"I think, like everybody, there's always imposter syndrome, right? You know, this feeling of, am I really that good? Or am I as good as I pretend to be on TV?" - Amy Eisenstein

Building a 7-figure subscription business with Amy Eisenstein

For many nonprofit consultants, the temptation to diversify services is ever-present. This approach, although seemingly effective, can dilute one's specialty, leaving you wading through tasks that might not align with your core passion. If Amy Eisenstein's story sounds familiar, you know the challenge: offering myriad services but missing out on harnessing the true power of your expertise.

Dive into Amy’s business evolution from Amy Eisenstein LLC to Capital Campaign Pro. Discover how she harnessed the power of niche specialization, and revolutionized her revenue stream by transitioning to a subscription model. If you're in the nonprofit consultancy realm, this episode is your guide to optimizing and refining your services. Listen to the full episode now and unearth the secrets to niche mastery in nonprofit consulting.

Highlights:

• Building a successful nonprofit coaching or consulting business requires specializing in a niche and choosing clients that align with your expertise and interests.

• Creating a subscription model for services can help generate recurring revenue and provide ongoing support and guidance to clients.

• Onboarding new clients is crucial for their success, and it involves introducing them to the team, providing orientation to the program, and ensuring they have access to resources and support.

• Retention and engagement of clients can be achieved through regular check-ins, monitoring their participation, and offering personalized support and guidance.

• Growing an email list and utilizing email marketing strategies, such as providing valuable free resources and nurturing leads, can be an effective way to attract and convert ideal clients.

Connect with Amy:

Website: https://capitalcampaignpro.com/

For Nonprofit Consultants: https://capitalcampaignpro.com/toolkit-for-consultants/

Find Us Online:  https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com/

Connect with Cindy:

Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com/

The Good Partnership https://www.thegoodpartnership.com/

Connect with Jess: 

Out In the Boons: https://www.outintheboons.me

Transcript:

00:00:00 Cindy: Welcome to the Confessions podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman.

00:00:03 Jess: And I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house nonprofit pros turned coaches and consultants to purpose-driven organizations.

00:00:11 Cindy: After years of building up our separate six-figure businesses from scratch, we've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and have lived to see what sticks.

00:00:20 Jess: We're on a mission to help other nonprofit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale their own businesses past the six-figure mark by pulling back the curtain.

00:00:31 Cindy: Whether you're still working inside a nonprofit and thinking of one day going out on your own, or you've been running your consulting business for years, you understand that working with nonprofits is just different. We're giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients. You know, the people who truly get it.

00:00:52 Jess: No more gatekeeping, no more secrets. This podcast is going to give you an inside look at what running a successful nonprofit coaching and consulting business looks like. Basically, we're asking people how much money they make, how they get paid, and what has and hasn't worked in their businesses.

00:01:10 Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers, and the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business. We're going to empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.

00:01:10 Jess: You ready? Let's go.

00:01:32 Cindy: So, Amy, you actually have two distinct businesses that we're going to talk about. But before we go into what they each are, tell us a little bit about the decision to actually create two separate ones.

00:01:46 Amy: Well, of course, I didn't create them both at the same time. So the first one is my solopreneur, Amy Eisenstein business. And that is where I am consulting with nonprofits on fundraising. And I've been doing that for 15 years. I guess this is my 15th year anniversary of having my own business. And, you know, I can get into the details, of course. And then, for now, five and a half or so years, I've been running Capital Campaign Pro. And that's a much bigger team, a much bigger operation. So I'm happy to talk about each of them. And one came after the other.

00:02:31 Cindy: Excellent. So welcome to all of our listeners. Today we have the pleasure of having Amy Eisenstein on the podcast. I feel like Amy, you're one of the OGs. And when I started consulting and I was researching, like, who's doing cool work in our sector? Your name definitely came up. So let's get into the details of what it is you do. And we always like to ask how you get paid.

00:03:00 Amy: Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I do feel like I've been doing this for a long, long time. And I'm happy to share my experiences. I guess at this point I can call it wisdom of being in business after, life after being a development director, if that is the correct way to think about it. And really, I got into my first consulting gig, of course, as a young mother. And I had little kids and I was trying to figure out how to work and be full time and parent at the same time. And consulting seemed like a good next step. So that's… now I've lost track of the question. What did you ask me?

00:03:45 Cindy: That's your Amy Eisenstein LLC.

00:03:49 Amy: Yes.

00:03:50 Cindy: What do you do within that banner? And then tell us about the other business.

00:03:53 Amy: Right. Okay, so I've been running Amy Eisenstein LLC, like I said, for 15 years. I started out doing everything and anything that people would pay me for. Right. I did a little bit of grant writing, a little bit of event planning, mostly development plans. And as I got better and more confident in my consulting, I really chose to specialize in major gifts, a little bit in capital campaigns, but development plans, strategic plans and coaching. And it was really the right niche and the right fit for me. And, you know, as you, I think, develop your consulting business, you can choose which clients you don't want. And I was happy never to write another grant or do another event again. So, yeah, that was the first business. So the second, I'm not sure. Oh, gosh. Jess, did you want to jump in or do you want me to keep going?

00:04:52 Jess: Well, I want to ask you about niching, but I want to come back to that after we hear about your kind of business evolution. So tell us about part two.

00:05:01 Amy: Okay, part two. So Capital Campaign Pro has been in existence for five and a half years, roughly. And it is really an interesting business because it's the first time I ever had a formal partnership with someone. So all, you know, for the first decade, I was a solopreneur and I really did everything by myself. And then I knew of this woman, Andrea Kihlstedt, who's been my business partner now. And we wanted to do a project together. We thought of it as a small project and we originally called it, Capital Campaign Toolkit because we thought we were developing this toolkit. And really, I didn't think of one business as bigger than the other or that much different than the other. I was going to be running two relatively small businesses, I thought.

00:05:52 Amy: And all of a sudden, Capital Campaign Toolkit, which evolved into Capital Campaign Pro now, took on a life of its own. Honestly, we created something that we didn't even know we were creating. I never had a dream of running a big business or managing people or having staff. And all of a sudden, there was this scalable business model in front of us. This thing that we had created that was going to change the nonprofit sector and the way that development professionals and nonprofit leaders access campaign services. And we ran with it.

00:06:30 Amy: And so honestly, I am now spending 90 to 95 percent of my time on Capital Campaign Pro and probably 5 to 10 percent of my time on the Amy Eisenstein business. And I am, I'm keeping it going because I think it's part of my brand. It's how people have known me for 15 years. I blog every week for it. I still speak under the banner of that. I have an online major gift program that runs sort of on autopilot with Amy Eisenstein LLC. But the vast majority of my time is with Capital Campaign Pro. And I have a big team.

00:07:12 Jess: Amazing. Okay, let's get into, like all the nitty gritty details of this big team and of this 95 percent. Can you tell us a little bit about what the container is, how you price it? You know, just like all the details of where 95 percent of your time is taken.

00:07:32 Amy: Yeah, I think that's such an interesting question. And when we started as, Capital Campaign Toolkit, we were literally selling an online campaign toolkit for one price that people purchased. And then they had access to all the resources, tools, samples, documents, et cetera. And a mentor of mine said to me, “If you want this to be a real business, you need to figure out how to make it a subscription model business.” And I thought, “I can't do that. There's nothing subscription about this. I don't know what you're talking about.” And I slept on it and I noodled it and it kept nagging at me. Right. He really said, “You know, if you want this to be a successful business, you can't just have people buy from you once.” And that's it.

00:08:20 Amy: And of course, he was so right. And we very, very quickly learned that people didn't want just a toolkit, but they wanted support and guidance and accountability and expertise. And so we were able to create this subscription model membership type of business where people not only access the online tools and resources for their capital campaign, but also, of course, have all kinds of support that we now provide for a subscription model service. And truthfully, without that one piece of advice, the business probably wouldn't be successful and it certainly wouldn't have grown to where it is today.

00:09:01 Jess: I love that. We all need, like a little seed planter, right?

00:09:06 Amy: Absolutely.

00:09:08 Cindy: What was the original one time price? And now what is the subscription price today and has the subscription price changed over time?

00:09:17 Amy: Yes, that is an excellent question. So the original price for just the toolkit, I think, was around $5,000. And it was a one time price and people could come in and buy it. And that was sort of it. Right. And now we, of course, have a monthly price. We do have multiple levels. We have three levels of service that people can access different amounts of support. And I would say that I would, over the years, we have been able to raise the price. It was funny. I was talking to one of our very, very first subscribers and she had the lowest level of service for $500 a month. And now that particular service is just under a thousand dollars per month. We've raised it twice in five or six years. And we do have two subscription prices with a lot of support that are significantly higher than a thousand dollars a month for campaign support. And we're constantly playing with the prices to see what works.

00:10:24 Jess: Okay, so I have, like so many questions, especially because I'm actually, like as we speak, moving some of my business models to like a subscription membership. So I'm just curious if you happen to know, like what happens or not what happens, but like what percentage of people opt in to like the lowest tier versus the middle tier versus the highest tier? Is it that age old like 20 percent of the people take 80 percent of your time or is it flipped or is it different? I'm curious about, like attrition, retention. Like when I say nitty gritty, like give us the goods.

00:11:06 Amy: That's such a great question. Well, I think, so it is so complicated and we're still learning and we're still iterating and we're still playing. For the first two years or so, the business was pretty evenly split between the lowest level, which I would say is more self-serve although there's a lot of peer support, we have an email helpline. There are ways to access and weekly group coaching, I would call it, plenty of ways to access support. But it's a fixed cost for us. It doesn't cost more per client that we serve. And so that is actually a very profitable piece of the business. The higher levels, of course, come with much more personalized support. And so while the price point is much higher, the variable costs for us are significant because we're paying for individual coaches.

00:12:07 Amy: So for the first two years, I would say it was a pretty even 50/50 split. And over the years, people are opting in for the higher level service with more support, right? More guidance, more personal touches, more customized, everything, which is great and lovely. And for the most part, the retention rate is longer when you have your own coach. But there are so many exceptions to the rules. We have people at that lowest level who have been with us now for all five years and they just keep going and they love it. And they pop in these weekly group, peer support groups. I lovingly call them fundraising therapy. Who doesn't need some good fundraising therapy, right?

00:12:56 Jess: Absolutely. Okay, so then I want to ask you about, you have this ongoing model. And I feel like the fact that people are staying around for five years is like bananas in the best way. So congratulations. And the ability to just scale, scale, scale is like infinite, right? And I would like to hear those since it's on a rolling basis, like I'm guessing anyone can really enter the program at any time. How do you create that sense of urgency or like act now or, you know, I think of it like a stove, right? Like it's always the simmer’s on and then you turn up the dial and it goes like hot, like grab it now. So what is your kind of attraction method and how do you get people to take action knowing they can just come in the next month if they want to?

00:13:49 Amy: That is an excellent question. First of all, let me go back and say that while we do have some customers who have stayed and clients who have stayed for five years, there is a high turnover rate with some of those sort of, more low level. We encourage people to stay for the duration of their campaign, which is two to three years. But there's plenty of turnover at that low level. So I don't want to give you this impression that we don't have a retention problem for sure. That's something that we discuss internally a lot. In terms of, you know, buy now, I think with Capital Campaigns, it's actually, that's such an interesting question. And I'll compare it to my major gift program over at Amy Eisenstein, LLC, because that is more of a join now. Here's an incentive here. Here's what I'm going to give you kind of if you join this week or this month or today, kind of thing.

00:14:50 Amy: With Capital Campaigns, it's a little more complicated. It's when the organization is ready to start a campaign, when a development director thinks they need support. And so I think there's less of that urgency. It's more about, you know, when do you want to start asking for gifts as part of your campaign? Join us, you know, 10 months before you're ready to start asking for gifts. So it's more of a slow roll, if you will. And it takes more patience on our part. They're just not ready until they're ready, which is fine. Does that make sense?

00:15:27 Cindy: Totally, totally. Okay, I'm so curious, because the other thing I think, well, for all of us and what we do, but part of the sort of retention and success of our clients is also the onboarding process. I'd love to hear about how you onboard people and get them into, taking the action so that they will be successful, because, you know, Capital Campaigns make a lot of people uncomfortable. And it’s, you know, this is a big lift for a lot of organizations. So how do you help them be successful?

00:16:03 Amy: Yes. So let me just make sure and clarify. So there's the sales process and then there's onboarding. So–

00:16:10 Cindy: I'm talking like onboarding, like once they're in–

00:16:13 Amy: Okay.

00:16:14 Cindy: I'd love to know a little bit. I just think it's such a critical part of a client's journey with us.

00:16:20 Amy: It's true.

16:21 Cindy: Yeah. So I'd love to hear what you do for that.

00:16:23 Amy: Yeah. So whoever the salesperson is, often it's me. I send a welcome email to the new client and their team and I introduce them to my team. So the number one person I'm introducing them to is our Chief Happiness Officer. And she is going to be giving them an orientation to our program, walk them through the online resources and make sure that they have everything that they need, that they know which group advising or coaching call they're coming to every week, that they have their initial meeting set up with their advisor if they have one, and that they know where to access things.

00:17:04 Amy: So the first, so it's one email that introduces them to several members of the team. But of course, always, it's the Chief Happiness Officer. It's our Operations Director who is going to deal with login issues and billing. Of course, they need to meet that person. And then if they are working at a level of service where they have their own advisor, we're going to introduce them and make sure that that meeting gets scheduled and off the ground appropriately. And then hopefully they do come to their weekly peer support calls. They have their one on one meetings with their advisor and our Chief Happiness Officer checks in with them on a quarterly basis. So, yeah, they're off to the races.

00:17:46 Cindy: Okay, I–

00:17:47 Jess: Wait, Cindy, I have to jump in because I know you want to ask about staffing, but I want to just quickly ask, like, what do you do if you find someone's not participating? Like, you said you do these quarterly check ins, but like, what if there's like nothing happening in between? Would you guys do anything to check in?

00:18:05 Amy: Yes, that's a good question. So it depends what level of service they're at. So if they're with a one on one advisor and they're not participating in the group [calls], that's okay. Sometimes people choose to not participate in that group coaching because they feel like they have their one on one coaching. We do, there are a few different yellow flags that we look for. If they don't ever come to the group coaching, we'll send them an email, say, “Hey, try and check it out. It's probably better than you think. Like, just come to the first one. We promise we won't put you on the spot. Come see what it's all about.”

00:18:44 Amy: We also monitor how many times they're logging into the online toolkit. So if nobody's logged in for six weeks, we say, “Hey, did you know there's this resource in there? Did you know there's that resource in there? Check it out.” So if they are not working with an advisor and they're sort of on the essentials plan, we call it the ‘essentials plan,’ right? They have the basics covered and they're not participating. We will ping them a few times. And sometimes they're really independent and sometimes they cancel. And, you know, we know it's coming. We've tried to prevent it and it happens anyways. And it just, we've decided it is what it is. We're not going to chase them. We want to provide value and we do our best to do that.

00:19:31 Cindy: So good. And I also love, sometimes we, I find people are afraid to follow up because they think that they're going to cancel and they don't want to remind people that they're paying for it. I'm like, that's the wrong thinking.

00:19:47 Amy: Right.

00:19:48 Cindy: So, yeah, I love that. Okay. Jess and I are like, we have so many questions right now. I want to start with your staffing structure and your team and who else is involved in the business. And then we have questions following that. But let's start with that. I mean, your Chief Happiness Officer sounds like, kind of like a community manager is what I've heard it, most.

00:20:14 Amy: Yeah, she's–

00:20:15 Cindy: Who else. Yeah.

00:20:16 Amy: Yeah. So our Chief Happiness Officer honestly is our Programs and Services Director. So she's in charge of that. We have a Director of Operations and he does all things, finance, logistics, logging in, back end, computer maintenance, that kind of thing. I have a Director of Sales and Marketing. So what you think it sounds like. So that's the structure. And then two co-founders, myself and Andrea Kihlstedt is my partner. And then we have a whole team of part-time campaign advisors who contract with us per client, basically. Yeah.

00:21:01 Jess: I was just going to ask how many people can like each one of those, kind of contracts coaches, how many people are they overseeing?

00:21:09 Amy: Yeah. So they are overseeing usually between five and eight campaigns each.

00:21:15 Jess: Oh, wow. That's a lot. Okay, cool. So, were you going to say one other thing about your team?

00:21:19 Amy: Well, I just, I think one of the questions that I often get and came up recently about going into business for yourself and owning a consulting business was sort of, who's your first hire. So I wanted to reflect back 15 years ago. And to me, you know, or when it's time to hire somebody or when, you know, you can hire somebody to meet for that business, for my my solopreneur business, I was hiring first, you know, web designer, of course, somebody to help format the blog, which I still have not learned to do. And a bookkeeper. I'm trying to think if there was somebody else, you know, as I developed online programs, I had sort of somebody else who was doing some of that back end technical stuff that I have no interest or no competence to do. So anyways, it is an interesting thing to think about team structure, even if you're solopreneur, you want support. Who's, you know, your admin, when is it time to hire an admin person? Right. All of those questions.

00:22:26 Jess: Okay, Amy, we are back for another round of our rapid fire questions. Are you ready to play?

00:22:33 Amy: I guess so.

00:22:35 Jess: Okay. When you're not capital campaigning, what do you like to spend your time doing?

00:22:40 Amy: Oh, I guess cooking and reading. Those are cliche, but that's what I'm doing. I'm cooking or I'm reading.

00:22:47 Jess:What kind of reading do you like to do?

00:22:51 Amy: Well, I have to admit, I'm kind of nerdy. So I'm often reading business books and how to be a better business person, how to be more effective, how to be a better speaker. But right now, I'm reading the latest Barbara Kingsolver book.

00:23:04 Jess: Okay, cool. Do you have any favorite biz books that we should be reading too?

00:23:12 Amy: I have to tell you, I haven't read it in a decade, but it's still on my shelf. And I have the ‘Success Principles’ by Jack Canfield, underlined and highlighted. And I really feel like whatever was in that book pushed me in really the right direction. The second one that's sitting right on my desktop now is called ‘A More Beautiful Question’ by Warren Berger. And the question is, “What would you do if you could not fail?” And those two books I love.

00:23:47 Jess: Oh my gosh, I'm going to definitely have to check out that second one. Okay, you mentioned while we were offline that you're from New Jersey. If I was coming to visit you, where would we go to lunch?

00:23:59 Amy: Well, I guess we would go if you had not been to the Northeast Coast before, we would go into New York and go to Chinatown for dim sum. Or if you hadn't been to the Jersey Shore, we would go to the beach and go and sit outside and enjoy some fried fish, I guess.

00:24:18 Jess: Yes. Oh, LBI?

00:24:20 Amy: Yeah, LBI. Have you been?

00:24:23 Jess: I have. Lucky for me, I have a really dear friend from New Jersey. One question I wanted to ask you in our interview but didn't get to it is what tool do you use to house your membership?

00:24:35 Amy: Oh, I use something called Ontraport. I'm not sure if I would recommend it or not recommend it, but I've been using it for 15 years. So somebody recommended it to me and it's too hard to switch at this point.

00:24:52 Jess: Totally, totally. Okay, so you mentioned you've been doing this for 15 years. Do you ever think about, like what does life look like when you're not capital campaigning and what is that vision?

00:25:06 Amy: Yeah, I mean, I think in 10 years, right, after the kids are long gone and I want to do a little more cooking and reading than I get to do right now, I will probably bump up the public speaking and a little less of the day to day, but I do love connecting with audiences and being on the stage at conferences. So I do plenty of that now, but I'll probably do more of that and less of the other nitty gritty of running businesses.

00:25:39 Jess: Amazing. Thank you so much for playing. So I'm curious, Amy, what your day to day looks like and how do you stay focused and sit in your CEO seat? I know personally, it's really hard to not either get distracted or to just say, oh, I'll just do it myself. And you have this amazing team around you, but I'm just really curious, like, what does Co-CEO life look like and what do you have to say no to so that you can say yes in other areas?

00:26:17 Amy: Yeah, such a good question. So Mondays are team well, individual meeting days. So I have a one on one with each of my three directors. So Mondays are filled with meetings and I fill them with more meetings. And so it's sort of a check in day and get ready for the week kind of day. And then, you know, honestly, I've gone back and forth. I do a tremendous amount of the marketing. I was going to say I've gone back and forth about, am I the lead salesperson or is there another salesperson? And over the years, we've had salespeople. Sometimes we've had a couple. And at the end of the day, at this moment, I'm the salesperson. So I'm doing a tremendous amount of sales.

00:27:05 Amy: But honestly, Andrea and I are the chief content marketer people. We are on podcasts, we have our own podcast, we blog regularly, we blog for other people's blogs, we do webinars constantly, we do public speaking. So we're that, you know, I'm a marketer and a salesperson. And I'm learning how to be a people manager, too.

00:27:34 Jess: Yes, okay. So I know that the world of Capital Campaign specifically is a certain profile of a nonprofit. For example, if you are a teeny tiny startup, no team, nonprofit, I don't know that, Capital Campaign is like your next step. And we all know that I think 95%, 93% of nonprofits fall under that, what $500,000 or $1,000,000 threshold to the vast majority of nonprofits are probably not your ideal clients, right? So how are you or what are you doing to find your ideal clients and customers? Where are you going? Where are you seeking them out? How are you showing up as a thought leader to make sure that you're attracting people that can, are really ready, frankly, for a capital campaign and two, can afford your prices?

00:28:32 Amy: Yeah. So I have to say that one advantage of Capital Campaign Pro was that Andrea and I each had been blogging and having our own businesses for more than a decade before we started. So we had been growing our lists. I mean, that might be something that we want to talk about in a minute, because growing our lists and having a list is key. So I, you know, I email–

00:28:59 Jess: I have to just say I love you for saying that. Thank you so much. You're just like right on the money.

00:29:04 Amy: Yes. So, you know, for both of my businesses, they revolve around my email lists. And I have, you know, 10s of 1000s of people on my email lists, and I email them religiously, at least once a week with a newsletter and a blog. But I have all sorts of auto responders and auto things set up. And, you know, I'm, we're lifting the hood here, right? We're giving people a sneak peek into the back of our consulting businesses. And so when people sign up for a free resource on either of my lists, they get a series of emails, as I know you guys send as well. And I nurture the heck out of my list. And so are there people on my list that are very small nonprofits that probably are never going to buy anything I'm selling? Yes. My guess is that a huge chunk of my list is organizations that are probably too small, and I'm still giving them tons of free content, tons of free resources, because some of them are going to grow.

00:30:10 Amy: And some of them, those development directors are going to land at other nonprofits that can use our services. But who are we targeting? I mean, there are so many nonprofits, so there are plenty. I think there's no shortage of potential clients to be in capital campaigns, everything from education to health care to social service to performing arts to animals to cultural institutions. I mean, the list is endless. You know, YMCAs… the list goes on and on of organizations that we work with. So we are, you know, really happy to be working with LGBTQ centers and social justice organizations. And like I said, K to 12 schools, community colleges, on and on and on. So it's great. Yeah.

00:31:08 Jess: Okay, well, I'm in love with this conversation. And so we're going to get into it deeper. Cindy's just like, yeah, “Jess, here we go.” But she agrees with me. She knows how powerful an email list is. I'm curious, like from a tactical standpoint, especially if your email acquisition strategy has changed over the last, say, last 18 months. What do you do to get discovered? How are you growing your email list? You know, is it freebies? You said, you talk about webinars. You said you do a lot of speaking. Like, what does your funnel look like? Like, yeah, I'm just really curious because I know for me, what I was doing back in 2019 or 2020 is way different than what I'm doing now.

00:31:52 Jess: I'm also in a place where I would rather have like 200 qualified buyers than 1000 looky loos. And that's not for everyone, but that's my preference. But that's also because I have thousands of people on my email list already. If I was starting from scratch, I might have a different plan. You know, you just mentioned you have tens of thousands of people in your email list. So I'm just really curious to see how, like what your email list building strategy of 2023 is and if that's evolved or changed from years past.

00:32:21 Amy: Yeah, you know, I don't think it has changed too much. It's, you know, number one is having valuable free resources with opt-ins on your website, on every page of your website. And so I have a variety of those. Of course, we do webinars and let people opt into those and we post them on social media. I have to say, my admiration for social media has waned significantly over the years. I feel like it is good for nothing or almost nothing. Yeah. So I think it is through appearing on other people's blogs with link backs and doing webinars and podcasts like this. In addition to our own.

00:33:09 Amy: But the one thing I will tell you that we pay for is help with SEO. And so six years ago, as we were getting off the ground with Capital Campaign Pro, if you typed in Capital Campaigns, we did not appear on page 10. I mean, we just, we didn't exist, according to Google or the internet. And we hired a company to help us with our SEO. They helped link to a lot of other sites and us to create what, I don't know what the right word for it is, but I'm going to call it cornerstone posts with keywords and things that are linked all over the place. And now I would say we have more than 15 keywords in the top five spots. And so we've worked hard. We've worked for five years. We've written more blog posts than I would care to admit.

00:34:04 Amy: And we have hustled and we had the strategy that we wanted to be found on Google so that if somebody types in Capital Campaign or Capital Campaign Consultant or Feasibility Study, or one of a dozen keywords that we would be on page one. And it, you know, it took about 18 months to go from, like not appearing on page 10 to being on page 10, one or, you know, maybe the top spot in page two, which wasn't so good. But we do have a lot of keywords in the top five spots now, which is great. And we're constantly working on it.

00:34:38 Cindy: That's such great advice. And yeah, I feel like we're all kind of out of love with social media these days. Staying on the topic of email, I've also loved to know because I think people get really focused on list building, they forget you have to sell to your list. And so do you, is it part of your funnel, your acquisition funnel where you do have a sales sequence or you have that call to action early on? And if so, tell us about that. And if not, how do you transition people to and when to ask for the sale?

00:35:18 Amy: That's a great question. So, because we have multiple levels of service, the first thing we ask people to do is to sign up to talk to us because our, you know, two of our levels of campaign consulting or coaching, advising are, reasonably high price point. And this is a serious decision for most nonprofits or all nonprofits. Most people are not going to buy without talking to us. And so we have a big push on lots of pages and in email, autoresponders to sign up to talk to us for a free strategy session. That being said, we also do push a little bit on, you know, occasionally, we'll drop in something. Did you know you can have access to this? You know, if you're not quite ready to talk to us yet, or if you're not quite ready for your campaign, you can start getting ready by accessing this and have people. So some, a few people buy without talking to us, the lowest level, but most people talk to us. And that's what we're pushing for is to have a conversation.

00:36:34 Cindy: Amazing. I love that.

00:36:35 Jess: So helpful.

00:36:36 Cindy: Yeah.

00:36:37 Jess: Oh, go ahead.

00:36:37 Cindy: I was going to say, do you that, do you circle back and kind of like, you've been on the list for six months, now's a great time to book a call or how do you sort of re-engage those people? Or is it just always there? Like always book a call?

00:36:54 Amy: Well, it's certainly on the homepage of the website, right? So it's always there. Are we as good as maybe we should be by circling back? Probably not. In our weekly blog posts, there's always an opportunity for us to say, talk to us. And we do say it on webinars, we say it when people sign up for multiple lead magnets, for lack of a better word. So, you know, we may not be so good if you've signed up for one thing and then don't take any other action for six months, we may not be great about that. But if you then come to a webinar, or if you then sign up for something else, another freebie, another, then we will ping you and encourage you to sign up to talk to us. But occasionally in our blog posts, newsletters will say, “Don't forget if you want to talk to us.” It's more random.

00:37:53 Jess: Yeah, I love that though. And I love that you just, you, you've prioritized email. And so now it's this epic tool that allows you to call in business whenever you want. I just think that that's so smart. And I will die on that email hill. Amy, this has been so much fun chatting with you. We always like to ask each and every guest, what is your nonprofit consulting confession? This can be something you wish you did different, or you might not have said out loud, but a truth in your business or about running your business.

00:38:28 Amy: Well, I think, like everybody, there's always imposter syndrome, right? You know, this feeling of, am I really that good? Or am I as good as I pretend to be on TV? Right? So I think that's, you know, this sort of nagging feeling that maybe I'm not, you know, I'm not worthy. But I guess, you know, the other thing that I would say is, people think that everything looks magical from afar. You know, people will call and be like, “Oh, you're answering the phone, I didn't expect you to answer the phone.” I'm like, “Well, it's just me sitting here, who else would be answering?” And so people laugh, it's my cell phone's numbers still on both websites, you're gonna get me if you call the number. And you know, so there's this illusion, I think that it's this big, huge company, which is great, on one sense, I'm glad there's that illusion. And on the other hand, yes, it's still me answering the phone. So please email me. I'm not good at getting back to people. Yeah.

00:39:38 Cindy: I love that. And that's so true. I think we always look at people and think that there's some magic going on or something so different or, you know, out there way ahead of us. But yes, it's still your phone. I love that. All right, Amy, as we wrap up, where can our listeners learn more about what you're doing? And also, I know you actually have part of your program that is specific to consultants. So tell us a little bit about where to find those things.

00:40:08 Amy: Yeah, so if you're a nonprofit, and you're looking to do a capital campaign, please do visit Capital Campaign Pro. We do have tons of freebies. And of course, I'd love to talk to you about your capital campaign. And for those of you that are, if you're listening and you're a consultant or you're a wannabe capital campaign consultant, we do have a program just for nonprofit consultants that want to grow their business around capital campaigns. And right on the Capital Campaign Pro website, up in the menu, there's a for consultants button and you will see we have a whole program just for helping nonprofit consultants build their capital campaign businesses.

00:40:51 Cindy: Amazing. Amy, thanks so much for joining us and for sharing all your confessions.

00:40:57 Jess: Thank you.

00:40:57 Amy: Well, thank you for having me. Thanks for having me.

00:41:02 Cindy: Thank you again for listening to The Confessions Podcast for nonprofit coaches and consultants. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I sure hope you did, you can show your support in one of three ways.

00:41:13 Jess: Number one, post a screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and I so we can repost you.

00:41:22 Cindy: Number two, share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit coach or consultant.

00:41:26 Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple podcast so we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.

00:41:32 Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.

00:41:39 Jess: And to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember we're an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.

00:41:47 Cindy: See you next time.