Marketing Your Business - Marketing Strategies for Business Owners

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.

Rory Vaden and his wife AJ have quietly helped build some of the biggest personal brands out there through Brand Builders Group. And Rory has done it while never having more than about 100,000 followers himself, on his way to a third eight-figure business. His argument: in the age of AI, information is free and application is free, so the one thing left that you cannot fake is trust. In this conversation, Rory reveals: - Why personal branding is really the digitization of your reputation - The difference between reach and revenue, and why deep beats wide - Why you can fake followers, but you can't fake trust - Fractal math: how to quadruple revenue without a single new customer or a single new ad - How 1,000 followers can out-earn 10 million - The one thing to post tomorrow if you have no time, no team, and no offer FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page playbook from this episode → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH RORY VADEN: - Website: https://roryvaden.com - Brand Builders Group: https://brandbuildersgroup.com - Book "Wealthy and Well-Known": https://wealthyandwellknown.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roryvaden - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roryvaden 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.

Most business owners build the thing they're known for and assume that thing is the business. Hal Elrod did that for years. Today the product that made him famous is the smallest line in his revenue, and the largest is a recurring subscription most people don't even know he sells. This is the conversation to listen to if you're doing everything right and your income still swings month to month. Hal built five income streams on one idea instead of launching something new every year, and he turned down two offers most people would take on the spot to keep the monthly money instead. In this episode, Hal reveals: - Why the thing you're known for is often your smallest earner, and what to build so the money shows up every month - The math behind saying no to $1.5 million and then $3 million, and why the monthly number beat both - Why paying to get on 11 national TV shows sold almost nothing, and how to tell reach apart from the right audience - How to stack new revenue on the offer you already have instead of starting over with something new - Why the cheapest thing he sells is the front door, and what it should feed - The $100,000 he gave away, and the Miracle Equation he says moves any goal from impossible to inevitable FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page playbook from this episode → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH HAL: - Website: https://halelrod.com - The Miracle Morning: https://miraclemorning.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hal_elrod - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HalElrod - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yopalhal - TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@halelrod 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.

Chandler Bolt is the founder of self publishing.com. He was a C student who hated writing, then he made six figures in seven months running a college painting business, dropped out, and moved across the country to burn the boats. Today his company has published 7,000 books. The climb was brutal. At 21 his business partner tried to push him out, so he borrowed from his parents' retirement to buy back control and paid it all back with interest 11 months later. Then he read one book that flipped his whole mindset in a single line. In this conversation Chandler breaks down: - Why he made six figures in revenue but only kept 13 grand - How he became the self publishing category king by buying a domain that wasn't for sale - Why one is the most dangerous number in business - The everyday partnership play that will do 5 to 7 million - What is actually working in his marketing now that AI is eating search - How he turns a single book into about $7 million a year, and why it is not the royalties FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page playbook from this episode: https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH CHANDLER: - Website: https://chandlerbolt.com - Self Publishing: https://selfpublishing.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chandler.bolt - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@selfpublishingcom - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandlerbolt 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.

Christelle Janse van Rensburg and Stefanie De Wet are sisters from South Africa, an architect and an engineer, who grew a kids' STEM craft business to 61 locations in three countries, then rebuilt the whole thing into a membership that now reaches 91 countries. In this episode they break down the pivot that saved everything after COVID took their income to zero in a single month. Christelle started a Thursday-afternoon kids' craft class to relieve her own burnout. It built a wait list. Stefanie ran the numbers on a spreadsheet that night and quit her corporate engineering job the next day. They franchised it, hit a wall, and when COVID shut the in-person clubs they de-franchised on purpose and turned their former franchisees into their biggest ambassadors. In this conversation, Christelle and Stefanie reveal: - Why they blew up a 61-location franchise on purpose - The $1,000/month math behind a class you run one hour a week - Why every ad, post, and newsletter points to one free 60-minute workshop - How twice-a-week launches cut their cost per lead to less than half - The VIP upsell and order bump that help the ads pay for themselves - The milestone they hit this year, and why it is not the part that made them emotional FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page playbook from this episode → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH CHRISTELLE & STEFANIE: - Website: https://www.creativecraftingclub.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creativecraftingclub - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/creativecraftingclub 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.

Alesha has spent 26 years building a business teaching belly dance, and the way she grew it online is a masterclass for any membership owner. In this episode: the layoff and the tent that started it all, the 40 members she was earning from before she knew what a membership was, the community that keeps members for years, and how to reach the right people without paying for ads. Alesha got let go from her engineering job, sold everything she owned, and lived in a tent while dancing at Renaissance festivals to get by. Years later she started recording her online classes for $20 a month. About 40 people subscribed, roughly $800 a month for work she was already doing, and she did not even know it was a membership until someone told her. In this conversation, Alesha reveals: - What turned a video library into The Belly Dance Journey, a membership people never leave - Why members come for the content and stay for the community - The 10-day Finger Cymbal Revolution challenge and its graduation celebration - How one collaboration turned her members into a music video shot around the world - Why a rising tide floats all boats - The marketing move that started with an internet troll - How to reach thousands of the right people without paying for ads FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page membership playbook → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH SAHIRA: - Website: https://sahirabellydances.com - Online classes: https://learn.sahirabellydances.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sahirabellydances/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SahiraBellyDances - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/SahiraBellyDancer 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.

Marine Lacoste toured the world as a musician for a decade, then built a membership business by doing everything in the "wrong" order. When COVID ended the touring income overnight, she started building online, and she built the products and the membership BEFORE she built an audience. Then she picked one platform, doubled down, and grew from a few thousand subscribers to almost 80,000. In this conversation, Marine reveals: - Why she built her membership before she had a single person to sell to - The one question she asked her buyers that made her double down on YouTube - Why YouTube monetization pays her to generate her own leads - The brand-new lead magnet she creates for every single video, built before she records - What she shows on YouTube vs. what she saves for the membership - The simple monthly challenge that woke up a silent community - How she surveys her members to find her real avatars - How she handles critics and the nasty comments FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page content and membership playbook → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH MARINE: - Website: https://onlinerocklessons.com - Membership: https://onlinerocklessons.com/the-membership/ - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OnlineRockLessons - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onlinerocklessons/ 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.

Will Hamilton has built a tennis business since 2007, and the way he markets it is a playbook any creator can steal. In this episode he breaks down the $10,000 offer he sold out off one email, the order bump that converts a third of buyers, how comedy made him a sharper copywriter, and how he gets traffic without paying for ads. Will's core offers are situation-based Playbooks (a physical book with QR codes), an order bump that converts about a third of buyers, a low-cost subscription to 40-plus programs, and occasional high-ticket experiences, one of which he sold out at $10,000 off a single email he wrote before the experience even existed. In this conversation, Will reveals: - The $67 order bump and the glove theory behind it - The $10,000 experience he validated with one email - How standup comedy made him a sharper copywriter - Why a mistake-based open beat his old videos by a mile - How he stacks open loops and holds the payoff to the final seconds - Where to put the CTA in a video (hint: not the end) - The borrowed-influence strategy he uses instead of expensive ads - Why he split tests every title and thumbnail FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page content and marketing playbook → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH WILL: - Website: https://www.fuzzyyellowballs.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fuzzyyellowballs/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fuzzyyellowballsdotcom - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/FYB2007 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.

You know that moment. You share your price, and right away you can feel it: the resistance. The pushback. The pause before someone says they need to think about it. Now you're defending the number. You're explaining it. You're justifying it. All of it is tiring, because all you want is for people to see the value of what you built. I felt the exact opposite of that in a leather shop in Florence. I was there with my wife, my two kids, and my parents, on a trip we'd planned for months. Every other shop that day went the same way: my wife and daughter went straight for the price tag. But in this shop, things were different. Price never came up. The guy just started talking, about how they pick the leather, who makes each piece, how long one bag takes to build. By the time the number finally came up, it didn't feel expensive anymore. It felt earned. We walked out with three handbags and a wallet. So what was the difference? I break it down into four lessons you can use starting today. Price pushback almost always means I don't get it yet, not it costs too much. Your story isn't a nice extra, it's the actual value. Tell it before you ever get near the price. And the sale doesn't end when the sale does. I'll also walk you through one of my favorite old marketing stories: a beer company that jumped from fifth place to first without changing a single thing about the beer, only the story it told about it. In this episode, you'll learn: Why price pushback almost always means "I don't get it yet," not "it's too much" The $40 chicken menu example that shows how context changes what a price feels like Three ways to tell your story: what you learned, what you built, or what it took to produce it The Jason Gaynard book launch story and what it reveals about showing your process Why the Schlitz beer company jumped from fifth place to first without changing the beer at all The referral move from a shop worker named Smiley that turns one sale into five Your action step this week: find where your story is buried on your sales page and move it up CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://membership.io Book "Predictable Profits": https://www.audible.com/pd/Predictable-Profits-Audiobook/B0DJTJJHKG Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stumclaren/ Podcast (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-your-business-teaching-entrepreneurs-how/id1299443864?mt=2 Podcast (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/0LHzoXLyImec4AbB1ZeYfW?si=5b57a4fc0fba4868 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stume?sub_confirmation=1 Subscribe and drop a review if this one was useful.

Lisa K spent eight years stuck at about 2,000 followers. Then she changed her messaging and her content, and in twelve months went from 2,000 to over 100,000, and now past 400,000 across Instagram and Facebook. In this episode she breaks down the niche shift, the daily reel she makes in 15 minutes, what the algorithm actually rewards, and the simple funnel that made 15% of her income. Lisa K teaches people to use their intuition to make better decisions, with a spiritual, divine-guidance approach. She is a published author who posted for eight years while stuck at about 2,000 followers. Her big move was niching down and changing her messaging so she no longer had to convince anyone, then switching to daily short-form video built around a simple framework. In this conversation, Lisa reveals: - The messaging shift from broad "intuition" to a specific divine-guidance angle - Why she switched to daily reels and the three-point framework she uses - How she produces a reel every day in 15 minutes - What the Instagram algorithm actually rewards (and why saves beat likes) - The imperfect reel she posted live that pulled 14,000 views in 12 hours - The system that keeps her consistent: same setup, streak tracker, calendar alarm - The $7 funnel with a 36% order bump that she set up once - How that funnel made 14 to 15% of her income - The annual-membership jump from about 4% to 50% FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page daily-content and funnel playbook → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH LISA: - Website: https://lisakintuition.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisak888/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lmk88fans 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.

A friend of Stu's, Ryan Levesque (New York Times bestselling author), was publicly accused of using AI to write his newsletter. The evidence? He used an em-dash. He's been writing with em-dashes for years. The world around him just changed how it reads. This is the world we're in now. Your real writing can get dismissed the second someone thinks it's AI. Stu knows this one personally. He hand-wrote a detailed, thoughtful DM response for a half-million-follower influencer who came to him for membership advice. Poured time into it. Didn't hear back for weeks. When he followed up, the person said they figured it was "a generic chat GPT response" and never engaged. It wasn't. It stung. But here's the fix, and it's a one-time thing. AI sounds generic because you handed it a blank page with no instructions. Build a voice guide, and AI stops sounding like everyone else. It starts sounding like you. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the "AI tell" is a myth (Stanford researchers found AI detectors wrongly flagged over 61% of essays written by non-native English speakers as AI) The three rules Ryan Levesque wrote for himself about AI (and why Stu builds on all three of them) Why AI sounds like generic slop and the one-time fix that changes everything What a voice guide actually is and how to build yours in about 20 minutes (free tool inside) The difference between outsourcing your typing and outsourcing your thinking Why feeding AI your PRESENT ideas (what happened this week, the result a member just got) is what makes your content sound fresh Your action step: go to voicecloner.io this week and build the instructions that make AI sound like you FREE RESOURCE: https://voicecloner.io - Free voice guide tool. Answer a few questions, drop in writing samples, get a set of instructions so AI sounds like you. Takes about 20 minutes. CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://membership.io Book "Predictable Profits": https://www.audible.com/pd/Predictable-Profits-Audiobook/B0DJTJJHKG Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stumclaren/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/marketing-your-business-marketing-strategies-for-business/id1299443864 Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe and leave a review if this episode helped you

Your campaign isn't broken. There's just one spot quietly leaking your results. After 24 years of building and fixing campaigns, here's what I've learned: when something underperforms, it's almost never the whole thing that's broken. It's one weak conversion point. And most of us do the exact wrong thing. We tear everything down and start from scratch. In this episode, I walk you through the exact method I use to find that one leak, and I'm going to use a real client story to show you how this works. Her name is Lisa. She came to me for a VIP day convinced she was bad at sales. Turns out, she was great at sales. She just had one broken spot in her campaign. We found it, fixed it, and her show-up rate went from 35% to 58%. Her stick rate went from 20 minutes to 45 minutes. Same audience. Same offer. Same promotion. One change. (All stats from Stu's client work, discussed in episode.) Here's what this comes down to: three lessons. Lesson one: map every single conversion point in your campaign, every yes or no moment. Lesson two: find where the numbers fall off (and I give you the benchmarks you need to know what's actually a leak). Lesson three: ask WHY it's leaking, then fix that one spot and nothing else. In this episode, you'll learn: The "garden hose with a kink" mental model for diagnosing any flat campaign without blowing the whole thing up How to map every conversion point in your campaign (ads, opt-in, show-up, stick, buy) and which ones you might be skipping The exact benchmarks Stu uses: cold traffic opt-in (above 30%), warm traffic (closer to 50%), show-up rate (40-50% industry average), and stick rate sweet spot for a 60-minute session (51 minutes) Why Lisa's show-up rate was tanking, and the one question Stu asked that uncovered the real reason in minutes How 15 of her top 16 Instagram posts were about a completely different topic than her webinar (and what that mismatch was costing her) Why comment-to-DM through ManyChat converts at 65-90% when a standard opt-in page converts at 30-50% Your homework: the one-change test that tells you whether you found the real leak or just guessed wrong CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://membership.io Book "Predictable Profits": https://www.audible.com/pd/Predictable-Profits-Audiobook/B0DJTJJHKG Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stumclaren/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/marketing-your-business-marketing-strategies-for-business/id1299443864 Membership.io: https://membership.io Subscribe and leave a review if this episode gave you something to use

Lou Clarke's biggest client fired her when they found out she was pregnant with her third child, dropping her household from $5,000 to $1,000 a month. Then she rebuilt everything with a piggy bank. In this episode she breaks down the comeback, the $4 million she sold through Instagram DMs, and why she walked away from a thriving one-on-one business to chase a hundred-million-dollar mission. Lou is a third-generation bookkeeper who helps female entrepreneurs manage their money so they can keep more of what they make, without going without. After her largest client (80% of her income) fired her on learning she was pregnant with baby number three, her family went from $5,000 to $1,000 a month while carrying a new mortgage. She dug out, built a simple piggy-bank plan, discovered Profit First, and grew a multi-million-dollar one-on-one business. Now she is shifting to a one-to-many membership model to reach a much bigger mission. In this conversation, Lou reveals: - The client who fired her for getting pregnant (and the fall that followed) - The piggy-bank plan that took her from bankruptcy to seven figures - Profit First and the money she stacked without making more - Why doing 1,059 one-on-one calls in a year became the breaking point - "You don't need to make more money, you need to manage it better" - The 100 million dollar mission behind her pivot - How she sold over $4 million through Instagram DMs (and why she stopped) - Why she was told to stop telling her story, and what changed when she didn't FREE RESOURCE: Get the simple money-habits breakdown from this episode → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH LOU: - Instagram: https://instagram.com/thelouclarke - Website: https://www.thelouclarke.com 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.

What if the fastest way to grow your audience isn't building one at all — but partnering with someone who already has the exact customers you're trying to reach? In this episode, Stu takes you inside a real coaching call with one of his members — a photo-book membership owner whose #1 problem is traffic. Instead of prescribing ads or more content, Stu asks one question that changes everything: "Who already has your ideal customers?" What follows is a live mapping session — seven partner types, a four-part playbook, and a simple outreach pitch that makes it easy for the right people to say yes. This is strategic co-promotion where everyone wins. And Stu breaks it all down step by step so you can start this week. In this episode, you'll learn: The one question that reframes "how do I grow my audience?" into a strategy you can act on today Why one partner workshop could bring in more customers than six months of organic posting Seven partner types Stu mapped live for a photo-book membership — and how to apply the same thinking to your business The two win-win program structures that partners actually want to promote (niche workshops and done-for-you templates) Why the offer has to benefit their audience first — and what happens when you get this backwards How to structure the deal: affiliate percentage (20-30%) or a straight co-promotion exchange The simple outreach pitch that works — including how to use screenshots from their community as social proof to make it easy for them to say yes Stu's closing action step: list 5-10 markets, identify 5-10 partners in each, reach out to one this week CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://membership.io Book "Predictable Profits": https://www.audible.com/pd/Predictable-Profits-Audiobook/B0DJTJJHKG Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stumclaren/ Podcast (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-your-business-teaching-entrepreneurs-how/id1299443864?mt=2 Podcast (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/0LHzoXLyImec4AbB1ZeYfW?si=5b57a4fc0fba4868 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StuMe?sub_confirmation=1 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Membership.io (Stu's company): https://membership.io Shana from budgetbesties.com (listener review shout-out): https://budgetbesties.com Subscribe to Marketing Your Business and leave a review — we just cracked the top 50 in marketing podcasts. Help us keep climbing.

Russell Brunson stood up at a charity mastermind in Nashville — $5,000 a seat, 100% to charity, 30 people in the room — and he never pitched a single thing. He just told a story. By the time he sat down, people were lining up to be part of it. That moment taught Stu three lessons about selling that most creators never figure out. Nobody wakes up wanting to buy your thing. They want to become someone different. And the fastest way to show them that's possible? Not a feature list. Not a price breakdown. A real person whose life changed because of what you do. In this episode, Stu breaks down what Russell did, why it worked, and the exact steps to apply the same approach to your course, membership, or service. In this episode, you'll learn: Why Russell never pitched the Kenya trip — and how the room ended up begging to be part of it anyway The three-lesson framework Stu extracted from watching it happen in real time Why listing your features informs people but telling a story moves them — and the brain science behind why that's true What Stanford's Jennifer Aker found: people remember stories up to 22 times more than facts, and 63% remember the story vs. only 5% who remember a statistic The "Find Your Jane" action step — how to identify the one real person whose life your work has changed and turn their journey into your most powerful selling tool Why showing beats telling every time — the role of photos, voice memos, screenshots, and real client words How Jason Gaynard used the same show-don't-tell approach at his book launch party TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Cold Open: One Story Outsells Every Pitch 0:32 - The Nashville Mastermind (Village Impact) 1:39 - [INTRO GAP NOTE — see flags below] 1:39 - Setting the Stage: Why Russell Was There 3:53 - Meeting Jane in Kenya 5:00 - Jane Becomes Part of the Family 6:34 - The Room Reacted Without a Pitch 7:01 - Lesson 1: People Buy the Story, Not the Thing 7:53 - Find Your Jane 8:29 - Lesson 2: Your Brain Is Built for Stories 9:12 - The Jennifer Aker Stanford Research 9:49 - Lesson 3: Show, Don't Tell 10:37 - The Jason Gaynard Example 11:22 - Your Next Step: Write Jane's Story 12:08 - Stop Describing. Start Storytelling. CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://membership.io Book "Predictable Profits": https://www.audible.com/pd/Predictable-Profits-Audiobook/B0DJTJJHKG Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stumclaren/ Podcast (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-your-business-teaching-entrepreneurs-how/id1299443864?mt=2 Podcast (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/0LHzoXLyImec4AbB1ZeYfW?si=5b57a4fc0fba4868 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@stume?sub_confirmation=1 RESOURCES MENTIONED: Village Impact (Stu's charity): https://villageimpact.com Russell Brunson: https://www.russellbrunson.com Amy Porterfield: https://www.amyporterfield.com Jayson Gaignard (book launch referenced): https://jaysongaignard.com Subscribe and leave a review if this episode gave you something to use.

Victor Damásio left law in Brazil, built a beloved marketing community, then flipped his entire value ladder and went from 20K to 200K a month. In this episode he breaks down the high-ticket-first move, the audio message he sends every new follower, the four questions that sold over 20 million, and the honest mistake he made along the way. Victor is a Brazilian marketer and educator who helps people get paid for what they know instead of what they do. His path: a lawyer who hated his job, then a top affiliate, then the builder of a beloved recurring membership, then a high-ticket coaching practice. His big move was reversing the conventional value ladder to lead with his most expensive offer, dropping to the low ticket only on a no. In this conversation, Victor reveals: - Why he left law (and the hard moment that pushed him) - The first guitar course in Brazil and the affiliate years - The recurring membership he built after a workshop with Stu - The value-ladder flip: high ticket first, low ticket only on a no - The honest cost of that flip and the community he let fade - The audio message he sends the moment someone hits follow - The four-question application he says sold more than 20 million dollars - Why his top high-ticket hire is a gatekeeper, not a paid closer - How becoming a father changed how he runs his whole business FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page social-selling and application playbook -> https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH VICTOR: - Instagram: https://instagram.com/victordamasio (also @victordamasiooficial) - Website: https://victordamasio.com - YouTube: https://youtube.com/@VictorDamasiooficial - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victordamasiooficial 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.

Most communicators think they need to be better speakers. They don't. They need to practice three skills that almost nobody ever talks about or works on. In this solo episode, Stu breaks down the real difference between communicators who land their message and those who leave audiences quietly tuning out. The key isn't confidence or charisma. It's three distinct skills: Expand (the long form), Condense (the short form), and Connect (clarity at any length). Most people have only ever practiced one. Stu shares the story of a one-day mastermind with Amy Porterfield, Russell Brunson, and Eileen where Russell asked for three hours, got offered 90 minutes, and delivered on the fly without missing a beat. That ability to fit the message to the time is the mark of a professional. Stu also shares the Ken Davis singular-focus framework he learned on Michael Hyatt's recommendation, and the Blaise Pascal quote from the 1600s that explains exactly why condensing is harder than expanding. In this episode, you'll learn: The three skills great communicators master that most people have never practiced (and why mastering all three changes everything) Why fitting your message to the time you've been given, not the other way around, is the mark of a true professional Why short is harder than long, and what Blaise Pascal wrote in the 1600s that explains it perfectly The Ken Davis singular-focus question you should ask before every presentation or piece of content you create Stu's 4-part teaching framework (Hook, Story, Lessons, Summary) that he uses for every episode of this podcast The practical workout Stu assigns for this week: one idea, three lengths, plain words CONNECT WITH STU: Website: https://membership.io Book "Predictable Profits": https://www.audible.com/pd/Predictable-Profits-Audiobook/B0DJTJJHKG Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stumclaren/ Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-your-business-teaching-entrepreneurs-how/id1299443864?mt=2 Subscribe and leave a review if this episode gave you something to use.

Michelle Falzon has been building courses and online programs since 1999, and she says the old model is finished: it's not changing, it's changed. In this episode she breaks down the shift from delivering information to delivering outcomes, the method she calls a guided journey, and why a client once cried when they finally got their result. Michelle has worked behind the scenes on courses, memberships, and coaching programs for more than two decades. Her thesis: the job of a creator has moved from being an expert who shares information to being an architect of outcomes, and the way you deliver a personalized outcome at scale is a fusion of your expertise and AI. In this conversation, Michelle reveals: - Why the old "17 modules, 36 hours of content, 26 worksheets" model is gone - The guided-journey method and how it delivers a result in minutes, not months - "Running with scissors": the mistake almost everyone makes with AI right now - The signature-story process that made clients cry (in a good way) - The friction we actually need to keep (and the cognitive-debt research behind it) - "Feed them with a spoon": pacing information to the moment of need - How memberships become the perfect home for guided journeys - Why your expertise is more valuable than ever, not less FREE RESOURCE: Get the one-page guided-journey summary: https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH MICHELLE: - Website: https://michellefalzon.com - Instagram: https://instagram.com/michfalzon - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellefalzon - Facebook: https://facebook.com/michellefalzonthegrowthfield 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.

Ricardo Teixeira ran 5 to 6 launches a year in Portugal (about 45 days each), then tore the whole model down and went evergreen. The surprise: his show-up rate went UP. In this episode he breaks down the evergreen pivot, the AI that calls every registrant the morning of day one, the sales team that turns a no into a 12K yes, and the mindset shift behind all of it. Ricardo built a business in Portugal around education and software and says he has helped thousands of entrepreneurs there. He ran a launch machine of 5 to 6 launches a year, then rebuilt everything into evergreen after seeing another marketer run an evergreen launch every single week pulling 10,000 to 15,000 leads. In this conversation, Ricardo reveals: - The clean three-tier offer ladder (and how a conversation in Kenya simplified it) - The out-of-the-box ads that made 30 percent of his audience dislike him at first - Why he tore down a launch model that was working - The evergreen pivot that made his show-up rate go UP - The AI voice tool that calls every registrant the morning of day one - What he does with the 98 out of 100 people who do not buy - His three-role sales team: setter, closer, farmer - The blended delivery model that took retention to 70 percent - The give-90-live-on-10 mindset shift behind it all FREE RESOURCE: Get the full Ricardo evergreen + sales-team playbook -> https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH RICARDO: - Instagram: https://instagram.com/samurairt - Website: https://kiai.me 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.

Most people don't love selling. You avoid talking about your offer because you don't want to come across as that pushy, cheesy salesperson. So you stay quiet. And your best offers stay invisible. Here's the good news: the most powerful way to sell barely involves you at all. In this solo episode, Stu shares the moment that proved it. At a recent mastermind he co-hosted, a long-time client named Emily had one honest conversation about her experience. People leaned in, a little circle formed, and several of them decided to invest in Stu's highest-priced offer. He had nothing to do with it. He wasn't even part of the conversation. From there, Stu breaks down the three lessons that make this work in any business, plus the simple reframe from his friend and mentor that finally got him comfortable talking about the work he cares about most. In this episode, you'll learn: Why a happy client's honest word carries more weight than your best pitch How to be intentional and ask, without ever feeling pushy Real, specific ways to invite your happiest clients to show up for you (reviews, launch calls, and sharing their story) RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 If this episode helped you, would you mind leaving a quick review? It really helps more people find the show.

Do you ever feel like you're getting punched in the gut when you look at how much you're spending on ads? Same here. And those costs just keep climbing. So our team sat down and asked a different question: how could we actually get paid to generate leads? In this solo episode, Stu walks through the four small experiments his team ran on an AI workshop funnel, the kind of tweaks that feel almost too simple to matter. Together, they took the funnel from covering 70 to 80% of ad spend to becoming genuinely profitable on the front end. You'll hear why raising prices didn't hurt conversions, how a tiny checkbox lifted average cart value, why the third workshop is the most overlooked spot in any funnel, and the famous jam study that explains why simpler offers sell more. None of these were huge swings. But stacked together, they made the difference between a funnel that breaks even and one that lets you keep pouring fuel on the fire. In this episode, you'll learn: Why raising your prices may not drop conversions the way you fear (and why it's the easiest place to start) How order bumps and a real back-end offer quietly multiply your cart value Why simplifying your offer beats stacking bonuses every single time RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

Emelie Bernborg closes 44% of her live webinars and her lowest show-up rate is 60-plus percent. Both numbers are unicorn territory. In this episode she breaks down the exact system: the 10-day promotion window, the ManyChat reminder sequence, the four-pillar messaging framework, the contest that drives the chat, the bonus that disappears at the end of the call, and the four-angle ad strategy that turned $3,000 in ad spend into more than $50,000 in revenue. Emelie is a Swedish course creator who serves membership owners and course creators stuck in the launch carousel. She made her name dominating the Swedish photography education market and has now branched out to help digital creators build the same kind of funnels she runs. In this conversation, Emelie reveals: - Why she never promotes her webinars earlier than 10 days out - The ManyChat reminder sequence that beats email every time - Why she never offers replays. Ever. - The four-pillar messaging framework (emotional, numbers, FOMO, identity) - The "is it possible for you" question that flips the close - The contest that gets the chat selling for her - The fast-action bonus that disappears 15 minutes after the price - How $3K in ads produced more than $50K in revenue - The mindset block that had her ghosting her business after a 200K launch FREE RESOURCE: Get the full Emelie webinar playbook: https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH EMELIE: - Instagram: https://instagram.com/herfearlessfocus - Website: https://www.thewebinarexperience.com 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.

Ashley Alderson spent 14 years building The Boutique Hub into a 7,000-plus member empire by doing something almost no one else does in the membership space: she names her enemies and throws rocks at them. In this episode, she breaks down the multi-tier membership model, the 30-ads-a-week Meta Andromeda playbook, the 500-opt-ins-a-week opt-in machine, and the radical-honesty content rhythm that turned her members into her best advocates. Ashley is the founder and CEO of The Boutique Hub, a membership for independent retailers and boutique owners that has grown to over 7,000 members across the world. She also runs Retail Bootcamp (a $2,000 course) and Boutique Black (her highest tier with one-on-one coaching). What started as an "online shopping mall of boutiques" idea in middle-of-nowhere North Dakota became a 14-year compounding business through one core principle: community over competition. In this conversation, Ashley reveals: - The chicken-and-egg pivot from failed marketplace to thriving membership - The Six Layers of Lasagna framework that powers her $2,000 course - The Meta Andromeda shift and why she launches 30 new ads every week - The 500-opt-ins-a-week target and the content engine that feeds it - How "Pink Friday" became a worldwide shopping movement - The Donald Miller wise guide vs villain framework - The Ask Ashley AI clone built on Delphi - Why $5 a day is enough to start with paid ads FREE RESOURCE: Get the full Boutique Hub playbook: https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH ASHLEY: - The Boutique Hub: https://theboutiquehub.com - Instagram: https://instagram.com/ajalderson 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.

You've built something great. World-class quality, loyal customers, and yet you're roughly the same size you were last year. If that's you, this episode is for you. This week I'm taking you behind the scenes of my son's Canadian National Jump Rope Championships, where I watched world-class athletes do things that take hundreds of hours of practice, in front of an audience that's far too small for how good they are. As I watched, I kept thinking like a business owner, and I saw three clear ways the sport could grow almost immediately. The same three things holding skipping back are quietly holding a lot of businesses back right now. I walk you through all three: making your customers the heroes of your stories (the way Drive to Survive and Welcome to Wrexham grew their audiences), opening the door to sponsorships and strategic partnerships (including how our mastermind client Tara Phillips landed Sesame Street, Melissa and Doug, and Beaches Resorts), and building recurring revenue that funds full-time focus instead of capping you at "evenings and weekends." If you've got a great thing that just isn't reaching enough people yet, these three lessons are your roadmap. In this episode, you'll learn: Why people fall in love with the people in a sport, not the sport itself, and how to apply that to your business How the very first sponsor or partner unlocks the next ten (and why momentum creates momentum) Why a passion project run on evenings and weekends can never become a category-defining business, and what recurring revenue unlocks Three questions to sit down with this week to reshape how you think about growth 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you. It means the world and helps more business owners find the show.

You wake up tomorrow, grab your phone, and your Instagram account is locked. Or the app is down. Or the algorithm just decided to stop showing your stuff. What happens to your business? Stu got reminded of this exact question this week after a conversation with Jeff Walker, the creator of Product Launch Formula. Jeff mentioned a few customers who had been on his email list for ten years before they ever bought anything. That one comment is the heart of this episode: most creators are obsessing over the wrong number. In this episode, Stu breaks down the three buckets of audience (rented, borrowed, and owned), the "landlord problem" that makes platform-built businesses fragile, and the simple test you can run on your last ten posts to see if you have a "bridge problem." It is a short, direct reset on where your real asset has been all along: the people you can reach without asking anyone for permission. In this episode, you'll learn: The landlord problem: why the algorithm is the landlord and you are the tenant The three audience buckets (rented, borrowed, owned) and why only one is truly yours The one-question test to run after every piece of content you publish Your next step: audit your last 10 posts for the "bridge problem" RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

Sarah Williams went from running a brick-and-mortar gift shop to 80% recurring revenue, then invented a 5-day launch model that converted at 43% and pulled in 1,400 paid members in a single week. In this episode, she breaks down Coaching Week, the day-one sell strategy, and the paid ad shift that's now driving 3 to 8 new subscribers per day on autopilot. Sarah is the founder of Framed (a women's monogrammed subscription box business doing thousands of subscribers a month) and Launcher Box (a membership that teaches product-based business owners how to launch their own subscription box). She started with a small gift shop in Wichita Falls, Texas. Today subscriptions account for 80% of her e-commerce revenue and her education business surpassed her e-commerce income in its first 18 months. In this conversation, Sarah reveals: - How she built her first subscription box in 2016 by curating her top 3 best-selling categories - The 50-DM launch that got her first 19 paying members in August 2019 - The invention of Coaching Week (5 days, 4 deliverables, 43% conversion rate) - Why she sells on DAY ONE of her launch, not the end - The shift from organic to paid (and why she's keeping ads running year-round) - The $10/day awareness ad that took her blow-dry bar from 1 stylist to 5 - Her three-tier framework: visibility first, conversions second, retention third FREE RESOURCE: Get the full Coaching Week playbook: https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH SARAH: - Launcher Box: https://launchyourboxwithsarah.com - Framed by Sarah: https://framedbysarah.com 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.

You're posting consistently, but the followers aren't coming. You're running webinars, but barely anyone shows up. Or you're creating lead magnets, but the list isn't growing. Last week, Stu sat in a room with some of the smartest business owners he knows, and he walked out with three things that flipped how he thinks about content, lead generation, and webinars. In this episode, he unpacks all three so you can start using them in your business right now. First, a gardener with 1.6 million followers reveals the content mix that actually grows a personal brand, and why most experts have it completely backwards. Then, an SEO expert shows how he's using simple AI-powered tools as lead magnets to generate thousands of leads a day. And finally, a former photographer with jaw-dropping webinar numbers explains the pre-webinar work most of us are wasting. Stu shares why these lessons apply whether you sell courses, memberships, software, or anything else, plus why the real magic of a mastermind isn't the strategy at all. In this episode, you'll learn: The 60/20/10/5 content mix for growing a personal brand, and why being known for one thing may be holding you back How to use AI to build simple, free tools that convert at over 2x the rate of PDF lead magnets The pre-webinar email shift that moves people from interested to paying RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

Olivier Roland has been selling online for 16 years. After two years of declining launches, he flipped his model and beat his previous launch for the first time. In this episode, he breaks down the $5K offer, the hybrid launch sequence, and why most creators are one algorithm change away from losing everything. Olivier Roland is one of the biggest French-speaking online educators on the planet. He has been blogging, building email lists, and running launches since 2010. He has sold the same flagship course for 15 years and pulls 3,000 to 4,000 organic leads a month from content alone. In this conversation, Olivier reveals: - Why he stopped using the word "blog" (and what he calls it instead) - The Donald Trump moment that proves your social audience is not yours - The website + email list combo that converts 5 to 10% (vs. 2 to 3% on social) - The hybrid launch model that beat two years of declining sales - The $5K to $6K offer that replaced his $2K course as the lead product - Why "book a call" beat "click to join" without making it feel like a hard sell - How he uses three AIs (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) to generate winning titles - The "Bye bye Dubai" title that doubled a video's performance FREE RESOURCE: Get the full launch playbook: https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH OLIVIER: - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OlivierRoland - Website: https://olivier-roland.com 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.

Ali Kay closed the doors on her membership and added 3,000 new members in a single week. In this episode, she breaks down the exact 5-day workshop launch, the $10 coupon that fills day one, and the charity day that turns cart close into her biggest sales moment. Ali Kay is a working artist who built a 6,300-member painting community by doing the opposite of what most online creators do. She closed the doors. She picked up the phone instead of running ads. She gave away her cart-close day to charity. And it worked. In this conversation, Ali reveals: - Why she went from an "always open" membership to a closed cart (and why it tripled her launch result) - The $10 coupon trick that makes day one of every workshop her biggest sales day - The charity-day strategy that turns hesitant buyers into confident members - Why the "wakeboarding while painting" ad worked when text-heavy creatives flopped - The exact moment she stopped feeling like she was "selling out" as an artist FREE RESOURCE: Get the full membership launch playbook → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH ALI: - Instagram: https://instagram.com/alikstudio - Facebook: https://facebook.com/alikstudio 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.

The AI world is moving fast, and it is hard to keep up. New tools, new studies, new shifts in how people are buying, searching, and consuming. So Stu started keeping a running list of the things that kept grabbing his attention, and this week five of them stood out. In this episode, Stu walks through the five shifts he believes will change how you and he run our businesses moving forward. Some are practical. Some are still being figured out in real time. All of them are worth paying attention to. You will hear why audiences are now consuming content through AI summaries instead of watching all the way through, why small publishers have lost 60% of their search traffic in the last two years, and why most creators are actually working more hours with AI, not fewer. Stu also shares the story of what his teammate Rebecca did before a mastermind that AI could never replicate, plus the conversation he is still wrestling with about AI becoming the boss instead of the assistant. In this episode, you will learn: Why AI summaries are changing how people consume your content (and what to do about it) The one ingredient that flips AI from time-drain to time-saver How to use AI for volume without losing the human trust that builds a brand RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

If you teach for a living and your students keep telling you your content is amazing, but six months later nothing's changed in their business... this episode might rattle you a little bit. And that's a good thing. A conversation with Scott Paley inside our Impact Mastermind cracked something open for me. Scott consumed all of our Summit content, but didn't show up live, didn't watch a single video. Instead, he ran the transcripts through Claude. And it made me ask a bigger question: what's actually happening to retention when people learn this way? The research is staggering. Students who used ChatGPT to study scored 57.5% on retention tests 45 days later. Traditional learners scored 68.5%. That's an 11-point gap, and it's not because AI is bad. It's because of cognitive offloading. In this episode, I'll share three things that stood out from the research, and then walk you through a simple five-letter test you can run your content through. I'm calling it the STICK test, and once you hear it, you'll see exactly where your courses, programs, and memberships are leaking transformation, and what to do about it. In this episode, you'll learn: Why AI summaries cause students to retain 11 points less than traditional learners (and the cognitive offloading effect behind it) The "passive learner trap": passive learners feel 62.5% prepared but only retain 79%, while active learners retain 94% The full STICK test — Space, Trigger, Illustrate, Community, Keep — and how to apply it to anything you teach Why the membership model naturally outperforms one-off courses for long-term student transformation The one shift that changes everything: you're not paid to teach, you're paid to make it stick RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

Bonnie Christine bet $42,000 on a trade show booth with zero experience. What happened next changed her entire business. In this episode, she reveals the 10% ad budget rule, the 12-week nurture sequence that fills her course, and the moment in her workshops that makes her tear up every time. Bonnie Christine is a surface pattern designer who built a multi-million dollar business teaching creatives - without ever going to design school. In this conversation, Bonnie reveals: • The "gift wrap strategy" that introduces people to her world months before she sells • Why she allocates exactly 10% of revenue to ads (and how that removes the fear) • The $42,000 trade show bet that made 10 years of connections in 3 days • The 5 lies holding creatives back (and the moment that makes her cry) • Why she's going physical when everyone else goes digital 📚 FREE RESOURCE: Get Bonnie's 10% Ad Budget Framework + Gift Wrap Nurture Sequence Template → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH BONNIE: • Website: https://bonniechristine.com • Instagram: https://instagram.com/bonniechristine • Pattern Magazine: https://www.bonniechristine.com/patternmagazine 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.

The playbook said our launch was done. We'd sent the emails. Hit the reminders. Ran the countdown. Most teams would have let the sequence ride out. We did something different. We opened a Zoom room for three hours with no slides, no script, and no pitch. Just over 100 people showed up. 30 sales came in. Over $100,000 in revenue. And most of those buyers? People we had never seen engage the whole launch. In this solo episode, Stu walks through the two moves his team made in the "in-between days" of a recent summit launch that completely changed how he thinks about the end of a campaign. You'll hear why the Rule of 7 has quietly become the Rule of 8-to-13, why confidence in your offer is the thing people can actually feel, and the one question that surfaces the highest-converting move you're probably not making. In this episode, you'll learn: Why buyers are taking longer to decide and what the new touchpoint research says How to sell without selling (and the one condition that makes it work) The simple question to ask your team before every launch ends RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

If you've been watching AI roll through every industry and wondering what's left, what your edge is, what can't be automated, this episode is for you. Because the answer isn't more tech. It's actually the opposite. I was sitting in a movie theater at a VIP premiere of Super Mario Brothers with my son, brother-in-law, and nephew. The tickets, drinks, popcorn, candy, all free. 100 families in the room. No pitch, no transaction, just pure investment in relationships. While I was there, I asked my bank advisor Adrian if AI had impacted his work. He paused, looked at me, and said, "Not really. Because everything I do is based on relationships and AI can't replace relationships." That's when the light bulb went off. In this episode, I walk through three simple, intentional relationship touch points you can start using this week to deepen your connection with your best customers. The more the world automates, the rarer human connection becomes, and the more valuable it gets. In this episode, you'll learn: * Why a 5% increase in retention can boost profits by 25 to 95% (Bain research) * The experience touch point: why family-friendly beats "a nice night out" every time * The care touch point: how a two-sentence message during the hurricanes deepened customer loyalty * The intimate touch point: how we're running mini masterminds for our best customers this year * The one word that ties all three ideas together (and why efficiency is the wrong goal) RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

Brandon Turner built a $1 billion real estate portfolio with 14,000 units. Now he's $700 million in debt with 3 years to build and sell a company for $50 million - or lose $100 million in investor capital. This is his comeback plan. Brandon Turner hosted the BiggerPockets podcast for a decade, owns over $1 billion in real estate, and runs multiple companies from Hawaii. In this conversation, Brandon reveals: • Why having a large personal brand is like being a "really hot girl" • The "cross point of two niches" strategy that built his audience • What happened when his Texas properties dropped 30% in value • His "this sucks, I'm sorry" leadership framework for crisis management • Why being down to your last dollar makes you play your best game • The $50 million company he needs to build in 3 years 📚 FREE RESOURCE: Get Brandon's Crisis Leadership Framework + Personal Brand Strategy Guide → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH BRANDON: • Website: https://beardybrandon.com • Instagram: https://instagram.com/beardybrandon • BiggerPockets: https://biggerpockets.com • Book "The Book on Rental Property Investing": https://a.co/d/6EWQ9Fm 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.

Have you ever watched somebody fall in love with what you're selling, say they'll be back, and then never actually come back? The problem isn't your product. The problem is you're not giving people a reason to buy today. I got reminded of this in the most unexpected way: my daughter's birthday. Marla had a list of birthday freebies on her phone. Starbucks, Sephora, Booster Juice. She dragged us to every single one. And at every stop, the rest of us bought stuff too. A free drink turned into snacks, skincare, smoothies. She was a walking case study in how a small reason to come in turns into multiple sales. In this episode, I break down three types of promotions you can run all year long, the one ingredient that makes any promotion actually work, and why running promotions isn't gimmicky, it's the most helpful thing you can do for your customers. In this episode, you'll learn: * The three buckets of promotions: seasonal, annual/signature, and unique story-driven * Why a promotion without a deadline is just a nice thing to read about * How I went from saving electric bike posts for months to buying two bikes in one night * The reframe from my friend Barry Baumgarner: "Sales is service" * A simple assignment you can run in the next 30 days RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

My wife posts something she believed in on Instagram. Within minutes, a woman comments, "I'm unfollowing you." Ouch. But then the post starts climbing. Comments, shares, new followers, people messaging her saying, "Thank you for saying this." One person left. Dozens leaned in closer. And that's not a coincidence. That's how this game actually works. Most creators are stuck in the middle. They're not loved, they're not hated. They're just ignored. And the middle is where businesses go to quietly die. In this episode, I break down the three layers of content that pull your people toward you (and push the wrong ones away). I share the Nicole Burke story from our summit, the Gary Vaynerchuk moment that made me define my values, and a framework you can use this week to stop blending in. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why vanilla content gets zero engagement (nobody drives across town for vanilla ice cream) • The three layers of standing out: opinions, values, and controversial takes • How Nicole Burke grew Gardinary Co. to 1.5 million followers using "conspiracy theories" • Why unfollows aren't losses, they're the filter working exactly the way it should • A simple framework: "Most people think X, but I believe Y" RESOURCE: Grab the resources from this episode at https://podcast.stu.me 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 and leave a review if this episode helped you.

Eileen Wilder went from 20 years as a pastor to making $108,000 in a single day - with just 6 people in the room. In this episode, she reveals the exact framework for crafting offers people actually want to buy. Eileen Wilder is one of the most sought-after sales trainers in the online business world. Her secret? Understanding the science of why people buy - and why most offers fail before they even start. In this conversation, Eileen breaks down: • The "voice memo technique" for creating offers your audience actually wants • Why more words are killing your sales (backed by neuroscience) • Her "hell to heaven" storytelling framework that releases desire • The mindset shift that made her first $108K day possible • Why the transformation happens IN the transaction 📚 FREE RESOURCE: Get Eileen's Hell to Heaven Framework + Voice Memo Technique Guide → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH EILEEN: • Website: https://eileenwilder.com • Instagram: https://instagram.com/eileenwild 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.