Streamlined Solopreneur: Tips to Help Solopreneurs Automate Their Business

Joe Casabona: All right. I am here with Jessica Lackey, a Business and Operations Strategist and a friend from Jay Klaus'Lab. Jessica, how are you today?

Jessica Lackey: I'm great. Looking forward to the conversation.

Joe Casabona: Likewise. And let's roll right into it because this, your recommendation for a topic came in at such a great time for me because I am thinking a lot about authority-building strategies, especially for solopreneurs.

So the first topic I wanna or subtopic, maybe, I wanna cover here is what goes into building authority? Maybe we can answer that question at large and then kind of drill into some more specific topics to talk about there?

Jessica Lackey: So I feel like authority building has to come there's the public persona of authority, but I think it's backed up by a couple of things. One is, it's backed up by a premise which we'll talk about that's like the inside out like why your work exists, your message. Your positioning, how are you different? Your process, you have to have a way you do work and think about your work and then a body of work.

And so these are the types of things I think create authority where you have a public body of work that illustrates how you think, why what you think is different than maybe what's out in the zeitgeist and where you come by your point of view and it has to be sharp. And it has to be sharp. It has to be public. It has to be present. It has to be different. And I think those are things that combine together to make authority.

Joe Casabona: I like that. I like the sharp part. Right? I think, Wes Kao has also said, like, have a Spiky point of view. Which which I think is good. I mean, maybe this is just, like, I'm getting older and I have kids. I, in my twenties, had very strong opinions and I was very loose with them. Like, I was, like, very, like I would just say them and state them. And I feel like I've gotten a bit more reserved. Maybe maybe it's I don't wanna come off as angry, but, I mean, there's a way to have your, your sharp point of view without coming off as angry. Right?

Jessica Lackey: Oh, exactly.

Joe Casabona: That's the brand that you wanna have, I guess.

Jessica Lackey: Exactly. You can do that. I think one of the perfect examples fr me and how I do my work, I imagine business is growing like a tree. So all my work is very nature centric even though I can't grow a plant to save my life. And so part of my point of view is that business building takes time and should not be I don't work in intensives. I don't work in boot camps. I don't do challenges because I think that's a nice intervention, but it it always tends to result in, like, stuff sitting on your shelf and you never do it. .

Now I don't denigrate the people who do bootcamps and things like that. That's some people love that style. That's how they work best. That's the business model they wanna run. That doesn't work for me and it typically doesn't work for my clients. I can say that without being angry at them, but I have a point of view about how my clients tend to work. And maybe it's my clients. Maybe other people's clients work best with the different model. Right? But, like, I have a point of view for how my clients work best, and I articulate that. I don't bash anybody else. I don't say the other point of view is bad. I just say I kind of argue for my point of view versus bashing. Now there are people's who points you I will bash. I'm like charging ludicrous amounts of money for things and being overly extractive. I don't like that very much. But I think there's a way to state what you believe and why you believe it without being angry. But it did take me a while to stop being angry. I will tell you that.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's a really good point. Right? You can feel strongly about something, and it's it's kind of all about phrasing. Right? And and the way you position something. Right? It's this guy's an asshole for I just probably gonna have to edit that out. You know, this guy's an asshole for thinking this. Right? But you could just be like, hey. I guess AI is one of my sharp points of view. Right? Like, I use AI, but I strongly believe if you shouldn't use AI to replace yourself in, like, the content creation process because then who's create like, you're not creating the content or it's not necessarily your point of view. But I certainly use AI to help me with writing, and so it's all about kind of towing that line, and not attacking people who are saying, like, I wrote my book with AI, which I've I may have done before. I used AI to write my book is the phrase that bothers me, I think.

Jessica Lackey: One of the things, you know, we can get into the AI, not AI discussion. I felt like early on in my career, I kind I actually looked back at my started, my full-time business in 2020. I looked back at things I wrote and it was very much like talking about the surface things, talking about, like, worldwide trends and themes. I kind of came up in the the feminist space. And when I left corporate, I flew all the way to, like, let's talk, like, super feminist. And so I was things like, patriarchy is bad and capitalism is bad. Right? But I didn't it was very platitudes at that level because I didn't have enough, I didn't I knew, like, what I was seeing. I'm like, I think planning is important, but I didn't know why. I didn't have a point of view about it. I just I looked at my Instagram post and it was like a square. I'm like, anybody could have made this square. And it has taken me like a lot of writing and a lot of talking to say, okay. What's why does that square important? Why don't people use this? What's my point of view on this? And it took me like really exploring the concepts for many years before I came to a point of view about it. So, like, I went from, like, bland and generic to a specific point of view, a specific voice, something that, you know, some topics that are signature topics that I stand for and that I talk about all the time, but I didn't start there. I ended up there. I find that in, like, the life coaching space, particularly, everybody's stuff, there's like an aesthetic on Instagram of it's like it's high worth, high wealth manifestation and it's all like particular the same pink color. They look all the same. They're inter they're interdependent. And I'm like, well, then you're not building authority. You're just, you know, modeling after something that you see works, which is fine, but then you're not different. It took me multiple years and a lot of writing and a lot of exploration to understand where my authority was. I didn't have it coming out of the gate.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I think this is a really important lesson. It's something that's come up a lot on this show over the last year, which is you need to kind of figure that out. Right? Like, when you I'm gonna long people who listen to every episode are getting sick of this analogy. But, you know, when I love baseball. And when you first start playing baseball, you try to mimic the swing of your favorite player. Right? So, like, let's take Aaron Judge, New York Yankees. My swing is not cannot be the same as Aaron Judge's swing. Right? Aaron Judge is, like, a foot and 3 inches taller than me. Very different body type. He can just kinda, like, extend his arms in a certain way.

Whereas, once I start mimicking his swing and understanding what works for me and what doesn't, I can come up with my own swing that works for me and my short arms and my stocky build. And, and that's that's kind of the same as as finding your voice too. Right? You can't you don't necessarily have your voice until you start writing and forming those opinions and honing them a little bit.

Jessica Lackey: Yep. I'll give you another, a metaphor you can use. James Clear talked about this somewhere and it's like the Stockholm bus theory. I think it's Stockholm or Helsinki. 1 of the 2. I can't remember. But, all the buses from the center of the city start and they ran. They run across many of the same routes.

But once you get outside of the city, they go in all different kinds of directions. But if you get off the bus too early, then to go back to the beginning, you're like, oh, I'm not different at this point. You get you get off the bus. You go back to another one. They all start again from the same well traveled main street path. It's only when you have the discipline and the persistence to get outside of the major city can you, like, choose your path. But that tends to come after some time. A lot of patterns working with clients and a lot of pattern recognition, and that's like riding the bus outside the city. But if you get off too quickly, then you just get back on the bus of, like, the generic stuff that you see, you know, in the major metro as it from a bus theory.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right. This bus is probably not taking me to the place I need to go because I've seen this landmark already, so I'm gonna: go and try a different one. I like that. That's really good. Yeah.

So speaking of lanes, routes, a problem that I had with ex, formerly Twitter, is I felt like if I wanted to grow on Twitter, I could only talk about one thing, and I didn't like that. Right? Like, I wanted to talk about the Yankee game on Friday night. I wanted to talk about the cigar I'm smoking on Saturday afternoon. I didn't just wanna talk about why you need to automate your guest booking process or whatever.

So as we get into building authority, do we really, I set it up like I expect you to say one way or the other, but I'm very happy to be wrong here if I need to be. Do we need to pick, like, one lane to build an authority?

Jessica Lackey: Yes and no. One thing I like, social media is interesting because you are a person and you are a brand. And, I found that, like, on Instagram, I was just a brand, until I hated being on Instagram and then I stopped working on it. And on Twitter, I actually when I participated, which I don't really anymore, I was kind of a person and a brand and it kinda got mushy, in my newsletter. And in my, my free classes, we'll talk about I'm a brand. I'm a business. And so on LinkedIn, I talked about things that are sometimes personal to me. But in my newsletter, I am exploring my premise. I'm exploring my point of view. The only thing I talk I mean, business for me is very personal so I can't not talk about my life, but I don't like share my vacations on my news except when I go visit my clients, which I do in person and I take pictures of that and I share those. But that's very business centric, but like my newsletter is the place where I explore my premise. Might be on your podcast.

Social media is kind of this mix. But I never, we can talk more about this, but like my social media because of the business I run, because when I started my business it was primarily a services business that started to move in a different direction, but my client roster did not come from social media. So therefore, as a creator, I didn't have an audience built on my brand. I had an I had friends and colleagues and things like that and I was building a business off of social media.

People came and found me on social media maybe and follow me on LinkedIn because that on LinkedIn I am kind of like more of a brand than a someone who talks about lots of things. But, that's you know, I didn't build an audience to monetize. I built a business and there's an audience around that.. But that's because I started with services.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. So I think this is really it is a good distinction that you make here. Right? Because, like, I'm also not emailing my mailing list about how I feel about the Yankee game. Right? Like, I I tell lots of anecdotes. I sent out a newsletter today called the legendary potholes of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where I lived for a third of my life. But, and I related it to my, you know, automation and podcasting.

But, yeah. The distinction of, like, are you a person or a brand, I think, is important. And I've always approached social media as, like, I'm a person, and I'm not just, like, a one-dimensional thing. And maybe that I mean, we'll talk a little bit about that soon.

So I think that's the first distinction you make. Are you approaching these platforms as a person or a brand? And then, I saw something this I think this was on LinkedIn. Differentiating between niches or niches, however, you prefer to pronounce it, audience and verticals. So, like, what if any, is there a difference between, like, a niche and an audience? Under the the assumption that if you're gonna build an authority, you need to pick a niche and or an audience.

Jessica Lackey: I think there's in a typical there's I like to think of it as patterns versus as niches or audiences. So, I work with solopreneurs, solopreneurs, and small teams. But what I've discovered is I work best with those individuals who are trying to build a relationship based business, who aren't building a business that relies on traffic, social media. I don't have a big social media following. I don't really know how to do that right now. That's not how I best operate. So, you example like like there's other people who like, will teach you, like, Jay class. He's you should go to to learn how to build a creator style business. That's even though my person was like a soloist person who's trying to monetize their expertise, I work in a different pattern with people. I don't work with new I don't work with new business owners. I don't work with, you know, 7, 8-figure business owners even if they sell knowledge. Like, I kinda like honed in a pattern in a set of behaviors that I work best with. I have a lot of people who are trying to build who have bigger businesses, who are newbies, who are trying to build a business with products and social media. They're all in my audience because the things I talk about can be relevant to them. But they're not who, I tend to work best with. That's like not the behavior pattern that I write about. It can be relevant to anybody but, you know, it like, the interior designers are not gonna build authority. Like, I'm talking about building authority for someone who's, like, talking about knowledge. Right? I like that's not but, yes, my writing could be interesting for them and I can build an audience and I've worked with a bunch of interior designers. But those are the types of things that is like, you know, a guy named Blair Enns talks about your target and your market. You can be talking to a very, very specific type of individual or type of organization with specific behavior patterns and a lot of other people around that are interested in what you do even though you're not necessarily talking to them. I don't know if that's the, like, niche versus vertical but, like, you know, I I used to try to, like, super zoom down on demographics and psycho you know, like, revenue levels of people I work with. I'm like, well, it's not just about the revenue level because if they're if it's based on, like, a signature course and they need, you know, 100 of thousands of people in their audience and a 1000 people per cohort, like, I don't I have ideas and I can probably work with them, but they're not who I'm best suited for, even if they fit the niche that I'm trying to serve.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is that's a really good nuanced answer, I think, because it is more than just right? It's like identify your ideal customer avatar, pick a niche, write only about that. Right? Which is like the I don't wanna smack talk people, but I feel like the Dickie Bushes and Nicholas Coals of the world who are, like, all you need to do is write, and then you're gonna make millions. And I'm, like, no. And you know that's not true. And, like, I hate that you're telling people that because you know it's not true. But, like, I like that you bring up Jay Klaus because I think I've I'm certainly guilty of this. I see what Jay is doing and I'm like, oh, I should do that, but I also have a relationship-based business. Right? I don't have a massive audience. I'm a sponsorship coach, in Justin Moore's Wizards Guild, and I'm helping people land way bigger deals than I'd be able to land because they have a huge audience. I have the skillset, but not the audience. And so, I think it that's a really even more important than, like, who, like, what is your niche or what is your vertical? Is these patterns? I really like that concept because I think it reframes a very common conversation in a better way for a lot of people.

Jessica Lackey: Yeah. And I don't know how familiar your audience is with the ship 30 for 30 team, Dickie Bush and Nicholas Cole, but you can tell that so ship 30 for 30 had a really clear promise and it was a very very clear audience which was start riding online. It was great. I took the class. I'm like, this is great. But then, very similar to the bus theory like okay like to start writing online has you know like they had a process to get you to do that. Well, after that it's well do you want to be a ghostwriter? Do you want to write a book? Do you want to write Do you want to continue writing these short-form pieces and build your own authority? Do you wanna build someone else's authority? How do you wanna make money online? And they tried this thing called the captain's table which didn't it tried to serve too many people. So it's an interesting point and they've obviously chose to go down the premium ghostwriter academy route.

But that's different than someone who, I'm in a group called the creator kitchen with Jay Acunzo. And this is also for people who wanna write online and become an authority, deep in your but it's very much like the craft of writing for yourself and storytelling and premise development and, you know, talking about your ideas in more of a longer form practice to become an explorer and an expert which is very different than how to monetize writing through a digital ghostwriting academy. Same entry point for like the very very beginning, Wildly different behavior patterns especially as you get more tenured in your goals. Like the first step for almost everybody is may be simple. The next steps are very much nuanced and it's like, okay. Well, who do I best wanna work with? Who's best suited for me? And this is where niche gets really interesting in vertical. Again, I use nature metaphors in all my work.

If you are looking for someone who's gonna promise you short-term result, go somewhere else. That's and if you need like a $10,000 cash infusion, one, I can probably help you do that. But 2, like, maybe that's that's not who I best work with. I work best with people and this is part of like the patterns. I work best with people that are looking forward to consistency, looking forward to like that sustainable growth over time. That's not a you could have someone who's same demographic, same what they want online and that approach doesn't resonate with them. And so that's very much like the pattern and behavior and the values versus the niche.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yes. I like that a lot. So I wanna get into the strategies, but first I wanna ask since I threw the term out and we didn't really define it. And I'm like a little fuzzy on the term to be honest. What is a vertical?

Jessica Lackey: So a vertical tends to be, like, a specific industry and, like, vertically up and down. It's theory, like, a the way I heard it described once is like, it's a code that the IRS uses to, like, classify your business. Like, that's technically what a vertical is.

Joe Casabona: Gotcha.

Jessica Lackey: So, a vertical is yeah. So, like, I work with solopreneurs. I work with B2B brands. You know. I work with a, you know, I'm a CPA that works, you know, up and down a particular, industry. The horizontal is I do podcast strategy for any, you know, maybe I do editing and sound editing and I do it for all types of industries and all types of shows, whereas a vertical would be like I do podcast production but I do full stack podcasting and sponsors and ads management for B2B, you know, brands that have a podcast with multiple hosts or something like that. Like, though, that could be like a very specific vertical where the horizontal is like, I do one specific thing for lots of people.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess, visually speaking, it's horizontal. You cover a lot of ground and, vertically, you go deep in in one kind of area.

Jessica Lackey: Vertical, you go deep on an industry. Horizontal, you go deep on a tactic or a skill or an approach. So, like, your SEO for everybody or you're, you know, full stack website management including SEO and design and branding and maintenance for small marketing agencies.

Joe Casabona: Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, going back to, you know, it's like the big audience creator type people versus the relationship. Right? Yeah. If I wanna do something for everybody, I need to be able to reach everybody.

Jessica Lackey: Yep. Exactly. Yeah. Cool.

Joe Casabona: All right. So let's get into strategies. You, when we were taught well, when we were kind of going through getting you on the show, we used strategies, plural, plural and then later we'll, we'll learn how to pick 1. So what what strategies are there for building authority?

Jessica Lackey: Usually, you build authority, there's authority through volume and there's authority through, content. So, like, being everywhere is an authority-building strategy, but I don't necessarily talk about that. So I don't really know. That one, that's the Gary v, Cody Sanchez, maybe the MS Excel, type of kind of being everywhere, being omnipresent like Sahil Bloom type of things

But then there's the okay. I'm gonna build authority through long-form creative practice and that could be I'm gonna build authority through writing. I'm gonna be building authority through podcasting. I'm gonna be building authority through keynote speaking and teaching. Those are kind of like the writing, the talking, the teaching, the speaking, maybe the connecting. Those are the general ways to build authority. You gotta have at least one of those, maybe 2, but you gotta have at least one of those because I think authority comes through exploring a point of view, and you can either explore it surface depth in, like, massive quantities or really thoughtfully in a couple in some of these areas. Some of these formats. Yeah.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. And I again, you can't really do that until you get your reps in, so to speak. Right?

Jessica Lackey: Yeah. Now, I find that for me and a lot of the people I work with, it is when I think in 250 like, one of the problems I had with Hannah, like, posting something short every day is I was always thinking about how to make it short and pithy and hooky and grab attention, and I couldn't think in that format while I was also trying to fill out the next 1,000 words. So for me, what's very similar, you know, again, like, when you write just like a a 100 words, it sounds very generic. When you write a 1000 words, you have to get behind, okay, like, what's the easy simple answer and go into the more in-depth? Why do I think about this way? What are the stories? What's the nuance? What works and what doesn't? And how does this apply? And you have to go beyond platitudes and that's what builds authority.

Now, you could build authority in platitudes. Like, that's like if you want to be kind of mass market consumption, you could build authority with platitudes. But then you're known as like a platitudes guy.

Joe Casabona: Right. This is not again, I don't wanna sound like a hater, but that feels if you're not subscribed to Justin Welch's newsletter, this is what his social strategy feels like to me. Right? Because it's like, you have a, like, you have a limited amount of income you can make working a 9 to 5. Do you wanna constantly be underpaid or break out on your own and make and I'm like, that's not that is an oversimplification. Right? Not everybody should be a business owner, but, like, it's very obviously working for him. And that is 100% not my style. Probably because I'm like I come from a Computer Science background, and I think about all of the possible edge cases to the words I'm saying. But, yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Right? This is you need to do it. I guess, you need to do a strategy that works for you. Obviously, what Justin is doing works for him, and he's a very smart guy and his newsletter is great. But that doesn't work for me.

Jessica Lackey: Well, I think it's also, again, like, the point in someone's journey. Like, my work and maybe your network is not meant for someone who is just starting out. Like, it's really not. You know, like, how did I get started writing online on LinkedIn? I took Justin's course and I started. I'm I've I've I've moved past that now. And so now I'm like, okay. Like, you know, like, I've moved past the how do I make money online stage.

Now I'm like, what kind of business do I really wanna run and what are the implications of that? And what does it mean about profit? And what does that mean about team? Like, I'm past the starting stages. If you wanna work with starting stages when you have to be prolific, you have to be a mass market, you have to be out there and you have to have a big ass audience. You have to build authority in, like, at that level of the kind of the customer journey, which is the I'm buying solutions to get started and maybe earlier stage in the journey. And it's really hard to, but the person who's great for, like, the beginning stages is probably not the person who's gonna help you with the very nuanced next steps as you, like, step into what it is you really wanna do because you can't serve. I mean, I guess you probably can but it's really hard to serve the beginners and the more nuanced, the experts. It's really hard to do that in one platform and brand. It can be done but it's more challenging to do that because then you have to split your focus in, like, the level of depth you go to and things like that.

So those are the things about, like, building authority. Like, you can build authority in something that's very the first step of the process. But the business model has to be something that's traffic based allowed and you have to have the social media audience growth and presence to keep up with that.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is amazing framing. First of all, these conversations are going, these, like, little points are going very similar to, do you know Chanel Basileo? Chanel is we're local to each other, so we get together every once in a while. And, I always take the negative view of the influencer, we'll say, and she always provides, like, a a better framing. And I really like this, like, I have been running my own business in one some way, shape, or form since I was 14. And so the Justin Walsh's stuff feels like platitudes to me, but someone who is just starting today and is stuck in a 9 to 5 and is, like, I can't do it. Maybe they need to hear that stuff to get started.

And so I really like I really like what you said there about who are you talking to and are you splitting your attention. Right? The thing that you learn in a 101 course is probably not the thing you'll keep doing in a 401 course because the 101 course is designed to get you thinking a certain way, and the 401 course is there to, like, make you an expert in that in that thing.

Jessica Lackey: Now the only reason I am not, you know, like, I will say, 2 years ago, I read his newsletters and I'm, like, this is, like, this I was, like, oh my god. Why does this bother me so much? Because, like, it doesn't have nuance. And that's when I started to, like, investigate being like, okay. Well, certain business models and, like, social media approaches and marketing approaches are designed for different levels of the customer journey. Not like the customer buying journey with us, but like the customer journey on where they were on their goals. Like when I started my like, I wanna have a business journey, it was in 2015 and I picked up the book Jen Sincero's You Are a Badass and like I thought that was, like, revolutionary and groundbreaking. And now when I reread it, I'm like, this is a great starting point and, like, I see what's missing from the picture, but only in hindsight. And so this is where authority building comes into place is, like, you have like, you start with, like, the whisper of annoyance is like a phrase I got from my friend Danny. And then you start to cry cry. Like, why does this bother me? What is the implication of this? And that's where I think, like, building like, my business building authority comes from, like, critically looking and being like, how can I take what they're doing and understand why it doesn't work for me, why it does work for me, but that's what I'm doing? And I'm writing about it every week in my newsletter to be, like, what's missing from this approach? What do I like? What I don't like? Why doesn't it apply? And that's how I've, that's I think that's the it's not about it it's about looking at things and being like, why is this dissonant for me? And then getting curious. And sometimes curious starts with ranting and sometimes curious starts with rage and rage and then it softens into more of like a okay. Like, let's really look under the hood about how this thing operates. And then that's where you get a point of view. You're like, this is great for beginners. Ship 30 for 30 was great for me to start, and it is not my ending point. What does that mean for the business model? What does that mean for my authority? What does that mean for who my messaging is for? Like, that's why I keep saying, like, my messaging is not for new people. I'm like, go start. You know, get motivated. I am not here to if you wanna be motivated to start your own business, you should probably not talk to me because I'm gonna tell you how hard it is. If you believe that you can make a $100,000 in 90 days and you're listening to that crowd, you probably aren't ready for me. I know that because I've been developing that authority, that point of view, that voice. I'm like, alright. You came back to me when you spent the $5 on the course that didn't give you what you wanted.

A lot of those things, you know, so, like, I'm like, you come back when you've done that. I wish I could get people before they, make those mistakes, but I really I'm not talking to them. And ideally, like, the more I build reputation, the more I can probably hopefully get people earlier in the journey, but that's not, that's not who I'm talking to right now.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I also wish that it feels like sometimes I'm, like, pooping in their cereal when they're, like, I can get it. And I'm, like, I probably not. I mean, maybe. You but you're probably not gonna make, like, $100,000 in a month. Right? Like, but, man, I was listening to a podcast this morning, called The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, and he I forget who he quoted, but he said, like, people need to make mistakes to learn. He's, like, the or, like, the best way like, he was quoting someone. He said, like, the best way or the only way people will learn is by making mistakes. And that's really the God's honest truth. Like, when I would try to sell a preventative security and backup plan for my website clients when I did websites, they were like, no. I don't need to pay all this money for that. And then they'd have data loss or they'd get hacked. And then I'm like, now it's gonna cost you double because I have to clean up what happened, and then you're gonna pay me. So Yeah. So it's the absolute truth.

The other thing I wanna touch on here is I like asking why. I do a yearly theme every year. I don't know if you're familiar with, like, that framework. It's, like, more than a resolution. It's, like, how you wanna live. Year of control for me this year has gone, just fantastically, spectacularly bad. Hasn't been a good year for control for me. But I wanna shift into assuming I don't I always assume, like, kind of negative intent.
Right? These people are lying to those people so they can make money. Right? Anybody who brags about having an 8 figure business is just trying to trick you into giving them more money, not make you money. Right? That's which is not a healthy way to look at things. I wanna assume at least from a, like, a neutral intent, from neutral starting point, and this kinda asking why do I feel that way is a really good mindset shift to help with that. Right? Because instead of going, like, that's bull. They're lying. I could be, like, why am I why do I feel like this is not the right approach or where am I in my journey that I'm having a visceral reaction to this tweet?

Jessica Lackey: Yep. And then we kinda talked about the strategies and I think it's important to say, part of building authority is 1, picking the platform where you like to explore best and starting to I've used this phrase earlier, build a body of work. I don't think social media provides a body of work because it's fleeting. People might not see it. I don't think newsletters build a particularly strong body of work, because they once they're in the inbox, they go away. I think it's really important to say, okay. Pick a point of pick a pick a style that you like to explore your thoughts in and start building assets around that. So my newsletter is almost always a blog post.

Those are exploring different areas. I'm now classified. I've used it to be like, I'm gonna explore this and this and this and this. Oh, by the way, that's like 3 systems. And I have things that are for starting and growing and scaling. And so I'm investigating it from lots of different angles, but it all hangs together and it's all public assets. It starts to be the newsletter start to inform a training class that I do which starts to inform a course.

I think hanging your authority-building shingle on feed-based platforms is really risky because it doesn't allow someone to see and explore your cohesive body of work. You can't necessarily track back to everything you talked about like, you know, this tweet and that LinkedIn post and how it all comprise your thinking on a topic. It's hard for someone you have to stay on the hamster wheel because if you're not present on social media and then you don't have anything on your website, they can't consume your work outside of you having to continue to pump it out.

So those are some I also have a point of view on guest podcast, like, when you when you're hosting a podcast. If you if you're if the only people that get to talk on the podcast are the guests, where are you in that and how are you demonstrating authority beyond curation, which is still a good topic and but, like, I'm like, well, I get that you can curate guests that say cool things. What are you doing with that? And how are you turning that into, you know, like, your perspectives on, like, what you agreed with, what you learned from that, and, like, where are you publishing your thoughts, not just publishing your guest thoughts?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is something that I've been, preaching a lot for people who wanna start a podcast to build their authority or to, you know, get more clients is what they'll usually say to me. You can't really do that if you only have guests. Right? This is why this year's listeners know that I've switched to almost, I think, I need to run the final numbers, but I think it's 50% solo episodes going from nearly a 100% guests. And next year, it's probably gonna be, like, 60 or 70 percent solo episodes, and then the other 30 or so percent will actually be, like, recurring co-hosts where we can kinda go deeper on a topic. Because I don't wanna be in the curation field. Like, I smart person. Right? Like, I'm, and these conversations are so great because I'm learning a ton, and I'm getting a ton of perspective, but you're also a perfect fit for my audience. Right? And when you do 50 interviews a year, you're not gonna find 50 perfect fits for your audience probably.

Jessica Lackey: Yeah. But, yeah, I think that's I'm excited to see what happens with the mix. I'm starting a podcast myself because, like, I need another thing to do. But, you know, like, every authority building channel has its purpose. And so I'm starting you with cohost and we're using our joint powers together to have a conversation with each other in a way it gives a different vibe than my YouTube, which almost 300 subscribers. That's been a labor of love. But, like, you know, YouTube video has a different resonance and different purpose than does an audio. And audio with a cohost allows you to explore different things without seeming like the teacher. I love being a teacher, but, like, sometimes it's nice to have a dialogue versus to have a monologue.

And then my newsletters, I love doing them. And also sometimes I'm like, I need those I need a thought partner. And people spend more time with podcasts than they do with newsletters. And so, the only reason I can do this, by the way, is because I now have a point of view that, like, I'm not just making a podcast. We have, like, a very specific premise and it has a point and we have a angle that we're exploring because it matters to us. We know exactly who we're talking to. If I try to start a podcast 3 years ago, I don't even know who I would have had on because I was, like, I can serve any small business with operations and strategy support.

And now I'm, like, I like these types of conversations. I like to have this point of view. I didn't have that 3 years ago. So I'm really glad I didn't do something with like a heavy commitment like a podcast until I figured it out because podcasting is not my love language. Writing turns out is my love language. Keynote speaking and doing public speaking, not keynote speaking, I am terrible at. Teaching to slides is I'm not a motivational speaker at all.

I don't tell stories well. I teach well. And I break down concepts well and I'm like, give me slides so I can show it. But that's because I've discovered who I am and how I like to build authority. Not, but, like, some people are like magical public speakers. I'm like, you do you, and I'm gonna, like, like, never make me be a keynote, at least not for a while. Let me have the breakout room. Let me have the breakout room with my slides, please.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Love that. I love that. I think I'm a pretty good public speaker. I've been told as much, I guess. So that's that is I mean, that's probably why solo episodes work well for me because I feel comfortable just talking, and hopefully, it doesn't sound like I'm talking at you or lecturing you. Hopefully, I'm imparting good advice. I think I am.

But okay. So I know we're coming up on time a little bit here. I do wanna ask. Right? You mentioned the YouTube newsletter. I know, like, something I like to do is take my newsletters and turn them into blog posts, but I always change the headline because the subject line that gets somebody to click and open an email is gonna be different from a headline that gets someone to click through Google or wherever. But if we're talking about, you know, owning your own platform, feed-based platforms are not great for building authority. They kinda have a discovery problem. YouTube notwithstanding, but I feel like YouTube is, like, a weird middle ground but I feel like YouTube is like a weird middle ground between, like, a feed-based platform and, like, your own, like, collection of thoughts. How do we combat the discovery problem?
Jessica Lackey: Yeah. Part of it is your business model. I don't need as much discovery. I would say again, you can there's the way to demonstrate your deepening authority and that's usually on a like, what Jay calls a relationship based platform. So it's a platform you own, and that typically is a podcast and newsletter. Some of those have discovery built in. But then I think you have to have a strategy to go get new people to your list which I don't find social media to do that these days. But, there are strategies that allow you to exude authority like guesting on podcasts, like speaking, like teaching in other people's communities, like guest posting, like collaborations and things like that.

Those allow you to demonstrate your authority on someone else's platform. But, on someone else's platform, I could talk about the same 5 topics and, like, have just like a roadshow. Like, I talk about business models. I talk about business models and I just do that. Like, I have one topic, that signature entry point topic that I just like roadshow, versus in my platform, if I just talk about business models all day long, like, people get bored and be like, yeah. This is the same thing. Like, change it up.

So, there's how you get people in the connection stage to your platform. And social media is a good place to, like, test out ideas and stuff like that. But I say you have to have one way to use your authority to go get new new new subscribers and one method to build and deepen relationships with the people that are already following you. Again, different strategies, different purposes, and different formats, but I think you have to have 2. You have to have a place to go get new people to pay attention to you, and a way to deepen the relationship and authority with the people that already follow you.

Joe Casabona: I like that. I like that.

Jessica Lackey: And if you're a relationship-based business, word-of-mouth is not a bad strategy. So, like like, just make like, part of it is like making your so good that people want to share it. You know, I think that's where, that's where having a point of view, like, no one shares the planned generic thing that is just showing up in my inbox. And really no one shares I would say no one shares sales emails, but I remember a series do you know Keh He from, Supercharged Productivity? Yeah. God, I remember…

Joe Casabona: A former guest of the show.

Jessica Lackey: Oh, yeah. So he did a sales sequence for his supercharger productivity course with $10 Tim and 10k Tina. And it was 2 years ago and I still remember that and I dream of having a sales sequence that was that interesting because he had a point of view and he had like a it was it was great. I'm like, I just need to like do that for myself, something similar.

But, if your work is good and you come out of place of authority, people will share your work. Now it takes time for momentum to happen and you they have to know that you're not gonna like say good things and not back it up with a good solid offer. But, you know, having a flywheel word about that's how Chanel built her new letter because it was truly done as act for service, not like I'm gonna sell you like, tell you something cool and then tell you something you know, make something good so people can share it and then amplify it with their own mechanisms and relationships to get it out to more people.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I wanna double down on that because I think conventional wisdom over the last, like, 10 years have told us that word-of-mouth is not a way to run a business. But it's really like word-of-mouth is not a way to run a business if you're trying to be Tim Ferris or Casey Neistat or whoever. Someone else with a giant audience who I can't think of right now. If you're just looking to do good work and have a relational or like a relationship business, word of mouth is fine Like as long as you need to look at your business and look at your pipeline and see what's filling your pipeline and make sure that can keep filling your pipeline. Right?

Jessica Lackey: Now it doesn't happen if you don't have a relationship with your audience. If you if it's a one way dialogue and you're never listening and like they have 20, 30% click rate then like they're not you're not reaching them and it's a signal that like something about your positioning, your point of view, your authority isn't or your voice isn't compelling enough and I say voice not like your actual voice quality but, like, the point of view of the tone, if it's forgettable, you will be forgotten. If it's memorable and shareable and good, people will share it because it has some deep work to it. There's someone I don't know if I'll ever I'll ever hire him because I'm not his target audience. I've quoted him once already in this podcast called Blair Ends. He's not on social media at all. I got one article sent for me from somebody and it was called the magic email is how to close out a business.

Joe Casabona: Oh! He's the magic email guy?

Jessica Lackey: He's the magic email guy. Yep. Like, so he's the magic email guy. I have I subscribed to your newsletter. I listened to his podcast. I have bought all of his books. He's got one coming out in December. He may never know who I am and I read and consume and share that email at least once a month. That's how, like, authority building works. I'm like, this is gold. And so I think it's like, but it has to be good enough that it travels and people wanna share it and talk about it. You have to give them the handhold to make that happen and that doesn't happen with AI-generated banalities.

Joe Casabona: Right. Yes. Yeah. I heard on another podcast I love listening to Upgrade that, you know, one of the hosts is a writer as well. Jason Snell is his name. He writes a lot. And he's, like, Apple Intelligence or Chat GPT writing for me will never be good because I'm a good writer. And Chat GPT makes it generic and mediocre.

But if you are a bad writer, maybe you want me like, mediocre is better than what you could have done. Right? But I really that resonates a lot with me, what you said there.

So, okay. We have our strategies. You're trying a new one, so this is great. Like, you know one that's working for you and you're about to try a new one. How do we choose one strategy to start? And then how do we know if we've made the right choice?

Jessica Lackey: You pick the strategy that you're most likely to do. So Don't pick video if you don't wanna have the setup. Don't pick podcasting if you can never find a pocket of time where you can record quietly for an hour and if the tech overwhelms you, pick something else. Pick what, you know hell, you could pick Instagram reels if that works for you although I don't recommend it as a strategy because you can't really do anything with it, I mean, long term. But pick 1. Pick the only one that is the one you can do consistently. And I've, you know, I don't agree with a ton of things that come out of, you know, the Mister Beast world, but I do agree that, like, until you've done 50 of something, only then can you, look back and say, now there are shortcuts to, like, be become better at it, but, like, you can only look back in hindsight and be like, okay.
I've gotten better at this. And then you start asking different questions. How can I sharpen my thinking? How can I improve my craft? How can I improve my skill? But you have to just start doing the thing for probably 50 episodes or something and you're like, that's a really long time. Yes. So how can you increase the like, instead of like once a month, how can you do once a week? You know, twice a week maybe. And again, a lot of times people are like, well, I don't wanna overwhelm my audience. I'm like, great. Then don't publish it to the audience. Publish it for you. Just write or podcast or create. Just create something on a regular basis. And I think you'll know you've made the right choice that people start to metaphorically come sit by your fire. So 2 years ago in 2022, in addition to my newsletter, I know that, like, one of the ways I show up the best is live teaching. So I started having a class that I taught for free. And everyone's like monetize that. I'm like, why would I wanna increase the barrier to, like, getting more people to hear about my stuff? It's like giving I'm writing a book. l'm, like, I'm planning to give, like, 100 and thousands of copies away of that book for free when it comes out next year. But, like, I didn't charge for the class. I'm, like, I want as many people as possible to know what I'm talking about. I wanna have a chance to sharpen my skills as a teacher, as a as a thought leader. And I had 3 people come to the first one and 20 or 30 of them later, like, so two and a half years later, I now have 60 coming on a regular basis. Some of those people will never buy for me because it's free. But every single one of them tells a friend. And that friend shows up and that friend gets on my newsletter and sometimes that friend buys and sometimes that friend says, hey. Can I share this with somebody else? And it's 1 or 2 a month. Yet, 1 or 2 a month over 2 years has meant 200 people, and that has meant filling my class spots. And that has it's compounds. And I was I looked at my earlier slides and I'm like, oh, oh, these are like, I can't, like, put these on my website. These are bad. I mean, they were they weren't bad, but they were just, like, not at the depth level that I talk about today and they didn't have the point of view because that comes with practice and that comes with doing the damn thing every single month for 3, two and a half years.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yes. This is somebody asked me, like, how you get better at podcasting or how you get better at interviews or I think they said I was giving a talk, and they said, you know, you're so comfortable up there. How do you get more comfortable in front of a microphone? And I said, you gotta get your reps in. Like, I know that's dumb, but, like, you're never gonna get comfortable doing something until you do it and know what makes you uncomfortable. And, like, it's just like going back to our baseball analogy. You can't improve your at bats if you don't know how you're seeing the pitches come at you. Right? Like, oh, I'm just swinging blindly. Oh, now I know what the pitch looks like coming out of this guy's hand so I know when to swing or, you know, it's you you need to practice.

Jessica Lackey: Plus it gets easier when you switch modalities. So for example, I listen to podcasts now. I write my newsletter. I'd I've taken, you know, classes on how to write a LinkedIn hook. So when I wrote the trailer when my friend and I, we'd co-wrote the trailer, I'm like, I know what I want this trailer to sound like, you know, because I've listened to, like, 40 episodes of my colleague roasting other people's trailers. And I'm like, great. Well, now I've listened to that. So I'm prepared to script out an episode, to know how to start and end one because I know the flow of a creative piece that's meant to kind of persuade and have some authority because I've done it. Like, it's not that dissimilar to write a newsletter that's compelling than to construct us an it they have their own platform-specific modalities, but I'm not starting from ground 0 when I switch platforms.

Joe Casabona: Yes. Absolutely. Last question here before I ask you how people can find you. Do 50 of it. You'll know people are coming to the fire. You're sitting at your fire, I think is what you said. How long do you wait until you decide to cut your losses or try something new? Is it, like, after 50 episodes or 50 whatevers, people aren't coming to it, or is it something different?

Jessica Lackey: I think along the way you can start to say, if you're really starting to get zero traction, is it where where is the challenge? Is it that my quality is not good enough or is that it's not being seen by enough people or is that people do play but they don't actually listen to it. So I think you can tweak things along the way looking at your metrics. But I think after 50 episodes, the question is, like, do I still like doing this? Am I willing to increase my skill at this in this topic? And do I like this better than the alternatives? Because again, you gotta have 1. Like, if you don't if you're like, oh, this podcasting thing is really hard, you can't just like stop doing the podcast and then assume like, I'm like, what's your replacement strategy for

Joe Casabona: You need to fill the void.

Jessica Lackey: You need to fill the void. And you might say, well, I don't love podcasting, but I I like the idea of being better at podcasting than I like the idea of trying to become a writer. Like, you can't like, if you want if you want to have an authority-based business, you have to have something that allows you to explore your authority. And if you're like, you know, if you're like, it's not podcast anymore because this is not a fit for me, then pick another thing. But you can't not have a strategy for publishing your ideas and pushing the boundaries of your thinking unless that's not the kind of business model you wanna build.

Joe Casabona: This is great. This is a perfect way to begin December as this episode comes out. It's giving me a lot of stuff to think about for sure.

Jessica Lackey, this has been fantastic. If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?

Jessica Lackey: They can find me at [jessicalackey.com]. I have a newsletter, so they can find that at the backslash newsletter, and, they can find me on LinkedIn. They will not find me on Twitter. I mean, I think I have still have a profile on Twitter, but they will not find me on threads and they will not find me posting on Instagram because, I don't like how the non-chronological feed distorts the authority I wanna put in the world, so I've stepped away from those platforms.

Joe Casabona: I'm glad you got that in there because we forgot to touch on that. I hate Threads. Maybe we could talk about that for as a bonus episode or something.

Yeah. This is great. I will put links to all of that and everything we talked about in the show notes, which you can find in the description wherever you're listening to this or over at [streamlined.fm/445]. That's [streamlined.fm/445].

I also wanna hear from you. Give us feedback. What do you think? Is word-of-mouth actually crappy? Let me know. I don't know why I picked that one. I think we both agree on that one, so I like it. You can do that, again, over at [streamlined.fm/445], or you can go directly to the form at [streamlinedfeedback.com].

Jessica, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

Jessica Lackey: Thank you for having me.

Joe Casabona: And thank you for listening. Thanks to our sponsors. And until next time, I'll see you out there.