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Discover how the best media brands and solo operators are winning at newsletter growth & monetization.
Hosted by SparkLoop's cofounder Louis Nicholls and SparkLoop's newsletter nerd, Dylan Redekop—we take you behind the scenes and share the strategies, trends, and tactics you need to know to build your email audience and revenue.
Featuring exclusive interviews with the smartest media experts and operators out there today. Including from the Hustle, Morning Brew, Workweek, The Pour Over, and more.
Ep 38 - Tarzan Kay (v1)
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Tarzan Kay: [00:00:00] Oh my God. Dylan. I'm the biggest rags to riches story you've ever heard. Like I never earned more in my career than $15,000 a year as a piano teacher. Wow. And four years into my business, I had made more than $2 million. And like I, I am that person. However,
Dylan Redekop: welcome to the Send and Grow podcast. I'm your host, Dylan Retikop.
In my day job at Sparkly, I spent all my time analyzing how the best newsletter operators and media brands in the world grow and monetize their audiences. I get a behind the scenes look at how they're growing their newsletters and driving revenue, and there is so much to learn from their success and from their mistakes.
With this podcast, you get that access too. Every week I sit down with a different guest from industry experts to successful operators, and we go deep on the stuff that you need to know so you can become really effective at growing and monetizing your newsletter. Today on the Senegal podcast, I'm excited to introduce you to Tarzan k Tarzan [00:01:00] writes emails about emails, and she's been publishing every week for over seven years, earning well over a million dollars while doing so.
But Tarzan's story is different than a lot of the newsletter operators we've had on the Senegal podcast. Five years ago, she was fully entrenched in the online course world, which she politely refers to as grubby. Tarzan has since extracted herself from that coercive space and changed her trajectory with a sincere focus on consent-based marketing.
Now she preaches the power of relational communication and storytelling along with the importance of building trust through consent. I really enjoyed this down to earth Chat with Tarzan and I really think you will too. Tarzan, welcome to the podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself and about your newsletter that you've been publishing for seven years.
Tarzan Kay: Well, Dylan, thanks for asking. I'm Tarzan Kay and I write emails about emails. My subscribers are a lot of course. Creators, a lot of coaches [00:02:00] and service providers. And until recently, I always thought of myself as an email marketer until I discovered the newsletter space and I was like, oh my God, that's what I'm doing.
I thought it was something else. Uh, so being in this industry has been like revelatory for me.
Dylan Redekop: So you were kind of like. In the newsletter industry without knowing you're in the newsletter industry,
Tarzan Kay: you could say, well, yeah, I've, I've been doing newsletters for the whole, the entire, I've been in business for eight years.
Mm-Hmm. Seven or eight years. And my style is like very much newsletter style as opposed to email marketing style.
Dylan Redekop: Right, right. So let's, that's actually a good, really good lead-in, so some people listening might think, you know, oh, newsletters, email, marketing, same thing. Talk to me about what. You see as kind of the big differences between email marketing and you know, publishing
Tarzan Kay: a newsletter?
Yeah, they're so different. Newsletters. I would say to sum it up, newsletters are relational and email marketing is transactional. [00:03:00] So in the newsletter business, like the newsletter is the business, the newsletter is the product, and it's monetized through ads and sponsorships and. Higher tiers of access to other content.
Mm-Hmm. Things like that. Uh, the newsletter really like, it is the core, whereas email marketing, again, transactional and it's for every business. Like I love that about email marketing. There's like not a business that I can even imagine that would not make a. More money if they did email marketing. Like I wanna evangelize like the, you know, the mom and pop shops like down the road.
Mm-Hmm. Oh my God. If you guys just send a monthly email, you could like have so much more sales and repeat customers and all these things. So most people doing email marketing are doing it in a transactional way, and it's just one channel of all their marketing. And they're, you know, they have their products on the side, whether it's services or courses or whatever.
I'm actually like somewhere in the middle. Like my business makes money through courses. I have a mastermind. I do affiliate marketing. [00:04:00] However, my newsletter has always been the core of my business. And one thing that makes me different, and this actually isn't really something to brag about, it's a problem that I have to solve in my business, but my newsletter is the, like, I'm not a content creator.
My newsletter is the content. Mm-Hmm. And it's where I do my best work. So newsletters are for people who actually love to read newsletters, like they're for people who like good writing. Mm-Hmm. People who like reading, people who are looking for information and they want it in words. Whereas email marketing, you could think about it as like, you know, I sign up to like my yoga studio email list or whatever.
I don't know. Is that how you think about it, Dylan?
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, totally. I think, uh, email marketing is like a. I guess a marketing strategy that can be used in newsletters to some degree, but really it's like. It's like you said, it's transactional, right? It's to, you have a, a product launch and you know, you've got your pre-launch emails that you send out, and then the doors are open and come buy [00:05:00] my product and the doors are closing.
Like, I think that that's kind of the general synopsis of email marketing. Very, very small, maybe window into it. But that's, that's kind of how I sort of think about it. And I do agree with you that so many more mom-and-pop, you know, more, um, legacy businesses could be leveraging email marketing and just aren't.
Either doing it very well or aren't doing it at all, and it's low-hanging fruit and a big missed opportunity. So I wanna ask you, now that you've discovered the newsletter space and you know, being like a seven to eight year long newsletter, um, Publisher, uh, email newsletter publisher, where do you think newsletters can benefit from?
Using email marketing. This is a very difficult
Tarzan Kay: question. Like I want you to ask me the opposite question. Like, okay, what can email marketers learn from newsletter operators? Because that is like asking what could parents learn from their children? Like everything. Okay. Um, newsletter operators are just [00:06:00] so much better at it.
Mm. Because for one thing. Like newsletters are operating from a place of consent first. Like the newsletter goes to people who said, I want to read this newsletter. Maybe they ticked a box. But in many cases, like most of the newsletters I've signed up for, like I opted in directly. Yeah. Whereas email marketing is often not consent-based.
And that's why people hate it so much. They're like, why is this in my inbox? Like, did I sign up for this thing? Like where email marketing's often, like, you know, you send emails to someone because they made a purchase or maybe they watched a webinar or, Mm-Hmm. Even the idea of lead magnets, like on, um.
Your previous episode with Michael Hook, which was such a great interview. Mm-Hmm. He talked about how lead magnets actually didn't do very well for him because, uh, the people who he was attracting, they wanted the lead magnet and [00:07:00] they weren't necessarily newsletter readers. Yeah. And that was like the.
Lesson number one I learned in my first year in business was like, give people something in order to get their email address. There were no tick boxes, there was no GDPR. It was like, I gave you my free thing, now I can email you forever and ever until you hit the unsubscribe button. Yeah. And because people don't like for people can, they're surprised by those emails.
'cause even though they expect them. They actually still didn't ask for them. Mm-Hmm. So, you know, people are very annoyed by what is in their inboxes. Like constantly. And newsletters are like, it's just such a different strategy. It's like writing for people who ask for that content, developing content that you think that they would like.
This is very different and I want, you know, people in the email marketing space to learn more from that. And think more about building in consent because you, Michael said it doesn't make for a very good [00:08:00] subscriber if they downloaded your lead magnet. It also doesn't make for a very happy subscriber.
Mm-Hmm. So, um, I like in my, um, something that I'm doing really well and that I'm proud of in my business is I have lots of consent practices built in. Mm-Hmm. It starts with like the tick box. Uh, and I'm not doing this perfectly. Like there might be forms out there that don't have a tick box, but for one thing, like I do have freebies, but I make sure like you can get anything that I talk about.
Like you can go and get it. You don't have to join my email list. There's like, I use this analogy of like. I bought her dinner, so she owes me like no. Right. Nobody owes you their attention because they signed up to your free thing. So I build that in to all of my forms and I also am like actively pushing people off the email list if they don't wanna be there.
Anytime I have a promotion, I. Put like links all over the email so that they can turn it off. [00:09:00] It's like I, I do those open and shut promos. And that's one thing that I do think Newsletters could send more sales emails, like, because I love the model. Like one thing about email marketing is it's like, especially for people selling courses, you get these big bumps of revenue and your entire annual revenue might rest on like two or three.
It used to be people would do one major promotion a year, and that was like, yeah, most of their revenue. So that's not a great model. So I love that about newsletters that like, you know, there's all of these ways to monetize it that are built in. So there's monthly recurring revenue. However, I very rarely get actual sales emails from newsletter operators, and that's just like.
A missed opportunity. It's like so obvious, uh, and a open-close promo, but generally back to my consent practices, but I'll have a tangent there. Um, I let people turn off promos. Like right now I have a promotion going out and it has countdown timers, which I understand are like really just annoying for some people.
Triggering for other people have [00:10:00] feelings about countdown timers, so you can turn them off in my emails. If you don't want, you can turn off the whole promo. Cool. You could hit a button and not see the countdown timer. You also can decrease or increase the frequency of emails. Like every email that I send has a frequency option.
You can get all the emails I send. You can get a weekly digest or you can get monthly. And that's one thing you know with a lot of newsletter operators like. It's a lot, like many of these operators are emailing like two or three times a week, which is cool. I personally have like very, um, my, my inbox management, I use this amazing tool called Superhuman for my own personal email.
Mm-Hmm. It's amazing. Mm-Hmm. And, um, I'm like really, like I don't have like emails all over the place to be read, so I do like the frequency can be a lot. So giving, and one thing about newsletter operators is they're often very savvy and have great tools. Like that's not a difficult thing to do. Just like let people, I.
Turn the volume down like a [00:11:00] teeny bit if they want.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Why not? Right. I mean, I think in the long run that's gonna benefit you. Mm-Hmm. Totally. You know, head over heels for sure. Yeah. And you're gonna keep, you're gonna naturally just keep people who are more interested and wanna get your content than people who are just like, you know, I kind of like her, but I gotta either get all of this information Yeah.
Or none of it. Right. Mm-Hmm. So I think that's, that's really smart. You mentioned when we started, uh, you. When we connected, I, I should say, um, I think you sent me some voice notes on LinkedIn, uh, which were awesome because like LinkedIn is a great channel in some ways and a horrendously horrific channel in other ways.
And that's only because there's, you know, a small subsection of people who kind of abused the system to some degree. Mm-Hmm. Um, where they're spamming your, your. DMs basically. And um, so one thing that I'm sure many people are used to is getting the salesperson who's making a pitch. Twitter's just as bad, don't get me wrong, I'm not favoring one over the other, but you get these, these sales pitches, but you sent me a DM that wasn't even any text.
And so that immediately it could kind of stood out to me. You sent [00:12:00] me a DM that was a voice note, which was like endearing, right? It's, it is almost charming to receive like. It was, it to me is like more personal than receiving like a, um, written message, right? Mm-Hmm. And, you know, I appreciate that about you.
And then as we started, uh, you know, we scheduled this podcast, I started doing some, um, research on, you know, what you've done and the subscriber to your newsletter and getting your welcome sequence. You infuse so much of that personal touch, um, that personality and, you know, videos and all this stuff into your, everything you do, I should say.
And so where did that. Where did you, and when did you kind of make that decision to be like, no, I'm gonna be like different, I'm going to have more of a personal touch with this and, um, and take that approach.
Tarzan Kay: Hmm. Okay. Well let's rewind to the VoiceNote. I forgot I did that. Okay, thank you. And I can be very scoldy on the internet.
I'm like often picking fights with people or like leaving passive aggressive comments when I don't [00:13:00] like the way things are done. And I love this podcast. Like I've listened to many episodes multiple times, and so I just wanna say like I, I'm sure I reached out to say I love the podcast. And then maybe give you did that was the first thing you said.
Right. Okay, great. Yeah, so I do love the podcast and I did have some critical feedback, which most people ignore and I get it. I'm like, yo, I'm, I'm like, not the internet police, but sometimes I think I am. Um. Anyway, uh, back to your question. Mm-Hmm. Which I think is about personality and like why my emails are the way they are.
Is that the question?
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Basically, like you, like I said, you've, you've taken a, uh, path Less traveled. I'd say it takes a little bit more effort, but I. You, it, it seems to, um, it stood out to me. So when did you kind of make that decision or, and why?
Tarzan Kay: So, some background on my emails, like they're pretty personal.
Mm-Hmm. Like, they're very story-based. And I just love storytelling. So I like, I chose this business model because I'm a [00:14:00] writer and a storyteller, and this business really works for me like. I think so many writers need to know about newsletters because being a newsletter operator is the fucking best way to be a writer.
Like I, this is like, that makes it really a dream job for me. I love writing, I love telling stories, and I have all these readers like. Giving me feedback, like constant pats on the back. Mm-Hmm. Like about how great my work is. Like it is awesome as a writer, like, you know, books, some people don't know this, business people do, but like books don't make people money.
Like there's very few careers as a writer that are actually profitable. Newsletter. Being a newsletter operator is one of them. Mm-Hmm. So, but I, you know, I've been doing this for seven, however many years. I don't know, I lost count. But the style that I have now is an evolution and it's always changing.
And actually right now, Dylan, it's changing again. Hmm. But up until now, like I do tell a lot of stories for the obvious reason, [00:15:00] like. People learn from stories. Advice is like very onerous and it's very annoying. Like when someone, nobody likes being told what to do. It's also like, oh my God. Like more things to add to my, to-do list.
Like, oh, come on. Like I never want people to open my emails and feel like it's a job. Mm-Hmm. Once it starts being a job or there's like, oh, all this backlog of advice I should probably revisit, like that's when people unsubscribe. I have long, long-term subscribers, like I have people that remember emails that I wrote them seven years ago.
Wow. They do stick around and I love stories because it's like hiding vegetables in. Baked goods like beets and chocolate cake like it, people still get the lessons, but they get them through stories and they're a lot more memorable. Mm-Hmm. But another big reason I use stories is that many of my subscribers come from the online course industry, which is.
I'm just gonna say it. It's very grubby. Mm. It's very [00:16:00] coercive. It's very huge Transformational promises like part of being B2B is selling people on the dream of being a business owner. Yep. And part of my job is like. Sorry to break it to you, but you have been lied to. Mm. Like that is not what, that is not what being an entrepreneur is.
Yeah. So I share a ton of stories about like, I was sort of taught to like share the rags to riches story. Like Oh, and I, oh my God, Dylan, I'm the biggest rags to riches story you've ever heard. Like I never earned more in my career than. $15,000 a year as a piano teacher. Wow. And four years into my business, I had made more than $2 million.
And like I am that person. However, there are reasons why that story happened for me. Hmm. A lot of it has to do with the way that I [00:17:00] look. I am like a blonde, beautiful, slim white woman. That is an enormous advantage that nobody tells you how much harder it will be. If you don't have those advantages, and my, my ability too, like I have education, I'm fully neurotypical person.
Hmm. So for that reason, like, and a lot of other reasons, my business grew very fast. So I, I share a lot of stories, like I really want me people to know like, this is what it is. And to be honest, like a lot of the questions my subscribers ask, like. I just sent out an email that was like, what do you guys wanna hear about?
And someone said, like, actually a lot of people said something similar, like, uh, do you have a housekeeper? Like, uh, questions like just about my life. And the, you know, the other thing about being in business as a woman is like most advice that's out there. It, uh, like ev and the spoiler for your listener is like, this was the feedback that [00:18:00] I gave you in a voice note.
Yes. Is like the advice that people are getting from men in business who are either single and childless or have like. A partner at home who's doing everything. Like so much of that advice, just like it does, that doesn't work for my life. Mm-Hmm. Uh, I just like, again, Michael Hook, that interview was so good and one thing he said was like, I spend 40 hours a week just talking to my customers.
And I was like,
Dylan Redekop: okay, cool.
Tarzan Kay: Wow. I totally get that. That works. And I have six hours while my kids are at school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm also single and like, you know, taking care of my own life, my own house, so, Mm-Hmm. Um, a lot of the stories I tell are around that. Like, I want people to know what this really looks like.
Mm-Hmm. And if they can make it work for them, because not everybody can.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. It doesn't have an Instagram filter on it. It is just this is, [00:19:00] this is it. Right. This is it. Yeah. This is it. And so you mentioned something, um, you kind of went, you did the Seinfeld, yada yada yada, where I was rigged to riches making $15,000 and then all of a sudden $2 million.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you talk us a little bit about that experience? Because you've, you've shared publicly how you might have possibly been one of those people who was not maybe. The pinnacle of sincerity and honesty and authenticity. And you've changed recent, somewhat recently. Yeah. You wanna talk about that a bit?
Tarzan Kay: Yeah, I do. Yeah. This is like a pretty important part Mm-Hmm. Of my story. Okay. And I think it's a lot of people's stories, they just never sort of untangle like why they are success as successful as they are. Um, so I started my business and it grew very, very fast. And uh, it was also like. All consuming.
There was a lot, like when I look back, I'm like, wow, there were some years there where like I couldn't tell you like what grade my kids were in or how old they were. Wow. I was like really checked out because [00:20:00] my business was so, so consuming, like people say. Know, start a business so that you can like have this amazing life, but really like most entrepreneurs are just like working all the time.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. It's not the Tim Ferriss four-hour workweek dream that
Tarzan Kay: it's, yeah. No it's not. Not even for Tim Ferriss. Come on. That guy's working his ass off for sure. Anyway, I bought into the dream. And it worked really well for me in my business. And, um, something that I don't like wanna get into on this, I've talked about this on other podcast interviews so people can go listen there, but Sure.
I have been in multiple cults and also worked with a very famous coach who's now in jail. Hmm. So I have like a history of high control. Also getting myself into situations where, um, like, I guess I wanna say I don't have a very good grid around [00:21:00] coercion. And once I started to untangle the ways that I was experiencing coercion in my life outside of business, mm-Hmm.
I started to see coercion inside my business. And I mean, I said earlier, the online course industry is very grubby. Like it is so coercive like it for people who are really in it. It's hard to see it because it's everywhere. Yeah. But for, I will never forget this one time I. Sent a sales page to my sister, uh, who's not in the industry.
Uh, it was one of my client's sales pages, and she's scrolling and she's scrolling and she's looking at it. She's like, $657, strike through price, $97 countdown timer. She's looking at all of these tactics and, and seeing them for what they are. I didn't see them for what they are. Mm-Hmm. And the way that I learned to market products was to put an enormous [00:22:00] amount of pressure on people and make them so uncomfortable that the only way to remove the discomfort is to buy the thing.
Mm-Hmm. And a lot of course, creators don't really realize that that's what they're doing. A lot of copywriting teaching doesn't know that that's what. It's doing like what, you know, when we learn about like, uh, persuasion tactics or like le social triggers, like there's all these cute names for them. Like Yeah.
What those triggers are designed to do is shut down a person's ability to think critically. Hmm. And that is coercion. And I didn't realize what I was doing, but once I saw it. I could no longer do it. Yeah. And so that was like, you know, four years into my business and many millions in, I was like, I need to step way the fuck back because what I'm seeing is not okay.
Like so many, you know, it's very common in the course [00:23:00] creator industry that you sell. Like let's say you sell 400, you know of your product. You know, a hundred of those people never even log in. Right. And a very small percentage of them complete two or three modules. And then an even smaller percentage, like, you know, are very, and they're very vocal, very loud.
This small percentage. 'cause we're trained to like, give feedback, uh, give the testimonial and be the star student. Yeah. Um, the very small percentage gets really great results. And those are the ones you see all over the, all, all, all over people's sales pages. And once I. Got really honest with myself about that.
I was like, I can no longer participate in this. Hmm. So I, I have been like, that was twenty-nineteen. Okay. When I sort of had that epiphany and I have been walking it back and learning how to build consent into my promotions and trying to find my place in the online course industry and. [00:24:00] To be honest, Dylan, I'm not sure there is one for me.
Hmm. Because a, a, a lot of my job right now is like course correcting, helping other people. Course correct. Because they have been so deeply indoctrinated with this idea that they can make millions as a side hustle. Right. You know, there's plenty of people out there talking about their $70 million course business, and people think that that dream is achievable for anyone.
And it's not. Yeah. So it's like a bit hard to, to, it's, it's like a difficult work, but I am also atoning for the sins of my past. Yeah. So I am happy to do it, but you know, that's why there's so many stories. Like that's why there's so much, so much realness and people give me feedback consistently. Like there, they're so grateful.
To see the way things really work and to deal with someone who's honest, but there's also still an enormous amount of mistrust. Mm-Hmm. Like I'm in a promotion right now and a lot of my email replies are just [00:25:00] like people that have been burned so bad before. Mm. And they're just scared, like, are you actually going to be there?
If I hit this button, like, will you show up? Right. Because I did it so many times before and that person didn't show up
Dylan Redekop: for me. Yeah, yeah. One of the promises, like, you know, one-on-one access to, you know, my inbox or, or text messaging or even like one-on-ones that don't happen. Yeah. Very common. Or they do, and they're, they're not, uh, they're not helpful at all.
Thanks for sharing that, by the way, for being so open and, and honest with us.
Tarzan Kay: Last year we launched the most generous affiliate program in the newsletter. Send just a handful of newsletters our way and you can unlock tens of thousands of dollars every month. And now we're turning up the heat. We are sending our top-earning affiliate partner with a plus-one on a free all-inclusive trip to Cancun.
You can win. Just share Spark loop with newsletter operators before April 30th. They get free access to the most popular newsletter recommendations network, and unlock [00:26:00] millions of dollars in easy extra revenue. By recommending the world's best newsletters, you get a 30% commission win-win. It's that easy.
See you on the beach.
Dylan Redekop: One thing that really stood out to me is you post on LinkedIn a few weeks ago about publishing, I think a new, a weekly email newsletter for seven years in a row, and you kind of gave some, you know. You gave some points on how you do it. And for the people that, uh, didn't read that post A, how did you, how have you gone seven years?
Like some people can't stick to a newsletter like for six weeks and you've gone, you know, seven years. So how did you do it? Um, how have you set yourself up for this, the success of writing? I know you like writing, but how, like Yeah. I'll tell you. Gimme, gimme the, yeah, yeah. Gimme the
Tarzan Kay: deal. Until I posted that and you commented Dylan, which I appreciate.
I, to me, this is like so entrenched into the way that I work. Like I don't even think about it as like, wow, that's actually impressive. And I have the same question for [00:27:00] people that are so consistent on other platforms. I'm like, wow, how are they doing that? Hmm. But the answer is always the same. Like for people who are consistent, they're highly systematized, they have habits.
And so I've been doing this newsletter. I started bi-Weekly and then I think it, you know, I probably didn't go weekly until I had some support. 'cause one thing that I want listeners to know is that I myself am very rarely poking around in ConvertKit. I've been doing more lately 'cause I'm experimenting with new template, but mostly like I'm actually not in there.
Hmm. I write all of my emails in Google Docs and I have like a massive archive to pull from. I use the project management tool, it's probably obvious. And every Wednesday, so my email goes out on Tuesdays mm-Hmm. And it is assigned to me in my task manager on Wednesday. So I write it on Wednesday inside a Google Doc.
And it usually takes me about an hour to get like a kind of Okay draft. I would say I [00:28:00] definitely spend two hours on every newsletter for sure, but it's, it really does need to be done by Friday. Because once you know it has to, it gets passed off to my assistant who uploads it to ConvertKit and then she'll send a test email.
I have a fractional COO and she gets the test email and you know, test like that whole side of it takes a bit of time. And because I do not in my business as much as possible, I try and opt out of urgency. Mm-Hmm. So I don't like giving my team things to do at the last minute. So that's why I'm writing on Wednesday.
Yeah. For the following Tuesday. It also gives me, like, I, I think it's important for people to not, like, it's way too much pressure to sit down and think you're gonna have a finished newsletter, like. It's not even gonna be good if that's your process. Like you need time for it to like gel a little bit.
You're gonna come back the next day and see things you didn't see the day before. So I write it on Wednesday. And one thing that I think a lot of newsletter [00:29:00] operators have in common, Amanda gets mentioned, she calls it her ideation station. Yeah. And she has a place where she drops ideas. I have that too.
That is critical. I am never sitting down to a blank. In fact, like my Google Doc, and to be honest, Google. I can't even believe I'm saying this 'cause I have loved my Google Docs. I'm probably gonna move somewhere else for, um, newsletters that have a lot of sections and stuff. Google just doesn't handle that very well.
Mm. So I probably will move to Notion, but right now it's in. Google Doc and mm-Hmm. There's a template every month that's the same. So, and my assistant sets up this template. We just dupe a document and add the dates in, so you know, it has a headline, subject, pre-header, all that stuff for each email that's gonna go out that month.
So that document is prepared for me. And at the top of that document is where I stash ideas. So one, one thing, you know, a lot of people when they stash ideas, they're like, oh, I'll put it in my notes. Or like, I don't know, did you put [00:30:00] it in Apple Notes or Evernote? Like you need a spec. You need a place.
Yeah. And the best place is probably just where you write emails. So, and the other thing that works about that is that. You know, I have like a thousand ideas for emails I could write all the time. Yeah. So, but they get old and I forget what was interesting about that thing, someone said, so I put the emails, all of my ideas at the top of the document, and they're not fleshed out.
It's might be like something someone said or something I saw. I, I just, just as an example, I was driving to my friend's house and I saw this park. Bench, like, you know how realtors like love to advertise on bus benches? Oh yeah. Yeah. So I saw this bench that said Faith-based realty, and I was like, oh, I don't live in like a community where some people see that kind of stuff all the time.
Mm-Hmm. And I thought it was. So interesting and I wanted to write about it. So Nice. I do the thing that I do like as soon as I stop my car, I write [00:31:00] the idea down. Yeah. You will not remember your best ideas. Nope. So writing them down is critical. Choosing a place to put them is critical. Since I'm just started on LinkedIn now I have a new document for LinkedIn to have ideas there.
So anyway, back to my process. It is super simple once my email is done. I put a green emoji checkmark beside it, and I. Both my team members and once they have, once it has been uploaded to ConvertKit, that person adds an extra green check mark. Okay? And that's a really important checkmark because I need to know when to stop editing.
Like newsletters, like they go out fast and they have a short shelf life. Like you cannot be editing. Forever and ever and ever. No. So that's the process. And it's been, I've recently started looking at the test emails again because, uh, we're trying new things, but for the most part, I don't even look at them.
And [00:32:00] you know, that like my COO, she's very. Very, very strong with tagging and segmentation. I use a lot of conditional formatting in my emails. Um, all of those things like hiding countdown timers, like that's managed with through tagging. So she oversees that and she's super duper good at it. Yeah. And my VA, I like, that's a job that you can train someone to do like that, and it's time consuming and annoying.
Like I don't. Recommend that people do that part of the task. Mm-Hmm. It's just writing the email itself is enough. Yeah. Like pass it on to someone. That should
Dylan Redekop: be your, as a newsletter operator, that should be your job. Right. Creating the content. Mm-Hmm. It shouldn't be necessarily getting into the, the nuts and bolts of it.
So you, you mentioned a team. You've got, uh, two people working for you. Mm-Hmm. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. And are they, you said fractional, so that's a sort of a
Tarzan Kay: part-time. And my VA as well. I, in my days of like making millions and being a baller, [00:33:00] I had a team of four full-time employees. Mm-Hmm. And um, or three, I forget, it feels like a million years ago.
Yeah. I used to have a larger team and. Part of letting them go, which was really hard 'cause I had great people and an awesome team. But part of my decision, I just knew that I, I couldn't do the things that I was doing and I had to let them go while I sorted out. And actually, like, I'm still sorting it out.
The industry, the online course industry is. Going through a bit of a reckoning right now for sure. Mm-Hmm. Like all of the trust that has been broken, like everybody's paying for it. Yep. So, and I think there's a new generation, and I don't even mean that age-wise, like I'm seeing new people come into the online course space that are like interesting and seem to be doing it successfully.
I don't, nobody knows until you see the profit and loss statement. But yeah, there's definitely like, well, like I said, there's a reckoning going on. I'm not really sure. What it will look like when the wreckage [00:34:00] is done.
Dylan Redekop: Right? Yeah. I mean, we'll, and when it will be done, but, uh, when, yeah. So you talked about the millions of dollars that you had earned.
Mm-Hmm. How, how do you earn revenue now? How do you make money? I. How, like what is, what is the system that you've got set up now? Because Yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to hear how you've, you've pivoted and what you're, what you're doing now.
Tarzan Kay: Yeah. Okay. Well, it's just some history. I previously made most of my money through my own courses and affiliate revenue.
Affiliate revenue was really how I learned to sell things, and that was awesome because delivery is really hard. Uh, marketing's really hard. Doing both is like even harder. So I think affiliate affiliate revenue is great, but I had to move away from that when I realized I was sending leads to people whose marketing I wasn't comfortable with.
Right. So that's a whole arm of my business that I don't have anymore. Right now I have one live program. About email, how to do email marketing. Yep. And then I have a DIY Copywriting course that's for sale, [00:35:00] 365 days a year. And then I have a mastermind, which I love and that's a new thing. Cool. I don't know if I'm gonna offer it again, but it's great right now.
So the courses in Mastermind, like that's really all of most of my revenue. I did. At the end of last year because I'm, I'm trying to figure out what's next and what else is out there. I took a client at the end of last year and I haven't written emails other than like, for my students in, in editing. I haven't written for anyone in years, and I'm having.
The best time. Like I think my client is like kind of a unicorn. So I don't know if there's a future for me in private clients. And the other thing is once you have a, a business that's like more scaled, like you, it just like doesn't, I can't, it's like I can't afford to take private clients. Right. However I did and I'm having an awesome time.
I'm learning so much, even though it's like 0.2% of my annual revenue. Wow. And gets. 10% of my [00:36:00] time. But uh, yeah, that's what it, right now it's still courses and masterminds. That's where my revenue comes from.
Dylan Redekop: It's, yeah. Okay. So we've talked about your path, where you are now. Yeah. I'm curious how you are growing your newsletter, because Yeah.
Growth is important and there's many different ways to do it. Some people are growing for the sake of growth just to sell sponsorships to more and more people. Mm-Hmm. Or sell ads, you know, ad sales. Other people are growing their newsletters because they actually wanna sell more product sales or get people more into their courses or what have you.
So yeah. How are you approaching growth and what are you, what are you doing that's been
Tarzan Kay: working? Okay. I will tell you it's not very exciting, but I do wanna say your episode with Yongsu Chung, he talked about, I think there might have even been a LinkedIn clip about the five leavers of, yeah. Growth. And I was like taking notes.
I took the notes on paper and then I transferred them to Evernote and then I also put them in a sauna. Nice. Nice. And that was a really great episode. I loved it. Thank you. And I do wanna say like growth [00:37:00] has always been a pain point for me. Hmm. I have 10,000 ish email subscribers. Actually I have 15,000 email subscribers.
But. I have 10,000 in my newsletter segment. Okay. And those are what I would consider, like my real subscribers. Yeah. Like there's the 5,000 people that like maybe they didn't opt in for newsletter, whatever. They're just there and we'll get around to removing them at some point anyway. Yeah. My newsletter is small, like compared to, you know, some people, people think it's 10,000 is a lot in the newsletter space.
That's like nothing. It's an anthill. Yeah. Um, it's cute. It's cute. Yeah, it's cute, but growth has always been a pain point for me. However, I am really good at copywriting and conversion, and I have grown my list through paid ads on Facebook. Okay. Okay. Facebook and Instagram ads. I ran Facebook and Instagram ads continuously for like.
Most of my business, like I, let's just pretend I've been in business for seven and a half years, which is probably something like that. There's was [00:38:00] maybe a year and a half in there that I wasn't running ads consistently. Wow. So I, and I don't think that's a good strategy for most people. Like, you know, you have to like running ads yourself, you're just gonna waste a lot of money.
Before you learn how to do it. So I've always paid an ads manager, and if you're not good at conversion, like again, it's just a, it's really easy to waste money with paid ads. However, it's been really great for me. And, um, in the first year that I made a million dollars in a single year, I. Dylan. I probably had 6,000 email subscribers maybe.
Wow. I've seen people in the online course space do that with 3000 email subscribers. Yeah. Because we're, we're, there's a lot of repeat customers and part of that is because of the principle of consistency. People just keep sinking money into the same provider, even if the last product didn't work. They keep buying because they're told that to get to the next level, they just need the next product.
Yeah. The. Where people can make a [00:39:00] ton of money with a small number of leads. But in the next iteration of my business, I. I don't wanna do any of that shit anymore. So, um, dis spark. Loop's been really exciting to discover. 'cause one thing is like, I have an army, like those 10,000 people, they're not just like 10,000 randos that found me somewhere and signed up for a lead magnet.
Like, yeah, many of them listen to me speak for an hour on a podcast like they are. Ride or die fans. Mm-Hmm. So, you know, what I'll probably do next is I'll start with referral swaps. 'cause that's really easy. I have a lot of relationships. Mm-Hmm. So I'm really excited about that as like a next step for me.
And also because I've been successful with paid ads. We're just getting, I, we've just turned on the spark loop paid recommendations. Okay. So that's like super exciting because for me, I, I, I. And I'm like, maybe I have to become, I'm [00:40:00] aware that what got me to where I am, I don't want to do it. So, you know, w what will get me to the next place will be something different.
Yeah. So I might have to be a content creator, but I just like, as a not content creator who values my life. Mm-Hmm. Like I just, some background like. I, I am many things other than a business owner. Like I am an athlete. I'm competing nationally in Sprint, Canoe this summer. Oh, wow. I like hanging out with my kids.
Like I, I like to do drugs and hang out with my friends, like I am dating people. Like, yeah. I have a very full life that has. Nothing to do with my business, my teammates on my, my canoe team, like they don't even know anything about my business. Hmm. So, wow. The beauty of paid ads is like, I got to grow my list and my business without like the content creation side.
Yeah. Taking over my life. So I will have to learn how to do that without it taking over my life. I don't know how yet Dylan, [00:41:00] but I have a lot of ideas thanks to this podcast. That's
Dylan Redekop: awesome. Mm-Hmm. And I think, I think you have the personality for a content creator. And I also think. You are a content creator because you're creating content.
Mm-Hmm. Um, it's just maybe not the, you know, the, the selfie, uh, TikTok style content that's become very, very, very popular. Or the Instagram, um, perfect life content, which, um, I think you do actually probably a really honest, good version of, which would be probably refreshing in most people's feeds. But, um, yeah, I think what you're doing is, is very respectable and noble and I Yeah.
I think is awesome. So I want to. Ask one last question. What kind of, what's on the horizon for you? And you mentioned a little bit about it, but 2024, what do you see happening or changing in, in, uh, in your business or, or just in general? Mm.
Tarzan Kay: Well, in general, for newsletters, what's really exciting time to be in newsletters?
Like, I wanna know what's gonna happen next. I think there'll be more competition for sure. Hmm, yep. Like the tools are getting [00:42:00] less expensive. And easier to use, like there's more people coming into that space. For sure. Mm-Hmm. And my newsletter has always been like that sort of email from a friend style.
Yeah. Which I love and my subscribers love too. However, I've been doing it for seven years. Like, I'm like ready. I, I'll keep telling stories. Stories will always be a part of my work because like that's why I am doing it. Yeah. If I'm, why am I do, why do I have this business if I'm not doing that? You know, there's a lot more that I could be doing.
Like I love, I never realized how much I would love curated links. Like, you know, I think you had them on your show who sponsors stuff. Did you ever talk to those
guys?
Dylan Redekop: Yep. Ryan and Jesse. Yep. Yeah. Not my, me, me personally, but they were on our podcast with Louie.
Tarzan Kay: Yeah, right. Yeah. I like, I searched those emails in my inbox and like go find links to stuff that they sent me, like Yeah.
A month ago. Yeah. And I actually have, like, I have a lot of. [00:43:00] 'cause I've been in the course creator space. I know a lot of people, I, I'm like, maybe I could have like a course creator, gossip rag. Like maybe that could be my newsletter. I don't know. I don't know. Dylan, I'm just figuring it out right now.
Dylan Redekop: Like an anonymous, an anonymous newsletter about.
You know, the dirt on the course creator space.
Tarzan Kay: Ooh. Yeah. I've definitely gotten myself in hot water many times by naming people that I probably shouldn't have. Right. I try not to do that anymore. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. But maybe I could be like the gossip girl of online business.
Dylan Redekop: That'd be fun.
That'd be fun. Xoxo. I, I do think, you know, you say that kind of ingest, but you know, maybe seriously as well, but I think they're honestly like, we need a little bit more entertainment in our inboxes. Oh, there's so much. There's so much, like you said, advice. Newsletters, there's so much content around, um, news, current events, even if it's nonpartisan, whatever.
Like there's, we get, we have enough of it, like maybe you can do it better and different than other somebody else, but like, let's focus on entertaining people a little bit more. Like bring some humor to an inbox, bring some brevity or some [00:44:00] levity, I should say, and. Yeah, I think something like you just mentioned would be fun.
I
Tarzan Kay: can't believe we didn't get to here until the end of this interview, but like, that is me. Yeah. Like that is what I am the best at. Mm-Hmm. My emails are entertaining. I pitched you, I was like, you should have me on your podcast. Look at me. I write about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I'm so fun. Yeah. I make email interesting.
Mm-Hmm. Like my emails are the type of emails that people skip over all the other ones. 'cause they know they're gonna be entertaining. They'll have a laugh, they'll like have their carrots and chocolate cake entertainment is like, boy, it's actually hard to do. And, um, I hope, yeah, I hope we'll see more of that.
Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: I, I have one of your emails actually right queued up on my screen. I won't necessarily read an excerpt from me 'cause it might not be the best part of your newsletter or, uh, from your email. But just like, you know, you read it through and it's like you're actually really talking to a person with.
You know, a personality and a real life and, you know, you [00:45:00] inject some humor. You even kind of maybe make fun of yourself a little bit with a picture of yourself in the, in the mirror. Mm-Hmm. Partying on a Friday night at 10 P.M. So, like I agree. Like, I think you're, you're doing a really good job of it and we could use even more of that in this space.
So thank you for doing what you're doing. Uh, for our inboxes.
Tarzan Kay: It's just a public service, you know? Yes.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, exactly. Um, well it's been great. Tarzan. Can you share, um, you know, do the whole share where you can find where we can find you and volume you on, um, on social media and where we can subscribe to.
Get your personality in our
Tarzan Kay: inboxes. Yeah, my emails are awesome. I think they're gonna be your favorite thing in your inbox. You're gonna skip over everyone else's, all the other newsletters. 'cause mine's great. It's, it is really funny and entertaining and I'm really proud of my work there. So you can go to tarsank.com slash subscribe.
That's like my mm-Hmm. Uh, official subscription page. I just redid my website last year and I'm like so proud of it. It's the best website I've ever had. Um, so I hope [00:46:00] people look at that too. I'm really only on LinkedIn, and that's a new thing. Uh, I have profiles in other places, but if you DM me, like I'll get it in like three months from now.
But if you join my email list and hit reply on any email, I, it's a very time consuming part of my job. I don't have 40 hours like Michael Hook, but I do read them and reply to like. Eight
Dylan Redekop: outta 10. Nice. Nice. Good to know. Okay. Yeah. Um, so everybody subscribe and send nice, uh, nice emails to Tarzan. Okay. So thank you for coming on.
Uh, it's been a pleasure learning about your journey and, um, really appreciate your honesty and everything with, with the interview. So, um. All the best to you in 2024 and maybe we'll have to have you on again later in the year to see how things are progressing. I hope
Tarzan Kay: so. Watch for another pitch in your inbox.
Yeah,
Dylan Redekop: that's right. Exactly. Uh, I look forward to it. Thanks Tarzan, for coming on. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks darling. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Send and [00:47:00] Grow podcast. If you like what you heard, here are three quick ways that you can show your support. Number one, leave us a five-star rating and review in the podcast app of your choice.
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