This AI Tool Led to a 28% Conversion Rate in 24 Hours

28% of people who came to the webinar live signed up to the membership within 24 hours of the webinar. So just that sheer conversion rate within 24 hours is really telling. So getting people to take action again, making it specific to where they're at, and giving them something tangible to take away.

Welcome to the next evolution of the podcast Entrepreneur School in the AI era. We are here to figure out how to integrate AI into the business you've worked so hard to build in a way that still feels like you. I'm your host Kelly Sinclair, award-winning marketer turned AI platform co-founder, AI has fundamentally changed how I thought about work, systems, and what's actually possible. This show is about navigating that new reality together. It's going to be a wild ride, my friend, but I truly believe there's a way to leverage AI in a way that's intentional, human-centered, and aligned. It's an ongoing evolution, so let's explore because AI may just be the unlock you need to achieve the life-first business you truly desire. Welcome back to another juicy guest episode on Entrepreneur School in the AI era. Today, I am talking to Nadine Nethery, a human-first customer experience and retention strategist for established online business owners who are done chasing new leads at all costs and want to be more strategic about those who have already said yes. So, Nadine is the person that you call on when you're sick of working harder for less and want to finally maximize your return on investment for every lead coming to us all the way from Australia. Welcome, Nadine.

Hello, Kelly. So good to be here. Nice and early, seven a.m. We were just chatting about it. So,

where in Australia are you actually?

I'm on the outskirts of Sydney. So,

yeah, lovely, lovely. Well, we like to hop into a real hot take right away on this show. So, given the context of you working as a retention strategist, tell me about your thoughts on AI in that realm.

Yeah, AI has so much opportunity for online business owners to yeah be a powerful driver of customer retention, helping your customers get wins from your offers, your programs, your membership, and amplify that human element rather than replacing yourself inside your coaching containers. So, I'm super passionate about clever tools to package your frameworks in a way that make them accessible, but then also be the starting point for those conversations that happen with you down the track. Whether I said that's in a membership, your course, your program, your mastermind, yeah. So rather than just outsourcing and removing yourself from the picture, I'm big, big, big on infusing yourself even more into that relationship with your customers via AI.

Yeah, I totally believe in this approach as well, and I think it's something that we need to keep saying out loud because it's so easy to be like, "Oh, AI could just do this for me and do that for me, and at what point do you accidentally replace yourself if you're not thinking about it strategically? Right,

it's so tempting, and I feel so many online sources at the moment are all about you know economizing things, making things more streamlined, you know, saving time here and there, which obviously is totally possible. You can replace yourself inside coaching containers, but people sign up for you. They want your perspective. And while, as I said, frameworks are easy to turn into accessible tools that people can access in their own time and space, it's that unique perspective that you bring to the table that people value and yeah pay money for

yeah I well we'll get into some examples of how that's showing up inside of your business and your coach and your clients businesses too but let's talk about some of the unique ways that you're using AI to add value in what you're doing

yeah so as I mentioned, I love a good artifact. Claude's my best friend, so using AI to make my frameworks accessible. So most recently, I took a big step to make you know a key component in any online business accessible for, particularly my customers that can't afford to have me do it for them. So over the past 10 or years, it's been now that I had my own business, I have become super obsessed with strategic audience surveys. So going straight to the source, getting voice of customer data, finding out what people are actually struggling with, you know what's happening in in their world. In their lives, because let's face it, that shifts every day at the moment. So I really thought that, particularly the members inside my retention lab incubator, which is a high-touch program with one-on-one access to me, really need an easy way to do the same work. So rather than me having it, rather than having me do it for them at a price tag. I have come up with two tools that take care of that process. So a survey builder that taps into my framework that I've designed and refined over 10 years and successfully implemented in done for you projects, which gives them a very strategic customer survey that they can then take and send out, so it helps them overcome that hurdle. We're all too busy. We're all putting surveys and talking to our audience on the back burner because there's always things to do, right? So making it super simple, giving them everything they need. You know, the super strategic intro, the questions specific to their business, their offer, their audience, and then also coming up with a strategic incentive for people to actually complete the survey means they are gathering the data that the we then need as that next step to build the strategies. You know the onboarding experiences that you know email automation, the evergreen funnel, whatever they've come to me For specifically, everything is based on those insights.

Yeah, so I want to just like unpack this first. Yes, you're saying one of the most important things in ensuring that your business keeps growing is understanding what your customers are struggling with, how they're talking about it, so that you can adjust the way that you're delivering your programs, potentially change your marketing messaging, and that all of that stuff comes from this one piece. So you've identified this as a core driver. Exactly. Out like that. Yes. Like the this is like Nadine's. Like this is what I care about. This is what we all need to care about. We need to not skip this step. And then the other side of that is, well, that's hard. Hard thing to do. So your clients are going, well, that's hard. And so you're saying, I made it easy for you because I built you an AI tool that will help with that

exactly. It's too tempting to skip, and a lot of the times, you know, listeners, if you have an online business, if you're working with clients in a coaching or mentoring capacity, you'll know that most recently, particularly, people come to you with a customer avatar that AI has whipped up for them. You know, like ChatGPT told them all about their customer, and then your client takes that as gospel, which is so dangerous. So this step inside my program, inside my one done for you work, takes care of that process. The good thing as well is all that information then allows you to brief your AI tool of choice, whatever that is, to yeah, give you specific outcomes to your customer rather than based on assumptions. And as Kelly said, it literally is the foundation to everything in your business. Every decision you make, every email you send, every funnel you build, it is super powerful.

Yes, yes, and right before we hit record, too, you almost like called it out, like, "Oh, you're willing to go and do the work and talk to AI about what your customer might be thinking or feeling or struggling with, but not actually talking to your customer

because it's easier, right?

Yes. Oh, yeah.

Look, you know, chat just gives you a quick overview, and you feel like you've done the work well. Not bad.

I can speak. I can just like put my head up. I know. I know how important this is, and also how how grueling it can be, especially when you're still refining what you're building, like we are right now. And there's there's that risk too, just to you know not to shame anybody about this. There's that risk of you're going to get rejection, you're going to get pushback and objections, and all of that has you have to just take that as that that's helpful.

Yeah, it can be confronting. You know, there's going to be negative feedback, potential, you know, things you don't want to hear, but they're the powerful thing that you can then address in your messaging. I've actually recently surveyed my audience and the online business space as part of the state of the customer survey, just to make listeners feel more at easier. If you have not surveyed your customers ever, or more than 12 months ago, you're actually in good company because the survey uncovered that 36% of us have last surveyed our audience over a year ago or never. So it's common. We all are guilty, and it is something that I'm actively trying to encourage, particularly like in my community, because everything that comes after, as we said, is just so much more powerful if it's. Coming straight from

the source, so I love that you've built an AI tool that helps with one of the biggest hurdles

specific to where they're at, and giving them something tangible to take away is is really key to webinars that that convert and AI makes it so easy.

Yeah, that's an that's an amazing outcome. Can you walk through like a specific example of like what one of those gaps were and how that was, yeah, filled with the tool?

Absolutely. So one of the gaps is a loyalty gap. So almost half of us as online consumers can be, you know, swayed via loyalty programs, reward programs. Like I'm, I'm a sucker for you know the 10s free coffee at Starbucks. Like I'm happily buying more often if anything get a free coffee.

My husband jokes that one of my hobbies is collecting PC optimum points. Yeah, so

there you go.

Like frequent

flyer points. It's so powerful. Even receiving like the other day, I received an email from like a big sports merchandise retailer in in Australia here telling me that I've got a week to spend my 400 rewards points. So you know what did I do? I had a look because I've got three kids. I always have some sort of shoe to buy for the next sports season. So 48% of consumers in the online business space can absolutely be influenced to potentially bring forward their purchase decision, or to at least check out what you have to offer, and then make a purchase anyway, because they didn't know you had a particular offer in your offer lineup. And the problem is, half of us are not even considering as online business owners introducing a reward or loyalty metric of any sort into our business, and it doesn't even have to be a full-blown reward program with tears and you know formal formal rewards that are on the other end. So, one of the quick fixes that we strategized on the call was a virtual scratchy cart, which again you can totally whip up with AI and automate on the back end of your email platform, so trigger you know the scratchy cart based on a certain customer lifetime value that your customers hid in our engagement with your emails. You don't even have to just reward people who spend with you. It could be new subscribers who keep reading, opening, clicking. You can give them a little reward. It also doesn't have to be discounts and freebies that are hidden behind the scratchy cart. It can be bonus content, so it's super flexible, super creative, and super easy to implement. And the beauty is also that you can evolve this program as you have new offers that you introduce, if you have promotions that are running. So yeah, so people. Who had the loyalty gap, then got to strategize what that scratchy cart could look like for them. And inside the tool, I also got them to play around with a mini version of the scratchy cart. So

again, it's highly immersive. It teases, you know, what's inside the lab. So everything to bring that virtual scratchy cart to life is inside the membership. So it's giving people a taste, making it specific, giving them a takeaway, and they could download this mini strategy card as well. So once they put their things in, their data, you know, their ideas, they download it and have it as reference on on their own device.

So good. First of all, I love that idea. Writing that down really my own version of the optimum points, like what? But I think what I want to say here is your all of these use cases and the way that you used AI to help build the workshop, execute the workshop, and deliver value on that workshop are like friction reducer, right? Yeah. Because now what we can see is this isn't as hard as I thought it was, and I just you just proved that to me because you just showed me live in a workshop, that I could do something like this, and it would solve my problem. I was having this revelation the other day, and this should bring back bridge back to what you were just talking about. But you know, I'm turning 40. I, you know, as a 40 year old woman, all I see on the internet is you need more protein, you need more protein, perimenopause, blah blah blah, and it's like, okay, whatever. But I hired a personal trainer, and I'm like lifting weights, and she's like, "How's your nutrition? And I said, "Apparently, I need more protein. But I have never ever thought, "Oh yeah, I just want to count my macros like that. Just yeah, like absolutely sign me up for that program. I would never consider any kind of offer that includes counting macros because that seems hard. But then I said to her, you know what? I'm actually really good at AI, and so now the idea of a tracking system that does that for me, I feel like I could do it. Like I'm no longer facing that same objection as to why I would say no to your offer. Yeah, so I feel like that's another real strong reason why including AI tools inside of your offers helps helps reduce their friction, helps your clients get results and more transformation, and then leaves space for you as the human to go deeper in the work that you're doing.

Absolutely, it's that, yeah. As you said, friction. You know, like holding people's hands to overcome that that mental hurdle, whatever that looks like. Like in this case, and now coming up with the ideas to bring that scratchy card to life feels really overwhelming for people, but talking them through some examples and then getting them to actually just come up with one idea-you know-I could do this. Like it's totally possible-is is awesome. And one one of the live attendees actually, because I'm clever, right, strategic, I asked for feedback around the new format. She said, like she just loved it because it felt immersive, and it's almost like I held their hand up to the point where now it's over to them to just bring it to life, and that was the whole idea. Like we all go to webinars where they tell you what you should do and all the opportunities and all the ways you can fix your problems, but you're still none the wise at the end because you're still going, oh my god! Like I get the concept, but I don't know how it applies to me. And in this instance, it's just taken care of that that bit already.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I can see. I see why you had such a good conversion rate right away. That ability for something tangible to come out

yeah.

And so, how are you seeing results and transformation for your clients inside of your programs now that you've adopted AI tools as part of the way that you're delivering those?

Yeah, so the engagement is higher. So people actually do the thing; they check out the formulas that are insight, but they also execute. Like I feel we all know what memberships are like, so there's tons of resources inside, and people have plans and ideas. But just committing and picking what's right for you is the hard bit. So to let me just touch on another tool. Like it just came up. So I recently introduced a roadmap builder in my membership. So previously, I had these big Airtable bays. People could filter by, you know, like how much time they had, which stage of the customer journey they wanted to focus on. So it was made sense to me. But again, like you're still looking at an Airtable bay. With a lot of overwhelm, right? So I introduced a drag and drop roadmap builder. So that's the first thing I get people to do when they sign up. They pick two customer journey stages that they're particularly interested in right now. So it could be, you know, lead generation. It could be onboarding. It could be referrals. So again, helping them to narrow down their focus for the next six months, and then what the tool does is it pre-selects the applicable formulas. So anything that touches on those customer journey stages, from there they again drill down further. So they select the formulas that resonate with them based on how much time it takes to implement, you know, the tools they need, and then they drag them into the coming six months on the next screen. So the pre-selected ones they drag into those six months, and again, very important here, they can download that to have on hand. And then what I do is I ask them to bring that to the next live session, either the co-working session or the monthly strategy session to take that further. So have a look, you know, what they need to be successful in each of the months, and that has been a game changer as well. So people have a clear plan for the first six months, which again

gives them that forward perspective. Like I'm here to stay, I'm here for the long haul, and they have a totally doable roadmap. So taking the overwhelm away-it's that overarching topic of the episode. I feel removing overwhelm, removing friction, and also making it feel doable, simplifying things.

How have you seen like you've been running your business? You said for about 10 years, I'm sure it's iterated and evolved a lot. But how have you seen sort of the way that you deliver your program shift as different eras have unfolded in that time frame?

Absolutely, fast tracking things. Like again, mama three here. I just don't have the time and headspace. Like sometimes I, I don't want to learn all your thought process and how you got to where you are today. I I just need to get into your brain and get your framework to work for me. So, if there is a way to fast track that, that is amazing. And then, if you can add a human element and support into that by a community, for example, that's where then it becomes even more powerful. And I think like there's real opportunities. So, self-paced courses while they had a place, you know, there's only one of me. I can't support everyone inside these toolkits. I feel like inside my membership, there's so much opportunity because people are working on different things all the time, and I have set opportunities inside the community to pick my brain. And why not give them access to all? The things going on up here in my brain that I have defined and refined over the last 10 years, and then give them opportunity to bring what they've created via the interactive tool to me. Like just come with something predefined where I know it's based on the framework that I've given, rather than again AI and ChatGPT coming up with something, and you go, not quite sure. So yeah,

you're like underscoring every single one of my key messages. Like yes, that is exactly it. That is the difference. Is that this is AI that is trained on the way that you do things. So I mean the The challenge is that AI is still has a mind of its own to a certain extent. So I think that's why it's really really relevant and and smart to have the container, like that hybrid approach, a community, some sort of office hours or a support piece that goes along with. Because if you just let it free in the wild, and you have no like touch points of measuring how is that actually working with people, you don't know whether you should be adjusting things as well. Lots of things on the back end of all that tech side that can change the way that

Yeah, and people are craving that human element. Oh yeah, since AI AI has come, you know, like it's one thing to get the info, but then you're still on your own implementing away. So yeah, the human element, like even inside your AI tools, is always going to be a huge point of difference. If you can infuse yourself and then you know your human touch, your human perspective into what you do, it's always going to be a

point of difference. Absolutely, that's and I, you know, I bet I feel like you might agree with this statement that at the end of the day, it's still about you, your reputation, your ability to build that community and relationships with the people who you are serving. That's what makes people choose to work with you, be in your membership, be in your space, and in your world over other people who are doing the same thing. So,

yeah, absolutely. And I feel too people sense whether you know they they feel your passion in the way you show up, and if you're just creating AI tools to take care of you know the human side and your support, I don't know. It leaves a bad aftertaste. So yeah, just being conscious if you introduce AI into your community, into your programs, that it's intentional and elevates the human aspect rather than taking away from that beautiful relationship with your customers,

yeah, that's such a good filter for people to to think through. Absolutely, and I think it gives the opportunity to understand that, or kind of removes that fear of AI replacing humans, because from what you've said, what our clients have said too, it's actually allowing you to go deeper into strategy and nuance and have that connection, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you want to fast track the things you can without losing losing your perspective, your touch. But yeah, it's a it's an interesting space we're operating in, right? Like, there's so much learning that comes with it. How yeah, how to embrace AI? What works? What doesn't? What feels right for you as well? And yeah, yeah, it's it's nuanced.

Yes, and that's why we're having conversations on the show with people to provide those different perspectives, just to give that sense of how other people are doing it, so that you can make your own decisions, not so that you yeah follow the rules internally.

Yeah, and there's so much, like so many gurus that tell you, you know, this is how you have to do it. You have to have everything outsourced, and I feel it really is just overcomplicating things and putting pressure on, particularly you know solo operators who feel like they have to outsource everything. I'm like I don't want to outsource everything, particularly the thinking and the human aspect and the strategizing. Like I want to use AI to amplify the scalable and still keep you know those beautiful human elements that are unscalable, but make a huge difference on the customer journey.

Oh, they totally do. That I have one more question to ask you before we wrap up, and that is like, so, what does your AI use look like for internal systems? And tools and things that help you kind of more behind the scenes compared to those that you're building that are client basing that are tools that actually support implementation inside of your membership.

Yeah. So funnily enough, I am probably more advanced in the tool side of things, which probably shelves my my take on business, like I'm all about the customer. So yeah, I have a lot of ways to support my customers with AI. Even like grow my list with AI. So I've got AI tools that have replaced traditional lead magnets. But thanks for another yeah another conversation. I am in the process of integrating more backend stuff into my business. So podcast, I've touched on that before. I do a lot of work around my podcast, repurposing and you know building episodes, streamlining that because you would know, Kelly, it takes so much time to do it properly and then distribute it in all the places. But yeah, there's lots of room inside my business to streamline things, but yeah, I feel like I want to be very strategic and intentional again around where I let AI touch things and where I feel like I want to keep control. So that's a work in progress.

Yeah, I think that's really interesting, and I wonder if you're if you've given much thought to why you made that choice in that order because I feel like what I see is a lot of people getting overwhelmed in the shiny object syndrome of all the internal systems that we now can slash have to build. Yeah, and this idea of like, well, do you need 30 AI assistants? Like, did you have 30 assistants before,

and my my thought process always was as well. You know, how long is it going to take me to set up all these assistants that I potentially don't use? So I started looking into it, and when okay, so it's going to take me a long time to set this up. Is it going to give me the return on investment when it comes to my time briefing it, building it, you know, setting all of it up? So that's why I've taken a step back to take stock and actually look at how much time I spend on certain certain things in my business to then weigh up, you know, whether it's worth investing time to to systemize it and automate it on the back end, but yeah, shiny objects and definitely like you know get this pack of 100 bots that do all the things I've never

done in the first place. You know what I mean? Yeah, it is so true. I just I just had that confession. I just wrote that in an email right before we got on here. I was like, not judging. I like to do this too. I definitely get a little bit of a dopamine hit when I build something, but did I have to build it? Probably not. Yeah, I I just think that's great that you're being a great example of finding the most strategic and intentional uses of AI where where you're focusing on your customers, you aka the people who pay you.

That's right.

So keep the business running and focus on that. Exactly. Amazing. So Nadine, let us know where everybody can find you. What resources you have for people to stay in your world?

Yeah, absolutely. So best place to find out more about my take on you know customer retention conversions is on my website, candocontent.com. I also have created a stripped down version of the survey tool that I touched on previously. So if you are in that 39% of people who have not talked to your customers ever, or in a while, you can actually create a customized 10-question survey via the tool specific to your audience, your offer, and your business type. So yeah, check that out. And then I touched on the state of the customer report, which is super interesting because it surveyed the online business space from two perspectives. So ones from a business owner perspective, but then also ask those people to flip the coin and put their consumer hat on. So customer experience from two perspectives. And the five gaps that I explored in the live workshops are super, super interesting and can be closed via some easy fixes as we as we explored before. So yeah, make sure you check out the state of the customer report, and also while you're there, create your strategic customer survey. Amazing. Well, the links for those will be below in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time this morning, Nadine. Thanks so much for having me, Kelly. Such a good, nuanced conversation. Loved it. it.

Thank you for listening. If this episode got you thinking about how AI is impacting your business and what it might look like to integrate it in a way that actually fits, I'd love to help you think that through. You can book an AI strategy chat using the link in the show notes. It's a space to talk about where you are, what's shifting, and how to move forward with intention. And if this episode was helpful, please share it with another business owner who's navigating this evolution too. And make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss what's coming next.