Lindsey Schwartz On The Difference Between Community And Audience (And How That Will Make You BIG Money)

I think a lot of people just see it as, oh, it's just a Facebook group. I'll just throw this up. Community is the connection. It doesn't matter where the community lives. It matters are those people genuinely connecting with you, with who they want to become and with the other people who are on that same journey.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back. It's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration. And today I have a regular. You're just a regular. Now can you be my co host? We're living right by each other. Like, can we make this a regular thing? This is Lindsay Schwartz, everyone. If you didn't know, now you know.

Now you know.

And we're neighbors now. She lives, like, so close, it's not even funny.

It's so basically our dream life.

It is our dream life. Every time we get together and we do a show together, I'm like, how can we make sure that this is just a normal thing? And we're here again. So I guess we're doing it.

Still waiting for Hollywood to call.

Yeah.

To give us our own, you know what?

Create what you wish existed. And I wish that. An amazing, hilarious show with two very fabulous looking women. You're very high fashion today.

Well, I am going to speak at an event, so I walked in. I should have given you a heads up that I was looking like a glamazon today.

She looks so super fly. For those of you watching on video, you can see that this is like some sort of incredible leather safari sexy outfit that she's wearing.

In case I ever wanted to go for Halloween as like a sexy Carmen Sandiego, this is what I would. I just would need one of your hats.

Oh, I have one for you.

Okay.

Yes, definitely. But I guess that's the really cool thing about being able to speak on stages, is that now we also use it as our personal stage for wearing whatever we want. As if we are vocalists.

Exactly.

And hip hop performers.

Yes. So which is our real dream?

Yes. You guys, we have the best conversation for you today. I actually met through just knowing about Lindsay's community as well. I got to meet you and get to know you better. We met through great community, and that's exactly what we're talking about today. We are talking about community versus audience. And for those of you that are like, I don't know if I'm that interested in this topic, I'm telling you, you need to be interested because this is about the money that you will also be making. Your community is so Important not only because you're going to obviously get an incredible message out there, but also you're going to make money off of your community in a way of service. Like, you're going to be fulfilling really important needs for these people. And, Lindsay, you have become known as the queen of community. And in a way that you have been able to cultivate the exact results of somebody with a massive community, but with a small community. Would you ever just kind of talk about, just for anyone who doesn't know your history, maybe some of your numbers when you were starting, even filling events and what your numbers are right now? Because I think whenever I have guests on, they go to the pages and they're like, okay, well, they're in the hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. It's like, that's not where I'm at. So I actually love that you're getting the success and results of the people who have those numbers and you don't.

I love it. I know. It's actually my favorite part about our story, the Powerhouse women story, because no one can come to me and say, this isn't going to work for me. My audience is too small. And I think that was part of it is from the beginning, I never saw having a smaller audience as a bad thing. I just knew I had to think differently. And it wasn't honestly, until Chris, your husband Chris, said, hey, will you come and teach on Community? That I ever thought to break it down. Well, what have we done differently? Because we've consistently been able to fill events, we've been able to fill programs. And in the beginning, gosh, when I think back, the very first event we ever had, we sold 100 tickets and I had zero audience. Quite literally, I was known kind of like you. I had pivoted from health and fitness. I was now starting to share more about business and personal development. And after that year, I really just focused on cultivating this community of the first people who showed up. And I'll share a little bit of the difference between the two, audience versus community, because I think that's critical. But going back to our numbers, I mean, we at the time didn't even have a powerhousewomen Instagram account.

Wow.

So to think that we put a hundred women in the first event, the second event, we doubled. That was actually the year you came and spoke the very first time. 200 women there.

And that's when it blew me away. That's when I was like, what is going on here?

And it's one of those things, I think. So Many of you listening might feel this too. You don't even realize your own strengths until someone else points them out to you. So it was Chris saying, hey, will you come and teach in Fast Foundations? At the time, I think it was about community. I had never sat down to say, well, what have we done differently? I've just done it. And the thing that I started to realize is everyone online talks about growing your audience, which is very important. You need to have people who find out what you're doing and want to learn from you. But I think community goes a level deeper. So when I think of an audience. An audience, if my intention is to build an audience, I'm really asking the question, how do I get more people to connect with me?

Right.

How do I get them to want to know what I'm doing, what our brand is doing? But a community goes one level deeper, and it asks the question, how can I get more people to connect with each other?

So good.

And that is really the magic. That's where when we put our event online, it's not just us promoting it. It's all of the women who now have come to feel a part of what we're doing, saying to their friends, you have to be here. They feel like it's theirs, because they're not only connected to us as a brand, but they're connected to each other. I mean, you've seen it. Powerhouse Women is literally where women find their best friends, the business besties, the people that they're going to work with and collaborate with. And that has honestly been part of. Part of the secret sauce. But it's not something that's unique to us that someone else couldn't duplicate.

Oh, I love that so much. So, okay, community versus audience. So audience is how can they connect to you? Community is how can they connect together? What did you see, like, at some of the first events when they were connecting with each other? Because I think that is. Where did you know right away were you like, oh, my God, this is it? And do you. Do you focus on that whenever you're building things? Like, tell me what you did moving forward after those moments?

Okay, if I can be really honest, I think part of it is. And you and I have talked a lot about this, I was still a little bit insecure in holding space and having all the attention focused on me. So I honestly think in the beginning, I wanted to get the attention off of me. You're like, you get it right?

You talk amongst yourselves.

I was like, I don't want. And I also Knew that I never wanted to set it up where people expected me to have all the answers. That just wasn't a realistic expectation. So from the start, and you actually do this a lot too. And I learned from you. I really pointed them to all of the answers, all of the wisdom that lies within the relationships they made with each other. So honestly, I think it was more of like an insecurity of mine. But then I saw how it gave them better results. It gave them more value that didn't have to come from me. Like any of you out there who are coaches or a lot of your business is built around you showing up and being the dancing monkey. If you have a community that's also attached to your brand, then all of a sudden they're getting value that doesn't require you to show up more. You can charge more, you can, you have more retention because now all their best friends are in your programs and they don't want to leave. So I just naturally started to see these outcomes. But I still don't think until maybe two, three years after that I hadn't really. I didn't realize we were doing anything different. I just knew that we were doing what we could with the smaller audience that we had at the time.

I mean, that is brilliant because when you are the person who's putting on the events and putting on the programs, there's only so much of you to go around and you're not always going to be there. Like that's going to end. But these friendships continue. And that's been the. That has been the coolest part about building community for me is going, oh my God, Lindsay did that thing however long ago. I did that thing however long ago. And this friend group is going strong and they're like doing all of these incredible things and you see them out in the world. And that would have never happened if that would have just been about you connecting with them. And that's really what create. It also just creates this. Like it's a die hard community. Like we still have people. So you guys, we're just going to back up a sec. Lindsay and I did an event in 2020 right before COVID like January 2020. Like literally right before we got in there. Yeah, exactly. About teaching people how to host events. Interesting timing. But with that we see all of these amazing women still who are in our communities and they're thriving. Like hashtag thriving. It's amazing.

Okay. Together.

Together.

Things together.

Yes. Like these groups of friends that are true besties now. And that is because of the that you have created, that we have created within these communities.

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So Lindsay, you teach this so well. You teach this better than anyone else. My first question is, can anybody be successful with a small community?

Do you think? 100%, hands down. And it actually, I think it's is easy to see how a business like powerhouse women or even the businesses that you've built thrive on community. But let's even just take someone. I've helped realtors put this into practice. I helped product based businesses put this into practice because especially in 2023, I think that because business is changing so much, algorithms, ads are changing so much, if you don't have like that organic community as a foundation, I do think you're going to end up leaving money on the table. Because no matter what it is that you're selling, when you have a community, you have kind of this built in audience who wants to buy and wants to share it with their friends. So it becomes like that word of mouth marketing, but it's all about thinking. Here's kind of like the question to start with. So if you are listening to this and are like, okay, lady who's dressed like Carmen Sandiego, all right, let's just.

Take, I mean I would listen to.

You, let's take this at face value. And for any of you who are younger and don't know who Carmen Sandiego is, Google it, it'll change your mind. Yeah, but is to start with the question, what is it that I want to unify people around when people think of my brand? So like for me, I would say when people think of powerhouse women, what do I want them to know about the people who are associated with my brand if they were to meet someone out on the street? And if you ask the people who you work with what it is that they associate with your brand and they don't have an answer for that, that just means there's so much possibility for you, you can start to unify people around things. Like maybe it's a problem you're solving, maybe it's, it could be something like a common value. But I actually think the most powerful thing that you can identify for your own business and brand that starts to unify people around it is what's the aspirational identity? What is the identity that the person Your dream customer wants to see themselves as. How do they? And if you start to create the culture where they see that they can become that by being associated with your brand, by buying your products, all of a sudden you have so much value. I mean, that is like deep, deep brand loyalty that goes so far beyond the size of your list, the, you know, traditional conversion rates. It's just focusing on community as the forefront versus as an afterthought. And I think a lot of people just see it as, oh, it's just a Facebook group. I'll just throw this up. Community is the connection. It doesn't matter where the community lives. It matters are those people genuinely connecting with you, with who they want to become, and with the other people who are on that same journey.

I love this. I mean, this is literally what I'm doing with this new company that I'm working in. Because it. It doesn't matter if you have a digital product, if you have a physical product like this. Truly, everyone is saying it. This is the new way that you are going to be able to get your product out there. Yeah. And not just that as. As if that's, you know, not the only incentivization. It is life changing as the person who is leading the community. You know, I think in the past when we've done things where it's been more like, hey, look to me, I'm going to give you advice like that sort of leadership that's actually really lonely and it's. It will burn you out so fast. Like, I did it for a little while and it's the fastest way to burn yourself out when you feel like that community, movement and connection, there is something so magical in it. It's like, oh, my God, this is why I do so. Okay, you're the queen of this. You have a program right now which is so cool. It's essentially you're hosting your own community that's going to help people build community. But you guys with the focus on how do you make sure that you're serving this community so well that you're also monetizing it in a way that fully supports you in such a massive way. Like, way bigger than you're probably thinking right now.

Yeah. And I think it all goes back to. I'm so eternally grateful to Chris, who was really the first person to say, like, hold on, Lindsay, you guys produce what results with how many Instagram followers? Slash, email us. I mean, to this day, we have almost $1 million year business with an email list of 5,000 people.

Yeah, that's insane.

Incredible, right? We put 500 women in a, in an event and it's because there's these things that we do differently that anyone can do. And so over the last year, I've really spent the time sitting down and breaking, actually breaking down a formula that anyone could imp, no matter what kind of business that they have in. How to take your current business, however you're connecting people, whether it's through your email list, through a podcast, through social media, live events, doesn't matter where you can take this formula and implement it to start to see some of these results, right? Converting more sales to create this steady influx of organic leads, to create this energy. I think that's really what it is. When people look at powerhouse women, they just want to know, how did you create this energy, this magnetism that just has people come and want to stay and be a part of this brand and want to buy whatever program you're offering next. And it's really focusing on these couple of fundamentals in this framework that we came up with, the profitable community framework and we're teaching it for the first time. I've never taken a group of other community builders and really taken them by the hand and said, okay, here's exactly how we did it. Let's not only teach you the formula, but now let's teach you how to collaborate with each other, how to grow your communities with other people who are doing the same thing. Because you and I have seen it. It's when you collaborate with those like minded people, when you really intentionally put yourself in rooms where you might have similar audiences, but there's so much you can offer to each other's audience. That's actually where it grows exponentially. It grows far beyond, I think, what any of the more you know, just like the more common marketing tactics really can achieve. And if you're doing all that stuff, great. If you're running ads, amazing. But if you don't have these frameworks in place, I do think you're missing a huge piece of the puzzle that is a lot more sustainable. It's like an insurance policy for your business. Especially during times that are a little bit more challenging, where if people aren't bought in, they aren't likely to stay.

Totally.

Yeah, totally.

I love this. Okay, well, where can they go? Because this is incredible. I've been to so many of your events, I've been part of your events, We've put events on together. They're my favorite. They're insane. You do find your besties there. They're so much fun. They're so real. I think women can show up and fully be themselves and they're probably going to have a much better time than they can even possibly imagine right now. Like, you're the person who made me realize how much fun business could be. Truly like. So we were drinking champagne on stage at one point.

Yeah. Which was pretty, pretty magical.

So, you know, that was the moment for me. I was like, this should be fun. Like, you should have your girls and this should be like in your zone of genius, connected to your, your divine purpose and God. All the things, all. You can have all of the things all in one. So. So where do we go?

So this is a three month program. I don't think I said that. It's. It's really a four day, really immersive in person experience. We're not just going to te community. You're going to see us and get to watch us do it, experience it and learn it that way as well. So we're going to do a four day in person event. Which events are my favorite? And then it'll include a few months of support to really implement, take you by the hand, make sure that you're really grasping these concepts and start the year strong, building your community and using that to scale your business. This year we just made it easy for your podcast listeners. We linked it to powerhouselauri.com it's just easier to spell and remember. So all of the details will be linked there. It'll take you right to the page where people can learn about it. And I'm just excited. I mean, this is going to be a pretty intimate group of people that I'm literally going to take you by the hand, work alongside you to start this year and grow your community from. Whether that's from square one or we have a lot of, you know, multiple six and seven figure business owners who just realize they skipped this step, that there's actually more that they could be doing, more impact they could be making by really getting the community piece solidified so it can really meet a business owner wherever they're at.

I love this. I always love talking to you. Okay, I'll see you next week.

Okay, see you next week.

Hopefully. I don't know. We'll see. All right, I love you. Thank you so much for coming on. You guys go to powerhouselauri.com seriously, she's my favorite event host and my favorite, I don't know, person. Don't tell my husband.

I won't. You can't hear this okay, Bye, everyone.