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

Summary

Creator Science Podcast Episode #221: Ryan Hawk – Anatomy of a $12,500 Membership Earning $400,000+ per Year

Release Date: February 25, 2025
Host: Jay Clouse
Guest: Ryan Hawk, Keynote Speaker and Host of The Learning Leader Show

---

Introduction

In Episode #221 of Creator Science, host Jay Clouse welcomes back Ryan Hawk, a seasoned keynote speaker and the host of the acclaimed Learning Leader Show. Ryan shares his journey from corporate America to building a lucrative business centered around leadership circles, offering listeners invaluable insights into creating and scaling high-ticket membership programs.

---

About Ryan Hawk

Ryan Hawk is renowned for his Learning Leader Show, an Apple Podcast chart-topping series praised by Forbes as "the most dynamic leadership podcast around." With millions of listeners across 150 countries, Ryan has transformed his passion for leadership into a thriving business without relying on traditional advertising. Instead, he focuses on building meaningful, high-touch community experiences through his leadership circles.

---

The Business of Leadership Circles

Ryan's primary revenue stream stems from his leadership circles—exclusive mastermind groups composed of 10 to 15 hand-selected individuals. These circles facilitate group learning experiences through monthly Zoom meetings and annual in-person summits.

Ryan Hawk [05:35]: "The bulk of my revenue comes from services—keynote speaking, leadership circles, and leadership development work with companies."

This model emphasizes quality over quantity, ensuring each member receives personalized attention and immense value, fostering both business growth and personal development.

---

Pricing and Application Process

Each leadership circle costs $12,500 per year, attracting committed professionals who seek significant growth and networking opportunities. The application-based system ensures a curated group of high-caliber individuals, maintaining the group's integrity and effectiveness.

Ryan Hawk [20:41]: "We made it application-based from the beginning. I personally choose who I'm going to interview to say yes or no, ensuring high curation."

Despite an extensive application process, Ryan believes the benefits far outweigh the initial friction, leading to long-term commitment and satisfaction among members.

---

Community Building and Member Engagement

Maintaining an engaging and cohesive community is central to Ryan's strategy. Leadership circles utilize platforms like Slack for ongoing communication, facilitating connections and collaborations outside of formal meetings. Members are encouraged to engage in side calls and support each other's growth journeys.

Ryan Hawk [43:50]: "If you treat people right, with respect, and you honor their time and try to add value to their life, they're the best salespeople for whatever it is you're doing."

This focus on trust and loyalty not only enhances member satisfaction but also turns members into brand evangelists, driving organic growth through word-of-mouth referrals.

---

In-Person Summits and Events

Annual in-person summits play a crucial role in strengthening community bonds. These events are meticulously planned to ensure every detail—from lighting to seating arrangements—enhances the overall experience. By investing in high-quality events, Ryan ensures that members walk away inspired and connected.

Ryan Hawk [40:38]: "If you're going to do it, spend the money, do what you got to do to make it amazingly awesome. They all walk away thinking like, 'Oh my God, I've never been to anything like that.'"

These summits not only provide tangible value but also reinforce the exclusivity and prestige of the leadership circles.

---

Trust and Loyalty in Membership Models

Ryan emphasizes the importance of building trust and fostering loyalty within his membership model. By delivering remarkable experiences and maintaining open lines of communication, he ensures high retention rates and sustained member engagement.

Ryan Hawk [42:12]: "When you make it remarkable, the people who purchase it are going to be more likely to purchase something again in the future."

This approach contrasts sharply with models that focus solely on acquiring new customers, highlighting the long-term benefits of nurturing existing relationships.

---

Scaling and Future Plans

To accommodate growing demand, Ryan is in the process of hiring coaches to manage additional leadership circles. This expansion aims to maintain the high-touch nature of his offerings while increasing capacity.

Ryan Hawk [50:06]: "Having my other coaches run them is the future. I'm working on that right now."

By delegating responsibilities to trusted team members, Ryan ensures that each new group receives the same level of attention and quality, paving the way for sustainable growth.

---

Conclusion

Episode #221 of Creator Science offers a deep dive into Ryan Hawk's successful approach to building a high-ticket membership program. Through meticulous curation, exceptional member engagement, and unwavering commitment to quality, Ryan has crafted a model that not only drives substantial revenue but also creates lasting value for its members. Aspiring creators and entrepreneurs can draw valuable lessons from Ryan's journey, particularly the importance of trust, loyalty, and relentless pursuit of excellence in community building.

---

Notable Quotes

• Ryan Hawk [05:35]: "The bulk of my revenue comes from services—keynote speaking, leadership circles, and leadership development work with companies."
• Ryan Hawk [20:41]: "We made it application-based from the beginning. I personally choose who I'm going to interview to say yes or no, ensuring high curation."
• Ryan Hawk [43:50]: "If you treat people right, with respect, and you honor their time and try to add value to their life, they're the best salespeople for whatever it is you're doing."
• Ryan Hawk [42:12]: "When you make it remarkable, the people who purchase it are going to be more likely to purchase something again in the future."
• Ryan Hawk [50:06]: "Having my other coaches run them is the future. I'm working on that right now."

---

Subscribe to Creator Science on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to stay updated with weekly insights and strategies for creators.

Transcript

[Jay Clouse]

As you start to reach more people, things start to feel more complex, there's more to do and more to keep track of, and it starts to actually take time away from creating content.

[Ryan Hawk]

I felt this struggle personally.

[Jay Clouse]

The more Creator Science grew, the more it felt like I was dropping the ball. So I did something about it. I built a set of rock solid systems all in notion to support the business as we grew and it worked like a charm. I built Creator HQ to be an all in one workspace designed to save you more time, create more content and drive more revenue. By leveraging Creator hq, we are publishing.

[Ryan Hawk]

More than we ever have and we're.

[Jay Clouse]

Nearing $1 million in annual revenue because of it. It brings all of your data and processes into one place with custom built dashboards to reduce friction in managing tasks, creating content and collaborating with your team. I've spent more than three years building this and now you can have the same systems that I use right out of the box. If you're new to Notion, don't worry. I've included a ton of specific tutorials to help you learn how to use Notion generally and Creator HQ specifically. I've never seen another Notion product integrate.

[Ryan Hawk]

Tutorials like we have here.

[Jay Clouse]

More than 300 other creators are already using Creator HQ and I am not exaggerating when I say I would be lost without this system. As a podcast listener, I'm giving you my best price. You can get 10% off using the Promo Code podcast at checkout. Just head to creatorhq.co to watch the video and learn more. That's creatorhq.co and use promo code podcast to save 10%.

[Guest Speaker]

If you're gonna do it, spend the money, do what you got to 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]

Hello my friend and welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. Today we're talking about creating excellent community experiences and I'm joined by Ryan Hawk. Ryan Hawk is a keynote speaker and.

[Ryan Hawk]

The host of the Learning Leader Show.

[Jay Clouse]

This is an Apple Podcast chart topping show. It's been listened to by millions of people in more than 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. 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, but I promise you, they were unprompted. If you want to join us in the Lab, go to creatorscience.com lab or.

[Ryan Hawk]

Visit the link in the show notes.

[Jay Clouse]

We have some space now and we.

[Ryan Hawk]

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. It's been a while. I looked back.

[Jay Clouse]

We last spoke on episode number 61, which was aired in June of 2021. So it's been a minute since you've.

[Ryan Hawk]

Been on the podcast.

[Guest Speaker]

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 with you, man.

[Ryan Hawk]

Yeah. Grateful to have you. You just celebrated a milestone on the podcast.

[Jay Clouse]

600 episodes, six since 2015. Did you imagine doing 600 episodes of this podcast?

[Guest Speaker]

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 kind of 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 want to learn along with me. 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

Talk to me about how you see the role of the podcast in your business as a whole. Where does it fit?

[Guest Speaker]

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, first 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 going for. And I think that's part of what attracts people to it. I didn't intend to create a business, kind of stumbled into it, listened to what the market was saying, hey, can you come speak here? Can you work with my leadership team 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. And fortunately, that's led to the place where we are now, where 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 want to do the majority of the time. And I. I do realize that's kind of rare.

[Jay Clouse]

Okay.

[Ryan Hawk]

I'm going to follow up on this.

[Jay Clouse]

Hiring thing you just mentioned here in.

[Ryan Hawk]

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.

[Jay Clouse]

Funding the business, driving revenue in the.

[Ryan Hawk]

Business, and that hasn't really been your strategy, at least from where I'm sitting. So talk to me about that choice.

[Guest Speaker]

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 menswear 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. 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 kind of 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

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. And I think that's actually the bigger opportunity for most podcasters. Scott Galloway was on, I think it was Colin and Samir's podcast recently, and he called podcasting income inequality gone berserk that most of the revenue in podcasting is the top 0.1%, 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.

[Jay Clouse]

Can you expand on that?

[Ryan Hawk]

So for people listening, they can kind of get a sense for how can I receive and listen for these opportunities that I'm getting from my audience.

[Guest Speaker]

Regardless of size, first is important to be very responsive. So when people do contact you, make sure that it's easy to get ahold 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 bucks. 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. 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. To thousands of people. And. And I just blown away by how he can inspire and move and, and motivate people through his words and through his actions. And I kind of 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 got to 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. 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 masterminding groups. 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 now it's got kind of that Nathan Barry flywheel effect, I would say, with how the work comes and then stays with us as opposed to just being kind of one off things, man.

[Ryan Hawk]

I want to highlight what you just said about you immediately hired a speaking coach and then somebody to video it.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah.

[Jay Clouse]

Willing to lose money on this first gig.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, I lost thousands, thousands on the fir. I mean, I viewed it as an investment as, you know, like invest in yourself and your business.

[Ryan Hawk]

I just love that you were willing to do that.

[Guest Speaker]

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. You know, Scott Galloway, speaking of, I've had him on a number of times and he always is like, 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 first 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, I still love it. 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 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 that's turned out to be true.

[Ryan Hawk]

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, there's not going to be any transaction, there's not going to be any revenue on the other side of that without some trust built.

[Guest Speaker]

I got a question for you about this, Jay, because we probably get a little bit different requests, but maybe along the same line. So I just want to 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 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 want to get speaking gigs, I want to get a book deal, I want to get consulting clients, like all this stuff. That's why. And so this is going to be my marketing for that. And I get that, I get that response. But when that is the first answer, almost 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 going to do an interview type show, I'm super curious to learn about them or this, and I want to explore that. I want to ask questions, I want to learn from these people. I want. I want to 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 want to get more speaking gigs or I want to get a book deal. I'm curious, like, what you think about the why behind people doing whatever their creative work is.

[Jay Clouse]

Oh, yeah.

[Ryan Hawk]

I mean, you have to. You really want to set yourself up to be successful regardless of the outcome of the thing. This is a Tim Ferriss idea. How can I be sure that doing this is going to be a success for me, even if it's not a quote unquote, 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 two years a decline in the 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.

[Jay Clouse]

The only way you're going to weather.

[Ryan Hawk]

That storm is if you are intrinsically motivated to do it for some purpose.

[Jay Clouse]

So if you have high conviction that.

[Ryan Hawk]

You want to be a podcaster, you.

[Jay Clouse]

Want to do the activity of podcasting.

[Ryan Hawk]

Then the earlier you start the clock, the better, because it's going to 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.

[Guest Speaker]

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 want to speak for you, I feel like that's you. Like, I get a sense that you genuinely love the thing. 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

When I'm at my best, yes.

[Guest Speaker]

Yep.

[Ryan Hawk]

I think a lot, especially lately now that we have a baby, I think about this idea that the person who.

[Jay Clouse]

Loves to run will go further than.

[Ryan Hawk]

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 what the reward of getting to 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.

[Jay Clouse]

And if you only wanted the destination.

[Ryan Hawk]

That'S going to be kind of a big letdown when you get there. So for me, I like puzzles. A lot of what I do feels like a puzzle. 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? I think in experiments, that's kind of.

[Jay Clouse]

The impetus of the brand itself.

[Ryan Hawk]

But I have been in seasons where it feels like I've lost my way a little bit and 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. You've got to refine that.

[Guest Speaker]

One of my favorite things 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. But I really enjoy and give you huge props for being willing to kind of open up your business. I think it helps more people than you probably realize. I find it really enjoyable and helpful to see you kind of open up the books every month.

[Ryan Hawk]

Yeah, well, thank you. It's a useful exercise, but I think it's probably needlessly complex in some areas.

[Jay Clouse]

I look at guys like you and.

[Ryan Hawk]

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 listening 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. 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?

[Guest Speaker]

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's his name, and I just had lunch with him two days ago. I love Greg. He's like, hey, you need to make it application based. Because I was just like, oh, who at first come, first serve, whatever, 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 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 going to interview to then say yes or no. So I am curating the group. I've gotten a lot of feedback now doing this for seven years, that people appreciate the high level of curation because then once they get in a group, if they make it in one of the groups, they know that pretty much every person in the group I want it to be 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. 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 time, but 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. 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 in 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 got to be fully in and fully ready to go. And then I make the decisions if someone's going to 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. 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 three days where we try to laugh together. There's 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 going to eat? Like everything.

[Jay Clouse]

After a quick break, Ryan lays out how his learning leaders circles work, the.

[Ryan Hawk]

Pricing, how he communicates and what keeps members coming back again and again. So stick around, we'll be right back.

[Jay Clouse]

If you know me, you know I'm obsessed with branding. A clear, unique brand is such a differentiator in an attention economy that's getting more competitive all the time. Your brand is in everything you do, including your domain name. But when creators start selling products, they often get stuck behind some long awkward URL like courses.creatorscience.com or it's hard to say, hard to remember. And ultimately it weakens your brand. And that's where store domains come into play. A dot com domain can be anything but when you hear DudePerfect store, you.

[Ryan Hawk]

Know it's a store.

[Jay Clouse]

I picked up my own store domain creatorscience Store so I can quickly tell people where they can buy some of my most popular products. It's my name, my brand store and I'm not alone. Store domains are used by more than 1.5 million sellers, including top creators like Mr. Beast, Colin and Samir and Zach King. It does not get more direct than your brand store. And it doesn't just sound cool, it.

[Ryan Hawk]

Actually helps you sell more.

[Jay Clouse]

Here's the best part. Store Domains has a special offer for Creator Science listeners. To secure your branded store domain for just 99 cents for the first year, just visit Creators Store J and use coupon code J at checkout. That's Creators Store J a Y and use coupon code jay Again J a.

[Ryan Hawk]

Y to to secure your very own store branded URL.

[Jay Clouse]

I am once again inviting you to join our membership for professional creators the Lab. Of course I am biased, but Andrew is not. Andrew has been a member for about two years now and this was a testimonial he sent me unprompted.

[Ryan Hawk]

Joining the Lab has been the single best investment I have made in my business and in myself since I started doing this going solo 17 years ago.

[Jay Clouse]

If you benefit from the conversations here on the podcast, you'd love the things.

[Ryan Hawk]

We talk about in the Lab.

[Jay Clouse]

In fact, some of the past guests of this show are members themselves. The Lab helps you keep a finger on the pulse of what's working and what's changing for creators right now.

[Ryan Hawk]

I could tell you about all the.

[Jay Clouse]

Things that are included like all of my courses including Build a Beloved membership, podcasts like a YouTuber, the newsletter masterclass. You get a complimentary copy of Creator hq, our operating system built in notion. But the best thing is the people. Incredibly generous, incredibly kind, incredibly smart and accomplished people are in the Lab. I could go on and on about this, but just know there is nothing more important to me than continuing to make the Lab the absolute best community for professionals creators. You can join the basic tier now, which is an absolute bargain, or you can apply to join our standard or VIP tiers. Just visit creatorscience.comlab to learn more and get started. That's creatorscience.comlab. it's in the show Notes. I hope to see you there. And now back to my conversation with Ryan Hawk.

[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. How many groups do you have in flight any given time?

[Guest Speaker]

Three usually.

[Ryan Hawk]

And you guys do an in person summit every year? And is that all active groups in one location at one time?

[Guest Speaker]

Yep.

[Ryan Hawk]

Okay.

[Jay Clouse]

And do you think that these groups.

[Ryan Hawk]

Themselves, if none of them had started together and you had three 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.

[Guest Speaker]

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 two usually are people who have been in for years. So what happened, Jay, actually at the end of the first year is built to be a one year program. It was like October, November, and they heard ads running the members first original group. There's only one group they heard ads running for the next year's group. 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 want to 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 second year. So I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do. So anyway, I kept them together, built the content and curriculum on the fly and then started a new group. And so every year I start a new group and then keep old groups of people who want to 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 foe life members who I don't even have to ask them. They get insulted if I ask them, do you want to 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. 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

And you mentioned that you can meet.

[Jay Clouse]

Every month on Zoom. So for renewing groups, do you still.

[Ryan Hawk]

Facilitate those calls every month?

[Guest Speaker]

Yep.

[Jay Clouse]

Okay.

[Ryan Hawk]

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 this space anymore? They found each other, they've got their own group, they can kind of split off. What I've 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 and you have these annual events. So on top of the relationships that you've already helped them form, you are continuing to deliver experiences personally to these groups.

[Guest Speaker]

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 going to 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 two 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. There are side calls I think they appreciate, like I don't have to really think, I know that the curriculum is going to be helpful. I want to meet with this group of people. I don't want to have to organize it, I don't want to have to keep it together. I just want to show up. And so I try to make it very easy for them to only have to worry about doing a little bit of pre work and then showing up. 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 yeah, I feel just like you with your lab members, people are going to 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

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 used 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 the experience of everybody else. So even though the application creates some friction, I am finding that it's worthwhile. We moved in the lab. I haven't socialized this 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.

[Jay Clouse]

But the reason that we moved beyond.

[Ryan Hawk]

The cap was creating more density of geography so that 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 out of cap, I can't bring in more people, you know, so application. I've changed my tune on that.

[Guest Speaker]

So there's an application process now. Like is it?

[Ryan Hawk]

There is.

[Guest Speaker]

What's it like?

[Ryan Hawk]

So it's pretty in depth. What I'm looking for at a high level is somebody that's 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, 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.

[Guest Speaker]

So your group, the labs, more for kind of experienced. You're already kind of.

[Jay Clouse]

Yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

Providing for your family based on your creative work. You're being a creator business. But have you figured out how to help? Because I've, I've struggled with this too. Like the lower dollar offering. Where are you with that? I know you've talked about it before.

[Ryan Hawk]

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%. And I want to 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.

[Jay Clouse]

You, I have people who apply who.

[Ryan Hawk]

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 it's more merit based, the 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 going to go to a place that's just for them.

[Guest Speaker]

They want to talk to the others who are like, oh, you want to feel like there are lots of people ahead of me, like not a 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 going to 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. It's pretty niche, right? But it's useful for probably 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

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.

[Jay Clouse]

Are intimidated by the quality of people.

[Ryan Hawk]

In 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 where self aware, even self deprecating at times where 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.

[Guest Speaker]

I was just going to say, man, like this dude that I just interviewed was a fighter pilot, you know, special forces guy, for like 20 plus years. 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 happens so much with people who are so accomplished and that 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 can't believe you're crazy. What are you talking about? But then the other side, I'm like, wow, this is really cool. 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, 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

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?

[Guest Speaker]

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.

[Ryan Hawk]

I'm thinking about this a lot for the community as well because I think.

[Jay Clouse]

The bar is actually very low for.

[Ryan Hawk]

Doing remarkable in person experiences.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, I mean this helped me. I started going to Jason Gaignard'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 two 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's Christy Burch. 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 got to 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. We spent 10 hours meeting about the lighting in the room because I hate hotel like meeting room lighting. So we brought, we brought our own up lighting. 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. 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, this 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 going to do it, then do it or don't, right? So, like, if you're going to, and I know you, that's the type of guy you are. Like, if you're going to do it, spend the money, do what you got to 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. I don't always get it all right, you know, we've messed some things up, but 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]

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.

[Ryan Hawk]

So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

[Jay Clouse]

And now please enjoy the rest of.

[Ryan Hawk]

My conversation with Ryan Hawk. These little touches are really crucial for customer loyalty. I talk about trust a lot. Some people are starting to talk about trust more. Almost nobody talks about loyalty, which is like obvious in a membership based thing, 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.

[Guest Speaker]

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 want to talk to a current member, I say, you can talk to anybody. You could literally, I'll introduce you to 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, 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's.

[Ryan Hawk]

You mentioned that for your circle folks, your leadership circle folks, you use Slack as a communication tool in between meetings. How important is that?

[Jay Clouse]

If you got rid of that, do.

[Ryan Hawk]

You think you would still get renewals?

[Guest Speaker]

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 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. 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 pre work, I send out pre work 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, 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. 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 got to fire somebody. And this is brutal. I don't know what to do. And they're like, hey, you want to 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

And is that all that communication from.

[Jay Clouse]

You happening in Slack or do you.

[Ryan Hawk]

Send emails to these groups?

[Guest Speaker]

Honestly, depends on the group. Like if I could tell people have it up and regularly communicate, I may use that more, but then there may be other groups who are less into that. And so then I'll just email or text them.

[Ryan Hawk]

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 community, but I don't want to sign up to always be on call through some digital community platform. I think this is a viable alternative.

[Guest Speaker]

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 this is something maybe I learned early in my career from just working in sales at LexisNexis is like I got to be responsive. And so yeah, I think that's a skill I've developed is to try to be a quick responder. 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

I see that as well. It seems like really high performers are really good at triaging opportunities they want to act on and acting on them quickly. It's kind of this like speed of immediate or never.

[Guest Speaker]

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 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 this Stuff like that helps a lot. And a lot of the agencies say, God, this is just so nice. This is nice just to kind of 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. 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

Found it to be true 100% agree. You mentioned that for this upcoming group that you put together, you had 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 two groups? Talk to me about how you think about capacity and why. Why one group and not two groups? Like, why aren't you trying to do as many of these leadership circles as possible?

[Guest Speaker]

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 Cups, Garen Stokes, Sherry Cole, Eli Likers, our guy doing it behind the scenes stuff. But I think all three of them, Brooke, Aaron 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. 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 kind of 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 want to do it, but they just can't financially their company won't cover it and that's too big of a cost for them. So maybe that's. That's something I consider moving forward, but I haven't fully done that yet.

[Ryan Hawk]

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?

[Guest Speaker]

No, it's both. It's both. Three 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. You know, if somebody wants to talk one on one, it's 100%. Yes. And usually it's that day if they want to 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

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?

[Guest Speaker]

Having my other coaches run them is the future. Have to figure out the price point because I don't think it would be able to stay the same. I could, but I don't know. But I'm curious to add in more revenue that is not like this is still service. 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. And I think I would like to do that too. And I haven't kind of figured that out. And I gotta believe that some of that could come from this population of people who want this for sure.

[Ryan Hawk]

Well, you said you already have like a learning curriculum that's a part of this circle experience and you go in and company. So you have a lot of this.

[Jay Clouse]

Material already created, right?

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ryan Hawk]

And you don't sell it as its own artifact.

[Guest Speaker]

No.

[Jay Clouse]

Yeah.

[Ryan Hawk]

That seems like an easy opportunity to implement if there's a clear outcome on the other side of that curriculum as a standalone. That sounds like a fantastic opportunity.

[Guest Speaker]

You think just build like a. You just take the time to do A high quality online course.

[Ryan Hawk]

I think that's one opportunity. It kind of depends on where you want this to sit.

[Jay Clouse]

So I would probably think about this.

[Ryan Hawk]

First and foremost of, okay, the people that are unable to afford this current offering, but I want to 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 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. And you can set boundaries on how you show up in that space or your team shows up in that space and what those expectations are. That would probably be at a higher price point just because you have higher operational overhead.

[Guest Speaker]

Would you use something like circle for that?

[Jay Clouse]

Potentially, yeah.

[Ryan Hawk]

I mean, it has an LMS built into it. So you can put the curriculum 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. 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.

[Jay Clouse]

Their own small groups.

[Ryan Hawk]

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 want to 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. Because it just is really difficult to get people to self organize and stick with it.

[Guest Speaker]

It's probably big to get someone, be the leader, take ownership over it and you actually like it's a clearly defined role.

[Ryan Hawk]

And in your world there are different ways to incentivize this.

[Jay Clouse]

There's like the pure cash way of doing it.

[Ryan Hawk]

But if you had like this group where you wanted somebody to step forward 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.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah.

[Ryan Hawk]

And it's a different form of payment, you know, that some people probably be really excited about.

[Guest Speaker]

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'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, how to do more work that maybe isn't all service based.

[Ryan Hawk]

Yeah. And we can talk about this more offline, but for anyone listening to this who's kind of 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 going to create a lower price product experience. It's going to be a self paced course or it's going to be this hybrid thing with community. It'd be tempting to create a new.

[Jay Clouse]

Product with a new brand and name and everything.

[Ryan Hawk]

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. 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 two or three different product names. You're marketing leadership circles. And once they say I'm interested in leveling up my leadership and I keep hearing about this, then they go to the webpage, 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 going to try that first. Something to consider.

[Guest Speaker]

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 in that case, sometimes we make assumptions that of course somebody would know or whatever. And no, they're living their lives 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.

[Ryan Hawk]

Yeah, repetition is your friend. So the fewer named things you have, the more you're going to talk about.

[Jay Clouse]

Each one of those named things and.

[Ryan Hawk]

The more likely someone's actually going to grasp that this thing exists and it's interesting to them.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, it's a great point. It's a great point.

[Jay Clouse]

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.

[Ryan Hawk]

They truly do help us grow the show.

[Jay Clouse]

If you want to learn more about Ryan, you can subscribe to his podcast, the Learning Leader show in your podcast player or visit his [e-mail] There are.

[Ryan Hawk]

Links to both of those things in the show notes. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you next week.