Debug Information

Processing Details

• VTT File: YAP9610901170.vtt
• Processing Time: September 11, 2025 at 01:22 PM
• Total Chunks: 2
• Transcript Length: 89,807 characters
• Caption Count: 893 captions

Prompts Used

Prompt 1: Context Setup

You are an expert data extractor tasked with analyzing a podcast transcript. 
I will provide you with part 1 of 2 from a podcast transcript. 
I will then ask you to extract different types of information from this content in subsequent messages. Please confirm you have received and understood the transcript content.

Transcript section:
[00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:06.240] Look, adulting can be a challenge, but there is an easy button for at least one item on your to-do list.
[00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:15.280] Our partner, Policy Genius, makes finding and buying life insurance simple to make sure your loved ones have a financial safety net in case something happens to you.
[00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:23.120] With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for a million dollars in coverage.
[00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:27.200] It's an easy way to protect the people you love and feel good about the future.
[00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:36.560] How it works is Policy Genius lets you compare quotes from America's top insurers, complete with coverage amounts, prices, and terms, all in just a few clicks.
[00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:44.160] No games, no guesswork, and with thousands of five-star reviews on Google and TrustPilot from customers who found the best policy fit for their needs.
[00:00:44.160 --> 00:00:48.160] Policy Genius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace.
[00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:50.880] Secure your family's future with Policy Genius.
[00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:57.440] Head to policygenius.com to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save.
[00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:00.000] That's policygenius.com.
[00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.400] And now, onto the show.
[00:01:02.720 --> 00:01:05.680] It's time for some list building tactics that actually work.
[00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:13.360] With all the upheaval in the search results and the fickle nature of social media, you know you need to build your email list, but how do you actually do it?
[00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:25.280] Today, we're taking the guesswork out of it and breaking down some tried and true tactics with a longtime Side Hustle Show listener who's been studying the biggest newsletters and creators in the world to figure out what's working today.
[00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:30.640] From GrowthInReverse.com and the Growth in Reverse podcast, Chanel Basilio.
[00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:32.160] Welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
[00:01:32.160 --> 00:01:33.040] Thanks for having me, Nick.
[00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:33.840] I'm excited to be here.
[00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:34.560] Well, me as well.
[00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:36.160] We've got lots of tactics to get into.
[00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:39.360] And the first one is a really cool one that you shared.
[00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:42.000] It was called the one-click unlock.
[00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:43.120] Tell us about this.
[00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:43.600] Sure.
[00:01:43.600 --> 00:01:48.080] So this comes from Justin Moore, who runs a newsletter called Creator Wizard.
[00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:49.360] He's got an interesting name.
[00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:54.320] His whole ethos is helping creators and influencers get more sponsorships.
[00:01:54.320 --> 00:01:57.120] So he helps them make more money through their brand deals and that kind of thing.
[00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:02.520] His whole newsletter, the entire thing, everything he sends each week is about sponsorship opportunities.
[00:02:02.520 --> 00:02:05.160] So he's essentially giving you free money, if you will.
[00:02:05.160 --> 00:02:07.000] So he'll give you the brand name.
[00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:10.920] We could plug Justin, his little sponsor audit tool is really cool.
[00:02:11.160 --> 00:02:11.800] We can plug that.
[00:02:11.800 --> 00:02:13.560] We can link that up in the show notes too.
[00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:14.120] That's really good.
[00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:14.520] Yeah.
[00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:18.680] He's got a great business, but he essentially gives you away free sponsorship opportunities.
[00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:21.800] But this one-click unlock is essentially his referral program.
[00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:29.480] But it's a little bit deeper than that because in each email, you'll see this like box and it's grayed out and it has like a lock on it.
[00:02:29.480 --> 00:02:33.800] And it says refer one person to get the secret sponsorship research.
[00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:38.440] And so if you refer one person every week in that email, you won't see that box anymore.
[00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:41.400] You'll see the contact info for those brands.
[00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:45.160] You'll see the person's name, some recent brand deals they might have done.
[00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:49.000] So he's essentially giving you just extra information on top of it.
[00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.160] But at the same time, he's getting more referrals.
[00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:54.360] So someone is just sharing his newsletter with other people.
[00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:58.360] And he said he's gotten about 5,000 subscribers just from this one thing.
[00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:03.160] And that's kind of a lot when you're thinking it's just like one extra referral per person.
[00:03:03.160 --> 00:03:10.440] Yeah, it's 5,000 incremental subscribers for a low barrier to like high value, low barrier to entry.
[00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:10.840] Oh, sure.
[00:03:10.840 --> 00:03:13.560] I got, I know somebody else who might benefit from this.
[00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:13.960] Yeah.
[00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:20.360] Do you know how he, like mechanically, how he's getting that done with some conditional content or like it sounds technical?
[00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:23.560] He uses kit for email and he sets it up.
[00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:25.640] There's like a liquid code, I think he can do.
[00:03:25.640 --> 00:03:27.720] So you can set up a tag essentially.
[00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:30.440] And if this person has referred one person, they get tagged.
[00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:32.760] And then every email, it'll show a box.
[00:03:32.760 --> 00:03:36.120] So I think you can actually do this with kits like snippets too.
[00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:40.680] Not sure on that one, but I know you can do it with Liquid and chat GPT can help you write that anymore.
[00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:42.920] You don't even have to know how to code or anything.
[00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:43.320] Okay.
[00:03:43.320 --> 00:03:48.160] But it essentially says, like, if they referred one person, show this extra piece of content.
[00:03:48.160 --> 00:03:55.520] So it's kind of interesting to set up in the beginning, but I think it's well worth it if you're going to end up with 5,000 extra subscribers.
[00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:56.160] Yeah, no kidding.
[00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:56.400] Yeah.
[00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:58.720] We set it up once and then it just kind of runs.
[00:03:58.720 --> 00:04:01.840] And it's, it sounds like it's kind of a constant reminder.
[00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.960] Like if it's in every message or every week, you kind of see it like, okay, I should probably do this.
[00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.000] Does he have multiple tiers or that's just like tier one?
[00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:12.400] He does have multiple tiers, but that's the tier one.
[00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.760] The other ones are like a 30-minute coaching call with someone on his team.
[00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:22.000] And then you can go all the way up to like getting his $1,000 course for free once you get like 100 or so subscribers.
[00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:22.960] So that's a lot.
[00:04:23.200 --> 00:04:23.600] Okay.
[00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:25.840] But yeah, but this is just like constant FOMO.
[00:04:25.840 --> 00:04:29.200] Like every week you're seeing this and you're like, well, he gave me this one piece.
[00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:36.080] All I have to do is refer one person and I get the contact info for this people and like how to reach out to them and makes sense.
[00:04:36.080 --> 00:04:36.400] Okay.
[00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:36.720] Yeah.
[00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:40.560] Versus having it as paid newsletter tier.
[00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.280] We see some people kind of, oh, that's going to be behind the paywall.
[00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:47.200] The free sample is here, but then if you want the rest of the goods, you got to pay.
[00:04:47.200 --> 00:04:49.840] But that's that's a really unique way to do it.
[00:04:49.840 --> 00:04:56.160] Like low, low lift, make it so stupid simple, easy, where it's like, yeah, okay, I can find one person.
[00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:04.160] I don't know if ConvertKit, well, they bought Spark Loop, so they may have this built in at some point or like on the you know, the pro pricing tier.
[00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.680] Our buddy Pete McPherson has built a new tool called List Gadget.
[00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:20.080] That's on my to-do list to start messing around with because he's got the s kind of referral mechanism built in where you could send you you build a leaderboard and do polls, like do all sorts of cool stuff with list gadgets.
[00:05:20.080 --> 00:05:23.040] So that's on my list to play around with.
[00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:23.680] I don't know that one.
[00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:24.640] I'll have to check it out.
[00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:26.400] It's a good guy, though, so I'll check it out.
[00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:34.840] Yeah, he's partnered with Liz from from Liz Wilcox from Survivor Fame to help get that out into the world.
[00:05:35.080 --> 00:05:39.160] Okay, that is a really cool one where just about anybody could add to your list.
[00:05:39.320 --> 00:05:42.360] It kind of answers the question: how can I turn one subscriber into two?
[00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:43.000] How can I make it?
[00:05:43.160 --> 00:05:45.240] easy and beneficial for everybody to do that.
[00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:49.160] And hopefully the people you subscribe or people you refer, they refer the next person.
[00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:51.720] It kind of becomes this virtuous cycle there.
[00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:52.280] Yeah, totally.
[00:05:52.440 --> 00:05:53.480] I think it's pretty simple.
[00:05:53.480 --> 00:06:03.800] Like anyone, if you're creating some piece of content, like just think about what that next step that somebody would need or like the next piece of advice or content that they would be looking for and just give it to them.
[00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:04.200] Yeah.
[00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:11.000] Obviously the famous examples would be, you know, the morning brews and the hustles of the world with like the subscriber referral program.
[00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:17.480] But how do you take a page out of that playbook and make it applicable to your to your niche and to your subscribers and make it a win for them?
[00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:18.440] That's a really cool one.
[00:06:18.440 --> 00:06:18.920] Yeah.
[00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:19.560] What's next?
[00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:23.160] The next one I think we should talk about is just recommendations.
[00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:25.800] So a lot of people are using recommendations at this point.
[00:06:25.960 --> 00:06:31.960] Kit, Substack, Beehive, those platforms all have their own built-in referral recommendation platform.
[00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:34.680] So essentially we can recommend each other through Kit.
[00:06:34.680 --> 00:06:38.600] So if someone signs up, they get a box afterwards that says like, hey, thanks for joining.
[00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:42.200] Here are three other newsletters I really recommend you check out.
[00:06:42.440 --> 00:06:45.080] Now, people can like or not like those.
[00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:53.240] And some I've heard from a lot of smaller creators that they're like, well, you know, I just don't have the big list that people want to partner with and that kind of thing.
[00:06:53.240 --> 00:07:01.440] But I think if you can almost build relationships with those people and not just look at it like a checkbox, like the one guy that I followed and wrote a deep dive on.
[00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:02.160] His name was C.J.
[00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:03.080] Gustafson.
[00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:14.120] And he would actually just ask these creators to get on a phone call, like not expecting them to recommend him afterwards, but he would talk to them for 20, 30 minutes, you know, just talk about like the industry and like newsletters and stuff.
[00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:17.360] And then at the end, he'd be like, hey, do you want to recommend each other on Substack?
[00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:18.880] Like, I'll just go add you right now.
[00:07:18.880 --> 00:07:24.640] And he said the conversion rate was practically 100% because you just built this relationship with people.
[00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:27.200] Yeah, nobody wants to tell you no to your face.
[00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.040] Yeah.
[00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:35.920] But if it makes sense for your audience and like, I don't know, as long as they have the people that you would want on your email list, I think it makes total sense.
[00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:38.560] So I have a couple of questions for this because I saw this.
[00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:44.560] You were implementing this on the Growth in Reverse, and it was you're recommending Jay Klaus and somebody else.
[00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:49.520] And I was like, okay, this is kind of a natural, if you like this, you might also like this.
[00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:51.600] It's like almost like, would you like fries with that?
[00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:53.440] It's like kind of a natural thing.
[00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:55.360] But my couple questions.
[00:07:55.360 --> 00:08:00.080] One is, does it interrupt the kind of logical flow?
[00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:03.120] Like you have somebody who is hot to take action.
[00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:04.240] They just entered in their email.
[00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:06.320] They're feeling excited about that decision.
[00:08:06.320 --> 00:08:17.680] And instead of taking them immediately to the thank you page or the confirmation page or like the logical next step, there's like this intermediate thing that hits them in the face and like, well, who's who's this Jay Klaus guy?
[00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.480] Or like, you know, almost what is it?
[00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:22.320] It's like checked by default.
[00:08:22.320 --> 00:08:28.800] Have you seen any data on that or like the impact on kind of what the next step you want subscribers to take as?
[00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:29.120] Yeah.
[00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:32.000] And that's a great call out because it's not perfect for every situation.
[00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.320] And I have it turned off on some forms.
[00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:36.160] Like I don't have it on every single one.
[00:08:36.640 --> 00:08:40.320] And that's the beauty of it is, well, at least with Kit, you can turn it off on specific forms.
[00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:42.560] Like it doesn't show up every single time someone subscribes.
[00:08:42.560 --> 00:08:42.960] Yeah.
[00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:44.800] But yeah, I only recommend people.
[00:08:44.800 --> 00:08:46.880] I know the content's great because it is.
[00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:51.520] It's like taking a piece of the trust you've just built and giving it to someone else.
[00:08:51.520 --> 00:08:54.800] But on the same token, you're getting that back when they're recommending you.
[00:08:54.800 --> 00:08:55.200] Sure.
[00:08:55.200 --> 00:08:56.960] So, a couple of pointers.
[00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:02.680] If someone subscribes through recommendations, you want to make sure that you have them getting a separate message in your welcome email.
[00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:09.320] So, if Jay sends me a subscriber, I want to make sure people have a different welcome email than just the typical one.
[00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:11.720] So, I'll say, Hey, you might not realize who I am.
[00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:13.240] Jay Klaus recommended me.
[00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:16.920] If you want to unsubscribe, go ahead and do that right here and put it like towards the top.
[00:09:16.920 --> 00:09:17.240] Okay.
[00:09:17.240 --> 00:09:20.520] So, that because naturally, some of those people are going to be lower quality.
[00:09:20.520 --> 00:09:23.720] Maybe they didn't recognize what they were doing by subscribing to the rest of those.
[00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:29.960] So, yeah, you do want to be careful with those, but I think it's a good way to kind of, I don't know, get a couple more people on your list.
[00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:33.080] I've seen good success and have had some really good ones come.
[00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:34.600] Yeah, that was the second question.
[00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:38.520] Like, what's the subscriber quality like if they didn't opt in specifically for you?
[00:09:38.520 --> 00:09:40.840] It was just kind of like an all, you know, an afterthought.
[00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:44.680] And then you showed up in their inbox every day or every week.
[00:09:44.680 --> 00:09:46.360] Like, why am I getting this again?
[00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:47.560] But yeah, calling that out.
[00:09:47.560 --> 00:09:55.480] So, I said, because I started noticing some of these, it was like, you know, from the work at home woman or something, like there were some other recommendations that started coming through.
[00:09:55.480 --> 00:10:02.840] And it was like, oh, yeah, if I'm just dumping these into some generic onboarding, like, I think the default was like nothing, like, no welcome sequence at all.
[00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:04.280] I was like, well, let me fix that.
[00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:08.440] But then it's like, is there a way to customize that based on?
[00:10:08.600 --> 00:10:12.360] I couldn't figure out how to individualize it based on the source.
[00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:15.400] It was just like, hey, I'm so flattered another creator recommended me.
[00:10:15.400 --> 00:10:16.840] That's why you're getting this message.
[00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:19.240] You know, here's a little bit about side oscillation.
[00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:21.560] Yeah, you definitely want to make sure you're setting this up.
[00:10:21.560 --> 00:10:25.160] In the beginning, it was trickier with Kit as they like initially launched it.
[00:10:25.160 --> 00:10:26.440] It was like, what's happening?
[00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:31.080] But now they've kind of like refined the process and you can set up a separate welcome sequence.
[00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:37.480] I think it's a different tag or form that they're subscribed to, and you can send them down a different path with automations and that kind of thing.
[00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:41.640] So, again, something to set up, but once you do, it's kind of like plug and play.
[00:10:41.640 --> 00:10:46.080] Yes, these are lower quality subscribers because some people don't understand what they're doing.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.240] However, I have seen a lot of really good subscribers come from this, so I think it's worth it.
[00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:55.600] I know for myself, I've added probably 10,000 or so subscribers from recommendations.
[00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:57.920] So, okay, yeah, it's it's worked out really well.
[00:10:57.920 --> 00:11:00.880] Now, all of those haven't stuck around, but yes, that's great.
[00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:03.600] I remember joking with uh with Nathan Berry when they announced this.
[00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:05.680] It's like, you know, everything old is new again, right?
[00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:10.480] So, you see, like these co-registration forms like from 20 years ago on the internet, that was the first part.
[00:11:10.640 --> 00:11:15.920] The second part was like, How genius is this for a company that charges you based on the number of subscribers you have?
[00:11:15.920 --> 00:11:21.600] Like, oh, if we could lift everybody up, oh, sure, you know, we're doing great by the creator, you know, the creator economy, we're supporting.
[00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:24.720] Oh, but meanwhile, like, oh, there's a little ulterior motive here.
[00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:28.320] Totally, it's a cool tool, and it's um, it's good for them too.
[00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:35.280] Yeah, that's a fun one to uh crack jokes on, but yeah, it's a it's good and bad on either side.
[00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:47.840] More with Chanel in just a moment, including how one creator earned $1.2 million from a simple Google Doc and a genius strategy for getting paid to write content for other companies coming up right after this.
[00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:50.880] I'm excited to partner with OpenPhone for this episode.
[00:11:50.880 --> 00:12:00.320] OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communication for both calls and texts, all in one easy-to-use centralized hub.
[00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:05.200] But before OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach.
[00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:06.800] You probably don't remember this.
[00:12:06.800 --> 00:12:14.000] This is a while back, but when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our first customers is through Facebook groups.
[00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:17.040] And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:31.960] Thank you for not kicking me out, but I posted a couple of times, and I actually remember seeing there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problems we solve, which is not using your personal phone number for work.
[00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:35.720] And those posts got us some of our first customers.
[00:12:29.760 --> 00:12:36.280] So thank you.
[00:12:36.520 --> 00:12:38.200] It's a full circle moment.
[00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:39.240] Oh, that's super fun.
[00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:39.960] Very cool.
[00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:42.120] That's Doreena, the co-founder of Open Phone.
[00:12:42.120 --> 00:12:44.360] And sure enough, her posts are still there.
[00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:50.600] OpenPhone is offering Side Hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:55.960] That's O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E openphone.com slash sidehustle.
[00:12:55.960 --> 00:13:01.000] And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge.
[00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:12.200] You know, when you're shopping online and you see that little purple shop pay button at checkout, that's a sign that the store you're on is one of the millions of businesses powered by our partner, Shopify.
[00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:15.720] Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business.
[00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:18.040] For starters, you don't even have to start from scratch.
[00:13:18.040 --> 00:13:26.360] They've got hundreds of beautiful, ready-to-go, proven-to-convert templates that you can adapt to your brand's style without needing to know how to code.
[00:13:26.360 --> 00:13:34.440] You can tackle all your most important tasks in one place from managing your inventory to tracking payments to analytics and more.
[00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:42.040] Plus, Shopify helps you make sales with built-in marketing and email tools to go out and find new customers and keep the ones you've got.
[00:13:42.040 --> 00:13:46.920] If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time to head over to Shopify.
[00:13:46.920 --> 00:13:53.480] Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.840] Go to shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:13:56.840 --> 00:14:00.440] Shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:09.800] I've got one that I'll add to the mix that has added probably 5,000 to 7,000 subscribers over the course of the last several years.
[00:14:09.800 --> 00:14:14.720] And that is a Facebook group to email list integration.
[00:14:14.360 --> 00:14:16.800] And I'm using a tool called Group Leads for it.
[00:14:16.880 --> 00:14:24.480] It's like this really low-cost browser extension that, you know, you can ask people questions when they join your group.
[00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:30.240] I think I ask questions like, what's your biggest side hustle struggle or what side hustles are you working on right now?
[00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:32.160] Or do you have, have you started anything yet?
[00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:37.120] Some kind of those types of generic fact-finding questions that can help guide future content.
[00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:41.920] And then also, hey, if you want our best side hustle tips, you know, enter your email here.
[00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:43.760] And a lot of people do that.
[00:14:43.760 --> 00:14:49.120] And then Group Leads sends it directly into Kit and it gets, again, a specific welcome sequence.
[00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:50.560] Some people are already on the email list.
[00:14:50.560 --> 00:14:52.400] And so it sends them a different message.
[00:14:52.400 --> 00:14:53.680] Hey, great to see you again.
[00:14:53.680 --> 00:14:55.120] Thanks for joining the Facebook group.
[00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:58.000] For other people, it's like, hey, you know, welcome to Side Hustle Nation.
[00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:00.000] Hey, the Facebook group is just the tip of the iceberg.
[00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:01.280] Here's all the other stuff we got.
[00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:12.800] And so that's been a really, really powerful kind of incremental addition because what we found, you know, early on, the Facebook group was very much like podcast listeners, like, you know, the core of the audience.
[00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:20.800] But over time, it started, you know, Facebook started recommending that group to people it thought were interested in side hustles and started to grow a lot organically.
[00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:23.600] It's like, oh, I need to do a better job of capturing those people.
[00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:24.560] I love this one.
[00:15:24.560 --> 00:15:25.920] It's like, it's so obvious.
[00:15:25.920 --> 00:15:34.640] And I have been the person to go, not recently, but over years ago, to go to Facebook, search for a specific topic and then join a group or find other people there.
[00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:36.560] So I think that's, it's awesome.
[00:15:36.560 --> 00:15:38.000] It's such a good one.
[00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:39.600] This has been like top of the funnel.
[00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:43.280] Like we had Abby Ashley on the show with her like virtual assistant training business.
[00:15:43.520 --> 00:15:46.880] She runs one of the biggest virtual assistant groups on Facebook.
[00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:49.120] And that was like a top of the funnel entry point.
[00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:54.240] You know, enter your email and we'll send you the free masterclass on how to get started, how to find your first clients.
[00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:55.920] And really, really effective.
[00:15:55.920 --> 00:16:00.920] And I think we've seen people do it in like Microgreens farming.
[00:16:00.920 --> 00:16:02.360] And there was another one.
[00:15:59.760 --> 00:16:06.520] Some guy was like doing a pet waste removal, like training type of thing.
[00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:09.560] It's like, you know, no matter your niche, there's a group about it.
[00:16:09.560 --> 00:16:16.440] And if there's not a group, you should start one because it's a powerful, powerful place where a lot of people are still spending some time.
[00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:17.400] Amazing.
[00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:18.200] I love that one.
[00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:20.520] I wish I could figure out a way to make that happen for me.
[00:16:20.520 --> 00:16:21.240] Maybe I will.
[00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:22.040] Newsletters.
[00:16:22.040 --> 00:16:24.440] Yeah, the email growth hacker newsletter email.
[00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:25.880] Yeah, there's got to be something like that.
[00:16:25.880 --> 00:16:26.520] It's got to be.
[00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:27.080] I love it.
[00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:27.320] All right.
[00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:27.960] What else you got?
[00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:28.200] All right.
[00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:35.240] I think the next one, so Ali Richards has been somebody I just keep being excited about because he does all these cool things.
[00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:44.840] But he started a business called story learning and he was helping people learn different languages, like moving abroad, you're going to teach English as a second language, that kind of thing.
[00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:47.400] He turned that into a $10 million business.
[00:16:47.400 --> 00:16:52.120] And he now is like, I want to do something different and I want to start a personal brand.
[00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:56.680] So he was like, okay, how can I get people on my email list for this personal brand?
[00:16:56.680 --> 00:16:59.320] He couldn't just like promote it to his language learning list.
[00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:00.680] It's not the same audience.
[00:17:00.680 --> 00:17:06.120] So he decided he was going to put everything he learned from building that business into a Google Doc.
[00:17:06.120 --> 00:17:09.400] And it ended up being 118 pages long.
[00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:11.080] And so he's like, okay, cool.
[00:17:11.080 --> 00:17:12.760] Google Doc, 118 pages.
[00:17:12.760 --> 00:17:14.200] He's just giving it all away.
[00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:19.720] So anyone looking to create like an online course business or anything like that, they would be super interested in this.
[00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:24.120] And so he shared that and he just started promoting it in other newsletters.
[00:17:24.120 --> 00:17:27.080] So he would buy sponsorship placements and that kind of thing.
[00:17:27.080 --> 00:17:34.680] But from my end, in the newsletter space, I saw every person who wrote a newsletter about newsletters was sharing this thing like wildfire.
[00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:39.000] Like every day, I'd open an email and be like, check out the Google Doc from Ollie Richards.
[00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:40.360] And I'm like, oh my gosh.
[00:17:40.360 --> 00:17:45.680] And the cool part was, like, yeah, he asked for email if you went to his website to sign up and get it.
[00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:48.000] But most people were just sharing this Google Doc around.
[00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:49.200] And he's like, that's awesome.
[00:17:44.840 --> 00:17:51.120] Like, I don't need to capture every single email.
[00:17:51.360 --> 00:17:53.360] Yeah, like no opt-in required.
[00:17:53.360 --> 00:17:54.000] Totally.
[00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:54.480] Okay.
[00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:59.200] And so he ended up getting like 18,000 subscribers from this thing.
[00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:02.320] And they're high quality, like super high quality.
[00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:11.840] Even though it wasn't a requirement and people just consumed it and they were like, well, if he's given this much away for free, if he's giving me 118 pages for free, what's he sending out an email?
[00:18:11.840 --> 00:18:12.480] Right.
[00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:19.520] And so throughout the Google Doc, of course, there were like ways to opt into the email list if you hadn't been on there already.
[00:18:19.520 --> 00:18:30.240] But in the last two-ish years from starting this Google Doc, he's earned $1.2 million from, he runs like these pretty cheap workshops, like $100 to $400.
[00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.280] And then on the back end of that, he'll have like coaching as well.
[00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:34.720] I just thought this was fascinating.
[00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:41.200] Like 18,000 subscribers from a Google Doc, just sharing your information and your expertise.
[00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:44.400] Do you think it worked just because of the novelty factor?
[00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:45.760] Whereas, who does that?
[00:18:45.760 --> 00:18:46.480] Nobody.
[00:18:47.040 --> 00:18:47.360] Totally.
[00:18:47.360 --> 00:18:52.720] He said the only money he spent on it was $10 on Fiverr to get a cover for it made.
[00:18:53.040 --> 00:18:56.800] And arguably, if you look at the cover, you'd be like, you probably could have done that yourself.
[00:18:57.600 --> 00:18:58.000] Okay.
[00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:04.240] And then getting the flywheel spinning by buying some placements or buying some swaps or newsletter ads in other newsletters.
[00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:04.560] Yeah.
[00:19:04.560 --> 00:19:06.560] And so he had these workshops on the back end.
[00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:11.920] So if somebody bought through the workshop, he threw all that money back into buying more ads.
[00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:18.640] So he used Spark Loop, which is kind of like a paid recommendation, as well as newsletter ads, just in a typical email issue.
[00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:20.480] So he created like this little flywheel.
[00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:25.280] Like if any money he made, he went back into ads and it just kept growing the email list.
[00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:25.520] Okay.
[00:19:25.520 --> 00:19:28.800] I've got another one that kind of piggybacks on that.
[00:19:28.800 --> 00:19:38.440] And I call it the perma-free on Amazon strategy or perma-free on Kindle strategy, where there's, I've got a book, it's sidehustle nation.com/slash book.
[00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:45.400] Perma-free, I think might have to be United States only, but this was last updated 2019, so it's due for a refresh.
[00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:50.280] But this is three different side hustle frameworks, right?
[00:19:50.280 --> 00:19:55.160] You could sell a product business, you have to start a service business, or have like a content type of business, right?
[00:19:55.160 --> 00:19:57.480] And this gives a bunch of examples of that.
[00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:03.080] And it's kind of like, if somebody's searching on Amazon for Side Hustle, the goal would be, hey, you go find this book.
[00:20:03.080 --> 00:20:07.080] And in the book, as I have in probably all my books, is some sort of lead magnet.
[00:20:07.080 --> 00:20:19.480] I forget what it is specifically for this one, but over the course of 10 plus years publishing on Amazon, you know, it's thousands of subscribers who either buy the book and then get the upgrade, which you see in almost any nonfiction book.
[00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:21.400] It's like, hey, you want the toolkit, the resources?
[00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:23.800] I'll go over here and download that.
[00:20:23.800 --> 00:20:27.480] Or get the free video companion series, like super, super common strategy.
[00:20:27.480 --> 00:20:31.800] What poured fuel on the fire was reducing the friction and just like making it perma-free.
[00:20:31.800 --> 00:20:38.840] And I don't know if this is still the case on Amazon, but you had to list it on another marketplace and then email them to request a price match.
[00:20:38.840 --> 00:20:46.040] And so you had to upload it somewhere else for free because it's like 0.00 was like not a, not a price that was allowed in their system.
[00:20:46.040 --> 00:20:48.760] But through customer support, they would allow you to do it.
[00:20:48.760 --> 00:20:51.720] And that's been a powerful lead gen for me.
[00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:52.280] Wow.
[00:20:52.280 --> 00:20:57.480] So the other platforms, you uploaded it for free, like Everan.com or whatever that's called?
[00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:05.400] Yeah, maybe Smashwords or iBooks or someplace, someplace else, or maybe it was like the Google Play Store.
[00:21:06.760 --> 00:21:11.480] And then you just like screenshot that or you know, or save the URL, and then say, hey, could you price match this?
[00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:12.440] It's free over here.
[00:21:12.840 --> 00:21:24.480] And then as long as you don't touch it, and that's like one of the hesitations in updating it, I'd love to keep all of the reviews for the book and just push a new version out underneath that same listing.
[00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:28.560] But then you have to go through that repricing process again.
[00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:29.920] And there's no guarantee they'll do it.
[00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:33.120] But it's done for the first few iterations.
[00:21:33.120 --> 00:21:33.760] Oh, wow.
[00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:34.480] That's pretty cool.
[00:21:34.800 --> 00:21:35.520] I like that one.
[00:21:35.520 --> 00:21:40.240] I pulled it from the fiction world where it's like, you know, the first book in the series is free.
[00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:41.840] Hopefully it's good enough to get you hooked.
[00:21:41.840 --> 00:21:52.000] And then you go on and buy the rest of the series or you opt in for a special bonus or get notified when the next book of the series comes out and taking a page out of the fiction author playbook.
[00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:52.720] Oh, I love that.
[00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:54.240] I might have to try something like that.
[00:21:54.240 --> 00:22:05.760] Yeah, especially if you've got years and years of content that could be repackaged into a 118-page Google document or could be repackaged into a Kindle book with probably a similar strategy.
[00:22:05.760 --> 00:22:06.320] I like it.
[00:22:06.320 --> 00:22:07.120] It's a good one.
[00:22:07.120 --> 00:22:07.520] All right.
[00:22:07.520 --> 00:22:07.840] All right.
[00:22:07.840 --> 00:22:10.080] Let's go to CJ Gustafson.
[00:22:10.080 --> 00:22:12.880] This is my favorite one recently of the last like four months.
[00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:14.160] I can't stop thinking about it.
[00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:16.240] So he writes a newsletter called Mostly Metrics.
[00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:19.040] He's a CFO, like financial nerdy guy.
[00:22:19.040 --> 00:22:20.240] His content is awesome, though.
[00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:23.280] He includes like gifts and just like a ton of personality.
[00:22:23.280 --> 00:22:30.400] But what he did was he was trying to look for sponsorships, but he started out, he would go to these software companies in the financial space.
[00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:32.880] So like a Brex or that kind of thing.
[00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:37.600] And he was like, hey, do you guys, like, you don't have any content around this one topic?
[00:22:37.600 --> 00:22:40.560] Like, would love to share a piece with your audience.
[00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:47.280] And so it started off free, but he got a guest post on Brex.com, which I mean, the traffic from that alone is probably amazing.
[00:22:47.280 --> 00:22:57.920] The backlink for SEO purposes, which RIP, but anyway, so it lives there in perpetuity, but it also gets, they started sharing these out to their email list.
[00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:00.000] So these companies are like dying for content.
[00:23:00.280 --> 00:23:07.960] They want someone else who's not their content person to share some exciting news about their organization or why the product's so good.
[00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:13.080] And so CJ coming in as an outsider, sharing about their product was just like a no-brainer.
[00:23:13.080 --> 00:23:18.040] So now he gets paid like six to $12K for a package of like three to four of these posts.
[00:23:18.040 --> 00:23:19.480] Oh, actually, he's getting paid to write them.
[00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:20.520] Getting paid now.
[00:23:20.520 --> 00:23:20.920] Yeah.
[00:23:20.920 --> 00:23:21.400] Wow.
[00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:24.360] Most commonly is you see the inbound.
[00:23:24.360 --> 00:23:25.800] How much is it going to cost for a link?
[00:23:25.800 --> 00:23:26.520] That's great.
[00:23:26.520 --> 00:23:27.000] Okay.
[00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:27.640] Totally.
[00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:29.160] So he's getting paid for these.
[00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:35.640] He doesn't have to write an extra word because they're actually just taking a piece he's already written and sent to his email list.
[00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:38.280] So it's just like an aggregation play.
[00:23:38.280 --> 00:23:39.000] He's getting paid.
[00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:40.280] He doesn't have to write a word.
[00:23:40.280 --> 00:23:48.440] And he's getting subscribers from this because at the bottom of the email or the piece, it says this originally appeared on mostlymetrics.com.
[00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:51.160] And so people click through, they subscribe.
[00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:57.240] And then the best part of this whole thing is he has a paid newsletter and some of those people subscribe and become paying clients.
[00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:00.120] So he's like getting paid twice for some of these.
[00:24:00.120 --> 00:24:00.440] Okay.
[00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:06.920] So it is kind of like a customer use case scenario that you're pitching to that company.
[00:24:07.320 --> 00:24:08.200] Did I hear that right?
[00:24:08.200 --> 00:24:09.320] I think that's how it started out.
[00:24:09.320 --> 00:24:13.720] But now he's just writing content for CFOs and he talks about Brex sometimes.
[00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:16.680] Like he'll link to it, like, hey, you can use Brex for this one thing.
[00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:19.800] But it's not, it's no longer just like a review of the company.
[00:24:19.800 --> 00:24:27.560] Like it's just him, a random CFO, talking about this company or certain topics that their readers are interested in.
[00:24:27.560 --> 00:24:28.200] I don't know.
[00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:29.640] He's just like killing it with this.
[00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:32.920] It's almost like creating a separate blog for these organizations.
[00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:33.240] Okay.
[00:24:33.240 --> 00:24:38.600] So they have some hunger for content that wasn't produced by their internal team.
[00:24:38.600 --> 00:24:40.040] Or maybe it saves them money.
[00:24:40.120 --> 00:24:41.560] It's like, sure, we'll pay you 500 bucks.
[00:24:41.560 --> 00:24:44.120] It's cheaper than paying somebody in-house to create this.
[00:24:44.120 --> 00:24:49.120] And they get the content that was already repurposed.
[00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:50.160] So he reaches a new audience.
[00:24:50.320 --> 00:24:54.560] And then a certain percentage of those people are in his world now.
[00:24:54.560 --> 00:24:55.920] And they come back to the email list.
[00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:57.680] They come back to the paid subscriber tier.
[00:24:57.680 --> 00:24:58.080] Yeah.
[00:24:58.080 --> 00:24:59.840] I mean, you think of even like Kit.
[00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:06.080] They have creator series where a lot of their content is just like pulled from these stories about different creators.
[00:25:06.080 --> 00:25:13.040] Because I mean, people who are reading their email list don't want to hear from their creator person just like, hey, Kit's great.
[00:25:13.040 --> 00:25:13.760] This is awesome.
[00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:17.360] It's more like, hey, Jay Klaus has this newsletter and here's how he grew it on Kit.
[00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:19.760] And it like shares valuable information.
[00:25:19.760 --> 00:25:20.560] So I don't know.
[00:25:20.560 --> 00:25:22.640] I've seen other people do something similar.
[00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:25.120] Caitlin Burgoyne does like webinars.
[00:25:25.120 --> 00:25:28.160] So she'll do a training for companies.
[00:25:28.160 --> 00:25:31.120] And so that software company has an audience.
[00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:36.000] They're showcasing her as like an expert on this thing and their audience is getting value from her.
[00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:39.040] So it's like making them look like an awesome company.
[00:25:39.040 --> 00:25:59.440] Yeah, that's a whole nother strategy that we could probably talk about is this virtual workshops, targeting the companies that you have a good feeling like your avatar, your target customer, your target client is already paying attention to, doing business with, and doesn't even have to like webinars have been maybe given a bad taste in people's mouth.
[00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:00.800] Like, well, I know there's a pitch coming.
[00:26:00.800 --> 00:26:02.080] There don't even have to be a pitch here.
[00:26:02.080 --> 00:26:04.320] If the goal is just to grow your audience, grow your email list.
[00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:09.280] We had Dustin Lean on the show, and this was like one of my favorite strategies of all time.
[00:26:09.280 --> 00:26:16.400] He was targeting, he was like, had such a niche service like email copywriting for direct-to-consumer brands or something like that.
[00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:24.400] And so he would go to Shopify, go to Clavio, or go to companies that his target customers were already doing business with.
[00:26:24.400 --> 00:26:33.000] And kind of like, hey, I'd love to host this free educational workshop on how to rewrite your cart abandonment sequence, like something really, really specific and niche.
[00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:34.760] And it's like, I'm going to teach you the DIY version.
[00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.680] But a lot of the attendees are busy CEOs or marketing directors.
[00:26:38.840 --> 00:26:40.920] Like, could we just pay you to do this?
[00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:46.040] Like, there was no specific pitch or ask or, you know, sign up here to book a consultation call.
[00:26:46.040 --> 00:26:50.920] Just by virtue of skipping the line, like they've kind of vouched for you as the expert.
[00:26:50.920 --> 00:26:57.320] Just it was a really cool shortcut strategy to get in front of segment large groups of your target customer in a hurry.
[00:26:57.320 --> 00:26:57.720] Yeah.
[00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:01.160] And all right, let's give people like a normal example because these are all business ones.
[00:27:01.160 --> 00:27:04.680] So I'm just thinking, you were mentioning the microgreens farmer guy, right?
[00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:07.960] So he could go to a company like Bootstrap Farmer.
[00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:11.880] They sell these seed trays that you actually can grow microgreens in.
[00:27:11.880 --> 00:27:19.160] He can go to them and say, hey, I want to share my 10 biggest mistakes of growing microgreens or something for beginners.
[00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:22.040] And like at the bottom, they sign up for his email list.
[00:27:22.280 --> 00:27:25.160] And so it doesn't have to be like a business-oriented thing.
[00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:27.720] It could be, I don't know, growing microgreens.
[00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:29.880] Like, how much more B2C does that get?
[00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:30.440] Yeah, that's great.
[00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:34.520] But like, kind of that same question: well, who are my target customers already doing business with?
[00:27:34.520 --> 00:27:36.440] Like, who would benefit from my newsletter?
[00:27:36.440 --> 00:27:40.760] And where can I get in front of big chunks of them all at once?
[00:27:40.760 --> 00:27:49.480] And it's really interesting when both the virtual workshops and the paid guest posts getting paid to create content for other companies.
[00:27:49.560 --> 00:27:54.920] I'm just like, my mind is spinning on, well, who else could I go and pitch this to?
[00:27:54.920 --> 00:28:04.560] One that is in a similar vein is this is from years ago, would be like the virtual summit strategy, which full caveat, like this is a ton of work to put together.
[00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:10.200] Pre-record a bunch of videos, and I'm going to drip them out over this like live three-day virtual event.
[00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:13.720] And the goal is everybody you recorded videos with promotes it to their audience.
[00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:18.320] It's the three-day brand building summit, it's the three-day build-your-freelance business summit.
[00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:29.840] And super, super effective if you can get this where I mean, we talked to Chandler Bolt, like booked some obscene, like probably a million dollars in sales, like from you know, the self-publishing summit back in the day.
[00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:36.560] But one thing that you can do is reach out to companies that might also want to reach this audience.
[00:28:36.560 --> 00:28:40.400] Somebody had the example of like the freelancer summit, like grow your freelancing business.
[00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:44.000] Hey, fresh books, would you mind sponsoring our event?
[00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:45.360] You can be the title sponsor.
[00:28:45.360 --> 00:28:47.200] I don't even know if they charged for it.
[00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:52.720] Maybe they could have, but the price of admission was invite your email list, invite your own customer base to it.
[00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:55.040] And all of a sudden, boom, 20,000 registrations.
[00:28:55.040 --> 00:28:56.560] It was like, oh, this is great.
[00:28:56.560 --> 00:29:00.800] So I'm trying to sell sponsorships or even free sponsorships to the virtual summit.
[00:29:00.800 --> 00:29:06.480] So done right can be absolutely effective, but you're going to be dedicating some time to pulling this off.
[00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:10.320] This reminds me of what I just went through with the 30 days of growth.
[00:29:10.320 --> 00:29:12.640] It was like not a summit, but similar.
[00:29:12.800 --> 00:29:17.520] It's still coordinating with 30 different people, but you didn't have to do like a live video or anything.
[00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:18.480] So that was interesting.
[00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:19.600] That was a good one.
[00:29:19.600 --> 00:29:27.200] I think that's actually something that can be replicated for quite a few people and netted out like 1,750 new subscribers for me in the last 30 days.
[00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:28.160] So I'll take that.
[00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:28.640] Yeah.
[00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:31.360] And you called it like a, you called it like a pop-up newsletter.
[00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:32.560] Pop-up newsletter, yeah.
[00:29:32.560 --> 00:29:44.080] It's similar to a summit in certain ways, but essentially I went out, found 30 different creators, including Nick, and I was like, hey, you want to share one growth tactic you've used to grow your email list?
[00:29:44.080 --> 00:29:45.920] A lot of them I already knew ahead of time.
[00:29:45.920 --> 00:29:47.920] Like I had figured out like what they had done.
[00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:49.600] And I was like, Do you want to share this one tactic?
[00:29:49.600 --> 00:29:52.880] And then, so everybody got one of those tips every day for 30 days.
[00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:53.520] And now it's over.
[00:29:53.520 --> 00:30:01.880] So it's not like I have to keep writing this daily newsletter every day, but it's a heck of a lead magnet I have now of like, here's 30, 30 tips to grow your newsletter.
[00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:02.360] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:02.520 --> 00:30:07.480] And everybody who is featured shares it with their audience as a little snippet, as a little blurb.
[00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:09.640] Hey, make sure you go check out the 30 days of growth.
[00:30:09.640 --> 00:30:10.040] Okay.
[00:30:10.040 --> 00:30:10.360] Yeah.
[00:30:10.360 --> 00:30:17.720] And I did have some software tools giving away free licenses, but I did not do the smart thing of being like, can you share this with your email list?
[00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:19.160] I should have done that.
[00:30:19.480 --> 00:30:21.160] That was a missed opportunity there.
[00:30:21.160 --> 00:30:27.240] It's taking the, you know, the old vertical Roundup style post and just making it horizontal.
[00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:33.000] We're going to drip this out instead of, say, you know, 30 creators on their number one marketing tip.
[00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:33.480] Okay.
[00:30:33.480 --> 00:30:43.320] We can have that same content and that same amount of outreach and back and forth, but just structured in a different way and kind of have a similar promotion engine where everybody kind of bands together to share it.
[00:30:43.320 --> 00:30:44.360] Yeah, I like that.
[00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:45.000] Totally.
[00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:48.360] That vertical thing used to work really well, but I think it's a little tired now.
[00:30:48.360 --> 00:30:48.840] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:49.160 --> 00:31:00.920] More with Chanel in just a moment, including the simple LinkedIn post that generated 650 new subscribers in just two posts and why bundle sales might be your secret weapon for growing your list right after this.
[00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:07.480] With our partner, Mint Mobile, you can get the wireless coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money.
[00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:09.800] I think that's a win we could all use right about now.
[00:31:09.800 --> 00:31:11.400] And you can keep your same phone number.
[00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:20.200] Plus, for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering Side Hustle Show listeners three months of unlimited premium wireless service for just 15 bucks a month.
[00:31:20.200 --> 00:31:27.240] All Mint plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.
[00:31:27.240 --> 00:31:30.440] I've been a customer since 2019 and haven't looked back.
[00:31:30.440 --> 00:31:33.400] This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank.
[00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:42.680] Get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month at mintmobile.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:46.400] That's mintmobile.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:50.160] Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 per month.
[00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:53.840] Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only.
[00:31:53.840 --> 00:31:57.600] Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
[00:31:57.600 --> 00:31:59.200] Taxes and fees extra.
[00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:02.000] See Mint Mobile for details.
[00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:04.480] Years ago, this is probably 2009.
[00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:13.680] I'm sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara, and the presenter asks this question: Are you working on your business or are you working in your business?
[00:32:13.680 --> 00:32:21.440] I saw myself as this full-time entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that, no, I was still very much working in the business day to day.
[00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:24.800] So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full-time hire.
[00:32:24.800 --> 00:32:34.880] It was the first in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go of certain tasks.
[00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:41.680] Now, when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need our sponsor, Indeed.
[00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:45.840] Plus, Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast.
[00:32:45.840 --> 00:32:50.800] There's no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, and you only pay for results.
[00:32:50.800 --> 00:32:53.920] That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed.
[00:32:53.920 --> 00:33:02.880] Side Hustle Show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/slash sidehustle show.
[00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:10.640] Just go to indeed.com/slash sidehustle show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
[00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:13.520] Indeed.com/slash sidehustle show.
[00:33:13.520 --> 00:33:15.120] Terms and conditions apply.
[00:33:15.120 --> 00:33:17.760] Hiring, indeed, is all you need.
[00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:19.040] These are awesome.
[00:33:19.040 --> 00:33:20.080] I've taken a ton of notes.
[00:33:20.080 --> 00:33:22.160] These are going to get some good ideas from this.
[00:33:22.320 --> 00:33:22.800] What else?
[00:33:23.040 --> 00:33:24.240] Anything else on the list?
[00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:25.200] Yeah, I like the one.
[00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:28.640] It's a little more simple instead of like 30 days of content.
[00:33:28.640 --> 00:33:34.920] So, Tom Orbach, who runs marketingideas.com, marketing ideas newsletter, but he knows his marketing stuff.
[00:33:35.080 --> 00:33:37.640] So, on LinkedIn, he just wrote, drop your website URL below.
[00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:40.120] I'll reply with a specific growth hack for your company.
[00:33:40.120 --> 00:33:41.640] First come, first serve.
[00:33:41.640 --> 00:33:47.720] And then within this, so he's giving people like custom like ideas for growth for their companies.
[00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:51.480] And then underneath each one that he replies to, he'll give them the idea.
[00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:56.440] And then he'll say, if you enjoyed this, I share a bunch of tips like this over at marketingideas.com.
[00:33:56.440 --> 00:34:00.440] He said that LinkedIn post got him 250 new subscribers.
[00:34:00.440 --> 00:34:03.320] And when he did it on Substack, it got him 400 subscribers.
[00:34:03.320 --> 00:34:03.800] Wow.
[00:34:03.800 --> 00:34:07.960] So yeah, 650 just from two posts and sharing some time.
[00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:13.320] The brilliance of this, though, is like he can take some of these ideas and expand on them in his newsletter.
[00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:17.000] So it's like not even just a one-time use case.
[00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:21.400] Yeah, it feels like I'm giving my time, but I'm also getting future content out of this deal.
[00:34:21.400 --> 00:34:21.800] Yeah.
[00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:26.280] And he said a lot of the people who joined the newsletter actually weren't even commenting.
[00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:32.680] They just saw all of the value he was providing and were like, okay, I'm going to sign up for this guy's newsletter because he clearly knows what he's talking about.
[00:34:32.680 --> 00:34:33.320] What do you think?
[00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:43.160] Like, if you don't have much of a following on LinkedIn, if you don't have much of a following on Substack or X, and you post the stuff, hey, you know, first 10 people, it's like crickets.
[00:34:43.160 --> 00:34:46.600] You're like, well, now this is awkward because now nobody even commented.
[00:34:46.600 --> 00:34:47.160] Yeah.
[00:34:47.160 --> 00:34:51.320] Well, you could always delete it if you don't get comments within the first 30 minutes or something.
[00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:53.480] But I mean, you could also like seed it with a friend.
[00:34:53.480 --> 00:34:57.000] I could be like, hey, Nick, can you go comment on this thing so I can at least start sharing?
[00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:00.520] And then as people see the comments, they'll probably share their own URL.
[00:35:00.520 --> 00:35:00.760] Okay.
[00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:01.720] So, what do you call this one?
[00:35:01.720 --> 00:35:07.480] Kind of like almost a social proof giveaway type of thing, like, oh, you know, office hours type of thing.
[00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:07.880] Yeah.
[00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:09.880] You could do it as an ask me anything too.
[00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:12.280] And this works for practically any industry.
[00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:19.760] So, if we continue with the microgreens example, it's like, give me your biggest issue with microgreens or what's a recent issue you've encountered.
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:21.760] Like, maybe they were overwatered or something.
[00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:25.520] It might not work on LinkedIn, but somewhere else, like a forum or something.
[00:35:25.520 --> 00:35:25.840] Yeah.
[00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:29.440] And if the first one doesn't work, don't get discouraged.
[00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:34.720] I remember this was from talking with Dickie Bush years ago when he was first getting started on Twitter.
[00:35:34.720 --> 00:35:36.080] And he put something out.
[00:35:36.080 --> 00:35:37.440] It was like, I wrote a thread.
[00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:38.480] I forget his cadence.
[00:35:38.480 --> 00:35:40.480] It was either every day or every week.
[00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:51.360] And nine of those over the course of the year, nine of those ended up going viral and getting him at his 100,000 subscribers or whatever his number was that turned into ship 30 for 30.
[00:35:51.360 --> 00:35:54.400] Like this whole business built on the back of building that following.
[00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:57.200] But it was like most of them didn't do anything.
[00:35:57.200 --> 00:35:58.560] Most of them didn't hit.
[00:35:58.560 --> 00:36:02.160] And his line was like, it's the ultimate, you know, idea proving ground.
[00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:06.480] It's like, if it doesn't resonate in the first little bit, like the algorithm is just going to bury it.
[00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.480] You're like, well, now, you know, back to the drawing board.
[00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:10.240] That wasn't the right, that wasn't the right hook.
[00:36:10.240 --> 00:36:11.440] That wasn't the right idea.
[00:36:11.440 --> 00:36:13.040] And you kind of refine this process.
[00:36:13.040 --> 00:36:22.080] I don't know if the hit rate improved over time, but it's almost this numbers game of, you know, don't get discouraged if your first two posts don't deliver the results you want.
[00:36:22.080 --> 00:36:28.480] Like it's kind of a game of iteration and trying to find the right thing that does hit and that does take off.
[00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:28.640] Yeah.
[00:36:28.640 --> 00:36:31.600] I think he posted online like every day for nine months.
[00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:35.040] He got to like 2,000 followers after nine months.
[00:36:35.040 --> 00:36:36.160] Like most people would have quit.
[00:36:36.160 --> 00:36:37.440] Yeah, it's kind of discouraging.
[00:36:37.600 --> 00:36:41.680] But then you see his trajectory now and you're like, whoa, it's so cool that he didn't quit.
[00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:41.920] Yeah.
[00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:46.880] It's hard to stick with it in those early, early days, sometimes early years.
[00:36:46.880 --> 00:36:52.000] You're like, what are the, it's hard when the you know, step one, create, create good content.
[00:36:52.160 --> 00:36:55.120] Step two, you know, hopefully go viral.
[00:36:55.120 --> 00:37:02.040] It's like that wildcard of it is a little bit challenging, but maybe you can seed it if you have a handful of connections.
[00:37:02.200 --> 00:37:09.480] Maybe they you ask them to be the first commenters or to to reshare it and hopefully give the algorithm a little bit of a nudge.
[00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:14.520] Yeah, like even Sam Parr from the hustle, he had uh the trends community on Facebook.
[00:37:14.520 --> 00:37:21.160] He actually said that in the beginning, he was seeding posts, so he would write up a whole piece for people and share it to them in their DMs.
[00:37:21.160 --> 00:37:25.560] And so, like, even if someone like Sam Parr had to do that in the beginning, it's okay if you do that.
[00:37:25.560 --> 00:37:27.160] Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:27.160 --> 00:37:35.640] For Growth in Reverse, anything else that you found like in the early days to try and get, you know, get those first a thousand or ten thousand subscribers?
[00:37:35.640 --> 00:37:43.080] It was a lot of Twitter threads, and also I think the content was just so unique that people were like, I'm gonna share this with other people.
[00:37:43.080 --> 00:37:57.240] Okay, that's a huge unlock, and it's it's probably the underlying piece of all of these is like if you have really good stuff, it's just gonna make everything we just talked about work so much better because people are gonna want to recommend you, they're gonna want to share your content, they're gonna want to pay you to promote it.
[00:37:57.240 --> 00:38:10.200] Yeah, what you've become known for, what Growth in Reverse has become known for, is like these really in-depth, deep dive case studies that say, Okay, look at Sahil Bloom now, and then let's rewind.
[00:38:10.200 --> 00:38:17.000] Let's go back five years and see what that trajectory looked like and the specific tactics that worked and didn't work.
[00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:22.600] And you're right, it's it's unique content, it's something you won't find anywhere else, and it was it was effective.
[00:38:22.600 --> 00:38:28.040] So, the question is, could I reverse engineer something similar for my own niche if you're if you're listening in?
[00:38:28.040 --> 00:38:37.560] And I don't know if there's any shortcuts here, but you're doing that kind of analysis that people aren't going to find anywhere else makes it compelling.
[00:38:37.560 --> 00:38:37.840] Yeah.
[00:38:37.640 --> 00:38:42.840] Or, or like you, just go out and find the most unique stories about side hustles and share them.
[00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:49.360] Like, you're not the one actually doing the side hustle necessarily, but you're sharing all of those tips and things that you've learned from doing your own.
[00:38:44.920 --> 00:38:51.680] Again, it's just like a different way to do unique content.
[00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:53.360] Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point.
[00:38:53.360 --> 00:38:58.400] And those are the episodes where you hang up here, you're like, and I got to go tell the neighbors, you're not going to believe who I talked to today.
[00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:02.400] You know, could you believe she makes money organizing people's photos in the attic?
[00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:02.720] Right.
[00:39:02.720 --> 00:39:04.160] Oh, that's a $100 an hour job.
[00:39:04.160 --> 00:39:04.480] Cool.
[00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:05.200] I didn't know that.
[00:39:05.200 --> 00:39:05.760] So good.
[00:39:05.760 --> 00:39:13.840] I have another one that has added probably several thousand subscribers over the course of the last three or four years, and that is participating in bundle sales.
[00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:24.160] And so this is going to be more of a B to C or maybe like B to small B type of type of play, where a bundle sale organizer, like Ultimate Bundles is one.
[00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:25.840] BC Stack is the one that I'm referring to.
[00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:30.080] I've been a participant in many times, but there's a few different companies that put these together.
[00:39:30.080 --> 00:39:40.080] So that may be a side hustle on its own, being the host, the organizer, the aggregator, because there's some benefits to being that central hub as well.
[00:39:40.080 --> 00:39:53.200] But as a contributor, how it works is everybody kind of donates a product to this bundle and say, hey, for a limited time, for one week only, you're going to get access to 30, 40, 50 of these digital products on a specific niche.
[00:39:53.200 --> 00:39:55.040] Maybe it's how to grow your traffic.
[00:39:55.040 --> 00:39:58.000] And you get it for $49, whatever it is.
[00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:01.760] You know, low price, hey, sticker price on all these resources are $5,000.
[00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:04.800] It's like, okay, that might be inflated, but it's still a good deal.
[00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:05.840] And, you know, you never know.
[00:40:06.080 --> 00:40:09.920] It only takes one good idea to make back the $49 and then something.
[00:40:09.920 --> 00:40:24.160] So I'm a fan of these as a consumer and I'm a fan of these as a contributor because how it works is all of these contributors, the 30, 40, 50 people who contributed products, plus the bundle sale has recruited additional affiliates who their audience might find value in this.
[00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:26.400] They all promote it to their audience.
[00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:37.640] And when people go to go and claim those products, they go register with Teachable or they go order the thing through your Thrivecart link or however it is, or they sign up on your email.
[00:40:37.640 --> 00:40:40.760] And so they have to enter their email to go and claim the product.
[00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:42.760] And now they're a part of your ecosystem.
[00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:48.920] So it's a way to gather subscribers from a ton of different places all at once.
[00:40:48.920 --> 00:40:51.800] And it's been a really effective one over the last few years.
[00:40:51.800 --> 00:40:52.840] That's so interesting.
[00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:55.400] Are those like high-quality email subscribers too?
[00:40:55.400 --> 00:40:56.680] Yeah, I was kind of surprised.
[00:40:56.680 --> 00:41:02.760] So the unsubscribe rate, the open rate has been pretty similar to the broader list.
[00:41:02.760 --> 00:41:08.280] And I guess I expected it to be a little lower, but people tend to stick around about the same rate as everybody else.
[00:41:08.280 --> 00:41:08.920] That's interesting.
[00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:12.600] So you get the entire list, even if they don't like download your thing necessarily?
[00:41:12.600 --> 00:41:13.880] No, only if they claim your thing.
[00:41:13.880 --> 00:41:14.600] Oh, okay.
[00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:15.480] Yeah.
[00:41:15.480 --> 00:41:17.640] So it's got to, you got to come up with a compelling product.
[00:41:17.640 --> 00:41:18.680] Interesting.
[00:41:18.680 --> 00:41:21.560] Yeah, I've never done one of those, but I've seen them all over the place.
[00:41:21.560 --> 00:41:23.160] Yeah, it's a very interesting one.
[00:41:23.160 --> 00:41:38.840] And kind of financially, how it works, like, if anybody is curious, like somebody buys the stack, the individual creators get zero dollars, like unless you referred them as an affiliate, then you get your 40% affiliate commission or whatever, whatever it is.
[00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:41.800] But the play is access to this broader audience.
[00:41:41.800 --> 00:41:45.800] And hopefully, some people come back and claim your product and become a part of your world.
[00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:52.520] And a lot of people will throw on order bumps and upsells and stuff, you know, to the back end of their cart to try and recoup some of that.
[00:41:52.520 --> 00:41:55.320] But it's more of a marketing play than a money-making play.
[00:41:55.320 --> 00:41:55.880] Interesting.
[00:41:55.880 --> 00:41:57.560] Yeah, you've been doing that for years now, right?
[00:41:57.560 --> 00:41:58.440] Yeah, it's pretty effective.
[00:41:58.440 --> 00:42:07.080] And it's like, otherwise, I'd be very content to just kind of sit and do my normal thing and like be in maintenance mode and record some episodes.
[00:42:07.240 --> 00:42:09.320] That's like, oh, there's this deadline coming up.
[00:42:09.640 --> 00:42:12.680] I got to come up with a product that would hopefully be compelling.
[00:42:12.680 --> 00:42:14.960] Like the podcast growth playbook came out of that.
[00:42:14.120 --> 00:42:16.720] The little get gigs mini course came out of that.
[00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:23.440] There was like an easy traffic makeover course that came out of that.
[00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:30.080] Where it's like, okay, I got to come up with something that would be beneficial, that would be on brand, that would be like comfortable with this price tag.
[00:42:30.080 --> 00:42:32.480] And here's a good excuse to launch it.
[00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:33.040] Interesting.
[00:42:33.040 --> 00:42:33.760] I like that one.
[00:42:33.760 --> 00:42:34.240] Cool.
[00:42:34.240 --> 00:42:34.720] All right.
[00:42:34.720 --> 00:42:35.520] What else?
[00:42:35.520 --> 00:42:41.440] I think a broader category of things that I like to recommend to people are like collaborations.
[00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:43.360] Now, this could look like a cross-promotion.
[00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:46.000] So like I will shout Nick out in my newsletter.
[00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:49.120] He does the same on his end, but that's like the basic one.
[00:42:49.120 --> 00:42:51.760] There's a guy named Alex Garcia.
[00:42:51.760 --> 00:42:54.880] He runs a newsletter called marketingexamined.com.
[00:42:55.120 --> 00:42:59.760] And he did a cross-promotion with Pat Walls, who has Starter Story, which is a great one.
[00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:01.360] If you haven't talked to Pat, you probably should.
[00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:03.840] He's got a ton of great case studies as well.
[00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:06.240] But they did a cross-promotion.
[00:43:06.240 --> 00:43:09.680] So Pat had this YouTube channel that he was starting to build.
[00:43:09.680 --> 00:43:14.080] I think at the time he probably had like 10 or 15,000 followers or subscribers on YouTube.
[00:43:14.080 --> 00:43:17.520] And Alex was like, okay, well, I have 30,000 email subscribers.
[00:43:17.520 --> 00:43:19.200] Like, let's just swap things.
[00:43:19.200 --> 00:43:24.320] So Pat came out, filmed the video of Alex, like talking about his business and his newsletter.
[00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:28.240] And Alex just shouted him out as like a full-page cross-promotion, essentially.
[00:43:28.240 --> 00:43:30.320] Okay, like sharing Pat's stuff.
[00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:38.800] And so it looked similar on like the outside, but now Pat's channel has like, I think he has like over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.
[00:43:39.120 --> 00:43:43.280] And so like that video has gotten shared all over the place.
[00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:50.720] About three or four months after, I believe Alex shared that he had gotten like 5,000 to 10,000 subscribers from that video.
[00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:57.440] I don't know how many Pat got, but that's a really, that's a lot of subscribers from one collaboration.
[00:43:57.440 --> 00:43:57.760] Yeah.
[00:43:57.760 --> 00:44:03.000] I mean, you see this on YouTube all the time and just even in the whole channels that my kids watch.
[00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:06.680] Dude Perfect is collaborating with Mark Robert to build battle robots.
[00:44:06.840 --> 00:44:11.720] Okay, you know, but it makes sense because it kind of lifts a rising tide, lifts all boats, it gets exposure to a different audience.
[00:44:11.720 --> 00:44:11.960] Yeah.
[00:44:11.960 --> 00:44:13.960] And so you don't have to have these huge audiences.
[00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:22.600] That's just like an outlier example, but you can write a guest post together, like go to the writer of a newsletter and like you guys co-write a piece.
[00:44:22.600 --> 00:44:25.240] I've seen this happen all over Substack.
[00:44:25.240 --> 00:44:29.240] The beauty of Substack is like people can click right through and subscribe very easily.
[00:44:29.240 --> 00:44:38.600] Even if you don't have Substack, though, you can do something like this and just like co-write a guest post or actually write a guest post for their audience that they don't have to write anything for.
[00:44:38.600 --> 00:44:41.400] Summits are kind of a version of collaborations.
[00:44:41.400 --> 00:44:43.320] Even that bundle is probably something similar.
[00:44:43.320 --> 00:44:43.640] Yeah.
[00:44:43.640 --> 00:44:45.640] But you can do this on social media as well.
[00:44:45.640 --> 00:44:49.080] So it's not like it has to live in one channel or the other.
[00:44:49.080 --> 00:44:49.240] Right.
[00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:52.760] And it's trying to find people of a similar size, maybe when you're starting out.
[00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:56.680] This was a similar strategy on podcast shout outs.
[00:44:56.680 --> 00:45:00.360] I mean, years ago, it was Instagram takeovers, Instagram shout-outs.
[00:45:00.360 --> 00:45:01.480] Like it's nothing new here.
[00:45:01.480 --> 00:45:08.200] And could you be getting, could you get included in somebody else's newsletter as a recommended resource in exchange for shouting them out?
[00:45:08.200 --> 00:45:09.480] It's like a similar idea here.
[00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:12.200] And it can work really no matter what scale.
[00:45:12.200 --> 00:45:18.280] If you're starting out, it's like, okay, maybe it's five to ten subscribers instead of five to ten thousand, but the principles are still the same.
[00:45:18.280 --> 00:45:18.600] Yeah.
[00:45:18.600 --> 00:45:19.880] There's a woman on Substack.
[00:45:19.880 --> 00:45:21.240] Her name is Maya Voye.
[00:45:21.320 --> 00:45:22.920] She's in the product space.
[00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:25.960] So she writes about like product marketing, product strategy.
[00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:30.360] And she went out to some of the other bigger people with Substacks and started doing this.
[00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:34.120] Like she would co-write pieces with them or she would write a piece for them.
[00:45:34.120 --> 00:45:37.160] And when I found her, she had like 3,000 subscribers.
[00:45:37.160 --> 00:45:39.720] And now at this point, I think she's pushing like 20K.
[00:45:39.720 --> 00:45:42.040] And this is like eight months ago, maybe.
[00:45:42.040 --> 00:45:48.480] So like it happens pretty quick if your content's good and you're able to collaborate with some of these people.
[00:45:48.480 --> 00:45:50.480] And she didn't have an audience at that point.
[00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:52.000] And she was partnering with people.
[00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.360] One guy, Akash Gupta, had like 140,000 subscribers.
[00:45:55.360 --> 00:46:00.400] So like, because she was giving him such a valuable piece of content, he was like, yeah, I'll share it.
[00:46:00.400 --> 00:46:00.560] Yeah.
[00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:06.320] Step one, make sure your content is good before you ask anybody to vouch for you to share it.
[00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:08.480] But there's like a diverging path, right?
[00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:12.800] Like I could focus heads down, just doing my thing and hope somebody notices.
[00:46:12.800 --> 00:46:21.280] It's like, you got to kind of be vocal and be proactive about promoting this stuff or going after these collaborations and promo swaps.
[00:46:21.280 --> 00:46:24.800] Otherwise, like the odds of somebody just finding it on their own are so low.
[00:46:24.800 --> 00:46:31.600] Yeah, it's very low, especially if it's like a new venture or you've never been online before doing something like this.
[00:46:31.600 --> 00:46:31.920] Yeah.
[00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:41.600] You had an interesting one too to move on to the next one from Cody Sanchez, where she was apparently actually buying up newsletters for contrarian thinking early on.
[00:46:41.600 --> 00:46:43.520] It's like, how could I shortcut this even faster?
[00:46:43.520 --> 00:46:46.560] Oh, this guy already has 13,000 subscribers.
[00:46:46.560 --> 00:46:47.760] I'll just go buy the newsletter.
[00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:49.280] It's like, you don't want to run it anymore.
[00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:50.160] Like, was this?
[00:46:50.160 --> 00:46:50.560] Yeah.
[00:46:50.560 --> 00:46:51.760] Is this how it happened?
[00:46:51.760 --> 00:46:52.080] Yeah.
[00:46:52.080 --> 00:46:53.520] This is actually funny.
[00:46:53.520 --> 00:46:59.360] I've, I was doing research and I came across this one podcast episode and I had not heard her talk about this.
[00:46:59.360 --> 00:47:02.320] And I think I listened to like 25 other podcast episodes.
[00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:03.280] Yes, I go deep.
[00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:06.720] And so I listened to this and she said she bought a newsletter.
[00:47:06.720 --> 00:47:12.240] And so typically when you buy a newsletter, you might send an email and say, Hey, we just acquired blah, blah, blah, newsletter.
[00:47:12.240 --> 00:47:14.080] You're now going to be on this list.
[00:47:14.080 --> 00:47:17.760] And you just like import all those people, delete the old list, and move on.
[00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:26.560] But what Cody did was she actually positioned Contrarian Thinking as a guest post author or a sponsor for weeks, if not months.
[00:47:26.560 --> 00:47:32.440] She didn't go too far into detail, and I don't know which newsletter she bought because she has never talked about this again.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:32.600] Okay.
[00:47:32.920 --> 00:47:39.400] But she did do this from her words, and she would build this audience on the same time.
[00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:44.840] So she would just send out these emails, keep writing the content like nothing ever happened.
[00:47:44.840 --> 00:47:49.640] And then she would turn around when she figured out, like, I probably got all the subscribers I'm going to get from this.
[00:47:49.640 --> 00:47:52.440] She would turn around and sell that back to someone else.
[00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:55.640] So she nowhere in this actually lost money.
[00:47:55.640 --> 00:47:59.080] She probably made money because she was still growing in the newsletter at this point.
[00:47:59.080 --> 00:47:59.560] Okay.
[00:47:59.560 --> 00:48:02.680] And so talk about like leverage.
[

Prompt 2: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 3: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 4: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Prompt 5: Context Setup

You are an expert data extractor tasked with analyzing a podcast transcript. 
I will provide you with part 2 of 2 from a podcast transcript. 
I will then ask you to extract different types of information from this content in subsequent messages. Please confirm you have received and understood the transcript content.

Transcript section:
 --> 00:46:51.760] Is this how it happened?
[00:46:51.760 --> 00:46:52.080] Yeah.
[00:46:52.080 --> 00:46:53.520] This is actually funny.
[00:46:53.520 --> 00:46:59.360] I've, I was doing research and I came across this one podcast episode and I had not heard her talk about this.
[00:46:59.360 --> 00:47:02.320] And I think I listened to like 25 other podcast episodes.
[00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:03.280] Yes, I go deep.
[00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:06.720] And so I listened to this and she said she bought a newsletter.
[00:47:06.720 --> 00:47:12.240] And so typically when you buy a newsletter, you might send an email and say, Hey, we just acquired blah, blah, blah, newsletter.
[00:47:12.240 --> 00:47:14.080] You're now going to be on this list.
[00:47:14.080 --> 00:47:17.760] And you just like import all those people, delete the old list, and move on.
[00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:26.560] But what Cody did was she actually positioned Contrarian Thinking as a guest post author or a sponsor for weeks, if not months.
[00:47:26.560 --> 00:47:32.440] She didn't go too far into detail, and I don't know which newsletter she bought because she has never talked about this again.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:32.600] Okay.
[00:47:32.920 --> 00:47:39.400] But she did do this from her words, and she would build this audience on the same time.
[00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:44.840] So she would just send out these emails, keep writing the content like nothing ever happened.
[00:47:44.840 --> 00:47:49.640] And then she would turn around when she figured out, like, I probably got all the subscribers I'm going to get from this.
[00:47:49.640 --> 00:47:52.440] She would turn around and sell that back to someone else.
[00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:55.640] So she nowhere in this actually lost money.
[00:47:55.640 --> 00:47:59.080] She probably made money because she was still growing in the newsletter at this point.
[00:47:59.080 --> 00:47:59.560] Okay.
[00:47:59.560 --> 00:48:02.680] And so talk about like leverage.
[00:48:02.680 --> 00:48:03.720] Yeah, very savvy.
[00:48:03.720 --> 00:48:03.960] Yeah.
[00:48:03.960 --> 00:48:11.080] I'm going to buy this asset, milk it as much as I can, but still continue its founding mission and then, you know, flip it to the next person.
[00:48:11.080 --> 00:48:11.320] Yeah.
[00:48:11.320 --> 00:48:13.080] It's like so on brand for her.
[00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:25.160] One thing that she mentioned in our earlier interview was a lot of manual outreach for the first thousand to 10,000 people where it was, would you mind shouting this out?
[00:48:25.160 --> 00:48:36.280] You know, to reaching out to friends who already had email lists, doing a ton of guest podcasting, podcast guesting rather, where it was sharing this idea about buying businesses versus building businesses.
[00:48:36.280 --> 00:48:46.680] Like, okay, that's a unique angle and building the newsletter that way by borrowing other people's audiences, either through email promo swaps or email shout outs or through podcast guesting.
[00:48:46.680 --> 00:48:49.320] Yeah, she's a hustler for sure.
[00:48:49.640 --> 00:48:55.960] I created a visual actually showing all of the podcasts she was on and like her growth of her newsletter.
[00:48:55.960 --> 00:48:57.560] And it was like so in line.
[00:48:57.560 --> 00:48:58.520] It's just amazing.
[00:48:58.520 --> 00:49:01.080] I'll share that with you with you if you want to put it in the show notes.
[00:49:01.080 --> 00:49:01.400] Okay.
[00:49:01.400 --> 00:49:01.560] Yeah.
[00:49:01.560 --> 00:49:02.520] It was pretty insane.
[00:49:02.520 --> 00:49:02.840] All right.
[00:49:02.840 --> 00:49:08.040] Well, I could say I knew her before she was super, super famous, only medium famous early on.
[00:49:08.040 --> 00:49:11.000] Yeah, I remember listening to your episode with her for that research.
[00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:13.120] Yes, you know, millions of followers ago.
[00:49:12.920 --> 00:49:13.440] Yeah.
[00:49:14.040 --> 00:49:15.440] What are we doing wrong, Nick?
[00:49:15.440 --> 00:49:16.080] Yeah, who knows?
[00:49:14.920 --> 00:49:16.560] Who knows?
[00:49:17.600 --> 00:49:18.480] This was depressing.
[00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:24.640] Like, I remember specifically showing up at VinCon 2021 in Austin.
[00:49:24.640 --> 00:49:27.040] And in my mind, this was like the year of TikTok.
[00:49:27.040 --> 00:49:29.520] So many young creators were there.
[00:49:29.520 --> 00:49:30.960] Oh, I started six months ago.
[00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:32.880] I've got a quarter million followers.
[00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:35.760] And it was just like, huh, this is a different path.
[00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:36.800] Like, this is unique.
[00:49:36.800 --> 00:49:38.240] This is interesting.
[00:49:38.240 --> 00:49:44.880] And one of the episodes that we recorded around that time or maybe a little bit before was with Tori Dunlap.
[00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:50.560] And it was one video, she said, one video went super viral.
[00:49:50.560 --> 00:49:53.920] And her funnel was like, take your money personality quiz.
[00:49:53.920 --> 00:49:55.760] I don't know if it's changed since then.
[00:49:55.760 --> 00:50:00.320] And one video was like, we had 100,000 subscribers in a week.
[00:50:00.320 --> 00:50:11.680] So maybe you can't control going viral, but you can control what Tori did was having the ecosystem and like the lead capture funnel and process in place for when that viral moment happens.
[00:50:11.680 --> 00:50:14.080] And so that was kind of what impressed me from our call.
[00:50:14.080 --> 00:50:16.080] Yeah, I think she still has that quiz.
[00:50:16.080 --> 00:50:17.200] It's actually, she does.
[00:50:17.200 --> 00:50:17.920] I just went to it.
[00:50:17.920 --> 00:50:23.440] 1.16 million people have taken that quiz and all of them entered their email address.
[00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:24.480] So that's wild.
[00:50:24.480 --> 00:50:24.640] Yeah.
[00:50:24.640 --> 00:50:28.320] So if you're going to play the short form game, make sure you got something to lead people back to.
[00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:30.960] That's my, that's my, that's my takeaway.
[00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:33.040] Tori's got an incredible business too.
[00:50:33.040 --> 00:50:34.800] Well, this has been awesome.
[00:50:34.800 --> 00:50:38.720] I don't know how many we can count these up, but probably 10 or 12 different ideas here.
[00:50:38.720 --> 00:50:39.920] Anything else before we wrap?
[00:50:39.920 --> 00:50:41.200] No, I think that's that's it.
[00:50:41.200 --> 00:50:43.440] I mean, I have a million of them on my site.
[00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:47.440] So if you want more, if anybody really wants more than that, you can go find it.
[00:50:47.440 --> 00:50:48.240] Absolutely.
[00:50:48.240 --> 00:50:50.400] Well, yeah, there's growthinreverse.com.
[00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:52.640] There's the growth in reverse podcast.
[00:50:52.640 --> 00:50:53.920] What's next for you?
[00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:54.880] Where are you taking this thing?
[00:50:54.880 --> 00:51:04.040] Gonna put out a course/slash vault of these ideas here soon with some videos and step-by-step of how to do each one because people are telling me there's too many question marks.
[00:50:59.920 --> 00:51:05.560] So I'm like, okay, final help.
[00:51:06.040 --> 00:51:11.320] Yeah, it's almost like a choose your own adventure kind of thing, or you need the quiz funnel to be like, well, which one works for me?
[00:51:11.320 --> 00:51:11.640] Totally.
[00:51:11.640 --> 00:51:12.600] I should put a quiz on there.
[00:51:12.600 --> 00:51:14.040] That's a good idea.
[00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.160] So I think that's the next thing, but I'm still just trying to wrap my head around 30 days of growth.
[00:51:19.160 --> 00:51:21.240] Well, stay tuned for the Growth in Reverse course.
[00:51:21.240 --> 00:51:23.640] We'll be happy to link that up when it is live.
[00:51:23.640 --> 00:51:25.000] GrowthinReverse.com.
[00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:27.240] In the meantime, Chanel, this has been great.
[00:51:27.240 --> 00:51:29.160] Thank you so much for stopping by.
[00:51:29.160 --> 00:51:32.440] Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
[00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:35.640] Just try stuff, experiment, start somewhere.
[00:51:35.640 --> 00:51:39.160] We have all had those failed posts like Nick was talking about with Dickie Bush.
[00:51:39.160 --> 00:51:42.200] Some things will get zero views, but some things might get 10 views.
[00:51:42.200 --> 00:51:45.640] And those 10 people might end up becoming raving fans of your newsletter.
[00:51:45.640 --> 00:51:48.840] So don't look at the small numbers and think you're failing.
[00:51:48.840 --> 00:51:49.880] Just keep going.
[00:51:49.880 --> 00:51:56.440] Yeah, so I will always remember this talk from Cliff Ravenscraft at Podcast Movement, I want to say 2016.
[00:51:56.440 --> 00:51:58.120] And a question from the audience comes in.
[00:51:58.120 --> 00:52:02.920] Well, I've been doing this for five months and I only have 200 subscribers.
[00:52:02.920 --> 00:52:04.200] And he's like, time out.
[00:52:04.200 --> 00:52:07.160] I want you to remove the word only from your vocabulary.
[00:52:07.160 --> 00:52:07.800] Look around this room.
[00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:14.120] There's not 200 people in this room, but you're still thinking like you have some unique advantages here.
[00:52:14.120 --> 00:52:15.640] You know them by name.
[00:52:15.640 --> 00:52:19.160] You can know their exact pains and problems, something that a Tim Ferriss can't do.
[00:52:19.320 --> 00:52:20.440] You've got a unique advantage here.
[00:52:20.680 --> 00:52:21.640] Don't say only, right?
[00:52:21.640 --> 00:52:26.600] You got 200 people paying attention to you, investing their time and energy, putting you in their earbuds.
[00:52:26.600 --> 00:52:29.320] Like you're doing something right if you got 200 people to pay attention to you.
[00:52:29.320 --> 00:52:34.120] So yeah, don't sweat the small numbers and experiment with some different of these growth tactics along the way.
[00:52:34.120 --> 00:52:41.880] Now, I wouldn't be doing my job as a host in an episode about list building if I didn't have a listener bonus, a content upgrade for you.
[00:52:41.880 --> 00:52:47.120] So, I built a list building cheat sheet with a couple dozen different ways to grow your email list.
[00:52:47.120 --> 00:52:52.960] So, you can pick and choose the tactics that appeal most to you, along with some tools and additional resources to help you do it.
[00:52:52.960 --> 00:52:56.160] You can grab that for free in the show notes for this episode.
[00:52:56.240 --> 00:52:58.560] Just follow the link in the episode description.
[00:52:58.560 --> 00:52:59.520] It'll get you right over there.
[00:52:59.520 --> 00:53:01.680] Big thanks to Chanel for sharing her insight.
[00:53:01.680 --> 00:53:05.440] Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
[00:53:05.440 --> 00:53:10.400] The latest offers and deals from those sponsors are at sidehustlenation.com/slash deals.
[00:53:10.400 --> 00:53:13.520] Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
[00:53:13.520 --> 00:53:14.560] That is it for me.
[00:53:14.560 --> 00:53:15.920] Thank you so much for tuning in.
[00:53:15.920 --> 00:53:19.440] If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
[00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:24.160] So, fire off that text message for somebody who needs a little kickstart in their list building efforts.
[00:53:24.160 --> 00:53:26.560] Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen.
[00:53:26.560 --> 00:53:29.440] And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
[00:53:29.440 --> 00:53:30.080] Hustle on.

Prompt 6: Key Takeaways

Now please extract the key takeaways from the transcript content I provided.

Extract the most important key takeaways from this part of the conversation. Use a single sentence statement (the key takeaway) rather than milquetoast descriptions like "the hosts discuss...". 

Limit the key takeaways to a maximum of 3. The key takeaways should be insightful and knowledge-additive. 

IMPORTANT: Return ONLY valid JSON, no explanations or markdown. Ensure:
- All strings are properly quoted and escaped
- No trailing commas
- All braces and brackets are balanced
Format: {"key_takeaways": ["takeaway 1", "takeaway 2"]}

Prompt 7: Segments

Now identify 2-4 distinct topical segments from this part of the conversation.

For each segment, identify:
- Descriptive title (3-6 words)  
- START timestamp when this topic begins (HH:MM:SS format)
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Most important Key takeaway from that segment. Key takeaway must be specific and knowledge-additive.
- Brief summary of the discussion

IMPORTANT: The timestamp should mark when the topic/segment STARTS, not a range. Look for topic transitions and conversation shifts.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted, no trailing commas:
{
  "segments": [
    {
      "segment_title": "Topic Discussion", 
      "timestamp": "01:15:30",
      "key_takeaway": "main point from this segment",
      "segment_summary": "brief description of what was discussed"
    }
  ]
}

Timestamp format: HH:MM:SS (e.g., 00:05:30, 01:22:45) marking the START of each segment.

Prompt 8: Media Mentions

Now scan the transcript content I provided for ACTUAL mentions of specific media titles:

Find explicit mentions of:
- Books (with specific titles)
- Movies (with specific titles)  
- TV Shows (with specific titles)
- Music/Songs (with specific titles)

DO NOT include:
- Websites, URLs, or web services
- Other podcasts or podcast names

IMPORTANT: 
- Only include items explicitly mentioned by name. Do not invent titles.
- Valid categories are: "Book", "Movie", "TV Show", "Music"
- Include the exact phrase where each item was mentioned
- Find the nearest proximate timestamp where it appears in the conversation
- THE TIMESTAMP OF THE MEDIA MENTION IS IMPORTANT - DO NOT INVENT TIMESTAMPS AND DO NOT MISATTRIBUTE TIMESTAMPS
- Double check that the timestamp is accurate - a timestamp will NEVER be greater than the total length of the audio
- Timestamps are given as ranges, e.g. 01:13:42.520 --> 01:13:46.720. Use the EARLIER of the 2 timestamps in the range.

Return ONLY valid JSON. Ensure all strings are properly quoted and escaped, no trailing commas:
{
  "media_mentions": [
    {
      "title": "Exact Title as Mentioned",
      "category": "Book",
      "author_artist": "N/A",
      "context": "Brief context of why it was mentioned",
      "context_phrase": "The exact sentence or phrase where it was mentioned",
      "timestamp": "estimated time like 01:15:30"
    }
  ]
}

If no media is mentioned, return: {"media_mentions": []}

Full Transcript

[00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:06.240] Look, adulting can be a challenge, but there is an easy button for at least one item on your to-do list.
[00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:15.280] Our partner, Policy Genius, makes finding and buying life insurance simple to make sure your loved ones have a financial safety net in case something happens to you.
[00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:23.120] With Policy Genius, you can find life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for a million dollars in coverage.
[00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:27.200] It's an easy way to protect the people you love and feel good about the future.
[00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:36.560] How it works is Policy Genius lets you compare quotes from America's top insurers, complete with coverage amounts, prices, and terms, all in just a few clicks.
[00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:44.160] No games, no guesswork, and with thousands of five-star reviews on Google and TrustPilot from customers who found the best policy fit for their needs.
[00:00:44.160 --> 00:00:48.160] Policy Genius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace.
[00:00:48.160 --> 00:00:50.880] Secure your family's future with Policy Genius.
[00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:57.440] Head to policygenius.com to compare free life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save.
[00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:00.000] That's policygenius.com.
[00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:02.400] And now, onto the show.
[00:01:02.720 --> 00:01:05.680] It's time for some list building tactics that actually work.
[00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:13.360] With all the upheaval in the search results and the fickle nature of social media, you know you need to build your email list, but how do you actually do it?
[00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:25.280] Today, we're taking the guesswork out of it and breaking down some tried and true tactics with a longtime Side Hustle Show listener who's been studying the biggest newsletters and creators in the world to figure out what's working today.
[00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:30.640] From GrowthInReverse.com and the Growth in Reverse podcast, Chanel Basilio.
[00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:32.160] Welcome to the Side Hustle Show.
[00:01:32.160 --> 00:01:33.040] Thanks for having me, Nick.
[00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:33.840] I'm excited to be here.
[00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:34.560] Well, me as well.
[00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:36.160] We've got lots of tactics to get into.
[00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:39.360] And the first one is a really cool one that you shared.
[00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:42.000] It was called the one-click unlock.
[00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:43.120] Tell us about this.
[00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:43.600] Sure.
[00:01:43.600 --> 00:01:48.080] So this comes from Justin Moore, who runs a newsletter called Creator Wizard.
[00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:49.360] He's got an interesting name.
[00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:54.320] His whole ethos is helping creators and influencers get more sponsorships.
[00:01:54.320 --> 00:01:57.120] So he helps them make more money through their brand deals and that kind of thing.
[00:01:57.120 --> 00:02:02.520] His whole newsletter, the entire thing, everything he sends each week is about sponsorship opportunities.
[00:02:02.520 --> 00:02:05.160] So he's essentially giving you free money, if you will.
[00:02:05.160 --> 00:02:07.000] So he'll give you the brand name.
[00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:10.920] We could plug Justin, his little sponsor audit tool is really cool.
[00:02:11.160 --> 00:02:11.800] We can plug that.
[00:02:11.800 --> 00:02:13.560] We can link that up in the show notes too.
[00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:14.120] That's really good.
[00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:14.520] Yeah.
[00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:18.680] He's got a great business, but he essentially gives you away free sponsorship opportunities.
[00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:21.800] But this one-click unlock is essentially his referral program.
[00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:29.480] But it's a little bit deeper than that because in each email, you'll see this like box and it's grayed out and it has like a lock on it.
[00:02:29.480 --> 00:02:33.800] And it says refer one person to get the secret sponsorship research.
[00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:38.440] And so if you refer one person every week in that email, you won't see that box anymore.
[00:02:38.440 --> 00:02:41.400] You'll see the contact info for those brands.
[00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:45.160] You'll see the person's name, some recent brand deals they might have done.
[00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:49.000] So he's essentially giving you just extra information on top of it.
[00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.160] But at the same time, he's getting more referrals.
[00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:54.360] So someone is just sharing his newsletter with other people.
[00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:58.360] And he said he's gotten about 5,000 subscribers just from this one thing.
[00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:03.160] And that's kind of a lot when you're thinking it's just like one extra referral per person.
[00:03:03.160 --> 00:03:10.440] Yeah, it's 5,000 incremental subscribers for a low barrier to like high value, low barrier to entry.
[00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:10.840] Oh, sure.
[00:03:10.840 --> 00:03:13.560] I got, I know somebody else who might benefit from this.
[00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:13.960] Yeah.
[00:03:14.280 --> 00:03:20.360] Do you know how he, like mechanically, how he's getting that done with some conditional content or like it sounds technical?
[00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:23.560] He uses kit for email and he sets it up.
[00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:25.640] There's like a liquid code, I think he can do.
[00:03:25.640 --> 00:03:27.720] So you can set up a tag essentially.
[00:03:27.720 --> 00:03:30.440] And if this person has referred one person, they get tagged.
[00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:32.760] And then every email, it'll show a box.
[00:03:32.760 --> 00:03:36.120] So I think you can actually do this with kits like snippets too.
[00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:40.680] Not sure on that one, but I know you can do it with Liquid and chat GPT can help you write that anymore.
[00:03:40.680 --> 00:03:42.920] You don't even have to know how to code or anything.
[00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:43.320] Okay.
[00:03:43.320 --> 00:03:48.160] But it essentially says, like, if they referred one person, show this extra piece of content.
[00:03:48.160 --> 00:03:55.520] So it's kind of interesting to set up in the beginning, but I think it's well worth it if you're going to end up with 5,000 extra subscribers.
[00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:56.160] Yeah, no kidding.
[00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:56.400] Yeah.
[00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:58.720] We set it up once and then it just kind of runs.
[00:03:58.720 --> 00:04:01.840] And it's, it sounds like it's kind of a constant reminder.
[00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.960] Like if it's in every message or every week, you kind of see it like, okay, I should probably do this.
[00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.000] Does he have multiple tiers or that's just like tier one?
[00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:12.400] He does have multiple tiers, but that's the tier one.
[00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:15.760] The other ones are like a 30-minute coaching call with someone on his team.
[00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:22.000] And then you can go all the way up to like getting his $1,000 course for free once you get like 100 or so subscribers.
[00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:22.960] So that's a lot.
[00:04:23.200 --> 00:04:23.600] Okay.
[00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:25.840] But yeah, but this is just like constant FOMO.
[00:04:25.840 --> 00:04:29.200] Like every week you're seeing this and you're like, well, he gave me this one piece.
[00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:36.080] All I have to do is refer one person and I get the contact info for this people and like how to reach out to them and makes sense.
[00:04:36.080 --> 00:04:36.400] Okay.
[00:04:36.400 --> 00:04:36.720] Yeah.
[00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:40.560] Versus having it as paid newsletter tier.
[00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.280] We see some people kind of, oh, that's going to be behind the paywall.
[00:04:43.280 --> 00:04:47.200] The free sample is here, but then if you want the rest of the goods, you got to pay.
[00:04:47.200 --> 00:04:49.840] But that's that's a really unique way to do it.
[00:04:49.840 --> 00:04:56.160] Like low, low lift, make it so stupid simple, easy, where it's like, yeah, okay, I can find one person.
[00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:04.160] I don't know if ConvertKit, well, they bought Spark Loop, so they may have this built in at some point or like on the you know, the pro pricing tier.
[00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:07.680] Our buddy Pete McPherson has built a new tool called List Gadget.
[00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:20.080] That's on my to-do list to start messing around with because he's got the s kind of referral mechanism built in where you could send you you build a leaderboard and do polls, like do all sorts of cool stuff with list gadgets.
[00:05:20.080 --> 00:05:23.040] So that's on my list to play around with.
[00:05:23.040 --> 00:05:23.680] I don't know that one.
[00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:24.640] I'll have to check it out.
[00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:26.400] It's a good guy, though, so I'll check it out.
[00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:34.840] Yeah, he's partnered with Liz from from Liz Wilcox from Survivor Fame to help get that out into the world.
[00:05:35.080 --> 00:05:39.160] Okay, that is a really cool one where just about anybody could add to your list.
[00:05:39.320 --> 00:05:42.360] It kind of answers the question: how can I turn one subscriber into two?
[00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:43.000] How can I make it?
[00:05:43.160 --> 00:05:45.240] easy and beneficial for everybody to do that.
[00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:49.160] And hopefully the people you subscribe or people you refer, they refer the next person.
[00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:51.720] It kind of becomes this virtuous cycle there.
[00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:52.280] Yeah, totally.
[00:05:52.440 --> 00:05:53.480] I think it's pretty simple.
[00:05:53.480 --> 00:06:03.800] Like anyone, if you're creating some piece of content, like just think about what that next step that somebody would need or like the next piece of advice or content that they would be looking for and just give it to them.
[00:06:03.800 --> 00:06:04.200] Yeah.
[00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:11.000] Obviously the famous examples would be, you know, the morning brews and the hustles of the world with like the subscriber referral program.
[00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:17.480] But how do you take a page out of that playbook and make it applicable to your to your niche and to your subscribers and make it a win for them?
[00:06:17.640 --> 00:06:18.440] That's a really cool one.
[00:06:18.440 --> 00:06:18.920] Yeah.
[00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:19.560] What's next?
[00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:23.160] The next one I think we should talk about is just recommendations.
[00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:25.800] So a lot of people are using recommendations at this point.
[00:06:25.960 --> 00:06:31.960] Kit, Substack, Beehive, those platforms all have their own built-in referral recommendation platform.
[00:06:31.960 --> 00:06:34.680] So essentially we can recommend each other through Kit.
[00:06:34.680 --> 00:06:38.600] So if someone signs up, they get a box afterwards that says like, hey, thanks for joining.
[00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:42.200] Here are three other newsletters I really recommend you check out.
[00:06:42.440 --> 00:06:45.080] Now, people can like or not like those.
[00:06:45.080 --> 00:06:53.240] And some I've heard from a lot of smaller creators that they're like, well, you know, I just don't have the big list that people want to partner with and that kind of thing.
[00:06:53.240 --> 00:07:01.440] But I think if you can almost build relationships with those people and not just look at it like a checkbox, like the one guy that I followed and wrote a deep dive on.
[00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:02.160] His name was C.J.
[00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:03.080] Gustafson.
[00:07:03.080 --> 00:07:14.120] And he would actually just ask these creators to get on a phone call, like not expecting them to recommend him afterwards, but he would talk to them for 20, 30 minutes, you know, just talk about like the industry and like newsletters and stuff.
[00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:17.360] And then at the end, he'd be like, hey, do you want to recommend each other on Substack?
[00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:18.880] Like, I'll just go add you right now.
[00:07:18.880 --> 00:07:24.640] And he said the conversion rate was practically 100% because you just built this relationship with people.
[00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:27.200] Yeah, nobody wants to tell you no to your face.
[00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.040] Yeah.
[00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:35.920] But if it makes sense for your audience and like, I don't know, as long as they have the people that you would want on your email list, I think it makes total sense.
[00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:38.560] So I have a couple of questions for this because I saw this.
[00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:44.560] You were implementing this on the Growth in Reverse, and it was you're recommending Jay Klaus and somebody else.
[00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:49.520] And I was like, okay, this is kind of a natural, if you like this, you might also like this.
[00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:51.600] It's like almost like, would you like fries with that?
[00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:53.440] It's like kind of a natural thing.
[00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:55.360] But my couple questions.
[00:07:55.360 --> 00:08:00.080] One is, does it interrupt the kind of logical flow?
[00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:03.120] Like you have somebody who is hot to take action.
[00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:04.240] They just entered in their email.
[00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:06.320] They're feeling excited about that decision.
[00:08:06.320 --> 00:08:17.680] And instead of taking them immediately to the thank you page or the confirmation page or like the logical next step, there's like this intermediate thing that hits them in the face and like, well, who's who's this Jay Klaus guy?
[00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.480] Or like, you know, almost what is it?
[00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:22.320] It's like checked by default.
[00:08:22.320 --> 00:08:28.800] Have you seen any data on that or like the impact on kind of what the next step you want subscribers to take as?
[00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:29.120] Yeah.
[00:08:29.120 --> 00:08:32.000] And that's a great call out because it's not perfect for every situation.
[00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.320] And I have it turned off on some forms.
[00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:36.160] Like I don't have it on every single one.
[00:08:36.640 --> 00:08:40.320] And that's the beauty of it is, well, at least with Kit, you can turn it off on specific forms.
[00:08:40.320 --> 00:08:42.560] Like it doesn't show up every single time someone subscribes.
[00:08:42.560 --> 00:08:42.960] Yeah.
[00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:44.800] But yeah, I only recommend people.
[00:08:44.800 --> 00:08:46.880] I know the content's great because it is.
[00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:51.520] It's like taking a piece of the trust you've just built and giving it to someone else.
[00:08:51.520 --> 00:08:54.800] But on the same token, you're getting that back when they're recommending you.
[00:08:54.800 --> 00:08:55.200] Sure.
[00:08:55.200 --> 00:08:56.960] So, a couple of pointers.
[00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:02.680] If someone subscribes through recommendations, you want to make sure that you have them getting a separate message in your welcome email.
[00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:09.320] So, if Jay sends me a subscriber, I want to make sure people have a different welcome email than just the typical one.
[00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:11.720] So, I'll say, Hey, you might not realize who I am.
[00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:13.240] Jay Klaus recommended me.
[00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:16.920] If you want to unsubscribe, go ahead and do that right here and put it like towards the top.
[00:09:16.920 --> 00:09:17.240] Okay.
[00:09:17.240 --> 00:09:20.520] So, that because naturally, some of those people are going to be lower quality.
[00:09:20.520 --> 00:09:23.720] Maybe they didn't recognize what they were doing by subscribing to the rest of those.
[00:09:23.720 --> 00:09:29.960] So, yeah, you do want to be careful with those, but I think it's a good way to kind of, I don't know, get a couple more people on your list.
[00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:33.080] I've seen good success and have had some really good ones come.
[00:09:33.080 --> 00:09:34.600] Yeah, that was the second question.
[00:09:34.600 --> 00:09:38.520] Like, what's the subscriber quality like if they didn't opt in specifically for you?
[00:09:38.520 --> 00:09:40.840] It was just kind of like an all, you know, an afterthought.
[00:09:40.840 --> 00:09:44.680] And then you showed up in their inbox every day or every week.
[00:09:44.680 --> 00:09:46.360] Like, why am I getting this again?
[00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:47.560] But yeah, calling that out.
[00:09:47.560 --> 00:09:55.480] So, I said, because I started noticing some of these, it was like, you know, from the work at home woman or something, like there were some other recommendations that started coming through.
[00:09:55.480 --> 00:10:02.840] And it was like, oh, yeah, if I'm just dumping these into some generic onboarding, like, I think the default was like nothing, like, no welcome sequence at all.
[00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:04.280] I was like, well, let me fix that.
[00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:08.440] But then it's like, is there a way to customize that based on?
[00:10:08.600 --> 00:10:12.360] I couldn't figure out how to individualize it based on the source.
[00:10:12.360 --> 00:10:15.400] It was just like, hey, I'm so flattered another creator recommended me.
[00:10:15.400 --> 00:10:16.840] That's why you're getting this message.
[00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:19.240] You know, here's a little bit about side oscillation.
[00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:21.560] Yeah, you definitely want to make sure you're setting this up.
[00:10:21.560 --> 00:10:25.160] In the beginning, it was trickier with Kit as they like initially launched it.
[00:10:25.160 --> 00:10:26.440] It was like, what's happening?
[00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:31.080] But now they've kind of like refined the process and you can set up a separate welcome sequence.
[00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:37.480] I think it's a different tag or form that they're subscribed to, and you can send them down a different path with automations and that kind of thing.
[00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:41.640] So, again, something to set up, but once you do, it's kind of like plug and play.
[00:10:41.640 --> 00:10:46.080] Yes, these are lower quality subscribers because some people don't understand what they're doing.
[00:10:44.840 --> 00:10:50.240] However, I have seen a lot of really good subscribers come from this, so I think it's worth it.
[00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:55.600] I know for myself, I've added probably 10,000 or so subscribers from recommendations.
[00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:57.920] So, okay, yeah, it's it's worked out really well.
[00:10:57.920 --> 00:11:00.880] Now, all of those haven't stuck around, but yes, that's great.
[00:11:00.880 --> 00:11:03.600] I remember joking with uh with Nathan Berry when they announced this.
[00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:05.680] It's like, you know, everything old is new again, right?
[00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:10.480] So, you see, like these co-registration forms like from 20 years ago on the internet, that was the first part.
[00:11:10.640 --> 00:11:15.920] The second part was like, How genius is this for a company that charges you based on the number of subscribers you have?
[00:11:15.920 --> 00:11:21.600] Like, oh, if we could lift everybody up, oh, sure, you know, we're doing great by the creator, you know, the creator economy, we're supporting.
[00:11:21.840 --> 00:11:24.720] Oh, but meanwhile, like, oh, there's a little ulterior motive here.
[00:11:24.720 --> 00:11:28.320] Totally, it's a cool tool, and it's um, it's good for them too.
[00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:35.280] Yeah, that's a fun one to uh crack jokes on, but yeah, it's a it's good and bad on either side.
[00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:47.840] More with Chanel in just a moment, including how one creator earned $1.2 million from a simple Google Doc and a genius strategy for getting paid to write content for other companies coming up right after this.
[00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:50.880] I'm excited to partner with OpenPhone for this episode.
[00:11:50.880 --> 00:12:00.320] OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communication for both calls and texts, all in one easy-to-use centralized hub.
[00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:05.200] But before OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach.
[00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:06.800] You probably don't remember this.
[00:12:06.800 --> 00:12:14.000] This is a while back, but when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our first customers is through Facebook groups.
[00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:17.040] And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours.
[00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:31.960] Thank you for not kicking me out, but I posted a couple of times, and I actually remember seeing there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problems we solve, which is not using your personal phone number for work.
[00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:35.720] And those posts got us some of our first customers.
[00:12:29.760 --> 00:12:36.280] So thank you.
[00:12:36.520 --> 00:12:38.200] It's a full circle moment.
[00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:39.240] Oh, that's super fun.
[00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:39.960] Very cool.
[00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:42.120] That's Doreena, the co-founder of Open Phone.
[00:12:42.120 --> 00:12:44.360] And sure enough, her posts are still there.
[00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:50.600] OpenPhone is offering Side Hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:55.960] That's O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E openphone.com slash sidehustle.
[00:12:55.960 --> 00:13:01.000] And if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge.
[00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:12.200] You know, when you're shopping online and you see that little purple shop pay button at checkout, that's a sign that the store you're on is one of the millions of businesses powered by our partner, Shopify.
[00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:15.720] Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business.
[00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:18.040] For starters, you don't even have to start from scratch.
[00:13:18.040 --> 00:13:26.360] They've got hundreds of beautiful, ready-to-go, proven-to-convert templates that you can adapt to your brand's style without needing to know how to code.
[00:13:26.360 --> 00:13:34.440] You can tackle all your most important tasks in one place from managing your inventory to tracking payments to analytics and more.
[00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:42.040] Plus, Shopify helps you make sales with built-in marketing and email tools to go out and find new customers and keep the ones you've got.
[00:13:42.040 --> 00:13:46.920] If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time to head over to Shopify.
[00:13:46.920 --> 00:13:53.480] Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.840] Go to shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:13:56.840 --> 00:14:00.440] Shopify.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:09.800] I've got one that I'll add to the mix that has added probably 5,000 to 7,000 subscribers over the course of the last several years.
[00:14:09.800 --> 00:14:14.720] And that is a Facebook group to email list integration.
[00:14:14.360 --> 00:14:16.800] And I'm using a tool called Group Leads for it.
[00:14:16.880 --> 00:14:24.480] It's like this really low-cost browser extension that, you know, you can ask people questions when they join your group.
[00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:30.240] I think I ask questions like, what's your biggest side hustle struggle or what side hustles are you working on right now?
[00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:32.160] Or do you have, have you started anything yet?
[00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:37.120] Some kind of those types of generic fact-finding questions that can help guide future content.
[00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:41.920] And then also, hey, if you want our best side hustle tips, you know, enter your email here.
[00:14:41.920 --> 00:14:43.760] And a lot of people do that.
[00:14:43.760 --> 00:14:49.120] And then Group Leads sends it directly into Kit and it gets, again, a specific welcome sequence.
[00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:50.560] Some people are already on the email list.
[00:14:50.560 --> 00:14:52.400] And so it sends them a different message.
[00:14:52.400 --> 00:14:53.680] Hey, great to see you again.
[00:14:53.680 --> 00:14:55.120] Thanks for joining the Facebook group.
[00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:58.000] For other people, it's like, hey, you know, welcome to Side Hustle Nation.
[00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:00.000] Hey, the Facebook group is just the tip of the iceberg.
[00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:01.280] Here's all the other stuff we got.
[00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:12.800] And so that's been a really, really powerful kind of incremental addition because what we found, you know, early on, the Facebook group was very much like podcast listeners, like, you know, the core of the audience.
[00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:20.800] But over time, it started, you know, Facebook started recommending that group to people it thought were interested in side hustles and started to grow a lot organically.
[00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:23.600] It's like, oh, I need to do a better job of capturing those people.
[00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:24.560] I love this one.
[00:15:24.560 --> 00:15:25.920] It's like, it's so obvious.
[00:15:25.920 --> 00:15:34.640] And I have been the person to go, not recently, but over years ago, to go to Facebook, search for a specific topic and then join a group or find other people there.
[00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:36.560] So I think that's, it's awesome.
[00:15:36.560 --> 00:15:38.000] It's such a good one.
[00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:39.600] This has been like top of the funnel.
[00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:43.280] Like we had Abby Ashley on the show with her like virtual assistant training business.
[00:15:43.520 --> 00:15:46.880] She runs one of the biggest virtual assistant groups on Facebook.
[00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:49.120] And that was like a top of the funnel entry point.
[00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:54.240] You know, enter your email and we'll send you the free masterclass on how to get started, how to find your first clients.
[00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:55.920] And really, really effective.
[00:15:55.920 --> 00:16:00.920] And I think we've seen people do it in like Microgreens farming.
[00:16:00.920 --> 00:16:02.360] And there was another one.
[00:15:59.760 --> 00:16:06.520] Some guy was like doing a pet waste removal, like training type of thing.
[00:16:06.600 --> 00:16:09.560] It's like, you know, no matter your niche, there's a group about it.
[00:16:09.560 --> 00:16:16.440] And if there's not a group, you should start one because it's a powerful, powerful place where a lot of people are still spending some time.
[00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:17.400] Amazing.
[00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:18.200] I love that one.
[00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:20.520] I wish I could figure out a way to make that happen for me.
[00:16:20.520 --> 00:16:21.240] Maybe I will.
[00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:22.040] Newsletters.
[00:16:22.040 --> 00:16:24.440] Yeah, the email growth hacker newsletter email.
[00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:25.880] Yeah, there's got to be something like that.
[00:16:25.880 --> 00:16:26.520] It's got to be.
[00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:27.080] I love it.
[00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:27.320] All right.
[00:16:27.320 --> 00:16:27.960] What else you got?
[00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:28.200] All right.
[00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:35.240] I think the next one, so Ali Richards has been somebody I just keep being excited about because he does all these cool things.
[00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:44.840] But he started a business called story learning and he was helping people learn different languages, like moving abroad, you're going to teach English as a second language, that kind of thing.
[00:16:44.840 --> 00:16:47.400] He turned that into a $10 million business.
[00:16:47.400 --> 00:16:52.120] And he now is like, I want to do something different and I want to start a personal brand.
[00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:56.680] So he was like, okay, how can I get people on my email list for this personal brand?
[00:16:56.680 --> 00:16:59.320] He couldn't just like promote it to his language learning list.
[00:16:59.320 --> 00:17:00.680] It's not the same audience.
[00:17:00.680 --> 00:17:06.120] So he decided he was going to put everything he learned from building that business into a Google Doc.
[00:17:06.120 --> 00:17:09.400] And it ended up being 118 pages long.
[00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:11.080] And so he's like, okay, cool.
[00:17:11.080 --> 00:17:12.760] Google Doc, 118 pages.
[00:17:12.760 --> 00:17:14.200] He's just giving it all away.
[00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:19.720] So anyone looking to create like an online course business or anything like that, they would be super interested in this.
[00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:24.120] And so he shared that and he just started promoting it in other newsletters.
[00:17:24.120 --> 00:17:27.080] So he would buy sponsorship placements and that kind of thing.
[00:17:27.080 --> 00:17:34.680] But from my end, in the newsletter space, I saw every person who wrote a newsletter about newsletters was sharing this thing like wildfire.
[00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:39.000] Like every day, I'd open an email and be like, check out the Google Doc from Ollie Richards.
[00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:40.360] And I'm like, oh my gosh.
[00:17:40.360 --> 00:17:45.680] And the cool part was, like, yeah, he asked for email if you went to his website to sign up and get it.
[00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:48.000] But most people were just sharing this Google Doc around.
[00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:49.200] And he's like, that's awesome.
[00:17:44.840 --> 00:17:51.120] Like, I don't need to capture every single email.
[00:17:51.360 --> 00:17:53.360] Yeah, like no opt-in required.
[00:17:53.360 --> 00:17:54.000] Totally.
[00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:54.480] Okay.
[00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:59.200] And so he ended up getting like 18,000 subscribers from this thing.
[00:17:59.520 --> 00:18:02.320] And they're high quality, like super high quality.
[00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:11.840] Even though it wasn't a requirement and people just consumed it and they were like, well, if he's given this much away for free, if he's giving me 118 pages for free, what's he sending out an email?
[00:18:11.840 --> 00:18:12.480] Right.
[00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:19.520] And so throughout the Google Doc, of course, there were like ways to opt into the email list if you hadn't been on there already.
[00:18:19.520 --> 00:18:30.240] But in the last two-ish years from starting this Google Doc, he's earned $1.2 million from, he runs like these pretty cheap workshops, like $100 to $400.
[00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:33.280] And then on the back end of that, he'll have like coaching as well.
[00:18:33.440 --> 00:18:34.720] I just thought this was fascinating.
[00:18:34.720 --> 00:18:41.200] Like 18,000 subscribers from a Google Doc, just sharing your information and your expertise.
[00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:44.400] Do you think it worked just because of the novelty factor?
[00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:45.760] Whereas, who does that?
[00:18:45.760 --> 00:18:46.480] Nobody.
[00:18:47.040 --> 00:18:47.360] Totally.
[00:18:47.360 --> 00:18:52.720] He said the only money he spent on it was $10 on Fiverr to get a cover for it made.
[00:18:53.040 --> 00:18:56.800] And arguably, if you look at the cover, you'd be like, you probably could have done that yourself.
[00:18:57.600 --> 00:18:58.000] Okay.
[00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:04.240] And then getting the flywheel spinning by buying some placements or buying some swaps or newsletter ads in other newsletters.
[00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:04.560] Yeah.
[00:19:04.560 --> 00:19:06.560] And so he had these workshops on the back end.
[00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:11.920] So if somebody bought through the workshop, he threw all that money back into buying more ads.
[00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:18.640] So he used Spark Loop, which is kind of like a paid recommendation, as well as newsletter ads, just in a typical email issue.
[00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:20.480] So he created like this little flywheel.
[00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:25.280] Like if any money he made, he went back into ads and it just kept growing the email list.
[00:19:25.280 --> 00:19:25.520] Okay.
[00:19:25.520 --> 00:19:28.800] I've got another one that kind of piggybacks on that.
[00:19:28.800 --> 00:19:38.440] And I call it the perma-free on Amazon strategy or perma-free on Kindle strategy, where there's, I've got a book, it's sidehustle nation.com/slash book.
[00:19:38.440 --> 00:19:45.400] Perma-free, I think might have to be United States only, but this was last updated 2019, so it's due for a refresh.
[00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:50.280] But this is three different side hustle frameworks, right?
[00:19:50.280 --> 00:19:55.160] You could sell a product business, you have to start a service business, or have like a content type of business, right?
[00:19:55.160 --> 00:19:57.480] And this gives a bunch of examples of that.
[00:19:57.480 --> 00:20:03.080] And it's kind of like, if somebody's searching on Amazon for Side Hustle, the goal would be, hey, you go find this book.
[00:20:03.080 --> 00:20:07.080] And in the book, as I have in probably all my books, is some sort of lead magnet.
[00:20:07.080 --> 00:20:19.480] I forget what it is specifically for this one, but over the course of 10 plus years publishing on Amazon, you know, it's thousands of subscribers who either buy the book and then get the upgrade, which you see in almost any nonfiction book.
[00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:21.400] It's like, hey, you want the toolkit, the resources?
[00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:23.800] I'll go over here and download that.
[00:20:23.800 --> 00:20:27.480] Or get the free video companion series, like super, super common strategy.
[00:20:27.480 --> 00:20:31.800] What poured fuel on the fire was reducing the friction and just like making it perma-free.
[00:20:31.800 --> 00:20:38.840] And I don't know if this is still the case on Amazon, but you had to list it on another marketplace and then email them to request a price match.
[00:20:38.840 --> 00:20:46.040] And so you had to upload it somewhere else for free because it's like 0.00 was like not a, not a price that was allowed in their system.
[00:20:46.040 --> 00:20:48.760] But through customer support, they would allow you to do it.
[00:20:48.760 --> 00:20:51.720] And that's been a powerful lead gen for me.
[00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:52.280] Wow.
[00:20:52.280 --> 00:20:57.480] So the other platforms, you uploaded it for free, like Everan.com or whatever that's called?
[00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:05.400] Yeah, maybe Smashwords or iBooks or someplace, someplace else, or maybe it was like the Google Play Store.
[00:21:06.760 --> 00:21:11.480] And then you just like screenshot that or you know, or save the URL, and then say, hey, could you price match this?
[00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:12.440] It's free over here.
[00:21:12.840 --> 00:21:24.480] And then as long as you don't touch it, and that's like one of the hesitations in updating it, I'd love to keep all of the reviews for the book and just push a new version out underneath that same listing.
[00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:28.560] But then you have to go through that repricing process again.
[00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:29.920] And there's no guarantee they'll do it.
[00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:33.120] But it's done for the first few iterations.
[00:21:33.120 --> 00:21:33.760] Oh, wow.
[00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:34.480] That's pretty cool.
[00:21:34.800 --> 00:21:35.520] I like that one.
[00:21:35.520 --> 00:21:40.240] I pulled it from the fiction world where it's like, you know, the first book in the series is free.
[00:21:40.240 --> 00:21:41.840] Hopefully it's good enough to get you hooked.
[00:21:41.840 --> 00:21:52.000] And then you go on and buy the rest of the series or you opt in for a special bonus or get notified when the next book of the series comes out and taking a page out of the fiction author playbook.
[00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:52.720] Oh, I love that.
[00:21:52.720 --> 00:21:54.240] I might have to try something like that.
[00:21:54.240 --> 00:22:05.760] Yeah, especially if you've got years and years of content that could be repackaged into a 118-page Google document or could be repackaged into a Kindle book with probably a similar strategy.
[00:22:05.760 --> 00:22:06.320] I like it.
[00:22:06.320 --> 00:22:07.120] It's a good one.
[00:22:07.120 --> 00:22:07.520] All right.
[00:22:07.520 --> 00:22:07.840] All right.
[00:22:07.840 --> 00:22:10.080] Let's go to CJ Gustafson.
[00:22:10.080 --> 00:22:12.880] This is my favorite one recently of the last like four months.
[00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:14.160] I can't stop thinking about it.
[00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:16.240] So he writes a newsletter called Mostly Metrics.
[00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:19.040] He's a CFO, like financial nerdy guy.
[00:22:19.040 --> 00:22:20.240] His content is awesome, though.
[00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:23.280] He includes like gifts and just like a ton of personality.
[00:22:23.280 --> 00:22:30.400] But what he did was he was trying to look for sponsorships, but he started out, he would go to these software companies in the financial space.
[00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:32.880] So like a Brex or that kind of thing.
[00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:37.600] And he was like, hey, do you guys, like, you don't have any content around this one topic?
[00:22:37.600 --> 00:22:40.560] Like, would love to share a piece with your audience.
[00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:47.280] And so it started off free, but he got a guest post on Brex.com, which I mean, the traffic from that alone is probably amazing.
[00:22:47.280 --> 00:22:57.920] The backlink for SEO purposes, which RIP, but anyway, so it lives there in perpetuity, but it also gets, they started sharing these out to their email list.
[00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:00.000] So these companies are like dying for content.
[00:23:00.280 --> 00:23:07.960] They want someone else who's not their content person to share some exciting news about their organization or why the product's so good.
[00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:13.080] And so CJ coming in as an outsider, sharing about their product was just like a no-brainer.
[00:23:13.080 --> 00:23:18.040] So now he gets paid like six to $12K for a package of like three to four of these posts.
[00:23:18.040 --> 00:23:19.480] Oh, actually, he's getting paid to write them.
[00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:20.520] Getting paid now.
[00:23:20.520 --> 00:23:20.920] Yeah.
[00:23:20.920 --> 00:23:21.400] Wow.
[00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:24.360] Most commonly is you see the inbound.
[00:23:24.360 --> 00:23:25.800] How much is it going to cost for a link?
[00:23:25.800 --> 00:23:26.520] That's great.
[00:23:26.520 --> 00:23:27.000] Okay.
[00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:27.640] Totally.
[00:23:27.640 --> 00:23:29.160] So he's getting paid for these.
[00:23:29.160 --> 00:23:35.640] He doesn't have to write an extra word because they're actually just taking a piece he's already written and sent to his email list.
[00:23:35.640 --> 00:23:38.280] So it's just like an aggregation play.
[00:23:38.280 --> 00:23:39.000] He's getting paid.
[00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:40.280] He doesn't have to write a word.
[00:23:40.280 --> 00:23:48.440] And he's getting subscribers from this because at the bottom of the email or the piece, it says this originally appeared on mostlymetrics.com.
[00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:51.160] And so people click through, they subscribe.
[00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:57.240] And then the best part of this whole thing is he has a paid newsletter and some of those people subscribe and become paying clients.
[00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:00.120] So he's like getting paid twice for some of these.
[00:24:00.120 --> 00:24:00.440] Okay.
[00:24:00.440 --> 00:24:06.920] So it is kind of like a customer use case scenario that you're pitching to that company.
[00:24:07.320 --> 00:24:08.200] Did I hear that right?
[00:24:08.200 --> 00:24:09.320] I think that's how it started out.
[00:24:09.320 --> 00:24:13.720] But now he's just writing content for CFOs and he talks about Brex sometimes.
[00:24:13.720 --> 00:24:16.680] Like he'll link to it, like, hey, you can use Brex for this one thing.
[00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:19.800] But it's not, it's no longer just like a review of the company.
[00:24:19.800 --> 00:24:27.560] Like it's just him, a random CFO, talking about this company or certain topics that their readers are interested in.
[00:24:27.560 --> 00:24:28.200] I don't know.
[00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:29.640] He's just like killing it with this.
[00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:32.920] It's almost like creating a separate blog for these organizations.
[00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:33.240] Okay.
[00:24:33.240 --> 00:24:38.600] So they have some hunger for content that wasn't produced by their internal team.
[00:24:38.600 --> 00:24:40.040] Or maybe it saves them money.
[00:24:40.120 --> 00:24:41.560] It's like, sure, we'll pay you 500 bucks.
[00:24:41.560 --> 00:24:44.120] It's cheaper than paying somebody in-house to create this.
[00:24:44.120 --> 00:24:49.120] And they get the content that was already repurposed.
[00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:50.160] So he reaches a new audience.
[00:24:50.320 --> 00:24:54.560] And then a certain percentage of those people are in his world now.
[00:24:54.560 --> 00:24:55.920] And they come back to the email list.
[00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:57.680] They come back to the paid subscriber tier.
[00:24:57.680 --> 00:24:58.080] Yeah.
[00:24:58.080 --> 00:24:59.840] I mean, you think of even like Kit.
[00:24:59.840 --> 00:25:06.080] They have creator series where a lot of their content is just like pulled from these stories about different creators.
[00:25:06.080 --> 00:25:13.040] Because I mean, people who are reading their email list don't want to hear from their creator person just like, hey, Kit's great.
[00:25:13.040 --> 00:25:13.760] This is awesome.
[00:25:13.760 --> 00:25:17.360] It's more like, hey, Jay Klaus has this newsletter and here's how he grew it on Kit.
[00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:19.760] And it like shares valuable information.
[00:25:19.760 --> 00:25:20.560] So I don't know.
[00:25:20.560 --> 00:25:22.640] I've seen other people do something similar.
[00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:25.120] Caitlin Burgoyne does like webinars.
[00:25:25.120 --> 00:25:28.160] So she'll do a training for companies.
[00:25:28.160 --> 00:25:31.120] And so that software company has an audience.
[00:25:31.120 --> 00:25:36.000] They're showcasing her as like an expert on this thing and their audience is getting value from her.
[00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:39.040] So it's like making them look like an awesome company.
[00:25:39.040 --> 00:25:59.440] Yeah, that's a whole nother strategy that we could probably talk about is this virtual workshops, targeting the companies that you have a good feeling like your avatar, your target customer, your target client is already paying attention to, doing business with, and doesn't even have to like webinars have been maybe given a bad taste in people's mouth.
[00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:00.800] Like, well, I know there's a pitch coming.
[00:26:00.800 --> 00:26:02.080] There don't even have to be a pitch here.
[00:26:02.080 --> 00:26:04.320] If the goal is just to grow your audience, grow your email list.
[00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:09.280] We had Dustin Lean on the show, and this was like one of my favorite strategies of all time.
[00:26:09.280 --> 00:26:16.400] He was targeting, he was like, had such a niche service like email copywriting for direct-to-consumer brands or something like that.
[00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:24.400] And so he would go to Shopify, go to Clavio, or go to companies that his target customers were already doing business with.
[00:26:24.400 --> 00:26:33.000] And kind of like, hey, I'd love to host this free educational workshop on how to rewrite your cart abandonment sequence, like something really, really specific and niche.
[00:26:29.760 --> 00:26:34.760] And it's like, I'm going to teach you the DIY version.
[00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.680] But a lot of the attendees are busy CEOs or marketing directors.
[00:26:38.840 --> 00:26:40.920] Like, could we just pay you to do this?
[00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:46.040] Like, there was no specific pitch or ask or, you know, sign up here to book a consultation call.
[00:26:46.040 --> 00:26:50.920] Just by virtue of skipping the line, like they've kind of vouched for you as the expert.
[00:26:50.920 --> 00:26:57.320] Just it was a really cool shortcut strategy to get in front of segment large groups of your target customer in a hurry.
[00:26:57.320 --> 00:26:57.720] Yeah.
[00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:01.160] And all right, let's give people like a normal example because these are all business ones.
[00:27:01.160 --> 00:27:04.680] So I'm just thinking, you were mentioning the microgreens farmer guy, right?
[00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:07.960] So he could go to a company like Bootstrap Farmer.
[00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:11.880] They sell these seed trays that you actually can grow microgreens in.
[00:27:11.880 --> 00:27:19.160] He can go to them and say, hey, I want to share my 10 biggest mistakes of growing microgreens or something for beginners.
[00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:22.040] And like at the bottom, they sign up for his email list.
[00:27:22.280 --> 00:27:25.160] And so it doesn't have to be like a business-oriented thing.
[00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:27.720] It could be, I don't know, growing microgreens.
[00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:29.880] Like, how much more B2C does that get?
[00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:30.440] Yeah, that's great.
[00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:34.520] But like, kind of that same question: well, who are my target customers already doing business with?
[00:27:34.520 --> 00:27:36.440] Like, who would benefit from my newsletter?
[00:27:36.440 --> 00:27:40.760] And where can I get in front of big chunks of them all at once?
[00:27:40.760 --> 00:27:49.480] And it's really interesting when both the virtual workshops and the paid guest posts getting paid to create content for other companies.
[00:27:49.560 --> 00:27:54.920] I'm just like, my mind is spinning on, well, who else could I go and pitch this to?
[00:27:54.920 --> 00:28:04.560] One that is in a similar vein is this is from years ago, would be like the virtual summit strategy, which full caveat, like this is a ton of work to put together.
[00:28:04.560 --> 00:28:10.200] Pre-record a bunch of videos, and I'm going to drip them out over this like live three-day virtual event.
[00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:13.720] And the goal is everybody you recorded videos with promotes it to their audience.
[00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:18.320] It's the three-day brand building summit, it's the three-day build-your-freelance business summit.
[00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:29.840] And super, super effective if you can get this where I mean, we talked to Chandler Bolt, like booked some obscene, like probably a million dollars in sales, like from you know, the self-publishing summit back in the day.
[00:28:29.840 --> 00:28:36.560] But one thing that you can do is reach out to companies that might also want to reach this audience.
[00:28:36.560 --> 00:28:40.400] Somebody had the example of like the freelancer summit, like grow your freelancing business.
[00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:44.000] Hey, fresh books, would you mind sponsoring our event?
[00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:45.360] You can be the title sponsor.
[00:28:45.360 --> 00:28:47.200] I don't even know if they charged for it.
[00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:52.720] Maybe they could have, but the price of admission was invite your email list, invite your own customer base to it.
[00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:55.040] And all of a sudden, boom, 20,000 registrations.
[00:28:55.040 --> 00:28:56.560] It was like, oh, this is great.
[00:28:56.560 --> 00:29:00.800] So I'm trying to sell sponsorships or even free sponsorships to the virtual summit.
[00:29:00.800 --> 00:29:06.480] So done right can be absolutely effective, but you're going to be dedicating some time to pulling this off.
[00:29:06.480 --> 00:29:10.320] This reminds me of what I just went through with the 30 days of growth.
[00:29:10.320 --> 00:29:12.640] It was like not a summit, but similar.
[00:29:12.800 --> 00:29:17.520] It's still coordinating with 30 different people, but you didn't have to do like a live video or anything.
[00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:18.480] So that was interesting.
[00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:19.600] That was a good one.
[00:29:19.600 --> 00:29:27.200] I think that's actually something that can be replicated for quite a few people and netted out like 1,750 new subscribers for me in the last 30 days.
[00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:28.160] So I'll take that.
[00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:28.640] Yeah.
[00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:31.360] And you called it like a, you called it like a pop-up newsletter.
[00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:32.560] Pop-up newsletter, yeah.
[00:29:32.560 --> 00:29:44.080] It's similar to a summit in certain ways, but essentially I went out, found 30 different creators, including Nick, and I was like, hey, you want to share one growth tactic you've used to grow your email list?
[00:29:44.080 --> 00:29:45.920] A lot of them I already knew ahead of time.
[00:29:45.920 --> 00:29:47.920] Like I had figured out like what they had done.
[00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:49.600] And I was like, Do you want to share this one tactic?
[00:29:49.600 --> 00:29:52.880] And then, so everybody got one of those tips every day for 30 days.
[00:29:52.880 --> 00:29:53.520] And now it's over.
[00:29:53.520 --> 00:30:01.880] So it's not like I have to keep writing this daily newsletter every day, but it's a heck of a lead magnet I have now of like, here's 30, 30 tips to grow your newsletter.
[00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:02.360] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:02.520 --> 00:30:07.480] And everybody who is featured shares it with their audience as a little snippet, as a little blurb.
[00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:09.640] Hey, make sure you go check out the 30 days of growth.
[00:30:09.640 --> 00:30:10.040] Okay.
[00:30:10.040 --> 00:30:10.360] Yeah.
[00:30:10.360 --> 00:30:17.720] And I did have some software tools giving away free licenses, but I did not do the smart thing of being like, can you share this with your email list?
[00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:19.160] I should have done that.
[00:30:19.480 --> 00:30:21.160] That was a missed opportunity there.
[00:30:21.160 --> 00:30:27.240] It's taking the, you know, the old vertical Roundup style post and just making it horizontal.
[00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:33.000] We're going to drip this out instead of, say, you know, 30 creators on their number one marketing tip.
[00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:33.480] Okay.
[00:30:33.480 --> 00:30:43.320] We can have that same content and that same amount of outreach and back and forth, but just structured in a different way and kind of have a similar promotion engine where everybody kind of bands together to share it.
[00:30:43.320 --> 00:30:44.360] Yeah, I like that.
[00:30:44.360 --> 00:30:45.000] Totally.
[00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:48.360] That vertical thing used to work really well, but I think it's a little tired now.
[00:30:48.360 --> 00:30:48.840] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:49.160 --> 00:31:00.920] More with Chanel in just a moment, including the simple LinkedIn post that generated 650 new subscribers in just two posts and why bundle sales might be your secret weapon for growing your list right after this.
[00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:07.480] With our partner, Mint Mobile, you can get the wireless coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money.
[00:31:07.480 --> 00:31:09.800] I think that's a win we could all use right about now.
[00:31:09.800 --> 00:31:11.400] And you can keep your same phone number.
[00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:20.200] Plus, for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering Side Hustle Show listeners three months of unlimited premium wireless service for just 15 bucks a month.
[00:31:20.200 --> 00:31:27.240] All Mint plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network.
[00:31:27.240 --> 00:31:30.440] I've been a customer since 2019 and haven't looked back.
[00:31:30.440 --> 00:31:33.400] This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank.
[00:31:33.400 --> 00:31:42.680] Get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month at mintmobile.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:46.400] That's mintmobile.com/slash sidehustle.
[00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:50.160] Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 per month.
[00:31:50.400 --> 00:31:53.840] Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only.
[00:31:53.840 --> 00:31:57.600] Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.
[00:31:57.600 --> 00:31:59.200] Taxes and fees extra.
[00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:02.000] See Mint Mobile for details.
[00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:04.480] Years ago, this is probably 2009.
[00:32:04.480 --> 00:32:13.680] I'm sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara, and the presenter asks this question: Are you working on your business or are you working in your business?
[00:32:13.680 --> 00:32:21.440] I saw myself as this full-time entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that, no, I was still very much working in the business day to day.
[00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:24.800] So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full-time hire.
[00:32:24.800 --> 00:32:34.880] It was the first in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go of certain tasks.
[00:32:34.880 --> 00:32:41.680] Now, when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need our sponsor, Indeed.
[00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:45.840] Plus, Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast.
[00:32:45.840 --> 00:32:50.800] There's no monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, and you only pay for results.
[00:32:50.800 --> 00:32:53.920] That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed.
[00:32:53.920 --> 00:33:02.880] Side Hustle Show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/slash sidehustle show.
[00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:10.640] Just go to indeed.com/slash sidehustle show right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
[00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:13.520] Indeed.com/slash sidehustle show.
[00:33:13.520 --> 00:33:15.120] Terms and conditions apply.
[00:33:15.120 --> 00:33:17.760] Hiring, indeed, is all you need.
[00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:19.040] These are awesome.
[00:33:19.040 --> 00:33:20.080] I've taken a ton of notes.
[00:33:20.080 --> 00:33:22.160] These are going to get some good ideas from this.
[00:33:22.320 --> 00:33:22.800] What else?
[00:33:23.040 --> 00:33:24.240] Anything else on the list?
[00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:25.200] Yeah, I like the one.
[00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:28.640] It's a little more simple instead of like 30 days of content.
[00:33:28.640 --> 00:33:34.920] So, Tom Orbach, who runs marketingideas.com, marketing ideas newsletter, but he knows his marketing stuff.
[00:33:35.080 --> 00:33:37.640] So, on LinkedIn, he just wrote, drop your website URL below.
[00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:40.120] I'll reply with a specific growth hack for your company.
[00:33:40.120 --> 00:33:41.640] First come, first serve.
[00:33:41.640 --> 00:33:47.720] And then within this, so he's giving people like custom like ideas for growth for their companies.
[00:33:47.720 --> 00:33:51.480] And then underneath each one that he replies to, he'll give them the idea.
[00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:56.440] And then he'll say, if you enjoyed this, I share a bunch of tips like this over at marketingideas.com.
[00:33:56.440 --> 00:34:00.440] He said that LinkedIn post got him 250 new subscribers.
[00:34:00.440 --> 00:34:03.320] And when he did it on Substack, it got him 400 subscribers.
[00:34:03.320 --> 00:34:03.800] Wow.
[00:34:03.800 --> 00:34:07.960] So yeah, 650 just from two posts and sharing some time.
[00:34:07.960 --> 00:34:13.320] The brilliance of this, though, is like he can take some of these ideas and expand on them in his newsletter.
[00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:17.000] So it's like not even just a one-time use case.
[00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:21.400] Yeah, it feels like I'm giving my time, but I'm also getting future content out of this deal.
[00:34:21.400 --> 00:34:21.800] Yeah.
[00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:26.280] And he said a lot of the people who joined the newsletter actually weren't even commenting.
[00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:32.680] They just saw all of the value he was providing and were like, okay, I'm going to sign up for this guy's newsletter because he clearly knows what he's talking about.
[00:34:32.680 --> 00:34:33.320] What do you think?
[00:34:33.320 --> 00:34:43.160] Like, if you don't have much of a following on LinkedIn, if you don't have much of a following on Substack or X, and you post the stuff, hey, you know, first 10 people, it's like crickets.
[00:34:43.160 --> 00:34:46.600] You're like, well, now this is awkward because now nobody even commented.
[00:34:46.600 --> 00:34:47.160] Yeah.
[00:34:47.160 --> 00:34:51.320] Well, you could always delete it if you don't get comments within the first 30 minutes or something.
[00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:53.480] But I mean, you could also like seed it with a friend.
[00:34:53.480 --> 00:34:57.000] I could be like, hey, Nick, can you go comment on this thing so I can at least start sharing?
[00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:00.520] And then as people see the comments, they'll probably share their own URL.
[00:35:00.520 --> 00:35:00.760] Okay.
[00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:01.720] So, what do you call this one?
[00:35:01.720 --> 00:35:07.480] Kind of like almost a social proof giveaway type of thing, like, oh, you know, office hours type of thing.
[00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:07.880] Yeah.
[00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:09.880] You could do it as an ask me anything too.
[00:35:09.880 --> 00:35:12.280] And this works for practically any industry.
[00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:19.760] So, if we continue with the microgreens example, it's like, give me your biggest issue with microgreens or what's a recent issue you've encountered.
[00:35:14.840 --> 00:35:21.760] Like, maybe they were overwatered or something.
[00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:25.520] It might not work on LinkedIn, but somewhere else, like a forum or something.
[00:35:25.520 --> 00:35:25.840] Yeah.
[00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:29.440] And if the first one doesn't work, don't get discouraged.
[00:35:29.440 --> 00:35:34.720] I remember this was from talking with Dickie Bush years ago when he was first getting started on Twitter.
[00:35:34.720 --> 00:35:36.080] And he put something out.
[00:35:36.080 --> 00:35:37.440] It was like, I wrote a thread.
[00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:38.480] I forget his cadence.
[00:35:38.480 --> 00:35:40.480] It was either every day or every week.
[00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:51.360] And nine of those over the course of the year, nine of those ended up going viral and getting him at his 100,000 subscribers or whatever his number was that turned into ship 30 for 30.
[00:35:51.360 --> 00:35:54.400] Like this whole business built on the back of building that following.
[00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:57.200] But it was like most of them didn't do anything.
[00:35:57.200 --> 00:35:58.560] Most of them didn't hit.
[00:35:58.560 --> 00:36:02.160] And his line was like, it's the ultimate, you know, idea proving ground.
[00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:06.480] It's like, if it doesn't resonate in the first little bit, like the algorithm is just going to bury it.
[00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.480] You're like, well, now, you know, back to the drawing board.
[00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:10.240] That wasn't the right, that wasn't the right hook.
[00:36:10.240 --> 00:36:11.440] That wasn't the right idea.
[00:36:11.440 --> 00:36:13.040] And you kind of refine this process.
[00:36:13.040 --> 00:36:22.080] I don't know if the hit rate improved over time, but it's almost this numbers game of, you know, don't get discouraged if your first two posts don't deliver the results you want.
[00:36:22.080 --> 00:36:28.480] Like it's kind of a game of iteration and trying to find the right thing that does hit and that does take off.
[00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:28.640] Yeah.
[00:36:28.640 --> 00:36:31.600] I think he posted online like every day for nine months.
[00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:35.040] He got to like 2,000 followers after nine months.
[00:36:35.040 --> 00:36:36.160] Like most people would have quit.
[00:36:36.160 --> 00:36:37.440] Yeah, it's kind of discouraging.
[00:36:37.600 --> 00:36:41.680] But then you see his trajectory now and you're like, whoa, it's so cool that he didn't quit.
[00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:41.920] Yeah.
[00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:46.880] It's hard to stick with it in those early, early days, sometimes early years.
[00:36:46.880 --> 00:36:52.000] You're like, what are the, it's hard when the you know, step one, create, create good content.
[00:36:52.160 --> 00:36:55.120] Step two, you know, hopefully go viral.
[00:36:55.120 --> 00:37:02.040] It's like that wildcard of it is a little bit challenging, but maybe you can seed it if you have a handful of connections.
[00:37:02.200 --> 00:37:09.480] Maybe they you ask them to be the first commenters or to to reshare it and hopefully give the algorithm a little bit of a nudge.
[00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:14.520] Yeah, like even Sam Parr from the hustle, he had uh the trends community on Facebook.
[00:37:14.520 --> 00:37:21.160] He actually said that in the beginning, he was seeding posts, so he would write up a whole piece for people and share it to them in their DMs.
[00:37:21.160 --> 00:37:25.560] And so, like, even if someone like Sam Parr had to do that in the beginning, it's okay if you do that.
[00:37:25.560 --> 00:37:27.160] Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:27.160 --> 00:37:35.640] For Growth in Reverse, anything else that you found like in the early days to try and get, you know, get those first a thousand or ten thousand subscribers?
[00:37:35.640 --> 00:37:43.080] It was a lot of Twitter threads, and also I think the content was just so unique that people were like, I'm gonna share this with other people.
[00:37:43.080 --> 00:37:57.240] Okay, that's a huge unlock, and it's it's probably the underlying piece of all of these is like if you have really good stuff, it's just gonna make everything we just talked about work so much better because people are gonna want to recommend you, they're gonna want to share your content, they're gonna want to pay you to promote it.
[00:37:57.240 --> 00:38:10.200] Yeah, what you've become known for, what Growth in Reverse has become known for, is like these really in-depth, deep dive case studies that say, Okay, look at Sahil Bloom now, and then let's rewind.
[00:38:10.200 --> 00:38:17.000] Let's go back five years and see what that trajectory looked like and the specific tactics that worked and didn't work.
[00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:22.600] And you're right, it's it's unique content, it's something you won't find anywhere else, and it was it was effective.
[00:38:22.600 --> 00:38:28.040] So, the question is, could I reverse engineer something similar for my own niche if you're if you're listening in?
[00:38:28.040 --> 00:38:37.560] And I don't know if there's any shortcuts here, but you're doing that kind of analysis that people aren't going to find anywhere else makes it compelling.
[00:38:37.560 --> 00:38:37.840] Yeah.
[00:38:37.640 --> 00:38:42.840] Or, or like you, just go out and find the most unique stories about side hustles and share them.
[00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:49.360] Like, you're not the one actually doing the side hustle necessarily, but you're sharing all of those tips and things that you've learned from doing your own.
[00:38:44.920 --> 00:38:51.680] Again, it's just like a different way to do unique content.
[00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:53.360] Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point.
[00:38:53.360 --> 00:38:58.400] And those are the episodes where you hang up here, you're like, and I got to go tell the neighbors, you're not going to believe who I talked to today.
[00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:02.400] You know, could you believe she makes money organizing people's photos in the attic?
[00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:02.720] Right.
[00:39:02.720 --> 00:39:04.160] Oh, that's a $100 an hour job.
[00:39:04.160 --> 00:39:04.480] Cool.
[00:39:04.480 --> 00:39:05.200] I didn't know that.
[00:39:05.200 --> 00:39:05.760] So good.
[00:39:05.760 --> 00:39:13.840] I have another one that has added probably several thousand subscribers over the course of the last three or four years, and that is participating in bundle sales.
[00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:24.160] And so this is going to be more of a B to C or maybe like B to small B type of type of play, where a bundle sale organizer, like Ultimate Bundles is one.
[00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:25.840] BC Stack is the one that I'm referring to.
[00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:30.080] I've been a participant in many times, but there's a few different companies that put these together.
[00:39:30.080 --> 00:39:40.080] So that may be a side hustle on its own, being the host, the organizer, the aggregator, because there's some benefits to being that central hub as well.
[00:39:40.080 --> 00:39:53.200] But as a contributor, how it works is everybody kind of donates a product to this bundle and say, hey, for a limited time, for one week only, you're going to get access to 30, 40, 50 of these digital products on a specific niche.
[00:39:53.200 --> 00:39:55.040] Maybe it's how to grow your traffic.
[00:39:55.040 --> 00:39:58.000] And you get it for $49, whatever it is.
[00:39:58.000 --> 00:40:01.760] You know, low price, hey, sticker price on all these resources are $5,000.
[00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:04.800] It's like, okay, that might be inflated, but it's still a good deal.
[00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:05.840] And, you know, you never know.
[00:40:06.080 --> 00:40:09.920] It only takes one good idea to make back the $49 and then something.
[00:40:09.920 --> 00:40:24.160] So I'm a fan of these as a consumer and I'm a fan of these as a contributor because how it works is all of these contributors, the 30, 40, 50 people who contributed products, plus the bundle sale has recruited additional affiliates who their audience might find value in this.
[00:40:24.320 --> 00:40:26.400] They all promote it to their audience.
[00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:37.640] And when people go to go and claim those products, they go register with Teachable or they go order the thing through your Thrivecart link or however it is, or they sign up on your email.
[00:40:37.640 --> 00:40:40.760] And so they have to enter their email to go and claim the product.
[00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:42.760] And now they're a part of your ecosystem.
[00:40:42.760 --> 00:40:48.920] So it's a way to gather subscribers from a ton of different places all at once.
[00:40:48.920 --> 00:40:51.800] And it's been a really effective one over the last few years.
[00:40:51.800 --> 00:40:52.840] That's so interesting.
[00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:55.400] Are those like high-quality email subscribers too?
[00:40:55.400 --> 00:40:56.680] Yeah, I was kind of surprised.
[00:40:56.680 --> 00:41:02.760] So the unsubscribe rate, the open rate has been pretty similar to the broader list.
[00:41:02.760 --> 00:41:08.280] And I guess I expected it to be a little lower, but people tend to stick around about the same rate as everybody else.
[00:41:08.280 --> 00:41:08.920] That's interesting.
[00:41:08.920 --> 00:41:12.600] So you get the entire list, even if they don't like download your thing necessarily?
[00:41:12.600 --> 00:41:13.880] No, only if they claim your thing.
[00:41:13.880 --> 00:41:14.600] Oh, okay.
[00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:15.480] Yeah.
[00:41:15.480 --> 00:41:17.640] So it's got to, you got to come up with a compelling product.
[00:41:17.640 --> 00:41:18.680] Interesting.
[00:41:18.680 --> 00:41:21.560] Yeah, I've never done one of those, but I've seen them all over the place.
[00:41:21.560 --> 00:41:23.160] Yeah, it's a very interesting one.
[00:41:23.160 --> 00:41:38.840] And kind of financially, how it works, like, if anybody is curious, like somebody buys the stack, the individual creators get zero dollars, like unless you referred them as an affiliate, then you get your 40% affiliate commission or whatever, whatever it is.
[00:41:38.840 --> 00:41:41.800] But the play is access to this broader audience.
[00:41:41.800 --> 00:41:45.800] And hopefully, some people come back and claim your product and become a part of your world.
[00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:52.520] And a lot of people will throw on order bumps and upsells and stuff, you know, to the back end of their cart to try and recoup some of that.
[00:41:52.520 --> 00:41:55.320] But it's more of a marketing play than a money-making play.
[00:41:55.320 --> 00:41:55.880] Interesting.
[00:41:55.880 --> 00:41:57.560] Yeah, you've been doing that for years now, right?
[00:41:57.560 --> 00:41:58.440] Yeah, it's pretty effective.
[00:41:58.440 --> 00:42:07.080] And it's like, otherwise, I'd be very content to just kind of sit and do my normal thing and like be in maintenance mode and record some episodes.
[00:42:07.240 --> 00:42:09.320] That's like, oh, there's this deadline coming up.
[00:42:09.640 --> 00:42:12.680] I got to come up with a product that would hopefully be compelling.
[00:42:12.680 --> 00:42:14.960] Like the podcast growth playbook came out of that.
[00:42:14.120 --> 00:42:16.720] The little get gigs mini course came out of that.
[00:42:18.000 --> 00:42:23.440] There was like an easy traffic makeover course that came out of that.
[00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:30.080] Where it's like, okay, I got to come up with something that would be beneficial, that would be on brand, that would be like comfortable with this price tag.
[00:42:30.080 --> 00:42:32.480] And here's a good excuse to launch it.
[00:42:32.480 --> 00:42:33.040] Interesting.
[00:42:33.040 --> 00:42:33.760] I like that one.
[00:42:33.760 --> 00:42:34.240] Cool.
[00:42:34.240 --> 00:42:34.720] All right.
[00:42:34.720 --> 00:42:35.520] What else?
[00:42:35.520 --> 00:42:41.440] I think a broader category of things that I like to recommend to people are like collaborations.
[00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:43.360] Now, this could look like a cross-promotion.
[00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:46.000] So like I will shout Nick out in my newsletter.
[00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:49.120] He does the same on his end, but that's like the basic one.
[00:42:49.120 --> 00:42:51.760] There's a guy named Alex Garcia.
[00:42:51.760 --> 00:42:54.880] He runs a newsletter called marketingexamined.com.
[00:42:55.120 --> 00:42:59.760] And he did a cross-promotion with Pat Walls, who has Starter Story, which is a great one.
[00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:01.360] If you haven't talked to Pat, you probably should.
[00:43:01.360 --> 00:43:03.840] He's got a ton of great case studies as well.
[00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:06.240] But they did a cross-promotion.
[00:43:06.240 --> 00:43:09.680] So Pat had this YouTube channel that he was starting to build.
[00:43:09.680 --> 00:43:14.080] I think at the time he probably had like 10 or 15,000 followers or subscribers on YouTube.
[00:43:14.080 --> 00:43:17.520] And Alex was like, okay, well, I have 30,000 email subscribers.
[00:43:17.520 --> 00:43:19.200] Like, let's just swap things.
[00:43:19.200 --> 00:43:24.320] So Pat came out, filmed the video of Alex, like talking about his business and his newsletter.
[00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:28.240] And Alex just shouted him out as like a full-page cross-promotion, essentially.
[00:43:28.240 --> 00:43:30.320] Okay, like sharing Pat's stuff.
[00:43:30.320 --> 00:43:38.800] And so it looked similar on like the outside, but now Pat's channel has like, I think he has like over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube.
[00:43:39.120 --> 00:43:43.280] And so like that video has gotten shared all over the place.
[00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:50.720] About three or four months after, I believe Alex shared that he had gotten like 5,000 to 10,000 subscribers from that video.
[00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:57.440] I don't know how many Pat got, but that's a really, that's a lot of subscribers from one collaboration.
[00:43:57.440 --> 00:43:57.760] Yeah.
[00:43:57.760 --> 00:44:03.000] I mean, you see this on YouTube all the time and just even in the whole channels that my kids watch.
[00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:06.680] Dude Perfect is collaborating with Mark Robert to build battle robots.
[00:44:06.840 --> 00:44:11.720] Okay, you know, but it makes sense because it kind of lifts a rising tide, lifts all boats, it gets exposure to a different audience.
[00:44:11.720 --> 00:44:11.960] Yeah.
[00:44:11.960 --> 00:44:13.960] And so you don't have to have these huge audiences.
[00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:22.600] That's just like an outlier example, but you can write a guest post together, like go to the writer of a newsletter and like you guys co-write a piece.
[00:44:22.600 --> 00:44:25.240] I've seen this happen all over Substack.
[00:44:25.240 --> 00:44:29.240] The beauty of Substack is like people can click right through and subscribe very easily.
[00:44:29.240 --> 00:44:38.600] Even if you don't have Substack, though, you can do something like this and just like co-write a guest post or actually write a guest post for their audience that they don't have to write anything for.
[00:44:38.600 --> 00:44:41.400] Summits are kind of a version of collaborations.
[00:44:41.400 --> 00:44:43.320] Even that bundle is probably something similar.
[00:44:43.320 --> 00:44:43.640] Yeah.
[00:44:43.640 --> 00:44:45.640] But you can do this on social media as well.
[00:44:45.640 --> 00:44:49.080] So it's not like it has to live in one channel or the other.
[00:44:49.080 --> 00:44:49.240] Right.
[00:44:49.320 --> 00:44:52.760] And it's trying to find people of a similar size, maybe when you're starting out.
[00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:56.680] This was a similar strategy on podcast shout outs.
[00:44:56.680 --> 00:45:00.360] I mean, years ago, it was Instagram takeovers, Instagram shout-outs.
[00:45:00.360 --> 00:45:01.480] Like it's nothing new here.
[00:45:01.480 --> 00:45:08.200] And could you be getting, could you get included in somebody else's newsletter as a recommended resource in exchange for shouting them out?
[00:45:08.200 --> 00:45:09.480] It's like a similar idea here.
[00:45:09.480 --> 00:45:12.200] And it can work really no matter what scale.
[00:45:12.200 --> 00:45:18.280] If you're starting out, it's like, okay, maybe it's five to ten subscribers instead of five to ten thousand, but the principles are still the same.
[00:45:18.280 --> 00:45:18.600] Yeah.
[00:45:18.600 --> 00:45:19.880] There's a woman on Substack.
[00:45:19.880 --> 00:45:21.240] Her name is Maya Voye.
[00:45:21.320 --> 00:45:22.920] She's in the product space.
[00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:25.960] So she writes about like product marketing, product strategy.
[00:45:25.960 --> 00:45:30.360] And she went out to some of the other bigger people with Substacks and started doing this.
[00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:34.120] Like she would co-write pieces with them or she would write a piece for them.
[00:45:34.120 --> 00:45:37.160] And when I found her, she had like 3,000 subscribers.
[00:45:37.160 --> 00:45:39.720] And now at this point, I think she's pushing like 20K.
[00:45:39.720 --> 00:45:42.040] And this is like eight months ago, maybe.
[00:45:42.040 --> 00:45:48.480] So like it happens pretty quick if your content's good and you're able to collaborate with some of these people.
[00:45:48.480 --> 00:45:50.480] And she didn't have an audience at that point.
[00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:52.000] And she was partnering with people.
[00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.360] One guy, Akash Gupta, had like 140,000 subscribers.
[00:45:55.360 --> 00:46:00.400] So like, because she was giving him such a valuable piece of content, he was like, yeah, I'll share it.
[00:46:00.400 --> 00:46:00.560] Yeah.
[00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:06.320] Step one, make sure your content is good before you ask anybody to vouch for you to share it.
[00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:08.480] But there's like a diverging path, right?
[00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:12.800] Like I could focus heads down, just doing my thing and hope somebody notices.
[00:46:12.800 --> 00:46:21.280] It's like, you got to kind of be vocal and be proactive about promoting this stuff or going after these collaborations and promo swaps.
[00:46:21.280 --> 00:46:24.800] Otherwise, like the odds of somebody just finding it on their own are so low.
[00:46:24.800 --> 00:46:31.600] Yeah, it's very low, especially if it's like a new venture or you've never been online before doing something like this.
[00:46:31.600 --> 00:46:31.920] Yeah.
[00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:41.600] You had an interesting one too to move on to the next one from Cody Sanchez, where she was apparently actually buying up newsletters for contrarian thinking early on.
[00:46:41.600 --> 00:46:43.520] It's like, how could I shortcut this even faster?
[00:46:43.520 --> 00:46:46.560] Oh, this guy already has 13,000 subscribers.
[00:46:46.560 --> 00:46:47.760] I'll just go buy the newsletter.
[00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:49.280] It's like, you don't want to run it anymore.
[00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:50.160] Like, was this?
[00:46:50.160 --> 00:46:50.560] Yeah.
[00:46:50.560 --> 00:46:51.760] Is this how it happened?
[00:46:51.760 --> 00:46:52.080] Yeah.
[00:46:52.080 --> 00:46:53.520] This is actually funny.
[00:46:53.520 --> 00:46:59.360] I've, I was doing research and I came across this one podcast episode and I had not heard her talk about this.
[00:46:59.360 --> 00:47:02.320] And I think I listened to like 25 other podcast episodes.
[00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:03.280] Yes, I go deep.
[00:47:03.280 --> 00:47:06.720] And so I listened to this and she said she bought a newsletter.
[00:47:06.720 --> 00:47:12.240] And so typically when you buy a newsletter, you might send an email and say, Hey, we just acquired blah, blah, blah, newsletter.
[00:47:12.240 --> 00:47:14.080] You're now going to be on this list.
[00:47:14.080 --> 00:47:17.760] And you just like import all those people, delete the old list, and move on.
[00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:26.560] But what Cody did was she actually positioned Contrarian Thinking as a guest post author or a sponsor for weeks, if not months.
[00:47:26.560 --> 00:47:32.440] She didn't go too far into detail, and I don't know which newsletter she bought because she has never talked about this again.
[00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:32.600] Okay.
[00:47:32.920 --> 00:47:39.400] But she did do this from her words, and she would build this audience on the same time.
[00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:44.840] So she would just send out these emails, keep writing the content like nothing ever happened.
[00:47:44.840 --> 00:47:49.640] And then she would turn around when she figured out, like, I probably got all the subscribers I'm going to get from this.
[00:47:49.640 --> 00:47:52.440] She would turn around and sell that back to someone else.
[00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:55.640] So she nowhere in this actually lost money.
[00:47:55.640 --> 00:47:59.080] She probably made money because she was still growing in the newsletter at this point.
[00:47:59.080 --> 00:47:59.560] Okay.
[00:47:59.560 --> 00:48:02.680] And so talk about like leverage.
[00:48:02.680 --> 00:48:03.720] Yeah, very savvy.
[00:48:03.720 --> 00:48:03.960] Yeah.
[00:48:03.960 --> 00:48:11.080] I'm going to buy this asset, milk it as much as I can, but still continue its founding mission and then, you know, flip it to the next person.
[00:48:11.080 --> 00:48:11.320] Yeah.
[00:48:11.320 --> 00:48:13.080] It's like so on brand for her.
[00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:25.160] One thing that she mentioned in our earlier interview was a lot of manual outreach for the first thousand to 10,000 people where it was, would you mind shouting this out?
[00:48:25.160 --> 00:48:36.280] You know, to reaching out to friends who already had email lists, doing a ton of guest podcasting, podcast guesting rather, where it was sharing this idea about buying businesses versus building businesses.
[00:48:36.280 --> 00:48:46.680] Like, okay, that's a unique angle and building the newsletter that way by borrowing other people's audiences, either through email promo swaps or email shout outs or through podcast guesting.
[00:48:46.680 --> 00:48:49.320] Yeah, she's a hustler for sure.
[00:48:49.640 --> 00:48:55.960] I created a visual actually showing all of the podcasts she was on and like her growth of her newsletter.
[00:48:55.960 --> 00:48:57.560] And it was like so in line.
[00:48:57.560 --> 00:48:58.520] It's just amazing.
[00:48:58.520 --> 00:49:01.080] I'll share that with you with you if you want to put it in the show notes.
[00:49:01.080 --> 00:49:01.400] Okay.
[00:49:01.400 --> 00:49:01.560] Yeah.
[00:49:01.560 --> 00:49:02.520] It was pretty insane.
[00:49:02.520 --> 00:49:02.840] All right.
[00:49:02.840 --> 00:49:08.040] Well, I could say I knew her before she was super, super famous, only medium famous early on.
[00:49:08.040 --> 00:49:11.000] Yeah, I remember listening to your episode with her for that research.
[00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:13.120] Yes, you know, millions of followers ago.
[00:49:12.920 --> 00:49:13.440] Yeah.
[00:49:14.040 --> 00:49:15.440] What are we doing wrong, Nick?
[00:49:15.440 --> 00:49:16.080] Yeah, who knows?
[00:49:14.920 --> 00:49:16.560] Who knows?
[00:49:17.600 --> 00:49:18.480] This was depressing.
[00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:24.640] Like, I remember specifically showing up at VinCon 2021 in Austin.
[00:49:24.640 --> 00:49:27.040] And in my mind, this was like the year of TikTok.
[00:49:27.040 --> 00:49:29.520] So many young creators were there.
[00:49:29.520 --> 00:49:30.960] Oh, I started six months ago.
[00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:32.880] I've got a quarter million followers.
[00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:35.760] And it was just like, huh, this is a different path.
[00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:36.800] Like, this is unique.
[00:49:36.800 --> 00:49:38.240] This is interesting.
[00:49:38.240 --> 00:49:44.880] And one of the episodes that we recorded around that time or maybe a little bit before was with Tori Dunlap.
[00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:50.560] And it was one video, she said, one video went super viral.
[00:49:50.560 --> 00:49:53.920] And her funnel was like, take your money personality quiz.
[00:49:53.920 --> 00:49:55.760] I don't know if it's changed since then.
[00:49:55.760 --> 00:50:00.320] And one video was like, we had 100,000 subscribers in a week.
[00:50:00.320 --> 00:50:11.680] So maybe you can't control going viral, but you can control what Tori did was having the ecosystem and like the lead capture funnel and process in place for when that viral moment happens.
[00:50:11.680 --> 00:50:14.080] And so that was kind of what impressed me from our call.
[00:50:14.080 --> 00:50:16.080] Yeah, I think she still has that quiz.
[00:50:16.080 --> 00:50:17.200] It's actually, she does.
[00:50:17.200 --> 00:50:17.920] I just went to it.
[00:50:17.920 --> 00:50:23.440] 1.16 million people have taken that quiz and all of them entered their email address.
[00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:24.480] So that's wild.
[00:50:24.480 --> 00:50:24.640] Yeah.
[00:50:24.640 --> 00:50:28.320] So if you're going to play the short form game, make sure you got something to lead people back to.
[00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:30.960] That's my, that's my, that's my takeaway.
[00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:33.040] Tori's got an incredible business too.
[00:50:33.040 --> 00:50:34.800] Well, this has been awesome.
[00:50:34.800 --> 00:50:38.720] I don't know how many we can count these up, but probably 10 or 12 different ideas here.
[00:50:38.720 --> 00:50:39.920] Anything else before we wrap?
[00:50:39.920 --> 00:50:41.200] No, I think that's that's it.
[00:50:41.200 --> 00:50:43.440] I mean, I have a million of them on my site.
[00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:47.440] So if you want more, if anybody really wants more than that, you can go find it.
[00:50:47.440 --> 00:50:48.240] Absolutely.
[00:50:48.240 --> 00:50:50.400] Well, yeah, there's growthinreverse.com.
[00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:52.640] There's the growth in reverse podcast.
[00:50:52.640 --> 00:50:53.920] What's next for you?
[00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:54.880] Where are you taking this thing?
[00:50:54.880 --> 00:51:04.040] Gonna put out a course/slash vault of these ideas here soon with some videos and step-by-step of how to do each one because people are telling me there's too many question marks.
[00:50:59.920 --> 00:51:05.560] So I'm like, okay, final help.
[00:51:06.040 --> 00:51:11.320] Yeah, it's almost like a choose your own adventure kind of thing, or you need the quiz funnel to be like, well, which one works for me?
[00:51:11.320 --> 00:51:11.640] Totally.
[00:51:11.640 --> 00:51:12.600] I should put a quiz on there.
[00:51:12.600 --> 00:51:14.040] That's a good idea.
[00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.160] So I think that's the next thing, but I'm still just trying to wrap my head around 30 days of growth.
[00:51:19.160 --> 00:51:21.240] Well, stay tuned for the Growth in Reverse course.
[00:51:21.240 --> 00:51:23.640] We'll be happy to link that up when it is live.
[00:51:23.640 --> 00:51:25.000] GrowthinReverse.com.
[00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:27.240] In the meantime, Chanel, this has been great.
[00:51:27.240 --> 00:51:29.160] Thank you so much for stopping by.
[00:51:29.160 --> 00:51:32.440] Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
[00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:35.640] Just try stuff, experiment, start somewhere.
[00:51:35.640 --> 00:51:39.160] We have all had those failed posts like Nick was talking about with Dickie Bush.
[00:51:39.160 --> 00:51:42.200] Some things will get zero views, but some things might get 10 views.
[00:51:42.200 --> 00:51:45.640] And those 10 people might end up becoming raving fans of your newsletter.
[00:51:45.640 --> 00:51:48.840] So don't look at the small numbers and think you're failing.
[00:51:48.840 --> 00:51:49.880] Just keep going.
[00:51:49.880 --> 00:51:56.440] Yeah, so I will always remember this talk from Cliff Ravenscraft at Podcast Movement, I want to say 2016.
[00:51:56.440 --> 00:51:58.120] And a question from the audience comes in.
[00:51:58.120 --> 00:52:02.920] Well, I've been doing this for five months and I only have 200 subscribers.
[00:52:02.920 --> 00:52:04.200] And he's like, time out.
[00:52:04.200 --> 00:52:07.160] I want you to remove the word only from your vocabulary.
[00:52:07.160 --> 00:52:07.800] Look around this room.
[00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:14.120] There's not 200 people in this room, but you're still thinking like you have some unique advantages here.
[00:52:14.120 --> 00:52:15.640] You know them by name.
[00:52:15.640 --> 00:52:19.160] You can know their exact pains and problems, something that a Tim Ferriss can't do.
[00:52:19.320 --> 00:52:20.440] You've got a unique advantage here.
[00:52:20.680 --> 00:52:21.640] Don't say only, right?
[00:52:21.640 --> 00:52:26.600] You got 200 people paying attention to you, investing their time and energy, putting you in their earbuds.
[00:52:26.600 --> 00:52:29.320] Like you're doing something right if you got 200 people to pay attention to you.
[00:52:29.320 --> 00:52:34.120] So yeah, don't sweat the small numbers and experiment with some different of these growth tactics along the way.
[00:52:34.120 --> 00:52:41.880] Now, I wouldn't be doing my job as a host in an episode about list building if I didn't have a listener bonus, a content upgrade for you.
[00:52:41.880 --> 00:52:47.120] So, I built a list building cheat sheet with a couple dozen different ways to grow your email list.
[00:52:47.120 --> 00:52:52.960] So, you can pick and choose the tactics that appeal most to you, along with some tools and additional resources to help you do it.
[00:52:52.960 --> 00:52:56.160] You can grab that for free in the show notes for this episode.
[00:52:56.240 --> 00:52:58.560] Just follow the link in the episode description.
[00:52:58.560 --> 00:52:59.520] It'll get you right over there.
[00:52:59.520 --> 00:53:01.680] Big thanks to Chanel for sharing her insight.
[00:53:01.680 --> 00:53:05.440] Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
[00:53:05.440 --> 00:53:10.400] The latest offers and deals from those sponsors are at sidehustlenation.com/slash deals.
[00:53:10.400 --> 00:53:13.520] Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
[00:53:13.520 --> 00:53:14.560] That is it for me.
[00:53:14.560 --> 00:53:15.920] Thank you so much for tuning in.
[00:53:15.920 --> 00:53:19.440] If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
[00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:24.160] So, fire off that text message for somebody who needs a little kickstart in their list building efforts.
[00:53:24.160 --> 00:53:26.560] Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen.
[00:53:26.560 --> 00:53:29.440] And I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
[00:53:29.440 --> 00:53:30.080] Hustle on.