Latest / The Uplifters / How to Grow a Substack Community with Rachel Lipson and Erin Shetron

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How to Grow a Substack Community with Rachel Lipson and Erin Shetron · The Uplifters

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Uplifters, you know how much I love experimenting and trying new things.
• 0:09
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• 0:55
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• 1:05
  [music]
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Uplifters.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Aransas Savas and I've spent the last 20 years at the intersection
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: of behavior change research and coaching,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: helping midlife women do big, brave things.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Today, we're going to talk about Substack.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a place where I spend a lot of my time and where I found some real connection
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: and community and creative support.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So for those of you who haven't spent much time on Substack
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: or don't even know what I'm talking about,
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Substack is a platform where writers and creators publish directly to the people
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: who want to hear from them.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: You sign up,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: you get their work in your email inbox,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: and if you want to support them,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: you can pay a monthly or an annual subscription,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: but pretty much everyone there also offers plenty of content and value for free.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are no ads.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's no algorithm who decides whether or not your post gets seen.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's no platform taking a cut of your attention to sell to Jeff Bezos.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pretty special place for a bit of scope.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: There are now 50 million active subscriptions on the platform
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: and writers collectively earned a whopping $450 million through it in 2025.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Some publications there are like full-on media companies.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: They have Massive teams behind them,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: editors and creative directors and then entire corporations alongside them.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Others are independent writers who are single-handedly making a living from their creative work.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: At the other end of this spectrum,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: other people are just finding their readers and sharing what matters with them,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: maybe with five people, maybe with 5,000 people and really everything in between.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of different stuff happening there.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: But what I love most about it is that it feels like so far a really genuine
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: and safe place to build a creative personal reflection practice or a business
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: or just find voices that Are talking about what you're really interested in.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: If you've been listening for a while, you know that I've spent 18 years in a corporate career.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I was laid off, like so many women in midlife, I wanted to build something myself.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a lot of doubts and fears and uncertainty as maybe we all do about how to do that.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the first things I did, thanks to my friend Carol, was start a newsletter.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: I launched it on MailChimp and that was cool.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: I like built a practice of sending my work out into the universe and I committed to
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: the people who were reading it that I would do that every Friday.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that accountability was really useful for me,
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: but it felt like I was just like, Putting it into a void.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: There was no exchange.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: There was no conversation or community that came back.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that's what I really wanted from it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I wanted to build a creative practice.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to challenge myself to really get in touch with my thoughts and opinions and ideas.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: But I also wanted conversations.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I want a connection.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted ultimately to build a community,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: which even the podcast,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: which this is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
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  SPEAKER_01: It has that same send it off into the universe quality.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to get to talk to incredible people today and tomorrow and the next day.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to send that out.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: But there won't be much exchange of ideas there.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know really who's out there.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's no ecosystem built around it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: So the more I learned about Substack,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: the more I felt like,
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  SPEAKER_01: ah, this is a place where maybe I could create some connection.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like when somebody subscribes to my newsletter
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: because I recommend my friend Rachel Substack,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's automatically going to say,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: hey, are you interested in reading Rachel's work too?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so it creates this network effect,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: a web of people finding each other through shared interest and trusted voices.
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  SPEAKER_01: I've now published here for years and connected with more and more people,
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  SPEAKER_01: both other creators whose work I admire and audience members who are interested
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: in what I have to say.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And genuinely,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I used to be so baffled when people would say like,
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  SPEAKER_01: oh, this is my friend I met on Instagram.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: How?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: How?
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  SPEAKER_01: I genuinely have found friends and inspiration and creative collaborators just
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: by being a part of this community.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm really doubling down on it now and hoping that Substack can be the place
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  SPEAKER_01: where all the amazing people I have met and who inspire me get to meet
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  SPEAKER_01: and inspire one another.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because frankly, like it's too hard to do anything big and brave alone.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we need each other if we're going to keep doing this.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to keep learning what works from one another instead of trying
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: to reinvent the wheel all alone in our basements sitting at our laptops.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So today we're going to talk to two women who have really inspired me in
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: the Substack space about how they're using Substack,
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  SPEAKER_01: what's working for them,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: how they build and find community there,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: and yes, how they make money on the platforms.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: So first up, you're going to meet Rachel Lipson.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's been a friend of mine for more than 20 years.
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  SPEAKER_01: She was one of the first guests on The Uplifters podcast.
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  SPEAKER_01: She has Like whip smart business acumen.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Her first company,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Blue Balloon Songwriting School,
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  SPEAKER_01: started as a one woman music school in a studio apartment back in 2008,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: right around the time we met and developed into what Blue Balloon is today,
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: which is a network of 75 plus amazing and talented teachers teaching hundreds
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: of students a week across the country on different instruments and And learning,
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: go listen to the episode to learn all about why it's the most amazing thing ever.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Since that,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Rachel has kind of given a lot of the leadership of that off to her team
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  SPEAKER_01: and focused her energy on running the point.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Which is a Substack newsletter about using miles and points for travel.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's become a top 40 best-selling travel newsletter.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's been featured in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Condé Nast, among many others.
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  SPEAKER_01: And she has done it with so much clarity and intention and focus,
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: but she's also allowed herself to learn and pivot and change.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so we have a lot to learn from her.
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  SPEAKER_01: Erin Chetron spent years as a marketing director and startups for edtech and e-com.
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  SPEAKER_01: She was responsible for copy and content and growth strategy
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  SPEAKER_01: and all these teams spending lots of money on marketing and she burned out even
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: though she loved it.
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  SPEAKER_01: After that, she met her first Substack client.
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  SPEAKER_01: She has one of the top best-selling Substacks on the entire platform,
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  SPEAKER_01: word spread about how awesome she was.
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  SPEAKER_01: And she's now worked with over 100 customers.
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  SPEAKER_01: Substackers across 10 countries and really is one of the most trusted voices on the platform.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: She brings all of her creativity and just her intuition and her passion for people
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  SPEAKER_01: and creativity and helps challenge the way we think about these things.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I hired her to do an audit of my Substack, got so much value out of it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've also hired Rachel as a business consultant.
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  SPEAKER_01: So these are people I've spent my money on and I've done that really intentionally.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I've probably sent 100 people to Aaron to do audits on their Substack since
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: then.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I just really trust their voices and their opinions.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And again,
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  SPEAKER_01: in the same spirit of like,
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  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be the only one getting and receiving all of this value.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's learn about this together.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm just so freaking delighted to have Rachel and Erin here together.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you're probably sick of hearing from me.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Let's hear from these badass experts.
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  SPEAKER_01: Rachel, Erin, thank you both so much for being here today.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So fun.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Rachel, meet Aaron.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron, meet Rachel.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Just introducing the two of you is one of the highlights of this experience for me
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  SPEAKER_01: because you definitely need to know each other.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just hearing Rachel's intro, I was like, oh my God, I can't wait to speak to her after this.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I feel the same way, Aaron.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I want to... Well, I'm actually going to throw you for a loop.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know you need to hire Aaron.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, I don't know what the price is now, but it's the best 500 or whatever dollars ever.
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  SPEAKER_01: So you know what?
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to throw our plan out the door.
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  SPEAKER_01: Aaron, do you have a question for Rachel to kick things off?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: I would love to hear if there was any advice that was circling kind
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_03: of popular best practices that you tried and didn't like and
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: then ended up doing it your way.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's such a good question.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's see.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I started my Substack on a whim.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'd had like on my to-do list for a very long time,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: start a newsletter,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: like one of those things where it's like,
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: pick up dry cleaning and do this and like start a newsletter as
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: if they're all equal, right?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like little things and big things, like all on your to-do list.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then I had this incredible feature in the New York Times,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: which I didn't realize would be on the business section and the cover of
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: the business section of the New York Times on Thanksgiving.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It linked directly to my website, which had a sign up for my newsletter.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And people were signing up for my newsletter, but there was no newsletter.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I was catching email addresses and compiling email addresses, which is great.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like it wasn't a total lost cause, but there was no newsletter.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ran upstairs to my hotel room.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I told my husband, like, watch the kids.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've got work to do.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I went upstairs and I started a newsletter and I had been part
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: of why I wasn't sure what to do,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know, how to start was I didn't know which platform to use.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know what?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to start with Substack.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And why not?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Figure it out as I go.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I started it completely suddenly without a plan.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, it was the best decision.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, very much the best decision.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so your question.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to give that background as to how I started it because it's important.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was not a well thought out strategy, but... Yeah, you've already given an answer.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: You were like, I just ran upstairs and started it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, people would be like, you should have three months of content before you start.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: People have a lot of ideas about what you should do before you start anything.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And my idea around most things business related and many things in life in general,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: like you're never going to feel ready that you should just start.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody feels ready.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And most people, if they wait until they're ready, they've missed the boat.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can miss your own momentum.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes just starting is I went back and took some things I had written
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: on Facebook,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: some posts I had written on Instagram,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: and I actually turned them into posts for Substack and left them published,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: but not sent out as emails.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something a lot of people don't realize you can do.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually publish things,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: but many people don't realize that you can publish posts,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: but not send them out to your subscribers.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're just starting out and you want to have that website
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: that looks like you've been doing it a little while,
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not brand new with only one post or coming soon or whatever you're worried
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: about.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just publish a few things so it looks a little bit more robust.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then the first email that goes out to your subscribers, you're off on a good path.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it looks like you know what you're doing, even if you don't.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: That is such good advice.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: And you can also backdate your post.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: So if you publish a few things and you want it to look like,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: oh, I've been at this for a few months now, you can go in and backdate those.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a really, that's a good strategy.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I actually did not know you could backdate them.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great to know.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to hear that.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's even better.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you could do it then, but who knows?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it's great.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much to learn about this platform.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like the richness is really there and we're kind of only limited by our lack
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: of curiosity in so many cases.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: We like,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: and this is something I find all over and over again in my fear research is Is
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: that we get so focused on what we don't know that we forget to just like form that
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: into a question that we can ask.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the internet will tell us.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like if you have been sitting on an idea and there is this fear
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: that people will show up to an empty house and it'll look like I'm a dad
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: who has no idea what I'm doing.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Fear, acknowledge it, turn it into a question, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's clearly multiple answers to that.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's true for absolutely any fear or question we have about getting started
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: with something or growing it.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: So Rachel, your turn.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to ask Erin a question?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have so many questions for Erin.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: One question is, so you do these audits, these Substack audits.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, of course, I'm sure there are a lot of differences.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that every happy family is unique,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: but every unhappy family is... What is the quote from Anna Karenina?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but I guess the question is, you see all of these...
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: You do all these audits, you see all these Substack accounts.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Are there common threads that you see in pretty much every audit
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: that you do that's like everybody should do differently?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or is everybody doing something that you would suggest changing and it's unique to each account?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good one.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: I will say that my brain doesn't typically work that well in informing generalities.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why my work has thrived working one-on-one with people and not,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: say, running workshop after workshop.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because I do have a hard time just sort of generalizing.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I like to take each project as its own unique project.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: And Aransas knows this.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I sent her like a 13 page audit of just like all my ideas.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'll come back in a year once I've accomplished all of this.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: I really have to like reel myself back in a little bit.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's so valuable.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like seriously so valuable.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: But I will say that that one thing that I find across
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: the board is usually is it's very common for creatives in any project to kind
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: of lose sight of the new reader touch points, like how people are finding them.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: And is that consistent or are they putting across a consistent voice?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: People don't pay a lot of attention to their welcome pages, which is your conversion page.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's a really important page on Substack.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: But since we never see it, it can be forgotten about really easily.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, backslash welcome and look at what that page looks like.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: zing up the graphic or make sure your publication description is written
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: in your voice.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: And has a little personality to it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_03: So many people write these like really gorgeous long about pages.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, I'm so sorry.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think it's reading that.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like you have to kind of meet people where they are and get to the point.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I spend a lot of time in my audits.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: Trying to pull focus to the hotspots, the areas where people's eyes land the most on Substack.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: And that is just something that doesn't come naturally to a lot of people
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: because they're busy making their art or making their products
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: or doing their services.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_03: They're busy doing other things.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: So that's why it's so helpful to have a set of eyes come in and be like,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: you say this over here,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: but then you don't deliver on it over here where people actually are going to be.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's such a good point.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Substack,
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: because it is its own platform that's different than other platforms,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: it can be hard to imagine what it feels like from,
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: like you said, Aaron, from someone else's perspective.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that welcome page always...
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's funny because every time I subscribe to a new Substack,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: the first thing, of course, the first thing you see is the welcome.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that first email you get.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll see people who have really...
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Huge followings, a lot of activity.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then I see like the boilerplate Substack welcome page.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think, wow, wow.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I use mine as a lead magnet.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So mine is a free guide to traveling with points.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I was able to then pull people off of Instagram and get email addresses
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: from other places by saying, if you subscribe, you'll get this free guide.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the free guide is the welcome email that you receive.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually been helpful for just getting subscribers.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, then it's like a valuable thing that's sitting in people's emails.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Accounts that they can then have when they need it.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: If they read it, if they don't, that's fine, but it's available.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I love to hear that.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: I do feel like not enough people are using lead magnets on Substack.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: And they're so great for just getting free subscribers.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: You can also do it to get paid subscribers.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: And again, you can put that resource either in the free welcome email or the paid welcome email.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I love that you did that.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: And wouldn't it be great if Substack told us our open rates for our welcome emails?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's like a hill that I will die on because I'm like, Nobody's opening that email.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's probably why they're not giving us the metrics.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_03: But they will if you put something valuable in there, if you have a lead magnet in it.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's a move that I see as a classic Aaron Chetron move,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: which I now see on other people's work.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I bet they worked with Aaron,
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: which is that at the top of every email, reinforce who the heck you are.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what the data is.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Places for over and over and over again.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: People need to hear it like 30 times before they even perceive it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so easy to just like keep it in your template.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it also is a really good reminder to Rachel's point,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: like every time that we're making a new newsletter,
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: we're like putting a lot of thought and love and energy in there.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know about you,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm revising that thing sometimes 20 times before I'm happy with it.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yet the welcome page, I think about quarterly, annually, like very infrequently.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is like another place to just say like, what am I doing here?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And to remind myself to keep refining that because I can make it truer all the time.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it's in front of me.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember it.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: And for those of you listening...
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: Just to be super clear,
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: I do tell everyone this because it's so important to just put a line or a two-liner
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: at the top of all of your posts because with Substack Notes and
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: with people forwarding emails to their friends,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: you just never know the new people Who are going to be landing on that newsletter.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just the people who are already subscribed and getting emails from you.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I do.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: That is another hill that we should be introducing ourselves,
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: if not in every post in a lot of them for the newbies who come across you.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: I also think it's like so much of my work is in identity
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: and how we perceive ourselves and reintroducing ourselves as,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: especially for midlife women who so many of us have left our creative selves on
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: the back burner.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're like pulling her out.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like going to use 15 metaphors in one sentence.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: We've had her out.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go with the wings and we'll bring our center stage.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like yanking her out over and over again.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And there is research that the more we say,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I am a writer,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I am a painter,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am a photographer,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: the more we believe it because we become confident,
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: comfortable saying that and owning that and we get the external validation
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: through other people's responses.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so actually like from a psychological perspective,
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's a superpower move to just say, this is what I am every single time I publish.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Aaron's point too,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to add one thing is that I have who I am and what I do like
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: to remind people in my header,
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: which is another thing that people don't always realize.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can go in and edit the headers, which then come up on every email.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can have them tailored then for free subscribers and paid subscribers.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: But to Aaron's point,
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: if somebody finds you through Substack Notes,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: which is,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: as I'm sure we'll talk about the way that you can be discovered on Substack,
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those people won't see that.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it is good to then also put it in the intro of your posts, at least as often as you can.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about that.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many different features on Substack and you just brought up notes.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Chats might have come up a little bit.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: What are your favorite ways of using the platform?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: How do you Think about these different modes,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's the articles, the podcasts, the chats, the notes and more.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like if you haven't used Substack and you're listening to this,
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: this part might be a little like disorienting.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll try to contextualize some of this a little bit.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: But like when we talk about an article,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: that's basically like you're thinking it's the newsletter and you're sending
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: that out.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Podcasts.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's audio, but you can also post video.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: A chat is something you can either send to everybody who subscribes to you
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: or just certain groups of people who subscribe to you based on whether they pay
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: or not.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: A note is something that like really goes out into the ecosystem of Substack
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: and everybody can see what you're doing.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the time,
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: nobody sees what you post,
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: but a couple people might and then somehow a billion people might.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: What are your favorites?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Was that a fair encapsulation?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds about right to me.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think, Erin?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds right.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I love that.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a real crap shoot.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like sometimes it's like, did I actually remember to post it?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I did.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: But there's no evidence.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then other times it's like, wow, that's still going.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So what are your favorite modes?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think about them differently?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: How do you use them for your purposes?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Erin, let's start with you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: What's my favorite way of using Substack?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: I've been thinking about this a lot because I am on Substack in a couple
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: of different capacities.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm there
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: as a support.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I didn't even talk about Frequent Criers Club,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: which is one of the best names though, really.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I am a total frequent crier, like every day.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I've been thinking because I'm now,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: I started my newsletter a little over a year ago,
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: year and a half ago,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: after I was on the platform just as a reader and as a strategist.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I got on the platform when I started working with Substackers and it was
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: a little like,
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: I was just there for research purposes and to help my clients do their thing.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: So I didn't even have my own dashboard.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: I would log in and I would go straight into my clients' dashboards.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: And this was before Notes too.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then when Notes happened,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, great,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just show up here as my goofy strategist self and chit-chat with...
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Basically use it as a Slack channel for talking with clients and talking
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: with just...
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: People that I knew from the platform.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: But now I have my own Substack,
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: which is not a professional Substack,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: which I feel like I have to like say that in big bold letters.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean by that distinction though?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's more just like a creative personal project.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm not on Substack as the Substack whisperer who is writing about like tips
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: and tricks to get started on the platform or to monetize on the platform or
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: to hone your voice.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'm writing just as a writer, just as a personal essayist.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think a lot about how to use the platform in this multifaceted way.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so what I've started doing,
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: because now people know me,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: Actually,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: probably more from Frequent Criers Club than as a strategist and collaborator,
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: which is never really what I meant to do, but that's okay.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: I love my newsletter.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, and so I have been writing notes, which is I really think of notes as Substack's.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: Version of Twitter, right?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like we're all on there where you can be funny, you can be sincere.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_03: I will say that like the vibe on Substack is more sincere than Twitter ever was.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: People really like photos of the beautiful bird that you saw this morning or like
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: the inspirational quote or the heartfelt story about someone,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: a stranger that you met and hugged,
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: which I'm known for because I do meet and hug a lot of strangers.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: So I do write about that.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: but it's also a place to just be like goofy and funny and post your memes and all
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I have been using it in a couple of capacities.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I get on notes to be my like silly, goofy self and to hype up my own personal newsletter.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: And then I also get on there to do...
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: Some professional like... Substack whisperer.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_03: Not really outreach.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah,
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_03: a little bit of Substack whispering will happen on notes every now and then.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's one of the things I've been thinking of lately.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, how can I do that in a way that's authentic to my voice?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't sound kind of like And so I've started doing This Week in Brain Flows,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: which are my hour-long consultations.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so every week,
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: I've been trying to just write a This Week in Brain Flows little bulleted list.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: Of the things that I've talked to people about,
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: the things that we've learned together,
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: the things that I've taught them or the things that we brainstormed about.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: And that way people know when they come across me on Substack that I'm not just
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: a frequent crier, but I'm also a support to people on the platform.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I would say Notes is a biggie for me.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: I love using Notes.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: I don't use it consistently,
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: which I think is maybe a myth that you kind of have to get on there every day
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: and be super consistent to have any success.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I haven't found that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: I just kind of follow my energy.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_03: I use the platform when it feels right to me,
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: when I've got a little of that extroverted energy flowing that day.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then I go quiet when I don't have that energy.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: And that's been totally fine for me too.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Love that.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: How about you, Rachel?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, okay.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I spend the most time on the posts.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: My posts tend to be kind of long and involved and very practical,
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: but also then I have the posts that are more personal,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: some that are very much like I do a lot of points,
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: how to, so like how to use your points, how to earn points, different things.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a credit card expert.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot about how to use your credit cards,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: how to earn points with credit cards, like all that stuff.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I also do these like trip reports where I'm talking about places
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: that I call city edits,
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: talking about places that I've been all of my favorite restaurants and cafes
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: and museums and all the things and how to do all that with kids.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I have like these two different directions that go in my posts and I spend a lot
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: of time on them.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: My friend says something like one of my Substack friends,
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: which I have many Substack friends,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: but now like real life friend says the posts that you spend the most time
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: on are going to be in the ones that you put the most energy into or something like
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: that are the ones that nobody's going to care about.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, I don't make the rules.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it is kind of true that sometimes you just you can spend all that.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like some of it's a craft shoot.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it's like probably Aaron might have more ideas as a strategist,
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: like why something succeeded and why it didn't.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And also there are different kinds of success.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like one post,
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: you might want comments and others converted to like actual sales,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: maybe through affiliate revenue or through paid conversions or
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: through some other metric that maybe isn't as visible.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: The chat is where I spend the least amount of my time, but I do think that it is a very...
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Good way to reach your subscribers.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that I have different communities.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the communities I have is Facebook.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that one is much more active than the if I had that chat in Substack, that would be great.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like it's hard to move communities from one platform to another.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's unlikely I would do that.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: The notes are where I spend my second most time.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I spend a lot of my time.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: I try to engage with other notes more than I spend time writing my own,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: which probably isn't great for my own discoverability,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: but it's really helpful for building community.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And a piece of advice I got somewhere along the way was like,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: if there's a writer that you want to collaborate with or if there's somebody
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: that you're interested in,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: like, I just like to follow things I'm interested in and follow.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's how I am kind of from a business perspective and just how I am in life.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I comment on things I like.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I try not to be just like a...
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just sitting back in the shadows.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I try to just be more like if I do like somebody's post,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: if I like somebody's note,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I try to say something and say something more than like great or cool or awesome.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Try to say something that adds a little value to the conversation or something
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: that isn't drawing attention to myself,
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: but is adding, just adding something to the conversation.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, A fair amount of times to the same person over time, they get to know you.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: You become somebody that's on their radar,
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: whether they are looking at you or not, you're somebody whose name they recognize.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been very helpful for just building community in general.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do it with people's,
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: if you don't do it,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: like if you do it authentically with people,
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Writers whose work you respect, that's a really excellent way to build community.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, you can shoot them a DM and say, I really love what you do.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Would you want to recommend each other?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which we haven't talked about that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But recommendations are such an amazing... Well,
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: you mentioned that Aransas in the beginning,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: but those recommendations are like an incredible way to build your community.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes those comments and notes have turned into DM conversations,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: which then have turned into collaborations or recommendations
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: and have been really instrumental in building my own community,
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: but also in the growth of my own newsletter.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think that is one of the coolest things about Substack is that
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: if you find value in something, you can share it with other people that...
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Value you and amplify other people.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: And like that's the whole essence of The Uplifters, right?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is that we are women who believe in rising higher together and really being of mutual support.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you have a bunch of Leads on smart people in one area.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: You want to know who your friend is reading and being influenced and inspired by.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I just think like that ability that I see Substack as being absolutely built for
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: that recommendation engine.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it feels like it's Best superpower.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things we haven't talked about in that making connections
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: with people you admire that I often forget is the easiest thing,
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: which is if you reply to an email that a Substack creator sends,
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: You're replying to the creator.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is not, right?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not like some mystery do not reply email that's going to a hidden email inbox.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is going to the creator.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if there is somebody whose work you love,
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: even if you don't want to chat,
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: you can respond and just be like, hey, love what you're doing.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: So grateful for these emails.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: I get so much out of them.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And voila, you are having a conversation with the person you admire.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: Some people have like, again, big engines behind them.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think Suleika Jouad is still reading every email that she gets in response, but maybe.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd say the vast majority of people on there are not Suleika
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: and actually are delighted to hear from their readers.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of email responses, by the way.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I get a lot, like way more than comments.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it throws off the algorithm and it throws off my metrics
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: because what you see publicly is not necessarily what the reality is.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I get actually probably more email replies,
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: which I find to be way more valuable as a writer.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would so much rather have somebody reply to me in an email than comment.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do as you wish anyway is great,
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: but I love those emails and they really do build a relationship.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about you for a second before we go into more on community.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see yourself, Rachel, before you started this whim of a newsletter?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you even see yourself as a writer?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know you were a songwriter in your youth and you've always connected
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: through music creatively, but...
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like you run a media empire now.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see yourself as somebody who had any credibility or experience or readiness
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: to start a little media conglomerate?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like I love that question.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is true that like we're all out here building these like media companies.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love when I see people write that and I believe it.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: I always thought of myself as a good writer in the sense of like I was good
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: in school as a writer and I love writing.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love that feeling of writing and I enjoy it.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I never thought of myself as a writer or I mean as like a writer.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: I just never thought of myself that way.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: It would never have been like I'm a writer.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I remember you're at a party or something and people introduce you.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I always like your brand is like developed when people introduce you
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: the way you want to be introduced.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I remember being somewhere and somebody said to me, somebody said, oh, this is Rachel.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: She's like an incredible travel writer.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody's like, oh yeah, she's like a travel expert.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to check out her Substack.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, whoa, this is crazy.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so then,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: but you know what I did is I went and I took my bio and I put
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: in there like travel expert, Rachel Lipson.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you like own that stuff, like we were saying before.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: But no, I mean, I didn't plan this.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't plan it.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And like two years ago,
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: that is not how anyone would have introduced you,
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: which is really inspiring for anybody thinking of this.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's like two years ago, yes,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: you already had probably Brooklyn Family Travelers,
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: your Facebook group then, but you didn't have... You weren't this...
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: You are still in many people's minds,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: the creator of Blue Balloon Songwriting Company,
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: your first company, and you still are that and.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now you have invested so much in this that you get to have both and have both in people's minds.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Erin, coming back to you, you do have this dual role as strategist and as a creative person.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Rachel kind of illuminated this as she talked about the different kinds of emails she sends.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: So she sends like her points and miles info, which is a lot of like pretty technical writing.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a lot of like, this is how you use the system.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And these are specific how-tos and tactical.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then she's writing these beautiful edits, which are super...
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Personal and memoiristic writing.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so even as a creator, she's writing in many different styles.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: You are writing this like really infrequent...
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is really hard for me to say.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's so hard to say.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Frequent Criers Club.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's easier to read.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that...
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're writing this really beautiful, sweet, raw, vulnerable, memoristic style.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, you have your work as a strategist.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so kind of two questions there for you.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: What couldn't you see coming in as a creator that you would have seen as
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: a strategist, but was difficult for you still as you started your own work?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's true for any of us.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then also, why isn't there a Substack Whisperer Substack?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: I did it the opposite way.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of people start off as creators and then they learn the platform.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: They get expert in the platform.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_03: They want to help others.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I came in, yeah, the opposite way.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I guess maybe I'll do my own.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: I was like really inspired by my client.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: I want to do this too.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: What was hard when you are a strategist working with You can really empathize
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: with their situation, but nothing replaces doing it yourself.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I talk to a lot of people about how to...
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: Publish sustainably.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's kind of my whole thing.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: I want to make sure that when people start off on the platform or maybe they've hit
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: the two-year mark.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I meet a lot of people for some reason at the two-year mark of their time on Substack.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: And they feel a little bit adrift or they're ready to kind of shift into a higher gear.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: There's some shift that takes place after a couple of years.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I meet a lot of people in that shift.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I talk to them a lot about how can we...
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: Avoid big publishing lulls.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: So how can you sustainably publish, say, once a month even or twice a month?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: Some people, of course, want to publish weekly or twice weekly.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: But starting as a creator, I was like, oh, wow, I have brainstormed this so often with people.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I have had this conversation so many different ways, so many different times.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: But it is different when it's you sitting down and you've got your menu of things
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: that you can create that don't take much energy,
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: that take a medium amount of energy, take a lot of energy.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: You've done all the right things to kind of prepare yourself for this.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: And it's different.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: I showed up really inconsistently and I don't think I was ready for that challenge
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: because I had talked through it with so many people before I did it myself.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so I have a deeper understanding of that particular struggle now that I'm on
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: the other side of it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: The sustainability piece is a real challenge for all of us, right?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to find the time, the energy, the creative capacity.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: And my experience with that has just been like, just do it and setting up some consistency.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a really externally accountable person.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: So if I tell people I'm going to publish every Thursday, I'm going to publish every Thursday.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's true for many of us.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that in my work with women in midlife comes up
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: a lot is oftentimes we are doing...
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: We start a newsletter either because we're just like flirting with
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: a big life transition or we are in the middle of a big life transition or we want
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: to...
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so much of that often in both constraints and possibilities is related to
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: the financial aspect of it.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something we don't talk enough about.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And like as a society,
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: we are trained to kind of keep that stuff quiet and And
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: to awkwardly dance around it.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: But Substack really was and is committed to putting money in the hands of creators.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: they take a little cut from all the money that comes under the platform
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: as they should because they're not getting it from advertisers.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: But there are also so many different reasons and ways to use it as
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: a financial engine to fund your goals and dreams and voice
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: or whatever it is you want to fund.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: So for me personally,
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've made a commitment to my audience that I've seen a few other people do,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: which is that I was like literally as a podcast host,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was spending thousands of dollars every year making donations to the nonprofits
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: that I was featuring.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was buying the books of authors that I was reading to amplify and support their voices.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was investing in all sorts of ways in the women that I was inspired by.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so the commitment I made to my audience was,
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: your paid subscription dollars are all going into this uplifter fund.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so it is all given back to the community, which for me, let me feel like I was...
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting paid in a sense for my work and my commitment to this,
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: but it was through also a social impact endeavor,
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: which was something I really wanted to figure out a way to fund.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And my husband teases me that I'm constantly like,
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: how do I make more money so that I can donate more?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I still haven't totally cracked that nut, but that's the goal.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the ways that I'm doing that.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was curious,
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: not that it has to be altruistic or anything or giving back into community,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: because I also think it's really important for creators to get paid for their work.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: So none of those things are more or less important.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: That is just a way of thinking about it.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I know, Erin, you as a creator, I don't know that you even charge for subscriptions.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Is it fully free?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: I do have a paid tier, but I don't
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_03: push it.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's helpful,
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: I will say,
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_03: to have a paid tier even if you're not going to pay well a bunch of things
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_03: because you get ranked in Substack's categories if you have a paid tier,
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: but you don't get ranked if you don't.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because that's your only method of getting income, so they'll incentivize that.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so for you, how did you make that decision?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I knew if I had a really popular piece,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted to be on the leaderboard for my category, which is culture right now.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just set it at like the lowest tier, $5 a month, $50 a year, something like that.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I do occasionally put out paywall content so that my readers are getting something from me.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah,
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_03: I have a lot of thoughts on how to figure out your paid offering if you do want
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: to monetize.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_03: For me, right now I'm sort of doing like a more patron model where people are paying
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: to support me and my creative work and not so much a subscriber model,
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: which they would be paying dollars for a certain exchange.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: Like they would expect a weekly resource list of some sort or they would expect
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: a more tangible offering from me.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then in general, how do you help people decide...
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: What and how to charge?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, money is so interesting because money is how we feel about ourselves.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: And even at baseline there, we do need a certain amount of money to live.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: But then past that baseline, it's all like feeling and self-esteem.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: So the money conversation is really different for everybody.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I always say to...
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_03: Charge what makes you feel comfortable plus a little bit more.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_03: So we want to be sort of reaching beyond just our comfort zone and valuing ourselves.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_03: And on Substack, you're just starting out.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: I always say too that it's easier to...
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: Raise your rates than to lower them.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: So if you want to start low and then climb, I'm totally fine with that.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to just do what I did and start at the $5 a month threshold,
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: which is Substack's automatic suggestion, that's great.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: You can always increase from there as you figure out what it is you want
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_03: to offer paid subscribers because it does take a lot of testing and figuring it out.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's not often that people come to the platform and Extremely clear on what is going
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: to be free and what is going to be paid.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: It takes a little bit of sussing out.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: And there are people making real incomes.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said,
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: there's people like Sari Button in her first six months or something
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: that became her full-time job.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: And she's able to pay her contributors.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas somebody like Dan Harris is probably making hundreds of thousands
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: of dollars, but he also has a full team to pay.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so when people say,
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_03: and I've said this before too,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: like wait until you have a thousand free subscribers to monetize or wait until this
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_03: or that.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_03: If you come to the platform with a really clear, distinct offering for paid people...
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have to wait.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_03: You can start and introduce that paid tier as early as you want.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_03: I more recommend waiting for and focusing on free subscriber growth
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: when people are still kind of figuring out what exactly their value offering is
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: to paid subscribers.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a great segue.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, Sari came on the platform and she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so that really worked for her.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that was such a great segue to Rachel because she is in the enviable
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: in some ways position of she's helping people save money at a time when
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: the economy is kind of trash and we still want to go and do beautiful things
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: and have a rich life and are looking for ways to be a bit more...
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like she has such an immediate and urgent problem she's helping people solve.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: And...
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's really high value.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's clear she's putting hundreds of hours of work and experience in
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: to make it easier and faster for her customers, her readers to be successful.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like a no-brainer to pay to subscribe.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you kind of walked in, right, with some vision, Rachel, of like, this is what people need.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is why I'm going to pay well and what I'm going to pay well.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I did not.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: That first day, I was like, I don't know what I'm going to do here.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I do know that anytime I'm charging for something, I want to...
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very scared of under-delivering all the time.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I always over-deliver so that at least somebody can never say I'm not getting enough.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I knew...
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right away that I was going to be able to offer content that was high value.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: What can be tricky is to balance.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: I still have trouble sometimes balancing what should be free, what should be paid.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: But my goal is to make sure everybody feels like they're getting something and that
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: the free subscribers feel like they're here for a reason and that there's something
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: for them and they're not just missing out.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Partially because I monetize my Substack in multiple ways.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, we've all touched on this, but paid subscriptions are actually one of the least...
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like one of the least likely ways that you'll monetize your Substack.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can...
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, or the least valuable ways like you can have...
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I am a top...
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: 40-ish Substack in travel.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: I could not live off of it.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not a job.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is not like quit your day job situation in the money that I get from Substack.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: But my affiliate revenue and other ways,
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: partnerships and other things that I've done
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: to monetize have been extremely successful and are very much something that can lead
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: to Hiring people.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have a full-time assistant.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have a full-time team member.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of ways in which it's been very successful.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not just from Substack, but it is from the newsletter.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's more like newsletter stuff.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: Agnostic success that is not as tied into like the Substack platform.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: But those are things that I'm just kind of looking at building all of it.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the affiliate revenue can come from free subscribers and other kinds of revenue.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the paid tier kind of supports all of it.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's for people who like really want more in depth.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: They want more,
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: they're really fans or they really want to like engage more deeply with all of it.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I look at it as if there's like buckets of ways that people can engage
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: and be readers and be customers, be clients, be fans, like all the things.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them are very valuable in terms of how they will help my business grow financially.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them are word of mouth and relationships.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have relationship capital.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there's just so many ways in which I've found value.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: But overall,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that leaderboard is...
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I will say is there's two ways you can end up on the leaderboard
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: and people get very confused by them.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's the top bestsellers,
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: which are...
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: Once you're on that, you can kind of move up or down in ranks and it can change.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the rising bestsellers.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the rising bestsellers is like fun.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have your paid subscriptions turned on and you have a post
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: that like does really well, you can end up on that rising bestsellers.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: List at any time.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fleeting.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: It can be fleeting,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: but it's fun because then you can post like,
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm number one in rising bestsellers and whatever.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that,
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: especially because people don't really understand what it is,
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: it looks very impressive and it's really fun to be able to experience.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have your paid tier turned on, as Erin said, you can't show up on that.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something to keep in mind.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: I still can't believe I'm on the On the top bestsellers.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I'm like, and I'll move from like, I was like 37 and then 38 and 36 and 35.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm like 42.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, how will I get back?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, these are all such silly things that like, you can drive yourself crazy.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same as thinking about follower counts or thinking about engagement metrics.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to stay the course and just kind of do what you do,
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: do what you do best and Engage with the people you love and move forward
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: and not let yourself get too hung up on it.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there's lots of ways to grow.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: And there's lots of ways to measure success.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've been at this for years.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: I am not on the bestseller list.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: I did spend one week on the rising bestsellers in health and wellness, and it was thrilling.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it was literally because five people after a Live subscribed.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: That'll do it.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was five new paid subscriptions.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a big category,
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: but I was like, oh my gosh, I mean, it really was sort of startling and thrilling.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: And yet that is not even my goal to be on that list.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's not a metric that's in my mind ever.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like to get some comments.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: I love it when people respond to me.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: This week I wrote a piece I really loved.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: I made my kids listen to it as I read it to them.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: I called my mom and read it to her.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just really was proud of this piece.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_01: And just that alone...
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so it is like, and most of all, it's contributed to me finding...
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: And like the best notes are the ones usually that say,
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a 51-year-old woman who likes knitting, poetry, and snowshoeing.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: Where are my people?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then 5,000 people are like, me, me, me.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: And right?
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's really what...
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, like, that's it.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's the best.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I am there for is the me, me, me.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let's all band together and just feel seen and supported and connected
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: and less lonely in this weird ass world that we're living in.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: And like success is different for every one of us.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to just invite you both to close out with one thought, wish,
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: takeaway that you hope someone listening to this will carry with them,
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: either that you've already said or even something you haven't said.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_03: I will close out just by saying to make the platform what you want it to be.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_03: There are so many gurus and salespeople and strategists, myself among them.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_03: There are so many people trying to tell you the way to the path to success.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_03: So many viral articles.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that your path to success will ultimately be unique.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_03: And even if you work with a strategist like myself or anyone that I would recommend,
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_03: we will help you do it your way.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I really just think that that is the most beautiful way to do it.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you will have long-term sustainable success if you sort of Hone in
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_03: on what you can offer and tune out a lot of the best practices noise.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_03: So well said.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: How about you, Rachel?
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was going to say something similar.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: That trying to copy what someone else is doing
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: or someone else's success is just somewhat pointless.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: the reason why people will come to you and the reason why people will subscribe is
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: because they want to hear your voice and what you do in your niche.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what this kind of new world of newsletters is about.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: And also like stay the course.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people try things and they don't work or like they don't work like in quotation marks.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like it seems like they don't work, but they just didn't do it long enough.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know for myself,
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: like I never have notes go viral and I'm always like,
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: why do my notes never go viral?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I could tell,
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: like I could tell somebody else if they were asking me,
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: like a friend said like, how come my notes aren't going viral?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: I would say to them, you need to be more consistent.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're...
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: I post like all the things I think about and I am like a very multifaceted person
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: with like lots of different ideas and lots of different directions and
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: the algorithm doesn't know where to put me and that is why and I know that
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: but that's where I want to be on it and that's fine.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: I accept that but I would just say to anybody who's trying
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: to figure out notes especially that if you find one thing that you can do just kind
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: of keep repeating it.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do it in your way but repeat it and the algorithm We'll figure out where to fit you
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: in and how to show people what you do.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it could take literally two months of doing the same thing.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: So don't do it for two weeks and say it didn't work.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just stay the course if you feel like it.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what you want.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the metric you're looking for.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: My new rule for myself, Rachel, is no one and done.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's not allowed in my life anymore.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: And like,
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: because it'll be like,
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put in all this work to create something and I'll be like,
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: oh my God, it was so great.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then I deliver it to one client and we do this eight week series.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm going to do 50 of these.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then I go and I offer it to all these people and everybody's like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm like, no, I guess it wasn't a thing.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I was wrong.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: And only this one company wanted it.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: But my rule now is I have to keep offering it to people until
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: at least one more person says yes.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: And usually what I find is like by the third time someone says yes to anything,
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: it becomes like 50% easier to find the people that need it.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: No one had done it.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you both so, so, so, so,
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: so, so much for all the ways you've personally inspired me for this conversation.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: Even after all these years and all this stuff I've done,
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: never thought of putting a lead magnet in there.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's always so much to learn and so many ways to grow.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: And most of all, it's just a really nice...
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're listening to this, go and hire Erin.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can find her at erinschatron.com.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put that in the show notes.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find the Frequent Criers Club on Substack.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: And Rachel,
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: you'll find her over at The Point as well as on all places,
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: social, social, Just so packed with rich information.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: Again, everything will be in the show notes.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Find me over at theuplifterspodcast.com.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll find not just the podcast,
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: but our pod of uplifters who believe that we can all rise so much higher together.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thank
• 58:29
  [music]
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: Podcast.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you're getting a boost from these episodes,
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: please share them with The Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: over at theuplifterspodcast.com.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_01: Head over to Spotify,
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Apple Podcasts,
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_01: or wherever you get your podcasts and like, follow, and rate our show.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: It'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: of these beautiful stories.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: Big love.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_02: Painted water, sunshine.
• 59:15
  [music]
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: little thing you did with your voice.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right, in the pre-chorus, right?
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was like... Mommy, stop crying.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_01: Mommy, stop crying.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're disturbing the peace.