AP 1136: As a Solopreneur, How Do I Hire Help (Especially During Times of COVID)?

AP 1136: As a Solopreneur, How Do I Hire Help (Especially During Times of Covid)?

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Pat Flynn:
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Pat:
What's up everybody! Pat Flynn here, and welcome to episode 1,136 of Ask Pat 2.0, you're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur, just like you. And today we're talking with Maddie. And Maddie's an awesome, awesome person who is doing some amazing things in the quilting world. And she's doing so amazing that she's built this incredible brand that is actually very progressive in the quilter space. Yes, progressive in the quilting space online.

Pat:
And it's pretty awesome. And I will say from this point forward apart of her brand has the A word in it. So I'm going to be saying it because it's part of her brand and I don't want to discount what that means for what she's doing. And so if you have little ones around and you're not in tune with the A word, just know that I'm about to say it, because this is the name of her brand. BadAssQuiltersSociety.com. How badass is that?

Pat:
So if you check out BadAssQuiltersSociety.com, you'll find her brand that she started. We get into the origin story a little bit. But also what this means in the world of quilting, which actually her brand often gets the cold shoulder from a lot of companies because they dislike the angle that she's taking. So we talk about that a little bit.

Pat:
We also talk a lot about hiring help, especially during times of COVID, and then planning launches, and we talk about memberships. We talk about a lot of things here. We talked for about a half hour, in fact. Maddie's just an awesome personality and doing one of those things that I think more of us need to do, which is if you know you need to step up and put a foot in the ground, when you believe in something, and not being afraid to do that, she's a prime example of that. So Maddie, awesome job. And here she is Maddie from BadAssQuiltersSociety.com.

Pat:
Maddie, welcome to AskPat 2.0, thanks so much for joining me today.

Maddie Kertay:
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Pat:
I'm excited you're here too. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Maddie:
All right. So I am the founder of BadAss Quilters Society. Yes, quilter like your grandma who makes blankets, but except their quilts, we have about 30,000 public facing members. And I am known as the BadAss Quilter because we have the world's largest, socially progressive quilting community in the world.

Pat:
What does that mean exactly?

Maddie:
So, quilting can get kind of a bum rap as being something that little old conservative stodgy ladies do. And the truth of the matter is, it is a wide open artisan field for everybody. And it can become more difficult when people just flat out associate you with one thing and you're really not. So we have a lot of people who gravitate toward us because they don't fit that typical mold. And they don't want to be pigeonholed there.

Pat:
That makes sense. Hence the "bad ass" in the name, to just completely differentiate yourself from that.

Maddie:
Yes. And that really actually came from, I had gotten a contract with a company to work for them, and then they went back... I don't know why they hadn't done it ahead of time... and they went back and read my blog, and they were like, "Oh no, you have to take all these things down." And they notated every page that I had to take down.

Maddie:
And I was like, "Oh no, I won't do that." And they said, "Well, we are going to bring in your moralities clause then, and we're canceling your contract."

Pat:
Wow.

Maddie:
Yeah. From there I wrote a blog post that I thought we all really needed to stand up for who we were in the quilting world and be a little bit more bad ass about it, and so I started a Facebook page. At the time, I don't even think groups weren't even an option at this time, because that was nine years ago. And so I started a Facebook page and I called it BadAss Quilters Society. And I thought, a couple of my friends and I would hang out there. And now we are eight and a half years later, or almost nine, and 30,000 plus members.

Pat:
That's amazing. And I think it's important too, you have to know what you stand for. Right? And if that's not shown, you just sort of blend in with everybody else. Right? And I love that. Thank you for doing that, and stepping up. Even though it might've been hard, you perhaps have upset some people, or lost some people along the way. But at the same time, I'm guessing, you tell me, you're tracking this amazing passionate community at the same time.

Maddie:
It is an amazingly passionate community. And they really think of themselves first as bad ass quilters. And that really resonates with them. And the funny part is, is that when we talk to advertisers or other people, they're like, "Oh, it's those young kids." Well, I'm 52. And my average demographic is 56. And I have actually more 70-year olds than I have 30-year olds.

Pat:
That's so cool. That's really cool. So how can I help you? What's been on your mind with this community lately?

Maddie:
We just did a founders launch. I opened up a private community and I'm doing that over on Mighty Networks. Because I couldn't get into Circle because it was in beta still.

Pat:
Mighty Networks is great too. Yeah.

Maddie:
They are. They're both awesome. That went really well. We only offered 500 original tickets, and we had about 240 people take us up on the offer, and to come into paid community with us, so that's amazing. And they are amazing people. My real question is, there are so many other directions one could go, and I am one human. I am desperately looking for a virtual assistant and I'm working through that. And I actually listened to a couple of the podcasts that you had about using that and how you hooked up with Jess and the whole bit.

Maddie:
But my question really is, is where would you take it from here? I mean, because there's growing the private community, there's a podcast, there's sponsorship, affiliate marketing, merchandise. We have lots of merchandise. I will say that we do sell quite a bit of merchandise, but I don't know... And you don't want all your eggs in one basket, but you need a couple of different eggs, at least.

Pat:
Right. Right. And you know my brand, I'm doing all the things. But it wasn't all at the same time. That's the important thing. So I think that the biggest thing here is eventually you want to get to that point where you have diversification across business income streams, traffic, et cetera, all the things diversified, but you have to pick and choose and prioritize. And that's the keyword here prioritize.

Pat:
So of all the things that we can choose to do, what are the most important things? What are the things that are going to move the needle the most? Or relieve this overwhelm for you? And it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, but having some help would be really nice to have right now.

Maddie:
Help is definitely top of the list. And I think like a lot of solo-preneurs, that's the hardest word to say, but I, especially in times of COVID, I worry about hiring somebody and then not having the money to keep them on, because you just don't know what tomorrow brings. And I'm very hopeful, obviously. I started a private community and, but even in that, I shied away from letting people buy it for a year at a time because the truth is, I don't know what life is going to look like six months from now.

Pat:
Okay. Interesting. A lot of things to unpack here. Number one, in terms of the membership community, you can always include an annual payment later if you didn't choose to do that upfront. In fact, this is... How long ago did you launch the community?

Maddie:
I was actually launching at the same time you launched because I'm a member over in your community as well.

Pat:
Hey. Love it. Thanks for being a pro.

Maddie:
Yeah.

Pat:
What's really cool is if you did not choose to do the annual, you can do that maybe three months down the road. "Hey, community, you seem to enjoy this. We love it. We have so many more plans for you. We know this is a longterm thing for us now. Because we didn't release a annual payment upfront where you could save a little bit of money, for those of you who have been in here, I want to do that for you right now. And it's only going to be available," or, "We're opening this up now. We wanted to give you a chance to get in and actually save some money now that you're likely going to be in here for a while."

Pat:
What's cool about that is you're actually getting people to commit for a longer period of time. You're helping them save money. It's sort of a win all around and people don't have to choose that if they don't want to. So by you bringing this in as an option later, this could be something that could really help you with some finances, especially when it comes to hiring somebody. We at SPI, we're hiring a community person right now.

Pat:
We have already a number of interviews. Applications are no longer open, but we are really excited about expanding the community and having some help within. To have somebody sort of become a face of, or at least somebody who's very active in there, supporting the community, on top of the team being involved in that as well. And that's because we know that that's a thing that we want to grow. And when it comes to, money and what you're spending money on, I would also flip the question on you and say, well, what would happen if you didn't hire help? And what would be that cost of not hiring somebody, do you think?

Maddie:
Absolutely. I mean, that's the thing. I think what I have to figure out first is exactly what they would do for me. So I could figure out how to free up that time, because I'm pretty good time management person. I'm the mother of six kids.

Pat:
supermom.

Maddie:
Yeah, no, not a supermom. No moms are [crosstalk 00:10:38], you know what, all moms are super-

Pat:
All moms are super.

Maddie:
All moms are super; one, or none, or six, or 19 of them. You know what, but you do learn how to delegate your time a little bit differently. So I am good at that. But it's the thing like most solopreneurs is like what to let go of first. And I will say that I did start hiring somebody. I hired a graphic artist to take care of those bits, that I can actually do and I do fairly well, but they also do, and it does take me time.

Pat:
That's a great first step.

Maddie:
I started there. That was my baby step into it. Because those people are... There's a word for it and I'm totally forgetting it, but like you hire them by the gig. And so once that gig is done, if for some reason, all of a sudden my bank account was empty, which it's not, but I have like this magic number that I think I should always have in my business bank account. And some people are happy to go way, way lower than that number. And some people have... And I have like this comfort spot and if I have less money than that, I'm just like, "Oh no."

Pat:
Yeah. And that's the smart thing, a little bit of a cushion there. And wherever your cushion is, that's important for you because that's peace of mind as well. Right. I think that's great. I think that the baby step into hiring a graphic and in the realm of, "I can do it myself. I am great at it, but I shouldn't do it," is a very smart sort of litmus test, if you will, for these kinds of things, that can be really, really helpful in unlocking more time.

Pat:
The biggest exercise that you could probably do right now is make a list of all the things you do and start to see it on paper. Because sometimes we don't even know all the things we do until we see it. And sometimes we see it, and we go, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I do all these things," or, "Wow, look at these things can be combined," or, "I have a software that can actually do this. Why am I doing it manually?" Or, "Man, it would be really great if I could just hand that off. I would get an extra two to three hours a month," or excuse me, "A week if I were to actually hand that off."

Pat:
And then that's where you can then go, "Okay, now I can write a job description, or find a VA who can either do those things right off the bat, or more likely, a VA that you can hire that would then need to be trained to do some of those things." And it kind of depends on what it is, those things are. But there are, if you're comfortable, and a lot of people go this route, they hire a VA on a more regular basis because it's recurring things that happen again and again and again, versus the onetime projects that you were talking about.

Pat:
But they start with an overseas virtual assistant. And the reason why they start there is because the economies of scale make it so cheap. I had a VA that I hired in 2011 for some niche site related things I was doing where it was recurring and the same tasks all over and over again that I could do myself too. But I just knew that I shouldn't be spending my time there; 40 hours a week for $600 a month.

Maddie:
Oh, yeah.

Pat:
It was like, what? That's almost like robbery, right? But I actually offered this person more money and they were in the Philippines and just... I'm half Filipino myself there. And I know the culture there. If you have a lot of money in the Philippines, you are a target. So they were living very comfortably on $600 a month for 240 hours that I was getting back that I didn't have to do myself per month. That's a lot of hours back.

Maddie:
Oh, yeah.

Pat:
Or added on. Right? There's that place to start too. I know some people would rather have somebody who's more local or in the same country and that's fine too. But of course in the US it's obviously more expensive to hire, too.

Maddie:
Sure. That makes perfect sense. And I have looked at that. I've actually looked at having a VA, actually, maybe even here for both my husband and myself, because he books a lot of stuff. Now, of course we're in COVID time, so he's not traveling at all right now and we both work from home. So there's that.

Maddie:
But yeah, I think that's one of the first things to do to free up some time, because I feel like right now we closed the doors on our private community only for six months, basically until the new year, just so I could spend some time really understanding how to be in community, deeper community, with these people. And so that it wasn't so... Because I mean, if we had taken... Because I figured that we would get a certain amount of people. We actually got more than I thought based on all the metrics that everybody had told me. Because like I said, we gave out 500 invitations, and got 240 takers. So that felt pretty good. But-

Pat:
Same conversion rate that we had actually.

Maddie:
Yeah, it was cool. Yeah. Because they've been with me for a long time and these are definitely faces I know. But there were faces, I didn't know either who've stepped out of the shadows, which is really cool as well. But then when we relaunch in January, I really want to have... Because this was a messy launch. I mean, it was as good as I could do, but there was definitely things that were like, "Whoa, didn't expect that."

Maddie:
And I think that's okay. Because you kind of just embrace that. I tried really the Brenee Brown approach. It's that you just kind of have to dive in there and-

Pat:
Right. The ready, fire, aim approach.

Maddie:
I know. Well, and you just have to get in there and you have to live within the uncomfortable. And I'm not a good person about living, because I like to really micromanage everything, but there's a certain point where you have to get in there. So I think that's the part of this that's most difficult is that I'm not micromanaging, because you have to let go of certain things.

Pat:
Right, right.

Maddie:
In that way.

Pat:
And that's how a CEO needs to think. And it's the tough decisions, it's within the uncomfort that growth happens. So I think that I just want to commend you for everything that you're talking about so far. You're doing all the right things. And I just want to help you expand on that. And before we finish up this conversation on help, and move over to sort of what's coming next in the brand, the other idea is an internship. And this is something that is very popular that's often under utilized.

Pat:
But you have this community, you have a lot of experience that other people would want access to and to learn from you from, and without having to pay a dime, but mostly just paying attention and paying time. And in terms of like bringing people in on the process with you, you could potentially have some interns come in and help you and be trained to do certain tasks, which are maybe a little bit more sort of lower level tasks.

Pat:
In exchange for being a part of the community, maybe getting free access to the community if that's a thing that you'd want to offer, other things. But in terms of like payments, internships are very popular and they're a great educational piece. A lot of people want to add that experience onto their resume. There's a lot of benefits that you could offer and it could be a win on both sides, too.

Maddie:
Cool. That's an interesting thing to think of. I have to like kind of process through that. Because I see so many negative ways internships are used and so I would want it to truly... I mean, cause my husband, when he... He teaches college, so he has TAs, but it has to be a really positive thing because it has to be a real learning experience. But that is an idea because I know in your Superfans book you talk about using volunteers for events and things like that.

Pat:
Exactly.

Maddie:
And I do have a lot of people who step up in that way, but it's a lot of work. And so I want to be very sure that I'm not abusing that in any way.

Pat:
That's great. I mean, as long as in your positioning, you can be very upfront with who this is for, what you get, what you don't get, as long as you're honest, and it sounds like you're not going to take advantage of somebody that's really key. And I think that's where it could be a win on both sides.

Pat:
We had discussed trying to get potentially interns into our business at one point or another, and we were going to call them Flynn-terns.

Maddie:
Heh heh.

Pat:
Anyway. Okay. Talking about what's next. Oftentimes a great way to start with, okay. Well what's coming next? Is to see, well what might you have room for? Or were there are open spots in your calendar? And that's where I want to focus this conversation a little bit because we use our calendar to plan what's coming next. We go, "Okay, well here's, what's coming. Here's when our next launch for the existing things we have. Oh, here's a two month period where legit, there's nothing happening. What might we be able to include in there? How does it fit amongst the things that we talked about prior to that?"

Pat:
Then what's cool is when you see the calendar and you go, "Okay, during this month, we're going to do a big push for a software that we use. And we're going to hopefully maximize our affiliate income during that campaign, knowing that a lot of those assets that we're going to be creating during that time are also going to be evergreen on YouTube and on the podcast and whatnot, and maybe we do an interview with the founder. Like we kind of go that far into planning, even for affiliate relationships that we have versus, on top of doing the same thing for our own products.

Pat:
But using the calendar to just go, "Okay, during this part of the year, this is what we want to focus on and we can reverse engineer what might need to happen content-wise, or conversationally, with our audience leading up to that. That's a very smart place to start. There's many other places to start, which we'll go over too. But how is the calendar working out for you and your overall plan with the business? And has that become a part of the sort of picking and choosing of what to focus on yet? Or is that something you think you might do?

Maddie:
So what I'll say is that since we just hurtled through this launch, closed the doors on the private community. So we're all in communion as we like to say, then that was actually when I'm going to start buckling down and taking your podcasting course. So with an idea of having hopefully launching in relation to getting this room built upstairs, because I'm building a whole studio as well. Getting all of that done, I'm looking at that.

Maddie:
And I was looking at also affiliate marketing because I mean, the truth of the matter is, is that I know that I trust the products that you tell me about, because you've proven yourself and that's the way people feel about what I recommend. And so I'm very, very, just like you, I'm very, very picky about what I have and what I put my name to. Now, my big problem really is that I'm going to have to go outside of my niche to have affiliate marketers because the greater number of businesses within my niche will not work with us because of the name BadAss Quilters Society, because they feel like it upsets their conservative base.

Maddie:
So I have other companies that I work with, but I feel like is that off... I don't want to use the word off-brand, but maybe that's actually it. Because they are things that I very, very much love and use, but they are not quilting or sewing things.

Pat:
It seems to be that they're just different. Perhaps they're just not the normal thing that you would see, but guess what? Your community is not the normal community you'd see in this space either. Right? So it almost kind of fits that style, that aura in terms of affiliates. So when you say affiliates, you mean not you doing affiliate marketing, i.e. Promoting other products within your community or within your brand, it's finding partners to promote your stuff.

Maddie:
Either way, quite frankly. Because I mean, I have other companies who come... Because I mean, as a total aside, I just got through losing 50 pounds.

Pat:
Congratulations. That's huge.

Maddie:
Yeah. I got off my insulin, so I am no longer insulin-dependent diabetic anymore. And I did that and I've been talking about that over on Instagram. So I've had other companies who've come to me because they've poked around, because they've seen the hashtags like most companies do. And so those are things that I do share those other things. And so I'm very open to putting those, like if it's a very well aligned product, or talking about them in a way, but I don't feel bad about push... The words not pushing, but having those things. But it's definitely a shame that I can't do things that are within my business.

Maddie:
And I guess the bigger question is, and man, this sounds cruddy. So I do a lot of videos from my studio and there are products that I have in there, like big machines. Like, I don't know if you know what a quilting long arm looks like, but it's a 12-foot long machine. It's big. You can't miss it. It's not like a toaster. I mean it's 12 feet long.

Pat:
Yeah. That's long.

Maddie:
It is. It's long. It's humongous. And I happen to like it, and it runs really well, but the company who makes it will not work with me. And yet I have people every day when I have that machine in the background, go, "Tell me about your machine. Do you like that machine? Where can I get that machine?"

Pat:
Yeah. Well, would it be a disservice to your audience not to still mention the product?

Maddie:
I still do mention the product.

Pat:
You still do, okay good.

Maddie:
I just don't tap dance... I mean, not tap dance its a bad word. As a friend of mine says, I don't shake my pom-poms for them as much as I would for a product that I'm endorsing. I'm still going to tell them why I love it, because I do still love it. I still love it but their ethos as a company is one that does not align with mine.

Pat:
What would happen if you were to say, just to your community, "Hey, here's this product that's 12 feet long and it's awesome. And I want to share it with you. Unfortunately, the company doesn't allow me to make money from it because they don't believe in the sort of ethos of the way we do things here, but I want to support them because they have a great product. Maybe one day they'll support us too here." That could add an interesting level of just taking the high road kind of situation, which you have been obviously.

Pat:
But more of a way to potentially even incite some of your fans to just go, "You know what? Actually, if they're not supportive of this community, I don't want to support them either." And maybe they might budge or at least start a conversation with you, which they haven't yet about that. I don't know. I'm just kind of thinking out loud because with a fan base, especially those who trust you, I mean, you can make some noise, one way or another. And obviously you want to stay within your comfort zone and obviously you don't want to have some sort of arguments or anything that just would distract you. So I understand the conundrum there, for sure.

Pat:
But I think that's just one of those edge cases where it's just like, you know what? For that product, they're just a company that doesn't like us, but you know what? It's still helpful for my audience someone to share it anyway. But then there's this other product, which yes, you will go a little bit further and beyond because they like your ethos and they're fine with it, and they want to support you, and you're going to do bigger campaigns for them. Unfortunately, this other product, you're never going to do that for them because of the the stance that they take on your brand. So there's no inkling of changing your brand though, is it, because of this?

Maddie:
Oh no.

Pat:
Okay, good.

Maddie:
Uh-uh (negative). No. We are, as I say, we have doubled down more than once in our community about what it stands for. And if anybody, in fact, what I say about the page is that if somebody goes, "I can't believe you said that," everybody else goes, "You joined the Bad Ass Community Page, what did you think you were going to get?" So a friend of mine, she said, "Yeah, they take the trash out before you've even smelled it."

Pat:
That's good.

Maddie:
Because some people will come on and they'll get in an indignant wad about something. And it's like, it's not like we hid it. It's like everywhere, we say flat out. Because I want people to be comfortable when they are with us. I want them to know that they are with their people. So we do everything besides make people sign a blood oath that they understand that we are progressive.

Maddie:
I mean, we were really lucky when a lot of companies went down in a flaming ball. When, Black Lives Matter became so prevalent, we had already doubled down. We had said, "We are about all makers. We are especially about black makers. We are," I mean, we've gone out of our way, really in our imagery and in the people we feature, and stuff like that to do our damnedest, to have a really amazing amount of diversity in community. Because we baked that in early.

Pat:
Yeah. That's great. That's great. I love that. In terms of the podcasting stuff that you're doing. I mean, in relation to the calendar, I think it might be a smart thing to go, "Okay, well here's the time of the year when we're going to launch this, right now I'm in learning mode, but this is the goal." And you'll hear that in the course in terms of, okay, when's your launch date? And planning and reverse engineering from that.

Pat:
And that enables you to now, with this community behind you, to start to get excited about the podcast. I would let people know that something is coming and maybe even get them on board early and even offer topic ideas and make them feel like they're a part of the process with you. So that when it comes out, it's not a secret thing. It's like, they've been waiting for it this whole time.

Pat:
Maybe even inviting some of your community members within your paid community to be featured guests, even, which would be pretty cool. Which would give you a sort of side opportunity to say, "Oh, by the way, if you want to join this community too, go here." And then that should be the focus for right now.

Pat:
And that should take most of your energy because the nice thing about a podcast is most of the work is done upfront. After you're out there, it's essentially, you're just in content creation mode and all the hard work has been done. You don't have to submit to all the directories individually anymore, it all happens automatically after you upload to a single place. And it sort of takes care of itself from there. And then you unlock more time to now maybe focus on finding specific affiliates.

Pat:
I like the idea of looking for affiliates outside of the space. Maybe there's another bad ass community in a completely different niche, but they just are looking for other bad asses. And now you're coming in, in this sub space within the bad ass space of just quilting. And some of those people could be really interested in connecting with other people like them on this topic and want to dive deeper from there and promote your stuff. Even though it's more sub niche within their space, it's still relevant and probably more relevant than going into finding your traditional quilter podcaster and being a guest on their show and talking about this. It might not fit as well.

Maddie:
Definitely. So with us relaunching in January, timeline speaking, I mean, I can't imagine launching a podcast and relaunching our community... I mean, re-opening the doors again, but how much time do you think? I mean, because I've already said that we're reopening the doors in January, so that's that.

Pat:
That's fine. And that's great. New year, new work, new people, all those things, we'll cross our fingers, hope 2021 is better for everybody, but yeah, I think that's great timing. And what you could do is, and if I were in your camp, and if this was possible, I would have the podcasts come out prior to that.

Maddie:
Okay.

Pat:
I would feature people in the community on your podcast at some point, maybe not in episode one or even the first few, but after you get a few under your belt, invite some of your community members on and then start leading people into a landing page where they can sign up to learn more about this opening in January. And be first on the wait list essentially, for when it opens.

Pat:
And because you've brought people in the community on the show and they're hearing their voice and they're talking about the community and you've set up their story really well, you make them look like a hero. It's going to really excite people to want to sign up and become a part of this too. And then hopefully the flood gates open in January after people have known about it for a while.

Maddie:
Cool. Excellent. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, just, I was like before or after? Before or after?

Pat:
Before.

Maddie:
Yeah, before. The before does really make [crosstalk 00:29:48]-

Pat:
Even if it's biweekly and that's all you have time for. It sounds like you're getting really serious about it though having a studio built in your home about that. So I think... I'm excited for it. I'm really excited for it. And once you dive into the course, I've had people take it and be able to launch a podcast within a week. But I recommend usually a month before, or a month after you start taking the course, would be ideal because then you have time to build excitement and have a really big launch as well.

Pat:
And this is cool because like you've just launched a paid thing, right? You made a big deal about a paid thing. Now you're about to make a big deal and launch into a free thing. Podcasts are free. There's going to be huge benefit for your community, for launching this thing. And then another the paid thing coming back in January, it's a perfect cycle it seems.

Maddie:
That is a nice cycle because unfortunately the quilting and sewing world is kind of traditionally, it's a stingy market in many ways. There's a lot of free content out there, a lot. And so people have become pablum fed into having everything for free. So launching a paid thing, I got a fair amount of flack and I was like, "They're just not my customer. They're just not my person." And that's okay because I still have a free blog. I still have a free page. I have the other things. So people who have a fit that they can't have this other thing for free, I can't have a Tesla either.

Pat:
It's not like you took anything away from them that they didn't have access to, or that they once had access to and is now gone. It's like, you're just adding something on for people who want to go deeper yet, they still get upset. And I felt that too, but you know what's going to happen? You come out with this podcast, you make a huge deal about it. It's free. And then you're going to start featuring people in this paid community and they're going to go, "Wow. A paid thing that's actually useful? Okay, well, this is different. Just like this community. I need to go in and give it a shot."

Pat:
Those could be really natural testimonials that don't even feel like they're selling. It's just going to be a natural part of the conversation with your audience.

Maddie:
Awesome. Thank you.

Pat:
Yeah. You're welcome, Maddie. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to seeing how this all progresses for you and just want to wish you the best of luck. Can you tell everybody where they can go and find your community in case they're interested in listening?

Maddie:
Absolutely. So the best place to find us is going to be online at BadAssQuiltersSociety.com, which is B-A-D-A-S-S Quilters, Q-U-I-L-T-E-R-S, Society, S-O-C-I-E-T-Y.com.

Pat:
Thank you, Maddie. I appreciate you and good luck with everything.

Maddie:
Thank you. Best to you, Pat. Bye. Bye.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Maddie. If you want to check her out, once again, that's BadAssQuiltersSociety.com, a Facebook group, and membership and all this amazing stuff that she has going on. So thank you Maddie for coming on. I appreciate you. And if you'd like to get coached yourself, much like how Maddie got coached and had a conversation with me today, all you have do is go to AskPat.com and you can fill out an application there.

Pat:
And you can also find the archive of other episodes in whatever player you're using right now, or even on the website, if you're listening there, and you can find episodes that are relevant to you. And I just want to say, I thank you so much. I appreciate you. And I cannot wait to serve you next week. So make sure you hit that subscribe button, if you haven't already.

Pat:
And make sure to check out our membership program, SPI Pro, which you can find atsmartpassiveincome.com/pro. You can apply. See if it's right for you. And we roll new members in based on a wait list every single week by this point, which is pretty cool. So smartpassiveincome.com/pro. Thanks so much. Take care. And I appreciate you. We'll see you in the next episode. Peace out. #TeamFlynn for the win.