302 – What to Expect When You Join Clubhouse with Jennifer Lehner of The Front Row VIP

Gift biz unwrapped episode 302.

You're not going to have to create new content.

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Your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.

Hi there.

It's Sue.

Hello and welcome to this week's show.

Before we dive into clubhouse,

I want to take a minute and thank all of you

who participated in last week's national bakers,

crafters makers day.

You demonstrated exactly the reason I dedicate my time and energy

to this podcast and handmade creators.

Overall, your generosity support of each other and passion for your

products lit us up last week.

I'm already thinking about new things we can do for next

year, but for now I'm reveling in the power of fleet,

positive vibes you brought.

It was truly amazing.

So thank you.

Thank you for that.

If you're new to the show or this somehow passed you

by jump over to my Instagram account at gift biz on

rapt, and you'll see all about the new annual national bakers

crafters makers day,

but honestly,

you guys,

we don't need just a special day to uplift and support

each other.

We do it every single day in gift biz breeze,

right? Okay.

Clubhouse, have you heard of it yet?

It's a social networking app,

allowing you to connect with people who you would never be

able to link to.

Otherwise currently it's only for iPhone users,

but guess what?

I just heard about a workaround.

If you know someone with an iPhone that they're not using

anymore, possibly they upgraded and they didn't have to trade in

their old phone.

See if they'll give it to you.

I've heard people are charging them up,

downloading the app.

And as long as you're in wifi range today,

you're in,

I personally don't know of anyone who's done this yet,

but if you do let me know in today's show,

we're going to be covering how to get into clubhouse,

how to navigate the app etiquette and some mornings I'm still

wavering on its exact value for handmade product businesses.

I'm not sure about a direct correlation to spending time in

clubhouse and increasing sales,

but I am seeing a value add to lifestyle topics like

how to manage children in a business at the same time,

working through ADHD,

joining faith-based conversations.

Plus there's a lot of entertainment on the business side.

I see its potential to helping deal with imposter syndrome,

pitching your business.

So more developmental type skills and most important of all contacts.

So with that being said,

here's our discussion all about clubhouse Today.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Jennifer laner of

Jennifer laner media.

Jen is a business coach and digital marketing and systems strategist.

She shows entrepreneurs how to build an audience and monetize their

expertise online using social media and digital tools and how to

hire and train their perfect match.

Virtual assistant,

Jen creates online courses and trainings and her favorite place to

hang out is in her private mastermind,

the front row,

VIP of which yay.

I'm a member.

She lives in shaker Heights,

Ohio with her husband,

three kids and two small barking dogs.

Love how you put the small barking dogs,

all of the adjectives in there.

Jen, welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

It's so good to be here.

I am thrilled that you are here and we're going to

talk about something that I didn't even mention in your bio.

And that is clubhouse.

And I thought to myself,

when this app came out,

Oh my gosh,

what's happening?

What is this all about?

And I saw that you were already on clubhouse and to

my way of thinking,

you are the perfect pro and expert at breaking all this

type of stuff down,

especially when it's new.

So I knew you'd be the perfect person to have on

the show to talk about this.

Thank you.

I'm flattered.

Yeah. Well,

it's true.

And that's what we're going to talk about,

but before we go there,

share a little bit about how you got to where you

are today.

Well, it was kind of a long journey and it was

all sort of like accidental.

I sort of stumbled into what I do,

but I've always been interested in digital tools and just gadgets.

And I think marketing as well.

I mean,

I can think all the way back to like first grade

selling all of my Dr Seuss books without my mom's permission

on the playground.

So I started in nonprofit,

actually I was director of a nonprofit and then I had

a baby and I decided to be a stay at home

mom. And during that time eBay was born and Amazon was

born and I was just thrilled and amazed by all of

it. So like when my kid was napping,

I was like checking out all of it and learning about

it. And I would sign up for newsletter software.

And back in the day,

I think the blogging platform was blogger and Blogspot.

And I would play around with that and start blogs.

So all that kind of stuff was happening,

even though I wasn't working and then started volunteering at the

kids' schools and to do the teachers website,

just piddling here and there and enjoying every minute of it.

Then I realized that I had some skills that people might

pay for.

So I started consulting and consulting led to online course creation

and basically brought me to where I am today.

Before We dive into clubhouse,

I want to talk with you a little bit about something

different. It's a traditional question that I ask every single guest

who's on the show.

And that is to describe yourself in a creative way,

through a motivational candle.

So if you were to tell me what color and a

quote or a mantra or a saying that would be on

your candle,

What would it look like?

Okay. Okay.

So my favorite color is green,

but I don't really like the thought of a green candle,

unless maybe it's sort of a gray sagey green and it

smells like the woods because I really like to hike in

the woods.

I love the smell of nature.

And I think the quote on my candle would say,

this is going to sound the opposite of inspirational,

but it would be,

you already don't have it.

And that actually comes from one of my students who I

saw live streaming not too long ago.

And she was trying to encourage her viewers on her live

stream to do it,

take the plunge,

take the leap.

Don't be afraid.

She said,

because you already don't have it.

And I thought that is genius.

It is the best quote to remind us to not be

afraid because basically,

right. Like what do you have to lose?

You want that thing?

Whatever that thing is.

And by thing,

I mean,

situation, circumstance,

love interest,

professional goal,

whatever it is,

you already don't have it.

So you might as well go for it.

Yeah. You don't have it yet.

So what's the harm,

worst cases.

You're going to still be where you are.

Yes, exactly.

You already don't have it.

So what the heck?

Like you're starting at zero.

You have nothing to lose.

I don't know.

It really resonated with me and I've been saying it a

lot. I'm sure people are getting sick of it.

Well, I really like it.

Cause it catches you off guard.

It's like,

wait, why,

what does that mean?

But it's so true.

It is.

And that's always just sort of been my thing anyway.

It's like my brand is the front row and that's all

about life is too short to sit anywhere in life and

business other than the front row,

because you see things better because it's your way of saying

like I'm all in.

So putting that on my candle,

you already don't have,

it really just fits in with everything that I am about.

I totally agree,

because I've known you for awhile and this is how you

operate. Yeah,

it's perfect.

But What you're talking about,

you already don't have it,

I think will also apply to clubhouse because there is that

serious intimidation factor that happens over there too,

which I'm so we're going to get into.

Yeah. And the beauty of that is because it's new.

Nobody else has it either.

So for the most part,

so you can drop lots of insecurities and feel very comfortable

in that,

but everybody's sort of a beginner there right now.

I feel like you just have to dive in.

I mean,

that's what I did and I know you've done too,

is just go ahead and just do it.

See what happens and you're right.

Everyone's still learning.

Yep. All right.

Well, let's talk about What all this is.

I'm going to let you share your magic in the way

you do,

because you're so nice and structured in talking about things.

So for people who have no clue what we're talking about

clubhouse, does that mean something that's new in the community?

Is it now a social media app?

What is clubhouse?

It is an application.

It's a drop in audio chat application.

But if you just want to think of it as another

social media channel,

I think that works as well.

And it's completely audio based.

And I like to think of it as sort of a

cross between a podcast and a webinar and maybe even a

zoom call.

That's sort of like the very top level explanation definition does

that work?

It works.

And I think I was talking with a couple people about

it. And when I said to them,

it was a social media app.

They're like,

Oh, almost like gut wrenching drop,

like not something else.

I need to figure out with algorithms and posting and all

of that.

And I'm trying to think of a different definition for it

because I almost feel like it's more social networking.

It is social network.

I mean,

it is,

you can say it's a social networking app and that works

because you're right,

like to present this as another social media channel makes people

want to jump off a building.

I mean,

including myself,

who is a digital marketing strategist,

because it's a lot of work to like master these different

platforms and then have to turn around and teach them.

But I went right back to my community.

As you know,

once I discovered it,

like after only being on the platform for just a very

short time,

I ran back as fast as I could to my community.

And I said,

Hey, everybody needs to know about this.

And I said,

I know you don't want to hear me tell you that

you need to get on yet another platform,

but the reason you're going to like this is that it's

simple. You're not going to have to create new content.

It's fun.

And it's powerful if it really wasn't that great.

I really wouldn't have gone back with that much insistence that

everybody signed up for it,

but I can't honestly think of anyone.

And you let me know if you can,

but I can't think of anyone in any business or any

niche or any industry that could not benefit from being on

this platform.

I think you're right.

And originally I wasn't sure,

but I think as the users grow more industries come in.

Like at first I was only seen industries that were coaching

or things that aren't necessarily relating to my audience,

but are relating to me as I'm learning how to do

better, be better,

teach better,

all of that.

But I'm seeing more and more.

I'm seeing for those of you who are listening,

candlemakers on there.

And there's some gift basket folks and their jewelry designers and

there's conversations happening around your product creation and sourcing,

not just the business part of selling,

but a whole conversation around the making portion.

So I think everyone,

I mean,

Jen, like what's the harm of getting in and seeing and

playing and seeing what's for you because I haven't heard of

one person to your point who hasn't found value there.

Right? And the thing is,

it's like,

let's suppose you get on there and you're not seeing the

conversations that you wish were there.

You start the conversation.

And it's very,

very easy to do that.

And the people will come,

they will find you.

And that's the powerful part of clubhouse is that their algorithm,

not sure how it works,

but I can tell you that it is extremely sensitive and

powerful. So what that means is that when you go in

and you start telling clubhouse,

there's a little section where you can tell clubhouse what your

interests are and you don't have to just pick stuff around

your, obviously your business interest.

If you're interested in gardening and you're interested in spiritual things,

parenting, there's every sort of topic there you'll choose the topics,

then clubhouse will show you in your hallway,

which is basically like the hallway is the listing of rooms

and rooms are where the conversations happen.

So it will show you the listing of rooms and conversations

that are happening.

The clubhouse thinks you would be interested in.

And in addition to that in your profile,

most of your listeners have probably heard the idea and the

notion of keywords being really important,

using the right keywords on other channels,

whether it's LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram or your website,

because it helps people find you.

So in clubhouse,

the profile,

as it turns out,

the keywords in your profile are really super powerful as are

the emoji.

So if you are a candle maker,

is there an emoji for candle Sue?

Yes, there is.

Okay, perfect.

So you would use the candle emoji.

It will help you.

It's very searchable by emoji.

If you go into clubhouse,

you just plop a candle in the search bar and other

candle makers will likely pop up.

They've likely used that emoji and you can do the same

thing and get found that way.

Obviously you want to use the words as well,

but I just thought it was when I experimented with this,

I just couldn't believe like I put in a barber pole

and sure enough,

when I did that,

every person that came up was a stylist,

a barber or a stylist of some sort,

No kidding.

I'm going to have to try that because I've done words,

but I haven't done emojis.

And a lot of times what I'll get is to use

your idea of barber,

then I'll get someone whose last name is barber,

for example.

Oh yeah.

I just really wonder if that's like intentional.

Yeah. I don't know.

But point being,

there are lots of conversations to find there and you can

search them out,

but let's back up to the beginning who can be part

of clubhouse.

So unfortunately the clubhouse,

this is going to be very temporary because it is all

the rage right now.

But unfortunately right now,

this is just for iPhone users and it's by invitation only.

So, but everybody listening,

if you have an iPhone,

then you want to go to the app store,

download the clubhouse app right now,

the icon for it is like a black and white image

of a guy with like an Afro.

So that's what you're going to be looking for.

And then download it and go ahead and secure your handle

because you can do that even if you aren't a member

yet. And then they'll know that you're waiting on an invitation

and then put the word out there on your social media.

Hey, if you're on clubhouse,

I'd love an invite and you won't have to wait very

long for an invite.

I'm sure that very,

very soon clubhouse is going to open up to everybody A

little bit more on the name when I was just coming

in and now let's place this whole conversation in time.

Okay, Jen,

this is going to go out the end of January and

we're talking the second week of January.

So who knows what's going to happen in a couple of

weeks when this actually airs.

But what I was told is definitely grabbed your name.

Like not enter in as your business name or some other

cutesy thing,

grab your name.

If you can,

what's your opinion on that?

Yeah. A hundred percent,

most people are going to search for you by your name.

Now, if you are Sephora,

right, like that's you,

what are people going to be searching for?

They're likely going to be searching for you by your name.

And the other thing is you could only ever change it

one time.

So, and that goes the same for your alias and the

same for your app.

Okay. So you're at,

is going to be like at gen laner.

Okay. So that's what goes after you're at sign.

And then your alias is underneath that there's one sentence where

you might write candle maker and then there's your name,

which is Jen laner,

all of those.

Each of those,

you can only change one time.

And I think choosing your name for 99.9%

of the people is the right thing to do.

Unless you are like,

again, Kraft,

macaroni, and cheese,

you would be craft,

right. Well that is their name.

So same difference.

Right? Okay.

So what if I go in there and my name's already

taken, should I add a one,

two, three,

or something like that?

Or what should I do in that case?

Do you think,

You know,

I like when people do,

if let's say like,

your name is Janice Smith and Janice Smith is taken,

I like,

Hey Janice,

or Hey,

Janice Smith.

Well, that's cute.

Yeah. A lot of people do that on social.

Like I see that on Twitter and Instagram and stuff,

but right now,

I mean,

unless your name is Janice Smith and even then it's probably

available. So just hurry up and do it,

Just grab it,

just grab your name.

So the other thing I'm seeing,

and this was so fun,

I do twice a week,

Facebook, Q and A's inside my group.

And I was talking just like you said,

you went right to your community and we're saying,

get OnStar,

keep it,

all that because we're so in the hype of it,

all, what I found is if there are people who are

in your cell phone and you have their iPhone number,

and I almost feel like it needs to be in the

special place where it says iPhone,

like not mobile phone,

not your cell phone number as the home mine,

but right in that iPhone line,

what happens is if someone goes and then if you put

their phone number in your phone first and then go and

they grab their name.

So they're then on the waiting list,

it will match up with your phone and then doesn't cost

one of your invites to bring them in.

Oh, I didn't know that that's a new one to me.

Yeah. And I did that.

So here we are on our live.

We usually go about an hour.

I like to bracket it so that we're not wasting time.

Cause you know how we can all talk forever.

And so if it was just an hour and during that

hour, I was telling people that,

and two people who I already had their mobile phones,

they're coaching clients of mine,

or somehow for some reason I have their phone.

Two of those people went and registered for an account.

And while we were live,

I got those notifications.

And so I let them in right when we were talking

about it.

That's a great tip.

Thanks. Yeah.

But it's because I had the number in my phone.

First, if you add it after they've signed up for an

account, then you have to use the invites that you're given.

Okay. Right.

So at least that's how I've seen it happening.

So heads up on that.

So if you have some people,

I had a few people I,

so I'm curious.

So we're all kind of learning how the invites work too.

So that was one thing I know.

And then I got one invite when I joined and then

yesterday I got three more invite.

Do you have any feel for how the invites are divvied

up? I have really researched this a lot.

And basically the consensus is there.

Nobody really knows what the science is behind,

how they decide how many to allocate to us.

But one thing is for sure,

is that the more you engage,

the more people you follow,

the more rooms that you host,

the more they like reward you with invites.

So yesterday for example,

I hosted a room and I suddenly had three invites.

And so,

but nobody really knows exactly how they're coming up with a

number to give you invites,

but they do reward you for,

they want you to interact.

They want you to start rooms.

And I think,

I don't know if we've made enough of a case yet

to convince people on why this is so powerful.

So I would like to hone in on that a little

bit, But first I want to walk this through.

Cause we have a lot of people who are hearing this

for the first time.

Don't really know.

So we've talked about the fact that it's iPhone users and

it's also the very first thing to do is grab your

account name and then wait for an invite,

wait to be accepted in.

And then what should they do when they get accepted?

And so we just want to get everybody set up and

then let's continue on.

So You'll get a notification that you've been invited you're in.

And it's so cool.

They've done such a good job with their onboarding because what

they'll do is they will alert the person that invited you

to welcome you.

They will also,

if they notice that any other people are connected with you,

then they will notify them that you just joined and it

plops you.

So when I first joined the person who invited me was

sitting there waiting for me,

like in a little room.

And she was like,

Hey. And it was just so fun.

I was like right there,

immersed into this little welcome room.

So that's the first thing.

And then,

because it really is such a simple user interface.

There's not a whole lot to it.

Like you don't have a lot of places where you can

click. So when you start clicking around,

you're going to get to your hallway.

And that's what we mentioned before,

which is a listing of all of the rooms that clubhouse

thinks you should see first,

you will likely see a room that is like town hall

or new clubhouse users,

maybe click on that,

go and listen,

and just listen and be a fly on the wall,

go pop in and out of multiple rooms.

And I would say the biggest tip that we need to

tell you to be aware of right off the bat is

the mute button.

So when you go into a room,

as you're exploring,

you may get brought up on stage.

That means someone is going to turn on your mic and

invite you up to speak,

but you'll get a notification.

You can choose to accept that or not accept that.

If you do accept that immediately upon accepting it,

you want to mute your microphone.

So you'll get in the habit of doing that.

The other thing that you want to do right away,

let's go to your profile.

You're just going to click on your profile picture.

And this was sort of confusing to me,

Sue. I don't know if it was to you,

but like you just tap on your profile.

There might be some dummy text there.

Initially you tap on that and there's no real feedback when

you tap,

you just start typing.

You'll see when you get there.

But what I want you to do,

what I think you should do is just put the most

important information about candle maker@candlemaker.com.

I'm new to clubhouse.

Give me a little while to get this bio just perfect.

Something like that.

That way you don't miss any maybe networking opportunities.

Cause you've given your contact information.

You've given one sentence that says what you do,

maybe where you're located.

And then as you're cruising around into the different rooms and

you're learning,

you're going to start looking at other people's profiles because there

really is an art to it.

Mine is not exactly how I want it to be.

As I start to look at other people's profiles.

And that's because they really give you this generous amount of

space to write so much.

And you can include that because it's keyword sensitive.

You know,

you might as well put the effort into it.

They're giving you that real estate.

And so you can imagine if let's say you get called

up or you're in a room and you're chatting about something

that really positions you as an expert,

they're immediately going to want to know more about you.

They're going to follow you.

They're going to click on your bio and you know how

it goes from there.

Then they're going to want to connect with you.

Especially if you've given them a strong reason to in your

bio. Yeah.

You know,

it's great advice because I've clicked on some people because they

are speaking and there's nothing there.

So I'm like,

well, I don't know.

Do I follow them?

Do I not follow them?

I don't know anything about them yet,

other than the,

what they're talking about.

So I really like what you said and really super smart

in saying you I'm just new here.

I'll be filling this out more later.

But for now here's who I am.

And you get three lines,

right? If you don't go to look at the full profile,

I think it's the first three lines that will show That's

exactly right.

It's the first three lines are the most important.

So whatever you want to get out and you want to

make sure nobody misses.

If you're a best-selling New York times author,

that should be in the top three lines because then people

have to click one more time to see your full profile

underneath that.

Right? The other thing I just don't want any of you

guys to freak out.

It's not like you're going to jump in and someone's probably

going to call you to stage and you'll be like,

Oh my gosh,

what's going on first off if you're in the audience.

So the ranking,

if you go into rooms,

our discussions think of rooms as discussions.

So if you go into a room,

Jen hosted a room last night.

So Jen would be there as a moderator.

And she might have a couple of other people who are

the quote unquote hosts of the room.

And then also at the top are people that you have

brought on to talk.

Then the next level is people who are connected to the

moderators, right?

Or to who is on stage.

Next row are people who are followed by the moderators,

Followed by the moderators.

And then if you have no connection to anybody,

you're going to be on the third tier.

So it's not like someone's going to just pop you up

on stage.

And you're unprepared.

You have two options,

one in the lower right-hand corner.

You can raise your hand because you have something that you

want to add to the conversation and then they will accept

you on stage.

And that's where Jen is saying,

if you go on stage,

make sure to automatically mute your mic because it defaults to

being on.

But then if someone brings you up on stage and you

weren't expecting it,

you first off get to say yes or no,

whether you want to be on stage.

But most likely tell me if you agree,

Jen it's because they already know you or they know you

have some experience and can add to the topic at hand,

like you're not going to get up there and be like

white faced ghost.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

That will not happen to you.

Mm. Not unless you're Gary Vaynerchuk or something like I've noticed,

like if you're super known influencer,

they always try to get them up on,

But you still have to say,

okay, I'll come off.

Yes, You have to say,

okay. And so you're exactly right.

I mean,

the chances of that happening are slim.

And since you brought up that,

the point about the different sections of the room,

where there's the section of the people who the moderator follow,

this is again,

like just shows how well they thought this out,

the clubhouse people and how elegant and smart it all is.

Because think about this when you are a moderator or you're

speaking. So you're up on the stage.

Then as you scroll on your phone,

the first faces you see are people you already know because

you're following at least one of those people,

it's sort of like the same thing is having your friends

and family,

like you're giving a Ted talk and you can see your

friends and family in the front row.

And it gives you a little more courage and makes you

feel a little more comfortable.

So that's kind of the thinking behind that,

which I just thought was so,

so smart.

And then as you scroll beyond that,

that's maybe where the strangers are,

who you don't know.

But again,

when we're talking about being on stage,

you sort of have to see it to know what we're

talking about,

but it's literally like,

it's your avatar and your little microphone and no one ever

sees your face.

It's just your voice.

And it's super casual.

It's very conversational.

And that's why it's so easy because talking and speaking is

the most natural thing in the world for human beings.

And so you don't have to be camera ready.

It's very,

very casual.

Yeah. It's very casual and it's not recorded,

which I think is a big plus right now.

Amen. There's some controversy about whether it should,

we might get into that a little bit later,

but you wanted to get to some points of value that

clubhouse offers.

Well, I think when it comes to thinking about business development,

growing your audience,

networking, what is so incredible because I would think if I

was listening to this conversation and I hadn't seen clubhouse,

I would immediately think,

well, like how is this more powerful than going into a

zoom room with a hundred people?

Or how is this more powerful than just getting on a

group chat?

And it's sort of everything combined.

It's sort of how it all the pieces fit together.

But let me just back up one quick second,

because I wanted to say,

if we forget to say it,

that when you go and explore all these rooms,

as we're advising you to do so you can just sort

of get the hang of it,

keep in mind that that super sensitive,

powerful algorithm that I've been mentioning,

pays attention to who you were following and where you are

going. And so if you go into a room that is

about tattoo artists or truck drivers or Christian singles,

then they're going to show you more of that stuff.

So you might go in there just because you're curious,

and it actually has zero application,

but you're just super curious,

like what are they talking about in reptile lovers?

And you're totally afraid of reptiles.

That would be me.

That's something that I would do.

I would go in there and be like,

what in the world?

I'm curious about these people.

It's okay to do that.

I'm not saying don't do that.

Just especially in the beginning,

they're starting to set your algorithm.

They're starting to get to know you clubhouses in terms of

like, what kind of content to show you.

So keep that in mind.

But more importantly,

the people that you follow,

unlike other platforms where you'll hear that you want to,

which is totally controversial in its own,

right? Like you don't want to necessarily follow everybody back that

follows you because you want it to look like you're an

influencer. So you have way more followers than who you follow,

like the ratio.

But it's definitely not that way on clubhouse.

You're encouraged to follow,

follow, follow,

follow people back.

And what happens when you do this,

the more you engage,

the more conversations that you see in your hallway.

And also they're going to be relevant to you if you're

following people who you really want to follow.

So that's what I want to say is be careful who

you follow,

like feel empowered or know that it's okay,

that you don't have to keep track of like following more

people than who were following you.

That's fine.

But you do want to make sure you're following people who

you actually want to see stuff from,

because you will get notifications from those people and you will

start to see those kinds of rooms in your hallway.

And that happened to me and I was not enjoying clubhouse

because I ended up seeing all these rooms that were super

cheesy promotional,

like a lot of bro marketers and just stuff I'm not

into at all.

But it was because I was in there curious,

and I was following some of the people just experimenting.

And then I realized,

Oh, I got to really go in there and clean up

who I'm following.

So did you do that?

You went through your people and relooked and then unfollowed,

I guess I shared it.

Yeah. I just,

I was like,

Oh yeah,

I don't want to see their content.

This is not a value to me.

I don't know why I'm following them and just unfollowed.

That's interesting,

but I don't think you also need to only follow people

who, for example,

you think might be your customer.

I mean,

that's not really what you're looking for here.

They could be a value for you.

I'm making a statement,

but I'm going to ask your opinion too,

Jen. Like they can be a value for anything.

Like I was looking to see who talks about manifesting and

law of attraction.

Anyone who's listened to the podcast for a while,

knows that I'm into that kind of thing.

And of course,

business development and of course product creation,

all those types of things,

but it doesn't have to just circle around your business interests

because the wealth of knowledge and right now how much sharing

there is for free,

literally for free is what's so exciting.

Yeah. And you're exactly right.

I follow vegan cause I'm vegan and yeah,

it's not related to my business.

Absolutely. You just want to make sure you're following people who

you give a hoot about.

Right? You're like,

yeah. I like what they say.

I'm interested in what they have to say,

what they have to share and regarding the free advice.

Oh my goodness.

I was in a room the other day and my favorite

copywriter and friend Laura Belgray was,

you can't hire Laura on an hourly basis anymore.

She doesn't do that anymore.

And so there was a woman in there who was struggling

with the name of her online course.

She was creating and it wasn't just Laura in there,

there were a lot of smart people in there up on

the stage and they workshop the name of her course right

there. She got like $10,000

in free consultation.

If you add it up,

like all the experts in the room who gave her like

a game plan,

a new name for her course,

it was something to witness.

I'll tell you,

but it's happening all day every day.

Because when you go into these rooms,

you're sitting beside some of the best of the best in

the business or in that genre,

whatever it is.

If you're in a room about manifesting,

you might be with the authors of your favorite book about

manifesting. Yeah.

It's crazy.

And so when you go in,

you can look at the rooms.

I really liked your guidance about being careful,

which rooms you go into.

I popped into some rooms just because I was curious,

but there are definitely rooms I will pop into.

There are some follow for follow rooms out there right now.

I think that's being kind of scrubbed that's trash,

but there are some others that are just a little bit

questionable, some political ones,

of course.

And so I'm careful in that way,

but there are some that just seem interesting to me.

Like I dropped into one that was about wig making,

like who would have guessed.

Well, that should be interesting to you.

That's because you're in the making.

Yeah. Well,

and the reason that was in my hallway is he had

jumped on stage and was talking at one point.

And I really like what he talked about,

where for his business development and how niched down he was.

So I'm like,

that is so interesting.

I have to follow him because I might never find him

again. You know,

if I don't follow him,

at least I can go to my followers and find him.

So if someone says something interesting,

I'm just following them.

And then to your point,

if it ends up that you don't need to keep that

connection, then you can let it go.

This is like a huge,

big, massive,

and I'm going to say it can be intimidating,

but it doesn't have to be intimidating if you're just listening

ways to connect with all kinds of people.

More about clubhouse,

right after a quick break.

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It's just unbelievable.

I was trying to explain to my husband clubhouse.

I still don't think he gets it,

but I was trying to explain it to him the other

night. And I want to say was like,

look, imagine you're at a conference and you're walking down the

hallway. And along the way,

there's a sign outside of every door that has like all

these different topics that you're interested in from personal development to

professional development,

to hobbies,

to sports,

to whatever.

And some of your favorite people in some of the most

well-known people in those areas are right inside the room with

open seats next to them.

And you can pop in and out without looking rude to

any of them.

You don't have to stay,

you can bounce around.

So you find the room that's just right for you.

And just like at a conference and really better than at

a conference,

because the way that you take it off of clubhouse to

engage with people is that you connect your Instagram and your

Twitter account,

you, or you can if you want to.

Okay. And so what people are seeing is like a record

number of new Instagram and Twitter followers,

because, and this is at the bottom of your profile.

So people will listen to you talk,

they'll follow you on clubhouse,

but then,

and you could give them this call to action as well.

You could say,

DM me on Instagram,

DM me on Twitter,

whatever, and they will follow you on Instagram and then send

you a DM or on Twitter and say so today,

so for example,

I hosted a room last night,

this morning I woke up,

there were 60 M's with people who wanted to know more

about some of the things that I offer.

That's incredible.

I know I had the same thing.

I hosted a room.

No, it wasn't.

When I hosted a room,

it's just when I was on stage,

I think on Sunday and that afternoon,

I had three people DM-ing me.

And they all three resulted in coaching calls.

See, I mean,

come on.

Like, and it just shrinks the whole sales cycle down.

I mean,

again, not that you're on there.

You won't see in the better rooms,

you will not see people selling.

Okay, you will see it,

but you will leave those rooms because it gets very tiresome,

very fast.

It's the people who introduced themselves with a two minute long-winded

bio. Right.

And they're trying to squeeze in everything that they offer in

every product.

But my guests do is that when you shared in that

room, you were sharing some just really valuable information.

And that the people were like,

well, she's smart.

I need to know more.

That's really all it is.

It's just so much faster than anything else because yeah,

you could do a tutorial on social media.

You could do a YouTube video.

And I still think all those things are very important,

but this is sort of like right in the moment it

happens instantly.

Yeah. It feels very authentic.

And honestly,

that's why I go back to calling this social networking.

And it couldn't come at a better time when we still

have to be at home.

Maybe even a little more so temporarily.

But I think of what you were just saying,

where someone comes in and tells you every single thing about

them and it's like,

hello, I'm,

so-and-so marry me.

It's the same type of thing that people would do at

old face-to-face networking events.

You know how you get up and you introduce yourself and

they tell you I'm in the shop.

My address of my shop is this and this and this.

They give you like all this stuff.

That doesn't mean anything at the time.

That's kind of what some of these people do,

but that's not the point just like in face-to-face networking.

The point isn't to sell right away,

the point is to learn about other people,

provide interesting information and take the relationship a step deeper.

And that's exactly what we're trying to do in clubhouse.

Yeah. And the other thing,

so back to the power of club,

I mean,

we've talked a lot about it.

I mean,

just the power of connecting is the main thing,

but the way clubhouse does that for us,

like the framework that allows that to happen is that first

of all,

if you want to find a talk,

there's a search bar,

there's a little calendar bar and you can look for events

by searching generically or just searching to see what's happening today

or what's coming up.

So there's this wonderful calendar when you schedule a room and

what a lot of people are doing is they're having like

their own branded weekly chats.

Some people are doing daily chats,

think of it like a daily talk show or whatever.

So I've started doing that every Wednesday night,

I'm hosting the front row entrepreneur chat with different topics.

And what happens is as soon as you schedule it,

and by the way I scheduled my first room,

the first five minutes I was on the platform because I

wanted to see the mechanics behind it.

And I just made sure to schedule it like mid February,

knowing also that I can edit it.

I can delete it.

So again,

get in there and get your hands dirty.

Cause you can undo any of that,

right? Like just if you want to touch it and play

with it.

So when you schedule the room,

it gives you an opportunity to share it.

And so many different,

awesome ways.

So you name it,

you give it a description and then you click add it

to the calendar.

And then it tells you,

do you want to add it to your Google calendar or

to your Apple calendar?

You could do it to both.

Then after you do that,

you can add it to the community calendar and then you

share it or to automatically add it to the community calendar.

And then you can share it.

It gives you a link,

which of course,

now you can email it to your email list,

your customer lists and say,

Hey, we're having product chat every Tuesday night now would love

to have you come and join us.

And here's the link.

If you're not on clubhouse yet be patient,

but this is what it is.

Download it from Apple.

It might be that your clients,

your customers don't have a clue about this kind of stuff,

but this is how it starts.

You can invite all of your existing people over so easily

with a little link.

They can then set an alert to be notified right before

it happens.

And right before you go live.

So the notifications are just outstanding.

But I will also say the notifications are just outstanding,

which means you just get so many notifications because another sort

of notification is when you're in a room,

you might say,

Oh, I think Sue needs to be in here.

So you click a little plus button and all the people

that you follow show up in a menu and you can

tap on any of those people to invite them into the

room with you.

So that's powerful because if you're hosting a room and you

ask the people who were in there,

Hey, you know,

someone who'd like to go in here,

please feel free to ping them and invite them.

In all of a sudden,

you see the population in the room,

triple, quadruple,

and your audience just like that,

just like lighting a match has just completely doubled tripled in

size. So that's really cool.

But however it can get to be too much.

And most importantly,

it can really distract you when you're not on clubhouse.

You're trying to work on other things.

And all of a sudden your phone is going nuts with

all these notifications,

whether it's somebody that you followed,

who just started,

who just scheduled an event or scheduled a room,

whether it's somebody who's getting ready to start a room that

you said you wanted a notification for or whatever.

So the good news is that under the cog wheel where

your avatar is,

you can change your notification.

So I have now gotten into the habit that I turn

off my notifications during the day,

or whenever it gives you lots of options on how you

would like to get notifications.

But one thing,

the only drawback that I've seen so far and what I've

see a lot of people talking about with clubhouse is that

people are spending more time than they really want to on

clubhouse. Because even though in theory,

it sounds like something you could easily jump on or jump

off when the conversation gets going.

And it gets really good.

It's hard to pull yourself away.

And the next thing that,

you know,

really like two hours have passed or more three,

four there's people who are spending eight hours a day on

clubhouse. So for me,

that will never work.

So I have to be very,

very intentional about how I'm going to use clubs.

Yeah. I think intentional on the goals that you're trying to

get out of clubhouse,

and you might not know until you actually get in there

and look around,

but maybe you set a timer like I'm in for the

first time.

Let me get in,

set up my bio,

go start looking around these rooms,

see the structure that you've heard here,

get a feel for it a little bit and then pop

out. I'm guilty of that.

Jan. I,

one day stayed up until one 30 in the morning because

the conversation was just that good.

Now I'm glad I did.

But if I did that repetitively,

or if I brought it into my Workday,

that would be huge trouble.

Right? I mean seriously,

but I'm glad that you're glad that you stayed and that's

to be expected.

That is going to happen.

But I just think as a general rule,

everybody sorta has to say,

okay, I'm going to do this.

And this,

this week on clubhouse,

I'm going to allow myself this amount of time because who

was planning on this?

Not me.

I mean,

this just came out of nowhere and I have my whole

20, 21,

like first quarter completely mapped out in terms of what I

was going to be doing with my content,

my products,

my launches,

and then this shows up and I'm like,

Oh, okay.

Totally true.

It's interesting because everyone's trying to analyze what this is all

about, how to use it.

How, as we're saying,

get your name,

jump on there now,

because I think it's going to change over time just because

there's going to be so many people coming on.

I feel a little bad because I feel like what is

it? Half the population is Android and half are iPhone or

somewhere close to that.

So if you're still with us listening and you're an Android,

I'm feeling sad,

but I'm not because you want to know about this.

So the second it's available to you,

you're going to be able to jump on.

So I appreciate you staying and hanging out with us for

this. But I'm seeing that everyone's trying to analyze what this

is all about and trying to compare it to what we

already have.

And I'm seeing people saying,

well, I'm in there and I invest all this time in

a room and have a conversation.

And then it's not evergreen.

So what's the point or they'll say,

well, no one from the audience can respond.

So I don't even know if what talking about is relevant

or resonating,

but then I have other people saying I'm loving this for

exactly those reasons.

And so to my way of thinking,

I'm looking at this as just a stand alone,

different from social media,

different from everything else.

And what value is it bringing and not trying to compare

it as this bigger or better than Twitter or Facebook or

whatever. It's none of that.

It's totally different.

It has its own separate place.

And I'm feeling like I also need to think of it

that way as it has its own separate place in my

business too,

because I can use it for learning.

I can use it for attracting new people through having my

own rooms.

We haven't even talked about clubs.

I guess we could touch on that a little bit.

But how do you feel about what I just said?

I'm just looking at it as a totally different animal.

I can't really improve upon what you said because I think

that is exactly right.

And I think that's the way to think about it.

I think that it is wonderful that it's not recorded.

I think that it is because if it were recorded,

it would make us all a little more self-conscious we wouldn't

share as freely.

And I just don't think the conversations would be as raw.

And if it were,

what else did you say?

Like people are complaining because they can't record.

And what else The responses in the audience were That they

might figure out some way to some small way to give

feedback, because as it is now,

you can't give hearts.

You can't give thumbs up or whatever.

So when you have this audience,

the people who you've brought on stage,

people have invented a way of clapping in that they turn

their microphone on and off.

Like you just tap,

tap, tap,

tap, tap,

and it makes your microphone flicker.

So it's sort of a way of applauding or giving air

quotes or like saying ditto or I agree,

whatever. So there's sort of that little bit of feedback.

I swear.

People are so smart in the way that they sort of

will figure out how to stretch things.

So I think maybe some sort of feedback might be helpful,

but not in the way that like Periscope did it where

you amass a certain number of heart hearts and then it

becomes competitive or on Facebook and Instagram,

we're always looking for how many likes we get.

And I think clubhouse was really deliberate in the way that

they did that again.

That's I love him for it,

but I think maybe while you're live,

I think it might be nice for people to just throw

up hearts that don't stick or just some sort of feedback.

Yeah. I dunno.

I kind of go back and forth on it because I

like seeing people who would never have thought of getting up

on stage to come.

And if you have a lot of people who are following

you in the crowd or what you say really resonates,

you're probably going to get a lot of hearts.

Let's just pretend like that was the way Oh,

you're right.

And then someone else brand new,

who's never might get up and talk and then not get

any hearts cricket.

Yeah. And then they'll be like,

crap. I'm never getting on stage again.

You're exactly right.

Okay. Well,

I now have formed an opinion and my opinion is the

same as yours.

There should not be you're exactly right.

I mean,

I don't know.

Maybe there will be,

but I like that there isn't for that reason alone.

I agree.

And the flickering of the mic is great.

I like that.

But it's so subtle.

You're right.

It is.

And it's only among the speakers and I've never,

once when I'm speaking,

I've really never looked to see how many microphones are flashing

when I'm talking.

You know what I mean?

I really don't even pay attention to that.

So it is subtle.

You're right.

And I love what you said.

That's exactly right.

Yep. I mean,

we're all just trying to figure it out.

So I'm there to observe and learn,

but boy,

am I getting a lot out of it?

And you think about the timing of this too.

It's like just the perfect thing because we're zoomed out,

but yet we're all craving connection.

I mean,

I think we are in this way,

in this professional development and personal development way where we can

connect with people,

even though we're stuck in our houses.

It's perfect.

Yeah. I couldn't agree more.

And that's probably the reason why it's still just iPhone because

it's growing so fast.

They have crashed the platform.

A couple of times speakers sometimes get dropped out.

So they want to make sure that it continues to be

stable as they continue to add an influx.

Because by gosh,

since I've joined,

there's been a huge influx of people too.

So Android users,

it's common.

We also,

we didn't talk about the three different kinds of rooms if

you want to touch on that real quick.

Yeah. Let's touch on that real quick.

And then I think to make a full package here,

then let's touch on clubs really quickly and then we can

kind of wrap up.

Sounds good.

Okay. So there's three kinds of rooms.

If you want to start a room and you aren't ready

to go full on like public,

you can have a closed room and nobody's going to even

see that it exists.

And then you could just invite someone or several people.

However, many people you want to join you in that closed

room. That might be a really great way to start if

you're feeling kind of nervous and you know what else that

room would be great for is if you want to have

a private chat with your community,

it could be almost like a VIP kind of thing,

right? Like only the people who are in this group or

have this status in my company,

meaning like VIP kind of client kind of thing can come

into these special VIP closed rooms.

Then there's a social room.

Social room means that the only people that are going to

see this room are people who follow you or one of

the other moderators,

if you happen to be co-hosting it with other moderators and

then an open room is just what it sounds like.

It's completely open it's on a billboard.

Everybody can see that it's there and everybody can join.

Well, I didn't even know what the social was.

So I learned bad does now.

That's awesome.

Good. All right.

And let's talk about clubs.

So clubhouse themselves are having a hard time like defining clubs

and apparently clubs.

I mean,

clubs may or may not stick around.

Here's the thing I think of a club is like a

Facebook group.

Okay. So you can form your own club and people can

become members of your club.

And when you start a room,

you can make it so that only the members of the

club can join those rooms or get notified about those rooms.

And I like it.

If you have a brand that lends itself to this,

right? Like,

so if I did a club,

my brand is front row.

I can see doing a club like that is the front

row. I have a Facebook group called the front row.

So it kind of makes sense,

but there are prerequisites before you can start a club.

And that is that you have to host at least one

room three weeks in a row before they even consider it.

And then you have to fill out an application,

letting them know that you have done that.

And then you still have to wait like three weeks for

them to approve it because they have just been inundated with

people starting these clubs.

And the other problem is that they have not categorized them.

So there's really no way to search the clubs.

The only way to see maybe where the cool clubs are

is that if you are a member of a club,

it shows up at the bottom of your profile.

So you can look at other people who are maybe in

the same niche as you are in and see what clubs

they're in,

then you click on it and then you follow it.

And then just following it,

doesn't give you automatic entry into that club.

You sort of have to get the attention of whoever is

in charge of that club to let you in.

It's kind of like a closed Facebook group.

It is,

except at least with a Facebook group,

there's a process for admission where you might set up the

three questions,

right? That screen speed.

Why do you want to come in?

Whatever? And then the Facebook owner goes in and click,

click, click lets you in,

or doesn't let you in because I haven't started my club

yet. I don't know.

But I think on the club owners end,

they do get a list of the people who are waiting

for entry because when you follow it,

I think they see that.

But I think because they're getting inundated themselves with hundreds,

thousands of applications,

they aren't really letting people in super fast.

I don't know if that makes any sense.

Apparently they are working on organizing clubs better if they keep

clubs. But at some point there could be so many clubs

that becomes sort of pointless.

Right? I don't know.

We'll see.

I mean,

I could see where there could be a club,

because for example,

for you,

you have now scheduled three rooms a week apart,

but those are different email invites for each of those two.

Right? So a club could be a section of those shows

with one email invite.

And then if you had specific groups of people,

because you want to have people who are joining the conversation,

if you have a specific topic who are appropriate for the

conversation too,

But you're still gonna have to have a unique link for

every club room that you start.

Oh, you will.

Yeah. I don't think you just get this one link like

you do with the Facebook group.

I think every time you schedule your topic,

it creates a new link.

I think I could be wrong.

Okay. So I guess the summary is to be determined clubs,

what they're all about.

Yes. But if you're listening and you know,

right away.

Oh, that sounds perfect.

I can really see how a club would benefit.

Then that means right away.

Go ahead and schedule your first three rooms and at least

minimum of three rooms,

three weeks in a row.

Perfect. I'm trying to think of the relevance for the audience

here for people who are listening.

I'm not sure.

I don't know.

We're going to have to see,

I think it's a room,

but I think it's already been submitted to be a club

for doodling just together and someone prompts a word and you

doodle. I love it.

That's a great example because yeah,

the people listening,

I mean,

outside of the professional realm,

I mean,

there might be people who want to start a group about

orchids, right.

Or alcoholism.

I mean,

I don't know.

Yeah. Or even your community I've started seeing,

I saw some room just about Atlanta.

The groups don't have to be huge.

It could be business owners in your community and you start

getting together a group of how you guys can work together

to bring in sales to your downtown of your community.

Like who knows?

There's lots of opportunities in my creative mind.

Doesn't span clearly far enough to consider all the different options.

You're right.

There's so much opportunity.

All right.

So we've talked about what clubhouse is.

We've talked about how to get in structure.

We've chatted a little bit about etiquette and all how to

use it.

Some of the pros and cons.

So I think we've pretty much summarized everything,

especially as we're getting going here.

And again,

it's at this point in time because things keep changing.

If you just ran into somebody and said,

Oh my gosh,

have you heard about clubhouse?

Just overall,

what would be your single like summary of why someone should

join, Join as soon as you can,

as soon as you have the opportunity,

because it is fun,

easy and super powerful,

Love it,

short, sweet.

It's so valuable and you really don't understand it until you

actually get in.

I know you can hear the passion in both Jen and

my voices.

We just want you to get in and you'll understand that.

And you will be talking the same way once you get

in. I guarantee it for sure.

Okay, Jen.

So tell everybody where they can learn more about the front

row. See what you're up to.

Well, they can join front row,

classroom.com or all my links of everything that I do is

over@jenleaner.com. What is your name on clubhouse?

Jen laner,

simple and straightforward.

All right,

Jen. Thanks.

So, so much for coming on,

having a conversation with me about clubhouse.

I think we've gotten some people excited today and those of

you who are listening,

who joined,

let us know that you're there and go follow Jen and

me on clubhouse.

Thanks again,

Jen. I really appreciate you coming on today.

Thank you Sue.

I loved it.

It was so much fun.

So first off you have been adequately warned.

Clubhouse can be a thief with your time,

but there's so much potential there to learn,

to give and get support.

And just maybe you'll connect with someone who becomes your business

bestie one final point on clubhouse as with any online interaction,

you have be careful with your information.

You know,

each platform has various levels of security and there are great

and not so great people all over the internet.

So be smart,

check people's credentials and not just the ones that they post

about themselves in their bio.

I feel like we always need to stay aware and cautious

particularly on clubhouse right now because it's so new and still

a very unrestricted environment up next week.

We're going to be talking about virtual shows.

I see this as a huge opportunity for you to expand

your visibility and bring in new business.

We'll dive deep into why and how next Monday for now.

Thank you so much for spending time with me.

If you'd like to show support for the podcast,

would you please leave a rating and review?

That means so much and helps the show get seen by

more makers.

It's a great way to pay it forward and now be

safe and well.

And I'll see you again next week on the gift biz

Podcasts. I want to make sure you're familiar with my free

Facebook group called gift is breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and are a community

to support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week to get

reaction from other people and just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making my favorite post every single week,

without doubt.

Wait, what,

aren't you part of the group already,

if not make sure to jump over to Facebook and search

for the group gift biz breeze don't delay.