Sara Press: Alright, welcome back to another week. We've got a great episode today, which I'll tell you about in a second. But wow, summer is wrapping up. But honestly, this is one of my favorite times in Chicago. If you've never been, this is the time to visit when it's still nice out, So kids are back in school, things are moving, starting to get back into routine over here. And I there's a lot of things in motion right now that I can't wait to share with you guys. We have some really cool guests coming up. We've got some awesome events and brands that we're gonna start working with. And I could not be more excited for all that's to come. So, that being said, today's episode is a really good one. I have Dana Flanagan on the podcast, and she is the founder and CEO of The Authority Architect, as well as Capital Society. And so we get into all things growing your brand, networking, and Finding your voice and meeting your people and all the things. So it's a great conversation. I hope you guys love it. And without further ado, here is Dana. All Dana Flanagan, welcome to the podcast.
Dana: Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Sara Press: Yeah, I'm excited to pick your brain on all things branding, marketing, digital products, all the things. But before we jump into the depths of all of that, I would love to just hear a little bit more about how you work in luxury real estate and what did you notice that was missing for people that then led you to start your company today?
Dana: Yeah, I think it was really just more of a of a transition point for me. I mean, I think it was more of what was kind of just like missing in my life. I I was doing luxury real estate for twenty five years and I just found that for me it it started to not be like fun anymore for me. And I really wanted to be able to do something that I could take anywhere, be able to, relocate, which is what we were looking to do at the time. And I really just want I was kind of feeling like burnt out, right? I was like in my mid-40s. I felt like I I was on this hamster wheel that I couldn't get off of. And I've always been such a connector. And people have always come to me to connect them with like multifamily deals, funding. And I was always just like, sure, you need to meet this person. You need to meet this person. And I I thought to myself, I need to monetize this somehow because it's a lot of time, it's a lot of energy, it's my relationship capital.
Sara Press: I was gonna say you took all that time to build those relationships. There's something to that as well, yeah.
Dana: Yeah. Yeah. And so so I did do that. And we can talk about that a little further down the down the road. But I really just think that it was becoming really transactional. And I I really missed the really getting to know people and really just understanding what their needs were. And there was a lot changing in the real estate market in general with a lot with NAR and a lot of the laws and things like that out there that I just kind of was I was yearning for something more. I that's really like the only way that I can describe it.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. Very cool. So tell me then a little bit more about what your company actually does. I know you have some really cool digital products and then you work do you work one on one with clients as well?
Dana: Yeah, so my company now I still do real estate. I still work in agent attraction. I help build this brokerage that I'm with, and I help develop agents and really just participate in the revenue share program. My company is called the Authority Architect, and what we do is we work with growth leaders, CEOs, founders, and startups and individuals that are looking to scale their business. Maybe they're really good at the operation side of things, but they're not so good at visibility. We work on not only getting them the visibility, but also the credibility that they need to build those trusted relationships to move their business forward. So whether or not they're looking for capital, if they're looking for brand enhancement, they're just looking to get into the right rooms. We work privately with them one-on-one. And when I say one on one, I have a team. I mean, sometimes people don't need my team. They don't need PR. They don't need to do a huge event. They just need me to work with them. Sometimes they need, like right now, we're putting together a proposal for somebody that needs a book launch. And that's going to involve my entire team. They, you know, whether or not they want an event party to go with that, whether how much PR they want. So we do a lot of different things curated to that particular business owner. And I also just launched the Capital Society, which is kind of a spin-off of my authority architect company. Capital Society is a curated networking membership only for elite individuals, founders, CEOs. where we curate introductions for them. So this is not a networking group where you just join and hey, hope it works out and you meet some cool people. Yeah. Yeah. This is more
Sara Press: Good luck Yeah.
Dana: of like, you need to meet this person and this person needs to meet this person. And the really cool part is that everybody that belongs to this group is part of a a a network already. So maybe it might not be somebody in the group that me that you need to meet, but maybe that person says, my gosh, you need to meet my friend or my colleague or whatever. So it's really that expansive network that comes with all the people that are part of it. And and it's really something I've been wanting to do for a long time. So that's gonna be you know, Zoom meetings and curated experiences and introductions, but also four in-person events a year at a minimum. And and always taking that personal approach to get to know people's businesses, what they need and what they offer and bring to the table.
Sara Press: That's awesome. Okay, so when it comes to networking, I wanna dive deeper here because I've heard you speak on this a little bit before. And I find myself doing this sometimes. You go to a networking event with the best intentions of, yes, let's go meet people that can help the the podcast or my business, etc. And then you go there and you might talk to somebody for a couple minutes, and then the next day, two days, you never reach back out, that relationship kind of dies. Can you talk
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: to me through like what is the best way? If you're gonna be part of a group or go networking, what are things that you tell people like, make sure you do X, Y, and Z? Like, where do you see people fall off?
Dana: Yeah, so that's such a great question. And that's why I created this group. People love to collect business cards or, you know, the digital
Sara Press: Yeah.
Dana: business cards, right? Like I made this many connections. I made so many connections at this event. And then they don't follow up. They don't take the time to ask the other people what do they need in their business right now? How can I bring value to you? So I think one of the number one mistakes that people do is they info dump. All over the person that they're talking to. I do this, I do this, I do this, and my company did this much last year, and we're exiting, and they just go on and on and they don't even really read the room, if if that makes sense. And
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: so that's not a great way to build rapport. That person's not not really that interested in in, you know, they're gonna be interested in like, okay, how do I right, right, right. And so that's
Sara Press: How do I get out of this conversation?
Dana: that's one problem. And then another problem is that. They take all this information, they spend time talking to people, and then they don't follow up. They don't follow through. They never book that call. Opportunities happen from a simple conversation. It's it's really quite simple. It's not how many people that you connect with. So don't go to an event and monopolize someone's time the entire night. But also don't you don't don't go there and feel like you need to talk to everybody. If you're having a conversation and that person, like you don't really understand what they do, you're like, this doesn't align. We're not like. I don't know anybody in this field. This isn't my forte. Like, then move on from the conversation, politely move on. You know, it's great to meet. Think about maybe somebody you can introduce them to and move on. But don't waste your time having conversations and trying to figure out where to put around like a square peg and a round hole. So it's though, it's
Sara Press: Right. That's such a good point.
Dana: really like those top three, I would say, is just, you know, the the lack of follow-up, the info dumping, and then the taking time to have like not not being purposeful about the conversations that you're having.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. I think that's so important. I've heard a quote that was like, the fruit is in the follow-up because most people never follow up. And then that, you
Dana: Mm. Right. It's so true.
Sara Press: know, that connection or that meeting, then it's kind of pointless. And now you just wasted your time, your energy going to a room that there's nothing that's gonna come out of it, you know, beyond that.
Dana: Exactly.
Sara Press: You know, and I've now now that I've done more and more, I can tell the people that are really good at it because we go to an event and then I have an Instagram DM the next day. Hey, it was so great meeting you. Let me know if you want to jump on a call. And then they send their calendar their link and I'm like, wow, this person's really good about the follow up piece.
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: So yeah, I can see how that could be very important.
Dana: Yeah. Yeah. And that and that's really the only way to do it. It can seem a little bit like, let's jump on a call. Let's jump on a call. And while I have a lot of people asking me to jump on a call, I like to understand their business a little bit more. I say it in a very nice way, like, I'd love to know a little bit more about your business before we hop on a call so I can you know, to be respectful of my time and yours. Because sometimes people will just ask you to pop on a call so that they can pitch you. And that's you know,
Sara Press: god.
Dana: and that's really honestly not what anybody wants. Nobody wants to get on a call to be pitched. So It's I like to understand why are we getting on the call first, but getting on the call is really what you need to do to build those relationships and truly understand what other people are looking for, but also letting them know what you do and how you might be able to bring value to them.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. And then do you recommend people to then start follow everyone in social, start interacting with them there so that they see you a little bit more? you know, I've noticed a lot of
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: different people or even people I've had on the podcast, they're really good about engaging in stuff right around their episode and then you don't hear from them again. And I'm like, I would love
Dana: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sara Press: to keep promoting their episode, but I wanna make sure that they're gonna continue engaging on their end, you know, as well. So I think it's
Dana: Right. So yeah, no, that's a great point. I visibility is going to move your business forward. Visibility's great and very necessary, but without credibility, it's gonna fall flat. So what by that, what I mean is into you can buy visibility. Anybody can buy visibility nowadays. I mean, you can buy magazine covers, you can buy PR. It's that credibility with going to events and getting in front of people who know, like and trust you. Getting on podcasts where you make a connection with the person. it's really those personal connections where people will give you a testimonial. What does your community look like? You know, do you come from contribution or are you just posting and ghosting? I call that's what I call it. Posting and ghosting.
Sara Press: Posting it yeah.
Dana: You can't you can't do that. I mean, it it's fine if you're gonna post, but if you go onto social media, you just post and you leave. The algorithm picks up the fact that you are not actually being social with people. And that you're not interacting. So if you a lot of social media platforms, you'll notice that the people that have more followers and that seem to be getting a lot of likes and comments are also the ones that are doing it to other people. So it's
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: just being vis creating that visibility wherever you go and using those authority pieces to be able to create content. So like if you're on a podcast, take a little video yourself. If you're on a radio show or you have a magazine cover or something like that. Or an article written about you, you can continue to repurpose that content, but staying relevant and visible is super important to the growth of your business.
Sara Press: Yeah, I think you just touched on something so key and it's repurposing content. So it's not re you don't have to reinvent the wheel over and over and over again. I've now started repurposing some of the podcasts from 10 weeks ago. So I'm like that information is still really relevant. And oftentimes
Dana: yeah.
Sara Press: people need to hear it over and over again or you forget about it. Like I'll listen to a podcast
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: and then a couple weeks later I go listen again because I can't remember exactly what that person said or how to implement it. So I do think that's
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Sara Press: important. the other thing
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: you talk a lot about is this visibility piece. So
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Sara Press: what do you mean by that? And are there what different avenues do you, you know, tell people to go down to you know increase their visibility?
Dana: Yeah, social media is the best the best one out there. It's free. You have control of it. So you're not waiting for somebody to get back to you to like publish an article or anything like that. You can control it. I would really say if if you're new or you're not comfortable posting on social media, try to post once a day. And I know that sounds like a lot. Like I post two to three times a day. Some days I don't, I'm not as good about it, but that consistency is really important. And what happens is people are A little disappointed that aren't used to getting business from social media or interactions. They're disappointed after a month when they don't, I didn't do it. I I didn't get any business or it didn't do anything for me. Right.
Sara Press: Nothing happened. Yeah.
Dana: Nothing happened. You gotta continue to keep doing it. Your audience is still watching you, but they don't fully trust you yet. Like if you're if you're selling a new product or you got involved in a new business or you're promoting something new, a month is nothing to get out there and start promoting and gain that trust from your followers. And gaining new followers too. So just can being consistent on social media, posting relevant information, mixing it up a little bit so where some of the posts are informational, some are maybe funny, some are some are create curiosity. There's a bunch of different ways that you can engage your audience, but you also have to be going and commenting on other people's posts. And what I would highly recommend is that you go and you look for people online that are doing Either that are that need your product or service, like what what does your avatar look like? You need to be going and hunting them down because the algorithm is going to position you in front of the people that it thinks you need to meet. So if you're watching
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: cat videos all day long and you start seeing cat videos all over your phone, that's because you're telling the algorithm, I want more of this. So if you
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: want more clients for XYZ product or service, you need to go watch those people. And that's going to tell the algorithm that, they want more of this. So they're going to continue to put more of that content in front of you. So it really is a game of just positioning yourself in social media and telling the algorithm what you want. You can actually call out that on social media by saying, Hey, moms, or hey, if you're over 55, right? You're going to call out your audience and that's going to tell the algorithm where your content needs to be positioned and what type of Audience you want to attract. So that really helps when you're clear and concise consistently about what you want and where you want to be positioned.
Sara Press: Yeah, I think that clear piece is so important. one thing that I've noticed with my socials lately, when I post about the podcast or the business aspect, sometimes I don't get as many views or engagement. Verse when I post something that's more like lifestyle controversial,
Dana: Yep.
Sara Press: like I posted about, I go, Bet you can't name a better s city in the summer and it's of Chicago because I was on the Chicago River. my God,
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Sara Press: people are like fighting in the comments about it now, and I'm gaining
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: more followers and whatnot on that. singular post than some of my others. So I think some of it too
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: is like don't be discouraged if the business ones aren't performing as well because I don't know. They don't, right? They just they just don't perform as well.
Dana: They never do. No. They don't. It's like, hey, do you guys want to come to this event a month from now? This women's retreat is gonna be blah, blah, blah. Like nobody, you'll you'll get like, I'll get like 200 likes versus like or 200 views versus like a video. I'm I'm not lying. Of me cleaning my kitchen counters like on a Saturday morning with with and that's just the visual for the background, like wiping my counters down in like gym clothes. And putting like a hook in in front of it with valuable content in the in the caption. But I got like six thousand, seven thousand views or something. And it's I do that all the time. It's they
Sara Press: It's so funny how that works, right?
Dana: wanna see inside your life and your home and your and your and just like you doing everyday things. That's why you'll see people like emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming. Like it's crazy, driving in the car. Whenever
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: I put I'm all dressed up and I post a Hey, everybody, if you're if you're looking for this kind of event, you'll definitely want to, you know, don't want to miss this, blah, blah, blah. No, it's not, nobody thinks it's exciting because it's not relevant to them. Or they can't relate, right? They can't
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: maybe like, maybe it's like if you're talking to an audience of stay-at-home moms and I'm dressed in a blazer and a suit, that's not relatable for them.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: So it just depends like who you're talking to. But yeah, the business posts never do as well. And it's like, those are the ones we need to perform, right?
Sara Press: It's the yeah. Like and that you're like, those are the ones that actually have educational content you're gonna learn something about, and that I really tried on. That's too funny.
Dana: Right. Right. I know.
Sara Press: Okay, the other thing that I've noticed, I would love your your take on this, is the different social media platforms. So I am a true believer that you use a different part of your brain when you're logged into like a LinkedIn versus when you're on Instagram and like a TikTok.
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: And so do you find that Putting different types of content on the different platforms is helpful.
Dana: Yeah, like obviously I'm not gonna post any funny videos on LinkedIn or me emptying the dishwasher, right? those are more informational,
Sara Press: Ha ha ha
Dana: call to action, business oriented. I will tell you for my business, I get a lot of business. I get the most of my business from LinkedIn. And
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: I am I am very active on LinkedIn. I think people forget about it because it's if you're not like super business oriented, I feel like it's boring for people. Yeah.
Sara Press: It's you don't get the dopamine like you do on Instagram. Yeah.
Dana: Yeah, I mean, I feel like people think it's boring. I love it because it's people doing real business. So
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: am I gonna sit there and scroll LinkedIn the way I would scroll Instagram? Probably not, right? It's that dopamine
Sara Press: Right.
Dana: and that ex that like excitement. And honestly, like just the the doom scroll, right? Of like the, you know, celebrities and things like
Sara Press: Just entertain me, right.
Dana: that. Right. So I I love LinkedIn specifically for me because I get true proposals, inquiries, requests. I have also made a lot of money from Facebook. Instagram probably the least amount. just because I feel like perhaps maybe it's our age group too, a little bit. I think, you know, if 20 years ago I was promoting on Instagram, it would have been a different story. But for me, a lot of my audience is on Facebook. A lot of the,
Sara Press: Okay.
Dana: you know, 40, 50 year olds are on Facebook. I think you're if, you know, if you're doing like influencer stuff, Instagram is probably better for that. So I think it just depends what you're looking to do. I know people that have crushed it on Instagram because they've been able to get like they run ads. A lot of people run ads and people don't realize why they have all this Yeah.
Sara Press: I did not know people do that. I found that out more recently and I had no idea that people were doing that to build their following and their stuff. I had
Dana: Well, they're running ads to something. They're running ads to a call to action, to a coaching program, to a product, but they're running ads to get them in front of the people they want to be in front of. And then they're, therefore, they're gaining more followers from it. So I think when you see these people online, it's like, I made a million dollars my first year on Instagram. It's like they did not do that organically for the most part. They really didn't. So it's it's they took that money, they went.
Sara Press: They did. So that was been my plan.
Dana: Well, and that's the problem, right? Like we get like this like it's it's imposter syndrome. Like, how come they're doing it? I'm doing everything right. They're also putting money into it. They're putting money
Sara Press: Right, I'm doing yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dana: into it. And and I'm not saying Facebook ads are the are the end all say all. If you can't sell organically, you're not gonna be able Facebook ads are not gonna help you. So you have to be able to sell and get people into your DMs or book a call with you or whatever your call to action is without ads. Once you can make those sales. that's when you can start to invest back into your business and and run ads. But people always think, I'll just run ads. And that doesn't work that way. But yeah, yeah,
Sara Press: I love that.
Dana: it's it's the different platforms, depending on what you're doing, really, really can make a difference. You just gotta be in front of the right audience, talking to the right person and the right platform.
Sara Press: Like know where your people are hanging out. I love
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: that you mentioned you have to have a viable business before you run ads. And I think that's so true. And so for people that want to, and I really want to dip into this area next with you about digital products, how do you know when you have something there that people are going to buy? Or when is it where you're like, that's a cute idea, but maybe put some more thought into it. Where is that
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: line where you then tell people like, yes, you have something here? How do you test that?
Dana: Yeah, it's I mean, a lot of it just comes with confidence and and being okay failing forward. Like I have launched stuff that I thought was going to be awesome and it didn't do well and it kind of failed. So I just moved on to something else. And then I've launched things that were great and took off. I think people's biggest fear is that they don't try. They're afraid of failing. They're afraid of putting themselves out there on social media because what if I fail? Right? What if I launch this thing and everyone sees me doing it and they sit back and watch? Maybe they don't support them. They don't buy from them, but they are watching. Yeah,
Sara Press: But they watch, yeah.
Dana: exactly. And then it doesn't work out. Like a lot of people are afraid to put themselves out there in the first place. So I think the biggest thing is just try. And you can be really vulnerable about it too. Like if you're not somebody that's really great with social media and you're just starting and dipping your toe in the water, you can say things like, Hey guys, you know, this is my first post about my new product. So please bear with me. This is like really out of my comfort zone. And you lead them on that journey of watching you every single day now. Cause like, if she can do it, I can do it. So I would say that is the best way to have people like I would and people are afraid people are gonna make fun of them. I really could care less what Susie from sixth grade thinks, right? But but but
Sara Press: Amen.
Dana: some people do. So If you lead somebody on that journey, like, hey everybody, vulnerable post here. I'm starting my journey with XYZ. That is a great hook. That's gonna get people watching.
Sara Press: And how relatable is that?
Dana: Right. Because people are gonna go, stay tuned tomorrow when I post my first day in blah, blah, blah. Like people will watch the journey and the story. So you don't need to be at the end game or the end result. You can let people watch you from the very beginning, and you're gonna get more support and More relatability with that.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's so true. And I love that you said fail forward because the best way to learn things is to go through it, right? And so
Dana: Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Press: if you don't put yourself out there and try, you'll never know. And I always see even with the podcast, I'm like, I hope a year from now I look back at the episodes and I'm like, my God, they were so amateur. You know, that's the whole point. Is like
Dana: Yeah. Right.
Sara Press: the you just have to keep going and doing and doing and doing. And that's the best way to learn and grow. So and my other favorite
Dana: totally. Totally.
Sara Press: thing is like nobody that's doing more will ever criticize what you're doing.
Dana: 100%. I say that all the time, right? I never saw a hater doing better doing I
Sara Press: So good.
Dana: never saw a hater doing better than me. I say that all the time. It's true though, because people
Sara Press: Yeah.
Dana: that are like confident in their business and that are on a journey themselves are gonna look at someone and be like, wow, look at like Sarah's podcast. It's like her presence is great. Like I think I reached out to you. And and you know, it's because of the presence
Sara Press: You did on LinkedIn, which LinkedIn's been great, yeah.
Dana: and the visibility, but I also know the value that comes from. The exposure that was our pass crossing, right?
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: So I I just, you know, I look at it like I don't look at like how the production is and my gosh, they don't have a million viewers, or I don't look at any of that. Like I'm on podcasts that have two million views, and I'm on podcasts where last week the guy was like, it was his fourth podcast ever. And but
Sara Press: I love that.
Dana: he was just starting. And so I recommended him to somebody that I'm actually working with that their fields are very, very similar. Their fields are in gaming, right? And that's,
Sara Press: Okay.
Dana: you know, that is that's a random thing. I happen to be working with this guy, and then I'm on this guy's podcast. I said, You guys need to meet, and you should probably be on his podcast. He's like, he has like no views. He has 116 views on on YouTube. And I said, I don't care. I went on his podcast. He just started it. You guys have a ton in common that like that
Sara Press: You right, you're like you have no idea where
Dana: conversation could lead to a business venture. So I for me, like I don't look at that if if the person Is their direction and the trajectory make sense for my business, right? So,
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: like I'm not gonna go on a podcast about baking because that's not something that I do, right? So I always try to make sure that it's relevant, but yeah, it's it's I give so many people effort for just putting themselves out there and giving it a go. There's always gonna be someone out there doing it better, more expensive, whatever. And it's like, you know, so
Sara Press: All the things, right? Yes.
Dana: yeah.
Sara Press: I love that. okay, I wanna jump into some of the digital products. Like you said, putting yourself out there, the visibility. And then one thing you talk about is it's great to make money like while you sleep with these digital products. You have something that you can create once and sure tweak it, but then you can sell it over and over again. So I would love to hear how you built some of your digital products and what categories you keep them in, do they Does one play off? Is one like the gateway that then leads into the other ones?
Dana: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I wish I had learned I wish I had done this better now that I look back.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: because there are people that have a sequence that is so much better than mine, right? And there's us looking at someone else's stuff and what they've done. but I have several different streams of income out digital products, and then I have you know, like revenue share from real estate and I have a peptide company that I do some network marketing. but the digital products, one of the things I created that took off that I actually was like, I don't know if this is gonna do anything. It's a social media course called Standout Social. My fiance and I created it because we were dipping our toes into the water of TikTok and like making money from going live on TikTok and and just kind of I think with at the time we were selling someone else's digital product. And it was like this. Like we were selling it so fast that we didn't even own it. And
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: so we created, I mean, they give you the master resale rights, but it wasn't something we created. So
Sara Press: Okay.
Dana: I I but everybody that was buying it was like, I don't even know the first thing about promoting this thing online. And I'm thinking, well, you make a reel, you you create a hook. They're like, What's a reel? And I mean,
Sara Press: What's that?
Dana: it was so basic. Like when I tell you like the questions I was getting, I was like, my gosh, these people don't know anything.
Sara Press: What yeah. When you're doing it you're l you think everyone knows it. You're like, Yeah, this is what you
Dana: So right. Well they're
Sara Press: know this.
Dana: well, they're watching people on TikTok and they're watching how people made $3,000 last night from their digital product. And they're they're buying it because, that's gonna make me a lot of money when they don't know how to position it. They've not have not built any sort of audience. They don't know how to solve a problem that people have online. So we created this course super basic. Like, this is how you make a reel. This is how you edit. This is how you post a story. This is how you create a call to action. This is how you use Cap Cut. Like it was so like super, super simple. And we just showed people step one, step two. And it was great because at the time we were doing really well on like TikTok and it it blew up on TikTok. And that led us to some that some network marketing, things like that. So You can create a digital product, doesn't need to be ours sold for one ninety seven and we gave eighty percent commission back to people that wanted to resell it. So that's kind of where you get that affiliate program going. What
Sara Press: Okay. So that means that they can any sales that they bring in, they're getting eighty percent of that, correct?
Dana: So they can just resell it, they have their own link, they can promote our course just as we were doing as the other person's when we first got into it, and they make 80% of every sale. So that was, I mean, all they have to do is talk about it. And then people click on it and they buy it. So a digital product can be an ebook, it can be a PDF downloadable, like the top 10 things that you know I would do before school starts to get your kid ready for college or something.
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: You can do like my hack for blah blah blah, but you have to have some like credibility. Like maybe you're like one of those really cool moms that helps your I've seen these crazy dorm room things now. I don't have kids, but like like it's I'm like, can you come decorate my room? Like these things
Sara Press: These are blowing up and I'm so terrified for my daughters. I know.
Dana: look amazing. But like if you're one of those moms that clearly the parents have to be involved, right? Like somebody's funding this, yeah. And
Sara Press: Someone's funding this, yeah.
Dana: someone's getting them there with all their stuff, right? So Somebody's involved and I think one of them said their mom was an interior designer. So clearly she had an eye for that kind of thing.
Sara Press: That helps, yeah.
Dana: but like like a PDF. Like let's just say you make a downloadable PDF and you sell it for $10 or $30 or whatever. It you can make top 10, like how to sell in your stories. Could be $2,
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: right? There is there's a a a girl out there that I follow online. She's made, there's several of them, but her name's Maria Wendt. She's made over
Sara Press: I follow her.
Dana: 17. Yeah, $17 million in digital products, but all her digital products are low ticket. When I say low ticket, they're five
Sara Press: Right.
Dana: bucks, $17, $47. And she has an unbelievable funnel system. And if you don't have a system to be able to process all of these payments and and and leave them like an email capture and then a funnel
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: where it's like the person clicks on this, they get they get this email. They they click on this, they get this email. Having someone put your system together. Like if you've ever clicked on something, now all of a sudden you're getting an email from somebody every day, but it's like answering the questions that, you know, like
Sara Press: Right. It's very intentional.
Dana: very intentional. You've got to have a really good system. I mean, I do. I just don't get that in depth with it. and you I mean, you really have to have she puts a lot of money in her advertising. That's what people don't realize. Like as soon as she
Sara Press: I was shocked when I heard how much that she spends on advertising.
Dana: Like $300,000 a month on advertising.
Sara Press: Yes.
Dana: So that's a I mean, and I and I know a lot of people that spend like $12,000, $15,000, $50,000, $75,000 a month on advertising. So it just depends what you're doing. Once you get to a point in order to scale, the the digital products work really great. They worked good on TikTok. I honestly like I didn't love the whole promotion behind it. I got really tired of promo just promoting it in my eyes.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: I like the higher ticket. I've always worked in luxury real estate. I've worked with high net worth individuals. So for me, like having my membership community capital society now, that's $7,500 a year to belong to. But it's it's you're getting you're getting connected to capital to build your business. You're getting connected to people that are going to help you move your business forward. So a lot of those memberships for those high-end groups are $12,000, $30,000 a year to belong to. So mine's right in line, if not less. And we actually curate those introductions. That's more where I that's more my lane. But I definitely love like the d digital product world because you can be a stay-at-home mom and just create like recipes for the top 10 like easy packing lunches. Right. And
Sara Press: Right. There's so much opportunity there. Mm-hmm.
Dana: then you sell for $5. I mean, it can be something that we're it so the reason why you want to sell it for some for an inexpensive price is to get people in your email list and get them into your funnel. So once they opt in, which means they give you their email address. Now they're in your funnel. So now you've got them where kind of like right where you want them, right? Because if you're just talking to people through DMs and you're talking to people online, but you're not actually building something outside of that, what happens if TikTok goes down? What happens if Instagram goes down? You've got to have your own IP, which is your your own like, you know, intellectual property where you're able to message them your own stuff. It's not controlled. Cause you try to talk about peptides on TikTok, you're gonna get shut down. Right. So it just depends on what you know, what you're marketing, what you're selling, and how you're positioning. A lot of a lot of things will get flagged, especially on TikTok. Like you can't say you can't say things about like certain things about money or or whatnot. So I learned I learned a lot of that when my live got shut off because I said like money or whatever or or
Sara Press: No way. Okay.
Dana: Yeah, you gotta be really careful what you say. If if they're if they're watching and they flag you, they'll shut your live off right in the middle of it and they'll ban you for like a day or two. So
Sara Press: Wow, I didn't realize that.
Dana: I'm like, what did I do? All of a sudden my life just disappeared. And you're not saying anything mean, but it'll Yeah.
Sara Press: You're like, this is c good good information for people.
Dana: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's it was a lot of trial and error. And I've always used social media. I mean, I was a real estate agent for 25 years. I've always used social media to promote my listings, my business. And it it really got me other, you know, more clients, more listings. So social media, if you have a product or business and you are trying to get more clients and you are not active on there. get on there because it's free and you can start building your business that way.
Sara Press: Right, and like you said, active does not mean like once a week. It means at least once a day, right?
Dana: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And interacting with other people and then belong to groups. Like go join groups that are relevant to your business. And then you're gonna see people in there talking about what you know, w the problems they have that your product or service may solve. And then you can spend time commenting. This is stuff you can do while you're sitting on the couch in front of the TV. Like this is simple stuff. You can make money from your phone. You just have to learn how to position yourself so that people know like and trust you.
Sara Press: And then they can find you, right? If nobody
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: can find you, like you said, that visibility piece is huge. So
Dana: Right, exactly.
Sara Press: awesome. Well, we are running out time. It has been so fun talking to you. I feel like you're just a wealth of knowledge. And the way you articulate things
Dana: thank you.
Sara Press: is so clear. And then you're like, yeah, that of course, that makes sense. So if
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: people want to learn more about you, learn more about your business, or potentially be part of your group, where is the best place that people can find you?
Dana: Sure. You can find me on social media with Dana Flanagan, and that's all A's in there. There's no I. You can find my membership community at joincapitalsociety.com. And if you are just looking for private support for your business, that's Danaflanagan.com.
Sara Press: Awesome. I love that. And I th I know we're connected on LinkedIn and I'm gonna go find you
Dana: Yes.
Sara Press: on Instagram as well so that we can connect in all of these different places.
Dana: I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Sarah. It's great, great being here.
Sara Press: Thank you.
Dana: Hi, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Sara Press: Yeah, I'm excited to pick your brain on all things branding, marketing, digital products, all the things. But before we jump into the depths of all of that, I would love to just hear a little bit more about how you work in luxury real estate and what did you notice that was missing for people that then led you to start your company today?
Dana: Yeah, I think it was really just more of a of a transition point for me. I mean, I think it was more of what was kind of just like missing in my life. I I was doing luxury real estate for twenty five years and I just found that for me it it started to not be like fun anymore for me. And I really wanted to be able to do something that I could take anywhere, be able to, relocate, which is what we were looking to do at the time. And I really just want I was kind of feeling like burnt out, right? I was like in my mid-40s. I felt like I I was on this hamster wheel that I couldn't get off of. And I've always been such a connector. And people have always come to me to connect them with like multifamily deals, funding. And I was always just like, sure, you need to meet this person. You need to meet this person. And I I thought to myself, I need to monetize this somehow because it's a lot of time, it's a lot of energy, it's my relationship capital.
Sara Press: I was gonna say you took all that time to build those relationships. There's something to that as well, yeah.
Dana: Yeah. Yeah. And so so I did do that. And we can talk about that a little further down the down the road. But I really just think that it was becoming really transactional. And I I really missed the really getting to know people and really just understanding what their needs were. And there was a lot changing in the real estate market in general with a lot with NAR and a lot of the laws and things like that out there that I just kind of was I was yearning for something more. I that's really like the only way that I can describe it.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. Very cool. So tell me then a little bit more about what your company actually does. I know you have some really cool digital products and then you work do you work one on one with clients as well?
Dana: Yeah, so my company now I still do real estate. I still work in agent attraction. I help build this brokerage that I'm with, and I help develop agents and really just participate in the revenue share program. My company is called the Authority Architect, and what we do is we work with growth leaders, CEOs, founders, and startups and individuals that are looking to scale their business. Maybe they're really good at the operation side of things, but they're not so good at visibility. We work on not only getting them the visibility, but also the credibility that they need to build those trusted relationships to move their business forward. So whether or not they're looking for capital, if they're looking for brand enhancement, they're just looking to get into the right rooms. We work privately with them one-on-one. And when I say one on one, I have a team. I mean, sometimes people don't need my team. They don't need PR. They don't need to do a huge event. They just need me to work with them. Sometimes they need, like right now, we're putting together a proposal for somebody that needs a book launch. And that's going to involve my entire team. They, you know, whether or not they want an event party to go with that, whether how much PR they want. So we do a lot of different things curated to that particular business owner. And I also just launched the Capital Society, which is kind of a spin-off of my authority architect company. Capital Society is a curated networking membership only for elite individuals, founders, CEOs. where we curate introductions for them. So this is not a networking group where you just join and hey, hope it works out and you meet some cool people. Yeah. Yeah. This is more
Sara Press: Good luck Yeah.
Dana: of like, you need to meet this person and this person needs to meet this person. And the really cool part is that everybody that belongs to this group is part of a a a network already. So maybe it might not be somebody in the group that me that you need to meet, but maybe that person says, my gosh, you need to meet my friend or my colleague or whatever. So it's really that expansive network that comes with all the people that are part of it. And and it's really something I've been wanting to do for a long time. So that's gonna be you know, Zoom meetings and curated experiences and introductions, but also four in-person events a year at a minimum. And and always taking that personal approach to get to know people's businesses, what they need and what they offer and bring to the table.
Sara Press: That's awesome. Okay, so when it comes to networking, I wanna dive deeper here because I've heard you speak on this a little bit before. And I find myself doing this sometimes. You go to a networking event with the best intentions of, yes, let's go meet people that can help the the podcast or my business, etc. And then you go there and you might talk to somebody for a couple minutes, and then the next day, two days, you never reach back out, that relationship kind of dies. Can you talk
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: to me through like what is the best way? If you're gonna be part of a group or go networking, what are things that you tell people like, make sure you do X, Y, and Z? Like, where do you see people fall off?
Dana: Yeah, so that's such a great question. And that's why I created this group. People love to collect business cards or, you know, the digital
Sara Press: Yeah.
Dana: business cards, right? Like I made this many connections. I made so many connections at this event. And then they don't follow up. They don't take the time to ask the other people what do they need in their business right now? How can I bring value to you? So I think one of the number one mistakes that people do is they info dump. All over the person that they're talking to. I do this, I do this, I do this, and my company did this much last year, and we're exiting, and they just go on and on and they don't even really read the room, if if that makes sense. And
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: so that's not a great way to build rapport. That person's not not really that interested in in, you know, they're gonna be interested in like, okay, how do I right, right, right. And so that's
Sara Press: How do I get out of this conversation?
Dana: that's one problem. And then another problem is that. They take all this information, they spend time talking to people, and then they don't follow up. They don't follow through. They never book that call. Opportunities happen from a simple conversation. It's it's really quite simple. It's not how many people that you connect with. So don't go to an event and monopolize someone's time the entire night. But also don't you don't don't go there and feel like you need to talk to everybody. If you're having a conversation and that person, like you don't really understand what they do, you're like, this doesn't align. We're not like. I don't know anybody in this field. This isn't my forte. Like, then move on from the conversation, politely move on. You know, it's great to meet. Think about maybe somebody you can introduce them to and move on. But don't waste your time having conversations and trying to figure out where to put around like a square peg and a round hole. So it's though, it's
Sara Press: Right. That's such a good point.
Dana: really like those top three, I would say, is just, you know, the the lack of follow-up, the info dumping, and then the taking time to have like not not being purposeful about the conversations that you're having.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. I think that's so important. I've heard a quote that was like, the fruit is in the follow-up because most people never follow up. And then that, you
Dana: Mm. Right. It's so true.
Sara Press: know, that connection or that meeting, then it's kind of pointless. And now you just wasted your time, your energy going to a room that there's nothing that's gonna come out of it, you know, beyond that.
Dana: Exactly.
Sara Press: You know, and I've now now that I've done more and more, I can tell the people that are really good at it because we go to an event and then I have an Instagram DM the next day. Hey, it was so great meeting you. Let me know if you want to jump on a call. And then they send their calendar their link and I'm like, wow, this person's really good about the follow up piece.
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: So yeah, I can see how that could be very important.
Dana: Yeah. Yeah. And that and that's really the only way to do it. It can seem a little bit like, let's jump on a call. Let's jump on a call. And while I have a lot of people asking me to jump on a call, I like to understand their business a little bit more. I say it in a very nice way, like, I'd love to know a little bit more about your business before we hop on a call so I can you know, to be respectful of my time and yours. Because sometimes people will just ask you to pop on a call so that they can pitch you. And that's you know,
Sara Press: god.
Dana: and that's really honestly not what anybody wants. Nobody wants to get on a call to be pitched. So It's I like to understand why are we getting on the call first, but getting on the call is really what you need to do to build those relationships and truly understand what other people are looking for, but also letting them know what you do and how you might be able to bring value to them.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. And then do you recommend people to then start follow everyone in social, start interacting with them there so that they see you a little bit more? you know, I've noticed a lot of
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: different people or even people I've had on the podcast, they're really good about engaging in stuff right around their episode and then you don't hear from them again. And I'm like, I would love
Dana: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sara Press: to keep promoting their episode, but I wanna make sure that they're gonna continue engaging on their end, you know, as well. So I think it's
Dana: Right. So yeah, no, that's a great point. I visibility is going to move your business forward. Visibility's great and very necessary, but without credibility, it's gonna fall flat. So what by that, what I mean is into you can buy visibility. Anybody can buy visibility nowadays. I mean, you can buy magazine covers, you can buy PR. It's that credibility with going to events and getting in front of people who know, like and trust you. Getting on podcasts where you make a connection with the person. it's really those personal connections where people will give you a testimonial. What does your community look like? You know, do you come from contribution or are you just posting and ghosting? I call that's what I call it. Posting and ghosting.
Sara Press: Posting it yeah.
Dana: You can't you can't do that. I mean, it it's fine if you're gonna post, but if you go onto social media, you just post and you leave. The algorithm picks up the fact that you are not actually being social with people. And that you're not interacting. So if you a lot of social media platforms, you'll notice that the people that have more followers and that seem to be getting a lot of likes and comments are also the ones that are doing it to other people. So it's
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: just being vis creating that visibility wherever you go and using those authority pieces to be able to create content. So like if you're on a podcast, take a little video yourself. If you're on a radio show or you have a magazine cover or something like that. Or an article written about you, you can continue to repurpose that content, but staying relevant and visible is super important to the growth of your business.
Sara Press: Yeah, I think you just touched on something so key and it's repurposing content. So it's not re you don't have to reinvent the wheel over and over and over again. I've now started repurposing some of the podcasts from 10 weeks ago. So I'm like that information is still really relevant. And oftentimes
Dana: yeah.
Sara Press: people need to hear it over and over again or you forget about it. Like I'll listen to a podcast
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: and then a couple weeks later I go listen again because I can't remember exactly what that person said or how to implement it. So I do think that's
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Sara Press: important. the other thing
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: you talk a lot about is this visibility piece. So
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Sara Press: what do you mean by that? And are there what different avenues do you, you know, tell people to go down to you know increase their visibility?
Dana: Yeah, social media is the best the best one out there. It's free. You have control of it. So you're not waiting for somebody to get back to you to like publish an article or anything like that. You can control it. I would really say if if you're new or you're not comfortable posting on social media, try to post once a day. And I know that sounds like a lot. Like I post two to three times a day. Some days I don't, I'm not as good about it, but that consistency is really important. And what happens is people are A little disappointed that aren't used to getting business from social media or interactions. They're disappointed after a month when they don't, I didn't do it. I I didn't get any business or it didn't do anything for me. Right.
Sara Press: Nothing happened. Yeah.
Dana: Nothing happened. You gotta continue to keep doing it. Your audience is still watching you, but they don't fully trust you yet. Like if you're if you're selling a new product or you got involved in a new business or you're promoting something new, a month is nothing to get out there and start promoting and gain that trust from your followers. And gaining new followers too. So just can being consistent on social media, posting relevant information, mixing it up a little bit so where some of the posts are informational, some are maybe funny, some are some are create curiosity. There's a bunch of different ways that you can engage your audience, but you also have to be going and commenting on other people's posts. And what I would highly recommend is that you go and you look for people online that are doing Either that are that need your product or service, like what what does your avatar look like? You need to be going and hunting them down because the algorithm is going to position you in front of the people that it thinks you need to meet. So if you're watching
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: cat videos all day long and you start seeing cat videos all over your phone, that's because you're telling the algorithm, I want more of this. So if you
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: want more clients for XYZ product or service, you need to go watch those people. And that's going to tell the algorithm that, they want more of this. So they're going to continue to put more of that content in front of you. So it really is a game of just positioning yourself in social media and telling the algorithm what you want. You can actually call out that on social media by saying, Hey, moms, or hey, if you're over 55, right? You're going to call out your audience and that's going to tell the algorithm where your content needs to be positioned and what type of Audience you want to attract. So that really helps when you're clear and concise consistently about what you want and where you want to be positioned.
Sara Press: Yeah, I think that clear piece is so important. one thing that I've noticed with my socials lately, when I post about the podcast or the business aspect, sometimes I don't get as many views or engagement. Verse when I post something that's more like lifestyle controversial,
Dana: Yep.
Sara Press: like I posted about, I go, Bet you can't name a better s city in the summer and it's of Chicago because I was on the Chicago River. my God,
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Sara Press: people are like fighting in the comments about it now, and I'm gaining
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: more followers and whatnot on that. singular post than some of my others. So I think some of it too
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: is like don't be discouraged if the business ones aren't performing as well because I don't know. They don't, right? They just they just don't perform as well.
Dana: They never do. No. They don't. It's like, hey, do you guys want to come to this event a month from now? This women's retreat is gonna be blah, blah, blah. Like nobody, you'll you'll get like, I'll get like 200 likes versus like or 200 views versus like a video. I'm I'm not lying. Of me cleaning my kitchen counters like on a Saturday morning with with and that's just the visual for the background, like wiping my counters down in like gym clothes. And putting like a hook in in front of it with valuable content in the in the caption. But I got like six thousand, seven thousand views or something. And it's I do that all the time. It's they
Sara Press: It's so funny how that works, right?
Dana: wanna see inside your life and your home and your and your and just like you doing everyday things. That's why you'll see people like emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming. Like it's crazy, driving in the car. Whenever
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: I put I'm all dressed up and I post a Hey, everybody, if you're if you're looking for this kind of event, you'll definitely want to, you know, don't want to miss this, blah, blah, blah. No, it's not, nobody thinks it's exciting because it's not relevant to them. Or they can't relate, right? They can't
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: maybe like, maybe it's like if you're talking to an audience of stay-at-home moms and I'm dressed in a blazer and a suit, that's not relatable for them.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: So it just depends like who you're talking to. But yeah, the business posts never do as well. And it's like, those are the ones we need to perform, right?
Sara Press: It's the yeah. Like and that you're like, those are the ones that actually have educational content you're gonna learn something about, and that I really tried on. That's too funny.
Dana: Right. Right. I know.
Sara Press: Okay, the other thing that I've noticed, I would love your your take on this, is the different social media platforms. So I am a true believer that you use a different part of your brain when you're logged into like a LinkedIn versus when you're on Instagram and like a TikTok.
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: And so do you find that Putting different types of content on the different platforms is helpful.
Dana: Yeah, like obviously I'm not gonna post any funny videos on LinkedIn or me emptying the dishwasher, right? those are more informational,
Sara Press: Ha ha ha
Dana: call to action, business oriented. I will tell you for my business, I get a lot of business. I get the most of my business from LinkedIn. And
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: I am I am very active on LinkedIn. I think people forget about it because it's if you're not like super business oriented, I feel like it's boring for people. Yeah.
Sara Press: It's you don't get the dopamine like you do on Instagram. Yeah.
Dana: Yeah, I mean, I feel like people think it's boring. I love it because it's people doing real business. So
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: am I gonna sit there and scroll LinkedIn the way I would scroll Instagram? Probably not, right? It's that dopamine
Sara Press: Right.
Dana: and that ex that like excitement. And honestly, like just the the doom scroll, right? Of like the, you know, celebrities and things like
Sara Press: Just entertain me, right.
Dana: that. Right. So I I love LinkedIn specifically for me because I get true proposals, inquiries, requests. I have also made a lot of money from Facebook. Instagram probably the least amount. just because I feel like perhaps maybe it's our age group too, a little bit. I think, you know, if 20 years ago I was promoting on Instagram, it would have been a different story. But for me, a lot of my audience is on Facebook. A lot of the,
Sara Press: Okay.
Dana: you know, 40, 50 year olds are on Facebook. I think you're if, you know, if you're doing like influencer stuff, Instagram is probably better for that. So I think it just depends what you're looking to do. I know people that have crushed it on Instagram because they've been able to get like they run ads. A lot of people run ads and people don't realize why they have all this Yeah.
Sara Press: I did not know people do that. I found that out more recently and I had no idea that people were doing that to build their following and their stuff. I had
Dana: Well, they're running ads to something. They're running ads to a call to action, to a coaching program, to a product, but they're running ads to get them in front of the people they want to be in front of. And then they're, therefore, they're gaining more followers from it. So I think when you see these people online, it's like, I made a million dollars my first year on Instagram. It's like they did not do that organically for the most part. They really didn't. So it's it's they took that money, they went.
Sara Press: They did. So that was been my plan.
Dana: Well, and that's the problem, right? Like we get like this like it's it's imposter syndrome. Like, how come they're doing it? I'm doing everything right. They're also putting money into it. They're putting money
Sara Press: Right, I'm doing yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dana: into it. And and I'm not saying Facebook ads are the are the end all say all. If you can't sell organically, you're not gonna be able Facebook ads are not gonna help you. So you have to be able to sell and get people into your DMs or book a call with you or whatever your call to action is without ads. Once you can make those sales. that's when you can start to invest back into your business and and run ads. But people always think, I'll just run ads. And that doesn't work that way. But yeah, yeah,
Sara Press: I love that.
Dana: it's it's the different platforms, depending on what you're doing, really, really can make a difference. You just gotta be in front of the right audience, talking to the right person and the right platform.
Sara Press: Like know where your people are hanging out. I love
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: that you mentioned you have to have a viable business before you run ads. And I think that's so true. And so for people that want to, and I really want to dip into this area next with you about digital products, how do you know when you have something there that people are going to buy? Or when is it where you're like, that's a cute idea, but maybe put some more thought into it. Where is that
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: line where you then tell people like, yes, you have something here? How do you test that?
Dana: Yeah, it's I mean, a lot of it just comes with confidence and and being okay failing forward. Like I have launched stuff that I thought was going to be awesome and it didn't do well and it kind of failed. So I just moved on to something else. And then I've launched things that were great and took off. I think people's biggest fear is that they don't try. They're afraid of failing. They're afraid of putting themselves out there on social media because what if I fail? Right? What if I launch this thing and everyone sees me doing it and they sit back and watch? Maybe they don't support them. They don't buy from them, but they are watching. Yeah,
Sara Press: But they watch, yeah.
Dana: exactly. And then it doesn't work out. Like a lot of people are afraid to put themselves out there in the first place. So I think the biggest thing is just try. And you can be really vulnerable about it too. Like if you're not somebody that's really great with social media and you're just starting and dipping your toe in the water, you can say things like, Hey guys, you know, this is my first post about my new product. So please bear with me. This is like really out of my comfort zone. And you lead them on that journey of watching you every single day now. Cause like, if she can do it, I can do it. So I would say that is the best way to have people like I would and people are afraid people are gonna make fun of them. I really could care less what Susie from sixth grade thinks, right? But but but
Sara Press: Amen.
Dana: some people do. So If you lead somebody on that journey, like, hey everybody, vulnerable post here. I'm starting my journey with XYZ. That is a great hook. That's gonna get people watching.
Sara Press: And how relatable is that?
Dana: Right. Because people are gonna go, stay tuned tomorrow when I post my first day in blah, blah, blah. Like people will watch the journey and the story. So you don't need to be at the end game or the end result. You can let people watch you from the very beginning, and you're gonna get more support and More relatability with that.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's so true. And I love that you said fail forward because the best way to learn things is to go through it, right? And so
Dana: Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Press: if you don't put yourself out there and try, you'll never know. And I always see even with the podcast, I'm like, I hope a year from now I look back at the episodes and I'm like, my God, they were so amateur. You know, that's the whole point. Is like
Dana: Yeah. Right.
Sara Press: the you just have to keep going and doing and doing and doing. And that's the best way to learn and grow. So and my other favorite
Dana: totally. Totally.
Sara Press: thing is like nobody that's doing more will ever criticize what you're doing.
Dana: 100%. I say that all the time, right? I never saw a hater doing better doing I
Sara Press: So good.
Dana: never saw a hater doing better than me. I say that all the time. It's true though, because people
Sara Press: Yeah.
Dana: that are like confident in their business and that are on a journey themselves are gonna look at someone and be like, wow, look at like Sarah's podcast. It's like her presence is great. Like I think I reached out to you. And and you know, it's because of the presence
Sara Press: You did on LinkedIn, which LinkedIn's been great, yeah.
Dana: and the visibility, but I also know the value that comes from. The exposure that was our pass crossing, right?
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: So I I just, you know, I look at it like I don't look at like how the production is and my gosh, they don't have a million viewers, or I don't look at any of that. Like I'm on podcasts that have two million views, and I'm on podcasts where last week the guy was like, it was his fourth podcast ever. And but
Sara Press: I love that.
Dana: he was just starting. And so I recommended him to somebody that I'm actually working with that their fields are very, very similar. Their fields are in gaming, right? And that's,
Sara Press: Okay.
Dana: you know, that is that's a random thing. I happen to be working with this guy, and then I'm on this guy's podcast. I said, You guys need to meet, and you should probably be on his podcast. He's like, he has like no views. He has 116 views on on YouTube. And I said, I don't care. I went on his podcast. He just started it. You guys have a ton in common that like that
Sara Press: You right, you're like you have no idea where
Dana: conversation could lead to a business venture. So I for me, like I don't look at that if if the person Is their direction and the trajectory make sense for my business, right? So,
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: like I'm not gonna go on a podcast about baking because that's not something that I do, right? So I always try to make sure that it's relevant, but yeah, it's it's I give so many people effort for just putting themselves out there and giving it a go. There's always gonna be someone out there doing it better, more expensive, whatever. And it's like, you know, so
Sara Press: All the things, right? Yes.
Dana: yeah.
Sara Press: I love that. okay, I wanna jump into some of the digital products. Like you said, putting yourself out there, the visibility. And then one thing you talk about is it's great to make money like while you sleep with these digital products. You have something that you can create once and sure tweak it, but then you can sell it over and over again. So I would love to hear how you built some of your digital products and what categories you keep them in, do they Does one play off? Is one like the gateway that then leads into the other ones?
Dana: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I wish I had learned I wish I had done this better now that I look back.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: because there are people that have a sequence that is so much better than mine, right? And there's us looking at someone else's stuff and what they've done. but I have several different streams of income out digital products, and then I have you know, like revenue share from real estate and I have a peptide company that I do some network marketing. but the digital products, one of the things I created that took off that I actually was like, I don't know if this is gonna do anything. It's a social media course called Standout Social. My fiance and I created it because we were dipping our toes into the water of TikTok and like making money from going live on TikTok and and just kind of I think with at the time we were selling someone else's digital product. And it was like this. Like we were selling it so fast that we didn't even own it. And
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: so we created, I mean, they give you the master resale rights, but it wasn't something we created. So
Sara Press: Okay.
Dana: I I but everybody that was buying it was like, I don't even know the first thing about promoting this thing online. And I'm thinking, well, you make a reel, you you create a hook. They're like, What's a reel? And I mean,
Sara Press: What's that?
Dana: it was so basic. Like when I tell you like the questions I was getting, I was like, my gosh, these people don't know anything.
Sara Press: What yeah. When you're doing it you're l you think everyone knows it. You're like, Yeah, this is what you
Dana: So right. Well they're
Sara Press: know this.
Dana: well, they're watching people on TikTok and they're watching how people made $3,000 last night from their digital product. And they're they're buying it because, that's gonna make me a lot of money when they don't know how to position it. They've not have not built any sort of audience. They don't know how to solve a problem that people have online. So we created this course super basic. Like, this is how you make a reel. This is how you edit. This is how you post a story. This is how you create a call to action. This is how you use Cap Cut. Like it was so like super, super simple. And we just showed people step one, step two. And it was great because at the time we were doing really well on like TikTok and it it blew up on TikTok. And that led us to some that some network marketing, things like that. So You can create a digital product, doesn't need to be ours sold for one ninety seven and we gave eighty percent commission back to people that wanted to resell it. So that's kind of where you get that affiliate program going. What
Sara Press: Okay. So that means that they can any sales that they bring in, they're getting eighty percent of that, correct?
Dana: So they can just resell it, they have their own link, they can promote our course just as we were doing as the other person's when we first got into it, and they make 80% of every sale. So that was, I mean, all they have to do is talk about it. And then people click on it and they buy it. So a digital product can be an ebook, it can be a PDF downloadable, like the top 10 things that you know I would do before school starts to get your kid ready for college or something.
Sara Press: Mm.
Dana: You can do like my hack for blah blah blah, but you have to have some like credibility. Like maybe you're like one of those really cool moms that helps your I've seen these crazy dorm room things now. I don't have kids, but like like it's I'm like, can you come decorate my room? Like these things
Sara Press: These are blowing up and I'm so terrified for my daughters. I know.
Dana: look amazing. But like if you're one of those moms that clearly the parents have to be involved, right? Like somebody's funding this, yeah. And
Sara Press: Someone's funding this, yeah.
Dana: someone's getting them there with all their stuff, right? So Somebody's involved and I think one of them said their mom was an interior designer. So clearly she had an eye for that kind of thing.
Sara Press: That helps, yeah.
Dana: but like like a PDF. Like let's just say you make a downloadable PDF and you sell it for $10 or $30 or whatever. It you can make top 10, like how to sell in your stories. Could be $2,
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: right? There is there's a a a girl out there that I follow online. She's made, there's several of them, but her name's Maria Wendt. She's made over
Sara Press: I follow her.
Dana: 17. Yeah, $17 million in digital products, but all her digital products are low ticket. When I say low ticket, they're five
Sara Press: Right.
Dana: bucks, $17, $47. And she has an unbelievable funnel system. And if you don't have a system to be able to process all of these payments and and and leave them like an email capture and then a funnel
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: where it's like the person clicks on this, they get they get this email. They they click on this, they get this email. Having someone put your system together. Like if you've ever clicked on something, now all of a sudden you're getting an email from somebody every day, but it's like answering the questions that, you know, like
Sara Press: Right. It's very intentional.
Dana: very intentional. You've got to have a really good system. I mean, I do. I just don't get that in depth with it. and you I mean, you really have to have she puts a lot of money in her advertising. That's what people don't realize. Like as soon as she
Sara Press: I was shocked when I heard how much that she spends on advertising.
Dana: Like $300,000 a month on advertising.
Sara Press: Yes.
Dana: So that's a I mean, and I and I know a lot of people that spend like $12,000, $15,000, $50,000, $75,000 a month on advertising. So it just depends what you're doing. Once you get to a point in order to scale, the the digital products work really great. They worked good on TikTok. I honestly like I didn't love the whole promotion behind it. I got really tired of promo just promoting it in my eyes.
Sara Press: Mm-hmm.
Dana: I like the higher ticket. I've always worked in luxury real estate. I've worked with high net worth individuals. So for me, like having my membership community capital society now, that's $7,500 a year to belong to. But it's it's you're getting you're getting connected to capital to build your business. You're getting connected to people that are going to help you move your business forward. So a lot of those memberships for those high-end groups are $12,000, $30,000 a year to belong to. So mine's right in line, if not less. And we actually curate those introductions. That's more where I that's more my lane. But I definitely love like the d digital product world because you can be a stay-at-home mom and just create like recipes for the top 10 like easy packing lunches. Right. And
Sara Press: Right. There's so much opportunity there. Mm-hmm.
Dana: then you sell for $5. I mean, it can be something that we're it so the reason why you want to sell it for some for an inexpensive price is to get people in your email list and get them into your funnel. So once they opt in, which means they give you their email address. Now they're in your funnel. So now you've got them where kind of like right where you want them, right? Because if you're just talking to people through DMs and you're talking to people online, but you're not actually building something outside of that, what happens if TikTok goes down? What happens if Instagram goes down? You've got to have your own IP, which is your your own like, you know, intellectual property where you're able to message them your own stuff. It's not controlled. Cause you try to talk about peptides on TikTok, you're gonna get shut down. Right. So it just depends on what you know, what you're marketing, what you're selling, and how you're positioning. A lot of a lot of things will get flagged, especially on TikTok. Like you can't say you can't say things about like certain things about money or or whatnot. So I learned I learned a lot of that when my live got shut off because I said like money or whatever or or
Sara Press: No way. Okay.
Dana: Yeah, you gotta be really careful what you say. If if they're if they're watching and they flag you, they'll shut your live off right in the middle of it and they'll ban you for like a day or two. So
Sara Press: Wow, I didn't realize that.
Dana: I'm like, what did I do? All of a sudden my life just disappeared. And you're not saying anything mean, but it'll Yeah.
Sara Press: You're like, this is c good good information for people.
Dana: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's it was a lot of trial and error. And I've always used social media. I mean, I was a real estate agent for 25 years. I've always used social media to promote my listings, my business. And it it really got me other, you know, more clients, more listings. So social media, if you have a product or business and you are trying to get more clients and you are not active on there. get on there because it's free and you can start building your business that way.
Sara Press: Right, and like you said, active does not mean like once a week. It means at least once a day, right?
Dana: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And interacting with other people and then belong to groups. Like go join groups that are relevant to your business. And then you're gonna see people in there talking about what you know, w the problems they have that your product or service may solve. And then you can spend time commenting. This is stuff you can do while you're sitting on the couch in front of the TV. Like this is simple stuff. You can make money from your phone. You just have to learn how to position yourself so that people know like and trust you.
Sara Press: And then they can find you, right? If nobody
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: can find you, like you said, that visibility piece is huge. So
Dana: Right, exactly.
Sara Press: awesome. Well, we are running out time. It has been so fun talking to you. I feel like you're just a wealth of knowledge. And the way you articulate things
Dana: thank you.
Sara Press: is so clear. And then you're like, yeah, that of course, that makes sense. So if
Dana: Yeah.
Sara Press: people want to learn more about you, learn more about your business, or potentially be part of your group, where is the best place that people can find you?
Dana: Sure. You can find me on social media with Dana Flanagan, and that's all A's in there. There's no I. You can find my membership community at joincapitalsociety.com. And if you are just looking for private support for your business, that's Danaflanagan.com.
Sara Press: Awesome. I love that. And I th I know we're connected on LinkedIn and I'm gonna go find you
Dana: Yes.
Sara Press: on Instagram as well so that we can connect in all of these different places.
Dana: I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Sarah. It's great, great being here.
Sara Press: Thank you.
