Episode 05: Turning the Sales Funnel Game on Its Head with Mike Kelly of Membervault

You're listening to the Prosperity Lab Podcast. Episode number five. Welcome to the Prosperity Lab Podcast. We've been given an amazing opportunity in entrepreneurship that's never been available in any other time period. We live in a reality where the number of lives we impact can be directly reflected by the dollars in our bank accounts. Prosperity is about more than any. It means living the good life and existing in a state of freedom, security and well being. This podcast will explore the paths towards living our best lives and the businesses providing for them. In this episode, Mike Kelly, the creator of Member Vault, and I talk about relationship marketing and flipping the funnel game on its head. I absolutely loved geeking out with him, talking about creating more value for our followers and how to create a binge and buy resource library for for your fans. I can't wait for you to hear everything that Mike has to share today. He is an absolutely amazing entrepreneur. Human dad, like checks off all the boxes and I can't wait for him to share all of these knowledge bombs with you today. What's up everybody? Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Prosperity Lab podcast. I am here with Mike Kelly from Member Vault and I am so excited to talk to him today. He rocked my world the other day learning about relationship marketing and coming from a perspective of ads and funnels. Like, it totally blew my mind on what's possible and really opened up the box that I've been putting myself in as far as online marketing and what I've been doing for the last five years. It like completely changed the game for me. So I'm so excited to share his information with you and hopefully you can get some good info too. Mike, thanks so much for joining us.

Yeah, thanks. Ali. How much can I pay you to like announce me into rooms like that? You know, just follow me around and be like, all right, I'm introducing Mike Kelly now. That would be awesome.

Every day we'll get a reel going and like pump up music.

Intro music. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah, you really covered it here, you know. My name is Mike Kelly. I'm the co founder of Member Vault and it's. Member Vault is kind of. It's been three years now. We've been working and pivoting on it. And it's kind of a brainchild of my wife who comes from an OBM strategic kind of background where she was working with clients, doing a lot of the same stuff that you've been working with too. So, like funnels and ads and putting content out there and courses and all this kind of stuff. And then I'm a developer. I'm a nerd, right. I write code. So, you know, and I've been a developer ever since. I've been, you know, in high school, basically it kind of came together where one day Erin was like, man, kind of her Adrienne Doris. And she was like, client number 001. She's like, man, I don't like this course platform that we're using. I wish. I feel like there's either like really ugly basic bleh and then there's super expensive. All the bells and whistles I don't need. I wish there was something in the middle. Of course, I passingly said I could code that in a weekend. Three years later, here we are. So, yeah, and it's been great. So ever since then. So we started out three years ago kind of as a course platform, as an answer to an alternative, the teachable Kajabi thinkific and stuff like that. And it is that, right? It still is that at its core. But what we've learned over the years and pivoted and listened to our audience and how they're using it is it's become more of a sales tool and. And it's a relationship marketing platform now is what we're calling it. And again, we can dig in. I don't want to bore everyone with the super big details of that, but like you said, it kind of changes the game very much modifies the game of this whole, like ad funnel, getting people in the door and selling to them. It's a kind of a fresh approach to that, a simpler approach, honestly.

Yeah, absolutely. And we had a chance to talk last week and you made the comment of you're not just funneling people over and over again. You get them in the door once and then you just like open the entire world of everything you have available. And instead of waiting to get them in another funnel, all of a sudden they see, okay, they have this course available, they have this workbook available. And the thing that you said that like made me sign up the next day was when you started talking about conversion rates. Because I'm a marketing nerd. And in funnels, usually 3% of people will sign up and actually buy the thing. So 100 people go through your funnel and three people will buy. But you said that when people come into your sphere, they're in your member vault count about was it 38% of them will eventually become a buyer on some level.

People that have their stuff set up right, are converting at 43 45%?

That's insane.

It is insane.

If you are running ads, like, all of a sudden, your return goes from 3% return on ad spend, whatever the cost is of what you're selling to. What did you say, 43%? Nuts.

Yeah. I mean, some people are converting a higher than that if they're even better. I mean, obviously there's a lot of variables on it, but it changes. The approach to the whole idea of a funnel is great, right? It's a great idea, and I feel like it's been over complicated and overused, and now we've turned it into the shotgun approach where you're like, just dump more people in there. Just dump more people in there, right? And so we were like, whoa, hold on. I think there's a better way where we can actually make the most out of each person that goes through this and give each person a unique journey through your content. Not just because, let's face it, you're selling to humans and not sheep and not robots. They're humans and everyone's different. Like, I always tell people the biggest thing that I can say, like, I personally had an experience, and I call this my story of the funnel and the bro. I was looking to hire a fitness coach, right? I was like, man, I want somebody. Like, I wish I could find somebody that could, like, I could work with, that can, like, give me some cool, like, body weight, workout, whatever, right? Get my ass in shape. Found some guy, right? And he was super cool, big beard, lives in the Pacific Northwest. I'm like, that's my guy. That's my guy right there. His branding was awesome. Like, you know, everything was great. The only thing he had on the site was like, sign up for my five day challenge. And we all know where this is going, right? And I was like, all right, fine. There was no way to work with him, right? There was no, like, here's what I offer. It was like, all right, enter my funnel. And I was like, all right, fine, I like you enough. I'll enter your funnel. So I signed up and day one, I get the thing, welcome, blah, blah, blah, you know, just email with a YouTube video. I watched it. I was cool, Cool. Yeah, I did that. And then day two, it's like, ah, I'm kind of busy. But like, all right, I'll save this for later. Day three, I'm like, I'll save it for later. But then I never did anything. Day four, delete. Day five, delete, right? Day six, day six, I'm gone, right? Because, like, I'm A fast mover, right? Like, I would have bought from him that day. Right? Here's the thing. And on day six, he sends me an email, an automated email course being like, congratulations on completing the five day thing. Are you ready to take it to the next level? I'm like, here we go, step two of the funnel. And I'm like, I'm bored. I'm gone. I've already worked with somebody else. I'm gone. And this is what we're seeing in Membervault. And this is the insane part of that 43%, the 45% that we're talking about. Conversion rates. A vast majority of those, I don't have the numbers but like way over half of them convert the same day they sign up for your freebie. So why on earth are we waiting to sell to people? It just doesn't make sense.

Within that challenge, if he would have offered something to you on the first day, you already would have bought.

Yeah. To me there was two big mistakes. Well, three. Right. And we answer all these in member vault. The first one is he had no idea what I did or didn't do. Right. He just dripped five emails out to me and six, one. He's like, congratulations. And to me, that rubs me the wrong way. Cause I'm like, I didn't do it. Like, I deleted half of your emails. But you don't even know that because he has maybe has open rates or something like that. He's super clever, but most of us don't even do that well. So you should really track the engagement. Right? And if he had a way to track like that, I even logged in to look at these lessons, you know, to these days, then he could be like, hey, I noticed you didn't finish, you know, but like, let's get you back. That would be way. That would have inspired me way more than just the generic shotgun. I think people are getting jaded and I myself am too. The second thing is there was no, during the challenge, there was no incentive to keep me going, right? So like, let's gamify this, make this fun. Like maybe like, hey, you complete all five days within the five days, you're like, you'll get a bonus or you'll get a call with me or something like that. Like, gamify this in some way to keep me, you know, interested. And then of course, the third thing, like I was saying is show me what you have. Like, I don't want to go through five days of this to maybe find out what your next step is like I've committed. I put in my email address. I'm into you, show me what you got. Like, you know, like that's crazy. Like I. Cause again, I would have bought if I day one, if he's like cool, you can jump on and upgrade to this program like now. Right? Or I have this like membership where you know, we release these things. Whatever, just show me what you have. I probably would have done it because I was engaged then. I was a hot lead then. And he let me cool off and then sent me an email and it was too late.

That's so important to keep in mind when. Because challenges are so popular and you know, like running a funnel and making people wait for 10 days is so popular. But you're losing so many people in that process. What we think of as a typical nurture sequence or soap opera sequence. We're losing people because there are so many options. We're used to instant gratification and if we want something like we can go out and Netflix it and all of a sudden we have all these choices and you know, it's like the instant gratification thing and people are waiting way too long.

Yeah. We call it the binge and buy mentality. And the funny thing is, is in our real life experience in sales, we do this all the time. Amazon one click orders. I went to the Apple Store to get my phone fixed and I left with a MacBook Pro. You know, these things happen all the time, right? And Apple's actually a great experience. We use that as an example all the time. Because you don't go to Apple and it's just a window and they're like, alright, let's start you with an iPhone and then come back in a day. If you like that, we'll give you an iPad and then if you like that, we'll let you try. They don't do that. They just have everything out on the table so you can come in and buy all the things. You can buy one of the things. You can just play with the things, like whatever you want. They have it all laid out and it lets you get. Gets you into that binge and buy mentality where you're like playing with all these things and like, oh, this is so cool. And it's a little, it feels really transparent too. Like there's not like I don't have to like ask an employee to get something out from behind the counter and all that kind of stuff. It's just all out there. And Apple is actually per square foot is the best retail store in the world. They outperform everyone, even jewelry and gasoline companies. And that's part of it is that because of the experience that they've laid out with this, like, here's all of our stuff, come play with it and buy it. That's it. So why aren't like, let's do this for our digital products. Why on earth wouldn't we?

Totally. So it sounds like you guys, your wife and you are co partners and you've really used your own life experiences and experiences in the online industry to help build out this software. So I would love to hear about the journey of you two getting started and you know, like realizing that this was something that was so necessary in the market and you know, like even changing the game culture wise of what Internet marketing can look like, that it's more about the experience and more about the people. What was that process like for you to decide? Like, okay, we see this gap and we're gonna fill it.

Yeah. So Aaron, my wife, co founder, really strategy brains behind all of this. I'm just the code monkey. The process, it was chaos. Honestly, like I said, we only started doing this out of trying to create a simple course platform for one client. That's like, that was our, that was our only. We didn't start out like, let's flip the funnel game on its head and do all this. Like, we did not come into the scene with that like mentality. It was just like, let's create. You know, I love building stuff. I'm a builder, right? Like, I'm a software engineer. I love building software. And so it was a cool opportunity. I was like, cool. I would, you know, I've always wanted to build a platform, like a course platform. That'd be really cool, right? So I just build it, you know, custom for one client. And then she loved it so much and we kept iterating on it, right. That other people started to see it, like, who were, who was taking her course and was like, I like your platform. It's so clean and easy to use. Like, what is this? She's like, I just had a custom built, like, well, can I use it too? Like, right. So it started to kind of become this thing and then the first real big shift away from being just a course platform like all the other ones is Erin is a huge activecampaign nerd. Like she's an activecampaign nerd. Like she puts like she goes hardcore with activecampaign and so she's super into the automations and the tagging and you know, lead scoring and all the crazy awesome stuff that ActiveCampaign has to offer. And so what we did early on was, she's like, wouldn't it be cool if, as people are going through the course, if we can tag them in activecampaign based on what they've done or didn't do, like, if they ghosted on us or if they. Wouldn't that be awesome? And I was like, yeah, and totally possible. She's like, are you serious? And so I connected to the ActiveCampaign API, did my little code magic thing, and then voila. So now as people are going through the course or not going through the course, we're tagging them in ActiveCampaign, which then opens up Pandora's box of possibilities for automation and being connected, just keeping the systems really connected. So now we don't have to do the whole funnel in the bro thing where we know if somebody's ghosted on us or we know if somebody didn't complete their homework, or we know if somebody didn't do something right, so we're not stuck in these blind automation things. So that was like the first, like, oh, isn't that cool?

I just, I can't even imagine what that conversation would be like. Like, going from, we're going to build this custom platform for one customer to like, oh my gosh, this is a thing like, we can build this entire platform that. I mean, we keep referencing the braille funnels, but what we mean by that is the people that just want to make a dollar off of someone and not care. And the example that we used or that you use last week is like setting going into a store and loading up your funnel on their display iPads or something like that. Like, yeah, fact that some people in Internet marketing do not care who is signing up. They don't care if they're using it. They just, you know, frankly want their money and don't care what kind of experience they have. And you guys are so completely opposite from that that it's 100% about the experience and the people and gamifying it. And to be honest with you, when I started thinking about designing courses, I almost didn't because I was thinking like, well, what are the rates? Like 8% of people actually finish the course and then they're just left with this remorse, like, course remorse, feeling of like, oh, I just spent thousand bucks and I didn't even do anything with this. But the fact that you gamify it and give them incentives and, you know, like encouraging them like cheerlead them throughout the process. Like that keeps them engaged. And it's just a totally different model than like, you know, the quote unquote bro style of like, thanks for your money. Here's your course access. See you later.

Right, exactly. And most of us don't want to do that. We just. It breaks my heart when I talk to entrepreneurs that are putting so much time and energy into like trying to design the perfect clever funnel and retargeting and then what they. And they have these maps and you see them, it looks like a beautiful mine where they people have these like big drawn out things and I'm like, why don't you just let them come into one of, you know, your, you know, we call it the binge and buy like into your binge, but like into your marketplace, you know, have an area that's all you, that has all your content there laid out and people can interact with it and you know, every and everybody wins. Right. And that's what I was going to say. The second big thing that happened was the first was the engagement tracking. Right. And that's one of our big pillars here at Number Vault is being able to see what people are doing. Right. It's helpful because you can be really targeted in how you speak to them. But it's helpful for you too to see like if you are running a five day challenge and 8% of people complete well, okay, where did they fall off? Like you're able to see like where people fell off, right. Instead of being blind. But the second big thing that came up was we put in the idea of wouldn't it be cool if somebody's in at a course and they're able to see the other products that you have? Right? Like just a. Yeah, that'd be, that'd be kind of easy to do. Right. So we did that and we realized that's when we realized our conversion rates and like people clicking in and viewing that we call them hot leads. Like the hot leads that are going in and checking out your window shoppers was insane. Like I thought like it was gonna be like maybe 5% of people will, will see the available products down there and ponder through them. But it's 80%. 80% of people that will log in for your like freebie or whatever they signed up for will click into your other things down there that's available. That's incredible. It was way higher than I thought it was going to be. And it changed the game again for us. And I was like, okay, we're really Going to go kind of heavy with this concept now of like the binge and buy, right? Like getting people in the door and, and then showing them all, you know, everything that you have to offer that Apple Store experience. And so that was the other thing that like, that was the other kind of big pivot that Member Vault took that pivoted us away from just the course platform, you know, and into more of this. Like, oh, wow. Yeah, we're actually building, we're building something a little more, you know, robust here. And it is a relationship marketing platform. Like, it's, it's a, yeah, it's a course platform and a membership platform and all this stuff, but it's starts to become a sales tool. And not one that is just like a wham bam done, but something that you can keep reusing. It's alive, right? And some people get in there and they will buy stuff right away. Some people are gonna get in there and they're gonna peek and they're gonna look and they're gonna like, maybe, I don't know. We see this activity all the time of like repeat window shoppers. So there are people that will look at your paid product like seven days in a row. They'll log in seven days in a row and click into like your paid thing, right? And it's like we can see them in Member Vault looking at this thing 7. I'm like, okay, this person clearly wants to buy this, right? Like, they're super interested. Why on earth would they keep checking it out? And that person doesn't email you and say, hey, I might be interested, right? Like, and a traditional funnel isn't going to catch that. Like they're just going to fall out of the funnel and then there's almost no nurture sequence to get them to re engage them. So like you're able to do this now in Member Vault, which is really cool. So I'm sorry, I might have digressed. I got excited.

No, I love it. I'm totally geeking out with you. So from an advertising perspective, talk to me a little bit about pixeling those products. Like if someone is interested in a product, are there ways to get back in front of them on other platforms? Like running and serving an ad towards them?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So this is something that we're, that we're going deeper into right now. So we allow you to kind of embed whatever you want into any section that you want. Right. So you can, when we have documentation around how to do this too. So yeah, you can pixel at any point Inside your member vault, you can pixel people that are just in your member vault in general, you can pixel people that are looking window shopping, you know, so like this person's window shopping on this, but they haven't bought yet. And of course we're tagging all this as well. So if you have your activecampaign convertkit, ontraport, mailchimp, Mailerlite, forget there's, there's a number of them that we support. As people are doing this, they're getting tagged in there too, right? And so like there's two ways that you can really leverage that like as a marketer is like say somebody's like looking at your paid product but doesn't buy, right? They get tagged in your email service. Now you can have automation set up to say like okay, wait a day, then follow up with them to see like, you know what I mean? Have an automated follow up or something like that. Or hey, give them access to this bonus, this thing and just kind of re engage that. So there's a lot of things that you can do, but you got to have the information first. So that's really what we're providing. And then people like yourself and people that are systems people and they geek out to the numbers and they're smart, they want to work smarter, not harder, can really leverage this information and say great. And Facebook pixeling and retargeting has been a big surge in member vault as well. And we've seen a lot of people come in excited that they can do that as well. And we're doing it for ourselves too, right? Like, so this is something that we're doing member vault. We have a free tier and then we have two paid tiers too. And the people that are on the paid tiers get access to our like master classes. But the, you know, free users have all the documentation and training. But the paid users will actually get access to more classes. Well, we're actually seeing who's looking at those classes, you know, which means that they're free users. So not only do we get to like see that and re engage with them, but we're pixeling that as well. So when we do, we haven't even turned on Facebook ads yet. But when we do, that's what we're gonna do is we're gonna be looking at the people that are window shopping on upgrading. Like we have over 900 accounts. Like vast majority of them are still free. So great, let's convert those, right? So it's not about like let's dump 5 million more people through. It's about great. We have 900 people. Let's really, like, dig deep with them.

Yeah. Well, it's like that saying that people love to buy, but they hate being sold to. So you're just able to pick up on all these signals that they're giving to you. Like, you know, I am interested. I want to buy this thing. But you're letting them feel like they're in control of the situation and they're making the decision. So they feel totally empowered by purchasing your thing instead of, like, ugh, I can't tell you how many times I've been awake nursing my baby in the middle of the night, and I've gotten funneled by somebody, and I end up, like, going back to bed with a $247 purchase under my belt, and I'm like, I didn't even want that an hour ago. And then I was browsing Facebook and, you know, but it doesn't feel good. Is the point like that course remorse or the funnel remorse? Like, the marketers who are good at what they're doing, like, they know all the psychological triggers, and they get you. They get you, and then. Which, you know, is great for their bottom dollar. But then you. You're left with this feeling of like, did I really buy that little paper book that I got in the mail for $47? That was not a valuable purchase.

Right, right. And that's a shame, too, because to me, that's a lost. That's a lost lead. Because, like, yeah, they made a quick buck, but then that's it. Like, there's no. There's no relationship building there. It's just again a wham, bam, and then done. And then I feel bad for those businesses, because once that funnel runs out of steam, they're just back to the drawing board again, and they're like, all right, I got to come up with a new trick. And that's so sad. Like, I don't. I don't want. I don't want to run business like that. Like, I don't ever want to run business like that. And I don't think. I think there's a lot of people like that that don't want to do that, but they feel like that's the only thing that they like, I must need more funnels. Like, well, maybe you need less. Maybe you just need to rethink how you're approaching this.

Yeah, totally. So what have been some of the biggest challenges that you've experienced in growing your business and going. Growing all the way to 900 members. I mean, that's a big deal.

How long is this podcast now? We'll go with the. I think the first and the biggest thing that has been the biggest challenge is, you know, we talk about how amazing these, like, milestones were and like, and light bulb moments and isn't this cool? And gee whiz, like, oh, cool. Now we can track engagement, we can gamify and we can binge them. All these things, right? And it's amazing. However, we went through a formal beta. We had some people in there, we did all the right things and we rolled it out to the world, but we didn't know how to tell people what we did. And it was the most humbling first year of business ever. Like, we went from like 10 users to like 40 in a. In our first year. Like, ah, that's rough. You know, like, like we were still obviously hustling our other business. You know, like, this was just a side thing, but we were terrible at telling people what it did. Like, you know, and me being a developer, I would throw a bunch of jargon on them and like, oh, we haven't. We integrate with Amazon S3 and tag and all that stuff. And I throw APIs and web hooks and people are like, okay, cool, thanks, bro. And then they leave and like, I never hear from them again because I blew up their brain. They don't understand. They didn't understand why on earth they would use that over teachable or think Epic or anything else, Right? So we had to go back to the drawing. I don't know how many times I shouldn't say the drawing board because you're never starting out from scratch, but pivoting that message like, okay, all right, what? What stuck? What didn't stick? Like, all right, what's working? What's not working? And so that's. The funny thing is, I always thought that running a software company, the hardest part would be the tech, you know, would be like the, the coding and the servers and the, you know, all that kind of stuff ends out. That's the easiest part. The hardest part is getting your messaging down, getting visible, getting people to care, and then getting over that incredible, incredible hurdle of public opinion and nobody wants to use you until you're proven. But how on earth are you going to get proven if nobody uses you? Like, so, like those first couple wins and getting some, like, influencers to use your, you know, talking people in it. We were giving it away for free to people, like, we'll set it up for you. And like, Even that was almost impossible because they're like, why? Yeah, sounds good, but I've never heard of you guys, so. So those were the really, really big struggles again. It's great because now we're starting to get used by more and more people and like, we're. And some bigger names too, where people see it and they're like, oh, I took this course the other day. Like, it was on member. It was really great. Like, and it still blows me away to this day. Like, I'm like, wow, you've seen our software. Like, that's crazy. But, like, there's over. There's over a quarter million users collectively and, like in member vault now. And that's like exponentially increasing. So, yes, we're getting the exposure now, but, man, it was like, in the beginning, it was like trickles.

So 0 to 40 the first year and then. So this is year three that you're in?

Yeah, kind of. I mean, again, we did kind of a soft launch and stuff like that. So really it was 0 to 40 and then 40 to 900.

Without ads or anything.

That's. Without ads. It's completely organic. That's just, you know, doing stuff like this, like, engaging with people. We had. Yeah, we had a couple influencers use us. We have an affiliate program too. We pay. We pay out 45% recurring. So which oddly, that's not the incentive for people. It's like when they're into the product and now they want to sell it for you. But, yeah, so all these things are just organic stuff. And so we're really excited because we're. We're getting our system, we're getting our systems down. It's a complicated system to try to onboard somebody into a tool and get them to use it. And that was our second big challenge. And I don't want to go into that. But the big thing was, like, getting people to sign up is great, but then if they don't do anything with their account, it's kind of a pointless endeavor. So that's our thing. That's the lock that we're picking now is like, how do we get people to start using their accounts and not confuse them? And once we kind of get that down, then we do want to open up the gates to the fun, you know, to the ads, and start getting people in.

Which I think one of the biggest hurdles that people have mentally, if they're already on something like Thinkific or Kajabi or Teachable, is like, oh, I did all this uploading and now I have to switch Like, I don't want to switch. So that's something that you offer for your Pro members, correct?

Yeah. So actually it's. It's annual, so we have our base, so we. It's free. So, yeah, let's just talk about it. So the free tier is completely free with all of, like, no time limit. It's not a trial. Like, it's just free to use. Create your account and you're good to go. And we're not limiting features like we used to, and now we're not doing that right. So you can use payment integration, you can integrate with your mail service. You can do all the things. You have unlimited products. The only thing that we're limiting you on the free account is users. So you can have up to 50 users. That gives you enough time to like, get in there, start using it, start seeing it working, make some money and be like, cool, great. And what you'll realize is that the more people you have in your member vault, the more foot traffic you have through there, the bigger impact you're gonna get. The more engagement, the more sales. And so then you're great. Let me add more people in there. Like, let me use this as my central hub for all my content, where I'm like constantly testing ideas out and putting my new products and my lead magnets and putting all that stuff in there. So then base is. Is, you know, obviously all the features and up to a thousand users. And like I said, you know, you get access to some of our master classes and stuff like that, so you get a little more support. And Then Pro is $99 a month, and that's unlimited users. So, you know, we have a few. We have some people that have like over 100,000 users in their member vault. So it's nice that they're on just the set plan. Like, you know, they're. They're good forever and then. Yeah. So for our annual users. So people that sign up for our annual, which is 399 and 999 respectively, so you get two months free. But we also will handle the migration of your content over. And the reason we do it for annual users, not monthly, is because we. Obviously you're making a commitment. If you sign up for an annual of something, you're like, okay, cool, I'm going to be with you guys for a while. So we'll go ahead and we'll actually migrate you over from your other platform.

That's awesome. What are the biggest differences you've seen between someone that's like A power user with 100,000 people in the member vault versus somebody that's just getting started. Like, do they have. Are there certain types of engagement that they're making with their users? Basically, like, if someone is looking to grow their business, what would they need to know to reach that, like, power user quote, unquote level?

Yeah. I mean, so the big thing is. So it's all growing your list. This is. This is what's cool, right? It's about growing your list. And what Member Vault, what we're really learning is that Member Vault works best when it's kind of like an extension of your email list. So, like, we always want Member Vault to have all the people that are on your list, right? And Member Vault and your email list are very tightly connected. They talk back and forth. So anyone who joins your Member Vault gets added to your email list, and anyone on your email list, we want them to be added to your member vault, right? So it ends up being like an extension of your email list. It's your content area. It's your private cloud.

It's.

There's another, you know, however you want to call it. And the point is that you will always want to just keep enticing people back to come in there, right? And so one of the things that we're not Apple, right? None of us are, you know, are Apple. So, like, we need to have some kind of freebie to entice them to come into our store. And that's the game, right? And we all know that, like, we put out great lead magnets, and there's so much great content out there that people are creating again, they'll use those lead magnets. Sign up for this free PDF or this thing, or I have a free mini course or whatever it is, right? Get your free assessment. Anything, any kind of free lead magnet. You just want to put that all inside of Member Vault. And as you kind of create this content, as you put stuff out there, you always want to just keep repurposing it, putting it inside your member vault, and then emailing your list to say, hey, guys, guess what this new thing is. You know, just did this great podcast with Ali. If you want to check it out, like, just click here and it's in your Member Vault account. So you're getting. You're inviting people back into that, into your area. And that is how you really start to, like, kind of grow and engage. And again, amazing thing happen. Almost nobody will actually log into your member vault. Just look at what you, you know, what they came there to look at and nothing else. Like it almost never happens. It's bizarre and I think it's just human nature, right? Like we want to click around and look and the more people do that, the more engagement that you're building up inside of your member vault, the more opportunity you have to sell and the more information that you're getting too. So I mean that's just it. Even people that aren't converting well on member vault, right? And there are some people that maybe their offers just aren't that good or maybe, you know, they got to tweak something, right? We can't fix that, we're just a tool. But what we can do is show you the numbers. Like, great, so hundred people looked at this and nobody bought it. Alright, so that's something, right? Like and then you can have all of your free content in member vault, right? And you can say have it open ended, right? Like a lot of people have like a resource area, like so here's all my freebies. And so they log in there and people can pick and choose what they want to look at. Well, we track all that. So like now you can look at it like the more times you get people going through there, you can look at like, okay, well what's my most popular freebie? Like what are people really into? It's like, wow, everyone's looking at this training but nobody's looking at this training. That's information great, so use that. And so I think that's the real key here is working smarter. And then again, the more engaged you have people, the more they become testimonials and they become fans and they recommend you to other people. And I mean you've probably seen it a hundred times. That's how this thing scales up and becomes really, really big and you start skyrocketing. Skyrocketing your email list too.

And that's where the relationship marketing piece really comes in too. You know when you're able to give people what they want without even asking for it, then they're starting to feel like, wow, she really gets me. Like she's reading my mind. And all of a sudden, you know, especially with the quiz questions that are built in and people have questions like, you can start gathering that data from your people and creating products that they want, but they don't even know they want yet just based on the questions that they're asking. So you're just able to take it to that next level. And when I teach funnels, I teach them in four steps. I teach, create, market, sell and delight. And Delight is the piece where most people fall off in that, you know, they're, when you're watching the signals people are sending you, there's so many opportunities to, you know, take it offline, send them a gift or send them, you know, something that's really going to solidify your name in their mind as the expert in the field or whatever it is that you're doing that, you know, it really makes your business stand out in an industry that can feel really noisy and overwhelming with all of the content.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And see, and this is, and the. What gets me so excited, right? Like literally just yesterday we released an update to Member Vault that shows people in one view who their hot leads are like, and it, so it shows them like, so people earn engagement points. So like the more engaged somebody is, the more their, their score goes up. Right. So this is just a way for us to geek out to some more numbers. But it does, it gives a numeric value to your users that are in there. So you can say who's super engaged and who's not and you're able to see it in a split second. Right? Most people don't have this information and this is what's so exciting. So we released an update yesterday that shows in one window and whatever timeframe you choose who are my hot leads. These are the people that are looking at your paid offers but not pulling the trigger. And so it shows when they looked at it and then it shows like their ep, their engagement points. So you're able to just scroll through there and see like, oh wow, all right. Allie's like been on fire in the past three days. She's been looking at all this stuff. And so I can just click into your name and I can see everything that you've looked at. And then like you said, we have like quiz questions, we call them, but they're just open ended questions and we sprinkle them throughout the free content, right? And people answer them. So, and then all, all the answers to everything that you've, you know, answered is there in that screen too. So now you don't just become subscriber number 1, 2, 4, 5, you become Ali who's interested in X, Y and Z. And it's looking at this and might be interested in this. And like that like you said. Now that opens the door for me to reach out and be like, hey Ali, like I saw you were really interested in this. Like I know you're having issues with converting free people to paid. You know, like it just kind of like, how can I help? So you can, you can approach this to how can I help? Or like you said, you can like send a free gift or however you want to engage with them, whatever is appropriate for your audience, but at least you know who to reach out for. I feel like the biggest tragedy of what we're doing here in the online space is we all feel, and we've been guilty of this too, is we all feel like we need a lot more leads. Like, oh my God, I'm only converting at 5%. I need to get like 5,000 more people through here. And this is where ads come in and stuff like that. And it's great. And there's, there's nothing wrong with ads. There's nothing, there's nothing even wrong with short funnels to get people into your system. But we all think that like, oh, we have a lack of leads and what's happening is silently you have all these hot leads and you're just not nurturing them because you don't see them. And so member vault, one of our big goals is like allowing you to see your hot leads like really easily. Like just. And your only job. And the great part about this, Ali and I'll stop, I get excited. But the great part about this is your only job is to give stuff away for free. That's it. Just like get people in your member vault by giving them stuff. How easy is that? You get to be Santa Claus and you just get to be content Santa Claus. Get everybody in your account and the rest works itself out and you get to see it, right? And then of course you can take it to the personal. But at least instead of saying, great, I have a hundred people on my list, maybe I can like reach out to them. Instead you're like, here's the 10 people that are super engaged and interested. Let me reach out to them. And it makes a big difference.

Yeah, absolutely. This might not be feasible for someone with a hundred thousand people on their list, but if you're someone who's just starting out and you have a list of hot leads, like, that's a great opportunity too to go on Instagram and start connecting with them, you know, naturally, like commenting on their stuff, liking their posts, even Facebook, like seeking them out, liking their page, that's really high touch sales. But if you're someone that wants to sell a high ticket coaching program or a group program like you, making that one to one connection is always going to help. People want to buy from you too. And that's something, I mean, you Wouldn't know that without a tool like this you can look at. Okay, cool. And ActiveCampaign who's opening your emails but you can't see like how many times they've looked at your freebie or how many, you know, like taking it to the next level of like what can the conversation be when I start talking to them to open up the doors to maybe like give them an opportunity to join a high level program or something like that that's harder to sell from an automated funnel no matter what.

It totally is. It totally is. Yeah. And if you are scaling, right, if you are at that level, like we have a, we have a member vault user who's been with us for a while and it's really been kind of like tweaking her systems and stuff like that. And she, so she teaches people how to sell on Etsy and so she's got all kinds of different like you know, the free thing and she's got the low cost and the masterclass and the one on one and the hire me to like critique your Etsy shop. Like the whole funnel, right, the whole content ladder, whatever you want to call it. And she's leveraging member vault like crazy. And she's got, I think she's almost at 100,000 people too. She cannot respond to emails anymore. Like it's just you don't personally have the time to do that. It's not scalable. But we've set up these systems in ActiveCampaign that are able to like automate and target people way better. So even I feel like automations get like a bad name because we're all used to seeing like I get emails all the time, hey girlfriend. You know, and I'm like, you know, like, I'm like, you have no idea who I am. Right? So like we can be a little more like targeted in how we like approach these automated things. Right? It's okay, I understand when I get an automated email, but like when it like thinkgeek, I don't know if you've ever gone to that site, but they sell like little nerdy toys and gimmicks and stuff for your desk and stuff like that. And I'm on their email list. I haven't unsubscribed because they target me so well, they know I'm a Lord of the Rings nerd, not a Star Trek nerd. Right? Which makes a big difference because if they were just sending me Star Trek stuff I'd probably unsubscribe. But they send me hobbit stuff. And I'm like, whoa, what's this? Like, you know, and so this is the stuff I'm talking about where like, it's not. There's not a do it thinkgeek being like, oh, Mike's really into this. Let me send him this. Right. But they have automated systems. They're really smart about tracking. And so even if you are at scale and you have 100,000 people or you want to be 100,000 people, it's still smart. It's even more important to have this information.

I love that. So let's talk about your personal life a little bit. Oh, God, watch out. So I'm curious because I'm a momma and that's played a big role in why I started a business. Did your. You guys have two babies, right? Two little ones, yeah. Before or after the business was started?

Oh, man.

All.

All during. Allie, you wouldn't. The stories I could tell. Yeah. So we currently have a two. A two year old and a two month old. Yeah. And you rewind. We've been doing member vault kind of, you know, loosely at first, but more seriously later. It's three years, so. Yeah. It spanned the birth of both of the kids.

I started doing the math and I was like, wait a second.

Oh, yeah. And here's one for you. One year of that, last year of that, the middle year, kind of our. One of our busiest years. We were doing a full time RV thing. So we were living in an RV during it too. Yeah. Yeah. So we were living in an RV with a toddler and running and building this business.

That's amazing.

Yeah, it was pretty epic. So.

Yeah.

What was the question?

I'm so distracted now by the fact that you lived in an RV with a toddler. Like.

Yeah.

So did you travel the US while you were programming and working on your business and keeping baby.

Yeah, I mean, so we basically were snowbirds. We live seasonally. So we have family down in Texas and we have family up here in Washington. And so we kind of explored the west coast and like, kind of wintered down in Texas. So we spent Christmas on the beach with palm trees. That was cool. Yeah. And then got to skip the rainy season here in Washington and, you know, then got to come back up and. Yeah. I mean, let me diffuse any glorious images of like, oh, waking up in a different place every morning while running your business. That's impossible because you still need to work. And it is interesting being doing the full time RV thing. You see other people that are on vacation and like. But you're just living like you still gotta go to work. So, you know, it was Aaron and I basically playing hot potato with Connor, you know, and it's like, you know, getting work in, being really targeted about how we work was super important. So. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that the two of you work together and take turns with who's taking care of the little ones, you know, like hot potato, like you said, like, somebody seems like you do a really good job of sharing responsibilities. And I'm on a mission to ask men the same questions that I ask women because I feel like women are always like, how do you balance life and kids? And like, men have the same thing going on too. So I just, I love how you two work together. And I'm curious, like, has your business added to your personal happiness level with, like, what you've been able to accomplish traveling and being there at all times? You know, like, before we started the podcast, you ran and got coffee and then, you know, like crossed paths with the toddler. So, like, just the fact that on a daily basis is, I think it's awesome. But I'm curious how you feel about it versus, like, going into a business, like a 9 to 5 job.

Oh, cooler. I feel so bad for anybody. Men and women who have to go into an office and see their kids part time, you know, I. Our two year old, Connor, he is, he is like the coolest guy in the world. And I love that I get to like, see him every day, you know, like, yes, we have a nanny here in the morning so he can like, do his thing and then we take turns. Baby wearing. I have puke on my shirt right here. You know, like, this is just like this life, right? And I do, I love that we get to, you know, like, take turns with that too. Right. And so I think, and I think that's becoming more and more, more and more common too. These, these ideas of like, oh, I hate reading these books, like all the children's books and like, the dad has a suitcase and he's like heading out the door to work and like, kid's gonna stay with mom all day. And I'm like, like, that's not how it is anymore. It doesn't have to be like that. So. But yes, as far as having the business and, you know, and the family and everything, it is wonderful. It's really stressful at times, I won't lie. Of course. Especially when business is having a rough day or like, we had a day the other day where it was just a lot of like, negative Customer service stuff and not a lot of sales. And that just happens, right? Like, as you scale, you're gonna get more problems and, you know, like, and then some days you get floods of sales and no issues. So, like, you have to balance it out. But it was just one of those rough days, right? And it was so nice to. In the afternoon, like, after the toddler takes a step. And, like, we get to do all that. Like, we just were like, all right, it was a beautiful day here in Washington, and we drove, like, 15 minutes down the road to a lake and got to just, like, hang out at the lake. And the crazy part is, like, to just get away. And it was amazing. I felt so fortunate. Like, I love that we have this business and it's running right now, like, while we're here at this lake and neither of us have to go to work. Like, this is so cool. Like, I felt super fortunate. And the crazy part is we got back from going to the lake, and we had made two sales while we were at the lake during that crappy day. Like, so it's like, okay, this is really cool. So being able to. It's a mountain of work. It's a ridiculous amount of work. And it's really hard to draw lines. Like, okay, I'm gonna stop working now and be with my family. I think that's the hardest part, right? Is like, drawing that line. Like, I can work right now because I have my phone, but should I. That's the hardest part, I think.

Yeah. That was my next question, too, is how did the two of you shut it off? I have serious aspirations, owning a business with my husband at some point, but I worry about that we would out on a dinner date and be like, so this many conversion, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, how do you shut it off? Or do you.

Yeah. I mean, right. You can never. Right? And this is the thing. Like, if you're passionate about what you do, and there's. Let's face it, if you're. If you're an entrepreneur and you plan to be successful at all, you better be passionate about it, because without that, there's, you know, you're insane. Just go get a 9 to 5 where you can, like, clock out at the end of the day if you don't care. So let's face it, we all care. And so when you're in it with your spouse, too, I mean, we have very different. We don't do the same things at member vault. So, like, there are times we're like, oh, wow. How was your Day, like, what did you do? Like, oh, great, I did this. I talked to these people and, like, they're different experiences. So it is cool to be able to kind of like, regroup and talk about that and share successes. But, yeah, we do need to be careful to not, like, make it go into everything. You know, I feel like the phones are the biggest issues, and I'm more guilty than Aaron is. I'm bad because I deal a lot with customer service, too, and I'm responsible for the whole tech. And, you know, I'm always worried that the server is going to go down or it's going to be some tech issue with Amazon. And so I'm always like, kind of sneaking little glimpses at my phone. And so, like, you know, just try to be mindful of that and be like, okay, I'm going to leave the phone there and, you know, like, spend some time.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, and then, you know, we have, like, no work in bed kind of thing. The bedroom's not a place for work, and, you know, stuff like that. And we've really designed our life too, where neither of us work in the afternoon. So, like, mornings are hustle time, and then in the afternoon is family time. And I mean, that's just. We really try to honor that. And yes, sometimes during the family walk, we'll talk about, like, the cool conversions that we've had or the new feature that we released or something like that. And I don't think that's a negative thing. If it takes over your whole life and relationship. Yeah, then you're married to your co worker and not your partner, and that's bad. But, yeah, I think we just share so much of our lives. We're just one of those couples that we're just always together. So it almost feels like, oh, how can you work with your spouse and, you know, live with them too? And I'm like, yeah, but there's so much, like, there's so much happening with the kids and the family and us and the business. Like, I feel like we need more than 24 hours a day to, like, share it all.

Totally. I love that. Well, I mean, I'm going to keep dreaming about working with my husband.

Yeah, go for it. You never know. And again, it wasn't all, like, we've actually worked together for a long time. We used to have a web design business where Erin was a designer and I was a developer. And then that happened. That was a long. Just like, we're going back, like, almost 10 years. Conyer Studios. So that was our first business that was a huge flop. We're like, oh, we want to do, like, great, you know, great websites. Cheap for people who can't afford it. And, you know, we didn't know what we were doing.

Yeah.

But we were horrible co workers because, you know, she was like, oh, let's do all these things. And I was a grumpy developer, and I was like, no, we're not doing that. That's stupid. Nobody cares. And we, like, butted heads a lot. We're both really passionate and fired up, which can be a bad thing if you're at opposing views. So, you know, when we set up member vault, we were really like, okay, we're both going to be involved in everything, of course, but, like, I get the final say over tech things and, you know, architecture and things like that. And, like, you get to say over. You get the final say over, like, marketing and branding stuff like that. Like, if you like that green better than that green. All right, that's you. I don't. You know, I can. I can have an opinion, but, like, that's it. Like, I know that's your area, and that's helped a lot.

Right. Like, the dream team. You both have your roles and.

Yeah, exactly.

I think that's perfect.

Yeah. So, Tip, when you start working with your husband, have defined roles.

Yeah. Right. Well, we want to run a real estate investment company together. So I would be like, the designer decorator, and he's like, so.

Yeah, yeah.

Eventually I gotta buy all the houses first, so we gotta keep rockin'.

That's right. Good.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on today. It was awesome talking to you. I'm just. I'm gonna go log in right now and upload all my stuff because I'm inspired. I know people loved it.

Yeah. I appreciate you having me on Ali. I'm really excited. This is such a cool. It's such a cool thing that you're doing here. And, you know, I love that you're receptive to this, like, new idea and kind of excited by it. I think a lot of people are kind of threatened or like, no, no, no change. You know, we fear change, and it just. You're in it.

Yeah.

Like, let's get on board. Let's do this. And, you know, again, for everyone listening, you can start for free. Like, we're really, really transparent about how we're running this. We want everyone to be successful. You know, you don't have to pay us a dime until you start making money. So let's yeah, let's link drop.

Where can they find you?

It's easy. Membervault co so membervault co you got you can scroll down. You'll probably put a link here as well. And yeah, just grab your free account and start playing. That's it.

Well, thanks again for your time and have a great rest. Yep. So there you guys have it. Member Vault is such an amazing software and I would love for you to check it out for two reasons. Number one, Mike and Erin Kelly are fantastic humans, and number two, because I feel like this model is the way of the future for online marketing and online businesses. It's such a natural way for people to interact with you, see all of your content in one place, and I would love for you to start explaining experimenting with this model for yourself too. Thanks for listening to the Prosperity Lab podcast. Check out the show notes for this episode and all past episodes@properitylab.com if you enjoyed this show, please share it with your Biz besties. Leave us a review and subscribe to make sure you stay in the loop for any updates. Keep believing in yourself, chasing your dreams, and designing your version of Prosperity. I'll talk to you again soon.