← Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
The "Elite" Newsletter Growth Flywheel (25k subs in 4 months)
00:50:48
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- [00:00]
A
I keep telling everyone that this is the elite flywheel. I'm like, it's so good. There's so much value for people. People love it. People share it because it's so good and it's driven, like, so much growth for us for free.
- [00:13]
B
You had, I think, 15,000 ish subscribers to your newsletter and you more than double that in like four months.
- [00:18]
A
I think the world is drowning in actually not useful lead magnets. We overcomplicate lead magnets so much when really it's just like LinkedIn for me is about trust. LinkedIn is where I have my crew. I posted every workday for over a.
- [00:33]
C
Thousand days, but if the content is not good or insanely valuable, they're not going to stick around.
- [00:38]
A
I've tried so many different things over the years, and all you got to do is find the one or two things that work and the one or two things that you can just keep doing. And those one or two things for us is we obsess over this.
- [00:52]
C
Millie, we're so excited to have you on the Growth in Reverse podcast. Thanks for coming on and joining us.
- [00:58]
A
I'm so happy to be here. I've been a fan for a long time and so I'm just excited to jam.
- [01:02]
C
Yeah, we're excited to have you to start off. So you, you run the Generalist World, The Generalist newsletter. I'm. I was cracking up this morning because I was going through your LinkedIn profile and I was looking at your work history and I was laughing so hard because it's like co founder of Hop on and Off Wine Tour bus thing. Hops and barrels. And then you had like slumber party hostels. Move over, Bob Consultant. I was like, what is happening here? Do you want to, like, give us a quick rundown of your, your history and your background and where you. How you got to where you are?
- [01:38]
A
Yeah, 100%. I mean, it's generalist 101 when you look at that LinkedIn history. So I'm Millie. I am, as you said, the founder of Generalist World. I'm from New Zealand originally and I left when I was 21 and it was meant to be for this one year trip.
- [01:55]
C
And that turned.
- [01:56]
A
I mean, I'm now 34, so you can do the math. And I really just figured out along the way that I wanted to keep moving. I was like, what, what do I need to do to keep moving and keep kind of funding these travels of which I've now been fortunate to, you know, slowly travel through 70 plus countries and one of the coolest ways that I've been able to do that is to basically work for myself and either work for myself and like start a business or come on as a really early employee. So they're very often those scrappy generalists at the very beginning of the companies. And so that kind of took me through like a decade of these very weird, squiggly experiences. Exactly. From like co owning this hostel in Thailand, co founding Hops and Barrels. It was a hop on, hop off wine tour. It was so much fun. Move Over Bob was a. Is a. An organization that helps women get into the construction industry. So I was consulting for them. I was writing for tourism Japan at one point. I just follow my curiosities and I just follow my interest and it's like all culminated to this world of generalists. And in some ways I feel like I've like created an actual. An actual world within this movement. And it's. It's been the most fun work of my life. And I've also got to do it from this island I live in, on in Scotland. There's less than 200 people that live here. Yeah. That's kind of where what brought me here today.
- [03:24]
C
That's awesome. And you just hit 40,000 email subscribers, so congrats on that. That's a huge accomplishment.
- [03:29]
A
Thank you.
- [03:31]
C
Uh, wait. I actually reached out to you to come on the podcast because you posted on Twitter that in one week from one TikTok video, you added 3,600 email subscribers. And I was like, oh my gosh. Because we had you come into the growth Reverse Pro community to talk about your quiz funnel and everything. And that was awesome. And I was like, this is really cool. But now it's like accelerating beyond like anyone's wildest dreams. Like, how. How does that feel to be able to have this asset that's just growing that quickly?
- [03:59]
A
It feels amazingly exciting and totally frustrating because I keep telling everyone that this is the elite, like the elite flywheel. I'm like, it's so good. There's so much value for people. People love it. People share it because it's so good. And if you can crack. The hard bit, to be honest, is the TikTok is cracking who you are on TikTok, what your voice is. I looked like an idiot for like a year on TikTok, trying to figure out what. What that culture was and how I fit in. But then you eventually do it. And then like now it takes me five to 10 minutes to make a TikTok video. It's fast. And the game is you just keep publishing. And occasionally, and sometimes regularly, one will pop off, and sometimes I will open my beehive and I'll be like, wow, you know, a thousand new subscribers. Like, I wonder what happened. Oh, a TikTok video has gone bananas. It's. It is literally linked. So, yeah, the TikTok quiz is something that I don't see enough people doing, and it's driven. So, like. Like, so much growth for us for free.
- [05:09]
B
I want you to, like, I want you to back up just a little bit, because, like, you mentioned that one word, which is one of the reasons why we had you in the community a few months ago, and that word is quiz. And so people are probably wondering, like, how are you converting newsletter subscribers from TikTok? Because that's been notoriously challenging for a lot of people. So tell us about the beginning of the quiz or the idea, the inception of it, and then how. How it's operating for you, what you're. What you're doing a little bit of, like, your funnel, if you will.
- [05:37]
A
Yeah. So I just kept getting the same question, like, whether it was in my inbox at my DMs at conferences, and they were like, I think I'm a generalist, but I don't really know if I'm a generalist. Like, what does that mean? What kind of generalist am I? And it. The actual inception of it, I had. I had written an essay about these four generalist archetypes, the archetypes that I saw from the people I was meeting. I was like, oh, it seems like people kind of fall into. To these kind of archetypes. And I have a really good friend who's a community member, Ramiro, who is an organizational psychologist by trade, and he was like, you know, I think. I think we could turn this into something. He's like, I really see there's, like, there's legs here with your essay. And at the same time, simultaneously, I had heard Daniel Priestley, who's the founder of Score App, on a podcast, and he was talking about this platform he has that makes quizzes. And to be honest, I went on, and I was like, yeah, this. For someone who understands, like, whose brain works like this, it would be a breeze. My brain doesn't work like this. Like, I'm good at creating the idea and the content. And then I was like, oh, Romero, would you be interested in, like, let's run an experiment. Like, I hired him, I paid him, um, and I was able to run this experiment where you have control here's. The. Here's the gist of what I'm thinking. And he went and built it on Score app in, I can't remember, maybe like a day or two. It wasn't long and it was almost instant that it landed with people. Because the question I think we overcomplicate like lead magnets so much, when really it's just like, what is the question that people keep asking you? What is the thing that, like, what is the thing that they are dying to know the answer to, that you keep having to repeat? Turn that into the thing that you give them because they're going to be like, oh, my gosh, like, yes, I finally have something tangible. And if you can hit into the thing that is also linked to someone's, like, identity or value, like, you know, the generalist quiz, people take the language and go and get jobs, or they take the language and they negotiate a higher pay rise. So there's like utility to it. I think the world is drowning in actually not useful lead magnets. But if you're like, if this thing can be really useful, that's 80% of of the battle. And the key is people then share it for you. It's like, since the dawn of the Internet, people have loved sharing about themselves, like buzzfeed, blah, blah, blah, all of those kind of quizzes. So people are like, oh, I'm a systems thinker, I'm an innovator. Let me tell you about that. And so we built it into the flow that we encourage people to tell and to share it on LinkedIn. We repost everyone. And so then the flywheel continued.
- [08:37]
B
Yeah. So I just want to go back really quickly to when you first had the idea for the quiz and it was. You had your community member build it for you, your friend. When did you discover, like, oh, TikTok shorts, like, short form video is the way to promote this? Like, what did you try at first? Or was it like the first thing you tried and it just went off?
- [08:58]
A
Yeah, I think it was like, we are not on that many platforms. We're basically on TikTok and LinkedIn and kind of Instagram now. I realized today we have like seven and a half thousand followers on there. I'm like, oh, I should, like, I should put some elbow grease into this. And so TikTok was like. It was, it was something that I was playing with. It was a sandbox that I was in at the time. And I find that if I'm ever trying to market something, if I can't turn it into a TikTok video. I don't have the idea down. Like, I don't. I don't have my messaging. I don't have my positioning down. If I can't turn it into something that people click on in 30 seconds or a minute, that I need to work harder on the positioning of that.
- [09:44]
B
It's the litmus.
- [09:46]
A
Yeah, totally. TikTok was just a natural playground for it. Wow.
- [09:52]
C
Oh, I love that. That's really cool. And the other smart thing you're doing is, like, you have the URL because you bought a domain just for this quiz. Generalistquiz.com for anybody who wants to go check it out. And so on every video, you just have that sitting there while you're talking, which is so smart. Like, it's just such a good flywheel. Because adding a link in the description is probably gonna hurt reach, especially on LinkedIn. But if it's on. In the video itself, like, people can just go there.
- [10:17]
A
Yes. And I plug that link everywhere. So if you go into my TikTok Insta, I think, even, like, Twitter, like, it's general. It's not generalist world. It's generalist quits. It is. It is the link. It is the link that converts. If people want to go down the rabbit hole, they will find generalist worlds, like, and then they can swing down the rabbit hole. But the immediate thing is, like, you've never heard of me. You have no idea who I am. You. You might have an inkling that you're a generalist, but this might be the first time you're actually hearing the word. Let's get you as fast as possible to having some language that reflects who you actually are. And I think, you know, you're onto a winner when people say things like, oh, wow, like, it's spooky, or it's like, oh, oh, how did it know that about me? One thing I tested the other day, which you guys might like, I'm just. I'm basically a scientist on TikTok. I'm like, oh. Like, let's just. I don't even care if it's bad. Like, I do not care. Let's just. I love it. Let's just try it. So I don't know if you guys saw that. There was that, like, group seven thing. Oh, you. You get that on TikTok. Clearly there was.
- [11:25]
C
Clearly, we are not on TikTok. That's correct.
- [11:29]
A
Okay. The very short version of it is there was this. There was this woman. I think she's actually a musician, and she basically Just created these, like, eight or 10 videos. And she was like, if you're seeing this, you're on group one. If you're seeing this, you're on group two. And she would say, basically she was trying to play the algorithm, and the algorithm was grouping people, and people were getting really. Basically Group seven, for whatever reason, took off and got like, millions and millions and millions. And people are like, I'm group seven, and they're just, like, psychedelic. By being in group seven. They, like, they create. It was like a little cultural moment on. On TikTok. And so when I saw that, I was like, that woman is genius. She has just told the algorithm. So I literally made a version of this myself where I was like, if you're seeing this, you're an innovator. This is what an innovator is. Go take the generalist quiz if you want to double check. If you're seeing this, you're a systems thinker. Go check the general's quiz if you want to double check. And the. One of them, the systems thinker, is the one that took off. I think it's. I don't know. I haven't checked in a while, but, like, 30,000 plus people are starting to. And because they're like, oh, my God, like, how did the. How did the algorithm know? And, I mean, the algorithm knows.
- [12:46]
C
I saw this on your TikTok when I went there this morning, and I was like, oh, she's just experimenting with this. I didn't know the backstory behind it. So that makes so much sense. I love that you're just experimenting and following the trends there. You're a real TikToker.
- [12:58]
A
Yeah.
- [12:59]
C
Okay, so you're starting. You're still seeing subscribers coming daily from TikTok and from LinkedIn too. Are you just posting videos on LinkedIn or what's your strategy there?
- [13:08]
A
Yeah, so the big difference between LinkedIn and TikTok is the shelf life. Like, I feel like my shelf life of LinkedIn posted, like, six hours. It's like, all right, see you later and never to be seen again. TikTok is the gift that keeps on giving. Like, I mean, I have videos that just continuously pop off from months and months and months ago, and so never do. Like, I will delete videos if they completely don't pop off, but if they. Yeah, if a video is working, it. It will continue to drive subscribers for many, many months. Um, my LinkedIn strategy is more. LinkedIn for me is about trust. LinkedIn is where I have my. My crew. I feel like they're this. I mean, I posted every day, every workday for over a thousand days. It's kind of like a Dear Diary vibe. It's like, this is what I'm doing today. This is what I'm learning. This is what I got really wrong today. And so people are like, really invested in the journey. And I did experiment with video for a little bit on LinkedIn, but I just wasn't seeing the results. I think the only videos I've really ever seen pop off on LinkedIn are by, like, the LinkedIn team that get promoted. I don't know if you guys have noticed that.
- [14:23]
B
Yeah. So you have 24,000. No, wait, let me go up. Yes, 24,000 followers on LinkedIn. So you've been like, you said you've been posting there every day for like a thousand plus days, correct? Yeah. And is that, is that more where people are like, I've already bought into Millie and the generalist world culture and vibe, and I'm just following her there because, you know, I'm a fan. Or is this a place where you're also getting an influx of, you know, entrance into the generous world or new subscribers to the newsletter?
- [14:57]
A
It's where, it's where the, the loyal fans live. It's where the, where the crew is. But I mean, every single day I'm getting people that are like, I can't believe that this is the first time I'm coming across you. Like, this is completely me. This is like, I could have said exactly like what you say in my own words. So. But LinkedIn as a, like a discoverability or like, it's tough going because they're there. It's like, oh, my God, I've been posting about this forever. I don't know why you're only just saying this for the first time. To be honest, where TikTok wants you to go viral, like, TikTok is like, it is a different beast. It is different, like, where it's almost like when someone is a podcast listener, if someone is listening to you for half an hour, it's a depth of relationship. Like, there's an intimacy. They're like, okay, you can't for too long if you're like on a podcast in someone's ear. Kind of the same with LinkedIn. If you're posting every day for a thousand days, like, I, you have to be really good at like baking it. Where like TikTok, it's 30 seconds. You could be anyone for the 30 seconds. Do you know what I mean? So there, there's A different level. Like I don't, I don't have TikTok friends. It's just, it's just a playground. It's like, it's, it's a wide open sea where I feel like LinkedIn. I'm kind of in like a pond, maybe a lake. Yeah, yeah. Where I'm like, I kind of like, you know, you see, I, I see both basically the same people most days. Occasionally I'll get a new one, but I feel like it's a similar, similar group of people.
- [16:35]
B
Yeah.
- [16:35]
A
How do you guys feel? Do you feel that? Am I alone in that?
- [16:39]
C
Yeah. I mean, I don't post on TikTok, so I don't know the shelf life, but I do see a lot of old like Instagram posts and stuff come across my feed too. So I'm sure it's similar. But yeah, LinkedIn's hard. It, it's. You either play the game where you're like on it for three, four hours a day and you're like grinding, or.
- [16:55]
B
You'Re paying someone to do that for.
- [16:56]
C
You, or you're paying someone to do that for you, or you just like post what you enjoy and just, you know, understand that you're not going to end up with 300,000 LinkedIn followers. Yeah, sure, I think that's okay. I think it's a trade off. But yeah, it's a different game.
- [17:10]
B
Yeah, totally. Yeah, I feel, I feel the same way and I think that I feel very self conscious when I'm thinking about like posting short form video, especially to like maybe Instagram reels or something like that. And so I like what you've said about here, about TikTok where it's just like, nobody knows you, nobody cares. If they don't like you, they're just going to scroll. No one's judging you. You're just like, you know, use it as a testing ground.
- [17:31]
A
Right.
- [17:32]
B
Use it as a place to experiment. And so I think I need to approach it more with that, with that kind of mindset. So that's really, that's helpful actually. Thank you.
- [17:40]
A
You're welcome. And what I've learned about each different platform is they, they have their own culture. So like sometimes I will post a TikTok to Insta knowing that it's a different culture. And I'm like, it's just not quite going to hit. Like Insta is a bit more like aesthetic and polished and put together. We're actually. TikTok's a bit more like grunty and like raw, a bit like grungy almost where it's like you get, you get really penalized if you're too perfect. It's like if you, you still have to have a really great message and be really clear. But like, talking head videos, for example, work fantastic on video. When it's just like me, you to the camera. I don't edit in capcut or anything. I literally just film post the gate.
- [18:27]
C
I feel like your screen, like your camera almost has to be dirty to record a TikTok. Like, everyone that I see, it's like fuzzy and I'm like, oh, man, come on.
- [18:36]
A
Yeah, that's a vibe. That's the vibe.
- [18:39]
C
It's like a new filter. I'm.
- [18:43]
B
I'd love to know, Millie, because you're. For one, when we had you in the community a few minutes ago, you had, I think, what was it, 15,000 ish subscribers to your newsletter, and you more than double that in like four months. And so that's a testament to you doing what you're doing really well on TikTok and figuring out what works, including your funnel. So I'm curious, once people have signed up for the quiz, what is the relationship then? Now in the inbox with your subscribers who have filled out the quiz, they obviously get their quiz results and then where does it go from there? And how are you building a business now based on that?
- [19:15]
A
Yeah, so they take the quiz, they actually get the basically instant results. It's like a personalized report that they'll get. We then use Zapier to take them from Scora over to Beehive, and then we will tag them as a quiz respondent. They will then go through a welcome sequence, which I don't know how nerdy you want to get, but there's, there's that. I'll, I'll do the full thing first and then you can go nerdy wherever you want. Okay. So then they, they are then living on Beehive and from there. I've tried so many different things over the years, and it's so funny. I realize all you gotta do is find the one or two things that work and really, really simple and the one or two things that you can just keep doing. And those one or two things for us is, the first is on a Tuesday, we send out 50 jobs and this is like a curated, like, manually curated list where we're like, we sort them by location, we sort them by company size, we sort them by generalist archetype to bring it back to the quiz. It's all part of this ecosystem. Accidental ecosystem that now, now exists. So on Tuesdays it's for jobs and on Fridays we send out a podcast. And the podcast is always recorded with GW members. So that's a part of our community product. So it's a kind of a nod to both of those things. And I think how I think about those two newsletters is it's all about the utility. It's like it's, it's value loaded. It's like when people get one of those two newsletters, they can be rest assured that they're going to be very human. We have all these little human, little golden eggs along the way. Like Emily will write at the end, she's our newsletter writer. She'll be like, where she's working from Galway this week. And there'll be a little picture of her climbing because she loves climbing. So there's these little human elements along the way and it's very, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's like, here you go. We're going to overload. We're gonna, we're gonna make sure every single newsletter we ever push is going to be full of value. So I think that's kind of the part that not many talk about that you actually can't skip, like because you can get the subscribers, but then if you're sending trash, you're just gonna lose the subscribers. So I'm really proud. I think we have like a 45% open rate and nearly 8 or 9% click through rate. Like and they've been consistent. Like consistent. And like we obsess over this. We're like, oh my God, the click through rate's gone down a bit. Like, what can we do? How can we make this more like more and more valuable for people? And then just to kind of zoom out, what is the business? It's a great question. So I would, I kind of say that we're a, we're a media company that has a cult that has like this like cult, like a cult, like membership. And so all of our media stuff is free. We publish loads and loads of content that is career advice for generalists and then for people who are like, I want more, I want to meet these people, I want to get in on whatever these big vibes are. We've had a, we have a community that we've had since day one and that is a paid membership and it's a one time fee, it's $950. We have parody options as well. So the only variance on price, we don't Vary. There's. It's like, there's not different tiers of things you get. It's just a variance on parity if people need it. We're a global community that was really important to us to have from the beginning to be able to open up. And so now that membership has over 700 lifetime members, and that is also its own flywheel where people become best mates, they go to each other's birthday parties, like, they. They become, like, really good friends, and then they want to bring the people who would be a good fit in to the community as well.
- [23:04]
B
Wow.
- [23:04]
C
So I don't know if you know this, Millie, but you just completely made my day, because one of the things I talk about at nauseam to people is insanely valuable content and how you can do all of the growth hacks you want in the world, but if the content people end up getting is not good or insanely valuable, they're not going to stick around, they're not going to share. Yes, exactly. So thank you for saying that, because you pointed out two big pieces of that, and I think the jobs email and the podcast email both hit on that. So it sounds like you also have an insanely valuable community. How are you, like, pulling in those pieces into the community? Like, how do you make it a great place to be? It sounds like you have local events. What else are you doing in there to kind of get people engaged and hooked?
- [23:48]
A
Yeah. I like to think of a community as a culture. You're literally building a culture, and you can't spell culture without cult. So.
- [23:58]
B
Nice.
- [23:59]
A
I think there's a few. There's a few things that make GW special. I think the first is that we have kind of done everything backward or, like, not by the rule book. So the rule book is like, get a really narrow ICP and then go even more narrow. And we're just like this crew of, like, generalists. And it's like, we don't. We kind of look the same by our weirdness. That's it. It's not like, you know, the. The classic demographics of a community. And I think that is one of the most magic parts of it, that it's just like someone has done it before. Such interesting people. I'm biased, but I think that the most interesting people on earth are the ones that have done all these different things and have, like, lived to tell the tale. And it's like, yeah, what did you learn? Like, I recorded a podcast this morning with a member, and she was like, yeah, I was like. I was like, an astrophysicist and then I was a data scientist and engineer and now I'm a strategy consultant. I was like, what do you mean? Like what, Tell me, what are the curves? How does that happen? And I'm just fascinated by these moves that people make which are non traditional, which no one else has made before. I just find them like incredibly exciting. So I think the first thing is the people, same as the good content. It's like if you don't have really interesting, generous, kind. I wouldn't even always say like minded because there's such a diversity in there. But like value minded, value aligned. More than value minded. Not a word value aligned people. So that's number one in terms of like what the actual community is. It is a living, breathing co creation from our members. I am very fortunate that I have an amazing community lead who I hired I think six months in and she's been with me ever since and she's now a full time employee and I'm like, you're wonderful. And so she's really helped me grow it. And our ethos with this is this space is not me and her, it's not our space, it is our space. And it's like, so what do you guys want? What would be valuable for you? And so like for, for an example, we have right now a two of our members came to us and they were like, we're like, we're in the early stages of building a portfolio career. We want to, you know, we've got these targets. We want to get like say two clients by the end of the year and an extra revenue stream. They're like, it'd be so fun to do that in community. Could we run a portfolio career lab Sprint. And they sent us a full document of all the, the times and the sessions and the like, the everything. And I was like, go get it, like 100%. And we also have that for job seekers. We run these regular job search councils. We also have it for our unbox course. People come together and this is like all community led. Edger and I are kind of the orchestrators who just, if anything, we're kind of the bottlenecks sometime to be on, to be honest. And local meetups is something that has emerged. We, it started as a joke in the community. We were like, imagine. We had a day, like imagine there was a day for generalists and we had our first international generalist day last year and we thought it was fantastic. There was like 25 local hosts around the world and we were like, wow, like how gorgeous. General is coming together in person. And we decided to run it again this year and we thought we were being ambitious with our target. We were like, maybe like 40, 50 would be the stretch goal. 50 local hosts, that would be amazing. 88 local hosts around the world. We had over 3,000 people in 35 different countries. Like, I was like, what do you mean? We're having one in Uruguay.
- [27:58]
B
Unreal.
- [27:59]
A
Excuse me. It was so cool. It was so cool. And this might all sound a little bit chaotic and it probably is, but this is community. Community is not like this perfect, polished sass. It is this like. Okay, it's like a garden and sometimes you try things, you're like, oh, yeah, that didn't quite work. Let's harvest it, like make room for other stuff.
- [28:26]
C
Yeah. How many members are in your community total?
- [28:29]
A
Over 700.
- [28:31]
C
Okay. Wow. So they invited outsiders to come to these local events.
- [28:36]
A
Yeah. So for igd, that is the International General Assay. That's the, the one day that we allow non members to also host events. Typically, like, we have regular events all across the world. Chicago, New York, London, Sydney, Melbourne. And they are always hosted by members.
- [28:54]
C
Got it. Wow, that's. That's wild. That is 3,600 people. Did they have to like sign up to the email list to become. To like get a ticket to come?
- [29:04]
A
They did happen to become email subscribers as well.
- [29:08]
C
Nice.
- [29:09]
A
Love it, love it.
- [29:10]
C
I love the in real life email subscriber events. That's great. Here's my clipboard. Write your email address down, please.
- [29:20]
A
Classic.
- [29:22]
C
That's so good.
- [29:22]
B
So in terms of the revenue streams for Generalist World and for yourself, is it quiz and then straight through to memberships. And you mentioned lifetime membership. So this isn't a recurring revenue stream in terms of like one person is continually giving you money. So what is your revenue stream or your product offers?
- [29:40]
C
What.
- [29:41]
B
What does that look like?
- [29:43]
A
Yeah, so. So the quiz is brief. So that's. I, I suppose that's for a. A channel rather than a revenue stream. So our membership forever was our main revenue stream. That was our main income. And I made the decision this year in May to switch to lifetime membership when I realized, okay, we've now got. It was around 20000 subscribers. That was a number. I completely made up an arbitrary number that I was like, that sounds like a lot. Like I can go to sponsors and feel confident that like that so many subscribers. And so it coincided. It like intersected that I switched us to lifetime membership, essentially deleting our recurring revenue with this strategy of A, we were going to have bigger cohorts and basically collect the, the lifetime value would go up. But B, we would now get our revenue from sponsors. And so in May of this year, I was like, bright Millie, you've just taken a big risk in the business. You've just deleted all the recurring revenue. The members are delighted. They're so happy. Yeah, but you better not screw this up. You better go and get some.
- [30:51]
B
You can't go back, right?
- [30:54]
A
You can't be like, guys, sorry, I messed up. It was a one way door. I burned the boat. But I was, I was confident, I was very confident that what we had was really valuable and I just needed to learn the skill set again. A very generalist approach. I was like, oh, this is what we need to do. I need to get us to here. I need to learn the skill set of how do you get sponsors and how do you get sponsors that are awesome. That was like, that was my, my North Star. I was like, I don't, I, I don't want to. And I actually won't put anyone in front of this audience that I've like busted my butt for like two years to build. I'm not just going to put anyone and like ruin that trust instantly. So I basically made a very, very short list. Four people, Notion lovable, Gamma Zapier. And I went to all of them, this is the very condensed version, and said roughly the same thing. And that is like, this is such a fit and I love you. Like I love you so much. Our audience is going to love you. Our company runs on these products. So this is not even going to be me selling it. It's going to be me talking about like how we run Generalist World with these products. Some were easy, some, I mean, I went through like side doors. At one point I was like, I was so sneaky. I'm not going to say who, which company it was, but I replied to their support to get an email to the person I was like. Because I couldn't find the person to email. So I replied to their support and eventually they directed me.
- [32:32]
B
Oh, sneaky. I love it.
- [32:34]
A
It was sneaky and it worked. Eventually that was the person that converted. So I think, I think you have to be if you're going after sponsors in this way, in this way where you're like, I had a very short list and I was very determined to make that list happen. You have to be relentless, but like, in a like friendly way. Friendly relentlessness, yeah, very following up. And, and you're not following up, just saying, oh, I'm just following up. No, you're following up with extra value. It's like, let's say you just landed another partnership. It's like, oh, I'm actually working with lovable now. And here's what I just did with them. And it's like, give them a proof point. Give them something that they're like, oh, okay, this person's legit. And yeah, within. Between. I think I started that process and it must have been around April or May when we deleted the revenue, the recurring revenue by, I would say, like July, August, we had those four sponsors locked in.
- [33:32]
B
Wow, all four.
- [33:32]
C
That's awesome.
- [33:34]
A
All four.
- [33:35]
C
And I just want to, like, reiterate that you said you, you've replied to the support email to get this. Like, I don't know if you've read the book the Third Door by Alex Benayan, but essentially the concept is there's the. If you really want something, there are three doors. There's the front door where nobody gets in. Right. The back door where you can maybe sneak in. And then there's like the cracked window down the alley, like, that leads into the bathroom and you just like jump in and you're in the building.
- [34:01]
A
Right.
- [34:02]
C
And I feel like that's what you did with this sponsorship. And I think it's such an underrated thing for people in this space to do. Like, they think, you know, you email the person, you don't hear back or you get a no, and then they're done and you're like, no, no, I'm going to go weasel my another way.
- [34:18]
B
Way to get into this place.
- [34:19]
A
Yeah.
- [34:20]
C
Yes.
- [34:20]
A
Love it.
- [34:21]
C
And, like, so good.
- [34:22]
A
How bad do you want it? How bad? How bad do you want it? And for me, this is like, you know, I'm not working for a big company. This is my living. I'm like, I got to make this work and I. I want to make it work with you. And I think it's like, when people see that you're so, like, psyched and so jazzed to actually work with them, I mean, instantly that stands out. But still, that's not enough. I can't reiterate enough. Like, how many times you just have to keep following up and try. Try the different doors. Try the third door.
- [34:55]
C
Yeah, that's great. So on the topic of, like, how bad do you want it? Like, I know we already talked about social, but I'm going to go back to it because a thousand work days in a row is a lot. Like, how do you get through those days where you don't feel like posting, you don't want to do it. Like, give us some inspiration here.
- [35:12]
A
You're gonna hate me. It is one of my favorite parts of my job. I don't hate it. And I think that's the key. So I think if I was writing in a way that I was like, oh, it's a chore. Damn. I've not posted on. Honestly, if I could post on LinkedIn five times a day and not be penalized, I would like. There is. I have no shortage of. Of content because everything is content when you start looking for it. Everything. I met someone at a conference the other day and she said, I've got nothing interesting to say. Bull. I do not believe it. I do not believe it. Everyone has something interesting to say. You're just not looking at it. Because I think people undervalue how freaking cool they are and they undervalue the magic. This is a lot of why the generalist quiz has taken off because we are finally giving people this language that they then start to see their magic. And so how do I. How do I keep posting on LinkedIn? Number one, I don't take myself too seriously. I don't try and be exact. I don't. Couldn't care less if I don't have 300,000 followers. In fact, I was thinking this morning, I was like, I don't even know if I've ever had a post go viral. Like, I think maybe I've had a post get like 500 likes or something. Couldn't care less. Doesn't matter. That's not what I'm there for. I'm not there to sell my LinkedIn course, do you know what I mean? On how to, like, grow. How to grow on LinkedIn. I'm there to build a reputation. And something happened last week that made me realize it worked because, like, I live on this remote island and, like, I see these names on LinkedIn, but I'm like, I don't really. I don't really know if you guys are people or, like, if you're actually. You don't really know. I. I don't see them in person. But I went to this conference, Operations Nation, Shout out, and it was the strangest experience because it was the first time in my life that I felt famous. I don't know how else to say that. Famous within a very small sphere. It was like a room of operators, startup folks, like, my people. It was a room of generalists, basically. And people were like, you're My favorite person on LinkedIn. And I follow you every day. I send your stuff to my husband. And I mean, this happened all day. I was exhausted. I was exhausted. By the end. I was like, oh, my. I'm not used to this. And I think it's a really important. It was a really important realization for me because sometimes I think I'm posting to LinkedIn, I'm like, oh, it only reached 3,000 people.
- [37:49]
C
There's a lot of. That's more people than live on your island.
- [37:52]
A
Yeah, by a long way. And if those 3,000 people are 3,000 people who have been reading your stuff for a thousand days, they feel like they know you. Someone hugged me. They're like, congrats on the wedding. Well, congrats.
- [38:05]
C
I didn't know that either.
- [38:06]
A
Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Yeah, I think, like, tactically, if someone is. If someone is feeling stuck with LinkedIn, I actually think the problem is your why. It. You're stuck on the why. And it's like, so why are you actually posting? If you're posting to, like, I don't know, for. For. For a goal that isn't something that you actually, like, really believe in, or a goal that, like, expires, then of course it's going to be really hard to have longevity with that. But I'm like, I'm here to build a reputation. LinkedIn for me is, I live on this island. I don't have a reputation unless I, like, shoulder barge my way into people's psyche. And the best way to do that is a professional network. And so I think it's about really understanding why are you posting it? Why are you posting every day and not caring so much. Like, I don't sweat the analytics of a single post. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What I'm really doing is building that reputation. And I think people totally underestimate how many opportunities come through LinkedIn. Like, that is where people. That's where my speak speaking career, that's another revenue stream which is in the last year. Hilarious. I just posted on LinkedIn one day, I want to be a speaker. That was it. Like, I didn't have anything strong behind me except for I think I have a kind of a cool story and it looks really fun and I'd like to spread the word about Generalist. I think it's an efficient way to do that as a speaker. I'm like, on this, like, speaking tour. I was away last week. I'm going back next week to speak in, in London at the Portfolio Career Summit. Then I'm going to go MC Web Summit. Do you think I could be emceeing Web Summit if I did not post on LinkedIn for a thousand days? Maybe. But, like, I don't see the world where that happens because all someone does now is they look at it, they look me up and they're like, oh, yeah, she's legit. Because she's, like, really consistent and people engage a lot and it seems. It seems legit. And what else can I say? I think it is about finding your voice. So I think there's like, There is the LinkedIn voice, which we all know. We all know the LinkedIn voice. It's very, like, rigid and it's like the short lines, short sentences, and it's probably written by ChatGPT and we can all see it. So it is actually never been easier to stand out on LinkedIn. If you have an ounce of humor about you, like a bone of funniness, use it. Because everything is so serious and so you will instantly stand out. I think my favorite. I could go on about this today. I'm going to end with my favorite piece of advice, which is by someone called Courtney Johnson. We had her in for a masterclass inside gw and she said, just be more honest. And I was like, that's it. That is what works with my LinkedIn every day. It's so easy to write because I'm just honest about. I'm honest and then I turn the honesty up a little bit. And when you turn the honesty up a little bit, people go, wow, she said the quiet thing out loud. Yeah, it's like, yeah, we're all thinking it. We're all thinking it. I will pause. Or I could keep going.
- [41:25]
B
How often are you worried about your hooks or how you're formatting your posts or how you're, like, signing off or your call to actions? Like, does any of that really go through your mind when you're writing or are you just like, blah, Like, I'm just going to write what I'm writing.
- [41:39]
A
Hooks matter what I'm thinking.
- [41:41]
B
Okay.
- [41:42]
A
Hooks really matter. I'm into the hook. I'm into the hook.
- [41:46]
C
Me too.
- [41:46]
A
That really matters. No doubt about it. The cta. I'm insanely inconsistent. Sometimes I remember to write one, sometimes I don't. Sometimes, like, oh, yeah, I'm Billy, follow me. You know, very inconsistent with that, but I'm very consistent in. I think if you get the hook wrong, it's actually just like science. Like, it's not going to get shown to anyone. People aren't going to read it. So do focus on the hook. The formatting I'm more flexible on. I think it's more about the having the message that like, either really resonates or really surprises or really, like, connects with people.
- [42:21]
C
I'm a big hook person too. If I could just write hooks instead of posts, I would do it.
- [42:25]
B
Just come on, Chanel, just write hooks.
- [42:29]
C
Just write hooks and put like a little read more label and there's nothing below it. Oh, that'd be so good. So you, recently, you mentioned that your latest cohort of joining of people joining the community was 120, which was the most you've had join. So it sounds like you have 3ish times a year you let people in and then this time you're. You upped it to four, if I remember correctly.
- [42:55]
A
So this year was actually still 3. I think next year we might do 4. I think to do that, we, we need an extra community person. I think EJA is kind of at her, Her. She's stretched as it is. And we, we, we give such a. About when people come in making that community experience. Like a 20 out of 10. Like, I still send everyone a personalized video to this COHORT that was 100 over 120. I was like a puddle on the floor. But I was like, we got to do it. It's tradition. Like, and people love it. They're like, I've been waiting for my personalized video.
- [43:34]
C
That's amazing. And you probably think it's like, not a waste of time, but, like, people will probably tell you that you could scale it away or do something different. But yeah, I mean, I do welcome videos with people. Welcome calls. I should say so.
- [43:51]
A
You're amazing.
- [43:52]
C
A little bit more lightweight.
- [43:53]
A
Amazing.
- [43:53]
C
Maybe I should take a, take a page out of your book.
- [43:56]
A
I used to do welcome calls with everyone, but then it did, it did get. I mean, I would just be doing welcome calls.
- [44:02]
B
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow.
- [44:03]
C
Yeah, I might be getting to that point soon, but we'll see.
- [44:06]
A
I think, I think I got to. I was around 100. I think I welcomed the first 100 with a welcome call. And then I was like, okay, not sustainable.
- [44:14]
C
Yeah, that's awesome. What else are like, what's next for generalist World?
- [44:20]
A
What's.
- [44:20]
C
What's coming down the pipe?
- [44:22]
A
You know that, like, that concept of compounding. I like, I've heard of people talk about compounding, but I never have experienced compounding. We are in this insane compounding time where I feel like for two years we were trying really hard and we were growing really slowly. And I was like, man, I'm doing all the things and it's just like, it's just like brute force, brute force to get in front of people, to try different experiments, to fail, lots and lots and lots. But we're in this beautiful period in the last six months. As you said, the last time we spoke, there's. It was in May and now there's 20,000 more subscribers. And I believe that this is the effect of compounding and just sticking with something. So what the actual impact of that compounding means is it means that we now have stability to really take big swings. So generalist world as a team, to be like, okay, what are the things that we couldn't do when we were still kind of in the survival phase? What can we do now that we're at the stable phase? And one of the. Our big bet is in person. So next year expect a whole load of more in person. I think it's like the anti trend, right? So like when you've got like everyone going all AI, it's like, okay, you've got community, which is digital and there's so much value in it. And if we can bring more people together in person. So that's kind of going to be our focus of next year. But the, the vision is to build a workforce. It's to build an entire workforce of people who are happy, thriving generalists, as we call them. We've got this archetype of a happy, thriving generalist. Someone who's making great money, getting paid to do great work that lights them up and getting paid to be a generalist. They're not having to squeeze into the rigid boxes. That's the vision to build an entire workforce of these people.
- [46:23]
C
I feel like you can just take Lenny Richardsky's playbook and just like keep compounding on it, because it's the same thing but in a much, much different space.
- [46:31]
A
Sure.
- [46:31]
C
Like, yeah, I just feel like everything I see from you, I'm like, oh, Lenny. It's like one to one almost, but just like in a different space. I mean, it's pretty cool.
- [46:40]
A
I, I hope I can, Lenny.
- [46:43]
C
That would be sweet. And now, I don't know if you saw this yesterday, he's posting about fitness. And I was like, okay, Lenny, you do you, you do you.
- [46:53]
A
He can do whatever he wants. Here's Lenny.
- [46:55]
C
He could do whatever.
- [46:55]
B
I mean, exactly. He's built his business to the point where, yeah, he can make those calls. If you wanted to talk about fishing or, you know, whatever will be interested?
- [47:04]
A
Absolutely.
- [47:07]
C
Wow, that's amazing. Um, Dylan, do you have any other questions you're. You want to ask or anything like that before we wrap up?
- [47:13]
B
Yeah, I think I kind of like to ask generally, like, what would be your main advice to somebody who's trying to grow a newsletter who might be going through this, like, this struggle that you just described, like all this work, this grunt work. It's not. Doesn't feel like it's moving a needle. This might sound like a cliche question, but like. Yeah, what would you, what would you tell somebody or tell yourself maybe your two year ago or three year ago self.
- [47:35]
A
Yeah. That if the why is important enough, you'll keep going. I think the, the flip side of that is it's never been easier to start a newsletter. It's like, oh, there it is. Now I have a newsletter. And it will absolutely take you longer than you think it will absolutely take. You might be the tiny TV exception who has that, like, breakout success out the gate, but probably you're actually going to be grinding. So it better be something that you care about and it better be for an audience that you actually want to help. I think newsletters are so freaking cool. You get to like, help so many people at scale. And I would also say if you, like, writing is never a bad skill to learn. Like, if you can become, even if you're just writing for a small group, it doesn't have to be an enormous newsletter list. Even if you're writing for a small group, that skill, that craft of being able to like, think through an idea, translate it and like, make it like, accessible, make it enjoyable, that's a great skill to have. There'd be different arguments for this, but I think particularly with AI, if you can be a strong writer and a strong communicator, so what I would tell nilly, in two to three years ago, I think it would just be around like that. It matters because the people who are reading it need this. And it's like, it matters because the people who are reading it are going to get jobs through this. It matters because the people who are reading are going to listen to that podcast and go negotiate a higher salary. So it's like the newsletter is just a vehicle to reach people. If you have a really strong why of why you want to help those people, why you want to reach those people, it's an amazing channel.
- [49:21]
B
Wow.
- [49:21]
C
Yeah, that's amazing. It's like set your, set your ego aside and just pay attention to the impact that you could have on those people's lives.
- [49:28]
B
Yeah, you can. You can change lives. Which sounds kind of wild and crazy, but is actually legitimately what you are doing. That's awesome.
- [49:37]
A
Thank you.
- [49:39]
C
Amazing. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast. If people want to check out more about what you're doing, where should they go? What's the best place?
- [49:46]
A
Generalist World. Generalistquiz.com Go take the quiz tag DN IT on LinkedIn and I will amplify it for you and you'll find me on LinkedIn. I think I'm the only Millie Tamati.
- [49:57]
C
And you'll find her on TikTok as well.
- [50:00]
A
You'll find me and about 50 clones on TikTok, so. Oh, no.
- [50:04]
C
Really?
- [50:04]
A
Yeah. It's a battle. I've stopped fighting. I don't know what to do. There's so many clones. So I'm the one with like 4. 40,000 followers. Go to that one.
- [50:16]
B
Wow.
- [50:17]
A
And I'm not trying to sell you crypto.
- [50:21]
B
It's that big. Biggest form of flattery, though, right? Like when people start cloning you and that sort of thing. Right?
- [50:27]
A
Yeah, Yeah, I suppose.
- [50:32]
B
The Internet.
- [50:32]
C
Well, thanks for. Thanks again for coming on the show. This has been great.
- [50:35]
A
Thanks for having me.
- [50:35]
B
Thanks.
- [50:40]
C
Well, Millie, we're excited to have you on the growth river. Oh, my gosh. Can't talk.
- [50:47]
B
Rewind.