How Kyle Weiger Runs His Online Business While Teaching Around The World

“This is a really convenient two-way street for me in that I’ll ask people, ‘Hey, how many people have done my online program?’ And the three, five, six people, whatever, will raise their hand. And then in the room of 20 or 24 people, there’s the vast majority that are like, ‘Wait, you have an online program too?’ The ones who have done my online program are just such a treat to meet in person. Because number one, I am, and I told you where my crazy story started, about kind of being down and out. And I just look at anyone who’s ever bought my online program and I’m like, ‘I owe you so much. You bought that, and that purchase allows me to live a life that I absolutely love.’” 

INTRO:

You’re listening to Kyle Weiger, our guest on today’s episode of the podcast.

Now, you may recognize his voice because Kyle actually joined us on the show almost exactly one year ago.

Kyle is an online entrepreneur, digital marketer, and international handstand coach.

Yep, you heard me right!

Kyle travels all around the world teaching handstand workshops. In fact, he just kicked off a 3-month teaching tour, making stops across the United States, England, Italy, and Australia.

In our previous conversation, Kyle shared the story of how he successfully created a new online business selling a handstand training course through Facebook Advertising.

Today, he comes on the show to talk about the ins and outs of promoting and running in-person events in conjunction with an online business.

We have a great conversation about:

• How to stay productive and get important work done while you’re on the road
• Why having an online course can help you sell in-person events… and vice versa.
• And the specific things you can do to successfully book your own workshops and teaching events

It’s always a joy to talk with Kyle and I’m grateful to have him back on the show today. Kyle shares a lot of experiential wisdom in this episode and I really think you’re going to enjoy it. So, if you’ve ever wondered how to successfully run both an online and in-person business, this episode is for you!

As always, I’m your host Eric Turnnessen. And this is Episode 133 of the Subscription Entrepreneur Podcast.

Eric: Welcome to the show, Kyle.

Kyle: Oh hey, Eric. Happy to be back again. Oh, it’s been, what, almost a year?

Eric: October 2018, whatever the math is on that.

Kyle: 11 months.

Eric: So close to a year. So, I think when we spoke last time, you were in Australia, right?

Kyle: Yeah, well, I had just gotten back. Priority number one of course was to get on the MemberMouse podcast the moment I got home.

Eric: Nice. And where are you these days?

Kyle: I’m currently sitting in a hotel in Washington, D.C., about eight minutes from Dulles Airport, because I take off tomorrow morning to New York City.

Eric: Nice. You actually do a ton of traveling for your business, and this is something that I want to get into in a lot of detail in this episode. But before we get into that, can we just give our listeners an overview of your business and what you do?

Kyle: Yeah, totally. I guess there’s a couple main facets to how I drive revenue and also live a life that I really enjoy, which is, I travel around and I teach hand balancing. It’s a very unique and niche skill. I do traveling weekend workshops in city after city after city. That takes me all over the world. And then, I have an online part of that business which is courses and how-tos and blogs and everything that you need for people to find you online. And then I also do delving into a little bit more on the business coaching side with MemberDev, and I’m trying to sharpen that part of my brain as well. So, I guess there’s physical handstand side of Kyle, and then the also marketing nerd side of Kyle which just likes to sit down and geek out over numbers.

Eric: Now I actually have a little bit of nomadic aspects to my life too. I sometimes travel around, I drive my Subaru Outback with my dog places, and just like you, I run an online business, MemberMouse. And so, it’s always a consideration in terms of when I choose to travel, “Okay, well how can I do that travel and at the same time, stay connected and make sure that I’m present for the business in the ways that I need to be?” But you’re doing it to a much greater degree than I actually do. So, I’m curious about a lot of things, about how you approach that, how do you stay organized, motivated, productive when you’re traveling a big portion of the year.

Kyle: I live and die by my Gmail calendar. So, if it goes in the calendar, it gets done. And if it doesn’t go in the calendar, you can probably imagine what the end of that sentence, right? I just rely on my own ability to take notes and if I put something in the calendar at a time I knew that it was important enough that I needed to give it my attention. So even, let’s say I put something in, and I find chunk of two hours a week from now where I want to do this thing. And then that time comes, and it’s like, “Oh, I’d rather be at the gym, or I’d rather be doing something more fun.” I know based on past experience, like, “Hey man, you’ve done this before. If it’s in the calendar, make it a priority, and then go do your fun stuff later.

Eric: In terms of productivity, how do you make sure that you’re connected when you need to be connected? For example, if something in your calendar, like this, obviously certain events have certain requirements associated with them, like an internet connection or a certain amount of quiet, stuff like that.

Kyle: So, I look at … Okay, let’s just use this very podcast for example. I was staying with a friend in D.C. up until a few hours ago, and I knew that I travel tomorrow, so I want to be airport adjacent. I’m recording a podcast with Eric, so I need a place that is quiet. Obviously, I’ll just get a hotel room right next to the airport. That solves both of those problems. My friend who I’m staying with has two amazing dogs, but they’re not podcast friendly animals, if you know what I mean?

Eric: Yes.

Kyle: So, I just look at it like, “Okay, what’s important?” And I just came back to, just the old adage, and this goes for your training, your business, your relationships, whatever it is. If it’s important, you make time for it. And not only do you make time for it, you set up the scenario to be optimal so you can have the best experience possible for that. So, for example, this podcast, I just got a hotel room. I was going to need one anyway later tonight, got an early check-in. If I have a big training the next morning, I know I’m going to have to train for three hours. I’m probably not out at the bar doing shots of tequila until midnight, you know what I mean?

Eric: Yeah.

Kyle: Set yourself up for optimal experiences most times.

Eric: Yeah, and what kind of gear are you kind of bringing with you when you’re traveling? What’s your go-to packing situation?

Kyle: So, to run my business … This is a fun question. I have my laptop obviously. I have cleverly Velcroed my … I got sick always piecing this thing together, so I have Velcroed my four-terabyte external hard drive to the back of my laptop. And so, it just sits there instead of me having … It’s just kind of one unit now. But I did find out, you don’t want to go through the airport like that, because they have to then dust your computer for chemicals because there’s something on the outside of the laptop. So, listener beware.

But I have my laptop obviously, power cords, adapters. I have two iPhone chargers, I always have two sets of headphones. One is the Lightning that goes into my phone, and then I have my 3.5 millimeter, the old school headphone jack that I’m talking on now. I’ve got my JOBY tripod, I have a road … a $100 little condenser mic that I got from the Apple store. And I still shoot content. Well, if I’m on the road for three months, I don’t want to go three months with no content. And for $100, this thing cleans up the sound quality just amazingly. It plugs straight into the iPhone.

So, I have sort a mini studio I guess. I have the tripod, my phone has all my filming software on there, Filmic Pro and a few other things. And then I’ve got a microphone. It’s not the most professional grade high-level mic, but for one that I can take on the road with me, it’s awesome for the price point I paid for it. I have my journals, things I need to get stuff done. And then I have my training gear, which basically is just a series of rubber bands of different sizes. And that’s about it. But those are my go-to essentials. Clothes are easy, right? It’s just underwear, socks, jeans, stretchy pants.

Eric: Stretchy pants, yeah.

Kyle: Yeah.

Eric: That’s not normally on my packing list, but –

Kyle: Oh really? Yeah man.

Eric: Maybe one day.

Kyle: I believe you should always be ready to drop into the splits at any time. And I don’t ever want to be … I want to be able to Jean Claude Van Damme whenever I need to.

Eric: Well that’s great. So, you actually launched a course, an e-course, with MemberDev recently. And I think you shot that entirely on the road, right?

Kyle: Yeah, so that was a fun one. I was in Denver, and again, I lived there for nine years, so I have a ton of friends. So, I was staying with a friend, which is how I prefer to do it. However, I was like, “I need to shoot a course that looks professional, sounds professional, has good lighting, and I need total silence.” And the place I was staying was downtown and downtown Denver isn’t … It’s a pretty busy place. You’ve got sirens and cars honking and people and all kinds of stuff.

So, what I did is I rented a hotel room for two days, and in the two-day period, I shot the entire … I shot it, edited it, put all the bells and whistles on, all the fade ins, all the graphics, did that. I mean, it was kind of nose down, full on, cheetah on the hunt mode. I was just single focus, two days, let’s get this done. So, I used all the stuff I was talking about, that little portable mic that plugs into my iPhone. I shot the thing on my iPhone, which was mounted on my little JOBY tripod, and I just use my computer to do the rest. So that one was cool. I had to film a complete course while traveling, while actually living the nomad lifestyle.

Eric: Yeah, that’s pretty awesome.

Kyle: In, yeah, I’m trying to make these courses so more people can do this. Yeah, that one was kind of … After I got the whole thing done, I hit the send button to Ali, and I was like, “Hey, course is finished.” I just kind of sat back and I was like, “Man, that felt really good.”

Eric: Do you actually have a physical address somewhere?

Kyle: I do, in California, in Costa Mesa. I got a really cool situation out there with some roommates. When I leave for months at a time, I got people to watch the house, whereas if I just lived by myself, someone could break into my apartment, and I wouldn’t know for 90 days, which would be awful. So, I got roommates, and we live near the beach, and that’s kind of fun.

Eric: Well interesting thing about my current situation. I live in Santa Fe, and it’s a very unique place. And the interesting thing about this location is it’s on 40 acres of land 30 minutes outside the city. I have really good internet, which is awesome. But I’ve literally never locked the door of this place once, and I’ve gone away for five weeks at a time too. And it’s just a really cool … Obviously, you can’t do that everywhere-

Kyle: Right, oh yeah.

Eric: But it’s just a really cool thing to have happen.

Kyle: How many acres does it sit on?

Eric: 40.

Kyle: Dang. Okay, cool. So, you’re out there.

Eric: Yeah, yeah.

Kyle: You’re like Grizzly Adams. You just … Do you forage for your own food in the woods?

Eric: No, there’s not that much growing out in Santa Fe. I basically make a trek into the co-op every few days or so. But for two to three days at a time, I’m usually just out here chilling with my dog.

Kyle: Yeah. Do you enjoy that amount of solitude? That’s got to be very quiet, which is something I don’t get a lot of, which is silence.

Eric: Yeah, I do enjoy it. I’m actually going to be moving soon to Washington state, but I’ve been here almost two years and I must say that there was definitely an adjustment period to the isolation and the stillness. But it was definitely something that I was ready for. This is the first time I’ve actually lived by myself in my entire life, which is very interesting to reflect on.

Kyle: Yeah, it’s just you and your pup?

Eric: Yep.

Kyle: That’s seems like a textbook kind of story, just a man and his dog living out in the country in Santa Fe, New Mexico, right?

Eric: Exactly.

Kyle: It’s like the start of a picture, like the cover of a novel.

Eric: Who knows, 20 years from now, it might be the start of a book. We’ll see. If anything interesting happens in my life for the next 20 years’ worth writing a book about, it might happen.

Kyle: It’ll start with that.

Eric: Yeah. I think part of living out here, one of the things that became important was routines, and this is something you and I have talked about and how it’s important in your life too. And having the morning routine, doing meditation practice, taking the dog for a walk, having breakfast. And the thing that’s interesting about travel is it always … For me, it always seems to throw a wrench in the routine. But of course, with the amount of time you travel, that’s not an option, right? You have to have a certain … You can’t just throw off your routine every time you travel. Otherwise, you’re just –

Kyle: Or else there is nothing, right? Because it’s like, the predominant part of my life is spent on the road, and I think when people travel, they assimilate that with the word vacation, meaning, “Oh, I’m traveling, so I don’t have to really work.” Whereas me, travel is work, and if I neglected my training for every day that I’m on the road or not home or able to adhere to a routine in a singular geographic location, then I would have nothing. It would just … That would be pure chaos. So, I try to make sure no matter, there’s a few … I just go back to the old phrase, “Control your controllables.” There’s a few things I can definitely control. I can control when I check my phone. Every town has a gym. Even if they don’t, every hotel has at least some kind of little fitness facility in it. I can control when I eat, how much water I drink, all the basics. Just because I’m the road, it’s not vacation for me.

Eric: That makes sense. And a lot of your time I think is spent on planes too. So, do you have any way that you take advantage of that time?

Kyle: I used to … Plane rides, for me, used to be like, “Oh, let’s sit back, have a glass of wine, see what kind of movie selection we have.” They always have the headrest little six-inch televisions. And then I started tallying up how much time I actually spend in the air, and if you’re talking anywhere between five and upwards of 15 hours in a week or a two-week period, that can really add up. And I started thinking, “Do I really need to watch Wolverine again, or could I probably dive into an audio book?” And so, what I’ve been doing is I have this little routine that I’ve installed, is that I’ll put on an audio book, and then I’ll open up a Notes document on my laptop. So, iPhone’s got the audio book Feed My Brain, and I’m just taking notes on the book, things I find interesting, little quotes that jump out at me, little factoids or nuggets that are really pertinent to my current practice.

So that’s been my new discipline is not making a plane ride a relaxing sort of movie-going experience, or even that much of a … If I find someone really interesting next to me, then I love having those random social conversations on a plane. But for the most part, it’s like, “Okay, I’m flying from Denver to D.C., that’s a two hour and 50-minute flight. What can I do, let’s even say two hours of that 2 50 that would be valuable?” And I … It’s not from the time, it’s wheels up to wheels down, that I’m just grinding on these audio books. But for the most part, I want to make the predominant amount of my time I spend on a plane worthwhile. Either that or sleep.

Eric: Got it. So, we’ve kind of throughout this early part of the conversation been foreshadowing in some way what we’re going to be talking about. So essentially, you run an online business where you sell courses that teach people how to do handstands. You also are part of the MemberDev team and shoot content for them and produce content that has different aspects of marketing, sales, and running an online business. And then you’re also, the reason you’re traveling a lot, is because you do a lot of in-person trainings for handstands. So high level, how do you approach balancing the online aspect of your business and the offline aspect of your business?

Kyle: Yeah, I look at it sort of scalability versus revenue versus what I just genuinely enjoy doing. There will never be a bigger high for me than the in-person interaction. I just came up yesterday, it was Sunday. We just finished Handstand Bootcamp Washington D.C. edition. 24 students who spent the entire weekend together. Some of us went out for drinks and tacos afterwards. And it’s just this super awesome human bonding connection. Now is that necessarily scalable? Well, I’d have to go to a new city, which requires a plane ticket and place to stay, and then I have to repeat that over and over, right? I get the most joy out of that work, but if I want to build a very scalable business where I’m able to reach the masses, not just in the U.S., but all over the world and do it without being super high touch, that’s where the online business comes in.

And I think the … Some people just do the travel teaching thing, and I have friends that do that, but they don’t have any online businesses. Some people just do the online. But then you never see them at workshops, you never get to reach out and touch that person, because they’re not actually real. I think when you do these workshops, one of the first questions I always ask, I’m like, “Hey, raise your hand if you’ve done any of my tips and tricks videos on Instagram or if you’ve bought my online course,” and without fail, there’s always a handful of people in the crowd that’s like, “Oh, we drove a few hours to see you because we live in Podunk, Pennsylvania, but we wanted to come to D.C. because we do your online course.” So, the two kind of feed each other, and I think I’m dialing it in to the point where I’ve got a really good blend on how to maximize outcome and experience for both.

For the students, the best thing you could have as a student is a one-on-one coaching session, but those are expensive and again, not scalable. So, the group setting of the workshop I think offers a really nice opportunity to come out and get upside down and do some weird things with your body for an afternoon.

Eric: So, has this always been the case, that you’ve been interested and got this high from doing the in-person events, or was there a time when you were a little bit apprehensive about it?

Kyle: No, I’ve always been … I’m a salesman by nature, right? That was my very first job, and it was the last job I had in the corporate world. I’ve never done anything other than sales and marketing. So, getting out and meeting people is what I do, even when I was selling high ticket software things. If I could sell to a client over the phone, great, but if they’ll have me out to sit down with them, I would take that in a heartbeat. Even when I launched Reflexion, that was my first foray into teaching, and then of course I ended up teaching at a studio for a long time.

But it was always workshops, specialty skill training, that has always been a passion of mine, and teaching people how to do these kind of seemingly weird things, right? Hand balancing isn’t the most … It’s not the most useful in your day-to-day. You’re not going to ever be stuck in traffic and get out of your car and do a handstand, and everyone moves out of your way and is like, “Oh, I’m sorry sir, I didn’t realize you could handstand. Please come right this way,” right? It’s not applicable to every day. But for the community that does it, I can reach a ton of people online, and then I can reach out and impact a far less number of people, but the layer of impact is higher when I do the in-person stuff.

Eric: Sure. And you mentioned scalability and how doing the life stuff isn’t necessarily scalable because it means that you have to have new audiences and different cities, et cetera. And there are people who do that as their primary thing. But the online portion brings to mind a word for me, which is sustainability, right? Because you can actually have revenue coming from fully accessible, 24/7 resource, that means that you can then use that revenue to facilitate you going to doing the in-person stuff, which obviously has a revenue component to it, but it sounds like more importantly for you, it’s the aspect of that that’s valuable is getting to be with those people, spending that time, making the in-person connection.

Kyle: I feel I guess pretty fortunate in that regard, in that I am not reliant on the paycheck that I get from my weekend workshops. It’s just a bonus for me. And there’s a certain freedom that comes with that, rolling in to a facility and knowing, “Oh, I have my six weeks to handstand online courses kind of turning and burning in the background. I’ll make some money there. And then this weekend, I’m totally free to give every person that came to this workshop my undivided attention.” Not that other teachers don’t do that. I’m just saying that when, if your sole income were on the in-person workshop, and let’s say it wasn’t marketed very well or it fell on a weekend where there was some other event going on that you had no idea about and you don’t get the numbers you wanted. And I’ve been in those as a student before where you can tell the teacher was kind of disappointed with the number of students that turned out. And you’re like, “Hey man, I’m still here. I still paid for this. Give me an experience.”

So, I think it opens me up to be fully present with the students and the feedback thus far is that they really appreciate the attention to detail. And even if you’ve got super beginner versus someone who can already kick up and hold the handstand, but they just want to refine it a little bit. Everyone gets individualized training rather than me walking in and kind of huffing and puffing and being like, “Okay, fine, I guess we’ll do the stupid workshop, even though only 12 people showed up.”

Eric: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, because as I’ve been up here in New Mexico in this beautiful location, I’ve actually been doing tea ceremonies as an Airbnb experience. So, people can come over and I’ll serve them gong fu tea for an hour. And obviously, I’m not doing that for the money, because MemberMouse is my primary income. But it’s that situation, since I’m not doing it for the money, there’s never an energy that happens, no matter if one person shows up or five people show up, that I’m disappointed with what’s put in front of me. Because I’m not putting that pressure on it that it needs to do anything for me.

Kyle: You’re not reliant on outcome, you’re reliant … Well, you’re not reliant on anything, but outcome isn’t a factor. It’s just like, “Oh, I get to spend some time with some other humans and connect and it’s not through a digital nature.” I would be really curious to how many people show up for your tea ceremony that also know that you run this really successful software company in the … or do they just think you’re some-

Eric: Nobody.

Kyle: Yeah, right? They see you’re Eric the tea guy.

Eric: Yeah, and I don’t talk about it either. I did it for four months straight and I did 60 sessions in that time. And yeah, it … MemberMouse only maybe came up twice.

Kyle: Okay, yeah. Because it’s not really relevant to their experience.

Eric: No, it’s not.

Kyle: They don’t need to know and it’s … I think that’s really cool that you do that. I didn’t know that about you. A man of many layers, my friend.

Eric: Yeah. So how can people recognize if an in-person component would be a good aspect to add to their business?

Kyle: I think number one, sit down and ask, “Is this teachable in person?” And I think most skills are, if they’re physical skills. If it were, let’s say, teaching someone how to, let’s just use computers for example, how to code. Do you really need to get in-person? I don’t know, maybe. If you’re teaching anything physical, fitness, yoga, meditation. I might even argue against what I just said. There’s something valuable that happens when it’s human-to-human connection. Does it require any digital interfacing to do this skill? Do you need a computer or an iPhone or Zencastr or Skype or something? Well, if not, then yeah, you could do it. I think where people get … They just don’t know where to start. And that can be the biggest hurdle to anything. It’s like, Man, they can envision what it looks like to be on the road and traveling and selling these sold-out workshops. But the biggest thing is, how do I get started? And that is where most people don’t even get started, because it’s paralysis by analysis. There’s a million things you could do, but you don’t know which one to pick.

Eric: Well, I’ve seen people spend lifetimes trying to answer the question about how to get started. Because really, it’s not about the question. It’s a delaying tactic. If you really wanted to get started, you go out to what’s closest to you and just start doing it.

Kyle: Yeah, and a lot of people want to get, “I want to nail it perfect. I just want to make sure this launch goes perfectly.” I have yet to see a launch of anything that goes perfectly.

Eric: Right, and perfection is a constantly moving target. Do you feel like after how many years you’ve been doing the stuff that you’re doing that things are perfect and everything doesn’t need to be touched?

Kyle: Oh no, I mean, yeah, there’s always things … So, I was looking at my numbers this morning on my Facebook ads. A great example. I had 17 people initiate checkout, made it to the checkout page, eight purchases. So less than half, barely. I’m like, “Okay, well, is it broken? What’s wrong with my checkout page?” Nothing’s wrong with your checkout page. Just … Nothing’s ever going to be 100% perfect.

Eric: Yeah, and going back to what you were saying about, I asked you how can people consider if they could have an in-person component to their business, and you were talking about the different types of businesses. But you also made the point that, it doesn’t really matter. And I agree with that, because so much in a digital business is invested in trying to come up with the way to connect with the customer. We use different things like automation tools. We use personal outreach. We use marketing techniques. All this stuff is basically trying to replace what happens naturally when you’re in-person with somebody face-to-face. And it’s very archaic if you actually think about it, but obviously, it comes into play because we need to scale, we need to be international, we need to be in multiple places at the same time.

So, I find that the people who we do the best job with in connecting with in terms of our customer base, there are many people who are happy with the product. But the people who are happy with the product and have connected with us, those people are going to do much more in terms of spreading the word about the product or service than the people who are just happy with the product.

Kyle: If you just meet the bar of someone’s expectations, that’s not good enough to write a Yelp review or to send a testimonial or any other, because the expectations were merely met, right? But the ones who are your “raving fans,” the ones who leave all the comments, “Oh my God, thank you for your software. It’s so amazing,” the ones who will give testimonies and tell all their friends about how much they love it. That’s where the magic is. And not … like any other hierarchy, not every single … The goal would be every single one of your customers is that raving fan. But we know in reality that that is not true, because you can’t please all the people all the time, right? So, I think it’s, if you can dial in to who those people are and give them that high touch connective experience, you don’t just get a customer.

I used to break down people, “Okay, are they followers? Are they a customer?” I want a friend. I want someone who sees me as a friend that follows my handstand work, right? Because then they’ll come to workshops, they’ll come on retreats, they’ll tell their friends. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the money other than that the money is tied to the business because I sell a product. But it’s more about, “Man, I feel really good about what I do and how I’m spending the finite amount of time I have.”

Eric: Yeah, that’s interesting, because I’m recalling back to the first time we spoke, we were talking more about marketing strategies and how you handle setting up your sequences of e-mails and such, and you made a similar comment. I asked you something like, “How do you plan out what you’re going to say to these people to get them to convert?” And you said something like, “Well, I just think of them as my friend,” or I don’t know exactly … but it seems like that’s an ethos for you that drives-

Kyle: Yeah, and it’s gotten to be less … When I first started out, I was very marketing heavy, because I just wanted to sell. So, there’s certain ways and language you can use to just kind of force the issue and you’re going to make people buy, almost. For some of them, like, “Are you tired of not being able to handstand?” You’re making them feel like, “I don’t ever want to have that.” So, when I type up my e-mails, I use words like … I’m from the Midwest, so I use the word y’all, and I’ll type that in the e-mails. I type as though I was talking to a friend.

Eric: Yeah, and that’s the critical kind of thing that I think we’re touching on from a number of different directions, is that any way that we can create that connection with people. In-person obviously makes it very easy, because we naturally know how to do that in-person. So, it’s ended up adding a big benefit to your business. Now, clearly, you get the benefit of whatever revenues and in-person interactions come from those events. But how have you seen that it actually has impacted your online business? Do you find that a lot of those people then continue with an online as well?

Kyle: Yeah, so it goes … This is a really convenient two-way street for me in that I’ll ask people, “Hey, how many people have done my online program?” And three, five, six people, whatever, will raise their hand. And then in the room of 20, 24, people, there’s the vast majority that are like, “Wait, you have an online program too?” And I was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” So the online people came to the workshop, and then at the workshop, the people how had no idea that I even do online business are now open to getting my course, and they find out about it through there. So, it goes both ways, and like I said, it’s just really convenient. One feeds the other and vice versa.

The ones who have done my online program are just such a treat to meet in person. Because number one, I am, and I told you where my crazy story started, about kind of being down and out. And I just look at anyone who’s ever bought my online program and I’m like, “I owe you so much for … You bought that, and that purchase allows me to live a life that I absolutely love.” So, when they come, it’s just huge hugs, and … It is kind of an emotional deal, because handstanding is hard work. It’s not easy, and I understand what these people are going through and they’re willing to spend $175 and put in six weeks of blood, sweat, and tears for this thing. And also drive a couple hours to meet me if I’m in a city near them. It’s like you’re instant … Again, we’re friends. You’re not a customer. You’re not a member of mine. You’re not an Instagram follower. You are now my friend. And that’s who I want to be with my following I guess, is the-

Eric: Yeah. Blood, sweat, and tears, I didn’t see that in the handstand marketing that blood was involved. I mean, sweat and tears, sure.

Kyle: There’s going to be some blood. For those of you listening, I probably should have put that in. It doesn’t sell well, having to tell people they’re going to bleed. No, I actually, I’m doing pretty good, 3,000 plus courses sold. I have zero-

Eric: That’s great.

Kyle: Fatalities, actually. I have zero-

Eric: That’s great.

Kyle: Zero casualties.

Eric: Keep that going.

Kyle: So, batting a thousand there.

Eric: It makes me think of the Monsters Inc. movie where they have that counter on the wall, X number of days without –

Kyle: Without an accident.

Eric: Incident.

Kyle: Yeah.

Eric: So, you’re doing well on that.

Kyle: So yeah, I have one of those, a little digital marker.

Eric: Yeah, so technical question in regards to getting people to attend the in-person events. Do you … I imagine you have some sort of geographical e-mail segmentation going on with your list. Do you take advantage of that? Does that work for you?

Kyle: Yeah, I mean, given the size of my list and what I do when on my non-handstanding time with marketing, I would be doing myself a huge disservice if I didn’t take advantage of that, right? So, I will pop into ActiveCampaign … good example. I just got my workshop in Italy, had to move because the studio I was at is doing a different thing, so my booking manager found us a place in Florence. And the studio there was super keen on it, booked it, and then that afternoon, log into ActiveCampaign. I was like, “Pull me everyone from Italy.” It had almost 500 people on my list in the country of Italy. Sent out that e-mail, like, “Hey …” Big capital letters, “Good news. We locked in a location for Handstand Bootcamp in Florence.” And then within a few hours of that e-mail going out, boom, people are signing up.

And I will do e-mail targeting. If the situation is right, I will go onto Instagram, and I have a little graphic that I use, it says Handstand Bootcamp and then whatever the city name is underneath it, like London. London is one of my upcoming ones. And then I’ll throw a couple hundred bucks at that, redirect them to the sign-up page where they can sign up for the bootcamp right on kyleweiger.com. So yeah, I’m running ads. Every now and again, I’ll do a Facebook ad, but I primarily reserve Facebook for advertising my online course, because that’s where my cash cow is. But yeah, e-mail targeting, Instagram targeting. Getting booked is one thing. That’s awesome you got booked. Step one, done. But now … It’s kind of like building a course. Congratulations, you built a course. People need to buy it, right? So just because I got booked doesn’t mean that it’s over. It’s over on Sunday afternoon when we’re all having beers together talking about what a great experience it is, and then it’s over for me.

Eric: Right. So, let’s dive into this a little bit, because I actually don’t know what questions to ask here because I’ve never started or run an in-person event. So, but I’d like to understand from start to finish, how does this happen? You mentioned you have a booking manager. You mentioned some other things. So how do you determine where to go, et cetera et cetera. Take us through the journey of how one of these things actually comes into being.

Kyle: Totally. We’re recording this at a perfect time to talk about this. I’m coming off of D.C., which was one that had … I didn’t have a place lined up, but last year, I had had probably, man, seven to 10 people reach out and like, “Hey, when are you coming to the Washington D.C. area? When are you coming to D.C.?” For me, I sort of take that as a sign, like “Alright, there is a big community of people that want to learn how to handstand. They’re reaching out to me specifically. Let’s make this happen.” It usually will go, this is the route. A student or studio owner will reach out.

If it’s a student who wants to learn handstand, I usually tell them, “Hey, I would love to come to your city. My events manager and I just need a studio that’s willing to host.” Yoga studios are usually primarily where I end up. There’s CrossFit facilities, there’s other gyms I’ll end up at 5% of the time. But let’s say the lion’s share is I end up at a yoga studio. This last one, I was at a Pilates and yoga place. The student will be like, “Oh, let me talk to the studio manager. I’ll stay in touch with them,” and then my events manager will take care of it there. If it is the studio manager or owner that reaches out, there’s the direct line, right? That’s one’s easy, where they’re like, “Hey, I want you to come to my studio.”

So, we look at geography, market. I do better in bigger markets, as do most traveling instructors, although sometimes I crush in the small towns because they just have never seen a handstander before. And so, yeah, I’ve come in and they … I’ll dive into that after this, but. We get everything locked in, like okay, it’s going to be September 7th and 8th at Mind the Mat Pilates in Arlington right outside of D.C. And I look at their … I’ll have my booking manager look at their studio schedule, because that’s usually a good indicator of how many students are being trafficked through that studio at any given day. So, if they have only two classes on the schedule, I’m like, “Oh, this is not a very busy studio.” Maybe it’s a young studio. Younger studios tend to have less of a loyal following. I want one that’s been established so that when they hang that big flyer in the lobby that says Handstand Bootcamp with guest instructor Kyle Weiger, they’re going to naturally bring in signups based off of their student base. And then I have sign ups off of my student base independently.

So that’s one route I can go. They market, I market, we’re constantly touching base, like, “Hey, how many sign ups do we have? Hey, we’re a month out. How many sign ups? Two weeks out.” We almost always run an early bird special that ends two weeks before the workshop, so this one was a good example. $175 for the entire weekend, or if you sign up before, what was two weeks ago, August 24th, you can get it for $125. So, $50 off. So, your typical sign up now, get a discount promo.

I’m always blasting Instagram posts that are not sponsored, just in my regular feed, and then I’ll hashtag Washington D.C., #dcfitfam, #arlington. And I’ll make sure I get those in there. So that for me has been really dialed in over years and years of doing live workshops. I can tell you in the early days, I was just kind of … I was like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, right? Like, “Oh, just build it and they’ll come.” But that’s not true with marketing. It might have worked out for him in the movie, but in real life, it doesn’t.

Eric: So, you had situations where you had everything planned and the day comes, and there was either … What was the worst-case scenario? You had nobody there, or?

Kyle: Yeah, I had one three or four years ago where I had been kind of reliant on the studio. I was like, “Oh, they have this huge following. Of course, they’re just going to make a couple e-mail blasts for me and it’ll be good.” And coupled with the fact that I did not realize that the Friday night workshop we had booked was on the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day and that will affect … What are you going to do on Friday night? Learn how to handstand or go drink a green beer? Most people will go for the latter, right? So that one, and I was like “Oh, this is where I need to be way more proactive.” That was a nice wake up call for me, because I was like, “I need to target my list.” And back then, I didn’t really have much of a list to speak of. But I was like, “I need to target my people, I need to post more on Instagram, I need to give them a reason to come and then a call to action.”

It’s something I can’t believe I actually looked over in the early days. I know all this from marketing school, right? Tell them … When I sell my course, I say, “You should buy this course because you’ll learn how to handstand. Click here,” versus, “Um, hey, I have a handstand course.” End of story. That’s not a call to action, right? So even in my workshop advertising, I give them a link to click on to sign up, I tell them, “Click here to get your spot today. We’re only taking 20 or 24 people. Make sure you get signed up.”

So, I know this is a bit of a long-winded answer for how I set it up, but that is … usually hosting in a studio or the other one real quick is what I’m doing in London and in Brisbane, Australia, is I, rather … I know that I have enough people there on my list. I just look at the numbers. I’m like, “Wow, got a surprisingly large amount of people.” So, I’ll just go rent a facility for a couple hundred bucks. And like, “Hey, can I rent your studio, just a flat fee? I take care of 100% of the marketing. You don’t have to hang up any flyers. You don’t have to send out any e-mails. I will do 100% of everything, and it brings free traffic to your studio. In exchange for that, I keep 100% of the profit.”

Eric: Right. So, in situations where the studio is assisting with the marketing, there’s a rev share?

Kyle: Yeah, usually 70/30 is the norm. If it is something extremely far away or expensive for me to get to, I’ll push for 80/20 or my booking manager will push for 80/20. If it’s something easy for me to get to, and the studio … I’ve worked it out where studios are giving me a place to stay for free, and I’m like, “Okay, well there’s $500 I just saved for the week.” And they want to do 60/40. Everything’s a negotiation, right? But if it looks attractive, and I think it’s … It has to meet my number one criteria, which is it’s going to be fun. And if it’s fun, I’m willing to take a hit on the money. That’s fine. I’ll pay for experience, right?

Eric: You’ve mentioned offhand that in those early days where that situation happened, your list wasn’t that big, which implies that now it’s bigger than it was. Do you recall some of the specific strategies that you used to grow it?

Kyle: Yeah, my list is built on a very … I would say it’s 95% of the free video, very simple. Free handstand video. Those three magic words have helped me out a lot. And then I have a place where they can opt-in at the bottom of every single blog to get that free video. So if someone finds me organically, and they read an article that I wrote or that any of my content providers wrote, and then at the bottom it says, “Free …” They just read this cool article about handstand, and then at the bottom, “Free handstand video.” So that one, that’s about 5%. But the lion’s share comes from Instagram, which is a platform I use almost exclusively for driving traffic to my landing page about how to get a free handstand video.

Eric: Got it. Now tying up this conversation about the nuts and bolts of getting these events booked and running them, some of the things that we talked about before this recording was that you actually created a marketing PDF. How does that play into this situation?

Kyle: It is crucial. So, it’s one thing for a studio and I to get into a conversation and me say, “Oh, yeah, I can run a handstand workshop. It’ll be really great, I promise. I’m really good. I do it all the time,” versus they talk to my booking manager, who sends them this really well-constructed PDF that lists out … It’s got a cover page, Kyle Weiger Workshop portfolio. Page number one, little bio about me. Here’s what I believe in, here’s how I like to train, here’s how I want my students to feel when I’m done.

And then after the bio, it starts listing. Each page is a title and a description of the workshop. I run one called Yoga Ninja Flow. I run one called Primal Flow, which are more of my movement based. And then we get into Arm Balance Basics, Arm Balance Intermediates, Arm Balance Advanced, Handstand Basics, Handstand Intermediates, and then I have some teachers only courses about branding and marketing and web essentials, and here’s what you should know if you’re going to build a web site about yourself. And it’s probably like … Man, I bet it’s like 14, 15 pages long or something like that. But it’s got my logo on there, it’s my branded, my color scheme and everything.

And then there’s just a layer of credibility that happens when a studio manager or studio owner get this document, and they’re like … I know this because I’ve had them tell me, “I was really impressed with that PDF you sent over. It’s really professional, really well done.” And I kind of blush, and I’m like, in the back of my head, I was like, “Well, I made it myself.” But I think if you want to be treated as a professional, you need to start acting like a professional. And what does a professional traveling yoga teacher or handstand coach or fitness coach have? They have marketing collateral, much like you would have back when I was selling software. Of course, I’m going to send you over my collateral.

If an old software client would get off the phone and they’re like, “Hey, can you send me some collateral?” and I told them I didn’t have any, they’d be like, “Oh, you’re not even worth talking to then.”

Eric: Yeah. So, if someone is listening to this, and they haven’t done any of this yet, but they’re wanting to. Clearly, they don’t have the extensive level of courses and trainings that you’ve done over the years. What are the critical elements that should be in a marketing PDF?

Kyle: Yeah, absolutely. So, they need to know if … Well, let’s see. If you’re in my world, I’ll just say the fitness industry in general, and that encompasses a lot of things. There’s a lot of trainers out there. There’s a lot of yoga teachers. The number one thing I think I would say to people is, get specific on what you do. Is it, do you teach meditation? Do you teach a specific type of meditation? Do you teach a specific breathing technique? Are you an expert in body weight calisthenics? Are you a handstand expert? But it’s not enough to be just a fitness instructor or a yoga teacher any more. And I feel like that pool, there’s a lot of greats out there already that are currently touring, and there’s a finite amount of weekends for workshops on a calendar year.

So, separate yourself by making your niche offering super well-known, right? My cover photo of me is, on the document, is me in a handstand. And so, okay, right away when you open this thing, you’ve got a pretty good idea that this guy is going to be teaching us kind of some gymnastics type of movement. Clean it up. If you don’t have … I happen to have very baseline skills in Photoshop, so I can make stuff like that. If that’s something that’s not in your wheelhouse whatsoever, I guarantee at this day and age, you have a friend who is a designer of some kind or has Photoshop on their computer. Hell, you could go to upwork.com or fiverr.com and pay someone $15 to make those for you, right? You just write up your class descriptions, your course descriptions, send them the photos you want to use, and they’ll dress it up and make it pretty.

The thing is, but you have to do it with a really clear purpose. The only reason this document exists is so that I can get booked on traveling gigs. That’s the one, the reason for it. They’re not that concerned, and here’s been my experience. I have a small paragraph that’s maybe three sentences long about me. They don’t need your life story, whosever going to hire you. They probably don’t even need to know what you’ve been doing for the last year. They don’t need to know what you had for breakfast. It doesn’t need to be that personal. Tell them about your ethos, things you believe in, things that students feel when they’re done working with you, and not like, “Oh, my name is Kyle, my favorite movie is Office Space,” and all that stuff, right? That’s not important.

Eric: Yep. So, hearing you talk about this marketing PDF kind of reminds me about something in the beginning of our conversation, where we were talking about how people can end up in this analysis paralysis and not getting started with something that they know they want to do. And I think that this is a perfect example. Because the thing is, what you’re talking about is not complicated to create. It’s not time consuming, it’s not expensive. But yet, the reason why it makes such a big difference with people who you want to work with is because you’re making tangible something that’s intangible. The intangible thing is that you say that you do these things. You say that you’re good at this. It’s one thing to say it, but when you put it down and you organize it in a tangible asset, the thing that speaks to people isn’t totally about the content. It’s about, “Hey, you …” It’s communicating a number of things. You’re organized, you’re committed, and what else … a bunch of stuff.

Kyle: I think work ethic too, right? Like, “Oh, man. This person …” in my case, the handstand thing, “This guy put together … He sat down and made this? I can only imagine that he puts that same level of quality into his workshops.” And I say this all the time, how you do anything is how you do everything. I say it to my students literally every day. And so, if you go to a studio or someone who would … maybe not a studio, whosever in your industry, and you send them some kind of janky Word document with typos and misspellings and bad grammar, it’s like having a misspelling on your resume almost. The HR person would just be like, “Oh, next.”

Eric: And probably what more often happens for studios is that somebody just sends an e-mail. Like, “Hey, I’m this, I’m that-”

Kyle: Totally.

Eric: “And I teach these things and I do this.” How many e-mails do these people get like that? And there’s nothing that stands out-

Kyle: Oh yeah.

Eric: About that situation.

Kyle: No, if … so the … I have had a number of friends who handled at, this was back when I worked primarily in a lot of studio work. I had friends that did that role. They were a studio manager, they would take requests from incoming traveling instructors of any kind, whether it be yoga nidra or handstands or gymnastics or whatever. And yeah, they get them all the time, especially if it’s a high traffic, well-known studio, like where I spend a lot of the time in Denver. There’s a few that are pretty well-known and the instructors always go to when they come to Denver, Colorado. Now, the girl that handles those, she’s at least, I’m going to guess, two to three in-bound requests every single week. So, and it’s usually an instructor, will be like, “I’m really good. I promise. Just trust me on this one.” You don’t really build your … I mean, it’s nice to build a human connection that way, but it’s not a great way to build a business per se.

So when … Another way I’ll have my manager, Sarah, who’s amazing by the way, Sarah, if you’re listening, if there’s a city I want to go to, and then she reaches out and like, “I really want to get to Austin, by the way.” I’ve been there a couple times, but I want to go back and actually teach there. And so, she’ll reach out to studios in Austin. Now it’s not Kyle Weiger reaching out, speaking on Kyle Weiger’s behalf. It’s my booking manager Sarah, and she’s coming to the table with this cleanly designed, fresh PDF of my offerings. clear cut, of, “Here, here’s what I do, and if it’s not on this list, I probably don’t do it.”

I’m not the world’s best meditation coach, right? That’s not my specialty. But it just, it cuts through all of the fluff too, of, “What do you want to teach? If we did book you, what would you teach?” kind of thing. It’s like, “Oh, no, everything’s just right here, clean and laid out.” And that’s exactly how my course is run too. Everything has a regimen, it’s clean and easy to follow order. And so, I think just by presenting that, as you said, I’m communicating a number of different things by presenting that. So, I just bring that to the table every time. It’s the best way to operate in my opinion.

Eric: I specifically wanted to go into more level of detail here. I mean, we are talking very directly about your situation and yoga studios and teachers. But the reason I’m wanting to discuss it is because the things just beneath the surface, beyond the fact that we’re specifically talking about yoga and teaching, these concepts are important for success in anything. So, try to listen beyond the specifics that we’re talking about, because this is how you do it. This is the blueprint.

Kyle: Totally, and one thing that I consider my in-person workshops, and this goes for any business, anyone who has course-based material online. Eventually, I don’t know anyone who just runs a purely online teaching business. Eventually, you’re going to have … The term mastermind is a big one in the marketing world, right? Come join my mastermind. For me, it’s like, “Come join my workshop. Come on my handstand retreat.” So eventually, you’re going to have to get people … You’re going to have to have that connection.

So, if it’s course-based material that you’re selling, just know at some point, you’re going to have to go be a human again and shake someone’s hand or give them a hug or … This is the way to do it, and dressing up the way you present your information only adds a layer of not only credibility to you, but just think about the user experience. When someone comes to my site, all my links work, right? Everything is clean cut. They know where to go. It’s pretty obvious where I want to direct them, depending on what they’re looking for. And I want them to associate that feeling of certainty with the Kyle Weiger brand.

Eric: It’s like, if we imagine somebody’s inviting us to a party, right? The more waffley they are about it, the less likely we are going to want to attend that party. But if they come at us with a very professional invitation … Basically, it comes down to this, and this is the same thing when I do tea ceremonies. Any time you’re holding an in-person event, you are holding that space. You’re creating a container for people to enter in, and any time we as humans are asked to enter into a container, there’s a certain amount of trust that we need to have in the person holding that space that’s going to allow us to feel comfortable going to it. And that starts, either your marketing PDF, your booking manager, your communication, all of this is building trust and comfort with the audience to be like, “Yes, I am interested in handstand. And also, will I trust this person? Is it going to be fun to be in the same space?”

It’s like, think about online dating, right? It’s the same thing if we do a profile. Is this like, “Okay, this person on paper has all these bullet points that sound good, but am I going to feel comfortable in their presence? Are they going to take care of my being by being physically present with them?”

Kyle: Yeah, and even in my industry, there’s … I’m not the only traveling handstand coach out there. We’re all, we know each other, both here domestically and internationally as well. I’ve got friends all over the place that do this exact same thing. And we’ve had the conversations. Teaching and performing a skill are two wildly different things. I know some people who are amazing, amazing hand balancers. They started when they were four, they’ve never not known how to do it because they were born into a circus sort of environment. It is hard to sometimes to learn from them, as an adult anyway. I’m 37 and this guy’s been doing hand balancing for the majority of my entire life, and then, you … That experience is a little tougher. Like, “Oh man, I don’t know if I should go train with that guy, because are we speaking the same language? Is he holding the space,” as you put it, “for me to step in and have a really great experience?”

So, for my side of my business, I lay down ground rules all the time. Right away when people step into Handstand Bootcamp or whatever weekend workshop, I’m like, “Rule number one, safety. Rule number two, have fun.” And then I’ll go through the rules of technicality stuff. But if it’s safe and it’s fun, I guarantee when you walk out of there, something awesome will have happened in that weekend, if you feel safe and you’re open to having fun. The handstands are secondary, right? I can teach you technically how to do a handstand in under a few minutes. If you give me a full weekend of six to eight hours with you, we’re going to dive pretty deep into the nerdy level of it. But it all stems from the fact that you feel safe in that room and you’re open to having fun with a community of people. If those two base level needs aren’t met … What’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? It’s no different.

Eric: Yep. I experience the same exact thing in my tea ceremonies. In fact, at this point, I’m 100% positive that the experience of the tea ceremony has very much nothing to do with the tea.

Kyle: Right. It’s how, what are you setting them up for?

Eric: Exactly. One of the final kind of logistical items on the kind of the in-person training things that I wanted to ask you about is, do you have any sort of contracts that you sign with these places?

Kyle: I never used to, and I do now, thanks to my booking manager. She’s actually a booking manager for another friend of mine who’s a little bit bigger in the yoga space. And he introduced us, and we started talking. And one of the first things she sent over to me, I was like, “Yeah, I’d be interested to see what you send out for contracts,” because here’s the other side of the coin of me having an online business and not really being super reliant on the money from the workshops, is I don’t really care. I’m just … I’ll show up, shake someone’s hand, be like, “Cool, your word is good enough. I agree and you agree over the phone call that we’re going to do this thing, and that’s fine with me.”

One thing that she’s gotten me really on is like, “No, let me do the contract work, because it allows you to still stay friends with these studio owners when you don’t have to talk about numbers,” right? There’s no nickel and diming or negotiating or blah blah blah. And it does really, again, adds a layer of professionalism, because when she sends a contract out on my behalf, and now the studio knows what the expectations are. They have to make X amount of social media posts, I agree to make X amount of social media posts as well, and the workshops start on this date and they end on this date. And it’s just so easy to just get it down. It actually removes all tension from the interaction. That way, I can just show up and be Kyle the fun handstand guy, and I don’t talk business with these people at all.

Eric: Yeah, and I know what you mean when you say, “I don’t care about it,” because I’m the same way. But really, what we’re saying is that we don’t want to care about it, right? We want somebody-

Kyle: Exactly. I don’t want to have to deal with that.

Eric: Almost to care about it, because it’s a totally different role mentality relationship that’s created when you have to discuss those aspects.

Kyle: Yeah, and having her send out the contract, and she sent … Well, the one that she sent over as a sample, I immediately knew, I was like, “Oh this is my girl. She knows what she’s doing. She’s obviously been doing this before.” So yeah, after I saw that and then I just, it immediately hit me, the value of, “Oh, a contract is just such an easy …” And I think where people shy away from that is that is that, remember I said I work in 90% yoga studios, where … I don’t know what it is about that practice, but it just seems that yoga and business don’t … philosophically don’t mix, right? And so, when you try to pull the business side into the yoga thing, it just seemed weird. But she’s very straightforward about it, and I think that’s a really great attribute is just complete 100% transparency and honesty, and then move forward with the event.

Eric: Yep. Before we do a wrap up here, earlier we were talking about small towns and you going to small towns, and you said something about mentioning it later. Is it worth bringing back up, and?

Kyle: Yeah, yeah. So, I normally go to big cities, because if yoga is the biggest pool that I can market to to get people interested in handstanding, and most densely populated metropolitan areas have the most yoga studios, it just stands to reason I’ll do better in bigger cities. However, there has been numerous occasions where I went to small towns … I went to a studio in Albers, Illinois, and these people were just the salt of the Earth. Albers, Illinois is about 30 or 40 minutes east of St. Louis at the southern part of Illinois.

Now, not only was it just awesome to go be in a super tiny town, because I’m from a small town in the Midwest originally. I feel like I was kind of going home. We actually sold out the workshop twice. We fit 20 people … That’s, 20 to 24 is kind of my standard, what I’m comfortable with, because handstanding, I want to be attentive, right? And so, the owner hits me up, and it was the day after she put it up on her web site, and she’s like, “Hey, we sold out, and we’re waitlisted 10 more people.” And I was like, “Wait, didn’t you just put that up last night?” And she said, “Yeah, yeah, everyone’s really excited.” And she’s like, “We’ve literally never had a handstand coach in here before.”

And that got my wheels turning, and I was like, “Wow, okay, so let’s actually run two sessions, 9:00 to noon. We’ll be group A, 9:00 to noon Saturday and Sunday, and then we’ll open up a second one, 1:00 to 4:00 Saturday and Sunday.” And then we ended up selling out all of them. And that’s when it really hit me. I was like, “Holy cow. These people who might not live in Washington D.C. or New York City or London, have such an appreciation for the handstand, because no one’s really ever come to Albers, Illinois to teach them how to do it.”

And I thought that that was just a really, really cool thing, and I just loved everyone in that community as I’m … Yeah, people from small town, man, I just, I get them. Although for me traveling, sometimes the big cities, there’s more to do in my off time. But when I was there in Albers, we were just at the local watering hole, just sitting around eating chicken wings just being Midwesterners type of thing. But yeah, it was fun, man. It was really cool. And that’s happened in Australia as well at a really small town about four hours northeast of Melbourne. And same thing. You go there, I’m like, “Oh, I wonder how many people are going to come here.” And then they pack the house, because you’re the anomaly.

Eric: Right. You’re the, literally, the entertainment for that weekend. In big cities, we’re spoiled for choice, right? There’s just so much going on, you’re inundated. It’s like … But you were the attraction, probably, for that weekend, for the entire town.

Kyle: You know what’s ironic, you bring up a really great point. In a big city, there’s so much to do. You know where I’ve never booked a workshop? Los Angeles. I live in Southern California. But there’s just so many options up there, so. Yeah, I think it’s nice to go connect with small town people. From a sightseeing standpoint, it’s really cool to go to big cities. So, I guess, if you’re going to get out there and do the travel teaching thing or the live workshop thing, shape it around where you want to be. Where’s going to be … Again, my first criteria, is it fun to go on this thing? And if it looks fun, I’ll do it.

Eric: Yeah. Well it sounds like you’ve had many amazing journeys and you will continue to have these amazing journeys, so, really happy for you.

Kyle: Thank you, man. I’m in the, this is week three of a three-month stint that I’m on currently. So … But ask me in another two and a half months when all I want is my own bed and my own bathroom and house and my regular routine, and we’ll see how I’m feeling then.

Eric: Yeah, well I know what that feels like. But yeah, really appreciate you coming back on the show and having this chat. It’s been really nice as usual, chatting with you. As we sign off here, can you tell our listeners where they can find out more about you?

Kyle: Yeah, I’m pretty easy to find. I don’t have any fancy names on social media, so it’s Kyle Weiger, W-E-I-G-E-R, kyleweiger.com is my site. @kyleweiger is going to be Instagram, and then memberdev.com of course. Stay tuned for all of the upcoming courses. We already got one done and out, and then I’ll be making the new one here later this year on e-mail marketing, so stay tuned. Depending on what you want, if you want a handstand-related stuff, follow the Kyle Weiger things. If you want to learn about marketing, go to MemberDev.

Eric: Yeah, maybe one day there’ll be a site that combines them both.

Kyle: Yeah, I wonder how that would work, right?

Eric: Well, if anybody’s going to figure it out-

Kyle: Everything in balance.

Eric: You will.

Kyle: It’ll be, yeah, leave it to me, right?

Eric: Alright Kyle, thanks so much.

Kyle: Alright, thanks Eric.

OUTRO:

Well, that’s a wrap for this episode of the Subscription Entrepreneur Podcast.

I’d like to extend my sincere thanks to Kyle for coming on the show and to you for listening to this entire episode.

I hope you’re walking away with some information and inspiration that can help you grow your business.

To get the show notes, resources mentioned, and a complete transcript of this episode, head over to SubscriptionEntrepreneur.com/133. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or Stitcher for more interviews with successful entrepreneurs.

Coming up next, we have a really exciting episode for you. It features an up-and-coming entrepreneur named Talia Koren. In it, Talia shares the story of how she built an engaged Instagram following of over 350,000 people and then launched a subscription business that now has over 2,500 members. Talia is truly an Instagram expert and shares the exact strategies she used to sell her subscription on that platform. It’s a really great episode and you won’t want to miss it.

We’ll see you next time!