I’ve been connected to the Keap (previously called Infusionsoft) community for over ten years. Their yearly conferences are my favorites. It’s there that I reconnect with people I only interact with remotely. It gives me a chance to meet new people that recently joined the group. I get to connect to people I only know on my computer screen.
I first discovered Keap in 2010. A prospect asked me to help him with it and I quickly decided I needed to learn more about it. The Keap conference was coming up and it was my perfect way to learn more about it.
I did NOT anticipate how big an impact it would have on my life. I’m not exaggerating.
At the time, I wasn’t doing well financially. I used some flyer miles to pay the airfare. I stayed at a dive hotel near Phoenix airport and got creative to get my other expenses paid.
On the first day, I met a speaker Micah Mitchell. He talked all about his membership site building tool. He confirmed that my suspicions that WordPress, which was an emerging back then, was a platform to pick. More on Micah in a moment.
Evening #2, I attended an afterhours event. It was a presentation on a Keap mastermind group run by:
Bob Britton, the previous year’s winner of Keap Marketer of the Year
Micah Mitchell, same guy mentioned earlier, and
Greg Grant, a proven email list builder.
These guys knew Keap really well. They had the knowledge I needed to quickly learn Keap for my emerging consulting practice. They had what I needed.
I couldn’t get myself to commit to the group. The $798 monthly payment was out of reach. I drove away frustrating, but I couldn’t stop thinking about.
I called my wife and explained my dilemma. She heard that I needed it for my business and that it wasn’t some sort of impulse buy. She gave me the thumbs up and said we would figure out how to pay for hit. I went ahead and joined the program.
The first thing the group helped me address was how to find good team members. I was teaching at a local college and was depending on sharp students, but they were unreliable. Bob connected me to fellow mastermind member Matt Prada. He introduced me to ODesk, now renamed Upworks and that’s where I found Danica Louwe. That young Filipino started with me as a graphic designer. She worked with me for six years. She became a super Keap membership site builder and my top tech lead. She’s off building membership sites herself today. I’ve run a virtual team ever since with team members in Spain, to Philippines to Bangladesh.
Micah Mitchell spent a lot of time convincing me I could succeed as a membership site building firm. I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand the future he saw in it. I followed his advice and moved forward with it.
Am I glad I did?
Over 80% of our business now is membership sites and online course related. And the majority of those project make use of Micah’s Memberium product that’s is key in the work we deliver for our clients.
The group became my community of fellow business owners. We got to know each other so well. Obviously, we all Keap. That’s what brought us together. We took an interest in each other’s businesses. We served as sounding boards for each other. It got me some badly needed and painful insight into my business.
I remember clearly this one Sunday hot seat in Las Vegas. The team was wanting me to answer they question, “What is it you want to do?” I was skirting their question. I was doing a lot of stuff. I would tell the group that I wanted to focus. Then I wouldn’t do it. Over and over, this group that was committed to my success. forced me to see that my lack of focus. It was killing my business. That hot seat opened my eyes so clearly to the mistake I had been making. It was only because my community knew me so well and took an interest in my wellbeing that they persisted.
I am convinced that you cannot run your business in a vacuum. It doesn’t matter how good you are and how committed you are. You need help from the outside. Community power like what I had in the mastermind was priceless.
Hope this helps!