Ditching Hourly

DH 373 Erin Halper
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Introduction and Guest Welcome
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Jonathan Stark: Hello, and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark. Today I'm joined by guest Erin Halper. Erin, welcome to the show.

Erin Halper: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation.

Jonathan Stark: So today we are gonna probably talk about some pricing. We're gonna talk about running a community. But first, could you tell folks a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Erin Halper's Background and The Upside Community
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Erin Halper: Sure I run The Upside, which is a community specifically for independent consultants. I've been doing that since 2018 ish, and my vision and my mission is to change the way working works specifically for people looking for more flexibility, autonomy, and a sense of. Purpose in their work.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, so I was very excited to meet you. You reached out and I thank you for doing that. The, because obviously for folks listening, there's a massive overlap. Between what we both do, so that's fantastic. The, the on the call that we had, I was really interested to hear about your. Experience with running community and your opinions about that.

And I know a lot of people listening and I, um, are perhaps thinking about starting communities of, of practice or of whatever interest that they have, whatever their area of expertise is. So I think that'd be useful information for folks. So maybe we could start there. So, um, could you go a little bit deeper on, um, what the upside is and, and then I'd love to zoom back to when you started it, why you started it, what it was like back then, and then we can kind of work forward from there.

Erin Halper: Yeah, so the model is, it's like, I like to say it's like the gym for your business. So it's a membership model. People can pay either quarterly or annually to be part of it, and it is what I would call an all-in-one community. Meaning there are some communities out there where someone's teaching you something and then you go into their community or a coach, or you took a course, but this is not that.

This is. All of that, plus the connections, plus opportunities that are shared community is the business. And through that we have, again, learning connections, um, opportunities, resources, guides. Um, so, so yeah. So that's the big difference is, is it's an all in one community.

Jonathan Stark: Okay. So, uh, and I think you, I think you're alluding to other, I've seen other models where people sort of, you know, you can buy this course and for $50 more you can be part of the slack room for the course or something like that. And it's really kind of an afterthought and it's bolted on to some other kind of one-off.

Sale. Um, but this is more, this is for people connecting. As you know, I was on your website and I can see it's really, the primary thing is really, I think the headline is something like, um, uh, for people who work by themselves but don't want to go it alone or something like that.

Erin Halper: Yeah, for consultants who love being independent, but as almost, I'd say 99% of them realize, you know, to. Together is definitely stronger than trying to do this by myself or asking one or two of my friends who are doing this, you know, what they think I should charge. And, and having that diversity of thought leadership all around you and supporting you and champion you, championing you all the time.

Jonathan Stark: Cool.

Challenges and Evolution of The Upside
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Jonathan Stark: So what caused you to start the community in the first place?

Erin Halper: Well that, that's funny 'cause it wasn't a community. Um, that's why I say 2018 ish because I started the upside in 2017 thinking I was going to connect consultants with clients and I was gonna monetize that. So sort of like a boutique headhunter in a way. And I'm really good at getting clients. And I realized other people were not.

And I was pretty connected at that time and I thought, and I, you know, right outside of New York City and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna pound the pavement and like generate demand for all these amazing, talented people. And all they have to do is show up and do the work, which they're great at. They're just not great at the business side.

Jonathan Stark: Right.

Erin Halper: Little by little, um, I realized that I, you know, slowly, slowly but surely, I couldn't put them in front of people because maybe their bio wasn't written correctly or their LinkedIn wasn't optimized or, so I started helping them redo their LinkedIn, helping them rewrite their bios, helping them with positioning and.

After doing that 20 times, I was like, this, this isn't working. Uh, not to mention just I didn't really love a contingency business where you only get, you know, you only get paid if, you know, if they make the decision to go with that, that person. Um, there were a few times where I found. The people exactly who they were looking for like to a T and then they're like, yeah, no, I think we're gonna go with like an agency.

And so of course I made nothing. I hated the business model. And I had a, had a friend who was running a community and she. Really encouraged me. She's like, you should really consider pulling all the resources under one umbrella. You're really good at connecting people. You really like being around people and, and matchmaking and pulling all those resources and give it a go.

Uh, and that's how the community began.

Jonathan Stark: Cool. So did you ooze into this different model or did you like stop the old thing? Start the new thing?

Erin Halper: It was a hard stop. It was like a hard stop and a re full reset. I took a month off, reworked the whole business model, and then. I mean, it was the same name and the same vision, and obviously the same founder, but it was starting over. It was like 18 months in the garbage can a little bit. Although it was great.

As you know, failures are, it was great for learning and it was great for collecting data and understanding who the audience was, um, because. I definitely went into this thinking it was one type of person and then once the community came to be, I realized there's a lot of different types of people in this space, not just the one I thought it was for.

So, um, definitely learned a lot, but it was a complete and total restart.

Jonathan Stark: Wow. Okay. And was it, so you sort of described what it is now. Is that how it started or did it morph over time, you know, as being an all in one?

Erin Halper: It was always all in one, so it was never Erin helper, the teacher, and then you get plopped into a community. It was always community first, and that was hard during those years because there weren't communities out there. It was really hard to explain what it was, and there was a lot of friction around.

What am I getting? I don't understand what a community is now. Of course. Uh, the good news is I don't have to explain what a community is 'cause people understand what that is. Now the friction is around how are you so different than all these other things out there? Because a lot of people just, you know, started saying, well, I'm gonna start a community, which I think is great.

Um. But now I have to differentiate us. I have to work harder to differentiate the upside, um, against some other communities. And, and it's just interesting how that shift over time happened.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, it seems like, I dunno if it's confirmation bias, but it seems like, um, they're cropping up like mushrooms. But so, but for people listening, I, I think that.

Starting and Running a Community
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Jonathan Stark: Is a trend that's going to continue this sort of, you know, post COVID online community model. It doesn't fee, I mean, you know, they're going way back.

There was IRC chat rooms and I think there's, there's this, this need or desire for people to connect. Obvi. I mean, it's obvious to say that, but um, online just becomes more and more. Like real life. And so it makes sense for communities to exist, uh, in the virtual space or digital space, whatever you wanna call it, online.

So I don't think, I don't, I don't really see, in case people are wondering like, oh, I was thinking about starting a community, but Erin's saying that there's so many now that, you know, differentiation is the real problem. It's like, I don't think we've hit peak community yet, I guess is what I'm saying.

Erin Halper: Yeah, and I think it's, you know, someone mentioned that there's been, um, they're predicting sort of a community correction because so many people have started them thinking, 'cause it's. So the joke is, I always say it takes a lot of makeup to look this natural and the joke. The joke being that communities that run really smoothly, that look really easy, those are the ones investing the most in infrastructure and people and the backend.

They're really hard to run well. It's really hard to build and run a very high quality community. I think it's easy to. Run a $30 a month Slack group or something, you know, like that's a different type of thing. But then you need volume. And I knew that in my world, in your world, there's only so much volume of people doing this.

So I knew I wanted it to be really high quality. Plus that's just how I, I'm a quality over quantity kind of person anyway. Um, so that's, that's what we always focused on and that it's the type of people that appreciate what we do too, so. Okay.

Best Practices for Community Management
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Jonathan Stark: So for someone who is thinking about starting a community, what would you say the surprises are gonna be? So, you know, or what's, what did you learn early on that you were surprised by that they perhaps should go into it with open eyes?

Erin Halper: The good news is now there's best practices. But when I was doing this with a couple of my peers that that were all still friends, like we were all just kind of figuring it out as we went. Like there just really weren't best practices out there. Now there's consultants who specialize in this. And all sorts of information out there.

There's courses you can take, but when we were doing it, it really was the wild, wild west. I would say number one, don't even, don't even play with the word scale. Okay? Just don't, just stop saying it. Don't play with it. You have to get your infrastructure so tight. So well run before you can even think about scaling.

And I think that it's not a mistake I made, but it's a mistake I see other people make. They're so focused on scaling. I'm like, but you don't even have a system yet for, you know what? What's your system? When someone says, I wanna cancel, what's your system when someone asks you to meet with you and. And learn about your community.

Like what is your system? What is your comm? They, they don't have anything in place, or they wanna raise capital and they just see dollar signs. So I would say the big mistake is if you are doing this for money, just don't. It's just don't just have the self-awareness to know that that's what you're doing, because the ones that do it for money don't tend to find success.

Or don't call it a community, call it something else. Be something else. If you wanna have recurring revenue, that's awesome, but don't call it a community because a community, there's heart. Community. It's, it's sort of like that nonprofit heart with a for-profit bottom line. But it's, it's, it takes a lot of heart and soul to build a real community.

If you wanna build a networking group or coaching cohorts, that's a different thing and go for it. But I think the problem is people see dollar signs. They start doing the math on the upside. They're like, oh, that she's making a lot of money. But I'm like, but you don't know how much I'm spending to make that, you know, you don't know what my head count is.

You don't know how much we're investing all the time back into the community. And um, you know, I never did it for dollar signs. And I think it shows, and I think our community members would say, oh yeah, you can tell this. Done the right way and with a lot of heart. I think also people choose the wrong platform, so they get Pennywise and pound foolish, and I would say pick the right platform first, even if it's.

Going to be, you know, a break even month or whatever, having the right platform, whatever you choose that's right for you. But having the perfect platform for the type of community you're building is so important. 'cause it's expensive and really difficult to switch later.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, that's for sure.

Erin Halper: And I see a lot of people say, oh well I wanted to do this one, but it was too expensive.

I mean, is it a business or a hobby? Like you have to invest a, you know, before in your technology. I mean, you know that you come from that world, like you best invest in the right technology and the right tech stack from the beginning. 'cause it's so complicated to switch later.

Jonathan Stark: That is definitely, definitely true. I just help someone do that sort of a migration from a Slack based community to circle and it's super complicated.

Erin Halper: yeah, we did it.

Jonathan Stark: is that,

Erin Halper: know we did it 'cause circle didn't exist when I started this, so I didn't have a choice. You know, I, there weren't a lot of choices out there. And the pa, the rule, the paid, uh, tech options just weren't good. They were clunky. They were just not for me. And so I was like, yeah, I'm just stick with the free until something comes out that I think is worthy of.

Our community. And I communicated that with our members. I said, don't you worry, like we are looking for like a private paid platform, but I'm not gonna just switch to anything. And then when Circle came out, that was it. And, and it's been smooth sailing ever since. But yeah, we had to do that migration too.

And it stinks. It's hard. It's really hard. And you're losing all that content. When you switch over all those conversations, everything is gone. All those archives gone. Um, also, you know, everyone like you get what you pay for. Like if, if you're gonna run a free Slack group, you're not, it's real hard to charge 300 a month for a Slack group and.

Jonathan Stark: I mean, I'm running mine on a free slack, um, for historical reasons. You know, it's like, it's like I started in 27 September, 2017, and it wasn't a community, it was communication channel for. Biweekly office hours because I, I, I couldn't email people because I email every day. My mailing is to the daily mailing list.

And so people, they were missing the emails like, oh, I missed the email. 'cause I went in with all your other ones. And I was like, well, let's just put together a slack room and I'll make the announcements in there and then we can do it like that. And then over time it got bigger and bigger. And then, I don't know what year it was, but all of a sudden I was like, this is switching into something else.

Like I didn't, it was not my plan, but I was like, this is switching into a community. Before it was really just paid 99 bucks a month to jump on, uh, office hours with me every other week. And but then people were cross pollinating and people were working together and people were referring clients and sharing wins and all this stuff.

Um,

Erin Halper: Yeah. That's a community.

Jonathan Stark: Right. And I changed the name. I, I changed it to like a place name. So it was just group coaching with, you know, Jonathan Stark before, and now it's like Ditcherville, it's like a place and, and, but there's still all of this like old DNA stuck in there. And, and the conversations even, even though it's only 90 days of conversations, like the idea of leaving it behind is like crazy.

Uh,

Erin Halper: Jonathan, I left years of conversations behind, but

Jonathan Stark: Yeah,

Erin Halper: I'm.

Jonathan Stark: I Circle. Circle is the one I would

Erin Halper: It is the one. It is the one. And, you know, uh, to me there's just no other, and I don't get paid by circle. I'm not like a, you know, like I just, they have been wonderful for us. Um, they've been wonderful for my peers also, you know, if you're in the upside and you're in Ditcherville, you can toggle back and forth.

Like, it's just so easy to switch back and forth from your different communities that are on circle. It's just like. Literally right there. Just little icons you can click on. It's, it was the best decision that we made. Um, it was, it absolutely was a catalyst for the community to just accelerate. It was, no, no doubt about it.

I think also probably from my own mindset too, of being on a more professional platform, it was amazing for our business.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. I, I'm in a couple and I just mi helped migrate one of my students over to Circle. It's got all of the stuff I would want. The, um, uh, I still to pulling the trigger is like, it's hard because the, the reason I picked Slack in the first place was because everybody that. Everybody that was in my, um, well everybody that was on my mailing list was pretty much a software developer, and they were all using Slack like crazy at the time.

So it was like, eh, I don't want 'em to have to install another, you know, uh, app and teach 'em how to

Erin Halper: Wanna meet them where they already are.

Jonathan Stark: Right, right. But it is, it is like, as it grows more organically, you know, I've created like a, a static website to keep the persistent materials and it's disconnected and, uh, so then you have to like, you know, log in to both.

It's different things. It's, it's, uh, but the idea anyway, the idea of migrating over to another platform is just like, oh my God,

Erin Halper: I know, but you know what? Like, listen. Get someone else to do it for you. You know, get someone else to do it. That's what I did. I had someone help me because I was like feeling the same way. I was like, this is just a slog and it's overwhelming, and I just paid the money, had someone do it for me to rip the bandaid off because even though I was capable of doing it myself.

Mentally I was incapable. I would just like, my fingernails were like in the ground, like dragging, uh, during that process, but I promise you like it really took off. However, I would say that only a portion of our membership base was um, you know, the type that are just on Slack all the time, whereas I believe yours are probably always.

On Slack, you know, so, so there is something to be said about meeting people where they already are. Um, the, I will say another, I, I have to add another mistake. I see people make. That I did not make, but I've gotten better and better, better at it is creating community guidelines to help people learn how to behave and navigate within your community.

It gives, I always say it's like giving, um, it's like kind of create training your puppy or if anyone has kids, it's like the playpen for the kids so that they keep themselves safe and don't hurt themselves. Um. And everybody else. So keeping those parameters, um, always reminding people of those parameters of, here, here's how we operate here.

Here's our values, here's our guidelines, so that people understand what is and isn't allowed in your community, because otherwise you're playing community police, which is not what you want your job to be.

Jonathan Stark: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, setting the value, basically, you want a culture to develop that is supportive of the people who are there. You know, Seth Godin, like people like us do things like this. It's like, well, what are those things that we do? And, you know, starting off with that, like when you sign up for mine, you, you get like a sort of like a, it's not a.

It's not like a term, it's, it's basically like, here's what you're, here's what's expected and here's what's not expected. Like, don't spam the room. Like, duh, do I need to even say it? You know, like,

Erin Halper: you do.

Jonathan Stark: yes, you

Erin Halper: Unfortunately you do have to say that. That's what I'm saying, like unfortunately you do have to say it. Um, don't spam the room. Yeah, you have to say it. Don't add people to your email list without their permission. Just little, there's just so many little details that I've learned over the years that you have to say out loud because people either don't know, or they have automated systems that are doing this already without them, you know, just they're all automated.

I'm like, turn off your automated thing, please, if you're gonna be in this community, because you can't just add people to your email list. You can't just pitch and sell and you know, because it creates junk.

Jonathan Stark: I haven't heard, I haven't had the automation issue. That's an interesting one. I.

Erin Halper: Yeah, there are people who, um, have, uh, like CRMs that if you even have a meeting with them, like if you have a one-on-one call with them or whatever, their CRMs automatically are gonna add you to their email list. 'cause I get put on email list. I'm like, I literally just had a meeting with Jonathan Stark and now I'm on his email list.

Just kidding. I'm already on your list. But, but like, you know, they, they add. You get added to people's lists automatically. And I don't know, to me that's just not best practice anyway. Um, but anyway, we're getting, we're getting sidetracked. The point is you gotta tell people how to behave, what your values are, um, and be really detailed about what is and isn't allowed in your community.

And it gives people, not this sense of prison, but this sense of freedom.

Jonathan Stark: Oh yeah.

Erin Halper: It's a relief to know how I can operate. And don't forget you, you can't tell, you know, you, you know, you'll have members that are, you know, neuro-diverse in different ways and that they especially really appreciate understanding what, how to behave in the community because they're looking for those guidelines.

'cause for them it may not come as naturally.

Jonathan Stark: There's a great book by Priya Parker called The Art of Gathering that are you familiar?

Erin Halper: Yeah, of

Jonathan Stark: It's so good. And, and a, a big point that she makes in there is that it's like the host's job not to let people, not to just be like loosey goosey and like, do whatever you want. Like not be, um, not be, I think, I think ho hosts in this case, like the organizer of an event.

Probably doesn't want to feel like they're putting a bunch of rules on people and making it this straight jacket type of situation and being a control freak. Um, but Priya lays out an excellent case in the book, how not doing that is seeding that control to like the bullies in the room or like the loud mouths or whatever, and then they just dominate the whole event.

And it like, it's the organizer's job. To connect people, but but also to like get to lay the ground rules. Say like, this, this is, this is the game. Like this, these are the rules of the game. If you wanna play this game, these are the rules. And it's, it really changed my mind about, about that. So I, I encourage people to a lay groundwork in rules.

If you're gonna have a community, just say like, what's allowed, what's not allowed? Um, but also read this book because I think it, it is super helpful for folks who are having, you know, running a community, whether it's not an event, but still, I think there are a lot of similarities.

Erin Halper: Yeah, and, and one last thing I will say, for anyone who wants to build a community, please don't think that you're gonna build it and set it and forget it. You need to be involved. People are joining because of you. There's no one that joins Ditcherville if they don't. Feel aligned with Jonathan Stark, like flat out, you know, no one's joining the upside if they don't like what Erin Helper has to say, you know, they're there for you as well.

Yes, they're there for your office hours, but they're there for all of it, you know, so for, I, I have met people who are like, I'm going to build a community in addition to my coaching or in addition to whatever else I do, um, because I'm trying to build something that doesn't require me. And I'm like.

You're building a community that what? That doesn't require you. I'm like, that's the opposite. And that goes back to having the heart and really wanting it for the right reasons.

Jonathan Stark: Yes. So let's dive a little bit into the content of what people would find in there.

Pricing Strategies for Independent Consultants
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Jonathan Stark: Um, I'm specifically interested in that, in, in what your, um, not position, but like what, what do, what do you, what's your worldview about pricing for independent consultants?

Erin Halper: Oh my God. I mean, this is how, how much time do we have for this conversation? Um. Ask me a specific, like what is your specific, I wanna get really specific on what you're looking for. 'cause I could, this is like a very big conversation. I wanna make sure I'm answering exactly what it is that you are looking for.

Jonathan Stark: Okay. Totally fair. So, um, I'm curious for our listeners how much overlap we have in our pricing philosophies and if there are any differences why, why we have those differences. So,

Erin Halper: yeah, now I got it now.

Jonathan Stark: Okay. Okay.

Erin Halper: I got it. Okay, so on one end of the spectrum is Jonathan Stark. It's like all about value-based pricing and it's like value-based pricing or die like that is like, it's like that is like the holy grail, right? Is the value-based pricing and that is the case for. Most of what we do inside the upside.

But I do think there's nuances to people's risk tolerance and lifestyles, um, and what they're building that goes into the pricing structure. Forget what they charge, but it's more how they charge. So I always give the example 'cause this is a true story that when I was consulting I was, it was a long time ago, I was 30.

30, 31 years old, so a very long time ago, and I charged by the hour because I was, it, it suited what I needed at that time, which was. I wanted to work around 20 hours a week. I was working in private equity in Manhattan. I was trying to get pregnant, and then I did get pregnant and there was something wrong with the baby and he is fine.

He turned out great in the end, but it required multiple surgeries and hospital stays.

Jonathan Stark: my God.

Erin Halper: Which of course, if anyone's ever been through that, it means just weeks at a time, doctor's appointments and checkups. And it, it just was insane. Not to mention trying to deal with my own health and I had a marriage and this, you know, just all the things I, I was not thinking about value-based pricing at that time.

I was thinking, how can I just like. Stay in the game, like make it as simple and easy and painless as possible to keep working. 'cause I loved my work and I didn't wanna give it up to keep working while still being able to be. By my son's bedside at the hospital and not be stressed. So I think, yes, that is one extreme for sure, but there are people who have a version of that where they're like, I just need to stay in the game, keep my life simple and hourly is like what I need at that time.

I also had a spouse, so I had a second income. Not everyone has that. So I was, that's what worked for me.

Jonathan Stark: Mm-hmm.

Erin Halper: On the, I think there's a lot of in-between as well, but I think there are just different nuances depending on what you're trying to build. Ultimately, I'm in the Jonathan Stark Camp and I want everyone to charge based on their value, not by the hour, and that's what we tend to talk about most inside.

The upside, the difference too is we have a lot of people who are providing the types of services that are. A little bit less of a deliverable. So, you know, when you're, if you're gonna create a website, you know, there's a deliverable there, there's a website to deliver. Uh, and now a website can be 2000 or it can be 200,000, but, and that, that's, that's, that's a whole other conversation.

But the point being. People inside the upside. We have a lot of people who are in leadership and development. We have a lot of people who are, uh, fractional CMOs or CFOs. So the range of thought leadership and the range of services and expertise is very, very vast. So there's different nuances with how you price those types of services.

What I think is most exciting is. That diversity of thought leadership and putting all those people in the same room, sharing how they're pricing their services, sharing how they're productizing their services, sharing how they're creating, say, a three-tiered pricing approach, and then giving the other folks who aren't in that vertical.

That idea and they're going, wait a minute, everyone in my vertical, everyone in my marketing community that I'm in also, or everyone in my retail community charges this way. I've never heard it done that way, but I can apply that. You know, the thing the, the CIO is charging, uh, and, and how they're structuring it.

I can actually apply that to my business too. And now I've got a competitive edge over these other people who are just in an echo chamber all doing it the same way.

Jonathan Stark: Right. Well, for the record, I'm a huge fan of productizing as well, and I've even been heard saying that it's okay to use value, uh, to use, uh, hourly billing as a bridge for cashflow if that's what you need. And you gotta do it for like, the story. You told a perfect example. It is easy. People do expect an hourly rate from people.

It's very easy. It just, it's just sort of a kicking the can down the road kind of thing.

Erin Halper: What's a trap? So, so you do get trapped, um, you do get on a hamster wheel. It is a trap. Um, as long as you know that that's what it is. Um, same with I and my members know, I say this, and this is not with judgment, this is just with. Experience. They know I hate subcontracting under an agency. I mean, I hate it.

So it sort of falls in that same category of like, sometimes people are like, I just have to do it. I need the cash flow right now. I'm like, okay, but that's fine. But just know what it

Jonathan Stark: Just know what it is. Yeah.

Erin Halper: It will not lead to other awesome things. It will be just that singular thing, and it will just keep going around in a circle until you decide you've had enough.

Jonathan Stark: Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Totally aligned.

Erin Halper: the same way? I, I, I, okay. I hate

Jonathan Stark: sometimes people need, yeah, I mean, going through an agency is just, you might as well just, why don't you just get a job?

Navigating Agency Subcontracting
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Erin Halper: Oh yeah. It's like the worst of both.

Jonathan Stark: It's the worst of both. Yeah.

Erin Halper: Yes, but again, no judgment because I understand sometimes people are like, I just need the cash

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. You might need a good

Erin Halper: Do it for six months, but just know that it is finite. Just know, 'cause what the agencies wanna, you know, I get it. They're like, oh no, this will lead to other things.

This will, we have all this will coming in. Just take it for what it is. It's a bridge and it will end and it will not lead to other things likely.

Jonathan Stark: Mm-hmm. Yeah, just keep the lights on in the meantime.

Erin Halper: Yeah, keep the lights on.

Building and Scaling Your Business
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Jonathan Stark: So what are some of the other big topics that Indie consultants are talking about, or, or that you're helping them with? Or, or is there some contrarian worldview that you're, you know, like this, you know, agency, you hate agency subcontracting. What are some of the other big pillars of your, um, your worldview inside the community?

Erin Halper: Yeah, I mean, I, I obviously pricing comes up all the time, but it's also structure. It's also, what am I building? The question of what am I building or a version of that? It's never what am I building? But it's a question that kind of comes down to that. What am I building? Um. That is something that comes up all the time because are you building an agency?

Are you scaling something? Are you building something that's scalable? Do you even want to scale like, like you keep talking about scaling. Why? What is it that you're building? And then they go, oh, wait a minute. Maybe I don't wanna scale.

Lifestyle and Impact in Consulting
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Erin Halper: And also this idea of in addition to what are you building, you know, there is a lifestyle component to this.

Industry to this business model that I don't think is talked about enough. 'cause I think it sounds like fluff, but it's really not. I mean, it's IT people go into this business. Usually for the lifestyle, they're like, I wanna be my own boss. I wanna work when and how I want. And with whoever I want, I wanna pick and choose my clients, and I wanna feel like my work has impact, which it doesn't usually feel that way when you're working for a big company.

You go to work, you get a paycheck, but you don't really feel like it's making any lick of difference in the company. I mean, at least most people, most people don't feel that way. Um, so this idea of. How does, how do my choices play into the lifestyle I'm looking for and, and continually reflecting on the lifestyle I'm trying to build for myself versus the, see, I'm surprised mine isn't barking because yours, yours, I've had, I've had podcast interviews where there's a barking match between.

Your dog and my dog and they're just barking at each other and then we get nowhere. Um, so I totally

Jonathan Stark: They like to participate.

Erin Halper: mine's, mine's, mine's sleeping right now, thank goodness.

Celebrating Wins and Community Support
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Erin Halper: Um, we talk a lot about also, um, winds. And not just wins in a bragging standpoint, but we call it wins in gratitude because there is no one that gets a win in this business without the help or support of somebody else.

So I think that encouraging people not only to share their wins and to celebrate one another's success and champion each other's successes, but to also acknowledge the people in the community who helped you. Along the way, who helped you negotiate a better deal? You know, we have lawyers in the upside who have started their own law practices, boutique law firms, you know, they'll hop on a call and help people because they're getting help on marketing.

They're getting help on the things they're not good at, and for them all to give back to one another with their various expertise. It's just kind of this. Proverbial, you know what goes around, comes around mentality and then acknowledging when somebody helped you out. Nobody is sharing a win without saying, and thank you to this person who was at office hours and gave me the idea to blah, or gave me the script to ask the big question, or introduced me to that person at CNBC or whatever it is.

Um. I think that's really, really important in our community. That's a big value of ours, and I would say.

Visibility and Positioning
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Erin Halper: Also a structure of visibility is really important because we're all people who are very, very comfortable behind the scenes helping others achieve success. And you and me both, by the way, we're, I'm guilty of it too, and, and I don't wanna be out there with my face all over the place.

But guess what? It's good for business when you're an expert in what you do and. Positioning matters when you're trying to charge a lot of money. So going back to the website, that's 200,000 versus $2,000, you know, what's the difference necessarily? Okay. Maybe that's too big of a gap. Let's go 5,020 5,000.

Jonathan Stark: I, no, I've, I've literally seen those numbers.

Erin Halper: Yeah,

Jonathan Stark: I, I know people that sell $200,000 websites and people who sell 2000. Yeah,

Erin Halper: Correct. I do think there's a big gap between what those websites look like, but let's just talk about a $5,000 website and a $25,000 website. Probably a much smaller gap into to what they look like and. Quite honestly, you know, I always use the website examples because it's just something, everyone understands what that is and everyone knows what that deliverable looks like.

But what's the difference between the 5,000 and the 25,000? What's the difference in the person who's doing a $5,000 website and a $25,000 website? What's the difference? Sometimes the difference is how they're positioning themselves. Sometimes the difference is them genuinely believing this is worth 25,000.

Sometimes the difference is them being able to communicate to the client that that $25,000 investment is gonna increase customer conversions by 50%.

Jonathan Stark: exactly. Yeah.

Pricing Strategies and Market Shifts
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Erin Halper: You know, the outcome, we talk about this all the time, the outcome based based pricing. So, um, these are all conversations that are discussed constantly inside the upside, um, visibility, positioning, um, how you describe what you do, differentiators, um, pricing.

It's.

Jonathan Stark: Mm-hmm.

Erin Halper: And it never gets old because it's constantly evolving. Whether it's, we have a new, you know, administration in the us, uh, new, new president, new laws, um, world wars, like things that are happening. It shifts. How people's clients are behaving. It, it shifts corporate behavior, it shifts buying behavior.

And so we're constantly having to be on our toes and constantly having to adjust and shift with, with what's going on. So the second you get comfortable, just enjoy that moment. 'cause it will then change again. And you'll have to redo everything.

Jonathan Stark: it's like having little kids once, as soon as you think you got it down, they like move on to the next stage and you're just like, oh, man.

Erin Halper: Yeah, I think our businesses are a little bit like kids. Yeah, it is the fun part. It's a little frustrating sometimes. You're like, oh man, I had a well-oiled machine and now it's all gotta change again. Um, but if you go into it knowing that's what it's going to be, then I think it's um, as long as you expect it

Jonathan Stark: I, I have got a, I wanna loop back to something you briefly mentioned. Um, you talked about the lawyer having a phone call with, you know, uh, pitching in to have a phone call with someone. As a community person who runs a community, uh, I love when that happens. There's also this, you know, at what point does that turn into a salesy thing though?

Maintaining Boundaries in Community
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Erin Halper: So we are really big on boundaries around selling.

Jonathan Stark: Mm-hmm.

Erin Halper: Inside the upside, and believe me, our members work together all the time. They hire each other, they refer each other. That happens very, very organically, but there are. Really strict boundaries around what we consider selling and when we have someone like so, so, so we have what we call member offers.

Every person who comes into the community has one or two offers that anyone else in the community can take them up on. It could be a. Scope of work template, for example. So it doesn't require any of their time and it's just something that people can download. But some people are offering up their time and the reason why they're offering up their time is 'cause they genuinely enjoy it.

They wanna help. But it also is a way to meet people. So you're meeting people and you're gathering data and you're like, okay, I can see what people are interested in now. So when there is this. Time offer. So like one of the lawyers has a time offer. You know, I'll hop on the phone with you for 20 minutes to workshop something that's on your mind.

There's boundaries around that, and we communicate what we want them to do. We say pick, you know, get a Calendly link or you know, calendar link of some sort. And it has to be really limited. You know, make sure it's a limited amount of time. Make sure that you have an upside only link that is set for maybe you only have one every two weeks.

Jonathan Stark: Mm-hmm.

Erin Halper: So that you don't have a whole week full of free phone calls from upside members, you know you wanna book time with me, that's fine. My next slot is in four weeks and that's acceptable. And that is totally fine. And there is a, there's a boundary around it and it ends at a certain time. It's exactly this amount of time.

And so, but everyone knows that. Everyone knows that that's. The value system that we have in place, in the upside. Um, as far as preventing people from selling, uh, they just, they, they just know not to, and we've actually removed, we probably remove one person a year because someone's like, this person full on is here to sell.

We also don't allow people in the upside who, whose audience is this audience?

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, that's the thing because like my community's 99 bucks a month and I've detected people who are like, oh, for $99 I can get exact in front of exactly the people I want to get in front of for a month. And like, they'll always come in and they're, they, instead of just having like their name, they'll be like, my name, the, you know, and then some promotional kind of like thing that they do, you know, like, um, SEO for independent consultant, you know, like

Erin Halper: so we don't allow those people.

Application Process and Membership Cap
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Erin Halper: And do you have an application process?

Jonathan Stark: I don't, that's what I was, that's my next question for you. So like what?

Erin Halper: So yeah, so we do, we do have an application process. It's really, really important 'cause we wanna weed out anyone that we suspect is coming in for that reasons, even though they will say they're not, it's just not a risk I'm willing to take and, and so I don't.

And I do my research, like there are definitely people who've applied where the website they give us says they do one thing, but then you go to their LinkedIn and it says another thing. And you know, I'm just, I, I don't, it's not to hurt anyone's feelings. It's just not worth the risk for us. I can't risk that you're gonna be the, the person who doesn't do that.

And um, you know, ultimately, like I'm not joining people's communities that have consultants and. Service providers, that would be a total conflict of interest, obviously. And like that would be a conflict of interest. So I don't, and I don't want people doing that in our community either. So applications are really important.

I think it's a very important process.

Jonathan Stark: Do you have, um, do you have like a capped membership or is it open-ended? I know some are like oh 500

Erin Halper: Yeah. It's capped. It's capped. Um, the good news is I have learned over the years, which levers to pull and push to kind of accelerate the funnel versus close off the funnel. 'cause I don't like rejecting people quite honestly. Um, I really don't like rejecting people who are qualified to be in the community, so I just wanna make sure we're not.

Flooding in a bunch of applicants that I can't, you know, we just can't handle, we can only handle so many at a time. Um, so I'd rather have fewer than too many. And, um, yeah, but it, it's capped because that's what I think also works for us. Like, I don't think a community works quite as well when there's thousands of people in it.

It's something different. It's just

Jonathan Stark: a different animal.

Erin Halper: It's just different, and it's not for me personally, I don't wanna manage that. Again, going back to my lifestyle, my lifestyle is lovely. I know every single member, it's, it's very easy. We, we hover around the two 50 mark. Sometimes we're at two 15, sometimes we're at 2 75.

You know, I probably wouldn't want more than 300. And we managed to do that by every year or two. I raised the price for new people, um, not just because it helps us grow, but because, you know, we are constantly. Reinvesting inside the community. You will not see us doing a bunch of expensive ads. You won't see a lot of outward marketing.

I'm really focused on retention and building the best possible community I can build inside. And only if you're a member, can you see that?

Jonathan Stark: Right,

Erin Halper: And, and that's just what it is. So I focus on making money by retaining members, not necessarily getting new members.

Jonathan Stark: right. So that brings up a really interesting, uh, mechanism that I noticed on your site. And I'm the, it was called like. Open house or something. Yeah. So describe that. 'cause I think that's really clever.

Quarterly Open House Strategy
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Erin Halper: Well, this is really, it is not that clever, to be honest. It's really just an ops problem that I had to solve, which was, you know, 500 people, um, asking to meet with me to learn about the community. And I say, 500, it wasn't but 50, you know, oh, can we set up a call to learn about the community? I cannot. Meet with 50 people all asking the same questions.

By the way,

Jonathan Stark: Yeah.

Erin Halper: you haven't gone to the website. You know they're saying like, oh, what's the pricing? Literally on the website in six different places. Literally in the dropdown menu it says pricing, like

Jonathan Stark: Can you read this

Erin Halper: like it's there for you to see at any moment in time. So I finally just said, you know what?

Um, my boundary is I will not meet with someone ever, for any reason to tell, tell them about the community, but I will meet once a quarter. 'cause we only, we open up only once a quarter anyway. So once a quarter I host an open house. It is me there, like, just like this. We're all talking and hanging out and I'm telling, giving them a tour of the community.

And answering everyone's questions. We have members there as well who have volunteered to come and answer questions from their perspective, and there's just no better way to get a look and feel of the community because talking to me is talking to someone who's extremely biased. Like, this is my business.

Like you need to talk to people who are members and who are experiencing this and ask them questions. Like me, I'm, I'm the probably the wrong person. I'll give you a tour and I'll answer some of your technical questions that are on the website, but, um, you know, really hear it from our members. And, and that's how the Open House came about.

It really was just a way to scale my time.

Jonathan Stark: I love that idea. That's really cool.

Erin Halper: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you get that too, where it's like, can we meet? I can, so I can learn about this or that.

Jonathan Stark: I actually don't, because I think, 'cause the price point's lower and it's like, it's monthly. And I think people just, people just try it, you know? And so there's no application process. It's very, but like talking to you, I'm like, oh, I, I like the, I like the idea of that you have the same kind of.

Personality is me in terms of like, I'm not gonna just do a bunch of work to do a bunch of work. I, I want it to like be leveraged somehow. And so like the idea of having a quarterly open house is like, I mean, it might not seem clever to you, but it seems like genius to me. So I'm

Erin Halper: come to come to our next open house. You can be a guest and just be a fly on the wall. See how we do it. Like you're more than welcome to come and see it. I've invited, um, a lot of people from Circle. So Circle has its own community of community builders. So I've invited all of them. I'm like, you are welcome to just come and be a fly on the wall.

I did not think it was intelligent or genius in any way. It was really just a way to

Jonathan Stark: Self-preservation.

Erin Halper: be like, it was self, literally self-preservation. I was like, I cannot keep having these conversations and I was dreading them. So you were welcome to come be a fly on the wall, check it out, see how we do it. Um, I've done it.

God, it's probably like 18 times at this point. 15 times like I've done it. So I've really tightened it up over the years and, um, you know,

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, I'll definitely check that out.

Erin Halper: a work in progress. I change it a little bit every time.

Jonathan Stark: I love that idea because it's like, because I get, I end up getting questions once someone joins, they'll be like, Hey, where do I find this? Where do I find that? What's okay to say? And you know, like even though they, you get the onboarding documents, they don't either read them or retain them or some, you know, I think a, an interactive live thing would really get the message through a lot better.

I, I really like that idea. And it opens it up to the outside world. It's not just people who are already in. So, yeah. What, what, what were you gonna

Erin Halper: here's another thing.

Onboarding and Member Matching
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Erin Halper: So two things. This is why I do it quarterly versus monthly because, you know, onboarding people is a proce, it's a process and, and it, and it does affect retention. You know, how you bring people in affects how long they stay. It affects their experience inside the community.

You know, I always tell people at the open house that. You know, you join the upside. It is a red carpet, white glove experience like it is first class all the way. And we put a lot of effort into onboarding you. You are treated like a VIP. There's, we don't just throw you in, but it's once a quarter, so it's only four times a year that I'm doing that.

I would not be able to do that every single month. And the other thing is, I would say that when you have an application process. You don't wanna be reviewing those every single month. I, I

Jonathan Stark: so you only open up applications quarterly?

Erin Halper: quarterly.

Jonathan Stark: Mm.

Erin Halper: So four times a year. I'm reviewing applications four times a year. I'm hosting an open house four times a year.

I'm promoting

Jonathan Stark: Mm-hmm.

Erin Halper: through our newsletter. So it's very, very cyclical. I think monthly works well with a lower price. It creates lower friction, but then you have.

Jonathan Stark: There's a lot more churn.

Erin Halper: a lot more churn and there's a lot more met you. You get riffraff, you know, quite honestly, like you, you have to police it differently

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, we don't get too much, we don't get too much riff wrap with the exceptions that I mentioned where people are like using their name to advertise their services. It doesn't happen that much, but I do get a lot of people who will, there'll be something that they learn is inside of the community and they'll just, they'll just basically pay 99 bucks for it and they'll join.

Get the thing and immediately cancel. And it's like, well, you know, and I don't think they think anything of it. 'cause that's the deal. I mean, that is the deal. I didn't say, yeah, it's transactional. It's like, but I don't want that person even like, but, you know, but most of the people in the room, I don't want that person with those people.

Like, that person is fine. Like what they did I think is fine. I don't really prevent it. I don't do anything to like, um, uh, discourage that behavior. But I feel like I should, and a lot of the things that you're talking, because first of all, it's annoying to me because now I've got like all these transactions that are, it just messes with my numbers, it messes with my predict, like any projections.

But I love the idea of adding an application process, but I wouldn't have done that 'cause I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna be reviewing applications all the time. But then if you do it quarterly, so that I, I think this is really, really smart mechanism. I think it's really well done.

Erin Halper: Thank you. I mean

Jonathan Stark: Warning people. I'm gonna copy it.

So if you want to get in easy, get in now.

Erin Halper: I can't imagine doing this quarterly. I can't imagine onboarding people. Also, when you, I mean, I mean monthly, when you do it quarterly, you're, you're able to give people a, a much better VIP onboarding experience. We have a new member meetup that, so the open house is sales and they know it's, I say at the very beginning, if you're here, it's either because you are just so curious what an open house is like.

Maybe you will be, if you wanna be my guest one day or. You're curious about the upside. You, you are here to learn about the upside. I'm not gonna teach you anything, like, you're not learning the three best practices of pricing. Like no, no, no. I, this is literally a tour of the upside for people who want to join The upside.

I make it very, very clear. That's what it is. The new member onboarding is where we teach our guidelines, where we teach our boundaries, our community guidelines, how to behave inside the community, what we consider spam and selling and what not to do. What to that is only for people who have joined and they get it either like within the first few days of joining the the community, we have that new member meetup and we in the new member meetup, not only am I there.

Teaching them those guidelines and teaching them how to navigate the community so that they're not overwhelmed, but I'm also matching them with people inside that event. And they have a breakout group and they get to know people in a very structured environment. So then they're leaving with some new connections that they made.

You know, they think they're coming, they're, they're just, it's an onboarding thing,

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Erin Halper: actually meeting people too. And the, the connections, the, the rooms I'm putting them in are already curated.

Jonathan Stark: Mm-hmm.

Erin Halper: So again, what the application process does is it gives me data on everybody so that when it comes time to create those rooms, I know who's who.

I know what their passions are, I know what their hobbies are, I know where they live. I know everything about their businesses that I need to know to put the right people in the right rooms together. So they leave that new member meetup going, oh my God, I just met this. Jonathan Stark person. We have so much in common, you know, this is so cool, but it was extremely intentional and curated, but I could never do that every month.

Jonathan Stark: Right. Yeah. I mean, I do it on sort of a ad hoc, it's, it's automated, like, so I have things automated, but it's just happening on this rolling basis. But I, here's another great tip, I think for people, for anyone listening, like, why do I think this, this other excellent piece of advice is for new members to immediately connect them with someone else?

Because that, I try to do that, uh, in Slack when people introduce themselves in Slack. There's sort of like one new person they, they're by themselves. Usually it's like not five or 10 new people at one time sometimes. But usually it's like one or two people trickle in on a random day and I have them introduce themselves and then based on their introduction I'll connect them with other people.

'cause I know like other people in the room, oh, you're a data scientist, or This person's also in Poland or, or whatever. It's, um, but just having them do it in real time would be so much more powerful

Erin Halper: We do

Jonathan Stark: for retention. Yeah.

Erin Halper: do both. And then we have a third where existing members, you know, people who have renewed can opt in to meet a new member. And we have built on our backend, our own proprietary matching platform where we're taking all that data from the um. From their applications. And we're finding, you know, the common matching points and we're matching people based on who they have the most points in common with.

And, um, and it's opt-in. So then we have, you know, they're getting an email that says, Hey, Jonathan, you know, here are three outsiders who have said they wanted to meet with you. Here's the things you have in common with all three. Here's their calendar links to book a time. Um, and, and it's opt-in. So it's people who proactively are like, I wanna meet.

A new member coming in, someone I have something in common with. And so we're, we're doing that as well. So not only are they're doing the intros and we're tagging people, they're getting their opt-in matches, um, which is a surprise for them. So they don't know that's coming, um, until the new member meetup.

I do let them know that you're gonna get an email. And then at the new member meetup, they're meeting both. New people they have in common, uh, something in common with, and they're matched with, um, we call them legacy members who have also volunteered to help moderate a breakout room. So, so, you know, we might have four legacy members and four new members in a breakout group together.

So they're all getting to know each other and they all have something in common.

Jonathan Stark: That's great. Very sophisticated. I won't be copying that anytime soon.

Erin Halper: You busy, you can build this on your own. I mean, I'm very lucky I have someone on my team who, if I can dream it, he'll build it. And this is what I'm talking about when I say reinvesting in the community and, and building that infrastructure. Um, and all of that is, of course, scalable if I want it to. Um, I just like keeping it intimate.

For now, it makes my life really easy. But a, anything I dream up, he builds for me.

Jonathan Stark: Cool. Cool.

Concluding Thoughts and Contact Information
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Jonathan Stark: Well, I, I, I take, I've kept you longer than I intended to, but this has been so super interesting, very useful, uh, for anybody out there who's thinking about starting community. Uh, like this is genius. I think this tons of genius stuff here. It's a ton of work. You can't just set it and forget it.

But it's a, it's great if it's what you want, if that's really what you want to build. It has lots of really cool advantages. So thanks a million Erin, for coming on and sharing that.

Erin Halper: Thank you Jonathan, and you know you have my number. You can text me anytime if you have questions. I'm happy to. I always say I'm an open book. I'm happy to tell you anything. Anything I can share, I'm happy to.

Jonathan Stark: Cool. All right. Well this has been fantastic. Where can people go to find out more? What's the URL.

Erin Halper: It is be the upside.com.

Jonathan Stark: Look at be the upside. Yes. Alright folks, well that's it for this week. I'm Jonathan Stark, and I hope you join me again next time for Ditching Hourly. Bye.