“Find a niche and create a community first. You need to have like-minded people interested in what you are interested in. And once that’s set up and grows, people will come to you.”
Nic Kastner | Australian School Mums
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So you want to make money while you sleep, but what does that look like in reality?
How can an everyday human going from servicing customers one-to-one to creating one-to-many automated digital passive income products.
Today, we’re talking to a real-life ADPIP, Nic Kastner, about how she created her ADPIP empire, the challenges, the wins, and the lessons she has for you.
Tune in to learn:
- What prompted Nicole to build an online community for school mums
- How her small Facebook group grew from a couple of members to 1000 in ten days.
- What steps Nicole took turning her free Facebook group into a source of income
- How she uses freebies to lead into paid digital downloads.
- How Nicole chooses affiliate marketing partners and promotes her directory
- What percentage of Nicole’s income comes from ADPIPs
- Nicole’s top tip on starting your ADPIP journey
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About Nicole Kastner
Nicole Kastner founded Australian School Mums, the largest community of like-minded school mums inspiring each other with easy access to everything needed during the schooling years. Its online directory connects the best resources and trusted businesses in our day to day life.
Nicole has also co-founded an award-winning business in the automotive space and is heavily involved in local community initiatives, a testament to her credibility, hard work and dedication. Mum of two active boys by profession, an accountant by trade. She practices her ninja kicks with her accomplices and loves a good binge session.
Fun fact: Nic once bribed her way into a Bolivian Prison.
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Transcript
Kate Toon:
So you want to make money while you sleep, but what does that look like in reality? How can an everyday human going from servicing customers one-to-one to creating one-to-many automated digital passive income products. Today, we’re talking to a real-life ADPIP, Nic Kastner, about how she created her ADPIP empire, the challenges, the wins, and the lessons she has for you.
Hello, my name is Kate Toon, founder of Stay Tooned, busy business owner, and digital product passive income queen. And today, I’m talking to Nic Kastner. Hello, Nic.
Nic Kastner:
Hi, Kate. Thanks for having me today.
Kate Toon:
That’s exciting. Nic is a member of the Digital Marketing Collective, but she is also the founder of Australian School Mums, the largest community of like-minded school mums inspiring each other with easy access to everything needed during the school years. Its online directory collects the best resources and trusted businesses in our day-to-day life. Nic has also co-founded an award-winning business in the automotive space and is heavily involved in local community initiatives, a testament to her credibility, hard work, and dedication. Mum of two active boys, by profession an accountant by trade, I didn’t know that, she practises her ninja kicks with her accomplices and loves a good binge session. Fun fact, Nic once bribed her way into a Bolivian prison. Wouldn’t you want to bribe your way out of a Bolivian prison? What was that about?
Nic Kastner:
You’d think so, but when you’re backpacking and you see the opportunity in front of you with the Bolivian prison there, got carried away, I think. Lots of people wanting free pizza in exchange for a friendly chat. I couldn’t say no.
Kate Toon:
Wow, I bet that would’ve been confronting. I’ve watched that show, the great show about a dude who visits all the prisons in the world, and some of them are pretty scary. If you’re going to go to prison, go to prison in Norway. It looks pretty awesome. It looks better than my house.
Anyway, we’re not here to talk about prisons. We’re here to talk about your little ADPIP universe. Well, it’s not little. It’s splendid. But before we do, tell us what you did before you got… So it sounds like you were an accountant, but then you had kids. Or what stage did you start your community?
Nic Kastner:
I went to university, got a degree in accounting. I helped establish a family business. Also worked in some part-time corporate roles. I didn’t get the opportunity to have much of a community of like-minded mums. Corporate and automotive is very different to what I’m doing now, which is what I love.
Kate Toon:
What stage did you start this? Had you had kids yourself? What was the foundation of this community? What made you start it?
Nic Kastner:
It all started when my eldest was starting school, started off kindergarten. I didn’t know anything about the school journey. I didn’t know where to go, didn’t know who to ask. Within a couple of months of starting school, COVID hit and we all went down into lockdown. So it was all a bit chaotic, and what started as a small Facebook group between a couple of mums at school grew to about 1,000 members within 10 days.
Kate Toon:
Wow.
Nic Kastner:
Yeah, it was insane. And it was at that point that I knew I wanted to establish something safe. There’s a lot of mum groups out there that aren’t monitored, and it gets a little bit out of control. So I thought if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this so that we all feel safe, not just myself.
Kate Toon:
I love that. I was going to say, I would’ve thought there would be a million mum groups, a million school groups out there on Facebook already. But I’m a member of a lot of business groups, and as you said, even if they are monitored, there’s no culture of kindness and they can be quite brutal places with a lot of judgement . And I think parents with school kids are so stressed about the decisions they’re making anyway that the last thing they need is to go and ask a question in a Facebook group and be ripped to shreds. So your big little idea was to set up a safe space, a community that was, it’s quite heavily monitored, I think. And you put a lot of content in there as well, a lot of ideas. Was that your goal when you started out, just to create the community?
Nic Kastner:
It was. It was literally just to create that safe space. And there was no other school-based community around on Facebook that I could see. A lot of it was locally based, and I didn’t want to hear about the experience of the person down the street only. I didn’t want to be restricted by location. I wanted to know what mums across the country wanted to hear or wanted to say. That’s what got it started. And I think the moderation really only applies to, as you mentioned, kindness. Everyone’s thoughts and opinions are very much welcome, and as we say, discussion is very much fair, but the disrespect isn’t, which is I think what makes ASM different to other communities.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I love that. Now, we’re going to come on and talk about money in a minute, but obviously the foundation, the group was free and it grew very rapidly and still growing. I think it’s about 30,000 mums in it now. Is that right, at the last count?
Nic Kastner:
Yes, I think we’ve just reached over 32,000.
Kate Toon:
Amazing, amazing. When you set up this community, did you have the financial outcome in mind? Were you thinking, “How can I monetize that?” Or did that evolve as the group got busier and bigger? Because I know how hard it is running a big group, actually takes quite a lot of time. So were you working at this time supporting yourself through work or what’s the situation there?
Nic Kastner:
Yes, I was working and I had absolutely no intention of monetizing that. During COVID, it was a bit crazy and I think mums really struggled with interaction with each other. So it was a safe space and lots of chatter. And it was long before businesses started approaching me to promote in the group. They could see that their mums or our mums were the ideal target market. So what I started doing was I created a time of the week and everybody could post, and it was huge. It was huge. I think within about, I think it was 2,000 members when we had 50 businesses promote in the first couple of hours of that designated time slot.
And I think that’s where it started. So each week went by and more businesses got involved. And I think the beauty of it was it was very organic. There was no hard sell. There was no hard push. And I think it got to about nine months in when I thought, “Hold on, this is taking up a lot of my time.” And that’s when I thought it might be a good idea to try and monetize it. I’m online anyway. I love Facebook groups, I love Facebook communities, so I took the jump.
Kate Toon:
Yep, I love it. And I think it can be a little bit uncomfortable. You’ve created this group on almost like an ethical platform and a good vibes platform, and it can feel a little bit seedy to then go, “Oh, now I want to make money from it.” And that’s a bit of a hard transition. We’ll talk about that in a minute. And I guess that would’ve been one of your fears, I guess, like, “I don’t want to come across as now being a money grabbing person and I don’t want to lose the vibe of the community.” Was that something you were worried about?
Nic Kastner:
It was. I had to be creative and think about what I could actually offer and present to businesses to make sure that there was an offering there, not just that dreaded feeling of taking advantage of mums in a safe space that was created. I did build a website or got it outsourced, but I built a website and I made sure there was information and resources there that the mums would refer back to and that also gives the businesses an opportunity to place a listing on the directory. And as an added bonus, they could access the community. So in my mind was our mums are still safe. They can still share, discuss openly. And the businesses that are essentially paying to get access are vetted and they’re not just there for a big buck. It’s all about trust. It’s all about relationship-building. And what I love is a lot of our community members, our mums do know our businesses and the person behind our businesses, which is what I think is really special about it.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I think you’ve got to bridge the gap because there’s mums in there. There’s mums in there who have businesses and then there’s businesses, three, where we’re going to talk about your ideal customer. You’ve actually got three customers in a way. You’ve got the mums who get everything essentially for free and then they have the option to choose to get involved with any of the paid stuff. You’ve got the mums who also have businesses who have the option to join the directory, advertising your guides, have affiliate deals, promote in the group. And then you’ve got bigger brands who can also advertise in the directory, can do ads and whatever. So there’s three different avatars there.
Nic Kastner:
Yes. Yes, there is. And I feel like the one in the middle is the one that I guess is most successful or turns around because they can see the organic conversations flowing from the discussions and they can see how valuable it can be. The big brands see it as a number game as the 30,000 and just quickly jump in. And quite often they pay, advertise, and that’s it for them for the year. But the mums in business, they can see how valuable it’s getting involved in discussions. They have ability to self-promote during threads as well as the weekly business post.
Kate Toon:
Yep. Let’s talk about your ADPIP tactics. In the book, we talk about digital downloads, courses, memberships, and masterminds. You’ve obviously got digital downloads. Do you have paid digital downloads?
Nic Kastner:
Yes, we do. At the moment, they’re currently seasonal. So we’ve got a Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Christmas. What we do is we create a freebie, which is a few pages long, and it’s all about the kids, keeping them entertained so mums can have a hot cuppa. I love-
Kate Toon:
That’s a freebie though, not a paid thing?
Nic Kastner:
Yes. If they like the free pages, they get a massive bundle of 30, 40, 50 plus worksheets.
Kate Toon:
Right, okay. So you use the freebie as the lead magnet and then the paid thing as a bundle of worksheets. Right, okay. Your other ADPIP tactics are the directory. And we’ve had lots of discussions in the DMC about how to price that and what to include at the different levels. I think now you’ve got three different levels.
Nic Kastner:
Yes, I’ve got three different levels and we’ve gone through a pricing restructure. And I guess it was a little bit hard to begin with, getting my head around that because you are charging more. But I can see but you are also able to provide more for the businesses and what they need and what they want. So yeah, three levels, three tiers.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. We talked about this a lot. It’s like with a directory, it’s a bit of a directory is not something you can start from nothing. You have to have the volume of people to make the directory work. I talk about this as ADPIP-adjacent products. You actually build a community and then you’re able to build a directory off the back of that. If you just started with a directory, there would be no traffic. And no one’s going to put a listing in a directory where that’s getting no traffic and no businesses. So it’s ADPIP-adjacent, I call it. The other ADPIP-adjacent thing you do is sponsorship and ads. You do run these seasonal guides where businesses can pay a fee and they can be featured within that guide. That’s, again, using your audience, using your list to monetize that. That’s another purpose you do. Which ones do you do, Christmas?
Nic Kastner:
And our back to school, which is hugely popular just because I guess of the target market and they love it. And we have a lot of, I’d say about 50%, of our businesses involved in the guides are actually from a directory because they can see the influx of traffic and it’s an extra layer or source of exposure for them during these really busy periods.
Kate Toon:
That’s fantastic. And then the final ADPIP-adjacent thing that you do is affiliate marketing. You are become an affiliate of a brands and you will then promote that through that group. And like me, you’re not an affiliate of many brands. I’m the same. I’ve got five or six and they’re all products that the way I view it is would I recommend them if I wasn’t getting paid? And if I would, then I’m happy to be an affiliate. Sometimes brands do approach me and I’m like, “Yeah, nah.” I don’t want to sell my audience just to earn a few bucks. And that’s a process that you go through as well, isn’t it?
Nic Kastner:
You’ve absolutely nailed it, Kate. If it doesn’t come into our house or if I don’t use it, I don’t promote it. I don’t work with many but the ones I do, I absolutely love. And I do get paid a small percentage of commission for that. But I also love sharing products and services directly from our ASM partners. The business is listed in that community, and it’s really lovely hearing from the business owners of the conversions that come through once I do share. I prefer to keep that small and limited just so that the traction is there when I do decide to post.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, that’s it. You find some people who do have an audience, they get a bit carried away, maybe a little bit greedy and they’re promoting every day and you’re like, “Well, we’ve actually lost the reason that we liked you in the first place. That’s not why I was here.” So I love that you’ve got that balance.
You are very different to our other ADPIP-ers that we’ve talked about previously because what they are is they have a service and they turn it into an ADPIP and then they go away and build an audience to buy that. You built the audience first with really no intention of monetizing it, but saw the opportunity and it’s been much more organic. But let’s talk about how you built that audience because people would be envious of that, right? So brand awareness, one of the great things about starting a Facebook community is once you do, you go into the algorithm and Facebook starts recommending you to people. So if I join, you’ll recommend it to all my friends. You’re also searchable. And I think that’s why the growth in those early days, you get on the train. If 500 people join, it will suddenly be recommended to their friends and their friends and their friends. So you were lucky in those early days really with just that massive growth. And it sounds like you didn’t do a huge amount of social media or anything like that. It just happened.
Nic Kastner:
Yeah, that’s right. I started the group first and I think the name perhaps had a play in that, Australian School Mums. And that wasn’t intentional. That was literally because we are Australian school mums. And I think I had one friend from Western Australia, I didn’t want to call it anything Sydney or Inner West. It wanted to be in its brand new vein. So only after the community started growing, that’s when I then established an Instagram page and a Facebook page. And I shared content that was relatable to mums at those early stages. It was a lot about memes. It was COVID and it was really, if you didn’t laugh about it, you’d probably cry. So just keeping spirits high.
Another way that I guess I was able to share our brand out there was providing free resources. One of our biggest freebies is a lunchbox toolkit. And these downloads are based on my personal experience where I didn’t know what to pack in a lunchbox. It was my first time. How many lunchboxes can there be? Turns out there’s a lot, babe.
Kate Toon:
It’s a whole subculture. I was really into it. I had one of those bento boxes and I’d start the term making little smiley face sandwiches. By the end of the term, I was just chucking carrots in because I was just exhausted.
Nic Kastner:
Whatever was in the fridge.
Kate Toon:
I love that. And even now there’s a good mix of you do discussion posts, you do help and advice, you do memes, you do a whole range of different content but you are persistent with the content. And I think that’s what people, they think, “Oh, I’m going to start a community.” It’s going to be so much work and they start it and they don’t get much traction in the early days. It will feel in the early days that you are posting to no one and no one’s engaging. There’s a tipping point I find with three groups, which is around the 500 mark when people start to engage more. With paid group, it’s a lot lower. If you have a paid membership, it’s only about 50 where people start to really engage and they see other people posting and that’s great. So you have people joining the group. You collect their email when they join the group?
Nic Kastner:
Absolutely, yes.
Kate Toon:
It’s very important that use those three questions. We gather their email, then they go into your email funnel. And one of the first things you do is give away freebies. You take the approach that we recommend in the book, which is freebie, freebie, freebie, freebie. And then you go, “Hey, look at this. We’ve got this directory. Hey, look at this, we’ve got this guide.” So it’s leading with the generation techniques that give value back to the customer. So I’ve got your freebies. I’m on your email list. I’m in your community. How do you then make me take action? How do you make me join the directory?
Nic Kastner:
By being true to myself. I don’t push people onto the directory. What I do is I let them know who we are, what we doing, and why we are doing it. And they get led to the directory because of businesses that we are using, that we’re recommending, that we are sharing. It’s those we’re speaking about the different audiences and it’s that middle audience, those mums in business, that can see that happening. So that’s when they take the leap to list their own business in the directory because they want to get involved.
Kate Toon:
So what you actually do is in writing terms, we call it exposition. You don’t tell people that you are awesome. You show people that you are awesome. And I notice this too. I’m actually in your directory, and the generosity around the amount of social shares and shares in the community. Other people are going to see that and go, “Well, how did she get shared? That’s amazing. She’s done a whole social media post for her. Wow, how do I get that?” They’re going to DM you and you’re going to say, “Well actually, she’s a second tier member of our directory.” And then it’s like, “Wow.” So it’s not banging on about, “Join our directory. Join our directory.” It’s like, “Here’s an amazing person who’s in our directory,” and people go, “Ooh.” It’s that desire. It’s totally creating desire. It’s perfect.
Nic Kastner:
And it’s a really tricky balance, isn’t it? Because I don’t want to go into the community and promote, promote, promote, “Join the directory.” So what I do is I announce that business hour is opened and in very small writing, “You can join here.” But apart from that, I might have a promotion going on and it’s probably something I have to get better at actually, promoting that we do have a directory. So that’s-
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I think it’s an 80/20 year rule. That’s a classic marketing. But one or two out of every tempo should be about your sales offering. You shouldn’t make it too difficult. People find it almost impossible to find out about a directory. I think at least you could do once a week or once a fortnight, “Join our directory.” I definitely would do that because people are busy. And often it’s not that they don’t want to join, it’s that they need a prompt or they need to hear about it five or six different ways in different times for different reasons. “Join our directory to get more business. Join our directory for more brand awareness. Join our directory to get a social post.”
One of those things is going to be the trigger that helps them take the next step. And the thing I always think with sales, and I mention this a lot in the book, you are not selling to people who don’t want what you’re selling. You’re selling to people who do want what you’re selling. They just need a bit of affirmation and assurance, and that’s going to come through proof, detail like what do I literally get, explanation of price, explanation of what’s included. Some people want explanations, some people want proof, but they want what you’re selling. They’re just looking for affirmation. The way I like to think of it is have you given that person enough information that they could go to somebody else and justify why they want to join your directory?
Because often in business, we have to talk to our partner. If you’re a man in business, you have to talk to your partner. If you’re a woman in business, luckily I don’t have to talk to anybody, I just do what I want. But imagine someone goes back and says, “Hey, I’d really like to join this directory.” And the partner goes, “Why?” And you go, “Well, they do this, this, and this. And it’s only this much money and I can upgrade and I can…” That’s what you’re trying to do. So yeah, more selling.
Sorry, that was a bit of a preach. Let’s go on to talking about your sales pages. You’ve got sales pages for the directory and you have the different tiers. I’m big into tiers. I’m big into giving people choice, letting them see that there’s a baby bear, a daddy bear, and a mummy bear option. And that’s something that we worked on together. Do you feel like you’ve got that right now for the time? Because it was hard to work out what went in what, wasn’t it?
Nic Kastner:
It was, and I’m so excited to have this finally set up to a way that’s beneficial to the businesses and also sustainable to myself. And it was a revolving door at one point where you get one business in, you get one business out. But I think what we’ve created is something that businesses can hold onto, work with, and also grow together.
Kate Toon:
I love that. And you priced it just right so it’s not going to break the bank. It’s comparable to other things in your business, like a zero subscription. You only need to maybe get one or two sales a month and it’s going to justify that purchase, which I think is really important, that comparison and that value, that return on investment. That’s really important. Let’s talk about retention. If I join your directory, how do you make me stay in it? Other than it just being splendid, are there any incentives you have around renewing each year or anything like that?
Nic Kastner:
I do. So the first thing I do is making sure that I deliver on their promises and the inclusions of the actual packages. I ensure that the social media set up content is scheduled and shared as promised. I make sure that they’re in our EDMs going out to our audience. And I learned from a great person about keeping the existing customers happy. So when they do renew on an angle, they do get a bonus share on socials.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, love that.
Nic Kastner:
I make sure I keep in contact with them once a month. I give them some insights into communities, what I see is working and what’s not working. And I guess I do also keep in touch. It’s not on personal level, but if I see something that they’re posting or sharing, I don’t hesitate to reach out to them and say, “Hey, making sure or can you confirm or why don’t you try this next time?” And I think they really enjoy that.
Kate Toon:
I think that’s great. And I think it’s testament to you and your organisation as well, you being so organised that the socials do come out. Even I’ve been surprised and gone, “Wow, she’s mentioned me again. This is amazing.” Do you know what I mean? And I think often what happens is you make that promise and people don’t follow through on it. And it’s so important to do that and you are actually now pricing it in a way that you can scale. Because again, often people will say, “Oh, I’m going to give you 15 social shares,” and that works great when you’ve got three people in your directory, but it isn’t going to work so great when you’ve got 300. So you have to also set reasonable expectations for people as well so that it works for you.
Now, we were going to talk about advocacy, but we were talking before the chat. Advocacy is a funny one, making people recommend you. What makes someone choose to mention you out of the goodness of your heart? We already talked about the fact that you are an affiliate marketer for people. I have an affiliate program, which I resisted for a long time, and then I changed my mindset on it and it was more that, “People are recommending me anyway. Why don’t I give them a nice thank you because it’s really nice,” rather than, “I’ll give them money and then that might make them recommend me.” So it was actually a reward for the advocacy that was already there. Do you have any kind of advocacy tactics, or again, are you just leading by example?
Nic Kastner:
Look, I do have a small referral program in place. And so if a business recommends another business, they both get an extra month added onto their subscription. I feel like that’s relatively small. But the biggest, I guess, what works for me is being true to myself, keeping myself in check and making sure that I’m delivering on what I’m promising. And a lot of people do come back and say, “So-and-so referred me,” so they don’t necessarily know. And that’s probably a downfall on my side that they don’t know about the referral program, which I do try to advertise. But then I add that on as an extra bonus for them. So I feel that if someone has had a positive experience, which I would like to think they all do or they are all having that experience, they do share that around amongst the small business community.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I think that’s great. And I think again, the other week someone said, “Oh, I didn’t know you had a referral program. I actually recommended this person do your course.” And I was like, “That’s okay, I’ll pay you the referral fee,” because they genuinely had. And it’s not a small amount. It’s 20% of two and a half grand, but it’s sticking with your words. And the thing with ADPIPs is you can make lots of money and then you see other opportunities and other opportunities and it’s really being judicious.
I think you posted in the DMC about a particular brand that were pushing back on the pricing. It would’ve been so easy to let them in because they were a great brand and it would’ve looked great for you to have that relationship, but you stuck to your guns because we talked about it and it was if you do that, that lets down everybody else who’s paying full price. And why should a big sexy brand pay less than a small? So again, you didn’t choose the money. And that sounds very un-entrepreneurial, but it’s the ethics and that’s what makes it last and that’s why people trust you. So I love that.
Let’s talk about money. Are you still working in the business, in the family business, or are you 100% ADPIP? What’s your percentage at the moment?
Nic Kastner:
I’m still working in the family business because it’s a family business. I can’t not work.
Kate Toon:
Can’t get out.
Nic Kastner:
No, I have no choice. But I make sure I have time for ASM because it started off as a passion project and it’s genuinely what I love. I feel like if I was to walk out tomorrow or even try to sell it, I know that it wouldn’t be the same.
Kate Toon:
You’d miss it.
Nic Kastner:
I would. I would because it is my community. It’s our community. And the reason it was created is still the main reason it exists.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, and it’s your baby. You’ve built it from nothing. And so what percentage of your time? 100%, how much percent of your time do you spend on your family business and how much on ASM?
Nic Kastner:
I’d say about 70% on the family business and 30% on ASM.
Kate Toon:
And is that reflected in your income? Does 70% of your income come from your family business and 30 from your…
Nic Kastner:
Yes, I’d say that’s the case. That’s right. I went through a bit of a juggle there as well along with the pricing risk pressure. But I read this amazing book.
Kate Toon:
Oh, who was that by?
Nic Kastner:
Kate Toon. Have you known about her?
Kate Toon:
No, she’s awful. I don’t like her.
Nic Kastner:
No, but it was really, it allowed me to re-juggle and rethink the way I was doing things. It made a huge difference to how I was working, so I’m forever grateful for that.
Kate Toon:
Fantastic. And what does the future look like? We’ve got the 70/30. Would you like to move towards 50/50? Would you like to be 100% ADPIP or do you think you always want to have that job as well?
Nic Kastner:
I think I would like to increase the time I spend on ASM because I know it has so much potential to grow. I guess on the side, I’m also working in the family business where I can replace myself and just be able to take a step back a little bit to be able to spend time on ASM.
Kate Toon:
And I talk about this in the final chapter of the book, the degree to which passive income and ADPIPs are your income. It’s up to you and it doesn’t need to happen overnight. It took me three years to go from a 100% clients to zero clients. And the years that I stepped away from clients was a big, big year for me. Just from a financial point of view, I took a step back. From a mindset point of view I’m like, “Really? Am I not going to be a copywriter anymore?” I’ve got this new identity that felt uncomfortable. But I think there is so much opportunity for you. There’s opportunities for courses. Obviously, a really obvious one would be a paid membership, so a subsection of that community where they get extra stuff, and then maybe a mastermind as well for small business mums taking that middle group and actually saying, “Here’s ways that you can grow and expand your business.”
So there’s lots of opportunity, which is exciting. Does that need to happen right now? No, it can happen over time. But I think I’ve seen a huge change. I think it’s nearly a year since you joined DMC. I’ve seen a huge change in your attitude towards it. And I do think something you struggle with is that idea of this is a community I built out of love and it feels sometimes a bit ick to make money out of it, but the two things are not mutually exclusive. And if you asked your audience and they knew that you were making nothing and you said, ‘I’m running this community. I make no money” all of them would say, “Well, stop that. You should make money. We love it. You are allowed to.” But it’s a funny thing, isn’t it? I think that’s your biggest struggle, really.
Nic Kastner:
It is. And I think by joining DMC, it’s given me a really solid support system of business owners. And we spoke a bit earlier about a business big brand who wanted not to pay very much. And that was a huge learning curve for me because I was actually able to get on board their competitor for more money, and they were able to deliver so much more than what the original would. And if I didn’t have that sounding board, I don’t know what I would’ve done but I don’t think I’d be in the same position as I did. So I’m really grateful to have that.
Kate Toon:
It’s so useful. Obviously I use it. It’s my group but I use it myself sometimes. Also, it’s just the permission to make a decision that you are already going to make because you are already going to make that decision. You just needed someone else to go, “Yeah, we agree.” And the thing that you save there, it’s not just the possible damage it would’ve done to your brands and your budget, but also the waste of time where we go back and forth in our mind about this. And sometimes just ask someone else and they say, “Do this,” and you go, “Right, I’m going to do it.” And you’ve saved weeks of navel-gazing and weighing it up. And I think that’s what holds a lot of businesses back, the inability to make speedy decisions and deal with the consequence. There’s always going to be consequence, whatever you do. I love that.
Now, we’re going to finish up with our tip. If someone’s listening to this and they’re like, “I would love to set up a community. I would love to monetize it, maybe have a directory,” what would be your big tip for them?
Nic Kastner:
Find a niche and create a community first. You need to have like-minded people interested in what you are interested in. And once that’s set up and grows, people will come to you. You won’t have to seek too hard to have those businesses on board, so create that community.
Kate Toon:
I totally agree. That’s my biggest recommendation in the book, that too many people go out build the ADPIP then try and find the audience. And often what they find is the ADPIP they’ve built isn’t quite right for the audience that they want, so build the audience first. If someone is not willing to sign up for your free thing, they will never buy your paid thing. So you have to do that first. At least build them in conjunction. I think if you had your time again, maybe you would’ve started some of these ADPIP ideas a little bit earlier, but everything happens in the order it does for a reason. It’s all been quite organic and therefore I think it’s all worked out really well.
Nicole, you are an inspiration. Thank you so much. If you want to learn more about Nicole’s group, it’s Australian School Mums on Facebook. I will include links to the group and to her website in the show notes for this episode at katetoon.com. Nicole, thank you so much for your time.
Nic Kastner:
Thank you so much for having me, Kate.
Kate Toon:
So there you go. Thank you for listening to the show. And if you enjoyed it, it’s a new show, so please leave us a little rating and review wherever you’ve had it. Also, don’t forget to check out the show notes for this episode at katetoon.com where you can buy a copy of Six Figures While You Sleep. You can also buy it on Amazon, Booktopia, wherever you like. Finally, come and join my free community, the Misfit Entrepreneurs, to meet lots of other successful and unsuccessful business owners and hopeful ADPIP-ers for tips and advice. So until next time, stay sleepy.
