Stop Chasing Leads: Build a Community That Brings Clients to You

One of the most depressing things is when I see a new business owner thinking, oh, I need to go and find more people. I should run Facebook ads. So they go to an agency who sets up a cold campaign for them that doesn't really work, and they spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds on doing that.

Hello. I've been noticing you've been following along to Inside the Speakeasy Mastermind podcast, and the conversations I'm having out there resonates with you. Then I'd like to invite you to apply to learn more about becoming a member of Speakeasy Mastermind. I am so excited for today's guest at Inside the Speakeasy Podcast because we are all out there trying to find more ways to bring in new customers and doing it in a non-sleazy, fun, killer way to doing it. And going across the pond, as we say sometimes out in the States, we're going all the way to London. I'm stoked to bring in a member from our London chapter, and Cordelia Kate's going to talk about ways that we can, A, use our networks to generate more paying clients, and also how to start creating online live events as a way to really get more organic marketing coming your way. And just awesome stuff. Lead gen, networking, how to do it the right way, the non-sleazy way, all the way from the Rebellious Business Network. Welcome Cordelia Cate from London.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be part of the new chapter forming in London. It's a lot of fun and it's just great to be a part of this world of yours. So, thank you very much for having me on all fronts.

Yeah, no, I'm stoked. I mean, it'll always be special in our hearts being the first sort of chapter out in Europe and UK. Everybody in that group is such all-stars and I know there's such smarts out there. But I love the stuff you're going to be talking about today because it's close to my heart, close to the book I just wrote, which we talked a lot about that. So, clearly, I think we probably think in similar ways, but I love hearing different angles and I think it's such an important thing that if people do it the right way, it's a great way to bring in new customers. And so I want to dig into that. Before we go there, I'd love to hear about a little bit about your past. Like, how did you get in this crazy world of marketing and what angles and pivots did you make? You know, it's almost like we all have that struggle on the road. What did you find to land where you are today?

Well, it's a bit random. I actually was a nurse. I went into nursing after like being completely off the rails. I was homeless at 15. I had a really rocky start and I ended up going into nursing, having not gone out any of my GCSEs. During my nursing degree, by the way, I started my first business right at the end of that. So I started nursing, my nursing training, with no kids, and I wasn't married. I was with a man that I'd been with since I was 15. We ended up having 3 children during that nurse training, and I finished, I qualified with 3 kids and a ring on my finger. Somehow, through the blood, sweat, and tears, managed to get a distinction as well, which was just like the cherry on the cake. So I was nursing and I'd literally just become a qualified nurse. I decided to start an e-commerce business. I don't know why really, apart from just something to do. I'd been selling bits and pieces on eBay and I ran this company, it was called Toy Ride, for a couple of years. And it got to a point where I was like, I've either got to get a big warehouse so I can undercut everyone on eBay, or I've got to find some way of like getting it like getting cheaper stock. This is just not working. Because what I didn't realize then is what I was doing was trying to beat my competition through pricing and making things as cheap as possible. And I didn't have a clue about branding at that point. So when I shut that business down, because I was like, it was a love-hate relationship, there were a couple of things that I loved. And one of them was I just love tinkering about online. I like the creative side of things. I really enjoyed—

what are you doing? What, you're doing nursing at this time too though? You're doing both?

Yeah, yeah. And I 3 kids under the age of 4.

I mean, this is just— I got to take a timeout for a second because my wife's, you know, a nurse practitioner as well, and she does not have the entrepreneurial brain. No disrespect. I love you, Ariel. She knows this. Me, entrepreneur brain. She not. And it's like, that's like opposite. Like, the entrepreneurs don't do nursing. So it's just weird. You probably were like feeling this mismatch, you know, as a nurse, like having this entrepreneurial, you know, bones inside of you. I don't know.

I think the great thing about nursing, right, was that I love the people.

Most of them.

There were some people I did not love, don't get me wrong. I love— I loved looking after people. I loved seeing the difference I was making in their lives. And that was quite minimal, to be honest. Like, you'd have— you'd have good days, but it was like a conveyor belt, you know? You'd go in, you'd spend a day looking after someone, and then you never see them again. Like, I worked in emergency nursing. You don't want to see them again. Like, go home, be okay. It just means that there's like— there isn't really— that you don't really get to build deep relationships with the people that you're looking after, and it can get quite exhausting. The most creative you can be is to get freaky with a bit of bandaging, right? But there's limits to how— you've still got to be able to bandage well.

You have to have the box thinking. And by the way, no disrespect to the amazing nurses out there through these comments. I'm just saying, and typically the personality type, but yeah, you're just sitting there saying, I'm gonna do these things.

Yeah. So I could think, you know, that business, it gave me a bit of creative outlet, but the bit that was lacking was the people. It was The most interesting conversation I was having was, what's the dimensions of this car? Or like, does it come with number plates? Because I was selling Ride On Toy Cars. It was just boring. And so I went back to the drawing board and I was like, I really like this. Like, there's elements that I like, but I don't like waiting for the postman. I don't like the boxes. I don't like the shipping freight nonsense. I can't stand all of that. And I was like, what can I be? What can I do? And I was thinking like web designer, business coach. How do you even get into something like that? And then I ended up stumbling across an affiliate marketing thing and I was like, hmm. And I'd actually seen this ad so many times that I ended up watching it this time and I was like, hmm, this actually sounds good. I know I've dismissed this 50 times because it sounded scammy as fuck, but it actually sounds really good. So I clicked into it and I became obsessed. Like, I fell down this rabbit hole of just learning and learning and learning and learning and learning. Within a few months, I made my first $10K commission.

Oh, so who you learning from?

Stuart Ross from— and Jake Kubizek from the Six Figure Mentors, which is now called Launch U. And Stuart Ross is an absolute— he's just such a good guy. Like, he's such a lovely guy. He doesn't have like a very public figure. Like, he's quite interested in making a difference and he's such a fantastic mentor to have had the opportunity to work with.

Okay, so you're making $10K, you're out there and just like, oh my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah, it was cool. Made it quite quickly. And I think they say, you know, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. I remember giving up two things so I could fit this in. I used to cook like restaurant quality dinners every night. Like I would go to town and make the best food because I love food, right? And I'd also watch this really trashy soap opera that we have in the UK called EastEnders. Okay, so those are the two things I decided I was gonna give up if I was gonna build.

Which is harder to give up, the cooking or the soap opera?

Both. Oh, which was harder? Oh, the cooking. I had to let go. I had to feel like I wasn't like— yeah, I had to let go of that a bit because it was— it's a bit of a people-pleasing thing, you know, wanting, wanting to cook the best food.

And you're— and you're— gosh, 3 kids at this time. You're a busy mama. Okay, so that's— I mean, good for you. I mean, I know how it is being a mom.

Not to mention the fact that there was problems in that relationship. It was tough. It was really tough. I'm not gonna go into it. Like, it was a really hard place. Like, I was struggling as well emotionally. And this affiliate marketing business, there was a part of me where I was like, this is gonna be my ticket out of here. I'm gonna do well and I'm gonna leave. But that was a scary sentiment, right? I ended up replacing my nursing income within 6 months.

Amazing.

So it was September that I started, September 2017. By December, I'd made that first $10K sale. Come like March, I was doing pretty well. And I started to actually just generate an income from other things. Like I started to do social media management from the skills that I was learning, I started to build websites. I just started to find like things that I could sell to generate an income.

Hustling. Yeah, yeah.

And then I went to a retreat in the Dominican Republic and it was life-changing. Stuart, that mentor of mine, he made me realize that in order to achieve what I want to achieve, I have to change my surroundings. And I came back knowing that I wanted to leave, and I did. I had quit nursing by this point, or I hadn't fully quit, but I'd gone on to bank and whittled my hours down and I moved into— my stepdad had just bought a caravan, and I moved into that caravan with my 3 children. Um, one was 2, the other one was 3, the other one was 5. It was April, it was fairly cold here, and we had a caravan that didn't have electricity. It had gas for a fire at night, and we were across the river from my mum's house because she lived on the other side of the river. There was no car access to the house, so we had to cross a bridge to get to her house. We were like in the car park of her house, basically. And we were there for 6 weeks waiting for a house to come up.

Caravan would be like an RV for— is that what we're talking about for us? Us American folks?

Small, like one that you hitch onto a car.

Tiny, tiny. I got it. Okay. So you're just living in there and— oh man. Okay.

And at this point, you know, I'm still at the beginning days of this affiliate marketing business. We're like, it's now 2018. I've been doing it for about a year. We're doing all right, but it's up and down. These 10 grand commissions, they come in and they're amazing, but then you don't get one for another couple of months. It obviously got harder because I was now on my own, responsible for all my bills and everything, very minimal support from my ex-husband. And I ended up having a major car accident. I'm now living in this house, paying rent, raising 3 kids, laptop smashed up in the car, and I end up putting rent on credit cards, Christmas presents on credit cards. I'm putting everything on credit cards. And I remember one day there was no more credit left, and I rang my sister and I didn't have money for food. And she turned up in her car and she just bought me a car full food shopping, and I just was so grateful to her for that.

Yeah, wow, wow.

So then along came lockdown, and whilst I was surviving, and it was very paycheck to paycheck and a lot of putting stuff on credit cards, but, you know, like managing to pay things off and just about keeping my head above water, I had this amazing idea. I think I saw someone do something, and I also felt the guilt of not being able to go, like, go be on the front line because I'd come off the nursing register now. Like I wasn't a nurse anymore. I had this idea, I was like, I can just start online events, I can just bring everyone together and we can just hang out and it'll be lovely and it'll be fine, and we'll do that instead of networking, because all the networking events had shut down. And I did that, and the first event happened and it was a hit, and then the second one happened, and then the third one happened, and then the fourth one happened, and before you know it, like, this thing was growing. It was in the newspaper, it was getting featured in magazines. Like, we ended up just getting really, really awesome reviews and everything. And I did my first launch for a product because I realized these guys, they had no idea about online marketing. A lot of them, like, they weren't sort of new to that. How do we run our businesses online? So I was like giving them everything I got, you know, and teaching, teaching, teaching. And then I launched my first group program. We went on to do 6 figures in 9 months. In a couple of years, I had cleared all my debt. Wow. And yeah, we were just living a completely different life, really.

Amazing. What an amazing story. And thank you for sharing that. I can't imagine what you went through on that. And then COVID hit and you're like, what are we going to do? But you turn that into such a positive. And we do hear some great stories of people that actually were able to take that crazy time. You know, we're going through that time right now. And I think we're feeling a lot of this AI world and people shutting down and restarting. What are they going to do? And a lot of that happened in COVID, these major life pivot But it worked out well for you, clearly. And is that really where initially Rebellious was started, or what was the company? What did you learn? What were you teaching? Yeah, talk me through that.

So prior to it being called Rebellious, it was Cordelia Kate Limited. That was my affiliate marketing company that just turned into this consulting thing that I had started around 2019. And then when COVID hit, you know, and I was doing that weekly event, what happened was that I really— I'd already seen what happens when you're a part of an incredible community. I got my love of communities. I was held through that period in the caravan. I had people come visit me when I had my car accident. They did a GoFundMe and they raised like 4 grand for me to get a new laptop. They were amazing. Like, they were so supportive. And for the first time in my life, I really felt like I belonged somewhere, like I was part of something really cool. Unlocked for me the sort of understanding of online communities and how powerful they can really be. And I think that Stuart Ross was a genius. I was I was like, oh my God, this man is a genius. How do you create a community that good? Like, how do you do it? And I realized that when I created my own, that it was through creating culture and by just demonstrating how you want people to behave and bringing people together and creating this really awesome environment where people feel like they are supported by others and everyone's showing up to help each other. And so that formula that I put together turned into something that I started teaching as my signature strategy. And so I started teaching other people how to run live events that become communities because a lot of people will go, I'm going to start a community, I'm going to put a school community together, I'm going to go and start a Facebook group. But I didn't realize is that's just a cardboard box, really. What you need to create something in the cardboard box that people want to be a part of. And so I started teaching that as a philosophy for building communities.

And that's a lot of what you're doing now. So how Rebelious started?

Yeah, but the Rebelious Business Network was where that strategy was born.

What's an example of a client in Rebellious, like you said, you know, people throw the word community around a lot, not quite understanding all the things that go into community. You and I both being understanding community a little bit, it's not that simple, but you take an average, give me an average case study that you would see. Like I have an audience, I did a live event and I think I'm doing community. What you just said something, it's not just a box. What is a good community? What are some strategies?

What we're doing is like using the live event as a lead generation strategy. So you promote it and get people to come along, get free tickets to it, et cetera. If it's just a livestream, that's a kind of different strategy. But for this live event strategy that builds a community, you'd have a live event, you invite people to it, and that's their initiation ceremony. Like, they're now part of it, and they come back and it ends up becoming a community, and they feel like they're a part of it. One example of outside of Rebellious is Jamie Wilcox. He is a business coach for cleaning companies, and he was selling his cleaning company, like, program one-to-one, and selling that really well just through LinkedIn DMs. But then he wanted to sell a mastermind, and he was really struggling with selling that in the same way that he'd been selling one-to-one. So he put together a live event with my help and then built this thing called the Cleanup Network, where every Tuesday he did Cleanup Network trainings, which were never an acronym for obvious reasons.

Yeah.

And then people would come along to it and learn from him. And it's just talking head content that is interactive about his expertise. And so that he's positioning himself as an authority, but he's also giving people a space to not only meet him and connect with him, but also meet and connect with each other. And so it starts to form this kind of what feels like a community. And then went to do his launch for his mastermind. He's now got a launch-ready audience that are warm, that know him, that like him, that trust him, that feel safe in that space, that know each other. And he did $28,000 in sales off the back of his first launch.

Wow. Wow. Interesting. So we invited everybody, had live calls. He's teaching already. So rather than just being the one-to-one or go buy my course, it's let's teach together, let's stay involved, let's stay engaged. And is there like a strategy? Like, is like, what is your community platform you recommend with your clients? And then like, how often does he engage with his community?

It really depends. The platform, like I say, it's a cardboard box. It really doesn't matter. And actually the community isn't even necessary these days for in terms of like we're normally thinking about a community later. If you start with the community, it can be a little bit disheartening because it can sometimes take a bit of time to build. My recommendation these days, and how we do things now, is that instead of focusing on building a community, we focus on content that interacts with people and builds strong connections with your audience. And then when it feels like you're getting that traction and getting that momentum, like a community is the next logical step from there. And you sort of then you've got this audience that you can say, hey guys, I'm doing this thing where I'm opening the doors on this place where we can all hang out. So for instance, I have a community that I'm going to be launching soon. It's called Strategy Geeks. It doesn't exist yet, but it's coming very soon. And the purpose of Strategy Geeks is going to be lead generation for me and a really good way for me to build connections with the people in my audience. Because right now I've got a live YouTube show that's getting traction, and I've got people buying PDFs and resources off the back of that. But I don't know who these people are. Like, I I don't know until I go on a sales call with them and they're like, Cordelia, I want my own live show. And we have a conversation about that, but I don't know who they are until that point. So the bit that's coming next is that now I'm getting traction with the live show. I am going to open the doors on Strategy Geeks, and Strategy Geeks is going to be a place where you've got resources, but then every other week there's a strategy geek out where we all get together and share one thing that is just really cool in your world right now in terms of a tool you're using, a strategy, some kind of AI method, something, something that we can just all geek out on together and we just have a bit of a geeky networking event about it. It just enables people to build that relationship with you so that really you can work smarter rather than harder. I think one of the most depressing things is when I see a new business owner thinking, I need to go and find more people, I should run Facebook ads. So they go to an agency who sets up a cold campaign for them that doesn't really work, and they spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds on doing that. Or they think, Oh, I've got to go and get people from somewhere and they go buy a list and then it doesn't convert. And it's like we shouldn't be automating human connection. We should be automating human connection only when it gets to the point where we can't handle the scale of it. And I feel that that is something that—

You're saying people are trying to build to automate out of the gates and it's almost like they haven't earned that right to automate yet. You got to build your community first and build that, that trust and try to do live events to, to engage. Is that— Is that what I'm hearing? Welcome to Inside the Speakeasy Mastermind Podcast, the private room where today's sharpest founders, innovators, and renegade thinkers come to trade the ideas that move industries. This show is brought to you by HighLevel, the AI-driven business operating system trusted by over 2 million businesses to help automate, scale, and create real leverage. HighLevel Mastermind isn't just a tool, it's the engine behind some of the most agile and high-performing teams on the planet. If you're ready to streamline everything, amplify your reach, and actually build a business that works for you, you're in the right place. Visit www.gohighlevel.com/speakeasy-mastermind-promo to get an exclusive 30-day trial for being a listener of the Inside the Speakeasy podcast. Enjoy the show.

I feel like, of course, they've got the right to do that, but it's going to be like trying to force a horse to water, especially if you're a newbie, because you don't really know how to sell. You don't really know how to market. You learn this stuff in the trenches with the people through the conversations. And so if you come into this game and you're like, I'm going to get a Billy Jean course and I'm going to learn his amazing funnel, and his funnel is great, I'm sure he's got an amazing funnel, but you got to build your community around you first if you want to be able to get great results, we're talking conversion rates like you can convert between 7% and 10% if you have a warm audience. And if you have a super cold audience, it's like 0.5%. Well, no wonder people crash and burn because trying to get 200 people so you can get one customer when you're just starting out is like really, really tough. Like your first 200 leads on your email list. You remember how hard that was?

Like, oh yeah. So what is the first step? So for our listeners that are just like, okay, I'm feeling this, this is great, this sounds exciting, how do I do my first online live event? How do I even get people there? Are they going to like me? You know, what's going to motivate them to take their busy time and jump on a call?

My recommendation would be simplify your content strategy into just running one live event a week, not a prerecorded podcast, not a prerecorded video of any kind, a live video where you pick a topic and you're like, right, I'm going to show up and teach people this, or I'm going to talk about this. And it could be an interview, but definitely don't write yourself out of your own show. Have talking head content from you because that is what's going to demonstrate your expertise. Do that and don't worry about whether anyone's going to show up, like promote it and do it, but you're not doing it for the people that are on the live. You're doing it for two reasons, three reasons. Oh my God. I can think of more already. Reason number one, you're doing it for the hashtag replay crew. You're doing it for the people that are going to discover you on episode 50. If you don't get episode 1 to 49 recorded, you're never going to do it. You're never going to do episode 50. And Sheila, she was going to discover you on episode 50. And she was going to be your best client yet. She really was. So we, we don't discover great things on episode 1 very often, and we discover them when they're getting traction. And so we have to start somewhere with no traction. So you're doing it for the #replaycrew, and that's great. Pressure's off. You don't have to perform in front of loads of people. Easy peasy.

Number 2, #replay meaning what? To walk people through that.

So when you're doing a live stream, everyone always says 'Put a hashtag replay in the chat if you're watching it on replay.' And it's just a way of getting comments on your content. So you get people that are watching the replay and they put hashtag replay in and the comments just help drive their traffic.

Great. Okay.

So yeah, you're doing it for those guys. And then the second reason why you're doing it is accountability, because if you put it in the diary that Tuesday at 10:00 AM is your slot for producing this content, then you're going to do it. And that's going to give you a highly human input that you can plug into AI and get it to create something that's actually awesome because it came from you in the form of a transcript. You're going to be able to take that video, cut it into clips and populate your social media with it. You're going to be able to take that video, turn it into a podcast. You can edit it down and turn it into a YouTube video and get absolutely everything you need from it. Meanwhile, you're going to be building a following and you're also going to be building your personal brand and you're going to stand out in a sea of AI-generated content with your human sounding outputs because you had a highly human input.

Right. And then what tools do you recommend these days? Again, for those that are not doing this, you just said you put it out there. I mean, so where are people recording it? What are they doing to produce the clips? What do you like these days for all the things? If somebody is going to be under the cave doing this themselves?

Yeah. So you can use something like StreamYard or I use Restream.

Restream, stream.

Or you can use Riverside, which we're recording on right now. And there's plenty of software options out there for streaming online and recording at the same time. To multiple different places. So my recommendation would be promote that you're going to go live 24 hours before you do, then promote that you're going live again 15 minutes before you do, then go live. If people show up, great. If they don't show up, don't sweat it. Hashtag replay crew. Do that via that live streaming software. And then after you've gone live, take that recording and you can use something like Descript to edit it into clips and edit it into a nice long-form video. And really just having— the thing that's changed the game for me is building out AI systems that just turn that into a process. So I use Claude for that and also Airtable for then building a system with it. I actually have— Eric, if anyone's interested in the live show systems, like I have a video where I just give my entire strategy away on that video.

Well, you're getting to my next question is that people want to like, they could do that or they could probably learn from you. How do they learn from you in these systems? They go to your site or what's the best place to find this stuff?

Yeah, so my YouTube channel, I have a video that's, um, like how to build your own live show. And I walk through the entire strategy from start to finish and just show you how you could totally take that strategy and just DIY it off the back of watching that. The thing that I do with people is I build out the systems and the research method and a kind of like AI brain, and we build a whole kind of content system that's a bit like a, a live show machine. So you just drop your title and your rough sketch into the machine and it generates all the bits that you need off the back of it. So So yeah, that's kind of how I work.

I love it. So like so many of us feel like we have stuff to say and we have things that are knowledgeable to others. And even if we do have imposter syndrome, you know, there's people out there that can learn from every one of us listening to the show has knowledge that they could be sharing with others. The question is, how do you get it out there in a world of lots of people, lots of noise? How do you get attention? And you're saying, look, just follow the system. It works. It takes time, but you do that, you can promote it to your social following. And even if it's not a huge social following, people might pick it up. And then I assume at some point you're plugging in AI SEO or other things to hopefully get found over time.

Well, the great thing about YouTube is every time you publish a video on YouTube, it tests it in front of an organic audience. And if it does well, it keeps pushing it out and testing it. So you can actually— my channel is small, it's new, it's a prototype for my live show system, but it is currently growing 3 to 5 times faster than the average strong channel. Wow. And it's got something to do with that live element, that connecting with people. It's really powerful.

So you're going on and then sometimes, like I said, I think, and I want to restate what you said earlier, you know, you may not have a huge audience initially, but eventually you just, you just go on live, people just join the call and then you start having conversations, you teach, and then you can interact with the audience.

Yeah. Yeah. So this channel started on the 26th, 27th of December. I published the first video, I had 35 or 39 views, and since then my highest videos had 2,000 400 views and I've done in excess of £10,000, about $13,000 as a direct result of that YouTube channel that I can quantify it to. So yeah, this is good.

I mean, you got me thinking even of some of the brands I work with and even, even our community. I like, I like the strategy. I mean, you're out there, you're talking, you get on there and just start talking to people and build it. They will come, right? You just do it consistently and then ultimately, like, Now I see your path. So, okay, you do that, you get more and more people on there, they show up the replays. Then at some point when the audience is big enough, you do the invitation to, hey, do you want to have this thing where we'll be more intimate, more interactions, more consistently with me and other people that believe in the same things we're talking about?

Oh yeah, absolutely. And that's why like the community becomes the next step because the way I used to do it and it was effective, but I had this realization that I was like bottlenecking all my content inside a community and I wasn't, that was preventing me me from building a bigger following. So that— and it was also preventing me from being up— like, the only thing that was getting people into that community was me promoting that this was going to happen in the community, which is fine, but it just, it just wasn't as good as what it was when I finally opened it up and started going live outside of the community and then had another reason for people to join the community. It just changed the game. So yeah, community is definitely worth doing and investing in for sure. It's like, should be the backbone of everything you do. You need a community of peers, you need a community for your clients, and you need a community for your 3 types of community that we need.

And so let's dig into that as we kind of, uh, kind of round through this, this conversation. So you're building communities. You've now, maybe some of us are fortunate. We have a big following and we could do the more live calls and start to engage and then build a community, or you're starting from scratch. Either way, you get to that point, that magical point. You're saying, okay, I'm ready to start building. Tell me a little bit about your preferred structures. Like, is it sort of a freemium model? Hey, everybody could join for, for free, but if you want to do more, there's a pay point. Is it like, no, you should be charging out of the gates to do something?

Well, this is where it gets It's fun because it just really depends on what the priorities are, what the size is, what, what's going on right now. Like, I wouldn't say there is one way for everyone. There are different points at which you'd be like, okay, definitely. So I've got one client who's like brand new, we're launching his live show, and I'm suggesting to him, let's start your community as a free community. And once you've got some vibes going on in there, then we'll turn it into a paid community. Because it's kind of hard with a small audience to get that community vibe going with like 5 to 10 people. You're, you know, do a good job of opening the doors and selling it. It doesn't feel like a community really unless they're definitely showing up. And it's really difficult to get people to definitely show up. So you need your chatty Cathys, you need your chatty Cathys in there.

And I'll just add to that because I know the world too. I mean, I think really we're talking about seeding. I think it's important, if anything, try to seed with a good base of people that will be the chatty, that'll help carry the culture and the brand. And be careful to— at least my, my learnings here would be, I think, still have a value on it. And you're sort of taking— at least from my experience, is that's You know, even if you're giving it away free, I think you still maybe put a price on it and say, look, I'm going to give this to you because you're an early adopter, you're in early. And there's that feeling of reciprocity to some degree. At least that's what I found.

That's where my focus is on right now. It's building actually an email list of buyers rather than an email list of leads, because I feel like, I feel like I'm then nurturing people on my email list that have, have gave me a loud, hard yes to something rather than and, you know, just signing up for something they don't know. You know, in Rebellious, we've got a list of 10,000 people, and I know what it's like to have a list that is, you know, it's not as alive as I would like it to be. Like, it's not dead, we make sales from it all the time, but it's not— I can— a lot of those people probably don't remember signing up for it, or they don't know what it is. So I feel like if you, if you have a list of buyers, you've got a, you've got a better chance of having a better, a better result off the back of that. And we've done really well with Rebellious because of the community, but it's just, it's just my new, my new thinking. It's just what I want is a list buyers rather than a list of leads.

List of buyers that you had from Rebellious or from the community that you, you're building?

Low-ticket offers. And I've got two companies, it's a bit confusing. I've got Rebellious, which is where it's a networking company, and then I have another company called Connection Marketing, which houses what I call LivePod. And LivePod is my live show, live show system, live show marketing system. Um, and so with my prototype that sits underneath that umbrella, low-ticket membership. So I've got a membership that's $4 a month.

Wow.

Okay, so yeah, so like everybody that comes in and spends $4 a month, even if they cut— like, it has a free trial at the beginning, it was a 7-day free trial, then $4 a month, but they're putting down their credit card details.

That's what matters.

It's higher friction, and it just means that they're more interested.

That's right, they're not a freebie seeker, they're, they're actual customer, and they're going to spend more, you know, time because they at least spend something, they're putting money in. I love it. Well, this has been really helpful, um, and I've learned a lot So if people want to learn more from you, what is it the thing you're most passionate about? How can the audience get to do more other than look at your YouTube channel and watch that video? What are you looking for that people might be interested in that you're excited about?

The main thing that I'm teaching right now is definitely about having that highly human input with AI. And we want to be using AI in marketing. Like, why wouldn't you? You get given an incredible tool and then you don't want to use it because you're like, you know, too proud. Like, let's use it well, right? It's an amazing tool. That really benefits from having a very highly human input. And so that is like transcripts is the perfect one. And so there's so many benefits to having your own live show, but then there's also so many things you can do with it once you've got that transcript. And so one of my passions is that I just love little strategies. Like I like putting little strategies together. And yesterday on my show, I put together a strategy that just captures moments on the go. So like a client texts you and says, oh, this This is a great session today. Thank you so much. You screenshot it, you put a little bit of verbiage into a form along with the screenshot, and then Claude takes it and turns it into an incredible post that you can put out on social media because it's got your, like, knowledge files about who you are, your voice profile. It's got hundreds of transcripts of you talking and can write like you really, really well. So what I'm really passionate about right now is helping people to not flippin' whitewash their brand. Don't take a steamroller called ChatGPT and like just turn it into some flat, boring, dull thing. Actually, there's a really good way that you can get AI to really elevate the humanness in your marketing and be even more human than you can. Okay, that's a bold statement. I take it back.

No, but I understand. I mean, we got to keep it real. We got to be you, get authentic. How do we do that? Yep. And not wash out, not muddle who you really are. Yeah, but use the tools of AI to be efficient, to get more done.

This is, this is so important. Like we're getting into a space where, yeah, everyone's excited to be vibe coding, producing all this great stuff, but everyone's going to be able to do it. My nan's going to be able to vibe code a new piece of software soon. Like, it's not about— learning how to use the tools is incredible, but what we really need to learn how to do now more than ever before, like, it is imperative, it is critical. We really, really need to double down on being ourselves and building a personal brand that people will connect with. And if you start now, you're going to be 10 steps ahead of everyone else.

I love it. Well said. And we talked a little bit earlier about London chapter being a few months in and your experience so far with this community. Tell me what you've enjoyed about Speakeasy Mastermind community.

It's been so much fun to connect with some new people that are like in another country to start off with. I've gone full circle in a way because when I was in that affiliate marketing company, I was coming to the US, I was going to Traffic and Conversion Summit, I was connecting with a lot of people in States. And then I've been very focused on what's happening here in the UK, and it's really nice to have that foot back in the other side of the pond again and just be making some new connections. So it's really cool. I had someone reach out to me on LinkedIn the other day and was like, I'm coming to London, it'd be great to meet up. And just to have that kind of way of connecting again is with people, it's just so much fun. Not to mention, really, the thing that blew me away the most so far has been and the quality of the conversations in those online masterclass sessions you run in global. Molly Mahoney put fire under my ass one day. I don't think I stopped running for like 3 weeks after watching that. It was so good.

Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for coming in and getting a chance to chat today. I know it's late. You are a busy entrepreneur and busy mom, so congrats doing all, and you're very inspiring with your stories and what you've learned.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Everything you hear on this show comes back to one idea: proximity. I wrote the book on it, literally. Proximity Pays, my best-selling book, available now at proximitypays.com. And that's a wrap from the Speakeasy Podcast. If something sparked for you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it, review it, and pass it to the one person who needs to hear this right now. Want in on the real mastermind? Tap the link in show notes to apply. Until next time, keep scaling, stay sharp, and don't be the smartest one in the room.