Welcome to another episode of the More Cheese Less Whiskers Podcast. My name's Dean Jackson and this is a very exciting episode. I think you're in for a treat as you listen in as I talk with Brian Mertins.
Brian has a very unique set of skills that I'd never heard of before. He has several products in the nature market including How to Read the Secrets of a Forest and Awaken Your Naturalist Intelligence and Bird Language Blueprint. Both products he developed to help people tune in to nature and started from a passion about bird language and what we can understand from bird calls.
We spent a great amount of time honing in on who his actual audience is, the people he's really speaking with. We then crafted an email to send to his audience live on the show. Live while we were on the call having the conversation.
I think you're really going to enjoy this exploration of target audiences, their passions, what drives people and their motivators. Especially the ending where we send a live message to his audience with a very specific offer.
Links:
BreakthroughDNA.com/live
ProfitActivatorScore.com
EmailMastery.com
90MinuteBooks.com
Nature-Mentor.com
Want to be a guest on the show? Simply follow the 'Be a Guest' link on the left & I'll be in touch.
Download a free copy of the Breakthrough DNA book all about the 8 Profit Activators we talk about here on More Cheese, Less Whiskers...
Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 028
Dean: Brian Mertins, how are you?
Brian: Hey, Dean Jackson. Good. Yeah. How are you doing?
Dean: I am getting over a man cold. That's what we're dealing with.
Brian: Okay.
Dean: I feel actually better than I sound, so that's good progress.
Brian: Good. Yeah. Glad to hear it.
Dean: Brian, where are you calling from?
Brian: I'm in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Dean: Wow. Okay. I've spent a lot of time in Canada. I'm actually a dual citizen. I'm Canadian myself.
Brian: Nice. You're from Toronto, right?
Dean: That's exactly right.
Brian: I spent ... Sorry. Go ahead.
Dean: No. You spent what?
Brian: I spent the first part of my life in London, so I live close to Toronto.
Dean: How do you like that? I spent the first two weeks of my life in Newfoundland. That's actually where I was born.
Brian: Nice.
Dean: Yes. My mother is from Newfoundland, and my father was in the US Air Force stationed in Stephensville. That's how I came into the world right there. That's how I got my dual citizenship. My dad's US, my mom's Canadian and I was born on the US Air Force space in Canada, so I'm covered everywhere you could possibly do.
Brian: Wow.
Dean: Tell me about your business and what you do, and what kind of evil schemes we're going to hatch today?
Brian: Yeah. I have been starting a business. I do information marketing and what I do is create courses that teach about, I guess you would call it nature connection. I teach people about nature and how to get closer to animals, and how to make good observations about plants and trees and things like that.
Dean: Okay. Wow. That's an interesting business model. I've never heard of anything like it. How is it going? How does it work?
Brian: Yeah. What I have right now is I have created a few different courses. The main thing that's working for me right now is I created this free video and it teaches how to read the secrets of a forest. People can register for this video. Then, the offer that goes with it is an audio course called "Awaken Your Naturalist Intelligence."
Dean: Okay.
Brian: Yeah. That's how it's set up right now. What I'm working on is I'm trying to get my average customer value high enough to a point where I can do advertising because right now, I'm not sure that I really have enough in generated per subscriber for it to be worth my while to do advertising, and so I'm not really able to scale it up but I would like to get to that point.
Dean: How much does your "Awaken Your Naturalist Intelligence" sell for?
Brian: That sells for $27.
Dean: Okay. What else have you got? What other is in your product line out here?
Brian: Yeah. I have a program called "The Nature Memory Journal." It's like a journaling template that helps you make better observations by journaling. That sells for $7. It's like a very introductory thing. Then, I have a Study Natural Skill Builders course which is for people who are struggling building their routines, like they're having troubles with motivation and getting themselves to actually do the work like to actually get outside and do the exercises. Getting more consistent with their routines. That sells for $47. Then, I have the "Bird Language Blueprint," which is a step-by-step course that teaches people how to locate wild animals by listening to the alarms of birds. That sells for $97.
Dean: Okay. What's your most popular product?
Brian: My most popular product is the "Awaken Your Naturalist Intelligence" program.
Dean: Okay. Is that program, is that $27 or do you have a more in-depth program that sells for more?
Brian: That's the program that sells for $27. Yeah.
Dean: Okay. What do people get out of this? What's the pay off here for people? What I look for ... Normally, I'm looking to find the desire that this is fulfilling, right? Sometimes it's easy when we know that there's major drivers of things. Something that is a built-in market driver is pain and urgency.
Brian: Right.
Dean: Like I have a product called "Stop Your Divorce," and that is pain and urgency. Somebody has told them that they want a divorce, and they are immediately put into this pain and there's an urgency of wanting to get out of it. Anybody who's in any kind of acute onset physical pain, or a diagnosed condition of thyroid or something that is going to throw people into this emotional urgency, to solve that is a great primary driver. Another one is the idea of trading dimes for dollars. A lot of the things that I do are driven by people's desire to make more money. Our whole organization is set up to help people make more money.
The idea is that they're trading a little bit of money for a roadmap, an idea, a structure that gets them more money. The payoff on the investment is more money. Another one is, I call it irrational passion. That's something like people who are just passionate about something, golfers or Harley owners, or grandparents. Things like that where there's no sense of rational things about it. They're spending because they want to fuel that passion that they have. Is that who were speaking to here or is there another desire or need, or payoff that is clearly obvious?
Brian: Right. Yeah. I have such a hard time nailing it down. This is something I've thought a lot about. I think it's probably ... There's a little bit of both, but it might be more on the irrational passion side of things like the way that I can think of explaining it to people who aren't familiar with the concept is wilderness survival, like how to start fires by rubbing sticks together? That's like a hard skill of wilderness survival. People, they love that kind of stuff. A lot of people will go through a lot just to learn those sorts of skills. I teach more like the soft skills of wilderness survival. Things like how to predict the weather by looking at clouds.
Yeah. There is a lot of people who I communicate with who would be people who are interested in what I do. There's a concern about the state of the environment, and I've always thought that that's like a pain point. They're just looking around at the world, and seeing that things in our environment are being destroyed and that people are getting away from just having a basic connection to the natural world, and so they make decisions that doesn't support the flourishing of our ... Like the long term of our planet. Yeah.
Dean: Okay. As we're talking this out, I'm listening to the markets. Wilderness survival is one thing that there's a tangible skill that would come at the end of it. Environmentalist, it's different than wilderness survival. I think that there's some element of the spirituality or mindfulness that would be connected to nature which is again ... You can see as I'm describing this that this would be different audiences, right? Somebody who's interested in wilderness survival the way you were describing that, how to start a fire with two sticks, and how to read the weather and listen for ... All those things. That's a different person that you visualize than when you start talking about connecting with nature and being the mindfulness of it and the peace and the meditation of it sort of thing. That's a different person again, right?
Brian: Yeah.
Dean: What else? Let's pour a couple of other things here. Then, maybe we can maybe explore what I might look to amplify one of those versus the other because it sounds like your first need is to try to figure who the audience is, so we can craft the good message for them. Because "Awaken Your Naturalist Intelligence" is different than wilderness survival. It doesn't sound like wilderness survival is really your ... That's not your thing from what I'm reading. It sounds like you're more along that lines of "Awaken Your Naturalist Intelligence."
Brian: Yeah. How I got into it was through this idea of ecopsychology and it's like how going into nature and just paying attention using your five senses to look at things like birds and plants and trees, and learning to understand what's happening that actually have an effect on the human mind, and so I was always really into like ...
Dean: Now, we're getting somewhere. Tell me more about that. Now, we're going somewhere, right? Again, now we're on the ... We've already got four quadrants here of things. The wilderness survival is a one very distinct thing which you can definitely go down. Environmentalist, that's another realm. The spiritual and the mindfulness, meditation sort of element of it is one thing. Then ecopsychology, now you got a completely different flavor that there are so many neuro factors that they're all over this place. People go to float tanks, and people do all kinds of things to try and get a performance edge. Describe to me some of the greatest things you learned about ecopsychology. I've never heard those words before.
Brian: Yeah. Well, my own personal experience has been that I can be inside working on something and maybe I'm trying to get something done and just struggling with it and feeling like blocked or stressed out and just going outside and sitting down, and doing a sense meditation like just listening to what's happening around me and getting tuned in, and just slowing down all my rhythms so that I can just be present. It clears all that out. Then, I can think more clearly and I can approach my day more effectively. I guess for me, I struggle with ... Because once I've started doing that, I feel like the thing that has been most powerful for me in doing that is actually like almost doing it without expectations of having an effect on my mind. I just do it because I love tracking, or I love learning about birds. I'm having a hard time tying those together because I don't know if everyone would see it that way.
Dean: Okay. That's really what your passion is. It's not tied to a performance outcome, or anything like that. You feel better that way, right? Is that what you're saying kind of thing?
Brian: Yeah. For me, I started it because I wanted to have higher performance in my life, but the reason that I do it now is because I love it. I've had a hard time getting really clear on who I'm communicating with because I'm not supposed to be communicating with myself. I'm trying to communicate with a single group of people and I think I get the mixed up.
Dean: Yeah. Because you're definitely going in different directions here when we mentioned this different appeals here. The Bird Language Blueprint, it's interesting that that's your most expensive product. Why is that? Why is the Bird Language Blueprint more than the Natural Skill Builders? What have you discovered about that?
Brian: I made that one more expensive because it's what I'm best at. I think the quality of the content is the best. Also, I think the most pinpointed in terms of who it's for like really what it's designed for is like a basic bird like an American robin, a song bird, they make sounds and some of those sounds are alarm calls. You can actually use those alarm calls to locate cats like bobcats or mountain lions. You can use them to locate owls. The whole purpose of that course ... There's really just one purpose of that course and it's to help people find wild animals by listening to bird language. It just feels like of everything that I've done, that's probably the best thing that I've done.
Dean: Do you live in a rural area? Do you live in nature? What's your life like?
Brian: Yeah. I have trees in my backyard. It's not like a huge area. I'm in a subdivision, but it's like a forested subdivision.
Dean: Yeah. Where do you go when you want to get out in nature? Where do you go? Is there a national park near you, or is there forest, or do you live near the ocean? Are you calling nature specifically the forest?
Brian: Well actually, typically what I do is I just go into my backyard because there is actually a lot that happens just like in your own backyard. It's easier to get into your own backyard than to go out to a national park. One of the lessons that I've learned is like rather than trying to find the perfect wilderness place with the ideal physical environmental conditions, just do what's convenient but focus on your own personal engagement with the world. If you can actually approach your own backyard with 10 times your usual level of awareness and just listening at a deeper level, you can notice the exact same things to happen in a national park or happening in your own backyard.
Dean: Wow. Okay. Wondering aloud here because where I was going to maybe think about that is do you ever do retreats or events, or live get togethers?
Brian: I haven't done too much of that. I think if we're going to do that, I'd want to have like a partner or some other people doing it with me. That's kind of the main ...
Dean: What's your aspiration here? What's your end goal here for the business? What is it that you want from it?
Brian: See, when I tried to learn this stuff, I wanted to learn bird language and wildlife tracking. I had to actually travel to the West Coast, the United States and I had to save up money for a really long time and I spent all my money going to this place just to learn this stuff. When I finished at that school, I was like, "Man, I wished there was a way that people could learn this online," like a home study version. There are some home study options out there, but I think that there's a lot of potential for there to be more. I get people visiting my website from all around the world, and most of them don't have the ability to go to the United States and study at a special school for two years.
Dean: Right.
Brian: That's where I was approaching it from is to just make that available as an online thing.
Dean: Right. That's one of the certainly most irrationally passion that ... Audiences are birdwatchers, for sure. That's a proven ... There's people who that's their whole thing, right? I have a good friend who he would travel and his whole thing was to spot as many birds as he possibly could. He had this whole bird journal and he would ... Even these parts where there were these certain rare birds that have been spotted, and some of them are only there for this short period of time and things. Is this a sub-niche of the birdwatching world, or is it something different?
Brian: It might be. I think of it more as like ... Birdwatchers are interested in finding rare birds, or unusual birds and trying to see as many different birds as possible.
Dean: That was what my friend was into. Yeah.
Brian: Yeah. Bird language is more about wildlife tracking, like finding tracks on the ground and evidence of animals. It's more about taking one bird, and learning it so well that you can understand when it's agitated and when it's feeling pressure from a predator. Then using that observation to actually find a wild animal. It's more like tracking.
Dean: Okay. Is that a whole another world that people do animal tracking? The way that people do the birds like the birds are ... Found a way to help them find the other wild animals?
Brian: Yeah. I would say wildlife tracking is not as popular as birdwatching. Maybe because it's a harder skill to get into. It's not as easy to find tracks as it is to find birds, but there is a sizeable audience for that.
Dean: Okay. The way I'm looking for you here is that it's going to be very difficult to build a business that can sustain you from selling 47 or even $97 products in a niche, niche, niche market without a crystal clear thing. Something like "Stop Your Divorce," we've sold ... We are more than $5 million worth of that one book. That is $79, but it's very specific what pain and urgent ... There's a very specific audience and the demand for it is built in. The reason that that works is because once somebody goes through that situation, they're immediately searching for the answer for this. What would you say is the way ... One of the languages that we used are the pains and the gains, and the jobs to be done of this market. It's not a pain-driven thing. They're certainly not that, so what would they be seeking? Because you really got an invisible audience, right?
Brian: Right.
Dean: What would they be seeking? How do you find them now? What's your method to come in contact with them?
Brian: Yeah. Well, I haven't done a lot of experimenting with this just because I haven't been confident that I have enough profitability to do advertising, but if I were going to try and find them on Facebook, I would look for people who are interested and have liked books by Tom Brown, Jr. He's a guy who sold a lot of books on the topic of tracking. I would look for people who are interested in books about nature already and that's what I was thinking. I don't know how else I would really approach it other than that.
Dean: How big is that market would you say? Have you done some searching on Facebook? Are there pages, groups, places where people gather?
Brian: Yes. There are large groups of people that are interested in those things. I can't exactly remember the numbers right now, but Tom Brown, his books have probably sold hundreds of thousands of copies, if not, more than that.
Dean: Yeah. There's a market that's just tapping into the right thing. That Facebook is certainly gathering those people, so there's the thought leaders, the people that they would gather. There's an identity that they would have like birdwatchers would certainly gather with other birdwatchers, but whatever this niche is that you are defining, what I'm looking for, I guess is how would they define themselves so that you can, at least find them? You got this Tom Brown, Jr., as an example here. Would you have a sense of how many people are ... Does he have a Facebook page, or is there a Facebook group that would give you a sense of how many people like that? Because that's who you can target as you try and identify them.
Brian: I think he does have a Facebook page. I don't know if it's specifically run by him. It might be run by his students or something.
Dean: Sure. Tom Brown, Jr., fan page or something. There may be people who like this also like this kind of ... You might have some peripheral things there. How active are you? Do you have a Facebook page that you're hosting, that you are gathering community?
Brian: Yeah. I have a Facebook page. Social media is not necessarily a strength for me. I mainly just use it when I publish articles. I publish an article once a week, so I mostly just put that on there.
Dean: Okay. How many people as an audience right now that you ... Whether people have liked your Facebook page, or they opted in? Do you do any kind of weekly newsletter or email to this group?
Brian: Yeah. Most of my followers are on Facebook, or email or on YouTube. I think it would probably be anywhere in the range of 750 to 1,000 people total.
Dean: Okay. That's part of it. That may be enough. I think I would look at potentially doing some kind of an event or some kind of gathering because that's where you're going to be able to have a little bit more revenue. You got a higher price point opportunity. If you were to spend time with these people, like if you were to imagine spending a weekend with people, what would you say would be a weekend that they would definitely love to be part of?
Brian: What I'm thinking is to go to some sort of natural location where we can do camping or something, and basically just lead them in different nature activities and exercises for the weekend.
Dean: Yeah. Is that something that you would enjoy, do you think?
Brian: I would enjoy it if I had partners like if I were doing it in a team, I would want it ...
Dean: Do you know of somebody who could do it with you?
Brian: I have friends distant. I don't have anyone local, so I'd have to connect with them a little bit and convince them to come here or do it somewhere else. Yeah. I do know some people.
Dean: Part of that is you're just not comfortable being the center of it kind of thing, or where is your hesitance? What's your ...
Brian: Yeah.
Dean: You're nervous, right? There are nerves about it, right? Is that part of it that you're ... Because you've never done anything like that? Is that right?
Brian: I've helped on programs like that. I'm good at coming up with the ideas and creating a plan and being there to support the leaders and that kind of stuff. I'm good at delivering key points of content like I can do a master class and bird language or something. I can do that no problem, but I get totally drained if I spend too much time doing detailed stuff with large groups of people.
Dean: Okay. I'm talking about a large group. You're an introvert, right? That's part of it.
Brian: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. I am, too. For years, and years and years, we did big real estate marketing events. We'd have six or 800 people every single month. It was very draining. About four and a half years ago, I started doing this small group events where I would have 10 or 12 people, and we would do it right here in my backyard and literally, even celebration at the Celebration Hotel, it's a beautiful board room and I invite 10 or 12 people and we've spend three days just completely going deep on applying the 8 Profit Activators to their business. I remember the first event that I did. I'd have a conversation with Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach, and we were talking about this idea of what would motivate you and fascinate you for the rest of your life. I said, "I really love applying the 8 Profit Activators to all kinds of different businesses, but I like to do it in a small group, not in 500 events." There's just too much logistics, and too much people really. I'm much better in a small group.
I got off the phone with Dan, and I conceived this idea of doing this Breakthrough Blueprint events, and I went over and reserved the board room at the Celebration Hotel and I sent out an email to my list. I said, "Hey, I'm doing a small group three-day mastermind in Orlando to go deep in applying the 8 Profit Activators to the business. Would you like to join us?" I just sent that message out, and I got all these people responding saying, "Oh, that sounds great. Tell me more. When is it? How much is it? What's the situation?" I wrote an email that just explained what we were going to do, and I explained the whole environment, exactly that conversation that I just have the view about how I've been doing the big events and that this was something that I really enjoyed doing. The environment is a really cool format, 10 to 12 people and just said what we were going to do and, "It's $5,000 and it would be great if you could come. Just let me know if you're in."
I sent that out and sent the replies, and people would reply saying, "I'm in." I did that first event. It was awesome. Then, buoyed by that, I did another one in Toronto. Fast forward four years later, I'm doing nine or 10 of those events a year. All driven by the same process, the same email. I'm wondering because you've got nothing to lose here by potentially trying something like that. I'm not talking about maybe getting 1,000 or 100 people or a big group, but it might be nice even if it was six or eight or 10 people to get your feet wet or just get that kind of experience, get that to experiment and see whether that's something that people might even enjoy.
It's a no fail way of testing something too in a way because you've got the opportunity to just send out an email to the 750 or 1,000 people that you have right now and say that same thing. Just set a date and send out a message that says, "Hey, I'm getting together with a small group to do a weekend of ..." However you would describe what it is. If you were to say if it was the ... Because your product is called "Bird Language Blueprint," isn't it? Is that what you said?
Brian: Yes.
Dean: Yeah. It's funny because mine is a Breakthrough Blueprint, but you're Bird Language Blueprint and say, "I'm getting together with small group. We're going to spend a weekend in the field going over the Bird Language Blueprint. Would you like to join us?" Just that where if you're not putting it out there and announcing this event and doing those things, you can send that email and if nobody replies, nothing lost. You don't have to do anything, right?
Brian: Right.
Dean: You didn't put it out there, it's not a failure because you didn't put it out there and announced it and try and convince everybody to come to it, you just ask whether that would be something that people would be interested in. I had an experience in Australia, the first event that I did ... Actually the second event that I did in Australia. There's a guy, Mike Monday and he's a music producer and he would sell ... Just like you, he's a introverted guy. He would have products that ranged from $47 and $97. Never sold them anything more than $97, but he had a really great audience who loved him and loved the stuff that he did, and he's the real deal. He was a DJ that traveled all the world. It was his life, making music. Now, he coaches and teaches people how to make music their life.
He came to my Breakthrough Blueprint in Australia in Sydney, and we sat in the room and I had him at one of the breaks. We went downstairs and book the boardroom that we were in for that event for six weeks or eight weeks out from when it was. This was late August, so he booked it for early October. Then, we went back upstairs and sent an email to Justice Australian subscribers, I think there were 900 of Australian subscribers, and he sent out exactly that message that I'm describing to you where he said ... The subject line was, "Sydney Music Mastermind." Then he said, "Hey Brian, I'm getting together with small group of people in Sydney for a two-day music mastermind weekend to go deeper in applying all the "Make Music Your Life thing," so we talked about, "Would you like to join us?" Press send on that while we were there.
He was so nervous because when you're doing something like that, it takes a lot of courage the first time because you don't know, and nobody likes rejection. I understand that completely, right? I understand that you would be nervous to send out a message like that, but he got all these replies back. People said, "Oh, that would be great. I would love that. When is it? Tell me the details." He send it out and did a nice email just describing what he was going to do, and that it was $1,000. $,1000 was the highest number that I could get him to even imagine charging these people because he never sold them more than $97 for anything.
We sent that out and literally within moments of sending out the email, he had his first people saying, "I'm in." That completely changed everything for him because you can imagine seeing just the look on his face growing from like that nervousness first. Then, hope when people started replying saying, "Oh, tell me more. Tell me more. Tell me more." Now, you gauge how interested people are by how much they respond because remember, you haven't mentioned that he priced. You haven't mentioned any of the details, you're just getting a gauge on whether that would be something somebody is interested in. There's no harm in that.
Brian: Right.
Dean: Let's do it today. Let's just send that group of email and say, "Hey, I'm doing a ..." Whatever you want to call it, "a weekend." Maybe even if you softened it and said, "Hey, I'm thinking of doing a weekend in the Spring to spend two days really going deep on the Bird Language Blueprint." See, I don't know the language of how you speak to people, but you ...
Brian: No, I like that. Yeah. It would be something along those lines. My mind is just spinning a little bit right now. I'm thinking about it.
Dean: Right.
Brian: Yeah. It would be something along those lines. I don't know exactly what I would say.
Dean: Let's word craft it right now because the odds of you doing it are going to go up if we can get the right words for you. This could literally change your life if we do this. You've got enough of an audience right now. They know who you are. They look at you as an authority. They're thankful for the work that you're doing, and there's a group of those 1,000 people who already know that if they had the chance to spend a weekend with you, that that would be a valuable thing. Would you say that's true?
Brian: Yeah. I would say that's true.
Dean: Okay. Then, let's give them the opportunity. We're not trying to convince people to come to this.
Brian: Right.
Dean: There's already a group. You're giving the people who already want to, the opportunity to do it.
Brian: Yeah.
Dean: That's the way you have to think of it. Okay. What we are going to call it? We'll call it a Bird Language Weekend? You might want to think of ...
Brian: Yeah, I think that sounds good. Bird Language Weekend.
Dean: All right. That's the subject line. We're halfway there.
Brian: Okay.
Dean: Bird Language Weekend. Okay. Now then we're going to go and we'll say, "Hi Brian. I'm planning a bird language weekend." Would the Spring be a good time for ...
Brian: Yeah. Spring would be perfect like May or June.
Dean: Okay. This Spring to spend a couple of days. I'm just wordsmithing this as we go here. I'm planning a bird language weekend this Spring to spend a couple of days. What would you say would be the right word? Because I would say ... From my Breakthrough Blueprint, I'd say, "Going deep on applying the 8 Profit Activators to your business." What would be the equivalent? A couple of days really exploring our bird language skills, or ...?
Brian: That could work.
Dean: That's okay. Sometimes I'll make a word palette here, like bird language skills. I'll just write down the words here, bird language skills. Would you call it birdwatching? It's different than birdwatching, right?
Brian: Yeah. Bird language skills is definitely more relatable, I think.
Dean: Okay. "I'm planning a bird language weekend this Spring to spend a couple of days with a small group really honing our bird watch or bird language skills."
Brian: Yeah. I like that.
Dean: This is great, right?
Brian: Or even with a small group, and a couple of days with a small group. You can even do like, "Really going deep with our bird language skills."
Dean: Yeah. I said honing, but is there really going deep? Does that make sense?
Brian: Yeah, it does. I think both versions would match the way that people talks though.
Dean: How would you say it if you saw them at Starbucks? That's what I'm looking for. I look to that kind of language and say, "Hi Brian. I'm planning a bird language weekend this Spring. Spend a couple of days with a small group really going deep with or honing our, or ..."
Brian: Yeah. It would be going deep with.
Dean: Okay. Going deep. Okay. Let's try it. "Going deep with our bird language skills. Would you like to join us?" How do you have your list organized here? Do you have an auto responder? How do you communicate with them?
Brian: I have an auto responder. Once they got through the auto responder, they go on to a main list. That's the list ... I send a new article, some sort of piece of content every Friday.
Dean: Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Let's send it right now. Are you online?
Brian: Yes, I am. I am.
Dean: Okay. Let's do it.
Brian: Okay. Let me just open up my account here.
Dean: This is going to be a great thing for you.
Brian: Here.
Dean: I think this is great. Let's just live craft it right here.
Brian: The subject line would be Bird ...
Dean: Yeah. Bird Language Weekend.
Brian: Bird Language Weekend. Now ...
Dean: Do you have ability to put first name?
Brian: For some of them, I do but I had my list originally on AWeber and I wasn't collecting the first name there. When I transferred them over ... Those ones, I can't do it for.
Dean: Okay. Let's say you put anything in there. Maybe this will just say ... Even if you said, "Hi ... I'm planning a bird language weekend this Spring to spend a couple of days with a small group really going deep on our bird language skills." With a new paragraph, "Would you like to join us?"
Brian: Right.
Dean: Brian. Then scroll down a few spaces, so you're going to have some depth here. Then, put just a couple of dots just to separate ... Just not to hide your unsubscribe stuff, but to separate it from the message here, you know?
Brian: Yeah.
Dean: Okay. All right. Read it back through.
Brian: All right. It says, "Hi, I'm planning a bird language weekend this Spring to spend a couple of days with a small group really going deep on our bird language skills. Would you like to join us? Brian."
Dean: Perfect. There we go. Go ahead and press send. It's all very exciting.
Brian: Yeah. Thank you so much.
Dean: Are you getting some adrenaline?
Brian: Yeah. It's definitely pushing my comfort zone.
Dean: Right. I love it.
Brian: Actually going into this, Dean, I was hoping that we would be able to figure out some sort of email to send today. I didn't know really what it would be, whether it would be ... I certainly wasn't expecting it would be this. Yeah. I was hoping that we would do something like this.
Dean: Well, that's great. I think that this could be ... Imagine if this is something that they really want. This is what we're going to know definitively. We're going to either get crickets, or you're going to get people who say, "Wow. That sounds like a great idea."
Brian: Right.
Dean: When you do, then you're on to something here. You're certainly going to get gauge that response. I love that you took the courage to do that. I want to acknowledge that because that takes some courage to do it, but I think this is a really great growth opportunity for you here.
Brian: Yeah, absolutely.
Dean: Imagine you get to where this kicks off that you can travel the world to all the greatest nature or places, and bring your audience with you, bring your people.
Brian: Yeah. I like that.
Dean: It's a cool thing where you can go ... That's the greatest thing in the world. All summer long, I go to Toronto, to London, to Amsterdam, to Sydney. Everywhere I go, I'm doing this Breakthrough Blueprint events, and I get to meet so many great people. In London, we got a real family of people there. They come to every events. Same thing in Sydney and Amsterdam. Last year was the first year I did Amsterdam, but now we've got a really great group of people. A lot of those are coming back already. I've already booked for the event in July.
I think that could be a really great thing for you. Then, it becomes about just really documenting all this stuff like while you're there doing things that you're fueling your YouTube and your Instagram and your Facebook, you're constantly documenting everything that's going on, and people get to experience it vicariously and build that desire that, "I want to come to the next ... Next time he does all of those, I'm definitely doing it."
Brian: Yeah. Just out of curiosity, what would you suggest or how would you approach pricing for something like this?
Dean: What's the number that you would feel ... How much did you pay to go to that very expensive bird tracking school that you went to in California?
Brian: The main school that I did was actually in Washington State. That was a year long program that had the bird language as part of it. It was just part of it. I think the tuition ended up being like $12,000 and we would do three days a week for 10 months. There was another ... I did do, they called it a Bird Language Intensive in California. That was five days, I think and I don't remember what they charged for that. It was maybe $600 or something around that area.
Dean: Yeah. I think you're in that range and maybe $1,000 could be. It depends on what you ... You want to get a sense of what it would take and what it would be worth for you. Mike was thrilled to have 12 people for $1,000 for a weekend. He had a $12,000 weekend. That's how would you go about estimating it and see, and maybe you do the first one on the low end of that just to see or maybe you try it on the high end with that. Whatever the highest number you could think of plus 20% would probably be the right number.
Brian: Okay. All right.
Dean: I think it's going to be an exciting adventure. I want you to keep me posted on what happens because this could be an inspiration for so many people who are in your situation where they've got this audience of people, and they're not looking for where to go next with it. I definitely want to hear what happens. Has it already gone out?
Brian: Oh, definitely. Yes, it's gone out.
Dean: Perfect.
Brian: I'll definitely keep you informed of what happens.
Dean: Yeah. Have you got any replies yet? Check your email. That would be the best if you get a reply before this show is even over. Now, the suspense is building. It's great.
Brian: Let's see. No replies yet.
Dean: Okay. Good. This will be very exciting. Yeah. Email me and let me know what happens because that will be a very exciting event.
Brian: Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good.
Dean: All right. Brian, I am happy we got to spend some time together here. We know where this is going to go but this went in a pretty good direction, and I'm pretty excited for you. I think this could be a real turning point for you.
Brian: Yeah. Thank you so much. This was really helpful.
Dean: You're welcome. Okay. Let me know. Then, we'll do a little follow up and see how it all turns out.
Brian: Okay. Perfect. Thanks, Dean.
Dean: Thanks Brian. Okay. Bye-bye.
Wow. That is the first time we've ever done anything like that live on More Cheese Less Whiskers. I will definitely keep you posted on what happens but I have to applaud Brian's courage to push the send button but I think we really had a great message. That message by the way is something that you could model if you're thinking about doing live events. That's one of the things that we use as a foundational idea in our email mastery program. I get to spend time with people crafting and wordsmithing specific emails like that to really make great offers to the list of people that you already have. I'm excited to see what happens with that.
I mentioned Mike Monday on this episode. That's a really incredible story that I think Brian will end up in the same situation. At least the thing that we'll discover is whether your audience really is on the same page as you, whether there is. In any group of more than 700 or 1,000 people, there are some of those people who really like you, who really would love to spend more time with you, get a closer relationship with you. Have you worked with them on whatever it is that you do? You almost can't fail by doing that. I'm excited to see what could come from you trying that. If you'd like to continue the conversation here, you can go to MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com. You can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book.
You can also download for free a copy of email mastery at EmailMastery.com. That is the place where you'll hear more about the email strategies that we use to engage with your audience, to get more conversational conversion from the leads that you're already generating and really take it to the next level and become an email master. I look forward to working with you, and I am excited to come back next week with another great episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers.