Nicolas Cole argues entrepreneurs mistake trying to do everything at once. Pick one focus, scale it, then move to the next. Your newsletter, services, and products should target the same audience to compound, not scatter across unrelated topics like mixing marathon content with ghostwriting services.
A little secret for everyone, anytime you find yourself saying, "How do I do both?" That's the mistake, okay? So the question is, do you want to grow your ghostwriting business or do you want to build and grow a digital product business? It's not that you can't end up doing both, it's that you can't do both at the same time. I think a lot of where people get confused is they look at like our business is a great example. They go, "Cole, how could you say that? You guys have so many different verticals. You have digital writing, we had Ship 30, you know, AI writing school, boot camps. We have PGA, we have Write with AI. How could you say that? You're pursuing multiple different things." Yes, that's true over the course of 6 years. We didn't start day one and go, "Let's build all of these at the same time." No, we built Ship30, and then Ship30 reached a point of maturity, and then we reclaimed time, and then we started over, and then we built PGA, and then we reclaimed time, and then we built Write with AI. And so yeah, like 6+ years later, you look at it and you go, "Oh, okay, you have multiple things," but that's not how it starts. And so for you and for everyone, the fundamental question is, do you want your ghostwriting business to grow, or do you want a digital product business to grow? And if the answer is you want your ghostwriting business to grow, or services, then the newsletter should accelerate that. The newsletter should be in service of that. But any time you go, how do I do two different things? You have to realize you just sliced your productivity in half. Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does. And yeah, just for clarity, I mentioned like building, monetizing with maybe a digital product just because I was thinking, you know, at some point I might want to package what I'm providing as a service as like a small course. But again, this is like super long term. It's not a priority, definitely. So my answer to your question is yes, the only priority for me now is growing ghostwriting business. And the way I would use— and I guess we are on the same page here— Substack is just placing a link in the comments on LinkedIn and say, "Hey, by the way, I talk about this stuff more in depth over there," and just using it as an engine to collect some emails and then maybe reaching out to the subscribers and just, you know, trying to start the conversation.
Yep, exactly. Yeah.
Okay.
The whole game, this took me such a long time to learn, and it's one of those things that is, it's so simple, it takes a long time to learn, and it's so easy to forget. The whole game is congruence.
Right.
A lot of times people think, I can do lots of different things. I can have a newsletter about marathon running, but I can provide a service that's ghostwriting, but I can have a digital product about nutrition, but I can have, right? And that is like the worst thing you could do because now none of these things compound. What you want is you want perfect congruence across all of them. I have a newsletter about ghostwriting. I provide ghostwriting services. I have a low-ticket digital product for the same type of person about ghostwriting. You want congruence across the board. And that might— like, I know that when I explain that or when I say that, the initial reaction is it's like, oh, that's so hard. That means I have to say no to lots of things. Yeah. Yeah, you do.
Yeah.
Right? No different than like, imagine if you're like, I'm gonna go run a marathon, and then you start running the marathon, and then like 5 minutes in, you're like, I actually decided I'm gonna go get ice cream. You can, you're more than welcome to, you can, but like that choice means you're no longer running the marathon. Right? And so you have to choose like what game are you trying to play? What outcome do you wanna generate? And everything needs to be in service of that outcome, until you achieve it. And then when you achieve it, then you can add something else.
Okay, okay, got it.
Makes sense?
And yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so my follow-up question on this would be just to kind of close this. So in terms of my other newsletter, which, you know, I'm not trying to monetize, it's just really like a public diary that I've been keeping for, years and years. Can I keep it like under my name? I can have different publications and just, you know, having this thing over here that I'm not even advertising or pushing in any way, and then just, you know, having this other thing related to my ghostwriting business?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. That's fine. The mistake is not, I have this other thing that I'm passionate about. The mistake is, I have this other thing that I'm passionate about and Cole, how do I monetize it?
Oh, yeah, okay.
The moment you start doing that, now you have competing interests.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, of course. Got it, got it. And the very last thing is, I guess, yes, yes, to start, that's the answer. But the question is, is Substack the right way to do or at least a good way to start, you know, because I guess that the other, of course, the other option for me to collect emails would be a lead magnet and having it in, in kit and, you know, all these things. But I really wanted to start with something very simple and Substack is the perfect.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay, so it's—
Yeah, totally fine.
It's still a good— okay, perfect.
Yeah, totally fine.
Amazing. That's all I had for you.
Awesome, great questions. Thanks for showing up and asking.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, of course. Hey, by the way, if you're brand new to the world of ghostwriting, maybe you've heard the term but aren't really sure what it is or how it's different from copywriting or content writing, check out premiumghostwritingblueprint.com. It's in the description below, okay? This is a free masterclass that I've put together for writers who wanna monetize their skills and love for writing with ghostwriting. This is what I did, and ghostwriting completely changed my life. It's how I quit my job. It's how I quadrupled the amount of money I was making. It's how I've gotten to work with so many smart, amazing people, but also have time for my own writing, like writing this book, The Art and Business of Ghostwriting. Anyways, check it out. If you're at all interested in making money from your writing, I would really encourage you to get into ghostwriting, and this free premium ghostwriting blueprint in the description below is the best place to start. Thank you.
What Every Writer Gets Wrong About Their Audience #writing #creator #writingtips
