Latest / Ambitious Podcast / EP.113: From Funnels to Substack: The Long Game of Brand Building w/ Landon Poburan | The Ambitious Podcast

Transcript

EP.113: From Funnels to Substack: The Long Game of Brand Building w/ Landon Poburan | The Ambitious Podcast · Ambitious Podcast

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  I've invested over $100,000 in courses, coaching programs,
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  masterminds only till you left broke and like wanting to burn
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  my business down. Everyone I talk to you now is
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  like, I just wish I could get off social media.
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  Most of the people you think haven't figured out are
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  completely drowning behind the scenes.
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  They're crying when they're not on live on Instagram.
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  I talk to a lot of scaling entrepreneurs who have like
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  built their own prison and now if I stop, my whole business
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  crumbles. We get caught jumping after new
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  tactics when we realize we just built a business that we don't
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  actually want to be run. Does this business or business
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  model actually line up with the business we want to run?
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  The reason it's not working is actually tied back to you, not
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  to the platform. Hello and welcome back.
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  Today we have an absolutely incredible interview and I.
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  Have copious amounts of notes from this conversation.
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  This is something that I will tell you went very wide in what
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  was discussed, but also at the same time went very deep into
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  the conversation that we unpacked around all things
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  marketing and what that actually looks like in today's current
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  ecosystem for you and for your business.
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  And most importantly, in a way that actually feels aligned.
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  So today I am diving with Landon and he's a serial entrepreneur
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  and a marketing strategist who has managed over $15 million in
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  advertising across 10 plus years in the industry.
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  What makes his story so compelling though is that he's
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  been through this entire cycle. He has done what many of us have
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  experienced. We've had the shiny object
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  chasing the burnout, the business failure, 6 figure debt.
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  And he has come out the other side with a new approach to
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  actually what it takes to build a sustainable business.
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  And after navigating significant debt, clinical burnout, he
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  pivoted to what he calls an unhustled philosophy.
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  He has now built a thriving publication on Sub Stack with
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  thousands of subscribers and has created 9 distinct revenue
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  streams with one single platform, all while working four
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  to six hours a day. So with this, what we dive into
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  in this episode, why every marketing strategy actually
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  works, but not every single one is going to work for you, and
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  how to identify what actually aligns with your values and the
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  lifestyle that you want for yourself.
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  He talks about the real difference between brand
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  building and conversion focused marketing and where these two
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  sections intersect. This was such an incredible part
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  of the conversation that even myself, I went.
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  Back to. Because the way he explains it
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  is probably the best way that I've ever seen the duality of
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  brand building, marketing, and conversion discussed in one time
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  his journey. He also discusses through the
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  early days of coding funnels, click funnels and how he exited
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  that and discovered that consistency really was the thing
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  that beats all of those tactics every single time.
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  He discussed why he believes that things take the time they
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  take and how to set realistic expectations when you are
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  someone who wants to build something sustainable.
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  He also unpacked the dangerous trap of building a business
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  based on somebody else's definition of success.
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  And then he went into a master class, and I'm telling you a
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  master class on Substack. How Substack allowed him to
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  build his entire business around writing with very little video,
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  basically no photo shoots, no endless content creation, and
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  why being early in emerging platforms can actually be
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  massive leverage. He also discusses why quality
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  times quantity is the actual formula for marketing success,
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  but how to balance both without burning out and sacrificing
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  depth for the sake of volume. So I will tell you this is a
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  complete master class. If there's any episode that I
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  would want you to take out a pen and paper on, it is this one.
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  There's so much juiciness that Landon shares this.
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  Without further ado, let's get into today's episode.
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  All right, you guys, welcome back to Ambitious.
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  Today we are diving into what I probably anticipate is going to
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  be in some respect like a marketing master class because
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  even I was just saying before we press record and diving into
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  preparing notes, I was like, I'm stoked for this one to dive into
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  everything. So, Landon, welcome to
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  Ambitious. Thank you so much for having me.
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  I'm very excited. I have notes prepped in front of
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  me. I was like, well, if we talk
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  about this, have some notes about that.
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  And so I just, I love these conversations, just being able
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  to to come share and take the conversation where it goes
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  because I think it's so needed in this crazy world that we live
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  in. Absolutely.
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  And I, I, we were just saying before recording that I feel
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  like knowing that you have notes were probably those type A
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  people who are like, OK, like I have structure.
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  This is what we're going to talk about.
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  And I have a high prediction. It probably will go nothing
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  according to that plan, which is probably great because it means
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  we'll dive into a lot. But I will say when I was diving
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  into kind of your background and all of the things, things that
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  you've done, did I read this correctly that you've been in
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  marketing in some respect for almost 2 decades?
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  Yeah. I say like marketing, marketing
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  adjacent because it's like, OK, I got my start effectively doing
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  like web design. So I'm like, I would classify
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  that as inside of kind of marketing.
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  I'm helping companies with their website to grow their business.
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  And then I started building funnels and doing SEO and it's
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  just, you know, upwards of it's difficult to trace it exactly
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  back when I started cuz I was like, I had college instructors
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  giving me work like when I was going through college.
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  So yeah, it's been, you know, pretty close to to two decades,
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  which seems crazy to think. About.
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  Yeah, well, entrepreneurship is like a rabbit hole.
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  You feel like a year flies by in no time.
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  So it makes sense. You're like, I don't even know
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  how long I've been doing this. It's just been a long time.
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  I guess the reason I ask is I feel like in having that much
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  time in the space, like you're saying, maybe not in the in the
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  depths of like copy or maybe it was in funnels, it's in
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  different areas, but in being the space in general for that
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  long, I would hazard, I guess you've seen all of the shifts
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  that have happened. Like to your point, we had the
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  the blog era, we have a lot of emphasis on the SEO era.
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  We've got, you know, paid ads, it's all pay to play.
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  You have the funnel side of things.
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  You've got webinars, you've got the e-book era, like you've been
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  around for all of it. So I guess one of the the first
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  questions that I feel like I have is what is the biggest
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  learnings you've had in being through those different eras
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  when it comes to effectiveness on marketing?
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  Because I think we probably have some pretty similar beliefs
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  around like depth versus width kind of being an emphasis of how
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  to win. But I'm curious since you really
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  have seen all those eras, what you've seen shift and kind of be
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  a through line of what's actually worked?
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  Yeah, it's such an interesting question because the length of
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  time that I've been in the industry, I had to really kind
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  of grieve that I wasn't where I thought I was going to be after
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  being in the industry for so long.
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  Because when you are in things for a very long time and then
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  you see other people coming up and then they accelerate past
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  you and then you kind of don't always like seeing that.
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  But I've way back I was hand coding funnels before tools like
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  click funnels existed for like real estate agents and things
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  along those lines. I was running Google ads to
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  funnels for real estate agents. I was hand coding checkouts to
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  make purchases like the code to process the payment and like
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  catch up. The CVV was rejected before
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  things like Shopify existed and like around when Stripe was just
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  released. I've created blogs to try and
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  capitalize on like Adsense revenue and I've done more
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  things than I can usually recount at any given time.
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  The one thing that I really started to dig into probably
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  2022 ish was really getting deep into kind of like branding and
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  really starting to study the people that I saw really
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  successful in different industries.
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  And I really started to come to a very singular conclusion.
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  And it was typically the people that were at the top that we
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  were. Everybody's kind of like looking
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  at and modeling. They usually were doing a
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  singular thing for a very long period of time.
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  So we get very caught up in this, you know, 8 weeks programs
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  and 12 week courses and 30 day challenges.
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  And we start to get a little bit skewed expectations on like,
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  that's how much it's going to take before I start to see
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  success. But then I was like, OK, this
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  podcaster, they're on episode 800.
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  I'm on episode 7. Like, OK, maybe there's
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  something there. This this person, I remember
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  seeing a Blogger write and he had published over 2000 blog
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  articles. I'm like, oh, and then I started
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  to look at some Youtubers and you look at like a Mr. Beast or
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  a Logan Paul and you're like, oh, like they've been creating
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  videos for like 10 to 15 years consistently week over week over
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  week. And I just really started to
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  shift my perspective around effectively what I would call
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  brand building, but effectively business building is, I believe
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  consistency is a root foundation of everything.
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  And a lot of people argue with me and they're like, well,
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  consistency is not enough. And I'm like, well, nothing
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  happens without it. But yeah, yeah, everything
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  works. At the end of the day.
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  I have seen every single thing, every single business model.
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  There's still people that make money with blogs.
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  There are still people that make money with webinars.
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  There's still people that use book funnels and self
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  liquidating offer funnels and challenges.
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  And all of the shiny objects we jump around to, they all work.
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  It's not usually if it works, it's usually a matter of are we
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  going to stick with it until we make it work?
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  And does this business or business model actually line up
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  with the business we want to run?
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  And I think there's so much inside of that.
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  But most of the time people just stop before it had the
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  opportunity to be effective. There was some key research by
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  two individuals, Peter Field and Les Bennett, and they studied
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  effectively brand activation versus brand building in terms
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  of like profitability for a business.
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  And sales activation is, you know, conversion focus messages
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  by now that's always going to outperform brand messaging,
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  especially if you're thinking like TV and Zooming a little bit
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  outside of our specific industry.
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  So, but brand is something that takes 612-2436 months to start
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  to accumulate. And their research showed that
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  it will outpace sales activation in the long term.
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  But what happens is people don't until those lines cross, people
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  quit because they want that immediate pay off.
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  It's no different than so let's say it's just social media.
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  Yes, you can go into the DMS and have a bunch of stories and
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  posts that are going to be very sales focused and you might get
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  some sales and customers now. But as soon as you burn through
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  that existing audience you have, if that audience is not growing,
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  your sales will start to plateau and decline and your business
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  will not grow. If you are not building a
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  business and an audience and all of these things that kind of
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  come on the back end of it. So I've really found that
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  everything really does work. We just really have to be more
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  intentional around giving things the time to develop and like
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  marinate. And you know, a saying that my,
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  my wife said one time and I, I can't remember.
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  I think it's from probably some kind of like Buddhist
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  philosopher style person. It's like things take the time
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  they take and it just really holds true for me because I have
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  a soft spot for people coming into the industry because we're
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  sold that things are going to work quick.
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  But it's like sometimes things take the time they take.
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  You have 0 control over how long it's going to take.
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  And we might need to talk about your definitions of success and
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  what you're actually trying to create.
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  But like, let's not talk about the best business model, the
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  best social platform to go on. Like if you hate being on video,
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  then it doesn't matter if YouTube's the best platform to
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  be on, it's just probably not going to be an effective
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  strategy. You know, if you hate eating
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  meat, going on a carnivore diet probably is not going to be
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  effective like long term. So it's, I think that's really
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  kind of the biggest thing that I've seen when it comes to like
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  really zooming out and trying to look at like my career from like
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  a 30,000 foot view. There's so much there because I,
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  I think, well, obviously one of the pieces which I talk about a
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  lot, I think in business, but also just in general is the
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  ability to defer the dopamine spike.
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  Because like I talk about that even with this podcast.
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  And you were just saying even with your podcast having like
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  200 plus episodes for one of them that you did to do that
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  when you're recording for some people 20 minutes to an hour,
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  some people 90 minutes every single week.
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  And you're not getting an instant client from that.
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  You're not blowing up and going viral overnight.
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  You're not Joe Rogan 50 episodes later.
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  And so most people like you're saying have this, OK, well,
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  obviously this is not working. But from what I'm hearing, you
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  basically stretch out the context from which you're
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  evaluating it. And as you're saying, like the
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  criteria and when you mentioned, you know, the context in
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  comparison to others, it's funny that you say that because I was
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  saying that actually to a team member.
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  I said sometimes I feel like I'm very long term in the sense of
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  that I, I recognize that something is going to be
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  beneficial for me in 5 to 10 to 20 years in business, even if
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  it's not something that does anything for me today.
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  But then I sometimes wonder, oh man, like how much further would
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  I be if I had these little wins today?
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  You know, in the sense of where would our cash flow be?
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  Where would our revenue be? Where would our business be in
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  the sense of size if I just didn't care about that?
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  And I was all about like you're saying that converting piece for
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  me, my biggest concern, I guess my biggest fear when you're
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  talking about those kind of two pieces hitting a, a connection
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  point is like I feel like I've always focused on brand because
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  I know that that's how you exist forever.
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  Like it's those. Celebrities that you're like, I
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  don't even know how so and so is still going, but they're still
• 14:17
  still somehow somewhat relevant. That for me was always what I
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  had as like my North Star. But to your point, it also often
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  times was never leverageable in the short term.
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  And so then when you're in those seasons where you're like, hey,
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  we want to double the business this year, there's a lot of
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  shiny object of to your point where we could do this and we
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  could do that. And it's like, yeah, but that's
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  all short term stuff. And so it's been hard to your
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  point of like seeing other people versus you because I even
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  for myself, get so frustrated that if I just didn't care about
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  that and I could just focus on the quick dopamine hit of cash
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  flow or sales where I could be. But I also try to remind myself
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  that that also could be the full reason that I'm out of business
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  in the next 10 years. It it makes me smile because I
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  think about this all the time. I have business partners that I
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  have these conversations with because there are, you know,
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  I'm, I'm not going to name names.
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  I'm sure we know of some of them inside of this online marketing
• 15:20
  and coaching world where they have, you know, different
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  personality traits. You know, they might be, you
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  know, we won't, we won't name any like clinical terms, but
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  where they're going to do whatever it takes to make money.
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  And not all of us are wired that way, but that is what's thought
• 15:41
  in the industry cuz those are typically the people that are
• 15:45
  gonna do anything at all costs. Then they're the one making the
• 15:48
  money and then they're the ones selling the course.
• 15:51
  And then we have somebody that operates just differently.
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  Our operating system, our value system is completely different.
• 15:58
  And we come in there and we go, I need to do this and I need to
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  double the business. And our view of success is
• 16:06
  tailored based off of somebody else's blueprint, somebody
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  else's value system. And something that I've seen
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  repeatedly over and over and over because I've been behind
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  the scenes of a lot of businesses where like you're
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  making 50 KA month and you can't pay yourself.
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  I'm like, there's something fundamentally wrong here.
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  Like you could cut all of your expenses and do $10,000 a month
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  in sales and be taking home more money, but our perception is so
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  skewed that we think that 50K is better than the 10K even though
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  we're making no money. We need to really take a step
• 16:44
  back and go like, what is the point?
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  Why do we need to double the business?
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  Is there an actual inherent reason that this is what we need
• 16:53
  to do, or are we chasing something that is the goal of
• 16:57
  somebody else? Because I've been in masterminds
• 17:00
  where everybody conforms to whoever the guru is standing at
• 17:03
  the front of the room, and we all start chasing the same
• 17:06
  goals. And six months later, everybody
• 17:08
  leaves the mastermind because everybody hates their life.
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  They hate the business that they've created.
• 17:13
  If we don't like what we're doing, what is it for?
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  I've seen way too often people effectively trying to do a lot
• 17:21
  of that stuff and taking a lot of those.
• 17:24
  Here's how I can make money today and eventually wind up in
• 17:28
  a business that they want to escape, which is actually become
• 17:31
  like my fundamental like thesis when it comes to business.
• 17:35
  Like, well, let's unpack that. Like why are we doing this?
• 17:38
  You shouldn't be crying on our coaching call.
• 17:41
  You know, like we we need to talk about this.
• 17:43
  If you don't want to do those things and you don't want to
• 17:46
  hire these people, like let's take a step back and re evaluate
• 17:49
  the business. But it's so scary to do that.
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  I think I'm really wanting to try and like change the
• 17:56
  narrative a little bit about how we approach these things and go
• 18:00
  like, what do we actually want 'cause we see I, I love the fact
• 18:05
  that I started in a lot of this direct response world.
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  So we got ads, sales letters, and we got, you know, webinar
• 18:14
  funnels. And then I started to become a
• 18:17
  creator and then I started to get exposed to all of these
• 18:20
  creators and they've built big audiences and they don't know
• 18:24
  how to make money. And then we have all of these
• 18:27
  direct response people over here that if they turn their ads off,
• 18:30
  they're broke and they have no audience.
• 18:33
  And I'm like the, the magic is kind of in the middle.
• 18:37
  Like we don't need to go completely to one side.
• 18:40
  But if I had to pick one, I'm like, if I had a big audience,
• 18:42
  I'm going to figure out a way to monetize it.
• 18:46
  And a lot of those people start because they just love what
• 18:49
  they're doing. They just love it.
• 18:50
  They love creating content. So like recording a podcast
• 18:53
  every week is nothing. So it's how do we create that
• 18:57
  blend for that individual person that lines up with what they're
• 19:00
  actually trying to do so that we can just create sustainability.
• 19:05
  It's easy to go fast because for so many of us, it's the it's the
• 19:09
  default. But it almost becomes like a
• 19:11
  coping mechanism is just to just work to work to work and not
• 19:15
  unpack the stuff. Just like it's easier to play
• 19:19
  video games, watch porn or grab a drink than it is to like a go
• 19:22
  to therapy and work on yourself. Work often starts to fill a
• 19:26
  little bit of that as well. And there's just certain people
• 19:29
  where like sometimes work for them is that if we take and Alex
• 19:35
  Harmozzi, for example, who's been very glorified and he's
• 19:38
  been extremely successful, mad respect for for him and Layla
• 19:41
  with what they've created. But when you watch him talk, he
• 19:45
  works a lot. And he says you should work more
• 19:48
  and you should split your day into like, you know, 5/8 hour
• 19:51
  blocks of times and like, but when you hear him talk and he
• 19:55
  goes, I have no social life. All I do is work.
• 19:58
  I have no friends. I just hang out with Layla.
• 20:01
  And you're like, but is, is that what you want to create?
• 20:04
  Because if you're chasing what somebody like that is doing, we
• 20:08
  have to understand that there's some compromises that are going
• 20:12
  to happen in order to get there. And most of us just kind of turn
• 20:15
  a blind eye to that because we don't think it's going to happen
• 20:17
  to us. Well, I think it's.
• 20:19
  Like the classic? Thing of like, I don't, I'm
• 20:23
  going to butcher the quote, but someone basically said it's not
• 20:25
  about buying into the goal of what someone's achieved.
• 20:27
  It's about buying into the process of how they achieved it.
• 20:30
  And so it's kind of, I think about it almost like people who
• 20:33
  say like, I want to be a bikini competitor and it's like, do you
• 20:36
  know what that entails? Because like the commitment, the
• 20:38
  dedication that it takes to have a certain physique, have a
• 20:42
  certain level of health. It's like, if you're not into
• 20:45
  like we were at a event together recently and I saw you eating
• 20:48
  your super clean food while I was eating like a smash burger
• 20:51
  or something. And I, I was thinking about that
• 20:53
  actually in prepping for today because I was like, it's the
• 20:55
  whole essence of someone wants the outcome of health, but it's
• 20:59
  like you're not committed enough to the process of what that
• 21:01
  pursuit of that goal looks like. And so the achievement of said
• 21:05
  thing is not actually about the desire to, to achieve it.
• 21:08
  Like to your point of hitting a 50K month, 100K month, it's
• 21:11
  about what process are you buying in as a part of the
• 21:14
  pursuit to doing that? And I think to your point of
• 21:18
  that middle ground, when you were saying that, my brain went
• 21:21
  to the level of self-confidence and kind of self conviction that
• 21:25
  you have to have to do that. Because I remember when I first
• 21:29
  started as like my original days in business when I had a fitness
• 21:33
  business at that time was all funnels like it was like, here's
• 21:36
  what we're going to do. We're going to create, you know,
• 21:37
  this sales page to to this upsell to this order bump to
• 21:41
  this one time offer to this e-mail sequence.
• 21:43
  And this is how you're going to grow.
• 21:44
  And at the time I was like, I'm so green, like, whatever you
• 21:47
  tell me, that's what I'm going to do.
• 21:50
  And I remember taking out thousands of dollars to, to, you
• 21:53
  know, hire these developers and copywriters and like, obviously
• 21:56
  this is way before AI. So like there was all like
• 21:58
  literally you sitting looking at a Google doc for hours and hours
• 22:01
  and hours. And I remember I put this up and
• 22:04
  nothing happened obviously because there was no audience
• 22:07
  and there was no ads being run to it.
• 22:09
  So it was just kind of this like sitting duck that was just
• 22:11
  laying there. And I thought, OK, this is not
• 22:13
  as liberating as I thought this process would look like.
• 22:16
  And it also felt very detached. It felt very cold.
• 22:18
  There was no, you know, there was a timer at the top to create
• 22:21
  urgency. And there was like these like
• 22:23
  16-17 pages of scrolling those super, super long form sales
• 22:28
  pages back in the day. And I remember there was like
• 22:31
  these mock ups of people who had like, you know, baby oiled ABS
• 22:35
  and all of his stuff that used to work, which I know for anyone
• 22:38
  who wasn't in that area, you're like, what is happening?
• 22:40
  It was a thing and it worked very well for a lot of people.
• 22:43
  They made a lot of money off it. But when it didn't work, I
• 22:46
  thought, OK, well, what now? So I went to go hire another
• 22:48
  mentor and he was fantastic in the sense of great guy.
• 22:51
  But one of his approaches that he believed in was this kind of,
• 22:55
  you know, sales as a numbers game.
• 22:57
  It's a matter of how many people you can message.
• 23:00
  And I'm thinking I'm asking this person who has no idea who I am
• 23:04
  to invest into my, my offer through a series of like 7
• 23:07
  messages to convert. And you know, to your point,
• 23:10
  they get results. So the thing that I came up
• 23:13
  against, to your point of they all work is I had first of all,
• 23:17
  never considered the lifestyle that I wanted.
• 23:19
  So I never thought about, OK, well, do I like making content?
• 23:22
  Do I like writing copy? Do I like spending four hours a
• 23:25
  day in the DMS? Never crossed my mind.
• 23:28
  I was like money is the goal, whatever makes that let's do
• 23:31
  that. And I think part of my brain,
• 23:33
  which probably for you because obviously you do coaching as
• 23:35
  well. I think for clients or for
• 23:37
  people who are investing, even for us, investing in the
• 23:39
  mentorship part of it is like I'm investing in you to give me
• 23:44
  the guidance. Like you are like my sensei,
• 23:46
  you're supposed to lead me and you're my guide and you're
• 23:50
  telling me go left. So I'm going to go left.
• 23:51
  We almost turn off when we invest this like critical
• 23:55
  thinking of saying OK like. Do I like this?
• 23:58
  Does. This land, and it was only once
• 24:01
  I got to a mentor, I actually worked with him for a very long
• 24:04
  time. He had done this, you know,
• 24:06
  messaging and this kind of, you know, sales as a numbers game.
• 24:09
  And again, people got great results off it.
• 24:11
  It just didn't land for me. And so I remember him saying,
• 24:14
  you know, content is a long term play.
• 24:16
  Like it's not easy to just put up a post and overnight you're a
• 24:18
  millionaire. And I remember saying to him
• 24:20
  though, like, I'm going to try it because I, I really feel like
• 24:23
  that's the route that I'm supposed to go.
• 24:25
  And so, you know, we went really hard with it and we hit seven
• 24:28
  figures in 18 months of starting that process.
• 24:31
  But the only reason I discovered that is because he was like, and
• 24:35
  I tell him it's too to his face. Like he was like my dad who was
• 24:38
  saying, like, you know, this is what you're going to do.
• 24:40
  You're going to go to school for this.
• 24:41
  And I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm going to become a musician.
• 24:43
  And I went and did my own thing. And that was the thing that
• 24:46
  actually helped me to develop my process.
• 24:48
  And I'm really grateful for that experience because I realized if
• 24:51
  I hadn't had that other push of this is the way to succeed, I
• 24:55
  would have never developed my own.
• 24:57
  But I wonder how many people maybe don't have the outside
• 25:00
  pressure, the environmental situation, the cue, the the
• 25:03
  spark that creates that discovery.
• 25:06
  Because I personally feel like I'm coaching even people now who
• 25:09
  don't trust themselves to discover the thing that works
• 25:12
  for them, for their lifestyle, for what their values are, like
• 25:15
  you said. Yeah, I think business is a lot
• 25:20
  of self growth and self development as you and your
• 25:24
  partner George say. You know, it's, it's not just
• 25:27
  the game and the playbook, it's the player as well.
• 25:29
  The most simplistic way that I kinda look at business in terms
• 25:33
  of trying to create kinda like bumper pads for business model
• 25:35
  design is I call them like 5 constraints cuz I haven't come
• 25:39
  up with a better way to put it. But it's like, OK, well what
• 25:43
  level of profit do we wanna be at?
• 25:45
  What is the timeline that we're looking to achieve this in and
• 25:50
  what are are non negotiables for what we want to do?
• 25:53
  So like you said, we've got a lot of people that have been
• 25:55
  pushing ads and webinar funnels. We have a lot of people pushing
• 25:59
  DMS Just DM as many people as humanly possible.
• 26:02
  Hire all of these VAS from third world countries to send as many
• 26:06
  DMS as possible additional accounts.
• 26:08
  You know, we got the cold e-mail people and they're like, there's
• 26:10
  just every single thing. There's somebody selling a
• 26:14
  process on how to use that model to win.
• 26:16
  But it's kind of, I, I like to refer things similar to to
• 26:20
  fitness that come from that world is every diet works
• 26:25
  similar to how every business model works.
• 26:27
  But if you can't sustain that diet over the long term, then
• 26:31
  it's probably not going to work long term.
• 26:34
  So what I've seen a lot in my experience is a lot of people
• 26:38
  will come into a program and they will use the methods that
• 26:41
  are taught and they will see some success and they will
• 26:44
  become the case study that is used to sell everybody else.
• 26:47
  But how many of them still are doing that and have that same
• 26:50
  business 2345 years down the road?
• 26:53
  Very few in my opinion, because I've been there.
• 26:57
  I've had $42,000 months and then, you know, three or four
• 27:00
  months later it was like $700.00.
• 27:03
  I'm like, like those screenshots and case studies don't
• 27:06
  necessarily mean that this is what happened forever.
• 27:09
  No different than we can see somebody that went on a keto
• 27:12
  diet and dropped an enormous amount of weight, but then they
• 27:15
  regained it or they couldn't have kept it off because it
• 27:18
  wasn't sustainable. It wasn't something that lined
• 27:20
  up with their values or how they wanted to run their business.
• 27:24
  Because once we kind of understand that from a business
• 27:27
  standpoint, it comes down to a matter of reaching economics in
• 27:31
  its most simple term, we need something to sell and someone to
• 27:34
  sell it to. And if one of them is low, the
• 27:36
  other one typically needs to be high.
• 27:38
  If we have no audience, typically what we're selling
• 27:41
  needs to be expensive if we want to try and make a bunch of
• 27:44
  money. If we have a very big audience,
• 27:47
  we can get away with selling something that is inexpensive
• 27:50
  because the economics work in our favor.
• 27:52
  But it's when we start to go into, you know, how do I want to
• 27:57
  thrive? What business do I want to
• 27:58
  create? We can start to create little
• 28:01
  guides of like, well, we might want to try this.
• 28:05
  But like you said, so much of this is it requires something
• 28:11
  that can't be taught, which is experience.
• 28:14
  If you don't taste things, you don't know what you like and
• 28:16
  what you don't like. So yes, I, I've, I spent a very
• 28:21
  long time trying to write an article on like, is success
• 28:23
  possible without the struggle? And I really don't think it is
• 28:30
  because, and I use struggle in a very broad sense, because
• 28:36
  without contrast, we don't know what we like.
• 28:38
  If we don't know what we don't like, we don't know what we
• 28:40
  like. Like, we need to create this
• 28:42
  environment of like, how well, this didn't feel good.
• 28:44
  I'm going to do this thing over here.
• 28:46
  For a lot of people, it can be very painful, but it doesn't
• 28:49
  always have to be as painful. So if I'm here saying, you know,
• 28:52
  let's just try this, it's just not as sexy as the person that's
• 28:56
  like do this and make 10K. But I always come back to the
• 29:03
  words like my favorite word these days, which is compromise.
• 29:06
  So my business messaging is softened because I don't believe
• 29:12
  in that style of marketing anymore.
• 29:15
  I've tried it, it didn't work for me, but I've just been sold
• 29:20
  so many things that did not get me.
• 29:22
  The result. I've invested over $100,000 in
• 29:24
  courses, coaching programs, masterminds only to left be left
• 29:28
  broke and like wanting to burn my business down.
• 29:32
  So I'm not going to sell those things which I know is not sexy.
• 29:37
  So when I tell somebody to like, let's slow down and re evaluate
• 29:40
  things, I know my conversion rate's not going to be as strong
• 29:43
  as the next person. But I'm OK with that, because
• 29:47
  when I peel back my values, I realize that there has not been
• 29:51
  a single decision I've made in business that was driven by
• 29:54
  money. Not to mention they trust you
• 29:57
  more. Like when they, to your point,
• 30:00
  they Fast forward and they're five years down their business.
• 30:02
  Like, you know, when you're working with someone who's
• 30:06
  actually honest with you, who's actually willing to tell you the
• 30:09
  thing of like, hey, if this doesn't work for you, here's
• 30:11
  some of the things you could try, but you know, it's not
• 30:13
  going to give you the same win. Or when I talk to someone like,
• 30:16
  Hey, I'm starting a podcast and like, don't look up for like 2
• 30:18
  years because you're, you have to go in with the right
• 30:21
  perspective and someone's like, Oh, well, that's not really like
• 30:24
  I was kind of hoping that I could blow up or I was hoping I
• 30:27
  could do this right. But I think if you're not
• 30:29
  honest, what I find is those people end up somehow back at
• 30:32
  your front door anyway if you are the person who is honest
• 30:35
  with them. So I've had people who I've
• 30:37
  coached like 4 years ago who are like, hey, I'm back, I want to
• 30:41
  come home. It was crazy out there.
• 30:42
  And I was like, OK, so. And that's just because the
• 30:45
  advice is very quick win. You're not really building
• 30:50
  anything. There's no foundational building
• 30:51
  blocks to say, OK, like this is how I want to run my business.
• 30:55
  And I think to your point with the conversion meets brand, I
• 30:58
  love that because I think most people would wonder, OK, how
• 31:02
  long do I need to put my head down to build brand?
• 31:04
  I think it's like the number one question people have because I
• 31:07
  think especially in today's current market of like, you
• 31:10
  know, people who create on TikTok and before you know it,
• 31:13
  they're huge in the sense of exposure.
• 31:15
  And the other part that I see are people who have smaller and
• 31:19
  sense of audience, but the brand like commitment, the brand
• 31:22
  community, the brand nurture is just at like they're family.
• 31:28
  You say go, the audience goes, even though it is small.
• 31:31
  And so I would also be curious for you, when you think about
• 31:34
  OK, conversion, everyone knows is obviously the, the quick ROI,
• 31:38
  the sales are coming in, you're seeing the numbers move that I
• 31:41
  feel like everyone knows that category.
• 31:43
  But I think brand for most people, most of us wonder, like,
• 31:46
  how do you even know if you're at a place where you've got some
• 31:50
  brand development where you feel like these two pieces maybe are
• 31:53
  close to actually meeting? I don't think you I wish that
• 31:57
  there was an answer, right. It's just like it's the billion
• 31:59
  dollar question. It's like, well, how long do I
• 32:00
  need to do this? And like, I have no idea.
• 32:03
  So that's why I actually really appreciate my journey because
• 32:10
  I'm like 20 years in and I like just kind of have a little bit
• 32:15
  of recognition in what I do. Yeah.
• 32:18
  Yeah. So they're like, well, how long
• 32:19
  do I need to write on Substack before I start growing?
• 32:21
  And I'm like, well, it took me 10 months before I started
• 32:23
  growing at all. And I'm like, here's my growth
• 32:26
  chart. And it like was a plateau until
• 32:29
  10 months of consistently writing.
• 32:31
  Like there's people that are going to start building a brand
• 32:34
  and they're going to blow up. They exist.
• 32:38
  And there's going to be people that never do.
• 32:41
  And I'm like, I, I do my best to be as honest and transparent
• 32:46
  because I don't feel like I'm of service of somebody.
• 32:49
  If I'm not, I'm not going to sit here and bullshit somebody and
• 32:52
  say, yeah, like if you do this for three months, I took a
• 32:56
  course. The first course I bought on
• 32:57
  Twitter was like, if you post, it was like 1 thread a week,
• 33:01
  post daily and drop 10 comments a day for six months and you'll
• 33:03
  hit 10,000 followers. Like this shit is bullshit.
• 33:07
  That is not how business works. There is 0 guarantee and just
• 33:12
  because you work hard, it doesn't mean that you're gonna
• 33:14
  blow up. There's your industry might be
• 33:17
  different, your personality might be different, how you
• 33:20
  deliver your message. You might be awkward on camera.
• 33:23
  You might be on a platform people don't know about.
• 33:26
  Like you might be talking about a thing that people don't know
• 33:28
  is a problem. There's always ways that we can
• 33:30
  improve things and create, you know, forward momentum.
• 33:34
  But we have no idea. So it's not necessarily about
• 33:39
  how long is it going to take. Am I ready to monetize?
• 33:42
  It's like, no, let's be more realistic about what our
• 33:45
  expectations are. It's people like how many
• 33:48
  followers do I need before I can monetize?
• 33:50
  I'm like, well, monetize is a dollar and you've made money
• 33:53
  online. So are we talking about making
• 33:55
  your first dollar or are we kind of using this as like a
• 33:59
  euphemism to how long is it going to take me before I'm
• 34:01
  making $10,000 a month, which is what I know you are actually
• 34:04
  intending? What you're actually saying.
• 34:06
  So it's like there's only a few ways we can go about it.
• 34:09
  Like you can either pay for your audience, whatever that is, paid
• 34:13
  ads or sponsorships, etc. You can build it organically or
• 34:17
  you can get in front of other people's audiences.
• 34:20
  So it's like, let's determine where you're at, what you're
• 34:22
  capable of doing, what your bandwidth is, and then let's
• 34:25
  determine the best way to move forward with that.
• 34:29
  Like, and if you want to make this much money, let's create a
• 34:32
  path forward. And then we just need to simply
• 34:34
  be consistent with it. But I really recommend that
• 34:37
  people try and when they're first getting started, it's
• 34:41
  different if somebody's been in the game for a little while, but
• 34:43
  it's like we don't want to marry our income to our content
• 34:46
  creation. In the beginning, I don't think
• 34:49
  it's a wise decision because we start to make really shitty
• 34:51
  decisions because everything is driven from a scarcity place and
• 34:56
  a scarcity mindset because we need everything we do to make
• 34:59
  money. So we start to make a decisions
• 35:01
  that are conversion focused because they're going to make us
• 35:03
  a quick buck, but they don't typically serve our true values
• 35:07
  or what we want to be doing in 6/12/24 months down the road.
• 35:10
  So it's this really delicate dance that we have to play that
• 35:16
  really comes down to the person's mindset and trust in
• 35:20
  what they're actually doing and their dedication to be able to
• 35:23
  to create it. Which is why I would say I don't
• 35:27
  make as money, as much money as a lot of other people out there
• 35:30
  because I'm not going to make promises that I can't stand
• 35:33
  behind. And I'm like, I've never hit a
• 35:37
  monetary goal in a timeline that I was sold.
• 35:40
  So I am never going to sit here and sell that to somebody else.
• 35:46
  And The thing is, I think to your point, it's so it's so easy
• 35:49
  to press that button if you wanted to.
• 35:51
  It is a very big shiny object for most people because
• 35:54
  especially in the months for someone listening who's like,
• 35:56
  OK, I'm trying to scale this and like if I just said XI could
• 36:00
  have a surge, I could instantly see this ROI from that effort.
• 36:05
  But it's just like values wise, I can't get there.
• 36:08
  And I, I think to your piece of like, well, you know, Brant, I
• 36:11
  agree, it's kind of hard to define.
• 36:14
  I think for me, what I look at is like ingredients versus
• 36:19
  recipe. So I feel like when you're
• 36:21
  starting a brand, there's like this quality quantity
• 36:26
  conversation right now. There's a lot of content,
• 36:29
  there's a lot of narratives around quantity.
• 36:31
  It's just about being anywhere in like just as many places as
• 36:34
  you possibly can. Make sure people can't get away
• 36:36
  from you. But I think to your point with
• 36:40
  the brand aspect, and I know that you really care about the
• 36:43
  aspect of depth within marketing within within brands, I think
• 36:47
  there's also a depth piece, which is the quality piece that
• 36:49
  people are looking for. So to your point, like you can
• 36:51
  have someone who produces 70 pieces of media a week or of
• 36:55
  marketing in some regard, whether it's podcast, TikTok,
• 36:58
  Instagram, emails, whatever might be, but they have no
• 37:01
  brand. And then you have people who
• 37:02
  produce a fraction of that. Maybe they produce 5 or they
• 37:05
  produce 2 and they put a lot of effort into those and they have
• 37:09
  brands. So I think most people when
• 37:11
  they're OK, like how do I win this brand game?
• 37:14
  Like we see, you know, even to your example earlier Mr. Beast,
• 37:17
  who does such like intricate testing, even Diary of a CEO
• 37:20
  does such insane testing of thumbnails and titles and
• 37:24
  editing. And it's it's really quality per
• 37:27
  episode. There's a lot of thought and
• 37:28
  intention that goes into it. But he could easily say we're
• 37:31
  releasing 3 episodes a week. He doesn't do that because he
• 37:34
  focuses on the quality, not just the quantity.
• 37:37
  So I think that's a question that I get a lot, which I'd be
• 37:39
  curious to your thoughts of is like with all of what you know
• 37:42
  about marketing these different platforms, is there kind of a
• 37:46
  recipe, if you will? Because I think for me the
• 37:49
  ingredients are just as important as the volume of what
• 37:54
  you get from them. And so I think while yes, being
• 37:58
  everywhere obviously gets you exposure, I think it's the first
• 38:01
  step is obviously if people know you, they can buy from you, yes.
• 38:05
  But if I also know you mean I come across your marketing or I
• 38:08
  come across your stuff and there's no actual depth to it,
• 38:12
  meaning there's no values behind it, There's no core mission,
• 38:14
  there's no consistent perspective, there's no insight.
• 38:17
  It's all just like 3 quick tips kind of thing.
• 38:19
  Everything's got a call to action on it.
• 38:21
  There's no just leaving this with you so you can allow this
• 38:25
  to land. There's no serving of the
• 38:27
  audience. Like it's a very selfish
• 38:28
  focused, like CEO focused platform.
• 38:32
  When I see that, I'm like, yes, you have visibility, meaning
• 38:34
  you've literally reached most of the planet, but it doesn't
• 38:37
  necessarily mean you have depth. So is that actually the way to
• 38:40
  go? And I think most people, the
• 38:41
  questions I get is like, is it quantity?
• 38:44
  Is it quality, or is it both? And so the analogy I give is
• 38:48
  it's kind of like baseball. Quality is basically a matter of
• 38:51
  where you know where to stand and quantity is how many swings
• 38:54
  you get. So it's like, of course, if
• 38:55
  we're standing in the right place as well as having
• 38:58
  unlimited swings, that's really where you're going to have the
• 39:02
  best chance of success. But I think a lot of people are
• 39:05
  unsure as to for them, for their marketing and their brand, what
• 39:09
  they should be focusing on. Yeah, it's, it's a really
• 39:13
  interesting question because I think it is both and it is going
• 39:18
  to change based off of what level we're at in the game as
• 39:23
  well as what our current goals are.
• 39:25
  So I think that it's probably more of like a formula of
• 39:29
  quantity times quality with a numerical value for each.
• 39:32
  So if you have really high quantity but your quality is
• 39:35
  really low, the value on the other end of the equation is
• 39:37
  still going to be bad. But if you are same thing as if
• 39:40
  you have really high quality, but the quantity is so low,
• 39:42
  you're still going to have the same value out on the other
• 39:45
  side. But if you're doing more and the
• 39:47
  quality is simply increasing, the value on the other side of
• 39:51
  the equation is going to continue to grow.
• 39:54
  So I think it's quantity without the absence of quality.
• 39:59
  I don't think you can get anywhere without both.
• 40:02
  Because if you aren't known, it doesn't matter if nobody knows
• 40:06
  who you are, you have no reach. You can't sell anything because
• 40:09
  people need to know who you are. But you only need one person to
• 40:13
  know who you are in order to make a customer and generate a
• 40:16
  client. So I think we're overthinking it
• 40:19
  a little bit because we're trying to find the shortcut.
• 40:22
  That's truly what I think the the base of the conversation is.
• 40:26
  But. In order to get better,
• 40:28
  typically it requires quantity. So from my perspective, when
• 40:32
  we're getting started, whether it's getting started in business
• 40:34
  or a new platform, we need to almost ignore quality to start
• 40:41
  because we get better through repetition.
• 40:43
  That's what I believe. If you record one podcast per
• 40:47
  week for six months or a year, I'm going to assume 52 from now,
• 40:56
  you're going to be a better podcaster, you're going to be a
• 40:59
  better host, you're going to be able to have a better
• 41:01
  conversation. I also do believe that that
• 41:04
  forward momentum of that consistency starts to drive you
• 41:09
  start researching how to podcast better and you start getting
• 41:12
  more excited about your guests. So you just naturally, as a
• 41:15
  byproduct of doing it, start to build more habits that support
• 41:20
  that outcome. Then you also, once you're
• 41:23
  consistent, then we want to start improving quality.
• 41:26
  But where we get stuck is if we're so over focused on quality
• 41:31
  that our volume and our quantity is too low, that's the issue.
• 41:36
  If you're so focused on your YouTube video that you're only
• 41:39
  putting out one per month, you're not getting enough data
• 41:43
  to know even what to improve. And perfection quote, UN quote
• 41:47
  is open to the person receiving it.
• 41:51
  We don't determine how good it is.
• 41:53
  It's the person that's receiving that content on the other end.
• 41:56
  So in the absence of their feedback, the comments, the
• 41:59
  views, you know, the retention charts, whatever it might be, we
• 42:04
  don't actually know what to improve.
• 42:05
  So we have to play this little bit of a dance.
• 42:07
  But what I see is in the early stages we need to have output
• 42:10
  high so that we can get experience, get feedback, to
• 42:14
  know what to improve, which videos work, which hooks work,
• 42:17
  which topics, which cohorts are responding the most improve.
• 42:21
  Start to follow those little bread crumbs, applying
• 42:23
  attentionality to it. But as an audience grows, we can
• 42:27
  usually like. We even see this with people
• 42:29
  that have been around much longer.
• 42:32
  They have very large followings. They can almost decrease their
• 42:37
  quantity and then just focus on putting out more high quality
• 42:41
  pieces because they don't have the need to reach as many people
• 42:44
  because they've already built it.
• 42:46
  So it's kind of like this inverse scale of like it takes a
• 42:49
  lot to get the ball moving, but as we grow, it gets easier to
• 42:53
  push it. And then it's like once we're
• 42:56
  established, it's almost like the ball starts kind of rolling
• 42:58
  down a hill and it's a lot easier.
• 43:00
  So it's really depends on where we're at in that journey.
• 43:05
  When I started writing on Sub Stack, my goal was write 24
• 43:07
  pieces in six months. So no goals on how many
• 43:11
  subscribers I was going to get, no goals on sales.
• 43:14
  Then I did that. And then it was just like
• 43:16
  throughout that process, I started to work on my titles and
• 43:19
  then I started to work on like the depth of the article on the
• 43:21
  structure. And then once I did that, I
• 43:23
  started to go like, OK, well, how am I going to now?
• 43:26
  I want to start to monetize this.
• 43:27
  And then you just slowly start to incrementally improve what
• 43:30
  you're doing. I really think it's just really
• 43:33
  getting really personal with that.
• 43:36
  I think there's there's research and I believe I heard it from, I
• 43:41
  think it was Travis Sago. It was in a course.
• 43:43
  I believe there's kind of like a formula for bonding where it's
• 43:49
  something along the lines of like frequency of communication,
• 43:54
  depth of sharing. And I believe there's like one
• 43:56
  or two other things. And I think it's like science to
• 43:59
  do with like creating friendships.
• 44:01
  So those are things we can't exclude from the conversation.
• 44:06
  If you only talk to somebody and send them a text message saying,
• 44:09
  hey, what's up? Once a month, you're not going
• 44:11
  to establish a really deep friendship.
• 44:14
  But if there's somebody that you jump on a call with three times
• 44:17
  a week for six months and you're like sharing really deep
• 44:20
  personal things, you're going to create a very strong bond with
• 44:24
  that person. I think that the exact same
• 44:27
  thing is how we create safety in our content with our audience.
• 44:31
  We have to be showing up enough so that we're top of mind and
• 44:36
  that we're giving an opportunity for a bond to be created.
• 44:40
  The platform is interchangeable. It could be e-mail, it could be
• 44:43
  in person events, it could be your Instagram, it could be your
• 44:47
  newsletter or whatever it might be.
• 44:49
  And then I think this is where I think we're starting to see a
• 44:52
  shift with AI. What I'm really starting to lean
• 44:56
  into is it's really easy to create how to content now that
• 44:59
  stuff crushed, you know, the ultimate guide to ranking number
• 45:03
  one on Google. Like all of those things were
• 45:05
  how we ranked with SEO and then we were creating guides and lead
• 45:08
  magnets and courses and digital products around them.
• 45:11
  But now you can go into ChatGPT, ask that question and get a 2000
• 45:14
  word article spat out. Now I really think people are
• 45:18
  starting to get very used to that stuff.
• 45:22
  They have taken the courses. Their bullshit detectors are a
• 45:27
  little bit higher than what they used to be 3567 years ago.
• 45:31
  I really think that we can create a lot of intimacy with
• 45:34
  our audience through the depth of sharing, which is sharing
• 45:37
  personal experiences and being very honest and vulnerable with
• 45:42
  what we're doing. So it's not just here's how to
• 45:44
  do this because they can get that through ChatGPT.
• 45:48
  It's not necessarily selling them the how, it's selling
• 45:53
  ourselves as the person to deliver it to them and also
• 45:57
  selling them like the idea of what we're trying to create and
• 46:00
  what we stand for. So I really think our mission,
• 46:04
  our values, and like the movement we stand behind is
• 46:08
  going to get much more important to really try and stand out
• 46:13
  because I think personal branding is going to get a lot
• 46:15
  more difficult because it's easier to create content.
• 46:18
  So it's like, how can we start to continue to carve out a
• 46:22
  niche? It's going to be, in my opinion,
• 46:25
  these little things that go beyond what are super simple to
• 46:31
  do with these tools, which is like actually having a point of
• 46:35
  view and actually having experience doing stuff because
• 46:40
  anybody can create a how to article regardless of if they
• 46:42
  have experience. But do you have social proof to
• 46:45
  back it up? Do you have a story about how
• 46:47
  you went six figures in debt and came back out the other end by
• 46:50
  doing this? You know, those things I think
• 46:52
  are really going to be important or jumping on a a podcast like
• 46:56
  this. I just wrote a post in an e-mail
• 46:57
  about it. Like when Kate asks me a
• 47:00
  question right here, I don't have a prompt engineer beside me
• 47:02
  giving me the response to it. I can't say like, what would
• 47:05
  Alex Fromosi do and put this into my voice?
• 47:08
  And then I can do that on Instagram.
• 47:11
  I can do that on LinkedIn, but if I'm live or if I'm in person
• 47:15
  having coffee with somebody, I can't fake it.
• 47:19
  You either know you're shit or you don't.
• 47:21
  So there's like little things that we can start to play with,
• 47:24
  but I think. I think it's like it's just not
• 47:26
  about information anymore. I was saying literally on a call
• 47:29
  this morning to someone, I was like, if you don't have
• 47:30
  insights, That's what I think is the distinction is like, it used
• 47:33
  to be just about information. Like you can teach this.
• 47:36
  You literally know how to do this, but because AI knows how
• 47:40
  to do it and because even for some people who don't know how
• 47:43
  to do it, they use AI to train their team how to do it.
• 47:45
  It's not really about the information per SE, as I feel
• 47:48
  like people want the insight, to your point, they want the
• 47:51
  experience. They want to make sure that
• 47:53
  someone has lived and breathed this because the biggest concern
• 47:57
  that most of us have with AI or that we should have is our what
• 48:00
  is what we're getting actually true and what is in the search
• 48:04
  that we're getting and the response that we get back.
• 48:06
  Well, what does this look like for me?
• 48:08
  And like what about this? And how does that look if this
• 48:10
  happens and it's all these scenarios of lived experience of
• 48:13
  someone going through it? It's going to be a really
• 48:15
  interesting shift over the next year, 2 years, three years to
• 48:19
  see what really happens. I think we're going to see a lot
• 48:21
  of disruption. You know, with COVID and the
• 48:24
  pandemic. We saw online coaching kind of
• 48:27
  blow up and it got was a lot more difficult because it
• 48:30
  devalued what a lot of people were doing because supply
• 48:32
  increased. And I think, you know, it's
• 48:35
  going to be easier to put out content.
• 48:37
  So it's going to be harder to build a personal brand.
• 48:39
  So we're going to see it's more difficult to grow on Instagram
• 48:43
  and TikTok and LinkedIn. But as these things change, we
• 48:47
  just have to go back to the fundamental principles of I
• 48:50
  don't think the base of everything has changed.
• 48:53
  I think the principles of building an effective business
• 48:55
  and marketing ourselves haven't changed.
• 48:58
  It's just that a lot of these things, like a headline, were
• 49:02
  enough back then. You didn't.
• 49:04
  People didn't have to trust you because you were the only one
• 49:07
  that did it. My question, I guess was like
• 49:10
  with this process for you, because obviously I feel like a
• 49:14
  lot of people now know you as like a sub stack guru.
• 49:16
  And I feel like in my personal opinion, maybe it's just the
• 49:19
  side of the Internet that I'm on.
• 49:20
  I feel like sub stack with this aspect of like trust building
• 49:25
  and and marketing and brand is like the least talked about
• 49:28
  platform in context to all the mega ones that we see.
• 49:32
  And I'm curious like with this process, how you got to sub
• 49:37
  stack because obviously, like you said, we have this aspect of
• 49:39
  conversion. We've got brand, we've got
• 49:41
  making sure that the marketing you're doing is actually
• 49:44
  something that fits for you. And obviously you've done very
• 49:47
  well with Sub Stack. And so I'm curious, you know,
• 49:51
  what did, I guess the journey to you ending up having Sub Stack
• 49:54
  as a focus for you, for your business?
• 49:57
  How did you get there? And what I guess like landed you
• 50:00
  to be like, OK, this feels like a good spot for me.
• 50:03
  Yeah, it's not a not a pleasant journey.
• 50:05
  I think my my journey was just. Being terrible at brands
• 50:09
  potentially requires struggle. So you know, there you go.
• 50:12
  I've been in marketing for a very long time, but I've never
• 50:15
  been able to build a personal brand.
• 50:17
  I couldn't build the following on Twitter.
• 50:19
  I couldn't build the following on LinkedIn.
• 50:21
  I struggled to to build the following on Instagram.
• 50:24
  I went through the whole, I was recording podcasts, posting
• 50:27
  those YouTube videos, putting out, you know, three to five
• 50:29
  clips on every single platform, creating the thumbnails and the
• 50:33
  cover photos and the intros and the outros.
• 50:36
  And I was just so burnt out on content.
• 50:39
  I was like, I just wish that I could just write and the writing
• 50:45
  could do it for me. And that was effectively when I
• 50:48
  kind of found Substat cuz you can't just write on Instagram.
• 50:52
  You know, you have to either have an image, so you have to
• 50:54
  have a professional photo shoot or you got to be on video.
• 50:57
  And if you got a video, then you have to figure out how to edit
• 51:00
  it. And you know, YouTube is like
• 51:02
  the heaviest lift of any platform in terms of all of the
• 51:04
  things it requires. You know, at the time, LinkedIn,
• 51:07
  pretty much if you didn't have a photo, your post didn't go
• 51:10
  anywhere. So like, I just want to write.
• 51:12
  And that's when I came across Substack.
• 51:14
  And I was like, I'm just gonna play with this platform.
• 51:16
  But most people don't know what it is cuz it's still like, I
• 51:20
  believe around 130th the size of LinkedIn.
• 51:23
  And LinkedIn is like a third of the size of Facebook and
• 51:28
  Instagram. So like it's a fairly new
• 51:31
  platform, even though it's been around for about 8 or 9 years,
• 51:33
  but that's eight or nine years compared to like the 22 that
• 51:36
  Linkedin's been around. So it's still like emerging in
• 51:40
  Internet world. But there's a lot of people
• 51:43
  coming over to the platform. We're seeing a lot of people
• 51:45
  that are tired of X and LinkedIn moving over to sub stack.
• 51:49
  We're seeing a lot of people that can't grow on Instagram
• 51:51
  moving over to sub stack. Gary Vaynerchuk, I believe
• 51:54
  within the last month or two, just launched his sub stack.
• 51:57
  We're seeing very large celebrities like Pamela Anderson
• 52:00
  and there's lots of journalists that have sub stacks and it's
• 52:04
  originated as a newsletter platform.
• 52:07
  But it's kind of this interesting ecosystem because
• 52:12
  it's kind of like your blog, your e-mail, your social media
• 52:17
  and your Facebook group in kind of one platform.
• 52:21
  So your posts land in people's inboxes.
• 52:26
  You can chat with your subscribers on the platform.
• 52:30
  You can also post videos and go live and you can sync it to your
• 52:34
  YouTube channel and you can actually host your podcast there
• 52:37
  now as like a podcast host. So they're really trying to
• 52:40
  evolve from writing into like a creator ecosystem, which I'm all
• 52:45
  for because I think it can give us a lot of leverage in terms of
• 52:49
  like you can record a podcast and record it and it goes to
• 52:53
  YouTube, it goes to LinkedIn, it's a post and a podcast on
• 52:57
  Spotify. I think there's some cool
• 52:59
  opportunities there, but it just allowed me to write and I really
• 53:04
  fell in love with writing. I've written and dabbled in the
• 53:07
  past but I enjoyed writing and I could just like sink into things
• 53:12
  and I could share my story and anybody that's listening can
• 53:14
  probably tell I am long winded. Like it's my wiring.
• 53:20
  People like me, ADHD, etc. We are context heavy
• 53:25
  communicators. I need to make sure you've got
• 53:27
  all the context if I'm going to deliver things, and it allowed
• 53:32
  me to really sink into that. I'm not able to write 120 or 140
• 53:36
  character tweets. Like you must hate an Instagram
• 53:39
  caption. You're like Instagram captions
• 53:41
  are not mine. Yeah, character limits are just
• 53:43
  not my friend. But it allowed me to sink into
• 53:46
  that and I didn't see fast growth.
• 53:49
  It took me a while, but I started to figure it out.
• 53:52
  I now like moving forward. I've been on the platform for a
• 53:55
  little over 2 years, but with that platform alone, like I've
• 54:00
  had a single post generate over 600 e-mail subscribers.
• 54:04
  I've had a single post that I've tracked back about $125,000 in
• 54:09
  revenue from, and that post got no likes.
• 54:12
  I have been asked to speak 20 times last year from Substack
• 54:17
  alone. I was asked to present to
• 54:19
  masterminds. I was asked to speak on stage.
• 54:21
  I've written three books because like my posts started to turn
• 54:25
  into books. I've had people sponsor my
• 54:27
  newsletter, built 9 revenue streams, all stemming from this
• 54:30
  platform. But it really started with just
• 54:33
  me falling in love with writing. And that facilitated building a
• 54:39
  personal brand because I knew from my experience to do what I
• 54:43
  wanted to do. I knew that I needed to have a
• 54:45
  personal brand. Going through clinical burnout,
• 54:50
  working with a therapist that was like, you're working too
• 54:53
  much and starting to compare me to some of their patients that
• 54:58
  were on like 6 to 12 months sabbaticals from work.
• 55:02
  And I'm like, well, shit, like I can't do that.
• 55:06
  I'm the sole. Like I'm the sole income earner
• 55:09
  in my house. My wife's going to school and I
• 55:12
  can't take a day off work, let alone a month or six months to
• 55:16
  like recover from burnout. So I knew the business I had to
• 55:19
  create needed to fundamentally change.
• 55:22
  So I knew I needed to have an e-mail list, that I needed to
• 55:25
  have some leveraged products so I wasn't always have to be on.
• 55:29
  So I knew I needed a brand and I knew that it was going to take
• 55:33
  me time. So I was going to invest in
• 55:35
  building this for a while. And writing just was like the
• 55:39
  fit for me. I prefer to communicate with
• 55:41
  words. I love speaking, but I, I, it's
• 55:44
  easy to just kind of sit down and write.
• 55:45
  I can do that from a coffee shop, from a beach.
• 55:48
  Like this requires a home studio in order to, to do a podcast or
• 55:52
  to be on YouTube. And it just really kind of
• 55:55
  transpired from there. And there's just so many
• 55:57
  serendipitous things that come from building a personal brand,
• 56:01
  not just with writing, but there's so many things we can't
• 56:05
  quantify, track and a credit to just being present for a very
• 56:10
  long period of time. Mr. Beast is a good example.
• 56:14
  He has the second season of Beast Games on Netflix.
• 56:17
  He's got chocolate bars. It's an extreme example, but it
• 56:23
  came off the back of just somebody that built a brand and
• 56:26
  they just open up opportunities. And it's not just for creators.
• 56:30
  I do when I talk to people running paid advertising like
• 56:35
  brand increases your conversion rate.
• 56:39
  Brand gives you more price flexibility compared to your
• 56:45
  competitors because you have more of a trustworthy brand.
• 56:48
  They're they will pay more for you.
• 56:50
  They will be less likely to leave you.
• 56:51
  Your attention's going to be higher.
• 56:53
  It gives you opportunities, somebody like the rock to go.
• 56:57
  I'm going to create a tequila now I'm going to buy the XFL now
• 57:00
  I'm going to create a an energy drink.
• 57:02
  Because you have a brand, there's opportunities and doors
• 57:04
  that open. And it's going to take so much
• 57:08
  longer than we realize it's going to take.
• 57:10
  But until we start and find something that we enjoy doing,
• 57:15
  it's just never going to happen. So I think it's so important to
• 57:18
  kind of have at like the backbone of what we're doing
• 57:21
  because the age that we live in, it's gonna get very difficult to
• 57:27
  just start running ads with no experience and no social media
• 57:31
  and build a a six and seven figure business unless you got a
• 57:35
  lot of capital to throw at it. Like we need to start putting
• 57:38
  these other pieces of the puzzle in place.
• 57:41
  And like Brand, is is one of those cornerstone ones.
• 57:44
  Well, one of the things that's coming out is like AI creators,
• 57:48
  which are, you know, you and I doing this podcast and we're not
• 57:50
  real and we're AI bots instead, right?
• 57:52
  And so I think while obviously technology is great, but
• 57:56
  technology also exposes these other parts from a human lens of
• 58:01
  what we desire, which is the fact that many of us want
• 58:03
  efficiency and we want information and we want speed.
• 58:05
  But then simultaneously, as technology is increasing the
• 58:09
  other side of as to your point, like connection and having a
• 58:13
  bond and depth and vulnerability, as AI speeds up,
• 58:17
  that's speeding up. And so I think what I take from
• 58:20
  the sub stack piece as well is that you're really able to be
• 58:23
  thorough and you're able to have these like longer, more
• 58:26
  intentional pieces, which is kind of similar.
• 58:28
  Even for me with this podcast. People like, why do you do it?
• 58:31
  Because this is not necessarily one of those conversion tools.
• 58:33
  It's a brand tool. And so people like, I don't
• 58:35
  understand why you would spend so much time to prep, record,
• 58:39
  edit, publish all this stuff when it's not going to make you
• 58:44
  a sale per episode. But the thing that I tell people
• 58:46
  is I go think about even for your sub stack, how many people
• 58:49
  spend length of time with you versus like amount of little
• 58:53
  appetizers basically of time with you.
• 58:56
  And so if I think about spending an hour with somebody every
• 58:59
  single week, that is like 4510X compared to what someone's
• 59:04
  getting from me on social media through a quick story of 30
• 59:08
  seconds, a reel of 17 seconds. Like the amount of time or the
• 59:13
  amount of pieces I would have to produce in order to have to your
• 59:17
  point earlier with the text message analogy, like those
• 59:19
  connection points, like the amount of time that I'm
• 59:22
  spending, I'm having a FaceTime with someone for an hour every
• 59:25
  single week as a result of having the podcast.
• 59:27
  So like I think for you to the point of depth, there's also
• 59:30
  that piece which I think you know, whether for someone it's
• 59:33
  sub stack or a newsletter or whatever it might be, I think
• 59:36
  you need that time with your people because I think as things
• 59:40
  progress with AI and technology, it's going to become more and
• 59:43
  more valuable. And so I don't think there's
• 59:45
  going to be an opportunity to avoid it.
• 59:48
  But I know going into today like everyone was like, I have 52
• 59:52
  questions for him about sub stack.
• 59:54
  So if it works for you, I'm going to rapid fire.
• 59:57
  Oh. Sure.
• 59:57
  Yeah, let's do it. Some some sub stack questions
• 1:00:00
  because I think that everyone hears about social media all the
• 1:00:02
  time. When you said it's a kind of
• 1:00:05
  it's a newer platform, one of the things that instantly came
• 1:00:08
  to mind for me was. The TikTok era, when everyone's
• 1:00:11
  like, you know, TikTok is at its prime reach, you can get in
• 1:00:13
  front of 3 million people overnight.
• 1:00:15
  And then obviously as the user base increased, that decreased
• 1:00:18
  in the sense of the ease of getting in front of people.
• 1:00:21
  Would you say that that's pretty similar with Substack right now
• 1:00:25
  in the sense of do you think being first to the platform or
• 1:00:28
  being early to the platform has leverage for people if they were
• 1:00:31
  to get started with it? A. 100% I talk all the time.
• 1:00:35
  I don't I'm I'm not a self-proclaimed substack guru.
• 1:00:38
  I try and like not reference myself as that.
• 1:00:41
  I'm like. Other people definitely
• 1:00:43
  reference you as that that's. OK.
• 1:00:45
  And that's OK, but 100% it's, everybody tries to be like how
• 1:00:50
  the algorithm's different and the vibe's different.
• 1:00:52
  And I'm like, yes, it is, but we can't get romantic about the
• 1:00:55
  platform. It's still a platform run by a
• 1:00:59
  business and it's still an algorithm.
• 1:01:02
  To me, I view Substack as a traffic source.
• 1:01:05
  In two years from now, it might not be there.
• 1:01:08
  That's a risk that I have to take.
• 1:01:10
  But when I see people growing and it's some a place I enjoy
• 1:01:15
  being and I see people like Gary Vaynerchuk moving there, I'm
• 1:01:19
  like, these people don't make dumb decisions.
• 1:01:21
  They're very intelligent with, you know, the moves that they
• 1:01:24
  make in the market. You, you start to just have to,
• 1:01:28
  to make a bet. So you know, the interesting
• 1:01:31
  part is that I'm going to be expanding out to other platforms
• 1:01:36
  now because I can't share sub stack with people that are
• 1:01:39
  already on sub stack. Like if I want to get, if I want
• 1:01:42
  to get people onto Substack and help them grow, I need to be on
• 1:01:46
  LinkedIn and I need to be on Instagram and podcasts.
• 1:01:48
  So my marketing strategy, I didn't grow till I doubled down
• 1:01:53
  on Substack. But now I've always had the goal
• 1:01:57
  of expanding beyond. So now I'm going to be expanding
• 1:02:00
  beyond, but 100% it's as the platform grows like everything
• 1:02:04
  else. And I, there's so many gurus on
• 1:02:07
  Substack that just glorify it. I'm like, OK, it's business.
• 1:02:13
  Every platform has shown us in the past that it follows this
• 1:02:18
  thing where it goes, it's great growth.
• 1:02:21
  And then the growth slowly starts to decay and it gets
• 1:02:24
  harder and harder and harder to grow.
• 1:02:25
  And like Substack is probably not going to be any different
• 1:02:29
  unless they find some magical way.
• 1:02:31
  Cuz I'm like, where do you think the new users are gonna come
• 1:02:34
  from? They're gonna come from X
• 1:02:37
  LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
• 1:02:39
  Like, come on, people just think about this.
• 1:02:43
  So 100%, I think it's going to the best time's gonna be
• 1:02:47
  yesterday and the next best time is right now.
• 1:02:51
  Think the longer people wait, it's going to only get more
• 1:02:53
  difficult. But there's a lot of people
• 1:02:55
  building very successful businesses on that platform.
• 1:02:58
  I think everybody looked at TikTok and they're like, man, I
• 1:03:00
  really wish I would have done it earlier.
• 1:03:02
  Man, I wish I was like first to market with the organic reach
• 1:03:05
  that it used to provide. And now it's like if you start a
• 1:03:07
  new account, you get like 200 views for the next like year and
• 1:03:10
  a half. And to your point, you got to
• 1:03:11
  wait out the brand build where there is this, you know, initial
• 1:03:15
  round when it's kind of its initial stage of being a smaller
• 1:03:18
  platform that if you do get on it early, you can kind of
• 1:03:20
  leverage that opportunity. The question I would have with
• 1:03:23
  sub stack compared to like socials, I would hazard to guess
• 1:03:28
  you can't just take your social platform and assume that you are
• 1:03:31
  writing style of Instagram is going to just duplicate itself
• 1:03:34
  and perform well on Substack. Because I know even going into
• 1:03:37
  today, you know, people like, wasn't this just a glorified
• 1:03:40
  newsletter? Like what's what's the
• 1:03:42
  difference? Why do I need it?
• 1:03:43
  And so I'm curious when you see, you know, we've got social
• 1:03:46
  strategy of, you know, copy, for example, on blogs, we've got
• 1:03:49
  newsletters, we've got, you know, writing, for example, on a
• 1:03:52
  shorter form of like an Instagram side, maybe how for
• 1:03:56
  the person who's seeing all that information, how you would I
• 1:03:59
  guess frame or kind of give context to where sub stack fits
• 1:04:03
  within an ecosystem like that? Yeah, they have a combination of
• 1:04:07
  short and long form content. So they have what's called the
• 1:04:09
  notes feed, which is effectively like X on sub stack.
• 1:04:15
  And that gets shown to people that are following you.
• 1:04:17
  There's that's what the that's what drives the algorithm for
• 1:04:19
  discoverability. And then people subscribe and
• 1:04:22
  then they get effectively what they would call a post, which is
• 1:04:25
  the worst vernacular they could possibly chose them.
• 1:04:28
  So it's like, is it a newsletter?
• 1:04:30
  Is it an article? Is it a post?
• 1:04:31
  So they call it posts. It's effectively would call it a
• 1:04:35
  newsletter, but we have a, the conception of what a newsletter
• 1:04:39
  is in terms of like old e-mail marketing days of like there's a
• 1:04:43
  banner at the top and it's like super markety and it's, it would
• 1:04:47
  be more like A blog post, so to speak.
• 1:04:50
  But think of it like a, a written YouTube video or a
• 1:04:53
  written podcast, I think would be like the simplest way to do
• 1:04:57
  it. Your podcast and YouTube videos
• 1:05:01
  typically start from scripts. Your subset could be that
• 1:05:03
  script. So I think like you're telling a
• 1:05:06
  story, you're taking through what people talking about, what
• 1:05:08
  people are experiencing and seeing, and then you're
• 1:05:11
  delivering the how to move through this and the takeaways
• 1:05:14
  and the insights. Like that's how I approach it.
• 1:05:16
  I approach it more like a more in depth e-mail is kind of how I
• 1:05:21
  personally approach sub stack. And I'm wanting to deliver
• 1:05:26
  value. I'm wanting to establish myself
• 1:05:28
  in the eyes of people. And one of the things I talk
• 1:05:30
  about is if somebody were to not see your name on it, would they
• 1:05:33
  know that you wrote it? And I've had people recognize
• 1:05:37
  stuff I've written that they didn't know was written by me.
• 1:05:40
  And they're like, oh, that sounds like landing because I
• 1:05:42
  stand for something and what I do.
• 1:05:44
  But there's so many things of people that are authors to
• 1:05:49
  people that are journalists to people talking about fitness, to
• 1:05:53
  people talking about horses, to faith, to business, everything
• 1:05:57
  on there. And there is such a variety of
• 1:06:00
  the way people are delivering that content.
• 1:06:03
  I think the best thing that you can do is just like honor what's
• 1:06:07
  most authentic to you and just infuse that into the platform.
• 1:06:12
  Because if you go, if you you're too far from that, you're just
• 1:06:15
  not going to enjoy what you're doing.
• 1:06:17
  And people can pick up on that. And I guess with that, like to
• 1:06:20
  the point of like, there's, you know, sub stacks for horses, I
• 1:06:22
  think there's platforms for everything, there's podcasts for
• 1:06:25
  dogs, there's everything. But with that, is it interest
• 1:06:29
  based then? Meaning like a lot of the time,
• 1:06:30
  like we often are, I feel like we're in this era with most
• 1:06:33
  platforms where we're kind of pulling away from followers and
• 1:06:36
  we're leaning more toward just interest consumption.
• 1:06:39
  So like even the amount of people who might consume your
• 1:06:42
  Instagram who don't follow you, but they constantly see your
• 1:06:45
  Reels or people who see your Tik Toks, but they've never followed
• 1:06:48
  you and they've been consuming you for two years.
• 1:06:50
  Would you say Substack is kind of similar in the sense of the
• 1:06:53
  way that it feeds your marketing to people?
• 1:06:55
  Is it interest based typically or is it leverageable per SE to
• 1:07:00
  have a larger following? I think Substack is still trying
• 1:07:03
  to figure it shit out. So they so they they technically
• 1:07:08
  have followers and subscribers. When I view my chart, the
• 1:07:12
  followers are the ones that see the least amount of my content.
• 1:07:15
  It's like you're subscribers and then like unconnected people and
• 1:07:20
  then my followers. So like I have 20,000 followers
• 1:07:23
  on the platform. I don't really understand what
• 1:07:25
  the metric is 'cause it doesn't really seem like it shows
• 1:07:28
  anything to your followers. I think it's very early in them
• 1:07:31
  playing with their algorithm, but that's just for the notes
• 1:07:35
  feed. So like short form content, the
• 1:07:39
  content for subscribers, they have an inbox and they get
• 1:07:42
  emailed out to people. So the long form content is
• 1:07:45
  going to land in someone's inbox.
• 1:07:47
  It's also going to rank on search engines.
• 1:07:49
  I actually I get a few percent of my traffic from cloud ChatGPT
• 1:07:53
  and perplexity because my stuff is showing up in in AI search
• 1:07:56
  platforms. So there's the ability for us to
• 1:08:00
  get indexed. There's the ability for us to
• 1:08:02
  just imagine if every one of your podcasts without you doing
• 1:08:05
  anything automatically showed up in everyone's inbox.
• 1:08:09
  That's just something we don't have with with normal social
• 1:08:12
  media. Most of us are trying to use
• 1:08:15
  these tools to de platform somebody to our e-mail list and
• 1:08:19
  Substack effectively just kind of does that all without anybody
• 1:08:22
  having to leave the platform. And so for you, would you say
• 1:08:26
  that most people are using sub stack alongside an additional
• 1:08:29
  e-mail list? Only if they're a savvy
• 1:08:32
  marketer, OK. Most people I would say no.
• 1:08:37
  The people that are in kind of the marketer course creator type
• 1:08:41
  stuff are because we understand that we need to be showing up
• 1:08:46
  more for people emails in order to be able to sell them.
• 1:08:50
  OK. And obviously to your point of
• 1:08:53
  short dopamine hit, long term play brand, if someone's
• 1:08:57
  thinking about leaning into sub stack.
• 1:08:59
  I was like OK like I really missed the boat with TikTok.
• 1:09:01
  I am somebody who loves to write.
• 1:09:03
  I could see this being something that I enjoy.
• 1:09:06
  What is, if you were going to, you know, guide them as a mentor
• 1:09:09
  going into this, what is the expectation that they should
• 1:09:12
  have as to maybe the possibility of what it could do for their
• 1:09:15
  business short term. But the true leverage of what
• 1:09:19
  this basically would look like in their marketing ecosystem if
• 1:09:22
  they were to like you did like stick it out for, you know, say
• 1:09:26
  a year and a half, two years as to what it could develop.
• 1:09:30
  It it really depends. So there's certain niches that
• 1:09:33
  people that I work with, they come to me.
• 1:09:36
  I have one lady, she does marketing for hotels and Airbnb
• 1:09:41
  owners. And I'm like, well, I don't
• 1:09:45
  think that there's a massive amount of people on Substack for
• 1:09:48
  that right now. But I'm like, yeah, in five
• 1:09:51
  years there very well could be. If there's a billion users on
• 1:09:53
  there, then they will be on the platform.
• 1:09:56
  So it's kind of like it might be something that you're investing
• 1:09:59
  and you're taking a bet on the platform.
• 1:10:00
  Like the, the thing I look at is like Gary Vaynerchuk wouldn't
• 1:10:03
  have created a sub stack and put on a job posting for a sub stack
• 1:10:07
  manager if he didn't think it was going to be something.
• 1:10:10
  I applied for it. I didn't get hired though.
• 1:10:13
  But I think there's massive amount of potential.
• 1:10:17
  I know people on the platform in the business space, which can be
• 1:10:20
  a little skewed, that are running 50K months from their
• 1:10:25
  sub stack and it's usually multiple revenue streams.
• 1:10:28
  So it might be like a paid subscription plus cohorts plus
• 1:10:31
  courses. Usually it's not just one
• 1:10:33
  singular thing. There are some people in kind of
• 1:10:37
  like the writing AI space that they have a few paid
• 1:10:40
  publications, just the paid content on sub stack that
• 1:10:43
  they're making multiple 6 figures a year.
• 1:10:45
  I do around 1 to $3000 a month in sales just off courses off
• 1:10:50
  the back of my sub stack. That's not including any one to
• 1:10:54
  one, any coaching or like done for you services that I'm
• 1:10:57
  working with, people that have read my content.
• 1:10:59
  So I think that there's a lot of leeway in what can potentially
• 1:11:03
  happen. So for somebody, it might be
• 1:11:06
  their sole focus. For another person, it just
• 1:11:08
  might be like a brand extension. If you're already have a
• 1:11:12
  podcast, you're on YouTube and you're on Instagram.
• 1:11:15
  OK. Well, maybe we're going to now
• 1:11:17
  take the transcript. Like if you're already creating
• 1:11:20
  content, it's a very easy transition to add that platform
• 1:11:25
  because the simplest thing to do is to just start with what
• 1:11:28
  you're already creating. And then you can kind of figure
• 1:11:31
  out the nuts and bolts of what's going to need to adjust to grow
• 1:11:34
  on that platform as you grow. But it's going to depend on if
• 1:11:38
  you're, you know, a solo creator and you're doing this and you're
• 1:11:42
  one hour in the evening versus if you're ACEO and you have and
• 1:11:46
  you have a content team. The context of that this
• 1:11:50
  conversation will be quite nuanced.
• 1:11:53
  So it can either be like an extension to grow your brand cuz
• 1:11:56
  there's people here, they consume information differently.
• 1:11:59
  I just finished a 5000 word article which didn't intend it
• 1:12:04
  to be that. Cuz like I said, I'm not
• 1:12:06
  confused. It's the guys.
• 1:12:06
  I'm thorough. I'm thorough.
• 1:12:07
  OK, and that's it's like a 30 minute read.
• 1:12:10
  So like that might not go viral, but the people that read that
• 1:12:15
  are just very like do they are very bought into to my kind of
• 1:12:22
  view of the world and the movement that I'm trying to
• 1:12:24
  create. I've had articles where I've had
• 1:12:27
  1600 people click on a link to a product 'cause there was a link
• 1:12:31
  in that article and that article went viral.
• 1:12:34
  So there's a lot of opportunity to create cash flow.
• 1:12:38
  I'm just not going to to say it's gonna happen overnight.
• 1:12:42
  We still need to approach it with like a 6 to 12 month kind
• 1:12:45
  of like minimum. Let's figure this stuff out.
• 1:12:47
  But the thing that really kind of gets me is the conversation
• 1:12:51
  on. OK, well, with so many more
• 1:12:55
  brands, there's gonna be AI creators, AI podcast hosts,
• 1:12:58
  like. So if it's gonna get harder,
• 1:13:00
  does that mean we should just like not do it right?
• 1:13:03
  Like what? What's the alternative?
• 1:13:05
  Yeah, go hide under a rock. Like, OK, maybe you don't go on
• 1:13:09
  Instagram, maybe you go in person.
• 1:13:10
  But like people need to know who you are.
• 1:13:13
  Who's got we got to find the platform for us.
• 1:13:15
  Well, and I think it's also really exciting to finally have
• 1:13:18
  a platform for the people who hate video or who hate audio, to
• 1:13:22
  be honest. Like I think there's a lot of
• 1:13:25
  creators that, yeah, you know, you can be obviously strategic
• 1:13:28
  with things like Instagram and carousels and stuff like that.
• 1:13:30
  And people have definitely one in some markets with that
• 1:13:34
  approach. But I think that if you're
• 1:13:36
  somebody who doesn't love video or love audio, like I feel like
• 1:13:39
  everyone I talk to you now is like, I just wish I could get
• 1:13:41
  off social media. Like I wish I could just not
• 1:13:43
  have to make content anymore in order for my business to
• 1:13:46
  survive. And to your point, for you to be
• 1:13:48
  able to write that from a coffee shop or I'm thinking about like
• 1:13:52
  the busy mom who wants to write it at night in bed after having
• 1:13:56
  like a heck of a day and she still got like spit up on her
• 1:13:59
  shirt from putting the kids down, right?
• 1:14:00
  Like that's just a reality that there are a lot of entrepreneurs
• 1:14:04
  who have that. And yet we're like, hey, like go
• 1:14:07
  make 3 Tik Toks a day so that you can grow or go put up a
• 1:14:10
  story every single day so you can grow on Instagram.
• 1:14:13
  Like this is to me really exciting for the person who
• 1:14:17
  feels like to your point of tying in the vision to the
• 1:14:20
  business, maybe the long term play is that you don't want to
• 1:14:23
  live on social media and this and planting these seeds now
• 1:14:27
  could be to your point. Fast forward two years, three
• 1:14:29
  years and even your earlier point of like how much money do
• 1:14:32
  you need from the business? What if doing this and starting
• 1:14:35
  this now was the thing that planted the seeds that you're
• 1:14:37
  actually not on social media three years from now in order to
• 1:14:41
  run your business and you're writing at a time or a place
• 1:14:44
  where it works for you. A. 100%, I think it's what we
• 1:14:47
  really start to change the conversation of what we're
• 1:14:49
  actually trying to achieve. Like I'm not thinking about
• 1:14:52
  retiring. Sitting and doing nothing sounds
• 1:14:54
  awful. We're probably like you and I,
• 1:14:56
  we're probably still going to engage in something.
• 1:15:01
  Yeah. And like I can still share my
• 1:15:03
  wisdom and write that seems pretty low effort, but still
• 1:15:07
  keeps you engaged in doing something.
• 1:15:09
  And it can still be a revenue stream even in like the simplest
• 1:15:12
  form, right. So there's, I just love it from
• 1:15:16
  an opportunity standpoint and also an accessibility
• 1:15:19
  standpoint. Like you said, not everybody
• 1:15:21
  wants to talk, not everybody wants to be on video, not
• 1:15:25
  everybody wants to get photo shoots done in order to have
• 1:15:27
  Instagram photos cuz that was me.
• 1:15:29
  I hated all of that and I tried so hard.
• 1:15:33
  I've spent so much money on photo shoots and like had yeah,
• 1:15:38
  just never got any growth any. Painful to think about
• 1:15:42
  happening. Right.
• 1:15:43
  And it is. And then you're like, but I can
• 1:15:45
  just write. But there's also people that
• 1:15:47
  hate writing, so it's totally fair.
• 1:15:50
  But now on Substack, there's going to be accounts that are
• 1:15:53
  just going to be going live and growing.
• 1:15:57
  So now they're starting to open up these doors for other
• 1:16:01
  creators that want to create and whatever feels best for them.
• 1:16:04
  So I think it's it's going to be an interesting time.
• 1:16:07
  But I like writing. So, you know, it's my book came
• 1:16:10
  from just starting to write on Substack.
• 1:16:12
  And I was like, these posts became the foundation of a book
• 1:16:15
  that I published. And now I'm an author.
• 1:16:18
  I'm like, that's crazy. And now I'm speaking on stages
• 1:16:22
  and I'm like, that's terrifying. And it all started from just
• 1:16:26
  kind of starting to really lean into creating a personal brand,
• 1:16:30
  but in a way that felt good to me, which was so different than
• 1:16:36
  what I had spent 15 to 18 years trying to do.
• 1:16:42
  So I think it goes back to your original point, which is that it
• 1:16:44
  all works. Like we've seen people who have
• 1:16:46
  built the entire business on a podcast.
• 1:16:48
  You've seen people build it through YouTube, people who
• 1:16:50
  built it through, you know, 5 Tik Toks a day for the last 3-4
• 1:16:54
  years, like every single platform.
• 1:16:57
  If you wanted to find a case study of someone who's leveraged
• 1:17:00
  it to be able to scale the business, you will find it.
• 1:17:02
  And I think to what you've done even in the last two years to
• 1:17:06
  your point of like, OK, it's driving traffic to offers, low
• 1:17:09
  ticket or high ticket. It's building you personal
• 1:17:11
  brand. It's getting you speaking
• 1:17:12
  opportunities like you're now an author.
• 1:17:15
  Like that's a lot to happen when you really put that in contacts
• 1:17:19
  for two years. Because if there's somebody else
• 1:17:21
  who's maybe like an embryo in business and they're like just
• 1:17:25
  getting started, to think about all that could transpire for you
• 1:17:28
  in two years is incredible. Or even if you're a scaling
• 1:17:31
  entrepreneur who's like, hey, I feel like the current ecosystem
• 1:17:34
  that I have is not working. And I kind of while, yes, we're
• 1:17:38
  scaling and we're making money. I talked to a lot of scaling
• 1:17:40
  entrepreneurs, as I'm sure you do, who have like built their
• 1:17:43
  own prison. They're in this place where
• 1:17:45
  they're like, I built it on TikTok of three to five a day.
• 1:17:47
  I built it on YouTube. And now if I stop, my whole
• 1:17:50
  business crumbles. So like, I think whether you're
• 1:17:52
  that beginner or you're scaling, it can be exciting to think
• 1:17:57
  about this other opportunity of saying, OK, could I be first to
• 1:18:00
  the platform? Like you said, maybe it's not
• 1:18:03
  your dominant right now, but it could become your dominant in
• 1:18:05
  the next two years if you put intention into it.
• 1:18:09
  And to think about maybe that actually is a better fit for
• 1:18:11
  your lifestyle than some of the stuff that like another guru has
• 1:18:14
  told you, like is the quote UN quote way.
• 1:18:16
  And I think it literally goes back to the center point you
• 1:18:18
  started with, which is like, you know, yes, we care about
• 1:18:21
  conversions. Yes, we care about brand.
• 1:18:23
  But the most important thing that makes the whole ecosystem
• 1:18:25
  successful is the person who's doing it, which is like, do you
• 1:18:28
  have the capacity for this? Do you have the desire for this?
• 1:18:31
  Do you have the schedule for this?
• 1:18:32
  Do you have the personality for this and asking those questions?
• 1:18:36
  And I think for some people listening to you with sub stack,
• 1:18:38
  they're going to be like, hey, like this feels like my place.
• 1:18:40
  No video, no, no photo shoots like this sounds like my place
• 1:18:44
  to be. So I guess I would, I would love
• 1:18:47
  to, to put a bow on like all of the marketing incredible genius
• 1:18:50
  today for the person listening who feels like they're kind of
• 1:18:54
  drowning in the marketing advice.
• 1:18:56
  You've got like Guru A who's like, that's the way to go.
• 1:18:59
  And then Guru B who's saying, you know, TikTok, Instagram or
• 1:19:02
  Tik Tok's dead, Instagram's dead, like all of this noise.
• 1:19:05
  And obviously, you work with a lot of different sizes of
• 1:19:08
  business. Any advice for the person who's
• 1:19:11
  kind of, I guess trying to find their footing or still feels
• 1:19:13
  like maybe there is this like friction or resistance when it
• 1:19:17
  comes to marketing for their business, whether or not it has,
• 1:19:19
  you know, generated some outcomes or not?
• 1:19:21
  Yeah, so when I'm thinking about the person who's, you know,
• 1:19:25
  they've invested in the programs, the courses, nothing's
• 1:19:29
  working. Their inner critic is loud,
• 1:19:32
  being like, what am I doing wrong?
• 1:19:34
  How come everybody else has got it figured out?
• 1:19:36
  First off, none of us haven't figured out.
• 1:19:40
  Most of us are just like trying to tread and stay above water.
• 1:19:45
  Secondly, most of the people you think haven't figured out are
• 1:19:49
  completely drowning behind the scenes.
• 1:19:52
  Like very real, like they're crying when they're not on live
• 1:19:56
  on Instagram kind of thing. But I think we need to take a
• 1:19:59
  step back and ask ourselves some very difficult questions.
• 1:20:05
  Because we get so caught up in the marketing persuasion and the
• 1:20:08
  gas lighting and like the shame that's used to sell us stuff.
• 1:20:12
  If we start to center ourselves back in our business, everything
• 1:20:18
  out there for the most part completely is focused on like
• 1:20:22
  here's my blueprint, but it's you.
• 1:20:24
  We need to bring us back into our business.
• 1:20:28
  That's the root of success, what we want, what we value.
• 1:20:32
  And if we can view things through that lens and go like,
• 1:20:35
  what if this felt good? What would this look like?
• 1:20:39
  Like what if this were easy? Like I, I remember asking one of
• 1:20:43
  my business partners, I'm like, what would this business look
• 1:20:44
  like if it was just easy? It's like, why?
• 1:20:46
  I love writing emails. Like I'd wake up, I would write
• 1:20:49
  an e-mail for the day. I would, you know, do a couple
• 1:20:52
  coaching calls and I'm like, OK, if we know that, then we'd start
• 1:20:57
  to understand what our non negotiables are.
• 1:21:00
  You don't want to be creating content every single day.
• 1:21:03
  OK, Then we take that off the list and we have two other
• 1:21:07
  opportunities to build your audience because we got to build
• 1:21:10
  the e-mail list. But we can do that with paid
• 1:21:12
  ads, we can do that with joint ventures, we can sponsor
• 1:21:15
  people's newsletters or podcasts.
• 1:21:17
  So if we can understand what we want to be doing, what would
• 1:21:21
  feel good, then we can start to use those as kind of like bumper
• 1:21:25
  lanes to give us some guidance on the business model.
• 1:21:28
  That's going to just feel better.
• 1:21:32
  Because the biggest thing, like you said, we end up one day
• 1:21:35
  realizing we hate what we created.
• 1:21:39
  And that's such a terrible place to be in.
• 1:21:41
  I've been there, burned like. Especially if it's made you like
• 1:21:44
  7 or multiple 7 figures. Then you're really in this.
• 1:21:46
  It's so scary to change. We just get caught being like, I
• 1:21:49
  just have to do more. I need to hire more people, I
• 1:21:52
  need to get into this new mastermind and create this new
• 1:21:56
  VSL. We're just stumbling.
• 1:21:59
  And I was listening to one of your your Instagram stories you
• 1:22:02
  posted today and it was talking about we get caught trying to
• 1:22:05
  solve the symptom, not the root cause problem.
• 1:22:07
  And it's the same thing. We get caught jumping after new
• 1:22:12
  tactics when we realize we just built a business that we don't
• 1:22:15
  actually want to be running, or we're just in a different phase.
• 1:22:19
  And now we just need to simply evolve what we're doing and
• 1:22:22
  understand that there's going to be some difficult changes that
• 1:22:24
  have to be made. So I think we've got to get
• 1:22:26
  really intimate with what would actually feel good, really
• 1:22:30
  difficult conversations with ourselves, and then just slowly
• 1:22:33
  starting to be like, OK, well, I don't want to do these things.
• 1:22:36
  I would like to do these things. Sometimes it's much easier to be
• 1:22:39
  like, I don't want to send DMS, I don't want to do this.
• 1:22:43
  And very often with business, if we know what we don't want to
• 1:22:47
  do, we're left with a menu of things that we can choose from.
• 1:22:51
  And it might take trying a few things, but it can be scary to
• 1:22:56
  launch a new offer, to create a new product, to try something
• 1:23:00
  new. But usually a lot of that fear
• 1:23:03
  is just we're being called into something that's more aligned
• 1:23:08
  for us and we have to be able to move through that and accept
• 1:23:11
  that in order to get the business that we actually want.
• 1:23:14
  And I think it goes to your earlier piece, which is that I
• 1:23:17
  guess the fear piece to keep in mind or to center our ground in
• 1:23:20
  is that it all works anyways. Like even to I guess put a put a
• 1:23:24
  bow on. Even for me, I did the whole
• 1:23:27
  TikTok thing. Like I really leaned into it for
• 1:23:29
  like probably about a year and a half, maybe 2 years.
• 1:23:33
  Did the three videos a day, every single weekend, every
• 1:23:35
  Saturday, filming like 35 individual videos.
• 1:23:37
  And I was like, OK, like if this is what it takes, like I'm
• 1:23:40
  willing to try anything. And I've talked a lot about it
• 1:23:43
  on the podcast, which is like, that's the reason I created the
• 1:23:45
  podcast. Like to exactly what you just
• 1:23:47
  said. I was like, OK, like I don't
• 1:23:49
  want to do this. Like I have 0.
• 1:23:50
  If this is what it means to scale, I'd actually rather go
• 1:23:53
  back to having a small business or if it ended up at that place,
• 1:23:57
  back to 9:00 to 5:00. If I'm not a TikTok guru and
• 1:24:00
  that's gonna, you know, derail the business.
• 1:24:01
  I think I actually would have to accept that because this filming
• 1:24:06
  every Saturday is not the life that I want.
• 1:24:08
  Or like waking up before work and calls every day to film 3
• 1:24:12
  videos didn't work. But then that's what helped me
• 1:24:14
  to realize, OK, if it is about volume, then I'll do a podcast
• 1:24:17
  and I'll chop it into clips and then take those clips and put it
• 1:24:20
  on YouTube and Facebook and TikTok and whatever.
• 1:24:22
  And so yes, it's a different formula, but to your point, the
• 1:24:26
  elimination of I'm not going to do X is actually what presented
• 1:24:31
  what I really wanted, which is I wanted volume without the
• 1:24:33
  pressure. And so I was like, OK, well, if
• 1:24:36
  that's what I want, how do I do that?
• 1:24:37
  And then that was like, poof, here's your podcast.
• 1:24:39
  So I so agree with the elimination process because I
• 1:24:42
  think many of us are like, OK, like what do I want?
• 1:24:45
  And it's like nothing comes to us and to.
• 1:24:46
  Your point? Sometimes it's just presenting
• 1:24:49
  the next thing and that next thing might not be the thing.
• 1:24:54
  And that is hard because we want certainty.
• 1:24:58
  We want the blueprint to get X amount of clients and X amount
• 1:25:03
  of time guaranteed, but it doesn't exist.
• 1:25:06
  So sometimes we need to like, maybe you needed to do the
• 1:25:12
  TikTok thing to get to the podcast thing and that was your
• 1:25:16
  journey. So I think if we can start to
• 1:25:20
  either tap into whatever we believe in or existentialism and
• 1:25:25
  understand that everything happens for a reason, we can
• 1:25:28
  derive the meaning from our journey.
• 1:25:31
  My journey hasn't been great. I just, I wrote a post, it went
• 1:25:35
  viral, which was odd about paying off $100,000 worth of
• 1:25:38
  debt that my wife and I took on to close the business in 2018.
• 1:25:42
  We just paid it off. I was like almost 3000 days, all
• 1:25:46
  these payments. We lost our gym, we lost our
• 1:25:48
  house to pay off a portion of it.
• 1:25:50
  We lost our identity, we lost an entire group of friends, and we
• 1:25:54
  just paid this off. Like there's a journey that we
• 1:25:57
  have to go on. And now I can speak into this
• 1:26:00
  and I can create hope for people that are in debt or going to
• 1:26:03
  school and have closed and failed businesses.
• 1:26:06
  And I wouldn't be able to do that if I didn't go through that
• 1:26:08
  experience. So I'm able to share so much
• 1:26:11
  because of what I went through. But just because we do
• 1:26:14
  something, it doesn't mean we're going to guarantee success.
• 1:26:17
  It might be the thing that gets us to the next thing, but that's
• 1:26:20
  not bad. Like that can be such a
• 1:26:23
  beautiful thing when we realize why are we doing all of this?
• 1:26:29
  It's not to make money. I, I made a note I had, I had
• 1:26:33
  this revelation and I wrote it down and I was like, I enjoy
• 1:26:37
  building. I can get so caught up in like
• 1:26:40
  this launch didn't go the way I wanted to.
• 1:26:42
  I wish I was further ahead. It's like, I just love creating
• 1:26:47
  things. I love helping people.
• 1:26:49
  I love coaching people. I love just talking and
• 1:26:51
  brainstorming and just that realization of like the part
• 1:26:55
  that I'm always thinking is the bad is actually the entire point
• 1:27:01
  of what I'm doing. And if somebody realizes maybe
• 1:27:05
  entrepreneurship isn't for them, like nothing, there's like
• 1:27:09
  there's no shame in that. It's not for everyone just
• 1:27:12
  because we saw somebody post next to a Lamborghini or in Bali
• 1:27:16
  typing on their keyboard. Like, maybe you are happier and
• 1:27:20
  more content with your life doing whatever a 9:00 to 5:00
• 1:27:24
  because of the security provides for you and your family.
• 1:27:27
  Like, that's awesome. I wish.
• 1:27:29
  Like I'm striving for being content not to hit X financial
• 1:27:36
  goal. And it took a lot of time and
• 1:27:38
  self work and study to get to a place where that realization is
• 1:27:42
  just like grounding. And it's, I think truthfully,
• 1:27:46
  like one of the biggest shifts that we have to create and look
• 1:27:49
  at this narrative of like online success.
• 1:27:52
  Well, and I think even as a through line for today, one of
• 1:27:56
  the things that I take from it is really that like marketing,
• 1:28:00
  it was just like a light bulb as we were talking is like really
• 1:28:02
  truthfully just as much mindset as it is strategy.
• 1:28:05
  Because I think a lot of us are OK, we have mindset, we've got
• 1:28:07
  marketing, we've got sales, we've got offers, we've got
• 1:28:10
  brand. Like we think about them almost
• 1:28:11
  like in these perfect little organized buckets, but like who
• 1:28:15
  you are as a brand and how you show up is directly correlated
• 1:28:18
  to like who you perceive that you are or who you believe that
• 1:28:21
  you are, the masks of who you pretend to be.
• 1:28:23
  Like there's so much of the mindset element to it, to the
• 1:28:26
  business strategy side. The business you're building is
• 1:28:28
  the business you're building because you actually want that
• 1:28:30
  business. Is it because someone has told
• 1:28:32
  you that's the business? Do you do it out of guilt
• 1:28:34
  because this is what you're supposed to do or it built
• 1:28:36
  success, So I have to stick with it and that kind of, you know,
• 1:28:38
  sunk cost aspect to it. And I think as you were talking
• 1:28:42
  today, you know, obviously people see Landon sub stack and
• 1:28:46
  like, yes, scale with sub stack. But it's like, I think as what
• 1:28:50
  happens in most of entrepreneurship when you dive
• 1:28:53
  into the strategy to your point of like, what kind of business
• 1:28:55
  do you want and what kind of results were you expecting?
• 1:28:58
  And are you willing to put in the work and the consistency if
• 1:29:00
  there was no dopamine hit for two years?
• 1:29:03
  All of the underbelly of a lot of what you've said has been
• 1:29:07
  kind of the through line of your success or the the stepping
• 1:29:10
  stones that created it came from a lot of clarity in her work.
• 1:29:15
  Like your mindset about yourself, about the business,
• 1:29:18
  about strategy, about success. Like there's so many layers that
• 1:29:23
  you had to get clarity on and you had to challenge yourself on
• 1:29:26
  in order to allow these pieces to come into play.
• 1:29:29
  And so I think listening today can be really exciting to say,
• 1:29:31
  OK, well, Landon says sub stacks, way to go sub stacks
• 1:29:34
  where we're going. We're like, you know, Kate says,
• 1:29:36
  you know, podcasts are great. I'm going to start a podcast.
• 1:29:39
  But I think the extra piece that I would add to what you said, I
• 1:29:42
  agree with all of it, is this extra filter of, like what you
• 1:29:45
  said, sitting with yourself because I think that all the
• 1:29:48
  marketing works, but there's a possibility that the reason it's
• 1:29:51
  not working is actually tied back to you, not to the
• 1:29:53
  platform. And so I think when we start to
• 1:29:55
  look at it with that mirror, that's really where the work
• 1:29:59
  comes in. Obviously, yes, there's tactics
• 1:30:01
  and strategies and I know you have like offers and support and
• 1:30:05
  freebies and all of that stuff to support people with that,
• 1:30:08
  which they absolutely should go check out if you're thinking
• 1:30:09
  about going on to sub stack. But I think it starts with
• 1:30:13
  knowing why you're going into it and, you know, even challenging
• 1:30:16
  listening today. Is hearing Landon talk about sub
• 1:30:19
  stack the real reason you're going to sub stack?
• 1:30:21
  Or is it because Substack is actually something that
• 1:30:24
  listening to you has, you know, help them to go, OK, yeah.
• 1:30:27
  This is actually really the kind of life that I want.
• 1:30:29
  So I think it's like the discernment, it's so small.
• 1:30:32
  It's these tiny little decisions.
• 1:30:34
  But I think if you have that discernment, that's really the
• 1:30:36
  thing that from what I'm hearing from your entire journey, is
• 1:30:38
  actually what created like the peace, but also the success that
• 1:30:42
  you have now. Totally.
• 1:30:43
  And like you said, like the mindset component, we see it in
• 1:30:46
  the programs. Every coaching program now has a
• 1:30:49
  mindset coach. Why is that, I wonder?
• 1:30:52
  Yeah, it's maybe not just the strategy that they're giving
• 1:30:55
  everybody to make it work. But the key for me, and I wrote
• 1:30:58
  about this in like a big rant, is when we struggle to follow
• 1:31:02
  the plan, a lot of mainstream coaches were told to do more, do
• 1:31:08
  better, or, you know, get out of the program.
• 1:31:12
  Like, but so we're, we're, we're made like they're, they're
• 1:31:18
  weaponizing shame in their marketing and in how they coach.
• 1:31:21
  And that's it's not us. It's that plan isn't the plan
• 1:31:27
  that was going to work for us. Because maybe you don't want to
• 1:31:30
  work seven days a week. Maybe you don't want to charge
• 1:31:31
  $10,000 or do all of these things or run ads.
• 1:31:36
  And that's OK. It's just finding what's going
• 1:31:39
  to work. And like you said, these small
• 1:31:41
  differences of this is something I feel would be good versus this
• 1:31:45
  is the next shiny object that I'm going to do because this
• 1:31:48
  person said it's something that can work.
• 1:31:51
  Like that's everything. Well, today was basically a
• 1:31:53
  master class in all things Landon's brain, which as you
• 1:31:56
  guys can tell is incredible. So if somebody wants to learn
• 1:32:00
  more from you, maybe it's about sub stack, Maybe it's just
• 1:32:03
  honestly a continuation of some of the things you shared today.
• 1:32:06
  What is the best place for somebody to reach out to you to
• 1:32:08
  kind of connect? Obviously sub stacks, I know you
• 1:32:10
  guys should go there, but other than sub stack, what would be
• 1:32:13
  the, you know, other places that you'd want people to connect
• 1:32:15
  with you? Yeah, I'm most active on sub
• 1:32:17
  stack. Everything is linked up from my
• 1:32:18
  website at landonp.com. I am on most platforms,
• 1:32:23
  LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, I'm pretty much everywhere and I
• 1:32:27
  usually check most things. I'm fairly easy to to get in
• 1:32:30
  touch with. I might take a day or two to
• 1:32:32
  reply because messages are are not my Forte.
• 1:32:35
  But sub stack is where there's kind of like my home online and
• 1:32:38
  everything kind of derives from there.
• 1:32:40
  So my DMS on sub stack are always open.
• 1:32:42
  There's a form to reach out to me on on my website as well, so
• 1:32:46
  I'm happy to chat and deepen this conversation with anybody.
• 1:32:49
  It's just that's kind of like my mission of what I'm really
• 1:32:52
  trying to do is just change a lot of the narrative of what
• 1:32:56
  we've seen for so many years. Cuz I think it's really done a
• 1:33:00
  disservice to so many people. Agreed.
• 1:33:03
  Agreed. Well, thank you so much, Landon,
• 1:33:05
  for today. This was great.
• 1:33:05
  Thank you so much for having me on so good.
• 1:33:07
  Yeah, of course. Well, that was basically like
• 1:33:10
  mindset marketing, all things land in scaling everything.
• 1:33:13
  Master class for you if you guys have any questions or maybe to
• 1:33:17
  be honest, even just a download. Like we always talk about being
• 1:33:19
  witnessed in aha moments and witnessed in transformation.
• 1:33:23
  And so if you are someone who maybe you heard something that
• 1:33:25
  had nothing to do with strategy today and you're like that
• 1:33:27
  really landed for me. I know for me when I'm on other
• 1:33:31
  people's podcasts or even with this podcast, when people reach
• 1:33:33
  out, it really just fills my bucket in a way I really can't
• 1:33:37
  describe. And I think it's incredible to
• 1:33:39
  see as well what Landon shares so that he gets the feedback of
• 1:33:43
  what lands for people and what was an aha moment and wording
• 1:33:45
  about things or, you know, a spark that happened as a result
• 1:33:48
  of something he shares. So with that being said, I also
• 1:33:51
  want to invite you to reach out to him, whether it is through
• 1:33:53
  website, Instagram, sub stack, just to kind of share something
• 1:33:56
  that was a light bulb for you and something that downloaded
• 1:33:59
  today. So with that being said, we will
• 1:34:01
  see you on next week's episode. And, as always, stay ambitious.