Podcast is definitely sweeter the second time around.
In this week’s episode, we have Jennie Wright. Jennie is our go-to for list building and lead generation. She is also an expert in launching summits and challenges. And for every summit, she uses a Facebook group to gather participants’ email addresses, as well as engage and build a community with them. It is an amazing platform to collaborate, host masterminds, and support other members. However, Jennie reminded that in order to gather email addresses there has to be something of value that you will provide in exchange.
If you’re still on the fence about launching your own summit, make sure to tune in and get lots of golden nuggets from this week’s conversation.
Jennie’s website: https://jenniewright.com/
Email: jennie@jenniewright.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennielwright/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniewrightjlw/?originalSubdomain=ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennie.wright.50
System to Thrive: https://systemtothrive.com/
Katie Brinkley 0:02
Hi friends. I’m Katie Brinkley, and you’re listening to Rocky Mountain marketing. This podcast is all about helping Colorado based small business owners, entrepreneurs, realtors and professionals discover the strategies and systems that take their marketing to all new heights. Let’s dive into today’s episode. Welcome back to Rocky Mountain marketing. My guest today is Jenny right. You have probably heard Jenny on this podcast before this is the second time she’s been a guest on the show. And she was what was one of the most listened to episodes that I have had. So I had to bring her back on, I knew that I had to bring her on to talk to us a little bit more. Last time, she talked all about entrepreneurship and growing your email list, you are going to be in for a treat with what we have to talk about today. And Jenny, if this is the first time that you have been introduced to her, she is an online list build profitability and Business Growth expert. She’s also the creator of list building 2.0, her own successful system of building your list through attraction and permission marketing. So if you are looking to grow your email list to grow your brand awareness, you’re in for a treat. Jenny, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Jennie Wright 1:18
Are you kidding me? I’m so happy to be here. You know, I’d show up for you anytime, anytime you ask?
Katie Brinkley 1:24
Well, and for those of the listeners that did not listen to your previous episode, tell us just a little bit about you how long you’ve been in the entrepreneur list building space, and what kind of led you to be an entrepreneur.
Jennie Wright 1:38
I’ve been doing this since March 2012. It’s a complete and utter mistake, I shouldn’t be here. But I am I was downsized from a corporate job. And that paired with a poorly timed depressive episode meant that I didn’t know what to do. And I wasn’t readily employable for a little while while I was working through that. Did all the interviews etc. Got offers just wasn’t really the offers were really low balled was kind of crazy. But I started doing this as a way to work through that depressive episode, I started working on Upwork and Fiverr. My first gigs were on Fiverr. Guys make $4.38 I mean, or even $3 or something like that, after all the fees they take away from you. So that’s where it started. Somebody hired me for a gig off of Fiverr for research to find experts for a summit. And I was like, What is this? Like, show me this? Wow. And I was like, super excited about it. And the person explained it to me, and I’m like, How do you do these? And she explained it a little bit more. And she’s like, Yeah, you do this, you find these experts. And then you host this event, you grow your list. And I was like, okay, yeah, this is where I want to play. How do I get into this space, and I piggybacked into this course, she gave me access to this course, because she worked for a big time coach at the time, who was teaching summits. And they let me in, I was like, I’m in this and I paid like a ridiculously small amount. And for in return for doing basic admin stuff in their Facebook group, I got access to 283 people who were all doing summits at the same time, and like 50 of them hired me was insane. I was like, Oh, my God. So it was trial by fire. I was charging $300 a summit.
Katie Brinkley 3:20
Oh, my God. I’ll sign up for summit at that.
Jennie Wright 3:23
Yeah, that price no longer exists. I’m just going to tell you that that was Yeah, every time I got a client, I was like raising it. $25. Basically, I was like, Oh, okay. Every time I learned something new, but you know, the first couple people, I had no idea what I was doing. And they graciously allowed me to learn at the expense of their summit, which didn’t take long. And then I had a reputation that was like, I was the summit person I was the go to, which was awesome. So yeah, that’s how I started. Well, and
Katie Brinkley 3:51
you know, I think that you touched on a couple things there. You started on Upwork and Fiverr. I also started on Upwork. And I did Thumbtack. I think that there are a lot of third party outsourcing tools where you can just get your feet wet. And if you are an entrepreneur that is needing some help there. It’s not all overseas contractors on there. There’s a lot of people right here and the good old US of A and Jenny is in Canada, on there, and a lot of them have a lot of knowledge, but they just have never done this as their full time gig yet. I know. I started on Upwork and I’m not Fiverr but Thumbtack. And the reason why I started there was because even though I’d been in the marketing world for almost a decade, at that time, I didn’t know how to find clients. I didn’t know how to find customers. And so as you’re building your portfolio as you are building your expertise really that is a great place to go. If you’re are a new entrepreneur or if you’re an entrepreneur looking for some help So I love that you, you highlighted those outsourcing tools because he there’s even times where I’m like, you know, maybe I’ll pop back in there and just see where the social media strategy kind of world is going right now and learn from them. But you talk about lists builds, you’ve talked about Facebook groups, I’d like to touch on both of those last time you came on the podcast, we talked about email lists. And for the entrepreneurs that are listening to the podcast right now, I think that that is we’ve been talking so much this year about how important it is to have an email list. Because if social media and this is something that scares me, but if social media ever goes away, how are you going to get in touch with your ideal clients and customers, it’s going to be really hard if you don’t have a list, and you’re just trying to hope that your website is the only way that you’re going to be able to get in touch with them that they just happen to search you and know that you have a sale or a special going on that you are offering XYZ. So having an email list is essential for your business. Now, you talked about Facebook groups, I want to talk about that just a little bit before we get into the whole launch and and summit discussion. Because that’s where you got started in Facebook groups. There’s a reason why, you know, the past couple Super Bowls, Facebook has spent millions of dollars in ad space so that they can talk about why people need to be in Facebook groups, when you’re in these Facebook groups. If you host one, you can ask for people’s emails, but it also allows you to build your community. Can you talk to us just a little bit more about who might want to consider having their own Facebook group? Or if someone should just consider joining multiple Facebook groups for their business?
Jennie Wright 6:45
That’s a really good question. And it’s not one I get asked ever little known fact, I’ve built three successful Facebook groups. I’ve closed two of them. So I’ve built them and I’ve closed. And that’s a really great question. The only time I recommend hosting a group is if you can commit the time, energy and bandwidth to being in there on a regular consistent basis and supporting that group. And if you set it up in the right way from the get go and learn how to provide content, and also opportunities to sell something the majority of people I work with now just don’t have the bandwidth to host and have a growing virgin and grew. And so we’ll do some pop up groups. When we do a launch. For example, if we’re doing a five day challenge, we’ll do a pop up Facebook group. If we’re doing a summit, we’ll do a pop up Facebook group, especially for the experts. Okay, by the way, Facebook groups aren’t necessarily where you can share just recipes and stuff like that. You can use them as mastermind spaces. I love that I love using them for mastermind spaces. Allison, good friend of ours, Allison, who’s also been on this podcast and Katie and I, we mastermind all the time, and we mastermind on Facebook so that you get I love being in Facebook groups. But I just learned this the other day from somebody who was on the podcast that I have, which is you never want to be the smartest person in the room. And the same I think really goes for Facebook groups. So if you’re in Facebook groups where you’re not learning anything, and you’re not gaining any knowledge or information, what are you doing in there? So I am this weekend planning on getting out of a bunch of Facebook groups where I feel like I know enough to feel that it’s not providing the value. So I’m going to leave, I’m going to stay in a bunch that are really helpful. Some of them for me are connection groups, find podcast experts, you know, things like that. But there’s a lot of groups I think I’m going to leave. I think the simple answer is you have to decide where your energy is, do you just want to participate or you want to host
Katie Brinkley 8:42
Jenny, that is exactly the point I wanted you to make. I think that being a Facebook community manager, if you have a Facebook group, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort. You think that creating content just for your Instagram, or your just a regular old Facebook business pages a lot. Try running a group because it is all about building community. Now, if you are trying to grow your list and you start a Facebook group that you can be committed to this is a great way to get people onto your list because that is something that you can ask right when you when they join the group is what is your email? And would you like to be a part of the Katie Brinkley email campaign so
Jennie Wright 9:25
as to be email in return for something?
Katie Brinkley 9:27
Yes. So go ahead. Go ahead and elaborate on that, please.
Jennie Wright 9:31
Sure. You really have to follow the Facebook Terms of Service, right. So you really should take a moment and read that gargantuan document, or at least find a way to boilerplate it down to something you can understand. And I’m not going to claim here that I’m a Facebook policy expert at all. But my understanding is is that in return for asking for that information, you’re providing something of value. So in my case with my groups that I’ve had and still have I have pop up groups for launches. I do ask people especially for a five day challenge. I don’t want just anybody in that group, I want the people specific to the five day challenge. So I do ask, Hey, what’s the email that you use to register for the five day challenge. And if you haven’t registered, head on over to Johnny wright.com, forward slash, challenge as an example, make sure you’re registered. So you can get access to the great, you know, free thing that we’re running here. So it’s, for me, it’s in return for your email. Here’s this thing of value. And it’s also a great way, as a group manager, or community manager, to make sure that you’re getting valid people in the group, you really don’t want to get full of spam, I’ve actually helped a client where in one day, they had about 50 to 100 each day, spam requests to get into the group. And they don’t give valid email addresses, right. So it’s a good way to weed out some of these people, and the fake accounts and things like that. You’ve mentioned
Katie Brinkley 10:54
pop up groups for challengers a couple times now. And if there’s somebody that is thinking about doing online Summit, or a mastermind or a five day challenge, you know, I think that this is a great way to build that community. In a Facebook group, I’ve been a member of a number of summits that you have also been a speaker on and typically people will get the event organizer will go live in the Facebook group, you’re getting that FaceTime. And again, the more you content you can create for those Facebook groups, no matter where you are, like what it is that you’re trying to build, if you can show up and create the content, give it that face time and build the community around your brand or your business. That’s what people are going to want to be a part of and do business with. Absolutely, absolutely. Now, let’s transition a little bit away from the the Facebook groups when you should have your own when she should just be a part of one. Before I move on. I do want to ask you, Jenny, this, you said you’re going to do a giant audit of the Facebook groups that you are currently a part of Now, if somebody is listening in, they’re like, I have never even joined a Facebook group. I still just scroll the feed and see my cousins, aunts, third cousin, dogs pictures. That’s all I see if my feed. Why would I want to be in a group? Is it worthwhile for me to be in a group,
Jennie Wright 12:15
also very personal. If all you’re doing is going there, and I can’t even I’m not even gonna try and remember the read like the thing you just said. But you know, you’re somewhat someone’s third cousins, dogs pictures, okay, I got that far, I think I can only remember, like three levels, I think you did six. And the only time I can say it’s very personal decision, right. So if you just want to scroll and play Farmville or something and just look at pictures, sure, just do that. But if you are going to Facebook for support, and Facebook groups are for support most of the time, then you can find any group under the sun. They’re all out there and find groups that fit what you’re looking for. I’ve done it for many different reasons. One of my very good friends is has ADHD, I found a support group for friends and family of people with ADHD. Because I really wanted to understand this person, I really wanted to understand how their brain works. But I also want to understand it from my point of view, because I have to interact with this person. I love interacting with this person, I cherish them, but I want to interact as a better friend. So how do I do that. So whatever it is that you’re looking for, you can find it in a Facebook group. And on the other side, you can also find things you don’t want to find, and probably shouldn’t find. So Caveat emptor, there, be careful for what you’re looking for. And what you’re joining, the best thing you can do is to read the descriptions, and look and see what’s going on in there. And then the other thing that I always look for when I’m looking at a group is the activity Facebook gives you that activity they never did before. But they do now and will tell you how many posts there are in a day or how many people joined that week. And if mean, if they haven’t had a post in six months, and nobody’s joined in a year, chances are it’s a dead group. So things to consider.
Katie Brinkley 13:58
And Jenny, I love to that you pointed out, you never want to be the smartest one in the group necessarily. I know I’m a member of Mari Smith Facebook group. I love that Facebook group. It’s a great way for me to continue learning what problems people have. And there’s plenty of times for me just to chime in with my thoughts and opinions. And I remember one time I was somebody had a question about Facebook business manager versus Facebook business. And I was like, look, it’s kind of hard to just take keep typing back and forth. If you just want to call me out. I’m happy to talk to you about it on the phone. And so I was talking to her she’s like, why are you in this Facebook group? Like there’s no reason for you to be in it? You know what the answer to everything? And I was like, No, it’s the second that I know. I feel like I know all the answers. That’s what I’m going to fall behind. So yeah, love what you shared about Facebook group. So let’s talk a little bit about should you have a launch. I know that this is all coming full circle because of how you can have a Facebook group as a part of your launch and kind of have it as that support who should have a summit who should have a five day challenge what type of business. Do you see it? Because I think a lot of people think, Oh, well, I’m not a marketer, or I’m not a I don’t know why I’m not a coach, why should I have a challenge? What would Why would I be a good candidate?
Jennie Wright 15:13
Solid question. The not so direct yet we’ll answer the question. Answer is that people who are interacting with other people in the form of providing service based goods, meaning coaching, consulting courses, Social Media Services, and things of that nature, Facebook ads, things of that nature, who rely on getting new clients, and the only way they’re going to get clients is by the person building trust. They’re all candidates for summits, challenges, and webinars and launches of that style. Anything that like, you know, those are the kinds Now, if you’re just if you’re selling supplements, and that’s all you’re doing, you’re not doing any health coaching, you’re just selling supplements, and there’s nothing else in your repertoire, assigning a challenge probably aren’t your thing. But if you are selling consulting services that go along with those supplements, and you’re helping, as an example, menopausal women understand the ins and outs of this crazy, horrible How dare they put this on women thing? That’s just my own opinion, then, yeah, that you’re a candidate for running a summit or a challenge. You don’t necessarily have to be like, I’ll give you another example. If you are a parenting expert. And your whole thing is helping parents deal with their teenagers or their preteens. That’s a great niche to run a five day challenge. The you know, how to communicate with your preteen or teen five day challenge.
Katie Brinkley 16:48
What if somebody comes to you and they are a real estate agent, and they want to host a challenge to get more people on their list so that they can start helping them find their first investment property?
Jennie Wright 17:03
Yeah, easy. So then that’s, that’s a perfect opportunity. That’s, you know, how to build wealth and equity into your future with in the housing market five day challenge.
Katie Brinkley 17:13
There you go. So I mean, like, and that’s what I think that a lot of people, I just chose that as an example, might think that it’s not even an option for them, because they haven’t thought about what they do, and how if they do this challenge, or if they do a mastermind or Summit, how it can help grow their brand reputation, right,
Jennie Wright 17:34
I’ve done a challenge for a guy whose whole thing is that he sells microgreen kits for your kitchen for a countertop. And his whole thing was how to grow more food sustainably in your own home, even if you live in a condo, or an apartment, five day challenge. And the tips were, you don’t need to have a lot of space, you can have these units that are stackable, you can do this that the other thing and by the way, you can buy this microgreen kit for 1999. And it has everything you need to grow microgreens for your kitchen, and it’s reusable. And then you just have to buy the seeds and you have everything you need. That challenge was bananas. I mean, and this was right at the beginning of the pandemic. Okay, so it was in like, march 2020. I can’t even tell you how many people signed up. It was 1000s of people went for this thing. And then he had 1000s and 1000s worth of sales. And because he was so authentic, and he did every single Facebook Live sitting in his little greenhouse, right or in his kitchen. Mostly he did a lot of them in his kitchen, you felt like you were in this kitchen with him and you felt like you know, especially during the pandemic, you felt like you were interacting with another person and people went for like crazy. It was perfect time. Perfect product, perfect person. Perfect opportunity.
Katie Brinkley 18:49
Okay, so we found, okay, we’ve decided we’re going to do our own five day challenge. We’re gonna create content for this challenge in a Facebook group, we’re going to be active. It’s not just that simple. You do need to have a high converting sales page. Talk to us a little bit about what that looks like and why it is important.
Jennie Wright 19:10
Okay, yeah, absolutely. And let’s differentiate between sales page and lead generation funnel. Ooh, I like that. Okay. So a sales page is where we’re going to send traffic once we’ve built our list, to then sell our program product or service. The goal of that page is to get credit cards out of wallets, a lead generation funnel, the goal is to have them enter their name and email, nothing else and take action to register or participate in what you’re offering. So a five day challenge, a summit, etc. So we’re not asking for money. We’re asking for participation. And there’s a big difference, right? So there’s a trust that we’re building when we’re doing a lead generation funnel and we do need a high converting one. So what does high converting mean? Right? How do we get high converting high converting means is that if 100 people land on that page, how many people actually registering to participate. So there’s all these people who throw around numbers like crazy like industry standard is and most people get and all these different things. What most people do get if 100 people land on their page, the average is about 28 to 34% of people will say yes. Now that is on usually coolish traffic, which means it may be a combination of paid traffic and your current email list or your social media. So it’s kind of cool, right? So if it’s just your social media, and it’s just your email list, that’s pretty warm, because it’s already people who know like and trust. And Facebook ads is cold because it’s brand spankin new people normally unless you’re doing retargeting, so coolest traffic 28 to 34. When I build a page, for me, high converting is no less than 50 50%. I want half every single person who comes on that page. I want it done. My biggest and highest converting funnel was 89%. Yeah, insane. It was amazing. It was 89%. It was first summit. It wasn’t that long ago, it’s probably about six weeks ago, six or seven weeks ago, the time we’re recording this, and 89% of the people who went to the page said yes, so 100 people went 89 said yes. And then we had a wonderful low ticket offer, said, Hey, you’re here for free. But for this really low price of $47, you can get all these awesome, wonderful things. And from that we had somewhere in the range of between 28 and about 35 36% Say yes. Now, industry standard in air quotes is somewhere between five and 10% of people who registers for something free will buy. So think about the numbers. It’s insane, like 89 people registered out of those 89 people and don’t ask me to do the math, we’re looking at like 30% of those said, Yes, I’ll pay.
Katie Brinkley 21:46
Now, Jenny, I want to interrupt you for a second. If someone’s listening right now. And this is all new to them. And they’re saying, Wait, so am I directing people to my website, then? What’s the difference?
Jennie Wright 21:57
New, smart, smart, smart woman you? So that’s a really good question. You’re not sending them to your website, you’re sending them to a dedicated landing page. And if if you’re good at building and you’re a good visual builder, and you’re really good at creating pages that people love and interact with really highly, and you can get those numbers by the way from checking your Google Analytics and whatnot, then you can build it on your website. However, generally speaking, websites are built as just places for people to go and consume information. They’re not necessarily geared towards sales, we tend to and we meaning people like myself who do this for a living, we tend to want to build on specific page builders that are designed for conversion. So they’re meant or their whole purpose is to get people to take action either to register or to buy. And that’s different from a WordPress site or shop or a Squarespace site. So we tend to use things like click funnels, lead pages, those types of different page builders to accomplish that, because they’re built for a specific task. Well,
Katie Brinkley 23:01
we’ve talked about the importance of Facebook groups, we’ve talked about how to create that, who’s a good candidate for a five day challenge or Summit? How to create that landing page, why you want to have somebody like yourself, be the one to do it is not just sending traffic to your website. Now, if someone says, All right, all this sounds really interesting. I’m intrigued. I want to learn more. But I’m still a little nervous. Is this right? For me? What’s the best piece of advice that you would want to give somebody that’s a little bit on the fence about whether or not this might be the right fit for them in their business? And in the next year?
Jennie Wright 23:38
Very good question. The thing that they can do most is be incredibly observant. So look at other summits, or five day challenges or other vehicles for lead generation in your niche and see what people are doing. All you have to do is Google your niche plus summit or challenge. And you should get some listings, right. So health coach, Summit, menopause Summit, those types of things, right, put the keyword and do a keyword search, take a look at what it looks like that should be very intriguing to you register for a few see how it looks on the insides, you know, get into the innards of it and take a look. The other thing is absolutely having a conversation with somebody who this is their job, whether it’s me or somebody else in this field, and have a conversation with somebody who’s been there done that, who can tell you if this is a good fit, right? The worst thing you can do is sit on it for a number of years or a really long time. Because these types of lists builds challenges and summits, I call them list injections, they’re not the onesies and twosies. This is adding hundreds, if not 1000s of people to your email list in a very short period of time in a highly engaged situation, which really leverages your ability to set to sell to them later. Right. So absolutely sign up for some of these, you know in your niche, take a look at them and have that kind of a conversation potentially with somebody who does this kind of stuff like I do. Don’t pay any money for it. By the way, just get a free call and see if this is a fit.
Katie Brinkley 25:05
Well, Jenny, thank you so much for coming back onto the show today. It was a pleasure speaking with you again about launching and email lists and Facebook groups and lead magnets. It’s so this was fantastic. Where can we learn more about you and continue learning from you?
Jennie Wright 25:23
Well, thanks to my amazing social media guru, you can find me on my social media. So I’m all over the place on my Instagram, also on LinkedIn, which is improving slowly, but surely, thanks to my group of awesomeness and also Facebook, I am currently if you go to January calm, that’s my website, I profusely request, your understanding that that website, if you’re looking at it in the next little bit is under construction and redesign. But you can go there as well. The best way to get in touch with me, just shoot me an email Jenny at January calm, I am very accessible. I love to connect with people. So don’t be afraid to get in my inbox.
Katie Brinkley 26:02
Awesome. Well, thank you again, so much for coming on the show. And if you want to hear more of Jenny and some of her amazing strategies, be sure to tune in to the system to thrive podcast. It’s on all the podcast players. So be sure to give that podcast a listen as well and continue growing your knowledge about growing your business online. Jenny, thank you, again, so much for coming on the show today.
Jennie Wright 26:25
You can meet us it’s the best thing I’ve had all day. I love coming on the show. So thanks so much.
Katie Brinkley 26:30
Now as somebody that has never done a summit, or at least I have not yet at the time of this recording, I have not done my own five day challenge or summit, I have to say as being a speaker on so many of them, it is a great opportunity to grow your list to grow your network. So whether or not you are a speaker, you want to be the one hosting the event or the challenge. Or if you go to these challenges, you sign up as a participant, take full advantage of the other people that are in this challenge along with you. It’s a great way to meet more people is a great way to network. It’s a great way to grow your influence in this space. So thank you again to Jenny for coming on the show and again and talking all about Facebook groups. And like I said during the podcast, there is a reason why Facebook spend so much money on Superbowl ads for Facebook groups and Facebook groups are a fantastic way to build your community if you are committed to creating the content. And I think that that is extremely important to keep in mind if you are hoping to grow a strong community around your business and your brand and you post five times and then take off for the next month or two. It’s not going to be successful if you can consistently show up and create conversations and create that community that all of us after 2020 We’re craving and really Facebook groups gave us that opportunity to have the back community again. This is a fantastic way to grow your business. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Rocky Mountain marketing. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can visit my website at www.nextstepsocialcommunications.com. Connect with me on LinkedIn or check me out on Instagram. Let’s keep taking your marketing to new heights.