How to Turn a Free Skool Community Into a Client Attraction Engine with Lidia Axe
What if your most effective lead magnet wasn’t another PDF—but a community where potential clients could experience your expertise, build trust, and get real results?
In this episode, Jill Hart talks with former PwC Director and London Business School EMBA Lidia Axe about using a free Skool community to attract, nurture, and convert aligned clients without complicated funnels.
You’ll discover how to:
- Give members one simple, meaningful win
- Keep your community active without constantly creating content
- Use free and public communities to increase discoverability
- Turn courses, webinars, and traditional lead magnets into interactive experiences
- Create natural pathways from free community members to paying clients
- Structure your first 30 days for engagement, growth, and monetization
If you’re a coach, expert, or conscious entrepreneur looking for a more relational way to grow your business, this conversation will help you turn community into a genuine client acquisition channel.
Join Lidia’s free Community Builders HQ and explore her 30-day Skool community program:
https://www.skool.com/skool-100/about
Want premium clients from your content?
Grab a free Client Acquisition Audit and I’ll show you exactly where your message, offer, and CTA are leaking conversions—and the 3 fixes to turn your podcast/Substack into a client pipeline.
👉 Book here: https://coachsalchemist.com
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Transcript
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: The traditional lead magnet has a problem. Someone downloads your PDF, disappears into an email sequence, and you hope they're still paying attention when it's time to make an offer.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But there's another way to do it. A free school community can put attraction, nurturing, trust, and conversion in the same place, giving potential clients a chance to experience your expertise before they're ever asked to buy.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And there's one shift that can turn a free community from just another place you're expected to post content to a genuine client attraction engine. And we're going to unpack what that shift is, how to build the community around it, and
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Before we're done, reveal what needs to happen in the first 30 days to give it the best chance of producing paying clients.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hi, and welcome to the You World Order Showcase Podcast, where we feature life, health, transformational coaches and spiritual entrepreneurs stepping up to be the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, The Coach's Alchemist, on a mission to empower coaches and entrepreneurs to amplify their voice
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Monetize their mission and get visible. If you're ready to start attracting premium clients without chasing algorithms or hunting people down like a banshee on a mission, head on over to Coachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit. It's the first step to building a business where your clients seek you out, rather than you having to hunt them down.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Today, we are chatting with Lidia Axe. Lidia is an ex-PWC Director and London Business School EMBA, who helps coaches and experts turn their ideas and expertise into paying clients using school.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Her approach focuses on making free communities a practical client attraction and nurturing channel without the blood, sweat, and tears of complicated funnels. Welcome to the show, Lidia. It's great to have you with us.
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::Lidia Axe: Hi, Jill, thank you. I'm excited to be here.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I forgot to… to let you know this, but I'm gonna ask you anyway, and if you're like, no, I wasn't prepared, I didn't study for this question, and I really do apologize. What's the most significant thing, in your opinion, as individuals, we can do to make an impact on how the world is going?
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::Lidia Axe: Oh, wow, that's a big question!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I know, and I usually tell my guests that it's coming. I… I totally forgot, I'm so sorry.
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::Lidia Axe: Wow, okay, well, you got me on the spot, and I think…
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::Lidia Axe: Without thinking too much, the first thing that comes to my mind is.
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::Lidia Axe: we need to leave our mission. So, each of us come to this world with Some sort of mission.
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::Lidia Axe: And, you know, sooner or later, we start realizing what that mission is.
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::Lidia Axe: So… Once you do that, often it comes around midlife, and I've been a female midlife coach.
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::Lidia Axe: For a long time. I wrote a book about it, and, you know, I was on my own journey, and usually around midlife, we start realizing there is more.
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::Lidia Axe: you know, more than just being a mom, more than just being a wife, more than just being a PwC director. Even it sounds grandiose, but that was not my mission. It was a social
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::Lidia Axe: kind of a gender social task I fulfilled. And then I thought, well, there is more. And more for me, my purpose, my mission, is to inspire people.
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::Lidia Axe: To inspire people, just do things.
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::Lidia Axe: You know, do things that…
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::Lidia Axe: Usually, we're not supposed to do. I went on Camino de Santiago four times. I moved countries.
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::Lidia Axe: Twice, with the whole family. And I did many other things, started businesses, you know?
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::Lidia Axe: Started community on school.
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::Lidia Axe: And everything I do is toward that mission.
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::Lidia Axe: And that mission is to show people that if I could do it, they can do it.
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::Lidia Axe: So, I guess one thing for people to do is just, whatever your mission is.
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::Lidia Axe: Just do it, and that's your impact.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love it, and I totally agree, and everybody kind of comes to their mission
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the right time. It's like, we spend… Women don't really grow up Until they're… I would say 45, 50-ish.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And we usually say, oh, you know, women mature so young. 2020 is, like, the magic number. They've finally arrived.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: No, honey. You are still a baby, and you have so much to learn. You're just at a different phase in your life. Wait till you hit your 40s and 50s, and it's… it's like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: All the stuff that's come before is preparing you for this moment.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it used to be, you know, women would turn 40, and it was like, oh, you're done, put you away, you're an old person.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: No! It's like, the world finally is, like, you can be you, you're finally old enough that you're tired of people telling you what you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to live, and… and you can just get out and make the impact you're here to make. But it's also the time when you start to…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to understand what your purpose is here. And that's when your mission becomes really apparent. When you're in your 20s.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's… it's just not there. You're just not done enough. I… I know, I read 7 Habits for Highly Effective People when I was maybe 26 or 27, and I was starting a business, and it was like, name your mission. I'm like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I want to make money.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, because that was my mission, was to make some money. I didn't have a big overarching mission, and now I do. I know what my mission is. It's to spotlight what people are doing to be the change they seek in the world, and to me, that's, like, the most important thing. But until you get to that point.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: doesn't… You're just not gonna know what you don't know.
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::Lidia Axe: Oh, that is true. And also, there is, you know, whether we see it or not, whether we like it or not, but there is a social… you know, we're social creatures.
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::Lidia Axe: And our families, society, the world at large, they put expectations on us.
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::Lidia Axe: And, you know, for women, I can speak, you know, for women, again, because I've worked with women so much. You know, there is expectation. You need to start a family, you need to get, you know…
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::Lidia Axe: Give birth, and to raise your kids, you know, and hopefully make a career, and, you know, build, you know, have a house, and kind of become a…
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::Lidia Axe: Boosters of a house, and there's so much expectations, and you, like, kind of…
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::Lidia Axe: tick, done, tick, done, done, done, done. And until you've done it, you kind of feel like you need to do it. And once, at least for me, it was like, I've done that all, and then I kind of sit down into an empty void, whereas, well, but who am I?
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::Lidia Axe: who am I? What am I here for? So, I had to, and, you know, it's a little bit different, for everyone, but, you know, once that's done for me, then I could ask myself a real question, and that's where I started to…
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::Lidia Axe: You know,
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::Lidia Axe: kind of do the internal journey, asking, like, the self-discovery journey. You know, I hate the self, you know, the whole self-improvement, self-development industry. I hate that word, because
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::Lidia Axe: That's not what we need. I don't think anyone needs self-improvement. I think we need self-discovery. We need self-improvement.
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::Lidia Axe: Fairness.
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::Lidia Axe: This is the journey we need to go, and I cited that journey. It never… it never ends, because each of us is the whole, you know, universe, so it… it is…
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::Lidia Axe: boundary… boundaries less, you know? It's like, never ends. That journey never ends, so…
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, and it's amazing, and once you get on that journey, it's so exciting.
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::Lidia Axe: Sometimes scary, sometimes you find pieces or parts of yourself you don't really like, you know, but it is what it is.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think you also discover things that you're good at.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That you've taken for granted, But other people are willing to pay you for that information.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And, you know, In the everyday world, Things like car mechanics.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Could you learn how to change the oil in your car? Yes, I'm sure you could.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But it's gonna take you a lot of time, and it's probably gonna cost you a lot of money, because, you know, the mess that you end up making.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: may just be me, but I would rather pay somebody to do that technical thing.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And when it… When it comes to school communities, or creating communities around something you have expertise in.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it doesn't have to be like that. That was just an extreme example, but I do know there are communities on school for things like plumbers.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I mean, okay, that's really random.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: bakers. I'm part of a community that bakes sourdough bread.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: he's a… he's actually a baker, and he… we bake… he has bake-alongs on Saturday, and it's just so fun to be part of a community doing something like that. It's… you…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you don't have to have, like… it doesn't have to be business-related, is what I'm trying to get at. It's just, you have to have some experience in it, and you don't have to even have a mission identified in order to take advantage of
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Creating a community around something that you're really excited about, and that you have a little bit of experience in.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What do you think about that?
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, 100%. I actually think… You know, I have a business community, so…
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::Lidia Axe: But if you start non-business community, I actually think you have better chances these days, because…
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::Lidia Axe: A, there is less skepticism, you know, because I think today we have a little… Too many…
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::Lidia Axe: Business community with people who are not, you know, who are not genuinely into this, who are here for a quick buck, you know.
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::Lidia Axe: So, if you start a non-business community, actually, I think you have better chances of success. This is first.
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::Lidia Axe: Second, You don't need to be an expert. You don't even need to be good at this.
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::Lidia Axe: It can be something where you're going on a journey, like, hey.
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::Lidia Axe: I actually love to make sourdough bread. I actually cooked. I actually created sourdough myself. I grew it, you know, not first time it got dead.
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::Lidia Axe: But it's a journey, and it's really hard to do by yourself, you know, watching YouTube videos. So, obviously, anyone who's interested… and I was doing it because my daughter, you know, had allergy, and she had some, you know, other issues, so I was doing it for her.
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::Lidia Axe: And it would be awesome if I had a community where I could ask questions how to do things, because again, it got dead, it died the first time around.
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::Lidia Axe: So, you don't need to be, coming back to your point.
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::Lidia Axe: You don't need to be an expert, you don't even need to be good, you just need to be passionate. Passioned about
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::Lidia Axe: the topic.
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::Lidia Axe: And that's it. And school…
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::Lidia Axe: The tool, the facility, to start at $9, the hobby plan, at $9 per month.
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::Lidia Axe: Which is pretty much nothing, you know, these days. Just nothing. You can start a community, and…
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::Lidia Axe: passionate about it, If you're, determined, just to… just showing up.
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::Lidia Axe: And sharing what you're doing, what you're learning, sharing your journey.
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::Lidia Axe: It will be. You will quickly get traction. You will quickly get attention. If you are a few steps ahead.
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::Lidia Axe: You know, then, allelujah, then you can not only get people around you, but you can actually start monetizing it, quickly.
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::Lidia Axe: So, absolutely.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So… What has your experience been as far as getting people to join us?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: for me, it's not that difficult. You just, like, invite people, and they're…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: a certain group will just come because it's you, and they're your friends, and, you know, we've all got friends, and they're interested in some of the things that we're interested in, so they'll come and support you. But beyond that, when you start attracting people to come and look, how do you get people to interact?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: in your communities.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: How do you suggest that people think about that?
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::Lidia Axe: Well, let's start with how to get people to join. Again, I'm gonna come back.
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::Lidia Axe: to the point that you need to be passionate about the topic. And passion, I mean, not 3-second passion, like, passion that you're ready to talk about this topic for the next 12 months, right? So you need to understand, it's a long
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::Lidia Axe: long-term game. You know, I saw people start in close community.
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::Lidia Axe: Every day. So, you need to be passionate, and if you're passion.
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::Lidia Axe: I don't know about you, but me, when I'm starting something, I just cannot stop talking about it. I talk
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::Lidia Axe: about it to my neighbors, I talk about it on socials, I talk about it to my clients, like.
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::Lidia Axe: I keep talking, and naturally.
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::Lidia Axe: I go to other communities. This was the biggest source for me to get people in. I just go to other communities, other places, and I just, hey, by the way, I just started this amazing community. Not because it's my marketing tactic, but just because I'm so excited about it.
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::Lidia Axe: And I naturally, when we're excited, like, remember kids, you got a new toy, you go and talk about every… you know, to everyone about that toy.
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::Lidia Axe: So, get that energy, and that energy, it spills over, right? It's… it's people, people get…
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::Lidia Axe: infected in a good way, you know, by the energy, right? And then.
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::Lidia Axe: I think that's the next step. You ask, how do you get people engaged? Well, that's the same thing, because you are so passionate about this thing, they get, again, infected. You know, they… you know, you keep talking. It's not, you know, community.
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::Lidia Axe: is not for everyone. Let me say that again. Community is… is… is not for everyone. It's like, remember the Tamagotchi, you know, when we were kids, we had this Tamaguchi? If you forget about
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::Lidia Axe: this toy for a few days, it would die. Well, community is like that! If you forget about your community for a few…
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::Lidia Axe: days, weeks, it will die. So you are, especially in the beginning,
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::Lidia Axe: It needs a lot of attention, it needs a lot of nurture, and it needs a lot of…
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::Lidia Axe: You know… Caring.
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::Lidia Axe: But again, it depends on your energy. I know energy is really hard to grasp, but, if you, if, you know, if you start, if you're passionate about the topic, you talk about the topic.
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::Lidia Axe: You talk about where you learn, you talk about where you're trying, you talk, you know.
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::Lidia Axe: You just share, I mean…
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::Lidia Axe: it's hard for me to even, you know, put it… put it into… into words, because for me, it's very natural. I am a very extroverted person.
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::Lidia Axe: But I know, that even introverted persons also are good with communities, online communities, because online world, you know, you can hide behind screen, you know, you don't need to reply.
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::Lidia Axe: Oh, right away. Anyway,
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::Lidia Axe: I guess it all… it all about, is it your type of business? And second, is this topic something that you think about when you wake up in the morning, and when you go back to sleep?
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::Lidia Axe: then I'm… you know, then people get… people get inspired, people get infected. It's like the fire, you know? The fire will keep burning.
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::Lidia Axe: if you keep putting the wood into the fire, right? It just keeps, it will keep. And more people join, and, you know, you will have people who are your, kind of…
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::Lidia Axe: Not fans, how you call it. You know, people who are more active.
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::Lidia Axe: Eventually, by design, I do teach it in my community, that you do want to bring, especially in the beginning, you do want to bring a couple of cheerleaders by design. You can get them by luck.
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::Lidia Axe: And, you know, together, it will, it will keep the community,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you can get them by luck, but I'm also going to point out that you can… you can do it on purpose, and you can find other community owners who are either just starting out, like you are, that have community…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That is a similar interest that you have, and this is really important, because you're going to be expected to be active in their community, too.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And a couple things that I would say that I've learned over the time that I've had my community is that,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Having a reason for people to come back to your community, either daily or at least a couple times a week, is really, really important. And that's where you can do, you know, get-togethers, you know, have lives, you can have,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: classes that you give on certain days of the week. You can have a thread that you post. Like, we have the Daily Notes Boost thread in our community.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And that's, you know, everybody comes, and they drop their link, and then they go and check out, you know, what other people are doing, and it gets them over there. But once they're over there, then they're interacting with all the people in the community, because they're connected to all these people.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And so it allows everything to mushroom out. That's why I use the two together, because it… there's synchronicity in there, and it helps everybody grow, but it's a reason for people to come into the community. But I don't just leave it with that.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I call people out in the Daily Notes Boost thread, and we highlight people, and we celebrate what people are doing, and I tag people, and there's lots of link dropping, and there's lots of being tagged, and called out, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and celebrated, so you feel like you're part of the party that's happening in this space. And when people go live on Substack from the community, community members go over there and watch them. That was what I was doing just before we came on here to record this. It was… we were…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I wasn't on this live, but a lot of the community was over there, and we're all in the chat, and it helps the community member who was doing the live get some momentum going, too. So, it's, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You need to be part of the community, and you need to be the cheerleader in the community, and you need to really be…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Part of the party, you're the host.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Of the party.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Not the party.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah what I call, I think every good community needs to have referrals.
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::Lidia Axe: Because I'm a certified habit coach, right? So I know everything about habits.
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::Lidia Axe: And habits is just the backbone of our existence.
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::Lidia Axe: So, what I advise other people to have, and what I have in my community… is withrals.
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::Lidia Axe: So they know, for example, every Wednesday, I post notes on school news that I issued on Tuesday.
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::Lidia Axe: you know, once a month, I run, Community Crawl, who participated in one last weekend.
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::Lidia Axe: I, you know, I, in my paid community, community income mastermind, I run now weekly accountability. So, referrals.
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::Lidia Axe: You know, that's what, like you ask, how do you get people engaged? Well, if they know, by the way, Wednesday, for us… oh, I forgot to post it today, I will do that after, after this. Wednesday, we have failure celebration Wednesdays. You know how everybody celebrate, wins?
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, we do that, but we also celebrate failures, because I believe business, is, you know, your capacity to success equals your capacity to, digest, failures, because failures is not
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::Lidia Axe: pillar is part of the journey. Like, it's not optional. You know, you…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it's not a label, it's a part of the experience. Some things work, and some things don't.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, fail fast, fail forward. So we celebrate with failure every Wednesday. So, referrals, whatever they are, and try to make them unique.
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::Lidia Axe: To your community vibe, to your community spirit, your personality, your community personality, to your people personality, and the more unique it is, quirky, weird, the more weird, the more quirky it is.
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::Lidia Axe: The more people will remember, because, you know.
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::Lidia Axe: every community has the introductory post, or win celebration post. You know, you don't want another
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::Lidia Axe: another something that has already been in 100,000 other communities. You want something very unique.
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::Lidia Axe: To your community. Your vibe, your spirit.
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::Lidia Axe: personality. So, do this, establish it, and do it. And it can be once per week.
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::Lidia Axe: It can be once per month, and can be once in a blue moon, but people need to know what it is, when it happens, and they need to be waiting for it. And they will… if you miss it.
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::Lidia Axe: And they're like, hey, Luda!
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::Lidia Axe: out, you know, Wednesday failure celebration. That's how you know you got something special.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And your point about being consistent, Super important.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, and put it on your calendar in your classroom, so that people can hold you accountable to it. Like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Sometimes it can confuse them, because you can put links in there to, like,
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I have the Notes Boost, it's every day on my calendar, and it says live up there, and so people will click it, and they'll get taken to the category, for the Notes Boost, and so they can do, you know, whatever day we're on. And, I've had people, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Are we going live?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: what is this about? So you kind of have to train people a little bit, and maybe you don't tick the, you know, reminder thing so they're not flooded with messages from you every day, but…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It, it… It's important that… You're… you're…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: things that you're gonna do, and that are coming up, that you're front and center with it, and post about it often, so that your community members, can plan for it. And we're all in a lot of communities.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm… my next goal is 222. I already went past 111.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Just throwing that out there.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I collect communities like people collect members.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But, you just need to make sure that you're letting people know things are happening, and then send out, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: there's not a limit on how many posts you can do each day on school. It's okay. You can… anytime you post something new, it goes out to all your people.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that are following your community, and if they're getting too many messages, they have the ability to turn those off. It's on them. Don't you worry about it. The people that want to hear from you, they want to hear from you, so…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Loud!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They're busy!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Catch their attention!
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::Lidia Axe: No, absolutely, absolutely, and again, we are bombarded today. We are in too many communities, we get too many notifications, too many messages, so people become deaf.
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::Lidia Axe: So, you know, don't be afraid to put it in the post, put it in the…
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::Lidia Axe: calendar, and also to send them email reminder. You know, be mindful. I… I actually…
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::Lidia Axe: I think last week, I created a post, I posted in my community saying, if you're waiting for a babysitter, she's not coming.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I saw that, and I loved that post!
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::Lidia Axe: And yes, you know, I'm trying… you know, it can be a little bit, you know, offensive, but I was… I was, you know, I hope my people understand that I'm kidding, you know, I'm joking, I'm trying to be a little bit funny, but I'm saying, you know what?
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::Lidia Axe: I'm not… you know what people do? They do, like, the event is tomorrow, and then tomorrow the event is today, and then the event is in one hour, and then the event is 10 minutes. I'm like, 4 posts about one event?
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::Lidia Axe: I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna treat you like you're an adult, okay?
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::Lidia Axe: I'm not… you know, I have kids, and luckily they've grown up, you know, 21, 23, 25. My kids, you know, luckily, I don't need to remind them to brush their teeth, or take a shower. I'm not gonna do that for you. I'm gonna treat you like adults.
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::Lidia Axe: So…
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::Lidia Axe: yes, you do need to kind of make things visible, right? I'm with you, put it here, put it there. But at the same time, you know, I told my people, don't expect me to be your babysitter. You want to become a business owner.
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::Lidia Axe: Become… responsible for your own calendar, you know, check out things, check out calendar. So, kind of…
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::Lidia Axe: you know, again, that's my vibe. You can be different, and that's okay.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's the beauty of school. I… I… I tend to send out
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I send out… well, because I do the daily…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Notes Boost. It's an opportunity for me to tell everybody, this is what the week's gonna look like, this is where you can find these resources, this is what's available right now to help you on your journey, and…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I So sometimes we'll post, like.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Right before the event that it's happening now.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Come join me!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I can't do the, like, one-hour thing, and the 30-minute thing. It's just like…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm doing other stuff! I can't spend my whole life… and I didn't do that for my kids, and I had 5 of them.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's like…
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::Lidia Axe: Oh, wow.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm not… Let me know how that works out for you.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, look.
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::Lidia Axe: You need to find what works for you.
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::Lidia Axe: And make sure you communicate it to your people.
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::Lidia Axe: And…
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::Lidia Axe: your people will stay with you. You know, funny, today, I listen to school news. Again, on Wednesday, I do my review of the school news, so they said that actually, communities that have
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::Lidia Axe: 4 point something, like 4.8, 4.9. Like, the communities that have bad reviews.
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::Lidia Axe: you know, couple of bad reviews, are doing better than communities that only have good reviews. And…
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::Lidia Axe: what they said is because it is impossible, right, that everybody loves it, but I think…
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::Lidia Axe: It is also because people who have
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::Lidia Axe: those bad reviews, like, they're doing something different, right? They're not trying to be for everyone, and we cannot be for everyone. You know, in a podcast, in a SaaStack, in a newsletter, in a content, if we're trying to be too nice.
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::Lidia Axe: We're trying to cater for everyone.
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::Lidia Axe: Gonna be s-
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::Lidia Axe: boring. It's going to be boring content. We need to be a little bit controversial. We need to have a distinct point of view. So, same goes
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::Lidia Axe: for community, right? You need to be a little bit different than another
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::Lidia Axe: thousand communities that teach Substack, or in my case, that teach how to start a school.
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::Lidia Axe: So, take your stand, and take it a notch.
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::Lidia Axe: up, dial it up a notch. Being a little bit, you know, not for everyone. That way.
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::Lidia Axe: You will repel… You people, but people who stay will love you more.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It also helps, I think, people understand that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Not to have unrealistic expectations of the things that they're… getting involved in.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because I think there's a group of people that are looking for saviors, and And…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm… I'm not that person. I'm sure you're not that person. You already said you don't babysit, so…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Too bad for you all.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But… it's…
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, people looking for solutions. Again, it goes back, like, in my case, I'm saying, hey, business is hard.
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::Lidia Axe: I keep, you know, in all my newsletters, you know, love, you know, in my newsletters, it's called Corporate Afterlife.
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::Lidia Axe: Where I, I say…
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::Lidia Axe: I talk about change… changes and differences between being in corporate, versus having your own… business.
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::Lidia Axe: I talk about that it's hard. It is hard. Now.
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::Lidia Axe: I don't know if it's harder…
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::Lidia Axe: than corporate, right? It's just different Hart, and that's what I try to explain. But I'm not… I'm not the one who's gonna say, hey, you know.
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::Lidia Axe: online business is, you know, so easy, you walk 3 hours at the beach, you know, do whatever. No, this is such a BS that, that, that, that people…
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::Lidia Axe: have been told, but yeah, so you're right, you're right. I do tell people that, it's gonna be hard, I'm not gonna give you the, the…
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::Lidia Axe: manual, I'm gonna help you, I'm gonna give you all the tools and the things that are gonna help you, but, you know, be ready. Be ready.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And there's a certain point when you just have to have some experience.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I mean, you can't just show up and expect that You're going to be making…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Gobs of money on your first day.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Maybe not even your first year.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or two, most businesses don't actually start becoming profitable until their second or third year in business.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you need to make arrangements for that. It's… it's unrealistic to think that you're going to be, like, an overnight success. There just aren't any.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: everybody has that mountain that's under the water, and all you're seeing is the little iceberg on top. And it looks like, you know, overnight, they were suddenly blew up.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That blow-up had a long runway, every single time. There is not an example that I can think of where
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That is not the truth.
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::Lidia Axe: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, that's a big… that's a big, big, big thing. When I see people close, the communities, the business.
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::Lidia Axe: 90% of the time, it's unrealistic expectation.
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::Lidia Axe: So, they either thought it's gonna be way…
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::Lidia Axe: Faster, or they thought it's gonna be way easier, or they just…
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::Lidia Axe: you know, they just didn't… didn't think at all. They think it's just such an easy thing that can… they can… they can crack.
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::Lidia Axe: like that. And another thing, it's…
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::Lidia Axe: I tell people, like, imagine you start a business, I don't know, 30, 50 prior internet time, you know, 40, 50 years ago. What would people do? They would need to go to a bank, get a loan, right?
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::Lidia Axe: That's to start a business, they would need to rent a place, to buy the equipment, or whatever. Even you set up a shop, you need to rent the space, you know, do the renovation, do some advertising. Like, you would need to invest
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::Lidia Axe: Money, time, effort, then you open up, and it would, you know, and then it would take you months, years to get to profit, right?
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::Lidia Axe: Every bit of tea.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Two kids that are like that.
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::Lidia Axe: Eric.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They both have businesses, and it… they had to get financing, and their businesses are… are really good, but their businesses have been around for a…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: number of years now, and they've made a lot of connections, and they've…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But it didn't start out where they were, like, making all of this money.
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::Lidia Axe: But somehow, but somehow, people get this idea, and again, probably it's not their fault, they've been told that they can start online business
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::Lidia Axe: From day one, zero investment, or just invest in this business program.
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::Lidia Axe: And somehow start making money in… 6 weeks.
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::Lidia Axe: How is that… tell me, how is that possible?
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::Lidia Axe: Any business requires investment. Heavy investment.
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::Lidia Axe: Time?
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::Lidia Axe: effort, Money.
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::Lidia Axe: Right? It just… it's just not possible. Without investment, nothing is gonna happen. And you only have these 3 currencies, money.
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::Lidia Axe: effort.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, it's just, it's just unrealistic expectations. When people start a community, you know, going back to communities where we started, people think, oh, $9, you know, I'm just starting a community.
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::Lidia Axe: And just, you know, $9 per month, so easy, that's it.
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::Lidia Axe: Absolutely not! You're not just starting a community, you're starting a business.
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::Lidia Axe: You know, and that means marketing, that means, you know, onboarding, that means sales, that means execution, that means customer support, that means IT, that means admin, that means… I mean.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Showing up?
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::Lidia Axe: It does not… all these roles, you have to be, you have to do all these roles.
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::Lidia Axe: You know, they don't disappear. It's still a business.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or it could be a hobby, and if you just want to have a hobby, and you want to pay your $10 a month.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To have a hobby, or…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that's… that's a totally reasonable expectation, but you need to be upfront with yourself about what your expectations are, about the time that you're going to spend in this community. Is it to make money? Is that why you're starting the community? Or is it to have a
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: A hobby, where you're just gonna let everybody come in and chat, and do the things, and you're gonna give everything out for free?
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And, you know, if that's your business, or if that's the model of the thing that you want to do.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Great, more power to you.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But if you really want to be making money and having a business, which is, by definition, a business is designed so that you can make money from it, and making money from it means
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Beyond expenses, that you have something left over, because that, to me, is making money.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Generating revenue is a different…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's got a different name. It's called generating revenue. Making money is income, and income is what you can take out of the business or reinvest in the business. It's…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: they're different numbers, and cash flow comes into play here. People don't think about cash flow. You know, sometimes you're gonna run into periods where you have low cash flow.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You're expecting money to come.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But it's not here now, and this bill is due. How are you going to cover that gap? And a lot of businesses fail at that point.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah. No, absolutely. Again, like I said, and again, I come from finance background, business background, so…
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::Lidia Axe: When you start a business.
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::Lidia Axe: None of those roles, none of these departments disappear. It just means you are those departments. Your IT, your sales, your marketing, your advertisement, your execution.
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::Lidia Axe: You are customer support, you are finance, where you have to plan the cash flow, like, you run all these roles, you run all these hacks.
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::Lidia Axe: And…
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::Lidia Axe: It's possible, you know, a lot of people do this pretty successfully, but you're right, you know, if you decide this is a business, then you need to plan this.
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::Lidia Axe: as a business.
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::Lidia Axe: And, the, the heiress?
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::Lidia Axe: If you're not good at them, for example, if you're not good at marketing, then you need to… you need to learn that, or you need to get some help. If you're not good at finance.
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::Lidia Axe: Right? Planning, how to do a budget, how to plan your expenses, how to plan your cash flow, then you need to get some help, you know, and, learn how to do that. So, you know, if you want to become a business owner, you just need to close those gaps.
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::Lidia Axe: You know, to be… Successful business owner.
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::Lidia Axe: You know, that's why. We just, you know, we just…
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::Lidia Axe: Know the statistics, like you said, by year 3,
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::Lidia Axe: I think 60%, the best case scenario of businesses survive?
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::Lidia Axe: Online businesses, I would say probably less.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: A lot less, because it's so easy to start. I mean, you… you don't even… A lot.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Know how many people, like.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: they say, I'm gonna start a business, and they plant their flag, and, you know, 3 days later, they close the door.
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::Lidia Axe: But again, I'm not saying this, you know, sometimes people think, you know, it's pessimistic. I'm not saying it to discourage people. I'm saying, hey, you know, I want more people to start businesses. I'm helping people start businesses, plan businesses.
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::Lidia Axe: I'm just saying this because… You need to have the right accent.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We said earlier that a free community can become a genuine client acquisition engine rather than another place to post content. So close the loop for us. If I started my free school community tomorrow, what exactly would you have me do over the first 30 days to attract, nurture, and convert my first potential clients?
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, absolutely. You know, again, I've been in the online business world for the last decade. I started, you know,
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::Lidia Axe: Facebook, Instagram, you know, and it was great. Back then, I was just, very not saturated.
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::Lidia Axe: But, you know, back then, email list was the king, or the queen. I should say, everyone say you need to build the email list to attract and nurture.
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::Lidia Axe: And it worked, and I agreed, and, you know… but at some point, about a couple of years ago, I just noticed it stopped working as well, and I think soon it will stop working altogether.
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::Lidia Axe: So, I was starting looking at other ways how to do it, and I was always a big fan of communities, in a different way. And then, I just realized that
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::Lidia Axe: this is, you know, this is the way. And I think, you know, thanks to COVID, a lot of people, you know, got online. We have to find good in bad, and, you know,
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::Lidia Axe: I… I just realized, you know, I talk to so many people in the online space, and specifically on school, and I realized that community is…
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::Lidia Axe: the best way to get people in, because it's such a low,
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::Lidia Axe: friction, you know? People are tired of downloading
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::Lidia Axe: PDFs, people are tired of, you know, getting another course.
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::Lidia Axe: People want to talk to other people, they want a place where they can come and talk to real people. People want to come to a place where they can ask questions.
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::Lidia Axe: They can actually, you know, do things together, and community offers all that.
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::Lidia Axe: So, closing the loop, I think you can create, or you should create, if you want to attract people, and you need
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::Lidia Axe: You know, if you want to start an online business, let me try…
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::Lidia Axe: If you want to start an online business, you need a place To nurture people.
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::Lidia Axe: And, you know, online market is developing, the market saturation…
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::Lidia Axe: is way higher than it was, as I said, 10 years ago when I just started. So… there is…
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::Lidia Axe: Probably even longer.
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::Lidia Axe: Nurtured time.
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::Lidia Axe: What I mean by that, from the point people learn who you are, to the point they're ready to buy from you.
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::Lidia Axe: I think there is longer time.
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::Lidia Axe: So you need space, a place, where you can nurture them.
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::Lidia Axe: And yes, YouTube channel, SafStack could be that space.
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::Lidia Axe: Community… is… One of the, you know, most effective, places of them all.
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::Lidia Axe: Hen?
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::Lidia Axe: So, get them in, With something that…
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::Lidia Axe: they can, you know, treat it as a lead magnet. It's a simple… in simple terms, treat your free community as a lead magnet.
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::Lidia Axe: to turn your PDF,
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::Lidia Axe: Turn your mini-course, turn your webinar, whatever you used to use as a lead magnet, turn it into community.
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::Lidia Axe: And get it into, classroom, and get people in, and help them.
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::Lidia Axe: Get through that, offer them support, organize some live events, There we go.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you don't need to overwhelm them, it doesn't have to be a 65-module course or whatever. Nobody wants that.
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::Lidia Axe: No, it cannot be, no.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What they want is one simple win.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: At a time, in each classroom, just one thing that you're gonna help them get a win at.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And then… You can gamify it.
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::Lidia Axe: Yay!
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But just…
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::Lidia Axe: Same. Link.
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::Lidia Axe: No!
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::Lidia Axe: movie.
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::Lidia Axe: I think in the free lead magnet community.
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::Lidia Axe: it needs to be as simple as possible. We just had a call, this morning with… with… in my paid community, Community Income Mastermind, and we talked with, with…
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::Lidia Axe: A member, and he has a 7-day reset, fatigue, and… Chronic fatigue, reset. That's all.
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::Lidia Axe: Your lead magnet community can have one classroom.
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::Lidia Axe: That's okay.
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::Lidia Axe: everything else, you know, posts, and by the way, things that people don't realize that I suggest your free community
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::Lidia Axe: make it.
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::Lidia Axe: Free and public.
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::Lidia Axe: That way, it is picked up by SEO, by Google Search, and AIO. So.
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::Lidia Axe: the traffic is now coming from ChatGPT, you know, Gemini, and all the other AI,
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::Lidia Axe: AI tools that people are looking, like, how do I… what do I do with chronic fatigue?
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::Lidia Axe: you know, they search, and it gives them, Tanmei, who's a member of my community, who has the free Lidia community, you know, combat, chronic fatigue.
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::Lidia Axe: So… Make it simple. One class, you know, very simple, couple of classes.
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::Lidia Axe: Or, you know, just talk to people. Organize live events, like what you do. You say you do daily, daily notes. I mean, for fatigue people, I probably wouldn't do daily, but it can be, like, you know, weekly calls, or check-ins, you know, organize activities, or organize,
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::Lidia Axe: Hold the space for people to be able to come and ask questions.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And answer the questions that are common. I want to put one thing out here when you talked about public communities.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you have a public community on school, it means that your classroom is visible inside the classroom.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to other people that are just visiting. And the way around that is to make sure that when you're setting the classroom up, you make sure that it says they have to be level 1 in the community, and that will keep
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That'll allow people that are visiting the community to see in your classroom, to see what you've got, but it also keeps them from just consuming your content without becoming a member of your community.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's… it's a little detail that a lot of people miss. I've seen it… I've seen them miss it, and I'm really big on having public communities. I have a paid community that is public.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it has courses and everything in it, but it's… and I want people to be able to look in the classroom and see all the stuff, and I want them to see those Daily Notes Boost threads right up front, and they can click on those links, and so the people in the community…
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::Lidia Axe: They can't… they can'.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: They can't comment, they can't drop their link in there, but they can go and visit other people's links. So, it… it really gives people a reason why they should join this little community. It's totally an experimental community. It's making some money, but it…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I just… I'm just using it as an experiment.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And if you go and look up Substack on school, it's the first community you see. It's LearnSubstack, the Substack Starter Space. The other one is more robust, and it's private, and we do a lot of other stuff in there that
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's free to join also, but…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's lots of other options for being part of that community, but, that… that point about not letting people get into your classroom without becoming a member of your community is really kind of important.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. Level 1, that's what I have. Also, my 30-day, class, because my lead magnet is, I give you 30-day class, you know, step by step.
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::Lidia Axe: how to set up community and grow it to 100 members, it actually drip, drip, so you only open, you know, day by day. And a little hint…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: back.
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::Lidia Axe: gas, and second, I offer people to upgrade to premium and get access right away.
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::Lidia Axe: So, what you can have, you know, I tell people, I know everyone is, you know, crazy about MRR, monthly recurrent Revenue, and I understand that, on school, right? But you can get creative with how you make money. You know, I had mastermind groups.
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::Lidia Axe: cohorts, that worked very well. I have the instant access, just pay me kind of one-off.
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::Lidia Axe: Premium… I mean, Again, once you get people in.
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::Lidia Axe: Right, and people are interested, the topic is interesting, you can start getting creative about how you, you know, how you make money, and so that it's, fun for you, it's fun for them.
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::Lidia Axe: you know, you don't need to follow… you know, I keep saying, you started a business because you didn't want to work in the corporate and follow everyone else's rule. You know, starting your own business, fun part is you can set your own rules. So, please…
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::Lidia Axe: Be creative. There are so many opportunities, you know, how to make money and actually have fun.
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::Lidia Axe: about it.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, and they can find that by going to your school community, which is called… go ahead, you can…
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Give me a new peel there.
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::Lidia Axe: yeah, Community Builders HQ. I just did a little rebrand, but, yeah, it's Community Builders HQ.
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::Lidia Axe: I have 30-day hackathon, that's a former name, is the 30 days, is the 30 classes, it's all for free, everything in this community for free. I organize, you know, I share school news, I organize community crawls,
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::Lidia Axe: I organize, review dominoes, we have so much fun, and, you know, Fun activity every week.
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::Lidia Axe: Yeah, join in, and then if you like it, then there is a paid community income mastermind, where, you know, when you're ready, and, you know, you like people, you like me, you like people around me, you know, you're welcome to join.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That sounds great, and we can find that at school.com forward slash school dash 100.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you can do the forward slash about, but if you just put that part in, you'll get there as well. And then I will put that link in the show notes below.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Lidia, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been great.
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::Lidia Axe: Thank you so much. It's, it's been, it's been fun.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You can learn more about Lidia and join her community here at school.com, school forward slash school dash 100.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And as I said before, I'll put those links in the show notes below. Thanks for tuning in with us today. If you're ready to amplify your voice, monetize your mission, and start attracting premium clients, your next step is simple.
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::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Head on over to thecoachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit. Join us for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency, and remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world. Start today and get visible.
