Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Interviews with coaches, community-leaders and online course creators. Hear the story behind their journey to coaching, how they develop their coaching practice and grow their client-base and audience in a sustainable (and rewarding) way. Conversations led by Brian Casel, founder of Clarityflow.
Becoming the Go-To Coach for (Popular Tech Here) with Jason Resnick
===
Brian Casel:
Hey there, Brian Casel here. I am the founder of Clarityflow. And today in my conversation, I'm talking to Jason Resnick. Uh, it was a great conversation. I've known Jason for many years. Uh, he's, you know, what's most interesting to me about Jason's work as a coach and a consultant is how he has really, for lack of a better word, he has sort of like branded himself as the go to expert for a particular piece of technology.
These days it's ConvertKit and email marketing automation. He, he knows everything about that. And we do get into some of the weeds and tactics and um, technical tips there. Not too much. I promise.
Um, but you know, even going back years, you know, he used to do this. Um, you know, for years he was the WordPress, uh, go to expert. And so it's sort of a pattern. And I think it's really interesting. And we talk all about how that has helped him, um, really grow his, uh, audience and client base, um, and a really, really strong coaching business by being the, uh, premier go to expert in the ConvertKit creator coaching space. Um, and how he actually structures his, his offerings, uh, his interactions with the ConvertKit team and, and, and that whole side of the business. Um, and really what is the difference between, uh, you know, uh, a client who might go directly to like a customer support um, for that particular tool or working with a coach and consultant like Jason, who can take it far beyond in terms of like business advice and consultation and connecting to other tools.
It's a really interesting space to, um, to develop, uh, an incredible coaching business as, as Jason has done. Um, with his business, which he calls NurtureKit.co.
Uh, we'll get everything linked up in the show notes, but for now, let's get into my, uh, wide ranging, uh, chat with Jason Resnick, enjoy.
Jason Resnick, good to connect with you again. How are you doing?
Jason Resnick: Good. How are you, Brian?
Brian Casel: Doing good. Yeah, so, um, so I'm excited to talk to you today. I mean You know, we've, we've talked many times over the last several, many years now. Um, and, uh, I think we started talking years ago about productized services together. We were talking a lot about WordPress. I know you've been, you know, very active in that community, you know, going back years, but in more recent years, I mean, you've become known as the ConvertKit guy. You know, you've got your, your site and your service, uh, NurtureKit. Um, and you've sort of developed, uh, a name for yourself and, and, uh, coaching and consulting practice around, um, around the ConvertKit, uh, community and user base, and I think, I just think that that whole, uh, model is fascinating and I'm looking to dig into it.
Um, I mean, the way that I'm usually kicking off these interviews is to ask, like, instead of just the typical, like, tell me about what you do, maybe you can give us an example of one or two recent clients, um, it, whether you could share their names or not, but just like, give us like, what does it look like from their perspective? Who these days today in 2023, like who is finding you, following you and working with you? And what does that engagement sort of look like?
Jason Resnick: Yeah. Um, creators who sell something online. So to be concrete about it, um, you know, a recent client of mine, coaching client of mine, was selling photography uh, courses, programs, even a coaching, um, really around building a business. Not necessarily the, like the tactics of photography, but it was like, how do you build a proper business around your photography? Right?
And she offers. membership. She offers one-off coaching and she, uh, one-off courses and she offers high-end coaching. And so what she found was my YouTube channel, and she was looking for, you know, she was a tinkerer. She didn't mind getting her hands dirty in the tech, but she was trying to figure out certain things like how do I properly put people into the funnel and give them the right offer at the right time?
And. She found my YouTube channels, she found, she basically binge watched my channel, um, and she reached out to me saying, Hey, this is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get that right offer in front of my right audience. I have a, a decent sized list. I mean, that's her words. Like, you know, I always say there's no such thing as a small list.
Um, and she was like, look, I wanna automate this. I wanna scale my business in ways that I could just go to the top of the funnel and put somebody in and reliably serve them free and paid content in what they need at the right time.
And we worked together for, I guess it was close to about six months, and we put in a full fledged funnel. Uh, I, and I say we, we developed the strategy. She actually went ahead and, and deployed this in her own account. Um. With, you know, overseeing for me, basically a lot of asynchronous stuff, which we'll get into, but. Basically going from, Hey, who is this person to, Hey, buy my coaching program all the way and times we figured out what her sales cycle was. What, who, how were we segmenting people? How were we personalized the pitches? I mean the, the visual of the main controller of this au automation, I mean, it's lot of branches in there because she has a lot of different products, but it's simplistic because it makes total sense for whoever they are at the time and they just keep cycling through.
So that's who I work with, our creators that are really trying to scale their business and sell to the right people in their audience, uh, the right products that they want at the right time.
Brian Casel: It's actually pretty interesting because it sounds like, you know, the, uh, a creator, you know, is probably very similar to the type of user who would be using Clarityflow. Um, and it seems like you're helping them with like the marketing side and, and the funnels as, as you described it and, um, how they kind of put up, connect all the dots between people, finding them, subscribing to them, purchasing their products, hiring them as coaches.
Um, and, and then like sort of what Clarityflow is doing is like kind of like the tooling around actually communicating with clients and, and, uh, and doing the, the actual work together. Um, so it sounds like a very similar type of user where, like you described, it's someone who has, um, who offers some form of coaching and probably also offers some coat, uh, like, like a course, um, and. And also develops an audience with, with a newsletter or a YouTube channel or a podcast or all of those things.
Um, and so where like ConvertKit and like email marketing come into play it sounds like it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like that type of use case, a creator who's doing a lot of like different products that line into, into course, to community, to coaching, that's where email marketing and connecting with their audience can be really powerful. And like you described, like, um, showing the right offer at the right time, you know.
It's actually like, in my case with Clarityflow, like our own email marketing is just super simple, like sign up for the product, get a few emails and we nurture you and that's it. Um, but, uh, yeah, I could imagine it's, it's a lot more, there's a lot more that you can do that can be effective when you have like multiple offers like that.
Jason Resnick: Yeah. And, and you know, in, in her case, for example, right, she had different, you know. photographers one that was doing it as side hustles, you know, wedding photographers, that that was their business. You know what I mean? So there's different segments of that audience. And she has her podcast and she has blog. And these attract different kinds of people and different needs. And what email really does is it does connect with your audience in a much more personalized way or deeper way. And you can personalize that experience based on who they are and where they came in from. You know, whether it is a beginner article or an advanced article, and you can kind of make us some assumptions around that and create that proper journey with them.
And, you know, a lot of creators, uh, you know, or even online businesses, like, let's call 'em that they. What they tend to do with email is they, they build up the, those lead magnets, the autoresponders and those sort of things, and then they're just dumped into the regular broadcast, the weekly broadcasts and, and away they go. And then, Hey, this quarter I'm gonna launch something. So they push out a sales pitch. The only thing they do is exclude the people that already bought. And then that's it.
Whereas when you do that over and over again, then your audience gets tired. They're like, okay, this isn't the time for me to buy that, and you are only giving me a week to decide this. And just with the behavior of you know, whether it is the economic climate, whether it's covid, exhaustion, you know, pandemic stuff, leftover or whatever, but people don't wanna feel anxious in their own inbox anymore. They really want to be able to, you know, those timers don't work like they used to. Right? Like that we always saw like, Hey, you got until midnight to do this thing. Right? Like. They just don't work as well anymore. And so what people want is a unique experience to them and they wanna be able to know that like, Hey, when I need this thing, I wanna be able to buy it. Right? And also have it land in their inbox when it makes sense for them to get this thing.
So, um, you know, rabbit-.
Brian Casel: that just, just like having it land, uh, that's become harder than ever. Like, and that just speaks to like, you got to keep the quality up
Jason Resnick: Yep.
Brian Casel: Frankly, that the sales pitches down in order to consistently reach their inbox, because Gmail will throw you into promotions or sometimes not even deliver you to the inbox.
Um, and that kind of stuff can,
Jason Resnick: Yeah, I mean, and Io iOS has really thrown a mucky wrench into things. I mean, like there was always like corporate and healthcare industry like where there was software blocking a lot of this stuff. I mean, iOS, if you're using Apple Mail now, you could sign up for mail privacy protection, not your iCloud account, and it makes it seem like you should be doing that. And now you get things blocked all the time. And from us, from a business perspective, we don't know if they're even checking email anymore. So there's a lot of the tech getting in the way. So if your content's good and you create those unique experiences. The end user, your subscriber, or your customer then wants your email in the inbox and they'll make room for you in the inbox and be on the lookout for that.
Brian Casel: Well, we're getting into some of the technical details here, which I'm sure we'll come back to, but, um, but I mean, so people know you, your name, Jason Resnick and NurtureKit. Um, but what do you think kind of makes your brand of coaching pretty unique in this space. I mean, just from, you know, as for me, someone who's been watching your, uh, your work over, over many years and, and recently it seems to me like number one, I just think of Jason is the ConvertKit guy.
Like if you're, if you're at all, uh, using ConvertKit or in that, in that space and you're a creator, um, uh, aside from like ConvertKit's own team. In terms of like independent, like service consultants that I don't know of anyone else who's more associated with them than you are right now. Um, and also just like email marketing tips in general.
Um, I mean, is that how you are thinking about yourself? Like, how, how do you, how would you kind of differentiate from like other, other avenues that, that people would, would go?
Jason Resnick: Y Yeah. I mean, you know, like I planted my flag with ConvertKit, you know, mainly because that's the type of people they have, the customers of the kinds of people that I like to work with, right? Um, online business owners who are, you know, trying to build a business designed around the life they want, right?
And so most people can resonate with that, right? Because that's what I'm doing for myself and I'm pretty, you know, I'm maybe not totally build in public, but I'm, you know, I talk about my family, I talk about, you know, behind the scenes stuff from time to time.
But what I think people really come to me for is, one, I am super technical. I mean, I'm a data geek. I'm, you know, I'm a developer. Like I always-
Brian Casel: Yeah. I mean, like when, when you and I first met, like I knew you as a web developer and like a WordPress developer. So you're taking that like tech background to, to something that's much more accessible.
Jason Resnick: Right. And, and it's visual. And what, what it is, is that like I don't write emails for people. Yes, I've learned copywriting tactics and strategies over the years and stuff, and my own study of it. But what I help people do is really automate the mundane, right, and automate messaging and segmentation to match.
And so what I can do is listen to somebody, what their desires are, what they're trying to accomplish, and then in my brain do a translation of like, okay, these are the kinds of automations that we wanna build in. These are the kinds of questions that we need to ask our subscribers, um, and then translate it back out into them. Plain English, you know, and say, Hey, this is where we need to build out.
And um, you know, it's like one of my, I guess, superpowers when I, you know, graduated college is, you know, ages ago and stuff. One of my directors said, like, you can, you're a geek that can speak human, and that's a skill, right?
And so for me, taking a creative idea of, like, for the example, the photography business. She had this thought and she basically flow charted out this thing and then we were, I was like, yeah, okay, let's do it. And then this is what we need to execute on through the tool. Um, and we did it all asynchronously, you know? Sure. We had a Zoom call here and there, but it was, it was all asynchronous thanks to Clarityflow, because it was like she worked on it when she could work on it. I showed up and gave her advice and thoughts and you know, we shared screens and files and all the rest of it back and forth and it worked out better and most likely faster than had we had like a weekly one-on-one coaching call. Right. Um.
Brian Casel: I love it. I mean, that's exactly how I work with my team as well. Um, I want to hear more about it. It's like, so what does an engagement with you actually look like? So. How, how does a client start? How do you deliver? Um, I, what I heard you say, I was a little bit unclear about this. Um, yeah. Like how much are you actually like implementing for them, like in their ConvertKit account or on their website versus like just giving, giving them some guidance on letting them do it.
You, you mentioned that, that she writes a lot of the content. So like, how does, how did all the pieces kind of fit together and how do you like kind of manage the engagement?
Jason Resnick: Yeah, I mean, truth be told, I'm a client services business, right? And so there's basically three tiers that my clients work with me. First tier is custom bespoke project, right? Where I'm helping them with the strategy as well as implementation. So I'm doing everything that we plan out. Next phase or the bottom sort of tier of clients are book-a-days, right? These are the people that like, Hey, I know I want to do this campaign. I, I don't wanna deal with ConvertKit. I just wanna hire Jason for a day. And I go in and I do the thing. So it's like straight implementation. Yeah, strategy comes along with it just from my experience and, and all that, but there's no game plan. It's like, Hey, I'll, I wanna prune my list, or I wanna do a customer onboarding thing, or whatever the case is, right? And I just basically go in there account and set it up the middle ground, which is something that. Uh, Clarityflow has really helped me with is, is the people that don't mind tinkering or they have somebody on their team already that does the ConvertKit stuff, right? And what those people need is, Hey, I'm doing this stuff already, right. I'm, I'm kind of doing-
Brian Casel: Like, not mess this up.
Jason Resnick: Right. And like, I wanna really dial in the strategy behind it. Like, how do I get somebody from A to B, like from a new subscriber to a customer, and then a customer will repeat customer, like, what's that look like? And how do we get that implemented? Right. And they don't wanna necessarily, they don't need me to hire, you know, they don't need to hire me to do that stuff. But this middle ground, which I, you know, affectionately call it ConvertKit coach, I mean straight. It's an email coach.
Like I, you know, like it was something that I developed towards the end of last year and I launched it at the beginning of this year was, you know, basically that it's an asynchronous coaching program where you have me in your back pocket and you can ping me at any time. We do a deep dive, we lay out the strategy, but moving forward from that, it's. It's Clarityflow, like everything's in Clarityflow files, text, audio, video, share screen, all the things.
And that's like it's, it's great because they're doing the work and I check in on them or they ask me a question and I answer it and we go back and forth and a lot of times I'm doing the stuff in the morning and they're doing it at night and the, the ball is moving down the field versus them kind of in the past when I've done sort of consulting, it's like they wait until Thursday to ask me everything, and then they do like a sprint and they're gonna get stuck and then they wait till Thursday again. And so this kind of just greases the wheel, so to speak, because like they ask the question, I answer it, they ask the question and I answer it.
And you know, I can even check and balance them because I do have access into their account. But they're the ones inside of the account to . Go ahead and actually do the work. And then I could say, give, you know, Hey, I think I would do it this way. And the only reason why I would do it this way is because of this reason.
You know, and kind of coach them to use the platform better.
Brian Casel: It's so interesting. I mean, there's so many little things I want to kind of unpack there. Um, I was talking to Rob Hatch on this podcast, uh, on the last episode and. Um, you know, he was talking about, like, he has a similar, uh, I mean, totally different type of coaching, but similar packages structure where there's like a middle plan that's just all asynchronous and the key, the key driver there was that, like the people that he's coaching.. They are just super busy in their, in their businesses and their work to a point where it's like, well, a coaching call in the middle of a business day is actually a big distraction and takes them away from actually doing the work that they need coaching for, you know? Um,
Jason Resnick: Yeah. I mean, I have a-
Brian Casel: and then like you being there, like, like in the, I can't tell you how many times, like I've been working with a tool. And it's like, well, I'm working on this project today. So I have my question today. I want to send it. I don't need an answer this hour, but I, but I don't want to wait a week, you know?
Jason Resnick: Yeah. I mean, I, truth be told, I have another coaching client and he's, um, he's a, um, I guess like a shooting coach. For lack of a better term, like he helps athletes become better shooters. Um, you know, he's, he does Olympic trainers, he does hobbyists, he does leagues and stuff like that, and nations hire him to help their national teams and stuff like that. And like right now he's going back and forth between Italy and Qatar. Right.
So, and I'm in New York, so like when he's working on something, I'm asleep or vice versa. And like. I mean, there's no way that we could sync up at any point in time, especially if he's in the Middle East. Like there's like one of us is gonna be up at 3:00 AM right? Like there's no way that we could do like a, a Zoom call, but yet we're pushing the ball down a field. Because he, like you said, he's working on it now. He's doing, you know, coaching teams and things of that nature. So like, you know, he does his stuff at any time, you know, when he gets a few, few minutes and like, you know, with all his travel, he has no idea where wifi is gonna be and that sort of stuff too.
So it's like, it just, it, the, the asynchronous component for me has always been one of those things, not just to like. Not feel obligated to show up if on a day if you didn't have a chance to do this stuff, and then you feel bad about yourself. But two, it's like we're global, right? Like I'm in New York, and if somebody's on the other side of the planet, it's really difficult to try to sync schedules and time zones and all
Brian Casel: It, it, it would be totally prohibitive to like, you, you literally wouldn't be able to work with people. Like I I've had. Really close team members and, and clients and customers in Australia, where there is like a half an hour, if not like a one hour window where if we wanted to get on a live call, it'd be like super early for them and super late for me.
Right. Um, but like asynchronous totally opens up that relationship and and actually makes it possible.
Jason Resnick: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
Brian Casel: Yeah. I mean the other thing that I keep talking about on this show and everywhere else, I'll keep screaming about it with async is like, it's not just that it's more convenient. It's, it's actually better because you have time to think and prepare and maybe edit or rerecord or jot down some notes, uh, before you send back that next response, right? Because if we're talking on a, on a live call. You have a question for me. I have to have an answer for you right now. And I'm just going to blurt out. The first thing that comes to my mind, and it's probably not going to be very smart or helpful, you know? um, but if I have time to think, think about it and come back to you later in the day or tomorrow, like we actually, you know, we're more productive that way,
Jason Resnick: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it's, it's interesting that you say that because there are, there is many times where I'll have that knee jerk answer like, oh, we should be doing this. I'll read that in the, the email, like if it's a text response through Clarityflow and I get that thing, I'll look, you know? And then what's nice is like you get all those different notifications too, right? Like check the email, check the message, you know, reply to the message and stuff. So there's like those three tiers of notifications that you can get, right?
So I'll check that email and then usually I sleep on it. Right. Like, unless it's something that I can just reply back right away and know that that's common, otherwise I sleep on it. And what I've told cl some clients is, is that like my promise to them is every Tuesday and Friday I show up. But that's the, that's, that's my promise. But the goal is to show up every day. Right. Like, I, I don't want them to wait right. Truth be told, I don't, you know, I check every day. It's a manageable thing.
Right,
Brian Casel: you know? 'Cause it, it gives you some space to like whatever, take the kids somewhere on, on a Wednesday, you know, like, yeah.
Jason Resnick: And, and what I've told some of my clients is like, look, you're gonna get a notification when I see the, the message in an email, right? You're gonna get that notification when I watch the message or hear the message or whatever the case is. Don't be, don't think that I'm immediately gonna respond if it's a complicated question, if I'm reviewing text or, uh, an automation or something of that nature. But know that at least within the next 24 hours, you're gonna get a response from, right.
So like, we kind of have this, you know, I mean, I've, I've told them this, but you know, there's this understanding there that, Hey, here's the behavior around this asynchronous stuff. So that, okay. I, I've given him something I know because of the system built in this notification, he's gonna get back to me in 24 hours.
So they have this awareness, like you said, you don't have to wait a week to get an answer. You don't have to get on a live call. And then me tell you, all right, I have to go back and I, I gotta look some stuff up before I give you a full answer. And then you're wondering when that email's coming, that sort of stuff.
Just the mechanics of the whole asynchronous communication in the system, at least, you know, for what Clarityflow is built for me, like that, that is like, it just allows me to set those boundaries and deadline, uh, boundaries and, and allow them, my coaching clients to have this, the expectations set, right? Like -
Brian Casel: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, I mean, I think that the setting expectations is, is key. It sounds like you do a really good, really good job of that because I, I've heard from many coaches and I, and I can see.. The ones who are, who work really well asynchronously with their clients, they have a deliberate, um, onboarding flow for, for a first time client where, you know, not only are they setting up the engagement and, and maybe they're showing them a thing or two about like, here's how Clarityflow works. I mean, we, we actually give you like a generic unbranded video that you could use for that now or create your own. But they're also like setting those expectations. Like, here's how we're going to communicate together. And it, and it gives the client a level of comfort.
And I found in my previous businesses and stuff that like that sort of thing really, um, helps the client, like. Uh, they're like in your corner throughout the whole, the whole time, if they, if you just have that shared understanding, like, even if things go a little bit off the rails down the road or something doesn't quite work, they're going to help you get through it. They're not going to be like this, uh, adverse relationship, you know?
Jason Resnick: Yeah. And, and that's the, the other nice thing too, right? Like, so like last month, July, I was away twice with family, like two different times, beginning of the month, middle, you know, third of the month. And I was just like, I. It was inconsistent for me to get in front of a screen just for a period of time, right?
But yet I could use my phone to at least reply with audio, text, maybe not share a screen or, or that kind of thing, or even log into their ConvertKit account to review something, but at least when there was a moment and wifi and I was able to get to it, um, you know, like clients were fine. They were like, okay, no problem. You know, it is what it is. And then vice versa, like when I checked in, like if I didn't hear from a client all week, I'd be like, Hey, I'm just checking in. It's Tuesday. I wanna make sure everything's good and you're not stuck on something. And they come back on Wednesday, they say, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm away. You know? I'm like, okay, great. Awesome.
You know, so it's like there's this. It. It doesn't always seem like just in the past coaching, like when I've done coaching in the past with live, it's always like when you cancel one of those calls, you almost feel bad. You're like,
Brian Casel: Mm hmm.
Jason Resnick: Okay, great. And then you think to yourself like, all right, do I need this monthly bill?
Like, you know, that's how I felt from the client
Brian Casel: You need to like justify its existence by showing up for these calls that you don't even necessarily need right now. Um,
Jason Resnick: And so what this
Brian Casel: that model. I mean, not just because it's asynchronous, but just from the standpoint of like a productized service. Um, it, it goes back to like, you know, there are other services like that, where it's like, you just have access as long as you're, uh, subscribed to this um, service, you just have access whenever you need me. That doesn't mean like on call, pick up the phone, like you're live. But it, but when you have a question, it's, it's like an insurance policy slash assistant slash, uh, you know, um, like, like expert in your corner. Um, and that's where like the, it's almost like you, you, the client can still get value even if they don't contact you for a whole month, just like knowing that you're there if they need you,
Jason Resnick: Yeah, and, and truth be told, I mean, look, email marketing's not sexy. There's nothing sexy about it. Everybody wants to know what the latest social media hack is, or Facebook ad hack or whatever. Like nobody cares about email marketing, right? Until they realize that, hey, there's money in email marketing.
Like if I do this thing right, it's gonna blow the others out of the water, right? But what's funny is, is that they'll get busy for three weeks. I'll do my check-ins and things of that nature, and they'll be like, oh yeah, I was working on this sequence. And won't even talk about the ConvertKit thing. But then all of a sudden they'll come up for air and there'll be like a sprint for a week and a half.
And then they'll try to get the, they're like, look, I've got some timing between projects or, you know, there's a lull period for me and the season and whatever the case is. And they just go And you know, part of the selling point is it's like you have me in your back pocket. When you need me, I'm there. Right? So it just makes it that much eas... Like people need, especially with something that is as technical as automation and-
Brian Casel: yes.
Jason Resnick: -personalization and segmentation. People need, you know, that, Hey, I need another pair of eyes to make sure that I'm doing this the right way.
Brian Casel: Hey, just a quick break to tell you about Clarityflow. It's the software tool loved by coaches and their clients for communicating asynchronously in threaded conversations using video, audio, or text. My team and I designed Clarityflow for the modern day coach. It lets you give clients a single place to engage with you and all that you offer through your coaching business.
Run coaching groups, cohorts, and communities using our spaces feature. Create interactive courses using our programs feature. Build your coaching library with templates and reusable content. And sell access to your coaching programs with subscriptions or one time payments. Customize colors and connect your domain to give clients a fully branded experience.
You can use Clarityflow on the web, or our mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, or Android. And connect any other apps using our Zapier integration. Start with a free trial, or request a personalized demo and consultation by going to clarityflow. com.
I'm glad you brought that point out, but that's where I wanted to go next and, and kind of take it back to how you have sort of, uh, really just branded yourself around ConvertKit, the tool. Um, I just think that's a really smart strategy in general as, as a coach and consultant to like, that's a built in large audience and they're great clients, great type of people to work with. Right.
Um, but like you said, like, I think, you know, folks might wonder like, well, why wouldn't someone just contact like ConvertKit's, customer support for these types of questions. And I've used ConvertKit. I've used Drip, ActiveCampaign. I currently use Customer.io. Like they're all sort of different, but they all sort of do the same things more or less, you know, a lot, but they are...
Yeah, but they are very complicated and technical to use. Um, and it's not so much like, like, yeah, I could contact their customer support just to get an understanding of like, what does this button do? Um, you know, how does, how does this data export work or whatever, whatever that might be, but what I always sort of wanted from those companies and they never really gave it to me was like, what am I doing here? Am I setting this up correctly, or am I really, or I'm making it way harder on myself and my subscribers or, um, what's the best strategy here?
Um, and, you know, there's a lot of like programming logic that goes into email marketing automation, even though you You know, that users might not actually be writing code. You're talking about like, if this, then that, you know, delays and stops and, and things like that, like, you know, tracking events and there's a lot of technical stuff and then integrating Zapier to your website,
Jason Resnick: right? Yeah. That's a whole nother thing. Yeah.
Brian Casel: stuff. Like it gets pretty complex really quickly.
So. Like, again, the, the standard support channels from any of these companies can sort of point you to a help doc, but it takes like a business consultant to be like, all right, here's what you really want to do here.
Jason Resnick: Right. And that, and that's where it comes down to, like they're great with the app support. They know the app like they know like, okay, this is what you need to do. This is the buttons you need to click. This is what you need to.. The screen that you need to go into.
But when, and this is, you know, sounds very similar to your experience, is like when you try to inject your business reasons for doing the things that you're doing, then everything goes sideways. They're like, okay, I'll be back in 20 minutes. You know, like whatever. Right from the chat, that's where I come in because one, I've been doing email marketing like you, I've saw Drip for a long time. I dabbled in active campaign. I've used just about every ESP that's out there at this point.
Brian Casel: Yeah.
Jason Resnick: I, I mean, the methodology works and I've been doing this for such a long time now that you know, like I know how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together into big picture. And what I've learned, at least from my audience, is that they understand the puzzle pieces, but they don't have the picture right, and they want to know where the pieces go of that puzzle.
And so I. That's where I come in, right? Like, Hey, if you're selling digital products, this is the kind of things that we wanna build.
If you're selling a high ticket coaching program, then this is the kind of things that we need to build. If you're building a membership website, these are the kinds of things that you need to build, right? So those . aspects of it. Like they kind of know, like if you're building a membership site, like, okay, I gotta build proper onboarding, and then how do I build the retention strategy into that? Like what does that look like? And all of the things like, and then how do I launch this thing and how do I market it an ongoing way?
Brian Casel: Well, that's
Jason Resnick: Like all of those things. And so that's where the value of what ConvertKit Coach gives you is that it's my experience coming to the table, working with folks like, you know, Pat Flynn and SPI and all these other, you know, Justin Welsh's and, and all of those kind of folks. I mean, I've been doing this long enough that I, I, I see what works and doesn't work, and then that's when people are like, Hey, if he's doing it for them, maybe he can help me do it for me.
Brian Casel: I mean, that also brings up another good question here, which is, um, okay. So. Again, I think it's really interesting how you've sort of, how you focus in on ConvertKit users. But like you just said, like a ConvertKit user is going to be connecting ConvertKit to their website, to their shopping cart, to their, uh, membership platform, to, you know, maybe Clarityflow.
We have, we have a ConvertKit integration too. Like, and, and so like, are you, do you naturally get pulled into advising and consulting on like, those other tools as, as well, you
Jason Resnick: Yeah. I mean,
Brian Casel: Like, they, they come to you for ConvertKit, but then you're putting all the integrations together for them.
Jason Resnick: Yeah, I mean, I mean, truth be told, there's a percentage of my ConvertKit coach clients that don't use ConvertKit, I. Like, you know, like I was, I mean, I have an Infusionsoft, you know, client, I have, um, you know, a Drip client. And so like
Brian Casel: Mm
Jason Resnick: the, the methodology around the business is the same. It's just, you know, as a developer, I developed in Java, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PHP, it's all syntax.
If you understand the structures and the methods and things of that nature around programming. Well, you can just learn the syntax. The syntax is there. So the same.. I apply that same logic with tools, right? And so I went from Drip to ConvertKit. There's differences, there's similarities, there's nuances, things like that.
And then, hey, what do we need? Right? Like, do we need deadline funnel? Do we need Zapier to integrate with Airtable? Do we need Circle? Do we need all these things? And yeah, and my experience comes in to that. . I mean, that's part of the big ball of wax, so to speak, is like when we're building out the strategy of what you're doing, like what pieces of the puzzle do we need to tie back?
And in my, my philosophy is, is that your email list is your core database. Everything that somebody does with your business needs to be in there because then you can leverage that and make your engagement in the email, in the emails and their inbox. Hyper-personalized to them. You know that they've been in your membership site for two months and they never logged in. Send them a, send them a campaign to get them logged in. Otherwise, what are they paying for? Right?
Brian Casel: And, and again, like, that's like the difference between just going to the standard support channels, because like. Um, their support, like, uh, whatever, like I might email Customer.io support, but like, they can only help me with Customer.io. They're not going to help me with how, how these events are firing into my Rails app or how they're, how it's integrating with my other CRM over here. Right.
Like, like, but that's where someone like you can actually, you know, uh, put all these pieces together. Um, I wanted to ask you, as we start to wrap up here, like me, just like think about your own practice of how you're working with your clients and running this business and. And, you know, you've, you've really evolved what you do over the years, uh, a couple of different times.
I'm curious to know, like, okay, I guess, number one, like maybe some specific things that have worked really well for you recently to manage your own time and you're, you're managing multiple clients. Um, I don't, I don't know. Is it, is it just yourself or do you have team members or assistants that work with you?
How do you make your time investment and focus, you know, more efficient in this type of, this type of work?
Jason Resnick: Yeah. Um, I mean, for the most part it's me. I have a contractor that I, you know, I use that is real recent and he's been doing the book a days, basically the one a day hire me for the day kind of stuff. And that's allowed me to focus more on the
Brian Casel: Oh, so like he'll, he'll be the person with them for the day. Oh, okay. That's cool.
Jason Resnick: Um, and, you know, I'm there.
We, we have a company Slack channel and everything. He, he's basically Jason just two years, three years behind . Like, he understands my philosophy, which is great. I mean, I've been trying to find somebody kind of like that, but that least mindset. And he's, you know, go getter and he knows his stuff and so it, it, it was a great find. Um.
Brian Casel: Nice.
Jason Resnick: The, which has allowed me to now focus more on pushing the coaching side of things out, because those book days, truth be told, it's, it's, you're hiring me for the day, but it's like two days outta the week. Right? Because there's some prep work before that and then there's maybe some after the day kind of stuff. Yeah.
So it's like two days. Right. But if he's handling that now that's two days back on my week. Right. And truth be told, it's those book a days that could lead naturally into the coaching program. Right. Um, and so it's allowed me to say, okay, I can open up the door for the book a days. Right. And bring more of those in 'cause I was really only booking at at, at a maximum one a week just-
Brian Casel: And that's typically the first thing that a new client would, would buy with you?
Jason Resnick: Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, depending on who the client is. But yeah, the most times it would be a book a day just to kind of see what they see and then move up to a custom project. But
Brian Casel: I really like that idea. I, I actually haven't heard this type of specific model from other coaches before where it's like, it seems like most of them just go straight into a long term coaching engagement and maybe a, maybe a few sessions or, or async access or something like that. But I like this because a book a day is like, um, there's a lot of value there that you can get in one day, like, let's set up this funnel. Right? Like, that's something that can actually happen in, in a day,
Jason Resnick: It's a no brainer. They can do the math. There's like, they know how fast they're gonna get it, and they know how much they're gonna pay for it.
Brian Casel: Yeah. They know, like literally on the calendar when it's gonna happen and, but then it's also like a, a, a really fast way to see what it's like to work with you and see if it's like, let's continue this relationship, you know.
Jason Resnick: Yeah. Yeah. And, and what the, what that does is it, like, for me, I mean, to answer your question about the, the time factor, right? Like my.. I have a six year old and a four year old right now. I wanna spend as much time as I can with them while they're still young. And-
Brian Casel: Mm-Hmm.
Jason Resnick: For me it's like, Hey, how do I get out away from the screen?
So when the asynchronous coaching came about, that offer came about this year was like, oh. This could work because now I don't have to show up to a call at two o'clock in the mor, you know, two o'clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday or whatever for coaching, right? Like it's now async and I can do this when they go to bed, or whatever the case is. And that gives me time back to spend it where I actually want, you know, spend it with them.
So. For me, managing time, it's really managing, figuring out ways that, one, I can help my clients and have them live the life of their own design. But two, how do I live my life the way that I wanna design it? And so, um, you know, it's the asynchronous idea and it's, you know, this kind of goes back even, you know, when you talk about productized services and stuff like that was always for me, like, how do I make this easier, less hands-on, you know, still seeing value, but like easier on both sides of the table, so to speak. Right? Like, you know, they don't have to show up. I don't have to show up. We show up when we, when we can, we can sprint at times and we can slow down at times and still get a ton of value out of it. And so, um, yeah, I mean for me it's the, it is the time factor. It, I mean, that's why I started the business in the first place is the time freedom. So.
Brian Casel: Yeah, I mean, I guess just to sort of wrap it up, I, I wanted to just circle back to something that you talked about in the very beginning and just want to touch on like how, how you are marketing yourself and, and getting more and more exposure and bringing in these leads who, who would be purchasing like a book a day or, or getting on your list, of course, um, you have a YouTube channel, you, you, you do email marketing.
Yeah. Um, what is like, what, what is your routine? Where are you actually investing your time and, and dollars and resources to like, make sure that more potential clients are, are finding you. And also like this ties back to like, you know, you are attached to ConvertKit in terms of your branding. So like, how much does that play into how, and I'm sure ConvertKit sends you user sends you clients as well.
So yeah, how does it all kind of fit together?
Jason Resnick: Yeah, I mean, truth be told, it, it had historically been Twitter , right? Like that. I don't have a blog. I do have a YouTube channel. Um, you know, for me, ConvertKit is probably about 70% of my audience, you know, their ConvertKit customers or at least moving towards ConvertKit in some way. Um, and you know, the. Twitter, X aside, whatever, you know, things going on over there, . But for me it's really just about connecting with creators and people that are trying to build online businesses.
And so what I've always found too is communities, whether it's free, paid, otherwise just going in there. Giving value because these are business owners also that are trying to scale their business and learn a little bit more and or whatever the case is, depending on the community that it is, there's always a ton of questions.
And so for me it's like, what are the questions people are asking? How do I turn that back around and maybe create a video or a social media post or an email about it and just answer questions and I try to funnel everybody to my email list. And that's where everything happens. And then, you know, there's no way that I, you know, push people to a sales page or anything like that. You get on my email list, I wanna learn a little bit more about who you are and what you're about. Um, and then give you the right product with the
Brian Casel: You know what I, I was actually gonna ask you about this, maybe off air, but I'm just gonna ask it on air 'cause I'm really interested and I think, I think it'll be interesting for folks listening. I, I want to hear more about communities. Like how, what is your strategy there? When you say communities, like do you mean like you're joining private Slack groups, Facebook groups, membership sites, where other, where, where folks who look just like your ideal clients, that's where they're hanging out. And then you're, you're literally spending time every day, reading the, the, the threads and, and, and finding the questions and then getting in there and answering is
Jason Resnick: All of those things. Yeah.
Brian Casel: it sounds super obvious, right?
Jason Resnick: yeah. I mean,
Brian Casel: like, to me, I, I've been in lots of these communities over the years, but like, I can never find the time to invest
Jason Resnick: Yeah. I mean, truth be told, I I, like you said, every day it's not every day like it, there's no way. Right. Um, but what I try to do is try to find, and I've learned over the years, like kind of like what to look for and keying on and whatever the case is, you know, just being a part of the community.. Being a part, whether it's a paid community or Slack group or a forum somewhere or whatever the case is, just like, Hey, are my ideal people in there. Right.
Or just looking, you know, um, looking for people that are advocates of, like you mentioned ConvertKit. I planted my flag with ConvertKit, so the Pat Flynns and the Chris Duckers of the world that. have a large following. Okay, they're promoting ConvertKit, who are the large affiliates of ConvertKit and where do they go and what do they have and do they have communities? And if they do have a community, then they're probably promoting ConvertKit inside there. And so if they're using products like influencers, I guess you could say, are using products and they're sending their audience to those products, you'll find me there too, because. Like you said, I learned a long time ago, like niching down and attach, like I did this with WooCommerce by accident like a long time ago. Um, and I was like, oh, I became the WooCommerce guy. Okay. So I didn't like, you know, totally by accident, but it was like, oh, they have customers, their support aren't gonna build custom features, but that's what I do. So I'll just follow them. And so same thing with ConvertKit is like they've got people on their platform. Some people will never even look my look my way, but the right kind of people from my business will and they'll find me. And that's
Brian Casel: How do they actually, how does somebody from a community who might see you in a, in a forum or a Slack or something, even though you're answering questions and being super helpful and just being active and visible. How do they know that you actually offer this as a coach and as a,
Jason Resnick: I usually just ask. Like, I'll get dms or you know, whatever. Like, so I'm in a bunch of different Circle communities
Brian Casel: Uh huh.
Jason Resnick: and you know, I'll get a message like, Hey, uh, you answered my question, or whatever, like, do you offer services or do you do this thing or whatever. Like, how do I sign up for your stuff? Or, and I'll just tell 'em like, whatever in context. They'll be like, Hey look, you know, I have offer a one hour coaching call. We could do that. That's a paid thing. I have a book a day service, you know, that kind of stuff. And like, it just happens like naturally just because I'm answering questions and I like tools like Circle, um, you know, and other kind of like Tribe I think is another one.
You know, these kind of tools where there's a search mechanism in there because usually when somebody asks a question, then my thing kind
Brian Casel: have, go look for the keywords and you, you know, where it's going to make sense for you to show up.
Jason Resnick: And also. Um, people coming in later, right? Like they're gonna search for the thing, like what are, what are the best lead magnets, you know, or something like that. And then like, a post from a year ago comes up, my thing's there, right? And so, you know, so that's kind of why I like communities because there are, it's that pool of people that are already good, could be potential customers of mine.
Brian Casel: It's super interesting. It's like it's a channel that I still think. And, you know, I think a lot about like SaaS products and how to, how to market SaaS. But it absolutely, of course it works for like coaching and, and services. Um, but just communities in general is, is one of those channels. If you think about it, like search and like SEO, like through Google and whatnot, obviously it's still really important these days, but between AI and also even without AI, just, I feel like people are, um, Just less reliant on Google or they, they, they trust the, the Google results less.
I know, I
Jason Resnick: I think it's more you trust the humans more.
Brian Casel: Exactly,
Jason Resnick: So when
Brian Casel: like I'll go to like Reddit, you know, I'll go to Reddit because I want people's opinions on some topic. I don't want the people who have SEO optimized the top 10 pages on the internet for this thing,
Jason Resnick: Right. Right. Yeah. And, and that's the thing, like, and you know, you, you mentioned like, how do people find you? Well, most of the time in the, in some of the communities that have been a long time member of, I'll get pinged. I'll get pulled into a conversation more so than me reaching out to that answer that post or something.
'Cause somebody will say like, Hey, Jason's our resident email marketing guy. You need to talk to him. And they'll, you know, tag me or whatever in the, in the thing. And that's usually how I'm pulled into a lot of these things. And so, you know, it's, I.
Brian Casel: That's also a really good nugget. Like it's, it's this sort of comes back to the theme of this whole episode of where, where you you've become known as the email marketing guy and, or the, the ConvertKit guy, right? Like that's a really important branding thing, I think. Um, I mean, I, I had it a few years back when I was, you know, doing a lot of stuff around productized services, people would ping me if the conversation is about productized services, I'm getting pinged and they're pulling me into it.
Right. Um, these days I don't really have that anymore, a little bit with async, I think. But, um, uh, that's just a really important and really powerful concept that like, if, if people can associate you with one word or one topic, you know, like I think of, um, uh, what's his name? Um, the guy from Price Intelligently, uh, Patrick Campbell, you know, uh, all things pricing, you know, he's the guy, you know?
Um, yeah, super
Jason Resnick: And, and, and that's what, that's why I, like you said, I think community is powerful now, especially more than maybe ever is that.. Especially with AI coming out, people aren't really sure, like when you got a Google result, you could click the link and kind of go to the page and be like, yeah, this is a shady page.
I'm going back. Right.
Brian Casel: Mm hmm.
Jason Resnick: AI looks the same. And so you don't know what that answer is, if it's good or not. And one you can't say like, who do I hire for this? Like a AI's not gonna shoot that name out there, right? At least not yet. And so when it comes down to the transactional type content, which is really what I'm focused in on, like I have top of funnel stuff, but transactional content is really where like I mean, I'm in business to make money , and so for me, transaction happens with the humans. And so if I can create those relationships and it occurs naturally just from trust or ref referral or whatever the case is, then that's, you know, that's, that's where I've always gone.
Like I've always had, you know, in the past I've had podcasts because of the hearing of the voice. I have the YouTube videos, people can see me. They can also see how I explain and teach things. And so that sort of level of content for me is most important because that's where the conversions are gonna happen, right? Like an SEO. You know, hey, the top 10 things you need to do for Black Friday, email marketing campaign. Yeah, great. I mean, what am I gonna bring with that? I might bring some subscribers, but are they, how close to the, you know, the sale, are they Right? And so.
Brian Casel: Makes total sense. Well, Jason, I mean, there are so many, uh, nuggets in this thing. Um, maybe we can, you know, have you back on at some point and we can do like a, more of a deep dive into like strategies and things that we can do with, with email marketing, especially for coaches and creators. Um. I know that we can go for probably many episodes on that topic, but, um, uh, Jason, this is awesome.
Uh, where can folks connect with you? I know it's NurtureKit.co, right?
Jason Resnick: Yeah, you could go to NurtureKit.co or you could go to NurtureKit.co/blueprint, and I'll give you uh, first 30 days of your subscriber basically lay out every sequence and touchpoint that you want, uh, to convert them into a customer. Um,
Brian Casel: I love it. I would assume you're asking for an email address to
Jason Resnick: Yes. Mm-Hmm,
Brian Casel: To get it. That's, that's how it works. That this is great. And believe me, I have been subscribed and following your stuff for many years now, and it only gets better. So, uh,
Jason Resnick: Thank you. Appreciate that.
Brian Casel: Been awesome.
Jason Resnick: Awesome. Well thanks for having me.