284: She Turned $50 Cookie Classes Into 3 Memberships - Summer Deepe

Laura Phillips made the same money in two hours that used to take her six weeks of building websites for clients, and she didn't raise her rates to do it. She expected maybe two or three people to say yes, and 42 did. She's from the UK, and she's been in business for 12 years. She started out designing and building websites, then ran launches for big clients, then built launch software called ProperPlan, and now she's back to teaching. And she says that over 10 years of changing what she sells, she's "never ever been without money." So how did one workshop start all of that? It began with a free Facebook group, and people asking her the same questions over and over. And then we dig into the rest. The first membership she closed, the data from her own course that horrified her, the line she uses so the ask feels like an invitation, and the brand-new membership she decided to start about four weeks before we talked, which got 48 members in its founding launch. In this conversation, Laura and I get into: * How one £49 workshop paid her what six weeks of website work did * Why making something new to sell every month stopped making sense * The first membership she closed, and why it was "too broad, everything for everyone" * What her own course data showed her, and why she couldn't keep selling that course * The one line she uses so the ask feels like an invitation * Why "we've all got bills" led her to start a new membership, and how its founding launch got 48 members in * Whether launches still work right now, and what "show up as you" really means FREE RESOURCE: The three plays from this episode, written up for you in the free resource kit: Sell What They Ask For, Invite, Don't Pitch, and Show Up As You. → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH LAURA: * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraphillipshq/ * Code Anything Club (her new membership): https://codeanything.club/ * ProperPlan (her software): https://www.properplan.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 if you want income that doesn't depend on your next launch. That's what we dig into here every week. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Never Without Money 0:28 - Meet Laura Phillips 0:51 - From Websites to Software and Back to Teaching 1:26 - The Thread That Carries Every Pivot 3:02 - Bad Advice Made Her Start a Group 4:17 - How a Free Group Grew to 2,000 5:17 - The Day Her Whole Life Changed 5:58 - Why It Worked 7:16 - She Just Wanted More Ease 8:08 - Why One-Off Products Stopped Making Sense 9:11 - Too Nervous to Go Off Script 10:59 - There's a Human on the Other Side 12:12 - Stu's Nerves Before Brazil 14:25 - The Messy First Membership She Closed 16:11 - What Her Course Data Showed Her 17:19 - When the Tool She Needed Didn't Exist 18:29 - Her First Big Ask 20:23 - Pitching Software That Didn't Exist Yet 21:41 - How She Asks for the Sale 22:41 - Burnt Out, Then Three Weeks to Raise 23:46 - Why Taking Herself Out Was the Mistake 26:08 - Why She Started a New Membership 26:58 - "We've All Got Bills" 28:09 - "I Should Do a Membership" 29:05 - 48 Members in a Founding Launch 29:40 - You Just Need One Happy Member 31:07 - Why She Doesn't Want 10,000 Members 32:28 - Being Open About How She Uses AI 33:03 - Do Launches Still Work? 34:12 - What "Show Up as You" Really Means 35:10 - Why Personality Does Matter 36:35 - Treat the Launch Like a Journey 37:34 - Over 10 Years of Pivots, Never Without Money 39:07 - Where to Find Laura 39:21 - Stu's Key Takeaways

If you have a business, Dr. Ulrich Selz thinks you should have a YouTube channel. He's earned the right to say it: 655,000 subscribers, a bestseller, and two years without launching anything new while the income never dipped. He's a physician in Germany. He still has his practice, but when the wait list hit a thousand people, he closed it. He's also built a German-language YouTube channel about gut health with 655,000 subscribers, and most of his focus over those two years went into writing Der Darm-Doc, a SPIEGEL bestseller. So what paid the bills while all his focus was on the book? Recurring revenue, from his channel and his two communities. One is a self-help group for people with gut health problems, and the other is where he teaches therapists how to help those people. He says it "made me comfortable to write this book." Then we dig into how he runs it all, week to week: one long video a week, scripted word for word, the numbers he checks first, and the freebies that turn viewers into leads. In this conversation, Dr. Selz and I get into: * What paid his bills for two years while he wasn't launching * Why he closed the wait list for his practice at a thousand people * Why he calls subscribers "just a prestige number" * Why 60 or 65% of his watch time comes from people who aren't subscribed * The 15 to 20 freebies he pitches inside his videos, and why "Amazon has the email address, not you" * The free online area he built for his readers, and why 30% of book buyers went in * Why he thinks everybody with a business should start a YouTube channel FREE RESOURCE: The three plays from this episode, written up for you in the free resource kit. The 48-Hour Check, A Freebie for Every Topic, and The Pre-Sale Runway. → https://podcast.stu.me CONNECT WITH DR. SELZ: * Website: https://doktorselz.de/ * YouTube (German): https://www.youtube.com/@DrUlrichSelz * YouTube (English): https://www.youtube.com/@DrUlrichSelz_english * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_ulrich_selz/ * Podcast (German), Dr. Selz - Dein Gesundheits-Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-selz-dein-gesundheits-podcast/id1888730284 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 to the show if you want income that doesn't depend on your next launch. That's what we dig into here every week. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 - Two Years Without a Launch (Cold Open) 0:27 - Meet Dr. Ulrich Selz 0:56 - A Bestseller Built on YouTube 1:18 - The Golf Lesson That Started It 2:40 - 655,000 Subscribers 4:09 - Closing a 1,000-Person Wait List 4:35 - What the Channel Really Changed 5:58 - YouTube Is an Underrated Lead Source 6:38 - 15 to 20 Freebies 7:10 - The Hard Side of Being Visible 8:05 - How to Handle Hateful Comments 9:00 - Title and Thumbnail Before the Script 9:45 - Why He Never Plans Far Ahead 10:56 - Shoot Tuesday, Rewrite Wednesday 11:21 - One Video a Week, Word for Word 12:17 - Watch Your Video While You Write It 13:10 - When the Format Stopped Working 13:44 - Most Creators Are Bad Viewers 15:16 - Your Audience Shifts Without Telling You 16:40 - Core Audience vs New Audience 17:36 - Data-Driven Creativity 18:31 - The Monday Morning Check 19:03 - Why He Ignores His Subscriber Count 20:04 - Most Watch Time Comes From Non-Subscribers 21:23 - A Freebie for Every Video 22:36 - Why the Publisher Said Yes 25:00 - "Not on Instagram" 25:41 - Building Buzz Before Launch Day 27:01 - 11,400 Pre-Sales 27:25 - Turning Readers Into Subscribers 28:30 - A Free Members' Area for Buyers 30:02 - 30% of Buyers Came In 30:32 - Why Every Business Owner Should Start a Channel 31:32 - What an Underperforming Video Teaches You 33:14 - Use AI After You Publish, Not Before 34:43 - What He'd Do With Stu's Channel 35:11 - Launch Syndrome 35:42 - Two Years With

Most of us wait until we've got the whole thing figured out. Carrie Green opened her doors with one month of content ready, a rough plan for month two and an idea for January. And in her words, "Beyond that, I had no idea." Thousands of people joined over the years, and 13 years later it's still going. Carrie is the founder of the Female Entrepreneur Association and the author of She Means Business. She was also my very first consulting client, so this one goes way back. She had the idea for FEA in 2008. Then for a few years she did what a lot of us do. She bought domain names, set up websites and did nothing with them. In 2011 she finally went for it, and for the next two years she gave everything away: interviews with women building businesses, a weekly email, a weekly video, and a free digital magazine where she interviewed people like Kim Kiyosaki and Gabrielle Bernstein. By the time she opened the doors, she had 18,000 people on her email list and about 50,000 fans on Facebook. And then she started with one month. She'll tell you why, and money wasn't the biggest reason. Today she's building a list of people who actually buy, with small offers she makes herself with AI, and one of them sold to over 700 people in a small promotion. She also opens up about what happened to her community when she pulled back after having kids, and the question every ambitious person gets to eventually: when is enough enough? In this conversation, Carrie and I break down: - The real reason she started with one month of content - What was in that first month, including the printout she says "looked dreadful" - The guilt that kept her from charging anything for two years - Why "ready is not a feeling" - What she learned about why people really stay - What she puts on the thank-you page of every freebie - How one small promotion sold to over 700 people - When is enough enough?

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

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