapped it all together to kind of like, “All right, now we’ve talked about all these stuff for the past, whatever it was, two hours or so. This is how it fits into your overall ads strategy.”

Rick:
And I showed them like funnels and stuff like that where how you can use retargeting, for example, or if you’re at this point in your business, don’t start here, start here. And I just really broke it down so that it’s like, “Oh, okay, I get it.”

Rick:
And I also tried and shared some tips in there that maybe I haven’t shared elsewhere that are maybe only in the course or maybe even have that I’ve learned since I recorded the course. And so they’d be like, because I remember … I forget what it was but I remember that I shared one thing and people were like, “Oh, I didn’t know that. That’s a new thing.”

Rick:
So, it just gives you an opportunity to kind of be more on the fly with stuff as you’re learning new things. Same exact thing for the pixel, I start … People were like, “I don’t even understand, like I know there’s a pixel but like I don’t understand how it relates to everything.”

Rick:
So I started right there, like this is what the pixel is. This is why it’s important and this is how it relates to your overall ad success. And so I started in there, walked them through all that, answered those questions, told them where to find it, how to place it.

Rick:
Facebook has made it so much easier than it used to be place the pixel, so I took them through all that and just walked them through step by step. And then again, I showed them because a big question is like a lot of people have, for example with the pixel is like, “Well, how does it work from tracking multiple conversions in my funnel,” or something like that. And I showed them, like I have a funnel right there and I break it down for them.

Rick:
So, again, I’m starting them from the beginning, taking them through this journey of this specific topic and just sort of wrapping it up at the end on how it all relates to a successful ad strategy in this case here, and then I jumped into Q&A.

Pat:
You mentioned doing stuff on the fly and sort of like being with people live and that sort of component. I hope you don’t mind me sharing this, but I was there at your very first live presentation.

Rick:
In Vegas?

Pat:
In Vegas, a number of years back. And it wasn’t the best presentation I’ve seen.

Rick:
Come on, dude. Seriously?

Pat:
No. You had gotten some help and had actually dove in the deep end to try to do a lot of crowd interaction during that time. And I saw you struggling and I just … And since then, dude, you’ve just mastered it in such an amazing way. And have just completely stepped into it versus other people who I think would have had a similar experience. It didn’t bomb, by the way. It was just struggle.

Rick:
It was terrible. It was awful.

Pat:
But you’ve, since then, grown to become this amazing communicator, amazing speaker, somebody who could, like you’re saying on these workshops and even in person I’ve seen you since then, just crush it live and in person ad hoc impromptu.

Pat:
I think a lot of people listening to this are getting a little bit of the nerves thinking about, “Okay, well, going live with people and delivering a live workshop?” You got to be good or else people might ask for their money back. Where did you get this confidence? Where did you get the training like, what was your secret?

Rick:
Well, I appreciate you saying all that, first of all, that means a ton. So then at first, that was a Blog World in Vegas a number of years ago and just quick … To put some perspective on what Pat is talking about, guys, I did this presentation and I memorized the entire thing, like literally memorized the entire presentation for 45 minutes. And so I was like a robot.

Rick:
And then at the end, I opened it up to questions and I let people give me actual scenarios that I would try and answer on the fly. And I remember getting one question from a guy and I couldn’t answer it, and I remember getting beet red in the face and it was awful.

Rick:
You know what? I think, Pat, the podcasts … So my very first podcast called Inside Social Media, I launched that in 2013. And so I think it was you. I want to say it was you. I think you said, the first … I remember you telling me early, early on, the first 30 episodes, it takes about 30 episodes to get comfortable with it.

Rick:
I was like, “30 episodes? That’s a long time.” I’m like, “If I’m doing four episodes a month,” I’m like, “We’re talking seven months here before I feel comfortable?” And I was like, “All right, whatever.”

Rick:
And so I remember going along in that and then like I go back and listen to first couple episodes and I cringed. But I do remember, and I remember distinctly, I hit episode number 33 and I was like, “Oh, it started to click for me.” And I think just the more that I did it, the more that I did it, and the more I did it, I just started to get more comfortable.

Rick:
And then I really don’t know where the comfort level of taking questions from people on being on the fly came from because it doesn’t … I actually love it, it doesn’t bother me one bit. I know some people that are like … They’re not comfortable with that at all.

Rick:
And I think if you approach it from, like, well number one, if you don’t know something, just be honest with people. Don’t try to make something up because they’re going to see right through it. If someone asks me something … I spoke at Social Media Marketing World, and somebody asked me a question. There was, what, I don’t know, 400 people in the audience there and I’m up on stage and I’m doing Q&A at the end. And I was like, “That was a good question. I actually don’t know the answer to that. But I’m happy to help you find the answer though.”

Rick:
I think people appreciate that more than if you try to make something up. They just kind of see through it. And it also makes you more relatable. They appreciate that. And that’s just sort of the approach that I’ve taken and it’s so funny and you and I have talked about this a lot, like I love speaking on stage now. It’s like, put me in front of the camera like on my phone to do like an Instagram story and I’m all freaked out.

Rick:
But put me on stage in front of a thousand people, boom, like let’s do it. I love it. And I just think, it sounds cliché but like the more you do it, the better and more comfortable that you become. The podcasting has been huge though. Just showing up, just teaching, interviewing. People is telling me that I’m a really good interviewer. That’s not something that I’ve studied or anything like that. It’s just I approach it like just sitting down with you, for example, and having coffee, that’s what the interview is going to be like. And the more human I can make it, the better.

Rick:
And the other thing too, kind of talking about if people are thinking about doing a workshop like this, focus on over-delivering. I know that you talk about this all the time, Pat. Over-deliver on whatever it is that you’re giving. At that 17-minute mark of that targeting workshop, when I was looking down at the chatbox and people were saying, “Oh, my god, we’re only 17 minutes into this and I’ve way more than got the value of what I paid for it,” that’s what I want to hear.

Rick:
I want to over-deliver in everything I’m doing so that when people say, “Yeah, I paid whatever it was for the workshop and I got 10 times the value from it,” that’s what I want to do. And so, when I approach it for like that and just like how can I show up and serve. And if I don’t know, if I stutter, if I stammer whatever, just keep going. You’re going to be more relatable at that.

Pat:
Well, thank you for sharing that. And I think the podcast for me has also been a huge part of my communication growth. And part of what’s also helped me with doing things live and on the fly like for what I’ve been doing the last 16 days up until this point ever since we’ve all been quarantined, I’ve been going live every day on YouTube and I’m just … It’s natural for me now even on day one it was.

Pat:
And it was because, and this is a large part of what I feel it has worked in your favor as well, is that we actively try to coach people, whether that’s for free or for paid like in our accelerator groups. And you can’t help but learn how to answer questions on the fly when you genuinely care about the people that you’re coaching, because you want to figure it out.

Pat:
And for me, I don’t know about you, but I’ve studied coaching. I’ve read about it, and a lot of those tips especially in books like The Coaching Habit from Michael Bungay Stanier, awesome. He was on the podcast before. Like those things helped me on the fly interact with people and help discover what I can do to help them or help answer questions.

Pat:
I don’t know in terms of coaching what have you done to sort of get better at it or is that a very similar thing, just the more you do it, the better you get?

Rick:
Yeah. The coaching part is definitely been an evolution for me. It just comes from … Again, this sounds cliché but like just truly loving to help people in a way that I’m able to do that. The biggest, I don’t want to call it a struggle, but the thing that the evolution I should say for coaching for me is that everybody wants the answer. Just tell me what to do. Everybody wants like step by step. And I can do that for most people.

Rick:
But I also know that that’s not necessarily serving them in the best way possible. And so, if I can get them to the answer without telling them exactly what it is that they’re looking for, if that makes sense, like giving them the step by step but yet they still get their question answered, then their mind gets blown. Then they’re like, “Oh, I get it now.” And it’s kind of like the whole fish, teach a man to fish sort of thing.

Pat:
Yeah. And we do this with our kids too. It’s like, okay, I can tell them what to do or I can ask the right questions so that they come up with the same answer that I wanted to give them. And then they’re more likely to actually do the thing or they’re more likely to remember it and embrace it.

Pat:
And that’s the very same thing with coaching. There’s a second book that just came out recently from the same author of The Coaching Habit called The Advice Trap. Because it’s the number one thing that we want to offer to people, we want to give them advice. And especially in like group settings, what happens is a person is in the hotseat, for example, and they’re there and they need coaching, they need help.

Pat:
But what does everybody do? They go, “Have you tried this? Have you done this? Have you tried that?” And then now you have like 20 things you can do and you’re even more overwhelmed. Actually, it doesn’t help you. It does the opposite.

Pat:
And so, asking questions is really the key, and the right question is to dig deeper. And it’s almost like Inception, you’re almost kind of giving it to them without them knowing it and then they go do the thing themselves. We’re being Leonardo DiCaprio in this situation.

Pat:
So yeah, I’m very glad you brought that up because I think that’s absolutely key. And so, I would challenge everybody listening to whenever you get somebody who needs some advice, like see what questions you might ask, instead of just giving advice.

Pat:
Now, of course, if you’re running a workshop, there needs to be an eventual transformation in the thing that you deliver. But you could still use these opportunities when in Q&A or even in the presentation itself to ask questions first before you deliver the answer, so people can get there before you even you do.

Rick:
Absolutely. You can put those questions on your slides there and say, “Hey, in comments box or the chatbox or whatever, let me know what you think.” It’s going to increase engagement.

Pat:
If they’re right, it confirms that they were on the right path. If they’re wrong, well now, they’ve seen what the right answer is and can remember that. Yeah, I love that.

Rick:
And from a coaching perspective, so my accelerator students have coined this term that you’ve been “Mulreadied.” And it’s like asking a question. They’re asking a question and I’m not answering it right away because, again, I’ve been doing this a long time.

Rick:
And so, when someone comes up with a problem, usually, I don’t want to toot my own horn but I usually know what the problem is, the underlying issue is. But again, I want to help them as much as possible and just giving them the answer isn’t necessarily the best way to do that.

Rick:
And so, you start to asking them questions that generally … I’d love to hear your thought on this too, Pat, is like generally the question they’re asking isn’t really the problem that they’re having. It’s something else.

Pat:
No, it’s the thing they see but the problem is they’re inside the bottle, they can’t read the label.

Rick:
Yeah. And so, we can see that though and so, we want to get them to see that when they’re stuck on, “No, no, no, I want to know this.” It’s like, well, yes, I get it. But when you help or whatever, when you address this, then the other part that you think is the main problem will be “fixed,” if you will.

Rick:
And it’s just really that kind of art of getting people to that point. And that’s just something I’m just constantly working on, constantly trying to get better, reading books. I just wrote down, I hadn’t heard of The Coaching Habit. I just wrote that down.

Pat:
Oh, dude, it’s going to blow your mind. I literally have the seven questions outlined in the book right in front of me for every conversation I have on the podcasting and in my coaching calls. I think it will take you to the next level.

Rick:
As soon as we’re done, dude. I’m going to order it.

Pat:
And it’s a short read, you’ll love it.

Rick:
Nice.

Pat:
Speaking of The Art of Online Business with Rick Mulready, we got to get everybody subscribe to the show. It’s awesome. Rick, any final parting words for anybody who’s going to do these workshops and wants to make the best of them?

Rick:
Yeah. I have students doing workshops for $20. I have seen Zoom workshops for much higher price as well. I think it’s just a matter of if you’ve not tried a paid workshop before, give it a go. You don’t have to charge a lot of money.

Rick:
It’s the same psychology, if you will. I know Pat that you’ve done live events before where like … At WeWork for example and it’s like $5. And it’s just like it’s [crosstalk 00:49:03]

Pat:
Because you want people to show up.

Rick:
Exactly. It’s like logical. People are like, “Oh, I’ve paid for that so I’m going to show up.” It’s the same kind of thing, but yet you don’t have to charge a lot of money to do it. You can absolutely … I mean whatever you want to do but just if you haven’t tried this yet, it’s really …

Rick:
Number one, it’s a lot of fun. Number two, they’re going to be super engaged because they’ve paid money to show up and learn from you. They’re going to be able to ask questions of you and then again, you can sell whatever your offer is after the workshop. Be up front with them about it, tell them about it.

Rick:
And also, you can re-leverage that training, that workshop in other ways. You can put it into your email funnel. You can put into a bonus or whatever it is. Just get started with it. Start small, pick a topic that you know that your audience is really struggling with, even if it’s in your program or in your coaching or whatever and just dive in. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Pat:
Love it, man. Thank you so much. One more time, where can people get access to all your great stuff?

Rick:
Yeah, The Art of Online BusinessPodcast where all podcasts you listen to, on all the platforms. And then also my website is Rick Mulready and I’m @rickmulready on Instagram.

Pat:
Nice. You all have just been Mulreadied. Thank you so much, Rick. Appreciate you being here. Love you, man. Talk to you soon.

Pat:
All right, I hope you enjoyed that interview with Rick Mulready. Again, you can find him just you’re on a podcast app right now. Go and find him because he’s great, The Art of Online Business Podcast. He talks a lot more than I do about the more advanced strategies like what we talked about today.

Pat:
Does this excite you? I’m curious to know if you are now excited to run your own workshops. We’re actually running our own workshops too. You can find out more information on smartpassiveincome.com.

Pat:
However, for right now, make sure you subscribe to The Art of Online Business Podcast and check out Rick at Rick Mulready.com and also @rickmulready. That’s M-U-L ready on Instagram. And he’s doing awesome on all those different platforms. And thank you, Rick, for coming on and sharing this and inspiring me and my team to do something similar, to experiment and test things out.

Pat:
If you’re listening to this still, I appreciate you so much. Thanks for listening all the way through. Make sure if you haven’t done so already, please hit that subscribe button so you can get these automatically downloaded the next time the episodes come out. We have a lot more great stuff coming your way, and I cannot wait to share it with you. So make sure you hit that subscribe button.

Pat:
Reviews are always appreciated. Thank you. I appreciate you. Yeah, let me know what you think on Twitter or Instagram, @patflynn, is where you can find me. Team SPI and I, we are here to serve you. Cannot wait to hear your success story down the road and hopefully have you on the show one day. So, keep chugging along. Keep going. I got you. Cheers, and as always, #TeamFlynnforthewin. Peace!

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