How to build an online community with Troy Dean

In this episode, Matt Medeiros interviews Troy Dean, the founder of WP Elevation and RockStar Empires. They touch on teaching entrepreneurs how to productize their businesses. Matt and Troy discuss the differences of WPElevation and RockStar Empires and the challenges of balancing two businesses.  They wrap up the conversation with a discussion of where WordPress is headed.

Listen to the episode

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What you will learn from this Episode:

  • Membership sites are hard to maintain.
  • Troy is working this year to balance the work between WPElevation and RockStar Empires.
  • WPElevation is an existing business with over 700 members and a proven business model.
  • RockStar Empires is the long game business that concentrates on small business owners. Troy is not in any rush for instant success.
  • The Internet is a game changer and provides connections with real people running a small business.
  • The small business is an extension and manifestation of the owner.
  • Small businesses will start up not completely understanding everything that is needed.
  • You cannot take your eye off the ball too long when running a business and you need good people working for you.
  • The meaning of life is not all about money. Don’t be in such a rush.

WPElevation

  • WPElevation teaches business consulting and communication.
  • Consultants graduating from the WPElevation course call themselves Digital Marketing Consultants. They are providing holistic solutions for their clients.
  • WPElevation has a very clear curriculum and provides a journey with your clients through your business.

Rockstar Empires growth and scaling the business:

  • Rockstar Empires teaches you how to reposition yourself in your business to become the expert.
  • The turnkey solution helps you market and produce your own products.
  • About 400 members were actively successful after completing the Rockstar Empires program.
  • Troy promoted people from the community that participated in the live events that he held.
  • People were placed on retainers and across multiple time zones.
  • It took the time to turn over the reins of the program and not control everything.

Advantages of using video and podcasting:

  • A great business strategy is to use video and podcasting to build your professional network.
  • Podcasting can really help you compete in a local space.
  • You can “own” a category by inventing it.
  • Podcasting creates great positioning authority and allows you to package your expertise.

Masterminds:

  • Mastermind groups are only as good as the amount of time people are committed to putting into them.
  • You need to find the right people that are willing to share and connect with the group.
  • Live Mastermind events that you pay for should be events that share information and not be used sell something.
  • You need to add value before you pitch something for a live event.
  • If there is no “skin in the game” people may not participate and value the experience.
  • Setting ground rules from the start with your Mastermind group can help with the participation of everyone.

The Future of WordPress:

  • WordPress will become less visible in terms of the technology stack.
  • The open source spirit of WordPress will continue to grow.
  • WordPress will continue to offshoot to support different verticles.
  • The challenge of WordPress growth will be to keep a lot of people happy over a long period of time.
  • WordPress will continue to evolve and become more powerful than what you can do with it now.
  • The tribe of WordPress users continues to grow and it will continue to evolve.

If you like the show, please leave a 5 Star review over on the Matt Report on iTunes.

Episode Resources:
Swipe.blog
Dan Kennedy
Man’s Search for Meaning
Chris and Amber Hines
Rockstar Empires
WPElevation
Michael Gerber
WP Think  tank
Grytics.com

To Stay in Touch with Troy:
Twitter
WPElevation Facebook page
RockStar Empires Facebook page


Comments

2 responses to “How to build an online community with Troy Dean”

  1. Thanks for having me on the show Matt, this was a lot of fun.

    1. Indeed it was!

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