If you're curious about growing your newsletter without
using social media, then this episode of the podcast
is for you. I'm excited to have the amazing Jessica Lackey
on the show to talk all about how she has built her newsletter
without social, which I know is a dream for a lot of us. Before we
get into the episode though, quick shout out to our sponsor, Riverside.
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today by clicking the link in the show notes. Now let's get
into this episode with Jessica Lackey. Jessica, welcome to
the show. Thank you. Super happy to be here. I'm
excited to talk with you mostly because we met through the power of the
Internet. First of all, like our relationship, I feel like, has birthed
from, like, the very things that I talk about on this podcast episode.
So it feels serendipitous to to also have you on the show, and
I'm excited to just pick your brain. But before we get
into my questions for today, I wanna give our
listeners a little bit of background about you, because
you are what I would consider, a business
consultant, but you have a very a very particular set
of skills. So tell us a little bit about what you do.
So I'm a business strategist and consultant who helps
expert business owners design, build, and run sustainable
businesses. I really approach business buildings from a
systems philosophy, not like a tech and tools perspective, but
how do we operate businesses based on how we're designing
them, and then how does that structure what tools and tech we need,
but also the processes and things we do on our business on a day to
day basis. So that's where I spend my time and energy.
Yes. And what I love about what you do is the sustainability
part because I feel like there's so much we could do as
business owners. Like, we could do, you know, a podcast or
we could do YouTube or we could do, we could be on, you know,
Asana or we could be in ClickUp. Right? Like, there's so many different ways that
we can run our business. And what I love about the work that you do
is you really, like, get to the heart of the matter and help business
owners build something that they can actually use again and
again over time. How did you get into this work?
So my background is in business consulting. I ran a team, a large team doing
supply and demand management at, Nike. So I was running, Nike.
So I was running planning for women's training shoes and things like that. And I
actually decided after a toxic corporate experience, I wanted to be a life coach.
And while I was trying to build my business, I'm like, I
don't think I'm doing it right.
And so the more I learned about how to build my life coaching business,
the more I realized how they've kind of
abandoned the principles I've learned about business building from
corporate and in my engineering background, and
we're missing some of this, like, philosophy around how do we think about businesses
beyond the online business ecosystem. And I was like, I don't see this
being taught in the market. I don't see us blending these skill sets.
I need this, so how can I bring this to my clients?
Yes. Yes. And I love that corporate background as well because
I do find that in a lot of our online spaces,
we tend to be we tend to reject corporate
philosophy so much that sometimes we miss the
one the parts of it that are good. Right? And so I love that you're
blending, like, the structure, and the
lessons you've learned from corporate and what you've learned from being life coaching
into this new model and this new way of running business, which I love.
Okay. Let's dive into the newsletter, though. So let's start at the
beginning with the newsletter. When did you start the newsletter and and
what inspired you to start? So I actually
this is my 3rd run of the newsletter. So I started a
newsletter to be a holistic nutritionist. That was before life coaching, and then I
became a life coach and started a newsletter there because that's what the thing was.
It was back when Mailchimp was popular. I mean, it might still be popular. I
don't know. But that was the thing. It was like,
you start a list. That was what all that's what all the cool kids were
doing when I started in 2018 with life coaching, but
really 2021, I was like, yeah. I have a list. That's when I went full
time. And so I was on Mailchimp for a year,
and I'm like, everyone says you write gotta write a newsletter every week. So I
wrote a newsletter every week, and it's been going strong for 3
years now. Yes. I love it. Okay. So talk to
me about how the newsletter plays with the rest of your
marketing and with your business. Like, what role does it serve for you?
So the role has changed over time. It used to be I thought it was
kind of sales material, like email marketing for
sales, and it turns out I'm really bad at writing those.
And then at some point in time, I think this was right about when I
went full time, people started I started
seeing Substacks, and I'm like, oh, this is a product in and
of itself. And I crafted
I changed the positioning of the newsletter to be a specific product.
Like, you could come in and learn what I'm teaching
for free because I was really also tired of gatekeeping a lot of knowledge at
that point. Like, you can, like, you can get what you need from my newsletter.
This is not a sales tool. This is a educational tool, and
it's a way for me to think more deeply
about the topics I wanna talk about. So
it shifted from a a sales tool, I'm not good at that, to more
of a exploration of the topics that I wanna explore
and share with people, because I I also didn't wanna have, like, cool
thoughts and not share them. And so that's what my newsletter is. Yeah.
So how do you see actually making sales from the
newsletter? Since it's not a sales tool, how do you make money from it, I
should say? At the bottom of my emails, I do have a PS would
like to work with me, so I have those. I have the the super
signature at the bottom. But it's really the I really use
this as an educational tool to get people hearing about
what I do and get people hearing how I think. And over time, I show
up 10 AM EST every single Sunday. And so
people are like, oh, you're saying interesting things. I like how you think. That's just
the beginning of the process for me. From my newsletter, I
offer a monthly free call, and I have
I've started adding some lower options in there. And so I do when it's I
launch a program twice a year, I launch things. But that's
almost separate from the newsletter. The newsletter is really like, here's how I think, and
if you like this, work with me. And if you don't like this,
then unsubscribe. But it's really been a
way to build real relationships with people over over the years.
And see, this is why I like email marketing and newsletters because there's there's
an intimacy in it that is a little bit different from
social media. And this is coming from someone who's a social media professional. Right? Like,
I love social media for what it is, and anyone
can see it at any time. And sometimes your post
hit the algorithm weird and you're suddenly like, people who shouldn't be in your in
your world are there and they're saying mean things. Whereas
with something as intimate as a newsletter, people have to
kind of opt in to get that information. And so it does
breed intimacy in that process. Do you have any,
like, highlight moments or wins from some of that intimacy with
your audience and with your community? So I was
in Miami with some other, online business collaborator folks, and
I got a submission form to work with me. And it
was someone had been passed my newsletter, and they read a
couple of the issues on my blog because I post things in my newsletter on
my blog, and they came in saying, I read your
piece on business models, and I need to talk to you.
And these were long form 1500
word, 2,000 word pieces that someone
someone thought it was interesting enough to forward to a friend, and
they thought it was interesting enough to go online and learn more things
and subscribed and and fill out a form to work
together. And I didn't have to do anything. That piece
has gone many it's it's been shared a bunch,
but I didn't have to keep creating things. It was someone
knew my philosophies before I had a chance to talk with them. I'm like, well,
that's the easiest sell I'll ever make. Yeah. It's the best feeling in the
world when someone starts quoting back your work to you, and you're like, oh, you
you've been paying attention. Yes. There are
people who, I'm in the middle of a program launch right now. So I do
my launches or like I I write an additional email every week
to that launch. I'm like a I'm a terrible launcher. But
people are like, I've been reading your newsletters for years, and I've
been waiting for the next time this enrolls. And I they know how
I think, and they get on the call and they're like, I want to improve
my systems and structures. And I'm like, yay. Awesome.
My newsletter, it doesn't yes. It's for them, but it's for me to
think more deeply about what I'm teaching and
connect the dots for me. It's like writing is thinking to be a better
writer, to be a better teacher, to be a better coach and consultant.
Like, this is an an avenue for me to explore putting things and frameworks together
and having forcing mechanism, and then other people get to read it. And other people
then quote it back to me and know about my life and know about
what's going on with things I do share about me a little bit in the
newsletter. And people are like, I like this. I like you. And
I feel like I don't I don't have to do a lot. It's like, yes,
publishing it is hard, but it I don't feel like I have to impress
anybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel
like the fact that you're writing it for yourself as well is like
you're already getting you're already getting that, like, serotonin
boost from, like, oh, I did the thing before you even send it because, and
I'm saying this to someone who I feel the same way about my newsletter, is
like it it there's a sense of satisfaction when you produce this work
and you do think of it as a product. So I do have a big
question for you though. It's it's a little bit of like the elephant in the
room to me because because people have to sign up for the
newsletter. My biggest question is, well, then how do you grow
it? How do you make people aware of it? So what are some of the
strategies you're doing to bring in new,
subscribers if you're not using social media? Yep.
So the first stage in my marketing is always connection with new people. The good
news is I like my I think my newsletter is actually good enough that people
share it with their friends. So people people
forward it, people share it. So that's one. Like, I get a lot of people
who just subscribe to the newsletter from it being shared.
Another avenue is podcast like this. So I that's one of my primary
awareness strategies is guesting on podcast and saying I have a newsletter
on my podcast. I'm in a number of communities. And, again,
people, you know, people wanna get to know and support each other in communities, which
is really helpful. And then, I also am part of the
convert kit creator network. And so that I
have if it's people who are recommending me and
it's because we have a shared relationship, those, usually are high quality subscribers. If
it's smart recommendations, I have to usually manually
unsubscribe people who I'm like, you're never opening my stuff. I I have an automation
that sets it up, and I'm like I'm like, I don't know where you came
from. This is not a good fit, so I'm just I'm you're never gonna buy
it. I don't want you to depress my open rates too bad. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. I love this too because I think sometimes
as business owners, as marketers, we feel like we have to be on
social media. And I'm always the first one to say, like, it's just one
tool in the marketing toolbox. There are other ways to market and
you've, you're a great example of that.
Podcast guesting being a great example of getting in front of new
audiences and putting your work out there and building your your list
that way. Yeah. This is great. So have you
completely removed yourself from social, or what what's your relationship with social media
right now? So Instagram is it's a static grid.
It's I I log in to check messages and I, like, log in on my
desktop occasionally, but that's not I don't
find it personally enjoyable. It's, I don't I don't love the
platform as, like, a consumer. I'm on LinkedIn
pretty I'm like, LinkedIn a couple times regularly, but I like, LinkedIn does
seem to penalize the links to the newsletter. Like, it, like, diminishes
external links. So I'm there to, like, talk with people and make friends,
and then they tend to subscribe to the newsletter because we all
know we have one. I'm on threads as like a lurker.
I I haven't figured out how to I yeah. I'm a lurker, and
then I'm a commenter, and I'm an engager, but I'm not a poster. And then
I'm on Twitter just as a consumer sometimes. And, like, I think really what I'm
discovering on social media is I like interacting with my friends. Yes. I
like interacting with my friends on social media, and my friends tell people about
my work. And then a lot of times they say, and she has a great
newsletter. Oh, if I have a fangirl moment, so
there's Regina, by Regina TV. I'm never gonna pronounce her last name
right. She's amazing. And I have been an avid fan of her work for years.
And we were on a networking call, and she's like, oh, I've heard about your
newsletters. And I'm like, okay. That's when in my
little corner of the world, I know I've made it, which is when someone whose
work I deeply admire and cite a lot
and, you know, she's influenced a lot of the way I think about my
newsletter and about the assets I'm creating. Someone says, I've heard that you have a
weekly newsletter. That's amazing. And I'm like, okay. Now I know that,
like, this thing is it's something that is people look forward
to. I'm I'm tempted to, like, skip a week when I go to Europe, but
then I'm like, no. But, like, that breaks trust, and I don't wanna do that.
Yeah. Okay. I'm fangirling with you because I left Regina. And, like,
also, I like, her emails, literally, I just bookmark them and put
them in a folder and I'm like, I need to go back and read this.
She did this whole breakdown recently, and she did it all
inside of, like, a Notion dashboard. And I have that thing bookmarked
because I'm like, this is so good. And it she's like,
over delivers in everything she does. And now that you've said that, I see
that you've gotten that inspiration from her because of the way
that she does work. And then now she, like, recognizes your
work as well. I'm, like, just like pat on the back, friend. That was real
I love that. Yeah. And and one of the things that I learned,
is how do we I'll you know, I'm a big fan of social
media as a I like reading and I like seeing it, but for me, my
newsletter is also not ephemeral. There's the kind of appreciating content.
I'm not writing a weekly newsletter that just goes.
Right? That I wrote a I wrote, I think, 8
pieces this summer on building the 6 business systems. Like, I wrote a philosophy
about the systems. I wrote a blog post for each of the
6 systems that I talk about in building your business that led into an
assessment, that led into a presentation. Each of those systems is
linked on my blog post, and they're linked in different emails related to
I mean, it all comes together. It just happens to get shipped in a
newsletter, but these aren't for me, the newsletter is
not content that just is goes into an archive and just never gets seen
again. Like, it it's thoughtful. It's, like, it's frameworks that I'm working
on developing. It's assets that just happen to get mailed through email.
Okay. I wanna I wanna dive deeper into how you create the email itself.
Because one of the really common challenges
I see when, someone comes to me for, like, consulting
or coaching and marketing is that the
actual product itself needs
improvement because I'll I'll put this in
the kindest way possible. If this is you listening, don't judge yourself. Just
recognize this maybe where you are. But sometimes we try to
market our business as better than what it actually is.
K? So, like, that's why we feel resistance sometimes. That's why it's harder
sometimes because we're trying to, like, paint this picture of
this amazing thing. And then we get there and it's not quite
matching the picture. I think real estate agents do this really well with,
like, how they describe homes. They're like, it's cozy
and then you go and you're like, this is a closet. And
so I feel like that's that's how sometimes we we approach our marketing. But
what I recognize in your work is that the reason
why people forward this and share it is because it's
just that good. Right? And you can do all the
marketing tactics in the world and if the product isn't good, it doesn't matter. And
so you're able to actually leverage the deep
relationships you have with your community because of the trust that
you've built with them and it's just an admirable thing. So I say all that
to say, I wanna dive into the actual structure of the
key piece in the marketing. It's almost like marketing for itself.
Okay. So you have the deeper business
newsletter. You're sitting down to write it. Where do
you start with choosing a topic?
So I now it's taken me a very long time. There's usually
either a client question that I've been noodling
on or a framework I
want to develop that I've been noodling on or a hot
take that I wanna put out there. But now I've
also after writing this for now 3 years, I have like this
kind of design build run deliver type of framework
methodology. And so I'm I'm always compiling a list
of topics, and if I decide there's enough topics for a series, I like
write that down. I'm always generating list of topics in my
Notion database, and I'm always, again, thinking like multipurpose assets.
A client asked me this question, how can this become a newsletter? How can that
become a template or a tool later down the line? But I'm
I have a a library of list, and a lot of times they start from,
like, a thing. Like, I'm like, this is an insight or this is a snippet
or a quote or somewhere. So those are just in a big ass database in
Notion. And then, usually, I'm
taking notes on that topic for a week or
2 in advance. So I might have, like, 3 to 5 topics that I'm developing
and collecting snippets and insights and ahas. And then on,
usually, Saturdays, I sit down and spend 2
like an hour and a half writing and editing the thing. But I've, like,
I've got, like, 4 to 5 in process at a given time
because I'm I'm always thinking this is an idea, but, like,
this is not fully baked yet. This is an idea I need to think about
it. My newsletter I wrote this the newsletter I wrote
this week, it's a it's connecting, someone else's work about author
ecosystems to, my philosophies on, like, business design. And
I've been, like, talking about this person and their work for with my
clients for, I'm like, this is the 4th time I mentioned this. I just need
to write it down and send it out. And so,
those are where it comes from. It's all but I'm, like, collecting the ideas in
Notion database. Yeah. Okay. So I
think there's a few things I wanna highlight in what you just
said. The first is that you're constantly listening
to your interactions that you're having in your business and
having an awareness of, like, reflecting that back in your marketing.
And I think that this is a really important lesson,
especially for people who are new to marketing in this
way. Is that if you sit down and you go, I have to write a
newsletter today. I don't know if it's just me. Mine goes blank. I'm like, I
don't what are words? Well, I don't even know what I'm talking about right
now. But if you can be, like, somehow bottle up and capture those
moments where, you know, you are with your clients and customers. They ask a
question, you see yourself repeating the answer, that's content.
Right? That's content. And so I love that you have captured that.
And then how far in advance you work as well. It's not that
you're, you know, sitting on Saturday to write the Sunday one every week. You kinda
have these ideas and you're thinking about them and they're kind of percolating in the
background. So when you go to to sit
down and write the newsletter, you mentioned that you had, like, these these
pillars. Are you always trying to connect them back to the pillars to lead people,
you know, somewhere else in the funnel? Or, like, what's your thought process around
this marketing asset? Sometimes I connect it
to different other pieces I've written, which is really nice,
and, but I'm always thinking it usually fits
in one of these. It's either in fits in some kind of framework I
have, which is why I think it's really important to have, a framework for,
like, what you talk about and, like, how your business works. Is it a
process, or is it, like, a set of things you talk about? Not content pillars,
but, like, how you work pillars. Like like, they're
one of my one of my coaches, he's gonna always talk about resonance overreach
and personal storytelling, and that's not it's a skill I've
developed for him, but it's not one of my core, like, how I work principles.
So and I think another thing that, from a content perspective
too is, I get subscribed to a lot of email newsletters and I was
subscribed to a lot of sales and marketing. And half the newsletters over
the summer were, like, straight up reaction post to, like, the reason I don't
want you to buy this thing is not because this thing is bad. It's because
this thing is not designed for you. I wanna
teach you about that. And I had consumed a lot of
content, and I'm looking for, like, where do I have a
philosophical disagreement with something? And instead of being like a takedown
piece because that's who wants to read a takedown? That's just not that's not my
style. But how am I like, okay. How does this bolster
something that I wanna tell my audience and tell my tell my people? Like, this
is I I clearly had a reaction to this why, and I write that down.
So I'm consuming so much, and then I'm documenting my reactions to
it. Yes. Okay. So there is some consumption to this
as well. I'm curious how much time you think you spend
on consuming. Because right before this, we recorded as well, you
were talking about all the podcasts you listen to and all the newsletters you read.
Like, do you have an estimate for how much time you spend on that each
week? Podcast alone, like,
3 hours a day. It's so bad. It's it's really kinda ridiculous. But, like, I
I listen to podcast when I'm walking, and I listen to podcast when I'm cooking
and things like that. And this is a bit of my hobby,
I would say. Like, business building is a hobby and it's my business, which is
questionable on whether or not that's, like, blurring some boundaries for a whole lot of
y'all. But, I I find it really interesting. I'm like a I'm I've
been a student at heart my whole life. But I would say it's really important
to listen to your clients, but also just, like, keep tabs on what's going on
in the marketplace. I don't and I think that's,
like, because I don't see I'm actually not on social media that much, so all
my consumption time is on email and podcasts and books and things like
that. Yeah. I'm the same. I'm I constantly have a podcast
going and depending on my mood, it's like a just for fun podcast or it
could be like a business podcast. But as someone who, like,
I always put turn in my homework. If the teacher said read pages 10 through
20, I read all the pages. Like, that's just and I read and I read
ahead. My husband teases me for about this all the time because
I'm very much, like, oh, that's the rules. Like, we gotta follow the rules and
we have to turn our homework. So, I definitely relate to that piece of it
as well. So I wanna go back to something else you mentioned as well.
Your PS at the bottom of each newsletter.
I've seen this strategy done a lot. It's very common.
I wanna talk about what you decided to put in your PS
and how that is working for you. How do you track success there?
Yeah. I have 3 offers right now. I have my, a
new membership, which is kind of like a light lift model. I have my
deeper foundations group program that's, a cohort based business building model
that opens twice a year, and then I have my 1 on 1 work.
Right now, like, the deeper foundations, it's, I
mean, it's like a sign up it's sign up for the wait list, like, 50%
or 50 month weeks of the year, and then it's like, and it's open now
for 2 weeks and 1 on 1. Like, I have
openings every so often, that I currently,
people just, like, book like, they book a they fill out an application. They book
a call. So, it's kind of like the always open, but I
haven't really had to, like, launch something when I'm usually doing, like, a workshop or
something that's, like, time sensitive. I'm truly launching it. It gets a special
segment in my newsletter. These are all kinda like my my 3 always on
offers, and they're just there for anyone who finds them. But I
have special callouts for, again, like workshops and things. And when the
program is up for enrollment, it gets a special spot in my newsletter.
Yeah. Okay. I love this. I've been hesitant to,
implement this strategy just because as a on, like, the
consumer side, I tend to skip it. Like, personally, I almost
never read the PS part of the emails. And
also, I think as a marketer, same as you, I just read a lot of
emails. So I just very rarely click those links anyways.
And I see the value in it, especially if people are forwarding your
emails. Like, if that's a big part of the strategy, that means
not only are the people that this was forwarded to, they get the whole email,
but then they also get those links and that builds a curiosity, which I love.
The other thing you mentioned as well was these free community.
Are they workshops? Are they classes? Tell us more about that one. Yeah.
They're classes. Every this was born out of
originally, this was born out of my I wanted
something that was in between email and working together.
There's a lot of bad actors in the online space,
and a lot of people have gotten burned. And a lot of these master classes
that are, like, 75%, let me tell you about my story, and
then 25% sales pitch. And you're like, well, I came to get a thing, and
I didn't get the thing. And so, I wanted a way
to meet people. I wanted you know, I was told someone someone said do a
round table. I'm like, I don't I don't really know what that means, but, like,
I could teach a class. And so this was almost like the extension of my
newsletter. It's like, okay. I'm gonna develop some content, but I'm also gonna develop
an entire training, teaching. And
business wisdom would say charge for that and make it part of your funnel. I'm
like, well, I want as many people to come to those as possible, and I
want them to bring their friends. And so I'm gonna, 1, not gatekeep
the information because that's really important to my values, but 2, I'm gonna teach it
and give it away for free. And so I do that once a month. And
those are actually, a lot of people subscribe to newsletters because
someone said, hey. She's doing this free thing. It's actually really valuable and not
salesy at all. You should come to this. And,
it's been a great asset again. I developed a teaching for it,
which means I have to think deeply about it. And almost
everyone that has joined one of my group programs, like 50% of them have come
to one of those classes before. Ah, beautiful. I
love it. One of the, I
think, beautiful things about the online marketing space right now
is there is more curiosity
around these deeper relationships and there's less of a
desire for someone to be, you know, sold
to. I distinctly remember,
early in my business going to a webinar that I thought was live
and it had, like, the comments and everything. And then I joined
that program because of that webinar. And the first thing they teach is
these fake webinars. And I was like, oh, this feels awful.
I am never doing this in my business. Right? And so
I love that you have this resource
for people to get a better sense of you, get a better understanding
of you and your offer. And I think it's a great reflection of just your
value system and it makes it easier for someone to say yes to your offer
because they get to experience it, which is so beautiful.
I also don't market them on social media because I'm really bad at
like, I should put them on LinkedIn more and I don't. And they're
people just people bring people, and, you know,
it's, people sign up for the newsletter. Again, like, I I should
do more and on like, to really expose awareness of the
of this. And yet, I still I think,
like, earlier this year, I had 60 people sign up for the re free one.
That's about it was one of the marketing and sales systems, pieces that I talked
about, and it was wonderful. And, you know, I think it's, like,
it's snowballing on its own. And,
I tried to market the thing on social media. I talk I talk about it
sometimes, but I just, those I have found the
for for me, like, the reach is so poor on LinkedIn when you put things
that like that up that I just I just don't.
And they most of the enrollments are from my newsletter, and it's
great. Yeah. And I will gently, with love,
correct you on the should comment because you don't have to put it on
LinkedIn. You could. You could. Absolutely. But you're the
way that you've shown up for yourself is working, and so just keep doing that.
I love it. It's beautiful to see. I'm curious though,
have you have you ran into any challenges with this model
of, marketing, like this marketing system that you've built for yourself?
It would not work if I was trying to sell a low ticket. The the
speed, like, I filmed a whole
YouTube video on this if anyone wants to, hear about the real transparency about
my business numbers.
I built my business on high higher end consulting for
companies starting out. I've now switched to I I no longer do that,
but I have a couple of of clients I work with 5 to 10 hours
a week building through high end, not high ticket
as a, you know, that calm concept, but, like, truly, like, a high level of
support in their business. And so I have, a fractional
COO client. I have a number of 1 on 1 advisory clients. And
so I don't need a ton of traffic and volume to
make my business model work. I don't if I were launching
if I had a cohort based program as my
signature core offer, I needed to enroll 20 people every
quarter in a thing to make it work, My model wouldn't work for that. I'm
growing too slim, growing visibility too slowly for that. Like, I think my conversion
numbers are amazing and they're just not large enough. I don't have enough,
you know, I grew my list, I think, from 2.80
last spring, we're at a1000 now, which is pretty good. And
the conversion rate is amazing on the people that are
in my world because I deepen that relationship. But if I had a a model
that was more short term, if I had a model that required more people opting
in for, you know, like a David Perrell, I don't know if this is
relevant for your audience and you, but David Perrell, ran rite of
passage. It was a cohort based course, and it was, like, super high end, and
it was, you know, 6 week program, and then that was it. That was the
only but he shut that down because it's really hard to run. You have
to still get lots of followers and lots of new new eyeballs
if you're running kind of what I call a high volume model, and I don't
have one. So it works for me because I built my business and
designed it for longevity and long term, and that
allows my audience growth to match the style
in which I work with my clients. Yes. Oh, gosh. I wanna emphasize
this so much for everyone listening. I love that you called it
a high volume model as well because
the level of marketing that's required for some
business models, doesn't fit with personalities
of the business owner. And I think this is also where there's dissonance
when someone tries to deploy marketing strategies and they're like, I don't like
this. For instance, one of my
marketing, coaching clients is like, I wanna be on TikTok, but,
the more we get into it, the more I realize she doesn't wanna be on
TikTok. It's just how she has been sold the bill of
goods of, like, show up on video 3 to 5 times a day,
create all of these assets. And she's like, I'm trying to do all of this
stuff and it just drains me, depletes me. And it doesn't
work for her and it actually just links back to her business model.
And so I do think there's a really important lesson here
in matching your business model to how you wanna
work and then also matching your marketing to that business model
as well, which you've done so beautifully. Talk
to me about some of these results. You mentioned that you're launching as we record
this. What are your goals for a launch, and then how do you
adjust your marketing for your newsletter throughout the
launch period? Yeah. So I my goal for my launch
is 15 people, which is not super large, but that's, again, how I
roll. I'm, like, I want infinite deep relationships, deeply
supportive. My newsletter for the maybe
month before the launch started, was
very prelaunch heavy content talking about some philosophies and some beliefs
and trying to cross the bridge on some of the what would you need to
believe for this to be true type of content, not explicitly
marketing the program, but priming the pump as it were. And then I keep
my newsletter going every week. I actually don't send launch
emails to people who have not made it through my welcome sequence yet
because, if they want to buy from the website, they can. I'm
doing a podcast ad with Amelia's
Kirby's off the grid podcast, which people
might join this cohort. They might join the next cohort, but it's really,
and then my launch emails are more just like programs
open. I I had, like, a couple emails go out to the wait list. I
sent personal emails to everyone on my wait list,
including if we had a conversation before, if they were in a community that I'm
a part of, if I know them, if they came to a deeper business dialogue,
like, I know them because it's small. And so I'm like, how's this
thing going? How has it been since last time we talked? Like, these are not
canned emails. These are personal emails. Thank you for coming to this round
table. Oh, we haven't had a chance to meet yet. I'd love to learn more
about you. So I sent personal emails to everyone on the wait list. I think
I had, like, 40 people on the wait list. And then I sent an extra
email once a week. That's less again, my
emails are not meant to they're not really talking about the program as much as
my philosophies around, if it's the right fit for you or when you should
be thinking about this. That's kinda and and I very much like if
people are like, I can't afford it or, you know, I'm like, alright. Let's figure
it out. And if they're like, I'm not ready for this, I'm like, great. It's
gonna be here in in in March. And so it's very it's
a very, like, if this is supportive for you, I want you to be here.
If it's not supportive for you, guess what? You're gonna get my newsletter every single
week, and, I'm gonna keep showing up in your inbox
until and it may never be the right time for us to work together.
You you may never need to work with me,
yet you're still gonna probably read my email and
tell a friend. Yes. Yes. That's beautiful. And
I love the the way that you think about all of this as well. It
is very refreshing. I've been reading a lot,
about, like, cozy marketing and cozy business strategies, and
this this aligns with that. It's it doesn't feel like so much
like push as more yeah. It just I'm
struggling to put it in words because I'm still, like, wrapping my brain around
this idea. But I get the vibe from you that it's not about, like, good.
Go, go, go. Push, push, push. Buy now. Here's a flash sale. You
know? It's more like, hey, if you're ready, I'm here. And if you're not, I'll
still be here. You know? And there's something comforting about that. My
very last question for you is about balance and burnout.
And I think that this is a big question because you have committed to this
weekly newsletter. What do you do when you don't feel
like writing it or, you know, you're balancing all as other
aspects of life and business? Well, part of not
being present on social media is because this is my number one thing. I want
the newsletter to go out every single week. And so
I I actually found that I was having a harder time writing the
newsletter when I was having to also give some of those
concepts to social media. And so for me, it was like I
couldn't think of 5 interesting Instagram posts and a weekly
newsletter. So I just kept thinking about my
instant my weekly newsletter and then snippets make it onto LinkedIn,
or sometimes threads, but mostly LinkedIn. And so for
me, that actually helped with the burnout because I was having a hard time
coming up with that many interesting takes for social, and I'm
like, I'm gonna not do that. I'm gonna focus on one take and just
like flush it out on my my newsletter.
I and because I'm only doing 1 a week, this sounds crazy. I'm only doing
1 a week, but because I'm not doing anything on social, I am also doing
a YouTube channel for discovery. That is a asset I am building
for I have, like, 230 subscribers. We are we are on a long
journey for for YouTube. Those are all
usually from a newsletter. They're, like, refined concepts.
But because I'm always thinking about, like, 4 or 5 things, I wanna say I'm
always, like, got things I'm I'm never writing from a blank page. I'm
always peppering ideas in when I have them,
and I can I do repurpose some
newsletters? I have to reshape them and rewrite them a little bit, but, I'm going
on vacation, and so I I'm gonna have one that's kind of like
a rehash or something I wrote last year, because I've been
referencing, and I'm like, oh, I didn't put I never put it on my blog.
So I'm gonna put it on my newsletter and then I'm gonna send it out.
But that's how I think about burnout is, like, my temperament
is consistency and always
thinking about 3 to 4 things at a time and always wrestling with ideas in
my head. And so I couldn't I wasn't built
to be on social media because it was it's not built for how I like
to think. So I just I just didn't, which means that I'm actually don't burn
out on my newsletter. Now sometimes I have to, like, do it on Fridays
or I had to schedule I was out of town with my family and the
hotel didn't have Wi Fi, and I'm like, I have to schedule this newsletter, so
I went to I went to a bar and, like, used our Wi Fi to
schedule the thing. I love that. So sometimes I have to, like, manage a
schedule, but that's how I I stay consistent is because I I pick the one
activity that I knew I would love to do.
Yeah. I love this so much. Everything you're
saying, I'm over here like, yes. Yes. Yes. And I think our listeners will love
it as well. So for those people who are listening and they're like, I need
more Jessica in my world, in my life, I know you have this
free, radical, and rooted business life cycle assessment. Can you tell
us all about it? Yeah. It's a quiz that helps you,
understand where you are in the life cycle of business, all the way from a
seed, to a sprout, to a strength in sapling to
a fully mature, business and, like, kinda what to focus on
from the perspective of a sustainable business, usually a service
provider. And if you sign up for the assessment, you also get the
newsletter. Yes. Definitely. I'll go check this out. I'm gonna put it in the
show notes, online dreya.com/326.
Jessica, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Coming up next, inside the Savvy Social School, we have our brand new
session, the Content Collab. If you want to
brainstorm with me, co work with our fellow members, come on in and join
us. We're doing this creative session together so we can
come up with more ideas, flesh out our ideas, bounce our
ideas off of each other, and just play and have fun with our marketing together.
So join us in the Savvy Social School for that. And then coming up
next week, I have Chloe coming up a podcast to talk to us about
branding and also marketing to people without
saying marginalized communities because not everyone's marginalized, but there
is also diversity. So we're gonna get into that hot topic
next week, so stay tuned for that. That's all for this episode. I'll see you
next time. Bye for now.