Mastering Bundles In Your Marketing Strategy with Kate Doster

In this episode, Ruthie interviews Kate Doster about the strategy of building and hosting online bundles. They discuss the benefits of bundles, the difference between hosting and participating in a bundle, common mistakes to avoid, and the strategy between paid and free bundles.

In this conversation, Kate Doster shares insights on being authentic in your communication and using filters to connect with your audience. She emphasizes the importance of using your own voice and not trying to be someone you're not and she talks about the importance of consistency and shares her personal journey with powerlifting.

Takeaways

• Bundles can be a powerful strategy for list building and generating revenue.
• Hosting a bundle allows you to curate the experience, build strong connections with contributors, and have more control over the promotion.
• Common mistakes to avoid when hosting a bundle include neglecting your own products, not curating a variety of high-quality items, and not having a tech backup plan.
• Planning and communication are key to a successful bundle, and it's important to align your brand values with the experience you provide. Be yourself and use your own voice in your communication.

Connect with Kate:
Kate’s Website – www.katedoster.com
Kate’s Instagram handle –  @kate_doster
Kate’s Podcast – The Do The Brave Thing Online Business Podcast  Apple Podcast    | Spotify

 Free gift #1 – List Blitz Masterclass – Learn how to explode your list (and bottom line) hosting bundles 

Free gift #2 – Get 2 Years Worth of Planned Email Ideas

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@ruthie.sterrett
@theconsistencycorner

Transcript

Ruthie (00:00.934)
All right, welcome back to another episode of the Consistency Corner podcast. I'm really excited for our conversation today with my friend Kate Doster, who is the host of the online, or the business podcast, Do the Brave Thing Online. And she is a well-known host of online bundles, and so we're gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about what goes into building a bundle and hosting one. Why is this a strategy that might?

work for you and what are maybe some of the things to be aware of or common mistakes that you want to avoid to or to maximize the benefits of a bundle. So I'm really excited to get into the midst of that conversation. And like as we're recording, Kate is like behind the scenes in the weeds building a bundle that is going to go live in about a month or so. It will have already gone live by the time this episode airs, but very timely to be able to talk about all the work that it takes and the benefits and why, why to do something like this.

Kate Doster (00:45.912)
Mm!

Ruthie (00:58.902)
You know, she has a soul and a mission to put money in the hands of good people so that they can do good with that. And that's something that definitely resonates with me and speaks to anybody who's a part of our community here at the Consistency Corner. And while eradicating the idea that nice people always finish last in business, she is sharing spammer face-free techniques that give even your grandma, she would be proud of you for using. So I love that because

Nobody wants to feel slimy. Nobody wants to feel salesy. We don't want to do bro marketing. Like we're above that. So she teaches us strategies and techniques that work, but feel good. And then also help us with bundles, kiss the algorithm goodbye, and not have to worry about what it does in terms of our visibility and our audience. So Kate, thank you for being here. Can you share a little bit more about your business journey and kind of how you got into what you're doing today?

Kate Doster (01:56.344)
Sure. So hey everyone, I am Kate Doster. Thanks so much for the lovely intro. So I started off my online journey. I had actually gotten fired from my nine to five because I had the audacity to give birth. They're like, you've got three days to get back or you're fired. Anyways, the United States and I had only been there for 11 months. Turns out you only qualify for job protection, not paid, mind you, but just job protection after 12 months. So they exercised the right to fire me. I had an emergency C-section and couldn't walk.

by day three. So, needless to say, I got fired. So long story short, we ended up with a second kid and on all types of government assistance. And when I sat down and did the math, we would actually lose money if we put the kids in daycare and I found even a part-time job. So that was awful. So I'm like, all right, we got to figure out how to make some money at home. So first, I kind of like everyone, you kind of stick your toes into blogging.

And at the time Facebook groups were really big and I was never necessarily a writer, but more of like a conversationalist. I would say I'm more of a talker than a typer. And I found out that copywriting with a W was a thing. And that is basically you get paid money to write words that make people take an action. And I'm like, people I got copy as it's called, it's conversational that I can do. So as soon as I found out that was a thing, we were off to the races. I, so I had my own service-based business for a while. We got hooked up with that, wrote all sorts of fun stuff.

I always loved writing launch copy and email copy. That was my favorite. So that's where I kind of nished into, but like I did home pages and sales pages, the whole gambit, like most of us do. And then like most service providers, I'm like, I want to switch to one to many model. I don't feel like having other people's deadlines anymore. So that's when I switched over to courses. And the issue was that as a copywriter, you can be booked out for months and months and months and end like I was, right? With a very small audience. When you're switching to one to many, you kind of forget about the many part.

So it's like, even though my conversion rates on all things like my landing pages, my email sequences, my sales pages, were like astronomical compared industry standards, I was having an eyeball problem. It was that traffic flow. Cause like SEO always hated me, social media never liked me very much. I'm like, how am I gonna actually grow my email list, ironically to sell my email course? And that is where bundles sort of came into. I'm like, I get to team up with other people. We all get to grow our list. Our audiences all get to get spoiled.

Kate Doster (04:17.496)
It's like a complete win-win-win situation. So that is how my business turned into what it did.

Ruthie (04:23.146)
Yeah, that's awesome. And side note about your corporate, your exit from corporate, as we're recording this, it's January of 2024, just like so everybody knows. But in the news right now, have you heard about that baby clothing brand? So.

Kate Doster (04:37.56)
Oh yeah, that was like, we support babies and then she got terminated. They did not really support her.

Ruthie (04:41.29)
Yes, they had an employee who I think she worked in like, yeah, she was adopting a baby. And so they said, oh, we give the same policies, whether it's a natural birth or an adoption, but same thing, she hadn't been there a year. So she didn't qualify for FMLA and her, if you're not familiar with the story, so her baby was born and was in the NICU, they gave her two weeks leave was kind of their standard if you don't have FMLA. And after two weeks, she was like, I can't come back.

Kate Doster (04:44.408)
A preemie adopted. She was adopting a preemie.

Ruthie (05:10.294)
Like my baby is still in the NICU. Can I work remotely? And they said no. And they let her go. And it became a huge like PR nightmare for them. And where we are today, the most like updated aspect. I know you're going to listen to this a couple of months later, but the CEO came out and apologized. And then like three hours later came out and said, like everything I said was really scripted. I'm sorry we messed up. Like she can have her job back if she wants it.

And she came back and said like, no, I don't want my job back. I don't want to work for this company. But to your point about like the rules in the United States, it's a bigger issue. It's not just this one company had this one policy. And interestingly enough, like it's a company that makes clothes for babies. And the CEO is a woman, which is so heartbreaking that this all even happened.

Kate Doster (05:50.136)
Mm.

Kate Doster (05:59.64)
Yeah, especially like when you're Brandis is part of baby. I mean, I worked for a financial company. So everyone knows they're cold and heartless. So I don't think anybody cared. But when you're Brandis that we put babies first and then you're not putting babies and moms first, like it's gonna look a little bad.

Ruthie (06:13.782)
Yes. So sidebar tangent on that. We could probably have all the podcast conversation about the culture for motherhood in the United States, but we'll move on and get back to bundles and talk about that. So you talked about list building and having an audience problem. And I love that you identified that like that's what it was. You knew you need to grow your audience. You'd already kind of mastered and gotten good at the nurture and the convert part, but you're like if I'm trying to sell to many, I need many.

Kate Doster (06:24.376)
Mm-mm.

Ruthie (06:43.19)
to see what I'm doing. So when you think about how people can grow their list, talk to me a little bit about like why bundles versus like paid ads or appearing on podcasts or things that are other than just the SEO and social that you've mentioned.

Kate Doster (06:44.952)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Doster (07:01.404)
I think that there's a lot of different ways that you can grow your email list. And I feel like the red flag now, or that I've got a bad feeling about you song that's very popular right now. If anyone tells you that it's like an absolute, like you have to do ads or you have to do bundles, run. Because I'm a very big proponent of you need to try out things, not necessarily throwing spaghetti at the wall, right? You can't go into Facebook ads uneducated. You really should not go in there without, you need proven messaging, right? I could have done ads.

I just being myself being very anti-corporate did not want to give Zuckerberg any money, which again, probably was a shortcoming. It was probably one of those social stand situations. But like I just didn't personally feel aligned to give that company money. I would much rather share the profits and the exposure with other creators, right? Like I love that idea of everybody working together. And so I think that and this is what I teach my students when it comes to all this building.

I think that you do need sort of a slow and steady, again, whether it's a social media, whether it's a podcast, which we know is a really great nurture tool. Sometimes it's a hard growth tool, but you need to have one of those sort of always trucking along in the background, you know, it'll get you your 10 to 20, potentially could get you more, but that's kind of all that you're looking for. But throughout the year, you need a blitz building strategy. So that is something that is going to be something for a limited time that you are using to be able to really just sort of pure, like.

throw gas on the fire, if you will, for your audience growth because you want to be able to get out there. So bundles work really well for that. You can do summits if you don't mind talking and doing some editing. You could do ads, but again, as soon as the ad shut off, they're done, right? So as soon as the bundle is over, yes, and that week you're going to get thousands of people on your list if it's a free one. You can have your first 10 figure or your first five figure launch if it is a paid bundle, right? But the week that's over, that stream is over.

So it's like, what are you gonna do with this huge influx of people now that you have them? So that's why I think you should always have a nice slow and steady, but then a couple of times a year, do one of these bigger audience sort of building blitz strategies.

Ruthie (09:02.41)
Yeah. When you talk about a big kind of blitz to build your audience through hosting a bundle, talk to me about the difference between hosting a bundle and participating in a bundle.

Kate Doster (09:13.684)
Well, when you're the host, you get all of the leads. Like, let's just be real. Obviously, you're gonna follow all GDPR compliance rules. You're gonna allow people, like I always say, especially because we do have a course on bundles, that I'm going to treat the people who sign up for the general bundle a little bit different than the people that sign up for my actual items that I have in the bundle. And I think that that's really, really important. So that way, again, you can get to know like, hey, do you wanna stick around? Here are some of the things we're usually looking at. You don't have to be like, hey, I noticed that you didn't sign up for this. Like, you can just sort of give them stuff. Like,

Again, I always like to treat everyone of how they are coming in. So when you are the host, the way we teach it is that we kind of want it to be an us show, but you're always gonna be the face of it, right? So like you're the video that's going to be on the sales page, right? Or at least the picture. You're going to be the top claim item, whether it's a free bundle or a paid bundle. If you're gonna add any sort of extras, maybe you've done this a couple of times, so maybe you're gonna host like some coworking sessions because of downfall.

of a bundle from a registration standpoint is like, people will register for a bunch of things, but then they don't actually use it, right? And so we want people to use it. So when you're the host, not only do you get to curate the experience, but you're always the one that people are gonna hear about first, right? You're always like, oh, it's like, Kate, the host of the Back to Business bundle, right? So there might be 20 other contributors, a hundred, depending on how many you wanna have. We like to test it out in all different ones. But because you're the star of the show, essentially you can do that. Now, I don't personally like it.

And I tell my students not to do this, because again, I think it's gross, where somebody will sign up for Bundle, whether it's free or paid, and then the thank you page is just the person's item or the person's webinar funnel, and then a tiny, tiny script at the bottom. It's like, click here for other stuff. No. Obviously your stuff is gonna be at the top, but again, you wanna give everyone that great experience that they have, right?

That's again, when you have the videos, like the best way to use my bundle again. So that way, again, you get to be the top one. You get to have a couple extra items in there. Say everyone just gets to have one. You get to have a couple different because you can have a couple of different verticals. So that's really where the biggest thing is. And this is the truly the big difference. This is one of those like backend audience builders. Because you're the host, because you're giving your contributors an amazing experience by following a system hopefully ours, but you can technically follow anyone. Now all of a sudden you've got people.

Ruthie (11:03.767)
Right.

Kate Doster (11:32.972)
They don't necessarily feel indebted to you, but they're like, oh my goodness, like Kate's bundle is absolutely fantastic. Like they're gonna talk about you. All of a sudden you want to do a big launch, like an Amy Porterfield style launch, right? You can reach out to those contributors, hey, do you want to be an affiliate for me? Right? Because they had such a great experience with you as a bundle host, they're more like gonna say yes, right? We're like, yeah, I could totally save Ruthie and I were in the same bundle. I could cold email her, I'm like, hey Ruthie, so I know that we're both in the back to business bundle. Obviously I'd want to know her item. I really drive them this.

I notice that you don't teach about this topic and I do, like, did you wanna do something together? Like, you can kinda sorta go with that, but as that host, you're the one that's building the strongest connections. I have to say, some of my best online business friends, I coerced by having them in my bundles. Cause if you get people great results, they're gonna wanna be your friend. They just are.

Ruthie (12:21.99)
Yeah, for sure. So, okay, when you're talking about being the host and providing the contributors and the downloaders a great experience, that's a job behind the scenes that maybe we don't see when we participate in bundles or when we download bundles, and you're in the weeds on that right now. So talk to me a little bit about some of the common mistakes that people might make when they are deciding to host a bundle or some of the pitfalls to avoid.

Kate Doster (12:50.584)
Sure, so I think the biggest mistake with the bundle, and this isn't necessarily about like, we call it contributor management, or even taking care of your registrants, but it is being so focused on getting a lot of contributors or getting contributors that you put your items on the back burner. Like it's really important that you're not just picking a random product that you have, you want it to hopefully be something that you're known for. Hopefully it's something that can lead to something else. Even if it's something else you get, right? You don't want to put in

your product with say if it's gonna be a paid bundle and they're getting one of your paid products, you don't wanna put those bundle people in the same exact buyer series that you do, somebody who bought it because they went to the sales page. You're gonna have to treat people differently. So that's probably one of the biggest mistakes is just kinda throwing everything in there or waiting to the very last minute to take care of your own stuff. As a host, I think that that's really important that you go ahead and take care of it. I think the other thing, and I don't know if I would necessarily consider this a downfall, but I do think it's something that you need to consider. Well, there's two things. One.

I think that this everyone does need to consider. I think the variety and the quality of items, whether it's free or paid, matters dramatically. Dramatically. So yes, you can have a free bundle where people are gonna get access to stuff for free. For a week, again, that's like how, again, it really works on the urgency and the injection, but you're not gonna allow people to throw in a three-page PDF, right? You're not gonna allow them to throw in a webinar. And the way you spin that, right, is like, look.

Technically, there's 20 other people on this page that are contending for eyeballs. I want to make sure that you have the best chance. And if yours is something bad, it's never gonna work. And I'm never gonna put it on there, right? Cause I want people to know like, I know that there could be a lot of different bundles, but like back business bundle or ones that Kate run, they're always top notch. We always, again, like I said, make sure you have a variety of items. So, and we'll just use business to business, but y'all, there are so many business to consumer bundles. And if you're not seeing them, then be the person to host one.

and you'll see how successful that they are, right? So like in business to business, like even if it's a free one, but let's, especially a paid one, nobody wants a bundle where they're say 35 items and 10 of them are all how to start a blog. And like, it's not fair for the contributors either because now they have to contend with nine other people, right, to get those eyeballs. And I'm not saying that someone's not gonna sign up for all 10, but again, I want my contributors, whether it's free or paid, to get the most signups, the most commissions that they can.

Ruthie (14:45.154)
Yeah.

Kate Doster (15:14.112)
So that's my job as a host to, yeah, you can have an application. Yeah, invite people, obviously, that you see around in the space, you think do really cool work, but be picky. Again, and especially with a free bundle, yeah, because with a free bundle, you're gonna honestly see way more success when you cap it at 20 contributors than you are for having any more than that. So again, a paid bundle is a little bit different because people are like, oh, you know, I'm spending like $100.

Ruthie (15:25.328)
Yeah, really make sure that you're curing it.

Ruthie (15:36.344)
Yeah.

Kate Doster (15:41.58)
So obviously they're gonna want a little bit more. They like to know that we spend like a dollar a resource or something like that or two bucks a resource. But those are probably the biggest. And the last thing to sort of consider, I mean, we were talking about this before we hit record is just having a tech backup. So what I do like about bundles, especially for my introverts, is technically you never have to get on video ever, right? Maybe on that like welcome video, I really do stress you do, right? But like with a summit, you've got to interview everyone. You've got to do the transcripts.

you've got to do the captions, right? Cause we all want to make sure, like it's a lot of extra work, right? You got to create like a million speaker pages. No, with a bundle, you don't necessarily have to. Where tech can come into play, and this was an issue that we had run into, and hopefully by now, the service that we're using got our act together, but we were in the testing phase and our course platform and payment processor just decided to like stop working reliably for a week. So it was coming up with a plan B of tech, and it's a do we move tech solutions.

And then because what I love about bundles is they're very buildable, because we added a lot of different bells and whistles to ours, it's like, okay, can I find a backup system to be able to do it? Because with a paid bundle, you really do need a course platform or course plugin to protect claimed items. When it's a free bundle, well, obviously you just don't wanna like paste like the claim page as we call it, everywhere on social media, right?

Ruthie (16:51.362)
Yeah.

Kate Doster (17:07.648)
It's one of those things you can have it on your website, right, you can have it on lead pages, you could have it on a third party, just like page builder site. Like it's not too, too big of a deal because people are aware, like technically they could not get the email address to get to the claim page, but they could get there and then claim it, right? But if something is putting into a paid bundle, even if you don't get commission, you still expect as a contributor for your stuff to be safe. And so that's where it's like, okay. So.

Ruthie (17:30.658)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I know that makes a lot of sense. I'm curious, as we talk about the difference between a paid bundle and a free bundle and some of the things to consider, like, can you just walk us through that? Like the decision to do paid versus free and maybe how you advise people to go about which path is the right for them.

Kate Doster (17:52.636)
So again, like I had said, it depends. And if anyone never tells you that it depends and then gives you the road to take, don't trust them. Okay, so again, it depends on you and your business. I would say, honestly, if you have hosted some type of collaborative event before, like say you've hosted a summit, then I would say you probably could handle a paid bundle because the thing that really takes the most amount of time, besides if you're like, oh no, I need a tech backup real quick, is wrangling cats.

And what I mean by wrangling cats is sending out all those pitch emails, somebody actually did say yes, right? So it's not even like the second round of follow-up. They said yes, okay, did they submit their item? Does their item actually work? Oh, look, now it doesn't work. Now you've got to tell them that they need to go fix it and how that's over there. So it's about the wrangling the cat scenario and with a paid bundle, well, 100% you can make an extra 10,000, 20,000, 40,000 plus, right? Which is really awesome in between launches while growing your list, it's pretty super cool.

If you are not used to wrangling 50 cats, or you're like, hey, back and forth in the inbox, then it might not be necessarily for you. A free bundle might be a little bit better for you. So with a free bundle, like I said, we have like a max of 20. We never, this is the way we teach it. We never let anybody have the same topic. In a paid bundle, we'll let there be, we say max four, but we always try to, like if somebody said, give us two Pinterest courses, we'll always go back to say that second person and be like, do you have a slightly different angle? So like if one is getting started,

One could be a Pinterest ads or one can be like, pin templates or one can be like one, going over like tailwind, right? We always just want slightly different angles. So again, there's that nice variety. So that would be a big one. How good are you at Wrangling Cats? Have you done this before? Do you potentially have help with a VA because that could be a little bit easier for you to be able just to handle that back and forth. If you are a more say established business owner, say that you've had some successful launches, you've had some 10K months, maybe not all the time, but you've...

you're making some way in there, then it might be more beneficial for you to have a paid bundle. Because with a paid bundle, yes, you're going to get money, which I know everyone needs, but the pool of new customers that you are going to get is going to be vastly smaller than a free bundle. Because with a free bundle, you could add, especially when you're the host, you can add thousands to your email list. So like we literally have had students, I don't know why this seems to be the number, I don't know, but it is.

Ruthie (20:08.028)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Doster (20:18.56)
that have gone from 400 to 4,000 new subscribers in a week. Like that is business changing. And I'm talking about in different industries. Like this was B2C and B2B. Like when you are first starting out and you wanna launch this product, or like in my case, right? Like I've got this course to launch. I don't necessarily wanna spend a good $1,000,000 on ads. I know that that's like my main purpose. I'm gonna do a free bundle as a pre-launch activity. I'm gonna make sure my item is related to my course, right?

Ruthie (20:22.942)
Yeah.

Kate Doster (20:44.572)
in my welcome series, I'm gonna invite people to my launch trigger. The people that didn't sign up for it, still gonna invite them to launch trigger. Be like, hey, it's like, so just, you know, here are comments on some other things I talk about, like come to this training that we're doing, we're gonna talk about this, right? So it's like, that makes a lot of sense because it's business changing. Don't get me wrong, an extra $10,000 is very business changing and it is super awesome to have. But I think that especially if it is your first time, just because you can be more successful and see more metrics,

with a free bundle, that's why I usually tell people to go free. And honestly, we have some students that, even their free bundle, they still use the same name in branding and then they just made like the premium version of that bundle the next time they held it, right? Because now they have a bigger audience. Now they've got all the forms. Now they know how this works. So that's what I love about this strategy is it's completely buildable to work with. So again, if you're looking at like less than a thousand subscribers, if you know you wanna launch this big thing, but you don't have anyone to talk to.

or you just want to test the waters to see if you like being a bundle host, then go with a free one. Honestly, you could do it with five of your own friends and get it done in three weeks. We've had students do that too. So it's not that hard. Yeah, right? And then you can kind of work with it, right? But if you're like, you know what, Kate, I'm pretty established in my business. I launch three times a year, but we need something. We need something else to draw up business. I'm like, I just don't feel like hosting a summit. Then go ahead with a paid bundle.

Ruthie (21:49.794)
Yeah.

Ruthie (22:05.374)
Yeah. And I think the other thing too, whether you go with a free bundle or a paid bundle, or you have five contributors, or you have 50 contributors, I think at the end of the day, it's like understanding what are your business goals and who is the ideal customer. And like, those are two things that I think in the, at least the social media sphere, when they're talking about the tips and the hacks are not said enough. Like what's the business goal and who's the ideal customer?

Kate Doster (22:10.08)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Doster (22:18.097)
Mm-hmm.

Ruthie (22:35.242)
And so to your point, like a business goal, it is list growth, but it's list growth, why? Right? Because just having a big list doesn't do anything if you don't have a plan on the other side of it for what you're gonna do with that big list.

Kate Doster (22:42.069)
Yeah.

Kate Doster (22:50.004)
Yeah, and you would think like, we have a whole, we call the Leafs system, like as in Leafs in the Tree system for how you can make a couple extra thousand dollars from your free bundle, literally just your free bundle part, not even the launch on the backend that you're gonna do off of it. So don't you thinking, oh my goodness, I'm doing all this work, I'm not gonna compensate it. No, you can have offers on your thank you pages, right? You can have like a, hey, if you're enjoying this bundle and you were thinking, again, make sure it's affiliate items that relate to your people, you may be like, hi.

Like if you're enjoying this single mom's relaxation pack, the way Bundle that we put together for you, and you were thinking of getting Stitch Fix anyways, could you go through my link, right? Like you can feature other affiliate paid products, right? You just make it like really clear. It's another resources section, you know, cause what you're gonna find is that people who register for a free Bundle are so appreciative that they are getting all of this stuff for free, that you curated this experience for them, that they want to give back in some way.

So whether it's sharing about your thing, whether it's buying something they were gonna buy anyways through your affiliate link, you can definitely do that. And then like I said, you can have those smaller products. You can lead people in those welcome series to your auto, like your funnels if you've got them, right? You can do a lot of things with this bad boy.

Ruthie (24:02.998)
Yeah, for sure. All right, so my last question, for anybody considering their first bundle, in terms of how long this takes and the time to put in, any words of wisdom on how to plan your calendar or how to know how many weeks should you be working on the backend and testing and how many weeks should you be promoting and just any kind of a way for people to plan this in their year of promotional activity.

Kate Doster (24:32.596)
Yeah, I absolutely love that. So the first thing, again, it comes down to what we had talked about here, the unspoken thing and the hacks and tricks, right? What is your goal, right? So if you know that you wanna launch, say, just in October, right? Then you probably wanna host your bundle in September, the very least, the last week of August, right? I mean, I wouldn't necessarily, you can, and we've tested it out, launching right off the back of it, but you gotta realize you're doing two launches at the same time, so if it's just you, might be a little bit much.

So you wanna see kind of what's going on and also a little bit about what's going on in your life and maybe what's going on in your ideal client's life, right? So that way you can set the proper expectations, right? You might not, if you target moms, you know in the summertime your traffic is dead. So for you, you're just trying to get eyeballs, right? So that's why maybe it's a free bundle because you're trying to beat the traffic slump, right? So we always tell everyone technically you can get all the stuff you need to have done in 60 days.

The only reason why I would say a little bit longer is especially if say you're in the business to business space, why you might want to give yourself longer. It's not necessarily to set up your stuff because honestly, it's not just like back and forth with people like did you get your links right? Pitch everybody on Monday, you follow up on the next Monday, right? It's one of those where it's just like a couple of hours per week until you really start going towards the end. That's when it's a lot of time. But because if you want other online business owners, especially in the B2B space to help you out.

Ruthie (25:49.908)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Doster (25:56.268)
they plan their lunch colanders usually about 90 days in advance, right? So if we looked at it and we're like, okay, we're gonna host the Back to Business Bundle in February, we actually started asking people in July and August just to get ahead of it because we know the people that we wanna collaborate with are gonna get a lot of summit invites for around that time, are gonna get a lot of contributor ones, right? Is there a lot of dead space in between? Absolutely, but that's kind of nice. It gives you that span, right? But like I said, we've had students where literally

Ruthie (25:59.918)
Mm-hmm.

Ruthie (26:14.584)
Yeah.

Kate Doster (26:23.852)
She just talked to five of her clients, that's actually what she did, talked to five of her clients, she's like, hey, let's put together this window, I'll throw up this landing page, you can do this, you can do this, right? And they got the whole thing together in three weeks, right? Again, are they adding tens of thousands of people to their list? No, but they each added a couple extra hundred people they didn't have before. So, like I said, technically it could be three weeks, right? Cause you wanna have at least, you know, a week to promote it, I wouldn't necessarily do it out of nowhere, right? So that way you can tell people, but again, it's-

Ruthie (26:42.422)
Right.

Kate Doster (26:53.216)
You don't have a lot of repetitive tasks like you do. And again, our sort of other one would be a summit, which again, test them out. You might find you live hosting summits a lot more. I don't have to create 50 speaker pages. I got a claim page, a thank you page, a sign up page, right? And then if you wanna have a wait list page with a thank you page for the wait list, then go ahead and have one, right? So now you're like, oh, I have to fill five whole web pages, right? Again, where the tech, cause not all sunshine's and rainbows comes in is like.

Ruthie (27:05.134)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Doster (27:20.648)
make sure that if you are gonna host this on your website, you've got the hosting to back this up if there's gonna be a lot of people, right? That's why, and I always try to tell everyone, like start where you're at, right? But if you're gonna have 25 other people, 100 other people, all the bundles open out on the same day, that's why I social for a free bundle. I'm such a big fan of like lead pages. Granted, you can just have it for like the two months, guys. You don't need it the whole time. Or I think you're stuck with lead pages forever. But because their servers are like ironclad.

I don't think I've ever seen them go down ever, right? So it's like they can handle that influx of traffic. Again, with our students, because they were using, like I said, a piece of software that became unreliable. We won't drag any names through the mud. Whereas like, okay, can we just build this on your website as an alternative? And if we need to pull the trigger, we're gonna use pretty links for everything. You're just gonna change the backend URL and no one's gonna be any other wiser.

Ruthie (27:51.255)
Yeah.

Ruthie (28:10.85)
Right, yeah. And giving yourself, I think, to that point, time to do the testing, because you might find that something doesn't work quite the way you wanted it to. And now, like, okay, I've got to fix some things before I go promote this out into the world. And I love what you said about, like, thinking about the contributor's promotional schedule, because if you're asking your contributors to share on social media or share to their email lists or...

Kate Doster (28:16.812)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Doster (28:25.538)
Yes.

Ruthie (28:36.522)
You know, maybe do some Instagram lives with you or do podcasts if you're a podcast host or whatever it is, you wanna give them time to work that into their schedule too. And I know I said that was the last question, but this just made me think about any best practices in terms of like sharing resources for those contributors to make it easy for them to help promote.

Kate Doster (28:57.848)
Sure, so if you can, and I do know that you can use Zapier to do this, but sometimes, again, sometimes it's just a manual work. Again, you're not creating 60 pages, so maybe you're cutting and pasting some links. I think that anytime you give contributor updates, we do use an email marketing software and we tell everyone like, hey, I'm gonna, we just used my old one, which was ActiveCampaign, but honestly, you could do this with Mather Lite, right? Like if you can create a custom field where you can put in their affiliate link, so that way, like at the bottom of every email you send them, it's like, hey, here's your affiliate link, right? So they've got it there.

It is making it, even like your website, I know it sounds so odd, but even just being like, KateDulcer.com for us like contributor info, right? So that way they can find it. What we did this year too is made a Google calendar, right? So the Google calendar is gonna have links to the Google documents that we have for people. Anytime that you're sending an email to give people updates, always include like, here's the swipe file, here's this, right? Somebody that I think, and this again, borrow from things that you love. One of my favorite summit hosts ever is Eden, who does all the rebel boss summits.

she will literally like have a social media post with the person's affiliate link right in there, right? Granted, they're probably gonna wanna clean it up. But it's like, make it as easy as possible for people, have the swipe files, have the emails. Some people will use them, some people won't, but it's just like always remind them of like, here it is, like we pre-wrote it. One of the things that we have a little bit of trouble with is I have a very distinct voice when I write. So like trying to make it like still distinctly me would still being like flat, like anybody could use it.

But I always like to throw one that's very much a Kate-ism, because I feel like people like it, like the one that we had for our back to business bundle we've got going up, it's celebrated National Citrus Day, which I thought was quite a good one. So we talked about a vitamin C injection to your business, but it'd be vitamin B in this case for bundle, ha ha ha. Again, because I love those things, and I think that it's fun. So again, just making it as easy to promote, always having the links for them if you can.

Or again, even if it's just including at the very top of every email, click here to grab your affiliate links because it's really what people are looking for, right? At the top. So at the top of every email, it can be like affiliate links, swipe file, and then you can go into your message of who's actually promoting what's going on. Our software is sucking right now, so now we need to decide, do we move or do we risk it? Right?

Ruthie (30:59.767)
Mm-hmm.

Ruthie (31:16.67)
Yeah, and I think to your point, like you, I, I think you can't over communicate with your contributor team because you're all in this together and you don't want them feeling like, oh my gosh, I didn't know, or oh my gosh, I can't find the swipe files, or what was I supposed to do here? Like people are busy, people have a lot on their plates. And even though they signed up for this and they volunteered or maybe applied, they've got other things going on in their business too. So I think over communicating or.

Kate Doster (31:29.176)
Mm-hmm.

Ruthie (31:43.81)
what might feel like over-communicating is totally acceptable and should be the standard.

Kate Doster (31:50.136)
Yeah. And again, like we always try to tell people, and again, we try to be cognizant. So, you know, with ours, there was a little bit of downtime, you know, between December and January, because ours was in February, right? So I knew the first week back of January, every business owners come back to a dumpster fire, because hopefully they decided to take it off. So like, we just told everyone, like we came in the week after, and was like, hey, I wanted to give you the first week to work on your business, because that's super important. Here's our stuff. Here's how often we're going to tell you, here's some things to look out for. Then the tech caught on fire, and it's like, hey guys, the tech is on fire, and I'm trying to figure out.

do we chance this or not? So I'll get back to you here. I think just being honest with people is they truly, truly appreciate it. And again, I think they can tell when you have their best interest at heart and their audience, because that's like my biggest thing with our technology where it was questionable. I'm like, I don't want these other people's audiences to have an awful time. It's my job as the party host, because that's the way I like to think of it, to provide everyone with a great time.

Ruthie (32:21.78)
Yeah, yeah.

Ruthie (32:27.786)
Yeah, totally.

Ruthie (32:45.898)
Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. And I can definitely see that like user experience is important to you. And it's not just about building your list. It's not just about selling stuff and making more money, but it's building a community and hosting a place that people wanna be. So I so appreciate that. And that actually kind of leads me to one of our get to know you questions as we wrap up. We always like to ask our guests about their brand values because it's something we talk a lot here on the consistency corner.

Kate Doster (32:53.144)
Mm-hmm.

Ruthie (33:13.334)
and the importance of brand values in your offers and how you show up in your marketing. So I'd love to know what is one of your brand values and how did you land on it?

Kate Doster (33:22.52)
Oh, we've got a couple of them. Like, I'm sure everyone says that for ours. Whatever big one is just integrity. Like that's just straight up it, right? Like, and we always try to reflect that back into our audience because I want that to be one of their core values too. Whereas like, if you miss a deadline, like we can't let you in cause we have to stay in integrity. We have to be honest, just like you, right? Again, I talk about a downfall of the summit. If you built your, excuse me, the downfall of the bundle. If you built it on technology that decided to crap the bed that day, then you need to make sure you've got a backup plan, right?

Or if like, again, you're going through, give yourself at least two weeks. I know we had talked about give yourself at least two weeks of testing way before the bundle actually starts. We do this about a month out from the bundle, especially with how many contributors you have to make sure everyone's links work, right? And tech ramblings are always gonna pop up. That's just sort of it is, right? So we're just like honest with people. Like that's like the biggest thing is like honesty and integrity. If I had to throw another one in there, we like to make things approachable with some humor because I think that's really important.

Ruthie (34:17.258)
Yeah. And to that point, both of those values, honesty, integrity, humor, like, I don't think anybody in the world would say those are bad values. Like all values are good values, but it's about knowing which ones are most important to you so that then you also attract a community that is aligned in those same values and importance that, you know, values those same things, right?

Kate Doster (34:40.856)
Mm-hmm. Like I said, in all my copy like everywhere, and this is probably why, and again, I taught email marketing for years. We still teach it as part of our business. It's not the only topic we talk about now. We talk about a lot of different stuff. It's like, if I ever, and it's very rarely, that we'll get somebody that like sends a message back to one of our newsletters, but then like I go and look at the landing page, I'm like, how did these people get in here? And like, oh, you can't possibly take yourself seriously. I'm like, well, you know, all the commas in my bank account took it pretty seriously. So I guess it's not really a problem. But like, I'm like, who let you in?

Ruthie (35:06.19)
Wow.

Kate Doster (35:09.912)
Like that's my biggest thing. I'm like, who let you in here? Or like somebody had gotten email templates from us and we straight up say, and frequently ask questions, if you're targeting C-suite executives or your audience is very professional, don't buy these because they're conversational. And this lady is like, I bought these, I could possibly send them to people, like blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I'm like one, I told you. And we send a screenshot. I'm like two, you brought a products headline that talks about having diarrhea at the DMV.

Ruthie (35:23.319)
Right.

Kate Doster (35:39.032)
Like what did you think was gonna happen? It's literally, if you'd rather go to the DMV with Taco Bell tummy, then send your next email, keep reading. Like how, how, how did you not realize that that's what was gonna happen in these? So again, that's why, right? That's why I think that your sales pages, your landing pages, and again, this is why, even though we send a lot of emails and in everyone where there's a paid product, because I know it can help people, right? You pay, you pay attention.

Ruthie (35:54.184)
And if you want something that seems like...

Kate Doster (36:07.16)
So like, and we sell ethically because I'm only selling to people or call it selling responsibly. I'm only selling to people that fit my vibe anyways. And like, here's the deal Leo, I just need you to make money. If you need somebody who's more like buttoned up, straight-laced, isn't gonna talk about Brooklyn Nine-Nine, isn't gonna send a cheese pun email, like there's other people I can point you to. And I'd be more than happy to be like, go follow them. They're great, they're boring, but they're great. I just need you to make money, bro.

Ruthie (36:14.83)
Mm-hmm.

Ruthie (36:31.757)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, oh, that's funny. What's funny, I like vibe with funny content and like I love memes, I love funny Instagram reels. I am not funny. And like I wish I was. Like I sit down to like write an email or write a social post and I'm like, doo-doo, I have nothing funny to say. So maybe I need your templates.

Kate Doster (36:57.624)
It's just about being yourself. And that's one thing that people are like, oh, could you ever teach a course on that? I'm like, I don't know. Just, I guess have a mom that thinks you're great. Like I don't really know how to tell you to do that. But I can tell you that it would be like, I legitimately say spammer face in real life. Like I'm, that's why it's in my bio. Cause again, and that's how I can tell the podcast coasters who will be cool or not, if they giggle a little when they say it, or if they skip it, tells me a lot about them. So I know, like again, we use it as a filter. So you can use certain things as filters.

Ruthie (37:25.926)
Yeah. Well, that's good. Good to know. Even if it is funny, one of my mentors I was talking to her once about saying, like, you know, I wish I was fun or I wish I was funny. And she was like, you are fun. Like, stop. Give yourself some credit. That imposter syndrome, it creeps up, right?

Kate Doster (37:27.608)
You pass the coolness test over, Ruthie. Don't worry. You pass.

Kate Doster (37:44.856)
And I think it's because everything seems to be like this big, bold version of yourself. It's like, you don't necessarily need to be that, right? I talk a lot, I interrupt myself a lot. So in my emails, I interrupt myself a lot with little parentheses, right? Like, oh, giant shocker, she's got ADHD, could not tell. No, 1000% you can tell because I'm literally writing the way that I talk. And that's all you need to do, guys. Like if you wouldn't say slay queen in real life, and you're like, God, I sound like an idiot saying it, then don't put it in an email.

Ruthie (38:14.462)
Yes, yes, if you wouldn't say it out loud to your best friend, don't write it in an email. Like I would never say that a piece of content is juicy. Like I hate that. It's gross. I know if you say it, that's fine. That's on you. But like I'm not going to write that in my email because I would never say that. So I love that of like the conversational style. Like what would you actually say? I actually say struggle bus at least 10 times a day. So guess what's going to be in my emails? Struggle bus.

Kate Doster (38:17.848)
Hmm?

Kate Doster (38:40.536)
And people are gonna love you for it. I personally would never refer to my children's as blessings, that makes my eyes roll, but there are other people that that totally resonates with. So like, bingo, they're fine, but everyone who refers to their kids as kids will resonate with you, it's cool.

Ruthie (38:56.214)
Yes, yes, I love it. Well, we also talk a lot here about personal development or business development, learning, because growth mindset and learning is definitely a core value of mine. So I'd love to know what is one of your favorite personal development books or podcasts or something you've read or listened to recently that maybe really resonated.

Kate Doster (39:15.416)
Let's see. So I'm trying to think, I'm like, I don't listen to too many other podcasts, though I do love them. But most of the ones, it was on a health and fitness journey and I got into powerlifting. So all of my stuff is sports related now, which is so funny, because I never did any sports before. What I'm reading right now, and I find really interesting, I love this one sentence from in particular, is 10X is easier than 2X. And what I loved about this sentence is they're like, it's impossible unless.

It's the word unless, right? Like there's no way that this bundle could make a million dollars unless. And then all of a sudden you say all the unlesses and you're like, okay, now you just gave yourself an action map, right? And they talk really a lot. And I know that I struggle with this thing everyone does about focusing on the 20% versus the 80%. But it's like, what if somebody's gotta do that 80? Or what if you enjoy that 80, even though it's not your 20, right? Like it's one of those things. So I'm really enjoying that one. I think that's really great. I know everyone likes like a James Clear.

I think he's really cool. You know, everyone likes the old atomic habits, right? I can't think of anyone that's gonna say that. I'm like looking at my shelf right here.

Ruthie (40:22.778)
I have not finished Atomic Habits. I've been trying to read it now for like a year. And I don't have the habit of reading Atomic Habits down. Maybe I need to listen to it.

Kate Doster (40:31.448)
Well, see, my favorite personal development book is very like, you know, you know, in the first three minutes, if you hate it or not. And it's Relentless by Tim Glover. And because he's just he was the coach for for Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. He is like a sports medicine psychologist, like rehab, one of those like, you know, somebody that you hire on the side, not like an actual coach. And so.

he talks about being a closer and a cleaner, and you're just like, this guy's arrogant as balls. But then when you're listening to his rules, you're like, in the first five minutes, you're like, oh my goodness, finally somebody gets me, or this guy's the worst. And so, that's why I don't necessarily tell people about it, I'm just like, I was just like, holy garbage. I finally feel seen for the first time ever. He has another one called winning, which is pretty hardcore, but.

I really love Relentless. I think that one is really great. But again, it's very, just like Spammerface and getting the DMV tummy, right? Very polarizing.

Ruthie (41:35.378)
Yeah, yeah, he knows who he is and he's writing for his people and that's fine. So I love that. Well, speaking of like using your own voice, knowing your values, speaking in a way you would speak, I want to know something that you are really consistent with that is either personal or business, but something that you're really consistent with that you're proud.

Kate Doster (41:57.624)
Oh, it's my power lifting hands down. So I only share it on my Instagram stories and I stopped for a while. And then people like, oh my goodness, we're still doing it. So I'm like, all right, I guess I'll share it there. Sure. So in 2021, I woke up one day and I felt like I was a million years old and I did not like it. And so I decided that I wanted to get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods. So I hired my friend who was a health and fitness coach at the time. And then...

Ruthie (41:59.936)
Yeah?

Kate Doster (42:26.776)
We were kind of off to the races and then he did his first powerlifting meet and I'm like, I want to do one now. So I'm looking over here. I've got all my medals. I've got gold medal, silver medal, three trophies. Um, I'm going down to regionals and I just think that I shared on my Instagram stories because I feel like people are looking at your stories, like they're your people, but it's from what I got from my audience, it's so different because as being a female and female presenting the narrative is always to get smaller and like, I can't lie. There's like.

a lot less of me than when I started this, right? But like, I can also lift 342 pounds off the ground. I could not do that two years ago. And like more importantly, I don't feel a million anymore. So I weight lift four days a week, maybe a bundle week, it only ends up being three. I try to like get in my steps. So really like movement is a thing that I'm proud of the most and I love it. So I would have to say ladies, if you hate fitness, try lifting some weights and like.

Ruthie (43:01.718)
Yeah.

Kate Doster (43:23.512)
Hush yourself, like you're not necessarily going to break, especially say if you go to the gym and there's like, they call them like cable machines. So it's not even like the barbells, right? Like it's the cable machines. Those are built to keep you really safe. So like start with those. Just don't go on the elliptical. Go lift some heavy things. It is so much more fun because I was never gonna hate myself skinny, but I was gonna love myself strong. And I did. It's the best.

Ruthie (43:46.454)
Yes. Oh, I love that. Yes.

Ruthie (43:51.786)
Yes, that's awesome. Well, Kate, thank you so much for being here and sharing your story. I really appreciate it. This was a fun conversation and I'm gonna have to go check out your powerlifting Instagram stories now and see the behind the scenes there. But tell everybody where they can connect with you, where you hang out online, and the best place to learn more if they're interested in anything that we chatted about today.

Kate Doster (44:11.064)
Sure, so after you go ahead in your podcast app and you go ahead and leave consistency corner, it's review, so give it a five star everyone. Tell everyone how awesome Ruthie is. So when you're there, then you can go and hop over to the little magnifying glass and you can either search for Kate Doster, D-O-S-T-E-R, or you can search for Do The Brave Thing Online Business Podcast. It's a little wordy, so you can just search for my name and it'll come up, you can follow me there. You wanna see my power lifting stuff, I'm sharing over on Instagram, it's Kate underscore Doster. If you're like,

All right, Kate, like, I know I need to have an email list and stuff, but like, what do I actually say to these people? Then you can always head on over to katedoster.com forward slash two years. You can get two years worth of email ideas. If you're like, I really do think that I'm into this bundle thing. We have a free masterclass. You can always head over to katedoster.com forward slash list. And we're gonna show you how you can use bundles to either get your next, you know, we even boil it down here, get your next, you know, couple thousand subscribers or have your first five figure launch.

by hosting a bundle.

Ruthie (45:12.362)
Awesome. I love it. Well, thank you again so much. This was such a great conversation. All those links are in the show notes and thank you guys so much for being here today.

Kate Doster (45:20.728)
Thank you.