Ruth Poundwhite [00:00:00]:
If you’ve ever wondered how to grow your audience and make consistent sales without necessarily having to show up on social media every day, this episode is for you where I am joined by my brilliant Mastermind and we share how we each attract traffic and sales while honoring our energy and our boundaries. Welcome to the Soulful Sales show where we talk about believing in the value of your offers, getting them in front of your right people, and selling more of what you do in your unique way way.

Hi and welcome back to another episode of the Soulful Sales Show. So I am excited to bring you another one of our juicy round tables from a conversation with my Mastermind, which we jokingly call the Weird Hermits. We’re sharing about how we are using email, SEO, collabs, bundles, that kind of thing, to bring traffic to our offers to our website and to make sales in a way that honors how we want to run our business, which is not necessarily growing on social media. And just to give a shout out to my Mastermind sisters, this panel features Destiny Cop, Monica Froze, Sage Grayson, Kate Cordsmeyer, Faith Mariah, Steph Blake, Tara Reid and myself. And there are links to everyone in the show notes including a link where there’s a whole bundle of freebies from us, freebies and goodies from us and any links that were mentioned throughout the discussion. There’s also a Google Doc where we kept track of those as well.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:01:29]:
So in this conversation you’re going to hear us talk about how we get steady traffic to our evergreen offers, the truth about sending daily emails and how that impacts results and unsubscribes. We talk a lot about the power of summits, bundles and other collaborations for growing our lists. There’s also a really juicy conversation about blogging and especially AI search as well as regular SEO and why that actually still matters. Plus some really important mindset shifts to help you stop over complicating traffic and and focus on what actually works. So just a reminder that we are planning to do these roundtable Q&As quite regularly. We also did one recently on prepping for Black Friday which you’re going to see here on the podcast soon. So feel free to get in touch and share your requests for what we talk about. We probably are going to do some sort of planning one as we get towards the end of the year or the new year.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:02:22]:
But yeah we are totally open to requests and we have been getting rave reviews from these free sessions so far. We have so much fun doing them. So yeah, we are planning to do more. So watch this Space. Anyway, on to the Traffic School Round Table discussion and I hope that you love it. Oh, and something I forgot to say actually, before we dive in is that I am running a free workshop to help you boost your Q4 sales with smart and soulful AI shortcuts. This is a really fun one. So sign up to get your free ticket to that at ruth£white.com workshop.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:02:58]:
It’s happening October 15th. It’s to going, going to be really juicy. So see you there.

Sage Grayson [00:03:04]:
Welcome to Traffic School Roundtable. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m your moderator, Sage grayson from sage grayson.com and we are the Weird Hermits. We are a group of women online business owners who earn multiple six figures for multiple years. And we call ourselves the Weird Hermits because we all work from home like little hermit crabs. But once a week, we gather together to share strategies, brainstorm solutions, and support each other’s businesses. And once a month, we gather for a live panel to answer all of your burning questions about a specific topic. And today we’re talking about how to get more traffic to your shop, your blog, your website without using social media mostly.

Sage Grayson [00:03:55]:
Thank you so much to everyone who submitted questions ahead of time. We really, really appreciate. And if you do have a question during the call, please add it to the chat and we will try to get to as many of them as possible. We’re trying to keep to this to an hour. We’ll see how that goes. All right, before we get started, please make sure you have some way to take notes today because I don’t want you to miss a thing. And we have something special for you. Let me grab this and I will put it in the chat.

Sage Grayson [00:04:22]:
The Weird Hermits have gathered up some deals, freebies and invitations just for you, just for those of you who are here for the Traffic School Roundtable. And I’m going to put it in the chat right now so you can grab them. They will definitely help you on your way as you grow your business. Some of them are specifically traffic related, but I think you’re going to love all of them. Okay, I think that is good for our introduction. Let’s introduce all of our wonderful panelists today. All right, so let’s start with Destiny. You are first on our screen.

Dr Destini Copp [00:04:55]:
Hi, My name is Dr. Destiny Kopp and you can reach me at my website@destinycup.com.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:05:02]:
Thank you.

Sage Grayson [00:05:02]:
Kate, will you introduce yourself?

Kate Kordsmeier [00:05:05]:
Hey, I’m Kate Kordsmeier and I’m the founder of Success with Soul.

Sage Grayson [00:05:10]:
Wonderful. Steph, please give us your introduction.

Steph Blake [00:05:13]:
All right, first of all, Sage, I just have to say you need your own, like, game show or something. The way that you introduce it, it’s amazing.

Dr Destini Copp [00:05:20]:
Come on down.

Steph Blake [00:05:21]:
For real.

Sage Grayson [00:05:22]:
For real.

Steph Blake [00:05:23]:
But. Hi, everyone, I’m Steph Blake. You can find me@theblakecollective.com thank you so much, Faith.

Sage Grayson [00:05:30]:
Welcome.

Faith Mariah [00:05:32]:
Hi, I’m Faith Mariah. You can find my stuff@faithmariah.com I do simple business strategy and mindset.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:05:39]:
Thank you.

Sage Grayson [00:05:40]:
Monica, please introduce yourself.

Monica Froese [00:05:43]:
I’m Monica Froz and I kept it simple. You can just go to my name monicaFroese.com to find me.

Dr Destini Copp [00:05:48]:
We like that.

Monica Froese [00:05:49]:
We like that.

Sage Grayson [00:05:50]:
Thank you, Tara.

Tara Reid [00:05:53]:
Hey, I’m Tara Reid and you can find everything for me@theteraread.com thank you.

Sage Grayson [00:06:00]:
And finally, Ruth, please introduce yourself.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:06:04]:
Loving the quick fire intro so we could get to the juicy stuff. I am ruth poundwhite@ruthpoundwhite.com Wonderful.

Sage Grayson [00:06:12]:
We are the Weird Hermits. And thank you again so much for joining us. Okay, we’re going to dive into the questions that were sent ahead of time. But again, remember, you can please put a question into the chat and we.

Steph Blake [00:06:22]:
Will try to get to as many.

Sage Grayson [00:06:23]:
Of them as possible. All right, here we go.

Dr Destini Copp [00:06:25]:
We.

Sage Grayson [00:06:26]:
We are starting with the basics here. So our first question is, how do you get traffic to your always open offers? So this isn’t a big launch. This is something that’s always open. So who wants to take a stab at this one? Tara?

Tara Reid [00:06:42]:
Yes, I’ll jump in because I don’t really do big launches. Like 90, 95% of my stuff is always open. And for me, a big part of traffic is getting people into my sales funnels that I know are going to work and nurture people. And for me, that’s basically blogging SEO and also doing what I call my quick win strategy because I’m not on social media at all, which is collaborations. So I do a lot of podcast guesting, participating in bundles, summits, et cetera.

Steph Blake [00:07:19]:
So.

Sage Grayson [00:07:22]:
Fantastic. Who else has a strategy for always open offers?

Monica Froese [00:07:27]:
I would say my two ways are I firmly believe in always having paid ads running to an opt in. So I always have an opt in that’s going to lead into my higher paying products through an evergreen sequence with the freebie with ads and then my podcast. I would say, um, podcasting is one of those things you have to stick with. It’s kind of. I don’t want to show up in social media. Personally, it, I don’t resonate with it, but When I am consistent with podcasting, so many people tell me that they chose to buy because they got to hear me talk about the topic and they. You build a level of trust through that medium. So those are the two ways I do that.

Sage Grayson [00:08:06]:
Wonderful. I love that. Kate did mention in the chat that 100% her stuff is all always open. I think a lot of us have always open offers. Who else has an idea? Yes, Ruth.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:18]:
I’m not going to give something to do, but I’m going to give something to not do, which is have an always open offer and just expect people to buy it when you are not doing anything to promote it. And when I. I mean it could be literally calling it out, talking about it wherever you already show up, even if it’s not a launch or having, you know, evergreen stuff set up behind the scenes. But I think so many of us, and definitely this has been me too, are guilty of having an offer, putting it on our website and thinking because it’s on our website, people know that it exists. But it’s one thing having it there and it’s another thing actually getting people to see it and know about it. And even if they do know about it, they forget about it. So I just wanted to like make that super clear. Like, even if you have an offer, don’t expect it’s very rare that people will buy my.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:09:05]:
My stuff that I don’t have any automated stuff set up for. Very rare.

Faith Mariah [00:09:10]:
I’ll.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:09:11]:
Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Jess.

Dr Destini Copp [00:09:12]:
No, no, you go, go, go ahead.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:09:15]:
Okay. I second what Ruth said too. It is very rare for something to just randomly sell on my site. However, there are a few automated ways that I do get this to happen without me having to show up live. Whether it’s even in live in an email that I’m writing that day. Um, or of course I’m not on social media at all either. Actually, I’m kind of curious how many of us are not on social at all. Like 0% use like we have profiles.

Monica Froese [00:09:47]:
But I like, it’s not.

Steph Blake [00:09:49]:
At my admin I have automated mess like posts that go up just on autopack. I don’t post anything actively though.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:09:57]:
Okay. So yeah, so we have a couple of us that do a few little things, but the majority of us don’t use it at all. So just wanted to clarify that. And then also so a couple of the ways that I have found to sell my always open things, which is everything I sell, I have a long term automated evergreen email sequence. Every Friday an email goes out and it promotes One of my offers with a discount code, it’s all automated. I actually got this idea from Monica when I was a client in her digital shop experience and she was doing it live as a flash sale sale. And I tried it and I was like this is great but this is so much work and I hate doing this every week. So I just figured out how to automate the whole thing instead.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:10:42]:
So now I know that every Friday I will have an email go out that is pre written in advance and then people go through it and at the end of the cycle, which is, you know, now up to a year’s worth of emails, they just start over again. They just loop back through and go through the whole thing again. So that’s one way that I’ve driven traffic to always open things. And another thing that I do, which I know a lot of us do, is I have, I call them like tripwires, but they’re really more like pop up discounts on all of my sales pages. And so while that does require people have to actually get to the sales page which requires you to help people get there. But once they get there, I have a discount that comes up and it’s a very juicy discount, sometimes as low as $7 to get the offer. And on that once they purchase, I also have bumps and upsells on every single product that I and that has really helped me sell multiple things at a time when they’re always open and that maybe somebody just found out about my SEO course, but now that they’re there they’re seeing, oh, you have a funnel course too and it’s on the bump offer at a discount. And so they’re adding things that way and that’s really helped make sales every day.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:11:55]:
But with always open things on Evergreen, I also do very few launches and when I do their email, only question for you, Kate.

Monica Froese [00:12:04]:
So I do something similar with convert box. It will pop up on my sales pages. I have it set and it will, it does say you will only see this offer once and you will unless you can game the system somehow. But like that’s how it’s set up in the back and it’s a 30 minute discount. So the first time they come to the sales page they get offered that. Is that like the similar what you’re talking about?

Kate Kordsmeier [00:12:25]:
Exactly. I used to do it in Shopify, but now I’ve moved my shop to Kartra and I use convert box to provide the discount and it’s the same thing, it’s a 15 minute code and it’s a pop up that they’ll see and it is truly one time only. And so yeah, that. And it works really well.

Monica Froese [00:12:43]:
It really does. I think if that’s something people should take away because I was actually just looking at the stats on one of my programs. It’s $500 that I do not have an evergreen sequence set up for yet. And so I do live launches for it between there. The coupon code’s been used 25 times, so. 25 times 500 just because I put the coupon code on there. I didn’t even realize it was that much.

Steph Blake [00:13:04]:
So it worked.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:13:04]:
I’ll say. Sage was a big help in. Help in getting me to do this. Yes, I was very inspired by her and she came to speak to my group about this and of course I was like used to discounting things just a little bit and it didn’t work very well. And Sage was like, do you want to sell it or not? Like you’ve created it already. Do you want to sell it or not? And so she encouraged me to try really, really juicy discounts. Like I said, even discounting some of my courses that were normally $200 down to $7 and it does make a huge difference and now I kind of play in the balance of most of my discounts. You can get things from somewhere between $7 and $77 but it still works really well and I still make full price sales of things as well because you really can only get the discount once.

Sage Grayson [00:13:58]:
Fantastic. I love it. Destiny, did you have a strategy?

Dr Destini Copp [00:14:01]:
Well, the other, the other thing I was just going to say and I think ever all the strategies and we need to be doing them. The other thing that I’ve been doing for my memberships, I do live workshops every single month in both of my memberships. So what I will do, I will promote the live membership that I’m covering that month in the newsletter and also, you know, promote it a little bit more in, in the emails there. But it’s an always open membership. People can come in. But what I love about the strategy is when they see a specific workshop, a lot of times they’re like, okay, I got to come in because I definitely want that and it gives them a way to try it out. So that’s another strategy you can use for an always open offer.

Sage Grayson [00:14:44]:
That’s great.

Faith Mariah [00:14:45]:
Sorry, I was just going to add really quick. I do a lot of business coaching in our community and I feel like I do a lot of like business diagnostic and so I just wanted to give everybody this. You can walk through it yourself. But what I would walk you through is what is your traffic source? Where are people coming from? Is that working? If it’s like, yes, that’s working there. There’s people going from your traffic source to your email list, right? Because most of us, I would imagine, if you guys don’t have social, right, they’re going from your traffic source to your email list to your offer, right? So it’s like, are they going from the traffic source to the email? And then it’s like, are they going from the email to the offer? So if they’re opening the email and they’re not going to the offer, that means the way you are talking about the offer is not compelling enough. So you’re either not talking about it enough. Like Ruth was saying, you’ve got to talk about your stuff a lot. And also like, people need a lot of touch points now.

Faith Mariah [00:15:33]:
So I think when I started, people used to say like, oh, people need 15 seen times to see it. I think it’s a lot more than that. I think right now people are being very intentional with how they’re spending and they’re holding their dollars. Right. And thinking about their purchases more. And that just means they need to see it more times and be very clearly explained what it is, how it’s going to help them and they need to see it more than one time. I always tell my community, like, it’s not that they didn’t buy, they just haven’t bought yet. So you thought they needed to hear about it 10 times, maybe they need to hear about it 20 times.

Faith Mariah [00:16:05]:
Like I’m like, go tell them about it more, go talk about it more. And then looking at, are they going to the sale, the sales page and then not buying, right? Or are they going from the sales page to the cart? But following that process all the way through is literally how I diagnose people’s businesses. In any problem you want to solve, you just go through each touch point and find like where it’s breaking down and that’ll give you a leverage point where you can actually see results. So you’re not working on a leverage point that’s not really going to do that much or get that big of an impact on your bottom line.

Sage Grayson [00:16:34]:
100%. Steph mentioned in the chat 25 times now, to see something is probably, probably the average. I 100% believe that.

Steph Blake [00:16:43]:
Blame TikTok for that because we all have really low attention spans, much more than before.

Tara Reid [00:16:49]:
Can I, can I, like, put out a question to the panel? Because this kind of leads into something that I was reading, a discussion. So I’m curious on everyone else’s answers too. Like when we’re talking about more touch points and how we’re all focused on email, like, how often are we emailing our.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:17:06]:
Our list?

Tara Reid [00:17:06]:
I think that would be really helpful because I know I’m. I’ve been told by a couple people that I’m emailing too much. And I’m like, I gotta do what I gotta do. This is my main channel. So.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:17:16]:
Who told you that, Tara?

Tara Reid [00:17:18]:
Oh, just a few subscribers that were like, this is too much. I’m leaving.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:17:22]:
Yeah, I know.

Steph Blake [00:17:24]:
Like 18 emails in one day.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:17:27]:
So, yeah, like, yeah, you’re good.

Sage Grayson [00:17:30]:
Minimum once a day this week I’ve had three days that were twice a day. And then if you sign up for any of my email memberships, you are also getting those emails too. And I also don’t pause people when they get on my list from a bundle or a freebie. I don’t pause them. Everyone gets everything immediately. So some people are getting three, four, five emails a day from me.

Faith Mariah [00:17:50]:
I have a good story about this because when I had my first business, my mental health blog, I actually emailed every day and I did like a daily little newsletter. And people would always ask me, they’re like, don’t you have a lot of unsubscribes? Like, how don’t you have all these unsubscribes? And I’m like, yeah, I have a lot of unsubscribes and I’m making more money than ever. And so what’s always been true in my career, consistently through like a decade of doing this, is that the more emails I send, the more money I make and the more unsubscribes I get. So you have to be careful looking at those numbers and always make sure you’re looking at what do you care more about, right? And looking at are you making sales when you’re sending emails? Like, you might care more about that than the unsubscribes.

Monica Froese [00:18:30]:
But that’s also why there’s no such thing as, like lead gen not being a thing. Lead gen is something 247 that you have to have a pulse on. And I have personal testament to that because I was always great at focusing, having a decent focus on lead gen. And then I went through some really rough personal stuff and I just couldn’t show up the way I had been for my lead gen direct hit to my sales because I could keep emailing. That was not A problem for me, but I wasn’t cycling new people in. And when you do email every day, which I do, you’re eventually going to wear out that audience. Like, so, like people, I have a lot of people in my audience that will ask me, like, they think there’s like a goal line for their lead gen and I’m like, there is no goal line for it. You will always have to attract new people to you.

Monica Froese [00:19:14]:
There’s no such thing as like, you’re done now, like, and take it. For me, the biggest, the biggest hit I ever took to my business was turning off my ads for a six month period. And you usually realize your effort six months out. So what you’re doing now is going to be your sales in six months. Let me tell you, when that six months came for me, it wasn’t pretty and I will never do that again.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:19:35]:
I think that’s such a good point too about like lag time and that sort of thing. And this is just. I’m so glad Tara asked this question because we’re literally writing an email to my list right now about how we’ve gotten some complaints about you send too many emails. Of course. Like Faith said, the more emails I send, the more money I make. So that my email list exists to make money. That is the whole purpose for it. And so if I’m not selling to my email list, there is no reason for me to have an email list.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:20:09]:
And it’s my only channel to sell from because I’m not on social. And so Sharon, thank you. Saying I love your emails in the chat. Thank you. And it’s funny because I was going to say on the same day that we get emails from people being like, oh, you email too much. Chill. We get emails like that from Sharon saying, I love your emails. This one meant so much to me.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:20:30]:
And yeah, so there’s a few things that I do when I. Because I also email, I wouldn’t say every day like clockwork, but I at least email three or four times a week like clockwork. And sometimes depending on what’s going on, it might be every day. And if it’s during lunch, it might be two or three times a day. And so I always have opt out links for the promos at the top of my email. So it’ll say like, if you want to stay on my list but you’re not interested in my birthday sale, click here. And you won’t hear any more about this. So that helps people.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:21:03]:
And then I also just kind of think like people are adults if you don’t know how to manage your inbox like that is a you problem, that is not a me problem. I know how to manage my inbox. There are filters, there are roll ups, there are labels, there are so many different ways that you can figure out and you can adjust your settings on different emails. So the end of my emails it always says edit details. You can say, I only want these emails, I don’t want these emails. So I think if you can’t figure that out, we’re not meant to work together anyway, so that’s fine.

Sage Grayson [00:21:34]:
Can I say one thing about the.

Monica Froese [00:21:35]:
Opt out links though? Because I used to use them religiously and I want to give people the opportunity to segment themselves on my list for what they want to do. But the bots started hitting and what ended up happening was my opt out links were getting hit by people’s bots, like the bot clicks and they were getting added onto like an opt out. And then they never heard about the offer again. And then months later they’d be like, you never even told me this existed. Like they would join a live training of mine and be like, wait, what’s going on right now? And so I actually stopped using them because of how many bot hits I was getting to them. And now I just, when I’m doing a specific promo, I just have a thing at the bottom that says, if you’d like to opt out of this promo sequence, just reply and we will manually add the opt out. It is a little bit more work, but I just wanted to mention that like it became a big issue for me.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:22:19]:
That’s really.

Steph Blake [00:22:20]:
It also depends on which tools you’re using because some of them will automatically do a double opt out. So like just, it’s not like a trigger link where if you click the link you’re automatically going to opt out. That’s what happens with those bots. But you have to actually like click the link and say, no, I actually want to like unsubscribe from these specific emails. And one thing that I was going to say along the lines of the first question was my main way of getting new people in for all of my offers is collabs. So whether that’s like email collabs or sponsorships or bundles, summits, speaking opportunities, because same as Monica, you can’t just keep emailing the exact same people over and over. You have to keep getting new people in, right? Or else you’re eventually going to wear everybody. Nobody wants to keep hearing the same things over and over again.

Steph Blake [00:23:03]:
So yeah, I’m a big believer of emailing at least four times a week, but then also constantly getting new people in because you’re always going to get unsubscribes. The more you email, the more unsubscribes you’re going to get. So that’s just something that you have to get used to and be okay with it.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:23:18]:
Does anybody here even pay attention to unsubscribes though? Like, it is not a metric I look at. I don’t care if you don’t.

Steph Blake [00:23:24]:
If you want, subscribe and you don’t want to be in my world, I’m okay with that.

Tara Reid [00:23:28]:
I love when people unsubscribe. It’s like they’re removing themselves before I have do my next cleanup.

Sage Grayson [00:23:34]:
So.

Tara Reid [00:23:34]:
And I do that quarterly anyway, so.

Sage Grayson [00:23:37]:
I do want to quickly jump in here. But yes, I don’t track unsubscribes. I love when people unsubscribe. And I want a list of super fans. So I do email every single day and I want people who really, really like sage to be on my list. And if you don’t really, really like me, if you’re not a super fan, then you are free to unsubscribe. So my list is very like highly engaged and they love getting emails every day. And to answer this question about how do I get traffic to my always open offers, I go all in with bundles and summits.

Sage Grayson [00:24:09]:
I do more than 125 bundles and summits a year because like, oh no, that works for me. So I’m constantly, like they said, I’m constantly getting new people on my list too. And just like Kate, I use order bumps, I use upsells for everything. I use very low priced tripwires. And like Monica said, when I do summits, when I’m speaking or when I’m guesting on a podcast or something, I get more sales because people get to hear me and imagine what it’s like to work with me. So I do encourage all of you to be brave and do something where you have to show up on camera. It will really boost your sales. Okay, I think we have spent enough time on the first question.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:24:51]:
We’re going to move on.

Sage Grayson [00:24:52]:
We’re going to shift gears here. Our next question. I really wish our friend, our fellow weird hermit, Liz Stapleton was here from Blogger Breakthrough because I knew she would have stuff to say say about this. So the question is, is blogging still an effective way to gain leads to your business or your product? Is blogging still effective? Oh, and for those of you who are asking in the chat, yes, there will be a replay. We will get that to you afterwards. So who wants to talk about does blogging matter anymore?

Dr Destini Copp [00:25:20]:
Me. I do. Yes.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:25:23]:
Yes, it absolutely still matters. And I know that Tara is going to agree with me. Tara and I take a very similar approach, actually, to a lot of the marketing in our. And yes, SEO is changing and a lot of 60% of Google searches now don’t end in a click. And so you hear that people think so. SEO is dead. Don’t write blog posts anymore. This is a waste of time.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:25:50]:
But I completely disagree because AI search is alive and well. And if you want to show up and be recommended or quoted or cited in AI tools like Chat GPT or Perplexity or Claude, and people Google things like, how do I grow my business without social media? I want to show up in there. And one of the best ways to do that is by still publishing blog posts and establishing your authority and getting the, your message out there, proving that you are an expert and that you have a way that you can help people. And I don’t think that will ever go away. I think that the good news is SEO, I think, has changed for the better because now instead of all of this mechanical kind of writing and keyword stuffing, it’s so much more about your authentic experience and sharing your human story. And so to me, that’s just like, great. We get to write about what we actually want to write about now instead of trying to fit some algorithm. But that’s my quick and dirty answer of yes, absolutely.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:26:53]:
Blogging is still a very effective way. And, and while I have other strategies that I use in my business to grow my email list and to make sales, blogging has consistently been the number one way that I’ve done that for over 10 years.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:27:09]:
I don’t know if anyone has seen this, but I was using ChatGPT recently. They’ve got this new feature where they hyperlink people’s names. This just seemed to pop up in the last couple of weeks and it, it gets the information from, you know, the stuff that you’re already doing, like the older school marketing methods. I mean, obviously things are changing and who knows, but I just noted, I literally just noticed that, and it was linking out people’s websites and giving like a summary based on the pages and the information that was available. And, you know, I just did a summit about AI and someone was talking about showing up in the AI search results and stuff, and loads of them, the stuff is still the stuff that you should be doing on your blog anyway, that creates the authority that then gets AI to choose you as the thing to link to, the person to link to. So it’s. It’s all connected and it’s not as it doesn’t. I’m not the expert, but it doesn’t seem as extreme as some people might make out.

Sage Grayson [00:28:10]:
One of my contacted showed me that I came up multiple times in ChatGPT and her searches from my blog post. So I definitely recommend that. That’s actually one of the questions that we got ahead of time was how do we get recommended by ChatGPT? Like blogging.

Tara Reid [00:28:27]:
Can I jump in on that? Because I. Because I’m in the process of doing like a get it done week on this. And basically what I would say for anyone, especially if you’ve been using like ChatGPT or whatever tool is to ask it, like in your niche, like, who are. For example, for me, I would say, who are the people who are helping entrepreneurs grow without social media? It gives me a list of people. If I’m not on there, I will say, how come I am not listed? I’ll give my website and I’ll say, what can I do to get listed? Like, what can I do? What things can I improve? And it will give you an action plan of steps to take. So use ChatGPT to help you kind of figure out how can I better, like create better content and messaging in order to get recommended for what I want to be recommended for in AI because it is definitely growing. It’s not eliminating search, but it is definitely like that’s where people are going to find people.

Sage Grayson [00:29:33]:
I love it.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:29:33]:
Just to add one more quick SEO tip here, along with what Tara said, which I love, is that ChatGPT uses Bing to do its search results. And so the same, the same indicators that would help you rank on Bing or Google or these other search engines are the same things that are going to help you rank with ChatGPT.

Monica Froese [00:29:57]:
I had no idea that was the case.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:30:00]:
Yeah. So the same things like making sure that your site speed is fast and that your images are optimized and all of the things that help SEO are the same indicators that you rank.

Monica Froese [00:30:12]:
So even more so than that, I. Because I have a good pulse on like my Google search console, of course I know my sitemaps have been submitted to Google. When’s the last time I cared about Bing? I don’t know. When I was a baby blogger a decade ago. So now I’m like, well, Kate, you just gave Me an action item.

Sage Grayson [00:30:28]:
Thanks.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:30:28]:
There you go. You’re welcome.

Sage Grayson [00:30:32]:
All right, are we ready for the next question?

Kate Kordsmeier [00:30:34]:
I did post a blog post that I have with very specific tips also for how to rank with within AI tools. So that’s a free resource for anybody also that wants to check that out. It’s in the chat.

Dr Destini Copp [00:30:46]:
Thank you.

Sage Grayson [00:30:46]:
Thank you for sharing that. All right, next question. I love going on podcasts and summits, but they’re time consuming. Also, there aren’t a ton in my niche that my avatar listens to. Do you think it is worthy of my time to go outside my niche, which is music to podcasts and summits that focused on creatives or empowering women? Or is that not the best use of my limited time to attract leads? I have something to say about this. Yes, I really do believe that bundles and summits are important and a great way to get new people on your list, even if you feel like you have, like a very specific niche. I don’t have a niche. So that allows me to do more than 125 bundles and summits a year.

Sage Grayson [00:31:29]:
So I can do witchy ones or mom ones or productivity ones or business ones. I’m all over the place. So I get a variety of people on my list because I sell a variety of products. So you said music. I bet there is a way, like you said, that you can fudge it and get into other bundles and summits. Don’t be like, I only work with this type of person. Does that person also want something else? Like, if I only work with business people, would they also like to learn how to be productive? Are they moms? Would they also like to learn how to manage their schedule as a mom? Like, you can fudge it a little bit because your audience. I know you have an avatar, but your audience is multifaceted just like you.

Sage Grayson [00:32:09]:
We are fully realized human beings and we don’t fit into a specific niche. So I say, yes, please apply to summits and bundles that are a little bit outside your niche. And I think you’re going to like having people on your list who are multifaceted, who want more than just this teeny, tiny thing.

Steph Blake [00:32:28]:
I have thoughts on this too.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:32:29]:
Yes.

Steph Blake [00:32:30]:
Yeah, So I have. We do monthly events. I call them retreats, not summits. At my other company called Create an Escape. And whenever I reach out to people or review applications that come in, I’m always looking for applications that are a little outside of the box. So, for example, sage. Like, if you have a resource focused on productivity and our event Is called, well, we just did one called unlocking your intuition. That was our event from a couple days ago.

Steph Blake [00:32:58]:
How can we take productivity and tie that into intuition? Right, so it’s just thinking really strategically about how you can take whatever you’re doing and tying it into that specific theme.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:09]:
Right?

Steph Blake [00:33:09]:
And there’s always a way to do it. Ask ChatGPT. It’ll give you 50 different ideas of how you can tie it into that specific theme so that you can get in front of that audience. With that said, if this is something that is so outside of your area, for example, if, if your focus is on music and this is a summit about golf, probably not, probably not the best fit. Right? So you, you have to do, you have to have some discretion with that. But, but there are so many different ways that you can think outside of the box to just be more, be more strategic with how you’re presenting yourself to the people who are reviewing these applications. Because there’s so many opportunities, so many.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:33:46]:
Excellent, excellent.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:33:47]:
I want to add that if you never try something before, you have to test it to know if it’s worth doing. You mentioned in the start of the question the time and effort and I just want to challenge you on that one. It does take time and effort to build your audience and the way to make it worth your while. Because it’s true, some summits and bundles are not gonna end up being the right fit. And you know, we have all been in loads of them and we still talk about, oh, I did this one and it wasn’t really right or whatever it happens and it’s part of the process, the way that you make it worth it for you is to know that whatever you are creating for that summit gets to be repurposed afterwards and potentially repurposed into other summits or repurposed into your offers. And you know, I have, I pitched a summit once I did not get accepted to and actually the talk idea was so good I turned it into a course and I sold loads of that course.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:34:38]:
Right.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:34:38]:
And similarly, like presentations I’ve created for summits become lead magnets or low cost offers or whatever. So that’s the way that you, you have to think in that kind of way. Like, yes, it takes time and effort, but you can also repurpose it. So it’s worth it no matter what happens as you add. Experiment.

Faith Mariah [00:34:56]:
Yeah, I want to add to that too because I think, I love that, Ruth. That’s what I was going to say. And then the second part of that I think too is people Just think, oh, it takes a task, takes the time it takes. And it’s like, no, the task takes how long you decide to do it. And so part of roi, and we’re always talking about this stuff in our meeting about how to automate things, how to do things faster. Like, we invest a lot of time and energy actually in like being more efficient. And so I think part of that efficiency is like what Ruth is speaking to about making sure you’re not just making one off things, you’re making things. Like maybe you want to update your course and you do your summit thing and that’s going to be your new little bonus module in your course.

Faith Mariah [00:35:32]:
Right. Thinking about how to repurpose is definitely a good way to save time. But then also, is there a way to be faster, like getting ready? My team used to have a database of stuff and they would do a lot of the application stuff for me, Right. So I would just record it and drop it and they would fill out the form and do all that. I never even touched that. Even if you don’t have a team, there’s like different ways to be more efficient. And so I think it’s a good question to ask yourself about how long am I spending doing this? And like how could I do it in half the time? Even if it’s not possible to cut it that much, I just think it’s a good place to take your brain.

Sage Grayson [00:36:07]:
Yeah, I love that. I repurpose everything that I put into summits and I reuse the slides, just changing out the words. Like, you can absolutely save time with this. I want everyone to make sure they’re checking in the chat because Kate very helpfully linked to specific Facebook groups where we find most of the applications for bundles and some comments. So please check out those. Oh yes, and Steph has Collab Hub here. Please check that out in our document that we’ve shared. I know Faith has a link to her newest summit.

Sage Grayson [00:36:35]:
Faith, Steph, those of you who have applications for summits that are open right now, can you please put them in the chat for everyone? I also recommend signing up for the Hot List Lounge. It’s an email by Bundle Bash and they just send me the links to open applications every week and I don’t have to go searching for them. So I like that one thing.

Monica Froese [00:36:54]:
I do that because I. I haven’t been in 125 in a year, but I’ve been in a decent amount of bundles and summits. So I will pick a presentation that I like. I will say I Like take it on tour for about three months of the summit calendars and I record it. I learned. I record it once, the intro. I’m very careful not to mention what summit it is. I introduce myself.

Monica Froese [00:37:16]:
The only thing that has to change is the call to action at the end because it has to be its unique link. So then I film it through the presentation once. That’s one file. And then it’s a 60 second outro I have to do for each summit. And it has saved me so much time.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:37:33]:
Wonderful.

Sage Grayson [00:37:36]:
Yes. So it’s the Hot List Lounge by Bundle Bass. I do have an affiliate link for it, but I can’t find it right now. So there you go. Check it out anyway. So yeah, it’s great. Every week I get a list of all of the open applications for bundles. Plus there’s one business action step and then one mindset action step too, if you like that.

Sage Grayson [00:38:03]:
I love little tips too, but it’s nice because I did have to go to all of those Facebook groups, which I really, really appreciate, where people are putting their applications. In my Facebook group too, people are putting applications for bundles, but it is a little time consuming. So if you can tighten it up and get on anyone’s list, whether it’s a hot list lounge or somebody else who does send those applications, that’s going to save you time too. We ready for the next question? All right, let’s do it. Okay, how do I refine the traffic so that I’m getting more relevant people coming in rather than those casual browsers? I’d also love your best tips on converting that traffic to from subscribers to customers fast. Okay, so how do we get those buyers and not those looky loos?

Kate Kordsmeier [00:38:52]:
Who’s got some thoughts on this? And it’s something I wanted to circle back to because Monica mentioned running ads. And this is something that I feel like a lot of us here do. Some of us have dipped our toes in, some have gone all in. People are always so afraid of running ads. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t be. It’s expensive and it’s risky and, you know, just like anything. But you’re either paying for something with your time or with your money, and sometimes both. And I feel like, especially with this conversation of bundles and summits, which I’m also a huge fan of, but I am a huge fan of diversifying all things.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:39:31]:
Revenue streams, traffic streams, lead gen, all of those things. And so I also run ads. It has has always been the fastest proven way to grow my email list and to this question about how do you make sure that you’re getting, like, real buyers and people who will go on, you know, to not just be browsers. Targeting, that’s like what you can do in Ads Manager. And I find this to be a thousand percent different from being on social media. I am in Ads Manager running an ad campaign the same way I would be if I was running a billboard on the side of the highway. Doesn’t mean I’m driving on the highway stuck in traffic. So I think of ads being very different.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:40:13]:
And you can set up targeting within your ads so that you are targeting specific types of people, that you’re targeting specific interests, specific zip codes. I mean, there’s a million different ways that you can target and even optimizing your ads for different objectives. So a lot of people run freebie campaigns on like basically running an ad to your lead magnet. And they would optimize for leads. But I found much more success optimizing for purchases. And even though I’m sending those leads to a freebie, I have a tripwire, of course, on the end with a bump and an upsell, it completely offsets 100% of my ad spend currently and then some. And that’s before they even get on my email list and hopefully go on to buy more things from me. And so optimizing for that purchase has really helped.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:41:06]:
Facebook is. The algorithm is so smart now. It knows when people are ready to buy. It knows when people have been looking at something similar and they’re in purchase mode. And so using Facebook ads or meta ads has been one of the best ways for me to get. Get traffic to my email list. And you can really refine who that traffic is and ensure that you’re getting people who are legit serious buyers, not just the looky loos, as Sage calls them. Absolutely.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:41:40]:
Great.

Sage Grayson [00:41:41]:
Who else has ideas?

Faith Mariah [00:41:47]:
I’ll add. I just, I think also you can do a lot with your messaging. So making sure when you’re putting out free things or you’re. You’re talking to people that are ready to buy. A lot of times in my community, I’ll see people talking to people like they don’t even know they have that problem yet, or it’s like they’re not talking to the people that would actually buy their program. So you want to really look at your program and what you’re selling and what your offer is and break that down. Exactly who that person is, exactly what stage they’re at, what they’re thinking, what they’re struggling with, when they’re ready to buy and then you make a, a presentation based on that. I think sometimes people look too wide and then that’s where it’s like, why do I have all these random people? It’s like, well, your messaging wasn’t talking to the people that would actually pay money to fix this problem and are ready to pay money to fix this problem too.

Sage Grayson [00:42:35]:
Oh, there’s a fantastic question in the chat. All right, I want, I want our thoughts on this. What are your thoughts on having people pay for the most expensive package, thus becoming VIPs but then discounting the same programs for as low as $7 to grow their audience? I understand that they need more leads, but you. Shouldn’t you take care of your big, oh, it jumped. Shouldn’t you take care of your biggest supporters? I see coaches do it and I find it so infuriating from a customer perspective. I come from a customer service background, so it’s always my top priority. My thought is, yes, sometimes things are discounted later and people have paid full price. Didn’t you get value out of it? Wasn’t it worth the full price? And if you got value out of it and enjoyed it, then what’s the problem? I would never go to another company and and be like, hey, I bought this three months ago at full price and now it’s discounted.

Sage Grayson [00:43:30]:
Give me like, give me more money back. Like, whoa, that just feels super entitled and weird to me. So, yes, like, companies discount things for holidays, for birthdays, for whatever. Didn’t you get value out of it at a full price.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:43:45]:
Problem?

Monica Froese [00:43:46]:
I actually just had an interesting email that I had to respond to last week along these lines. So this person came in, paid a certain price for a program, but what she paid for, not only she got ongoing updates, which new people, only a 12 month container of ongoing updates. She had four months of live support and the version. So then she saw the sales page, it cut in half. There’s no live support. I am not showing up. And I do think in. When you build a business like this, people think like, okay, if I bought my Dyson vacuum for 500 and then on Black Friday, it’s like 179.

Monica Froese [00:44:26]:
I am not going back into Target and being like, I bought this in June. I’ve been using it for six months. I’m really mad that you’re running a promotion on Black Friday to this. We don’t do that to brands, but people think they can do it to people. And honestly, I’ve just gotten to the point in my business where, like, I think that there definitely is integrity things that we can talk about here. There is definitely some things that could be out of line with you discounting things.

Steph Blake [00:44:48]:
But, like, in.

Monica Froese [00:44:49]:
In this case, when I wrote back, it’s like you had four months life support you are getting. I went through all the things I’ve added into the program since she bought it. It’s like, you know, and at the end of the day, I still have to make money on this program. So, like, if the market changes, if the market shifts, shifts. And now I could sell it a year ago at this price point, but now the. The market’s not bearing that, and I have to mark it down. Are you telling me I’m just not allowed to sell my program? Like, so there’s, like, there’s definitely some arguments to be made. I understand where they’re coming from.

Monica Froese [00:45:18]:
But also, like, I think people have to remember we are people who are running businesses, and in order for us to show up, like, our stuff has to be selling. So if it’s not selling at that price point anymore, we have to change it. We have to adapt to the market condition. Yeah, I think that’s a really good.

Faith Mariah [00:45:36]:
I think that’s a really good point, Monica. I totally agree with everything you said. And we run discounts and sales in my business. I just want to add this is really, like, a. Like an ethical question, and it really has to be what feels right to you and everybody on this panel. We all run our businesses different. We all make different decisions. We’re in a voxer chat, and somebody will ask a question, and we’ll answer it seven different ways.

Faith Mariah [00:45:57]:
It really has to come down to, like, if that feels bad to you, then you should not do that. Right? Always. And I’ll tell you the most expensive mistakes and the things that I look back on, and I’m kind of like, oh, like, I wish I had not done that. I felt the whole time, this does not feel right to me. And I saw someone else do it or someone I thought someone knew more than me. Right. But at the end of the day, it’s like, nobody’s gonna know better about my business than me, and nobody’s gonna know better about your business than you. I don’t care how much money they’ve made.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:46:27]:
Need.

Faith Mariah [00:46:27]:
You have to stay in integrity with what feels right to you, because if that feels out of integrity to you, you will not be able to sell it anyway. So. So I think there’s like. Like Monica’s saying there’s, like, two sides of It. Right. But always do just what feels best to you, and I think you’ll be. You’ll be good.

Steph Blake [00:46:46]:
Yeah, I totally agree with that, Faith. I think as long as you stay in integrity with yourself. And even if you say, I. I made this example before because I shut down my Shopify store and I bring a sale saying my shop is closing. I never said that these products are disappearing forever, though. I was very. I was very conscious of that in my marketing. To say, like, the shop is closing, so you can get everything for 50 off.

Steph Blake [00:47:08]:
I did not say, you will never see these products for sale again because I was like, Faith was saying, like, I was thinking long term, like, okay, what. What would I potentially want to do in the future? And I don’t want somebody coming back to me saying, hey, you said this thing was never going to be here again, and now you’re selling it again.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:47:23]:
Right.

Steph Blake [00:47:23]:
So there’s just. There’s. There’s so many different ways to view this based on, like, yourself, your goals, your business.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:47:30]:
Right.

Steph Blake [00:47:30]:
But I think as long as you, like, like, Faith is saying, like, you do whatever feels right for you because at the end of the day, it’s your business.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:47:37]:
Right.

Steph Blake [00:47:37]:
Like, and if somebody gets mad about it, they’re going to get mad about it anyway.

Monica Froese [00:47:40]:
People always get mad.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:47:41]:
You can’t get mad.

Steph Blake [00:47:42]:
Exactly.

Monica Froese [00:47:43]:
As you grow an audience.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:47:44]:
Yep.

Monica Froese [00:47:45]:
Somebody’s not going to. Like, and this is what I say all the time. I’m like, I can’t run a business for the one person who’s mad at me. I’m sorry, I just can’t.

Sage Grayson [00:47:54]:
Thank you.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:47:55]:
Faith has said this to us before, and it sticks with me all the time. I think about it constantly, and it’s. I don’t make decisions in my business based on my worst customers. Like, I make them based on my best customers. And I think I. I really do. I come back to that all the time. Faith, when I’m thinking about, like, how do I want to do this? Or, oh, somebody said I sent too many emails, or somebody’s complaining that this or whatever, and I go, I don’t know.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:48:21]:
Think they’re my people. Like, I don’t want to make decisions based on that. There’s other people, like Sharon who are like, I love your emails. Keep them coming. I don’t want to miss them. So I think you just. You cannot do everything right. You cannot please everyone.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:48:36]:
I think this is also, like, you can make a decision and change your mind. You can make a decision and evolve. You can have the tripwire and you can have a customer who writes in and requests a price adjustment or a discount and you can decide on a case by case basis. You know what, this seems legit. They bought it yesterday. Now they’re seeing that it’s discount. Maybe I’m going to honor that versus somebody who bought it four months ago. Got the, you know, the service that you provided.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:49:04]:
But I think all of it is like, you don’t have to. I think having boundaries and like having, you know, a decision made before you get into a conflict can often be helpful. But also just giving yourself permission to like evolve and take things as they come and trusting yourself to handle it if and when it arises. Because I think so many of us get in our heads, we won’t do something, we won’t take the action because we’re like, what if somebody gets mad? It’s like maybe they will, but maybe they won’t. And just trust yourself to be able to handle that if and when it happens.

Sage Grayson [00:49:36]:
Yeah, don’t worry about problems that haven’t happened yet.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:49:38]:
Right.

Sage Grayson [00:49:40]:
Love it. Okay, we’re running out of time so let me go back to our questions. Maybe we’ll skip around. Ladies, was there a specific question from our list that you wanted me to get to? We had something about baby steps for starting. We got some about how to get people traffic to bigger items like high ticket items or requirements for social media. When you join a bundle or summit, does anyone have a specific thing we want to talk about?

Ruth Poundwhite [00:50:09]:
I mean you could, you can negotiate. I mean I would never have a problem with that. As a summit host, you say I don’t do social media. Can I do any another email mention instead? 100%.

Sage Grayson [00:50:18]:
I’ve never had an issue with that. I just say I just don’t do social media and there’s never a problem.

Monica Froese [00:50:24]:
Interesting because like I have my social media profile set up so I’m like, whatever, I’ll post the story. It’s not going to get you any sales but if you’re going to make your whatever, I’ll post the story.

Tara Reid [00:50:38]:
Yeah, I usually offer to send an additional email in place of social media which I mean that’s gonna be very beneficial to the host for me to send two solo emails or like one solo and an extra. P.S. or mention versus me posting on a social media platform that hasn’t been posted on in three years.

Steph Blake [00:51:02]:
Most of events I would prefer people’s on multiple emails instead of social media and I don’t care if somebody’s not on social media. It’s Just the reason that those are in place is so that we can ensure fairness across all of the people. Because you don’t want a couple of people promoting and doing all of the work and then other people not doing it. So that’s why they’re in place. But you can, nine times out of ten, there’s some wiggle room there with the host.

Monica Froese [00:51:28]:
I mean, just as someone who doesn’t run a lot of. I’ve only actually done one or two events where people contribute it. Usually when I run events, it’s just like me running a challenge and it’s just me as a speaker. I am kind of curious, though, as, like, Ruth and Steph, all of you that run summits, why even make social a requirement? Why?

Sage Grayson [00:51:46]:
Just.

Monica Froese [00:51:47]:
We all know the sales come from email, so why even make it? Like, when I ran my one bundle, I didn’t put social requirements in, so I’m.

Steph Blake [00:51:53]:
It depends. Some people have really large social followings that convert. For example, some of the people in our events, they’ll have like 75,000 followers on social media, but they’ll have like 300 people on their email list.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:52:03]:
Interesting.

Monica Froese [00:52:04]:
Let’s fail it. Let’s fail it.

Dr Destini Copp [00:52:07]:
It’s different at the B to C market.

Faith Mariah [00:52:09]:
Yeah, that’s exactly Destiny. Already knew what I was gonna say.

Dr Destini Copp [00:52:12]:
Yeah, for sure.

Monica Froese [00:52:14]:
Okay, so that makes it more sense. I was coming from a B2B perspective, but B2C, even still, there’s some B2B.

Steph Blake [00:52:20]:
It just kind of depends on the person, you know? Like, I know other people who convert just from Instagram stories. Like, that’s their main traffic driver. Right, so.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:52:29]:
Or is there a way to, like.

Monica Froese [00:52:30]:
Let people just choose? Like, people know what’s going to convert for them. Right, so, like, sure, yeah.

Steph Blake [00:52:36]:
So, like, it’s hurting if that person said, like, I know my Instagram stories are going to convert much better than email. Can I send five Instagram stories instead of two emails or whatever? I’d be like, yeah, please.

Dr Destini Copp [00:52:46]:
Yeah.

Monica Froese [00:52:46]:
I kind of almost just know that Summit and Bundle people would open that up as a conversation. Like, so people understand that they can ask for what makes sense. Because a lot of people are just going to blindly do what it says. And, I mean, I don’t know, I think it would be more compelling to me. Just food for thought.

Steph Blake [00:53:01]:
Yeah, Just talk to people, have a conversation. It’s very simple.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:53:04]:
Very simple.

Dr Destini Copp [00:53:06]:
Sage, what about number 13 on the list?

Sage Grayson [00:53:08]:
I think this is a great one to kind of wrap up the call. Going back to basics, we have people on our Call right now. Who are absolute beginners. So what are the first five baby steps you would recommend to an absolute newbie with zero followers about to launch her freebie? All right, how do we get these newbies to get traffic to their brand new freebie? Who’s got thoughts?

Kate Kordsmeier [00:53:34]:
Destiny, you should start. You want.

Dr Destini Copp [00:53:36]:
Well, I. The reason why I saw it on the list and I actually did a review for somebody this morning for their growth plan. And this is real. This was the question that they had. They were starting from scratch. And, you know, we talked about it a lot today in some of it comes down to do you have the budget to run ads? I do think the ads are one of the best things that we can do to get that targeted person on our email list. But for somebody who’s just beginning, you know, they’re just starting. They don’t really have us.

Dr Destini Copp [00:54:04]:
They don’t have a season. Facebook pizza. They might not even have their website yet. I would go out and do the collaborations. So even if it’s just, you know, finding somebody in your niche that you can collaborate with, if you don’t even feel good, confident going out to pitch a bundle or a summit, I would start very small and then just work your way up from there. The other thing that I would do is, if you feel comfortable with it, is go out and do some podcast guesting. That’s another thing that I would do just to get your voice out there. I can tell you that some of the first podcast guests episodes that I did, they were awful.

Dr Destini Copp [00:54:45]:
I mean, I have gone back and listened to them. I was so bad. But after doing them over and over and over over again, I’m very confident with it now. So it’s partly just getting your voice out there, making those connections, but I think the collaborations is where I would suggest that you start.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:55:06]:
I wanted to chime in here because I know one of the other questions on the list mentioned something about I don’t really want to be on social media, but I don’t think I’m. You didn’t say it like this, but I don’t think I’m allowed to unless I have. Have 2,000 email subscribers or something like that. And I was just. Because this really links in with what we’re talking about because check yourself on what rules you have around how you think you need to do it. Yes, some audiences are more on social. Yes, social media makes sense for some people. Personality wise, audience wise.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:55:36]:
But you don’t have to have. So you, you, you don’t like if you’re doing what Destiny just suggested. And you have a reason for people to join your email list. See your email list as the hub. Give people a reason to join reasons. Join doesn’t even have to be a freebie if you haven’t got time or whatever to make that yet. But a reason like what, what are you going to give them? And. And you can totally focus on my first Business 100 email.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:56:01]:
I just, I hate. I know I couldn’t show my face.

Faith Mariah [00:56:03]:
I was terrified.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:56:04]:
So didn’t do social media. Good point.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:56:09]:
Oh, sorry for somebody else starting. Okay. I was just going to add too. I completely agree with what everyone said, of course. And I always, I get this question all the time too. And I like to think of list growth and visibility in kind of two buckets. One is like short term ROI and one is more playing the long game. And so I think of things like even podcast guesting, which is kind of in the middle, but podcast guesting or SEO and things like that, or even social media, those are the long game.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:56:45]:
You’re not going to post one blog post or 10 social media posts and all of a sudden have 500 people on your email list. But doing a little bit each week I think does compound over time. So I think sometimes what I see is people with zero audience starting with only those long term strategies. And while I’m not saying don’t do those long term strategies, I think it’s not going to be the fastest way to some people on your list and start testing your offers and your messaging and seeing what’s, what’s working and what you even enjoy. What you think you want to do might be totally different once you actually start doing it and see how it feels. So I also like to compliment one long term strategy with one short term strategy happening at the same time. And that would be for me, like bundles and summits and ads are just the fastest ways to get hundreds of people onto your email list in one go. So I always like to do at least one of those two things or like hosting an affiliate partner challenge or something like we’ll do a JV webinar with somebody where I’m borrowing their audience to grow mine.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:57:53]:
Buying a sponsorship in somebody’s email list. Like I know a lot of us have sponsored spotlights in our emails and I know for me like I send a hundred clicks on average to somebody who sponsors my email. So if you have a 50 conversion rate on your freebie, you just got 50 people on your email list from sponsoring somebody’s email. So finding Those kinds of collaborations that will give you that immediate roi, I think will also help you build momentum and get some quicker wins. And if you only focus on the long term strategies. That’s when I find people being like, oh my God, it’s taking forever. Nothing’s happening. It’s like, well, right.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:58:32]:
These are things that are going to compound over years, not over days.

Sage Grayson [00:58:38]:
Wonderful. Friends, we’re out of time. We’ve been here for an hour talking about how to get traffic to your shop, blog and website using mostly not social media. Thank you so much for being here today. So we are the weird hermits. We do this every month. We share our best strategies on a specific topic. So we are going to send the replay out.

Sage Grayson [00:58:59]:
When you see that replay email, make sure you hit reply and tell us what, what topics we should do for our next panel. And then once we get all the ideas, we will let you know what our next topic is and when we are hosting it next. Also, yes, let me put our.

Steph Blake [00:59:13]:
I’m gonna stop you. Do we have email addresses for everybody?

Monica Froese [00:59:17]:
We do in the invite.

Sage Grayson [00:59:20]:
I just send it to my entire list whether they came here or not.

Steph Blake [00:59:23]:
Okay.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:59:24]:
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Someone is on someone.

Monica Froese [00:59:28]:
Like people who signed up.

Kate Kordsmeier [00:59:29]:
Yeah.

Steph Blake [00:59:29]:
Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:59:30]:
As long as you’re on one of our email lists, which I guess you all probably are, that’s probably how you found out about this. Then we’ll send out the replay.

Sage Grayson [00:59:36]:
If you would like to be on our email list, here’s a link to all of our special offers. Some of them are traffic related, but they’re all delightful, so please check them out. Please get on our email list, reply to the replay email. Let us know what you want us to talk about on our next panel. All right, ladies, do we have any final thoughts about traffic?

Kate Kordsmeier [00:59:56]:
Not about traffic, but I would say everyone who’s enjoyed these chats that we’ve been doing every month, send us your requests for what you want us to cover next month. What topic should we talk about next month? So put it in the chat real quick or email us but let us know.

Dr Destini Copp [01:00:12]:
But I’m wondering if it should be about Black Friday.

Sage Grayson [01:00:15]:
I was thinking depending on when we.

Dr Destini Copp [01:00:17]:
Do it next month, that might be an interesting conversation.

Kate Kordsmeier [01:00:20]:
Yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah. Oh, I love it.

Sage Grayson [01:00:23]:
October Black Fridays.

Ruth Poundwhite [01:00:25]:
Get us who here is up for that? And let us know in the chat if that would be helpful for you.

Sage Grayson [01:00:30]:
This is going to be so great because I know almost all of us have different Black Friday strategies and they are so good. Some are hard selling, some are using freebies, some have completely out of the box off the wall ideas. So. Oh, I think that would be awesome. Let us know if you want us to talk about Black Friday.

Ruth Poundwhite [01:00:46]:
We’ll have to see if we can fit it in sooner. Like a less of a gap between them this time.

Kate Kordsmeier [01:00:52]:
I agree with that.

Sage Grayson [01:00:52]:
Maybe a little sooner. All right friends, thank you so much for being here. This has been Traffic School Roundtable with the Weird Hermits. We do this every month and we will see you again real soon. Thank you.

Ruth Poundwhite [01:01:06]:
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Soulful Sales. If you have a moment to rate and review, know that it really does make a difference. And if you’d like to carry on the conversation, then you can connect with me on instagram @ruth poundwhite. Sign up to my newsletter at ruthpoundwhite. Com newsletter or my personal favorite. Join me inside the low ticket membership@ruthpoundwhite.com membership and keep doing what you’re doing because your work really does matter.