How to Make $100,000 with Your Newsletter (feat. Josh Spector)

Hello everybody. Welcome to the Building Public Podcast. I'm your host, KP. And today I am thrilled, excited, stoked. There's so many synonyms here. I am so happy to have a friend, a great friend of mine, a co-creator, an audience builder, so many things, right? But basically someone who I look up to, someone who has been such a great mentor from afar, Josh Spector. Welcome to the show.

Wow. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for saying that. I'll try to live up to that, or at least not ruin what you think of me.

No pressure. Right. And I was just joking with Josh earlier before we started the podcast that I rarely ever print out questions and even like even write questions ahead of time. And I did that for him because I was specifically so selfish about— there's a few things that he's so great at and I wanted to kind of steal that information, steal that insights for myself from the audience. So let me read out a couple of lines about Josh. And Josh, I have a question about sort of your own intro in your own words, but— Sure. Josh Spector is a marketing and a business consultant. He's a writer. He's a creator. If you've seen him on on Twitter, you know him as the newsletter guy, in my view, and especially the one that's called fortheinterested.com. fortheinterested.com is a fantastic newsletter dedicated for creative entrepreneurs, and we're going to get there. He has about 19,000 subscribers in the newsletter and built a 6-figure business. That's just a small blip into his fantastic career. I know a little bit more, but I want to ask him to give like a, I don't know, 30, 40, 50-second intro about your background, your career, Josh.

Sure. So I have had sorts of experience, both independently as a creator and also working for a variety of companies in the media space, entertainment industry, marketing, digital, a little bit of all of it. But basically, you know, what I do now is I help creative entrepreneurs grow their audience and business in a variety of both free and paid ways. My business now is sort of half consulting coaching revenue and about half product subscription ads in my newsletter, that kind of thing. So I see myself very much as sort of that split. I work for myself. I don't— I'm not building a company. I'm not building an agency. I'm very much— I do have someone that helps me with some stuff, but I'm very much sort of an independent solopreneur type. Very quickly, I've worked in marketing for movie studios. I ran digital media and marketing for the Academy of Motion Pictures and the Oscars for about 6 years full-time. Wow. And another few years as a consultant for them. So I've worked as a journalist for The Hollywood Reporter years ago covering the film industry. I've worked for PR agencies. I've worked for startup comedy websites. I've produced standup comedy shows and tours. I've done a lot of stuff. And one of the things that I realized early on with social media, right in the beginnings of Facebook and Twitter and all, even going back to MySpace, all that stuff, you know, I sort of got started in the comedy world working with comedians as social media was just starting out.

Right.

And to go from that then all the way to running social media and digital for the Oscars, which is the biggest entertainment event in the world, what was amazing to me was that the basic foundational principles are the same. That the same thing that, you know, it was different scale and way different, right?

Right.

But fundamentally, the same advice that I would give to an open mic comedian that nobody knew, I was putting to use with the biggest entertainment property in the world.

Right.

And that has given me a unique perspective that I then applied to my own work. And when I did go out on my own, sort of was like, all right, well, I think I believe all this stuff. I've helped all these different people in different places and companies. Let me see if I can do this stuff for myself and sort of build my own audience and business. And about 6 years into doing that full-time, and so far so good.

That's amazing. I have a fun question for you. So it seems like you've had— you must have had interactions with a lot of stars, a lot of Hollywood stars, entertainers. Who do you think would, given the fact that you worked with them or had some level of interaction with them, who do you think would As a newsletter writer, if they just switched from Hollywood to our world?

Interesting question. So my short answer is, and I have people that I know in the industry, you know, that I talk to regularly, I actually think that every celebrity, every creative person anyway, should have a newsletter. I actually think they're missing out on massive opportunities, both in terms of relationship with their audience, right, in terms of monetization and business opportunities by not doing it, especially as you see, you know, social media platforms And organic reach isn't what it once was and all of that. So my short answer—

Who do you think has the knack though? Like, I'm curious, who do you think has the— who's like most likely to cross over? Have you helped anybody maybe? Like—

Well, I haven't, but I will tell you, I am seeing more and more people start to do it, right? So Neil Patrick Harris launched a newsletter within the past couple of years. Wow. I just saw Arnold Schwarzenegger is launching a newsletter.

Wow.

Nick Cave has a super interesting one called The Red Hand Files where each issue he just answers a question from fans. Right. Or a question that gets submitted to him. And it's not necessarily, you know, some of it might be typical fan questions like, oh, what's the motivation for this song or whatever? But it also might be something like, you know, what's your opinion of death? Like, it's very, it's very like random. It gets deep and deep and interesting. I think that it's— let me, let me— it's a good question. Who do I think? Well, I'll give you an example. Like, I would imagine if Quentin Tarantino had a newsletter,

right,

that would be pretty interesting, right? Like, I think the people that would be most interested— well, I'll give it to you from a sort of interest standpoint and then from sort of a business standpoint, right? So from an interest standpoint, any creative writer doesn't even just have to be a writer, but musician, someone with a unique perspective and point of view on the world, right? When Prince was alive, if Prince had a newsletter, it probably would have been pretty fascinating.

Yeah, right.

Yeah. So from a creative standpoint, it's interesting to know what those unique people think, right? From a business standpoint, anyone that has an appeal to a sort of very specific niche, they're not just famous You know, Neil Patrick Harris's newsletter, for example, is not really about him. It's about— you see, Gwyneth Paltrow did this with Goop, sort of. You can like it or not like it, whatever, but it's a worldview, right? It's not, hey, here's what I did today, here's me at this photo shoot.

Right.

You know, Neil Patrick Harris's newsletter is, is about sort of the culture that he is interested in. It's almost like as if he were starting his own Esquire magazine.

Right, right, right.

And so I think that is interesting when you take a celebrity, a person that sort of represents or is interested in a particular worldview. It's not their diary, right? It's as if they're starting a magazine.

That's the biggest misconception, though, and probably why a lot of celebrities, you know, of course, we're hypothesizing here, but like probably why they're hesitant to it because they're thinking of it as, oh, I'm going to wait until I can write my memoir. I'm going to wait until like, you know, whatever. But it's the behind the scenes. It's the journey. It's the steps that they're they're taking to become who they're becoming. That's super interesting to me. Like Quentin Tarantino, to your point, he's opinionated. Obviously, he's very opinionated. Actually, I would argue that the more opinionated, the better, because it would clearly appeal to a certain set of people a lot more and would not appeal to a lot of people, a lot of people that don't need to read this anyway.

Yeah. Well, it's also— and this is, I actually think it's funny— celebrities on social media have lots of followers and whatever and all that stuff. Right. But they don't have those followers. They don't have that audience because they're good at social media. Most of them are actually terrible at social media. And what's funny is the average person then tries to mimic them doing selfies and doing all this stuff because they think that's what works. But the truth is they have a following for something completely unrelated to social media. They're not good at it, right? So I give this advice about social media, but I think it applies to newsletters as well, where I say, you know, you want to— and I think most celebrities make this wrong choice, basically, right? That you can either treat your social media or in this case newsletter as a reality show or a magazine, right? So the reality show is— and I guess I understand the Kardashians are super successful and blah blah blah, right? But the reality show is it's all about me,

right?

It's here's what I did today, here's me at this place, here's the selfie, here's the— here's my product, here's whatever, right? The magazine is like I was saying before, here's the culture, the world that I'm interested in here. It's not actually about It's about sort of the things I'm interested in. And the example I use is the Kardashians is the reality show version. Oprah's Magazine is the magazine version.

Yeah.

Oprah's Magazine is not a bunch of articles about Oprah.

Right. Right.

About the things that she's interested in, the books, the whatever. And people are drawn to that. And it becomes way more interesting than, oh yeah, there's that person. You know, there's that another selfie, another outfit.

Right. Because it gets boring, you know, quickly. That's really like why a lot of people don't really follow You know, celebrities beyond like just the movie craze, you know, when the movie launches here and there. And to your point, like what came to my mind when you just said that, Josh, was if Leonardo DiCaprio had a climate change magazine, that would kill. That would be amazing.

Yeah. Because again, he's like, right, newsletter, whatever.

Right. Or newsletter. Your point, it's not about Leo. It's not about his, you know, whatever Oscars or whatever. It's really about— and he does care. The irony is actually he does care about climate change. The same thing with the guy who plays Iron Man, like Robert Downey Jr. Robert Downey Jr. Do care. It's just that, to your point, like, all we see about them on social media is just their selfies or like a picture on the set, or they're like, whatever.

Yeah. And I think, to be honest, that's why— that's why a lot of them don't really like or embrace social media or newsletters, because conceptually they think that's what it is. And I've had these conversations with actors and actresses and directors and all those people. And when I say it, it's really interesting because they all sort of look at me like, wait, I could do that, right? You know, like, like that version of like, look, you have these things that you're really passionate about, right? What if your channels were just about that, right? You know, you have— I was talking to somebody who was really into art, and I was like, you do understand that you have hundreds of thousands of followers, and you love these indie up-and-coming artists, and you have the ability to introduce them to hundreds of thousands of people.

Yeah.

It doesn't have to be another photo of you on the red carpet. And it's like, once it's just not presented to them— because to be honest, you know, I think a lot of people in the entertainment industry don't really understand social media in this way. Again, they're all sort of copycatting what they think you're supposed to do on it, right? And there's way more opportunities. And the other thing I would say sort of for people listening to this is we're talking about celebrities, but it's just as true when you shrink it down, maybe even more true for the person that's like a nobody. Your social channels, your newsletter does not have to just be about you,

you

and your

day-to-day. Yeah,

you know, it's gonna be way more interesting if you broaden it out to a sort of universe that you create that is of interest To your specific thing. Right. Right. And I also think it can make a lot of people more comfortable with it because I know people are like, I don't know what to post and I don't want to just talk about myself.

Because I think, you know, I fully agree. I mean, people are like, so after a while they're like, vanity doesn't taste good. Like, that's why. Yeah, I fully agree that it should be about serving others. It should be about like being obsessed about certain passions that you have and just kind of like being obsessed in public, you know? So you, you kind of open it up to other people to join you on the ride. So, Josh, you talked about creative entrepreneurs. I know that's your niche. I've seen you mention this a couple of times. I love how disciplined you are about the niche. How did you arrive at that? That's part 2. Part 1 is what is even a creative entrepreneur?

So I think I'm going to do part 2 first because I think it's going to help explain part 1. It was definitely an evolution when I started out in defining my audience several years ago. I thought about them as artists. I thought about them as creators kind of before everyone was using— now I don't even know what the word creator means because everyone uses it in a million different ways. But I had come from a place where, you know, I worked with a lot of comedians. I worked with— I didn't want clients and didn't wanna work with sort of— I did some, but I had some, but like, I didn't really wanna work with studios. I didn't wanna work with big companies. I didn't wanna build an agency. I wanted to work with sort of individual creator types. Yeah. So for a while I used the word creators, right? That was my version of it. And as it went on, what I started to realize is there's a big difference between— and I'll use comedians as an example, but it's true with all different creators, right? There's a big difference Between the comedian that's like, I want to get more followers, I want to grow my audience, I want someone to hire me for a sitcom, I want someone to sign me and book tour dates for me. There's a big difference between the one that basically wants the gatekeepers to approve them and give them opportunities, or they want someone to give them a job, is very different than the one that wants to build their own business.

Yeah.

And wants to sort of build their own empire.

Brian empire.

And what I started to realize was the people that I most wanted to work with were the people that weren't just sort of looking to make a living with their creativity, but they were trying to build a business. You know, they didn't want a job, they wanted to build a business, right? They were entrepreneurial, right? So I start— it started by me thinking, well, how can I separate? Because I realized there are a lot of creators that aren't that, right?

Yeah.

And creative people that aren't that. So I incorporated the word entrepreneur, knowing that it would scare some of those people off, not scare them off, but they go, I'm not really an entrepreneur, I'm an artist or whatever, right? Right. And then the reason why I didn't just have it be entrepreneurs is because it's also true on the other side. I didn't want— because I worked— the exact same thing happened, right? I worked with some entrepreneurs where it's like, if you're just in this about making money,

yeah,

or you're going to buy and flip something, or you're just building it to sell it— not there's anything wrong with building stuff to sell it, but I liked working with entrepreneurs that for some part of them, there was a creative— they approached their business like an artist, even if they weren't an artist, right? So I came up with this sort of creative entrepreneurship. term because I felt like it sufficiently described that middle area, right? Where it was like, you're in it for the art, but you're also building a business for yourself and you want some ownership in what you're doing, right? And you're a business person, but it's not just about the money and shortcuts and hacks. And you're not just a Wall Street investor and you're not flipping houses and you're not whatever. It's like there's some art, there's some passion you have for this thing and that you approach your business and your work in a creative way.

How happy we can be.

And so what I, you know, to kind of sum it all up, like I think about it as, you know, I help creators build businesses and I help entrepreneurs be more creative in their work. And it's that sort of the perfect blend of those

two. Yeah. How has niching down or kind of even arriving in that kind of niche helped you personally and business-wise?

It's definitely helped because it, you know, look, there's a lot of space in there. So even though it's a narrow niche, it's still pretty broad. But it has helped me in terms of helping me understand what kind of work do I want to do, who actually do I want to help, And again, some of this I was doing sort of subconsciously before labeling it, right? But you sort of go, oh, that's why I'm not really talking about that kind of thing, right? Right. You know, and it definitely helps when people reach out to get a feel. I can get a sense of, you know, if someone's trying to hire me or whatever, talking about a client, I can get a sense of like, this person's in it for this reason or that reason. Like, does this person really fit? So I don't exclude anyone. And there's lots of people that are pure artists that follow my stuff. And there's people that are pure entrepreneurs that follow my stuff. But it gives me, you know, I think of niche as your ideal audience, not your only audience.

Yes. Right.

So which is a huge, massive difference. Right. So creative entrepreneurs are my ideal audience. It doesn't mean I won't attract other people. It does. I might even help and work with other people. Right. But the ones that I most want to work with and think I can best serve are those creative entrepreneurs so that everything that I put out— content, messaging, products— is aimed at them, which then attracts them. And so that's how niche works for me.

I heard you mention it in one of the podcasts that it's kind of like hitting a bullseye. Did you talk about that or am I— Yeah. Yeah. And I thought that was a brilliant analogy. It's like the center of the bullseye is basically saying that's the niche. And if the dart lands anywhere to the other circles, that's still okay. I'm still helping them, but—

You still get points. It's a matter— it's a matter of what you aim for. And you'll notice that on a dartboard, you're aiming for the smallest possible.

That's so brilliant. I was like, oh my God, that's so true. Especially, and people come to me and people come to you, I'm sure they ask you, what should I— why do I need a niche? I'm like, okay, can you go hit a bullseye without knowing where it is? Like, you can't just throw it somewhere and then hope that it'll go hit the bullseye or even land on the board, right? So you need to have some direction.

Yeah. And I have, I have this conversation about niche all the time, and people instinctively sort of push back against it, even when they don't vocalize their pushback. They're very hesitant to do it. And I've had some of those feelings too. And I completely understand why. But I think when you reframe it as the reason is they're concerned, but I can help this person and I can help this person and I like this thing and I like that thing, that's all fine, right? But to me, the question is if, you know, and I think we may have talked about this before, but I always say like, let's assume success, right? So let's assume that you can have any 20 clients you want or 100 customers you want or 1,000 users you want or whatever you want, right? It's all gonna work, right? Who do you want You have some preference, right? Somewhere you're like, I really like doing this work the best, or I like helping these people the best. If you had your choice, you would choose. So all I'm saying is your niche is saying, this is my ideal, this is who I want, right? And aiming for that. And a funny thing happens when you aim for that, that's what you get. Right. When you push back on it and say, oh, I don't really care, I could do all these things, I could help all these different people. You can do that and it might work, right? But why would you settle? Why would you work with the people you less want to work with or do the things that you less want to do? You know, I used to help some people with Facebook ads and at some point I was like, I don't want to do Facebook ads. Yeah. So if everything was equal, hypothetically assume success, I wouldn't do Facebook ads.

Right.

So why am I offering Facebook ads? Right. Let's see what happens if I don't offer Facebook ads.

Right.

Because instead of the Facebook ad client, that Facebook ad client becomes a newsletter client. Right. I think that the fear— so much of the pushback on niche is based on a fear that if you don't do everything for everyone and take everything on, you won't succeed. And that's just not the way it plays out.

Yeah, I've learned that from you, Josh. And I shared this in my DMs with you a couple of times. I went back and forth on this. And I've learned the more I double-click into this, I feel like it's almost like a school of thought. Like, it's really something that you have to give it some thought. You can't just like Like, you know, believe one day and then forget Friday. Like, you really have to spend time with it. I've noticed that I've become a lot more intentional and thoughtful about selecting my clients. And also that puts me in leverage position. So when I finally select that client and then they end up in the conversation on a call or Zoom, whatever, they already know what they signed up for. I know what they signed up for at the door. So the conversation is richer. It's like 2 geeks geeking out about something we're both passionate about. So much better than like a performative pitch where I have to pitch my services and I prove that I'm actually valuable to them. So the other analogy that comes to mind is if I started a restaurant, if I said, Josh, welcome to my restaurant called Everything Restaurant, right? Like, is it Indian cuisine? Is it Italian? Like, what is it? Like, pick one KPI. I'm like, no, no, no, no, it is everything. That is not a value prop, right? Unless I'm Walmart, unless I'm like the everything store or whatever. Even then it's like not really value prop.

Yeah, you wind up— this is the other place that the trap that people fall into, right? Like, you don't want to be okay for everyone. You want to be perfect for someone.

Yes.

Right? Okay for everyone means you're going to be everyone's second choice because they're going to go to the one that's perfect for them. Right? So the assumption and the misleading concept that somehow by not niching, I'm protecting myself and creating more opportunity, you're actually making yourself way more vulnerable.

Yes. Right?

Better to go, I'm perfect for this person. And look, if someone else happens to come in and go, hey, can you do this thing? You can always say yes.

Sure. Right.

Like, you know, if it's the right fit and you go, you know what, I could actually do that for you. But there's a difference between agreeing to do something right and putting out there that this is what you're trying to attract.

Yeah.

And that's, I think, the key with niche.

Yeah, I love that. This could just be a masterclass on niching.

Okay,

so let's talk about value prop. This is something— it's another thing that I know you have a lot of thoughts on, so I want to pick your brain on this. A lot of what you do, I've noticed that you're so different, whether you do it intentionally And when everyone zigs, you zag. There's a little bit of a— I've shared this last time when we talked to you, is that you just kind of beat your own path. You're a little bit of a rebel that way. And to me, that makes it even more magnetic and attractive as a quality as a business owner, because that's the kind of cool person I want to do business with. It seems to me from outside in. Why are you— is this intentional? Why do you care about being different? And secondly, what are your thoughts on differentiating yourself, especially in some crowded industries? Take newsletters, for example. There's so many people. Even in this audience right now, so many of them may have a newsletter and maybe they're all writing for, let's say, a niche like founders. Why does differentiation play a role here and what are your thoughts on this?

So I think it's a combination of things. So some of it is certainly just natural and personality, right? I've always been drawn to and wanted to do things a little bit differently. So some of that is sort of just who I am. Then also with that is I do believe it's a big competitive advantage. I do believe that, you know, in terms of marketing and attention and business and all of that, you know, I say all the time, like, you don't get noticed by trying to fit in. Right. So it is easier to market something that's a little different, that stands out, than it's just like everyone in the crowd. And what's interesting about that is, and this has certainly been an evolution for me over the years, because it actually goes directly against human nature. Right. Our human nature is I want to fit in.

Yes.

And I think what becomes really interesting when you take that human nature piece of I want to fit in and you're feeling that, but the goal of marketing is to stand out.

And out,

those 2 things are complete opposites, right? So a lot of people, I think, struggle with and get lost in that sort of mix, right? Why isn't my marketing working? Well, you're doing the same thing everyone else does, right? So, you know, again, by definition, you're not gonna get noticed if you're just doing what everyone else does. It's gonna be much harder to get noticed. So I think that's a big part of it. The other thing is, I am— there are a couple sort of foundational things with everything that I do that lead me to sort of different or unique formats, maybe, which I think is part of what you're getting at— my newsletter, my podcast, that kind of thing. And one of them is— and you can see these reflected in the things that I create, right? I am always trying to make things as simple as I possibly can, both for me and for other people.

Right.

So I am always trying to—I'm not technically a minimalist, but there's certainly a minimalist vibe that runs through a lot of what I do.

Right.

I also am very aware that most things aren't really that important.

Yeah.

So for example, in the early days of my newsletter, in each issue I would have a photo that I chose at the top of the issue, and somewhere along the line, and to do that, which is not a big deal and very common practice and whatever, and was kind of cool, and I'd pick whatever you know something that matched. With whatever the theme of the newsletter was. But somewhere along the line, I was like, all right, well, is this actually adding anything?

Right, right.

Maybe, maybe, maybe not. And it's not taking me long, but it's 10 minutes to find a photo and put it in.

Yeah.

So is the 10 minutes I'm spending that, is it actually making the newsletter better? I used to have a photo and a quote. So I was like, the 10 minutes or 10 or 15 minutes I'm using to find a photo and a quote, maybe it gives some style, maybe it gives some tone. It is an expression of things that I find interesting. But is it valuable? Right? Is it actually making it more valuable? Is it actually helping people? And this is probably a good place for me to talk about valuable versus interesting.

Yeah.

Because this is where I think people really get tripped up, especially with newsletters and content, right? So the way I describe value is value is usually about transformation, right? Because I say this all the time, like, you need to provide value and people go, well, how do I know what's valuable? Value is transformation. Your target audience is at point A; they want to get to point B. Your content, your product, whatever you're creating, is the bridge that helps them get there. If there's no transformation, then it's probably not valuable or actionable; it's probably just interesting.

Right.

Someone reads it and they go, "Oh, that was interesting." Right. But there's nothing for them to do with it, or there's nothing for them to do after they read it. Interesting is fine; there's nothing wrong with interesting, and people like that and whatever. Valuable is way more valuable. Valuable is what makes people's life and business better. Valuable is what makes a newsletter a must-read versus I'll read it if I have some time, right? Valuable is what someone shares, right? Interesting is like, oh, that was interesting. So I'm always thinking about everything I create and also on an individual level, right? So now go back to the picture and the quote. Is this valuable or is this interesting? It's interesting. It's not valuable, right? So I'm investing my own time to add these elements that are just okay, right? Like, no one's looking at that picture and that quote and actually doing something. It might make them think, it might give them like, oh, I never thought of that perspective. Like, again, interesting has some value,

right?

But it's not the same. So, you know, my podcast, which is called I Want to Know, the format is basically people come on and ask me 3 questions, we talk about them for about 10 minutes, and that's it, right? There's no intro. I mean, there's a one sentence, two sentence intro. There's no tell me about what you did in kindergarten.

Right.

You know, if

you compare it to all of the typical podcast format. Yeah.

No. And the reason is, again, these same things, right? What is the essence of this thing? How can I give people the most value per minute or per second of their time? Right. Even the introductions in the background of the people. I have people send me a— I have guests send me three sentence. thing. And I go and I literally say, send me 3 sentences, right? This is KP, he's done blah blah blah, you can check him out here. All right, KP, what's your first question? And we're, we're off and running, right? Those are very conscious decisions to strip out the fluff that is typically associated with that format.

Yeah.

You know, I listen to podcasts, the guests come on, they spend half an hour talking about, you know, the crazy thing they did when they were in junior high. I don't I'm listening because I want to know how to grow my blog or, you know, how to improve a landing page. Get to the point. And so that focus on knowing what's sort of important to me leads to formats which tend to be different than the typical format, which leads to what you're saying of sort of differentiation, which creates an additional— makes it easier to stand out and not be just another marketing podcast.

Right, totally. I mean, full signing on everything you shared so far. One comment I want to make is to clarify that. I know you say that it's all about— it can seem to the readers who probably don't know much of your other work is like, Josh is such an efficiency person. It's all about super airtight efficiency. I actually think the principle of efficiency and value is so accurate and so on point and on brand with everything you do. But I feel like you just hit the right— you always find a way to hit the right chord so that you don't sound robotic. robotic, or you don't turn things into like an impersonal, just about matter of fact, just like, you know what I mean? And so even though it's no fluff, it's still high value and high warmth. And that's sort of like your personality too. Like you, when you advise me, when you share your inputs and insights with me on Twitter or whatever, I feel like you just cut to the chase so quick, like so simple, but like it's like so effective as a dagger to your heart. But you do it with kindness. And so the people who walk away don't feel like Oh, Josh is always in a rush. He has no time for me. Like he's always trying to maximize. 'Cause the thing that the worst case scenario of this is that someone's time is completely measured in the output number of questions asked on the pod. And then there's like, nobody wants to go back to the podcast ever. 'Cause it's like, why? Right. Even as a guest, I'm like, why would I ever join a podcast where they're interrogating me like I'm talking to the FBI with 18 questions? No. So you strike that delicate balance of high value, but also high warmth and humanity. Which is why you know you're my favorite. Singing your praises, Josh.

Thank you. So let me actually that you know first of all I appreciate that you said that, but it actually made me think about a couple other things that I think are a key sort of element of this, or you know why it's worked for me, or why I do things the way I do. So one is just you know I studied journalism in school. My background is journalism, so you learn how to write and communicate very concisely. You also learn sort of what's important and what's not. You know you have 300 words for a story, and you got to figure out any of In the order of it, like what actually matters, etc. So I do think sort of that background has helped me. The other thing I would say is this goes back to when we talked about niche. I really know my ideal audience, so that makes it much easier. It'd be very hard to make the decisions of what matters and what doesn't if I didn't really know who I was aiming at. Right. So that influences everything else. And I think it's the other piece about niche, right, where it's like if I'm having a guest on the show or even in picking guests that want to come on and ask me questions, you know, I know what questions fit my ideal audience. And I'm not just going, oh, this person has interesting questions. I'm going, no, my audience wants to know how to do this. Right. So that's the other thing, right? If I was doing something different for a different audience, those stories about what happened to them in junior high or whatever might be way more relevant, right? So I wouldn't cut those out.

Right.

You know, if I was doing something else, I might go in a totally different direction and go, hey, I'm going to do a 3-hour podcast.

Right.

Because this is about a different thing, right? So that clarity on who I'm trying to serve and how I'm trying to serve them is a big piece of this as well. And then the other thing, to your point, because you're right, it could come off as very abrupt, and I am very to the point and also very honest. You know, it's interesting, like when I was at the academy, I had a team of people that worked for me and managed a bunch of people. And it was always funny because they— we had great relationships and they loved working for me. As far as I know, they loved working for me and all of that. But sometimes, like when I would say, "Oh, I love that idea," or "Oh, I love that thing," they would almost be shocked. And I realized what was really interesting about it was they, and I thought about this a lot, right? Because I was like, "Well, not critical in a mean way, but like I'm going to tell people like I don't think this is good, or I don't think we're doing this the right way, or whatever." And so to do that and have that sort of level of honesty and not have it hurt people's feelings or them go, "Oh, he's an asshole." And I started going like, well, why, why or how am I able to pull that off? And what I think it is, is, and it's true both of people who had worked for me or with me, and I think it's now true of people in my audience. And even like you said, in our exchange, they understand and they believe I'm able to convey that I genuinely want to help them.

Yes.

Right. It is coming from a place. If I'm telling someone, hey, I don't think this is right, or I don't love that idea, I'm not saying I think you're an idiot.

Yes.

Or this is stupid. Or I only like my ideas, they know that I genuinely want the best thing. And I think part of that is also, especially in terms of people who had worked for me and with me over the years, is they knew that even if maybe it wasn't the easiest to get me to go, oh, that's great, I love that, they knew that I would. Yeah. You know, if it was good. And they also knew that I genuinely wanted— you know, I was the furthest thing in the world from a micromanager.

Yeah.

Right. So I was like, look, you know, You're responsible for producing these videos for us.

Yeah.

Like, I want you to take it and run with it. And if you come back with stuff that, like, I don't— I'm going to tell you, like, this part works, this part doesn't work. And, you know, I'm going to executive produce it or whatever. But this is your thing. Yeah, right. Like, go do it. And I want you to bring those ideas and know that. So I think that that feeling of ownership, that feeling of being heard, and most importantly, like, if people genuinely believe that you want to help them, they're much more willing. And actually, I think appreciate the honesty of like, let's not jerk around. Like, get to the point. Get— tell me that even if it hurts my feelings or whatever, tell me the one sentence that's going to unlock everything else.

And it's kind of like the Big Brother vibe, right? It's like how, you know, I have so much of sort of— the reason probably why I resonate with a lot of how you operate is because I'm kind of like that too. I'm very hands-off as a manager. I managed a lot of teams and I never cared if they showed up on Friday. I didn't like check on them like that, but I just care about the work output. Like, we would have a check-in and I'm like, hey, have you done the work or not? And also, usually it's like I have— I'm a little bit hard to please in work. I'm very easygoing in like, you know, day-to-day or like in conversations, but like I will make fun, I'll roast people for fun, like, but in a fun way, right? Literally to their face. Right. If the work sucks or if there's a certain thing that they've done, like, it's just I will like make a whole scene about it. So they know that I mean well, and it's coming from a place of endearing quality of like wanting them to improve and like wanting what's best for them. So,

and this also gets back to the clarity, right? Yeah. So as a leader, it's my job to not just say, hey, go make videos. Yeah, right. But to say, look, this is what we're trying to do. Yeah, right. This is why we're doing this. This is the clear goal. This is who these, these are for. Like, because if you don't do that, right? If you don't give that clarity and then people go do the thing and then come back and you go, oh, that's no good, they're not going to take it well.

Yeah.

Because they're like, you didn't tell me what you wanted. Like, I don't understand what we're trying to do here. Right.

It's important to get them in, like, get them to roll in the same direction. Right. Like, so it's the sharing the direction part. All right. So switching topics here, going to newsletter. Actually, this is a fun question that I have for you. What does it take to make money as a newsletter For someone who probably just got started and they're wondering if this is a viable career path or if it's a business revenue stream that can be serious, what does it take to make a 6-figure business as a newsletter creator?

So I would— first, you have to get clear on how you actually want to monetize. So there's a million different ways to do that, right? It's not just, you know, so my newsletter for the first first four and a half years I had it, I had no ads. I did zero direct monetization, but it was the engine for my entire business. Right? So all my clients—not all—but most of my clients came through the newsletter. So I think the first thing is get really clear on like, okay, you want to make money, but what do you know? Newsletter is a tool, right? So what are you trying to do? Are you trying to use the newsletter to get clients? And what do you charge those clients? And what's the service you provide in terms of like, oh, I want to get to six figures and blah blah blah. Are you trying to directly monetize the newsletter through ads or that kind of, in that case, who's the audience? How valuable is it? Who, what people wanna pay or what companies wanna pay to reach them? And that's where there's a million variables, right? So people will go, how many subscribers do I need to make money with a newsletter?

Yeah, right.

And it's like, well, who are the subscribers and who wants to reach them, right? Because if you have a newsletter with 25 billionaires,

you

probably make a lot of money, right? And if you have a newsletter with 20,000 random people that have nothing in common And they just like watching funny videos, it's gonna be a lot harder.

Right.

Right. So I think that is, you know, people treat newsletter like it's this one thing, but there's a million different variables. But that's where I would start, right? I get real clear on how do I wanna make money with this thing? And then I would actually create the newsletter to align specifically and drive to that. People get distracted by, you know, subscriber numbers and open rates and whatever, but depending what your goal with it is, that stuff may not be as important Right. Well,

it's funny. It's funny you say that because my segueing into our next question, which is if you have to summarize your journey from 0 to 10,000 subscribers on newsletters, what are 3 things you would advise people about?

My specific journey or other people's journeys? From your letter. So my newsletter actually came out of 3 separate newsletters that I was running in separate niches that I collapsed. So that's a sort of unique case, which I'm not going to—

So let's say someone just started, maybe they have 25 subscribers on Substack or whatever, and they want to get to 0 to 10K. So how do you set expectations about time it takes to get there? And secondly, what are some tips?

So my first thing is I would say to them, if I were talking to them, the first thing I would say is, why do you need 10,000? And do you need 10,000? Is 10,000 a random number? Again, this gets back to business model and how newsletter fits into all of it, right? So if your goal is you have some service—

You challenge the fundamental premise, you know, like, I love the quote that I read recently where, like, there's something on the lines of, like, don't accept the premise. Because when you accept the premise, you have to play the game, you know, sometimes you have to challenge the premise. And I love that you do this all the time. So anyway,

yeah. But so I will, I will answer it. But that would be— I will answer the premise. I won't throw it out. But that would be my, that would be my first question. Because, you know, if it's someone who's like, look, I've I want 20 new clients next year. Right. And I would say, okay, so your target goal, your question should be, how do I get 20 clients from my newsletter? Not how do I get 10,000 subscribers? Right. So I think, but I think it's so common.

Can we talk about one thing here? Can we address the silliness that vanity is like? Oh, it's crazy. I had 300 subscribers on newsletter. I mean, like 40 years ago. And I always thought, if only I had 5,000 subscribers, like 5K, right? It didn't feel any different.

Yeah.

I was so sad that day. I was like, damn, it doesn't feel any different. And I burned my ass off. I was so— I think I spent like 18, 20 months or something on this. It didn't feel any different. And the same I feel about the Twitter followers as well. Like, for the longest time, my wish was to get to 10K. I got to 10K, then I got to 20K, and then I got to 37K. And I know you're in the same zone somewhere. Like everybody that I know and who I respect is in the same kind of zone, like same area somewhere. But if you just go actually go absolutes about this and you go like measure, you'll be like, oh no, they're 21K followers apart. They're like, oh, there's 20,000 followers apart. Like it's not, they're not that apart. Like you think unless someone is like 8 million people away or followers away, that's the other stratosphere. But otherwise we're all in the same bucket. We're just—

Yeah.

It just feels like we have Some have more or less, but the vanity is such a trap. And just for anyone listening—

And I would say, you know, it absolutely is. And I would say on the other side, you know, it's easy for me to go, look, maybe you don't need— if you want 20 clients, that's the goal. It's not 10,000 followers. But this is where, again, the clarity of understanding why you're doing it and the actual formula, right? There's a different version where let's say you're selling a product, making this up, right? And you go, okay, like as I've grown consistently, when I had 1,000 subscribers, X percent And you can see that like, if I go from 5,000 to 10,000,

right,

my sales are gonna scale accordingly. And now you can actually make a reason why this is why 10,000 matters, right? So it's not that it never matters. Not at all. While it is a vanity metric, but it can't be looked at— same thing with open rates and click rates and all this stuff, right? Looking at it in a vacuum is meaningless. It's like, how does it align to what you're actually trying to accomplish? So, okay. So with that giant caveat, what would I do? If— or what would I tell someone to do if they were starting from scratch and wanted to get to 10,000 subscribers? First, again, you got to be really clear on who you want to serve specifically and the transformation you want to help them make, right? The clearer that is, the easier it becomes for you to find them, the more likely they are to sign up, the more likely they are to find it valuable, the more likely they are to share it or buy from you or whatever it is that you want them to do, right? So get really clear on on that piece. Now let's assume you've gotten really clear on that piece. Now it's like, all right, well, how do you find them, right? This obviously depends on who the audience is, but look for places that they're already gathered, communities. If you're gonna do paid buying ads in other newsletters, if you can find one that reaches that niche, super powerful. Doing cross-promotions with not just other newsletters, but podcasts, influencers, whatever it is that fits your— again, if you can leverage other people's audiences to get in front, that's sort of the quickest way to grow. Another thing that people don't think about, I think, or talk about enough is if you can find anybody that has a relationship or an ability to access a large group of those people, even a small group, right? One yes is gonna get you more than one subscriber. So for example, let's say my target audience is accountants.

Right.

If I can go find some accounting organization, the Society of Professional Accountants or whatever the hell it is, right? And I can go with them and say, hey, you have 2,000 accountants that are members of your organization.

Right.

I have this free newsletter that's filled with stuff they're gonna find valuable.

Right.

Can you mention it to them? Can I pay you to mention it to them? Can I give you a sponsorship? Right? One yes, however you get that yes, is gonna get you in front of 2,000 people that are your perfect target, as opposed to, and I'm not saying you shouldn't do this, But there's a huge difference between that and going in some Facebook group for accountants and individually saying, hey, check out my thing, you know, whatever. So if you can identify like who has those bulk things, there's a great story. And I think it was the dating app Bumble, I'm not sure, but I think it was Bumble. And the way they started out was they went to college fraternity sorority systems because they realized if you get one fraternity or one sorority on,

right,

all their members are on.

Right.

So they didn't just go to college campuses and randomly try to get people. They were like, where can we go where if we get— if we get the Greek system on this, we get a whole bunch of people? And they perfected that model, which then they could go to other schools and sort of do the same thing. So I would be, again, depending on audience, looking for those kind of ways in until you get bulk people, right? Um, which you can't always do, but if you can, that's a— that's a nice place to start.

Is there any advice on, uh, frequency or volume of content? Like, is there— like, does it change the strategy? Does the strategy change 0 to 10K in the journey? If you do, uh, what do you put?

I don't, I don't think it changes based on number of subscribers. I think it depends a little on what your newsletter is. In general, I recommend sending at least one every 2 weeks at a minimum. I think if you're not sending at least one every 2 weeks, you're not sending enough to become a habit for people, and I think it becomes almost impossible To grow, right? If you think about like people that are doing a monthly newsletter, you're taking 12 shots a year. That's not a lot, right? Not a lot. So ideally, I think it should be weekly. At a minimum, I think it should be once every 2 weeks. Daily is a whole other universe. Yeah. My newsletter is now daily and it can work. But when you do that, you need to understand that like it's a complete— the difference between a weekly and once every 2 weeks newsletter isn't that much in terms of mindset and what the newsletter is. Daily is a whole other thing. But the other thing I would say is a lot of times when people start out and they go, oh, we could only do this monthly or we could only do this once every 2 weeks, I would say look at your newsletter and chances are in most cases you've overcomplicated it and you could at a minimum cut that newsletter in half. So if you're doing once every 2 weeks, I would say cut it in half and send each— send it weekly. Right. You're doing the same amount of work, but now you have weekly instead of once every 2 weeks. So yeah, that would be my recommendation typically.

Yeah. Great set of recommendations and suggestions. I think one limiting belief that I had to break. And I want to hear your thoughts on this is, you know, I went maybe like 2 years without sending a single newsletter edition. And I had some followers that were stagnant, you know, when I used to send every week. And when I used to send every week back in the day, like 22 years ago, it was so stressful because I was trying to perform. I was trying to like show and prove people that I was a worthy enough voice to listen to and all that. That's why it stressed me out. I burnt out. I just stopped. I couldn't share anymore. And I gave up. Recently, I've been devouring your newsletter, Justin Welsh's. He's way more thorough, but still it's lightweight, still fun. Arvid Kaas is fun and a few others. And I realized, you know what? Screw this shit. Screw everybody. I'm not saying screw any of you, but I'm saying screw everyone. I'm just going to have fun with this. I want to find a way to have fun and write for myself and do it in a weekly cadence and see where it goes. I have no expectations on this. So I started writing 6 weeks ago, actually 7 weeks ago and I've written 7 consistent weeks. And it's been— the trick for me is that I've grown from 5K to 7K now. But the trick for me has been definitely not writing for 7,000 people, writing for someone like you, one person.

Yeah.

And trying to come off with my personality, who I am, and having fun and using the lens of, is this valuable to you? I don't think I use it so much, but the premise of each edition, I try to think of like, what would be the valuable question I can answer with this edition? And usually the other stuff is just answering to the main That's it. Because the premise is so strong with the opening, right? I don't veer off too much. But because it's written from a purely fun perspective, I'm enjoying it. I'm having fun. I don't think I'll ever stop. And it's so different from what I did 2 years ago.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah, no, it's not. It's funny because it's the same way for me. Like, you know, I've published, you know, the weekly one now 330-some weeks in a row.

Right.

And people go, how do you do that? And like, it's actually not hard. Right. It's actually not that hard because I like doing it, right? The other thing I would say to people is, you know, pick a format. Look, there's no one right way to do this, right? Anyone can do whatever they want. I think in general it is helpful to pick a sort of simple format that's flexible enough that, you know, you don't lock yourself into whatever. But I think for people that every time they're reinventing the wheel, that's much harder.

Yeah, right.

You're like, I got to write a newsletter. What am I going to do? Versus you're like, I have this section, I have this, you know, so like my Sunday newsletter, I'm going to have a 2 to 3 sentence intro. I'm going to have 5 links, the first of which is always going to be my blog post or podcast or whatever for that week. Those are literally going to be, you know, a headline and a 1 sentence summary. Now, lately, I've been adding a, you know, 2 or 3 sentence plug for a product I have. Right. Then I'm going to have my ads, and then I'm going to have my final words of the week section, which is just like open space. It can be whatever I want. It's a sentence or 2. That's it. So when I sit down to write, I'm just filling in the blanks.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, that's what I'm doing. I don't have the, oh shit, what am I going to write about this week and what am I going to, you know, is this going to be long or I want to do this and that and the other. And readers also come to know what to expect. So I strongly recommend, and I don't mean a design template, but you certainly can have a design template, but a content template of like, this is what my newsletter is and not to feel like— I think people that, you know, have imposter syndrome or that struggle with it, a lot of times they've overcomplicated it. Right. They think it needs to be this massive thing. You know, there's a thing that I tweet. I've tweeted it a couple of times. I'm going to botch it now because I don't remember the exact number. But, you know, something like the Gettysburg Address was 272 words.

I love that tweet. I was like, oh my God. Right.

I was like, the Gettysburg Address was 272 words. Your newsletter doesn't need to be 1,000. Right. And it's very true.

Gosh, every time you tweet something like that, I'm like, this is a giant F you. And I think that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, for readers, for listeners, for all of audience here, just follow Josh. I promise you, you will be constantly roasted and reminded of how non-seriously you should take your work, which makes you put more reps and put more shots on the goal, which is what I'm doing right now. Literally, that tweet spoke to me. It hurt me because you were like— until then, I was writing long-ass essays. Yeah. I was like, that's true. If Abe Lincoln could like change the course of history with like 250 words, as Josh says, I guess I'm Don't overdo it, especially in the early, early, early days. Josh, as you know this, I'm sure a lot of creators come to you. A lot of beginner, rookie, early-stage newsletter creators or writers create— they're, they're doing too much. They're doing too much. They're writing Harry Potter novels in a newsletter.

We all do, right? Like, the longer I've gone, right, the longer I've gone, the sort of shorter my, you know, my stuff has become. And the other thing I would say is, you know, and this is true of newsletters, podcasts, of basically products, lead magnets, anything you Right? There are no rules.

Yeah.

First of all, if there's a rule, there's one rule, right? And that one rule is it has to be valuable enough for someone to say, I want to open this next time, I want to read this next time, I want to listen to this next time. That's it. If it can be— I have sent newsletters that are 2 words long. Yeah. And a link, right? As long as that link and those 2 words are valuable, they're gonna open the next one. And not only that, they're probably gonna love you for not wasting a lot of their time with whatever. So I think when you approach again a newsletter or whatever you create with that mindset, right, of like it doesn't have to be anything. Same thing when I go back to talking about photos, right? You know, it's like, was I putting a photo in because I thought there needed to be a photo or an image or whatever? It's like, no, there doesn't. Like it just needs to be something that my audience finds valuable enough to open it again. And, you know, I love that.

I love to hear— I'm glad to hear that it's not just others and everyone around you that you roast. You roast yourself Which is gratifying to hear. But no, keep putting out such like really thoughtful reminders. One last question for you. Yeah. This is all great. You know, this is all awesome again. However, a lot of people who go through this journey tend to get impatient with the growth. You know, I guess they might be having fun with the process, with creation, but they're probably only growing like 30, 40 subscribers each week or maybe even 15 subscribers each week. And it feels like it's going to take a long time to get to 10K and 20K and 30K. What's your advice for them? How do you personally Navigate patience.

It is so funny that you asked me this because you don't know this, but I am literally— I was writing a blog post this morning that I drafted and have to edit.

There we go.

And the title at the moment is, Is Your Newsletter Working? 5 Unexpected Questions to Help You Figure It Out. So I think this is along the lines of what you're saying, where I think there's a lot of people who are like, I don't know, like it's not really taking off. It's not really like I have some subscribers. So I'll share with you, the post is probably going to come out, I don't know, maybe, maybe today or tomorrow.

You'll beat me. People can go read it. But yeah, I'll put it in the comments.

Yeah, I'll send you the link. But I'll— so I'll tell you sort of the 5 questions that I've come up with that I think is helpful to ask to kind of figure out, like, is it working and what do I do, right? And they're not the typical ones where, like, I think people are like, well, how can I tell based on my growth rate or my, you know, engagement or whatever? So the first one is, what does it mean for your newsletter to work? Right. Very simple. What are you expecting? Right. To your point, like a lot of times these expectations are based on nothing. Nothing. Right. They picked a number. I want 10,000 subscribers. I don't really know why. You know, I want, you know, they don't, they haven't even defined success, but then they're trying to figure out whether or not it's working. Right. So start with that. And like I say in the thing, it's impossible to accomplish a goal you haven't defined. Right. So let's start there. The second one, are you getting any unprocessed Unprompted positive feedback. So a lot of times people go—

That's actually good. Yeah, that's a good question.

This isn't really working, but like, are 1 or 2 people unprompted, not like you going, hey, what do you think of the newsletter? Tell me what you think. Are 1 or 2 people replying to the news, not every time, but occasionally, and going, oh my God, I love this, this is so helpful, et cetera, right?

Actually, I actually get that. So I'm like, I'm in the camp. I'm curious.

Yeah, exactly right. Is anyone telling you they love it? Is anyone asking you questions about what you shared? Is anyone sharing it it with others and recommending it. You're never going to get a ton of those, right? I have 20,000 subscribers. People love my newsletter. I still don't get a ton of people.

People don't know this. Another hack and another tip. The fastest way to my heart and Josh's heart is to just reply to our newsletters. The people who reply to my newsletters or comment under my Substack thing because there's a comment box, I adore them. I literally take screenshots of that shit and I have a folder called shoutouts in my phone and I add that. I never care for Twitter compliments because I'm like, You know, it's great, but newsletter is underrated. And so that's your first class ticket into our orbits. But yeah.

And, you know, and so for example, let's just— and these are— this is random, but right, let's say that you have 500 subscribers, right? And you've had 2 or 3 people reach out to you in the last month or so and say they really like it, right? To me, what that's telling you is it's working on some level. The question now becomes, how do I find more people like the 2 or 3, right? If somebody or a couple of people out are genuinely loving your thing, right? That means it's at least working for them, right? They're not the only ones, right? Right. So that to me is a sign that— a sign that you're at least partially on the right track. Another— the next question would be, have you given your newsletter enough time to work? This gets into the patience part. People have highly unrealistic expectations. Newsletters don't go viral.

Yeah.

For the most part, right? This isn't TikTok where you're like, I made a video, And, you know, a trillion people saw it. Right. So being honest with yourself and sort of thinking about like, how much time have I actually put into this? Right. And this depends. Right. But like, I would say—

For you, Josh, I'm curious, 300+ editions.

Yeah.

There must have been some moments where you were like, I'm tired of this shit. Like, I'm just feeling impatient right now. Like, what? How did you get over that?

Well, again, it has to do with metrics, right? Number one, I like doing it. So that makes it easier. Right. It wasn't a miserable experience. Right. Number 2, you know, I could see that I was getting some people saying, I really love this thing, like I was just talking about. Number 3, you know, my goal wasn't subscribers, it was ultimately like clients and that kind of stuff. So I could see this is actually giving me some business. I could see, I couldn't see where it was going, right? And again, for 4 years, I never monetized it directly. I didn't see ads, I didn't see any of that. But I could see I'm learning a lot from this. Like it's a forcing function to find things. And like, I could see enough signs that like, okay, this is working, but I was still iterating. I was still iterating on it. I was still honing what it was. It was much broader those first couple of years. So, you know, it's a work in progress, but I could see some of these little signs. You know, like, for example, if you publish 10 issues of your newsletter, I'd say you have no clue what it even is yet or what it could become. It's just not that much.

Wow.

Right. You can't know. So I think there's people that are like, you know, what's interesting is—

I have to say it again. I have published 7 in the last 7 weeks. I got, I got 3 more weeks to go for this. But

you're feeling the positive momentum and energy, right? And you're enjoying doing it.

10's a great number. 10's an aspirational number.

Well, think about it this way. If you publish, I just think people are very quick to be like, oh, this thing isn't working, right? If you publish once every 2 weeks, 10 issues is 5 months. So in your mind, you're going, I've been doing this for 5 months and this isn't taking off. But the truth is you've done it 10 times.

Yeah. 10 reps is nothing. Yeah.

And you probably don't even have that many subscribers yet. So who knows?

Right.

Right. You don't really know if it's good and you don't know what it could become if you do 20 or 50 or 100. You know, again, my newsletters evolve over time. The next one, I think this is a really important one. Like, do you think your newsletter is good? Right? Like, be honest with yourself. Like, when you look at it, do you go, I'm proud of this?

Yes.

And I know people have imposter syndrome and all that, and it can be hard, whatever. People are hard on themselves. But if you look at it and you go, you know what, like, this isn't perfect and I'm still learning, but like, I actually think this is pretty good. Like, you should be excited to send it on some level. And I think if you feel that, that's another sign, right? That like, okay, this— maybe it's not working in terms of audience yet, but I think this is good. I just think it hasn't found the right people or whatever, right? You know, and the flip side, right? You know, if you don't truly believe in what you create, maybe it's time to focus on something— creating something you do believe in, right? Right. And then the last one The last one is, so let's say you're checking the boxes on all these first 4 questions, but you're still like, I don't know if it's working, or it still doesn't feel like it's working. I would say, do you have an awareness problem, a conversion problem, or both? Because people come to me all the time and they go, my newsletter's not really working.

Nobody cares about it.

It's not growing, right? And I'd be like, well, how many people are discovering— are people going to your signup page or reading it and not subscribing? Because an awareness problem is completely different from a conversion problem. Right, but I think with newsletter creators, they jumble the two.

Yeah,

and they go, "Oh, it's just not working. It's not growing." If you have an awareness problem, well, that's a whole separate strategy. You got to get more people aware of it and then see if they convert. If you have a conversion problem where it's like, "No, I've got an audience of whatever followers," and a thousand people went to the sign-up page and three of them signed up. Well, okay, let's talk about why aren't they signing up? What's in the sign-up page is a misaligned audience. Like there's a million things, but understanding that those are separate pieces of quote unquote new. Newsletter Success, I think is really helpful for you to identify. I have this problem, I have this problem, I have both problems, which once you identify it, then you can start to improve it as opposed to just generally throwing your hands up and going, it's not working.

I don't know. I love the fact that I kind of preempted this question by guessing— sorry, this week's blog post by this question. Love it. I think we could go another 2 hours on this. You know, you and I have so many aligned thoughts I know. Beliefs, worldviews around this topic. Generally, a lot of the ways of how we approach business is very alike. So I appreciate that. Yeah, you give me a lot of, you know, self-assured, like, give me a lot of confidence and like reassurance that, okay, cool. You know, this is a path that I'm doing well on and like you're definitely a couple steps ahead. So tell the audience where they can find out more about you, more about the newsletter.

joshspecter.com is where you can see sort of all the stuff I do. fortheinterested.com/subscribe is where you can get my newsletter. My podcast is called I Want to Know. It's on all the podcast platforms. It's also on YouTube, so you can go check that out. And then I'm on Twitter all the time, @JSpector, J-S-P-E-C-T-O-R.

Awesome. I'll include all the links in the show notes.

And you'll see me in KP's replies.

Yeah, we banter a lot on Twitter too. Yeah. So Josh, once again, thank you so much for your time and insights. Thanks for having me. It's fun. This episode, and I can't wait to see you again.

Cool. Thanks.

Have a good one. Bye.