Full Episode Transcript
Speaker A: Today's guest lives on the side of podcasting most people completely ignore, the systems behind the scenes that actually turn listeners into leads. Natalie Dohemur helps podcasters stop guessing and start converting using smart membership strategy, ethical monetization, and the kind of software and automation that makes podcasting work after someone hits play. In this episode, we break down how to build an interest list before launching a membership, how to add CTAs that don't feel gross or salesy, and why being busy creating content is not the same as being strategic. If you've got the content, the audience, and the trust, but your podcast still isn't moving people to take the next step, This conversation is going to click things into place real fast. Welcome to Podcasting for Financial Professionals. I'm Virginia Elder, founder of Podcast Abundance, where we help you use podcasting to market your business, to increase your authority, to get more eyes on your practice, and to capture leads for your business. If you're an investment advisor, tax strategist, Business finance sleuth, or wealth management professional who wants your podcast to actually support growth, not just create content, you're in the right place. I made the Podcast Conversion Blueprint just for you. It walks you through exactly how to turn your listeners into clients using a simple framework you can apply right away. The link is in the show notes. Here we go into today's episode. Natalie, thank you for being here with me today.
Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me, Virginia. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker A: I am absolutely excited to talk about memberships and podcasting. That's a really cool combination, and I don't think it's talked about enough.
Speaker B: Yes, definitely.
Speaker A: So you started out with a business that helps people establish memberships for their businesses, and you've been behind the scenes of memberships and group programs for a really long time. Would you kind of tell me how that got started and just a little bit of your history with memberships?
Speaker B: Yes, of course. It's actually opportunities, right, that you take, right, when they come, you know, in front of you. So long story short, my background is in software engineering, and I am in France, like right now as we're recording this, but I am also a US citizen, and I've lived in the US, you know, for 10 years. And when we moved back with my husband, we decided to start this business. So naturally, when you start a business, you start a business doing something that you know and you're passionate about. And as software engineers, well, let's build software. That flopped.
Speaker A: Oh no.
Speaker B: First 5 years were terrible. Then we hired a coach and realized, well, the online space is where we need to be. So we started to build websites. And then through meeting one of my coaches, I discovered e-learning, online courses, and memberships. And I'm like, hmm, I want to specialize in that because one, the e-learning experience was terrible, right? Because you don't put videos on the site and call it a course. You don't, especially now in those days, right? And two, um, there was an opportunity because of our tech background to improve that e-learning experience and to differentiate ourselves from other people building websites. Because, you know, like you're just driven by, you know, who is going to be charging the lowest, and we didn't want to go there. We wanted to go with being experts, right? So now I've worked one-on-one with over 300 people building their memberships, and we are behind some of the big ones, some of the big coaches that are out there. Those are platforms that we developed for them. So it evolved, right, a lot, but—
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: 7, 8 years in, we're still just doing membership, and the business has been around like since, you know, 2005, so it's been 20, 21 years now.
Speaker A: Wow, wow. Okay, so can you give me some details? You've seen a lot of memberships. What are some ways that are interesting that you've seen them structured or differentiate between, you know, okay, yeah, like everybody's got something that's like $100 a month that you sign up for. Give us some ideas here.
Speaker B: So it's evolved a lot, right? Through the years. So you've had, like, we've had phases. So we've had the phase where the membership was what we were calling the monthly bundle. Like every time that you pay, you get a little bundle and that bundle can have a mix of a video, maybe an audio podcast, maybe a book suggestion, you know, something, and maybe a call or something like that. And it was a different topic every month, and that kept people, you know, surrounded by others interested in the same topic, and that gets them to focus on one specific area, you know, every month, very guided. Those still work, but they are not like the hype that they used to be. And then you transition into a lot of community-based membership, right? Where people realize that in order to get results, you need good trainings, but you also need support and accountability, right? Those are like the 3 elements of a successful membership. You need content, support, and accountability. And a community is a great way to get both of this, right?
Speaker A: Mm-hmm.
Speaker B: Because a membership is a scalable model.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And if you're not careful when you create a membership, then you basically end up creating another job for yourself, always being like wanting to create more content and do more calls and create more resources. And you have to realize that just like a course, for a membership, people want one thing to stay, it's results. And if you can give it to them with less content to consume but more action, then that's a win, right? So there are like so many different formats. I have a client, John Burgos, he has this membership that's been going on for years. It's called Living in the Extraordinary. He does one call a week and then the recording is placed in the membership and that's it. I don't know any other successful membership that do that. I'm sure there are others, but like—
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: It's super simple. It's like, I don't want to create more content. I don't want to build a community. I don't want to do all of that, but I know my people love when I come and I channel these things, you know, it's very woo-woo and very— and they love it and it works. So he keeps doing it, right? And then you have memberships that are more around content, right? Creating more content and resources. So they're like, so many different types of models and hybrid, of course, you know, mix of content, mix of live, mix of one-on-one sometimes. What is really important in order to not get overwhelmed by this is really to start with the end in mind. What problem are you trying to solve for people?
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: And how, what is your solution going to look like? What do they need? In terms of content support and accountability to make it happen. And that helps you define your model, basically.
Speaker A: I love that because that is a lot of times what I'm guiding people toward thinking when we're talking about launching a podcast, which you also know a lot about. So it's, it's funny, like we have a theme here where you have to think about like, what is the end result that you want? Them to achieve or feel like, what is the benefit? Even when you're just thinking about a social media post, that should be the purpose of the post is like, what is the benefit that they are receiving by reading this social media post? So you launched a podcast about your membership program. Tell me about that. When was that? What was your idea? What has changed?
Speaker B: So the podcast, so it's called the Supercharge Your Membership Show, and it actually started on a dare.
Speaker A: That's one I haven't heard.
Speaker B: Yeah, and I'll tell you, I was like, oh, okay. So basically what happened is that I was taking a certification with someone on persuasion, and she said, well, would you for 100 days 'Every single day, including Saturday and Sunday—' Oh, man. 'Do a video on a topic, you know, on the topic of memberships, and like do it straight for 100 days.' Okay. 'On Facebook. So do a Facebook Live.' And I'm like, 'Yep, I'll do it.' But then I'm like, 'Okay, if I'm going to do this, I want to repurpose it.' So I'm like, 'I'm going to turn this into a podcast episode.' They're going to be unedited because I was going low tech, you know, and I'm a tech person. So I basically handled everything. I just had, you know, my assistant, you know, do some of the stuff, but like for the most part, like no editing, nothing. It was more like a, let me just repurpose what I created because I know it's good. And then we'll see where that goes. And that's when the first 150,000 views came. Wow. 2 or 3, because actually I couldn't stop at 100. You know, like when you're on a roll, you're like, is this the end? So I kept going and then I started to interview people.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: Right? That also add memberships or online programs and things like that. But that's really how it got started.
Speaker A: That is awesome. That is something that I haven't heard before. Um, most of the time people are talking about how they wanted to for a long time and finally did it and were nervous or, you know, whatever. But that is a really That's a neat story. I love that.
Speaker B: So it's, it's actually, it's a neat story, but it's not the smartest way to do it.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: Well, I didn't have a strategy. I did it. I didn't do it to grow the business. I did it to just do it, to prove myself that I could create content every day and show up every day on video. Right. So, and you know, you were talking earlier, I don't know if we were recording yet, but like about having a strategy and starting with the end in mind. And I did not in that case, right? I just recorded for the sake of recording. So of course there are no call to actions. Like you see, it's like pure content. That doesn't mean it's not good. I can't do it, that I can't do anything about it, but it's— There was no strategy. So if I had to do it over, I would think with the end in mind, I'm more like, what are 15 episodes that I should record minimum that would talk where they would know my values, what I stand for, my level of expertise. They'll be able to hear how I work with people, if there is like a synergy, a connection where we could potentially work together, right? So I would do it that way if I had to do it over. But what that allowed me to do is to get started, which is the biggest piece, right?
Speaker A: Okay. So for someone listening thinking like, this is really interesting, What are the benefits of you just starting from this dare and just not really being able to think of the strategy? But I feel like it probably made you less fearful of, you know, getting on camera, being behind the microphone, and just speaking and kind of refining what you would say for 100 days in a row. Those are the benefits I'm picking out, but what did you experience? Experience, and who would you recommend this for?
Speaker B: There are actually several things that I realized. So first, of course, it builds your confidence, right? Because once you've done it, it's done. I've never done a live, I've never done a video, da da da. Well, once you've done it, you've done it, right? This is it. Two, it's the realization that sometimes we are scared, but like, nobody's watching. Nobody's watching, so it's okay, right? And well, here it was live, so it kind of had to show up, but it happened a couple of times where I deleted the live and I redid it because I really didn't like it. But like, it's, you know, very few times. When you do a podcast, I mean, you record yourself and nobody has to see it if you don't like it, right? So it's also, I think, like sometimes doing something like this just to see if that's something you even enjoy. Because I know some people are hesitating because they might feel like it's a lot of work. And like, maybe you're delaying something that you're supposed to be doing all along. And the sooner you try, the sooner you will know, this is definitely for me, I should have done this earlier, or no thank you, right? But otherwise, it stays that thing in your head. It takes mental space where you're like, oh, maybe, is it going to be this month? Is it going to be next quarter?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And just, it takes space, right? So either do it, jump, or shelve it.
Speaker A: Quick question. Is your podcast actually bringing in clients or just downloads? Those are two very different things. If you want your podcast to generate leads for your business, you need more than great content. You need a conversion strategy, which is exactly why I made the Podcast Conversion Blueprint. With this free download, you learn how to structure your episodes, what to say in your call to action, and how to move listeners into your pipeline for your business. If you want to start growing your business with podcasting, grab the link in the show notes and download the Podcast Conversion Blueprint today.
Speaker B: I tell people with a membership, it's the same. It's like when you keep having these ideas that stay, like, think about it, like, act on it or shelve it for now, because otherwise we get too many ideas and it's hard to stay focused when this happens.
Speaker A: That is really good advice, 'cause I agree, like, the undone, unaddressed idea, they say, lives in your mind rent-free. And it's just basically taking up space. It's like this ugly old couch that you wanna get rid of that you just didn't do it yet. So that is a, a really good idea is if you can get a journal, do something, put it in ChatGPT, hey, in, in 6 months I wanna come back to this. Like give me some tasks on my calendar, whatever you gotta do to shelve it. Or act on it. That's, that's really good. You shared a little bit ago that if you knew and if you thought about it, you would've been more strategic with those first 100 episodes. I believe now that you're very strategic with the way you create your episodes and how you actually advise some of your clients to create their episodes. Regarding their membership. So could you share what that strategic process would've looked like, or maybe does look like now for you?
Speaker B: Absolutely. So actually when, um, at some point I stopped the podcast because I could not see what it was bringing to the business. I didn't have a podcast strategy. A podcast is a tool. It's not a strategy in itself. Okay. Just because you record doesn't mean it's gonna bring you business, right? So I couldn't see, um, the effect of the podcast, of the time that I was spending with Business Coach. Sure, some clients were telling me that they were listening to the podcast, but I couldn't see the connection. So when that happens, then the motivation slowly dies, right? So I was like, when I'm starting again, I wanna be strategic about it. Right? So that I keep my motivation, I have metrics. We were talking earlier about metrics. I have metrics I can look at that tell me if this is helping my business or if I'm running a hobby, and a very expensive one at that, right? So basically what's been happening and like what some, you know, clients are experiencing is that When you think with the end in mind, when you have a strategy, that means that when you create your episodes, so there are some episodes that I call asset episodes because I strongly believe that in your podcast you should be able to say whatever you want. So if you want to have fun, if you want to entertain people, if you want to interview other people and it's not exactly completely aligned with your offer, it's totally fine because it shows who you are, what you love, what you're about, and that's great. However, just like when you create content online, there needs to be some key episodes where the sole purpose is for people to connect with you and to say, "I like this Virginia, you know, I want to see if she can help me with my podcast," right? So, and for these key asset episodes, basically the idea is, the strategy is quite simple, honestly. It's really to look into, well, you need to know your audience, right? Your avatar, you know, like really, really well. And you're not gonna sell them on the podcast. What you want, you want them to take action. And we know that listeners are passive by default. They're just listening, sometimes doing something else at the same time, right? So what do you need to talk about? What do they need to hear from you in order to take just the next step. Not sign up to your program, not book a call with you, just the next step. So they get into your world, right? Now, in order to do that, you also need to repurpose your episode because one of the big strategies is repurposing. Once you have an episode that is good like that, it is an asset that you can keep reusing and reusing over and over, just like you reuse a lead magnet. Mm-hmm. And a lot of people are focusing on, "Ooh, it's like the first week when it's live where I get the most downloads." Downloads don't matter. I mean, if you're chasing downloads, tell me again in 6 months how this is going for you, right? This is just a metric for the good pat on the back. Look at all my downloads, my listeners, but it is not saying anything about— Money. How it's growing your business, right? What you need is people that engage with you and raise their hand and say, "I'm interested, you know, I wanna learn more from you," right? That's the real key. And the reason people are talking about downloads, we were talking about that earlier, is because that's the only metrics that is easy to see, right? So that's basically the overall strategy, being strategic about what you're sharing, What do they need to hear now? How do they feel? They need to relate to what you're talking about, right? And that's how you're gonna get them to connect. You also need to repurpose and share this on a platform where you have control on the next step. If you're sharing on Apple and Spotify, again, pat in the back, give me a review, great. Show notes, great. You need SEO and that stuff, but that's not where you're gonna convert.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: Right? You're going to convert when people maybe have listened to you over there, but then it's reshared on your own website, on your podcast page, you know, on a page where you control what people can do next. Because Apple, Spotify, they want to grow their audience. They want the listener to stay over there. They don't wanna help us grow our audience, right? They want people to binge. We don't want people to binge. We want people to say, hey, 'How can I learn more from this? That sounds interesting.' And that's the only first step that we need. We just— the content needs just to help them with that next step.
Speaker A: I like how you broke that down. I think a lot of times the temptation is to share about the episode and direct people to whatever platform, right? Whether it's one of the big ones or a lesser-known one, whatever. But that is the temptation because you're like, "You need to listen to my episode. It's amazing." I'm sure it is. But the more powerful share is capturing the folks listening to the episode already and getting them to take that one step. Like you've said, not the sale. We have to like backtrack, like how does someone— Yeah. Get into, like I think you said, get into the business. I call it entering your business's ecosystem.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, your world. Yeah, into your life.
Speaker A: Exactly. So could you give us some examples of like maybe some really great first steps that you've heard or seen on some of your, uh, maybe membership hosts' podcasts?
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I mean, and that doesn't mean you cannot share Apple and Spotify. I mean, you can share those on social and do that, right? But then there is the other share, the repurposing, and that can stay on for months and months and months if it's a good episode, right? So a good example would be, so there's this podcast that is called The Conscious Edge. Okay? And she's helping people find their big assumptions. She's a leadership coach, you can say. Basically, what we did is we reverse-engineered what needs to happen in order for people to raise their hand and feel, "She can help me. Alicia can help me," right? And then she had this episode and incidentally, it was like, one of our first episodes. I don't know if it was number 1, but it's like, it's number 1, 2, or 3, something like that. Okay. And she was like, I think this episode can resonate because in this episode I showed them, I helped them figure out what could be their big assumption.
Speaker A: Mm-hmm.
Speaker B: Right. And she said, that's exactly the kind of conversation that we have when we hop on a call. So It connected completely. So what she did, so she did the episode and we have this tool, it's called Podcast Lead Flow, and it basically helps you connect with the listener. But what she did is she ran this in a nurture sequence, right? She has people that are already on her list and she added this episode that was an old episode. Okay. She's at not 100, but maybe 80 or something like that right now. And she added this, and then she added this tool below to connect with the listener. And guess what? She got someone who's been on her list for a while, who responded to the email, booked a call, and she sold a $7,500 coaching program. And she said, this is an asset I already had. I knew about it, but who is going to go back to episode number 1? Not a lot of people. But this is an asset that you can repurpose, you know, like be strategic about. I know this is good. I know it talks to the people. The person that is ready and has the pain and is looking for a solution is going to say, "That speaks to me," right?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And so that's an example. It's like super practical. Like what I would say, look at, What is the action that you want people to take? Right? Do you want them to book a call with you? Right? If you want them to book a call, what do they need to hear? What can you give them that will make them say, "Hmm, I might book this call." So that's basically again thinking with the end in mind. Look at what do they need to hear to believe in you, start to like you, and think that you might have a solution to that problem.
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I like how this story really shows us the power of having that email list, even if you think it's not doing anything, because that's also the story is like, oh, my, my email subscribers, they never respond, you know, it— I haven't emailed them in a long time, you know, you hear all these different stories about it, but that is a really great example of how podcasting with the email subscriber platform in the background work together.
Speaker B: Absolutely.
Speaker A: To bring people into your business.
Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say it's, it's another misconception, misconception. You know, we were talking about people look at downloads as like, oh, this is the metric, but engagement is very similar. You can get a lot of engagement, but you're entertaining. People will never buy your stuff. Like they are freebie seekers, maybe, right? Or you have people that say nothing and then one day, boom, they buy, or they send an email and they say, you know what, I think I'm ready. So of course we like to have engagement. We like to have responses and things like that, right? Yeah. But don't discard the people that are lurking and that might not just be ready and they just, they consume but they don't say anything.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, and when you were talking about how she repurposed this really old episode into her email newsletter or welcome sequence, something, right? Then that triggered a conversation. So it got me thinking, you know, there are ways that you can do that same thing. Pick one of your old episodes, like Natalie is saying, you know, one that is a true business asset that really talks about some important thing in your business and like how you help people. Maybe this month you feature that episode in like a new section on the front page of your website. Maybe you feature it in email like this example. Maybe you choose to highlight it as, you know, a throwback episode on your socials this month. Like there's so many ways that you can almost like theme what we're gonna share, you know, this month or this quarter and repurpose those episodes and actually use them to create traction. So that kind of got my wheels turning when you were talking about that.
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, and when you talk about repurposing, when you know you have an episode like that, you do it just once? No, right? Every 2, 3 months you have new people joining your newsletter. Share it again and again and again. Do you think people create content infinitely? No, I think they say you need 97 good pieces of content that you rotate. Dodo, somebody made the account, right? And it's like, and if you have that, and then that's, if you know they are good and then you just repurpose this. And of course you can vary the copy, you know, based on, you know, what is happening right now, your mood or whatever that is, right? But the core idea is the same and the resource is the same. You know what Alicia told me when she, the person booked a call, she said, you know, I was like, she was so, not worried, but like she was focused about the content of the episode and then the tool that was sending an email, you know, with some, a big-ass assumption and things like that. And she was like, I was so focused on that, the actual content that she was, the person was getting when she signed up, but that's not what's important. What's important was that I was able to make the connection, right? And then, of course, she did her thing, right? She booked a call, sold her the program and stuff. So it's like, it's just one way to connect with people differently, right? And sometimes people are just like— I mean, she caught her when she was ready, right? But that's exactly what we want. And we want to keep doing this because people are going to be ready at different times. Yeah. For some people, it's going to take longer than others.
Speaker A: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Do you see any kind of pattern where your clients are bringing in potential clients of theirs through their podcast, through the email? You know, do people join lower-cost memberships faster versus the higher-cost memberships? Is there a pattern or a timeline as someone might be thinking like, oh, like that's, that's what's missing in my business. I should do a membership. Like help, uh, help us decide what we should be doing there.
Speaker B: Yeah. So the membership idea. Okay. I know a lot of people are attracted about the membership idea. So let's talk about that first.
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker B: And I'm going to give you a tool to figure out. If you're ready for a membership or not.
Speaker A: Okay, I love it.
Speaker B: But first, I should tell you that there are a lot of people that want to start a membership for the wrong reasons. If you're trying to sell a service or a program and you're having a hard time selling it and you think that by putting in your membership that is a lower price point, it's going to be easier to sell, that is not the case. If you start a membership, want to start a membership because you're attracted about the recurring aspect of things, but you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to create a lot of content and do I have to entertain all these people and things like that, that might not be for you either. What is really important is that you start it for the right reasons. And to me, a membership is when you're ready to scale and impact a lot more people without being ready that you are not at the center. Yeah. Of the solution. Okay? So from the get-go, if you want it to be successful, you have to decide what your position is going to be. Am I going to be the face of the membership, or will I have eventually a community manager, and I can just come in like maybe once a month or something like that? Because once they see you all the time, and then you're like, I want to start to— It's hard. And when people are doing it, members are not liking it. You know, I signed up because I wanted to be on call with you and I'm like, I don't want to do it anymore. Right? So be really clear of those boundaries. Right? And what the ideal membership is going to look like for you. Now the other piece in order to— so I had this program, it's called, right, it's closed right now, but it was called First Members. Okay. And I got people, I got really, really good conversion rates. And the reason that I did is because I did something that basically you can't fail the membership.
Speaker A: Wow.
Speaker B: And the way you do this, let me explain, you're gonna see why you can't fail it. So you have a membership idea. The idea is that you're going to build an interest list. So you're going to get people to raise their hand and say, "I'm interested." They don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but they are interested in the topic. They're kind of like looking for something, and they kind of like you already. So if you're thinking, "Oh my gosh, I need to build a list," yes, you're going to need to. And if you're not able to get people to raise their hand for free, I can guarantee you, you will not get paying members. So might as well not start at all.
Speaker A: Mm-hmm.
Speaker B: Right? So when people are resisting creating that list, that can be an indicator that the passion is not really there. Because when we do things that are aligned, and I'm sorry if I'm being very upfront, but I've worked with enough people that there was so much resistance and so much procrastination in doing things. I'm like, Tell me about your idea again, because I'm not seeing that you're that excited about the idea. You are excited about the potential recurring income, but the idea of like building this and working in co-creation with your interest list, so you collaborate, and when you're ready, so they help you shape it. So they kind of tell you what they want, and then there is what you want, and together you create something that works for you. Works for them, right? And then when you're ready, you launch it to them. When you do that, my clients got 50 to 60%, 6-0, of their interest list to sign up because they were so involved in building it, then they were like already kind of like in there, right? And but this, to go through this, you really have to be passionate about it.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Like, you really have to keep at it because nothing is easy. Building an audience, creating that content, failing because nobody's responding to your content at the beginning and figure it out. These are all things that we all go through. Nothing works the first time. But the difference between the people that keep at it and launch their membership and grow it are the ones that did not procrastinate, They were okay with the fail. They learned something a bit more every time about the person. Okay, it's not that, that doesn't resonate. Okay, let's keep going. Instead of saying, you know what, this is not for me, right? So that's why it worked because they all launched something from an interest list. Now the thing with this, and we were talking about downloads and things like that, is you don't need big numbers. Right? I mean, if you're going to convert 50-60%, you don't need big numbers. And when you launch it the first time, it's not about the money at all. It's about getting the right people so you can get the right feedback. Because there is nothing worse than inviting everybody, "Let's come for free, $1 trial," and then you got all the tire kickers that start to give you feedback that are irrelevant, that make you rethink your whole expertise and like, "Oh my gosh, I don't want to do this," right? So you want the people that are committed, excited. If you've had an audience for a while, they are your super fans. You know, the one like you put out something, they'll buy it. You do a webinar, they'll sign up. You do a free call, they'll show up.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So if you have that in your network, I do, I know the people that will show up every single time just for an opportunity to chat with me, ask me questions, tell me how they're doing and things like that. Those are your like super fans. They can be your first members, right? It's that foundation that really gives you the confidence, the clarity, the message, and then you can launch and make money.
Speaker A: Yeah, I could definitely see how just that process of building an interest list would weed out the folks that are like, oh, like, a membership is a great idea, let me just throw that together. And, you know, they're not willing to go through that time and effort and feedback, because in my mind, I mean, that could take 6 months or a year to actually like talk to each of these people, you know, get good information as to what they would expect or what would be helpful inside this membership. That could really take some time. And maybe there's a way you could fast-track it. Maybe you have like a 20-day recommendation, something like that, I don't know. But that extra effort is interesting to think about right there. Like, would you go through that?
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, and again, it's all about metrics. It's like your goal is to get 100 people in that list or 50 people in that list, and then you want to launch the membership. And if you have 20 people, 20 members, you're happy. Why 20 and not 500? Because it's overwhelming, 500, when you're still figuring it out. And you tell them, I'm figuring things out, things are likely going to change a little bit. Based on our conversation and how this goes, right? So it's really, you gain momentum, you get clarity if that's what it is that you love doing, you get to show them the behind the scenes. People love stories, right? And it is so, it's very important. It's even more important than with online courses. Because an online course, I'm sure you've seen it, if you have great marketers, that will sell you courses that— okay?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And they will say, and that's the part that like, they will say, look how successful it is. I made 7 figures. And I'm like, so you're measuring the success of your course by the money you make and not by the results that your clients are getting. That is a problem. Well, with membership, you can't, because if people don't get results, they leave. So you have no choice but to focus on results.
Speaker A: That is really such a clear point. It just like helps differentiate things in our— 'cause I think everyone at this point has bought a course or maybe a membership, who knows, that you were marketed well to and really disappointed with.
Speaker B: You're sold the dream and then you're in it and you're like, ooh, they're asking me to do these things. So I have to do summits after summits after summits. I don't want to do some ads, right? Or they're asking you to buy this tool or do it this way, and you're like, uh, or to get a loan. I got one where you get a loan, like Susan Evans, like get a loan.
Speaker A: I'm like, no, no way.
Speaker B: No way. So here with a membership, like you really, you have to get the right people. Otherwise it's really going to give you the wrong feedback. To build something that you're proud of, that, you know, you're excited to grow. So that's what I love about the membership model is that you can't cheat it. People would leave. If you see people leaving at the 2, 3 months mark, that means that either they, well, some might have solved a problem that they came for, right? But either it's not solving the problem, Right. Or they are not the right people. Right. So if that's the pattern, 2, 3 months is basically the length people would stay before they say, "That's not for me." Right. So it could be that it's your way of delivery. It could be that it's not the avatar. She saw that was for her, that was not for her. So it's more of a messaging. Issue, right? But when you look at numbers, actually we could share that as well if you want. I have a calculator, it's completely free. And basically you throw in some numbers like, if I had 100 members that pay $27 a month, how much would I be making per month? And then you can play with the retention. If they stay 3 months, this is what I would make. But if every member stays 11 months, this is how much I make, and it's over double. It's over double, right? With the same effort from you, except that they are the right people. So why not get the right people to start with? It's a bit more work, but once you know who they are, what they need to hear, right, where they are, then it becomes a bit easier.
Speaker A: Absolutely. Now, you've mentioned metrics. Several times throughout this episode, I know it's really, really important to you. Um, I think at this point most listeners have heard about my ROI tracker for podcasts. Could you share some metrics that you think are really important? Because it's all about deciding like what's important to your business. So when folks talk about podcast metrics or sales metrics or conversion metrics, What do you recommend people track?
Speaker B: I'm sure you've heard this where people say you can't grow what you don't measure, right? So you have different types of metrics in business, right? You have marketing metrics, you have sales metrics, and then you have engagement metrics, right? If we look at the membership, for example, right? So in terms of marketing, basically anything where you're gonna spend time creating something, You want to find out if X number of people visit that page, how many are going to sign up for my thing, right? For a podcast, you know, with our tool, you can find out, okay, X number of leads are coming from podcast number 125. Okay. And then out of these, 20% are joining my program. Okay. Good to know, right? This is a good episode, a good asset, right? So you have to define what your KPIs, your key performance indicators, or your metrics are for your business. And basically what they are is what do you need to look at in order to stop doing something or do more of it. It's kind of like what you want to look at. So for, you know, if we talk generally like about a business, anything that is going to generate leads, you want a metric. You want to find out if it works, right? I'm putting it in front of 100 people, how many sign up? How many fill out the form, right? Nobody? Well, maybe there's something you need to do there, right? So then you have the sales, of course, right? When it comes to sales, if you sell through a webinar, how many people are attending? How many people stay till seeing the offer? How many people are actually signing up on the call within 48 hours? You know that for membership, Most people, you're gonna have half of the people right away and about half through the follow-up. Okay? So, you know, look at those numbers because what you're trying to create. So I have this thing that's called MARS, Member Acquisition and Retention System, M-A-R-S. So your member acquisition is how am I getting leads? So you're feeding the machine. Right? And the retention is you're creating that amazing experience inside so they don't leave, right? And then the idea becomes, how can I get more of these people? And I can— how can I improve this? And those are the two ways that you grow the business, right? You bring in more people to convert, and then you create a better experience so the lifetime value of every member basically grows. And you get the testimonials and all that stuff that you can use in marketing, right? So basically you have these metrics that you need to look at in terms of sales conversion, right? And then finally you've got the metrics that tell you if people are getting results, which a lot of people don't have in their business. Because especially if you're a service, you deliver the service, they're happy, maybe you get a testimonial, and then you go on to the next one. But again, membership, the whole idea is people stay. Right. And in order for people to stay, they only need one thing, it's results. That means that you need to be able to show them that they are getting results because people might not know. You know, we are so focused on doing the same thing that we never look back what we accomplished. So you need to make sure you show them that. And then you also need to basically look at the numbers yourself, you know, like in terms of like how people completing, you know, certain things depending on what your membership is about, right? Are they showing up on calls? Are they participating in the community, right? So depending on your model, the metrics are going to look different, but they are an indicator on the health, basically, of your membership.
Speaker A: Okay, very, very good. And I feel like As I was listening, I mean, you could even use your MARS acronym when you're creating your podcast content. You know, you're trying to attract people, but you're also trying to improve so that they listen to your show long term. Like there's so many ways that you can take this information. I'm really, really interested in your calculator and in your tool, um, that you've mentioned. Can you share us some more about, um, that podcast lead flow tool? And where's it available and all of that. I think that's gonna be really, really helpful.
Speaker B: So this tool is what I wish I had like 4 years ago, okay? It's what's bridging the gap between the listener and starting a conversation. That's what I wanted. I wanna start a conversation. So basically what Podcast Lead Flow does is, and I'm sure you are doing this and you're teaching this to people is, below your episode, you can have a form where people can enter their name and their email in order to get a freebie, a guide, a checklist, something like that, right? With Podcast Lead Flow, we go one step further. We're going to create something unique for every single listener. So the way it works, and it's super fast, it's using AI. But it is using your expertise only. It's only using AI for analytical purpose. So what it does is that it's going to listen to the episode. It is going to come up with 3 questions that it can ask the listener in order to get their context. What have they tried before? Where they're at? And based on that, it's going to send them an email with a way to implement what was told on the episode just for them. It's the equivalent of having your listener sitting next to you. You're asking them some questions. So what have you tried? What are you afraid of? Like, what's, you know, what do you feel is missing? And then based on what they say, you give them a piece of coaching, right? That's exactly what Podcast Lead Flow does by email. And the beauty is As the podcaster, you are CC'd on the email. That means that the person gets it, they get their unique thing. So it could be a checklist, but it's tailored to them based on what they shared, right?
Speaker A: And—
Speaker B: But you're in the email. So 2 days later, you can reply to the email and continue the conversation. So when we say start a conversation, we really mean it. It is a consultation and the person is also added to your CRM. So now you know Virginia, you know, filled out the form in episode 120. Let's see where that goes, right? That's how we connect. So it's, that's why it's got to be on a page where you have control, right? So, you know, anywhere you can put show notes, you can put that form basically. And you need to, of course, have that nurture sequence, right? But that's basically what Podcastly Flow does. It is going to analyze your episode and try to get information from the listener in order to give them something that's unique. And that is going to accelerate the trust. Because when Alicia, she did that and the person got the email and Alicia was like, oh, I need to tell them that it's AI. I said, sure, you can tell them. And then that's why she said, you know, I was worried about what they were going to get because it's not written by me. And it's like, but you can see it, it's a tool. You're not lying, you're just telling them this is so you can get it right away. You would not be able to do this manually, right? And then she got the client because the client said, you know, you nailed it. You nailed it. So that's why, The thing with Alicia, she doesn't want lots of calls. She wants the right people. So you bet the people that take the time to fill out the form, they have the pain, right? If people are like, oh, I'm not filling out this form, they are not your people. I mean, they are not her people. They are not ready for the call and things like that. So she's like, I don't want to fill my calendar, but I want to— she calls it a pre-qualifier. Right? So you don't have to be CC'd on the email. You don't have to reply to the email, of course, especially if you're going to do a membership, like you don't want to go one-on-one, but you can. That's the level of quality of interaction that you can get if you choose to.
Speaker A: Wow. And then just thinking about the strategic way that you could create you know, your content. You could put a very specific question as your title to that episode that would, you know, really intentionally attract that exact client that you want. And then using this tool and just like, I am, I'm so excited and impressed about this.
Speaker B: Yeah, I'm gonna show it to you. I, yeah, I wanna show it to you. So you know what I said, AI is speaking the question and things like that. That is when you do it, it takes less than a minute for it to do everything. But you can go back and change the question. In fact, Alicia added a question because you also have your own expertise, right? AI is only using the episode to come up with the question, but you can be a bit more advanced, right? So it's basically a quality over quantity. Remember I was saying that earlier? I don't think we were recording, but it's that. It's quality over quantity, so you don't have to chase downloads. You just have to make sure that what you talk, you're intentional about what you talk about. I'll share with you the actual live form that the person filled out when she signed up, and you'll see the email that she gets and things like that. But the key is she actually ended up re-recording the episode.
Speaker A: Oh.
Speaker B: Because she changed the call to action. She said, and I have a tool for you below to help you figure out what your biggest assumption is.
Speaker A: Yeah. And that, I feel like that would relieve the pressure of creating this lead magnet that you maybe are not sure if, you know, people want this checklist or whatever. You know, I feel like a lot of people are really tired of the whole like PDF thing. Um, so that really just relieves that pressure. You can have this tool, and I didn't know we were going to get in and talk about this tool. This is the joy of talking to a software engineer.
Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, because I mean, we call it a lead magnet generator. Everybody gets something unique. The more you share about where you're at, the more you're going to get out of it. Just like when you're talking to a human, right? So, but it allows you to do this like 24/7, right? To not have to hop on a call and just give them that free coaching and things like that, right? So it's really, that's where the tool was built to bridge that gap from passive listener to an active, you know, lead that potentially, you know, will want to sign up to your service or program or whatever.
Speaker A: That is amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Okay, so everyone listening, Natalie is obviously like the membership guru. She can help you with conversion for your podcast. Um, I know she and I both talk about strategy and things like that, so you know, there's no harm in contracting with both people, testing, trying, see who connects.
Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So we actually, I think, yeah, I think we actually complement each other because I don't do so much of the consult, the strategy in terms of like what episode and things like that. We are more on the system side of things.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, software engineer.
Speaker A: So we could really like help Thrive in the background where, yeah, you're right. Like my expertise is more in the strategy about like, who are your guests? Why are you talking about this topic? Is there a call to action in your episode? And we're looking at, you know, what your programs are or your services and leading people toward those. Whereas Natalie sounds like, you know, the systems and the tools and the stuff in the background. So I absolutely love that.
Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
Speaker A: Natalie, where can people find and follow you and check out all these amazing tools that you talk about?
Speaker B: So they can find me at themembershiplab.com, right? That's for the membership. I'm also present a lot on LinkedIn. And then Podcast Lead Flow, you can find it at saas.podcastleadflow.com. You'll see there are some case studies there. Alicia's case study is there. So you can see the whole flow of how she, you know, the problem that she had, how we solved it. And you can book free sessions with me, both for podcast leads through on the membership lab. I'm an open book, so I love to share.
Speaker A: That is awesome. Thank you so much for such a valuable episode.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really glad we had that conversation.
Speaker A: Thanks so much for listening to Podcasting for Financial Professionals. If you want your show to do more than just educate, if you wanted to generate leads, and bringing clients consistently for the long haul, make sure you're using the Podcast Conversion Blueprint. This free download helps you structure your podcast to attract new listeners, refine your messaging to nurture them, and capture those listeners when they're ready as your next best clients. And of course, practicing what I preach, when you sign up for your free free download of the Podcast Conversion Blueprint, you're gonna land on my email list. Hit reply to any newsletter because I'd love to learn about your show or about your ideas for a show. I'll point you toward your next best step, whether that be light support, like an audit of your show or becoming a member of the Academy, or Or maybe you need full-service strategy and accountability like what I do inside the Podcast Conversion Lab. Thanks again for listening to Podcasting for Financial Professionals. If you enjoyed today's episode, stick around for the next few episodes because each one incrementally helps you improve your podcast.