JSE: All right, here we go, it’s time for another show, it’s the training and coaching lifestyle podcast, I am host JSE, and today’s guest is my good friend and a coach of mine, Mr. Ryan Lee. What’s up?
RL: Yeah, baby (laughter), I am ready.
JSE: All right, cool. You guys probably know about Ryan Lee, if you’ve been in fitness industry or coaching industry for any amount of time and you don’t know who he is, apparently that rock is very heavy you have not crawled out underneath it. (laughter) Ryan is someone who’s changed my life, probably one of the five people in the world who has changed my life for the better the most. I know I have told that before Ryan, but I just want to thank you, I appreciate it man.
RL: I appreciate that, it’s really cool to hear the stories like yours and so many others that some of my stuff have helped them. It’s an honor.
JSE: Well here’s what I’ve said- you thought me how to make doing what I do more enjoyable, which has given me more freedom.
RL: Yeah. At the end of the day John, that’s what it is all about, it’s about freedom. Making money is great, and millions of dollars are awesome. But the freedom that comes along with it, there is nothing beats it. I remember when I first met you and you just got married to Kelli and you wanted to enjoy life, right? And with me, even when I first started teaching stuff, I’ve just got married but I didn’t have any children and now all these years later and four kids later, I really appreciate my freedom to be able to spend time with them. So the coolest stuff I hear is, if I help , especially in the fitness industry, the trainers saying “hey, I bought your product ten years ago and now I don’t have to work if I don’t want to. I train just one client a day, I have passive revenue and I get to spend more time with my wife and kids.” That’s the best part, and that really is what it’s all about! Cause at the end of the day on you deathbed are you really gonna say “wow, I wish I was able to train more client, or”- no, you’ll say “I wish I enjoyed my life and spent my time with my family”, right? You know, but helping people too, helping clients, helping people get fit or jump higher, whatever niche you are in the fitness industry, to go out there and impact more people.
JSE: Well, whether you intended to or not, you’ve just led into the perfect segment of our topic. (laughter)
RL: I am also a mind-reader… did I tell you that before?
JSE: Holly crap. So ok, you have to make an info project on how to be a mind-reader on a podcast. (laughter) So exactly, I wanna JV on that. Here’s the thing you guys – whether you are a wellness coach, a life coach, trainer, martial arts guy or gal, whatever… creating information products and doing the dot com lifestyle as Ryan calls it, gives you freedom. And a lot of people say “but I wanna help people”! Well awesome! Now you can help a million time more because if you are doing one on one or even a small group- it’s fantastic, I understand the interaction, sometime live interaction is more important and I get it. However, if it’s all you are doing, you are not leveraging your time and you are not changing the world you are just helping a few people, which is noble, and yet if your mission is to really impact the world the only way to do it is to have a broad reach. And I am going to go old school here for the second and say- think about Tony Robbins, you know, “Awaken the Giant Within”, “Personal power”.
RL: “Unleash like… “, I don’t’ know, something like that. (laughter)
JSE: “Unleash the personal trainer” (laughter). The point is, if he did not make those cassette tapes, yes it’s been that long, you guys wouldn’t know who he is and he is one of the people who has obviously positively affected my life a great deal. But if he didn’t make an info product, and he was one of the first info product people in the industry, you guys wouldn’t be benefiting. And you wouldn’t know who he is, and people won’t know who you are, across the country or around the world, on-line/off-line, when you sleep or not, unless you make an info product. Now Ryan has made probably, I don’t know, probably four.. (laughter)
RL: Thousand (laughter)
JSE: No all joking aside, how many products have you created or helped develop?
RL: I honestly have no idea. I started my first website back in 1999, so that’s been 15 years. So honestly, I couldn’t even guess, I mean, there are products I absolutely forgot about. But in terms of my own, definitely a few hundred. And in terms of helping other people and coaching them through- it’s in the thousands, thousands of the thousands. And people that I didn’t even know about! I got an email about two months ago from a guy I see on TV a lot, cause he has an infomercial, “hey Ryan I just want to let you know, you got me started in this and have me create my first product. And now it’s an infomercial making millions”. And I never even knew he is a guy who bought one of my products.
JSE: That’s neat.
RL: It’s cool. But I probably created, I don’t wanna say this to brag but I will (laughter) , I really I don’t think I know anyone who has created more info products or had more to do with information products.
JSE: You know, a fact is a fact, I would agree. I’d say you are a grand master of helping people create info products, and doing your own as well. We gonna teach you guys how to create and start your own info products. But I wanna share a very quick story cause I find it interesting, because I was doing a two hour presentation as a part of “Alive”, life coach training we used to do. Now it’s online, that’s part of the plan, but I was speaking to this audience and I said “how many of you think that people that say that you can make money in your sleep are liars and charlatans”? All of them raised their hand. And I said “well, that’s interesting because you are here listening to me and you are valuing what I said and 50% of the money I make was done while I was sleeping”! And they are like- what??? And I think people forget how many different ways are to make money, and I even gave the example of someone who has a pillow, and they license Disney, and they have a Mickey Mouse pillow that sells at Wallmart and they sell them while they are sleeping in the another part of the country. It’s a physical product but it is another way of creating passive income. Licensing is a whole different thing let’s do a whole other podcast on that. There are tons of ways to make passive income but the easiest way, the fastest way, the most profitable way, the most interesting way, and the thing that you can do without too much effort based on skills and information you already have, is to create a digital information product. That can be an e-book, a makeover, a transformation product, a kindle book – you can talk about your kindle stuff which is awesome stuff- I am doing that by the way and I am killing it. (laughter) So, educational program, certification programs, there’s a ton of ways of doing it. Ryan, why don’t you talk about some of the fundamentals, or the things that people shouldn’t do, let’s avoid what we shouldn’t do and then let’s focus on what we should do.
RL: Ok. Lots of things you shouldn’t do. Number one is- you shouldn’t be a perfectionist. You know, that’s the number one killer. I can’t tell you how many people I had come to me and said, “Ryan, I am working at my fitness book, I want to get it out there”. I said “How long have you been working on it”? They’ve been working on it like four years. Get over it, it’s never gonna be perfect. Make it good, make it as good as you can, get it out there and then you can always change it around, but you gotta get something out there, it’s never gonna be perfect. Another thing is – not giving people what they want. Creating products from more of a selfish perspective, saying “this is what I wanna teach and this is what anyone needs, and screw it, I am just gonna sell it I don’t care if people want it or not”. So, that’s a mistake. You just gotta listen to the market. And there is going to come a time, depending on how big you wanna grow your business. Because I’ve been doing it for long enough, I see businesses that generate couple of thousand a month to fitness businesses that generate seven figures a month with just information products. And, how big do you wanna go? And I am telling you right now, if you wanna build a multimillion dollar information publishing business, you gonna have to get some scale. And you gonna have to start going a little bit more mainstream and more towards the weight loss market. That’s just the reality. But if you wanna do well in a niche product, if you wanna do training for soccer player, how to jump higher for a basketball player – there is lots of money to be made in that. You have to go for what people want, right? No one is looking, and this is one of the examples I always use, talking about the client from ten years ago, so “I had this great product that is not selling at all”. I said “what is your product?’ And he said it’s how to prevent hamstring injuries. (laughter) And this is a successful guy, he has a successful studio and trains all these athletes. I said “Ok, you have trained 500 athletes over the last five years, how many have ever come to you and said I want you to train me so I don’t pull my hamstring?” He said, well, none! So why is anyone gonna buy a product on that? They come because they want to get stronger, they want to run faster, they wanna jump higher, they wanna be all star, they wanna be all state. Now, part of that is staying healthy. So, you gonna have to do that little dance between selling them what they want and slowly transitioning to what they need. If they want speed then give them speed program and incorporate in that a section on “important part of speed is staying healthy and having good hamstring to quad ratio strength. So here’s the great program that is going to strengthen your hamstring and is going to prevent those nagging hamstring pulls. So that’s the way you are still giving them that program but you are selling them what they want. It seems like a little bit of a difference but it’s everything. Because everything is in that hook. And that’s what I love doing.
JSE: What with he originally wanted to do is he was trying to sell them what they are actually trying to avoid, which is a contradiction.
RL: Yeah! You know, I was a competitive athlete all through college and I never said “hey I want to prevent a hamstring injuries”. Now, it’s a different case if someone pulled his hamstring once and you want to prevent reinjuring your hamstring. But a healthy athlete’s never thinking “I don’t wanna pull my hamstring”. I can give a dozens of examples. but you gotta give people what they want, it is a key. And make it different, make it unique. A good thing to do is see what’s out there in the market, see what the big sellers are and buy a product, go through their marketing funnel and say “how can a make my product a little different ,a little better”. Maybe if they have only one or two recipes I can add 50 recipes and some meal plans. Or if they only have exercise pictures I can add video demonstrations. Or if they are just doing a workout and writing a PDF and just giving exercise descriptions and some exercise videos I can do a follow along video like a P90X type of thing. So find out ways that you can make it better. And that is going to be your solid front end offer.
JSE: I think within the niche, whatever niche you guys have, it is kind like when you are creating you niche – where are the people, do you like them, where do they hang out, what is their biggest problem and how are you uniquely qualified to solve their problem? But you do all these things as you are developing your brand and your niche. The same thing is so when you are developing your information product. Now that you are branding your niches, and obviously you are always fine-tuning and tweaking, but based on information and the question they ask and the problem they keep coming to you to have a resolution for, that is probably the good place to start with your information product development. What is the reoccurring theme that is undeniable?
RL: Are you asking me?
JSE: No, I was rhetorical. (laughter) It’s to our listeners. What is the reoccurring theme that keeps happening with your clients, in your studio, in you class, in your webinars, or whatever? People keep saying “yeah, but I don’t know how to…if I just get through…”, Again you are like “wow, there it is again”. Oh, well, you’ve just got hit in the head five times.
RL: That’s the fact, the best marketers are listeners. Honestly, all you have to do is keep your mouth shut and the answer is there. I mean, they are going to tell you what exactly do they want and you just have to give it to them. That’s as simple as that, fill burning desire. Another question is and I think Ted Kennedy first said this “what keeps them up at night”? You are right, there is going to be a common theme repeating over and over again so don’t guess! Also what I like to do like a little tactical thing here is- I’ve been doing different webinars each week for my list and I‘ve been doing completely different topics just to see which is getting the most registrations, which is making the most sales so I could know “hey, this is something that is really hot so let me move forward and develop a full training program for it”. Just like I see with my emails, I see how many email have been opened. So if I have a subject that says “how to increase your jump three inches” and 10% of people open it, and I say “how to lose weight with this healthy supplement”, and 50% open it, now I am starting to get somewhere. So I am starting to see that this is something they really want instead of me just guessing.
JSE: Those are brilliant ideas and actually based on open rate it makes a perfect sense but I haven’t consider that yet, but now I am (laughter).
RL: I just did one subject that l doubled my open rate and I was like “all right, this is my next product”. I mean, it was so obvious.
JSE: Wow!
RL: It really is. They are just saying they are interested.
JSE: Yeah, because then they’ve already done the work for you, you don’t have to do a survey. The survey was – how many people opened the email based on the topic. Interesting.
RL: Yeah, they are voting with their clicks.
JSE; I love it, “voting with your clicks.com”. (laughter) So it’s another info product. (laughter) Let’s talk a little about the mechanics of creating an info product. So guys this is like 10,000 foot view, you understand? Basically what you need to do… how people let you know what they want, how to sell it, you have to create a funnel, you have to have a irresistible offer and what Ryan calls the hook, which he’ll talk in the minute, because he is brilliant at that. But, let’s talk about the mechanics, like you can do-well, first of all I would suggest always do digital whenever possible! Some people are still fans of physical stuff but that does not give me the freedom that I want in my life. Digital does. But you can do mp3s- this podcast is a free example product because I am adding value to the listener, that’s you, because we are providing information that helps you grow your career, solves a problem, have more fun or improve the quality of your life. This would be considered a free info product or lead generating tool, or giving back, or Vaynerchuk would call it “one of the jabs before you hook”. (laughter) So there is a lot of different ways to do that, but Ryan, why don’t you talk about the different formats or structures or platforms, and you call the whole thing publishing, which is brilliant, but let’s talk about the different ways that people can create information products?
RL: Yeah, the real big three formats are; audio, video and written. So you first have to look at it in that way. So from there you can pretty much do any type of product, based on what you gonna do. The product you gonna have the most flexibility with is actually video- and I’ll tell you why. Because if you do video first, you can then create the other two from that. So if you do a video on, obviously these are fitness professional, let’s say it’s a workouts series. So it’s a six week weight loss program and it is more of a video based course. You can have the videos where they are working out, you can then take audio from those and have people listen on CDs. Now it’s not going to be as good if it’s purely exercise video and you go huffing 1-2, 1-2 (laughter). But you get the point. And then you can have it transcribed and you can have the workout written. So you can work from the video, you can have it as a downloadable video, as a one time, you can put them all into the membership site which is password protected. You can use Facebook as a membership site. So there’s a lot of ways to build that reoccurring revenue. And there is just doing the PDF file which is the written file as an ebook, with video bonuses. There is just taking the written and publish it on Kindle through Amazon platform, which is so powerful. We have now thousand students creating their own Kindle books, and most of them are not even writing them they are ghost writing it and doing really well on those. Then there’s obviously audio programs, there are podcast that you can monetize through, back-end sales and even through sponsorships. One of my best students just did $167,000 last month, now he is not in the fitness industry, but he did it all through podcasting. So, there are virtually…
JSE: Now just hold on! (laughter) Hold the door. So, can you say from the high-level perspective, how did he monetize the podcast? As a podcast host that’s fascinating to me.
RL: Yeah. One way, he does the daily podcast, so he is getting lots and lots of downloads now. He now has some sponsorships because he is getting so many downloads he does some $30,000 a month, just from sponsorships. Just from people doing the adds, he is saying “hey thanks for listening, today’s episode is sponsored by …” And then he is selling products now. So he is doing “A bigger ticket training program” and he is selling it for about $700. And now he has a coaching thing that he does, I think he just limited it to just ten people paying a couple of hundred bucks each. So all these revenue streams adds up to $167,000 last month.
JSE: Good for him, I mean that is freaking awesome. Most people don’t monetize their podcast or don’t monetize it well. That is an exception but the fact that he is one of your students, he has learned some cool techniques from you which he is implementing. Good for him. I love those success stories. So let’s talk about, you know, we have a lot of wellness coaches and people that do the alternative holistic lifestyle transformation kind of stuff that listens to this podcast as well and there is so many options to create a platform like that. It’s kind of the same if you gonna to do “ 47 days body transformation”, we always like those odd numbers or “67 days challenge” or whatever and you guys now that my gig is combining fitness and personal development so and I wanna add this in there. I think there’s a better way when you add those things… First of all, you have to have skills and education to be able to do these things but those could be the bonus modules. If you say “well you can have the body transformation but if you want the whole life transformation…” (laughter) But wait, there’s more! (laughter)
RL: Absolutely.
JSE: So that’s an upsell , it’s an option. Those can be additional bonus videos. Screen captures! There is another thing you guys can do if you want to make a information products, if it’s on a Mac you use the ScreenFlow and on PC you use Camtasia, although there are other things out there but these are the two biggies. So edit it in highmovie or some other platform if you need to, host it on Vimeo, make it private, put it in secure area, password protected, forward your link through infusion software when shopping cart. I mean, I am oversimplifying you guys but it’s not real hard, though. (laughter)
RL: No, it’s really not. You just follow the steps. But the key is making it simple. It doesn’t mean you have to go out and spend $10 000 with a custom development guy and that’s what people are doing. They end up going to some local web guy they spend $10 000 on some slick looking site that doesn’t convert. You know, just get it out there! I have one client now that does a strength conditioning for the High school coaches. And for years he never did it. And I spent 15 minutes with him the other day on 1 on 1 Skype, and we set up the page, set up the payment just using PayPal, and password protected in 15 minutes and said “now go sell it”! Let’s just start, make it simple! Let’s see if there is a pulse. Let’s see if people really want this so then we can start working on conversions from there and then we start building more traffic and that’s how it grows. One of my well-known students originally, Mike Geary, has done millions and millions of dollars with one ebook. It’s because he started with something, he put it out there and started testing and kept tweaking and tweaking till he got it right.
JSE: Yeah, people don’t know that story, I haven’t met Mike Geary but I am familiar with the story. So basically he was one of your students, was a trainer, wanted to figure stuff out. He did “The Truth About Abs”, you guys probably have seen the ads everywhere, he’s bought media everywhere (laughter) He literally made over 10 million$ starting with an ebook. Then of course there is up-sell continuity and back end stuff and all that which he’s learned to do. But think about it guys, he went from a personal trainer, strength coach to ebook publisher to multi-millionaire in just a matter of few years, right?
RL: Right. And he did it by starting with something. It wasn’t perfect when it first came out, he didn’t have the video sales letter, but he kept tweaking and changing and making it better. As opposed to so many other people who took my exact same program that Mike took and have done nothing because they are waiting for it to be perfect. Or they take 3 or 4 years to keep tweaking and they won’t actually launch it until they think it’s perfect. So just get it out there fast. And you gotta move fast and if it doesn’t work-here’s another big mistake people make- don’t get emotionally tied to it. If it doesn’t work, let it go and move on. Because there is nothing worse than spending 3 or 4 years on something that is just a bum to begin with.
JSE: Yeah, simply because you guys think it’s cool, doesn’t mean it’s cool. (laughter). I mean, I have learned that the hard way because I’ve been emotionally attached to some things I was like “but I love that and people need to this and it’s important and I am passionate about this” and my friends are like- Dude, it sucks! (laughter) And you gotta go “ok, I guess it sucks, I gotta do something different”. So, I wanna wrap this up here , basically guys here’s what we are saying- there is nothing wrong with doing things in person. Doing things 1-on-1 I think is a waste of time, unless someone is paying you $10 000 an hour. You know, 1 on 1 you are going to help only number of people and you are doing the disservice to yourself and you are not going to spend as much time with your family and friends and do the cool things you wanna do. Working in large groups is better because you are serving more people you are leveraging your time and you are making a bigger impact. Take that online with digital information products and you can help more people make a bigger impact and you can grow your brand from local to regional to national to global. And go from 9 to 5 to 24/7/365- this has all flown up from the top of my head but I like the way it sounded. (laughter)
RL: Is this the easiest thing you’ve ever done?
JSE: Holly crap (laughter). So basically you guys let me just put it in this way – Ryan and I would not be in positions we are right now to where we enjoy our lives, we have the opportunities to do cool things we get to help literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of people around the world. And we are able to design our day only because we’ve created information products and leveraged technology. If that’s interesting to you then you need to do the same and my good friend Ryan Lee can certainly be one of those people who can help you. What do you say Master ? (laughter)
RL: If you are interested in learning more just go to my website, I have an email sign up there, I update content and articles maybe 3-4 times a week , send informative e-mails, I usually do a free live weekly training where we open up the internet and actually dig in and start building stuff and you can see it right there in real time. So if you are interested in learning more just go to ryanlee.com and check it out. Pretty simple.
JSE: It is simple. Look, you guys know that I’m not gonna have some yahoo on my show I am not going to say that he is a grand master and all that stuff (laughter). But it’s true! What I really mean is, guys I read about 500 books on business, marketing, technology, personal development , fitness, all that kind of stuff, I’ve gone every workshop, I’ve done every Tony Robbins thing , freaking everything! Seriously, I am a nerd, my propeller is currently retracted but I am a nerd. And I can honestly say that Ryan has been one of the most influential coaches that I ever had. And if it weren’t for him I would not be in the position I am in right now and doing the things I am doing, enjoying the freedom that I have. And actually now been able to travel the world! And Ryan by the way, Kelly and I are going to live in Barcelona for a month later this year, and it’s because f lot of the cool stuff that we do and you thought me.
RL: Awesome. (laughter) I love hearing that stuff. You deserve all that success. And whenever I do a training I always see your name on the phone and I haven’t done a event in a while but when I do I know you are always there in front center doing crazy karate kicks and Kelly is just awesome (laughter) And I appreciate you giving me the ongoing support. Yeah, this is just… I’ll be honest- I am blessed! Not only in business but, you know, having the best life, the great kids and being able to do this and help people. Now, doing this for so many years and seeing so many lives changed, it’s just…I am feeling like I am in a really good place right now and it’s nice to feel free and to be able to help. And you are giving me a platform here so maybe I could reach few people that haven’t heard me or some of my stuff. It’s awesome.
JSE: I wanna close with this you guys: I think the difference is, you know, it’s not the money, the time- all those things are great- it’s kind of a feeling that you get inside of being at ease because you know thing are going to be ok. It’s kind of weird but it’s kind of like “the things are going to be all right”. Things gonna keep moving we gonna have the necessary resources, we’ll be able to do things we wanna do. If I’d wanna stay a bit later it’s cool I can do that, or if I wanna take the day off, that’s cool we can do that. Or if I want to workout a little bit longer, we can do that because these machines, these wheels are in motion and the more information products you have, of quality, while you serve the people never compromise your quality or integrity in the path of doing this. You continue to have this great feeling of ease. It’s hard to describe but it’s super-cool, and I want you to experience that.
RL: Yeah. And at the end of the day, we want to sell, we want the freedom and we want to make money, but we also want to do something with the integrity. I am not gonna knock anyone specifically this isn’t a rant but there are lot of people now, fitness professionals, who are teaching “how to make money online” and they just teach them really super aggressive things and they do things that are black hat and shady and makes you look like a real douche. (laughter)
JSE: I have a new code for a douchebag, it’s delta-bravo (laughter)
RL: So it makes you look like a delta-bravo. When I was starting I was at my late twenties and maybe I was different and now when I am 41 and have the kids maybe I see things differently. And I don’t wanna sound like grandpa “all these young guys” but I just feel like it’s become…when I first started everyone was all about the training and no one talked business so I kept saying “it’s gotta be a mix, it’s gotta be a 50-50, training and business, you gotta learn business but keep going with the fitness stuff, keep making yourself a better trainer and more knowledgeable”. Now I think in some circles it’s tipped in the other way, no one is even talking about the fitness stuff it is 100% business. And it is almost like the quality of the training and the quality of the product has gone down and that’s disheartening. So I am trying to bring back people and say “hey look we can still make money and we can put out good stuff”. It’s not just about putting out crap. Say what you will about Mike Geary’s marketing but his product -if you actually have read through it- it’s solid. Like, Mike knows his stuff, he is really big on eating clean and solid nutrition. And in program he talks deadlifts, I mean it’s not crap, it’s actually really good stuff. (laughter). So, put out good stuff. I guess that’s my big thing. Because I got a lot of slack for years, people thought I just told everyone to just put out crap, and it’s not true I always said you have to put good stuff out.
JSE: That’s silly because none of your stuff is car, all your stuff is really high quality and the technology stuff you are doing is also great. So whoever is saying that is a knucklehead, so that’s ridiculous. (laughter) And I love it that you are politically correct and yet while you are saying this everyone had their own vision in their mind who that delta bravo could be. So that’s awesome (laughter)Guys, go to ryanlee.com , at the minimum sign up for his newsletter, they are always entertaining, you will know what movie he went to, how his kids are doing, but ut aside from that(laughter) And that’s briefing to the point but always entertaining. (laughter) Great information, he does a lot of cool and free webinars and stuff like that. I bought a tone of stuff from Ryan, I do every live event he has, but even the free webinars and even the newsletters and blog posts are like “oh my god, this is good stuff”. And if I just get just this one nugget and… if your open rate goes up it’s because I open about 99% percent of your emails. (laughter) Sometimes I don’t get the chance to, but it is true. So you guys check it out, ryanlee.com . And Ryan thank you sir, I appreciate it.
RL: It was my pleasure. And I like the fact you just broke it into southern accent, that’s really cool.
JSE: Did I? You know, it’s funny, I have people in my family from the south, from Missouri and my father is from Oklahoma and I have friends in Texas and I end up doing southern accent sometimes and it is not intentional. And when I am with my friends from UK that come to your events as well I start talking like a Brit, and my Aussie friends, like, I am so confused I don’t know what the hell I am saying (laughter) Very confused.
RL: Cheers mate.
JSE: Cheers mate. See you later (laughter) See you guys, you have a good day. Bye.
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