How Groove is Disrupting Online Platforms with an All-In-One Revolutionary Solution with Mike Filsame: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level. the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. On today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how Groove is disrupting online platforms with an all-in-one revolutionary solution. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Mike Filsaime into EO Fire Studios. Mike is the CEO and founder of Groove Digital. And today, Foundation, we'll talk about how there's nothing wrong with buying a course or software to help you succeed, how to plan your work and work your plan. If you don't set out and create a plan, then you're just a ship sailing without direction and oh so much more.

0:38And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Mike and our sponsors. Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Mike, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Hello, Fire Nation. So what I notice is how often people will just talk themselves out of things and they don't even realize what they're saying.

1:24So when I'm talking with people, I hear a lot of things of like, yeah, but well, that's good for you. But for me, however. and what I've noticed from successful people is they just, they're kind of like that pit bull that's on a ball and you're punching them in the face and they just don't let go. And a successful entrepreneur takes objections and knows the same way and they just power through them. And if you let any type of objection get in the mind, the mind can be the strongest part of your will. So if it's working against you and you think you can't do it, you won't be able to. So you really have to be able to get that part of the mindset out to welcome failure, because failure is where you learn, and at least you're moving forward.

2:07Mike, you are an official OG in the internet marketing world. That's original gangsta, Fire Nation. So how has internet marketing changed over the years, and how should Fire Nation be adapting to succeed in today's environment? I did get started back in October of 2002. too. I bought my first domain name at that time. And I purchased that from a well-known person. Frank Kern was the person that I bought the course from. And he had a little video series teaching us how to do it. And then at that time, PayPal was new. YouTube wasn't even around then. In fact, there were two employees of PayPal that left PayPal to start YouTube before they got bought out from Google.

2:48So it was a very, very different time. We didn't have phones in our cameras. We didn't use video. To get a picture online, you scanned it, and then you got that online, and you didn't even know anything about file sizes and things like that. So when I first got online, it was all about how do you actually get a website up. You would have to learn things like FTP and HTML, and you really had to be a technician back in that day. In fact, I would sit on a plane and people would ask me, what do you do for a living? Back then, we used the term internet marketer. Now we use more digital marketer. And when I said internet marketer, the entire plane ride, the person would say to me, so you could build me a website?

3:27And I would say, no, no, you build websites, but I'm more of a marketer. And people didn't know what we were doing. Then later in the 2000s, technology started getting a little bit easier with things like WordPress. And we went away from the education being how to get online to, okay, now you can get online, but what do you sell? And we had to teach people what it meant to be an entrepreneur and an infopreneur and a passion project expert. And that was pretty much from, I would say, 2008 to 2013. But what we're seeing now is you can ask a kid, a Generation Z kid, or even somebody, the next generation that's in high school or something, and you could say, hey, would you rather be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company?

4:12And you could look at those salaries. They're insane. Or would you rather be an influencer? And 88 % of kids today are saying they would rather be an influencer because they are what I would refer to as the TikTok generation. The generation before was Kim Kardashian. And they're seeing the Kardashians and the Jenners building these empires that started with essentially social media. So all of the kids are getting today that your video starts with, this video was sponsored by Skillshare. It's a whole new economy now. So now people are understanding that technology is no longer a barrier. All I need is a passion and an expertise, and then I can get out there, and there are tools that make it so much easier than it was when I first started.

4:58Now, one thing that I was pretty interested in when I was going through just what you have going on in this world, which we're going to be getting a lot into in a bit here. But one thing that you are pretty adamant about is that you encourage speakers, experts, authors, entrepreneurs, so that's Fire Nation, to have an e-commerce element to their business. What is your main reasoning for this? If you were to see me right now, I'm wearing a shirt that says Groove on it. And my wife has a website called Fitness Food Fun. And so what she realized is she's a Zumba instructor. And I told her, Michelle, you need to do this different than everybody does offline.

5:41She's a Zumba instructor online. And so her website is ZumbaWithMichelle.com. And what she does is she offers free classes. And then she trains in all of her gear, her shirts and all the stuff that she can do print on demand. And so I told her, you'll be better monetizing your classes by doing it free because more people will come on. You don't put a paywall and you can build a brand. And then at the end, just tell people, hey, if you want to support my Zumba, you can go to fitnessfoodfund.com. And, you know, she doesn't make a ton of money. She probably makes about$300 a month in gross sales and it's probably about$100 a month in profit.

6:15But she's just getting off the ground. So what we realize is that when you're creating a tribe, you know, you see that with companies, the YouTubers like Dude Perfect and Mr. Beast and all those different things. You can actually create a brand by selling merchandise. The YouTubers know it better than the digital marketers. And so we tell people, hey, it's great to have a brand website. It's great to have a blog. It's great to have your funnels so you can sell your info products. But your customers really love to be part of that tribe and show that they are. So you look at a company like Barstool Sports.

6:50They sell millions of dollars a year in merchandise. So not offering your customers an opportunity to represent you by having coffee mugs and shirts and hats. It's not just about the profits. It's about building a connection with your users. I'm glad you really brought up that example of your wife because a lot of people mistakenly think that an online business has to be this complex structure of software and expensive tools, connecting them all together. And that's kind of going also back to what you were talking about earlier, where Generation Z, 88 % would rather be an influencer than the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, despite the fact that, you know, those multi, multi, multi, multi million dollar salaries.

7:33But I mean, they get it. They know that the anchor that's tied to you, once you're the CEO of that company, but not only that, like what it takes to get there. And nobody wants to be like getting there at 60, 65, 70 years old. These kids, Generation Z, want to get there at 15, 18, 22 years old. And so there's this complexity that just seems to be taken away when you find the right tools, find the right processes, and you think differently on this. So share your thoughts around getting rid of the clutter and the complexity and just making things simple. Great question, John. So what I've noticed with entrepreneurs, again, you know, 20 years in the business and I'll go to an event and I'll see somebody and I'm like, hey, Jim, how's it going?

8:22Oh, good, Mike. How's it going with that domain project you were doing? Three years later, right? I'm getting there, getting there. And for me, I'm like, wow, you know, I'm surprised, you know, they didn't just jump in with their feet within 90 days. So some of the best advice I have for people is very simple. You know, some of the nuggets we get out of, you know, think and grow rich, you know, we've heard so many times and we're like, oh, you know, that can't be or visualization. But one of the tactical ones is simply tried and true and it's plan your work and work your plan. If you don't set out and create a plan, then you're really just a ship that's sailing, you know, without any oars or sails or direction.

9:05So the simplest way to actually have success is once you decide the project that you want to do, you brainstorm on a legal pad or a whiteboard, and you write down every single thing that you could think of. Well, I'm going to need to probably buy a domain name, and I should probably make sure that's available before I make my book title that. And I'm going to need to create a product, and I guess I'll need a web page, and I'll probably need a video sales letter. I'll need some hosting. I'm going to need to take payments. I'll need a merchant provider or a PayPal. And you just write all of these different things down.

9:39I'll need a help desk software. And when you're done, you're going to have 25 or 30 different things that you need to get done. The next thing you need to do is you need to put those in order. You need to prioritize it, right? Because you don't want to be buying the domain name six minutes before you go live, right? That's probably one of the first things that you want to do to make sure you can lock in that brand name. And then when you put everything in order, you simply know that if I can put a checkmark at the bottom of next to every single one of these things at the bottom of this, what I'm going to see is I'm going to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

10:13And you will go to certain points. Item number four on your checklist may be something that you can't do. So you have to decide at that point, do you learn how to do it by studying YouTube? Can you learn it in five minutes or whatever the case may be? If not, do you buy a course to teach you how to do it? Do you partner with somebody and or do you pay somebody else to do it or do you barter with that person? But one way or another, you have to you have to say this step needs to get done. And you have a couple of different avenues to do that, but they do have to get done. And I always recommend sometimes finding a partner.

10:46If you're creative, get the operations person or the person that knows traffic or whatever the case may be. And so then the final thing, John, that ties into that that I see a lot of problems entrepreneurs have is they're always being introduced to new products, new software, webinars, buy this, new ways to make money. And the bottom line is there's nothing wrong with buying a course or software to help you succeed. What you need to do is you need to ask – and Stephen Covey even says that, right? Number seven of the seven habits of highly effective people is sharpen the saw. So continue your education, and that's why we're listening to this podcast right now, is important.

11:27But you have to ask yourself a question when you get on that webinar or see a video sales letter. And that question is, does buying this product make it easier, faster, or more affordable for me to get through my checklist here? And if it does, by all means, if you have the cash flow, you must buy that product or software or information. If it doesn't, if it's just another distraction, if you're working on something that has to do with, let's say, affiliate marketing and you're putting a checklist and you've got to write your review blog and all that. And all of a sudden you're on a webinar and they're teaching you about Bitcoin trading or SEO or whatever the case is.

12:06If it doesn't fit your plan, no matter how good that offer seems, you have to have the discipline to understand that that is only a distraction. If you've ever seen those guys on the old TV shows, the variety shows where they were putting plates, spinning plates on a stick. If you have too many plates spinning, we've all seen it. It always ends with disaster. All of the plans will fail. So I can guarantee you that every single thing that you're probably learning from somebody online that teaches you either affiliate marketing or e-commerce or Shopify or Amazon, I can guarantee if you did one of those, they'll work.

12:41But I could also guarantee if you try to do all five of them, you'll fail. So the thing is just plan your work, work your plan, put the blinders on and get through that. And if you can check off all 25 of those items, you will be successful. Mike, you might not know this, but my favorite word I can confidently say in the universe is focus. focus, follow one course until success. I love the acronym for it. I love the concept. Listen, give me credit the next two times you use it. And then it's yours forever. Then it's yours forever. Focus, follow one course until success. I've actually got a sign hanging up here in my office with that very thing on it because I'm such a believer on putting those blinders on and making that happen.

13:20And we have some really cool stuff, Fire Nation, we'll be talking about on this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Have you ever dreamed of hopping around with kangaroos in Australia or bungee jumping over 400 feet into a canyon in New Zealand? I have, and I did. Oh, and I also cuddled up with a koala. True story. That's right. Kate and I toured Australia and New Zealand with some good friends of ours who knew these places well, and we think that's the best way to travel, as if you're a local. This also includes staying in actual homes, which we always do on our travels, thanks to Airbnb.

13:56It's a perfect way to truly immerse yourself in a new place. And what better time to not only enjoy someone else's home, but to also have others enjoy yours. Think about it. Next time you jet set for a weekend, a week, two weeks, or six, consider making some extra cash by hosting your own home on Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host. You've got AI helping you write emails and name your dog. Shouldn't you be using AI to help you invest too? Seriously, I know investing can seem a bit overwhelming. I've been studying it since a young age, and I still have questions 30 years later, but it's an incredibly important part of my overall long-term wealth strategy.

14:36Is it part of yours? Public.com is the investing platform for those who take it seriously. With Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and more. You can also access industry-leading yields, like the 4.1 % APY you can earn on your cash with no fees or minimums. But what sets Public apart? AI isn't just a feature. It's woven into the entire experience from portfolio insights to earnings call recaps. Public gives you smarter context at every touch point. Plus, you can earn up to$10 ,000 when you transfer your existing investment portfolio over to public. Go to public.com slash fire to fund your account in five minutes or less.

15:15Paid for by public investing. Full disclosures in podcast description. Okay, let's talk about a platform that's completely changing how entrepreneurs are running their business. And they are also our featured partner, HighLevel. If you're an entrepreneur, coach, agency, or course creator looking to grow faster and smarter, HighLevel is the all-in-one platform that replaces your entire tech stack. Seriously, think ClickFunnels, Calendly, MailChimp, Kajabi, and even your CRM all rolled up into one powerful white label solution. You can build funnels, send SMS and email campaigns, schedule appointments, manage pipelines, run memberships, and even launch your own branded mobile app.

15:54It's drag and drop simple, incredibly customizable, and built for serious growth. My favorite part, you can resell high level under your own brand. That means recurring revenue, loyal clients, and total control. So whether you're tired of duct taping tools together or ready to start offering high value services with ease, high level is your unfair advantage. On top of it all, their support team is second to none and has your back every step of the way. Seriously, every question that pops up, they will have your answer waiting. And if you visit my special partnership link, you'll get a free trial.

16:25So visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial and see why thousands of businesses are switching. That's highlevelfire.com where marketing, sales, and automation finally come together. High level, join the revolution. Mike, we're back and I want to talk Groove Digital. Why did you decide to offer this all-in-one solution, this one platform where everyone else is just trying to be the best at just one thing, just a little tiny slice of this niche or this vertical or this industry? You know, John, I'd be crazy to think that anybody could create an all-in-one platform. It is very, very difficult.

17:07I'm fortunate in the fact that, you know, I was born in 1967. So my brother was born in 1965. 65, he was the end of the baby boom. I was the start of Generation X. So when he graduated in 83, you know, he's Led Zeppelin, you know, Pink Floyd. I'm Cyndi Lauper and the Rock and Wrestling Federation, MTV, Bi-Level Haircut, and the Commodore 64. So I came in right at the start of that generation. And I learned computer programming. I went to New York Institute of Technology. I've sold my first software to Lottery Players Magazine for$25 ,000 when I was 17. There was just nothing for me in the 1990s.

17:46So I left that field and I went into the car business and I became general manager of the second largest Hyundai dealership in the country. And then the internet comes around towards the end of that. Not that I knew it was going to be the end of that career, but online marketing came available to me. And I said, I'm going to create software. Many people know me, as you said, as an OG in internet marketing, but pretty much everything I've ever done was software. I created the first viral marketing software for digital marketers, the first Telefriend for digital marketers, the first one-click upsell for digital marketers, the first CMS content management system in butterfly marketing before there was WordPress.

18:28And I created the first link tracking system. If you've ever heard of Pretty Links, they took my software, Power Link Generator, which was a script, and they adapted that for WordPress. So I was creating these different platforms. Evergreen Business System was the first successful automated webinar software platform out there. And we redid that as a SaaS in my previous company, as EverWebinar, which is the largest automated webinar platform in the world today. And we created WebinarJam, which is the second largest webinar platform in the world. I had a previous company called Pay.com, nine-letter domain, P-A-Y-D-O-T-C-O-M.

19:03and that was a ClickBank competitor where the USP was you get to use your PayPal account and you get paid instantly. So fortunately, I have a programming developing mind, although I couldn't write a line of code for the web. I was a programmer back in the day. So that part was really what drove me as being an entrepreneur. And I really created many of these software programs before. And again, that was in the late 2000s and the early 2010s. And so when I had WebinarJam, separate platform to EverWebinar, separate platform, and Kartra, separate platform, when I sold that company in 2016, when I came back, I said, I want to create a new platform that combines what I had with Kartra by putting WebinarJam, EverWebinar, and one key component or two key components that were missing even in those platforms.

19:55And one was an e-commerce platform like Shopify. So we built that in as well. and we wanted to get people completely off of WordPress. Not that it's a bad thing, but if we're gonna provide an all-in-one solution, we wanted to build a blogging platform too. So we created GrooveBlog. And so I think because of my background and building these platforms before, it allowed me to rapidly develop a true all-in-one platform that allows us to say, if we're gonna build a page builder, it needs to be better than any other platform there is out there. If we're gonna build an email component like GrooveMail, It needs to be as good as ActiveCampaign or better, or otherwise we weren't going to build that component.

20:34And there were some things that we left out because, believe it or not, we do split testing, but Visual Website Optimizer is the real way that people should be doing split testing. And we kind of feel that unless we're going to be as good, we should rather refer people to companies like that. So that's been our philosophy. Philosophy, it is, Fire Nation, because again, when you're kind of going through your personal entrepreneurial journey and you're doing this and you're doing that, and you're kind of seeing how these things do all tie together, at some point you want to step back and say, well, listen, I can have all these disparate things kind of floating around or I can collect them all up and create the all-in-one, you know, going back to the Lord of the Rings.

21:13There's one ring to rule them all. And something that you're doing that's pretty cool and the reason why I actually wanted to get you on the show because of the timing of this is you're doing a pretty amazing offer for people who want to test out whatever you have going on at Groove Digital now. And of course, the great things you have going on in the future. This isn't what you would call a typical 14-day free trial, Fire Nation. We're talking free lifetime limited accounts. So talk to us a little bit about what you have going on there and why Fire Nation should be excited right now to check out Groove Digital right now.

21:50Yeah, so John, you know, what happened was we had no plans at all to do a freemium model. And 93 % of our customers don't pay us anything. Only 7 % of our customers ever upgrade. Because the free lets you do a little bit, but there's a limit on how many domains you can get and things like that. So what happened was in 2020, I was at Traffic and Conversion Summit, and I was going to be doing the TNC Traffic and Conversion summit after party. We rented out a club and I was going to stand on the bar. I had a presentation. I was going to invite all the VIPs and I was going to tell them, hey, we're launching in July.

22:27But as fate would have it, the COVID pandemic hit and closed down traffic and conversion summit. And I immediately went home so I didn't get trapped in California. And my team and I were like, what are we going to do? And you can remember back then we were washing our packages and wearing gloves at the gas station. So, you know, I was like, guys, July, I don't even know if there's going to be a world in July. We were all panicking. So, um, at that point, my partner, Matt was giving me a link for Skype, uh, and then zoom and then Uber conference and whereby and appear in. And finally I said to him, Matt, every day it's a new conference software because everybody was going more virtual.

23:09And he said, yeah, but this one with Uber conference is pretty cool because they're giving it away for free. And I was like, whatever. So we do a call and at the end it pops up and there's a picture of the CEO and it says a letter from the CEO. And I thought that at first it was going to be like a survey. Did you like our software? But it basically said in these trying times, companies are being forced to work virtual. And we felt we wanted, and he said these words, we wanted to do our part and give our premium software away for free in the hopes that when this pandemic ends, you'll consider us.

23:42So right now you can get our premium product with no credit card required. And I stared at that for like at least five minutes. I called my partners and I said, guys, I think there's something that we can do by giving back to the community right now. And let's give our platform away for free. And we actually launched it under that COVID banner, under that framing. And then after about a month, we took that off and because it just works so well. And it gave us an opportunity for people to try our platform and then see if they wanted to go and get the professional plan. So, John, I'm going to let you know something as well.

24:19Our professional plan is basically – right now we've been doing like an extended Kickstarter, not using Kickstarter, since May of 2019. And that has come to an end. And they could get lifetime access for three payments of$6.99. and that is coming to an end because we're going to$299 a month now if the people want the pro plan and that's because we're coming out of beta and so I'm going to do something very very special for your people because by the time we release this podcast unfortunately that offer expired and my partners are going to kill me I'm going to have to tell them and go to the help desk and let the help desk know but this plan closes on February 22nd at midnight that means anybody else that was to go to the site is going to see the$299.

25:09But what I'll do for your listeners, because my mother's birthday is one month away, from that date, it's March 22nd. If anybody's listening, all they need to do is go to the site. There'll be no option to buy the Lifetime, but they can just create their account and sign up for the$99 plan just to activate their account. And then they can go to my help desk and say, I was on the Fire Nation podcast, Entrepreneurs on Fire with John Lee Dumas. And just tell them that they can – they heard Mike on the podcast with John Lee Dumas, and we will honor the three payments of$6.99 for you to get a lifetime access.

25:46So you can either pay three payments of$6.99 or pay us$2.99 a month in perpetuity. So I wanted to do that because I know that this is going to be released at a time where it wouldn't give people a chance to really get to learn the platform. And we will have a special URL where they can go. And that's groovepodcasts.com. And that's a plural podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S, groovepodcasts.com. Wow, Fire Nation, this is quite the opportunity because this episode is dropping live February 23rd. So even if you were the fastest acting individual in the world, you would have missed this offer by 12 hours. So you're getting a little reprieve here.