The Right Audience Compounds—Here's How to Find Them

We are live. Welcome to a pop-up Creative on Purpose Live episode. Gonna give the folks that want to be here a chance to get here. Lori, great to see you. Lori just became a subscriber to the Creative on Purpose Substack. Enjoyed looking through your profile and checking out some of your work. Aaron, One of our newest Inner Circle members is also here. Great to have you here, Aaron. I don't know if maybe we'll see you later at the Catalyst call at 1 o'clock, but would love to see you there if you can make it. Just gonna chit-chat here for a minute to, uh, give folks that are receiving the notification a chance to hop on before we get into the, the main event. Awesome, Aaron. Look forward to finally meeting you. I'm sorry that we didn't get a chance to collide in real life last weekend, but totally understandable. So I know Aaron is tuning in from the state that is high in the middle and round at both ends. Lori, where in the world— I can't remember where in the world you are, but if you don't mind sharing, I would love to find out where you are. Uh, Penny is here. Penny is in Southern Maine. I know this for a fact. She is an Inner Circle member, current client. Yeah, it was pretty, uh, pretty wet in, in Southern Ohio when we were there over the weekend. We, we are experiencing a respite in, in the rain right now. The sun has broken through and is shining, and we are looking forward to getting out this afternoon and celebrating our 37th wedding anniversary. I know, hard to believe that anybody could put up with me for that long, but it is true. So it looks like we've got, uh, we've, we've now got a quorum. We've got Laurie, Aaron, and Penny here, so we're going to go ahead and get started. Just, uh, before I create an edit point in case I decide to share the replay, I want to share with all of you that are here that if you have any questions about anything that I'm talking about here, or if you have a, an additional insight that you want to share, feel free to drop that in the comments, and I'll save some time towards the end to go through whatever questions and comments come through. Welcome to another pop-up episode of Creative on Purpose Live. Today we are talking about the 3 questions that you must answer if you are going to grow on purpose. We're going to be talking mostly about Substack and Substack publications here, but these ideas would apply if you are building a list through your website using a lead magnet of some sort, or just building a blog and collecting email addresses that way. Wherever you are trying to reach more of the right people, there is lots of advice coming from growth hackers and digital marketers that expresses and, and encourages what they think is the virtues of growing, growing for growth's sake. As I peruse my Substack feed, because I sometimes am accused of being, uh, someone that talks about marketing, I get a lot of people in my feed that are— I would qualify as growth hackers, people that are telling you how to get the maximum number of subscribers to your publication as quickly as possible, earn that bestseller badge by whatever means necessary, and it's part of our natural default programming as human beings. We are programmed for and conditioned by society to chase after more. The problem with chasing after more is that more almost never gets you closer to what you actually want. The undisciplined pursuit of more only creates inefficiency and ineffectiveness in any kind of system. So if you're trying to build a business or create a publication, uh, and a community around that publication here on Substack, blindly chasing after more, chasing after reach, chasing after impressions, chasing after a bestseller badge at any cost is not going to build a sustainable publication, and it's probably not going to build a thriving, flourishing business that gives you a sense of fulfillment and meaning doing work that matters with people you care about. I'll get a little bit into my own experience with this here in just a minute, but just a quick shout out to Dr. Angie, who is here. She is also a member of the Creative On Purpose Circle or Inner Circle community. And Jenna has just joined us. Um, so the, the, the question is not, you know, do I need more people, but who are the people that I would like to have more of? Growth for growth's sake is a solution in search of a problem. More subscribers, more of the wrong subscribers, are going to do more harm to your publication and any business that you have built around it than talking to fewer of the right people. Talking— adding a bunch of unengaged, uh, or incorrect people to your subscriber count is not going to help you maintain a focus on what your publication is promising, what it is delivering, who it is talking to, who it is for. And so You know, growth for growth's sake often means that you're, you're attracting more of the wrong people, which only dilutes your signal. It burns through your energy. You're going to spend more time trying to create content for people that actually are not all that interested in things that you actually care about talking about, and it makes reaching more the right people even harder. So this whole idea of playing the growth hacking game of the blind pursuit of more, more subscribers for more sake, is a game, number one, that you probably can't win. Number two, it's not probably the game that you actually want to play. And if you're playing the growth hacking game by someone else's rules, then you are playing a game that you can't possibly win. If you're going to play your game on your terms, then somebody else's rulebook, roadmap, blueprint is only going to take you to where they want to go and where they have achieved going at some time in the past. When the whole point that we often make in the Creative on Purpose discussions around getting the word out to more of the right people and doing work that matters with people you actually care about is that if you're following some growth hacker or digital marketer's playbook, you are following a playbook that helped them achieve what they wanted to achieve in the past. The problem with that is that by the time you're playing from that playbook or operating from that playbook, you are not them. And it's no longer the past. By the time some growth hacker or digital marketer solution arrives in your feed, it is already delivering diminished returns. Way better to lean into creating what Seth Godin calls the permission marketing model, the building a permission asset, reaching out to more of the right people so that you can create what he calls the smallest viable audience. The enough number of subscribers that will allow you to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish with your publication. It might be just growing a community of engaged subscribers. It might be growing a paid community of paid subscribers. It might be selling offers, products, and services off the back end of your publication. It might be just getting the word out and corraling and collecting more people around your idea, your cause, your mission, what have it be. But the whole point here is that more for more sake is going to get you farther away from what you want. Targeting the smallest viable audience of people who are aligned with your values and the need of your talents to enhance their lives is going to put you in conversation with more of the right people which will in turn create ripple effects where they will spread the word for you and help you connect with more of the right people that exist within their networks. So it's counterintuitive, this idea that, you know, if you're in a growth hacking program or some sort of growth mastermind here on Substack or trying to dance with the algorithm and please the algorithm through some sort of note strategy, you're playing a game that you can't really win. You're playing a game that you probably never actually signed up for when you started your publication. Or your business in the first place. So the questions, you know, that you should be asking yourself if you're thinking about audience growth here on Substack is, uh, are you growing your publication for the vanity metrics of high subscriber counts that come with, uh, low open rates and low engagement rates, or are you building a permission asset that will allow you to fund and fit the life you want even with a relatively small number of subscribers. Those are two different games. You have to decide which game you want to, to play. Most people I find are playing a game that doesn't really align with who they are and who they want to be, and they're playing a game that they can't win. For example, and so my friend Bree, uh, who is also an Inner Circle member and a current client, is here now. She's heard me say this many times, as have, uh, Dr. Angie and Penny. Um, when I came to Substack 3 years ago— will be 3 years this August— uh, I was coming after having been very successful as a growth hacker and digital marketer. I built a financially successful business in terms of the revenue number that I was trying to hit by playing the Growth Hacker digital marketing game. I created an ideal customer avatar. I created a power offer. I constructed and engineered a funnel that delivered above average conversion rate, meaning that instead of 1 or 2%, it was delivering at 3 to 5%. And what I did was I built a business that helped me hit that arbitrary revenue number of $10,000 a month across a several months. I think it was 6 to 9 months that I was able to on average hit that $10,000 a month revenue number. But I was doing work that I didn't really like with people I didn't really care about, and I was spending 80 to 90% of my time in my business grinding out content for this funnel that I didn't really ever feel resonated with the way I wanted to show up in the world and the way I wanted to build my business. And so spending 80 to 90% of my time on digital marketing BS that I didn't really need in the first place to attract people I didn't really care about to do work I didn't really like, just to hit this arbitrary, uh, revenue number. And after 6 to 9 months of this, I literally just burnt out and I blew up that business so that I could reclaim my soul and try to find a better way to build a business on my terms that served people I actually cared about, doing work that matters, and that allowed me to make a living and make enough today to do that work again the next day. So the forcing function for me was that, uh, toward the, the end of my run as a successful digital marketer, uh, and a very unhappy person. My oldest son and his wife announced that they were gonna have provide, provide us with our first grandchild. My wife and I wanted to be, uh, full-time grandparents and be daycare. Couldn't do that if I was working 8 to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, spending 7 or 8 hours a day on digital marketing BS. I wouldn't be able to be a full-time grandfather and the way that I wanted to be if I was going to maintain the business the way that I had been doing it. So since I could not maintain that old schedule, I had to basically rebuild my business from the ground up. And what I decided to do is that instead of focusing on the tools, the tactics, and the strategies that worked for other people that weren't really working for me in terms of aligning with my values and the way I wanted to show up in the world, I started with philosophy and principles and built my strategy, tactics, and tools on that strong foundation of philosophy and principles. So, uh, the questions that I began with come from my work as a coach and head coach of Seth Godin at Kimbo Workshops. I was one part of the original coaching team of the marketing seminar, and in the marketing seminar, Seth Godin asks what he calls three questions, three marketing trifecta questions: What change are you trying to make? Who are you trying to change? And what promise are you making? These three questions are fundamental to defining the kind of business that a purpose-driven person like you or me wants to build, wants to build to fund and fit the life that they actually want, want to build based on their values and, and their beliefs and their boundaries and guardrails and non-negotiables so that they can show up and do more of the work they love and less of the work that they don't, with more people that they actually care about doing work that actually makes a difference and that they find fulfilling. So I'll get into how, how to think about these 3 questions that you can, you know, use for yourself. And I'll give you some examples. But basically what was happening here is by starting from philosophy and principles, I was no longer optimizing for reach. I wasn't optimizing for impressions. I wasn't optimizing for growth, for growth's sake instead of reach. I was optimizing for resonance. I wanted the things that I was talking about, the ideas I was presenting, the solutions that I was providing, to resonate with people who shared my values and needed my talent, skills, ideas to help them get clearer about, closer to what they wanted to accomplish. And so through the course of building on Substack, I came to realize that I could um, do away with all, all of the other legacy social media platforms that I was spending time creating content for and, and trying to start conversations with people on. Substack provided me with more of the kind of people that I am writing for, people that are actually readers that want to engage with meaningful ideas that are here to research and search for information and insight that aligns with the things that they're trying to accomplish or the things that they're trying to solve. They're not on social media just to get distracted. They're not on Instagram or LinkedIn to simply promote themselves. They're not on Twitter to, to experience the thrill of outrage or to participate in arguments. People on Substack by and large are readers, and readers are people that are interested in exploring ideas and finding solutions to real problems or methods that they can employ to achieve real aspirations. So I got rid of all, all of the other social media platforms, and I built this simple, reliable Substack publication on top of my answers to the marketing trifecta. And that the publication Creative on Purpose became the center of my web, so that even as people may still have been finding me on the social media platforms that I had been on, um, and now have deactivated, but people that were engaging with my content or my ideas that I was publishing on Substack, but promoting on other platforms were able to come to Substack where I was able to build this permission asset. I was earning their awareness and attention on Substack and other platforms, but I was earning trust and permission to speak with them through the Substack publication, through the subscription feature, and leveraging the network effect inherent in Substack to reach more of the right people easier and faster than I was on any other platform, including my own website. So the end result of all this was that I went from working 80 to 100 hours a week to barely get by with my business after all the expenses that were part of constructing a funnel, providing ads for the funnel, and, and all the platforms and software and apps that were required to keep the Funnel going, I went from 10 hours a day to just 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, from 80 to 100 hours a week to 10 hours a week. And not only did I not lose revenue in the process of doing that, I actually doubled my revenue over the course of my first year in business, working basically one-tenth the amount of time that I had been previously. This left me huge blocks of time to be a full-time grandpa to my grandson Jasper, and now my, my grandson's Jasper Ann Hudson. It allowed me to spend more time in the evenings with my wife. It freed up weekends entirely for us to do the things that we want to do. And, um, it also has helped me create a thriving publication that still does not have a bestseller badge and does not have much over 1,000 subscribers. Uh, but I don't need those big numbers to build a business that allows me to hit my revenue number in half the time that I used to working 10 times as much. I've hit my revenue number for the last 3 years before the month of June was over. And that means that for half the year, I'm basically free to do whatever I want with the rest of my time. So let's get into the 3 questions. And again, want to just share that you're welcome to ask any questions about any of the things that I'm talking about here or to offer a different perspective. Great to see Michelle and Savio have also joined, joined us here on the live. So if you want to escape the growth for growth's sake hamster wheel and stop dancing for the algorithm and stop trying to engineer your content to please this arbitrary algorithm or an audience that may or may not actually even be interested in things that you actually want to talk about or do, and you want instead to build a purpose-driven publication that does not rely on huge numbers to be able to reach the smallest viable audience that will allow you to fund and fit the lifestyle that you actually want to live in less time with less effort and with greater velocity. Here are the 3 questions that I would suggest that you answer as you're building your own permission marketing asset. Your, your free subscribers and paid subscribers here on Substack. That is your permission asset. When someone gives you their email address, address as a subscriber to your publication, they are telling you that they are signing up for anticipated, relevant, and personalized messages. They want to hear from you. And in order to build that kind of asset, the 3 questions that you want to answer are: What change am I trying to make through this publication? Who am I trying to change? Who are the people that I want to be part of my subscriber community for this publication? And what promise am I making to those people through this publication? So the, the way that I think about these questions is, what change are you trying to make? Is defining the transformation that your publication offers to the people that you want to speak to, to the people that you want to serve. This is not about the topic that you write about. This is about the transformation that's on offer for people that engage with your publication. You, instead of saying, I write about X, you're going to say, I help people get from this Y state of experience to this Z state of experience. Instead of saying, I write about solopreneurship, you're saying, uh, some— well, when I'm writing about marketing or solopreneurship, what I am trying to say is I help purpose-driven solopreneurs escape the funnel gymnastics and content grind and build a prosperous business that funds and fits the life they want through generosity, uniqueness, and earned goodwill. And so the template that you can think about here when you're thinking about the change that you make is, I help this kind of person go from this kind of experience to to this kind of experience so that they can stop doing whatever it is that they want to stop doing or start accomplishing whatever it is that they want to accomplish. So again, Creative on Purpose as a publication, the change that is on offer is if you are a purpose-driven solopreneur or leader or community builder, I am helping you create a thriving community of like-minded people who need your talents and, and skills to enhance their lives so that you can build without the digital marketing grind or the content grind so that you can experience a business that funds and fits the life you want on your terms. The next question is, um, who are you trying to change? Now, obviously I touched on that in my change statement, but the main thing here is where most digital marketers and growth hackers are telling you, you have to come up with this ideal customer avatar based on demographic indicators and maybe psychographic indicators. When Seth Godin talks about the smallest viable audience, what he's saying is you're looking for alignment, not around demographics and psychographics or identified pain points, but around worldview. What are the, the fundamental things that these people believe? And so when you're speaking to someone's beliefs, to their worldview, or to their aspirations, or to the, the outcomes of solving the problem that they want to solve. You are talking to people, uh, based on things that are far more important than just where they might live, how old they are, what gender they identify as, or what, uh, psychographic beliefs they have around travel, money, etc. So one of the things that you can think about when you're thinking about who it is that you're trying to change is, like, how would you— if you walked into a room full of people, how would you identify the people that are your kind of people? And how would you identify the people that are not your kind of people? How— what are the, the, the things that you look for that help you identify those people immediately? So attempt use here is, I seek to change these kind of people who believe this kind of belief and want this kind of solved problem or aspiration achieved, but are stuck, uh, stuck on or stuck with whatever their current state is. So instead of saying, I work with coaches, freelancers, and creatives who want to grow a business, that's Fine. I've touched on some demographics and maybe some psychographics there. But when I think about the publication, the Creative On Purpose publication, the who I seek to serve, the who, who I seek to change are thoughtful creatives, coaches, freelancers who are ready to ditch the digital marketing grind and grow their trust through, uh, becoming the best in the world at making the difference only they can make in the way only they can make it by making promises that they can actually keep. Working with a specific type of freelancer, coach, or creative, someone that is deliberate and thoughtful and values-aligned who wants to get rid of growth hacking and digital marketing BS and grow through earned trust and goodwill and generosity and do that by making and keeping promises. So again, try to not rely simply on demographics and psychographics. Look at the worldview, look at their beliefs, look at their dreams and aspirations, look at their— the challenges that they want. To overcome. And then the third question in the marketing trifecta: What promise are you making? It's easy to confuse this question with the first question around the change that you seek to make. But the purpose of the, the promise question, the pro— what promise are you making, is it, it identifies a specific, believable, and achievable outcome that your business or your publication can deliver. This is not just your tagline, this is not just a mission statement, this is a promise you could keep for the next 100 people that you enroll as subscribers to your publication. What is the outcome that they can expect to get from you? What's the, what's the promise that you keep every time you publish an article on Substack, every time you publish a note? Some things that you can think about in terms of testing your promise is, is it falsifiable? Can someone demonstrate or articulate when you are not able to keep the, the promise? Is it believable? Is this an Alex Hormozi no-brainer promise where you're going to promise this outrageous, unachievable outcome or give them double their money back. That's not believable. It might help someone that's in a lot of pain buy your thing, but it's not a believable promise, and it's not a promise that you can in good conscience know is keepable a majority of the time. So instead of hype, hype, what's the guarantee that you can make, the credible bridge between where they are and where they want to be, and how they can accomplish that by engaging with you and your publication and its promise? Is it something that you can keep consistently? So the promise of Creative On Purpose is not that you can build a, a business based on, you know, purpose, or that you can build a prosperous business just by being a purpose-driven person. The promise of Creative On Purpose is if you do the work, if you do the work of understanding and employing the ideas that we talk about around Be a Blessing Marketing, Forever Offers, Conversation Engine, et cetera, that I will help you clarify the difference that you can make in the way that only you can make it, connect with the people that are already eager to engage with your solution to their problem, and use conversation to earn their awareness, attention, permission, and trust so that you can through a sequence of small kept promises, earn their interest, enrollment, and investment in whatever your service, product, idea, or cause is that will help them accomplish what they want to accomplish or solve what they want to solve. And again, you can do this without any growth hacking or digital marketing BS. So notice that there is a, uh, this this idea that the responsibility for accomplishing the— or to, to fulfilling the promise is on them. That I'm not promising that if they just simply buy a thing that they can miraculously learn— lose 30 pounds or add $3,000 a month to their bottom line. I'm saying if you engage in understanding and employing the principles and, and the strategies that we talk about here, that you will be able to build a purpose-driven business without any of the digital marketing BS that connects you with more of the right people, do more of the work that you actually care about, and accomplish results for those people that make them not only thrilled to be accomplishing the things that they want to accomplish or solve the things they want to solve, but have them become so, so profoundly changed that other people notice and ask them about it, which means that they're going to talk about you, or that they just can't help evangelizing the pro— the promises that you make and keep and tell more of the right people. So again, just like the change that you make is not the topic that you talk about, The promise that you make is not simply the change that you make or the topic that you talk about. So that is, uh, the, the 3 things that I think are really important to get clear enough about if you're going to build a publication that is purpose-driven, that is able to attract more of the right people and encourage more of the wrong people to move along, and will allow you to build a business or build a community or promote an idea or a cause with a smaller but much more highly engaged group of people. And growth can then be a naturally occurring compounding side effect of doing more of the right work with more of the right people and making and keeping promises that help these people not only accomplish what they want to accomplish but become the kind of people that want to talk about you and the difference that you have made for them. So it looks like, uh, let's see, in addition to Bree and Michelle and Savio, Pepe has joined us, Brian has joined us. Brian has just joined the Circle community of subscribers. Claire is one of our Inner Circle members. So great to have so many of the paid subscriber community for Creative on Purpose here. And great to have all of you that are, are not paid subscribers but subscribers. And if you're not a subscriber, just feel free to check out Creative On Purpose and check those things out. I will say that for those of you that do find these ideas interesting and would like to dive deeper into understanding them and employing them, uh, for the next several Wednesdays we are doing open Q&As after a very brief presentation about Be a Blessing Marketing. So if you're looking for some insight and inspiration and instruction on how do I create a purposeful, purpose-driven publication that reaches more of the right people and allows me to, uh, naturally, organically get more of the right people to upgrade to your paid community or into your paid offers. We're talking about that for the next several, uh, for the next couple of months, every Wednesday at 1 PM. And for the next couple of days, you can upgrade to the annual plan, which puts you in the Circle community, and you can save 25%, uh, so you'll be paying $90 a month. It goes back up to $120 a month at the end of this month, and the monthly plan will go up to $15 a month. So if you want to save a bunch of money and get some weekly assistance and coaching building a publication that helps you get clearer about and closer to what you want to accomplish here on Substack, now might be a good time to consider getting, getting, uh, the, uh, an annual subscription to the Creative On Purpose Substack. And if you need help finding that discount code, just send me a direct message. So I've got a couple more minutes here. We've gone about 30 minutes. I'm happy to stick around and answer a couple of questions. We got lots of folks here. I haven't seen any questions coming in, but if you don't have a question and you want to just provide a comment or a thumbs up or a thumbs down if this, this was helpful content for you. Would love to hear if these ideas are helpful. What I found is that this whole idea of building on the strong foundation of philosophy and principles and then using strategy as the bridge that gets you into the right tactics and tools. It has allowed me to build a business that makes a lot more revenue in a lot less time with a lot less effort. And it is also a business that allows me to do more of the work that I find fulfilling with more of the kind of people that I actually want to work with than my earlier experience where I focused on tools and tactics to just grow my business for growth's sake and ended up working with a lot of people I didn't really care that much about, doing work I didn't really love very much. And even though I was earning about the same amount of money, was not— the juice was just simply not worth the squeeze. The, the impact on my time, effort, and attention, my values, my boundaries, my guardrails, my non-negotiables was the, the tax on all of that was way too high, and all it did was make me burn out and want— and, and ultimately blow that business up. I'm much happier and finding that things are much more sustainable by starting with that marketing trifecta. What change am I trying to make through this publication? Who is it that I'm trying to change? And what promise am I making? What are the promises I can make and keep. Aaron says, hey Scott, we chatted briefly, would love to hear your perspective on transitioning from a delivery-based marketing model to more of an advisory publication-based model to allow a bit more of that independence. Did you sunset your full business or sell it? Did you have additional team support? Ah, it's a great question. I'm going to start with the last piece, uh, Aaron. When you are following the advice of growth hackers and digital marketers you are usually following the advice of people that have teams working for them. If you're a true solopreneur, if you are not only the, the, the product, you know, do the product ideation and the product or service creation and the marketing and the onboarding and the fulfillment and the maintenance you, you do not have the kind of resources that, uh, most of the people that you're following have. When you are following, uh, you know, if you're, if you're following that guy that tells you every day that you're just one funnel away, uh, you're talking to a guy that has a huge team and a huge store of financial resources that allows him to do things in the way that he does them, which is great if that's the way you want to run your business and if you have that kind of team and resources to invest. If you don't, then you have to remember that you are, as a solopreneur, operating with very finite resources. There's only so much time in a day that you can dedicate to your business. There's There's only so much attention that you can bring to bear and maintain the bandwidth that allows you to operate with clarity and have time and attention left over for, for the other things that matter to you in your life, like family or partners or whatever your, your hobbies and, and side projects are. Um, and her energy is another one. You don't— you You don't have endless supplies of energy. You're not tapping onto the collective momentum of, of, of a team when it comes to putting out effort and energy required to keep a digital marketing funnel going. So I did not have any team support. I'm also a person, um, that, uh, possesses a lot of zest and energy. I can't put out more than the average amount of effort and energy all by myself. I can't be highly productive. But productivity does not mean progress. And even those of us that are able to do a lot of things and do them reasonably well, at some point we do hit a threshold above which we cannot maintain the output of time, attention, effort, and revenue. So when I wish that I had sunsetted my business or kept that business going while I was building something else. In my case, Aaron, uh, I literally burnt myself out and I blew up that business because at the moment I was in, it felt like the only way I could reclaim my soul and create the bandwidth that allowed me to build business, a business from the ground up based on who I really was, what I was really good at, and where I really belonged. I would not recommend that to anybody else. Um, it is not an atypical story. A lot of us that are solopreneurs end up burning ourselves out and blowing ourselves up because we are chasing after the undisciplined pursuit of more and following the advice of people that provide roadmaps and blueprints that don't align with who we are and who we want to become. Fortunately for me, I had reserves and savings that allowed me to build a purpose-driven business on purpose over the course of a year while we were preparing to become full-time grandparents. So, that is, you know, how we maintain our financial responsibilities while I was rebuilding. In terms of transitioning from a delivery-based marketing model to a more advisory publication-based model, um, there is an article, Aaron, that as a paid subscriber you have access to called Getting the Word Out. I would strongly encourage you to check out that, um, that article. Uh, it sounds like— so from what little I know about your business, it sounds like what you have been doing is, uh, is, is doing freelance branding and marketing work for other businesses. So probably something that is built on the done-for-you model. And if I'm incorrect, just please correct me in the, in the comments here. Um, there is— number one, there's nothing wrong with that business model. It's a perfectly legitimate way to, to earn a living, and it can be a very lucrative way to earn a living. People that are paying for done-for-you services want to save time and they have financial resources to invest. So it can be a profitable and fulfilling model depending on, you know, your personality and preferences. If you are wanting to move into more of an advisory publication-based model, it sounds like what you're talking about is more of a either done with you or providing resources that allow people to do it yourself, which is more like the style that my publication follows. Um, so in, in terms of the transition, I think based again on what little I know, you have a successful agency type of business. Uh, okay, you just said yes, done with you, done with you, or DIY. So what I would do is If you want to do this the right way, the way that keeps you financially afloat, starts to free up time for transitioning into a different model. The way that I would think about this is how can you move your current agency business all the way across what we call the barbell? So you have probably done all the exploratory work. Around how, how do I, you know, create the offers that attract the right prospects and turn them into leads and turn them into clients. And, and you probably have your outputs dialed in as to how, how you're fulfilling that offer. What you can do now is by moving it from exploration to exploitation. By exploitation, I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean, how do you employ an asset that is already earning you money so that it can earn more money with less inputs of time, attention, money, and effort? So what you're doing is optimizing the system that you currently have. You have a system that is working for doing, uh, done-for-you work. Um, so how can you put everything that you're doing on a minimum effective dose? And if you're not familiar with minimum effective dose, we again are programmed for more, so we almost always do way more than is necessary to maintain a viable, sustainable position. If, uh, you know, if you have done the work to get yourself in shape, you may still be going to the gym, uh, 9 or 10 hours a week when you could actually dial that down to just 2 or 3 hours a week, and you would maintain the body that you have, and you would reclaim 6 or 7 hours a week. Simply by putting your workout on a minimum effective dose. You can maintain the way you look now by simply dialing back to that 2 or 3 hours a week instead of the, the 9 or 10 hours a week. So in your business, there are similar things that you probably don't need to create as much content as you're creating. You probably don't need to do as much advertising as you're doing. You probably don't need to There's probably elements of your onboarding and fulfillment that are not really necessary, that you're doing just because it's the way you've always done it or the way that someone told you to do it. How do you— and there's a process of microstepping and doing this in a way that is responsible and not— and diminishes risk while it provides you with outsized gains, but how do you put your current business that is taking care of things that it needs to take care of on minimum effective dose? How do you reduce the time, attention, money, and effort that's going into the current business so that you can free up resources to go into your transition? Uh, and you said something along the lines of building, um, kind of an information-based, uh, do-it-yourself, done-with-you type of business, uh, through your publication. And again, you, you will want to apply the minimum effective dose as you are, even as you are experimenting with how you're going to do that. Um, if you want to, if you're able to come to today's call, uh, at 1 o'clock, um, Aaron, I can go into more detail about this. But the way that I think about using Substack as the primary, uh, delivery system, uh, for getting the word out and attracting more of the right people, encouraging more of the wrong people to move along, is leveraging the things that Substack has to create increasing levels of exposure, proximity, and access. The content that is for free subscribers is creating exposure. I am giving as everything that I know away for free so that I can turn these innovative ideas that I share around building a business, uh, that is more fulfilling and more prosperous, um, without any of the digital marketing BS or growth hacking. Uh, I'm sharing the ideas because even though the ideas might sound innovative and interesting to people. They're not going to buy because they're new and exciting. They're going to buy because it's information they can understand and information they believe will work for them. But I don't need to put out a ton of content to do that. A couple of posts a week, an occasional live broadcast, occasional podcast episode is more than enough for me to start the conversations that I need to start to get people to move from, I am aware of who you are, I'm paying some attention to what you have to say, and then moving them through trust— build trust, which includes making and keeping promises, um, and earning permission to talk to them in a more direct way by moving them into the paid subscribership. You've experienced this very recently. You just became an Inner Circle member in the last couple of weeks after only meeting me a week or two before that. So, you know, just think about your own experience with Creative on Purpose. You didn't know, have any idea who I was. You were somehow became interested in things that I was sharing. You earned some trust and confidence that these are ideas that might be helpful to you. And at some point, you cross the threshold of trust and permission that, uh, encouraged you to go ahead and, and purchase, uh, the Inner Circle, uh, all-access pass so that you had access to all the IP, all of the, the meetups, all of the coaching that will allow you to build the business that you want on your terms. Uh, let's see, I feel like I'm— so I'm not able to scroll back up through the chat, so So I feel like I missed something from Savio. So Savio, if you're still here, please repost your, your question. But I'm going to move on to Dr. Angie. My biggest problem is I overdeliver. There's no doubt in my mind I will do a good job for my customers, but I sacrifice myself in the process. I think that is, um, that is true of almost everybody that is attracted to me and my work. We're, we're all people that maybe have some issues around people pleasing, but we also conflate generosity with the, the quantity of generosity with the quality of generosity. I think, uh, the thing that has helped me, Dr. Angie, is that I want to leverage generosity to help people get clearer, clearer about what they're trying to accomplish and where they're starting from and what they're starting with. And I'm leveraging generosity to help clarify the path that will help them close the gap between where they are and where they want to be with greater ease and velocity. And I will— I'm willing to do all of that for free through my content and through conversation. Um, but if folks want to then get my assistance with implementation or accountability or have access to me as a thought partner or, uh, you know, as a corner man or a coach, that, that, that they will have to at, at that point, um, go from earned goodwill to being an invested member of the community or in a client relationship. Everything that I have built offers exposure. The information and inspiration, the insight that I'm sharing is completely free. But as you get more, uh, into the implementation end, uh, into auditing, you know, what you're doing, into the diagnostic of what you're doing and what you can stop doing and what you can do less of and what might be missing, broken, or needing work. As you're moving into those kind of things and into the implementation work that will help you get the results that you want to get easier and faster, though, you are moving through paid offers. The Circle or Inner Circle paid subscriber is the first requirement for anybody that I'm going to work with. I do not work with any clients that are not members of the Creative On Purpose Circle or Inner Circle community, meaning you're paying monthly, annually, or at the founder level to be a member of the community, that gives you access to discounts on the paid serv— uh, you know, the paid, uh, Cornerman coaching offers, daily coaching offers. Um, but I, I am requiring that because number one, I want to make sure that we get to know each other, that I have a full understanding of what you do and what you're trying to accomplish and the problems, challenges that you're trying to resolve. I also want you to make sure that I am the kind of person that you want to interact with, that, you know, we line up in terms of values and personality and tone, timbre, all the things. So I'm not gonna, you know, I have people in my inbox every day that have their credit card out and are ready to become clients clients that I will not work with if they do not first join the community and allow me to provide them with some complementary diagnostic and coaching so that if we do become engaged in a client, customer, or, you know, relationship, that they will already have absolute clarity of what they're trying to accomplish or what they're trying to solve. They will have absolute clarity of path, and they will already have traction and momentum by the time they become a paying client. They are already making significant progress to the things they want to accomplish, which means I don't have to deal with any of the, the buyer's remorse. I don't have to do any— I don't lose anybody in the onboarding. So Brian says, uh, so, Andrea, I, I hope that's, that's helpful. Or Brian says, there, there's more I need to learn about using Substack, and I like it way better than Facebook. I agree, Brian, but I'm not sure that my audience has infiltrated this platform fully yet. YouTube is probably a better fit. I know there's ways to use them together. Yes. Uh, yeah, and Brian says, not sure that's a question. So One of the things that, I mean, I've, I've, I've thought about trying, uh, you know, because my background is I, I was a professional guitarist for 30 years, Brian. Um, I have thought a couple different times about starting another publication to test the ability of this platform to be, uh, you know, the center of my communication channel for a business built as a guitar instructor or ukulele enthusiast, or even, even thought about, you know, creating like a, a channel dedicated or publication dedicated to children that leverages, you know, the things I've learned as a parent and a grandparent and, and a musician. I have not done that, so I can't, I can't give you anything, any insight based on real experience. What I will tell you is that in my experience, anything can work. If you wanted to build the business that you want to build on Facebook, I'm quite confident that you could do that. I'm quite confident I could help you do that. If you wanted to build it on YouTube, I'm quite confident you could do that, that I could help you do that. You can do both in conjunction with a Substack. Use Substack as the permission asset, uh, where you're, you're getting people's emails so that you can have those anticipated personal and relevant conversations with them, but then bring in YouTube channel content and so forth. Um, what I love about Substack and the opportunity here for someone like you is again, it would have to— you'd be in explorer and experimentation mode in terms of the barbell that we talked about. And so you would want to conduct some, you know, micro stepping and many experiments around this. But if you're going to build a business on YouTube or Facebook, you're going to have to play the algorithms game. And that's fine if you— if it's a game that you want to play and if you want to invest the time it takes to come up with the thumbnails and the catchy headlines and the descriptions and the chapters and blah blah blah blah blah. Um, you can do— you— or you could take whatever permission asset you already have, whatever email addresses you currently have, bring them on to Substack and provide them with content and engage them in conversations that meet them where they are, help them identify where they're trying to get to, help them see the path that will help them close the gap with the greatest ease and velocity. And you could— when I started my Substack, I imported 500 subscribers, uh, and I had an open rate of about 45%. So there was about 250 people that were regularly opening my emails. And with an audience of, of less than 250 people I was able to earn my annual revenue goal in less than 6 months. And the way I did that was I simply was very clear about the change I was trying to help people make, who those people were that I was trying to change, and the promises that I could make and keep for the people that wanted to experience the transformation that I could offer and were people that had shared the same worldview that I did, the same values, the dreams, aspirations, problems, and simply making very small promises that I could keep time after time after time. And with just 250 people, was able to earn enough in 6 months to cover all of my living expenses for a year. Uh, and in my first year, I think I I probably had less than 20 paid subscribers before it was all over. So, and I currently only have 60 paid subscribers. The paid subscriber income is, is not a factor, uh, really in my annual revenue goal. It's the, uh, the, the, the things, the services that I'm selling on the backend that provide me with my monthly revenue goal in less than half a year. I'm quite confident you could do that on Substack. Uh, Savio, hi Scott, is there a Stoic principle you find yourself coming back to and building your Substack? Uh, that— while Savio is, is an old friend and, uh, he probably knows the answer to this already, but Stoic philosophy, actual Stoic philosophy, ancient Stoic philosophy, not the, uh, Stoic bro a flavor of, uh, Stoic philosophy, um, informs and inspires the way that I approach everything. It inspired the way I showed up as a teacher back when I was a school teacher, a husband, a parent, a musician, a guitar teacher, a small business owner, brick-and-mortar business owner, and a Substack creator. The, um when we are talking about building a permission asset on Substack through subscriber, you know, attracting more of the right subscribers to your publication, um, and being clear about the change that you are trying to make, the people that you are trying to change, and the promises that you are making and keeping, it very much aligns with what the Stoics said, uh, called eudaimonia, which is the idea of human flourishing, that in order to live a happy, fulfilled, flourishing life, uh, you— that does not require you to disengage from the world of, of business, commerce, politics, economics. It does not require you to engage in activities, you know, like advertising and marketing funnels. The way to lead a fulfilling life according to Stoicism, the only thing that's required to live the good life is virtue, is to be a good person. To be a good person in pursuit of becoming a better person, a person that is, uh, aligned with their values, their beliefs, their guiding principles, that is aware of their non-negotiables and boundaries, that, um, is aware of their actual human skills and talents, and is a person that is engaging in the world and showing up where they belong, which is with people who who share your values and need your talents to enhance their lives. And so the Stoic principle of, um, of, of the virtue, or the Stoics, uh, the ancient, uh, I don't know if it's the Latin word or the Greek word. I think it's Greek. Arete is, is the quality that, that the Stoics were cultivating, this idea of virtue of being a good person doing good work for other people. Um, that's at the heart of the entire system that we're talking about. It's embedded in the marketing trifecta questions, in the idea of creating an idea virus, a simple, sticky, spreadable way of talking about who you are and what you do, and more importantly, what you can do for other people. It allows you to do the work that you do and, and show up in the world and engage in the world in a way that aligns with your values, uh, and the way that you— your— the content of your character, the way that you want to show up, the way that you want to serve, and the person that you're trying to become through the work that you do. But there's plenty of— I could talk Savia knows this, I could talk about Stoic principles, um, forever. In fact, I will be talking about Stoic principles, uh, at an upcoming in-person event here in Floyd, Virginia on, I think, uh, June 27th, last Saturday in June. Uh, but there is an article that I just published last— just this past Monday. Uh, that's basically a primer on Stoicism. If anybody is interested, you can look for that. All right, it looks like I've captured all the questions that, that came in. Savio, thank you for reposting your question. I don't know why I can't scroll up and see the things that people have asked, but, uh, it has been a privilege to have you all here, and I hope that this was helpful and useful. And if you are not currently subscribed to the Creative On Purpose Substack and these ideas are intriguing to you, I would encourage you to, to become a free subscriber. If you are interested in getting my direct personalized help with any of these things, the Circle and Inner Circle community meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to talk about these things, and on Wednesday get my direct personal assistance with implementing these ideas.. And right now you can, you can get a seat in the Circle community at a 25% discount on the annual paid subscriber plan. Thank you, Summer. Thank you, Aaron. Thank you, Duncan. Great to have you all here. Thank you, Brian. Appreciate that. And so I'll see some of you in less than a half hour on the Catalyst call for the Circle and Inner Circle community, and for the rest of you, be well, do good, have fun.