Melissa Pruitt spent years going to school to become a psychologist before discovering it wasn’t for her. Her husband Paul, built a multi-million dollar real estate business, then lost everything in 2008. While she was discovering that helping others in business and social media marketing utilized her education in a whole new way, Paul reinvented himself as a photographer.
Together, they created their membership site The Dream 100 – a private, personalized coaching and accountability mastermind. Using their unique experiences and qualifications building thriving companies, they help their members create sustainable, profitable businesses that serve their families and lives.
Today, Melissa and Paul join the podcast to share how their previous careers and projects led them to the membership model, how they run their business together, tips to embrace the mindset of success, and how not to be afraid to start over when things don’t go your way.
Key Takeaways
- How Melissa uses her background in psychology to help her clients create meaningful relationships with their customers.
- How Paul leveraged his previous experiences to become an extremely effective business coach.
- Why worst-case scenarios are rarely the end of the world – and how Paul shifted his mindset to get out of his comfort zone, take a leap, and lean into what he loved after amassing over $3 million in debt.
- The reason why Melissa and Paul capped their membership site at 100 people.
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 want to do business with people that they like, know, and trust.” – Melissa Pruitt
- “Success leaves clues and patterns of repetitive habits that either slowly put you on track or slowly sabotage you on a daily basis.” – Paul Pruitt
Episode Resources
Transcript
Read The Transcript
Stu McLaren: There is a big trend brewing that’s revolutionizing the way business is being done. Big companies like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple are jumping on this too but so are thousands of others in all kinds of markets like photography and calligraphy, fitness, finance, meal planning, lesson planning, dog training, and so many more, and they’re doing it by shifting to a recurring revenue model. Hi. My name is Stu McLaren and for more than a decade I’ve been helping tens of thousands of entrepreneurs generate recurring revenue through membership sites. Join our host, Shelli Varela, as she takes you behind-the-scenes to see how these companies are building a thriving tribe that spends with them every single month. Now, let’s get to today’s episode. [INTERVIEW] Shelli Varela: Paul and Melissa Pruitt, two of my favorite humans, welcome to the It’s a TRIBE Thing Podcast. How are you guys? Paul Pruitt: Excellent. Melissa Pruitt: Fantastic. Yes. Shelli Varela: I’m super stoked to have you here. I had the chance to catch up with you guys at TRIBE Live, which was an incredible time. Anybody who was there would know that. But I had a chance to get to know you too, personally and my goodness, like what an inspiration the two of you are in terms of saying yes to your direction and serving your people. And I’m just so grateful that you’re here and taking the time for us so thank you. Melissa Pruitt: Oh, thank you so much. We’re super grateful. And it was so much fun hanging out at TRIBE Live and just getting to know you better and getting to know everyone else better. That’s what we absolutely love about the community. Shelli Varela: Yeah, for sure. And speaking of the community, I’m excited to share your journey and your story with them. So, if you would be so kind, could you please share with us like who you guys are and who you serve and how you got to be in the position you are now? Melissa Pruitt: Absolutely. So, we both have different stories but at one point there was a fork in the road where we met together. My background is actually in psychology. So, I started off as in the clinical world with being a therapist and I worked for over 10 years working with people and then therapy. I worked with women with eating disorders. I worked with families and I did individual therapy. And I was on that path for a really long time. I love to help people. At the end of the day, that’s really where my heart is but that wasn’t exactly the right path for me. I’ve done all the right things. I went to school, I got the degrees, I did the trainings, and I still wasn’t happy. So, along my journey, I found my way into this world of business, into this world of social media. And I found out that actually everything that I do now with our memberships, having to do with Instagram, and helping people with marketing to attract their clients, it’s all the same things. It’s all about relationships and communication. So, what I love about what I’m doing now is I take all the knowledge and the passion that I have for helping people but then applying it to the social media world because at the end of the day, we always forget that behind every screen and every screen name is an actual real person. So, I love to dive deep with people on really creating communications and relationships with people on a deeper level and you can do that through social media. Instagram is where I hang out the most of the time and that’s just such a great way to connect with people. But it was one of those journeys that I didn’t think I’d end up here and somehow, I’m here and then along the way I met Paul too so that’s when our paths crossed. Shelli Varela: Right. So, your membership now and I’ll get to you in just one second, Paul, but just so everybody knows your membership is what? Just so people understand. Melissa Pruitt: So, it’s Instaposts and what it is it’s daily prompts that really allow people to create content on their Instagram account that reflects their business and their brand. A lot of times the biggest question that I get, people know that they want to use social media to connect with their people, but they just don’t know what to say. So, that’s what Instaposts does and it’s based on the psychological knowledge that I have with really connecting with people at the heart, really allowing them to give them insight into your life and also position yourself as that authority figure because I think that’s the hardest part for a lot of us is that we feel like we’re bragging a lot of times about what we do, but when we really position ourselves, we let people know that we have their back, that we have their best interest in mind, that we’re there for them. So, with the content that people create through Instaposts, they can actually create this for their own audiences on Instagram and that can lead to relationships, that can lead to clients, that can lead to future opportunities. People are loving what they’re creating because they’re actually using social media as a tool to create relationships. Shelli Varela: I love it. And I am going to completely unwrap that in a minute. But I want to give Paul, I wanted to give you a chance to give us your story. Where did you come from? And how did you end up here with Melissa working on this incredible project? Paul Pruitt: Yeah, it’s interesting. We just have totally different journeys. So, I actually grew up in an addiction household so it’s something like I remember begging for food as a child, my sister and I going house-to-house. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the silver spoon or anything like that but I have to say, fortunately, maybe decisions I made in my life, the risk that I’ve taken in business actually allowed me to do these things because of that background. And it’s something like when I was in seven years old, I actually was at a yard sale and I bought a camera, and I thought it was really, really cool and I just tinkered with it. And who would have known like years later as an adult, I would actually use that camera to help me get out of a huge business failure that I just went through and reinvent myself as a photographer. So, in between those two points, I was right out of high school. I went into real estate. I did very, very well in that world as an agent for a few years. And then after that point, I became an owner and I actually built one office, 16 agents into eight offices, over 200 agents. Sixteen employees ranked 83 in the world with Century 21 Corporation. Shelli Varela: Wow. Paul Pruitt: Peak of my life. I mean, who could imagine like I was a busboy like less than 10 years before that but I was an absentee owner. I traveled around United States, I was teaching people marketing and sales, tens of thousands of people a year within different real estate companies. And then I got a call on February 4, 2008 that shattered my world and that’s when I found out that a family member stole over $600,000 out of our company, including the escrow account. So, my life imploded in 2008 and that’s actually when I reinvented myself as a photographer. I had to take all those skill sets but I went from on top of the world, like living a multi-million-dollar-a-year lifestyle to being homeless, living in the truck that used to put the signs in New York. I was living in the back half of that for a couple weeks until a friend of mine heard about it and I started hanging out on his couch until I could afford to reinvent myself. So, it’s just interesting going through this process. Now, Melissa does Instaposts and we both together actually have a high-level membership which is Dream 100 and really, that’s based on how you approach my real estate company and my agents. I actually hate offices. I didn’t have an office. I actually went and talked to all my agents on a daily basis, sat down with them at their desk, looked at them eye-to-eye and said, “Hey, what are you struggling with right now? What can I do to help you move the needle?” and it’s like even though it’s group, you know, because a lot of people could pop in and out, it was like one-on-one attention which a lot of people don’t get these days. So, I’m really blessed with. Shelli Varela: I really love the synergy of all of the tentacles that you guys have had out into the world that basically culminated in the exact perfect thing that you were meant to do. So, I just wanted to ask a few questions about your backgrounds and how that led you to Instaposts and what you’re doing now because like your backgrounds were perfectly tailored to do what you were doing what you’re doing right now. So, if I may ask you, Paul, and so here’s what I’m interested in for those who are listening. You know, so many people are wondering like what’s my thing? What happens if I’ve had something in my life that’s happened that seems to be tragic? How do I overcome that? What was it about photography for you? And if I can relay that to the audience, what is it about the things that they love or the things that you loved about photography? So, you’re on top of the world, you’ve got it all figured out, your life is clicking along tickety-boo, you’re writing your own ticket, boom, it explodes, like that happens to so many of us. The one thing that you said that I drew on was you went back to photography. Was there something about photography? Because when you first introduced us to you finding that camera at the yard sale, was there something about going back to the truth of what was healing for you? Or what was familiar for you as a boy having the camera and having the escape and learning that skill? Was there something about that for you that was kind of like a full-circle moment with respect to what am I going to do with my life? How am I going to build from nothing now and move forward? And asking yourself that internal question like, all of us, you know, the audience will have this story going on as well. What do I love? Like what do I love, what’s true, and what can I go back to if I have to start again? Paul Pruitt: Exactly. I think this goes a little bit before my time that my family even though I was born in that family of addiction, my father was a guitar player, he was an artist himself and he never had a nine to five job. He was always working gigs. And as a child good, bad, or indifferent, I was the young child that was hiding in the kitchen of these bars when he was playing a lot like I remember a lot of flashes of that. So, the art side especially because I’m a junior, there was a high expectation that my family that Paul Jr. is going to pick up the guitar and he’s going to be the next big thing type thing. And before I was born, my father had a – he was a lead guitar player for Bill Haley in The Comets and he traveled around the United States and that was his little mini claim to fame. That was after they cut records and everything in the 50s and 60s, but it’s just something like that, that was like that little moment. So, that’s what I knew growing up that even though I didn’t see him a lot like that, that was there and that kind of planted the seed in me I think to find something that I enjoy, that I love doing. So, when I had the camera, I had no clue what I was doing. Like it was a ton of gear, I have a lot of buttons, a lot of dials, but what I did is I just I kept with it, and I leaned into it. And that’s where my art, my escape was. So, when I was doing the things that you were supposed to do and when I was doing the real estate company, I always escaped. So, when I was making a lot of money in real estate when I was traveling and teaching, I would actually when I was up in New York and out in LA, I would actually leave a week early and I’d find somebody to mentor off of and I would actually learn photography because like there’s such an intensity. It all sounds good when you have 200 people that are under you but there’s a sense of responsibility that a lot of people just will never understand unless they have that reality. So, I needed that escape, right? So, but what happened was is when I lost everything, naturally, I looked around I said okay, well after I went through a couple of months of depression and rebalancing, like, “Hey, I worked my butt off. I got to this point. And now everything’s crumbled around me like I’m over $3 million in debt. Like what in the world can I do to reinvent myself?” And I looked around, it’s like, “Well, you know what, I have a camera, I have lighting gear, I have knowledge” because I learned from these mentors through the years because it was my escape, it was my love. So, I was like, “You know what, I need to lean into this because this is what I have right now. I have to be resourceful. I have to be resilient. I will pass this moment knowing that nothing is permanent and that I built something before out of nothing and I can do it again.” And within a couple of years, I built that into a multi-six-figure business by using the knowledge that I gained through life experience previously, and I had to say that it took me through the natural course because as I did that, just like my real estate company, what I did with Century 21 is there’s a certain point that I started teaching workshops and I started training because I just love to give and I love to help others overcome their challenges. Because my entire life has always been about resilience. It’s always been about taking risks, is where I am at right now as a child. It’s not where I want it to be so I had to know how to learn to survive and to do things that most people aren’t willing to do. And when you look at the worst-case scenario, it’s normally not that bad. And once you understand that, it allows you then to get out of your bubble out of your comfort zone and like take a leap that you might not have ever taken when you really assess the worst-case scenario. So, I just leaned into what I love. And I have to say doing a double full circle because when you’re doing what you love for a living and you have to survive off of it, it does change the relationship of that thing. And so, it’s something like as time progressed, we’ve actually just recently closed our photography business because we’re leaning fully into as you were saying earlier, once and I am naturally done and that is actually help others so in order for us to lean into that. Now, what I’m excited about is I’m going to go back to photography for fun again. Shelli Varela: Oh, beautiful. Paul Pruitt: That is a double, you know. Shelli Varela: Well, I love this, Paul, because you’re like the consummate phoenix rising and for all of us out there like just because we experienced a setback or we’re not sure or we don’t know or we can’t see the whole path like you seem to have this reoccurring theme where it’s like, “Well, why not? Well, why not? Well, what is true for me and how can I take my passion about what I’m interested in and turn it into a business?” So, for those of us listening, there’s a difference between something that’s true, and the truth. And when you listen to your own truth, it will always lead you on a path that is inflow, that is meaningful, and that has you doing work that you love that feels effortless. But I really love though the partnership of the two of you because, as you know, I’m a storyteller and it’s cool because Instagram is such a visual platform but story is both what you see and also what you feel. And I like to say like story is art for the soul. So, you have visual art is art you can see. You have audible art like music that you can hear but story is like, it’s not what you see and it’s not what you hear. It’s how you feel and it feels like hope. And so, I love that you’re providing that for your clients. And when you mesh Melissa, your story into it, when I’m working with clients, often what they’ll say is, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say,” but I love that because of your background combined with Paul’s ability to know what works visually, really, this is a home run because there is a certain science to getting under the hood of what makes your audience tick. So, would you be able to speak to that with respect to you like your psychology background? Or how people work or what makes, you know, what is the connective tissue that really binds your clients to their audience? Melissa Pruitt: At the end of the day, it really is all about relationships because as human beings we are craving to connect, we’re craving to feel like we’re understood, and we’re heard. So, we can do that with our social media account and Instagram is just such a great way to do that. Because how I teach, it’s not just about putting the content out there and posting like a pretty picture or posting something just that’s happening that’s just totally random, but actually having like you’re saying that story behind it. So, you can post that photo but then have like a really great story experience. And what happens is that when you tell stories and you’ve probably experienced this as well, when you tell stories and you really paint the picture of what’s going on that story, you use all your senses about who, what, when, where, why, and how. It actually brings the people into your story. It brings them almost into a trance and then they start to think about, “Oh, my gosh, I had the same type of experience. So, they’re experiencing the story with you as you’re telling your story but then they’re relating it to their own life.” And that just builds a deeper connection, a deeper level of understanding that they feel understood and heard and then that’s where that dialogue happens. And Instagram is such a great way where it’s not just about putting the content out there to put it out there but it’s also about creating that two-way dialogue back and forth. That’s where the relationship happens. And we all know that relationships are the key to having any type of successful business, not just client relationships but relationships that can lead to collaborations, amazing friendships, business opportunities, but it all starts with that conversation. And you can tell that story again by bringing people into it really being descriptive and posting meaningful, engaging content so that people really feel that sense of understanding and it just takes it to a whole other level. [ANNOUNCEMENT] Stu McLaren: So many people in all kinds of niche markets are leveraging their existing knowledge and influence and they’re transforming it into passive monthly income. This isn’t luck. This is a repeatable formula for producing a growing subscription income and if thousands of others can do it, you can too. To find out what type of membership site would be right for your business, visit GetTRIBEGuide.com. Go to GetTRIBEGuide.com and download it today. You’re awesome! [INTERVIEW] Shelli Varela: I could not agree with you more. I really love what you’re doing. I will share with you a couple of years ago I gave myself a 30-day Instagram challenge. I think I put it on Facebook too but Instagram was my main deal. And I didn’t know what to say. I kind of turned it into this game and I would call them brain gems. Every day for 30 days I was going to post something and I was experiencing the same thing at the beginning that you’re saying that your clients experienced. It’s like, well, I don’t want to seem like I’m bragging about myself and I don’t really know what to say but it was just like one of those rip it moments. It’s like, “Well, whatever, I’m just going to do it.” So, I did and I got more traction from these silly little videos but I was posting regularly. So, you know, to your point, you’re building a relationship with the people on the other side of that Instagram story but something magical happens when they start to interact. So, not only are you building a relationship and potential working partnership or whatever that ends up looking like, it also changes your analytics because now people are responding to you. I really love the way that you’re giving people the keys to the kingdom. Because when you give somebody not a template, but some guidance with respect to, “Hey, like I’m going to help you post. I’m going to help you connect with your audience in a super deep and meaningful way.” It’s like when you tell a good story or when you know how your audience is feeling, you know, for anybody listening out there, Melissa and Paul will help you with this, it’s sometimes can feel odd to talk about ourselves all the time. And we’re like, “No, I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant.” But here’s the thing that’s actually happening and you guys are brilliant at this. Your audience will hear your story but feel theirs through your story. So, if anybody out there is saying, “Well, you know, I’m not really sure.” You guys are masters at this in allowing the people you serve to interact with their audience in the way that’s super emotional and connective because they’re actually seeing themselves in the story of your clients. Melissa Pruitt: You’re absolutely right with that and that’s the best way to connect with people and bring that to a whole other level of understanding and depth to the relationship. Shelli Varela: What has been the most rewarding part of this? What is the best piece of feedback that you have received from the people that you work with? Melissa Pruitt: You know, I love all the wins. Honestly, one of my favorite wins is someone that just reaches out to me and says, “I just did my first post today. And I was scared to death. I went on a story and I did a video and even though they think that’s just like this little thing, it’s not such a big deal, that’s huge.” I mean, putting yourself out there and talking about your story and sharing with people who you are, that is what I love to celebrate is people just taking that next step. And what I tell people is that it doesn’t have to be these crazy things that you do, like this long, long content plan. Really at the end of the day, it’s just what are you going to do for your audience today to give them value? And what’s that one thing that you can do to give them value? And value can be, it can be a teaching tip but value could also be inspiration, motivation, a recommendation. It doesn’t have to be this crazy thing that has to be about your business all the time because at the end of the day, people want to do business with people that they like, know, and trust. So, you’re building rapport through Instagram and you can do that by sharing stories about your business, sharing stories about your personal life, and just giving value whatever that one thing is. That would be the one takeaway for anyone. Just do one thing where you can give value to someone and just do that every day, you’re going to build that relationship. Shelli Varela: I agree with you 1,000% like it can be so simple. Sometimes the connective point is saying, you know, showing how you’re not cool that day or you’re not having a good day or something ridiculous happened because inevitably your audience is going, “I’m also not cool.” Melissa Pruitt: I love that. Shelli Varela: So, it’s a connection point, right? But I just really love like the synergy of how you two come together because if anybody listening right now you’re thinking of doing these posts and having this increase in your Instagram and the relationships with your audience, it’s almost like it’s twofold. There’s two stages and one is the post that you make and the relationships that you create which are paramount, but the other piece and, Melissa, this is where your genius is with your psychology background, the person who is making the post is a human being who maybe is scared or maybe it’s apprehensive or maybe is doubtful. And what a genius combination of being able to not only allow somebody to help their clients but also help the human that has to take that public platform and help them through what they’re experiencing, what they’re feeling. Melissa Pruitt: Absolutely. It just makes you so much more relatable and makes you more a real and at the end of the day, that’s what we all crave. We crave those real relationships, taking it from not being to the shallow relationship, but more depth of the relationship and to that next level. Shelli Varela: Absolutely. And I just wanted to get back to Mr. Paul Pruitt, the phoenix rising. Can you share with us a little bit more you guys about your Dream 100? Because here’s where I think this is paramount and pivotal. There is something about both of you, and specifically the story that you told, Paul, whereby somebody said something about Donald Trump once and I guess he’s been bankrupt more times than not and he has reinvented and recreated himself so many times, it’s almost like his set point is set to he sees who he’s being in the world as somebody who’s wealthy. I’m wondering if you can share with us what it is about you and your mindset that is, it just is different because you’ve recreated this again and again. And now you have the ability to offer not only your skill sets to your Dream 100 but also that insight into that success mindset that you have, you know, I would argue more than most people. Paul Pruitt: Yeah. I tell you what, they say success leaves clues and it’s also patterns of repetitive habits that either slowly take you on track or slowly sabotage you on a daily basis. And the interesting thing, and I call it cycling, and I know a lot of people that have been through large successes and then have a loss and having to start over, they look at it as a cycle. You come in with a fresh set of eyes that you didn’t have before. You come in with that knowledge because you know how we all say like, “Oh, if I was my 20-year-old self and I knew what I knew now, what’s the same thing in business? Like when you get a chance to kind of hit the reset button and you go in, you come in with all that expertise and all that experience, it’s like the matrix. You can kind of see what’s going on type thing. And so, for us, though, with Dream 100, this is, again, it’s modeled very, very similarly to my real estate company like this is a direct connection. Like, people, it could be online or offline. We focus mostly with online, those that are trying to sell info products or memberships or courses and things these days, because we were doing a little bit of both, but there’s different needs in both spaces. We can definitely help out on both. But what happens is that everybody goes and buys that $2,000 product or that the course of membership. What happens is then they go somewhere else and get the next thing but then there’s gaps in between. And on the outside, we can see the gaps because we’ve done this, we play this game over and over again for ourselves. We were able to lean in to different businesses and make them with my background at either multimillion-dollar businesses over and over again using the same methodologies and/or multi-six-figure businesses, and it’s just something like it’s a repetitive pattern of success. And it really comes down for us to have that outside view that to be a little bit more of a direct connection where these members, they have the opportunity like I do office hour three times a week, you know, two hours on Monday, two hours on Wednesday, and two hours on Friday. So, I’m only like a Zoom call away and we used to call these God minutes in the real estate company. It’s where I would sit down in the conference room at one of my offices, and one of the agents would pop their head in the door and say, “Hey, Paul, you got a minute?” And I would say, “Sure, sure. Come and sit down. What do you have?” Boom, “I could help you out with the problem that you have right now that’s like paralyzing you and then allows you to have that for progress and move ahead, and you’re not waiting.” Because a lot of things these days, the course and everything it’s like one-directional. While there is some great support out there, there’s not really a direct connection for somebody that has the expertise and knowledge to know how to bridge those gaps, you know, and that’s really important on our end. So, Melissa actually does weekly progress calls every Monday as well so she’s there for all the members. And what we do is it’s just that one to three items, depending on how big or small those rocks are just focusing on those for that week and the check-in on the last week’s items, if anything was a block that you need to talk through. So, that way we’re there guiding everybody. And again, I just have a different background where I had a vested interest in all my agents like if they didn’t perform, not only did they not make money, I didn’t make money. So, it’s just something like I come from a different background with training that I have a vested interest in all of our members and that’s how I’ve done this through my entire life. So, I think that’s why we have a very, very high retainment. We have not publicly like put this out in a big launch and almost every single person has stayed on board. And what’s cool about Dream 100, we’ll never go above 100 people. So, we’re at 50 firm and you know, as one or two people might turn out naturally, we have that many or more that are coming in at any point in time, just by result of us having these deeper conversations, them seeing us and seeing us walk our talk which is very, very, very important I think these days. Shelli Varela: What is the ultimate success that you would hope for somebody walking in the door who perhaps their business looks like this? It looks like I’m trying to post regularly, I’m overwhelmed with all of the moving pieces and things to do. You know, they come and they hear about Paul and Melissa, they walk into your ecosystem. What is your ultimate perfect goal for that client walking in the door? What does their transformation look like? Melissa Pruitt: So, at least for me, one of the ends is okay, you’re trying to eat the entire buffet, what can we delete? Because really, what we want to do is at the end of the day, is we want to create a sustainable, profitable business that actually serves your family and your life. So, a lot of people are just caught up in the workaholism and the constant chase of learning and they’re never in that implementation phase. They’re never in that action-oriented phase. So, it’s getting them to slow down for a moment and to delete things that are actually not essential, not important. So, that we can decrease the stress streamline. So, they basically make more money with less effort and less time is the main focus. That way the business is actually serving the life and lifestyle that they want versus the reverse is where we normally catch people without burning out and we’re trying to do all the things. Shelli Varela: And I’ll echo that same question to you, Melissa, that same person walks in the door and they’re feeling a certain kind of way and they maybe don’t know what to post and they’re maybe not sure of themselves as a business person or as somebody who is creating a public profile and they’re the public profile. What would that transformation look like on your end of the business? Melissa Pruitt: I think for them, it would be the fact of them having that confidence that they are an expert in what they do, that they do have value to give. And again, like I said, some people have a hard time with that because they don’t think, “Who am I to say that I’m an expert? Who am I to say that I can help?” But we all have unique experiences and things that we have happened in our life, people that we’ve worked with that makes us the expert in our field. So, owning that and knowing the bias, you know, putting ourselves in front of the camera and doing that Instagram story, sharing that value, sharing that funny story, sharing that teaching point, that you’re impacting someone’s life, that you are truly making a difference. And doing that on a consistent basis over time, again, that’s building relationships that position you not only as the expert, but you’re helping people and you’re making a much bigger impact. Even the people that aren’t saying anything, I like to call those the lurkers. The lurkers, they get so much value from us because they’re the ones that are watching in the background, but they’re getting so much value and they’re the ones that later on when you meet in person are going to be like, “Thank you so much for doing that. That really just made such a difference in my day.” But it’s us owning the fact that we have this ability within ourselves and putting ourselves out there each and every day to share that value and what we have to give to make that impact. Shelli Varela: I will echo that. The people that are listening quietly in the background, you will be shocked by the depth of what you’re saying means to them. And also how many there are so for those days that you’re posting and you feel like you’re screaming into an empty room, just know that what you call lurkers they’re out there and they need you like they need you to, you know, show up regularly and to drop those gems because people are listening. You guys are amazing. I just wanted to thank you so much for taking the time to hang with us. If people are looking to reach you online and to work with you, where is the best place they can find you? Melissa Pruitt: So, if people want to find out about Instaposts, it’s Instaposts.com, but on social, you can find me at Real Melissa Pruitt. I’m on Facebook and Instagram and I love it when people shoot me a DM, just a message and say hi, who they are. So, shoot me a message and they can reach out to me that way. Paul Pruitt: Yeah. And on my end, it’s also Real Paul Pruitt. And if they just reach out and again we’re all about this. This is less about high tech and it’s about high touch. We have set our business up not to scale to fail. So, it’s just something like this is all about real relationships, going back to where we all were less than 10 years ago before multi-billion dollar social media companies convinced us otherwise. So, we’re very approachable. And I think that’s one thing that people know about us is that while it’s a live event, that’s how we connected on a deeper level, as well as online that we were not looking at people as numbers. We’re looking that behind every screen there’s a human being. And that’s how we like to be treated. That’s how we treat everybody we come in contact with. Shelli Varela: I love it. And I adore you guys. Thank you so much for your time. Paul Pruitt: Thank you for the opportunity. Melissa Pruitt: Thank you. [CLOSING] Stu McLaren: I hope you love that story. It’s amazing, right? That’s what It’s a TRIBE Thing is all about. So many people in all kinds of niche markets are leveraging their existing knowledge and influence and they’re transforming it into passive monthly income. Listen, this isn’t luck. There’s a repeatable formula for producing a growing subscription income and each week we’re going behind the scenes to show you exactly how they did it. Get the latest stories and actionable ideas from each episode at www.ItsaTRIBEThing.com and if you know one other person who could benefit from this, tell them to subscribe. Tell them to go to ItsaTRIBEThing.com.
[END]
To learn more and get access to all episodes, visit our podcast page!