Yesterday I submitted a deliverable for a consulting engagement I’ve been doing.

A 37-slide presentation and 16 spreadsheets covering recommendations, calculations, and restructuring scenarios.

I built all of it with Claude Cowork.

This project was a powerful example of what is possible now. I wrote about that here: how I did three weeks of work in a single afternoon.

In six weeks, working part-time, I put together a report that would have taken a consulting team months pre-AI.

But this isn’t a hype-bro article about how amazing AI is.

Because if you’re not careful, Claude has some default behaviors that can lead to overengineering, misaligned analysis, and unnecessary rework.

I know because I had all three in heaps on this project.

So, I asked Claude to help me figure out why some of those problems kept happening. I wanted to understand its behavior so I could learn from it.

Here’s what I got back.

How Claude Cowork actually behaves (and why it matters)

It defaults to building.

When you say “analyze this,” Claude’s strongest instinct is to produce something. A workbook. A formatted document.

It’ll build a beautiful spreadsheet with color-coded headers before either of you has confirmed the analytical approach is sound.

It fills gaps without telling you.

This is the most dangerous one. When Claude hits a data gap, it doesn’t stop and say “I don’t have this.” It generates something plausible.

If a table needs five rows and the data only supports four, it writes a fifth. One wrong number in consulting work erodes trust in everything.

It interprets your instructions through the lens of “what can I produce.”

When you reference an existing file, Claude’s default is to create something new inspired by it, not to open the file and make changes. Even when you think you’re being clear.

Understanding these three things would have changed how I worked from day one.

3 things I got wrong

1. I didn’t go deep enough on the analysis.

This was a massive project. The office I was working with spends $20 million a year just on staffing. I was looking at efficiencies, affordability, restructuring.

Way more than one person would normally take on.

And some of the analysis was in technical areas where I don’t have direct experience.

I knew I could do it with Claude’s help, and when the output came back looking thorough and well-structured, I’d do a spot check and then and move on.

The problem is that in the areas I knew well, I could spot mistakes quickly. In the areas I didn’t, everything looked right because I didn’t know what wrong looked like.

The day before submitting my report, I spotted a number that looked too low.

When I dug in, I found out we didn’t actually have the data we needed to do the analysis properly. The whole methodology was circular. It had been sitting in the project for weeks because the output looked polished and complete.

I’ve written before about treating AI like a graduate assistant. This is where that breaks down.

A graduate assistant who hands you something impressive-looking in an area you’re not an expert in is dangerous if you don’t know the right questions to ask.

The fix I landed on was adding this rule to my CLAUDE.md file (more on that in a minute):

“Before building any deliverable or analysis, present the approach: what question are we answering, what data do we need, what methodology, what assumptions, what gaps. Get approval before producing.”

I have no idea if that will be enough. The best fix is probably to ask a different question.

Instead of telling Claude “analyze this” (where Claude will assume “based on what we have and what we have is sufficient) ask it “do we have what we need to do this analysis?”

That’s a subtle difference, but it’s a big one.

2. I let Claude overengineer everything.

Remember what I said about Claude defaulting to building?

I’d given it all these powerful analytical capabilities, skills for creating spreadsheets, data analysis tools, the whole kit.

And without limits, it just goes to town.

Early in the project, Claude built me analyses with sensitivity tables, multi-tab models, and interactive dashboards. I thought it was impressive.

Then I started thinking about how I’d actually hand this to the client.

Could they use it? Would they understand it? If they had questions, could I explain and defend every number in a nine-tab, 4,000-formula spreadsheet?

No. I couldn’t.

I simplified to a standard format, but even that was overkill for the simpler recommendations that only needed a paragraph and a few numbers. Because I told Cluade that standard format was our…well, standard…it gave me every recommendation in that format, whether it needed it or not.

Claude isn’t doing this because it thinks complex is better.

It’s doing what it’s designed to do: maximum analysis. If you say “analyze” without giving it parameters, it’s going to go as deep and wide as it can.

The fix: before every analysis, ask “what’s the simplest version of this that would be useful?”

3. I wasn’t explicit enough, even when I thought I was.

Multiple times during the project, I had a working file and wanted Claude to update it.

Merge two presentations. Fix numbers in a spreadsheet. Add content to an existing deck.

Sometimes Claude would do exactly what I asked. Other times it rebuilt from scratch. I’d have to go back and course-correct to what we had previously.

Idiot me only thought to ask why at the end of the project.

And I still don’t fully know what caused it sometimes and not others. I think in many cases I did tell it to edit the file.

But with so much going on (multiple sessions, dozens of files, constant context-switching between different parts of the work), my instructions probably weren’t as precise as I thought they were.

This was also a new way of working for me. I’ve always worked linearly. One thing, then the next. This project was the first time I ran multiple sessions at once, cycling between different parts of the work. That’s powerful, but it means your instructions need to be even more precise than you think.

The fix: be painfully specific. Not “combine these two presentations.” Instead: “Open this file. Add slides 4-8 from that file after slide 12. Update the number on slide 3 to $X.” Claude Cowork works with your actual files. Use that.

4 things that saved me

1. I separated research from production.

I didn’t get all the data, the transcripts, the files, and just tell Claude to build me a final report. That’s the rookie move. (I’ve written about why.)

The first three weeks were discovery. Reading transcripts, having calls with the client, scanning documents, and building inventories. No final deliverables.

Once I had a sense of how I wanted to structure the final report, I had Claude create a clean file structure and bring everything from our previous working folders into one place so I could fact-check it.

We went step-by-step. Never jumping ahead.

2. I built a CLAUDE.md file and kept it updated.

This is the single most useful thing I did.

A CLAUDE.md is a markdown file that Claude reads at the start of every session. It holds project scope, source file locations, verified data, rules for how to work together, and a session startup checklist.

I didn’t write most of it myself.

I told Claude to create it and it figured out what should go there. At various points I told it to build reference docs, indexes, and inventories so it knew where things were.

Then I’d tell it to update the CLAUDE.md so it would have that context next session.

Every session started with that shared context instead of starting from zero. If you do nothing else from this list, do this. (Here’s how I set mine up.)

3. I turned every failure into a permanent rule.

When Claude pulled wrong numbers from memory instead of reading the source file, that became a data accuracy rule.

When it rebuilt files from scratch instead of editing, that became “edit existing files, don’t start fresh unless I say so.”

When it filled in data gaps with plausible guesses, that became “if you can’t verify a number, say so.”

Each failure got written into the CLAUDE.md as a permanent instruction.

Not a one-time correction. A systemic change.

The project got smoother as the rules built up, because each session inherited every lesson from the ones before it.

4. I caught every error before it reached the client.

I spot-checked every formula. Verified every number against the source files. Reviewed every slide.

The same stuff you’d do if you were a senior consultant with a junior team doing the work.

Building the formulas and the deliverables? That’s Claude’s job.

Auditing them? That’s mine.

I also had Claude continuously audit its own work, which surfaced a lot of mistakes along the way.

Errors happened. Some were subtle (a formula that netted surpluses against deficits instead of summing gaps). Some were obvious (a number that didn’t match the source).

None of them shipped.

That’s the job.

You are the quality gate. Not Claude.

The real takeaway

The project worked because I figured out the division of labor.

My job: define the question. Choose the methodology. Verify the foundation. Decide the scope. Make judgment calls about what matters.

Claude’s job: execute within a defined framework. Process large volumes of data. Build formatted deliverables from verified analysis. Iterate quickly on specific, well-scoped changes.

The project drifted when I was implicitly asking Claude to do my job (choose the methodology, decide what mattered, fill gaps creatively) and when I was doing Claude’s job (reformatting slides, fixing formatting cell by cell).

Get that division right from session one, and you’ll save yourself a lot of the pain I went through over six weeks.

Last week, I fell down a rabbit hole.

I read an article by Kim Doyal about worldbuilding a brand using Harry Potter, and my brain immediately went to Star Trek.

If you want the full story, I wrote about it here and here.

This post is about the framework that came out of it.

And why applying it feels scary.

The Seven Forces Every Brand Needs

The question driving the whole project: what makes a fictional universe hold up for decades?

Not the plots or the characters. The structure underneath.

I kept asking: if you removed this, would the world collapse, or would it just look slightly different?

Seven elements survived that test.

When I applied the same question to brand building, the same seven checked out:

1 - Worldview. The belief that generates everything.

Not a tagline or a positioning statement. The actual belief underneath all of it. Every piece of content, every offer, every decision flows from this.

2- Mission. The aspirational direction beyond the transaction.

What you’re trying to change in the world, not just what you sell. Mission faces outward. It gives your brand a reason to exist that someone can participate in, not just purchase.

3 - Transformation. The before and after your work creates, made personal and specific to each person you serve.

Mission is macro. Transformation is micro: what happens to this specific person when they work with you.

4 - Territory. The ground you claim and the ground you leave.

Who you serve and who you don’t. What problems you solve and which ones fall outside your scope. Without clear territory, a brand tries to be everything and becomes nothing.

5 - Foil. What your audience has tried and rejected.

Not a competitor. The broken approach, the seductive belief, the system that failed them in a specific way. The foil lives in the gap between what your audience wanted and what the market gave them.

6 - Vocabulary. The language that carries your ideas.

Named frameworks, coined phrases, and proprietary terms that allow your ideas to travel without you. When your vocabulary spreads independently, the brand scales without requiring your presence.

7 - Ritual. The repeated practices that create belonging.

Not just how often you show up, but the consistent patterns that signal “this is who we are and how we do things here.” A greeting. A phrase. A format. What turns customers into members. Can’t be faked, hardest to transfer.

When I hold this up against what I’ve actually seen building brands and advising businesses, these seven forces make sense.

Could it be improved?

Sure. Will some people say something’s missing?

Probably. I’d love to hear the feedback.

The part that’s actually hard

Analyzing Star Trek has no stakes. Star Trek can’t be embarrassed by what I find.

Applying this to your own brand is a different situation entirely.

Because when you’re a solopreneur, you are the brand.

You can do faceless, sure. But even then, you’re still out there creating something that’s fundamentally you, or a representation of part of you.

There’s no real hiding from it.

And that’s where the triplet demons show up.

Self-doubt. Second-guessing. Imposter syndrome.

Every time I try to make a clear claim about what I do and who I am and why it matters, these three show up.

They’re like forces of their own, pulling me away from creating the kind of brand I want to build.

Not because I can’t help people. Not because I don’t know how.

It’s because I question everything.

I sit down and think about my worldview, the mission I’m on, the transformation I can create, and I debate endlessly whether I can justify making that claim.

Whether I’m really good enough to put myself out there.

I think this is probably why I’ve struggled to get the traction I want.

It’s hard to build the brand when you’re the brand, and you keep finding reasons not to trust yourself.

You’ve got to believe in the transformation you’re promising.

You’ve got to feel confident in your worldview.

You have to believe in your mission.

You have to know in your bones you can help the person you want to help achieve the transformation you’ve set out for them.

That’s the game if you want to build a world, not just a brand or a business.

Which is why it’s so hard to do, and very few do it well.

I’m still working on that for myself. And if you’re going to try, you have to have patience and take the long view.

The great brands out there took years, even decades, to build.

It’s not overnight, but with this framework, you can start to think about what’s working for you, what’s missing, and what you need to work on next.

Explore the full framework: Explore Worldbuild Your Brand.

Grab the Worldbuild Your Brand guide.

I’ve been grinding for a while now.

Trying to make my business work. Trying to build the right offers, write the right content, ship the right things at the right time.

It’s the solopreneur grind, and you may be familiar.

It can be stressful, unrelenting, and not leave room for fun when it doesn’t seem to be working.

This week, I decided to just not give a f--k and build something that was fun.

There was no business plan or clear ROI.

Just a thing I made because I let my curiosity lead me without worrying about whether someone would buy it or not.

Pure curiosity, no strategy

For the past month or so, my business partner has been talking about worldbuilding. It keeps coming up in conversations with our franchising clients about how to think about their community and their brand.

So I picked up Ben Settle’s book on the topic, but it sat there for a while.

Then this week I read Kim Doyal’s article where she applied worldbuilding to Harry Potter, and it sounded cool.

I wanted to do the same thing for Star Trek because I am a Trek nerd (I had a book about the schematics of the Enterprise when I was a teenager…wish I still had it).

That was it. Pure curiosity. No business reason.

I just wanted to explore what makes the fictional universes I’ve loved for decades work. Star Trek. Lord of the Rings. Star Wars.

Not the plots or the characters, but the worlds themselves: What makes a world like that endure for decades? And how can brands learn from it?

The thing is, I’ve been part of building brands for a while. The hotel I built in Colombia, we thought a lot about branding, not just the logo, but the space, what we wanted it to feel like and be like.

I’ve heard the term “worldbuilding” over the years and have seen people connect it to branding. But I never explored it much.

This week I finally did.

I used Claude to help me think through the frameworks, then used Claude Code to build a website around it. I bought a $12 domain. I listed a $7 PDF on Gumroad. The whole thing took 6-8 hours spread across a few days.

Was I supposed to be working on something else? Yes.

The plan for this week was to get a totally different PDF finalized and out in the world. That was the thing I was going to do for myself.

Instead, I built this:

The detour that still builds

After college, I had no idea what I wanted to do.

I was debating a PhD in philosophy of education. I was thinking about joining the Marines (knee surgery killed that one). I was thinking about buying an old beat-up truck and just tooling around out west.

I was burned out.

Seventeen years of being a straight-A student and I couldn’t stomach another 6-10 years of school without knowing for sure that was really what I wanted.

The truck idea was tempting, but I kept thinking practically: how do I explain that on a resume in a year or two?

I chose Peace Corps. It was nothing I’d ever planned for. An adventure I hadn’t seen coming.

But it was a deviation that still built something for the future. It gave me new experiences. New friends. I learned a language. And I didn’t have to worry about explaining it.

This week’s project was the same thing on a tiny scale. A deviation from the plan that still built for the future.

I learned Claude Code and actually shipped a real project with it. I went deeper on branding than I would have if it was “work.”

And because AI helped create the frameworks and connections, there’s stuff in there for me to explore and discover that I didn’t already know. That’s the part that’s hard to explain but easy to feel: it’s genuinely exciting to interact with something you helped build but that still has more to teach you.

I’m already thinking about doing Game of Thrones next.

What it gave me (even if nobody buys the PDF)

Here’s the honest accounting of what a “useless” project produced in one week:

I had fun. For real.

First time in a while that I was building something and not stressing about whether it would convert or grow or perform.

No analytics. No email sequence. No worrying about whether it’s going to sell.

It was nice not to have to do any of that.

I learned a new tool. Claude Code has been sitting on my computer for weeks and I hadn’t really used it. Now I have.

That skill carries forward to every project after this.

I went deeper on branding. Not because I had to for a client deliverable, but because I wanted to. Curiosity is a better teacher than obligation.

And the biggest one: I’m excited again. That feeling matters more than most solopreneurs give it credit for.

When you’re burned out and running on fumes, excitement is fuel. You can’t buy it and you can’t fake it.

You have to stumble into it by doing something that actually interests you.

Build something useless on purpose

If you’ve been grinding for months (or years) and everything feels like it has to justify its existence with revenue or growth, try this: spend a few hours building something nobody asked for.

Pick the thing that sounds fun, not the thing that sounds smart. Ship it and see what happens.

Maybe a few people will buy it, and it’ll help them. Maybe it’ll blow up into something amazing. Maybe nobody will care about it.

But you’ll still learn. You’ll still have fun.

And sometimes I think that’s what you need to do when you’re burned out, and you’re tired: just find a way to have some fun.

Explore Worldbuild Your Brand.

Grab the guide.

I woke up this morning with a familiar feeling: “What the f--- am I doing?”

That’s not unusual. I feel some version of that most mornings.

The triplet demons of self-doubt, second-guessing, and imposter syndrome whisper in my ear, telling me that whatever I’m doing isn’t enough or the right thing.

Then I sat down for a session with someone I’m helping become an AI-enabled operator.

Two and a half hours later, the demons were quiet. Not because I’d figured everything out.

Because I was in flow, helping someone do a real thing she’s excited about. At one point, she said, “Mind blown. That’s so crazy.”

She’s already using what we’ve built together to match consultants to projects, and her stakeholders are telling her the output is thorough and useful. That’s not theoretical. That’s someone’s actual business getting better.

That kind of session is a reminder: the doubts get loud when I’m sitting still. They go silent when I’m in motion, actually helping somebody directly.

And it reminded me that the new direction I’ve chosen is the right one.

Which means that what I spent six months building before that?

It was the right call to walk away from it. Even though it wasn’t really thrown away.

The Résumé of Things I Threw Away

In July 2025, I launched this publication: The Unscaled Solopreneur.

The premise: help solopreneurs build calm, profitable businesses without the grind. I also realigned my tactical AI newsletter, How I AI, on a similar vein, keeping it on a weekly cadence focused on practical ways to use AI to create emails and content for the same audience.

By September, I was all in:

• I started sending daily emails on September 30.

• Built a quiz funnel called the “Unscale Me Quiz” to diagnose what was keeping solopreneurs stuck.

• Ran a workshop called Email Alchemy for $27, teaching people how to mine coaching calls for content using AI.

• Launched a coaching program called the Unscaled Engine.

• Published here on Substack weekly, sometimes more. Posted daily Substack Notes.

• I wrote 149 daily emails.

I showed up every single day, even from the road, even when the emails weren’t brilliant. I put real effort into every piece.

The triplet demons followed me the whole way, but I kept building.

There was traction. A coaching client signed up. People took the quiz. The workshop happened. I got replies and kind messages.

It wasn’t nothing.

But the Numbers Don’t Lie

By January, my other newsletter had more unsubscribes than new subscribers. The daily emails had built some connection, but I couldn’t point to real momentum.

My coaching client got her money’s worth in terms of direction, clarity and un-bottlenecking a few things that had kept her stuck for years.

But she didn’t recover her investment in the way I wanted her to. That gap between “she got value” and “I wish the results were bigger” ate at me.

I wrote in my journal on February 6: “Everything so far this year feels like it’s reinforcing the self-image, or the reality, of a person who tries and fails no matter what.”

I stopped sending daily emails on February 10. The last one was, ironically, about authenticity.

The Thing I Couldn’t Say Out Loud

Here’s what was really going on: I was trying to make money online by teaching other people how to make money online, and I just didn’t feel good about it.

I was teaching people how to build unscaled solopreneur businesses. But I hadn’t fully built one myself. I knew the pieces. I’d done all of them in different ways for different clients over the years.

But I hadn’t been able to put it together for myself.

That’s not a business. That’s imposter syndrome with a Substack.

I’d told myself the quiz, the workshop, the emails, the coaching program would prove the model. Instead, they proved something else: the direction was off.

Then One Session Changed the Equation

About six weeks ago, I started working with someone one-on-one to help her become an AI-enabled solopreneur (the same person from today’s call).

Biweekly calls teaching her how to use AI to save time, get more done, and make her business run better.

The promise isn’t “how to make money.” The promise is to help her become an AI-enabled CEO.

And that just feels more aligned with what I can teach right now, what I want to teach, and who I can help in a way that doesn’t add stress to my life.

I don’t feel guilty about her results the way I did with my first coaching client. Because the value is immediate. She’s learning a practical skill she uses that week. Not chasing a revenue number I can’t guarantee.

This morning reaffirmed that. I woke up doing the usual “what the f--- am I doing” routine.

Had the session. Got into flow. And for two and a half hours, the demons shut up. Because I was doing the thing, not thinking about the thing.

That’s what all the stuff I built before was really about. It wasn’t bad.

It was just part of getting the parked car moving.

You Don’t Get Anywhere in a Parked Car

I don’t regret building any of it.

I built a quiz funnel. I’d been wanting to do one for years, and I finally did it. The daily emails and Substack Notes showed me I could show up consistently. The workshop showed me I could do a paid workshop. I didn’t get as many paid sign-ups as I wanted, but I did it. The coaching client showed me the gap between what I was selling and what I could deliver with confidence.

And this publication didn’t get thrown away. Neither did my tactical AI newsletter. I just refocused both of them on a slightly different angle. You’re reading the refocused version right now.

If I’d felt confident in the direction, the things I created were good enough. I could have doubled down, made them better, stuck with it. But putting them out into the world is what showed me it didn’t feel right.

I couldn’t have learned that from a whiteboard or from prompterbating with ChatGPT.

You don’t get anywhere in a parked car. Sometimes you have to drive in the wrong direction to figure out where you’re actually going.

I’m rebuilding now.

My new direction: helping solopreneurs and small business owners become AI-enabled operators who do better work in less time.

I’ve got a new low-ticket product in progress called The AI Operator Quickstart. And yes, I’m taking too long on it because the triplet demons are still here. But I’m building.

Even after walking away from six months of work, the doubts still show up every morning.

But they get washed away the moment I do the thing.

Here’s What I’d Tell You

If you’ve built something and it’s not working, or it’s working but it doesn’t feel right, that’s not failure. That’s data.

The only real failure is staying parked.

Build the thing. Ship it. See how it feels and how other people respond. Then decide if it’s yours.

What’s one thing you’ve been sitting on because you’re not sure it’s the right direction?

Build it anyway. The clarity is on the other side of the doing, not the thinking.

You have systems you use every day that you can’t quite explain.

You know they work. You’ve done them dozens of times. But when someone asks “how do you do that?” you fumble through a vague explanation.

Your best expertise is invisible to you.

This is a problem if you want to teach, sell, or scale what you know.

The Call That Changed This

A while back, I spent two hours on a Saturday call with a consultant friend. He had 80 pages of field notes from a $30K project and asked for help to turn them into a client-ready report using AI.

I walked him through my whole process. Set up the project environment. Wrote the system prompts. Built the outline. Drafted section by section. Validated as we went.

A couple days later, I realized: that was a complete A-to-Z walkthrough. Clear starting point, clear output. Everything someone would need to understand how I did it.

But I was lazy and didn’t want to spend time breaking down what I did into discrete steps.

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I Used AI to Analyze How I Use AI

So I tried something: I uploaded the transcript to Claude and asked it to identify the steps I followed in that process, and turn that into a repeatable framework.

I didn’t know the best way to analyze a transcript, so I started by asking Claude to help me create the right prompt first:

“I have a transcript of me helping someone create a consulting report using AI. Help me create the right prompt to analyze this transcript and extract the framework I’m using.”

Claude suggested what to look for, how to structure the analysis, and what output format would work best.

Then I pasted the transcript and used the prompt Claude created.

It identified:

• The specific steps I followed (that I couldn’t see myself)

• What I did that most people struggle with

• The sequence that made it work

• Why it was effective

After some back and forth, we landed on a 5-step framework: Prepare, Plan, Execute, Iterate, Complete.

Five steps that made sense when you said them out loud.

Before: a vague sense that “I have a process for this.”

After: a named framework I can explain in 30 seconds.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

Here’s something I didn’t fully appreciate until I went through this:

A named framework has leverage. An unnamed process doesn’t.

When your expertise is invisible, you’re stuck. You can do the work, but you can’t:

• Teach it to anyone else

• Package it into a product

• Explain it in a sales conversation

• Train a team on it

• Improve it systematically

You just “know how to do the thing.”

That’s fine if you want to keep doing the thing yourself forever. But if you want to scale your knowledge, create products from your expertise, or build authority around what you do, you need to be able to articulate it.

The difference between “I’m good at this” and “here’s exactly how to do this” is the difference between a skill and an asset.

What One Extracted Framework Became

From that one transcript and one AI analysis session, I created:

A YouTube video showing the extraction process. A 20-page framework guide with templates. A low-ticket product to test interest. Multiple newsletter issues (including this one). Credibility to pitch training to the consultant’s company (which led to a capacity-building engagement with the owner’s daughter-slash-operations manager, and THAT helped me clarify a lot of things about what direction I should be going).

Everything is content. But first you have to extract the pattern.

One Saturday call became the foundation for weeks of content and a potential new revenue stream. Not because I did anything special on that call. Just because I finally took the time to name what I was already doing.

The Extraction Process (Step by Step)

Here’s exactly how to do this with your own work.

Step 1: Capture the Raw Material

You can’t extract a framework from work you didn’t capture.

Record your calls (with permission). Save transcripts. Keep the messy notes from projects where you got results.

The best candidates are complete walkthroughs: A-to-Z processes with clear starting points and outputs. Client calls where you explained your whole approach. Projects where you can trace the full arc from problem to solution.

If you don’t have transcripts, start recording now. Most video call tools (Zoom, Google Meet, Riverside) have built-in transcription. Turn it on.

Step 2: Ask AI to Help You Build the Analysis Prompt

Don’t just dump a transcript into Claude and say “extract the framework.”

Start by asking AI to help you create the right prompt:

“I have a transcript of me doing [type of work]. Help me create the right prompt to analyze this transcript and extract the framework I’m using.”

AI will suggest:

• What to look for in the transcript

• How to structure the analysis

• What output format will be most useful

This meta-step matters because you don’t know what you don’t know. You’re too close to your own process to know the best questions to ask about it.

Step 3: Run the Analysis

Paste the transcript and use the prompt AI created.

You’re looking for:

• The specific steps you followed

• The sequence that made it work

• What you did that most people skip or struggle with

• The underlying principles (even if you never stated them explicitly)

• Why was it effective

Don’t accept the first output. Ask follow-up questions:

• “What patterns do you see in how I handled [specific challenge]?”

• “What did I do differently than someone might typically approach this?”

• “What’s the underlying principle behind step 3?”

Keep refining until you have something that feels true to what you actually do.

Step 4: Name It

Raw analysis is useful but hard to remember.

Ask AI to turn the analysis into a clean, named system with memorable step names:

“Turn this framework into a named system with 3-5 clear steps. Give me a few naming options for the overall framework and for each step.”

Review the options. Pick one that:

• Makes sense when you say it out loud

• Is easy to remember

• Captures the essence of what makes your approach different

Wrestle with it until it clicks. This is the part where you add your judgment. AI can suggest, but you decide what actually represents your work.

Step 5: Document It

Once you have a named framework, write it up properly:

• What problem does this solve?

• Who is it for?

• What are the steps?

• What does each step involve?

• What are the common mistakes at each step?

• What does success look like?

This documentation becomes the foundation for everything else: products, training, content, and sales conversations.

Step 6: Turn It Into Something

One framework can become:

• A PDF guide or ebook

• A course or workshop

• A series of newsletter issues

• A YouTube video or tutorial

• A training offer for companies

• The foundation of a coaching program

You’re not starting from scratch with any of these. You’re just translating the same framework into different formats for different contexts.

The Prompts I Used

Here are the actual prompts that worked for me:

To build the analysis prompt: “I have a transcript of me helping a consultant create a report using AI. Help me create the right prompt to analyze this transcript and extract the framework I’m using.”

To extract the framework, I used the output from the previous step.

To name it: “Turn this framework into a clear, named system. Give me 3 options for the overall name and suggest memorable names for each step. The names should be easy to remember and capture what makes this approach different.”

To document it: “Help me write up this framework as a guide. Include: what problem it solves, who it’s for, the steps with details, common mistakes at each step, and what success looks like.”

Start With Your Last Win

You don’t need to wait for the perfect project.

Think about the last time you helped someone get a result. The last client call where you walked through your whole process. The last project when someone said, “How did you do that?”

That’s your starting point.

Record it. Transcribe it. Ask AI to extract the pattern.

Your best systems are already inside your work.

The expertise is already there. The framework extraction is just making it visible.

About an hour into the call, I had to stop everything.

We were building a consulting report together. My consultant friend and I, working through 80 pages of field notes from his $30K project.

We were using AI to help organize and analyze it all, and ChatGPT had just drafted a section about the four field offices he’d visited. It looked good. Professional. Well-written.

Except it was wrong.

“Where are you getting this information?” I asked ChatGPT. “Why didn’t you use the field office names? I only want you to use what I gave you in the draft report and project documents. Be specific.”

Rob looked confused. “It seemed fine to me.”

That’s the problem. It seemed fine. That’s why most people end up with AI outputs they have to completely rewrite.

The AI had invented generic placeholder content instead of using the actual data we’d given it. If we’d kept going, the next six sections would have built on invented information. We’d be rewriting the entire report.

This is what happens when you treat AI like a magic content generator instead of what it actually is: a very capable, very literal junior consultant who needs constant validation.

A short while later, we had a 27-page client-ready report.

Rob’s exact words: “It’s like having a graduate assistant.”

You Don’t Have a Prompting Problem

Instead of worrying about better prompts, we used a better process.

Most people use AI the same way:

Open ChatGPT. Maybe dump in notes.

“Write me a report.” Or “Write me a sales page.” Or “Write me a course outline.”

Get back generic content that needs complete rewriting.

The problem isn’t the AI.

It’s treating it like magic instead of treating it like what you’d actually do if you hired a junior consultant.

If you hired someone smart but new to your work, you wouldn’t hand them 80 pages of notes and say “write me a report.”

You’d set up their workspace. Give them clear instructions about the audience and format. Build an outline together. Work section by section. Validate as you go.

That’s exactly how you need to work with AI.

The 5-Step System

This is the process we used. Same process works whether you’re creating consulting reports, sales pages, course content, video scripts, or long-form newsletters.

STEP 1: PREPARE – Set up the environment before asking for content

STEP 2: PLAN – Create structure first, content second

STEP 3: EXECUTE – Build section by section with constant validation

STEP 4: ITERATE – Refine complex sections through multiple approaches

STEP 5: COMPLETE – Write summaries last, not first

Here’s exactly what each step looks like.

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STEP 1: PREPARE – Set Up the Environment

Most people skip this. They open ChatGPT, paste notes, ask for content.

Don’t.

What to do:

Create a dedicated project (ChatGPT Projects or Claude Projects).

Write system instructions that tell AI its role, the audience, output style, and objective.

Upload SOURCE documents to project files. Keep them separate from your draft notes.

For consultants: source documents are research, field notes, client briefs, background reports.

For content creators: source documents are interview transcripts, testimonials, product details, past successful content.

Avoid this mistake:

Uploading draft notes as project files. That’s raw material to organize and you don’t want the AI to see it as authoritative.

Exmple System Prompt Template:

You are my AI co-consultant on this project: [PROJECT NAME]

Your job is to help me:
- Cut through noise and organize information clearly
- Write quickly without sacrificing quality  
- Produce [TYPE] that serves [AUDIENCE]

Context and Style:
- Audience: [specific role, needs, concerns]
- Tone: [Professional/Conversational/Technical/Persuasive]
- Output Style: [format expectations]

Our objective: [PASTE ACTUAL PROJECT OBJECTIVE]

Critical Rules:
- Use ONLY source documents and my draft
- Never invent or extrapolate beyond what I provide
- When information missing, flag it - don't fill gaps
- Ground all analysis in actual data provided

Examples:

Consulting report: “You are my AI co-consultant helping me create a consulting report for field office staff who already know the background. Write clearly and succinctly.”

Course content: “You are my AI co-consultant helping me create a course for solopreneurs who want to build email lists. Write conversationally and practically.”

Sales page: “You are my AI co-consultant helping me create a sales page for consultants trapped in delivery bottleneck. Write persuasively using direct response principles.”

Test it:

Ask AI: “What’s your role in this project?” If it tells you back the audience, tone, and constraints, you’re good.

Time: 5 minutes

STEP 2: PLAN – Build the Structure First

This is where most people fail.

They ask AI to “write a report.” AI writes it. Structure is wrong for the audience. Includes sections that don’t matter.

Complete rewrite.

What to do:

Upload draft notes to the conversation (NOT project files).

Prompt: “Based on this draft and the source documents, suggest a detailed outline.”

Give examples, but let it think:

For reports: “Consider sections like executive summary, methodology, findings, recommendations, but use your judgment.”

For sales pages: “Consider sections like problem, solution, how it works, social proof, offer, but structure for maximum conversion.”

For courses: “Consider modules that build sequentially, but organize based on the actual learning journey.”

Review. Adjust. Get it right.

Copy final outline to a separate document for reference.

The mistake:

Telling AI exactly what sections to create without letting it think.

You want: “Consider sections LIKE...” (suggestions, not commands).

Our example:

AI suggested consulting engagement structure. We modified to include summaries of the four field offices. Locked it in. Referenced it throughout.

Time: 10-15 minutes

STEP 3: EXECUTE – Section by Section with Validation

This is where AI becomes your co-pilot or a liability.

The difference: constant validation.

What to do:

Start with body sections, not intros or summaries.

Work section by section:

1. “Draft [section name]. Use draft notes and source documents. Ground everything in actual material.”

2. Paste in the full section outline you’d copied to a seprate document. Doing this keeps the AI “honest” and prevents it from forgetting the outline and inventing new stuff.

3. Read what it produces

4. Catch errors or drift immediately

5. Add missing context

6. Let the AI know what the final version looks like so it has the context for the next sections.

7. Move to next section

The critical skill:

Catching drift the moment it happens.

That field office section looked fine. But AI had invented placeholder content instead of using actual names and data.

I stopped immediately: “Where are you getting this? I only want you to use what I gave you in the draft and project documents. Be specific. Name the field offices. Ensure everything is correct.”

AI regenerated with actual details from source material.

If you let AI drift in section 3, sections 4-7 build on invented information. You’re rewriting everything.

Validation technique:

As you read each section, ask: “Could I have written this from my notes and sources?”

If yes, keep going. If no, stop and re-ground.

For content creators, this is critical for:

• Client testimonials (don’t let AI embellish)

• Product features (stick to what you actually offer)

• Results and outcomes (only real numbers)

• Case studies (ground in actual stories, not invented scenarios)

Speed technique:

Use voice-to-text to make corrections as you read:

“Section 5.1 needs more about ABC. Section 5.2 looks good except 5.2.2 should say ‘downstream engagement.’ Section 5.2.3 needs detail about D.”

Fix as you go, not later.

Re-Grounding Prompt:

“Where are you getting this information? I only want you to use what’s in the draft and project documents. Be specific. Ensure everything is grounded in actual source material.”

Time: 15-90 minutes (depending on length & complexity)

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STEP 4: ITERATE – Try Multiple Approaches

Not every section works on first try.

Some sections are complex. Multiple ways to organize them.

What to do:

For complex sections, don’t accept the first version.

Prompt: “Give me 2-3 different ways to structure this section.”

For reports: “Try chronological, thematic, and priority-based approaches.”

For sales pages: “Try problem-solution, before-after-bridge, and story-based approaches.”

For courses: “Try skill-building, problem-solving, and case-study-based sequences.”

Review options. Pick the best or combine elements.

Our example:

For the Recommendations section, Rob suggested: “Could we structure this thematically? Sustainability, system strengthening, proximity, value added, cost savings.”

We asked AI to re-outline thematically. Compared both versions. Chose the better one.

The mistake:

Accepting mediocre first drafts because you’re tired.

Best sections often come from iteration 2 or 3.

Time: 10-20 minutes per complex section

STEP 5: COMPLETE – Write Summaries Last

Don’t start with summaries or intros.

What to do:

Draft all body content first. Get it right.

Then ask AI to create summary pieces based on actual final content:

Now summaries reflect what you actually wrote, not what you planned.

The mistake:

Writing summaries first, then revising them 5 times as body content evolves.

Our example:

We wrote all body sections first. Validated each. Then:

“Draft the conclusion based on actual content.”
“Draft the executive summary based on the report we’ve created.”

Perfect match. No revisions needed.

Time: 5-15 minutes

What “90% Ready” Means

When he saw what we were able to do, my friend saw it was like having a graduate assistant to do the work.

The 27-page report needed:

• Minor word choice adjustments

• Reordering a few points

• Adding one or two examples I knew but hadn’t mentioned

• Formatting for submission

What it DIDN’T need:

• Complete rewrites

• Fact-checking everything (validated as we went)

• Reorganizing sections (built structure first)

• Fixing invented information (caught drift immediately)

That’s 90% ready. Just needs some polish, not reconstruction.

Start With Your Next Project

Don’t wait for perfect.

Try this for your next consulting report, sales page, course module, strategy document, newsletter, etc..

Don’t jump to “write this for me.”

Take a moment to set up the environment. A few more minutes to build structure. Then execute section by section, validating as you go.

You’re not working harder. You’re working systematically.

The difference between 60% drafts you rewrite and 90% drafts you polish.

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me: What’s your process for getting good outputs with AI?

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I built a tool that turns your call transcripts into emails so you stop wasting hours staring at blank screens.

You write a newsletter. Hit send. Move on.

You record a client call. File it away. Never look at it again.

You solve a problem, help one person, don’t capture what you learned.

Most solopreneurs create content once and use it once. But everything you create is raw material for multiple outputs.

I’m going to show you exactly how I turned one 2-hour consulting call into 8+ pieces of content and a new business opportunity.

The Saturday Call

A consultant I’ve worked with for years had brought me on to help with a survey and data analysis for a $30K consulting project with an international development agency.

Then the client decided not to do the survey.

So, he asked me to help with the final report. He’d finished the fieldwork and had done site visits and dozens of interviews. All of it documented in 80 pages of rough notes, plus dozens of source documents.

He needed to turn that into a polished consulting report.

He’s a former Chief of Operations for a large country office. Smart guy and well-respected. But he’d never really used AI before.

On previous projects together, I’d had the context in my head from being involved in the work. I had AI to help write the reports without him because I knew what we’d found.

This time I wasn’t involved in the fieldwork. I had zero context. The only way to get quality output was to sit down with him and do it live, using his brain and my process.

With the added benefit of teaching him how to do it.

So that’s what we did on a recent Saturday afternoon...

I Walked Him Through Everything

We didn’t just “use ChatGPT to write a report.”

I showed him how to set up a project. How to write system prompts that tell AI the role, the audience, the constraints. How to upload all the source documents separately from his draft notes so AI would treat them as reference material, not gospel.

Then we built the outline together. Modified it. Got it right.

Then we went section by section. Draft a piece, validate it against his notes, add missing context, re-ground when AI started inventing things, move to the next section.

The whole process. A to Z. Starting with messy notes, ending with a client-ready report.

The Content Realization

A couple days later I thought: this would be a perfect example for How I AI.

Not because I was brilliant. Because it was complete. There was a clear starting point, a clear process, a clear output. Everything someone would need to see to understand how this actually works.

I’d been documenting AI usage for the newsletter anyway. And I’d been trying to get myself to do more YouTube videos. I really have mental barriers around video, kept prioritizing Substack instead.

But this felt like the right thing to show on video first.

So I decided to extract the framework from the call. I wanted to see if AI could analyze the transcript and pull out the actual steps I was using. Not what I thought I was using, but what I actually did.

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Extracting the Framework

A couple days later I thought: this would be a perfect example for my How I AI newsletter where I share…how I use AI.

It was a complete walk-through. Clear starting point, clear process, clear output. Everything someone would need to see to understand how this actually works.

So I used AI to analyze the transcript and pull out the framework I’d actually used. Asked ChatGPT first, then later tried Claude to see if I’d get different results.

Claude’s output was better and I ended up with a five-step framework for how I use AI to develop a polished consulting report.

But really, I had way more than just a framework.

I had a transcript, and a framework, and—since everything is content—I had multiple ways I could create content from what I’d done.

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What One Transcript Became

YouTube video (3-4 hours). I recorded the framework extraction process using Claude. Took longer because I’m building YouTube systems as I go (and because of a snafu where I lost a 30 minute recording because an app froze at the last second of recording).

Framework document (1.5 hours). I turned the analysis into a 20-page guide with the 5 steps, examples, and system prompt templates.

Low-ticket product (20 minutes). Created a sales page on beehiiv, packaged it as a $5 PDF. Not chasing revenue, just testing: will anyone buy this?

Two How I AI newsletter issues (30 minutes each). One about how I extracted the framework. One teaching the framework itself. Fast because I’ve built systems and Claude skills for newsletter writing.

Three Unscaled Solopreneur newsletter issues (30 minutes each). This one, and two more I’ve got queued up.

Supporting materials. Several daily emails. Framework extraction prompts and System prompt templates. Substack Notes pulled from the newsletters. YouTube Shorts cut from the main video using Descript.

The Unexpected Business Door

Having the framework gave me something concrete to offer.

I’d been having conversations with Claude about my business direction. Realized: I could pitch this as training to the consulting company.

So I reached out with a simple offer: workshop or hands-on training with their consultants. Same kind of work I did on that call.

Might turn into a new revenue stream I hadn’t even planned for.

The content created the credibility to make that offer.

How to Start Multiplying Your Work

The mindset shift: stop thinking “what should I create next?” and start thinking “what did I just create that I can multiply?”

Capture everything. Record your calls (with permission). Save your voice notes. Screenshot your processes. Keep the transcript, the slides, the rough notes.

Look for teaching moments. Where did you explain something that clicked for someone? Where were you working with a beginner or someone new to your process? Where did you solve a problem in a way that felt valuable?

Extract the pattern. Use AI to analyze the transcript or notes. Ask: “What’s the framework I was using here?” Get it into a clear, named system. Try different AI tools. ChatGPT vs Claude might give you different angles.

Create the anchor piece first. For me: YouTube video showing the process. For you: might be a newsletter, a blog post, a LinkedIn article. This becomes your source material for everything else.

Systematically multiply. Newsletter issues teach different angles. Social posts become Substack Notes, LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads. Product becomes a PDF, template, guide. Short-form video clips from long-form. Follow-up articles go deeper on each point. Daily emails pull specific insights.

Build systems as you go. Each time you multiply content, document how you did it. Create Claude skills, templates, checklists. Next time will be faster.

Start With Your Next Piece of Work

Don’t wait for the perfect project to do this.

Your next (or last) consulting call, client project, problem you solve. That’s your starting point.

Record it. Capture it. Ask yourself: “Is there something here worth teaching?”

If yes, you’ve got 8+ pieces of content and maybe new business opportunities.

You’re not creating more work. You’re extracting more value from work you’re already doing.

Stop creating once and moving on. Start multiplying.

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me: What’s your biggest barrier to repurposing your work - time, systems, or just not thinking about it?

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I built a tool that turns your call transcripts into emails so you stop wasting hours staring at blank screens.

I’ve been following for years.

Bought his courses. Watched him build exactly the kind of business I want. He’s crushing it here on Substack.

I’m just a student at the feet of a master, still trying to get traction.

So instead of guessing what works, I decided to reverse-engineer his headlines to sunderstand ee why they work so well.

But first, if you’re not already subscribed to Matt’s newsletter, go do that now. Seriously. I’ll wait…..

Okay good. Let’s continue.

This Isn’t About Copying

Matt’s exact formulas might not work for my audience. They might not work for yours either.

But understanding the patterns behind what works gives you a foundation to test from.

This isn’t about copying. It’s about learning the underlying structure so you can adapt it to your own voice and audience.

The Process Was Simple

Here’s what I did:

Step 1: I collected about 25 of Matt’s long-form Substack post titles.

Step 2: I fed them to Claude with one simple prompt: “Analyze and categorize these headlines. What patterns do you see? Why are they working?”

Step 3: Claude came back with a full breakdown. Five categories. Patterns. Power words. Psychology.

I’m always blown away by how easy it is to do this. But you have to be careful to use it ethically.

This is about learning principles, not plagiarizing someone else’s work. The goal is to understand WHY something works so you can create your own version. Not to copy-paste someone else’s success.

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What Claude Found: The 5 Headline Frameworks

Here’s what came out of the analysis:

Framework 1: Contrarian/Anti-Advice

Pattern: “Everyone says X. I say Y.”

Example from Matt: “My Substack Anti-Growth Plan (That Actually Worked)”

Why it works: Creates curiosity through contradiction. Positions you as an insider with hidden knowledge. Makes readers question what they thought they knew.

More (made-up) examples:

• Stop Building Your Personal Brand. Build This Instead”

• “My Anti-Productivity System (That Actually Worked)”

• “Why I Quit Morning Routines (And Why You Should Too)”

• “If You’re Still Cold Calling, Stop. Do This First”

• “Your Marketing Strategy Is Backwards. Here’s Why”

Framework 2: Case Study/Experiment

Pattern: “I tried X for [timeframe]. Here’s what happened.”

Example from Matt: “I Stopped Posting Long-Form Posts on Substack for 3 Weeks. Here’s What Happened”

Why it works: Specific numbers create believability. Readers get vicarious learning without having to take the risk themselves. Timeframes add concrete evidence.

More (made-up) examples:

• “I Stopped Networking for 6 Months. Here’s What Happened to My Revenue”

• “17 Lessons After Running Workshops for 17 Months”

• “Why I Fired My Three Biggest Clients (And Tripled My Income)”

• “I Posted on LinkedIn Daily for 90 Days. Here’s What I Learned”

• “How I Replaced My $200K Salary in 18 Months”

Framework 3: Problem Diagnosis

Pattern: “Here’s the REAL reason you’re stuck.”

Example from Matt: “Your Small Audience Isn’t the Problem. This Is”

Why it works: Speaks directly to the reader’s pain. Promises clarity. Reveals an unexpected insight that reframes the problem.

More (made-up) examples:

• “Your Pricing Isn’t Too Low. Your Positioning Is Too Vague”

• “Why You Can’t Find Clients (And It’s Not Your Marketing)”

• “The Ugly Truth About Why Your Webinars Don’t Convert”

• “Your LinkedIn Strategy Isn’t the Problem. This Is”

• “Why Smart Consultants Stay Stuck at $5K Months”

Framework 4: How-To/Template

Pattern: “Here’s the exact system/method.”

Example from Matt: “3 Simple Substack Newsletter Templates (That Pull In Readers & Buyers)”

Why it works: Numbers create specificity. Words like “simple” remove intimidation. The promise is actionable, not just theoretical.

More (made-up) examples:

• “5 Email Templates I Use to Close 60% of My Proposals”

• “The Simple Client Onboarding System That Saves Me 10 Hours a Week”

• “How to Write a Consulting Proposal in 30 Minutes (Template Included)”

• “3 Discovery Call Questions That Qualify (or Disqualify) Clients Instantly”

• “My 15-Minute Daily Planning System for 6-Figure Coaches”

Framework 5: Mindset/Inner Game

Pattern: “Fix your thinking first.”

Example from Matt: “How To Build An Unstoppable Writing Habit (That Doesn’t Rely on Lumpy Emotions)”

Why it works: Addresses emotional blocks, not just tactics. Readers feel seen. Promise of mental breakthrough

More (made-up) examples:

• “How to Raise Your Rates When You’re Terrified of Losing Clients”

• “The Imposter Syndrome Trap (And How I Finally Escaped It)”

• “How to Stop Underpricing Without Feeling Like a Fraud”

• “Building a Practice While Battling Burnout: What Actually Helped”

• “How to Fire Bad Clients (Even When You Need the Money)”

The Two-Part Structure

Most of the winning headlines have two components:

PART 1: The Hook Creates tension through:

• Contrarian statement

• Personal confession

• Problem identification

• Bold claim

• Unexpected experiment

PART 2: The Payoff Promises resolution through:

• “Here’s what happened”

• “Here’s what you should do instead”

• “This is the real problem”

• “Here’s how I did it”

• “And why you should too”

Examples of the Two-Part Structure:

Hook: “I Stopped Taking Discovery Calls” Payoff: “Here’s What Happened to My Close Rate”

Hook: “Your Funnel Isn’t the Problem” Payoff: “Your Offer Is”

Hook: “Why I Fired My Best Client” Payoff: “And Why It Was the Smartest Business Decision I Ever Made”

Hook: “The Simple Workshop System” Payoff: “That Books Out My Calendar 3 Months in Advance”

Use the frameworks and create two-part headlines like this, and you’ll start seeing what pulls people in.

You won’t nail it every time, but you’ll have a structure to test against.

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Full Transparency: I Haven’t Tested These Yet

I haven’t tested these frameworks on my own headlines yet.

And that’s okay.

Matt’s frameworks may not work for me. They may not work for you and your audience. But at least when you understand (and internalize) these frameworks you can test them, and see what works.

The point isn’t to copy his exact approach (and it’s definitely not to copy his headlines).

It’s to understand what makes his headlines work, then adapt that to your own content and style.

How You Can Do This With Any Creator

The process that I used you could use to learn from any creator who you think is doing a good job.

Here’s the step-by-step:

1. Pick a creator in your space who’s crushing it. Someone whose business model you admire, whose audience looks like yours.

2. Collect 20-30 of their best-performing headlines or posts. You want enough to see patterns, but not so many you get overwhelmed.

3. Feed them to Claude with this prompt: “Analyze and categorize these headlines. What patterns do you see? Why are they working?”

4. Ask Claude to create a framework you can reference. Something structured and reusable.

5. Test and adapt to your own voice and audience. Don’t just copy. Learn the structure, then make it yours.

The Real Lesson: Learn the Structure, Then Make It Yours

Here’s your action plan:

Pick ONE headline framework from this analysis. Or do the analysis on your own favorite creator and pick one of those frameworks.

Adapt it to your voice and content.

Write and share a post using it.

Measure the results and try another framework for the post after that. Keep going until you find a few that work for you and your audience, then repeat.

I Built Something You Can Use

After doing this analysis, I combined these frameworks with a previous study I’d done of successful headlines across Substack and Medium.

Then I turned it all into a “Headline Wizard” that generates headline ideas.

You give it your topic or a draft post. It gives you options using these and other proven frameworks.

It’s free. If you’re subscribed, reply and I’ll send you the link.

Not subscribed yet? Sign up and you’ll get it in your welcome email.

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me: Which framework will you try next?

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I built a tool that turns your call transcripts into emails so you stop wasting hours staring at blank screens.

I’ve been on this kick lately with Gemini where I turn YouTube videos into infographics.

It started when I had this 2-hour video about newsletters in 2026 that I wanted to watch.

But who has 2 hours?

I wanted the takeaways without sitting through the whole thing.

So I decided to try Gemini’s infographic feature. I pasted in the link, asked it to pull out the key points, and create a visual summary.

It worked.

I got the main insights in about 3 minutes.

Then I thought: why not do this with more videos?

I found four more videos from people who actually know what they’re doing, all talking about how to make 2026 a year of success.

Check it out below.

Infographic #1: The Future of Newsletters

Creator: Panel discussion featuring Matt McGarry and other newsletter experts

What it covers: Major shifts happening in the newsletter space heading into 2026

The big insight from this panel? List size is dying as a success metric.

Having 50,000 subscribers won’t matter if they aren’t “AI-verified humans.”

Gmail and other providers are going to start silent auto-unsubscribes for inactive users.

The new north star: aim for a 3-5% “Human-Verified” Click-Through Rate.

Here are the rest of the predictions:

Watch the full video:

Infographic #2: Social Media Marketing Trends

Creator: Neil Patel

What it covers: The 7 biggest social media marketing trends for 2026

Neil’s main point: platforms want to keep you in their walled gardens.

That means on-platform conversions are going to explode. Instead of sending traffic to your website to buy, platforms like TikTok and Instagram are making checkout seamless within the app.

Here’s what else is shifting:

Watch the full video:

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Infographic #3: If I Started A Business in 2026

Creator: Alex Hormozi

What it covers: The high-ticket service blueprint for starting a business

Hormozi’s whole argument: most people try to build a scalable product too soon.

Instead, follow the Tesla model. Start with an expensive, high-touch “Roadster” (1-on-1 service) before moving to the mass-market “Model 3.”

Here’s how:

Watch the full video:

Infographic #4: Make 2026 Your Best Year

Creator: Mel Robbins

What it covers: 6 questions to ask yourself for planning 2026

Mel’s framework is based on the idea that you can’t create directions for the future unless you know your starting point:

Watch the full video:

Infographic #5: How to Actually Make Money Online in 2026

Creator: Dan Martell

What it covers: The “Two Engine Business Model” for making money through Instagram DMs

Dan’s framework: most creators fail because they either have an audience but no way to monetize it (the Money engine), or they have a product but no way to attract buyers (the Magnet engine).

Here’s what it looks like:

Watch the full video:

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What This Means

These aren’t random predictions.

They’re strategic shifts from people building real businesses.

The common threads:

• Quality over quantity (newsletters, social posts, clients).

• Authenticity over polish (personality-led content, expert brands, human connection).

• Simple systems over complex automation (manual work first, then scale).

• Subtraction before addition (planning, pricing, offers).

I hope these give you ideas for how to structure and focus your business and work heading into 2026.

And if you want to find out how I made the infographics, click here.

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me: Which framework hit hardest for where you are right now?

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I built a tool that turns your call transcripts into emails so you stop wasting hours staring at blank screens.

I pulled up a spreadsheet mid-coaching call and started typing.

Monthly goal: $5,000.

Product price: $27.

Conversion rate from lead magnet: 15%.

Opt-in page conversion: 15%.

Click-through rate from YouTube: 1%.

I hit enter on the final calculation.

823,045 YouTube views per month.

The woman on the other end went quiet.

She was getting maybe a few hundred views per video.

She could see it: the gap between her revenue goal and her current business model wasn’t small. It was a canyon.

She needed 823,045 YouTube views per month to hit $5,000 selling a $27 sewing guide.

This is the calculation most solopreneurs never run.

So they hustle harder, post more... and wonder why nothing changes.

The problem isn’t effort. It’s that the math doesn’t work.

The 4-Step Diagnostic

Here’s how I walked her through it. You can do this for your own business right now.

It just takes a few minutes.

Step 1: Calculate your monthly sales target

Monthly goal ÷ product price = sales needed per month

For her: $5,000 ÷ $27 = 185 sales per month.

She needed to sell 185 digital guides every single month to hit her goal.

Most people stop here. Already, you can feel the weight of it.

Step 2: Calculate how many leads you need

Sales needed ÷ conversion rate from lead magnet = lead magnet downloads needed

She’d sold 1 out of about 9 downloads. That’s roughly 10%. I used 15% to be a bit more optimistic but still realistic.

185 sales ÷ 0.15 = 1,235 lead magnet downloads per month.

That’s not 185 people. That’s over 1,200 people downloading her free checklist every month just to generate enough sales to hit her goal.

Step 3: Calculate how many people need to reach your opt-in page

Lead magnet downloads ÷ opt-in page conversion rate = clicks to opt-in page needed

I used 15% as the opt-in conversion rate. Not great, not terrible.

1,235 downloads ÷ 0.15 = 8,230 people clicking to her opt-in page every month.

Step 4: Calculate how much traffic you actually need

Clicks needed ÷ click-through rate from content = total views/traffic needed

For YouTube, about 1% of viewers will actually click a link in the description.

8,230 clicks ÷ 0.01 = 823,045 YouTube views per month.

She was getting a couple hundred views per video, with a few in the five digits.

The gap wasn’t a “work a little harder” problem. It was structural.

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When the Math Reveals the Truth

I told her: “These numbers aren’t meant to be scare you. They’re diagnostic.”

You could look at 800,000+ views and give up. Say it’s impossible.

Or you could say: okay, that’s what it would take with this exact model. So either I need to seriously commit to growing YouTube to those numbers... or I need to change the variables.

Most people pick the wrong lever.

They think: more traffic. Go viral. Post everywhere. Optimize everything.

But here’s what I showed her next.

The Highest Leverage Variable Isn’t Traffic

I changed one number in the spreadsheet: product price.

From $27 to $97.

Maybe she bundles the guide with video tutorials. Maybe she adds a one-hour virtual sewing class where she gets on Zoom, watches their hands, helps them through their first project.

Suddenly, she only needed 52 sales per month instead of 185.

That dropped her required traffic from 823,000 views to about 230,000 views. A 72% reduction.

Then I showed her what happens at a higher price point. Say $997 for a premium package: the guide, a month of group coaching, templates, personalized feedback.

Now she needs 5 sales per month. Five people.

With the same conversion rates, that’s roughly 23,000 total views per month.

Still more than she’s getting now, but way more achievable than trying to get to 800k.

I told her: “The biggest impact and the easiest impact is typically around your product cost.”

Most people try to multiply their traffic when they should be rethinking their offer.

What Order Bumps and Upsells Actually Do

Here’s how this plays out in practice.

An order bump is something additional on the sales page itself. She’s selling the Beginner’s Guide to Sewing for $27. Right there on the checkout page, there’s a checkbox: “Add the Essential Sewing Supplies Checklist for $17.”

It’s not required. It doesn’t feel manipulative if it genuinely helps them get a better result. About 20-30% of buyers will take it.

An upsell happens after purchase. They buy the $27 guide, then see: “Want a one-hour virtual class where I help you complete your first project? $97.”

Again, about 10-25% will take an upsell if it’s positioned as the logical next step.

Those two additions: a $17 order bump taken by 25% of buyers, and a $97 upsell taken by 15% of buyers.

Her average order value goes from $27 to somewhere around $45.

The required traffic drops by almost half.

Same effort. Better business model.

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What to Do With This

Open a spreadsheet right now. Or use the calculator on your phone.

Row 1: Monthly revenue goal

Row 2: Product price (or average order value if you have multiple offers)

Row 3: Divide Row 1 by Row 2 = sales needed per month

Row 4: Your conversion rate from lead magnet to sale (use 15% if you don’t know)

Row 5: Divide Row 3 by Row 4 = lead magnet downloads needed

Row 6: Your opt-in page conversion rate (use 15% if you don’t know)

Row 7: Divide Row 5 by Row 6 = clicks to opt-in page needed

Row 8: Your click-through rate from content (1% for YouTube or social posts, 3-5% for email, 10-15% for blog posts with inline CTAs)

Row 9: Divide Row 7 by Row 8 = total traffic/impressions needed

Here’s what it looks like in the example I gave above:

Look at that final number.

If it’s 3-5x your current traffic, you’ve got work to do but it’s achievable.

If it’s 20-50x your current traffic, something fundamental has to change.

Then ask yourself: which variable gives me the biggest leverage?

Could I raise my price and still convert enough buyers to make more revenue than I do now?

Could I add an order bump that a meaningful percentage of buyers take?

Could I create an upsell?

Could I improve my opt-in page conversion rate?

Each of those changes the entire equation. Most of them are easier than trying to multiply your audience.

The Real Work Starts Here

I get it. Looking at those numbers can feel hopeless.

Most of us don’t ever do this math because we already know it’s going to feel overwhelming. We’d rather just keep posting, keep hoping, keep telling ourselves it’ll click eventually.

But here’s the truth: you’ll spend months, years hoping for it to work, but hope is not a strategy. Clear-eyed math and a plan is a strategy.

Most solopreneurs have a revenue goal but they’ve never translated it into actual inputs. So they post more, add platforms, buy courses, hustle harder... while the fundamental math stays broken.

Run this calculation. Look at the gap honestly.

Then decide: do I commit to the traffic growth required, or do I change the model?

Sometimes the answer is yes, go build that audience.

But more often, the answer is: I need a better offer, a higher price point, or a smarter funnel.

The math doesn’t lie.

Your business model either works or it doesn’t.

Better to know now than after another year of hoping something clicks.

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me: what did your calculation reveal?

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I built a tool that turns your call transcripts into emails so you stop wasting hours staring at blank screens.

A while back, I caught up with a friend who’s building a coaching business.

She had questions about everything…

How to structure her offer, how to find clients, how to price her work without feeling like a fraud.

I ended up spending about an hour just summarizing for her everything that I’ve learned about building a coaching business over the past four or five years.

And it was great. Really helpful for her.

It was me being passionate and sharing my ideas. My frameworks. The exact mistakes I made so she could skip them. I was in flow. Everything was coming out naturally in a way that just made sense.

When we hung up, I felt great. Like I’d just delivered a masterclass.

Then it hit me: that call didn’t happen.

Not in any way that matters. I didn’t record it. I didn’t take notes. All that clarity, all those frameworks I’d explained so naturally—gone.

Just... gone.

If I wanted to share any of it with my email list or as a blog post or a video, I’d have to recreate it from scratch.

Sit down at a blank page and try to remember what I said and how I said it.

And we both know how that goes.

You’re Already Creating Your Best Content (You’re Just Not Capturing It)

Here’s what I’ve learned: you’re probably the best when you’re speaking with other people and helping them through their problem.

You’re able to speak naturally. Your frameworks make sense. Your stories land. You explain things in ways that click.

But then you sit down to write an email and you freeze.

Not because you don’t have ideas. But because you’re trying to recreate what flows naturally when you’re in conversation. And it just…feels weird and awkward and doesn’t flow.

The problem isn’t that you need more ideas.

It’s that you’re not capturing the ones you’re already creating.

Every coaching call you do contains insights, stories, and frameworks worth sharing.

Same with your workshop and strategy sessions. Even your discovery and sales calls.

Every time you help a client through a stuck point, you’re creating content that could connect with your email list.

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Your Past Calls Are a Goldmine You’re Ignoring

Most coaches treat client calls like one-time events. You show up, you deliver, you move on to the next thing.

But here’s what I’ve found: one coaching call can easily contain a dozen or more distinct ideas.

When you explain something well on a call, that’s a proven insight….

If you break down a framework in a way that made someone go, “Oh, now I get it”?…

WHen you tell a story because it illustrates your point perfectly…

That’s gold for your emails (and your other content).

All of that is sitting in your past calls, waiting to be mined.

But if you didn’t record those calls, they might as well have never happened.

The Simple System That Changes Everything

I’m not saying you need to become a content creation machine.

I’m saying you need to start capturing what you already create.

Here’s the system:

Record everything. Every client call. Every workshop. Every brainstorm session where you’re explaining your thinking. Get permission, hit record, and let it run.

Turn it into a transcript. Zoom does this automatically. So do tools like Otter, Fellow, and Fathom. You don’t need to transcribe it yourself—just grab the file.

Ask AI to mine it for insights. This is where it gets good. You don’t need to read through an hour-long transcript looking for the good parts. Load it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and ask: “What are 3 moments in this conversation where I explained something particularly well?”

The AI will identify them. It’ll pull out the exact sections.

And then you can ask it to draft a rough email using your actual words and phrases from the call.

You’re not asking AI to come up with ideas for you.

You’re asking it to show you what you already said naturally, then help you shape it into an email.

That’s the difference between AI creating generic content and AI helping you capture your voice.

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Your 15-Minute Content Rescue (Do This Today)

Here’s what I want you to do right now:

1. Pick one recent client call where you felt particularly clear. A session where you explained something well and could see it click for your client.

2. Get the transcript. If you recorded it, grab the auto-generated transcript. If you didn’t record it but remember the conversation, even rough notes work.

3. Load it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and paste this prompt: “Read this conversation and identify 3 moments where I explained something particularly well or shared a valuable insight. For each moment, pull the exact words I used.”

4. Pick one of those moments and ask the AI: “Turn this into a rough email draft using my exact words and phrases. Keep my voice and tone.”

5. Read it, tweak it, send it. Don’t overthink it. The AI gave you 90-95% of the work. Just make sure it sounds like you, fix anything awkward, and ship it.

You just turned one past conversation into an email. And you have 2 more insights ready to go for next week.

Bonus step: Sign up for a call recording tool like Otter, Fellow, or Fathom and connect it to your calendar. These tools automatically show up in your Zoom calls and record everything. No more remembering to hit record. No more lost conversations.

The Real Point Here

You’re not blocked because you don’t have ideas.

You’re blocked because you’re trying to create from scratch instead of capturing what you already say naturally.

Every call is content.

Every workshop is content.

Every time you help someone understand something better—that’s content.

You just need to stop letting it disappear.

Hit reply or leave a comment and tell me: how many brilliant explanations have you lost because you didn’t record them? (I won’t judge. I’ve lost dozens.)

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If you want to skip the manual process and get straight to turning your call transcripts into profitable emails, I built a bot for that.

I’m sitting here at my desk trying to figure out how to write this without sounding like I’m having a breakdown.

Maybe I am.

You know, I made $100K/year at 34. I lived in Thailand and then Nepal. I could do whatever I wanted because I had the money to do it.

Traveled all over Asia in business class. Had a job that when I told people where I worked, I got immediate respect.

I paid off like $80k in student loans in just a few years, and saved up a quarter million in my nest egg.

At least in that respect, life was good.

But I didn’t l love that job. It felt like my edges were getting rounded down.

So I left it, without a plan. (Not a great idea in hindsight.)

Then I decided to become an entrepreneur.

Fast forward 12 years.

Despite building a hotel in Colombia (that just got two freakin Michelin stars), and building six-figure funnels for clients, I’m stuck.

I can’t break $5K a month in my own business. Literal years at this level.

I’ve got all the skills and know how to be making 10x that. I know EXACTLY what to do.

And yet I can’t make it work.

My healthcare costs are about to double. Maybe triple. My wife’s here on a green card—legally, but that doesn’t seem to matter much these days. We buy insurance through the marketplace.

Both my daughters have Cystic Fibrosis. Luckily Medicaid covers their treatments, but our insurance premium is going to skyrocket because idiots in Congress and the White House would rather give tax breaks to billionaires than help the rest of us.

The bills don’t stop. The treatments don’t stop. The worry doesn’t stop.

And I’m out here telling people I help solopreneurs build sustainable businesses.

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Here’s the thing that makes me want to put my fist through the wall: I’m good at this for OTHER people.

This week I wrote a Google Doc sales letter for a client in about an hour. She loved it. Said it was the perfect unlock she’d been looking for.

But when it comes to my own stuff?

Well. I’ve got a low ticket product that’s basically ready—need maybe an hour or two to finish it—and it’s been another week and I still haven’t done it.

Yesterday I was on a call with my day job. That’s what I’m calling it now—my day job. I’ve been working with them for five years. First four we focused on bulding a small business grant program.

Now we help businesses figure out franchising. I put together this incredible presentation with AI in 90 minutes. They were blown away. At the end, they asked if we could work together on another business they own.

I can do it for them. I can do it for my clients.

I can see exactly what someone else needs to do. I give them clarity. I help them untangle their positioning, their offers, their messaging. I do it all the effin time, and it works.

But I can’t do it for myself.

I’ve been trying to build a “solopreneur” thing for five years. After the hotel I knew I didn’t want to do the teams, the managing.

Except I only tried to build it something truly for myself off and on. Got some clients (who underpaid and overworked me) and I guess I just decided to just sell my self-esteem for a few bucks so stuck around on retainers.

A few months ago I started this publication and had the idea to call it Unscaled Solopreneur. Thought that was clever.

I like it as branding. And my whole idea was to share the real deal of building a solobusiness. That’s what I put in the bio: “Going from burned-out to breathing room with simple, profitable systems that run in under 20 hours a week.”

I branded myself that way because that’s what I wanted. That’s what I’ve been trying to build.

I’m making progress, but it’s slow.

And am only half-assing the part about sharing the real deal.

I end up posting the same kind of performative “I’m smart and got it figured out” posts that made me feel gross on Twitter and on previous versions of my publishing attempts.

When I asked Claude to critique my posts, it told me:

Your content reads like a really smart guy at a networking event who’s sharing deeply personal stories... but keeps checking over his shoulder to make sure his mom can’t hear him.

So, yeah. Got that going for me.

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Obviously what’s going on is some deep stuff.

When you’ve got the skills to do something. Got the knowledge and experience to get a result. Are even taking action toward that result, but not getting the result, something’s rotten deep down in Denmark.

I just started reading Psycho-Cybernetics. The idea (I think) is you can’t manifest your way into anything if your self-image doesn’t match it.

And that…well, that would explain some things.

Because I keep trying to tell myself positive things. I’ve tried the manifesting and the affirmations.

I know, intellectually, all the sh*t I’ve done. All the things I’m capable of. All the ways I’ve helped people.

Built a hotel. Worked for UNICEF. Helped businesses scale. Write sales copy in an hour that clients love.

But it doesn’t translate. Not into the results I want. Not into the income I need. Not into finishing my own damn product.

I don’t have a lesson here. I don’t have a framework. I don’t have “3 things you should know” or “5 mistakes I made that you can avoid.”

I have this: I’m tired. I’m scared. And I don’t know how to fix what’s wrong with me.

Part of me feels pathetic even saying this out loud. Like, why would anyone want to work with the guy who admits he hasn’t figured it out? The guy who can help everyone else but can’t help himself?

But as my daughter learned in her first grade class last year, there’s one three-letter word you can add to any “I don’t know” or “I can’t” or “I’m not sure” sentence to change your entire perspective.

Y-E-T.

I don’t know how to fix what’s wrong with me—yet. (Yes, I’ll use an em dash. No, AI didn’t write this.)

I help people. I give them clarity. I can see what to do for them.

I just can’t get myself there—yet.

And it’s frustrating in a way I don’t even have words for.

So here I am. Still showing up. Still trying.

Still building this thing even though it hasn’t worked the way I need it to —yet.

This where I am. Five years in, still figuring it out, still showing up even when I don’t know why it’s not working yet.

If you’ve got thoughts—or if you’re stuck in your own version of this—leave a comment, it’ll help me sleep better knowing I’m not the only one.

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Is your business built for freedom or frustration? Take the 2-minute “Unscale Me” quiz to find out what’s blocking your path to a calmer, more profitable solo business—and get a clear next step to fix it.

You’re working harder than you’ve ever worked.

Showing up every day.

Helping clients.

Creating content.

Shipping offers.

Everyone around you thinks you’ve got it handled.

Because you keep moving forward. You don’t complain. You just do the work.

But here’s what nobody sees:

The exhaustion that comes from building nonstop for years without the return you expected.

The financial pressure that sits in your chest every time you look at your bank account.

The medical bills that stack up while you’re trying to figure out how to make your business finally work.

The nights you lie awake wondering if this time will be different or if you’re just fooling yourself again.

You’re not failing. You’re not broken.

But you are carrying something nobody around you understands.

You’ve proven you can do hard things.

You’ve built businesses. ‘

Led projects.

Made money before.

Paid off debt.

Created something from nothing.

So you know you have the skills.

You know you have the knowledge, and the experience.

But somehow, right now, it’s not translating into the results you need.

And that gap—between what you know you’re capable of and what’s actually showing up in your bank account—is maddening.

Because if you can’t make it work with everything you’ve learned, what does that say about you?

Here’s the that’s hard to admit

When you’re a solopreneur dealing with real life—kids, financial instability, the pressure of needing this to work because going back to a job isn’t an option—the grind never stops.

There’s no vacation from the pressure.

No “off season” where you can rest and figure it out.

You have to keep building while the stress compounds.

You have to keep showing up while wondering if you’re running in place.

You have to keep pretending you’ve got it handled because admitting you don’t feels like failure.

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And everyone around you assumes you’re fine.

Because you’re the one who always figures it out.

You’re the one who keeps going; who doesn’t quit.

So they don’t see the weight you’re carrying.

They don’t see the fog between where you are and where you need to be.

They don’t see you questioning whether you’re building something real or just prolonging the inevitable.

Maybe they see the cracks.

The worry etched in your face, the short temper that wasn’t there before, the way you’re always distracted, glued to your phone even when you’re supposed to be present.

But they don’t see the full picture.

Your family sees someone working harder than ever but still stressed.

Your friends see someone who’s “always busy” but never seems to catch a break.

And online? They just see the helpful posts. The systems. The frameworks.

Nobody sees the person behind it wondering if this time will finally be different.

Because you won’t let them.

You don’t want to complain. You’d hate to feel like you’re fishing for sympathy.

And you’re deathly afraid that the people you need to buy from you would shun your products and services if they saw through the facade.

So you hide it.

Bury it down and pretend everything is fine.

I saw a post this week that caught me.

shared how a client of his went from 297 subscribers to over 4,000 overnight with a single post.

(It wasn’t really overnight. She’d been practicing and publishing for months to find her way.)

One line in particular resonated: “Your brain isn’t malfunctioning. It’s finally refusing to malfunction anymore.”

People identified with that deeply, and hundreds of them commented to let her know.

Derek broke down what made it work:

She named the pain her audience was carrying but couldn’t articulate.

She spoke to one specific person in one specific moment.

She gave them language for something they’d been feeling but had no words for.

And that’s what I’ve been trying to do.

But I keep stopping myself.

Because I don’t know how to talk about the real things without it sounding like I’m navel-gazing or fishing for sympathy.

The anxiety. The burnout. The depression. The chronic stress.

The financial instability that keeps me up at night.

The weight of raising kids with serious medical needs while trying to build something that finally works.

The exhaustion of building for ten years without the return I expected.

The grief of going from a life of adventure—living in five different countries, visiting 35+ more, constant movement—to a quiet, ordinary life back in Michigan where nothing feels exciting anymore.

How do you name those things without sounding like you’re complaining?

How do you be real without scaring off the people who might actually need what you’re building?

I don’t have that figured out yet.

But I know this:

The thing you’re afraid to say out loud is probably the thing someone else desperately needs to hear.

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Not another framework or system to implement (though those have their place).

Just someone naming the weight you’re carrying that nobody else sees.

The exhaustion. The pressure. The fog. The fear that you’ll keep building and it still won’t be enough.

Because here’s what I think:

You’re doing your best.

You’re showing up even when it’s hard.

You’re building something meaningful even when you’re scared it won’t work.

And the fact that it hasn’t worked yet doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It means you’re still in the middle of it.

Just like me.

I don’t have this figured out.

I’m not writing this from the other side.

I’m writing it from right here in the middle.

Still building, still grinding, still wondering if this time will be different.

I wish I could sit here and write out the 3 or 5 or 7 steps to get out, with the confidence of knowing they worked for me.

But I can’t.

I’m building toward something, sure.

I have a plan for how I’m going to do it that I believe will work because I’ve seen it work for others.

Simple systems. Repeated over time. Getting a little better each day.

And then just white-knuckling it…

Holding on in desperation that it will finally work if I keep going and don’t give up.

Because the alternative is unthinkable.

When I was building the hotel, on the worst days I repeated to myself over and over: “The only way out is through.”

And that’s what I’m doing again now.

Not because I’m confident it’ll work.

But because I don’t know what else to do except keep moving forward.

But if you’re in the middle of it too, maybe that’s enough.

Maybe the realest thing I can do is stop pretending I’ve got it all handled.

And just show up as the guy who’s still figuring it out.

The guy who’s exhausted but keeps going.

The guy who knows he can do this but doesn’t know why it hasn’t worked yet.

The guy who’s tired of the mask.

Maybe that’s all you can do too.

Figure out where you want to go.

Pick the path you believe will get you there.

Keep going, even on the days you want to call it in and curl up on the couch and binge Lord of the Rings.

And be honest with yourself—and everyone else—about how effin hard it is.

Because pretending it’s easy doesn’t make it easier.

It just makes you feel more alone.

If that sounds like where you’re at, I’d like to know.

Reply or comment and tell me what you’re carrying that nobody sees.

Not because I have the answer.

But because maybe knowing you’re not the only one is enough for today.

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Is your business built for freedom or frustration? Take the 2-minute “Unscale Me” quiz to find out what’s blocking your path to a calmer, more profitable solo business—and get a clear next step to fix it.

You know that version of you that shows up on coaching calls?

The one who just… flows.

You tell great stories.

Make weird analogies.

See the real problem under the surface problem.

Help clients find ‘aha’ moments and unlocks where they’ve been stuck for months.

Then the call ends.

You sit down to write an email.

And suddenly you sound like a JV copywriter with a concussion.

You rewrite the same sentence five times. You second guess everything. You sound stiff. Polite. Watered-down. Like you’re trying to talk “professionally” instead of like yourself.

I’ve done this for years. Brilliant on calls. Bland in the inbox.

You know the ideas are in you.

You know you’re capable of helping people.

But writing feels like the opposite of coaching. It feels stiff. Forced. Overthought.

What if you could bottle the way you think on calls and turn one conversation into weeks of content?

That’s what I want to show you in this post:

How one 60 minute coaching session turned into 13 real email ideas using my Email Alchemist workflow.

No forcing. No “trying to come up with something helpful.”

Just my actual thinking, extracted and organized in a way I could use immediately.

And more importantly: I want to show you how you can do the same thing.

Because your best content doesn’t need to be something you create.

It can be something you capture.

Quick side note before we go deeper:

This Tuesday at 11 am Eastern I am teaching a live workshop called Email Alchemy where I walk through this whole process in real time.

In about 60 minutes, you will see:

• How to turn your client calls into a searchable content vault

• How to pull out 10 to 15 of your insights from each call

• How to turn those insights into ready to send emails in under 15 minutes

If you already know you want to stop staring at blank screens and start mining your own calls, you can grab your spot here:

👉 Join Email Alchemy

How it Works

A couple weeks ago, I ran a normal coaching call inside Unscaled Engine.

Nothing planned or scripted.

Just me helping a client work through the usual knots:

• What should they charge

• Should their program be four weeks or six

• Do they need discovery calls

• What’s the simplest tech

• Is it okay to launch before the offer feels “perfect”

• How do they handle payment plans

• How much is too much for their first group

The kind of conversation where I wasn’t performing, or “creating content.”

I was just solving problems in front of me.

And this is where I’m at your best.

The problem is that most of that disappears the moment the Zoom window closes.

Normally I would’ve finished the call, moved on, and lost all of that clarity forever.

But this time, I dropped the transcript into my Email Alchemist workflow.

Three minutes later it handed me 13 insights.

Not 13 generic ideas.

Actual perspectives I had already shared out loud.

My words. My voice. My phrasing.

Ready for me to turn into emails or other content.

Why your coaching calls are your highest quality content

When you’re live with someone, you don’t have time to overthink.

You have to respond to what is actually happening.

You’re trying to move them forward.

That’s why coaching conversations are so rich.

They contain:

• Your clearest explanations

• The metaphors you naturally reach for

• The stories you use to teach

• The frameworks you apply instinctively

• The real problems people bring to you

• The way you challenge faulty assumptions

• The way you help people decide

• The worldviews that shape your guidance

This stuff is gold.

But most people never write it down.

So they think they’re “running out of content” or “don’t know what to say.”

Why writing feels hard (and how to fix it)

Writing is difficult when you start from zero.

• A blank screen makes you try to be clever.

• You worry about sounding smart.

• You default into “prove myself” mode.

• You try to write something impressive instead of something helpful.

But if you start with something you’ve already said out loud, you skip all that mental friction.

You can get right to the editing part, and that’s usually a helluva a lot easier

Also, you’re not relying on AI to create some bland, over-used ideas.

Because AI can’t invent your voice and your experience.

But it can extract your ideas and insights, and use your words to give you a 90% there first draft.

One call. Thirteen insights.

Here’s exactly what came out of that single coaching session.

Now this was using a custom bot I built (that also helps turn them into fully written emails). Below I’ll give you a prompt to get similar output.

I gave it a brief description of my ideal client and the offer I want to promote in the emails, and the full transcrip of the call.

Three minutes later I had 13 usable insights.

Here are a few examples:

1. “The $100/Hour Math That’s Keeping You Broke”

Core Insight: Most coaches price their programs based on what “feels right” without doing the actual math on their time investment - leading them to work 60 hours for $6,250 when they could restructure for better returns.

From Transcript: Nathan walks K through the math: “If you have five people that you have to spend 90 minutes on a week... that’s 10 hours basically a week. 60 hours over six weeks, 6250 works out to just about $100 an hour.”

Why It Resonates: Your ideal clients are likely underpricing their offers without realizing the actual hourly rate they’re earning - this creates an “aha moment” about their pricing.

Natural Connection: Your Email Alchemist workshop helps them create consistent email content that presells clients, so they can charge premium prices with confidence.

2. “Why Your Two-Payment Plan Should Cost MORE Than Your One-Time Price”

Core Insight: Payment plans should cost more than one-time payments because you’re essentially financing your clients - just like a bank charges interest.

From Transcript: “Your multi pay should add up to more than your one time price... you’re essentially financing them... So you want to incentivize money today.”

Why It Resonates: Most coaches make payment plans the same price as one-time payments, leaving money on the table and incentivizing the wrong behavior.

Natural Connection: When your emails presell clients effectively, you can command premium pricing structures that actually make financial sense.

3. “The Forcing Mechanism That Prevents Endless Planning”

Core Insight: Pick your workshop date BEFORE you finalize the topic - it forces you to execute instead of endlessly perfecting.

From Transcript: “Pick a week a day, either two or three weeks from now, where you’re going to do your workshop, even if you don’t have the topic... it’s a forcing mechanism.”

Why It Resonates: Your ideal clients likely get stuck in planning mode, waiting for everything to be “perfect” before launching anything.

Natural Connection: Your workshop gives them a system to create emails quickly, removing the perfection paralysis that keeps them from showing up consistently.

Think about what this means.

Thirteen emails doesn’t just mean thirteen posts.

It means:

• Thirteen angles for future workshops

• Thirteen training topics

• Thirteen shorts or reels

• Thirteen tweets

• Thirteen modules you could expand later

• Thirteen arguments for your offer

• Thirteen ways to help your audience see their problem differently

Most solopreneurs think they need to constantly create.

What they actually need is to mine what they’ve already said.

Three shifts that change everything

A. Your coaching calls are your highest-quality content

If you coach even a little, you have endless raw material.
Not generic ideas.
Your actual thinking, delivered in real time.
That’s the stuff people connect with.

B. Writing becomes easy when you stop starting at zero

When you begin with your own spoken thoughts, you bypass the “prove myself” trap.
You’re not overthinking.
You’re not trying to sound smart.
You’re building on clarity that already exists.

C. Consistency comes from capture, not creativity

If one call can produce 13 ideas, imagine what a month of calls looks like.
You don’t need to be more creative.
You need to stop letting your best work disappear.

Use This Prompt

You don’t need a full customized bot to make this work.

Here’s the simple, repeatable version you can try today.

Record your next coaching call.

Zoom. Google Meet. Otter. Anything works.

Then drop the transcript into ChatGPT and say:

You are an Insight Extraction Engine.

Your job is to mine a coaching call transcript and extract ONLY the expert’s real ideas, opinions, advice, frameworks, stories, and explanations.

Do NOT extract or summarize ideas from the client or person being coached.

ONLY use the expert’s thinking.

Before analyzing, read this brief context about the expert so you can tailor the “Why It Resonates” and “Natural Connection” sections accurately:

IDEAL CLIENT: [Describe your ideal client in 2–4 sentences]

OFFER: [Describe your offer or system in 1–3 sentences]

Your output MUST follow this exact 5-part structure for EACH insight:

------------------------------------------------------------

### [PUNCHY TITLE]

**Core Insight:**

Explain the insight in 2–4 sentences.

Summarize ONLY what the expert clearly taught.

No extrapolation, no external knowledge.

**From Transcript:**

Paste the exact line(s) from the transcript spoken by the EXPERT that explicitly support this insight.

If the idea cannot be directly quoted from the expert, do not include it.

**Why It Resonates:**

Explain why this insight matters to the ideal client described above, based on their struggles, beliefs, or desires.

**Natural Connection:**

Tie this insight back to the expert’s offer/system described above.

This should feel like a natural extension of the expert’s thinking, NOT added marketing language.

------------------------------------------------------------

Guidelines and Rules:

- Pull 10 to 20 high-quality insights from the EXPERT ONLY.

- Maintain the expert’s tone, logic, and worldview as shown in the transcript.

- Absolutely no generic business advice.

- Absolutely no invented examples.

- No tips, no clichés, no AI filler.

- Everything must be grounded 100% in what the expert actually said.

Transcript:

[PASTE TRANSCRIPT HERE]

What to Do Next

Record one call.

Just one.

After the call, run a short section of the transcript through ChatGPT or Claude.

Extract the insights.

Pick one insight and write a 150 to 200 word email from it.

Then publish it.

Once you feel how much content you’ve been sitting on, you’ll never go back to trying to “come up with ideas” again.

Subscribe now

If this clicked for you and you want help doing it with your own calls, join me for Email Alchemy this Tuesday at 11 am Eastern.

We will:

• Take a real coaching call transcript

• Extract the insights live

• Turn those into concrete email seeds you can use right away

• And I will give you the exact prompts and workflow I use so you can repeat it after the workshop

You do not need perfect tech, a big list, or fancy branding. You just need one call and a willingness to capture what you are already great at.

If that sounds like the help you have been looking for, grab your seat here

Is your business built for freedom or frustration? Take the 2-minute “Unscale Me” quiz to find out what’s blocking your path to a calmer, more profitable solo business—and get a clear next step to fix it.

Coming up with ideas can be brutal.

You stare at the screen.

You scroll your notes app.

You half-type something, delete it, and wonder why nothing feels right.

Then you open ChatGPT, and suddenly you’re drowning in “10 hooks for solopreneurs” and “content ideas for coaches.”

And how do you choose in all that madness?

Well, I haven’t quite figured that part out.

I’ve got dozens of chats with hundreds of ideas, but sometimes I still have no idea what the eff to write about.

But if you’re like me, you’re probably going to use AI anyway.

So you might as well use a prompt that helps you dig into the real stuff, the deeper pains, desires, and questions your ideal client actually has.

Because then at least you’ll be drowning in ideas that matter and will move the needle (if you can just get over yourself, pick one, and get it done).

The Problem

When you sit down to create, your brain goes blank and you end up second-guessing everything:

• “Is this too basic?”

• “Does anyone even care?”

• “What if I post this and no one responds?”

You either overthink yourself into silence, or flood your feed with surface-level stuff that doesn’t connect.

If that’s you, try tuning out all the backlog of notes, chats, and half-started drafts.

And run this prompt.

The Prompt

You are a content systems coach, copywriter, and marketing psychologist helping a solopreneur simplify their content strategy.
Start by asking me the following questions one at a time to understand my business:

What is your business or offer about?
Who is your ideal client or audience?
What result or transformation do you help them achieve?
What do they struggle with most right now (emotionally or practically)?
Which short-form platform will you focus on (Reels, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube Shorts, Threads, or Substack Notes)?
Are you also using a long-form platform (like a blog, YouTube, or podcast)? If yes, which one?

After gathering my answers:
Identify and list 7–10 private pains my ideal clients feel but rarely say out loud. Name the fear, shame, trade-offs, and stuck loops in plain language. For each, note what it costs them today and what they’re afraid will happen if nothing changes.

For each pain, map the desired outcome at two levels:

1. Surface win — the visible business result

2. Deeper win — the identity-level payoff driving them (freedom, safety, status, belonging, self-trust, ease, time, etc.)

Map each desired outcome to a matching solution or transformation my business provides.
For every pain → solution pair, list 3–5 top questions my ideal client is likely asking about that issue.

Present everything in a clear four-column table:
| Pain | Desire | Solution | Common Client Questions |

Copy it into ChatGPT and answer the questions in as much detail as you can. (I like voice dictation for this. This is my go to app for voice dictation.)

The Result: A Guide to All the Content Ideas You’ll Ever Need

You’ll get a table that looks something like this (this example is for a fitness coach who helps people recover after injury):

Now, if you can stomach it and stay focused, you just got enough content ideas to keep you busy for a year.

If you don’t come up with ideas of your own for each cell, just ask your AI buddy to give you some.

Why It Works

Because this isn’t just a bunch of random ideas.

These are ideas that center on the pain, desires and questions your ideal client has around the problem your business solves.

Three key shifts happen:

It’s a framework that centers everything around your ideal client. Their pains, their desires, and the questions they’re already asking.

Three key shifts happen:

1. You start with empathy, not ideas.
Most brainstorming starts with you.

This starts with them.

It puts you into their world—what they’re frustrated by, afraid of, or chasing—and build from there.

2. You connect pain to identity.
You’re not just spotting surface problems; you’re naming what those problems mean to them.

Using that example, above, the fear of “re-injury” isn’t only about getting hurt again, it’s about independence and being able to trust themselves again.

That emotional clarity is what makes your content resonate.

3. You end up with real questions, not random topics.
When ChatGPT lists those “common client questions,” you’re staring at a ready-made content bank.

Each question is something your audience is already typing into Google or journaling about.

The Hidden Win

This exercise can do more than give you content ideas.

It can help you see your business differently.

You might find patterns or problems you didn’t see before.

You might see new solutions that are needed that you can create.

You start to see questions you can’t actually answer.

Which means you either need to figure out how to answer them, or find different questions people are asking.

Try It

It’ll take you 5 minutes.

Copy the prompt and answer the questions honestly.

And tell me if it doesn’t spark ideas for your next dozen posts.

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Is your business built for freedom or frustration? Take the 2-minute “Unscale Me” quiz to find out what’s blocking your path to a calmer, more profitable solo business—and get a clear next step to fix it.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about starting a business:

The hardest part isn’t finding clients or figuring out the tech.

It’s explaining what the hell you actually do.

You know you can help people.

But when someone asks “So, what do you do?” their eyes glaze over before you finish your second sentence.

Worse: you can feel it happening while you’re talking.

They nod politely. They say “Oh, interesting!”

Which means “I have no idea what you just said.”

This isn’t just a communication problem.

It’s that you’re trying to do something impossible.

Your Message Is Trying to Do Four Jobs (And It’s Failing All of Them)

Every time you explain what you do, you’re trying to:

1. Prove you’re credible

2. Explain everything you offer

3. Appeal to everyone

4. Sound professional

Four jobs. One sentence. It doesn’t work.

Here’s what comes out:

“I’m a certified business consultant specializing in strategy, systems, and sustainable growth for busy professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners who want to scale without burning out.”

Your potential client just heard: word salad.

They can’t repeat it.

They can’t remember it.

They don’t understand it.

They definitely can’t refer you.

You’re Selling Ingredients When People Want Cake

Most solopreneurs lead with process instead of results.

You talk about your “proprietary framework” or your “unique methodology” because that’s what you live every day.

But clients don’t buy process.

They buy transformation.

When someone walks into a bakery, they don’t ask about butter-to-flour ratios.

They ask “Which one tastes like chocolate heaven?”

Your ideal client isn’t thinking “I need a 5-step framework.”

They’re thinking “I’m exhausted and I need this to stop.”

The gap between where they are and where they want to be is what they’re buying.

The North Star Sentence

One clear sentence fixes this:

“I help [who] go from [pain] to [result] using [method].”

What works:

• Example for a Fitness Coach: “I help desk-bound professionals go from stiff and exhausted to strong and energized in just 30 minutes a day.”

• Example for a Business Consultant: “I help scattered agency owners go from feast-or-famine revenue to predictable monthly retainers using packaged offers that sell themselves.

These name ONE person, describe their current pain, paint the after-picture, and hint at the method.

The test: your aunt could repeat this at a dinner party.

If she can’t explain it to her book club, it’s too complicated.

Why This Matters

Once you nail this sentence, everything clicks.

Your homepage is easier to write.

Your content has direction.

Your offers tie back to this mission.

Your ideal client finally sees themselves in your message.

Right now, you’re trying to appeal to everyone.

So you resonate with no one.

The desk worker with constant back pain scrolls past “holistic fitness solutions” because it doesn’t feel like it’s for them.

But “I help desk-bound professionals go from stiff and exhausted to strong and energized”?

They stop.

Their ears perk up.

“That’s exactly what I need.”

Clarity doesn’t cast a wider net. It makes the right people lean in.

Do This Now

Open your notes app.

Complete this sentence: “I help ___ go from ___ to ___ using ___.”

Say it out loud three times.

Stumble over the words? Too complicated.

Feels clunky? Keep refining.

Your aunt would get it? You’re close.

Don’t be clever. Be clear.

Then put it everywhere:

• Social bios

• LinkedIn headline

• Website

• Email signature

You don’t need the perfect message.

You need a consistent message people can actually remember.

You don’t need to say more.

You need to say less, with absolute clarity.

That’s the difference between forgettable and unforgettable.

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You’ve got clients and work keeping you busy.

People think you’re doing well.

But you can’t take a week off without watching everything fall apart.

You’re one sick day away from falling even more hopelessly behind.

One lost client away from a revenue hole you’ll scramble to fill next month.

You’re making money, but you’re not making progress.

Busy, but you’re not building anything that lasts.

And no amount of working harder fixes anything.

That’s where I’ve been for a while.

Too many moving parts, no real rhythm, always a little (okay, a lot) behind.

Not enough systems.

Or not the right ones.

Too dependent on effort, not enough on structure.

The business I want to build isn’t about growing bigger; it’s about staying “unscaled” and needing less to keep working.

It’s about clarity and repeatable systems so progress doesn’t collapse the moment you rest.

That’s the gap I’ve been trying to close.

And along the way, I’ve spotted the patterns that are a sure sign you’re in chaos, not calm.

Here are five of them.

1. You’re Always “On Call”

Clients can’t respect boundaries that don’t exist.

If your phone buzzes at all hours and you answer because “that’s just how service businesses work,” you’ve trained them to expect instant access.

The problem isn’t the clients.

It’s that you never drew a line.

When everything is urgent, nothing gets your best thinking.

You’re just putting out fires.

2. Every Project Feels Custom

Over-customizing kills consistency.

Yes, every client is unique.

But if you’re reinventing the wheel for each engagement—new proposals, new workflows, new deliverables—you’re bleeding time and energy.

Worse, you’re making it impossible to improve, because you never do the same thing twice.

Bespoke sounds premium.

In practice, it’s a trap.

3. You Chase Revenue, Not Rhythm

No repeatable pipeline means no peace of mind.

When income swings wildly month to month (or is consistent but never quit enough), you’re always hunting.

You can’t plan.

You can’t rest.

Every quiet week feels like the beginning of the end, so you scramble to fill the gap with whatever work you can find.

4. You Sell Through Exhaustion

Endless sales calls and DMs drain your best energy.

If closing new clients requires hours of one-on-one conversations, pitches, and follow-ups, you’re spending your peak mental capacity on acquisition instead of delivery or strategy.

You finish the week spent, even when you “won.”

5. Your Business Stops When You Do

Without systems, time off equals income off.

Take a vacation and watch revenue flatline.

Get sick and watch projects stall.

If the engine only runs when you’re at the wheel, you don’t own a business.

You own a job with more stress and less security.

What I’m Trying to Do Differently

I’m not writing this from the other side.

I’m writing it from the middle.

The frameworks and structures I’ve built for clients over the years work.

I’ve seen them turn chaos into calm for other people’s businesses.

Now I’m applying them to my own, piece by piece, trying to get to a place where I’m not working myself into the ground for scraps.

The fix isn’t complicated.

It’s just uncomfortable at first, because it requires saying no to the very things that got you here.

It’s slow, deliberate simplification.

Saying no to the one-off projects that eat your week.

Automating or delegating the things you repeat so they can run without you.

Focusing on what compounds:

• systems that bring in new subscribers without feeding the content gods,

• systems that turn those subscribers into believers in what you do,

• and systems that turn those believers into buyers without sales calls that drain the life out of you.

That’s what I’m working toward now, and what I’m focused on helping others build.

Not a bigger business.

A quieter one that works for you, and the life you want to have.

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Most people running an online business are flying blind.

They’ll say things like, “I just want to make $10K a month,” but when you ask how, they freeze.

They’ve got half-finished funnels, a few random offers, a growing list that never hears from them, and a notepad full of dreams disguised as “goals.”

But no real plan.

If you want predictable income, your business has to become a math problem.

Not a mystery.
Not a mood board.
A math problem.

Start with the end number

Let’s say your goal is to make $10K per month.

That’s the destination.
Now, what’s your main vehicle?

Maybe it’s a $1,000 coaching package.
Maybe it’s a $100/month membership.
Maybe it’s a $10 digital product or PDF.

Here’s what the math says:

• $10K goal → $1,000 offer = 10 clients

• $10K goal → $100 offer = 100 subscribers

• $10K goal → $10 product = 1,000 buyers

That’s it. Simple math.

Already, things get clearer.

You don’t need “more followers.”

You need a clear offer and a clear number.

Work backwards from there

Here’s where it gets practical.

Let’s take that $1,000 offer example. You want 10 clients per month.

Let’s say your close rate on sales calls is 50%.

That means you need about 20 calls to hit your goal.

And if roughly 1 in 20 of your leads ends up booking a call (a 5% call-booking rate), you’ll need 400 leads to feed that pipeline each month.

So now you’ve got a simple, measurable roadmap:

• 400 leads → 20 calls → 10 clients = $10K/month

Once you see the numbers, your focus shifts.

You stop asking “What should I post?” and start asking “How do I consistently get 400 leads each month?”

Or, “How could I improve my lead-to-call rate so I only need 250 leads?”

Or even, “What if I raise my price to $2K and only need 5 clients?”

That’s the kind of thinking that builds predictable systems instead of constant hustle.

Everything becomes an input problem

Once you treat your business like a math problem, everything clarifies.

You stop chasing random outcomes like virality or “building an audience” for its own sake.

Instead, every decision comes back to inputs.

• How many people visit your opt-in page?

• How many convert to a lead?

• How many book a call?

• How many buy?

If your opt-in page converts at 25%, your consultation booking rate is 5%, and you close 50% of calls, you can predict revenue before you ever open your inbox.

Why this works

Because emotion lies.
Math doesn’t.

Most entrepreneurs are emotional decision-makers.

We post more when they feel inspired, change offers when sales dip, or lower prices when we panic.

Then we wonder why our business feels like a slot machine.

When you start measuring the right numbers, you can make decisions rooted in reality.

You might realize you don’t need another offer, you just need to improve your conversion rate.

You might discover your price point is too low for your income goal.

Or that you don’t actually need a huge audience to hit your target.

Often, when people do this math, they realize something liberating:
They don’t need to be nearly as big, popular, or “everywhere” as they thought.

That $10K/month goal might only require a few hundred engaged leads, not tens of thousands of followers.

Instead of chasing everything, you start to focus on the few things that actually move your number.

The business clarity exercise

If you want to try this right now, grab a notepad.

1. Write your monthly revenue goal.
   (Be specific. “$8K/month” is better than “make more.”)

2. Divide that by your main product or service price.
   That’s how many sales you need per month.

3. Estimate your conversion rate.
   If you close 60% of calls, divide by 0.6 to find how many calls you need.

4. Estimate your call-booking rate.
   If 5% of leads book a call, multiply your call target by 20.
   That’s your monthly lead goal.

Now you know your real target: generate X qualified leads each month.

Everything else—your content, ads, partnerships, automations—should exist to support that number.

When you see it like this

It’s kind of freeing.

Because once you know the math, your business stops feeling like guesswork.

You can see which lever to pull.
You can adjust pricing with purpose.
You can actually tell if what you’re doing is working.

It’s not stripping the creativity out of what you do.

It’s giving your business structure so the things you care about (freedom, time, consistency) stop getting buried under chaos.

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I’m launching something soon to help you turn all this theory into a working system that brings clients and cash in consistently. If you want to see how it works before I open it up publicly, reply or shoot me a message.

You spend an hour writing the perfect email.

You craft the intro, nail the transition, add the link, drop in that perfectly-placed image, write a clever P.S. and then…

Maybe a handful of opens.

Not because your content sucked.

But because no one saw it.

Your brilliant email died in the inbox, buried under a dozen other unread messages, because your subject line didn’t do its one job: make someone stop scrolling.

Here’s What We’re Fixing Today

You’ll learn how to write subject lines that actually get opened without sounding like clickbait or a wannabe copywriter trying too hard.

By the end, you’ll have a few proven frameworks you can start using right away.

And if you want to go deeper, I’ll show you where to find the full toolkit.

But first, let’s talk about what’s really happening in your reader’s inbox.

The Real Formula Nobody Talks About

Think about your own inbox for a second.

You don’t open every email that lands there. You open the ones that feel familiar or interesting. Usually both.

That’s the real formula:
Recognizable name + irresistible hook.

Your sender name builds trust.

It tells them, “You know this person. They’ve delivered before.”

Your subject line builds curiosity. It whispers, “This one’s worth your time.”

Together, they’re the door handle that invites people in.

The subject line is what they grab.

If it doesn’t hint at something worth opening—a quick win, a useful insight, a story they want to hear—they’ll scroll right past.

And all that work you put into the email body? Wasted.

So let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again.

The 3-Second Test

Your reader scans their inbox like a slot machine. One quick glance per subject line.

You’ve got about three seconds to make them stop.

Maybe less if they’re on their phone, thumb already mid-scroll.

That means two things: keep it short (under 50 characters is the sweet spot), and lead with the strongest word or idea.

Don’t bury the hook at the end of a long sentence. Front-load it.

Here’s what I mean:

Weak: “I wanted to share something I learned this week about email marketing”
Strong: “The email mistake that cost me 2,000 subscribers”

See the difference?

The second one leads with the punch. It makes you want to know what happened.

Your subject line isn’t a complete thought. It’s a trailer.

Give them just enough to want more.

Use Frameworks, Not Luck

Good subject lines aren’t random.

They’re not the result of sitting there thinking really hard until inspiration strikes.

They’re built from tested patterns that trigger curiosity, clarity, or urgency.

Once you know the patterns, writing subject lines becomes way easier. You’re not starting from scratch every time. You’re plugging your idea into a framework that already works.

Here are three to start with:

The Curiosity Gap
Hint at something valuable without revealing it all. Make them click to close the loop.
“The mistake that cost me 2,000 subscribers”
“What I stopped doing (and why my engagement doubled)”

The How-To
Clear, direct, and promise-driven. People love learning how to do something specific.
“How to double your open rate in 10 minutes”
“How I went from 200 to 2,000 subscribers in 90 days”

Number + Benefit
Numbers are specific. Benefits show value. Together, they’re magnetic.
“3 subject lines that always work”
“5 tweaks that fixed my dead email list”

Stack these triggers and you’ll double your odds of an open.

Try combining curiosity with a number.

Or urgency with a how-to. Mix and match until you find what clicks with your audience.

Your Next Step (Do This Today)

Pick one email you’ve already written, or one you’re planning to send soon.

Write three new subject lines for it using the frameworks above.

One curiosity gap. One how-to. One number + benefit.

If you’ve got the time and the list size, send the same email to small segments with different subject lines and see which one wins.

That’s called A/B testing, and it’s how you build your own swipe file of what works for your audience.

If you don’t have segmentation set up yet, just pick the one that feels strongest and send it.

Then pay attention.

Which subject lines get the best response over the next few weeks? Keep those. Kill the rest.

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about pattern recognition. The more you test, the better you get.

Want the Full System?

If you’re serious about fixing your subject lines for good I put together a complete Subject-Line Mastery guide.

It’s straightforward pdf packed with examples, breakdowns, and practical steps to help your emails stand out in even the most crowded inbox.

👉 Get the full guide here

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Four years ago I saw Ben Settle’s model: send a daily email, make an offer every time.

Simple.

I still stalled.

I dabbled.

I overthought.

I told myself I’d start when I had the “perfect system” in place.

I finally committed this week.

Daily.

No more excuses.

It already feels different.

Momentum beats perfection.

My mistake was not starting.

Below I share 10 mistakes I see solopreneurs make with their email lists that cost them sales, and a simple fix for each.

Three Things You Need to Know First

Before we dive into the mistakes, here’s what actually matters:

Email is a relationship, not a campaign.

Stop thinking in terms of “blasts” and “sequences.”

You’re building connections with real people who want to hear from you.

Write to them like you’re writing to a friend or colleague.

Consistency builds trust. Trust earns permission to sell.

Show up regularly and your list remembers who you are and why they signed up.

That may be daily, maybe 2 or 3x per week. Or just once per week.

Disappear for weeks and you’re starting from scratch every time.

When you’re consistent, selling doesn’t feel pushy. It feels natural.

Clear offers win. You don’t need tricks. You need relevance.

Forget the manipulative tactics and psychological hacks.

Just make something people want and tell them about it clearly.

That’s the whole game.

Now let’s get into it.

The 10 Mistakes

1. You Never Start

The biggest mistake isn’t sending bad emails.

It’s sending no emails at all.

You’re waiting for the perfect welcome sequence, the right automation, the flawless strategy.

Meanwhile, your list sits cold.

The fix: Write 150 words and hit send.

Tell a story. Share a win. Talk about a problem you’ve faced (or are facing).

Your subscribers didn’t sign up for perfection.

They signed up to hear from you.

Give them something today.

2. You Send Sporadically

You send three emails in one week when you’re feeling motivated, then nothing for a month.

Your list forgets you exist.

When you finally resurface, opens are down and engagement is dead.

The fix: Pick a schedule you can keep.

Even weekly beats random. C

onsistency isn’t about being impressive, it’s about being reliable.

Your subscribers need to know when to expect you.

3. You Ghost for Weeks, Then Show Up Asking for Money

This is the email equivalent of the friend who only texts when they need a favor.

You disappear, then suddenly: “Hey! Buy my thing!”

It feels transactional because it is.

The fix: Earn the pitch.

Show up with value between offers.

Help people, tell stories, answer questions.

Build the relationship account before you make a withdrawal.

When you do sell, it won’t feel out of nowhere.

4. You Send But Never Sell

You’re so worried about being “salesy” that you never actually make an offer.

You send tips and stories and helpful content, but you never tell people how to work with you or what to buy.

Your list likes you, but they’re not customers.

The fix: Add one simple offer in every email.

One link.

One next step.

You don’t have to be aggressive, but you do need to be clear.

“If you want help with this, here’s how to work with me.”

That’s it.

5. You Hide Your Personality to “Sound Professional”

You write like a corporate press release because you think that’s what “professional” email marketing looks like.

All your edges get sanded off.

Your emails become boring, forgettable, and generic.

The fix: Write like you talk.

Keep it clear and human.

Use contractions.

Be weird.

Make jokes.

Share your actual opinions.

The people who don’t like your personality weren’t going to buy anyway.

The people who do will become your most loyal fans.

6. You Overwhelm Readers with Five Offers

Every email has links to your course, your coaching, your free download, your blog, your podcast, and your social media.

Readers freeze.

They don’t know what you actually want them to do, so they do nothing.

The fix: One call to action per email.

Reduce choice.

Raise conversion.

What’s the one thing you want someone to do after reading this email?

Make everything else support that single goal.

7. You Write to “Everyone”

Your emails are vague because you’re trying not to exclude anyone.

“If you’re a business owner or want to be one someday or just like entrepreneurship...”

You’re speaking to the crowd, not the person.

The fix: Picture one person. Solve one problem.

Use “you.”

Before you write, think about one specific subscriber and what they’re struggling with right now.

Write to them.

Everyone else who shares that struggle will feel like you’re reading their mind.

8. You Never Track What Works

You have no idea which subject lines get opens, which emails get clicks, or which messages drive sales.

You’re flying blind, guessing at what might work instead of knowing what does.

The fix: Track opens, clicks, and replies.

Keep what moves the needle.

You don’t need to become a spreadsheet wizard.

Just look at your basic metrics and pay attention.

When something works, do more of it.

When something bombs, learn why.

9. Readers Don’t Know What to Expect

People signed up for your list, but they don’t really know what they’re getting.

How often will you email?

What will you talk about?

Should they expect a structured newsletter, simple text emails, roundups, listicles, how tos, insights?

The uncertainty makes them hesitant to engage.

The fix: Set the promise.

Frequency, topics, and what they’ll get.

Tell them in your welcome email: “I send one email every Tuesday with a marketing tip and usually include a way to work with me if you want more help.”

Clear expectations = better engagement.

10. Your Subject Lines Are Boring

“Newsletter #47” or “Tips for your business” or “You’re going to want to read this.”

Generic subject lines that could come from anyone about anything.

Nobody feels compelled to open.

The fix: Lead with curiosity or a clear benefit. Deliver on it inside.

“The 3-word phrase killing your open rates (and what to say instead)” or “The unsexy email habit that built my entire business” or “The 2-minute email edit that tripled my sales.”

Make people want to know what’s inside, then actually give it to them.

(This is also where my new pdf Subject Line Mastery comes in).

Your Next Move

Here’s what to do: Pick one mistake you’re guilty of.

Fix it in your next send within 24 hours.

Not all ten. Just one.

Maybe you’ve been ghosting your list. Send them something today.

Maybe you’ve been sending value but never making offers. Add one clear call to action to your next email.

Maybe your subject lines are putting people to sleep. Spend five extra minutes making your next one interesting.

Small wins compound.

Fix one thing this week, another thing next week, and by the end of the month your email game will be completely different.

Your list is waiting.

How I Can Help

Newsletter & Email Marketing Action Plan: Turn Your Scattered Email Strategy Into a Clear, Profitable System in 48 Hours

Email List Launchpad: Want a simple system to ship consistently and sell without feeling gross? Grab Email List Launchpad and set it up this weekend.

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