233 - Is NOW the right time to diversify?

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an un-boring business coaching program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show. Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Very important, very, very, very important topic. Just happened before hitting record. So we are going to continue it as we record.

[00:00:47] Caroline: It's a great preamble topic.

[00:00:48] Jason: This may be very, maybe not regional, but very US specific for sure. But very like grocery store specific as well.

[00:00:55] Caroline: We apologize to our international listeners.

[00:00:57] Jason: Is that we were just talking about... who remembers...? First of all, it's Entenmanns is the name, but we all pronounce it Entamins. 

[00:01:05] Caroline: Entamins.

[00:01:06] Jason: Entamins. And this was the... the box of pastries. Now, it had like a little clear see through on the front so you could like see what was in it. Now, you thought you remembered it as doughnuts, but then when you looked it up, you were like, no, I don't think this is it. I... I only ever remember it as the raspberry Danish.

[00:01:24] Caroline: Well, once you told me the raspberry Danish, I looked at the photos and I was like, I... that I vaguely remember. It's the clear, like, plastic see through.

[00:01:31] Jason: That you can see through.

[00:01:33] Caroline: And also, don't you think it's so funny now living in Europe and pastry culture is so big over here.

[00:01:39] Jason: Yeah.

[00:01:39] Caroline: And like, picturing this, like American, quote unquote, pastry is like, so sad.

[00:01:45] Jason: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's a box.

[00:01:48] Caroline: This is a flaky something.

[00:01:49] Jason: I do remember getting this Danish twist and I... I can't imagine now eating it in 2025 and it being at all edible or delicious because I can't imagine what's in it.

[00:02:00] Caroline: No, but it then it had me thinking that we should just kick off the episode with nostalgic baked goods from our childhood because this took me on like a little memory lane.

[00:02:09] Jason: Where did you go? 

[00:02:10] Caroline: Besides the donuts? 

[00:02:11] Jason: I pictured exactly. No, no, the donuts. I pictured exactly what you were trying to describe, but I couldn't remember what they were called or who made them.

[00:02:18] Caroline: Right. Look it up. And it is Entenmann's, but they are called...

[00:02:21] Jason: Hostess donuts. 

[00:02:23] Caroline: No, no. That's not what I was talking about. I wasn't talking about the donuts for Hostess. No. 

[00:02:27] Jason: Okay.

[00:02:28] Caroline: But now I'm realizing. So the donuts were Hostess?

[00:02:31] Jason: Yes.

[00:02:31] Caroline: Okay. That's not what I was thinking of.

[00:02:33] Jason: But okay, can you just...? 

[00:02:34] Caroline: Wait, hold on. I was thinking of the Entenmann's white powdered donuts, but I just looked up the fit the photos and they called them poppettes.

[00:02:41] Jason: Yeah.

[00:02:41] Caroline: So they just tried to rip off donuts or did donuts rip off poppets?

[00:02:46] Jason: I think. Yeah. But I also think in your brain and anybody who grew up in our time, you were thinking of the plastic sleeve of white donuts. 

[00:02:53] Caroline: No, but...

[00:02:54] Jason: This is all we ever ate.

[00:02:55] Caroline: Buddy.

[00:02:56] Jason: As children.

[00:02:56] Caroline: Saying we... we were not the same children.

[00:02:58] Jason: We were the same children. We were all.

[00:03:00] Caroline: In fact, we were quite... the age gap is well documented. I was living a different childhood.

[00:03:04] Jason: We are all children of mother nature who eat these donuts.

[00:03:07] Caroline: That is true. Do not project your Hostess donuts onto me. We were an Entenmann's family.

[00:03:13] Jason: Couldn't have told you the name of these things. I just know that.

[00:03:16] Caroline: I also one of... this... we didn't get this a lot in the house, but I knew when like my mom got paid because she would come home with a Publix coffee cake.

[00:03:25] Jason: Okay.

[00:03:25] Caroline: And have that on the counter for a couple days. She would eat that little slice of that with her coffee in the morning, which was, by the way, all creamer, very little coffee.

[00:03:34] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:35] Caroline: Even at a small age, I remember watching my mom make her coffee and like the color of the coffee would become just like so light, light, light, light tan. And I'm like...

[00:03:44] Jason: I have two, I have two questions for the listeners. You can answer these via email to us. Leave a comment on Spotify if you listen on Spotify. Number one, does anyone have a mom who had coffee that wasn't...

[00:03:57] Caroline: Light tan.

[00:03:57] Jason: Tan in color?

[00:03:58] Caroline: Yeah. Coffee Mate was...

[00:03:59] Jason: Black coffee. I don't think it was possible. That's the first question. Second question. What was the pastry item of choice that your family gravitated toward or you like, you gravitated towards like...?

[00:04:10] Caroline: The coffee cake in that case?

[00:04:11] Jason: Is that like the number one? And like when you think like, I'm going to the grocery store.

[00:04:15] Caroline: We definitely went through like a Dunkin Donuts phase where... And again this...

[00:04:17] Jason: But I'm saying grocery store.

[00:04:19] Caroline: Grocery store. Coffee cake for sure.

[00:04:20] Jason: Is the coffee cake. Yeah. For my family, and I think it was just me, was lemon poppy seed muffins. This Is like...

[00:04:25] Caroline: I didn't know that was a childhood thing.

[00:04:27] Jason: Oh, yeah, 100%, my guy. With the crunchy sugar on top.

[00:04:30] Caroline: Yeah, no, we did get the... my mom went through a phase of the mini muffins. The mini lemon poppy seeds.

[00:04:35] Jason: Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[00:04:36] Caroline: Or sometimes the orange. Did you ever get those?

[00:04:38] Jason: No.

[00:04:38] Caroline: We love those little orange poppy seed muffins.

[00:04:40] Jason: We just stayed... stayed on poppy seed. Also, one thing that you did not like about me when our relationship started involving the grocery store, can you remember what it is? 

[00:04:49] Caroline: That you open things in the grocery store and eat them and then you pay for them at checkout. And I still think it is absolutely serial killer behavior. And I'm embarrassed to be seen with you. I'm...

[00:05:00] Jason: I'm gonna pay for it.

[00:05:01] Caroline: I'm a 37 year old woman and I have never distanced myself like quicker from you when you do that. And I'm like, I am not with him.

[00:05:09] Jason: Sometimes you just want that thing right now.

[00:05:11] Caroline: Who the hell gave you the right? Who? What are you doing?

[00:05:14] Jason: I'm going to pay for it.

[00:05:16] Caroline: Okay, I really. Hold on. We need to dig into this. Where did you see this done that you thought that was okay?

[00:05:21] Jason: I don't think I saw it done anywhere. I think I just was a rebellious child who logically, who logically would like go into the grocery store and be like, I am going to eat this at some point and I'm going to pay for it. Why not eat it now and...?

[00:05:33] Caroline: Forget every personality test you've ever done in your life. This is a litmus test for what kind of person you are. And like, honestly, I'm grateful that I married you because, great, one of us needs to be rebellious and push, push the envelope. But the fact that nobody gave you permission to do that and you just decided to do it is beyond my comprehension.

[00:05:52] Jason: But it logically makes sense.

[00:05:53] Caroline: No, you're gonna get arrested. 

[00:05:56] Jason: I'm gonna pay for it.

[00:05:56] Caroline: In my mind, like, how dare you? You're going to get arrested.

[00:06:00] Jason: Can I tell you something though that I used to do? Was I used to get like rolls or like, you know, like the bakery section.

[00:06:05] Caroline: I'm getting hot just thinking about...

[00:06:06] Jason: You can grab like a little like fresh baked roll. I mean it's probably baked, you know, like yesterday or whatever, but like you can like grab with like a little parchment.

[00:06:12] Caroline: Yeah, yeah.

[00:06:13] Jason: Sometimes like I would get a croissant from there.

[00:06:15] Caroline: And eat the whole thing?

[00:06:16] Jason: And I would eat the whole thing and I would forget to tell them on the way out. But that was very rare.

[00:06:20] Caroline: Buddy. 

[00:06:21] Jason: But I just want you to know. I'm atoning for my sins.

[00:06:23] Caroline: I don't think you're actually sorry. And actually, that is really taking advantage of the system.

[00:06:27] Jason: But most... but I will say most of what I did was I opened packaged goods, so I still had the box with me.

[00:06:33] Caroline: I was on board with you when you said... 

[00:06:35] Jason: I was just... That was a vulnerable moment I was sharing about my croissant thievery.

[00:06:40] Caroline: Unfortunately, that vulnerable moment has been met with the correct response, which is that's bad. Don't do that. 

[00:06:44] Jason: I owe Safeway approximately $13.

[00:06:48] Caroline: You were shopping at Safeway?

[00:06:49] Jason: Oh, I don't know. I was just saying. It wasn't Publix when I was a kid, so I think it was probably Safeway. 

[00:06:53] Caroline: Again. I forget we lived in different places and we don't have the same grocery store memories.

[00:06:56] Jason: All right, seven minutes into this, let's roll into the actual topic here.

[00:07:00] Caroline: That was a great... Also, I did not like toaster strudels. I'm just gonna say that.

[00:07:03] Jason: Oh, I'm not a big toaster strudel fan either. Pop tarts all the way.

[00:07:05] Caroline: What do you think it was?

[00:07:06] Jason: I think they just really tasted too fake and too sweet. The icing was way too sweet. 

[00:07:11] Caroline: Yeah, I didn't like that. 

[00:07:13] Jason: Last episode, we didn't give any business updates. We had talked about we were going to do, like, our business updates beforehand.

[00:07:18] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:07:19] Jason: But I kind of feel like we're recording these how the sausage is made very close together. So I don't think we have any business updates to give, but I wanted to keep it top of mind.

[00:07:27] Caroline: I have a business update.

[00:07:28] Jason: Oh, okay. Great.

[00:07:28] Caroline: We did. We kicked off the year with a new coaching format.

[00:07:32] Jason: Yes.

[00:07:33] Caroline: Called Unsolved Business Bites. And this is where we take way more businesses and we help them solve very specific problems in their business. So just to give you an idea, one person really wanted help with their sales page copy. One person wanted help with their email funnel. One person wanted help just choosing they're coming back to their business after a break and wanted to choose what offer to focus on that made sense for them. And the last person was looking for some homepage strategy, like, what should I highlight on my homepage? And we were able to give really specific recommendations to all four of those people in their specific businesses. And I think that this format went really well. We were testing it out for the first three months of the year, and it was really fun. We call it Unsolved Businesses because we like to just add a fun theme to things. So if you remember Unsolved Mysteries, it's trench coats, it's detective. Jason uses, like, legal jargon and like crime, true crime jargon throughout for no reason. Like, just has no, like, through line in terms of the metaphor being consistent whatsoever. But he just loves to use the terminology.

[00:08:34] Jason: Yeah.

[00:08:34] Caroline: And it went off really great.

[00:08:36] Jason: You probably didn't even notice. I put a poll in our WAIM members... Oh. Did you look at the results?

[00:08:41] Caroline: I didn't look at the results.

[00:08:43] Jason: 76% of people said, yes, I loved it. Please do more of these.

[00:08:45] Caroline: Cool.

[00:08:46] Jason: 20% of people said it was pretty good. I'd like to see another one.

[00:08:49] Caroline: Okay.

[00:08:49] Jason: So basically we're at like 96% approval of this. And then I think there were two people that said, it was okay. It didn't help me much.

[00:08:56] Caroline: Right, right, right.

[00:08:57] Jason: But no one said, I wasn't a fan. So that's good.

[00:09:00] Caroline: That's great. So I think, yeah, we're gonna continue the experiment. We're gonna do it February and March. But just a reminder to experiment in your business. Try different things.

[00:09:11] Jason: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:09:12] Caroline: Switch it up.

[00:09:13] Jason: From the Teachery side of things, I can't remember where we are in the timeline of all of this, but I did find a new developer on Upwork. He has started working on a couple small features, which is really great. I have been using Lovable, which we've talked about a couple times, to create prototypes of Teachery interfaces.

[00:09:30] Caroline: The amount of things that you have been able to improve in the short amount of time is bananas.

[00:09:37] Jason: Yeah. What I'm really curious about is how this developer will take those prototype pages because I told him, I was like, hey, we can like pull the... I'm not going to get too into the weeds with it, but, like, we can get the code from the prototype if it would help him, but it's not perfect code. And he was like, I'll just look at it and reference it and, like, use what we have in the UI. So I'm really hopeful. He's starting with the Teachery referrals page, which I'm actually really excited because, like, that's creating better tables in Teachery. Searchable tables, sortable tables. So this is going to help with, like, customer management stuff. But yeah, lots of little kind of things moving along the way. And then our email provider stuff should be done this week, adding MailerLite and Flodesk. And then the landing page builder continues to be quite a beast, but is on the way.

[00:10:18] Caroline: You're doing a great job with Teachery.

[00:10:20] Jason: Wonderful Oh, I do have, like a little inside baseball thing I just want to share with anybody. If you ever email a software platform and you're like, hey, are you guys going to add this feature? And they say, we'll consider it and add it to our roadmap. Just so you all know, that's a hard no. That's a tactic that we all use in the software world to say, no, we're not going to do that. But it's a nice way of putting it. The reason why I'm bringing that up is because I emailed the platform that we use. It's like a little widget editor in Teachery.

[00:10:44] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:10:44] Jason: And I asked if they have on their roadmap, they're going to do a Notion block style thing.

[00:10:48] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:10:48] Jason: And they're like, oh, we'll consider this. We'll put it on the roadmap. And so I wrote back, I was like, that's a no. Thank you so much. I appreciate you being honest. So, anyway. All right, let's get into this... this topic here. We don't want to pratt along too long about this situation, but obviously the TikTok ban, or lack thereof, or impending ban or wherever this is in the state of things.

[00:11:07] Caroline: Let me set it up because you, you're not even on TikTok, but let me, let me set it up for you. I told Jason this has been very top of mind for me because, you know, as we're recording this, obviously TikTok, the TikTok ban did not go into effect. There was the, the momentary less than a day lapse. Um, but because I'm the one who spends a little bit of time on TikTok, I told Jason it was very fascinating to watch, like the week before this sort of impending deadline coming up and all of these creators I would see come across my for you page that were kind of like, you know, it's been great, guys, but like, very sad in terms of, like, I've put all this work into building my audience the past five years and to think that it's just gonna all be gone, you know, in three days or whatever, like, really makes me sad. Thanks for the memories. Like, kind of. It was very. It was just like watching, like a sinking ship. It was very strange. But it, as a business coach, I found myself over and over again feeling like, man, I wish someone could go back in time and tell some of these creators, yes, if TikTok is working for you, definitely focus on that platform. But you have to diversify a little bit to avoid this exact thing happening. Now, we all know that we, you know, TikTok did not go away, and who knows what the future of that platform is. And we're not going to get into all the political, like, back and forth and hoopla. But I think what we're all seeing now is that these platforms, these social platforms have way more control and sort of like power than maybe we even all gave them credit for. And at any moment, the rug could get pulled out from underneath you. And so you need to be nimble as a creator. And so it brought up this dilemma that this conversation Jason and I had that I was like, let's bring it to the podcast where we talk about what is the value of kind of going deep on a platform and going all in on a platform and focusing versus making sure that you're diversifying so that you are not at risk at losing your entire audience with one decision of a politician, a platform, et cetera.

[00:13:10] Jason: Yeah. And I think that, like a very apropos metaphor slash analogy here is just like investing money. It's like you wouldn't just put all of your money into a single stock.

[00:13:21] Caroline: Right.

[00:13:21] Jason: And it's like, because there's so much out of your control when you do that, so it's like, why you diversify your portfolio and blah, blah, blah. And those are all the things we all know. And I do think this is very similar for running a business online, where it is helpful to ride the waves of some of these platforms that get traction and where people's attention goes, you know. Like, I think it's very clear if you're trying to use the strategies of 2015 right now on Instagram, you're going to fail. Like, it's just not going to work and you have to be adaptable and you have to change those things. But I think the, the big thing that we always come back to is, like, email lists seem like the safest thing that you have the most control over. And I do want to give credit to Eman, who has her own email list. And we've been on her podcast. She's a WAIM member. She talked about this recently that she does a monthly download of her email list. She was like, when I started seeing, like, even the rumors of a TikTok ban, it just like all the alarm bells went off in my head of like, oh, ConvertKit, Kit, could go away tomorrow and if I don't download my email list, I can't take it anywhere. Like, they could just disappear. And I was like, oh, that's actually a really smart thing of just like, once a month, set a recurring calendar, download the zip file. You don't have to do anything with it.

[00:14:31] Caroline: Yeah, I think that's... 

[00:14:32] Jason: But if for some reason that went away and that's like your most important asset, and for us it is. So I've now put a recurring calendar reminder on my calendar to do this task. And I give her credit for thinking of this. And I think these are the things that it's like, as a business owner, we know that you listening to this, like, you have very limited time. And so, you know, you, you want to put time into the best marketing, you know, tactic that is going to work the most for you. But you also are like, but should I like be doing all these other things? And so I think with this episode we want to kind of explore when do you just focus on the one? When do you focus on diversifying? Like, at what stage do you try to get all of your attention that's on social media platforms into something else so that if they go away or change, they're not just gone?

[00:15:13] Caroline: Yeah. It's so interesting hearing you just say that about the downloading of the list thing. It's like, again, it comes back to this idea of, I think we can all feel that especially with this moment in time, with the introduction of AI into our daily lives, we're entering a new era. And the previous era, I would have said, no doubt that email platforms are like the most stable. Right. I would say, like, there's no world in which I can imagine the rug getting pulled out from under you from an email platform. Like, that just wouldn't happen. But hearing you just say that right then, I'm realizing that nothing is guaranteed now, truly, like, we are entering and this is not. By the way, please do not hear me say this in like, I'm not fear mongering. I'm not trying to like contribute to the, the noise of like, oh, like everything's so scary and unstable and uncertain. Like, there's plenty of that out there. And I don't like to lean too hard into like the fear side of the uncertainty. But I do think it is just worth noting that things are not as they once were and you can't take things for granted. And these, if anything, like, platforms and big players are changing more rapidly than ever. And so going back to what you said, it just behooves creators to be nimble, to be thinking about risk, a little bit of like managing risk in terms of platform risk and things like that, and not to be overly obsessed with any of these things. But I just think on a strategic level, if I had to recommend something to someone, I would say, yes, focus is a very powerful tool. And especially when you're getting started, I think picking one platform is really smart because you. That that learning curve is like exponential. Cause you're just, you're constantly finding the ins and outs of that algorithm and whether it's TikTok, whether it's Instagram, whether it's YouTube, Pinterest, whatever. So it's like, dive in deep, learn that thing. But always think in the back of your head. Well, actually, I would say even from the get go, I would actually diversify to an email list right out of the gate. So one maybe like find social platform and then an email list right out of the gate. And that way you know that like your, your risk is mitigated from the get go. But I think focus is really good until you get your feet under you a little bit. And then as soon as you have the bandwidth, I think expanding is smart. What do you think about that? I was going to go through all the pros and cons, but I think we know the pros and cons of focusing versus diversifying.

[00:17:40] Jason: I think we know the pros and cons. Also, if you want to go back to episode 225, we talked about our top five marketing tactics to use in 2025. And basically what we talked about in that episode was no matter what you do, I think you chose Instagram as your number one and I chose YouTube as my number one. Or maybe I chose email list. But no matter what, like, even if we chose Instagram or we chose YouTube, it was to get people to an email list.

[00:18:04] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:18:04] Jason: So it's like, I really, I think this is a moment in time for everybody who puts a lot of effort and stock into these platforms, is that you have to take that attention from that platform to something that you have somewhat more control over and know that you're going to get an extremely small percentage of people to move over. So like, let's say you have 10,000 Instagram followers. You might only have an email list of 100 people or 200 people, but guess what? That's an email list that like, no one's going to really be able to rip out from under you at a moment's notice. And there's really no algorithm change in emails like we saw...

[00:18:35] Caroline: That's. I was just about to say. Here's a weird thought. Do you think that email will ever have some type of algorithm introduced?

[00:18:43] Jason: Well, we saw it we saw it a couple years ago. So when Apple introduced a ton more security into their like Mail app, it shifted email sender things. This is what broke email open rates quote unquote... like...

[00:18:57] Caroline: Right. And I do remember like probably 10 years ago, remember when Google introduced the promotions tab?

[00:19:02] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:19:04] Caroline: That's another example.

[00:19:04] Jason: That's another example. And then also the, I think it was like two years ago now the whole like authenticating your domain thing that like everybody had to like get up on because the, the Yahoo, Gmail, like all these changes. Like they're all, these are all changes that happen to email but they are not as drastic as like it can all go away or it changes an algorithm. And like everyone who's on Instagram now knows a small...

[00:19:27] Caroline: Nobody even sees your stuff. I know, I was just thinking that, I was like, well the one thing about email is that the premise of it is one to one communication. And so the promise of email becomes broken if suddenly an algorithm gets introduced where you're not seeing every message that comes to you. I mean I understand some of these things have already been implemented with that. But yeah, I was thinking to myself, I was like, well why is it that we think email is like the thing for you to try to siphon people to? And I think it's like you said, it's just because it is less likely to be at the mercy of an algorithm and because it's, it's the last frontier where you can, you know, almost guarantee that if somebody has opted in to see your information that they will see your information. Like all of these social platforms are no longer operating that way. Someone can follow you and then they can never see your content because of the algorithm.

[00:20:20] Jason: I think the reality is like you, you see it across all platforms. So someone has a hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. It's maybe at a maximum 10% of their subscribers get fed their videos. On Instagram, it's like you have 10,000 followers on Instagram. It's like less than 1% get fed your content. Right? An email newsletter, your email list, I mean a good email list is like 30% to 40% of people open it and see it. And so it's like your chances are just so much higher for people to see your content consistently. I think one of the questions that we have not really like talked a lot about or thought about and it came up in that episode 225 was like, where does Substack fit in in this? And I think if I was giving someone the advice as two people who literally have not even started a Substack or used it, I would probably say like, if I'm starting today, I'm building my email list on Substack. I'm not using a closed off network, email network that is like Mailchimp, Flodesk, et cetera. I'm using Kit, I'm using Squarespace. I'm using... Or not Squarespace, Substack. I'm using Beehiiv. Any of the ones that have a recommendation engine built in.

[00:21:23] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:21:23] Jason: Because there is a chance that you will grow with that platform. Now there is a big argument and I've seen a lot of conversations of people who say that like the recommended followers that you get because it's so easy for someone to subscribe, they're not a great follower.

[00:21:36] Caroline: Sure.

[00:21:37] Jason: But the reality is, is that you are growing an audience faster than you could just by starting a Mailchimp list, let's say, and like trying to get people to sign up for it.

[00:21:45] Caroline: Yeah. And I think that there's also an incremental benefit. I mean, I hate to admit this, but it's just the truth of psychology. Let's say that through the recommendation engine you have a faster growth rate for your subscriber, your email subscribers. That number climbs. On all of your forms, you can say, hey, join 12,000 subscribers. Join 13,000 subscribers. There's a social proof element to attracting quality subscribers using that number. So it's like even if you have, let's say, a striation of a low quality subscriber who's just maybe cursory interested in your stuff and came to you through a recommendation, people who came directly to your website are super interested in your stuff. It's like they all have a place in contributing to that overall subscriber count that I think does serve to be attractive to people who are actually interested in your stuff.

[00:22:30] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the really interesting parts of this conversation, and I don't know, maybe we sound really old, but I think our audience is like our age. So I think they probably is like email lists feel safer to us and a TikTok account and an Instagram account and even like a YouTube channel, like these things feel super fragile to me at the moment, where there's just so much that's out of your control. And so it's like, where do I want to put my attention and effort? It's in the thing I have the most control over.

[00:22:57] Caroline: Yeah. And I think, as you were just describing that, I think it's interesting because email as a platform feels like, the most calm. Right. And so it's like, we are in the interest of creating calm creator businesses. And I think when I think of calm, I think of something that is not changing at the whim every second. That isn't chaotic, that isn't complex. And that's what algorithms are. They're changing all the time, staying up to date on all of the newest features. And what are platforms prioritizing? It's like, oh, we're prioritizing short video. Okay, now we're prioritizing longer videos. Now we want you to. Now it's... The first 10 seconds is important. Now it's not important at all. It's like, that doesn't feel calm to me, being at the whim of these platforms. Yes. Jason and I are committed to, like, staying curious enough to, like, stay up on all those things 'cause, like, you just have to stay competitive. But in general, I think we gravitate towards email because it feels calmer.

[00:23:51] Jason: Yeah, for sure. And I... I think there's, like, you can really be yourself without having to bend what you create to fit what's working on a platform. So, you know, like, I... We joked in the car the other day, we were driving, and I was like, I... I am, like, close to thinking about starting Instagram reel content, where it's just me setting up to film a reel because it's always these reels that, like, get a ton of traction, where it's like someone getting in their car and, like, setting the phone into the holder. And then they're like, all right, guys, so I've been thinking about... But, like, my whole shtick would just be just the setup. And there's never any payoff. Like, I'm never actually sharing anything. It's just me doing the setups. And because I think it's like something we all intrinsically see is like, it's rewarding the... Call it creativity, if you will, of, like, the start of that conversation hooks you in. Right. It's the classic hooks thing. 

[00:24:38] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:24:39] Jason: But, like, you don't really need hooks in email. If someone is subscribing to a thing that you're talking about consistently or a problem that you're solving.

[00:24:45] Caroline: I mean, it helps. You could argue, like, a subject line is a hook.

[00:24:48] Jason: Absolutely, 100%. But I think also if you don't have to have a hooky email list to keep someone's attention. I think the ones that are really hooky are the ones that grow the most. It's like the people you see gain a hundred thousand email subscribers in, like, six months. Yeah. They're using all the tactics and all the hooks that, like, get people in. But I would wager to say that in a year from now, probably their email list is, like, not that enthused to get their content because they don't, like, the dopamine kind of, like, runs out on that. So I don't know, I just...

[00:25:16] Caroline: There has to be something deeper there.

[00:25:17] Jason: Yeah, I just look at a lot of, like, the tactics used on social platforms. While I totally get them and I understand that they have value to grow an audience and to attract people and to do that, it's just stuff that, like, we don't want to do at all. And I think we are a little bit of, like, we're the old folks in the room now who are like, yeah, but we, we still love email, still works and...

[00:25:40] Caroline: But I think we're proof that it does, like... 

[00:25:42] Jason: Yeah.

[00:25:42] Caroline: Between our email list and our affiliate program for selling WAIM Unlimited, we are proof that, like, you can still run a very successful business without playing the algorithm games. But, you know, this goes back to our conversation at the top of the year, which is like, I still think it's smart to keep those knives sharp.

[00:26:00] Jason: Yeah.

[00:26:00] Caroline: Because I still think you have to have some level of keeping up with the times so you don't become obsolete. And... and, you know, as with everything in business, every marketing tactic that works eventually doesn't anymore. And so you always have to be a little bit keeping your eye on what is the next sort of tactic that will work for me. But yeah, I think that there's still proof that, you know, our strategy of... But even... even we are diversifying a bit. Like, even we would say, okay, don't only rely on email, you know, so it's like, yes, we're experimenting with YouTube and like I said, the affiliate program, like, we have these different ways that people come to us, and I think that goes back to the overall conversation of this entire episode, which is focus is so important. I think it's a great place to start. Go deep, learn skills, learn the algorithm of one platform, if you want that, and then as soon as you can, start diversifying to mitigate your risk.

[00:27:04] Jason: Yeah. And I... I look at Wayne Fick, who is another one of our WAIM members who we had on the podcast at the end of last year, is one of our two interviews we've ever done. And we talked a lot about his strategy that we basically helped him implement, which was start a YouTube channel, consistently upload every single week. He talks about Canva and have a lead magnet in your videos that grows your email list, and that is as diversified as Wayne is. He has an Instagram account for his Created by Wayne business, but it's very rare that he posts and he doesn't want to create content there. And I look at this as, like, to me, this is like the perfect example of a calm creator business where you do a thing consistently every week. You use it to diversify your audience and get them to a place where, like, selling via email is a lot easier than selling via YouTube. And it has worked very well for him. And you can go back and listen to that episode if you want to hear more. But I do think it's also one of those things that's like, what are your goals in your online business? And I think if you're someone who's like, listen, I just want to make a couple hundred extra bucks a month, then your amount of effort that you have to put in... I'm going to think of this as... I don't know why this came to me, but it's like, how many plates you have to hold in your hand to accomplish your goal? And it's like, you really only have to hold, like, one or two plates in your hand. It's like, pick one platform, be consistent on it, and, like, promote a thing that you're going to sell. But if you're like, I need to make a couple thousand bucks a month to, you know, have secondary income, replace income, you're gonna have to hold more plates, which means you're gonna have to do more things, you're gonna have to attract more people, which means you're gonna have to create more content. And especially if you're just getting started, it is going to take more effort, which means it's probably worth spending more time on a platform than you probably want to, because you have to get more people's attention.

[00:28:41] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:28:41] Jason: And then I think, like, there's a... What I was gonna say is, like, I think we got to the place where, like, we were holding a bunch of plates a couple years ago, and then we said, like, do we still need to be doing all these things? Like, I think we could probably do less. And, like, let's just lean on our email list and our affiliate program and see if that's enough. We shut down Instagram. We were probably, like, less serious about this podcast than we were before. We were doing video before. We're not doing video anymore. And we realized, like, oh, we can actually remove a couple of plates that we have to hold and balance and we're actually good. Like, this works for us. And so I give that like little mental model to think about of like wherever you are, you kind of know, like, how many plates am I going to have to hold and juggle based on what my goals are?

[00:29:18] Caroline: I'm glad you brought that up because I was thinking about this conversation from the perspective of expanding from like let's say one platform to then how many do you then add? But I think it's just as important to then subtract as well. It goes both ways. So it's like the diversification conversation is about expanding your platforms to mitigate your risk. But I think also there's a conversation to be had about contracting your platforms to mitigate your burnout and to just go, okay. I'm constantly in a state of reevaluating my channels at all times to hold it up against my bandwidth, to hold it up against what is really effective for me, what is a waste of my time. I don't think enough creators do that because they just assume I have to be in this place because someone told me in order to be a successful business I have to be on every platform. And you know, it's, it's God love him, but the Gary Vee's of the world who are like more and everything and do it all at once. And, and, and I get where he's coming from with that, but his goals are very different than your goals.

[00:30:20] Jason: Exactly. And we've talked about this for so long, like as a person who has like met Gary in person and like had like conversations with him, like, he's just built different.

[00:30:29] Caroline: He's built different.

[00:30:29] Jason: And he also has a bunch of different resources at his disposal that all of us don't. And I think like anybody listening to this, if you're trying to figure out like, how much content should I be creating, how much should I be doing? Like, you need to find the creators that are at the same level as you, not the ones who are at the top, who their content is being filtered down to you. So it's like everyone is seeing the Alex Hormozis. The Gary Vees, the like all these different people. What's the woman's name who...? You always show me her stuff? Her stuff does really well on YouTube. Anyway, there's a woman who like, you show me her content often.

[00:31:05] Caroline: Who's the woman you always show me?

[00:31:07] Jason: She's got like kind of curly hair. Come on.

[00:31:09] Caroline: Sunny? 

[00:31:10] Jason: Yeah, exactly. See, you know exactly what I was talking about. What's her full name?

[00:31:13] Caroline: I don't know how to pronounce her last name.

[00:31:14] Jason: Okay, so Sunny.

[00:31:16] Caroline: L, I think, is her last name. 

[00:31:17] Jason: Anyway, her stuff comes up a lot. But it's also like, that person has a full team. Like, all these people have full teams. All these people have so many resources. And my point here is that if you keep looking to these types of examples and following the tactics that they're doing, you don't have the same...

[00:31:32] Caroline: Resources.

[00:31:33] Jason: Resources at your disposal. And so I think it's better to find people who are doing things like you want to be doing and emulating them. I'm not saying that's necessarily us for you listening to this, but I'm just saying find an example of someone. Like, okay, I found this creator on Instagram. I love it. They post like three times per week. That feels super doable to me. They send out an email every week on Substack. Great, I want to use Substack. I'm curious. They do have a website. I think websites are something people are like. Like, oh, I don't know if I need a website anymore. Like, I still think you need a website even with algorithms changing in Google, you know, search results not bringing a lot of organic traffic these days. And we have a whole other conversation to have about that topic. But I think, like, seeing what creators of your level or where you want to be are doing and following that strategy is so much more important now than ever because there is so much noise to... You've got to be creating now, like three TikToks a day or whatever. And it's just not sustainable for a lot of people.

[00:32:27] Caroline: For sure. So I think, I think just to wrap it up and go back to the beginning of this conversation, if you are someone right now who is going very deep on one platform, my biggest piece of advice to you is just to... If you've been putting off starting an email list, if you've been putting off diversifying, I would start to think about what it looks like to at least have that plan in place. Right? To... to.... because the longer you wait, the... the greater that risk becomes. So if that's you, start thinking about how you can diversify. If you're at the other end of the spectrum and you are someone who is maximum diversification. You are on all the platforms, you're starting to feel stretched thin. Nothing is really popping. I would start asking yourself, do I need all these plates? Do I need to be carrying all these plates? What do I...? What do I enjoy the most? What do I think is bringing me the deepest connection to my audience? And maybe look how you can trim some of those channels to add more focus. So I think it all comes down to balance and what you're aiming for is somewhere in the middle. You want enough platforms that you feel like your risk is a little bit mitigated, but not so many platforms that you are just completely stretched thin for resources.

[00:33:40] Jason: Sunny Lenarduzzi.

[00:33:41] Caroline: Lenarduzzi. 

[00:33:43] Jason: Just want to get that right because we want to appreciate, you know, people's names. Yeah, I think you're totally right in that. And I do think the reality is that if you are just getting started, it is going to feel harder and more effortful and things feel a little bit easier for us. But even for us, six years into running this business now, in our seventh year, really, it's... we are still looking at, well, should we be spending time on these platforms? So it's like that never goes away. 

[00:34:08] Caroline: Never goes away.

[00:34:10] Jason: Because what, what works two to three years ago now doesn't work as it does today. And so I think what has changed drastically for us in our time as being entrepreneurs is like, what could last you five plus years doesn't last that long anymore. So you have to be doing new marketing tactics and you just have to be open to this. Like, I think that's one of the biggest things that we try and talk about all the time is just like this idea of experimentation and this idea of just trying new things as they pop up. And listen, whether you like creating TikTok content or not, it could be worth it if you're like, listen, all my other marketing channels have dried up. Maybe I just need to try this and find a way that works for me that I can do this. It's not like absolutely terrible. And see if it works for you and if it doesn't, great, then go move on to something else. But I think that's the key to, to all of having a successful business in 2025 is being adaptable, being willing to experiment and then not putting all your chips into one platform that could go away.

[00:35:01] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:35:02] Jason: From this whole TikTok.

[00:35:03] Caroline: Like I said, I really believe that, this next decade, platforms are only going to become more changeable and... 

[00:35:11] Jason: And riskier.

[00:35:12] Caroline: And riskier as we go along just because things are changing so rapidly and, and you know, these new features are creating competition like never before. And so, yeah, you, you have to be even more adaptable than before. But there's a way, and I hope that that's what this podcast can be for you. I think there's a way to ride the wave of that new era while still maintaining a sense of calm, while still maintaining a sense of control, not being, you know, thrown around to the whims of every platform. And that's. That's what we hope this show is for you, is that you can always listen to us and kind of come back to center and go, yeah, I'm just. I'm going to balance that idea of openness and curiosity, but I'm not going to let it have me spinning my wheels with uncertainty and fear of, like, I'm going to lose everything if I don't diversify. It's just... I don't believe in that. So that's what we hope to be is just kind of like a little even keeled, nuanced voice in the space of like...

[00:36:10] Jason: Yeah, the chaos of social media marketing. All right, most important thing, we need to know what your pastry of choice was in the grocery store. So if you're on Spotify, please leave that as a comment on this episode. Nothing else that we said in the past 30 some odd minutes matters. That's the most important thing. And then also, yeah, start an email list.

[00:36:27] Caroline: You know, I just remember when I was like, those donuts, they're called something.

[00:36:31] Jason: Yeah.

[00:36:31] Caroline: It just came to me and I don't think this is right, but I think I'm close. There was, like a specific type of gas station white powdered donut that was called like Sweet 16s or something like that.

[00:36:40] Jason: I think you're thinking of the Hostess donuts, my guy. Those are the ones that were in the gas station in the plastic package. All right, we're going to take this discussion offline because we've already spent too much of your time talking about it. 

[00:36:49] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:36:49] Jason: We love your faces. We'll be back next week. Bye.

[00:36:51] Caroline: Thanks for listening.