Key Takeaways
- How Teri created a uniquely valuable event for women in business – and how she ultimately turned the power of the conference into an authentic online and offline experience for her members.
- Why Teri’s goal for her community is to bless people’s socks off – even if the REFINED Community doesn’t turn out to be the right fit for everyone.
- The ripple effect of Teri’s work, how the REFINED Community gives back to area nonprofits, and how this leads to new members joining the group.
- How Teri gives her members the option not to fail.
Free Give
FREE Guide – Launch & Grow a Profitable Membership Site
Ready to reclaim your time and attract more monthly paying customers? Our step-by-step guide will show you how to build a membership site that turns your passion into recurring profit. Click here to download!Memorable Quote
People are connected with everybody, but they’re not connecting.” – Teri Johnson “With entrepreneurship and being a business owner, it can be isolating. I took the pieces from the networking events I loved and got rid of the things I didn’t in order to provide a really unique experience.” – Teri Johnson “My biggest surprise was how deep the need was.” – Teri JohnsonEpisode Resources
Transcript
Read The Transcript
Shelli: Teri Johnson, thank you for making the time to hang out with us on It’s A Tribe Thing. We’re so stoked you’re here and so blessed to have you so thank you for making the time and hanging out with us.
Teri: Absolutely. I’m excited to connect with you and talk about this world of membership.
Shelli: Well, I’m super interested in your story and how it came to be and so your community is called The REFINE Community. I’m wondering if you can share with us what it is you do, who you serve, and how that came to be at the very beginning.
Teri: Yeah. So, it actually happened by accident. It was never something that I had set out to do. If I go back to the very beginning of REFINE, it started as a conference, a women’s conference in Minneapolis, yeah, and I called it The REFINE Conference and I brought women business owners, entrepreneurs, sales professionals together. And the first conference that we did was in 2012 and after that, it was such an amazing turnout. So, that’s who I serve, women business owners, entrepreneurs, and sales professionals and we take a holistic approach. We work on our personal growth. We also work on our business development. What sets us apart I think from other communities of this type of women is we weave our faith into it. So, it’s a Christian faith-based organization and we’re not afraid to talk about our big God-sized goals and dreams but also share and pray for one another along the way, because what I know is that when we wake up in the morning and we put our pants on, we are the same woman who just maybe fed kids and had an argument may be with your spouse and then you went in to do your work and it all comes with you and so, we create a space for women to talk about all of it.
So, back then it was a conference and REFINE is actually an acronym. It means renewal encouraged, fulfill, inspire, nurture, and equip. Our tagline is, “Come as you are. Take your next steps with purpose.” And so, after that, a lot of women were asking me, “When are you going to do it again?” and I thought, “Wow, I don’t know. This is a lot of work. I don’t even know if I was ever going to do it again but a couple years later, 2014, I did it again. Again, it was amazing two days as a two-day experience. It’s a great conference and we hosted both of those in Minnesota is where I’m from and after that, again, there was a lot of buzz about we need to continue to bring people together and what I found, as I’ve been growing my business for 10 years now, actually, 2009 will be my 10-year anniversary year of my business.
Shelli: Wow. Congratulations. That’s awesome.
Teri: Yeah. Thanks. I’m super excited about that and with increased technology and all the different digital platforms and social media platforms what I realize is people are connected with everybody but they’re not connecting.
Shelli: I love that. I think that’s so powerful and really insightful as well because in this digital age, it’s so easy to “connect” but it’s not the same as what you’re talking about, so I’m interested to see your take on the in-person meetings, the conference vibe versus what you ended up creating online with your membership site.
Teri: Well, here’s the thing. So, I thought, “Okay. We’ll do a virtual REFINE,” and so I called it REFINE Community and I did get some numbers and it was just going to be group coaching, collaboration. I had some experts come in and talk about things and it was not taking off at all. And I think the women that were in it they liked it, but it was just one more place to be online. And so, at the end of 2015, I took a step back and again going back to the concept of connecting, I thought, “I’m going to bring women together because that’s what they loved.” When they were at REFINE, the conference, they love being together and encouragement and everything that they got there. So, I made an announcement. I said, “Listen, you are a founding member and you can stay in as this but we’re going to move it, we’re going to have some virtual stuff, but we’re going to have in-person REFINE gatherings,” is what I call them. So, in May of 2016, we launched two locations in Minneapolis and we started, and the women were like, “How can we do this every month?” And the funniest thing about it is that I do not like commitment. I’ve been trying to build a business of like work from anywhere, total lifestyle business.
Shelli: Yeah.
Teri: And I’m like, “Wait a second. Did I just commit to being somewhere every month?” I mean, it was a little freaky, but the cool part is that women in this community now has stepped up and they are leading the gathering chapters. And so, as of today, which is just over two years later, we’ve grown to 300 members.
Shelli: Wow.
Teri: Yeah. Just over 300 members and we meet in-person and we have two virtual gatherings, but then we have eight in-person gatherings. We’re in Wisconsin, Minnesota. We’re in Spokane, Washington and every month we have, yeah, 10 gatherings total and the women are connecting and we’re all about collaboration. We’re not about competition. We have a lot of women in our organization that do the same things like we have several coaches. We have several women in there that work with the same clients that I work with, but they do it from a different angle and so, yeah, we’re all about just lifting each other higher, brainstorming, collaborating, and connecting.
Shelli: I love it. It’s so interesting because in this time that we’re in right now, everybody is moving to digital and there is an absolute clear advantage to that because you can now have a global audience and you can serve more people and you can scale and all that kind of stuff, but what was the unexpected gift that you didn’t see coming about meeting in person, especially as somebody who by your own admission, is not loving the commitments and now there’s physically somewhere you have to commit to be and drive time? What was the unexpected gift that you didn’t see coming moving in that direction?
Teri: I would say that the most powerful piece is women don’t feel alone on this journey because I feel like with entrepreneurship and being a business owner or sales professional, it can be isolating and alone. And the one thing about traditional networking events, and believe me, I had done my share of networking in person prior to launching this, and there are great networking events out there. But what I did is I took the pieces from the ones that I loved and incorporate some things, but then I got rid of things I didn’t love. And so, we have a really unique experience. So, when somebody comes into a REFINE gathering room and because we are faith-based, I feel that they feel that sense of warmth. We want every single person’s socks to be blessed off. That’s one of our core values. One of our core values is we serve, we lead, we love. We desire to bless the socks off of every person we have the opportunity to connect with whether we work together or not and so generously into the lives of others and that really comes through the minute they walk in the door like if this is a place that they want to be and call home, join us. If not, that’s okay like go but we hope that your socks are blessed off while you’re with us. I just didn’t realize the power of the in-person connection and at every single table we have a box of Kleenex because…
Shelli: Oh, that’s amazing.
Teri: Because women cry because they needed it so much and not that we want to sit there and cry like babies. That’s not what we do but the emotional piece I think that has been missing for so many people they feel it when they get in that room and they can’t help but just to be like, “Wow, like I can be real here.” We don’t throw around our elevator pitches. We don’t do that. Each woman has five minutes to share within their group and then we actually take time to journal, listen to music, soft music for five minutes. It’s a very unique approach. We don’t bring in outside speakers. We feature our members as speakers, so the members get exposure within the community and there’s so much collaboration and women doing business together and serving one another. I guess my biggest surprise was just then how deep the need was.
Shelli: I love, love, love, love what you’re doing because you are an outside-the-box thinker and while you’re good at all of the other pieces, also saw the need and filled it in a way that even was off the top unconventional to even yourself. It’s so important because what I hear you saying is like sometimes the things that hold people back in their business or in their lives are not the mechanics. They’re not like the nuts and bolts of the things to do, the action items, the execution. Sometimes the thing that’s holding people back is that internal fear or that feeling alone, or the feeling like when you compare yourself to somebody else, you’re just not measuring up. And sometimes that causes us to stop and proceed in and to make the strides that we need to make to have that kind of success. But what I love that you’re creating with your in-person meet-ups is you’re creating a sacred space for women to leave that behind so that that they can move through that. And I’m curious to know like what kind of testimonials or feedback are you getting from the women who are now attending these regularly?
Teri: Yeah. So, I’ll just give you an example. So, yesterday on an annual basis this is now the second time I’ve done this is I host a goal studio for the women in my community and it’s virtual. So, we do it through Zoom. It’s awesome. And for two hours I just want to make sure that every woman has an opportunity to map out their 2019 and so many people don’t carve out the time to do that. So, when you’re talking about the feedback and that type of thing, one thing that popped up yesterday by four people in a row when I was inviting them to share and collaborate as we’re going to the different exercises was the emotional piece of what is missing for them to move forward in 2019 and reach their goal. So, like you said, it wasn’t the tools. It wasn’t like, “Hey, I need a piece of software to help me manage my leads.” It wasn’t necessarily that. “I need to forgive some people. I need to have more confidence in myself,” like those were the things that they were talking about, the goals that they were setting. And what they realized was that if they could accomplish that goal, they could probably accomplish their business goal because of the confidence and rising above their circumstances currently.
So, that is one thing a feedback that we’re getting is they like the holistic approach. They like the fact that they can just come as they are. So, every month, we have a building business buzz segment and my success path because, of course, I have been a part of Tribe and taken that course two times now, but the very first thing I implemented was a success path. Mine’s a little unique because it’s not like do A, B, C, D in a row. It’s something that I tell everybody, “We’re never going to check the box on any of these, and there are six Ms that every business owner needs to pay attention to in their business. And so, the first one is mindset. The second one is message, market, monetized, map, and then monitor is the last one where we keep a pulse in our business. We understand our scorecard, our numbers. We know like how many calls we need to make, how many leads need to come in for us to convert to get the sales like the big picture scorecard and monitoring your business, plan, doing, reviewing, all of those things. So that’s what we do every single month. So, every month we rotate through one of the six Ms. So, this month, it’s monitor, and then in January it’s all about mindset, and then in February…
Shelli: Oh, I love it.
Teri: Yeah. It’ll be about market, but then I have a library of tools and resources for them. If they need help in any of those areas, they know they can find it but on a monthly basis when we’re in person, we have a building business buzz segment where we brainstorm with them. And so, I would say they’re walking away with their cup filled at a personal level because they love the women there, they feel encouraged. Again, they feel their acronym, renewed, encourage, fulfilled, inspired, nurtured, and equipped, better equipped to take their next steps of purpose and we mix personal and professional. Does that make sense?
Shelli: It totally makes sense and I so love what you’re saying because you have a perfect blend of the tangible action steps and the intangible stuff that holds you back that you can’t maybe fix or tinker with or touch but that is so very important, and community is such a funny thing. It’s so, so powerful, but it also has a ripple effect because here you are bringing these amazing women together to create a community to support one another but so that they can go out into their own communities, into their own businesses, into their own families, and create that change as well. So, hats off to you. I’m curious to know, as a membership site owner, what do you do when it gets tough for you? Like, how do you move through the tough times?
Teri: Well, I have a couple quitting partners.
Shelli: I love it!
Teri: And I call them, and I tell them I want to quit. I just want to cancel everyone’s membership today, and just go to bed.
Shelli: I get it.
Teri: And then they remind me of why I’m doing what I’m doing, and then they remind me, they reflect back to me the impact that it’s making, and you talk about the ripple effect. Let me share with you two things. Because of what we do and the women that are involved, we have that faith-based component. We have women that come who would never step foot like inside of a church or anything like that. Maybe they want more of that spiritual side in their life, but the faith is growing and they’re strengthening their marriages. I mean, I have women who come whose marriages are falling apart but what they’re finding here is the strength and they’re talking to other women who also had maybe gone through that that are encouraging them, and marriages are being restored. We are praying for family members who are going through hard times and we see the testimonies of the women who can share with us like, “Wow, you guys prayed for my son and I just wanted to share with you like the answer to prayer, that type of thing.” So, the ripple effect you write is huge. One other thing that we do is every location we have giveback partners and a percentage of everyone’s monthly membership goes to a local giveback partner that we selected.
And so, the impact that we’re making in the community is huge too and a lot of the directors of these nonprofits have actually joined the REFINE Community and they’ve been able to collect or collaborate with the members and some of the members are even doing little fundraisers outside of what we’re doing to help support our giveback partner. So, we are definitely having a ripple effect in the community as well which is super, I mean, it blesses my socks off to see that support. I love that.
Shelli: Well, it must be so super powerful for you to be able to heal people while you’re helping them.
Teri: Yeah. Well, in a way, again, like just because of my faith I’m like, “Okay. I’m nothing without God and everything because of him.” So, I always give him all the glory because this wasn’t my idea really. I mean, like I never set out to do this. If you would’ve told me 10 years ago, I would have this type of business model, I would’ve said, “No, I can’t even imagine doing that.”
Shelli: Right, but you are called to it and you said yes.
Teri: I did, yeah, and I’m super grateful. So, during those hard times, I have quitting partners who tell me just what you told me, and I need that, and I need to be reminded of that a lot and my husband is one of my biggest cheerleaders. He sees the impact. I try to forward him my testimonials and board him things so that he can see the impact and then he can remind me too just to keep going, but it’s not easy. I mean, seriously, think about it. Over two years we’ve been doing this. We only have 300 members and I don’t want to say only like in a flipped way, but I’m a businesswoman. I want 3,000 members.
Shelli: Right. For sure.
Teri: But it’s okay like I feel like we’re growing at the right pace that we’re supposed to because we do have a lot more logistics. I mean, we pay for every location that we have our gatherings in. We were connecting with Trinity to grow and it isn’t the right fit for everybody. So, when I look at my target market and I think we always need to be conscious of that like, “Okay. Who are we serving?” So, not only are we serving so, yes, we’re serving business owners, but then we’re serving women and then they’re faith-based and they’re Christian faith-based. So, I mean, you think about the segment of the population that we get the opportunity to serve, it’s not for everybody. And so, I’ve learned to be patient and trust the process and trust God’s plan in growing this and like just tried take my cause out of it.
Shelli: Right. Well, it’s funny though, it sounds like in a different, not in a different way, in all ways, you’re going so deep. So, I always say like you can go a mile wide and an inch deep with a whole lot of people or you can go an inch wide and a mile deep, but you can go super deep with very specific people and create a much deeper impact for those people.
Teri: Yeah. And so, my company name is keeping it personal and so you can just tell right there like that’s what we do with every single person. We’re keeping it personal. They have access to me and my team. I have two full-time employees. I just have another one who’s coming on right now, she’s part-time, and I do have other team members that help with collections or social media and branding and graphic design, website development, and that type of thing, but it takes a village for sure. There’s just no way I could’ve done this on my own. I’ve got an amazing team that helps me, and I just feel super honored and I love the business model and here’s the coolest part about it, for anybody who’s even exploring or thinking about doing membership is not that you want to lose a customer but if you do, it’s only one membership. So, if you look at it that way, it’s like if you have 300 members to lose one, yeah, we always bless and release everybody like if somebody ever wants to cancel because they do once in a while, that’s cool but we’re only losing one 300. Like right now, we have 300 members, so just like a very small piece of our income goes away.
And the way we set ours up is a little bit different. There’s a lot of memberships out there that people can just start paying a monthly fee. We have a one-time new member investment. So, the barrier to entry is a little bit higher than a lot of other memberships that I’m familiar with. Just to join is $400 and then we as of current right now, today, our price is $67 a month after that. So, it’s not cheap, but we, like you said, we go deep with our members that get one-on-one coaching, they get group coaching, they get our package in the mail after they start. We have a 30-day maximize your membership on-boarding sequence. Yeah. So, we really try to serve them in a deep level.
Shelli: Well, also too, you’re giving them the option to not be able to fail by loving on them the way you do and such an even personal level. So, I mean, to be able to lock arms with the people that you serve and say, “Okay. Now, we’re in this together. You go, and we go and that’s a pretty significant impact you get to have for a fairly nominal price. So, my hats off to you, my friend.
Teri: Thank you. Yeah. I love it.
Shelli: So, if anybody’s looking for you online, where is the best place to find you and to find your amazing community?
Teri: Yeah. So, our website is just KeepingItPersonal.com and everything’s on there so they can navigate around and look at that and if they’re interested in joining or just having a conversation or whatever, they can reach out to us through our website.
Shelli: Sounds brilliant. Well, Teri, thank you so much for hanging out with us on It’s A Tribe Thing. It’s been my absolute pleasure and honor to be able to chat with you.
Teri: Yeah. Have a great day and thank you.
Shelli: You as well.
Teri: Okay.
