Connect with Jill Hart: Skool Community: https://www.skool.com/you-world-order/about?ref=5a57bd6d24d544bcb36c526daebf7efe

(This is an affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission if you join through it, at no extra cost to you.)

Most creators think they need a much bigger audience before they can start making money. Jill Hart doesn’t!!

In this episode, we talk about what should come before chasing more followers, why visibility means very little if people have nowhere useful to go next, and how a small, targeted audience can still turn into paying customers.

We also get into positioning, paid subscriptions, building offers around actual problems, and why simply creating more content is not always the answer.

>>> Enjoyed the conversation? Follow the Sustainable Side Hustle Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you don’t miss Part 2, and leave a rating or review if you’d like to support the show.

>>> And if you want more from me, subscribe to my FREE newsletter The Sustainable Solopreneur: https://substack.com/@vinayakramesh1

Since then she has tried just about everything.

She told me she has had something like 20 YouTube channels, around 30 different websites, and now hosts the U World Order Showcase podcast which has crossed 600 episodes and 1.1 million downloads.

So I had one obvious question.

After all those years of testing, what works and what doesn't?

What does she think?

Creators are still getting wrong today.

In this episode, we get into the stuff that should probably come before chasing more followers.

What Jill learned from years of jumping between platforms and why a small audience might be a lot more useful than it looks on paper.

I am Vinayak Ramesh and this is the Sustainable side Hustle podcast.

Let's dive right into it.

Alright, so welcome Jill.

Thank you so much for coming on to my podcast.

It's a real pleasure to have you.

How are you doing today?

I'm doing excellent and it's my honor to get to meet you finally.

Thank you so much.

And so why don't you introduce yourself and talk us through your journey so far.

Okay.

I'm Jill Hart, the coaches alchemist, host of the UWorld Order Showcase podcast and my mission is to empower coaches and spiritual entrepreneurs to amplify their voice, monetize their mission and get visible so they can attract premium clients.

Mostly because visibility doesn't mean anything unless they have someplace to go.

So that's what I help them do.

Leveraging Substack so how did it all start?

I think you have been in the online business space for so long.

So I mean, why Substack and how did you end up in Substack and what have you tried before that?

Well, I, I'm really old.

I've been around the Internet since it first got started back in the days of the bulletin boards.

Net Payday was the name of it.

But I, I've done a lot of things online and my adventures, I'm in literally so many things.

But my adventures took me into deciding to become a life coach at one point and so certified to become a life coach.

And then I joined this community that was teaching people how to market life coaching and met a whole bunch of coaches that were really struggling out there to get, get seen.

But they're doing such amazing things.

I really think that the coaches are, are changing the way the world is because they're, they're shining a light on how we can make things better ourselves.

And so I decided to start the podcast and then I had a whole bunch of people sign up to be on my podcast because if you tell people you have a podcast and you don't put any boundaries up, everybody joins.

And I didn't have a client journey and I didn't know what I was going to be doing with it.

It was just like, I just want to talk to these people because they've got interesting stories and they're doing stuff.

So eventually I narrowed it down to just coaches and I met Jamie and he told me that I needed to have a client journey and he told me how to conduct a podcast.

And so then I decided to get started.

And I did start, and then I found Substack kind of randomly through somebody else who's very woo.

And he was getting canceled everywhere.

So he found Substack and then we all kind of followed him along, and I decided that was really a cool place.

And a while later, like two years later, I realized that you could have podcasts hosted there.

And then I decided I was going to get serious about it and figure it out.

And now I help other people set up their substacks in a way that makes it so that they can monetize it and it's sustainable.

So that's the story.

Yeah.

Wow.

So I think we are cutting a lot of bits here, so why don't we dive into the details?

So have you tried any other platforms?

Did it stick for you or.

I think you have been in Substack for so long.

So what made it appealing for you to stay so long here?

I. I used to hang out a lot on Facebook and I've messed around with Instagram and YouTube.

I have probably 20 YouTube channels over the years.

20?

Yeah.

I'm not exaggerating at all.

And I've had a bunch of websites, probably 30 over the years, and I just.

Facebook.

I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but I feel like it's dead.

They.

They just have moved into a space that really isn't appealing to me.

And LinkedIn has.

I've been on LinkedIn probably since they first started, but I could never.

Like.

It just always felt like a place where I was being spammed all the time.

And it wasn't like real people.

And maybe it's just the connections that I have, but that's kind of how I felt about it.

So when I found Substack and the fact that you can.

There's a social media side to it and you make connections with real people and they're like, they're rounded people, they're people with opinions, but they're people who are curious and open to having conversations.

Not having to be right and you have to be wrong so that they can be right and they're nice.

Kindness is one of their characteristics that I really appreciate about the platform.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that is something I have experienced too.

On Substack people are just kind and you get to meet real people and not some bots or automated messages that you get on other platforms.

So I am really happy that I discovered substack too.

So yeah, coming back to your YouTube or blogging days, so what have you tried and were you successful with it?

So what made you move away from that?

I. I moved away from it.

Well, I haven't actually moved away from it.

I do still have a blog but it's, it's easier to blog on substack because you have an audience and if you have substack and a school community, it's really easy to have a substack and for your long form content and they have all these tools on there and everything's free and so if you have a school community, it's really easy to do your offers in the school community and then have, have community over there.

So you've got like cross interaction happening and yeah, I just, it, it works for me.

Other things have worked for me but there are a lot more work.

Usually you've got 900 platforms and you're trying to create content for all the different platforms and it's all different for each platform and, and you don't really have anything going directly to one space and in that one space you move them to one thing.

It's, it's again, it.

People tend and I was the same way.

You just like everything is random and you hope that somebody stumbles across something and buys something.

Yeah, yeah, nice.

So, I mean, so do you still pursue YouTube?

I think you do, right, to funnel your audience back into your school community.

Do I still what?

Do you still use YouTube to create videos and funnel the audience back to your school community or substack?

I do, I do use YouTube.

I have a couple YouTube accounts still that are active and.

But it's easier if you start on Substack and then you move your content over to YouTube than to just have it on YouTube and then have it on Substack and then have it in all the other places because if you start on substack they'll make you shorts vertical and horizontal and so you can post it on YouTube and it just.

To me it's easier to just put the content up on substack and then distribute out.

I like to call it syndication, but apparently it's not actually syndicating, it's distributing.

When you send your content out in different areas, that's my preferred method.

It cuts down on the, the busy work of having to be everywhere and.

Yeah, right.

So I, I see you talk a lot about why growing an audience should not be a first step for every content creators out there.

So can you walk us through your philosophy?

Right.

Most people think they have a visibility problem and really what they have is a offer problem.

It's important that you get really clear on who your audience is and then what you want to offer them.

I have the draw the line in the sand post that I did over in the community, but if you have clarity around who your audience needs to be and structure about what you want to offer them, and so it's logical progression of where they're going to go along the path of working with you to get a concrete result that they can measure so they can know that they actually accomplished what you said you were going to help them accomplish.

And then consistency comes into play.

If you're going to produce content, you need to do it consistently.

People need to know when to expect you to show up.

And then visibility, you can apply visibility to it because that's just the gas.

If you're, if you, if you get, if you accidentally become insta famous, you.

And it's possible on substack, I mean, you can get a note to go viral on substack.

And if you're running them to your publication, but your publication isn't set up in a way that makes it a, a logical progression for them to take certain actions with you.

Then they're, they may subscribe, but they're never going to read any of your articles that you email to them.

It's just kind of useless having them on your list because that's really what subscribers are.

They're.

You're building a list.

Yeah, yeah.

I've met people that, on substack that actually have purged their lists, purged their subscribers.

Yeah, yeah, I see a lot of people do that because to clean, to keep their open rates up.

Right?

Yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I think the important takeaway is that your positioning should be clear if I'm right, because you, you need to know, you need to be clear on the one person, one problem and one solution.

Right?

Yep.

Yes, you can have multiple solutions for them, but it needs, ultimately that one solution is it can Be further out and you can have more offers up to there.

It doesn't have to just be one thing, but ultimately they all need to tie together to that one thing.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what are the three common mistakes that you see most people do in this regard?

I think you have dealt with a lot of clients, so I think you can enlighten us and so that we can avoid those mistake.

Well, the first one is starting without a clear message, creating content without a path for the audience to follow, and waiting too long to invite people to, to work with you.

It's, it's easy to, to turn on paid, the paid option on substack.

And even if your substack is really not set up at all very well, I still think you should turn it on.

Because if nothing else, sometimes people will feel sorry for you and they'll subscribe, to put it that way.

But you know, even a blind acorn or squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.

And so it doesn't hurt anything.

If somebody wants to support you, I'm of the opinion you should let them.

But I also think that you need to make sure that you're setting your account up in a way that makes it so that people can easily and logically take the next step with you.

And you can monetize a really small audience if you're really laser targeted.

It doesn't take that many people.

I think when I ran, ran the promotion that I ran and they were annual subscribers.

So it wasn't like I was getting people for $5 a month.

Yeah.

So.

But I have heard a lot of creators talking about the paid conversion to from free to paid is something kind of rat in a cartwheel problem.

You are just constantly being, I mean, it doesn't make you a lot of money, to be honest.

It's not.

You can retire or something.

So you're constantly on the chase and trying to keep up with the churn rate and all.

So what do you think about that?

So is that paid subscription really worth it or do you advise people to go out and build your own offers outside of just the paid subscribers?

You gotta do both.

And I, I really encourage people to not just try to get monthly subscribers.

It's, it's more important that you get annual subscribers.

And almost all of the people that I brought in when I had that really small base were annual subscribers because I brought them in to do something.

And I've seen a lot of content producers that are like bestsellers around.

I study what they're doing.

And one of the things that I've noticed, Anna, Anna Kalyn does this often is she'll, she'll require you to become an annual member subscriber and then she'll charge you for the workshop, but the workshop will be discounted.

So you can do things like that in order to get more visibility on the platform.

Because I think it is important on that platform to, to have paid subscribers and to have your payments turned on.

Because ultimately substack makes their money when you're, when you make money.

So you, you want to be able to make money so they can make money so they can help you.

And that's what all their tools are for.

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

But I think there is also a debate around when you turn the paid subscriber subscription on.

So you are then obligated to write an article every week because otherwise your audience might just unsubscribe from you.

So, I mean, how to keep up with annual subscribers?

But still they will be expecting an article every week or so, right?

No, they're going to expect whatever it is you promise them.

And it doesn't have to be an article a week.

You could promise them that you're going to deliver something to them and it can be super valuable.

I never promised people that I'm going to publish anything other than the two podcast interviews that I drop each week.

That's all.

And I don't even promise them that.

When I had people in the beginning subscribing, I did a cohort, a four week cohort with them.

And it's just, that's how the substack setup intensive got started.

It was a. I forget what I called it.

Something magical, I'm sure had alchemy in there somewhere.

Anyway.

Yeah, I think it was a substack alchemizer cohort or something like that.

It was, it was designed to walk people through a.

The settings because the settings are really robust and confusing and people get things all mixed up and they don't set the whole thing up right in the beginning because they don't have a plan about how they want it to go.

And so they just kind of piecemeal it.

And I think that's where people get frustrated with.

I'm never getting any subscribers or my subscribers aren't converting and they don't look beyond the, the basics.

And they're, they're kind of haphazard about it.

And yeah, maybe they're promising that they're going to provide content.

I don't think people need more content, honestly.

I think people need solutions to problems.

And if you're delivering solutions to problems, whether it's an outside course that you have or a subscribe for whatever it is that you want to give them, they'll.

If they see themselves in it, they will do it if they can see the benefit for putting the money up.

And, and sometimes it's not about creating a different offer, it's about figuring out how you're saying the offer in a way that more people understand what the benefit is for them.

About messaging.

Yeah, I see.

So, yeah, before jumping onto those monetization and offer stacking that you talked about, let's rewind a bit and coming to your point of you release two podcasts a week, Right?

So I know you have a lot of podcasts going on.

Of course, one of them is the U World Order showcase with over 600 episodes.

So, I mean, how did you get into podcast and what was the journey like?

So it's a huge thing.

Can you work us through that?

It really was about helping showcase people, making a difference in the world.

And that's really where it got started.

I didn't have any grandiose plans, but as I talked to people, I realized that a lot of people didn't understand what they needed to do to come on podcasts or to find podcasts to get on.

Is my experience was I just had to ask if anybody wanted to come beyond my podcast, even in the very beginning.

And they were like, oh, yeah, sure, I'll do it.

But they would come on and they, they kind of squandered the opportunity.

And it goes, basically, everything I teach is build your foundations, know who you're talking to, know what your offer is.

If you're going to go on a podcast, have something that you're going to offer people.

Okay, yeah.

So.

And your podcast has reached 1.1 million downloads.

That's huge.

So, I mean, can you just walk us through your launch strategy and all that, you know, made it possible?

I'm.

I'm actually not going to do that because I think it's kind of proprietary to Jamie and out of respect for him, I.

It is, it is a very powerful launch strategy.

And I will tell you that it's a lot like launching a.

You know how they do those book co ops where everybody, they call them anthologies where everybody contributes a chapter.

But the thing that they don't tell you is that if you're going to contribute a chapter, you're also responsible for getting 100 people to download.

So that you've got 15, 20 chapters in this book.

So you got 15 or 20 people sending a hundred downloads to the.

To Amazon.

And so it runs it up and they click the picture when it hits bestseller, and there you are.

Bestseller.

I have bestseller status on Amazon.

I think it's kind of funny.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

But I think on Amazon they can easily track the friends and family link and can.

It can detect suspicious activity and take.

Take those reviews down.

So, yeah, but.

If.

If you're doing it on social media and you're not, if you're a contributor, contributor to the book, it's not really you, it's the person who put it together, it's their account.

So I think that's how they get around it, but that is exactly how they push those books to bestseller.

Right, Right.

So coming to the question of the moment, it felt real.

So I think you have been long into substack and podcasting now, and so of course you have tried other things before, but somehow they did not stick.

But what.

What was the particular moment that that came to you like, okay, I have to stick to podcasting and substack, or is it going to change in the future or you might jump onto everything?

Yeah, it's working now.

I love it.

If it gets to the point where I don't love it, stop doing it.

But I don't.

I don't know when that's going to.

Be, but I think you have been so long into podcasting right now, and I don't think you're going to stop as well.

So I think there must be something about it that you love it and you'll continue doing that.

I just love talking to the people, the coaches that come on.

They're just so interesting.

Everybody has a story and everybody's story is really important.

All right.

That's where we end this episode.

The bit I kept coming back to is that getting seen is only useful if people actually have somewhere sensible to go next.

And that's where part two gets interesting.

We get into offers, call to actions, what people are actually paying for, and how to sell without turning into that person who traps someone on a zoom call and refuses to let them leave.

Without a credit card.

Jill has actually done that kind of high ticket closing before.

So follow the Sustainable side Hustle podcast for part two lands in your field.

I will also link Jill's substack and community in the description below.

So go check her out.

And if you are enjoying this content and want more from me, subscribe to my free newsletter the Sustainable Solopreneur which is linked in the description too.

I write about building income online while still having a life outside the Internet.

I am Vinayak Ramesh and I will see you in the next episode.