Intro: My coaching client, Laura, recently told me that she saved more money than she spent on my coaching because I helped her simplify and consolidate her tech stack. And now I want to do the same thing for you, too. I have put out a free tool called the Tools Audit. It will help you determine what tools you use, how much you're paying, and where you can consolidate and eliminate to simplify what your small business tech stack. You can go to streamlined.fm/tools to get your free tools audit today. That's streamlined.fm/tools.
Joe Casabona: I recently got back from Podfest, and it was life-giving. I am an extrovert, and so I get energy from hanging out with people. One of the people I hung out with was my good friend Becky Pierson Davidson, and I want to bring her on the show today because I want to talk more about building connections, building relationships, and building community. Something I think we are going to need more in 2026 than we have ever needed before.
This coupled with my interview with Jonathan Stark, where solopreneurs should not be trading dollars for hours. Both of those episodes will tie in together and stick around till the end where I'm going to talk to Becky about how I helped her launch her podcast, which has generated easy 5 figures in the short 6 months it's been live.
Hey everybody, my name's Joe Casabona. Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur, where I help small business owners confidently take time off in their business by helping them build systems and automations. Today, my guest is Becky Pearson Davidson. Becky, how are you today?
Becky Pierson Davidson: I'm great. Thanks for having me back on the show. It's my second time on.
Joe Casabona: Joe Casabona:Yes, welcome back. Last time we talked about scrappy research, which I absolutely loved because your approach to a lot of things is a lot more thorough than my approach to a lot of things, which is just like, let's do it and see what happens. And so I love that since we last spoke, you have a brand new framework that we are going to talk about as far as memberships and communities go. I think you're a perfect person to talk about this because you are extremely qualified to talk about it, but you also know my storied and troublesome past with communities.
The first thing I want to talk to you about though is we were both at Podfest ‘26 earlier this year, and I think we both kind of came away with the same— I have like a trio of words that kept coming up. For me, it was authenticity. For you, it was like a couple of other tangentially related words, right?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, connection, relationship building. I felt like everybody just kept repeating that I think that's the benefit of having a podcast, is you're just building a relationship with the listener, even if it's a 5-minute audio voice note style podcast, which mine is like, and you know, you do that too. This voice note style is even a great way to just build a relationship with the person that's listening on the other end.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, absolutely. And this is even more important, right? I mean, like my talk at this conference was don't let AI steal your podcast soul. I think we've been hearing for the last 2 years how like AI is coming for us and it's going to steal our jobs. But like, you and I both know that it cannot steal authenticity, connection, and relationships, right?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, exactly. It's funny, during your talk, I just was like aggressively nodding yes the whole time.
Joe Casabona: I'm going to be honest, I kept looking over to you to see like if you were, if you were giving feedback because, uh, that like helped because I'm like, I was worried about giving this talk because there's so many like AI or Die, literally the name of another talk, right? Like, and so I was like, am I going to get like booed off the stage? But it was quite the opposite, right? Like somebody actually said like, thank you for giving this talk. So you and I are certainly not the only ones who feel this way.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. And you were funny. So like, anytime you bring in humor, it just helps. People are like, yeah, he's funny. Whatever he says, I'm buying.
Joe Casabona: Amazing. I'm going to start with, I think, a big overarching question here, which is probably something I need to hear. Why do communities fail?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, great question. There's a lot of factors that go into it, but one of the main ones is that we just make it a little bit too generic or broad. Like, we don't have a clear enough purpose or premise of what the community is actually for. Like, are people working toward the same goal? Do they share the same values? What are those shared values? What kind of culture are you trying to build? What kind of goal are you helping people work toward? And there's sort of different ways you can do this, right? You could have a content subscription, you could have something that's more transformational. But when we try to do like all of it or muddy the waters, or there's not like a really clear objective, that's like the number one problem. Like that's the thing we need to nail first.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I think that's really good. And like, I think what too many people do, myself included, right, is at least for my first one, is we look at what other memberships are doing and just take those benefits.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona:And so like, why— let's say the quiet part out loud— why is that a bad strategy?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, well, because it's not designed for your people. And so, so I'm a very like data-driven girly. Like, this is what we talked about in our first episode, is just like gathering the research. It can be scrappy, but you need some kind of data to make decisions from. And so what that means in community building is you talk to people, Prospect members, potential members, the kind of people you're trying to bring together. You find out what they're working toward, what they care about, what their values are, what they need, what kind of learner they are, and how they want to meet. Like, literally everything you can ask them. Look for the commonalities and then use that to craft what you're putting together, what you're designing.
I used to be head of product at Boss Babe, and I told this story recently in my newsletter, where in 2018, Boss Babe launched their membership on Instagram and made $1 million in year 1. It was like right time, right product, like crazy, right?
But the model itself was we're going to launch a masterclass every single month, and we're going to do coaching calls every single month. And, you know, it's just like content drops. And so that model worked really well in the beginning, and people are still modeling like that. But unfortunately, that model doesn't work anymore in 2026. People don't want more content to watch, especially hours of content every single month from an offer.
And that, like, it doesn't have a roadmap or a linear path. Like, there is no yellow brick road to follow. It's just like you're sort of in an abyss of like a content library, and it's like, figure it out. And that's just especially after, you know, a year or two, when you start to really have a library after adding to it over time. And that's where people have a problem because their structure starts to break down. So the structure is really key in how we design a community offer. And the last thing I'll say is that we often lack some kind of member journey.
So onboarding is one of the number one reasons communities fail because like their lack of onboarding or not really personalizing the experience or giving their members a journey to go on or something to follow. It's just kind of like, welcome to the community, do your thing.
Joe Casabona: When you said like just like so much content, it made me think of, I'm an elder millennial, right? So I'm old. And so there was like the, we have hundreds of channels, and there's still nothing to watch. And I think now that problem is multiplied because it's like, I have Netflix, and Peacock, and Paramount Plus, and Hulu, and Disney Plus, and I still have nothing to watch, right? So like volume of content is just kind of more overwhelming. And then the journey I think is the same. It's like, well, if they want to support my work, then they'll, they'll give me money. Right? Like, no, that was maybe true before everybody got subscription fatigue and before everybody launched a subscription. Right?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. And to that point, like Netflix, uh, at least last time I checked, Netflix had the highest retention rate of all the streaming platforms. And if you think about it, their learning algorithm for which shows they show you to watch that you would be most interested based on your watch history is the best. Like, if you log into somebody else's Netflix, you're like, what platform is this? What am I looking at? Like, when I log into my husband's Netflix, it's like anime, and I'm like, this is— I'm in the wrong account, and I got to like back out. And so, you know, just like that personalization piece is something that we can apply, like, even as solopreneurs, just, you know, offering some kind of quiz and giving them a path, or doing an onboarding call and giving them direction, like that is personalization. You don't have to build some crazy learning algorithm, but that is why Netflix does better than other platforms.
Joe Casabona:: Yeah, absolutely true. I mean, when I was in grad school, I was talking to my advisor. I to had do like a master's thesis. We settled on traffic prediction from smartphones, which like, yay, everyone's using that now. And I'm not going to say I had anything to do with it, but my paper was cited in 3 other papers. So…
Becky Pierson Davidson: Okay.
Joe Casabona: But like one of the things, one of the things he mentioned was like, Hey, Netflix is offering like a million-dollar bounty for a recommendation algorithm. Maybe we should try that. And I'm like, cool. I'm not that smart, but I like where your head's at. Uh, so like, this is a problem they have been trying to solve since the DVD days. They obviously do it extraordinarily well.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. Well, think about the feeling that that creates. And this is something I always think about when designing community experiences. What feeling do we want our members to have? Like, I'm closing my eyes. Like, I literally close my eyes, and I put myself in their shoes. Like, this is the user experience designer in me, like I'm thinking through the lens of the customer. And if we want them to feel like I belong here, this is exactly what I needed. Oh my gosh, this is just what I was looking for. Now I know what to do next. If we want them to feel that way, then we have to craft an experience that gives them that feeling. That's what gets them to stick around and keep paying.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, for sure. And again, it's not just like, hey, here's some money, here's all this stuff. Like a membership without that sort of user experience is almost like a traffic circle with no signs. It's like, which way do I go? I'm just going to drive around in circles until I make a decision. Right? And then it's like when you leave, you're like, I'm never going back there again.
Becky Pierson Davidson: So yeah, I'll go the long way next time.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
I might be jumping ahead a little bit here because I definitely want to get to like your, your pedigree. You've already mentioned Boss Babe, but like you've helped lots of people with this. Is it really as simple as talk to our, like, I don't want to talk to my audience. I just want to launch something. Like…
Becky Pierson Davidson: Sorry. No.
Well, okay, so let's say you launch a beta, like you get people in the door, your first version, then it's about building in feedback loops, which this is part of our process at my agency. Like, we're like, how do we build constant feedback loops that help us make the experience better?
I'll give you an example. We run the day-to-day operations for Beyond Connections, which is a program based on Keith Ferazzi and his books. So basically, we run our workshops every single week, and at the end of every workshop, we put a simple Zoom poll up. It's like, what did you think of this session? Rate it 1 to 5. What did you love about it? What do you want to be better at next time? Something like that.
And we, we put it up in the last minute of the call. And we use that feedback, which almost usually it's like 90% plus people respond to it. It has such a good response rate because it's like literally in the Zoom UI. But we take that insight every single week, and we make the next session better. And what that does is just like allow us to constantly iterate and improve. So this has resulted in our show-up rates being higher, like later weeks throughout the program, and better retention. Better for us to improve the workshop experiences so we're getting better testimonials and customer success. Like just little feedback loops like that can make a really huge difference. But this can also be something you do in like a beta experience to make the product better, to adjust the structure, to redesign member journeys, all of that.
Joe Casabona: This is really good. And like, I think like the lesson is patience, right? Because I think people are like, I need to launch a membership now so I can start generating a bunch of money because I'm not making any money. You can't do that, right?
And to your point, this, as you were talking, this reminded me of, I taught a grad class. Uh, it was like a, I guess a 600-level class or whatever, right? If like starting at 500 is beginner, but it made a bunch of assumptions about the prerequisites the students took. And I came to learn that the student, most of the students were written into the class, which I was furious about because like I based my whole lesson and lecture structure on them knowing a bunch of stuff. And so in the beginning of the class, I started doing the first lecture, and I looked ou,t and I got, I like, all of my students looked like they were about to sneeze, which to me is like, they're all very confused. Right. And so I asked them, I said, hey, yeah, just like that. Right. I said, oh, well, you all took this course. Right. And they're like, oh no, we got written in. Well, did you take this course? We all get written in.
So, those like two simple questions restructured the entire semester for me. And imagine if I hadn't asked that, right? Like they would have, they would have done horribly because they would have, they would have no idea what I was talking about. And I'd be like, what's wrong with these kids? Right.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. And your rate, rate your professor rating would have tanked.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that's right. Nobody would have thought I was funny. So the communication side is really important. And like, I want to stress that like you need to be patient because rushing in this sense, like there's, there's a big, this is like an, I'm working on a piece about instant gratification and how it doesn't pay off in the long run. Like we should go for long-term gratification, but like, there is such a focus on shipping. I saw somebody post that like, oh, I ship before lunch and I ship before dinner. And I'm like, what are you shipping so much? Is it good, or are you just shipping to say you shipped? Lik,e do something good and then ship it. Don't just ship to say you shipped.
Becky Pierson Davidson: This is so triggering and like, it's reminding me of working in tech and like Twitter going off every second.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Right. And like, cool. Like, did you just like ship like one line of code, and are you calling it shipping? I don't like— focus on the good, forget the instant gratification, and actually go for good lasting gratification, I guess.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Well, I, I think also in— to this point, you're in this AI world, or anti-AI, or whatever we're going to talk about around that. Like, you can't risk your reputation on not putting out quality work. Like, quality matters more than ever before. And this iterative process of like talking to your customers, making things better, like, that is what is important in always like improving and growing your retention, and all of that all comes down to like relationship building, showing up, building a really quality product.
I loved what you said about your— like you saw their faces and you were like, something needs to change. Because to your point about people jump too fast to the end, like they'll prerecord an entire curriculum and put it in a course or in a membership. And it's like, if you haven't taught that live, you don't know if it is effective.
And so one of the things I have every client do is like, let's teach live the first time. I know it's a little bit of extra work, but you're going to get immediate feedback on whether or not people understand what their questions are, where they're getting stuck, and where they leave the call because they're so bored. And that's going to help you make it better, which is the only way you're ever going to be able to scale your community. Like, you have to have strong foundations.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, for sure. I always felt bad for my 8 o'clock class. 8 AM class because they got the worst version of my lecture. Like the 10 o'clock class, I had already given it two other times. They got the best one, right? Because I could, like you said, I could see how the students were reacting. I could tighten up things. I could explain more. Iterating is, is, is so important.
Do you think that people use AI as a thinking buddy because they don't want to talk to their customers or their audience?
Becky Pierson Davidson: I think they just see it as a shortcut. Like, it's a whole thing, right? Oh, let me reach out to my, my list or like DM people. I mean, if you're not tight with your community or your, your customers or audience, then it's a lot harder to get them on a call. I mean, honestly, there are people— I mean, I could probably list off like 20 people who constantly are messaging me about my newsletter, my podcast, or whatever. And so if I have an idea, sometimes I'll just DM them a voice note or like even even like record one and send it to a bunch of people because like to me that, that is fast. But if you haven't built those relationships and that's not like a quick, easy thing for you, then sure, like, oh, like I'm going to make this really robust ICP in, in ChatGPT and then that's going to be my end-all be-all for like what I should, you know, like talk to to answer my questions. That's problematic for so many reasons.
And there's definitely a time and place for having AI support your research effort. And we do have AI support our research efforts at Affinity, but there is no replacement for talking to your customers and having that human-to-human connection.
Joe Casabona: It's so much better, right? Like my, my newsletter on Monday garnered more replies than I've ever got. I've, I'm pretty sure that I've ever gotten, except for maybe like a typo, like I had a typo in one or a sentence and I'm like, sorry everyone, I jumped the gun. And that got a lot of like, haha, enjoy your vacation. This was funny. But like. Actual responses, right? And so I think that's so important. And something that you said in the last episode you were on, which I shamefully don't have— after I hit like 500 episodes, I stopped memorizing the episode numbers of all of my guests. I will link it in the description. Something you said was like, you don't need a statistically significant amount of feedback, right? You can talk to 5 people or 10 people. And start to get that feedback.
Becky Pierson Davidson: When you hear something 3 times, that's a theme. So if you— this is another problem. People talk to one person and they make a whole bunch of decisions based on that, or they listen to just themselves because they are the past version of their customer or something. And the reality is you need at least 3 data points to make like a valid assumption to move forward with. So usually if you talk to 5 people and you're generally like you've built like a good segment or persona group, then you're going to find themes even in 5 conversations. Like, think about just as a silly example, let's say Uber's a double-sided marketplace, which means you would need to talk to 5 drivers and 5 riders. But like within those groups, you should be able to find themes between those.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, yeah, love that. Which is great. Like, I spent a lot of my conference time like testing out my new line, right, about like saving people 1 month and I got a lot of really good feedback on that, and I, you know, I think I'm probably going to tweak it a little more, even though I said at the beginning of this, definitely talk to more than one person. Like, one person is an opinion, right? It's not a trend.
Becky Pierson Davidson: You have to keep talking to them too. Like, one of the things we're always looking at when we think about building strong foundations, we want to gather data to make our initial decisions, and then it's like building the feedback loops. Like the workshop example I explained, like, that's a feedback loop that helps you continue to iterate over time. But you're, you're not just like talking to people once and done. It's like always an evolving product.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, for sure. So like, let's pick an interesting one that maybe like had their offer wrong, and then how did you right their ship?
Becky Pierson Davidson: I feel like there's always room for improvement. And so like with our Beyond Connections client, they came in and their— they had run like 2 cohorts. So it's an 8-week cohort program that goes into like an alumni community experience. We gathered feedback, we ran a survey, we looked at like end-of-program surveys from the previous cohorts, and we basically just like analyzed a lot of data in order to make some informed decisions about how we could smooth things out. The first thing we like critique or audit based on 5 categories, but I'll just focus on one for now, which is onboarding. So onboarding is really important for being able to get your— I'll give you a few things that's important for onboarding. You want them to get a quick win, so like they feel like they're already getting results. You want them to feel momentum so they keep showing up. You want them to also have fun, like don't just give them a boring to-do list, like how can we make it fun? And so we spend a lot of time with our clients like redesigning our onboarding because onboarding is usually not good or like really doesn't help them get a result or like have fun in the process.
Joe Casabona: You don't want it to make it feel like they're in school or like you're giving them a bunch of homework, right?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. So we spend actually like a 90-minute workshop session with every client, just like designing onboarding because it's so crucial. And so with this client, that was one of the things we redid. And then retention in the program was way better. What I mean by that is they're completing more of the course. And they're showing up for more of the calls and more of them are actually completing the program because there's nothing worse than running a program and having people like stop showing up at week 4.
Joe Casabona: Right. I've heard this a lot where like people will focus on once I've got your money, I'm going to move on to getting more people's money. Like you don't want to make them feel like they've paid you and you've abandoned them, right?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Exactly. I mean, that's like my whole business. We like, we operate post-purchase. Right.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And it's super important. And something else I've heard you talk about on your show is like you want to design a 12-month transformation, right?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Can you talk a little bit about that?
Becky Pierson Davidson: So when you're deciding what kind of product to build, and what I mean by product is like a membership, a mastermind, a program, a course, whatever. When you're deciding what to build, I always think about what is the transformation, the length of time, and like how we're serving them. So a membership makes sense when really it's, it's like they're going to need to spend more than 3 months in order to see a result. So if it's something that they could accomplish, like I'm going to take you from point A to point B in 3 months, like you're going to be the world's best sourdough bread creator in 3 months, like, or whatever, like, then you, you really probably don't need a membership model for that. Like a program, a boot camp, an accelerator, anything like 4 to 12 weeks, fair game for like program type language. If you are doing one of two things, actually one of three things. So like content subscription, so people, you're like dropping content and this is really specific. Like I know there's probably a lot of service-based businesses listening,
so I'll give you an example. Like one of our clients has something called the Content Lab. Her name's Carla Besinger and her membership is, uh, social media content templates. You get every single week. And so she's helping people grow on Instagram. That's her business. And she has a template pack she's giving them every week. And then within the membership, it's like, here's your prompt for this day, here's your prompt for this day, so that they can support each other through engagement and like give them feedback on their posts and like help them grow their accounts, grow their businesses. She's giving them the tools.
That's a content subscription that makes sense because it's like, it is transformational. They're working toward a goal, but they're also just like, it's a practice in showing up every week. And that content subscription also expires. It's like, this is the trending audios and the prompts that's relevant for this week. Then it's done. Right.
Joe Casabona:I want to pose a, uh, like a counterpoint here. Right. Cause this is something that I was thinking about doing too. And our mastermind group gave me some really good feedback. I forget if you were at this one, but I was thinking of doing the same thing, but like an automation of the week, right? Give like sample right? a template, Yeah. And as you all pointed out, like, people aren't building a new automation every week, right? It's like they, they probably just, they're really looking to solve a problem and they're not going to go. And so like, that's not necessarily worth paying a membership for or being in a membership for.
Becky Pierson Davidson: They're going to build the automation when they need that, when they need to automate that thing. And so your automation of the week will not always be relevant, but in this case, like they still need to post every week on Instagram and they still need to use the trending if they're trying to do it this way, you know, they still need the trending audio and they still need the, the latest trend and the hook and whatever. Right. And so that is time-based relevant. Whereas yours, what might make a lot more sense, like if we just want like spitball workshop right now would be like, what are the automations that every solopreneur should have in their business and in what order should they build those out and what tools should they use? Like that could be your backbone. Curriculum. So you have somebody come in, you maybe diagnose where they're, where they're at, and then you're pointing them to a certain point in that journey. Like, oh, you already have your basics, go here, or whatever.
And so there's like more of a linear path to like automating their systems versus this is like something that recurs all of the time. Like these are two different models.
Joe Casabona: My lack of social media experience is starting to show. I've been off of Instagram for like 3 months and I have no idea how it works anymore.
Becky Pierson Davidson: I was thinking as I started talking, like, of course I came up with an Instagram example and Joe's like, could we do another one?
Joe Casabona: No, no, that's, this is great. This is a really good example, but I think it's a really good example because it's not just a content membership. It is very focused on Instagram, right? Like it's very niche and it solves a unique problem. And, and importantly, it solves a unique recurring problem.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yep. And I see this a lot too with like service-based memberships. So I'll give you an example. This woman, Emily Claire, who has the 10K Email Club, her whole thing is like she wants everybody to send email newsletters for the purpose of driving your business growth and sales. And so if you— she basically has every single member, every month they do— each person gets a one-to-one. So this is kind of like how you can think about scaling your services, like you mentioned in the beginning. So she has a workshop every single month with each member to plan their emails for the month for their specific business. So that's the personalization.
And it's a— this is very high ticket. Like, I think she charges over $1,000 a month because it's cheaper than a copywriter, but like a lot more expensive because you're getting that one-to-one service support. And so really scalable because she has a team of copywriters now. So it's like she does the strategy for the month, and then They send their emails and they get copywritten and they also get tech support for like setting up their stuff. So if they're running a sales campaign or something, that also would count. So they would do their newsletters, their sales campaign, and they have copywriters that support it. It's all managed through a membership. And then, and then she does like fun events and things that build community and make it sticky on top of like, you're growing your business, but you're not even growing, you're not growing your business alone. And that's, I think, a really interesting model for like being able to scale. Services.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I like that a lot. I've been— that's something that I— not that this is like the, the Becky Coaches Joe hour, but like, this this is, is kind of what I've started to land on, right? Is like, I have this idea of the 12-month transformation where I sit down with you in month 1 and we look at your business and then we spend the next however many months implementing those changes, right? Our friend Seth Silver is a very smart guy. I should really have him on the show. I was talking to him about this and he said that that actually sounded more like a 3-month thing, you know, and I want to think about it more. I think it was like an interesting idea. Feels like I'm, I'm just trying to make Fetch happen with like a community or a membership and I haven't landed on the right spot yet. This has been really helpful.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Something, one more thing on that is like something I'm seeing work really well right now from a conversion perspective is selling a program. So let's say you did do like a Set Up Your Automation Foundations program, 90 days, and then on the back of that, selling into like an automation support community where it's like you help with support when they want to build a new one. Like there's ways to do that. I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I think that that model could work really well for you.
Joe Casabona:Yeah, you know, this is— first of all, Set Up Your Automation Found— I love how you just came up with a way better name than I have thought of in like 2 seconds. Love that. Really smart, right? You could do the 3-month workshop and sell into support. And so I really like this idea. This is definitely something that I want to noodle on more because that is, that is one of my goals for this year, which is why I think you're, you're like an extra great guest to have on in the first couple months of the year. So cool.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Call me.
Joe Casabona: Yes, absolutely. Now we did touch on this already, but like the the should I just push content, right? I think this is the thing, like, at least in, in, in my field, especially in podcasting, right? Like memberships are ad-free episodes and bonus episodes and live streams. And again, like if you're, if it feels like a fire hose, like it, it's going to push people away more than it's going to attract them.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Content has changed a lot in like how it shows up in these kinds of products. We are no longer— it used to be like you'd look at a marketing sales page and it would be like 100 hours of video or like the vault with 150 trainings. And like, I read that now and I'm like, oh, kill me. Like, I don't have 150 hours. And so the shift I'm seeing with like education material and like curriculum is that way shorter hits, like 1, 2, 3 minute videos. Tools, templates, and things like custom GPTs and stuff that just make it really fast to implement. And like in your case, you could build maybe automation templates that are built out. I don't know if that's a thing, but like in Zapier, if you, if you can make templates, like that is something you could be like, here's this automation, this is how it works.
Here's a template for it. And like in, in like 10 minutes, I could install this automation in my business. Great. Like done. I will send people, I like, if you sell that, I will buy it. But anyway, we'll just trade the same, like $500 back and Um, forth. That's what we all do.
Joe Casabona: Perfect.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. Yeah. But my point is like the short-hit video content, shorter curriculums, like it's all about time to value. That's what people care about right now. And AI can support that through creating tools, giving them templates. We don't want a giant content library of crap to sift through. That's everybody's worst nightmare these days. Like we just want We just want to be told what to do, the to-do list, the quick roadmap, the— we want to get to the result faster.
Joe Casabona: This kind of like, not to name drop or anything, but like, you know, we both went to a panel with John Lee Tomas on it and he basically said the same thing about podcasting, right? Like the long-form interviewing business owners about their business is is not it anymore. It's like, how can you be the best at solving a problem quickly? And that's the type of podcast you should have. And it sounds like that's, that's should also be the same approach to content within your membership because that's what people have the, the wherewithal for these days.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, for sure. That was so satisfying to sit in the audience of that panel and be like, I did everything right. Like thinking about like my podcast is super niche. It's like voice note style. Like I was like, thank you, Jon.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, absolutely. And like, it's definitely what I needed to hear because I love doing interviews like this, but I've been thinking more about doing more solo episodes and I was like, is that really the right move? And it, that was very validating for me.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Now, before we promote your framework, let's talk about your podcast, right? You launched your podcast back in June. It's a voice memos podcast, really short. You want to give us like the elevator pitch?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, it's a podcast where my goal is like, you listen to this voice note from me and you have one takeaway to be able to improve your programs, courses, memberships, anything, and build community in your business, which really makes it sticky and sustainable long-term. It's like a voice note from your smart friend. I am the smart friend.
Joe Casabona: Yes. And I can vouch for that. It's a really good podcast. I listen to it. I don't listen to a lot of business podcasts. And so It special. feels This is something— yeah, and it's really good, and it's something that I want to do better. And because I can usually listen to it like while brushing my teeth or something, like it's a very easy thing to consume for me. So how did you come up with this idea?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, well, I sent— it was like my birthday 2 years ago, and I— which is in the summer— and I sent an email to my newsletter list, and I was like, all I want for my birthday is newsletter testimonials for my new landing page I'm making. And so I got like 25. I did raffle off prizes, so, you know, I like bribed the people. But what I noticed was in all of the— not all of them, but the majority of the 25 mentioned the phrase, I feel like I'm learning from my smart friend, or something like that. But a lot of them described me as their smart friend. And so that's where the positioning idea came from. It's not because I I'm a self-proclaimed smarty, but because I do, I do have a hat that says smarty, but, but I was like, okay, that's what this concept could be. And then I heard your podcast.
I heard the voice notes in Creator Science Feed by Jay Klaus. And I obviously like reached out to you and I was like, hey, I really want to launch this thing. Like, tell me if my idea sucks. And then you helped me with the name. I think one of the most interesting things I learned from you was that Like the show is called Build with Becky, but then it's like colon, like smart strategies from blah, blah, blah. And so you were like, you need to have all these keywords in the title so that it's searchable. And funny enough, I get a lot of messages like, hey, I found your podcast from searching community in my podcast player, which is so cool. And so it's actually like been, it's even been a discovery tool, which I didn't expect.
But yeah, you helped me with, I sent you the COVID art and you helped me like make the COVID art better and the description and the title and sent set it up on Captivate, which is what I use to host. So yeah, super grateful to you for that, and it's been really— it's been a great marketing sales tool in my business.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, I mean, this is— so I mean, you're doing all the, all the work, so like, happy to help. Love that it's, it's like paying off for you quite literally, right? You mentioned when, when we were together in Orlando, like, it's got a real good close rate, right? Like, it's, it's actually generating revenue for you. So like, can you Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think especially people who come to me for podcast-specific stuff, they think that like sponsorship is the only way to make money in podcasting. And I'm like, sponsorship is like the fourth best way to make money in podcasting, like actual money. So like, what's that— what's that process like for you?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, pretty much every episode I see as like a nurture trust builder with a potential client. And so I'm telling stories, I'm telling client stories. I'm like, this happened. I gave this advice to somebody. And eventually something clicks and they're like, at the end of every episode, and I'm playing around, experimenting with how I do this call to action, especially after that panel we went to. But I say something like, like, hey, if you're— if this really sparked something for you, if you're interested in working with us on redesigning your onboarding or whatever the topic is I talk about, there's a link in the show notes to book a call with my team. And so because we have a sales call to close process, if somebody listens to my show and they book a call with me, It's almost 100% close rate. It was 100% before this week, but I didn't close somebody this week. You know what? They were really, they're really early in their journey and I gave them a lot of great advice and they're going to come back and then it'll, it'll go back up.
Joe Casabona: But yeah, yeah, absolutely. Timing is important, right? Absolutely. Yo, for real though, actually, like really quick, somebody I sent a proposal to nearly a year ago just reached out and they're like, I'm ready. So like, don't give up on people. Timing is everything.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. You're like, uh, It's 2026, my prices are doubled. No, just kidding. But yeah, that, that it's been amazing where, I mean, I had somebody join a sales call last week and she was like, I'm so excited to chat with you. I binged 20 episodes of your podcast in the past week. And I was like, wow, okay. I mean, you guys, they're like 7 minutes, so it's not that crazy. So that was really nice to hear.
It's not the first time that I've heard that. And she was like, the phrase, whatever you're selling, I'm buying, like, because it's such an amazing relationship and trust builder. And yeah, so now I'm like going all in on podcasting as a strategy to, to get people to work with us.
Joe Casabona: That's amazing. And like, I want to say that like your positioning is obviously very good, probably because you've talked to a bunch of people, right? You got those testimonials. So, you know, the language that people are using, your episode titles are very clear.. And so I know what I'm about to get, right? I think, cause I think too many people are like episode 74 with blah, blah, blah. And it's like, all right, I don't really, I don't really know what I'm going to get right when someone's like, oh, we're going to just have a casual conversation. It's like, cool. I just had a casual conversation with my mom. Like, I don't need to hear, right? Or whatever. I'm Italian. Like my conversation with my parents are not casual. They're like, they're very passionate, but. You know what I mean?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Right? So there's like a lot of hand flailing.
Joe Casabona: There's a lot of hands, pinch fingers, emojis everywhere. Um, but like, I know exactly what I'm gonna get from you and it is less than 10 minutes long and like, it's like, why wouldn't I invest my time this way? So really, like, you're knocking it out of the park and that's amazing.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Thank you. I really appreciate it. I love when people post an interview or something and they say what they talk about on the interview. Like tell me what I'm about to listen to. So that's why I really try to, I don't know, I just try to do what I care about too. Like, it's like I want people to be able to skim all my episodes because there's so many and there's voice notes and I don't do numbers or anything. So it's just like skim and something will catch your eye. Oh, I want to know what membership trends are for this year, or, oh, I want to, I want to learn, I need to redo my onboarding. Let me find one on onboarding. Like I want it to be searchable that way too.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, right. Like I had an episode with a guy who gave like an incredible prompt for like deep thinking, for doing your own deep thinking. With AI and I give the prompt away in the description, right? Like this isn't YouTube where you're trying to be like, watch to see what happens. I'm going to give you everything. And if you want more context, great. Listen. And if you— I kind of treat it like a math class. Like, hey, if you know it, don't come to class, right? Take the test, ace the test.
But like, if you, if you need more, by all means, come to the class. Right? So I think that's really good. Like, definitely. Be generous in your, in your descriptions because that's how, that's how you hook people in, in podcasting.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, it's been great.
Joe Casabona: Awesome. Amazing. Now you have a new framework that we've kind of touched on here. Maybe give us the, the name and then if people want to take what you've talked about here and apply it to their own memberships and communities, like where can they find you?
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah, so we launched a new framework. It's called the 7-Figure Connected Community Model because It really is our 3-step process for scaling our clients' communities to 7 figures. With that said, we, we work with a lot of communities. I mean, right now I'm working with a couple that are like 25 members and one that's 80,000. So we really span, we really span the gamut there. But the reality is that these steps are still apply to really all levels, which are, I call it architect, activate, amplify. And so the first phase is all about building really strong foundations. It's just like a skyscraper or a building without really strong foundations.
The thing is going to fall down. And so we spend a lot of time there. And I recently made this like assessment to see where you're at in the framework. Like we— it scores you. And the way I built it is like you have to get an 80% in architect before you can move on. So when people come to me, they're like, oh, I'm ready to scale my community. I want to blow it up. And I'm like, awesome.
Let's do a quick audit. And then I'm like, you actually don't do anything except one onboarding email. And if we fix that, we can probably improve your retention by like 10%. And let's look at what that does to your revenue. And so we start with the architect phase. It's really about understanding, of course, data. So we look at insights, what's working, what's not, what's your retention rate, what do people care about, which, which things are they using and going to, surveying them, etc. We use that to then redesign member journeys, specifically onboarding, and then looking also at the structure.
So should you add a second tier? Do we need to adjust pricing? Should we take out an inclusion or add something in? So that's really where we kick things off is with this like foundational piece. And then from there we help with engagement, which is our activation strategies, and then our skill strategies, which is like building masterminds or small groups or grow your team or run virtual summits or whatever. So. We have these different phases that we take people through, but everybody starts usually with this architecture piece. That's what what we, we do, what we're all about. We help scale communities and you can see if you want to work with my team at affinitycollective.co and check out my show. It's called Build with Becky on any platform that you listen to podcasts.
Joe Casabona: Wherever you're listening to this, you can listen to Becky's podcast as well. Build with Becky, build with a D.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Build with a T. Oh, D, build. We're building. I always sign every email, keep building.
Joe Casabona: Keep building. I like that. When you, when you talked about the architect phase, like super important.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Reminded me of like the, have you heard of the Palisades Mall in New York? It was a huge mall in New York and it was like, it attracted so many people and it was long plagued by rumors that the foundation wasn't good and it was slowly sinking, right? Like you don't, you don't want that to happen with a mall certainly, but you also don't want that to happen with your membership because like it, that's a little bit less obvious that you're heading towards a lot of like wasted time and money. So you want to get that first phase right.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Yeah. And you know, a lot of people throw in the towel. They're like, my membership doesn't work. I'm going to stop running it. And if they would just like revisit their architect, like revisit their foundations, which unlike a building, you actually can just like go and like re-excavate and rebuild like while it's, while people are in it still.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Becky Pierson Davidson: So the good news is that we can fix it much easier.
Joe Casabona: Yes.
Becky Pierson Davidson: But if they had done that, then they might have not needed to get rid of their product. Like we're, we're saving a lot of memberships currently. And so it's definitely savable and a really amazing business model because you can bring in recurring revenue and grow it, you know, which is what we all want, right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah, absolutely. And this, you know, this has given me a lot to think about. Um, so I'm really excited to kind of go back and. I'm sure the next time we are in our mastermind together, uh, I will have a new idea.
Becky Pierson Davidson: I'll be like, I sparked that.
Joe Casabona: Yes, absolutely. Becky Pearson Davidson, thank you so much for joining us again. Check her out at affinitycollective.co. Check out her podcast Build with Becky. And I did look up the episode number of the last podcast episode, which was 354. I will link to all of that in the show notes right below this episode. Becky, thanks so much for joining us today.
Becky Pierson Davidson: Thanks for having me on. It was so fun. Always fun to hang out with you, Joe.
Joe Casabona: Yes, absolutely. And thank you for everybody who's listening.
Until next time. I hope you find some space in your week.