Hey {{first_name | there}},

I’ve published ten expert interviews since I experimented with the concept back in June of 2025. And as I’ve been looking back at past issues, I realized that out of the ten interviewees, I connected with 6 of them through one of my favorite corners of the internet—The Co-Promotion Club. What’s even cooler is that 8 out of 10 of the experts have been inside The Co-Promotion Club at some point in time.

So, as I make some tweaks to these interviews and dig deeper into not just the brand aspect of these businesses, but how the founders of these businesses make decisions, I thought it only fitting to feature the founder of The Co-Promotion Club, Janna Carlson.

Janna and I first connected via another favorite corner of the internet, the Legends Network, and, as it turns out, she was a Scopecreep listener before we even met! The world is funny that way. Janna is a builder of spaces and experiences that help online business owners create relationships that matter to their work, from referral partners to ride-or-die business friends.

The business: thoughtful

The vibe: retro

Through my years of owning a piano studio and then a web design business, I often struggled to keep my pipeline full. The few times I tried collaborating with someone else, it made things so much easier.

A few years ago, our web design pipeline was drying up. When I took a close look at the data, I realized that each of our clients came to us through another client.

I abandoned my broadcast marketing - blog, newsletter, podcast, social - and spent a year building my referral network. I asked for intros, had 100 coffee chats, and experimented with a range of nurture mechanisms to deepen those connections and build trust.

The biggest roadblock: I was doing nearly all of the heavy lifting in those partnerships. If I didn’t follow up, reach back out, offer support, or set up a way to co-promote each other, the relationship never took root. It was draining and time-consuming.

I started looking for a networking space where I could meet other like-valued business owners who were equally invested in doing the work of building relationships and trust. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

The career-altering advice I got (from Lex Roman, who’s the GOAT) was to build that space myself.

The next month, I launched The Co-Promotion Club for my referral partners, as a way to deepen our understanding of each other’s work more quickly and to build trust.

It quickly became clear that I was onto something special, so I built The Co-Pro Club into a business and launched it to the public at the end of 2024.

There are always good people to meet, and we have limited bandwidth, so this is an important consideration to avoid burning ourselves out on first-time coffee chats. I’m currently in a season of very limited calendar time, so it’s something I think about frequently.

A few things that I consider before I say yes to a new connection:

If it’s not the right season to connect with someone, I ask if we can chat over email or in DMs. Then we can always book a time to meet down the road when it’s a more open season.

During our first year, I got a TON of feedback from members. I listened carefully to all of it because I was aware that A) I was new to running a membership, and B) feedback could help me improve member experience quickly.

Context was invaluable. If the feedback was thoughtfully shared or came from a person who tended to show up with kindness and consideration, it carried a lot of weight with me.

If the feedback felt more like a complaint, or if the same person tended to reach out to “share feedback” repeatedly, I would let it sit in the background for a bit. On revisiting, the valuable parts tended to stand out, and the rest faded into the background.

Feedback can have the power to shift something significant in our work, and it can also leave us doubting ourselves and our skills on a deep level.

The goal is to hold feedback loosely, to sit with it, without internalizing it as personal criticism (which it almost never is).

Last fall, I actively solicited feedback from members and paid particular attention to member engagement and pain points.  That allowed me to implement several key shifts to The Co-Pro Club at the end of the year that dramatically improved member experience and value.

Our members have helped me to make The Co-Promotion Club a place they want to be - and a business I want to run for the long-term. It’s important that I listen to their voices as we continue to grow, while staying rooted in my own values and perspective.

There are a couple of things that guide me.

First: I’ve learned the value of sitting with decisions. I trust my gut, and sometimes it takes a minute for my gut to settle on the best direction.

Second: I try to prioritize people. If I need to choose between the “best” business decision and the decision that helps someone else feel seen, heard, or satisfied, then I try to err on that human-first side.

Oh, this is a great question! There are a few signals that I pay attention to:

The math question also applies to things like length of membership, cost of membership, onboarding flow, and priorities in member support and resources. It’s all a puzzle, and all of those pieces need to fit together in a way that makes sense for people on both sides of the equation.

It’s not simple or quick, but by paying attention to the signals and the data, I can create cohesion and a member experience that’s valuable and effective.

FAVORITE QUESTION!!

Running a membership is by far the hardest thing I’ve done in my career. Last summer, I realized that if I was going to do this for the long-term, I needed a real support system. I started connecting with founders of other memberships and communities, and a handful of trusted friendships have emerged.

I can turn to these friends whether I’m considering a shift, trying to learn about something, or simply want to say out loud that this is hard. It’s made a huge difference in how I feel about the work I do - and in my ability to continue doing it.

It’s also beneficial to our collective work; I’m quick to promote and share space with my founder friends, and a number of them have promoted my work or invited me into their communities to give a workshop.

Reciprocity in my relationships helps me feel supported and sustained in my work, and as a result, I feel confident in my ability to do this for the long term.

“You and I” is a duet by Wilco and Feist that sums up the vibe of my work well. It has an intimate sound that’s calm, warm, and captures the comfort of relationships that support us. If I can help people create those relationships in their work, whether it’s trusted referral partnerships or friendships, then my work means something.

Also, Wilco is one of the best bands in the history of recorded music and that’s a hill I’ll die on.

So honored! My newsletter goes out around twice a month and is the best place to keep up with what I’m doing.

If folks would like to try out The Co-Promotion Club for themselves, they can buy a mini membership that gives them a slice of the whole experience. The code “BRANDBURNOUT40” will give them $40 off their mini membership; it’s valid through April 20.

Thanks for reading,

Want some quick advice? I’ll review your website, social media profile, or a piece of content and send back a high-impact video audit. You’ll get fluff-free insights and suggestions to help you strengthen your story.

These personalized, one-hour sessions are designed to help you identify and solve problems that are holding your brand (and in turn, your business!) back.

Build your business from the brand up with positioning, messaging, and differentiation that reflect the caliber of your work. We’ll then connect that strategy to real decisions about marketing, sales, offers, and client experience.