Podcasting Secrets

Credibility is becoming increasingly important in business. Potential customers don’t trust as easily as they once did, so it is much more important that we do everything we can to build strong relationships of trust, be honest, and be real in those relationships. In today’s episode, Curtis Blair and I discuss how to build stronger credibility in our relationships.

Curtis has led five companies to multimillion-dollar status. His most recent success was leading a marketing company from zero to $12 million in four years. He's directed marketing teams for the international brand Fila. In addition to being an incredible businessperson, he is also an amazing person.

Curtis remembers an ad from when Instagram first became popular. A celebrity was walking through the airport, and she was pulling a very beautiful luggage piece, one that could be used for an executive or fashion model. It was a very versatile, nice-looking bag. She described the wheels, the ball bearings, the handle, the three different sizes, the many pockets, and it was supposed to be off the cuff like, “Hey, I just got off the plane, and I love my piece of luggage.” However, it was just so inauthentic. So much so that it was almost done in poor taste. At the time, there were a lot of social influencers being paid big dollars to do advertising, but it didn’t take very long for people to realize that the ad was inauthentic.

Curtis says there are three key ingredients to developing social capital. They are being real, being raw, and being relevant. This means we must be organic, consistent, dynamic, entertaining, thought-provoking, a little vulnerable, and share stories that are compelling. With so much being fake online, it is important for us to be authentic because our customers can tell the difference. It is something that is qualitative, not quantitative.

One way we can be more authentic is to share a backstory from our company. People love to hear what is going on behind the scenes. As we provide that to our audience, whether that is employees, customers, shareholders, or vendors, we can improve our social capital.

“If we don't find ourselves being a little bit more real, a little bit more raw, and a little bit more relevant, we will be left behind.” -Curtis Blair

When we are trying to grow meaningful relationships, in business or in our personal lives, one key piece is to add value to the relationship and to reciprocate the value that the other person has added to the relationship. We have to be very careful when approaching relationships that we are adding value to. There are appropriate times to ask for something, but it's important when we receive something like a piece of great advice not only to attribute where that came from but also to pay it forward. We should give value in return. Part of adding social credibility and adding to the credibility capital is taking what we've learned and paying it forward.

Our relationships need to be considered priorities. There can be a shared feeling of trust and belonging in relationships, but those feelings if not constantly nurtured can fade. 

Recently, Curtis sold a business. During the transition phase, he was trying to help the new owners figure things out. They were asking Curtis questions that he knew he had answered for them before, but he could tell there was something else going on. He swallowed his pride and helped them go through it again. He did his best to help them, to resolve any fears or concerns they had, and to really truly answer the questions they were asking. He didn’t give any excuses or try to take over by saying this is what I would do. He just let them figure it out and grow from it. Sometimes adding value means that we have to put our egos in our back pockets for a moment and just make sure that we're delivering a relevant and important response or comment. 

It is much better for someone else with a tremendous amount of credibility and clout to say something good about us than it is for us to say about ourselves. How much more credible is it when Oprah says that someone has a meaningful book or podcast than when they say it themselves? How much more credible would it be if Liam Neeson were to tell me I was a great actor or if Elton John were to say that someone was a great musician? 

That credibility is much more powerful than if someone were to say it about themselves. We're witnessing this in politics, entertainment, and business. It’s even prevalent on a smaller scale; most students won’t take a class from a professor unless they’ve heard about them from someone else, which is how websites like RateMyProfessors.com thrive. 

“Credibility is a leader's currency. With it, he or she is solvent; without it, he or she is bankrupt.” -John C. Maxwell, American author, speaker, and pastor

One of the secrets of credibility is being there in the hard times. When you have to take a stand or when you go through something tough with someone, it builds a deeper relationship and deeper credibility in the relationship because they know they can trust us to be there for them when times are tough. We can’t just be there when times are good; we have to be there when it’s hard to be there for them. 

In a business sense, we can apply this to when an employee or customer is going through something tough. Perhaps they’re sick with COVID or their spouse is going through cancer. Maybe a customer is facing bankruptcy and we let them out of the contract that we didn't have to let them out of. When we are there for people in times like these, that’s when we can build some of the most loyalty and the most credibility capital. When we do something for somebody when they really need help, that's one of the key secrets to building relationships that last.

As Curtis gets together with his associates and friends that helped him get to where he is, they don't talk about their successes or the great things they’ve done. They talk about the hard things; they talk about the scars and the battle wounds, discussing the lessons they’ve learned. It’s during those times that character really shines, that's when the rubber meets the road. Leadership and character are defined in those dark moments. 

Hard times encourage us to innovate in ways that we wouldn’t have if things had stayed the same. Curtis thinks that there will be more creativity, more innovation, and more market segment verticals opened up to us because of this COVID crisis than we would have seen in five years had everything just stayed status quo. He’s seen it in his own marketing businesses, in the campaigns that they’re drawing up, in the customer journeys that they're mapping out for clients. We are becoming much more creative, engaged, and vulnerable. We’ll be able to come out of a crisis like this with our chins up and our heads held high. True character, true innovations, and some of the greatest thought leaders will come out of our communities during these times.

“The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people.” -Colin Powell, Former United States Secretary of State

When Curtis moved from Connecticut to Colorado, he noticed there was a change in style. His friends in Connecticut had worn black rock T-shirts. In Colorado, 501 button-fly jeans were in style. Curtis realized that location and association matter. Most of your Facebook friends live within a 100-mile radius. Most kids choose colleges within a 30-minute drive from their home. 

It's been shown in socioeconomic studies that suicide and obesity are happening in networks and pockets of communities. The same can be true of positive things. So as we think about the concept of belonging, it is important that we respect the law of association. We become like those we surround ourselves with. We become a part of their social network and rub off on each other. Hopefully, we can surround ourselves with the kind of people we want to be like, as well as be the kind of person that other people want to be around. For me, Curtis Blair is definitely one of those people I want to be like.

When I asked Curtis who is the person who has the most credibility for him in his life and why, he told me that it changes every week. He is reading a new book every week, but it is always the person he is investing time in who’s an expert and who’s a thought leader. This comes back to the same common principle; the person most credible to us is an expert who is giving us great advice. In that relationship, there's trust, respect, thought leadership, speaking from a place of experience, and speaking from a place of vulnerability.

Connect with Curtis

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Curtis or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisbblair. 

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Curtis for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. Be real, raw, and relevant in our marketing. Our customers can tell when we’re being inauthentic.
2. Add value to our relationships and prioritize those relationships.
3. Sometimes adding value means swallowing our pride and letting the other person figure things out on their own.
4. When experts, customers, and other credible sources talk about us, it is much more credible than when we talk about ourselves.
5. Be there for people during the hard times to establish stronger relationships.
6. Surround ourselves with people we want to be like.
7. Listen to experts and thought leaders who speak from experience and vulnerability.

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

What successful credibility strategies have you seen in your career? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/29-6-credibility-strategies-from-curtis-blair-who-led-5-companies-to-multimillion-dollar-valuations/

"Startups don’t fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers and a profitable business model." -Steve Blank, Entrepreneur

A profitable monetization model is a key aspect of every business. In today’s show, Johnny Hanna discusses some monetization models, and other strategies, that have attracted customers to his companies and helped him generate strong profits.

Johnny Hanna is the CEO and co-founder of Homie, a company that is revolutionizing the home buying experience. Homie’s mission is to simplify home buying and selling with a one-stop-shop experience. Prior to Homie, he was the president and co-founder of Entrata, a real estate software company. Johnny helped Entrata grow to more than $100 million in annual revenue. 

While Johnny ran Entrata, he and his coworkers recognized that if customers were using their platform, they could influence them to buy their other services such as their websites, online payment system, or revenue management system. So, they gave away their accounting software for free and then sold all of the other tools and services connected to that system. 

This was a way to get their foot in the door using the highly-successful freemium model, providing one product or service for free, and then charging for something else. This freemium model is one of the most tried, tested, and proven successful digital monetization strategies. The freemium model has been the most successful monetization model in my career.  With this freemium model, Entrata has been able to reach more than $100 million in recurring annual revenue.

“The freemium model allows users to experience and get hooked to products by removing initial barriers to adoption. As users realize incremental value over time, they are willing to pay for premium features and capabilities.” (Source: Chargebee.com)

Similar to a freemium model, we can also use a loss leader strategy to attract new customers. A loss leader is when a company provides a huge discount on a product or service to get clients in the door. Homie does this by providing a highly-discounted flat fee for selling a home. This attracts many clients to them because they don’t have to pay Homie a commission based on how much the house sells for. After the client becomes thrilled with their experience with Homie, they often buy the company’s other products or services, which is where Homie generates its profits.

“When customers buy other items in addition to the loss leader, you make a larger profit based on the volume of purchases from customers. By choosing your loss leaders and complementary products, you can actually use loss leaders to encourage purchases of other items in your store.” (Source: smallbiztrends.com)

Homie is rolling out a new model similar to the software as a service model. This “homeownership as a service” model is a new concept that would give Homie a recurring revenue stream. Johnny and Homie realized that with this model, they could take a lot of the headache, risk, and work off their customer’s plate. So, they brainstormed homeownership services that the company could provide as a recurring service. They came up with services such as replacing air filters, trimming trees, mowing lawns, chlorinating the pool, spraying for bugs, or adding salt pellets for a water softener. The customer would pay a monthly fee and choose which services they would like, and the company would automatically send qualified people to perform these tasks. Just like Homie, we can create recurring revenue streams in nearly any niche.

Describing a new product, service, or business can sometimes be hard and requires a long, detailed explanation, but it doesn’t have to. During our conversation, Johnny described Volley, an app that he is excited for and planning to use in his business. Johnny said it is “kind of like Marco Polo for business.” This “kind-of-like…” description strategy is a powerful way to quickly describe a new product or service in a way that adds credibility. I already knew what Marco Polo was, and that it is very successful, so it was immediately easy for me to picture what this new app does. He used the kind-of-like strategy to compare something new to something I already trusted, and as a result, the credibility and understanding flowed through to the new thing he was trying to describe. This is a very effective strategy. 

I have been told that when movie scriptwriters are pitching movies they often use a similar strategy, describing their movie as kind-of-like an existing movie, but with a specific difference. For example, the plot of Finding Nemo is kind-of-like Taken with an overprotective single father who gets into dangerous situations while searching for his abducted child, however finding Nemo is animated with fish. This kind-of-like description gets to the heart of what we are trying to describe in a simple way. It easily allows our customers to understand what our product or service is about without a lengthy description. Try it. What well-known and credible product or service is kind of like your product or service?

Volley is an app that allows businesses to communicate with their customers through video. It is perfect for a business like Johnny’s. Their realtors can record videos ahead of time to automatically send to new clients. These videos can introduce the agent and company, and then walk the new client through their process. The client can watch it any time and rewind it if they miss anything. Face-to-face interaction is the best way to interact with our customers and clients, but when that isn’t possible, video is the next best thing. Volley is a great example of leveraging a tectonic shift to create a successful business.

One way Johnny has effectively utilized video is by hiring firms to create marketing videos for them. They hired people who had previously worked for the Harmon Brothers (a previous guest on the show, and the creators of advertising campaigns for Poo-Pourri, Purple Mattress, and more). As a result of this strategy, Johnny’s videos have had several million views. 

Nearly half of businesses (41%) reported spending at least a half-million dollars on digital marketing each year, and 81% spend at least $50,000 (Arora Project). Every business is going to have to advertise in some way. Experienced advertising firms can be a great way to ensure our advertising budgets are being put to good use.

Homie has also utilized video through testimonial videos from their customers. Many of Homie’s clients are hesitant to share they used Homie on Facebook or social media because they have close realtor friends, and they don't want to hurt their feelings. They especially don’t want to hurt their feelings by going with Homie and then brag about how wonderful their experience with Homie was on Facebook. One way that Homie has been able to work around this is with testimonial videos from their clients. Many of their clients were willing to do testimonial videos and let Homie promote them, instead of the client making the videos and promoting the videos on their social channels that the realtors are following.

According to a 2014 Demand Gen Report, 97% of B2B buyers feel that user-generated content like consumer reviews is more credible than other types of content, and a 2014 study found customers spend 31% more with businesses who have good client testimonials (Source: Spectoos).

Homie is also doing testimonial videos with their own realtors. In response to some campaigns against them, saying that they aren’t realtors or that they aren’t professional, Homie has launched a video campaign with their realtors, saying “I'm a realtor, and I recommend that you go with Homie.” With these videos, they will be able to show potential clients that they are credible in a format that simulates a face-to-face interaction.

Connect with Johnny

If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Johnny or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnny-hanna💭-90036 or check out Homie.com.

Key Takeaways

Thank you so much Johnny for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode to help us improve our monetization models:

1. If you have not already, consider implementing a freemium model or a loss leader strategy to attract new customers, to whom you can then sell additional products and services.
2. Try to find the recurring revenue streams we can provide in our niches.
3. When we are describing our products and services, try to find something well-known and credible to compare them to with a kind-of-like strategy.
4. Think of how we can implement video into our business to more effectively engage with our customers and clients when in-person interaction isn’t an option.
5. If we want to increase the effectiveness of our advertising, we might consider hiring a video advertising agency to help us create the best video ads possible.
6. We absolutely need to seek testimonial videos from customers to promote our businesses. 
7. We can also use testimonial videos from our own employees to show our business’ credibility, especially to others who belong to their tribe, just like Johnny had his realtors share testimonials with other realtors.

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Subscribe to the Monetization eMagazine.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
4. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.

Share Your Story 

When have you seen a company effectively use the freemium or loss leader monetization models? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/28-how-to-generate-100-million-in-annual-recurring-revenue-by-giving-away-something-for-free/

“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.” Barbara De Angelis

In this episode, we’re going to explore how to create and maintain a culture of kindness in our organizations. We’re also going to discuss positioning our organizations as quality service providers, and not trying to compete on price. And we’ll talk about strategies that have helped The Gladney Center for Adoption, to survive and thrive for more than 133 years.

Mark Melson is the President and CEO of the Gladney Center for Adoption and an adoptive father. In December 2019, the Adoption.com venture I created decades ago was purchased by the Gladney Center for Adoption. I feel very blessed that an amazing organization like Gladney purchased Adoption.com, and that I am able to continue to run Adoption.com for Gladney. 

Gladney was created more than 133 years ago. I believe today Gladney is the premier adoption organization in America. They have helped complete more than 32,000 adoptions and have made a tremendous difference for good in the world for children, adoptive families, and birth parents.

Leading with Kindness

After Gladney had purchased Adoption.com, I traveled to Texas to attend a Gladney Board of Directors meeting. Mark Melson and I had developed a Google presentation for that meeting which had my slides and Mark’s slides together. The night before the morning presentation, I was working late trying to finish some revisions to the presentation. Some team members on the other side of the world were helping me with the revisions, and somehow the presentation was completely deleted. At about 1:30 am we discovered that the file had been lost in an unrecoverable way. Google Drive’s features to recover past versions of a file sadly did not work in this situation. 

We frantically worked to recreate the presentation up until the time of the morning meeting. Through all of that fiasco, Mark and his team were never anything except amazingly kind to me. I felt horrible, but they never gave me a hard time. 

I believe we pulled it off, and the presentation went ok. What could have been a very stressful situation was mitigated because of the culture of kindness Mark has helped to create at Gladney. 

Mark has a leadership style of kindness. People who work for Mark don’t have to be afraid of failure when they are doing their best. Mark inspires us to do our best because we trust that our best is sufficient. Mark treats us right even when we make mistakes, and because of that, he inspires an amazing sense of loyalty and a desire to do our best.

Mark is grateful for the people who didn’t drag him across the coals when he made mistakes.  He says that through kindness, caring, and generosity we can overcome so much. Mark realized early in his career that he didn’t need to be a “persecutor,” coming down with an iron fist. In many cases, when people react from an emotional standpoint, they are reacting to their own anxiety. They aren’t reacting to the problem, they are reacting to how the problem makes them feel. People have a choice of how they want to react. When things go wrong, it is often human nature to become a persecutor, saying things like “Why did you…?”, “What’s wrong with you?”, or “You messed up.”

Instead of being a persecutor, we should be responding as a “challenger” saying things like “What can we learn from this mistake?”, “How do we improve upon these challenges that we have?”, and “Let’s be sure we learn from this so we can do better next time.” In these two situations, there is the same outcome. The person realizes they messed up, but when we challenge the person, they feel better about learning from it and moving forward instead of responding like a dog that has been smacked.  When things don’t go right, the best strategy is to ask what can we improve.

Mark learned this concept of shifting from persecutor to challenger in the book The Power of TED.

Being a Service Quality Provider Instead Of Competing on Price

Years ago, Gladney made a strategic decision to position the adoption agency as one of the highest quality adoption service providers instead of trying to compete on price. Gladney decided that their highest priority was to do what was in the best interest of children needing adoption. Then, they asked themselves what services they needed to provide to accomplish that, such as training for adoptive parents, counseling for expectant parents, lifetime support for the child, etc. Then, they tried to figure out the monetization so they could afford to provide those services. Because Gladney provides such a high level of quality, they have to charge more for their adoption services, and they also need to fundraise to subsidize a lot of the expenses.

Gladney takes a “knower/learner” approach, constantly trying to understand what the organization can do better. Because of this strategy, the quality of service has continued to grow over the years. 

About 6-7 years ago, Gladney initiated a relationship with the Disney Institute, which provided training to the Gladney team about providing quality service. Disney wrote a book titled “Be our Guest.” The book talks about the Disney approach to quality service. When we go to one of the Disney Parks we experience this amazing service, and Gladney wanted to bring this experience and feeling back to Gladney. The Gladney team wants everyone who walks out of the Gladney doors to say “Wow! That was a great experience." 

Flat Fee Pricing Model

Some other organizations quote a lower price up front and then add on a lot of other fees. Gladney decided they didn’t want to do that. They felt a bait-and-switch business model destroyed credibility. Instead, Gladney rolled out a flat-fee pricing model that included essentially everything they could include. Gladney received great feedback from their clients, who were happy that there would not be any surprises or guesswork on Gladney’s fees. That set pricing model helped establish credibility and a stronger relationship of trust with Gladney’s adoptive families because they weren’t in a “nickel-and-dime” relationship with their adoption agency. 

Sometimes adoptions fall through after Gladney has incurred substantial expenses. Then, new expenses have to be paid to find another adoption situation and cover expenses related to that situation. Gladney does not pass these expenses related to the failed adoption on to the family. Gladney eats those expenses and works to match the family with another adoption situation at no additional cost. Sometimes an adoption will have more expenses and sometimes it will have less expense, and Gladney has figured out the pricing it needs to charge. This flat-fee model helps remove a lot of risk for the families and builds credibility. 

How Gladney Has Survived for 133+ Years

During the COVID pandemic, too many adoption agencies have had to go out of business. Gladney has been around for 133+ years. One of Gladney’s secrets to longevity is diversified monetization. Gladney provides a diverse set of adoption services, such as U.S. infant adoption, adoption of children in foster care, and international adoption. This diversity of monetization from services, combined with donations, helps provide Gladney sustainability. Because when adoptions are down in one area, Gladney has the ability to make it up in another area. For example, because of primarily political reasons, international adoptions are very low right now, and adoption agencies that only focus on international adoption are hurting badly. 

A second secret to longevity is the generosity of Gladney’s families and others who have donated money. Because Gladney has focused on being a premium quality service provider, they enjoy strong relationships with people who use Gladney’s services. Those people then want to help support Gladney and its mission. As a result of generous donors, Gladney has been able to build a savings account that has helped Gladney ride through hard times, such as the COVID pandemic. 

Credibility Makes Everything Easier

Because Gladney has provided adoption services for so many years and has such a great reputation and credibility, many people refer to Gladney. Because those people trust the adoption services are going to be done right, they are willing to pay more than they would pay for a discount adoption agency. And because Gladney is able to charge more, they have the resources to provide a higher quality of adoption services. 

Another source of credibility comes from past clients. Gladney often connects potential clients with past clients who have already been through adoption. Then, the past clients can share stories about working with Gladney that are far more credible than what Gladney could say about itself. Gladney has developed a network of past clients who help tell the Gladney story through testimonials. Instead of Gladney trying to tell the world how awesome they are, they let past customers do that. 

Does Monetization Strategy Apply to Non-Profit Organizations?

Some people wonder whether the monetization principles apply to charitable causes or non-profits. Absolutely. Monetization is the art of turning assets into cash flow. Almost always, charities or nonprofits need cash flow just like any other organization to accomplish their mission or to help more people. For example, the assets of a non-profit might include relationships with donors who are passionate about the organization’s mission, and monetization could happen through effective fundraising campaigns. 

Charities or nonprofits often diversify their monetization in ways that expand their ability to achieve their mission at scale and give them stability to weather bad economies when donations are scarce. For example, the Girl Scouts make about $800 million each year selling cookies to help pay for the programs they offer. Another example is Save the Children which lets people sponsor specific children. 

The “Why” Behind Non-Profit Monetization

Gladney worked with a wonderful family that adopted two beautiful boys out of the foster care system. These boys had sadly had a life they should not have had before the adoption. The older boy, who was about 12, was having to take care of the younger boy, who was about 9, and they were living on the street most of the time. Unfortunately, the biological mother was not in a position to be a parent herself. 

A family came forward and felt “called” to help these kids. 

What Gladney learned from this situation is that a lot of time goes into training and preparing the families to be successful in situations where the kids have come from a really hard place, situations we simply cannot understand. 

Gladney saw that because of the love and safety the adoptive family provided the boys, and making sure the boys knew they were not going to leave them, it let the 12-year-old go back to being a kid while allowing the mom and dad to do their job by taking care of them both. As a result, Mark saw the kids blossom.   

This is why monetization is so important in a non-profit because it allows the organization to make a greater difference for good, such as changing the lives of these two boys and their family forever.

Contact Gladney

If you want to learn more about Gladney and adoption please call the following number, or visit the following Gladney sites:

1-800-236-7898

https://adoption.org

https://gladney.org

https://adoption.com

Key Takeaways

Thank you Mark for sharing your stories and secrets with us. Here are some of the key takeaways that stood out to me from today’s episode: 

1. We should strive to implement cultures of kindness within our organizations. Kindness can build stronger loyalty and motivate people to do their best.
2. When things go wrong, it is often human nature to become a persecutor, saying things like “Why did you…?” or “You messed up.”
3. Instead of being a persecutor, we should be a challenger saying things like “What can we learn from this mistake?”
4. We should strive to be quality service providers instead of trying to compete on price.
5. Flat-fee monetization models can remove a nickel-and-dime relationship with the clients, and help establish a stronger relationship of trust. A bait-and-switch business model can destroy credibility. 
6. One of the secrets to organizational longevity is to have diversified revenue streams so we can weather the storms when one revenue stream is not doing well. 
7. Credibility makes everything easier. For example, when we are credible we can get more referrals, the referrals will be more likely to choose us, and we will often be able to charge more. 
8. Instead of trying to tell the world how awesome we are, we should let past customers do that. 
9. Non-profits and other charity causes need monetization so they have the resources to expand their good works. 

Implement One Thing This Week

If we desire monetization we have never before achieved, we must leverage strategies we have never before implemented. I challenge each of us to pick one thing that resonated with us from today’s episode and schedule a time this week to implement it to help achieve our monetization goals.

1. Subscribe to the Monetization eMagazine.
2. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
4. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram or Twitter.

Share Your Story 

When have you seen kindness used effectively in a business setting? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/27-how-to-establish-a-culture-of-kindness-by-shifting-from-persecutor-to-challenger/

Can you imagine creating a company so successful that 95% of Fortune 500 companies purchased your product? In today’s episode, I interviewed Robert Tietjen who helped start a company called PolicyTech, which was the leading global provider of online policy and procedure management software. The company was acquired by NAVEX Global, where Rob served as the vice president of product planning and management. 

NAVEX Global is now the largest ethics and compliance software and the largest policy and procedure software in the world. It had 95% of the Fortune 500 as clients. More than 350 higher education institutions are NAVEX clients. It has more than 13 thousand customers and more than 70 million employees are protected by NAVEX. 

After NAVEX, Rob was president of Bitesize, a company that joins psychology, mentorship, and technology. Then, Rob co-founded and ran Camtiva, which provided hospitals with a safeguard against improper billing. He now teaches entrepreneurial leadership, management, and strategy at BYU-Idaho.

Here are some successful strategies Rob used to grow his organizations: 

PolicyTech, the company that Rob and his brother started, created a niche software, providing clients with online policy and procedure management. This type of software was not on a lot of people's radar, so it was initially hard to get the word out in a credible way. Rob and his brother decided to go to Inc. 5000 and pay for them to evaluate their software. It was worth it. PolicyTech was able to put the Inc. review on their website, and it helped increase credibility and sales. When our products or services don’t have a natural place for people to review them we can find credible organizations such as Inc. 5000 to review them to give our company credibility. 

One of Rob’s mentors told him to never give away anything. When a customer wants something like a customer discount, always be prepared to do a quid pro quo. Rob and his associates, when faced with a situation like this, would take some time to think about it and talk about it. Then they would come back to the customer and say, “Yes, we can do this if you do this for us.” 

Many customers shared case studies with them. They told Rob how their service impacted their organization with new metrics and much more. Rob’s company could then publish those case studies so other clients could see them. Many clients were also willing to be references that potential clients could call or visit and discuss how this service has worked for them.

“People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the holy grail of advertising.” -Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook

When one of Rob’s companies was doing their website development, analyzing their SEO, and conversion tracking, they found that most people don't go beyond the first page of the website until after they have decided to purchase the product or service. They discovered that it was best to have a simple video explaining their service and the "free trial" or the "buy now" button on the front page. For them, video was the best way to give a description of the service because theirs was kind of a complex service. Rob found that people will watch a video more willingly than they will read a block of text.

Rob’s company nurtured a lot of leads since they had long sales cycles. According to the 2020 Lead Nurturing & Acceleration Benchmark Survey by Demand Gen Report, 49% of respondents stated that their lead nurturing strategies need improvement. Rob’s company nurtured their leads by giving them something of value for free. This kept prospective clients interested. The product or service they gave was always related to the job to be done or the clients’ issues. For example, they created an ebook series on how to manage policies and procedures, and each week they would send a portion of the ebook to potential clients. At the bottom of the email, they'd say, “If you're looking to solve even more problems with policy and procedure management, come look here,” where they’d be directed to the company. Rob feels this tactic is highly effective, especially for companies with longer sales cycles.

Nowadays, using a software as a service (SaaS) business model is fairly common and trusted. 73% of organizations indicated nearly all their apps will be SaaS by this year. When Rob first started PolicyTech, this model wasn’t used a lot, and they had a hard time selling the model.

They had to build trust with their clients and prove that the software would work for them. The company eventually told their clients that they could do this software-as-a-service model for a specific amount on an annual basis and that it would fit in the client’s budget. When the clients came back saying they needed proof that the software was going to always be accessible when they needed it, the company had to prove that the software would be up 99.9% of the time and that it wasn’t going to have issues. It was a costly enterprise, but it was worth it. 

When Rob was starting PolicyTech, later NAVEX Global, he had some big goals for the company. One goal was to get a large unnamed company as a client. Another was to receive an endorsement from the American Hospital Association. He also had a vision of NAVEX Global being the largest policy and procedure software in the world. The company accomplished all of these goals and more, growing to have 95% of the Fortune 500 as clients.

According to a Goal Setting and Task Performance Study, 90% of people perform better when they have relevant and challenging goals.

In our conversation, Rob and I spoke about retiring. Society tells us that the ultimate goal is to retire, but Rob feels this is a perpetual lie. Rob has become a college professor and has found a lot of happiness and fulfillment in it. 

“There is so much more joy in adding value to other people's lives and building them up, more than puttering around the house and going golfing.” - Rob Tietjan

Rob found out quickly that he didn’t want to retire. He found joy in the stress, the work, and especially in the teaching. If we don’t feel ready to retire, there shouldn’t be any shame in it. 

It doesn’t have to be about the money either. A lot of people think that having money is associated with being greedy, but money is the rocket fuel that helps propel us to do the things that God wants us to do in our lives. It helps us take care of the things that really matter, such as our family, our health, and our faith. And for Rob, because he successfully monetized businesses, he’s able to teach and make the social contribution that matters to him. 

Here are a few of the key takeaways that stood out to me from today’s episode:

1. Use credible organizations to review our products or services to build credibility.
2. Make it easy for clients to find information and make purchases on our websites.
3. Establish good lead nurturing strategies.
4. Work hard to show our clients our companies are trustworthy.
5. Try out opportunities that you aren't sure you'll love. You may enjoy them or at least learn something from them.
6. Find good mentors along the way. They’ll help guide you and give you great advice.
7. Don't be afraid to dream big.
8. If you don't want to retire yet you don't have to. Use your time to share what you’ve learned with others.

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business
2. Follow the Monetization Nation Blog.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization eMagazine.
4. Join our private Monetization Nation Facebook Group.
5. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
6. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
7. Connect with Nathan on Linkedin. 
8. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram. 
9. Follow Monetization Nation on Twitter.

If we desire monetization we have never before achieved, we must leverage strategies we have never before implemented. I challenge each of us to pick one thing that resonated with us from today’s episode and implement it to help achieve our monetization goals.

What strategies can you share for growing a successful business? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://www.monetizationnation.com/26-how-rob-tietjen-reached-95-of-the-fortune-500-as-paying-clients/

We may be familiar with the term “flagship,” but unaware of what it means. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, a flagship is “the ship that carries the commander of a fleet or subdivision of a fleet and flies the commander’s flag.” It is also “the finest, largest, or most important one of a group of things…” Launching an online flagship course is very similar in its importance as the creator of a flagship course takes individuals on a unique journey of transformation, and the flagship course is the finest, largest or most important of the courses offered by the creator. Online courses are becoming more and more popular, and it’s projected that by 2023 they will grow to a $240 billion industry (Source: Sette), and creating a flagship course for our audience may be the best way for us to capitalize on this opportunity. In this episode, we’re going to learn about flagship courses, and why a flagship course may be the next step in your digital monetization.

What is a Flagship Course? 

“A Flagship Course is not just any standard online course. It’s something you devote yourself to over time, continually promote and improve, and it becomes your statement education experience. It’s a leadership creation tool, as well as a money-making centerpiece for your online business” (Source: Yaro Starak). 

These courses are meant to help others with a problem or focus on a main topic, as well as guide them through some kind of transformation. For example, a flagship course could be on “How to Get Out of Debt,” which takes an individual through a process. To be an effective flagship course, individuals must be able to see clear results at the end, which is one reason why people purchase these courses. 

Sarah Cordiner, course creation specialist, encourages businesses to create a flagship course and apply their unique experiences in facilitating growth to their business:  “One of the fastest and most impactful ways to get your knowledge out to a global marketplace, making a bigger impact and diversifying your income, is to download that knowledge lying dormant in your brain and turn it into a credibility-building, income-generating, impact-making online course.” 

Flagship Course Examples 

Here are a few success stories from people who have launched flagship courses:

Yaro Starak

Starak is a well-known entrepreneur and an incredible internet marketer who began his success by writing blogs. He has developed a flagship course to help bloggers grow and monetize their blogs. 

Starak sold his first flagship course in 2007. It was a learning curve for him as he learned what not to do, and what to do. After restructuring his course, he learned to put deadlines on the course as well as charge more for it. These improvements lowered his cancellation rates by 20% and his revenue increased (Source: Flagship Course). 

Starak has implemented steps that have launched not only his career but his courses. In doing so, he has been able to help many others achieve success. He helped a client, Tien Chiu, who launched a course on color weaving and generated over $200,000 in sales (Source: Flagship Course). He has also had successful clients launch courses in making shampoo, recovering from chronic acne, self-publishing a book, and helping trainers grow their practice. 

Russell Brunson

Before Russell Brunson ever sold a book, he sold a flagship course, which I purchased, about funnel building for $997. 

Bailey Richert

Bailey is an expert at infopreneurship products. She has developed a flagship course called Virtual Summit School, which I have taken, through which she teaches entrepreneurs step-by-step how to plan and execute a successful virtual summit. 

Depesh Mandalia

Depesh is one of the world’s leading experts on Facebook advertising. He created a framework for Facebook Ads called the BPM method, as well as a flagship course to teach that framework.

Monetization from a Flagship Course

Russell Brunson has advised members of his premier Inner Circle program to start their monetization efforts by focusing on a $997 flagship course. Yaro Starak has also recommended pricing a Flagship Course at that same price point. Those sound like two credible sources for me on price point. Yaro started the pricing of his Flagship Course at about $500 and then later doubled the price. He found that it gave him room to pay affiliates enough money to interest them in helping market the course. However, if we choose to price our Flagship Course at nearly $1,000, then it is up to us to be sure we are providing a lot more value than $1,000 in the course. We want to be sure to exceed the customer expectations and not burn the relationship by providing insufficient value.

Some experts advise that if we start our monetization efforts with a product with a mid-tier price point, such as the $1,000 range, it can help our ventures to reach profitability much faster. Then, once we achieve success with a product in this range, we can launch another product at a lower or higher price point.

$1,000 is definitely not the ceiling we can charge for flagship courses. As our credibility and content quality grow, the price can grow as well. It is not abnormal for a flagship product to be priced at $10,000 or more. 

Marketing a Flagship Course Requires Credibility

Because flagship courses are often mid-priced products, they are often harder to sell to people who do not know us and trust us yet. In other words, it usually takes some credibility to sell a flagship course. This credibility is often achieved by regularly publishing high-quality blogs, podcasts, or videos and building a following of active followers. Or, the credibility may be achieved through a webinar, or through selling a lower-cost course or challenge course. These lower-cost courses require less credibility to sell. Then, if they receive much more value from the course than what they paid, they will have a much higher likelihood of buying a more-expensive flagship course. 

The credibility needed to sell a flagship course can also be achieved through influencer marketing. We can identify influencers who our target audience follows, and we can establish an affiliate marketing relationship with affiliates so we pay them a commission for each course they sell. Often, course creators pay publishers 30%-50% for each course they sell to their followers. This works because the influencer is already credible to many of their followers, and when the influencer markets our products, some of the credibility can flow through to our product.  

8 Steps to Create a Successful Flagship Course

Here are 8 steps to create a successful flagship course. 

1. We must deeply research, understand and teach our niche topic.
   
   
2. We must find a problem that our target audience is willing to pay to learn how to solve.
   
   
3. We must develop frameworks that help our students to understand and remember what we teach. To understand frameworks, think of Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, or even the steps I’m teaching you right now.
   
   
4. We must have great stories that help us teach the key points in compelling and memorable ways.
   
   
5. We need to record these stories, frameworks, and other teaching elements through video.
   
   
6. We need to set up a site on an online course-hosting platform. See our resources page for some online platforms you might consider.
   
   
7. We must provide a huge amount of unique value to the people taking the course. They must feel they have received far more value than what they paid.
   
   
8. We must effectively market the course to our target audience with credibility, such as through an affiliate program with influencers.

Benefits of a Flagship Course: Individuals & Businesses

Here are some of the benefits of a flagship course for both businesses and individuals:

1. Convenient for Students - One of the most convenient reasons for a flagship course is that they are flexible, meaning the individual can move at their own pace and learn from anywhere in the world with an internet connection, any time of day. An in-person teacher doesn’t have to guide them through it either; usually, the individual chooses how slow or fast they want to take the course, at their convenience. 
2. Easier to Work with Affiliates - Because flagship courses are usually more expensive, it can often be easier to get influencers to sell the product for us because they can earn larger commissions. 
3. Get to Profitability Faster - Many entrepreneurs build their flagship course first because it will help them get to profitability faster than other types of products. For example, If we sold a book for $20, we might sell a lot more of them, but we will probably never sell enough books alone to get to profitability. However, with a $1,000 course, we only have to sell 100 courses to get to $100,000 of revenue, and if or when we can sell 1,000 courses, we generate $1 million. It may be a lot easier to get to profitability quickly with a flagship course than with a book, for example, as our first new product. 
4. Credibility - Flagship courses can be an excellent way for course creators to build credibility. As people take our courses, as long as we provide plenty of value, most students will come to trust us more, and it will be easier to sell our additional products and services to the students. Flagship courses can be a great way to sell high-end products and services. 
5. Diversified Revenue - If we already have a business with customers, flagship courses can provide us with a new way to generate diversified revenue from our existing customers with very little cost of goods sold. 

Key Takeaways

Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:

1. A flagship course is a leadership creation tool, as well as a money-making strategy for your business. 
2. To be effective, individuals must see clear results at the end of the flagship course. We should build our flagship course around a step-by-step process or a framework that is easy to follow. 
3. Benefits of flagship courses include: they are convenient for students, it can be easier to get affiliates to sell our course, we may get to profitability faster, they increase our credibility, and create diversified revenue streams from our existing customer base with a very high-profit margin.
4. The online course market is growing! People are turning to these options for education, free time, and making an income. 
5. Put deadlines on your course to create urgency.
6. Flagship courses usually need credibility to sell well. This can be achieved through influencer marketing, publishing great content and building your own following, webinars, or selling a lower-cost product to customers first and delivering great value. 
7. To achieve success with a flagship course, we must deeply understand the topic, develop our frameworks, tell great stories, solve a problem our customers are willing to pay for, provide much more value than what they paid for, and effectively market to our target audience.

1. Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business, subscribe to the Monetization eMagazine, and follow the Monetization Nation Blog at MonetizationNation.com.
2. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel.
3. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. 
4. Connect with Nathan on Linkedin. 
5. Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram or Twitter.

Challenge

If we desire monetization we have never before achieved, we must leverage strategies we have never before implemented. I challenge each of us to pick one thing that resonated with us from today’s episode and implement it to help achieve our monetization goals.

Share Your Story 

What great flagship courses have you taken and loved? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.

Read at: https://www.monetizationnation.com/25-8-steps-to-create-a-successful-flagship-course/