I nearly quit Substack for LinkedIn

Four months ago I ran a launch that should have worked.

Decent product. Emails I’d written a hundred versions of before. More subscribers than I’d ever had. It made almost nothing.

So I ran another one, and that went the same way.

That was the point I sat down with a business coach and said the thing I’d been chewing on for weeks: I think I need to go and find people who actually have money. LinkedIn, maybe. CEOs. Ghostwriting. Something other than this.

He asked me one question about my list, we did the maths on a napkin, and I’ve not sold anything the same way since.

I’ve just recorded a video walking through exactly what changed.

Two things have taken over from digital products as the way I earn. One of them I only started three weeks ago, and it has been the easiest thing I have ever sold, off a sales page so plain it’s almost embarrassing.

The other brought in four figures from a single Google Doc and a stripe link.

In the video I pull both apart so you can use them, whatever you write about.

Grab a brew. It’s about 25 minutes.

Then hit reply and let me know what you think.

Derek

P.S. The part about why people are exhausted by advice, and what they’ll pay you to do about it, is the bit I’d most like you to hear. It’s around the eight minute mark if you want to skip straight there.