Ep 376: How to Build A Credible Personal Brand with Dr. Mariel Buqué
RV (00:02):
I am delighted that you get to meet a newer friend of mine, but someone who I absolutely adore and I feel is really, really a special soul. And this woman is a true expert and a total class act, and you probably have already seen her on social, but I predict that she’s, she’s gonna be one of the most influential personal brands in the mental health space in our era. So her name is Dr. Mariel Buque, and she is a Columbia University trained psychologist. Okay. So she’s an actual psychologist, a trauma expert. She’s the author of a book coming out called Break the Cycle which is from Penguin which is my publisher, Woohoo. Go Penguin. And she’s been featured on CNN and the Today Show b ABC News, and she does corporate wellness workshops to companies like Google and Twitter and Capital One and Facebook.
RV (00:57):
Her and I shared the stage together at Louis How Summit of Greatness. So she was one of the other speakers, and that was how I met her. And I immediately was like, Aw, I just love this woman. She’s awesome. And so we got to connect a little bit and I want you to hear her story because, you know, she, she was a psychologist and she had a practice, which we’re gonna talk about, and she’s gone from that to over 700,000 followers online. Huge following on both, both Instagram and TikTok. And so I want to hear about some of what her strategy’s been with social media, how she kind of went from, you know private practice to personal brand and just kind of hear that journey. And then also, you know, maybe, maybe we’ll get some free trauma counseling out of it along the way. So Dr. Mariel Buque, welcome to the show.
MB (01:49):
Thank you so much. Rory I’m such a fan of yours just from a professional standpoint, but also you’re just such a wonderful person and so I’m, I’m delighted to be with you here today.
RV (02:00):
Well, thanks buddy. I, so, so tell us your story. So you go to Columbia, you become, you, you’re a classically trained psychologist, and then did you immediately, like, start a, a private practice?
MB (02:13):
No, actually I started a private practice in the pandemic, but even prior to, I was already offering some education online as a student. So part of the reason why I decided to start offering information was because I was seeing so much of this information floating through these ivory towers, right? We have like these peer review journals and all these places where we place information that’s really important for the public to know, but it wasn’t really out there. And so I was like, okay, social media is a public space that can be a space where people can gather some of this mental health information. So it kind of all started even before I graduated, about a year or two before that. And then I transitioned into being a psychologist at Columbia University Medical Center. So I was a staff psychologist there in addition to also holding some courses. I was a professor in the medical center and in the main campus. And then within a year’s time, that’s when I developed my private practice. So I was very busy.
RV (03:17):
Wow. Okay. All, so you actually started while you were still in school, so you were still, you were a grad student mm-hmm.
MB (03:31):
That’s
RV (03:31):
Right, yeah. And then went into private practice. So, so talk to me a little bit about social media, like the journey on social media, because I think there’s a lot of, a lot of people say, well, I’m not an online influencer, and I don’t know if social media applies to me because I don’t wanna do dances on TikTok, or, you know, I don’t really want to do hashtags. And our audience, you know, we describe as mission driven messengers mm-hmm.
RV (04:17):
But I’m a, I’m a really firm believer that if you just share your expertise, there’s gotta be a way to make this all work. And when I look at, when I follow you and I go, oh my gosh, you have blown up so massively. So can you just like, tell us how did you get started on social media? What are some of your philosophies there? And, and also like, yeah, just like your mindset of going, you know, you’re a Columbia trained psychologist, but yet you’re on social media and, and, and going, there’s a little bit of a dichotomy there of like credibility mm-hmm.
MB (04:55):
Yeah. You know, it’s so interesting that you say the, that there’s that dichotomy because when I first started off, I actually, I was really hopeful that none of my professors would find me on social media,
MB (05:11):
Cause I thought, you know, this perhaps doesn’t present as professional. They might have some sort of view on what, how I’m presenting the information to make it more accessible to the general public and not feel like this, like very dense clinical information. And so there were so many things that I had to think about in, in reference to how to make the information feel like it was reaching the places that I wanted it to reach. And interestingly enough, I’m actually going to speak at Columbia this week. So it’s, it’s very, very interesting how that, the reason why I’m going to go speak at Columbia is because of the visibility that I’ve been able to amass based on social media. So it, it’s just coming back so full circle where, where,
RV (05:57):
I just think it’s funny cuz it’s like, normally, you know, people post stuff online and they’re like, I hope my parents don’t find out, or I hope like, you know, my, my boyfriend and my girlfriend doesn’t see. And you’re like, yeah, I hope my professors don’t see, I think
MB (06:12):
You know, it was in part because it was so new, like, I was one of the, the first therapists and therapists in training that were coming into the social media space. So we didn’t have a blueprint for how we were supposed to be showing up into these spaces. We were just doing it based on our own personal style. And this is one thing that I, you know, I’ve, I’ve learned even through looking at your work, shout out to Lewis House also, like looking at how Louis shows up to the work itself as well. And I, because I show up from a place of wanting to serve in addition to wanting to be very authentic in my delivery, I think that’s worked out really well for me. And it’s something that people have gravitated to because they appreciate the authentic expression of the things that I say.
MB (07:01):
Right? And like being able to connect with the real human, but then also because I show up from a place of wanting to serve every day, I present information that is driven towards like, helping the public to better feel, better educated, and feel healed. And so that allows me to step into these spaces without having to overthink how it is reflected upon me. So I think that that’s been really helpful and being able to see the folks that I’ve been able to connect with, like you and Lewis and others, and also just bring in my own element of authenticity into this work. And I think that that has contributed to the, the amalgamation of like, you know followers across all these social media spaces.
RV (07:46):
Mm-Hmm.
MB (08:42):
Mm. Ooh, I love this question. Content creation has been a combination of a few things. The first of which is a unique approach that has been very, very much a part of what has driven like my mission to show up in these spaces. And what I mean by that is, I have this way that I present information with something that I do every single day, which is drink tea. And so I present the information like I’m having tea with someone and I’m breaking the fourth wall and I’m engaging the person. And when I started doing that, I started getting the feedback that people were actually feeling like they were landing in a gentle place where they can actually like listen to a tip that felt doable, accessible. And so when I started hearing from my community that that was the case, I started doing more of those very unique types of videos. In addition to that, in terms of the cadence, I believe that right now algorithms are a little bit influx, but what matters is that people notice your presence. So I have had a steady flow of information for now almost seven years.
RV (09:56):
Wow.
MB (09:57):
Yeah. It’s been a while.
MB (10:52):
Like, I presented information about grief the other day and how grief is connected to healing. That’s something that a lot of people, my followers were like, wow, I never thought of it that way. This is something that I’d like to sit with. Right? And so the fact that it’s new information, or at least my, my interpretation of how healing can look is allowing someone to take a step back into their life and really think about their healing work in a different way. So I try to add that element in there too, in addition to the other pieces. But I have realized that when you show up with consistency, people that digest your information are really grateful for the fact that you’re willing to do that.
RV (11:38):
When you say daily, break that down for me, like mm-hmm.
MB (12:21):
Yeah. So I must say there is one day where I’m no longer posting, and that’s because I’ve looked into my insights and that day isn’t a very highly engaging day, which is Friday. And so every platform’s different, every account is different. So I would urge anyone that is like hoping to understand how their users are digesting their content to look into their insights. So Fridays is the day off, basically, but on my bigger platforms on Instagram and TikTok, there is a, an almost daily presentation of information in some way or another. There’s a carousel post, there’s a video, there’s some sort of a repost of somewhere where I’ve been. And I have also restructured, especially my Instagram into being break the cycle of trauma, that being one account, which is primarily the information that you’ll find in my upcoming book, and like information that can be digestible around trauma.
MB (13:23):
And then there’s my main account, Dr. Dot Mario Bouquet, which is where I present some information about what I have going on in addition to some mental health tips. So there, I, I’ve actually just recently broken them out instead of having everything live in one space. And the reason being is because I wanted there to be a space where people can go to and then just digest the information and a space where pe where that would be more branded in, in reference to my own personal brand. Now typically what the posts look like are carousel posts or reels, given that they’re so popular now with a boom of TikTok. And whenever I’m doing a tee time video presenting information in that way, that’s typically presented like on a weekly, now two times a month basis. And I, I find that presenting the information in that way gives people an, an opportunity to look forward to the information and to really digest it even more. Versus when I was posting a video on tee time and trauma every single day, I felt like I was oversaturating my audience and it wasn’t being received in the same way. So I did do a little bit of internal studying of what has worked, what the feedback I’ve received in the comments section, dms, I get emails every day. So all of this, I’ve kind of created my own self case study, if you may, and it has led me to figure out what the right cadence is for me on each of these platforms.
RV (15:01):
Mm-Hmm.
MB (15:07):
It is, it’s an approximate minute of me inviting someone to tea, offering up a, a bit of information about mental health, providing a mental health tip that they can try for the week, and then closing out the segment within a minute’s time. I don’t know how I do it, but it, it gets done.
RV (15:25):
Okay. And so you do that, you do that only once a week?
MB (15:28):
Once a week, sometimes twice a month, just depending on whether or not I can actually provide my team with the video that they need to chop up and make into a tee time. But yes, once a week.
RV (15:42):
Okay. But it’s, it’s only a 62nd video.
MB (15:45):
Yeah, it is. Yeah. But it, it’s, it’s about seven minutes before it’s chopped up.
RV (15:50):
Oh, it’s a seven. So it’s a seven minute video mm-hmm.
MB (16:02):
Yeah, because it’s a, it has a certain style, so it’s chopped up in a certain way where it’s inviting, it’s a little bit on the therapy humor and but it brings us back into something that’s a little more serious, so it has a flow to it and the editing behind it you know, requires for me to have a little bit more B-roll.
RV (16:21):
Got it. And then the rest of that, like every day you’re doing just a carousel post with more of like just text copy and tips that way and, and then other personal stuff or re-sharing things that you’ve been up to. Mm-Hmm.
MB (16:36):
RV (16:38):
Mm-Hmm.
MB (17:28):
Yeah. So I absolutely first started with doing it every, doing everything myself. And interestingly enough, when I was doing interviews for publishers, like shopping around publishers to determine who I was gonna go with for my book in every single meeting, and I have 15 of these me meetings Wow. Within a two day span. And in all of those meetings, everyone asked you do all that yourself. And I said, yes, I do. And so they actually couldn’t believe it, but I realized in that moment, I need to outsource. I’m clearly doing much more than what I need to be doing. And what I learned in that journey is that people have an area of expertise in their respective area that can help burgeon your platform that you may not have. And outsourcing is actually one of the wisest things that you can do in order to really build a platform beyond, you know, where you are.
MB (18:22):
So right now, my team is still relatively small, but it’s a very mighty team. And so I have a brand manager someone who is a, a content creator and facilitates a lot of the brand elements of what is forward facing to my followers. I have someone who manages more of the financial side of things and helps me in orienting me around those moving pieces. Someone who in essence oversees everyone else who is more of a business manager and oversees also all of the moving pieces of the business, including speaking, although I am transitioning into speaking via a speaker’s bureau and which is it, it’s still tentative who I’m gonna go with. But I have been managing all of that on my own, on the backend with my team. And so there is a person that helps me to make sure that everything is like running smoothly.
MB (19:28):
So it’s been, in essence, more of a, with myself included four person team, which I think given how much I have on my plate is most of what I can manage. But I do believe that having someone that oversees everything has freed up a lot of my own space to be able to be creative, know what kind of content I wanna put out, because I still very much am tied to that part of the work. And the reason being is because it’s such sensitive material that I have to be closely connected to it, whatever goes out into the public. And so it, it gives me an opportunity to do that, to write and to think about, you know, the evolution of what will be out there in the future for, for all of us, for my business.
RV (20:12):
Mm-Hmm.
MB (20:20):
RV (20:21):
When, when you first started, you, you, you were a counselor, right? So you, you, you, you were taking on clients and that was how you were bringing in most of your money mm-hmm.
MB (20:45):
MB (21:48):
And so all of that actually helped me with the financial setup to be able to then create a team and have an actual funnel of income to individuals that can help me to build what, what I really desired, which was an evolution of my expertise in the authorship and speaker arena, right? And so now that’s where I am now. I’m, I’ve been able to build that out. I have a really solid book deal. You know, I have a strategy for how to move forward. And so all of that is now in place because I first started off with doing all those other things, right? Like all the things that are in your traditional kind of psychology trajectory, being a clinician, being a professor, and consulting here and there, but not as much as I’m doing now.
RV (22:39):
Mm-Hmm.
MB (23:36):
I go in at least once a day to make sure that I’m connected in some way to community and see it, especially if there are any comments that I feel, feel like might need special attention, however, and, and also with people that DM me that wanna build with me in some way. There’s a lot of people like that, and I, I don’t wanna miss those messages, but for the most part, the, the, my team member who is managing a lot of the content side does have a good way of being able to connect with people in a way that is my voice in many ways. A lot of us are doing now. Because sometimes these platforms just get way too big and it can be a bit overwhelming to manage it as one person. So I try to stay connected to the community. And even through my newsletter, like in my newsletters, people email me still via the newsletter when they receive it, and they’ll tell me it’s a newsletter that helps people with coping skills.
MB (24:34):
And people always tell me like, this one really helped me. I’m gonna use this one this week. And so I try to be responsive there as well. However, because of the enormity of these platforms, now I, I can’t respond to everyone. And before, when I first started off that first and second year, every comment was attended to every last one, even when I was at, you know, 10, 20, 30,000. But now it, it’s almost impossible to do. But I do try and make sure that if there’s ever any sensitive material or if there’s anybody who feels a little bit more tender and sensitive or like they really want to connect that they’re being attended to, because one of the things that is really important for me is for a person to feel like when they come to any of my platforms, they feel a sense of security, safety and like they’ve landed in a soft place. And if I can make that even, even though I can’t please everyone, if I can make that a core part of my mission, then I’ve been able to really fulfill a lot of what I’m, I feel like is a part of the work that I’m here to, to do. So the, the comment section is an important part of my work, but you know, the more that we grow the, the harder it gets to mm-hmm.
RV (25:58):
MB (26:41):
They can go to dr marielle bouquet.com, which is my website. And there, there’s just about everything that I’m up to, but I’m Dr. Dot Marielle bouquet on all socials, and so they can find me in that way as well.
RV (26:55):
Uh huh
MB (27:49):
I would say bring your authenticity and your voice. So find whatever it is that it is your voice within this space, within your own respective health space, and bring that in. Like, there are people waiting to hear from you. And I think we oftentimes, we’re, we’re so caught up in our own process of how to make it happen, that we forget that there’s an audience that’s there that’s waiting for our voice. And in addition to that, I know you mentioned TikTok videos and dancing. I just wanna say I don’t dance and I don’t dance on these videos,
RV (28:42):
I love it. Well, we will link up to dr mariel Buque.com [email protected] slash podcast in the show notes. So you, that’s an easy way to find her if you, if you don’t find her on your own. And Dr. Mariel, this is so wonderful. I, I love connecting with you. I’m excited to follow your journey. I’m absolutely confident that you’re just going to go so far and, and continue to impact millions and millions of people. So thanks for making time for us friend, and we wish you the best of luck.
MB (29:10):
Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
Ep 369: How to Build Recurring Revenue | John Meese Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
How do you build massive recurring revenue? That is the theme of today’s show. And recap, this is sort of based off the interview that I did with John Meese talking about how to build massive membership sites, and we’re gonna talk about some of those highlights. But really, I wanna zero in on some of what our, what we believe our keys are to building massive recurring revenue and, and even just understanding what recurring revenue is and why does, why does recurring revenue even matter? And I wanna just kind of start with a little bit of a track record here. So you know, this is something that we know something about. Brand Builders is a recurring revenue model. I mean, our core business is a one-on-one coaching or, and training product that people pay a subscription for. And that’s our, our flagship program includes you know, coming to two days of training every month, and also one-on-one coaching every single month as well.
RV (01:04):
And then there’s a, there’s a, a, a, a do it yourself, like a self-study version of it, which is you get access to all the online training, and that’s a lower, a lower version. But we are a membership site, or not a membership site. We’re a recurring revenue business. And the business that we sold in 2018, a huge component of that business was also recurring revenue. So this is something we know a lot about and have a lot of experience in. And I first wanna talk to you about why would you even consider recurring revenue and, and, and, and what are some of the, some of the strengths and some of the reasons to have recurring revenue. One of the great things about recurring revenue, so this is some of the, you know, selling subscriptions, is because every month you don’t start on zero, right?
RV (01:48):
Like every month you’re not automatically on zero every month, you automatically come into the month with revenue contracted. Now, not always does a hundred percent of that come in, but you always have a, a, a, a large number, a large proportion of revenue contracted. And so that’s really, really valuable. And y you know, just in terms of taking the pressure off, because what recurring revenue does is it allows you to kind of predict for the future. It’s, it’s, it’s more predictable. And so because it’s more predictable, we can say, okay, well if, if we can grow our revenues, you know, we’re always factoring for churn. So some percentage of people are gonna leave, and hopefully we’re gonna seal that back door with retention, which we’ll talk about. But the the other thing that we will we’ll try to do is we’re always bringing people in the front door and, and then the snowball is growing.
RV (02:44):
And so it’s a snowball that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So the revenue is steady, it’s consistent, and then you can plan for growth. You can say, gosh, you know, hiring this person would be a little scary right now, I don’t know that we could afford them, but assuming some basic metrics. And, you know, if we can look back and say, Hey, statistically our, our revenues grow at this rate, we can sort of forecast more predictably and more comfortably in the future to say, yeah, there’s probably some investments we could make, whether it’s technology or personnel or you know, equipment or whatever you know, software tools you need or services you need done to go, I think we, we can, we can swing it based on, you know, our growth trajectory. The other reason why recurring revenue is so valuable is it’s, it’s literally more valued in terms of business valuation.
RV (03:35):
So when you look at the financial valuations of a business, this is a super deep dive by the way that in our, one of our phase four courses is called eight Figure Entrepreneur. And we really teach the real mechanics of, of, you know, the, just the, the basic foundations of finance and acumen, cash flow and things like that that most entrepreneurs don’t get, not even in business school. You know, I have an M B A and I would say I, there was so much practical information I I never got. But when you look at how businesses are valued, businesses are valued based on an estimated stream of future cash flows. So in other words, they’re saying, what’s the likelihood, the way I describe it is pretend that you, here’s how you, here’s how you value a business. Think of it as a money machine.
RV (04:22):
And if, if I had a money machine that printed dollar bills and I said, Hey, I have a machine here that prints a $1 bill every year. How much is, how much would, would I sell this machine to you? And what would you be willing to buy this machine? And we go, well, we know it’s, it’s probably worth at least a dollar cuz it prints a dollar every year. And you know, if you don’t do anything to improve the machine, if it’s a reliable machine, there’s probably gonna be a dollar next year. So that would be $2, you know, in, in three years from now, it’s gonna be at least $3. Now the machine could break down. So that’s part of what as the buyer is assessing as what’s the likelihood that machine’s gonna break down or the strategic, A strategic buyer is somebody who says, Hmm, I know how to take $1 machines and I can turn them into machines that print a dollar every month.
RV (05:09):
I have some expertise or some skill or some people on my team who can take that machine and make it per print more, either $1 bills faster or can print dollar bills that are not a dollar, but $5 or $10 or $50. And so that’s what, how businesses are valued. It’s like, what’s the, what’s the reliability of the revenue coming in the future and saying, I’m willing to, when someone values a business and buys a business, they’re saying, I’m gonna, I’m gonna basically buy three years of your future cash flow now and assuming going, I’m gonna take the risk of going this machine. I’m buying from you. I’m going to, it’s gonna take me three years to earn my money back, but then after that, I’ll make more money. Or because I believe that I can pay, pay you three years worth of earnings for your machine now.
RV (05:59):
And I think I can, I can increase the productivity of that machine. And that’s effectively right there is how businesses are valued, which they really overcomplicate in a lot of, you know, academic institutions and schools and just people don’t understand it in general. Well, so then why is recurring revenue valuable? Because recurring revenue is predictable, and as predictability goes up, the valuation of the business goes up because the likelihood of those cash flows being there, every single month goes up when it’s already contracted versus when I have to go out and sell a whole new bunch of customers. So recurring revenue companies have higher values, they’re literally worth more because they’re more consistent and more the revenue’s more consistent and more predictable. You know, and if you look at SaaS companies, software companies, a lot of times those companies are valued based on a multiple of their revenue.
RV (06:51):
Whereas most companies are valued on a multiple of their profits. And so it becomes highly valuable when you have recurring revenue because it, it’s enticing to a potential buyer. So the demand for that money machine i e a business is, is higher. So those are some of the reasons to do recurring revenue. The, one of the other reasons why we love recurring revenue, and, and here’s a good way so in our, our phase one course one which is called finding your brand, d n a, one of the things we help people do is, is figure out what their primary business model should be. Your primary business model. Is that the revenue stream to which all others are subservient to that one. And we talk about when you should choose a course versus when you should choose a membership site. And there’s all these factors.
RV (07:39):
Well, one of the factors is to say, if you are good at constantly finding new customers and you’re good at it and you, you, your talents lend themselves to it and you want to do it, you go, a course is a really good option because once the course is built, you don’t have to change much. You can focus your time on just finding new people to buy the existing thing. But if you struggle with marketing and sales and you go, man, I struggle to find new customers, I’m not as, as talented at as that, then we go, well, sometimes membership sites are better because what you can do is you can spend less time acquiring new customers and spend more time creating content to service your existing customers. And so that’s kind of what we do. I mean, we like to think we’re good at both marketing and sales especially is like kind of our expertise.
RV (08:30):
And, but, but we don’t love having to sell every single month just to like hit the budget, right? So we love having the recurring revenue and going, you know, at least for me, I think one of my superpowers is creating content. So it’s easier for me, even though I love marketing and sales, and we’re good at marketing and sales, and that’s what we teach people how to do. I, I, my superpower I think is even more so in creating content. So it’s easier for me to go, yeah, let me, let me find a few customers who will be in a continuity with us and let’s serve them in a deeper way. Now, at Brand Builders Group, we currently have over 600 active clients that are in our, our our monthly training, you know, and coaching program which are our flagship programs. And there’s like a self, you know, there’s a do-it-yourself version, and then there’s a one-on-one version, which also includes our live training events.
RV (09:25):
And then we have, we have like 300 private clients on top of that who just hire us for private projects and private, you know topics at at at less consistent. Those are more like, those are more like sales. They’re not recurring revenue, they’re bigger hits of revenue. When someone just says, ah, I really wanna like, focus on my podcast, just hire us to help you with that. Or writing their book or launching their book or their keynote or building out their funnels or, and it’s more of just they’re hiring us for, in a more expedient way to focus on a burst. But those are ones like, you have to be selling new ones every month versus the recurring revenues going, Hey, when you’re on a recurring membership, we give you all of those things, we give you access to all of ’em, and we’ll step you through ’em as you need to.
RV (10:06):
So that’s a little bit about why recurring revenue matters and understanding how it affects business valuation. Again, if, if you look at the difference between a company valued on revenue versus a company valued on profit most companies are valued on, on, on profit or ebitda earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, which basically just means profit, which is, you know, to use my money machine analogy which by the way is an analogy I came up with of, of just thinking about a business just as a simple m money printing machine to go, okay, a dollar, if my money, my money machine prints a dollar every year, that’s the profit of, that’s the final output. But and most companies, you know, depending on a whole number of factors, but let’s say you were getting a just a five multiple meanings, if someone were to pay you a five multiple, that means a buyer’s gonna basically come in and say, I’m gonna pay you five years worth of profits, five years worth of future profits today to buy your money machine.
RV (11:08):
So I’m gonna, if, if you have a dollar in profit, I’m gonna pay you $5. I’m a multiple of five, I’m gonna give you $5 today knowing or feeling confidently, like I will at least get my $5 back over the next five years and hopefully faster if I can do some things to improve the efficiency of the operation or if I have other strategic reasons to make that acquisition. That’s how most business deals are done. It’s a multiple of profits or multiple of ebitda, but recurring revenue, like SaaS companies often are valued on revenue. So if, if you get a, a value of let’s say you get a, a multiple of five, but instead of on your profits, it’s a, it is on your revenue. So, for example, to use this same example, a company that produces a dollar in profit every year, let’s say their revenue is $10, so that would be a company operating at a 10% profit margin.
RV (12:03):
So they generate $10 in revenue, they gotta pay all their expenses, their salespeople, their marketing, their overhead, you know, the product acquisition, their taxes, their insurance, their, you know, everything. And then at the end of the day, maybe they have a 10% profit. Like, and you go, okay, I generated $10 in revenue, a dollar in profit. Normally it’s a a five multiple would say, oh I’m getting, I’m gonna get $5 for that business, five times, $1. But when you’re valued on revenue, it’s a game changer to go, I’m, if I got a, if I got a a, a multiple of five on revenue, it’s not five times $1, it’s five times $10. So that company is to buy that company is not $5, but $50, five times 10, the multiple of five times the revenue of $10. So that’s five years worth of revenues.
RV (12:55):
I’m valuing, valuing that company based on revenues that that company is worth $50 instead of $5 because it’s five years of future revenues versus five years of future profits, right? One of the dynamics that makes companies more have a higher enterprise value is, oh, and be more likely to be valued on revenue, is the consistency of the revenue, which is, you know, happens with recurring revenue. So that’s probably more than most of you wanted to know, but I, I mean, I literally went through MBA school and never understood that basic core concept. It wasn’t until years later as an entrepreneur that I, I, I had a mentor finally explained it to me, sort of in, in simpler English. And it’s important to understand that. And, and that is, even if you plan on never selling your business, I mean, this is again, another principle.
RV (13:45):
We teach an eight figure entrepreneur, is that a business worth selling? Looks a whole lot like a business worth keeping. You know, a business worth selling is a business that operates without you with consistency and produces loss of cash flow inevitably into the future. Well, a business that does that looks a lot like a business worth keeping. I mean, if you have a money machine that prints money every year and it doesn’t require a lot of your time, and there’s not a lot of risk in, in those, that money machine breaking down, you go, why didn’t I just keep it? So the money machine’s just printing money and I’m just keeping the money every year. That’s the way to think about it. Recurring revenue increases consistency, thereby reduces volatility or reduces risk, thereby increasing the valuation of that business, whether you sell it or you keep it.
RV (14:25):
So high level, that’s why recurring revenue is such a good idea. Now, how do you create great recurring revenue? Couple of the key things, if you’re wanting to create recurring revenue of your business, and John talked about this a little bit in the, in the interview, but if you really wanna create a quality recurring revenue product, the question that I would pose for you to answer is this, what is the problem that I can solve that never goes away? What is a problem that I can solve that never goes away? In other words, the need for it continues on month after month after month, which causes people to want to continue paying for us. Accountability is one of the, one of the core problems that we solve. Now, technically the problem we solve is obscurity. We help people who are struggling to be more well known to, to do that.
RV (15:24):
And we teach them a set of information and strategies for how to do that. And all the tactics that we have now used to launch, you know, we’ve had 12 clients that have become New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestsellers. We’ve had four clients create TED Talks that have gone viral with over a million views. We’ve had over we, we just had our, our fifth client generate more than seven figures growth in their annual revenue. So they’ve grown their revenue more than a million dollars a year since being a client of ours. So we have a set of knowledge that we teach people to do that. But what the need, the, the, the problems that never go away are accountability, community and access to great vendors and as well as inspiration, right? You, the inspiration is like never, it’s a, it’s something that never disappears.
RV (16:13):
So those are the, some of the problems we’re solving. So you gotta sort of think about it if you’re gonna create a membership site or if you have one and you’re going, how do I, how do I get the snowball rolling faster? Be thinking about what are the problems that my clients have that never go away? And how can I serve those needs better? All right? So that’s my first key for how to grow your recurring revenue. The second, the second key, and this one is directly from the, from the the mind of AJ Vaden. So AJ talks about this all the time with our team internally, is when you’re growing recurring revenue, it’s sort of a two-part game. You need new people coming in the front door. But the big thing that everybody misses, which is really the, like, the more critical one I think is you have to seal the back door.
RV (17:05):
You have to like, you have to be so sticky that people aren’t leaving. Otherwise, you literally have a treadmill or this revolving door where you got people coming in as fast as they’re going out, or if they’re leaving faster, then you’re bringing ’em in, then you’re going backwards, right? And that’s negative churn. So y you, the, the, the first real job is to go, man, even before we perfect bringing in new customers, it’s going, how do we close that back door? In other words, how do we keep people from canceling? And when I say key people from canceling, I don’t mean like locking them in to, to, to, to being forced to stay to something that they hate. It’s not like going, Hey, you gotta have, you know, these contract terms that are just relentless. And it’s not that, here’s the key, the key is retention or, or excuse me, here’s the, here is the key to growing your membership site.
RV (18:00):
Utilization equals retention. Utilization equals retention. This is what AJ is saying all the time. Utilization equals retention. Meaning the way to serve your current customers is you have to make sure they’re using whatever the thing is that you’ve given them. And this is a distinct mindset shift. A lot of people think that sales is done once the sale is made. And when you have that mindset of like, oh, I closed the sale, I’m onto the next, I’m onto the next, that doesn’t work. We don’t think that works, period. You know, in one of our phase three courses, it’s called pressure-free persuasion. We, we talk about how the sale is not done when the sale is made. The sale is finished. When the client experiences the result that you promised the sale isn’t made, or the sale, the sale isn’t finished. When the sale is made, the sale is finished.
RV (18:55):
When the client experiences the result that you know, you promised or that you were both working towards you probably didn’t promise it. I would recommend you don’t promise results. Just like you can’t, we cannot guarantee results even though we’ve had amazing results. And that’s why our client list continues to be amazing, right? I mean, we’re working with Ed Millet and Louis Howes and Amy Porterfield and, and you know, Eric Thomas et the hip hop preacher and Peter Diamandis and all these amazing people that are, are now clients of ours, cuz we are really getting amazing results. But utilization equals retention. So the sale that you have to make every month is not so much to a new customer like you might with more of a commoditized model, like a course offering, let’s say the sale you gotta make is to your current customers to use the thing they have.
RV (19:45):
So you always have to be selling, right? You still have to be selling, you gotta be selling them on making sure they’re using what you’ve given them. Utilization equals retention. If your people are using your program, if they’re using your service, if they’re using, if they’re accessing your portal, if they’re utilizing your tools, they’re gonna stay. If they’re not using your tools, they gonna leave, right? They’re not going to pay for something they’re not using. Even if what you’re providing is amazing world class best in class, even if your solution is the best there is, if your clients aren’t using it, they are bowing out, they’re gonna be leaving, right? So I’m not so focused, like if I were gonna buy a recurring, if as a, as a, as a business acquirer, if I were gonna go buy a company who had recurring revenue, I would be looking at their u the utilization.
RV (20:40):
Are people using the thing they’re paying for? If they’re using it, even if the product is crappy, I go, it’s, that’s great. I can make the product better. That’s not that hard. But if people aren’t using it, then I go, you just got a bunch of people paying for something here that are, you know, it’s a parking lot that no one is using and going, that’s not gonna long term, that’s not gonna work. We gotta get people using the thing. So utilization equals retention. And there’s a couple key things here for how to increase your utilization. So first of all, you gotta have a journey. You need to have a map, you need to have a visual that outlines what the process looks like. For those of you that are listening that are members in captivating content, which is our phase one course two program, that’s what we help you do.
RV (21:26):
We help you extrapolate your unique expertise and experience into a proprietary methodology, a body of work, a visual journey of, of illustrations and frameworks and flow charts and, and, and chart and tables that that show. This is the process. If you’re a member of ours, you know, we have the brand builder journey. It’s our four phase process that we walk you through from going you’re completely obs obscure and unknown to world famous and world recognized eight figure entrepreneur, best-selling author, hall of fame speaker you know, all the things that we have done and helped people do. We’ve got a four phase, a simple four-phase process that we push people through. And it works. Part of the reason why people stay is cuz they can see the whole journey. You gotta show them this, it’s this step and this step and this step. Don’t just assume that they’re gonna hang around blindly not knowing what, what it takes to actually get to where they’re trying to go.
RV (22:23):
So you wanna show that, talk about it, keep that in front of them so that they’re seeing like, oh, okay, you know, yes, it’s hard right now, but this is just a step and I’m gonna go to the next step and the next step and the next step, and that’s how I’m gonna ultimately get to where I want to go. So you gotta have a journey. The other thing is you gotta have data. You gotta have red flags going on, firing off in, in your, in your business. Meaning if somebody’s not using your stuff, you need to have dashboards and tools or reports or people who are monitoring that, who send up an alert to say, Hey, this is, and at, at at Brand Builders Group, I’ll just tell you transparently, we have something called an at-risk report where we’re looking at all of the people who haven’t been doing a certain number of activities.
RV (23:11):
So in our case, they haven’t logged into a portal in a certain number of days. They haven’t been to a course been to one of our live events in a certain number of days. They haven’t showed up for one on their one-on-one calls in a certain number of days. They haven’t, you know, been inside of our, our Facebook community, our private Facebook community in a certain number of days. And so we’re, because part of what we’re providing, part of what they’re paying for is frankly is accountability and inspiration. And this is how we track that, is go like, Hey, you’re not showing up, like you’re not doing the work. Like if you’re not coming, you’re not doing the work, which means you’re not getting the results, which means even though it’s not our fault that you’re not getting the result, the fact of the matter is you’re not getting the result, which means, means you’re not gonna keep paying.
RV (23:46):
So even if everything we do is perfect, if they’re not using it, it doesn’t matter, they’re gonna cancel. So we have to set up triggers and, you know, red flags and this at-risk report of all of these things. And we’re using automation tools to do this. And we’re using some of its manual reporting, some of it is customer surveys, some of it is manual outreach and check-ins, like to constantly go make sure people are using this. And, and here’s here’s another question that I would encourage you, you know, to, to ponder as it relate as it relates to this. Ask yourself this question, how can I serve my current audience in a deeper way? How can I serve my current audience in a deeper way? Because utilization equals retention. And if I’m serving them in a deeper way, then I’m, I’m speaking more powerfully to their immediate needs.
RV (24:40):
I’m providing the tools, the templates, the checklist for them to do it. Here’s a recent example for us. A lot of speakers struggle with how much should I charge? This has been, you know, gone on for decades, like what’s the right price to charge? And people throw out all these weird numbers. We created this, this speaker fee calculator. It’s, and it’s a simple set of questions you answer and it spits out not only what your speaking fee should be, but what your virtual fee should be and your half day fee and your two day fee and your international fee and your interview fee and all of it, it all spits out and it takes you like two and a half minutes to fill in this, this thing that is now a tool that solves a problem. We then also have a, a a a toolkit that is our speaker press kit and we go, you know, your speaker press Prescott needs to have a fee schedule.
RV (25:28):
Well, we just solved that problem, but then what about the rest of your speaker Prescott? What are all the things that need to be in there and how should it be structured and how should it be laid out? And we go, great. One of our incentives for people when they sign up I I think it’s, if I think if they sign up and pay for a year in advance, is we give them the template that we actually use for our own speaker press kits. And then you can like, model off of it and you can just build it, boom, up and running. So everything that we’ve been doing at Brand Builders Group for the last few years has been basically creating the education and all the educational resources. Now we’re moving much more aggressively and a assertively into how do we give people tools and templates and checklists to help them execute and implement what they’re learning faster.
RV (26:10):
And internally, our team is going, how are we monitoring utilization? Because utilization equals retention. Utilization equals retention. So that’s the second thing you really gotta do. Now the third thing is you gotta keep people coming in the front door. You gotta keep people always coming in the front door. And it’s just, you know, sales, sales solves all problems, right? Like if, if we, if we can figure out how to constantly generate new sales, then we’re gonna always have cash flow coming in that we can use to solve other problems or to hire people who can solve problems. The question is, do you have a consistent engine for driving new leads and new customers into your business?
RV (27:00):
Think about that. Just just think about that question to yourself for a second. Are you confident that you have an engine that consistently produces new leads and new customers for your business every month, every week, every day? Do you know exactly this is, this is how my machine works, we do this and then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens and that brings somebody who finds us here and then they do this, and then they do this, and then they become a customer and then they stay because they’re utilizing the program. And you, if you aren’t confident on that, like if you aren’t crystal clear on what is your process, what is your system, what is your method for perpetually continually, constantly never ending, always driving new leads and new customers into your business? If you’re not clear on that, go to free brand call.com slash podcast right now, free brand call.com/podcast because you need to talk to our team because this is one of the things that we specialize the most in, is helping you create a, a set of mechanisms and systems and processes in your business to keep people coming in the front door.
RV (28:13):
They’ve gotta be coming in the front door because they’re always gonna leave out the back no matter how good your program is. And no matter how much you focus on retention, which, you know, as I just said, utilization equals retention. So we wanna close that back door, but even if your program is the best in the world, people are always going to leave. So you just gotta make sure you’re bringing in new customers faster than the older one, than the old ones are leaving by. And so you’re adding value to them and you’re also constantly refining and perfecting your new customer acquisition strategy. If you don’t feel confident or you’re not clear on how you get new customers and new leads on a regular consistent basis, you need to talk to us. I mean, I’m, I’m serious. Just go to free ran call.com/podcast, fill out the form and talk, talk to someone on our team because this is what we specialize in and this is why we’re doing it, right?
RV (29:07):
And I, you know, i i I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a total jerk, but like we, we just launched another seven figure business inside a brand builders group in like the last year. So we, we now have five different seven figure, multi seven figures businesses that we’ve built and two eight figure businesses. And it’s by following the same principles. All of these principles are are very straightforward, they’re not easy, but they are simple and they do work if you follow the system. So that’s why we’re here. We’d love to talk to you. If you’re not ready for that, hey, share this episode with somebody who needs to hear it. Obviously anything you can do to, to leave reviews helps us tremendously, but also helps new listeners so you know, rate and review and help us that way. And no matter what, keep coming back every week so that we can be keep pouring into you and giving you as much as we can Right here for free on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. That’s all we got today for how to build massive recurring revenue. We’ll catch you next time. We love ya. Bye-Bye.
Ep 368: How to Build Massive Membership Sites with John Meese
RV (00:02):
Well, today we’re gonna talk about a really important topic, membership sites, and a favorite topic of mine. And you’re gonna get to hear from one of my favorite people in the world on that topic, John Meese. So I’ve known John kind of loosely for years because he’s, he’s helped multiple people build membership sites. These, you know, six figure seven figure membership sites, specifically Platform University, which used to be owned by Michael Hyatt, who of course is good friend of ours, of mine, and AJ’s, Michael and Gail. And we’ve known Michael for years and he’d been a mentor and a friend. And so that’s how I met John. And Michael sold Platform University a few years ago. And I think around that time is when John started taking his expertise out and helping coaches and, and trainers and consultants and just anybody who’s out there to build wealth by starting an online business. And specifically, I think, you know membership sites. So he’s also the author of a bestselling book called Survive and Thrive, how to Build a Profitable Business in Any Economy, including this one. He’s bilingual in Espanol, and he just moved to Puerto Rico where he’s saving money on taxes, although that’s not why he’s went there primarily. But anyways, buddy, it’s good to have you here.
JM (01:23):
Thank you, Rory. It’s good to be here. It’s good to be here. Is the interview today gonna be bilingual or are we stick in English?
RV (01:28):
Yeah, no, I, yeah, we’re gonna do it in Spanish, man. Yes, you and me. It’s gonna be a back very, very short interview.
JM (02:02):
Yeah, so there are a lot of subscription type businesses, so I think it’s probably helpful to start by saying that my focus is generally helping people turn wisdom into wealth by building a thriving online education business. And so that’s a lot of the same work you do Rory, with Brand Builders Group of helping people build personal brands where there’s an educational component sometimes that looks like a course or coaching program or a life event or books. But memberships are the subscription version of that. And so some of my favorite membership sites that I’ve been a part of myself you know, you’re typically paying a monthly or annual fee to be part of a community where you get access to a combination of training, support, community. It’s more, there’s definitely more of a peer element than if you were maybe in like just watching a course.
JM (02:48):
Cuz often courses online courses are typically very kind of, you’re consuming it. And then that’s kind of it, like, there’s not usually a lot of community interaction, but community is a key part of membership sites. So there’s really two primary reasons to want a membership site in your business. One of them is kind of the obvious one, which is that when you build recurring revenue, now all of a sudden, every month you get to start knowing that you have a reliable recurring revenue coming in from customers who’ve subscribed to pay you automatically. I, like John Orlow calls this the the automatic customer, and I like that idea. I was just saying like, that’s a great book, you make the sale once. Yeah, it’s a great book. And, and it’s a great concept too, of just the idea that each month you’re like, well, I automatically have customers, I don’t have to start with zero.
JM (03:31):
So that’s huge. And recurring revenue can really grow over time to become an incredible source of generating wealth. But the flip side of that is also, it’s a phenomenal way to serve to serve your clients, to serve your customers and your audience. Because the reality is what, I mean, the academic churn is typically MOOCs or massive open online courses for like, what we know is like an online course where you buy it, it sits on the digital shelf somewhere, maybe you watch it. And historically, the, I mean just kind of industry-wide, the completion rates on online courses are very low. And the success rate of someone taking an online course and actually going to do it, actually do the work and succeed, which of course is what you want, not just their money. That’s also very low. Membership sides allow you to take the same kind of educational content and scalable educational content you might put in a course, but add ongoing community and support that allows people to stay connected to ongoing transformation. How
RV (04:26):
Do you do the community part of it? Like Yeah. Is is it, is it mostly a Facebook group? Like is it I mean, do you, do you, do you see that most people are using a Facebook group as their mechanism for hosting community? Or is there some other way that they’re achieving that? The objective of getting the members? Cuz that is a huge part of it is yeah, who do you meet and supporting people and meeting other, like referral relationships, et cetera, et cetera. How do, how do you facilitate that?
JM (04:58):
You know, Facebook groups at one point in time were kind of just the standard for membership sites because it’s kind of where everybody is or was. But I would say these days it’s still an option, really. The, the software you’re using or the platform you’re using is really secondary to the strategy for how you’re interacting with people. That said, I don’t really know, I can maybe think of one or two people I know with successful membership sites that are still on Facebook groups. Most people have used an independent platform that where you have a lot more control. There’s a lot of popular ones, but honestly I think the best one by far is circle. And so that was created by some of the early people at Teachable, which, you know, is like the biggest course platform in the world. And some of them spun off and created Circle, which is you know, essentially it’s your ability to create a private group. They even added courses within that now. So you can have courses community, you can, well, as much as I love Zoom, which you and I are talking in right now, you can actually replace Zoom by doing live streams or, or meetings through Circle as well. And they have a mobile app. And so there’s really the software secondary to the strategy strategy, but I would say Circle is like an all in one for having a great membership site.
RV (06:01):
Okay. That’s interesting. So kind of in the vein of, of retention or, or yeah, like of community is, there’s a retention, right? So the, the, to me, when it, when somebody starts a membership site, they go, oh man, recurring revenue. Like, yeah, you know, why, why, why sell a course for $500 when I can get people to pay me a hundred dollars a month and then they’ll stay forever. But I feel like the thing that we see pretty consistently is that people are gonna drop off around month three or four. So what do you think are some of the keys to retention? Because if that happens, if you were gonna sell a $500 course and now you’re just doing a hundred dollars a month membership Yeah. And now they’re only staying three or four, you actually have, you’ve gone the wrong direction, right? You’re losing money by converting it. Now there’s some other benefits of, of it, but I, I mean, what are some of the things that you see that help the retention component of this? Because to me, that’s really where the magic is, right?
JM (07:05):
Yeah. Well, it’s worth talking about your question’s. Great, Victoria, because it, it kind of illuminates sort of the ugly truth about membership sites. Cause we started with sort of the beauty of membership sites, right? It’s just recurring revenue. Your customers are getting transformation all the time. You’re getting recurring revenue all the time. That’s like the nice side. But the between the membership sites is that the minute you start a membership site, it’s upside down. And by that I mean the same way that you can be upside down at a house where you owe more than it’s worth. The minute you start a membership site, you have members who are paying, you have some members coming to pay, but for you to deliver a high value membership site, you have to give ongoing value. It has to be re not just, it’s not just kind of an on-demand library.
JM (07:43):
There has to be some sort of value giving on a regular basis to get people to stay. Because really the measure of success, the membership site is not that somebody joins, it’s that it’s retention, as you said Rory, it’s that they stay for a long period of time. Right? So I guess the first thing I would say is that if you’re looking at different products and considering a membership site, I actually don’t recommend you start with a membership site until you’ve already built a successful flagship program. Like a coaching service or a group coaching program or mastermind and a gateway product, like a low price course or a book or some, or a workshop or some other, you know, those really, those two anchors of the flagship product and the gateway product, they allow you to both bring in new customers on a regular basis, but also be able to create massive transformation in the flagship program at a, at a premium price. What those two things do is not just the revenue piece and the audience growth piece, which they do that, but they also help you refine your understanding of your target customer, their problems, their needs. And the way you sell a membership site versus the way you sell any other product that has a one-time purchase is completely different. Mm. And so it’s, it’s because are are you familiar with the concept of the the Infinite game by any chance? Rory?
RV (08:57):
I mean, you mean Simon Sinek’s book?
JM (09:00):
So Simon Sinek has a book on this, but the concept is not unique to him. But yes, his book
RV (09:04):
Is a great, no, I don’t even know what that, I don’t even know what that book’s about. I, I have read his others, but I’ve not read that book.
JM (09:09):
It’s a phenomenal book. And there are other great resources on this subject, but that’s usually the book I recommend is The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. But the point of this concept is that essentially that there are finite games. Like for example, what’s your favorite sport, Laurie?
RV (09:24):
The spot here. Oh, we’ll, we’ll go, we’ll go, we’ll go with, we’ll go with soccer. I’m Nashville Soccer Club season two. There we go. So now I’m, now I’m soccer man.
JM (09:32):
There you go. All right. So soccer or football as we call it in Puerto Rico, but that’s a whole other thing.
RV (10:01):
Yep.
JM (10:02):
Most things in life are not finite games. Most things in life that matter are infinite games. Like how do you win at marriage or raising kids or building wealth or growing a business. There’s definitely milestones along the way where you’ve achieved success, but there’s not really a finish line unless you create one arbitrarily that says you’re done. You can’t just say, all right, honey, that was our, that was our winning date night, actually. We’re done, now we’ve won the game. I’m just gonna kind of coast through the rest of this marriage. Like that does not work. I’ve been very for about a decade and I’ve already learned that lesson. So the point of this, the reason why I bring this up is kind of bring this back into products, is that when you sell like a course or a book or even a group coaching program, typically what you’re selling is a finite promise by this thing.
JM (10:50):
You will get this result, right? Like if you join my seven figure school accelerator, my flagship program, the promise is that I’m gonna help you build a personalized playbook to build a seven your seventh Figure school, which is an online education business that generates a million dollars a year from three core products. But I’m also gonna help you scale a flag share product to six figures. That’s a finite promise, right? And then when you sell a book or a course, if the course is how to get a thousand email subscribers, for example, that’s a finite promise. The only way to sell a membership site effectively and grow retention over time is actually to sell an infinite promise. Because baked into it is this idea that it’s ongoing. If I sell you a membership site, it’s like, Hey, just pay $10 a month to join my program and I’m gonna help you lose 20 pounds Immediately your brain kind of got off go, like, gets us like kind of like full break, full stop, and you’re like, wait, what? Lose 20 pounds, then I’ll just cancel the membership. Like why would I e even before you body, you’re already talking yourself out of staying as a member. Mm-Hmm.
RV (11:50):
Mm-Hmm.
JM (11:51):
Interesting. But if instead, and instead I approach that same exact membership and I say it’s $10 a month and as part of this, you’re gonna get access to all of my, all of my training and support to help you to help you build and live like a fit, a fit body and a fit life. Or I like the phrase to transform your I’m, I’m expecting my fourth son in April, so I’m definitely have a dad bought, but I wanna transform my dad bought to a father figure. Like I’ve heard that phrase a couple of times and that stuck with me. Mm-Hmm. Right? That’s, but that’s like, that’s an ongoing thing. That’s an infinite game. And so a key is you have to make an infinite promise. And so that’s, that’s really the first key to retention is really just upfront. You have to be clear on what transformation are you promising.
RV (12:31):
Yeah. I mean that’s in, that’s interesting thought. You know, cuz we’ve like of course our, our core business as you would say is a membership model. I guess we’re really a coaching company, so peop like we, we do coaching and training, but people pay a recurring fee. We don’t charge like an upfront fee. And like, you know, I’ve wrestled with, gosh, it’s so much easier to sell like a course where you go sign up for this, you’re going, we’re gonna teach you this, it’s gonna give you this result and boom is done. Whereas like, you know, we’re selling building an influential personal brand and like that never ends. It gets bigger and bigger, but the game. But sometimes I’ve wondered, should we be selling more terminal points or, you know, checkpoints along the way cuz like, you know, we’ve had 11 clients that have become New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestsellers. We’ve had four clients have Ted talks that have gone viral. We’ve had, we’ve had four clients who have, you know, grown multi seven figures, the, those kinds of things. Where it’s like, so it’s, it’s a fascinating to think about. You’re saying that it’s actually a good thing to align a membership site with more of an infinite promise, something that there’s no finish line.
JM (13:42):
I am, but I’m, but I also want to wanna say that from my experience, it is more difficult to sell some an infinite promise. And you’re probably have seen this with a coaching program like you just said. Like, yeah. And it’d be convenient if we could do, you know, a finite promise. I will say this is not on the membership side necessarily, but in my accelerator program, what I do is I really focus on selling the finite promise of my 90 day program. And then on the back end, it’s like as soon as you achieve those results, it’s like, okay, great, let’s keep working together in a mask line group. And that has an infinite promise attached to it. And so I would, I think there is a way probably to do some sort of hybrid of like taking your coaching services and figure out, okay, is there maybe a 90 day promise or a 30 day promise we could make? And you can see how that affects your conversions. Cuz my hunch is it’ll actually be a lot easier to sell. Cause that’s the thing you can go back and justify to your your bank or your spouse or, or your business partner, whatever, to say like, I’m gonna invest this money and I’m gonna get this result. That’s a finite equation. You can’t really run that math on a program that never ends. And so I Yeah,
RV (14:41):
Yeah, no, I follow, I follow you there. So let’s on the, on the topic of selling membership sites. Yeah. Another thing I want to ask you about is, is about urgency, right? So the, the the the, you know, if you think of like, so many launch models are based on this closed cart idea that’s like, yeah, you, you gotta buy it between this window or else whatever, you lose bonuses or the price goes up or, or, or whatever. When you have a membership, I mean some people keep like our membership is open year round, right? So people can come in anytime, some people only open it for certain windows. Have you seen any like best practices around how to create urgency if you leave it open year round? Do you, do you recommend one way or the other? Like how have you navigated that with mem different types of membership sites?
JM (15:31):
Yeah, it’s totally, I’ve seen done both ways and it’s totally either one’s totally legitimate. I do have my preference in what I do as well as what I’ve, I’ve done that’s done well. And it’s sort of essentially to leverage the urgency factor, especially when you launch the membership site to get your core membership base. Cuz remember, because your membership site does start upside down, you wanna get as quickly as possible to the point where you have enough recurring revenue coming in to offset all the overhead that it takes to run a really good membership site. And I don’t just mean expenses, there’s not a ton of expenses attached to running a membership site. The biggest expense is gonna be your time or your team’s time, depending upon how you’re doing that.
RV (16:09):
Cuz in terms of finite and infinite, that’s the other problem here is when you create a course, you have a finite expense, you create the course and you’re done. When you create a membership site, you have the infinite, the infinite expense
JM (16:22):
JM (17:01):
But my founding membership launch for my membership site, I did the full month of September. And so I, when this is recently, you know, I recently launched my own membership site after doing this for other people enough times that I wanted one my own. But I did that for the full month of September. And so I, throughout that month, I could just emphasize that, hey, this is a founding membership opportunity. A some people are just attracted to the idea of being an early adopter because they know they get to help shape a product. There are plenty of people who are not right. There are plenty of people who say, Nope, I’m not an early adopter, I’m gonna come back when it’s done. But I typically like to reward the early adopters as well by offering a founding membership price. Now with the membership site, I do think you have to be really careful about discounts.
JM (17:39):
They can get really complicated with the exception of when you launch it, when you launch it, you sort of have this one time opportunity to say like, Hey, here’s the normal price of membership and here’s the founding membership price. And my, what I would do here then is actually only offer the founding membership discount on annual membership. And so, for example, thrive School Pro, my membership is a hundred dollars a month or a thousand a year, but during my founding membership launch, it was $500 for the year for founding membership. And so that got a lot of these like highly invested members to join, establish the core foundation of the, of the membership of the group. And so that’s one of the things I would recommend. In terms of urgency beyond that, I do think you need to look at how a membership site fits into your full product strategy.
JM (18:24):
And so yes, urgency self for sure, but a membership site is not about converting someone from being on the fence or not knowing who you are to being, you know, all in a membership is really about nurturing your raving fans, your super fans. And so the gateway product or multiple gateway products, I do think that is a great way to really lean on urgency of having a course or a book or a workshop that’s only available for a short period of time, leaning into that, getting people into that experience. But then it’s much easier, again, for people to buy a product with a finite promise and then be able to like get that experience and choose from then if they want to go further into your membership site. So I, I’m a fan of what you’re doing, Laurie, which is keep your membership open all the time. With the exception of having a founding membership launch I can share a real life example with some numbers. Would that be helpful in terms of like Sure. How these products kinda fit into each other?
RV (19:16):
Yeah,
JM (19:16):
So in September when I knew that I was launching my membership site, at this point, I’d already scaled my flagship product so that it was doing very well. I was funding my lifestyle and I had, you know, I had a bestselling book and another gateway products in the pipeline. Then at this point I did a couple you partner workshops. So I wrote it to my own audience, but I also convert Kit asked me to come teach a workshop to their audience about my seven figure school strategy. So they’re like kind of pro, I had to put a big pause here. They’re proc creators,
RV (19:55):
You do have four kids, so you’re a procreator also.
JM (19:57):
I’m a procreator, I’m a procre and I’m a professional.
RV (19:59):
Yeah, you’re you’re a double a double procreator.
JM (20:02):
I’m a double dipper. Yeah, for sure. But convert side, so I taught this free workshop and then in the workshop I met, I kind of explained this concept of having these three core products, gateway membership with flagship. And then I said, Hey, let me create a gateway product for you live as a demo just to show you how easy this is. So I, of course, I planned this, right? So I created, I opened convert IT commerce, and I created a little order form and I said, okay, here’s the product. It’s called five Figure Flagship Earn $10,000 in the next 30 days from your existing expertise by creating and selling a flagship product. It’s a hundred dollars. And then I put a little image on it, just a slide, and then I dropped a link in that chat and I said, this is for real and it’s for sale and it’s, I’m teaching it live next week.
JM (20:45):
And out of that workshop, there were a little, a little over 300 people there, 35 bought the workshop right then. And so I had made over $3,000 live from that workshop. Who bought that course of the 35 who bought that course? Nine of them in my follow up with them upgraded from $400 to my, my founding membership offer for my membership site. So remember it was, it was $500 a year, but I said, Hey, you already paid a hundred for this course. I’m gonna credit that towards this. This is a campaign just for those people. So nine of them upgraded to my membership site, one of them upgraded to my accelerator program for $10,000. So that one workshop that I taught, that audience of 300 people made me over $20,000 very quickly in terms of when you start looking at recurring revenue and the fact that many of those customers are still in my pipeline. Another one I just noticed just on my membership last week, even though that workshop was several months ago. So this is kind of, that’s just one example, but I think you can see now how the products, the products, the urgency really play into each other. It’s not just the membership site. There really has to be ecosystem.
RV (21:47):
Yeah. So let’s talk about that for a second. Yeah, that, what you’re describing there is like a concept lifetime value, right? Customer lifetime value, L t v, which is what Yeah. You know, very sophisticated digital marketers and people understand that. It’s like, okay, the, the, the whatever, the 35 people that bought you a hundred dollars, but then nine of ’em upgraded from there and then one of ’em upgraded to to $10,000. How do you calculate lifetime value and and how do you utilize that when you’re managing a membership site?
JM (22:27):
Yeah, so I mean, the civil way of calculating left hand value is, it’s easier said than done. You know, first of all, it’s just saying like, how much has someone paid you over time and adding it up. You know, I some of this Stripe, like if you’re using Azure Hanger Pro, they includes some of this data in there. I actually have a custom, you know, I call it a people profits pipeline, essentially a custom CRM or custom way to track my customers. That’s, I built a notion and that tool, basically, I have a, this is a little nerdy, but I have a Zap set up with Zapier that says whenever someone buys something, it automatically updates their lifetime value there. Now, I’ve seen some people do this really well and convert Kit and other email service providers and just having all your data there.
JM (23:09):
But lifetime value is one of the ones that I wanted to pull out, especially because I do have an actual direct outreach sales strategy to sell into my accelerator program. And so it’s not just email marketing funnels, there’s this other piece. But then the other way, the other way to look at it then, of course is to say, okay, but then what’s the average value of a subscriber? Cause if you can look at a campaign like what I just described, and if you can do the math on how many subscribers and what’s the total value, and if you can come up with a dollar value per, like your average quality email subscriber, what they’re worth to you in your business, well then all of it makes it lot easier to decide where to invest deal marketing money. I will say all of that is true, everything I just said, and even though I know how to do all that stuff, I really try not to get distracted by most of that.
JM (23:55):
And I try to keep it super simple for my clients and myself, which is that of those three core products, my gateway product, every dollar that I generate from my gateway product is my sales and marketing budget. And so my goal is not actually to make money from my gateway product, it’s basically to say whether it’s a book or a course or a workshop, when the goal of that gateway product is to create customers not cash. And so when that money comes in, great, that’s what I can use now to either partner with other affiliates and pay commission or to sponsor a newsletter to get featured. I don’t do a lot of paper click ads, but that’s something else you could do with that strategy. And then my, my flagship program is primarily how I fund my lifestyle. And the goal of the membership then is that funds sort of the core infrastructure of your business, your ability to hire, to scale things like that. And so that’s like super simple and any accountants or bookkeepers listen this are, are just like, oh my gosh, how do you put that on a p and l? That’s way too simple and Yep. Skipping all the complicated stuff. Yeah. But I, it really helps. I find when you’re selling these products to think about, especially when you’re starting from scratch, to think about how
RV (24:55):
Do you calculate the value of the email subscriber?
JM (24:59):
Well, I mean, candidly, I don’t, I don’t do that a lot. I mean, technically, yeah, I’ve done this for clients, I’ve done this in the past when I was a, like a full-time fractional chief marketing officer. And so the way you would calculate that essentially is, is look at, look at a period of time. I mean, typically it’s a long period of time. Look at your total revenue and divided by number of subscribers. And you know that the reality is that 80 to 90% of your email subscribers, they never bought anything from you. So they’re obviously gonna throw that math off. But even if you say, okay, wait a minute, a subscriber, a quality target subscriber to me is worth two or $3 when all of a sudden, or maybe $5, now all of a sudden it’s easier to make decisions about how you’re gonna get your leads.
RV (25:39):
Mm-Hmm. Interesting.
JM (25:41):
But I don’t wanna mislead you. I don’t, I don’t do that, all that tracking myself in my business.
RV (25:44):
Yeah, no. Well the, they and I know you’re kind of just in terms of running your own membership site, you’re newer to, newer to that, newer to that party. But it’s really interesting to see you doing that and to hear some of the data of how you’re kind of getting this up and running, which is cool. And so the, talk to me about free trials. So this is another real common thing that I think you, you see, right? Is either a free trial or try it for a dollar for 30 days or seven days. Have you seen those strategies work? Do they work well? Do they work not so well? Do they work only if you do it in a certain way? Like yeah. Tell me about the trial trial period.
JM (26:31):
Well, the reality is, is we’re talking about this right now. Subscription products have been on for a long time. And so the average modern consumer has subscription fatigue. You know, you’ve got Subscri, you’re subscribed to like Netflix and Amazon Prime, and I mean, you know, your utility company, of course that one’s been around for a long time, but you’ve got all these different things that you’re paying for on a regular basis that are the mean that once upon a time you could sell very differently. In the early days of membership sites, there was a lot of like leading with a 30 day trial, getting people in there, they forget about it, now they’re a customer. Well, if the goal of your membership website is to create raving super fans, your goal is not to get people to become a customer by accident, right?
JM (27:14):
So there is a way to use free trials, but I just wanna put that disclaimer in there, that sort of, the way that a lot of people used to do it doesn’t really work anymore, nor do I recommend it. But there’s a, one of my favorite newsletters, I can’t even pronounce it, I think it’s called ari, but it’s academic, it’s an acronym for academic research in your hands, A R I Y H. But he dove into like the, there’s actual studies on pre-trial link. And what they found was that the order trials actually had a higher a higher effect on sales and retention, specifically seven day trials. What they found was if it’s a longer trial, people are nervous that they’re gonna forget it. And so it actually hurts your sales. But also then even if they do forget it, and then it automatically when used, they’re more likely to either cancel asper refund, but a shooter trial gives someone to say, yeah, I’ll try this this week.
JM (28:04):
And so it is a great way to get customers. I what I do is typically I use, I use free trials as an opportunity to introduce urgency to get people from a gateway product to a membership product. So like for example, I don’t do any public free trials, but what I’ll do is say like, Hey, when once you buy a gateway product, like a course, then included in that is a complimentary 30 day membership in Thrive School Pro. And that is essentially a free trial. That’s one way to do it. One of the most profitable ways we grew PLA University was we did have paid ads going to a funnel for a $1 10 day trial. Now, there’s two reasons I love this. One is it’s a short trial, and so people know going into it like, yeah, that’s, that’s realistic. Like, I’m not gonna forget, forget about it. I’m gonna actually give this thing a shot, see if I like it, stick around
RV (28:50):
Or 10 days the second one, 10 day trial.
JM (28:52):
10, yeah, yeah, we did a 10 day. The second thing I like about that is that it’s a dollar. It’s not free. That means there’s actually some money changing hands, but it’s not much. But it also means we’re actually getting real life payment information cuz we’re free trials. People will often put in fake credit, like fake payment information, but the $1 trial, it’s like we actually charge ’em, they have 10 days and then it turns into a regular membership. And that was very effective.
RV (29:17):
Yep. Yeah, that’s, that’s interesting. So I got one other question for you. I knew our time was gonna sort of fly by be before I do that you know, you’ve talked about some of the things, some of the things that you do and teach people in terms of membership site, like specific where should people, where should we send people and connect them if they wanna learn more about what you’re up to? John,
JM (29:40):
Thank you so much for asking Roy. I’m honored to be here and I wanted to share some of this. So I set up a special website just for you, Rory. Nice. It’s Rory loves memberships.com. Rory loves memberships.com. You do love memberships, right?
RV (29:53):
Rory? I do love, I do love memberships. We are okay. We’re, I mean, I think of us as our real, I would say our real expertise is like coaching. That was, you know, we have built an eight figure company before Phoebe Brand Builders group will be our second. But coaching and membership have a lot of similarities. Coaching is less scalable digitally you know, it’s, it’s much more people intensive, but Yes. Yeah, but
JM (30:17):
You’re still a subscription based coaching, which is very similar.
RV (30:20):
We are, yeah. A lot of the, a lot of the mechanics are very much the same. Yep.
JM (30:24):
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So if you go to rory loves membership.com, you can download a free copy of a book I wrote could always be teaching that goes into this in more detail. But I’m also teaching at works, a live workshop there on turning your wisdom into wealth on how these different products play into each other that we talked about today. How does the Flasher product play to the gateway product play in the membership? Which do you do first? How do you scale them? And so that’s totally free Rory for anybody listening to this. So Rory loves memberships.com.
RV (30:53):
Cool. So we’ll link, we’ll link that up in the show notes and over on our website and everything. So one last question for you, John. One of the things that you guys did at Platform University, which is very, very rare is you sold or in this case Michael sold the membership site. That’s unusual. It’s unusual to see like, you know, people don’t often buy someone other creator’s video course because it’s very much connected to that person. So you guys were able to create an asset that was a brand that was sort of beyond just, just Michael. Obviously Michael was a big part of that, but you know, do you have any keys around scaling a membership beyond just like the original founder or the original brand? And like how do you go about, how do you go about doing that and setting that up? Because when you do that, it actually creates an asset that would be sellable so that, that has enterprise value, which is one of the big potential payoffs compared to Yeah. You know, a course that’s just tied directly to a course creator. How’d you do that?
JM (32:03):
Well, so now you’re tapping into my secret mission because when I was hired by Michael Hya Clocking University, I had a public mission, which is hello meet John Mes. He’s the brand director and dean of PLO University, and he now runs this thing and serves up our students whole time. I actually was a student originally, so it was a cool story of sort of like from Success student to the dean. That was my public title. My secret mission was I was hired to help separate platform university from being attached to Michael Hyatt’s brand to sell. That was explicit from the beginning. And so that was a huge part of, of my job behind the scenes for a long period of time. At this point, we’re talking about a multimillion dollar membership site with its own massive audience separate from Michael Hyatt’s audience. And so because of that, that means like we’re, this was, this was a slow process but it meant looking at the content strategy and finding out, okay, how much of this content is dependent on Michael itself and minimizing that as much as possible.
JM (33:01):
So we switched from having a hamster wheel of live content to creating a core curriculum and then recording all of that in a two day video shoot with guests that we flew in from all over to interview. And then Michael interviewed the guests for those interviews. And actually the, there was 13 interviews and the first and the 13th was actually me. It was sort of like we, Michael and I were in the book ends of like interviewing each other sort of Mm, which helped set me up in that role. But also every single one of those masterclass videos, we then created screening videos. They’d that when in detail on that subject that were, that Michael was never part of. And so we either had other people fly in, sometimes we had members of our team teach them. Sometimes I taught it, but we really just diversified the, the talent pool of who was teaching the content.
JM (33:45):
And then we took off the hamster wheel. Now all of a sudden it was all of our job to run the membership site was, was get new members in, serve the current members direct into the core curriculum and do regular weekly group live q and a coaching calls. And that was really a huge part of the process so that by the time we hired a broker and we were negotiating with different people to who were interested in buying the business, we’d already answered a lot of the questions that people were gonna ask about. Like, but what about Michael? And Michael was like, Michael could honestly say, he was like, I literally haven’t touched Pop University in more than two years and it’s still made over a million a year in revenue. Like that was, he was at that point where I was running the whole thing and he could, I mean, he knew of a financial and all that kinda stuff, but he was not involved in the day to day of that, which is really what convinced ultimately to have multiple people at the table who wanted to buy it. And then Pete Vargas was the one who ultimately struck a deal, bought Platform University and it became his
RV (34:38):
Yeah, wild. What an interesting what a really cool, really, really cool case study. And you know, that’s a, that’s a very unique potential feature of building membership sites. And just, and then giving life to people’s personal brands. Right now, here you are on your own teaching people how to do this, and that’s inside a brand builder’s group. We’ve, we’re, we’re raising up all many personalities. I mean, you were the primary one at Platform University, but like all of our strategists, you know, we’re constantly pushing forward and they genuinely get to know the content better than me because they spend more time in a more specific area and, and they just do it over and over, you know, like a specific area with clients and they, they actually really, really develop. It’s a really, really cool thing and gives life to other people. So I love that. Well, thank you for this, John. Thanks for sharing this, this. Oh,
JM (35:32):
It’s my
RV (35:32):
Pleasure. Really cool stuff, man. Congratulations on starting your Journey, your own membership site. So that’s, that’s fun. We’ll be, we’ll be cheering you on and watching you and wishing for the best my friend. So take care and, and keep going.
JM (35:47):
Thank you, Roy. Please keep up the good work.
Ep 365: How An App Helps You Build Community | Amanda Moriuchi Episode Recap
AJV (00:03):
So I’ve got a question for you. How good are you at building and nurturing your own community? And I think that’s a really relevant question to at least me. As you know, I sit as c e o, which is, you know, more like I just do all the things. Other people don’t have time for more than anything fancy. But as I sit as the c e o of Brand Builders Group this is just a question I ask myself all the time. It’s like our number one priority is to build and nurture deep, meaningful relationships with our community. And our team is always asking, how do we do that? And then how do we do it better? How do we do it more efficiently? How do we build community and nurture them faster in the way that they want? And that led to a, a conversation with a friend of mine, Amanda Moriuchi, who also happens to be a client at Brand Builders Group, which was even more helpful and insightful.
AJV (01:01):
And she happens to be the owner of this really cool custom app company. They build apps called app. And it led to this often conversation around how we use technology to deepen relationships and nurture relationships. And let me say, without going any further, I believe deeply in the importance of one-on-one human interaction on a phone call or in person over coffee. And I also know that there’s just so many minutes in the day. And so to be able to supplement some of that nurturing and some of that community building with technology is just, it’s where we are and there’s components that are really good and healthy and some that are kind of exhausting and overwhelming. So I’m gonna focus on the good and healthy ones. So I thought this was a really great question to go and how do we use technology to increase our relationships with our community as a company?
AJV (02:00):
And so there’s a couple of things I thought were just really noteworthy in this conversation that I would share in this little video with you. So number one is having an app is really what this conversation is about. It’s taking your relationship building off of social media and putting it into a platform that is yours. And in this particular conversation, we’re talking about an app that could also be in an email list. But I think the interactive nature of all the things that are happening in app make it really diverse and unique. Whereas an email list is, that’s an email list. But not to negate that, but this is specifically about how do we use apps to deepen relationships and sit, here’s some of the benefits that came out of this conversation of having an app. One is you own your audience, and that was, that is a number one priority for asset Brand Builders group is we can’t expect that the algorithm is always going to be on our, in our favor on other people’s
AJV (02:58):
Platforms. So, you know, regardless if it’s YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn, it, it doesn’t matter. It’s, we don’t own those audiences. We don’t own that platform. We don’t own that content, even though it’s our content, it’s on their platform. And so to be at the mercy of that is a little
AJV (03:43):
Two is technology is really leveling the playing field. And right now it’s, if I have a small audience with not tons of engagement, I’m not favored on social media, but in my own community where it, although I may have fewer followers, they’re deeper loyal followers, I have more opportunity to even go deeper and broaden those relationships when it’s in my control. So there’s a lot of benefit of having all of your audience or ha giving them the opportunity to have more of you, and thus you get more of them in this technology, you know, component that we’re talking about with an app, right? So it, it levels the playing field and let the small guys, the small gals have more opportunity to have deeper engagement and more access to our community and vice versa. So I think that’s really important.
AJV (04:32):
It’s the difference. The next thing is the difference between community and connection on social media. And I’m not slamming our dog and social media right now. It seems like a, a comparison and a little, a little comparison, but I’m not dogging. I think social media is really important, don’t get me wrong here, but there’s a lot of connection on social media, but not a lot of deep community is being built on social media. And so again, whether it’s your email list, podcast, whatever, but for me, it’s this idea of an app that allows you to create real community where there’s back and forth chats and there’s notifications and there’s internal challenges that you’re not paying for. It’s like you’re getting unique content just for you. You’re getting correspondence. You’re, you’re getting videos, you’re getting all this different stuff all in one platform that is actually you’re subscribing to, you’re saying, give this to me.
AJV (05:23):
I want this. And it allows the person who is managing the community to tailor and augment and make it better for the people who are saying, I want more of this, and just creates more community. It creates a like-minded group of people who are going, this is what I want, more of this, less of this. And they’re asking for it, which is hence why they’re on the app, right? So there’s just a lot of opportunity to build more community versus connection which happens on social media. The next is talking about a, a simple way of taking all of your content as a content creator and having it on one place. So with an app, it’s like, I can have my podcast there, I can have virtual trainings there. I can have live events there. I can have community correspondence and interactions video engagement, eBooks, challenges, the list goes on and on and on.
AJV (06:16):
And I’m not having to send some people to this funnel, some people to my website, some over here to iTunes. It’s like, no, no, no, I’m gonna take everything that I’m doing and I’m gonna consolidate it, condense it into one awesome platform that allows you to have everything you want in one place at your fingertips that has just been a game changer of a conversation of how do we do all these things and do it effectively while also keeping in place the integrity of the relationship with the individual. And so as you’re kind of thinking through your strategies for the year and in the years to come, I would just encourage you to think about three things as you listen to this rant on the importance of building community, not just on social media would be one what are you doing to own your audience?
AJV (07:08):
What are you doing to take back control of the engagement, interaction and correspondence that you have with people who subscribe to you, right? In other words, they follow you, like you engage with you. That’s number one. What are you doing to own it? Versus having everything that you’ve built on somebody else’s platform, which is rented real estate. So how can you own those, that audience engagement? Second thing is, how can you consolidate? How can you put everything that you’re doing online and put it into a centralized place where people have a go-to place to get all the things right? Workbooks, downloads, video, content, engagements events, whatever it is you’re doing, webinars. But how can they just get everything into one place to create a better member community experience? So that’d be the second. First one is how do you own your engagement?
AJV (07:59):
Number two is how do you consolidate your engagement? And then the third one is, how do you actually create better deeper community, right? And that just means you’ve got more time with people a huge part of community and relationships. It just takes time. So how are you doing that? How are you creating, you know, better and deeper relationships within the community? And that doesn’t mean just you and one-on-one to your community, but creating them amongst your community and how are you gonna do that? And so the app is not the answer for everyone. The app is the obvious answer for us at Brain Builders Group and what we’re moving ahead with. But I would just pose those questions for you to go back and sit with and think about of how can I do more of this? How can I own it, consolidate it, and make it better and deeper for the people that subscribe to what I have to say and what I have to share. So with that, you have your homework assignments speed
Ep 364: How To Know When You Are Ready For An App with Amanda Moriuchi
AJV (00:02):
Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand podcast AJ Vaden here, and I am with a very good friend of mine, Amanda Moriuchi. And today is always exciting to me whenever I get to do podcast interviews, but then when you get to do them with people that you actually really know personally and you get to share their business and their expertise and their brilliance just makes it extra fun. And so before I formally introduce Amanda, I want to tell you why you need to stick around for this episode. So here’s why you wanna listen to this episode. One, the main reason I have invited Amanda on to our podcast is because of the growing number of questions that our community and our listeners like you ask us all the time around, do I need an app? And if I do, how do I know when I am ready to get an app?
AJV (00:59):
And Amanda is going to answer those two question questions very specifically with real tangible data around why you should or why you shouldn’t, when you should, and what that process looks like. So that’s the first reason. The second reason is that there is this growing trend in the world called mobile apps, right? And there is a lot of things behind the scenes that most of us don’t realize when it comes to building, launching, growing, or even potentially monetizing an app. And so we’re gonna talk about some of that behind the scenes work and really what that means for the everyday entrepreneur, small business owner, coach, consultant, speaker, and what that world is gonna look like in the next five 10, so forth years. And then the third thing that you’re gonna learn, and this is also selfishly, is if you are ready for an app, what does that process look like?
AJV (01:55):
Like, does it really have to cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and does it have to take years? And we’re gonna find the answers to that too. So how further ado, let’s get right into it. So I’m gonna give you a little formal bio on Amanda, and then we’ll then we’ll jump in. And the rest of this will be super casual, but Amanda is the CEO of App Ventures, which is an award win, the inter international custom tech company. They have won lots of awards. And I actually had one, one of Amanda’s clients on our podcast just a little while ago called, the company is called Keep With. And Amanda’s team is the one who actually developed and brought that idea to life and app form. So it’s so cool to not only get to know you, but to see your business actually bring things to fruition and products and services that I actually really love and enjoy.
AJV (02:49):
But I will say, I will tell you also, she has developed and led hundreds of top tier software experts to launch over 1000 apps, which is amazing. These apps are averaging a three times return on investment she has or
AM (03:25):
Thank you so much. It’s good to see you, aj.
AJV (03:27):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited about this. And before we get into the nitty gritty details of building an app and what that process takes, I want people to get to know you a little bit and how you got into this business. But right before we do that, to kind of give people a preview of what to expect for the rest of this interview, can you just give us some very quick highlighted data, trends, insights around what this growing world of apps looks like and where you see it heading?
AM (04:00):
Ugh, I love this question. Yeah, so the biggest trend that I’m watching right now that really I think a lot of your clients and listeners are gonna care about is the shifts that kind of the larger social media companies are taking where they’re starting to lock down some of the most valuable elements of their platform. So for example, the most simple example I can share is you can no longer embed a private Facebook group into your app. And really Facebook knows that they know that people really are starting to build their own private communities mm-hmm.
AJV (05:39):
Yeah, so that’s a really good point because we have a private Facebook group at Brain Builders Group, but we have been urgently trying to figure out what is our long term? And for us, long term is like the next, in the next 12 to 24 months, what does that look like? Because not only do we know that that’s not a long term strategy to build our community on somebody else’s platform and that should be no one’s strategy to be honest. But one of the things that we are also seeing is we’re we’re experiencing a growing number of people who don’t wanna be a part of certain platforms.
AM (06:12):
And I’m that right. I’ve, I love you guys. I’ve been working with you guys for a couple of years now, and I’ve never been a part of Facebook as at like, when I’ve been with Brand Builders Group. I was a part of Facebook when I was a college kid when it first started forever
AM (07:06):
That’s, and you also really need to keep an eye on some of the legal changes and regulation changes that are headed our way. I, I know everyone knows about GDPR in Europe similar laws have already passed in California, and you’re gonna start seeing those laws slowly spread across the country. And you have to be very careful as you’re planning ahead for some of that kind of stuff too. So really, I think end users are demanding more demanding more from the apps that they work with demanding more privacy, demanding more intimacy, demanding more connection, and it’s a really exciting time to be developing tech for good that really is in service to end users rather than just taking,
AJV (07:56):
I love that It’s building technology for good. Yeah, I love that. It’s like with any tool, it can be used for good or for harm. And it’s like, how do we just do it that’s got this mutual benefit for the end user. So good. Y’all, this is why you need to stick around. We’re gonna get into the nitty grits of this, but I, I am super curious, like, how did you get into this world, this business? Like, give us just a little bit of background of why apps we could have done so many different things in technology. I know you’re wicked smart, but why this
AM (08:32):
Totally on accident, to be honest with you, I, I fell into technology at an early part of my career and I think truthfully, that’s what made me successful, right? So I think a lot of times where people get frustrated with technology is you have a business person speaking to a technology engineer and they just speak past each other, right? And when I first joined the industry, I didn’t know anything about technology that wasn’t my, that wasn’t my expertise. And so I found the smartest people in my organization and I made them sit down with me and explain everything. And so I think with that, that gave me the ability to blend business and technology and make sense out of something that is really can be overwhelming if you don’t understand the nuance. And so I think I built my career on being that bridge between what a business leader wants as an outcome and what is possible from a development perspective.
AM (09:38):
And I’ve come to realize that’s kind of a rare trait to almost act as a translator between the two ends of the business. And it’s been incredibly rewarding. So the reason why I stayed was because I believe in my core that technology has the ability to level the playing field. It grants access to vulnerable populations, to affluent populations, and everything in between. It really breaks down the barriers between location, right? So, I mean, I have to say a j I found you guys through technology. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (11:00):
You know, it’s so interesting that you say this. I’ve I actually made a post about this book that I’m reading called Find Your People by Jenny Allen. And I love Jenny Allen and I love this book specifically cuz it talks about how we’re in unprecedented times in America at least of a lack of community. And what an interesting thing with more technology availability and more interfaces and more this, that as a country we’re at an all time high of people who suffer from depression, anxiety addiction, and most of that stemming from an internal feeling of loneliness. And this entire book talks about loneliness is the real epidemic that we’re experiencing here in America. And then all these other things are the byproduct. And so I love what you say cuz it’s like, again, it’s like using technology for good and you know, we are most interested in our technology for communal purposes.
AJV (12:03):
It’s how do we stay in touch with people? How do we connect, how do we stay present and available when we are hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles apart? And I really do at some point during this interview wanna talk about the power of using apps specifically for community because as we are experiencing on the social media realms of today, and as we will continue you cannot build your audience on a borrowed platform. And that is Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter. That’s what they all are. And so if you don’t have a plan of building an audience that you own then at, at some point you’re at the mercy of big tech companies and big investments, bankers deciding how you’re gonna engage with the people that you have built a following with. And so I love what you’re saying about just doing it for the purpose of community and doing it for good.
AJV (12:55):
Cuz I think that’s a really critical part of where business is heading and people are building these communities that are the source of major business and revenue. Back to this like, you know, customer loyalty is like people stay with people more than they stay with companies. So how do we do more of that? So, okay, so getting into this app conversation, which I love and I’m fascinated by because I feel like I get, I feel like going into the app store is like me going into like TJ Max, oh my gosh, I’m so overwhelmed. I go walk in and I’m like, there’s like too much here. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know which one. It’s like, I’m like doing it by customer ratings and it’s like, it’s so overwhelming to me. It’s like, I won’t even consider an app until like five or six people have said, you have to have this. And there’s just like, it’s so overwhelming and there’s so many of them. And so there’s my question with them being so many, how do you create something that actually does anything for good? And I guess my real, my real first question is, do you need an app?
AM (14:04):
Yes and no
AM (15:06):
And somehow those two buckets have gotten muddled, right? And I think, I think that’s a crusade that I’m up against right now is like, great build your town square, right? Or build your audience in your town square, but you bring them into your community and you protect them. And that’s when you’d want an app, right? So we say, look, work with brand builders group, build your following, build your audience. And once you reach a certain kind of magic number in terms of like a certain number of engaged followers, you need to bring them to a place where they’re sheltered within your community. And then they start to form intimate bonds. And that’s the magic of an app, right? So let’s go back to the TJ Max example. I get also super overwhelmed by TJ Max because like the racks are just overwhelming. I can’t even remember that You have to like, like comb through all of the different types of brands and sizes and product types and all of that.
AM (16:17):
If you could imagine going into TJ Max and knowing, okay, it’s, it’s a Thanksgiving, right? It’s, I call it the high holiday time, right? It’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, like the best time of year to decorate, right? And so in that time of year, if I go into TJ Max, and I know I’m looking for a particular brand of a decor item. Ray Dunn is really well known in TJ Max, right? I don’t have to spend as much time as much of my attention, as much of my focus combing through all these different products if I know a very particular brand that I’m going for. Another example would be like in clothing and Under Armor, I know that I’m looking for that brand so I can go to that rack and more quickly sift through the noise, so to speak, and find the product that I’m looking for.
AM (17:11):
And that’s applying that analogy to technology, right? So one of my biggest gripes is if I’m looking for a particular type of content, not, not that different than shopping for a particular product. Let’s say I need some business inspiration, right? I’ve hit a plateau in my role. I’m tired, I’m burned out, I wanna go find some inspiration. The first thing I do is I go to Instagram and I look at all the people that I’m following and let’s pretend AJ posts something really inspiring that I haven’t seen before. And I’m like, who is this AJ Vaden? And then I start getting to know you, right? Testing you out a little bit. And then I’m like, I love what she has to say. What else does she have? And then I come upon a post where you’re like, Hey, I’ve just launched an app. All of my thoughts, my podcast, my books, any products that I’m selling, the community that I’ve built, it’s all here in this place.
AM (18:17):
Essentially come to my digital store. So we find that customers that rely on simply people finding you through the app store, they don’t succeed. Yeah. Because the app store is not going to elevate your app. The app store, I’ll, I’ll save a lot of my commentary on the challenges of posting something in an app store. That’s not the way to market your app. The way to market your app is by building an audience first. Having that foundation first and then having a plan to convert them to app users, right? You build your audience first and then you protect your community. But you can’t, you can’t protect a community that you don’t have, right? Yeah.
AJV (19:02):
So it’s such a good reminder to anyone who’s listening. Cause I think we all get tempted of what’s the newest, bright and shiny thing? What is everyone else doing? And it, it’s a really core part of mine. And my husband Rory’s philosophies and a part of Brain Builders group, it’s like there is a time and a place for all the things. And, and, and this example, an app is no different than a business model, right? It’s like you gotta have people to buy your products and services if you’re ever gonna make any money, right? And so there are two things that you said I think are really interesting and really important. And you said there’s this magic number, right? Like if you have this many followers and so care to give us any ranges of like what that ma magic number might be be Yeah.
AM (19:47):
Yeah. So our most successful clients come to us with an engaged audience of 10, at least 10,000 followers, right? And that can be across channels, right? Because you could, you can have 10,000 followers on LinkedIn. You can have 10,000 followers on Instagram. They can be divided amongst those right? Now, here’s why. So there are basically three main revenue streams in an app. The first one is pretty simple, paid subscriptions, right? And the second is advertising where essentially you can set up advertising space within your app and you can work on on a content mediation platform. They’ll fill in that ad space for you. And then the third would be like sponsors or strategic partners or people that want to have their logo in front of your community. Those are your three podcasts. Yeah.
AJV (20:43):
Podcast, okay.
AM (20:44):
Exactly. Exactly. And so let’s do some rough math here. If you can convert half of your 10,000 audience members to paid subscribers, and let’s just say you’re charging $20 a month for access to your app, and that would be content. The content that you’re producing, that would be the community that you’ve built around your content. I I describe that as like a digital country club. So this is an exclusive group of people that are building relationships around your core truth, right? So or as brand builders talks about your through line, right? And these are engaged people that are helping you along your path and building community, again, around your core truth. And then you might be selling some products, right? So my most successful clients host their podcast on the app. They will put digital versions of their book on the app. If they’re selling any physical products, you can sell a physical book if you want. You can sell shirts or mugs or whatever it is that you’re selling to further your brand. And let’s say that you have 5,000 users charging $20 a month low cost for high, high value, when you launch on launch day, you’re making a hundred thousand dollars in monthly revenue. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (22:18):
So this, so you said something really quickly cuz I’m curious how many people, and this could be just like a wildly guesstimated number here, but how many people do you think are charging for their ad versus just getting it for free?
AM (22:33):
So,
AJV (22:34):
Or should there be some versions?
AM (22:36):
It’s, it, you could do, you could do a freemium version where you’re exposed to ads now. Okay, so let’s talk about ad revenue because a lot of people kind of have the misconception that ad revenue is based simply on number of downloads and that’s not the case. So you need to have a number of active users. I guess that’s where a number of downloads make sense. But if some, somebody downloads your app and never opens it, you’re not making money off of that user, right? So it needs to be somebody that’s in your app and stays within your app for a longer period of time. And so that’s why you need a little bit more. So you need to convert about 80% of your engaged audience to deliver revenue substantial enough revenue on the freemium side, although I spend most of my time convincing my customers to have a paid application. And the reason why is one of my sales managers way long time ago said, Amanda, people value what they pay for mm-hmm
AJV (23:42):
AM (23:43):
And so I would say this back to our most successful apps. They come down to, there are two paths, but the the biggest one that we’re kind of talking about right now is you form a core truth. What are you here for? What breaks your heart? As brand builders taught me, what are you here to solve? That’s your core truth. You build content around your core truth and then you build a community that’s engaged around that content. That’s incredible. Regular high value content and connections that you’re providing your users. And I would say any country club charges for admission, any movie theater charges for admission, the people that you want in your digital community must be paying because they value what they pay for. And that’s what I’ve seen with our most successful clients in this type of a scenario where you have your core truth, your content, and your community.
AJV (24:45):
Okay, so I have like 14 questions right now,
AM (26:14):
No. So I would say this, it, you’re, this is not a cop out. I, I apologize. It depends, right? So looking at like category types, so like fitness for example, most of the fitness apps that we’re seeing out on the marketplace are charging anywhere between 20 to $40 a month, right? But hear me out on this on the fitness side, like you’re, you’re basically getting a digital personal trainer for $40 a month and tell me where you can go in any gym across the country and get that kind of dedicated high level personalized attention. You, you can’t, right? So I think that’s kind of the, the value there. Now let’s, let’s apply, let’s say like brand builders group and what you and Rory have to share, right? You guys are high level business strategists. You guys are coaches, you guys come in and you work directly with an entrepreneur to help them build up your business.
AM (27:20):
Okay? Where else are you gonna find that in the marketplace? Person to person? And if you’re, if you’re able, I would say charge 50 to $75 a month because you’re getting people that are engaged and really wanna, wanna level up their business. And that’s just for the app aj. That’s not for like access to events, that’s not access to products, that’s not access to one-on-one coaching, right? All it is is an entrance fee into the sanctuary that you’re building for your community, right? And so I would say most of our clients start out charging $20 a month just because it’s an even easy number for people to absorb. You’re not gonna get pushback. And then a lot of our clients will engage in ab testing on pricing when we work with our clients, we’ll kind of do a competitive review of what’s in the marketplace and what you can charge. The problem is, a lot of our clients right now that are thought leaders in this space that are kind of building what we are calling like the digital country clubs, they’re at the forefront. And so when you’re at the forefront, you have to guess and when you’re guessing, you have to compare, okay, how much am I charging versus the value I’m providing? And if that gap is big enough, you’ll start seeing volume that comes in much more quickly than, than if you’re kind of just throwing something at the wall and seeing what sticks.
AJV (28:49):
I love that. So, and, and I agree, I do think there is so much value in having gated content and building this gated community. And so that leads me to my next question. And you know, both, for me and everyone listening, I figured if I have these questions, so do you
AM (29:41):
Yeah, great question. So let, let’s talk about the podcast piece first. So I would say if you have a podcast, still put it out on iTunes, still put it out on Spotify because what you’re doing is you’re fishing, right? Like you’re putting lines in the water to attract more people from the town square into your protected community, right? That’s the purpose of having an Instagram feed, of having a podcast, of having a blog, having an email newsletter, all of these things, the purpose of those activities or putting lines in the water into the town square fishing for people to join your protected community. So a lot of times my frustration is I actually follow a, a bvg client on Apple Podcasts and I get super frustrated because Apple is now changing how they set up their podcasts without your per or oversight. They’ll put advertisements into your podcast. Yeah. And you’ll start seeing that with podcasts and iBooks even. They’re inserting ads. And so you’re starting to see the evolution of Apple from a product company to a media company, right?
AJV (30:58):
I have noticed that too. And many people who we know who have very, very, very big podcasts they are quickly going, what? Like, exactly. You can’t have ads on my show without even asking me. But yet they can,
AM (31:15):
They can because it’s rented space, right? So I would say in the podcast example, you put the, that podcast out on iTunes, Spotify, whatever for Phish purposes, you bring that also into your app as, and you can put it in front of the paywall or behind the paywall. That that’s, that’s kind of your prerogative. But what the thing is is now I know if I wanna hear from aj, I’m gonna go to AJ’s app mm-hmm.
AJV (32:40):
Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think, again, back to the quickly changing landscape that we’re all living in, where now Apple is deciding, well, we’re gonna decide what ads we put on your podcasts and even YouTube. It’s like, I could put an ad on your podcast today to advertise my podcast if I wanted to, right? And I think there’s just a lot of that of going, man, it’s like I’m trying to create an experience for my audience and Exactly. Advertisers and big media companies are kind of getting in the way of that. So then, so then the question is about how much content do you reserve for the app versus what you’re just putting out there on social media?
AM (33:21):
Yep. So the biggest way I encourage our clients to delineate is the content you put out on social media or in front of the paywall. Those should be an invitation, right? So it’s free because it’s an invitation. The content that goes behind the paywall is the instruction on execution, right? So the invitation might be a sample, might be the first bite or two, but then the real getting down to the nuts and bolts of executing to solve the problem that you’re working against that sits behind the paywall. And so what happens is, if you have a, and actually the beautiful thing is you don’t really need to have a ton of content that you’re consistently refreshing that’s behind the paywall. Because what happens is people will go through that content that’s behind the paywall and through that build connections with the community that have already been around and been doing the execution.
AM (34:25):
And so people will come for the content and stay for the community, right? So what it does is it takes a little bit of weight off of the content creators. The hardest stuff is teaching on execution, right? That takes a lot of thought planning production time, production cost what you can do, once you’ve established that behind the paywall, then it alleviates the pressure. So you can focus more on generating the fresh content that is acting as the invitation, right? Almost like the advertisements to the town square. And the reason why you need to have fresh content constantly is because you as content creators are consistently diluted mm-hmm.
AJV (35:27):
So then this leads me to my next question cause I agree with all of that. Which is what’s the likelihood of, I don’t know, know even like, even in the app store? So I don’t know if this is true, but I was told this here recently and it stuck with me that Apple takes about 30% of revenue for every app sold. That’s about right.
AM (35:51):
AJV (36:36):
Call it, okay, the Apple tax, that’s good, but it’s like, basically if you’re under a million in annual revenue, they’re taking 10% of gross revenue. So just build that into the budget. And so I guess my question is, which I did not realize that, so I think that was really important and I came up in a conversation here lately and then my, so my question is like, what, what is the likelihood that Apple, just like all of these other platforms, as Apple is changing this with the podcast, start doing this own thing in the app store where they’re going, well now I’m gonna decide how things are done, because it too is a little bit of rented real estate in terms of, you know, the marketplace, the grocery store of sorts, so
AM (37:15):
Exactly costs
AJV (37:16):
Around that.
AM (37:16):
Yeah, so we we’re watching a lot of what’s happening with Apple and Google, especially as it relates to the app marketplaces. I, I don’t see Apple increasing commission, nor do I see them trying to make any large changes or dominate app owners or developers for a couple of reasons. First of all, they got in deep trouble with the government on how they were managing a lot of these commissions and what they were doing. And we saw Apple make a pretty abrupt change in their policies from there. The other thing is for as challenging as Apple can be, they really do love their developer community. And you have to remember, they are motivated to keep developers coming back and app owners coming back because that’s a big part of their revenue. And so this is why you’ll see like app, it was a lot, or Apple was a lot of their major updates.
AM (38:20):
They’re slowing down the impact that it has to developers because they wanna keep their developers happy. They have to, it’s a big part of their business. The one risk I would say is it’s really important for app owners to be aware of Apple’s guidelines because they do change. So one example, I’m sure any user who has an app remembers when you’d have to go through an app update and you’d have to click Ask App not to track that was a guideline change from Apple that every app owner was required to add that button back to the user. And really that’s in response to user demand on privacy and shifting laws. So building an app is no different than owning a storefront, right? Laws change, customer preferences change taxes change, revenues change. And I think that’s all the more reason to want to have your own app to give you the control to pivot in a way that works best for you.
AJV (39:22):
That’s good. All right. Well I have, we just have like five more minutes and I’ve got like two questions here I think that are really important. So this whole kind of concept, or you’ve got 10,000 plus, you know, online followers and that’s growing, then this is kind of like, okay, now let’s talk about like, should you have one maybe. So, and then give us just some high level behind the scenes, what’s that process look like? How much does it cost emotionally prepare everyone listening of real numbers, real timelines? What does it look like to have an app?
AM (39:53):
Oh my gosh, this is the hardest part of the process. Shopping for an app makes TJ Max look like a day at this spa. It’s so I, you know, I actually really empathize and I have a high level of respect for all of our clients because building custom software is not an easy thing to find the right person. It’s, it’s really hard actually. And the reason why is because you have developers from all over the world, right? And they have different salary needs. So a developer in Pakistan is going to charge a much different hourly rate than a developer in the Bay Area in California, even if they have the same level of experience and expertise. And so I think that element and also the creative element. So how an engineer would approach a, an app idea or a technical problem, it’s up to whatever’s in the mind of the engineer.
AM (40:53):
And so one engineer may think that a particular app would take 10,000 hours to build, whereas another developer would think it’s only 2000 hours. And so I think it’s those elements of very wildly varying rates and wildly varying ideas on how to tackle a problem. And that’s where, for a single project you could get a quote from anywhere from $10,000 to as high as a million. And in fact, APPT did recently we did a competitive study a a local against our local competitors and nationwide. And it blew me away. We had detailed features like, this is what we want. And we were getting quote ranges that same whip from $10,000 to a million dollars and app it. We tend to kind of come in like mid-level because we’re a hybrid. So it’s, it’s crazy. It’s really hard. And so, oh gosh, I could spend, you
AJV (42:00):
Make a decision based on, I mean, cuz I imagine most people make a decision based on, well, if I got 10,000, a million, 10,000 sounds a lot better. So, but then it’s like, what at what cost are you paying that, you know, fee? So it was like, how do you even make a decision in those types of environments? Yeah.
AM (42:19):
So I, you know what aj I might have to give you a blog on how to vet vendors. Like we had a list of questions that you should ask every single vendor to make sure that they’re a fit for your project because price is a, like, it’s, it varies so wildly that it’s not, it can’t be a deciding factor, right? Because even if you go purely offshore with a very low cost developer, so that $10,000 example, what you’re missing is cultural context. Mm-Hmm.
AM (43:17):
And that in and of itself, I mean, I would say about 40% of our business comes from entrepreneurs who tried to take the cheap route and have ended up spending what they would’ve spent anyways. They would’ve saved the money had they just gone with a reputable shop in the first place. So I would say this, check the reviews a really, really good place to go is Clutch. It’s a, it’s a third party website. They ranker technical service providers like app and you can start to see the rankings If you want somebody local, you can see who’s the best in your local area. But honestly I think it comes down to relationship. Like you have to work with somebody that you know and you trust or that somebody that you know, has worked with and trusted and has done a good job for them.
AJV (44:12):
Yeah, I think there’s three things that kind of to like, to wrap up our conversation cause I could ask another 36 question if we had the time. But but to everyone listening, Amanda and her team at Abbot have put together something really cool for all of our listeners. And if you’re wondering, am I ready for an app they actually have put together a cool quiz that you can take that will tell you are you ready for an app? And so if you go to app ventures.com/b bg app quiz, we will also put that in the show notes. But it’s app a p ventures.com/bbg app quiz. You can go and take this quiz to determine if you’re ready for an app. And if you are, then to kinda recap what Amanda said is that then go to Clutch, which is a great place to review different vendors.
AJV (45:11):
App is reviewed on there to do a comparative analysis of, you know, try to compare apples to apples here. Doesn’t really help if you’re comparing apples and bananas. But let’s look at apples to apples. And then if you’ll send me the blog link of great questions to add or to ask, we’ll add that to the show notes so that everyone listening, you’ve got three amazing resources to leave this interview with. Go take this quiz. Then you can go to clutch start vetting vendors, and then we’ll include this blog link where you can go and say, these are the best questions that I can ask to figure out who’s the best person to proceed down this path. But I think generally speaking, we’re all headed towards this privately owned community realm at some point. And at some point just means when you are ready, when it makes sense for you without comparing yourself to anyone else’s out there, it’s not doing it for the sake of doing it, it’s doing it for the sake of this is what my com, my community and my business requires of me at this time. Now last but not least, if people wanna connect with you personally, Amanda, where should they go?
AM (46:19):
You know, if you anybody has any questions like, Hey, I can you review this bid? Am I crazy or can you help me build out a feature summary? Have them email me, just [email protected]. This is my passion to help people start off on their right foot with technology. So email me, I will answer any question you have or you can find me on LinkedIn. Amanda, more uchi and let’s keep in touch and I’m here to help. I’m here to answer any questions, mostly because I want good tech built for good people. And it should be, it should be way easier than it is. But it’s a challenge. So,
AJV (47:05):
Well that’s outrageously generous. So Race for Impact
Ep 361: Sales Enablement for Beginners | Ben Rigsby Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So I was recently having this super insightful conversation with a friend of mine talking about sales enablement. Now I’ve been in sales for a really long time. In fact, at my core, more than any other title, professional title that I hold the one that I really hold the most and the one that I love the most is salesperson. Like. So like, I love sales, I’m into sales. I started in sales. I’m still in sales today, to be honest. But this term sales enablement was like, what is that like, fancy term? And it was so interesting to talk about the, you know, I guess today old school sales process that we’re used to in the offline world, right? So it’s, you know, anything from, you know, the introduction to the questioning and overcoming objections, which apparently people don’t use objections anymore.
AJV (00:58):
Now they’re called reservations and I’m not really a PC person. So a lot of these, I’m like, okay, let’s just call it what it is, right? But objections, reservations, whatever you wanna call it, closing. Apparently people don’t use the term closing anymore. But we’re asking for the business, right? And then we’re asking for referrals. We’ve got the presentation with all these things, but that’s in an offline world. But an online world, this term sales enablement is like a really important term. As we drift further and further into this world and we’re finding our clients somehow in a digital space, right? Even if we meet them offline and you know, the real world, at some point they’re looking at your website, they’re looking at your content, they’re checking you out on social media, they’re going through your LinkedIn profile, and there is this online component that that is an ever present and probably ever-growing.
AJV (01:51):
Part of how we attract, nurture leads into clients, right? And then clients into forever clients is the plan. So I was having this conversation with my friend Ben and I thought there were some really cool takeaways that I would put in a little video and share them with you. So here’s a couple of my takeaways from my conversation with Ben. Number one is that lead captures surprise, surprise are the number one best option for growing your email list. People are no longer interested in just subscribing to something where they might in hopes get good information one day. So the idea of, Hey, you just give me your email, I’ll add you to my list, I’ll add you to my easing. Like, that’s not a thing if you weren’t aware, right? And you actually do wanna collect emails,
AJV (02:58):
I’m just saying at the end of the day, you don’t want people to just follow you on social media. You want to turn those followers on social media into emails that live on your email list that you can actually build real relationships with through your own natural correspondence. Rather through a blog or a podcast or an easing, whatever it is you have them subscribe to. You need possessions of those emails. Cuz if you just have followers on social media, you are, it’s rented real estate, right? Those are not your followers, those are Instagram’s followers. Those are TikTok followers. Those are not yours. So we’ve gotta get ’em off of social and into your email list. And so the best way to do that is to offer a lead capture where it’s enticing enough, it’s valuable enough where you’re going. Yeah, I’m gonna give you my private information, my email address in exchange for whatever promise you hold into this.
AJV (03:59):
Something. It could be a webinar, it could be a P D F, it could be a research study. That’s what we do. It could be some sort of, you know, free call. It could be a variety of things, could be an ebook, the list. We could go on and on and on here. Private interviews. I, I’ll stop with ideas, but what do you have to give someone an exchange for them giving you their email address that is a lead capture that would live on your website. That is something you can promote on social media that can live on, you know, the right hand side of your blog. That can live in a lot of different places. You could advertise that on a podcast. It can live in a lot of different places, but it’s, someone’s going to go to somewhere, click something, give your email address and then you have to be able to deliver them information.
AJV (04:47):
Now in an offline world if you’re going, wow, that sounds like a lot, that, that sounds like a lot of technology cuz it is. In an offline world, let’s just say that you are a speaker or you do presentations. One of the easiest things you can do to have a lead capture is to just say, Hey, if you liked my presentation today and you would like a copy of my slides, bring me your business card and I will email you the slides. Guess what? That too is a form of a lead capture. So let’s change the way we think about it. Yes, it can be through funnels and online correspondence and webinars and all those things. Yes, it can, right? But it can also be really simple in an offline setting to still nurture the sales enablement process where you’re getting leads that you can then, you know, turn into fans and customers for a lifetime. So there’s lots of different ways of doing, but if you’re low tech, which is totally fine, just think about what can I give people just in exchange for their business card. People do have those
AJV (05:57):
Mostly today. And if not, just say hey, and if you, and if people don’t have their business cards, you could again, I’m trying to keep it low tech for the non-techies. Just go, Hey, I have a signup sheet in the back of the room. Just give me your name and your email and I will email you X, y, and Z. So it can be simple, it does not have to be high tech if you are not there yet. There are many ways to do this, but then you still have to have them stored somewhere. And yes, you could just put ’em in your outlook contacts if you want, right? You could just add ’em to your LinkedIn profile if you want. Now there are more advanced ways to do that, but there’s some low tech ways. The most important thing is how are you capturing contact information so that you can stay in touch with people in an online world in the sales enablement process.
AJV (06:44):
So that was the first thing, right? I think that’s really important cuz we talk a lot about it in the online world with e-books and webinars. But I wanted to say there was a way to do it in the offline world too. From stage at a Chamber of commerce meeting and a keynote with thousands of people. You don’t have to go high tech, you can just say, bring me your business card or sign up in the back of the room. Give me your name and email. I will send you this. The most important thing is the this, whatever that is, needs to be something of high value, right? So what information do you have that people want? And that is your need capture in exchange for an email address high level. Okay, we can move on now,
AJV (07:26):
And I actually wrote down this quote and I thought this was so good. And he said, the more that you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours, ma. So good. Such a good reminder. I’m gonna say it again. The more you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours. So good. So think about it. If you are techy and you have all of the, you know, backend automation set up, think about the things that you’re asking people for. Are you making them answer 5, 10, 15 questions in order to get to the next step? Because again, the more you ask someone to do, the less likely they are to become a customer, right? We know that in terms of the sales enablement process and lead captures online we’re going first name and email.
AJV (08:20):
That’s as much as we’re gonna ask from you. I know plenty of people who don’t even worry about the first name. Just give me your email because the least amount of information is going to get the highest conversion. Now, there is a pro to doing that for lead following, right? So, so for emails, but there’s another process that you really wanna consider if you’re actually having people request a call. Because if you’re going, Hey, just give me an email and I’ll, you can request a free call or you’re getting something free, then you really do wanna have a whole nother conversation with, Hey, you’re not asking for emails. This is no longer a lead capture. What you’re doing now is you have an application and that is a qualifying list. So in the offline world, how I would sit down and go, you know, you know, tell me what you’re looking for.
AJV (09:05):
What are you currently using? What do you like about that? Is there anything you would change about that? Who’s involved in these decisions? That’s an offline application, right? That’s an offline qualifying set of questions. Online. You have applications, which could be called intake surveys, they could be called assessments, you can call ’em whatever you want their applications. And that’s going, Hey, what’s your industry? What’s your title? What was your revenue last year? You know, who are you currently using? What are your goals in the next six months? All of those things, those are qualifying questions, right? This is a sales high level capital word here, sales enablement process. So let’s don’t be confused with what we’re doing in order to actually have someone on the phone to convert them to be a raving fan and customer. So there are marketing, which is you’re just trying to get emails, which is the least amount of information as possible, is gonna give you the highest conversion that’s on the marketing front.
AJV (10:06):
Then you’ve gotta think about sales. And for that, you don’t wanna be getting on the phone with people who aren’t truly good prospects for your service. And I didn’t say good prospects now or later. Just good prospects. You should. And we’ll have plenty of calls with people who aren’t a fit right now. That doesn’t mean they won’t be a fit in the future, just like offline sales, right? That is the whole process of sales nurturing. It happens offline and online. So we just wanna make sure we have qualifying questions that go, you’re a good fit for what I do and we’re a good fit for what you’re looking for. Let’s talk. Right? So that’s an application completely different than, Hey, give me the least amount of information as possible, which is going to result in the highest conversion, which is first name or email, or just email.
AJV (10:53):
So again, you just kind of have to know what you’re looking for. We even say we have some funnels where we split test of going, Hey, how, how are we doing with just first name and email? And then we go first name, last name, email. And sometimes we even go first name, last name, email, phone number, because if we don’t have a phone number, there’s just so much we can do with email clutter. So there’s all different types of ways of going about it. But in general, one, you’re trying to grow your email list. The other, you’re trying to get qualified emails for marketing and then you’re doing qualified leads for sales. Think about those in three very different categories, right?
AJV (11:41):
Three different things with three different sets of information, sales enablement. Okay, moving along here,
AJV (12:42):
Marketing’s job is to serve up qualified leads for the sales team. So the sales team can have good conversations and find the right fit for the right person and convert them into being hopefully again, a lifelong customer, a raving fan. And that’s a really important job. So if we’re not getting great qualified, you know, leads from the marketing department, sales doesn’t do their job very well. And if sales has been converting, then we gotta look at like where are the leads coming from? Is it a sales problem as a marketing function? They go together, they’re not separate. And marketing and sales are a union. This is a marriage because the whole point of marketing is to provide good qualified leads to help the sales team and sales team job is to do an amazing job and deliver a great service so that the customer goes, yes, that is what I wanna do.
AJV (13:39):
I do wanna buy your services and your products. Here’s my money. Right? So those two things have to work together. So just ask yourself, how often do my sales marketing team talk, collaborate, communicate, brainstorm, and give feedback all? How often are they sta sharing? How often are we doing this together? Because it’s gotta be all the time, right? Just a great reminder. And then one last thing here is that communication. I love this. I thought this was so good cuz we’re all about lifetime value at Brand Builders Group. We’re constantly just looking at how do we create products and services where our customers want to be a part of this for a lifetime, right? It’s not about like, how do we hold you to your contract? It’s not about that, although, right? Those are things a part of business, but it’s like, well, how do we create a program? How do we create a membership, a service where you go, I want to be a part of this, right? That’s lifetime value. That’s how we interpret that, right? It’s a life of the time of a customer who’s with you. And the number one thing that improves lifetime value is communication with your customers. So couple of quick things here. Just really
AJV (14:50):
Quick tips. It’s like during your customer onboarding, just make sure you’re asking what’s their communication preference? Like, what do they actually prefer, right? Do they prefer phone calls, texts, emails, like what’s best for them? And just simply asking that question allows you to cater the communication experience so they actually receive your communication, right? If somebody is not checking emails ever, or you’re just getting spammed, there is no communication even though you’re making a attempts. Same thing. It’s like if you’re blowing someone up in text and they’re like, oh my gosh, just stop. I only use this for personal and they just opt out, right? Or maybe somebody just actually wants to talk to be like, Hey man, I just, I’d love to hear from someone every so often. These are the things that will just make our communication efforts more streamlined, more targeted, thus more successful. And the number one thing to improve lifetime value is communication. Good, healthy communication. So simple tip, during onboarding, ask them what is their number one preference of how they want to receive communication from your company, right? So simple things, important things, they will make a difference. They’re gonna make a difference for you. Hope you enjoy this.
Ep 360: Business Automation: What You Need To Know So You Know What To Automate with Ben Rigsby
AJV (00:02):
Hey y’all, this is AJ Vaden here and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand. And y’all, I’m so excited that I get to have such a good close personal friend on the show today. Before I give a formal introduction to Ben Rigsby, Ben and I are an EO together. So if you ever heard of eo, the Entrepreneur’s Organization, so, and I talk about a good post personal friend, I know all his dirty secrets for the most part, at least professionally I know it’s professional, dirty secrets and he knows all of mine. And so that gives us a good, healthy mutual level of accountability with each other. And also we get to see each other on a monthly basis. And so when I talk about like I am bringing in someone who is incredibly skilled at what they do, I say that as a firsthand perspective.
AJV (00:52):
I have also been a client of bins and I have seen him grow and exit a business and grow a new business. And I’m just so honored that he said yes to come on the show today. Probably a little bit of peer pressure made him do that. So grateful for that too. And so lemme formally introduce him. And then we’re gonna kick it off. But before I do a formal introduction, I need to tell you why you wanna stick around. And as I was talking to Ben, I was like, there’s so many things we could talk about, but what should we talk about today? And he’s the one who said, well, here are the three things that we do really, really well. And I was like, yes, those are the things we should talk about. And so here’s what we’re gonna talk about today.
AJV (01:33):
We’re gonna talk about if you are a person or a business who needs help with lead generation, this is an episode for you. If you are someone who is trying to improve your lifetime value of your customers, then this is probably an episode for you. And if you were someone who is trying to speed up the sales process and get people from point A to point Z just a little bit faster, in a more efficient and effective manner, then this is probably an episode that you want to stick around four. So with that said, I will give you some of the formal accolades of my friends, Ben, and then I will tell you something that he left off of this beautiful bio investment bay that I think is the most important of all. So Ben is the founder of Movement marketing.
AJV (02:22):
He serves as the creative, strategic and technical lead for design motion, graphics development and product innovation. I will tell you also, it’s he’s not just someone who leads those things. Ben is that he is certified and all different types of things. It’s like every single time I ask my question, he’s like, oh yeah, I know Domo. Oh yeah, I’m certified in HubSpot. Oh yeah, I do. I was my, I was a photography major. Oh yeah, I can do video editing. Oh yeah, I can build a website. And I’m like, you, and when do you have time to learn all this stuff? So he doesn’t just lead it, he’s the practitioner of it. And I, I, I think that’s a really important part of this. You are also like, not just at movement, but in his former business, they were an award-winning an award winning creative digital agency on tongue tied here.
AJV (03:13):
But I think it’s a really important thing to mention. It’s like when we talk about like how all of these things work together in this digital marketing space. I think digital marketing has a very broad umbrella of things to talk about. And what I love most about Ben is that it really is about how to use digital marketing for business. And I think that’s really important. It’s not just about how to make things pretty, it’s about how do you make them efficient and effective and so that you are improving lifetime value and you are being a more efficient and effective business. And a lot of this comes down to business automation. And I think then you are one of the best people and most robust skills of someone who is well versed in true business automation. And so that’s a huge part of what we’re gonna talk about. And then what he just always so conveniently leaves out of all of his bios is that he’s also got this wicked professional dance backgrounds. And I don’t know why you keep denying this part of your life is my favorite part, but you were on tour with some pretty big people Who’d you go on tour with?
BR (04:20):
We won’t name names, but to your point, yes. I did have a previous life of mine growing up as a male dancer, which is how I met my wife. So thank you for that entire history of my childhood. Yes,
AJV (04:37):
Well you can just go to YouTube and you can assert Ben Rigsby dance videos and I’m sure that you will find some
BR (04:45):
That’s, that is,
AJV (04:48):
And when you say male dancer, just to clarify
BR (04:53):
Professional’s, no polls. No polls, yeah.
AJV (04:59):
Ben, to the show, thank you so much.
BR (05:02):
Thank you. Thank you for having me. That was the most professional opening that I’ve ever seen, so very much appreciate that.
AJV (05:08):
Oh, I’m so excited because I know that you know so much and I also, you’re so humble about it and you never are the first one to go, oh yeah, that’s what we do. Like, you almost never raise your hand and say, I know how to do that. Although that is what you know how to do. And so this is just an amazing opportunity for me to borrow your brain and your expertise for the benefit of our audience today. And so I’m gonna let you pick like out of these three topics that we kind of said, like improving lifetime value increasingly generation and sales enable it and ma enablements with helping speed up the sales process. Like what do you find that most of the companies and most of the clients that you’re working with today, where do you think most people are struggling most right now?
BR (05:55):
Yeah, no, totally. That’s a, that’s a fantastic question. So I would lean in probably in the lead generation area. And it’s, it is not necessarily for the lack of lead generation, but it is purposeful lead generation. So, you know, you look at what’s out there today with social and search and paid and organic email marketing networking. I mean, all of those things are channels and so many more kind of fall into the realm of lead generation. But so often do we walk into situations and the clients don’t have a leads process to begin with. And so understanding, and it’s not like, Hey, we gotta go do six months worth of work. It can take 30 minutes, quite honestly to understand what your leads process is. Because if you are a business owner or you’ve been around business, you have an idea of how you move people throughout the sales cycle. But I do think it begins with documenting and understanding what a leads process looks like. That way as leads start coming in the door, you can automate that, which allows you to scale much, much faster. So I would say leaning in with lead generation is probably where we start. Then we move into how do we actually close those leads faster and then keep those leads longer? Or those customer,
AJV (07:14):
Can you pause right there? Cause I, I don’t wanna skip over this because I know this, but I imagine a lot of people listening are going lead process, leads process mm-hmm.
BR (07:42):
Yeah, absolutely. If you think about an individual and their desire to purchase, they go through all kinds of different phases. They go through some research phases, they go through some qualification phases of are you the right organization, brand, individual that I want to do business with? And then they move into the purchasing process, the procurement cycle. And so if you think about people as they’re introduced to your brand, those people are gonna be some semblance of a lead. They might be the marketing qualified lead. They might have raised their hand and say, Hey, I want to talk to you. I’m interested in your services. We might move them into what we call a sales qualified lead. Then they go into the deal kind of discussion. And those are where we start to understand opportunities. Close one close loss. So like in my world, it usually goes something like a lead to a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead to an opportunity to close one close lost in that situation. And a lot of times we’ll try to move ’em straight from lead into they didn’t close with us. And that is where people start to get frustrated and say, my lead gen isn’t working. And the reality is, it’s not that it’s not working, it’s just that, that we’re missing like three steps in the middle there and we’re wasting a whole bunch of time in that process.
AJV (09:01):
I think that’s most people’s challenge in general is they’re talking to a bunch of people who are never going to buy from them, correct? Right. And so we do something, and I’ll talk about that in a second to help qualify leads, but any best practices and going, all right, you’ve got a lead mm-hmm.
BR (09:27):
A hundred percent. We just worked with an organization on this and, and I should caveat, every organization’s gonna be slightly different, right? So take these examples with a grain of salt. But if you think about your ideal customer a lot of people call that their icp, some people call it their avatar, some people call it their personas. It’s all the same thing. But if you think about who that individual is, what that business is, revenue size, people size, geographic regions, right? There’s probably some common denominators across all of these ideal client profiles that you have. So when you’re thinking about lead captures, and when I say lead capture, that can be online chat, that can be a phone call, that can be a form fill, that can be a gated download, right? There’s so many lead captures. It’s trying to find what are those least common denominators that apply across all your ideal client profiles.
BR (10:18):
And I’ll take revenue as an example, add that question somehow, some way into your lead capture so that you can immediately start to kind of distill down good leads from junk leads from, Hey, these are referral leads that I need to pass out to a partner. So quite simply, if somebody comes in, fills out a form and says, Hey, I’m pre-revenue, maybe that is your sandbox, and that’s what you focus in. So now you know that’s a qualified lead if pre-revenue is not your sandbox or your ideal client profile, you know, to push them to a different resource, right? And so it helps, it’s it’s little tips and tricks like that along the leads process that help hone in your focus to your point and, and saves you time from not talking to individuals that are never gonna do business with you or focusing all of your time on individuals that you truly do have an opportunity to impact. So that’s just a quick example right there.
AJV (11:17):
No, I think that’s really good. And it’s like, you know, a part of I think why this process is really so important for all, especially if you’re selling any sort of high dollar ticket offering. So anything more than a couple of hundred bucks would qualify as a high dollar ticket offering where if somebody can’t click a button and go, I’m gonna buy that, and they’re gonna require conversation, you gotta have some sort of lead qualifying process. And so you know, a form fill, it could be a simple form. We use an application, so we have like a formal application and we went through this process of trial and error which, you know, highs and lows of that. But we recently just got it super tight. So, and I, I would love for you to share some, you know, experiences of what you’ve seen that works on applications and forms and, you know, and one of the things that we discovered, and I I’ve got two comments here that I’d love your insight on for the benefit of everyone who’s listening is one length of forms, length of applications, because we’re so data heavy when we launched our initial application, which was two years ago, so we’ve learned a lot, we’ve come a long way.
AJV (12:27):
It was a 13 minute long application and initially we convinced ourselves that it was like, well, if they’re gonna stick around that long, then they’re super qualified. And what we were finding is about we were getting about a 55% application completion rate, then six months ago we did like a whole revamp of all of our things and reevaluated everything as a more mature place in our business and said, 13 minutes, gosh, why is anyone filling this out? And we reduced it to three minutes. And so now we can fill out this application, it’s about seven questions, three minutes or less, and now we’re at 94% application completion. And that’s a major thing of just going, I wish somebody would’ve said, you’re out of your mind who has 13 minutes to answer a bunch of questions for a stranger so that they can get on a call with a stranger.
AJV (13:25):
And so some best practices around stuff like that I think would be so helpful of what’s a good link, what questions you should ask. Anything like that would be so helpful as we talk about this leads process. And then the second thing I wanna make sure you hit on is you mentioned this is revenue. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (14:09):
They were really nice and said, but hey, I’m not gonna fill out this application, so I guess I’m never gonna get a call. And so then I was like, well, here’s the direct Kaley link. I’d like for you to schedule a call so you can tell us why not. Because it’s so short and it was so fascinating and the, I thought it was a really interesting thing of, and we’re getting like a 94% completion rate, so it’s a very few people who aren’t completing it, but is there a another route for the people are going, Hey, it’s like, I don’t wanna fill out your application. So it got me wondering what question did they get to that made them go? And most of it is income or revenue. And so it’s kind of like rero. And so when we look at the dropout on our forms, our applications, most of them drop out when we start asking any sort of financially related questions because now pretty educated consumer, they’re going, oh no, I’m getting qualified, right?
AJV (15:07):
It’s good, bad and different, whatever it is. But I think it’s important. It’s like there’s limited resources for all companies to some degree. And so thoughts around all these things, what are the good questions? Dropout rates, questions around money, if you’ve seen any trends or best practices. And then in general, for the very few, now again, I’ve only had one email ever who have said, I won’t fill out your application, so I guess I’m not gonna get a call. But also just any thoughts around that for maybe someone who does have a very sophisticated, busy time limited customer profile where they’re just like, they’re not likely going to fill it out. Any suggestions around that? So I know that’s loaded and that’s a lot.
BR (15:49):
That’s fair. It’s fair. And, and I would caveat with, with this statement, there’s always gonna be exceptions to the rule. So you wanna solve for the 80 to 90%, right? There’s gonna be people that fall outside of that, which it sounds like that individual might have. And if that individual turned into a great customer of yours, that’s when you use that example as how should we look at this onboarding experience a little bit differently because we might be missing out on others. So that’s just a, a little pin in that one. But in terms of length, we stick to the rule of thumb, like if it’s a form, less is more. The, the old kind of rule of thumb was six fields or less to get those to get those leads in the door. Now there’s new technologies out there. I just, I was looking at one the other day, clear bit if anybody has looked into that, where it can allow you to accept even less fields and pulls back all the information by looking at aggregate sites like LinkedIn, crunch Base, all that kind of stuff.
BR (16:48):
So we stick to the rule of thumb of less is more, what is the most pertinent information that we’re looking for in that first touch experience? And that might be some qualification questions. Then as time goes on, you can employ something that’s called progressive forms. So as they come back, now that you know that you know their name, you know their email address, you’ve set a little cookie on their computer without them knowing it sounds horrible, but that’s just the way the world works. Now, you can ask them slightly different questions and you can start to build out that customer profile over time without overwhelming them right out of the gate. I think you bring up something that’s really interesting. The more work you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours. So it is how do you take the friction out of that experience?
BR (17:36):
And that is less is more. And when they fill something out, you wanna make sure that there’s a value add on the other side that’s worth it for them to give you some of that information. I think you, you also bring up a great point. Anything around budgets or dollars on the first date is dicey, right? It’s like as soon as you ask the budget question, you’ve now skipped to the third date and that person is not ready for that situation. So revenue is an easier thing to ask than, what’s your marketing budget? What’s your sales budget? What do you expect to purchase? Another one would be timeline. What’s your timeline on this? Like if you’re looking to transform who you are as an individual, what’s your timeline? Like sense of urgency? So there are, there are less riskier questions to ask. It could be, how large is your company?
BR (18:29):
Is it zero to 10 people? 10 to 20? I get asked that question all the time when I’m signing up for a service. So that feels like that’s just a default one. So there certainly are some riskier questions, budget and revenue, and there’s some lighter questions like size, industry perhaps urgency, timelines, items like that. But we really do stick to this concept of less is more. And that is sometimes a fight with, with a client. And I say a fight, but it’s, it is a good argument to have because again, there’s always gonna be exceptions to the rule. So like if you have a very in depth application where you need to know information, well, maybe that’s not the first step. Maybe that is the second step. But the first step is we’re warming them up to, hey, now that you’ve filled this out, here’s how our process unfolds.
BR (19:18):
And we explain that before they’re just launched into that experience. You mentioned something quite beautiful, which is analytics around every single one of those questions. And so you can take the subjectivity out of the mix by saying, Hey, they made it to question eight, but on question nine, that’s where we’re seeing the biggest drop off. Why is that? And so now you can start to ask some introspective questions of, is it the question? That’s the first thing we would change is let’s just change the question, see if they get past eight. Now, if they don’t, then now we’re dealing with length and time invested versus value received. And so those are really important concepts, especially on a first touch conversion. Because those are the ones you want to make super, super easy for that individual to get hooked into that. Now you can nurture some of those, those harder or more time intensive asks down the road. I don’t know if I answered any of your questions,
AJV (20:15):
BR (20:43):
It does
AJV (20:44):
To be easy. And so one other quick question on this because I think this is really good. I wrote down is like clearly less is more, but you said six fields or less mm-hmm.
AJV (21:34):
So that we can try some phone outreach, right? Cause you, you we’re interested enough to fill out this form, we want a little bit more. So I’m curious around any data around what’s it like between just an email, first name and email, first name, last name, email, add in phone number. Like what are the potential drop off opportunities of getting people to fill out your forms for people who are going, all right, I need to start collecting emails, I need to start doing something, but what’s the bare minimum and what should I really be asking for?
BR (22:05):
Totally. And so this is where we, in our minds, this is where it draws directly back to the leads process. So you just mentioned there’s, there’s multiple different ways for an individual to fill out a form diff varying links, right? For entry points into bbg. And so in that situation, what I heard is we’ve got some marketing qualified forms, we’ve got some sales qualified forms. So obviously the ones where people are raising their hand and saying, Hey, I want to talk to you. Those are gonna be some forms that have some additional fields because we need to make sure that we’re the right fit. But they’re willing to do it because they’ve already researched your brand, they’ve looked at your material enough, they’ve seen you speak, whatever it might be, and now they really do want to do business with you. So they’re willing to go the extra mile.
BR (22:52):
Some of those lighter forms are gonna be more on the leads or marketing qualified leads to where I’m just signing up for your email newsletter. Like, I just wanna see some content from you. And those are the individuals that quite honestly, we are probably wasting our time talking to right now. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (24:22):
No, I think that’s really important and insightful for people who are figuring out this digital part of their business in terms of lead generation of going, you gotta have marketing forms and then there’s sales forms and think about those as two completely different things. And on a sales form, you likely want your phone number, right? It’s like
BR (24:43):
A hundred percent like
AJV (24:44):
You, but I think those are just, those are so simple. Often they get bypassed and they’re like, oh, I only need one form on my website. It’s like, not really.
BR (24:55):
No, no, no, no. You
AJV (24:56):
Kinda have multiple points of entry. Some are just for marketing and I love that. Just a very distinction of what are your marketing forms where you’re just trying to get their emails for nurture and then what are your sales forms where it’s like, no, like there’s an opportunity here. We’re going to talk to you, we’re gonna offer a call. Right?
BR (25:12):
That’s exactly right. And, and honestly like we will even choose channels matched to forms. So like if we’re spending dollars, so paid advertising, we wanna drive a little bit higher to that SQL side of the house. Because at the end of the day, what the organization is looking for is revenue growth. And they don’t really care as much about the leads coming in the door. They really care about close one opportunities. And so when we’re spending dollars with Google or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, whatever the channel is, that is when we’re driving more qualified forms, going to very specific landing pages away from the marketing side of the house, more on the organic side, so social seo, search items like that, even email marketing, that is when we start to drive a little bit more of that marketing side of the forms, knowing that we’re gonna nurture them over a longer period of time. So that’s it, it’s, again, there’s exceptions to all of these rules, right? But like, just by default, that’s how we think about it until we get into conversations and unpack something and we, we say, oh, okay, well we need to do something a little bit different here because of this one, one specific thing in this client’s business. So
AJV (26:26):
Yeah, I think that’s really, I think that’s really good. And if for all of you out there, here going, what is he talking about with all these words? So sql, sales qualified lead, right? So paid media, paid traffic, make sure you’re collecting more data because it needs to lead to revenue for your return on investment. This is why I wanted you to come on the show. It’s like you are talking about a really advanced process here with like really creating the dig digital infrastructure for a thriving sales business in a marketing business. And this is a lot of work, right? This is not for the faint of heart.
BR (27:00):
It is. It is. And it, it’s, it’s, it is a process that you can certainly crawl, walk, run into and one that, to your point, we’re saying a lot of acronyms, right? We’re a bunch of geeks that found our cool doing what we’re doing, and we’ve, this is, this is our world, right? And so often and I talking to somebody that is like, what the heck are you talking about? So thank you for breaking that down. And you can certainly start very, very small and grow it over time into, into the behemoth that you know, you want it to become.
AJV (27:32):
That’s good. So, okay, so now we’ve got leads, right? Yeah. Let’s say, okay, now we’ve got leads. So give us some best practices, some highlights of now how do we make this leads process the most efficient and effective that it can be to go, all right, leads in the door, now they’re a customer.
BR (27:50):
Yes. So a lot of times there’s like this magic handoff point of lead came in the door, we’ve qualified that lead and now we’re handing it over to sales. And we talked a little bit about this at the beginning of this conversation. And you know, if you think about any organization, it can be one person in the organization or it can be 5,000 or more people in the organization. Every organization has got some concept of marketing, sales and operations. It can be the solo entrepreneur that’s doing all three that they don’t even know they’re doing all three. But the reality is that persists across every thriving business that exists. And so there is this handoff going from marketing to sales, and usually the, the clientele that we walk into, there is not a defined leads process, which creates some chaos in that situation.
BR (28:40):
And the chaos occurs when leads are coming in the door that are not ready to purchase or perhaps not the right clientele for us. And the sales team or the sales individual is flooding their time, dealing with individuals that are not ready to close. And it creates this frustration that starts to persist across the business. And so when I say we start with a leads process, it is not only to solve the understanding of who we should nurture to why we should nurture to those individuals and growing those leads in pipeline over time, but it’s also to make that handoff more effective going from marketing into sales. And that one experience can speed up the close rate of your pipeline immensely. I know it sounds crazy, but if you’re focused on the buyer that is ready to buy right now, you can close that individual in a day.
BR (29:31):
If you’re focused on the buyer that isn’t gonna buy from you for six months, you’re gonna be spinning your wheels. And so that is a huge element right there. Then you can start to do things very uniquely. Like we’ve all been in this situation where we’ve been part of sales sequences where you get those 13 emails, those 10 emails that are like, you know, they’ve got the bulleted list and then the final one is you either are stuck under a washing machine or you just don’t want to talk to me, right? Like they’re getting more and more and more creative, right? And so one of the things that we have started to see is this power of CRM technologies, right? Whether you’re using a Salesforce or an active campaign or a Dynamics or a HubSpot or something else, right? But being able to track engagement of individuals in your pipeline is hugely important.
BR (30:25):
And the most simple is, Hey, I just sent an email from my Outlook, you know, email program or from G Suite, I need, did the person ghost me? Did they not, did they not see my email? Why aren’t they picking up my phone call? Having insight into when somebody opened or clicked on something or engaged with a piece of content so you can time your sales follow up right? There is also very important. I have found over my tenure that sales is around timing, having good timing, being able to build relationships, but you gotta meet somebody where they are when they’re ready for that purchase cycle. And so from a sales enablement, it is the one to one emails. I have never really found much success with sales sequences. I know others have, and I’m still trying to unpack why that is and why I haven’t been able to do it well.
BR (31:21):
But the reality is, if you can give a sales team good leads coming in that are ready to purchase, that speeds up that process. And if you can equip that sales team with some technology around understanding engagement of content, of email reads, opens, document reads opens, it equips that sales team to time their follow ups a little bit more effectively and close those deals faster. And so we see, this is crazy, but we have seen when the marketing to sales handoff is perfected, that close rate speeds up by some crazy number like 65 to 70%. It is insane when the synergy is happening between those two pillars in the business.
AJV (32:05):
So what is the one thing or one of the top things that you can do to really better improve that synergy from marketing to sales?
BR (32:16):
So I know I’m a broken record right now, but it is working with the seal sales team to understand the leads process. And, and it it, it is, it’s crazy. But like, if you can bring the sales individual or team or think about it because you’re also the salesperson, why are these sales closing? Why are these sales not closing? You’re gonna pick up, up on patterns that are carrying from one deal to the next, from one customer to the next. And there might be one pattern in your business. There might be 20 patterns in your business, but you can design the leads process to cater to the sales team. So one of the first things we do is we ask, what’s a lead to you? Like, what makes a lead a lead? And you know, you’ll hear conversations around, well, it’s it’s this individual, it’s the owner of the business.
BR (33:07):
They’re this age, you know, it’s this size of an organization. We’re like, cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, let’s talk about your customers. Why did they become a customer? All right, that’s a good story. Why did this customer become a customer? And we start to unpack that and you start to see patterns. And those patterns are gonna be demographic patterns. They’re gonna be behavioral patterns that now you can gain that system and design an entire marketing program to feed those type of leads to the sales team and take everything else and put it over on the sideline and nurture to those individuals over time trying to get them into this side of the house. And so it really is a coordinated effort. I, I am a firm believer that marketing’s job is to serve up sales leads. Like that is marketing’s job 1 0 1. And yes, it is look, tone, feel, it is brand awareness.
BR (34:00):
It is credibility of the brand. It’s all those things, right? Like we, we have to do that. Like that’s just default stuff that we have to go do. But our true job, the job of are we gonna be fired or not fired? Are we gonna be successful or not successful? Is how many leads did we deliver to a sales team that actually closed? And that is why we start with, let’s talk to the sales team, let’s understand the customers, what are good, what are not good, and how do we get more of the good to you? And that’s where we, that’s where we start.
AJV (34:30):
I think that is so incredibly important for anyone listening to just take a pulse on for a second is the best research, the best data you actually already have access to. It’s your clients. That’s right. It’s your customers. I think it’s so easy to get caught up in gotta have the crm, gotta have this, gotta have that. And it’s like we overlook the obvious, which is I need to take a good look at who has purchased from me, why did they purchase? And how do I find more people just like them?
BR (35:06):
You are spot on. Spot on. And, and honestly, the first time we engage, when we find out that somebody doesn’t have a leads process, we wanna see the last two years of customer data. And, and I say customer data, they’re like, what does that mean? I’m like, I just need to see accounts and I need to talk to an accounts person or a salesperson and understand why some of these individuals closed or d or or why they do business with you. So you are spot on because the historical context of that is what you, is the easiest, most impactful thing that you can move forward in the quickest clip. Versus trying to say, all right, let’s go spin up a search campaign, let’s go spin up a new xyz. It’s like, yes, you can go do that, but you should go do this thing first cuz you’re gonna make more money quicker doing that.
AJV (35:54):
Yeah, I think this is really, I think this is just really important for everyone who is going, well, I don’t really have money to go do X, Y, and Z. And it’s like, yeah, but you do have some time to talk to your customers to really focus in on where did you come from? Why were you attracted, why do you buy? And how can I replicate that process? Even if it’s on a very small scale. It’s like how do I replicate that until it’s a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger? You don’t have to have tons and tons of automation to do some of the basics, which is back to you gotta know who your ideal client is and you gotta get really specific on what made them buy, what attracted them. And it’s like, even as you were talking, I was thinking about in my head like, what are the commonalities that we see, the trends that we see in our sales pipeline?
AJV (36:41):
And you know, this is, you know, we consider ourselves sales professionals way before we consider ourselves marketers. Mm-Hmm.
BR (38:02):
It’s so true. It’s so true. And, and even like if you’re thinking about lead captures, like you just said it right there, form fills, right? Somebody’s ready to move on it. So if you don’t have somebody looking at the forms all day long, every day, you might miss that opportunity. And if that is not a possibility for you, that’s when you might step into something like live chat. Cuz it forces the conversation a little bit differently. A click to call forces the conversation a little bit differently. So again, it, it is assessing what your availability is, what your team makeup is, and what are gonna be the best conversion metrics or conversion, I’m sorry, technologies for you in specific circumstances, but you’re right, you’re absolutely right.
AJV (38:43):
Ok. Right. I have three questions and I’m watching the clock intently. I’ll try to make these quick so these can be rapid fire if you want. Do you think that there is an ideal CRM automation software out there in the market today?
BR (38:58):
Yeah, I am biased. I will say that we work with, we work with them all, but the one we prefer to work with is HubSpot. And, and I’ll tell you why and a very quick clip, it’s because it has the crm, it has all of the marketing automation, email, social, all of that stuff built into it and it has all of the sales enablement built into it as well as long as well as customer success. So the reason we like it is because it’s the self-contained system where you don’t have to spend a bunch of time, money or energy doing integrations from one system to the next. It’s all contained. The teams are all working out of it, operations, sales, customer success, marketing and it’s super intuitive for the customer. It’s like WordPress on steroids for a crm. So that’s the one we work with the most. Now we’re also used to working with Salesforce, which that is, that is a b fee tool. So good luck with that one. And then Dynamics as well as some others. So yeah.
AJV (39:57):
All right. So HubSpot is your personal favorite. Okay, the next question I had is for this like Legion and also the sales enablement process of like converting quicker, are you finding that most people are spending money on paid traffic or is it more organic?
BR (40:16):
So it’s been an interesting shift. It really has over this concept of the deprecation of third party cookies compliance, which would be the gdpr the ccpa, all the regulatory stuff that we are now bound to as marketers. I don’t know that I’ve necessarily seen a shift. I have seen, well I haven’t seen a shift per se from paid media to organic, but what I have seen is an, an acceleration of using that historical data and building your own customer list or email marketing list and using that to push out content much more than I have seen going after similar audiences, custom audiences and items like that. So I guess after saying that, yes I have seen a shift going back towards organic moving a little bit away from paid media. Paid media is kind of a dicey thing right now in the sense of you have to have a very strong content game to be really, really effective from a paid media standpoint. So
AJV (41:18):
Yeah, I think that’s wise. And again, I ask because we’re not paid media users, we’ve haven’t had to be, and it’s like we do a little here and we do a little there, but it’s like, it’s not really our thing and it’s, I would prefer it not to be
BR (41:56):
That? Yeah, so subject lines and preview techs are, are gonna be very important. Also, I would suggest if you’ve got a program, most of ’em have it like I would think Constant Contact MailChimps of the world. Of course any of these more CRM heavy type technologies have this concept of AB testing, which is basically send out, you do two variations of it, send it out and it will pick the ones that’s the most top performing and send that one to the rest of your audience. It sounds like used to be AB testing was this concept that people are like, what? I’m gonna pay you a lot of money for that. That sounds awesome. Now anybody can do it. Quite honestly, now what we talk about internally is subject lines be outlandish. Like think of what are more aggressive things that are just gonna get somebody to be like, what? And do a double take on that’s what we want. If it’s an event and you’re saying something like, Hey, come to my event, like that’s not gonna work at all. Like you’ve got exactly what you’re talking about. Like give the best first, put that thing in the subject line and preview text and be a little bit outlandish. You can always pull it back, but start aggressive, see how that looks and then pull it back from there. That’s what’s
AJV (43:12):
That you a little bit, the more outlandish, the more people are going, what’s in here? What is this? What is this about?
BR (43:17):
It’s a hook. Yes. Yeah. Like we’ve pushed out some wild subject lines and I’m like, I’m gonna get in trouble for this
AJV (43:30):
I think that’s awesome. You know, it’s interesting, again, as I’m just like, as you’re talking thinking through like what, what are some of the things that we’re doing? Many things are just the process of trial and error, but the one subject line in our sales pipeline that gets the most clicks and the most replies is one that is called Meet your Chief Strategy Officer. And it’s been so interesting that out of all the ones that one is the one that people are like, what is who, who is it and what, what do they do for me? Yeah, but it’s your chief strategy officer and it’s like just you got, but again, you only know what to use once you really know who your ideal client is.
BR (44:13):
That that is true. That is absolutely true. And I would highly recommend using some tools that allow you to do some AB testing and there’s plenty of, of, of very cost effective tools out there. But I love that because it just leaves you wanting more. Like what do you mean meet my chief strategy officer? And so you’re looking for a hook, that’s all you’re looking for in a subject line.
AJV (44:34):
Love it. Okay. we only have like three minutes left but I wanna make sure we get to touch on lifetime value just a little bit. So what are some ways that we can help grow this, increase this, give us some, give us what you got, what are the I
BR (44:49):
Love it. So the number one thing that I see where customers start to churn or drop off is by lack of communication. And we kind of talked about it a little bit with the application process, right? Like if you throw somebody into something where they have zero familiarity with the odds of them bugging out are gonna get increasingly higher as those experience start to unfold. So what we have seen is when we close one a deal, now let’s, let’s start up some internal communication. Let’s make sure the teams are aware that hey, we just, we got a new customer, we got a new client, whatever we want to call them, new member whatever that is. But then there is a series of marketing nurtures and funnels that now need to go out to that newly added customer or client, kind of giving them an idea of what they can expect over the next couple of days, next couple of weeks, months, whatever that looks like in your process.
BR (45:42):
But we want to foreshadow what the delivery is before the delivery happens, right? And the more communication that we can provide to that individual that feels personal, makes them have an unbelievable experience and people that have an unbelievable experience are gonna talk about it and they’re gonna stay with you for more stuff. And so as we give them that experience, now is our opportunity to introduce some upsell, some cross sell, some other opportunities. We don’t wanna do that right out of the gate cuz that’s just disingenuous and it kind of turns people off. But at the same time, communication, onboarding that client effectively foreshadowing the delivery before the delivery happens. I mean, it’s the simple things in life that can trip us up or make the difference. Like I will tell you in our business at Snapshot, the the first agency that we started it was simply answering the phones.
BR (46:39):
Answering the phones, which is a simple thing. Created an experience that allow clients to come back to us. So it just, communication is everything. Your products are probably awesome, your service is probably awesome. The thing that creates issues in everybody’s world is communication. And so solving that through the customer experience creates happy customers. Happy customers stay with you for a much, much longer period of time. Of course there’s other things you can do, right to extend the lifetime value, but that is where we start is how do we start to automate the onboarding experience for clients?
AJV (47:18):
Oh, that’s good. So alright, same kind of thing. I wanna do rapid fire, best practice for onboarding. Like what, what should happen during the onboarding?
BR (47:26):
So we ask the customer, do you like email, text message or phone call? So let’s dial it into their preference. And we’ve got systems in place that can handle all three of those. So if they’re not an email person and they’re a text message person, all of our communication needs to go through text until it can’t and then it goes through a different channel. So that, that’s where we start is curtailing it to the customer.
AJV (47:52):
Okay, love it. Again, back to the customer, you want good customer experience and you need to ask the customer what you want their, or what they want their experience to be. Mm-Hmm.
BR (48:20):
Late. It is, it is very true. I would tell you if, if once the delivery is fulfilled, like if it’s a product or if it’s on, if it’s an ongoing service, it’s much easier to upsell along that way. But if it is a, a finite, tangible thing, once that thing is in their hands, we might have missed that opportunity. So I usually look at it from the standpoint of just the same as a lead coming in the door to a sales getting closed. There’s, there’s, let’s call it 10 touch points. There’s more, there’s less, right? But once that deal is closed and the product is in hand, there should be touch points along that way. And so once you design what those touchpoints should be, you, it will become clear. This is where we want to introduce similar products, similar experiences, similar services. And what we have found is the more effective communication in that process. You don’t even have to bring it up. The customer brings it up to you and allows you to respond to it as more of a consultant than a salesperson. And when you can start to frame your mindset of sales is just trying to understand the problem that that person is faced with and you have put yourself in a position to offer them a solution, that’s what sales is. And so in that customer onboarding experience, there’s plenty of opportunities to do that as well.
AJV (49:44):
Love that. Okay watching the clock one last question around kind of like lifetime value. What do you think, other than communication and obviously having a good product or service, right? What do you think is the most important thing that companies can do today to increase the tenure of their customer staying with that company?
BR (50:06):
That, that’s a great question. So one of the, one of the big things that we’re constantly looking at, and this is why I don’t believe necessarily that marketing is what it used to be from a marketing, like just events, look, tone, feel, right, brand awareness, all of that. But innovation. So like if you have got a service or a product and you want to keep that customer for longer, you’ve gotta keep innovating that thing, whatever that thing is, and introducing new value. Some of that new value needs to be at a freemium model to keep them engaged. If they’re on a reoccurring revenue model for you, you need to bake that into your process or into your revenue matrix. Some of it is upsell’s opportunity, but I would think outside of communication and outside of building relationships with your customers, it is continuously innovating the products.
BR (51:01):
If you look at any kind of churn that you might be having, the churn is because the problem either is around communication or the person is just either done using your product, has gotten what they needed outta your product and doesn’t need it anymore. So how do you keep that need and that desire there? And that is through introducing new features new concepts, sister products, right? That extend, you know, your your main product even longer. So there’s, there’s things there, but I think in a rapid fire state, I would say innovating on your product,
AJV (51:35):
Ben, this is so good. Like this is so good. Y’all literally just got thousands of dollars of, of free digital marketing advice. And it’s like, I probably took a page and a half of notes and was like, here are three things that our sales and marketing department need to powwow on. This is for new beginners, this is for established companies, this is for companies who are scaling. This information is just so rich. So Ben, if people want to learn more about you and what you do at Movement, where should they go?
BR (52:07):
They should go to make mvmt.com/bbg.
AJV (52:13):
So make movement mvmt.com/bbg and I will put that in the show notes. Y’all check out Ben, his company, his team, they are so awesome. But then also if Ben other than searching you on YouTube or dance videos, if people want to find you and connect with you personally, where should they go?
BR (52:35):
I am avid on Instagram and LinkedIn, so come at me at at ben Rigsby. You’ll find me on both those channels.
AJV (52:45):
Ben. So awesome. Exceeded all expectations. Thank you so much for being so great. Thank and everyone else, stay tuned for the recap of this episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential Personal brand. See you later, y’all.
Ep 358: How to Build a Bestselling Brand in the Christian Market with Annie F. Downs
RV (00:02):
Well, if you have listened to this show for any amount of time, you know that I am a hardcore Bible thump in Jesus freak. It’s true. We are at Vaden villa and our church that we go to in Nashville is called Crosspoint Church. I’ve been on the board there for several years and one of our teaching pastors and leaders of the church has been a friend of mine who I have admired from afar for years. We’ve gotten to know each other a little bit. Her name is Annie F Downs. That is our guest today. You’re going to hear from her. So she is a New York Times bestselling author. She speaks all over the country. She does sermons, she does Christian conferences, a couple business gigs every year. She has an Damazing podcast like the Lineup of People on her podcast.
RV (00:45):
Her podcast is called. That Sounds Fun. And she also has a podcast network called the That Sounds Fun Network of which one of our other one of our clients, Matthew West, who’s like I’ve got major, major man crush on Matthew West
AFD (01:25):
Rory. That was the kindest introduction. You could just make me cry sitting right here. Thank you very much.
RV (01:30):
Well, you’re awesome buddy. And then you also do weddings cuz we saw you at Chris and our, our, some of our best, best friends, Chris and Lexi got married and then we’re like, what
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Annie’s doing this? How did, wait, you know, that, how did this, how
RV (01:43):
Did this happen? So,
AFD (01:44):
Hey, that’s so fun. It’s such a gift. I got started the ordination process through Crosspoint a couple of years ago because two of my friends got engaged on the same weekend and they both asked me to do their weddings. And I was like I can’t do weddings. Let me make a call
RV (02:13):
So tell me a little bit about all the things you’re going on. So like, when you think of like Annie f Downs, just give us a lay of the landscape and, and you know, I think I share with you a little bit like there’s a lot of people who listen to this show. We, we haven’t talked much about how the, the church market and the faith market and just in spirituality conference, you know, in general. Yeah. so tell us like what makes up the landscape of everything, the moving parts of the N E F Downs Empire?
AFD (02:41):
Yeah. I think that’ll help for people to kind of get a picture of what the businesses look like because we are not a ministry, we are a business. Got it. I get to do ministry work, I get to do work that is faith-based, but we want to run really successful businesses. Got it. And I think there’s a different responsibility and a different expectation when someone thinks you’re running a ministry than a business. Maybe it’s just in my own brain. Sure. And so I’m like, oh no, I wanna run a really good business.
AFD (03:24):
And so it’s called Downs Books Incorporated. Inside of Downs Books is all the writing I do. Okay. All the speaking I do. And that, that sounds fun. Podcast and the, let’s read the Gospels podcast. So everything I make and everything my team makes is under the Downs Books co company. Got it. What is also in our office is my manager Kelly Haywood has K c h entertainment here too. So she has, I have five employees at Downs Books. She has four that help kind of run the high level things, right. Like they, when we launched the, let’s read the Gospels podcast, they’re the ones figuring out how do we do the website and how do we do the graphics and how do we, so they’re kind of the behind the scenes machine for a lot of what we do. They do what you hear music managers do or managers for people on tv. It’s, it’s the same relationship. It’s a management relationship.
RV (04:16):
Interesting.
AFD (04:16):
And then across the hall, is that, that sounds fun. Network, a podcast network for our friends listening who don’t know, it really works just like a TV network where all the shows have something in common, but they’re different. And what a network a allows is community and income because we also have a sales team that helps get advertising. So we have 17 shows on the network, although that sounds fun. Network. And we have five employees over there as well. And so we’re helping these 17 shows to help them book guests. Sometimes we help them meet each other so they can be on each other’s shows. We help them find ad partners that are really good fits for their content and their audience. And so that’s what we, we get to do. I’m, I’m a co co-owner and a founder of the Network. Okay. Both of my shows are on the network, but I’m not in the, like, daily running of that company.
RV (05:08):
Got it. Got it. Yeah, that’s really interesting. I didn’t even know that you had that. So Yes. So,
AFD (05:15):
And then I also teach at Crosspoints. I’m also on the T team. That’s
RV (05:18):
And you do weddings. Yeah.
AFD (05:19):
And I do weddings.
RV (05:20):
Right, right. Occasionally. Occasionally. That’s the other part. For close, for close friends. That’s right. And then, so, so let’s talk. So let’s go to Downs Books. Okay. And let’s talk, let’s talk in there. Cause that sounds like that’s sort of the core of like where you’re spending’s righting your, your time. Yes. how did you start, like, and, and how did you make your first dollars? Right? Like Yeah. Go all the way back to the beginning and like mm-hmm.
AFD (05:52):
Yeah. You know what you’re gonna love Roy, I think I may have told you this in our real life before, but I, when my fourth book released, I also applied to teach at the parent teacher store in Green Hills because I didn’t have enough money to pay my assistant. Wow. So, so it has been, I mean, it is not one of those like, and your listeners and friends probably know, like, it’s not one of those, like when you get your book deal, there you go. It’s like, no, the, if your book deal is, if your book’s coming out in a year and you get a $10,000 book deal, I’m just making an easy number. I mean, you’re, after you pay your agent, which you should have an agent and you should pay your agent once they get their percent. And once you pay taxes, you’ve made $5,000 in a year.
RV (06:59):
AFD (07:01):
Then I was like, that
RV (07:01):
Was your first book. That was your first book.
AFD (07:02):
Yes. Yes. Okay. And I thought, this isn’t working. And you know, you, you don’t pay your agent. You the, you know, the agent takes a percent. And so at this point I’m saying to my agent, you’re not making any money and I’m not getting the right books. So what are we doing? So, so we made, I made no money through this until a couple of years later. I mean, I was writing I was writing like for like one of those Groupon kind of websites. Okay. I was writing ads for them. So I was making like a, a small income off of that.
RV (07:37):
But not like your con not your content. You were just doing copywriting for
AFD (07:41):
Something? No, no, no. I did copywriting for probably three years behind the scenes while in front of the scenes. I’m trying to author and travel and speak. Yeah. My book does get picked up by a publisher in 2011. After I self-publish it, I self-publish it. Cause I was like, at this point I’ve written the book. I have an audience of a couple of thousand people who have been with me in this journey. I just want a book that my grandkids can have on their bookshelf that my, that their grandmother wrote one time. Right?
RV (08:09):
Yeah.
AFD (08:10):
When we put it on Amazon in the first quarter, I put it up in quarter four because I wanted to hit holidays. Okay. And it was for teen girls. And we sold about 2,500 in that quarter.
RV (08:21):
Wow.
AFD (08:22):
And when that happened, a publisher said, I’m sorry, we said no to that. We didn’t know you would sell the books. Right. And you sell the books. And so they came back, Zondervan signed me for a book deal in the winter of 11. And the book came out in August of 2012. And my first book deal, my advance was $7,000.
RV (08:45):
Nice.
AFD (08:47):
So I
RV (08:48):
Filling in to go.
AFD (08:49):
Yeah. I seriously thought, here we go.
RV (08:52):
So like that was at least, I can’t believe it, over the course of three or four years. Years, that’s like 65 cents an hour. I mean, some somewhere. It was wild. Somewhere in there.
AFD (08:59):
Yeah. Yes, yes. So what ends up happening though is, and I don’t know this behind the scenes, what I know is I’ve gotten a book deal offer and then I get a phone call from the publisher that says, Hey, would you like to travel and speak on a Teen girl tour? And it’s every other weekend for the school year. And I thought, well, yeah, the here’s I, I thought I wasn’t gonna get to do this anymore. And suddenly I see this job for the next year. And what had happened, Rory, is the publisher had made a deal with a record label here in town that had point of grace on it, the word word record label. And it was a conference called Girls of Grace that was for teen girls. Huh. And the sponsorship deal included a speaking spot. So Zondervan was a sponsor of the tour. Ah. The sponsorship included a bunk on a bus and a 20 minute slot. And I was the only new author that lived in Nashville. Wow. And so I was the only one who could bus out
RV (10:00):
AFD (10:03):
That’s right. I’ll take it. Cause built So was your cause built the whole thing.
RV (10:06):
So that wasn’t until 2013 then?
AFD (10:08):
Yes, 2012 and 2013. The book came out in ap August of 12. And the tour started then. And so what I would do in every city, Rory, is I, we would get there on a Friday. I would have most of Friday free, cuz the conference was on Saturday. So we bused out at midnight on Thursday would go to Columbus, Ohio. Yep. Friday I rent a car or get in an Uber and I drive to every bookstore that will look me in the face and I say, Hey, I’m Annie F Downs, do you have my new book? And if they did, I would sign ’em. And if they didn’t, I would ask them to carry it. So I’d go to three or four bookstores in every city on our first day in the city. The second day when we had our event. When I’m speaking, what’s also happening is all these youth group leaders are there. And so I’m, I have a, this is very in line with what you teach us to do. I have a thing on the screen that I say, Hey, if you want a 30 day devotional for free, here’s all you gotta do. Hit the do this QR code or whatever. And so what ends
RV (11:02):
Up happen, it wasn’t QR codes back then, I don’t think, think QR codes didn’t become popular until Covid. That’s what’re right. Covid left behind in its wake was QR codes for the work. Exactly.
AFD (11:10):
Right. I think it was probably just an a web address. Yeah. I think they just could take a picture of that, of a place on my website. And so what that, what that tour ended up doing is giving me a bunch of emails of teen girls and their leaders Wow. And a bunch of youth pastors who said, can I want her to come back and speak to our youth group or to our college ministry or to our women. So I had it for, and I ended up being on that tour for two years. Wow. So I was in front of thousands and thousands of leaders who then bring in speakers to their own
RV (11:40):
Church. Got it. Okay. And so, and so at that point you’re collecting email addresses, which good on you. Like that’s a game changer to ca to capture all that. But it’s not like millions of email addresses. It’s like no, no, no. A few thousand. You do that for a couple years, you got five or 10,000 emails maybe.
AFD (11:57):
Exactly. I pro I think we ended each year, I think we ended each year with five more. So I think the first year was about 5,000. Second year was about 10.
RV (12:04):
Okay. But now these people have seen you speak and so now they start calling you to come speak at their church. Yes.
AFD (12:11):
Yes. Interesting. So then they say, Hey, we saw you at Girls of Grace in Min Minneapolis. Our church is 30 minutes from there and we have a youth conference that has a thousand students. Will you come speak
RV (12:22):
Uhhuh
AFD (12:26):
Yes, I was paid. I feel like it was a couple of hundred dollars. It wasn’t very much and it was one bunk. So I also was my own merch person. Right. Which is very normal. This was, I was treated Yeah. Very well on this tour. That is, I mean, you know, there’s those big music tours like Winter Jam where you don’t get paid. You’re just glad to be there and you, what you get paid is how much merch you move. Right. Right. And so I, I had one bunk, so I set up my own merch table. I would train merch volunteers. I was counting in merch, I was counting out merch and and I got paid a couple hundred dollars.
RV (13:01):
I mean this is sounds more like a musician start. Like
AFD (13:04):
It totally is. And in fact, so much of what you see shaped in my career is because who we can watch here in town do this is musicians. And so my friends that are musicians, I was watching them and going, wait, you don’t do your own books at the end of an event? Who does that? Wait, you aren’t making this decision? Who does that? And so I really am, I do look as an artist, if you like, looked down from the sky at me and a country artist, we look very similar and how our businesses run versus if you look down me on mine and another author who has as many books out as me, doesn’t have the kind of team I have, doesn’t have the kind of processes I have cuz I look like a musician.
RV (13:46):
Interesting. So then, so, so then these youth leaders start calling and that’s, are you getting a thousand bucks to speak?
AFD (13:52):
No, I’m getting 500 bucks to speak and travel for two people.
RV (13:56):
Wow, okay. Yeah. So not a lot of money still going on.
AFD (14:01):
Right. So we are, that’s why, I mean it took, I put three teen books out 20 12, 20 13, 20 14. And then in 2015, my first adult non-fiction came out. That was a memoir called Let’s All Be Brave. And when that book came out is when I did not have the money to pay my assistant who, because I, I’m a big believer in like get some help before you can actually afford the help. Yeah. Like you be the hustler to make the money so that you can have help because mm-hmm.
RV (14:51):
Uhhuh
AFD (14:51):
RV (15:10):
Yep. And so then so then that book came out. So that was your fourth book. So now you’re starting to get some, some advances that are at least like, you know, more reasonable advance to kind of like build your career. Yes, yes. You have some royalties coming in
AFD (15:24):
Probably. That’s right. So the good news of taking small advances is you do usually get money on the backside. So I have 11 books out and I make money on the backside of nine of ’em. And so I’m getting mailbox money every quarter. We try to treat book money, like foundation money that we don’t touch unless we have to. So we just deposit that. What we’re actually trying to run our budget off of is speaking money and podcasting money. But the podcast didn’t start till 2014 and it didn’t start making money until 2017 probably.
RV (15:55):
Ah-Huh.
AFD (16:14):
That, that was a muddy season, as you can imagine, because I’m still getting these calls for teen girl conferences or for college conferences even. I am, at this point I’m 34 and I am way out of actually living life as a teenager or living with teenagers. And I’m mostly talking to 20 year olds cuz I’m at Crosspoint, I’m volunteering in the college ministry. So my time is spent with people in their mid twenties. So that transition was really hard. I, we had to work really closely with my booking agent and kind of be like, Hey, we, we can’t keep taking these, we have to start setting me up. So the transition looked like if a big church called and said, Hey, we’ve got $2,000. We’d love for Annie to come speak to our college women’s group and there’s 500 girls that’ll come great. Annie would be happy to do that. Could you do a luncheon the next day for the women? Yeah. And invite any women and it won’t cost you any extra, but Annie would love to talk for 20 minutes to women in your church or could she get a meeting with your women’s minister to talk about what y’all are doing for women’s ministry? So the the transition was, if you’re gonna pay me for what I’m known for, will you let me do for free what I’m trying to do?
RV (17:32):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (17:36):
And so it was muddy though. It was not fun that we had to say nos. We didn’t wanna say we had to do things cheaper than I wanted to do, but I, and I also ended up changing publishers because it was really hard to not be considered the the new girl who wrote for teenagers when I was trying to be a peer with my friends who wrote for adults.
RV (17:56):
Right. Yep. And then so then you start speaking at women’s groups and then from there it’s just like you’re speaking and the spinoff starts to come and then you speak at That’s right. So, so what’s do you the like is there’s, they’re speaking at women’s groups and then they’re speaking at like is a women’s group, like a Christian, like a conference, is that primarily then
AFD (18:20):
Probably a conference? Yeah, that’s right. And a lot of churches do their own like women’s retreats and women’s conferences that are for whatever they are. You know, it could be a hundred women in a room or it could be 10,000 women that go to some of these. And the ones that, you know, one of the things that happens a lot is they will end up reading your book or, or going through a Bible study I’ve written and, and, but they don’t have the money to fly me or to bring my assistant or whatever. And so the opportunity is to go like, man, who in your community could do this? There’s people right there. Right. But the transition started happening where people would bring me in Saturday and say, will you stay and speak on Mother’s Day to our Sunday morning? And so then I started being able to, to get invitations that were not just female audiences but we’re men and women together. And that’s when I started doing more Sunday mornings.
RV (19:16):
Do people get paid to speak at a church on a Sunday?
AFD (19:19):
Sometimes, yeah. I mean if, if you are traveling and you’re leaving your normal life, yes. I think it’s, it’s considered an event. So a most ti Sundays, if I’m speaking somewhere else, there is some honorarium attached to it. For me with Crosspoint, that is not, that is not true. Only because that’s my, that is how I serve my local church and I only teach four or five times a year. And so it’s, it’s the way I get to give back to the church that gives me so much. And so there are exceptions to the rule, whereas with a conference, there is no exception for me. Like, if, if you can’t, if you can’t bring me in and and pay me to do my job, then I’m not the right fit for you. That means that God has somebody else for y’all. That’s a little bit different on Sunday mornings to me. I don’t do merch tables on Sunday mornings. There’s just some changes that are not rules that anybody else has to follow, but are rules that are for me that I’ve created that are like, nah, we’re not gonna sell books on a Sunday morning. I just don’t like the way that feels, so I don’t do that.
RV (20:21):
Got it. But so they might, and then, I mean I’m sure it varies, but like when you get, when you get into the Christian market, ultimately you have local churches doing program for their membership. Yes. And they might be bringing somebody in and they’re paying that speaker to come in or maybe doing like a rev share, like a ticket sale kind of a thing. Yes. Or you have conferences where it’s like a regional kind of lots of churches sort of promoting, there’s a promoter, either a church is hosting it and then you have speaking on Sundays and all of those can be paid things in the church world.
AFD (20:58):
Yes, that’s right. And the conferences, that’s, that’s exactly right. Those are the three options. You’re gonna do something local, you’re gonna do something community sized or you’re gonna do Sunday mornings.
RV (21:06):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (21:20):
For some people it’s okay if it’s not for everybody. Yeah. I, it just, it is for me. Yeah.
RV (21:25):
Lots of, I mean lots of authors, lots of Christian authors, that’s what they kind of do. I feel like they do like a, a big church tour of the whole country and that’s, that’s part of how they sell their, they how
AFD (21:34):
They sell. Especially in July and August or June and July when pastors want some time off. I mean that’s why you see so many authors and pastors sharing their stages with other people is they want, they need some weeks off and understandably Uhhuh
RV (21:53):
Tell me about, so let’s talk about the podcast. So I’m b I’m Curious cuz that’s part of like, you have the, that sounds Fun network and then you also have your two, your two podcasts. Yep. So when do you start making money from that and how, how do you make money from the podcast and like, tell us about that a little
AFD (22:09):
Bit. Yeah, so it’s, it’s ad revenue, right? So it’s, it is the same as a TV show. It’s commercials and, and there are multiple ways to do it. There is what’s called a di, which is just a drop in where, where it’s not the voice of the host where it literally is a commercial. So you hear that a lot on some of the shows on other networks. I think Gimlet does it. It’s, it’s not good or bad, it just is. And where they’ll have a read that goes before you start listening to the show you’re listening to. So for me, what we do, we all add host Red Ads for my show and for the That Sounds Fun Network. We do host red ads. Those are the most genuine we believe for what we are making and, and they pay the most. And so for my show I started having advertising partners want to work with us about 2017.
AFD (22:58):
So my producer at the time, Chad Sna from Sound On Sound Off Music or Sound on Sound Off Productions, he had a friend who had done ad sales for a long time. So I hired him for a while, then I joined a network. It was not a great fit, but that’s was the next move is I joined a network. When I left that network is when my manager and I kind of went like, Hey, we can build a better thing than what I’m experiencing Hmm. As a podcaster. And so we got a sales team. So they work with ad partners, they work with like advertising companies that are kind of over multiple different companies that want to advertise. And so they, it literally is a, Hey Annie, I mean it happened this morning. Hey Annie, there’s a brand that wants to be on the podcast. Can they go ahead and send you an example of of their product and you can see if you like it and see if it’s something that you’d like to talk about. And that’s how we do.
RV (23:50):
So how, how does that, like how big of a pod, like how big does a podcast have to be before it can start advertising?
AFD (23:57):
That’s a great question. So it, depending on what kind of money you wanna make, you can start advertising with someone like Anchor that’s run through Spotify. You can do ads for Anchor starting immediately now. You’ll get paid if you have five listeners, you’ll get five pennies or something. You know, like, but there, there is a availability for anyone who starts a podcast to start making advertising money right away when you really make money that can pay for your production and actually help run, run your ministry, your company, your brand. We see that about 10,000 listeners in the first 10 weeks is when advertising partners are really interested in working with you in the
RV (24:38):
First, that’s the, that’s 10 weeks like each,
AFD (24:39):
That’s the number they look at episode. Yep. So you look at an episode that releases on January 1st, you’re gonna what the advertiser partner doesn’t they like the first week that matters to them, but what they actually look at is what’s the arc of the whole show? So how at the end, so when we look at stats every week, you, you know me Rory, I look at stats constantly. It’s like I
RV (24:58):
Love it. I did not know that about you.
AFD (24:59):
Oh you did? Oh listen,
RV (25:00):
I didn’t know that that
AFD (25:01):
Is about you. That is science. Like that will tell, we can say I think everybody loved that episode. Well no they didn’t, nobody listened. So we gotta look at the science. So I love the stats. So every Monday in our staff meeting we look at how did our shows do it one week just cuz we’re interested. But what we really go back and look at is the show that released 10 weeks ago, how many people have listened? And usually we have about double from one week to 10 weeks. So what, what what happens in one week happens again in week two through 10 of listenership. And so that’s what advertising partners look at. So when we’re looking at shows to add to the network that really want, that are hoping it’ll be a financial benefit to that show where the host is like, Hey, I need to make money off of this if I’m gonna put time in. Then we say man, well as soon as you get to 10 thousands when you’ll really start seeing ad partners be interested
RV (25:50):
And how much do they pay? Like how much does it cost? Let’s just use 10,000. Like let’s say it’s, yeah, let’s say you’re at 10,000, which means if I calculate you’re saying you release an episode, you get 5,000 downloads this week and then another 5,000 downloads over the next nine’s weeks’. That’s right On that on that episode. Yep. How do you price it and what do they like, what do they pay kind of thing?
AFD (26:11):
Well this is outta my expertise level because I don’t know any of that. What I know is we do CPM cost per million and, and I know that it actually varies based on the partner. So someone like a Thistle Farms who we really believe in and love and want to talk about, they may not have the same cost or same ability to pay for a show that, that a huge brand like Better Help does. And so we can work with Thistle Farms and say, Hey Annie loves y’all, so here are the, the five ad slots. This one is the one we will get to you at a price that works for your company, but we can’t give you this one because this one is double that cost or whatever. Right. And so, and each show is different. And so it really varies. Our sales team, we have two full-time sales team members here and that’s what they do constantly. And the other thing Roy, is they’re not just doing, do you wanna buy this show? They’re saying, do you wanna buy a year worth? And so that’s the bigger number that they’re looking at is can we find ad partners that believe in us? Like we believe in them enough to go, Hey, for a year let’s make a contract. Mm-Hmm.
RV (27:18):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (27:29):
Watching. It’s per episode. Yeah. Because for example, let’s use Thistle Farms again because we love them. Everyone go shop at Thistle Farms. But if Thistle Farms, you know, if they they don’t actually care how we did this month, they care how we did on the show that they’re on. Right. And so they wanna look at the 10 weeks. It’s cool, you’ll see people do all time. We hit 2 million, we hit 3 million downloads. That’s awesome. We do it for the network, we celebrate with everyone and we celebrate on our show. But what advertising partners really care about. And so therefore what podcasters should really care about is how did each episode do after 10 weeks?
RV (28:01):
And and if you, let’s just say you have a show that does about 10,000 downloads per episode.
AFD (28:08):
Yeah.
RV (28:09):
In a year, like at a high level, how much revenue do you think one show like that? You know, oh boy,
AFD (28:15):
Give or I, I don’t wanna mess this up. I mean I bet if you’re doing weekly shows, I mean this is going to be a guess Rory for real. If you’re doing weekly shows at a 10,000 downloads and you do, let’s say you do 45 shows in a year cuz you take a couple off or whatever, I mean I bet you’re gonna make maybe a thousand bucks a show. I bet you’re making 800 to a thousand bucks a show. So, you know, four $40,000 maybe.
RV (28:42):
Okay,
AFD (28:43):
Interesting. I could be really off about, I think that’s about what, but you know, also the cost to make a show is about $500 per episode. Yes. If you’re hiring outside. And so that’s, that is a thing. People don’t factor. They wanna start a podcast and they want to make advertising money. Well, y you’re gonna be outta pocket for a little bit if you c if you don’t have the skills to make it sound good. Mm-Hmm.
RV (29:08):
You. Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting cuz we had, we had a podcast that had millions of downloads that we sold as part of when we sold our last company. But we’ve never run ads on our, the only ads we run on our show are for our services. Yeah. And so that’s, and that’s, you know, because we’re offering people free calls to learn about what we do. And that’s usually when you’re starting out, that’s gonna pay a lot, a lot more money Yes. Than you’ll make from advertisers until you get really, really big.
AFD (29:35):
Absolutely. And we still, I mean still on my show and on shows on the network, we use the opportunity when we have empty ad spots to talk about the products we make. That is a hundred. And one of the things on our network that we really believe in is the community part. And so one at a quarter you’re advertising for another podcast and it’s on the network mm-hmm.
RV (30:07):
Yeah, that’s really cool. I noticed that like Caleb is doing this now where they’ve got, they’ve got Caleb podcasts and you know, people are really doing this Interesting to see how it all happens. Well, yeah. So as we’re wrapping up, like, so tell us a little bit about what you’re working on. So I, I know Carlos Whitaker used to be really he used to be around Crosspoint a lot. I never really got to know him, but I know you, you obviously have your, your podcast. That sounds fun. You’ve got the books, but you and Carlos are teaming up on something exciting in 2023, right? Yeah.
AFD (30:40):
In June we’re going on tour together. It’s called the Here for You Tour. We just kind of wanted, he and I are good friends. We have a lot of the same audience, but also a lot of people who don’t know each other. And, and we thought, man, what we wanna do is let’s just go talk, let’s go meet up where our friends are already at and gathering. And so we’ve got about 12 cities we’re going to in June where we’re gonna get to show up and talk about Jesus and talk about what’s going on in culture and feature some local businesses. Like it’s kind of just gonna be a really fun hang night that we get to do. It’s really exciting. And the other thing we’re working on that I’m really proud of is the let’s read the Gospel’s podcast. And Roy, the idea really was like, what if there’s so many people who want to read the Bible in a year, but but don’t finish.
AFD (31:28):
Yeah. And so can we give some steps that would Enbridge people to a year? So we are gonna read Matthew, mark, Luke, John every month. And so people can start with on January one, February one, March one. And, and so the only commitment you’re making is a monthly commitment. We’re just gonna do it 12 times. So you can do it with us all 12 times or you can do it with us once, or you can do it with us in April. Or if you’ve never listened to Matthew, mark, Luke and Johnny, you don’t even know what they’re about. I’m gonna read the whole thing to you. And so, and
RV (31:56):
You’re reading it, you’re, it’s in your voice.
AFD (31:58):
It’s me. Yeah. We’re reading it 12 times man. It is an interesting year because we are really having to, it takes about 15 hours to read and so, and we have to do, so that’s two or three hours a week. So it’s really changing our rhythms next year. Cause I’m not doing any besides you, you’re my last outside conversation besides my shows until 2024. Nice. Wow. Because we just, my voice, we have to, if I’m gonna tour and travel and do a pot, do that sounds fun twice a week and read the gospels every month, that’s about all my voice can do. Yeah. So it’s changed my availability in a really interesting way. I’ll be very interested to see what happens. What happens when we focus like this next year.
RV (32:44):
Well, one thing that’ll be awesome. So, so we read the, we read the whole Bible this last year, which was the first time we ever made it through. Yeah. We’re in a, we’re in a family bible study. It’s the coolest thing is every Sunday from like three to seven, we found a Bible study. And the thing that that was a game changer was all the families pooled to buy babysitters. And so the kids go off with the babysitters and so then the family can actually like eat and do bible study. And it was, we read the whole Bible and the the thing, which was amazing, super power, powerful experience to read all the way through. But the thing that I’m most craving is you have to go so fast that we didn’t get to spend enough time in the gospels. And I’m like, man, I’m really, I’m really craving more time there in Matthew, mark, Luke and John. So that’s a really cool idea. That’s very, very, very, very powerful. Well Annie, where should people go? I got one last question for you, but before that, where do you want people to go if they wanna like learn more about you and connect up and see what you’re, what you’re up to?
AFD (33:42):
I, you know me Roy, I’m like embarrassingly easy to find. I’m just Annie F Downs everywhere. F is in fancy. So Annie f Downs will get you everything you need. Annie f Downs slash Gospels will get you access to all the resources we have to go along with the podcast. And then the here for You tour is here for you tour.com. So that’s where I’ll be all this year, all those places.
RV (34:02):
I love it. So my last question is just Annie, like thinking back, you know, let’s say somebody’s listening right now who, you know, maybe they are an aspiring author or maybe they’re an aspiring speaker, or maybe they’re in that like transition mode between like, I’m serving one audience, I’m doing one thing in my life, but I really want to be doing something else. Like, you know, those can be long dark seasons and, and Yeah. You know, those can be trying times. Like what would you, what would you say to that person if they’re listening right now?
AFD (34:30):
Yeah. You know, the thing I I, the only thing I would’ve regretted so far is if I would’ve quit. I have made mistakes along the way for sure. I don’t regret my mistakes. We had a, we’ve had some big ones that I’ve done and we have done some massive cleanup around it. I I don’t regret mistakes. I would’ve regretted quitting. And so that’s what I would say is don’t give up and get some people around you to help you because what they can help you do is not even decide whether to quit or not, but help you decide how do you pivot this thing so that it actually works for you. And so that it actually meets the needs that you believe the world has, that you are uniquely gifted to meet. And so ask, ask some, ask for some help and do not give up.
RV (35:13):
I love it. I love it. Well, we’ll link up to annie f downs.com. You can check out the tour, the shows. Thank you so much for such a transparent, open sharing, Annie, of just how all of this works and, and just hearing your story. It’s, it’s super encouraging and you know, we’re praying for you, my friend, and, and we wish you the best.
AFD (35:31):
I love you guys. I’m really glad to be friends with you and your wife, so I’m thankful for y’all and for the work you do, it matters to me.
Ep 357: You Don’t Need A Visual Identity To Build Your Personal Brand | Nadine Hanafi Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Hey, AJ Vaden here. Just making a quick pop in here to talk about something that has been on the top of my mind for hmm, 15 years. I’m not exaggerating. It’s literally been on my mind for 15 years. And it’s on the lines of this concept of building your personal brand, which, you know, to me is just an extension of your reputation. But I feel like there’s a lot of misconception out there about what is a personal brand and people associate personal branding with influencers and social media followers and you know, all the things that you would think about with having an online presence and a podcast and a website and a blog and all the things. And those things are good. Don’t get me wrong. We talk a lot about those things at Brand Builders Group and here I am making a content video for social media and or podcast and a blog.
AJV (00:59):
So don’t get, don’t hear what I’m not saying here. Those things are good and valuable and important, but those are not a personal brand. They’re just not. A personal brand is the formalization of what you wanna be known for and who you want to be known by. It’s the formalization and digitization of your reputation in a way that helps you get out there and become the go-to expert in your space, both online and offline. But again, personal branding, it’s just an extension of your reputation. It’s the intentional desire of becoming known for what you want to be known for. That is a personal brand. But what comes along with that is once those things are formalized as well, how do I get this message? How do I display my content, what I have to say, who I wanna be out into the world? And that’s where it gets a little muddied, right?
AJV (01:58):
Because then we, we get confused that somehow personal branding is all about social media and it’s not. Or we think that branding is all about visual identity and websites and colors and fonts and it’s not. We think that it only has to do with content creation. It doesn’t, those are all pieces and parts of the puzzle here. But there is a, a piece of this puzzle that I wanna specifically talk about today which is the visual identity part, because that is where people get hung up and they get consumed. And it’s what most often stops you in your tracks because you’re so concerned with what it looks like. You forget that you’re actually doing this to help somebody. You get so consumed with how many likes or followers or subscribers that you get that you forget that people who did see it and who did have an it that or who did you did impact.
AJV (02:49):
You forget that those people are real live human beings on the other side of your screen. Or you get so obsessed with doing so many speaking engagements or book deals or whatever that you forget, like you are making an impact with one person and that is worth it, that’s worth it. But back to this concept of visual identity, there are so many EMA emotions that are tied up in, well, what is my brand gonna look like? That that is what the whole concept of personal branding becomes about. And so I was sitting down with a friend, Nadine, who owns this awesome company called We Are Visual and has another company called Digital Brand Kit. And we were having this conversation because on the journey of building my personal brand over the last 10, 2, 15 years I have never really sat down and spent the time if this tells you anything of really creating my own color palette or a visual identity or font, because I believe that’s just a tiny piece of it.
AJV (03:53):
And at some point you actually need to do those things that, that’s important for you to have this visual representation of who you are and how you want to be a scene in the world. And it’s been a long time coming. And so I’ve been going through this journey and it’s been a really hard process for me. It’s been a really hard thing of going, man, I just don’t know if that’s it. So I was having this conversation with my friend Nadine, and she gave me some key tips that I thought I would pass along to you. So step one here’s what she said. And she is a designer. Do not hire a designer as your first step.
AJV (04:31):
That was so helpful because that’s what you think you need. Oh, I just need to go find someone who can figure out and do this for me. Don’t do that. In fact, as a designer, you know, she’s giving me this. If I don’t hire designers your first step, but instead spend time with your audience, spend time with your content and getting in tune with who do you wanna impact? How do you wanna impact them, and how do they need to be impacted, right? How do they actually want to hear from you? And what is it that they need from you? What is it that they want from you? And how can you really make a difference in the people that you feel like you’re called to make a difference for? So don’t hire a designer. Spend time with your audience. Step number one. So helpful.
AJV (05:14):
Step number two follow truths, not trends. And this was so, so powerful. I’m gonna say that again. Follow truths, not trends. And what she said is, your visual identity is what’s true about you, not what’s trending online or in the market, right?
AJV (05:57):
Don’t know, did they go away? I dunno,
AJV (06:48):
Taking pictures of colors and restaurants and sending ’em to a designer. Don’t do that. Because you waste time and you’re never going to actually get a visual identity that represents you. So follow truths, not trends. Number three, she said, here’s actually something to and think about when you think about what you actually need when you’re building out your personal brand. And you have to think about what is an actual set of brand guidelines. Because if you work with most designers, a set of brand guidelines is gonna include a logo, a color palette, fonts, maybe some iconography, some typography. But that’s about it. And she goes, if you really think about it, this is what you need. Buckle up. You’re gonna need colors, fonts, logos, you will need iconography. You will need topography, but you are also going to need brand imagery, right?
AJV (07:41):
So those are different types of imagery, not just icons and just visuals. But you’re gonna need like full like photography imagery, right? Think about all the things that people put quotes on and you’re standing behind and all the things. You’re gonna need imagery, you’re gonna need banners for the different social media platforms. Well, they all have different dimensions, so you’re gonna need a different size banner for Facebook versus Instagram versus LinkedIn versus YouTube. You’re gonna need different banners. You, cuz they all have different dimensions. You’re gonna need PowerPoint files. Don’t think about, don’t forget about that. At some point you likely will do a presentation, whether it’s a webinar or a keynote. But what about p d s? Are you gonna have e-books? Are you gonna have any sort of lead magnets or downloads? What about handouts? Will you able to do workshops or will you do something that you hand out in a virtual presentation or a live presentation?
AJV (08:35):
What about your speaker press kit? Will you do any speaking cuz you’re gonna need something where you have formatted for that. What about a webinar kit or a course, right? Are you gonna need imagery for both the, the, you know, like the cover pages of the courses the different files that have you have in the courses the different thumbnails you’re gonna gonna need thumbnails, you’re gonna need ad images if you ever do pay traffic. What about a media kit? Do you have a podcast? Do you need a podcast thumb? Now? Do you need a media kit? Like don’t go to overwhelmed now, right? But if then if you’re getting into video, do you need video bumpers? Do you need video covers? And the list just went on and on and on and I was like, oh my gosh, that is what you have to think about.
AJV (09:17):
And that is where people get stuck. I, instead of pursuing something that has the ability to change your life and to change someone else’s life, we get lost behind all of these things. And so when I was having this conversation with they dean, I mentioned that she owns these awesome two companies. We are visual, which helps you do things custom. But she said this was the whole reason this this conversation she was having with me is the entire reason that she created the company Digital Brand Kit because she has created all of those assets and templates with dozens and dozens of dozens of preset color palettes and imagery and typography and fonts. So that for people like me, they don’t get stuck in this kind of thing. Instead of focusing on my audience and my content and doing what I feel like God put me on earth to do.
AJV (10:11):
I don’t get stuck behind some color wheel, right? And so I just wanna encourage you the same thing. I’ve gotten almost 15 years in my personal brand without having a formal website or brand guidelines or anything like that. And guess what? It’s working out okay. And at the same time, there’s comes up time like for me right now where I wanna do it and it feels right and it feels like the time to do it. But you don’t have to spend 20,000, 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars on this. You don’t have to spend 10,000. In fact, you can spend a thousand or 2000 get to, to get the things that you need. And when you think about where you’re gonna invest your time and your money and your resources, people get overly attached to the visual part of it because we think that’s all that matters.
AJV (10:57):
And I’m just here, I’m living proof to tell you that it’s not I haven’t had one in 15 years. And at the same time, there comes a time where something is important but it’s way more important to figure out the truth behind what’s really important and how you wanna present yourself than spending, you know, tens of thousands of dollars getting something that’s just trendy and cool. And so I don’t know who this is for today, but I know that it was for me. And so I hope it resonates with someone else out there. And shameless plug my friend nabe, if you’re interested in this sort of thing go to brand builders group.com/db k and check out digital brand kits for your own starter brand. And again, it’s like visual identity is important, but it ain’t the whole thing. So just keep on keeping on and keep doing you. We’ll see you next time.
Ep 356: Create Your Visual Identity in 30 Days or Less with Nadine Hanafi
AJV (00:02):
Hi everybody, this is AJ Vaden here, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand. I am here today with a one and the only Nadine and, and Nadine is a very close personal friend. She lives here in Nashville, so lucky that she moved here to Nashville from Morocco where she was born. Although she’s got dual citizenship now, she can call herself a true nashvillian. So I’m so lucky and fortunate that I get to share the same city with my dear friends but also a client of Nadine’s. And we met through mutual friends three or four years ago, and it’s like one of those phone calls when you meet someone and you’re like, I love you like this. Like I love you and I love you. That’s how I met Nadine for a friend bit. It’s like the very first time that we spoke, I was like, you’re amazing.
AJV (00:56):
And you guys are about to experience just how amazing she is with her very unique craft. And before I get her our little formal introduction, I just want to tell you why you need to stick around and listen to this particular episode. Because when you think about design and how you want your brand to look how you want it to feel how you want other people to experience it, I am here to tell you, you are most likely wrong. And we’ll tell you people that I recently made. Cause what most of us do is we look around and we go, I like this and I like this, and this is my favorite color and this is my favorite font here, put it together and make it look great. And then it comes back and you’re like, well, this doesn’t feel like me.
AJV (01:46):
And it’s because you have it all wrong. And if your brand doesn’t feel like you, it’s most likely because it’s not. And it’s because we’re making decisions on the exterior things around us, not based on really how we want or how our brand is meant to be. And so if you’re struggling with like, what is my brand and how do I want it to look like in terms of the visuals, this is an episode that you must listen to. The second thing that I think is really important is most people assume that having an expensive looking brand is expensive. And that’s not true. And that I think outside of Nadine’s incredible creative talents is making it affordable, is her next best specialty. And so we’re gonna talk a lot about that. So if you wanna look like a million dollar brand, you don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do it, specifically not in the beginning.
AJV (02:48):
And she’s gonna teach you and talk about how you can do that on what I would say balling on a low budget, right? So
AJV (03:37):
It’s going to blow your mind. But over the last 10 years, she has helped hundreds a clients from Suite execs, the Fortune 100 companies like Disney and Verizon to bestselling authors like our good friend Lori, harder from the Earner Happy podcast Sarah, she’s worked with Sarah Knight, she’s helped build beautiful slide decks for so many different Ted Talk presenters. I could go on and on and on
NH (04:20):
Well, thank you and thank you for having me. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I have one correction to make that I was not born in Morocco, I was born in Minnesota of all places on a very cold winter day
AJV (04:57):
Before we do that, I think it’s worth giving people just a quick story about how you got into design, because it is not the traditional path. No, it’s not like you went to art school and like you came at this in a very different way, which I think is a part of your uniqueness. And what makes you so different is that this wasn’t something that you really came at for, like, this is what I’m gonna go to school for and this is what I’m gonna do in my life. It came by opposite. So why don’t you just give us a high level view of like, how did this ever even become a theme for you?
NH (05:30):
So I like to say that I am a designer who did not go to design school and does not know how to use any of the design tools.
NH (06:17):
And so I accidentally fell into design because my first and last corporate job,
NH (07:10):
I was like, mm-hmm the heck no, I closed it. I was like, I am not watching this. I am not getting through this training. And so I still needed to get some sort of formal training and design for this company. And so I just went through and found other courses inside lynn.com that taught me basics of design. And that was much more interesting to me. I could actually watch hours and hours of videos of, you know, how to do design. And what I figured out is I could take all of those design principles that I was learning and actually apply them using PowerPoint since it was the one and only design tool that I knew how to use at the time. And I basically hacked PowerPoint to make it do what I wanted it to do for me. And I started creating brochures for this company, obviously besides the slide deck that I was creating, which got better and better cause I got better at design, but also brochures, sales materials, one pagers.
NH (08:02):
I even created graphics for the website. Everything I created in PowerPoint. And in this process, one, I realized PowerPoint is an incredibly powerful tool. It can do not all the things that Photoshop can, but a lot of it and all, everything that you actually really need if you’re not a professional designer, creating these, you know, crazy designs. And the second thing I realized is I have probably a monetizable skill here,
AJV (08:56):
Of that. These were PowerPoint design, like we use PowerPoint designs that you created for every single one of our brochures, landing pages, you know, websites. It’s like you would never have an idea that these originated and PowerPoint, in fact, you should be like PowerPoint spokeswoman. This is,
NH (09:13):
I’m working on it. I am. So if anyone knows somebody who works at Microsoft
AJV (09:19):
Put in the universe,
NH (09:21):
I’m a spokeperson. Yes, absolutely. But
AJV (09:24):
I think it’s really amazing because what you have figured out is how to do something. And what I love about it, why I think it’s so cool is that with programs like InDesign or Photoshop for the end user, consumer like myself, it’s like I don’t know how to edit it or move something or update something. And so I’m trapped by whoever was the designer or finding someone else. And it’s like the best thing about you, the way that you’ve designed all these templates and all of these tools for our company at Brain Builders Group is that it’s like I actually do know how to use PowerPoint most people, so I can go in and make the copy edits without having to have the expense or the burden of finding someone else to go and like reformat this. And I think that’s a really important skill set, and you don’t have to be good at design to make very quick updates to something that is already very well designed. So with that said, I wanna kinda like take it up a level and just talk about some of the things that you’ve learned, you know, really over the last 15 years or so of what makes good design and what, what should people really be looking for and what should they really be asking themselves as they go on this visual process for their own personal brands. And I know without a doubt you’re gonna share the horrible mistakes that I have recently made.
AJV (10:45):
I’ll
NH (10:45):
Be fine,
AJV (10:47):
Totally fine. I gave you, I gave you permission to do this, but I do think it’s good. As people are kind of going, right, I’m at this place where it’s time to create some sort of visual component on either a website or a landing page, or I need something, where do I start?
NH (11:04):
Well don’t start by hiring a designer
NH (12:05):
What kind of people do you want to attract? What is the vibe that you wanna create as a brand? And who are these people that are gonna be attracted to that vibration? And so once you have done that homework first, that’s when you can really get into visual identity. So, and there’s really a science and an art to branding, visual branding, visual identity. And so the, the, the art piece is like making things beautiful and all of that. But the science piece is picking out brand elements, design elements based on certain truths, right? So we talked about this before. I am a proponent of don’t build
AJV (13:19):
Emotion to me,
NH (13:21):
Right?
AJV (13:23):
Of what not to do. Yes.
NH (13:25):
Go. Yes. So I developed something called the Blind test and as part of a, a bigger program that I’m developing called The Color Workshop, which will actually be a workshop that I’m gonna be launching soon. And it’ll be a workshop that will take you through a step by step process to help you identify one, your signature color, the color that really embodies your essence as a brand, but also your entire color palette really. And how to, you know, make everything kind of look good together. Part of this color workshop is something I call the blind test. And the blind test is I basically give you all of these cards that have words on them, right? And they’re color cards. So behind the words are colors, but you don’t see the colors cuz the cards are black and white. And so you have to, there are 12 cards and you have to go through a process of elimination in taking out the, the words that you don’t connect with, right?
NH (14:19):
And technically at the end of this process, the last cars that you end with, we then unveil them, right? We take out the cover and then you can see what colors they are. And the reason I built it this way is because we all have preconceptions about colors, right? We might have, maybe we’re following someone on Instagram who uses yellow as their signature color and we hate that person. So we’re never gonna use yellow. And maybe yellow is actually your color
AJV (15:08):
NH (15:09):
Before. And I don’t know where those colors came from, but you probably saw them on someone else’s branding or in beautiful spaces that you had visited. But they felt right in those spaces, they felt right for that person maybe. And, and so you thought that they might be right for you. And the funny thing is, when we did the blind test the first thing I ask you is gimme your first five hard nos
AJV (15:33):
And you eliminated, it’s not exaggerating y’all. No, it’s not exaggerating.
NH (15:38):
You eliminated literally your first three hard nos. The cars that you eliminated were the three primary colors of your actual,
AJV (15:46):
For myself did not follow any sort of process or logic or process.
NH (15:53):
But the funny thing is, is you were not connecting with those colors. You had pick them out, you thought they would work and then for weeks you were, you know, thinking about it and asking people and people were reflecting this back to you. These are not your colors. You knew it in your core. These are not your colors. You just couldn’t figure out why. And then when you did this test right away, it was just so clear you realized why those colors did not feel right. It’s because they were not right for you. They did not represent your energy and we figured out what your energy is. And it was not any of those colors
AJV (16:24):
NH (17:13):
My colors.
AJV (17:14):
I love this idea of like hot pink cluttering, I think some orange might be good, maybe this like sea shell pink. That’s pretty, I like that. And I was like, put this all together, make it look awesome. And that’s what Nadine did. And then she sent it back to me and I was like, well
NH (17:31):
That doesn’t feel right.
AJV (17:33):
Yeah, it’s a real right. And it’s like, and it’s like one of those things where it’s like, you know it, but you’re like, hmm, yeah, what happened here? And, and I think it’s so many of us do that cuz we see someone else’s brand and we go, I want mine to look like this. And what you mean is I want it to look beautiful like this. Not I need these colors. But until you go through this very personal process of going, who are you and who are you trying to reach? Who are you trying to attract? And it’s not just who you are, it’s what is going to attract the audience that you want to build. And when we did this process, I’m, I literally was like definitely not that one and that was great
AJV (18:23):
And it was pink. And I was like, definitely not that. And it was orange. I was like, there you go. That’s why I don’t connect. But here’s the thing, if, if Nate Dan would’ve showed me the colors that were truly coming out from the words, I would’ve never let her convince me of it that way. Cuz I’ve been like, Uhuh red, red is not my signature color. And let me tell you my internal reasoning of why is because I have red hair and I think bright red conflicts where my hair, so I’d never red. I was like, what a silly, ridiculous reason of going. Well I just, I don’t really have red in my wardrobe, so I don’t really think I can be a brand color. But that was like my very illogical process because emotions were tied into it versus going, no, these are the words that I say, define me.
AJV (19:08):
These are the words I wanna be known for. And then when you reveal the color, you’re kind of like, okay, and I need to like settle in with this a little bit. And I think the most amazing thing that happened for me, just as an example for all of you is I had an adverse reaction at first cuz I’m like, don’t really love red. And yet I look at the words and it’s like, bold. And it’s like, well, that’s pretty fricking bold. And it was like, I’m passionate. Well that’s pretty passionate. And it’s like all these things. And I’m like, why am I resisting this? And then it was the craziest thing. So for me, I’ll just give you this example. It was red purple, black gold, yeah. Are my colors. Did I miss one? I think those really, those were. And I walked out into my garage later that afternoon and Nadine, I haven’t even told you this story.
AJV (20:06):
And in my garage, I took a picture on my iPhone like 10 years ago of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life. And it was so breathtaking. I blew it up on this huge canvas and it’s in my garage and I walk out and I was getting in my car and it just caught my eye. And I looked up and I see this canvas there, and it is the most brilliant sunset of golds and dark shades of black and deep purple and reds and magentas. And for the first time ever I saw that and I was like, that is how I wanna be seen. I wanna be seen like that. And that’s how you should feel. That’s how you know it’s yours. And so I’m just curious, Nadine, if you could give us some examples of, could you just read off some of the words and colors that are represented that there’s 12, we don’t have time to do 12, but to kind give people an idea of what this is process is like. So if you’re not going through this process with someone that you’re working with, you should stop and go, why the heck not? Because if you’re just picking colors like I did at, at some point, you’re gonna go, man, that was fine for a season, but that’s just not really me. And you don’t have to do that. You can actually get it right the first time.
NH (21:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you want me to share some of what the keywords are for maybe your, your colors?
AJV (21:34):
Sure. You can do mine. I think this is just really helpful, but don’t tell us the color until after you read the words and just, I think this was a really powerful process that anyone can do if you just, like, even if you don’t, which we’re gonna give you access to do some of this really cool stuff that Nadine has created. But it’s like, just go Google these colors and go like, what words are associated with these? You can even do that.
NH (21:56):
Yeah. This is public information. So I’ll, I’ll share the words for my signature color, which you don’t know, so I’ll tell you what it is. But my words are creative, abundant, sociable, positive, passionate, joyful. Those are my words. And my signature color is orange. And I connect with orange on a very
NH (23:02):
And that was purple, right? And so we talked about how we can marry purple with red to create these really deep fiery shades of purple that have all of those aspects of red but but still anchored in that purple color and all of that purple means. So let’s see. And another one, black is a color that is used a lot and not everybody that likes black ends up picking black as one of their cards. You did. But black is sophisticated, substantial, efficient, elegant, intelligent, confident, authoritative. So these are examples of the words. So these are the words that you need to connect with or either eliminate or choose as part of this exercise. And you know, and that’s why we do this by process of elimination, because you will find that you connect with a lot of words across a lot of different cards. But the the goal here is to connect with the cluster of word of words where you’re like, okay, I have a, you know, I identify myself with most of these words in this group of words, and that’s what leads you to, to your color. So do you want me to share?
AJV (24:10):
No, I think that’s, I think that’s good. I think, you know, for anyone who is listening, like nad has created so many different tools and quizzes and amazing things to help you do this. So if you go to brand builders group.com/db, digital brand kit db k, so brand builders group.com/db k you can go and check out and she’s got this amazing color quiz that will tell you what season you fall in, gives you all these cool different color palettes. But I think this is a really defining part of, like, this is a part that most people skip as they don’t really do this introspective work. And instead they go right into, well, I just need a website. So can you talk a little bit about like, the purpose of doing brand guidelines before you go into designing Yes. Fires, brochures, landing pages, and just kind of like talk about if you’re ready to go this route and it’s time, what is the process that someone should follow?
NH (25:08):
Yes. So I would say this, A lot of people when I ask someone, do you have your branding? They’ll say, yeah, I have my logo, I have my colors, I have my fonts, and I’m working on my, my website. So yeah, I have my branding. I’m like, yeah, where’s the rest of it? Did you not have your branding? You have the beginning, you have a style guide. That’s what you have
NH (26:02):
Usually because the website was made by a professional and the presentations were made by you trying to mimic what the professional did.
NH (26:52):
You’re constantly in a oh, I need this shoot. Let, let me go hire somebody to do this. Oh, I need that. Oh man, I need to, okay, can you also create this for me? And so you’re constantly on this hamster wheel of asset creation on demand as the demand arises instead of proactively creating everything. And so digital brand is really the solution to that. Like I already surveyed and figured out, you know, surveyed people and, and, and did my homework and figured out all of the assets that a personal brand might need across all your platforms at every touchpoint from, you know, like a podcast if you have one all the way to your social media, to your webinars, to your, you know to your invoices, et cetera, et cetera. And so in order to have that cohesive brand across everything you need to infuse your, your style guide into everything. But you also need to know what all of those assets are, right? So yeah, that is, does that answer your question,
AJV (27:50):
Some of the examples of like what are the assets that most people don’t even think about? Cause you said is like, I think a lot of people at some point are probably, okay, I know I need colors and I need fonts, and I need a logo. And that’s what they think is their brand guidelines. That’s what they think is their branding, but they’re missing so much more. So you can kind of just give us like a checklist of like, what are all the things that you don’t even know that you’re gonna need that you wanna make sure is cohesively done on the front end so that it’s not piecemealed together and it’s, you know, I think the benefit for me is like, if you do all of this work on the front end, it’s so much easier and cheaper and faster to do things later.
NH (28:31):
Absolutely. If you are able to execute on your ideas, like on the go quickly because you have materials that you need to execute on that idea, instead of like, oh, now I have to go create this template or buy this template and then I can create it, that saves you a lot of time. But to answer your question, some of the things that, you know, a lot of people won’t think of, it’s like, all right, so let’s say you go buy a social media, you know, Canva template pack that’ll give you, you know, like all of the little squares. But then are your, like all of those highlights at the top of your of your Instagram account, are those gonna be, you know, look the same
NH (29:19):
Are they branded the same? So just having cohesiveness within your social media is is something to look out for. But also I mean if I’m gonna enumerate things from the db k package, we have a course kit, for example. So if you’re gonna build a digital course, you are going to need slides, right? That you’re going to actually put your content into that, you’re going to then record on your, on your video lessons. You’re going to need the PPS that you’re gonna provide to people as downloads, as free downloads with your course. You are going to need a course roadmap template so that you can paint a picture to your students of like, here’s everything that you’re going to learn in each part of this course and give that to them as a pdf. You are going to need, once you get all of your course materials put together, you’re gonna need to upload all that into a course portal like Kajabi or Thinkific.
NH (30:10):
You’re gonna need to brand that, that’s gonna need a you know, banner image and thumbnails and all of those things. I created all of those things for you already, and that’s all in the course package. So the day that you decide that you wanna build a course, you don’t even know everything you need, you’re gonna open up your course kit and you’ll know exactly what you need to build your course and you’ll have it. And as a bonus, I give you a course outline builder that you can use to actually build the outline of your course and a, you know, in a smart way that’ll make it easy for you to record the course. So it’s weave in in some of the strategy other things that people won’t think about, like your videos, for example. Like you wanna start a YouTube channel, you are gonna need video thumbnails and you cannot afford to be creating video thumbnails
NH (30:53):
Like, especially if you’re gonna have them professionally done. Cuz if you wanna create a lot of videos and every time you need to spend, you know, three hours on camera just putting together one video thumbnail, you’re not gonna get very far. Right
AJV (31:48):
Guesswork. Well, I would, I would, I would second as a customer, as our whole company, as a customer, and then I am personally a customer. It’s like what I would say that I think is really amazing about Digital Brain Kit and what you’ve created is it is all of the design, but it’s also the strategy. And that’s been with like partnerships with a variety of different tools and resources and education that you’ve gone out and done. But I think one of the things that’s really cool for the community at Brand Builders Group is like we were able to work with you of going, here’s what everyone’s gonna need in a speaker kit or in a media kit or, and so it’s like all of those things are pre-built in there. So, and I think that’s a really unique opportunity of going, it’s like you’re gonna need color fonts and logos, yes, but you’re also gonna need imagery.
AJV (32:32):
You’re gonna need the right size dimensioned banners, you’re gonna need thumbnails, you’re gonna need the bumper slides, you’re gonna need the highlights, right? You’re gonna need a press kit at some point. You’re gonna need a media kit for podcasts or just general media. You’re gonna need a PowerPoint slides for something at some point in your life, right? Yeah. So it’s like to have all of this done and kind of prepackaged together is, it’s not just beautiful design. It’s well architected in a way that helps conversion, but it’s also the strategy of going, oh my gosh, if you just think about all those things of how much it would cost and time and money to do them separately over the course of time by finding betting new vendors all the time is outrageous. And so you’ve been able to do that in this well consolidated package. And then I know that we mentioned this earlier, it’s like a part of this is having great design that reflects you and that will attract your audience. The second thing is that it’s done in an affordable way. And so I know one of your things is, is that you, you know, you, you say you need a a beginner brand, right? What do you starter brand? A starter brand Starter brand,
NH (33:43):
Yes. Like a starter home.
AJV (33:44):
Yeah. It’s like, and I think this is a really cool concept of you don’t need to go hire a $30,000 designer to go out and build a very high end professional brand. And what you need is you need something that can get you going. So you can, can you kinda tell us about what that is and what that looks like?
NH (34:04):
Yeah. You don’t need to go hire somebody expensive to create this beautiful professional brand for you if you are just starting out Now, if you’re, you know, 5, 7, 10 years into business and you’re, you’re like, I know who I am, I know who I’m serving, I’m very clear, I’ve got the money. Yes, by all means, splurge away and get yourself the best designer ever. But if you are just starting out, first of all, it’s not a good investment because your brand at this stage of your business is very fluid. You are gonna iterate, you are still figuring out who you are in your market and also who you’re serving and who you’re attracting. And you’re not really gonna get answers to those questions of who are you and who are you serving until you actually get into motion and build momentum and start showing up and start doing things, and then let the market respond to you, and then let yourself kind of figure things out.
NH (34:56):
So as you’re figuring things out, things might change. Who you are might change who you serve. You’re like, you know what, these people are not who I wanna serve. You’ve got a lot of complainers, a lot of freeloaders, like I’m attracting all sorts of wrong people.
NH (35:57):
Like you could get a lot of miles out of, out of a starter brand, maybe five years, maybe seven years with that starter brand. Or maybe you’ll realize six months down the road, yeah, I picked this visual identity, it’s not serving me well. I need to pivot. Well, you’ve only lost $2,000 at this point which is not $30,000. And you also, most importantly, did not lose months and months of, of time of like going back and forth with designers to figure, you know, to build things. All of that frustration and time you now saved yourself because you got all your assets in one instant download. You didn’t go create them and, you know, invest your time and money into creating them. So, so really it’s you know, I like to say it’s like a starter home. Like you can not as a first time home buyer go out and buy your dream home.
NH (36:42):
Like that’s not the smart move. Like, you need to go buy a starter home first,
NH (37:25):
And you know, a lot of people get really personal with it. And so it’s like, well at the end of the day, this brand is not about you. It’s about your business and what you’re building and who you’re going to attract. And the goal here is to get things done, is to make things happen. So stop getting hung up on the colors and on the fonts and oh, maybe this other font looks like this one really, it’s very close, but it’s not exactly, it’s a little bit more round on the edges and it’s like you’re wasting time. You are procrastinating. Just take something and go with it and go make things happen. And then, you know, maybe two years down the road when you have a seven figure business, you can afford to then go to a designer and argue about which font is rounder and better for you
AJV (38:11):
Time
NH (38:11):
To do that.
AJV (38:12):
That’s the best advice that any designer could give someone, is the point of this is not to get caught up in the details. Because I think that’s often what designers do. And I think that’s also why I love what you do so much. Cuz it’s not about the granularity of well, this hangs this way and it’s, it’s like, no, the point of this is to get things done is to get things in motion. It is, is to start knowing that things are gonna evolve and change over time as you evolve and change as your audience evolves and change. But I, I know so many people, so many people that the only reason they haven’t launched is because of something like this holding them back. And it’s like, this is the best advice is like, hey, this is the point is not to make it perfect. The point is to get something done so you can get things in motion.
NH (39:01):
Yeah. And I, I’d wanna share one other thing that’s very important to me to share with the people is if you are going to for any reason, hire somebody to help you with your design you need to know how to choose who you’re going to hire. Oh,
AJV (39:20):
Okay. So if we can just go from, I’m just gonna start with the point is not to make things perfect, it’s to get things done and then you’ll pick up with something else I really wanna share. Okay. So the the whole point is not to get things perfect, it’s to get things done so you can get things in motion. That’s what’s important.
NH (39:39):
Yes. And the other thing I wanna share that’s really important to me is for people who want to go out there and hire somebody to help them with this, and that’s perfectly fine if, if you choose to do so. I would just say you wanna be mindful of, of who you are hiring and how you manage the process because there are, there’s, you can make one of two decisions when you’re gonna hire somebody. You can either hire a an affordable junior designer who is going to get things done on the cheap and quickly, or you can hire a designer who’s also a creative director. The difference between the two obviously is monetary first. The creative director is gonna be more expensive than the junior designer. But the reason why is because the junior designer isn’t is somebody who executes on your vision, your creative direction, and your very specific guidelines.
NH (40:32):
And a junior designer is typically not somebody who is first in marketing, digital marketing, the online business, personal branding or any of that. They know how to make beautiful designs and they will apply exactly what you tell them. But you need to inform everything that you give them. You need to, to educate them a little bit and also give them very specific instructions and very specific feedback because that is the only way that you’re gonna get good actual good design from them. So if you are working with somebody and you are getting frustrated because they’re sending you things that you’re like, well, no, this is not what I asked for. No, this is not what I meant. No, you’re not getting this and you’re in a position, you’re, and you’re finding yourself having to write a lot of mean emails
AJV (41:19):
Nobody wants to do. Nobody wants to. Yeah. Which
NH (41:21):
Nobody likes to write those mean emails. But if you’re finding yourself on the cusp of sending an email that says, no idiot, that’s not what I asked for
NH (42:15):
But still, you have to find a creative director who is also versed in marketing and digital marketing and personal branding and is used to working with high profile brands so that they can actually, you know, steer you in the right direction with certain things and know how to create certain strategic branding assets and communication assets, et cetera. And so, again, that is the other thing that I wanted to create initially when I created the first iteration of Digital Brand Kit, I really just went to make beautiful designs for people. But as I did and I started got into motion, right? And got this into the hands of people, the feedback that I got was, well, I need strategy, I need, I need help actually executing on this. And so that is where I went out and got, you know, took classes and learned more about this. I was like, I’m certified in digital psychology and and I’m certified in all of the things that you know, so that I know how to infuse all of that into these designs so that you don’t need to make those decisions, right? Or figure those things out on your own again, so that you can go and get things done. So I just wanted to caution people about working with other designers and what that looks like and where your frustrations might be coming from.
AJV (43:31):
I think that’s good. So if you get terrible designs, it’s your fault. It’s your fault
NH (43:36):
Basically.
AJV (43:38):
I think that, I think there is a lot of truth in that because when you don’t go through the initial brand guidelines process in general of really defining like, what are my signature colors and what are these things, it’s like how in the world is someone else supposed to get into the inner workings of your mind? Who is your core target audience? What are you offering without a ton of time? And the more time it takes, the more costs. And so it’s like the more work you can do on the front end of being like, I want, I’m very clear on this. And if you’re not ready to invest that amount of time and money, the starter brand that, like, that’s who this was built for. But it’s like as you elevate out of that and you go, now I want something a little bit more, you know, elevated, that’s the word. It’s like you’re still, it takes it’s time and it’s introspective and I think that’s the part that people wanna skip through and they go, I just want something that’s awesome, awesome. Put it up there. And it’s like, well it’s not gonna be awesome unless we go through this process. I think that’s so wise. And I know we just have a couple more minutes yet and I just wanna do a couple of like rapid fire questions for you, for everyone out there who’s going, okay.
NH (44:48):
Hmm.
AJV (44:49):
What, what should I be doing? Like what are some, like the big things I should be looking for? So I’m just gonna do some like rapid fire questions outside of doing like a colorblind test, like what would you say, what should people be doing to have an idea of what their visual identity should look like?
NH (45:08):
Hmm. I’ll tell you what they should not be doing. Don’t go build a Pinterest board
AJV (45:14):
NH (45:17):
Don’t go build a Pinterest board if you’re gonna do one thing. It would be take a piece of paper and write down who your ideal client avatar is. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (46:09):
I love that. I think that’s, I think that’s really wise up going. Your visual identity is not for you.
NH (46:15):
No it’s not.
NH (46:18):
Beautiful picture is that you pinned on pinches doesn’t mean that’s your visual branding. I know you feel
AJV (47:24):
Oh, I think that’s so good. And I, I love that. You know, it’s like, as you were talking, it just made me think it’s like you’re not building a website so you can go look at it. You’re not posting social media so you can go read your own posts, right? You’re doing this so that it reaches someone that you care about serving. And so it’s, it’s gotta be reflective of who you are so that you can attract the people that you are trying to curate as your audience. And that’s, that’s so good. Cause I think the emotions of people, the reason this is so hard for people is because they want it to be so perfect for them and they forget that this is not for you, this is for your audience. That I love that. That’s so good. Okay. Other quick things just like high level, how often do you think people should be posting like visual things online?
AJV (48:15):
You know, cuz I think, you know, I see so many people where it’s like they’ve gone to just like black and we black and white text, or some people just use photography now, or some people have like curated like design posts for social media. And I’m just curious, it’s like one, how often do you think somebody should be posting something that’s like attached to their brand? Like design-wise? Mm-Hmm.
NH (48:44):
Can, are we talking specifically about Instagram? Sure.
AJV (48:47):
Example about Instagram? I think that’s probably the most visual of all the platform. Yeah,
NH (48:51):
I would say just enough that if somebody is scrolling through your, your feed and looking at your images, they’re getting enough pops of your brand color throughout that they’re recognizing that there’s some sort of cohesive you know brand elements that are coming up, you know, over and over again. So I would say as much as you can, but not to where it’s, you know, overkill. So, but just pops of your brand color throughout would be, you know, just so it’s like cohesive with your brand. That would be my
AJV (49:23):
Just enough where it’s like you can get the feel from it. And I think that’s like all these different trends where it’s like so many people are just the, just doing photos of themselves. And so that was the second question is should you infuse your brand colors into your photography?
NH (49:39):
Yes. That’s a great question. Guess what, the only Adobe tool that as a non-designer I know how to use is light room and light room. If you buy certain presets or if you can use pre-made presets that you find in Lightroom, Lightroom will let you put a filter on your images and you can mass do this on many images and just put these filters. So why this is useful is, let’s say that your visual identity has a lot of cool tones in it, cool cooler colors, right? Maybe some blues and some lavenders, things like that. You’re not gonna wanna have your photos be very warm, have warm tones because it’ll clash with the, the, the cooler tones of your branding. So if you wanna have something cohesive in your in your feed, you’re gonna want your imagery to have those cool tones. And that’s something that you can do in Lightroom using these they’re called presets. So if you just literally Google Lightroom presets you’ll find tons of vendors that have beautiful presets that you can just put these filters on all of your images and vice versa. If you have warm colors, go with warmer filters and that will give you that nice cohesive look.
AJV (50:51):
Is Lightroom also the tool that you use where you can like do the cutouts or remove the background?
NH (50:57):
No, that would be, well technically that’s Photoshop, but I don’t use Photoshop cuz I don’t know how to use Photoshop. I use a tool called remove.bg, so the website is removed bg and it’s so awesome. It’s like, I don’t know how much I paid less than $10 a month. And you literally drag and drop an image into this thing and it’ll remove the background for you. And it’s genius. So that’s, that’s another awesome tool that I would recommend.
AJV (51:22):
I think that’s super cool. Specifically if you’re in this like starter brand mode where it’s like you’re gonna be doing a lot of this DIY and just going, how do you do this? Can’t figure it out. Yeah. It’s just knowing some of these really cool tools. So that one’s called Remove bg.
NH (51:38):
Remove bg.
AJV (51:39):
Yeah. So super cool. So any other cool design tools like that that it’s like for you out there, who is the, you know, DIY of going, man, how do I make this awesome, but I don’t, I don’t got a lot of skills, so help me out. Any other tips or tools that you think would helpful?
NH (52:00):
You’re putting me on the spot. I’m thinking I have, like, I have an entire bookmark folder
NH (52:50):
AJV (53:39):
So I love that y’all like, this is so helpful. And it’s, you know, just, it does, again, it doesn’t matter if you are just getting started or you’re super established. We always need something refreshed with our visual identity at some point, right? You’re gonna need a new asset, you’re gonna need a refresh of social media, you know, square images. You’re gonna need new headers, you’re gonna book designs, Prescott designs, new speeches. It’s like the list goes on and on and on. And at some point you’re gonna need to keep things fresh, right? You can’t have the same thing that you used five years ago, and nothing has changed ever since. It’s gotta be refreshed. And so there’s so many different tools that Nadine has created to make that process easier for you. And the easiest thing of all is to make sure that you start with a solid set of brand guidelines that really reflect you. So one of the things that I would just really encourage is at the very least, go to this website and take this color. Yeah. And it’s like, this is an amazing tool to get you pointed in the right direction of this is what you say about yourself without looking at colors, which is a really important thing. So again, brand builders group.com/db. And go take this. Nadine, if people wanna follow you personally, where do you want ’em to go?
NH (55:00):
Well, I would say check me out on Instagram. I’m not very active on it, but
AJV (55:23):
Ah, so generous. If you guys have got questions, you know, dmr most of the questions are taken care of for you with digital blankets, be honest. But this is so many good tips, so many good tools. We’ll link all of those design tools in the show notes for you guys. And we’ll also link brain builders group.com Forge slash dk. Go check it out. Take the color quiz get started. Keep building, keep doing what you’re doing. Nadine, thank you so much for being here. And everyone, we’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. See you later.