Using Webinars to Grow Your Audience with Emily Hunkler

Intro: Hey everybody. Before we get into this week’s episode, I want to tell you about my newsletter Build Something Weekly. If you want to get insights from this show as well as content I’ve written and news and updates from around the WordPress podcast and general business community, sign up for the Build Something Weekly newsletter over at streamlined.fm/subscribe. It’s something that I love doing that I put a lot of time into and has been very well received. So thank you if you have signed up. Again, if you are interested in that, it’s totally free, it’s totally weekly. It’s over at streamlined.fm/subscribe.

 

Now let’s get into this week’s episode, which is brought to you by Yes Plz Coffee, ExpressVPN, TextExpander, and iThemes. Lots of great support for this episode. And there should be because today I get to talk to Emily Hunkler. Webinars can be a great way to grow your audience but they are a tough business. Today’s guest Emily Hunkler is a pro. She’s able to host consistent webinars and virtual meetups for GoWP at a time where it helps most, but also at a time where people are experiencing virtual event fatigue. She is doing it right. And in today’s episode, Emily lets us in on exactly how she does it.

 

So let’s get into that. But first, a word from our first sponsor Yes Plz Coffee.

 

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And now back to the show.

 

Joe: Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of How I Built It, the podcast that asks, “How did you build that? Today my guest is Emily Hunkler. She is the director of growth at GoWP. Emily, how are you? Thanks for being here. A few weeks ago as we record this, Brad’s episode went live about pivoting during a recession. It was perfectly timed on my part because it came out on the day that the Fed announced we’re officially in a recession, which I didn’t plan at all. But it worked out.

 

Today we are talking about creating consistent content, especially for webinars. I am focusing on content in Season 9 because I think that it’s a great organic way to drive more traffic to your business. It’s something that I’ve been trying to do. And webinars have always been interesting to me. You all over at GoWP seem to be doing a really great job of it. That was a really long intro. But why don’t we start off a little bit with who you are and what you do?

 

Emily: Sure. I am Emily Hunkler like you said, a growth director at GoWP. For people who don’t know GoWP, we are a company that…what we like to say is that we provide exceptional WordPress services to help WordPress agencies grow. So we’ve always been known for maintenance and support, subscription plans, that kind of thing. We’re branching out beyond that now with page builds and that sort of stuff.

 

What I do as growth director is I oversee the marketing, sales, and customer success departments at GoWP. So what that means is most of my time is spent in marketing and growing that and bringing leads in and that kind of stuff. Recently, though, it’s been great. I’ve had time to devote to doing an overhaul of our customer success department, which is…I say department, but we’re a small team. It’s Brad and I, and we’ve got Lucas on maintenance, Daniel on content edits and page builds, we’ve got our happiness engineers and we have Caylin also who is part of the growth department as well. So her and I really work closely together on all of the marketing, sales, and customer success.

 

Let me see if I can get back to what I was saying. Yeah, being able to devote some time to customer success and really figuring out how we can help our current customers succeed and do well, both with our services and what we can use our leverage to bring in other things to help them succeed as well.

 

Joe: Nice, nice. I really like that because I feel like you’re very…you know, I learned a couple of years ago the CARFAX strategy was not to talk to their customers but to talk to their customers’ customers. I get a little bit of that feel from you too because you’re teaching agency owners things like the content I’m most familiar with, because it’s the content I’ve done for you is how to create a podcast. But you’re informing your agency owners, your customers, and your potential customers how they can better serve their own customers as well as themselves. I just said customers like 400 times in that sentence. So I hope you all followed me at home. I hope you just followed what I said there, Emily.

 

Emily: You’re absolutely right. That’s really the essence of what we try to do. Because our services are white-labeled. So our customers use us so that their end client doesn’t know that we’re even involved. So it makes sense that we want to help our customers be able to better serve their clients. And we have a good way of doing this because Brad, who founded go GoWP, he was an agency before. He knows that experience. For my part, the community that we’ve created with GoWP, I’m able to have access to all these awesome agency owners who talk to me and give me insights and let me know what’s needed. And then I can go back to the team and say, “Let’s get these things together. We need to help them out with this and help them out with that.”

 

Joe: That’s fantastic. One of the ways that you’ve been doing that is through your webinar series and your virtual happiness hours. I’m going to lump them together because I think that they’re different, but I feel maybe serve a similar purpose. So I do want to ask, how long have you been doing the webinars?

 

Emily: So I went back and looked that up because I was curious as well because I feel like I’ve been working at GoWP for a lifetime. It’s not even been two years yet. We’re coming up on two years in September, but it feels like so much longer. And I think that speaks to the growth we’ve experienced, the kind of level of maturity we’ve reached in those two years. And it’s great to look back. So thank you for giving me the reason to look back on all this stuff.

 

Joe: Yeah.

 

Emily: The first webinar we did was right when I started. I started right after Labor Day, September 2018. Brad had already organized this awesome webinar with Liquid Web as co-presenters and Clifford Almeida from My Web Audit being the panelist and doing the presentation on My Web Audit. It was a slow start, though. I mean, we did that webinar and then we didn’t do one for a while. A lot of other things needed done. There was a lot on my plate being the first marketing hire at the company. So there’s a lot of low hanging fruit we were getting done before launching a whole webinar series kind of thing. But it was always something that was on the plate and always something that we knew resonated with our community and our audience.

 

So since then, I cannot count how many we’ve had. But let’s see. So we’ve got 15 webinars under our belts now.

 

Joe: Nice.

 

Emily: The last one was just this Tuesday with Troy Dean. And now they’re regular. I had a maternity leave last spring about a year ago now, and since coming back from that we really doubled down on it. Our audience loves this. People are engaging. People are enjoying it. They work. It’s great information. And it helps us out building partnerships and being able to really forge those partnerships as well. So it was just a no brainer that that was really where we needed to kind of focus some efforts.

 

Joe: That’s really fantastic. We’ll talk more about the details of planning and things like that, but before that, I want to talk about the virtual happiness hours, which are a bit newer than that. A bit more recent I guess is the better way to put it.

 

Emily: The virtual happiness hours, we started those basically, when Shelton Place started. We had big plans for 2020. I’m sure everybody did. A huge part of that was going to be WordCamps. And I was so excited about it. I was like, “Okay, I’m in a spot. Last year, I was pregnant for most of time, I wasn’t really into traveling that much. This year the baby’s old enough that I feel okay leaving for a weekend here and there.” It was like, “Everything’s in the right place. Let’s do this.”

 

So we went to WordCamp Phoenix, WordCamp Greenville, Brad went to Miami. That might have been all before they did the lockdown. But part of our goals at the WordCamps were to really connect with our partners and any of our customers over there. You’re able to see the list of attendees and see who’s going and we know who our customers are and who our partners are, and reach out to them and schedule these happiness hours. So we did the first one at WordCamp US in St. Louis last year.

 

We didn’t know if we were going to have five people show up or 20 people show up. I don’t think we got a count, but we filled the space completely. We had no more room. So we’re like, “This is great.” Everybody had a great time. We had the time of our lives just being able to get real face to face time with people. And it was awesome. So we were going to do more of that, but then we hit WordCamp Phoenix, did one there, and then we couldn’t do anymore.

 

So we started thinking, “How can we still engage our community, still try and forge this sense of friendship and camaraderie I guess without being able to see each other?” And that’s something that WordPress is about anyway. Everybody’s missing WordCamps for the happiness hours or for the sessions, or just for seeing people’s faces, the people you see online. So we really wanted to take that and figure out a way to still have that.

 

So we came up with the idea of just having a friendly call on a Friday afternoon. For the first one I reached out to Mike Killen and Christina Romero and I said, “It’s probably best if we have a topic, but let’s keep it loose. That way, if nobody attends or if nobody is comfortable speaking, you know, this is kind of new for a lot of people so at least we have something that we can talk about.” And I had people on the call that I knew were comfortable talking on a Zoom call.

 

That one was absolutely awesome. Clifford Almeida was there too, I think. And they did great. We talked about how agencies are responding to the pandemic, basically, and what kind of struggles they were.  And people showed up, and it was great. I think we have 15 to 20 people. We consistently have 15 to 20, 25 people on all the calls. People are talking. New people are coming each week. Faces that we don’t know that are in the Facebook group. I love seeing that. I love seeing all the old faces as well and getting to know those people better and better each week.

 

The great thing about it, and Brad and I talk every Friday after the call, and we’re kind of amazed by how much value there is on those calls. You know, having people like Mike Killen, Chris Lema, Christina Romero, Clifford Almeid. We had Troy Dean on one a couple of weeks ago. Like they’re there just waiting to fill the question. It’s one on one time with these brilliant coaches that everybody loves and a lot of people have paid good money for in the past as well. And you just get some face time with them and ask your questions and get some great insights. So it’s been really good. It seems like people are enjoying it so we’re doing it every week.

 

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. I have sadly missed more than I wanted to because my wife is a nurse and she was often working on Fridays or on the Fridays that she wasn’t, I got to hunker down. She is officially on maternity leave though as we record this. So I am back to working full time for probably a week and a half before the baby comes. Hopefully, that means I’ll have more time to join. I was able to join one of those. I mean, we talked gear, and that’s like my favorite thing ever.

 

Emily: Yeah, that was great. I’m still thinking of ways to reuse that one because there’s so much good information on that.

 

Joe: Yeah. I went on, I bought the key light right after that because I was…

 

Emily: So did Brad.

 

Joe: Nice. This is a sidebar, everybody. Brad and I had a little bit of a sidebar when we recorded our episode because he was like, “should I get it? What do you think?” And I’m like, “I want one with the key light because it’s mounted so that’s more room on my desk.” It was just super informative and super valuable even for me who’s very into this stuff. I think my next purchase is a shotgun mic because the mic in my face…

 

[crosstalk 00:16:00]

 

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And now back to the show.

 

Joe: Webinars and the virtual happiness hours provide such high value. This is exciting because I actually get to ask the traditional question of how did you build it? I haven’t been able to explicitly ask that in a while. And I want to attack this question from two different angles. How do you come up with content? And what’s your actual webinar stack? So let’s start with the webinar stack because this is a content-focused season and then we can go deep into coming up with content.

 

Emily: Sure. Let me see. So webinar stack. You want to know what do we use to produce it, right?

 

Joe: Yeah, exactly. Cool.

 

Emily: I pulled up my checklist that I have for every time I do a webinar. I have a template card on our board and I have to run through everything. There’s a lot that goes into webinar. Really the easiest part and you probably this, is the recording, right? I mean, that’s the easiest. It’s everything that’s before and then everything that’s after that’s just, “Okay, where’s my list? What do I need to do? Don’t forget anything.”

 

So what we do is we’ll have the initial call, or email, or whatever it is with the who we want on the webinar. That’s where we’ll discuss the topic, we’ll discuss the date, find a date that works for everybody and get it on the books, calendar saver, all that kind of thing. Then from there, I’ll make sure that they can give me a headshot because we need the photo, landing page, copy, bio info, all that kind of stuff, which we build our landing page.

 

We use Zoom. So we do zoom webinars. But we do not use the Zoom registration pages. We build our own landing page and use Zapier to send the registration to Zoom through web book. So it’s setting up the landing page, then we make sure that the form is connected both to Zapier, which sends the registrant through Zoom, and also to MailChimp so that we’re getting people into our subscriber list and tagging them with the webinar so that I can follow back up with those same people after the webinars recorded to send out the recording. So that’s all part of it. See if we use anything else. I think that’s all the kind of software we do.

 

Apart from that, it’s just the other software is just kind of where we announce it. So we use Beamer in our client portal to make the What’s New kind of notifications, social media, of course, Facebook group. I think that’s it.

 

Joe: Nice. I noticed one of the enticing things about the virtual happiness hours especially is if you’re in the group, every Friday at three o’clock, or shortly after, I see the grid of heads and I’m like, “I want to join that right now.” Zoom webinars allows you to automatically stream to Facebook, is that right?

 

Emily: Yes. That was the great thing. When Brad and I were discussing how best to put these weekly calls together, we wanted it to be something that people join in, and can use their video and voice and actually be part of the conversation. Of course, it’s hard to have a conversation with 20 people, and it is what it is, but we it works so well. I think that speaks to just the level of professionalism of everybody. Like this industry is full of people who use Zoom, do video calls all the time. So that’s great. We don’t have the issues that a lot of companies are having these days where it’s like people talking over each other, not realizing their cameras on, that kind of stuff. So we haven’t had any huge full pause on that. So that’s been great.

 

It’s a Zoom webinar for the happiness hours. I just make it an open webinar so you don’t have to register. And then I give the link to the webinar in the Facebook group. People click on that link. They come in initially just as attendees, and then I promote each person to a panelist as they enter. And then they have the option of using their video and voice. Zoom allows you to stream directly to Facebook. As a Webinar. Not as a call, but as a webinar.

 

Joe: Right. Yeah, that’s the important bit here is that Zoom webinars allows you to stream both to Facebook and YouTube, I think.

 

Emily: Yeah, that’s right.

 

Joe: Cool. So I’ve been using Be.Live for Facebook stuff and Crowdcast for the webinar stuff. I mean, I got a lifetime deal on Be.live so I paid for it once. If I am going to continue more on my webinar path, I think I’d like something probably a bit more streamlined like what you all are doing over there.

 

Emily: Yeah, it’s been really great.

 

Joe: Nice. Oh, boy, I lost my train of thought. Oh, and then interacting with the audience in both…Again, in the happiness hour, it’s a little less structured, right? Because everybody comes in and gets promoted as a presenter. And then I’m sure people can also use the chat and Facebook comments if I recall correctly. Is it the same for your…? Again, I’m trying to recall correctly. It’s the same for your more formal webinars, right?

 

Emily: For the webinars, we require registration. So if they want to be on the Zoom Webinar, they do have to register for that. Or the way to go around that is becoming a member of the Facebook group where we live stream it in there as well. So if you’re watching in the Facebook group, you don’t have to register, obviously, because it’s just live stream there. However, for our more formal webinars, we don’t promote people to panelists. It’s just myself and whoever the panelist is for that call. But part of my job is watching the chat. People do use the chat really heavily. We encourage that. That’s great. So watching the chat both in the Zoom Webinar and also over on Facebook as well.

 

Which is interesting, because there’s about a five to 10-second delay between what’s happening in Zoom and what’s happening on Facebook. So whenever we say like, “Okay, does anyone have any questions?” we kind of have to do some filler talk right there just to make sure that people on Facebook are able to get their questions in before we close that window.

 

Joe: Yeah, do a little vamping. I gave a webinar about how to give a good online lecture. And that was one of my tips was like, when you’re getting ready to ask a question, ask it and then have like 30 seconds of content ready to talk about so that those questions can come in.

 

Emily: Yeah. And I’ll always also, as soon as we say like, “Anybody have any questions?” I’ll go over Facebook and say like, “We’re ready to take some questions, get them ready,” so that people are thinking…

 

Joe: Oh, yeah, nice. Nice. Is that hard to manage? Because you’re kind of the emcee of the webinar and you’re also checking the comments. As somebody who’s tried to be the presenter, emcee, and comment checker, that’s a lot of overload for me.

 

Emily: It is a lot. I don’t want to say it’s easy, because the first time you do it it’s not easy, and it’s really stressful. But after the first time, it’s pretty easy. I think once you get used to it, it’s not too bad. For example, for our happiness hour this week, I’m actually not going to be there. So I was showing Caylin kind of everything that I do. It’s when you go through that that you’re like, “Oh, wow, that’s a lot that goes into this.” So that’s where it’s kind of like…yeah, it’s simple. I mean, it’s all kind of just like pushing buttons and pulling strings, you know, but you just have to make sure you don’t drop anything in that process and mess everything up all at the same time.

 

Joe: You mentioned that you have a checklist. I’m sure that’s super helpful. And once you have your process in place, it’s…It’s like right now I’ve got my Zoom call, so I can see you. I’ve got my recording on GarageBand right underneath it so I could see it hasn’t stopped or anything because that would be a tragedy. Like a fake tragedy. And then I’ve got my notes on the other side of the screen. So it looks like a lot going on here, but once you have everything in place, you know where it is, it probably is a bit easier to manage.

 

Emily: Yeah, it is. Exactly. And it’s putting that process down in an easy checklist that somebody can pick up and read and follow and do that makes it scalable and lets me be able to take a Friday off or do something like that. Because if I’m just like, “No, it’s too difficult. I’ll just come in for an hour on Friday,” even though I wanted the day off kind of thing. You shouldn’t have to do that. That’s something that we’re really good about at GoWP I think because we want to respect that people can have a day off. And you should be able to just say, “Here’s the process. You do it” kind of thing and have it be done.

 

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s like just such an important thing for any organization. I remember I wasn’t allowed to take a vacation at the same time as one of my coworkers because they’re like, “What if something goes wrong?” And I’m like, “What if something goes wrong? We have four other programmers here?”

 

Emily: The whole company should not be dependent on one person.

 

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And now, back to the show.

 

Joe: That’s so great. We have your, your webinar stack, and how you manage the questions and everything, which I think is really important. How do you come up with content for your webinars?

 

Emily: I would say the main driver on that, first and foremost is who our audience is. And that’s what our community is, and that’s agency owners. That’s always first and foremost. Then after that, it’s, okay, who are these agency owners listening to? What do they like? What are they looking for? What kind of information? You can find that easily by looking at social media, the groups on Facebook, Twitter, that kind of stuff. Who’s doing what out there.

 

And then also taking into account partnerships. So partnerships for us is huge. Being able to identify those other brands or people that have the same audience as us, like, don’t have a competing product or service with the same audience, and figuring out how we can work together to bring great content to that audience, to that community, and also help each other out by sharing our community with them, and then, in turn, we can partner with them to share helpful information or exclusive deals or whatever, that kind of stuff with their audience then. So that’s a big thing.

 

What I do is I look at who we’re working with, who our partners are, what they’re doing, if they have anything new coming out, if they’re working on a new course, or if they have a new blog post or something that I think is really interesting. And like, “Hey, would you be interested in kind of turning that into a webinar, sharing that in a different format with our audience kind of stuff, and reaching out to them and talking about what they’re interested in doing, what they’re interested in sharing. I always let them know, this is who our audiences that as you know, basically. And it’s not kind of entry-level on most things.

 

Like, occasionally we might have a webinar that is something new, but on most things, it’s not entry-level kind of information. We want a little bit higher, advanced user kind of stuff. And we work together to figure out how to curate that content into something that works for them.

 

Joe: That’s exactly what I figured from the kind of content I see you putting out. That’s fantastic.

 

Emily: And you did a webinar.

 

Joe: I did a webinar with you, yeah. And I didn’t just give my “here’s how to start a podcast.” I kept the base information but I added, like, what does this mean for the agency owner, what this could mean for your clients. I think that’s just super valuable. My call to action for them was a free consulting call, I think. Like a free 15 minute. Lots of people took me up on that, which was great, because I was able to learn from those too about what people are struggling with and how I can better curate my content. So it was definitely a win-win, which is, I think, really important, too.

 

Emily: That’s super important for us. Because like I said, first and foremost, we want it to be quality content for our audience. Because if it’s not, people aren’t going to come back and want to see the next one. We want to have a good webinar with a good reputation. Like they put together good webinars, people who are presenting have good quality information, it’s well-bedded, that kind of stuff. Because if not, we’re just going to lose respectability and all that sort of stuff, reputation. That goes a long way.

 

Then after that, it’s making it a win-win situation for whoever we’re partnering with. So that our community gets something out of it, so that the person presenting also gets something out of it. I really try and check both of those boxes every time.

 

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. What you said is super important, and I want to drive this point home is, the way you come up with your content is by understanding your audience and maybe even directly reaching out to your audience. This was a hard lesson for me to learn somehow. I’ve implemented it in the last couple of years but most of my content was just like, I should write about this because I know about it. And then I started actually including the “Hey, can I ask you one question?” in my sequences. Again, that’s really helped shape my content and make me write better copy, do better episodes, write better sales copy, because I know the objections now. So I just think that’s a very important point to drive home and something that you’re doing very well.

 

Emily:  Thank you. I mean, it’s intentional big time for me, because I don’t have an agency owner background. I have a marketing background; I’ve always worked at pretty big companies really where we don’t have this opportunity to one on one get to know our customers. I sit in a big office space and hit the keyboard kind of stuff. So it’s been a huge learning experience for me. And having the Facebook group has been so valuable because I’m able to…one of the other things we do in there apart from the happiness hours, which that is so helpful, because I’m sitting in there talking to people, hearing agency owners talk about how their weeks are going, what they’re struggling with all that kind of stuff.

 

But another thing I do in the group is we make member profiles. So every now and then I’ll ask people to volunteer, to schedule a time, to jump on a Zoom call with me, we record it. It’s just a quick interview, where I get to know them, we talk about a few things. And by having these one on one calls with people, I’m getting to know who I’m talking to in general. By one on one getting to know people individually, I get a much better general picture of who I’m marketing for I guess in the broader sense of things. It’s so valuable.

 

Joe: Awesome. Awesome. The other thing that you mentioned, and I had written this question down and you started to answer it pretty much was, how long did it take you to build a following? You mentioned that the good content that you put up, getting the presenters, and things like that helps people come back. But getting people to show up to webinars is not necessarily the easiest thing in the world. Getting them to register is one thing, getting them to show up is another thing. So how long did it take you to build that following? Are there any tips and tricks to help listeners and a certain host of this podcast be better at that?

 

Emily: We’ve done quite a few things testing over the past couple of years now, I guess. What doesn’t work, I guess are…at least the way we were running them on Facebook ads, they did not work for us. So every time we would do a webinar, we would tell the person we were partnering with like, “Yeah, we’re going to throw a couple of hundred bucks at Facebook ads on this and really promote this. We want to get a bunch of people going.”

 

That did two things. That showed the person that we’re partnering with we want to really support you here and get you out there. And it also hopefully got us more people got more people into our community. But it didn’t work. It wasn’t hitting the target audience, maybe. I’m not sure exactly what it was. We tried it several times and never figured it out, and just figured we can do better elsewhere.

 

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Now back to the show.

 

Joe: I’m very relieved to hear that because I did like Twitter ads for my last webinar and I got like three signups. I think two were from my mailing list anyway. So I’m relieved to hear that it wasn’t just my complete screw up.

 

Emily: No. Whenever I do webinars too, I generally ask people like, “If you have an audience list or a lookalike audience list or something that’s working, obviously not their targeted subscriber list or anything, but something that’s working for Facebook ads, we’re happy to help out that way.” And they’re like, “No, Facebook ads don’t work for me.” So it’s kind of the story of getting maybe not talking to the right people either. But they weren’t for some people.

 

But apart from that, what has really helped us drive registrants is—attendees is something different that we’ll talk about too—but registrants, is making sure that the person you’re partnering with is also sharing that they’re going to be on this webinar. And making that as easy as possible. And reaching out to past partners who you’ve had on webinars and asking them to also help share. That you’re putting on this new webinar and you’d love for them to share it out to their community.

 

So we try and make it as easy as possible by putting the shareable image together, graphic that we make and sending that, “Okay, registration page is up. We’re going to be sharing this heavily, promoting it heavily, we’d love you to do the same. Here’s some images you can use if you want. Here’s the URL, a landing page, all that kind of stuff.” So make that as easy as possible.

 

Then, apart from that, reaching out to past partners and saying, “Hey, we’re doing this webinar.” I’d love if it fits in with whatever you’re sharing this week, if you could fit that in, that’d be awesome. Really appreciate it.” You know, asking for that and with them fully knowing that whenever they come to us we help as well. So it’s really about that reciprocation that makes me feel comfortable to even ask in the first place, I guess, and not feel like slimy salesy.

 

Joe: Yeah. Like you’re hawking your wares.

 

Emily: Exactly. And that also to making sure it’s good content. So people are more willing to share your stuff if they know like, “Oh, yeah, they put out good stuff. So I’m happy to share that.” That goes into that as well.

 

Now, attendees, we get decent attendees. I think they say you can count on, like, 30% of registrants to show up live. And that’s about where we’re at. So I’m comfortable with it. One thing that our Zoom webinars does is they send a one-hour reminder email. It’s not a 10-minute reminder email. So I feel like that would help. But I’m not able to do that easily at the moment. So I’m not sure

 

Joe: Got you.

 

Emily: I think for me, that 10-minute reminder really helps apart from the hour. But we’re hitting that 30%. And that’s what they say you can expect, so I’m not too concerned. And I always get people emailing me like, “Hey, I missed it. Send the recording.” Always, always, always. So I know people, even if they register, they can’t show up. I get it. But they want to see it.

 

Joe: That’s something I tried to include in all of my copy too. Like the replay will be available. Because that’s always the number one question I get. I think we’re both on the east coast of the US, right?

 

Emily: Hmm.

 

Joe: I try to pick a good time. 2 p.m. seems to be. 2 p.m. Eastern. I don’t add daylight or savings anymore because people are like, “What did you mean?” I’m like, “You know what I mean.”

 

Emily: I know. There’s a lot of really strict, handsome people out there.

 

Joe: Yeah, right. It’s like, “I just mean Eastern Time” That seems like a sweet spot because it’s like not too late in England. I guess it kind of is like. It’s like seven o’clock there. But it’s not like midnight.

 

Emily: There’s no sweet spot for Australia, though. That is the hard one.

 

Joe: Yeah, there really isn’t. I’ve tried to arrange guests from Australia, and I’ve either had to be on like super late or they had to be on super early, or more likely a combination of the two. So that’s tough. Having the replay available probably helps drive registrants because then they know that they can consume the content later. Awesome.

 

Well, we are coming up on time here and I do need to ask you my favorite question, which is, do you have any trade secrets for us?

 

Emily: Let’s see. I feel like maybe you could guess what it is. Maybe it’s not much of a secret. But it’s partnerships. I mean, for me, that’s really been the key to everything that we’ve had success with at GoWP. It’s having those people that have your back, that want to see you do well, that they feel like it’s reciprocated, that you want them to do well also, and you know, that you can just count on them to be your cheerleader, and then you feel good doing the same for them. And it’s making sure that those are good partnerships. That the person that the people you’re partnering with are just as high quality, high value, want to help the community as you are. If that’s not the case, then don’t waste your time with it.

 

And going out of your way to help them also. With some of the people that we partner with, whenever they email, it’s always a quick response and you say back, like, “What can we promote for you? What are you doing right now? What can we promote? Anything we can put in newsletter this week? What’s going on?” And just being there and helping out. That’s the key for us. It really is. That’s our secret. It’s not much of a secret, but it’s what works and it’s what helps us grow really.

 

Joe: You say it’s not a secret, but I think it is something that really a lot of people should hear. It’s, again, something that I like to think I practice, but I don’t know that I always do. Especially when you mentioned reaching out to your partners to share but putting together all the images, and things like that, I just started doing that. I did that for my affiliate. I created a whole folder for them, for my new course. You want to make it as easy as possible for them. You want to, as you said, make sure that they know that they can count on you too.

 

Again, I think you’re just killing it at that because I had no hesitation reaching out to you and Brad for whatever. Even there are some people that I really know, personally and I’m like, “Do I want to…” Well, I feel like I’m bothering them.

 

Emily: Yeah, you don’t want that hesitation. Yeah, you don’t. And the way to not have that is to reciprocate and to let them know. And you do, Joe. You do a great job at it as well. We’re happy to have you as a GoWP cheerleader and for us to cheerlead all of your efforts and your projects as well. And it’s because we love what you’re doing, and we’re not afraid to say that. That’s all part of it.

 

If we’re worried to ask somebody for something because the only reason will be is that I would be hesitant that they come back and ask me for something, “Oh, I don’t know if I’d want to share that,” then maybe that’s not an ideal partnership. Maybe that’s not the way you should be focusing.

 

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. That makes perfect sense. This has been great, Emily. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people find you?

 

Emily: Right now I’m spending almost all my time in the GoWP Niche Agency Owners Facebook group. I’m there a lot. On Twitter I am—I rarely say it out loud I guess—@emalihu. I always just write it. It’s E-M-A-L-I-H-U. So Emily Alicia Hunkler. It’s three names shortened. Created long ago. This is the best place to find me I’d say.

 

Joe: Awesome. I will link to those and everything we talked about in the show notes over at streamlined.fm. Emily, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

 

Emily: Thank you, Joe. This is so much fun.

 

Outro: Thanks so much to Emily for joining me today. I absolutely love whenever I get to talk to her. She’s a lot of fun. She’s a pro. She’s great. Her trade secrets are just fantastic. I mean, partnerships have been the key to everything. I think that’s great. Having those people who have your back, also super important. It’s the importance of networking and doing right by the people who you align yourself with. So I love this episode. It’s really helped me shape my perspective on how I want to do live streams and webinars moving forward. And her advice is just super helpful. So definitely check her out. You can find all of the links that we talked about today over at the show notes on streamlined.fm/187.

 

Thanks so much to this week’s sponsors. Yes Plz Coffee, ExpressVPN, iThemes, and TextExpander. They help me all day every day. I love that I have their support on this show because it means a lot to me, and I really love their products.

 

Now, if you want to learn more about tools I love as well as insights that we get here on this show and news from around the internet, you can head over to streamlined.fm/subscribe to sign up for Build Something Weekly. As a matter of fact, if you do, you’ll get a nice summary of everything that we’ve talked about here in written format. So again, that’s streamlined.fm/subscribe to sign up for Build Something Weekly. Thanks so much for listening. And until next time, get out there and build something.