Listen Now:

You hear a lot about coaching businesses using list-build events to grow their lists. And you might be feeling a little left out, right?

WRONG!

You CAN use a list build if you sell physical products, and on today’s episode, we’re going to break down what that might look like and how to get started.

Episode 92 – Gathering the RIGHT Experts For Your Next Online Summit

Alyson Lex 0:03
You hear lists builds talked about a lot when people are selling coaching or high ticket products or those kinds of deliverables. And it's really easy to think that that is the only industry in which a list build will work. But you can use a list build, if you have an online store selling physical products. If you're an in person, business, retail location or a service provider in person, you just need to think outside of the box of the regular flyers, mailers list buying ads, that kind of thing. And that's what we're going to talk about today, because it's our statement that you can use a list build, like a challenge or a summit in a non coaching business. So what is a list build?

Jennie Wright 0:58
Well, Allison, sorry, well, you know, let's talk about list building. Sure. List Building is anything that is adding to your email marketing list. So that could be something like a challenge, or even a survey, or a giveaway, or a prize of some sort, or a podcast can even be a list, build a PDF, download a checklist, there's so many different things that can create a list build. And if you're a physical location, or if you're selling a product, and we just did this with a client, where the client was actually using a challenge to sell a journal. And we'll continue to do that a physical journal that will be actually mailed out to somebody, then it depends on what it is that you're doing, that's going to fit and we'll talk about that in a second. But the list builds that tend to work for physical products have to be thought of in terms of the end goal and the person who's receiving it and what they're going to get. But the most popular ones tend to be surveys and giveaways and things like that. But you can pretty much use every type of list build. To sell a physical product, it just has to be the right fit.

Alyson Lex 2:07
One of my past clients and kind of current clients and he's got a huge physical consumable retail online business. That was a lot of right, he sells a product on a subscription that people use and they use up consumable. And he sells direct to consumer online. And he follows and gets a lot of inspiration from Dave Asprey of bulletproof radio, the podcast, because Dave also has that similar kind of business. He's got a litany of those products. And my client is always like, hey, let's look at what this guy's doing, which is a really smart move, looking at what other people are doing successfully. And so I love podcasts as a long gameplay.

Jennie Wright 2:59
I do too, and we've actually utilized This podcast is a long game play to grow our list, we just don't sell a physical product, maybe yet, because, by the way, transparency Alison's using this episode to try and convince me to sell some sort of a physical product. So that's her like that's, that's her long term game plan. And I see through it, just so you know. But we'll, we'll keep using this episode is a great way to teach you about physical products. So there's a couple things you need to have in advance, if you have a physical product that you actually want to sell, because you can't always just sell on Amazon, you can't do drop shipping necessarily all the time with those different sites, you have to have like a website. And it may not just be a Shopify store, it should actually be a real website that has a home and about maybe a blog, you know, and it does have a shop, which is great. That's a prerequisite, obviously, to being able to sell something. But you want these other elements. So you're actually creating what appears to be or is a full business versus your side hustle where you're selling wind chimes,

Alyson Lex 4:03
I think it's also really important that you have this site, because you want to build something that you own, you don't want to just be an Amazon seller, you don't want to just be selling on eBay, if you use those places, awesome. But also have your own storefront online.

Jennie Wright 4:25
Great, totally. And that's part and parcel with the next thing we need to talk about, which is your niche. So if you're a local business, you have your local area. So if you're a local pet food store, and we'll talk about that example later, but if your local pet food store, and everybody's buying from you in you know, Baltimore, Maryland because that's where I know Allison was, right, if so, if if, if that is your local area, then who is the niche for that, right? So it's going to be pet owners within a certain driving distance or if you're super And you're like, fresh pet food or, you know, like the raw pet food stuff. I know some people who drive like a long way to get that stuff, or they'll even order it online as long as it can be shipped and delivered, etc, etc. So there's the pet store sort of thing. There's real estate agents that's very local, online clothing stores, or even in person clothing stores, those can be very localized as well. But what niche right, so we want you to dive deep, right? Allison always uses the the word of why, like, Who's your, who's your ideal client? Well, there's so and so why will they do this, but why, right, and she goes really, really deep with it. The reason being is that there's usually a sub sub sub niche, and there that we can really target and try and really, you know, get their attention,

Alyson Lex 5:46
I think it's also really important that you let go of some preconceived notions about how you're going to grow your business. There are a lot of people teaching, how to grow an online or offline retail business or an in person service, business or local service. begin to look at other industries for examples. And I tell I teach people about this all the time. Look, outside of your industry, at what people are doing well, if you know that, so and so is doing awesome. With this kind of campaign, it doesn't matter that they're a plumber, and you're an online business owner. No, not at all. And this the same holds true in reverse. If somebody that owns an online coaching business is using a model that works, what can you take from that into your local plumbing business. And so I really want to make sure that this is, if you sell a physical product, if you sell a local service, if you sell something that doesn't feel like it fits within this online coaching service business. Because you can learn something from what these guys are doing. And when you think about it this way. If we market online, we spend a whole lot of time learning how to market online, leverage our research, and shortcut it by looking at what we're doing, and modeling it.

Jennie Wright 7:27
Modeling other people's plans and opportunities, the way that they're doing things is a really great way to facilitate some success. I actually want to mention something that Allison and I do and that relates to what she was talking about. Allison, and I share a swipe email address, and you've heard us talk about swipe email before, that's where you create an email address, it's really not your name that nobody would know is you, you know, we suggested taking your mom's middle name, and you know, for your dog's name and somebody else's last name, like your great aunt's maiden name, I don't know, but making some sort of an email address that nobody was knows you. And that is not going in and filtering into your main email box that you check when you need to when you need some inspiration. Allison and I are both happily ensconced in our relationships. We're not looking to date, we're not looking to get married, we're not looking to do any of that we are both happily done. But we follow somebody specifically who talks about weddings. And they're in our swipe email box on a regular basis. Why not? Because we're interested in weddings. Like I said, we're both, you know, happily in our relationships. But we look because we were interested in the way that they're marketing their business. And it was specifically when the pandemic started that we started following this person, because they couldn't do in person weddings, they were starting to get pretty nimble with what they were doing to keep their business afloat. And that's what drew us to looking at this person. And we've kind of followed them, you know, very lightly ever since because they've been very, you know, they've been able to keep their business afloat, and they've been very plastic and you know, having that plasticity with their business to keep it going. Does that make sense? So that's just something to add to that.

Alyson Lex 9:15
I really liked that and just looking Yeah, I could talk for probably a whole nother episode on looking outside your, your niche or your industry Look, I said it like you did. looking outside of your industry or your your, your competition, don't just do what your competitors are doing. forge a new path. But don't forge one of the overgrown. let other people in other industries, forge it for you and then just follow them. The other thing that you want to do is make sure that your social media is locked down, secure all your handles, start building that up. If you aren't already. You should and probably are using some sort of social media to grow. You want to continue doing that. So those are the kind of prerequisites, right, having your own site, understanding your niche, letting go of those notions, and getting that social media locked down, then there are some steps to follow. And these actually follow the same format that you would follow if you had a coaching business. And we're doing a list build. Pretty easy already. Step one, choose your topic. Sounds pretty easy. And it is the step one that we give to everyone who wants to do a list build? Choose your topic? What are you going to focus on? And I don't know, do we already have an episode on choosing your list build topic? If we don't we should

Jennie Wright 10:44
it believe we do. I'm pretty sure we do. And I will now as you speak, probably go look for it.

Alyson Lex 10:51
Okay, see, I knew that would happen. That's why I did that. So pick your topic, make sure it's really exciting. Make sure it answers a big question that they want to be answered. And it's something that you can speak to. Okay, step two, choose your list build type. There is a bajillion. And I know we have an episode on how to pick your list builder. So we'll put that in the show notes as well. You can choose a summit, which is a fantastic list builder, and one that I think is highly underutilized in the non-online coaching space industry. You could do a challenge, a giveaway, a podcast, have a PDF download. Look, if you have an online storefront, and you're in the e-commerce space, chances are your lead magnet, your list builder is a coupon. Cool, if it works for you, awesome. But if it could be better think about what other options you might have. And so then, if you are doing a summit style list build, and we will link to plenty of episodes about summit style list builds in the show notes. But if you're doing a summit style, let's build your step number three is going to be to find your experts. And I know that coming up, we have an episode on finding experts. I just don't know when it's going to happen.

Jennie Wright 12:29
It's in there. I know it's I know it's in there.

Alyson Lex 12:31
I know. It's an art it is it's Episode 92. You found it. I just found it. So it's coming up in just a couple of weeks. Episode 92 is going to be all about how to find your experts. But I'm going to put Jennie on the spot and tell her I and let her know that I want her to talk to us about that more. Because she is the expert in finding experts, the expert

Jennie Wright 12:55
and finding experts. Yeah, you're right. And to Allison's point about summit, you can use a summit to sell a physical product, no problem. I think with the physicality of a product, you're probably doing more possible joint ventures, to gather a group together of people with, you know, maybe there's other people, maybe you're selling, maybe you're in an MLM, and you want to sell more product, right physical product, or you're like Alison's client, or like Dave Asprey, where you're really using a physical product. I know he's done a summit. I'm pretty darn sure. And I know he's done challenges. He builds his list like crazy. But with trying to find experts, the whole mentality behind it is not being desperate. It's not going oh, my gosh, I got to get all my experts in, I have to have enough people in my summit, or I'm screwed. So don't be desperate. Which means planning ahead. So if you're think you're going to launch your summit in 20 days, don't do it. That's insane. Right? So is 30 days, and also quite honestly. So 60 days, we kind of need about 90 days to plan these things out. I prefer 120. But that's another conversation for another day. But with finding the experts, you're going to spend probably the first 30 days of your entire planning period in your summit, finding and trying to look for experts. Here's the best way to do it. Write down on a piece of paper on a doc, what the vision and values are for your business. And what it is for your event, they should be pretty much in alignment. And your end goal I want to sell more of product a great then when you're looking at experts, the only CAD The only thing that's going to get them on your summit is one if they're in alignment with your vision and values and two, if the people on their list can support the purchasing or the increased sales of your product. They don't fit those two things. They're not getting on your summit. Right. So that would be just the main The major parts of it and then find it once you find them getting in touch with them is a completely different conversation. But please spend more time than you think, on trying to find really good experts. If you have any questions about that, I believe I did a quick tip on that. And I also think we're going to be talking about that in Episode 92. Allison says, so I'll give you some really good tips in there. So check out 90 Episode 92. on how to actually get those experts and get them into the thing. You know, get them into your summit, getting them to say yes,

Alyson Lex 15:29
I told you she was the expert guys. This is why I make her do that stuff, because I can give my insight but she says it's so much better than me.

Jennie Wright 15:39
I can't talk about copy the way you do. So we're just you know, we're the I told you, we're like the best Venn diagram out

Alyson Lex 15:44
there we are, we really are. Okay, so step three is to find your experts. I'm gonna call this step three be. If you are not doing a summit style list build, you're doing a challenge, a giveaway, or what have you. Well giveaway would probably be very much like a summit. We'll talk about that in a second. But if you're doing a challenge, or a podcast or a PDF, download any of that kind of thing. Step three be is going to be create your content, create your first challenge, create your outline, you don't have to create all the content before you start promoting but create the content. Then step five, is promote the heck out of it. Promote, promote, promote more than you think you should. And I'm talking social media. I'm talking your existing customer list. I'm talking if you're a local business signs and flyers in your store, I'm talking, I don't care, everything that you think you should be doing to promote it, take it up 10 more levels. And maybe you'll be promoting it enough. Here's the thing. Not everyone is going to see every bit of your promotion. This is something that Miss Jennie Wright has taught me over and over again, Person A might see a third, Person B might see a quarter of it. Person c might see another third, but they're not all seeing the same stuff. And even if they are, it just helps either helps them get to the decision to sign up or reaffirms that they've made a good decision. So consider Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. Those are your standards. Tick Tock. Right. Are you on Tick Tock? If you're not on Tick Tock or leveraging Tick Tock? Consider it. podcast, if you have a podcast or you're a guest on a podcast, you could do a podcast tour, we could even do an episode on that. All kinds of stuff, okay. Any PR that you can get on local radio, TV newspaper, right? People want to know what's going on in their area. This is an event. It's an event that people can attend without having to leave their house, which is attractive for a whole lot of reasons to hold a lot of people. So really consider every bit of promotion that you can do and promoted every day. Okay, now we're promoting it. Now we're hosting our event. Now we're having our thing now they're getting our stuff. Now it's time to make an offer. Do you have a special bundle? Do you have a special thing if you're, we you know, we talked about a real estate agent. Maybe you could be hosting a special class just for first time homebuyers who are currently renting and that class is $47 make the offer you might get some you'll get some clients from that class. Some buyers, right? Like what can you do to now take this list of people that are that have raised their hand and said I am interested in that topic. Which if you've picked your topic, right means I'm interested in what you have to offer. What can you do to now turn those people into buyers? If you you know, sell a bundle of your most popular products sell subscriptions sell, you know, a year's worth of something like what can you I'm just brainstorming at this point. I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants on this one but I know He's like shocker. And then you want to stay in touch consistently, during, after consistently, because a huge portion of sales will come after the event.

Jennie Wright 20:19
You never want to give up on them. That's the thing. Even if you even if your list is slightly crickets, you never ever want to give up on them, even in the moment that they're, you know, it's post event. So we're gonna talk about a couple of examples and make sure that we are giving something that's like real life for you to understand. So I'm going to put Alyson on the spot here, because this is super fun for her. She loves doing this. I want Allison, can you give us some examples of how we could kind of use this in some real life scenarios?

Alyson Lex 20:53
Okay, so we have talked about a pet store, or real estate agent. And I think you mentioned an online clothing store or an in person clothing store, right, a clothing store. Alright, local pet store business, let's say you want to have a mini summit. And so what we're gonna do is we're Connect, consider the type of person that we want, maybe we really want to uplevel the the raw dog food that we were creating and selling. And so maybe we could partner with some local businesses, who also serve dog people, and who have content that can align with that, like a local vet that can talk about improving your dog's overall health and how raw food might play into that. You know, if our event is happening, let's say in May, I'm picking I'm making this up now. Maybe we could have a local restaurant that's super known for being dog friendly. Talking about some of the etiquette of taking your dog out to eat with you. Maybe a local dog trainer, talk about dog training with maybe even and then you can even go Okay, well, if they're into raw food for their dog, it's possible that they're into more health for them as well. And so how could you have your local gym or local physical trainer come in and talk about working out you and your dog and keeping both of you safe and healthy as you go? Like, do you see how I'm now diving more into who I'm serving? Right? If they're into raw food, they're into health, chances are that goes across themselves. Okay. Now, not only is it dog services, but it's dog and people services, but they're going to overlap.

Jennie Wright 22:59
And the overlap is awesome. The overlap is where you get that beautiful little Venn diagram of people who have different means. But they all need the one thing that you have.

Alyson Lex 23:09
Yes, I really like the way you sum that up, they all have different needs. But they all need that one thing you have, that's a really great takeaway from this episode. The key is that all of the experts on your mini summit all have people on their list their client list, the people who walk into their shops, the people that they know, on their social is also your potential customer list. Is it going to be a 100% fit? Probably not. Not 100% of those people are going to be like, yes, I'm Sue. I'm totally into buying raw food for my dog. But they might come in and buy a toy. They might come in and buy some treats. The whole key is now you're building a list of people who would want to come shop from you.

Jennie Wright 24:05
And you're building it through an experience. They can go anywhere and buy this pet food. They can go anywhere and shop. But why are they coming to you? Because it's the experience. So how are you going to stand out? Right, so most people, most pet stores most vets and a lot of vets have like their own little mini pet store inside of them and stuff like that. But most people who are selling pet food and the accompaniments that go with it, the toys and the whatnot aren't doing things like this. But it's a great way to stand out and if you have an online portal for the other things that you sell as well. Great. I've seen and this is true. I've actually seen a pet store an online pet store that as an additional service had a online pet. What do you call it obedience lessons, like a like a course that you could take and it was it was stupid cheap. It was like 19 bucks or something for this leg YouTube series on how to like get your puppy to like to a bay like their first commands mean growth industry way to, you know way to expand it out. But that's a really great way to look at it. The next example Go ahead, Allison.

Alyson Lex 25:19
I was gonna say I'm gonna dive into real estate. What do you think? The real estate agent? Let's pretend because we just talked about a mini summit. So let's look at a challenge. Okay, if I am a real estate agent and, you know, I used to be an assistant for a realtor. So I kind of know the industry. Maybe it's 14 days to being homebuyer ready, designed for first time homebuyers. And you could even JV or bring other people in by saying, Okay, you know what, today I'm going to have a mortgage broker, discuss what's really involved from the financial side. Today, I'm going to have an interior designer to talk about filling a home with furniture on a budget. Today, I'm going to have a home inspector, to talk about red flags to look for when you're starting your home search, or an insurance agent. What do you need to know about homeowner's insurance or a local handyman? Here are some 10 quick tips of you know, for making sure that you can fix your house up the first time. Because the thing is with renters, they call the landlord for that. Or the management company most of the time, right. So when they get into a house for the first time, they're like, I'm what I need to drill. So now you can prepare them for that. And over the course of two weeks, they're going to feel more confident in buying a home. And now guess what? You're the one who's given them that. So who are they going to call? when they when they want to start looking? Well, they're going to call you. And when they want a mortgage, they're probably going to call that broker and when they needed insurance, they might call that agent. And if they need help fixing something beyond those 10 tips, they might call that handyman real estate. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead.

Jennie Wright 27:17
I was gonna say my real estate agent who I've been working with for years is my go to for anything like that. I you know, when you when I had a whole bunch of crap, I needed to get rid of the last time I moved. She's like, Oh, yeah, I know a guy cuz they know people. Right? So somebody's you know, all of those different kinds of things. And in my head when you were talking about this, I'm like, get homebuyer ready. seven day challenge, like I would write, I wouldn't look at that.

Alyson Lex 27:45
Yeah, when I, before I ever bought a house, I would totally do that. And so now you have a hot list of people, you know, are maybe looking, they're thinking about buying a house, you can now nurture them. Instead of farming areas, hoping this is pro active stuff, we're getting proactive, instead of just hoping that somebody is going to drive by and see our sign or happen upon our flyer in their mailbox, and not know another realtor, which how often does that happen? And instead of just hoping we're getting proactive, and that's how you leverage list builds, when you don't sell coaching, a clothing store, maybe your online, you don't even need a local presence. So you can think of a topic and then find anyone who might have that content. Or if you're in person, you would follow similar steps to the pet store. Right? But you just choose a topic coming out of quarantine with confidence, refreshing your style after 40. Find people who help do that. Decide, is it a full event, a mini event, a challenge? Maybe a series of webinars. If you if you work with business people, maybe you do a series of lunch and learns, get creative.

Jennie Wright 29:18
There's a real need for being creative things. Although we're kind of going back to normal in some areas of the world. We're already seeing the fact that a lot of people are not going to go back to exactly how things were. They're not doing the same shopping trends. I mean, I'm probably just going to keep ordering my groceries online because one it's really stupid simple. And I love the fact that I don't have to go to a grocery store anymore. Somebody just brings it all to my door. So I love that and actually the company that does that, that I really, really like. Do you know that they actually did a giveaway and it was a list build. They did a giveaway involved. Nobody bought them, but it was like Hey, if you enter your name, and your email, and also share this with, you know, share this link out, you get one entry for your entry, and you get another entry when your friend registers through this link. So it was great. So they grew their list, which meant they could market to that list, and I got entries into a giveaway, I ended up winning like a thing of worn shoes, but whatever, it was kind of cool. These are really, really good ideas. Hopefully, this has been something that has been really intuitive for you to listen to, to pull out some ideas. And even if you don't have a physical product, and you are a coach, or a course creator, some of the stuff that we talked about today, you really should be modeling as well. And taking a look at what other people are doing. We have a couple of takeaways that we want to talk about. One of them the first one is list building isn't just for digital products, you can sell those physical ones too. You can sell a journal, a water bottle, you can look at different ways. You can sell other physical products, vitamins and supplements and things like that, depending on the rules of where you live. But you absolutely can sell physical products, and not just the digital ones.

Alyson Lex 31:05
Being creative is key. Get creative. And I'm not just talking about with less bills I'm talking about with marketing your business in general. Think outside your box follow. Follow people that you wouldn't normally follow to get ideas and, and do stuff that feels different because you just because it's different doesn't mean it's wrong.

Jennie Wright 31:31
Absolutely. And by doing something that's a little bit different, you're creating more opportunity. So also looking outside of your current industry for the ways that you should be growing. There's lots of ways to get creative. Again, Allison and I like I said, we're following somebody who does weddings, we're not interested in the wedding industry. We're interested in the way this person made their business stay afloat during a pandemic. And we think what they do is pretty cool. And that's pretty good. I think that's pretty interesting thing.

Alyson Lex 31:59
And lastly, you want to really get proactive in your business, instead of just putting stuff out there and hoping that it works and hoping that you get sales and hoping that the traditional ways work for you get proactive. What can you do today or this week, to be intentional about going out and making movement happen. If you want to get notified when Episode Number 92 comes out, which is that one we talked about all about choosing experts for your event, I think it's going to be really helpful for you as we as you continue to noodle this idea in your brain. definitely follow or subscribe the System to THRIVE podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And that way you get it automatically when it's released,

Jennie Wright 32:49
which is a smart idea all around. And if you have a local business or a product based business, and you think this bill might be a good fit for you reach out, let's talk about what that looks like. And we'll give you some specific ideas that will fit your business in particular, and how you can make that happen. So go to the System to THRIVE comm look at the work with us page, reach out and connect with us. Before we wrap up today, I want to say a special thanks to all of the people who are listening to this podcast, I was taking a look at our captivate.fm which is where we keep this podcast. And I was looking at all of our results. We are international. And I just want to take a second to thank all of the people in all of the countries that have been listening to this podcast religiously for the past year. We're very grateful. We're very thankful. And we hope that you'll keep listening as we deliver more and more content and try and help you grow your businesses so that you can thrive. Thanks so much for listening and we'll be back again answering another big question.