0 (2s):
Lights that spark Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like My First Million. Today, we'll be breaking down how groove is disrupting online platforms with an all-in-one revolutionary solution for funnels, email stores, courses, webinars, and memberships to drop these value bombs. I brought Mike Filsame into EOFire studios. Mike is the CEO of GrooveDigital, LLC, which is the fastest growing software platform for digital and e-commerce marketers. He's an author, speaker, software developer, online marketing educator, and marketing consultant. Mike was responsible for a number of well known "classic" software platforms, such as WebinarJam, EverWebinar, Kartra, DealGuardian, Butterfly Marketing, EvergreenBusinessSystem, and PayDotCom. He has since sold many of these brands. And today, Fire Nation, we will be talking about why an online presence is a requirement for all kinds of businesses or side hustles, and why Mike decided to offer an all in one solution on one platform when everybody's trying to be a specialist at just one thing and so much more Fire Nation. And when we get back from thanking our sponsors, the remarkable people podcast hosted by Guy Kawasaki and brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network helps you better understand the changing world with interviews from Thought Leaders Legends, and Iconic Class like Jenn Lim, Happiness Evangelist and author of Beyond Happiness.

0 (1m 25s):
Listen to the remarkable people podcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Mike say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 41s):
So what I notice is is how often people will just talk themselves out of things and they don't even realize what they're saying. So when I'm talking with people, I hear a lot of things of like, yeah, but, well, that's good for you, but for me, however, and what I've noticed from successful people is they just, they're kind of like that pit bull that's on a, on a ball and you're trying, you're punching them in the face and they just don't let go. And a successful entrepreneur takes objections and knows the same way. And they just, they just power through them. And if you let any type of objection, get in the mind, the mind can be the strongest part of your will. So if it's working against you and you think you can't do it, you won't be able to.

1 (2m 22s):
So you really have to be able to get, get that part of the mindset out to welcome failure, because failure is where you learn and is at least you're moving forward.

0 (2m 32s):
Mike, you are an official OJ in the internet marketing world. That's original gangster Fire Nation. So how has internet marketing changed over the years and how should Fire Nation be adapting to succeed in today's environment?

1 (2m 49s):
Did it get started back in October of 2002, I bought my first domain name at that time and I purchased that from a well-known person. Frank Kern was the person that I bought the course, him, and he had a little video series teaching us how to do it. And then at that time, PayPal was new YouTube wasn't even around then. In fact, there were two employees of PayPal that left PayPal to start YouTube before they got bought off from Google. So it was a very, very different time. We didn't have phones in our cameras. We didn't use video to get a picture online. You scanned it. And then you've got that online and you didn't even know anything about file sizes and things like that. So when I first got online, it was all about how do you actually get a website up?

1 (3m 32s):
You would have to learn things like FTP and HTML, and you really had to be a technician back in that, in that day. In fact, I would sit on a plane and people would ask me, what do you do for a living back then we used the term internet marketer. Now we use more digital marketer. And when I said internet marketer, the entire plane ride, the person would say to me, so you, you could build me a website. And I would say, no, no, you build websites, but I'm more of a marketer. And people didn't know what we were doing. Then later in the two thousands technology started getting a little bit easier with things like WordPress. And we went away from the education being how to get online to, okay, now you can get online, but what do you sell?

1 (4m 11s):
And we had to teach people the, what it meant to be an entrepreneur and an infopreneur and a passion project expert. And that was pretty much from, I would say, 2008 to 2013. But what we're seeing now is you can ask, you know, a kid generation, Z kid, or even somebody, you know, the next generation that's in high school or something, and you could say, Hey, would you rather be a CEO of a fortune 500 company? And you could look at those salaries that are insane, or would you rather be an influencer? And 88% of kids today are saying they would rather be an influencer because they are what I would refer to as the Tik TOK generation, the generation before was Kim Kardashians.

1 (4m 54s):
And they're, they're seeing, you know, the Kardashians and the Jenners, you know, building these empires that started with essentially social media. So all of the kids are getting today that, that your video starts with this video was sponsored by Skillshare, right? It's a whole new economy now. So now people are understanding the technology is no longer a barrier. All I need is a passion and an expertise, and then I can get out there. And there are tools that make it so much easier than it was when I first started.

0 (5m 23s):
Now, one thing that I was pretty interested in when I was going through just what you have going on in this world, which you're going to be getting a lot into in a bit here. But one thing that you are pretty adamant about is that you encourage speakers, experts, authors, entrepreneurs. So that's Fire Nation to have an e-commerce element to their business. What is your main reasoning for this?

1 (5m 45s):
Yeah, if you were to see me right now, I'm wearing a shirt that says groove on it. And my, my wife has a website called a fitness food fund. And so she realized is she's a Zumba instructor. And I told her, Michelle, you need to do this different than everybody does offline. She's a Zumba instructor online. And so her website is Zoomba with michelle.com. And what she does is she offers free classes. And then she trains in all of her gear, her shirts and all the stuff that she can do print on demand. And so I told her, you you'll be better monetizing your classes by doing it free because more people will come on. You don't put a paywall and you can build a brand.

1 (6m 26s):
And then at the end, just tell people, Hey, if you want to support my, my, my Zumba, you can go to fitness, food fund.com. And you know, she doesn't make a ton of money. She probably makes about $300 a month in gross sales. And it's probably about a hundred dollars a month in profit, but she's just getting off the ground. So what we realized is that when you're creating a tribe, you know, you see that with companies, the YouTubers like dude, perfect, and Mr. Beast and all those different things, you can actually create a brand by selling merchandise. The YouTubers know it better than the digital marketers. And so, you know, we tell people, Hey, it's great to have a brand website. It's great to have a blog. It's great to have your funnels, you know, so you could sell your info products, but your customers really love to be part of that tribe and show that they are.

1 (7m 11s):
So you look at a company like Barstow Barstool sports know they sell millions of dollars a year in merchandise. So not offering your customers an opportunity to represent you by having coffee mugs and shirts and hats. Your it's not just about the profits. It's, it's about building a connection with your users. Okay.

0 (7m 31s):
I'm glad you really brought it, that example of your wife, because a lot of people mistakenly think that an online business has to be this complex structure of software and expensive tools, connecting them all together. And that's kind of going also back to what you were talking about earlier, where generation Z 88% would rather be an influencer than the CEO of a fortune 500 company. Despite the fact that, you know, those multi, multi, multi multi-million dollar salaries. But I mean, they get it. They know that the anchor that's tied to you once you're the CEO of that company, but not only that, like what it takes to get there. And nobody wants to be like getting there at 60, 65, 70 years old, these kids generation Z want to get there at 15, 18, 22 years old.

0 (8m 18s):
And so there's this complexity that just seems to be taken away when you find the right tools, find the right processes and you think differently on this. So share your thoughts around getting rid of the clutter and the complexity and just making things simple.

1 (8m 36s):
And John, so what I've noticed with entrepreneurs again, you know, 20 years in the business and I'll go to an event and I'll see somebody and I'm like, Hey Jim, how's it going? Oh, good, Mike, how's it going with that domain project? You were doing three years later, right? I'm getting there, getting there. And for I'm like, wow, you know, I'm surprised, you know, they didn't just jump in with their feet wet, you know, within 90 days. So some of the best advice I have for people is very simple. You know, some of the nuggets we get out of, you know, think and grow rich. You know, we've heard so many times when we're like, oh, you know, that can't be or visualization. But one of the, one of the tactical ones is simply tried and true.

1 (9m 16s):
And it's w plan your work and work your plan. If you don't set out and create a plan, then you're really just a ship that's sailing, you know, with, without any orders or sales or direction. So the simplest way to actually have success is once you decide the project that you want to do, you brainstorm on a legal pad or a whiteboard, and you write down every single thing that you could think of. Well, I'm going to need to probably buy a domain name and I should probably make sure that's available with before I, I make my book title that, and I'm going to need to create a product. And I guess I'll need a webpage and I'll probably need a video sales letter.

1 (9m 58s):
I'll need some hosting. I'm going to need to take payments, all need a merchant provider or a PayPal. And you just write all of these different things down. I'll need a help desk software. And when you're done, you're gonna have 25 or 30 different things that you need to get done. The next thing you need to do is you need to put those in order. You need to prioritize it, right? Because you don't want to be buying the domain name 6th minutes before you go live. Right. That's you know, that's, that's probably one of the first things that you want to do to make sure you can lock in that brand name. And then when you put everything in order, you simply know that if I can put a check mark at the bottom of next to every single one of these things at the bottom of this, what I'm going to see is I'm going to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

1 (10m 38s):
And you will go to certain points, item, number four, on your checklist, maybe something that you can't do. So you have to decide at that point, do you learn how to do it by studying YouTube? Can you learn it in five minutes or whatever the case may be? If not, do you buy a course to teach you how to do it? Do you partner with somebody and or do you pay somebody else to do it, or do you barter with that person? But one way or another, you have to D you have to say, this step needs to get done. And you have a couple of different avenues to do that, but they do have to get done. And I always recommend sometimes finding a partner, if you're creative, get the operations person or the person that knows traffic or whatever the case may be. And so then the final thing, John, that ties into that, that I see a lot of problems entrepreneurs have is they're always being introduced to new products, new software webinars by this new ways to make money.

1 (11m 30s):
And the bottom line is there's nothing wrong with buying a course or software to help you succeed. What you need to do is you need to ask and Stephen Covey even says that, right. Number seven of the seven habits of highly effective people is sharpen the saw. So continue your education. And that's why there were listening to this podcast right now is important. But you have to ask yourself a, when you get on that webinar or see a video sales letter, and that question is, does buying this product, make it easier, faster or more affordable for me to get through my checklist here. And if it does, by all means, if you have the cashflow, you must buy that product or software or information.

1 (12m 13s):
If it doesn't, if it's just another distraction, if you're working on something that has to do with, let's say affiliate marketing, and you're putting a checklist and you got to write your review blog and all that. And all of a sudden you're on a webinar and they're teaching you about Bitcoin trading or SEO or whatever the cases, if it doesn't fit your plan, no matter how good that offer seems, you have to have the discipline to understand that that is only a distraction. If you've ever seen those guys, you know, on the, you know, on the old TV shows, the variety shows where they were putting plates, spinning plates on, on a stick. If you have too many plates spinning, we've all seen it. It always ends with disaster.

1 (12m 53s):
All of the plants will fail. So I can guarantee you that every single thing that you're probably learning from somebody online that teaches you either affiliate marketing or e-commerce or Shopify or Amazon, I can guarantee you if you did one of those they'll work, but I could also guarantee if you try to do all five of them, you'll fail. So the thing is just plan your work, work your plan, put the blinders on and get through that. And if you can check off all 25 of those items, you will be successful.

0 (13m 17s):
Mike, you might not know this, but my favorite word I can confidently say in the universe is focus, follow one course until success. I love the acronym for, I love the concept behind it. Listen, give me credit the next few times you use it and you then it's yours forever. Then it's yours forever focus, follow one course until success. I've actually got a sign hanging up here in my office with that very thing on it. Cause I'm such a believer on putting those blinders on and making that happen. And we have some really cool stuff. Our nation will be talked about on this topic. When we get back from thanking our sponsors, this episode is brought to you in part by Capital on Tap. Running a business is hard. You'll face plenty of challenges.

0 (13m 58s):
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0 (14m 49s):
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0 (15m 29s):
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0 (16m 10s):
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0 (16m 54s):
Inbound is built by You, powered by HubSpot. Mike, we're back. And I want to talk GrooveDigital, LLC. Why did you decide to offer this all in one solution? This one platform where everyone else is just trying to be the best at just one thing, just a little tiny slice of this niche or this vertical or this industry.

1 (17m 16s):
John, I'd be crazy to think that anybody could create an all-in-one platform. It is very, very difficult. I'm fortunate in the fact that, you know, I was born in 1967, so my brother was born in 1965. He was the end of the baby boom. I was the start of generation X. So when he graduated in 83, you know, he's Led Zepplin, you know, Pink Floyd, I'm Cindy Lopper and the rock and wrestling Federation, MTV bi-level haircut and the Commodore 64. So I came in right at the start of that generation and I learned computer programming. I went to New York Institute of technology. I've sold my first software to lottery players magazine for $25,000.

1 (17m 57s):
When I was 17, there was just nothing for me in the 1990s. So I left that field and I went into the car business and I became general manager of the second largest sundae dealership in the country. And then the internet comes around towards the end of that. Not that I knew it was going to be the end of that career, but online marketing came available to me and I said, I'm going to create software. Many people know me, as you said, as an OJI in internet marketing, but pretty much everything I've ever done was on was software. And it created the, the first viral marketing software for digital marketers. The first telephone for digital marketers, the first one-click upsell for digital marketers, the first CMS, a content management system in butterfly marketing before there was, there was WordPress.

1 (18m 44s):
And I created the first link tracking system you've ever heard of pretty links. They took my software Powerlink generator, which I was a script and they adapted that for WordPress. So I was creating these different platforms. Evergreen business system was the, the first successful automated webinar software platform out there. And we redid that as a SAS in my previous company as ever webinar, which is the largest automated webinar platform in the world today. And we created Webinar Jam, which is the second largest webinar platform in the world. I had a previous company called pay.com nine letter domain, pay.com. And that was a ClickBank competitor where the USP was, you get to use your PayPal account and you get paid instantly.

1 (19m 25s):
So fortunately I, you know, I have a programming developing mind, although I couldn't write a line of code for the web. I, I was a programmer back in the day. So that part was really what drove me as being an entrepreneur. And I really created many of these software programs before. And again, that was in the late two thousands in the early 2000 tens. And so when I had webinar jam separate platform to ever webinar separate platform, and Kartra separate platform when I sold that company in 2016, when I came back, I said, I want to create a new platform that combines what I had with Kartra by putting webinar jam ever webinar, and one key component or two key components that were missing even in those platforms.

1 (20m 10s):
And one was an e-commerce platform like Shopify. So we built that in as well. And we wanted to get people completely off of WordPress. Not that it's a bad thing, but you know, if we're going to provide an all in one solution, we wanted to build a blogging platform too. So we created group blog. And so I think because of my background and building these platforms for it allowed me to rapidly develop a true all-in-one platform that allows us to say, if we're going to build a page builder, it needs to be better than any other platform there is out there. If we're going to build an email component like groove mail, it needs to be as good as active campaign or better, or otherwise we weren't going to build that component. And there were some things that we left out because like, believe it or not, you know, we do split testing, but visual website optimizer is the real way that people should be doing split testing.

1 (20m 59s):
And we kind of feel that if, unless we're going to be as good, we should rather refer people to companies like that. So that's been our philosophy

0 (21m 6s):
Sufi. It is Fire Nation. Because again, when you're kind of going through your personal entrepreneurial journey and you're doing this and you're doing that, and you're kind of seeing how these things do all tie together. At some point you want to step back and say, well, listen, I can have all these disparate things kind of floating around, or I can cut them all up and create the all in one, you know, going back to the Lord of the rings, there's one ring to rule them all. And some of the you're doing this is pretty cool. And the reason why I actually wanted to get you on the show because of the timing of this is you're doing a pretty amazing offer for people who want to test out whatever you have going on at GrooveDigital, LLC now. And of course the great things you have going on in the future, this isn't what you would call a typical 14 day free trial Fire Nation.

0 (21m 52s):
We're talking free lifetime limited account. So talk to us a little bit about what you have going on there and why foundation B should be excited right now to check out GrooveDigital, LLC.

1 (22m 5s):
Yeah. So John, you know what happened was we had no plans at all to do a freemium model and 93% of our customers don't pay us anything. Only 7% of our customers ever upgrade because you know, the free lets you do a little bit, but there's limit on how many domains you can get and things like that. So what happened was in 2020, I was at traffic and conversion summit and I was going to be doing the TNC traffic and conversion summit after party, we rented out a club and I was going to stand on the bar. I had a presentation, I was going to invite all the VIP's and I was going to tell them, Hey, we're launching in July, but as fate would have it, the COVID, you know, pandemic hit and closed down a traffic and conversion summit.

1 (22m 51s):
And you know, I immediately went home. So I didn't get trapped in California and my team. And I were like, what are we going to do? And you can remember back then we were washing our packages, right. And wearing gloves at the gas station. So, you know, I was like, guys, July, you know, I don't even know if this is going to be a world in July. We were all panicking. So at that point, my partner, Matt was giving me a link for Skype and then zoom and then Uber conference and whereby and appear in. And finally I said to Matt, every day, it's a new conference software because everybody was going more virtual. And he said, yeah, but this one with Uber conference is pretty cool because they're giving it away for free. And I was like, whatever. So we do a call and at the end it pops up and there's a picture of the CEO.

1 (23m 35s):
And it says a letter from the CEO. And I thought that at first it was going to be like a survey. Did you like our software? But it basically said in these trying times, companies are being forced to work virtual and we felt we want it. And he said, these words, we wanted to do our part and give our premium software away for free in the hopes that when this pandemic ends you'll consider us. So right now you can get our premium product with no credit card required. And I stared at that for like at least five minutes, I called my partners and I said, guys, I think there's something that we can do by giving back to the community right now. And let's give our platform away for free.

1 (24m 16s):
And we actually launched it under that COVID banner under that framing. And then after about a month, we took that off and because it just worked so well and it gave us an opportunity for people to try our platform and then see if they wanted to go and become, you know, get the professional plan. So John, I'm going to let you know something as well. Our professional plan is basically right now, we've been doing like an extended Kickstarter, not using Kickstarter since may of 2019. And that has come to an end and they could get lifetime access for three payments of 6 99. And that, that is coming to an end because we'll go into $299 a month. Now, if the people want the pro plan and that's because we're coming out of beta.

1 (25m 1s):
And so I'm going to do something very, very special for your people because by the time we release this podcast, unfortunately that offer expired and my partners are going to kill me. I'm going to have to tell them and go to the help desk and let the help desk know. But this plan closes on February 22nd at midnight. That means anybody else that that was to go to the site is going to see the 299. But what I'll do for your listeners, because my mother's birthday is one month away from that date. It's March 22nd. If anybody's listening, all they need to do is go to the site. There'll be no option to buy the lifetime, but they could just create their account and sign up for the $99 plan just to activate their account. And then they can go to my help desk and say, I was on the, the, the Fire Nation podcast Entrepreneurs On Fire with John Lee Dumas and just tell them that they can, they, they heard Mike on the podcast with John Lee Dumas and we will honor the three payments of 699 for you to get a lifetime access.

1 (26m 1s):
So you can either pay three payments of 699 or pay us 299 a month for in perpetuity. So I wanted to do that because I know that this is going to be released at a time where it wouldn't give people a chance to really get to learn the platform. And we will have a special URL where they can go. And that's groovepodcasts.com. And that's a plural podcasts, P O D C A S T S. groovepodcasts.com

0 (26m 27s):
Fire Nation. This is quite the opportunity because the, this episode is dropping live February 23rd. So even if you were the fastest acting individual in the world, you would have missed this offer by 12 hours. So you're getting a little reprieve here, make it happen. Time is still the essence head over to groove podcasts with an s groovepodcasts.com. And then once you sign up for that plan and then you go to help desk and lets the world know that you heard about this through Entrepreneurs On Fire, aka John Lee Dumas, aka, I am Fire Nation. You are good to go.

0 (27m 7s):
And you're going to get that amazing deal that Mike talked about. So Mike, give us one key takeaway from everything we talked about here today that you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets before we say goodbye

1 (27m 20s):
And around. And you know, I'm 54 years old. I still feel young and we're all gonna grow up. Right. You know, and you know, I realized that I'm just two years younger than Steve jobs was when he passed away. And we look at everything that he created in his life and what I would say in those short years when, when I look around and I drive by shopping center, after shopping center, after shopping center, I see dry cleaners, pizza, places, bagel, places. And all I do is see entrepreneurs around us. And if they're not entrepreneurs, I see buildings and office buildings that were, you know, empire state buildings, buildings that were created by men, engineers that were probably younger than me.

1 (28m 3s):
The entire world runs by people that just said, let's do it. It, there comes a certain point in our life where we have to say to ourselves, why not me? We, we can't think that we're whether we're 25 or 55 years old, that we have too much time to get there or not enough time left. We'll always come up with one of those excuses. But if you look around, I've seen digital marketing do too many good things for too many good people and e-commerce marketing or being an influence or starting that YouTube channel of podcasts. It's really time to say to yourself, why not me? We can no longer think that it's a fluke. When we see other people having success. Now there's game plans and roadmaps for us to jump in.

1 (28m 45s):
And I'm hoping somebody hears this podcast and says, wow, that, you know, that was one inspiring thing that made me realize that I don't have to be on the outside. Looking in. I could be the person one day that people are looking up to.

0 (28m 57s):
And you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with MF and JLD today. So keep up that heat, head over to EOFire.com type Mike in the search bar to show us page will pop up and you'll get all the links to everything we talked about here today with your main call to action of checking out groovepodcasts.com. And Mike, I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. Today, for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bound content was brought to you by Mike and Fire Nation. If you've ever thought about creating a podcast of your own, the Podcast Journal is for you.

0 (29m 39s):
It is a gorgeous, full leather journal that will guide you step-by-step and both the creation and launch of your podcast in 50 days, visit the podcastjournal.com and I'll catch you there. Or on the flip side, the remarkable people podcast hosted by Guy Kawasaki and brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network helps you better understand the changing world with interviews from Thought Leaders Legends, and Iconic Class like Jenn Lim, Happiness Evangelist and author of Beyond Happiness. Listen to the remarkable people podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.