TRANSCRIPT

Transcript: 5 Unexpected Ways To Rethink Your Content To Build A Loyal Audience

December 12, 2019

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AMY PORTERFIELD: Well, hey, there. Welcome back to another episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast. I’m your host, Amy Porterfield, and as always, I’m thrilled that you’re tuning in today. In fact, today we’ve got something special. We’re shaking things up. 

A few months back, I spoke at Stu McLaren's TRIBE Live event, where he dives into all things membership sites, with his amazing community. Shout out to all of you at that event. You guys were on fire.  

So I just have to tell you. This event was magical, and I probably loved it even more because when I was there, we were actively creating Momentum, our brand-new membership experience for my Digital Course Academy students. So I was literally hanging on every word. And in addition to loving every minute of it, I also spoke on stage. I spoke about how to add more heart to your content and how to rethink how you approach your content strategy. And I thought this information was so valuable—not to toot my own horn, but toot, tootI wanted to share it with you. So today, because I love you so much, you get VIP front-row access to the recording of the presentation that I gave.  

Now, I just have to remind you that, as you know, I only teach what is working in my business, or share what's not working so you don't make the same mistakes. So today's strategy is something that's definitely working in my business. But you're also going to hear how I didn't use one of these strategies and the lesson I learned from that experience as well.  

I can pretty much bet that most everybody that listens to my podcast struggles with coming up with valuable content at one point or another. the kind of content that actually converts a loyal audience into paying customers. So in the presentation I gave aTRIBE Live, I share five lessons that I've learned that have made me rethink how I create my content and how these lessons ensure that everything I'm putting out to my audience comes from a place of love and desire to see them elevate their life and their business, because after all, that's why I do what I do, and I'm guessing it's the same for you as well.  

So if you're actively creating a digital course or a membership site, or you're thinking about it, or you just want help to transform your content sit actually attracts your ideal-customer avatar, this presentation is for you. 

But of course, before we dive in, a quick listener shout out. This shout out is from Jewell, and this is what Jewell said: 

“So good, I had to take notes.” 

That’s the title of her review. 

“I’ve been listening to Amy’s podcast for years. It’s the only one that’s stood the test of time for me, and I consistently listen because her content is so actionable and relevant. I’ve saved tons of episodes that I listen to over and over again.” 

Girl after my own heart. 

“And in fact, they are so good that I’m actually going back to one particular one, episode 97, just to take notes.” 

Oh, you’re going way back, girl. I love it. 

“I have all of Amy’s courses because she’s living the life I aspire to and is one of the most genuine coaches I’ve ever learned from in the online-marketing world. I can’t wait to meet you at Entrepreneur Experience.” 

Okay, this one kind of almost made me cry because when she said she's living the life I aspire to,” that, one, makes me feel so good, and, two, it makes me feel so grateful for what I've created and that other people want to create something similar. So, Jewell, you gave me such a gift with this review, to be more grateful for the life I have and so grateful that I get to add value to people like you. So, thank you so much, means the world to me, and I just wanted to share this one.  

Okay, guys. So let's go ahead and jump into this special presentation that I did onstage at TRIBE Live. 

STU MCLAREN: Please stand up and help me give a huge, warm, roaring, TRIBE welcome to Amy Porterfield! Woo! 

AMY: Oh!  

STU: Yeah, girl. Woo! 

AMY: Sexy. 

STU: So great! Thank you. 

AMY: Thank you. 

STU: Your clicker’s there. Go get ‘em. 

AMY: What? Okay, that is perfect that you just hit me on the bum because I was going to start out by saying, my husband’s a little suspect of Stu. My husband is not too sure of this Stuey guy I talk about all the time, and when I’m at home, it’s Stu this and Stu that, and Stu is so funny; you should have heard this story he told, and Stu, Stu, Stu. And my husband, Hobie, is like, “Who is this Stu guy? And I’m sick of hearing from him.”  

So, not too long ago, Stu and his family came to spend the day with us at our home, and we were there the whole day. We had tons and tons of fun, and they all left, and Hobie looks at me, and he goes, I get it. I have a crush on him, too.” Like, I know! I know! So now, all is right in the world. I don’t know how he’d feel about him hitting my butt, but I like it, so I’m good with that. 

So, the reason I love Stu so much is something that he's shown all weekend, but he actually mentioned it about his StrengthsFinder recently. He says he's all about the positivity and the strategy. And when I think positivityI think Stu is all about the heart, the heart and the strategy. He has literally given me million-dollar ideas, and that is not even a joke. And so, but he always leads with his heart. So I thought, I’m going to get up here, and I’m going to talk about content in a way to help you add more heart—and you guys have big hearts, so I’ve got a big job up here—more heart to the content as well as I want you to rethink your strategy around content as well. So we’re talking heart and strategy today.  

Now, I want to start out with saying that I can help you predict the success of your next membership launch. Would you like that, if I could help you predict the success of your next membership launch? So the way I can do that is by telling you this one major truth, and this one truth is that your launch success is driven by how you show up when you are not launching. So I want you to remember this, okay? Your launch success is driven by how you show up when you're not launching, when the cart is not open, because Cart-Open Sally is a hustler. She can do anything she needs to do. You should see me during cart open. It's like my husband hides from me because I'm like, “Move over. I've got it.” I can do everything when the cart’s open. I can hustle, I can make the videos, I can do IG Stories, I never complain; I'm in it. But what about when I'm not launching, when the cart is not open? What happens then? That truly will determine the success of your launch. So I want to talk about that content you’re creating when you’re not launching. 

Now, to do that, I’ve got to tell you a quick story about my mom and dad. So I grew up in a blue-collar home. My dad was a firefighter. And back in the day when he was a firefighter, it was all guys. No women to be found. So at the firehouse, they played a lot of pranks on each other. And my dad thinks he’s the best prankster in the world. He actually thinks he's hilarious, and he's not, for the record. Thinks he's hilarious. And so he decides to have the worst idea in the world and play a prank on my mother around Christmas time.  

Now let me set the stage. My mom's like Betty Crocker. She's the best cook in the world, the best mom in the world, she's home every day with us girls. She was always there. But she was a traditional mom who ran the household, and Christmas was her jam. I mean, do not get in the way of Beverly and Christmas because she is the woman when it comes to Christmas. She'd spend an entire week decorating the house. And don't even get me started on the tree because we had two, one in the family room and one in the living room. You know, that room that you never go into? We had a Christmas tree there. And for the record, this is what her Christmas trees look like. Notice you don't see my third-grade ornament that I made, right? Oh, no, no. She did the ribbon. It took hours. She did everything on this tree.  

So at the time that my dad thought he was going to play a prank was the time that my sister and I were in cheerleading. We were in high school. We had made it to the championships, and so with that, we were in competitions all the way up until a week before Christmas. So my mom did not get to decorate the house early enough. So we went to all these competitions, and then, boom, it was time to get into the Christmas spirit. 

She tasked my dad with going to get the Christmas trees. Now, he had instructions. They have to be huge and lush and full and green, and no holes anywhere on these trees. And so she would trust him to go out and get the trees, come back and set them up in the stand perfectly, then she’d do her magic. And so she sent him out to go get the trees. We spent the entire day taking down all the boxes from the attic and organizing them in the garage all day. I don’t have fond memories of Christmas, for the record. She, like, screwed me up at Christmas.  

And so, funny enough, I didn’t realize, until I was older and married, that I had never decorated a tree, because my mom did all of this. She’d let me put an ornament on, and I’d turn around, and then I’d look, and she’d be moving it somewhere else or whatever. So she was all about these trees. 

So, long story short, my dad comes back, and he sets up the tree while we're organizing in the garage, and then he says, Beverly, come on in. I got to tell you something. We're one week before Christmas. I did the best I could.” And she walks in, she looks at the tree, and she puts her hand on her hip, and she said, “Get that tree”— actually, she said—I asked you if I could say this. She said, “Get that f-ing tree out of my house.” And I had never known my mom knew the f-word. It was like, what? She actually said the f-word. She said, “Get that out of my house.” And then she went on to have a horrible rant.  

Now, the tree—literally, I'm not joking—looked like this. He had the audacity to actually put it in a stand and put this in our house. And he’s telling her, “Beverly, all the trees are gone in our town. This is all we have.” And she said, “You are ruining Christmas. I am not going to have this tree.” And then she spoke like a sailor. I didn't know there were words beyond the f-word that were really bad until my mom started saying them. She became, like, the crazy Christmas spirit that was the meanest person in the world, and she freaked out about this tree. So she went on and on. My sister and I kind of hid. We just could not believe what was happening. But she freaked out about this tree. 

So finally, about an hour later, he convinced her this is all there was. So this is not the actual photo—I’d die to have it—but this is pretty close. And so he convinced her that this is all there was. And so, basically, an hour later, she walks up to the tree, and she says—and I’m not joking—she says, “Well, this is all I’ve got? I’ll have to rethink my Christmas strategy.” And she was ready to go to town on the tree. That’s how much she believed in her abilities that she could make it look like that other tree. So she said, “I’m going to rethink my Christmas strategy.” And I thought, “Whoa, she’s lost her mind right now.”  

But here’s the great thing. My dad starts laughing uncontrollably, and she realized it was a prank. He went out into the garage, got the beautiful tree, set it up. She literally did not talk to him, and it's the only night he slept on the couch. Never. Just so mad. And he deserved it. It’s not funny. Don’t mess with Christmas. 

So with that, I figured if my mom can rethink that Christmas tree, we can all rethink our content strategy, right? Right. Okay. So I started by saying, “What if I could predict your success of your next launch?” And then I said, “Well, we've got to rethink how we show up. We've got to rethink how we show up when the cart’s not open.  

Now, when I talk about content, I'm talking about content in your community for your membership sites, and I'm talking about content on social media and in your podcasts and all that other stuff, because your members that pay you right now, they're paying attention to it all. They’re not only zoning in on what’s in the membership site; they’re also paying attention to all the other stuff you put out there. So we’re just going to talk about content as a whole but when the cart is not open. 

So I’ve got five lessons to share with you, five lessons that we’re going to go over, about rethinking how you do content. The first lesson is let your paid content drive your free-content ideas. Let your paid content drive your free-content ideas. Now, anybody who says, “I already know that. Don’t go there,” let me kind of explain a little, and then you ask yourself, “Well, I might know this stuff, but am I actually doing this stuff?” Because Stu asked, “Amy, actually share what you’re doing in your business, that’s working really well.” So I’m only giving you what’s already working in our business.  

So with this one, I do something unique in the sense that I let all my paid content drive what I put out on social, meaning I never am lost for an idea. I never get stuck in terms of, what am I going to do on my podcast or what am I going to put on a Facebook Live? I always know because I pull from my paid content. There is a lot of overlap. So, specifically, in my paid courses, I do a framework, road map, process, system, just like the Success Path, but I put it together visually for my students. So this is List Builders Society®️—oh, thanks! Hi!—First we put together, we define, then we create, and then we attract. You can’t read all the other stuff, but all the other icons you’re seeing, it’s all content. So this is how I teach List Builders Society®️. This is my paid content. 

Here’s another one. This is how I teach Digital Course Academy®️. The course creation—right? Hello, hello—the course-creation framework. This is literally A to Z, how you create a course from start to finish.  

Now, these take me a while to really figure out the flow, how I'm going to teach it, how I'm going to talk about it, but once my framework is figured out, I have a wealth of knowledge to share for my free content. And here's why. I look at this, and I think, you know, there's some content in here that I would love to teach but maybe not go as deep. I don't teach this step by step by step in a lot of my free stuff. But on my podcast, on a Facebook Live, on social, I teach all of this, and I love—I was backstage, and I love how Stu and Melinda we're talking about the free stuff 

One, only you know how to teach what you teach, so I'm never worried about someone saying, “But Amy, I could get it for free. Yeah, but you can't get it for the way I teach it in my course. But more importantly, this is what people pay for. They are looking for the step by step by step, show me where to start, show me what to do in the middle, show me how to end it, show me how to get to the finish line. So people pay for this and the community. There are two ways I show up the most: my step by step and my community, my engagement. They’re paying for this, but all of this can be found in my free content, and I’ve never ever had a problem with that. Never. 

But here’s two things that are most important about this lesson. Number one, I want—so pay attention. This is important—I want my students to come into my program already having heard the content. I don't want them starting from ground zero. I want them to already have had it in their body, in their system, in their mind already, not at the level I'm going to teach it in my course, but I don't want all brand new, like, oh, what a concept. No. I want them to think, “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that, but now let me apply it.” That’s how people get really good results fast. It doesn’t have to be all new and shiny inside your membership or your course. 

So number two, exactly what Stu and Melinda were talking about, I look at the framework, and then I think, where is my student going to get stuck? I know she's going to get stuck around the outline part of this. When you start to create a course outline, or even when you start to create your success path for your membership site, gets a little bit tough. Believe me, I know. My membership is coming out soon, thanks to Stu, and I'm so excited, but that success path took us a little while to figure out. So that's where an area where people might get stuck.  

So what I've started to do is say, okay, my free content—what I teach on Facebook Lives, what I talk about on Instagram Stories, what I do on social—I'm talking about the mindset blocks a lot more than I ever have before. So if you follow my stuff, you know I talk about imposter syndrome. You know I talk about people feeling like they’re not an expert, and I share why you don’t have to be an all-knowing expert to create a course or a membership experience. I talk about the tech scaries, and I talk about all the stuff they were just talking about. But that’s my free content. I also can start to put it in my course, and I will now that Melinda and Stu have been schooling me on that, but I use it a lot for my free content. And so if you ever were stuck with free content, you don’t know what to create, look at your paid stuff. Look and the content and reuse it, and look at the places where they’re going to get stuck.  

And I believe it should be fully aligned. I believe that your content, you're free content, should come from your paid content. So this is one of the ways that I've been prolific in my content creation. 

Lesson number two is repetition is the mother of skill, and this is from my days of creating content for Tony Robbins, and I believe in this wholeheartedly. So remember I said I don't want my students getting into my course when it's totally brandnew content. I want them to have already heard it at least once or twice. They're just not applying it yet. My courses are the how to. So I'll teach them how to apply.  

So repetition is something that I've really got down well, and I want to encourage you to do this and do it in the next week with one piece of content. So if you go back to, let's see here, okay, yeah, if you go back to my framework, in that first line, I teach the five profitable types of digital courses. So when someone gets in my course, I say, Okay, there's five types of digital courses. Let's figure out the one that's best for you. So with that, I created a quiz, Five Types of Digital Courses: Which One is Right for You? So this is one piece of content, okay? So one piece of content.  

From there, I then did a Facebook Live. Now, I chose this shot because it looks like I'm saying something very important to all of you, so I chose it. So this is not just about the quiz. It's actually, I taught on the five different types of courses, and I used examples that I had never used anywhere else before. I went to my students, and I got their stories, and I applied them and said, “Okay, John does this type of course,” and “A workshop course? Well, let me tell you about Tyler,” and I just started using their stories to teach my content, exactly how Stu teaches it.  

From there, I did a podcast episode. I again retaught the whole five types of digital courses. This time, I told my own story, and I used new stories from my students. But it's the same content, and I'm using it in two different ways.  

From there, I put it on Instagram. But if you can't see this, but it's actually one of those sliders, and every time you slide to the side, it's a new course and the description of that type of course. And I went through all five types of courses and then encouraged them to take the quiz. And then, just this weekend while I've been here in Toronto, Jill and Josh Stanton of Screw The Nine To Five said, “Can you come on my podcast and talk about those five types of digital courses?” I said, “Sure. Let’s get in bed and record a podcast because that’s where you record podcasts when you’re on the road.” So that’s what we did. We’re in my bed at my hotel room.  

So I not only put it on my podcast and on my Facebook Live and turned it into a quiz, but then I also put it on somebody else’s podcast. And so I want to challenge you, are you using your content enough across the board, because repetition is the mother of skill. I want my students to hear it over and over again because how often have we heard something and have done nothing with it but then it pops up again and we're like, “Ooh, I did want to do that. I did want to start to figure out what type of course I should create.” Then you hear it again. You're like, All right, universe. I get you. I'm going to do it. I want to be in their face like that.  

But each time I teach it, different stories, different experiences, usually sometimes different energy, maybe a little bit more casual, maybe I use slides. Like, in the Facebook Live I use slides; in the podcast, of course, I didn’t. So I teach it in different ways, but I really get mileage out of one piece of content.  

And people always think I create tons of content. I really don't. List building, course creation, webinars, and launching, typically what I will talk about over and over and over again. 

So this has served me well. And all of you, I want you to think right now: Can you think of one piece of content that you could do this with, where you could spread it across and use it? Give me hands. Give me hands if you can. I think there could be a lot more. You could get so much mileage out of that. Your members are paying attention to what you’re doing outside of your membership. They’re taking in all of that content as well. So if you continue to wow them and connect with them in different ways with your content outside of your membership, they are going to stay there longer. There’s no doubt in my mind. But also, what you guys talked about on day one, this type of thing attracts new members as well. So it does both. 

Okay. Let’s talk about lesson number three, share more scars than scabs. Now, I’m going to get gross for just a little quick second. So I have a seventeen-yearold stepson. He has been in my life since he was three years old. Long story short, his mom introduced me to her ex-husband, I married her ex-husband, and now we're one happy family. Yeah. That's a story for another time. But I married Hobie, who was married to my really good girlfriend, and so, but her little boy has been in my life since he's been really, really little. And Hobie and I'd been dating for a long time and been married ten years.  

So anyway, Cade's been around since the beginning. And he is seventeen now, but when he was really little, I was a brand new stepmom. I didn't have a lot of motherly instinct, to be quite honest. And so he was riding his scooter, and he crashed and burned, and it was just me, and I kind of looked around like, who's going to take care of that? Like, whoa. He was bloody on his knees. It was disgusting. I didn’t even want to touch it, if I’m being really honest. But I was a new stepmom, and so I thought, “Well, I better get in there.” 

So I cleaned him all up and was disgusted the whole way through, and then I got it done. And afterwards, the next day, I took a look, and it was it was turning into a little bit of a scab. A few days later, still a little scab. And the gross part, as you know, scabs are a little oozy, a little gross, still a little bloody, right? And then about couple of months later, he had a scar. And so now it's a scar, not so gross, but it's still there. So same thing with your content. 

And this is a little controversial because a lot of people will tell you, “Be vulnerable, be authentic, be yourself. And I agree. But when you only start sharing scabs over and over again, that means you're in it. It's oozyit's messy still. So you're not showing up as someone who's elevating their experience. And I believe my content, 99 percent of the time, should elevate your experience and offer some kind of value, some kind of nugget. I went before, I learned something or I had a realization, and I'm going to share it with you. When it's a scab, it is not like that. It's not the same. And so if you want to be known as the go-to person, if you want to be a friend to your audience but also somebody that they look up to, like we all look up to Stu, you can't just share the scabs 

And so with that, let me give you an example. I had a podcast episode in October of 2017, where I shared why I hated live video. If you've been in my audience for a long time, you heard me for years say, I hate video of any kind, and I really hate live video. And so one day I woke up and I thought, I have to be honest. And it was a scab. I was very real and raw. I was in it. I said, “Guys, I hate to do live video because I'm overweight, and I'm very uncomfortable with how I look. I don't love myself, I don't like myself, and that's why I don't like to do video. It has nothing else to do with anything else. And so it was a nineminute podcast episode because I couldn't talk about it longer without crying.  

I told a story about how I'm an emotional eater. And so when Cade had a birthday party on Sunday, he went to school on Monday, and when he was at school, I had an emotional day with work, and I ate the rest of his cupcakes. And he came home, looking for his birthday cupcakes, and I had eaten them all. So I told this story. I was mortified and embarrassed. Now it might seem funny, but it wasn't back then. And so don't laugh, because it wasn't funny. And so I ate all his cupcakes, and I told this story 

And I said, I'm an emotional eater. I'm overweight. I am not happy with who I am right now, and I don't have a solution. Scab. I don't have a solution right now. “But I wanted to share with you all, just to be really honest. And I did that, and I do not regret it. I'm so glad I did. So then, people started talking to me about, “Wow, Amy. That episode, I can totally relate. I get it. And that's why we do that, right? so our audience can relate to the realness.  

But about a year later, I ended up between thenI didn't have a solution. I was not on a diet plan. I didn't know what I was going to do. I just wanted to be honest. But then shortly after that, I got a weight-loss coach, who happens to be Corinne Crabtree, who’s in your TRIBE, right? Yeah. Stu said her name from stage, and I was like, “Don’t talk about my coach. Why are you bringing her up? She’s mine.” But then I realized, oh, she’s part of this community.  

So I got Corinne to start working with me. We worked together for a year. And a year later, I had lost a bunch of weight and was feeling really, really good. So I did another episode. And this one was my weightloss journey, part two. This episode still was real and raw and authentic, but it was a scar now. It wasn’t a scab. And I was able to say, “Here’s my morning ritual. Here's how I beat emotional eating. Here's how it's worked its way into live video, and what I do now when I feel insecure.” I was able to still share my missteps, my concerns, my vulnerability, but in a way that would offer value to my audience. And that is the part that I felt was really important to make that shift. Now it was a scar. This is the episode that got the most downloads. This is the episode that people talk about the most and say, I did what you said,” or they even have joined Corinne's tribe now, which is really cool. 

So this is the part that I feel I do in a way that I don't share a lot of scabs, nor do I ever want to. And I encourage you to be real and honest, but you're also a leader to your own TRIBE. They look up to you. They're looking for the value.  

So when you create content, when you're real and honest and authentic, when you're silly and you're yourself, awesome. Do it. But remember, you're there to add value, and you've got to always bring it back to them. Deal? Good? Okay. 

So, let me share lesson number four with you, which totally aligns with it and relates. Lesson number four is share your life, but remember why you're sharing it. So this is all related to content, whether you put it on social, whether you put it on the podcast, where ever you put it, this is one of the philosophies that I live by.  

So a lot of the times, people want you to share your own life. And I think it's important, behind the scenes. Hobie’s been on my podcast. I talk about my son, Scout—I mean, my dog, Scout. I really think he's my son, but my dog, Scout—wow—all the time. And I talk about Cade, and I share. I do share my family.  

But I always remember why I’m sharing it. And the reason I say that is that the why is not so that you can see the most-adorable dog in the world. I wish I had a picture of him. Or the hunkiest husband in the whole world, Hobie. And I don’t share just so I can tell you how cute my family is, because I think they are. We all think our family’s cute. I don’t share because of that.  

I share because I want to elevate your life and your business and your finances. And whatever it is you're doing, I want to elevate your experience. That’s why I share my family.  

So this is a misstep that I wanted to share with you. So if you can read that, at the very top it says, “My heart’s on fire when I’m with you. #cheesy” I ended up marrying a firefighter, funny enough, so took after my dad. And that saying there, “My heart’s on fire,” cute, yeah, whatever. This one got almost 5,000 likes, hearts. My ego—this is the most I’ve ever gotten on a picture. It was just last week—my ego could say, “Oh my gosh, all the people love me. They love me. They love Hobie. This feels really good. I’m really connecting with my audience.”  

And that is a lie. And here’s why. When I looked at this, I thought, this is great, but at the end of the day, those hearts do not matter if they’re not people that I could really help change their business, help them create digital courses, help them build launches and do webinars. At the end of the day, that is my value to my audience; that’s how I help. And so all those likes mean nothing if I’m not elevating their experience.  

And I genuinely mean this, so let me tell you what I could have done differently. About a month ago, Hobie came to meand this has happened a few times in our ten years of marriage, and this is embarrassing but true—he came to me and said, You are not present with me. You are not here. You pretend you're hereyou pretend you're listening to me when I tell you a story, but I know in your mind you're thinking of the next thing in your business. Has anyone ever done that to their spouse? Please raise your hand so I‘m not alone. Thank God. 

So he called me out on it, and he said, “Babe, I know you’re not here. And what I need from you more than anything is I need thirty minutes a day for a coffee in the morning. I want thirty minutes of your day every morning.” Now, that sounds easy, but it's not, so just stay with me here and don't judge me.  

When he told me this, I was like, “What? Thirty minutes?! That’s a lot of time. And in the morning.” And I am a morning person. Beight thirty, I have already kicked butt and taken a few names. Like, I am off to the races. And so he said this. And the challenge is, as a firefighter in California, you work twenty-four on and twenty-four off. So at eight thirty in the morning, when he wants to have coffee with me, he's either just coming home from work—so I haven't seen him for twenty-four hours, so, of course, that would be great—or he gets up in the morning, sleeps in until seven—must be nice—then moseys into the kitchen, and maybe around eight thirty, he’s ready for coffee. And I'm thinking, “What? That is such an inconvenience. Seriously, that's what I thought. I'm a horrible wife. And so in that moment, I thought, Oh, he's right, though. He is so right. All of this means nothing if I don’t have that man. Nothing. Take it all away from me if I don’t have that man.”  

And so I realized in that moment that this was something I could share with my audience, share with all of you, saying, there's times, I bet you have someone in your life that would really love thirty minutes of your time, every single day even, and maybe they're not telling you. I'm lucky enough that Hobie's pretty vocal—sometimes that's lucky, sometimes it's not—but he'll tell me what he wants. So he told me. But there's someone in your life maybe right now who, he's not going to tell you, because they don't want to bother you. They don't want to get in your way. They want to encourage you. But they are feeling so neglected because your business is always on your mind, and I get it. Mine is, too. But we have to slow down for those moments because our business means nothing if we are not creating a lifestyle by our own design.  

So when I told Hobie, “Oh, that's really hard, Babe,” he said, “Can you go look in the mirror and talk to your boss, because she's very stingy with your hours.” Like, slam it down. So, he’s got a point, obviously. He’s good like that.  

So I did. I literally, though, girls and guys, I have to write in my calendar, “Coffee with Hobie.” It has to be written down because I will zip right through it. And it doesn’t mean I don’t love that man more than life itself; it’s just I get very preoccupied and very excited about the business. I love, love, love what I do. 

But anyway, coming back to this, wouldn’t that have been a little—if I condensed it a little—a little bit better a caption than something cute and cheesy? But still, that’s not going to help my audience. This is okay some of the time, but we have to step up and know that we are here to elevate the experience of our audience. That is our responsibility with our content, whether it be free or paid or in our communities or anywhere we put it. I think that’s important, and that is how I run my business. That’s how I do my content. So I just wanted to kind of share that with you because it was a misstep I made. Next time, I’ll do it differently. 

Finally, lesson number five, super thinking is the secret to content that truly sticks. Super thinking. So this concept of super thinking comes from Brooke Castillo of the Life Coach School. Love, love, love that woman. Right? She’s got a great podcast; great, great school for life coaches; certification; love everything about her. And she talked on her podcast about super thinking, and I'm actually going to bring it to our content because it totally applies. Remember, just like Beverly and her crazy Christmas tree, we're rethinking the way we do content.  

And super thinking is about the fact that we as individuals, owners of our company, the CEO, the boss, we actually have the best ideas for our business. Now, I tell you that, and you're like, of course, right? No, no, no. Not that easy.  

You're at a conference right now, where you'll go to lunch, and you'll get tons of ideas from everybody else. In fact, if you're anything like me, you'll ask questions and say, what would you do about this, or what about that, or what do you think about this? And people are just flooding you with ideas, and you're learning, and Stu's teaching, and I'm teaching. You're getting a lot of external ideas and opinions and validation when someone says, “That's a great idea. Yeah, you should do that.” But at the end of the day, when you are creating content that truly sticks, it comes from deep inside you. And what I mean by that is you are the only person that knows your ideal-customer avatar inside and out. I know what Kaya, which is what we name our ICA, what she thinks, what she feels, what she's scared about, where she's stuck. I know what she reads, what she listens to, I know what she wants to ask me but is embarrassed toI know everything about her. Everybody else doesn’t. All the advice I get, if I ask Stu, what should I do about xyz? he’ll give me a great idea, but at the end of the day, he doesn’t know her. I know her.  

And so with super thinking, you have to get super quiet. And this is literally what you do, and I do this. One hour a week, on your calendar, because if it's not scheduled, it's not real, you put super thinking. And you sit with just a notebook and a pen, not even notes on your phone. Nothing in your ear, you're watching nothing. And you ask yourself the questions that you want to ask everybody else. What should I do about this? When I launch, how long should this launch beShould I do this, or should I do that? What kind of content should I create on my podcast next week? Should I add this new product, or should I continue to promote this? Whatever it is, you ask and you answer. And I know this might seem very elementary or very simple. We don't do it. We're always looking for external validation and external ideas. No one has as good of ideas as we do ourselves as the owners of our own company.  

And this one's important to me because I had to learn it a lot over the last year. I've elevated my brand, I’ve elevated my life, I've done big things this year, but I quickly turned to other people to say, “Is this a good idea? Should I do it this way?” I do it even with Stu. And then at the end of the day, I think, okay, I am the only person that knows what I want to do, how I want to do it. I started this business to have a life by my own design, not anybody else’s. 

So if you are not spending enough time asking yourself the questions that you ask everybody else, you are really, really leaving opportunities, creativity, ideas, on the table. You will be amazed by the ideas that come from you. Some of my best, best, best content has come from me thinking, what does she need the most? How can I serve her at the highest level? The Facebook Lives that get watched, the podcasts that get downloaded the most, those are my super-thinking ideas. I could name five of them right now, but I won’t bore you. 

So, it's important that you really allow yourself some super thinking one hour a week. You put it on your calendar. If you walk out of here with just one thing I shared with you today, I hope it's this one because your ideas are going to blow your own mind. I can promise you that. Who’s going to do it? Who’s going to do it with me? Yes! I love it.  

All right. So we’ll bring it on back home, and here's what I'll say. Your launch success is driven by how you show up when you're not launching. When that cart is not open, who are you? Are you showing up every single week, which is what I tell my students, every single week, come rain or shine? You've got a podcast or a blog post or an email going out or a video, something of original content every single week, you should have something new coming out. That's how you show up when you're not launching. Every single week, you're in your communities, you're showing up on live video, you're doing Facebook Lives. Every week you're in your DMs on Instagram or Facebook or wherever you have the most traffic, and you're talking to people. Every week, you're choosing one person to reach out to them personally. You know on Instagram now you can record audio on a DM? Every week, I record a few audios just to random people that asked me really great questions in the DM. It's how I show up when I'm not launching, because I can promise you when I talk to Kate through a DM audio in Instagram yesterday, asking me about a type of course she wants to create, when I open the doors to my program, she is going to remember that message I sent her. We are not launching right now. The cart is not open. But I need to show up better here than I even do when the cart is open.  

When the cart is open, guys, your audience has a little bit of an edge to them, a little bit of defense up. Like, “I know you’re going to sell to me, and I’m very curious. But I’m going to be a little bit on guard. I don’t know how much it is. I don’t know your payment plans.” They’re a different person during cart open. You’re different, they’re different. You want to connect when your audience’s defenses are down, when they’re just there to learn, when they want to connect with you. That is where the magic happens. That is why I’ve been able to create multi-million-dollar launches. I truly mean it. It’s because I’m very intentional when the cart is not open. And I really hope you all really take that and think, how can I show up when my cart is not open so I can wow every single person in my community?  

Thank you so very much for being here. Appreciate it. 

So there you have it. I hope you loved this presentation. I had so much fun creating it. And my challenge to you is to take one or two of the lessons learned here and actually apply them in the next seven days. So the only way for this to be worth your time, that you actually listened to that whole presentation and you got to the ending here, is if you take action with what you learned. So take two of the strategies I taught here, apply them in the next seven days. And then, I want you to jump into my private Online Marketing Made Easy Facebook group, and let us know what you did, how you applied them, what it looked like, what you thought. Like, I really, genuinely want to hear from you. So jump into the Online Marketing Made Easy Facebook group and let us know. 

Two things before I sign off. Number one, I am really excited about next week's episode because I'm going to talk about how a digital course can fit into your one-on-one business. So if you're a coach, a consultant, a service-based business, and you want to add digital courses to the mix but you don't necessarily want to cut out the coaching or consulting, this is the episode for you. I've got so many ideas how you can mesh them together and make them fully aligned. So you've got to check that out.  

And the last thing is, have you subscribed to this podcast? We are starting to do so many bonus episodes. Did you know I have a new podcast team? Shout out to Sam and Kylie. You two are kicking butt, my friends. And we have a new podcast project manager and a new podcast content coordinator, and so we are dialing things in, which means they are chomping at the bit to add bonus episodes. And they have so many ideas for the bonus episodes, I’m like, “Okay, guys, you’re freaking me out you’ve got so many ideas. How are we going to get this all done?” And they’re like, “We’re doing it. We’re so excited.” I love when team members are just as excited as I am to create new things and do big projects. And Kylie and Sam are definitely excited. So with that, they want more bonus episodes. They have all these ideas, so we’re starting to record them. And the only way that you can learn about these bonus episodes, because we typically don't email about them, is that if you're subscribed to the podcast, then you get a notification. So on iTunes right now, go subscribe to Online Marketing Made Easy. We've got some special stuff coming your way. 

All right, guys. I will see you here, same time, same place next week. Bye for now.  

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