This is a transcript of episode 50 for the OMGrowth podcast

I’m Lanie Lamarre and I took a break between Season 1 and 2 of the podcast to find myself. My day-to-day operations and systems just felt “off” and that was when I discovered Diane Mayor’s system for not just tapping into what I was good at, but prioritizing what kind of work I was actually at my highest performance level… and it wasn’t at all what I thought it would be or how I was working.

Lanie Lamarre:
Last Fall, I took a break and I just really wanted to get back in touch with what I wanted to spend time with what I wanted to be doing more of. And I would love for you, Diane, to talk to the fine people, the fine podcast listeners about Wealth Dynamics and what that did for well, not what that did for or me, but what it does for everyone.

Diane Mayor:
Awesome. Hello. Thank you for having me. Hello, fine people. So Wealth Dynamics is kind of like Disc or Kolbe or any Enneagram or any of those things. So you might not have heard of it before, but it’s very similar to those personality “assessments”. But what Wealth Dynamics is, it’s built for entrepreneurs, right? So it’s an assessment that’s designed to tell you the best way for you to get from where you are right now to whatever your rich life looks like. Right? So when you hear wealth, people get all up in their heads about the wealth and Wealth Dynamics just substitutes in whatever that looks like for you, right? So pina coladas on the beach, spending more time with your family, whatever that is. And all the test is doing is looking at what gets you into flow and how we can keep you there and how that all comes together to really build a business that you’re excited about, but that also doesn’t burn you out.

Lanie Lamarre:
And it was, like a, really simple questionnaire that I answered and I got some really great insights, but then I spent some time talking about them with you, which was, you know, the total game changer. I think we spent was it an hour or maybe a half hour? And I think it was an hour that we spent together.

Diane Mayor:
Mm. I think it was an hour.

Lanie Lamarre:
One of the big key insights that I, I got out of talking with you about it was how you really were able to focus on highlighting my superpowers rather than my skillsets. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because, oh my gosh, that was such a huge game changer for me personally. And I think a lot of people can benefit from making that distinction how they’re working in their day to day.

Diane Mayor:
Yes. Okay. That’s one of my favorites. When people tell me that that’s the thing they took away, I’m like, yes, job done. So I’m gonna like reverse up a little bit. And I just wanna give a bit of background into why we care about you being in your superpower, right? And your superpower is just the thing that gets you into flow. Right? And if you aren’t sure what flow feels like, there are genuinely some people who are just like, “I do not experience flow in my business.” Think about something in your personal life, but it’s usually that thing that you’re doing where you just, you lose time, right? It’s really easy for you to do it. You could do it for days on end, without needing kind of anything else. And the reason we want you to be in this state, I mean, a it’s quite an enjoyable state to be in.

But if you think about the thing that you show up like that for versus the thing that just drains the life out of you now – unless you’re an accountant, that’s probably something like doing your taxes or your bookkeeping, right – now, if somebody was gonna pay you to show up for both of those, you would still show up, right? You would still show up and deliver on what you promised, but the level of service that the person is gonna get from you is just gonna be exponentially greater. When you show up excited, enthusiastic, ready to go buzzing to help them with it. Right? So when you are in flow, people can really rely on you to deliver that first class service. Right? And so your prices can go up. Your value to them is higher. So it all matches up. Okay.

So first of all, yay, we can charge more. People want to pay me money. Then on the flip side where you are in flow and working, and you just lose track of time and hours go by and you’ve forgotten to go to the loo. You’ve forgotten to eat anything. You know, you’re still in your pajamas from the morning. I’m assuming it’s a no-online call kind of day oh, you know you do you, uh, but because you aren’t having to stop and recover the whole time, you can also do more. You know? So you’re getting that leverage purely out of managing your energy. Okay? So that’s why we want you in flow. If you think about it, we’re gonna increase your value and we’re gonna increase your capacity. And therefore we are gonna increase that wealth or that rich life or those results, right? If you want more time, you can do more and less time, right

If you want more money, you are more highly valued and you can take on more clients. So it’s really important for people to be in their superpower. But what happens is very often we mistake our skillset for our superpower. Because if you think back to when you very first were a baby newbie entrepreneur, the very first question people ask you is “what skills do you have that people will pay you for?” Yeah. And so what happens? You build an entire business on this skillset and you could be incredibly skilled at it, but at some point it’s not lighting you up, right? It’s not energizing you. At some point, that starts to burn you out. So you’re still showing up to your clients. You’re still delivering on what you promised, but you are that bit more exhausted. Your service drops just that little bit. And therefore you start to have like the value thing dropping a little bit

Now this gets more and more complicated. The longer it takes you to find this concept. So I’ll use myself as an example. I come from a really long career in investment banking. Before I started my business, I was a chartered accountant. I spent my time in finance. I did all the planning, all the, like anything to do with numbers. I was responsible for it. So I love a spreadsheet. I am skilled at a spreadsheet. They’re beautiful. They’re color coded all the formulate. They are my skillset. They are not my superpower. Okay. And so what happened to me in that career was even though I was really good at the thing, eventually it just completely, yeah. And I had to run away for a year and a half to travel. Yeah. In order to recover. Right. We don’t really wanna have a year and a half break in our business. So like, let’s not get there.

My superpower is actually my ability to have ideas and think outside the box, particularly related to business. Right. Very different skillset. Right. One and super implementation, heavy numbers, heavy data, heavy one, super spacious, lots of time with whiteboards and blank pieces of paper. Right. And people get really, I don’t wanna say defensive here, but really concerned when they stop and think, “oh, hang on a second. I have built my whole business around my skillset.” Now what your skillset might be your superpower. And if it’s not, there are things that you can do. It’s not like you have to shut your business like down today. “That’s it. Diane told me to do it. I now can’t pay rents.” Please. Don’t shut your business. But what, you also then want to exponentially grow that into your business and think if you wanna stay in your superpower, you need other people to help you with the things that aren’t your superpower, but then you wanna make sure they are in their superpower so that they don’t burn out. Right? You don’t wanna hire a team and then two years later they’ve been doing something that is a skillset instead of a superpower, and now they’ve burned out and now you have to replace them. So there’s ripples.

Lanie Lamarre:
And even if you’ve built your business around your skillset and you realize that’s not your superpower, and that’s not where you wanna be, you don’t have to shutter everything down. You can actually just bring balance into the way that you’re operating. And by honing in onto that superpower is so empowering, if you will, because you’re able to slowly move more into that and build the things and the systems and the processes and the people and the resources and all the things that you need to support, uh, what you’ve actually built it on while you are able to focus more and more on what your super power is, which I think is really, um, helpful in terms of how you’re going to move forward and not feel burnt out and not feel, like, that feeling of defeat when you’re putting in so much effort and not seeing the sort of returns that you want to see

Diane Mayor:
A hundred percent. And it’s gonna also, it’s gonna do two things for you. So in your current state, what it will allow you to do is manage your time around your energy, right? So knowing, okay, this is in my superpower, this is gonna feel really energizing for me. This is not in my superpower. It’s not gonna feel energizing. It’s gonna feel draining. So I’m gonna need to add a bit of self care. I’m gonna, I need to add a coffee break. After I do this thing, I might need to treat myself once I’ve done this thing, that’s out of my superpower. So it’s gonna help you in your current state to think about how do you build buffers into your business and future state. It’s gonna allow you to think about who you need to hire. So worrying less about what is their job title and thinking more about the superpower that you wanna bring in to fill in the gaps with you and how you then step into that CEO space with your superpower coming with you. If you like. So it’s not just something that it’s like, oh, I’m a solopreneur. So I need to care about this. This goes the whole way with you. As you build a team, as you develop a team, as you run the business, as you lead the business.

Lanie Lamarre:
And there are so many different personality, quizzes and whatnot that you can benefit from and take highlights away from as to what your strengths are. But what I like about the Wealth Dynamics formula is it doesn’t just tell you where your strengths are, but it really does help you focus on how you can work more efficiently. I hate the idea that you’re always supposed to be productive, but I do love the idea that when you’re working, that you have that feeling of productivity, that you feel that fulfillment in the work that you’re doing, because it does make your work so much easier to do. And you actually kinda wanna do more when you are in that zone.

Diane Mayor:
Yeah. And I think it’s a very kind of nonjudgmental assessment, right? Sometimes you can do these assessments and where they tell you the things that you struggle with. You get that kind of vibe of like, “oh my gosh, I’m a really bad human . Everybody must absolutely hate me. I’m a nightmare.” Right? Whereas Wealth Dynamics is very geared around: here are the best things you can do for your business. Here are the things that you can still do them. We always say your profile isn’t a label and it’s not an excuse. You can do anything. You just have to understand that it’s gonna slow you down because you’re gonna need to recover because you’re not gonna be showing up as your dazzling sparkling self. And so maybe your high ticket price is just very slightly under what it could be. It’s just gonna take you a little bit longer to get to that goal. It doesn’t mean you’re not capable of anything. And so it’s this great: “Here are roles that work for you, here are roles that probably don’t work for you. Here’s how you lead, here’s how maybe you should think about tweaking some of your approaches.” So I do like that. Nobody leaves the assessment kind of feeling lacking in anything, you’re just different.

Lanie Lamarre:
I hear people like, you’ll have some people say that they love launching, and you have other people that is their complete nightmare to launch. And it really does have to do with how you approach your work, where you feel most in flow as the, I, I love the way you use the word flow, because normally it’s in a very woo woo kind of capacity. But you say it really very much in terms of workload and numbers and being able to produce in a way that you feel is in your superpower.

Diane Mayor:
Yeah. I think one of the things I have struggled with coming into the entrepreneur space is very little nonproductive training that happens in corporate, right? There’s no, like, “let’s make you a really great person.” There’s a lot of, “let’s make you a lot more productive and make sure you don’t break the law.” That’s kind of where training comes in. Right. And so I stumbled into entrepreneur land and was suddenly surrounded by this person of, yeah. And I kept hearing flow flow flow always said, it’s like the other F word, like in business flow, flow flow, and everybody would be saying, you really need to be in flow. Mm-hmm , you know, you should just, you should choose what gets you into flow. Your zone of genius you’ll be in flow, but no one was like, here’s how to get there. And I’m the kind of person I wanna know, like, how does this fit together? How does it work? Let’s take it apart. And so what I love about Wealth Dynamics is, it’s very clear. Like these are the things. If you do these things, you will experience flow. If you do these things, you will not .

Lanie Lamarre:
So if somebody wants to get started with figuring out what gets them in flow, where would you recommend to get started? So

Diane Mayor:
So I have a quiz that’s basically like, find your CEO archetype. That’s gonna give you high level. Like this is the kind of CEO that you are probably showing up as, and then you can dive deeper than that and actually take the Wealth Dynamics assessment itself, which will go deeper and take you from four archetypes into eight archetypes. And it’s, I think it’s a 35 page report or something yeah. That you get. Um, so it goes really deep into, into what’s great for you, what’s not so great for you, where you should think about teams, et cetera. So you I’ll link both of those at dianemayor.com/omgrowth and you can play around with whichever one works for you.

Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. And this isn’t a fluffy report. Like, this is super in-depth and it really did help me step back and look at how I’m spending my time. What sort of returns I’m expecting from that time? What type of people I should be surrounding myself with. It was really, really helpful.

Diane Mayor:
Yeah. And I think really important for like, “Hey, I think I’m gonna do this new thing or this new pivot.” Right? So there are like four main energies. One’s the energy of ideas. One’s the energy of people. One’s the energy of really just getting everything done. And one is the energy of data and analysis, right? So four very different energies. What happens is you can start to evaluate, okay, “I’m thinking this is my next pivot. Is that pivot in my superpower. Mm-hmm.” And if it is great, if it’s not okay, what else am I gonna need? Who else am I gonna need? What systems am I gonna need? Before you dive head first, right? So it’s, it just gives you that, that check-in because a lot of us like to run head first into the latest idea from the latest guru, who’s just made it sound incredible on a webinar when actually they could be all ideas energy, and you could be all data energy, and it’s gonna feel completely different for you.

Lanie Lamarre:
Yeah/ Right. It really does help you step back from, yeah, those sales page pitches or the things that people “should” on you, like, you should be doing this. You should be doing that. And you’re able to have that sort of, like, being able to not be worried about what everybody else is saying and thinking and telling you that you need, because you really do know yourself and your strengths based on what you’re working with. Yeah.

Diane Mayor:
I do find a lot of people who take the assessment will say to me like that, they just feel so seen, not necessarily in those words, but it’s often the first time that they’re like, “oh, this is why I’m really good at marketing. And I shouldn’t go anywhere. My bookkeeping. Right. Or this is why I’m amazing at people, but I really don’t care about details. Yeah. Or this is why, Hey, you know what? I don’t wanna go to that massive networking event. I would rather try this more systematic approach to finding leads.” So a lot of the time it just removes all of that external, you know, there’s always some funnel that’s trendy. Mm-hmm, always, there’s always something new that’s being sold to you. And this will just help you not even go to the webinar, if you’re like, “this person is talking about one to one high ticket coaching offers and I’m more on the introvert space.”

And when we talk introverted extrovert, we talk about how you like to take action versus like how you recover. So if you’re on the introvert scale, you bring the most value and get into flow, working things out on your own. If you’re on the people side of things, the extrovert side of things, you get all your energy from people. So if someone’s gonna sell you how to do a really big high ticket offer, the introvert really doesn’t even need to go to the webinar. You don’t even need to put yourself through that pressured hard pitch. Yeah. Because you know that it’s not the right fit for you, even if the person makes it sound magical

Lanie Lamarre:
Knowing everything about those strengths has been such a huge game changer for me. I know I’m repeating myself at this point, but real, it was so helpful to me. And I wanna thank you so much for not only offering this, but it was really valuable to spend time with you discussing those things, because it’s almost like a well, a therapist for professionals, if you will, where you’re just really honing in on, okay, “this is how this suits you, these are the sort of offers that you have. How does that reflect on what your results are?”

Diane Mayor:
Yeah. A hundred percent. The call, we can go so much deeper. We can customize very specifically to your business because you know, sometimes people will go, well, I’m not a hundred percent sure of this is my profile. And a lot of the time, I get that people will be like, oh, I dunno if this is my profile. And then we’ll talk, talk it through. And they’ll be like, oh no, no, this is definitely my profile. Yeah. Or, you know, they’re showing up so much in their skillset that when they get their superpower profile and it’s something the complete opposite, they get really nervous that now, which one is wrong. Yeah. Like, quote, unquote, neither of them are wrong. If you’re in your skillset, you’re not wrong, especially if you have a successful business. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it just creates a bit of friction. And just to be able to talk it out really just helps you implement it yourself, going forwards.

Lanie Lamarre:
We will have a link in the show notes to be able to take that quiz, to access all the things that you can tap into with Wealth Dynamics. If people want to follow you and your superpowers, where would they do that?

Diane Mayor:
So Instagram is the best place to find me. I am at Diane underscore mayor. And I also talk about all things like as well as other kind of business strategies on my podcast, which is Coffee And Converse where this particular host has also been a guest. That’s

Lanie Lamarre:
That’s correct! I’m so glad that you came on today because this is such a valuable conversation to have and to hone in on, in ways that things like Enneagrams and whatnot don’t do, because this is so specific to how you work, how you operate, how you are running your business. And I feel like there’s so much pressure put on the marketing part of it and how you should be selling yourself and not enough emphasis on how can you tap into what makes you stand out from everything else. So thank you for that.

Diane Mayor:
Awesome. Thank you for letting me nerd out on it. You know, I love this stuff.

Unlike a lot of other quizzes or resources – even the personalized resources! – I’ve received in the past, I actually still do refer the 33 page report breaking down my profile.

The link to Diane’s quiz, the Wealth Dynamic test and the option to work through your results 1:1 with Diane are all in the show notes. Last year, I was so depleted of… I guess the word would be “enthusiasm” but as proud as I had been of all the things I had built, my business felt like it was taking way more from me than it was giving back. For all the perspective and insight it’s delivered to me, I can honestly say that this has been the single greatest thing I have done to really stoke my embers into a bonfire flame.

And if you do take the quiz, please do slip into my DMs @omgrowth with your results because if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine – and for clarity’s sake, we ARE still talking about profile results, m’kay, so keep it classy in the DMs.

Another classy move would be a glowing 5-star review – which I always appreciate – and we will talk with you soon… baiiee!!!

CONTINUE READING

This is a transcript of episode 47 of the OMGrowth podcast

I’m Lanie Lamarre and today, we’re going to talk extra nerdy – nerdy squared! – because I have my pal Ashley from Do The Damn Thing and she too is an Airtable expert but she also rocks socks at automations. Look, I’m all about getting more done without being the one who does it and if that’s your vibe, too, this episode is here for all the auto-magical edu-caring.

Lanie Lamarre:
I really love everything about automations. I do have a lot of them in place, but I’m sure that I’m not using them to their full potential. And I wanna talk to you about it.

Ashley Hogrebe:
I don’t even think I’m using it to the full potential. Like it’s the sky is the limit with automations, but I’m excited to be here and nerd out with you for sure.

Lanie Lamarre:
I mean, that’s a great place to get started because the sky is the limit. So what is sort of like the low lying fruit, the baseline area that you would re and people get started with when it comes to automating all the things they do.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yeah. Great question. So the thing I see the most is people are… solopreneurs are at capacity and their first thing is like, “I need to hire a VA to do the little things I don’t wanna do anymore and take off my plate”. So checking emails or sending contracts ending follows, creating Google folders, all of those things that you start to think, “oh, I need to hire a virtual assistant for”, if you kind of take a step between that and think, “what can I automate from my plate?” And then hire, that’s a really good place to start because there’s so much that your VAs are probably doing that you don’t even know could be automated, that can absolutely be automated with like free zap. So some of the biggest things for me, when people get started are things like when a client buys from you, put them in an email sequence or send them a welcome packet or something like that. Any of those, when this very specific thing happens, then do this. You are doing it manually. That’s a really good, good place to start there.

Lanie Lamarre:
Now that you say that I realize that I do have probably more automations than I think in place, because when somebody buys from me, I get an advisory now where it’s like, “send out the thank you card”. And I also get a little alert on my phone that makes, um, like a fun money sound because it makes me feel good. And that’s an automation that has no practical use, but all the emotional feel-good use.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yeah. And that’s like, automations can help you be notified. I get a lot of slack notifications because Slack is kind of my hub for my team and I to communicate, but we have Slack chanels devoted just to notifying us when things are happening. So if someone fills out a form, if a client fills out a support ticket form that we have inside of air table – which Airtable is a whole other can of worms – but they fill it out, we get an automation in Slack that someone filled out the form. So it helps us just kind of keep an overarching eye on the business, this, and be notified versus having to like go into all of these different places and see when the updates are happening. I have a sales one too. They get, I get a text with money emojis. It’s like new sale and all of those. And it’s just like, those are fun to do.

Lanie Lamarre:
They are fun. Yeah. It puts having fun in your operations as kind of, at least for me, a big key in enjoying doing it. It’s not just always work. You can bring some sort of water cooler vibe, even if you’re a business of One.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Well, and that’s the biggest, I think misconception people have about automations is they assume on automations are stale and gonna make you feel like your business is like robotic and that your people are gonna know that they’re talking to a robot. You can infuse so much personality and personalization into automations and really infuse so much of your voice in there. So it’s not this like robotic email that’s coming through when someone books. You get to decide what the copy looks like, you get to decide what these automations do. The real magic with automations is that you don’t have to think about it every time so you create the personality framework, you turn it on and then you don’t have to send them and, and they can just happen kind of in the background.

Lanie Lamarre:
Yeah. Just cuz it has to be done, doesn’t mean it has to be done by you. And a lot of stuff related to emails is with automation, because that’s sort of where we think of first of things to automate, but there’s a lot of manual things that we all just get in the habit of doing that I think that we don’t think of implementing automations for through platforms like Zapier – zay-pee-ur, it’s za-pee-ur, isn’t it? Because it

Ashley Hogrebe:
It’s Zapier because their tagline is “Zapier makes you happier”, which I think is like their subtle dig at being like, this is how you pronounce it.

Lanie Lamarre:
And they have a bunch of free ones as well.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yep. So, so many free ones, Airtable also has integrated automations as well. Um, so with Zapier you can do, what’s called a one-step zap for free. So if this happens over here, then do this. There’s so many, I think a lot of us are still like in the Google suite domain and we’re creating Google folders for our clients. Some people create Google calendars, you can automate those. The thing I hate to hear the most is, is, “well, it only takes me a couple minutes to do it. It only takes my VA a couple minutes to do it”… like, that will kill your productivity. because you have to not only do it, you have to remember to do it and all of those things. So it just takes a couple minutes is a great kind of alarm to be like, let me go see if I can automate this and, and take that off my plate.

Lanie Lamarre:
It’s so not the “doing it” that’s the problem. And I’m so glad you said that because it’s the having to think about doing it. Like I have a personal thing at home. I hate meal planning. I don’t mind cooking. I don’t mind, you know, getting the Instacart thing ready, but the actual plan out what we’re going to eat. Like that’s the actual work thinking about what has to be done to me feels like the actual work. So if you can remove that thinking part and use your thinking into something that is going to better serve you, I’m 100% on board with that. Always, always,

Ashley Hogrebe:
Totally. And you don’t wanna be in the shower thinking like I didn’t send that email to my client. like, like the shower time to be for more fun ideas, not like, uh, like, “oh my God, did I not? Did I not send that thing? Did I not do that thing?” Like you can tell this totally eliminate that kind of stress from, from your day to day.

Lanie Lamarre:
There are way better things to think about in the shower than that one folder you forgot to create. Oh my gosh. So with you the Airtable automations – I really used them a lot when I had the summit going where, when I wanted to send an email out, as soon as a certain thing was done and I checked something off, I was able to automatically send an email that I didn’t have to think about and do for each individual person. And you can populate it with some of the fields that you had in the actual, in your database that you had created. Yep. So you’re not reinventing the wheel for each speaker and you can super mega personalize everything, which I’m always for. And I think that is the trick with automations and not making it seem like it’s a robot: being able to personalize those things actually isn’t that hard to do.

Ashley Hogrebe:
No, there’s so many places you can infuse it. I use those automations a lot. I have, uh, I have ADHD and sending like call notes, follow up is very hard for me, like hopping off a call and being like, oh yeah, like, I’ll send that to you today. I won’t do it. Like it’s, it was a really big and like that loses me sales. It, it dampens the client experience. Like all of those things were really challenging for me. And now inside of Airtable, I open up a record and type in my call notes there. I type in while I’m on the call, I’m typing inside of an Airtable record and I just drop the email, send status after I’m done to send follow up email and right away without me even having to go into Gmail, I can send my follow notes to that person within seconds of the call being over. And that has eliminated so much shame as well. For me of like I’m a bad business owner, not following through on my promises of like, yeah, yeah. I’ll send you that email. And then a week later I have totally forgotten about it. So being have automations help you cut down that barrier of, of getting things done and it can just be like, get it out there, send it, and, and it’s, it’s done

Lanie Lamarre:
Anything you need to follow up on or have to remember to do something about it. There there’s usually is a way of automating, at least the remembering part of it… if not the task completely.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yeah. A hundred percent. I love, I love reminders. yeah. And even if you can’t automate the follow up of a reply, having an automation that says, “Hey, if I haven’t Received a payment from this person, text me, slack me, put a task and click up to follow up with that person.” shley Hogrebe: (08:52)
And even the creation of those reminders is, is huge.

Lanie Lamarre:
Get paid! And you have a free resource about the call note automations that you have set up, right?

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yep. So if you are interested in that, I have, so it’s a call notes Airtable template that you can download for free. And it’ll walk you through how to take your call notes inside of air table and how to set up that very easy automation. So it’s just a, when the status is ready to send, it will send through your own Gmail account. It’ll go through your sent inbox. So it looks like it’s getting sent from you, cuz it is, and it is, it’s so easy. Like hundreds of people have downloaded it and it’s just like, people are obsessed. and it’s really, I, what I find with automations, I say, they’re kind of like Pringles. It’s like, once you pop, you can’t once, like you cannot stop with them. And you’re just like, what else can I automate? What else can I do? So just kind of dipping your toe into automations is a, is a really fun, fun thing to explore.

Lanie Lamarre:
I was just gonna say that automations is one of those things. It’s like the, the… I’m gonna totally butcher this quote, but it was, but like, “creativity creates its own need to create itself”. I’m gonna edit in whatever the actual quote was, but it’s something about like “creativity begets itself” and it’s the same sort of thing where automations, oh, you, once you actually practically put one in place. Yeah. You think, oh, “I wonder if be able to…”, and then you start going down that rabbit hole of that creative way of thinking and you don’t get that unless you actually put one in place.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yep. Yeah. You just, you don’t know what’s possible until you to dive in. Like, we joked about it this at the beginning of like, “oh, we still are like, not scratching the surface of automations”, but it’s really true because I don’t even, I still can’t sometimes comprehend what’s fully possible. I’ve automated almost everything I can out of in my business. I’m a big believer in like I, as a CEO should only do CEO tasks. My team should do things. Only team people can do and robots should do everything else. So if a robot can do it, there’s no reason for me to have my team do it. Zapier is the cheapest VA you can possibly have. And I’m not about like getting rid of jobs or like automating jobs. I’m not interested in, in that narrative. But I am interested in hiring my team to do the thing, to do outreach, to do other things that just cannot be automated. Cuz there are things that we, we shouldn’t automate. Um, but, but there’s a lot we can and we should have have the robots doing that and have humans do human centered things.

Lanie Lamarre:
And for the humans to be doing things that fit into their own zone of genius and the things that make them shine and the things that make them wanna stay and feel, uh, stimulated in terms of the work that you are, are doing with them. Mm-hmm , those are the types of people that you wanna have working with you. And those are the types of people who are going to stay with you. And when you can automate something that is repetitive, uh, rather than hire it out, the problem with hiring it out is when they leave you that task isn’t being done and it now needs to be trained into somebody else where it’s like you trained an automation to do it once and then walk away, maybe check on it every now and then, but that’s about it.

Ashley Hogrebe:
And instead of teaching my team how to do these repetitive tasks, I’m teaching them how to think in automations and how to monitor the automation if it breaks. So that’s a, that’s a higher paid skillset than like filling out a spreadsheet like every day for 30 minutes, you know? So being able to empower your team to step into these kind of higher operation roles and like strengthen those skill sets helps helps everyone.

Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. In my Airtable course there’s um, somebody had put, I’d seen somebody put it together where they used some of the Airtable scripts and they did all kinds of fancy coding that would automate pulling in your data from YouTube into your air table spreadsheets. Now this is a much more advanced automat, but if you are doing these things manually, rather than doing it every single week to just pay a developer, a flat fee, to put this sort of automation in place for you, like anything you can think of within community guidelines, is probably something you’re able to put into place. It’s just a matter of thinking creatively enough and getting the right people, supporting you to do that. So you don’t have to be the subject matter expert into putting it into place. You just have to be a creative enough boss to be like, oh, I don’t need to be doing this anymore.

Ashley Hogrebe:
That’s so interesting. You say that, cuz that’s kind of where I’m at now. It was like, I’ve kind of used Zapier to its fullest capacity and developers grips API. Like all of those things I don’t know a lot about. And I don’t need to know. And sometimes I like not knowing because the no code options are so robust now. And so you don’t have to be a developer. You don’t have to know HTML, JavaScript anything because there’s amazing a software that has made it so intuitive. You start to put these things together. It’s as easy as like assembling, like building blocks together. And that’s like, that’s so cool is just, the technology has made it so easy and accessible for all of us to do this. And when you get to the highest levels, then you’re like, all right, developers like help me out.

Lanie Lamarre:
Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s money well spent. If it’s something that you or someone on your team is spending that much time doing on. Repeat where do people go to find out more about air table and automations from your brilliant mind.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yes. Um, Instagram is where I live. So we’re at do the thing underscore. The link in the bio has the freebies for the call notes template, an Airtable 101 Workshop, a lot of fun things there. Um, we love the DMs. So please, if you, if you’re listening to this, um, shoot me a DM that you heard this and we can, we can nerd out on Airtable and automations and all the things. But yeah, Instagram is the best place to find me.

Lanie Lamarre:
I wanna put it out there too, that Ashley and I met on Instagram and we met because of a mutual love in sharing our knowledge on Airtable. One of those things too, where people think, oh, I can’t talk to this person because they’re competition. I’m like, there’s not enough people talk about Airtable. I’m so glad that Ashley’s around spreading the gospel of it. Cuz I think more people should be using platforms that enable them to work smarter, see their projects in a way that that’ll cater to how they’re working and also hello, automate some of their workload. So let this also be sort of something to you, the listeners, if there’s someone that you wanna talk to go ahead and talk to them because it just gives you someone else to nerd out with.

Ashley Hogrebe:
I remember so vividly I was pacing my kitchen being like, “do I send lLanie a DM?” Because lanie was like, the Airtable queen. No one else was touching Airtable at that moment. And I was dipping my toe in and I like, I just wanna tell her that she’s inspired me and that like, will she consider me an equal or a competitor? And I just DMed her transparently. I was like, here’s how I’m feeling. I’m so nervous to say hello to you, but hello. And that was years ago and we’ve had great collaborations and friendships and conversations. Um, yeah. So if you’re collaboration over competition, for sure and reach, reach out to the people in your industry because we, we need more of it.

Lanie Lamarre:
I don’t really see it as competition. There really is room for everyone because of the way you talk about Airtable and the people who you talk about Airtable to is sort of a very different tone than how I use and people will gravitate to whatever they gravitate to. And I think a at is I think that’s great. Kay, thank you for being a guest today, Ashley.

Ashley Hogrebe:
Yay. Thank you for having me.

Show notes will include links to my signature course – Airtable Like A Boss – and there’s a whole module dedicated to automations and integrations for you to check out.

You can also check out the meeting note automation tutorial Ashley talked about with a link to that in the shownotes as well as her Instagram.

And finally, the dang quote I butchered is: “you can’t use up creativity. the more you use, the more you have” and some attribute it to Maya Angelou and some say it’s Oscar Wilde but whoever said it first, it’s still true today and the more you think with that CEO cap on, the more CEO type thoughts will come popping into that cap so I encourage you to carve out some time to get those wheels turning as to what you could be doing less of in your day-to-day operations.

If you have questions about Airtable, reach out to either Ashley or I because, you know, nerds gonna nerd, right? Baiiieeee.

CONTINUE READING

This is a transcript of episode 44

I’m Lanie Lamarre and I know launching can be one of the most stressful activities in your online business. It’s emotionally taxing, decisions can feel harder to make – especially when you’re IN it! – and if it’s your first launch or maybe you haven’t been collecting data from past launches because you aren’t really sure what to focus on… that’s totally legit and we all have to start somewhere.

I happen to think that when it comes to launching, one of the best places you CAN start is with Shaundra Howard and that’s what we’re doing on today’s episode.

Lanie Lamarre:

Shaundra Howard! You are one of these people who goes against the grain of what everybody else says everyone’s like, launches, they’re so stressful. Oh, I hate launching, there’s a lot going on with launching that makes me feel overwhelmed. And you’re like, I enjoyed launches.

Shaundra Howard 1:21

Yeah, it’s actually super fun. For me. I’m like the type person that likes the end result. And that’s what I want to give to you. Whether you know, you think it’s a good result or a bad result, it gives you a result.

Lanie Lamarre 1:32

Oh, I love that. Because I always say, regardless of whether you did well or you didn’t, that information is what you’re supposed to use to improve on. That’s how you have a better launch. Yes, by taking the information you already have. And building on that. So what do you see, as a first mistake, the biggest mistake that people make when it’s their first launch,

Shaundra Howard 1:54

The biggest thing I see people do is start looking at what other people are doing that is automatically going to set you up for failure. Because all you see from other people is in result, you don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes. So I would strongly encourage everybody to, yes, learn from others, but look at things from a very concrete perspective, like what do you actually know, and focus on that instead? That is probably the greatest downfall. Because when you have whatever results you get, you’re gonna like, you’re gonna wonder why didn’t that work? For me? It worked so perfectly for that other person. But you’re gonna wonder why it didn’t work for you.

Lanie Lamarre 2:35

And so what pieces would you suggest starting at, to be able to look at?

Shaundra Howard 2:40

Yeah, so I think the best thing to focus on our conversions, and I know like, this is your realm. This is like where you shine the most but conversions are is what is really going to tell you what is going on, like how many people got to your page versus how many people opted in, how many people got to your sales page versus how many people purchase, how many people opened your emails versus how many sales came from those emails, look at the actual conversions, not just the number on the end, like the number of people that purchased. Because if you look at that number, and it’s not like the 100 people that you wanted, but you don’t really understand why you’re not, you’re not gonna be able to fix the problem. So your problem could simply be like messaging on your sales page or on your webinar page, it could be as simple as the title of your webinar and not resonating. But you’re not going to know that if you don’t focus on the conversion rates. And instead, you’re just focusing on whatever the end result number is. And, of course, like, if you’re doing a first time launch, like I don’t want people to get lost in the weeds, it’s so easy to get lost in the weeds of like setting up all of these fancy links and tracking and whatnot. But you know, do the best you can. And at the very least, you should be tracking the number of people that landed on your page, whether that’s your webinar, or free challenge or event page versus the number of people that signed up. And the number of people that landed on your sales page versus the number of people that signed up. So if you had 100 people land on your sales page, and 10 signed up, then even though that 10 You might have maybe you wanted 30 people to sign up for your program. But if 10 people signed up, like that’s a 10% conversion, that is incredible. So really focus one the conversion rates and not just the end result.

Lanie Lamarre 4:22

Right, because when you know that 10% conversion rate, then you can focus on Okay, next time, I need to get more people at this area Exactly. Because then you can improve those numbers up there. And then try to keep those other conversion rates converting at the rate that it converted to before. So I love that it’s just a matter of improving that. And I also love by the way that you have not mentioned social media and all the other things that you could be doing and getting traffic from. It’s great to be able to build towards that but using what you have and seeing what that’s actually producing so that you can build on those things as well.

Shaundra Howard 4:58

Exactly for me like social Media is like a nice to have in, you know, there are definitely marketing strategies that you can use for social media. Like let’s say you’re, you’re showing up all the time, all the time on social media, and you might be getting people to your page. But if your page isn’t converting, why would you focus on social media, like your focus should really be on the messaging and making sure that that page converts, because that’s what’s ultimately going to make the sale?

Lanie Lamarre 5:24

And what’s interesting about what you’re saying, Here, too, you’re not talking about launches, where it’s directly to a sales page. Clearly you are of the camp that you have, like a challenge, or a workshop or a webinar or something beforehand, what kind of difference do you see in the results that you get from having that sort of, hey, get to know what I have to offer in my expertise versus just directing people directly to a sales page?

Shaundra Howard 5:50

Yeah, I think it truly depends on like, the type of launch you have, whether you do a webinar, or a challenge, or event, or whatever the case is, depends on your audience. And I always like, I don’t like saying everybody should do this, or everybody should do like one thing. I really think it’s important for people to watch in a way that’s most aligned with, with them, like what they want out of their business, and like, what is their audience want? Like, I’m always telling people, why are you doing a webinar, if you if your audience hates webinars, if your webinars aren’t the way you want them to convert, but you keep doing them, like, why? Because people feel like they have to write, or they they feel like, well, I saw this big, fancy big name guru doing a million webinars. So that’s what I’m gonna do. You know, aside from that, as far as, like, how you launch, I think you, you need that pre launch period, like, you can’t just pop up out of the blue one day and be like, Hey, I’m selling this thing. Like, you have to warm people up, you have to get people used to listening to what you have to say, you and especially if you’re trying to convert new people that know nothing about you, you know, you have to like talk to him, you have to build a relationship. Like, that’s really what it’s all about, even though we’re on social media. And you know, everything has gotten more connected and less connected at the same time people they want to be sold to, in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re necessarily being sold to, you know, and they need to get to know you. And I think that’s true, no matter the price point, yeah, they’re gonna need to get to know you first. And if they know nothing about you, and they just see an ad on their social media feed. And if it doesn’t, like directly speak to their problem, they’re gonna be like, I don’t know who this is like, why would I trust them. So I think it’s really important to just spend that time showing up in whatever way that makes sense for you and your audience. And, like, give them something to go off of like, give them a quick win. And I don’t mean, like webinars or challenges that are all fluff. Like, I’m not about that life, I hate that. You’re actually teaching people how to do something. And they actually take away you know, knowledge that they can implement right away in their business, as opposed to just fluffy challenges that don’t really teach anything. But

Lanie Lamarre 8:00

I do love the idea of knowing your audience well enough that you can see what type of challenge or webinar or maybe it’s just a few emails, demonstrating your expertise. Maybe it’s flashing a few videos. Maybe it’s putting a couple podcasts, though, but I love being able to meet people where they are, I think there’s such an emphasis right now on you’re going to have to learn how to market like a human being if you have not been doing it yet, now is the time now. I love the idea also of trying different things, you can just launch directly, then you can launch with, you know, a pre challenge or pre workshops, and see what the difference is in your conversion rates in that instance, as well. So that you can see, maybe you are wasting everyone’s time with hosting an event before your launch period, I guess because that would be the promotional period.

Shaundra Howard 8:51

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I love that you mentioned like, maybe just sending a few emails, because for some people, that’s, you know, what it takes, like, depending on your audience, they might not have time to go through a five day challenge, or in some cases, like a 10 or 30 day challenge, you know, just tell them what it is, you know, and don’t try to drag them along, bring them along. And ultimately, it comes down to knowing your audience, like what do they want? What did they respond to, and that’s going to take trial and error, you’re not going to get it out of the gate. For me, that’s the point of launching Pestana. Just, you know, just try it, what worked, what did great, take what worked, move that into the next launch, take what didn’t work, adjust it, or just leave it behind, but really just focusing on the result and not necessarily like the emotion behind it all because, you know, like, when we’re launching something we’re so attached to and like, I love this thing, this thing is perfect. And everybody’s gonna love it. Well, maybe not, you know, maybe it’s perfect for you, but is that perfect for the person you’re trying to sell to? So it’s not personal. It’s literally just results. It’s just that it just numbers. Easier said than done, obviously. But just after you go through, like the emotions of it all as long as you just come back too, it’s just numbers. And when I use what I learned here to feel what comes in the future.

Lanie Lamarre 10:07

So you’ve worked with a lot of people with launching a lot of different types of personalities, what would you say? Is the best sorting sort of coping mechanism, if you will, for those emotions that you’re feeling? How do you best address the feelings that come with launching whether it’s a good one or a bad one,

Shaundra Howard 10:25

it’s so simple, but just like, keep moving forward. Like Don’t say stuff, it’s okay to, you know, be upset about whatever the result is, when you expect it and more. It’s okay to you know, feel some type of way about that, but always come back to Okay, well, what worked and what didn’t? Okay, this type of paid event doesn’t work for my audience. learn that lesson. You know, it seemed like it might work because it’s worked for others. And based on data, blah, blah, blah, is something we haven’t tried before. But that doesn’t work. So we’ll move on. Another thing that’s so simple is don’t get stuck in the past. Like, for example, social media has changed drastically over the past decade. And people that were advertising on social media years ago, were having much better results of paid ads, then people that are advertising Now in some cases. So it’s really easy to get stuck in one hole four or five years ago, this worked perfectly. And we had this this return on the ads, okay, that was four or five years ago, you know what, in what works then might not necessarily work now. So those are the two things I would say don’t get stuck in the past. And just keep moving forward, which is pretty much the two different ways of saying the same thing. Don’t let it become a personal thing. Because it’s never a personal thing. It’s always just, we might have missed the mark on the messaging a little bit.

Lanie Lamarre 11:50

I love that. That’s perfect. So when people are looking at improving their messaging, if they think messaging is the issue, what would your recommendation be on how to address that?

Shaundra Howard 12:02

Oh, goodness, um, I’m not a copywriter by any means. But I would say, pay attention to what your audience is saying. I feel like that is the best way to get your copy. Like that’s the best place to get it. Like, what are they actually saying that use those words? That’s it, what can because when people are reading your messaging, and they’re saying, Oh, that sounds just like me, or how did she know that? Or that’s something I would say like that’s, that’s gold right there. And one of my clients calls it copy stalking. And that’s what she does. It’s like she listens to her clients. And she, we have like this huge doc of exact words that the clients have said, and we use that or she uses that in, in the messaging. And it’s, it’s an actual Goldmine, because a

Lanie Lamarre 12:52

reason to be collecting feedback from the people who are actually purchasing from you. Yeah, exactly.

Shaundra Howard 12:56

Exactly. And for people that aren’t purchasing, so if you go through a launch, and in whatever results you have, if he like, blew it out of the water and have great results, or if maybe the results weren’t quite what you wanted. Either way, you should always be asking, Why did you lie to the people that decided not to join you?

It’s a hard question to ask, because you might not want to know, but you need to know because it whether, you know, they felt like it was a timing issue or a financial issue. Or maybe they didn’t feel like whatever it was resonated with them. Like that’s gonna be valuable information. And that doesn’t mean I also want to point out whether it’s a timing or a financial problem for them. That doesn’t mean you have to change that. Like, don’t get me wrong. Like, I don’t want people to think that if somebody says, Oh, it was too expensive that they have to change your price. No, that just means okay, I wasn’t talking to the right audience, or that person wasn’t my ideal client. And that’s fine. And it doesn’t have to be like this big, huge survey, and just ask, why didn’t you buy and invite people to reply to the email and give their honest feedback?

Lanie Lamarre 13:57

I love that so much, because it’s not something I do. So well, I collect feedback, but not from the people who don’t buy from me. So this is great where I can. This is something I’m definitely going to implement. I love talking to you because I learned something new. That is probably something very obvious. And yet it’s not obvious to you when you’re not doing it right. This is the conversations are all about. Thank you so much. Andhra. Where can people find you?

Shaundra Howard 14:24

Oh, after I talk on the trash about social media, I’m on Instagram. That is pretty much the only social media I kind of show up one @shaundrahow and get my launch guide at Shaundrahoward.com/launchguide

You can find links to connect with Shaundra in the shownotes but can we give a little once-over to some key take-aways here? Because I love how simple kept knowing your launch numbers: start by focusing on the number of people who visit your the sign-up page and compare that to the people who actually signed up for your free offer leading up to the paid product you’re launching, and then look at the number of people who went to your sales page versus the people who actually purchased your offer.

Those 2 conversion rates make up about 80% of anything you could or would ever want to know about your launch, and they can really help inform where you can improve.

The other thing that was said over and over again was to pay attention to what your audience is showing and telling you that they want. You may be the boss, apple sauce, but you feel a lot better about your profitability when you listen and respond to what your people connect with most from you.

We’re actually going to talk a little more about that in next week’s episode so if you aren’t subscribed, what are you waiting for? Let’s make this official and if you’re picking up what I’m throwing down, a glowing 5-star review is the best “thank you” note in the podcast biz so let’s pick this conversation up to take it a little further next week.

Talk soon, baiiiee!!

CONTINUE READING

This is a transcript of episode 43 of the OMGrowth Podcast

Lanie Lamarre 0:00
This is OMGrowth. I’m Lanie Lamarre. And isn’t exactly a state secret that I feel like social media is my Achilles heel. It’s the thing I have to work hardest at. And so when I was introduced to Dolly DeLong, and I started looking at her socials – and I do mean socials, like plural – I was like, “How is this woman managing two different social media presences? And doing beautifully for both?” So I asked her on the podcast to enlighten all of us because this is just kind of amazing. So let’s eavesdrop into that conversation. Dolly DeLong! You approached me about participating in a systems bundle that you were putting together – which I was really excited about, but I already had other engagements – So I couldn’t help but it did creep on you… and you are marketing two completely different businesses to two completely different audiences. And you’re doing a really beautiful job of that. And I wanted to talk to you about that today.

Dolly Delong 0:59
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me. Okay, so just a little bit about Dolly DeLong. I’m a Nashville based family and branding photographer. So for Dolly DeLong, photography, and I’ve been a photographer since 2007. But it took me over 10 years to become a full time business like it took me a long time. So 2018 is when I became a full time business, for photography. And when about in 2020 – you know, that year that everybody is like, “let’s not talk about that year” – you’ll see here that another brand within I guess my business entity came out, branched out and that was Dolly DeLong Education. Because I’ve had a lot of creative business owners reach out to me and ask me questions like, “Okay, how are you marketing your business?” because I was working in higher education, and I was doing photography on the side. And it was building traction over time. And, I was automating, and setting up systems and workflows for my photography business. And so it was hitting me so much in 2020… like, “maybe this is something that you need to lean into Dolly.” And I was in 2 masterminds, and both mastermind leaders on two occasions – they didn’t know they told me this, but they were like, “Dolly, you need to lean into this personality trait of yours”, because I love systems. I love workflows. But I still love creativity through photography. So I decided to like, kind of like niche down for both. So I just concentrate on family and branding photography. And then I do systems, workflow, education for creatives. So those are my three things. I’m like, I think I can handle three things.

Lanie Lamarre 2:44
Right. So Oh, my gosh, yeah, I would say the opposite where I’d be like, “I’ve got to make a decision. I can’t handle three things at once.” But good on you for being able to do that. And you’ve been able to do that because of systems.

Dolly Delong 2:56
Yes, exactly. And I was able to run the show on my own last year when I started taking on like a contractor and a VA and outsourcing essentially parts of my business, but up until last year, I was really running the show on my own right and still growing – like not exponentially, I don’t want everybody think like Wow, she’s a bazillionaire – but, like still slow growth, and still getting traction.

Lanie Lamarre 3:29
Here’s the thing, Imma go on a rant here: this thing where people are like “slow growth”… if you go to the bank telling them that “hey, I’m growing 10 to 20% every year” for a loan or for whatever reason that you’re going to the bank for… that is a success metric that is very well respected in of let’s call them “real life” businesses. But in online business world I think all the marketing of the, you know. 10X profits and double what you did last year. That’s not realistic and is not sustainable. It’s such a goofy thing that we’ve all been indoctrinated with, this expectation that that’s how growth happens. But if you’re doing 20% a year, every year – holy heck balls! – everyone is throwing flowers at you, people are popping champagne.

Dolly Delong 4:13
Yeah, that’s amazing. Yeah, I really think like I even get in this boat sometimes of “I’m not going fast enough.” But because I’m comparing myself to this person who’s, like 10 years down the road from me or has has a whole team. And I still get frustrated with myself. I’m like, “I’m not growing fast enough.” But at the end of the day, it’s really good for me when I look at my business… something that I’m going to bring up is that I have to look at my own goals, my own personal goals for my business, and then measure those metrics to see how I can reach those goals for not just for myself, but for my family. Like, why I’m working, why I have these two businesses and stay in my lane like I have this. I know you can see – nobody else could see it – but I have this like little… I call it “my little mini vision board” and it says, “Be intentional and stay in your own lane”. And that’s the thing that I try to do within not just my life, but my business. And when I do that, that slow growth builds over time. Yeah, so it’s been really great seeing that slow growth in the last two years, because I’ve actually, like measured the data, which is really cool.

Lanie Lamarre 4:15
I have to assume that this is why you’ve been able to, it seems like comfortably manage two businesses at once. Not just manage, but the marketing of it. This is what I wanted to talk to you about: how the hey, do you market? Like, maybe this is just a personal thing? Maybe I’m just treating this like a therapy session, but you know, I’m looking at social media presence and being out there. I find that to be a challenge. Yeah. But if somebody were to be like, “Well, you’ve got to do both them”, my head would explode. So how do you manage to do this?

Dolly Delong 5:59
Yeah, so I actually took a little Post-It note, so that I can be very clear and concise.

Lanie Lamarre 6:05
I love that,by the way – Post It Notes everywhere in my life.

Dolly Delong 6:09
Everywhere! But the first thing is, I am really intentional with my time. And I know that’s like sounds like such a Woo thing to say, but a strategic thing that I’ve discovered two or three years ago, so when my son was born was the year that I went into business full time. So I birthed two babies: my business baby, and then my baby baby. And because of that, I guess, it like motivated me to want to be very strategic with my time. So I was mapping out my hours to see when I could work versus when I needed to pour into, like, family time and taking care of a baby. And because all of us are humans, we say, “well, I don’t have enough time for that, well, I don’t have enough time for this.” And I was falling into that trap all the time. And so I decided, “You know what? I’m going to sit down, map it out.” So that kind of set the stage for me and creating a schedule that worked for me and my family. And so again, being very, very intentional with my time was the first step for me. And then I started batching. So that’s like the second point. And when I say batching, I mean, at the top of every month, I am taking the first four to five days to map out all of my content for the next month.

Lanie Lamarre 7:36
So one week out of four, essentially, you’re dedicating to your entire creation process.

Dolly Delong 7:41
Exactly, exactly. So my pillar content right now is blogging. Let’s use an example of last year. So last year, at the top of every month, I would essentially take day one, write out my four blog posts, like hashing them out. And then the second day, I would create social media captions and images to pair with those blog posts. And the third day, I would map out my email newsletter templates that would correspond with that pillar content. And then the fourth day, I would just like map out either like a Pinterest strategy or a Facebook strategy for myself. And the reason why I’m like mentioning Pinterest and Facebook is because I actually dug into my Google Analytics, which I know you will love that. And I saw where all my traffic was coming in from. So I was really intentional with my social media traffic. I just wasn’t like throwing a spaghetti noodle at the wall and hoping it’ll stick. I know that the majority of my traffic comes from Pinterest, Google Organic because of keywords I’m using for my pillar content. And again, I had to research those keywords to see what I needed to infuse my pillar content. And then I know a lot of my referrals are coming from Facebook because again, remember, I am a family photographer, like that’s one of my hats I wear. So families, a lot of moms and grandmas families are on Facebook right then. And then also Instagram. I know a lot of small business owners find me on Instagram. So I I essentially, like figured out where my traffic was coming from based off of my metrics and data from Google Analytics. And then I just created a mini marketing plan for myself for every month and batching and then essentially essentially had a plan for the next 30 days. So when I hit a wall, when I hit a slump, I could go back to my Trello board where I kept all those ideas for the month and I have a strategy for myself.

Lanie Lamarre 9:51
That’s amazing. Do you do both businesses on like on email day?

Dolly Delong 9:56
It’s both businesses. Yes. Okay. And I try to keep it as simple as possible.

Lanie Lamarre 10:01
Here’s the thing that sort of blows my mind the most about you doing all of this is that you do have to be intentional about meeting your people where they are. And so I would assume that for photographers it, I would have assumed it was more Instagram based. And when you think of things like workflows and whatnot, maybe you’re getting more people from Pinterest from that, like, they’re both so different in terms of how you market yourself as well.

Dolly Delong 10:27
Well, I will also say another big secret, it’s not so such a secret. But another thing that I use within my business are templates, like templates have been the saving grace for me for the past two years. And that is also how I implement a lot of, I guess, streamline my marketing. That is my secret sauce: templates, I love templates. And that way, I don’t have to use a lot of brainpower to think of okay, “what should I say right now?” And then I can just like infuse my pillar content within those within those templates.

Lanie Lamarre 11:01
Yeah, you’re not reinventing the wheel all the time, which is what all systems and workflows and that’s what all of these things are: putting in process maps. I know, it sounds like a pain in the butt. I tell people “but , once you have it, it makes everything a lot easier when you want to make a change, you’re able to quickly identify what’s going to get impacted these sorts of things like that”. And I spoke about at the jump, but the systems bundle that you are putting together with templates and workflows, and all this stuff like that, that makes people’s lives easier. You are running a bundle for this, correct?

Dolly Delong 11:32
Yeah, it is called the Systems and Workflow Magic Bundle. And if you guys are like “why magic?” Well, one, it’s because I love Harry Potter. Any time I can make a Harry Potter reference, I will do so like, check. And then I’m sure anybody who has experienced that “aha moment” of putting together their first workflow or automating just one aspect of their business… It feels magical, like, it literally feels like you are a wizard.

Lanie Lamarre 12:06
I often use the term auto magic because it is auto magical. It just happens auto-magically.

Dolly Delong 12:13
But I just this has been in my brain for a while now, I’ve always wanted to create some sort of resource library for creative business owners who just want to go from scattered to streamline and want to take the frustration and the like all the F bombs out of their business. And know that they too can do it.

Lanie Lamarre 12:37
That is such a great tagline, too: take the F Bombs out of your business.

Dolly Delong 12:41
Exactly and see, you can take baby steps. You may not have a whole team, but you can take little small baby steps towards automating your business. And I obviously cannot be like all the answers to everyone. So I know I need a team of resources to offer to my audience and anybody who’s wanting to get this resource bundle. So it took a lot of planning. And thankfully, I had Kate Doster to help me out with this incredible bundle.

Lanie Lamarre 13:12
Oh, that’s so funny. But that’s the connection between us. I was I had no idea you two were connected.

Dolly Delong 13:18
Yeah, it’s mostly because she did the Back to Business bundle, and you were in it.

Lanie Lamarre 13:23
Yes.

Dolly Delong 13:24
And that’s how I met you. Know, you. And I’m like, wow, I really like these women a lot. And so I just followed both of your journeys, I need to do something with systems and introduce this to more creative business owners, and let them know this is achievable. You can do this in your business and take baby steps.

Lanie Lamarre 13:47
So when is this rolling out? It is going to be January 24 through 28th, 2022. And it’s only one week and essentially all the contributors are going to be contributing something that systems and workflow related from an aspect of their business. So I know I have a Trello expert and a Click Up expert, and so they will be giving free resources on how to use this within your own creative business. And essentially, these are not lead magnets from their from their business. These are shop items. Yeah, these are when you say free resources, they’re offering it for free. But these are paid offers that you’re getting for free. So I will put a link to be able to join the bundle or sign up for the bundle in the show notes. If people want to follow your many endeavors, where can they do so?

Dolly Delong 14:45
Yeah, definitely. You can follow me if you want systems and dubsado advice and you can follow me at Dolly DeLong Education. And then if you want to follow along on my photography adventures for family and branding, then I’m at Dolly DeLong Photo. If you just want to see my hot mess life with my toddler, and just like just like laugh at me, then yes, follow me either way, because I post my son everywhere because he’s crazy cute and crazy in general. So yeah.

Lanie Lamarre 15:14
It’s also on-brand for you as a family photographer. So it’s just using the resources you have.

Dolly Delong 15:18
Yeah, exactly, exactly. I am now more patient with kids who throw fits at their sessions.

Lanie Lamarre 15:27
It has been great chatting, check out the Systems Bundle that just makes your life easier – paid resources for free, no brainer!

But let’s recap a few key takeaways from this conversation with Dolly DeLong.

1. First of all, she started by telling us that it took her 10 years to become a full time business. This is not something you see people bragging about on sales pages, but it is pretty typical. And it’s definitely more common than those overnight six and seven figure success – slow and steady growth wins the race.
2. Another thing that wins the race is systems before hiring, you don’t necessarily need a team to be efficient. In fact, by getting those templates and those workflows in place, it makes it so much easier for you to grow a team when you’re ready to do that.
3. I also liked how Dolly talked about how she was fitting in her values and what drives her in her business: performance metrics aren’t your only goalposts and the reasons you’re building this brand and what you’re building it around matters as well and should be accounted for.
4. And here’s the big one: intention. Be intentional with the time that you’re spending, with the audience you’re reaching, with meeting them where they are and knowing what they like.
5. And you don’t really have to complicate things: you can establish just a pillar piece of content, whether that’s written or video or audio. But when you have that pillar piece of content, it makes it really easy for you to start batching your content around that to help you avoid burnout, help you stay creative and you can have these focused bite-sized sessions where you can get a lot done… or if you’re like Dolly, you can get it done for two businesses, two totally separate brands. Oh my gosh, I’m still really impressed by that. But she is a great example as to how you can simplify those processes.
   
   Now let’s simplify the process of you and I keeping in touch so be sure to subscribe to the podcast and we will talk soon. Bye

CONTINUE READING

This is a transcript of episode 39 of the OMGrowth Podcast

Lanie Lamarre 0:00
Oh, hey boss, I’m Lanie Lamarre and I’m super stoked that you are here because I have a guest today.
Her name is Kate Doster and she is the host of Inbox Besties which… if it’s not a podcast you’re subscribed to at this point, it’s good idea to sign up from wherever you’re listening to this. Go ahead and search it out because it’s a good one and she does a lot of behind-the-scenes type episode, she shares like numbers real stuff.
So this was supposed to be a conversation about summits versus bundles because I am a big supporter of summits while she is a huge supporter of bundles. I thought we would do like a celebrity deathmatch thing, but I think she kind of got me converted into thinking “do I want to host my own bundle?”
At least, that’s what I thought would happen and if you keep listening, you’ll find out how she pulled that magic trick. But then again, most of what she does just feels magic anyway. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

Kate Doster, my online biz pal, and we like to banter a whole lot and the most popular subjects between us, I believe, would be obviously Rupaul’s Drag Race, we talk a lot about that. We discuss a lot of Trixie and Katya. And we also discuss the good, the bad, the ugly and the unique points of view of our experiences with bundles and summits.
You are very pro-bundle, you run a very pro bundle ship.
And you are not so keen on the summits.

Kate Doster
Not at all.

But you do run like you run an amazing bundle. There’s a lot of people running bundles out there. Some of them are good, some of them are great and some of them are not so good. But you definitely do.
Like – to the listeners – if you’re ever going to pitch yourself to Kate about participating in one of our bundles… for one, you will see a high ROI on that.
However, you better come prepared with some valuable stuff, right?

Kate Doster 2:10
Mm hmm. We don’t take things that are garbage. It’s not fair for you as a contributor. Is anyone gonna want your one-page PDF when they can get an entire Facebook ads course somebody legit sells for $97?
No, no one’s gonna want it. Yeah, why set you up to fail?

Lanie Lamarre 2:27
I think the reason your bundles are so successful is because you’re so discerning. And it’s not just for YOU that your bundles are so successful.
Because I participated in one, what, nine months ago, eight, nine months ago? And we were just looking over at the numbers where I still have an 80% retention rate from all the people who signed up for the free thing, and they’re still opening my emails and clicking on my emails – that’s unusually high!
So you’re bringing really quality people.
OK, so tell the good people, you know, how do YOU run a bundle? How do you attract all these great people?

Kate Doster 3:00
Sure. So the whole concept of a free bundle – because you don’t hear about it all too often – is basically you get together anywhere from – honestly, you can do five people to – I would say I would cap it at 15-18, like absolute max.
And you get together and for either two weeks or a week, you get together stuff that we always say is, like, “tripwire level or better” type of offer. I usually pull stuff out of some of my paid products. It’s not the whole paid product.
But that’s really great because they’re gonna see, oh, these templates that’s from the email marketing fairy. So let’s go ahead and do this email marketing theory.
So everybody goes ahead and will email their list, if they’re a contributor. So for this week, everyone is just getting in front of all of this massive amount of traffic.
And it’s just so nice and so easy to run. The audience loves them, and contributors love them. And it’s just the best.

Lanie Lamarre 3:49
And I can almost hear the chimes when you talk about bundles. But then we go to womp-womp-womp-womp sound effects when you start talking about how you feel about your experience running a summit.

Kate Doster 4:03
It’s just mine. I mean, again, this is why we wanted to sit down and discuss it because it turns out that not everyone is the same as me – I get that.
So for the summit, it was myself and my virtual assistant. And particularly in this last one – we talked about it on my podcast on episode 191 – the issue was that people were getting us things late. I had a miscommunication with my VA who was in charge of, like, transcripts and captions. And she kept on always missing her deadline and just coming up with excuses. And it turns out she had just been like, “I can’t handle sitting through these 20 – they’re supposed to be 30 minutes, but some of them went longer – and like, “I can’t sit through and do these to actually make them for you.”

So in this particular summit – because we had done one and 2020 and then 2021 – because I wanted to test the theory. So it was just when we broke down how many hours it was to find the people, pitch the people, record… I did all of the editing, I made all the pages myself, she was in charge of the closed captions and the transcripts, making the cheat sheets, all of this.
Yes, we did sell an all access pass, which had some bonuses from the speaker. We also sold one that had, like, two bonuses for me. And again, the replay is the unlimited access all of this. And it’s like, we worked so hard, and so many hours. And I don’t want to brag but most people would have been really excited to have made $25,000.

But for us, when we broke it down for the ROI, it was like we were making pennies that entire time, because we’re focused on this thing. And, again, by our standards, it kind of tanked because of all of those other things that we could have been doing for three months, right.

So between again, wrangling people, people missing the deadline, trying to get stuff done, we had tech issues the entire time, literally from just people inputting their information, to the day that we promoted. The summit, like, was gonna start happening, none of the links and none of the Active Campaign links worked for two days.

Lanie Lamarre 6:16
That is so frustrating.

Kate Doster 6:17
It was just like, people wanted to sign up so then like, we had sent us emails, like, “oh, you’ve got to cut and paste it.” And then, you know, even though email links weren’t working, at least luckily for us, people could still sign up at our landing pages.

But what I found – and I don’t know, if this was your experience for your summit – a lot of the speakers just didn’t promote, right? At all! And we’re like, you know, because you know, most people know the drill when it comes to summits: that you’re going to be selling something at the other end. We didn’t really try to press it that much. If we noticed that somebody, you know, hadn’t signed up for an affiliate link, or their affiliate link hadn’t gotten any clicks, we just send them a message like ” doyou need anything from us.” You know, “what’s going on?” and we would just get ignored.

Meanwhile, with the free bundle, if you’re not doing what you’ve got to do – because I made it crystal clear – you’re just out, right? I don’t care. Like somebody could be like, oh, like, “I really wanted this Pinterest templates” and it’s like, “you know what, not enough people could sign up because there was a tech issue. So I had to pull it.” It’s like, that’s it!
But with a summit, we just couldn’t get people there.

Lanie Lamarre 7:20
So what was the difference for you between the first summit you did? Did you enjoy the first one that you did?

Kate Doster 7:25
The first one, that was a lot of work, it was a lot of work, but I did have a lot of fun. We also did have an extra team person helping. So I think that that helped, but we got much better results than we did from selling it.
So I think for this particular summit, we did a lot of experimenting. And I think that’s kind of soured my experience.

So we had, again, the version of just the replays versus the replays and the bonuses. I think that the replays and the bonuses were just simply priced too high at that, like, early bird tripwire level, so then it couldn’t stand to go up anymore. If that makes any sense for the threshold.
I’m like, “I don’t think you could but could I do two price increases?”, because we had already tried to sell it on the Thank You page for $97. It’s like, where’s this gonna go?
Also, this year that we noticed, as opposed to last year, is less speakers gave something to the All Access Pass. But we did offer the same benefits. And last year, it was still like, you know, you get the higher affiliate income and all this sort of stuff, but people just aren’t into it. I’m like, “Oh, the summer time, you know, no one else has anything else going on. Oh, why wouldn’t they want to promote it? And you know, earn a couple extra $100 and, you know, grow their list?” Apparently, nobody wanted to do anything.

Lanie Lamarre 8:44
I do feel that part of this is a personality thing. Like, I love details and you… do not.

Kate Doster 8:55
A free bundle is less than five pages, not including your privacy policy.

Lanie Lamarre 9:00
So I totally had to interrupt there. Did you hear what he said? She said that she has a privacy policy in place for yes, even her bundle. YOU NEED A PRIVACY POLICY. Okay, if you don’t have one, I will include links where you can get away. Okay, back to Kate.
Need a Privacy Policy? Get an American one here and a Canadian one here, and yes, these are affiliate links and yes, I use their resources personally.

Kate Doster 9:14
Whereas a summit, you literally have to make 20 pages as well as all of those other pages that you’re talking about. So it might not seem like a lot, but when you multiply that work by 20 – yes, like, even though we had pushed all of these deadlines, we had them so far. So there were so far away from when the summit started, because people were habitually missing stuff. It’s like we would have gone from, I think we were supposed to have 20 speakers, we probably would have been lucky if we had ended up with 14 or 12. Right? Because people just weren’t hitting deadlines, right?

Lanie Lamarre 9:44
Yeah. When you’re relying on people to deliver – and a great number of people – that is super frustrating as well. I also had that experience. It’s something you have to expect. Like, just speakers are going to hand in things tardy sometimes. I actually have a summit presentation for a few months from now, that was due on Monday. But like two weeks ago, I was a kid in class asking, “Can I get an extension till Wednesday?” Because I know I won’t have the time until then. But that’s because I’m me. And most people aren’t me who like the details and always have their finger on the pulse of those sorts of things. So it’s just a human nature thing as well. You kind of have to expect that when you’re dealing with a lot of people.
And when you see these summits of – my mind is blown when people are running summits of, you know, 50 plus people. Like, how are you managing everyone? I have to assume that you have all your systems very firmly in place, and that you’ve done this before with a smaller group, which is how I would always recommend that you start doing a summit – just treat it as an experiment, as you keep using the word experiment on the first time you do it. Certainly the first time you do it is an experiment to see, you know, how are people reacting? What do they react to, but then to manage those 50 people and all the deliverables? Oh, my Lord.

Kate Doster 11:05
And the thing that is the biggest issue with the summit – and I think this is why my assistant and I – again, we’ve Clockwork-ed it and she’s amazing. She’s amazing at free bundles, she could honestly run the free bundle without me at this point. But with the summit, if somebody didn’t do their interview, or didn’t hand in their presentation, then now all of a sudden, the transcripts are pushed back, my editing is pushed back, I can’t make their page, and that’s push back. Now, if we don’t actually know if they’re going to really do this or not, we can’t finalize the page. We can’t finalize the schedule, we can’t do all these things.
Whereas for the free bundle, I don’t want to say less is more but it’s not an issue. Like we’ll remind you, but it’s like, okay, you’re not on the page.

Lanie Lamarre 11:44
So how many bundles have you ran at this point?

Kate Doster 11:46
I want to say four. I didn’t think I’d need to know that. Possibly five. So we did… I want to say that 2019 was the first year. We used to just do it in February. And that was called the Back to Business Bundle. Because everyone in January is like, “Yeah, let’s do the thing”. And then, you know, everyone loses steam by the beginning of February.
So the Back to Business Bundle was sort of to help people restart and kind of forgive themselves, because I’m very woowoo. And just be like, “yes, okay, so January didn’t go as planned and I might have slacked off a little bit in February, because I was sad about January not hitting my initial goal. But now I’ve got all these free things that I can do.” And I’ll tell people, like “this is how you can organize it and all this” and then kind of go. And then people loved it so much. And contributors loved it so much – because they were getting a lot of people to their email list, essentially for free – that we started doing it in the fall as well.
So now it’s officially bi-annually: we have one, I think, late winter/early spring and then, fall.

Lanie Lamarre 12:47
And did you have growing pains? Like now it’s smooth, because you’ve done it a few times now and your pages are probably in place. You’re probably just updating them. I’m making a lot of assumptions here. But what was it like the first time you did this? How was the experience the first time I had done it?

Kate Doster 13:01
Yeah, it was 2019 – it was actually the fall because I didn’t even have Abi, yet – I don’t think so. Yes. 2018 In 2018, I had done all myself .

Lanie Lamarre 13:13
For the listeners, Abi is Kate’s rockstar assistant. Hi, Abi!

Kate Doster 13:17
Yeah, she is her official title is fire-tamer. I’m trying to get her to sign her emails that because I’m a ball of fire and she’s gotta tame it. So she’s the fire tamer.
But the very first one that I ran, it was all me. And I want to say that I probably had about 12 participants, it was people that I was already friends with. And I, myself, had been in somebody else’s free bundle, but she had called it a giveaway. And I was friends with the lady who ran it – like “in real life” friends, which is very rare for where I live to meet another online entrepreneur. – so she kind of gave me the behind the scenes.
But it’s like, you know, you’ve got to make the “home” page, the “coming soon”, “you missed it”, the “gift” page, “thank you” page and then “terms of services”. And like, that was really easy. So I built that all myself with Divi. And then I used Canva for the graphics and Airtable – I use Airtable to get all the submissions stuff from the people. So there wasn’t that many growing pains.
I think the biggest issue we ran into was one of the years, I think it was that – for some reason on Windows, the pop up that I had or whatever we were using for an opt in form at the time (because it wasn’t Lead Pages), it wasn’t firing for everybody on Windows PCs. So I would get those tickets like “oh, I can’t sign up”, but like it’s pretty minimal.
And we make sure when the bundle officially opens it goes to the waitlist first for at least about an hour, hour and a half. So they’re excited because they get stuff early. But there, they can be to be like okay, are 500 people going break this? I mean, we test hack to make sure that everyone’s landing page loads, everyone’s gifts gets delivered., make sure no one’s trying to do anything shady to people.
Like we do that a lot we do like the week before, the day before, the morning of – all that. So we really try to dial that in so we have no tech issues.

Lanie Lamarre 15:09
So this is not like a like a putting your hands up. You still have people to manage. You still have things to follow up on with a button.

Kate Doster 15:15
Exactly. And I think yeah, especially after that first day.
So we asked again… this is one of these “now that we know” things because we used to just let everybody in at the same time, it was like nine in the morning, Eastern Standard. But now it’s like, 11 in the morning so that way, I have plenty of time to like, take the kids to school, we can troubleshoot again, we’ll troubleshoot just my waitlist.
And we ask our contributors to wait until the second day. I know some of them for a fact, go ahead and share it on the first day. But I’m like, oh my god, like, spread it out anyway. It’s not just like, Oh, we’ve got so many people, but that, like kind of dried up a little bit in the middle.
It’s just like a normal launch.

Lanie Lamarre
It’s like a normal launch.

Kate Doster
Yeah, that’s what happens. The first two or three days – especially the first two, three days – you’ll get a lot of people, and then the last couple of days. Which is why the next time we’re running it, I think instead of doing… we’ve done 10 days, we’ve done eight days – because there was a Monday Holiday here in the States – but I think for the next one, we’re just going to try Monday to Friday. I really like that urgency.
And so that way, our contributors don’t feel like I’m taking two weeks out of their business to help. Because we are so rigid about promoting stuff. So I think they can just give us a week. But no far enough in advance. Like you said, the people stick. And the people tend to buy, which you would not think that people going to something for free, – or would be interested in, you know. Offers on the thank you pages or buying signature courses after that and they do. They’re just so grateful that people give them something amazing. And they got amazing results. They want to hang around. That’s great.

Lanie Lamarre 16:46
Now, is this covered in your in your collaboration offer?

Kate Doster 16:51
Yeah, Collaboration Cash-In. I think it’s “how to profit and have fun with free list building bundles”.
We used to call them giveaways the very first time we called it a giveaway and people got confused. They thought it was, like, a sweepstakes. But for the word “free bundle”, it works.

Lanie Lamarre
Giveaway. Like, you’re gonna show up at their house with a check.

Kate Doster
And again, you only realize this by… like most of my audience… I actually let affiliates have my signature course. Because I usually tend to launch my signature course, a couple weeks – about four weeks – after we do the free bundle.
I’ll let them promote it so that way, you know, they can get a little tracking in place, they can introduce their audience to me. But there was just one person’s particular audience. We’re just like, “how did you find out about us?” And everyone was the same lady. And so I’m like, “is she not explaining this right?” and as soon as we changed it to “free bundle”, everybody got the concept.

Lanie Lamarre 17:44
You have great follow up systems in place. That’s amazing.

Kate Doster 17:48
Yeah. And like I said, everyone likes that we really try to – because it’s not a concept that you see about especially in consumer spaces and because I have a lot of students that do consumer stuff – once you explain to people like “hey, like, well, why would I give you my paid thing for free?” It’s like, “do you want to add 100 people or so to your email list?” Like I was telling you – especially the first time – I don’t promise the moon and the stars. Just let them be excited.
So it’s like if you yourself have a tiny audience, you know what it’ll cost if you’re gonna pay Facebook to get 300 leads.

Lanie Lamarre
Yes! That’s what I say.

Kate Doster
You’re lucky if you get an ROI on that. I mean, I know Facebook ads right now are banana pants because of tracking, and you’re gonna have to pay way more than nothing.

Lanie Lamarre
Right? Yeah, absolutely.

Kate Doster
So we have we have some contributors that literally they will do their Beta, they will do their free beta from using the bundle because they just have so many people go through and download.

Lanie Lamarre 18:40
Which is a great way of getting testimonials for a new product. Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome.

Kate Doster 18:44
Exactly. Exactly. And then people love it. So I am team “free bundle”. And the thing is that we make money because I know people are wondering like “Oh, it’s free. Like, how do you make money like all this you’re complaining about making 20,000 for Summit?” Honestly, it’s probably like less than an hour of work for like maybe four weeks. And right, like it’s really sort of bogged down at the end, but I sell on my Thank You page in my Welcome Series if you sign up for my particular gift – not the bundle but my particular gift – I’m telling you about my auto-webinar and we do that launch afterwards.
We get a lot of affiliate income too because at the bottom we have tools and resources we’ll send out an email you know mid-open, being like “you know, don’t forget there’s these offers too if you’re looking for some tools, here are some deals” so that’s how you make money with the free bundle and it’s just I can’t imagine having 50 speakers on a summit.

Lanie Lamarre19:35
And you’re not the only one making money on a free bundle. Like, the people who are participating – you can set up, you know, an automated flash sale or tripwire or whatever you want to call it, at the back end of your offer. I added one at the very sort of last minute and still made some sales off it.

Kate Doster 19:52
Yeah, after I’ve seen – so some hosted free bundles will be like “no” because like you said, you do see them I know I myself get to be in them a lot because that’s what I’m known for. And there are some hosts that are like “you can’t sell on your thank you page”. One person wanted you to pay them $125, I think it was, to be in theirs.
Which again, if you’re thinking this is versus ads, it’s not that bad. But then you couldn’t sell on your thank you page. And she wouldn’t allow you – and I don’t know how she would attract this – but she did not want to selling to the audience for the next four weeks because she was doing her launch.
And so I think that yeah, so I think that what makes our bundle different as well. Like, it’s not the Kate show. Is my gift\ on the first gift on the page? Yeah. But the Thank You page – because this is what a lot of other hosts will do: you sign up the first page is just like the host gift, the host webinar, all this sort of stuff. And there’ll be this little bottom line that says, “Do you want the other gifts? Click here!”
Like, no, it’s not “hey, do you want extra free stuff? Share out about this. And then I’m going to go to the gift page.” Yeah, I’m number one. And then I’ll usually have two gifts on the last one on the page as well for my two different gifts.
But I’m like it’s an everybody thing. That’s why it’s Collaboration Cash-in. Everybody does their part, everybody gets to prosper.

Lanie Lamarre 21:04
Right? I’m going to include a link to Collaboration Cash-in, as well as to your socials. If they’re looking for you, though, in the room, where do they find you?

Kate Doster 21:14
So you can go on Instagram, it is Kate underscore doster. And I have a podcast that we’ve talked about called Inbox Besties. So after you’re done leaving OMGrowth an amazing five star review wherever you’re listening, then you may go over into the search bar and search for Inbox Besties and we talk about email marketing, mindset sales, psychology, we have besties chats where I break down things that we’re doing. And it’s a whole bunch of fun.

Lanie Lamarre 21:41
I’m going to include a couple of notes in the show notes as well with the episode numbers that we are dealing with, where you’re talking about segments and bundles and where I’m talking about my experience with your bundle the whole thing, so we’ll have some some references there. Thank you so much, Kate!
Get all the juicy details and data about her summit (episode 191) and last bundle (198) on Inbox Besties.
I also share my results from collaborating in her bundle on episode 24 of OMGrowth.

Kate Doster 21:56
I was so glad to be here. I feel like I’ve chatted way more than you got to talk about how much you love Summit.

Lanie Lamarre 22:01 I’m more than happy to listen to your experiences all the time. And you do talk a lot about them on Inbox Besties. So by all means, everyone subscribe to that as well.

Okay, so there was a lot to this episode. But I want to draw your attention to a few really key points that Kate shared.

1. The first of which is WHAT WORKS WELL FOR ONE PERSON MAY NOT WORK WELL FOR SOMEONE ELSE. And that doesn’t necessarily mean the strategy is bad. It just means that it’s not for you.
   So summits may not work super well for Kate and they may work very well for somebody else, which also leads on to when she was comparing her results, not only for her bundles, but for her summit to the previous experience that she had.
2. So THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPARING YOUR OWN STRATEGIES TO YOUR OWN RESULTS, as opposed to what somebody else is telling you is a good conversion rate or a good revenue number.
3. Revenue numbers are another thing that I want to draw your attention to which Kate brought our attention to when she was talking about how the ROI wasn’t worth it for the revenue she brought in. Even though she brought in $25,000 on her Summit, it actually wasn’t worth it when you think of how much investment she had to put into it time, money, resources, energy – I always like to count energy as a resource and an investment -and so knowing your numbers and KNOWING YOUR ROI is really what determines whether a strategy was worth it for you or not.
4. And finally, THE IMPORTANCE OF SYSTEMS THAT YOU CAN REUSE AND OUTSOURCE. Her bundle right now – she even mentioned it that her Rockstar VA Abi, she’s able to just rock it all on her own at this point because all the pieces are in place. That’s the system and look, I’ve said this before: I love collaborating with Kate because she makes things really, really easy.
   
   So if you’re looking to do more collaborations, check out the links in the show notes. And when we were doing this I realized oh my gosh, I never did my behind the scenes for my summit so make sure you are subscribed to the podcast because I will drop that episode in the very near future where I will just summarize what my results were for the first OMGrowth live event. So get subscribed, share with your biz besties all that fun stuff and we will talk to you next time – baiiieeee!!!!

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