You're posting consistently, but the
followers aren't coming.
You're running webinars, but barely
anyone is showing up.
Or you're creating lead
magnets, but the list isn't growing.
Well, last week, I sat in a room with
some of the smartest
business owners I know.
And I left with three things that flipped
how I think about content, lead
generation, and webinars.
And if you can apply even one of these
things, you're going to
grow faster and waste a
impact and Connect mastermind.
So to give you some context, I have been
running a mastermind
for almost 10 years now.
And our Connect mastermind is for people
who run a six and seven figure business.
And my impact mastermind are for people
running a seven and eight figure
membership business.
And I'm telling you,
the rooms are incredible.
The people are amazing.
The smarts in that room, the strategies,
the ideas in that
room, and just the people.
Point blank, just the people.
Like, I truly love
being around this group.
And I always walk in thinking that I've
got a good sense of what's going on.
But I always walk out with at least one
idea that completely
changes the game for me.
And I'm running these masterminds.
But for me, they have just been an
incredible source of ideas and
inspiration and just community.
I really, like I said, just
genuinely love these people.
And there were three specific
presentations that were shared over the
course of the week
that really hit me hard.
One is from a gardener.
One is from an SEO guy.
And another is from a
former photographer.
But just stick with me because what
they're doing is incredible.
And here's the bottom line.
The things that they shared apply to you
and me, whether we sell courses,
membership services,
software, or anything else.
And so I want to get into my three big
takeaways that you can start using in
your business right now.
So takeaway number one from the
mastermind was from Nicole Burke.
Now, I had invited Nicole to come and
speak and attend the
mastermind as a guest.
And so she came to our impact mastermind.
Now, if you're not familiar with Nicole,
she has built an unbelievable following
of one point six
million people on Instagram.
And it's through her gardening account
called Gardinary Co.
And then what's interesting is she
started experimenting.
She started a personal
brand just a few months ago.
She always had a personal brand, but she
never really paid attention to it.
And then a few months ago, she's like,
you know what, I'm going to start seeing
if I can grow this thing.
And literally in just a few months, she's
already passed now 90,000 followers and
she's growing by thousands a day.
So I wanted to find out, like, what is
she doing and how is she doing it?
So I invited her to come and speak.
Now, she shared all kinds of nitty gritty
about what she's
doing to grow her account.
But there were a few things
that really stood out for me.
Number one was the mix of the type of
content that she's
publishing on her personal brand.
And she broke it down like this.
She said, if you want to grow a personal
brand, 60 percent of your content needs
to be entertainment based content.
Funny, scroll, stopping fun, you know,
just entertainment based content.
Twenty percent needs to be education,
tips, tricks, strategies.
Ten percent need to be case studies and
proof and five percent
needs to be calls to action.
Now, here was the reality check as she
was going through this.
I literally just like looked at my
Instagram feed and I was just like, I
just hung my head in shame because most
of my content is completely flipped.
Like I have a lot more calls to action.
Most of my content is educational and
barely any of it is entertainment.
Now, Nicole's stats
are hard to argue with.
And what she does is when she does make a
call to action, which is again, only five
percent of her posts, she
gets thousands of responses.
Now, I was skeptical about all this
because, you know, I come from the old
school marketing world where, you know,
we want to become known
for one specific thing.
So this was just like
really messing with my head.
I come from the old school world of
become known for something specific.
And so I just kept saying back to myself,
I'm like, how will it work if I'm
attracting people that aren't
specifically there to learn how to launch
and grow a membership?
So I asked her about this.
I said, Nicole, explain
this to me, unpack this for me.
And she smiled.
She said, look, Stu, she
said, look at my stats.
And so she showed me her stats for the
last 30 days on her
personal Instagram account.
And she had more than 30 million views.
She said, Stu, all I do is I just
retarget all of those views.
So my ad costs are significantly lower
than if I were to try to
market to them directly.
And she said, of those 30 million people,
there is a chunk of them, a percentage of
them that will be interested in what I am
ultimately teaching and delivering in
terms of my products and programs.
And so my mind just
started expanding at this point.
And the reality of it is, is that there
is research to back this up because
Instagram reels are the only format
that's really growing on Instagram with
15 percent year over year, while
everything else has declined.
And this was reported by
Social Insider this year.
And then when you pair educational value
with entertainment, both reels and
carousels can teach while they entertain.
And this is the new normal.
And Nicole said to me, Stu, you're more
than just the membership guy.
But this is when I pushed back and I
said, but how does talking about my
family or my runs or our nonprofit help
me sell memberships?
And she said, Stu, it builds trust when
people get to know you and like you, they
want to do business with you or they tell
someone who is a fit.
People don't marry on the first date.
They want to know who you are first.
And the same is true in business.
This is all making sense.
Anyways, Nicole
unpacked a whole lot more.
But this was the thing that really stood
out to me that I was out of whack in
terms of the type of
content that I'm producing.
And I need to adjust my approach if I
want to reach a broader audience.
And that's exactly what I want to do.
So that was one of my big takeaways.
Thank you, Nicole Burke, for that lesson.
Number two from my
mastermind came from Matt Diamante.
And it's using AI
powered tools as lead magnets.
Now, Matt, his specialty
is generating free traffic.
He does it two ways.
Number one is through SEO.
That's his core expertise.
That's what he has an agency that where
he helps clients with.
He helps them get more
free traffic through SEO.
The other way is through social media.
He is very entertaining.
Like when I think back to what we just
learned about Nicole, Matt is very
entertaining in how he teaches SEO, which
is crazy because SEO is like
one of the most boring topics.
But he does it in a very fun way.
Go check him out at
Hey Tony on Instagram.
OK, so anyways, Matt did a presentation
during our impact mastermind, which was
earlier in the week.
And it was so good that I asked if he
would do it again for our connect group.
And basically what he did was he showed
how he's using AI powered tools as list
builders, as lead magnets.
And he's using these simple AI tools and
he's giving them away for free.
And he's using them to literally generate
thousands of leads per day,
thousands per day.
In fact, while he was showing us, he
created himself a dashboard and he was
literally while he's talking, you could
see the numbers going up
like it was crazy pants.
And so literally by the time he finished
his presentation, the number had gone up
like a couple hundred
people, which is insane.
Right.
So here's why this matters, because
traditional PDF lead magnets, they still
work and people still like them and
people download them.
But the question is,
do they ever read them?
See, interactive tools like the ones that
Matt has been creating,
they deliver value instantly.
And research backs this up as to why
people like this, because marketers who
pair short form content with interactive
tools are seeing the
highest opt in rates.
And we saw it with Matt.
He was seeing anywhere between high 30
percent, upwards of 90
percent for some of his tools.
And a big reason is because they're
personalized output.
See, AI built lead magnets convert at
over two times the rate
of long form PDF guides.
This is according to Content Marketing
Institute and their report that they
released earlier this year.
See, a PDF is like
handing someone a recipe.
But a tool, a tool is like
cooking the meal with them.
One feels like homework.
The other feels like a gift.
So what was cool was in the room, I asked
everybody to break into small groups and
we started brainstorming different tools
that they could build for their market.
And the crazy part was because of AI,
some people in the room built their first
version of these tools
right there and then.
Like it was literally a few clicks and a
few prompts and bada bing bada boom.
The lead magnet tool was done.
I came home from this just super inspired
to use this in our own marketing.
And you can bet your bottom dollar.
My brain immediately went to like what
tools could we create for our audience
that would make the things that I'm
teaching easier to implement.
So I want to plant a seed for you.
What kind of tools could
you create for your market?
Where maybe the tool itself is doing a
bunch of the legwork in terms of helping
people implement the things that you
teach easier and faster.
And could you make it for free?
The sole purpose is to help
people get a result faster.
I'll give you an
example of what Matt does.
Matt has a tool called linkgap.io.
And basically what it does is you put in
your website and you put in a
competitor's website and it will analyze
both and it'll share with you what links
are pointing toward your competitors that
are not pointing toward you.
Now this is a whole process that Matt
teaches because if you can identify those
links, you can reach out to those sites
and you can get links to your site and it
helps in terms of your SEO rankings.
But that process was a
very manual process, right?
Like it takes time.
And so Matt created a very simple tool
where people can literally put in their
name, they put in their website address,
their competitors website and it shows
like three or four websites.
And if people want the full list, they
just put in their email address.
That's the kind of example where it makes
things easier and faster for people.
They get a result,
they get a taste of it.
They're like, this is awesome.
And so now they want the whole thing.
So they put in their email address.
This is why he's
generating thousands of leads a day.
And this is one example of he had at the
time six tools and he
continues to create more.
So anyways, as I said, I
came back super inspired.
I'm going to be creating a bunch of tools
and I want to encourage you to as well,
because these things are converting and
they're generating lessons like crazy.
OK, the next lesson that I got from the
mastermind came from Emily
in our group and her numbers.
For webinars are going
to make your jaw drop.
And so lesson three is pre webinar
emotional connection.
So Emily has been in our group for a
while and she started as a photographer.
She built a very
successful photography business.
She then started teaching other
photographers in
Sweden how to do the same.
And she's built a multi six figure
membership in the photography space.
Now, one of the ways in which she has
grown that has been through webinars and
her webinar numbers
are absolutely bonkers.
She typically does not get below a 60
percent show up rate, 60 percent.
Her live conversion is over 40 percent
and her evergreen
conversion is over 20 percent.
Just take that in for a second. 60
percent show up rate, 40 percent
conversion to her offer on a live webinar
and over 20 percent on
an evergreen webinar.
And these numbers stand out like a sore
thumb when you compare them to industry
average, because industry average is
around 40 percent show up rate.
And even I would say that is high.
And that's according to Riverside
industry average for live webinar
conversion is around 33 percent.
I would say that is high, too.
I don't see that happening for most.
And Emily is well above all of those,
like way above them.
And the one thing that she does
differently is it's not necessarily in
the webinar itself, although she did
unpack for us like how she
structures her presentations.
And there's a lot to glean from that.
But what stood out for me is what she
does before the webinar.
See, most of us send like
what I would call admin emails.
You know, like when somebody signs up for
a webinar, we would send some follow ups.
It would say, OK, don't forget the
webinars on this time
and it's at this date.
And here's the link
and see you on Tuesday.
That kind of thing.
Right.
Like very admin driven.
Well, Emily doesn't necessarily do that.
In fact,
the vast majority of her emails are
written in a way to connect
with the prospect's heart.
She gets into things like their dream
outcome, like where do they want to go?
And she brings that to life in the email.
She really focuses on connection and she
is trying to as much as possible get into
their world and connect to their heart.
So when she's describing different
things, it's in mirrors how they would
describe it themselves or how they would
see themselves in others.
And she talks about like their beliefs
and what they believe about themselves.
She talks about things that she calls
quote the wall, which is like the things
that hold people back, like their real
pain or their real
objections or their real fears.
And then she also talks about what's at
stake if they don't
solve this problem today.
See, most webinar emails are like a
wedding invitation that
just list the date and address.
Emily's are like a personal letter from a
friend who knows exactly why
this moment matters to you.
And so the lesson for me in all of this
is that there's a ton of opportunity
before anyone ever shows up on a webinar.
And most of us are
wasting that opportunity.
The work sets them up to succeed and that
sets us up to actually move somebody from
being interested to
becoming a paying customer.
Is this all making sense?
So what I'm trying to say is that my big
takeaway was that we got some work to do
on our emails leading up to our webinars.
Because what we've got to do is we got to
spend more time connecting
with people at the heart.
Too much of our emails are all about the
head stuff like the date, the time, the
link, the logistical stuff, we got to
connect with the heart.
Now, at the end of the day, masterminds
have been an integral part of my career.
I've been in one since 2004.
Can you believe that?
And I've been running
my own for 10 plus years.
But the real magic of a
mastermind is the room itself.
And I got a message from
Jill in our group afterwards.
And I had asked her and others, like,
what was it that they
loved about the mastermind?
Because we were getting such incredible
feedback after this event.
And Jill put it this way.
She said, "At the time, I didn't fully
have my words together.
While I got a lot out of it
strategy-wise, it was really the people
that made the biggest impact.
It's rare to be in a room full of
ambitious, successful people who are also
grounded, supportive, and open.
That right there is the
magic of a mastermind."
And this is why I keep recommending that
you go get in a mastermind, whether it's
a peer-based mastermind or whether it's
joining our mastermind.
Like, I've been part of
a mastermind since 2004.
And I've been running my
own for the last 10 years.
And building a business is lonely.
This is why I believe in masterminds.
Because most of us don't have people
around us that get it, right?
Like, the self-doubt that creeps in and
how we have to combat that every day, the
stuff that we're navigating and dealing
with, the challenges, all of that.
But when you get in a room of people who
get it, you feel seen
and you feel validated.
And you leave with momentum.
The number one thing that you and I have
to protect as
entrepreneurs is our confidence.
And a great group does that for you.
So if you've got a six-figure business
and you're curious about being part of
our mastermind, then just
send me a DM on Instagram.
Just put mastermind in the
message and let's connect.
Now, for future episodes, I've got a lot
that I want to unpack.
Some of the things that I shared here
today, I want to dig
into a little deeper.
Like, certainly Emily's webinar structure
and how she's got that set up, I'll give
you an update on some of
the tools that I'm building.
Like, I was building one right before I
jumped on to record this today.
And I'm just so fired up and excited.
It is an incredible
time to be an entrepreneur.
And I just can't wait for us to go behind
the scenes and continue sharing what
we're doing in the hopes that it
continues to help you.
Now, here's my question for you.
Have any of these episodes that you've
been listening to lately been a help?
If so, would you do me a favor?
Would you go and leave a review?
Because those mean the
world to me, number one.
But number two is that they really do
help get the show in
front of more people.
And so if you've got value from this,
just take that like three minutes.
Go leave a review, whether it's on Apple
or Spotify or whatever platform you're
listening to, that would
mean a huge deal to me.
Okay, so, brief recap.
Three lessons from the
mastermind last week.
Number one, mix your
content. 60, 20, 10, and 5.
And being 60% entertainment, 20% being
educational, 10% being case studies and
social proof, and 5%
being calls to action.
And start letting people see more of who
you are, not just what you sell.
Number two, use AI to build simple tools
your audience can actually use.
Make their lives easier.
If you do that,
they'll start coming to you.
Number three, the work you do before a
webinar matters as much
as the webinar itself.
Spend more time connecting to the heart.
No.
But it does get a whole lot easier when
you've got the right ideas and the right
people all in the right room around you.
And that's what last week reminded me of.
I just love this group of humans, this
group of entrepreneurs who are dedicated
to growing their business and
doing more good in the world.
And so I just want to encourage you, if
you're not in a mastermind yet, go form one, whether it's a peer mastermind, go form one.
Whether it's a peer
mastermind, go join one.
Whether it's a paid one like ours.
But get in a room with other people who
get you, understand you, and can help you
get to the next level.
Thank you for listening, my friend.
Don't forget to