#221: Ryan Hawk – Anatomy of a $12,500 membership earning $400,000+ per year

Ryan Hawk [00:00:00]:
If you're gonna do it, spend the money, do what you gotta do to make it amazingly awesome, and they all walk away thinking like, oh my god. I've never been to anything like that. That's what I try to do.

Jay Clouse [00:00:24]:
Hello, my friend, and welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. Today, we're talking about creating excellent community experiences, and I am joined by Ryan Hoch. Ryan Hoch is a keynote speaker and the host of the Learning Leader Show. This is an Apple podcast chart topping show. It's been listened to by millions of people in more than a 150 countries, and Forbes called it the most dynamic leadership podcast around. Ryan is also the author of Welcome to Management, How to Grow from Top Performer to Excellent Leader, and he's actually a repeat guest. He was first on the show back in episode number 61 talking about his podcasting journey. Since then, he's become a friend and someone I really admire for his intentionality and the way he shows up for others, his friends, his family, and his community.

Jay Clouse [00:01:10]:
Having a podcast as big as Ryan's, you would expect that his business might be built on advertising, but that is not the case. It's actually built on what he calls leadership circles. These are groups of 10 to 15 people that he hand selects for group learning experiences. They meet once per month on Zoom and also once per year in person. And I'm just fascinated by hybrid online offline community models like this. And spoiler, it's something that I'm working to build into the experience of the lab itself with our first in person event happening in 2025. So in this episode, Ryan breaks down the specifics of how he runs these programs, how he prices them, how he plans to grow them, and we even workshop some of his questions on the fly. Ryan is a member of the lab himself, which you'll soon find out because he says some nice things about it, which I appreciate.

Jay Clouse [00:01:57]:
But I promise you they were unprompted. If you wanna join us in the lab, go to creatorscience.com/lab or visit the link in the show notes. We have some space now and we would love to have you. Okay. That's enough for me. Let's talk to Ryan. Ryan Hawk back on the show. Excited to chat with you.

Jay Clouse [00:02:18]:
It's been a while. I look back. We last spoke on episode number 61, which was aired in June of 2021. So it's been a minute since you've been on the podcast.

Ryan Hawk [00:02:27]:
Well, dude, I'm excited to be with you as you know because I'm a big fan. It is so easy to root for somebody like you. I don't say that lightly. It's just so easy to root for you and I'm pumped that all the YouTube stuff's going so well and just your business as a whole is going well. Obviously, I'm a member of the lab so I'm a client of yours and happy and lucky to be a part of it. So it's good to be

Jay Clouse [00:02:48]:
with you, man. Yeah. Grateful to have you. You just celebrated a milestone on the podcast. 600 episodes since 2015. Did you imagine doing 600 episodes of this podcast?

Ryan Hawk [00:03:00]:
No. I originally did it as a way to create my own form of a leadership PhD program. I was working full time in a Fortune 500 company, a corporate America job, mid level management role. Just finished getting my MBA, looking to potentially go back to school to get another degree. And instead thought, like, is there a way to to do this school thing but a more fun way to go about it? And I was a podcast listener. I'd interviewed tons of people at my place of work, hiring sales reps as well as helping others hire people. And so I'd gotten a lot of reps as an interviewer. I listened to podcasts even though those were still kinda early days and thought, what if I just did my own and I reach out to people who I'm really curious about and those could be my professors for this leadership PhD program and maybe people would wanna learn along with me.

Ryan Hawk [00:03:49]:
I wasn't sure if they would or not and I'm just happy, obviously grateful that they have because it afforded me the opportunity to leave corporate America at the end of 2017 and now I do this full time.

Jay Clouse [00:04:02]:
Talk to me about how you see the role of the podcast in your business as a whole. Where does it fit?

Ryan Hawk [00:04:08]:
I think part of what was helpful because I you probably help a lot of people start podcasts now or at least have like calls to be generous to people who listen. And one of the reasons I think mine's worked is because I hope listeners can tell I made it for myself, 1st and foremost, to genuinely learn and to improve and get better as a leader. It's called the Learning Leader Show. I mean, that's truly what I'm I'm going for. And I think that's part of what attracts people to it. I didn't intend to create a business. Kinda stumbled into it, listened to what the market was saying. Hey.

Ryan Hawk [00:04:42]:
Can you come speak here? Can you work with my leadership team and and put together a curriculum to help them? And then community started building where people say, could I meet others who are listeners of the show? And so we built these leadership circles, which are essentially paid mastermind groups. I think it kind of naturally happened even though I had no goals. I didn't intend to make it a business, but it it feels like that's part of why it's been successful is because the podcast has always been the central thing that I love the most. And that hasn't changed in a decade. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. And I think if you listen, you probably get that sense, you get that feeling that that's what I enjoy doing the most. I'm following my curiosity more than anything else and people seem to be attracted to that. And when then the market speaks and says, will you do this? Will you do that? Can you create this offering? I try to listen and try to do it.

Ryan Hawk [00:05:37]:
And fortunately, that's led to the place where we are now where I've I've hired my first four people to be coaches to work with me to help satisfy the demand of this leadership development stuff. So, it's it's really neat, man. I I mean, I I feel very lucky to get to basically do what I wanna do the majority of the time and I I do realize that's kinda rare.

Jay Clouse [00:05:57]:
Okay. I'm gonna follow-up on this hiring thing you just mentioned here in a moment. But your podcast has been around since 2015. I think you started. You've been at the top of the charts at some times. So you have a big enough platform that most podcasters in your shoes would be prioritizing advertising as the mechanism for funding the business, driving revenue in the business. And that hasn't really been your strategy, at least from where I'm sitting. So talk to me about that choice.

Ryan Hawk [00:06:26]:
I would actually like to talk to you or Justin Moore or others about this because I probably should. All advertising that I put on my show is inbound. So if somebody comes to me, we work it out. It's usually more of an endorsement and less of an ad read. So I'm, like, trying out a few products actually as we speak. One's like a pillow company and some other things. There's clothes, a lot of clothes, like men's wear type stuff that I'm trying out right now so that it's a real endorsement. It's just that I haven't I haven't really made it a priority to do any type of outbound sales or look for them.

Ryan Hawk [00:06:58]:
It's all inbound. Because the bulk of my revenue comes from services. It comes from keynote speaking leadership circles and now the biggest one is the leadership development work that we do with companies where we kinda get embedded within leadership teams and then me as well as the coaches I have kind of live with inside their businesses to help their leaders get better. So, that part of it has been a nice element that I didn't fully expect to happen and I've leaned into that because it's pretty lucrative. There are big budgets in Fortune 500 companies especially for leadership development. And so once those things started coming in, I've really focused to make our curriculum really good, to be surrounded by great coaches, and to focus on an area that I think creates more opportunities for me to just enjoy the podcast and not have to worry about making any money directly from it because the bulk of the revenue comes indirectly because of it.

Jay Clouse [00:07:53]:
I think this is more interesting, though. So this is kind of a leading question because I knew that you were monetizing in these ways behind the scenes. I think that's actually the bigger opportunity for most podcasters. Scott Galloway was on I think it was calling Samir's podcast recently and he called podcasting income inequality gone berserk that like most of the revenue in podcasting is like the top point 1 percent not even 1%. And that's just due to the scale at those levels. But he was implicitly saying advertising. Most podcasts then are not viable to do advertising at a high level your show certainly can but you've chosen to do the services route so you said the market came to you and was asking for these things Can you expand on that so for people listening, they can kinda get a sense for how can I receive and listen for these opportunities that I'm getting from my audience regardless of size?

Ryan Hawk [00:08:47]:
1st, it's important to be very responsive. So when people do contact you, make sure that it's easy to get a hold of you. And then when you do get the opportunities, I mean, you gotta be great. I mean, I got my first paid speaking gig within the first 75 episodes of my podcast. So back in 2015, 2016, I got paid $500. I also hired a speaking coach to help me get ready for that one gig. It was to the Wright State University student athletes. I also hired a full video team.

Ryan Hawk [00:09:16]:
So, I lost money on the gig, hiring a coach, getting the PowerPoints ready, filming it because you want one to lead to the next. And I wanted to speak. My dad growing up, I've watched my dad speak on stages for the thousands of people, and and I'm just blown away by how he can inspire and move and and motivate people through his words and through his actions. And I've kinda thought, I don't know if I could be good at that, but it would be worth trying. So I think that was part of my motivation to do it. And meeting with other speakers, I'm in some speakers groups, they said, you gotta get your stuff on tape and and do all that. So I think one can lead to the next if you do a good job. And then people usually if you do a good job on a stage, Jay, you know this as well as anybody.

Ryan Hawk [00:09:57]:
If you do a good job on stage, they want more. And at the beginning, I didn't know what that even was. Well, I don't really have anything more. I don't have a book yet, you know, so I started writing books. I don't have any services to provide. And so we started building these services as people would ask for more after I would speak on stage. So we have the leadership circles. Right? The paid master planning groups.

Ryan Hawk [00:10:18]:
We have the whole curriculum we built for our leadership development programs. All of that was started from the people on the side of the stage afterwards saying, hey. Could you come work on my team? Could we do more of stuff like this? Could we go even deeper? And so when they were asking, it was really about me then figuring out, well, how could I respond to this demand? And so it's a combination of listening to the people who email you or contact you after listening to your podcast, showing up, doing the work, even losing money at the beginning of that work, and then figuring out how could I be a value add to these people who are asking for more instead of just, like, doing a one time hit and it's just okay and then you don't get anything more. So, really, that's what I continually think about. And and now it's got kind of that Nathan Berry flywheel effect, I would say, with how the work comes and then stays with us as opposed to just being kinda one off things.

Jay Clouse [00:11:14]:
Man, I wanna highlight what you just said about you immediately hired a speaking coach Yeah. And then somebody to video it. Yeah. Willing to lose money on this first gig.

Ryan Hawk [00:11:23]:
Yeah. I lost 1,000 1,000 on the fir I mean, I viewed it as an investment as, you know, like, invest in yourself, in your business.

Jay Clouse [00:11:29]:
I just love that you're willing to do that.

Ryan Hawk [00:11:31]:
I was working full time, by the way, though. So I did the first speeches on the side. And so I did have an income from my job. I was doing this stuff. I was taking PTO. I was doing it on the side. And that's another thing too for people who I think are starting a business is I was very conservative. I waited a while, I thought, until the market had spoken.

Ryan Hawk [00:11:53]:
You know, Scott Galloway speaking, if I had him on a number of times and he always is like, Scott, don't do a side hustle. Don't do a side hustle. Be fully focused. And that's one of the few areas with him that I disagree. I think a side hustle can be good because it lowers the pressure to make money. I didn't need to make any money for the 1st few years because I had a job. Now it was hard because I was working nights and weekends with a family, but I loved it. You know? I was doing the stuff that I loved, and so I still love it.

Ryan Hawk [00:12:19]:
And I waited to leave until the market I thought had spoken enough that it could sustain our family. At least I mean, it took a big pay cut when I left, but I was willing to do that because the market had spoken enough times to say, we're willing to give you money for the service that you provide more than just a handful of times. And and so at that point, I was like, I think if I focused all of my effort, we could really make a run at this and it could be good and and that's turned out to be true.

Jay Clouse [00:12:47]:
I completely agree with you on this in that in this line of work this creator audience building line of work there are certain things you can't easily compress without unfair advantages or some clear plan for how to get those unfair advantages namely distribution like you can compress the timeline of getting better if you throw more time at it you can get better at the craft and ideally that would result in more eyeballs more consumption but it's difficult I agree with you that starting on the side until the market has spoken I like that framing until the market has spoken and shown that they're interested in what you're bringing because it can take a long time to earn attention and then ultimately earn trust of people because even if you have attention not gonna be any transaction. There's not gonna be any revenue on the other side of that without some trust built.

Ryan Hawk [00:13:34]:
I got a question for you about this, Jay, because we probably get little bit different requests, but maybe along the same line. So I just wanna get your take because I love, like, how thoughtful you are about this stuff. So, again, a lot of people saying, can you help me get my podcast launch or just, like, give me some tips or ideas or whatever? And and I do it and I the first question I asked though, especially with the podcast and I bet it's the same for, like, building a YouTube channel or, like, making videos, is I ask, why are you doing it? And oftentimes, they're thinking more of the business than the actual thing. So they'll say, well, I wanna get speaking gigs. I wanna get a book deal. I wanna get consulting clients, like, all the stuff. That's why. And so this is gonna be my marketing for that.

Ryan Hawk [00:14:13]:
And I get that I get that response. But when that is the first answer, almost a 100% of those people quit. They quit when it gets hard because their show isn't growing, not enough people are listening, they're not getting the result they wanted. But when I have those people say, I'm just super curious to learn from fill in the blank if you're gonna do an interview type show. I'm super curious to learn about them or this. And I wanna explore that. I want to ask questions. I wanna learn from these people.

Ryan Hawk [00:14:44]:
I want I wanna really go deep on this topic with these types of people. If that's their why, I like their chances more than if their why is I wanna get more speaking gigs or I wanna get a book deal I'm curious like what you think about the why behind people doing whatever their creative work is oh, yeah I mean you have to you really wanna set yourself up

Jay Clouse [00:15:08]:
to be successful regardless of the outcome of the thing This is a Tim Ferris idea. How can I be sure that doing this is going to be a success for me even if it's not a commercial success? And the why is a big part of that. Podcasting specifically I think is the hardest platform to build today. And we've seen over the last 2 years a decline in a number of podcasts started so it seems like people are starting to get that sense as well which may actually be indication of a new opportunity that we haven't seen in a few years But there's not a lot of discovery in podcasting yet outside of doing video on YouTube. And so it's difficult to grow. The only way you're going to weather that storm is if you are intrinsically motivated to do it for some purpose. So if you have high conviction that you want to be a podcaster, you want to do the activity of podcasting, then the earlier you start the clock, the better because it's gonna take a long time regardless of when you start. And it's true for other platforms too, but I think it's uniquely difficult and true for podcasting.

Ryan Hawk [00:16:07]:
Right. The reward, I believe at least, needs to be the actual thing. Like, that you get to do the thing. You get to interview people. You get to share your thoughts on a microphone. Like, if that's the reward and I think I feel and I don't wanna speak for you. I feel like that's you. Like, I get a sense that you genuinely love the thing.

Ryan Hawk [00:16:32]:
And because of that, you get 100,000 YouTube subscribers or podcast growth or people want to join the lab. Like, all of the good things happening to you, to me, feels like because you approach your work like it's the win. And then the result is, like, really good useful stuff for all the people who are following.

Jay Clouse [00:16:50]:
When I'm at my best, yes. Yep. I think a lot, especially lately now that we have a baby. I think about this idea that the person who loves to run will go further than the person who loves the destination the creator economy has a lot of destination obsessed people who even if you get to that destination you know the reward of getting that destination is you get to run somewhere. It doesn't stop. You don't build a business because this one piece of content went really well. All that does is give you the opportunity to create more content for more people. And if you only wanted the destination that's gonna be kind of a big letdown when you get there.

Jay Clouse [00:17:24]:
So for me, you know, I like puzzles. A lot of what I do feels like a puzzle. You know, like, how can I make this work? How can I make this work a little bit better? How can I get this outcome in this small experiment? You know, I think in experiments, that's kind of the impetus of the brand itself. But I have been in seasons where it feels like I've lost my way a little bit. And I I focus on destinations and I become obsessed with destination. And until I get there, I'm feeling unhappy. And I just try to remind myself, like, we're in this for the running. If you're not in it for the running, you're doing the wrong thing.

Jay Clouse [00:17:57]:
You've gotta refine that. One of my favorite things

Ryan Hawk [00:17:59]:
you do are your retros. I watch all of them. I'm fascinated by your willingness to be that vulnerable. I don't know if I could do that. You're also really quick with all the stuff. I'm like, god, he's really he understands how to work all these tools, you know, creator HQ, like, all this stuff and your your revenue. I think a lot of people probably I don't know. You probably have the stats of how many people watch those within the lab.

Ryan Hawk [00:18:19]:
But I really enjoy and give you huge props for being willing to kinda open up your business. I think it helps more people than you probably realize. I find it really enjoyable and helpful to see you kinda open up the books every month.

Jay Clouse [00:18:33]:
Yeah. Well, thank you. It's a useful exercise, but I think it's probably needlessly complex in some areas. I look at guys like you in the businesses that you have and you've got these leadership circles. This is my segue now. You've got these leadership circles in the back end of your podcast that are at a significant price point or what a lot of people listen to this show will see as a significant price point. And to me, that's like a very elegant business. You are high touch by design.

Jay Clouse [00:18:59]:
It's at a price point that attracts a certain type of customer. But, ultimately, it gives you the ability to have excellent service without spreading yourself too thin. So can you explain a little bit the container of your leadership circles?

Ryan Hawk [00:19:14]:
Yeah. Okay. So I got advice from a mentor years ago when I was thinking of, like, how do we organize the community and make it an actual offering where we could earn money? Instead of just saying, like, oh, let's just get some fans together here and there. So he had told me, Greg Meredith is his name, and I just had lunch with him 2 days ago. I love Greg. He's like, hey. You need to make it application based. Because I was just like, oh, who are first come, first serve? Whatever.

Ryan Hawk [00:19:40]:
We'll do it. Whoever's willing to pay at the beginning, the early days, you know, how you're just fighting and scratching and clawing for every dollar. So we made it that and it made it a little bit slower and harder to build the first few groups because, like, just the audience wasn't as big. There's wasn't as many people out there listening because I was only advertising it on my podcast. But I I went with that. And so, it's been application based from the beginning. The other thing that that does is it They go through a series of questions. I read through them and then I personally choose who I'm gonna interview to then say yes or no.

Ryan Hawk [00:20:12]:
So I am curating the group. I've gotten a lot of feedback now doing this for 7 years that people appreciate the high level of curation. Because then once they get it in a group, if they make it in one of the groups, they know that pretty much every person in the group, I wanted to be a 100%, is worthy of being within their network. And so I've created multiple groups now, usually about 12 people per group. Sometimes I've gone a little bit above that if I feel like we just have too many high caliber people. As you mentioned, 12,500 per year is the current price point. I like to have people's companies pay for some or all that if possible just to take some of the burden off of them. Jay, I will tell you some of the mistakes I've made in the past with the price.

Ryan Hawk [00:20:58]:
I will occasionally give a scholarship to somebody and give it to them for free because for various reasons. And that's almost always gone bad. Not every

Jay Clouse [00:21:09]:
time, but

Ryan Hawk [00:21:09]:
it's almost always gone bad. They're not as committed. They don't have skin in the game. They skip meetings. There's always a good reason for it. You know, there's always an excuse. We all have them. Right? They have them more than most.

Ryan Hawk [00:21:21]:
And so I've stopped doing that unless it's an extreme case where, you know, I don't know what it would take. But I my next groups, I don't have any scholarships. So the high curation, the work on their part on the front end, and it's the most inefficient thing I do. I mean, I read the applications and then I choose and then I do the interviews myself on Zoom so, you know, you gotta be fully in and fully ready to go and then I make the the decisions if someone's gonna be in or not and then I have to let the people know who are not that they're not. But then once we go, then there's a heavy getting to know you process. I have things for them to fill out. They do personality profiles. They fill out this big chart of things.

Ryan Hawk [00:21:59]:
I share that with the whole group. And then we meet monthly for 75 minutes. We use Slack in between. We're constantly talking in Slack and then we meet once per year for a growth summit which is 3 days where we try to laugh together, do a little bit of crying together, and doing hard things physically together whether it's climbing a mountain, hot yoga, other stuff, and we share really good meals. I think about that in person event all year round of how to make this as good as it can possibly be to bring people together, good content, seating charts, what are we gonna eat, like, everything.

Jay Clouse [00:22:34]:
After a quick break, Ryan lays out how his learning leaders circles work, the pricing, how he communicates, and what keeps members coming back again and again. So stick around. We'll be right back. And now, back to my conversation with Ryan Hawk. Let me ask some rapid fire questions just to get some specifics so everyone's at the same spot. So this is essentially a high level mastermind. You mentioned $12,500 per year per member. You have groups of around 12 people.

Jay Clouse [00:23:10]:
How many groups do you have in flight at any given time?

Ryan Hawk [00:23:12]:
3, usually.

Jay Clouse [00:23:14]:
And you guys do an in person summit every year. And is that all active groups in one location at one time? Yep. Okay. And do you think that these groups themselves, if none of them had started together and you had 3 groups of 12 people, could you mix members within those groups and they would all still work because they're all basically doing the same thing? Or each of those groups have their own flavor?

Ryan Hawk [00:23:36]:
Some of them have been together longer. So I actually have some who were in that original first group that they're still together. And then other groups have merged. So there's always one new group per year, and then the other 2 usually are people who have been in for years. So what happened, Jay, actually, at the end of the 1st year, it was built to be a a 1 year program. It was, like, October, November, and they heard ads running. The member first original group, there's only 1 group. They heard ads running for the next year's group.

Ryan Hawk [00:24:06]:
And a number of them said, can we just renew and take their place? Like, we don't want you to have another group. We just wanna keep our group together. And so every member of that first group renewed, which was very telling because I didn't even offer that. That wasn't even something I was considering doing. I didn't have content. I didn't have curriculum for a 2nd year. So I was, like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. So, anyway, I kept them together, built the content and curriculum on the fly, and then started a new group.

Ryan Hawk [00:24:32]:
And so every year, I start a new group and then keep old groups of people who wanna stick together. And there are some I sent you an email. Like, there are some who say there's this kind of phrase that they say learning leader faux life. So there are a lot of learning leader faux life members who I don't even have to ask them. They get insulted if I ask them, do you wanna renew for the next year? They just it's like an auto thing. So I should have mentioned that. Like, that's part of it too is, like, I do like doing a new group every year, though, because it keeps me fresh. Like, bringing a new group of people together, and then they mesh with the people who are veterans.

Ryan Hawk [00:25:07]:
And it's neat to see them, especially when they get together in person, how they, like they're still growth focused, like minded people, but they're from all different industries, different parts of the country or world. And it's fun to bring them together for me.

Jay Clouse [00:25:20]:
And you mentioned that you can meet every month on Zoom.

Ryan Hawk [00:25:23]:
Yep.

Jay Clouse [00:25:23]:
So for renewing groups, do you still facilitate those calls every month? Yep. Okay. So, you know, one thing that happens in communities a lot of times is you create the space. People form relationships. They form their own little side groups. And then the creator, the community builder, can sometimes get insecure in thinking, well, do they even need the space anymore? They found each other. They've got their own group. They can kinda split off.

Jay Clouse [00:25:45]:
What I found historically is people are so appreciative and grateful for the space, creating those connections that they, more times than not, don't do that. But you're also still injecting the direct facilitation. Mhmm. And you have these annual events. So on top of, you know, the relationships that you've already helped them form, you are continuing to deliver experiences personally to these groups.

Ryan Hawk [00:26:09]:
Right. And I think too, the in person's huge. Right? We have some who have never missed. Right? We've done it every year except for 2020. They have never missed, and they're proud of that, and they're gonna stick to that. And they like meeting the new people that we bring in. I also think they appreciate the fact that this is a place where I have a rule where no 2 people from the same company. So, like, it's a pretty safe space to where they can say anything and everything on Slack, on our meetings.

Ryan Hawk [00:26:37]:
There are side calls. I think they appreciate, like, I don't have to really think. I know that the curriculum's gonna be helpful. I wanna meet with this group of people. I don't wanna have to organize it. I don't wanna have to keep it together. I just wanna show up. And so I I try to make it very easy for them to only have to worry about doing a little bit of prework and then showing up.

Ryan Hawk [00:26:58]:
And I think people appreciate that. And, yes, there are some who say, like, hey. I'm in it for life because this has changed my life. And the people I've met mostly is what has changed my life, and there's as long as you'll have me, I'm not going anywhere. And and, yeah, I I feel, you know, just like you with your lab members. People are gonna be in it for life as long as you'll have them because I think they feel this probably loyalty to you for putting so much into it.

Jay Clouse [00:27:23]:
I do think the application based system is pretty key. And I used to be very anti application. I think I even in my membership course, the lesson on applications is mostly me saying you probably shouldn't use an application if you can avoid it. And we didn't use to in the lab because I thought that pricing itself was an effective filter for someone who is further along in a journey. And it is more times than not in my experience. But what I found is if pricing is not playing effective filter for the person you're trying to attract and someone just has high enthusiasm or the means, it can have a detrimental effect on experience of everybody else. So even though the application creates some friction, I am finding that it's worthwhile. We moved in the lab.

Jay Clouse [00:28:06]:
I haven't socialized as well enough. We're no longer at a strict cap, but now we have an application in place. In January, we had a town hall. I raised the idea that hey I think we need more members actually and let's do an application. But the reason that we moved beyond the cap was creating more density of geography so people can self organize whenever they want but also density of experience. I wanted more people in the community that were, like, really good at Instagram. But if we're at a cap, I can't bring in more people. You know? Yep.

Jay Clouse [00:28:35]:
So application, I've changed my tune on that. So there's an

Ryan Hawk [00:28:39]:
application process now? Like, is it what's it like?

Jay Clouse [00:28:42]:
So it's pretty in-depth. What I'm looking for at a high level is somebody is earning more than $10,000 per month in non service based income. And when I mean service based, I mean, mostly like professional services, not like I wouldn't consider the model that you're talking about really services unless you were fully doing like the company consulting. So either $10,000 per month in non service based income or 10,000 people on one specific platform following you. That's a little bit easier to achieve, and I'm wondering if that should not be a little bit higher. I will consider unique cases where somebody has maybe already built a creator style business and they're starting a new niche and they can show me that somebody who has really unique experience in the creator economy I think adds to the fabric of the group but those are more rare

Ryan Hawk [00:29:32]:
So your group, the lab's more for kind of experienced you're already kinda Yeah. Providing for your family based on your creative work, your being a creator business. But have you figured out how to help? Because this I've I've struggled with this too. Like, the lower dollar offering, where are you with that? I know you've you've talked about it before.

Jay Clouse [00:29:53]:
I'm thinking about it a lot because I know from my right message data that only about 13% of people in my audience as a whole are likely to pass those qualifications I just shared which is a huge missed opportunity for the other 87%. I wanna help people so where I've landed and actually what I just put in place this past week now the basic membership actually has a couple of community spaces because like you I have people who apply who don't quite make the cut and I didn't really have a great place to direct them you could go to the basic membership but it used to be the basic membership was kind of a waiting zone for when there are spaces available on the membership as a whole but now that is more merit based basic membership needs to be something to help people get to that point. And so I'm trying to give them a space now to communicate with each other and I will have some involvement there outside of the ongoing educational materials. And the second half of that is I want to create more materials in the lab that is available to basic members that are very tactical related to what I'm doing. So doing more specific workshops, putting those in the workshop space, the retros every month obviously I think are helpful but people did need an outlet to communicate with me which didn't exist at the time but it's really important that that space does have clear separation from the rest of like, the core lab experience because when you have a space that has a big mix of people who are at an early, early stage and people who are more advanced, it scares the advanced people off. They're gonna go to a place that's just for them.

Ryan Hawk [00:31:30]:
They wanna talk to the others who are like, oh, you wanna feel like there are lots of people ahead of me. Like, not miles ahead, but a little bit or even, like, kind of more than a little bit. So then it gives you something, oh, okay. Like, listening to your hot seat with Chris Hutchins on his trip to Iceland with Brandon was so helpful for me because, like, that's something I've thought about for years. And I was like, but I don't know how to organize all this stuff or plan a trip to Iceland. Oh, well, why don't now I'm just gonna email Brandon directly, which is what I did, and now we've been talking. So it's like, oh. So that type of thing is so helpful for people who have an audience who could sell a high ticket trip to do as a group.

Ryan Hawk [00:32:15]:
It's pretty niche. Right? But it's useful for probably a certain numbers, and you do hot seats on a lot of things. But, like, that is a huge, huge feature that I personally think is is great that you regularly do. And you're always, like, probably thinking of, okay. What other hot seats could I do that may not be perfect for everybody but will be perfect for some of the people? And I think you add in kind of a combination of quantity plus quality, then you're probably taking care of the majority of the people in your group.

Jay Clouse [00:32:46]:
Yeah. This is a challenge of community, though. Every time you pull one lever, something else can kind of get out of balance potentially. So the most common feedback I get from people who pass the application and join the community is they say they are intimidated by the quality of people on this group which makes them feel afraid to speak sometimes and the thing is I'm pulling in people who are very excellent usually at specific things and so they will discount what they're excellent at and see what someone else is more excellent at in a different area and think I can't believe I'm in the same room as this person But it's because a lot of people that get to where we are, we're self aware, even self deprecating at times. We're, like, in that point of the Dunning Kruger curve where it's, like, I am aware enough at how good I am that I actually start to diminish myself. And so it's an interesting balance. You probably deal with this as well.

Ryan Hawk [00:33:39]:
I was just gonna say, man, like, this dude that I just interviewed was a fighter pilot, you know, special forces guy for, like, 20 plus year. I I mean, just off the charts, like, the guy. And I just like, hey, man. Like, I would love to have you. Like, I mean, we don't really even need to go much further. He's like, I just don't know if I'm be good enough. I don't know if I could add value. I'm like, what? What are we talking about? And this happened so much with people who are so accomplished in that.

Ryan Hawk [00:34:09]:
I think when I reflect on it, it makes me feel really good that those types of people are attracted to your work. They're so grateful, like, so grateful, so humble. Even though they've accomplished a ton, almost still don't feel worthy of being a part of the group, and it blows my mind. And so I'm in one side of my brain. I'm like, oh my god. I believe you're crazy. What are you talking about? But then the other side, I'm like, wow. This is really cool.

Ryan Hawk [00:34:34]:
Like, this is amazing that such a high caliber, high character, accomplished leader doesn't feel like he's good enough for this group. So I don't know, man. I I to me, that those are some of the moments I try to pause for a second and reflect. Like, this is really cool what we're building here.

Jay Clouse [00:34:53]:
When you do your in person summit, what is the cost structure of that? Is that does that include it in membership minus, like, airfare, but you guys cover the organizing of it?

Ryan Hawk [00:35:03]:
That's right. Once they get there, I cover everything else. Including lodging? I get a group rate so that they pay for their hotel rooms, but I'll get, like, a group rate that and I try to make it a place where it's not like, you know, crazy, crazy expensive hotel. So, yes, they have to pay for their flights and hotel and then everything else I cover.

Jay Clouse [00:35:22]:
I'm thinking about this a lot for the community as well because I think the bar is actually very low for doing remarkable in person experiences.

Ryan Hawk [00:35:30]:
Yeah. I mean, this helped me. I started going to Jason Gaynard's events, like, 2016, I think, was my first one in Ojai, California. And I just got a front row seat of what it means to throw, like, a first class event at Mastermind Talks, and I've gone to 2 other of his events as well, smaller group ones, and then he's been a resource for me. So I've tried to study that. The combination of just, like, the little things are are so important. I hired a, an event producer. Her name is Christy Burch.

Ryan Hawk [00:35:59]:
That's all she does is is do events and so she helps me with things and then I'm a real attention to detail person on everything. Maybe that comes from my sports background and being a quarterback that, like, every little step matters. And so when it comes to name tags, when it comes to certainly, seating is super important. The food's gotta be, like, awesome food. All of it. The snacks, breakfast, lunch, dinner, the seating charts at dinner, the question cards I use for the dinner. And so, like, every element of it, I think, needs to be intentional. And if you do that really well, then I think you got a shot because people just aren't used to that attention to the smallest and the tight like, the lighting.

Ryan Hawk [00:36:40]:
We spent 10 hours meeting about the lighting in the room because I hate hotel, like, meeting room Oh my gosh. Lighting. So we brought we brought our own uplighting. We brought these little table light. Like, that's what I'm talking about. Like, the mood, the vibe in the room is very important. Like, everything's important. So that's why I said I think about it every day of the year.

Ryan Hawk [00:37:00]:
Like, how do we set the vibe? How do we make sure the right people? Like, what guests do I invite? Like, I brought Kim Campbell as woman fighter pilot, and she spoke and stayed the entire time too, had dinner, like, everything. Like, all of that stuff, I think, is important when you're planning an event. It's just like anything else. If you're gonna do it, then do it. Or don't. Right? So, like, if you're gonna and I know you. That's the type of guy you are. Like, if you're gonna do it, spend the money, do what you gotta do to make it amazingly awesome, and they all walk away thinking like, oh my god.

Ryan Hawk [00:37:31]:
I've never been to anything like that. That's what I try to do. I don't always get it all right. You know, we've messed some things up. But I I try to think about the smallest of details and make it great. And, certainly, the most important thing is the people in the room, though. Like, getting that right can really make or break any event.

Jay Clouse [00:37:49]:
After one last break, Ryan and I talk about how you can build not only trust with your customers, but loyalty as well, and how those loyal customers become the best evangelists for your business. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. And now please enjoy the rest of my conversation with Ryan Hoch. These little touches are really crucial for customer loyalty. I talk about trust a lot. Some people are trying to talk about trust more. Almost nobody talks about loyalty which is like obvious in a membership based thing.

Jay Clouse [00:38:23]:
It's retention. Right? But anything that you sell, if you make it remarkable, the people who purchase it are going to be more likely to purchase something again in the future. And that's how you grow a business is you have repeat customers in addition to new customers. And those new customers become repeat customers. I find that a lot of people really optimize for the point of sale and then fail to have a relationship afterwards, and they're just constantly trying to optimize for new customers.

Ryan Hawk [00:38:50]:
And by the way, they're the best people to sell new customers, not me. Right? Like, that's been a huge key for me. Sometimes, if I'm in the application process and somebody may wanna talk to a current member, I say, you can talk to anybody. You could literally honor you say anybody. You could talk to anybody, and they'll tell you the truth. So I think that's part of it too. If you treat people right with respect and you honor their time and you try to add value to their life, they're the best salespeople for whatever it is you're doing. I mean, that's how that's how the whole speaking business works.

Ryan Hawk [00:39:21]:
Right? You get up on stage and you crush it, and then 5, 6, 7, 10 people from that audience hires you for their company or their event or whatever. I mean, that's literally how my whole thing has been built over the years. And so it's the same thing with with a group, with a circle, with a master, anything. Like, the current members are by far the best salespeople you could have far more than me because they're the ones who are living it.

Jay Clouse [00:39:46]:
You mentioned that for your circle folks, your leadership circle folks, you use Slack as a communication tool in between meetings.

Ryan Hawk [00:39:53]:
Mhmm. How

Jay Clouse [00:39:54]:
important is that? If you got rid of that, do you think you would still get renewals?

Ryan Hawk [00:39:58]:
Yeah. I mean, because you have some people who don't use Slack at all. They just don't use it. And then others who are, like, power users. And there are some groups who are power user groups and some groups who are, like, what like, my original group of veterans, I would say the majority of them don't use Slack. They may email or text each other on the side or have a small group text, but the majority of them don't use it. Now, I do ask them to use it on the day of our meetings to do an update. So, like, I asked for a professional win, a professional challenge, and a personal win, and that's how we open our calls.

Ryan Hawk [00:40:30]:
And I asked them to write that because I want them to think about it before the meeting starts. So that does get posted. And then the prework, I send out prework for every meeting. That also gets posted in Slack. And so people can go back and look through the work that they did, the answers to the questions I send them, as well as look at people's updates, like, whether it's personally or professionally because sometimes they're dealing with similar things and they could talk through that on the side. I really encourage side calls. I encourage smaller Zooms or phone calls with people. Sometimes, I join those.

Ryan Hawk [00:41:01]:
A lot of times, I don't. But I think that's good too to have some of the side calls if, like, someone's like, oh, man. I I gotta fire somebody and I'm this is brutal. I don't know what to do. And they're like, hey. You wanna talk through that or even role play? I'll do that with you and, like, that type of stuff happens, which I think is really neat. And is that all that communication from you happening in Slack or do you send emails to these groups? Honestly, it depends on the group. Like, if if I could tell people who, like, have it up and regularly communicate, I may use that more.

Ryan Hawk [00:41:28]:
But then there may be other groups who are less into that. And so then I'll just email or text them.

Jay Clouse [00:41:34]:
I'm not at all trying to talk you out of using Slack, by the way. I'm just saying this because I have a theory that you can provide a really great membership experience without having an always on digital space. I think the way that you're doing this where you have like regular calls you have an in person event. I think that is a very viable membership model. And so people listening to this who are like I think I have the appetite for this in my my community, but I don't wanna sign up to always be on call through some digital community platform. I think this is a viable alternative.

Ryan Hawk [00:42:04]:
I agree with you. I think that is probably true. I do like that it's a central place where 12 people can post their updates and their responses for the day of the meetings. But in between, I'm with you. Because, like, there's a lot who just text me directly or text each other or email. And, again, like, those people are as high of a priority as I have in my business. So I think part of my job and and this is something, maybe I learned early in my career from just working in sales at LexisNexis is, like, I gotta be responsive. And so, yeah, I think that's a skill I've developed is to try to be a quick responder.

Ryan Hawk [00:42:44]:
It's it's actually funny. It's a commonality I've noticed in a lot of of the highest performing leaders who've come on my podcast is I'll send them a cold email or I'll email them in between maybe to come on a second or a third time, and they usually respond pretty quick. So I try to do that especially for people in my groups.

Jay Clouse [00:43:00]:
I see that as well. It seems like really high performers are really good at triaging opportunities they wanna act on and acting on them quickly. It's kind of this, like, speed of immediate or never.

Ryan Hawk [00:43:11]:
Well, it's definitely big in the speaking world too because a lot of people have agents and, like, go betweens. And so if you can respond very quickly because because I work with a lot of different agencies. I'm not exclusive to any and so they're booking on behalf of a client and you respond really quick and you got all the stuff that they need to help make a decision and you can price, can you do it? Yes, yes, yes. All the stuff. Like, that helps a lot. And a lot of the agencies say, god, this is just so nice. This is nice just to kinda, like, quickly get this thing done, and now I can move on to my next thing. I'm, like, trying to be easy to work with is maybe underrated, an underrated skill to develop.

Ryan Hawk [00:43:51]:
Just be easy to work with. Be responsive. Be quick. When you're speaking, like, make it easy for them to put your PowerPoint on the screen and just go crush it and, you know, sign the books afterwards and have a nice day. You know, like, just be pleasant and easy to work with. It's so it's wild that that's actually a thing that you have to say, but I found it to be true.

Jay Clouse [00:44:11]:
100% agree. You mentioned that for this upcoming group that you put together, you had a 110 applications. You did 45 interviews and selected 12 members. People listening to this might be wondering, well, could you have selected 24 members? Could you do 2 groups? Talk to me about how you think about capacity and why why one group and not 2 groups? Like, why aren't you trying to do as many of these leadership circles as possible?

Ryan Hawk [00:44:33]:
I would need other people, and I'm working on that right now. Specifically, I mentioned the coaches that I have hired. They are working with companies and leaders, like, doing internal circles essentially. That's kind of how we phrase our work that we're doing with leadership teams with clients of ours. I think those same people, so Brooke Cubs, Geron Stokes, Sherry Cole, Eli likers, our our guy doing it behind the scenes stuff. But I think all 3 of them, Brooke, Geron, and Sherry, I think they could run circles. Now, we're kind of in the early stages. I'm actually having them run a specific meeting.

Ryan Hawk [00:45:12]:
Like, Brooke ran my meeting last month. I was still on it and heavy participant, but I had him run it. Garen's running my October meetings just to kinda one, because I love the content that we're covering and I think he's an expert at it. But I also want them to get the reps and the feel of what it's like to run a circle so that I could bring another group on and another group on and that they run those circles so I could get to them. Like, because price is an issue for a lot of people. So do I have to lower the price? I've thought about that in the past, but we'd have to figure that out because it's not just me saying no. There are others who wanna do it, but they just can't financially. Their company won't cover it, and that's too big of a cost for them.

Ryan Hawk [00:45:55]:
So maybe that's that's something I consider moving forward, but I I haven't fully done that yet.

Jay Clouse [00:46:02]:
Okay. Interesting. So the number of circles right now is a function of feasibility on a part of people who are accepted. It's not a capacity issue for you just yet.

Ryan Hawk [00:46:13]:
No. It's both. It's both. 3 is, like, just the max. I feel like it's just a lot because there's it's not just the meetings. It's the prep for the meetings. It's the conversations. It's the one offs.

Ryan Hawk [00:46:23]:
You know, if somebody wants to talk 1 on 1, I it's a 100% yes and, usually, it's that day if they wanna talk about something and that that happens a decent amount. So you're, you know, do the math of upwards of 40 people, then that can be a lot. So it's a combination of feasibility on my end as well as the cost is a barrier of entry for a lot of people.

Jay Clouse [00:46:45]:
Interesting. Okay. So curious to look future forward here a little bit now. Where do you think this model goes for you? Obviously, you mentioned hiring the coaches. So maybe that's the answer and we've already covered it. But is there anything else on your mind that you're thinking for expanding this community experience or creating some new community experience?

Ryan Hawk [00:47:05]:
Having my other coaches run them is is the future. We'll have to figure out the price point because I don't think it would be able to stay the same. It it could, but I don't know. But I'm curious to add in more revenue that is not like, this is still service. Yeah. Like, pretty much all of my revenue is service. So I know this is a goal of yours, and you've gotten a lot better this year at it. Much higher percentage of your revenue being not service oriented.

Ryan Hawk [00:47:34]:
And I think I would like to do that too. And I haven't kinda figured that out, and I gotta believe that some of that could come from this population of people who want this.

Jay Clouse [00:47:44]:
For sure. Well, you said you already have, like, a learning curriculum that's a part of this circle experience, and you go in companies. So you have a lot of this material already created. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you don't sell it as its own artifact? No. Yeah. That seems like an easy opportunity to implement.

Jay Clouse [00:48:03]:
If there's a clear outcome on the other side of that curriculum as a standalone, that sounds like a fantastic opportunity.

Ryan Hawk [00:48:09]:
You think just build like a you just take the time to do a high quality online course?

Jay Clouse [00:48:15]:
I guess one opportunity. It kinda depends on where you want this to sit. So I would probably think about this first and foremost of okay. The people that are unable to afford this current offering, but I wanna help them. What is it that they're trying to solve for and does this curriculum alone solve it because companies have learning and development budgets. They might not have the budget to cover a full learning circle but they probably have something they can tap into and maybe this curriculum is the perfect solution for that. So there is like this just pure self contained self paced version. There's also a world where you have kind of a hybrid of here's the curriculum and here is a community space for you to discuss it with each other.

Jay Clouse [00:48:56]:
And you can set boundaries on how you show up in that space, your team shows up in that space, and what those expectations are. That'll probably be at a higher price point just because you have higher operational overhead.

Ryan Hawk [00:49:08]:
Would you use something like Circle

Jay Clouse [00:49:10]:
for that? Potentially. Yeah. I mean, it has an LMS built into it. So you could put the in there. You can have the community spaces in there. I think exercising restraint and how many spaces you make is a really smart way to start. Yeah. The thing that I've tried in the past that just didn't quite work for me and I really wish it did was creating a community space like the lab and then having people self organize their own small groups.

Jay Clouse [00:49:34]:
The problem is when there's not a clear facilitator somebody really needs to step forward to lead and maybe it will work better in your world where everyone is aspiring to be a leader But in a world where people are very busy, it's hard to get someone to step forward. And if somebody has the experience of I signed up for this, nobody led. I didn't wanna lead. It fell apart. It's ultimately a negative experience with the thing that you created. So if I revisit that in my context in the future, it will be with paid coaches or facilitators to help make that happen. Yeah. Because it just is really difficult to get people to self organize and stick with it.

Ryan Hawk [00:50:09]:
It's probably big to get someone be the leader, take ownership over it. And you actually I guess, a clearly defined role.

Jay Clouse [00:50:17]:
And in your world, there are different ways to incentivize this. There's, like, the pure cash way of doing it. But if you had, like, this group where you wanted somebody to step for and be a leader, you could say, hey. And if you do lead this, you'll get invited to our in person growth summit in May. Yeah. And it's a different form of payment, you know, that some people probably be really excited about.

Ryan Hawk [00:50:34]:
Yeah. It's a good point. So much, man. So much to get to when it comes to this, like, how to structure your business. Because sometimes a lot of it, you just listen to what the market says and you then create an offering for that. And before you know it, it's like, oh, we got this, then we got this, then we got this. And you're trying to figure out the math of how to

Jay Clouse [00:50:53]:
Yeah.

Ryan Hawk [00:50:53]:
How to do more work that maybe isn't all service based.

Jay Clouse [00:50:57]:
Yeah. And we can talk about this more offline. But for anyone listening to this who's kinda following this, one model that you might consider if you're in your shoes or someone is in shoes like yours, It would be tempting to say, okay, we're gonna create a lower price product experience. It's gonna be a self paced course or it's gonna be this hybrid thing with community. It'd be tempting to create a new product with a new brand and name and everything. But if the promise is kind of the same as the leadership circles, but it's just the, like, entry level investment of it, you might actually just think of it as tiers within the idea of leadership circles. And so, like, this is the entry tier, in my case, the basic tier. You know? And and so you get people in there they feel like they're engaging with this product and then of course they can upgrade that experience over time but now you don't have to go out and be marketing 2 or 3 different product names you're marketing leadership circles and once they say I'm interested in leveling up my leadership, I keep hearing about this.

Jay Clouse [00:51:52]:
Then they go to the web page. They learn more about it. They see, oh, there's actually this way that I can enter into the system at a lower investment. I'm gonna try that first. Something to consider.

Ryan Hawk [00:52:03]:
Yeah. I like that idea because that also sometimes we just make things too complex. And, like, yeah, we get it because we're in the middle of it, but everyone else is living their lives. So they don't fully even know. Like, I follow a lot of your stuff, but I still there's things about you and your business that I'm like, oh, really? You do that? Like and I'm a pretty big follower of what you do. So it's still even Totally. In that case, sometimes we make assumptions that, of course, somebody would know or whatever and no. They're living their lives.

Ryan Hawk [00:52:30]:
Like, they have a lot going on, so we shouldn't assume like they know like we have to make it probably as clear cut as simple as possible.

Jay Clouse [00:52:37]:
Yeah. Repetition is your friend. So the fewer named things you have the more you're gonna talk about each one of those named things and the more likely someone's actually gonna grasp that this thing exists and it's interesting to them.

Ryan Hawk [00:52:47]:
Yeah. It's a great point. It's a great point.

Jay Clouse [00:52:55]:
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to let me know. Those reviews go a long way. I read all of them. They truly do help us grow the show. If you wanna learn more about Ryan, you can subscribe to his podcast, The Learning Leader Show in your podcast player, or visit his website at learningleader.com. There are links to both of those things in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.