The Story Is the Strategy: In Email and On Stage with Mike Pacchione

Hey there, welcome to Happy Subscribers, a podcast that explores how bloggers and content creators can create more purposeful relationships with your audience through email marketing. I’m Ali Grimert, email marketing strategist, copywriter, email platform expert, and founder of the Done For You Email Marketing Agency, Duet. I started as a personal finance blogger in 2016 and have since helped hundreds of bloggers and creators like you maximize your email marketing for more impact, more traffic, and a better connection with your subscribers. Be prepared for some advanced email talk as well.

as tactical tips to help get your valuable content into the hands of your audience faster and easier. I’m excited you’re here, so let’s do it. We can create a deeper, more meaningful connection with the community you love and serve through email.

Guys, I’m so excited. Today, my friend Mike Pacquillon is here with me today on the podcast. He’s one of my good online business friends. And I’m sure you’ll be able to tell that we’re friends because I think bantering is our love language. He is a speaker and a speaker coach who I’ve had the privilege of hearing on stage more than once, as well as a plethora of people that he has coached at the Kraft and Commerce stage, as well as I’m sure others at this point I don’t even know. I’m like,

He’s probably touched by Mike Pacquillon, that that their speech. so over a decade in the game, Mike has presented to five people, a thousand people, and all sorts of things in between. He is a sucker for a well-told story as humans. I believe that we all are, and Mike would agree. And he cares about helping his speaking clients find their story and refine it into a message that gets results. And

Not to brag, I’m gonna brag for him. His plaint list includes Olympic gold medalists, New York Times bestselling authors, global corporations, big names on big stages, but also small names on small stages with stories that open big doors. So I’m so excited that you’re here with me, Mike.

Mike Pacchione (02:10)
nice one. Let’s do it. what I did there? Did you hear what I did there?

Allea Grummert (02:12)
Let’s do that.

Yes, I did. y’all, so I’ve known Mike since Craft and Commerce twenty twenty three, which feels like forever ago. I look, I’m like, was I a baby? I feel so like that was a long time ago. I moved twelve hours away. And so I actually spoke at a mastermind where I knew maybe one person in the room and I think it was Nathan Berry.

Mike Pacchione (02:25)
Three houses ago for me.

Well,

and I I remember I could tell that you didn’t know anybody and I remember watching you present and one of the like I didn’t know what your speaking background was, right? But like one of the traps that people fall into is if people aren’t like laughing, like proactively laughing, or giant smiles on their face, when you’re the speaker on stage, if you don’t see one of those two things, if you don’t know any better, it’s easy to feel like I’m messing up. And I remember looking around the room and people are like

nodding along and feverishly taking notes, but nobody’s having like this real giant reaction. I remember thinking and well, I remember hoping that Allie knew that she was doing well, even though it wasn’t nobody’s like cutting you off to applaud. But that’s that’s because everything you were saying was helpful and we’re too busy trying to take notes on what you’re saying. So anyway, I’m I’m cutting off your intro but that just

Allea Grummert (03:31)
The intro is done. We’re in full conversation mode. That’s the conversation listeners where if you listen to Justin Moore, who was just on the podcast, he was like sitting front and center with this huge smile. Like not taking like his whole job was to make sure that I knew he was listening. Because the rest of literally like maybe three feet right in front of me. Like he is all eyes, all smiles, but literally the whole room. And of course, that’s what I do, like my self deprecating, like.

Mike Pacchione (03:48)
I was in the back, I didn’t know.

Allea Grummert (04:00)
Ha, I hope this lands, guys. Like anybody wanna laugh at my jokes? And they’re all like, No, we’re writing notes. But I remember Mikey, you told me ’cause the c the talk was about seven common email marketing mistakes for seven figure creators. Was it you? Or maybe it was Jeremy.

Mike Pacchione (04:15)
No,

it was probably me. You’re about to talk about the the the part where you click and you’re like, Does your does that page look like this? I was like, she did that perfectly. Do you know what I’m talking about? Is that not what you were about to say?

Allea Grummert (04:29)
Yeah.

Well, it’s not what I was gonna say, but it is just like, here’s an opportunity. Are you you probably you haven’t done this? And so many people were like, No. I think it was Jerby Enns that came up and he was like, I’m making six out of seven of these mistakes, actually. So, but that’s that was a sweet time for me to get to know so many additional creators and being part of the same mastermind since then has been really, really sweet. So grateful for your friendship.

Mike Pacchione (04:43)
I I was checked in my house.

Allea Grummert (04:59)
Well, welcome to Happy Subscribers. This is where we talk about email marketing. How do you how do you feel about email marketing, Mike?

Mike Pacchione (05:09)
I remember when I was starting my business, I had worked with some copywriters, like full on copywriters, like Tarzan Kay, I don’t know if you know her, and Laura Belgrade a little bit. And so they they had so much personality in their emails and I was like, I can’t wait. And sometimes I can’t wait to write emails, and then other times I’m like freaking I need to send something out.

And I mean, you and I have talked about some of this stuff before. But like email’s a little bit of a quandary for me. Sometimes I’m like, what am I doing? Like why am I doing this? I

Yeah, there I don’t know. What am I trying to say here? I work with two different tiers of clients, basically. Like one is is pretty premium level. And to my knowledge, I’ve never had a premium level and when I say premium, I just mean the cost, not the quality of person. Like I’ve never had a premium level person reach out to me based on email, or at least they didn’t phrase it that way.

Allea Grummert (06:17)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Pacchione (06:19)
So then there’s another level, and again, I’m just talking about price point. that I do email and there is like there definitely is evidence that it’s worth my time. But I like I never know which emails are gonna hit. I sent one a few weeks ago, like you wrote back, a bunch of people wrote back, and I was I was like, people are writing back to this? Why is this the one?

Allea Grummert (06:42)
Yeah. Guys, I’m just gonna go ahead and pitch Mike’s email list right now because he tells the best stories. It feels like you’re gonna hear this podcast and then you’re gonna read his email and you’re gonna be like, yep, that’s the same person. Like it just sounds it sounds like Mike. when especially because you have such a skill of telling stories on stage and engaging people, the way that you do that in email is anything but boring. Like you’ve got the line breaks, you’ve got the commentary with the quotations, you drop in images.

And like you are you are in the story. And sometimes I just want to scroll to the end and be like, How does this apply? Where is he going with this? And so and then I’ll go back up and read it again. Be like, Okay, okay, now I know now I know where he’s going with this. And your stuff isn’t really like necessarily a hard sell. It’s like hard sell towards an idea more than it is a service, would you say?

Mike Pacchione (07:33)
Wait, I don’t I don’t understand your question.

Allea Grummert (07:35)
Like is the call to action. Like click here to book a call.

Mike Pacchione (07:39)
see, now we’re gonna deconstruct things and I’m gonna realize I’m still making some of these mistakes, aren’t I? I I think I do often force people to get to the end to take action, which I think if someone gets there is great. I mean I write long emails. Like I don’t I don’t probably it’s not what you would recommend, right? Like my emails are usually eight hundred thousand words long.

Allea Grummert (07:44)
Fine.

I mean I’m the queen of do whatever does whatever works for you and your audience. But I’m just

Mike Pacchione (08:10)
Like that’s not the playbook, right? Like I think it’s a good 800 to a thousand words, but that’s not the playbook. And yeah, anyway, I did now I forget what your question was, Eden. Everybody looks saying this is me. I think in waves, I don’t think sequential.

Sometimes this happens. But to to answer to answer the question I think you were asking, yeah, I mean I’m usually just like press reply if you want to talk about this. Or press reply if you have press reply. That’s not a button. Click reply right back if you have a question or if you wanna be involved in the next round of speech club. Like I’ll I’ll say things like that.

Allea Grummert (08:47)
Yeah. Yeah. What what have you seen that does work? Have you do you have trends of what re like let’s talk about speech club because that’s your lower tier, lower price offer? Yeah. What kind of response do you get from your list in regards to that?

Mike Pacchione (09:03)
Okay, there was the the pandemic when I say the pandemic year, I mean the the year like everybody was coming out of it. So I guess it would have been twenty twenty one. Was the only time I wrote an email that was like a full on

persuasive argument for taking speech club. I mean it was like, hey, everybody’s been stuck inside for two years. Everybody wants to go to events. Everybody wants to host events. You know what would be smart is if you had a speech ready to go for the fall. And we did a summer speech club. And that one was like everybody wrote back. I’m usually taking a more casual approach. I don’t one of the feelings I don’t love is when someone signs up for speech. So everybody speech clubs, my my cohort

where you build out an unforgettable signature talk and you do that over a twelve week period.

Once in a while there’s someone who and and like you have to talk to me. Like it’s not just click to buy. Like you have to talk to me. I need to make sure that it’s a good fit, et cetera, et cetera. Once in a while there’s someone who is a good fit theoretically and then just doesn’t follow through and that’s the worst feeling for me. Not the worst, but it’s it’s not a good feeling for me. And

Anyway, because of that

Because outside of twenty twenty twenty one, there hasn’t been a like worldwide like you should speak on stage. I’m trying to do it more at people’s schedules. So I’ve done less of an overt persuasive you should do this right now. Now I say that. Here’s something really interesting that happened yesterday, Allie. I wrote just a short email. So so we’re starting speech called tomorrow. A woman dropped out last minute. And I’m like

Let me just send an email to my list. And there’s like no usual mic personality. There’s no me equating the shoes I had in sixth grade to some broader speaking lesson. Like it is full on just like, hey, a woman dropped out of this.

Allea Grummert (11:08)
You went in?

Mike Pacchione (11:09)
We are starting very soon. If you fit these three bullet points, you should write back, and I’ll send you a loom for more information. And I send this on a Sunday, and I’m like, maybe somebody’s gonna write back. And I got like eight people replying, and I’m like, wait a minute, what? Like this? So anyway, we’re we’re still filtering that out, but it does make me realize that.

I pro like not every single email probably needs to be as clever as I wanna make it. Like sometimes it’s just like, dude, here’s what speech club is. Here’s why I should do it. If you don’t wanna do it, there’ll be another story like story driven email next week. You know what I mean? Like that was my realization.

Allea Grummert (11:52)
Yeah. That’s what it had me thinking about like these story driven emails. Like in the end, like what I what I’m getting away from those as a reader is just like I’m hearing from Mike. I get to hear his personality and his voice in my inbox. Get to hear your expertise and the way you tie in story to have some sort of meaning. And so for me it’s the those are nurture emails more than anything. Whereas I think what gets tricky, and I know you and I have talked about this, is like when

when to turn on the sales dial for a launch, it gets really tricky because you’re like, I don’t want people to feel like I’m selling to them. When in reality, it’s like, I have this thing, it’s gonna help you do this. Cause right, you and I’ve talked about speech club, like, gosh, a couple of years ago, because I’d considered it, but I had so many other things I need to figure out first. But I was like, if this is what I get, at the end of 12 weeks, I’ve had an expert help me create a speech that is like my keynote remarkable speech to just run with for the next year and like

Be in front of new audiences, that’s a really sweet deal. And it doesn’t require a ton of but who is Mike? And like, can I trust him? Because that’s already been built in through those other emails and other interactions.

Mike Pacchione (13:02)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think

I think it’s part Al, you know what it is? It’s partially like e email’s kind of a release for me. You know, it’s almost like it’s not journaling, but it’s in the same part of my brain as journaling, right? So it it’s fun to write those stories. And then sometimes I’m like, that’s a good story. What the heck could I tie it into? You know? and it would behoove me to just shoot for like a three to one balance, something like that.

Cause there are people that I I admire their emailing because it’s it’s it’s sales and they don’t disguise that it’s sales, but it’s not you have to do this in the next ten minutes or else. Or else some fabricated thing is gonna happen. Right. You know, like I I ha I’m on a few lists with people like that. And I always feel I I think my my my concern what’s the what’s the word I’m looking for? My feeling is like

There’s no bait and switch there. And I and I I don’t want to be bait and switch, but I could do three to one. Like that’s not a big deal. If someone’s gonna drop out from that, it’s like okay.

Allea Grummert (14:18)
There’s three to one. So back in when I was learning copywriting, the rule of thumb was three to one, you know, value add to a sales email. But here’s the thing you’re you’re oftentimes not in launch mode. Right. So you’re just sending value all the time. And so it’s kind of like for every three emails, you earn a sales email. Doesn’t mean you have to send that sales email as your fourth email. So you’re just like, okay, so I’m sending eight weeks of nurture emails, and then for two weeks you just get to promote speech club.

And then what I’m thinking about, Mike, because those emails, I mean, you can keep them as simple as possible, like what you just sent, but like we have a this is what we need, this is who we’re looking for, we have this many spots left. You can write those one time and just reuse them. Yes every time you do the cart promo. This is so true. And then what you can do is you oop, we’ve moved into coaching. You cool with that? Can I just tell you what to do?

Mike Pacchione (15:05)
Yes, it’s true.

Allea Grummert (15:15)
Like and then and then and then. But of course what you’ll do is you’ll exclude anybody from the launch emails who’s already gone through speech club or is like one of your premium clients, they don’t need to see it. But then you could always include a link that’s saying just saying like is now not the best time for speech club, click here and I’ll wait to send you an announcement until it opens again. And so when you get to like exclude those people, but still get to send it to everyone else.

Mike Pacchione (15:40)
Yes. These are things I’ve forgotten about as I’ve gotten busier and busier.

Allea Grummert (15:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, I I say that ’cause I have a client, her name is Sarah, and I wrote a six email campaign. Well, I wrote I’ve written a few campaigns for her. one for a boot camp actually. So it was probably more emails, more like sales funneled to a webinar, perhaps. It’s been a long time, but she reuses it like every six months. And she sends it to the people who’ve been on her list for like the last year.

Mike Pacchione (16:11)
Let me ask you a question.

Allea Grummert (16:13)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Pacchione (16:15)
Do you have a as you’re saying that, one of the things to think about, I take great pride okay, so twenty nineteen, I was on Ian Kron’s typology podcast. There were this is insane what I’m about to tell you to tell you. I put together an Enneagram guide for public speaking. And this is like the Enneagram’s the hottest thing in the world at the time.

Allea Grummert (16:40)
Yeah it is.

Mike Pacchione (16:42)
twenty five hundred people from that podcast that signed up for my email list. Now I haven’t I haven’t looked at this in a little while, but as of maybe like eight months ago, like more than half of them are still on the list, which is kinda insane, right?

Allea Grummert (16:47)
Love this.

Yeah.

Mike Pacchione (16:57)
But I need to this is me coaching myself right now. Not everybody’s been on the list for that long. So d do you have I guess my question is, do you have when you’re coaching people, do you have like a a rule of thumb for how often you need to remind your audience who you are? Does that question make sense?

Allea Grummert (17:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it does. I mean, how part so many, so many variables. Part of it matters like how long you’ve how consistently you’ve been emailing them. Like if you went dark for two years and then came back in with a pitch for sp Speech Club, like they’re gonna be like, who the heck is this? So they but if you’ve been consistent in who you are, you know, and how you’re

Emailing them and you’re you’re keeping it, it’s always about speaking, right? So when I get an email from Mike Pacillon, I know it’s about speaking. Like there’s a consistency there that makes it hard for them to confuse what you’re what you’re about. that being said, there’s always I think it might be fun to do like a little like list rewarming or reintroduction if you want. Like I write welcome sequence for clients.

We announce it to their list, their existing list, saying, Hey, we have this new welcome sequence. Do you wanna know more about what went into the blog and resources or top recipes or whatnot, click here and we’ll send it to you as well. Or just keep an eye on it. It’s coming. Right. So I’m used to saying like, hey, old audience, do you wanna see kind of the new lens of how the business is being run? But you can do something like that where you’re like, hey, over the next week, I’m just gonna do a reintroduction to who I am. And what’s cool, because I know you’re in kit.

You can with those people being tagged, you can use conditional content and speak directly to them just with their own paragraph. Like, hey, back in 2019, you followed along with me from Ian Crohn’s podcast. I’m so glad that you’ve stuck around. And then you go into the rest of it. But nobody else will see that unless they have that tag.

Hey there, has the Curiosity of Kit just been gnawing at you? And you’re finally ready to check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you and your email service platform needs? Well, lucky for you, I am close with the Kit team and I have an affiliate link that actually gets you a 30-day free access to the creator level plan, which they have a free plan, they have a pro plan, and this one’s right in the middle. It’s the one that I use and highly recommend all the time.

So before you totally commit to moving, log in, see if you like it. I bet you will. And in order to get this link and to sign up for this plan for free, go to duet.co slash kit du e t t dot co slash k I T and sign up for my free email course called Kit from Scratch. And it will redirect right away to my affiliate link so you can get those 30 days of access right away.

Mike Pacchione (19:57)
Okay. My confession is I never do any of the tag stuff that you would tell me to do.

Allea Grummert (20:02)
Okay. How do you know those twenty five hundred people or whoever’s left? How do you know who they are?

Mike Pacchione (20:07)
because the I might get that vocabulary wrong here, but the initial form or the initial download they had.

Allea Grummert (20:14)
Yep. The form. Yeah. Yeah. So all you do is you go in and you select all who came in through that form. You add a tag that says Enchrone or Typology twenty nineteen. And then now they have that tag. And you can just use it w this one time. And say, Hey, all y’all. And then everybody else gets a different message.

Yeah. So instead of sending like one email to like these 2500 people and one email to all these people, you can actually build the customization within the email. But you got options. You got options. But it’s one way to be able to like personalize the content that they’re getting. I would be curious to survey that particular audience and say, Hey, have you, you know, since since you downloaded this five years ago, seven years ago, that math, math. You know, what has changed for you when it comes to speaking like

I haven’t done anything about it. it’s still on my radar, or I’ve become a speaker. Thanks so much for all your content, Mike. Leon. And you can have a poll. And each of those polls can link to a page on your site. It can link to a contact page or services page, or you can be telling them about speech club. or ask them to reply and just kind of get a feel for that audience. I’d be so curious why they downloaded it, but they haven’t taken action yet.

Mike Pacchione (21:36)
You know what else would be cool is if I just did like

These clubs for any agram.

Allea Grummert (21:43)
Yes. Love it. Even honestly, even if just your launch was specifically around speech club, Enneagram. Yeah. Language. Like this was a this was a big deal in 2019. It’s still a big deal. Like, Mike, I’m sitting here chomping the bit. I’m like, I want that. Tell me what a six needs to do. Just tell me. so like you can kind of just bring it to the surface. Share the resource again with your whole list.

Mike Pacchione (21:45)
That’d be really interesting.

Allea Grummert (22:12)
Ask them what type they are, if they’re interested in speaking, what’s holding them back, and then framing a few emails about like, if you were a three, this is what I would recommend. If you were a seven, here’s what I’d recommend. And click here to learn more about speech club. But you have to reply back to this email if you’re if you want to enroll.

Mike Pacchione (22:31)
Yeah, they had a nurture sequence that was one for each number back in the day. Right. So that was it. But yeah, you’re right. I could totally update that. That’d be fun. Sixes, by the way. Yeah, totally. I mean, just it kind of depends on what kind of six you are, but you’re not like the rebellious six, right? You’re the rule followers that the thing and I don’t mean you, Allie, but the thing that ha tends to be hard for phobic six, I think that’s the name for it. Yeah. the thing that tends to be hard there is is

Allea Grummert (22:47)
yeah.

Mike Pacchione (23:01)
Going all out, committing to the bit. most people most sixties, even just something as seemingly elementary as moving on stage feels risky, feels like someone should have told you you are allowed to move right now.

Allea Grummert (23:15)
Yeah. That makes sense.

Mike Pacchione (23:18)
So no no surprise there based on the rest of life probably, but like that’s that’s what usually is hard for people like you.

Allea Grummert (23:25)
Mm-hmm. It’s always I do move on stage, but boy, those photos afterwards, you’re like, boy, everyone had to see that? That’s what I look like on stage. Just like, yep, just a little bit of flailing. That’s fine. Everybody, that’s what you want at a conference. and some awkward like, does anyone find me funny commentary on the side? Just reached insecurity.

Mike Pacchione (23:49)
Like that’s a good example too, Allie. So you you the speaker coaches the audience on how they should react. And it’s not like a one to one, they will definitely do it this way, but you’re like if you are laughing and appearing to have fun, you’re giving the audience permission to do the same thing. And that’s usually hard for sixes because by definition of who you are, you are most likely looking to the audience for the audience to tell you like you’re doing good. You’re allowed to

Allea Grummert (24:14)
doing great. Yeah.

Yeah. Can I confess to you, more than once at the beginning of a talk when they hand me the microphone, I just start singing. It’s like a nervous tick. I’m like, Good morning, Baltimore. Yes. Yep. And I wasn’t even in Baltimore. No. I just started singing a Broadway show tune.

Mike Pacchione (24:29)
Well you just

Allea Grummert (24:35)
Wait, so

Mike Pacchione (24:35)
It’s

a real sci isn’t it? This is confusing to me.

Allea Grummert (24:39)
Mike, they handed me a microphone and out of my nerves, I was like, great, I’m gonna sing for y’all before I start my speech. I just I didn’t know how to just be cool. Just be cool and just go into the actual speech.

Mike Pacchione (24:51)
No, I don’t mind it though because because and

Ace Okay, so the battle you’re facing at the beginning, every single person in the audience is wondering, is this good? Is this person prepared? Is this gonna be a train wreck? And by singing at the beginning, like a like a truly nervous person would not do that. Now, they might then start thinking, like, is this gonna be awkward? But

That it’s not it it’s alleviating some of the fears the audience have believe it has, believe it or not.

Allea Grummert (25:24)
Because it’s happened more than once. And yeah, what can I say? I am who I am. So I’m like, you are welcome to be awkward here, audience, because I am awkward as well. So I love that. Thank you. can I ask you a speech question? For sure. No, that we’re do we’re in it. one of my biggest fears is that my talk will either be over the heads of my audience or

not be helpful enough. I always know that there’s a ton of value, but then I’m always worried, like I’m like, is it the wrong value? And am I overwhelming people?

Mike Pacchione (25:56)
Yeah.

Yeah. common fear. I am proud of you for being worried it’s gonna go over their head because most people are worried about the other one, which is I’m gonna share stuff that’s too basic. Everybody’s gonna know this already. And nobody has ever, out of all the thousands of people I’ve coached, I’ve never had someone admit this to me. But everybody is worried that they are going to seem basic. And I mean that in the in the meme

Allea Grummert (26:31)
Hmm.

Mike Pacchione (26:33)
Versus the the meme version of the word, right? Yeah. Couple ideas for you. Number one, this is where a story is the greatest thing in the world. Because people can know stuff already, but if you package it in a story, it’s different. So it’s different from just saying you should email your list every week or whatever, whatever the thing is that your word is too basic. So packaging it in a story.

And a lot of times the the key there is like surprising the audience with where you’re taking it or surprising the audience with what the conclusion is. But so I I don’t know, I don’t actually have a story that goes with this, but I’m I’m picturing for that, I’m picturing some success story where you worked with someone for X number of years and they did all these great things. And then and you’re telling that story and like it was so great to work with her and da-da-da-da.

And here’s how it all started. I had committed to sending one email a week. And when I was sending an email every three weeks, like I never heard from her. I’m obviously making this up, but like that sticks with people much better than just like this kind of Ten Commandments style of do this, do this, do this. So the other thing, the other thing you can do if you’re worried about speaking over the audience’s head or under is you can just announce the audience that you’re talking to. Nobody ever does this.

Allea Grummert (27:34)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Mike Pacchione (27:58)
But this is this is the visual I have for you. So my wife does bar three. Have you ever done bar three?

Allea Grummert (28:04)
No. But I know of it. I know what you’re talking. No, I lift weights.

Mike Pacchione (28:06)
Class, you done a spin class?

obviously, yes, that’s right.

Allea Grummert (28:12)
Obviously. So jacked.

Mike Pacchione (28:14)
Okay, so my wife says bar three. bar three, they’ve got the the main person, like the usually woman, not always, but the woman talking and saying, you know, go into Warrior Three and all these poses and things like that. And then they’ve got the people on the side who are called modifiers. And modifier one is the person who So like main person is trying to is trying to connect with the bulk of the audience, and they’ve got a modifier that’s like, This is too much for you, just follow person one.

And person two is like the the jacked part like doing push up just using a pinky and that sort of thing. So the the speech version of that, you can announce, like, let me give you something for the advanced folks. So like at the kid conference, as an example, I was talking to I’ll be curious if Katie does this this year, but I was talking to Katie Sweatmiller. So she’s the I think VP of product. I don’t know. I’m not good at remembering people’s titles, but point is she’s gonna s mainstage speak this year.

Allea Grummert (29:07)
Yeah that’s

Mike Pacchione (29:11)
And one of the things that’s always hard is, you know, she’s talking to an audience. Some people don’t use kit at all. Most people do use kit, but some people are like me and and I pay all this money and I use 3% of the capability. And then there’s the bulk of the audience, which knows a lot of the stuff, and they just announced their MCP, and that was probably exciting to people who understood what that acronym meant. And then they’re the advanced John Meese type people, like the power users, the ones who actually give

kit kit ideas on what to implement. And I told Katie, you you can’t spend the whole speech talking to John Meese. And I I don’t mean literally John, but power users. But you can say, okay, let me talk to the power users for a minute.

Allea Grummert (29:54)
Got it.

Mike Pacchione (29:56)
And that does two things. Number one, it announces to the whole audience, I know that there’s more than one audience in the room. And then number two, it gives like insane credibility to you for doing that and knowing where those people are.

Allea Grummert (30:07)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I’ve spoken at like Media Vine, they have a a premier publisher tier and they have a special event just for those publishers. And going in and saying, like, I can assume this about you. You know, even just going and saying, I understand that this is where you’re at in your business if you’re in this room and give some credibility to what I’m about to share with you is taking another level in that direction. just so that they can, you know, to the point that you said earlier of like

take a sigh of relief of like this woman’s not gonna waste our time.

Mike Pacchione (30:40)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cause it what do you think feels if you’re in the audience, what feels worse? I’m a power user and this is for people who like just learned what AI is? Or is it worse? Is the inverse of that worse? This is way over my head. I feel like an idiot.

Allea Grummert (31:05)
I don’t think that ne people necessarily feel like they’re an idiot, as much as maybe there’s an opportunity to learn. So I would say it almost feels worse to be talking under people. Maybe not. You can tell me I’m wrong. Either might suck.

Mike Pacchione (31:15)
Yeah.

Yeah. You’re

right. I think you’re right. Talking under people.

Allea Grummert (31:21)
Yeah. Cause then you’re like, why am I here? Why did I why did I pay this money? And that’s o if if I if I’ve ever heard anything from some of these bloggers or content creators that I worked with, it’s like going to conferences often doesn’t give them much content like much new knowledge. And so I’m like, if this could be an opportunity ’cause it also makes the conference look really good because they’re willing to bring somebody in who’s thinking at least if not, you know, not totally fringe, but on the edges of of the concept, knowing like

There’s all there are all these other resources if you want to learn the medium sized parts of email marketing. But we brought in Ali to talk about the advanced. Yeah.

Mike Pacchione (31:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s really good. And then your job is to even though you’re talking about the advanced stuff, is to not make it so complicated that everybody checks out.

Allea Grummert (32:07)
yeah. It was fun. I did a talk at in January at Tastemaker on segmentation. And the way that it takes so much work as a speaker and even like I like teaching. So even considering it like a teaching opportunity of how do I talk about segmentation that doesn’t just speak to kit users or just flow desk. So I had to sit there and I had to go through all three. I went through Mailer Light Kit and Flow Desk to figure out how do we, how do I speak to each of them? What are the things they have in common?

And how can we work through this in seven steps? And it what pieces can I give them to make it easier when we get to that point? And ended up being really successful. But to to have to go all the way back to how do I make this the most helpful for the most number of people? But capping myself at three. I’m like, if y’all are in mail or light, we can just talk after the session. Not mail or light, mail chip. We’ll talk after the session. but yeah, even just knowing like these are the also the concepts that I know work in a multitude of types of platforms. But these three are the ones I’m actually going to show you.

And stating that from the beginning.

Mike Pacchione (33:09)
Whoa, so you showed you’re like, Okay, here’s a concept. Here’s how you do it in Flow Desk. Here’s how you do it in kit.

Allea Grummert (33:14)
Mm-hmm. And Mailer Light. Each step. Each step. So I showed step one, looks like this in kit, looks like this in Flow Desk, looks like this in Mailer Light. And I went through like three or four steps and then we did a workshop time. And then I came back and did the last three or four steps and gave a workshop time. And I just walked around, carried the microphone, but like I went through and answered questions for people as they were actually implementing it, which is my joy because like I the last thing you want is to go to a conference, have great ideas, and not be able to implement them for six months when I’m like

So what we did was we were actually segmenting their audience based on an opportunity to ask their audience, do you want all of my emails or do you just want weekly emails? And if you just want weekly emails, click here. And so I even showed like how to set that up in the automation. I had a checklist to go with it. I had a segmentation email, like open this up on your computer, copy and paste it in there. You can modify it later to sound like you, but at least here’s some basic copy.

Mike Pacchione (34:07)
I have a suggestion for anybody who has an opportunity like this. So it’s real easy to let the room take over. I don’t I don’t mean that in a Lord of the Rings way, but or Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies way. but

when people are in the room and like the technical level is all over the place and it’s a workshop, not a keynote, it’s very easy for me to be like, wait, how do you do that? And like Allie never gets to finish her thing. So my suggestion for everybody is to

At the beginning, I know I don’t mean first words out of your mouth, but like before we get into the open up your laptop, give me the full picture. Like, like finish the story before we start going in and clicking on segments. Because what I’ve seen happen so many times where the speaker wants to do that and then, well, I my screen doesn’t look like that, or I don’t have the pro account. And we you like we never finish the workshop.

Allea Grummert (35:08)
Yeah. Well, and what I told them from the beginning, Mike, is like segmentation can look like a whole lot of things. This is the type of segmentation we’re doing today. And then during QA, I was like, Yeah, if you want to set this up based on like dietary preferences, you can. But today we’re doing weekly only versus everyone else. And so, I didn’t have a whole lot of questions. If anything, it was like, What if I want to segment more? And I’m like, Great. But what I’m teaching you today is the skill of how to do that in your own ESP. Yeah.

To run it that forward.

Mike Pacchione (35:40)
Look, I took over to talk about speeches so I don’t have to be almost talking about email that I don’t do well. What else do you want to know?

Allea Grummert (35:43)
Ha ha ha.

Okay, the other thing because I feel like I struggle with story and email, Mike. And like I’m all about sharing personal details. I’m all about like making it feel personable. But I struggle when it’s like, here’s the concept I want to get to. What story do I need to like it feels manufactured sometimes, Mike. And maybe that’s because I don’t understand the elements of story the way that you do, as far as far as like start at the end, then get to the beginning. Like

I don’t feel like I have a really compelling story driven newsletter, which is fine. Everybody does their thing, but it’s something that I feel like I could definitely work on, especially in terms of sales emails.

Mike Pacchione (36:25)
Uhhuh. Okay. So are you asking about stories that are Ali’s third grade boyfriend and how does this connect to email? Are you are you asking what kind of stories are you asking about?

Allea Grummert (36:38)
gosh, even like let’s talk about so I’m in personal training and the idea that like I just get to show up and other people tell me what to do, it is amazing. Like I love paying other people to tell me exactly what to do. I’ll do the work. I just need the parameters and the accountability. Like tying that into like my coaching program. Like to me, it feels like that’s the same thing. You show up twice a month, we go through your list, like you get your questions answered. But like, how do you tell that as a story?

Mike Pacchione (37:09)
Well, I feel like you kinda just did, but here’s how I would

Allea Grummert (37:13)
It feels so on the nose, you know.

Mike Pacchione (37:15)
Well it is on the nose, but okay, like I think what that could look like for you is some of the the hesit so

My friend Chelsea, shout out Chelsea Pitts, says that stories should be relatable and not remarkable. And I agree but also disagree because remarkable stories are awesome. You just have to make them relatable, which is that’s too long for this this interview, but it’s something that I take great joy in helping people do. the the story that you’re trying to tell, what you need to do is to make the going to the personal trainer relatable.

So it needs to be the, I don’t know. I saw a picture of myself at a conference and I’m like, that’s what I look like. Or like whatever, whatever the actual impetus was. And you’re kinda quirky, not kinda. Let me rem delete kinda. Allie is quirky. A f like definitive statement. Yeah. So bring that into your email. If it were me, I would bring that into if it were me writing for Allie, which I don’t know why that would happen, but I would bring that into your email. I would, I would like.

I would make a gif of your gif gif of you making a muscle. Like you did before we started recording this bag.

Allea Grummert (38:32)
I was like, Mike, look at my muscles that you can’t really see, but trust me they’re there.

Mike Pacchione (38:36)
But I would y I would use that as the transition. And I would make I would make the the photo the connection. So if you want muscles like these for your email, I’m I’m making it a little too cheesy right now, but it’s like what’s the what’s the email version of this? Well you don’t actually have to go to like the gym, but here’s what I do for you.

Allea Grummert (38:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Pacchione (38:55)
And I would also like another thing that jumps to mind is pointing out because you also don’t want to make it sound like you’re not doing anything, which I I think we can easily do that stuff, right? So it’s also here’s the stuff that the trainer pointed out to me that I would have never gotten to. Even even using like AI or something. Because everybody’s like, well, when just use AI, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because you don’t know to ask it the questions that the specialist would tell you.

Allea Grummert (39:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. What was it two and a half years ago, Mike, I went to a personal trainer and they did a whole body scan and they go, Well, we are we’re gonna work on your posterior chain and I was like, considering I didn’t know I had one. Sure. It’s the whole back side of your body. Like the muscles on the whole back side. And I was like, So that’s why I lean forward, like I’m already a tall girl, but I like like and then yeah, so yes. And that was when I first realized, like, this person knows more

Mike Pacchione (39:32)
What is that?

Allea Grummert (39:49)
than I do. And I can just ask and there’s space for that. So, okay, so even telling the the story of like my personal journey, my personal training journey now. I mean, even just telling a story of like going into the gym in the rain and being like, who would have thought I’d be up at six fifty three walking in the doors twice a week? I’m signed up to go on my birthday. Like I am excited. And I like th they’re all like, we’re gonna see you Wednesday. I was like, sure will. See you guys then. Like

yeah, and talking about like how it makes me feel as well. because I think a lot of people have hang ups and fears around email marketing that just need like talked through.

Mike Pacchione (40:29)
Yeah. I mean just the word marketing is like that for a lot of people. That’s true.

Allea Grummert (40:33)
True.

That’s true. Well, any takeaways from our coaching call today, Mike, for your own your own email marketing? Or both

Mike Pacchione (40:43)
I think when I’m putting an offer out there, I need to feel more comfortable just having an email that says the freaking offer.

Allea Grummert (40:50)
Freaky’s off here.

Mike Pacchione (40:52)
Cloaking it at the bottom of 800 words. And then it’s and honestly, Allie, a lot of times it’s like PS enrollment for speech club, which you might not know what it is because a lot of times I fill it without even sending an email. Like PS enrollment for speech club opens soon. Like I need this emails that just say what is speech club? Here’s what speech club is. Here’s why you should do it. And the other thing we didn’t actually talk about, but it came to mind for me. I need to be better about telling the stories of people who took speech club.

You know? So like I had this shout out Kristen Strom, fellow Midwestern RTO, lives in Peoria, Illinois, city girl who married a farmer. She has like anyway, she’s got all these great stories about being a city girl living in the country. She booked forty six speeches last year, like paid speeches from speech clubs.

Allea Grummert (41:48)
my god.

Mike Pacchione (41:49)
I’ve never

written about that until yesterday when I sent out the short email. And even yesterday it was just PS. And then this is like the last thing I added. I was like, maybe I should put a PS here. Like, PS. Recent participants have included people like Kristen Strom, who booked 46 paid speeches last year. Like, why am I not sharing those success stories? And I think it’s because in my head, email is journaling. And I I need to make some of it journaling about people I help too.

Allea Grummert (42:18)
Yeah. Well, and it might be helpful even just to think about like the pillars of the types of emails that go into a sales campaign. So they don’t all have to be like, here’s what the program is, here’s what the program is, but I’m setting it on Tuesday, here’s what the program is that I’m setting it the day before like you can have the like here’s what the program is, here’s someone who’s benefited, like a a snapshot of Kristen’s story. Here’s here’s some FAQs, here’s the payment schedule, or like here’s the actual schedule, here’s what we cover in twelve weeks. Cart closes tomorrow.

Cart closes today. Like you don’t need a ton of each one, but you’re also what that does is it allows you to address the different individuals on your list and what they need to hear from you. So some people need to hear the really logical argument. Some people need to hear the more like emotional, story-driven argument. And some people just need to be reminded that it’s closing. That said, I think you could also include instead of just your PS at the bottom.

Put that at the top of some of those emails. Like if your cart is open and you’re sending out a more journalized email, put it at the top, say, like, by the way, speech club is opening soon. Join the wait list.

Mike Pacchione (43:25)
Yeah.

Allea Grummert (43:26)
Click here to learn more and join the work where like the wait list and it goes to this the landing page. Yes. That way it’s just you’re not being pushy. You’re just making sure that they see it. It’s a headliner. I call it like a like a pre-header text. So you’d see it even before the like, hey Mike, da. Like I put it up there, I put a horizontal line. That way it’s above the fold. A S A P.

Mike Pacchione (43:51)
Yeah. Uh-huh.

Allea Grummert (43:53)
Yep, yep. And then you can also include a link trigger so you know who’s clicking that if you want. Okay.

Mike Pacchione (43:59)
So just I know what a link trigger is, but for anybody who’s listening doesn’t.

Allea Grummert (44:04)
Y’all. So a link trigger is that when they click and they go to that sales page on the back end of kit, you can also do it in Flowdesk. you add them to a tag or a segment so that you can know who clicked. So I the tag itself would say interest speech club wait list 2026. And then you kind of have a running list of who’s all shown interest. So if you wanted to do individual outreach, you can. So you can reach out to them on Instagram, send them an email, reach out on LinkedIn, however you reach out to people and just say, hey.

So you might be interested. Do you have any questions? Yeah. And it allows you to do some sales during the sales launch versus just waiting and people sitting on questions until the very last day. But definitely tell them it’s the last day when it’s closing. That’s when most of the sales come in. And it will it will feel so weird. You’re like, I’ve had no people sign up. And then you send out, like, hey, it’s closing today. That’s when you get a bunch of signups. It’s weird. It’s hard on your psyche.

Mike Pacchione (44:50)
Alright, I’ll do that.

Allea Grummert (45:03)
But you gotta follow through on the whole launch to see how it actually performs.

Mike Pacchione (45:08)
You know when people send out an email that’s like three left, next email, two left. Is that effective when people do that?

Allea Grummert (45:15)
Mm-hmm.

It might be effective. We just have to make sure it’s ethical. Like you have to make sure it’s actually right. You don’t want to just do it as a sport. Like, who is out here just saying, I like I purposefully like I only have one spot left of the of done and delivered for this summer. And that’s gonna be my campaign in June. So by the time you listen to this, y’all, you’ve already got this campaign. But yeah, like I only have one summer spot left based on the availability of my team. And so that is the language I’m going to use.

And if more than one pe person signs up, then great. They can have my like September or October spot. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. I think it is effective. It also shows that there’s there’s been interest enough that it is filling up. So they can ask questions. You could even do like an email, Mike, of like, here’s here’s here are the industries represented of people who’ve already signed up. That could be a sales email. You just swap it out with each promise.

Mike Pacchione (46:16)
Yeah, ’cause like my group right now, I am really proud of the the people who are in it. Like it’s gonna I mean it’s a dream team and I need one more person, so eight people reply on a Sunday. Ideally one of those becomes the fifth person. Is it is it weird to

I guess it’s not weird to say what industry it is. Is it weird to say like maybe I don’t say her name, but

She gave a Ted talk that was watched by hundreds of thousands of people. Like is that is that

Allea Grummert (46:47)
Isn’t

it? No. If you’re like Brene’s in the group, then you’re gonna like max out. Yeah, Brene B. no, I mean I just saw Pruna from Content B Show. They are changing their name. I can’t remember the name of it right now. you might know Pruna. But she did she did it with like all the intake forms. So people sign up, it says what industry they’re in. That’s all she showed. She’s like so-and-so from this industry, so-and-so from this industry. It shows shows the

variation, but more so it shows social proof. It shows that other people have already invested the money, have trusted Purna, you can trust her too. That’s what that email’s goal is, more than anything. So what I would do is save Brene B as a testimonial for next time. Okay. You know?

Mike Pacchione (47:33)
Roger.

Allea Grummert (47:34)
Ugh okay. Mike, where can listeners connect with you and learn more about how to work with you? How do we learn about speech clip?

Mike Pacchione (47:41)
Okay, so first of all, I have a freaking wonderful freebie. Like seriously worth thousands dollars. well you have it already, but the I I think that the things that people ask me for help with the most are beginnings, endings, and then delivery is its own animal, but like some sort of delivery questions.

Literally the the different think of them as menu options for how to start a speech. That is my freebie. I mean it’s and I even like put in the freebie a place for you to practice it for yourself. So we’ve got seven different ways to start a speech. They’ve all got a name. There’s a place for you to practice like there’s an example for each of them. There’s a place for you to type right in there if you want. It’s so good. So bestspeech.co slash happy.

Allea Grummert (48:34)
Peace.

Mike Pacchione (48:36)
Yeah. I usually put a picture of like when I’m on someone’s podcast, I usually put a picture of me and that person. I don’t think me and you have any solo pictures. I do have a picture of you and Mike Vardy. That could be confusing.

Allea Grummert (48:48)
Do we not have a photo together, but

Mike Pacchione (48:50)
Well we

do, but it’s like more than one person.

Allea Grummert (48:52)
Cut Mike out of it. The other mic. Sorry, Mike Barney. yeah. I can also send you just a photo of myself. Just superimposed. Right next to a photo of you. You know. my gosh. Well, friend, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it.

Mike Pacchione (49:12)
Right back at you, friend. It was good to see you, as always.

Allea Grummert (49:15)
As always. Everyone go to best speech dot co slash happy to get Mike’s menu of ways to start a speech. my goodness, just go get your wheels turning with that and I will tell him thank you on my on our behalf. Thanks, Mike.

Mike Pacchione (49:29)
You’re broken.

Allea Grummert (49:35)
Thanks so much for listening to Happy Subscribers in our conversation about email marketing today. I hope you feel inspired to take action, even if it’s a small change, so you can more confidently share your valuable message with your community through email. Special thanks goes to my team who makes it possible to produce and share these episodes with you. Seriously, thank you guys. If you want to hear more email marketing tips, strategies, and success stories to help you develop deeper, more meaningful relationships with your email subscribers, be sure to subscribe to Happy Subscribers so you don’t

Miss an episode. If you have a few seconds, I invite you to share this episode link with a friend or post it on social media so your peers and community can benefit from it as well. And if you have a few minutes, I’d appreciate if you’d leave a written review of the podcast since that helps more people hear about it. And I believe we need more creators sending more valuable emails to their audience with more confidence. If you want to reach out to me directly, the best way to do that is to join my email list through one of my top freebies listed in the show notes. You’ll get regular emails from me that are packed with value. And if you hit

to any of those emails, it’ll land in my inbox, and I can’t wait to chat with you there. Until next time, let’s Duett