Learn about building online academy websites with professional marketing and CRM integration with Daniel Vargas in this episode of the LMScast podcast hosted by Chris Badgett from LifterLMS. Daniel has used LifterLMS alongside many other tools in the online LMS space, and he shares his experience with Lifter in his journey entering the website development space.
Daniel is a great guy at marketing automation in WordPress and LifterLMS. His company name is Laboratorio de Éxito, and you can find that at LaboratoriodeExito.com.
Laboratorio de Éxito is a project that started after the pandemic began in 2020. Daniel used to work in the United States providing services to landscapers and contractors. Then one day Daniel worked on a referral job helping someone in the real estate world sell her training courses. At the time Daniel had an academy that he was building with LifterLMS and Keap, after many trials of many tools, so he knew exactly where to start on her project to get her training courses sold.
After several other site building referral projects, Daniel decided to create Laboratorio de Éxito to help people create momentum, and based on the momentum they create, they can scale their businesses. Daniel emphasizes the importance of integrating with a CRM tool, in his case, Keap.
The main part of Daniel’s business now is building marketing strategies for customers. One of the resources he provides is recording calls with his customers around marketing and selling their products, and he has those calls available for the rest of his customers to build that sense of community and educate by answering questions people really ask.
Daniel recommends keeping it simple when thinking about having a CRM. And when having an online course, using a CRM is always a good tool to have in place, because a CRM will help you be more organized and be able to be more strategic by using lead magnets and digital offers to capture leads, prospects, and customers.
You can find that at LaboratoriodeExito.com. You can also find him on YouTube at Daniel Vargas, MKT (acronym for Marketing) and at DanielVargas.com.
And at LifterLMS.com you can learn more about new developments and how you can use LifterLMS to build online courses and membership sites. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates, developments, and future episodes of LMScast. If you like this episode of LMScast, you can browse more episodes here. Thank you for joining us!
Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful Learning Management System for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Daniel Vargas. He’s an awesome guy at marketing automation, at WordPress, at LifterLMS. His company name is Laboratorio de Éxito. That’s it Laboratorio de Éxito.com. Welcome to the show, Daniel.
Daniel Vargas: Thank you, Chris. Thank you. I’m actually happy, so excited and blessed. I feel blessed to be here. So thank you.
Chris Badgett: Well, tell us a little bit about your sweet spot. The internet is a really big place and you’ve got some specialties around like Keap, around the Spanish speaking world, around WordPress, around Lifter. What’s your sweet spot? Who is Laboratorio de Éxito for?
Daniel Vargas: Well, Laboratorio de Éxito it is actually a baby project that started after the pandemic last year in 2020. And it was by accident I made it there. Here in the United States I provide service to landscapers and contractors. Then one day I’m showing up to a referral from the real estate world. She needed to sale her training courses. I’m like, oh, my God, I have an academy that I’m building actually with LifterLMS in Keap, after many trials of many tools. I’ve been through so many tools over 10, maybe more like 14, 15. I don’t know. I lost the count, but it’s definitely 10 plus tools. That I had tried before building my own experience, building my academy and I show this lady what I was building for me.
And then she was like, oh, how much does it work for this? How much are selling it for? And I’m like, no, wait, wait, wait, I’m not building this for selling. But let me see what I can do. Long story short, that started creating momentum because then I started getting referrals and then life is beautiful. And then I was getting random opportunities where I had to stop to build my little corner where I wanted to give access to my customers, to trainings and courses. So to start building for people because of the pandemic, because more people was making that digital transformation going from the analog to the digital and then started working in and helping with professionals in the knowledge industry. That’s the way I like to call it, the knowledge industry.
And there you can see coaches, teachers, professors, consultants, I don’t know so many, so many people using their knowledge basically to create a business model and create well, wealth for them and improve their quality of lives. And that’s where it led me to the pandemic. And so everything is like a trial and error, marketing it’s like a trial and error. And every time you think about life, not only about marketing, practice makes the master, practice makes the teacher. Practice makes all of us the best. So I started with mine, but then by practicing while providing service to a new niche, I ended up creating a new niche, a new ideal customer, a new avatar for my business. And then this year I said, now, I need to take this even more seriously.
So I create Laboratorio de Éxito because of that. So I like to help people create momentum and based on that momentum that they create, they can build success and LifterLMS has been a really important ingredient in the mix. And you’ve mentioned Keap as well. So for me, it’s really important that I’m able to make an integration with a tool, with a CRM that I use. I’m a Keap certified partner. And for me it was crucial to make something really special and powerful. But most importantly, that has a learning curve that for my customers and the people that I serve, that it’s easy for them to learn. And right now I’m basically helping more people to basically have a no line academy/membership site, which is the greatest of all things that with LifterLMS you can have it all.
You can have membership, you can have course, for me, that’s really important. And that adds layers of, oh, what if I can grow my business later? I can… Like the people that I work with now, they start thinking about selling a course, but later they might be interested in getting that to the next level, building a community and then building a membership program, which is really cool. And that’s why… I’m like over exaggerating. Maybe I’m not over exaggerating, I’m so happy because I found LifterLMS-
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome, man. So I love how you said, the course is the fundamental building block and maybe they’ll add like the full academy or the coaching, or more stuff in it later. And you said it started with you building your own academy, trying to educate your customers or your clients. What were you teaching then?
Daniel Vargas: Yeah. So they what I do for my customers, I built marketing strategies for them. And a marketing strategy doesn’t have any flavor if you don’t drive any traffic, if you don’t create any momentum, if you don’t know how other elements within the marketing world works and how they compliment each other in how they come into what we marketers know as the marketing mix, maybe not many people use that word, that marketing mix. But I have a BS. I actually have a bachelor of science in marketing. That’s why I think about first my marketing mix and everything that comes into play. So not many people knows everything and small business owners and solopreneurs it’s too much what they need to learn or what they need to be exposed. So there’s just too many information out there just too much, just too much.
And so I since I started on this journey as an entrepreneur, after being in corporate America for 20 plus years is that yes, there is so much information. But people continues after I was helping them they continue to look for more information. I’m like, okay, I need to give them access to the training and the information and the knowledge I need them to have. I need them to dominate so they can have a marketing that works for them. And so basically I was not even looking to sale my courses or to sale any courses. All I wanted was to have a little corner inside my website, where I can record my [calls] with my customers. And then I’m making those calls available for the rest of my customers. And it’s just building that sense of community.
They know that I’m recording them and they know that every experience is going to turn into a learning experience to help others as well. And so that’s how I basically, I don’t know if that answered your question-
Chris Badgett: That answers it.
Daniel Vargas: That’s the way I want it to have an academy. I wasn’t even thinking about selling training courses or building a membership site. All I wanted was something really right from my point of view something simple, but then it turned out that it was not as simple as I thought and because of a few complexities, that’s why I ended up like leaving so many solutions behind. For example, because of the mastermind calls, how focused I am in how what is my approach about tagging about categories and about having some model that it’s organized so I can have control and a house that’s organized, it’s a happy house and there’s a [inaudible] behind the organization. So I didn’t have that level of… I mean, that for me sounds simplistic, but I mean, so many things out there, I was able to find it with anybody else. And that’s basically what triggered me to basically, I said, I feel home now working with LifterLMS.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And I like what you’re saying the academy or the course, it’s not always for sale, like on the other side of marketing and sales is customer success. So you were using it as like a training as a [crosstalk]. Yeah. Onboarding activation customer success.
Daniel Vargas: Exactly.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. You mentioned that you had tried a bunch of tools to teach or to structure content and the courses and protected or whatever. What were the limitations or the walls that you were hitting that was frustrating that made you decide to try something else?
Daniel Vargas: Many of them was about for example integrations and what I could do with the capacity or the limitation of the capacity of every tool. There’s many solutions out there selling themselves as a not only one solution. And we know that life is not perfect. But many of the things where, for example, about, for me tagging, can I say any name?
Chris Badgett: Yeah.
Daniel Vargas: Well, I don’t know for example and many of these tools, it is not because it was not the limitation of the LMS specifically, but maybe some of the other features, for example, if it’s a normally one solution on the cloud, there’s many out there that you, for example, like the Thinkific, the Teachable, Kajabi. Kajabi for example, is one, they try their best to be unknown only one CRM, LMS solution. But when you want to have a custom build experience, yes, there are some templates that you can use to build individual pages. But if you want to have your signature in those custom templates that you want to build, if you don’t know coding, you’re not going to make it happen. And I’m not a coder, I’m a marketer. So I don’t know anything about coding. I mean, I can have like a color in a text and use an HTML. But then that’s it.
Then I’ll be basically using their experience and not building my experience. And that, for me, it’s really important. It’s so important that I just recently, I don’t know if I told you before, but I recently launched a new YouTube channel. It’ll be all in Spanish. And the first video that I recorded was actually about that experience, the experience I went through, through all these different tools until I made it, to what it is, the perfect combination for me which is basically Keap, LifterLMS, WordPress, and look, I’m even saying LifterLMS before I say WordPress. Yes. That is basically a combination. Of course, I will need some other tools to make that connection happen. But it’s things that are pretty easy. For example some of the other tools I tried. I tried LearnDash, and I don’t know why, but I think, and I’m saying this from a non-techie point of view, what I think that when I had LearnDash in my site, my side was really slow.
I don’t know. I’m still using the same hosting service. I’m still using Bluehost. I don’t have the most of the advance of the hosting services, but I think for the type of volume that I get in my website, the traffic volume if it makes my Bluehost hosting lag a little, if it makes it slower a little is because there’s something there creating that. So before, when I had that combination, I mean, LearnDash, I had to use [inaudible] for me to be able to have a membership site. To basically to be able to have a layer of extra security to the access, to my content. And that combination made it really, like, it was really tough, like creating a custom experience from a non-techie experience, working with the short codes from them, it was challenging.
today, for example, a customer last night. She’s really creative and now she is looking for a new way on how to structure her courses. And now she has three different types of programs with the chances that she will be increasing the number of programs she has. She wants like one called program, another one called classes, another one called meditations. She asked me yesterday, if she somehow can have everything structured like that. It took me like seven minutes to find the documentation in the LifterLMS website find the short code. And then I watch that short video from Mapleton-
Chris Badgett: Wil Milton?
Daniel Vargas: From Wil. I watch a video from Wil. I mean, all of that within seven minutes like, okay, boom, boom, bam, send a text message to my customer last night. And then she was jumping, really happy that she was able to make it happen that easy, that fast before it was not that. And before it was for me, I was just dealing with my expectations, my demands. I was not dealing with my customer’s demands before, in my earliest stage when I just wanted to build something for me. So I didn’t have to learn anything like really fast. It was just finding the right short, put it in, bam. That’s it, she’s happy. I’m happy. Everybody’s happy.
Chris Badgett: Well, let’s talk about these clients. So how did you start getting these clients that were in need of an academy or some course or membership site?
Daniel Vargas: Let’s say, well, it was basically like the virtual word of the mouth somehow. Somehow virtual word of the mouth somehow. Okay-
Chris Badgett: Same thing happened to me by the way in my agency days is all of a sudden I was specialized in this niche and I was around Infusionsoft a lot. So a lot of similar overlaps there.
Daniel Vargas: Yeah. But some of them, for example, like I have customers in Europe, in Portugal, and Spain, and because I’m in that area sometimes I will be like, the way I generate energy towards my business, towards what I do is I run advertising.
Chris Badgett: Like paid ads?
Daniel Vargas: Like paid advertising. Yes-
Chris Badgett: Actually think I saw one of your ads earlier today. Yeah.
Daniel Vargas: So I do paid advertising, but I’m not so invasive. I don’t do any retargeting. I should be doing retargeting, but I don’t need it. All I need is to get people in my funnel. Then I engage with them in conversation. That’s it. I’m not being annoying. But so I do advertising. I also do social media here and there in a weird way. I don’t have a content planning for social media, what I’m going to be posting today. No, I think everything, [inaudible] on me surrounds about what is my priority right now, for example, my priority is to help more course creators. I’m launching a new initiatives in the upcoming weeks. Then that will be, I mean, that momentum that I will be creating, it will be because of paid advertising.
I’m not sitting down for my radical organic social media interactions to develop anything, social media interactions. This is just PR, people don’t get this. This is just PR you need to inject a little, so you can get a little, and then you go like that increasing you inject that little, you get a little, and then you go like that, creating more momentum and growing more. But the way I find these customers basically it’s paid advertising and sometimes because of the radical social media interactions even just looking for that opportunity and create that momentum like this year, I mean, last year we had the new thing in the social media clubhouse, it was new. I piloted, I started there trying what is this new thing everybody’s talking about and it’s only available for iOS, now it’s available for everything.
But when that happened, a lot of people was really excited looking into what is clubhouse? I use that momentum inside that new platform to grow a little, my social media in as well to create new conversations and from there, I was able to engage with people and then get them in a phone call and there, I let them know what I do. So when I engage with them, that’s almost for sure, it’ll be a long less than relationship in which I will be helping them. And it will be helping me because it’s a two way learning experience.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I think you have some specialty too where you’re at the intersection of marketing and also marketing automation with just general website building, and then also understanding the course creator, somebody who’s trying to create training. Those are three separate skills and you’ve spent time and iterated in all of that. So the specialty emerges, I mean. And there are certain tools are experts in like Keap, and LifterLMS, and WordPress. So that’s a very tight focus.
Daniel Vargas: Yeah. But I’ve been like most my marketing career lives has been around marketing automation. I did my first implementation transformational change back in 2002, that was my first major project. It was in the financial industry. And then I did like four more like, no, it was like six, six more between 2002 and 2007. And then I was a little quiet change roles. And then I was working for a large corporation in high-tech where, part of my priority verticals where education, and that’s where I learned a little bit more about education. Start learning a little bit about WordPress, not because I needed to do it. There I was just the marketer, but I mean, this life was ahead of me and I knew the skills that I needed to learn if I wanted to succeed and yes, you’re right.
So you need a little bit of many skills to make it happen. The marketing automation is really important. WordPress is really important. I tell people don’t try to reinvent the wheel, WordPress that’s the tool. There’s many options out there don’t go anywhere, WordPress is the tool. And then I’m not a professor, for me building a course. Oh, my God. Building a course. I never paid to learn that. And I’m going to tell you this, because this is a pat in the back. Although I tried Podia, Thinkific, LearnDash, Kajabi, even Patreon. If you know what Patreon is, I even tried Patreon, Teachable, CustomerHub. Guys, I love you. You know I love you, but I also tried them and a few more.
But anyways, I’m trying to think about how to create a course for my customers. Keeping in mind the instructor and the organization that you need to have for a course, when I’m not a teacher, I was never a coach. Now people call me mentor. I feel thankful like they’re calling me a mentoring coach, but I was never that but now after I started working with LifterLMS, it is actually way more easy to understand what is a module for example, or how to divide the different topics of your course, and then how to have that organized in how all out comings like how to see it all, like from above and see everything organized, like being able to build, for example, like I’m not creating courses for my customers, my customers, they are experts.
And usually they already have a course program that they just want to have it digitally. And for me, it’s really easy to tell them, give me your blueprint, give me your curriculum. And then just taking in less than 10 minutes and create that structure, create a different sections or modules, and then add in the different classes. And then I’ll help them with the first one, for example, to create that course. And look, here’s where you add the link for the video. Here’s how you add the content for that specific lesson. And that is something that is priceless, and this priceless because it is easy to teach others to do it with ease.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. While you’re on the subject, I just want to ask, what do you like most about LifterLMS? What are the top benefits for you?
Daniel Vargas: Okay. I can use the LifterLMS experience, or I can build my experience. That’s the bottom line. I use the LifterLMS experience, or I can build my experience. And when I say I can build my experience is for example, when you create a course, or a sales course page with the LifterLMS experience. It’s really nice. And then you have the buy now buttons, or the pricing options and the way you sort through everything. It’s really easy to do it. I liked that experience, but if when a customer comes to my website, I say, no, I want my signature here. And let me create a funnel. And then for example I use CartFlows. I use CartFlows to create a funnel and then to sell my course, and I can do that with this, and I can do it all from within WordPress. So I can use either the LifterLMS experience or I can build my experience now.
Chris Badgett: So that’s where Lifter has the sales page feature. So you can use the regular sale course page, or you can build a custom, which is what you do, and it knows which one you chose. Right?
Daniel Vargas: Exactly. For example, I’m actually building one now for a financial planning professional out of Maryland, and I’m building her the LifterLMS experience. Like I’m not going to be using any of the funnel builders that you can get out there. It’ll be just LifterLMS, Astra and Elementor. That’s it. Because that is everything she needs. She’s not selling trainings. She needs a corner where she can train her 80 plus agents across, I mean, national wide. So it’s just building a community. Well, she already has the community. She’s already building the learning portal for her teammates. And I mean, the experience is just the [inaudible]. So it’s the experience, I can build.
I can use either the LifterLMS experience or I can use the one I can build, but this one… That’s why I’m building this as well with the LifterLMS experience, because it is more like easy-peasy for me. It takes me less time to do it and I can do it really fast. The other experience is just me trying to be more creative, reinventing the wheel.
Chris Badgett: I’ll take that as a compliment, as the Lifter’s interesting. And really this is WordPress too, is it can be really simple and then it can scale to infinite complexity. So the tool should be able to expand to where you want to be at. Do you want the straightforward version? Do you want the medium or do you want the advanced? So that’s cool to see for you. Sometimes you’re in the base version. The other times you’re bringing in things like CartFlows and building in a big funnel with custom element or sales pages or learning pages. That’s awesome. What else do you like about Lifter?
Daniel Vargas: Wait, I’m here talking to you. I mean, again, I’m going to go back to the experience, but this is a different perspective of the experience and it has to be with the things, the resources that you can have at the reach of your hand, when you are being creative about the things that you like to have in your academy, for example, going back to the example I’ve mentioned before with my customer, she asked me yesterday how she can do something. I didn’t know if it was going to be possible. But I didn’t even go to the LifterLMS website to find the right information. I Googled it just in case, we’ll have something somewhere or somebody else have something somewhere else, but no, I mean, the options I found was the LifterLMS documentation page with the right information I needed.
And there, I have the compliment of Wil’s video in I continue looking for some more stuff. And then it’s what’s available, that support that we have and also… So that for me, it’s one of the things that I really like. Documentation is really important.
Chris Badgett: And one thing too, I did the exact same thing, which even though I might know where something is even for on LifterLMS on YouTube or wherever it is, or maybe somebody else’s video, using the Google search, like as a power user. That’s how I used to find anything, because even the LifterLMS documentation has a search, but when you use Google, you can end up on YouTube. You can end up on the Lifter site, you can end up on somebody else’s website or somebody else’s video. Super powerful.
Daniel Vargas: And wait, wait, wait, wait something else. Can I say something that I don’t like?
Chris Badgett: Sure.
Daniel Vargas: Okay. I’m going to say something I don’t like, but first let me tell you something that I like. Okay. Something else. It’s the amount of features that LifterLMS has.
Chris Badgett: It’s pretty comprehensive.
Daniel Vargas: Yeah. It’s pretty comprehensive. But you have so many good things that you can do even with a free version, even with the paid versions. I mean, you can scale it up, like you said, to unthinkable levels or just leave it simple or you can escalate the complexity. But what I’m mean is for example having for WordPress LMS plug-in to be able to have membership sites and course creation. I don’t think you can get at any that combination at the same time. And I’m going to talk about the free version of the application. So when what was the one of the things that people like, oh, my God, I’m helping people to get started with their academies, like with that. So here’s the free version. So you can create courses, you can have membership levels. That’s one.
And then the different features that you have in the different levels of the LifterLMS packages. What I don’t like, let me tell you, is that you guys, I’m not going to say to you, Chris, you should be talking more about the good features you have inside each one of the packages, because when you compare apples to apples, the LifterLMS with other tools, you see these tools here on my left trying to, can I say a brag?
Chris Badgett: Yeah.
Daniel Vargas: Trying to brag about things that it’s like, common sense. Okay. And there are many things that they don’t have, of course here LifterLMS has everything they have, plus a few things that you cannot find here that you should… You guys are going to be bragging more than the rest of the people out there.
Chris Badgett: I appreciate that. We need to level up our marketing.
Daniel Vargas: Yes. So people needs to know exactly everything, all the goodies, but that’s good because when they find everything by themselves they, like me, yeey, amazing. I can do this too.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. One more question about Lifter before we go onto something else. We have an office hours mastermind call that we run, which is unusual in the space to have a live screen-sharing a camera on call with me and other people at LifterLMS and other power users that come, what do you like about that call? Because I think it’s unique in this space?
Daniel Vargas: What I like?
Chris Badgett: Yeah.
Daniel Vargas: That I didn’t tell you that part of the questions I was able to solve yesterday for that customer. I have a few questions for you for Thursday. [inaudible] mastermind.
Chris Badgett: Okay. That’s the thing, this is part of our customer success. I mean, you make yourself available and sometimes we don’t have a course or documentation for everything. So you can’t replace the human entirely. Right?
Daniel Vargas: Exactly. And that acts is to a community of like experts that not because we all have in the mastermind community, not because we all use LifterLMS, we have the same approach, so we all have different approaches. And like learning from how each one of us do things. I mean, how better than that to push creativity and, let me say, to ignite the skills that you can have. There are things there that I’ve been able to learn how to do, that I wasn’t looking… Well, it thinks that not necessarily have to be with creating a course or using the LifterLMS, but it could be something that could be complimenting myself in a project.
I’m going to give you an example. There was this day we were in the mastermind and I think I was one of the call I took from Dominican Republic. You guys were talking about how to do like dynamic image mapping, and then to have some like dynamics areas where you can highlight or show more information. At that time, I’m starting to work with a customer. She’s a doctor and she does thyroid-
Chris Badgett: Thyroid. Yeah.
Daniel Vargas: Yes. I don’t remember the specialty, but yeah, but she deals with thyroid. Anyways, when I’m in that call when you guys were talking about someone that was using that type of application to show something more information in a customer’s website. I’m like, oh, my God, this is so nice. Let me talk to my customer and see if she will be interested in having something like that. I mean, people is interested to learn more about how your hormones works in your body. Everything in your body like about hormones, it’s controlled by a thyroid and being able to get that information, get that learning that I was not looking for that day, that afternoon, and then talk to my customer. That’s an added value, skill that I had there. I knew it was just a tool that you guys refer me to, and then you guys were showing how to use it basically.
And I just transferred that knowledge over to my customer and that was added value. So that was an impact directly from attending the mastermind. So it’s not only about what you are expecting to learn, because maybe we have a question because we didn’t find documentation on the LifterLMS Website. I mean, there is so many things that can come up that make us coming to the mastermind and ask for more information, maybe we’re not looking at the right information the right way. And you weren’t just pointing me or showing me, sharing your screen, where to find it. And then you just share the links with us and then we all, as a community learn and share and practice and enjoy.
Chris Badgett: Yeah. That’s very cool. Yeah. Sometimes it’s about, you go in there and you don’t even know what you might walk away with. You might not come with a question that you walk away with the gym or whatever.
Daniel Vargas: Exactly. Like that day I didn’t come with a question. I just came to the meeting just to be there. That’s it. I know I’m walking out with something.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And for those of you listening image mapping, it’s like where you have an image in certain parts of it, you can pop up and link to things and have videos play. There’s a plugin called draw attention that, that we’ve seen a lot of our users using. That’s like that. You’re a Keap expert, Daniel, marketing automation, CRM, tagging expert, for somebody… And in my opinion, by the way, like, yes, I had market LifterLMS as being an all-in-one solution, but I genuinely believe that you also need to have a additional CRM, whether that’s Keap, or active campaign convert kit, MailChimp, Groundhog, whatever. There’s lots of options out there for somebody just getting started with a WordPress LMS site and they want to do the CRM. What are some core concepts they should keep in mind for strategically approaching the CRM with their WordPress LMS site or project or academy business.
Daniel Vargas: Understanding-
Chris Badgett: I know it’s a big question because you’re an expert. You’re like, how much time do we have?
Daniel Vargas: I’m trying to keep it simple. When thinking about having a CRM… Well, first, when thinking about having your own line course, I will definitely recommend using a CRM. Because a CRM is going to help you be more organized and be able to be more strategic in my case, for example if I use lead magnets so I use digital offers to capture my leads, to capture my prospects, my ideal customers-
Chris Badgett: Not everybody’s ready to buy all at once all the time.
Daniel Vargas: Exactly. Not everybody is ready to buy from you right away. And having a CRM is going to help you one, to capture, retain those contacts that you just generated, then is going to allow you to segment that list that you are creating the money. It’s not a joke. The money is on the list. It’s not in social media, it’s on the list, it’s not on social media because you are getting leads out of social media, but then get them into your CRM and build list, organized those contacts segment them by the type of segment that, I’m not going to turn this into a segmentation class.
Chris Badgett: Group them in different ways.
Daniel Vargas: Yes. Group them in different ways. But something that a really good starting point is, who am I selling to? Who bought from me? Who still needs to buy from me and remember this, when we get prospects, not everyone’s going to buy you. And yeah, you cannot be trying to promote your product to the same audience over and over because then they’re going to hate you. But that’s going to happen, we people we are like that. So what I’m trying to say is, when you have a structure in your database with your CRM, you can see who’s getting information from you that is not taking action? Who’s getting information from you that is not buying from you, but it’s engaging with you with your content? For as long as they are getting your content and they’re happy with it. So that means that there is an opportunity for you to sell your courses to them-
Chris Badgett: And I just want to add some color here. It’s not uncommon for me to see somebody in our CRM, who’s been on our list for two years and then they decide to buy something. So it’s a long-term thing. Yeah.
Daniel Vargas: Yes. But they’ve been engaging.
Chris Badgett: Yeah.
Daniel Vargas: That’s the thing. Yeah. They might not be buying from you now, but they will later if they’re still there now. But also if we have a list of people that it’s really, really, really cold with a CRM, we are able to identify them. And then, I’m going to say this blunt. I would get them out of my CRM so I can create space and get fresh blood inside my contact list so I can continue to build more momentum and more sales. So that’s basically, a basic way of having a CRM. Get structure, get organized, sale, grow your business, and then yeah. A happy community of customers.
Chris Badgett: That is awesome. For the WordPress professionals out there. Number one question we get asked a lot is like, hey, this is awesome. I’m sold on Lifter, do you know anybody who can help build my site? That’s why we built the LifterLMS experts program. Daniel is on there. He’s a verified expert. What advice do you have for WordPress professionals working with clients, trying to build academies?
Daniel Vargas: Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Don’t just go for what you hear out there as the mainstream. In my case, I get involved with a lot of for example elementor site creators, and in those communities, sometimes, it’s like, they try to just repeat the same that many others are saying. Don’t get stuck with what you traditionally know. Open up your mind to new solutions and to explore but continue looking for that sweet spot. That’s going to make your life easier when you are creating a website, when you are working on projects for your customers. At the end of the day, what we all need is a way in which we can sell faster, but provide service even faster. So we can go back again and sale and repeat.
At the end of the day when thinking about having building a no line academy membership site, think about how easy it is going to be for you to build an experience that’s going to be awesome for a customer, but think about how easy it is going to be for you to build that, even if it’s for you or even if it’s… Because you’re not selling you all you want is an academy like I wanted at the beginning back in the time that’s all I wanted. I didn’t want to sell any membership courses but you don’t know where that’s going to take you. So just think about going with the option that’s going to make your projects with ease, easy life, better life for everything, for everyone.
Chris Badgett: Nice. So that’s Daniel Vargas. He really is a special dude because I know a lot of website builders and I know a lot of marketers and they’re often different people. I, like you, I can carry both of those. And I also have a passion for course, creation and academy building. So there’s a lot of website builders out there. There’s not a lot of website builders who are also really talented marketers and CRM specialists like Daniel. That’s why I want to get you on the show. What’s the best way for the people listening or watching this on YouTube to connect with you?
Daniel Vargas: Well, the best way right now, I have a new channel. It’s a new YouTube channel. It’s Daniel Vargas, MKT, the acronym for marketing. Daniel, D-A-N-I-E-L, Vargas, V-A-R-G-A-S, MKT. And you can also find me, well, danielvargas.com. You can find me there as well. I’m trying to bring that page over to English. It’s in Spanish now. I thought about having it in English now, maybe use a WordPress plugin to have a real time translation there. But you can also find me in, well, that’s a full, Laboratorio de Éxito.com. Yeah, just find me at Daniel Vargas, MKT. And from there you can find me on every social media out there. Some of them I’m not as active as I like to be, or as people would like me to be. I’m just there to have fun and not to have followers.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. Daniel, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate you sharing your story and you’re a great example of what’s possible with Lifter. It’s so cool to see how you started just using a tool yourself and then it became a focus for many of your clients. That’s super cool. I love what you’ve done. Love what you’ve built and I appreciate you sharing here today.
Daniel Vargas: Thank you. Let me add just to that. Yes, I’ve started using LifterLMS, but I didn’t know it was going to turn into part of my business model and that’s the reality and yeah, I’m happy for that. And thank you for having me here in the show.
Chris Badgett: Excellent. Well, it’s great to be on the journey with you. We’ll see where we go. Maybe we’ll check in a couple of years and to see what’s happening-
Daniel Vargas: A couple of years, a couple of months.
Chris Badgett: Right on. Well, thanks Daniel-
Daniel Vargas: Thank you.
Chris Badgett: For those of you listening, go check out his YouTube channel and go check out the website and thanks everyone for coming. Daniel, have a great rest of your day.
Daniel Vargas: Thank you, Chris. You, too.
Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
