The Invisible Sales Force: How Substack Builds Trust and Grows Your Business with Melanie Benson

Thank you. Thanks for inviting me to go deeper into this topic. I mean, we could jam on so many things, right? Every time we get together, we're like, "Oh my gosh, all the things! So I'm looking forward to seeing where our conversation goes today. Me

too. And again, it came up because within side of MetaMind, you know, we're always looking at how do we make a bigger impact, how do we make a greater income, and especially now in the age of AI and technology, we know that the answer is about community, and we want not a stagnant community, but an engaged community of people. That's a line community, and I'm excited to to hear about Substack in particular because this kept coming up, and they're like, "Well, who's the experts out there? And right now, you're the kind of the pioneer, like you were in podcast. Now, now with Substack,

thank you. Well, I mean, I I don't know that I'm the pioneer in Substack, but I think the angle, the the way in which I'm seeing Substack, I'm kind of claiming my leadership around. And I think as entrepreneurs who have wisdom and depth and expertise, that platform provides a unique opportunity for us to, as I say, kind of claim our leadership conversation and get discovered before it's saturated, and you know, it's like there's so many people that it's hard to stand out.

Well, I think that's a big part of it: being able to stand out in a with so much noise and social media and everything else. I'm just curious. What what do you think that draws purpose-driven leaders, particularly like us, and why does that kind of alignment matter so much now in business?

Yeah, you mean with Substack?

Yeah, about yeah, being able to create more of an aligned approach for growing our business rather than again using some of the other media platforms out there, we know some of them that have come and gone, and some that have just shifted so much. I'm just curious, like, what is it that stood out for you about Substack? For again, I see you as a leader, especially in our community in the transformation industry, and there's so many different approaches. What was about Substack that made you say, "Oh, this is really where I want to put focus and attention.

Well, I have a two-part answer to that, so bear with me. I'm going to take a step back and say, "How how did kind of Substack get on my radar this year? And I earlier this year I went to Europe, and my husband and I were gone for two weeks. And so my joke is, I went to Paris and I came home with a Substack. So instead of coming home with macarons and some kind of really beautiful French scarf, or you know whatever the thing is, we go to France and buy. I got a little distance from my business. I was really looking at some things that didn't fill line, like felt energetically heavy as I was in the early part of this year, and one of the things that felt really heavy is I became aware of how I how much I disdain disdain disdain this the performative nature of social media, constantly having to chase the algorithm, constantly looking at how to contort my death in my 26 years of experience into a two-minute clip that's really designed purely for entertainment. And when I really looked at, especially with Instagram, and you know, there's there's a lot that's changing on our industry. But I was looking at social media, and I'm like, this feels so energetically vacant for me. I just didn't have the desire. Like it didn't make me want to learn it. It made me want to repel it. And I thought there's got to be something else. And so I was having lots of conversations with some common friends of ours. One of them, Nally Ledwell, and you know we were. Kind of sharing a lot about what was going on behind the scenes for both of us, and she's like, "I'm loving Substack. Saw a couple other people that were really into Substack, and I'm like, "Okay, I thought it was just like a blogging platform, so let me look at it. And when I leaned in and I really looked at it through the lens of what I teach as an ecosystem, my mind was blown, and I realized it wasn't just another social media platform. It is a integrated publishing platform where our expertise has

multiple channels that we can bring our wisdom, our depth, our experience to a platform that's designed for discoverability and building trust, and kind of keeping people nurtured with different ways they might access our knowledge. And I've been teaching the ecosystem concept for a few years now because I started to see it in my own business how my podcast plus like being on other people's podcasts and stages like it was creating this little breadcrumb effect where people were following the breadcrumbs and learning from me until they decided to enroll, and I was like, oh my gosh, they've got it all in one place. So it really solved a problem for me. The other part of it, Mark, that I think you and I both really like. We value this because I I read your writing, and you write with depth. You know, you write with a heart and a soul and for impact. And you're not trying to contort yourself into these very tiny little clips that just get a dopamine hit out there in the world, and don't go anywhere. And I thought, wow, this culture that Subsac has built is craving depth. They love and appreciate that they can read or consume a podcast and find different reader or creators to read and consume. People love that there, and not only that. There is a culture of paying for content. You know, not everybody's going to pay, and I don't want to set the expectations well. But there is a culture that high quality content deserves to be paid for, which I-it's like a

Patreon. It's almost like you're paying your artist for their art,

right? And so, kind of, it shifts the paradigm of where I think. I mean, I could rabbit hole on this one, where I think we've created this community and this way of selling and and being visible of like free free freeze free free free, and we've set it up so that people can really piece together a lot of free stuff and never pay a dime. Add AI into the mix, who everybody thinks is going to be their next best coach and service provider, and

doctor,

yeah, lawyer. It's like then we're extinct. But Subsac is creating a different approach and a level of community and connection and humanness that is so refreshing, and that's really what that

how that looks like. What it sounds glorious, and I'm sure people listening are like, "Well, what what is it that makes it so special? You mentioned multi different channels, like you, I thought it was just a blogging platform, and you know that's a big piece of it. Is that you get to read people who love to write, but also it does have video. And tell us more about like how you said an ecosystem. What does that mean? Yeah.

Well, one of the things that I believe solves a problem that we're experiencing in our industry right now is that we many of us grew up in an environment, or we kind of started our businesses in an environment where, when you hold a webinar, or you hold an event, or you are seen in some way, shape, or form, when you have the right content and the right offer, people just buy, right? Like we we started there, but I think we've shifted between AI and a lot of newcomers to the coaching world over the last six years, where maybe the integrity of of coaching has not necessarily landed in their in their mentality, and so there's a lot of trust issues and people being burned or people making maybe poor decisions for themselves and not getting what they thought they needed. So there's a whole quagmire of issues going on, right? And so what I notice is that people are taking longer to buy. I just dropped a podcast episode about this. The buying is still happening, but it's changed in its behavior patterns. And so, what used to be an instant like, "Oh, there's something there for me. I'm just going to buy. I think we're all noticing that people are being more discerning. They're taking longer to evaluate, which is good, right? And they're making sure. That that person really has consistency and credibility before they plop down an investment. There's a lot of ways to create that. In my experience, the ecosystem is a very powerful way to create that in the online environment, and that might look like I hear Melanie speak on a stage, or I hear Mark speak on a podcast. I'm curious. I'm sparked, but I'm not convinced yet. What else can I go check out of them? So they kind of lurk, and I don't want to say stalk because that's a kind of a a mixed word. But yeah, they're stalking us, right?

My wife is proud to be a star. She's got something else. Yeah, smoothing. I like that.

Yeah, smoothing is better. But so you know, they're they're evaluating us. They're looking at where else are they visible. Oh, look at the lead magnet. Okay, I'm going to go down that rabbit hole with them. I'm going to listen to their podcast. And I started to notice a pattern about five years ago, where my best clients heard me speak somewhere, and then entered into my ecosystem, they would binge my podcast for a weekend. They would download my different lead magnets, and what they were really trying to do, and follow me on social media, right? What they were really trying to do is: Is she real? Does she have credibility? Can I trust her wisdom and experience? And the investment I want to make, will she hold that? Will she be able to execute what she says? It had zero to do with blasting. You know, oh, I made this much money, and my clients. It has nothing to do with that. It had to do with when I experience her wisdom. Am I just as sure as I am right now that I want to work with her? And that became what I call an invisible selling force in my business. So I literally would get on a consultation. I had to do no selling because they were already convinced it was just figuring out the details, and that's what I see happening on Substack. Is that ecosystem format keeps people in one place rather than my podcast is over here, my blog's over here, my emails are over here. There's one place where you can guide people through different types of content, whatever content most aligns with your expertise, your your how your superpowers come to life. And so, if you're a podcaster and you only want to do audio, there's a way to do audio. If you're a video person, you're like, I hate writing. I just want to get on and do lives, right? Or if you're a collaborator like you and I, like there's a way to do collaborations. So there's a different mechanisms, or you can integrate several to create that. Hey, you can experience me different ways, and the

more you have audio, video, and things that are not AI generated-the more trust you establish, because we know when somebody's real when we watch their face and we, you know, we experience their voice in an interview or a collaboration of some kind. So I want to go back to something you asked earlier about alignment because I realized I kind of skipped that piece of it, and I want to say I think one of the things that we're all feeling right now is I need something to feel aligned to want to put my time, energy, and attention into it, and if it doesn't feel aligned, I have so many other choices for how I grow my business and get the reach of my work out in the world. I'm not going to spend my time and energy hustling harder when it doesn't feel expansive to me. Plus, alignment is a success shortener, in my opinion. You know, it's like from your message to your offer to the audience you're in front of, when there's alignment, it all works better faster.

Absolutely agree. And you you mentioned like all these different ways of of creating that ecosystem within Substack. You can actually have your website there, so it doesn't need to replace it, but it's it becomes kind of the hub of all the spokes.

Yeah, I think, and and this is where people are like, well, I don't need to replace my website. The thing I want my clients, because I teach people how to do this in this six week accelerated kind of sprint fashion, and one of the things that kind of trips people up at first is like, well, what if I don't want to have another website? Don't have another website, right? It's like you get to integrate the pieces that support you. But if somebody was, let's say, they're pivoting the direction they're going, which we know a lot of people are doing right now, they're making new decisions. They're looking at where where am I going to? Focus my energy as you know we we enter the the next season of of conscious business. Well, let's pick the things that make your magic come alive, and don't worry about the rest.

And again, it comes back to alignment of of doing the things that we want to do and what supports us. Something I was thinking about earlier was there's a term conscious capitalism. John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, kind of created it. There's a lot of people that that look at it, and there's four pillars. One of those is conscious culture, and then there's also like the I forgot what it's called, but having everybody buy in, having everybody feel like they're a part of the company, but the conscious culture is a big part of it that you shared with me too, because that's another reason why people are resilient, especially younger people, to Meta and these other companies that feel very manipulative. They feel like we're trying to control your data. Algorithms are always changing. It's always like what's in it for Meta instead of you know what's in it for the user, the audience, and you and I when we talk about win-win-win, you and I both want to win, but we first win is always for our audience. How is this supporting the audience? How is the what is the culture of Substack, and how is that built? Could you share more insight with that?

Yeah, such a great conversation piece. You know, I I'm in my 60s now, and I really believe that the next two decades of my life were beyond. As long as I choose to keep doing this work, I I want to be where consciousness is expanding, where people play in the sandbox with this win-win-win mentality, and so my my little filtering system's getting pretty, pretty uh, it's getting tight, right? Like it comes, it comes, the clarity comes quickly now, right? And I think one of the things I personally notice, you know, there's some outliers, but on Substack, people are genuinely there to connect, and I think there's a difference. I wrote an article there that I think brings us forward. There's a difference between building your audience and building community. And yes, we are creating an audience when we build community, but you can have an audience that doesn't feel like a community. I feel like there was a new meme that just got created there, and I think that's one of the things that I love about Substack is that you're really creating community, and the people that are interested in your work are paying attention. And so, a funny thing, I as I'm getting more and more traction on Substack, more of the outliers are kind of popping in, and the other day I had somebody who was what I call hijacking my posts and commenting and just posting about their stuff in conversational tone. But I'm like, hold on, like this is so anti-substack culture, like, and I blocked them, and and I and I posted about it, and I said something like, "Hey, can we all agree that Substack etiquette is we don't hijack someone else's post with and comment about your own programs? And everybody was like, "That's so not what we do here. That's really, I think, the energetic tone of what Substack is about: generosity, connection, and human relationships. And when I look at the collaborations that are emerging for me there, that's what's leading. People are leading with, let me

get to know you. Let me get clear. Like, do we have some energetic congruency? And it's not just like, hey, you got a big following or you're getting traction. Let me put you in front of my audience so we can build together. It's like, now what? What do we have some synergy that we can capitalize on and compound by doing collaborations together? I just think that's one of the things that makes it special. And I think secondly, because Substack started as a platform that really rewards authentic writing? People are very protective of authenticity, and like, let's think about the contrast many of us feel when we consume the polished and curated social media experience on other platforms. We don't necessarily have authenticity, so Substack is very protective of that, and people tend to reject and not support what isn't authentic because you can kind of sniff it out pretty quickly. Even like when AI was was getting more and more prolific, that there was a whole thing about like is this AI generated content or authentic content, and they kind of went through a metamorphosis of what do we accept with AI. So I think that that is one of the things I think is really special and refreshing about the platform is they want they don't want polished they want you.

Well, you were talking earlier about trust was one of the things that's developed here, and I often talk about you know we live in a trust economy. A lot of it is because of AI, deep fakes, video technology, and like you said, previous experiences, people in our industry that have been more into the dollar than the transformation. So people have a lack of trust, and so anything that we do, and authenticity is a part of that. When you're not real, people have less trust in who you are.

Yeah, and I think also, and this is something that I encourage people to do when they're getting started on Substack, is to recognize the difference between sharing content and expressing your leadership voice, you have a point of view, you have beliefs, you have like convictions. The more you bring that into your communication on Substack, the more people want to connect and grow with you. And so, I did the first couple of months. I was literally just experimenting, and I and I wanted to kind of explore, like, because I mean I have so much content, right? But I'm like, what happens if I don't repurpose what I've done elsewhere? And I really just create from this authentic vibe and the conversation of what I talk about is like what it means to be visible and collaborate in the new era of business. That's the theme of my growth fuel channel and Substack. And so, what happens if that's the lens that everything gets shared on, and I'm not regurgitating other stuff? And it's been really interesting to see how it's drawing people in. And again, I wouldn't say these are outrageously big numbers, but where I might see a couple 100 new subscribers from being super active and visible across multiple channels over like three or four months, I did that in a month on stack, and again, it's all organic. Like I'm not importing my list, though there are ways to do that, and there are you know reasons why someone might want to do that. I didn't do that. It's all organic.

You brought up so many questions importing the list. Brought up another one. I've got like a stack of questions that brings up that probably a lot of people listening are realizing, okay, it's not just a blogging platform. There's a lot more to it, and then it's like, okay, now where do I start? And I want to come back to that, but you brought the one of the most exciting parts for me is the collaboration piece. So before we share like where people start and how you can help them with that part, tell us more about the collaboration and how you are using Substack as a collaboration tool.

Well, you know this is my what I call my growth field. This is why I named my channel this is because we really spend a lot of time on collaboration there, and there are so many ways to collaborate. One of my favorites is doing live conversations there, and many of us we have used tech in the past to to go live on Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram or whatever, right? But one of the things that's integrated into the way Substack does it is the minute you go live, it's feeding to both or all of the people's platforms simultaneously. So I don't have to wait for somebody to share it, and I think there is so many ways that collaboration, that one collaboration conversation can be turned into other assets that help you build your presence, build discoverability. You know, it kind of keeps working for you beyond beyond when the live stream conversation ends, and it's kind of untapped. A lot of people that were original Substackers just stuck to doing articles, or they're repurposing their newsletter or their podcast from somewhere else, and they're just kind of doing what I call the post and ghost method. And I don't really think that's what Substack rewards. So what I see is when you're creating engagement, when you're creating conversation, when you're creating experiences that people want to participate in, then it gets really interesting. So we're going to do something. So you know you can have free. There's a few ways people can participate. You can follow each other, but you don't get any notifications. You just see what shows up when you're in the the platform. When somebody subscribes, they get an email notification when you're going live or when you're publishing an article, right?

Right.

And that's where it gets really exciting. And then the next layer is paid subscriptions. So you don't have to have paid subscriptions, but I do, and it's called Growth Fuel. And when people invest in the annual membership, we create experiences around collaboration for them. So we do the collaboration currency. It's like an event with training and giving them steps to do every day, so they can take this idea of I want to start co-creating opportunities with other people and make. Real, and really get super clear. And what I've noticed is when you do experiences, people pay more attention,

Yes

that becomes a taste of, oh, this is what Melanie's like. This is what Mark's like. Oh, I want to go deeper. I want more.

And then how they? I know that the prices can range for subscriptions from $2 a month to $99 a month.

You get to choose your own path. Like, there's a little bit of strategy involved, and this is actually why I decided to step into teaching Substack. Because when I started, I'm like, Melanie, do not teach Substack. Do not do this. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They don't. And then I went. Wait a minute. For the people who are impact driven and have a leadership voice, they don't need somebody who is a creator who just teaches like the digital product side of things. They need somebody who understands the services industry that we're in, the impact driven piece of it, and the thought leadership and how that needs to be built out on Substack. So I'm like, okay, we're doing this. So

back to alignment. You want to build it in alignment,

exactly. And I want to bring something that's of value. Like I don't need to be another voice in a sea of, you know, tons of Substack creators. And I'm not really selling it on Substack. I'm selling it. I'm offering it and inviting people who are in the expert world, in the coaching world, and are interested in being seen and discovered on Substack.

You did a perfect segue into the next piece, which is again like, okay, now where do we get started? And so you do have a training about that. Tell me a little bit about you have a masterclass and yeah.

So because I see the real value opportunity for us is in recognizing we need an ecosystem that builds trust and is constantly informing and educating our community, our potential clients. Why me? What is distinct about my work? What is my leadership voice? What is the thing that I stand for, and how do I help you get the results that you crave in your life, or business, or your career, whatever that is? Right. Like, there's so many different niches that are present there, and over a six to eight week period, depending on the the number of holidays in the mix, we help people build out every single piece. Like I take every week, we we go through and we build it out from picking what you want to be writing about, like really understanding what your leadership voice is and what you're going to claim, who your reader is, and what you're going to write for them. You're going to create your publication. So there's a that there's the profile, which is like the social media site where you have notes and interaction. But the publication is where your work comes to life. This is your where people can read or or look at your podcast or sorry listen to your podcast or find out more about you, and so we help them design that and choose what they're going to publish. Then I literally give people templates on how to write the articles and how to do their podcasts. But one of my favorites is when we get into collaboration week, because in collaboration week, this is where we look at what is the way you're going to collaborate with other creators there, and you're going to get more discoverability. So you're going to do lives, are you going to do like shared articles? Are you you know there's a lot of paths that you can choose, and so we built out an entire system of how to not just go live, but how to maximize the exposure from before, during, and after, so that there is more traction when you're you're going live, and then we kind of wrap up with

monetization. What's the monetization path that you want to lay out? Are you going to do paid tiers? Are you going to, you know, are you going to like just invite people to your other offers? Like, because that's another part of the pathway that you can choose, and so really, I want people to leave not just with a bunch of information, but with a substack that is working for them in their business, and it's really exciting to watch it come to life. And you know, just I love it. Like people are are having huge wins with just seeing. Oh, I got my first subscriber, or oh, we're starting to see people subscribe free to my channel. Whatever their goals are, and most importantly, just getting clear, like how do I want to be known there? I think that's where I was going. Is sometimes the strategy is missing, and you start something, you pop in, you go. I'm going to claim it. I write a few notes, maybe an article, and you're like, "Yeah, I don't really know what I'm doing. And so you know, in the podcasting world, there's pod fade. I coined the term stack fade. So, so they start having stack fade. You're like, "Oh yeah, I haven't been in there in like six." Months I forgot about it. That's because they didn't make it an integrated part of their ecosystem, and they just didn't really kind of have all their pieces laid out and working in alignment with the goals that they have for their business.

Well, that brings up one of the questions of the the many to actually kind of stack them together because I know you answer this in the master class, but let's talk about that first. The the master class is the invisible sales force.

Yes, so I have been kind of giving people an introduction to what I see working there with this ecosystem approach, and I call it your invisible sales force because when you build out this ecosystem approach, what happens is somebody who maybe hears you or sees you somewhere has a place to go do their research and come back and choose you. And as I mentioned earlier, I saw this happening a few years ago with my podcast, where somebody would hear me speak, they'd go binge my podcast or go do their research, and then they were booking a call, and there was no selling. They'd already decided. Well, I'm like, okay, let's see how it works on Substack. Sure enough, they would hear me speak. There was one lady; she heard me on a podcast that I recorded like three years ago, and she showed up in my DMs, and she said, "I'm not sure I'm ready to work with you yet, but I really like what you were talking about. Said, "Hey, let's stay connected on Substack. She joined Substack, upgrades to my pay tier. By the end of the weekend, she'd binge some of my private podcasts there. She'd booked a consultation call. She'd already decided, you know, now's the time, and that's what I think is possible. Is when you really thought through what is your ecosystem going to be designed like, and how are you going to maintain your ecosystem so it's doing all the work to inform, nurture, build the trust, establish your credibility, and teach people what you can do for them without you having to like follow up in the DMs and do all the things. Right? Like it's exhausting. It's a lot to keep up with,

and that kind of leads back to the the bundled question that I have for you. And again, I know you probably answer that more in the master class, so if you want a deeper answer, but you were talking about how you're creating the the like what is the the strategy for it? A lot of people have lots of content. They have their old blogs, they have their old podcasts. You have lots and lots of podcasts, and even an email list. These are the three things I'm looking at: your your podcast, your blog, and your email list. Do you just upload them in there so that you have this automatic traction? You were talking about how you know people want to be more authentic and what's relevant in the moment. So I'm just curious. You're okay to answer that.

Yeah, of course. I mean, I think I think that the thing is, we have to look at where do you want to go with your business over the next six months to a year. What is the vision? What is the growth that you want to achieve, and what's the impact that you're here to make? And then we look at what do you want to do with Substack? Do you want to build a new audience, because the one you have is overly saturated, right? Like there becomes a time when the community we've built, the email list we've spent years cultivating, is just dead. Like it's not going to bring one we were so

afraid to lose a subscriber to,

right? Right? Like we're losing them anyway because they're getting caught up in their AI sorting tools, and they're sorting your email into some inbox that they never even read anyway. Like that's what's happening for a lot of us. And by the way, and that was part of the reason why I was interested in Substack because the deliverability rate is much higher on Substack because you're not just relying on an email to land in their inbox. You can. They can also get into the platform and read, right? So you've got multiple ways to touch somebody when you've got something that you want to get in front of them. So let's say you've got your email list and you want to revive it. Well, yes, you can import it into Substack. There are no laws that say that you can't because when somebody subscribes to your in to your work, you didn't say I will only email you from my email list. There, you're like I'm going to email you from the platform that I use. So you want to email them from Substack and integrate everything there. You can. It's about getting clear what is going to move the needle for you? What is going to be the best use of your energy and your attention and discoverability? And when we get clear on that, then we decide, okay, I'm going to use Substack as my primary platform now. Now that again, this gets into a pretty big conversation about like what what does that cost us if we're not emailing from our our CRM? Like you know, you have to keep that primed. But I think that I am of the fan. Here's what I've done. This is this is my approach. We create content. On Substack, we tease that content into my community on email. So we send out a weekly newsletter, and I'll oftentimes highlight the article that I've written that week or something I'm doing on Substack and pull people in. That seems to work best choice. We're experimenting with other things, but it's kind of a big conversation and a lot of technical pieces. But yeah,

we're experimenting with what happens if somebody goes unengaged. What if we invited them into Substack? Right, like there's some things to experiment with and play. We just synced out my Amplify Your Success podcast into Substack.

So it's got previous episodes.

Yes, but it's not inside my main Substack. We gave it its own platform. Oh, because I have a private podcast and we have Growth Fuel sessions every week. So I didn't want to flood my Growth bill stream with that. I wanted it to be a secondary option, so it's all experimenting, and that's what we've been doing. Is like really looking at like where do we get the most juice? Where do people really go? That notes are a big part of the strategy, but so is the articles we write. The articles I write, I should say, because I write them myself, and really being intentional about leaning into the leadership conversation I want to be known for, and where does that match the challenges that my community are facing right now? I just wrote one that was a little edgy about JVs, and what I'm seeing unfold in the JV marketplace, what's working, what's not working, and you know, kind of brings it back to our belief around win-win-win collaboration.

It also brought me into one of the. I've got two more questions. You brought up notes, so I want to bring up the way. Some people may not know what you mean by notes, and then that the next one is really about that about controversy and polarization because polarization on a lot of social media feels like it's just trying to pull you into yeah into a silo versus creating a conversation.

Yes, yeah. Where do you want me go first? Show me talk about the write

on notes first, just so we all understand what that is.

Yeah. So inside of Substack, it's so notes are a more recent thing that they added because they realized that they needed a way to help people get more discoverability, and so notes are a whole thing, but it's the closest thing to a social media feed that you're going to find. But it doesn't operate like all the other social media, it's a way to create. Think of them like little snacks, where it's like, okay, here's a little snack of yeah, little appetizers, right? And hors d'oeuvres, but it's um, it's a way to create a starting point for the conversation, and it helps with discoverability, but then when you go deeper, there's articles, there's podcasts, audio or video, there's live streams, right? So there's different components of how we create experiences for people to go deeper with our work. So think of like notes open the door, and behind the door, you can pick which room you go into. Do I want to listen to a podcast? Am I going to read an article? Am I going to go to the live, or do I want to upgrade to the palace and go to this person's exclusive behind the paywall content? Not everybody has paywall content, but most of the creators do.

I love that you also brought those things up. That was just something else I want to touch on is that there's so many different types of learners, and you can have the exact same content in a blog and in a video. I'll watch the video. My wife will read the blog in half the time.

Yes, and here's something. Here's a really fun fact. So you can write an article, and the a the tool there, the AI generated tools, they will create an audio version of your article, or you can record an AI, or sorry, and read your article into your own voice. So if you if somebody doesn't want to read, or they can't read, you know, if they've got some kind of physical limitation on listening or reading, they give them options, so that's integrated right in. I was like, "Oh my god, I'm going to have to create my own audio version of all these articles. I was like, "Oh wait, it's done automatically if I don't do it myself. So, I mean, that's another really cool feature that they have.

Let's ask polarization.

Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I think polarization is a very, very tried and true marketing technique. It's it's manipulation. Let's just say what it is, but it is also a way to attract or repel the people that. Are most likely to benefit from your work or resonate with the work that you do. I used to. I'm such a people pleaser, Mark. Like I spent the first try decade of my life trying to be like what everybody needed and wanted, and I heard a marketing expert say one time, "If you're not polarizing, you're not marketing right. I was like, "Oh, okay, but it took me a while to really understand the value of that, and so, you know, I think, you know, if we just look at polarization, there's a lot of ways that people are polarizing. They're being disruptive. They're creating controversy for the sake of controversy. They're outing people. I don't know. Is that leadership? That's not really what I would consider leadership. I want to create a conversation that people want to be a part of, and throwing anybody else under the bus-that's not really my idea of leadership. That's not the conversation I want to be a part of. That's not consciousness at the level that I want to participate in. At least, I know that might be controversy in itself. But

what was the controversial conversation about joint ventures because I know that we've had some of those.

Yeah, so I created. Let's just say it's a it was a very me conversation about where I see JV's going, and it was I have lots of conversations behind the scenes, and so I kind of gathered what I saw happening for a lot of people, and that is the traditional "Will you promote me over and over and over again with no reciprocation" is not necessarily an expansive model that's going to continue to grow. And what I kept finding is there's lots of people who are like, "Hey, I'm doing a JV. Can you participate? But then when I would say, "Hey, can you promote me? They're like, "Yeah, I don't have bandwidth, and it would happen over and over and over again. I was like, "All right. So for me, if I'm going to collaborate, I want to find how can we have reciprocity. It's not just about having a big list, it's about how can I create meaningful visibility and opportunity for somebody that I really believe in their work. I really want to support. I may not be able to do the traditional JV launch, so I wrote an article about how I see the old JV marketing system is dying, and what I see replacing it, I was pretty blown away at the number of people going, "Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. This is exactly what I'm seeing too. This is what I'm finding. Like not as many people are responding. People aren't necessarily coming into my funnel the same way, and it was just an interesting, enriching conversation that emerged, and it wasn't necessarily about saying all JVs don't work. It was about saying the one-sided JV model isn't going to take you where you need to go next.

I love that, and yeah, complete agreement with that. It also leads into my standard question. I love to ask all my guests. This is the Leading with Purpose podcast. What does leading with purpose mean to you?

Well, I think leading with purpose for me, my purpose on this planet is to elevate the consciousness of impact-driven leaders, and I choose the path of helping them spread their word and be more visible, and sometimes that's I gotta release the the barriers that are in my way to being seen. I've got some old junk that's kind of clogging my belief about what's possible, and sometimes it's I'm holding on to. We were talking about this earlier. I'm holding on to this sacred cow, and I'm feeding this cow, and it this cow is not producing for me anymore. And I'm putting all of my resources into this. So sometimes we have to face that what we are here to do is evolving and shifting and growing and adapt. And first of all, when we find our most energetically aligned version of our work, and then we put everything we have into expanding the reach of that, that's what life force is. That's what's going to continue to keep growing. That's the work that I'm here to do. And being visible and collaborating is one of the mechanisms for that, but sometimes it's like you got to go back to what is the frequency of you as a human being right now, and how are you going to elevate your frequency and let your work follow that frequency elevation so that we are here doing amazing, uplifting work on this planet.

Beautiful, beautiful. It's a drop the mic moment right there, and I love that response. Can't wait to repurpose so many bites out of that. Again, for anybody that's here that may be new to Substack, tell us again how people can learn more and where they can find Substack.

Well, Just want to invite you to join me in my masterclass. It's complimentary right now. If you go to melaniebencent.com, LWP podcast leading with purpose. See what I did there. So go to melaniebencent.com forward slash LWP podcast. You can join us for free. It's the Invisible Salesforce, and that's where I'll show you how this ecosystem approach works. Even if you don't know if you want to do Substack, I highly recommend that you tune in because you can produce this kind of ecosystem in a lot of different ways. It's going to give you the platform, but I'm going to hopefully entice you to want to build this out on Substack. And I would love to just if you're on Substack, let's connect there. If you go to coachmelanybenson.substack.com, you will find my Growth Fuel page, and let me know. Shoot me a little DM or something, and say, "Hey, I heard you on the Lead with Purpose podcast, so I know that you're a friend of Mark's, and that that's how we connected.

And I'll put all the links down below. You just said something too that's really important for somebody that might feel like, oh my god, I thought it was just a blogging. Now I feel like overwhelmed. You don't have to do all of the things. Like you can just pick the thing that you like and pick the pieces that you like, and you can. It's like a Lego set where you can just keep adding to it and grow with you. Yeah, you can grow with it.

I would say start with a profile, and if nothing else, just start feeding it some notes. Like that's where I tell everybody to start because you want to claim your name and put a stake in the ground for the conversation that you're here to lead. I started there. I just experimented with notes, and I was like, oh yeah, I'm all in. I'm in. Like I love it here. Like I feel so welcome, Mark. It was really funny the first week I was there. I had so many people that I've known from different pockets of my journey over 26 years. You know, lots of little groups that I've connected with over the years, and people were like, "Oh my God, Melanie's here! Hey, Melanie, haven't seen you in a while. Like I was like, "Wow, this is so cool! They never would have seen me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, but here we are in this new world called Substack, and it's easy to connect with people. Much easier, I think, to connect with people there than the other platforms. So that was kind of a fun surprise as well.

That is cool. Yeah, the little reunion over on Substack, the Substack region.

Yeah, yeah, and it led to a whole bunch of collaborations that led to clients. So I was like, yeah, you just never know how things are going to work.

So you brought up one more question. I'm sure you addressed this in your your masterclass, but you said claim your name. My my podcast is Mark Porteous, or my Substack is is my name. But some people want to have more of the the theme or the topic. How do you go with?

Yeah, so I mean, I personally am a fan of grab your name on your profile, and if you're going to do something with your business, make your business your or your podcast or whatever the platform name. So the the publication name, that's the website version, and I that's because and I had a client who she was her profile was all under her business. She had her business logo, and I said, nope, make it your personal picture and change it to your personal name. Make your publication your business stuff. Substack people want to connect with people, be the human being that is real and authentic and connectable.

I'm so glad I asked that. Thank you, very very helpful.

Welcome,

and Melly. Before we go, any last word that you'd like to leave the audience with?

Well, I think we all have to really look at what are we going to give our time and attention to, and are we giving time and attention to the thing that can grow? Everything's changing. Really look at where we pouring our heart and soul into pieces of our business that we can't revive because they've gone extinct. They can't evolve with us as we're going into this new dimension, this new paradigm of business.

I love it with a drop the bomb right there at the end. Thank you so much for all your wisdom throughout this call. I can't wait to go through and re-listen to it, take some notes. Thank you so much, Melanie. I appreciate how you show up, and grateful for our connection.

Thank you. Me too. Thank you for inviting me into your space again. I really am so grateful to have these conversations with you and our community.

Well, it's always fun having them as friends, but it's nice to be able to record it and share this conversation with everyone else. So, thank you. And if you're listening, you have questions. Please post down below. We'll make sure to respond. All the links will be there. Can't wait to see your sub stack. In fact, if you want to share your sub stack in the links, and we'll all subscribe. Thank you so much, Melanie. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you all for being a part of our show.