Episode #297: Why You Shouldn’t Join Clubhouse
TAYLOR BRADFORD: You are listening to episode number 297 of the Boss Girl Creative podcast. Today I’m talking about why you shouldn’t join Clubhouse. On to the episode.
0:11
Well, hello! Welcome to Episode 297 of the Boss Girl Creative podcast. I’m your host, Taylor Bradford. Thank you so much for tuning in today, which is all about why you shouldn’t join Clubhouse. But for real, Clubhouse just needs to be like TikTok – just substitute TikTok, Instagram TV, IGTV, Reels. Like, fill in the blank. Snapchat, fill in the blank – why you shouldn’t join “fill in the blank,” but I’m going to talk about Clubhouse because it is the most recent craze in social media land. And yeah, I have some issues with it. I have some issues with it. So that is what today’s episode is going to be about.
0:53
Before we dive into today’s episode, I want to quickly – really quickly – talk about my text messaging community, which you can join. It’s free. All you have to do is send me a text to this number: 817-587-1978, say, “Hey, Taylor,” follow the prompts, accept the terms, and then as soon as I see it pop through, I will say hello back. And yes, it is my number. It is me texting you back. There’s nobody else. And yeah, I would love to interact with you through text. And feel free to send questions or whatever. I won’t spam you. I typically only text once a week just to tell you about that week’s particular episode. And – but yeah, if you have a question or you’d like to hear something on the show, this is a great way to do it really quickly, and then you’ll have my number, and you know.
1:52
Okay, so onwards to today’s podcast topic, which is not going to be super popular. I’m gonna pull my notes out here because I’m not a bandwagon jumper, and I do have a problem with Clubhouse. And that’s what today’s episode is going to be about -Clubhouse, but really, it’s just any of the social media craze platforms that happen to be happening at the time. Last year, it was TikTok. While TikTok is still going, and I know people are super active still on TikTok – I mean, legitimately, what’s the next thing that’s gonna come down the pipeline? I’ve heard Facebook is talking about creating something that will challenge Clubhouse. That’s not a big surprise. And there’s some privacy issues now with Clubhouse, and they’re not really forthcoming with their answers.
2:46
So right now, Clubhouse is still invite-only, and so you have to know somebody that’s already in Clubhouse that has an invite. And their terms of service are really strict. You cannot record your audio that you basically put out through Clubhouse. So let me just quickly talk about what Clubhouse is, besides the fact that it is an app. So you join Clubhouse, and you think – think about Clubhouse as a room or a home. A clubhouse. And there’s a hallway where basically as you’re walking down the hallway, you can look to your left, and you look to your right, and each room happens to be somebody hosting a chat of some kind. And you can choose to pop into the chat. And it’s very lecture style, so the people that are holding the chat are upon a proverbial stage, and you enter, and you sit down, and you listen. Now, you can raise your hand, there’s a button that raises your hand to be called to the stage, and then you’re able to control your microphone. So when you enter into our room, you have no audio at all. You’re just listening. I should say you can’t speak your microphones not active, but if you raise your hand and the person on stage that’s controlling the talk wants to allow you to speak, they can unmute your microphone, and then you are a part of the conversation.
4:14
So that’s ultimately how Clubhouse works. When you first join, it asks you if you want to give access to your contact list, which is kind of a problem for me. And it also allows you to connect your Instagram and your Twitter account. And ultimately, the goal behind Clubhouse is to gain access to as many humans as they possibly can, even though it’s still invite-only. So it’s very exclusive, but they want access to your contact list, to your contacts through Instagram, to your contacts on Twitter, because once you make that connection, then they now have access to all of those humans. Now the part that is a little bit more concerning is if you do not connect any of those platforms or if you do not allow Clubhouse to have access to your contact list. If somebody joins Clubhouse and has your number, or is following you on Instagram or Twitter, now they’ve just gotten access to you. So that’s problematic, and as of right now, at the recording of this episode, they don’t have any answer for that. And now there’s already talks about the Chinese evidently, listening in, or there’s some privacy issues with the Chinese. I don’t know what they’re learning, but anyways, that’s in the news as well, which is also concerning.
5:41
So why you shouldn’t join Clubhouse. I personally have never been a bandwagon jumper. I’m still not on TikTok. I don’t do HGTV. I haven’t done Reels, which is Instagram’s answer to TikTok. Because I run my businesses very intentionally, and I stay intentionally cautious when a new platform emerges. And because I’ve been online for so long, with the growth of the various platforms – so when I first started blogging in 2008, Twitter existed. Facebook did exist, but not in its current state. There was no Pinterest. There was no Instagram. And so I have watched the birth of these platforms, and I’ve been intentionally cautious about how I use them and how I decide whether or not I’m going to put effort out there on those platforms or not. I don’t necessarily have an issue with Clubhouse per se. Like, I see people having really great conversations. I am on the app, and you can follow me if you want to, but I’m not active on the app. I’m not actively hosting a room. I’m not actively, always participating. If somebody happens to ping me – and that’s the other thing—Clubhouse functions in-the-moment, and I’m not an in-the-moment kind of girl. Procrastinator, yes, but in the moment kind of girl – like, I have boundaries. You don’t have access to me all the time. I don’t want you to have access to me all the time because I wouldn’t sleep if you had access to me all the time. If I ran my business so that my customers and clients had access to me all the time, I wouldn’t get anything else done. And I feel like Clubhouse is fueled by on-demand. By being on-demand and it’s serving up major FOMO for people, which is causing them to have epic levels of addiction to this platform. It’s very, very unhealthy, in my opinion. So I don’t have an issue per se with Clubhouse, and how some people are choosing to use it, I have a whole lot of other issues. I just have a whole lot of other issues. And we’re going to talk about that. But it’s not just about Clubhouse. Again, this is about you choosing where you’re spending your time because when you make a choice to spend your time in thing A, you are saying no to something else. And you guys have heard me say this over and over and over again. Or if you’re new to the show, welcome to the next thing I’m about to say. If a choice in your life is not a hell yes, it’s got to be a no. So, where you choose to spend your time means you’re saying no to something else. So are you choosing to spend your time on TikTok? How is that serving you, and what are you saying no to in the background? Are you choosing to spend your time on Instagram, and if so, is it serving you well? Is there a return on your investment? Is your return on your time? And if not, what are you turning your back on that could be serving you well, that could be giving you a better return on your time and your investment?
9:08
This app, like I said, is on-demand. This app forces you into major FOMO because it’s all about the here and now. It’s all about being there right now. You will get pinged – people can ping you and say, “Hey, I’m having a chat right now you need to get in there. Oh, hey, I’ve got this chat coming up. You need to get in there. You need to schedule time to listen.” It’s very much in the moment, and it forces you to be available all the time. And that’s not how we should be functioning. We should absolutely not be functioning by being available all the time.
9:45
So a friend of mine recently on Facebook posed this question, “I’m torn between I need to be on Clubhouse, and I don’t have time for Clubhouse. Is there a happy middle?” And here was my response, “I’m on there, but it’s attracting the “right now” mentality, and I don’t have space for “right now.” I don’t want to attract more “right now,” I want to attract on my own time. I can see how it can be incredibly effective to have a chance to talk with people you may not have access to on any other platform, but the flip side to that is those that are wanting you to emulate them and thus draw you in because of their status since it is so quote-unquote assessable and zero fees (as of right now), that’s concerning. It’s super concerning.”
10:32
So here’s the thing, you have to – need to – focus in your life and your business, and you need to figure out what is the most important for both of those things. So what would you be doing if you weren’t spending time on Clubhouse? What would you be doing if you weren’t spending time on TikTok? And I get it because people are like, “Yeah, but you know, I might be leaving money on the table.” Alright, sister, we’re leaving money on the table everywhere. We do not have the power to be everything to all people, and you shouldn’t even want that because that means you won’t actually be attracting your ideal customer.
11:21
So what is your focus? What’s the thing that you’re building? Does clubhouse or TikTok support that thing? Because if it doesn’t, you don’t need to be putting your time there. Yes, it’s okay to pop in and support people that you know and love, but let’s really dive into what is your focus? Why are you doing the thing that you’re doing? And will an app like Clubhouse truly support you? Are you any learning type of phase in your business, or are you in an implementation type of phase in your business? Because let’s be really clear here, there are legitimately the business basics. That’s how you build your business – with the basics. There’s no upper-level type of biz strategy that people on Clubhouse are supposedly teaching that’s going to make the next big thing or the next big push for you in your own business. If you don’t have the basics figured out, none of those quote-unquote advanced strategies are going to do you a hill of beans. Plus, if you aren’t already succeeding on the platforms, you’re currently participating in and marketing on, then I think there’s a bigger issue. Because let me tell you, desperate doesn’t look good on anybody.
12:44
On Clubhouse, the access to the big names is causing people to lose focus on what they already know how to do – and that’s the business basics. It’s causing people to feel like they need to abandon what they’ve already learned and try out these new strategies because evidently, these new strategies are better than the business basics. It’s allowing people to take the stage or take the mic, who shouldn’t be giving advice. There are people on Clubhouse right now that have no business being behind a microphone, that have no business giving business advice. They haven’t consistently made money in their own businesses. They haven’t consistently grown anything from the beginning. It’s allowing people to be teachers who shouldn’t be teachers. It’s allowing people to inflate their egos because it’s a brand new platform, and once you had access to an invite to get yourself on there, it’s basically giving these quote-unquote pioneers a voice that really it shouldn’t be giving them.
13:54
Building a business isn’t about the advanced techniques. It’s not about the insider knowledge only the upper echelon knows about. It’s about the eight pillars of business, and I’ve got my 8+1 Pillar Series on the podcast. I’m actually turning it into an ebook, which I hope to be launched by the summer, and which will make it super easy to consume – but it’s back in the archives; look for the Pillar Series. The Pillar Series is your business foundation. It is not rocket science. It’s knowing your what. It’s knowing your why. It’s knowing your core values. It’s knowing who your ideal audience is. It’s marketing. It’s creating the sales funnels. That’s what the foundation of your business should be built upon – the pillars.
14:43
So does this particular platform serve your business? Does it serve your life? Is it the best thing to be saying yes to? Are you going to attract more right now when you need to be attracting boundaries? We could all be pioneers on this platform. It is still in infancy stage, but I don’t want to be available on-demand. You shouldn’t want to be available on-demand. Control what you can control. Own and create what is yours because if you’re not at a point in your business where you can make a high-risk decision without impacting your business and time, then you shouldn’t be on Clubhouse.
15:35
People are already addicted to it. That’s scary. They’re spending hours and hours on the platform and boasting about it. That’s not something that should be boasted about. Would your time be better spent on something else in your business, like implementation? Because here’s my next question. Are you desperate in business? Because Clubhouse feels desperate to me. When I see influencers on Instagram, as an example, who are constantly putting call-outs to get you to go like their posts, to follow this loop giveaway, to do these things, that to me screams desperation because they are not in control of their business growth and they’ve put their eggs into the wrong basket. If all of your eggs are in Clubhouse, if all of your eggs are on Instagram, I’m going to challenge your business ideas and how you’re running your business because you don’t have control over those things. What you do have control over is the content that you create on your own .com, or the video that you create that you host somewhere, or the audio that you create that you host somewhere. Work on the things that you have control over and experiment on driving traffic back to the things you have control over. That’s what we should be doing in business. But it makes me incredibly sad to see the desperation in business owners because they think they’re gonna get left out, or they want to skip 20 million steps forward and ignore the business foundation aspect of building a business. You cannot build a business without a foundation. You absolutely cannot. You have to do the work in order to be successful. You have to build that foundation. And trust me, Clubhouse isn’t your answer.
17:57
Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Again, shout out to my current text people that are in my text community. If you want to be a part of that, it’s free. All you have to do is agree to whatever the terms are of the community app. But send me a text to 817-587-1978 say, “Hey Taylor,” follow the prompts, and I will reply back to you as soon as I see you pop in there. I would love to get to know you, so this is a great way to do it. Until next week, I hope you have a great rest of the week.
