246: The Missing Stage That Turns Customers Into Superfans

Foreign welcome to the Creators MBA Podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of Digital Product Entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks. I hope you enjoy our episode today. Hi there, Dr. Destiny Kopp here and welcome back to the Creators MBA Podcast. And today we are right in the middle of our Creators Growth Flywheel series. Over the last few episodes we have covered what has changed in 2025, why funnels feel slower, why consistency alone is not enough anymore, and why the retain stage is one of the biggest reasons. Your audience may be engaged in what you have, but they're not buying. And today we're stepping in to the final stage of the growth flywheel. And truthfully, it's a stage that a lot of business owners out there never build. And we're talking about the advocacy stage. Advocacy is where your business shifts from something that you are pushing to something that starts moving by itself. It is the stage that turns happy customers into repeat buyers and into people who naturally tell others about your work. And if you have ever wondered how some business owners grow faster without doing more, this is one of the episodes that explains exactly how this happens. So let's talk about what advocacy really is. And I do think most people misunderstand advocacy. They think that this is all about word of mouth or testimonials or people mentioning you by chance. That is not advocacy. That is luck. Advocacy is the very intentional process of helping your customers talk about you. It is what happens when people not only get a transformation from your offer, they also enjoy the experience of working with you so much that they want to bring others into it. Advocacy is not a marketing tactic. It's the outcome of the very well structured business. And it is the final stage of the creator's growth flywheel for a reason. Because once your customers reach the stage, the flywheel begins its next cycle and your best buyers become your best marketers. And that is how your business compounds. So let's talk about why most business owners never activate this stage. And it's not because people don't like their products. It's not because they're not helpful or they don't know what they're talking about. It's not because their audience is cold. It's because advocacy requires two things. First, you must give people a clear next step after they buy. So if someone finishes your offer or they go through your course, or they're in your membership and they have no idea what to do next, that momentum disappears, so that advocacy is never activated. Second, you need to make sharing super easy. So if someone wants to talk about your work but has nothing to share or no way to do that, you've given them no referral link, no simple script or swipe files, no structured type process, no screenshot, no link saying, give me your two sentence testimonial. Most people will not take the extra step even if they want to. The thing is, people are super duper. They are overwhelmed. And most of your customers will only talk about you when you make it effortless. So let's talk about what happens when advocacy is finally built into your growth flywheel. People will finish your offer and they will say, this changed everything for me. They tell their friends, they share on social media, they forward your emails, they link to your podcast episodes, they talk about you in communities, they message you saying, I told three people about you today. And here is what most business owners do not realize. Advocacy is not only about new customers. Advocacy also activates repeat, repeat customers. So when people feel proud of their experience with you, they want more from you. They want the next product, they want the next level and that deeper transformation. And that is how advocacy drives both acquisition, so new people coming into your world, and retention at the same time. And that is why advocacy is the final stage in the flywheel before that next cycle begins again. So there's two types of advocacy you need. One is passive advocacy, and the second is active advocacy. So passive advocacy is what happens naturally when people enjoy your work, right? They're mentioning you in conversations, they're sharing your posts, they're quoting your podcast, they're tagging you. When something reminds them of you, this is great, but it is also unpredictable and you can't really scale this. But active advocacy is very intentional. It is structured. It is something that you build into your offers, your customer experience and your process. And here's what that looks like. You could say something like, here's your referral link if you want to share it. Here's a simple email you can copy and paste and send out to your email list if you know somebody who would benefit. Here's a bonus. If you refer a friend, here's a link where you could go to share your two sentence testimonial. Again, you have to make it super simple for them. Active advocacy turns those customers into amplifiers. So when you build that into your business, it's predictable, it's repeatable and established, definitely scalable. So let's talk about why this is going to matter even more as we move into 2026, the creator economy has changed. People are more cautious with their money and they want to spend it with business owners than that they trust. And people rely heavily on on recommendations from their friends. We also live in an AI saturated world. So AI can write that content, it can mimic a lot of things that we do out there, it can even answer questions, but it cannot recreate the deeply human experience that your customers have when they work with you. Because people trust people. And advocacy is the stage where trust becomes visible. And that is why the advocacy stage matters so much more as we move into 2026. So your audience, they need it. They need that proof. They need to hear from others who have had real results in working with you. And advocacy provides that social proof in a very authentic way. So here are some signs that the advocacy stage in your business needs a little bit work so your customers get results, but you hear very little from them after. Or people say they love your offer, but they never talk about it publicly and you feel like you are the only one promoting your work. Or it could look like you have low repeat purchase rates even though you have a very solid offer. You get a few referrals, but they only come here and there. Or people say I love working with you, but nothing is spreading. If you have nodded along to any of these, you're not doing anything wrong. You simply have not built that advocacy stage into your system yet. So here's something that you can do this week to really activate it. And I want to give you one simple place to start. Create a referral link for your signature offer. Write a simple copy and paste message that people can use to share. You can add screenshots or anything visual if they want to share it, and post about you on social media. The other thing you can do is add a short Share this line at the bottom of your next newsletter. Maybe in the PS There you can ask for testimonial with one question. Give me one to two sentences about what changed for you after using this. Make it super simple for them. One to two sentences and even one of these small actions can begin activating this growth flywheel state for your business. So you don't need need a complex system to start here. Just a single little thing that makes sharing easier. Before we move on to the final emails in the series, I want you to see where advocacy sits inside of your own flywheel. I don't want you to guess, I don't want you to assume. So go take the five minute diagnostic with Sloan and she will tell you whether advocacy is your biggest opportunity or whether something earlier in your growth flywheel needs attention first. And after you run it, reply back to any of my emails that I have sent to you for this particular series and I will send you an excerpt from the Creators MBA playbooks so you can see exactly a few different steps that you can do to improve where you are in your growth flywheel. I hope this episode helped you see the power of the advocacy stage of the Grow Flywheel and why this stage changes everything. I want you to know that you're closer than you think. You have already done the hardest part and build building all of these things in your business. I know your audience trusts you and your message matters. Now is time to help your audience carry your message forward. Thanks so much for joining me and I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you like the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.