Latest / Influencer Confidential / Why Every Creator Should Be On Substack | Monetize Your Content! #260

Transcript

Why Every Creator Should Be On Substack | Monetize Your Content! #260 · Influencer Confidential

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
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  Speaker 1: Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
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  Speaker 1: working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
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  Speaker 1: Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
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  Speaker 1: in this influencer industry and see behind the curtain? Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's jump in. Substack is the biggest rage right now
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  Speaker 1: online and I'm sure you guys have heard about it
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  Speaker 1: everywhere and wondering should you join? Should you not? So
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  Speaker 1: what I want to do today is do a deep
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  Speaker 1: dive on substock, specifically speaking to creators to help you
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  Speaker 1: decide is this a good opportunity for you should you join?
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  Speaker 1: What is this all about? And really go into the
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  Speaker 1: nuts and bolts before you make a decision. So, first
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  Speaker 1: of all, what is substack And I just want to
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  Speaker 1: start off with like the simplest way to explain it,
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  Speaker 1: to start off with like a basic definition. Substack is
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  Speaker 1: a platform that allows you to write newsletters and share
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  Speaker 1: them directly with your audience via email, but it also
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  Speaker 1: post them on the website. So for many it's a
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  Speaker 1: really simple way to share their content without having to
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  Speaker 1: build a website. And similarly, like if you are someone
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  Speaker 1: who wants to write a newsletter or an email list,
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  Speaker 1: but don't want to build out your own email list.
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  Speaker 1: Substack is that platform for you. So now you guys
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  Speaker 1: may be wondering about money, like what's the money situation?
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  Speaker 1: So you don't have to pay to be on substack.
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  Speaker 1: The way substack works is that they take a commission
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  Speaker 1: from your paid subscribers. It is free to use. There's
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  Speaker 1: just a commission on earnings. Now, think about it. If
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  Speaker 1: you were to use another email platform, you're paying per email, right,
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  Speaker 1: so it's very standard for most email platforms to pay
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  Speaker 1: per email. Subsac is turning that on its head. They're saying, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you can use this for free, but for that paywall,
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  Speaker 1: for that paid subscriber, we're going to take a cut.
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  Speaker 1: So that is for now, it is completely free to use,
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  Speaker 1: except that commission's piece. Also, people love substack because it
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  Speaker 1: is again you don't have to build the website. It's
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  Speaker 1: quite simple, it's quite easy. There's no algorithms, there's no gatekeeping,
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  Speaker 1: like your content goes to their email inbox. You know,
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  Speaker 1: when you publish, you can export your email list at
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  Speaker 1: any time, So you are really using this as an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to grow your emails. Creators, you know I love this.
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  Speaker 1: You know I love this because this means you get
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  Speaker 1: to own your emails and not just have followers, but
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  Speaker 1: have your emails. In case anything happens, you're able to
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  Speaker 1: always have access to your people. Creators also love it
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  Speaker 1: because of the monetization. It's really easy to switch on
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  Speaker 1: and off those paywalls if you are looking for a
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  Speaker 1: way to monetize your people, monetize your lists. We're seeing
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  Speaker 1: creators do this successfully on substock because they are charging
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  Speaker 1: their users to be able to access it. So monetization
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  Speaker 1: is a big thing here at substock, and it should
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  Speaker 1: be right because that's how they make money, so they
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  Speaker 1: want to get you subscribers. Now. They do take about
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  Speaker 1: a ten percent commission, whereas if you were to do
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  Speaker 1: it like somewhere else maybe Stripe, it's like two to
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  Speaker 1: three percent. It's a bigger chunk. But again, you're not
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  Speaker 1: paying for website hosting, none of that. It's a simple tool.
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  Speaker 1: You don't have to worry, like I said, about hosting
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  Speaker 1: or building or web development. They're going to handle all
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  Speaker 1: of that. I think Subsec, like I showed you earlier,
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  Speaker 1: had that rising Board. It really makes it easy to
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  Speaker 1: also discover new people, to find new content, to grow
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  Speaker 1: your list by being recommended by other people as well,
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  Speaker 1: Like what we saw what that other creator was doing, Like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: follow all ten of these people too, So there is
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  Speaker 1: that built in recommendation so that you guys can drive
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  Speaker 1: traffic to each other's pages. Now, I would say that
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  Speaker 1: subseac is better for like writers, bloggers, creators, personalities, you know,
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  Speaker 1: versus like traditional companies that need in a more robust
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  Speaker 1: email platform. Like if you are doing segmentation in your
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  Speaker 1: emails and you're doing sales and all of that, you're
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  Speaker 1: going to want to go the traditional route. This is
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  Speaker 1: really more for like that solopreneur, that content creator who
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  Speaker 1: is creating useful content for her audience or his audience
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  Speaker 1: and wants to monetize off of it. I don't see
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  Speaker 1: it really for marketers. I see it more for like
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  Speaker 1: those solo preneur business owners. The cool thing is we
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  Speaker 1: are seeing embedded YouTube videos. We are seeing embedded we
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  Speaker 1: are seeing embedded video in general. It's not just writing anymore.
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  Speaker 1: There's the writing element, but you can also make it
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  Speaker 1: interactive and multimedia. Substack also does give you analytics and
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  Speaker 1: metrics you know, on your growth, on your open rates
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  Speaker 1: and traditional email metrics. So creators you do have that,
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  Speaker 1: you know you can include affiliates and sponsored links and
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  Speaker 1: things of that nature. I'm sure we're going to see
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  Speaker 1: way way more brand deals happening on substack. I actually
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  Speaker 1: have a formula for how to charge for your email
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  Speaker 1: lists inside my pitching course, and that same formula, y'all
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  Speaker 1: for those of you who already have that program can
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  Speaker 1: be used for substack email subscribers as well, because it
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  Speaker 1: really comes down to click through rates and you know
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  Speaker 1: who's reading your content, etc. People love substack because it
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  Speaker 1: just feels a lot less algorithm dependent. You know, there's
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  Speaker 1: no algorithm at the moment, like you're getting what you see,
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  Speaker 1: You're getting what you sign up for. It's quite low
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  Speaker 1: maintenance and it's what you make of it, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: at the end of the day. Some people, like people
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  Speaker 1: that love to write or wanted to host a blog,
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  Speaker 1: this feels like the new age blog if you're able
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  Speaker 1: to monetize off your blog, so that seems quite exciting
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  Speaker 1: as well. There has been some questions regarding like will
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  Speaker 1: your substack rank on Google? Is this something that is happening,
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  Speaker 1: and I know a lot of substack creators are seeing
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  Speaker 1: more and more improvements in this This is just something
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  Speaker 1: that you would have to do with Google directly in
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  Speaker 1: your site maps and all of that, but we are
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  Speaker 1: seeing Google rank more substacks, and I think this is
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  Speaker 1: just going to be the beginning because it's still so
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  Speaker 1: very new. Now, before we wrap up, I do want
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  Speaker 1: to share I got some notes from my community because
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  Speaker 1: I did host a substack like open forum where we
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  Speaker 1: all got to chat, and I want to share with
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  Speaker 1: you guys some of the main questions that came up
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  Speaker 1: and some tips from other creators. So people were asking
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  Speaker 1: about like how often should you post, and everyone has
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  Speaker 1: a different cadence. Some creators were posting once or twice
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  Speaker 1: a month, and others were posting two or three times
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  Speaker 1: a week. So again it's really what you decide to
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  Speaker 1: put into it. But creators that have been posting once
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  Speaker 1: or twice a month have still seen success on this platform.
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  Speaker 1: Someone was asking can it replace my blog or my website,
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  Speaker 1: and we ultimately were like, yes it can, but again
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  Speaker 1: it depends on your strategy and like your monetization goals,
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  Speaker 1: so like for me, it's not going to replace my
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  Speaker 1: blogger website, but I would use it maybe to build
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  Speaker 1: a personal brand or a completely different brand altogether, but
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  Speaker 1: again that's up to you. People are all asking about
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  Speaker 1: like AI and chat shept for content, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people are saying that, like, use it for editing,
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  Speaker 1: but not writing, because SEPSEC is still very heavy focus
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  Speaker 1: on writing and that human authenticity is super important. I
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  Speaker 1: also was told don't wait too long to turn on
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  Speaker 1: your paywall. People want to support you from the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: You don't have to hit like ten thousand followers or
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  Speaker 1: something to turn on your paywall. Turn it on from
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  Speaker 1: the very very beginning. And if you're deciding, you know,
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  Speaker 1: what stays free what is premium? Decide that very early on.
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  Speaker 1: Come up with a strategy like, okay, this one post
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  Speaker 1: a week is always going to be free, and it's
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  Speaker 1: always on the same thing. So let's just say it's
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  Speaker 1: like three things you need to know this week that
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  Speaker 1: is always free, but everything else, like, is going to
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  Speaker 1: be paywalled. Or decide if it's a recipe, it's going
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  Speaker 1: to be paywalled. If it's not, you know, you have
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  Speaker 1: to be clear on your paywall. What's monetized and what's not.
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  Speaker 1: That was a really good piece of advice that came
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  Speaker 1: from here. People are also saying, don't forget to leverage
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  Speaker 1: subsacks referral tools so you can organically grow all those
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  Speaker 1: recommendations and just get on there. Like it's like, if
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  Speaker 1: you want to vlog watch vlogs, you want to get
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  Speaker 1: on subsack, get on subsack. Just consume the content first,
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  Speaker 1: see if you like it, and then make a decision
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  Speaker 1: based on if this is a tool that's easy for you.
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  Speaker 1: I'm excited about this platform. I think it's a really
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  Speaker 1: great monetization tool for a lot of creators. I don't
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  Speaker 1: think it makes sense for everyone. And it's always about
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  Speaker 1: capacity and time. So if you're going to do it,
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  Speaker 1: do it. And if it's just going to be another
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  Speaker 1: thing on your to do list and you're not ready,
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  Speaker 1: then don't. I'd rather have you, guys, focus on one
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  Speaker 1: or two things and do them well, then focus on
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and do them bad. So that's the word
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  Speaker 1: to the whys over here. I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
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  Speaker 1: If you did, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe
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  Speaker 1: to our show and visit Sidewalkerdaily dot com for more
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  Speaker 1: resources on all things influencer, marketing and social media. Until
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  Speaker 1: next time,