80: Becky Launder: Founder/ CEO Modern Direct Seller

Hi there.

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And today my special guest is Becky Launder. Becky is the Founder and CEO of Modern Direct Seller. She is also the author of 52 tips Building a Thriving Direct Sales Business and brains behind the Modern Direct Seller Academy. Modern Direct Seller Box, the Modern Direct Seller Podcast and Direct Sales Insight Survey. Becky is known for modernizing the direct sales industry, leveraging online marketing. She and her husband Jeremy provide direct sales training, strategy and systems to direct sellers and companies worldwide. Becky, thank you so much for joining me. I'm super excited to jump into this conversation with you.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

I'd love for you to go ahead and jump in and tell the audience a little bit about your entrepreneur journey and how you got started.

Yeah, absolutely. So like you said, I support direct sellers, both individuals and corporations with training systems and strategies and we're all about kind of delivering a more modern online marketing approach to direct sales. I'm sure you know as well as many others, direct sales doesn't always have the best reputation. And so really trying to share some of those strategies. So, so people really take this industry serious because there's a lot of potential and lots of people that are making a lot of, a lot of money and kind of taking steps into entrepreneurship, indirect sales. So that's what we're all about, I guess a little bit of my story and how I led, how I turned into a course creator. I'm sure like many other entrepreneurs, it was a little bit accident. I started out with a website and I was in direct sales in a leadership role and had a large team. And I was trying to train my team on how to start their business, their direct sales business successfully. And so I threw together a quick little website and pieced together a couple YouTube videos and put together what I called a 30 day launch plan. Now that 30 day launch plan really evolved into a whole suite of courses later on. But in the very beginning, I honestly was just trying to make my life easier by training my team and giving them the resources they needed to start their business successfully in the first 30 days. And from there it just really evolved. I realized that I wasn't just training my team because this was all free and on a public website. I was training other people on other teams. And then it kept growing to even people outside of my own company. So I really kind of fell into creating courses and entrepreneurship, really just trying to solve a problem and create some efficiency in my own business.

So let me ask you this. You said you got started and really the goal or kind of what was driving you at that time, you were trying to train your own team. Were you working with a corporation or. Tell me a little bit about what you were doing at that point in time.

Yeah, so I was a direct sales leader with a company called Usborne Books and more. So I was, I was training my book ladies on my team that I had built site a couple hundred people on that team. And as our team was growing, I was, I was really just trying to help them be successful. So I wasn't on the corporate side at all. I was an independent contractor, a direct seller like so many others out there. And just as my team was growing, I was trying to make sure they had the training they needed. And yeah, it just kind of blew up from there.

And I think I know about the model that you're talking about. Because I think when my kids were little, I actually had somebody come to my house or maybe I was at some type of lunch or something where people were this, somebody was coming and they were selling these books. Were they children's books?

Okay, children's books, Exactly. And so kind of came from the traditional home party model, evolved into Facebook parties, online parties, vendor events, pop up events, you name it.

So what year was that?

That was back in 2007, 2017, 2016, when we first got started.

Are you still part of that team and you have those people working for you today or has that evolved also?

Yeah, that has also evolved. I actually, I stepped away from that company and I went and I worked with another company for a little bit. And then in 2018, 2019. Oh, these years just blend together. I officially stepped away from selling. So I no longer was leading a team or selling for any kind of direct sales company and really just focused in on what I am most passionate about, which is that training, the strategy, the systems to support direct sellers across the entire industry.

Okay, so around 2017 is when you kind of knew you were onto something here and you kind of accidentally fell into it. So in 2019, that's when you said, you know what, I think I can make a business out of this. How did tell us a little bit about that process and how you kind of transition from the independent type contractor into being a business owner.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, in the beginning, all of all of the courses or many courses or videos that I had kind of put together, I wasn't monetizing any of that. So I had put together this website and I had some training on it. Then I started blogging and adding some additional resources on there. And as that continued to grow, that's where I realized, gosh, you know, I could probably be charging some money for this. You know, it's great to provide value, but how do I evolve this into an actual business? And so it was around the same time that I stepped away from selling that I also, I wrote my book. So I had my book and my book was laid out in five different sections. And when I was writing the book, I kept thinking, gosh, I should take, I should take each chapter or each section of this book and really turn it into a more detailed training or a course. So that's exactly what I did after the book launched. Then I created five courses that were really generic and so they worked no matter what direct sales company you were associated with. And in those courses I was able to, you know, share all kinds of training, all kinds of resources. Not just how to start your direct sales business, but really how to launch it, how to grow it, how to market it, how to sell, scale it, how to lead a team. And so I put together these courses and I called it the grow your direct sales biz bundle. And that was five courses, and each course had seven lessons in the courses. So we had 35 lessons altogether and just launched it, really. I launched it to the list that I had been building through the blog and through the training videos that I had created. And so when we did that, you know, it did pretty well. It wasn't, it wasn't crazy. Like we sold some bundles and that was great. But really what I learned over time is my audience is very price sensitive. And if you're just stepping into direct sales, you're probably doing that because you're looking to earn some extra income and you don't have a lot of extra income to spend. So from there, it evolved again. I think that's probably going to be the theme of this podcast. It evolved and then it evolved and then it evolved again.

And you're not alone.

Bodies, businesses like that, right?

So I kept thinking, gosh, how do I take this and make it more accessible for my audience? You know, if they don't have a couple hundred dollars to drop on a course, how do I. How do I make this something that they could just step into and, you know, get an ROI on so they'll. They'll start earning some money in their business and be willing to invest a little bit more. So I took all those courses, bundled them together, and put together a membership, and that is really how the modern drug seller academy was created. About 18 months.

So tell us a little bit more about your. Your membership. How do you structure it? Did you take some of those courses and add to them or what exactly did you do to launch the membership?

Yeah, so the membership is. Is totally my favorite part of my business. We have about 500 students in our membership today, and it's $25 a month. And they get unlimited access to my courses. And then they also get invited to a weekly mast. We bring an expert from the industry in to do a guest masterclass every month. They also have access to what I call a done for you training, which is new every month. So that's something additional. It's basically a little mini course that gets added to their courses every single month. And they also have a community. And I really felt that was one piece that was really important to me was that they had this community where they could learn from each other, and then they could also ask questions from me in the membership. And so it really included the courses, but then layered on a whole bunch more as well.

So now you have 500 students in that at $25 a month, and I'm just not. I can't do that math in my.

You'll probably have to figure business. Yep, yep. Do it.

Do it for me. But how. How long did it take you to get up to the 500 students in this membership?

Well, we're about 18 months in right now. So it really took probably to get around 400, 500. And of course, you know, there's. There's turnover. Like anything, it is a monthly membership. So I do have people that kind of move in and out of the membership every month, but it really took about a year to get to those numbers. I think my initial launch, I think we had about a hundred that joined, and then I was crazy, and I was basically kind of launching behind the scenes every single month and to the new members on my list. So we grew pretty quickly there in the beginning. Now I've scaled back from that, and I'm doing probably three launches this year. So I'm not launching every month anymore.

So when you were launching, you know, launching, what were you doing? Were you doing a challenge or a webinar? How were you doing the launch? And tell us a little bit about that whole process and your. Your experience there.

Sure. It's a little bit of all of the above. So it really started as a spring challenge and a fall challenge, which I did even before I created the membership. I would run a challenge in my group. So I did all the things except monetize it before I actually monetized it. And so, yeah, now I do. I do a challenge twice a year. And then I just tested a webinar type format back in December of last year that was wildly successful, much more than even my challenges. So I'm kind of. I'm kind of doing a combination of both, both some webinar workshops and as the challenges, and also trying to kind of evergreen some things in the background to make sure that in between launches, I'm so still getting new members in the program as well.

You mentioned earlier that you were kind of, when you first launched it, you were behind the scenes launching every month. What exactly were you doing?

Yes, it was pretty much straight emails. So I would do a launch to my email list, but I wouldn't launch it to my entire email list. I would only launch it to new subscribers to my email list. So if they were new in the last 30 days, then they got kind of a big email marketing push to join with a deadline to join at the end of the month. Oh.

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I like that strategy. So tell me a little bit. You mentioned earlier that with memberships there's some, you know, ups and downs and churn. If you would tell us a little bit about how you are, maybe some strategies that you're using to help with that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean ultimately my goal is is an annual membership. So we do have annual memberships that are 250 versus our monthly membership at 25. So we've done pretty well with that in our last few launches. About 30% of our members end up joining annually. So pretty proud of those numbers. And you know, there's multiple points in their journey as a new member in our membership that we're inviting them to upgrade to annual. So there's some additional perks. As an annual member you get to come to our virtual retreat. You get a feature on the.

A.

Referral program that we have that's only open to our annual members. So there's definitely some perks for joining as an annual member. But in terms of our monthly members, you know, I found the biggest thing is I got to get them into my Facebook group. If they can join our community group then they're probably going to stick for at least a little while. I find that the ones that we have the most churn from are the ones that never even make it into the community. So yes, they have access to the courses, yes they have access to all the training, but really it's the community that I feel like keeps people around. So my number one goal is when they join our membership that they actually get to the community group. And we do that over several emails. We even send a text message saying, we're so happy to have you. I use a tool called Bonjoro, which I really love, to send quick little video messages. And in that video message there's a call to action to make sure that they join the community group. So that is probably the number one factor that I've seen in terms of turnover. If they never make it to that group, they're not going to stick. So that's something that we're really, really, really focused on to get people into our community group.

And you may have mentioned this and I may have missed it. Is that community group on Facebook or is it in an online course platform?

Okay, so it's yes, we are using Facebook for our group.

I also liked what you said about having the virtual retreat for the annual members. That is genius. You also mentioned that you were using texting. Tell us a little bit about that. Has that. Does your students use that for support or is it something that you only use to try to get them into the community group?

Yeah, so it's interesting because I kind of have a love hate relationship with text marketing. And I don't know if you feel this way, but occasionally I get a text and I kind of roll my eyes and I'm like, oh, oh my gosh, look at what are they trying to sell me or what are they trying to get me to? So we invite our members to opt in to text messaging. So the first message they get says, this is the one and only text that you're going to get from us, but we'd love for you to join our community group. Here's the link. By the way, if these reminders are helpful for you, simply reply back with a keyword essentially, which enrolls them in the text reminders. And then every week when we have our masterminds and every month when we have our guest masterclass or if there's any important information of what's happening within the membership program, they get those text reminders. And many of our members love them and they say, oh, I wouldn't have shown up today or I wouldn't have remembered this was happening without that reminder. On the membership side, I honestly think it's a little bit, a little bit of a pain where I'm like, oh, gosh, I have to remember to send that text reminder and make sure the link is accurate. And we've had some issues where, you know, things get mixed up in those text messages. And I polled our community saying, hey, do you guys really need those text message reminders? And everyone said they wanted to keep them, so I didn't get out of that. But I do think that it is a nice way to communicate with the members in our group and kind of keep it on their radar so they don't, you know, you see people enroll in things all the time, then they just kind of forget about it and they're not getting the full value out of it. So it's just another way to remind them that they have this community available to them. And occasionally we get to text back about things or, you know, we need to reach out on certain things. We can do that. But most of the action is happening in the Facebook group. The texting is really just kind of a reminder system that we've put in place.

May I ask what system you're using for your texting?

Yeah, we're using a tool called Project Broadcast and that's very common in the direct sales community. So it is nice that I have experience using a tool that many of my members are also using as they're reaching out to their customers.

I mean, I like the idea of texting for a membership like this. Just like you said, get them into, you know, like anything that you're doing that's a live kind of session that they can benefit from because they're not going to remember it. My experience with using texting at the university level, kind of remind.com if a lot of parents that are listening might be familiar with from like the K through 12. It just works so well, getting students in to actually do the work, letting them know that something new's there. So I like what you're doing there.

Absolutely. I think there's an interesting stat out there too that text messages are opened like 98.9% of the time, or don't quote me on that, but it's a super high open rate. You know, of course, compared to email, where I feel like I have a great open rate, but you know, it's Nowhere close to 99%. So it is a great way to just kind of augment how you're communicating with your community.

And I also think, Becky, it has to do with how you're using it. If you were using that just to constantly send themselves messages and they're already in your membership.

Right.

You know, I think that would be a turn off to them. And I've actually been in memberships where that was the case and I'm like, seriously, I'M already in your membership.

Why are you giving me this? Do we not get those anymore?

So, but the way you're using it I think is, is brilliant. So let me ask you this. You've done a lot of several launches, right, to get, to build up your membership to 500 students. Can you tell us a little bit about your traffic strategies? How are people finding you? Did you do Facebook ad advertising? You know, how did you, how did all of these members and you know, people who participated in your launch in your sales funnel, how did they find you? You?

Yeah, that's a good question. And you know, I think in the beginning, since I didn't monetize things for so long, I had a pretty loyal group of followers that, you know, I think they were ready to pay me. I think in the beginning that was it is that I had created so much value for this community and wasn't getting anything in return. Like at one point we put a funny little button on the website to buy me a beer and it was like a PayPal donation button, you know, like kind of a fun, a fun little thing there. But really we hadn't monetized it for a while. So in the initial launch we just had a lot of people that had already been following and they had already been using the training, they had already received a lot of value and they were excited to work on a more individual level. So I think that was in the very beginning. But I've always blogged and so I have lots and lots of blog posts over on the website and plenty of opt ins. So I have lots of checklists and work workbooks and things like that that people can opt into in exchange for their email address. So, you know, we really built up a good following through our email list and pretty much exclusively launched just to that email list for I'd say probably at least the first nine months or so. Then we stepped in and we started doing a little bit more Facebook advertising. Now I'm always running Facebook ads in the background to drive people to different freebies, opt ins, get them onto my list, doing a little bit of retargeting campaigns during launches. So that has definitely evolved and grown over time as well. But a lot of it also I think really stemmed from the excitement of some of these challenges and being in direct sales. A lot of leaders have large teams and when somebody's offering to train your team for you, then you invite them to join in to a challenge. So we really were able to grow those challenges in a very organic way just by people Sharing it with others, inviting them to come along on that journey and join them. So that's been really, really nice. And then now, fast forward to now. I have my own podcast. And so I know that we get some traffic from the podcast, of course, from social media, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube. So we're kind of showing up in all the different places. But I say the common denominator is that our goal is always to get people onto that email list. And as we're launching or running challenges or webinars, we already have kind of warmed up that audience. So they're not completely cold audience people that don't know me or don't know what I offer at all.

So what I'm hearing here, and I love all the strategies that you mentioned, but it is a lot. Do you have other people on your staff and in your company that are helping you with this?

I do, I do. I can't take credit for doing it alone, but it's actually been very exciting. Last year, my husband was able to step away from his corporate engineering job. So we work side by side now. Thank you. That was a big milestone in our business. And you know, of course, in the middle of a global pandemic, leaving a six figure engineering job, everyone that knows us was like, what? Like, what are you thinking? But that's been really exciting. So he really supports everything on the back end. So all the technical things, all the operations, all the finance, legal, like that's his side of the house. And then for me, I'm definitely sales marketing training. I'm the voice, the face of the business. But beyond that, we do have some other contractors working in other roles. We have a graphic designer, we have a podcast editor, we have a customer service rep, we have a social media coordinator. So our team has definitely grown, especially in the last year as our business has continued to expand. So I definitely don't do it alone. And we have a small but mighty team that is really supporting all the work that we're doing.

So, Becky, what do you see as next steps for you in this business?

Well, I'm always up with the next big thing. I drive my husband crazy because I'm like, hey, let's do that. But I guess a couple things. I have a little bit of experience licensing my courses to corporate clients. We have a couple paying corporate clients that are using our courses, which is amazing. So definitely growing. The licensing part of the business is on my radar for this next year. Similar to that, we're also working on a software for direct sales companies. I'm also at the stage as a course creator that my courses need a little updating. Nothing is outdated, but definitely needs a little bit of a refresh. So this year I'll be making some updates to those courses and maybe adding a couple others and reorganizing things, just as I've learned more about how I can better serve my students. And beyond that, you know, I'm trying to lean on our team a little bit more this year and not do it all myself. So really focusing on kind of what's in my wheelhouse. And, you know, I'm the one that shows up for the podcast interviews. I'm the one that does the live trainings and rates are done for you trainings and support their community, but letting the team really kind of take the reins on the things that are outside of my wheelhouse.

I love that. And it sounds like you have a very weld oil machine and some great things on your roadmap. And I would say that, you know, any course grader out there is going to feel like they need to continue to refresh their. Their courses.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we're. We're about two and a half years in, and this is the. Probably the first big refresh. And so I'm actually really looking forward to it. There's. I've had a whole list of not around. Oh, when I go back and rerecord that, I got to make sure that I work this in or I change this up a little bit. So I am really looking forward to that this year.

So you've been doing this for a little while and you've obviously had a lot of success. What advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there?

You just have to do it, do it before you're ready, you know, And I think for me, I waited for so long to actually turn it into a business. I probably could have done that a little bit sooner. But I think also just not worrying about the details too. I know that when I first created my courses, I was so worried about, like, do I need to change my shirt for every video I record? Or should I. Should I record in this setup or in that setup? But knowing that, you know, it's better to get something out there and get started and then again, just let it evolve and know that where you are now is not where you're going to be in six months. And it's going to look a whole lot different a year from now, and that's just going to continue and grow and evolve in ways that maybe you haven't even imagined. I look back at where I was three, four years ago and I'm kind of baffled that this is where I'm at now, which is exciting. But just knowing that everything continues to evolve and grow and you just have to take those baby steps and keep, get started and you'll, you'll do big things. So that's, that's my best advice and.

I think that's some great advice. And really some common themes that I'm hearing from folks is that, you know, your business will evolve and it will change. So just get started and your audience is going to tell you what, what they need from you.

Yeah, exactly. And I think just having that flexibility and being open to that change is, is a big deal too. Like if you ask me to make a 12 month plan right now, I probably could, but I know it's going to change. So really looking at things and more like, okay, what am I going to do in the next three months versus having that really, really long term vision.

So Becky, where can people find you?

Yeah, you can find me pretty much on all social media channels over at Modern Direct Seller. And then our website is also moderndirectseller.com and that's where you can learn about the Academy and the podcast and our subscription box and our licensing and our courses. All the things, all the things over@moderndirectseller.com.

And Becky, I will make sure that those links are in the show notes so people know where they can find you. And thank you so much for joining me today. I loved our conversation and hearing about your entrepreneur journey. I'm super impressed with everything you've been accomplished or you've been able to accomplish. So thanks for joining us and sharing everything with us. Us.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you love the show, we'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.