Arvid Kahl: Welcome to The Bootstrapped Founder, episode
252. Today, I'm talking to Erica Schneider: writer, editor,
creator and business coach. She's an expert at building an
authentic personal platform. And she's focusing on the long game.
And yes, you heard that right, personal platform, not personal
brand. We'll dive into this pretty fundamental difference
during our chat today. Erica discusses her experiencing
developing her personal audience and the business around it and
her current cohort program to help others do the same. And
from the looks of it, that program is pretty successful. As
Erica is already sharing her sales figures in public, I can
see that it's well north of $20,000 in sales a few days
after launch. If you want to learn how to do that yourself,
listen to this conversation. A quick shout out to our sponsor:
acquire.com. More on that later. Now, here's Erica.
Erica, thanks so much for being on the show. When I go to your
Twitter profile and I've recently done this a lot because
I really like your work on Twitter, the first thing that I
see is that you had an image up there and it says prioritize
value, win the long game. And I really, really liked that. It
reminds me of the infinite game, the concept of the game that you
just keep playing and that's winning, right? Winning means
getting to keep playing. And why is this something that people
actually need to learn? Because most of us probably need to
learn this, right? Why are we when we are trying to build an
audience or work on social media, why are we so focused on
short term wins instead of playing the long game?
Erica Schneider: I mean, we're focused on that because that's
what all of the gurus and influencers tell us to be
focused on. But it's terrible advice, which is why it's in my
banner. And it's why I talk about it so often. So like
building a personal platform, which is my new name for
personal brand, which we can talk about later. It's a long
game. If you view it as you know, I need to reach this
certain amount of followers or I need to make this much money in
this amount of time. You're giving yourself these really
short term goals. And it's, you know, just to be real, you're
probably not going to achieve that right away. Because so much
of what people promise is going to happen is fluffy. So there's
a good chance, I mean, most businesses don't succeed. So
it's the same deal here. Most people that want to reach these,
like really lofty goals. They're not going to succeed and then
they're going to feel really bummed and start to feel
deflated. They pretend that their ego is not involved. But
everyone's ego is involved. Even if we say it's not like it hurts
if we don't achieve these goals, right? And if we don't have the
followers that we want and we're not seeing the success and so we
will likely at that point quit, take a long break or maybe turn
into a character of ourselves that we don't really like online
because we see that that's working for other people. So we
go towards this. And if you lead with the long game in mind, it
takes all that pressure off. Like you don't have to try to
reach some certain, you know, vanity metric. You don't have to
do some short term hacky goal, like you're in this for the long
game. And especially if you have a business that you have built
or you're building in public, then you know, you're obviously
you want that to last. And so if you need to think of your
personal brand, your personal platform, as your business in
that sense of like, this is me showing up as myself
representing my business and I want this thing to last. So I'm
going to play the long game. I'm going to make this sustainable.
This is a marathon. This is not a sprint. It's going to have
ebbs. It's going to have flows. I'm going to show up every day
here or maybe then I'll have like a life event happen. And I
won't show up all the time. And that's okay because I'm in it
for the long game. So that's why it's so important.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, authenticity, right? That's at the core of all
this. It feels hard, honestly, like being surrounded by so many
these glowing examples of success. And that's the thing
that the algorithm on whatever platform you're on really pushes
towards you. It stays hard to stay kind of accountable to your
own authenticity, right?
Erica Schneider: It's so hard. Like, it's the hardest part
because especially if you're new. But even if you're not,
even if you've been doing this for a while, like you and I.
These people pop up all the time and the algorithm like shoves it
in our face and it's like, oh my God! I just had, you know, a two
day launch and I made $200,000. And now I'm sitting on a beach
and like chillin and, you know, freedom and all of this stuff
and I'm happy for those people that have had that success. But,
again, you know, not everybody needs to do that. Not everybody
will achieve that. And that is not the only way to be
"successful" online. A lot of the people that I work with have
success in the backgrounds and they're making like, a shitload
of money at their business. And it's not like, you're not going
to show up every day online and be like, I signed like five
deals today for this and that, especially if you have more
like, you know, contracts and things that you can't
necessarily talk about. But yeah, it's so confusing to see
all of these people doing this stuff. And it almost makes you
feel like you're kind of in like a popularity game. And you need
to like, show off a bit. But yeah, if you lead with
authenticity and you are yourself and you're interacting
with people that make you feel good, like it's also another way
to just, you know, not really give a shit about that, like,
yeah, okay, good for them. But you know, they're doing that and
I'm doing me. If that's you like, cool, then you should go
for that. And you should absolutely you can achieve that
online. Like, I'm not trying to say you can't, but if that's not
you, like staying true to yourself is the best way to sort
of sense check that and be like, would I feel happy if that was
me? Would I feel happy if I was acting like that? If the
answer's no, then you probably shouldn't.
Arvid Kahl: Well, maybe that's a good topic to talk about because
I feel I struggled with this too, particularly having a
sizable audience. And I think we both are kind of in the same
echo on there, right? We both have, like 10s, dozens of 1000s
of followers, like being authentic, sometimes, like you
are just spiral. It's like, well, is this what I'm doing
authentic now that I'm thinking about it as an act of act to do
on social media, right? Like, is it just me doing the thing? Or
am I talking about the thing as this kind of performative act?
How do we determine even if something that we share is an
authentic part of ourselves? Is that even possible? What do you
think?
Erica Schneider: Yeah, it's so confusing. So I try to approach
social media is the same way that I approach relationships in
the real world. I'm not going to meet somebody at a party for the
first time and just like ramble at them with a diary of what I
did that day.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's right.
Erica Schneider: So I feel like people confuse like, when we
people like me or anyone says, be authentic. They're like,
okay, like, I had a really good cry last night. I should
probably just tell everyone about that. It's like, well,
okay. I mean, if I guess if you would tell that to a person you
just met and you're comfortable with that, then by all means.
But it's basically just relationship building at scale.
So however you're authentic in your relationships in the real
world, you should be that way online as well. And again, like
it takes time. I wasn't as "authentic" when I first started
as I am now because it's like getting to know people. You know
you have to have the conversations. There's a lot of
talking. There's a lot of listening, you know and you're
teaching people like why the hell should you care about what
I'm going to say? Like this is who I am. You know you kind of
like putting your name tag on. And then you add to, you know,
you add layers to the name tag as you're there and as people
get to know you. But the hard part is that when you're
constantly getting more followers, you sort of have to,
like reintroduce yourself every once in a while. So that's why
it's so important to have this like diversity in your content,
like, you always need to lead with how am I helping? Who am I?
Like why everyone's following? And then, you know, when you
turn followers into fans, you can sort of share more things.
Nobody would have cared when I first started that I have nine
month old twins and it's like really fucking hard. But now
that people know that about me and I say something, you know,
like my wife got sick last week and I'm having a hard week, you
know, working and also doing childcare, over 100 people liked
that post because they know me and they give a shit. Like, no
one's gonna care about that at first. So authenticity is a
journey. And it's layers and think of it as more like how you
would talk to people in real life and not just like, public
journaling.
Arvid Kahl: I think the party example you gave is a perfect,
like, just way to look at this, like a little mental framework.
I use this a lot when people ask me about engagement, like how
should I engage on Twitter or social media in general. The
example that I tend to give is like well, if you go to a party,
do you just walk into the center of the room and start yelling at
everybody there about the thing that you're interested in? Well,
no. Right? You go to a group of people that are chatting about
something you care about, you stand there, you listen. And
then at some point, you engage. It feels like the party, like
the concept of the real human party can be pretty much applied
to most social interactions on social media. But that's the
thing. Like you said something about relatability, right? You
want to give people something they can relate to and you kind
of have to learn which parts of your journey are relatable. I
very much experienced the same thing. I was not as authentic in
the beginning as I am now. I think I went from person to
persona and back to person. That is my journey and I kind of feel
most people go through that. Did you go through the, too?
Erica Schneider: Probably, yes. The reason why I hesitate is
that I've actually lost part of my memory after having these
babies. I can't, like the past nine months are a bit of a blur.
So I started just to give context to that, I started this
audience building thing one and a half years ago. And so smack
in the middle of where I started to where we are now I had kids.
And so that has just like, totally shifted like who I am
and how I talk about things? I think when I started, I was
definitely a bit of a persona, like I was the writing head of
content person. This is me, like I trained writers. You know,
everyone, no one knows how to do this. Like, I know how to do it
better and like all that stuff. So that was the persona. And
then I actually had it. Something happened to me that
changed a lot, in my point of view. So I actually got very
seriously trolled from a LinkedIn post. It was one of the
first times that I got a bit more authentic, I guess. And I
was going on vacation. My wife's family lives in Greece. And so I
was trying to tell people, hey, I'm actually not going to be
posting for a week. By the way, I've never do that. Now, I would
just disappear and come back later. But like, I didn't know
and I was like, maybe I should tell people I won't be here. So
I told them that, you know, I'm going to this beautiful place in
Greece. It's where my wife lives. Like, aren't I so lucky
to have this view, essentially? And you know, somebody
interpreted that as me bragging about my wife's family being
very rich, which is very ironic because they have no very little
money. And it ended up on an Instagram meme page with half a
million followers. And so 8000 people basically told me to go
die. And so when that happened, that actually paused my
authentic journey because I was like, oh, I'm actually going to
share absolutely nothing about myself. And I had it, you know
and I can talk more about like that if you want me to. But I
paused and I went back to the persona. But because I've been
doing this now for several months, it felt like boring,
like, okay, I'm here. And now I'm just playing this character
of like writing Erica and like I can't do what my next level of
relationship building. So I had like an inflection point. Do I
want to just stop altogether? Because this isn't fun anymore.
And I can't go a level deeper or do I want to say absolutely fuck
it, like fuck anyone that ever fucking comes for me again.
Sorry for all the cursing.
Arvid Kahl: That's alright
Erica Schneider: I'm just gonna be me. I'm gonna go even deeper
into me. And I chose the latter option. And, you know I'm glad I
did. Because it's the only way that I enjoy showing up is
because I can now talk about me without fear. But I understand
because this happened to me. Like I understand there's a fear
of if I share too much, what if someone comes to me? There's
trolls, there's that. It's hard. You know, it's hard. But I do
think that naturally with time as you start to share, like
you're going to crave being more authentic. You're going to crave
it. So I think I had a similar journey, persona, you know, to
start and then person and then back to persona because of what
happened to me. And now I'm like, I'm just such a person.
Like, I don't have any time for any of this persona bullshit.
Arvid Kahl: Well, thank you for sharing this. And I am
interested in how you dealt with this because that sounds like a
pretty strong goal. And like a very personal one, right? People
becoming like envious or jealous or whatever that is and then
acting it out on the internet. How long did it take for you to
deal with this? Like, what did you do to not completely throw
everything away? Because I know people who just stopped being on
social media after something like this.
Erica Schneider: Yeah. So I was just lucky that I had a really
strong support group. So I was in Greece when it happened. Like
I posted it. I got on a plane. I got off the plane and I was like
no. And my in laws were just like, amazing. It was a very
small island. So it's very easy to just like turn everything
off, like go to the beach. But I cried a lot, like a lot. And I
was like, this is horrible. I went, I deleted the post. I made
sure that everything was locked. So nobody could like find any of
my personal information on LinkedIn. I locked my Twitter
account. And I actually got a random, the way I found out was
a random woman. I've never spoken to you again. She saw the
post in the meme group and she messaged me on LinkedIn. And she
said, hey, by the way, you are now the subject of these
people's hate. You should probably hide for a few days,
essentially. Because this has happened to me. She goes, I was
on the front page of reddit once and it was horrible. And she
goes just lay low, it will pass over and they will find another
target. So I was really lucky that I even knew what was
happening because the stranger told me. I locked everything and
I kind of just hit for a few days and called friends. My
wife's friend is like a very big Instagram influencer. And so I
called her and was like, how do you deal with all this hate? You
know, like, what am I do? Because I had like 2000
followers. I was very small. And she told me the same thing, just
let it pass over, don't respond to it, don't say anything, and
they will move on. And that's what I did. And then about a
week later, I came back and you know, just went back to writing
tips and things like that. But yeah, I cried a lot. I called
friends. And I didn't give any air to it, though, which is what
I would recommend.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's a good recommendation. And I'm glad you
had those people around you.
Erica Schneider: Yeah
Arvid Kahl: Like in many ways, the people around us are the
people that make us happen or allow us to happen.
Arvid Kahl: So I'm glad you had your support group that and also
Erica Schneider: Yeah
people who know this kind of stuff like that influencer, that
Arvid Kahl: I think that's good advice. How do you deal with
just tells you to, yeah, this happens. And then you just duck
and cover and they go for somebody else.
maybe not the large things, but just a small, everyday Twitter,
obnoxious people that you are probably much more than myself
exposed to? Like, I get them too, but probably by far not as
vitriolic or stupid as you do. I would assume, I don't know, how
do you deal with those people?
Erica Schneider: Well, now I just, it depends on my mood,
honestly, like, most of the time, I just ignore them and
don't give any air to the comments. But if I'm in a sassy
mood, like I'll just respond and be with the same energy that
they brought to me. And we'll go back and forth for a bit and
eventually they go away. But I think someone didn't like my
LinkedIn post once. They said that it was too long and it
should have been shorter to get some information. So you know, I
was in a sassy mood and I wrote back, you know, hey, you have
two options. Option one, you can read the post, feel the way that
you're feeling and move on and just not comment. Or option two,
you can choose not to read the post if you don't like it and
again, move on and not comment, like, pick your choice,
essentially. And it wasn't like, uh, oh, you know, you're the
worst and like, why this like you have to leave emotions off
the table like it is just people. It's never personal.
It's always about them. It's not about you. And so you have to
just realize, like, this is not about you. So you have to just,
I just laugh it off now like nothing. Nothing bothers me
anymore.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah
Erica Schneider: So
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, with experience, right? Comes the
thick skin in that regard. Do you think it's worth it? Like,
that's what I want like, do you think it's worth it building an
audience if this is the stuff that you sometimes have to deal
with?
Erica Schneider: Of course, absolutely. Of course, the
opportunities are quite literally endless. Like,
everything good in life is hard. You know, you can't shy away
from hard things. This is what I hope to teach my kids. This is
how I approach life like, things are hard. But if you want to,
you know get to that next level, you have to tap into things that
are uncomfortable. And usually when we are at the edge of our
comfort zone, we're about to have a breakthrough. So if
you're uncomfortable online, it probably means you should be
there. Obviously, prioritize your mental health. Like try not
to burn out. There's ways you can do that. But of course, it's
worth it. Before I built an audience online, I was a very
good content writer and editor and like two people knew that.
Like, you know, when I started building an audience, everyone
that is an industry peer now knows who I am. I started
getting invited to speaking gigs, podcasts. Some really big
companies tried to poach me, which was exciting and fun. You
know, all these opportunities started to come my way. And then
I was like, maybe I should launch a side business. It won't
take that much time. I have this knowledge. It seems like people
want it. So I've now I've made the money. I'm building my own
business. Like it's insane. The people I've met, my business
partner, I met her online. I've got actual friends that I've met
in real life. It's like, it's insane. And I literally never
thought that was possible before I started. And when I started, I
didn't know how that was possible.
Arvid Kahl: That's the thing, right? Like, you don't know that
that is even an option. Like that's my experience, too. I
started building my audience because I wanted to write and I
wanted people to read it. And I knew that they were really cool
people that I was already following, but they didn't know
me. I knew them. And you know, in conferences, I sometimes met
people and all that kind of stuff. And over time I figured
out oh wow, there's more to this. It's not just you know,
hanging out and chatting with people. This is actually a
generator, like a generator for ideas, for opportunities, for
partnerships, for money, like for many, many different things.
Nobody tells you that, really. At least not as specifically as
you should be told. Okay, so one thing that I really liked about
your work is your focus on writing and editing. I think you
just mentioned this too, like with the content writing and all
that stuff.
Erica Schneider: Yeah
Arvid Kahl: And audience building and writing to me are
almost the same thing. That is my personal opinion. I don't
think you can build an audience without writing. And I don't
mean like writing long form whatever, writing books or
something but writing well phrased prose is an integral
part of audience building. So and I guess this is the point
where we start going into the self limiting beliefs for people
because many people want to build an audience, but people
don't think they can write. How do we overcome this perception?
Because that's how I kind of started for, I guess, the first
35 years of my life. I didn't consider myself to be capable of
writing, neither in my native language of German nor in
English, the language that I learned at some later point,
mostly by playing World of Warcraft, but that's a different
story. You know, I never considered myself to be a
potentially capable writer. I was a great software developer,
which is also writing but for machines, but I only later
understood that and never thought I could write. How could
I a couple of years ago have had a much easier time getting into
writing as a means to build an audience?
Erica Schneider: Yeah. So literally, anyone can be a
writer. I think that the first limiting belief that you have to
get over is that you need to be some sort of a grammatical
expert in the English language to be a writer, like, that's
absolute bullshit. It's not just bullshit in short form. It's
bullshit in long form. Like nobody in the content marketing
world that I also live in, is paying attention to very, very,
like, you know, high level grammar. So that's okay. It all
comes down to really understanding marketing
psychology, like that's the basis behind good writing, good
content writing, not books, not journal articles, but you have
to persuade people and tap into their emotions so that they give
a shit about what you're saying. And I don't mean persuade, like,
you know, you have to do this thing that I'm telling you to do
it. My way of thinking of it is it's subtle persuasion. It's
taking people on a journey. And eventually, if you've done such
a good job giving them value, they're going to want to just
naturally take the next step. That's in my mind, I label that
as subtle persuasion. Everybody's suddenly persuading
everyone, in life too, you know. Like, so it's like, not just,
you know, it's not just a marketing thing. So it's very
simple. You just have to understand the principles behind
what makes good writing. So when I explain what makes a good
hook, for example, it's very simple principles. You have to
tap into people's emotions, right? You have to intrigue
them. You have to, you know, pay attention to small things like
getting specific, you know and you have to make sure that
you're leaving some sort of a cliffhanger so that they click
more. It's all principles. Once you grasp that, it's this
principle thing, then you can get more into the you know,
mechanics of how to actually do that, you know, write in active
over passive voice, use the simple present tense, you know,
cut redundancy and fluff, don't use adverbs if you don't need
to, swap the verb to be for power words, like there's these
checklists, that if that means nothing to you, fine. You'll
learn it over time, like that will come. But really, like the
idea is that you need to get people intrigued in what you're
saying. And if you're brand new, usually you think that you need
to tell people, I am this person with all this experience. I've
got, you know, 20 years of success in this and that. So
therefore, pay attention to me. That's not how any of online
writing works. How online writing works is you have to
make it "you" content, not "I" content.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's perfect. I love that.
Erica Schneider: So, I have spent 20 years doing this thing.
Here is my process to help you achieve a very specific thing.
Right? So credibility, but it's about you, like, not me, you.
But my credibility is worth paying attention too. But it's
about you. So it's a mix.
Arvid Kahl: Yes. I love that.
Erica Schneider: Yeah. So
Arvid Kahl: That's, sorry for interrupting you. I think this
is something that once you understand this, it becomes so
much easier to talk to people in writing, right? Because social
media is effectively writing super short form, but it is
writing, right? When you spent 20 minutes on Twitter, just
typing things out, you have just written a little essay, but all
the phrases are in different locations, right? Every reply is
part of a larger thing. So it is writing, that's what I'm trying
to say and it starts particularly on social media. It
starts in your bio and your profile, the thing you write
about yourself and in your Twitter profile that you're
trying to get people to read and then click on follow. And I tell
people this a lot in the Twitter tear downs that I've been doing
over the last couple of weeks like everybody, almost everybody
has just something in that it says, I studied here. I did
this. And now I'm doing this. And that's their bio. There's
nothing in it for the person reading that bio. It's only just
about the person that has the profile. And if they're
successful, people who build audiences are people who they
have a promise. They have a promise of a future
relationship, right there in their bio and that is writing.
You can just easily say, follow along for weekly insights into
this particular topic. And already, you stand out from
everybody else who just tells you which college they went to.
Right? That's where it starts. If you understand this, then
everything you do can be something for other people. I
really appreciate that. The problem that I had in the
beginning and that most people that I see who struggled with
writing in particular have is perfectionism, the idea that
they need to craft the perfect thing. How does it get easier to
write a draft 80/20, good enough and send it? How can you
convince yourself that that's okay?
Erica Schneider: Look, Twitter is the best platform for that
because 9 to 12 hours after you post, no one sees it anymore or
gives a shit on you.
Arvid Kahl: That's right.
Erica Schneider: So my phrase that I've coined for this is you
need to develop experimental confidence. So just post but
with intention. So I have a big problem with when people are
like, just start, like, just get started. It's gonna be great,
like, okay. But, you know, you need to have intention behind
that. It's very subtle difference. But if you're just
posting and you don't really have like, an intention to pay
attention to how it's going and how it makes you feel and what
you want to say and what will be your path forward, then you're
kind of just like posting for posting sake, so that you can
say I've posted. If you post with intention, then posts
whatever you want, but pay attention to how does it feel?
How do I feel after I posted that? Is anybody responding?
What questions am I getting? Like people asked me something
that is making me realize I need to clarify something more? Or is
there a point that actually they're interested in that maybe
I could go deeper on? Who am I speaking to? You know, who do I
want to be speaking to? What am I passionate about? What are
people relating to about what I'm saying? If you pay attention
to all of that post, pay attention, refine, post, pay
attention, refine. Like, that is how you start. The
perfectionism, it doesn't matter. Like when I'm editing
people's work, a lot of times English is not their first
language. And I will intentionally leave things that
aren't perfect because it sounds like them. It's more natural to
them. And I'll tell them, you know, on the side on a comment,
hey, by the way, if you want this to be "perfect English",
you could rephrase this to say that. But if that doesn't sound
like you don't change it, you know, that's okay. As long as
the core like message is clear, if it's about you not I, if you
have your credibility, but it's about you, everything that we
just went through, like, the place that you put this word or
that word or if you have like a little grammar error, it doesn't
matter. Nobody cares. We are in the business of grabbing
attention through emotions, like nobody on social media unless
they're an asshole is going to care about specifically if you
said it in the right way, it just doesn't matter.
Arvid Kahl: Yep. Yeah, that's great. I love the fact that,
like, nobody's gonna see it anyway. Like, in some way, at
least not after a certain while. But that's kind of brings me to,
like a thought here. Like the fact that nobody's gonna see it.
That is something people struggle with. Right? Not
getting replies, not getting views, not getting likes. And
for most people who are just starting to build an audience,
that is the reality of most of the tweets that they sent.
Because if you have like 20 followers and you send a tweet,
like five of them are going to see it, if at all and it's in
the middle of everybody else's tweets. And you know, like, it's
hard to get attention. How do we deal with this? Like the fact
that when we were starting out on a social media platform,
nobody's listening because nobody's connected to us just
yet.
Erica Schneider: Well, that's the problem right there and you
need to go get connected to people. So it has absolutely,
it's another big mistake. One that I personally made that I
think everyone makes it if they don't make this mistake, they're
lying. You think, okay, I've got this, like, you know, I am this
amazing head of content. Everybody should know that just
by going to my profile and seeing that, you know, that
badge. So when I say something about writing people, these
random people will listen like absolutely not. So the only way
that I started to build traction and my advice to beginners is go
reply on people's posts. Like everything in your first few
weeks online, even your first few months, is about replying.
The best way to get attention is on someone else's content that
is in one of three categories, your peer, so someone in your
industry that is saying something that you can lend your
point of view to, your ideal audience, so obviously whoever
you want and your ideal audiences' audience. Right? So
who are they? Like go to their followers list, see who's
following them. Like, are there people in that list that maybe
could also benefit from some complementary information, go
intent. And there's a process to this, which we don't have time
to get into, but intentionally find these people. And
strategically comment on all of their posts. So when I first
started, the easiest way for me to get attention was to go to
people that were also, you know, kind of heads of content or own
their own marketing agency, who were posting advice. But I had
the experience to be like, I either agree but here's my also
unique angle or actually kind of disagree with this, be a little
bit contrarian. And that's hard to do at first, but you know,
you'll get there like, I'm super spiky and contrarian now, but
that was not how it started. Like, that takes time. But the
people that have something to add to the conversation are the
ones that are gonna get paid attention to. So you slowly do
that. And then people are like, oh, you're here. Interesting.
And maybe they'll hit follow. And then maybe they'll see your
stuff and start to comment on it. And then, but you have to
continue this commenting habit. I think when people start to
see, you know, success and people are seeing their stuff,
they're like, oh, I don't need to comment anymore. No, that's a
killer. Like you always comment. Not only do the algorithms love
it, especially on LinkedIn, but people love it. It's a social
platform, like, you don't want to be that person that just
disappears and never engages. Because then people aren't going
to that's part of the authenticity thing, like people
aren't going to, like feel like you're actually there. It's just
robotic. So, engagement, start with engagement.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, once you detach because you think you
have made it, you lose it. That's the thing, right? It's
not just a social network. It's an organism and the organism is
continuously evolving and people will kind of push you aside.
We'll just categorize you as one of those people that we're not
interacting with anymore because they don't interact with us.
That's a big deal. And I love the fact that you walk the walk
here. I checked your profile earlier on Twitter and 93% of
the things that you do on Twitter are replies, like, which
is really good. Like whenever I see people somewhere north of
75%, it's already quite active in terms of replying, but you
like 93 almost 94, that is substantial. It's really nice to
see that you still do this almost at 50,000 followers. You
still hang out, you chat with people, you do give your
opinions, contrary or not. But I love the fact that you'd still
do this. And I think that also explains why you are successful
and why you are capable of telling people how to do it
because you've understood the concept of this being a kind of
a that's the long game, right? The long game is to have really
nice relationships with people. And for that you need to engage
with them. I'm really happy you're doing this.
Erica Schneider: I love engaging with people. Because if people
take the time to comment, even if they're playing, you know,
sometimes you can tell they're playing the reply game like, you
know or they have an AI generated reply. But you know,
we're all doing this. You know, we all know how this works. I
love replying back because a lot of times when you're someone
that has the experience that you and I have, like people, if
they're taking the time to say thank you like it means you
really helped them. Or if they have a question, it means that
like, it'll take you two seconds to help them even more.
Arvid Kahl: Yes
Erica Schneider: So it's really like, it's really not that hard,
doesn't take that long. And it's so important. So, yeah.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, and it forges that bond. Right? That's the
thing with the question. If somebody asks you something as a
follow up to your thing, that's one of the most wonderful
experiences you can have on Twitter
Erica Schneider: Yes
Arvid Kahl: Is to have an actual conversation, not just an
exchange of pleasantries, not just your liking somebody's baby
pictures or the vacation that they're on right now, which is
also nice. It is a different kind of relationship, right? But
the one where you shared something, a thought of yours
that they had never thought about and have a follow up
question you can make their day. You give them something new, you
put something in their mind. What a powerful move that is and
you get to have a conversation. I love this about social media,
which is why that is also why I'm so active on Twitter, it's
just every day is this opportunity for just literally
physically changing your mind. Right? Isn't that awesome?
Erica Schneider: It's amazing! I mean, right before we hopped on
this, I posted something about editing and my personal process.
And the second that we're done with this call, like I can't
wait to go see what people are saying. Because so much of the
advice on social media about editing is just absolutely
horrible. Like it goes as far as like, just read it the next day
and you'll be fine. And that's not good enough.
Arvid Kahl: Let's dive into this please help me because I'm not a
good editor for my own work either. So I could probably
benefit a lot from this.
Erica Schneider: Yeah, you'll like the post. It's a good one.
I'm really excited to go engage with people because I'm sure
that there's follow up questions and I'm excited to answer them.
And that is another thing like, you have to find things that are
you're actually excited about in order to play the long game
because I can't wait to get back online and talk to people about
this. And like, if I posted something that I don't care
about or I'm playing a character of myself, I'm not going to give
a shit. I'm not going to want to talk to people about it. So and
then you just kind of like fizzle. And again, like people
see you as this robotic person that you're just kind of
bringing people like to buy a product to make money, like, I
actually care about this stuff. And so if you can find to that,
then that's how you play the long game. You'll always want to
talk about it.
Arvid Kahl: So is that the antidote to the performative
nature of the reply game is just to care?
Erica Schneider: Well, yeah, caring goes a big way. Yeah, it
does. And it goes a really big way.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, absolutely. Like if I didn't care, like the
first thing I do most of my work day, I guess, after the puppy is
wanked. And all these little things that I need to do is to
go to Twitter and see what happened. You know, because it's
an ongoing conversation too, like a thing I said, a couple of
weeks ago, people reply to that still. And it's kind of this
narrative that just keeps unraveling, which is really
cool. And the thing about narratives, I guess, with you
talking a lot about editing, talking a lot about writing and
the personal platform, which is a concept that I really like as
kind of opposed to the personal brand. Where's this going? Like
most of us creators and I would call you a pretty huge creator
in our space, both in terms of the impact that you have in the
community and the size of your following. They have this kind
of vision of what's next. And we work towards that. What is that
for you?
Erica Schneider: My vision is to help people, authentically show
up online in a way that helps them grow their business. So I
want to help people do what I'm doing. But that are a few steps
behind me. And I don't mean that inexperienced, like I want to
help people. Most of the clients that I'm helping at the moment
with Kasey Jones, who's my business partner, they're older
and they've got like 30 years of experience and they're dealing
with something that we call the curse of knowledge, where they
have so much to share that they don't know how the hell to do
anything, but potentially, they're pivoting in their
business. Or they decided that they need to now join this
online game. And so I want to help people from all walks of
life, from beginners but more so the people that have been trying
to do this and are struggling because the advice out there is
so bad and so templated and so samey and so grossly. I want to
help people that look at that and go, oh, that's not me. Find
a way to have fun online and build businesses in an authentic
way and feel comfortable overcoming this fear and going
from persona to person and staying in person and finding
that value in there. And then using that to build
relationships and make money, grow their businesses. And so
the reason why I can't stand the word personal brand is because
when I think of brand, I feel like I'm productizing myself.
And when I think of productizing myself, I think of the bros. I
just can't help but that's where my mind goes. You know it's
these people, men and women who have a very, you know, very
photoshopped image of themselves. Or maybe it's the AI
mid journey, one where they're looking all like, you know, with
the screen. And they, you know, they all use the same hooks,
they're all selling the same thing, they're all talking about
the same thing. There's a little personality, but you can tell
they're just adding personality to play the game, like it
doesn't feel real. And they dominate the market here in
terms of how you should be online. And I want to be the
antithesis of that. But I don't want to just be known as someone
who's an anti something. I want to be pro you. Right? And so I
see this is, you know, I feel like revolution is a bit strong
of a word, but something you know, it's a movement. It's a
movement towards, you know, people that have actual
experience helping people that have actual experience do this,
right?
Arvid Kahl: That is so cool.
Erica Schneider: That is my vision. Yeah.
Arvid Kahl: I love this. And the bro thing, that makes perfect
sense to me too. I know you have a history with the term and the
fight against it. And that is super exciting just to look into
as well. But yeah, like have you considered dropshipping like
that kind of stuff. I just cannot handle this like it's
such a bizarre reductive way of presenting yourself too,
right?And I love the idea of turning this from brand into
platform because also as we are creators who exist on platforms
and this is kind of where my mind goes here, Twitter,
LinkedIn and all that. The brand feels like it's something that
is just glued on top. I think your visualization of it that
the mental model of something that people just to kind of slap
a little bit of their personality on top of but not
too much, right? For it to still work for the template to still
work. That's the old way of presenting yourself on social
media. But now what you're really building is a platform in
itself that stands maybe slightly on top, but at least
with many different legs on all these other platforms on which
we express ourselves and share the things that we care about on
social media. That term makes perfect sense to me. And I love
the fact that that's what you've chosen to look into. It's really
cool.
Erica Schneider: I would love to see a visualization of what you
just described because that's really cool. I'm picturing like,
a big like, ha, like,
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, like an elephant with more legs than
just a couple and you sit on top of it, right? Like it's kind of
monster ish but it feels like you need to have solid footing
in many different areas to be independent really, right? As a
creator, as somebody even a business owner, like you need to
be not just present on one platform. And if you rely
exclusively on one dependency and they go out of business,
your business is pretty much done for as well. Right? So
diversification happens on many different levels. So what shape
is this gonna take? Like, right now you're sharing a lot, you're
writing a lot. Where's this going? This is going to be like,
like a chorus or community. Where are you heading with this?
Erica Schneider: Yeah, so that is a work in progress. But for
the next step, Kasey and I are launching a cohorts the first
week of November. And it's going to be a live in person training.
By in person, I mean, online. But eventually, actually, it'd
be really cool to do actual in person stuff. And it'll likely
be four weeks and it's going to be us taking you through the
journey of, you know, figuring out exactly who you're speaking
to in your positioning and how you want to position yourself,
your strategy for showing up online. So the engagement
process and getting in the minds of the right people and then
your content pillars, what are you talking about? How do you
talk about that? How do you incorporate I while making it
you because that's one of the most important parts and then,
you know, more specific, like social writing stuff, but not
too crazy. I mean, there's other ways that you can learn all of
that for free. But really, it's the mastering of the editing
part, like how do I make sure that what I've just presented is
actually going to make an impact, which is kind of what I
talked about today. And so we'll be running that cohort in
November. And from there, I think it'll be you know,
potentially a community down the line. A bunch of, you know, self
serve on demand courses for people that don't love cohorts.
And we'll see where it goes from there. You know, we'll see.
We're gonna build this in public, so.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, that's why I was gonna ask you next. So I'm
glad to hear you mentioning this. Like, you're going to be
sharing the process and the learnings of the whole thing?
Erica Schneider: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think
starting next week, we're going to have a couple of master
classes as like a test run up to the cohort to sort of show
people like, this is what you'll be learning. And you know, if
you want to learn more, come to the cohort. And when that's
done, absolutely. We're going to do a retrospective on how did
those masterclasses go? How did it influence what we're going to
put into the cohort? When the cohorts done, it's going to be
how did the cohort go? What did we learn? What does our audience
really need? And how did we help them? And how are we going to
pivot and other ways to help them? And yeah, I want to talk
about all of it in public. Yeah
Arvid Kahl: That's gonna be exciting, right? That's gonna be
cohort one and all the learnings from that is going to go into
cohort to hopefully, one one question that I have, as
somebody who also is playing, we're toying with the idea of
turning my more written knowledge into some some kind of
active cohort course. And how did you decide like the format
of this? Because as a creator, particularly as a writer and
editor, you have a lot of ways that you can communicate the
things that you know, right? You could write books, you could do
like, just self paced courses, you could do video stuff, you
could do audio stuff, you could do a podcast series on this for
that matter. So
Erica Schneider: Yeah
Arvid Kahl: Like, how did you get to this decision to make it
a cohort thing?
Erica Schneider: So the best part about a cohort because
we've actually run two cohorts already. But that was called
impactful social writing. And we're pivoting. So now we have
to do another one. And the reason why is we learned so much
from the first two, which is why we're pivoting that we now it's
the best way to test ideas in real time with real groups of
people. So yes, you can test ideas with writing, but if you
actually like when you can see people's faces and you can see
how it's helped them. And you can have these back and forth
and they'll ask you questions that you can then go deeper on
and then go, oh, okay, that's something. You take all of that
knowledge. And that's what you then bundle into something
that's self serve. So it's the test before you build model even
though it's incredibly valuable in and of itself. I don't want
to be in the business of running cohorts every month like that is
from personal experience, they are incredibly exhausting. And
especially if they're going to be four weeks long, you know,
it's a full time commitment. So I think it's just the best way
to make sure that what you're doing is having the impact that
you want it to do. And then you can do self serve models from
that. And then you know, from there who knows? Maybe I think
you should always be interacting with people about these things,
though, whether it's one on one or two on one or small group
coaching, like, it's important to get that live feedback.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah. Thank you for sharing this. This is really
cool. Like also understanding that it's not going to be like
an ongoing, like churning out cohort after cohort but is like
it's kind of an MVP, right? You have your minimum viable info
product in VIP, I guess. The thing, just you look for the
resonance of the thing, of the content, of the individual units
and see what works well, what doesn't, what needs refinement
and can you can then take that into other products into other
perspectives on the same thing. That's a wonderful perspective
to have, like for your own journey. I have lots of
questions. But two questions: would you do this all by
yourself as a solo creator? And I guess secondary like, do you
already have a plan laid out for how you're going to use these
learnings? Like, is there a book in the future? Or is there like
a self paced thing? Or will you decide that when you're done
with it?
Erica Schneider: So to answer the first one first, absolutely.
The reason why I've teamed up with Kasey is that we both truly
believe that if you want to have success, you can't just be a
writer. You also can't just be a strategist. So Kasey's, like got
decades of experience in business growth strategy. And
she is an absolute genius when it comes to figuring out you
know, who you are, how you want to show up online and all of
these things. And so I always tell people that come to me for
writing advice, like do you know who you're talking to and why
you're talking to them and all of that stuff? Because anything
I'm about to teach you, it'll be valuable. But if you're applying
it in the wrong place, it's not gonna really matter. So it's
same thing in content marketing. You know when you're planning a
blog, you can have the best written piece on something
totally unrelated to what's going to actually drive business
to you. It's not going to matter. So, yes, I can
absolutely do solo things. And I plan to do solo things on just
the writing side. But it would have to be very obvious as a
prerequisite, know these things about yourself and then come to
me. If you don't know these things, then come to us. If you
don't need writing help, but you need help with that, go to
Kasey. So I imagine, you know, I'll have my thing. I have my
thing already, but only more obvious like websites and things
that we're still building. I have my thing. Kasey has her
things, but we come together. And I think that's really
powerful because so many people do one or the other. And in
order to have like a really well rounded personal platform, you
need it all. So
Arvid Kahl: That makes perfect sense. It's kind of why people
run well with co founders that kind of augment their skills.
And Kasey is your co founder, right? That's pretty much what
that is, is just not a software as a service business like many
people in my audience, indie hackers understand it to be but
it's an info product. It's an educational business, right?
You're effectively a school, which is pretty cool. I have one
big contrarian question.
Erica Schneider: Okay
Arvid Kahl: Because I think you might like that approach. Can
you skip learning how to write if you want to build an
audience?Like do you need to learn how to write? Or is that
optional, if you want to go into the game of audience building?
Erica Schneider: Oh, you know, you need to know how to write.
Of course, you need to know how to write unless you're never
planning on writing anything. And you're only doing podcasts,
for example, but you still need to understand like, the basics
of how to move people from A to B, that's writing. So scripts
for things are that like thought processes or mental models of
conversations. That is essentially writing. You have to
understand the principles behind writing, which is cohesion,
coherence, you know, a structure that makes sense, how to tell a
story, how to center the reader, all these things. I think your
question is based on questions I get a lot, which is like, who
gives a shit about about, you know, sentence structure? And,
you know, all of these specific, I think when people think of
writing they think of like, English teachers that are
obsessed over like little things with red pens. My whole purpose
of showing up online and talking about you know, writing every
day is the mechanics like yeah, sure, like learn them if you
really actually want to go be an editor, but otherwise, like,
learn the principles. Like the principles behind writing are
writing just as much as copy editing is writing. And when it
comes to editing, like I spend most of my time making changes,
literally saying like, why does this matter? What do you mean by
this? Like, how do you help the reader hear much less suggested
edits or to make it sound better? You know, that's later.
That's later.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, like writing is thinking, right? You have to
learn how to think and how to convincingly structure
arguments, so that other people feel compelled to believe them
and want to know more. Right? That's what writing is. I love
that. That's for making a case for writing, like, as somebody
who had to work his own way into writing, I feel this is what
made it click for me is that writing is just thinking clearly
and then conveying it to other people. So if you don't want to
learn that, then why are you like conversing with other
people? Right? That's kinda why writing is important. The only
thing that I see often enough, unfortunately, in people even
experienced people and I bet you also have run into those people,
they have experience of decades of being an expert in that
particular field, yet they think the people around them, they
already know this kind of stuff. What do I even have to say? Like
the things that I know like, they're not going to be a big
contribution. I would rather not write about them because I think
people already know them. How do we deal with this kind of self
limiting belief, obviously?
Erica Schneider: Literally, the answer is nobody else's you. So
nobody else has your specific experiences, your specific point
of view. So that is the answer. Every single time you think
someone else has said this already, cool. But like, you
experienced the same exact thing that they've experienced, what
was the moment that you experienced that? What's your
story? No one else has that. Because I felt the same way when
I first started. No one else needs to hear about content
writing on social media. Everyone talks about that. But
when I really reflected, I thought, like, what am I most
passionate about? And what can I add to this conversation that I
don't see a lot of? Editing, right? Like no one talks about
editing. But also, you know, even little things like everyone
loves to say, write the hook first or write the introduction
first. If I actually think it's better to not do that, that is
an angle to the conversation, that is saying something else,
you know. And if I completely agree, then I could say, yeah,
actually, I do agree. Here's my specific process for doing it.
That might be different than someone else's that could help
someone. So no one else is you like, everyone has said
everything. Everyone knows everything, but like no one else
is you. So you deserve to show up. And please show up.
Arvid Kahl: Yeah, it's like the hero's journey, the monomyth.
Right? The idea that every story is effectively the same story.
Like Harry Potter is Star Wars, it's the exact same thing like
orphan goes finds Jedi Master wizard to help them through
their life. That's just the same story in different clothes. But
we have a completely different access to that story because of
the unique coloring of that story. And you're 100% right.
Your lived reality or my lived reality, gives rise to things
that other people would never experience. Because just you
know, randomness of life. You see things that others don't.
And that is worth sharing. And I'm really glad you're
encouraging people to do this. Because I think everybody should
write. Everybody should share. Building in public is a big
thing that I stand for because I feel for founders, for
creatives, this is the way to make people aware of what you do
and get the success in doing it by having people you know,
contribute to energy. They're investing their time and
reputation and money and friendship and partnership and
that stuff into you and your platform, not going to call it
brand anymore. I really like your phrase. Thanks for helping
people finding that way to that. If people want to find their way
to you and your expertise and all these subjects, where should
they go?
Erica Schneider: Yeah, so on Twitter, it's @ericasmyname. On
LinkedIn, it's Erica Schneider. But really, there's just a big
push right now to get everyone to the Power your Platform
newsletter. So it's in both of my bios that I just mentioned.
So we would love if you join the newsletter because we're just
giving like tons of really good, valuable information away in the
newsletters. So
Arvid Kahl: That's generally a good move for any creator is to
have people become part of their own platform, which the
newsletter very much is. So I highly recommend subscribing to
this newsletter. And then if you are a creator listening to this
thinking about how you can have your own newsletter as well, to
get people into your own platform. Thank you so much,
Erica for joining me today and sharing all these wonderful
insights into building audiences and writing and editing. That
was really, really wonderful. Thank you.
Erica Schneider: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.
Arvid Kahl: Pleasure
And that's it for today. For most entrepreneurs, info
products and services like the ones we talked about are stair
stepping milestones as Rob walling would say. Many of us
want to end up building SaaS businesses and getting there and
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six months down the road, you've tripled your revenue. Reality,
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You don't have to sell but you can and acquire is going to help
you with that.
Thank you for listening to The Bootstrapped Founder today. You
can find me on Twitter @arvidkahl. Please say hi and
you'll find my books and my twitter course there too. If you
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you very much for listening and have a wonderful day. Bye bye