Creator's MBA: Marketing Tips for Digital Product Entrepreneurs

Send us Fan Mail You already have automations running. A welcome sequence, a few tags firing, maybe a workflow you built two years ago and have not looked at since. Then AI showed up and everybody started talking about automation like it was brand new, and now you are wondering whether what you have is still doing its job. Steph Blake has been in the online space for over a decade helping small business owners simplify and automate so they can work 20 hours a week or less. In this episode she walks through what she actually has running in her own business right now, from inbox drafts to call transcripts to a full lead dashboard, and she is clear about which parts she refuses to hand over. In this episode: - Why automating everything is the wrong goal, and what to look at instead - The one automation Steph thinks every business owner should already have running - How she turns every call into a searchable library of quotes, pain points and content ideas - The connectors she uses every single day and why your email tool should be first - How she built her own second brain in Google Drive instead of Obsidian - The 30 minute flash sale process that used to take her a day and a half Start with the things that do not need you, and keep a human in the loop everywhere else. If you want help deciding what to automate in your own business and actually building it, come join us in the AI Mastermind. https://mastermind.destinicopp.com/

Send us Fan Mail Almost everybody I talk to has been using AI for a couple of years now. They have a paid subscription, they have watched the videos, they can tell you what an AI agent is. And then you ask what systems they actually have running, and how any of it is helping them make more money, and there is not much of an answer. I open this one with the thing I changed in my own business, which is that I stopped building my slide decks in Canva and started getting a finished, polished deck in about ten minutes using Claude and Gamma. Then I walk you through the AI in Action Summit, running September 15 through 17, session by session, so you know exactly what is in it before you register. In this episode: - The ten minute workflow that replaced an afternoon in Canva - Why knowing how to use AI and having AI run part of your business are two different things - The one instruction I gave every speaker before they submitted a session - Who is teaching what, across agents and automation, selling your expertise, content and visibility, and client systems - My three live sessions, including the one where five people bring something they are stuck on and we build it live - How the summit week works and what is in the VIP pass The gap is not what you know about AI. It is whether any of it is running without you. Register free for the AI in Action Summit, September 15 through 17. https://lab.destinicopp.com/ai-in-action-summit

Send us Fan Mail The event we ran last month is the first one I did not touch. Not the funnels, not the products inside them, none of it. My team handled everything, and that was a first. Steph asks what is under the hood at HobbyScool. How we source speakers, who the three humans are, and what changed when Claude and the MCP connectors entered the workflow. In this episode: - The repeatable monthly system the whole year gets planned against - How we find speakers, and why their list growth is the entire pitch - Three people, and what each of them owns - What the Kit connector replaced - Why the marketing calendar comes before any AI question Map the next three months first. Then ask what AI can do with it. If the connector workflow is the part you want, we build it together in the mastermind. https://mastermind.destinicopp.com/

Send us Fan Mail A free summit does not make money. The pages behind it do. Registration page, VIP pass, order bump, upsell, membership, and a downsell if they say no to the annual. Steph walks me through the whole thing and I give her the actual numbers, including what the ads cost and how much goes back out to affiliates. In this episode: - The difference between an order bump and an upsell, and how I price each - The conversion rates I expect at every step - Why I use dollars off instead of a percentage above a certain price - The annual first, monthly as the downsell test that surprised me - A $37 VIP pass against a $17 cost per conversion Test the offer before you build another one on top of it. If you want to know where your own funnel is leaking, start with the scorecard. https://scorecard.destinicopp.com/

Send us Fan Mail I spend about five hours a week on HobbyScool. Three contractors run the rest of it, and the last event went out the door without me touching a single funnel. It took years to get here, and nobody starts at five hours a week. Kate Kordsmeier asks how it actually works. Who is on the team, what they own, how I manage people in a different time zone, and the two things I still will not hand off. In this episode: - The three roles that run a business doing an event every month - The twice daily report that replaced most of my management time - Building the thing myself first, then turning it into a skill and handing it over - The two things I will not outsource, and the control freak reason why - How long it actually takes, said honestly If a question keeps reaching you, the answer is missing from your documentation. If you want to build the AI skills that let you hand work off once instead of explaining it every time, that is what we do in the mastermind. https://mastermind.destinicopp.com/

Send us Fan Mail Most people know me as the Creator's MBA person. A lot of them have no idea I run a whole second company, in a niche I have zero personal interest in. I am not crafty. I built a craft business anyway. In this episode Kate Kordsmeier interviews me about HobbyScool: where the name came from, the two business models I tried before virtual summits worked, and how the funnel behind a free summit actually makes money. In this episode: - Why I picked a market I am not a customer of - The paid bundles that made revenue but did not grow the list - What a free virtual summit is, and how the VIP pass monetizes it - What speakers get when nobody is paying them to show up - Why I made sure the business was never about me You do not have to love the thing you sell. You have to be right about the market. If you want to know which stage of your own flywheel is holding the rest back, take the scorecard. https://scorecard.destinicopp.com/

Send us Fan Mail Kate and I live twenty minutes apart in Atlanta and did not know each other. In the exact same month we were both quietly trying to build the same peer mastermind. One person got asked by both of us and said, wait, is this the same thing? This is the behind the scenes of the Weird Hermits, the peer group I credit with more business impact than anything I have paid for. In this episode: - How two people building the same group in the same month found each other - The commitment rule that kept this one from petering out - Where the name came from, and the one it replaced - A normal week: the call, the ads call, the Telegram thread - The debrief calls where we share numbers nobody posts publicly The groups that fizzle are the ones nobody was really required to show up for. If you want a room like this and do not have one to build from, that is what the Council is. https://lab.destinicopp.com/council Learn more about the peer mastermind through Inside the Council: https://lab.destinicopp.com/inside-the-council

Send us Fan Mail Your best PDF is sitting in someone's downloads folder right now, unread. Not because it's bad. Because nobody wants more homework. This episode kicks off Beyond the PDF, my free event, with a look at more than two dozen creators who ditched the static download and built interactive lead magnets instead. Some are converting over 50%. And here's how I made it: I dropped every contributor story into NotebookLM and had it turn them into a two-host deep dive. In this episode: - Why the PDF worked for 20 years and what finally broke it - Why information being free changes what people will trade their email for - Claude artifacts, custom GPTs, and installable AI skills that do the work for your subscriber - Why diagnostic quizzes convert so well, and how to segment every person who takes one - Interactive calculators that let a B2B buyer close their own deal - The low-tech format that converted at over 51% with no AI The takeaway: stop asking your audience to read. Start helping them do. Sign up for Beyond the PDF (free, July 13-31) and build your own modern lead magnet during Get It Done Week, July 27-31: https://lab.destinicopp.com/beyond-pdf-registration

Send us Fan Mail The best decision I've ever made in my business wasn't a course or a tool. It was joining a small room of people who actually get it. In this episode I walk through why a curated peer mastermind changed how it feels to run my business, and why it's almost never the thing people assume it is. In this episode: - Why the big decisions get lonelier as your business grows - What changes when you stop deciding alone - The hot seat, and why you can't do it for yourself - Why curation is the whole product, and what it actually means - The real cost of staying in a room of one Resources mentioned: - The Creator's MBA Council: https://lab.destinicopp.com/council - The full article on this topic: https://destinicopp.com/blog/curated-peer-mastermind Not ready to apply? Take the inside look first with the free private podcast, Inside the Council: https://lab.destinicopp.com/inside-the-council

Send us Fan Mail This month I took my entire business apart. Sales pages, offers, what I was promoting, what I was spending money and time on. All of it went on the table. In this behind-the-scenes episode, I walk you through the full rebuild using my own Creator Growth Flywheel. I share where I think the market is headed, why the human element is the one thing AI can't replace, and how that belief is reshaping my events, my offers, and what I chose to cut. In this episode: - Why this rebuild is about where the market is going, not a one-time cleanup - The one thing AI can't replace, and how I'm building around it - A walk through all five flywheel stages: Attract, Engage, Nurture, Retain, Advocate - Why I'm going all in on live events - How I'm rebuilding my lead magnets backwards from the offer - The offer overhaul: the AI Mastermind repositioning, the new Council, and Revenue Stack Studio - How I used AI to build personalized affiliate pages in my partners' own voice - What I cut, including Pinterest and the HelloContent store, and why Your turn: - Got a question or want a hot seat on a future episode? Send it here: https://forms.gle/E71QahCpGjo8pmup7 - Want to speak at an upcoming event? Apply here: https://lab.destinicopp.com/creators-mba-events - Watch for my newsletter survey and hit reply. I read every one. Resources and offers mentioned: - Creator's MBA Events (Beyond the PDF, Closed Door Panel Talks, AI in Action Summit, AI Newsletter Summit, Creator Pivot Summit): https://lab.destinicopp.com/creators-mba-events - Creator's MBA AI Mastermind: https://mastermind.destinicopp.com - Creator's MBA Council (peer mastermind, starts January 2027): https://lab.destinicopp.com/council - Revenue Stack Studio (done-for-you tier): https://lab.destinicopp.com/revenue-stack-studio - Newsletter Profit Club: https://lab.destinicopp.com/newsletter-profit-club - Join the Creator's MBA newsletter: https://signup.destinicopp.com Want a question answered on the show? Send it in here: https://forms.gle/E71QahCpGjo8pmup7

Send us Fan Mail Most conversations about AI automation stay theoretical. This one doesn't. I sat down with my peer mastermind, a group we call the Weird Hermits, for a roundtable on MCPs in Claude, also called connectors. These are the tools that let your AI plug straight into the software you already use, like Kit, Airtable, Meta Ads, Shopify, and even Instacart. Six of us walked through exactly what we have running right now, and what it has replaced. In this episode: What an MCP actually is, in plain language How the Kit connector surfaces subscriber data you couldn't see before The "drop a CSV and walk away" membership dashboard workflow Live artifacts that pull fresh data every time you open them Reading Meta ad performance without ever touching Ads Manager Skills and scheduled tasks that run your content, support, and reporting for you The personal-life automations we probably shouldn't admit to (banking, meal plans, groceries) If you have been meaning to get your time back, this is the episode to take notes on. Connect with the founders in this episode: Destini Copp: destinicopp.com | Creator's MBA Boardroom on Skool Monica Froese: monicafroese.com Steph Blake: theblakecollective.com Ruth Poundwhite: ruthpoundwhite.com (Soulful Sales Show podcast + Quietly Ambitious community) Liz Stapleton: Creator Ops Hub on YouTube | elizabethstapleton.com Jodi Bourne: jodibourne.com

Send us Fan Mail Most digital product creators assume that scaling means hiring more team members. More support staff, more coaches on calls, more people to manage. My guest today took a completely different path. After Savannah Gilbo's best launch ever brought in almost 200 new students, her live coaching calls were running 30 minutes over. Her membership deliverables doubled. She was burning out fast. Instead of building a team, we built her an AI clone together. In this episode, Savannah and I walk through exactly what broke after her biggest launch, the options she considered (and why hiring more people felt worse, not better), the triage framework that made her AI clone actually coach like her instead of giving generic AI answers, and what her students are saying now that they're using it. If you've been curious about AI clones for your business but worried about whether it would actually work for your niche, sound like you, or feel right for your audience, this episode is for you. What we cover: The breaking point that made Savannah look for a solution Why she ruled out hiring a community manager or student ambassadors The fear that almost stopped her from building an AI clone in her niche The triage framework that transformed how her AI handles student questions What 10-15 beta testers in her membership did with the clone (one had a 400-message conversation) How students are now using the clone before office hours (and why this changed everything) What this freed up for Savannah, mentally and emotionally Her advice for creators on the fence Connect with Savannah Gilbo: Website: https://www.savannahgilbo.com/ This 30-Second Quiz Reveals Your Author Success Blueprint: https://www.savannahgilbo.com/quiz Connect with Destini: Website: destinicopp.com Creator's MBA Mastermind: mastermind.destinicopp.com Newsletter Profit Club: https://lab.destinicopp.com/newsletter-profit-club

Send us Fan Mail Hosted by Dr. Destini Copp · Creator's MBA What do you do when you have a genuinely engaged email list — great open rates, consistent click-throughs — but your subscribers just won't buy? That's exactly what today's guest, Allie from Allie Scraps, was dealing with. She has 13,000 subscribers, 40%+ open rates, and three to five percent click-through rates. By every metric, that's a healthy list. But she accidentally trained her audience to expect freebies, and now converting them into buyers feels impossible. In this hot seat episode, I walk Allie through a full strategy reset — from newsletter structure and content planning to sponsorships, offer pricing, and whether a membership is the right next move for a B2C creator in the crafting space. If you've ever felt like your list loves you but won't pay you, this one's for you. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why the "freebie trap" happens — and the mindset shift that breaks the cycle The Mini Magazine Method for structuring your newsletter into three to five consistent sections so you always have something to send Why you should build your content around your promo calendar — not the other way around The Teach & Pitch Method : how to create a reader journey that naturally leads to a purchase How to use sponsorships and affiliate promotions to monetize a B2C newsletter list What types of offers actually work in a B2C crafting niche (hint: not $2,000 programs) Why memberships can be a strong revenue play — and what makes them work in the crafting space How to start segmenting your list into audience personas and why it matters for long-term revenue The AI automation system inside Newsletter Profit Club that writes your weekly newsletter for you Resources Newsletter Profit Club — Destini's membership for newsletter creators who want to monetize Creator's MBA Mastermind — For digital product creators ready to build and grow Creator Business Scorecard — Free diagnostic tool for your creator business About Today's Guest — Allie Allie is the founder of Allie Scraps , a digital shop and creative community for scrapbooking, mixed media, and Bible journaling. She creates digital downloads, small classes, and curated resources for crafters at every level. 🎁 Free gift from Allie: A four-page crafty planner — great for planning any creative project. [Grab it here] 🛍️ Shop: shop.alliescraps.com 📸 Instagram: @AllieScraps Connect With Destini Website: destinicopp.com Newsletter: Subscribe to the Creator's MBA Newsletter Instagram: @destinicopp

Send us Fan Mail This one's a little different. What you're about to hear is a recording straight from our Weird Hermits Roundtable, a mastermind group discussion where we got real about the stuff nobody likes to talk about publicly. Difficult clients. Refund requests. Payment plans that ghost you. Employees who snap. Customers who buy domain names to smear you. Yes, that actually happened. The conversation goes deep on what everyone's refund policies actually look like, the boundaries we've set after getting burned, and the mindset shifts that helped us stop letting this stuff live rent-free in our heads. In this episode, we cover: The wildest client situations from a room full of multi-year entrepreneurs (Jordan's story alone is worth the listen) Early warning signs that a client might be trouble — and the one pattern that keeps coming up How to build refund policies that protect your business AND feel right to you Why having a written policy is actually the kindest thing you can do (for everyone) What to do when payment plans ghost you — and the mindset shift that makes it manageable How to regulate yourself when ad comments or nasty emails make you want to lose it The "What Would Destini Do?" framework for navigating messy business moments with boundaries and grace Mentioned in this episode: What Would Destini Do? Claude Skill — Paste one prompt, describe your messy situation, and get walked through exactly how to handle it: https://lab.destinicopp.com/what-would-destini-do

Send us Fan Mail This is part two of a two-part roundtable with my peer mastermind group, the Weird Hermits — a small group of women entrepreneurs who have been in each other's corners for years. In this episode, we go deep on the specific ways we're each using Claude to run our businesses right now. We cover: what a Claude skill actually is (and how it compares to a custom GPT), the difference between Claude Chat, Cowork, and Code, and the real workflows we're using — from morning briefings and newsletter automation to dynamic landing pages that update themselves and idea management via Dispatch. You'll hear from Monica Froese (Empowered Business), Kate Kordsmeier (Success with Soul), Liz Stapleton ( Creator Ops Hub), Jodi Bourne (Borne Strategic AI), Steph Blake (automation & business strategy), and Ruth Poundwhite. We close with a challenge and free resource from each of us. If you have access to the transcript, drop it into Claude and ask how these workflows would apply to your business. You'll be surprised what comes back. In This Episode: What finally made us switch from ChatGPT to Claude (and why) What a Claude skill is and why it's more powerful than a custom GPT Claude Chat vs. Cowork vs. Code — the honest breakdown Real use cases: dynamic pages, newsletter automation, morning briefings, Shopify scraping, Kit cleanup tools, competitor intelligence reports The cognitive load case for AI (Ruth's perspective is gold) One challenge + one free resource from each person in the group Resources Mentioned: Monica's free Skool community → Empowered AI Collective (affiliate link) Kate's Claude social media free tool Destini's Creator Business Scorecard Liz's 10-Minute Time Waster Audit Jodi's Visibility Scorecard Steph's automation workflow swipe file Ruth's cognitive load Claude starter guide

Send us Fan Mail What happens when five digital entrepreneurs who've been deep in the AI trenches stop holding anything back? You get this episode. I joined Ruth Poundwhite, Monica Froese, Kate Kordsmeier, and Jodi Bourne — all members of our mastermind group, the Weird Hermits — for a candid roundtable about the shift that's been happening in all of our businesses: moving from ChatGPT to Claude. We're talking real workflows, real results, and the specific features that made us all say "wait — what just happened?" In this episode: The real differences between ChatGPT and Claude (and why most of us barely use ChatGPT anymore) How Claude's skills feature works — and how to stack skills in one conversation What Claude Cowork actually is and what we're delegating to it completely Monica's 30-page branded workbook in 2 minutes, Jodi's automated SEO audit on a 60-page website, Kate's speaker notes that sound exactly like her Two easy ways to build a skill from scratch Free gifts from our guests: 🎁 Ruth's AI Support Team 🎁 Monica's Empowered AI Collective™ (affiliate) 🎁 Kate's Scale Smart with AI 🎁 Jodi's AI Services 🎁 Destini's Growth Bottleneck Quiz Other links mentioned: Claude AI Facebook Community Gamma App (affiliate) 📬 Join the Creator's MBA newsletter: signup.destinicopp.com

Send us Fan Mail You're doing everything right — attracting, engaging, nurturing, and retaining your audience. But when it comes to collecting testimonials, you hit a wall. Sound familiar? In this episode, I'm answering a question from listener, Johnna Kirk, who gets great feedback in her inbox and on social media but can't get anyone to fill out her Senja or Tally form. Here's the thing: the problem isn't the form. It's the gap between when the emotion happens and when you ask them to capture it. I call the fix the Hot Capture Method, and it's one of the simplest shifts you can make in your creator business. In this episode, you'll learn: Why sending a form link kills the momentum (and what to do instead) The one-question reply that turns an email into a testimonial instantly How to build trigger points into your customer journey so testimonials happen automatically How to get video testimonials from people who would otherwise never record one How to build a testimonial library organized by offer so you're never scrambling before a launch This is part of our ongoing Creator Business Diagnosis series, where I break down real challenges using the Creator Growth Flywheel framework.

Send us Fan Mail What if the next person to buy your product isn't a person at all? In this episode, I'm doing something a little different. I recently published an article called The New Buyer You're Not Optimizing For — and I thought the best way to bring it to life was to share this AI-generated audio conversation I created with NotebookLM. Two AI hosts break down the key research findings in a way that's easy to digest on a commute or walk. Here's what you'll hear covered in this conversation: → Why AI shopping agents like ChatGPT's Agent Mode, Google's "Buy for Me," and Amazon's Rufus are already buying products on behalf of real customers — right now, not someday → The single title change that led to an 80 percentage point increase in AI agent selection (Columbia & Yale research) → Why "Sponsored" labels now actively hurt your chances of being chosen by AI agents → How a 0.1 increase in product ratings can be the deciding factor between you and a competitor → The 5-step listing audit every digital creator should do — especially if you sell on Shopify, Etsy, or any course platform → Why clever brand-forward product names are essentially invisible to AI agents — and what to do instead → How to manage this as a quarterly system rather than a constant scramble The bottom line: the algorithm is now the gatekeeper to the human wallet. An afternoon spent rewriting your product titles today could be the reason an AI selects your product six months from now. 📖 Read the full article + 5-step audit: https://www.destinicopp.com/blog/the-new-buyer-youre-not-optimizing-for 📊 Take the free Creator Business Scorecard: https://scorecard.destinicopp.com 🎙️ Audio overview generated with NotebookLM based on original research and analysis by Dr. Destini Copp.

Send us Fan Mail Most digital product creators are building a collection of offers. The ones who build businesses that last are doing something different — they're building around a framework. In this episode, I use Dave Ramsey's business model as a case study to break down why framework-driven businesses outperform tactic-driven ones — and what that means for your digital product business specifically. You'll walk away with four questions to help you surface the framework that's probably already embedded in your work, plus a clear picture of how one framework can generate a full product ecosystem at every price point. If you've ever felt like your products don't quite connect — or like you're always guessing what to build next — this episode is for you. In this episode: Why Ramsey's real product isn't financial advice — it's a framework How one framework creates a natural product ladder (free → low-cost → core offer → membership → coaching) Why your buyers can't find their next step, and how a framework fixes it The Creator Growth Flywheel and how it organizes everything in my own business 4 questions to find the framework you already have Connect With Destini: Website LinkedIn Join Creator's MBA newsletter

Send us Fan Mail Is the newsletter market already too crowded… or are we just getting started? In this episode, I brought together a group of experienced newsletter operators for a candid roundtable conversation about what’s really happening in the newsletter space right now. From creators running paid newsletters to founders using email to power entire businesses, this group brought a wide range of perspectives—and a lot of honest opinions. We dove into the questions many creators are quietly asking themselves: Is it still worth starting or growing a newsletter today? What’s actually working when it comes to growing and monetizing a list? And how are successful operators thinking about the future of email in a world full of AI, social platforms, and changing content habits? This conversation went in some fascinating directions—from unexpected list growth strategies to surprising monetization approaches and even predictions about where the newsletter industry may be headed next. What You’ll Learn The question many creators are asking about newsletters right now Different ways newsletter operators are growing their audiences today Creative approaches to monetizing newsletters beyond traditional launches How other platforms like YouTube and podcasts can support newsletter growth Why personality-driven content is becoming more important than ever Emerging trends that could reshape the future of newsletters If you’re running a newsletter, thinking about starting one, or simply curious about where the creator economy is heading, you’ll love this behind-the-scenes conversation with people actively building in the space. Tune in to hear the full discussion—and see what insights might spark your next big idea. Podcast Show Notes: https://www.destinicopp.com/podcast/everyone-says-newsletters-are-saturated