Want More Engagement from Your Community? Do This with Deirdre Tshien

Courtney Elmer 0:00  

Hey, welcome back, you're listening to another episode of the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ Podcast. This is episode 136. And today we're talking about how to get more engagement from your existing community and grow a business. Because chances are, we'd agree, there is nothing more frustrating for an online entrepreneur than creating a social media plan, creating content, posting content, and still not getting the engagement that you're expecting from your audience.

[Intro]

Courtney Elmer

I am here with my good friend Deirdre TShien, the co founder and CEO of CAPSHO, the world's first AI powered podcast copywriter. I know it's a mouthful. And if that sounds all fancy schmancy let me put it in layman's terms for people like you and me. So Capsho is this new tool that will write your podcast title, right your podcast description, your episode description, your show notes, your social media captions, and emails to promote your episodes to help grow a business.

Courtney Elmer

Deirdre I am so excited and honored truly to have you here today. Because I know what a busy girl you are, especially right now you're in the middle of a brand new company launch, which I'm honored also to be a part of the beta group like testing out this new software that you've created for us as podcasters to grow a business. And you're planning this huge Summit, so to have a little chunk of your time today, and your expertise truly for what you're about to share in this conversation is such a privilege. And it's a delight to have you here. So thank you.

Deirdre Tshien 8:42  

Oh, no, I thank you Courtney Elmer for having me on. I want to start by saying, Courtney Elmer, you are amazing. First of all, I think you know this, but you know you're on this virtual summit as well. And I was so I'm so privileged to be learning from you Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer 8:58  

I have been, of course getting to know you over these past few weeks and months. But as I've learned more and more about you, and listen to your podcast, and listen to some of the thoughts that you share when it comes to podcasting when it comes to marketing, to grow a business and how they're very disruptive in the sense that it's going against the grain of what a lot of people out there are teaching. And I love that because I feel like we can get so single focus singularly focused on what we think we should be doing. Because this tiny little group of three or five influencers are saying to do this thing. And so we put our blinders on and we start doing that thing. And then you know, maybe at some point, we realize, gosh, this isn't really working for me to grow a business.

Courtney Elmer

So I would love for you to share with us your philosophies on marketing today, how to grow a business, and particularly, this idea of these honey traps that you talk about first telling us what that is, and then going into a little bit of background as to how you came up with that, and why it's important for us to know as business owners, and also as podcasters.

Deirdre Tshien 10:41  

Yeah, for sure Courtney Elmer. Okay, so let's talk about what kind of Honey Traps are, and it is a system. So it's a system designed to grow a business and literally compel your ideal customer, client, audience listener, whatever, however, you want to use this, to actually follow you through your funnel, whatever that funnel is. So I talk a lot about it in the context of podcasting, because that's kind of my bread and butter. How do we actually compel people from our front facing channels like social media, to then follow us on to our podcast? How do we then compel people to listen to our podcast, to then go to our show notes, opt in for the lead magnet, come into my email list, do the next thing you know, at each step, we need to be really, really deliberate about how we actually get people to do the next thing that will grow a business.

Deirdre Tshien

And so that's how content honey traps came about. So how this, how this truly came about was, when I started podcasting, for my coaching business for the growth boss, I had no idea what I was doing, I was like, I've been told to do this thing called podcasting. I'm gonna try it. And I started, I got a microphone, I started recording, and it was terrible. Like Courtney Elmer, it was so bad. And I got better over time. But you know, I think with a lot of things, I got to a point where I'm like, I really a want to get better at this. I actually want an ROI on this. Like, I think, for a lot of us, we need to start to be really, really mindful of the time that we put into things. And for me, it was like this is it's not taking a zero amount of time. So I really want to get a return on this. And so what that return had to look like was being really deliberate about why I was podcasting, how to get people into my podcast and what I would do with them, throughout and after to grow a business

Deirdre Tshien

And so I started thinking about that first question, Courtney Elmer, how do I get people to listen to my podcast, because we can obviously have all the hacks and you know, tactics, or SEO going and all those things. But ultimately, we need to be active in the way that we read, like we find our audience and actually get them to listen. And that's how the concept of content traps came about. So Russell Brunson is actually a mentor of mine. And he is big on hooks like creating curiosity, things like that. So he was talking about that in the context of webinars when I was at an event that he was holding. And at that time, I was struggling to grow a business, I wa struggling with my podcast, how do I get people on there? And I was like, I love this concept of creating curiosity of creating these hooks, how can I use it for my podcast. And so I started actually testing different ways to get people from my social media to the Podcast Courtney Elmer.

Deirdre Tshien

And that's actually how the eight mental models of content honey traps to grow a business came about Courtney Elmer. So they talk about a couple of examples of what those mental models look like. For us, it is eight in total, four of them are more based on stories Courtney Elmer. So if you share a story in your podcast, if it's more of a story based podcast, then there's the mental models you want to be using. And then I have four that's more based on learnings, on values on tips on secrets on steps, you know, like the actual framework that you might be teaching someone to grow a business. So I'll give you an example of one of one in each Courtney Elmer. So really, you know, never, it's can never be overused, because it's bread and butter. But a story a really, really effective story based mental model is what I call the cliffhanger. I think everyone knows what a cliffhanger is. It's how soap operas are still running for decades and decades and decades.

Deirdre Tshien 14:15  

But essentially Courtney Elmer, it's like, how do you have this evoke some surprise or shock? And people are like, I need to know what happens next. That is that is a really, really effective mental model to use to grow a business and if you want to compel people to go to the next thing. So we use that a lot. If there's a particularly juicy story that a guest has shared on my podcast, I'll use that to be like this happened, but you won't believe what happened next. You've got to listen to the podcast to learn all about it. So that's an example of a story based one. One that I use a lot for the on the other side when we're talking about strategy or framework is the rebel Courtney Elmer. 

Deirdre Tshien

And what the rebel is, is that I actually say What it's not about, so I'll be like, I don't know, let's say I'm talking about social media today, but I'm not going to be talking about, you know, posting every day, I'm not gonna be talking about DMing people, I'm not gonna, I don't know, three things I'm not gonna be talking about. So by the end of that, you're like, Oh, I wonder what he did? What is it? What is she going to be talking about? And so that's another really powerful mental model to actually get people to compel people to take the next step with you to grow a business. So that's, so we started testing a whole bunch of these on social media Courtney Elmer.

Deirdre Tshien

And it was amazing to see how that how effective that was, in actually getting people to be like, Oh, my gosh, I have to listen to this episode. Like they'd be commenting and being like, I can't wait to listen to this. And so yeah Courtney Elmer, that's kind of like the basis of content and tribes now, why content honey traps is so important. Apart from Yes, you want to compel people but I'm a big, big believer that there has to be a reason that you want to do that. That's with a lot of for all of us, actually, anyone listening to this. It's all it comes down to the seven hour rule. The Seven Hour Rule is something that I read about in Daniel Presley's book oversubscribed. And it really he talks about the fact that to create that know, like, and trust and that Bank of raving fans, they need to hang out with you consume, you know, whatever it is, like seven hours worth of content or, you know, being with you to grow a business. That's why challenges are so effective Courtney Elmer.

Deirdre Tshien

Because by the time you know, they gone through the five days or seven days, they've spent so much time with you that they feel like they know you, they like you, they trust you. And so it's an end to the conversion event is like it's a no brainer. So that's kind of what I wanted to create. I wanted people to be hooked onto listening week after week, my podcasts Courtney Elmer. And so that's why the content is so powerful, because that's the way that you hook them in and continue hooking them, by the way Courtney Elmer, because, you know, it's all about reenrollment. It's all about reselling your audience to keep following you to grow a business.

Courtney Elmer 17:03  

This gets me so excited, because so many people struggle to convert their social media following to listen to their podcast, and then onto their email list. And there's a disconnect there, where it's like, I have this podcast, and I have social media. And I do have an email list that I'm trying to grow. But they're not all working together. They're not all working in sync. And that truly is the top of your marketing funnel. And this is why, you know, from a marketing perspective, podcasting can be so effective, because it collapses that amount of time that it normally would take someone to go from cold lead to ready to buy from you are ready to take the next step, even if it's signing up for your freebie and getting on your email list. 

Courtney Elmer

And so that seven hours someone can spend like that listening to your podcast, whereas it's gonna take you a whole lot of 15 second Instagram reels for someone to get to that point to grow a business, right. But at the same time, your social media can become a very powerful tool for getting people to your podcast to grow a business. But a lot of people and I, it really breaks my heart when I see this because I know that they're trying and I know that they're doing what they think they should do to grow a business. Because they've been told that with a podcast, they can cut up all that content and like blast it all out on social media, and then that becomes their social media content. And yes, you can do that. But that doesn't actually lead your follower anywhere. You have to lead them somewhere. 

Courtney Elmer

So these honey traps that you're describing is such a genius way to get those cold followers to have them see what it is that you're sharing, you're giving value and maybe that little 15 Second real or it's entertaining. It's funny, you share a little bit in the caption, you kind of tease that out, you know, it's almost like if you do have a podcast, you have your teaser and then you go into the meat of your episode. And so your social media is kind of like the teaser and then you click the link in my bio, go listen to this week's episode. And then That's the meet, that's where they get the value. And when you get them there, it collapses the time that they normally have to spend with you, it's going to accelerate that process. And then as long as you're given that call to action, again, kind of using your episode ben as a way to tee up another call to action that you're going to give them look, and I dove dice scratched the surface here, in this episode today, go download my blah, blah, blah, and learn how to do this in detail. And it's going to keep people taking the next step to grow a business.

Courtney Elmer

So I see a use case for honey traps everywhere, in your marketing at each point in the process. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but like you could use it on social media to grow a business, you can use these in your podcast to grow a business, if you don't have a podcast, you can use them in your podcast interviews to grow a business, if you're not doing podcast interviews, you can use them for any other types of appearances or things that you're doing that will grow a business. And you can use them even in your launches, you know, if you're running a webinar, or you're running a challenge, you know, because you're always leading people to the call to action, which ultimately will grow a business. So for this lead attraction for someone listening, how can they tell if they have an audience problem?

Deirdre Tshien 21:11  

So especially when you're first starting out Courtney Elmer, if the only differentiator that you have is you yourself, your stories, your experience, that's literally the only because people can buy the same clothes and resell them. People can buy the same widgets that you know, everything else is a commodity, but you're not. And so you have to start telling stories, you have to start bringing yourself to the forefront. And so my clients would be like, okay, okay, I get a daydream, oh, I don't want to do this thing, but I'll do it. I don't know how, how do I start telling my stories. And that's what actually led me to Capsho version one. 

Deirdre Tshien

So what we did Courtney Elmer was, because I was like, Okay, this is actually a need people understand, they need to tell their stories to grow a abusiness, but they don't know how I have a little bit of a framework, a way that I tell my stories, or how I tell my stories into teaching. So let's see if I can actually put a formula and some rules behind it. So that was how the first version of Capsho came about, which was that we would prompt people through telling us stories. So it was kind of how to use a describe it as a combination of Madlibs and journaling. We'd like, you know, they, they'd have to like, answer a bunch of questions. And then the software would actually take those and convert them into a whole bank of captions and emails for them to help grow a business.

Deirdre Tshien

So it was the first iteration of capsho. And I was so excited, because I'm like, Oh, gee, this is going to help all entrepreneurs grow a business. And so Courtney Elmer, I was like, This is gonna be a game changer. So I set up a webinar funnel, and I was that was going to be my go to market strategy, my lead tracking conversion event. And, you know Courtney Elmer, like, the first one did really well, and I'm like, Yes, we're onto something. Second one, not so well, the third one, and then we like, fell off a cliff. And I'm like, What is going on? We have such an amazing product here that will help grow a business. Why doesn't anyone want this? And I thought that it was a messaging problem. I was like, Okay, we have a messaging problem. Clearly, the hook, the thing that we're trying to get people to come into our webinar for is not working. So we hopped on a coaching call.

Deirdre Tshien

And this is why I say everyone needs to have a coach because they see things that you don't Courtney Elmer. And I was like, This is gonna be a five minute conversation, we need to dial in our messaging, we need to make this more compelling for people to want to come. And my coach was like, Nope, you this is you have to niche down. And I was like, no, no, no, you don't understand. We don't need to niche down this is this is going to help all entrepreneurs grow a business. Courtney Elmer he was like, oh, gosh, no. Anyway, so very quickly, you can really tell we were like, oh, okay, we we are I don't know what we are in overheads. 

Deirdre Tshien

And it was really, really hard for us to hear that feedback Courtney Elmer. Because sometimes we get so you know, what, like, personally attached to what it is that we're doing, that's really hard to separate ourselves from it. And so I'm, I know, I'm very coachable. I had an initial resistance. I think, as we all do Courtney Elmer, we all sometimes get a little bit defensive when we first hear that feedback. And I knew but then the more that I thought about it, I had to go on like a 90 minute walk, clear my head and and I was like, we have to do this like this. Like he's seeing something that I'm clearly not. I need to and I paid him for a reason. So I have to listen to him. And so Courtney Elmer we went on this journey of actually niching down of actually identifying our audience to grow a business.

Deirdre Tshien

And so what we ended up doing Courtney Elmer, which leads us to this version of capsho is I was like Like, I actually don't want to have to convince anyone that they have to tell the stories about the power of storytelling. Who understands already? How important is the storyteller? I mean, yes, we have authors. We have bloggers we have, but I was like, but I have a podcast. I have a podcast, I love podcasting, like podcasters are natural storytellers. And it makes so much sense for me to, to serve that group of people. And so that's who we decided to niche down to, which are experts. So coaches, consultants, service providers who podcast to grow a business Courtney Elmer.

Deirdre Tshien 25:30  

And when we made that decision Courtney Elmer, oh, my gosh, I cannot tell you like everything changed the whole, like the whole game changed for us. Because our messaging became so much more potent. Like everything I was putting out, I could talk specifically to their pain points to grow a business. My my most viewed reels and YouTube videos and things are things that were I'm talking about specifically shownotes, like no one else in the world, it cares or even knows about what shownotes are, except for podcasters. But because it's such a specific pain point that they have, they want to know more about it, they click on it, they view or they comment they engage, they come and join the thing actually putting out there. And so that's why now I know the power of, whenever we look at our funnel, our overall funnel, and there's a bottleneck somewhere. And like, a lot of times, that's actually not the problem Courtney Elmer. It's actually the step before that. Look there first. And I can pretty much almost like 99% of the time, I can tell you that if you can really hone in on that step beforehand. Everything else in your funnel falls into place.

Courtney Elmer 26:43  

that last piece about look at where you think it's broken. And then look a step before that. That is so valuable for you listening, pay close attention, because if you walk away with nothing else than that, from this episode, take that little gold nugget, put it in your pocket and keep it there for the duration of your business for the life of your business. So what advice would you give to someone who is struggling to grow a business because they feel like they can help a lot of people, they have the skill set to help a lot of people, their product applies to a lot of people. And for them to choose one person to focus on, they feel like they're missing out on potential business, because that product or program can help all these other people. So what advice would you have for them? What should they be thinking about to grow a business? And where should they really start?

Deirdre Tshien 27:26  

Funnily enough Courtney Elmer, I was literally on a call with a client this morning. And they're amazing to two men who help other men recover from addiction. they're also in a similar boat, where obviously, they can help so many people, right like this. It's , it's amazing what they're doing. But I was and you know, full credit to them, they came to this realization themselves, where it was like, You need to start with a micro niche first to grow a business. And I know it's really hard to, you know, to get out of your head with that. 

Deirdre Tshien

But the thing is, it's not forever Courtney Elmer. If you want to grow a business at rapid growth, you have to niche down, and then you start to broaden out, because then you start to tap into more and more markets. And you can and that is actually the key to grow a business. The key to grow a business isn't actually start from, you know, where we see big businesses, obviously, big businesses, yes, don't have to niche down because they've done that work of starting from a nation building it out. And but we always look at that as our vision as our main goal. And we're like, we want to be the now. And that's not how it works Courtney Elmer. To grow a business we have to niche down first with the view in mind with a vision mind that, yes, we're going to get there. But we're going to get there by actually specifically talking to wanting people and then broadening that out and talking to another set of people. And then we broaden that out and talk to a new set of people. And we keep doing that until we are at that point where, you know, we can actually speak to everyone. But we don't ever stop Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer 28:59  

That makes so much sense. And I think it's interesting, because when we observe influencers online, they've got a lot of followers. Generally, you might look at their Instagram bio and go wait a second. They're not following this whole guidance about niching and all of these things well, okay, maybe I shouldn't do that either. Because this influencer isn't doing it. But what we often don't even realize is exactly what you described, is that they got there because they started in a very specific market way back in the day before you ever knew who they were before you ever knew their name.

Courtney Elmer

I guarantee you their bios had something different back then. They over time have broadened and expanded and broaden and expanded to where now they've amassed the following that they have and that it does serve a variety of people. Okay, so I'm really curious about your book then because I feel like there's there's so much in there that would be valuable for those who want to kind of follow you down this rabbit hole and say okay, Diedrich, teach me all the things about honey traps and how to grow a business. Because this is this can be really powerful in my business. So how can we get our hands on your new book

Deirdre Tshien 30:16  

It's available on Amazon Courtney Elmer. So if you search honeytrap marketing, hopefully I come up, haven't actually been promoting it. As I said, this is the first time I've actually mentioned it. So I would love if I'd love feedback, I'd love if you jump if you do. If you're interested, and you get the book and you read it and you want to leave a review, please. I would love that Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer 30:36  

So where else can people go to connect with you and find out more about you and learn to grow a business from you?

Deirdre Tshien 30:40  

I'm on all the social media platforms Courtney Elmer. And I have my own website DD shan.com. But really, if you want to get into CAPSHO if you're a podcaster. And you want your episode title, description, shownotes social media captions promotional email created for you like literally, or I can't say instantly, like under 10 minutes and created for you using AI, then come in join our free beta program@kaptara.com And I think Courtney Elmer you have your own link as well.

Courtney Elmer 31:12  

Yes, absolutely. We're gonna link to all of that in the show notes. Thank you for the work that you do. And thank you for your time to be here today to talk about how to grow a business. This was so much fun.

Deirdre Tshien 31:19  

Thanks so much for having me. Courtney Elmer.

Courtney Elmer 31:23  

If you learned something new today, I know Deirdre would love to hear about it. You can find her on Instagram at Dierdre Tshien, along with Deidre, her podcast and her book to make it easy to find her follow her online. If you want to learn more from her go click that follow button, send her a DM, and let her know what your biggest takeaway was from this episode.

Courtney Elmer

Now coming up next week on the show, we are talking about why you don't have to work as hard as you think you do, in order to have the success you want in your life and in your business. So join me back here next week because this is for sure an episode that you do not want to miss. And until then go live your EffortLESS Life®.