Latest / The Daily Writer / Build a Successful Membership with Your Knowledge & Skills | Liz Wilcox

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Build a Successful Membership with Your Knowledge & Skills | Liz Wilcox · The Daily Writer

0:07
SPEAKER_03: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
0:10
SPEAKER_03: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
0:12
SPEAKER_03: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and your income as a writer.
0:21
SPEAKER_03: Well, as you're well aware, there are basically two sides to being a writer.
0:25
SPEAKER_03: There's the creative side, which allows us to tell stories and communicate in a way that connects.
0:31
SPEAKER_03: Then there's the business side, which allows us to create sustainable income in a lot of different ways.
0:36
SPEAKER_03: Now, most of us gravitate toward the creative side of writing, and we struggle a little bit with the business side.
0:42
SPEAKER_03: It really doesn't come as naturally to us as the creative side.
0:46
SPEAKER_03: That's why I'm really excited to feature this conversation with my friend Liz Wilcox.
0:51
SPEAKER_03: Now, I originally ran this interview about a year ago, but shortly after the interview came out, last spring, Liz applied to be a contestant on the CBS show Survivor, and she actually made it.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: Now I'm rerunning this episode not only because you can watch Liz compete on Survivor right now, which is really, really cool, but also because I've gotten a lot of great feedback on this conversation.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: In fact, one of the people in my membership community, the Profitable Writer community, they mentioned they had listened to this episode at least three or four times, which absolutely blew me away.
1:23
SPEAKER_03: But on the other hand, it really doesn't, because the wisdom that Liz shares in this episode around email marketing is really, really, really good stuff.
1:33
SPEAKER_03: Now let me tell you a little bit about Liz before we get into the conversation.
1:36
SPEAKER_03: Liz is the mastermind behind the wildly successful email marketing membership, which is a simple$9 per month subscription that helps you improve your email marketing through templates.
1:48
SPEAKER_03: And in this conversation, we dive into the story of how she created a business with over 3,500 members and how she moved away from doing client work so she could focus on serving her students and growing her membership.
2:01
SPEAKER_03: And Liz is going to inspire and motivate you to start putting more time into creating your own content and moving toward building a business that fits your lifestyle and personality.
2:11
SPEAKER_03: And Liz also happens to have the most fun website that I've seen in a really long time.
2:16
SPEAKER_03: You can check out her email marketing membership at Liz Wilcox.com and also grab her free email swipe files, which includes templates for an email, welcome sequence, and more.
2:28
SPEAKER_03: So here's my conversation with the amazing and the survivor contestant, Liz Wilcox.
2:34
SPEAKER_03: Liz Wilcox, it is an honor and a privilege to have you here on the Daily Writer Podcast.
2:38
SPEAKER_03: I've been looking forward to this for a while.
2:40
SPEAKER_03: As I mentioned beforehand, I have about 86 questions.
2:43
SPEAKER_03: We probably won't get to all of them, but most importantly, welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast.
2:47
SPEAKER_03: It's uh I'm really glad you're here.
2:50
SPEAKER_06: Thank you so much.
2:50
SPEAKER_06: I'm really excited.
2:52
SPEAKER_06: I was telling Kent before we hit record that I consider myself a writer first and foremost.
2:58
SPEAKER_06: So I'm so excited to be talking business and everything with other writers.
3:06
SPEAKER_06: So this is really exciting.
3:08
SPEAKER_03: So you have become kind of a legend uh among thank you.
3:12
SPEAKER_03: At some point you're gonna like graduate to mythic status, you know.
3:16
SPEAKER_03: Um, but I'm gonna use the term legend in the best way possible, meaning that a lot of people in my circle, uh, the last six or twelve months have really been noticing the cool things that you're doing.
3:26
SPEAKER_03: And in fact, as I've talked about here on the podcast before, I'm a member of Vincent Puglisi's Total Life Freedom Group as well.
3:32
SPEAKER_03: And I know you're gonna be in there.
3:33
SPEAKER_03: Well, we're we're recording this April 24th.
3:35
SPEAKER_03: You'll be in there tomorrow talking.
3:37
SPEAKER_03: So you're kind of making the circuit here.
3:39
SPEAKER_03: I think it's it's awesome.
3:40
SPEAKER_03: You're doing some cool stuff.
3:41
SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
3:42
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I think the hardest thing for writers, but something that I overcame.
3:47
SPEAKER_06: And, you know, that's why Ken says, oh, she's a legend or whatever, is I I had to get rid of that.
3:54
SPEAKER_06: I'm afraid to be visible and holding my writing so close to my chest and holding my messaging and my vision so close to my chest.
4:04
SPEAKER_06: Once I release that, uh, yeah, it's I I, you know, it's not a mistake that I'm everywhere.
4:10
SPEAKER_06: That's something that I actively try to do because I know my message and the words that I write can truly help people.
4:18
SPEAKER_06: And so when I think of that, uh, you know, I'm gonna help people with my words or my message, my voice, all those things wrapped into one, that's what kind of releases me from like, is this good enough?
4:31
SPEAKER_06: Is this ready?
4:32
SPEAKER_06: Is this actually, are people gonna read this?
4:35
SPEAKER_06: Um, and that's really helped me.
4:37
SPEAKER_03: Do you think this this kind of perfectionistic attitude among artists and writers, do you think it's wildly overblown?
4:44
SPEAKER_03: Because are are people really even really paying that much attention to our stuff to our stuff that they're like analyzing into death and this writing isn't good enough and it's not like Shakespeare?
4:53
SPEAKER_03: Or do are people just looking for something entertaining and helpful?
4:58
SPEAKER_06: I think we now, okay, so most of us grew up in and we have our 10th grade English teacher on our shoulder, or you know, our English professor in college.
5:13
SPEAKER_06: And, you know, it can be so hard to let go of, like, oh, well, this is prose and it has to be written this way, and and you know, all these grammar rules and this and that.
5:23
SPEAKER_06: I don't even remember all of them, right?
5:25
SPEAKER_06: And so, but what we have to know about the modern age, especially if people are reading online, is that people, to Ken's point, are just looking to be entertained or just want a little bit of relief in their reading, right?
5:39
SPEAKER_06: Like the things that they read or the things they're trying to learn.
5:42
SPEAKER_06: Um, and so that's given me like, oh, well, I this is how I read on the internet, even if I'm reading an, you know, like a a Kindle book or something, there's just very, very different than the a physical book that you sit down to read.
5:58
SPEAKER_06: And so if you're thinking about creating content as a writer, writing emails, blog posts, social media, it's so different than if you're writing, you know, a novel like War and Peace.
6:10
SPEAKER_06: And so we can let go, we can release that writing.
6:13
SPEAKER_06: Of course, if that's what you love and that's how you love to write, please do that.
6:18
SPEAKER_06: But please know that when you write for the internet, it's a totally different ballgame.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: And your thing specifically is email, which, and that's actually a perfect segue into kind of the first round that I wanted to dive in here to a bit.
6:32
SPEAKER_03: So you run a thing called the email marketing membership, uh, which has been very successful and has the coolest website, by the way.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: I absolutely love the I assume you were going for an 80s vibe.
6:44
SPEAKER_06: With your like 80s, early 90s, just super fun.
6:48
SPEAKER_03: The it's like it's basically like if you took a trapper keeper and made a website out of it.
6:53
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
6:53
SPEAKER_04: It's kind of like that.
6:54
SPEAKER_03: I absolutely love it.
6:55
SPEAKER_03: I think it's the it's the most fun website that I have seen in a long time.
6:59
SPEAKER_03: So props to you and whoever your designer people were.
7:03
SPEAKER_03: You guys did a great job.
7:04
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
7:04
SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: I know that's very intentional because you're trying to make email fun and trying to kind of set a tone for people who continue on the journey with you by signing up for the membership and engage with you in other ways.
7:16
SPEAKER_03: So I guess my first question is oh, go ahead.
7:19
SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
7:20
SPEAKER_06: Well, I was gonna say, you know, writers, we we always, you know, we like to write in a certain tone.
7:26
SPEAKER_06: Or if we're writing a certain type of story, you know, it has to have this tone.
7:30
SPEAKER_06: For me, email marketing feels for my customers and my students, this really heavy thing.
7:37
SPEAKER_06: So if I can bring this light, fun tone to it outside of my words, even visually, then you know, more people are likely to, you know, read my words and do the work they need to do.
7:51
SPEAKER_03: So why email as opposed to social media or books or podcasts or all kinds of ways that we can get our message out there?
8:00
SPEAKER_03: Why should we be focusing on email?
8:02
SPEAKER_03: Because a lot of people look at that and they go, well, that's like an antiquated technology.
8:06
SPEAKER_03: That's that's so 90s.
8:07
SPEAKER_03: But why is it that email is something that we should really be putting a lot of time and effort into?
8:13
SPEAKER_06: Sure.
8:14
SPEAKER_06: If you're not watching the video, my eyes just bulged out of my head when we said that it was an antiquated thing.
8:23
SPEAKER_06: Email is still so hot, it is still the thing, right?
8:28
SPEAKER_06: You check your email every single day.
8:30
SPEAKER_06: And a lot of people think, oh, well, you know, social media is the future.
8:35
SPEAKER_06: But here's the fact you don't own social media.
8:39
SPEAKER_06: Like, raise your hand if you were hanging out at your house in 2022 and you saw some billionaire buy a social media platform, and suddenly people started leaving in droves, and it started to implode on itself.
8:55
SPEAKER_03: And that would never happen, though.
8:56
SPEAKER_03: This is totally hypothetical, of course.
8:59
SPEAKER_06: No, but I think I'm talking about Twitter here.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know, I know.
9:03
SPEAKER_06: I'm just so yeah, so if you and especially writers in particular are on Twitter, right?
9:10
SPEAKER_06: A lot of journalists, a lot of novelists, like you're it's there to have a conversation.
9:14
SPEAKER_06: It's kind of this giant forum, right?
9:17
SPEAKER_06: If you had built your entire audience on that social media platform, suddenly it starts to implode, your followers are leaving the platform.
9:28
SPEAKER_06: You don't know where to find them again, right?
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
9:31
SPEAKER_06: And so when you have an email list, those people consent, yes, I want to hear more from Kent.
9:37
SPEAKER_06: I want to hear from Liz.
9:39
SPEAKER_06: And you are in control.
9:41
SPEAKER_06: Email, social media is a very centralized platform, right?
9:45
SPEAKER_06: One person owns it and you know, as we've seen, can blow it up in one day.
9:49
SPEAKER_06: Yep, email is much different, it's decentralized.
9:53
SPEAKER_06: We, the users, you know, dictate what happens, right?
9:57
SPEAKER_06: Google, Outlook, Yahoo, all of that, um, our certain email service providers.
10:03
SPEAKER_06: There's lots of users that have just a little bit of power.
10:07
SPEAKER_06: And so that's what makes it so powerful because you know, your users are in the driver's seat.
10:13
SPEAKER_06: Yes, I want to hear from this person, and you are in the driver's seat saying, yes, I'm going to email them.
10:19
SPEAKER_06: The second part of that is it's just where you can make real connections, right?
10:24
SPEAKER_06: If you write a book or you have a column or you're on Substack, you've heard Substack, that's the new thing, right?
10:31
SPEAKER_06: Um sending it directly to their email allows you to have this personal connection that you can't really have anywhere else.
10:39
SPEAKER_06: I, for lack of a better term, email is just a more intimate platform where you can send one-to-many and you can turn it into one-to-one.
10:49
SPEAKER_06: That person's gonna write you back.
10:50
SPEAKER_06: Oh, I just this column was so great.
10:53
SPEAKER_06: It really touched me in this way.
10:55
SPEAKER_06: Or, you know, if you're more how-to nonfiction, like, oh, that really helped me get XYZ, right?
11:02
SPEAKER_06: And so those are the two reasons why I really love email.
11:05
SPEAKER_03: So you have this really unique thing, as I mentioned earlier, called email marketing membership.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: It's nine bucks a month, which is super, I know it's becoming, I guess, more of a thing, but that's that's super opposite of the way most kind of uh business memberships are.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: So, like my own daily writer club is 47 bucks a month.
11:25
SPEAKER_03: People have memberships that are way more expensive and all that.
11:30
SPEAKER_03: Where did this kind of idea come from of doing something that is really low cost, but really, really high value?
11:36
SPEAKER_03: Because it's almost like you totally pivoted from where everybody else is going.
11:41
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, thank you.
11:42
SPEAKER_06: And yeah, like nowadays I'm seeing$9 memberships pop up everywhere.
11:47
SPEAKER_06: I don't know if I was the OG.
11:49
SPEAKER_06: I'm pretty sure I stole it from Netflix.
11:52
SPEAKER_06: Netflix used to be$9.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Way back when.
11:54
SPEAKER_06: And so that's really where the price point came from is just knowing that, especially online, the potential is limitless.
12:04
SPEAKER_06: You know, there's eight billion people on the planet, right?
12:06
SPEAKER_06: I don't need eight people, eight billion people to join my membership.
12:10
SPEAKER_06: I just need a sub a very small sliver of that pie.
12:14
SPEAKER_06: And so I I looked at Netflix, like, no joke, just off to my left is my TV, and I'm thinking about Netflix.
12:21
SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, well, they of course they have like 20 million viewers.
12:24
SPEAKER_06: I don't, I don't need 20 million subscribers, I just need X amount.
12:29
SPEAKER_06: And so I did the math and I thought, um, you know, if I could get a thousand people in, that would be$9,000 a month.
12:37
SPEAKER_06: At the time, I was charging$2,000 a day for a VIP day for me to write your sales messages, your emails, whatever.
12:45
SPEAKER_06: And so I said, what if I could just get a thousand people one day?
12:49
SPEAKER_06: And how long would I be willing to wait?
12:51
SPEAKER_06: Because I know Kent and I were talking about this earlier.
12:54
SPEAKER_06: You know, it can be so hard when you're taking client work, right?
12:57
SPEAKER_06: To set aside time for yourself.
13:00
SPEAKER_06: And so for me, it was, yeah, I can set out a little bit of time, you know, every single week, but really to give myself two years to hit that thousand.
13:11
SPEAKER_06: I was already doing the client work.
13:13
SPEAKER_06: Sure, it wasn't my favorite thing, but I knew it could sustain me and my family.
13:17
SPEAKER_06: And if I could just steal a little bit of time here and there for the next two years, could I have that thousand member membership?
13:27
SPEAKER_06: And then, of course, with the$9, you know, thinking, you know, a thousand times nine, nine thousand, that was more money than I could dream of for a silly little membership.
13:37
SPEAKER_06: And also just being accessible is that last piece.
13:41
SPEAKER_06: I really, I know email marketing is the thing that's gonna take your business from where it is at today to where you want it to be.
13:50
SPEAKER_06: But email is also probably the most expensive thing to hire a copywriter or an email strategist to come behind the scenes and build your funnel, et cetera, et cetera, is incredibly expensive.
14:04
SPEAKER_06: And most people have to, you know, like trudge through the mud to get to that point.
14:10
SPEAKER_06: So I thought, hey, this is gonna be the most accessible thing.
14:13
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna get the maximum amount of people in there to get to that thousand as quickly as possible.
14:18
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna give myself two years.
14:20
SPEAKER_06: But those kind of three things all together, it was like, yep, nine bucks.
14:25
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna give myself a little bit of time here and there throughout the week for the next two years, and I'm I'm sure I'll hit that thousand.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: And was did you hit the thousand before the two years was up?
14:38
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it took me one year and six days.
14:43
SPEAKER_06: But it only took me nine months.
14:45
SPEAKER_06: It took me nine months to retire my client work.
14:49
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
14:50
SPEAKER_03: Um so what did you, and maybe here I'm getting into kind of the business side of it.
14:55
SPEAKER_03: What are the primary things that you did to promote your nine dollar membership?
14:59
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
15:01
SPEAKER_06: So, and here's the thing that I think is really difficult for writers.
15:04
SPEAKER_06: Again, this was the first thing I mentioned, being afraid to put our work out there.
15:09
SPEAKER_06: You know, we work so hard on our writing, it feels like our baby.
15:15
SPEAKER_06: So being able to get past that and just talk about it.
15:19
SPEAKER_06: Hey, I know I'm really good at writing newsletters, that's what my membership is.
15:24
SPEAKER_06: Let me write it for you.
15:26
SPEAKER_06: Let me write it for you, and being really kind of unapologetic about finding these people, right?
15:32
SPEAKER_06: And also, I really didn't want to do client work forever.
15:36
SPEAKER_06: So that was also a motivator.
15:38
SPEAKER_06: And so those few things together really propelled me.
15:42
SPEAKER_06: So, how did I do it?
15:43
SPEAKER_06: I shared to my email list.
15:44
SPEAKER_06: I had an email list of 800.
15:46
SPEAKER_06: So I did have that, and I said, hey, I want to get a hundred people in the next 30 days.
15:53
SPEAKER_06: I thought 100 times nine, that's 900 bucks.
15:56
SPEAKER_06: That's almost half of my VIP day.
15:59
SPEAKER_06: If I just chunk it out like I'm a chunker, right?
16:02
SPEAKER_06: I just like to chunk out little itty bitty steps.
16:04
SPEAKER_06: You know, you got to build brick by brick.
16:06
SPEAKER_06: You can't just have a wall.
16:07
SPEAKER_06: So if I can get 100 people, that's 900 bucks.
16:10
SPEAKER_06: That's that's groceries, right?
16:12
SPEAKER_06: Okay, we're good, we're good.
16:14
SPEAKER_06: And so I just told my people when I released the membership, hey, do you want this thing?
16:19
SPEAKER_06: I'm trying to get 100 people in the next 30 days.
16:22
SPEAKER_06: And I just kept sending emails.
16:24
SPEAKER_06: I just kept posting on social media.
16:27
SPEAKER_06: I was shameless.
16:28
SPEAKER_06: I said, Hey, do you know a guy?
16:31
SPEAKER_06: Right?
16:31
SPEAKER_06: Hey, you just joined.
16:33
SPEAKER_06: Do you know anybody?
16:34
SPEAKER_06: Please share this out.
16:36
SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, and even at that time, I didn't know if I would raise the price.
16:40
SPEAKER_06: So I said, you know, nine bucks.
16:41
SPEAKER_06: This is crazy.
16:43
SPEAKER_06: Go, go, go.
16:44
SPEAKER_06: And people started sharing it.
16:46
SPEAKER_06: And I did hit that hundred.
16:48
SPEAKER_06: I hit 128 days, but again, it was having to put myself out there.
16:53
SPEAKER_06: And y'all, I I don't say that with any amount of privilege.
16:57
SPEAKER_06: I I did not speak until I was seven years old.
17:01
SPEAKER_06: I was mute.
17:02
SPEAKER_06: Um, I still, even now talking about, I'm about to talk about it.
17:05
SPEAKER_06: If you're watching the video, you can see my neck is turning red.
17:08
SPEAKER_06: I am very much still afraid of public speaking, still afraid of putting myself out there.
17:14
SPEAKER_06: But I know that my words can serve people.
17:17
SPEAKER_06: And I know that, you know, again, shameless.
17:21
SPEAKER_06: I need money.
17:21
SPEAKER_06: I need money to eat.
17:22
SPEAKER_06: I'm a single mom.
17:23
SPEAKER_06: I support uh two households 100% financially.
17:27
SPEAKER_06: Like I've got to put myself out there to get out of that.
17:31
SPEAKER_06: What did we call it earlier?
17:32
SPEAKER_06: Can't like that that client I don't want to say help.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I'm gonna say this on a podcast somebody out there.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: I call it I called it the client death trap.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:44
SPEAKER_03: And I don't, my goodness, if any of my clients are listening to this, that's not what I mean.
17:49
SPEAKER_06: But some people that some people it does feel that way to them.
17:52
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
17:52
SPEAKER_06: When you're especially when you're afraid to put yourself out there, you'll take any client you can get.
17:58
SPEAKER_06: And for me, I just knew personally, this was my personal thing, I didn't want clients forever.
18:05
SPEAKER_06: I loved my clients when I loved them, but I knew that my writing was meant for more people than just one at a time.
18:13
SPEAKER_03: Yes, my gosh.
18:14
SPEAKER_03: I this is a big, huge.
18:17
SPEAKER_03: So my main thing is ghostwriting.
18:18
SPEAKER_03: This is a massive problem in the world of ghostwriting.
18:22
SPEAKER_03: Massive, in the sense of um, I think a lot of people, well, I I would say it's the same, it's a problem for editors, freelance writers, anybody doing client work, but I and I I'm sure that you talk to people, Liz, like this all the time too, where there's there's kind of this hesitancy to put themselves out there, like you're talking about.
18:44
SPEAKER_03: And people talk about many times editing or ghostwriting as if it's like some kind of like, well, I'm just like being really noble because I just want to support other people's messages and platforms.
18:54
SPEAKER_03: When I've been around this long enough now to where I know sometimes that's kind of code language for I'm stuck on this hamster wheel and I'm afraid to put myself out there.
19:04
SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
19:05
SPEAKER_06: And y'all, I have been there.
19:08
SPEAKER_06: I worked under a writer for a long time.
19:11
SPEAKER_06: I think that's why I, you know, outside of being a writer myself, I I feel like I understand I love writers because I feel like I just understand you.
19:20
SPEAKER_06: And it it is hard, especially when you're ghostwriting or editing, you know, you're you're helping other people spread their message.
19:30
SPEAKER_06: But I would invite you to just spend some time on what is your message and allowing yourself to understand like your message is important too, you know, sitting down, what are those values you have?
19:44
SPEAKER_06: Who do you truly want to serve?
19:46
SPEAKER_06: And if you want to serve and you want to be a ghostwriter forever, that's amazing.
19:50
SPEAKER_06: But if you do want some of that, I don't know, side income, um, you know, you do want to help other people write better books on a mass scale, um, yeah, you do have to get at least semi-comfortable.
20:04
SPEAKER_06: Hopefully, you don't break out in hives like I do sometimes, uh, with putting putting you out there as much as you're writing.
20:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:14
SPEAKER_03: Did it make a difference when you were getting, especially those first hundred subscribers?
20:19
SPEAKER_03: Um first hundred customers, I guess, is students.
20:22
SPEAKER_03: Well, what term do you prefer, actually?
20:23
SPEAKER_03: Students, customers.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: I say students.
20:26
SPEAKER_03: I like students better too.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: I was a college professor for a really long time before I got into this world.
20:30
SPEAKER_03: So I love this idea of students.
20:32
SPEAKER_03: Do you think it made a difference promoting something that was nine bucks a month versus like a$50 a month thing,$100 a month thing?
20:40
SPEAKER_03: Did it make it easier because it was so low cost?
20:43
SPEAKER_06: Yes, sorry to interrupt, y'all.
20:45
SPEAKER_06: If you have the issue that I have with the hives, honestly, I mean, to be honest, I don't think I've ever shared this.
20:51
SPEAKER_06: Like the low cost is much easier to share.
20:55
SPEAKER_06: I love it.
20:56
SPEAKER_06: And for me, I was, you know, I was charging$7,000 for a project.
21:00
SPEAKER_06: And every time I got, and maybe this is why I said, oh, client work isn't for me.
21:04
SPEAKER_06: Every time I would get on a call, I would be, you know, nerves shaking, the hives, I would have to write myself notes and like rate seven thousand dollars and circle it over and over during the call, right?
21:17
SPEAKER_06: Like, Liz, don't you dare go down.
21:19
SPEAKER_06: This is they're asking you for$7,000 worth of work, right?
21:23
SPEAKER_06: And but I it's hard to that to the point of like the clients, and is this easier?
21:29
SPEAKER_06: For me, it's like, do I want to go to therapy to fix that problem?
21:32
SPEAKER_06: No, but I need money right now.
21:34
SPEAKER_06: So what if I just create this low-cost thing that's sort of fun?
21:39
SPEAKER_06: I know because I'm an excellent writer, that I'm going to overdeliver.
21:44
SPEAKER_06: And I and I'm a per I'm a people person.
21:46
SPEAKER_06: And just like Kent, like I have a master's degree in educational leadership.
21:49
SPEAKER_06: Like, I'm a teacher first, I'm an educator and writer.
21:53
SPEAKER_06: I know those two together, it's over for everybody else, right?
21:58
SPEAKER_06: So if I could charge nine dollars.
22:00
SPEAKER_06: Yes, of course that took the pressure off.
22:02
SPEAKER_06: Oh my gosh, nobody cares about my words, my message.
22:05
SPEAKER_06: It was like, hey, this is$9.
22:09
SPEAKER_06: Give it a try for 30 days.
22:11
SPEAKER_06: You can cancel anytime.
22:12
SPEAKER_06: If it doesn't move the needle for you, or if you know my words don't fit your personality or whatever, you know, peace be with you.
22:20
SPEAKER_06: XOXO, right?
22:22
SPEAKER_06: And so, yes, the low cost definitely helped me propel that.
22:28
SPEAKER_06: Hey, you want to try this?
22:30
SPEAKER_06: And y'all, we didn't even mention this.
22:33
SPEAKER_06: My first email to sell this thing, the subject line.
22:37
SPEAKER_06: This is how much relief it gave me to charge$9.
22:42
SPEAKER_06: My subject line was, can I have$9?
22:46
SPEAKER_06: It was such an easy ask.
22:49
SPEAKER_06: And I have that.
22:51
SPEAKER_06: I took that newsletter and put it in my welcome sequence.
22:54
SPEAKER_06: So everyone that joins my list gets a can I have nine dollars email?
22:58
SPEAKER_06: Because yes, to Kent's point, that low price point as someone who breaks out in hives trying to, you know, trying to put themselves out there and put their prices out there was so simple.
23:12
SPEAKER_03: I love this idea of a low-cost membership for a whole bunch of reasons.
23:17
SPEAKER_03: How would somebody because I I've we have a mutual friend, Vincent Puglisi, and he's got a nine dollar membership now.
23:23
SPEAKER_03: I think pretty much directly because of what you've done.
23:26
SPEAKER_03: He's got the Total Life Freedom School.
23:28
SPEAKER_03: They're actually a uh sponsor of this podcast, one of my first few paid sponsors, which has been a lot of fun.
23:34
SPEAKER_03: And I've really seriously thought maybe I should do something similar.
23:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I have like a$47 a month membership, or we have weekly calls and writing spreads.
23:42
SPEAKER_03: I've got a mastermind, I do client work, but there's something about this nine dollar thing that I find really compelling.
23:49
SPEAKER_03: My one of my struggles though is that uh I have a daily podcast, I send out emails every day.
23:55
SPEAKER_03: So I'm putting out a lot of content for free, and I kind of worry sometimes that maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot a little bit by just putting out so much stuff out there, content-wise.
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Do you think is that a valid concern?
24:11
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
24:12
SPEAKER_06: Um I mean, you could you could take that podcast or you know, the content or whatever and turn it into a low-cost membership, or take past things that you're not going to release again and kind of you know reinvigorate that creativity.
24:29
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I I hate the oh, I'm shooting myself in the foot.
24:33
SPEAKER_06: Because people often tell me, even my business coach, oh Liz, you gotta get a tier going.
24:38
SPEAKER_06: You know, oh, you know, you need to the first few months he was like, you gotta up the price, you gotta up the price, you're not gonna lose anybody.
24:45
SPEAKER_06: Up the price.
24:46
SPEAKER_06: But it was just something I was like, I don't want to do it.
24:49
SPEAKER_06: So I really, you know, if you're thinking about some kind of membership or whatever, I mean, whatever you're thinking of next, really just checking in with your gut, like, does this feel good?
24:59
SPEAKER_06: You know, not thinking about what am I losing, thinking of, you know, is this gonna feel good?
25:05
SPEAKER_06: Am I going to regret it later?
25:07
SPEAKER_06: And for me with the$9 price, I've never regretted it.
25:11
SPEAKER_06: You know, sometimes I'll listen to a podcast or see somebody else.
25:15
SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, I've got as many members as you, and then I look at their price and it's$50, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I could be a millionaire right now.
25:22
SPEAKER_06: But at the same time, in my gut, I know the price is right.
25:25
SPEAKER_06: So for you, like if it's in your gut to continue on with the free content, if it's invigorating you, then I say go for it.
25:36
SPEAKER_03: And there's nothing nothing wrong with having multiple tiers, of course.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, you've got free stuff.
25:41
SPEAKER_04: I'm just lazy.
25:42
SPEAKER_03: Well, no, I think you're really strategic.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: And I'm actually kind of jealous a little bit because you made such a strategic decision to just do the$9 month membership.
25:52
SPEAKER_03: I've got all these other things going on.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: I've I probably have too many things going on, honestly.
25:57
SPEAKER_03: Um some days I would just like to shut everything down and just do like one single thing.
26:01
SPEAKER_03: And I I've thought, man, how amazing could it be if I could just focus on like just one thing?
26:07
SPEAKER_05: Um Yeah.
26:08
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I I have other like I have other products, but for me, my my main thing has always been the membership.
26:16
SPEAKER_06: And yeah, it was strategic.
26:17
SPEAKER_06: It was like, well, if I can get them in for$9, I can get them to spend$100,$500, whatever.
26:24
SPEAKER_06: And it just turned out, you know, like I said, I was gonna give myself two years.
26:29
SPEAKER_06: It just caught on much more quickly than I ever thought.
26:33
SPEAKER_06: And so now I simply don't have to do those other things.
26:36
SPEAKER_06: And I choose not to because I love myself.
26:39
SPEAKER_06: I'm a single mom.
26:41
SPEAKER_06: I've had some, I had a brain injury uh happen to me uh almost a year ago.
26:47
SPEAKER_06: Um, and so adding on is just feels impossible.
26:52
SPEAKER_06: And so I've just really kept things simple.
26:55
SPEAKER_06: And I'm sure, you know, hopefully I'm taking a little break in the summer.
26:59
SPEAKER_06: Hopefully I'll come back and be, you know, excited for something new.
27:02
SPEAKER_06: Um, but the membership, especially business-wise, just sticking to one thing and just working it, working it, sharing, sharing, sharing over and over until it catches and you do have a reliable source of income, I think is the key to success.
27:21
SPEAKER_06: And I think it's, you know, a major uh downfall for a lot of entrepreneurs.
27:28
SPEAKER_03: We'll get back to the conversation in just a moment, but first I want to take a second to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, The Word Wizard.
27:35
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27:51
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28:05
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28:12
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28:16
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28:21
SPEAKER_03: Now back to the conversation.
28:24
SPEAKER_03: You mentioned a phrase earlier, I think right at the top of this conversation, this idea of being everywhere.
28:30
SPEAKER_03: Which I think you kind of are everywhere now.
28:32
SPEAKER_03: You know, a lot of people are talking about cool things that you're doing and how successful this has been and almost how it's completely the opposite of what a lot of people are doing, which I think is really interesting.
28:42
SPEAKER_03: What are some ways the past couple of years that you have tried to be everywhere and to really put yourself out there?
28:49
SPEAKER_03: I know podcast guesting like we're doing right now is a big part of that.
28:53
SPEAKER_03: But I'm I wonder if you could kind of speak to that in some ways that you have found that it's effective to really get the message out there and promote your membership.
29:01
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
29:02
SPEAKER_06: So I'm gonna share what I love, but I want you, as you're listening, like filter it through what makes sense for you and your personality.
29:11
SPEAKER_06: Obviously, I'm a talker.
29:13
SPEAKER_06: If you are more of a writer, wink wink, you know, there are other strategies that we can talk about.
29:18
SPEAKER_06: But for me, I knew I had a message and I knew it was solid, and I knew like people can just hear me or see me.
29:26
SPEAKER_06: They, you know, I don't know if it's the way I dress, if it's my energy.
29:30
SPEAKER_06: Usually, if I meet somebody, um, I, you know, I'm I can usually hook them for nine bucks, right?
29:38
SPEAKER_06: So for me, it was a podcast guesting like this.
29:41
SPEAKER_06: I've done, I think, close to 250 in the last two years.
29:45
SPEAKER_06: I think I have six on my schedule uh just for this week, but also summits.
29:51
SPEAKER_06: So again, I do have a signature talk, I have a framework for how I teach email.
29:56
SPEAKER_06: And so, you know, during summits, I can do that.
29:59
SPEAKER_06: If you're watching the video, you see my frame right here.
30:02
SPEAKER_06: So I do lots of fun stuff in that.
30:06
SPEAKER_06: Um, and then the third thing, which not a lot of people talk about, but has worked so well for me is affiliate marketing.
30:14
SPEAKER_06: So if you become an affiliate for my membership, no joke, I give you 50% of that every single month.
30:22
SPEAKER_06: So if Kent signs up under you, you get$4.50 every single month.
30:28
SPEAKER_06: Now, with affiliate marketing, a lot of the traditional stuff is oh, you know, get into a management program where somebody finds the affiliates for you, or you, you know, go for the big fish, or charge really high tickets so people will want to promote it because they're gonna get a big cash injection for doing nothing.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:47
SPEAKER_06: Right.
30:47
SPEAKER_06: And I said, I don't like any of that.
30:50
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna charge as cheap as possible and I'm gonna give away 50% because again, I'm thinking long term.
30:56
SPEAKER_06: I was thinking two years into the future.
30:59
SPEAKER_06: And so, and again, like the potential is limitless.
31:02
SPEAKER_06: I only need a piece of the pie and I'm willing to wait, I'm willing to be patient.
31:07
SPEAKER_06: I don't need a million dollars today.
31:09
SPEAKER_06: I want to sure, if I found it, if I open my door and a million bucks is there, guaranteed I'm cashing it in, but I don't need it today.
31:16
SPEAKER_06: I just need X amount, right?
31:18
SPEAKER_06: And so I'm willing to give away that 50%, that$4.50 or$4.50 over and over again, so I can find more people.
31:27
SPEAKER_06: So I don't have to pay for ads, I don't have to find podcasts if I can't find podcasts.
31:32
SPEAKER_06: I don't have to do this and that.
31:34
SPEAKER_06: If summits aren't a thing next year, I don't have to stress because the customers, the people are already in the membership.
31:42
SPEAKER_06: I tell them if you just get two people, I'm not looking for big fish.
31:47
SPEAKER_06: If you just get two people, that's gonna pay for your membership.
31:50
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna give you that nine dollars back every single month.
31:54
SPEAKER_06: And so at this point, it's taken about 20, 24 months, a little over two years.
32:01
SPEAKER_06: I have over 700 affiliates and I tend to pay out 150 to 400 people a month.
32:08
SPEAKER_06: So it is quite active.
32:09
SPEAKER_06: It's not, I wish it was 700 people every month.
32:12
SPEAKER_06: That'd be amazing.
32:14
SPEAKER_06: But again, it's just more volume.
32:17
SPEAKER_06: I'm all about volume.
32:19
SPEAKER_06: Having a lot of people selling a little bit to me, again, was easier than going for that big fish, you know, going for that whoever's your big guru and saying, Hey, will you sell my you know, it was gonna take me years to be able to connect with those hired people.
32:36
SPEAKER_06: I was nobody, but if I can get Kent to just share with his writer buddy, oh yeah, you really need this.
32:44
SPEAKER_06: You know, that's one more person.
32:46
SPEAKER_06: And here's the thing you gotta know, and I think this is really hard for writers to sell, right?
32:53
SPEAKER_06: But here's the thing customers create community, and if you're especially if you're building online or you want to grow some kind of email list, you gotta have community.
33:03
SPEAKER_06: And so customers they invest, right?
33:06
SPEAKER_06: They give you the money, and that means they take action.
33:10
SPEAKER_06: And when they take action, they see the result that you give them and they tell a friend.
33:16
SPEAKER_06: So why wouldn't I open up an affiliate program that allows them once they've taken action, they've seen the results, they're definitely going to tell their friend, especially if I'm incentivizing them.
33:27
SPEAKER_06: So that's really that that third thing, the affiliate marketing, has really been the way I've grown.
33:35
SPEAKER_03: And how are you, what platform are you using for your membership?
33:38
SPEAKER_03: And then how are you doing the affiliate stuff?
33:39
SPEAKER_03: But like is all is all automated, like through Kajabi or Kartra or something like that, or or how does that all work?
33:46
SPEAKER_06: I love this question.
33:48
SPEAKER_06: Y'all, I am cheap.
33:49
SPEAKER_06: I am so cheap.
33:50
SPEAKER_06: I'm selling a$9 membership.
33:52
SPEAKER_06: I cannot spend any money, uh, right?
33:55
SPEAKER_06: And I'm giving away half, you know, half of the money to half of the people.
34:00
SPEAKER_06: So my membership at first was just on Google Drive.
34:05
SPEAKER_06: I would write, you know, the same way you work with your clients in Microsoft Word or you're using Google Docs, that's what I was working with.
34:15
SPEAKER_06: And I would send out an email saying, here's the link to the new template that I'm sending you.
34:22
SPEAKER_06: So, y'all, again, keep it simple.
34:24
SPEAKER_06: My life is complicated enough.
34:26
SPEAKER_06: My business cannot be right.
34:28
SPEAKER_06: And so then eventually, when I hit a thousand members, I said, okay, maybe I need to put this on a platform.
34:34
SPEAKER_06: And I actually, my membership is built on WordPress.org or whatever the heck.
34:40
SPEAKER_06: It's built on LizWilcox.com through WordPress.
34:43
SPEAKER_06: It's all free plugins.
34:45
SPEAKER_06: I spend zero dollars a month hosting my site other than what I'm hosting LizWilcox.com for, which is like 17 bucks a month.
34:54
SPEAKER_06: Wild stuff.
34:55
SPEAKER_06: So how do I pay out affiliates?
34:57
SPEAKER_06: I use Thrivecart.
34:59
SPEAKER_06: Uh, that's just a cart.
35:00
SPEAKER_06: That's how if you purchased, uh, it would be through Thrivecart.
35:04
SPEAKER_06: If you sign up as an affiliate, it would show in uh Thrivecart.
35:08
SPEAKER_06: And yes, Thrivecart uh will pay you out for me so that I don't have to.
35:14
SPEAKER_06: Of course, there's always errors.
35:15
SPEAKER_06: So we have a note in our calendar on the 15th of every month to go in and see which PayPal account was messed up and we manually pay you from there.
35:25
SPEAKER_06: Um, but especially when you have that mass volume, uh it's it's worth it.
35:29
SPEAKER_06: And Thrivecart is incredibly cheap.
35:31
SPEAKER_06: I think I paid the maximum amount.
35:34
SPEAKER_06: It was$600 flat fee.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: That's really cheap.
35:39
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's it's I used to use something called samcart.com, and that was costing me$200 a month.
35:45
SPEAKER_06: And I personally had to manually pay you out.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
35:49
SPEAKER_06: And that, yeah, and that would get confusing.
35:53
SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, especially when I started getting upwards in the in the hundreds of people that I had to pay out, um, keeping everything going while only having a part-time VA, it was really difficult.
36:06
SPEAKER_06: So I decided to, even though I loved Sam Cart, I decided to remove that from the business and move into Thrivecart because it's it's still technically a beta.
36:17
SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's been a beta for like five years.
36:19
SPEAKER_06: So it's a flat fee.
36:21
SPEAKER_06: And I bought the upgrade where you can host your own courses in there.
36:25
SPEAKER_06: And that was, I think,$600, but you could just buy the one package, and I think it's three or four hundred dollars for creating carts and affiliates and all that.
36:35
SPEAKER_03: See, this is a really and thank you for all that, by the way.
36:38
SPEAKER_03: This is you're welcome.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: It's like so antithetical to the vibe that is out that is out there so much with the people who do this kind of stuff, is because everybody's pushing Kartra or Kajabi or this or that, and they're they're pretty expensive tools, I mean, relatively.
36:54
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: So, but on the other hand, I'm like, okay, if you can so I'm gonna be switching actually my daily writer stuff.
37:01
SPEAKER_03: I had it, I've got it in Member Vault now, which jacked up the price dramatically.
37:05
SPEAKER_03: I don't even think it's that good of a platform, to be honest with you.
37:08
SPEAKER_03: Hopefully nobody from Member Vault's listening.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: Um But I really love Kajabi, but it's more expensive.
37:15
SPEAKER_03: So I'm like, well, there's that, there's member press, there's I like those all-in-one kinds of things because I'm gonna do a lot of courses and I may do an inexpensive membership like this.
37:25
SPEAKER_03: So do you have any thoughts for people who want to get into these kinds of things?
37:28
SPEAKER_03: Would you uh recommend they just go as inexpensive as possible so they can not be spending gads of money on this kind of stuff every month?
37:37
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, well, I think if if you do go low cost, like if your membership is, you know, 20 bucks or less and you don't have a lot of cash sitting around.
37:50
SPEAKER_06: I'm talking about myself when I started mine.
37:52
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
37:53
SPEAKER_06: Um, yes, go as inexpensive as you can.
37:57
SPEAKER_06: Um, if you have a little bit of money to spare and you know you want you love that like nice, clean, uh hands-off, all-in-one experience, then yeah, sure, go ahead and spend that money.
38:11
SPEAKER_06: Um, for me, again, it was really important that I keep the$9 pricing and the WordPress just worked so well.
38:19
SPEAKER_06: Like now I have, I think, 3,500 users to LizWilcox.com, and that has affected my hosting 0%.
38:29
SPEAKER_06: Uh, you know, it seems, I mean, who knows?
38:32
SPEAKER_06: At 10,000, maybe it will break.
38:33
SPEAKER_06: I'll have to look at other options.
38:36
SPEAKER_06: And it was, I loved Ken's started the conversation.
38:38
SPEAKER_06: Oh, your membership, it looks so much like you.
38:41
SPEAKER_06: And for me, again, I think I mentioned this like the Liz Wilcox brand is incredibly intentional.
38:48
SPEAKER_06: I want you to feel light, I want you to be in this kind of nostalgia, right?
38:52
SPEAKER_06: Like, oh, this is so 80s, this is so 90s, so that you don't feel, I don't know, cringy trying to do what I'm asking you to do.
39:03
SPEAKER_06: So I know my subject can be really difficult.
39:06
SPEAKER_06: So the branding has to be intentional.
39:08
SPEAKER_06: And for me, having it on LizWilcox.com allowed me to make it look however I wanted.
39:15
SPEAKER_06: I'm really cohesive.
39:17
SPEAKER_06: Um, and that that was really important for me too.
39:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:21
SPEAKER_03: Wow, I love that.
39:22
SPEAKER_03: I love that so much because it's again, it's just the opposite of what kind of what we're told a lot of times.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: Of course, you know, the people who are behind those companies, they always want to make you feel like you can't do anything in business unless you have all these 85 different tools that of course they have a yeah, each have a lot of a lot of money for advertising.
39:41
SPEAKER_06: So of course it feels like that.
39:43
SPEAKER_06: But I block a lot of ad.
39:44
SPEAKER_06: Maybe that's honestly side note, maybe that's why I was able to come up with these other ideas because I block a lot of advertising.
39:53
SPEAKER_06: So I don't see those platforms as much.
39:56
SPEAKER_06: I when I hear about them, I don't Google them.
39:59
SPEAKER_06: So they're not coming up in ads later.
40:01
SPEAKER_06: I'm very much like a horse with blinders on in my business.
40:05
SPEAKER_06: Again, because you know, once I turn the computer off, you know, I have those other responsibilities.
40:11
SPEAKER_06: So I really try to protect myself in my business and do the one thing at a time that I know I need to do.
40:19
SPEAKER_03: So if you've got currently about 3,500 people who are in your membership, what is it like when you get to that many students?
40:27
SPEAKER_03: Do you have people who who are emailing you all the time with more questions or other kinds of things, or is that not really the case?
40:35
SPEAKER_06: You know, I mean, again, those high-ticket people would love to tell you that that is the case, but I have not found it.
40:41
SPEAKER_06: Of course, I get emails.
40:43
SPEAKER_06: Of course, I have a Facebook group.
40:44
SPEAKER_06: There's lots of people posting in there.
40:46
SPEAKER_06: Um, but it's really not what you would think.
40:50
SPEAKER_06: It's not this endless sea of I'm paying$9 and I expect you to give me everything, right?
40:58
SPEAKER_06: And when I do get questions that are really above and beyond, or I get, oh, you should update the site because this doesn't work, you know, I wish this would happen in the site.
41:09
SPEAKER_06: I kindly say, Oh, that's a great suggestion.
41:12
SPEAKER_06: Uh, we're actively searching for a solution while trying to keep it at the$9 price.
41:19
SPEAKER_06: Thank you for your patience.
41:20
SPEAKER_06: Right.
41:20
SPEAKER_06: And most people come back, oh my gosh, I know I love a$9 pricing.
41:24
SPEAKER_06: This is the best money I spent.
41:26
SPEAKER_06: You know, it just kind of keeps them in perspective.
41:28
SPEAKER_06: But as far as those, you know, email marketing questions go, I do have a live QA once a month.
41:36
SPEAKER_06: And I mean, at this point, there are about a hundred people that show up to that call.
41:40
SPEAKER_06: We usually go about 90 minutes.
41:42
SPEAKER_06: But again, that's my personality.
41:44
SPEAKER_06: I love answering these questions.
41:46
SPEAKER_06: And I'm so passionate about my message and what email can do for people that I'm willing to put out that 90 minutes.
41:54
SPEAKER_06: Um, but now if if someone has a question in the inbox, usually I'll just make a quick loom, like at loom.com.
42:03
SPEAKER_06: It's a video um, you know, Chrome extension.
42:06
SPEAKER_06: And um I I love that because again, it takes me above and beyond.
42:12
SPEAKER_06: Like, oh, for$9, you just sent me a video.
42:14
SPEAKER_06: And so instead of thinking like, oh, I have to answer all these questions, it's like, oh, here's my chance to over-deliver.
42:22
SPEAKER_06: And then what remember I said, you know, what is my number one way of getting visible?
42:27
SPEAKER_06: Affiliates.
42:28
SPEAKER_06: Then in that video, or they say, Oh, this was above and beyond.
42:32
SPEAKER_06: That's when I can come back in the email and say, Oh, if you love this, are you an affiliate?
42:36
SPEAKER_06: Sign up here if you know a friend.
42:38
SPEAKER_06: And again, it's just all about, I don't know, I called it today.
42:42
SPEAKER_06: Uh I I love being obnoxiously generous.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
42:48
SPEAKER_06: And so um, you know, I don't do that every single time.
42:52
SPEAKER_06: Some weeks are busier than others, but truly, it's even at this 3,500, it's not unmanageable.
42:58
SPEAKER_06: Usually I wait until Friday and I just have a couple hours blocked off, and that's when I make the videos, or I write it.
43:06
SPEAKER_06: Or if it's a great question for the group, or I know the group can answer it and I don't have to personally answer it.
43:12
SPEAKER_06: I say, oh my gosh, this is a great question.
43:15
SPEAKER_06: I know the group is gonna have some opinions.
43:17
SPEAKER_06: I'd love for you to post this over in the Facebook group.
43:20
SPEAKER_06: And people do, and if they come back, oh, I'm not comfortable, then of course I will answer it.
43:26
SPEAKER_06: But I always want to, you know, especially at this number, direct them to the Facebook group because especially those are my real engaged subscribers and students.
43:36
SPEAKER_06: And so they're gonna be able to answer that question without me even having to ever log into the group.
43:42
SPEAKER_03: How do you handle people in your people who are students who want more access to you?
43:48
SPEAKER_03: And they maybe will say, Liz, we wish that you would, you know, have another level that's like a mastermind, or we wish you would do some kind of retreat or live events or these other kinds of things.
43:59
SPEAKER_03: How do you typically respond to those people?
44:02
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
44:02
SPEAKER_06: So I have had that in the past.
44:05
SPEAKER_06: Um and I did I did try something in November.
44:09
SPEAKER_06: People were telling me that.
44:10
SPEAKER_06: Oh, I wish we had this in the membership or can we do this and that and the other.
44:15
SPEAKER_06: And so I created, I called it a copy clinic.
44:18
SPEAKER_06: So you know, like a football clinic.
44:20
SPEAKER_06: You come in, I'm going to teach you a little bit and then you're just going to write.
44:24
SPEAKER_06: And I'm going to personally review every single word that you write and edit it for you.
44:31
SPEAKER_06: So you're going to have, you know, it's it's basically you if you hired me for a copywriter, it's like one step down, right?
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
44:38
SPEAKER_06: And people were telling me for a year, this is what I want.
44:42
SPEAKER_06: This is what you know, I wish you could uh you know we could have more sales emails.
44:47
SPEAKER_06: I wish this and I created it and I made six sales.
44:52
SPEAKER_06: And of those six people one person and this we did it in February and March at the time of this recording, it's almost May one person completed the program.
45:06
SPEAKER_03: So that's really surprising to me.
45:07
SPEAKER_06: I mean given how many I was I was genuinely in shock.
45:13
SPEAKER_06: So now I'm just taking that program and I'm going to turn it into I don't know I hate the word course for some reason.
45:19
SPEAKER_06: I'm going to turn it into some kind of course training thing.
45:23
SPEAKER_06: And that will be launched in the next couple weeks.
45:26
SPEAKER_06: But um yeah I was genuinely surprised um maybe it was just bad timing because it was around Black Friday.
45:34
SPEAKER_06: I had a lot of people say that it was timing.
45:36
SPEAKER_06: Oh I'm going to join this the next time but honestly I'm not going to do it again.
45:40
SPEAKER_06: I said it here first.
45:41
SPEAKER_06: You heard it here first a daily writer I'm not going to do it again.
45:46
SPEAKER_06: It was a lot I mean it I say a lot of work it wasn't like you know if you like I said it wasn't my old copywriting days but I put a lot of effort into it um and yeah so normally I just say oh I like to keep my business simple um you know I don't have the energy for that right now especially after my brain injury I just blamed everything on the concussion because that was true.
46:09
SPEAKER_06: I was like well I had a concussion you don't want me private right now because I can't even think straight but maybe in the future as the membership um now I'm building systems so it's kind of living on its own it doesn't need Liz as much.
46:25
SPEAKER_06: So maybe in the future I will create some higher tier or whatever.
46:30
SPEAKER_06: And then the last thing I always tell people is I'm not a coach.
46:33
SPEAKER_06: I'm a strategist come to the live QA like you really don't want me as a coach.
46:39
SPEAKER_03: I uh I'm not you don't want me in a mastermind it's interesting because there it seems like that there's a lot of value in just kind of like doing one or two things and in just looking at your the rest of your business and going I don't really want to do that anymore.
46:58
SPEAKER_03: I know certain people in my community like this thing or that thing but you know I I kind of feel that way about maybe I shouldn't say this publicly on my own podcast but so as we're recording this I'm doing a retreat next week our second retreat people who were at our fall one really really loved it I think they're really really going to love this one that we have in store um in May.
47:22
SPEAKER_03: And I realize it's really helpful for people but it takes a lot of emotional energy to put on a retreat to do all the details and the food and this and the that and getting supplies and I don't I don't get a lot of emotional pleasure out of live events.
47:36
SPEAKER_03: But I feel bad that I don't you know so well I guess part of this is just having the courage to say you know this is this doesn't really fit into my business right now and then just discontinuing something.
47:49
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
47:50
SPEAKER_06: Absolutely I think really knowing yourself and even you know everybody when they see oh Liz got a nine dollar membership that seems like the dream I'm going to do it too.
48:00
SPEAKER_06: But then it's like oh wait I actually have to put myself out there and you need a lot of volume I actually hate doing podcasts or I hate putting my name out there.
48:09
SPEAKER_06: Maybe I'll go back to client work.
48:11
SPEAKER_06: So really sitting with yourself whenever you listen to a podcast or a person or what you know you go to a retreat and saying like does this align with my actual goals not just in business but in life right I have an eight year old I don't want any more children.
48:29
SPEAKER_06: I only have so much time with her right yeah and so that's something I had to come and this was really hard because I'm a very ambitious person.
48:38
SPEAKER_06: I want to be like you know Jeff move over Jeff Bezos like type of attitude.
48:43
SPEAKER_06: I've always had that but then I realized like okay especially after I hit my head it was like okay I only have so much energy my energy isn't matching my ambition and there's not I mean that's most of us right and so like what is really going to help me outside of the numbers like you know we all have number goals we all have that that revenue or the email list or whatever kind of goals but what goals am I setting outside of numbers and how can I meet them if the retreat or the nine dollar membership if that's not going to meet those outside of numbers goals then maybe don't do them that's good.
49:28
SPEAKER_06: That's really really good I like that like do I go to sleep at night without stressing uh am I available to go on the field trip?
49:37
SPEAKER_06: Am I eating dinner and not writing at my desk what are those kinds of goals that you really want you know for your life outside of your desktop and then make the business decisions from there.
49:54
SPEAKER_03: Well I want to respect your time and this has been this has been so wonderful Liz I've taken a bunch of notes actually um I do have a couple more questions.
50:02
SPEAKER_03: One is so I know that you're a frequent guest on podcasts for people especially towards the beginning of what they're doing you know at this point a lot of people know who you are.
50:10
SPEAKER_03: You probably get a lot of invitations just like I invited you on here on my show.
50:15
SPEAKER_03: And um by the way your assistant was so kind in answering a bunch of arcane questions that I had a while back.
50:21
SPEAKER_03: And you were so kind in giving me a lot of answers too so I appreciate that.
50:24
SPEAKER_03: But for people who want to get on more shows do you have any specific strategies that you would recommend for getting connected with podcast hosts you know to be a guest on their show or pitching yourself as a guest, those kinds of things okay I've got two suggestions.
50:39
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
50:39
SPEAKER_06: And I just told you I'm super cheap and I rarely buy things but I do recommend podmatch.com pod match.com it's like 20 bucks a month for the basic thing and that's really what helped me get my start and this again goes back to that oh I don't want to put myself out there it's so scary.
50:59
SPEAKER_06: Y'all I'm still terrified that's why I use pod match it's like a dating site for hosts and guests.
51:05
SPEAKER_06: So you create a profile they have a profile and you can pitch directly in there and for me it just feels less heavy because I know they log in to look for guests.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:16
SPEAKER_06: So it's a little easier to kind of shoot my shot you know pitch myself in that versus a cold email.
51:23
SPEAKER_06: Gosh I hate cold emailing are those hives coming back oh there they are you know I really oh gosh it just makes me so nervous.
51:32
SPEAKER_03: So podmatch.com has been a great way and y'all writers omg you are gonna do amazing on podmatch because how many people get into business and they're not writers um most of them everybody except us right so I always get this oh you must be a writer that was the best pitch right and if you if you email me and ask me for my pitch I'll send it to you um just email me so um podmatch.com and then the second thing what I've done and this is great if you're building your email list or you're building your network you're set you know your inbox is kind of you know getting healthy you know you're getting people in and out y'all I have this signature that says PS Liz is looking to get on more podcasts do you know of any and maybe maybe Kent that maybe that's where you connected with my assistant I don't know did you ask or did you see that it was I heard Vincent Puglisi talking about it in our Total Life Freedom Mastermind because I've been a part of that mastermind oh okay okay and then I was like you know she sounds really interesting that I looked at your side and some of the stuff you were doing and then I it's kind of like once you see somebody one place then I'm I was like wait a minute Justin Schenk is doing a thing and she's there and wait a minute she's over there doing a thing and and I know that person.
53:03
SPEAKER_06: Oh that's so funny.
53:04
SPEAKER_06: Yeah it's like when you want to buy a red truck and then you see never you only see red trucks.
53:09
SPEAKER_06: Yeah that's basically my model but in the PS you know I'm looking to be get on more podcasts.
53:16
SPEAKER_06: I can talk about X and Y, you know, would love an introduction.
53:21
SPEAKER_06: And that I I don't have to pitch myself anymore because either you know like whatever happened to Kent happens or oh my gosh I have a podcast or oh I listen I listen to the Daily Writer.
53:36
SPEAKER_06: You've got to get on that let me let me tell him or I'll hit reply like oh well if you could do an introduction that would be great.
53:43
SPEAKER_06: And that just opens up the conversation and it has I mean it has done wonders.
53:49
SPEAKER_06: I think I've had that up maybe a year and it oh my goodness I don't even have to pitch myself anymore.
53:58
SPEAKER_03: That's really interesting.
54:00
SPEAKER_03: Huh so so that is part of I'm wondering if I have that in my email inbox somewhere.
54:05
SPEAKER_06: I'm sure it's in everything it's in it's in uh anytime like if you email my assistant her signature says Patricia and then like PS Liz is looking to get on more podcasts.
54:20
SPEAKER_06: And then I think I link to my media page where a lot of previous podcasts are I think this is in my personality it might not be in yours I say uh she can't tell you who but a lot of hosts say she's the best guest ever.
54:34
SPEAKER_06: You know listen for yourself.
54:36
SPEAKER_06: But I've gotten so many um introductions from that little itty bitty signature.
54:43
SPEAKER_06: And again y'all if you're like me which I think you are because you're a writer everything feels so heavy like having to promote yourself is just so nauseating.
54:54
SPEAKER_06: So just having it on autopilot or doing it in pod match or something similar where people are expecting to be pitched has really helped me kind of come out of my shell and kind of let it do its own thing.
55:08
SPEAKER_03: And how those people then how some of those people then get get into your membership is do they sign up for your obviously they go to your website and then when they hear hear you on a podcast they go to your website and then did they sign up for a lead magnet and they get on your list and then you pitch them on the membership correct?
55:25
SPEAKER_06: Yeah I almost always just uh promote my lead magnet on a podcast a lot even a lot of hosts are like let's promote your membership I'm like let's promote the freebie um but the tripwire so if you join my email list today you would get the freebie of course but then you will get a tripwire which is a page that happens immediately after you sign up that is my membership hey want to go deeper hate email anyway let me write it all for you here's the here's the pitch and then you get the welcome if you don't buy that's fine.
55:58
SPEAKER_06: If you get the welcome sequence it's four emails and the fourth email is that can I have nine dollars and then I just periodically share it in my membership or I'm sorry in my newsletter.
56:11
SPEAKER_03: So if somebody doesn't sign up for the membership after the fourth email do they are there more emails on that list that go out like weekly or something besides people who are in the membership?
56:22
SPEAKER_06: Yeah I have a weekly newsletter even the people in my membership get my newsletter and uh it goes out every Tuesday on average I'm not perfect.
56:35
SPEAKER_05: I'm curiously making notes uh I shouldn't do this on an interview but okay um it's too good to not write let's give him let's give him a five let's pause the podcast give him five stars he's doing a great job oh I know my other my other actually two questions one was what do you use for your email marketing like convert kit or something else?
56:57
SPEAKER_06: Yeah I use convert kit I find it the simplest yeah I a lot of people say oh it's not user friendly but if you're looking for an email service provider what I suggest is don't take anyone's advice write down a few names that you've heard go to YouTube watch a quick tutorial kind of over the shoulder review and whichever one makes the most sense for your brain and your budget just go with that one.
57:21
SPEAKER_03: That's great advice.
57:22
SPEAKER_03: That's great advice.
57:24
SPEAKER_03: Then the final thing is where can people find out more about the membership about your freebie about all the cool stuff that you're that you're doing.
57:30
SPEAKER_03: So I want to make sure and mention that so people can go check it out.
57:34
SPEAKER_06: Yeah thank you of course I know we talked a lot about behind the scenes business I've already mentioned what you'll get if you sign up like or what the sequence of events will be.
57:43
SPEAKER_06: But you know as writers sometimes it can be really hard to promote ourselves we talked a lot about that.
57:48
SPEAKER_06: So let me just promote you for you.
57:51
SPEAKER_06: When you go to LizWilcox.com there's a hot pink button in the top right hand corner you can't miss it you're gonna get an entire welcome sequence already written for free.
58:02
SPEAKER_06: It's gonna give you how to share your personality your vision and values with those new subscribers so they actually stay on your list and keep opening you're also gonna get three newsletter examples.
58:13
SPEAKER_06: So what kind of content should I be writing in a newsletter Liz?
58:17
SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna give you three samples directly from that membership we've been talking about one to show you how to get people to click another to show you how to get people to reply and a third how to get people to buy directly from your newsletter and if that's not enough I know email feels so heavy so I'm also gonna give you 52 subject lines uh so you never have to start off the newsletter from scratch.
58:41
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
58:42
SPEAKER_03: It's genius it's genius.
58:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah thanks for being a guest today this has um been fantastic.
58:48
SPEAKER_03: I feel like this could be a whole series so no this has been really really great I appreciate you and your generosity and you're just a lot of fun.
58:55
SPEAKER_03: Your website's a lot of fun and I don't really say that to many people so well thank you so much.
59:01
SPEAKER_04: I can't wait to see what everybody does with email.
59:05
SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
59:05
SPEAKER_03: Well thanks again this has been a blast hey I hope you enjoyed that conversation I learned a ton from Liz and she's not only really smart and really wise but she's also a lot of fun as you can tell I want to encourage you to check out Liz's website which is Lizwilcox.com and as I mentioned and at the beginning of this episode grab her free email swipe files which includes templates for an email welcome sequence and more.
59:29
SPEAKER_03: Well hey my friend as always thank you so much for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.