Why Most Paid Communities Suck...

If you're able to use content to create attention and then you can turn that attention into trust, that trust then allows you to have optionality to do lots of different things. >> What's the key to actually growing that subscription base, whether it's free or paid? >> I spent a large part of my career at a company called the Mly Fool. I briefly became the CEO of the Hustle prior to the acquisition by HubSpot and then I ended up going over to HubSpot for almost 2 years postacquisition and then I went and I [music] became the CEO of Hampton which is a private tech community. How do you decide what to charge for a community? Like you said, Hampton's 10,000 plus. I don't know what EO What was EO, Norm? >> It was 5,000 back in the day, but then there was a lot of additional charges like university might be another 10,000. >> How do you decide do I do a $1,000 one or do I do a $10,000 or $25,000 community? >> I think there's a couple different ways to look at I mean the first >> You're watching Marketing Misfits with Norm [music] Ferrar and Kevin Kane. Hey, Norm. Good to see you, man. How you how you doing? >> Oh, pretty good. Jeez, I haven't seen you in such a long time. >> I know. It's been It's been a It's been a minute or two, hasn't it? >> It has. [laughter] For a lot of people that don't know, we record the the the Marketing Misfits podcast obviously in advance cuz it's recorded, but we record like three three every two uh not every Tuesday, but three per day uh and then they get released out. And sometimes, you know, it's a it's a couple months uh in between times that they get [music] get released out depending on how many are in the queue. Uh but uh it's uh it's so sometimes Norm and I see each other several times uh all day long. Um [music] um but you know, when people see each other a lot too, a lot of times that's called a community. In that norm, >> we love talking about communities, by the way. >> We do. We both have communities ourselves and we're always trying to grow them. uh and uh we have newsletters ourselves uh that help uh uh in the cycle of those communities and help monetize it. And uh you know I have the billion-dollar sellers club community uh that I leverage off the newsletter and off of my live events. And [music] our guest today is someone who's I I reached out to him. I I I I can't remember exactly where I heard him speak or he wrote something or maybe maybe he was on the My First Million podcast or something. I can't remember exactly. I was like that's the kind of guy we need to get on. And this is someone thinking outside the box when it comes to building [music] communities. He's he was involved with the uh newsletters like the hustle. A lot of you might know the hustle. Uh he run was involved with a community called Hampton uh which is like a uh e what's that one that you're involved in? EO or whatever. It's it's a kind of a [music] >> yeah they got like a thousand plus members or something in this community of entrepreneurs. So he's a master when it comes to [music] uh doing these kinds of things. So, I think it's going to be an interesting talk today and I'm excited because I think I'm going to learn a few things um [music] myself uh with with our guest Jordan D. Petro. >> All right. So, why don't we just bring in Jordan? [clears throat] >> What's going on, guys? >> Hey, how you doing, Jordan? Good to see you. >> I'm doing great. Great to be here. >> You know what, Jordan? I I got to say this. Kevin talked to me just before the podcast, and this is one of the first times I can say this. He's actually a fanboy. [laughter] >> I don't know. I don't know. >> He's blowing you up, Kevin, right off the spot. I'll I'll uh I'll try to achieve some some some big expectations here. >> Yeah. I don't remember how where I I heard uh I heard I think it was on maybe in my first million or maybe I don't know, is your blog post or or LinkedIn post or something. I was like this is the type of guy we need to get on on on the show. Uh or maybe it was uh you know Matt McGary maybe his podcast or >> that could have been it. Yeah, >> something like that. Um >> uh I was like I got to get you get him on the show. So I reached out on LinkedIn. I don't think think we were connected. I was like one of those guys. It's like spamming you in the in the you know the paid LinkedIn service or whatever and you responded. So I don't know why you responded but I'm glad you did. >> Yeah. It was the the word misfit uh in in the podcast title kind of sung to me. So I I've always kind of uh aligned myself with that word. any anything related to band of misfits for misfits. I was like, "All right, these guys seem cool." So, [laughter] I'm excited to be here. >> Well, I appreciate it. Appreciate you coming on. >> Yeah. >> Um, so I mean, tell us a little bit for the audience that doesn't know who you are. Maybe just give us a little rundown of uh what's your story. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, so I'm first and foremost, I'm a father of two. I've got two kids, born and raised in in Philadelphia. Um, I spent a large part of my career at a company you guys might be familiar with called the Mly Fool. Uh I was there for almost 13 years. So I started there um as a writer covering the tech and the media sector, writing about stocks and the stock market and investing. And obviously over the course of a really really long career I did I did lots of things. I was uh in charge of product in charge of membership. Um I ran our marketing department and and when I left I'd been the chief growth officer there for maybe two or three years. and I left the mly fool and I briefly became the CEO of the hustle prior to the acquisition by HubSpot. Uh you guys are pro probably familiar with the Hustle newsletter. Um and then I ended up going over to HubSpot for almost two years postacquisition. I was um I ran our media department. So I was in charge of all of our newsletters, the HubSpot blog, our podcast network, our YouTube network, and our creator program. Um, so I did that for roughly two years and then um I went and I became the CEO of Hampton, which is a private tech community you guys mentioned on the intro. Uh, and I did that for a little over two years until I left in March. Uh, and now I'm doing my own thing, writing my own newsletter and advising and coaching CEOs and founders and just been an incredible ride. >> But your newsletter is on Beehive, not on HubSpot. >> That Oh man, Kevin, what [laughter] just zing me right off the gate? getting a little red already. [laughter] We'll play. >> But I don't blame you. I mean, I think HubSpot's a good platform, but uh Beehive has just done just a really good job on really zeroing in on that newsletter. Both of us have newsletters on Beehive as as well. >> Well, give me give me a second to defend my [laughter] >> I will say I I do like Beehive very much. HubSpot has very robust functionality that I don't quite need yet. So, props to all my HubSpot people. I have not abandoned you. It is a great product. [snorts] Coming [laughter] out of the gate, Kevin, I love it. That was awesome. But so, I mean, your back your background is is it fits into a lot of kind of what Norm and I do. Just Norm and I are pretty well known in the Amazon space and we were we're moving out into the marketing space now. We both have individual podcasts that focus more on the Amazon side of things than we do this one together that's more on the marketing, general marketing outside the box type of stuff cuz those two worlds are kind of merging. It used to be there was people selling just on Amazon, that's all he did and the people selling on Shopify and other platforms and now it's kind of like all one. Uh, and you got to really be everywhere now. So, uh, that's one of the reasons we do this. But um part of what we do is the big thing is that Norm and I have had big success with and that's one one of the reasons to get you on is in building communities. >> We uh and we've used you know the podcast he has his podcast launch with Norm has a big community on WhatsApp. >> Um I have a community on WhatsApp as well for my billiond dollarar seller summit stuff and then also I just two weeks two months ago I started one back off the back of the newsletter called billiond dollarar seller club. So, I'm taking the newsletter people and and upgrading them into a membership club where I bring on speakers and they can interact with each other and basically monetizing the newsletter besides just sponsorships and uh ad ad stuff and and that's that's started to go well. But you kind of did with the hustle. Um that was one of the early newsletters that came out and it kind of started that that you guys and the morning brew and a couple others. Um, and when the hustle sold for 27 million, it kind of got everybody's attention like, "Hey, um, we need to do newsletters." It started this whole like shiny object of everybody going towards newsletters and trying to be the next hustle or the next morning brew. >> Y >> what did you what do you see in that? What's your take now after being in the newsletter space on where that was, where it's and where it's now, and where it's going [clears throat] >> and the power? >> Yeah, I don't think it's going anywhere to be honest. I mean, people have been saying like emails dead for what, you know, 25 years or something, you know? I mean, the Molly Fool, we I mean, we were, you know, sending out newsletters. You guys probably remember when they were called Ezen, you know. Yeah. >> Um, so it's been around for probably, you know, two and a half decades now. I don't think it's going anywhere. I do think we're at a point of probably, you know, somewhere near peak saturation, but everything es and flows, you know. I mean it'll it'll go through a period where because of really great platforms like Substack and like Behive and others. It's never been easier for people to create their own ne newsletters. That's a good thing. I think overall it creates more and more content. Also create, you know, makes it harder for people to sift through and find the content that they want or people that they can trust. But I I think that there's always, you know, a market for people that have um, you know, very unique expertise and experience and points of view. And it might be a point of time right now where it just takes consumers a little bit more to find those people. Um, you know, I certainly agree with you that, you know, kind of post Hustle and Morning Brew, um, there was a, you know, kind of shiny object syndrome. people had, you know, really started thinking, wow, the way to go here is kind of newsletter/content into SAS product, you know, and and then that was kind of the way to go. And I think it's makes a lot of sense for many many reasons and kind of happy to talk about the hustle HubSpot acquisition if you guys want or any, you know, anything else. But I feel like what's one of the shifts recently and you mentioned this a little is instead of just going from content to SAS, it's now kind of content to community, you know, and that's I think that's having its moment right now, you know, as as exemplified by Hampton, what I was running and all the communities that you guys are a part of and leading yourselves as well. [snorts] >> But the the hustle started the opposite though. It started as a a a community and a show, right? And then >> No, the hustle started as a newsletter. Um, >> I thought he actually was doing like uh shows or or some some sort of like meetups in California. >> Uh, yeah, he did do a couple >> into the hustle. Yeah, events. That's what >> Yeah, you're right. Yep. No, that that's accurate. It did start as um some live events. I can't remember exactly how long Sam was doing that, but uh it did start as that and then kind of, you know, morphed into a newsletter. Yeah, that that's correct. And I think like honestly if I look somebody asked me recently kind of like what what's been the throughline of my career and I honestly think that the the same thing that I was a part of and I and I did at the Molly Fools the same thing that happened at the hustle is the same thing that's happened in other places which is if you're able to use content to create attention and then you can turn that attention into trust that trust then allows you to have optionality to do lots of different things. at the Molly Fool. We were able to get lots of attention with our content, mainly through SEO, partnerships, paid media. We took that, we leveraged the trust that we built with our audience to then go create subscription projects, uh, products, and then also lots of communities. Um, the Molly Fool had, we had tons of communities, paid communities. Uh, and then we did the same thing at the hustle. I mean, we were able to use the daily newsletter to get attention. We created trust with the audience and then that trust was able to leverage communities, particularly in trends, the paid product there. And then obviously the podcast that Sam does with My First Million. Um so it's like this concept of getting attention and then can you take that attention and turn it into trust uh you know that allows you to kind of build products and build communities. [snorts] >> Yeah. And that's the thing about communities regardless of where you build them. Let's say it is through a newsletter and let's say it tanks but you still have your community. I don't know where this is going to go but you can bring that over to WhatsApp or you can bring it over to whatever group that you want. you have a community that as long as you are the authority figure and they trust you that it always shifts and it can constantly grow. So the key is to start the community somehow whatever you want to do. >> Yeah. I think the awesome thing about communities is that if you have an audience, like if you're a creator or a CEO or an entrepreneur and you're creating content, say to yourself, am I creating content and people are on the other side just consuming that content? And if I stop publishing, does the conversation stop? If the answer is yes to those, is you have an audience? That's great. But that's step one. It's like if you can say to yourself, I'm creating content and the people on the other side are talking back with me, interacting with each other, and if I happen to stop publishing, the conversation continues. Then you have a community and there's so much more value in that because it's not always going to be dependent on just you publishing on your production schedule, you know, which I think everybody would acknowledge at at a certain point in time, you know, can become a grind or you can just become the bottleneck. it will only go so far and there's a lot of, you know, dependency and kind of key man risk with that. When you have a community, um, there's just so much more value exchange that goes beyond you, which I think is, you know, like one of one of the biggest values and why people are so excited about communities right now. [clears throat] >> Hey, Norm, you'll love this man. I talked to a seller the other day doing 50K a month, but when I asked them what their actual profit was, they just kind of stared at me. Are you serious? That's kind of like driving blindfolded. >> Exactly, man. I told them you got to check out Sellerboard. This cool profit tool that's built just for Amazon sellers. It tracks everything like fees, PPC, refunds, promos, even changing cogs during using FIFO. >> Aha. But does it do FBM shipping costs, too? >> Sure does. That way you can keep your quarter 4 chaos totally under control and know your numbers because not only does it do that, but it automates your PPC bids. It forecasts inventory. It sends review requests and even helps you get reimbursements from Amazon. Now, that's like having a CFO in your back pocket. >> You know what? It's just $15 a month, but you got to go to sellerboard.commisfits. sellerboard.com/misfits. And if you do that, they'll even throw in a free two-month trial. >> So, you want me to say, "Go to sellerboard.com, misfits, and get your number straight before your accountant loses it?" >> Exactly. All right. >> It's interesting you say that a lot of newsletters started out or evolved to a SAS, especially in the beginning. One of the things that Norm and I are using both of our newsletters and we're going to have a newsletter uh soon for this podcast as well is to creating that uh trust and authority and we're leveraging it not into a SAS but into an agency. We have we have an agency called Dragonfish and where we do email marketing and AEO services for ecom primarily uh and we just launched it recently >> and we have a waiting list just by briefly mentioning it here or there of like 147 people right now. um most of the over half of them are highly qualified uh after filling out a form and we're able to to use that uh and the fact power of community too where we can mention in the community and everybody's instantly like yeah we want to go with you guys and >> right >> I think a lot of people they they they undermine uh the value of actually creating those constant connections and newsletters are one of the best ways to do that uh because you have the permission to be in their inbox and not everybody reads everyone reads every word but it's that const constant uh you're you're constantly in their living room uh basically. >> Yeah. I mean the the podcast and newsletters I think are two of the best ways to kind of create trust um you know with your audience and and again it's whether it's SAS whether it's community I think the important thing is it gives you optionality to do lots of things. So if it's you want to create an agency great you can do that. If you want to have a one-on-one coaching business like I have great you can do that. If you want it to be a SAS product, if you want it to be a community, if you want to sell merch, like it can be so many different things because when an audience trusts you, like you have earned the right to be in their inbox or to get them to buy, you know, the next product or to, you know, continue that relationship. So, it's the the trust is just such a huge unlock, I think, in general in business. Yeah. I've had uh people uh in my uh I have a a separate company and it works with uh small Amazon uh companies that are trying to get out there trying to grow and uh one of the things that we talk about is this community aspect and a lot of them don't realize that they can have a community. Uh there's just no way I can do that. Like I was just talking to a guy um with his knives. they're incredible knives and how can I build a community? So, one of the things that we did is we wanted to build out that list. So, we got people to go over, have a QR code once they opened up the product, go over, sign up for this lifetime warranty, but you got your cookbook and you've got a uh 52- week meal plan which allows us to get in to their inbox 52 weeks out of the year. And from that, we've grown that list to about 7,000 people. and he's using that for his product launches. He's now got 11 products. People have already bought the first or second product. And every time there's a new product, well, guess what? These people love the product. They don't have to have some huge discount. They just want to be involved in this community. And it's really cool. And now, uh, chefs from all over the world are giving us recipes that we can add to another cookbook. We have two cookbooks now, but it's just thinking outside of the box to really start. Anybody can have a community, but it just might not be in the traditional sense. >> Yeah. No, that's that's amazing. Do you can you share the name? >> Yakkuma. K U M A. Cool. Well, as an ex butcher and uh someone that spent a lot of times in kitchens that a that's awesome. B I would love to be in a knife knives community like that. I think we all just underestimate. We all, you know, we tend to think of the things that we're into as, well, nobody's going to want that or no one no one wants to hear my opinion on X, Y, and Z. But it's like there's so I mean that's that's the beautiful thing about creating an audience and then starting to build a community is you you're shocked with how many people are into the same things that you're into or how many people do want to hear your opinion or your point of view. You know, maybe that particular chef or entrepreneur is like, "Oh, nobody wants to hear from me about knives 52 weeks out of the year." But it's like, no, there are there are tons of people that want to, you know, be uh along the ride with you when it comes to that stuff. So, that's a cool story. >> What's the difference in a community and a mastermind? Like, can a community that doesn't always have to be paid? I know like Hampton is paid and a lot of them are paid. I have we have both. Um what just can you explain how you have to approach because you have a methodology I think called what's it? Uh community engine optimization or something like that. Um, but but how do you how do you what's the difference in a mastermind community? Because I used to not a lot of times I didn't join communities because I always felt like especially if they're paid because I'm like I'm going to be providing more value than I'm going to be getting a lot of times. So, how do you find that balance or how do you uh manage a community or sub community to actually make sure that everybody no matter what level they're at is getting value from it? >> Yeah. Well, I guess first the way that we used to differentiate at Hampton between a community and a mastermind was a mastermind to us typically revolved around a particular industry or product or singular goal. So people wanting to go from 5 million in revenue to 10 million in revenue or Amazon sellers or you know whatever it might be people that want to start their own self- storage units you know what whatever it is that those we we would consider to be masterminds and and they tended to be a little bit more transactional. You go in with the sole purpose of achieving X Y and Z you obtain that you you kind of leave. At Hampton, we felt like a community was much less transactional, much more relational and people were going because they wanted to completely improve one big aspect of their lives, whether it was their business or their personal lives as well. Um, they they were really going not just because they wanted something transactional. They wanted to build relationships and friendships with people over a long period of time. So, it was like it was not just breath, but it was depth. And the honestly the main way that we did that at Hampton, I think the main way that you do that in most communities is excellent upfront vetting. Um, you know, Hampton was extremely successful because of our members. And the reason that we were successful because of our members is because we had very very specific criteria of who could get in and who could not get in. And so really everything for us was around curation and vetting. And that was what I think, you know, made us very special and and I think is what makes a lot of communities, whether it's, you know, EO or YPO or Tiger 21 or um, you know, there's so many great communities out there. I think it all comes down to to vetting. Um, so that's that's kind of my opinion on the difference between the two. >> So, not everybody gets in. >> Yeah. What were you looking for at Hampton? What was like what were some of the just baseline to get in? What did what they have to be? >> Yeah. So, there was a specific set of kind of quantitative criteria. So to get into Hampton, you had to be a CEO or a founder of of a business. Couldn't be a generational business. Couldn't be passed down to you. You had to be the the person that started the business and the and the original founder and CEO. Uh the company had to be doing 3 million or more in revenue or you had to have an exit, I believe it was, of 10 million or more. If you if your company currently wasn't 3 million or more, you could still get in if you had had a prior exit of 10 million or more. Um you had to be mostly based in the United States. And then there was a lot of and and that was just kind of barebones just to kind of get through to be able to get an interview with our membership team. But then the more important things honestly were all the things that we filtered through in interviews. So we interviewed every single prospective member uh and then either myself or one of the co-founders watched every single interview ourselves and the number one thing that we looked for was people who were interested in giving more than they were receiving. And and that kind of comes back to the last thing I was talking about is so many people are looking for a way in or looking to get into a community or a mastermind so they can just kind of jump up to the next rung on the ladder or achieve X Y and Z. And what we felt like really made Hampton special was getting people who were just as excited to join a community to to give back and to help others because that's the only way something like that really works is if you have a lot of people who are looking to give. You're going to receive. you know, in a community like that with a thousand tech entrepreneurs who are very successful, like you're going to receive the benefits, but the important thing to us was like, are we going to get a lot of people in there who are givers as well? And so, um, you know, that was probably like one of one of the biggest things that we looked for from a qualitative perspective. >> I, uh, I was, I belonged to EO for a long time. And one of the things I liked about it was well, of course, there was the networking, but it was the educational component. And whenever I traveled, if I had some time, I'd be able to go and meet people in different cities, uh, you know, go to their meetings, and then they had these universities where you could go to, and they were so cool. Uh, you learned so much. So as a young entrepreneur uh so I joined I think I was 28 and up until I was around just over 40 just a wealth of information and knowledge that I would never have got on well put it this way you got your uh your street MBA through the knowledge of other people it's just passed down it was so good and what you said about sharing and giving uh that's everything about uh an organization like EO, which I highly recommend to anybody out there. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Couldn't agree with you more. >> Yeah. What do you do to keep the community engaged? I mean, like you said earlier, if if you if you have to be involved as a founder, then you have an audience. Uh if they're speaking with each other, but what do what do what are some of the things that are good within a community, whether that's MLY crew investors or that's Hampton tech entrepreneurs or that's whatever. What are some of the core things that help prosper, foster and nurture a community? >> Are you going to point it out, Norm, or or >> Yeah, modeling [laughter] crew is the uh >> I said crew. I said, yeah, sorry. >> Cool. Sorry. [laughter] >> You'd be surprised how much that happens. Or maybe at least 50% of the time. >> I'll do it. So I I mean honestly when Hampton started it very much a lot of a lot of times the way that things begin it still does feel very audience driven right so maybe the first three six months in Hampton we still we had to model a lot of the behavior so we our particular community was in Slack that's where most kind of CEOs and founders at that stage are already running their business so we figured there's no need to try to get them to be somewhere else Discord WhatsApp whatever they're already in Slack so Our community was in Slack and we had 85% engagement in Slack which was almost unheard of. And what we what we really focused on the beginning was modeling the type of questions that we wanted to see people asking, modeling the things not only that we wanted to see but also the things that we didn't want to see. So we had a a very very strict no solicitation policy. That's one of the things that kills a community is if you think every time you're going to ask a question someone's just going to come and start pitching you on their product or their service, you're like, you know, I'm out of here. So, we had very strict policies about what you could do and what you couldn't do. And we spent a lot of time kind of modeling that um asking really interesting questions as a team, myself and my co-founders kind of, you know, again, first person doing that stuff ourselves. So if we wanted people to get for instance vulnerable about um asking financially sensitive questions in the community, we would do that ourselves. You know, it's like you have to start to kind of model the behavior that you want to see and then, you know, create different rituals and and and ways of recognizing the community as positive reinforcement. So, it didn't happen overnight, but I think, you know, probably 6 months in, we started to get to the point where we could kind of look around at each other as a team and say, "Wow, we don't actually have to be in here anymore." Like the the the machine is kind of working without us. But it it certainly doesn't happen without, you know, being super intentional about it. >> How important is in in real life stuff when in a community versus just the being in the Slack channel? >> And what was the first part of the question? What did we do for in >> how important is in real life I IRL stuff uh versus just being in a Slack channel and talking to each other? >> I think it really depends on the structure and the product for for Hampton which was a you know called a $10,000 a year more product um that was highly vetted and you're trying to build this community where people are going to be very vulnerable very relationship based then it's critical. I think it's a it's a mustave in in our opinion. Um to in order to kind of go beyond the transactional just I need X and you have Y. Uh in order to actually share, you know, things that are personal about you, your family, your business, you have to start, you know, in our opinion, you had to start kind of developing relationships in real life. But that's that was Hampton and that was our product. You know, if you're launching a community that's free, do you need IRL? I don't think so. If you have a community or a mastermind that's, you know, a thousand dollars and it's mostly around a cohort of people all trying to achieve, you know, one thing or learn about a specific topic, I I don't think you do need IRL. It can be more of a nice to have or, you know, complimentary. But, you know, I think when you look at the communities that are at a Hampton level, YPO, EO, Hampton, Tiger 20, you know, most of them seem to have a very a very IRLheavy component to them. >> Yeah. And they also, if you go into a lot of these groups, they'll have subgroups. So in EO, they have their forms and their forums are just a group of seven to nine people. Like the Toronto chapter probably has, I don't know, 200 people, 300 people. Now, uh, when I was there, it was much smaller, but we'd have nine forums made up. And then you had your own personal board, right? Now, >> it was paid, right? But you could go to their uh monthly meetings, but uh once a month you had to go to these groups, contribute and everybody was expected to provide information, present once uh once every year. You had to do a full presentation on your business and then your board members would just rip you apart. But those are the groups that to this day, 30 years later, 30 years later, we we're still in contact with each other. If anybody needs any like it's we're still a forum, >> it's incredible. >> That's that's incredible. >> But the I guess what I'm saying is that you when you create a community, it's just doesn't have to be one like a whole community. It could be in subp parts. And sometimes that could be like I know one group right now in the Amazon space that that's just um uh accountability. So you have these groups of people that are put together for accountability. And uh you know I think that's pretty cool. So these groups have other powers other than just getting in there for the main reason why you joined. >> Yeah, for sure. I mean I think subgroups and sub communities can be just as strong or as important as a community as a whole. I think sometimes people get scared or nervous about, you know, should we allow subgroups or sub communities because they don't want to fracture or, you know, redistribute the content in a certain way. But I I I mean, I totally agree with you. Hampton does a similar thing. We call them um core groups. YPO calls them forums. You know, there everyone kind of has different names, pods, boards. Um, yeah, like I'm in a group right now with nine guys in in Philadelphia who, you know, I adore and love and we all are super super tight and we meet once a month and we talk about everything from our, you know, our kids and our relationships to our businesses and um, yeah, that that that bond and that that camaraderie that you feel is it's hard to replicate just over Zoom, you know. >> Talk about the Cowboys being the Eagles in there, too, right? >> Yeah. I don't Yeah. Uh, you know, [laughter] I'm not going to give the Cowboys any air time right now. >> They don't even deserve it. They don't [clears throat] deserve it. >> No. Um, so on the on the communities, I mean, to start a community, I I Norman and I know somebody that's tried to start this community and they basically have no authority, no trust. We know this guy that's going around trying to piggy back off of other events and trying to start this and it's just not flying. So, how important is it >> to have like that leader? or like I think you said something uh like the the the uh founders or the CEOs or whatever now like the new funnel you know you look at Elon Musk you know it's like a funnel into SpaceX and all his stuff or like him or hate him or whatever and there's several like that what what do you see along those lines of how everything's come changing when it comes to building communities and the importance of uh founders actually in in the marketing and the storytelling and everything. >> Yeah, I don't honestly think that you can build a community without trust. I kind of look at trust as the the primary building block in order to build a community. And then the sub building blocks of trust I think are three things. I kind of use the acronym ACE but you need uh authenticity, you need credibility and you need expertise or experience. And I think you need all three of those things to have trust and you need trust to have a community. I don't you know can you try to go and piggyback off of other people? I I sure I guess you know and maybe that's a shortcut as a way to do it but when I kind of look back on my career I think that the only reason that I am able to have like any modum of success today is because I have 20 years you know behind me of kind of building and doing things and and failing and making tons of mistakes and learning along the way and that has been able to build you know my credibility as somebody out there in the world but I don't think I could have shortcircuited that you know I don't think if I all of a sudden just came out, you know, last week and was like, I'm a business builder and I'm on Twitter and LinkedIn and, you know, I just I don't think that you're able to get the same uh the same semblance of respect and trust without kind of putting in, you know, the work behind you. >> So, what do people get wrong when they're building a community? [sighs and snorts] >> Um, I think a lot of times people think that they can build a community by just like if they already have an audience, right? you already have a newsletter or you already have a podcast or whatever it is. Uh I think that sometimes people think it's just a a a knob to turn or or a dial, you know, and it's like, hey, I'm just going to start charging people. I'm going to dump them all into, you know, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, whatever it is. Charge them a lot of money and kind of like hope that just more of the same will work. And again, as I kind of touched on earlier, I think you have to be really intentional about the programming of it. And you have to be really intentional about starting to make that shift from like a me to you content production to like everybody to each other because the community works best when it starts creating excess value for one another and it and everything isn't just you know you to them and I think that a lot of people just think that like because they have a big audience or you know I mean I have people reach out to me all the time who say hey I I I posted this thing in 2022 on Instagram it went viral I've got 8 million followers now. I'm going to launch a community. >> You know, I'm like, it doesn't always just work like that. I mean, you might be able to find success when you first turn that thing on, but again, if you don't actually have the trust, if you just have eyeballs, it's not the same as having trust or taste, you know. Um, I think that's a big mistake that people make. >> How do you decide what to charge for a community? Like you said, Hampton's 10,000 plus. I don't know what EO What was EO? uh norm >> uh it was 5,000 back in the day, but then there was a lot of additional charges like a university might be another $10,000, you know. >> So, how do you decide do I do a $1,000 one or do I do a $10,000 or $25,000 community? >> Um I think there's a couple different ways to look at I mean the first I always kind of start with my ICP and like who who are the people that I'm serving and who are my customers and what can what do I generally think they can afford, right? Um, for us obviously having people that were already doing over 3 million in revenue in their businesses probably means right out of the gate that you can, you know, that you can charge them, you know, north of of some amount. So, the first thing I do is I look at my ICP. Second thing I do is I just look at our competition, you know. So when you look at YPO and you look at EO, which are probably two of Hampton's biggest competitors, you know, as Norm said, depending on the chapter or the region or whatever, you might be paying anywhere from 5 to 20,000 um depending on some YPO certain um chapters. And so, you know, for us, we thought, okay, well, we're a new entrant. Uh we want to make sure that we prove ourselves to new members. We don't want to go on the extremely high side of that, but we want to be, you know, in the ballpark. And then the third piece is like you have to look at your own features, you know, because you it's important to look at your cost structure upfront. So for us, we knew that we were going to our platform was going to be Slack. Slack's pretty expensive, right? It's a lot more expensive than WhatsApp or Discord or something else. That's that's a really big variable cost that we were going to have. We also knew we were going to have certain, you know, IRL events, retreats, etc. So part of it is just being kind of intimately familiar with your own cost structure and trying to take those three things and put something together. And we changed it a little bit. You know, when when I joined as CEO, I think we were charging 5,000. Uh I think the first thing I did was I bumped it from 5 to 10,000. We didn't see a, you know, even a quarter of a percentage point dip in conversion. You know, that's the first thing that kind of tells you, okay, well, we probably should have increased our prices. Um, and then halfway through my tenure, we ended up also introducing an activation fee of $2,500. So when somebody joined, you pay 2500, and then you had your, you know, annual subscription fee. So, you know, you iterate as well, and you look at what other people are doing, and you look at your business model, you look at retention rates, churn rates, what what products and features people are using. So, it's it's definitely iterative. >> How how many people does it take to run a community like Hampton? Um, I want to say we had maybe 17 full-time employees and, you know, probably a handful of contractors. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I've been involved with uh a bunch of communities like just going back to what you were just talking about is they don't know their numbers and [clears throat] you can you know 100% that they're losing money >> and they just don't get it. They have to charge more but they're afraid to charge more. In fact, I've belonged to two groups like this where they were undercharging and they had too much content. So, they were overd delivering, overd delivering, and they were losing their members because they were saturating the market with too much uh information and they weren't charging enough. They were way under, I would probably say about 75% under the going rate, >> which is just crazy. They shot themselves in the foot. So, you do have to know your numbers. >> Yeah. I honestly I mean this is of course a big generalization but across my my career whether it was the MLY for the Hustle Trends HubSpot Hampton I feel like you can almost always increase your price some amount without there having a material impact on conversion rates. Now, of course, you know, if you have a digital product and lots of traffic, you can price test, you know, and you can actually see the answers to those things. But I feel like even just the many clients that I have in my own um, you know, advisory business, people are always so hesitant to raise their own prices. And then when you bring in a, you know, third party objective point of view, usually it's one of the first things I'll say is like, when was the last time you increased your price? The answer is almost never. And I'm like, "When was the last time you introduced a new feature or a new piece of content or something to your tech stack?" And it's like, "Oh, last week and the week before that and the month before, you know." And so like feature creep and product creep are so real and yet people are so nervous to increase prices. >> Yeah. >> Are you looking to quickly boost new Amazon product launches or scale up existing listings to reach first page positioning? The influencer platform Stack Influence can help. >> That's right. Stack Influence pushes high volume external traffic sales straight to Amazon listings using micro influencers that you only have to pay with your products. They've helped upandcoming brands like Magic Spoon compete with Cheerios for top category positioning while also helping Fortune 500 brands like Unilever launch their new products. Right now is one of the best times to get started with Stack Influence. You can sign up at stackinfluence.com or click the link in this video down in the description notes below and mention Misfits, that's misfi, to get 10% off your first campaign. stackinfluence.com. Yes. So on on running the community, you do some stuff around AI and stuff now too, right? >> Uh are you talking about me in particular or Hampton? >> You in particular? >> Uh I mean I I talk about AI and it's obviously, you know, I'm a customer like everybody is, but I don't have an AI business if that's what you >> Okay. Okay. uh what what what do you think is changing out there in the way from a B2B and a B TOC perspective in the way we have to market now? What is different versus like 15 years ago when you're at the Mly Fool uh and the way you're having to go out and market to get clients either for your newsletter, for your community or for whatever versus now? What do you see as evolved or changed? >> Man, it's a great question. Um I think about that one. You know, I think one of the things that has definitely changed um is like how important brand and brand authenticity has become just because there are so many more competitors and everything is so much louder. I'm like 20 years ago if you or even 10 years ago if you looked at the B2B space everything generally kind of looked the same. you know, you weren't seeing like B2B founders and CEOs on LinkedIn talking about their own personal lives. You didn't see a lot of personality uh a lot of edge around B2B sort of companies like things were very kind of just black and white uh you know when it came to kind of B2B or enterprise sales and stuff like that. And I kind of feel like BTOC has kind of shifted itself on on top of B2B now. And now you're saying you're seeing a lot of the same things especially because founders can become so big on their own platforms and then you know like like you mentioned earlier I talk about the founder being the funnel now it's like founders can have such massive impacts on their own distribution that I've seen just such a blending uh between B2B and B TOC now and I just think it's it's become harder but more important to kind of stand out from a brand you know standpoint. I think 25 years ago, the Molly Fool was probably one of the only, you know, financial brands. We had a pretty quirky, irreverent sort of brand in the financial investing space. Uh, and now there might be, you know, 30 companies out there that are all, you know, making stock recommendations or trying to provide financial advice. Everything is just a lot more crowded. So, I think your brand your brand and your voice and your, you know, how much you stand out is just kind of more important. >> It was it was weird. The Mly Fool was almost your go-to brand. >> And I don't know if it was just because of the founders and they're just uh >> uh just kind of casual approach like really just they were just kind of cool guys giving advice. >> Yeah. >> And uh you know I I just remember it always just standing out. That was your go-to. And they they were everywhere. >> So I I had subscribed to that. I think it was back in the mid '9s. >> Yep. >> You know or Yeah, it was probably around then. I can't remember exactly but just getting your advice but that was the one. There were others but right off the bat they formed a community. >> Yeah they I mean they and they were so it was two brothers David and Tom Gardner that started the company. Um and they were the epitome of the founders being the brand and the founders being the funnel. They were out there. We had we had a show on NPR 25 years ago. They were publishing books like you said. They were, you know, anytime they were on an interview, they were wearing their jester hats and kind of being goofy. And >> and that was the thing that drew me to the Molly Fool in the first place was I was like an investing nerd. I loved the stock market. I loved investing. And I looked at my options as a young person. I'm like, well, I don't want to go anywhere on Wall Street. Like, I'm not going to go and fit in at an investment bank. Like I I like I I looked around. I'm like, where am I going to go? There was pretty much one shop. It was the Molly Fool. that was the place to go if you cared about investing in the stock market but you you know found yourself to be a misfit or a little different. Uh and they were incredible at that and you know still again they they have continued with that brand. You know our our our vision and values at the mool was to educate, amuse and enrich. You know that was a big part of our our ethos, our personality, the way that we created content, the way that we you know delivered products was very much wrapped up in the in the brand. So are you seeing that entertainment and selling are merging together like with Tik Tok and and a lot of the social media was social selling. Are you seeing a big movement that way where like you just said the Modly Fool was on the cutting edge whereas you the amuse part of that that threepart equation now that that may be entertain or shock or or something along those lines. >> Yeah. I mean for sure. Sure. I mean, look, you know, I think everything that video has done in the last 10 years or so has has really accelerated that. I mean, look at obviously what Mr. Beast has been able to do with, you know, casual shock and entertainment and pranks, you know, and and able to turn that into a, you know, several hundred million dollar business with, you know, food and beverage and merchandise and everything else that he's accomplished based off of, you know, pure entertainment. Um, I don't think it's always easy anymore to do that because again that the trick is taking the eyeballs or the entertainment, you know, it's it's almost like the the eyeballs today were the page views of, you know, 20 years ago. You still have to be able to take the page views or the eyeballs uh the entertainment and and convert it and into trust with an audience if you want to have a sustainable, you know, long-term business. But but yeah, it's I mean it's just it's harder and harder to stand out, you know, and so entertainment is a key part of I think building trust and and getting the eyeballs in the first place, right? >> So leveraging what Kevin was just asking, what do you see the trends are right now for growing the community? >> Uh I mean, I think the biggest thing for growing the community is is still wrapped up in the business owner and and the founder themselves. And um you know, I think that's what starts it. That's kind of the catalyst. And then I think you know one of the things that we did well at Hampton and I think the best communities do is your biggest sales pipeline has to come from your existing members or customers. You know they they do a large majority of the selling for us. You know when we have when when people go on Twitter or LinkedIn and they say hey I'm considering you know joining Hampton. Does anyone have any feedback or experience? As a team we don't have to go and run and jump on and say hey we you know we'd love to talk to you about it. like our members jump on and they answer questions for us. And I think that when it comes to a a product that is as pricey as some communities are where you also know that you're going to be very vulnerable, not just like emotionally, but you know that sharing sensitive information about your company, your financials, your employees, hardships that you're going through, you that is a very very hard decision. Um it's it's a high friction decision, you know, and so you need a lot of, you know, it's one thing to see testimonials on a landing page, it's another thing to speak with current members and current customers. So for us, the the members themselves are the biggest sales channel. I think that's true in a lot of the best communities, whether it's like YPO or EO as well. >> I don't I don't I don't haven't heard I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but I haven't heard of a community actually having an exit. you know, the hustle sold to HubSpot >> for for all those millions of dollars and then is there a community have you seen an instance where a community actually was gobbled up by somebody else? >> Um, >> because of the community aspect, they wanted that that community and that you know those that audience or it's not an audience, it's a community uh that the community. >> Yeah, I believe I think Vistage um I believe that they were sold to private equity. There's been a couple smaller companies that have sold to private equity firms. Um, but there's not a lot. I mean, you're right. And and I think, you know, there's there's a couple other communities. There's one called, uh, Collective 54, which is run by a great guy named Greg Alexander, who I've become friends with, and and he his his company is similar to EO and Hampton. They focus on founders and entrepreneurs in the services sector. He's got a great company. Um, there's and then there's companies that focus more on corporate. Um so like world 50 is another very successful organization that focuses on um people in the seauite and fortune 50 companies but there's been a couple I think one or two that have had exits and they've mostly been to PE firms >> in the marketing to to get people to join a community. What's the a couple of the biggest emotional triggers you got to you got to trip to get them to join? not the not about the money or not about what are a couple of the biggest emotional triggers that all the marketing pretty much needs to have no matter what type of community it is. >> Yeah, that's a good one. Um [sighs] I think you know FOMO is definitely a big one. Um, you know, I think when we told people that were thinking about joining Hampton, hey, these other five people that are in similar industries that are maybe doing a little bit more than you're doing in revenue, just join Hampton. You know, that that's a pretty powerful message of like, you know, you think >> with the Jones. >> Yeah, there's there's that like, you know, element to it for sure. Um, you know, I think it's it's highly aspirational as well and and of course, you know, scarcity. So I think the fact that we I mean we really back this up. You can't just say it but I mean we denied probably 50 60% of the people who applied to Hampton and that is a powerful powerful message. Um you know I think that's something also that people get wrong. You had asked earlier um normally you know what are some of the things people get wrong? That's another thing is like look, if you're going to let in anyone because you know you you care about the revenue and the growth of your business, that's fine, but you can't then run around saying it's exclusive and you know there's only x amount of seats available, x, y, and z. I mean, at Hampton, we really did probably only take two or three out of every 10 people. So, it's, you know, there's some real scarcity involved. So when people were accepted, they were like, "Man, I, you know, it was a different sort of feeling and decision than if they thought, well, everybody just gets it." You know, >> you'd probably also have to, uh, target the five levels of awareness, right? A lot people don't know about you at all. You're you, you know, you were talking earlier about word of mouth, FOMO, uh, but, uh, you know, there's a lot of people that you want to attract to your community that might be a perfect fit, but they've never heard of you. So I guess you got to >> slap in five levels of awareness and start marketing out that way. Wouldn't that be right? >> Yeah. I mean we you know I think we were really lucky because you know in the first year Sam Parr who was the the co-founder of Hampton has a big following of course because of the hustle and my first million. So I think you know there was some wave of people that joined because they were already familiar with hi him and his brand. But but after that yeah I mean you're exactly right. Right. I mean, we would, you know, if we were doing cold outbound or outreach to people, it might take them 6 months to end up joining because maybe they would do a little research. Then, then, of course, people are busy. You know, they've got other things going on. They forget about it. And then, you know, maybe you hear us on a pod. We we launched um Hampton's own podcast called Moneywise. Uh so, then maybe they hear about Hampton through Moneywise. And then also, we have a newsletter and a blog. So, we're creating content that way. So yeah, you you've got to continue to kind of create awareness at the top and the midpoints of your funnel if you're going to, you know, get people to convert at the bottom. For sure. And and that that stuff takes time, too. >> Moneywise, is that the one where they break down people break down their their monthly expenses and stuff? >> Yeah, that's where Yeah. Um >> I spend 300,000 a month and this is what I'm paying and and and here's what I did with my money when I exit. Is that the one? >> Exactly. Okay. >> Yeah, that that that's cool. It's a cool like look underneath the hood and some with transparency and I can see how that would attract uh that audience. That that's that's cool. >> Yeah, because we started looking at well what are the things that people are talking about inside of Hampton that we know they don't talk about outside of Hampton? What are the questions that they ask inside the gate that they don't ask out there? You know, you you would be probably most people would be embarrassed to go on to Twitter or LinkedIn and say, "Hey, you know, my monthly burn is $80,000 a month." Like what what is everyone else spending, right? Nobody's going to say that. But in inside of a gated community where you you feel like you can trust people and maybe other people have similar lives of you or you know challenges or goals as you then you feel more comfortable. So that was kind of where the idea came from is why don't we start trying to take some of the conversations that are happening inside and see if we can get them happening outside. >> Can you share a mistake that you can share that's either helped you with leadership or helped you build a stronger community? >> Oh sure. Um, yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of mistakes that that I probably made in the first year or so at Hampton. I think, um, one of the first mistakes was I fell into a trap that we kind of talked about a little earlier, which was the the need and the desire to add add more things to the product, add more things, you know, because when you're when you're charging people so much money, $10,000 a year, that's a lot. and the people that you have in your community are very very successful you know entrepreneurial people. I felt a very intense um you know motivation to make sure that I was overd delivering and in doing that I think that at in in the first year we probably added too many things and we than we necessarily needed. I also think that probably one of the biggest mistakes in the first year was our ICP was way too wide. So just kind of give you an example is uh in that first year we basically said all right if you're doing over a million in revenue and you're a CEO or founder you know you can join but but what that ended up resulting in is we would have you know let's say somebody was a a bootstrapped founder living in Boise doing 3 million in revenue and then we would have a a venturebacked founder in New York doing a h 100red million in revenue. It's like those people have radically different challenges, radically different businesses. You know, one person might have a hundred employees, one person might have two. Their goals are different. What they want to talk about is different. And expecting those two people to be able to go into Slack and have a quick honest conversation about what they need and solutions uh is not a recipe for a great community because really what ends up happening is you realize you don't have as much in common with that person as you thought. or the people that are all doing a hundred million in revenue find they're always at the receiving ends of the requests from the people that are doing less. Uh and so that was something we had to change pretty quickly at the beginning of my my tenure was we had to narrow the ICP a lot more. >> That uh reminds me uh Dan Sullivan strategic coach so out of Toronto this goes back probably 30 years ago and he was talking and I think he was just launching it and he had three levels. You had the 25,000 which was for x number of million dollars. You had the 50,000. You had a $100,000 level. And some of the people wanted to get into the 50. Some of the people that did not qualify wanted to get into the h 100,000. And he said exactly what you said. If I took you and if I've taken you, put you into the $100,000 mastermind, >> you're not going to be able to have the same needs and wants that this group needs and you're going to drag them down. >> So, he, you know, you had to qualify and okay, well, you start off 25. Hopefully, we can make you grow and you can qualify for the 50. But that's exactly what you were saying. >> It It's so hard. Um, it's so hard as a early stage entrepreneur or founder to say no. When someone shows up, you know, knocking at your door and they want to give you money for your product or your service and you're early, it it is almost impossible to say no. It takes an insane amount of discipline. I think discipline and focus are the two most underrated things when it comes to early stage founders. And it took me a while to figure that one out, you know, but once I realized, hey, we have to start saying no. Yes. Is it hard to say no to, you know, someone that has a $300 million super sexy business that might be famous and blah blah blah? Yes, of course it is. But are they the right person in our community? They're not right now. Doesn't mean that they can't be in the future that maybe at some point down the road we have tears or we go up market or whatever it might be. But man, it is it is really hard to say no. But um that would that would definitely be a huge mistake and learning that I had in the last couple years. Yeah, >> I want to circle back to one of the things that we talked about at the beginning a little bit more on the newsletter side. You were at the hustle, you said, for a couple years. What what would you say someone that's actually doing newsletters or or doing that, what's the key to actually growing that subscription base, whether it's free or paid, what are some of the the key things that you think are important to focus on? I think the the two things that kind of stand out to me and these are things that um I don't think have changed honestly that much in my career like and and the same is true of podcasts is it is a it is a game of resilience and consistency. You know, it's like you don't typically start a newsletter or a podcast and 6 months in you've got, you know, 50,000 subscribers or 50,000 downloads. you you've got to do it for the love of doing it because it's probably going to take you at least a year or two to get to a point where you have enough subscribers that you're getting a feedback loop that tells you, "Oh, this is fun. People are enjoying this." You you really have to do it, I think, because you love it. I don't know if that's been your guys experience with the podcast, but that's that's been my experience. It's like you have to do it because you love doing it because it's going to take a while. Um, I think the other thing is like just collaborating with other people in the space. So, I think, you know, the more that I collaborate with other people who have newsletters, you know, I'm fortunate I have a lot of friends and entrepreneurs and peers that have newsletters, the more I try to help them out with my content or sending them stuff that I think would be helpful or showcasing them in in my newsletter or commenting [clears throat] on posts that they that are important to them, you know, the more that they do it back to me. So, it is a pretty collaborative game, you know, and I think that's kind of always been important with newsletters and podcasts. >> What about on the like the hustle though? Um what did they do to actually grow? They did a lot of face meta ads and stuff. Uh and what was their like really was it referrals from other entrepreneurs saying hey you got to do this or was it the incentive program like refer one person they get this or was it >> mostly ads and being really creative with some of the ads that you know they they did. >> Yeah. I mean honestly at the at the time it it was I mean it it was a unique time for for Facebook ads. You know, I think um you I don't know what the what the stats would be, but man, you know, at least 50% of the growth, if not more, was really off of Facebook ads. And I do think there was that also that time period where referrals were really big for the hustle and companies like, you know, Morning Brew and stuff like that. But, um, yeah, man. FA Facebook ads and and those days I think are, you know, they're gone. you know, I mean, the the the rate at which you could purchase subscribers off of Facebook ads was was um you know, it made the ROI so so insanely attractive, but I think those you know, that's been gone, I think, for probably I don't know, at least four or five years now, probably. Hey, Kevin King and Norm Ferrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify. Make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of The Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet, Norm? >> Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast? >> Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time? It's just me on here. You're not going to know what I say. >> I'll I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair, too. We'll just You can go back and forth with one another. Yikes. But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content, somewhere up there there's a banner. Click on it and you'll go to another episode of the Marketing Misfits. >> Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm. We're coming up to the top of the hour and uh I I've got just one last question. >> Yeah. >> Looking into the future, what excites you? >> Oh man, I so many different things excite me. I think there's been a lot of really exciting things about, you know, AI. I think there's also been some scary things about AI. But I think as somebody who is a uh you know if you're a builder and a tinkerer and you and you like you know doing things on the internet and building things I think it's it it's hard for it not to be you know a pretty exciting time. Um I also really really enjoy doing podcasts. I I love meeting new people and and talking with people. And um I've had a lot of fun honestly in the last five or six months helping other entrepreneurs achieve their goals. You know, I I kind of mentioned earlier, I've been super super lucky and fortunate in my career. I've had 20 amazing years. I feel just just insanely kind of grateful for um all the opportunities that I've had. So, in the last five or six months to be able to build a little bit of an advisory practice and and work with entrepreneurs that are, you know, maybe 10 or 15 years behind me, I can lend, you know, my experience to them, help them create great content and kind of help, you know, help them avoid some of the mistakes that I've made. Um, that's just been a lot of fun at kind of this point in my career. >> All right, fantastic. Well, I do have one last question. This is my final question. Okay. At the end of every podcast, we always ask our misfit if they know a misfit. >> Oh, okay. Um, if I know a misfit, who am I going to give you? Oh, so many people come to mind here. Why don't I give you um let's see if he if he listens uh after I after you embarrass me with that HubSpot comment in the beginning. I'm [laughter] I'm going to give you um Kieran Flanigan uh who was uh one of my bosses at HubSpot. He was like SVP of marketing. He's been there for a really long time. I think he went over and was the CMO also at Zapier for a little while. Really great dude. Uh yeah, I would I would consider him in the misfit crowd. >> Oh, fantastic. >> All right. Well, if people were if people wanted to reach out to you, how could they get a hold of you? >> Uh you can find me uh jordan dphpro.com. It's got my newsletter, all my contact info, and uh info on my coaching as well. >> Awesome. Well, Jordan, I appre appreciate you coming on. We appreciate you coming on today. This is uh this has been fun. >> Thanks, guys. It was I I had a great time, man. Appreciate it. >> All right. Thanks again there. I was I almost missed my my button. >> Yeah, you you hit your button. You gotten good at this after 80 or 90 episodes or whatever we've done now. Um Yeah. So, so we just got to keep doing it. That's what he said. No, we just got to keep doing it. And one day, um you know, we'll have more than three listeners. >> Yeah. I like that. Dumb and Dumber. >> That's my mom, your your mom, and uh you know, my brother, and my chef. Um there'll be, you know, we'll have we'll have five listeners. Uh that's the key. >> That Dumb and Dumber quote there. You mean that I have a chance or whatever it was? [laughter] >> Yeah, I know what you're talking about. >> Yeah, exactly. Uh no, the podcast is growing good. You getting what' you say? Hundreds of thousands of of views on some of the Tik Tok uh um clips and stuff. >> A lot on Tik Tok. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's growing good, but we count on you guys that are out there listening to help us grow this. So, if you like this, make sure you subscribe or share this episode. You know, if you know someone that enjoy that's trying to build a community or maybe a newsletter or something that enjoy this talk with Jordan, share it with them. We're here every single Tuesday with a brand new episode. You can find us on Apple uh podcast, on Spotify, on on YouTube, and the the talk tickers. Um and uh or Tik Tok or whatever what the what the kids call it these days? >> I think it's called Tik Tok. >> Tik Tok. Yeah. >> Yeah. For us fossils, you know. >> For us old guys, u um Yes. So, uh I think uh what else we got, Nor? >> I think uh well, one thing we should mention is is YouTube. So, if you want to check out all the long form videos, you can just go to Marketing Misfits uh podcast and that's on YouTube. But if you want to check out the nuggets, the 3minut and under, we have a secondary channel called Marketing Misfits Clips. And those are all the episodes, especially from this episode. We'll have four or five different uh clips out there. And it's just all the the as we say the nuggets. So if you're just looking for shorter content, go there. >> Awesome. See you again uh next time, Nor. >> That's it. We'll see you later. >> Take care. >> [music] [music]