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You can't build your business alone – well you can… but it will take a long time. Or you can use your Street Team to help get you where you want to more quickly

We use our Street Teams all the time, and it's led to sales, clients and some amazing relationships with people in our communities. Listen in to get all the details on why your business can benefit from a Street Team.

Alyson Lex
If you've listened to one or more episodes of our podcast, or really any podcast dedicated to growing your business, you have heard about how to promote organically on social media to your email list, using ads on whatever platform you can get to work. There's one thing you may not have heard about, and that is leveraging other people's audiences. Oh, PA, I just made that acronym up. I don't know if that's going to catch on. But we're going to hope. Other people's audiences are an incredible way to promote your business without spending money upfront. We hear about this a lot with things like affiliate programs. But what if there was a way to get people to promote for you or support you without a formal affiliate program set up? That's what we're going to be talking about today. Because today we're talking about creating a street team. Now, I used to be really big into the local business or the local music scene here in Baltimore. And street teams were the rage fans who loved you so much that they promoted you to other people. You would give them assets, stickers, t shirts, CDs, what have you. They would in turn, tell all of their friends. That's a street team. We're taking that concept straight from the music industry, bringing it into our businesses, getting our friends and fans to promote us without a formal arrangement in place. That's what we're talking about today.

Jennie Wright
It's, it's something that you have used, it's something that I use, I actually use it a lot with summits and challenges. And I love that it has a very diverse history. I would happily put myself in the street team of a couple Canadian bands back in the day like Barenaked Ladies used to get some of their swag and I'd be like, I've got the you know, I've got I've got the cassette tape before they even the album even came out.

Alyson Lex
Yeah, those were you're dating yourself. They're getting a little bit.

Jennie Wright
I know and it's okay. Barenaked Ladies was you know, big when I was in high school, and I

Alyson Lex
was actually talking about the cassette tape part.

Jennie Wright
Oh, the cassette. Yeah, whatever CDs along really, really quickly afterwards. Okay, whatever. But yeah, the first the first album I got, that was like a swag thing. It was, yeah. Anyways, street teams are a thing. And we're going to talk about how to make this work in your business. So we want to kind of relate it to something that you kind of get, right. So we're going to get our 80s band t shirts. We're going to pop those on 80s and 90s. Right, but those are a little bit of an ATAR for me, maybe a little bit like what in sync for you. I'll sign I don't know, because you're younger than me.

Alyson Lex
Wow, you get poppin I get in sync. I mean, don't get me wrong. I can rock out to some bye bye bye. But Pat Benatar is awesome. She is she is based on those 80s and 90s bands, Sherry go. Let's talk about what it looks like to create a street team for your business. Yes.

Unknown Speaker
So the first go ahead.

Alyson Lex
Yeah, a street team is made up of a couple of different types of people. The first being people that you trust. I have found many of my street team members in mastermind or coaching programs that I'm in the other people that are in it with me. They're a great source of street team. They get what you're trying to do. They're trying to do it themselves. And so you support one another. Right. Another place is to look for people in complimentary niches are who serve the same audience but aren't direct competitors. For example. Jenny and I are excellent street team members for one another.

Jennie Wright
Yep, we absolutely are. This is a great episode with tons of pauses. I'm loving it. Me to take a second?

Alyson Lex
Do we need to pause recording?

Jennie Wright
Yeah, we are we're great, amazing street teams for each other because there's a couple of reasons one, we're friends. But the other reason, which I think is really important, is that we're within the same niche. Right, so we're Nisha Jason, or we're within the same niche and we can support each other because your ideal client and my ideal client actually share a lot of the same characteristics. It makes it a heck of a lot easier. Now, if you were in the weight loss, skate like you know thing or the relationship niche that would make it almost impossible for us to be on the same street team, in my opinion, because I think you have to use people that are within your niche, most of the time to be able to make this effective, right? Because you might get if you were in the relationship niche and you promoted my stuff, first of all your people are gonna be like, Why is she talking about marketing? You seems very, very strange. And secondly, I might get one or two people from you, and they're not going to be the right people. So that's the caveat to your street team. It has to be people that you trust, like Alison said, and it has to be in complementary niches. But when we say complementary niches Be very, very careful, making sure that your ideal client is in their sphere of influence. That's the caveat to that

Alyson Lex
100%. And the other thing is that, if I was serving someone completely different, and promoting you, now, I've used up my relationship capital, for something that's not going to be very effective. So it's not necessarily just go get as many people as you can, and forget, you know, who cares what happens to them in their list, that's not the way we want to approach this. No one approach this from a value perspective, I can recommend people to Jenny because I know that they're gonna get value from what she brings to the table, it complements what I do. It helps them implement the copy that I create for them, vice versa. Right, she can recommend people to me, because I can help them create assets that she then turns into amazing list builds or funnels, or all this amazing, I don't even talk about all the great stuff she does. She doesn't, she doesn't let me touch my own clickfunnels account. No, I'm okay with that.

Jennie Wright
Beyond people that you trust, you also, it's really, really important that you have a little bit of a relationship. I've been approached by many, many people that want to affiliate with me. And they're in my niche. And from the outside, they're people that I might trust, or they're people that you might trust as an example. But you need to peel back the layers a little bit. When you're approached by some people. And trust me, building a street team takes some time, it takes some work at it. And at the same time, you are going to have a couple people that are going to come and go because you go Oh, they're actually not my people. I thought they were but they're not. When you get approached by these people who are like, yeah, let me help you sell your thing. And I'm going to take you know, 40% Commission, right? Oh, and we'll talk about we'll talk about what that looks like shortly. But you have to be very, very careful as to what their motives are. I met a woman not too long ago, her whole thing. Her whole thing was affiliate marketing, all she does is affiliate or talk to other sorry, promote other people's stuff to her list, which has gone tone deaf by the way. Now, it doesn't say that affiliate marketing isn't a great thing to do. But at the same time, she was promoting, you know, everything from like, essential oils to you know, like everything that she could possibly promote she was, I wasn't going to get any bandwidth from her, I might get one sale, maybe or I might get a couple leads, but I'm not going to get good people

Alyson Lex
100% and you want to make sure that their values align with yours, because you are aligning with them. Okay, in whatever capacity, you're attaching your name with someone else. And we're going to talk about how to activate them in a little bit. And that's going to be more clear. But just really make sure that it's someone that you want to have that kind of ongoing relationship with. This is not necessarily a one and done type of thing. Okay, this is an on going relationship, that, like I said, we're going to talk about how to activate our street team. And I'll tell you what I do with mine. And you'll see it's an ongoing thing.

Jennie Wright
Yeah, it is. Finding your street team is is very actually it's actually quite easy. This can be previous students from a course, those are amazing people, people who've actually participated in your program products and services are the best people to be on your street team because they've actually experienced you firsthand. And they know you and how you actually work. You know, and one of the best things you can do is actually ask them for testimonials, and to refer you to friends of theirs. And also ask them if they'll share your your social, your social posts, right. So these are great opportunities. I love getting previous students to be my absolute, you know, biggest supporters. Those are the people that again, they know me, well, they know my results or their results that they received from working with me. And I think it's a better way to go about it than just going cold. I do however, do put a call out on my social occasionally and just say, hey, if we're in alignment, let's do this. Here's another great example. I am preparing for at the time of this recording. I'm preparing for summit. So as Alison, we've also had a lot of people register or want to participate as experts for summit, but are not a fit. And for whatever reason. There's nothing wrong with going back to that list and saying hey, right now you're not a fit for the event. Thank you so much for applying but would you like to Still promote the event and be able to receive some affiliate income as a result, those people can be on boarded with a little bit more conversation than that, just FYI, into your street team. But that's like the initial conversation.

Alyson Lex
And that actually brings up a really good point that I want to make, there is a difference between a friend street team and an affiliate street team. Okay, so your friends street team is like me and Jenny, Jenny, hashtag transparency, Jenny will sometimes send me a message. And she'll link to a post that she's done in a group are on her wall. And she's like, Hey, can I get a little love? And that's my key as a French street team to go in and talk Jenny up. I do this with Jenny, sometimes I see a post in a group. They're like, Hey, who's the best copywriter? You know? I sent her the link and I say, can you tag me? I don't do it all the time. But that's the friend street team. The affiliate street team is kind of what Jenny was just talking about.

Jennie Wright
Yeah, there's a difference. And we know this works, you guys. Because I know for a fact that Allison has gotten clients from it. And I know for a fact that I have gotten clients from it. So it's something to absolutely do, because it can an absolutely will work. But the relationship is key. Right? So looking at people like we were talking about previous students, people that you've worked with, and then other members of the same coaching program that you're part of, Allison's going to talk a little bit more about this, because she is actually in a coaching program. And I think that's more applicable to her.

Alyson Lex
Yeah, it's totally, and I mentioned it earlier, right. So we've got a group of us that we kind of all mastermind together. And we we chat a lot, or we'll have a quick little zoom call to brainstorm some things. It's separate from the program, this is not something the program has told us to do. It's just stuff we've done because we see the potential for the relationship there. So if I put a post out, and I want to make sure it gets some traction on the algorithm, I'll say, Hey, can you guys hook a girl up, I'm in their groups, I interact, they're in my group we interact, it's a way to get engagement going. The reason we do this, is because the social proof means a lot for the people who are following you, it's a way to get your people started. If I have a post that's going gangbusters, or, you know, it's getting a ton of comments, I'm not going to activate my street team. But I want to get it going, I want to play that algorithm a little bit, I want to play the game a little bit.

Jennie Wright
It's also a great icebreaker,

Alyson Lex
it is a great icebreaker, people tend to want to they don't want to be the first one to comment. They don't want to be the first one to share, they don't want to be the first one to interact with you. So if you can have someone else do it for them. It gets the wheels going.

Jennie Wright
Agree. And it's also a really great opportunity as well to show your support. And I love that you have a pot of people that you can do that with you and I have that separate relationship, which is great. But when it comes to the listener right now in their business, there's the thing that we think we that you should do, and we're going to talk about activating your street team shortly. But there's three things that you can take from this podcast, and go forward with one you can find between three and five people because that's actually a really, really good number. It's harder when there's more because then you're commenting and posting all over the place all the time. Right. So find three to five people that you jive with, you have the same sort of, you know, understanding with and that you can go and post on a regular basis or comment or like or share, and that it doesn't feel odd to your audience. If you do it, it's not gonna feel like the whiplash, right? The second thing is making sure to not make your audience feel estranged from you when you're doing this, right. So it has to be has to be that mesh, and we're talking about that that's still part of that, that first thing. The second thing that I want you to consider doing when you're doing this is that you're setting up very clear understanding as to how you guys are going to support each other. It really, really sucks when you have a group of three or five people and you're the only one that's actually doing the thing, and nobody else is doing it. So you kind of set up like a little bit of a gentlemen's agreement, a clear expectation as to what you should be doing for each other and how you're going to go about doing it. Just so everybody kind of understands. It's a it's a like it's a share. It's a common, and you know, you know that that's the next thing that needs to be done. And then the very last thing is, do you or will you with that particular street team. That little pause Little mastermind group, will you share in any of the profits of any of this sales that may or may not come from anything that that you're talking about. Now, for the most part, those mastermind, people that you're that you're talking to are just going to put a comment on a post. And they're not actually pushing clients your way. Okay? However, if at some point, you actually get on a call with somebody, and they say, Oh, yeah, I was referred by Alicia has an example, then, is there something in your mind where you're like, well, Alicia, we should receive a little portion of this as a kickback. And a thank you, that goes a little bit beyond the likes and shares and comments, that is a, that's a full on referral. Right. So that's when, you know, Alicia gets into your message your DNS and is like, hey, I've got a potential client for you. I'm going to hook you up, you guys should talk that I like to reward. Okay, so I don't mind rewarding that at all. Because that means I'm getting hot leads, okay, those people are really, really like they're warm to hot leads, because they're coming from a direct referral from somebody else who's already talked me up, who has already told the potential referral, what I do and how I do it, and has made it very clear that I could be the solution to the problems we're currently facing. And as a result, it makes selling that person so much easier. So that takes things to another level. And those are the three things I want you to consider. So take a look at that, and apply that in your business with your potential street team.

Alyson Lex
I love that. And you're so right. So when someone refers somebody to you, that's a lot more effort than just a like, and a comment or a tag. Right now, I actually do pay referral fees for people who tagged me in things. Because that to me as a referral. So that is completely up to you how you want to handle that specific situation like, Hey, is there a copywriter in the house? Yes. Talk to Allison, she's amazing. Do I pay a referral fee for that? That's up to you. But do keep in mind that they are spending capital, their time, their relationships, their energy? Okay? So then when it's time to activate our street team, we've got our three to five people, I love that you just kind of have a small little number, and they don't all have to like be it doesn't have to be like a special group. All right, I've got my straight team. I've got a couple people over here. I've got Jenny, I've got a couple, you know, I've got they're just relationships. I'm the hub, not a central group or anything like that. Although I think there's overlap. But when it's time, you just ask. Like, I just messed up like I mentioned, I messaged Jenny, Hey, can you can you love on this or Johnny messages me? Can you give this a little bump?

Jennie Wright
There's something really, really intrinsic about that. The fact that the relationship previously previously exists, right? So you have to spend a little bit of your own time and currency in terms of your effort to create that relationship beforehand. It relates a little bit back to the things that I was just saying. But in the activation side, there has to be that previous relationship building that you've done, right. So if you're going to pull and I know this is Allison's phrasing, I don't have it perfect. But if you're going to pull from the relationship, piggy bank, and pull some out of there, you have to deposit it and put some in, right. So you can't just be a taker. And you have to keep adding stuff in. Make sure that you do this. And you make sure that you stand up by what you agreed if you are on the losing side of you know, not doing what you said you would do. Your street team is going to be like, Yeah, no, like, I'm not I'm not up for this. I'm not going to do this for you. I'm not feeling very compelled, because I don't feel like there's an equal relationship. And the relationship is the key to all of this relationship is the master thing behind this is the secret sauce, whatever wording you want to use. Right? You have to have that happening. So Alyson was just talking about engagement pods, a pod must explain what that is like a pod could be like we were saying the three to five people that you could have in your DMS like in a special little dm group, or that you guys could meet every single week and have like a 15 minute call. I know that years and years and years ago, I was taking a coaching program back in like 2014. And there was a special group like a Facebook group that was made outside of the coaching group. And people were invited on a very specific basis to because it was seen those were the high performers. So all the high performers got into the secondary group and everybody was like supporting each other and helping each other out. I literally from that group, I got somewhere in the range of like, I don't know 20 to 30 hot referrals and close like more than half of them. Those things can really really work right.

Alyson Lex
So that's great. I will give a little warning though because I have seen and tried and been a member of and started a less formal engagement pod that had fewer barriers to entry. And it was basically it was a group where you say, hey, share your links, will comment, follow whatever. And those, they're not as effective. They won, because not everybody has the same audience. Right? That was the big one that we harped on for a while a little bit ago. It doesn't have the same impact, but to because you're not all as committed to it, it does end up being tend to be uneven. Where you do have takers versus people who are doing what they say. So I do not recommend engagement pods. In that sense. What I'm talking about is your own personal pod. Just call it the squad or the team or whatever. That does not have any kind of like formal. I don't like the meetings or what have you. It's just kind of, Hey, can you do this? When you get a chance Jenny and I we talk all day long every day. And every once in a while? It's Hey, can you give this love? Or hey, can you promote this? And a lot of times I promote stuff for Jenny on my own because of our relationship? Yeah, you do. I try really hard. Yeah, oh, my friend is doing this

Jennie Wright
a wake up because she again, if you know, Allison Allison gets up earlier than I do, and I stay up later than she does. I'll get up and it'll be like, I've been tagged in like three posts. I'm like, What is going on? And it's it's the Ellison love method, right? It's just the, you know, I'm like, and I'll just be like, Oh, thank you. And then all of a sudden, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's great when it happens. So the, I think the thing that we're trying to really get across is the relationship building and the people and making a connection with people who are really close to your, your niche, etc. So let's talk about what we do to honor our street team, right. So if these people are going to put the work in, let's talk about how we're going to reward them for putting in that work. And obviously, the the, the way that we reward them isn't necessarily a monetary thing. It's also in how we're going to give them the stuff that they need to be a really good support for us. Right. So in that we're looking at possibly giving them some really good copy. If you need a good copywriter. I know one should right there. met a few times. But you should probably give them a little something, right? It's hard to expect people to promote for you if you give them nothing to work from. So give them a post that you've already written and posted that they can give some love on like we've been talking about. Or if you want them to do their own singular post on their own on their own profiles, then provide them with something that they can speak to. Right, give them a graphic, give them some copy. If they're going to write an email, give them something to speak to, as opposed to just going Hey, dude, can you like Do your thing for me? Yeah, thanks. And then not helping them?

Unknown Speaker
I love the way you said that. Yeah, thanks. Goodbye.

Jennie Wright
It's very lumbergh. Like, I'm just gonna need you to come in and take care of that for me. Okay, by

Unknown Speaker
anyway, thing, a

Jennie Wright
little bit of vocal fry thing. Right? So Nelson knows I hate vocal fry. The other things that you can do is make sure that if if somebody has given you a warm referral and has done that extra work, and provided you with those warm leads, where you actually have been able to possibly close a client, even if you haven't closed a client, here's another thing. Even if you haven't closed them, please say thank you, right? So give them some give them some feedback on how it went like, Hey, thank you for referring me to Molly. Molly was awesome. It didn't end up being a good fit. But she was, you know, it was really, really nice of you to think of me. And I hope that if you find some in the future, you'll you'll think of me again,

Alyson Lex
right? It's so easy. It costs nothing to send a quick email. It costs 55 cents to send a thank you card. That's the cost of postage. I'm assuming that everybody like me has a stash of thank you cards in their office. Right? Right. Only

Jennie Wright
you Alison. Okay, well

Alyson Lex
get some thank you cards, have them on hand and be ready to send them because that means a lot. You want to talk about adding to a relationship piggy bank. Now you're putting dollar bills in that bank instead of just coins. Okay. Jenny's dying.

Jennie Wright
Sorry. It sounds like you're about to break up and like break off into like a rap song. Bill. Like, where's this going? But absolutely. And you also want to be sure that you, Alison, you're killing me. You also want to make sure that you return the favor. Allison's album will be coming out soon. Don't worry, we'll make sure that he gets a link to her New rap album, whenever that actually happens, okay. But there's, I want to make sure that people understand. And I think we've made this really plainly clear. And I think you get it that having people help you along the way. Because I say this often is you can't build this business in a vacuum, right? You can try and do it all on your own, but it's not gonna work. And you'll Excel faster and get a lot more success by actually having people who are going to help you along the way, right. I know that I don't build this business in a vacuum, I have a great support team. And Allison is part of that, you know, we consider Allison family. And as a result, you know, I know that she's, she's, she's got my back, and I've got hers. And that has helped my business, it's helped my partner's business. And in return, we have made sure that that piggy bank gets filled up on the other end, right, and will always do that.

Alyson Lex
I think you touched on something really important here is that it's not just about the money. It's not just about the leads, it's not just about the referrals. It's about having somebody on your side, but having somebody in your corner to help you get things done. To help you get more, and to help you feel like you're not doing this all on your own, because you're not, and it can feel really, really lonely to run your business every day. Right? Sure. But when you have someone that you can reach out to and say, Hey, can you give this a little bit of love? My post is dying? Or hey, can we do a clubhouse room together? That's, I mean, or Hey, Kim, let's do a Facebook Live. Can we do that on your page or in your group? And then we'll do one in mind for you. It feels like you've got this community around you. That's, that's helping you grow your business, and you're helping them grow theirs. And now you've got co workers.

Jennie Wright
Yep, Yeah, you do. And it makes a huge, huge difference. It really, really does. And I highly recommend that if you feel like, I don't know how to do this, I don't know where to get them. I don't know how to figure this out. Go back and listen to this episode, again, as hilarious as it was with little bits and pieces of giggling and laughter. But this is sometimes how we do things, I want you to go back and listen to the three different ways I want you to go back to listening, how to find how to activate, how to give, how to reciprocate and how to invest in those relationships. Because if you do that, and you can do it quite naturally, this doesn't have to feel forced or fake. If you do this quite naturally, it will actually pay you dividends, okay, it creates that compounding interest of that relationship. I've had relationships that I have maintained as part of my elongated and very large group of people that I stay in touch with over the years, that two or three years later, I'm still getting the occasional referral, which can make a huge difference, especially in the times of COVID. When things can get pretty, you know, things felt pretty dry for some people and some businesses really, really had a problem. So to that end, hopefully you got something useful from this episode all about street teams, and starting to build out your relationships with people that are going to help propel your business forward. We use it, we highly recommend it. And we would love to see you put it into play. So here's your next steps. Alison, and I want to hear how it went. And we want to hear how it went in the form of you putting a review on our podcast. So go ahead and go to the platform where you actually listened to this and leave us an honest review. Let us know that you listened and what kind of feedback that you have from this particular episode or any of the episodes that you've heard. Allison, I read every single review. And we love to get them because it helps us develop the podcast for the future. Your second step is to make sure that you don't lose any future episodes, just by the fact that you didn't you know,

Unknown Speaker
Oh shoot,

Jennie Wright
I forgot to listen to Alyson and Jennie. So go ahead and subscribe to the podcast so that you're not missing anything else in the future from us. And the third thing is make sure that you're on the System to THRIVE website System to thrive.com and you've downloaded our content generator, Allison has a better name for it. That's what I'm calling it. If you just go to the website, it'll pop up for you as you're sitting there and you'll be able to grab that it's going to help you create amazing content for your social posts, etc. It's an incredible download that we have for you. So go and check that out. Thank you so much for listening to this particular episode. Alison, I really enjoyed sharing this with you. And we'll be back again soon answering another big question.