Where People Find You: Newsletters, Lead Magnets, & Growth beyond Instagram
Instagram is one piece of a marketing ecosystem. Building an entire business on a platform you don't own is a fragile plan, and this session worked through what else is available to you.
We started somewhere unexpected for a marketing conversation: business modeling. Your marketing depends on your business model, so before deciding where to put your energy, you need a clear picture of how many people you work with, what they pay you, and what you can actually deliver at each tier.
We talked through:
A simplified version of a framework I learned from Brooke Monaghan—do it yourself, do it with you, do it for you—using my dog Layla's imaginary business as the example.
Connecting the threads of marketing and choosing our channels or platforms.
Understanding where we’re “borrowing” an audience and where we have more direct contact.
Freebies or lead magnets that serve your clients and your business model.
The importance of creating consistently, not constantly.
Mentioned in this session
❋ Brooke Monaghan — the business modeling framework this session adapts, and the line resonance and readiness are two different things
❋ Business Modeling for Equity, co-facilitated with Brooke Monaghan · Fruition Growth Network
❋ Your Business Is a Puzzle — the free business strategy worksheet used as the freebie example
❋ Free resources — including Beyond the Feed, Burn the Blueprint, and the gender-neutral language tool
❋ Stephanie Ghoston Paul, on returning to your why
❋ September’s Conscious Marketing Club: reframing the niching conversation
WATCH THE SESSION
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Opening
Tristan: Hi, welcome. Here's the plan.
First of all, let's just acknowledge that the world is a lot right now. I think I do this every time we come together, but I haven't held this space since June, so a lot has happened since we last saw each other. Things keep happening.
What I'm noticing is a lot of distress that sometimes might appear like things are fine, but it's actually stress. I'm laughing because I was just on the phone with my father, and he didn't breathe for a full minute of talking, is what it felt like. And I said, hey, take a breath. And he said, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. And then he goes: okay, I'm stressed. And I was like, yeah, I think we all are, trying to get through.
I'll just speak from my experience. I am trying to get through, every day. And I'm not well. And running a business when we are not well — I don't want any of us actually doing that. I want you doing the thing that you signed up to do in your work. I don't want you doing the business part, but you have to. So I want to see if today, in the next 90 minutes, we can make that part a little easier.
This session is not meant to give you more things to do. More projects, more action items, more ways that you're wrong or something. That's not what this is, and I just want to say that up front. If you just let today wash over you and you don't take notes, that might be how you want to navigate this session. Check in with yourself.
You can show up however you are for the next 90 minutes. You can be off camera, walking your dog, taking a little blanket couch rest. Really, you do you. And it's always easier for me if at least some people are on camera so that I'm feeling like I'm actually talking to people and not just blank squares, even though I know there are people behind the blank squares. So, both and.
I'm going to open with a chat prompt, as we usually do, and then talk for hopefully 20 to 30 minutes on the topic of where people find you, specifically outside of Instagram. In order to talk about that, in my lived experience, we also have to talk about your offers structure and where freebies or lead magnets fit into that structure. So that's part of today's conversation.
Only those who unmute to join the conversation will be captured in the recording. You can listen, you can ask questions. We'll have time after I'm done presenting these slides to unpack questions, but if questions come up along the way, please let me know. I've got my eye on those who are on camera and on the chat box. I'm here for it all.
By the way, if we've never met before, I'm Tristan. My pronouns are they and he — I lean more they, with a little sprinkling of he. I've been gathering this space in some form for more than a year now, and it's evolved over time. In the last few months I've finally figured out what it is and what it needs to be. Every month I'm teaching on a theme for the first half hour, and then we open it up.
Next month we're going to talk about niching. Everything is reframing for me. I don't talk about finding your niche, because I don't think it works that way. So we're going to reframe the niching conversation next month, and the following month I'm reframing the launching conversation.
On access and the replay: you'll receive the replay within 24 hours by video. I can make the slides available — no problem, you'll get those too. I'm also turning this into a podcast, so every month that we meet I'll record the audio and put it on podcast platforms, if you want to take it with you and not sit in front of the Zoom screen. And I'm growing a video library on my website so you can access all the sessions with the slides. Let me know if anybody has any other access needs.
Business modeling
I'm going to dive into my eleven slides and talk first about business modeling. I say this with some nervousness, because I don't usually teach this. My partner in business crime usually teaches this, and I've adapted it from their work — Brooke Monaghan.
I learned it from them and I'm still learning it. This was a framework I had never been introduced to before. Brooke introduced me to it, it's taken me probably six years to understand it, and I'm still trying to understand it. Because my brain goes offline with numbers and money. When I say my brain goes offline, what I mean is I have a mild stress response — sometimes more than mild, because I don't feel secure financially in the world. And we live in capitalism and have to pay to survive.
We're going to start with business modeling as a way to make sense of how we market our work, because your marketing really does depend on your business model.
To me, the best way to understand a business model is: how do we make sure that the plan we have for making money — the money we actually need to make — can actually work for the people we're trying to serve, and work for our lifestyle?
For example, I have learned in the last few years that I need a nap every afternoon. It is basically non-negotiable now. I'm open to it changing — maybe this is a napping phase of my life — but right now my lifestyle is such that I need a nap every afternoon. Which means I need to figure out a way to still make enough money and take a nap every afternoon. And then there are all the other things I have to fit around the nap, like getting my car to the mechanic and taking my dog to the vet, all of which take time away from work and cost me money.
So I need to make sure my business is actually set up in a way that's going to work for me and my clients, otherwise it's not going to work for either of us. And if my clients keep coming to me saying I don't have enough money to work with you, I wish I had enough money to work with you — that's on us as the solopreneur, as the business owner. It's on us to figure out what we're missing so we can meet our clients with the needs they actually have, which are constantly changing, as are our needs as business owners.
The easiest way to think about business modeling is that we have to have a particular number of people that we work with, and they have to pay us for our work. Because we live in capitalism, it's non-negotiable that you get paid for your work right now. Those two things together equal your income.
But not all of our clients are going to be paying us or working with us in the same way. That's where our offers come into play — what Brooke or I might refer to as an offers ecosystem. I don't call it a suite, mostly because "suite" feels icky to me, like capitalism. An ecosystem feels like Earth. It feels like it matters. How am I orienting toward my work? I'm trying to meet people's needs at different price points and time capacities.
Some people are never going to pay us for our work. That's why I hold this space. That's why I do free offerings, why I create a podcast, why I create free resources — because I know there are people who are never going to be able to pay me, and I still want to serve them. That's how I set up my free offerings, and to me they're part of your marketing. It's inseparable.
Some people are going to pay you, but only this much, because that's all they're ever going to have access to. Which means you can't do it with them or for them at that budget, but you can give them the tools so that they can do it themselves.
Then there are people who need more of your guidance and support, and they have maybe more money or more time, maybe both. You're going to meet their needs by being with them more in the thing you offer them.
I know some of you might be thinking, but I'm a service-based provider, I offer the same thing to all my clients — what are you saying, do it yourself, do it with them? We'll break that down, because it applies to all of us.
The first column is low-cost: somebody's doing it themselves. DIY. You give them the tools, they apply them. The mid-tier is you doing it with them — they still carry a lot of time and labor on their end, but they're getting more of your support. The higher-ticket tier in your offers ecosystem is likely to be something where you're doing it for someone, or with them in a much more intimate, long-term, or hands-on way.
What we're saying is that if we have fewer clients, we can't just change the price point on something. The equation is always the equation. The math always has to math. Now, I don't fully understand what that means, because I don't understand math, which is why I don't generally teach this — and it still feels like we need to talk about it before we talk about creating an offer structure that includes marketing.
The example: Layla's business
This is an example I put together really quickly. It's a joke. It's my dog's business.
What I want to show first is that when we create an intentional offers ecosystem that gives the best experience of meeting people where they're at, we're also able to drive retention, word of mouth, and social proof. Social proof meaning other people are going to want to share how they feel in relationship to the work they just received. They'll give us testimonials. They'll give us feedback and then say, please use this in your marketing.
What I'm talking about is being able to show that you can do what you say you do. There are a lot of people out there claiming expertise they don't have — that's the nature of online business, unfortunately. So we need to make it clear that we have the expertise we're claiming. If that's a question for you, put a pin in it and we'll come back to it.
These are all of Layla's free offers. This is how she meets new people. Sometimes that's being perceived at the window — that's maybe her Instagram. She's not on Instagram. I mean, she is on Instagram, but I'm doing that for her. She is at the window, peeping, lurking on other people, maybe engaging or not. She doesn't spend any money to be there, and people aren't spending money to receive whatever she's sharing.
Same with the sidewalk greeting. She doesn't own the audience on the sidewalk — it's not an audience she can access on her phone or in an email list. It comes and goes. But it is meeting new people and giving them some taste of the Layla experience.
Sometimes her free offer is sighing at the door, which is mostly for certain people and only in certain instances. And then there's another offer in her freebies, where she just waits for treats.
I'm bringing these in because these are different levels of relationship. Some of them are one-on-one. Some are with a group. Some are regular, some are only online. All of it, though, is a great way for Layla to introduce herself to new people who don't already know her and what she specializes in.
There's another way people might be served at a low price point, but they have to implement what Layla teaches on their own. That's the DIY category. The Layla Library is on-demand videos where you can watch her sleep and regulate your nervous system.
She also has a do-it-with-you setup. She'll show up at a group — the dog park. She has clear boundaries around what that looks like, and she charges more for it. Of course, she's not running any groups at the moment. You'll notice her revenue right now is actually zero, because all of her time is spent in her free offerings.
If she were marketing her work and willing to do the work her business is asking her to do, she'd be charging $200 a head for that group time. She'd charge even more for a long-term do-it-with-you mentorship. And then there's the top tier: more time with Layla, a more intimate relationship, she's teaching you and guiding you. Or maybe she's coming to your organization and there's a speaking gig. That's a higher-ticket offer.
The point of all of this is for us to understand that if we can step back and work through whatever happens for us around numbers and money — and get support in the process if we need it — we actually have a lot of agency over how we structure our businesses. And how we structure our businesses will directly relate to how we market our work, what offers we're sharing, and where the lead magnet or freebie fits into that equation.
Instagram is one slice
Here's the next piece, and this is lifelong study. You don't just learn this once, in part because the human experience is always changing.
There was a time when some people were running their businesses off the internet. Now it's like, oh my god, there are so many people running their businesses on the internet. There was a time when people weren't growing their work through a platform like Instagram. So as the human experience changes, we need to figure out how to roll with it as business owners. Sometimes that means changing your offer structure. Sometimes it means reevaluating your marketing.
This is where we shift into the fact that Instagram is only one slice of a marketing pie. You can think of it as a pie. You can think of it as a puzzle. It's one piece, though. It cannot possibly be your entire marketing system. That is not a sustainable approach to growing your work in the world, because we could lose access to Instagram.
I know it's hard to imagine, but what if Zuckerberg wakes up tomorrow and is like, you know what, I think it's time I go into negotiations with a he-who-shall-not-be-named, and I want the White House to take over Meta? Great. That's going to change the nature of how we get to grow our work on that platform.
So we need to understand that Instagram is a tool. It is one tool in a larger toolbox, and the toolbox is going to constantly change and be updated. For now, it's a great way for people to find you. It's also a great way for people to get to know you and understand more about what you say you do.
There are other ways for us to be found, in person and digitally. This list is pretty focused on the digital piece, but there's a whole lot of in-person pathways to building relationships with people who then maybe want to hire us, or refer a friend to us. And that's what we're talking about in marketing. It's about building relationships with people. We forget that sometimes, because capitalism can make it feel like it's all about the transaction. I don't think of us as selling ourselves. I think we are selling an offer that provides a service, for most of us.
Whether you're talking about your work on Instagram, or social media, or YouTube, or on your website with search engine optimization set up, or podcasts, speaking gigs, collaborations, partnerships, Substack — this list is not comprehensive. There are so many ways to be found and to introduce yourself to new people.
And people are spending time in different ways, in different spaces. I don't actually watch YouTube videos, but when I do, it's usually music- and movie-related. And I don't actually follow that much music- or movie-related work in newsletters. You know what I'm saying? Some people are going to follow us on social media but never subscribe to your newsletter. Some people aren't going to follow you on social media because they don't spend time there, and they will get on your newsletter. Some people will do both.
These are tools for furthering the relationship. That's where we get in touch with people and build the relationship: here's what we say we do, here's why you can trust me in saying that I do what I do. And then the conversion, the sale, the decision comes.
All of these are important places. This isn't, oh god, now you have to be everywhere. That's not what I'm talking about. There are ways to make this work for you, and if you're not someone who's ever going to be on Substack, great — that's good information. Let's find another place for you to be that makes sense for you.
The freebie, the lead magnet, is the door between the being-found and the knowing part. Most platforms and channels are doing two at a time. They're taking the found box and maybe the known box. It's rare that any space, any tool, is doing all three of these things.
So a freebie — sometimes also called a lead magnet, an opt-in, whatever — is the thing that introduces us to people and helps them see what we do in our work, this much.
Newsletters
I already said Instagram is just one space, and that it's lending you an audience. Think of it like Layla sitting at the window. She doesn't have an ability to reach any of the people who walk by after they're gone. They're just gone.
Your newsletter is how Layla would stay in touch with the people who walk by the window. For all of us, it's a direct pathway to communication.
Now, I say that with all of these understandings: email is complicated, we're all overwhelmed by content, we're all overwhelmed by our inboxes. Not everybody's reading. Not everybody is clicking. Same goes on social media, but social media is a different level of relationship. People who say I want you to email me, I want to be on your newsletter — that is a different kind of relationship than following on Instagram.
The newsletter becomes a place for repetition that reaches the same people you might have been introduced to elsewhere, like Instagram or LinkedIn. That's the thing about your newsletter: people don't just find your newsletter. They have to find you. And then they have to find the newsletter. And then they have to say yes to getting it and give you their email address. So this is a place where you can really, over time, build a different level of relationship and trust. These people are literally asking to hear from you.
This is a space for you to think out loud, to try new things. And it's a contact list that is yours, that you can export if you ever want to, to a different platform.
Max: Do you suggest having a newsletter separate from your Substack, or for now, having them be the same?
Tristan: If you have the capacity — and I would argue that if you have the ability to stay somewhat consistent with a newsletter, then you probably have the ability to stay somewhat consistent with Substack. There's a way to do both. I believe they work in tandem, but separate, and they're both important tools. Stay tuned for a social media post on that coming your way soon. And if we want to talk about it more after I get through the slides, make a note. We can totally dig into it. I have so much to say about all of this.
The other thing about newsletter marketing is that it meets people where they are. Not everyone's going to be on social media. Most people in 2026 have an email address.
It's a different kind of relationship. The conversion rates of someone who clicks through an email and takes action from it, compared to the rates of people who click through from social — very different levels of engagement.
So think of your newsletter as another tool in your marketing kit, for you to build trust in who you are and what you say you do. It's also a more valuable way to take your audience from knowing you to deciding. Over time, even. It might not be instant.
That's the other thing. There was a time where you could post to social media and get immediate sign-ups — some of us in 2020, 2021, particularly those of us running online businesses. It was a different time. We're not there anymore. Trust builds slowly. And we don't have a lot of money right now, so we're even more discerning about where we're spending our time and resources.
What to actually put in your newsletter
I'm going to make sure you get these prompts. But here are some things you might explore, because most people are like, okay, well, what the hell do I share in my newsletter?
Something a client asks you a lot. For example: if I am asked one more time by a massage practitioner who doesn't want to work with cis men how to market her work so that she doesn't have to work with cis men, I'm going to lose my mind. And — I recognize that it's a really important question, so I'm going to keep talking about it on social media, and I'm going to talk about it in my newsletter. How many times a week are you asked something? If you start noticing that the people you work with are all having similar patterns of experience, that's something to note and speak to in your marketing.
Something you changed your mind about. I once thought — and I really did — that I had to work overtime and burn myself out if I was ever going to make my business work. I have learned that's not true. It's taken me time. That's something I could definitely share in my newsletter.
Something you keep repeating. Like: marketing isn't about selling ourselves, that's not what this is about. If I keep repeating something in my work, you know I'm going to talk about it at some point in my newsletter.
A link to a resource, a workshop, a training, a book, a podcast, a meditation — whatever resonates with your audience, and why it matters to me, and why they might appreciate it.
What you're working on behind the scenes, when I'm thinking about my business and my creativity, the process.
There are endless ways to share from a real place, even if you're not sure what to share. There are prompts that can help you, and I'll make sure you get these.
Freebies and lead magnets
When we're creating the freebie, or the lead magnet, we can think of it as a free item, service, or resource. The goal is: I give you this free resource, you give me your email address, you can opt out at any time. But we're clear about what's happening here. I am asking you for your email address for my marketing purposes, and you are giving me your email address for my marketing. It's consensual. And in return, you're getting this free resource.
The name of the game around lead magnets has changed alongside the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing and the human experience. When I think about creating a freebie today, it's going to look different than it did in 2020.
A good freebie should solve one small problem well. So you might sit with questions like: what do people often ask you to talk through with them before they're ready to pay you for your work? Can this resource, this tool, be something someone can engage with in one sitting? Will it leave them more resourced than before they had access to it? If you need help coming up with ideas about what that looks like in your unique work, I'm here for that.
To me, the freebie is a way to sell your work without needing to sell it. Because someone can get the freebie, read your work, and feel completely seen — and not necessarily know, even through that experience, why you might be able to help them. I have a free resource, and if you just saw the one-page version, you might not know what it means to go deeper into it, because I as the expert know things you don't about the thing I'm an expert in. That's part of why I do this work.
Some people are never going to spend a dollar with you. Some people need to understand more about why they would spend a dollar with you, if they have that resource available. And the freebie is also a way to serve them, and to build trust, and to build service that's bigger than just the transaction.
Now, Brooke, my colleague, says: resonance and readiness are two different things. People are going to find resonance and maybe not be ready to hire us. That's okay. We can't expect the same thing all the time.
So your freebie and your paid offer will be stronger tools when they address the same challenge at different depths.
The Business Puzzle
Here's an example of a lead magnet I made recently.
What happened — and this is how it often happens for me personally — is that I had an experience repeatedly in the work I was doing that sparked a creative idea, and I saw something I wanted to make. Usually in Canva. That's just me. Yours might be video, or audio, or whatever it is you're making.
The freebie is something I recognized many people needed. In this case, it's this puzzle resource I made. You can get it on my website.
I made this puzzle because my brain was like, oh my god, I keep seeing this — I think I want to put it in a visual. That's how I work. And I knew a lot of my clients benefit from it. So I was like: if many of my clients are benefiting from it and it helps me, then I want to make it for people. Maybe it'll help you and maybe we work together on it sometime, or maybe we don't. But it's valuable.
The puzzle is your business. It's a business puzzle. It's my first attempt at it, so bear with me, because I'm sure this framework will evolve over time. But the idea is:
Here's where your skill set is. Here's where your expertise sits. Here's how you tell people who you are, who you serve, and why you. Why me, amidst all the people in marketing? These are the offers, and how you serve, how you provide, how you support or deliver the work, the change, the service. This is your pricing — the value of the package and the service. All of these are separate things in your work.
And then we see messaging: how you talk about it. Branding: how you share about it visually and otherwise. Your strategy for connecting your voice, your offers, and your goals. The strategy then influences all of these things, from the top down — your marketing ecosystem, which can look a lot of different ways.
Then we have the things that inform everything else. Systems and operations: the tools, the platforms. How we might care for our well-being and stay aligned with our vision and values in our work. And then the everlong process of always reflecting and refining, as we change, as our capacity shifts, and as our client experiences shift.
This is a bonus resource from today. You'll get it in the follow-up email with the slides, and it's also in a full workbook on my website if you want to get that. It is an opt-in. It is a freebie. It is a lead magnet. It's something I think a lot of the people I work with would benefit from sitting with, and from understanding what they don't yet know, so that they can find more information about what they don't yet know, so that they can make their businesses work more easefully.
I know a lot of us think this can never be done, because capitalism is unsurvivable. And in some ways it is unsurvivable, 100%. And I think we can create — maybe not abundance financially, but more stability financially, for sure, for all of us in our work. It's a matter of coming up with the right tools, the right support systems, the right resources that help us find the pieces that were missing.
Growing at a pace your body can sustain
We need to talk about this before I stop sharing my slides, because I am not saying now you have to be everywhere and you have a lot to do because you're behind. That is not what I'm saying.
Consistency is how we build relational trust with people. Trying to be constant is a different thing. It's a recipe for burnout, and it will not be sustainable.
So we need to figure out what sustainability actually looks like for us. Not for our ideal situation. Not for the if I had all this energy and capacity, if my dog wasn't battling an illness for the last almost nine months, I could have — you know what I mean? We need to reorient toward what's actually happening in our lives and what our genuine capacity is, rather than setting ourselves up for some system or expectation we won't be able to achieve, and then feeling like we're the failure.
So if you're like, I'm not quite sure what to do about all of this, how do I begin? When you feel creatively inclined and you have the space — and maybe you do have to create that for yourself and be intentional and boundaried about it — I want you to think about where you're currently meeting people in your work, and where else you might be able to spend some time improving, tweaking, tending to. Maybe it's one space per season. You do you.
One way you might move forward is: oh, I don't think I ever sat down and thought about search engine optimization on my website. I need to figure out what that even means. So I'm going to do some Googling and find out where I can learn more. Maybe it's asking Tristan. But it's, oh, I need to set this up, because SEO is a really important component of finding people on the internet.
So are collaborations and partnerships. Guest speaking, guest teaching, podcasts, co-creation. Maybe you invest your time at different times in different parts of the never-ending project that is the puzzle of your business.
I also want to emphasize that sometimes it's as simple as — and I'm not trying to say it's simple — you made the social post, you know you have the event coming up, or the offer, or whatever it is. Direct invitations mean so much to people.
I'm not saying cold DMing or cold calling people. I'm saying people you have relationships with who you know would benefit from the thing you're sharing. Hi, I know I've seen you in multiple Conscious Marketing Club sessions. I thought of you for this thing. That person isn't going to think, wow, Tristan's really trying to sell me something here. That's not how I roll, that's not how I'm going to show up, and it's probably not how you are either.
Because if you approach this from relationship — I made this thing, I want you to know it's here in case you want it — we have to tell people that it's there. So direct invitations really matter. And it's been manipulated into a marketing sales funnel tool by the nature of social media and the internet, and we need to reclaim it as what it really is, which is a relational practice. I see you. I'm thinking of you for this thing.
Takeaways
There are a bunch of free resources on my website that will help you integrate this content even more. So, some takeaways for now:
There are different ways to relate in our marketing. We are introducing ourselves to new people — that's how they find us. They're getting to know us, which is a different level of relationship. And then they're deciding to pay us. Recognize which one of those three relationship buckets needs some more time, some zhuzhing.
Newsletters, in this moment and always. They've always been a valuable tool for a reason. Trust me, I started running my father's business in 2007. It's been almost 20 years. It hasn't changed. They're still valuable. Yeah, no one's reading, sure. No one clicks or opens anymore, sure. I don't care. There are two people who are always clicking. Or maybe there's someone who clicks this time, or someone it resonates with this time.
We need to stop looking at the negative — and I'm not saying that in a bypassing way, because there's time to examine the negative and take information from it. But we need to look at what is landing, and what is working.
If you've already said something somewhere else, you can say it again in a different space. That's the cool thing about all of this, and one of the ways we can make this work for us more easily. Repeat yourselves. You have to. There's no such thing as repeating yourself too much.
And your freebie should be one small problem, solved in a meaningful way. There's no such thing as complete, because we are never done, apparently, with almost everything we go through in our lives. Growth is an ever-evolving thing. You can't solve this problem for someone forever. But maybe you give them the next piece of information they need on their journey.
Think about how you might be solving that same problem, or tending to that same challenge, in your paid work — so that the through line is there. Oh, you get access to my Business Puzzle resource, and now you know. And you might want to come to the Conscious Marketing Club, which is every month and is a great place to connect with me if you have questions based on this resource. Or maybe you want to hire me for a 90-minute one-off strategy session. It's a tool to help you understand how to do it on your own, or how we might do it together.
Questions and conversation
I'm complete on my slides. If we have questions, even if you're not clear on what the question is but you've got something you want to sort through, this is the time. It could be related to the stuff I just yapped about for the last hour, or not.
I'm here to be a resource for you, and this is your time to take advantage of this free resource that is my — I'm beginning to understand my neurodivergence — I love business and marketing. I don't know why. But it is a special interest of mine. I am deeply committed to my nerdery around it, and actually have been my whole life. So take advantage of it, because I have so much to say about anything. You give me a subject, I will talk about it.
On email sequences
Max: Do you think we should make a direct ask in the freebie email sequence?
Tristan: I love this question, Max.
I told you at the beginning that I'm always reframing things in my work, because I think the dominant narratives and tools and practices in marketing and business conversations deserve to be reframed. They're often important tools and teachings for a reason, but they've become co-opted by capitalism and the systems of hierarchy and harm.
So the reframe I want to offer right now is about the email sequence. I'm taking a deep breath, because I'm noticing that I'm uncomfortable in this moment. I don't know why. We don't need to figure that out together.
But I don't believe in email sequences anymore. I know they are a valuable tool for some people. I also know what it's like to be in one as the end user and the recipient.
I don't know why this is making me so anxious. I think this has nothing to do with the conversation. I am unwell, and weird things that shouldn't make me anxious are making me anxious. Let's just acknowledge that. That's what's happening. Thank you for being with me in my own wellness. Thanks for the hearts, y'all. It's almost like we need to come together and be honest about where we are so we can be held in it.
In my experience, we now know what an email funnel feels like and looks like, and it feels like a sales tactic. There is a way to approach it from a relational, meaningful place, of course. The thing that's really hard to control for is how it lands for someone — when the world is doing what it's doing, and our email sequence just keeps sending these pre-programmed emails as if everything is just handy-dandy normal, business as usual, everything's fine, here's another email in my email funnel.
I do think there's a way to set it up where it's like: I want to acknowledge that I don't know how this email is landing in your inbox, and I want to make my work available to you. But it really takes some intentionality. This is what I'm saying about orienting to marketing as relationship.
If we're going to get paid for our work in the world, we have to meet people where they're at — financially, in some way, emotionally, energetically. And right now, marketing like it's old times feels like a mismatch to where we are as human beings.
That's a long answer, and the TLDR is: I think the freebie should lead people to understand how you might support them in your work. I'm going to send you all the Business Puzzle resource, and I'd recommend you opt in on my website so you can see that process, if that's new for you. I'll also just give you the PDF in the follow-up resources.
You'll see at the end of the PDF — and I always try to do this in my free resources — there's a page that says: here I am if you need more help. Here's how to find me. Here's how we might work together in a way that meets you where you're at.
Because somebody could get that freebie, download it to their computer, put it in a folder, find it a year later, and not remember who you are or where it came from. This is good marketing. This is how we build relationship. We show people over and over and over again: I am consistent with my vision, my values, and what I say that I do. And that consistency needs to be expressed to people. That's where the marketing comes in.
To me, a freebie is a valuable lead magnet, and part of the reason it's valuable is that you're not just getting an email address from someone who's now on your list and may or may not ever read it, or may unsubscribe, whatever. You're also showing them: here's a door for us to do this together. You've got to make that door clear. We don't always see the doors on our own, as the consumer.
On web copy
Ruth: I'm brand new in this new career as a coach, and my website is still the website of my last career, which was primarily creative writing. I've put one little update into my bio, but I haven't written any web copy yet. Do you have any advice for pointing me toward where I can learn more about web copy that feels like this whole ecosystem here, versus all that other capitalistic blah blah blah?
Tristan: I'm going to take that question in, Ruth, and you'll get my answer in the follow-up email. I need to think about who I'd recommend, who specializes in that. I know a couple of people off the top of my head, but I want to dig in and make sure they're still doing that work, and I'll be happy to send those in the follow-up.
And also, obviously, you could bring that work into this space. We could talk about it. I'm here to help you. If you want to work with me one-on-one — I used my dog's business model and offers ecosystem as the example, but I also have my own, in which there are different pathways I can help, depending on what you need and what your resources are in terms of time and money. I am here.
On expanding beyond one-on-one work
Brooks: I don't really have a question, I just want to say this is amazing. It clicks something into place for me, hearing you describe the freebie as the same problem solved at a different depth than the offers. I know we're meeting next week and we're going to talk about my offers and how I want to create a group offer. One of the emotional things I've been running up against in expanding from just one-on-one work and trying to offer more is feeling like I don't have enough content to teach people — even though I do — and feeling like every offer needs to be a brand new thing to make it valuable enough for people. Rather than: everything I do stems from the same problem I solve in my one-on-one work, and it just meets it at a different place for people. That's very much expanding my perception right now. I wanted to name that and thank you for it today.
Tristan: Thank you, Brooks. I think everything you just said probably helped others click things into place, so thank you, really.
I'm putting my hand on my chest because, in my emotionality today, I'm feeling your question in my body. I remember how I felt when I first started my business. A couple of years in I was like, I think I'm ready to do this in a different way — what would that look like if it's not just one-on-one client meetings?
I had to fumble through lots of awkward offer attempts. Some of those people have stuck around with me as I've fumbled. There are people who were in my early — in like 2021, I think — I launched a yoga and social justice marketing mentorship. I didn't know what I was doing. But people got something out of it. And I sure as hell did, because I am now embarrassed looking back on it. I would structure it so differently now. But I structured it with the tools and the knowledge of my work that I had at the time. Was it enough? Yes. Could I improve upon it? Yes. That's what we do the more we do our work.
You've got to get in there and explore doing your work in different ways. I had to get in there and explore doing the work in different ways for me to learn how to trust the expansiveness of my offering. Does that make sense?
And it's clunky, because we're almost like little babies learning to walk for the first time. I'm watching a lot of baby content on the internet. I mean, I know why. It's so weird. But they go through a lot of discomfort growing in their little baby bodies. We all did. Growth is uncomfortable. It's messy, and not necessarily linear.
The easiest way for us to figure out how to create meaningful offers that actually work for our clients and for us is to just start somewhere. It doesn't have to be the right move, and that goes for your freebie or lead magnet too. I have made a lot of freebies and lead magnets that I'm now very embarrassed by. But sometimes my clients will come to me and they've printed out this thing I made in 2020, and I'm like, don't show me, I don't want to see that. But they printed it, and it's still serving them. It means something to them. So I kind of need to get over myself.
I know a lot of coaches out there are going to be like, get out of your own way! That's not what I'm saying. I don't think we can just get out of our own way. This is a trauma healing process, in my experience. The point is that I had to do a lot of things in the adolescent infancy phase I was in until I could do them in a more grown-body experience.
Brooks: I have to head out a little earlier today, but I just wanted to say I really appreciated this. I came to this and I was like, holy shit, this is free? This is such great information. I wanted to tell you that, because I know sometimes as business owners we need to hear that feedback — sometimes people think it, but they don't always say it.
Tristan: Thank you, Brooks. I look forward to seeing you soon.
On self-sabotage
Patricia: How do you get out of the self-sabotage loop?
Tristan: Oh, Patricia. If I knew, I would tell you. If there was an answer, I'd give it to you. I'm going to assume that for each of us it's going to be different.
What I notice with my clients — Brooke and I run a group coaching program, and there are people in that group who have been there for years now. I can see their patterns over time. I'm like, oh, this is that self-sabotage pattern that you've got again. This is you hiding in some way, because you're scared of the vulnerability that comes from being visible and getting paid for your work in the world.
I can see us in our trauma responses, really. I don't mean to be like, it's all trauma — that's not what I'm saying. But I am saying I think we're bringing that into our businesses, because our businesses are deeply personal and it's an embodied experience.
When we can see the patterns in ourselves — and that's hard to do when we're dysregulated and activated and hijacked and unwell — when we can gain the perspective. I don't know how that works for you. For me, that's: I need time. I need music in my ears, loud. I need sleep. What do I need to come back to my why?
And what I mean by my why — I'm referencing the work of Stephanie Ghoston Paul in this moment, who offers that teaching. What is the why? Well, the why is: I want to help people be well. I really do. I want to help business owners make enough money to be okay, so that money isn't the thing that's hard. That's what I want to do. That's my why.
Now, if I start doubting myself and I think, why me, though? Who am I to do this website project? I'm just this little guy in Portland, I'm not a design firm — I had this experience with an up-and-coming celebrity chef in Los Angeles. A friend was like, do you want to design their website? And I was like, hell yeah I do. This was like 2018, 2019. I had just started my business. I had been working on website design for years, but I was just doing it as part of a service for the first time. So I knew what I was doing, but I was still in the infancy of doing it in some ways. I had more expertise than many, and I also doubted the expertise I had, because I didn't trust it yet.
And I self-sabotaged that opportunity so hard. So hard. It wasn't like, oh, I'm never going to do that again. I had to learn from that. As shitty as it was, I had to learn what it looked like for me to doubt myself.
In part because one of my values is integrity. And I think part of what was going on for me was that I didn't believe I was the right fit for the job, actually. So I blew it up. And some of that was real and true and valid and important and right, according to my why.
Sometimes, though, we're blowing it up because of stories that feel like truths in our heads. We're doing that in our businesses and we're doing it in our relationships. It's self-protection, and it ends up not helping us make money in the world.
Not all of us have access to therapists. That really sucks, because I really believe in all of the possible pathways to healing being actually available to us as human beings. I want us all to be having more support. And I think that running a business, you're going to have to contend with some stuff you don't want to contend with. That's the same with relationships. That's why I'm like, this is all about relationships. That's just how it works, being a human.
There's no here's the business in a box, go for it, you're set, you now have everything you need, it's all perfect and predictable and everything is in its right place. That's not how this works. It's a growing process.
On when to release a lead magnet
Max: How long do you suggest working on the lead magnet before releasing it?
Tristan: You will know when it's done. Question mark.
Because I've often released resources where it's not done-done. It still needs improvement. It still needs refining. It's my first go at the Business Puzzle framework — that was my first time making it. But the minute I knew this is version one, version one is now complete, I was like, now I'm going to make it available immediately.
I don't wait. When I know I've made something that could be valuable, I try to get it in people's hands as soon as possible, even if it's not polished or perfect. So sometimes I'm releasing things that are still evolving or in process in some way. And I can say that up front: this is version one, I want to hear your feedback.
There's one of those on my website right now, in the resources section. It's a gender-neutral language tool. I've never made one of those things. It's an app that I've vibe-coded. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm 44 years old, the kids these days. But it is on my website and it's a free tool. I'm not asking people for their email address, but I am asking people to tell me about their experience in the tool, because I want to understand how to improve it. And I had to get people to start using it to get information from them.
On niching and "getting out of your own way"
Ruth: As the new coach, I'd been following the instructions of niche, niche, niche. I know you're going to be talking about that soon and I'm grateful I'll be there, so this might be a wait-till-next-month. I resisted and resisted, and finally I was like, just come up with one line to list somewhere so people have a clue. And what I came up with is, coincidentally or serendipitously, something you just said with a tone in your voice, so I was like, okay, I've got to talk to my coach about this. What I came up with was: I teach writers and solopreneurs how to get out of their own way. And when you said that, I was like, okay. Clearly I'm having lots of thoughts and feelings about that. Would you offer any guidance?
Tristan: Thank you, Ruth, for sharing.
Let me first acknowledge that nobody's doing anything wrong. There's no wrong way to be a human being in the world. The idea that we could be wrong in our actions when we don't know any better — and a lot of people use that language. In fact, I'm sure GPT has taken it over too. That's a great phrase for AI to take over, because we use it so much. There's a reason we use it so much. It means something. We do need to learn how to get out of our own way.
What I would argue — and part of the reason you're going to get snark from me from time to time — is that I hate mainstream coaching, business coaching, and marketing conversations. Every time I'm faced with them, I feel triggered. And that is information for me that I can reflect on. What's underneath the trigger is the fact that they don't sit right with me, generally speaking.
Get out of your own way now lands as really insensitive to me. Maybe for a time it was a great marketing line. For now, it's like: I'm sorry, some of us can't just get out of our own way to be well in the world. Some of us can't just get out of our own way to make enough money to survive. I wish I could get out of my own way to overcome the agoraphobia I experience right now, because the world is not safe. For anyone.
So to me, getting out of our own way is a really complicated thing to claim to be able to help people do. And I understand where the phrase comes from. We do need to get out of our own way. Both things are true. I just don't like people using it in their marketing, because I don't think it really means anything.
And this is where the niching conversation comes in. I think niching is an opportunity to get clear about what we are doing uniquely in our work. That means not looking outward for the answer, or the box, or the language. That means looking in.
My niche comes from all of what makes me me in my work. It's not about my clients, though we could look at it that way. I was just realizing — how often do I see cisgender men in my work? Very little. And that's probably because they generally don't want to work with me, given who I am. I'm very vocal about being a trans person, very vocal about my values and my politics. I work with them when they come in. But do I need to declare in my niche that I only serve certain people according to gender identity? No. What I do need to make clear is that I'm coming at my work from this perspective.
So: what are the words you use to describe your uniqueness in your field? We're going to go through this in the Conscious Marketing Club in September, and I'm creating an activity for us all to have a tool to help us find our niche. Because I don't think finding it happens by orienting outward. I think it happens by orienting in, and understanding how to share what's inside in a way that makes sense for people to hear.
It's not a simple answer. And that's the other thing that really messes me up about more dominant and traditional marketing and business practices — it feels like the dominant conversation wants to give us simple answers, as if there are right and wrong ways to do it, and if you just do it this way then everything will be okay. That's not how this works.
So I want to know what you really do with those writers. What are you really doing? Anybody can say I help you get out of your own way in X, Y, and Z. What does that mean? What's the change?
Ruth: Thank you so much. That's just so good. It feels so good in my deep down. Thank you.
Tristan: Honor that. Follow that, y'all. The only reason I'm here yelling about all of this in the way that I am is because somebody said to me this is how it's done, and it felt wrong. For some reason. And I was like, I think we could do it differently, though. So if something feels wrong, sit with it. That's information.
Patricia: You kind of touched on it as you continued the conversation around getting out of your own way. It really resonates with me, because it is not about getting rid of you. For me, the way that's phrased is kind of like: you are the problem, so get out of the way. I appreciate the way you're saying no, it's work that goes inward. And just as a suggestion, Ruth — maybe what you can do is ask, what do I mean when I say get out of your way? So that people understand you're not telling them that they're the problem, but rather, how can you work with yourself in a way that you're going to be able to come to a place where you're feeling complete with the work that you do.
Tristan: Thank you both. So grateful that there was receipt of that.
On trusting your own signals
Sunny: I don't have a question so much as I just wanted to share something that's resonating. I really appreciate you saying, oh, it feels wrong, and we can sit with that and respond to it. I feel like I've been learning a lot recently about letting myself actually respond to a feeling of this feels wrong — and not doing the thing. Because so often I get on autopilot, and it's like, oh, I have to market the way everyone's marketing, or I have to have certain values in my business. For me it's been, oh, I have to do astrology a certain way. And just being able to take in that my body and my intuition are actually sending off signals, and I'm really over ignoring them. My therapist is like, you're in a righteous anger moment. And I really am.
Tristan: That deserves to be said twice. I'm so glad you did. Powerful.
Thank you, Sunny. I wonder if there's something in the stars right now around all of this, because I'm feeling similar. I am feeling a righteous rage that I knew things as a young being that people told me I was wrong about, or wrong for, or wrong for needing, or wrong for experiencing. Over time I stopped trusting my own knowing of myself and of everything in relationship to being a human in the world. I feel like I'm really reckoning with that right now.
And to me, we have to bring that into our work, because I don't want any of us making ourselves wrong because we've been taught something that is the problem.
Closing
I didn't get to read everything going on in the chat box. It sounds like some real hard stuff is happening in the astrology community, and I had no idea. I'm going to look into it and read the chat box after we get off this call. If you're being impacted in some way, I'm really, really sorry.
I think all of us, no matter what we do, have a way of doing our work that is uniquely ours. And it's on us to find out how to do that, and to find the people who want to receive the way we do it.
Running a business is an incredibly creative and generative thing, and unfortunately it asks us to wear a lot of hats and do a lot of things we're not naturally inclined to do, or even want to do, or have the time to do. So I hope this conversation today helped you wear some of those hats with more ease.
Thank you for participating in the ways that you have, all of you, and for the people who keep showing up. I really appreciate it. And if this was a new space for you, welcome. I'm glad you came. I hope it was helpful.
Next month, second Friday, same time. I'll send all kinds of things in the follow-up email, and you know how to reach me.
Now that I'm done rambling, I want to offer one last thing. You're about to leave the Zoom room. You're going to hit that little end button. I want to offer, if you have the time — even five minutes — do something off the computer next. Step away from the screen. Don't just check the email. I'm saying this for me, because I immediately am going to want to check my email.
Because we need to remember how to practice being unwell together. And that's part of what this session was, too. You're going to get an email and a link about that, because I have an offering coming up with some colleague friends of mine meant to help us with this practice.
Thank you for being here. Go take care of yourselves. I mean it. Bye, y'all.
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