#276: Harnessing Virtual Summits to Grow Your Brand and Your Profit

ByJillian Leslie

In this episode of the Blogger Genius Podcast, my guest this week is online entrepreneur, Destini Copp. We delve into the world of entrepreneurship and digital products. In this episode you will learn how to harness virtual summits to grow your brand and your profit.

Destini has started three different businesses, including one that helps people create and sell online courses.

In the episode shares her journey and insights with me. 

We discuss the challenges of selling digital products and the importance of figuring out your offer.

One of the key topics we discuss is virtual summits, which can be a powerful tool for cross-promotion and reaching a wider audience.

Destini and I also talk about the benefits of collaborating with other entrepreneurs and how it can help you grow your business.

Finally, we talk about the ups and downs of building online businesses. Destini shares a recent challenge she faced trying to launch an AI writer app and the disappointment she experienced.

Overall, this episode is packed with valuable insights and advice for anyone looking to start or grow their own business in this fast-changing digital space.

Show Notes:

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Intro (00:00:03) – Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast, brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Leslie (00:00:11) – Hello my friends. Welcome back to the Blogger Genius Podcast. I am your host, Jillian Leslie. I am a blogger and a serial entrepreneur. 

In 2009, my husband and I built Catch My Party, and since then we have grown it into the largest party ideas site on the web. 

If you need party ideas, head over there. In 2016, we launched our MiloTree Pop-up app to help us and you grow your social media followers and your email subscribers effortlessly. You just install this on your blog and it works. 

And now we have launched MiloTreeCart as the easiest way for you creators to sell digital products to your audience. And in fact, I call it the perfect payment tool for creators who hate technology. 

As we all know, AI has exploded onto the scene. It’s not going anywhere, and I think it is going to be incredibly disruptive.

Importance of Future-Proofing Your Business to Fight AI

So, please futureproof your business by figuring out what your special sauce is, what makes you unique, what problems you solve for people, and what kinds of products you can sell directly to your audience. 

This is about turning on a new income stream. This is about building tighter bonds and relationships with people who will buy from you. This is about thinking in a new way. 

If this is intriguing to you, but overwhelming, get on a call with me and I will show you how it is really not hard to launch any of these digital products, especially using a tool like MiloTreeCart. So, just head to milotree.com/meet and we will set up a time.

For today’s episode I have Destini Copp on the show. Destini is a very successful online entrepreneur, and what she focuses on is setting up online summits. She’s hosting 19 this year in different niches. 

We talk about what a summit is, why it’s valuable, how to get onto summits to speak, and also if you should be running your own summit. What I love about this interview is Destini is an open book and we even talk about what it’s like to fail. I think you’re going to like this one. 

So, without further delay, here is my interview with Destini Copp. Destini, welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast.

Destini Copp (00:02:46) – Jillian, I’m so excited to be here today and chat with you. I know we have a lot to dig in, so I’m ready to get started whenever you are.

Jillian Leslie (00:02:54) – . Awesome. Will you share your entrepreneurial journey, just how you got started, when you got started, and how you’ve grown your businesses?

Destini Copp’s Entrepreneurial Journey

Destini Copp (00:03:04) – I will say that I got started much later than I wanted to and I think a lot of us hold out. We want to move in and be our own boss and start that entrepreneur journey, and it just takes us a lot longer than what we thought. 

Basically I worked in corporate marketing, then went into the academic setting, worked there for many, many years and just got burnt out and decided, you know what I need if it is now or never. I need to go ahead and take that plunge and move into entrepreneurship. And that’s what I did. 

About five or six years ago, I took that plunge, jumped in, and I said, you know what? I’m going to start from scratch and see where it takes me. And since then I have started three different side hustles or three different businesses, and it’s just been a rollercoaster ride.

Dig in and I’ll answer any questions that you have about any of them.

Jillian Leslie (00:04:00) – First, so you go, “I’m going to do this.” What was that first thing that you said, okay, I’m an online entrepreneur, I’m going to build what?

Destini Copp (00:04:12) – And that’s really what I struggled with in the initial stages was trying to figure out what I was going to do. Because quite frankly, Jillian, I had a lot of different skills. I had managed an organization of remote employees. I had a thousand people in them. So, I had all the leadership skills. 

I had been online teaching online, creating online courses since the dark ages back in 2005 when nobody thought you could actually learn online. People would come up to me and say, can people actually learn online? How do you do that? Or is it even real? 

And so, what I decided to do at the end of the day, I rolled up my sleeves and I said, I’m going to help people create online courses. I’d been doing it as a university professor and helping others do it also that were in my organization. And it’s something I knew very well. 

And I married that with my marketing skills because I’ve been in marketing ever since. I graduated from college a long time ago. And it really was a perfect match for me. So, that’s what I started out doing. 

I would say I’ve taken a lot of twists and turns along the way, but that’s what I started out doing.

Jillian Leslie (00:05:26) – So, you initially set out to teach people how to teach online?

Destini Copp (00:05:31) – How to create online courses, but also mainly sell them, because I think that’s a challenge that a lot of people have. They can create a product, but really getting it out to the world and marketing it and getting people to actually buy it was a huge challenge for them.

Jillian Leslie (00:05:49) – It’s funny because we are promoting MiloTreeCart and I talk to lots of people who go, “I have all these ideas for digital products,” I’m sure you hear the same thing. And maybe they even say, “I even have an ebook I created.” 

But then all of a sudden the rubber hits the road and they’ve got to now put it out there and try to sell it and they’ll do things like this, well, no, no, no, it’s not done yet. I need to go work on it a little bit more. Or I’m going to build it. I’m going to create another one and then bundle them together. 

The ways in which we hold ourselves back from selling, I think, is so interesting. And it’s why, my thing that I say a lot of times is lean into selling. It is a muscle you want to build. It is not icky. And in fact, I say go be salesy because you being salesy is probably not even salesy enough.

So tell me how you think about getting people to actually sell. So you start this business and people can create courses or you help them, but then you said that it’s hard to then get them to sell them. So what, how do you think about this?

Destini Copp (00:07:02) – I think there’s a lot of challenges that come up for people. One is the tech, they struggle with putting all the pieces together and all the tech issues. And I know that you have a solution for that too, which is extremely beneficial. 

But tech aside, just the mindset with putting something that you’ve created out into the world can be struggling. You can struggle with that. Even today when I have a new product, I’m like, “Is it ready?”

And what I have learned is, it’s never going to be perfect. I just need to go ahead and get it out there. I can tweak it, I can make adjustments to it based on feedback, but I just need to go ahead and get it out there.

And that’s what I always tell people. And it might be as simple as sending out an email saying, I have this great offer. Here’s what it is. Go buy it now. And the more that you market yourself, the more you market your business, the more you go out there and seek out visibility opportunities.

Again, that’s another place that a lot of people struggle with. They have this great product and maybe they even have the tech set up to sell it, but they don’t have any eyeballs on their offer. So, that’s another part of our job.

Go out there and finding those visibility opportunities, whether it’s being a guest on somebody’s podcast, whether it’s speaking at a virtual summit, and I’m a huge fan of that. But just going out and finding those visibility opportunities to get eyeballs on your offer is something that you need to put a lot of focus on. 

Jillian Leslie (00:08:49) – I agree. And in fact, another thing that I do is see if there are people whose audiences I can borrow or like you coming on my podcast, it’s like this cross pollination. 

And it’s like building out your community of people who are in your own, who are in a similar space, who you can work with. We think it’s like a zero sum game. And I don’t think it is. I think it’s like, if I can help you, you can help me. We can both grow each other’s audiences. 

What Are Virtual Summits?

And that’s why I love this whole idea of virtual summits, which I want to talk about with you because I feel like you are the expert at the virtual summit .

Destini Copp (00:09:37) – It’s funny that you say that, one of our core values is that we grow faster together and we’re not in competition with each other where you can grow faster together.

And that’s one of the reasons why we started doing these virtual summits. So we could partner with other people in our niche to actually help them not only grow their audience, but make money at the same time. 

Jillian Leslie (00:10:06) – When you say we, who is we? What’s your team?

Destini Copp (00:10:09) – I’ll go into a little bit more detail. We are running 19 summits between now and the end of this year in a lot of different niches. 

Jillian Leslie (00:10:20) – Explain for anybody who doesn’t know what a virtual summit is.

Destini Copp (00:10:26) – I’ll start from the beginning. A virtual summit is when you get a group of speakers together that are around a certain topic.

Just to give you an example, next month in HobbyScool, we are running our harvested table summit, where we have a bunch of speakers who have come together and they are experts in home garden niche. 

They can help you if you want to start a home garden in your backyard.They are the people to go to. 

Jillian Leslie (00:10:55) – How many people will be speaking at the summit? Is it one day?

Destini Copp (00:10:59) I’ve done where I’ve had 30 speakers, but generally we try to keep them smaller, like seven to eight speakers per day. And that just gives our speakers a little bit more exposure so they’re not getting loft in that sea of 50 speakers. 

So, we keep them small two day summit. And basically what we do and how we set them up and how we structure them is attendees get to watch the speaker’s presentation for free for 24 hours. 

On day one we’ll have a group of speaker presentations go live, attendees can watch them for free for 24 hours. And then day two we’ll do the next round. We make money.

And how the speakers also make money is we have what we call a VIP all access pass, where they can get lifetime access to the speaker presentation and any premium speaker bonuses that people have donated. And then we split that commission, 50/50 between us and the speakers. 

And then we might have some order bumps and of sales in there also that we split with the speakers. The speakers promote the summit to their audience. And I will too, from my list if I have people in that niche most certainly will do that too.

But the speakers also promote, and then obviously when the attendees come and they go to that speaker’s presentation, that speaker’s presentation underneath it will have their free gift. They can sign up for that speaker’s free gift, get on their email list.

So, they’re growing their visibility, they’re growing their email list, they’re getting exposure in the marketplace, and it’s just really a win-win for everybody. 

And that’s why I’m so much a believer in growing your business with virtual summits, either at speaking at a virtual summit, which I do all the time, or hosting them like I do.

Jillian Leslie (00:12:56) – That is amazing. And it speaks to this idea of helping each other. It is such a win-win plus, let’s say you have 15 people at a virtual summit. You ask those people to advertise, to promote the summit to their list. 

So, you’ve got this cadre of 15 people and all of their people not knowing about this summit, do you then get those email addresses as well? Or I guessed you get their email address, you can be promoting the other ones. It’s unbelievable, almost like an organism of goodness.

Destini Copp (00:13:43) – It really is. 

Jillian Leslie (00:13:45) – I’ve never said that before.

Destini Copp (00:13:46) – Yes, it is.

Jillian Leslie (00:13:46) – An organism of goodness.

Benefits of Virtual Summits

Destini Copp (00:13:48) – I like it. When people do come to register for the summit, when the speakers invite them, yes, they do get added to our list, whether it’s our HobbyScool list or if they’re coming to one of the destini.com summits, they’ll get added to that particular email list. Yes, it’s a great way to grow your visibility, grow your email list, and like I said, Jillian, all of us are making money at the same time. I spent $5,000 or paid out $5,000 for one summit last month just in speaker commissions.

Jillian Leslie (00:14:25) – Wow. Wow. So, then if I come to speak, what I think about as a speaker at a summit is. How do I provide value? If I come to speak at one of your summits, am I pre-recording something? Am I showing up live? How does that work? And how long would my talk be? 

Destini Copp (00:14:48) – That’s a great, great question. And we’ve tried it different ways, but what we’ve landed on that works best is we do a pre-recorded video. For the attendees, we will let them watch, but we also do a private podcast for them. 

What we have found is a lot of our attendees, they’re on the go. They might be commuting into work or picking their kids up from school. So, we give them two options to consume your speaker presentation. And we found that that works very well.

Jillian Leslie (00:15:20) – That’s a smart idea because it’s like a long period of time where people are speaking so that they can just be listening. That’s great. So, as a speaker, I have to be thinking about how am I adding value. How am I being trustworthy?

People go, “I like her and I want to learn from her.” And then how do I come up with an opt-in or a gift that then fits in with what I’m talking about and that people can easily grab it? 

So, I can say, go to this address and get the freebie. And then that also grows my email list and it’s a warm introduction to an audience that I might never know.

Destini Copp (00:16:07) – Yes. And couple things I just want to piggyback on what you said. There is one of the most important things that you can do as a speaker, and this goes if you’re going to be a guest on a podcast too, is come up with a really good topic. 

You want it to be clickable. You want it to be, when people go to that list and they’re looking at the list of presentations for the day, and let’s say their time is limited, because all of our time is limited, you want your presentation to stand out. 

You want somebody to look at that and say, oh, I really, I really, really, really want to watch her presentation. So, I’m going to make time on my busy calendar to do that. And then you get them excited about your presentation. 

Creating a Great Presentation for your Summit

At the end of the presentation or throughout the presentation, quite frankly, we allow our speakers to encourage people to sign up for their free gift.

So, they’re watching their presentation, they love your presentation, you’ve talked about the free gift. They’re going to go sign up for it. 

And then what I also encourage our speakers to do is to have a digital product on the backend of that, that they can offer as a tripwire, just to allow them to earn just a little bit more extra money. Because I want this to be a benefit. I want this to be a win-win for everybody around.

And this is something that they’re signing somebody, so let’s walk through it. Somebody’s signing up for your free gift. They’re coming to the summit, they’re watching your presentation, they’re signing up for your free gift. 

They know who you are, they trust you by now, they’re excited about you. Then they sign up for your free gift. On that thank you page, you have that tripwire offer where you’re offering that digital product, whatever it is, a mini course.

Jillian Leslie (00:17:49) – And what price do you recommend for a tripwire? 

Selling Digital Products

Destini Copp (00:17:52) – It just depends on your audience. So, if it’s a B2C type audience, it might be a little bit less, but B2B audiences where they can write that expense off. I typically do like $79 on mine. Which can be a little higher. But $49 for B2B, the B2C, just depends. 

Test out different things. I don’t want to put a hard number there, but test out 27, test out 37 and see what works for you. Look at your data, look at your Googling limits, find out what people are buying. But you can have a true par offer there.

And later on you can add on order bumps or upsells. You could even promote on the backend when somebody gets on your list. Promote like a one-on-one coaching or a membership trial.m There’s tons of things that you can do in an evergreen sales funnel like this just to continue to get that income coming in.

Jillian Leslie (00:18:54) – So, you teach funnels, and this is a perfect example of a funnel. And my recommendation, Destini, I want to hear what you think is you’ve got to do the heavy thinking you’ve got to make sure that that journey makes sense. 

So, when you think about I’m coming into your summit to talk about a specific topic, what are the next steps? Not just I’m going to sell something related or offer something related, but how can I put somebody on a journey so that it’s a no-brainer?

They listen to my talk, of course they’re going to need to go further, they’re going to need my opt-in or my gift, my free gift, and then they’re going to get that. But like, oh my God, you don’t even know you need this to get even further. And it’s a special price and it’s this one-time offer.

I think that sometimes where we struggle is we go, oh, well, I’m just going to have a related product and then maybe do some other related thing. But I haven’t really gone through the journey of putting myself in the view, starting at the beginning. 

Some random person is watching this summit does not know me, and I’m going to win them over. And I’m going to say, I’m your girl. I’m the person. If you want this outcome, trust me, come along with me and I’ll lead you. What’s your thought about that?

Destini Copp (00:20:27) – I think every summit that you’re going to be in, any time you go on a podcast or a virtual summit to speak, you have to be thinking about that customer journey. So, somebody initially meeting you, what journey are you going to take them on? 

And to your point, Jillian, that is so very important because you don’t want a lot of mismatched products there because you’re going to confuse them. 

If you lead your summit presentation into your lead magnet and then your lead magnet doesn’t lead into that offer that you’re promoting, that digital product, they’re not going to buy. You’re going to confuse them and they’re going to leave and say, I don’t even know what she has to offer. 

It doesn’t make any sense to me. So, you really have to think about that and map that out for every single event that you’re in.

Advertisement (00:21:23) – I want to take a short break to say, if you are enjoying the podcast, I think you would enjoy my newsletter. Every Sunday I send an email where I highlight my four biggest takeaways from my previous episode. It’s like a cheat sheet. 

It will keep you up to date on all the cutting edge trends in blogging and online business. So, to join my newsletter, just go to bloggergenius.com, that’s bloggergenius.com. Simple. And now back to the show. 

Jillian Leslie – For you setting these up now, I’m sure, because you do how many a year? 12, you said?

Hosting a Virtual Summit

Destini Copp (00:22:07) – Well, we’re doing 19. We’ve already done two this year, but we’re doing 19 between now and the end of the year. I have a team that works for me, so it’s not me doing all that. I just want to make sure that I’m clear on that.

Jillian Leslie (00:22:19) – I’m assuming there’s a bunch of software, I’m assuming that once you’ve done this, you know the drill and it becomes easier to do them over and over again. Is this a ton of work? 

Let’s say I’m listening to this podcast and I’m a knitter and I got a bunch of friends and they’re all knitters and I want to put one of these things together. How hard is that?

Destini Copp (00:22:45) –  I would say that you would need a system to follow. I bought a course to help me with this. I don’t know if you want me to plug it in or not, but I bought Summit in a Box with Krista and it was fantastic for getting me started while setting up these summits. 

Jillian Leslie (00:23:05) – I’ll add that in the show notes. 

Destini Copp (00:23:08) –  I highly recommend her and her system definitely works. We have a system that we follow and we are very structured in how we go out and find speakers, how we recruit speakers, how we onboard speakers, how we help with attendees. 

We want to make sure that they have an awesome experience during the summit. So, we have very set procedures that we follow. 

Jillian Leslie – Is it a lot of work? 

Destini Copp – It’s not for the faint of heart. I would say if you are out there and you’re considering it, you can definitely do it as a solopreneur. 

When I first started out many years ago doing summits, it was just me. I didn’t have anybody helping me. I did it all by myself. And so, it certainly can be done.

Jillian Leslie (00:23:56) – And is it lucrative? If given the hours it takes especially to put the first one together, will I see  a return? Is it worth it or is it only worth it if I can do six, how many 19, you know what I mean? 

Should I assume that that first one or second one is not necessarily going to that, that it’s worth it to keep going so that I can get this system in place? Or will I be crazy surprised? My first one?

Destini Copp (00:24:24) – Definitely a business model that works. There’s no doubt about it. It depends on your business and how you have it set up, but it’s a great way to grow your audience, grow your email list, and get a warm group of people that are familiar with you. 

You’ll need to continue to market your products and your services after that. A lot for us, in addition to the summit, we will promote affiliate offers on the backend. 

Just to give you an example with the Home Garden Summit that we’re doing, I’m not a home garden expert. I don’t have any home garden memberships or courses. But we have partnered with somebody who’s fantastic. 

I’m so excited to promote her membership and we’re going to be promoting her membership after the summit for people who just want to take it a step further and they want to keep on learning. They’ll have the opportunity to do this after.

Jillian Leslie (00:25:20) – I never knew this. Do you continue to sell the summit after the summit,  meaning, I know there’s usually like a window where you can purchase and then it’s supposedly either the prices go up or it goes away. 

I haven’t really focused on the pricing model, but then like six months down the road, you’ve got all this great content, can you resell it?

Destini Copp (00:25:43) – A lot of times what we’ll do for the speaker presentations, not the speaker bonuses, because that’s not fair to them, but for the speaker presentations, we will bundle that up and offer it as an upsell on a backend in a funnel. So yes.

Jillian Leslie (00:26:00) – I love it.

Destini Copp (00:26:00) – It works extremely well. People love them when we do that. But yes, we do continue to resell.

Jillian Leslie (00:26:08) – If we were to switch gears, given that you are the digital product guru, you are one of them and with MiloTreeCart you can sell lots of digital products and I go, “I don’t know where to start.” What do you say to that person?

Tips on Selling Digital Products

Destini Copp (00:26:29) – So, if you’re really struggling, you don’t know where to sell, start selling digital products. I would start out small. When I say small, I’m talking about selling like a planner or a journal or a mini course. I’m actually a huge fan of mini courses. 

And I’ll give you a secret here, Jillian. And it surprises me that a lot of people don’t know about this in Canva. You can create your online course lesson presentations. In fact, every single course that I have created in the past, here recently, I have done them through Canva. 

It’s so easy. I can’t even tell you. And then with all the supplemental material, whether you’re creating a workbook, a journal planner, cheat sheet, any of the supplemental material that you need, you can create that in Canva. Also, it is so easy to create a mini course nowadays.

I would just say get started. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Come up with your course idea. You can validate it with your audience if you want and create your course outline. Go ahead and get it out into the world and just start there. I can guarantee you you’re going to pivot. 

I have many times over the year, some of the star stuff that I sold, the digital products that I sold in the beginning, I don’t sell anymore. Some of them I do. And I’ve just updated them over the years. 

My Course in a Box program that has been out there since I think 2018 has over 1,300 students in it. I’ve updated it several times, but the core of it is still there.

Jillian Leslie (00:28:16) – Tell me what you think of this. One thing that I say to people when they go, “I don’t know where to start.” 

I say do a live workshop and turn it into a mini course, which means you just sell it, create a pdf to go along with it and then maybe you do three paid workshops on a certain topic, bundle them into a mini course. 

This idea, I think that maybe five years ago or maybe seven when courses just exploded and the expectation was this is going to be professionally produced and we all freaked out because you needed to have almost like a team, like a videographer to create your lessons. 

And it had to have this patina of professionalism that I feel made us feel good. Look at me, I’m like a celebrity with my course, but I think I left audiences cold plus to create this course, it would take months and months and thousands of dollars. And you didn’t even validate. 

You think you validated it, but you probably didn’t. 

Jillian Leslie – Talk to me about that, because I feel like that has been a struggle for people.

Destini Copp (00:29:34) – And I agree with you. There is no reason that you need to hire this fancy videographer to come to your house to do all of these filming of your course. Absolutely not. 

And I loved your idea of just doing the workshop, doing the workshop using Zoom, which is what we’re on now. You can do it live, you could do it recorded if you don’t even feel comfortable doing it live and then sell it and just get started. I think that is a brilliant idea.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:05) – I love that you shared you have sold hundreds of digital products. You are a marketer. This is what you do. And you shared that when you put out a new product, you too get nervous.

Destini Copp (00:30:26) – Yes. Like that.

Jillian Leslie (00:30:27) – So, it doesn’t go away. It doesn’t go away.

Destini Copp (00:30:32) – It doesn’t go away. And we’re working on a new product right now because we’re going to be launching in the next month and those feelings are already rising in me saying, oh, is this going to be good enough? What are people going to say? 

Are they going to laugh at me? Are they going to say, I can’t believe she created that? And the fact is they’re not going to say any of that , these are just feelings that I’m saying internally to myself and I really just have to keep moving forward, get it out in the world. It’s a mindset thing for me.

Jillian Leslie (00:31:06) – I would say the same thing for me when I learned something. I too am thinking, are people going to laugh at me? Are they going to go, what happened to her? How did this go sideways? Or who knows? Or there’s no real value. Whatever those voices are in my head. 

I think that by doing it over and over again, I’ve learned to go, oh, right voices, I get it. I hear you. I know you’re trying to weirdly protect me from being embarrassed, but I’ve gotten better at putting it out there. 

Not that the voices have gotten better, it’s just that I know it’s just part of my process. It’s like a muscle, but it’s like people who are super fit go to the gym, it still hurts. 

It’s not like, oh, I lift these heavy weights and it’s no problem. It’s just that they’re used to it and they almost crave it. But it’s not like, oh, this is simple.

Destini Copp (00:32:02) – Certainly not simple. And I definitely think to your point, it is the more you do it, the easier it gets. Those voices will always be there. 

But just keep putting it out there, keep marketing it, keep tweaking because nothing is going to be perfect right in the beginning, marketing is always about testing. Look at your data, tweaking it where it’s necessary. 

And that would be one of the biggest tips that I have for folks is to just put it out in the world and keep moving from there. 

Jillian Leslie (00:32:37) – And what you were saying, welcome feedback because iterating with your people. I was on a call this morning with somebody and I said, here’s the deal, like setting up an ebook.

I said, your first three sales, see if you can get on a call with that person. See if you can get on a call with them, see if you can pick their brain. Offer them a Starbucks gift card, whatever it is. But please  lean into that.

It’s funny because I think we live in these virtual worlds and we think, oh, it’s good. I can just hang back here. And it’s like, I’m going to stay, get in there and really hear what people have to say because it’s amazing how much faster that will get you to more success.

“Action Creates Clarity”

Destini Copp (00:33:23) – Definitely getting feedback from the customers. It’s kind of a cliche, but I’m going to say it anyway. “Action does create clarity.”

Jillian Leslie (00:33:34) – That’s for sure.

Destini Copp (00:33:35) – Yes, for sure. Action creates clarity. And I would say, one of the new businesses that we’re working on right now, and we launched it and I’m having to go back and do some tweaks and stuff.

If I hadn’t taken those first few steps to get it out in the world, I wouldn’t know what I needed to do next. Now it’s pretty clear to me what I needed to do next based on feedback from customers, like what you’re saying. 

You have to take those first few steps and I will say, I have this in my office here and I’ll go ahead and read it to you. It’s a sign that I have in my office that says, “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you’ll miss if you don’t even try.”

So, don’t worry about the failures, just worry about the chances you’ll miss.

Jillian Leslie (00:34:22) – So based on what you’re saying, it’s go do, put it out there. So, in this new product, can you walk through just how you had a hypothesis of what you thought it was and then got feedback and then shifted, it sounds like you didn’t even know that this would be the direction.

Destini Copp (00:34:42) – I’ll go ahead and just lay it out on the line. 

The Challenges of Launching an AI Writer Right Now

Jillian Leslie – Yes, please. 

Destini Copp – Because I haven’t really talked about this to anybody yet. So, we launched an AI writer app called HelloContent.io. We launched it in November of this past year. 

So, it was a combination of we have content in this app that people can take and they can customize it for their business with the AI writer. And of course, what happened in November of 2022? ChatGPT

Jillian Leslie (00:35:11) – Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. 

Dealing with Changes in the Online Business World

Destini Copp (00:35:14) – And it was free. It was free. So, I had this AI writer that I had just launched in the marketplace and who wants to pay for an AI writer when they can go out and get this other product for free. Eventually, we’re going to be redoing it. 

We’re going to tie it into the ChatGPT, and I’m not a technical person, but we’re going to tie it into that. We’re going to be redoing it and also taking a lot of the content that we had in the app and put it again in a Shopify store called HelloContent Shop. 

It’s not launched yet, but that’s something that we’re going to be working on. We’re just pivots, like I said, action creates clarity. 

So we’re pivoting, we’re going to be making changes, we’re going to be redoing the AI writer app and doing some stuff with the content that also we had created. I thank you.

Jillian Leslie (00:36:04) – There you go. Thank you for sharing that. And by the way, this happens to everybody, which is the world and the internet changes. 

And tell me, for all of you listening, who hasn’t gotten hit by a Google algorithm update, or all of 

a sudden Pinterest decides that they don’t want to try traffic, they don’t want static pins anymore, and they want you to do this other thing. 

And you have so invested on a certain path, and then all of a sudden it’s like the rug gets pulled out from under you. I love that you shared that because we’ve all experienced it and I do think that we take it personally like it’s not happening to anybody else. 

Oh, yes, it is. It’s happening to every single person. I remember there was a Google update, I think it was like Panda or something, and our traffic just tanked and we had no idea why. And we had to hire a specialist and we had to rebuild it. 

And it was so upsetting and it was like overnight we didn’t do anything bad. And yet, this just happened to us. So I feel like we should expect this if we’re going to be an online business. This is the world. 

Destini Copp (00:37:18) – It is what it is. And that’s the thing, you always have to be looking at the marketplace, talking to your customers and figuring out where you need to change and pivot. And that’s just the reality of it.

Jillian Leslie (00:37:29) – I totally get it. Will you just briefly talk about the two sides of your business? So you’ve got HobbyScool and then you’ve got your own personal stuff. What do you offer in both of those?

Destini’s Two Businesses 

Destini Copp (00:37:44) – Yes. For HobbyScool, we run those virtual online learning summits and we run them almost monthly. 

So, if you have somebody out there who’s interested in learning how to do crafting or home gardens we do a ton of different niches there, definitely go check that out. 

If you’re in that niche and you want to apply to be a speaker, you can go to the website too. And we have in the top navigation bar, you can go there and click to apply to speak. 

Now in my personal brand, which is the destinicopp.com brand, we also run virtual summits there and a lot of business type topics. So social media, content marketing, digital products, sales funnels, visibility, a lot of different topics there that we will run every single month there.

 And also if you’re interested in creating an online course or an evergreen sales funnel, we have offers for that also.

Jillian Leslie (00:38:40) – Wow. And just briefly, how do you manage these two businesses? They’re kind of related, but they’re also separate.

Destini Copp (00:38:49) – I am very organized and I have a team of people that help me. I definitely engage with them. I have somebody who focuses strictly on running the summits for both brands and she’s fantastic and she helps me with all of that. 

And then I have somebody else who also is helping me with some of the HelloContent stuff.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:11) – Wow. Alright Destini, if people want to reach out, you just shared two sides of your business, but where should they go?

Destini Copp (00:39:18) – I am on Instagram and @destinicopp and I’m also on LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s probably my favorite social media platform. So if you’re on LinkedIn, definitely go there at @destinicopp. 

I’m happy to answer any questions that you have about anything that we talked about today. And Jillian, thank you so much for having me.

Jillian Leslie (00:39:37) – Oh, thank you for coming. I’ve really appreciated this.

Destini Copp (00:39:41) – It was such a fun discussion. 

Jillian Leslie (00:39:43) – I hope you guys like this episode. I really appreciated Destini sharing about her AI writing app and how that kind of shifted. And I feel like we all need to prepare for the sands to shift under our feet. 

This is definitely why I recommend you think about what your higher purpose is so you can lean into that and figure out how to connect with real people. This is where things like memberships, workshops, and coaching are really powerful. 

If you want to get on a call with me to talk about it, go to milotree.com/meet. And I want to leave you with this saying that I’m going to continue to use in my own life, which is, “Action creates clarity.”

Thank you for that Destini, and I will see you here again next week.

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