How To Build Real Income Without a Big Audience

It does say that. Okay. All right. Hey everybody, welcome to our live stream. My name is Bobby. This is the 1% Brand Brilliance on Substack, and I'm here with Veronica. We're gonna have a really great conversation today around, uh, revenue, income, authority building, building your audience. It's going to be a really fantastic conversation. So if you are just joining, the topic is how to build real income without a big audience. And we're coming to you from around the world. I'm in Canada and Veronica's in Hong Kong. And before we get going on the topic, if you're joining us, by all means, please tell us where you're from. Put, put in the comments where you're from, any questions you have, things you want to talk about. But I'm going to hand it over to Veronica. Veronica, can you please do an introduction and let us know a bit about who you are?

Yes, absolutely. So great to meet everyone. And I wear a lot of different hats. I always talk about portfolio career because I'm not just one thing, which is what I love about doing my thing. So I'm a writer, I'm an author. I have published 4 books. One of them is with Penguin Random House. And writing was really my first feat, let's say my first experience into the whole solopreneur thing. And then from there, I started doing coaching as well, especially on strategy. But nowadays, 3+ years into starting all of this, my main business is actually public speaking. So I do a lot of public speaking on leadership, communication, and culture for business. So that's a little bit my Frankenstein business, many different pieces, but somehow they work together. And I always say that my most important role is a CEM. That stands for Chief Executive Mom. I have 2 little girls and a furry friend as well called Django.

Now, how old are your kids?

8 and 9. So sweet age.

Oh, that's a great age. You know, my kids are 15 and a half and 18. So they're teenagers and they're on their way. And they have a lot of attitudes. And that's how it is. So, a bit about myself, everybody. My name is Bobby Umar. I started out as a motivational speaker by trade. Over the last 25 years, I've done 1,000 keynotes and workshops across 4 continents. I'm a 5-time TEDx speaker, an Inc. Magazine Top 100 Leadership Speaker alongside Richard Branson, John Maxwell, and Brené Brown. I'm also a 2-time LinkedIn Top Voice. And a lot of my work has been in the area of personal branding, authority building, communication, connection, thought leadership, things like that. And for the most part, I've built most of my platforms on other places like LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram. But now, I'm trying to build on Substack. And so, I'm meeting some really amazing people like Veronica who are doing really great on this platform. And so, I started doing a weekly livestream. Now, normally, my weekly livestream is on Fridays at 4 PM. But because of our time difference, I decided, okay, you know what? We have to pick a different time and that's fine. So, it's my evening on Thursday. It's her morning on Friday. And so, we're very, very excited to have this conversation. Again, we're going to talk about how to build real income without a big audience because one of the things that I talk about as I tell people is that I have 750,000 followers across social media. But the truth is you don't have to have that many. I mean, I would trade my 750,000 people for 1,000 people or 500 people who just absolutely adored me and were my You know, my huge fans, right? Because that's really all you need. And so, I think it's a really great topic today to talk about that. So, Veronica, I'm going to go to you with the first question, which is, you know, as I understand it, you know, you left corporate at 41. And so, you know, when did you know and what didn't you expect about the in-between?

So, yes, a bit of context about that transition. So, I was in the corporate world forever and I thought I was going to stay there forever. So I started working in small businesses first, and then I moved into big companies like first Apple, where I was for 7 years, then Estée Lauder in senior leadership role, uh, and then I kept climbing the ladder. And during the pandemic, there were all these changes. I ended up unemployed in a different country. I was in Australia at the time, and, uh, so I didn't know what I was going to do next. At first, I started— I tried to stay in the, uh, in the corporate ladder, but it didn't work. And after 6 months of trying, I wasn't able to find a job. And so I thought, well, I might as well start my own business. And at the time— so this was 2022— I had no idea what that looked like. But, uh, it was hard. One of the hardest things that I found was actually trying to figure out who you are when you don't have the support of a big brand, because It's very easy to go to someone and say, hey, I'm a business leader at Apple, and all the doors open. And in fact, to give you an example of what I mean, I had almost 2,000 followers on LinkedIn without ever having posted anything, just because when you work for these big companies, people come to you. And so in a way, it's good for your ego because you feel, oh, this is me, this is my brand. But, uh, for me, one of the biggest challenges was how to define who you are and what you stand for and what your identity when you don't have those big brands to support you. And so that was one of the biggest things that I struggled with is how am I going to build these brands starting from zero? So that was one of the things that I found extremely hard. And then the other thing that also took me a while to figure out is when I left the corporate world and I started my own business, I think we all can relate to these. We have a bit of a, we want to put it aside and it's almost like we want to leave the corporate world, you know, on the side and there's almost like this, uh, this sense of, uh, uh, putting a wall, right, uh, between our, our corporate past and, and ourselves. But what I realized is that no matter which world you come from, there are so many things that you can actually bring with you. And I think for me, the smart thing was to understand what is it that I want to leave behind, but also what are some of the useful skills and experiences that I can repurpose as a solopreneur And that's how and why I'm able to sell to companies today, because I was like, hold on, I've been in that world for more than 15 years. There must be something that I can repurpose there. Maybe we can start the conversation here because I think I talked about a couple of points.

No, that's great. And look, I will also say that when I left the corporate world, I left— I forget the year I was— I left the corporate world when I was 36. And so I'd spent— and I spent 2 different career paths in engineering and brand marketing to try to make an impression, to try to build myself up there, but I never quite fit. And so, when I left, you know, I left because I wasn't really sure where I fit in. So, what happened to me was I decided to dive into my personal brand. I talked to a lot of people, what they thought I'd be good at. I started looking at what are the things I'm good at? What are my skills that I have? What do people like about me? And eventually, I came up with, you know what? I like people, persuasion, influence, diversity. And so, I decided to become a motivational speaker. And so, that's kind of what I did. And once it aligned with my brand, I never really looked back. And so, it's been kind of the same for me. Now, what didn't I expect in the in-between for me when I was trying to build my business? I didn't realize how lonely I would be. I'm a very extroverted person. I like parties. I like friends. I like socializing. And it was very lonely. And I was like, man, I miss my friends. I miss the people in the office. It was very tough for me.

Yeah.

To try to do that, and also around when I started my business, my kids came. And so one of the things that happened was, so I started I started my business in 2007, and my first son was born in 2008. And so I made a decision to become, and I was hustling really hard to build my business in the beginning, you know, 60 hours a week. But when my son was born, I decided to become a 25-hour-a-week. I decided I don't want to spend all my time. I don't want to miss this. And then, my daughter came 2 years later. And so, for the first 3, 4 years of my business, I didn't really hustle as hard as I could or I should. I was very good at— I did laundry. I cooked. I let the kids nap, my wife nap. I took care of everything. It was a big part of what I was doing. But one of the things that helped me is that once I realized I had a clear brand of what I worked for and what made sense, People started hiring me. Now, I know for you, and again, if you're in this conversation, we see a bunch of people who've joined in, which is great. If you have questions, put them in the chat. If you want to share this with people, you can put it up there and post the fact that this is going live. Make sure you tag Veronica and myself. We'd certainly love all the attention that you can give us and let people know that they're part of this conversation. My other question for you is, Veronica, it's like, so, you know, you started doing writing. When did writing online, like, when did it first start to pay for you? And what was the first thing that made money for you in the early days?

So I can tell you it was not writing. Yeah, yeah, sure. So I started, I started writing on LinkedIn first. So of course I didn't get paid because that's not the model, but it was more to put myself out there. And then I realized I like this writing thing, so I want to explore other platforms where I can write longer and go deeper. And so I started writing on Medium. And medium back in 2022, it was honestly quite a good place to be. You could still make good money, you could still grow an audience. And so I was quite optimistic about how things were going. So that's where I was first paid. And it started to go quite well until, I don't know if it was end of 2023, where things really started to change. The platform changed the way that they were controlling distribution, the way that they were paying. And so all of a sudden, something that was starting to sound promising, it just hit the ceiling. I realized, oh, I have to change something. So that's when I decided to quit Medium, even though I had 6,000 followers, which was not bad for a relatively short career there. And I launched my Substack, The Elementary Mindset. So that was early 2023, and, uh, it took me like a year to get traction, like a good year. Uh, so that's why I always tell people that you have to be patient, you have to understand the platform, you have to build those connections. Grow your community. But after a year, more or less, that's when I started to go from incremental growth to really much more exponential. And then a year and a half, I became a Substack bestseller, which is when you have 100+ paid subscribers. So that was a really nice way to then start to, to monetize the writing. But when I talk about monetization, for me, it's never only one thing. As I was saying at the beginning, it's this idea of a portfolio career, almost like an ecosystem, because in my case, my Substack allowed me yes, to have paid subscriptions, but more than that, to grow a coaching business. And so I've been able to coach over 200 creative entrepreneurs on strategy. But from there, with the content from the writing, it also allowed me to create digital products, which I, I now have a digital store on Gumroad with 5 or 6 courses and, and different digital products. And then the writing also allowed me then to move into the speaking So it was a bit of a career move starting from writing and then adding the coaching on top of it and then bringing in the other speaking.

Yeah. And I think I like your point about the fact of having multiple ways in which you make money. I mean, for me, again, I have products, I have the speaking. For me, I started speaking first, then someone said, hey, you know, you should write a book. And then someone said, hey, you should design a program. And so I had a program, I started selling that program. I started— I sold a personal branding program, which is what I was selling back in the day. And then eventually, um, I started selling, selling a speaker program. And then people wanted to do coaching, so that became something as well. And then I started a membership community called TLB Club, which is that logo there under the 1% Brand Brilliance. And so I, I understand the concept of having multiple ones. I want to go back to something you mentioned though, because I'm trying to understand you. So you switch from Medium to Substack. Like, why leave Medium and do Substack? Is there something else Substack your attention?

So more than platforms themselves, it was the model. I realized that whether it's Medium or LinkedIn or Meta or any other platform that is follower-based, I made the mistake of thinking this is my audience. Like, it really resonated when you say I have these thousands of followers and so what? They're not your followers. They belong to the platform. If tomorrow they want to do any changes, like right now there's a lot of noise on LinkedIn. People are complaining, why do I not get views and all that? Because it's not your audience. You don't control them. And so And for me, that became very obvious with Medium, not so much about Medium itself, but about the model of not controlling the distribution. And so I had this lightbulb moment of thinking, I really have to have something that's mine. I really have to be able to control my own community, which was not a community, it was an audience. It was an audience on someone else's platform. So you were really on borrowed land, you were just a tenant. And that's when to me, it became clear that I needed to have something where I could control the distribution, where I could go deeper with my people. And so it wasn't about more numbers or growing faster. It was really about how can I do, once people trust me, to take them deeper into, into my world, into, into my ecosystem. So it was much more about the model. Substack came in because I did a bit of research, and what I loved specifically about Substack is that I hadn't seen, and I haven't seen anything like it, where you have a newsletter but at the same time you have the social media element. I call it a social newsletter, which is very different from the platforms where you don't have any social media, so you have to make all the effort of bringing people in. But here, I think it's amazing that you already have a native community, and so it makes it much easier for you to bring people from within. So that's why I changed the type of platforms, and that's why I decided specifically to start on Substack.

And I think the reason that I joined Substack was because I've been a social media guy my whole life, and I've tried every single platform, and I've built on them all. But one of the things that I like about Substack is 2 things. One is they have long-form and short-form text-based content, which is basically articles and newsletters, which, you know, there's a LinkedIn newsletter, there's a Medium newsletter, there's newsletters on other platforms on your website, but they have long-form, but they also have short-form, which is Twitter threads, you know, and they have the notes. That's actually kind of unique because most platforms pick one or the other. And then on top of that, they have video. You have short-form videos, which you can post, and you also have this long-form video like this livestream. Which again is great. So, you know, it's, it's, it has all 4 of the types of content that I like that I think people typically would do. And I think that's really, really special. And the second thing I like about it is that Substack's very, very good about promoting content creators because, you know, when I used to do a livestream, I used to do a livestream on Restream and I would multistream across LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube, things like that. And now I just do Substack because what happens is I used to take my Restream, I would then download it, upload it to Opus Clip, create clips. What Substack does is I'll do a video with you, after I'm done it automatically generates clips. When I write an article, it automatically generates images and it wants you to share with the world, whereas other places they don't do that. LinkedIn doesn't do that, and other places want you to pay for them, and Substack does all for free. So after this, this is done, I get like a dozen AI-generated clips with titles, captions, and everything. and then, uh, YouTube links to my YouTube, links to LinkedIn, and I can with a click of one button automatically share. I think that's amazing. I think they're very, very supportive of content creators, and I think that to me is fantastic. So that's one of the reasons why I did that. Now we have people who are listening in here— Sandra, LaShonda— they're engaging. Uh, Kimberly's here, which is great. There's already a question. Um, any recommendation for someone new? Do you recommend the community chat or notes and posts in the beginning? I mean, I guess it leads me to ask you a question. When you first started out here, were there people here that you learned from that were mentors to you? Because I see you as a Substack mentor for me, right? So, I mean, I have my own skillset. I can also teach things too, but Substack's not my expertise. I'm certainly getting better at it, but I was curious about, for you, were there people that you found really helpful in your journey in the beginning of the first year?

So absolutely. And what's very interesting is that when I started, it was relatively unknown outside of the Substack community. When I mentioned Substack, people had no clue what I was talking about. It was very new. Notes was just starting as well. There was no live sessions. So everything was quite new. And I kind of learned from peers who were at a similar journey as me. And it was very similar in the sense that we were all coming bruised from Medium.

Yeah.

So there are a few of us. There was Christina Godd. She was also quite big on Medium, and then she had the same issues, so she transitioned over. There was David Michael Roy, Michael Roy. So we all kind of came in that same batch of creators who were coming from Medium, who loved long-form writing and were trying to figure things out. So I really learned from people who are at that early stage because we could really be very open about our mistakes. We did collaborations very early on. Which really helped. And then there were some people who were much more established already. They had years in the platform. So I, I learned a lot from Sarah Faye, for example. But even the big names today, they were not on Substack back then. So it was a little bit the Wild West and we were trying to figure out, you know, from what other people were doing.

No, that's, that's amazing. And I think that one of the things I've been doing is reaching out to people to see what I can learn. And this is something that I've learned And I'll tell you this, my initial first foray into social media where I grew was actually Twitter. So, this is a long time ago, like 2010. And yeah, I remember within 5,000 followers on Twitter, I got my first speaking gig right off of Twitter. I was like, wow, people want to hire me to speak just for me talking on social media? So, I decided to invest. And then Twitter went to 100,000, 200,000, and half a million followers there. And one of the things I learned though is that talking to other people on the platform, engaging in conversations, Um, talking to influencers and people who are knowledgeable. That philosophy worked on Twitter. It worked on Instagram. It worked on LinkedIn. It also works on Substack. So, I think that's a very important thing, uh, to do. And I think it's important, uh, in terms of the recommendation of what to do or start with. I mean, you know, I'm learning that there's many things you can do, but I'll tell you that— I'll tell you my 2 favorites and I'll ask you to share your thoughts. I mean, number one, I like the notes only because You know, a lot of people want me to subscribe to newsletters. The truth is, I'm not really a newsletter guy. I really—I'm not. I mean, I—if someone, you know, does a note and mentions an article, I'll quickly look at it. But I'm not really one that's going to subscribe newsletters every day. Like I subscribed to a couple people on on here, and then also I was like inundated with emails. I was like, you know what? This is—I'm ADHD. There's no way I'm going to be able to follow this. There's reason why I like Twitter. There's reason why I like. Stories. There's a reason why I like threads because I do like short form. So notes have been a really great place to have quick conversations and chat with people. And I love that part. And the second piece is I like the livestream because I think that in the age of AI, we are trying to build authority. We're also trying to build trust. And when you see me live here as a regular guy in a messy office behind me, you start to see someone who's a real human. I think that's an important piece. To do. But for you, Veronica, let me ask you the question was, you know, what are the recommendations for someone new? Do you recommend community chat, notes, or posts in the beginning? What would you suggest to folks?

Yeah, so definitely notes because it's a great way to put yourself out there. And when I say notes, it's not just post and ghost. It's also engage in that platform where you can really comment and be part of the community. And, and that works extremely well. It doesn't take a lot of work. You can publish them in different times of the day so that you catch always someone alive because it's always happy hour somewhere, right? So notes definitely works very well. I think LaShonda was asking about chat. I love my community chat. I invite everyone to come there. I would not advise you to launch it very early on because it's difficult to get people to engage in chat. What you can do though very early on is pick a couple of communities that you enjoy And first participate and be a player. And for example, in my case, once a week I have an open day that can be a collaboration day or is a debate. There's so much collaboration that happens there. In fact, in my Spanish publication, someone was saying yesterday, Veronica, I should pay you for all the contacts that I get during your free chat. And so you have other ways. It's not always about you having to host or you having to be, you know, the person who is creating that piece of content, but you can engage. So those work extremely well. And then live sessions, they work so well. I'm totally with you. I think that seeing someone in their space, listening to their voice— it actually changes when you always read someone and then you hear their voice. The voice is something that's very, very intimate. It creates this connection instantly with the person. So the live sessions work really well, and you can be creative and do them in so many different ways. Like this week, and I don't do this every week, but it's the third live session that I do. So I had one on Monday with Odelle where we talked more about public speaking. Then I did one solo. I do solo sessions sometimes as well on specific topics that I want to go deeper, and then I turn them into series. So that was also about public speaking on nonverbal language and how to own the room with your body and your presence. And then today. So I really believe in live sessions, and you can do them in so many different ways. So, Lashonda, and Everyone else, I hope this gives you some ideas on what are some of the tools and channels that you can leverage.

Yeah, and I think that, you know, going back to your community posts, I mean, so I've seen them and I've also started my own, but it is very hard to get people engaged there. It's much, much harder. People are more likely to engage in notes than other things. But yeah, I think that, yeah, I agree with your assessment. Maybe not start that in the beginning. I love your idea of, you know, giving back. I think one of the best ways to grow a loyal audience and to grow engagement on any platform, but including Substack, is to, you know, give back, share knowledge, support other people. It goes a long way. So, like, you know, I'm— whenever I see your post or someone else's post, I want to see if I can add some content or value. This is the exact same thing that got me attention on LinkedIn. And on LinkedIn, I had, you know, I grew to 56,000 followers and I was a 2-time top voice with the blue badge because I was engaging there. And I think that's really, really important too. Looks like LaShonda has lots of questions. Oh yeah, LaShonda says, yeah, but I'm wondering if you're new, what more likely or liable Papa Brothers join your— I mean, one of the reasons why I do collaborative lives, you know, with 2 or 3 people, 1, 2, or 3 people, is because we share with each other's networks. And so you have a greater visibility of doing so. That's the same reason I do collaborative articles. So I think on that point, by all means, you know, doing a live stream— live streams are also good because when you're done, you have all this great content Video content you can post in the notes. You can throw in your articles. You can share it on other social media. I think it's really, really good. So, I'm still even if you're a beginner, I think you can do a live. You know, it doesn't have to be all the time, but even once a week, I think is a great way to share share knowledge. So, I do like that, to be honest. I'm a big fan of it. So, but let me get to the other question, which is you know we're talking about building building authority and income things like that. But I want to talk about audience size, right? So, a lot of people including myself have chased audience size. But maybe that's the wrong number to chase, right? So, if you're someone who has a small list or a small following, what's the thing that you should measure instead?

It's very interesting because I think we all at first play this game of trying to grow more because it's something tangible, it's something that we can measure. But I've met so many people who have huge audiences, big numbers on LinkedIn, and they don't monetize it because it's a bit of vanity metrics. What I have found that works extremely well, and the challenges you can't really measure, is going deeper and building trust. And what I mean by this is many people focus only on paid subscribers. And that's hard, especially when you have a small community, because the numbers are around 2-3% conversion, maybe a little bit more if you're lucky, but it's not going to be much more than that. And so the numbers don't really work. But what I've noticed is that when you have 10 or 20 people who really trust you, those people, they are the ones who are going to join your cohorts. They are the ones who are going to buy your courses. They are the ones who are going to buy your books if you publish books. And so this idea of finding your 100 true fans or whatever that, that sentence, it's absolutely true. And I'm talking from experience. Like right now, I just finished a cohort of my public speaking boot camp. This is for people who want to become paid speakers. It's a small boutique program. And the people who join are always people that have already that connection and that have where there is trust. So I don't have to blast it to everyone. I don't need an audience of thousands to make it successful. It's small, is a maximum of 10 people, very profitable because it's a higher ticket. But it's, it's in that small group of people who comment on notes, who come to the live streams, and so on. So instead of thinking, how can I grow more? Yes, of course we have to grow because that's how we're able to scale. But don't forget the people who are already there, and they might not necessarily become a paid subscriber. Not everyone wants to pay for a newsletter, but that person be interested in something else. And that's why my strategy is to try to give different channels and different options for people to consume the content and the information the way that they like better. For example, the same content that I have on my newsletter, very often I repurpose it into digital courses on Gumroad. And some people, they only buy my courses, but they're not paid subscribers. They like what I write, but they're like, I, I'd much rather go for a course with a beginning And an end. So don't underestimate the power of those small— the small group of people who are already there and they already trust you.

That's a, that's a really great insight, Veronica. And I can tell you this, that, you know, a lot of people talk about having the sales ladder, right, where there's free, then they pay for, let's say, a $10 ebook, and then they pay for a $47 product, and then to $200, and then to $900, and then to the thousands, and they go up that sales Well, what I've found is that people who are on the low end of that sales ladder, they don't necessarily convert to the high-end stuff. Theoretically, they should because they get closer to you. But you're right. There are people on the free level who I've built a strong relationship with. They know who I am. They trust me. And so, when I mention I'm doing a high-ticket item, they're more likely to jump to that thing. And I have people who are in the middle part who are just looking for the middle part and they don't really want to go higher. And so, that's been my experience. The people who are in the, like the people who are under the $100 a month type thing, they typically, some of them may convert to something higher. But usually for me, they've not done that. I've really gotten people from straight up the free people who've loved me and talked to them and we've gone deep. I think that's a really great insight. So, I think that's good. And I think my answer to this question is to, yeah, you have to think about who are the people who are you really engaging. And I'm a big believer in And for every single person who comes into what I'm doing, I give them my time. I give them my deep analysis. I make myself accessible. So for example, I'm doing this thing next week, and this is for everybody here. I'm doing an open house for my coaching calls, which I normally don't open to the public, but I'm opening it to the public. If anybody wants to come into one of my calls and have me look at one of their issues or challenges for 10 minutes, they can come in. So, it's on Monday. If anybody's interested, just DM me and let me know if you want to come by. You give me any problem or thing you're dealing with, whether it's business strategy or social media strategy or personal branding or speaking or whatever it might be. I will listen to you for 5, 10 minutes and then, I'll come up with 1, 2, or 3 options for you to consider to help you move forward. And if you want to come by, you totally can. So, I think— and that's something. And when you build that loyalty and you build that trust, And you help people genuinely, I think that people will remember who you are. And I think that's what personal branding is all about too. So, okay. So there are lots of questions here. And, you know, if— and Veronica, if there's anything you want to talk about too, I'm more than welcome to get into that as well.

Yeah. Just to build a little bit while maybe you go through the questions. One thing that was very interesting and it was a surprise for me when I launched my cohort. So this is like this small boutique program that I only launched it in June. For public speaking. Initially, my thought was, I'm going to blast it to everyone and try to convert. And that didn't really work because not everyone wants to be a paid speaker. Not everyone wanted to join the cohort. What did work, and I think for me this was a big lesson, was the DM. So back to trust. Instead of trying to send this offer to every single one, I really went through my list and said, who are people that I already know and I can speak to them and said, hey, Bobby, I think this program is going to be great for you. Because of this reason. And so it wasn't just selling the program, it was actually trying to add value to Bobby because I had that relationship and I had that connection. And I can tell you that the closing rate went from like 1% to 85% or something ridiculous because it was showing people, I know you and I know you where you are today, and I know that your goal is to become a paid speaker because I've already seen it somewhere in our interactions or or in your content. And it was so much easier and it was so much more pleasant to have those conversations because it didn't feel like I was selling something. It genuinely felt like, hey, I have a program, it's very small, it's very high touch, it's customized. I think it's gonna add value to you for those reasons. So this really worked for me and I want to share this out because it was such a great discovery that I want people to really try it. Instead of blasting to everyone, go to these 5 or 6 people that you already know and explain to them why you think it's gonna add value to them.

Yeah, no, I think that's an excellent insight. And again, taking the time to— and all of you can take the time to understand who are the people in my audience, in my network who are giving me a lot of value, who I'm giving value to, who I've built that trust with. I think that goes a long way to making it work. So, I do appreciate that. So, let me ask you another question, which is I guess a lot of people are on here too and they're obviously trying to build their followers, build their subscribers, things like that.

Is it—

is there— what would be the difference between those who like— what is the— what would be your advice for building from the free subscribers to the paid subscribers? Because you did get the checkmark. So what would be some insights you have there?

Yeah, so I can tell you all the mistakes that I've made so that you don't make them. So how about we start there? So first, up to, I would say, last year or so, you could have great content and great content could potentially convert from free to paid. That was my experience. I did a lot of content that was more premium, and that helped me convert. I tell you what, this does not work anymore. Maybe if you're in a very technical topic, more AI or things like these. I find that content is the gateway. Content is what brings people in, but it's not what's going to make them stay. In my case, and this is more personal, it's really been building a community. Building a community is really what has made people go from, okay, I liked reading this to, I want to be part of this movement, of this community, I want to be in this premium space. And the question then is, well, how do you build a community? For me, what has worked, and I did a lot of different trials and errors, was first to have a place where we can gather. And it's not about me delivering a masterclass because I don't feel that people are that interested in that anymore. If you're just going to listen to someone, you can do watch the replay. It's actually a place where— more like a mastermind— where people come, they share, they ask questions, they brainstorm. And so it's not about me. I'm just the host. I'm the moderator. But the beauty is really in what we co-create. So I do these business roundtables once a month, and I would say that that's the number one reason why many people decide to join my community. The second thing that I do is a weekly chat only for my paid subscribers, which is actually today. It's live where I say, hey, I'm your one-to-one coach. Feel free to ask for your consultation, for your question if you want feedback. So that has also worked extremely well. And then in terms of content, of course the content is important, but as I was saying, it's not only content. The type of content that I find is working and is helping me help convert is sharing what I'm using, my own experience, the tools that I'm using to grow my business. So a couple of weeks ago, maybe last month, I launched a specific section called VIP Backstage. And there I'm not sharing the how-tos and the generic things. No, I'm telling you how I'm growing my business, what are the tools that I'm using, what has worked, what hasn't, um, even very tactical things— how I use the QR code from Substack to grow my community outside of Substack, how I'm using LinkedIn to find clients for my public speaking business. I find that very hands-on, very building public, very real demonstration of how you're building your business is something that has a very positive response. So these are some of the things that work. Things that don't work for me: content only. Or authors were always very excited to all sign up and I give you my free ebook. Great, you get the free ebook, but then what happens? I did this, and unless you're planning to launch a book every single month Then you're gonna have an issue because people are like, okay, I got the ebook, now I'm going to unsubscribe. So think about community, think about something that is sustainable and that is recurring. What is something that you could do every month, or what is something that you can do every week? Because if it's a monthly membership, people expect some value every single month.

Yeah, no, that's great. Thank you so much for that. And, uh, and those who are listening in, by all means, ask more questions. We have some people who are engaging, which is great. Tell us where you're from. We do love that. I'm here with Veronica. I'm doing my weekly live. Normally, it's on Fridays but today, it's a special time and we're talking about building income and authority without having a large audience. So, I think another thing that people do wrong is they think that one of the best ways to build income is they're looking for that viral moment. They want that viral post to build everything. And my experience with that is that I've been blessed to have some really good viral moments. Most of them were on LinkedIn but I had them in other places too, Twitter and Instagram and whatnot. So for example, I had an Instagram post just recently a couple of weeks ago that went viral, got 200,000 views. I was like, wow, this is great. My best one got like 3.7 million views or impressions. But what I found was it's great awareness building. But usually, number one, it's usually a personal story as opposed to a business-related story. And number two, it doesn't really lead to business. The people who are liking and spreading it and talking about it aren't really my potential clients. And so for me, you may have a viral moment, that's great. You get some followers, you get some impressions, and that's wonderful. But does that really convert to paying clients? Not necessarily. So I wouldn't be chasing that at all. That's kind of my take. I mean, what is your take on the people, you know, income that I guess maybe they're hoping things are gonna go viral and that's how they're gonna make income? What's your take on that?

Yeah, absolutely. You can talk about my experience in different audiences, in different platforms too. So I'm very active on LinkedIn as well, and I have an audience that is quite small considering how many years I've been there and how much work I have put into it. But I will also say that 90% of my clients for public speaking, they come from LinkedIn. Why? Because I'm not chasing that viral moment. I'm talking about being a speaker, the challenges that I'm facing. I'm talking about leadership. So it's not a sexy topic like if you talk about the 10 tips to grow on LinkedIn, because the meta content works really well, but that's not, uh, where I am. And so I do find that staying on your lane and creating content and speaking to your ideal stakeholder is really what's going to help you convert. My ideal stakeholder, when we're talking about public speaking, is not everyone. I want to talk to the directors of human resources. I want to talk to learning and development teams. I want to talk to people teams. So that's quite a small niche audience. And so my content is very targeted and is very intentional to reach this group of people. And so you don't need to make a lot of noise. Like the other day, I had a speaker bureau from the UK, and I'm based in Hong Kong, from the UK. They contacted me me, hey, we found you on LinkedIn, we have an opportunity for a client, for a bank client in, in Hong Kong. And all of that happened through LinkedIn, through content that don't go viral, don't have thousands and thousands of views, but they're relevant and they're really targeted for that audience. On Substack is a little bit similar. Like, if you rely on these viral posts, you're going to have a lot of noise. It also comes with a lot of hate, by the way, usually. Yeah. But it doesn't necessarily convert into revenue. In my case, for example, instead of trying to think about how to go viral, I'm thinking, how do I create an experience? And so this is something that not many people do, but it has worked extremely well for me, is creating serialized content. And I'm going to give away my, my little golden nugget here. But what I do is pick a topic, could be personal brand, it could be public speaking. Instead of sending one post here and then another post there, I create a journey and it's usually maybe 6 to 8 posts, even less, where I'm building, I'm building that journey for the readers. And so it's a little bit like a Netflix series. You're like, oh, this is interesting because I see that it's taking me somewhere. So right now I'm doing a series that is only 4 live sessions on public speaking. It's very clear. I start with the mind, then I go into the body, then I go into the voice and finally into the text. So it's 4 of them with tips, with exercises. And when I finish this series, I bundle them, I elevate them a bit, I add a bit more content, and then I turn them into a digital course. So that one piece of content, it's now elevated and it's reaching people in different platforms through different formats.

Yeah, I love the serialized content. I mean, many years ago I was doing, um, basically 1-minute videos, and it was basically 9 tips for personal branding, 9 tips for public speaking, 9 tips on how to land a TEDx And yeah, and I say I'm going to post this every week and come by. And what happened, by the time I got to the 4th or 5th one, people were really wanting to know what the next one was. They had questions. And yeah, what happened for me is that that became— it can become a mini course, or I can package it as something to answer questions people ask me. Hey, check out my series here. A great way to build trust. I think that works really well. And I want to talk about also the targeting piece because I think that's important. Important. So one of the things that I've done is, for me, my Substack is focused on business owners. So basically, you know, I talk about business and growth, and which includes branding and speaking and content strategy, how to use AI and technology, how to not be alone, all community things like that. So it's targeted business owners. And ultimately, if you become— you go to my second paid tier, then you get more resources, access to me on calls on how to build your business. And then the highest level is tier 3, which is basically membership in my TLB Club community, which is that logo for the 1% Brand Brilliance. And so, I have those 3 different levels. Now, LinkedIn's different. LinkedIn is primarily for my speaking. So, everything that I'm on there for, I'm talking about personal branding. I'm talking about speaking. I'm talking about storytelling. I'm talking about how to use digital influence. The things that my corporate clients are going to hire me for, that's what that's focused on. And it's different. And then of course, I have another one which is my high-ticket items for helping people land TEDx talks as well as leverage their speaking business for their authority trust building. That's an entirely different business run on Instagram and Facebook ads. It goes directly to a landing page and then they get a call with me. So, I have 3 different businesses and I focus on each of those platforms in a different way. And that's been important because then sometimes I'll meet someone on a platform And I'll say, you know what, based on what you're telling me, I think you should follow me on Substack because if you want business information on how to be a business owner, that's kind of where you want to go. So I think, yes, having the right target and the right focus for wherever platform you're on, I think is really, really good. The other thing I want to mention too, and I kind of want to ask your question on this, was when you're coming up with products that are going to get their attention, you talked a lot about building a deep relationship. And I think that's important too. Can you talk a bit more about making sure the product or what you're offering is clear and aligned and something that people are, are really going to value?

Sure. And I'd love to go back maybe later to the point of the different audiences and make sure you're in the platform for the, the right audience. But, uh, what, what you're talking about is, is very interesting in terms of, well, how do you validate? And again, I'm going to share what, what didn't work for me. When you ask people, would you like a course on public speaking, the hearts, they fly in because the hearts are free. And so it gives you like this false sense of validation because the heart— people want to please. Oh yeah, do it, it's great, it sounds amazing. And then you launch it and you hear crickets. So that didn't really work for me. What worked, and I definitely recommend trying it, is doing a prototype, meaning before you develop the full cohort get people to sign up and pay. For me, that was the real litmus test. No, don't give me the hearts. I don't care about the hearts. Show me the money. And so I did this for my public speaking cohort. For the first one, I didn't know. I was like, well, I don't know if people are really interested in becoming a paid speaker. Are they? Are they not? And so I created a simple landing page. I said, these are what the 4 sessions are going to be. Of course, there was a clear map, there was a clear structure, but I hadn't developed the entire content. Because I didn't want to spend hours doing something that potentially no one was going to buy. And so when I put it out there and I had the first 3 people pay for it, I was like, okay, I think there's a quorum. I think this is something worth developing. And so that's how I went about it. So something that you can consider is that instead of just doing a survey, would you like this, people are probably gonna say yes. And then when you ask them to put the money on the table, it's going to be So if you can find a way to get people to say yes with their wallet, I think you're in for a good start.

And you said you wanted to comment on my targeting aspect. So you want to talk about that?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So what's very interesting is knowing where your audience is. And I love your strategy because it's very targeted. And I did something similar, but I also made mistakes when I was on LinkedIn. On X, I was on Twitter for, for a while, for 6 months, and I was there thinking that I was going to find the clients for my public speaking business. I didn't get a single client. I didn't get a single lead because that was not the right platform for me to find those clients. And so when I changed my strategy, I kind of canceled everything and I said, okay, what do I really need? I need clients for my public speaking business. Where are they? They're on LinkedIn. On Substack, I don't try to find clients for my speaking engagements and workshops because that's not the demographic that is on Substack. And on the other hand, when I'm on Substack, I'm talking to creative entrepreneurs, which is really my audience. So very important to know where your clients are and have this very specific and targeted, um, strategy so that you're not mismatching platform, which is what I did, and it was not a good experience.

You mentioned speaking. So, let's talk a bit about that. So, you write and you have products and you speak. So, tell me a bit more about the story about how you started to get into speaking versus the other things you were doing. And also, people who are— I mean, a lot of people we meet on Substack are writers, but they don't make the jump to speaking. I'm curious, tell us a bit about your journey for speaking, but also why maybe— why are some writers on Substack not Making the jump to speak. I think it's a natural thing you should do, but a lot of them don't want to. So I want to get your take on that.

Sure. So for me, there was a bit of a lightbulb moment when I was doing all my writing and I was developing my publication, but it was taking a while to monetize because you really need to grow that community. And so I started thinking, doing a bit of brainstorming with myself, like, what are some levers that I have in my career that I could definitely use in my business. And I realized that I had all this experience in leading teams, in leadership, in working in startups, small and medium-sized business, big companies, that I wasn't really repurposing. And so I realized, well, if I was already doing this for the companies and they were paying me for it, I'm sure that the open market would be interested in having those leadership skills and those communication skills. In my case, I focus a lot on how to manage multicultural teams because that's what I've for many years. And so that's where, to me, it was this light bulb moment of I have to repurpose the work that I've been doing for 20 years. And that's how I started. I started first speaking on podcasts, interviews, on YouTube. All of that was free. Then I went into chambers of commerce, women networks, and things like that. And then it became an offer. So that was my— the way that, uh, that my trajectory and how my journey I think for many writers, there are so many things that hold them back. And I know because that's partly what I do with my community as well. And a lot of it is the phobia, the fear of stage.

Being judged.

Yes. So that being judged and being put out there and what are people going to say, and I'm not an expert. So there's all of that, which has to do more with the mindset. And there's a second piece that has to do more with the strategy. Is what am I going to talk about? What is my signature topic? What would people be interested in listening to? Because especially if you want to sell to corporate, you have to make that translation of the content that you talk about. How is this going to make sense and be relevant for a company to the point that they want to pay you as a speaker? And so because many writers are more in the B2C space, you have to do this exercise of translating so that it really lands in the corporate world?

You know, it's interesting. So, my story is actually the opposite. So, I started out as a speaker and I was out there speaking and I was traveling around the world. And what happened for me was when I got my first TEDx talk, my entire speaker business took off. Then I got 4 TEDx talks within a couple of years and I was traveling around the world. Now, I've done 5 TEDx talks. But what happened to me was as I was speaking, they said, Bobby, you need to write a book. Oh, okay. And then they said, Bob, you need to have a course. And what I realized that I kept saying in the early days that I'm a speaker. And that was actually the wrong thing. They say, what do you do for a living? I'm a speaker. Actually, what was happening was is that I was an expert in something, an expert in topic X, Y, and Z. And so, what happened was I realized that I'm not a speaker. I'm an expert in these areas. And it manifests itself with speaking, with workshops, with my book, with my courses, with, uh, with, with my writing, everything. And so I had to, I had to adjust that. So I kind of went the opposite direction. And so I first wrote a book from speaking, then I designed my first course, and that's kind of how it shifted for me. The content was also part of it too. I became a content creator as well. And so I kind of went the other way, which was interesting. But yeah, I think that all of you can do that if you have a message for the world. And you're providing value to people who need it, then whether you're writing or whether you're speaking, they go hand in hand. And so, I think that if you're a writer, yes, you can make the leap. I also ran my own speaker mastermind program before the pandemic and I was teaching people how to become paid speakers. And it's not as hard as you think. Oh, it is a bit of a hustle. But I think having a clear brand, having a clear target, and doing the work. Most people get one of those things wrong. They don't have a clear brand. They don't have a clear target. They don't want to do the work. And so, those things kind of get in the way. But I'm glad that you answered the question about that. Now, I know we're nearing the end of our time. So, if anyone has any last-minute questions, you can totally ask that. But I'm going to ask you one more, Veronica, which is, you know, so if you were to start today with zero subscribers, what would you do differently?

I would start obsessing with collaboration. I would start supporting others, engaging, finding people who are a few steps ahead of where I am and trying to see how I can enter their communities, how I can start to build that connection and have those collaborations much earlier on than I did. Because as you mentioned earlier, doing things with someone else in partnership, it really helps you amplify your message, reach new audiences, whether it's a guest post, Whether it's doing a live session with someone else or going on podcasts. So that helps a lot if you're starting from zero, is how am I going to find my buddies so that we can grow together?

I love that. And I think for me, if I were to start over again, I would hire a coach. I think that I spent, I spent many years doing things on my own and just trying to figure— I, I was trying to figure out speaking I was trying to figure out Twitter. I was trying to figure out LinkedIn. I was trying to figure out Instagram. And I did a lot of this stuff for a long time. So, I have my business for the first, like I started in 2007. I didn't hire my first coach for 5 years. And I think that having a coach who has expertise and finding the right coach, there's a lot of bad coaches. You want to find a good coach. But someone has knowledge, is going to champion you, is going to be a brand ambassador for you and to help you focus where you'd spend your time and energy because we can spend a lot of time doing all these things. And they can be very, very time-consuming. So, you want someone to help you give you that focus and that accountability so you can get to where you want to go. I think to me, that's a very, very important thing. And I see Sandra says to you, this is so relevant for me right now. Thanks a lot to both of you. That's great. Thanks, Sandra. Thanks everyone for being here. I appreciate it. Veronica, last thing. Is there anything that we can do? How can we support you? How can we champion you? Let us know a bit more about what we can do to find you and support you.

Sure. Well, I'm going to kind of flip it and say I want to support you. So I invite, I invite everyone to join the Lemon Tree Mindset. What I love doing is really building a community where you don't feel that there's a wall there that is going to hold you back. So I try to give a lot of value to people who join for free, and I have chats and a lot of content that is for free. But I also have the premium community for those who want to go deeper. So you can find me there and we can plant our lemon trees together.

I love that, the plant the lemon trees. That's lovely. Um, so for me, guys, you know, um, I'm doing live streams every week, but one of the things I want to talk about actually is next week I'm hosting an open house in my coaching call. You get 10 minutes with me to share any problem that you're dealing with, and I will help try to solve it, solve some of it for you. Um, if you just DM me if you want to get access to it, because it is a private community. So if you DM me on Substack or on LinkedIn or Instagram, I will respond. It's happening on Monday, October 12th. And then also next week, actually, my next live, my next masterclass actually is going to be with Philip Hoffmeister, who's also on Substack and is a Substack expert. And he's going to talk about how to grow Substack. And he has, I think, 50,000 subscribers and 2,000 paid subscribers. So he's going to talk about in his masterclass how to do that. I put the link in the chat. It's on the TLB Club website if you want to register. It's free if you want to actually— you have to register for it though, but it's free to come by. I encourage you to come check that out. That's on October 15th. And, uh, Veronica, make sure— thank you so much for being here. I love your passion, your energy. It's great to have a shared kind of vibe with people in this community. I think it's really great. Everyone, please go subscribe to the Lemon Tree Mindset. I think you'll have a really, really good time. Feel free to message me and follow my stuff. If you're interested in my paid tier, by all means take a look and see what you're getting extra from just versus the free stuff. And, uh, yeah, I hope you guys will, uh, check it out. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you, Veronica. Thank you, everyone.

Thanks, everybody.

Take care. Have yourself a wonderful, wonderful week, and we'll see you soon.