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Welcome welcome welcome back to Off the Grid! Amelia, here. I’m popping into your pod feed today to let you know that we’re kicking off season four of the show next week. 🎉
Starting September 4th, I’ll be sharing a new interview every Wednesday through the end of November, featuring amazing guests like: N. Chloé Nwangwu, Liz Migliorelli of Sister Spinster, Megan Leatherman, Podge Thomas, Kate Smalley, Michelle Pellizzon, Jenny Blake, Amy Kuretsky, and more!
In this preview episode, I tell you more about what’s to come in season four, including two themes we’ll be exploring —
🎢 Why leaving social media is going mainstream... and how to avoid the grifters glomming onto that
🍁 How online business is changing in hard times... and ways to feel less alone in this moment
And stick around to the end to learn about some big updates for the Interweb, our annual membership that’s getting a glow-up before we close the doors to new members on September 15th. Plus! The next ten folks who join using the code LUCKYTEN can get their first year at our founding member rate of only $99.
Creators & Guests
Host
Amelia Hruby
Founder of Softer Sounds podcast studio & host of Off the Grid: Leaving Social Media Without Losing All Your Clients
What is Off The Grid: Leaving Social Media Without Losing All Your Clients?
Off The Grid is a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. ✌️ Our host, Amelia Hruby PhD, shares stories, strategies & experiments for growing your business with radical generosity & energetic sovereignty. 🌐 Get the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit at offthegrid.fun/toolkit
Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients.
Melissa Kaitlyn Carter:Let's go off the grid. Okay. Let's go
Amelia Hruby:Hello, and welcome or welcome back to off the grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients. And wow, oh, wow, please let me say that it is so nice to be back on the air with you. If you're new here, I'm Amelia Frooby. I am the founder of Softer Sounds Podcast Studio and the host of this here show. And this episode that you are listening to right now is a teaser, a promo, a trailer of sorts for season 4 of the podcast, which will start next week.
Amelia Hruby:Yes. You heard that right. Next week, we are kicking off season 4 of off the grid on Wednesday, September 4th, and we will have new episodes releasing weekly through late November. Our fall seasons are always a little shorter than our spring seasons, but let me tell you, this one is jam packed with amazing conversations. I have 12 awesome episodes planned for you.
Amelia Hruby:In the upcoming weeks, I will be talking to Chloe Nwangu, Liz Migliarelli, Megan Leatherman, Podge Thomas, Kate Smalley, Jenny Blake, Michelle Pelizon, Amy Kuretsky, and more. That's just the few that I literally have already recorded or scheduled with. There are other folks who we just don't have it on the calendar yet, but season 4 is going to be so good. And I couldn't resist popping into your pod feed a week in advance to let you know that because, I wanna be honest here, off the grid, it grows by you all sharing it. You, the person listening to this right now, singularly, when you send this episode to a friend, that is what helps us grow.
Amelia Hruby:I love marketing. I market the show a lot, but time and time and time again, every single person I hear from, they learned about the show from a friend. We've got the occasional one of you out there who, like, searched something and found it or who happened upon it in, like, a newsletter ad that I did, But, really, it's word-of-mouth that is growing this show, and that's what I think is gonna keep growing the show. So right now, I want you to think about the person who shared this show with you, and then I want you to think about one more person you could share the show with. And if you would do me the honor of texting it to them or DMing it to them or emailing it to them, I would be so, so grateful.
Amelia Hruby:Like, I'm already so grateful that you pressed play. And if I dare ask one thing of you, which I do dare, I have to, in the spirit of keeping the show going and helping it grow slowly, I have to ask you, please send an episode to a friend. Or you can drop it in an email newsletter. You can put it on your own social media if you're still hanging out on social media. You know, we love those one to one shares, but if you got a one to mini space that you wanna drop a little link in, again, I would be so grateful.
Amelia Hruby:Just tell people the show is coming back next week. It's amazing, and I just can't wait for you to hear them. So please make sure you're subscribed, and please share the show with a friend or share it with your audience. And I just I can't wait. Season 4 is coming next week.
Amelia Hruby:Ugh, so exciting. Okay. So enthusiasm aside for a moment, I wanted to share 2 themes, let's call them, that I have been kind of ruminating on all summer and that I think are really guiding season 4 of the show. So they're not really, like, content pillars, but they are, let's say, just like themes and concepts that we are gonna be returning to and unpacking all season. Number 1 is that leaving social media has gone mainstream, which, honestly, I freaking love.
Amelia Hruby:So this summer, it seems to me like every small business owner I know has been on a social media break or they just, like, peaced out of whatever platforms they were using, particularly Instagram. And I know this because I've been cataloging these break and exit announcements for our off the grid Clubhouse link roundups, which are great, by the way. You should join the Clubhouse. But I've been cataloging these announcements, and there are a lot of them. Like, I just collect them and collect them and share them in the link roundups.
Amelia Hruby:And I'm like, wow. This is a lot of people who are stepping back or away from Instagram and other social media platforms. And, overall, that's why I'd say, like, frustration with Instagram has gone mainstream. Like, folks are over it. A lot of the people that I first learned about on Instagram has shared that they're leaving.
Amelia Hruby:So I'm gonna have Liz Migliarelli of Sister Spinster on the show this season as an example of that. Like, she is definitely someone who I followed and admired when I was still active on Instagram and looked up to as someone who had, like, such a big following and made such beautiful content or community oriented posts. And now she's decided she can't be there anymore. So you'll hear about why this season, but she stands out to me just as someone who, you know, has also been on this journey and is now, like, making different business decisions. And, honestly, even the folks who are still all in on social media, I'm noticing this funny thing happening where they are having to market their work differently.
Amelia Hruby:So I laughed to myself earlier this week because I got an email from, like, a tax preparer. It was something unrelated to marketing. But at the bottom of the email, they had this little PS, and I'm not gonna name them because I'm not trying to call any specific person out. This to me feels like something I see all over the place, just one example of it. But this PS at the end of the email said, PS, love it or hate it, small businesses like us are stuck with social media as a way of reaching potential new audiences.
Amelia Hruby:And then it went on to pitch a collaborator's Instagram and Facebook ads course. And, I mean, if you're listening to off the grid, you know that we totally reject this pretense. Like, 3 years ago, this was one of the myths that I broke down in the very first episode of this show that we have to be on social media to grow our audience. Like, that is a myth. That is not true.
Amelia Hruby:But I was just, like, so fascinated to see it so blatantly as the messaging for a class teaching about social media. Because in the past, the messaging would have been grow to a 100,000 followers. You know? Go viral. Like, the messaging would have been about how great it is on social media and how much you can get by being there.
Amelia Hruby:But now they have to start by acknowledging this, like, overwhelming frustration we all have with these platforms. I'm just so struck that it's become common enough to be frustrated with social media that even the people still pitching social media have to start by acknowledging this frustration. Like, they've had to go from just singing the praises of social media to, like, talking about why people think it sucks and flipping into, like, but it doesn't actually. So I am just, like, so tickled by this in, like, a funny way. And I'm so glad you're here listening to this because if you are listening to off the grid, then you are better equipped.
Amelia Hruby:When you see messaging like this, you can say that's not true. Right? Love it or hate it, small businesses like us are stuck with social media as a way of reaching potential new audiences. No. We aren't.
Amelia Hruby:That was my first thought. Like, literally, it's, like, flashing in my eyes as I read this in this PS. I was like, no. That's not true. And I'm really happy to have this space where we can talk about why that's not true.
Amelia Hruby:And you can hear from people who are living that out. Right? Because the other thing I've seen a lot of this summer is people who either grew their entire following on social media or are still incredibly active on it, teaching classes called things like 10 x your visibility without social media or make your first five figures without social media. And I have to be honest, that feels pretty disingenuous to me as someone who has been working in this space for a few years, not forever. There are people who've been talking about business off social media much longer than me.
Amelia Hruby:I do not claim to be the first one here, but I did launch and grow a successful business without social media. And I do have this whole catalog of 75 episodes talking about how to do this and talking to people who have done it. And I'm not out there teaching a class on how to 10 x your visibility without social media because I don't think that is the right approach to doing this work. And I especially am not interested in that approach when it comes from people who have not done that themselves or who are still really active and or active and or reliant on social media to run their business. Like, that's just out of alignment to me.
Amelia Hruby:I'm like, I I need a deeper sense of integrity here. So maybe you've noticed this trend as well. But one theme that is definitely gonna be explored throughout the season is that Instagram malaise has gone mainstream. Everybody is stepping back or away from social media. And what does that mean for those of us who are already off, for those of us who want to leave, and just for those of us in online business more broadly?
Amelia Hruby:So speaking of online business, the second theme that I will be exploring and unpacking all season is that online business is hard right now. Like, we are in the fall of 2024. We are in a presidential election year in the US. We are still living with the COVID 19 pandemic, even though most of us, myself included, could be invited into deeper values alignment with our behavior and beliefs there. There is still a genocide going on in Gaza.
Amelia Hruby:There is war happening all over the world, and it's a hard time to be a human and an even more challenging time to be an online business owner. So I did a free coaching day for interweb members in August a few weeks ago as you're listening to this, and I think every single person I talked to, there were 10 of them, I think all 10, were grappling with lower energy, lower revenue, lower motivation, and just a lot of question marks about what's to come for their work and their business. And more than once, I talked to someone about getting a job, about making their business part time rather than full time, about how to shift their sense of self employment so it could be more expansive and include different ways of earning money. And I think that whether you're doing great in business or struggling in business right now because, like, hey. If you're doing well, I'm not here to tell you we're all struggling.
Amelia Hruby:If you're doing great, keep doing great. But whether you're doing great or not, I think we are all in a transitional period. Because what worked in online business in 2019 is very different than what worked in online business in 2021, 2022, and that's very different than what's working right now. And honestly, I got that question a lot about what's working. Like, everybody asked me like, Amelia, what's working right now for online business?
Amelia Hruby:Like, what can I do that's just gonna work? And my answer is like very unsatisfactory because my answer is just like, well, it depends, and it's really up to you. Because we've seen the course era of online business. We've seen the free master class era. We've seen the mastermind era.
Amelia Hruby:We've seen the private podcast era. Like, there are so many, quote, unquote, eras that we've had. There are so many trends of these marketing tactics and business models that have seemed to work really well for lots of people for a while, but they're not working anymore. And I don't think that there is a predominant thing, a capital t thing, that is working right now. Like, there's nothing that I'm seeing across the board going well.
Amelia Hruby:And so what I'm seeing work is people really focusing on what they have to offer, who they're creating it for, and how they can deeply align what they're offering and how it's serving people. So I'm seeing digital coworking groups work great for some people. I'm seeing online courses still working great for other people. I'm seeing a lot of memberships that seem to be going well. I'm seeing Substack work for people.
Amelia Hruby:It's working for me right now. I just shared about that on the clubhouse and how Substack has kind of worked for off the grid in a certain final way this summer. All of the stuff I was talking about before about, like, anybody teaching you how to 10 x your business with any specific tactic or strategy, like, I just don't think that's what's working. We're each being invited into this moment of creating our businesses from scratch. And for many of us, we're doing that to the tune of, like, just less revenue and energy overall.
Amelia Hruby:So we're not finding the same success we might have found if we were doing this a few years ago or that we had a few years ago. And so I just think that is worthwhile to talk about. And so I promise that this season is not gonna be a whole downer. Like, you are not getting 15 episodes of why business is hard. Like, we're not doing that.
Amelia Hruby:I don't wanna do that. That's not fun, and I believe in having fun. But I am gonna be talking to a few business owners who have had to pivot or shut down a big part of their business, and we're gonna get into it openly, honestly, with a lot of, you know, the gentle candor that you've come to know and love from off the grid. Because I'm not here to gaslight you that everything's going great, and that if you just keep making your online course and keep pushing out those ads, it's just gonna eventually get back to where it was. Like, there's no back to where it was anymore.
Amelia Hruby:We're iterating and experimenting and going new places, and I don't know where those places are yet. But on the show, you're gonna hear from people who are trying to figure that out, And you're gonna hear from people who know what it's like to close a business and who know what it's like to go through a hard time. And so, again, whether you're having a great season in business or a really challenging one, you are gonna find folks on off the grid who have, I hope, something that feels like similar and resonant for you. Okay. So those are the 2 kind of major themes we're unpacking in season 4 of the show.
Amelia Hruby:What it means that leaving social media has gone mainstream, and why online business is hard right now, and what we can perhaps do about that going forward. And as I wrap up this trailer, I have one other fun announcement for you, so stick with me for another moment. That announcement is that we have our fall refresh retreat coming up inside of the interweb, and I want to invite you to join us. So if you're new around here, the interweb is our annual membership for creatives, artists, small business owners, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and creators of all kinds who want support creating and sharing their work and making some money without social media. The interweb has been around for almost a year now, and we've got an amazing community of almost a 100 members.
Amelia Hruby:And the membership is actually getting a very fun glow up this fall. So we are gonna be hosting monthly community events, and I'm gonna be sharing monthly content drops in our course portal, and it's gonna be such a fun time. So coming up, we have our refresh retreat on September 16th. This is a time for the community to come together, reflect on the year so far, and make some plans for the fall and kind of bring that energy of refreshment and renewal into the rest of 2024 for our practice and our businesses. We're doing that September 16th.
Amelia Hruby:And then on September 24th 30th, we're gonna have some follow-up co working sessions. You can start to put into place the things that you thought about during the retreat. Because I don't know about you, but I am, like, the queen of having a little strategy meeting with myself and then, like, literally doing nothing I said I would do. And then the next quarter or the next year, I have another strategy meeting, and I look back, and I'm like, those are great ideas. I didn't do any of them.
Amelia Hruby:So the co working sessions are to help you actually do some of the things that you come up with in the retreat. And then in October, I will be teaching a very fun class that I am tentatively calling email is magic, and it's gonna be about how to start or improve your email list and how to think about newsletters and email marketing in this era of online business. In November, we have an amazing guest class on creative manifestos that's gonna be taught by somebody super cool, who you'll hear on the podcast later this fall. And in December, I will be doing another free coaching day. So this is a day where I meet 1 on 1 with 10 interweb members.
Amelia Hruby:We have 30 minute sessions, and I help you address your business questions, talk about anything going on in your work, or just, like, chitchat if you want. So I love doing these, and members really adore them. It's like one on one time with me where you get my full focus on you and your business. And we're gonna be doing them, I think, 3 or 4 times next year. So, basically, the event calendar is stellar.
Amelia Hruby:The community is amazing, and there's a whole course portal and content library full of goodies, like my core offer workbook, sales page templates, discounts for my fave biz tools, and more. So I really, really hope that if you're still listening to this, that you want to join the interweb, and I will be closing the doors for the first time on September 15th. So now is your time to join. Come get in on all of the interweb goodness. And to sweeten the deal.
Amelia Hruby:The next 10 people who join can get their 1st year at our founding member rate. So if you get in right now, you can join the interweb for just $99 for your 1st year, which, like, honestly, monthly event, content library, amazing people, like, $99 for the whole year. It's such a steal. It's so affordable. I have chosen to make it super accessible, and this is your chance to come at that price.
Amelia Hruby:So in the show notes, there's a link to join at that price, or you can use the code lucky 10, all caps, l u c k y t e n, to get your 1st year at our founding price. And it's only a $129 a year after that. So even if you're not one of those 10, you can join for a $129 a year. It's still so affordable for everything that you get, and doors will be closing September 15th. And when I do reopen the doors next year, I plan to have membership on a sliding scale, and the lowest option will be a $149 a year.
Amelia Hruby:So I'm really trying to help you. If you are on the fence, now is the time. Like, come join us. You will meet some cool people. You will get to spend some time with me either on a community call or maybe even on a 1 on 1 free coaching call.
Amelia Hruby:And what I hear from members over and over again is just that the interweb helps them feel less alone, helps them feel more prepared, and helps them feel more excited about their work and about marketing and about doing business and about not needing to rely on social media to make all of that happen and make some money in the process. So, again, next time people who join can use the code lucky 10 to get their 1st year for only $99. Everybody else, come on in before the doors close, September 15th. And I think that is enough for this trailer, which which kinda became a whole episode of its own. So thank you again for being here.
Amelia Hruby:I cannot wait for you to hear from our first guest of season 4. Next week, coming up, we have Chloe Nwangu to talk about how to be seen off social media. So we ended last season with how to feel seen off social media, and Chloe is here to start this season with how to be seen off social media, and we are getting into it. So make sure you're subscribed, invite your friends to listen to the pod, and until next week, I will see you off the grid and on the interweb. Thanks for listening to off the grid.
Amelia Hruby:Don't forget to grab your free leaving social media toolkit at off the grid dot fun slash toolkit. This podcast is a softer sounds production. Our music is by Melissa Caitlin Carter of Making Audio Magic, and our logo is by Atelier Studio. I'm your host, Emilia Ruby, and until next time, I'll see you off the grid and on the interweb.
Melissa Kaitlyn Carter:Let's go off the grid. Okay. Let's go off the grid. Okay. I know that you really wanna put your phone away.
Melissa Kaitlyn Carter:Yeah. Let's go off the grid.