Community & Conversions Doing $600k In Revenue Serving Thousands of Group Owners

TRANSCRIPT

What’s going on everybody. We have Arne Giske here from Community and Conversions coming to you all the way down in South Florida, Miami, Florida, Arnie. What is it that you actually do? And how do you generate revenue for community and conversations, community conversions and conversions, but you do a lot of conversations. I know that

Which that’s how we generate the revenue conversation.

You should call it community conversations to conversions. Yes. So in a way you kind of just describe what we do. So basically what we do is we empower leaders to build profitable and engaged online communities. So our, our poison of choice is Facebook groups. And over the last few years I built up a group to over 80,000 members. And my clients have grown by over 10 million group members. Wow. That’s a stat I’m super proud of. Just knowing that we’ve helped so many entrepreneurs step up and build their audiences into literally the millions. So we do that through a mix of organic and paid strategies, mostly organic and really, really just helping people tighten up the nuts and bolts in their funnels, make sure all the effort and energy they’re putting into that, that group and the other parts of their marketing and go system are turning into dollars in the bank. So that’s,

And, and who would you say your ideal avatar niches that you, you guys work with?

Yeah, so the, the people who really crush it with us are the people who have online businesses, who a lot of them are selling information, you know, courses coaching, you know, agency services, things like that, where their information is a big part of the product, whether it’s you doing it for other people or you, you know, taking people through the process because especially with offers like this, it’s not as simple as, Oh, my, my sink is leaking. I need to call a plumber. It’s like, you got to get to know the person, you got to see their style. You got to learn their content, build that know like, and trust for sometimes months, even years before actually taking a leap and buying. So having a Facebook group is like that long game insurance policy for your business. So you always had this awesome pool of people that want to work with you.

And I, I vouched for that. We have a Facebook group, obviously we have the marketer’s mindset, Facebook group. I think we’re about to tip into 5,000 people in the group it’s been open for, I don’t know, less than a year, maybe like eight or nine months. So we’re adding a couple hundred new members every single month, which is pretty cool, but it, the monetization from the group is incredible. It you’re a hundred percent, right. That it’s, it’s a personal style small group environment. I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s just a beautiful thing. Like we go in there and we put something, we get a shit ton of engagement and I love it. Yeah.

It just, just before this, I saw that has just released the YouTube ads. I was like, finally, I feel like a month ago you guys put out a post like, Hey, what services would you want next from us? And I was like, YouTube. And you’re like, stay tuned, stay tuned. So that’s complete, complete truth, you know, it’s, it’s so one thing I really like about the groups too, is you get to do that process, which I call audience co-creation. So if, you know, if I commented on there and I said show me how to do, you know, banner Google ads or something like that, or postcards, how to directly a post-grad and every time I want postcards, you guys will be like, they want postcards.

It’s serving, like you’re serving your audience in a way. I love it. Then I love it. How many, how many team members are on your team today? And what’s just a quick breakdown of them. Like, what do they do?

Yeah. So we got eight to 10 people I had, depending on, you know, what kind of projects we have, a majority of them are on the marketing side. A few people help out with running the groups, running the ads, you know, making the creatives, like we just launched a big book funnel and that’s just been such a fun project. So we had a bunch of people helping with that. And we also run a mastermind as well. So it’s me and my client success manager mostly run that. And then one of our customer support people as well helps out with everything. So who does the sales? It’s a mix of me and my client success person. Cool.

Awesome. And how many clients are you guys servicing? How many people are in, in your essentially coaching program?

Yeah, so that one just got started. So not too many there, but over the last couple of years, we’ve had an end up serving like over 3000 people, whether it’s like my name program has just over a thousand people. And what’s that program called groups for profit

Profit. And is that also, is that a coaching program? You guys doing the same thing there for the most part?

That one’s a course that one’s an actual

Carcass group for profits, which is a course. And then you have, I’m scrolling up here community and conversions, and that is the actual coaching program side of it. Right?

You say that, yeah, it’s kind of like the overarching brand. So it was, it was really fun. We we kind of realized, you know, we have a few different products, like the software and the course and, and the mastermind and all that. And there was never really an overarching brand besides Arnie. So it was like, how do we make those just like bigger than me? You know, I don’t want to, my personal brand was a part of it, no doubt, but I want to make it like, you know, a movement that’s a lot more focused on that and, and the people. So that’s been a fun rebrand to do

Like that. Okay. So a couple thousand people over the last couple of years that you guys have service, which is amazing, and that’s all the way from doing courses, coaching mastermind, just kind of the whole, the whole thing all mixed up in one under the umbrella of community and convergence is amazing. Okay. So now the audience better understand that. I want to make sure everybody’s the same page. Cause I know us as entrepreneurs, we tend to do a lot of things. We have a lot of products, right? Keeping the consistency and keeping everything structured, which is, looks like what you’re doing with this umbrella brand. A good job to you. So kudos on that. Thank you. And let’s say tomorrow you have an eight, first of all, you have an 80,000 person Facebook or what’s that Facebook group call for anybody wants to go join that, that

One’s called millennial entrepreneur community. Okay.

And obviously it’s entrepreneurial space, right. And entrepreneurial mindset, things like that. Okay. Awesome. And you know, 80,000 people. Okay. First of all, how long did it take you to grow that group? How long has it?

So we’re, let’s say we’re just over four years on that one. And the crazy part is, is it hitting most of its growth in the first two? And then it like had a lot slower growth curve after that. So it was like slow, slow, slow, slow, boom. And then it kind of like steady slop.

What was the one, if I, if I could take everything away and I was like, Hey, what’s the one thing you think that did the magic for that group to get 80,000 people? What would it be?

It’s it’s hands down understanding how Facebook promotes other people’s groups. So Facebook wins when people spend more time on the platform, right? That’s how they sell more ads, make more money, increase their valuation. So when we feed into their goals, we went

What are some of those things? So give, give me some like metrics, examples, so that way the audience can understand what they should be doing.

Definitely. So the first, most important thing to understand is if, if Facebook’s key goal is engagement, you have to figure out how to get the best experience as possible while people are in the group to get them coming back in, joining it, not just about posting value and tips and how tos it’s about creating a fun environment. And there has to be, you know humor, discussion, opinions, news, you know, community events, people posting themselves. And when you get that kind of snowball going, it, it, it starts signaling to Facebook that, Oh, wow, this group is actually highly engaged. We should have more people in this group. So what happens next is they put your group higher on the search for your terms, and also higher on the suggested go. The only way I got to 80,000 members was consistently showing out high on search and suggested, like I didn’t have to pay for ads to like blow up the group.

I tapped into the 2 billion Facebook users that they already have. So smart, the most important factor with that is even if you have high engagement, but if your group name is totally random, nobody’s going to join. So if it was like, you know, RNs, awesome hangout club, people would be like, I don’t know, Arnie. I don’t want to hang out with them and I don’t want to join the club I’m out. So what you want to do is have a keyword and identity heavy a group name. So that’s things like photographers in New York. Somebody is like, Oh, well I’m a photographer in New York. Or, you know,

You got to resonate with the actual title in order to make you want to click that join button and then go through the sequence.

Exactly. So when you can line up both of those get engagement and a very relevant group name that attracts your ideal people. Yep. You’re good to go.

So I know you have the software called group funnels, which is a Chrome extension, which I actually use every single day, by the way, for those of you guys who are not using it, you need to go use it. But aside from that, we’re not going to go too much into that right now. What if you want it to send out a message tomorrow? What’s, what’s your audience size? How many people do you have on your email is your Facebook groups combined your message bot list, whatever it is, how big do you think your list is?

Combine. Let’s see, because that’s the hard thing, like 80 K in the group, but it’s not like I post and it goes out to everybody.

Yeah. It’s almost like an email. It’s almost like an email. You send out an email, like 15, 20% will open the email, right?

Yeah. If even that, you know so yeah, we got about, I’d say 30, 30, 5,000 on the email list. A lot of those came through group funnels and through the group we got about, you know, the little over 3000 on the buyer’s list. Of course they’re the most engaged, responsive, awesome people. And yeah, lots in retargeting. We also just started grabbing phone numbers for people who buy anything. So even somebody who buys our $7 ebook we get name, email phone, and we like send them a welcome voicemail. Like after they buy a voice drop. Yeah. We do a voice drop.

Nice. What are you using for that? Is it cowboy drop or Slybroadcast? Slybroadcast, some breakfast. Cool.

It’s really cool. People actually like them. I wasn’t sure if it’s going to fit a lot of people off, but it’s like, it’s so welcoming and friendly. It’s like, Hey, you know, we’re here to get you set up, make sure you do this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, a welcome to the crew. And like, people will text us back and be like, thank you so much. Like I’m so excited to get started. And it’s, it’s so fun to see that. So I highly recommend anybody check out like voicemail drops, Slybroadcast. That’s a cool tool.

Awesome. Awesome. And what, what, what is your pricing model look like as far as pricing and your value ladder? So let’s talk about like, most people will have like the low and tripwire type stuff, middle tier where it’s like, Hey, go buy my thousand dollar course. And then, Hey, join me for like this 5k or 10 K high ticket program. What is, what is your breakdown look like? Just really, really quick.

Yeah. And it’s, it’s been cool cause it shifted a lot over the years. And right now our main focus is pretty much going, you know, dollar and dollar out on the ebook funnel. So if we’re seeing, you know, average cart of about anywhere from 40 to 50 bucks and cost of acquisition like 35 to 40. So we’re like right at that line where it’s about one-to-one and that’s just where we’re just focusing on building that buyers list, getting everybody in the ecosystem. And then from there, you know, we have people who grab the software or grab the main course. Software is two 97, a main course, normally nine 97. We did some sales for it every now and then. And yeah, mastermind is, you know, 10 K price going up. So I think that’ll be a thing for you.

Here’s a quick question, diving back into the book funnel approach. So you’re saying 35, 35 to 40 bucks now is that I want to dive deep into that really quick so people can understand the importance of those metrics is what you’re saying is very important on the front end. A lot of people are using book style funnels, right? To essentially drive traffic and load up their, their list and essentially level out the cost to get somebody into your brain and your business. Right? So are you saying that it, it, you pay Facebook or YouTube or whatever ads platform you’re running, you’re paying them $35 every time somebody buys your book, it’s costing you $35 to get somebody to buy your book. But is your book $35? Are you using it

$7, but the average cart, like with the front end upsells, I don’t see anywhere between 40 and 50.

So somebody buys your book, right? Somebody buys your book, but what’s the next step? What are you selling them? What is that?

Yeah, so we have a $27 bulb, which is a, a group growth and lead generation post templates. You can kind of people by that, which is awesome. Funny, funny note, I tried bumping it up to 37 just cause people were buying so much and it tanked the rest of the funnel for two weeks, like one little $10 difference. And are you doing the wrong cards? Yeah. Are you doing an actual upsell? Yeah. That one’s a bump.

That one’s a bump. Okay. One thing that I’ve done is I’ve seen a massive difference is instead of doing the bump, I actually do the one, a one-click upsell. And that works really, really well because it, sometimes when people go and they buy something, when they see an order bump, they’re like, Oh shit, this guy’s trying to sell me more shit in here. But if they just go buy your $7 product, they don’t even know about any other upsell. They just think they’re gonna hit the checkout page. And then you hit them with the upselling. But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, there’s more here, go get this right now. You don’t have to put in your credit card information at all and click funnels. This is a one button. Right. You just click it and bam, just charge your card. And then you hit the confirmation page that works really, really well for us too. Right. So just for all you viewers out there, side note. Okay. So Arnie, what was, if you could take everything that you’ve done the last couple of years and you’re running this business, what was the number one biggest needle mover for you? The biggest shift that made you the most money?

Hands down always if something’s not working how I want it to putting myself in the seat of the customer or the audience member or something like that. Because like when my, when my group first said a thousand people, I had this realization, like if I had a thousand people at a live event right now, I would be trying my hardest to like really blow their minds, give them an outstanding experience, make them want to come back, you know, next year to this event and tell all their friends and, you know, just make it so awesome. And then I was like, why am I not doing that online? You know, like why, why am I not putting more energy into creating this Epic experience? That’s going to be unique that they’re going to remember. And same thing, tell all their friends and like, you know, want to buy all the stuff and get to the next levels.

So it’s the same in the marketing funnels. Whenever I see, you know, some metric that’s not working, I think, huh. If I was this person and you know, I just bought this book and I’m seeing this offer free, you know, this post templates or this other upgrade bundle or whatever, and it’s not clicking, like why, like what would be going through my head and you know, of course asking people, but just kind of sitting there and then like feeling like the customer. So always go back to that same in working with clients, just like just sitting in that chair and seeing what it feels like. And you’ll almost always caught the problem.

W w what’s your favorite automation hit me with it. Favorite automation that you have,

Let’s see. You can even leverage your own stuff too here. Yeah. Yeah. So group one is of course up there, you know, adding emails from the Facebook group. And then with that, we do Zapier onto the list, but like does happier in general is like the duct tape of the internet. And we use, we have like probably 40 or 50 different zaps that are firing and, and I love it. So that saves us a ridiculous amount of time.

Let’s, let’s leave it right there. Then Zapier is up there on my list too. What CRM are you guys using to, to put all these people

In active campaign, active

Campaign. All right. And what is your sales process looks like for your higher ticket stuff? Are you getting these people to fill out an application, getting them on a call? Walk me through that quick process and like 36.

Yeah. So we do, like, if people are interested, then we send them to an explainer and that goes to an application. And then from there we have a to call a close for that. And one is just kind of a screening call with one of my team members. Just, you know, seeing where they’re at, what’s up. And then the next one is with me. But one other thing we also do is we put the price in the application. So if anybody’s even landing on like a phone call, they already know the price, they already know the program. They’re just kind of learning more and getting confirmation. So what’s

That price again? What’s the price

That one started out at 5k and it’s, it’s gone up to like probably 15 or so by the end of the year. Okay.

So you’re, you’re a straight up telling somebody when they hit the application by changed before you fill out zap, this is a $5,000 program. Yep. Right. Okay, cool. So you don’t have to have that rebuttal when you get on their call, you’re saying. Yep. And do you feel I’m going to play devil’s advocate with you really quick? Do you feel that that drops conversions of people actually filling out the app? Do you feel like the price actually scares people away?

I’m sure it does. That’s also like one thing we wanted to number one, be okay with, and number two, because it’s branded as a mastermind, not like a coaching program. People are gonna come in and expect to pay more. So like the, the very first client that signed on with us, I like in the application, do you have any other questions or comments? She’s like, I don’t know why you’re charging this much, but Hey, I’ll take it. You know, like they,

All right. Last couple of questions here and then we’ll wrap it up. In the last, let’s say 12 months under your entire umbrella, how much revenue have you guys generated for your company?

Let’s see 12 months, I’d say probably about 600 K or so between the two companies.

That’s amazing. And how many people are going to run the company? You said the

Road’s about eight people on the team. Yeah.

Eight people. So you guys are running lean doing, doing over a half, a million dollars in sales. Congratulations on that. Where do you see yourself in 12 months? From today? Fast forward. Where do you think that 600 K Mark is going to go? What do you think? 5 million

Double it man. Cause like, we’re really just getting started on this whole ebook funnel with the ads that only came out like two months ago. So

Are you spending right now in that, in paid traffic? I know you’re just starting out, but how much?

Yeah, so we’re up to about 10 to 15 K a month right now. Wow. I’m ready to ready to keep the boosting.

That’s awesome, man. And you know, obviously going into 12 months and what you want to double your revenue, right? So you wanna go to 600 K to 1.2 million. It’s a big chunk, right? Anytime you’re trying to double your revenue revenue, it’s a big job. What would you say is the one thing that you have to do that you know, that you’re looking at your business model right now? One thing that you have to change or do in order to actually get you?

Yeah, I think raising the mastermind price up, cause like we know it’s imminent, but since we just launched it, we’re like, all right, let’s get this first round of people in. Let’s make it kick ass.

That’s where the five to 15 K kind of is coming into play. Right. So you’re moving up uphill a little bit. Okay, good. And last question or, well, one of the last questions I have for you is if you’re a new entrepreneur coming into this space, brand new in business, what’s the number one tip that you can give them to save them years of time of just doing trial and error on their business.

Spend more time listening to your customers. Okay. Awesome. A lot of people try and do a lot of guesswork and like, Oh, maybe they’ll like this, I’m going to create this whole thing and could have saved a whole, you know, a month worth of effort with a few conversations. And I’ve been a victim to that too. Like two years ago I built a whole, well like startup that just bomb. It just, it just bombed like no other way to put it bond four months after like, like mid five figures investment just cause I didn’t talk to people enough. And then when I launched it, nobody wanted it

Aside from group funnels. Last question. What is your favorite song?

Great question. I would probably say Google drive, for sure. Just for like how often we use that every day for every little thing and collaborating with everyone

We’ll drive to it’s awesome. Ladies & gentlemen, you heard it first Arne Giske from Community and Conversions all the way out of Miami, Florida already. Thank you so much, brother. And hopefully, we’ll see you out of here in the near future.