0134: Creating Wicked Cool Plugins with Ravi Jayagopal

Intro [0:00]

EA Interviews Episode 134. Inspiration, transformation, success stories, and the Imperfect Action Round seven days a week. Join Mario Fachini for today’s Expert Authority Effect Interview. 

Mario Fachini [0:13]

You have a website. Of course you do. It’s for your business. You have online presence, you have customers, you have clients, there’s all these things. How do you maintain it? What do you do with it? How do you know if you’re setting the right one up? What if you want to create courses? What if you want to create trainings? I am beyond thrilled because what we’re going to be sharing in this episode deals with exactly all of that. I have none other than the CEO of Wicked Cool Plugins, Ravi Jayagopal. If you’ve ever heard of digital access pass and wanted to do membership sites, he’s here and he’s going to be sharing along with the other dozens and dozens of plugins he’s done. He’s an author. He’s a speaker. He’s a trainer. He has a podcast. And he’s going to be sharing all of this insight. And I’m beyond thrilled. So I’m going to just stop now and cue the sponsor. 

SPONSOR Rosh Tips [1:06]

Winning With Google in 2020? Of course you want to. I’d advise Google search advertising and YouTube specialist Rosh Sillars. Download the free Winning With Google in 2020 Guide at EAInterviews.com/RoshTips. 

Mario Fachini [1:21]

Here he is ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ravi Jayagopal  Ravi, how are you doing today? 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:25]

Hey, buddy. How are you? I’m doing great. 

Mario Fachini [1:27]

I’m excited to hear what you’re going to share because I’ve known about you for a while. And it was cool to see your name on the list. And I just can’t wait to hear what you have to say. 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:40]

I’m Looking forward to it. 

Mario Fachini [1:44]

How did you decide to get into of everything in the world? I mean, there’s the plug inside of the websites. There’s the programming. There’s the design. There’s the layout. There’s the marketing of it. There’s so much that goes into websites on the internet. How did you get into the plugins side of it? 

Ravi Jayagopal [2:00]

Sure. So the first thing I want to clarify, I’m not exactly the CEO. Because titles don’t mean much. It’s my wife and I, and we have a team. So I’m more like the CEEO, the chief everything else officer. I wear all the other hats that are discarded. And my wife does the – takes care of the development and support. So I’m doing operations, and the marketing, and this, and podcasts, and coaching. 

Mario Fachini [2:26]

But you’re both the co-founders? 

Ravi Jayagopal [2:27]

Yes, we are. Yes. 

Mario Fachini [2:29]

Okay. Excellent. 

Ravi Jayagopal [2:30]

Yeah. So the title, we don’t really give much credence to that. Because, you know, for the purposes of tax filing, I’m like the secretary. So we just make up whatever we need to. There’s no real org structure. We’re like a small business and we just make things up on the fly and just keep running. 

Mario Fachini [2:50]

Small business? It was more of I know what you’ve built and it’s impressive. And I’m excited for you to dive in with that. I just knew – I just wanted everyone to know that, you know, you didn’t just start working here last week or something. You’ve been at it for a minute or two. And it’s a great company you built. 

Ravi Jayagopal [3:09]

Thank you. A lot of credit to my wife, Veena Prashanth, who is the co-founder and co-developer of that. So the way things started out was, many years ago I started selling stuff online, digital products. I had a baby names website. This was back when I was living in India. And then I started realizing that I could sell stuff online. So I was selling books, real physical books, and then cost of shipping from India to all over the world was so prohibited, that it just wasn’t working out. And the cost of the book was like a fraction of the shipping costs. And luckily, Amazon didn’t have the book at the time. So I was selling a lot of copies. And then I said, “You know, I got to go digital.” So I figured out, “Okay. I’m going to do a PDF. And then how do I sell it?” And so it’s just always being in the trenches, in the weeds. You know, when you’re working on the stuff, you get a lot of different ideas. So just execution. So then we move  to the US and we are both having full time jobs. And I was doing all the stuff on the side learning PHP and MySQL. So I started this PHP script. Again, I’m a developer and a hardcore geek at heart. And so I started creating stuff for myself. So I created a Contact Us Form PHP. You know, people in 2019 won’t even know what a Contact Us form script is because you’re using WordPress or some kind of a CMS and all that stuff comes built in. But back then, late 90s, early 2000s, even if you needed a simple form, you had to contact a developer for it. You have to have somebody create the HTML form. Then when you hit submit, where does it go? Who gets emailed? All that stuff had to be configured using PHP. So I started creating one. And then somebody contacted me and say, “Hey, can you do that for me for my website?” So I started to charge $30 for the very first time I sold that script to somebody. And guess what? It’s a long story but I’ll filter it down. The person who bought the script from me was Ryan Deiss.

Mario Fachini [5:26]

No kidding. 

Ravi Jayagopal [5:26]

Yeah. He was the first guy who said, “Hey, I want that baby names – that form that you have on that site.” So I customized it and I sold him a script that he could sell to somebody. He white labeled it. And then I started, you know, selling my ebooks. So I wanted a way to – back then PayPal, the way PayPal worked back then you created a button for whatever –  $5. And while you were creating the button, there was a thing that said, “Where do they go after they have completed the purchase?” The landing page URL. So you put the landing page URL. So they went to the button, they clicked on it, they went to PayPal, logged in, pay it, and came back to the thank you page URL. That’s where you would put the download link to your PDF or executable or whatever it is you’re selling. But the problem is, if you went to the sales page and get a view source, right under the button, you could see the thank you page URL. So you could go right to it and download the PDF. So a lot of people are having – 

Mario Fachini [6:30]

There was no password protection or anything on there. 

Ravi Jayagopal [6:32]

Correct.So there’s nothing to prevent only authorized buyers. And even just simple password protection, somebody could pass it around. So there was all these problems that PDF creators were facing. So I was facing that myself. And so I said, “Okay. How do I figure something out?” So I started playing with PHP and PayPal and created the world’s first PayPal download protector, I call it. So I had this suite of PHP scripts. It was called Webmaster In A Box. And then Google slapped me because somebody put some junk stuff. I got hacked. So then I had to change it to My Webmaster In A Box. So basically, I was selling ready made PHP scripts that you could buy. And just like a plugin, it’s the earlier versions of plugins. You buy the PHP script, you open it with notepad, and you change the email. It says “Insert email here.” You change it to your email. If you have a website, you change to your domain, and then you upload it to your website, and boom, now it becomes your script. So that’s what I was selling. And then came WordPress. I started playing with WordPress and did a whole bunch of stuff with it. I created a Contact Us Form plugin. That’s the first thought I had because I wanted to see how I might create in PHP. So I created that. And then soon, again, I started creating – I had a membership site at the time. So I was using my own scripts. And then one of the problems I had was a lot of people we’re asking how to schedule content. Nobody was able to do it. So what people would do is all these big gurus, I saw it over and over again, they would launch a membership. So traffic marketing, whatever, Facebook marketing course. They’ll watch it into 2019. The next year when they re-launched it, the same course for 2020, they had created all this content and this community and all this stuff. But somebody who went in 2020, could get everything on day one. Which means people would not stay for a year. They would just go there, download everything, read everything, and then ask for a refund. So there was no way to start everything – 

Mario Fachini [8:48]

There was none of that drip content like there is now. 

Ravi Jayagopal [8:51]

Right. And people didn’t have the concept of what the content is. So that’s when I actually created content dripping back in 2007. And that said, “You know what? You have WordPress. Create all this content.” And I call it a Content Responder. So you can create it like an autoresponder.  You queue up all this content ahead of time. And then you say, “Okay. This goes out on day one. This becomes available on day two. This becomes available on day seven, or 14, or however.” And they would – even if somebody got the link to it and went there, they’ll say, “Sorry. This is not yet available to you.” So that’s how I came up with the concept. And then we incorporated it into DAP. At the time, we were both working in full time jobs. So I was doing coding on the side. And then the DAP was launched. And we did pretty okay for, you know, the first two, three months of 2008. The last three months when it was launched in October of 2008. Then my wife was looking for a better opportunity at the time. She was unhappy at work. And she had hit the proverbial glass ceiling for women at that point so she quit. And she jumped right into the business. And that year, we did like – I don’t know – 2,000% increase in sales and customers and everything. And then that’s when we knew that we had something that we could count on. So the following year, I quit. And we moved to San Diego. And we’ve been here ever since – since 2010. 

Mario Fachini [10:25]

Wow. Congratulations. 

Ravi Jayagopal [10:26]

Thank you.  

Mario Fachini [10:27]

When people come to you with ideas, how do you incorporate them as far as going, “This is something we should add into the development or this is something we should put.” You know, how do you discern? Is it a short term game plan, long term game plan? Because I’m sure you get a lot of, “Hey, what about this? Can you add that?” How do you keep it focused but also growing? 

Ravi Jayagopal [10:50]

Yeah. That’s one of the things, my wife and I, we pride ourselves with, in terms of product development. Because we came from technical backgrounds. We’re both computer science engineers. And we both worked at Fortune 5 and Fortune 10 companies. Run big teams of development teams and developers and database people and project managers. So one of our biggest strengths is product development, which means figuring out what are the best features to incorporate into your products. So that comes from various different things. Like, one of the things I believe in is minimum viable product. So, I call it Minimum Viable Everything. So whether it’s minimum viable podcast, minimum viable Kindle book. Like, you don’t have to write a 500 page book, you can write a 20 page Kindle book that epic stuff that helps a reader do one thing really, really well and gives them instant gratification and instant results and quick execution. So the same way when we launched DAP, one of my focus was it has to have certain features but not everything. So we said it needs to have PayPal integration. And ClickBank was there. So ClickBank integration. And there was this huge shopping cart back in the day called One Shopping Cart. So that had to happen. So we had, like, two or three we picked for the payment processors. And another thing I was very insistent is that it has to have a built-in affiliate module. Because when everybody who joins your membership site, imagine sending them a welcome email saying, “Hey, John. Thank you for joining my course. Here’s the affiliate link – personalized affiliate link. Feel free to use this to promote and we’ll give you 33 percent commissions.” And they can start earning commissions even before their first payment has it, if it’s a trial, right? So two weeks, they can start promoting it and they can make back the money and then membership is free. So always filling out what – you have to have the full picture in your mind for product development. You have to have what’s critical now, which are the big bug fixes. Bug fixes always take highest priority because you don’t want something breaking. And ability to scale the basic features are always the highest priority, P1. So then comes stuff that can help bring in more stuff that your existing users are asking for. So if people are saying, “I’m able to do this, but to do this, it takes me like seven steps. So can you make it easier for me?” 

Mario Fachini [13:32]

So how can you do it in three or four? 

Ravi Jayagopal [13:34]

Right. And then how can you – and then maybe they don’t even know that you probably don’t even need to do that because you can do this other thing. Or we can implement this other thing which will eliminate the need for this. So that’s where, you know, they rely on us to know the whole product and the whole big picture so that we can tell them, “Hey, by the way, did you know that you can do this and not that. And you don’t need to do that because that’s irrelevant now in today’s world or whatever it is based on things – situation and technology.” So that comes like the second priority, what your existing customers want, how it can make them use your software better, how it can make it faster, Ui, Ux, all that stuff. And then comes what can you do to bring in new customers. So if there’s a new payment platform, like Stripe. So Stripe comes up a few years ago. I can’t remember when. And everybody’s like Stripe, Stripe, Stripe, Stripe, Stripe. So once you know that something is gaining ground, you want to get in first. You don’t want to wait until all your competitors, everybody has implemented it. So you have to kind of take a chance to say, “Okay. Stripe looks like it’s going to take off.” There are, like, 15 payment processors that came in at the time. But you cannot do it for all of them. So you have to kind of pick a winning horse, so to speak. So Authorize.Net, Stripe, PayPal, ClickBank, so all these things. So you constantly have to keep your fingers on the pulse of your market, of your niche, you have to be able to talk to your customers. And it helps if you’re doing that stuff yourself. Because a lot of software developers, what I’ll see is they will implement based on what others are saying. But they’re not using their own software. They’ll use it to test it and stuff but they’re not in the weeds like really using you – eating your dog food doesn’t mean that taking a little bite and saying it’s not bad. It’s like, “I’m eating this dog food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I wish I could do this. And it makes me thirsty or whatever.” So you have to be living it in the weeds and be in the thick of things to really experience their pain. And for that, you cannot just use it as a test case. “I’ll just put up a test website. I’ll just do a membership site.” You have to have real live membership site where people are paying and using your own software. Only then you will see – 

Mario Fachini [16:04]

So it sounds like you’re highly suggesting to always do a beta launch before you do a full launch. 

Ravi Jayagopal [16:10]

Absolutely. We never do a public launch especially – you know, I was going to do one of the podcast episodes I have coming up is, what you can learn from programmers. Lessons you can learn from a programmer which is doing a beta launch. Never launch it live. And do a slow launch. You don’t have to launch to everybody at the same time. And you find your early beta users, give them benefits, give them free stuff, allow them to test it, make them use it. So launch with a minimum viable product so that they’re not holding on until something else comes up. So your product has to be usable from day one even if it’s the smallest version of your product. So it has to let them do something. So if you want to launch a membership software, for example, it has to have at least one payment processor which is one of the more popular ones. So launch with at least PayPal and make it usable so that somebody can come pay and get access to the content. So those are the bare minimum requirements. Then you can add all this content grouping, and affiliate modules, and email broadcast, blah, blah, blah. So you have to – so layer development phase – phase development, launch in phases, and constantly – then in programming lingo, there’s something called waterfall method of development. Which is, client comes to you and tells you, “Hey, I want this.” And then the team goes away, comes back one year later, and says, “Hey, here. Look. Look at what we developed.” And the client goes, “This is not what I wanted.” One year or two years, I’ve seen teams get burned by thousands of billable man hours, person hours. And they get burned because they did not take ongoing feedback from the end user. So it’s not just about from all the stakeholders, whether it is your owners, the end users, the managers, the developers, the actual clients who are using it, the test users. So everybody has to be able to give you feedback. And there’s a whole bunch of development terminology for that. So they call Sprint and rapid development and a whole bunch of stuff. So you have to keep all that in mind and you have to develop in bits and pieces. Make sure that every piece you add is usable on its own without having to wait for seven other pieces before it can work. And if you say, “Okay. All these ten pieces have to be developed before this one thing can be used.” Then you push that to the backburner and then you – those are the calls you have to make. And then you have to say, “Okay.” 

Mario Fachini [18:49]

It sounds like that was a huge part of your success developing Digital Access. 

Ravi Jayagopal [18:53]

Yeah. Absolutely. Product development was absolutely critical because a lot of our competitors were either marketers who just hired somebody to do the – they said, “This is what I want.” And they had a bunch of developers overseas or whatever. So for us, the unique selling proposition was we are the developers. And we are the marketers. And we are the ones doing the product development. And we are the ones who – 

Mario Fachini [19:19]

You were right in there from day one the whole way and you still are. 

Ravi Jayagopal [19:23]

Yes. Absolutely. I mean, now I’m slowly cutting back because my wife and her team has taken over the day to day development and support. And I’m not involved in that. 

Mario Fachini [19:32]

But it’s also established. It’s been over ten years. 

Ravi Jayagopal [19:35]

Oh, yeah. It’s 12 years now. So 2008 – 

Mario Fachini [19:39]

Wow. Congrats on that. Who would you say DAP is best designed for? 

Ravi Jayagopal [19:44]

It is for any WordPress user who wants to monetize their content. So if you’re WordPress, which is critical because it’s a WordPress plugin, you have to be using WordPress. And now a lot of people will create videos, audio, PDF, Excel spreadsheets, and some might want to sell images, some might want to sell just audio files, some might have a podcast that they want to make a premium podcast where only paid members can access the podcast. So it’s not on iTunes or Apple podcasts or Spotify. 

Mario Fachini [20:17]

So monetizing their expertise and assets with WordPress. 

Ravi Jayagopal [20:22]

Correct. So you have – 

Mario Fachini [20:24]

Does DAP work with anything but WordPress? 

Ravi Jayagopal [20:28]

We just work with plain HTML PHP sites. But WordPress has become so advanced and all of our plugins are not WordPress only. So it doesn’t make sense to –  so we don’t support regular websites anymore and it won’t work on like Squarespace or ClickFunnels or anything. In fact, we have people who are using ClickFunnels. They will do their stuff and their funnel stuff in ClickFunnels and then it talks back to a WordPress site where DAP is. And DAP has a way of connecting with Zapier. And it has a whole bunch of integration sites. 

Mario Fachini [21:01]

Interesting. 

Ravi Jayagopal [21:02]

So you can still use other systems and then you hook it up with DAP using Zapier or DAP has its own API’s that you can connect with. And then you bring the data in here. Now, you have everything in one place. So you can have ten ClickFunnels but you’re bringing everybody into one place in WordPress. And now, you have full control. You have DAP, which is a WordPress plugin. So it’s all on your site. The users are on your site. The payments are on your site, because you use your own PayPal account, your own Stripe account. But when you use a third party system, Patreon or any of the stuff, you’re basically putting all your eggs in their basket, which is a scary thought. And so that’s one of the things I recommend, always make sure no matter – the content can be recreated, the videos you already have on your computer before uploading it, the audio is on your computer or your assistant or your developer’s computer. All the content is easy to move from a third party system to yours. One thing you cannot move is the payment, billing information, billing profiles. So if you’re selling subscriptions and you have your monthly payments coming in through Patreon or Udemy, all the payments are going into their system, their PayPal account, their Stripe account, their credit card account. They are paying you. If you leave overnight, you lose all of your income. Unless you have to ask everybody, “Hey, cancel your subscription over there and come back here and re-sign up. And that’s a death mail.” 

Mario Fachini [22:33]

That’s a good Expert Authority insight you’re sharing. Because so many people ask me stuff, whether I’m presenting or working one on one with them, they think it’s with the technology. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned working with my team, it’s, you can pretty much do anything with enough time and enough budget. The bigger issue is – I was having this conversation earlier was someone going, “Well, why do you think they’re still doing this?” And I go, “I don’t think it’s the technology. It’s people’s behaviors and habits.” I mean, when you said ask everyone to cancel their subscription, move over to the new thing, and resign up. I mean, that’s all the momentum and inertia you need initially to even get them to invest or do – you know, that’s the whole sales cycle and marketing in a nutshell. You need to break down those walls to get them to make the decision. And now you’re just like, “Hey, go do that again.”

Ravi Jayagopal [23:32]

And you’ll lose 90 percent. I promise you, like 90 percent of them might say – like, 30 percent will like, “Oh, I didn’t know I had that. Let me just go ahead and cancel.” It’s like sending people an email and saying, “Hey, if you no longer want to be on this list – if you want to be on this list, let me know. If not, you’ll be gone.” Most people will be like, “Whatever.” And they’ll be gone. So if you want people to move on, it’s very hard. Because their credit card stuff might have changed. They no longer have that – they may be using PayPal. There may not be enough money in their PayPal. So you have to take advantage of – I’m not saying that you’re getting all your money because people are too lazy to cancel. That’s not the case. Sometimes we want certain stuff and when you’re rudely awakened and said, “Hey, get up and move.” That’s when people – you’re basically making people think, “Do I really know – ” 

Mario Fachini [24:31]

Yeah. If you signed up for the thing two years ago because it was on sale or something -you know, one of my good friends over on the West Coast with you, I’ve asked her before. And I remember there was – I helped a lot of people look for profit centers in their business, acquiring more clients and stuff. And we were just having a casual conversation and I could tell something was up. And I was like, “What’s going on?” And it came down to just, like, billing and subscriptions and stuff. I go, “Let me take a look at your stuff.” The same thing I do with companies. And there was like 16 or 17 subscriptions she was signed up for. And I was like -you know, after reviewing the finances and business, I was like, it was saving her thousands a month. And she’s like, “Well, blah, blah, blah, let me think about it.” Well, I went in and just started calling the people and started canceling stuff. And three weeks later, she was like, “Oh my gosh. There’s like all this extra money in my account.” I’m like, “Yeah. That’s profit, you were throwing away.” You know, to your point of you may have not looked at anything in 12 months. And you may have not used it. But for the people who do want to use it, make it easy for them. Don’t make me jump through 15 hoops for something I need to use. Tell me, with all the people – you know, you don’t need to give the exact number but I’m sure it’s larger than I think. Of all the people that are using DAP or have – because I think of hundreds of people that have mentioned it to me – what is one or two of your biggest success stories that you can think of? 

Ravi Jayagopal [26:09]

See, we are not a hosted system like ClickFunnels are. When you have data on your site, you can say Patreon says, we can say – Patreon can say, “We process $20 million a month in billing.” We don’t have – everything is on people’s websites. And just like a man salary or a woman’s age or a podcast or downloads, people don’t share that stuff. So it’s very hard to guess. We have seen – we have had some people tell us – and I can’t disclose who – but they have over 500,000 paying subscribers. And maybe, probably, not all of them paying at the same time. Some might have canceled, some might have been – 

Mario Fachini [26:57]

But still half a million. Anything is decent. 

Ravi Jayagopal [26:58]

DAP is infinitely scalable because your only bottleneck is your server. So MySQL, which is the database platform we use, can have one terabyte of data or whatever. It’s like hundreds of millions of rows of data. And your hard disk on your server is just – 

Mario Fachini [27:22]

That’s all? Only a terabyte of databases? 

Ravi Jayagopal [27:25]

Just in the rows. Number of rows of information. So it’s like Facebook is 2 billion. So you can have, you know – there’s 2 billion users of data or the data is stored in the database. That’s what I’m talking about. So MySQL can have the same thing. PHP is super fast. WordPress is pretty fast when you configure it and use it carefully without bogging it down with too many different plugins and use caching and use all the right things. So when you have it on your own server, there are no limits. You can have unlimited users, unlimited payments, everything in the bottleneck is your server. So it’s like if you have a two bedroom house, you cannot throw a party for 100 people in it. So you just need to get a bigger room if you need more people. So that’s all the bottleneck is your house or your web post. So just upgrade to the next one VPS and get more memory and that’s it. 

Mario Fachini [28:24]

Maybe switch the spinners to some as SSDs or NVMe drivers. 

Ravi Jayagopal [28:29]

Yeah. Absolutely. And then higher level of memory. And there’s – 

Mario Fachini [28:33]

And for anyone who doesn’t know what that is, the spinners I refer to are the old fashioned hard drives that literally spin. Solid state drives I recommend for everyone. And what I put in my new design for the livestream machine here for the show are NVMe that are about ten times faster than solid state for the bottleneck. It’s just all faster. Use NVMe. It’s awesome. It’s like one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half gig throughput on it. It’s awesome for doing 4k video like this. 

Ravi Jayagopal [29:05]

Right. So yeah, it’s just – you know, input the server configuration and you have an unlimited size membership site with any number of users. So we have a lot of people. So the average membership site owner is going to have, you know, probably a couple of thousand users. I’m just guessing. We don’t have the data. And we don’t have access to their website. It’s all on their website. So that’s the cool part about it too. With a hosted platform, people can run analytics on your stuff, how many users you have, because you’re hosting everything on their site. But when everything’s on your site, even the website developers or the plugin developers don’t have no insight, there’s no callback. Find a thousand paying customers, that’s a few million dollars a year. All the way down to probably 100 or 200 users and they never launched it or they couldn’t find success because launching membership site doesn’t guarantee your success. You still have to know how to promote it, market it, and how to build an audience. So all of those other things is what I’m focusing on right now. Because we’ve got the plugin part covered. My wife, she keeps developing. She developed a SmartPayCart.com, which is like a shopping cart. The best shopping cart for WordPress. We keep coming up with features for users as well as people who you can bring in new features and variations. So now that that part is covered. The next part is coaching and community. And that’s the part I have going on with my Digital Creators Academy. So we have one on one coaching and group coaching and helping people execute. That’s the hardest part for a lot of people because, obviously, the technical part is hard too. But we have help for that. We have people who can take care of that. And there’s a lot of WordPress developers and webmasters  you can hire and that’ll help you with designing your page, use [inaudible [00:31:00] architect, drag and drop theme, all the above. So you got that part covered. 

Mario Fachini [31:05]

Do you think there’s more people now that aren’t necessarily even developers. But the developers have made it so easy and there’s so much free training out there? I remember when I first started web design in ’99 and doing things and it was just, like, you’d be hard pressed to find an article on how to render a JPEG image at the top logo of a page. And now it’s like, “Oh, you want to build a castle? Here’s the step by step for free on YouTube.”

Ravi Jayagopal [31:35]

Order the plane and put together the parts online. You’re going to literally order a plane on eBay or something. I’m sure there’s a small plane you can order. So yeah, I always talk about this in my podcast and when talking to people. Back in the day, technology was the challenge. And I remember trying to create a video and it was so hard. There was no software. There was no YouTube. So I started off with Camtasia Studio in the early 2000s. I still use it today. That’s one of my favorite tools. So you had to capture it. Again, remember, there’s no smartphones, there’s no camera. So you have to have this bulky – 

Mario Fachini [32:20]

So there was no YouTube. And data limits weren’t 500 to a gig bandwidth. It was what? 288K and maybe if you had a 1 or 2 meg connection, you were – 

Ravi Jayagopal [32:31]

Yeah. Absolutely. Dial up. And so going through all that technology was a problem, connecting. creating. I had this huge camcorder. Most people probably won’t have heard of that word. So camcorder –

Mario Fachini [32:47]

VHS. 

Ravi Jayagopal [32:48]

VHS tapes, eight millimeter tapes. And then now the next challenge is how the heck do you get it from there to your computer. Now you have to go and buy cables and you go to the store. There’s like 17 cables. And you got to bring your camcorder because you cannot – there’s no quick way to figure out what a cable is. So now you have the guys helping you plug in things. “Oh, that’s a firewire. IEEE cable.” You’re like, “What?” So you connect that – 

Mario Fachini [33:13]

You’re bringing me back to college. 

Ravi Jayagopal [33:15]

And then now, the other end, you take that home and you’re all excited. And the other end, there’s nothing to plug into your computer. There’s nothing on your computer that looks anything like this. So now, you got to find a jack to – so it’s like endlessly. 

Mario Fachini [33:31]

Don’t forget the editing. 

Ravi Jayagopal [33:33]

Editing. 

Mario Fachini [33:34]

You’re not talking Photoshop. You’re talking video editing. 

Ravi Jayagopal [33:36]

Video editing. Now, you have to learn Camtasia and photo. There’s a whole bunch of photo or video software that was available. And then it was not available for the Mac. It was an executable. And if you download it from the wrong website, now you have a computer full of viruses. Because it’s executable file and it deleted a whole bunch of your stuff. So back in the day, technology was the challenge. But if you could somehow overcome all of those challenges, you could get some attention. Because attention was in abundance. There’s no YouTube, no Instagram, no blog, anything, no social media. So if you are able to get the word out there and if you could sign a few joint venture partners, you could get the word out there and build a list. 

Mario Fachini [34:22]

They’ll buy it from you just because they’re impressed you were able to figure it out to that point. 

Ravi Jayagopal [34:26]

Yeah. You just show a couple of things on your screen. They’re like, “Wow. Look at this guy. He’s showing stuff. His head is in the corner of the screen. My goodness. This is pretty slick.” And if you say, “I’ll show you how to do all of this stuff. I’ll set it up.” Then they’re like, “I’m in.” And now it’s like, you fire up the camera, you are live on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, everything. All the channels you can be live on. People don’t – you know, absolutely no hurdles. But that’s the problem. There are no hurdles to anything. 

Mario Fachini [34:59]

Why livestream? When you can do a free conference call over the phone? 

Ravi Jayagopal [35:02]

Exactly. Zoom is free. GoToMeeting, I remember when I signed up for GoToMeeting back in the day, we were paying $5,000 a year. And it came 2000 and it came to 500, 200. Now it’s like $12 a month. You can sign up 150 people on your phone call. Back then you have to do Teleseminar.com, all this audio thing. People had to call in from a phone. They had to go to a place. There’s no cell phones. So they had to go to a place where they had a landline. So many things. So it’s always one thing or the other. So back in the day, technology was super hard. Attention was about in abundance. Right now – 

Mario Fachini [35:44]

What’s the bottleneck now? 

Ravi Jayagopal [35:46]

Oh, attention. So everybody is an expert. I jokingly talked about this on the podcast. Seth Godin ruined the internet by writing a book called Everybody’s An Expert. So yeah, everybody thinks they are an expert. A 19 year old is a life coach. And then people who are overweight are fitness coaches. Or they just lost weight for, like, three months and now they’re a fitness guru. So everybody is trying to – there’s a lot of fake stuff. A lot of fraudulent stuff going on. A lot of misleading stuff. Everybody is a podcast – everybody who has a podcast is no a podcast guru. And I keep running into these people doing all this weird stuff. And I say, “Hey, why are you doing this? You don’t need to do this.” And they’re like, “Oh, I’m following this guy who has a big name and he told me how to do this.” So you have a lot of bad information because everybody’s an expert. And finding the right people to follow and knowing what to do. Because what happens is, I talked about this in my course, 1001 True Fans, which is based on Kevin Kelly’s 1000 True Fans concept, is if you go to somebody who’s famous for having a podcast and tell them how do I build an audience. They’re going to tell you start a podcast. Which is the worst thing to do if you have never built an audience. You don’t have anybody. And you want to say, I’m going to build a podcast so that I can build an audience. And so then I can convert some of them to my product. And then I can sell stuff. It’s like saying, you need to – “I need food tomorrow on the table. My family is starving. What do I do?” And the guru says, “Go plant a tree in the backyard.” It makes no sense. Yes, two years from now, the tree will grow and bear fruit, blah, blah, blah. But if you want to put food on the table today, or tomorrow, or next week, you got to go get a job. And not even go look for freelancing gigs. Because even that takes time because you need to have a website, you need to have some credibility, and show people. So there are different stages of building an audience. Audience that you build for now that you need today to make some money. And then for three months from now and one year from now and five years from now. So podcast is a long term play because guess what? The first thing you do after you launch a podcast, you’re looking for people to listen to it. Now, you got to go find people to listen to it. So why go like that to touch your nose when you can do this? So if you want people to buy your course, then don’t launch a podcast and then you get lost in the rabbit hole of what mic to use, what gear, should I use the mixer, should I use this, what hosting company. And then six, eight months later you’re not launching a podcast and you haven’t sold a damn thing. So there’s different phases — there’s a different way to approach everything whether it’s website development. I see people creating a website and they’ll say, “My website is very slow. Your DAP is causing problems. And you log in and should have like 150 plugins installed. Worthless plugins that are completely draining their site. So figuring out minimum viable website, minimum viable product, minimum viable podcast, minimum viable YouTube channel. 

Mario Fachini [39:03]

Do enough to get it off the ground it sounds like. One of the things I love about courses and when I’m helping my clients publish their books and create their own stuff, I really truly believe people that have the courses, there’s a difference in the type of person. Because I agree 100 percent. I mean, one of the reasons I created the Expert Authority Effect is to help the true experts and authorities because there’s so many of them out there that really do know what they are talking about. They do have the expertise. They are verified. They are qualified. One of the things I look for is like, do you have an actual product or service that helps people? And do you have success stories? Like, can you prove it, basically? There’s a lot of people who can and they fall short on the tech and the marketing. Conversely, the people who know what to do with the button pushing and the computers and the tech, I mean, they’re great. But there’s so many, like you’re saying when you made that comment, and just for the record, Ravi made it over here. It wasn’t me. When you were saying the person who lost weight for two or three months and now their fitness guru, like good for them for doing it. But I get the point and the analogy. Like, you’re just learning. Everyone’s congratulating me on my show. And I’m like, “I’m still new at this. It hasn’t even been a full year. I’m still learning.” And I look for people with courses truthfully because I’ve put together my own. I’ve published many books. I help people do it. And it is not an easy point, click, and you’re done. And I’m not saying programming is either any of the other stuff. But there’s a difference. When you can take your information and distill it down, I really believe – here’s the real reason, you can tell anyone one on one,.”I’m the expert. Look at me. I can help you.” And you can be very persuasive and influential. When it’s one on one, the internet doesn’t know. Now, that is a very bad thing if you’re trying to grow your company. Because the internet everything happens on and the internet doesn’t know. The safety net is you can be doing whatever you want, whether it’s moral, ethical, or legal and the internet doesn’t know. The second you go, “You know what? I’m going to put my name on this. I’m going to do it consistently. I’m going to go public. I’m going to make it very visible and easy to find me. Here’s a lot of stuff that you can be dissecting when I’m not even around like the books, the courses, the trainings.” It’s powerful because you can help. If you really have the heart to help people, you can truly help so many people. But you’re also kind of on this glass house where anyone can tear you apart at any given time and you can wake up to emails. As long as you’re doing it right, it doesn’t happen. But I think part of it is the fear of they know they’re doing something that they don’t want to wake up to everyone calling them out on it, basically. 

Ravi Jayagopal [42:04]

Yeah. I mean putting yourself out there is really hard for a lot of people. See, I had been creating – I had been selling online since ’97. And I’ve been listening to podcasts from 2005. You know Leo Laporte, the tech guy, was one of the earliest shows I was listening to. I used to download it, rip to mp3, download it, put it on my stupid mp3 player back then. And then listen to it on the subway right in New York City. So I’ve been listening to audio and podcasts for a very long time. But when I finally decided to start a podcast, it took me almost like six months to commit to it because I was worried about my accent. Will people understand what I’m saying? You know, there’s so many different things – constraints we put out in our head. The same way –

Mario Fachini [42:57]

Yeah. Like you’re saying it’s not an overnight thing. Absolutely, I think it’s a great thing. I’m excited I did. But it wasn’t like day two, it’s like, here’s a million subscribers or downloaders or – what are they called? Subscribers? 

Ravi Jayagopal [43:09]

Yeah. Downloads. Yeah. Subscribes, downloads, yeah. So it’s never one big aha moment that you wake up and you come across this. Because everything you can think of has already been done by somebody. It’s very rare. Unless you’re planning a thing to Mars. Even people have already put machines on Mars already. So even that – 

Mario Fachini [43:32]

Yeah. Look at that, unless you’re going to the moon or Mars, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. 

Ravi Jayagopal [43:36]

Yeah. Everybody, unless you’re the first person to go to Pluto or something. Just almost every little thing. And there are no unique ideas anymore. It’s all in the execution. And the thousand people – that’s the beauty of the Law of Diminishing Returns is, a hundred people can have the same idea. Only 10 percent will actually do something about it. So there’s ten people. And out of the ten people, only three people will see it to completion. And then once it’s completed, only one will keep going to promote it. So it’s always coming down. So you never have to worry that, “Oh, this race is starting off with 100 people.” I’m like, “Oh my god. How am I going to survive?” So if you just keep doing – if you just stay the course, you will be one of the few last people standing. Because distraction, social media, not having the right priorities, people are going to drop off. Like the Boston Marathon or whatever, so you start with – so many people start but after a while you’ll see only a few people running. Obviously, in that case, the fitness I would never make it past, like, maybe five miles. So I know what it takes to do – the planning, the development, whether it’s a course or at keeping it simple, minimum viable product. And then launching it, creating the sales copy, putting the videos, creating the videos, coming up with the script for the sales video, how to sound too salesy, how to sell it, how to position it. There’s so many things you have to get right to go from start to finish. Unless, you already have a team. And most people starting out will not have a team and they will not be able to afford a team. So that’s where some of my problem – 

Mario Fachini [45:29]

And now you’re back to sales anyhow because you’re not going to have a team unless you can sell. 

Ravi Jayagopal [45:33]

Correct. You can sell – 

Mario Fachini [45:34]

Or monetize it or do something. Because – 

Ravi Jayagopal [45:37]

Right. Execution. So every step of the way, what software do I use to do this? Where do I store this? How do I get it here? How do I promote this to my audience? Does my video look okay? You need guidance at every step of the of the process. Just to tell people, “This is the kind of mic you should use for this kind of purpose.” Or, “This is the kind of lighting you should have, or whatever.” And use this software to do the editing. And when you do it, make sure you do it in a horizontal so you can use it on maximum number of platforms. And even on the vertical platforms, you can use the horizontal video. You can add stuff on the top and bottom. So there’s repurposing content. There’s so many little things. And you always wish that there was this one friend you had who would be like, “Hey. What do you suggest buying?” I have my brother-in-law who’s like a home electronics geek. So he’s always doing research. So my other friend who’s into cars. So you always have this one person who knows about a specific thing. You can ask, “Hey, what is the best surround sound speaker for the house?” Because you know that guy has spent, like, the last two years of his life researching that. And he bought the best one available. So you just say, “What did you buy? Okay. I’ll get that.” 

Mario Fachini [46:54]

But if you take too long, there’s a new one. If it’s two years later, it’s no longer the best. 

Ravi Jayagopal [46:58]

Right. So there are always these obsessive people in your life who are keeping up to date with all the things. So I’m that guy when it comes to online marketing and tech. Especially tech. I’m not the type of guru that says, “I’ll help you scale from zero to eight figures.” I’m not in that niche. I’m in the niche of, “Whatever you need to execute, that I can help you with.” Whether it is making – 

Mario Fachini [47:24]

But that’s the key to it. I mean, that’s the building block and the basis of all of it. And I like what you were saying about repurpose. And shout out to Hani because – yeah – repurpose.io. If you check out Episode 84, I had him on. And I love his software. I use it for my show. And that’s the thing is, like you’re talking about that minimum viable product, I’m always thinking in the terms of leverage and speed. How many ways can I take this episode and make it easier for you to promote, easier for my team to promote, easier for me to promote. What can we do with it? You know, if we’re going to commit and do it the right way, let’s just go all in and do it the absolute right way. And it boggles my mind when people are going, “Well, I want, like, a good mic but not the best one. And I kind of want to do it like this. I want this end result but I want -” like, they’re wishy washy halfway through. It’s like, “I want the end product of doing this seven days a week. But I only want to do at one.” Like, if you want to win the race but you want to use a tricycle to get there. 

Ravi Jayagopal [48:28]

Right. All the people go the other direction. I had somebody reach out to me to buy one of my podcast related products. And he was like, “Ravi, I have everything ready. I’m ready to go. I bought the Heil PR40, $500 mic. We bought a mixer.” He doesn’t know how to use any of it. He bought a mixer. He went and got some expensive lights and all this background and a whole bunch of stuff. Like, $2,000 to $3,000 spent and doesn’t have a podcast, has never created anything before. I said, “You could have bought a $65 ATR 2100 if you’re going to do a solo show. Hey, you can sit in front of your computer and $100 webcam.” 

Mario Fachini [49:09]

Was even looking to livestream or anything? Why would you need the lights? 

Ravi Jayagopal [49:11]

I don’t know. I don’t know. People plan for the next 20 years of their life. And you can just do what you need right now. It’s like just in time learning – 

Mario Fachini [49:22]

One of the best questions I’ve got – because I’m all about the expensive Heil PR40 over here. I think it sounds great. And I love the gold and black on it. But there’s so many people going, “All right. I got the $60 microphone.” And they’re spending $500 on acoustical foam to pad a room. They live in a subway. They live near it. So it’s just like, “How about just don’t record there?” Or you know what I mean? It’s like don’t take a bad – I’m not saying the $60 mic is bad. I should have said the $20 mic. But it’s like, they won’t invest in the mic but they’ll spend $800 on room padding. And I’m like, “Do you want to live In a padded room?” What’s the deal here? 

Ravi Jayagopal [50:02]

Right. Or they’ll go and purchase a course about promoting their podcast for $2,000. Where you could have used that to run ads. 

Mario Fachini [50:08]

How many episodes you got? Five? Eight? 

Ravi Jayagopal [50:10]

And around that, they’re all like, “Oh, I got to do a big launch.” This recently it happened, like two days ago. A person says — randomly out of nowhere -you know, a random acquaintance on Facebook, “Hey, can you please leave a rating and a review for my podcast?” And I said, “You do know that only 60 percent of people use Apple podcasts. Forty percent are using Spotify and Google podcasts and Overcast app. So your rating and review on Apple podcast is not going to show it to them. All right? They can’t even see it.” And most people today are not listening to podcasts based on how many reviews they got. Nobody is searching for reviews anymore. The only place reviews matter is Amazon. Or you know one of these review sites where you’re researching how many other people left a review and how high the reviews are. Podcasts is almost always customer trusted source. They look for something. They’re passionate about something. Like, I’m into basketball. I’ve subscribed to, like, 15 basketball shows – NBA shows. 

Mario Fachini [51:14]

Like movie recommendations. 

Ravi Jayagopal [51:15]

Yeah. Exactly. So I’m not searching – I’m not subscribing only to podcasts. I’m not going to Apple podcasts and searching how many reviews does this podcast have? And then subscribing. It’s like, if it has NBA and basketball and if I look in the title and it’s a reasonable title, and as long as the last episode – the latest episode is within the last month or so, I’m done. I’m in. Unless, it’s like three years ago then I know it’s inactive. So people are not looking so I told him – 

Mario Fachini [51:45]

Maybe it’s still good though. 

Ravi Jayagopal [51:47]

Yeah. But no – 

Mario Fachini:5[1:48]

They could still be a good episode. 

Ravi Jayagopal [51:49]

Yeah, the problem is with sports, it doesn’t work like that. With other things, it might work. Like for my digital marketing podcast, some of the things might work, the concepts and strategies. But if I’m talking about YouTube in a specific way and what happened in YouTube recently and how they’re saying they’ll delete your account. If it’s not – 

Mario Fachini [52:09]

The latest episode 2016 changes. 

Ravi Jayagopal [52:11]

Right. So it’s not going to be relevant. So it depends on the show. But in sports, especially, the people you’re talking about may not even be in the NBA anymore. Leave alone on the same teams. So yeah, so I told this person, don’t focus on ratings and reviews. It’s not going to help you. Focus on getting people to subscribe to your show. Because podcast subscriptions is what affects your rankings on Apple podcasts search. Nowhere else. So if you go and search for membership sites, and if I have a membership site about podcasts about membership sites, it doesn’t matter how many reviews I have. If the word membership sites doesn’t appear in my title, if my site says recurring revenue Ravi or something like that, it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to show up. I can have thousand reviews and you have one review or zero reviews on your site, Your podcast’s membership site mastery, you’re going to show up first. This is a simple search engine optimization techniques. So I told him, “Don’t waste your time on this one. There are various other ways to encourage people to subscribe. Tell people about what you’re talking about. You’re not like, “Hey. Subscribe to my podcast, subscribe to – ” you’re not going to go on the street and hand out flyers or things, “Subscribe to my podcast.” You’re going to say, “Hey, I talk about these things. I am an NBA show. Do you listen to NBA?” You’ll have to go after the topic. So you can go on the street and say – if you’re doing that obnoxious thing – I’m just giving an example. “Hey, do you listen to the NBA? Hey, you’re wearing a Miami t-shirt or a Los Angeles Lakers t-shirt, do you listen? You should listen to podcast.” So you go after people who are interested in your niche. Not just approach strangers and say, “Review my podcast or rating.” It doesn’t matter. 

Mario Fachini [53:56]

Don’t throw mud against the wall and hope something sticks. 

Ravi Jayagopal [53:58]

Yeah. and it doesn’t matter at all. It’s been proven over and over again, Apple podcast rankings have very, very miniscule 0.001 percent to do with ratings and reviews. So it’s a waste of call to action. And he said, “No. the guru I’m following says that’s the most important thing.” I said, “Okay. Good luck.” 

Mario Fachini [54:18]

Well, you’ve been sharing a lot of great insights. And I appreciate it. I got one more question before we thank our sponsor and go to the Imperfect Action Round. And I call this The Wheel Of Whatever. I actually do have a wheel. It’s in the process of getting painted. So we’re going to pretend that it got spun right there. And also, if anyone has any ideas on how I can make it click, I really do want it to click so the mic picks it up. I mean, I have no problem doing sound effects each time. But if you have an idea on how to make the wheel click, I was thinking like, twist ties or something or – I don’t know. I do have a wheel. It’s on the show. And I’m excited about it. So this is The Wheel Of Whatever. And my question for you, since you’ve made reference to sports – okay – who is your favorite sports athlete? And would you rather have lunch or dinner with them? And why? 

Ravi Jayagopal [55:12]

Oh, LeBron James is my favorite athlete of all time. 

Mario Fachini [55:17]

Why is that? 

Ravi Jayagopal [55:18]

Because I am a huge NBA fan. I’ve been watching NBA for a very long time. And when he first came into the league with a lot of hype, I cautiously started following him. And nobody has ever – maybe Tiger Woods and LeBron. Only two athletes who came in with extreme pressure. They were prodigies when they were 14 years old. And every day they said, “This guy is going to be the greatest. This guy is going to be the greatest.” And nobody can handle pressure like that from your 12, 13,14 years old. And they came in to the sport and they dominated and everybody’s like, “Ah, it’s beginner’s luck.” Then they’re like you watch him next year, he’ll [inaudible] [00:55:58].” Then they’re waiting, waiting, waiting, constant criticism, hatred, blah, blah, blah. And every day every game he comes in and exceeds expectation. That’s very hard to do with anything, whether you’re manufacturing cars or software. Imagine every single release or every single product you put out is just blowing people away every day. You can’t do that. And the way he plays and his style of play, unselfish passing, all that stuff. So yeah, he does have his – so we almost like – once you become such a big fan of somebody, you start apologizing for them. So if there are any weaknesses in their game, you say, “You know what? He’s going to get better. Don’t worry about it.” So you kind of like become – you know, take on a brother or child or a parent role and say, “Okay. You know what? Yu’re going to give them the benefit of doubt.” That’s how it’s always like. Republicans are always going to be Republicans. Democrats are always going to be Democrats. So very few people are independent like that. Once you are in with somebody, you defend them to death. 

Mario Fachini [57:07]

What about the lunch or dinner? 

Ravi Jayagopal [57:10]

Oh, it doesn’t matter. I would rather have lunch and then hang out with them for the rest of the day. Because if it’s dinner, then you eat, he eats, and goes home. All right. I don’t get to hang out with them. So definitely lunch. 

Mario Fachini [57:22]

Okay.  Well, excellent. We’re going to thank our sponsor and come back for the Imperfect Action Round. 

SPONSOR Rosh Tips [57:26]

Winning With Google in 2020. I have no doubt you want to for your business. But who do you trust? And where do you start? I’d advise Rush Sillars. Not only was he Episode 22’s featured VIP guest but he’s also a Google specialist with search, advertising, and YouTube. And I had him put together this free Winning With Google in 2020 Guide for you to get started with right now. Go to EAInterviews.com/RoshTips to get your free download now. Once again, that’s EAInterviews.com/ RoshTips. 

Mario Fachini [58:03]

All right. We are back with the Imperfect Action Round. Ravi, are you ready to take imperfect action? 

Ravi Jayagopal [58:09]

Sure. For a second, I was like, “Oh, you’re back with imperfect guest. [Inaudible] [00:58:13].” Yes, I’m ready. 

Mario Fachini [58:15]

No. It’s what we’ve been talking about, taking that imperfect action. This is, I got three- ish questions for you. Three questions as part of this round and then there’s a couple more. But 60 second answers, real quick. And they’re specific because when I designed the show, I wanted to get the most benefit for the listeners. And these are things that they can apply today. And one of the things I have with all my coaching clients is you have to take daily, fast, imperfect action. So when I was coming up with the show flow, I was, like, racking my brain What should I call it? Same thing with The Wheel Of Whatever. I couldn’t think of a name. I was like, “Whatever.” I go, “Oh my gosh, WW.” Awesome. 

Ravi Jayagopal [59:00]

Or wheel – W-O-W, WOW. 

Mario Fachini [59:02]

Yeah. So imperfect action round, these are things that people can implement right now. What is, in your experience, the fastest path to the cash? 

Ravi Jayagopal [59:13]

To making money, like, online or like – you mean like that? 

Mario Fachini [59:16]

In business. 

Ravi Jayagopal [59:18]

In business. 

Mario Fachini [59:18]

I’m not going to a pigeonhole it. 

Ravi Jayagopal [59:20]

Make more offers. I call it Mommy, M-O-M-M-Y, More Offers Means More Money for You. So you got to make more offers. Not simply consume. Create less, promote more. Put together offers because it’s not just the product that sells. It’s the entire offer. Which means, what is it, what is the benefits, what are the things coming with it, the bonuses, the coaching. So it’s always the offers. That’s the most important thing. And most people spend the least amount of time on creating the offer. 

Mario Fachini [59:53]

That is awesome. And I love the acronym. I’m going to for sure make sure that’s on the show notes on EAInterviews.com. That is – and I’m going to tell the show team right now and be very deliberate about it, Jules, that is an expert Authority insight. And that will have its own time stamping and bullet point now. That is awesome. Make more offers means more money for you. I love that. That is a true Expert Authority insight. Okay. That is so awesome. What was the second question? 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:00:27]

So the flip side of that is you shouldn’t just keep making offers all the time. So that goes without saying you know, you don’t –

Mario Fachini [1:00:33]

They got to be structured the right way. But a lot of people don’t make enough of them. Second one, prospects. What is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way they can fix it? 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:00:45]

Priorities. So whether it’s priorities in terms of using their time or their attention, or whether how they go about building their audience and following the wrong advice, trying to plant a tree in the backyard when you need food tomorrow versus, if you need food five years from now ,you have to plant your garden. That’s what these end of days people – I forget what they call them. There’s a group, right? 

Mario Fachini [1:01:13]

Survivalist. 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:01:13]

Survivalists. So you have to have that mentality too. I need to be green. I need to grow my own garden fruits if something happens. That’s fine. That’s for 20 years from now or five years from now. But you have to know what’s going to happen tomorrow. How do I make money tomorrow versus next week versus next month. You have to have a plan. And a lot of people get all of those things mixed up. And they’re focusing on the wrong platforms just because some guru told them, “Hey, podcasting is the hottest thing right now.” And they don’t realize podcasting is a long term play. Or they go and say, “I’ll start a YouTube channel and I’m going to make money with sponsors.” You could spend the next two years creating videos and you’ll probably make $2,000 a year or, like, $100 a month. That’s pocket change. It’s fine. So you have to know what level, where to put your content, why you should put it, what level to make alternative offers, put it in your membership site, build an audience. So that’s what – 

Mario Fachini [1:02:12]

So the right strategy at the right time. 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:02:13]

Correct. I call it just in time. It’s not what I call it. It’s called just in time learning. So you only learn what you need to do the thing that’s in front of you right now. But at the same time, it’s like a financial advisor. I help people figure out, “Okay. You want money for the short term and you want retirement income and you want money for your kids college fund. So you have to have short term, midterm, long term, high risk, low risk, medium risk. So you have to have a balanced portfolio, whether it’s your money or your strategy.” 

Mario Fachini [1:02:48]

All right. Third question, what is, in your experience, the best way to maximize customer lifetime value? 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:02:58]

So you have to keep the main thing. So it’s a basketball term. One of the coaches used it a long time ago. So you always have to know, if LeBron James is – he has been playing great basketball, that’s fine. But if he is making millions of dollars in sponsorships or all these athletes on sponsorships and TV shows and TV deals and this and that and making movies. All of that is great. But all of that comes from keeping the main thing. The main thing, you still have to – he still has to perform at a very high level in basketball. If he drops the basketball aspect, everything else goes away. Nobody is paying millions of dollars to somebody who’s not good on stage. Right? So you have to focus on what is your main thing and focus on your strengths. And what is the best value you can provide your audience. So if you keep providing that, so whether it’s coaching, usually it has to be a combination of things. You can’t just give them – keep churning out courses and courses and courses and throwing all these digital assets online. But people are struggling how to use it. Why should they use it? When should I use it? You can’t overwhelm people with content. So you need a little bit of content and coaching and community at least depending on your niche. And if you’re trying to be a digital entrepreneur, then you have to be able to provide some level of all three things. Keep that main thing. The main thing, keep providing value, keep helping them, stay engaged in your community, stay in the weeds. Don’t try to think you’re above everything else. Eat your own dog food so you always know what’s going on. And participate in groups, forums, and communities so you can keep your finger on the pulse of the of the community. Now, you’re bringing all that in and constantly creating stuff that your people need, your community needs. So take care of your existing customers. Don’t always go for the shiny object or the new audience. If you take care of your existing customers and give them a good affiliate marketing deal then they’ll promote you. They’ll be your biggest marketers. And then that’s how, hopefully – you know, you heard about Digital Access Pass through so many different people. Not because we’re paying them. They didn’t say, “Hey, go check out, blah, blah, blah.com/DAP. ” They told you the name of the product because they’re not doing it just for the money. Because we have been putting out – we care so much about – 

Mario Fachini [1:05:23]

You made that good product from the get go and that was part of just your culture. I mean, there’s a lot of people – 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:05:29]

Right. And it’s not always good. It’s not perfect. We had our ups and downs and bugs. 

Mario Fachini [1:05:34]

But you always had the end user in mind from day one. You weren’t just farming it out to someone going, “Here’s an idea I think will work.” You were in there on the ground floor, like you were talking about. Let me ask you about books. What are a couple of books that have made a big – 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:05:52]

Difference? 

Mario Fachini [1:05:52]

What are some good – what are some books that have made the biggest difference in your business? 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:05:56]

It’s not one or two of Seth Godin. I love Seth Godin stuff. So all his books, Purple cow and, you know, All Marketers Are Liars, stuff like that. Anything that has to do with – and then some of the books like Outliers. And some business books. And one of the things was called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, I believe. He’s an Israeli author. He talks about how simple things like if you give somebody a piece of chocolate, how they respond versus putting a price on it. “Hey, this is only 25 cents.” Than saying, “This is free and this is 25 cents.” So all these psychological experiments he did on people. And then offering like the pricing table structures. So if you offer only one option, a lot of people – a certain person or people didn’t pick it. If we have two options, then a little more people picked it. Now, you have three options but the third option is the same price as the two option but has more. So it’s like digital product is $5, book is $10, get both for only $10. Now, majority of the people pick the third option because they’ve had both. But if you just did the two options, they didn’t pick the $10 even though it’s the same cost. So they feel like – so that’s a fantastic book, Predictably Irrational. 

Mario Fachini [1:07:22]

I like that. That’s a great example also. It has been an absolute pleasure. Where can people learn more about you? 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:07:29]

You go to SubscribeMe.fm, that’s the name of my podcast as well. So if you’re – wherever you’re listening to podcast, Spotify, just search for SubscribMe.fm,  as one word. And you should find my show. And the website is also there. You will find all the links to my websites and my products and services about me. So everything is there at SubscribeMe.fm. I’ve written – my six books, all of them linked there, my software products, everything, my podcast. There’s a beautiful player at the top. You can listen to my podcasts right there. So it’s all at SubscribeMe.fm. 

Mario Fachini [1:08:04]

Excellent. Well, Ravi, it’s been an absolute pleasure. And I appreciate you for sharing with Expert Authority World. 

Ravi Jayagopal [1:08:08]

Hey, thank you, Mario. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. I hope your listeners found this of value. 

Mario Fachini [1:08:15]

I know they got value out of it. And I’m going to make sure that it’s reflected in the show notes. All right. Expert Authority World, we got another great episode here today. I will see you on tomorrow’s. Have a great day. God bless. 

SPONSOR Pipedrive [1:08:29]

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www.EAInterviews.com [1:08:43]

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