Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jeffrey Shipley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Jeffrey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them?
A few years ago, we started doing this thing at TONIC we like to call BIOTD. It stands for Bad Idea of the Day, and the idea behind it is to invite our team to pitch us ideas that may or may not be terrible without editing them first. It allows for us to consider things together from the place of conception before too much thinking goes into it and before that idea gets thrown out too quickly because it’s deemed “bad”. So it’s like “we don’t know if it’s good or bad yet, so let’s explore it … together.”
One such bad idea? Well, we’d worked on creating a live three day online workshop for months, and it was allll sorts of dialed in — we’d made very pretty slide decks, invited expert guests, created an epic digital swag bag, and even included a killer discount offer + bonuses on our collection of website templates that was on par with our “biggest sale of the year” for us to encourage conversion. Honestly, we’d baked in a ton of value throughout the experience that we’re like “wow, this is SO MUCH for under $500 bucks,” and we’re quite proud of it all.
And then …. just one day after we’d announced it and had already started selling tickets, Morgan (our marketing director) had the idea “what if we made Launch Camp free?!”
***SCCCAAAREEEET***
“Wait … WHAT?”
“Uhhhh, we just sold thousands of dollars worth of tickets. And, and, and ….”
But then the BIOTD approach kicked in, and we were like “ummmm, wait … actually … maybe that’s a great idea?”
So after talking through it further, we landed on this bad (but actually brilliant) idea: Make our brand new signature educational offering FREE.
The plan was that we’d refund those who’d already purchased, announce that we decided EVERYONE should get to come to Launch Camp and then hit the marketing even harder with the new angle …
The result? We went from a pitiful 30ish to over 800 within hours of announcing the pivot, and we have since hosted 6 iterations of Launch Camp to rave reviews and have helped hundreds of Campers launch their websites … for free.
How does this relate to showing customers we appreciate them? Well, while we did originally set out to help our customers launch their websites more quickly and without all the frustration and angst that goes into it when they’re going it alone. And while we could still technically do that as a paid offer, by making it free, it made it accessible to everyone, removed the costly barrier of entry, and ended up being something that was a natural fit for the customer experience we were aiming to provide. It ended up being a huge value-add for them and allowed us to actually complete the narrative we’d been wanting to fulfill all along — you’re not just buying a template from TONIC and then you never hear from us again. We’re your website wingmen. We’re here to help. And we really, really want you to launch your website. So that you can be seen and known for who you are and what you do best.
Making that move was 1000% more in alignment with our mission through and through, it just felt right from the moment it was pitched. We truly think it was the best bad idea ever … to this very day.
So perhaps the B really stands for “brilliant”?
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Heyyyy there. I’m Jeff Shipley, and I’m a former wedding and portrait photographer turned web and graphic designer. I began my stint as a photographer midway through college which basically just looked a lot like suckering friends and family to “model” for me and doing a lot of stuff for free to build my portfolio and perfect my craft. I’d always kinda had that “I’ll just figure it out, teach myself, and work really hard” approach to everything I did, and honestly, because I was very much a full-time, way overcommitted student on a college student budget, I had to figure out all the ins and outs of entrepreneurship on my own through lots of trial and error, reading books and blogs and, while I know this ages me, FORUMS (Haha), and picking the brains of anyone who would let me.
One such thing I had to figure out how to do myself was build a website. Even way back in 2008, I knew that a website was the number one most important thing for me to show my work and start getting actual paid clients. So I started out with a template, customized it as much as the platform would let me, plopped in allll that work I’d been creating and boom, started blogging and second shooting as much as I could … and then, people started asking me to photograph their weddings, headshots, senior photos, theatrical productions, and the like.
And being an aspiring designer and a grade-A control freak with lots of ideas, I really wanted to design my own website from scratch but I didn’t know anything about code, nor did I really have the interest in becoming a developer. Enter: Showit (http://showit.com) … a drag and drop website builder that allowed me to design what I had in my head without needing to write a single line of code. It was like a dream come true for this wanna-be-designer.
So, with my new found piece of software, I set out to design my second website all by myself, hired a brilliant up-and-coming filmmaker (Nathanel Matanick – https://heschle.com/) to film a promo video for me, and then decided to host a launch party to debut the video and my new site and declare “I’m officially open for business, y’all!” All of which, by the way, NO ONE was doing in their first year of business as a photographer. It was wild, y’all! Yet I look back on that season of my career very fondly because it’s that determination, sheer will, willingness to be scrappy, and dare I say, to do things in my own way (even when people said I was crazy) is what set me off on the path toward becoming a successful entrepreneur.
I had 100+ people at this party (in a parking garage, btw), booked insane gigs in my first year, won some website design contests, put myself on the map a bit, and, much to my surprise, people started asking me to design their websites and so began my foray into being a photographer AND a web designer.
Fast forward a few years … I met a super cool and wildly talented designer named Jen Olmstead through Showit’s Facebook group and after a not-very-long designer retreat decided to do my craziest thing yet: go into business with a stranger from the internet and create a collection of completely customizable websites for the modern, stylish creative. And what started out as an idea to collaborate on a few website templates, turned into a full-fledged brand: Tonic Site Shop.
In its current iteration, 10 years later, TONIC offers design solutions for entrepreneurs in the form of website templates, social media templates and slide deck templates annnd online education and resources to help people show up online in a beautiful, effective and authentic way. TONIC now employs a team of 14, boasts 54k+ Instagram followers, has a very healthy and active 25k+ email list, and generates multiple seven figures of annual revenue. WHAATT??!
I say none of this to brag or be all “look at us,” but rather to say, “if we can do it, so can you!” And to underline the fact that most of us creatives aren’t overnight successes, but took a very long and winding road to get where we are and failed so many times along the way.
I’m so incredibly proud of what Jen and I created — from our incredible team, to our amazing community of TONIC Regulars, to our industry-leading products — and I thank the sweet Lord that I get to do what I love with my design soulmate and incredible team and help people be seen and known for who they are and what they do best.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One thing I had to unlearn (and, honestly, am still unlearning) is that I need help and that I can’t (and shouldn’t) do this thing called entrepreneurship alone. I need my partner. I need my team. I need my husband. I need my therapist. I need my family and friends. As my friend and mentor once said “this is a collaborative expedition” and I honestly believe that to my core, and yet, I still struggle with letting go, delegating, admitting that someone else is better at something than I am and ultimately, that I can’t do it all and I’m not a superhero. So hard for me and my overachiever, high-performer, go-go-go self.
So I often have to remind myself and our team (because it turns out I’m not alone in this struggle) that we’re better together. I’m a better designer when I design with Jen. I’m a better thinker when I think with Morgan. I serve our customers better when I serve them (and love on them) alongside Meek. And not only is that true for me, but also for my team. I’ve seen over and over again that everything that we do at TONIC is made better when it’s done collaboratively and when we help each other. We’re then able to fill gaps, find and fix mistakes, level-up, and just have a lot more damn fun along the way when we’re not going it alone. Team work makes the dream work, baby
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
Before we had a following, or an email list, or influential clients, all we had was our work — or product. So out the gate, we worked tirelessly to ensure that our templates were the best — that they were dialed-in, innovative, precise, next-level, and unlike anything else on the market. And for the past 10 years, we never wavered on that, and I think as a result of that, we became known as the top template shop in the Showit / creative market and are highly respected among our peers, have amazing partnerships with other brands, and are known for being industry leading on so many fronts. It’s so, so cool, and I’m so proud of that. 
Contact Info:
- Website: http://tonicsiteshop.com
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/tonicsiteshop
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/tonicsiteshop
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tonicsiteshop
Image Credits
Jordan Quinn (jordanquinnphoto.com)