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Host of **[Creative Elements](https://creativeelements.fm/?ref=creatorscience.com)** and the writer behind **Creative Companion**. My weekly newsletter is designed to give you: - Specific growth advice - Interviews with top creators - New tools and how to use them - Projects to be inspired by ### Your wish is my command. 🧞‍♂️ URL: https://creatorscience.com/magic/ Last updated: 2025-03-11T22:29:42.000Z The magic has happened – just because you clicked. This page is a formality, and it's also written intentionally vague. Just rest assured, the thing that you wanted to happen, happened! I've updated your email preferences – there's nothing else for you to do! **While I have you, would you mind taking 30 seconds** to help me learn a bit more about your **goals** and **current progress** as a creator? This will help me send you more practical, personally relevant content. 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I know that sounds insane, but check it out: If you're serious about becoming a professional creator, I'm here to help. I'll be in touch on Sunday morning! Cheers, Jay ### Become a smarter creator in just 10 minutes per week. URL: https://creatorscience.com/subscribe/ Last updated: 2025-09-29T21:27:26.000Z ![](https://creatorscience.com/content/images/2022/07/Sponsor-Gif-1.gif) ### Join 65,000+ weekly readers 👇 Creator Science is a weekly newsletter designed to help you become a smarter creator. Every Sunday, you'll receive: - Evidence-backed growth advice - Interviews with top creators - First-hand experiments from my own creator business - New tools and how I use them - ...and more. 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Dorie is, by her own description, a LinkedIn person. She has close to 500,000 followers there, which puts her in the top half a percent of accounts on the platform. But in January 2026, she decided to learn Instagram. She started with 22,000 followers on an account she'd had since 2015 that was mostly personal photos. For the next 4.5 months, she treated it like a part-time job: 10 to 20 hours a week, 99 Reels. Her net gain was about 350 followers. Thirty-five percent of those videos earned her exactly zero new followers. Then in June, it turned around. She gained more than 146,000 new followers across June and July. By September, she was past 400,000. The reason I was excited to talk to Dorie specifically: she didn't win by buying production value. She films and edits all of her videos herself, all of it self-taught over the past few months. Her approach feels like one we can all actually learn from. By the end of this episode, you will have a practical, doable framework for building a high-growth Instagram presence without a production team, a big budget, or a hot take machine. ## Chapters 1. 00:00Cold open: money is not the variable buying you successPlay ▸ 2. 00:27Introducing Dorie ClarkPlay ▸ 3. 03:29Why Instagram after a decade of LinkedIn dominancePlay ▸ 4. 05:37The 4.5-month slog: 99 Reels, 350 followersPlay ▸ 5. 07:21Eating her own dog food: The Long Game in real lifePlay ▸ 6. 12:30Cross-posting Reels to LinkedIn and what transfersPlay ▸ 7. 21:53When things turned around — and whyPlay ▸ 8. 23:24Celebrity reactions as an entry point for strangersPlay ▸ 9. 27:36Early business results: CNBC, Chicago TV, sponsorshipsPlay ▸ 10. 32:11The full workflow: idea capture to postingPlay ▸ 11. 35:10The 30-page AI context document and how she built itPlay ▸ 12. 39:48Filming in batches with wardrobe changes in New YorkPlay ▸ 13. 50:59Dorie's immutable laws of Instagram growthPlay ▸ ## Mentioned in this episode [Dorie Clark — dorieclark.com ↗](https://dorieclark.com/?ref=creatorscience.com)[@dorieclark on Instagram ↗](https://www.instagram.com/dorieclark/?ref=creatorscience.com)[The Long Game (Dorie's book) ↗](https://dorieclark.com/books/?ref=creatorscience.com)[Nausheen Chen — Instagram growth story referenced ↗](https://www.instagram.com/nausheenchen/?ref=creatorscience.com)[Sandcastles by Kallaway — research tool Dorie uses ↗](https://sandcastles.ai/?ref=creatorscience.com)[Recognized Expert ↗](https://learn.dorieclark.com/courses/expert?ref=creatorscience.com)[Full transcript and show notes ↗](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/dorie-clark) ## Full transcript 11,327 words · click any timestamp to play from there Dorie Clark0:00 I have multiple author friends that pay a firm 7 grand a month and they have beautiful looking content, but my growth has been better than theirs. And it's empowering to realize that money is not the variable that is buying you success. Jay Clouse0:27 Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. Today we have a banger. My guest today is Dori Clark. She's a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, 4-time Thinkers50 honoree as one of the world's top business thinkers, and longtime faculty member at Duke and Columbia Business Schools. First, a little backstory. I was on an author trip earlier this year where everybody there, bestselling authors, really impressive people, and they were all using Instagram to sell their books. I came home knowing that I had to figure this out, but it's been really hard. Jay Clouse0:59 I personally have not cracked this yet. But I've really been studying the platform and the creators growing on it. In particular, I noticed that Dory had really started gaining traction and fast. Dory is, by her own description, a LinkedIn person. She has close to 500,000 followers on the platform, which I'd estimate to be in the top half of a percent on the platform. But in January of this year, she decided to learn Instagram. And she started with 22,000 followers on an account she'd had since 2015 that was mostly personal photos. For the next 4 and a half months, she treated Instagram like a part-time job, 10 to 20 hours a week and 99 Reels. Read the full transcriptClose transcript Jay Clouse1:37 But she says her net gain was about 350 followers. 35% of those videos earned her exactly zero new followers. But in June, it turned around. Her videos brought in more than 146,000 new followers across June and July. And by September, she was past 400,000\. That's obviously a really big number, but there's a bigger reason why I was excited to talk to Dory in particular. She didn't win by buying production value. Dory films and edits all of her videos herself, all of it is self-taught over the last couple of months, and her approach feels like one we can all learn from. Jay Clouse2:13 So in this episode, we talk about the stretch of time where nothing worked and why she didn't quit, including the single data point from another creator that gave her permission to keep going. We get into the first video that did break out, why celebrity reactions are an entry point for strangers, and the Dolly Parton video that actually got her on TV in Chicago. We also get deep into her workflow, including the document she created to make all of this easier by working with AI. I really love this episode. I hope you do too. We'll get to that full conversation with Dorie Clark right after this. Dorie, hello. A couple of LinkedIn Learning instructors sat down to have a podcast. Dorie Clark2:54 That's right. Hey, Jay, I'm so glad to be here. Jay Clouse2:57 I'm excited to have you. And I've been just like so blown away watching the transformation into Dori Clark, Instagram celebrity over the last few months. And I'm really excited to chat about this. I think probably the best place to start, I first became aware of you because of our tie to LinkedIn, and I saw your courses on LinkedIn, and I know you have a big presence on LinkedIn. So I think the big question is, why Instagram at all? Why, why not just continue cruising on LinkedIn and double down there? Dorie Clark3:29 So I spent a kind of disproportionate amount of my time and energy over the past decade on LinkedIn. And I think that was a good bet in a lot of ways. I mean, the work that I do is with business professionals. And so I think I wrongly dismissed Instagram as a place that certain industries it would be great for. You know, if you're something visual, if you're a wedding photographer, if you're a cake maker, if you're a florist, I thought, oh, okay, that's, that's the place for the pretty pictures. But I didn't really understand the ubiquity that it has in contemporary life. There are plenty of people who are getting business advice and guidance from it. And I, I hadn't really tapped into that, but what kicked it over for me was this past December, I signed a book deal, which is for my next book. Dorie Clark4:23 It's called The Definitive Guide to Becoming a Coach. I'm writing it with my colleagues, Marshall Goldsmith and Alyssa Cohn, and it's gonna come out in fall of 2027\. And so I asked myself the question, what is one thing that I could start doing now that I would be, you know, grateful to my future self that I had done in the fall of 2027 around the book launch. And I thought, you know what, I'm pretty well connected, or I have ways of reaching people who are like executive coaches or leadership coaches because they're on LinkedIn. But there are so many different kinds of coaches and they're on Instagram. They may not actually be on LinkedIn. So the book was the forcing function. And I thought, all right, let's, let's see what I can do to learn how to expand there. Dorie Clark5:06 So that became my, my New Year's resolution for 2026 was to try to learn as much as I could and try to master the medium. Jay Clouse5:13 And the first time you tried, it just took off and it was up and to the right from there, right? Dorie Clark5:18 It's— that's how— that's how all the Creator Lab stories go, right? Jay Clouse5:22 Isn't that— Dorie Clark5:26 it did not quite go that way. I started January of 2026 with about 22,000 Instagram followers, which— Jay Clouse5:37 Which is not nothing. Dorie Clark5:38 It's, it's certainly not nothing, but I had had an account for 11 years. I had had it since, uh, 2015\. So it, it had kind of grown through accretion, but I hadn't really ever put any effort or strategy into it. It was kind of a mishmash of like personal photos and like, oh, I was on a podcast and just kind of random things. And I think it was, you know, probably interesting for people to follow that, that knew me or had some connection to me, but I don't think there was a lot there for people who were strangers. And I think that's kind of the critical distinction was I needed to train myself to start thinking of it as I need to create value for people who don't know me or don't have any connection, don't really care about me as an individual, but care about the information, and how do I create something that would be relevant for them? So I started doing that, and for the first 5 months, basically until May of 2026, I was working, it felt like relentlessly. I was spending 10 or 20 hours a week doing this. It was like a part-time job learning it, and there were so many sub-skills that I didn't even realize that I'd have to learn in order to figure this out. Dorie Clark6:54 And I had literally almost nothing to show for it. I gained, you know, I don't know how many followers. Jay Clouse7:00 Oh, I do. I have the note. I have the math. Oh, you do? Dorie Clark7:02 That's amazing. But then you lose some. So I think I netted it out so that I gained like 300 basically. But maybe you know better than I do. Jay Clouse7:11 I think this came from a previous interview you did. And the note that I had was you spent 4 and a half months and hundreds of hours making 99 Instagram Reels for a net gain of 350 followers. Dorie Clark7:21 There we go. It felt like a very depressing investment. But the cruel joke in all of this is that my most recent book, and something that I spend a lot of time talking about, is called The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. And so I knew from the outset that this was probably going to be, in many ways, an exercise in frustration, and kind of almost like a Zen discipline for me. I'm like, eat your own dog food, eat your own dog food. Keep doing relentlessly the thing that you love. the thing that shows no progress. Because I know intellectually that for a lot of things that we do, there's almost no growth for a very long time. Dorie Clark8:00 And then suddenly you get exponential growth and it kicks off. And it might seem like, oh, you know, you got hundreds of thousands of followers in this period of time. But the key thing is it's not up and to the right slowly over that period of time. It is absolutely nothing with nothing to show for it. And just, you know, an embarrassing kind of tally in terms of, you know, the ROI. And then all of a sudden there's a spike within a few weeks or a month. And I knew intellectually that was often how it was with social media growth, but you never know if it's going to work for you personally. So I had to just kind of keep putting in the reps and have the faith to do it. Dorie Clark8:39 But I'm curious, Jay, I mean, I know you have done some stuff with, with Instagram. I don't think it's been a kind of primary focus for you. And if I remember correctly from one of your shows, you had I'll put in air quotes, kind of like almost like a random thing, like go viral. Talk to me, how are you thinking about Instagram these days? Jay Clouse8:56 Oh my gosh, it's like my muse, my obsession, and it does not love me back. It really, really does not. So I had a moment where a few months ago, I somehow weaseled my way into an author's trip with Nathan and James, and like literally everybody there has literally written a book, and I have nothing to show in the world of writing a book. So I'm like, why am I here? Dorie Clark9:17 Come talk to me when, when, when you do. I have lots of thoughts. I will, I will help you out, man, however I can. Jay Clouse9:24 I appreciate that. But I was there and I was struck by, wow, all of these folks are really using Instagram to sell their books. I got to figure this out and the sooner the better. And I saw the same thing you did, which was, I don't know if this is something I just didn't notice or if this has increased over time, but there seems to be real cultural cachet with having a large Instagram presence. Dorie Clark9:45 Yes. Jay Clouse9:46 And I don't think all of it is warranted, but I think it is true, and I would like to have that. And so far, I do not. Dorie Clark9:56 Yes, it is really interesting, and I agree with you. I don't think it is either fair or justified. I mean, I've spent years, you know, having a very strong following on Twitter, LinkedIn. It's like, you know, right now it's like 450,000\. And in the business world, that's a cool thing. But the apotheosis of this, I'm married now, thank goodness, to a really fantastic woman. We've been married for 2 years. But back when I was single, you know, you try everything, right? You try all these things. Dorie Clark10:28 And one of the things that I was thinking was like, oh, maybe this will work, is there's this website called Raya. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Jay Clouse10:36 Oh, I've heard of this. Yes. Dorie Clark10:37 Yeah, it's like— Jay Clouse10:38 before my time, before my dating, or after, I should say, I was before the time of Raya. So I never had any opportunity to check into it. Dorie Clark10:43 There we go. So it's for like ultra, ultra elite, like, you know, top, top singles, like meaning accomplished people who have done something in the world. And I thought, oh, well, that would be perfect. Like, I would, I would love somebody who's, you know, smart and accomplished and has, has really done something. Like, maybe this is the vehicle. And when I put in the application, literally all they like want, they're like, okay, do you have references from other people? And actually I did. So, okay, great. I put that in and they're like, and give us your Instagram account. Dorie Clark11:13 I'm like, I'm like, what? And they're, they're wanting to check your validity based on your following on Instagram. I'm like, I have a lot on LinkedIn, but they like 100% did not care. And similarly, I can't even tell you how many people comparatively have been like, oh, I saw you on Instagram as compared to I saw you on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is a fantastic platform. I would like more people to be paying attention to that. But it is very interesting, to your point, the cultural cachet that somehow has become associated with Instagram. Jay Clouse11:45 Are you cross-posting your Reels to LinkedIn? I don't see them. Dorie Clark11:48 I do cross-post. Not, not at the same time, literally, but I will subsequently cross-post them. Yes. Jay Clouse11:55 Because I am told that— I mean, I mean, for reference to folks who don't know, almost 500,000 followers on LinkedIn, like, you've got to be in the top half a percent. of accounts there. And I was just told by my handler at LinkedIn, like, hey, we, the BrandLink thing, we're really pushing video. You should post more videos. So maybe I'll check into this later. Oh yeah, I see them. Yeah, you're posting all of them. Amazing. Jay Clouse12:19 So tell me, how does, I'm getting a little bit off track, but I'm just so curious. How does a successful Reel translate to LinkedIn? Is it like a cheat code? Dorie Clark12:30 So in many ways it is. I, for a long time, was doing video on LinkedIn. I mean, for years, not exclusively, but I would frequently record batches of videos and do it. But I was doing it in what I now realize is not the kind of systematic way that I would want. I was not really aggressively checking the analytics to really drill into what was working versus what what isn't working, which I've started doing now. And also, I was not using scripted videos. I would have a premise and I would have a few bullet points laid out and I would, you know, basically just like hang them behind the camera. And so I would riff and, you know, I could do a decent job of that. Dorie Clark13:18 But what it meant was that the videos were a little bit longer. They were maybe 3 minutes or more even sometimes. And they were more— I mean, they were authentic, But they were kind of baggy, I now realize. That's a good word for it. Yeah. What I've started doing with these Instagram videos, you know, there's sort of a discipline of it, is using a teleprompter and writing scripts. And it is amazing now looking at the before and after and realizing, oh, you know, it was kind of boring. Like it would just drag because, you know, I was fumbling around for my point. Dorie Clark13:51 And so I definitely think that I've up-leveled it as a result of that. And so I think I'm making better videos now in general, and that is translating to LinkedIn audiences. What is fascinating, though, is that different topics will hit a video sometimes that will do kind of poorly on Instagram might be a surprise hit on LinkedIn. And so that actually heartens me because I'm like, oh, it wasn't necessarily that it was such a bad idea in general, but it was, it was maybe a bad idea for this audience, but not for these ones. Jay Clouse14:22 So is your perspective that that is a product of being different audiences on the platforms, or do you think there's a meaningful degree of luck involved? Dorie Clark14:31 I think that sometimes there are topics that are maybe more LinkedIn appropriate. I've done a lot of things around like job hunting and like interviews and things like that, and some of them have done well on Instagram, but I would say percentage-wise more of them do well on LinkedIn because in a lot of ways that's the raison d'être of LinkedIn. So I think that that's part of it. Also, there's different— I'll do like celebrity reaction videos sometimes. There'll be a celebrity who does a thing and then I'll analyze it. And there are demographic differences in terms of what will pop well on LinkedIn versus Instagram versus Facebook. And so that's interesting to watch as well. As you can imagine, on Facebook, what crushes is female celebrities over 50. Dorie Clark15:22 They love that on Facebook, and sometimes there's a Venn diagram of overlap with Instagram. I mean, for instance, I did a video about Dolly Parton that did really well on both platforms, but other ones won't kind of necessarily connect in the same way. Jay Clouse15:37 Interesting. Okay, I want to get us back a little bit on the track that I was starting on and, and pull myself out of some of the rabbit holes I really want to go down. Which is, you mentioned that, okay, for several months there was like depressing results, but then it was kind of everything all at once. Do you think there was underlying like algorithmic residue that was building up to give you a better shot, or do you think it was the accumulation of skills from practice? Dorie Clark16:05 It is unclear to me, and I think it is probably unclear To everybody, you know, maybe including Adam Mosseri, who's the, who's the head of Instagram, what some of the buried things are in the algorithm. Everybody knows that the more you post, the better. But the part that has not been really teased apart appropriately to me is, is it on a pure level that you have more at-bats, and so therefore you just have more chances that something will hit? Or is it possible that the algorithm is actually positively biased toward people who are posting more? And I don't know the answer to that, but regardless of what is behind it, it is true that when I was posting with more frequency, I was certainly both enhancing my skills, having more chances that something would connect, and perhaps tipping the algorithmic scales in my favor. Jay Clouse17:05 So how often are you posting right now? Dorie Clark17:07 So right now, and I mean, this is an interesting thing to talk about as well because, you know, I know a lot of your audience is people who are, you know, like me, either doing this on their own in terms of running a solopreneur business, or maybe they have a small team, but it's not, you know, large-scale enterprise in terms of content creation. And so I have deliberately in the past, you know, 6 weeks, let's say, ratcheted back the production rate. And it's not because I think that that's a great idea. If I had unlimited time and resources, I would keep going full steam ahead. But the reality is that at the end of August, I had a book deadline. We had to submit the first draft of my book to the publisher. And immediately after that, I went for a week on a honeymoon, which you'll notice I got married 2 years ago. This is a very belated honeymoon that we finally scheduled. Dorie Clark18:00 followed by organizing a 100-person conference. And again, I want to thank you for the, the 2 episodes that you've done after each of your retreats that you've hosted. Oh, my pleasure. Because the breakdowns that you did, I thought were just so helpful, kind of your analysis of everything. I feel like I learned a lot from it, so I'm grateful. But we just finished this 100-person event called the Recognize Experts Summit. So having to do all of those things meant that I basically made a conscious choice to try to do as much content production as I could so that I would be able to release a video a day, but not more than that. I want to go back up to 2 or even 3 a day if I can. Dorie Clark18:43 Wow. That would be optimal from my perspective. But life has intervened. And so as a solopreneur, I've just been Focusing on, on those needful activities. Jay Clouse18:55 And when you were in this period of things weren't quite working, was the frequency fewer than one video per day? Do you think that video per day made a difference? Dorie Clark19:04 It was. I actually was doing, I think, more than that. Well, actually, no, let me think about this. It was— we can, we can even break this down. So I guess it probably was a little bit less. Because it was over a 5-month period, which would be about, let's call it 150 days. I did roughly 100 videos, so not quite one a day. I was doing batches of one a day, and then there would be like sort of waiting periods where I was like trying to film and edit and coordinate. Dorie Clark19:36 I think one of the biggest steps forward that I had actually that I think was really helpful to my development was initially because I felt very overwhelmed by all of the different skills that I would have to learn for this. I outsourced my video editing to my assistant, to my chief of staff, who, you know, has a background with AV and is comfortable doing it. And the sort of forcing function was that I didn't like some of the edits that he had, like in particular thumbnails. I know you just did an episode about the importance of thumbnails for YouTube, but it's also true for for Instagram, you need to have a decent thumbnail. And I was just like, oh, you know, I don't, I don't sort of love how that's done. And he's like, well, you know, like, that's how your face is basically. And I'm like, but you've got to be able to find a different thing. And so it sent me down the rabbit hole of basically trying to prove that I was right, where it's like, no, it doesn't have to look like that because I look like a maniac. Jay Clouse20:37 So I typically think of like thumbnails as this is probably going to be the first frame where you could scroll through it. Are you editing in a software and placing a false first frame in the video? Dorie Clark20:47 Sometimes I am. So the big problem was that if I was somehow starting it and I was like starting to form the sentence, like my mouth would be, ah, kind of off to the side, which is not a great look. So I actually went in and it's not that it's that hard to learn, but it felt overwhelming to me. I've learned Instagram edits, which is, you know, Instagram's app so that you can be editing things yourselves. And I learned about things like a freeze frame, where you can actually grab a still, pull it forward, and make the thumbnail. Mm-hmm. And just small things like that, I didn't understand in terms of an ask, like what was an easy thing or what was a hard thing, because I, I wasn't doing it myself. But once I learned, it also opened up a lot of creative possibilities for me because it was things like, you know, oh, I could, I could try this like split-screen thing, or I could try this cutout thing, or Oh, I could substitute some B-roll in here. Dorie Clark21:38 And I think that just building my facility with that and doing it myself, even if I don't always do it myself, has given me a lot of knowledge that, that I think made a difference for me in what I was able to produce. Jay Clouse21:53 When do you think things turned around and why? Dorie Clark21:55 So I started to actually get traction on my account in late May of this year, sort of early June. And, you know, then really just went on a growth spree. And all of a sudden, the first things that started to connect were, I mean, the very first one, which was kind of an early signal, I was mostly getting 2,000 or 3,000 views for a video, which was not that impressive. And there was one that I got that was 50,000\. So, you know, you're sort of looking for like, what is the 10x outlier? And it was a little bit random, But it was an interesting proof of concept. I had read an article in The Atlantic that I thought was really interesting about, you know, sort of like why an Ivy League education is valuable. So this was kind of nerdy, right? It was like, you know, a study that was done. And so I was basically breaking that down and explaining it. Dorie Clark22:49 And that one, you know, got me like 250 followers, which was huge for me at the time. Mm-hmm. Because of course, for that 5 months, I had barely gotten that. So I thought, oh, okay, this is proof that if I have the right thing, you know, something will click. So that gave me a little bit of hope. And then I did a couple of celebrity reaction ones, which I think, you know, was a useful device. I mean, yeah, I certainly didn't want my account to turn into like, you know, whatever, eNude or something. 50 Cent. Dorie Clark23:24 Yeah. What I realized is that when you have a celebrity, it's an entry point because fundamentally, if you are trying to get new followers, they don't know who you are. They are new. And so it's very easy for people to just scroll by because, like, you know, who's this? Jay Clouse23:41 Unfamiliar face. Why would I stay? Dorie Clark23:43 Exactly. But if you see somebody, you know, oh, it's Jennifer Lawrence, or, oh, it's Julia Roberts, or, oh, it's Ben Affleck, or whoever it is, They're at least interested enough to give it a few seconds. And if you have something valuable to say at the end of it, they might stick around, which is cool. So that was sort of the first breakthrough. And then the thing that I really started to feel good about was when my own video, or just me direct to camera, was getting a million views. And then I felt like, now I'm starting to really get this if I can capture them on my own. Jay Clouse24:14 Before this, like, traction happened, and you're sitting there and you're putting all this effort in, did you ever think that your account was cursed? Like maybe it's too old, maybe the growth by like slow increments from everything else, maybe that didn't lead to a following that was working. 'Cause sometimes I'm, I actually believe this is not true anymore, but for a long time I was like, it's because all my friends from high school follow me. They're the ones that see what I post first and they're like, I'm not engaging with this. Did you ever feel that way? Dorie Clark24:44 I watched a lot of videos early on to try, because one of the pieces of the learning curve was I wanted to understand the platforms and I wanted to understand the algorithms because it just felt very mysterious. And so in particular, I didn't find content around this for Instagram, but I was simultaneously watching things about YouTube growth. And I did hear, you know, a number of sort of creator advisors do videos saying like, look, if you've got this account that has been posting all kinds of random things and it's stuck in the doldrums, you know, it's so much easier, just start clean, just start fresh. And that, I wondered if that was true for Instagram. And it felt very daunting to me because again, 22,000, you're almost in this like danger zone because if it was, you know, 500 people, I'd be like, okay, great, I'll just scrap it. You know, I'll start fresh. Yeah. But I had enough that I was like, oh, well, I don't wanna part with the asset that I already have. Dorie Clark25:42 Like, I feel like I need to make it work with the account that I presently have. But yeah, I was a little bit nervous that somehow the algorithm would be clouded or the message wouldn't get through properly. That definitely was a concern. I'll say that one of the pieces of information that was most useful to me and most hopeful to me There's a woman named Nausheen Chen. I don't know if you know her. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we had a conversation and she had, you know, had had and continues to have very strong Instagram growth. And I had heard from a third party that in 8 months she had gone from 3,000 followers to 300,000 followers. Dorie Clark26:24 And I thought, oh my God, that's wild. You know, how did she do that? And I wanted to understand. And one piece of our conversation was the one that really clicked for me, where she said from months 0 to 5, she grew from $3,000 to $10,000, you know, which, which is good. I mean, that's nice progress, right? It shows something. But then from months 5 to 8, she grew from $10,000 to $300,000\. And that was when I realized, okay, exponential growth really can happen. And it had happened for her the year prior. You know, I think that sometimes we tell ourselves a narrative about anything, you know, whether it's about building an email list or building a YouTube channel or a LinkedIn or an Instagram. Dorie Clark27:06 And it's that, oh, I didn't get in soon enough. The people who were the first movers were able to take advantage of the exponential growth, but it's not available to me. And it showed me that that was possible, which gave me the desire to persevere to see it through. Because I thought, you know what, if it, if it's algorithmically possible now, then I'm a reasonably smart person, I should be able to figure this out. So Nooshin gave me a lot of hope. Jay Clouse27:36 Obviously the book doesn't come out till next fall, so we don't know what impact this has on that book. But at this point, do you have enough time to have data to say, okay, this growth has happened, It's lift the business in this way. Dorie Clark27:52 There's early markers for sure. There have been interesting opportunities that have come from it. Just as, as one example about one thing that paid off in different ways, I mentioned earlier I had a video about Dolly Parton that was popular, and as a result of it, there's a woman who follows me on LinkedIn who is a CNBC editor. She saw the Dolly Parton video and said, will you write an article based on your Dolly Parton video? It's kind of interesting, right? It's like— Very interesting. Like, oh, okay. So the social content comes first and then you turn it into an article. Interesting. But so I did, and that article did really well. Dorie Clark28:31 She said it was, you know, for like a week or something, one of the most popular articles on the site. It ended up bringing me nearly 2,000 new email subscribers as a result of it. And the article on CNBC got seen by the producers at WGN-TV, which is one of the major TV stations in Chicago. And they invited me to do a TV appearance on WGN to talk about it. So, you know, just thinking about kind of the, the media ecosystem, that's one small example. But additionally, I have certainly gotten a lot of kind of remarkable amount of inbound inquiries for, for coaching, for speaking, things like that. So it definitely has had a positive impact on the business. In fact, I mean, you know, for creators, something that is worth calling out and mentioning is that it's a little bit of a problem sometimes because you're working so hard, right? Like for 5 months you're doing a thing and nobody's paying attention whatsoever. Dorie Clark29:32 So everything is optimized toward, okay, I've gotta just make the content, make the content. And then Because it comes very fast, there's often not time to put in place proper infrastructure to even respond. Jay Clouse29:45 Totally. Dorie Clark29:45 I guess it's a good problem to have, but it is still a real problem because you've been optimizing for one thing and now it's like, oh my God, I have to figure out this, this completely other thing. And I did get pretty overwhelmed by it. Jay Clouse29:58 Yeah. Just have to say, people in audio, the poise with which you're answering questions, they have no idea a cat just walked across your desk. Dorie Clark30:05 Yes. Yes. I've got a tail right here in my possession. Jay Clouse30:08 Incredible. Incredible. Okay. So this has led to new opportunities and probably, I think what you're saying with that last comment is probably there is an opportunity to integrate like ManyChat into this. So like on a per video basis, there might be even greater lift than maybe you're capturing right now, but it sounds like you're very pro, like this has been worthwhile so far. Dorie Clark30:29 Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, I, you know, I'll also mention yet another possibility, uh, it opens up sponsorship possibilities that were not really there before. I mean, it is true, and people have lots of good things to say. Justin Moore, I think, is a friend of yours. I've read his book, and he and a number of other, you know, great folks that I know— a colleague of mine named Terry Rice talks about this as well— that you can absolutely land sponsor deals even if you have a smaller following or kind of a niche following. But, you know, it's true that more opportunities are available if you have a larger platform because Part of what they're looking for sometimes is reach. And so I've gotten more inquiries about that and have been able to land a couple of deals that have come in where they may have come in and said, like, for instance, oh, well, we want you to do a LinkedIn post. Dorie Clark31:22 And then I could say, oh, but, you know, wouldn't you also like it on this other platform? And then that becomes an additional income stream. Jay Clouse31:29 After a quick break, we talk about a day in the life of Dorie Clark and the process that has led to her stunning Instagram success. There are many very practical, very actionable tips here. So stick around. We'll be right back. And now back to my conversation with Dori. So walk me through a day or a week in the life of Dori doing her Instagram today. Like, help me understand what the process looks like beginning to end. And I was tempted to say like on a per-video basis, but It seems like the volume is so high, you're probably doing some batching. Jay Clouse32:06 And so maybe it's best to just talk about like a larger chunk of the process. Dorie Clark32:11 Yeah, you definitely, you definitely need to batch for it. So the kind of level of triage here, first thing that I would do, and when you're first starting, you might not have this, but pretty soon, you know, within, within your first 10 or 20 videos, you will have something as a basis. You can pull your data from Meta. and see which posts are performing best. And you can plug that into Claude or whatever your preferred AI system is and have it do an analysis so that you can look at it and say, all right, what topics are resonating? What themes? Like, you know, what, what are, what are we working with here? Basically, what should I definitely do more of? What should I definitely, you know, stop doing? And so you've got some material there. You also hopefully have been saving ideas from other things that you're watching on your own Instagram feed. So you might see somebody else doing a thing where you're like, oh, that's such a cool format. I like that. Dorie Clark33:05 You know, save, save, save. And so you bring it in. And Jay Clouse33:08 are you literally— I'm gonna get really, really nitty-gritty because I feel like I'm getting a little selfish. I feel like I'm really close to cracking this, but like I'm just missing a few workflow things that the unknown of it is preventing me from getting enough at-bats. So are you saving to a folder in Instagram? Do you have a notes page that you're saving ideas to? How do you actually capture your ideas? Dorie Clark33:32 Yeah, so for me, I usually treat my email inbox as kind of a central repository because I know that I'm looking at it. So if I see something interesting, I will email it to myself, and then I'll grab it from email and I'll put it into a folder. I also have a great tool that I use called Sandcastles. And Sandcastles, it's run by Callaway, who I think you've interviewed too, is that right? Yeah, Jay Clouse33:54 I think, I think we just released that episode like last month. Dorie Clark33:57 Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I think that that's really useful because it'll analyze your channel, it can analyze other channels, and you can sort of see what's trending. So that gives you other ideas as well. And it connects through Claude with an MCP so that you can ask questions in Claude and have it run an analysis. So you can begin to surface some ideas about what you want to do. All right, so then I've got like raw ideas. Jay Clouse34:23 How many? Dorie Clark34:25 I have a page that I keep, which is like kind of the raw idea page. Oh, and there's also another source, Jay, which is that I will grab comments off of my posts because people will often say, okay, you know, this is great, but what do you do in a situation where blah, blah, blah? And so I'm like, oh, well, that's an interesting idea for a video. So I will paste that over there. So that document has gotten up to probably 30 or 35 pages, like just a Word document. Wow. So there's a lot of raw material there. And I will then go through and pick what I think are the most promising ones. And I have developed over time a skill in Claude that is basically a positioning. Dorie Clark35:10 Like, it's basically like helping me formulate a hook and like an angle for it. So I will feed in, you know, okay, here's some rough ideas. And then the Claude skill, I've trained it over time. So I have like a voice document basically, and it's guidelines for all of this that I keep refining and have been refining for all of these months. And so the skills themselves have to be relatively short, but they refer to a source document That is probably 30 pages of specs about, you know, voice and ideas and this kind of hook, not that kind of hook, et cetera. So it goes through that and comes back with me and is like, oh, well, here are some possible ways. Like it comes up with 10 hooks for each topic. And so I'll go through and I'm like, okay, you know, number 3 for A, number 4 for B, and we'll go for there. Jay Clouse36:01 And that document, that source document, if it's like 30 pages, I'm guessing you have like over time, you're like, here's example scripts of videos that have done really well that I really liked. Dorie Clark36:11 Yeah. Or maybe not. It doesn't actually have example scripts, but it will have, like, it's got a banned phrase list, you know, like of like, you know, the AI words that are annoying to everybody. Yeah. So some of the information in this document is tonal because I wanna make sure that as I'm creating content, it's for the right people psychographically. I don't really want to attract an audience of people that, you know, feel like people are out to get you and you need to, you know, have your comeback or, you know, you need to be angry about that. I mean, that certainly is a sentiment that could mobilize people, but that's not what I'm doing. And so I want all of the frames to be about, okay, here is a way that you can have information that will be helpful to you, but it's not about a kind of victim mindset. Dorie Clark37:03 or whatever. So, I mean, those are some of the, the pieces. There will be guidance about particular things like here's how long the hook should be. Like the, you know, the hook shouldn't be more than 10 words because if it is, it gets long and it won't fit on the screen. It can be things about phrases that I want to specifically avoid, not because they sound like AI, but that they're off brand. Like, you know, if you're talking about winning or crushing, it's a little bit more bro energy than I want to be putting out. And so we have different phrasing that we would use. Jay Clouse37:34 This is so good. See, this is the level of— this is so helpful to me. Dorie Clark37:38 I'm glad. Jay Clouse37:38 What I'm going to do is I'm literally going to take this transcript and I'm going to be like, help me start this document, Claude, based on what Dory is saying. And then I'm going to fill in some of my stuff, and then I'm going to make a templated version that I'm going to give to folks in the audience. Just go to the show notes. Dorie Clark37:53 Love it. Jay Clouse37:53 That's amazing. Okay, so you have this long list of ideas and it's very freeing to me to hear that it sounds like it's a fairly, like, just long Word doc, and it's not like this— Dorie Clark38:03 It's so unwieldy. Yeah, in its raw form. My wife will send me things that she's seen. She's like, oh, you should talk about this. This would be a great idea. So I'll put that in the document. Jay Clouse38:13 And you probably check things off, like, as you say, like, okay, I did a video on this. Dorie Clark38:17 Yeah, I have 3 sort of canonical documents, and one is like the raw ideas. The next is the scripted, you know, ready to film. And then the third is I've filmed this. And so I will move sequentially from one to the other. Jay Clouse38:33 This is also an obvious thing that I just need to get myself past. I'm such a linear completionist that I get stuck all the time in like, I need to finish the thing in the same motion as starting the thing. What I think you're saying is you have this large list that you're capturing as it happens. And then probably as you get time, you're picking some of these ideas and running it through the process and getting it closer to the point of scripting. And so at some point you have a pile where you're like, this is a large enough pile that I can start filming. Is that right? Dorie Clark39:04 Yeah, absolutely. Because filming is the constraint in some ways, because at least for me, I mean, you have a nice studio all set up, but, you know, right, right at the moment, I split my time between New York and Miami. And when you're in New York, space is at a premium. I don't have a kind of permanent studio setup where, you know, with lights and things like that. So you have to sample that, or you need to, to go outside and film it in the natural light and, you know, do that at an appropriate golden hour or whatever it is. So I want to have a batch of things that I can do all at once to capitalize on the efficiencies of, of being able to film a bunch of things rapidly. And I will literally go out into the streets of New York— it's kind of ridiculous— with a backpack in like 6 sweaters because you need to change your wardrobe. I Jay Clouse39:48 was gonna ask this. So you do think about this? You don't wanna do a batch in the same uniform? Dorie Clark39:54 Yeah, absolutely. Because the problem then is that if you release those videos, people often might scroll by because they'll say, oh, well, I've seen this one before, even if it's a completely different topic. So it needs to have a different visual look so that they'll pause long enough to say, oh, I haven't seen this one yet. So yeah, I'll have, I'll have a bunch of different sweaters or jackets or shirts. And just go out and I'll, I'll be changing angles. Uh, you know, I might be in the same park, but I will take the tripod and just shift it around, you know, 45 degrees and 45 degrees so that they're seeing different backdrops. Jay Clouse40:26 This is interesting. I thought about this. I'm like, oh, I have this amazing studio, but I'm actually wondering if it's better to have something that feels less produced and more variable, or if I'm just hiding from the work of filming and recording. Dorie Clark40:39 I mean, I think there's probably a lot of, a lot of ways that it can work. For me, the balance that I've struck is that I have a better setup for this in Miami, but when I'm doing a celebrity reaction video, I will do it at the desk, sort of looking a little bit more formal because that's where it's like, oh, I need the authority of, you know, you know, here I am a pundit and I am, I am explaining this thing. Whereas if it's me talking direct to camera, I feel like that's a little bit meant to be more accessible. And so for that one, I'll be out in the wild, so to speak. Jay Clouse41:10 Tell me about your editing process. Do you also do that in a batch? Dorie Clark41:13 Yeah, I do, although it doesn't necessarily have to be batched in quite the same way, because if you are doing a video format that doesn't require heavy editing, you can kind of do that almost like when you're waiting in line for something. If I'm doing a direct-to-camera video shoot and I haven't messed up too badly, usually it'll take, you know, 5 or 10 minutes to just blitz through because really you're just cutting the beginning and the end. You're watching it through one time to make sure there weren't any kind of stops and starts or something like that. You might trim a little bit of the silences, you add the captions, you add the text hook at the beginning, and that's, that's really all you have to do. So That can be done very, very quickly. So sometimes if I, if I have filmed a batch of, you know, a dozen or something like that, I'll knock out the edits on a couple just to get them posted, but the rest I will leave for myself as little chores when I have a spare 5 minutes. Jay Clouse42:17 Hmm. Talk to me then about your posting process. Dorie Clark42:22 For posting, I am not the most scientific in the world, I'll cross-post to Facebook, and I will often like dump a bunch of them. I mean, I think it's probably better to, you know, to stagger them. You can schedule trial reels now, which is really nice. But honestly, when you schedule trial reels, they become like sort of hard to see based on the UX of Instagram. And it always worries me that they're not gonna do it properly. This is probably just my own paranoia. Yeah. but because it's not easily visible, I'm like, did that actually happen or did that like vanish into the ether? So because I'm skeptical, I don't necessarily use it. Dorie Clark43:03 I think what would be optimal is to post, you know, let's say if your goal is doing daily videos, probably every day you post a new trial reel and then every day you advance a new trial reel into your feed so that there's new content for, for the new folks and there's new content for your followers. But oftentimes I will pour a bunch into trial reels, which means that— Jay Clouse43:26 At the same time? Dorie Clark43:27 Yeah, exactly. And then I'll sort of ration them out to my followers during a busy period. That's really just a practical adaptation for things like last week was, as I mentioned, this 100-person recognized expert summit. And so I knew it was just gonna be wall-to-wall, so I wanted to have it all teed up so that all I had to do in the morning was just press, okay, share, share to your feed, so that that was the only thing I had to think about. Jay Clouse43:55 Talk to me about the captions that go below the video. So not like the literal captions on what you're saying, but how much time and thought do you put into the captions for the video itself? Dorie Clark44:05 So I will spend a fairly disproportionate time thinking about that because not only is it the first thing that people see, It informs everything. Ideally, I like to have the text hook and the verbal hook aligned so that it's kind of unified. Occasionally, I will write a script and then later I will think of a better text hook, and if that's the case, I will just say, all right, well, they probably won't mind, and so I will update it to the better text hook and keep the verbal hook different, but it's usually not my intention to do so. But Yeah, I want to create something that strikes a balance. And this is part of my voice document as well. One mistake I will say that, that AI likes to do, at least initially, was that it would like give away the answer. And the whole goal of an Instagram video, if you're talking about retention, is you need to create curiosity. So they would come up with titles that would, that would just give away the answer. Dorie Clark45:04 It would be like, the reason you're not a good entrepreneur is you don't sleep enough or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay, why do you need to watch that video? Jay Clouse45:12 Yeah. Dorie Clark45:12 I've, you know, baked in language about art. It has to create curiosity as an element, for instance. So I mean, that's, that's one piece of it, but I, I definitely have been playing with that a lot. Jay Clouse45:23 So just to clarify, you're saying the on-screen text hook you put a disproportionate amount of time into? I was asking about the description below the video, not even in the edit itself. Dorie Clark45:32 The caption. Jay Clouse45:33 Yeah, do you put any effort into that? Dorie Clark45:35 Um, relatively little. The caption is important for SEO. So you want to make sure that there's relevant keywords. I mean, all of these, like, AI is so smart now, right? Like, it, it's using all of these factors. So even if it was completely blank, it probably still wouldn't be that much of a problem. But you know that in terms of who it's being distributed to, they're drawing from your literal captions of what you've been saying. Mm-hmm. They're drawing from the text hook. Dorie Clark46:01 And so, you know, it understands who to feed it to. But Your written caption is just one more element that you can control to make sure that the appropriate keywords are in there. So I don't belabor it. Some people put their entire script in there, which I don't really bother to do, but largely because I am doing this on my telephone and I, you know, you could copy and paste it, but it's a little bit of a bear. So I will just make sure that I'm giving people enough information so that they understand what the video is about and why they should watch. And then, you know, a CTA, a call to action to encourage people to follow me. But yeah, I'm usually writing it on the spot and not, not thinking incredibly deeply about it. Jay Clouse46:43 I can't believe I didn't ask this already, but you, you mentioned at one point that you use a teleprompter now for your scripts. Dorie Clark46:47 Yes. Jay Clouse46:48 Are you filming front-facing and using a teleprompter app on your phone, or do you have a different workaround? Dorie Clark46:54 I am using the front-facing camera. This is definitely in the camp of like, done is better than perfect. I know that the back camera is like way nicer. And I'd love to film with a back camera, but I have tried different arrangements. I bought a separate external teleprompter and it was just too complicated to use. It was optimized for a DSLR camera. I thought, oh my God, that seems complicated to me. So I film all of this on my iPhone and it was hard to use and kind of janky with an iPhone. Dorie Clark47:28 So ultimately I was like, you know what, that's definitely just too hard. I wanna make it easy enough that I can actually keep doing this and that I have the ability to do it myself because I'm filming this without a team. Sometimes my wife is around to help me out, but sometimes she's not. So I, I needed it to be manageable for someone who is not a technical person like me to be able to get it done. Jay Clouse47:50 What teleprompter app are you using? Dorie Clark47:52 Just within the Instagram Edits app. Jay Clouse47:54 So you're filming within edits as well? Dorie Clark47:56 Yes, correct. Jay Clouse47:57 Okay, wow. This is all very empowering, very freeing. Yeah, I feel like I have a much clearer sense of how to do a lot of this. What we didn't talk about a lot is, it seems for me from the outside that you have like 3-ish sort of buckets or categories for your videos that you return to time and time again. Do you think that's meaningfully important? Dorie Clark48:19 Do I think it's meaningfully important for people to have multiple buckets that they return to, or which is common? Jay Clouse48:24 Meaning it seems like it's gotten kind of structured where it's like you have the how to blank, like how to answer this question, how to do this type of, or respond to this question. Then you have, here's the celebrity trick. Mm-hmm. To do this type of thing. And you have some like what to say when this happens as well. Yeah. So do you think that's important for growing the account, that it's consistent with those 3 questions? Or is that just helping you narrow the aperture of what you could create around and it helps you get more at-bats? Dorie Clark48:56 Yeah, I think the key thing for me in kind of coming to that, and it probably won't be the case forever, right? Because different trends emerge on platforms about what people want or what they're looking for. That's why I always start with the data analysis first to understand what is it that people seem to be interested in now so that I'm not stuck in some past model. But that is definitely what seems to be working right now. It emerged ground up. When I started the Instagram journey, I really wasn't sure what the audience would be interested in. And the problem, you know, you could say it's a strength, but also a problem with me honestly is that I, in my work, don't have a very specific area of focus, right? It's not like I've only ever done one thing. My first book is about professional reinvention. It's called Reinventing You. Dorie Clark49:54 I have another one called Stand Out about how to become a thought leader in your industry. My third book is called Entrepreneurial You. My most recent one, The Long Game, is about strategic thinking. So any of those could have been potentially viable paths to explore, and I tried videos initially about all of those things. It's like, oh, okay, should it be more entrepreneurial content about like, here's how to make money as an entrepreneur, or should it be more about like, here's how to be strategic and develop long-term vision? I didn't know what would resonate. And so where I've landed is as the result of sort of seeing of the potential universe of my content. I'm clearly not doing like random things like, oh, I'll throw in cooking and fitness or whatever, but of the potential universe of topics that I could talk about, these are the veins that that seem to resonate most with people. So I've shaped it accordingly. Jay Clouse50:46 If you were to address me as someone who has the burgeoning success that you have on Instagram, and you were to pass along Dory's immutable laws of Instagram, what would be on that list so that we can take that and put that into work? Dorie Clark50:59 Aha. Well, thank you, Jay. I appreciate it. I think that what I have learned, and I hope can be helpful to other people, in terms of growing on Instagram is, number one, responding to the audience like we were talking about a moment ago is really crucial. I was never an analytics person before. I was a philosophy major as an undergrad. I have a graduate degree in theology. I'm not a data cruncher, but I've come to appreciate how important it is to actually look at the numbers, And when you see a meaningful spike in reaction, that should be noticed because that is the thing that you can double down on. Dorie Clark51:47 And you have to develop almost scientific hypotheses. I had a post that did very well for me called How to Stand Out in a Meeting Even If You're the Quiet One. And it was completely disproportionate. It got a million-plus views or whatever. And in no way was I expecting that to do so well. And so I decided, okay, I have to test this. Is it about standing out in a meeting that people are interested in? Is it about the identity of being a quiet one? And so I almost like an algorithmic thing, you know, like a decision tree, I started making other videos around that to see, all right, you know, what about if you do X? You know, if you, how to stand out in a job interview if you're a quiet one, how to, how to argue your point effectively, even if you're the quiet one. And all of these things were, were, experiments off of these things to try to get closer and closer to the idea of what is it that's working. Dorie Clark52:42 And it might not even be the premise. It could be the hook. It could be the visual of where you are or what you're doing. And so it becomes like a mystery that you can unfurl if you treat it the right way. And so that's been very empowering. The second piece of advice that I'd give is regardless of What people end up doing. I do think from my own experience that there has been real value in learning the process from the ground up myself so that I understand how it works. And I may outsource certain elements later, but I have so much more control about it and I can move so much faster being able to film and learning how to do that, being able to edit and doing that. Dorie Clark53:25 So I think it's a mistake to pay someone You could easily pay someone, you know, $3,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 a month. I mean, I have multiple author friends that pay a firm $7,000 a month, and they have beautiful looking content. Like, it's very beautiful. But my growth has been better than theirs on the platform. And I think it's empowering to realize that money is not the variable that is buying you success. Or Jay Clouse53:48 production value. Dorie Clark53:49 Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, I guess as a third piece, I would say, You bring this up frequently about your listeners and, you know, members of the lab, that it is education first. And I think that is a really important frame. We all know, especially with AI, I mean, God help us, there is so much slop that is being produced and it is noisier. So if we can make sure that whatever we are producing is something that genuinely feels like an insight, that, you know, really is something that you, if you received it, would say, oh, that's, that's cool, I want to pass that on. That is what is going to stand out. You know, it's just the threshold of not what would other people like, but would I like it? You know, does it meet your quality threshold? The other day, I did something that I had been wanting to do for a while and just had put off, honestly, because it felt very intimidating in terms of the time commitment and how to do it, which was I knew that it would be a good idea to have 500,000 followers in to create a carousel that was like an about me introductory carousel. Because presumably a lot of people who started following me, they might watch the videos, but they haven't necessarily taken the time. Dorie Clark55:15 I mean, why would they, to go to my website or learn any information about me? So they might literally just have no data, but this would be a way that I could introduce myself to them. So I knew it was useful, but I didn't even really know how to make carousels. And it was like, oh, you know, how do you tell your story that, you know, in a short, succinct way? So it took me probably 6 or 7 hours to work on, but it was like this very big project figuring out what are the exact right images to use and how do I tell the story? But I was really proud of it at the end because I felt like, okay, I feel like this captures my vibe in a nice way. And I put it up and it's actually been so lovely and so gratifying because an About Me carousel, you would think it's like maybe limited reach for something like that. It's not as immediately useful to other people because it fundamentally is about you. But right this minute, it is up at 132,000 views. which is so awesome for just something like that. And to me, that feels like evidence that I did it the way that I had hoped I could do it. Jay Clouse56:21 That's amazing, man. Is there anything glaring that I missed or is non-obvious to your approach or what you've learned that we haven't covered here? Dorie Clark56:31 Oh my goodness. I think we've covered a lot of ground. This is really fun to talk about. I'm curious for you, how are you thinking about this? Like, do you wanna sort of, dive in and recommit? Or like, what's, what's your vision for yourself with this? Jay Clouse56:45 100%. We got to the point where I was, I think I was trying to overcomplicate it. And I've been like bringing on more folks onto my team to help me with content creation. And so I was trying to involve them, but then I was becoming the, the filming bottleneck. And so like out of guilt, I was filming stuff that like wasn't that great. Dorie Clark57:00 Right. Jay Clouse57:01 And so I think I'm gonna put it back in the bucket of like, this is a skunkworks project. assigned to just me. The challenge is getting enough throughput fast enough amongst the other things that I've committed to. Yes. So, as we're talking, I'm literally thinking, I'm like, maybe what I do is after this episode drops, I put out another episode that says, be right back, I'm gonna figure out Instagram. And I just don't upload to the podcast or YouTube for a couple months and figure this out. Because at the end of the day, like, if I can figure it out and then I can report back and be like, this is what I did, That's gonna be good content too. Dorie Clark57:37 Totally. I Jay Clouse57:38 had a conversation with somebody about podcasting, which podcasting, like notoriously difficult to grow. Oh yeah. Viral podcasts aren't really a thing unless you're on YouTube. But he had a really good point cuz he was like in the old school podcasting world and he was like, consistency still matters in podcasting, but you should always be working on some episode or series that you think is a really big swing because your growth isn't gonna come from consistency. Your growth is gonna come from one of those big swings actually connecting. Dorie Clark58:06 Yes. Jay Clouse58:07 And I'm not putting enough effort into enough like big swings. I'm kind of like really riding the consistency train and have been for a long time. Dorie Clark58:18 Yeah. Jay Clouse58:18 And that has started to come at the detriment of time to do some of these bigger swings. So that's what's been coming up for me as we've been talking. Dorie Clark58:27 And that's really interesting. Yeah, when consistency becomes a problem, it's like— Totally. Like the terrible downside of doing exactly what everyone tells you that you should be doing. Jay Clouse58:38 Yeah, like consistency is great as long as you're getting better, but I think in post-fatherhood season, when I'm trying to be as consistent as I was before we had a kid in a compacted amount of time, what is likely to come from that is pretty obvious, you know? It's just like, it's hard to be, better than I was with less time. Of course, like, skills get sharper, you get faster at doing things, so the drop-off isn't as extreme as the loss of time might be, but it is easy to step backwards in terms of even your own standards of pushing yourself to get better. So this has been really inspiring to me. Dorie Clark59:15 Well, thank you. I appreciate it, and I certainly support your Instagram journey, although as a podcast fan, don't cut it back too much because I keep learning a lot from your show. So I'm so happy To be able to come on and share some of what I've been learning because I really, I really find it genuinely beneficial. So thank you. Jay Clouse59:41 If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We're close to 500 on Apple. Please help me get there. Come on, we need you. I need you here. They help me grow big and strong as a podcaster. Those reviews go a long way to help us grow the show. If you want to learn more about Dori, visit her website at doriclark.com. Jay Clouse59:59 There's a link to that and her Instagram account in the show notes. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you next week. Thank you. [ ![](https://app.creatorscience.com/courses/podcast-like-a-youtuber/card.jpg?v=d37ea4db) Put this episode to work Podcast Like A YouTuber The playbook for a video podcast people watch $199 · 230+ students · 14-day refundSee the course → ](https://app.creatorscience.com/courses/podcast-like-a-youtuber?utm%5Fsource=creatorscience.com&utm%5Fmedium=episode-card&utm%5Fcampaign=dorie-clark&utm%5Fcontent=episode) This week's guest ![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/1d98f876-cbe9-11f1-b9ca-9395fe45b641/image/d3ab81a37166e1d6c7829bede18a7247.png?w=640&h=640&fit=crop&auto=format,compress) **Dorie Clark**Wall Street Journal bestselling author, 4-time Thinkers50 honoree as one of the world's top business thinkers, and longtime faculty member at Duke and Free every Sunday ### Get the ideas from every episode Join **65,000+** creators reading the Creator Science newsletter. Subscribe for free Up next [![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/a6e80130-a56a-11f1-9c10-530d8b65b819/image/657a645ede0f8603954865cb868c7037.png?w=200&h=200&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)**Kallaway’s EXACT System For Going Viral (Almost Every Time)**Episode 316](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/kallaway/) Ask Creator Science Got a question about your creative business? Jay answers listener questions on the show. [Submit a question →](https://creatorscience.com/ask/?ref=podcast) ## More episodes about Instagram [All 21 episodes →](https://creatorscience.com/tag/ig/) [![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/95792b9a-2149-11f1-b991-d3b9b742683a/image/3eb94f45c0ae7f095e88c1dfae69a6c1.jpg?w=240&h=240&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)Episode 297 · Mar 17, 2026Joy Sullivan — How She Built A Living As A Writer On Instagram and Substack](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/joy-sullivan/)[![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/5f6de8f8-97f4-11f0-83d7-c33d9cdf5bf0/image/c47661fde7b42ddc7ee6cf527921b4ee.jpg?w=240&h=240&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)Episode 275 · Sep 23, 2025From ignoring short-form video to 3.5 billion views | Pat Flynn’s Pokémon juggernaut (Part 1)](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/pat-flynn-shorts/)[![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/a377e04c-69f0-11ed-8b2e-fbd00b64f7e2/image/2aff9c9356e071ab84a14359a18e330b.jpg?w=240&h=240&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)Episode 136 · Feb 7, 2023Kevin Parry – How he goes viral on EVERY platform](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/kevin-parry/) ### Proof of Effort URL: https://creatorscience.com/proof-of-effort/ Last updated: 2026-10-16T19:18:20.000Z I saw a [​depressing prediction​](https://x.com/danshipper/status/2110707025826996280?ref=creatorscience.com) from Dan Shipper (CEO of Every) on X this week. Here's the paraphrased version: ****the newsletter is dead** Every's core business is a newsletter with 120k+ subscribers so I don't say this lightly. ****persistent agents mean i dont look at my inbox** with dots (GrokBots, Muse, etc) I almost never look at my inbox. if I do it's for a specific thing I need to reply to.i think in a year I'll be doing all of my email this way - fully filtered by my dot / something like it. ****what it means** It doesn’t mean people won't read newsletters, but it does mean that getting a person’s email is no longer the guarantee that you have a relationship with them that it used to. For years now, people have "joked" that the future of work looks like 1) people using AI to create things and then 2) people using AI to summarize and consume those things—i.e., humans are no longer truly creating *or* consuming what was created. Bots talk to bots, dead internet theory, blah blah blah. It's a good argument! Especially when you open an email expecting to read from one of your favorite writers and immediately sense the AI fingerprint. But I have a more optimistic take: We've just tightened our filters. Because the cost of creating (generating) things has effectively gone to zero, the supply of consumable *stuff* has exploded. Available human attention has not changed. So what we're all learning how to do is get better and better at filtering *what deserves our limited supply of attention*. And what we've implicitly realized is that if there was no cost to the person *creating* the thing, we don't want to invest our own resources (time, attention, energy, cash) into consuming the thing. Hell, sometimes I can't even be bothered to read the AI response to the question I asked *because it's long and written by a robot.* On the other hand, people paid thousands of dollars—*per ticket—*to see Twenty One Pilots play an arena show here in Columbus, Ohio, last night. The cost of BECOMING Twenty One Pilots was enormous: years of practice, playing to mostly empty rooms, overcoming self-doubt, self-funding albums, and more. The cost of orchestrating that show was equally enormous. The band is known for putting on spectacular shows. For weeks, people on Reddit speculated about what the show's production might look like. In a world where everyone constantly cuts corners, we love it when people take the long route. Our daughter is really into Sesame Street right now. And amid the brain-rot landmines on Netflix and elsewhere, Sesame Street still seems like a positive, low-stim choice. And then I discovered a season of "Sesame Street Classics"—episodes from the 1970s and 80s. We watched an episode from 1978, and she *loved* it. And I loved it, too! And I loved it even *more* knowing that it was totally made from human imagination and collaboration. I'm not speaking from a mountaintop here. I constantly feel tempted to use AI to ramp up publishing volume. Volume used to be what separated the megacreators from the rest, so the perception of volume FEELS like the bridge to cross to grow. *But that's a relic of an earlier time*. Volume today looks a lot like "[​midslop​](https://creatorscience.com/midslop/)" and begs the ancient question: If a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? I don't know, but it doesn't make a sale. It's better to make something with **proof of effort**. Proof of care. Proof of YOU investing your own time, pride, creativity, and love into the thing. And it's not mutually exclusive from AI. My friend Jonny Miller is an AI evangelist, but he leverages it in ways that still feel effortful. A few weeks ago, he published an essay called [*How to Unclench*](https://howtounclench.com/?ref=creatorscience.com) that has received nearly 2 million views on X. > After months of writing, 'How to Unclench' is finally live! > > It's an interactive essay packed with stories, science & guided practices to help you unclench. > > → [https://t.co/UTYPJkkrKH](https://t.co/UTYPJkkrKH?ref=creatorscience.com) [https://t.co/SMPBhkaH7f](https://t.co/SMPBhkaH7f?ref=creatorscience.com) [pic.twitter.com/U9ibMPcjtU](https://t.co/U9ibMPcjtU?ref=creatorscience.com) > > — Jonny Miller (@jonnym1ller) [September 14, 2026](https://x.com/jonnym1ller/status/2099558411050635769?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=creatorscience.com) The essay is great—it's actually been quite an unlock for me. And Jonny is both a friend and a member of The Lab. But I'm interested in what it teaches us about the current state of content creation The essay reeks of effort. Months (years?) spent thinking, pressure-testing, iterating, and then figuring out how to communicate one specific idea. The writing is immediately engaging. He underscores it with animations (probably AI-assisted) that are simultaneously "unnecessary" (strictly speaking) but so helpful in grasping the ideas. Effort. The entire essay was published not on Jonny's blog, but on a domain he secured *just for this essay*. I've seen this a few times lately with other creators: - [High Agency](https://www.highagency.com/?ref=creatorscience.com) by George Mack - [AI 2027](https://ai-2027.com/?ref=creatorscience.com) - [AI 2040](https://ai-2040.com/?ref=creatorscience.com) Again, it just reeks of extra effort. And when we see that the essay is a 30+ minute read, that human effort invites us in. It may seem like we're entering a time when it's harder than ever to cut through the noise and competition for attention. *How can a* [*trust maximizer*](https://creatorscience.com/attention-vs-trust/) *compete?* But when everyone is spreading their effort wider and wider, deep, concentrated effort becomes rare, obvious, and attractive. If you don't want to compete on volume, the best thing you can do is choose not to. ### His EXACT System For Writing Scripts With AI — Former Ali Abdaal Scriptwriter, George Blackman URL: https://creatorscience.com/podcast/george-blackman-ai/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T12:37:58.000Z Episode 321 # His EXACT System For Writing Scripts With AI — Former Ali Abdaal Scriptwriter, George Blackman My guest is George Blackman, a YouTube scriptwriter who got his start writing full-time for Ali Abdaal and has since written scripts for creators from 30,000 to over 10 million subscribers. with **George Blackman**Oct 13, 202650 min [Watch](#watch) [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/his-exact-system-for-writing-scripts-with-ai-former/id1498801064?i=1000796086418&uo=4&ref=creatorscience.com) [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0uZWplRNnOjFcdNpsqxpZ4?ref=creatorscience.com) More players Listen in your app [![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=podcasts.apple.com&sz=64)Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creator-science-with-jay-clouse/id1498801064?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=open.spotify.com&sz=64)Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/39j9VhklsBs1aLWtkGTWJT?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=youtube.com&sz=64)YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@jay/?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=overcast.fm&sz=64)Overcast](https://overcast.fm/itunes1498801064/creator-science?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=pocketcasts.com&sz=64)Pocket Casts](https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/creator-science-with-jay-clouse/7db47890-2ff0-0138-96e6-0acc26574db2?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=castro.fm&sz=64)Castro](https://castro.fm/podcast/5f8d5083-92f5-4a4e-a83e-29a773baa95c?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=castbox.fm&sz=64)Castbox](https://castbox.fm/channel/id2626956?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=podcastaddict.com&sz=64)Podcast Addict](https://podcastaddict.com/feed/https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.megaphone.fm%2FTPG4024225475?ref=creatorscience.com)Copy the RSS feed ![Episode 321: George Blackman](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/e30f3cc4-c689-11f1-b54f-47e9258045dd/image/2baa3f0f53419c25260c85138e6113bf.png?w=640&h=640&fit=crop&auto=format,compress) Prefer to listen? This week's guest ![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/e30f3cc4-c689-11f1-b54f-47e9258045dd/image/2baa3f0f53419c25260c85138e6113bf.png?w=640&h=640&fit=crop&auto=format,compress) **George Blackman**YouTube scriptwriter who got his start writing full-time for Ali Abdaal and has since written scripts for creators from 30,000 to over 10 million ## What you'll learn - The framework behind every educational hook George writes - Why the setups and payoffs inside each segment matter more than the hook - The ending George puts on every single video, and a twist I want to try on mine - Where a human still has to make the call, and why AI will keep "improving" your script forever if you let it ## About this episode My guest is George Blackman, a YouTube scriptwriter who got his start writing full-time for Ali Abdaal and has since written scripts for creators from 30,000 to over 10 million subscribers. This is George's second time on the show. Three years ago, we talked about scriptwriting fundamentals. Since then, George has started writing his own videos with AI, and he's spent most of this year building PlayWriteAI, an AI scriptwriting app with more than 700 people on the waitlist. Building it taught him something most creators haven't noticed yet: AI will tell you, very confidently, that it did ten things it never actually did. This episode is his full process, from voice memo to a script that's ready to record. George's [Website](https://www.georgeblackman.com/?ref=creatorscience.com) / [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgeBlackmanYT?ref=creatorscience.com) / [X⁠](https://x.com/GeorgeBlackman%5F?ref=creatorscience.com) / [⁠LinkedIn⁠](https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-blackman-077a421ab/?ref=creatorscience.com) / [Newsletter](https://www.georgeblackman.com/write-on-time?ref=creatorscience.com) / [Community](https://georgeblackman.link/community?ref=creatorscience.com) By the end of this episode, you will have a repeatable system for writing scripts with AI, and a clearer sense of which parts of the work you should keep for yourself. ## Chapters 1. 00:00IntroductionPlay ▸ 2. 02:32George's process todayPlay ▸ 3. 05:10Easy mode vs. advanced modePlay ▸ 4. 09:53The 3 blocks of a YouTube scriptPlay ▸ 5. 11:04Target, transformation, stakesPlay ▸ 6. 18:06Why setups matter mostPlay ▸ 7. 19:52Inside George's scriptwriting appPlay ▸ 8. 22:34Rethinking the payoffPlay ▸ 9. 28:16How many segments a video needsPlay ▸ 10. 33:00How George ends every videoPlay ▸ 11. 35:14Ending on a sales videoPlay ▸ 12. 38:34Where humans still matterPlay ▸ 13. 43:50How George really feels about AIPlay ▸ ## Mentioned in this episode [Free download: YouTube Script Partner skill + George’s Claude project files ↗](https://creatorscience.co/script-partner-pod?ref=creatorscience.com)[PlayWriteAI ↗](https://georgeblackman.link/app?ref=creatorscience.com)[Claude Scriptwriting Project Setup ↗](https://georgeblackman.link/ClaudeProjectFiles?ref=creatorscience.com)[The Exact Claude Project Setup for YouTube Script Writing ↗](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2EN4rp2Zmk&ref=creatorscience.com)[Free YouTube Script Template ↗](https://georgeblackman.gumroad.com/l/youtubescripttemplate?ref=creatorscience.com)[Free Audience Avatar Template ↗](https://georgeblackman.gumroad.com/l/audienceavatar?ref=creatorscience.com)[The YouTube Scriptwriting Playbook ↗](https://www.ytsp.co/?ref=creatorscience.com)[AutoCut by 1of10 ↗](https://creatorscience.co/1of10-pod-george?ref=creatorscience.com)[Website ↗](https://www.georgeblackman.com/?ref=creatorscience.com)[YouTube ↗](https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgeBlackmanYT?ref=creatorscience.com)[X⁠ ↗](https://x.com/GeorgeBlackman%5F?ref=creatorscience.com)[⁠LinkedIn⁠ ↗](https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-blackman-077a421ab/?ref=creatorscience.com)[Newsletter ↗](https://www.georgeblackman.com/write-on-time?ref=creatorscience.com)[Community ↗](https://georgeblackman.link/community?ref=creatorscience.com)[Full transcript and show notes ↗](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/george-blackman-ai) ## Full transcript 10,252 words · click any timestamp to jump the video there George Blackman0:00 Where is it worth putting my energy into learning to use AI well? And where should I deliberately take a stand and be like, no, I'm using my brain here because it's actually better to do so? Jay Clouse0:09 Meet George Blackman. He started as a full-time scriptwriter for Ali Abdaal. He's written scripts for creators from 30,000 to over 10 million subscribers, and he now teaches creators how to write their own scripts that keep people watching and turn them into paying customers. In this episode, you'll learn his exact system for writing scripts with AI, starting with the framework behind every hook he writes. George Blackman0:31 For educational hooks, I always think target transformation stakes. Read the full transcriptClose transcript Jay Clouse0:35 He's also brutally honest about the ways AI lies to you in the process. George Blackman0:40 You sort of learn all these little ways in which it may appear to be doing something well, and then the output that comes out, it actually reveals, oh, hang on, it wasn't doing these like 10 things that it claimed very confidently that it was. Jay Clouse0:50 And stick around to the end where George shows me the tool he built for writing killer scripts using AI that saves you time without sacrificing your unique voice. Thank you to 1Up10 for sponsoring this video. As just a frame for the overall conversation, some may think that, okay, because we have AI, is that doing all of the work of scriptwriting now? What say you? George Blackman1:13 I think this is a place that everyone is now in with pretty much any industry, whether it's to do with writing specifically, whether it's coding, whether it's like anything that could feasibly be affected by AI. there is this sense of uncertainty and like, where should I put my energy right now? Should I be putting my energy into getting really good at ideation because the script can just be written for me? Or is ideation already off the cards because AI can just do that for me? Do I even need to bother learning to code anymore because AI can just do that for me? And I think scriptwriting is such a broad church. There are so many aspects to it that even with that, it's like, okay, sure, AI could write my whole script, but should I still be the one looking at my hook? Because I know the hook's super important. Or are these key moments where I call out to a product that I'm trying to sell or something in the script, are they so important that I should still be using my brain, or is AI better than me? And so more broadly, we're going to talk about the sort of process that I use these days to write a script using AI. But I think the broader meta skill and the thing to try and figure out, and that I'm trying to figure out, and I think we're all trying to figure out, is where are the parts where it's the most useful? Where is it worth putting my energy into learning to use AI well? And where should I deliberately take a stand and be like, no, I'm using my brain here, not through some moral crusade, but because it's actually better to do so. Jay Clouse2:32 Can you walk us through, let's imagine you are making a video for the George Blackman channel. How are you going about scriptwriting today? George Blackman2:41 First step, and this is where the use case for AI is much, much stronger. I think even just to refer back to your previous question, it's like, where are people needed? It's almost easier to list the few places where AI is definitely a no-brainer. And the first step of my process these days is very much where it is a no-brainer, which is just explaining my thoughts about the script that I want to write verbally, using either like a voice note thing or just directly into Claude. Just that ability to spiel off in natural language what I think about a topic, even if it just allows me the chance to clarify my thoughts on something that I've never said out loud. Kind of the same idea as journaling or something. It allows you to just get more out than if you're just vaguely thinking about something in your head. Jay Clouse3:24 And is this assuming that you've already decided on the video idea, if not package? George Blackman3:29 Yes, this is assuming you've already thought of the packaging, or I guess, yes, ideally the packaging. Not everyone does it. There's no shame if you don't come up with your packaging first, although obviously try to. But yes, the idea is already decided at this point. I guess we could talk about ideas as well, but that's less where I'm involved. This is, I know what I'm gonna talk about. Maybe I don't know exactly how I want to frame it. An example from my channel specifically was like, I wanted to do a video about my sort of journey in my business, but I knew I needed to tie it back to YouTube scriptwriting in some way. George Blackman4:01 And so I spoke out loud to an AI about this and I was like, here are the sort of points in my business when I was a scriptwriter, then I was like a consultant and now I run this community and blah, blah, blah, blah. But what's the sort of angle that makes this interesting for my audience who cares maybe a bit about business, but more about scriptwriting? And what it allowed me to do was get those thoughts out and then have some time going back and forth on the angle that we should approach the subject. And ultimately, we kind of landed on this approach of, at every stage of my business, how have my thoughts about scriptwriting changed? And like, what's the key lesson about scriptwriting I learned at each revenue level or whatever, which kind of, yeah, tied it back to my audience's interests. Jay Clouse4:41 Yeah, let's imagine that somebody watching this doesn't have any type of complex projects set up. Maybe they've never used Claude or ChatGPT to do anything like this. And so what should be the starting point? Is it just like dumping this in, or do you think they should take some time and say like, okay, here's my audience, here's this, here's that? Like, what context does this thing need before you start talking about a particular video, if it needs context at all? George Blackman5:10 So first thing, I currently use Claude. I used to use ChatGPT. I switched to Claude because I wasn't loving ChatGPT's outputs. Since I've switched to Claude, I think it seems like ChatGPT has had a kind of resurgence at the time of recording. I think it's on 5.5 now. Is it, or is it something else? Anyway, sidetrack. I use Claude. Jay Clouse5:29 Either one is fine is what we're hearing. George Blackman5:31 Either one is fine. Yeah, exactly. Jay Clouse5:32 You'll probably have workable, good help using either one of these things. George Blackman5:36 Yeah, exactly that. But in terms of giving the AI enough context, I think there's really like an easy route and a hard route. So the easy mode of this, I would say, is you need a style guide and you need an audience avatar, and arguably then some project instructions, like telling the project what it is for. That's really the simplest thing. How do you make those? Again, it's very simple. This is that meta skill again, where it's like you explain to it, this is what this project is. I need a style guide, I need an audience avatar. What do you need from me so you can create those for me? If that makes sense. George Blackman6:11 How many scripts of mine or examples of writing Or if you don't have any examples of writing, you would say, like, can I just speak to you for 5 minutes about a random topic and you get my voice from that? But those would be the 2 things that you can just ask your LLM for help making. So that's the easy mode. I think the advanced mode, shall we call it, and this is how I start my projects these days, is same thing, starting a new project with WhisperFlow or just anything that you can leave a voice note to and just explaining. This is the task that I have before me. So I did this when I was upgrading my course. I was like, I need to upgrade my course. My course is 36,000 words long. Since releasing it, I have uploaded 2 years' worth of newsletters. George Blackman6:54 I want to integrate those newsletters into my course. I have XYZ other concerns. 36,000 words is quite long. Will you be able to handle that? Just giving it all the context that I thought it might need, and then basically saying to it, like, what is my first step here? What do you need from me? And I think people underestimate this approach a lot because it kind of feels like, uh, I guess I need to know how to use this thing before I start using it. But the joy of it is, and why it feels so kind of weirdly addictive, is you can just say like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, what do I, how do I, how do I proceed? Jay Clouse7:24 This is legitimately like what everybody is selling in the world of teaching you how to Claude, by the way. It's like, I did this thing, pay me $99 and I'll show you how I did it. And it inevitably comes back to, And then you ask it how to do it, and it will tell you. That's the entire secret of working with AI is like, just start with, I'm trying to do this thing. What do you need from me? Literally, if you counted how many times I asked my OpenClaw, what do you need from me? It would be astronomical. George Blackman7:54 Yes. Yeah, 100%. And like recently building this app, I was suddenly aware, like, hang on, there are probably some legal ramifications of selling a subscription thing that relates to AI. And so I just said to it, like, what are the legal ramifications? And then this enormous block of text came out and it was like, we have these 25 tasks to do. You need to contact this lawyer, you need to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And suddenly it's like, oh yeah, okay. I mean, I didn't know how to do that, but now I do. Jay Clouse8:20 Either mode or hard mode, you get up, you set up the context for your voice guide, your audience avatar, and now you start saying, okay, now that I've zeroed in on a video idea, I'm going to just brain dump voice dictation or type, whatever pleases you, what I'm thinking about this video. How do you give it the instruction for the next step? George Blackman8:40 The next kind of thing that I like to have is something that trains it on what a YouTube script looks like in relation to other types of writing. You can totally build these yourself. You could even just take a bunch of transcripts from your own channel, from channels in your niche that are doing well, not to say steal how they do stuff, but structurally, what What do you detect about the structure of a YouTube script, and how can we use that to train you on what a script should look like? I have a free thing that has my version of what YouTube structure looks like. Jay Clouse9:09 It's in the description right now. George Blackman9:11 That's kind of the next thing. And because I think then it saves you the hassle of having to be like, to say, here is my brain dump of thoughts, now structure it like a YouTuber would. It kind of has this preloaded context of what a YouTube script would look like. So that's really the next step, is once you've brain dumped your stuff, you want to either through the preloaded training or saying to it outright, let's first of all figure out what the overarching structure of this would look like. And it's going to come back to you with a suggestion and you see if it fits and go from there. Jay Clouse9:42 For people who are stubborn and haven't downloaded this free thing yet, what are the high-level bits of this in there that people should know is part of this Structure? George Blackman9:53 3 main blocks, shall we call them, that I would think of for a YouTube script. The hook is the obvious first block. It's quite distinct how you would go about writing a hook. There are different frameworks that different people have for this. For me, for educational hooks, I always think target, transformation, stakes. So that is, who is my target? Who's my audience? What is the transformation this video offers? And what is at stake if they don't achieve that transformation? The second main block is a segment. So these are your subtopics within the video. For every segment of my video, I think of it in terms of setup, tension, and payoff. George Blackman10:26 So at the start of each segment, we set up why it's important for the viewer to know this thing before we can move on to the next thing. The tension is where we teach the lesson, essentially. We kind of reveal the information. And then the payoff at the end of that segment is where we ultimately I suppose reveal the answer, but the understanding of that segment is now complete and we can move on to the next one. And then the third one is a call to action. So whether that is a call to action at the end to promote your next video or a product or service, or a mid-video call to action promoting whatever it might be, a free lead magnet or something like that. Jay Clouse11:04 Can you give me an example hook on a video you've done for yourself recently? I like this. George Blackman11:07 You said it was target transformation stakes. Jay Clouse11:10 Target transformation stakes. I would love to hear like an example of that. George Blackman11:15 Target is always very easy for me 'cause I've got a 5-page audience avatar document that I've made in the way that we kind of described earlier. So I don't need to think much about that. I know who I'm targeting. It's YouTubers who are interested in scriptwriting, scriptwriters for hire who wanna learn to get better at scriptwriting so they can get more clients and blah, blah, blah. Transformation, if I take an example of one of my most recent videos and very apt for the conversation we're having now was how to set up a Claude project to turn Claude into a reliable scriptwriting partner, as opposed to a sort of irritating assistant who forgets everything. The transformation within that is like, you will go from not knowing how to do that to knowing how to do that. What's at stake is this idea, and it's something that I think a lot of my audience have felt, and it's something I certainly felt when I was getting on board with AI, is the sense that you will actually end up spending more time using AI to write your scripts than if you just use your brain. So determined are you that this is the new thing and, hey, I should be more productive with this, that you end up just getting frustrated with it. George Blackman12:16 It doesn't quite do what you want and you end up wasting more time. And so for me, that's what's at stake if they don't achieve the transformation, is you will remain in that state where this sort of perceived productivity of AI slows you down, results in worse scripts, means your channel doesn't grow kind of thing. So that's what I think before going into physically trying to write a script. And the joy of AI these days is that you can say, look, here's my target, here's my transformation, here's what's at stake. Here is a hook framework that has performed really well on my channel in the past. Please express these factors in terms of this structure. And it's pretty good at very finite structural tasks like that a lot of the time. Jay Clouse12:58 And then out of that comes a perfect script, and I'm good to go, right? George Blackman13:00 That's it, dude. And I'm out of a job. See you later. Yes. So the joy of all of this is that it— this allows me to go from blank page to V1 bullet point scripts very quickly, much more quickly than before. Jay Clouse13:16 I'm hearing this, and it's like, I could do this while I'm out on a walk with a stroller. Like, if I had this infrastructure set up, and I had an idea, I could literally do this while I'm out on a walk and it could create the artifact waiting for me when I get back to my desk. And that is a meaningful source of friction to eliminate that would make this feel much more real. And I would go from like, I should make that video someday to like, I bet I can record that tomorrow with a little bit of extra work here. George Blackman13:42 Exactly that. 100%. That's, that's a really good point. Um, so not only does it save you that time in the moment, sat down. It may well be that you don't even have to be sat down for it to happen. But I think also it saves you so much mental strain having to restructure these thoughts on a page. That perfectionism creeps in. It feels like even if you're just typing notes, like, no, I should arrange these in the correct order first and blah, blah, blah. George Blackman14:07 All of that thinking power is saved by just being able to talk to it like a person. So we have our structure saying we've agreed with it. Yes, maybe with a bit of back and forth. I am now happy with the 6 segments that we have for this video about Jay becoming a dad for the second time. Now I want to move it forward into something more word for word. This is kind of a bit of an inflection point. Maybe that's the wrong word for it. It's a decision point on the tree as to whether you want to say, look, this is as much help as I needed. George Blackman14:38 Now I sincerely want to be able to just do the rest of this by hand, as it were, by brain. I don't want to then have an AI physically try and write me a full word-for-word script, because either that's not going to make me feel creatively fulfilled, or B, I just don't trust that it's going to do what I want it to do yet. So there is a point at which you might just decide, this is where I finish the AI thing, and that's completely fine. Jay Clouse15:01 If I were to say I don't want AI to go any further, then I suppose you would then teach us how to think even more like a scriptwriter and work through this, which is probably best to do anyway, because The more knowledge we have, the more collaborative we can be with bossing this machine around, if that's what we choose to do. So let's say AI turned around a V1 of the script and we're looking at it, and we want to take this from this V1 to something that I'm ready to record. George Blackman15:28 Let's say at this point we have our structure. I'm going to assume at this point we've mentioned bullet point scripts a few times. It may be that you had your initial, like, here are the one sentence headline things for each of our segments. So like 6, literally 6 sentences. This is the skeleton. We're assuming we've now expanded it into, say, 2 or 3 bullet points per segment. And so really the choice here is if you are someone who really enjoys riffing, if your niche is the sort of niche that will allow you to sit down and riff, then you can very much test that. You can think, okay, I'm literally gonna go with what we have, sit down, start talking, see how it feels in the moment, see how much pain is deferred. George Blackman16:05 to the edit because of how much I may have rambled if I was just going off of bullet points. And then adapt and adjust each time you sit down. You think, ah, actually I felt completely out of control when I was sat down last time. This time I wanna go from 2 to 3 bullet points per segment to 5 to 6\. I'm gonna turn that dial up. I think of it like a dial, just turning it up a little bit, testing it again next time, see how it feels. Did I ramble? Did that feel better? Was it now too prescriptive? Now I actually wanna dial it back to— 4 bullet points or something like that. So that's a really— that's, I suppose, a personal thing. George Blackman16:38 And that's if you choose the riffing side of things. If you now want to go fully word for word, and this is something I massively prefer, the amount of pain that is saved on editing, which is thankfully not even my job, but even just on filming day, the amount of false starts and thinking like, oh, did I screw this up? Wait, did I actually say that thing 5 minutes ago that sets up the thing I need to say now. For me, that's just not worth it. I much prefer to put an extra 30 minutes, 60 minutes into writing a full word-for-word script to save me that pain later. Jay Clouse17:08 If you prefer to spend less time scripting and more time recording, the 1Up10 team just released a new feature that will help you edit your talking head videos fast. It's called AutoCut, and it's part of their new video editor. I have a great video setup here in my studio, but I don't actually like to script full videos. That means my recordings have all kinds of extra takes and dead space, and it's not that it's hard to edit those out, but it's time-consuming and I dread doing it. AutoCut takes your raw talking head footage, watches it frame by frame, removes silences, rambling, and retakes, enhances your audio, and gives you a clean cut that's ready to post in just minutes. It doesn't just put those extra takes in the trash either. It saves them so you can instantly switch to whatever take you prefer. The 1outof10 team is known for their deep knowledge of YouTube, and this tool is already better faster than any other tool I've tried for cutting your raw footage quickly. Jay Clouse18:01 Visit the link in the description and you can try AutoCut yourself for free. George Blackman18:06 Then the focus, and this is what I always focus on, is obviously the hook is very important, but the setups and the payoffs are the most important thing that I like to write word for word almost regardless. So your setup line at the start of each segment is like another hook, basically. It's the, the reminder of not only why I care about this overall topic, but why this particular subtopic is so essential in me moving forward. So if we take the example of my Claude project video, or yet, you know, how to set up a Claude project, the first step of that was literally you need to set up a project because a lot of people don't do that. But the way we set that up compellingly is not step 1, set up a project on your Claude chat. It's But before we get into the 5 documents you're going to need, we first have to fix one of the most common mistakes I still see dozens of my students making that turns AI into a useless assistant or something like that. Jay Clouse19:06 I see. I'm hearing that as an open loop. George Blackman19:08 Yeah, exactly that. Exactly that. So focusing on those open loops, those setups at the start of each segment, and just reminding the viewer in a curiosity-inducing way why this next step is important. That's what, those are those moments in your retention graph where people will go. It's when you finish one subject and you don't immediately make it clear why the next subject is gonna be important to them specifically in the context of what they want and what the video title promised. Jay Clouse19:33 If you had a literal script you've worked on in the recent past, especially if it's for your channel, so you know that you have the permission to share it, where you could be like, let me walk you through what the hook looked like in this video, and then I'm gonna show you one of these setups and payoffs in one of these segments. I think that would be enormously helpful. George Blackman19:49 Can I do it on my app where I wrote it? Jay Clouse19:52 Sure. George Blackman19:52 This actually is that very video that we were just talking about. This is how to set up a CLO project for scriptwriting. So you can see this, this is the software that I've built. And so I break it up into these setup, tension, and payoff things that I've spoken about a lot. Jay Clouse20:05 Very visually pleasing. This does make a lot of sense. It's modular. You're talking about the structure in a modular way. You're showing this in a modular way. And for what it's worth, anybody watching this, this is not a paid endorsement or partnership with George on this, but This is a great way to visualize it. And so here we are. George Blackman20:20 So in terms of the hook, have you ever spent hours fighting with Claude? This already, even though it's not explicitly saying, if you are a YouTuber who struggles with, but it's implicitly showing people, I understand you, this is the struggle that you have. So if you've ever spent hours fighting with Claude only to check the clock and realize this YouTube script took 2 times longer to write than if you just use your brain, then listen up. I'm using quite casual language in moments like this. With this video, we were experimenting with some like kind of comical intro B-roll. So this is the idea that it's like, I show that I understand you, I know who my target is. The problem with AI to help write scripts isn't that it's not good enough yet, it's because you're not giving it enough context. I guess this is kind of implying the stakes. It's a little bit tricky to always distill these into the exact 3 things, but if I was listing these things out, I would be thinking, when I list out my stakes, I'd be saying AI continuously takes longer. George Blackman21:08 People don't understand anything about giving it context. They don't understand what is even necessary to improve the AI that they're using. And so for me, this is how the stakes kind of filter through. But in any case, it's like, this is a moment I often find comes up in my hooks, is there's this kind of turning point moment. It's like a, here's your current situation, but the truth is X. Well, the real problem is this. Jay Clouse21:30 I've heard of a framework that's PAIPS, and the I is intrigue. And this is reminding me of intrigue. Like, PA is pain, agitate. We've kind of talked about that already. But intrigue is like sort of a point of surprise before introducing a potential future as that next P. So this line makes me feel like, ah, it's a head-turner. It's like, you know something that I don't know. George Blackman21:55 Yes. Yeah, for sure. Having written the last 8 videos with the help of AI, again, this is, we're kind of talking about that future state, but I'm not explicitly being yet like, if you want to write your next script using AI, It's sort of both implying my own credibility, but also it's presenting an image of their future state. So again, I think of that as the transformation expressed through credibility, I suppose. And spent the last 3 months in the trenches training my own scriptwriting app. I think I got rid of in the trenches in the end because when I spoke, it just sounded a bit weird. I'll show you the exact 5 documents I think it became in the end. You need to turn Claude from a forgetful assistant into a reliable scriptwriting partner. George Blackman22:34 So that's fully the transformation that we're ending on. So that's how I think about the hooks. And then now we come down to the first segment. So we're not saying in this first segment, yes, it's about making a new project, but we're not saying the first step is making a project. So that's how I set it up. Tension is a really interesting one. We could talk for quite a long time about tension, but the way I like to think of this is if I back up for a second, the problem people have with payoffs is they feel like they have to defer giving any value at all until the payoff. Like, it feels like it has to be this big explosive moment at the end of a segment. Jay Clouse23:07 Right. Like one payoff per video. I'm thinking about this. I'm like, these are like, you're nestling multiple payoffs into this. The whole video itself is a payoff. There are 5 payoffs that add up to the payoff is what I'm seeing. George Blackman23:22 Exactly, exactly that. So yeah, lots of payoffs throughout, but even within that, I still see people thinking that, like, sure, I get the idea I have to have a payoff at the end of my segment, but that means I have to literally say nothing of any value until I hit it, and the rest is all kind of preamble. What I like to do is think of it in this slightly different way, where it's like I start by showing people kind of— I suppose we've done a little bit of this in the hook, but we're now going into detail on the user's present state. So it's once again showing at the start of this, we've got their curiosity with the setup. Now we're showing here is the thing you probably do currently. So in this case, it's, I was surprised to find a bunch of my students were still using Claude in an extremely siloed off way, starting a new chat every time, explaining who they were and what they wanted AI to help them with. This is very much what we've been discussing in this podcast anyway. And then we kind of move through into here's what you actually need to do, create a project. George Blackman24:14 Here's what a project is. And then go and create it. This is a slightly atypical one because this is so step-by-step, go and do a specific thing. It's normally a bit more kind of nebulous. But for anyone who does have a channel where you're showing people step-by-step things, I think this will be the key takeaway here is make sure that you, rather than just saying step 1, do this, it's explaining in a curious— opening a loop about why this is important, then showing them what they currently do and why it's bad, why it doesn't work. And then you can move through into here's what you should do instead. So then the payoff line, and this is— I've kind of shifted the way I think about these over time, but you'll notice that it's not really like we're giving the final, like, here's what you have to do in that payoff line. It's more bringing people to a level playing field and saying, so here is the state we are now in as a result of what you have just learned. George Blackman25:03 Here is the new status quo. You have now done that. You are set up, and we are ready to do whatever comes next. Jay Clouse25:09 It almost reads like it's a setup for the next setup, which makes me think about our first conversation where we talked about signposting. Is this how you see signposting today? George Blackman25:18 To a degree, I think maybe this is a slightly atypical example because we still want the next setup to be curiosity-inducing and open a loop, which is why you can see here, it's like I say here, the first document— I'm not going to say the first document is this. It's the first document is going to help you fix thing that you're curious about. But if I look at any other examples in here that explain this well, I think this is probably a good example that shows it off. I wouldn't say we're necessarily signposting what comes next yet. I do think that is reserved for the following setup. But again, it's like clarifying with the information you didn't have that you now have, that you learned in this segment. Let's just take a pause to reflect on what is it that we have now unlocked the ability to do? Where is it that we now stand in the overall context of this topic? And I think this is a good example of this, where after we've uploaded, and this is, I think, the 3rd document that I show people, We're now just clarifying. Okay, take a pause. George Blackman26:20 We've been saying all this stuff about these documents you have to upload, but practically speaking, let's zoom out. What can your project now do so that you understand why we're doing all of this? Jay Clouse26:29 Yeah, tell me if this resonates with you. I think I'm following what you're saying, but the other thing that I'm latching on to is some speaking advice I've gotten, which is tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them. And this almost mirrors that a little bit in some of these cases. But maybe the payoff isn't totally saying, Let me close the loop on what I just told you, but it seems like maybe it could be. George Blackman26:51 Yeah, this is a really kind of tricky semantic dichotomy. Sounds like the name of a band. Yes, I think I agree with you in principle, but I think we want to try and avoid— it's treading the line between that and not just making it a summary. So, yes, tell them what you told them, but I think I want to do it in a slightly different way. So I'm not just repeating So you just added this document. It's more like you add it. So having added this document, new information, this is now what your project is capable of thanks to what you just did, rather than just simply repeating it. Jay Clouse27:29 Yeah, that's good. George Blackman27:29 Does that distinction make sense? Jay Clouse27:30 It's kind of a tricky one. And that's kind of what I'm trying to do with these comparisons, because when you tell me, like, yes, but it clarifies more, like, what is a payoff then? What is a good payoff? It's not a summary. It's not a setup for the setup. It's putting a period on the end of the sentence. Yes, but it's also— it's a breath in one way. It also seems like it's making the person feel good and excited and accomplished in another way, which obviously summaries don't do. George Blackman27:58 Yes, exactly. I think that's a really, a really good distinction. Make people feel good, catch them up, as it were. Like if anyone's kind of gotten lost or they're wondering, wait, have I, have I grasped this? Just taking that moment to say, yes, you've got this, and doesn't it feel great? As opposed to saying, here's what you just learned in much the same way. Jay Clouse28:16 The AI in V1 is going to give us, like, here's how many sections I think we should have. Is the goal in your mind to reduce the number of sections necessary? How do I think about the number of sections that are in a video? George Blackman28:32 I always come back to the wise man Gandalf when I'm asked this question, which is that a wizard arrives precisely when he means to. Uh, this is a tricky one. There are kind of no rules to this. I think a lot of it comes from just the soft skill of doing this over and over again and figuring out, okay, when I talk about X in my videos, my retention always drops off. On reflection, this period where my retention was kind of diving continuously, I realized that I was sort of talking about the same topic but in slightly different words twice in a row or something like that. I think really it just comes down to honest reflection and looking back at what you've written. Um, I, I know one thing that can certainly help with this is just, just showing it to someone else, whether it's in your niche or even better, sometimes someone who's not in your niche, someone who can look at it objectively with no, um, feeling that, or no investment in the topic, no kind of preconceptions of what it's about. And just saying like, is this interesting to, to read? Did, did, did, does, does it fall off at any point for you? When did you get bored? So outsourcing it is a, is a good one. George Blackman29:32 But I think overall, if we're just talking, you sat at your desk, I think having no preconceptions of how many segments a video should have, uh, is key. If you're trying to target a certain length of your video, I know people like to try and have longer videos for the watch time, whatever. But if you've got an overly inflated video that doesn't have any substance to it, then it's not going to be interesting. So I would say a wizard arrives precisely when he means to. How long is a piece of string? Like, make it the number of segments that it has to be. Be objective and look at, am I Including this segment because it contributes to the understanding of the subject, or am I doing it just to bloat the watch time? Jay Clouse30:10 Something that I've been trying to push myself to do more of is just slow down and feel better about every step of the process, because that's the input I can control that will probably lead to better outputs. But I get to this point where it's like, I'll get really excited when I feel like I have the idea that I want, and it's like, I'm just gonna go rip that off and record that. And underinvesting in pre-production, I think, is like the biggest tax I'm paying right now on the channel is I'm just underinvesting in pre-production all the ways. And you see that cost in the performance of a video. If a video doesn't do well and you think, well, like, well, I was proud of it and I did everything I can. That's different than, I should have taken more time on that, because then you're probably not gonna go and just remake that same video the next week. It's just worth, it's worth feeling better in pre-production. George Blackman31:07 One just thought that came to me as you were saying that there is, I think, a way of making sure that you're still putting some of that thought and time into pre-production, even if you're short of time, especially with AI now, is even if you feel like you don't know what you want your video to be and you don't know how you want to structure it and you feel overwhelmed by the idea of it, spieling to an AI and having it present a structure back to you will immediately set off red flags in your mind of things that it definitely got wrong. So if you look at a structure that it has come back with, I guarantee, and maybe it'll nail it, but most of the time it will have come up with some idea that you're like, no, that's totally not it. And then you realize, oh, actually, I do have some thoughts on this and I do have my opinions on this. But having it presented to me in like slightly the wrong order is much easier then for me to think, okay, no, I would shift segment 1 to segment 2\. I would maybe add an extra segment about this. I would connect these 2 ideas like this. And then suddenly you've got your structure out and it feels like you have invested that time in pre-production, but you're sort of spurred into it by seeing what was definitely not the right structure, as opposed to just trying to do it from a blank page. Jay Clouse32:14 Yeah. Can you go back to sharing your screen? I wanna see you talk about your CTA now. George Blackman32:19 Yes. Okay, so in this video, I didn't have any product CTAs. I think because I mentioned my AI scriptwriting tool in the hook, I just put the first link or the second link as a link to the waitlist for this tool. That's actually been a really effective call to action for me, is not mentioning it at all, but just showing the thing that I'm talking about the whole video and then putting a link in there in the description. people intuitively just wanna go and learn more about it. Jay Clouse32:46 And in that case then, is there no end besides like maybe an end card like you talked about in our first conversation of just like tying it to a next video? Or do you just let the payoff of the final segment be the end of the video? George Blackman33:00 No, so this is my absolute every single time without fail thing that I do is every video has to link to another one in a compelling way. But at the end of every single video, I'm thinking about a link. So that is, back to something in this video. So we're trying to make it not apparent that the video is about to end. We're basically saying we've already spoken about XYZ thing, or now you know how to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you couldn't see the timeline at the bottom, you might not know that the video is about to end. Then we want to add some curiosity. So about something in the next video. George Blackman33:38 So in this case here, if we go through these one by one, link back to something in this video, Now, this project setup is a great starting point. Done. It's like simple as that. That's all you need. Um, that shows that we are talking about, we're referring, fucking hell, sorry. Grammarly is really getting on my nerves. Jay Clouse33:52 I will leave when I decide. George Blackman33:54 Yeah, dude. Jay Clouse33:55 It's okay. George Blackman33:56 It's okay. Jay Clouse33:56 We can read it. It's fine. George Blackman33:57 I'm just removing you from Chrome Grammarly. You are, you are so gone. Um, no, it's still here. This is ridiculous. Let's see. Jay Clouse34:08 I laughed so hard that I unplugged my own headphones. George Blackman34:13 Okay, so if we take a look here, this is clearly the link. This is where we say, now, this project setup is a great starting point. It's just referencing something, well, basically the entirety of the topic of this video. Then we raise the curiosity here where I say, but what if I told you we can ask Claude to gradually improve itself over time so each new script you write gets closer and closer to your style every time? I think in the moment I must have riffed something else here because I say time twice in quick succession. We want to avoid repetition. And then finally, we just have the promise, which is usually spelled like this. There we are. CTA, which is where we give the explicit promise. George Blackman34:54 And this is where the facade is kind of broken. And we're like, well, yeah, we're promoting another video, go watch it. But ultimately, it's an offer, right? We're giving the viewer something else for free. Well, watch this video next where I'll walk you through how to do this using a simple prompt that you already have inside your Claude product project. So it's like, we're promising something that is exciting for you and feels low lift. Jay Clouse35:14 So this is like your non-negotiable. This ends every video. I have a question on this point because I saw an interesting strategy and I'd love to get your take on this because I think there's a cost to the strategy that you're going to say as well. But I wonder if the benefit is, is worth it. So I saw a guy who had, um, an unlisted video on his channel. This is Taki Moore. He had an unlisted video that's essentially a video sales letter. And what he does is he ends some of his videos, not every video, but a video that like clearly showed some credibility. Jay Clouse35:46 And somebody who watched the end of that video is probably a qualified lead for his business. And his end card and his end of the video is linking to his unlisted, essentially VSL. What do you think about that strategy? George Blackman36:01 I think that's really cool. I love that. I think Like anything, it's kind of balanced and you're trying to figure out what am I optimizing for mostly here? The advantage of this strategy and always ending with something else is that you can create these kind of infinite loops of people just watching more and more and more stuff. And it doesn't matter which video they land on first, there's always going to be kind of infinite trailer videos they could keep binging if they wanted to. I suppose the only risk with this strategy is, hey, if someone— if it's like the first video that someone's landed on is that one and they get pitched something at the end, what is the effect that has on them? Do they think, oh, I've been sort of sold to here? It was kind of an ask, not an offer. But ultimately, like, I think that sounds like a really, a really good tactic and one that I might steal. And clearly you would think he would have been testing something like that, right? And the pros would outweigh the cons. Jay Clouse36:46 Yeah. And I imagine that same video could probably be like a good channel trailer. I know Ed from Film Booth has tried stuff like this where like his channel trailer is essentially a VSL. I think it's really smart. I mean, the biggest pain point we have on the channel and candidly why we've had to pull back some resources on the channel was We were spending far more than we were clearly earning from the channel because we never invested in connecting the channel to the core business. And this is like a really consistent way to know that this is working. If you have a video that, you know, when people watch this video, they're interested in learning more and going deeper with me. And if that is true, then I think this actually makes the YouTube as a discovery engine for the business a much shorter Less luck-filled process for getting people into the business? George Blackman37:33 Yeah, I think, again, that's something you can really easily start using AI to help you with, where it's for something like this that has a formula that I try and use. Anything that's formula-based, if you've got something simple, we spoke about it with the hook as well. It's very easy then to plug in the actual content that you want and to ask it to express that content in terms of that formula. So in your case, I suppose using a formula like that, but saying, like, hey, actually, we don't want to promote another video. We want to promote X or Y product. We want to promote the lab. We want to talk about whatever. We want to promote a VSL that talks about the lab or something. George Blackman38:04 I think it would be fairly easy then for it to come up with a relatively subtle plug in the style that we've just seen here, but for a VSL. Jay Clouse38:13 And it's a spectrum because it doesn't have to be like a straight up sales video. It could be a video that you just know When people watch this video, a lot of them turn into customers. So how can I feed more people into that video even beyond its own packaging and CTR, I think, is a smart strategy. Intentionally antagonistic question. George Blackman38:32 Okay. Yeah. Jay Clouse38:34 Because you are a scriptwriter and probably a lot of people who have historically been like, I could be a freelance scriptwriter, I'm gonna get into this. There is a certain amount of like incentive if not bias towards saying, like, we should keep human scriptwriters. So if you were to take as much of an objective stance away from yourself as you can, where would you say the human input, the human in the loop in this process, is most essential right now? George Blackman39:07 That's such a good question. I think to aid my case here, at least in terms of the objectivity, I'm in the fortunate position where I've managed to sort of work my way out of having to write scripts for people. And so I think I'm now able to grow my personal brand or whatever you wanna call it as someone who helps people learn to do scriptwriting in whatever context that is. And now that context is AI related. So I think I'm able to divorce myself a little bit from the desire to like have scriptwriters around because it's what I used to do a lot and it's what I still do for my own channel. One thing that I've learned a lot about since starting to really use AI a lot and using it to code my own scriptwriting app, for example, is I've spent a lot of time watching how AI actually does what it does behind the scenes. Like, in Claude, for example, you can sort of see how it's thinking as it's thinking, and you can read its decision-making. You sort of learn all these little ways in which it may appear to be doing something well, and then the output that comes out, it actually reveals, oh, hang on, it wasn't doing these 10 things that it claimed very confidently that it was. George Blackman40:06 So I think when it comes to scriptwriting, the final say on when have I done enough revisions for this script, When is this actually record ready? That ultimate decision comes down to a person's brain, because AI will always have something else that it's like, oh, we could change this, and, oh, you actually didn't do this correctly, and, oh, this could be stronger so we could make it land better, or whatever. And it will just keep doing that kind of infinitely. And I think that moment where you have to say to yourself, no, actually, I think this is ready. I know my audience as well-rounded as I possibly could. I'm the one who says that we've now done enough revisions on this, and I think it's going to hit really well. But I think there are those moments that come throughout the process. So it might be when structuring out the script in the first place, AI will be like, hey, here's a brilliant structure based on your audience avatar that I think they're going to love. And you can read that and be like, I like 70% of these ideas, but ultimately I want to rearrange X and Y because I know this will be how I would actually explain it or how they would receive it better. George Blackman41:03 And so again, the point of deciding structuring is now done, that kind of needs to be me, because AI will keep on coming up with new things that you should add or change or improve. Jay Clouse41:13 There is a certain courage to cut the AI off, and I think that's kind of a meta skill through all AI usage that people need, is courage and trust in your own intuition, your own taste, your own gut, to know when You're getting into like the recursive improvement for improvement's sake that is no longer actually improvement. Maybe this is related, maybe it's not, but it's an aside I want to take. I have a similar video that I want to make, but it's kind of talking about like, hey, I'm about to have a second kid, and the first time I did this, I didn't prepare well, and so I'm preparing differently this time. And where I kind of get hung up is I don't know If there's enough there there, when you're kind of laying this out through, I'm imagining you're using like WhisperFlow or some sort of dictation. When you're laying this out, when do you feel confident that you've got a video that's long enough to warrant existing? George Blackman42:15 Ooh, that's a really good question. I think with a lot of anything creative, there's an element of brutality that needs to come, that comes down to it in the end. There have been some scripts that I have written which have seemed like a great idea, have been maybe like 5 segments or kind of subsections initially. And then as we've kind of workshopped, either me personally or me in collaboration with an AI, have workshopped it, it's kind of trimmed down and down to maybe the point where there's like 3 segments. And it reaches a point where I'm like, I think this could just be a newsletter or something that's a bit more short form. And so I think the first thing would be to say, accepting the reality that it may be that there just isn't enough to the topic. But I think this is one of the real meta skills to learn, and it's something I'm sure you're aware of anyways, like just the ability to talk to AI to extract from it exactly what you want. So talking to it in natural language and say, look, here's the predicament I'm in. George Blackman43:11 I have this exact topic I want to talk about. Here's the context on my last video about having a kid. This one I want to do now is about how I wasn't prepared properly. But I'm worried there isn't going to be enough to talk about it. Knowing what you know about my audience, if you don't have an audience avatar, you'd be like, here are 10 transcripts of some videos we did recently. Here are some recent comments from them. Knowing what you know about them, what blind spots do I have that could relate to this topic that we could put into this video? And kind of using it then to challenge you and to almost make you answer some questions you might not have even thought to ask yourself that can then contribute to making a video that feels like it warrants existence. Jay Clouse43:50 To kind of close us out here, what's your relationship to AI right now? Obviously, you're embracing it for making a tool and you're using it in the scriptwriting process. Are you just like full in, like, yep, toothpaste out of the tube, I'm using it, I love it? How do you feel about AI? George Blackman44:02 It's an interesting moment, isn't it? Because it's quite— it becomes harder and harder to extricate yourself from it and to reason with yourself and think as you would've thought before what's now possible were possible. My business didn't rely on me moving with the times like this. Would I be going as all in on it as I am? I don't know. I'm certainly loving building an app. This is something that I had spoken to different companies about in the last few years that I, as sort of being brought on as like a as the sort of the brains, as it were, as the scriptwriter behind a tool that would then be coded by a bunch of very intelligent people. The fact that those very intelligent people are now not strictly needed, although I'm sure anyway, there's a whole discussion there, but I love that I've been able to build my own thing. This is the tool that I've dreamt of making, and it does all the things that I've always wanted. That's very cool. George Blackman45:00 Do I feel the most creatively fulfilled that I have? Uh, in the 4 or 5 years I've been running this business? In some ways, no. And as time goes on, the more I kind of want to shut it all down, go live in the woods, and make hour-long YouTube videos just chopping wood. Jay Clouse45:17 This is exactly how I feel. I feel like the more I embrace AI, the less I enjoy my work. And I, like, I myself start to feel like a factory rather than any type of artisan. Like, anything that I've used AI to do to get to the point of done and skipped the doing, I just have no affinity or pride in that work. Not to say it's bad, but to say, like, I just don't feel pride in it because I didn't do it. George Blackman45:47 Yeah. Jay Clouse45:48 This is my biggest thing is like, okay, this can help me do a lot of things that I have been doing, but To what end? I've got to find the things that are absolutely non-negotiable that I enjoy taking pride in, that I want to do. And for me, writing, like, the essays has been a part of that. Writing the book is part of that. YouTube scripts, like, we, we had a video we did and I just, I don't get excited about writing the intros for our podcast episodes. And so I was like, here, my AI agent, here are my top 10 performing videos, learn what you can about this structure. Here's the transcript of the rest of the edit. Help me make an intro for this. And it did as good of a job as I would have given my current skill set and the time I would put into it. Jay Clouse46:38 Did I then show that off and say, look at what I made, uh, for that intro? Absolutely not. Um, so it's, I'm, I'm deeply conflicted. George Blackman46:46 Yeah, I think I, I'm completely with you. It's hard. And I don't know if you feel this, especially from a business point of view, where I'm trying to build an AI-related business that doesn't completely remove the human element. I don't want to build a scriptwriting tool that writes every single word for you, and you go away and you record something that you just didn't— you had nothing to do with. Which is why the sort of core feature of it is this discursive element that we've discussed, where it's like there's a chat, you chat to it, you leave your voice notes, And you kind of work with them as if they were a scriptwriter that you'd hired. But at the same time, I'm very conscious that this tool also would completely serve people who want to start a YouTube channel as a cash cow, faceless, no shade on faceless in general, but like one of those channels where it's like, hey, I don't have to do anything. I can AI the voiceover. This guy's got this tool out and it can just AI the script and I can AI the thumbnail. George Blackman47:46 And so being conscious that you're kind of, you're serving both the more conscious people who want to keep the human element involved, but also the people who want to just outsource it all. And yeah, that is kind of conflicting. It's a weird moment. Jay Clouse48:00 Yeah, it's tough. I think people want to maximize their outcome and minimize their effort. And you follow that all the way down and people want everything just like fully out of the box done. When you actually watch their behavior, that's what they want most of the time, most people. So it's, yeah, it's challenging. And it's, I restrain myself from the temptation to become like an AI educator because there's so much tailwind to it and it's what people want, but it's just not what I want to do. It's an interesting time, but I appreciate you sharing with us. We'll put a link to the document. Jay Clouse48:39 You recommended and this tool that you showed us in the description. George, thanks for coming back on the show. [ ![](https://app.creatorscience.com/courses/podcast-like-a-youtuber/card.jpg?v=d37ea4db) Put this episode to work Podcast Like A YouTuber The playbook for a video podcast people watch $199 · 230+ students · 14-day refundSee the course → ](https://app.creatorscience.com/courses/podcast-like-a-youtuber?utm%5Fsource=creatorscience.com&utm%5Fmedium=episode-card&utm%5Fcampaign=george-blackman-ai&utm%5Fcontent=episode) This week's guest ![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/e30f3cc4-c689-11f1-b54f-47e9258045dd/image/2baa3f0f53419c25260c85138e6113bf.png?w=640&h=640&fit=crop&auto=format,compress) **George Blackman**YouTube scriptwriter who got his start writing full-time for Ali Abdaal and has since written scripts for creators from 30,000 to over 10 million Free every Sunday ### Get the ideas from every episode Join **65,000+** creators reading the Creator Science newsletter. Subscribe for free Up next [![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/a5c2bd18-69f0-11ed-8b2e-7b7f401c4dfc/image/d3ee9dbc3e4bf53b7a54579c031574d9.jpg?w=200&h=200&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)**George Blackman – How to script your videos like Ali Abdaal and Ed from Film Booth.**Episode 162](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/george-blackman/) Ask Creator Science Got a question about your creative business? Jay answers listener questions on the show. [Submit a question →](https://creatorscience.com/ask/?ref=podcast) ## More episodes about YouTube [All 56 episodes →](https://creatorscience.com/tag/yt/) [![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/68ab0c6a-5866-11f1-af2c-c7d57601ece3/image/1551b027222e6be1c7d329c2f0dfc363.png?w=240&h=240&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)Episode 306 · May 26, 2026What 16 Years Behind YouTube's Biggest Channels Taught Josh Mattingly About Hiring And The Current State of YouTube](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/josh-mattingly/)[![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/d83c71be-1be8-11f1-88f4-7735763b3232/image/662311ef29484369956de769a94ae7a5.jpg?w=240&h=240&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)Episode 296 · Mar 10, 2026Meet The Man Who Solved YouTube (With Data)—Richard from 1of10](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/richard-1of10/)[![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/781451e0-cd86-11f0-92a6-8f97bd69ea92/image/aa9dda92e2e89ce7793d903e418c68b8.jpg?w=240&h=240&fit=crop&auto=format,compress)Episode 284 · Nov 30, 2025I helped a YouTuber design his membership](https://creatorscience.com/podcast/tommy-sikes/) ### How To Connect With Anyone URL: https://creatorscience.com/how-to-connect-with-anyone/ Last updated: 2026-10-09T19:37:49.000Z *Zack Arnold spent the first two decades of his career as an award-winning Hollywood filmmaker, editor, and producer (notable credits include* Cobra Kai, Empire, Burn Notice, and GO FAR: The Christopher Rush Story*). He has now transitioned to spending his days as a creative career coach (or as his students jokingly refer to him, a “career therapist”) at* [***The Arnold Academy***](https://9825b614.streak-link.com/CzCjUfXlZWP7idwSGw55FejU/https%3A%2F%2Fthearnoldacademy.com%2F?ref=creatorscience.com)*, talking to fascinating people on* [***The Zack Arnold Podcast***](https://zackarnold.com/?ref=creatorscience.com)*, and writing on* [***Substack***](https://zackarnold.com/substack?ref=creatorscience.com) *about the intersection of living as analog humans in a world being overrun by the robots.* *As you'll read below, I met Zack through a cold email! And I'm glad I did. He's a generous teacher and a genuine cold-email artist. After booking one of the most impressive conference lineups I've ever seen, I convinced him to share his secrets.* --- It feels like the only way to thrive as a content creator anymore is to please the algorithms. Follow the data. Post EVERYWHERE. Yet no matter what you try, it seems like everyone’s stats are skyrocketing but yours. 😔 While you’re treading water, the people you follow and admire are killing it! You scroll their feeds. You devour their podcasts. You binge their TED Talks. And you’d love to know how they got where they are so you can, too. Yet despite your desire to connect, you’re instead frozen in place with a raging case of FORO. Fear. Of. Reaching. Out. > *Who are you to think you can reach out cold and connect with this person?! Clearly your work isn’t good enough. You don’t have enough subscribers. Or revenue. Or book sales. Or you’re horribly introverted and don’t know what to say. And no way you are going to bother someone that important.* But here’s the thing…there is a much simpler way to connect with people you consider “unreachable” that doesn’t require pitching yourself, spamming via LinkedIn DM’s, or using the robots to do your outreach for you. And on the other end of that cold outreach will be someone delighted to hear from you, eager to connect, and potentially even collaborate with you! Because I still believe in the power of genuine human connection, I'm launching [The Connection Conference](https://theconnectionconference.com/?utm%5Fcampaign=conference%5F2026&utm%5Fmedium=circle&utm%5Fsource=promo%5Flink&affiliate%5Fcode=2af0c1), a 5-day virtual event (Oct 19-23) that brings together the world's top thought leaders—like Adam Grant, Will Guidara, Angela Duckworth, David Epstein, Susan Cain, Ethan Mollick, Priya Parker, and even THE Jay Clouse!—to teach us how to reach out and expand our networks in a more authentic way...without the algorithms (or the robots). You might be asking...how did an under-the-radar creative career coach with no social following, no YouTube channel, and an email list under 5k book TEN *New York Times* bestselling authors with a combined 115 million TED Talk views? Simple. Cold emails. I've spent the last ten years working with hundreds of students and clients developing a cold outreach *formula* (read: NOT a template) that has a 70% response rate. When done well, your outreach will not only receive responses but also *enthusiastic* responses, *helpful* responses, and most importantly *human* responses. I call it → **The VSA Outreach Formula™** - **V** \- Value. - **S** \- Story. - **A** \- Ask. This cold outreach formula (coupled with warm introductions from other speakers) helped me book every single guest for this conference with no formal pitch, no proposal, and no webpage. Two cold emails landed me NINE YEARS of editing work (on the shows *Cobra Kai* and *Burn Notice)* in the most difficult industry to break into, Hollywood. > I’ve had students use cold outreach to secure Zoom calls and lunches with Oscar winners, connect with future mentors, and even land dream jobs from a single email. And if you don't believe me, ask Adam Grant himself! **"I remember when I got your first email, and I thought, wow, this is a masterclass in how to write a cold email. It was on my top five list of the best cold emails I've ever gotten from readers. I don't think I've ever gotten an email from you that didn't communicate this guy really cares about other people."* I didn't reach out to Adam Grant because he's sold millions of books or his TED Talks have millions of views. I reached out to Adam because I genuinely admired the way he writes and what he writes about. But more importantly, I admired Adam's mission: *The most meaningful way to succeed is to help others succeed.* > Outreach is not about optimizing CRM’s or doing anything “scalable.” Human outreach requires following your intuition. Putting in real effort. And then taking a few big swings. **Begin by thinking of someone you genuinely admire that you’d love to ask a few questions–or even someone you'd kill to collaborate with–and then think about why.** For example, you’re reading this newsletter because upon discovering Creator Science, I just knew I had to connect with Jay! Not because he had more podcast downloads than me (which did help), and not because Jay has a much larger email list than me (also helped), but because Jay and I share so many of the same values. Authenticity. Trust. Playing the long game. Treating every customer with respect. To help you identify someone you really want to connect with, begin by finding a shared mission and shared values. Then ask yourself: - Where do you want your creator business to be in the next few years? - What's stopping you from getting there? - Who can help you overcome your obstacles and achieve your goals? Once you've identified someone you genuinely want to connect with—and ideally even collaborate with in the future—it's time to draft that outreach! ## Step #1: Open your message delivering VALUE. Value doesn't mean offering your services for free or showering someone with empty flattery. Delivering value is so much simpler than you think: Just make this person and their work *feel seen*. This requires doing your homework. Actually watching their videos. Actually reading their books or posts. Then not only sharing what resonated with you but also *why* it resonated. Sure, the robots could summarize their content for you, but they can't summarize the *feelings* this person's content created inside of you. Here’s the VALUE paragraph of my initial outreach to Jay: ***Subject** *: thank you for bringing integrity to the creator space* **Hi Jay,* **I recently discovered you because of your guest appearance in the Kit documentary series about rebranding (I'm in rebranding hell as we speak). I had never heard of you and your platform, but I am now HOOKED. I very much appreciate the honesty & integrity you bring to your content, not to mention the attention to detail. I also appreciate how clearly your values & purpose are in alignment with the work you do, even if that means you're "leaving money on the table." You've inspired me to believe it is possible to continue growing my creative community without making compromises I'm not willing to make (e.g. I'll die before I'm on TikTok!).* As is customary for the majority of my cold outreach, I didn’t just get a response, I got an enthusiastic response that delivered joy to Jay’s inbox! **Hey Zack! Despite my slow response here, I want you to know I read this email as soon as it came in and it meant a lot to me. In fact, I saved it to my feel goods folder!* Human connection? Check! ## Step #2: Tell a clear and compelling STORY. Which story you tell largely depends on the context of your outreach. Are you seeking guidance and expertise? Requesting a referral? Or making the direct approach to collaborate? If you’re seeking guidance and expertise from someone further down the same path, your story paragraph needs to make the following clear: - Where are you now? - Where are you going next? - What's stopping you from getting there? Here’s a condensed version of my STORY paragraph to Jay: **I'm reaching out because I'm a longtime podcaster & coach who's transitioning from "lucrative side hustle" to making my living solely as a creator. For over twenty years I worked as an award-winning Hollywood film editor & producer (my most recent show was Netflix's Cobra Kai), and I've slowly been building an online education business where I help creatives design more fulfilling careers. My online business has consistently generated around $300k per year with a combination of coaching, live classes, and a self-guided online community similar to yours. But I keep hitting the same wall: Audience growth & lead generation. I've built an incredibly engaged community around only a long-form podcast & newsletter (I don't do social media) which I'm told is the HARDEST way to grow a business. Yet I've generated over $1.3m from an email list of only 4k. But what got me here won't get me there, hence why I wanted to connect.* It's not that people don't want to help you; it's that people don't know how to help you. A well-written story paragraph gives someone a clear and compelling opportunity to be helpful. If instead of seeking guidance or expertise you’re hoping to collaborate, your story is no longer about you but instead about them and should clarify: - Where are you now that’s relevant to them? - How can you help them get where they want to go next? - How can you help them overcome what’s stopping them? Be of genuine service to this person and their communities rather than trying to sell yourself from your first outreach. With a clear story in place… ## Step #3: Make your ASK. This is where so many drop the ball (don't worry, I have too!). The ask is the hardest part, but it's also the most important. According to psychologist Vanessa Bohns (another guest at [The Connection Conference](https://theconnectionconference.com/?utm%5Fcampaign=conference%5F2026&utm%5Fmedium=circle&utm%5Fsource=promo%5Flink&affiliate%5Fcode=2af0c1)), people are more than twice as likely to help you than you think they are! So before FORO stops you dead in your tracks, keep in mind that people want a reason to matter. Your request for help might just be that reason. > Your ask needs to be clear, direct, and require less than five minutes to respond to. Ideally they should be able to read your entire message and respond to it while they're waiting in line for their Starbucks fix. But DO NOT ask them for their time so you can "pick their brain." While not in my original message (but in the same conversation), this was my ASK to Jay: **I think there's tremendous value your perspective as a creator brings to my world. Creatives are really struggling right now as the media landscape changes and need help understanding how they can leverage their skills and storytelling experience to generate income elsewhere. And I also think creators could benefit tremendously from creatives to learn stronger emotional storytelling skills to capture hearts as much as eyeballs.* **Any interest in recording a podcast with me to share your knowledge and experience in the "creator" space for us "creatives"?* Let’s just say, [the rest is history](https://zackarnold.com/episode/intersection-legacy-hollywood-next-gen-content-creators-jay-clouse/?ref=creatorscience.com). 😉 > **Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of asking for it.** Done well, the VSA Outreach Formula™ makes your recipient and their work feel seen. Giving this person an opportunity to talk about themselves allows this person to feel heard. Offering them a reason to help you that’s aligned with their values allows them to feel useful. And if you can also help them achieve their goals? Slam. Dunk. Sounds too good to be true? There is one catch: My outreach formula only works if you actually care. **Human connection requires humans.** If you'd like to dive deeper into the psychology, the art, and the science of great outreach that can lead to amazing connections and meaningful collaborations, come join me and the world's experts in my Circle community at [The Connection Conference](https://theconnectionconference.com/?utm%5Fcampaign=conference%5F2026&utm%5Fmedium=circle&utm%5Fsource=promo%5Flink&affiliate%5Fcode=2af0c1), Oct 19-23rd, featuring a Live Q&A with THE Jay Clouse! You could be one relationship away from changing your entire business. Come join me Oct 19-23, and I'll show you how. [![CTA Image](https://creatorscience.com/content/images/2026/10/CC_mainevent_horz.png)](https://theconnectionconference.com/?utm%5Fcampaign=conference%5F2026&utm%5Fmedium=circle&utm%5Fsource=promo%5Flink&affiliate%5Fcode=2af0c1) ****Join Us At The Connection Conference (Oct. 19-23)** I'll be speaking at The Connection Conference, a free 5-day virtual event connecting artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs with the ideas of the world’s experts–including #1 NYT bestselling authors Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Will Guidara, Charles Duhigg, Angela Duckworth, Ethan Mollick, Priya Parker, and many more–to help us learn a more thoughtful and authentic way to build meaningful relationships and expand our networks of fellow humans. If you’re afraid to reach out to people (and you don’t know what to say when you do), you’ll learn how to turn outreach and networking into an act of service where you provide genuine value to others and connect based on shared goals and shared values. You’ll learn how to build a strong support network of peers, experts, mentors, advocates, and future collaborators so you can navigate this next uncertain phase of your work and life with confidence and get back to making things that matter [Register for free ](https://theconnectionconference.com/?utm%5Fcampaign=conference%5F2026&utm%5Fmedium=circle&utm%5Fsource=promo%5Flink&affiliate%5Fcode=2af0c1) ### Earning $300K+ Per Year Without Social Media | Jessica Lackey's Relationship-First Approach URL: https://creatorscience.com/podcast/jessica-lackey/ Last updated: 2026-10-15T12:38:17.000Z Episode 320 # Earning $300K+ Per Year Without Social Media | Jessica Lackey's Relationship-First Approach My guest is Jessica Lackey, founder of Deeper Foundations and author of Leaving the Casino: Stop Betting on Tactics and Start Building a Business That Works. She helps coaches, consultants, and service providers build expert-led businesses on strong foundations. with **Jessica Lackey**Oct 6, 202651 min [Listen now](#listen) [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/earning-%24300k-per-year-without-social-media-jessica/id1498801064?i=1000793393366&uo=4&ref=creatorscience.com) [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xwWNnRSbaoiLy7KsGLwl5?ref=creatorscience.com) More players Listen in your app [![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=podcasts.apple.com&sz=64)Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creator-science-with-jay-clouse/id1498801064?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=open.spotify.com&sz=64)Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/39j9VhklsBs1aLWtkGTWJT?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=youtube.com&sz=64)YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@jay/?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=overcast.fm&sz=64)Overcast](https://overcast.fm/itunes1498801064/creator-science?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=pocketcasts.com&sz=64)Pocket Casts](https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/creator-science-with-jay-clouse/7db47890-2ff0-0138-96e6-0acc26574db2?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=castro.fm&sz=64)Castro](https://castro.fm/podcast/5f8d5083-92f5-4a4e-a83e-29a773baa95c?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=castbox.fm&sz=64)Castbox](https://castbox.fm/channel/id2626956?ref=creatorscience.com)[![](https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=podcastaddict.com&sz=64)Podcast Addict](https://podcastaddict.com/feed/https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.megaphone.fm%2FTPG4024225475?ref=creatorscience.com)Copy the RSS feed ![Episode 320: Jessica Lackey](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/89ede620-bb5a-11f1-bb6f-0b6db7ef64c0/image/4d9d156b4b249b24e6269c2a0d178993.png?w=640&h=640&fit=crop&auto=format,compress) ![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/89ede620-bb5a-11f1-bb6f-0b6db7ef64c0/image/4d9d156b4b249b24e6269c2a0d178993.png?w=640&h=640&fit=crop&auto=format,compress) Episode 320 · 51 min Earning $300K+ Per Year Without Social Media −15 0:0051:00 +30 1× Or listen in [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/earning-%24300k-per-year-without-social-media-jessica/id1498801064?i=1000793393366&uo=4&ref=creatorscience.com) or [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xwWNnRSbaoiLy7KsGLwl5?ref=creatorscience.com) This week's guest ![](https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/89ede620-bb5a-11f1-bb6f-0b6db7ef64c0/image/4d9d156b4b249b24e6269c2a0d178993.png?w=640&h=640&fit=crop&auto=format,compress) **Jessica Lackey**Founder of Deeper Foundations and author of Leaving The Casino ## What you'll learn - How she built from 200 to 2,000 email subscribers through relationships and guest appearances, not social media - Her 3-offer stack (1:1 consulting, 6-month cohort, and membership) and how each piece supports the others - Why she does a 30-minute welcome call with every new member at $50 per month — and how she thinks about the economics - The KPIs she tracks with clients instead of followers and views: outreach count, visibility opportunities, and what she calls seeds, sprouts, and fruits - The trade-offs she's made by choosing this model and why she's made peace with them ## About this episode My guest is Jessica Lackey, founder of Deeper Foundations and author of **Leaving the Casino: Stop Betting on Tactics and Start Building a Business That Works**. She helps coaches, consultants, and service providers build expert-led businesses on strong foundations. Jessica tried the social media game. She hired a social media team for two years, ran Ship 30 for 30 on Twitter, tested Instagram. She never cracked 1,700 followers. So she built her business a different way: 50 guest podcast appearances, 50 guest teaching spots in other communities, 20 to 30 programs joined and participated in over four years. Every visibility opportunity landed 10 to 20 new people on her email list. It was slow, linear, and intentional. Today she has 2,000 people on her email list and 200 paying members in her membership. That's a 10% conversion rate on her list, against the creator industry standard of 1 to 3%. Her business has earned over $300,000 for three consecutive years. Almost nothing she sells is one and done. The whole thing is built on renewals and retention, not growth and virality. By the end of this episode, you will have a clear picture of how a small, deliberate audience can support a thriving six-figure business — and what it actually costs to build one that way. ## Chapters 1. 00:00Cold open: the trade-off Jessica has chosenPlay ▸ 2. 00:19Introducing Jessica LackeyPlay ▸ 3. 02:34Why the social media game didn't work for herPlay ▸ 4. 04:05The relationship-first growth strategyPlay ▸ 5. 06:53Her offer stack: 1:1, cohort, and membershipPlay ▸ 6. 09:39Revenue breakdown and pricingPlay ▸ 7. 10:52How the membership grew from 30 members to 200Play ▸ 8. 12:52The 30-minute welcome call that doesn't make economic sensePlay ▸ 9. 18:29Free monthly workshops for 4 years: the Deeper Business DialoguesPlay ▸ 10. 20:21The KPIs that actually matter for an expertise businessPlay ▸ 11. 22:26Is there a ceiling on this approach?Play ▸ 12. 26:45Why Jessica has chosen her ceiling on purposePlay ▸ 13. 43:53How to follow people around the internet like a puppy, not a stalkerPlay ▸ ## Mentioned in this episode [Deeper Foundations ↗](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/?ref=creatorscience.com)[Leaving the Casino ↗](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/casino?ref=creatorscience.com)[Deeper Foundations Membership ↗](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/membership?ref=creatorscience.com)[Aggressively Human ↗](https://aggressivelyhuman.substack.com/)[Community as a deliberate Business Model ↗](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/blog/community-as-a-deliberate-business-model?ref=creatorscience.com)[“For You” or “By You”: The K-Shaped Content Era ↗](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/blog/the-k-shaped-content-era?ref=creatorscience.com)[The Zone of Enoughness ↗](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/blog/the-zone-of-enoughness?ref=creatorscience.com)[Sacred Sales Hour ↗](https://www.deeperfoundations.com/blog/sacred-sales-hour?ref=creatorscience.com)[LinkedIn ↗](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-lackey/?ref=creatorscience.com) ## Full transcript 9,004 words · click any timestamp to play from there Jessica Lackey0:00 I'll never have a million-dollar launch. I won't cross 6, 7 figures. That keeps me out of rooms. Jay Clouse0:19 Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. Today I'm talking with Jessica Lackey. Founder of Deeper Foundations and author of Leaving the Casino: Stop Betting on Tactics and Start Building a Business That Works. Jessica's work is rooted in helping you build strong business foundations that make running your business more profitable and easier over time. Jessica is a longtime member of the Lab and she walks that talk. She has 200 paying members in her Deeper Foundations membership with a 2,000-person email list. That means that 10% of her email list is customers, and in many cases, repeat customers. Jay Clouse0:56 And for the last 3 years, Jessica's business has earned over $300,000\. The typical creator math is that you grow a big audience and convert 1 to 3% of them into customers. And yet Jessica is here converting 10%. A lot of creators, myself included, get pulled into playing the top-of-funnel audience growth game. Jessica has resisted that siren song and has found ways around it. Almost nothing she sells is one and done. Her business is built on renewals and retention, not growth and virality. That decision changes your math significantly. Read the full transcriptClose transcript Jay Clouse1:28 If you sell a one-time program, you have to keep refilling the top of funnel forever, and that's when discovery platforms can really help. If people stay for 4 years, 2,000 people on an email list might be enough for you. In this episode, Jessica walks through exactly where those 200 members came from. She explains the webinar she runs over and over again. She tells me why she does a 30-minute welcome call with every new member at $50 per month. and she's honest about the trade-offs this strategy has come with and why she's okay with making them. By the way, this is the 1-year anniversary of the release of Jessica's book, Leaving the Casino, and it's also Jessica's birthday today. So if this conversation has you interested in her book, there's a link in the show notes. Jay Clouse2:08 It's a nice happy birthday gift to her as well. We'll get that full conversation with Jessica right after this. Maybe to give us a starting point, did you play the social media game? Were you trying that? where you're like, you know what, email is what I'm doing, and I'm actually just gonna get really good at the percentage of folks on my email list being clients or customers? Jessica Lackey2:34 So I started my business actually in 2021 as a high-touch services business. So I was a fractional chief operating officer for 7-figure organizations. So I was doing the services as my primary source of income. I tried the viral threads. Actually, that's how I found you was the Tweet 100 Challenge. Jay Clouse2:56 Oh, nice. Jessica Lackey2:56 So I tried the viral Ship 30 for 30 Challenge to grow on Twitter. I tried Instagram. I hired a social media team for roughly 2 years to help get the word out and never cracked 1,700 Instagram followers. I'm on LinkedIn as a user, but not as a, someone who's creating content, content forward on LinkedIn. I'm more of a, let's hang out with my friends on LinkedIn. So I didn't need an audience to grow my revenue when I started the business, at least for the first few years. So my audience has always been relatively small. Jay Clouse3:35 So you're suggesting that this is kind of just a place of necessity or like, uh, an invention of circumstance that you were like, well, The audience building thing isn't really working for me, but I wanna build this type of business, so I just gotta figure it out. Jessica Lackey3:50 Well, I couldn't figure out the social media game. I tried, I really did try. I don't find myself to be particularly charismatic or funny or able. That was right when we were crossing from the, the follower era to the for-you era. Jay Clouse4:05 Yeah. Jessica Lackey4:05 And that required a different game. That was right. I was on LinkedIn trying to grow right as the hooks started taking over, and I found that I just couldn't, breakthrough. I was busy growing a services business, so I actually switched and had all of my, what we would consider top of funnel, be podcast guesting, joining programs, building relationships, guest teaching in other places. And so my audience grew very linearly from about 200 people on my email list in 2022 to 2,000 now in 2026. Jay Clouse4:40 And when we think about linear email growth, they gotta be coming from somewhere. So are you saying that most of that is from this podcast guesting strategy? Jessica Lackey4:50 It's a mix of all the things. So I counted, 'cause this is what I did. I did 50 guest podcast appearances in about 4 years. I guest taught in about 50 different communities. Jay Clouse5:02 Oh, wow. Jessica Lackey5:03 In about those 4 years. When my book came out last year, I did, you know, 5 to 10 additional podcasts. Been participating in 20 to 30 different programs or communities over the past 4 years. So I'm in The Lab, I'm in a couple other different communities from around the internet, and I, you know, joined a lot of programs. And so every time I would do some kind of guest appearance, 10 to 20 people would show up on my email list. So I was doing some kind of visibility opportunity that was in small groups, usually off-platform, 100 times in 4 years and continue that trajectory today. Jay Clouse5:43 That sounds like its own brand of exhausting though. That sounds like a lot of work. Did it feel like a lot of work? Jessica Lackey5:50 Yes and no. I mean, the trade-off is like, okay, I could try to do social media, which for me was a lot of work, or I could talk about a couple of topics with people that I trust and like, reusing intellectual property, without having to figure out a new way to say it every time. So that's what I would do. I would make friends with people on the internet. I would ask them, or they would invite me to tell what I was working on because I had those relationships, and repeat ad nauseam for 4 years. It was slow and arduous, but also super rewarding and endurable, I think. That's why I think I have such a, high penetration of buyers on my list is because when it was growing linearly, I'm recognizing names on the list. I know where many of them came from. Jessica Lackey6:40 I see the names, I see people opening and responding. My list is relatively small, but I almost know when people showed up based on what podcast or guest teaching opportunity brought them into my world. Jay Clouse6:53 Explain your current offer stack so folks listening can understand, okay, what are the different offers that Jessica is selling through these means? Jessica Lackey7:01 So I have one-on-one consulting for established expertise business owners. I have a cohort program that's 6 months that is a relatively intensive dive into building the foundations of an expert-led business. And when I say expert-led, coaches, consultants, service providers, those who primarily sell services through authority and through relationships. And then What's new and evolved is the membership, which is the foundational concepts and the place to practice being an expertise business owner. When I say practice being an expert business owner, there are regular routines and habits and practices that I think anyone selling through relationships and authority should have. A weekly practice to do outreach to your network, a weekly planning time to get yourself organized, We review our metrics once a month, and those are different metrics than maybe a creator-forward business would have. And then expert trainings. So that membership started as a video library and has evolved to really be the essential foundational curriculum and essential habits of running your business. Jay Clouse8:09 So the way you're talking about that membership, it sounds like folks come in and the expected behavior or way to engage with it is with these routines that you do. Jessica Lackey8:19 Yep. Jay Clouse8:19 How do you think about the relationship of these 3 offers to one another? Do you see them in any type of ordering, or is it kind of meeting people where they are? Jessica Lackey8:29 So I didn't used to have an order. They've kind of evolved from one-on-one. I started, that was the first thing I, I did, and I said, you know, how do I codify the work I'm doing with my one-on-one clients to something that I can teach in group? And then what I discovered is that a lot of practices that are required for my one-on-one clients, for my group clients, like doing these outreach, looking at the metrics under their business, those are required for any stage of the business. So I started adding that to the membership saying, regardless of what level you're at, one-on-one, group, new to my world, these are sort of the essential habits I want you to build and maintain. So the membership became the practice gym. So if people, Want to go deeper in their business, they can for different levels and, and stages of their business. But if they say, yeah, I generally know what my business is and what I'm doing, but I just don't always have the accountability to do the, what we would call on the business work, the membership is the place for that. And I've started adding more foundational curriculum to just say, this is why we do what we do, this is how we do what we do. Jessica Lackey9:34 But the membership is almost like the gym for being an expert business owner. Jay Clouse9:39 Would you share the proportion of how these 3 products contribute to your revenue each year? Jessica Lackey9:46 So my one-on-one is roughly 50% of my revenue. My cohort and membership, they combined make up the other half. Cohort is, it has shifted in the past 60 days, but the cohort is $80,000 a year total. Uh, the membership is a little Yeah. A bit less than that now, so it's about 50%, 25%, 25%. I also have 2 foundational courses that I've offered as standalone chunks. The membership started at $30 a month and is now $50 a month after my latest price increase, but the goal is to make it so accessible that even if they can't participate in a given season, it's a charge that still makes sense for their business regardless of the stage of revenue they're at. That did not make sense at all 2 years ago when I launched the membership. Jessica Lackey10:37 Like, I had 30 people in it. It was basically not even enough to cover the Circle fees, but now it's actually an entire revenue stream, which just kind of evolved from people saying this was awesome and spreading the word of mouth to their friends. Jay Clouse10:52 That's interesting. That's a chasm that I feel like a lot of people pursuing memberships don't cross, where they start something, And they kind of expect it to be a significant revenue stream pretty quickly. And if it's not, they get really antsy and won't see it through. So talk to me about your journey with that membership specifically when it started with something that quote unquote didn't cover the circle bill yet to say, actually, I'm going to keep doing this because it's not an insignificant time investment for somebody running a membership too. Jessica Lackey11:22 It started off being a video library. I would add a video library. I would have a Q&A once a month and I would have an— add a new training every month. But then after a few months of running it, someone said, hey, you have a lot of trainings here. Do you have a roadmap? So I added a roadmap and then I launched my first course. It was right around the time I, I lost my last fractional COO client. Like it was a planned transition. I hired my backfill and I said, oh, I need to close this gap. Jessica Lackey11:46 You know, I should teach a course on relational sales, which is what I'd been talking about. So launched that course. It had a weekly practice habit to it. And someone said, hey, can we keep doing this weekly practice habit in the membership? And I said, Sure, that sounds like a great idea. And then more people started coming in. Then in January of this year, I launched another course, which is all about time management, and I had a weekly planning session in that. And they said, hey, can we keep doing this weekly planning thing? And I said, well, if you wanna run it, awesome, 'cause I can't commit to every Friday. So we started adding that. Jessica Lackey12:18 And then people continued to join the program. People said, hey, there should be a Europe call. All right, well, let's add a Europe call. And then June of 2026, I said, hey, we're gonna raise the price from $30 a month to $50 a month. Last chance, uh, get in. My copywriter actually said, where's the last time we launched the membership? I'm like, we never launched the membership. We just, we just kept adding things and people kept telling their friends because the value was relatively unprecedented for what you get. I do a welcome call. Jessica Lackey12:52 With every member who joins at $30 a month for 30 minutes. Again, like, no one does this because it doesn't economically make any sense, but I wanted to meet everybody who was in my membership. Jay Clouse13:07 When you say things like it doesn't economically make sense, do you not care, or do you have a belief that, but it will economically make sense if and when some threshold or turning point happens? Jessica Lackey13:20 Well, it doesn't economically make sense for that particular offer, and it's not designed to be an upsell offer, but it is. I was supporting my business for 4 years through 20 different clients because of one-on-one. So the membership on its own and the cohorts on their own didn't have to carry the business. So it didn't make sense as a standalone product for 4 years. Neither the cohort or the membership did. And in fact, actually paying the social media team and paying the YouTube editor and paying the team to help me develop these leveraged bodies of work. I actually didn't make any profit on anything that you would consider leveraged one-to-many offers for up until 2025\. So it didn't make sense economically for each individual offer, but it totally made sense. Jessica Lackey14:07 I can cover my own bills and make the revenue I need to make to have a relatively stable top line. Just the mix has shifted underneath over time. Jay Clouse14:16 So if we look at this business today, and you told me it earns over $300,000 in total, and 50% of that is the services, as you said, the cohort and the membership make up the other 50%. Is this where you are happy just like being, or are you striving for some other thing? I'm trying to get a sense of your enoughness, what you're striving for, and how you've arrived at this overall design. Jessica Lackey14:44 I love the business I've built at the revenue I've built it at. Like, I know every single member in my membership. I don't really want that to change. I mean, I would love it to be a little bit bigger, but I don't, I have no ambitions for thousands of people in this membership. I love my one-on-one clients. I love my cohort participants. The business, now I get to face the wonderful challenge of how to keep meeting my members where they are as they continue to grow their businesses. And how do I construct things in the backend of my business to say, you were started here at the cohort, but now it's not they graduate into one-on-one, 'cause that's not how really it works. Jessica Lackey15:17 It's more how do I keep meeting them with the advanced next steps for their business in the right container that makes sense for them? But my business pays me well. I don't need a lot of team to run it. I don't have a lot of moving pieces. It like covers my household bills. It allows me to save. It's a great business that I love. I have no desire to make it a whole lot bigger. I have dreams of book number 2. Jessica Lackey15:42 I have dreams of my own different podcast than the one I currently run. But that saying, like, the dog caught the car, I'm like, the dog caught the car. Now it's about how do I continue to make it an exceptional experience for everyone who's decided to step into this, like, way of building their business? Jay Clouse16:00 If I look at the calendar year, And you have these 3 offers, do you have any type of seasonality? I mean, the cohort is a very time-bound program. Jessica Lackey16:08 Yeah. Jay Clouse16:08 So, how do you think about the cohort within the calendar year, and how that then relates to these other 2 offers? Jessica Lackey16:14 So, the cohort opens March and September during the equinox periods. There's a course, a standalone course that is run right on the front of the cohort in the spring, and the cohort in the fall to say, If you liked the course, you should either upgrade to the cohort or stick around in the membership. Jay Clouse16:32 So a self-paced course? Jessica Lackey16:34 No, it's live. Jay Clouse16:36 Okay. Jessica Lackey16:36 So it's a 4-week time management operations bootcamp I call Building Blocks that runs in January. And then it's a live relationship building and relational sales series that runs over the summer. And the membership, I did a launch, but I've never launched it before. I'm not entirely sure when I'll launch it. It'll probably launch on the back of these different courses. And one-on-one, I never launched, referrals as I get them. Jay Clouse16:58 How often are you publishing emails? Jessica Lackey17:00 Once a week, every Sunday, 10:00 AM Eastern. Jay Clouse17:03 I think a lot of people hearing this who might be called to take a similar approach where they're just like, ah, the social media game is so hard. I mean, I'm, I'm sharpening my ax and I'm like, I'm a learner again. I'm not good at this current incarnation of social media, but I've resolved I'm gonna play this game. I'm gonna figure it out, at least for now. But this approach certainly resonates with me when I, I'm frustrated with results on social media. But the challenge that I hear from folks often who are very email forward is if they're not filling top of funnel new subscribers pretty frequently, and they have one, maybe two programs that they sell pretty frequently, they churn through the number of buyers on their list, or the people they're introducing their stuff to who haven't bought it, who are on the list, have considered it and, and passed on. So what prevents this approach from getting stale or even going backwards? Jessica Lackey17:58 So I think it's 3 different things. One, I aspire to have emails that are so good people want to stay subscribed. And so some emails are more of like marketing my program or marketing my social media or marketing my podcast. Mine is a deep dive essay every week. It's like 1,500 to 2,000 words. With some kind of framework, some kind of insight. People are like, I, I bought from you years ago. Your newsletter's one of the only newsletters that I, I open. Jessica Lackey18:29 So that's one. Um, so people forward my newsletters. I want that to be the forwardable asset. 2, I taught for free for 4 years, a new workshop every single month for about 4 years. I called it Deeper Business Dialogues, and it was open to everybody. At that time, the webinar disguised as a sales funnel was everywhere, where it was like 50 minutes of backstory, 10 minutes of pitch, and you were sold into something. And I said, what if I flipped the script? What if I did 50 minutes of pure teaching, workshopping concepts out in the open, and then 10 minutes of a soft get on my list? So I flipped that. And then 3, because I was services for such a long time, so I went fractional chief operating officer, down to more advisory with small cohorts, I've never had to sell so hard. Jessica Lackey19:24 So my, you know, I have 8 to 12 clients on my roster one-on-one at a time. I've had some clients on my roster for 4 years now. I have max of 15 people in my cohort program every 6 months, and then I've started growing the membership. So most of the people in my newsletter audience haven't seen the same offers and the same programs over and over again because For 5 years primarily wasn't selling to my audience. I was making my sales through referrals, filling my cohorts through a little bit of word of mouth and a little bit of launching to my list, but mostly not selling to them. It was all a, this is what I'm learning, this is what I'm exploring. Come hang out with me as I dive into building an expertise business. Jay Clouse20:09 I wanna reopen a door or step through a door that you opened earlier where you said, The KPIs that you recommend your clients measure are different than what other people might measure. So what are those? Jessica Lackey20:21 So it's number of outreaches. So every week in the membership, we do what's called Sacred Sales Hour. So we're reaching out to clients, collaborators, connectors to build relationships, to expand our networks, to invite people in closer to us in a relational outreach capacity, 5 emails a week. To people in your network. So how many outreaches did you do? How many connection calls did you have? How many visibility and distribution opportunities did you secure? So, you know, guest teaching in someone's audience, going to a conference, swaps and bundles and things like that, whether it makes sense for your audience, keynote speaking. So how much exposure did you get to other people's audiences? Did you produce any long-form content that would be like an authority asset? So those are what I call seeds. Sprouts are inquiries and proposals sent. We do track follower count, but just more as a, is it growing? If it's not growing, it means we're not getting in front of enough new people. Jessica Lackey21:17 We track revenue and profit and cash, new clients as well. Those would be what I call fruits. And then we track roots, which is the business building projects that you are doing every month to make planting seeds, tending your sprouts, and stewarding your fruits more effective with the time you have. If you don't play the social media game, Are you putting a ceiling on your business? Jay Clouse21:40 After a quick break, Jessica and I dig into that very question and how she makes her business work for her, not the other way around. So stick around, we'll be right back. And now back to my conversation with Jessica Lackey. What's the ceiling on this approach? I'm thinking about— it's pretty time intensive. And so is the idea for people listening to this who are saying like, okay, social media, this is an alternative path. Does this path dictate a certain ceiling then that otherwise social media would be able to blow past? Jessica Lackey22:20 Ceiling of revenue growth or ceiling of clients? Jay Clouse22:24 Probably revenue growth. Jessica Lackey22:26 I don't think this has a ceiling to it. I mean, the ceiling is dictated by the price point of your offers. and truly the construction of your offers. The reason my business works is because these are not one-time purchases. The construction is, this is a practice of business ownership, and that practice, no matter, you know, the membership is really constructed around not a content drop necessarily, but repeatable habits that run in your business that you'll never really stop. Like, I put some of these habits in place for my business in the membership because I need to do the same habits too. The cohort, ends, but then there's the offer that extends. You can stay in that for a long time. Jessica Lackey23:04 Same for one-on-one. You could stay one-on-one or you could drop to a recurring offer. So I think the challenge being that almost nothing in my business is one and done. It is all meant to be recurring value for a recurring charge. Jay Clouse23:19 Mm-hmm. Jessica Lackey23:19 If you're just trying to sell a one-time program, then you do have to continually feed the top of funnel because people don't renew. Like, that's a barrier to growth that I have seen in so many other businesses. So I said, okay, well, what would people be excited to continue paying for on a recurring basis that I can help them with? So I built my business on renewals and retention, not growth and virality. But, you know, especially if you run services, how are you— Again, not creating like a codependency concept here, but how are you always thinking about what comes next? What comes next? How are they growing? How are you expanding your time with that customer? That's appropriate for a services business. That's also appropriate for a coaching business. Part of the reason I think, you know, I love what you're doing so much is because the Lab gets better year after year after year. So how did I design products in an ecosystem that gets better year after year after year? So I don't think it has a ceiling to it. I have chosen a ceiling. Jay Clouse24:24 Right. Jessica Lackey24:24 Because of the price points I am playing at. But I don't think it's inherent to the type of business I've run. And frankly, the more you, like social media requires almost new hooks and new content every time. But now that I do a couple of signature topics, I can guest teach without coming up with new material. I can guest on podcasts without coming up with a ton of new material. So it's become, compounding in my business versus having to come up with some new angle 3 times a week on Instagram. Jay Clouse24:58 Yeah, and I, I don't necessarily mean to frame the idea of a ceiling as something that is inherently bad, because I don't think enough of us think about what enough or our goals are. I'm reading this great book right now. It's the best book I've read in a long time called The Score. Have you heard of this book? Jessica Lackey25:17 No, but I want to. Jay Clouse25:18 It's by a guy named C. Thi Nguyen, I believe is his name. He's a philosopher, and he's also a big nerd, and he loves games. And so he had this obsession with understanding why there seemed to be an inherent trade-off between easily measurable things and value capture with these things. He was basically like, the more we add metrics to especially, like, businesses and organizations, The more it seems like the people inside those organizations hate their work. Why is that? It's a wonderful, wonderful book. The punchline for a lot of it is basically like, he has this really bold idea, which is basically like the meaning of life is choosing games that you love to play, that you can play infinitely. And his point is a lot of times we end up playing games implicitly that aren't actually games we wanna play. Jay Clouse26:07 I mean, this, I'm sure this speaks to you with your casino analogy. And so like ceilings aren't inherently bad if that's a game that you have chosen and this is what winning that game looks like. But you mentioned the way you think about recurring subscriptions is you need to provide recurring value and that creates sort of an inherent ceiling. I mean, that is true in this design, but if you are creating content that is infinitely scalable and recurring, then that removes some level of ceiling, but it's a different design of the product. So all of this is just like interesting stuff for me to think about and poke and prod. Jessica Lackey26:45 I mean, like, I have chosen a ceiling on purpose. When members join, they get a welcome card. I send birthday cards. I've taken, you know, Unreasonable Hospitality, that book, sort of to the— Jay Clouse26:57 Love that. Jessica Lackey26:58 How can I know people so that I can make connections for members? There is a world in which that I could see that someone else does that connection-making for me, but Like, that's depriving me of some of the joy of knowing what happens in everybody's business. I'm a relatively nosy person because that's part of my job as a business diagnostician. But I love, I love connecting people. I love saying, you should meet so-and-so, you should meet so-and-so. So I've chosen caps because it covers my bills, it covers my enough numbers, it allows me to invest in projects. And honestly, I chose some of these design constraints for my business because I saw some real gaps in the marketplace that I wanted to fill. Like, very few places offer what I'm offering at the price point I'm offering it at. And I recognize that I can do a lot of what I do because of some of my personal situation. Jessica Lackey27:48 I don't have children, you know, I have time and intellectual intensity that I can spend on this business and the humans that are in the business. I love what I do. a little too much sometimes. And so, you know, I came from corporate, have some, you know, of that like corporate horsepower to what I do. And so I say, how can I use my skills and what I'm gifted at to really be of deep service? And I've never been happier playing the game I've chosen, but I recognize that I'll never have a million-dollar launch. Like, I won't cross 6, 7 figures. That keeps me out of rooms. Which people look at price and people look at revenue as a status signal. Jessica Lackey28:29 I've chosen a business model that will never let me play those games unless I qualify through a third door. Jay Clouse28:36 That's so real. Uh, it's the same with social following too. So honestly, a lot of the times it is, sucks to say, but if you're playing the social media game for the purpose of like top of funnel and it's not working, it actually might be optically better to stop playing that game entirely and just like eliminate that external mark for people to look at, especially if you don't enjoy doing it. Now, if you enjoy doing it and you're like, I'm gonna get good at this game and I'm not good at it yet, but I'm gonna figure it out, different story. But if you're like, I hate this game and I'm just doing the bare minimum to try and it's not working, then you might be better off just not trying at all. I like this phrase you just used, this business diagnostician. If you were to point that at your own business, where would you say, you know, if I separate myself from my own business and look at this, here's where I think there's room to grow or changes that could be made or design decisions that are not serving me? Jessica Lackey29:34 I think there's the what's not serving me now and what's not gonna serve me in 5 years. What's not serving me now, I have a lot of welcome calls, but I love them all, but I do recognize that My brand is kind of casual. How I show up is a little casual in a great way. I think that allows accessibility, but it does, I think, prevent me from really spreading the message about how we can grow businesses differently too. I have essentially sidestepped traditional markers of prestige, price, how I show up, where I show up. You know, the price points I set at are not prestige markers. For this work, what I wanna do is helping people really build a business around their expertise. That's gonna require, you know, not just staying in my, my little bubble of the 250 people that I know, like, and trust. Jessica Lackey30:22 I'm gonna need to go on different stages. I'm gonna have to build authority and build relationships with people that were people that I looked up to substantially when I started my business. Like, how do I step into a different peer group? And I recognize that I have chosen to play that particular game on hard mode. Jay Clouse30:39 Because of the way you designed the business? Jessica Lackey30:41 Yeah, so I look at the authors retreats in Nashville. I look at the gatherings that people have in Atlanta. I look at who gets invited to the speaker dinners before the conferences. I like pay attention to those. You have to earn your way into those rooms, and either by time, tenure, relationships, visible signals of authority, and I have. chosen to sidestep playing some of the, like choosing to get some of those markers. So it means I have to go about it a different way and I'm not entirely sure how I do that. Jay Clouse31:14 Yeah, it is hard. I mean, I obviously pay attention to a lot of the same things and I'll be honest, a lot of my success is like, I see the game, I play the game. Sometimes I win the game. A lot of it is BS. Most of it is BS, you know? And it's, uh, this is one of the best tweets that I've seen Justin Welsh say is like, Everyone knows the game is rigged, and the people who win are the ones that are like, I'm gonna go win that game. If you wanna play that game. The tragedy is when people are like, I hate this game, I don't wanna play by these rules, but they enter the same field of play. It's as if you're playing an NBA game against the Golden State Warriors and you're just refusing to shoot 3-pointers. Jay Clouse31:53 You can do that, but like, your odds aren't great. I would probably find a different form of the game. But it is so much of it. The reason that I've been so interested in Instagram lately, you've seen me talk about this in the community, is that halo effect is so unreasonably strong for— there just doesn't have to be much there there. And you get so much opportunity with wide visibility on Instagram that it just feels so overpowered if you are able to play and win that game. But it's so frustrating to not win that game. It's like, wow, I'm playing and I'm getting my ass kicked in this game right now. right now, but I keep trying. Jay Clouse32:33 I, I may, I may choose not to play that game at some point, but right now I'm, I'm trying and failing and learning a little bit all the time. Jessica Lackey32:40 And I mean, you have— your goals are to have a traditionally published book. In order to play the trad publishing game, you need to have a big audience. If you want to hit the New York Times bestseller, you have to do that. For me, this week I actually put out a LinkedIn post to say, hey, I'm giving away 10 free books. And I hand-signed and hand-shipped and hand-paid for. It's not, it's not a cheap proposition, but like people are like, I've heard about your book and I wanted to buy a copy. And I shipped 20 books out, right? So my book is never gonna be a trad published bestseller. I'm also, it's pretty niche. Jessica Lackey33:19 It's, you know, building an expert business. It's not gonna apply to everybody. So. wide visibility and broad visibility isn't what I need to make my business be successful. And my worry is that if I try to do the Instagram game or any short-form social media game, I'm kind of leaning back into YouTube 'cause I can do some teaching that I want. I've gotta figure out my camera situation so I can draw on things. My video where I tried to draw economics of cohort-based courses, I'm like trying to like get my good notes out and I was like, God, I want like Jay's overhead camera. So long-form really works for me because I can think deeply about a couple of things. Jessica Lackey33:54 Every week, wrestle this in my head. I can't do that when I'm on short form and I can't afford a team to help me with it. So again, I've chosen trade-offs. I can't afford a team because of where I put my business prices. Jay Clouse34:05 That's the really hard thing about the game you're playing is like you're exactly in the chasm where I actually feel like I'm in the same chasm, but like maybe closer to breaking through this chasm where most of the time when I'm investing in a team to do a lot of video stuff, If you have the skill, if you have the skill to do soup-to-nuts video production, especially short form where it's like scripting, editing in CapCut, and doing B-roll and effects, like the bar raises all the time. If you have the skill, that's great. I don't have that skill. I have not allocated the time to develop that skill. I'm not sure I can allocate the time to develop that skill. Hiring out those things, expensive proposition, really hard to do that if you're not earning into like the Mid to high 6 figures, it seems. Jessica Lackey34:47 So I can't invest in video because it requires too much. I can't do it myself because I'm still delivering roughly 50% of the time because I'm still heavy in services. You know, my group cohorts meet and there's a lot of delivery for that. So my 20 to 30% of my marketing time is relationships, visibility through those relationships, writing my long-form post, and just hitting singles for 4 years. Eventually, maybe I'll hit a home run. Again, it's a, it's a choice, right? I recognize that by making so much of my money be coming from services, that means I have to be very, very focused on my marketing time. And again, we can't do it all. So I said, okay, well, what are the things that I can do uniquely well, and how can I engineer my business so that I don't have to do some of the marketing that I'm not particularly good at or costs me too much money. Jay Clouse35:43 So it seems like your services capacity is full most all of the time. Jessica Lackey35:50 Um, yeah, I mean, if you consider, you know, my cohorts, I'm doing 2 calls a week with them. My membership, there's usually 2 calls. I have 10 clients on my roster right now, and my cohort participants, I am hands-on with things in their business, reviewing copy, reviewing worksheets and things like that. So I call that services even though it's a one-to-many. service model. This is a heavier season right now just because the membership has just grown so much, but I'd like that to be 30 to 40% max of my time being client delivery or managing and running programs. Jay Clouse36:23 Because if I hear this, and I'm not advocating for this, I'm just like playing here. If I hear everything you've just said, there's a case to be said like, well, if you're at capacity for services, why not raise your services prices? Or similarly, like, okay, if you have a, a cap on your membership. What would an increase of 50 people on that cap do? Would that allow you to invest more in video? Is that worth, worth doing? And I'm sure you thought about it, so talk to me about that. Jessica Lackey36:47 So I'm looking at, you know, they always say you should never be in your clients' pockets, but I'm actually in my clients' pockets in the sense of I look at what money they're making. I'm like, all right, if you— most, you know, services businesses or creative businesses, Take your revenue, half that's going in your pocket, 20% of that's going to taxes, a third of that's your operating expense. I know what that operating expense number should be. I have a pretty strong point of view on how much of that operating expense I should be, especially if I wanna work with you in the long term. So, you know, there are a lot of programs that say, okay, for, we're gonna work with you for 3 months, or some programs, I saw one recently was like, it's a 5-day intensive for like $30,000\. I'm like, That's some of my clients' entire operating expense budget for the entire year. Jay Clouse37:39 Oh. Jessica Lackey37:40 And so my whole philosophy is about this stuff takes time. So what's a price point that at your business level, based on kind of the revenue you come in at for some of these programs, that you can sustain without feeling like your business can't cash flow you what you need? Like, I can't be ethically in a position where you're gonna pay me money, which means you can't pay yourself. I know where my fees need to live in someone's ongoing budget line, at least at the, the cohort and the, the one-on-one pricing. The membership is just, it's so low because so many people have been burned by high-priced programs or memberships where they were lost in a crowd. And I just wanna be the antithesis of that. But I wanna be in people's pockets in the sense of I'm putting my prices where I think that your business can absorb it without keeping you from doing the other investments that you need. Jay Clouse38:34 Yeah, I like this approach. I feel like it's especially timely right now. I serve a prosumer, as do you, and I'm seeing that I'm getting more reports from my customers that they're struggling because their customers are struggling. And so it feels like this is a particularly difficult time to not be pretty cognizant of what people are able to spend at all levels of the spectrum. I think that's always been true when you're working with someone on a fixed income, but even now, folks who are, certain people who aren't on a fixed income, that increasingly seems to be something to think about. So I had Liz Wilcox on the show recently, and she has this $9 per month membership, which I've just never seen something that's not just a, like a premium newsletter succeed or be built in the way she's doing. But it's a really compelling conversation and it's really got me thinking about different models and price points and meeting people where they are. So I love what you're saying about this, and I think it's a very ethical and smart approach for somebody who's saying, I want a high percentage of my overall audience to stay working with me over the long term. Jay Clouse39:36 Because this is also something that's awkward with memberships. People who join your membership tend to be some of your biggest fans and supporters. But most relationships are designed to end at some point. So like, it's a weird mechanism to be like, all of my best and like closest people are gonna end up here. And at some point they're going to break off that relationship. And that's just a bummer. They don't wanna do it. You don't want them to do it. Jay Clouse40:03 You understand why they're doing it, but it's just weird. Jessica Lackey40:05 Well, I think this one is, for me, 2 things. One, it was really funny when I did my big Prices Going Up launch, I had people from, I had past clients and past cohort participants join the membership because again, it's a, a lot of the focus is about the habits, the practices, the rituals and things like that. I had someone who bought for me in my very first planning retreat in 2022, came back and bought. So it was very much like a Jessica, this is your life moment of, I recognized 50% of the names that bought. I just never haven't given them a reason to buy anything for me before that wasn't a compelling reason. to be in my world. Again, like, because this is small, you know, I had people say like, I'm getting a job, I'm leaving the membership, but kudos to everything that you're doing. I've had a lot of people go get jobs this year and say, I love you and I wanna support you and I'm not in business anymore, so can you pause my subscription? I also, this is probably again anti-best practice because most of the things I do are anti what most people would do for best practices, but I think a really strong retention play for me is I handle my own inbox. Jessica Lackey41:17 I handle all my customer support. So when people's credit cards fails, I'm the one saying, hey, your credit card failed. By the way, how's XYZ? How's the move? How's this? You know, let me know. That's a level of when you're at that kind of scale, when you have to be at that kind of scale to make the money work, You know, it's usually handed off to somebody else. I have the time because I'm not doing so much marketing. I can do a fair amount of like inbox management. So again, I'm playing trade-offs to say, what can I do to make this an amazing customer experience so that I don't have to have so much top of funnel? Like I've, the math works for my business. I've been a stickler about that for since I started. Jessica Lackey41:57 You know, it's been $300K for the past 3 years with, a little 250 under that, but the total percentage of what has made that up, the composition has completely shifted. So I've been straddling 2 or 3 business models for 3 years now saying, how can I keep the trains running for my financials in my life? Which has allowed me to really titrate up the number of people that are in my world without making it feel like anyone got lost in the shuffle. And I also built a ton of systems around this. So I worked with someone to build my onboarding system so they're getting emails. I worked with Becky, to redesign the onboarding experience so everyone really felt taken care of in the new version of the membership. Jay Clouse42:38 We've talked about your book a couple of times. Happy anniversary and happy birthday. Jessica Lackey42:41 Thank you. Jay Clouse42:43 How has the book impacted the business? Obviously, the development of the IP and the frameworks has fully permeated the business and the brand, which is great. How has the book itself as an artifact impacted the business? Jessica Lackey42:54 People buy the book 'cause it was recommended to them by a friend, and then a lot of them join the membership or they join my email list. I sold roughly 200 copies to my fans at the very beginning when I launched it a year ago. And then I put it on Amazon in November of last year because when you do a book, you have to get it, the Kindle edition is like a conversion process. And so I couldn't get that all done at the same time. I went with a custom publisher versus fully self or fully trad. So we launched in September. I had about 200 people buy it. People have been telling their friends, people have been buying copies for their friends. Jessica Lackey43:29 People have been asking me to teach on it, to talk about it. I've been giving some books away. And so it's one by one, two by two, people are discovering and buying the books. So I get about 20 to 30 sales of the book every month. And I get some people coming in, they're like, I love everything you do. I love your book. Thank you for providing a different way of building an online business. And join the membership. Jay Clouse43:53 With the time we have left, you've mentioned a couple times that one of the practices, and it's been a driver for your business, has been outreach. And in my research, I saw this line from you that I loved, which was, follow people you admire around the internet like a puppy, not a stalker. And I think you're really good at this. Like, you're really good at this. And there is like a, there's a, there's a fine, important line between the two. And so how do you teach that? I assume these 2 things go hand in hand. So I, I think a lot of people listening to this who are saying, okay, yeah, I don't wanna play the social media game. I do wanna do more of this guesting outreach, building my email list. Jay Clouse44:31 How do I do that effectively? Jessica Lackey44:32 Part of it is being just interested in other people. So the person I was following around the internet is a Lab member, and when I see their face on someone else's sales page or I hear them in another community, I'm like, Oh, they have great taste. I bet the people they're learning from and listening to are great people that I can learn from. What you do is then it's basically the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon map. Jay Clouse44:56 Mm-hmm. Jessica Lackey44:56 What I found when I started was that there was these internet silos. There was the YouTubers, there was the Twitter people, there was the consultants, there were fan of the podcast, Paul Millard's group of people on Twitter, which is different than a different subset of people on Twitter. Like everyone has their, internet silos. And so I was like, well, who's the most interesting person saying interesting things in that section of the internet and how can I go learn from them? And at some point I started connecting dots between, oh, so-and-so knows so-and-so and so-and-so knows so-and-so because you're interested in what they have to say. That's where all these, the visibility opportunities. I mean, you know, we heard about this from Chanel when she was at the Craft and Commerce a couple of years ago, where even behind the viral social media growth of all the LinkedIn people and all the Twitter people was the fact that they had a little pod. Not an engagement pod in the spammy, let me just like, you know, comment on your stuff for reach. Jay Clouse45:50 Or in some cases, yes. Jessica Lackey45:52 Yes, but these people were a peer group that promoted each other. So how can you find and lock arms with some of the collaborators and peers in your space and really help you grow as a cohort instead of trying to go on your own? And you only get those friendships by actually being friends with people. And you don't be friends with people by saying, can I go on your show? You make friends with people by saying, how can I support you in your goals? What do you care about? What are you interested in? How can I be of service to you? How can I— quoting one of my favorite people, Mo Bunnell— how can you give to get? But it's not about being transactional. It's about truly, how can I be of deep service, recognizing that what flows out will flow back in some form, be it revenue, be it followers, be it karma, just be it being a good person. And I think that that has been the underlying tree of it all, right? Like, I'm coming to Columbus, I'm organizing brunch. I don't have to do those things, but I do it because I— those are the relationships that are going to carry my business. And you're all people that I deeply actually care about and want to support you in whatever way I can. Jay Clouse47:06 And to take it a step further, a lot of times it's not, what can I do to support you? It's, I know what I can do to support you, and I'm just gonna start doing it. Because people notice at every scale. People notice. Jessica Lackey47:16 People notice. If you want to make friends with someone that's a creator that's, you know, maybe a little more advanced than you, or someone that's more established than you, repost their stuff. Tell them that you like their work, buy their programs. And again, you're not trying to buy their friendship. But you are saying, I'm invested in you and I'm gonna use what I can to make this relationship flourish. That is the unscalable work that people say don't scale. And I say it actually does scale as long as you don't need hypergrowth, you need linear growth. Jay Clouse47:56 If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and letting me know. Those reviews go a long way to help us grow the show. do read every single one. I appreciate them. Thank you, thank you, thank you if you've already taken the time to do that. If you want to learn more about Jessica, visit her website or pick up her book, Leaving the Casino, at deeperfoundations.com. There are links to both in the show notes. Thank you for listening. Jay Clouse48:18 I'll talk to you next week. Jessica Lackey