This was a great episode of the Content Profit Show with
as our Special Guest.Give it a watch to discover:
Yana’s Simple Productivity Approach
Unmatched Engagement on Subsack Notes
Effort vs. Reward: The Fishing Analogy
How you can be a part of Yana’s “Substack Quest”
How to use the same tool Yana and Jeff use to create their viral notes in just minutes a day
Next Live Show Monday 3/17 at 4 pm ET: “What Johnny Carson Can Teach Us about Going Live on Substack”
Barely Edited Transcript
All right. Welcome everyone to the Content Profit Show. This is Jeff , your host, and our guest today is Yana GY. Welcome to the show, Yana. Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. So happy to be here. I am happy you're here too. Now the question that everybody wants to know, okay. And you don't have to answer it.
Everybody does want to know it. Is what does it, what the heck does the GY stand for? That's a good one. Those are actually my initials from my middle and last name. Okay. I figured as much. All right. I didn't know if it was some secret code or whatever. All right. So tell everybody. What's that? It's my real name, basically.
Okay. I, so I could be Jeff KH. Okay. Yeah, I got it. All right. That'll work. That'll work. So you're well known on a sub stack and know my folks and your folks and the people that are coming in and welcome everybody. Tell us who you are and how you got into this sub stack thing. Yeah. Yeah. I yeah, I have been, actually, I have been trying to find the proper way to do something online because I want to do something online for so many years.
And then Some while trying to find a better way, a proper way for me that fits into my schedule of my nine to five, I came out and found out about Medium. So I started there two years ago. I think it was two years ago, actually, but for one year. So I started and tested and learned. Didn't really went all in on medium.
I wanted to understand the platform first. And it took me about one year actually, but then I started consistently last year on February and then it started happening pretty fast. So I built myself a system how to approach things online. And I always got the, I the mindset that I shouldn't be on just one platform.
So I wanted to be on other platforms as well. And I have also applied the same approach for Amazon and also for YouTube. Not so much consistent there right now. I just wanted to do it one by one. So I needed a platform where my writing could be and then Medium changed and I had to switch that writing platform because it's first for me, it's first writing and then all of the other types of content like books for Amazon and videos for YouTube.
Sure. And Medium changed last year and that's how I got to Substack. But also, for another reason I initially wanted to write about artificial intelligence and I couldn't really do that on Medium because new management created this negative connotation for me. Yeah. Artificial intelligence.
And I was writing there and people were really accepting this really good, but then some other people come and start like commenting and telling me that it's actually forbidden on medium and why I'm writing this and it's different thing, one thing to write about artificial intelligence, but then totally other, another thing to, to write with artificial intelligence.
And there's another, that's actually another topic, whether this should be such a negative thing. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that one, at some point, what Jana, what did you do in the beginning that was different from everyone else? Yeah. Good question. I approach this as a business. I I think a lot of us who are doing something online, writing online, want to approach this as a business.
But for some reason I keep hearing people say that they have some concerns selling things online and promoting themselves. And that's actually the first thing that you need to learn if you want to make money, any money actually. Go online. Yeah, really anything, right? I remember when I was a counseling psychologist, it was like, it was like, considered the worst thing you could possibly do to promote yourself, and I lived in a city with, we called it Tallahassee was teeming with mental health, more therapists and cab drivers, and so one day a colleague of mine, we were running adolescent groups and we put a little three by five ad, In the paper.
Oh my gosh, the blowback we got from that. You'd have thought we slept with a client or something. It was crazy, but that was the beginning of the turn. And then then when I got a weekly relationship column, people went, oh, you can do this. Yeah. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier that you have a nine to five and we've talked about how you're in a whole lot of different countries.
Yeah. In the same month. Are you home now or are you traveling? Yes, I'm home now. Okay, all right. That gets me to the next question. Because I've seen somewhere where you say, you do all this stuff in two hours. Okay? Okay. And I have the simple question. Of how? Yes. Yes. Very good question. This is actually a workflow that I yeah, I'm not gonna say some fancy stuff here.
There's no system. I'm not getting up early at 5 o'clock in the morning. I love to sleep a lot. I'm just doing things with the idea to stay efficient and not waste It's too much time. So remove all of the distractions, but not only when you do something, you just really stay focused and try to do it the fastest possible way.
The better the best, the highest quality way. But truth is it is because I when artificial intelligence became a thing, I wanted to figure out how to use it. In the proper way, the right way. So I have created several of those GPTs that I also offer on Substack for myself. And if I have to name one trick, this is it.
It's just helping me now. And now it's actually not to write some few notes, like three or five notes per day, post on social media and write one article per day, not paid, but free article per day takes me. Less than one hour today. See, I love that. I love that. And I wanted everybody to hear that because it's possible.
I understand it because people, I often get people asking me how can you run and manage 35 other people's accounts and not spend 24 7? And it's the same thing. It's a system. One, two, three, four, boom. And then. It's done. And so what what's been the biggest roadblock for you? We're talking about good stuff.
What's been the biggest roadblock for you on subset? On Substack, they I couldn't really think about that's okay. If there is a one. . . Not really. Yeah, if I have to name one. And you don't have to, but No, I can't really. It's basically Substack is everything that I love doing online.
It's a lot similar to what I do in my nine to five job because I am, my background is. marketing product marketing, product development, sales, advertising, digital marketing, content creation, all of that. But most of all creation of subscription based services and selling and building like entertaining them and working with millions of clients.
Actually. So it's very similar in something that I love doing. So I'm not. Anything that comes to my road, blocking it, I find That's okay, you don't have to have one. As I was listening to you, I thought The reason that you don't is you came to this with a system and you focus and the advantage, and one way I want to say everybody go out and get a nine to five job and then do this at night.
Cause look, look at the focus that Yana has. No, I'm not serious. I'm morbidly unemployable. I've never had a full time job as an adult ever. And yeah. But take advantage of what she's saying. If you don't have a system, create one, find out one, discover one, create one, and then focus, and that, absolutely.
Now, you've got this new, interesting new thing going on called Substack Quest, which by itself is a cool name. It sounds like a movie, tell us about, what is Substack Quest, Jana? Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. I wanted to, I wanted it to be different. It's basically it's a quest.
It's not a course. It's there is a course in it and actually there is a multiple course. So it's made of. Seven domains, I call them domains, but actually you can call them modules or chapters if you like, but each of each one of those seven has a course part, a challenge part, a community part, and some experiences that I'm going to build, and it's built in a step by step logical way.
The way that I believe sub stack should be implemented whenever you launch a new sub stack or relaunch an existing sub stack or you just want to review and optimize your sub stack for better conversion rate or better growth of free subscribers or free plus paid subscribers. This is, I believe this is the right way.
And on sub stack, I'm seeing a lot of writers who are doing. Things like currently and start trying to grow, focus on growth before they figure out for example, positioning or or their offer. And then they struggle. That's why I created this in this quest format, because I believe it's much simpler and easier to implement for people.
I like that. And it's not like you, you go eight steps ahead and then come back and do the other one when you're on a quest. Step. Now folks can get that as part of your paid membership. Yeah. Okay. All right. And so the links you can probably link there from here folks, and it'll be in the show notes.
Okay, so Yana's one of those people if she's doing it go get it. Okay, so Substack Quest. Now this may have already been answered, but what's your favorite Substack growth tool? Notes. Notes. I thought you might say that, yeah. Yeah. Everybody should be on notes. I don't know why people are not not a lot of people now more and more are getting on notes, but I think all of us should be on notes if we want to grow.
And if you're not, so guys, if you're not growing fast enough, just be more on notes. What you just said is so true because I was maybe doing one infrequently. And then I saw you and some other saying that I went okay. And I started doing three a day and things came up a little bit. Folks, the way Yana and I met is I started using her tool for notes and it was just, Oh my gosh.
And I was able to do it for myself, do it for my clients. It was quick. And then when I, on one particular note, when it got to a hundred likes, I told you about it. I was waiting until 100 to tell you. And then when it got to 500, I told you again, and that's how we got on the first one of these, right?
And so I echo what you're saying. Do notes, folks. And get Yana's tool, and we'll give you a link for that in a minute. What do you, Yana, what do you think it is about notes in this whole crowded, overblown social media? Gotta be, grinding 24 7. Which, by the way, is only good for sausage folks.
Don't do that. What do you think it is about notes that makes it so special? I think it's maybe about Substack in itself in general. It's the fact that we as writers and creators organically so fast by doing basically the same thing that we would do on any other social media except you gain full, you gain subscribers and not followers one thing.
And then the other thing is they are directly monetizable. And actually you're not standing in the way of the business model and the strategy of the platform, which is the case with most of social media, it's quite the opposite. Substack has in, in, has its interest, business interest to help you grow those subscribers and even help you convert them.
And there are, there's a lot of functionalities that actually help us convert. And that's really amazing. And second thing, I think it's. Even more amazing is that any type of audience you grow from social media, you could go to a conversion rate as high as three points. I think highest I have seen, I have been working with a lot of clients in my nine to five and also what I see from other Online is still the same on Substack you go 5%, 10%.
I have seen 18%. And that's something normal, . Isn't that crazy? That's normal. And I've even seen some people talking about they've abandoned all their other social media. Yeah. And are on substack and doing notes. And regular posts, and email, and that's the whole show. Yeah.
For everybody that's just joining us, we're talking about sub stack notes. And for folks, Ayana, for the folks that are new, let's go back, talk to me like I'm four. What is a sub stack note? Okay. Do I write it and stamp it and mail it somewhere? What do I do? It's something, so it's a short form piece of content where you write just some sentences and deliver some value of your knowledge to other people who you would like to work with in the future, who you would like to have them in your in your audience or something.
Ooh, I like that part. Who you would like to have in your future. You'd like to have as part of your audience. I like that a lot. It's, I think the interesting thing about it. I think some of them,
yeah,
now my internet connection is unstable again. Why did that happen? For a second. I don't know. It's probably me. But we're good. I got a notification. Okay. For those of us that have come to Substack from Medium, they focus on word count and say that the bigger word count, the better.
And, there was a couple of people that did publications that were like around 150, but that was rare. We're not even talking 150 for a note word count. We're talking, it can be 10, right? Yeah. Yeah. Or more, so think of it as a tiny mini micro article, folks, a tiny mini micro article.
I just made that up. And that's what we're getting at. I like to call them as mini newsletters. So the things that you would send to your subscribed newsletter just tiny mini version of it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The other thing I've begun to do. is that if I get an idea about something, I'll just put that idea as a note.
Yeah, and see what response it gets and if it's crickets and maybe one or two people, liking it well But if I get a whole bunch or hundreds or like that one that went viral Now we're pushing we're well over 600 now Folks that know me. Okay And you can answer here in the chat if you want to folks that know me if I write the note And it gets over 600 responses.
Do you think I might turn that into a product? Heck yeah, I'm working on it right now. And the same thing for you guys, folks. Pay attention to the ones that do well. And it can become an article, a video, a short product, a bigger product. Besides all the incredible engagement it gets. I've been doing this thing for 20 years, 18 of them full time.
And I've never seen engagement like I see. on Substack Notes. Same. That's actually part of my system to make things happen so fast. I start with notes. I don't start with long form content. I start with notes. See everything, see things that resonate best with the audience and then turn them into different
That's brilliant. That's brilliant. Repurposing from notes. I love it. And so we've talked a lot about notes and I alluded to this a little while ago, folks. The tool that I use is Janna's GPT for notes. Is that what you call it? GPT for notes? Something like that. Okay. I call it notes. Notes. And folks, not only do I use it for me.
I use it for all my clients that I manage their sub staff. Okay. And so if you're wondering, I know this will be in the show notes, but I'm going to actually say it now. Okay. Go to jeffherring. com forward slash notes. Simple as can be. Jeff herring. com forward slash notes. And I highly recommend that I use it.
I don't think it's true to say I use it every day. I think it's true to say I use it every hour. Because it's that good and that powerful, and I'm loving it. Thank you for putting that in there, folks. Look, we got an accomplice here, Jana. Type in the the link into there. Thank you. Can't see the name, but thank you.
And yeah any final words of wisdom you want to leave with the folks before we wrap up? Oh, I just, be on notes. Now is the time because I believe it's not going to stay that long, so we should definitely be on notes, all of us, right now. Yeah. Oh, somebody's in. Yeah, you. And so we'll celebrate you like we are right now.
That's everything online. Things change. Okay. I don't know if you've been around long enough to remember something called e zine articles. Do you remember that? Yeah, I have heard that, but I never was. Okay that, that platform built my list and built my business. Okay, and then all of a sudden it went in a different direction and nothing.
And so then it was LinkedIn publishing and then Medium and now it's Substack. So people are saying what, what happens if Substack goes? Folks, it's the system. YANA uses a system, I use a system, and it's similar between all these platforms. You can use those wherever. And I don't, I think you're right, YANA, that notes will eventually become different or get complicated or have too many people there.
But I think we're months, if not years, away from there. So don't let that get in the way, folks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely, I truly believe we are getting there because I'm a product manager, in my heart, in my veins, in my blood. So every product has a cycle. It's you launch it, then it's the growth phase and then it's maturity and then it's it's a decline.
And Substack is in the, in its growth phase, but it's slowly. Getting maturity where it's actually slowing down and it's really happening last year when I started on on sub stack, it was enough to put this one note in, interact with two, three, five people and five drivers per day.
Now, in order to get those same number of subscribers, I need to post three notes or but I already have an audience, but it's. Somebody new comes and starts and people telling me from my audience, they give me this feedback. It's not enough. Just one, one note. If you're brand new and don't have an audience, you have to really at least three, five, why not 10 notes and stay and be active on the platform, like really deep dive isn't go in.
And if you have to spend two hours per day, only for that to build your audience. And it's getting harder. So yeah, and absolutely you need more. Now the analogy I use for that is fishing. Okay. If you're fishing for fun, get a boat and adult beverage, your favorite beverage and out there and, let that thing just rest in the water.
That line rest in the water. If you're fishing to eat, three to five lines in the water are going to be a little bit better. It's multiplying your chances and not, not just by five times, I think it's multiples to do that. So yeah, get after it. All right, Jana. Thank you so much again.
We'll do this again sometime. I'm sure. And folks, thank you for being here. A lot of places you could have been, whether you're listening live. or on the on demand broadcast. And if you're not live, where were you? And that's just a little nod to you watching it. Okay. And thank you for being here.
A lot of places you could have been, you chose to be with us. And so we appreciate that. And folks, as always, you know what to do, go use this stuff. And thanks once again, Yana. Thank you too, Jeff. It was a pleasure.
