292: Kindness As A Marketing Strategy

Most of us wait until we've got the whole thing figured out. Carrie Green opened her doors with one month of content ready, a rough plan for month two and an idea for January. And in her words, "Beyond that, I had no idea." Thousands of people joined over the years, and 13 years later it's still going. Carrie is the founder of the Female Entrepreneur Association and the author of She Means Business. She was also my very first consulting client, so this one goes way back. She had the idea for FEA in 2008. Then for a few years she did what a lot of us do. She bought domain names, set up websites and did nothing with them. In 2011 she finally went for it, and for the next two years she gave everything away: interviews with women building businesses, a weekly email, a weekly video, and a free digital magazine where she interviewed people like Kim Kiyosaki and Gabrielle Bernstein. By the time she opened the doors, she had 18,000 people on her email list and about 50,000 fans on Facebook. And then she started with one month. She'll tell you why, and money wasn't the biggest reason. Today she's building a list of people who actually buy, with small offers she makes herself with AI, and one of them sold to over 700 people in a small promotion. She also opens up about what happened to her community when she pulled back after having kids, and the question every ambitious person gets to eventually: when is enough enough? In this conversation, Carrie and I break down: - The real reason she started with one month of content - What was in that first month, including the printout she says "looked dreadful" - The guilt that kept her from charging anything for two years - Why "ready is not a feeling" - What she learned about why people really stay - What she puts on the thank-you page of every freebie - How one small promotion sold to over 700 people - When is enough enough? FREE RESOURCE: The three frameworks from this episode, one page each. The One-Month Start, The Buyers List, and The Sticky Part → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH CARRIE: - Female Entrepreneur Association: https://femaleentrepreneurassociation.com/  - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcarriegreen/  - Instagram (FEA): https://www.instagram.com/femaleentrepreneurassociation/  - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCraEIu_mORQKKo8eV9pk6Cw  - Podcast, She Means Business Show: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/she-means-business-show/id1199101868  - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FemaleEntrepreneurAssociation/  - X: https://x.com/iamcarriegreen  - Planners and stationery, Carrie & Co.: https://carrie.co/  - Book "She Means Business": https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/601650/she-means-business-by-carrie-green/  - TEDx talk "Programming your mind for success": https://youtu.be/MmfikLimeQ8 CONNECT WITH STU: - Website: https://stu.me  - Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz  - Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren  - Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me  - Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe if you want to build something that keeps going, even when life gets busy. That's what we work on here every week.

An 11-year-old boy in Sweden sent Ryan Trahan a DM. He'd never been able to try Ryan's candy brand, Joyride, because it isn't sold there. His one birthday wish was to finally taste a pack. Ryan got on a plane. Tyler and Rebecca join me to talk about kindness as a marketing strategy, not as a nice-to-have, but as one of the most effective moves available to any business right now. In this episode: - The founder who tracked down his single best customer and handed him his credit card - Why simple gestures, like calling a customer just to say thank you, create moments people never forget - The storytelling lesson hiding inside a viral "hopped on a train and built a business" video - The honest debate: is being kind for the sake of marketing manipulative, or does sharing it just spread more of it? - A billboard war between two ice cream and beer brands that turned into free advertising for both CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://stu.me Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe for new episodes every week.

There's a free workshop coming up where Stu is showing exactly what's possible when you start something today. Secure your spot: https://membershipworkshop.com --- Attention spans have dropped from 12 seconds in the year 2000 to just 7.2 seconds today. The average workday only allows about 4.5 minutes of real focus before an interruption. Rebecca, who leads our TME brand and has been a friend of mine for over 35 years, joins me to break down what these numbers mean if you teach, coach, or sell anything digital. In this episode: - Why we rebuilt our core program around the "Core Four" lessons - TME Sidekick, the AI tool one of our team members built that became one of the most used in our toolbox - Why shrinking attention spans don't mean people stopped wanting depth once you've earned their trust - Why Instagram just opened up 3 minute reels while Substack paid creators $510 million - The one stat that took course completion from 42.6% to 65.5% - How a shared launch date got around 150 people marching in the same direction - Simple ways to build community that don't depend on you teaching more CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://stu.me Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe for new episodes every week.

Susan Bradley went out for a drink with her husband and decided, right there, to shut off a million dollars a year in sales. It was most of what her company sold. The business scaled from there, and she later sold it a year ahead of her own plan. Today she sells about $300,000 of coaching calls a year inside her membership and keeps roughly $5 of it. The coaches get paid, 19 Zoom accounts eat the rest, and her retention has sat at 95 or 96% ever since. That trade is deliberate, and it is the clearest example of how she thinks about every business she has ever run. She has built, bought and sold multiple companies. She decides what the numbers have to look like first, then works backwards. When she bought her shoe company she hired an accountant, told him the price she wanted to sell it for, and asked what the numbers would have to look like to get there. She gave herself five years. They sold it in four. Before that came what she calls "20 years of torture," a business she scaled to a million dollar year and a small chain of retail stores. Eight straight years of growth ended with one down year, and that Christmas her mother announced she had finished all her shopping online. Susan closed roughly a million dollars of wholesale revenue on purpose and went all in on selling direct. Today she teaches thousands of ecommerce store owners through The Social Sales Girls. Her first paid course was $97 and sold exactly one copy. In this conversation, Susan and I break down: - The question she asked her accountant on the day she bought the company - Why she closed about a million dollars of wholesale revenue on purpose - Her own one sentence explanation for why the $97 course sold one copy - What changed between 68 members and 180 - The tick box on her opt in pages that 50 to 70% of people check - Why the podcast is the only front door she funds, and the 15% number underneath it - The three numbers she checks before she calls anything a failure FREE RESOURCE: The three frameworks from this episode, one page each, nothing to sign up for → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH SUSAN: - The Social Sales Girls: https://thesocialsalesgirls.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socialsalesgirls - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesocialsalesgirls - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2GHerESs_5Kd0c0dhKvH6g CONNECT WITH STU: - Website: https://stu.me - Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz - Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren - Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me - Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe for new episodes every week.

There's a free workshop coming up where Stu is showing exactly what's possible when you start something today. Secure your spot: https://membershipworkshop.com --- You don't need to be a developer anymore. You just need to be a builder. In this episode, Tyler and Bex join me to talk about AI agents and workflows, sub-agents, orchestrators, and tools like Claude Code. But the part that actually matters isn't the technical stuff. It's what it means for anyone with an idea. My son had no coding experience, no design skills, and an idea for a dog walking business. Thirty-five minutes later, he had a poster, a working website, and a live domain. Not because he was technical. Because he just asked. In this episode: - What AI agents and sub-agents actually do, explained simply - The dog walking business built start to finish in 35 minutes - Why the gap between having an idea and having the thing has never been smaller - One warning worth hearing: how easy it is to fall down the rabbit hole CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://stu.me Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe for new episodes every week.

Robert Hartwell spent almost ten years as a Broadway performer, performing eight times a week. In 2017 he faked being sick so he could skip his own show and sit in the back of my live event in Toronto, because that was the only way he could get a day to work on what came next. He walked out believing he could teach singing, dancing and acting to young people through a membership. Three years later Broadway shut down, and what he had quietly built was the only thing standing. He locked himself in a studio for three days and recorded a year of content. He gave himself one number to leave Broadway: 30 people into the summer program. He got 33. And the business went from six figures to seven figures and multiple seven figures once he let go of the identity he was holding on to. Now he runs a second business coaching entrepreneurs on story selling. Which is how we got to the part of this conversation I keep thinking about: a five day challenge into a 12 month program with 40 openly promised spots, that closed at 26. He did not go quiet. He said the number out loud, to the buyers, on camera. In this conversation, Robert and I break down: - The four questions he asks parents that turn one class into a three or four year commitment - The gap-and-bridge move underneath every offer he makes, and the guardrail he puts on it - The green, yellow and red system behind his retention - The three stories he tells to sell anything, and why the order matters more than the stories - Why he turns away buyers who can pay - What he said after a launch came in at 26 out of 40, and what he did the following week FREE RESOURCE: The three frameworks from this episode, one page each, nothing to sign up for → https://podcast.stu.me  CONNECT WITH ROBERT: - The Broadway Collective: https://bwaycollective.com  - Personal site: http://robert-hartwell.com  - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sirroberttakespics  - The Broadway Collective on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bwaycollective  CONNECT WITH STU: - Website: https://stu.me  - Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz  - Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren  - Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me  - Membership.io: https://membership.io  Subscribe for new episodes every week.

There's a free workshop coming up where I am showing exactly what's possible when you start something today. Secure your spot: https://membershipworkshop.com --- Every week, a few things show up in my feed that make me stop scrolling. This week, four of them were worth talking about. Tyler and Rebecca join me to break down: - Bad membership sales advice from a well-known marketing coach (whom I still very much respect), and why discounting, bundling, or offering a trial up front usually backfires - AI learning loops, and what they could mean for how we use AI tools going forward - A free tool called Google Search Console that shows exactly what people are searching for on your Instagram - A couple with under 10,000 followers who tracked down a grocery store employee for his perfectly stacked shelves, gave him his flowers, and raised nearly $9,000 for him after the video hit 9 million views That last one is the reason we started doing this segment. It's a good reminder of what a platform can actually be used for. CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://stu.me Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe for new episodes every week.

Tracy Henning has been selling real estate for over 32 years and she is still selling today. She also runs the largest Canva Facebook group for real estate agents anywhere, with over 60,000 members in it. Here is the part that got me: 40 percent of the people who pay for her membership every month came out of that free group. She became an agent at 21, in her words "a 21 year old female agent in an industry that was made up of 55 year old males." She made it to number one, sat on her real estate board for 10 years, and was the youngest woman ever to serve as its president. Then she hit "okay, now what?" The answer started as one free Facebook group in 2019 with a clever name that went nowhere. She renamed it around the exact words agents were already typing into the search bar, and it blew up. In this conversation, Tracy and I break down: - The name change that took a quiet group to over 60,000 members - Why a group name works like a search bar - The pinned post that turns browsers into email addresses - Two spots inside a group that almost everyone leaves empty - How much daily work a 60,000 member group actually takes - What she keeps free and what stays behind the paid door - $79 a month, priced so one more home sale covers the year - Too young at 21, too old now, and the answer she gives herself FREE RESOURCE: Get the 3 frameworks from this episode → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH TRACY: - Website: https://porchlyte.com  - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/porchlyte  - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PorchLyteForTheModernRealtor  - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/porchlyte  CONNECT WITH STU: - Website: https://stu.me  - Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz  - Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren  - Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me  - Membership.io: https://membership.io  Subscribe for new episodes every week.

There's a free workshop coming up where I am showing exactly what's possible when you start something today. Secure your spot: https://membershipworkshop.com --- Jessi Jean was a nutritional coach who had no idea what to do next. So she started flipping furniture on Instagram and talking, out loud, about being "career confused." Just her, a camera, and a microphone. Six weeks later, she opened something she called the YAP Challenge. She had no funnel. No sales page built in advance. She just floated the idea out there and let people say yes. 4,500 people did. At $297 each. That's $1.2 million from a launch built entirely in public. Then, six weeks after that, she did it again, this time pulling in over $5 million more. Over $7 million in about two months, from someone who started with nothing but a habit of talking on camera. In this episode, my teammates Tyler and Rebecca and I break down what actually happened, and why it worked: - Why "yapping" out loud beat polished, high-production content - The exact moment her audience started asking her to teach them - How she gave her community an identity, and turned them into "Yap Nation" - Why she sold permission, not a product - What "document, don't create" actually looks like in practice - Why her second launch did almost 10x the first one - The myth of "launches are dead," and why this proves otherwise SHOUTOUT TO JESSI JEAN: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessijeanhome CONNECT WITH STU: - Website: https://stu.me - Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz - Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren - Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me - Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe for new episodes every week.

Summer Deepe says she is "not artistic at all," yet she built three memberships in a niche most people would never think could be a business: cookie decorating. She teaches people how to decorate cookies, how to sell them, and how to run their own classes. In this episode she finds out, live, why more than 40 posts with a million-plus views still were not growing her business the way they should. It started at a kid's birthday party, where she saw a tray of decorated sugar cookies and told her husband, "I bet I could make these cookies." The hobby became a side income when friends asked to pay her. Then she ran the numbers: one two-hour class at around $50 a seat matched a whole week of grinding out custom orders. That math flipped her model and led to three memberships. In this conversation, Summer and I break down: - The class math that made her rethink her entire model - Why the growth she was chasing was not a traffic problem - The one missing ingredient that turns viral videos into leads you own - How she plans to grow using videos she already made, not new ones - The $67 membership priced so one and a half classes pays for the year - Her answer to the question behind every risk she took FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page playbook from this episode → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH SUMMER: - Website: https://summerssweetshoppe.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/summerssweetshoppe - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/summerssweetshoppe - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@summerssweetshoppe CONNECT WITH STU: - Website: https://stu.me - Book "Predictable Profits": https://a.co/d/4GIi1uz - Instagram: https://instagram.com/stumclaren - Podcast: https://podcast.stu.me - Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe for new episodes every week.