🍁 5 Predictions for Fall in Creative Business

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Hello, and welcome to the Off the Grid Clubhouse.

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I'm Amelia Hruby, and you might know me as the host of Off the Grid Podcast.

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The Clubhouse is our private podcast and newsletter for friends, fans, and super fans of the public show.

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And these missives, the episodes, the link roundups, the little musings I write, and more are

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only go to our paid subscribers.

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So if you joined us during the month of August,

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I was doing a little thing I called Anti-Paywall August,

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where I took the paywall off of three amazing episodes that I wanted to share here

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with all of you in the hopes that you might see what great work we do here in the

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clubhouse and want to join us.

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So thank you so much for supporting my work.

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And to do that, I am coming to you with a super special episode.

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where I am putting on my smart,

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strategic,

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magical,

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mystical fortune teller hat and offering five predictions for fall in creative

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business.

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These are the things that I think online business owners,

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artists,

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writers,

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and more are going to be seeing a lot of in the upcoming months and

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and my thoughts and suggestions for how to navigate what I think is to come before

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the end of the year.

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And at the end of this episode,

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I'm also going to give you real stats,

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numbers,

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and updates on how Anti-Paywall August actually went.

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So stick around to the end if you wanna hear the numbers, the dollars and cents of it all.

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But for now, let's dive in to my five predictions for fall 2025 in creative business.

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Okay, prediction number one.

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I am predicting something that I am already seeing.

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So maybe this is more trend spotting than forecasting.

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But this fall,

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we are going to see lots of sales,

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lots of new products,

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lots of launches,

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and I think just a lot of general activity in people selling stuff online.

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And when I say a lot, I mean more than usual, especially from our

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B2B service providers,

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our B2B and B2C course creators,

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our digital product people,

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our podcasters,

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our YouTubers.

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I think that everyone's sales calendar is going to be full,

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full,

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full because I think that the people who were kind of waiting and seeing all

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winter,

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spring,

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and summer are now in sort of a crunch period to make money this fall.

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And honestly, I'm seeing that on the receiving end in my own business.

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I have had multiple podcast clients who I met with back in January to talk about

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their plans for the spring and summer in their show.

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And then none of that happened.

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They basically were like,

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We're going to hold on all of this.

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And now they are all back.

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I mean, we're talking about like four or five shows on my tiny roster of like 10 to 15 shows.

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So I have seen this big uptick in people returning to their marketing because

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they're returning to their sales.

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They are prepping for fall launches and sort of backing up into that.

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So

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If you are that person,

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if you are looking at your revenue for the year and you're like,

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I got to make some money,

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or if you just typically launch in the fall and you're prepping for a fall launch,

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I want to say,

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great,

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get your launch on.

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I'm not trying to tell you not to launch.

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But I think just be aware that the space may be a little more noisy than usual.

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I have already been pitched.

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We're like one week into September and I have already been pitched multiple fall

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retreats,

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multiple sort of fall business or marketing courses.

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It feels like a lot.

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And I think that's really going to keep up.

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So again, if you're launching, just know that it might be noisy.

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And so you might want to find ways to cut through the noise in your marketing.

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It may mean you want to send a few more emails or you want to send some direct emails.

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This would be a great time to focus on

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one-to-one or small group outreach instead of broadcasting all of your marketing

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messages,

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because I think there's just gonna be a ton of noise on that broadcast channel.

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But let me tell you, a personal email always breaks through, at least for me.

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Like, it may take me a while to reply, but it will get my attention and I will get back to you.

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And I've seen that in my sales as well.

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I can hear absolute crickets from something I send to my whole list saying,

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and then get the warmest best responses sending a very similar email directly to a

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few people who I think it would be great for.

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I also just wanna say that if you do not have big launch plans this fall,

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if you are not the person who's like,

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I am packing it in to my fall sales calendar,

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don't let all of the activity in the space make you feel like you need to be

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selling just because other people are activated.

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I think it's going to be really important this fall to stay focused on our own

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feelings,

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our own needs,

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our own business's needs.

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I think the energy is very like keep your eyes on your own paper because it's going

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to be super easy to be looking at everybody else's paper up on the wall and just

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like comparing and despairing and working your way into like a totally dizzy

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frenzy.

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So I

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If you're launching, go for it.

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If you're not, don't feel the peer pressure.

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It is okay to take a break, take some space.

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And I actually think the people who do step back this fall or who don't fill the

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space with this sort of

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Got to get it done energy.

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I think that if you can tap into that like slower rhythm and that like centered

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regulated nervous system,

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when you do reach out to your community,

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I think it's just going to come through on a different level because it's not going

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to feel like the noise.

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So that's my first prediction.

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Lots of sales this fall.

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Think about the noise if you're doing it or perhaps lean back and lean out if it's not for you.

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Okay, second prediction.

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Launches are back, but they take longer than ever.

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So remember like two years ago when everybody was over-launching?

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I saw so much messaging that was like, if you're sick of launching, do this.

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Or if you never want to launch again, do this.

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Everybody was creating recurring revenue containers,

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memberships,

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ongoing payment plans into infinity.

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They were abandoning the launch model, but launches are back now in a big way.

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And honestly, I think launches are back in some sense because they work.

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Like creating a sort of focal point for people's attention and also creating that

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hopefully honest sense of urgency that like now is the time that this is available

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and it's only available at this time.

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That works really effectively for sales.

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So I am noticing and predicting that launches have returned.

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Nobody is doing that sort of like, if you're sick of launching, messaging anymore.

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Instead,

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I'm literally getting multiple emails a week that are like,

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my $25,000 launch,

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my $36,000 launch,

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how I did a five-figure launch,

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how I launched a six-figure product.

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Like, it is endless.

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Yeah.

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Maybe you're feeling that too.

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I mean,

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I'm all about income transparency,

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but I got to be honest,

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I don't always love it when it feels like it's just in service of selling me

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something else.

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So I think that launches are definitely on the upswing.

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I predict they're going to stay strong through the fall and then sometime next year.

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they're gonna go back out of fashion again.

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People are gonna be over it.

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I'm already feeling a little bit over those income claim emails.

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So that's gonna shift.

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But for now, I think launches are in for fall.

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And that said, I'm seeing a new emphasis on pre-launching.

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So what that means is all of the work that you're doing to not only grow your

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audience,

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but to really warm them up

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to buy before you launch.

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So I purchased a great class from Nicole Cloutier called Open Loops that was all

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about pre-launching,

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and I am super into Nicole's pre-launch strategy.

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I do agree that it's really important to warm up your list,

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especially as a response to the challenge of building trust with your audience

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during this like age of AI everything and

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as well as during this moment of a super weird economy.

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I think that AI and the economy are just eroding trust.

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And so we have to do more work as creators and small business owners to build trust

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with our community and with the people who we want to buy from us.

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And so doing the work of pre-launching is what helps do that,

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such that when your launch begins,

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when you open the doors,

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people are excited to buy and they already trust you and they already want what you're selling.

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So I'm very intrigued to see how pre-launching evolves.

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You know,

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this could be as simple as sending one email to your list saying something like,

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hey,

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next week,

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I'm going to open the doors to this and I'm going to offer you a little discount or

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a little promo as thanks.

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If you sign up on the first day, keep an eye out for the email.

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I did that recently for the interweb waitlist and I had my best like first day

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sales ever in a waitlist campaign.

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So something as simple as that can work wonders or it could be like a much more

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strategic like multi-week email sequence.

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That's sort of what I'm doing with my book launch right now.

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If you're on the waitlist,

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I'm sending emails over the course of five weeks talking about the book,

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how I wrote it,

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what's in it,

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what problems it solves,

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what objections you might have and how I can resolve them.

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Like

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I'm doing all of that leading up to the launch so that when I announce that the

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orders are open,

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people are like salivating because they want it so much.

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I definitely have my like super cute drooly dog in mind.

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And that's what I'm channeling.

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That's like the energy I'm trying to create.

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It's like the most excited puppy in the world.

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That's how I want all of you to feel when the book actually goes on sale and I'm

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trying to help nurture that energy.

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That is the pre-launch to my launch.

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So that was our second trend.

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I want to add a little caveat here to both of the trends I've mentioned so far.

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So everybody's going to be selling this fall,

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more sales,

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more noise than ever,

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and launches are back,

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but they take longer.

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I just want to pause there and say that I would advise being wary of two things.

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I would be wary of people promising major transformations before the end of the year.

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I'm not saying that you can't get things done or that you can't make shifts in your

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work and your life before December 31st.

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But I think that knowing the astrology of fall,

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knowing the Gregorian calendar of fall,

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I just don't think that the fall ahead is going to be about huge shifts and big

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changes.

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And I think that it's really...

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tempting to purchase promises like that, but I would be wary of it.

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I think that as the space gets noisier,

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people's claims tend to get bigger,

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but that doesn't mean that what they're offering can actually produce those

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results.

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So just have your, you know, smart consumer cap on

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when you are buying things this fall.

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I think that's gonna be more important than ever.

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And I also just wanted to add in that I am becoming super wary of launches

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launching launches,

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which is something that I talked to Amanda Laird about on her podcast,

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Personal Business,

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which you should definitely go subscribe to.

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But basically we talked about sort of this phenomenon we've noticed of seeing

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marketers do a launch

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And then like sell launching to you in that launch process and sell their own like

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income claims of how much they made launching as the reason you should buy their

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launch course or buy their launch services.

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And I think that that type of circular logic can show up in different places in online business.

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You know, we have coaches coaching coaches.

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Now we have launches launching launches.

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It's one reason why I do not do podcasters podcasting podcasts.

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I do not promise people that I can make them the next off the grid.

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I promise them that I will edit their podcast.

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I will write their show notes.

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I will produce deliverables,

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but I'm not out here to build in that sort of like circular logic that again,

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makes these promises that can't really be guaranteed.

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So once again,

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have your smart consumer cap on,

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notice these trends,

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think about these predictions as you're making purchases this fall.

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Okay, up next.

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This one is actually a prediction.

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The last two were just things I had been noticing and was predicting would continue in the fall.

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But my next prediction is that I think Black Friday is going to be bigger than ever

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this year for two reasons.

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One is psychological, one is astrological.

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So psychologically, I say as a non-psychologist, I think that people have had a hard year and

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And they will be turning to consumerism to feel better.

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This prediction is based on vibes, so take it or leave it.

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But I think that people are going to be looking for things to buy to feel better

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about the state of the world.

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And I think Black Friday is really going to be a focal point of that.

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Now, what do you do with that as a business owner?

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Well,

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maybe you want to lean in and you want to plan a Black Friday promotion or you want

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to plan a mid or late November promotion or you want to try something out that you

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haven't done before.

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It could be a great time for an experiment.

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Or maybe you want to lean out and you're like,

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yeah,

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Amelia,

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I feel that energy and I am not here for it.

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I will not stoke the fires of consumerism.

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My business is opting out of that.

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You know, I can really see the emotional landscape and the logic of both choices.

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And I really empower you to feel into what is right for you and your business.

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The astrological reason I'm making this claim is that Mars and the sun will be in

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Sagittarius over Black Friday.

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And Saturn is stationing direct on Thanksgiving.

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So I just think there's going to be like this fiery, sunny...

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spend, spend, travel, travel, make big moves, Sagittarius energy.

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And with Saturn being done with its retrograde and stationing direct,

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kind of allowing some movement in the long-term thinking parts of our chart,

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I think it's just gonna lead to more purchasing.

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So again, my prediction is that Black Friday will be bigger than ever.

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And I empower you to start thinking now about what you want that to mean for your business.

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Don't get pulled into some webinar on November 1st about how you should really be

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thinking about Black Friday and support you do everything right now.

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Make your own intentional choice with agency at the start of fall rather than

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getting sort of like swept into the season.

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Next up is once again, a kind of lame prediction that continues a trend I've been seeing.

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And that is there will be more and more and more AI as the year goes on.

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We are going to see more conversations for and against AI.

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We are going to see more people selling GPTs and AI tools.

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We are going to see more people selling AI

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AI optimization in addition to their search engine optimization.

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And on the flip side of that,

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I think we're going to see more people build AI disclosure into their work or

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writing more about why they don't use AI.

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or how they do and don't use AI.

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I think that disclosure is going to be more important than ever,

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and I would really love to see more people modeling this.

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I have seen plenty of people in my space write pieces about why they don't and

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never will use AI.

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Shout out to all my writers out there, I see you writing about this.

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I have also seen some people write about how they are like totally pivoting their

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business to AI.

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Shout out to all the creators out there who are like, I'm no longer coaching.

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Now I'm just making AI tools for you.

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But what I am interested in and what I'm predicting is that I think that more and

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more of the people like myself who are using AI in some ways and are not using it

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in others,

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I think that we are going to be called or asked to make that more explicit for

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ourselves and for our clients and community.

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So I've really been trying to figure out how am I going to disclose the use of AI in my work?

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How do I want to talk about it on off the grid?

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So far,

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what I've come up with is that I will not be pivoting to AI in any way,

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and I will not be teaching AI or having guests on to teach AI on the podcast or in

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the interweb.

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But I am going to have a guest on next year to talk about Search Everywhere

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Optimization,

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which includes AI.

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And I am having conversations with people about how they are thinking about AI in their work.

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So it feels obvious to me that there's going to be more and more AI in

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But my prediction,

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my hope,

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honestly,

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is that we're going to see more and more of the sort of ambivalent agnostic

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creators disclose and explain how they're using AI so that we can all begin to

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model AI

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the behavior we want to see,

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and then eventually to like make demands of these platforms around transparency,

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around reducing environmental impact,

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and more.

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So that's my fourth prediction, all of these like nuanced tangled thoughts on AI.

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And then finally,

(00:19:30.105):
my fifth prediction comes from the fact that I got no fewer than three emails

(00:19:36.273):
asking me about this in the past week.

(00:19:37.995):
So I'm just predicting it's going to be a thing for fall since everybody's showing

(00:19:41.379):
up in my inbox with it.

(00:19:42.881):
And that is private podcasts to pair with courses and memberships.

(00:19:48.459):
private podcasts have been in the space for a while,

(00:19:50.680):
I'm pretty sure I have mentioned them as a trend in one of my monthly biz forecast

(00:19:56.503):
episodes here before.

(00:19:58.364):
But what I'm noticing is that more and more courses and memberships are coming with

(00:20:04.547):
audio-only versions that you can listen to on a private podcast feed.

(00:20:10.939):
I actually just launched a version of this inside the interweb.

(00:20:14.625):
So now all of the interweb classes and courses are stored in our portal so you can

(00:20:19.873):
watch every class that's been taught in the interweb as well as prerecorded classes

(00:20:23.679):
from very cool people in online business.

(00:20:26.562):
And also you can listen to the classes on a private podcast feed that only members can access.

(00:20:33.628):
Like each member actually has to sign up for the feed with their email address and

(00:20:37.111):
they only get access as long as they are a member.

(00:20:40.174):
This allows course creators and membership facilitators to keep their content,

(00:20:46.879):
their teachings gated and for members only,

(00:20:50.642):
but it also gives the members so much more flexibility and

(00:20:55.146):
in where they are consuming or experiencing or interacting with the content that

(00:21:02.101):
they have paid to enjoy and learn from.

(00:21:06.138):
My prediction is that this is going to become standard practice.

(00:21:10.021):
I think that a year,

(00:21:11.762):
maybe two from now,

(00:21:13.484):
every membership is going to have this sort of private podcast feed because people

(00:21:18.968):
are going to expect it.

(00:21:20.489):
The more and more people who do it,

(00:21:22.250):
the more normalized it becomes,

(00:21:24.092):
the more expected it is and asked for from your clients,

(00:21:27.735):
your community,

(00:21:28.355):
your potential members,

(00:21:29.316):
and your existing members.

(00:21:30.897):
So I have been thrilled to

(00:21:33.092):
with the response for this in the interweb.

(00:21:35.794):
And I think that's partially what led a couple people outside of the membership to

(00:21:39.737):
ask me how it was or how to set it up.

(00:21:42.198):
If you want to create a private podcast for your own course or membership,

(00:21:46.642):
I think that the sort of tried and true tool for doing that is Hello Audio,

(00:21:53.907):
which you can learn about and sign up for at helloaudio.fm.

(00:21:58.770):
And then I actually use my podcast host to do that.

(00:22:03.013):
So I host my shows in Transistor and they have private podcasting options.

(00:22:08.917):
And then Captivate also has private podcasting options.

(00:22:13.140):
So if you're interested,

(00:22:14.240):
check those out or find me in the comments on Substack and we can chat more about

(00:22:18.523):
private podcasts.

(00:22:21.084):
All right, those were my five predictions for fall 2025 in creative business.

(00:22:27.967):
Let me recap them for you real quick, and then we'll talk about how anti-paywall August went.

(00:22:33.829):
So the five predictions were,

(00:22:35.730):
one,

(00:22:36.450):
lots of sales,

(00:22:37.751):
products,

(00:22:38.371):
launches,

(00:22:38.931):
and activity in the online business space this fall.

(00:22:42.493):
Overall, be prepared for it to be noisy.

(00:22:46.294):
And if you don't want to be noisy,

(00:22:47.795):
don't let the noise drown you out or make you feel pressured to make noise of your

(00:22:52.856):
own.

(00:22:54.216):
Number two, launches are back, but they take longer.

(00:22:59.158):
So think about how you want to launch and how you are warming up your list before you launch.

(00:23:05.580):
Number three, Black Friday is going to be bigger than ever.

(00:23:09.581):
This is my prediction, and we'll see if it comes true.

(00:23:14.751):
Number four,

(00:23:16.092):
we're gonna see more and more and more and more uses of AI,

(00:23:20.694):
conversations around AI,

(00:23:22.675):
and hopefully disclosures of how we are and are not using AI in our businesses and

(00:23:29.878):
our art.

(00:23:31.119):
And finally,

(00:23:31.939):
number five,

(00:23:32.960):
private podcasts are going to become the norm for courses and memberships so people

(00:23:38.422):
can listen on the go.

(00:23:40.783):
Those are my predictions.

(00:23:42.704):
Don't call me out if they don't come true.

(00:23:46.438):
Run all of this through your own energy, your own authority.

(00:23:50.319):
Take what speaks to you.

(00:23:51.819):
Leave the rest.

(00:23:53.080):
But thank you so much for listening.

(00:23:58.161):
Okay, let's talk about anti-paywall August.

(00:24:02.042):
So if you were offline for all of August,

(00:24:04.603):
if you were not paying attention to what I was doing in the clubhouse,

(00:24:07.744):
that is 100% fine.

(00:24:10.144):
Let me give you a quick recap of what this was.

(00:24:12.945):
So

(00:24:13.605):
In August, the public feed for Off the Grid went on break.

(00:24:19.069):
I put out an episode the first Wednesday of August,

(00:24:21.471):
and then I did not put out any other episodes until last week,

(00:24:25.694):
September 3rd.

(00:24:26.654):
So basically there were three weeks of no new episodes on the feed.

(00:24:31.488):
During that time,

(00:24:32.989):
I directed people to the Clubhouse because I was sharing three exclusive

(00:24:39.115):
conversations totally for free on the Clubhouse feed.

(00:24:43.615):
And I call it this Anti-Paywall August because I was experimenting in the ethos of

(00:24:49.159):
the Jillian Welsh song,

(00:24:51.260):
Everything is Free Now,

(00:24:53.002):
with this sort of idea of like,

(00:24:54.262):
okay,

(00:24:55.463):
if I share my best content,

(00:24:57.805):
I highlight that it is totally free for this period of time,

(00:25:01.167):
and I ask people to support it by paying for a Clubhouse membership,

(00:25:06.391):
will they do it?

(00:25:07.572):
That's what I wanted to know.

(00:25:08.212):
I was like, will they actually pay for

(00:25:11.014):
If I offer some of my best work for free.

(00:25:14.217):
This is also sort of what Substack tells you to do to make money on Substack, right?

(00:25:19.341):
Like they say,

(00:25:20.783):
offer all of this like free content,

(00:25:22.724):
free essays,

(00:25:23.765):
you know,

(00:25:24.026):
build it up,

(00:25:24.646):
do the free thing,

(00:25:25.967):
and then start paywalling or have occasional paywalls on your like juiciest stuff.

(00:25:31.692):
So I was also experimenting with like, does that work?

(00:25:34.094):
Right.

(00:25:36.096):
Because in my experience, free stop does not always make people want to pay for stuff.

(00:25:39.957):
So I was kind of testing that out as well.

(00:25:43.158):
And I let that experiment run for like 30 days.

(00:25:47.439):
And now I'm here to tell you how it went.

(00:25:50.680):
So I'm recording this on September 2nd,

(00:25:53.301):
which is almost 30 days since I launched Anti-Paywall August.

(00:25:59.023):
And in that time, I got 11 new paid subscribers.

(00:26:07.115):
and 56 new free subscribers.

(00:26:10.675):
Overall,

(00:26:11.335):
I now have 122 paid subscribers,

(00:26:14.838):
which means that I grew the clubhouse about 10% during this month-long experiment.

(00:26:22.122):
And according to Substack,

(00:26:23.663):
which I'll put all these numbers in the show notes so you can just like check the

(00:26:26.204):
screenshot there.

(00:26:27.345):
But according to them,

(00:26:28.386):
that means I have increased my gross annualized revenue by approximately $565 for

(00:26:34.029):
the year,

(00:26:34.249):
which is cool.

(00:26:39.292):
Substack also claims that I got 17 subscribers from the app in the past 30 days.

(00:26:45.881):
And they tell me that my views and my open rate have both dropped slightly during that time.

(00:26:52.088):
But like we're literally talking about like 1% slightly.

(00:26:54.952):
So I'm not terribly concerned about that.

(00:26:58.399):
So those are the numbers, but like, what does any of this mean, right?

(00:27:02.502):
If I were to give you like the briefest summary of what I'm taking away from that,

(00:27:06.304):
I think that every time I stop publishing on the public feed,

(00:27:12.006):
and continue publishing consistently in the clubhouse, I gain new subscribers.

(00:27:17.489):
That's actually how I launched the clubhouse last summer is that I put the podcast

(00:27:22.611):
on hiatus,

(00:27:23.491):
I think starting in mid or late June.

(00:27:26.513):
And then I didn't publish anything on the main feed again until September,

(00:27:29.434):
but I was in the clubhouse every week all summer.

(00:27:31.495):
So like that strategy just works well.

(00:27:34.296):
People love the podcast.

(00:27:35.979):
It's part of their weekly routine.

(00:27:37.822):
And so they still want it when it's gone.

(00:27:40.987):
And if I'm like,

(00:27:41.848):
just go to the clubhouse that you can have it,

(00:27:44.192):
then they go to the clubhouse,

(00:27:45.213):
they get a paid subscription,

(00:27:47.337):
and they listen to the episodes.

(00:27:49.099):
That

(00:27:49.840):
was true and i was pleased to find it stayed true even though the episodes in the

(00:27:54.681):
clubhouse were free so they could have just listened without upgrading to paid but

(00:27:59.482):
i felt like people did hear what i was trying to say which was like if you love the

(00:28:03.883):
main show like it only exists because people in the clubhouse support it thank you

(00:28:08.083):
dear clubhouse members so please support my work like this podcast takes a ton of

(00:28:12.384):
time to make and i would appreciate your support i think people did hear that

(00:28:15.405):
message and they did upgrade to paid

(00:28:18.416):
So I think overall, the Clubhouse as an experiment is a success.

(00:28:24.641):
And pausing the free public feed and sharing episodes in the Clubhouse does

(00:28:31.926):
increase my paid subscribers.

(00:28:33.567):
That continues to be true.

(00:28:35.709):
And honestly,

(00:28:36.369):
it's perhaps some encouragement for me to pause publishing on the main feed a

(00:28:41.893):
little more often because

(00:28:43.314):
I always have so much fear around taking a break because I'm like, what if my listens drop?

(00:28:47.157):
What if this?

(00:28:47.617):
What if that?

(00:28:48.538):
But like,

(00:28:49.879):
I think that the moral of this story is like I would make more money if I took some

(00:28:53.282):
more breaks.

(00:28:54.182):
So that's one thing I'm taking away.

(00:28:56.624):
The second thing I was thinking about that I sort of mentioned earlier was that I

(00:28:59.927):
was also just trying to test like,

(00:29:02.368):
is Substack's logic around giving away free content?

(00:29:05.130):
Like, is that true?

(00:29:06.311):
Does it work?

(00:29:08.234):
And also I was curious, like, will paid subscribers come through Substack?

(00:29:14.540):
Because I live in this ongoing question of like, am I gonna stay on Substack?

(00:29:19.484):
Am I gonna leave Substack?

(00:29:20.605):
Will I stay?

(00:29:21.185):
Will I go?

(00:29:22.226):
Like,

(00:29:23.027):
as I talked to Seth Workheiser about,

(00:29:25.289):
it's just sort of this like open thing that I'm trying to figure out.

(00:29:28.692):
It's an open thing that I see a lot of people on Substack trying to figure out.

(00:29:32.295):
And many of my friends and business peers have left.

(00:29:35.678):
So I was curious,

(00:29:36.739):
like,

(00:29:37.360):
is Substack actually making me money or is it actually just like off the grid?

(00:29:42.724):
The public show is always feeding people into the clubhouse.

(00:29:45.927):
So when I went and looked at the 12 people who upgraded to a paid subscription in

(00:29:52.452):
August during this anti-paywell August promotion,

(00:29:56.355):
At least five of them I recognize by name as interweb members or off-the-grid

(00:30:03.819):
listeners or Softer Sounds clients.

(00:30:06.800):
These people are known entities to me,

(00:30:09.862):
and they're coming into the clubhouse because they already know and love the show.

(00:30:15.638):
There are at least two other people who in their upgrade to paid told me they love the show.

(00:30:21.603):
And that's why they decided to join the clubhouse.

(00:30:24.065):
And that leaves about three people where I'm kind of like, I don't know where you came from.

(00:30:28.269):
Now, Substack really likes to tell me that everybody comes from Substack.

(00:30:32.812):
So I don't really trust their stats on this.

(00:30:37.436):
when they tell me where my subscribers are coming from.

(00:30:42.020):
Like if I look at my paid stats for the past 30 days,

(00:30:46.523):
they tell me that two come from the Substack app,

(00:30:51.187):
five come from Substack saved credit cards,

(00:30:53.829):
and two come from Substack existing accounts.

(00:30:56.291):
So I guess they attribute nine of my 11 to Substack,

(00:31:00.974):
but I'm like,

(00:31:01.454):
I get the emails that tell me where everyone came in from.

(00:31:04.136):
And when I look at them,

(00:31:06.258):
The people from the app are the ones that I already know.

(00:31:10.060):
And then a bunch of them are direct and somebody randomly came through Google.

(00:31:14.202):
I think the only upgrade I would actually attribute to Substack is one person who

(00:31:18.984):
was an interweb member upgraded because of a boosted upsell to engaged subscribers.

(00:31:24.826):
So Substack sent them an email that was like,

(00:31:27.288):
if you upgrade now,

(00:31:28.408):
we'll give you a discount,

(00:31:29.789):
which I have turned on in my backend settings.

(00:31:32.450):
And that was when they upgraded.

(00:31:35.151):
I guess the moral of the story is that Substack helped me get maybe a few paid

(00:31:39.875):
subscribers,

(00:31:41.156):
but I think if I wanted to leave Substack,

(00:31:43.898):
I would be okay because people aren't in the clubhouse because of Substack and

(00:31:48.181):
Substack is not sending me a bunch of paid subscribers.

(00:31:51.784):
It's people who love the show, who want to support it and join the clubhouse.

(00:31:56.647):
And I'm sure some of them also love Substack.

(00:31:58.648):
And so they're excited the clubhouse is on Substack.

(00:32:01.329):
But I'm sure there are also people who don't love Substack and don't join the

(00:32:04.591):
clubhouse because they don't want to be on Substack.

(00:32:06.612):
So, you know, the logic gets a little circular there.

(00:32:10.054):
But overall, I think that Anti-Paywall August was a success.

(00:32:15.898):
And my takeaways are that

(00:32:18.917):
You listeners are amazing and do wanna support the show and do upgrade if I'm super

(00:32:23.799):
honest and transparent and ask for your support.

(00:32:26.940):
And you're here because you love Off The Grid and you want more of it,

(00:32:30.401):
both in the sense of wanting me to keep making it and in you getting more episodes.

(00:32:35.623):
And take it or leave it with Substack.

(00:32:37.963):
I don't think I need it,

(00:32:39.004):
but it is still a really convenient place for me to do this and share this.

(00:32:43.045):
So I will be staying there for now.

(00:32:46.437):
So if you're a new Clubhouse member, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being here.

(00:32:51.081):
If you've been here for a long time,

(00:32:53.082):
thank you,

(00:32:53.382):
thank you,

(00:32:53.642):
thank you for continuing to support my work.

(00:32:56.264):
And I'm really excited for more episodes to come.

(00:32:59.307):
So this fall is going to be a little bit different here in the Clubhouse because my

(00:33:05.251):
book is coming out in October.

(00:33:06.852):
And so there's kind of gonna be a ton of content on the main podcast feed,

(00:33:11.696):
and I don't wanna be overwhelming.

(00:33:13.497):
So in September, you're getting this episode,

(00:33:16.399):
and a click-through link roundup.

(00:33:18.641):
I may do another exclusive episode if the mood strikes me,

(00:33:23.685):
but you might not hear from me again until October when I plan to gift the

(00:33:30.731):
audiobook version of my book,

(00:33:32.413):
Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media,

(00:33:35.315):
to Clubhouse members.

(00:33:37.617):
So if you want the audiobook, it's going to be here in the Clubhouse for you.

(00:33:44.342):
I just recorded the audiobook.

(00:33:45.983):
It's sounding so good, if I may say so myself.

(00:33:49.564):
And it's only going to be available to purchase during the first month of sales for the book.

(00:33:54.165):
It's going to be part of the book bundles that I'm doing with the book and the

(00:33:58.566):
retreat ticket and all these cool things I have planned for the book launch.

(00:34:02.467):
But I'm also going to pop the audio book in here for you in October as a thanks for

(00:34:08.631):
continuing to support my work during such a busy period.

(00:34:11.793):
Also,

(00:34:12.314):
if you want to listen to the book in your podcast player,

(00:34:14.655):
you can do that as part of your Clubhouse membership.

(00:34:17.637):
And then there will be plenty more things this fall.

(00:34:19.978):
So we're not going to do our monthly biz forecasts for the rest of fall.

(00:34:24.461):
This prediction episode will have to carry you through to the end of the year.

(00:34:28.823):
But there are a lot of great things to come.

(00:34:31.385):
I have such big ideas for the clubhouse this fall and in 2026.

(00:34:35.487):
And I'm so grateful for your support to bring them to life.

(00:34:39.509):
As always, I could not be more grateful that you are here.

(00:34:43.451):
And until next time, I will see you off the grid and in the clubhouse.

(00:34:52.175):
Let's go off the grid.