You Can Build Authority & Visibility Without Shaking It on Social Media with Kylie Kelly

Colie: Hey y’all. Welcome back. Okay. I’m excited about today’s conversation, but not for the reason that you may think you guys know. I hire a lot of coaches. I join a lot of programs, and I think you guys also know that I have a severe hate for everything, social media. Today’s guest is one of the few people out there that is literally giving you permission to grow your business without having to shake your ass on social media.

Kylie, welcome to the podcast.

Kylie: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Colie: I was literally listening to a podcast last week from someone that I love and I admire, but the idea was. Your business is not growing because you’re not bringing enough leads and you should be getting your new leads from Instagram.

And it was kind of like, you know, this one way thought of, this is what everybody says that you should do and so this is how you should do it. And I love that you perspective does none of that.

Kylie: Mm. Oh my goodness. Yes. And I mean, look, if you love social, if you love Instagram, like you said in the intro, if you love shaking your ass on, on Instagram, if you love it, do it. Absolutely. I’m, I’m here for it. But I think it’s just really important to know that there are other options. Like if you don’t wanna be on social, like there are so many other options.

So yeah, I’m excited for this conversation.

Colie: And you are probably new to my audience, and I wanna say I recently just discovered that Kylie started her business as a photographer. So first, Kylie, tell me when you were doing weddings, how were you marketing your business?

Kylie: Yeah. So, oh gosh, that feels like another lifetime ago. That was like pre pandemic. A totally different version of Kylie. But back then it was all word of mouth. It was all referrals. It was all feast and famine. You know, I’d, I’d be introduced to a friend group. They were all getting married at the same time.

I would be like as rich as anything eating out. And then the friend group dried up and I’d be like, holy shit, where am I going to get my next job from? So it was very much visa amendment. I will say like I had a social presence then like I was on Instagram then. ’cause it was very visual, right? Like I had a beautiful curated feed, but looking back I didn’t actually get work from it.

So,

Colie: Yeah. Now that is, that is something that we will definitely dive in today is the fact that yes, you can be on Instagram and you can be doing all the things, and if you love Instagram. And it’s actually bringing you leads, then maybe that is where you should be spending, you know, some of your marketing energy.

But there are way too many people out there that I know that are spending a lot of their marketing energy on Instagram and they can’t actually attribute paying clients to that energy. So, I mean, you and I are in the same boat. I personally don’t care where you choose to market your business as long as it’s where actually.

As long as it’s the marketing channel that’s actually bringing you the lead. So you and I agree on that a hundred percent. Uh, did you have an email list back then? I’m just curious.

Kylie: No, I, I tried to start one towards the end of the journey, so I think I would’ve had a couple hundred people out of an old flow desks account back then. We’ve talked about email service runs a little bit in the past, but, yeah, so I tried to start one towards the end, but then. Again, the pandemic happened and shit went sideways and I pivoted and changed everything.

So, so yeah. No, it was mainly, it was mainly word of mouth referrals. For the longest time.

Colie: And it is interesting that my pivot to systems started in 2020, but it was not actually pandemic related. Like I went on a podcast. My business bestie has a very big podcast for photographers, and I went on there as a CRM expert. Then I decided to create my course, and then I decided to do VIP days because people were like, Hey, Colie, like, that course sounds great, but yeah, can you just do it for me?

To which I was like, of course. So I started my systems business in 2020, but it wasn’t like I was actively pivoting because my photography business had dried up, of sorts, which is what we hear from a lot of people. Like they pivoted because whatever they were doing. At the beginning of the pandemic just wasn’t working anymore.

But like, I think it’s funny that you and I both kind of pivoted at the same time, but not for the same reasons.

Kylie: Yeah, I love that. It’s so interesting because I think for me, like I’d been a photographer for, uh, 10 plus years and so I loved it at the start. I loved it, obviously, very creative, like it filled a lot of, a lot of my cup, but. Then I had kids and then my life changed. And like a lot of our listeners can probably relate to when people are booking weddings, they’re doing it like two years in advance.

So I was booked out two years in advance all the time. So how do you then, when you don’t wanna do it anymore, like how do you say no to the money that’s coming in in advance? So I think if. If it wasn’t for the pandemic, as hard as that was, ’cause I had two years worth of deposits I had to refund when their weddings were canceled.

So like that almost sent us bankrupt. That was horrible. But if it wasn’t for the pandemic, I don’t think I would’ve had the courage, to be honest, to actually start to say no to that money coming in and do something else. That served me. So it’s, yeah, it was an interesting time and I know we all have our own stories, but it was like a really interesting time to be like, huh, okay, this is actually.

At the time I get to pause, I’ve given back all the money. What do I actually wanna do with my life now? And I didn’t wanna try, like, you know, I was traveling internationally for weddings, two little kids, like that’s not fun. So, so yeah, it all worked out in the end, but yeah. Yeah, it

Colie: especially not when you’re coming from Australia. I mean, I really want to come to Australia and Kylie, if I ever make it there. You are one of the first people I’m gonna come see, but also 18 hours on a

Kylie: it’s a long way. Yeah. We are not close to anywhere, so Yeah, it’s a lot.

Colie: No. Okay. So now let’s talk about what did you do? Like you, you just said you had a moment where you were like, holy shit, what do I wanna do with the rest of my life? So what did you originally start to do, um, during the pandemic? Like how did you make that shift?

Kylie: Yeah, so I didn’t know. I didn’t know to start with. I was like, you know, I had no idea, but I did know who I wanted to work with, so I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to work with women that were balancing motherhood like I was building their business. Like I knew that I had a passion for that.

So I actually hosted my first virtual event, which is so random because I would never have foreseen that in my future. But I hosted my first virtual event in May. Of 2022. So if you think about that, that took me like 18 months to kind of figure out like, oh my gosh, what’s going on with my life? We moved interstate, moved in with my husband’s parents, we had our second child, like a lot of life was happening.

But in May of 2022, I hosted my first virtual event. And I bought speakers to a platform that I created. They, they all advertised it to their list. My email list grew from like zero to 600 overnight with that event. So suddenly I had all my perfect people there. I just didn’t know how I wanted to serve them.

So then I just figured that out. And since then I’ve been rinsing and repeating that kind of event strategy, whether it’s a summit, a bundle, a freebie swap, like whatever it is, relationship based marketing, off social, to group my email list and, and to build my client base.

Colie: What would you actually give yourself as a title right now? I think I know what I’d call you, but it’s probably not what you would call yourself. So what’s your current title, Kylie? I.

Kylie: yeah. So visibility as strategist is normally what I say. Yeah. What were you gonna what? What were you gonna call

Colie: what I was gonna say.

Kylie: Oh, good.

Colie: Email and visibility strategist. Yes. I guess I’m still leaving the email in there because literally that’s how I got into your world.

I mean, I was on your email list. I looked it up before we hit record. I was on your email list a full year. Before I joined the email growth club, but like that is how you and I know each other for the listening audience. I am part of her email marketing club that she has every month. We have a Slack community.

We’re gonna get into a little bit more of it later, but that is how I am currently in Kylie’s world, as well as some other events that she’s hosted that we’re also gonna talk about. But for a while you were really in on email marketing, like as your lane. So how did you progress from that to kind of talking about all relationship-based marketing and more specifically how women entrepreneurs can grow their visibility and authority in their spaces?

Kylie: Oh, I love this question. I think, you know, email is always gonna stay dear to my heart because that’s where. I love to hang out. That’s where I make sales. That’s how I make money, is through my email list. Like I’m very passionate about email marketing and doing it in a way that feels good for us. But what became really clear as I started to grow my membership and, and bring more clients on to help them with, with their business growth was that.

It’s not enough, right? It’s not enough just to say, Hey, create a lead magnet and then grow your email. Like it, it’s not that simple. Um, so I really love being like, okay, what feels good for you? Like I have this framework, this scaling without social framework. What feels good for you in the, in here with all of these options, with all of the relationship based strategies we have to play with and choose from what feels good for you.

Pick one. Okay, so how can we make that yours? How can we make we make that your lane? How can we use that to grow your email list? And then once we had their email list growing in a way that feels good for them. All right, so now what emails are we sending? Then we can get into the email marketing stuff, but it’s just such a bigger picture than just thinking about, oh, growing the email list.

You know, like it’s just such a bigger conversation.

Colie: And I love that about you because you just mentioned your framework. But what I love about it is that social media is on there for those people who have the energy to do social media as like their big platform, or if you just want it to be a small portion of your platform. I love the variety that you teach in your framework.

And I was recently at your empire expansion event. Which is something that Kylie uses to reach her ideal audience, which is something that a lot of people are not currently doing. So we’re gonna talk about that. But the one thing that I loved when you presented it was I was like, oh. This feels so validating to me that all of the things that I enjoy doing that I can actually show you have brought me paid clients over the years that I’ve done them.

Were all on your framework. So for me, I get a lot of inquiries and actually paid clients from, guest teaching. From guest podcasting on other people’s podcasts, I get a lot of people who come to my podcast and start paying me money. And so the fact that I’m out there trying to say over and over again like This is what I can prove to you brings me money.

I don’t get money from spending hours each week on Instagram. I don’t feel like that is a good way for me to spend my marketing time. If I’m gonna say I’m gonna spend, I don’t know, three to four hours a week on marketing, which for a lot of people is a lot. I mean, I don’t mind the marketing, but I do mind it if I’m out there and I’m doing all of these things and I don’t have the data to show that it’s the most productive way to spend my time.

Because if I’m marketing. And it’s not bringing me clients. I should just spend that time with the clients that I currently have because I can always get them to pay me more money. I mean, that’s my philosophy.

Kylie: Oh my God. Absolutely. And I love that about you. And we are very similar in that way, that we are very data driven. Right. And I think for anyone listening, like ask yourself that question like. Is what I’m currently doing. Is there an ROI? Like, is it paying me money? Is it actually paying off? And yes, not all things are.

You’re gonna see that straight away. Sure. Like if you start a strategy, let’s say you start Pinterest randomly, but that might be six months until you start to see results. So make sure you take that into consideration. But absolutely, if you are putting all your eggs into one lane, to one bucket, to one basket, is it actually worth it?

And I will say about Instagram. If you are spending a lot of time on there, you’re going to see people telling you that Instagram is the only choice, and we know it’s not the only choice. So look at the data, look at the analytics, don’t buy the Instagram course. Actually look at the data first, and then make a decision about whether it’s the best place to spend your time.

Because like you said, Colie, like there’s so many options. Like if we think about, let me run you through the framework really quickly, but if we think about it. The way that I present it, it’s like a, a capital V Imagine a capital V on one side is the relationship based strategies. On one side is the search and SEO strategy, so like they both are included here.

Relationships. Yeah. Summits, bundles, freebie swaps, guest teaching, podcast, guessing anything where you are building relationships. The other side, it’s still the search and SEO, it’s still the long form content. Your podcast, your blog posts. Social media is still there. YouTube, Pinterest, pr, like, there’s so much there.

The best part is we don’t have to do it all. We get to pick what feels good for us, where our ideal clients are actually listening to us or hanging out, and we have to go all in on that and we can just like put our blinkers on and not go anywhere else, right? Like, oh, it’s just freeing.

Colie: And I think a big part of it is experimentation. I mean, don’t find someone who tells you this is the only way to do it. And you go all in and you just stick with it because you don’t wanna change, or you know, they’ve told you if you just try a little harder, that that avenue is gonna work for you. I mean, I think that’s my favorite part of being a business owner is that I get to make the decisions.

And if I wanna try something for a month or two or three, I really go all in. I think everybody knows that about me, but if I don’t see the results, and I’m not even someone that’s like, oh, let me give it three weeks. I mean, I give it a good amount of time. I think Pinterest is an excellent example of this.

I was doing my own Pinterest for months, if not a year. I mean, it was a really long time. And finally, I asked my blog writer, who also offers Pinterest marketing, Hey Kara, like, I need you to take this over for three months because I need to see if it’s Pinterest or if it’s me. Like you’re the expert. Do whatever it is that you would do, but I need you for three months to do whatever it is that you would do, and I wanna see if Pinterest is actually like a platform that I can gain some traction on.

And spoiler alert, I’m currently not posting on Pinterest anymore because I realized it was not me. The search volume for what I do is just not there. No matter how many pins we did a day, no matter you know how much content and resources I have to put on there. It was not gaining any traction. I was still going viral every week for the photography pins that I have from 10 years ago, from eight years ago.

Like I just, I can’t get away with those. If I ever decide to try Pinterest again, I’m probably gonna start a brand new account to see if maybe it’s that Pinterest is making the decision for me that, Hey, everybody really likes your photography pins, so I’m just gonna keep showing those to people instead of what you’re doing now.

That is a possibility, but I mean, I went all in. It didn’t work for me, and so I’ve kind of closed that book and doubled down on the things that do work for me.

Kylie: Oh, I love that. And isn’t that just a prime example of what we need to do in business? Like that’s just like the perfect example Collie of like give it a crack, go all in, give it time, look at the results, make a decision, try something else, or continue like. And stop trying to like, I think it’s a real, um, and I mean I’ve done this as well when I was starting out my business, I have an education folder, part of my emails full of shit that like, I really need to probably go back and, you know, like I never even looked at.

So we all sign up for things, but I think at the moment, like everyone needs to realize there’s no secret, there’s no quick fix, there’s no overnight success. Like, let’s just go inward. We’ve got the answers, we know what feels good for us, we know what we wanna try. Just go and try it. Stop buying the $47 courses and just give it a go and look at the data and then make a decision like that is, that is like the process.

That’s it.

Colie: I feel like I need to pitch your podcast now, guys, listening to Kylie is like very motivational. Sometimes when I’m in the car, I will put on one of her podcast episodes that I’ve already heard, just because I feel like I need a little Kylie in my life for that day, and I really do feel like in 2026 that is what I am going in on.

I. I’m going to make the decisions based on what I know has worked for me, and I want to kind of block out all of that advice, all of that telling me that I just didn’t do this long enough, that I just didn’t warm up my audience enough. All of that, because I know. Where I get clients, and I know that once a client comes into my, you know, circle, I mean, you know, people never leave.

Like they find new ways or new reasons to work with me. And so one of the other things that I’m really focused on for 2026 is the people that are already like on the client list. Not just on the leads list, but on the client list. How can I serve them better? Is there anything that I am able to offer them that either I haven’t in the past or it’s an offer that I haven’t really advertised?

Because I mean, I feel like I have lots of those. I feel like I serve particular clients, you know, on my roster in a way that I’ve never actually announced to the rest of my roster. And hey, if I just put it in an email and said, would you be interested in working with me in this way? I bet you I could get existing clients to say, uh, yes, Colie, and why are you just now telling me about this?

So that’s my 2026 plan.

Kylie: I love that and I think it’s so smart colleague. ’cause that’s the thing. Often we don’t think about that, right? We don’t think about how can we actually get like a higher customer lifetime value? How can we actually get more money from the clients that already love and trust us, that have already seen wins, that have already experienced what it is we do?

Like how can we just serve them better and get more money from them instead of looking for the new leads, the new clients all the time? And I think that’s a. I don’t know. That’s something that we all fall into. We think it always needs to be the new or the better or I, I, I think it’s funny. I used to always, so I’m, for anyone listening, it’s into human design.

I’m a manifesting generator. I love creating new offers. Like, I get so excited. I was a bit crazy, like when I first started, um, when I first pivoted, I would just create a new offer like. All the time. I’d be so excited. I’d be like throwing it out there like, oh my God. Like look at this, look at this. And then it, like nothing would happen because I was like throwing new offers all the time in people’s faces.

Don’t do that. But, but I do think it’s really, it’s really important to know that there’s a part like once you have your signature offer, the thing that you’re known for, then let’s look at like, how can we actually then serve those clients that are already experiencing wins, that are doing things in a different way that they might not even know about yet, and expand that.

It doesn’t always have to be like the new, the new, the new all the time. So I love that you’re focusing on that.

Colie: I am laughing because I actually didn’t know that about you. I’m a manifester and I will throw together. Not only do I throw together the offer, I will have a full legitimate sales page. Like this summer, um, on a whim, I decided to make something called Workflow FastPass. It was a way to get people custom workflow like.

Blueprints, if you will, from them just filling out an intake form and I was using one of my AI bots. You and I both have a love of ai. Uh, they would fill out the form, I would feed it into my workflow assistant specialist, whichever one it was that I was using, and out would come a blueprint. I would kind of give it like the human watch.

I would, I would review it with my human eyes to make sure that there wasn’t anything that I would change and then I would deliver it. I was so convinced that this was going to be the new offer for myself. 24 hours, I had probably the best sales page I’ve ever written and ever designed. I sold it for three days.

I sold three of them initially. All three people who bought it was HoneyBook, and then I was like, oh, this was a mistake. hadn’t sold anybody a a Dubsado version yet. Now, eventually I took this offer and it is the first thing that we do inside of systems in session. So I mean, it wasn’t a total waste, but I thought it was gonna be this new like.

First offer for people coming into my world, and I realized very quickly, no, they think they’re ready for workflows, but there’s all this other work that we have to do and ethically, I don’t feel good selling them this workflow offer before they’ve done the client experience work before they’ve done the client communication work.

But I mean, yes, girl. Like 24 hours. I had the whole, I mean, funnel emails, checkout page, sales page, the whole thing, and I put it on sale on a Monday and Wednesday afternoon. I was like, oh, this was a mistake, and immediately put it back on a wait list. I mean, you know,

Kylie: I love it. I love, we are so similar, so, and I know we’ve talked about this before, but Black Friday last year, I did the, I was like, oh, I’m gonna do an offer, a date, the same kind of

Colie: did it.

Kylie: Like, oh my God, how fun. I pulled it, it was, I got to like the third day and I was like, this is hell. Like, I’m not enjoying this at all.

I sent an email out to my list going like, you know what? I made a mistake. Here’s all the offers. Just go and have a look. If you want something, grab it. Like. I’m out. I’m not doing this anymore. And I got so many replies back. People just appreciating that honesty because like I think sometimes we think that we have to be committed, right?

We have to see things through, we have to dah. You don’t, you’re the business owner. You actually get to make the choice and, but yeah, it was the same kind of energy. I was like, oh, this is gonna be so great, and I hated it. So I

Colie: I mean, but I think that’s what that, that’s what separates some really good business owners from those, those that are not, I truly believe that being able to look at your business and look at the data that you’re getting and make a decision without sitting and like. Waffling back and forth and doing all these, I really do think that’s what’s made me successful as a business owner, is that I don’t sit, like if I decide I wanna do something, I go all in.

And if it doesn’t work, I don’t make it go longer than it was intended. Like in September, you know, I was launching my client communication course, I sold two seats and everybody was asking about systems in session, and so I was like. You know what, I’m, I’m not gonna finish this launch. Why would I, I pivoted to start selling systems and sessions.

Sold out the rest of the year and pre-sold Q1 in 2026, like that was a good decision, but part of me did feel like just a tiny bit. It wasn’t enough to dissuade me though, but just a tiny bit. I was like. Maybe I should finish the launch because maybe finishing the launch is when I’ll actually like sell more seats in this course and do those kinds of things.

But I was like, you know what? I just don’t have the energy for it. And if everybody’s asking me for this other thing and it’s what I legitimately want to sell and want to, you know, it’s the how I want serve people, I should just go for it and see what happens, which I did.

Kylie: Absolutely. And I do think Colie, I do think a lot of that, like, any of those doubtful thoughts about like, oh, maybe I should just finish it. I just, I feel like that’s like old. Programming, right? Like, I’m the same, like I try, this is hilarious, but I tried to go to university four times to be a teacher.

Four. I stopped and started four times after I finished high school, over here because I wanted to finish something. I, I kind of always grown up with this like, oh. You don’t finish anything. I changed jobs. Like I changed my underwear ’cause I got bored. Like I was like not a finisher. And like my parents had always said that.

And I think that that kind of ingrained in me that, oh, you have to finish it. You have to finish it. And what I’ve discovered as I’ve gotten older is like, actually no. Your intuition is way more powerful. Like you, like you followed. It is way more powerful than this old programming of like, you have to do this because that’s what we’ve said.

Like, no, no, no, no. You actually need to just listen to yourself. So I love that you did that. And I think that. Again, anything like that, whenever we take action, it builds more confidence. I think people think that, oh, if I just wait, if I make something perfect, I’ll get confident about it. I’ll go and sell it.

Well, no, no, no. Actually it’s taking the action that that gives you data, that builds the confidence to then go and, and follow and listen to yourself and to build that self trust. And that’s the journey. Like that’s the important part. And I agree, like I’m the same, like the reason I’ve been successful is because I move fast, because I take action.

Fuck around and see what happens. Like that’s kind of like the way that I’ve grown my business. Sorry, I’m swearing along this podcast. I’ve just realized, but you know,

Colie: swear all the time.

Kylie: I knew that about you. But you know, like that’s what actually has, has led to success for me as well. So it’s like this is your permission slip, but anyone listening, this is your permission slip to just go and take action, look at the data, and then make a decision.

And you are gonna see so much more success than sitting back and trying to perfect something.

Colie: I don’t think you know this about me, but I’m a PhD dropout. I spent 13 years in college. I have, I have an undergrad and a couple, couple different graduate degrees, but I dropped out as a PhD student. My husband got his, we moved here and I never finished. And after I had Chloe for the longest, my mother-in-law would ask me every time she got on the phone, are you gonna go finish your degree now?

And I’m like, no, I never wanted that degree. I’m not, I’m not putting myself through that again. Like, I’m good. I quit. I’m good with it. I mean, your son got a PhD we can share. That was what I said, but I mean, and you know, I, I did the business, I opened, I did photography for a while, and when I felt like it was no longer serving me and it wasn’t where I wanted to go, I dropped that too, but.

Let’s flip over to you because I feel like we’re talking a lot about me. Goodness. Okay. So I wanna talk to you right now about the path that you are using with your incoming leads to kind of move them through your offers. Because one of the reasons that I went to go look at how I actually came into your world was.

I don’t know if, I mean, you probably know this if you look at your data, but how I originally joined the email growth club was I got strategic Sally, and why didn’t I realize that until today? Like today, I went and looked at my receipt, so I signed up for Strategic Sally. Your AI bought through a bundle and I’m sorry, I couldn’t figure out which one it was based on my emails, but it was March of 2025.

I signed up for Strategic Sally and I took your offer Bump to join the email growth club for $27. And so I’ve been in that ever since. And you know, you and I have had conversations about me joining your original mastermind and now your second mastermind. And now I know that you do one-to-one work, which I am planning to do in 2026, but like I feel like, first of all, let’s talk about your AI bots.

So. Is that your favorite lead magnet right now, or do you have one that is bringing you either more joy or more success in converting clients?

Kylie: I love this. So strategic planner, Sally is definitely my favorite. Lead magnet. So it goes into all my collaborations. It’s something that I used to have just in the membership, but as I’ve sort of built out more AI bots in the membership, I pulled Sally out to use as a lead magnet. So I can say she’s valued at $77 ’cause that’s how much the membership is every month.

AI is so sexy, it prints out like a 90 day visibility plan. So it helps business owners again, go through my framework and pick out how they’re gonna grow in the next 90 days. Great. She works really well. The bump offer does work a little bit. I am fighting full transparency that like there’s a resistance to memberships now, which I think everybody was so done with memberships 12 months ago.

The reoccurring money doesn’t feel like great for people anymore, so I do think there’s a little bit more, of an objection to that bump off because it’s, it’s a membership. However, I will say people grab Sally, they join my list. I then do, occasionally I do a business breakthrough. P So what this is, and I know you just grabbed one, it’s.

Colie: I did.

Kylie: Yeah, I love it. Um, but a business breakthrough is, is a asynchronous audit where I, they, I get anyone that purchases it to fill out a form. I then record a Loom audit back that has converted so beautifully into either one-on-one clients. Or into my mastermind. Now the crazy thing is it’s $44, so it is so cheap.

Like even my, my old business coach was like, no, no, you need to increase the price. Like, no, I, I kind of like it, it’s working and I, it feels really good. It feels really generous to charge us 44 bucks. So from there it’s converted into one-on-one clients, and into mastermind clients. So. I think people that grabbed the bot love it, but they need a little step right before they, they trust me fully.

They need a little bit of me. They need to hear my voice, even if it’s a pre a video. They just need to hear my expertise, my voice before they’re willing to invest more. So that has worked absolutely beautifully.

Colie: Yeah. So how long have you been doing the breakthrough audits?

Kylie: Or it maybe six months, I think it was about, yeah,

Colie: don’t have any long-term data on it? I would be interested ’cause you say that it’s converting well right now. Right, and I, I think that it’s funny, I was on a different call this week and someone was saying that they wanted to do kind of like an audit like this. And I was like, yeah, I mean, just for an example, like I was planning on paying somebody for an audit.

I said I was inside their email funnel. I got an email that said, Hey. Thank you for staying on my list for 30 days. If you would like to send me something, I will send you back an asynchronous audit. And I was like, okay, I was gonna go pay for one of your sales page audits, but okay, here’s my sales page.

Three days later, she got it back to me. I reviewed it. I was like, okay. ’cause I’d also had my eye on one of her, like larger kind of offers. Not quite a mastermind, but like a one-on-one offer. Um, I got my video back. I went back and forth with her, uh, voice noting for a couple hours. And then I bought the, you know, I bought the offer.

It’s 9, 9 7 offer. So it’s not cheap. I mean, it’s not super, super expensive, but. That just goes to show you the value of these smaller audits offers that you give people so that they do get like a deeper understanding of what it’s like to work with you in a really like smaller capacity. ’cause I haven’t gotten my breakthrough audit from you.

I intended to send in my form and then shit happens, but ’cause I really wanted it so we could talk about it on this po That’s okay. I know, I know enough about you. I’ve been in your world enough, but so. I’m gonna be really interested to learn and I’m gonna ask ’cause I’m in the club, like six more months down the line.

I’m wondering if that plus one of your empire expansion events pushes more people to convert maybe in another six months. Maybe That initial, that initial interaction with a breakthrough audit gave them enough to give them a little momentum. And then we’ll see what happens when they come across you in another capacity, perhaps in one of your two-day events.

I’m gonna be curious to look at your data and see if whatever your conversion rate is now for the first six months, what it happens long-term for the people who didn’t convert. Now, what it looks like in 12 months, like how many more of those initial people will convert into a higher offer.

Kylie: Oh my goodness. Absolutely. And I think this is the thing. It’s like people are craving the connection and the depth, and even just that little glimpse. Is, is enough. Right. And I love that. I, I will be very interested as well. ’cause at the moment it’s converting at about 20, 25%.

Colie: I mean, that’s great.

Kylie: amazing. Right. And that. And all of the ladies that haven’t and and ’cause it’s not a sell, right?

Like I go through, you’ll see when you get your audit, like I go through the audit as much as I can. I could give as much as I can in regards to the information that they put in the form, and then at the end it’s just the ones that I think that would be a good fit for one-on-one or the Mastermind. I’ll say like, Hey, if you want help doing this, like I’ve got these options, just let me know.

Hit reply and we can talk about what that that looks like. So it’s not like I’m doing a big sell.

Colie: Yes. It’s what I love

Kylie: all. Yeah. And like that, that will be really interesting ’cause some of those women have definitely gone away and done some work.

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Kylie: It’d be interesting to see if they circle back.

Absolutely.

Colie: Yeah. And I mean, I just now thought about it. I, I joined another $3,000 program in the same path, before like I paid for this $50 audit. And when I got back the advice, I was like, no, I’ve spent too much time on the path that I’m on. But I will tell you, it took 90 days, 90 days later, I paid her for her program because I came back and I said, everything that you said was right.

I was like, I didn’t wanna admit it 90 days ago. But I have thought about it. I have done the mindset work, and guess what? Out of the three things that you told me, two of them, I’m a hundred percent on your page. And while I’m not ready to commit to the third. I probably will be by the end of the year, and so let’s do this.

So I mean, yeah. I will say I feel like these smaller kind of human connection offers are really needed right now because of the rise of ai. I feel like the things that we have been depending on getting from humans. Like a lot of it, I don’t wanna say it’s getting replaced, but we’re using AI to do it in a different way.

But like we still need a human layer over it. ’cause you know, the AI isn’t, the AI is really good at like analyzing. Maybe even to a certain degree synthesizing for you. But you still need to talk it out with someone who isn’t just giving you what it is that it thinks that you want. ’cause that is the problem with, you know, we hear a lot about, oh, I’m gonna make myself an AI coach bot to help my students.

And yes, I mean, I love that for you. I love that for, you know, some of the. Most basic questions, but when you get to the higher level thinking, I feel like the AI bots are always trying to please you. It’s like their goal, like they wanna make sure that you’re happy, and so they might not be necessarily giving you the advice that you really need to hear because they’re trying to make you happy in their responses.

I mean, I, at least that’s how I always feel about chat, GPT.

Kylie: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I will say my chat GBT gets pretty spicy to me because I, but no, I do agree. And especially you’re, you’re a hundred percent right. I think it’s, it’s with this change that we’ve seen that people just want connection. Like I think honestly any prediction like 2026 is gonna be all about connection.

I actually started a couple months ago, started hosting just free networking events for my email list, and that has been so good because people get to jump on a call, connect with each other. Then I’m still highlighted as their like expert, their leader, like the person that they’re on their list for, right?

So like that’s done really great things as well, just bringing more connection in. So yeah, if anyone listening, I’d be this asking yourself, like, how can I add more humanity, more of a human touch, more connection, more depth into my business with my audience, regardless of where your audience is. And that’s only gonna benefit you, especially next year.

Colie: And Kylie didn’t know that I needed her to tee this up, but if you are in my listening audience, starting this month, I am starting my own networking event, which I told Kylie, but now that I’ve thought about it, when this episode airs on January 1st. Happy New Year everyone. This is the perfect time to announce it.

So if you go to Colie james.com/connection, that is where you are going to be able to see the information for the networking events that I’m gonna start hosting this month. And it’s funny, I got the idea from Kylie, back in November, or was it December? I was on three networking calls in a single day.

Two of them were legitimately networking calls, and the third one was me on a call with some of my clients. But we didn’t really talk about systems like they amongst themselves were getting to know each other and asking each other questions. And it was, it was just amazing. And I was like, okay. And I even woke up at 2:00 AM and sent Kylie a Slack message.

I was like, um, this is my thing for 2026. So yes, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be hosting them on my own. We’re gonna see how it, how it goes. ’cause I want to be the expert that brings you guys together. So come join me, Kylie. I wanna pivot kind of to your two day events. Now

Kylie: Mm-hmm.

Colie: tell me how you got the idea to host your first one.

Kylie: Yeah, so I love this. So my empire expansion events. A kind of special I, so I, as you know from this conversation, I’ve done, I’ve done virtual events now for the longer, well it feels like the longest time since 2022. And they’ve always been about numbers, right? Like, I’ve always been like, how can I reach the most people?

Of course, that’s what we want ’cause it grows our list and all the things, but. When I decided to do the Empire expansion event, I kind of wanted depth. I didn’t want a big room. I was like, what would it, what would it look like? How would it feel if I really curated the women that were there so that everybody was at the same kind of level looking to do the same thing?

I, I like curated this like safe space for us to have real conversations. I’d. A little bit of a side note, but I’d been at some conferences where it was really surface level BS that just really made me angry and I was like, I wanna have real conversations with people, like how can I make a space for other women to do that, that are on this journey whilst teaching them how to grow and scale their business without social next year.

So yeah, I created the Empire expansion event, so I broke it up into two days. So it’s two and a half hours each day. Day one, we do some work. It’s implementation, so it’s not a webinar that you can’t buy anything, nothing like that. We literally do the work together. You go and sleep on it. Come back. Day two, we do some more work.

We wrap it up and I’ve done two of them now and I’m planning to do them every six to eight weeks next year. And they’re my favorite thing. They’re my favorite thing. And I think what I’ve loved most is. Because it’s implementation on the call, we are getting so much done. So the women get to leave without a big to-do list.

Like you’ve experienced it, you get to leave having done the work to then see the wins pretty quickly, which has been really exciting.

Colie: And I love how she, she, she said it several times, but I wanna really highlight that she said that she’s curating who’s in the room, y’all. This is what she makes you do. So I, I can’t remember, did I fill out a form? Was it a form and then the call, or did I sign up for the call first?

Kylie: It was a, it was a call. Yeah. So pre, pre-event.

Colie: Yeah, she makes you get on a pre-event call.

And I know that some of you guys are probably scared about this. Like, oh, she’s gonna sell me. That’s not what it is at all. She’s legitimately trying to figure out who you are, what your business is now, where you want your business to go, so that if it is something that the event would actually help you do, that you have that conversation.

If you’re a right fit, she invites you in. I mean, I don’t even know why I scheduled a call. I knew I was a right fit, but anyways,

Kylie: You had to, I made you.

Colie: mean, you know. Then I joined the two day event, which I was really impressed with what she did. It was legitimately like, come in and if you are interested in growing your business without socials, I’m basically gonna tell you what my framework is and how you can take these things, make your own plan, and go do it.

And she takes the opportunity to like teach us a little bit. Then you actually sit down and do the work. Like for me, when you talk about her visibility framework, one of the things that she shared with us, I don’t know if she’s gonna share it with you guys in every single event, but you know, hopefully you get to experience this too, if you decide to take her up on it.

But she shares some of these amazing bots, and one of them is, you know, you tell it all about you and it gives you your visibility. Plan. And when it told me what I should do, I was like, this is awesome. These are things that I have done in the past that worked really well for me, or these are things that I’ve been planning to do.

And this was kind of like the, you know, the. The confirmation that I was on the right path. And then as a group, you guys all share what it is that you came up with in the chat. And it was so amazing to kind of see what everybody else in the room got from the bots and what they were planning and how they felt about it and whether or not it was something that they had tried before.

And then like she said, you sleep on it. And then you come back for day two, and again, she’s teaching you her framework. She’s teaching you the different parts you’re implementing and making a plan as you go, and then you do a follow-up call. And one of the reasons that I want everybody to hear me when I say this.

She did not try to sell me anything on the 30 minute follow up call, which I came to the call like, yeah, I’m gonna need you to tell me about the Mastermind. ’cause um, I’m, I’m, I’m almost there, Kylie. I’m, and for reasons that we can talk about on a different podcast. I don’t think masterminds are for me, and I’ve told Kylie this and you know, everybody has their own opinions.

I just, I am really craving one-to-one work at this point. Like I feel like, sometimes being in the room is helpful and sometimes it’s not helpful for me. I just want somebody to tell me what to do. I wanna go do it. I wanna bring it back. I want you to tell me if I did a good job, give me my gold star and then we work on whatever we’re gonna work on next.

But that’s just me. That’s not everybody, but. I just, I love the idea of the whole event. I love the fact that you are giving with like your whole heart. Because I know that there were several people in the room that all of the different visibility activities were brand new to them. They were not brand new to me, but there were a lot of people in the room that I could see had been told over and over again.

No, if you wanna grow your list, if you wanna grow your audience, if you wanna, you know, raise your authority. You need to be on social media, and it was just so lovely to see that when you gave the people in the room permission to look at all of the different visibility, activities, you know, SEO search, also the collaborations that, you know, there’s gotta be something on here that feels good for you and that is where you should go next.

Kylie: Oh, I love that you just shared all of that and I think that’s the beauty collie of, of having a such a small room. ’cause you can go deep, right? Like I could workshop with everyone that was on the call and make sure that everybody left with a plan. That was clear, that was actually achievable. Um, that felt good for them.

And if we are being really transparent, yes, my heart is to serve. Yes, I’m creating depth and trust and I love these events. For that alone, I didn’t sell. They were really profitable for me. Like the first event, I still converted over $30,000 in enrollments for the Mastermind because women would come to the call, the feedback, call the celebration, call at the end, the 30 minute call, and they were asking the questions if they were ready, right?

So I was going to get feedback and to hear their wins. They were asking the questions for support. So it gets to be both, right? Like we don’t have to do

Colie: Both can be true.

Kylie: Yeah, right.

Colie: like the new favorite thing to say.

Kylie: oh, I love it. I love it. But it, it can be, you can actually show up, serve. You don’t have to sell. And yet, if you serve people well, if you treat them well, in fact they actually need what you are offering, then they will ask to work with you.

Like it, it doesn’t have to be hard. Which I think a lot of. The programming around, like, and I’m not d you know, I don’t wanna say bad things about the funnels and the old ways of doing things, but there’s a reason why they don’t work as well now. And people want

Colie: people are burned out on them. Yes.

Kylie: And, and we’re smart. We know when we’re in a funnel and we’re being sold to, and we know if it’s bullshit, if it’s true. Like we have like a bit of a, a meter for that these days. So if you can show up and you can actually help and serve people and make them feel seen, make them feel valued, actually help them.

It’s only gonna do good things for your business as well.

Colie: Yeah, I mean, and I was recently, I have a case study, interview that I did, which I’m gonna have to share that with you because it’s all about email, like you mean it, and we’ve been talking a lot about that. But. One of the things that I got from her was, you know, when she mapped out her client experience and she improved it, she was still getting on like discovery calls with people who were not a good fit for her services.

They weren’t red flags, it’s just, you know, what she was offering was not what they needed or, you know, just whatever it was. But when it came down to it. She has been getting referrals from those people that were on a discovery call with her that were very impressed with her and they didn’t work together, but she ended up getting like referral clients from them because they were so impressed with, you know, how she presented herself and her systems and her client experience, even though they weren’t actual clients.

And so that’s what also I think of when I think of your events is that, you know. Sometimes there are gonna be people in the room that are not a good fit for you and how you coach and your offers. But if you serve them and you give them a really good experience in the room, they’re gonna take that with them.

And if they come across a business bestie who is all about growing their business off of social media, that they have now experienced what you have to offer, and they’re like, Hey, like this wasn’t right for me, but I think it’s perfect for you. I also think that after you get passed, ’cause you’ve only done two.

You haven’t really had the opportunity to have this kind of recycle yet, but I do feel like you are gonna get people who are referring their friends to you being at the event, even if they themselves did not choose to work with you at that time.

Kylie: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And that is starting to happen, like I have the next one in January and the 12th and the 13th, and.

Colie: a link in the show notes, and this episode is specifically going live in time for you to schedule a call with Kylie if you would like to talk about it. So the link is in the show notes?

Kylie: Thank you. Thank you. Um, but yeah, so you know, already seats are being filled and again, it’s quite a curated room, but already I’ve got calls next week. For those seats. So it, it, it does, again, back to what we’ve talked about already, it does take time. Right? We can, we need to give it a, give it everything.

And yes, I saw, I did see ROI straight away, but I, I believe too, like office, they like children. They grow up, they get, they get a life of their own sometimes. And I think that that’s just a really exciting thing to see.

Colie: No, and I also feel like the more that you do these, because I was not skeptical of you, because I know you, but if I didn’t know you and you were like, yeah, come join me at this two day event where I’m, you know, it’s not gonna be a hard sell. Like, I mean, ha, I know

Kylie: No one does that, right?

Colie: Exactly. No one does this, and I know that you’ve been to those events where you go in and it’s like five minutes.

Of kind of telling you what you thought you were there for, and then the rest of the time they’re selling you. And a lot of the times it leaves me with an icky feeling. I also wanna tell them, if you had just taken 20 minutes to answer the question that I came here for, I probably would’ve worked with you.

But the fact that like you didn’t actually answer the question that you said you were gonna answer, and it was basically just like, you know, a full hour of selling. I mean, people are really put off by that now. And again, it’s not that webinars don’t work. But I feel like we’re moving into like a sphere where you really do need to teach somebody something in a webinar.

You can’t just, you know, say what you’re gonna teach them, tell them how you can help them do it, and then expect them to buy whatever it is without actually giving them something that proves that you can deliver on what you say.

Kylie: Yeah, and especially like we said with ai, like information now is everywhere. People can go to chat, GBT and get any kind of information out of it. So I think it’s even deeper than that as well. It’s like how can we get them to do the work and experience? Experience what it’s like to get something from what you’re teaching, because then that’s like, oh, okay, this will work for me.

This isn’t. Magic dust, right? Like, like, oh actually I can implement this tomorrow. Like that is where, where we’re headed, I think.

Colie: Yeah, so I kind of wanna give a recap because I feel like we went off in a lot of different areas, and so I wanna bring it back to, I invited Kylie on here because I love the way that she talks about growing your business. Without social media. And so, you know, she has this visibility framework. Again, this is what she teaches in the two day event.

I highly recommend it. Like I, I sat there, I had a plan, I left, and I mean, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you guys all the things that I’ve done thus far, but like, I think I had a checklist of four things and three of them are done. And I have, you know, sent Kylie notes so that she knows that I was doing what I was supposed to do every step of the way, but.

You need to pick a path that feels good for you, not the one that someone told you to do. And she teaches that there are many ways to get your visibility and build your authority that have nothing to do with social media, but it is a game. It is an experiment. If you pick one or two paths and they don’t work out, figure out why they didn’t work.

And then try something else or tweak it and try again, either one. But other things that I want you guys to kind of keep in the back of your head is that all this visibility. Does nothing if you don’t actually nurture the people who are coming into your audience. And so I feel like we’re gonna have to have Kylie back ’cause we didn’t really talk a lot about how you use the email list that you have in order to nurture the people that you are bringing in from the visibility events.

And I do think that that’s an important piece for everybody to know. Like you can’t just do visibility and expect people to buy from you. And if they don’t buy from you, what do you do? Yeah. It doesn’t mean that you just, you know, chuck them out the window and find new people. It’s all about nurturing and email marketing is the way to do it, but so visibility.

Nurturing and then always keeping your data front of mind, because if something doesn’t work in two weeks, that’s not enough time. You do have to have your data so that you can look at things a little bit long term to figure out if they’re working for you or not before you make the decision to, you know, burn it all down and move on to the next thing.

Kylie, anything that you wanna add to kind of sum up what we talked about here today?

Kylie: Well, I think you just did a beautiful job. I, the only thing I would add is the connection piece for anyone that is listening. Like how can you connect more with the audience that you already have, whether that’s an email list, whether that’s an Instagram following, whether that’s Facebook friends, whatever it is.

Also, let me add the people that you’ve worked with in the past, currently, everyone that’s in your circle, like how can you create more connection? Because if you can answer that question and again, play with it, have fun with it, then 2026 is gonna be wildly different to where you are right now. Like how can you create more connection with those people?

Colie: Excellent guys. I’ve already told you the show notes is like my love fest to Kylie. So if you don’t check out the show notes for any other episode because sometimes I tell you guys like, no, there’s important links in there. Go check them out. This is one of them. Go check out the links that I have shared for you from Kylie.

They are important, and I hope that 2026 brings you your best year. Whatever you envision that to be, and if increasing your visibility and your authority and your connections with the audience that you already have is top of mind. I hope that this podcast episode has given you some ideas on how to get that accomplished.

Kylie, thank you for coming on the podcast.

Kylie: Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

Colie: All right, everybody. I’m gonna cut this off now because literally I will talk to Kylie for hours. So that’s it for this episode. See you next time.